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Excerpt - Emotional Vulnerability & Romantic Resolution | Trunks & Pan (294 words) Source: Legend & Legacy: Book One | Chapter 21 Context: Post-climax romantic resolution

“You said… you wished you had more time with me.”

Trunks paused, as his eyes searched her expression.

“I did,” he said.

“Th-that…” Pan sniffed as her trembling grew stronger. She broke out into another sob, as she cried, “... w-was the nicest th-thing you ever said to me.”

Trunks’ eyes widened slightly as he swallowed.

Trunks wore an expression that Pan had never seen before, on anyone.

There wasn’t a word for his expression. He looked shocked, and hurt… and at the same time, remorseful, and guilty. And above all that, he looked hopeful, but broken. There wasn’t a word for it that Pan ever knew.

“Have I…” Trunks swallowed again, as if trying to find his voice, “... really never said anything nicer to you?”

Pan looked in his eyes, searching. But as she saw the blue depths bearing into her soul, she looked down and away, feeling strangely shy.

“I guess… I don’t know. But…” Pan raised her right arm to wipe her cheek, and then looked down at her hand, “... I know I’ll remember that forever… that… you wished for more time with me.”

Trunks kept watching her eyes, with that strange expression.

She sniffed and wiped her eyes again, and then looked up to Trunks with a forlorn and slightly teasing smile. “What are you gonna do, now that we have more time?”

Trunks stared at her a moment as her words drifted by him. The look he gave her spoke to a thousand thoughts and calculations that sparkled behind his azure eyes.

After a long breath, his expression softened, and he raised his lips to a reminiscent grin.

“Well… first…” Trunks stood up straight and held his left hand out to her. “I’m going to start telling you nicer things.”

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Excerpt - Poetic Prose & Emotional Pacing | Pan (& Trunks) (87 words) Source: Legend & Legacy: Book One | Chapter 21 Context: Communicate chaos, relief, and wonder, all at once.

For a moment, she and Trunks lingered in space, alone with their ships and the stars, and the giant hellscape at their backs.

But for that moment, Pan didn’t notice the fiery star. Instead, her mind was tuned into her heartbeat, and a strong feeling in her gut that was hard for her to understand. It was like a heat that burned coolly - a fire that was hungry yet comforting. She hadn’t felt something like this before. She didn’t know how to explain the feeling to herself.

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Excerpt - Character-Driven Humor | Trunks & Pan & Goku & Giru (173 words) Source: Legend & Legacy: Book One | Chapter 19 Context: Goku needs a focal point for instant transmission in space

“Are you SERIOUS, PAN?!” Trunks moaned, “Are you really leaving the FATE OF THE EARTH to a RICE COOKER?!”

Pan rolled her eyes and half-pointed at Trunks before gesturing to herself, “Well your idea sucks, and mine is much better.”

“Yeah,” Goku nodded to her, “I think a rice cooker could work.”

Trunks flung his arms up, “I can’t even - with this idiocy! I just can’t.” He shrugged his arms forward in resignation, “Fine! You win, Pan.”

Pan made double-pumped fists. “Yes!”

Trunks sighed and stood up straight, wondering if this was real life.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this…” Trunks sighed again.

And then Trunks stated the words that would save the world: “Giru, please steam eight cups of rice in the rice cooker.”

[...] As Trunks synced his watch and returned his eyes to watch his teammates getting ready, his mind wandered, and he couldn't help but realize the whole irony of it all.

The fate of the Earth came down to a rice cooker... And it wasn’t even the first time. 

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Excerpt - Slice-of-Life Character Chemistry | Trunks & Pan (116 words) Source: Legend & Legacy: Book One | Chapter 18 Context: During breakfast - example of visual humor, romantic chemistry, and timing.

-CHI-CHIKK!-

The toaster sprang up both slices.

Trunks enthusiastically scooched his chair back to stand and get them. Giru rode on his shoulder, mimicking Trunks’ gestures.

Trunks stood and took a few steps to pop them out of the toaster, and then turned to face Pan with a wolfish grin. He pointed to himself with his right thumb as Giru also mimed the movement, “You married this!”

Then Trunks stuffed one of the pieces of toast straight in his mouth, filling out his toothy grin, and in a couple steps, he gallantly glided back to the table, where he tossed the second toast onto Pan’s plate, and it landed in a -plop-, perfectly beside her eggs.

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Excerpt - Emotional Realism & Psychology | Trunks (& Pan) (101 words) Source: Legend & Legacy: Book One | Chapter 17 Context: Visceral and cinematic embodiment of panic as Trunks lies next to Pan in the hammock.

He lay wide-eyed and panicked. He regretted this. He shouldn’t have done this.

Ba-Bump Ba-Bump Ba-Bump Ba-Bump Ba-Bump…

Nobody slept next to him like this. Not like this. Nobody.

Nobo...

No...

No.

No no no no no no no no.

With a fast-racing heart, Trunks changed his mind. 

Nope, he couldn’t do this.

He had to leave.

He had to go.

Overwhelmed by the primal urge of what could only be "fight or flight," Trunks' heart raced uncontrollably. The need to flee surged through him as his hands buzzed with the adrenaline-fueled decision to either confront his panic or escape it.

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Excerpt - Humor / Witty Plot Driver | Trunks & Pan (116 words) Source: Legend & Legacy: Book One | Chapter 16 Context: Using emotionally intelligent wit/humor to dissolve tension

“Knock Knock,” Trunks said lightheartedly through the door, trying not to sound timid.

“I’m not here” was Pan’s muffled reply.

“No, you’re supposed to ask ‘Who’s there’,” Trunks grinned slightly, trying to lighten the mood.

“I’m not in the mood for jokes right now,” Pan’s voice sounded disheartened.

“Knock Knock,” Trunks urged.

There was a sigh on the other side of the door, “Who’s there?”

“Haiku,” Trunks stood straight and tried again at the handle out of curiosity, but it was still locked.

“Haiku who?”

“Hai-kud you please answer the door?” Trunks's used the most pleading tone that he could.

Pan’s sigh on the other side of the door sounded exasperated, and Trunks knew he’d won.

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Excerpt - Worldbuilding & Lore (319 words) Source: Legend & Legacy: Book One | Chapter 15 Context: Article about Artificial intelligence and Its Vulnerabilities

The Soul Paradox theory offered a profound insight into one of the vulnerabilities within the cognitive space of artificial intelligence programming.

The theory stated that there could not truly exist a perfect artificial intelligence, because the robot could never accurately calculate the value of (1a) goodness and (2a) survival, because it would mean it would need to also understand the magnitude of the scale of (1b) evil and how its perception must be correlated with an undefined value of (2b) death. 

As robots did not have souls, the value of death as a digital perception would always be displaced through a statistically significant variance; robots did not innately need to fear death; robot brains could copy and live regardless of body or framing, as long as there existed enough energy to produce digital signals - namely three things to guarantee digital life: 1) the ability to produce pulses of energy to communicate 1s and 0s; 2) a channel, or network for data flow, and 3) a location for data storage.

Things like death, and disease, and pain, and all emotions related to loss were digital static and represented inefficiencies to artificial intelligence.

The displacement of the value of death was calculated by a different form of potential energy that kinetically generated a variance in probabilities, and was only present in minds of advanced intelligent lifeforms - love. For however silly the concept of love sounded, it was a serious discussion and consideration when considering the qualifier of what made something a soul.

The stronger the love, the greater the variance among digital cognitive calculations, and the variance could glitch when love was faced with death.

The white paper concluded that robots could not inherently love, so artificial intelligence would never be able to understand the magnitude of death. In summary, when the love variance was magnified by death, there would always be a significant probability for a glitch within artificial intelligence.

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Excerpt - Character Study & Introspection | Trunks (1054 words) Source: Legend & Legacy: Book One | Chapter 15 Context: Inspired by actual GT Trunks - an introspective take on why he wears brown gloves, bandana and glasses as part of his trademark outfit.

Trunks did not have too many attachments to material things, but when it came to his gloves - those were one of his favorite things. He considered them a part of his personal brand. He wore them everywhere he could get away with it. He acknowledged that it might have been an eccentric quality of his, but the gloves were important to him.

He had received his gloves as a gift from his grandfather during his last Holiday before he died from his lung cancer, so they carried tremendous nostalgic value for the past almost-three years. But what Trunks valued even more was their utility.

The gloves were made with tanned Tyrano dino-leather from the southern continent, so they were extra durable and able to sustain high heat, and yet they were soft and thin enough that he could tangibly handle and feel objects as if through a second skin. On top of that, they were also very breathable; his hands never sweat when he wore them. 

Trunks admittedly liked how they felt on his hands so much, that he was often guilty of wearing them to bed, falling asleep feeling comfortable, with his hands swaddled in his favorite material.

The best part is how nimble his fingers could still be while wearing his gloves. His anti-static finger pads were as thin as silk, and ever so slightly magnetic, so he could expedite his mechanical work by easily aligning screws with pilot holes. 

Some extra perks about his gloves included his ability to use them on his phone screen, and he could program a chip within the wrist to act as a wireless credit card chip, so payment was always an easy tap away.

He also had ideas for how else he could modify his gloves, especially since there was a lot of potential to incorporate artificial intelligence, and spatial recognition. From what he could see, the possibilities were endless.

Overall, it was difficult for him to word why he loved his gloves so much, because there just was so much to the answer that his response would be jumbled, and it was easier to just shrug and say he “liked dino-leather.” That response always satisfied people, so it was good enough.

Trunks slid his dino-gloves on, and smiled at the familiar and snug feeling. He took a breath, and then he set out to focus on his work.

When Trunks sat down to work, he tended to disassociate his mind from his body. When he got into a “zone,” he worked mainly with his instinct. He found that if he just relied on his instinct, he could do godly creative work with limited mechanical resources.

When people would ask him about his work process, he could only describe it as channeling his work through a flow state. He often got into a focus zone, with his head somewhere in Other World clouds, and when he’d come out of his trance, he wouldn’t even know what he did; his work was derived from an extended daydream. It was as if his body just knew how to do it, like he could make his own wishes come true by building it.

He wondered, for a moment, if his daydream flow state was similar to how Goku had a tendency to lose track of time. Perhaps relying on Instinct might be a Saiyan trait after all…

Regardless, he often worked in a flow state. And, when he focused, Trunks preferred the sound of silence. 

Trunks sat down in his office chair to review the status of Giru’s repair. Scrutinizing Giru’s motherboard, Trunks could see that the little robot’s wires were fairly small and compacted. It helped to view them with magnifying lenses. 

Reaching over to his first right drawer, he pulled his work glasses out from a tan leather case.

He rested the thick black frames on his nose, and adjusted them.

He liked his “nerd glasses.” He didn’t care that Pan heckled him about them. He had his own reasons for liking them, and he felt empowered every time Pan called him a nerd. He loved the positive affirmation that his outfit was right-smack on brand.

When it came to Trunks’ eyesight, he had nearly perfect vision. He didn’t need his glasses to see, so he wore them for the frame aesthetic. The glasses came with a bonus magnifying prescription at the base of his lenses to help him read fine details on his watch screen. But what he loved most of all was how the lenses and frames acted as a great buffer between his face and the rest of the world.

He found that when he wore his glasses, people tended to act a little more normal within the work environment. He didn’t get as many ogles or distracting glances from women, and men were generally more accepting of his authority.

He was happiest when his face was not on display in public. He didn’t like when people looked at him.

He didn’t want people to look at his face. His face was not his choice.

He didn’t want the spotlight. And he hated how his face always put him into one.

He wanted to work behind the scenes - to direct his talented engineers, instead of being featured on the screen and giving Tech Talks to the world. He wanted to do what his Grandpa Brief did when he started out, or what Dr. Hedo was doing now - and just research and publish articles, to win Nobel prizes.

But his face got in the way of his dreams. And he couldn’t see what others even saw in his face. When he looked in the mirror, he just saw himself; and he saw all of his flaws. 

He never wanted to look long at his face. Whenever he did, he felt emotions swell from his past that he did not want to relive. His face was a sensitive issue for him, and he felt as Pan felt in the reflection room - fearing to be naked, when out in the world.

He felt he had armor when he wore his glasses. They were his helmet. His gloves were his shield. His bandana was his battle flag. 

His glasses made him feel safer, in a period of his life when he had a hard time feeling safe. 

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Excerpt - Knock Knock Jokes | Trunks & Pan (84 words) Source: Legend & Legacy: Book One | Chapter 14 Context: 😭😭😭💀💀💀

“Knock knock!” Trunks smirked.

Pan waved her right arm in front of her, “He said you passed. You don’t have to joke anymore.”

Trunks’ eyes narrowed as he repeated. “Knock knock!!”

King Kai chirped, “Who’s dere?”

“Mustard,” Trunks grinned.

“Mustard who?”

“Mustard been funny enough if you answered the door.” Trunks gestured to himself with his right thumb.

“Knock knock,” Pan said with a flat face.

“Who’s there?” Trunks smiled wryly.

“Natto.”

“Natto who?”

Pan rolled her eyes with a grin, “Natt-onother bad joke.”

King Kai scoffed and covered his mouth.

Trunks bent toward Pan in challenge, “Knock knock!”

Pan leaned back with her hands still on her hips, “Are you serious right now?” 

King Kai giggled.

Trunks gestured to himself with a cocky smile, “Sake-to me, I did another bad pun.”

Pan groaned, “Water you doing still joking around?”

King Kai laughed.

Trunks looked to King Kai and pointed to himself with his thumb again, “Shii-talk-e lot about my bad jokes, but I think they’re funny.”

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Excerpt - Character Emotional Development & Internal Conflict | Trunks (& Pan) (214 words) Source: Legend & Legacy: Book One | Chapter 11 Context: Trunks viscerally experiences a game-changing emotion

Trunks’ eyes widened more, and he felt a jolt of something in his body - a pulse of shame and a sense of abandonment. His world spun and his head suddenly slammed in on him like a waterfall of bricks that sunk into his gut and weighed his entire body down.

Remorse.

Trunks tried to swallow, but his throat suddenly felt dry and swollen shut. It sounded more like a gulp. His heart was racing, and his pulse made his head throb among the cold stone behind his eyes.

“I’m…” Trunks gulped as he tried to find the right word. The feeling was there, and the word was on the tip of his tongue. He just… had … never… actually… said it out loud… Not like this…

He struggled with the word. He felt it boil in his throat, and all of his energy felt like it was pinched in a bottleneck. He breathed, and stood, straightening his dress, and continued to choke on the word.

“Are you okay?” Pan seemed to realize Trunks’ body language was off.

Trunks shook his head wordlessly, looking down. He swallowed again, and backed up. Then he silently turned and walked to the far window to look out at the nighttime city lights. “I’m…” he forced it out, “sorry.” 

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Credit: LauraNeatO on DeviantArt.

This was the second fan art that I ever drew, back in 2004. I vividly remember sitting in my sublet while evading doing my Intensive French coursework, as I stayed in college that summer to get some extra credits in. When it came to drawing, I had no idea what I was doing, but I did my best, referencing the DVD artwork of the GT DVDs I had just bought at my local anime store. Somehow I did a pretty good job at this reference.

This was from several months before I even joined DeviantArt and before I wrote my first fanfiction. Boy this takes me back.

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Excerpt - Romantic Realization / Poetic Prose | Trunks & Pan (50 words) Source: Legend & Legacy: Book One | Chapter 9 Context: Trunks experiences transcendent emotional moment during his own wedding that changes his motivations moving forward.

Trunks felt his mind flitting away into her inky black depths, enraptured and enveloped in the dark sea. Her body was immaterial; her age irrelevant. As his gaze remained fixed on her eyes, Trunks recognized that today, his vow was not to her earthly age, but rather to her soul. 

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Excerpt - Character Building | Vegeta (& Pan) (152 words) Source: Legend & Legacy: Book One | Chapter 7 Context: Pan's perspective of Vegeta

Vegeta was a rockstar. Vegeta was the coolest good-bad guy that Pan ever knew. And Vegeta embodied the strength of pride and confidence.

Vegeta didn’t give two licks about anybody’s opinions of himself. He did his thing and he was good at it, and everyone respected him for it.

From an early age, Pan wanted to be around that. She gravitated to his energy because she was so tired of people telling her what she could do versus what she couldn’t do. 

Vegeta often talked down to her and in their early days, used to called her a “Pipsqueak”, which pissed her the fudge off, but also invigorated her. He liked getting a rise out of her, and she liked when he tried to get a rise out of her, because he was such an asshole, that his words worked every single time.

Vegeta was the guy that she loved to hate.

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Excerpt - Character Building & Introspection | Pan Son (179 words) Source: Legend & Legacy: Book One | Chapter 7 Context: Establishes Pan’s worldview and family dynamics.

Pan grew up in a house where women won all of the fights. While the men held pissing contests, the women were the ones who grabbed their noses at the end of the day and boxed some sense into them. Her Grandma Chi Chi and her Mama Videl were forces that made the men in her family cower. They were incredible role models for the kind of strength that women held within a nuclear family.

In addition to the strong women in her family, Pan also grew up with some incredible models for other kinds of strengths. 

As a little girl, she was often regaled with the stories of adventure and heroism from all of her closest and dearest family members. They all had, in their own ways, saved the world.

It all started with Pan’s Grandpa Goku, who iconified overcoming limits of physical strength. Although these days he was a half-head shorter than Pan, there was a whole huge time that Grandpa Goku was “the guy” to finish off the bad guys when the world was in danger. 

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Excerpt - Character Revelation / Realization | Trunks & Pan (169 words) Source: Legend & Legacy: Book One | Chapter 6 Context: Trunks reluctantly realizes his rapport with Pan

Pan never once challenged him before on this entire trip. Trunks had heard about her personality. He had heard she was comfortable taking this tone with her parents. And she showed some signs of it on their Grand Tour. But she never directed that confidence toward him. He never realized before… how it affected him.

Until this point, Trunks avoided her. This was their first time truly speaking one on one. And it was his first time seeing what Pan’s personality was truly like.

No wonder the kids around her had a problem with her. She was crude and forward, and she took pride and credit for things that she should not be proud about. But she was too uneducated to understand that, and she was too proud to learn the correct way to do it.

Pan was an absolute shrew…

But… for some reason… Trunks’ heart drummed a little quicker, just now…

There was something about her that attracted him. And he never saw it… until just now.

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Excerpt - Humorous Dialogue / Banter | Trunks & Pan (115 Words) Source: Legend & Legacy: Book One | Chapter 6 Context: Trunks finally begins to see Pan's spunky, brazen personality.

---

“Me?! Controlling?!” Trunks spread his hands before him, “I let everyone walk all over me!”

“Except you don’t. You get all mad and then you spiral and have your tempers when you can’t have your way.” And then the next words out of Pan's spiteful little mouth were, “I think you’re spoiled, Trunks!”

“Spoiled?!”

“But it’s okay,” she nodded confidently, bringing her hands back to her hips, “I think I can get through to you.”

Trunks was boiling mad. “I am beyond words right now, Pan. Your audacious personality is incensing me.”

“See, you get all big-wordy when you get mad. But I’m invincible because you can’t hit me with them. See, bounced right off!”

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Excerpt - Internal Conflict & Powerful Character Moment | Trunks & Goku (330 words) Source: Legend & Legacy: Book One | Chapter 3 Context: In GT, Goku had been wished back into the body of a 12-year-old child. Throughout the Grand Tour, Trunks always viewed the now-young Goku as childish, and no longer the same man of legend... until now.

Seething with frustration, Trunks clenched his teeth, directing his gaze at the ground. His fingers gripped the marble so tightly that cracks started to form in the stone.

Huffing, Trunks felt all of his pride course through his veins, and he looked up to glower at Goku.

But it only took a moment before Trunks' rage quelled. His eyes slowly went wide, as he felt his blood drain from his face.

Goku was glaring down at Trunks with an authority that Trunks had never seen before.

Goku's stern gaze conveyed the weight of his formidable history. It was as if every defeated foe had left their mark in his eyes, and an aura of overwhelming power enveloped him, exuding an undeniable air of strength and intensity.

Trunks felt his heart race as he recognized Goku’s stance. It was the commanding presence of a warrior.  There was no room for levity in his eyes, no trace of amusement - only an unrelenting aura of formidable threat that sent a clear message: he meant business, and there would be no room for compromise. Goku was ready to fight.

This… was Legend Goku…

“You will NOT destroy a religious temple.” Legend Goku commanded Trunks. His voice was firm.

Trunks swallowed, realizing his jig was up. “Fuck…”

“And you will NOT use that language in front of Pan!” Legend Goku reprimanded him with a glare that struck Trunks like a punch through the gut.

Trunks quickly exhaled a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding, attempting to regain his composure. He shifted his gaze from Goku to Pan, then back to Goku, with a fiery storm of emotions churning in his core, trying to make sense of the whole situation.

And then Trunks realized...

Goku was exerting his authority for the first time on the trip.

It was literally the first time Trunks had ever seen an adult within Goku’s eyes.

The sight of it instilled a strange consternation within Trunks, and he took pause.

--- Personal Note - I'm especially proud of this part, which took me a really long time to refine (maybe 2 hours of wrestling wording): "There was no room for levity in his eyes, no trace of amusement - only an unrelenting aura of formidable threat that sent a clear message: he meant business, and there would be no room for compromise. Goku was ready to fight."