"We have to defeat Dunstan!"
Garion's eyes slowly blink. He knows this song and dance.
It's like this, every time. If a timeline gets this far without an alteration, this is always where it leads. So few actually stayed on the straight and narrow good vs evil. Which makes sense, humans rarely, if ever, believe in a truly black and white.
He was lounged out on a low concrete wall, the good douji having their gathering in the small courtyard of the abandoned hospital.
He redirected his eyes from them, spinning his cane in his hand boredly. Trickery's parrot voice giggled, and spat out a mockery of them.
It incited anger in the young man who was the master of the Ultimate Good. Garion just kept quiet as his douji heckled Yamato.
"That's enough, Trickery." His voice is sharply stern, "Help me up." The mimic douji snapped his jaws shut, returning to his master's side. Garion holds an arm out and Trickery pulls him to his feet. His bad leg has gone weak, sitting on the hard surface, and he leans heavily on his cane. He knows the others have noticed his change in attitude, and doesn't plan to stick around long.
"Well, you all have fun on your wild goose hunt. I think I'd rather spend my time with more reasonable people." He put on a smile and waved a hand before beginning to walk away.
"It's the only way we can end this crap! Unless you have a better plan!"
Fury shoots through Garion and he has to stop himself, knuckles going white around the snake head of his cane. Trickery flicks his eyes between his master and Yamato. Garion takes a breath, steadying himself. As he turns around, the happy, nonchalant, almost dopey smile is back in his face.
"Oh, no, Mr. Yamato, don't mind me. You have your fun trying to defeat a man who's omnipresent and able to change timelines at will. You enjoy that. I'll simply have no part in it." He waves a hand dismissively. Though he can tell they know something deeper is in his words, he doesn't care. The deviation will soon tear them away from that plan entirely. It's only a matter of time.
He turns to continue down the road leading away from the hospital and back to his car. Trickery is skipping along beside him, giggling, "Dunstan makes you really mad, huh?"
"Yeah..." A sigh, "Yeah, he really does. Let's go check on Vice, hm? I wanna see how close he is to making Paresse snap now." He opens the driver's door and slips in.
"Oooouh, yeah!! Should be any time now." Trickery never opened the passenger door, but is sitting there beside him, phone open and clicking through texts, "The evil douji are meeting tonight, too!'
Garion makes a knowing hum, smiling to himself.
He liked these timelines.
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she was dead silent on the drive home, but that was okay. sometimes, after band practice, she was just out of words. it was a short drive to her house. the only part where it actually felt weird was after i pulled up her parent’s driveway.
after that, the silence stretched so far it smeared and left a weird residue. she kept looking at the car door like she wanted to leave, so i looked at the door too, then she looked at me, and i looked at her, and my first thought was that she was going to tell me that the door was stuck. i was used to that car always doing some damn thing. it was the car me and all my siblings had learned to drive in, and it was really beat to hell. there were dents all over the body, which we’d unsuccessfully tried fixing up with spackle. it had looked nice for maybe a week, but then the sun wrecked it - the spackle cracked up like the mud on the bottom of a dry riverbed and turned a sort of off yellow-white that made the car looked like it had been molded out of chicken shit. it also had a bullet hole it through the cabin that whistled like a toothless old man whenever the car went above 40, so loud it could drown out the radio, and a cabin that smelled so strongly of bugspray that even the arizona summer we drove everywhere we could with the windows down.
(if you have kids one day, you will maybe, possibly, begin to understand how much i loved that car.)
anyway, i was thinking about what else could possibly be wrong with the chickenshitmobile, and she just kept looking at me, and then i wondered if there was something on my face, and she just kept looking at me, and then the penny dropped and i realized she was trying to work up the nerve to break up with me.
now, i’d seen her work up the nerve to do things like this before – it could take quite a while. and knowing it was about to happen made the waiting immediately unbearable.
so i said hey.
and she looked at me, very startled, and said hey back real small. like she’d been caught. and in a way, i suppose she had.
and i said it’s okay. you can just say it. i’ll be okay.
i’m always okay.
and she said: i’m really sorry.
i loved her, you know? it was highschool, but teenagers are capable of love. the way people love changes over time just as much as the way they stand, or the way they talk, but things don’t stop existing just because they're different. opposite really – a thing only stops changing when it's fully gone.
and i said, nothing to be sorry for, and i meant it. she looked a little relived, and i was happy to give her that peace. then she left. i watched her make it through the front door, because that was just habit at that point, and then i sat there a while afterwards, checking how i felt. and the answer was not good, but good enough to make it home. good enough to limp on.
so i put my car in reverse, took my last look goodbye, and immediately backed into her neighbor’s car.
crunch.
air bags didn't go off, which was good. i left a decent dent in the bumper of the other car. genuinely couldn’t tell if i did anything to my car – anything wrong with it just kind of blended together into the general ecosystem of hand mottled, sun cracked, chickenshit spackle.
i checked my glove box, and my car insurance info was, of course, out of date. my phone was dead too. as a teenager, my phone was less my lifeline to my friends, and more my tether to my parents, so i wasn’t particularly conscious of keeping it charged. both my fault.
i sat there a few minutes, trying to think of the best way to handle things, and there was only one answer i could think of, and i hated that answer, so i spent a few more minutes trying and failing to think of a better one, and then a few more coming to peace with what had to be done.
then i went back to knock on my now ex’s front door.
her dad opened, which i was very relieved over, even if he seemed less than thrilled. he looked me over, and in a firm, but slightly apologetic way said: she does not want to see you right now.
(i think he assumed i was going to try and talk her out of the break up?)
and i said not here for her. i just backed into your neighbor’s car, and i need to call my dad, but my phone’s dead. could i borrow yours?
and he looked at me, then back at his neighbors car, which sure enough was dented, then he looked at the chickenshitmobile, and if there was something wrong with it, it just kind of blended into the general Wrongness of the car, then back to me, and i could see him imagining the last ten minutes from my pov: getting broken up with, backing into a car, having to walk up to your exes door and borrow a phone, calling my dad to tell him that i just reversed into someone.
and his expression shifted from stern and apologetic to truly sad, which felt more kind that i deserved. things only got here because i kept fucking up - forgot to look behind me, forgot to replace the insurance forms, forgot to charge my phone. it was my mess, but his sympathy meant the world to me. i probably would’ve cried if he said sorry, or patted me on the back or called me sport, but instead he said
stay out here – i’ll bring you a phone.
and then he left.
i found a nice spot on the lawn in the shade under a sycamore, then settled into his grass.i was trying not to freak out, and was doing an okay job. he came out a minute or so later, not just with a phone, but a juicebox and a jar of green olives, which really threw a wrench in the whole try not to cry thing. soon as i saw those, a few tears squoze out. i was still hoping i could pass them off as Manly Tears but then he told me that he’d gotten the olives a few weeks before and had been meaning to hand them off to me, and that this was his last chance for that. then i made a sound like a horse drowning in a bog, and he patted my back pretty rough, four solid thumps, like he wasn't sure if i was crying or choking on an olive, and was trying to cover both bases at once.
then he went back inside, and i made a few more bog horse noises while finishing off the rest of the entire jar of green olives, and then i called my dad.
he was about ten minutes away that day, and luckily was home. he drove over, and we went to the neighbor’s house, and from there things actually went quite nice. the neighbor was a retired man who actually said he could fix the dent himself, no need for insurance. he said he appreciated that i didn't just drive off, and i said i was really sorry about his car, and he said he was really sorry about my car, and then he gestured to the chickenshitmobile and i laughed because it really was a disaster on wheels.
then we left.
i thought we were going to head straight home, but instead we went to a gas station, and we both got several slim jims that we folded into thick enough coils that we could put them on a hotdog bun because the growing up mormon equivalent of having a sad brewski with your dad is just choosing to make bad decisions sober. then he took me to the canals and we watched the sun turn all orange and pink, and he looked over at me and said:
brains are good at remembering bad days. so you gotta make sure that a bad day has a good part in in, so you can remember that too. remember that when you have a kid. try to do a good job on days like that - they're going to be a big part of how they remember you.
and then he gave me a big hug and said he was never going to eat another slim jim again.
---
the year after that i went to college, which kicked my butt in new and exciting ways. and on a lot of those bad days, after a test that went sour, or a faux paus that was particularly embarrassing, or some other hardship of my new adult life, i’d stop by the gas station and pick up leathery, half jerkied hotdog before heading to the canals to watch the sun set. i’d take a bite and imagine my dad next to me, grimacing through the slim-jim wad, asking what good thing i was going use that time to remember.
and in my head, i’d say you, dad.
i’m going to remember you.
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The US government when multiple of their servers has been hacked and they can't find a trace of who's doing it: What is going on!?
Tucker, literally in an internet cafe sipping on some milk with what little money he had on him: Haha, lol.
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Lex Luthor when he's told that multiple of his servers has been hacked and put into disorder with seemingly no purpose: Find whoever this is, immediately!
Eve Teschmacher: Sir, our best is unable to find whoever hacked into our servers, in fact, our attempts to stop, build up defenses or force them out, have only been met with more, chaotic files.
Lex Luthor, banging his fist on the table: What do I pay them for!? Find them immediately!
Tucker, literally in an internet cafe a few blocks away from the Lexcorp building: Get gud noobs!
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Oracle, when her servers has been hacked by an unknown: Raises eyebrow
Oracle, when said unknown begins to mess around in her servers and basically goads her into trying them: Oh it's on.
Oracle, when she conveniently hacks into said unknown's coordinates and finds it leading to an internet cafe, to which it then gets fizzled out by the unknown: Hm. I should tell someone.
Also Oracle: However.
Tucker, chugging down his milk and booting it from the internet cafe while disconnecting from Oracle's servers and sending multiple signals to hopefully take her off his trails: shit shit shit shitshitshitshitshitshit
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The Justice League, after noticing that Mount Justice is currently being hacked in the middle of a debriefing:
Batman and Robin fighting against the hacker, with the new addition of Oracle who just, appeared out of nowhere: Oh, I know this guy!
Batman, narrowing his eyes: Explain.
Oracle, refusing to explain but instead manages to snag the unknown's current whereabouts while simultaneously wiping said whereabouts before the unknown (Who is currently distracted by Robin and Batman) could notice, while also downloading said location to Batman's suit all at once: I think they can do that for you.
Batman, relents and flows away from the computer and walks away from the Young Justice team: Superman, with me. Red Tornado, continue the debriefing.
Tucker, currently in an internet cafe sipping on boba after acquiring some money, chewing and furiously tapping away at his PDA: ...I may have bitten off more than I can chew, here.
Tucker, looking up when someone sat down in relatively hidden (and by that he means square in the corner) booth and choking on his boba to see the Batman and Superman sitting across from his casually:
Batman, when the unknown he was looking for was literally a 14-year-old currently staring at the both of them in shock with a PDA held together by a mass amount of tape, determination and probable hope: Narrows eyes and stares at Superman.
Superman, currently ordering off of the menu: Raises hands with an innocent expression What? We're at a cafe, might as well?
Batman, staring at him for a solid few minutes, before also ordering something off of the menu:
Tucker, currently experiencing his life flashing before his eyes, but trying to play it off: Sips Boba.
(For your information by the way, Tucker got thrown to the DC universe and basically became a little shit by hacking into multiple places for literally no reason other than to have fun and fuck with people.)
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soap's whole deal being sniper and demolitions gets me going bc on the surface they sound so different but when you get into it, you realise it's bc soap's smart
sniping is all math; calculating distances and wind interference and bullet drop. something i think people overlook is he was listed as a sniper first so it can be implied that he's better at it than demolitions. he does more sniping in both campaigns than demolitions work; in capture or kill, ghost specifically calls on him to take down the aq snipers
and demolitions is math with a hit of chemistry; knowing what mixes with what, knowing how much to use, recognising environmental factors and adjusting accordingly. it's not just about the boom; so much work goes into contained/ planned explosions. especially when having enough power for a breacher charge and not bringing down the whole building is the difference between mission success and failure
the chemical bombs he makes in alone can't just be any old cleaners, they have to have the correct reaction to each other; he just knew off the top of his head what would mix with what to create what reaction. he would also potentially have to recognise them by sight/smell bc they would’ve been written in spanish
soap would also have to know architecture; recognising structural integrity and weak points so he knows exactly where to plant a charge to bring it down and how it'll come down
he has an incredible soldier's mind people just forget that bc he's sociable which itself is a skill
we know he tends to buck against orders he doesn't agree with like when he pushes back against ghost in capture or kill and shepherd when he tells them to release hassan
he gets closer to people and sees if he can trust them and that's when he follows them without question. really think about how he talks to alejandro and rudy; he asks about their home and alejandro's family and rudy's relationship with him. those aren't questions you ask a stranger after a few hours of knowing them. that's not even touching on his relationship with ghost
he also deliberately brings people of higher ranks down to his level; talking informally with ghost and giving him a shoulder punch, addressing alejandro (a colonel!!) by his first name and rudy by his nickname despite literally just meeting them. he personalises all of them and it’s in direct opposition to the reason most characters do that; it’s not due to insubordination or lack of respect, the more he respects and trusts someone, the more casual he is with them
he digs into people; he wants to know what makes them tick and that determines if he can one, trust them and two, follow their orders. once he decides that, he's the ultimate soldier; he bleeds loyalty which makes him vicious when that loyalty is taken for granted
he isn't naive or bubbly or insecure; he's an incredibly smart and aware soldier. he's aggressive and bloodthirsty and loyal and intuitive and i love him so much
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kicks down everyone's door folks I might have figured out how tall Sun Wukong/Destined One is in Black Myth Wukong.
Starting with a disclaimer that this is just my speculation and nothing is confirmed unless the dev state otherwise
So y'know how the collector's edition came with this amazing Wukong figurine:
amazing right? I want one too.
The description states that the figure is 40cm tall (according to playasia)
The figure is made by Queen Studio, specifically the INART team that makes 1:6 figures.
So we know that the figure is 40cm tall. It is not clear if that includes stand or not, and I was not able to find any information how tall the stand is
On another website (which I don't want to name because I don't know how serious the website is) lists up the figure as 315mm/31.5cm
If that is the height of the actual figure without stand, and it's a 1:6 figure, that means 31.5cm * 6 = 189 cm
So that means it is very possible Destined One/Sun Wukong is 189 cm / 6 feet 2 inch tall.
that is TALL. a lot taller than I thought he would be tbh LOL cause in the books he is usually described as the shortest (cause well, monkey)
which ALSO means.
Wukong better be paying for her chiropractor with the amount of crancking her neck up she has to do.
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