Grandmother Ran was the nicest of those memories. A cold woman, she spent more time with her grandchildren than her children and Suwoong was no exception. It was probably the finest sign of her strength, the way she avoided coddling her sickly grandson more than the others. A boy heir, to Aing-Ran, was not any more important than the girls. Especially a boy who could pass away at any moment. But, she made her dues, paid the bills and got him the best treatment plans. It meant he got to see more of her than most children are blessed with and some of those days, the weekdays that Suwoong remembers distinctly, were spent with her. Laid in bed with blankets and warmth as some film prattled on the television set and his grandmother rambled to the air and Suwoong about meaning, truth, passion.
Without those things, she always said, the films would be nothing more than colors on a headache box. Suwoong remembered that. He loved them the same as her, reveled in the songs and dance, cried with the loss and endings. Those days almost made him forget about everything else.
So, they called him a fighter for it, a little soldier who managed to still laugh now and again and smile. Like living was the difficult part when it wasn't a choice he had. The treatments, they thought, were helping and as each year passed into another they almost hoped that Suwoong would be able to actually survive his disease and live on. They were wrong, the doctors said, when Suwoong collapsed and had to be brought in a few weeks after his ninth birthday. It'd taken a turn for the worst. The doctors had always warned them that all it took was one episode, one bad reaction, and he could be lost. But Suwoong was a fighter. A little soldier, they said, and did everything they could to save him.
He remembers the pain, vaguely. It came like red flashes in dreams. Like suddenly the sky was burning and bits of it was touching his skin. He couldn't swat it off fast enough, couldn't do anything, until suddenly he was nowhere and everywhere at once. His brain functions fell to barely there at all and his heart slowed. It beat, which gave both his parents hope, but they weren't sure if he would survive another surgery. It was Aing-Ran who forced them to continue the work; her grandson would either come back whole or die completely. There were no in-betweens. To Suwoong, it didn't matter, because he was already long gone somewhere else.
Through her, Suwoong learned everything. If he willed it well enough, it would be. They started with clothes, with basic knowledge. Safety came next, sitting on Sapphira's back all the way to civilization where Suwoong began to learn. Because going home, that wasn't an option. He couldn't click his heels three times and wish for it. There wasn't even a golden brick road to follow to some great wizard that could teach him. Instead, Sapphira insisted it was Suwoong who was the Wizard here. He was the great and powerful ruler. He was the one that could change everything and anything, even the evil witch of the world named Carmilla.
There was an evil witch. Suwoong could hardly believe it, until the town he stayed at was attacked. Monsters with no faces and beings burned like blackened ash moved through the world in fantasy and strife. Smoke drifted off them like smearing of lead and Suwoong couldn't believe it at all. But Sapphira didn't let him have time not to. Instead, she forced the boy to fight where he had to, to fight where he could. Because fighting, fighting was survival. A law of nature. A law of the world.
Suwoong had to be a brave little soldier. A strong little fighter. And there was no other option.
Life toiled, slowly and surely. In a few weeks time he'd helped a city build off the thoughts of a child. In a few months, an army. He learned, surely and slowly, the casting of magic and his understanding of Otherplace. Suwoong named it, too, a nameless dimension before him that seemed to exist in pause for him. In wait. Carmilla had tried to take over before he could come and the people, they had little to go off of. But while she'd built her army another group had built themselves together, too; Sapphira took Suwoong to meet the Sisterhood of Wind so he could really train properly. It felt like years even though he didn't grow, didn't age; it felt like aeons by the time Suwoong actually felt sufficient enough to try and take on Carmilla in the darkest corner of Otherplace.
The fight was on he will never forget. Most nights, it still haunts him vaguely, little tattered black wings coming in on the edges of dreams like maybe there's someone there waiting to grab him and take him away. She didn't cackle like the witches in movies but she moved like liquid shadows; she was scratches and drip at once and Suwoong thinks, probably, if he hadn't had the thought of his grandmother in heart he would never have been able to strike out against Carmilla to overcome. One strike through the heart and she was gone; the darkness lingered but her throne fell apart, her castle slipped into ruin. It was a nice moment, a lovely moment, and then it was gone as quickly as it had come.
And they had much too much work to do for his body.
For the better part of a year, Suwoong was mute. He could understand everything people said and respond, in his own ways, but speaking back was nearly impossible; his vocal chords would never be the same, they said, and lessons began on how to control them properly. It took a long time and much too much patience but, by the end, his voice was his own tool again. One that falters in stress and fades fast but exists, surely, and loudly when he needs it to. It was the easiest part of the transition. It was the only part of it that anyone really expected to have to actually deal with.
Suwoong took to drawing, while he couldn't speak. He would write down messages and leave sketches alongside them. He'd read, too, so he could learn phrases and habits to return to people in kind. Comic books were wonders, the bright strong colors all so sure in their pages that he felt an understanding. A whole creation there underneath his fingertips, a whole world. He began to speak like his own life was one of those little stories, one of those little comic books. Suwoong was hungry. Suwoong was tired. Aing-Ran was pretty. Shinae was nice. His family was concerned, until they found out what happened.
It's been hard to figure out if Suwoong's family has ever really accepted the requite of his nature. They let him go to train, of course, but never questioned much about what actually happened there. The Otherplace was not real, not a domain; it was trickery of his mind. The only member of his family who has even actually questioned what he was doing; she freaked out the first time Suwoong showed her a portal but she came back later, a little messenger bag in hand with Suwoong's named stitched into it and told him to remember Mary Poppins. To this day, it's still his easiest way to let people process his gift. Like being made of magic is at least simpler to understand.
She's also the only member of his family to have ever seen Sapphira's true form, before Rara became a kitten perched on Suwoong's bed. The rest never questioned where the cat came from, a visitor that Suwoong had brought back in training from Otherplace. Because she had needed to keep protecting him, to keep him safe. The Sisterhood had a stranglehold on the universe as it was, they were able to keep things in line. And Suwoong, he was strong now as he grew older, stronger than anyone expected. If even a storm comes to pass in Otherplace he can feel it drift through his thoughts and heart.
There was nothing left to worry about, as long as he could keep the two places far apart from one another.
As Alice fell into Wonderland, Suwoong was pulled into Otherplace. Though there are places of
In this world, Suwoong is Lord; he is divine enough to shift it into all he chooses and his powers are endless. Outside of Otherplace, Suwoong is fragile, at best. The very nature of his Requite was ownership of a personal dimension; the growth of it is by the whim of a child who did not want to wake into a place where he would ever be absolutely alone. Because of it, on Earth Suwoong can, in the easiest manner, teleport. He chooses to move himself into Otherplace so traveling becomes simple, a dauntless task, and returns to our dimension with ease. While he can teleport to other dimensions if he saw fit the outcome would be, well, awkward at best; without being well versed in the geography of where he portals he wouldn't really be able to know where to land safely. Even on Earth he sometimes misses by a long shot, ending up in the sea when he meant to slip into someone's home.
In essence, within Otherplace, Suwoong is a god. There is nothing beyond his imagination or capability of doing; it exists because he does and he exists within it as totality. On Earth, however, he is at best a mystical boy, able to drag his gifts from another realm with wear and tear. While Suwoong can easily traverse the worlds and bring with him delicate gifts ㅡ gusts of wind, weaponry, bursts of energy, technology and even animals or people ㅡ larger events are taxing on his body. The larger a thing he tries to do, such as creating a dangerous storm or summoning spirits of the undead, the longer it takes Suwoong's head to recover and return completely to Earth. Should he ever try and push too far, too hard, too fast... he might get stuck in Otherplace forever.
As Supreme Ruler of Otherplace, Suwoong's gifts are limitless. He can create, destroy and manifest anything on a whim; creatures, societies, stuctures of land and planets are all playthings in Otherplace. There's danger, of course, but only as much danger as Suwoong believes to exist within it; if he were about to die at the hand of a beast or monster he would only have to know that the monster could not kill him for it to stop. It is, within the realm of his creation, a total control of reality and its finest core.
On Earth, that gives Suwoong limited deitific attachments. His body is susceptible to severe harm here but is in less need of sustenance; he can go without much rest, food or even breathing for extended periods of time without it damaging him or his physical form. He can heal his form, though, with bouts of meditation; even if he were to lose a limb, it would take a week to grow it back, in slow meditation and channeling of Otherplace into our reality. The biggest downfall of his Lordship here is that Suwoong is fully capable of dying on Earth. His body would fall to it and his spirit would be stuck in his own realm, forever doomed to live in Otherplace unless something on Earth managed to make his vessel proper again.
In this way, his physical form is his anchor. So, Suwoong needs time to work his gifts. He can cast a spell and read a fortune on a whim, parlor trick levels of magic and control, but if he wanted to try to change the weather or traverse time it would drain him; he'd need a few moments to even lock himself in to being able to open a portal proper enough for it. And, well, that's difficult. So, he typically stays to using his actual portals.
Suwoong's portals work like Blackholes. They are a brief opening of time and space between worlds. The visual is one most would survey and survive, a kind of vortex of reality bleeding into a whirlpool of nothing that opens into a whole other universe of vivid colors and creations. But Suwoong figures most people don't want to see those; when he can, he opens them as small, in the pocket spaces of his clothes or a bag he tries to keep on him. Otherwise, his portals are quick and easily manipulated. Suwoong could create a link of portals that would drive a mind insane; by falling into one a person would continue to drift through them without control until they ended up caught somewhere on the other side of the planet -- or the universe.
■ is a meer 166cm in height, shorter than he cares for
■ fan of showtunes; took a few voice lessons but he's not great
■ freelance artist working mostly for marvel studios
■ likes to swim but only with his shirt on it's a thing
■ does not have a driver's license with which to survive
■ career lifted from actual comic artist julian totino tedesco
■ always has snacks on him. he's a bottomless pit of a boy
■ collects cute bags to open smaller portals in for daily use
■ because she's gotten lazy rara normally looks like a kitten
■ wears baggy tops and tight bottoms since it's hard to find proper pants
■ was nominated for an eisner award for best newcomer in 2010
