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[It's taken some time for him to sit down and actually try this because every instinct he has is screaming at him that it's not allowed. The rules toys follow aren't just something they choose to follow, they're instinct. Instinct they can fight, certainly - like when he and Sid's toys had scared Sid - but instinct nevertheless.]

[But this is a special circumstance and maybe Buzz has the right idea. One of the big people had been nice to him, sabotaging his back switch so it didn't actually change anything when switched to demo mode.]

[This situation is so much bigger than them, bigger than any other chaotic situation they've ever faced, bigger even than their little prison break at Sunnyside. What's an escape from a daycare compared to an otherdimensional...whatever? A place where magical shock devices have been put inside them and now they're being expected to, what, go on missions? His only job is being huggable and good for playing pretend. How that's supposed to translate to "missions" is beyond him.]

[In any case, it's so big that maybe he and Buzz need a little help from the big people. Or at least for them to know the two toys hanging around are actually alive.]

[But that doesn't mean it's easy to talk to them. He decides to do it first over text. And decides to maybe test the waters a little instead of launching right into "Hi I'm woody, I'm a talking rag doll."]

[The comm is almost as big as he is, so he has to rely on the voice-to-text to type anything because it's so much work hitting all the buttons.]

Hi. Hello. So.

How nonhuman would someone have to be for you all to think they were too weird for you to want to deal with? Asking for a friend.

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I'm getting my friend, but that isn't a confirmation. I might just want to hear the story. You're about to tell it, aren't you.

[He goes and gets Buzz and they settle in front of his comm.]

Okay, he's here with me.

Sure it's not.

[In the library, Bunny sets his comm up to record, and crouches with a dog-eared children's paperback picture book.]

You better get comfy. Ahem. "There was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid-"

[Unsurprisingly, the Easter Bunny reads a children's story like he's no stranger to Storytime, all warm slow sincerity and pausing for the right emotional beats, despite the fact that he can't see his audience. Not initially, anyway, because as he gets a few pages in, a little face peeps around the shelf behind him, and Bunny pauses to let a little Katiri girl and her small sister take a seat just on the edge of the camera.

With an actual audience to focus on, Bunny sits proper, tilting towards the children instead of the camera.]

"'What is REAL?' asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. 'Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?'

'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'

'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit.

'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.'"

[Three more kids join two pages later, sitting in front of the communicator, not enough to block the audio, but enough for whatever audience Bunny has on the digital end to see the kids reacting to the story, sad parts and beautiful parts and all.

Something about the passage of the wild rabbits dancing in the forest makes even Bunny wipe away a small, dignified tear, held back through the force of sheer professionalism.]

"-And about his little soft nose and his round black eyes there was something familiar, so that the Boy thought to himself:

'Why, he looks just like my old Bunny that was lost when I had scarlet fever!'

But he never knew that it really was his own Bunny, come back to look at the child who had first helped him to be Real."

[The child who sat down for the story last, halfway through, pipes up "Read it again!" and is followed by a chorus of "Again, please!" and how in this world or any other could Bunny say no?

He addresses the communicator before turning it off.] Be with you in a few, mate.

Edited 2020-06-23 10:42 (UTC)

[It was a slow creeping sort of feeling that built up over the course of the story, but slow in the way a tsunami takes some time to build.]

[It is rare that stories ever 100% hit home like this, because most stories are written for people. Not from the perspective of toys.]

[But it hits home and hits hard. Woody is sobbing by the end of it, for more reasons than even Buzz understands, reasons that go back to a little boy with glasses getting sick before the polio vaccine, and after he got better, whisking him and Slink out of a pile of infected books and clothes and toys and bedding meant to go into a bonfire. Whispering for them to sleep long and deeply after hiding them in the attic, and them believing they should so hard that they did.]

[Followed by a grown man, also with glasses, sick again, placing them in the hands of his five-year-old son, making Woody dance around in his hands.]

["This is an old friend of mine and anytime you miss me and I can't be around, he'll be there to help take care of you for me..."]

That's the best story I've ever heard.

[He has to choke out to Buzz between sobs.]

Edited 2020-06-23 11:03 (UTC)

[Buzz took longer to be impacted, not having gotten a chance to clarify at the start if this is a documentary or -

- or clearly a story, about something fanciful, because it's not like some fairy is ever going to rise out of a magic tear to make them a real cowboy and spaceman, and he started the story out feeling slightly attacked, wondering if any of the toys think he in his delusion was being dismissive of them? How dismissive was he, he has to wonder -?

But having met other makes of his model and other toys in general who don't seem to have much going on under the surface, he has his own ideas about his own Realness and imaginative, loving Andy's impact on that. No one can deny that his first kid loved him, for something more than just his cool gadgets and cartoon theme song, and that has given him some personhood that has been eclipsed temporarily, but never totally gone away.

He manages to keep it barely together as Woody sobs, patting the ragdoll on the back.]

I can't believe Mom never read that one to Andy. What a thoughtful story. Such an empathetic take.

Edited 2020-06-23 11:20 (UTC)

[The author is a literary genius, clearly.]

[It takes a little bit for Woody to simmer down slightly, but he does manage to gradually do it.]

It's like the author knew how to just get right into our heads.

I can't get over that poor kid, though. All his toys burned after he was sick. He must have been devastated when the excitement of the beach trip wore off.

[Andy, a healthy kid, never had anything worse than a stomach flu or respiratory infection, but he'd clung real hard to either Woody or Buzz or both during those times.]

That's been one of the most rewarding roles, being capable of comforting your kid when they're sick.

[And there Woody goes sobbing again and he's doing it rather hard, when he normally is not this emotional, even over a deeply moving story like one this toy-centric.]

[Woody didn't even get like this after Andy gave them to Bonnie.]

Edited 2020-06-23 11:32 (UTC)

[That is so much more crying than Buzz expected.]

Are you okay?

[Obviously not but - Buzz pats Woody on the back again.]

You're crying a lot more than I thought you would.

Edited 2020-06-23 11:35 (UTC)

[It takes him a bit more time to simmer again, but this time he's actually able to make it stick.]

[He's not 100% sure he actually wants to talk about it. Sometimes he does a little bit with Slink but that's different. Sometimes you talk about the things you don't want to forget with the other toys that don't want to forget either.]

[He eventually gives a half-hearted little shrug.]

I've been around a long time, Buzz. Even longer than Slink.

[He'd come into their first room first.]

[There is a reason that while other toys have sometimes referred to Andy as his first owner, Woody doesn't. Andy is his old owner, his past owner, his last owner.]

[But he never uses the word "first." Like Mom had told Al when he wanted to buy him, he was an old family toy. That implied other family.]

Some of it just hit a little close too home is all.

How close?

[Around long enough to have had another kid he doesn't talk about?

Not even to Buzz? Is it because the kid died?]

You don't have to tell me, but -

[But oh goodness that implies so much devastation that Buzz has never even remotely touched on, manufactured as he was in the age of the MMR vaccine.]

You can if you want to. You know that, right?

[He doesn't want him to worry. That's what ultimately motivates him to speak. And it's not a secret, just...something people don't think to ask him.]

Most polio cases tapered off right when they did all the vaccines but there were still some cases in the sixties and seventies. Sometimes parents were afraid to vaccinate kids if their health wasn't great to start with. They worried about their constitutions.

Slink and I's first owner got sick with it and was sick for a long time. A long, long time. All the way into his teens. He recovered, but it was a long road getting there. [His face waxes over with similar fondness to the times he speaks about Andy but this is a little less fresh.] He always wanted me at his side, day or night. It didn't exactly make it easy for me to get some time to myself, but I never cared.

[The fond expression fades.]

But then he got better. He was getting older so most of his toys had been put in the attic. While he was sick, they tried to limit all his toys to ones that could be sterilized easily, ones they felt comfortable keeping.

Except for me and Slink. They worried about me being made of cloth and about Slink's ears. But they let him keep us because we were his favorites, the ones he kept with him even after everyone else in the room got put away.

Until he got better. Then even though it would've been fine if they just washed us, they were scared he'd get sick again. They wanted to be extra careful. So they started talking about us and the books and the bed linens and a bonfire.

[He continues on quickly.]

But before we even had time to get scared, he hid us, in the attic. He told us to go to sleep for a long, long time and - and for some reason that was enough to make us do it.

Until Mom took us down...but it wasn't the same Mom. And now he was Dad. I could tell it was him, he still had the glasses and he looked at us the same way, all those years later.

[He finally stops gazing into the middle distance and looks up at Buzz again.]

He was real sick and worried about - about what might come next. So he wanted his son to have something of his. His son who was in kindergarten now, the same age he'd been when he first got me. First thing his son did was get out a marker.

[He wiggles his foot at Buzz slightly, the one that had Bonnie's name, that had Andy's under the paint underneath it.]

You never told me.

[And it sheds so much context on not just all the emotion Woody's had just now, but so much of his intense loyalty towards Andy, and Andy in particular out of all the kids in the world.

Maybe if Buzz had ever asked what was the deal with their household, why there was just Mom instead of a set of Parents, he'd have learned sooner.]

I'm . . . I'm sorry I didn't think to ask.

[What a tremendous sadness to have unspoken all this time.]

It's not a bad thing, being reminded. It's one of those things you tuck away and move on from, and that makes it easier, but you don't think all that much about the good things anymore either.

[He holds a hand to his chest.]

What got me about that story was the part with the fairy. Slink and I didn't need a fairy to be saved. We didn't need magic or a miracle. He cared enough about us that he saved us and then he gave us to Andy.

It felt good to be reminded of that. Hurts a little but it felt good at the same time.

[It explains a lot. The dogged devotion to Andy, the faith that he'd do right by them, take care of them and keep them safe in the attic, and maybe give them to his own kids, even after he'd grown up. It'd already happened once before. Woody had existed long enough to see how the cycles of a toy's life sometimes worked, so long as their owners actually cared.]

Edited 2020-06-26 15:46 (UTC)

That's why you wanted us to stay with Andy so much.

[From the other direction, this explains why Andy valued Woody so much. The other toys were favored, Buzz was favored, but no one else had a connection that personal.

And Woody made the choice to go with them to Bonnie's house anyway, where the whole group had a better chance at happiness, but where Woody, removed from the context of that connection, is falling out of favor.

There's no way Buzz is going to SAY that. But he's thought of it now.]

But he - he doesn't need us now. Bonnie needs someone.

[Interesting how he starts with "us," but changes it to "someone." Like he's not sure the "someone" is actually an "us." Like maybe the "someone" is "you guys."]

[Before Buzz can respond, Woody's communicator flashes a message.

Bunny still looks residually overjoyed from his second round of storytime with the kiddos, and in fact a few of them are still in the background, pouring over picture books together.]

So did I hit the mark or not?

[Woody finally sets it to video, making it clear Bunny is completely on the mark. Of course the Easter Bunny figured it out.]

Got it in one.

[The next question is soft and hesitant, delicately handled because he knows it's a big answer. It's an answer to a question they don't ask because usually an answer is impossible.]

What...what are we? We usually don't ask that question because we know we'll never get an answer. This is the first time we've ever talked to someone who might have it. What's a tulpa?

Ah, look at that. [Bunny raises a paw to Buzz in the background.] How's it going, mate.

Well - [He settles in for an explanation.] If you're not from my world then I might be wrong, but I'm not a gambler and I'd still put money on you two being them. A tulpa is a sentient manifestation of an imagined entity. Sort of a solid imaginary friend, but I've seen objects - like toys - host the spirits too. Used to be rare, but these days, kids' imaginations are a lot more nurtured, and toys come with a lot more detailed mythology.

I got a tip from an action figure just a few weeks before this all started that helped me catch a pananggalan. I wouldn't mind if a few more of you existed. Makes protecting the kids a whole lot easier to have more eyes on 'em that can also see us.

Edited 2020-06-28 06:16 (UTC)

[Woody's gaze goes to the middle distance as he works a few things out.]

[He turns to Buzz.]

I've never heard of any toys waking up at the factory. The earliest I've ever heard is the toy store, where they're around kids. It's always after at least some contact with kids.

[He slides a hand down his cheek, overwhelmed a little at the fact they may have had a question answered they never thought possible.]

Maybe that's why you didn't know you were an action figure at first. All those kids imagining you and the other Buzzes as a space hero.

I met a live one at Al's Toy Barn. Remember the Buzz that was leading the gang that came to rescue you from Al's?

[Buzz has to point it out, but it still falls in with Woody's reasoning.]

But he thought he was the real Buzz, and that Zurg that followed him thought he was the real Zurg, who was also Buzz's father. They were acting out the lore from the Saturday morning cartoon!

[A cartoon falls under that 'detailed mythology' the Easter Bunny pointed out.]

So it's all of you, where you're from? Huh. Wonder if our world'll get there eventually.

[Boy, that would raise all sorts of ethical questions, if every single toy in his mass-production world suddenly became sentient. The few tulpas he's met have been such valued possessions, in their rarity, that they weren't in danger of being cast off, but the little spirits also didn't remain after their owners died.]

This might be a sore subject, but if the kids pass on, do your spirits flicker out?

Edited 2020-06-28 07:36 (UTC)

[Woody looks to Buzz, clearly discomfited by the question.

It is all of us. We're all alive, and we don't...fade.

Once we're alive, we're alive. Regardless of whether or not we're with our first owner.

[A pause.]

...Or any owner. A friend of ours was in storage for a while and it was -

[Words fail him for a moment.]

- it was a bad experiences for her.

[He doesn't feel right sharing any more. The extent of Jessie's trauma isn't a subject he wants to put into conversation with a stranger.]

And we can survive quite a bit. Things humans can't.

[He thinks of Sid's toys and shudders. There's fondness - they were so brave despite what they'd been through. But the ever present horror at what they were - at what any toy could be and still live - has never gone away.]

Not everything, but most things.

Hmm.

[Imagination magic has done some wild things to his world, but nothing on that scale. But that is absolutely a planet on the brink of a sentient rights crisis.]

That's not ideal.

It is what it is.

[There's no point in agonizing over something they can't change.]

We make do.

And I'm sure you're making do as well as anyone can, but I like to think there's something to be done about it.

[mass production combined with infinite imagination magic is going to need some looking into. Add that to all the planets he's learning about that have no Guardians to ensure children grow up as unscathed as possible.]

'Course I'll have to get to know you a bit better before I can suggest anything.

Have you ever known a toy to hurt a person?

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