Welcome to my liveblog for Dakari King Mykan's The End of Ends, a crossover between Teen Titans and Super Paper Mario. Let's start by discussing how the works involved come into play.
You may know it as the story of five teenage superheroes from the DC universe working together and fighting crime.
In the second season, the group is introduced to another teen with powers, known as Terra, one of many such individuals the group meets. She struggles with controlling her powers, but hits it off well with Beast Boy, so the Titans tentatively offer to keep in touch with her.
Unfortunately, Terra has also fallen in with Slade, and, working for him, infiltrates the Titans to do his bidding. She ends up getting closer to Beast Boy, but when the truth comes out, she and the Titans fight each other. After Terra is defeated, Slade turns her into a puppet for her failure, but Beast Boy gets through to her, convincing her to switch sides and defeat Slade. Terra ultimately achieves redemption at the apparent cost of her life, stopping Slade and the volcano she created, and resulting in Terra being turned into a stone statue.
One would think that this would end here, but surprisingly enough, it didn't. Fast forward to the series finale, and the Titans happen upon Terra, who claims to not remember Beast Boy, no matter what he tries. At the end of the episode, Terra leaves Beast Boy with the following words.
Get used to hearing that; the line is referenced a fair amount in this fanfic. She does say a bit after that (that he's the Teen Titan and that she's the one with a math test she hasn't studied for), but this is the most important and frequently referenced part.
It's understandable that people would be dissatisfied with this ending, even apart from BB/Terra shippers. Very little is resolved, particularly since there was apparently supposed to be a sixth season, but the show was canceled (which would go a long ways in explaining what the white monster the Titans spent the entire episode fighting was).
At the same time, however, it would have seemed unnatural for Terra to simply come back and rejoin the Titans after everything that had happened; Raven reminds us that Terra "wasn't exactly a good guy" before, indicating her betrayal has not been forgotten. And, of course, all this is not even going into how Terra actually has redeeming qualities in the show that she never did in the comics.
So where and how does Super Paper Mario come into play?
Super Paper Mario was one of the earliest releases on the Wii, similar to the Paper Mario games but having more emphasis on sidescroller elements. This change is somewhat divisive, but I personally enjoyed it.
The plot of the game is unusually dark for a Mario game. A villain named Count Bleck is trying to use an artifact known as the Chaos Heart to bring all worlds into oblivion, to fulfill the prophecy of the Dark Prognosticus. He is assisted by his minions- Nastasia, Dimentio, Mimi and O'Chunks, who go to various worlds to impede the heroes' efforts to stop him.
Over the course of the first seven worlds, Mario and his companions- his brother Luigi, Princess Peach, Bowser and a Pixl named Tippy- seek out the Pure Hearts, even though Count Bleck succeeds in the sixth world, sending the entire Samurai themed world into the Void and temporarily thwarting the heroes' efforts to claim the power of that Pure Heart. Thankfully, Mario and the others are not deterred so easily, and in the end, they collect all the hearts.
In the eighth world, the heroes travel to Castle Bleck, fighting the way through the castle and battling Count Bleck's remaining minions. On the way there, they encounter Dimentio and realize that he wishes to betray Count Bleck for deceiving him, but since Dimentio's no better, Luigi engages him in a battle. The heroes then uncover Count Bleck's motives. In the past, he, formerly known as Blumiere, fell in love with Timpani, a woman from another tribe, but when his father banished her to almost certain death, he lost all hope and sought destruction. Unbeknownst to him, however, Timpani survived, and is none other than Tippy.
The heroes defeat Count Bleck, but he is then betrayed by Dimentio, who possesses Luigi, and, fusing with him and utilizng the Chaos Heart's power, becomes a giant monster. Mario, Peach and Bowser, however, are able to defeat Super Dimentio, saving Luigi, but the threat of the Chaos Heart remains. In a final act of redemption, Count Bleck and Timpani stop the Chaos Heart with the power of the Pure Hearts, seemingly disappearing forever.
Those are the most relevant events from the plot, and the fic essentially follows this plot, making it entirely predictable if you've played the game.
So now for a bit of information about the author himself.
Dakari King Mykan is a fanfic writer who's primarily been active in Teen Titans, Digimon, Sixteen and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (in spite of the fact that he utterly loathes the latter with a passion) fandoms.
Due to many issues in his life, from his failure to achieve a career as a voice actor, to supporting ships that were doomed from the start (apart from BB/Terra, he also shipped Davis/Kari, aka "Dakari"), he is highly bitter, and this comes through in his fanfics. Many of his fanfics are intended to punish those he dislikes for ruining the lives of the characters he likes, often by making the victims suffer even more and forcing the offenders to realize what they've done.
You can see a great deal of the authors in their work, so it's hardly surprising that those aspects of him come across in his fanfics, particularly when Mykan isn't very subtle about it. With that out of the way, let's get into the work itself.
- Next Installment: Unable to come to terms with Terra's amnesia, Beast Boy becomes desperate to find some way to bring her back.
