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kitkat1003 · 3 years

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On the Issue of Mortality

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Chapter 2: Whether weather whether weather, whether you're invulnerable or not!

“Hey, I’ll have you know that I can control my powers now! The only downside is I’m not invincible anymore, sooo I could die.”

“WHAT?!”

Same, Pigsy. Same.

Monkey King doesn’t do much, when it comes to his successor. Not at first.

Sure, he watches the Kid from time to time, just to see what’s going on. Which isn’t creepy, not at all, it’s just...well, how else is he supposed to check on Kid? Besides, he’s not watching him 24/7, and he can tell when the Kid is in trouble now, from the flare of power he feels whenever Kid is using the staff or some other ability.

Sometimes, though, there’s no fight. Like when he lets Mei shoot rockets at him. Comical as it is, he can tell Kid is letting all this power get to his head.

But hey, why not? Kid beat DBK, let him have a little fun. Monkey King isn’t going to knock him for that, not when he did much worse back in his day. Way worse

Yeah...he really had an arc, didn’t he.

He lets it go until he feels a massive flare, one that definitely isn’t controlled. He summons nimbus and heads off, and finds Kid in a crater of his own making, looking lost.

Then, Kid tries to shove the whole “stopping the bad guys” thing onto him, and, like, hello?? He gave Kid the staff for a reason. He’s retired. Totally, definitely retired.

“Every time I try to do something I just gunk everything up! Something’s wrong...” There’s something deeper to those words, more vulnerable and hurt than Monkey King is ready for. He isn’t Kid’s dad.

Wait, does Kid even have a dad? Is that something he needs to be concerned about? Whatever, the Kid’s at least eighteen, he’s an adult. Adults don’t need dads. Monkey King didn’t need one, just look at him. He’s the great Sun Wukong, Great Sage Equal to Heaven, the Monkey King. Who needs parents?

Monkey King gets up, hops on the Kid’s shoulders to get a closer look, as well as groom the kid a little, because his hair is a mess. Humans have all these advancements with soap and showers and they can’t even get their hair clean. Clearly, monkeys have it figured out. Nothing gets someone cleaner than a good grooming. And hey, he finds a little snack in there!

He uses his golden vision of his for a second as he grooms Kid, and, yup.

There’s the problem.

Making the Kid freak out a little is all for fun, but the root of the issue is something Monkey King didn’t want to have to deal with. A general lack of martial arts skill is easy, you just teach them the basics and work from there. What’s wrong with Kid is going to take a lot more work, emotional work, and Monkey King didn’t think he’d have to expend that sort of energy for this.

The issue, of course, is simple. Lack of self confidence.

“I have self confidence!”

“Nope. You’re just loud.” And that’s the thing, Monkey King understands. He was always loud but he was confident not long after. Then again, he got his powers gradually. Poor Kid has them all at once, probably hard to find the confidence for all of that out of nowhere.

Jeez. Why’d he have to pick the Kid with baggage?

Fake it till you make it is what Kid says, and he wants to scream, because that isn’t how it works. If it was, then everyone could use the staff. It takes a specific breed of something that Monkey King knows the Kid has, but isn’t letting out. Self confidence, at its core, comes from a strong foundation. If Kid doesn’t have that, then they have to start from scratch, which takes time.

And he’s not that annoyed, he’s willing to wait, but the Kid isn’t. And, sure, yeah, there’s the thing with Red Son (and holy shit, Red Son? That brat is still around? He’s not using the fire, but still) and the Kid’s friends, but they would be fine! Probably. He doesn’t think they’re that incompetent.

But the Kid isn’t satisfied with that so he insists, and Monkey King pulls out a card he doesn’t want to play.

Control over your powers for the price of invincibility. Seriously, if it were him, he’d never. He likes living, thanks. But then again, this Kid is apparently loyal to a fault, because not two seconds after he gives out the idea the Kid is taking it.

And he’s confident, when he seals away the Kid’s powers, but inside he’s terrified.

Suddenly, this Kid can get hurt, can die. This Kid could get hit by a car or smashed by a demon or fall to a host of any other preventable death scenarios because he’s vulnerable now.

And the thing is, Kid doesn’t seem to care? As if the idea of facing unknown horrors with the added bonus of being able to die is just a regular Tuesday, nothing to worry about. Which, that is so, so weird, and startling and Monkey King is a little proud that he picked a student so selfless, so willing to face mortality for the sake of keeping others safe.

But is it even selflessness or a lack of self worth? A lack of self confidence is bad enough, but he doesn’t even know if Kid thinks he’s got value and that’s far more concerning to him than it ought to be.

He’s also got a lot of anxiety now, because he has to watch this Kid, to make sure he doesn’t die randomly. Great.

He flies the Kid to the weather tower, because time is of the essence, and he watches. Every wrong step the Kid takes, he tenses. Every slip up, as Bull Clones go flying and chase after him, as Red Son rushes him—Sun Wukong clenches his fists and physically stops himself from jumping in. He’s retired. Kid’s gotta learn to clean up his own messes.

Kid is actually pretty good at using the staff to block blows. Offensive fighting with it is slow going, though, and Monkey King files that away for plans of future training. He watches the Kid run towards the control panel and the Bull Clones close in, and, for a split second, he feels a little flare.

Golden vision. It flickers in the Kid’s eyes and he doesn’t know what the Kid sees, but Monkey King is sure it’s enough.

Or maybe not, as the Kid gets dog piled on by Bull Clones, Red Son jumping on top of the pile.

Monkey King holds his breath, wondering if he should step in—because he knows Kid needs to learn but what’s the point of learning if you die in the process—and then.

Then.

He lets out a sigh of relief and heads out as lightning strikes the staff, watching the Kid duck behind the control panel to avoid the shock, the explosion. Smart. He always used brute force. Good to know Kid has a head on those shoulders that have more use than just a battering ram.

He vanishes into the horizon as the skies clear, back to Flowering Fruit Mountain. Once there, he takes a deep breath, eats a few peaches. Lays back on his cloud and grooms a monkey or two to try and destress.

It doesn’t work. Dammit. His successor is mortal and vulnerable. This is going to add, like, 5 times the effort he thought he would have to put into training this kid. He has to be careful. He has to be cautious. He can’t just throw things at the kid and expect him to be fine.

Okay. This is fine. Is it? Maybe. Probably not.

Because if the Kid is going to really take up his mantle, he’s going to have to deal with the enemies that come with it. Which means dangerous demons, creatures Monkey King doesn’t dare name, all sorts of dangers that can easily kill someone, if that someone isn’t invulnerable.

He has to give the Kid space, can’t smother him, doesn’t want to. But how is he supposed to breathe easy when his successor can die any time?

Clones, maybe? But those always come back to mess with him if he keeps them around for too long. And he’s an easily bored guy, his clones need action. He doesn’t think babysitting will make them happy.

Ugh, he needs a nap. If he can even find it in himself to sleep, with all these thoughts and questions.

He’ll figure it out. He always does, in the end.

#lego monkie kid #monkie kid #kitkat1003 #MK #monkey king #sun wukong #monkie kid MK #monkie kid monkey king

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carousels-on-fire · 6 years

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Long post under the cut about going to PA to see my brother!!!

(I promise the entire thing is not as negative as the first few paragraphs, I needed to vent!) So first things first! My brother is awesome, he and his wife are so forward thinking compared to my parents and it was just nice to be around. UNFORTUNATELY, the ship delivering me to that utopia of openness was my car driving me and my mother 14hrs, while playing car tag with my father. My parents are not, in any way, shape, or form, good people. They’re nasty, malicious, passive aggressive, aggressive aggressive, gaslighting, snippy, and just mean people all around. But they like to think they’re put upon nice people, and only THEY see the world as it really is. Its exhausting. They make me a worse person being around them. My mother spent the entire time calling my father every horrible word in the book, and finding every reason to be angry with him, even when there wasn’t a reason. And kept remarking about how he was probably throwing a temper tantrum in his car. The irony that I had to listen to her complaining instead. And she had the GPS on her phone too even though mine was open when I was driving and kept trying to tell me different directions. Basically being a control freak. And when I wasn’t driving she was tail gating people, flipping them off, speeding up and then slamming on the breaks to avoid running into people. I basically told her if she fucked my car up she got to pay for it. She’s a miserable person and I can’t wait to never have to speak to her again. My father spent the entire time being irate about everything, screaming at me about “helping out” with the dogs and just being a miserable asshole. And then turning a complete 180 and acting like everything was fine when my brother was around. He basically caused the poor dogs to fall down the stairs at my brother’s house twice just being a pushy impatient asshole. The dogs are old, the stairs are really steep. But...I can’t do anything about it that would help the dogs or help the situation at all. I’m powerless. Getting the dogs taken away would do more harm to the dogs. But they’re so mean to them. My brother even commented on it. BUT, BUT, in a beautiful moment my brother called my mom the fuck OUT for being a loud crazy bitch outside his house. He told her not to make a scene because his neighbor likes to sit outside on his porch and she was glaring daggers at him the whole night. It was nice to see her put in her place. Also my niece was not nearly as nerve-wracking to be around as I thought. After a couple minutes it was pretty easy to figure out how to interact with her. She’s two and only knows a few words so its not complicated yet, she’s not asking real questions. She’s cute but I don’t think I could be around her more than a couple hours, just because she does require constant attention. My brother got some photos of all of us with her and managed to get a great one of me pretending to bite her leg like a child eating demon. Kids seem to like me for some reason. I see a lot of my brother in her, and based on what I remember of the stories of him as a child, and how she’s being raised, she’s going to be a terror. Of the mischief and mayhem variety. I do always feel slightly out of place around people who are really normal and have their shit together. But then my brother will do something really bizarre and its like ‘yep, there’s that family resemblance.’ To give some background info, my bro is a wedding photographer, he lives at the gym when he can, dresses really nice, he’s basically someone who would never ever need to be on Queer Eye. But he’ll do stuff like record himself driving and making monkey noises and getting really into character, its so funny. Or he’ll do shit, like we’ll reach for something in the center console of the car at the same time, and he’ll make sure to rub his arm against mine and be like “YEP let me make this as awkward as possible” with this ridiculous face. OR he’ll say something so off the wall in conversation that you almost don’t catch it, and then you laugh for like 5 minutes. I really hate that my friends don’t get to see my brother at his weirdness peak. I hate that I didn’t get a selfie of us, because we’re really as different as you could possibly be appearance-wise. Philly itself was kind of underwhelming overall. But, the 1hr and a half drive there kind of wore me out prior to actually walking around downtown. I think if it were like Savannah where I could take a bus into downtown, or in a place where I was used to walking long distances everyday it would have been fine. And I really only saw a little bit of the city because it took so long to get into the city and I had to leave before dark. So I’ll reserve judgement until then. The shops I did see and the variety of stuff was amazing. The oddity and punk stores were incredible. But it does worry me moving to a big city, that I’ll have to deal with traffic like that the entire time. Savannah traffic when I lived far from downtown wasn’t terrible. But Savannah is still a small city compared to Philly. I finally got to see the Mutter museum which I wanted to forever! Some of the skull exhibits made me so sad because some of them were from such young people. There was a wall of skulls with ages, nationalities, and sometimes a story. And it would be such tragic deaths. There were a lot of 25 and 26yr old suicides and that hit close to home. There were so subtly different. I loved trying to see the people in each face. The teenager skulls were so small. The children smaller still. The worst were the ones from women who died young in childbirth. I wish I got to see more of the fetal deformity exhibits at the Mutter Museum but we were running short on time. There was a Civil War exhibit about Black soldiers that was fascinating. Including a huge reproduction of a poster calling able bodied men of color to fight. My brother looked at it and said to me “How many of them do you think could even read this to know what they were getting into?” Its something to think about. But the sad part was the poster was about men of color getting their dignity and personhood reclaimed in that war. Its bitter to think they still haven’t completely gotten that, even after so much time. I could have spent days in that museum, it probably took me longer because I had to stop and read every single placard and try to picture what each thing was or was used for, or what it looked like alive. There were a couple comic book stores that I got to check out, one with extremely helpful staff, one with not very helpful staff. I was on the hunt for that Hawkeye and Bucky comic that I saw panels of on here, and actually ended up finding it at Barnes and Noble. I did, while my brother and parents were busy at a wedding, get to see an old friend from college so that was cool. Its nice to just see people who aren’t my co-workers and get to do normal people stuff like go to lunch and socialize. Another thing I wish I’d gotten to try more of in Philly was food! I didn’t have much money to spend. The one cafe I went to had terrible, godawful pastries. Like...they tasted like someone forgot to add sugar to them at all. And they were stale/old tasting. I’m usually not one to complain about food that much, but this is an exception. BUT the one cafe thing my brother took me to was amazing. It was an italian place with coffee and pastries, but also actual food and wine. I asked the barman for ‘wine sweet enough to put in a hummingbird feeder’ and he did not disappoint. And the stuff is only like $8/bottle. The drink menu was intimidating though. It looked like it was in another language entirely. It probably, mostly was. The only really big downside to the trip was I caught a stomach-bug tuesday night and was out of commission wednesday and a lot of Thursday. Even though I was upright, it was like ‘at what cost?’. Even today I’m not 100% back to myself. But luckily my brother was super understanding/supportive. I felt so bad because my niece got sick too. She seemed to bounce back pretty quick though. My brother is also awesome because he and his wife got me a copy of that John Olliver book Marlon Bundo about Mike Pence’s pet rabbit being gay and getting married to another boy rabbit. They bought one for me and one for my niece. They’re pretty great people. I’m so glad at least part of my family is sane and I don’t have to throw out the whole damned thing, you know?

#trip diary

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