#yes she's self indulgent and overpowered <3 but i'm here to have fun and explore interesting concepts not be realistic

[giantchasm]

So I've seen a lot of people posting their Kirby fankids recently...

And so I figured I should finally try and post some of mine! I've had them for a while now, but I've been too lazy to talk about them on Tumblr. Let's change that by making a post about my favorite out of all of them... my special little princess... my beautiful skrunkly.

Everyone, I'd like you to meet Peony!

She is, of course, my Taransusie fankid. She came into existence because I was playing Tomodachi Life and I got attached Taranza offhandedly mentioned that it would be nice to have a family one day and Susie just kind of nodded along but her internal reaction was a strong 'ABSOLUTELY NOT.'

This reaction... unnerved her, to say the least. She didn't understand why she felt so strongly about this. It's not that she didn't like kids. She liked Kirby plenty! And so why...?

Oh stars, it had to do with her dad, didn't it?

Her own unfulfilled childhood. Her resentment for her father. A fear that inevitably she'd fail as a parent in the same exact ways he did.

Realizing this was what was holding her back, Susie proceeded to get extremely angry. Why the hell was her dad still influencing the decisions she was making? He was long gone! She wouldn't let him make her hesitant or boss her around. She wasn't afraid. She could do WAY better than him. In fact, she would make a great mom! She'd show him.

The next thing she knew she was holding a baby she'd grown in a test tube.

Susie pretty much immediately realized she fucked up the minute this thing started moving. She didn't have anything to take care of her. Not even a blanket to bundle her in. What was she THINKING? Did she seriously make a living being out of spite? Maybe that would have been acceptable during her ‘Yeah, sure. I’ll do whatever evil thing I want’ era. But now? It was pretty apparent she made a mistake that she couldn’t take back.

Thankfully Taranza was… mostly understanding? I mean, he was surprised, of course, and he had to be like “SUSIE. Never do something like this again. ESPECIALLY without talking to me about it,” but when she explained he understood why she reacted the way that she did. Plus, as unexpected as this all was, he pretty much instantly fell in love with little Peony.

Which is to say nowadays they’re a pretty happy family! Peony is 8ish and things are going great. That is… except for one teensy, weensy, SLIGHT problem.

There was an incident wherein Peony almost died, and following it, she’s started seeing ghosts. This would be alarming under ANY circumstances, but with her family especially?

…Hoo boy.

Further explanation under the cut, since this is long enough as is

First of all, I figure I should probably explain the circumstances of Peony’s near-death experience. It was all sort of a freak accident. One day, Susie had to perform some inspections at the Works Company, and no-one else was available to watch Peony, so she was just like, “Well. She’s a well-behaved kid. I’ll bring her along. What’s the worst that can happen?”

The ‘worst that could happen’ was her child being fed to an industrial meat grinder. All it took was looking away for ooooneeee second. Peony leaned a little too close to one of the company’s machines, fell, and the next thing Susie knew, she heard screaming.

She. Was. Horrified. She scrambled to shut off the machine, but it was too late. Peony was already hurt. Really hurt. She pulled her broken body from the machine, but there wasn’t much else she could do. She pretty much just had to call Taranza, explain what horrifying thing happened, and then wait for him, a person with actual experience using Soul and healing magic to get there before it was too late.

I cannot explain enough how distressing this was. Susie is someone who isn’t used to feeling helpless. She’s in control in pretty much every situation. But sitting there, holding her actively dying daughter, she had none of that usual control. Despite herself, she couldn’t let her mind wander back to that person. The one that she was thinking about when she first made Peony. She said she’d do better than he did, but…

If Peony were to die now, they’d be the exact same.

Even once Taranza arrived, they weren’t exactly out of the woods. He completely panicked, presented with the idea of losing another loved one, and his attempts to stabilize her were sloppy and desperate. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to find her spirit to tether back to her body with his magic. Was it… already too late?

That’s when it felt as if something was passed off to him. Her spirit practically shoved into the metaphorical hands of his mind’s eye. It didn’t make any sense— it felt as if someone had intervened, but he didn’t question it. He took the stroke of luck as it came, and just barely he was able to stabilize Peony.

…She was hurt, but alive.

When she came to, her family was relieved, but she revealed something strange. When she was on the brink between life and death, she swore she was helped by two mysterious strangers. They comforted her, helped her calm down, and helped her get back to her body.

She described them as a ‘pretty lady’ and a ‘funny old man.’

Taranza and Susie weren’t sure what to make of this. It… couldn’t be, could it? But from thereon out, Peony continued to see these strangers, as well as develop more spectral powers.

You see… Peony is half Neumann— the same species her mom is. Her mom doesn’t have any magic abilities thanks to her cybernetics, but archetypically the species is susceptible to being… overloaded with a certain type of magic, especially when in life or death situations. Look at the Mage Sisters, for example. When on the brink of death themselves, they ended up becoming one with the elements that nearly killed them.

It was the same for Peony. A perfect storm, really. The Arachnid’s predisposition for Soul magic combined with the Neumann’s ability to soak up magic made for a very unique set of circumstances. And so when her dad used Soul magic to heal her, and some spirits perhaps stepped in to save her life…

Peony was overwhelmed. She developed an unnatural connection to the dead.

That said, Peony’s ‘guardian angels’ weeereeennn’t exactly supposed to do what they did. The rules of life and death are very strict. Particularly powerful spirits are allowed to remain wandering if they have unfinished business, but they are NOT to mess with mortal lives.

The arbitrator of life and death was outraged. It said it should whisk the two of them to Hades for their audacity! But this, too, was something Peony overheard, and she rushed to intervene. She begged Morpho Knight not to punish the mysterious strangers who helped her. If if was her who was supposed to die, shouldn’t she have been punished instead? She said she’d take their place.

…She didn’t know they were her granddad and her father’s long lost friend at the time. She just knew they’d helped her out, even though they didn’t know her. She had to return the favor.

Morpho Knight tested her conviction. It made it seem as if it was really going to go through with reaping her, but when she didn’t back down, it relented. It… couldn’t whisk away an innocent child. Perhaps all the time spent watching over Kirby was making it go soft. It allowed Peony to have her way. Truthfully, with the abilities she developed, the boundary between life and death for her family was already going to thin anyways. It would watch and see where this went.

Nowadays, Peony and the ghosts are best friends. She’s learned of their origins, and given a bit of an ego boost from her unlikely survival, she’s promised one day she’ll bring them back to life. This is something that is NOT going to happen, but at the moment she’s convinced she’s invincible— that she has unique, unmatched power and can do anything she wants to.

Her parents are… hardly sure what to make of all this. It’s difficult to believe, really. But the more Peony talks about her brand new friends, the harder it is to deny her uncanny knowledge. And that means old wounds are reopening as they grapple with the complicated implications of the very flawed people they lost not only entering their child’s life but, in a way, reentering theirs.

…But that’s a story for another day. I figure I’ve probably talked enough. All you need to know is god complex spirit medium spider girl. I hope everyone else likes her as much as I do.