YOU CAN'T DESTROY WHAT I REALLY AM.

[monkison]

SON GOHAN OF EARTH — FIRSTBORN SON OF SON GOKU, SCHOLAR, HUSBAND, FATHER, THE GREAT SAIYAMAN, AWAKENED BEAST, AND DEFENDER OF THE WORLD HE CHOSE TO CALL HOME.

defending alongside: videl ( @videltm ), bulma ( @vulgarbulma ), trunks ( @burnxngcorp )

A DEEP STUDY IN: BICULTURAL IDENTITY. ADULTIFICATION. THE ETHICS OF OVERWHELMING POWER. INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMA. GIFTEDNESS AND EXPECTATION. MASCULINITY. FATHERHOOD. MARRIAGE. / THE VIOLENCE REQUIRED TO PROTECT A PEACEFUL LIFE.

[dailymarvelheroes]

[monkison]

@fourstarboy said: "I don't know who you are, but you're not getting my power pole." | mirai gohan verse | cont'd.

crap. this one was entirely on him.

gohan’s eyes dropped toward the small hand reaching behind goku’s shoulder, little fingers fastening around the power pole without drawing it free. the fur along the boy’s tail had begun to rise strand by strand, betraying the suspicion gathering behind his intense stare. every part of his small body had braced in preparation: feet widening against the terrain, chubby shoulders bulking, and a body poised to spring backward or strike forward depending on what this strange one-armed man attempted next.

how did anyone recover from accidentally telling a child that he would grow up to become their father?

gohan had faced androids with less uncertainty. he heard stories about how his father was rowdy tyke and there was no sense in waking that bear up, if he could help it.

“ whoa, whoa, whoa—hold on! ”

his remaining hand flew upward, palm exposed, whilst sweat surfaced along his temples with embarrassing speed. he started backing away at a respectable distance, surrendering enough ground to make his intentions plain.

“ there’s no need to pull that out. i’m not trying to take your power pole. i promise. ” the words shot out like hastily, nearly stumbling into one another and making what he said sound almost indecipherable.

“ and calling you dad without explaining anything first was… probably the worst way i could’ve introduced myself. that's on me. ” gohan's mouth twitched sheepishly. “ sorry, goku. ”

well, there was no elegant route through the truth now. he had already stepped across the line and left nothing but a crate behind him.

war had devoured most of the man he became, but it had never managed to digest the scholar completely out of him. logic was still present beyond the pressures he has felt. trunks had crossed through time more than once. the supreme kai had explained the consequences with enough clarity for gohan to understand that history cannot be forced to redo nothing that has already come to pass, even if for the noble purpose of repairing a wrong that wrought about a disturbance. it divided. one decision became two histories, then more, each one continuing beyond the sight of the other.

his presence here meant the separation had already occurred. whatever he disclosed could not reach backward and rescue the world he had come from. it could only become part of this one. as far as he understood, this was safe. gohan lowered his hand slightly, though he kept it where kid goku could see it.

“ so it goes like this: my name is son gohan. i’m from the future, and in the history i came from... i’m your son. ” gohan watched the boy's face carefully as he continued. he'd have to, in order to quickly address the common questions that would undoubtedly come anyone's mind to a revelation like this.

“ the man who raised you was grandpa gohan. you live near mount paozu. you ride a flying cloud named nimbus, and you keep a four-star dragon ball because it belonged to him.”

[vulgarbulma]

the  laboratory  reflected  its  owner  with  uncomfortable  accuracy.

there were circuit  boards  rested  against expensive  cosmetics  she  had  forgotten  to  carry  back  upstairs.  a  pair  of  sunglasses  lay  across  a  stack  of  engineering  journals,  while  a  lipstick  rolled  lazily  against  a  container  of  titanium  fasteners  whenever  the  ventilation  system  sent  a  faint  vibration  through  the  workbench. 

several  jackets  hung  over  the  backs  of  the  chairs  instead  of  the  coat  rack  standing  only  a  few  feet  away.  a  drawer  remained  half  open  because  she  had  intended  to  return  to  it  a  few  minutes  earlier,  and  a  coffee  mug  sat  beside  an  exposed  circuit  assembly.  nothing  appeared  particularly  orderly,  yet  nothing  was  ever  truly  lost.  the  room  followed  a  logic  that  belonged  entirely  to  bulma,  and  she  could  cross  it  without  looking  while  reaching  for  exactly  the  tool  she  needed.

it  had  always  been  that  way.

when  she  was  a  teenager,  her  bedroom  had  reflected  the  very  same  habits.  clothes  disappeared  beneath  blueprints.  a  makeup  palette  occupied  the  same  dresser  as  a  half-finished  capsule  prototype.  a  necklace  might  end  up  draped  across  an  oscilloscope  before  she  remembered  putting  it  there,  and  an  expensive  handbag  could  spend  a  week  leaning  against  an  engine  block  because  she  had  become  distracted  by  another  idea  halfway  through  unpacking  it. 

her  mother  called  it  a  disaster.  her  father  never  seemed  to  mind.  he  would  wander  through  the  room,  step  over  whatever  occupied  the  floor  that  week,  and  somehow  retrieve  the  exact  screwdriver  or  socket  wrench  he  had  been  looking  for  without  asking  a  single  question. like father, like daughter.

vegeta  had  stepped  into  her  bedroom  once,  and  surveyed  the  clothes  scattered  across  the  floor,  the  blueprints  draped  over  the  bed,  the  cosmetics  with  engine  parts,  and  the  stack  of  unfinished  projects  occupying  nearly  every  available  surface.

"you  live  like  a  peasant."

for  vegeta,  wealth  had  never  been  measured  by  accumulation.  saiyan royalty  had  never  meant  surrounding  oneself  with  possessions  until  there  was  nowhere  left  to  walk.  it  meant  every  object  occupying  its  proper  place,  every  room  maintained  with  discipline. later  came  frieza's  army,  in which  personal  space  was even  scarcer  than  it  had  been  inside  the  royal  palace. 

bulma  had  never  known  that  life.

she  had  grown  up  in  a  house  where  every  room  expanded  into  another,  where  invention  spilled  naturally  across  tables and  countertops  because  there  had  always  been  another  room  to  work  in  if  one  became  full.  ideas  arrived  faster  than  she  could  put  them  away,  and  dr.  briefs  had  never  cared  whether  an  engine  component  rested  beside  a  bottle  of  perfume  if  both  were  being  used.

she  steadied  the  housing  with  one  hand  and  turned  the  screwdriver  another  quarter  rotation  before  reconnecting  the  power  supply.

a  row  of  indicator  lights  cycled  red. yellow. green. she  watched  the  diagnostic  report  scroll  across  the  nearest  monitor,  scanned  the  values  for  anything  unusual,  then  nodded  once  to  herself.

"there  we  go." a  quiet  rustle  pulled  her  attention  toward  the  neighboring  bench; one  of  her  father's  cats  had  made  itself  comfortable  beside  a  stack  of  technical  manuals,  sprawled  beneath  the  warmth  drifting  from  a  monitor  as  though  the  laboratory  belonged  to  it.  bulma  looked  over  the  rim  of  her  safety  glasses  and  frowned. "... how  are  you  still  alive?"

"hey,  bulma!!  you  got  a  sec?"

the  voice  cut  through  the  open  laboratory  window. she  jerked  hard  enough  to  nearly  drop  the  screwdriver  before  instinctively  pointing  it  toward  the  source  like  a  pistol. "...gohan!" she let out a breath she did not realize she was holding, prying the window open farther. "one of these days you're gonna use the front door like a normal person." like father, like son.

[monkison]

@vulgarbulma

“ aww, really, bulma? ” gohan whined as he drifted closer to the open window, his fast twisting stupidly into an incredulous frown no honest effort could keep off his face. there was no way bulma briefs, of all people, could invoke the behavior of a normal person with complete sincerity. bewildering might as well have been printed beside her name in the dictionary, and her remarks accounted for no small portion of the definition.

“ you married an alien, collected magical wish-granting balls with my dad who barely hit puberty, and made a time travel machine. i think me using the window is pretty mild by comparison. ”

his feet planted against the outer ledge, perfectly balanced against an otherwise impossible vantage point to do that from. he wanted to be mindful of the inside and disturb anything—or whatever invisible system bulma used to organize the apparent disorder. gohan leaned halfway through the opening. his purpose for being here would be made apparent enough, with the red cape of the green-and-black fabric dangling low enough to make his reason behind the visit increasingly difficult to disguise.

“ besides, i figured i’d save us both the walk. from the looks of it, you're locked in. i can't even hear trunks making no noise. ”

his curious eyes traveled across the overwhelmingly crowded laboratory before returning to her, accompanied by a suspiciously innocent smile that had never been particularly skilled at concealing when he wanted something. he's the same little gohan that would bug her about anything he set his eyes on when it came to her nifty inventions.

“ so... what'cha working on anyway, bulma? anything i can help with? ”

[monkison]

@videltm

“ honey, you look really out of it. ”

gohan paused just inside their bedroom, evidence of guilt already plastered plainly across his face. lately, his schedule had kept him buried up to the neck in fieldwork, lectures, and university obligations, with no clear opening in sight. honestly, his life had become one enormous sign demanding that he make some radical adjustments—anything that would keep so much of the strain of raising pan from settling on videl’s shoulders.

“ she must’ve been a real handful today. ”

he sighed, maintaining a weary smile as he approached her. it remained a mystery whether pan’s abundance of energy came from her saiya-jin blood or the satan side of the family. despite everything his own father was capable of, gohan remained convinced that little in this world compared to his father-in-law’s inexhaustible stamina. even in old age, mr. satan was a lot to contend with.

that was saying something when master roshi occupied a place among your acquaintances.

gohan sat beside videl and rested a hand gently against her back.

“ i think i’ve accumulated enough hours to take the next week off. i’ll handle pan and everything around the house. you need some time where nobody’s asking you for anything, yeah? ”

[vgeta]

Make me choose:

Anonymous asked: 18 and Krillin or Gohan and Videl

[monkison]

@videltm : history of trunks: mirai hanvi verse.

peace never came in abundance during these days.

every step gohan made toward it seemed to cost him another ten. food had become a matter of security. clean air depended on where the androids had last passed through. even the privilege of silence arrived in scraps, surviving in isolated corners of the world where the mountains still stood and the water had escaped contamination.

he discovered such corner beside a spring.

the water traveled steadily between the rocks, clear enough for him to see pebbles resting beneath its surface. trees crowded around it in uneven ranks, their branches knitting together overhead and sheltering the ground from the harsher reach of the sun. gohan rested close to the bank, settling cross-legged, and listened intently.

pristine water flowing over stone. insects actively hunting their prey under the cover of bladed grass. a small herd of deer grazing several yards behind him. leaves stirring whenever the wind found its way between the trees, sweeping them across the forest floor in harmless whirlwinds.

for a little while, nothing screamed, cried, or exploded.

healing was harder to attain. much of it depended upon whatever philosophy a person could gather from the wake of destruction, and whether the mind possessed the strength to give pain some meaning after it had already taken everything it wanted.

physically, his tears still burned.

no training in this universe could toughen his skin against his own tears. he could outrun the androids, endure impacts that cratered mountains, and force his body upright after wounds that should have buried him ceremonially. his fountain of grief remained unimpressed by all of it. there was no fleeing it, and there was no stopping it once it came—much like the two figures who had issued the world its prolonged sentence of condemnation.

gohan lowered his head, scoffed through gritted teeth and watched several tears disturb the spring.

“ them’s the breaks, ” yajirobe used to say.

perhaps they were.

it still was not fair to any living creature on this planet, or any other one. he refused to accept that suffering was simply the natural order of things, along with any other defeatist rhetoric that demanded his surrender.

right now, all he needed was just to steal some time for some peace of mind. once he gathered himself, he would worry about his next move.

as long as there was breath in his body, he would resist—whether his enemies were androids or the gods themselves.

[monkison]

@fourstarboy | continued.

“oh, y-yeah. of course. sorry. i suppose i overreacted. ” a faint red of embarrassment colored his cheeks.

his eyes struggled to remain on the boy for another second, but an overwhelming wave of curiosity managed to maintain focus. seeing his father this small—scraped from climbing trees, entirely unaware of the battles waiting for him—continued to disturb every expectation gohan had formed over a lifetime.

“ it’s honestly perplexing to see you like this, dad. ” he said, softly, barely audible for the young goku's ears. then his attention shifted beyond goku’s shoulder. the red staff resting against his back was unmistakable.

gohan’s expression burned bright.

“ wow, it’s nice to see that again! ” he pointed toward the sentimental weapon. it pulled him back during a time in childhood when dad had passed it down to him when he turned nine.

when his dad was gone, it was on the closest keepsakes he had. he'd train with it until he was able to feel the burn in his palm. when videl ( @videltm ) had pan, he very much had it in mind to give it to his daughter. “ the power pole. oh boy, i haven’t seen that thing in years. ”

[monkison]

@vulgarbulma

gohan liked heroes.

his life had begun because of two of them, if the stories his mother told him were to be trusted. there was so much passion in her voice whenever she spoke about those first years with his father that he could not help believing every word.

before he had even reached eleven, he understood how thoroughly heroism ran through his family and the people gathered around it. piccolo had once pursued domination and the death of his father. vegeta had arrived on earth prepared to destroy it, with no remorse trailing behind him. their collisions with goku had forced both men onto different paths, however gradual and imperfect those changes proved to be. gohan himself would eventually become essential to piccolo’s transformation.

sometimes, gohan felt like a shadow moving across the vast, astronomical scale of his father’s reputation. on some level, he understood vegeta’s impassioned need to measure himself against it

superiority had never interested gohan. the perception of a son defeating his father merely so he could confidently pronounce himself the better warrior was a concept he never held; no cell in his body urged him toward it. his father may be skyline eclipsing many, but that didn't sour him on his own dad. what goku inspired in him was the desire to discover the full dimensions of his own power—to throw himself headlong into the familiar, chaotic world that had raised him and finally occupy it on his own terms.

the heroes gohan discovered after becoming a city student were different from those he had known in the mountains.

they appeared between television programs, across comic-book covers and advertisements, bedazzled in bright armor and capes while announcing themselves with a compelling, dynamic voices to the masses before delivering justice.

gohan had known warriors capable of splitting planets apart and reducing them into atoms. there was still something uniquely appealing about heroes who made an event out of arriving.

perhaps that explained more about the great saiyaman than he cared to examine.

the persona gave his strength a language that belonged specifically to him. it allowed gohan to take the power inherited from a nearly cosmically lost culture and filter it through the heroic imagery earth had taught him to love. where his father had become an icon almost accidentally, gohan had designed one for himself: colorful, theatrical, sincere, and occasionally embarrassing whenever he adamantly performed the poses for too long.

it was still his—and actually have fun while doing so! so, how could he ever lose?

years later, the familiar green-and-black suit remained folded perfectly beneath one arm as gohan descended toward capsule corporation. his shoes settled lightly upon the lawn. blades of grass planted against the earth while several insects scattered from the sudden arrival.

he lifted his eyes toward the nearest laboratory window.

“ hey, bulma!! you got a sec? ”

[monkison]

@videltm

there had scarcely been a period in gohan’s life when somebody else did not have a claim on his time.

if piccolo and pan were not waiting to consume a good portion of his time to train, there was university business to attend; another manuscript to review in a stuffy office, or some public obligation attached to being the husband of mr. satan’s daughter, videl. marrying his high school sweetheart had brought him into a family the world believed it already knew as if they shared blood. privacy had become one of the excruciating expenses of fame. people crowded around the satan name with their hands extended like beggars, eager for a photograph, practically salivating at the mouth for an autograph like a pack of ravenous wolves. the opportunity to say they had once occupied the same room as a satan was like sustenance. it was honestly scary.

gohan still had difficulty understanding the appetite for it.

there were moments when the sound of his back breaking against mountains and ki splitting the atmosphere around him seemed more ordinary than hundreds of voices calling his name at once. battling a world-ending threat was hardly normal for the average person, but gohan, despite his aversion to violence, sometimes found it more agreeable than enduring such high concentrated praise in one setting.

praise was harder to defend himself against.

“ professor son, could you sign this one for my daughter? and her blue belt, please! my little munchkin hasn’t missed a day of training ever since we picked up your book. when i heard you were on this side of town, i just had to come for her! ”

“ aww, of course! i’m glad to hear that. and hey, don’t forget to have her take breaks. there’s no reason for her to overexert herself if she doesn’t give her body enough time to properly process the workout. ”

gohan’s marker moved across another title page faster than any eye in the room could follow. he signed the blue belt next, followed by a third object that slid underneath his hand before he could identify it.

the line coiled through the interior of the bookstore like a human snake way, disappearing somewhere beyond his field of vision. camera shutters clicked from several directions. every few seconds, one of the event coordinators reminded the crowd that photographs were to be brief.

gohan smiled for the next one anyway. when the woman apologized for taking too long, he softly assured her that it was okay, even as some private portion of him strained to free itself from the suffocating event.

gohan had been a child of the mountains, after all.

however how well-adjusted he may seem to life in the city, stubborn portions of him remained a country boy accustomed to morning birds singing to him outside his window instead of telephone calls ringing beside it. his toes nearly curled at the thought of the soothing texture of earth, the smell of chi-chi's breakfast traveling through an open window while he bathed outside, and the small conversations shared between farming families who had known the sons long enough to insist that their produce was the best in the region.

one day, he wanted to bring videl and pan back there. maybe permanently, and hopefully before age collected its payment in wrinkles, aching joints, and sagging skin.

videl remained a city girl down to the marrow. when they were teenagers, she probably would have stared at him as though he had grown another head and tail if he had proposed moving several hours away from satan city. a fair assumption to make at the time, considering she had nearly bitten his head off when he innocently suggested that her pigtails might become a hindrance during a fight.

he had not understood the severity of the offense at the time. gohan had never developed much attachment to his own hair. left unattended, it seemed determined to grow into a forest. whether that came from his saiya-jin genetics or the son family in general remained an unanswered biological question.

asking videl to leave the city would have carried considerably more weight than a haircut, though. her father remained there. whatever personal reservations gohan had once held about mr. satan, he understood what distance could do to a family. being separated from someone so meaningful to your life could summon a physical ache all its own.

he felt that same pull toward mount paozu now.

another book slid underneath his hand, and he met it with a soft sigh.

what had once existed privately inside gohan’s head now sat printed in thousands of hands. decades of knowledge gathered from warrior-scholars, gods, aliens, martial artists, and repeated critiques of his own physical and mental limitations had gradually been opened to the public. he had organized one portion of that knowledge into his first book: a study of ki, its relationship to the body, and the philosophical disciplines required to wield it without allowing power to consume one’s judgment.

mr. satan’s money and publicity apparatus had ensured that the book reached nearly every major market on earth. the scholarship had kept it there.

sales climbed beyond anything gohan had anticipated. universities eagerly requested lectures. martial artists built schools around his theories. publishers demanded additional volumes. committees asked him to oversee training standards for institutions attempting to teach ki control to ordinary people without leaving craters across populated districts.

the work mattered to him on a deep level. earth had spent too long depending upon the same small circle of fighters whenever catastrophe arrived. if his research could give humanity a stronger understanding of its own latent abilities, then every signing, interview, and sleepless evening had some practical value.

his wrist still hurt.

“ professor son? ”

gohan lifted his head.

a boy stood on the opposite side of the table, holding a copy of the book against his chest. he could not have been much older than gohan was when piccolo first took him into the wilderness.

“do you really think anybody can learn ki?”

the event coordinator gestured urgently for him to keep the line moving.

gohan rested his marker beside the book.

“ yeah! almost everyone possesses it, ” he said, his smile brightening. “ learning to recognize it is usually the hardest part. don’t begin by trying to make something explode, though. breathing exercises are much safer for you and everyone standing around you. ”

when the boy nodded with grave attention, his ears seeming to perk toward the ceiling.

“ and listen to your instructor, especially about the exploding part. please. the last thing any of us needs is the city coming after us for property damage. ” gohan clasped his hands together in a gesture of genuine appeal.

that earned a laugh from the boy’s mother and several people standing nearby. underneath his signature, gohan added the address to tien’s school. there was a lively current inside the boy’s energy, and tien would know how to cultivate it safely if he ever decided to pursue more serious training. gohan returned the book and watched the pair disappear into the crowd.

then the noise closed around him again.

voices overlapped until individual words dissolved into a continuous pressure against his ear. the flashes reflected from his glasses in sharp, intermittent bursts, each one assaulting the corners of his vision. it was like being struck by krillin's solar flares every few seconds. his courteous smile had begun to sag at the corners, allowing his exhaustion to show through.

gohan's mind wandered back to breakfast at chi-chi's.

around this time, she would have filled the table with steaming rice, miso soup, grilled fish, and perhaps a bowl of pickles for a satisfying crunch. he wondered what she had cooked that morning and whether there were any leftovers. for several seconds, he seriously considered requesting a thirty-minute break and flying over to see for himself.

he decided it was probably best to remain where he was.

had he appeared at her door, his mother would have complained that he looked thin as a shrew regardless of his visible musculature. once he mentioned the signing, she would have beamed with all the pride a mother could contain and ordered him to take his butt back there and appreciate every second of it.

according to her, the world owed him and his father far more gratitude than it could ever properly express.

gohan would have disagreed without saying so. he knew better.

the world’s affection concerned him less than its ability to protect itself. all he wanted was for people to read his work, apply themselves, and learn enough to stand on their own when danger came. still, his mother would have told him that refusing kindness was its own form of bad manners. she would have reminded him that pan was watching and that he needed to set an example for her.

he could already hear her saying it.

he could already hear himself agreeing.

so he kept signing.

questions whizzed across the table faster than he could catch them. one person asked whether super saiya-jins required a different nutritional plan. gohan chuckled at first, then found himself seriously considering how transformation might alter caloric expenditure and metabolic demand.

another man attempted to explain gohan’s own theory of ki circulation back to him, incorrectly and at considerable length.

whew.

that one required the event coordinators to begin behaving like security.

still, gohan signed.

he signed until one of the coordinators appeared beside his shoulder and gently removed the marker from his fingers.

“ your wife’s arrived, gohan, sir. ”

“ videl!? wher-where?! ”

his exhaustion vanished.

gohan’s eyes widened like a frog’s, any concern for maintaining a composed public expression forgotten as he searched frantically through the crowd for his wife.

[boardsdonthitback]

Tony Jaa - Ong Bak (2003)

[entheognosis]

Seek to understand the root. It is futile to argue as to which single leaf, which design of branch, or which attractive flower you like; when you understand the root, you understand all its blossoming.

Bruce Lee

[monkison]

@videltm | credit: [ x. ]