#And thus Duke should be allowed to hate him

[oifaaa]

wasn’t dick only a cop briefly for undercover corruption investigation reasons and then he quit anyway because the corruption was so deep there was no digging it out from the inside or did i hallucinate that

Maybe your thinking of a different time dick was a cop the main time or at least the one I think about when people bring up cop dick is during his 90s run in which I'd say he was a cop in bludhaven for the majority of that (if we also count the training) and yeah he definitely said something like he wanted to fix it from the inside but he didn't quiet he was fired which he wasn't happy with bc in his words he loved being a cop

[lapseinart]

Okay so it’s like some people hate Reverse Robins and I get it but it’s not about giving the Batkids each other’s trauma it’s about ✨narrative parallels✨ you switch up the ages but the way that you switch up the traumas has to be… in character I guess??

Like Tim is obsessive and he ID’s the Bats because of Dick, but Dick’s not the oldest for Tim to become absolutely fascinated with. So which of the Waynes does Tim start becoming a stalker of? (I mean he’s prob already stalking the Bats but you know what I mean) No way is it gonna be Damian. But you know who it fits? DUKE THOMAS. He sees Duke at a gala using his light powers and ID’s him as Signal and this the rest of the Bats. Duke and Dick are both the light in the darkness.

If Duke’s taken in first and thus the Dick equivalent does that mean Damian is going to be the one who pulls a Jason and dies? I mean, he could get lured by his mother and killed by the Al Ghuls or his clone which has happened canonically so I suppose you could recreate that scenario BUT you know what OTHER protege died because Bruce pushed them away and made them feel inadequate?? THATS RIGHT YALL STEPHANIE BROWN. I feel like Steph should be allowed to beat Tim up. I feel like Damian returning as someone who kills has very little narrative punch to it because he’s already a sort of reformed assassin. Him reverting is like… whatever. STEPH BROWN WHO KNOWS POVERTY KILLED IN A GANG WAR AND FEELING LIKE THE BATS MEASURES ARENT ENOUGH?!? That’s something. She could be like the Punisher in Marvel instead of a drug lord that would be kind of cool.

I guess this is reversing the ages not the situations so Duke is Dick’s age, Dami is Cass’s age, and Steph is Jason’s??? But like adoption order isn’t the same because their backgrounds are still the same-ish. Dami is sent to Bruce because he’s not safe in the League anymore. His morals aren’t Cass’s. Cass still runs away because she hates the idea of killing.

I haven’t thought the rest of this through but I need to go so this is all y’all get for now.

[motheatenscarf]

Almenor D&D went very well tonight and was intensely fun and memorable, the whole party managed to kill a god and we're not even at endgame yet.

So much backstory, but the shortest version is thus;

Our DM has established that some of the gods are mortals who used HORRIFYING fanes of immense and profane power to ascend to godhood, essentially merging themselves with the natural divine power of a concept given form. These gods are generally more powerful and less changeable than the naturally occurring ones who shift with mortal expectations and belief, and they also hate each other and have vendettas against one another. One of these bad dudes is a mortal once named Istaphon who merged with the concept of Corruption/Ruin and has been manipulating the Sun Goddess, the Sun Pope, the Sun Religion, and now there's a big war between the gods that's spiraling out of control onto the material plane causing untold destruction and their followers are deciding now's the time to be crazed zealots about it. I mean, they were before, but now even moreso to the tune of a full on siege and straight up plagues of Egypt type shit going on.

Notably, there is no gate or bulwark or veil or ANYTHING that can physically separate the gods from the material plane in this setting; they can come down whenever they want. The only thing that was ever stopping them was mutually assured destruction and the threat of the Material Plane's destruction meaning no more followers meaning no more power. The ascended mortal gods don't have to worry about that as much though, and ever since the Sun Goddess took her own life rather than allow Istaphon's corruption to reach her, her Pantheon and church started getting more paranoid and zealous, and her divine sidekick god, described as an archangel, went BERSERK in her absence and apparently had a semi-mortal daughter, whom we... y'know, killed, because she was full on Spanish Inquisition evil, so he went insane and tried to kill us, and then the divine balif god showed up to try and drag the archangel home, but he got ganked, and then the archangel's equivalent in hell went, oh sweet, no cops to stop me now! And then archangel killed HER before our lich god came to stop him, and then every other god went, fuck it, everyone else is doing it, and now there's a godswar, and we're in it, and it's... insane.

So, we're trying to pick up the pieces where we can, and currently in this session the Sun Pope was leading a siege against the city we'd JUST freed from the Sun Emperor (who was the husband of the archangel's lunatic daughter whom we murdered, so he's not happy with us either) and was vowing to make us pay for our apostacy. We brought the Orcish god of ass kicking, Sun Pope called down the god of Civilization, they duked it out in a field while we fought off hordes of angels and pitted straight up dragons against each other.

We're level 18, insane shit is happening!

We're only fighting HERE instead of being at any of the other like, FORTY places that are about this awful, because the Sun Pope has an artifact we need to forge a godkilling weapon designed by our lich-god buddy named Bel-Katash, whom we call B-Kats, because 1.) we have to break the fanes that turned these mortals into gods in the first place so no more can be made and also so that they can't be used to summon the WORST of the asshole gods, an ancient primordial being of chaos who takes on the form of a dragon, a reinvented Tiamat, and 2.) it would actually be great to have something to threaten these assholes with so they stop fucking up our material plane! We should maybe kill the gods, actually!

Anyway, B-Kats only designed this weapon because he was a mortal himself once, but he made a baaad deal with, essentially Istaphon, out of desperation to escape execution at the hands of his enslavers. B-Kats isn't a GOOD dude, he only ascended to godhood by snorting the souls of his empire of descendants like a line of coke after a thousand years of lichdom to gain enough power to kill the previous god of undeath and steal his job, but he isn't the WORST dude because at least all he wants is never to be a slave again with no one holding power over him or his soul. He doesn't want the world to be plunged into perpetual chaos and he has no interest in the petty wars raged by the other gods so... fine, we'll work with that!

Back to the present, we manage to finally punch a hole in the Sun Pope's defenses and incapacitate her in like 2 rounds with some of our hardest hitting tricks, and she calls upon her angelic guide to help her. And he answers!

Except her angelic guide is Istaphon, who wants to brag about his evil plan and thank her for starting his mission of ruin so thoroughly. Then he casts a plague on all of us because he also means ruin and corruption in the form of DISEASE and PESTILENCE, so that's fun! We've all got like maybe 10 rounds at most before this plague kills us if we run, and we have maybe ONE round before he obliterates us if we stay; what are we gonna do?

We all say fuck it, hail mary, go down swinging!

Sorcerer starts it off by using her 9th level spell slot to cast Wish and try to break the strands of weave stitching Istaphon to Ruin. She makes some STUPID high save to succeed and then another so as not to die immediately. She succeeds on both, but is knocked down to 0 hp and has her strength reduced from trying to control THIS much magic around, y'know, RUIN HIMSELF. My Warlock sees this and is close enough that he can try some insane bullshit, making a grab for the successfully untethered essence of Ruin and casting Plane Shift to banish it to the depths of the Abyss where Tiamat is still trapped. The hit lands, the thing is banished, but my boy fails his Con save and instantly dies from, y'know, Plane Shift being a melee spell and having to PHYSICALLY TOUCH the IMMATERIAL CONCEPT OF RUIN in order to banish it from the Material Plane.

With Istaphon momentarily weakened, our Cleric casts HIS hail mary and casts Gate, trying to call forth Bel-Katash so he can have his revenge. Bel-Katash comes through and is like, HELL YEAH, and restrains Istaphon, freeing up our Rogue to grab the artifact off the Sun Pope's rotting body and assemble the final piece of the blade before landing a fucking crit and shattering him on impact, the blow rupruting out and killing basically everything below a certain HP threshold in like a mile radius and instantly killing our unconscious Sorcerer and almost killing our Cleric and Rogue, who are still plague stricken and fucked up.

Bel-Katash says good job, I know you still need that blade to finish destroying the fanes, but that blade is a loaner and I'll be coming back for it. Ominous shit, but COOL, thanks, we'll burn that bridge when we get to it, I guess.

Cleric now only has like 3 rounds before he dies, and our DM just asks what he does. Thirty seconds of panicked spell scrolling and spell slot availability checking later, he can, in order, cleanse our Rogue, revive me and our Sorcerer, and then DIES, with like... one level 2 spell slot left and nothing else. Sorcerer and I wake up just in time to see him gurgling on his own diseased blood as our Rogue begins to panic because he thinks he's the only survivor. Rest in-

Just kidding, Death Ward kicks in and he's at 1 hit point! Fuck yeah, Clerics!

We head back to our headquarters in the recently liberated palace over a mile long march of corpses and we are all FUCKED UP with several levels of exhaustion and over the trek realize that my boy has a withered and nonfunctional main hand that he can barely cast spells with and is definitely cursed as fuck, but we did it!!... for now.

There is... so much else to do, but we assembled the god killing blade and it is OPEN SEASON NOW, BABY! Curses be damned!

It was a very cool moment where everyone got to show off and do what they do best, and it was very fun. I'm still super hype about it and this was like 4 hours ago. My Warlock is definitely getting a new fucked up looking cursed arm out of this and GOD, I wish I wasn't broke from Christmas shopping, I want to commission art of this new look so badly, my poor Warlock boy is like if Tyr were a stringbean nerd, sacrificing his arm to delay the fuckin wolf time and give the world time to prepare.

[marimopeace]

there's a limit on how much you can be an isekai intellectual...

a bunch of analyses have been popping up before me all day so i wanted to throw my hat into the ring. all love to ppl who are exercising their creative minds + ppl like geoff here who just talk about these things because of fan interest but i feel like there reaches a point where exploring the "types" of isekai is pointless? i've seen ppl list out the different types of villainess revenge isekai or fantasy mmorpg isekai but eh why fit them all into separate boxes like that?

i think it's easier to think of isekai as a "type" (genre) of itself with only two categories: 1) a focus on isekai (lit. another world) 2) tensei (lit. to be reborn). this allows for a variety of applications and thus tropes that ppl see so many trends of!

with isekai - in another world

you see everything from:

pure fantasy (inuyasha, digimon wait maybe not the best example but in my childhood mind i count digimon as pure fantasy, fushigi yugi)

mmorpg inspired fantasy/adventure (.hack//legend of twilight, sao ugh, log horizon, overlord (LOVE OVERLORD!)

otome game-esque worlds >>> this is where it gets complicated with "villainess routes" since i admit there are multiple villainess tropes but this is why it's nice to not think of this as a "sub-type/genre" bc it frees you from those complications! (the saint's magic power is omnipotent, the white cat's revenge as plotted from the dragon king's lap soso cute!, the savior's book cafe in another world, i'm a villainous daughter so i'm going to keep the last boss wait i can't remember if she's reborn in this one lmaooo see this is why rules make everything hard)

with tensei storylines - being reincarnated/reborn in another world as *insert character/role*

you see...

the same tropes!!

pure fantasy (a returner's magic should be special, reminiscence adonis, the lady and the beast, light and shadow, i can't think of a manga off the top of my head for this ah)

mmorpg inspired fantasy/adventure (so i'm a spider so what i stan kumoko so hard, her majesty's swarm, can't name another off the top of my head ah i hate lists shorter than two things...)

self-insert based games/novels (fiance's observation log of a self-proclaimed villainess, who made me a princess, death is the only ending for the villainess, the villainess wants to marry a commoner, honestly games vs novels are different applications but i'm not in the headspace to try to remember a bunch of both lol)

*insert line break to give random ppl a break from scrolling but tl; dr just enjoy things for what they are no need to micro analyze*

similar variations occur in both genres (if ppl want to be super technical i guess i'm arguing that isekai itself is a massive genre that has the "another world" subgenre and "reincarnation" subgenre tl; dr) so i think it's honestly a huge pain to try to separate all these trends into so many different types of stories. for me personally it's easier to not get overwhelmed by this gigantic umbrella of "isekai" that spans light novels, manhwa, manga, and mobile games by just stripping each story down into its trademark tropes (aka character archetypes, story structures) and slapping "oh this is a person going to a world that's not ours" and "this person gets reborn as blank in another world". none of this "omg this power fantasy is such a this kind of isekai moment" or "there are 14 different types of villainess revenge stories and this series fits into this" bc AH labels! limitations! circle-jerks via ppl trying to compartmentalize everything and sound smart for leaving a comment on story analysis instead of ooh-ahhing over a character's face! dividing things into light novel manga vs manga vs korean manhwa ft. female characters!

the last bit is mainly why i feel frustrated by ppl's insistence to group everything?

the video linked at the beginning of the post (honestly good video essay, i enjoyed it, i just kept thinking in my head the whole time "marimo these are tropes do not take the genre talk literally") has a baby comment thread talking about "korean isekai manhwas" as a genre featuring nothing but reincarnated villainess' and i can't.

like i cannot acknowledge that as a genre of any sort. the energy i felt reading through some of those insights takes me back to 2012 when all yt americans discovered k-pop and deemed all korean music k-pop from then on! (ppl still do this now, yes you are seen and don't talk to me pls i don't like you. k-pop is korean pop music and nothing less and nothing more. take a few seconds and try to parse apart aspects of korean culture instead of slamming everything into a monolithic label that has the letter k and a hyphen.) it feels so odd to see a bunch of young ppl on ig and tiktok acknowledge korean media that happens to be in the form of a webtoon as "oh stories all about young girls becoming villains in stories they made/played" bc it feels so reductive u.u

(positionality disclaimer that i'm praying isn't actually necessary: i am a 3rd-generation korean of japanese descent do not fite me i am exhausted irl of ppl asking for validation/verification bc massive shove off.)

breaking news! korean manhwa...is just as multifaceted as japanese manga...bc how can comics as an art-form not have multiple genres...huh such a shocker?!?! same likely applies to media in other parts of the world like chinese manhwa and french comics--not my place to explain either of those i just know those industries exist bc of wakfu and donghua shows by Tencent.

at the end of the day it's not like analyzing any kind of isekai is wrong--absolutely not!! i think it can be super fun to think about how isekai elements complicate a story (MCs trying to go back home, ppl from the og world, reincarnation plot-twists) or maybe even bash a series for including some kind of other world element when they could have just written a super fun fantasy.

insert marimo's brief ramble that hey you can get sick of truck-kun's hitting disillusioned guys who happen to be super duper smart or girls who happen to be master chefs/craftsmen but transporting a fully-grown being into a fantasy setting is the ultimate cheat code for making mundane modern technology seem cool and overpowered, and being reincarnated as a fully grown person in a world with a pre-made story/game set-up completely bypasses the need for an author to slowly flesh out world-building in a natural progression so isekai is actually a really smart writing tool it's just that there are some series where the author didn't use it well at all and it's cheesy or clearly isekai was misused as a vehicle for character/story development and it was pointless *DEEP BREATH OUT*

in this essay i will argue...lol i am such a culture studies major!! if i were an english major i would be talking all about writing but here i am having a side-tangent about world-building via someone being reborn wow i love this for me (don't get me started on when an author has someone reincarnate as a baby and the story is mostly them having warm fluffy moments with their family--typically father figures--and getting lots of powers i could and would and probably will rant about east asian toxicity)

but anyway am i crazy????? like yes for being passionate about the technical use of a word like genre (i am a scorpio rising let me be fussy pls) but i don't think it's a lot to ask for ppl to not unironically see "villainess revenge isekai" as the definition of korean manhwa.

idk as someone who resonates with why japanese isekai is so popular domestically + why a lot of korean manhwa feat. the same tropes (it's not for great reasons lads it's actually depressing tbh) i'm just starting to feel kind of pained by the generalization and need to separate "cute japanese girl in an otome game"/"japanese boy finds a harem in another world" from "korean girl dies and comes back as a villainess" bc they are just! applications to the same story device!!

recommendations for any who makes it this far down below <3

// also gladly recommend any of the examples i've listed in the above rant as i've read/watched all of them and adore them v much! //

save me princess

super refreshing fantasy manhwa ft. a princess and her ex-boyfriend having to save the world!

the beginning after the end

an AMERICAN web novel turned into a comic (but see it being not korean/japanese doesn't really matter when you just consider isekai as a genre...isn't it nice to not overthink it?) ft. a super-powerful wizard king reincarnated into another world and starting from scratch--gives mushoku tensei vibes but huge twists!

the reason why raeliana ended up at the duke's mansion

love love LOVE this story--read the title and you'll learn how this girl reincarnated as the character raeliana in a book gets married to a duke!

trash of the count's family

such a good novel!! a guy gets reborn as a lazy oaf and he takes the hero of the story under his wing...plot twists come up later on!

this time i will definitely be happy!

v good and refreshing for a shorter series! she's been reborn 3 times and remembers every time the hero's stabbed her in the back, and now she just wants to break up with him!

silver diamond

older manga but v good adventure w intrigue! a boy who loves plants get sucked into a desert world with demonic lizards and a mysterious bodyguard by his side. shonen-ai not BL but wonderful vibes nonetheless + great side characters!

the princess imprints a traitor

adore everything in this from the world (not in that way this society makes me so angry) to the machinations at play and the dynamic between the fl and ml

[bigskydreaming]

Doing some writing today off and on between errands and work, and jumping around various Kings of the Sky installments, specifically Dick, Jason and Cass stuff, so probably gonna post snippets from a bunch of them as I go. 

(Kings of the Sky is an AU that goes canon divergent from the point of Jason calling Dick for advice for dealing with Bruce after the Garzonas case and where things end up going dramatically different from that point on. Including Jason not dying, being part of his own lineup of Titans between Dick and Tim’s, Dick being adopted not long after the Church of Blood incident, Cass being the third Wayne kid to be taken in and adopted and with Tim and Duke being next and then Damian coming along later once they find out about him. This is basically my ‘the family’s alright’ AU with largely ‘Good Dad Bruce’ except for Dick and then Jason yelling some sense into him about the other, respectively, in the first two installments, just FYI).

Anyway, this bit is from a story called “In Their Shadows Grow Trees Of Good and Evil,” set about a year after Cass has been adopted, when she and Jason are both sixteen and Dick’s twenty-one. Also just FYI, because canon has never been specific about what ways Cass is neurodivergent due to the comic-book style ‘rewiring’ of her brain so that she could learn to speak later in life, I tend to go with her being dyslexic and having aphasia. She sticks exclusively to sign language and being a silent presence in her costumed personas, so that there’s no chance of people connecting the dots between Black Bat and Cassandra Wayne, as she mostly speaks verbally in her civilian persona and doesn’t hide her aphasia. The reason there’s not likely to be any obvious signs of aphasia in the snippets of her I post is because I wait until I complete something to choose words at random to replace with aphasia-born mixups, so its more realistic and I’m not gearing her dialogue towards deliberately placed moments. Just in case you were wondering.

In Their Shadows Grow Trees of Good and Evil

“Hey Todd,” sneered an exquisitely obnoxious voice. “Why’s your sister so fucking weird?”

Jason sighed the sigh of a soul a mere century into its eternity of damnation as he rose from the lunch table he’d been studying at and crammed the rest of his books into his backpack. Then he pasted a cheerfully bland smile on his face and turned around, geared for academia warfare (teenage prep school edition).

“Hey Craig,” he said brightly. “Why’d you come out of the womb so ugly your parents had to tie a piece of steak around your neck just to get the family dog to go near you? Mysteries abound.”

The advancing junior slowed a step, momentarily rocked by his truly impressive return volley. The grimace Craig’s already gargoyle-esque features twisted into made his face even more unpleasant to look at than usual, which was quite the feat. Jason would have applauded if just looking at it hadn’t already turned him to stone.

But the bargain basement basilisk kept on towards him rather than turn tail and skulk off to pop his emotional blisters, so Jason sighed a sequel to his first one. Looked like it was one of those days where Craig felt up to powering through. Guess someone had eaten their self-esteem Wheaties that morning. Joy.

“You think you’re pretty hot shit, don’t you, Todd?”

Jason shrugged. “I mean, to be honest I kinda have a one track mind, so right now I’m mostly just thinking about punching you in your mistake.”

“My what?”

“Your face,” Jason elaborated with exaggerated patience.

“Huh?”

“Oh my god, I’m saying your face is a mistake. See, its not as fun when I have to stop and explain it to you. Ugh, you ruin everything.”

He neatly sidestepped the older boy as R2-Dumbass stayed frozen, smoke coming off of his internal CPU while trying to catch up. For a second Jason thought he was home free, but then he remembered the universe fucking hated him so haha, sucks to suck. Also, a small crowd had gathered to witness the verbal jousting match, and nothing invigorated an asshole like Craig more than an audience of like-minded peers. So there was that too.

“Whatever. Laugh it up all you want, you little shit,” the junior rallied. “But just remember, mocking your betters will never change the fact that you were born street trash and you’ll be street trash until the day you die.”

Honestly? Not his best effort. Jason almost felt bad using any of his good material. Seemed like overkill at this point. But he did have a strict Scorched Earth policy to maintain, so.....

“Yeah but my dad could buy out and ruin your dad so that means I still win, right?”

He smirked as the barb landed and Craig’s face set into a sunset vista of strangled purple and furious red. Bam. Direct hit.

“Listen, you - “

“Oh for fuck’s sake, it was rhetorical,” Jason interrupted. “I don’t actually care what you think even a little bit. Nobody does. You don’t matter. Please go be irrelevant elsewhere, you’re fucking dismissed, you loser.”

“Speak for yourself, charity case.” Oh goodie, Craig’s backup singers had finally arrived. Now if only he could remember to care enough to learn their names in the first place. Seriously, who told the extras they could have lines? “All the jokes in the world can’t change who and what you are.”

Jason shrugged and continued nonchalantly up the hill to where his sister was standing with arms crossed, staring down at something on the other side.

“True genius is never appreciated in its own time,” he tossed back over his shoulder. “I’m sure I’ll be immortalized in song eventually.”

The mob of morons deigned to let him go without further incident. Though he suspected that had less to do with his scathing wit and more to do with him being headed towards Cass. She was immaculately presented as always, wearing the Gotham Academy uniform like she was born to it despite hating its uncomfortable stiffness every bit as much as he did. But that was just Cass for you. 

For all that she still struggled at times to engage verbally or speak up in social settings, her mastery of body language remained without peer. She could chameleon-camouflage her way into matching poise and posture with anyone - a skill that had allowed her to walk into school on her very first day with her head held high as though she owned everything in her sight. Exuding so much Queen Bee Intimidation Factor even the other hive queens were afraid to approach her  themselves. Sending forth their drones to try and woo her into an alliance, only to see her remain oh-so-casually above it all, a slightly contemptuous smile adorning her lips.

Basically, she scared the shit out of their classmates without them having anywhere close to a true understanding of why, and Jason was outrageously jealous. Rude. Unfair. Why did his siblings always get all the cool toys when all he had was his rakish charm, scintillating intellect and debonair.....nah, who was he kidding. He was fucking awesome. 

“Sup, sis,” he said, cresting the hill to stand beside Cass. “Just FYI, I just took a popularity bullet for you, which means you owe me your dessert tonight. Its a family rule that’s totally a real thing and definitely not something I just made up right now because Alf is making chocolate soufflé.”

She made no acknowledgment and remained stock still, a Colossus at Rhodes peering down into the shifting shadows of the parking lot below.

He peered down as well, though with absolutely no idea what they were looking at. Solidarity, yo.

“So are we staring fixedly at anything in particular, or should I just pick my own spot and commit?”

His humor was totally wasted on her as always. Instead of laughing and telling him what a lovable goof he was, she just inclined her head in the direction of a blonde girl where she was standing next to the driver’s side door of a Mercedes-Benz, dictating final commandments to her peons before departing. Well, probably. Jason was just guessing, based on his own body language reads, and like, general disdain for literally everyone at this school that wasn’t related to him.

He made a face. An extra special one reserved just for this classmate in particular. “Ugh, Madison Dunleavy? She’s the worst.”

Cass raised a cool eyebrow. “I thought Craig Hendricks was the worst.”

“He is. They’re both the worst. Its a hotly contested position here at Gotham Academy.”

She rolled her eyes and nodded back down at the Queen of Air and Darkness. “So. You know her?”

“Nope,” Jason said. “Come to think of it, I’ve actually never seen her in my life. No idea who that is. Can’t help you, sorry. Shall we go home?”

The Eyebrow of Inquisition speared him with clear intent. Who the fuck needed words when you could pack the Encyclopedia Britannica into a single facial expression?

Jason sighed gustily. 

“I had a slight altercation with her freshman year that led to her declaring her undying enmity for me until the end of time. The word nemesis may or may not have been thrown around once or twice. I can’t recall.”

The Eyebrow of Inquisition lowered nary an inch. Ugh, she wanted more? Why did everyone in his family hate privacy, with the obvious exclusion of himself when snooping through Cass and Dick’s rooms for blackmail material, which was actually intel-gathering and thus another matter entirely.

“Okay so basically what happened was my first week here I overheard her talking shit about me and not even twenty minutes later she was pretending to kiss my ass in homeroom, like probably because of Bruce, y’know? So I just busted out laughing and told her to fuck off and die and she has inexplicably loathed me ever since.”

Avoiding further Eyebrow Inquisition-ing, he made a show of peering around aimlessly. When the silence extended and it was clear Cass was absolutely not going to break first, Jason waved a hand in dismissal and took to peering oh so casually at his fingernails. "I suppose I was less tactful back in those days.”

He chanced a look up, finally, and saw his sister’s eyebrow had somehow managed to mighty morphin power ranger its way into a configuration evoking both judgment and disbelief, with the latter perhaps aimed at the idea he was significantly differing in the tact department these days either.

“I don’t love the implications your face is making right now,” he told her.

She ignored him, because of course she did. 

“Does she know Dick?” She asked instead. Jason shrugged.

“I mean, maybe? She’s probably seen him around at one of those stupid galas we have to go to, and actually I think maybe she has an older brother who was either in Dick’s grade or like, one above or below it? I don’t know.”

Now both eyebrows were doing the dance of disbelief. Okay, so maybe that was poor situational awareness on his part, since it wasn’t like Gotham Academy was a big school with a ton of other kids and also he’d only been in the same class as Madison for like over two whole years, but whatever. There were extingent circumstances.

“Look, she’s a total snob who’s always looked down on me and in return I willfully ignore both her existence and that of everyone and everything even tangentially related to her. Its called equality, Cass.”

She pursed her lips and went back to the peering, because of course in the mind of Cass it made total sense that the Grand Inquisition didn’t need to be followed up by any explanation on her part, what the hell. Like was he supposed to have inferred it?

“What’s this all about anyway?”

“I heard her talking about Dick earlier,” she said without peeling her eyes away from her personal recon mission. “I don’t know what she said though, I just heard her say Grayson, and then I was busy looking at what her body was saying. I know it was about Dick because she shut down when she saw me. And I didn’t like the way she....looked....before that happened. The way she was talking. It was.....”

Jason frowned but held back any follow-up questions while he waited - with total patience because he wasn’t an absolute cad, thank you very much - for his sister to find the word she was hunting for. It was a major source of frustration for her, that whatever neural map her brain followed put body language and spoken language in totally different regions of her brain, separated by a fairly great divide. Meaning she usually had to make a conscious choice to focus on body language or conventional languages - whether verbal or sign. But it tended to be one or the other; she’d yet to master taking in and comprehending both forms of ‘language’ at the same time. And none of them had quite figured out how to convince her that she wasn’t actually missing anything when she chose to focus on one specific form of communication - that she was still observing far more than most people ever would.

“Proprietary,” Cass settled on at last. She nodded her satisfaction with her choice of word, and Jason waited a whole two point five seconds before sticking  his whole foot in his mouth.

“Proprietary?” He asked with a scrunched nose as he weighed that for possible context and implications. “You sure?”

She glared. He winced. It was a whole thing.

“Yeah, I know, sorry, sorry, I heard it the second it was out of my mouth. We don’t actually have to experiment with the legitimacy of if looks could kill.”

Cass rolled her eyes, but eh. That could’ve gone worse.

Jason swiftly redirected attention anyway. Discretion is the better part of valor, after all.

“So. The Queen of Air and Darkness was talking about our big bro, and her mood was.....proprietary, huh?” He recapped while digesting the info like a boss. “Well. Definitely not loving that, I gotta say. Hold please.”

Pulling out his phone and pulling up his most recent texts, he began typing furiously.

“What are you doing?” Cass asked.

“Texting Tom,” he replied, because duh. Hah, now it was his chance to have the answers that should be patently obvious and thus make with the ‘are you kidding me’ when she asked obvious questions she should know the answer to! How do you like them apples, sis?

“Why are you texting your boyfriend right now?”

Jason rolled his eyes, because fair is fair, but never ceased texting for a moment. Time was of the essence here, probably. Well, maybe. Okay probably not. But it’d still been like half an hour since he and Tom had last texted and that’s a very fucking long time in teenage years.

“To be our getaway driver tonight, obviously.”

She stared at him. He didn’t look up, but he could feel it anyway. He was very intuitive like that.

“What?”

Jason heaved another sigh, one keyed to tones of ‘oh my god, do I really have to spell this out,” exasperation. He was just racking up the bonus points here. It was really too bad this wasn’t an actual competition he could actually win and this was all just pettiness taking place wholly in his own head. Lame. 

“Well, clearly we now have to go snoop in Madison’s house aka lair to see if its actually a house or a full on lair. Because she’s either a creeper or like, legit evil, and its important to know which one before we proceed, because obviously we can only bust her for being a weird creeper about our brother as Jason and Cass, whereas if she’s legit evil, that’s gotta go down as Robin and Black Bat. I’ll handle the snooping, you’ll take look-out, but we still need a wheelman and that’s why I’m texting Tom. This is all very mission-oriented, okay. I’m a professional.”

“Right,” she affirmed, while sounding anything but convinced. “Why don’t we just tell Bruce?”

Without looking up or breaking stride, he said: “I’m going to give you til I finish typing this sentence to figure out what was wrong with what you just said. Remember that we are talking about hypothetical danger to our brother, and also Bruce’s idea of a proportionate response to any of his children being in even hypothetical danger. And also our brother’s idea of a proportionate response to Bruce’s idea of a proportionate response. Look, you’re still new so I’m gonna need you to just trust me on this one. Its gonna be a no on telling Bruce without further intel.”

Cass said nothing in response to that, which meant that she was conceding the point and recognized the wisdom of his words. Or maybe that she was just gonna go ahead and do what she wanted anyway and just wasn’t bothering to fight about it, but it was probably that first thing.

“Well you better not just make out with your boyfriend all night,” is what she said at last, and that got his attention reeeeeal quick like.

“Umm. Wow. Okay. So, first off, you’re not the boss of me and who I make out with and when, so jot that down. And second, now I’m definitely going to make out with my boyfriend extra hard, with the exception of when we are actually on our recon mission because as previously established, I am a professional. And also, again, you’re not the boss of me.”

Jason ignored her Eye Roll With Extra Emphasis, and instead just held up his phone to Text With Extra Emphasis, as he read along with what he was typing.

“By the way babe, we have to make out extra hard tonight,” he said, tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth while he dragged out his dictation with the kind of focus that usually led to Bruce asking why he couldn’t apply as much intensity to training as he did to pettiness. “Cass has suddenly decided she can dictate terms to me and I need to shut that shit down ASAP, so thank you in advance for your assistance in this matter. Smoochies and other gay stuff to the best boyfriend ever.”

Jason frowned as a response pinged back seconds later. 

TheCatsMeow: ....the things I put up with for the sake of your weird family dynamics.

TheOnlyRobinThatRocks: Yeah, yeah. You’re a saint among were-panthers. Must you mock? Why can’t you just tell me I’m pretty instead?

TheCatsMeow: Sorry. Let me try again. OMG you’re so pretty Jase how did I get so lucky xoxo.

TheOnlyRobinThatRocks: No. Its too late. It feels forced and unbelievable now. You’ve ruined it forever.

TheCatsMeow: Got it. From now on I will only tell you that you’re repulsive and hideous.

TheOnlyRobinThatRocks: I’m breaking up with you.

TheCatsMeow: But after I help you with your mission tonight.

TheOnlyRobinThatRocks: Obvsly. I’m a professional. Why do people keep forgetting this?

TheCatsMeow: And also the making out to spite your sister.

TheOnlyRobinThatRocks: Yeah we should do that first too. I mean we already penciled it in.

[lochnessies]

Speaking of Edelgard projecting victimhood onto anybody as long as it suits her agenda, her views on Miklan and her views on Caspar are full on contradictory and I dont think Ive seen anyone talk about it. Poor Miklan was born the oldest sibling but the evil crest system robbed him of the inheritance that was his birthright and thus he is a victim (just ignore the fact that he tried to murder his brother at least twice before actually being disowned). But wait! Caspar is born the youngest (1/2)

sibling but Edelgard personally doesnt like his older brother so obviously its unfair that the evil nobility makes it so that Caspar as the younger brother is not in line to inherit. It cant even be argued its about merit because Caspar does not care about inheriting yet ends up as the MoMA in several endings that also shows that he is terrible at the job, with the text calling him reckless, and his ending with Edelgard in particular saying she gives him 𝙡𝙚𝙚𝙬𝙖𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙮𝙬𝙖𝙮𝙨. (2/2)

i always found the miklan pity party by both edelgard and the fandom to be ridiculous. they treat him like he’s some poor victim of the game’s boogeyman, the non defined ~crest system~, and act like he has a point.

“but he was disowned for not having a crest!” no he was disinherited but was allowed to remain in house gautier. it wasn’t until he proved himself to be a danger to sylvain’s life that he was kicked out which tbh i think is a fair reaction

“he would have been a good leader even without a crest!” would he? a leader is supposed to care about his people and put himself last. that’s the bare minimum of the responsibility of a noble. yet we see for ourselves that his first reaction is selfish. he takes the lance of ruin, knowing full well he couldn’t use it, and then went out and pillaged villages and kidnapped women (and women don’t get taken without certain…motives). then he takes an unoccupied tower, he didn’t fight for it, and sets up camp with his goons before he stupidly tries to unlock the lance’s power and turns into a beast. what part of this sounds like a man who had a the capacity to be a good leader?

“but it should have been his in the first place since he’s the oldest” oh big deal he popped out of his mother’s coochie first so that means he gets everything he wants and doesn’t have to prove his merits. i though that’s what edelgard didn’t like about caspar’s brother? that he was made heir bc he was older? what’s next? are we going defend inheritance based on who was born with a dick as well? bc at least crests don’t have a say in that

tbh the game really shoots the concept of crests being a bad system of noble inheritance in the foot. like… is it a great ~system~? nah. other than giving some cool powers and a fancy weapon they would be rather useless in a time of peace. which is the reason gautier values them bc of sreng.

other than miklan and sylvain we only have one other sibling relationship that has a similar circumstance and it was no where near as bad which shows miklan in an even worse light since he seems to be the outlier in his reaction.

miklan and sylvain. miklan was born first but has no crests. sylvain pops out with one and miklan throws a tantrum and proves his parents right in them choosing sylvain to be a better heir and future leader.

rufus and lambert. rufus is born with no crest but lambert is. rufus is no longer crown prince despite being the eldest. we’re not shown any reason to believe that rufus hated his brother over it since he went on to live a very privileged life with no responsibility and was given the position of grand duke rufus of itha. that is, until lambert’s death when he assumed the role of regent until his nephew was of age. despite being in charge of the kingdom, which should have been his birthright, he neglects his position to be a womanizer while the kingdom falls on hard times.

like miklan would have lived a very privileged life if he didn’t think the world owed him one more thing on top of everything else. rufus and lambert show that healthy sibling relationships can happened despite the inheritance issue.

as for the caspar issue with him being the minister of military affairs… yeah he doesn’t seem to be the best option. he’s to brash and reckless, is uncomfortable with making decisions that have no clear right or wrong (catherine supports), and jumps straight to execution for a thief in his ashe supports. not someone you need in change of everybody with swords.

as for edelgard, i think she talks big on meritocracy but definitely seems to pick her noble friends for high positions in the government despite their lack of merits in the case of bernadetta and caspar. like manuela and dorothea have to marry into nobility to hold a position of power and dorothea is the only black eagle no to become a general after the timeskip. not to mention the noble characters still get to keep their titles and even pass it onto their children like lorenz does.

[histoireettralala]

Fouché and Napoleon

" Between these two men, there is no friendly atmosphere. Just as Fouché isn't for Napoleon an agreeable servant, Napoleon isn't for Fouché an agreeable master: not once does he trustingly and quietly accept a police report. He probes, hawk-eyed, every line to spot the smallest inaccuracy, the least little mistake; then he rants and raves, scolding his minister like a schoolboy, letting himself be completely carried away by the extreme of his Corsican temper. The ushers, those who look by the keyholes, his coworkers on the Council of Ministers, unanimously notice how much, precisely by contrast, Fouché's composure, in his resistance, irritated the emperor. But, even without their testimony (because one must only read the Memories of this time with intense scrutiny), one would be informed, because we can hear even in the letters the harsh and tough command voice: "I find that the police don't monitor the press with the necessary vigor", Napoleon writes, lecturing the old seasoned master; or he cracks the whip: "One could believe that nobody can read at the Ministry of the Police; nothing is ever foreseen." Or again: "I invite you to confine yourself to the framework of your duties, and to keep away from the matters of foreign policy." Napoleon, we know it by a hundred recounts, reprimands him in front of witnesses, in front of the aides-de-camp and of the State Council, bluntly, and when anger frothes over his lips, he doesn't even hesitate to mention Lyon, his terrorist period, and to call him a regicide and a traitor. But Fouché, icy observer who, since ten years, knows the whole range of these fits of anger, and knows that sometimes this is only an unintentional burst brought by hot blood, and also that sometimes Napoleon is just acting, doesn't allow himself to be intimidated by those storms, whether they are genuine or theatrical, unlike, for example, the Austrian minister Cobenzl, who trembled in fright when the emperor threw at his feet a vase of precious porcelain; he doesn't let himself be sidetracked by the emperor's apparent anger or his actual wrath. With his colorless face, which looks like a plaster cast, without any eye movement, without any nerve betraying an emotion, he calmly stands under this downpour of words; just, maybe, when he leaves the room, a wry or wicked smile ripples across his thin lips. He doesn't even shiver when the emperor shouts at him: "You are a traitor, Duke of Otrante, I should have you beheaded"; but he answers, without changing the tone of his voice, and as though it was a mundane matter: " I do not share this view". A hundred times he hears dismissals, threats of proscription and destitution, and he still leaves the room calmly, knowing perfectly that tomorrow the emperor will call him back. And every time he is right. For in spite of his distrust, his anger, and his covert hatred, for ten years, until the last hour, Napoleon absolutely cannot dispense with him.

This power of Fouché over Napoleon, which was an enigma for all his contemporaries, doesn't owe anything to magic or to hypnotism. It is a power acquired with science and secured by work, ability, and systematic surveillance. Fouché knows a lot,- he even knows too much. Not only through the emperor's confidences, but also against the master's will; he knows all the imperial secrets, and he keeps in check the emperor, - as, besides, the whole empire,- by his perfect and almost eerie informations [...] When Napoleon, at eleven in the evening, shrouded in a strange coat and almost completely disguised, gets out of the Tuileries by a secret door to go to a mistress, Fouché knows on the next morning where the carriage went, how long the emperor stayed in the house, when he came back; he can even, someday, shame the sovereign of the world by telling him that this woman he chose is cheating on him, Napoleon, with a poorly chosen comedy actor. A copy of every important writing out of the emperor's office is given to Fouché by a bribed secretary, and more than one servant, of high or little rank, gets a monthly stipend on the Police Minister's secret funds to bring him back exactly everything which is said in the Palace: by day or by night, at the table and in bed, Napoleon is monitored by his overzealous minister. Impossible to hide a secret from him: thus the emperor is forced, willy-nilly, to confide in him. And this knowledge of everything and everyone provides Fouché with this unique power over men which Balzac so admired.

With the same care he puts to oversee every affair, idea or thought of the emperor, Fouché endeavours to conceal his own from him. Fouché never entrusts to the emperor or to anybody his actual goal, his works; he only imparts from his gigantic intelligence exactly what he wants to. The rest stays sealed in the drawer of the Police minister; Fouché doesn't allow anybody to have a look at this ultimate citadel; he even puts his passion, all his passion, his only passion, into the magnificent luxury to remain inscrutable and to form an element nobody can take into account with absolute accuracy. In vain does Napoleon attach to Fouché some spies; he mocks them or even uses them to send back, through them, to their duped sender, completely false and ridiculous reports. With the years, this game of espionage and counter-espionage between the two fellows will become always more insidious and hateful, and they almost openly lack sincerity toward one another. No, really, there is no clear and limpid atmosphere between these two men, among whom one wants too much to be the master, and the other doesn't want to be enough the servant. The more powerful Napoleon becomes, the more Fouché inconveniences him. The stronger Fouché becomes, the more he hates Napoleon."

Stefan Zweig- Fouché

Note- If you have this book in English, you probably have a better translation. This is mine, and I'm really not a professional. I hope you enjoyed it! Tell me your thoughts in your tags and reblogs :^)

[nordleuchten]

La Fayette in Prison - Part 1 - Wesel

Wesel was the first prison that La Fayette was incarcerated in for an extended period of time. Wesel was, and still is today, a well known city in Germany (back than in Prussia) near the river Rhein. The fortress of Wesel housed the prison, the Zitadelle, and has been turned into a museum and can be visited. The achieve of the city is also housed within the former fortress. The Homepage of the museum cites La Fayette as one of the most famous inmates.

There are different account of how La Fayette and his fellow inmates were brought to Wesel. Some sources claim they drove in a carriage, but most state that they drove in an open cart “like common criminals”. This second method would be a huge affront because the social hierarchy of the day also applied to the system of jurisdiction. A farmer or labourer would be treated way different than a Marquis or Officer. Nevertheless, the cart as a mode of transportation can not be ruled out or said to be an exaggeration by some biographers because we know that the prisoners were transported from Wesel to their second prison in Magdeburg in a open cart – something that actually was greatly appreciated by the prisoners because they had previously been confined to their small and stuffy cells day in and day out. The group persumably also travelled by boat down the river Rhein in order to reach Wesel.

La Fayette, when he fled, was accompanied by a servant, Augustus, and a valet, Pontennier. One of these men appear to have stayed with him for the entire duration of his imprisonment whereas the other man left him after some time or better, was forced to left him. Many sources use the words “servant” and “valet” interchangeable, what makes it hard to say which one stayed and which one left. It seems though, as if Augustus was the one who remained with La Fayette.

Once the group of prisoners arrived in Wesel, La Fayette himself described their circumstances as follows:

“For three months the prisoners were strictly guarded and watched at Wezel, in prisons strongly barred , with double doors secured by locks and padlocks, cut off from all communication, and so completely separated from each other, that when Latour Maubourg, informed, through the indiscretion of one of his gaolers, that Lafayette was seriously ill, asked permission, as the dearest friend which that person had in the world, and one so nearly within reach of him, to receive his last sigh, the answer was, “that it could not be allowed.” The prisoners having complained of being thus cut off from all communication, even with their nearest relatives, a report to that effect was made to the government. Shortly after, the commandant and a notary presented themselves to Lafayette, and gave him a paper from the King of Prussia, inviting him, as the means of bettering his position, to give counsels against France. “The King of Prussia is very impertinent, ” was Lafayette's reply. Availing himself of a permission accorded to them of writing to the king's adjutant - general, Lafayette informed him “that he was far from denying the share he had taken in the revolutions of America and France; “and, speaking of the constitution which had been acknowledged by the powers now combined against it, he predicted, “that this hatred against liberty, with royalty or without it, would only serve to swell the number of republicans .”

There are other accounts from the time at Wesel but since we have La Fayette’s primary account, I will use the other accounts from later biographers only to supplement some details.

A few things to La Fayette’s account though. La Fayette refers to him being very ill – illness would go on to be a reoccurring theme, not only for La Fayette but also later for his family and the other prisoners. There was a want of fresh air, exercise, psychological comfort, items for personal hygiene and the food was apparently also bad. He recovered eventually but his health remained somewhat frail long after he was finally released from prison. Furthermore there is this line where La Fayette describes how he had "the means of bettering his position". He does not elaborate too much on this subject but what happened was that the Prussian King acknowledged that his treatment of La Fayette was not good nor according of his status. He offered La Fayette, until recently a French General with a field command, to treat him better if he would only pass the plans of the French armies (and everything else that he would happen to know) on to the Prussian authorities. La Fayette refused most emphatically.

What also strikes me, is just how scarred the Prussians were, that La Fayette (or any of the other prisoners for that matter) might escape. During his tribunal in Luxemburg, shortly after his arrest and prior to his confinement in Wesel, it was stated that "(...) Lafayette's existence was incompatible with the safety of the governments of Europe". The Prussians and Austrians seem to have been generally afraid of his possible influence.

The Governor of the prison in Wesel was in 1792 Lieutenant-General Alexander Friedrich von Woldeck, a high-ranking Prussian officer. The guards in the prison had the strict instruction not to communicate with the prisoners under any circumstance and to not answer them any of the question they might have.

So, now La Fayette and the others were all secured and under lock and key in Prussia. Splendid. But what to do with them in the future. Here is an account from Samuel Lorenz Kanpp’s book Memoirs of General Lafayette: Embracing Details of his Public and Private Life:

"At Wesel, the populace were permitted to insult them in the most savage manner. Here they were put in irons, placed in separate cells in the castle, deprived of all intercourse with each other, and told that the King intended to have them hanged as wretches who deserved no favour.”

Before we move on to the part were La Fayette should be hanged, let me say a few words about him being put in irons. Being put in irons was, as we all surely can imagine, a horrible, dehumanizing and cruel practice. We know that La Fayette was during some parts of his imprisonment held in irons, particularly during his time in Olmütz. He himself never mentions being held in irons in Wesel but it could very well have happened without him mentioning it.

Even if the Prussian King and the Austrian Emperor would have loved to see La Fayette hang (and I do not doubt that, the Duke of Saxe Tschen also threatened to execute La Fayette via hanging), that was never really a political option for them. Instead they ultimately planned to return La Fayette to the French King after the Revolution had ended. Here is what William Short, the American Minister Resident to the Netherlands, wrote to Thomas Jefferson on September 28, 1792:

“The Marquis de la fayette and his three companions who were members of the assembly, remain in the Chateau de Wesel. I cannot doubt from what the Imperial Minister here has told me that it is the intention, should the [French] King be restored, to deliver them up to him. Whether they would do it to his successor I cannot say, but suppose it infinitely probable if he should be one of his brothers. Nobody can question in that case that it would be adding to the violation of the most sacred right (which has been already committed with respect to these prisoners) the infamy of delivering up to be assassinated by his enemies an helpless individual, in the person of the Marquis de la fayette. (...) I have in private and inofficial conversations with the Imperial minister here endeavoured to find out what degree of importance his court attached to the Marquis’s imprisonment and it has been by no means encouraging for his friends—as he said it depended altogether (as far as he in his private capacity could judge) on the importance which the King of France could be supposed to attach to having the Marquis in his possession when restored to his throne. He told me however he would write to Vienna and procure more precise information which he would communicate to me. There was of course nothing official either on one side or the other.”

Now, what is so special about this letter? This letter illustrate three things. First, the diplomatic endeavours of the Prussian and Austrian court. Second, the actions undertaken by the American ambassadors and consuls in Europe in order to help La Fayette and his family. Last but nor least, the letter illustrate that the Americans where aware of La Fayette’s present whereabouts. As time went by and La Fayette was brought from one prison to the next, his friends often lost track of him for some time. They did not know where he was and even if he was still alive or if he had died in prison or even had been executed.

Such was La Fayette's stay in Wesel. He stayed there for a relatively short time, arriving on September 19, 1792 and being transferred to Magdeburg on December 22, 1792. But before we go further into detail concerning his time in Magdeburg, one last general thing. La Fayette and his fellow officers were captured by Austrian forces. Why then was he first imprisoned by the Prussians? Prussia and Austria were in the past constantly at each others throats. They hated each other – but during the French Revolution Prussia and Austria started working together against a common enemy. The Austrians captured La Fayette but the nearest and best guarded prison was the Prussian fortress in Wesel and with that the court in Vienna handed La Fayette over to the Prussians and the Prussians agreed to take him in.

[hellyeahheroes]

You know, one would think last 5 years taught Damian Wayne fans to not get overly excited for DC trying to hammer him into roles and niches of his siblings like a round peg into a square hole.

@ubernegro​ made once on this blog a post detailing how Damian has been used as means to undermine and dismiss Batfamily in favor of the idea of Bruce and his “true” son and heir and how much of Damian’s character is built around that. I came to conclusion that the dissonance between how fandom sees Damian and how DC is using him comes exactly from this. Fans of Damian want him to be a real personality, someone who can grow and undergo character development. However, DC sees Damian only as a tool to bash rest of Batfam and thus will never give us that - if he can grow as a person it implies he wasn’t already perfect and thus wasn’t by default better than Dick, Tim, Jason, Cass, Duke or whichever Batfam meber the editor hates this week.

When you look at Damian stories from last few years you’ll see that those that are hated by the fanbase try to slot him into a niche of another Batfam member. Benjamin Percy’s teen Titans run tried to show he could fil lthe role of a team leader for other young heroes, a trait associated with Dick and, to a lesser extend, Tim. To the point the book tried to evoke 2003 Teen Titans cartoon, where the team leader was this weird Dick/Tim fusion, with a similair roster. And it went off like a lead baloon because Damian is a different character and fit to this role like a fist to a nose. And at first it could have been an interesting dynamic, with Damian as a wannabe leader whom Starfire needs to keep in check, but it became clear very fast we’re not qallowed to move away from it and see Damian outgrow this - because DC didn’t see him as a character but a way to bash Dick, he was supposed to be perfect and not allowed to grow. Thus he was stuck int oa role he didn’t fit.

Come Adam Glass run, DC decided to make Damian a “better Jason” isntead and we all know how bad it went. We ended with a story trying to outedge the family edgelord so badly Damian ended up committing heoinous crimes some people will never forgive him for and only went downhil from there and again, he wasn’t allowed to learn his lesson and grow because DC wants him to be perfect to show how much “better” he is. It was most ridiculous attempt at making a better edgelord since Marvel replaced Ghost Rider with Vengeance.

And now Damian got the very story arc Cass fandom has been asking DC to give her for 15 years. DC knew very well how important it was to Cass fandom so the fact it was given to Damian does not feel like a coincidence to me, but an attempt for editorial to now try to show how “better” Damian is than Cass. And let’s be real, he already sticks out in this story like a sore thumb, the whole thing needed to plaster Ras’ stupid face all over the story to cover that up. Because once again Damian is forced into a role that doesn’t fit his character for the sole purpose of telling fans of another Batfam member they should like Damian instead purely because DC editorial is spiteful.

And if you think this isn’t gonna be bad for Damian, let me assure you there is mroe than one reason why I keep using the image of Montreal Screwjob to talk about this storyline, every chance I get. You know, this one

Because I assure you, after that shit Shawn Michaels would forever be booed whenever he got on stage in Canada. It was so bad he stated to exploit it whenever played a bad guy, going to Montreal and directly antagonizing the crowds. Only making amends with Brett Heart would fix that. And I feel the same way Cass fans are never gonna forgive Damian until amends are made. We may ever seen him insult Cass if he ever pulls a legit heel turn.

There are good Damian stories and in those he is doing things unique to him. Being Dick’s sidekick, being friends with Jon kent, hanging out with Maps or Colin or Maya. But these are always dismissed whenever DC needs to get off to throwing other Batfam members under the bus. And something tells me this story will be no different - just another attempt to make Damian claim a place he doesn’t belong to.

-Admin

[suburbanbeatnik]

The short and very miserable life of Napoleon II, aka the Eaglet, aka Franz, Duke of Reichstadt: PART TWO

Although the beatings had ceased, Franz’s life continued in refined isolation until his fifteenth year, when his cousin Franz Karl married the beautiful and charming Sophie of Bavaria.

She was only six years older than he, a fine, pretty girl of sweet features and merry lips, with light chestnut brown hair arranged in great loops on her temples. She had done away with the stiff sumptuousness of her apartment at the Burg, and refurnished it in a more intimate atmosphere. In her salon, with its mahogany furniture covered in yellow velours and minus the usual gilding. Reichstadt would often come and sit beside her, looking through the pictures in her albums while she would paint, or play graceful Italian airs on her piano. And they would talk. She sided with him when things went wrong, pitied him, loved him. She was the only one to whom he could talk to with an open heart. Thanks to Sophie, in those troubled years of adolescence when the child is disappearing and the man is trying to find himself, he had at last found what had been refused him for so long: a friend.  [Aubry pg 140]

Franz was growing into a handsome young man, with his mother’s blue eyes and blond curls, but his father’s striking bone structure and deep-set eyes, and the emotional Bonaparte temperament. Though he was robust and “glowing with health” as a baby, by the time he was an adolescent he became more frail. Doctors said he had a “scrofulous tendency,” which was 19th century medical gobbledygook for some sort of disorder connected with the lymphatic glands. It seems to me that this kid was isolated and beaten for years, and suffered from pretty severe depression— on top of that, he didn’t eat (Aubry records that he had “a poor appetite”). Throw in an inherited tendency from his mother to have lung trouble, I’m not surprised he struggled with illness going forwards.

Apart from Sophie, there was no one to really look out after him. She encouraged him, his interests, his passions, his keen desire to be a soldier, his love for his father and of France, helping undo all the years of Habsburg brainwashing. As the years passed, he even learned how his father’s executors were continually frustrated in trying to pass on the legacy his father had tried to leave to him. “They had been kept away, or driven away: or else the relics they had brought had been politely taken from them and stuffed away into strongboxes, thus cheating the son of the only material inheritance his father had left him. Who had so ordained? Metternich, none other!” [Aubry pg 154]

Metternich, the true ruler of this not-so-holy and not-so-Roman empire, was the one man who had schemed and plotted to keep Franz so isolated and alone. Metternich, and this is no exaggeration, hated every atom of Franz since he was a baby, and he never let Franz forget it. Franz was under police surveillance at all times: the Chancellor had the Corsican’s son in his grasp, and would not lose him. He wouldn’t even allow the young man contact with his own grandmother, Letizia, Madame Mère, now eighty years old and blind from cataracts. He wouldn’t even allow a single letter— a single sentence.

That statesman, who had a government for a soul, had made Austria a prison for him instead of the home it should have been! Metternich had been his father’s enemy; he was his enemy too, and always had been! The young man felt the hostility underneath the Chancellor’s icy courtesy, and he hated him. Altogether without basis in fact are those accounts of numerous conversations between Metternich and the Duke of Reichstadt during this period. Prokesch maintains that the Minister talked to the Prince just five times in seventeen years. Far from seeking to influence the Duke of Reichstadt during this period, Metternich avoided all contact with him. He hated him as he hated his father. The likeness to the Corsican which he found again in the young man’s features offended him like an insult. He could not bear the sight of that forehead, the sound of that voice. At a Court reception on the evening of the Duke’s eighteenth birthday, the Chancellor paid the obligatory compliments and turned away hastily. Those who spoke to him immediately afterwards found him more distant than usual. As soon as he could do so without attracting attention, he left the palace. [Aubry pg 162]

After years of being force-fed Austrian propaganda, Franz had started reading as much as he could about the greatness of Napoleon— obsessively reading Las Cases’ Memorial of St Helena, which he found on one of the top shelves of the library. Imagine his feelings when he read his father’s will for the first time, discovering what affects and relics were left to him, but which he would never see, thanks to Metternich’s machinations (and Louise’s clumsy attempts to lay claim to Napoleon’s inheritance, which had sabotaged the work of the executors in the first place, did not cease until 1837). Franz, fascinated with his father’s campaigns and personal history, threw himself into his studies. Through books, he vicariously experienced Lodi, Arcole, Marengo, the Pyramids, Jena, Austerlitz… He became drunk with the glory of the past. A spell had been cast, and Franz became determined to make his father proud of him. When one of his tutors began to lecture him on his father’s shortcomings, Franz replied impatiently:

“The actions of great men are not to be weighed with ordinary scales.” [Aubry pg 156]

Franz was slowly shedding the relationships of his childhood. When, upon Neipperg’s death in 1829, he had discovered his mother had contracted a morganatic marriage with the one-eyed Neipperg, he “felt deeply insulted and humiliated.” He was enraged enough to discover just that: of course, keep in mind he had no idea that she was sleeping with Neipperg and had given Franz two illegitimate half-siblings while his father was living with the rats on St. Helena. I doubt he would have ever talked to her again if that was the case. Even without knowing that, he withdrew, “his letters were less affectionate and he mentioned her name more rarely. She had been expected at Schoenbrunn for the summer. Her son learned with relief that she preferred to take a cure in Switzerland.” [Aubry pg 160]

Of course, Louise kept doing her thing, weeping for Neipperg over “gay dinner tables and at the opera,” being annoyed whenever the name of Napoleon reached her ears, and then finding “a substitute for the one-eyed general in the person of the Count de Bombelles, at first Grand Master of her Household, then her lover, and then finally her third husband.” [Aubry pg 161]

Meanwhile, for years Franz had struggled with depression. The July Revolution had happened, with the kind and comfortable Louis-Philippe installed on the throne, and even though the King of Rome was still a popular figure in France, with perhaps a chance to ascend the throne, Franz was still, for all intents and purposes, a prisoner. And the older he got, the more obvious this became. Suggestions to become a monarch in Poland or Greece were pushed asides by Metternich. Attempts by his uncles Lucien and Joseph to discuss Franz’s future with Metternich were completely blocked. All he wanted to do was to start his military career, and make himself useful, but he couldn’t even join his regiment, or even visit his mother in Italy. His health was floated as the reason why he should stay inactive, but Franz doubted this was the only reason. Bouts of rage alternated with deep sloughs of “sadness and tedium,” and he could barely summon the interest to hold a conversation. Not surprisingly, his mother lacked sympathy. In 1830, when Louise was summering in Baden, taking the waters, she “rebuked him for his apathy. She could not understand why her son could be ‘so little like other young people.’” [Aubry pg 181]

It grew worse a year later. Italy was on fire with the revolutionary activities of the Carbonari, and Louise had fled Parma in fear of her life. Franz pleaded with his grandfather to let him go rescue her, but Metternich intervened. Let the son of Napoleon, the King of Rome, go to Italy, where his father won his own fame? Of course not! Emperor Francis gave into Metternich, and poor Franz was left feeling torn between misery, fury and desperation. Even Prokesch, his best friend apart from Sophie—a major in the Viennese army, a loyal soldier, scholar and diplomat who had worked for Metternich, but had defied him on a few occasions-- couldn’t calm him.  

His despair was palpable. He knew he would spend his entire life bound and trapped, with Metternich as his jailer.

The young man had sealed himself up in a silence that was almost complete, venting his feelings at the most in talks with Sophie and Prokesch, during which he expressed many severe judgments on members of the Imperial family. He loved Sophie and he had an affection for his grandfather, but he did not like the Empress, fond as she was of him. He thought the Archduke Ferdinand, heir-apparent and King of Hungary, was a ninny. [Editor’s note: Ferdinand was actually a brain-damaged hydrocephalic epileptic who couldn’t even consummate his own marriage with his wife Maria Anna, married in 1835.] He hated the Archduke Franz Karl, Sophie’s husband, calling him deceitful, mean and vulgar. Table conversations at the Hofburg were stupid, the Court life was cheap and in bad taste. Comparing himself with those pious, submissive and conceited Archudukes and those ugly, insipid Archduchesses, he felt himself of a superior race. He even said one day— and Prokesch recorded the words in his secret notes:

“If Josephine had been my mother, my father would not have gone to St. Helena, and I would not be languishing in Vienna. My mother certainly has a kind heart, but no backbone! She was not the wife my father deserved!”

And he added, burying his face in Prokesch’s hands:

“You do not respect her, do you?”

And Prokesch replied:

“She was what she could be. The woman your father deserved for a wife did not exist. But he chose her, and she is your mother…”

Reichstadt was now weeping, and a long silence followed. [Aubry pg 207]

And that was when he seriously began to think about escaping.

While the two began to consider exactly what they could do, Franz decided that he had had quite enough of the chaperonage of Count Dietrichstein, his head tutor. This was the man who whipped him when he was five, who thrashed him when he was ten, who drilled him for countless hours on his German and his Italian translations and all the minutiae of court etiquette. He claimed to be utterly devoted to the young prince. Maybe he was, in his own weird way. But Franz was spreading his wings (or at least attempting to— even when he was 20, his imperial grandpa was still prone to treating him like a child, forcing him to dine with him in austerity if his own personal dinner parties became, in Francis’s opinion, too extravagant). In addition to the sensible and devoted Prokesch, Franz had befriended a few other young men, rakes and dandies all, like Neipperg’s eldest son and the young Esterhazy. Franz was gorgeous, brooding, romantic, and with perfect manners, and the women were obsessed with him (a Polish nun who had never met him but only saw him from a distance once swore undying love, even writing letters to this effect).

There was one woman that Franz danced with at a masquerade ball, a certain Naudine Karolyi, black-haired, handsome and bold, and not only did they manage to dodge Metternich’s spies, but they exchanged a lot of letters. This was 1831, and he was 20. But Dietrichstein soon found out about the correspondence.

At any rate, he strode into the Duke’s room, began rummaging through his desk, and finding a drawer locked, commanded him to open it. Reichstadt did not dare refuse— he obeyed, and his governor saw before him a pile of letters from Esterhazy. He opened a few, ran through them, and turned around livid with anger:

“What?” he cried. “You have a love affair?”

“Yes,” replied the prince coolly. “You can see with whom.”

“Do you write to her directly?”

“No, sir.”

“Then through an intermediary? Someone I know?”

He was besides himself with rage and almost shouting. Other persons had just entered the room and stood looking on in surprise at the strange scene. Reichstadt begged the Count to calm himself.

“Come downstairs with me,” he whispered. “You shall have all the letters afterwards, I promise you.”

The Count mastered his anger and went down with him to the Emperor. On the return, the Duke scrupulously handed him the entire correspondence, and it was forthwith consigned to the flames. [Aubry, pg 212]

But this didn’t stop Dietrichstein from trying to intercept Franz’s personal letters. At one point he saw that Esterhazy called him “the old woman,” and Dietrichstein was “extremely hurt.” He tried everything he could to break up the friendship from that day on, but didn’t succeed, as Franz could be extremely stubborn and loyal to a fault.

The affair with Naudine didn’t go anywhere, but there were others— there was even a reputed bastard daughter who later called herself the Comtesse de la Pommiere— but no matter what happened, his heart belonged to Sophie.

* * *

I’m cutting this off here, because LONG POST IS LONG, but more angst and drama will be coming with the next post!

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

[chainsawcorazon]

On Yamihime & the Politics of Toxic Loyalty

I think about Yami’s history and his struggles, and wonder just how deeply Julius’ arrival affected his psyche. Here’s a man who collects squad members like they’re Pokemon, and has no problem giving them a home and a military title because, quite frankly, that’s what Julius did for him, and because Julius gave him a reason to live, then maybe the people Yami collects will also find their will to live.

Except Julius didn’t pick him off the street because he felt bad for him; he took him in because he had magic power, and magic/mana is what makes the man in Clover Kingdom.

It’s not to say Yami doesn’t know he’s a cog in the greater Clover military machine; I’m sure he does! I just think it’s important to note that even though Yami is aware he was brought in to be a tool, he has no problem making others tools as well, because his perception of loyalty and service is inherently warped. For Yami, it’s OK to give your life for someone, no matter what kind of person they are, if you owe your loyalty to that person. It’s also probably why Yami, despite being so perceptive and intelligent, has never questioned Julius’ authority, even though the kingdom is a shitshow from the capital all the way to the boonies.

Asta is critical to Yami’s narrative because Asta, despite being a magicless manlet, is also the only person in the Black Bulls who doesn’t come into the squad looking for comfort, family, and a place to belong. Asta already has all of that. He has comfort in the fact that he’s an ambitious little fuck, he has a family he’ll literally die for, and his home is Hage. The Magic Knights are a path to his goals, not the goal itself. This is a clear opposite of the Black Bulls at large, who are mostly depressed, prone to loitering, and have no motivation to heal and improve their magical abilities because they’re all suffering from depression, anxiety, etc., and the Black Bulls and Yami are really all they have, because they have nothing and no one else.

Prior to Asta’s arrival, the Black Bulls were largely fractured, and barely functioned as individuals, much less a team. Yami did nothing to foster camaraderie. He didn’t have to! They didn’t have to be loyal to each other, only Yami, because it wasn’t a brigade, it was a halfway house, and he was house master. Again, it’s not to say Yami willingly fostered toxicity in his ranks, but he definitely let it fester for so long that it took a whole arc for them to come together as a cohesive unit. And why? Because Asta was the only one well-adjusted enough to recognize his squad’s potential as a whole, versus Yami who wanted them to surpass their limits individually.

But through Asta, I truly believe Yami learned the meaning of family and individual agency in ways Julius could never teach him. I don’t see Yami as a father figure for the Black Bulls at all. In fact, if there’s anyone I think Yami resembles the most, it’s Rukia from Bleach, and that’s as a mentor, a friend, and an ideal to be achieved. Yami is someone who, despite fundamentally being a good person, is bound by his toxic loyalty to his king, wrapped in politics beyond his comprehension, and ultimately a tool who’s been sacrificed time and time again to keep up appearances. The Black Bulls are some of the strongest people in the realm, and led by the King’s ward himself, and yet no one respects the Black Bulls, and no one looks to or respects Yami as ward of the King. He’s treated like garbage despite the military clout. He’s a monster to be feared, when he could have been a beacon of hope for other immigrants, but in the greater narrative of Clover’s military, that just wasn’t possible, and so Yami’s dignity had to be sacrificed in order for him to coexist with the natives.

And now that he’s literally about to be sacrificed, I think it’s poignant that Yami smiled one last before his transformation into Yamihime. It’s his way of apologizing for his shortcomings as squad leader because, in a way, he knows it’s his fault Vanessa, Finral, Grey, Gauche, and Henry still aren’t emotionally well enough to duke it out in tough spots, and Asta can’t save them at the end of the day because Asta is but one human. Yami knows he fucked up, and that he should have tried harder, but he didn’t. Of course we know that it’s not Yami’s fault he got snatched up, but for Yami, it’s a culmination of all of his shortcomings, so he has to smile at the end, because he needs the Black Bulls to understand that it aint their fault. AKA, if we follow through with the Bleach parallel, then the Black Bulls are mini-Ichigos, with Asta being Alpha Ichigo.

The power structure that birthed the Black Bulls can’t be allowed to continue, because how many others like Yami are serving the Crown while willfully ignoring the injustices happening to the civilians? How about the crimes against military personnel? How many more Zara Ideale’s are there? How many more Vanessa’s, and Finral’s, and Henry’s? More than enough, probably, but they’re stuck in this hateful cycle because they have a central figurehead willing to sacrifice them to keep the institution running. That’s why Julius has to die, not because Julius is inherently evil (he’s not), but the institution he serves, upholds, and strengthens is corrupt and fundamentally evil. It’s the same institution that carried out a genocide, and created the tragedy of Yamihime and those like him, those who were sacrificed one way or another to keep the Crown looking pretty.

So why the wall of text? Simple. I feel like Yami’s one of those characters whose physical appearance is a reflection of his deepest insecurities. Here’s a guy who’s three hundred pounds of pure muscle and bulging neck veins, but not only is he objectively ugly, he also has the social skills of a wet leaf. He doesn’t know how to navigate socially, can’t read the room, is crazy intelligent and observant, but too damn stupid to catch a cue. And it’s not his fault! He’s dumb! Lonely! He wants friends, but he’s bad at it! So what does he do? Overcompensate with his muscles and emotionally detach himself enough that his squad members can’t get too close to him, so then he becomes more of an ideal than a person. 

With his transformation into Yamihime, I think Yami is finally in a place where he’s finally humanized, not only to the Black Bulls, but to the audience as well. Now we know that despite three hundred pounds of muscles, anyone can be a victim. Despite being a physical representation of oozing masculinity, anyone can be harassed, hurt, and victimized by violent predators like Dante and Zenon. The transformation into Yamihime thus serves as the critical juncture where Yami is now a person rather than just Julius’ tool, the Black Bulls’ idealized leader, and Charlotte’s love interest. Yami is now a deeply flawed human being who has his own shortcomings and insecurities, recognizes these issues, and who has accepted his failure in order to emotionally relieve his squad of having to feel the guilt of losing him. I know I joke about the Yamihime a lot, but it really is a powerful tool when used properly, because Tabata didn’t fridge Yami, he made Yami the very human being Clover refused to believe he was.

And his rescue now is staked on his humanity, because Yami is a friend and a potential lover, and not just a monster, or a captain, or the dude who’s made of three hundred pounds of pure muscle. And with Yami’s transformation into Yamihime, it comes time for Julius to be removed from the narrative as a proponent of the old Yami and all that he stood for, because Yamihime can’t be the tool of the state after this. Yami can’t uphold the dirty institution after this because the institution has spent this whole time stripping away Yami’s humanity, so for Yami to return to Clover as Julius’ soldier does nothing to reflect the change that’s necessary for the story to further develop as a whole. 

See with Yami’s humanization came Julius’ breakdown as a figurehead. I now understand why Tabata had to deage him. If he’d killed him off during the elven invasion, then he would have died a martyr and thrown the country into a civil war with a Spade invasion on its heels. No - Julius needed to be deaged so that it would be much easier for both the audience and characters to consume his true death because it’s easier to woobify a thirteen year old babie than a forty year old man. Because despite how kind Julius is to Yami, he’s still a propagator of violence and a leading figure of a corrupt institution. For Yami’s sacrifice to even make a modicum of narrative sense, Julius must die. The civil war, which has been brewing since the first chapter, is practically imminent.

tl;dr: Yamihime is an excellent developmental point for Yami, Julius needs to die in order to start the Clover civil war, Jack the Ripper is Renji Abarai and will rescue and eventually go onto marry the Yamihime, and Henry’s bussy pops SEVERELY. No, I will not be taking questions.

[plasterasher]

You stay with Me Part 1

A/N: i’Ll PoSt MoRe OfTeN. I’ve said that like five times no one’s gonna belive that shit but I’m gonna try. ANWAY this was supposed to be a short one shot but it’s almost over three thousand words and I’m not even done writing it. SO I split it up and I’ll do the whole link things for them when I get the other parts out.

Ship: Anxceit and Moxiety

TW: Cursing, Slight Angst

“Virgil I just don’t trust him!” “How can you not trust him, it's Patton for fucks sake! What do you think he’ll do to ground you?” Janus sighed, He and Virgil had been arguing for over an hour about this. “Jan this is a once in a lifetime opportunity! We're getting an opportunity to have a seat at the table, to talk to Thomas! You can’t let your personal opinion of Patton cloud this!!” “Ve you don’t know the things he’s done. You’re too-” “If you say I’m too young I swear to god.” Virgil, who was sitting on Janus bed, while Janus paced the room, stood up. “If you and Remus won’t tell me what happened when I was forming I can’t take it to heart.” “Please Virgil I’m begging you. Don’t do it.” Janus looked at Virgil with pleading eyes. “Jan I can’t miss this opportunity! It’ll be good for us you’ll see.” Virgil says while grabbing Janus’ hand and facing him towards him. “No. If you go to the lights, don’t come back.” Virgil flinched, Janus almost took back what he said but he bit his tongue, there was no way Virgil would choose the lights over us, over his own boyfriend… Right?

“...Jan you don’t mean that.” “I do. I do mean it. You can totally comprehend the emotions I feel towards Patton! You understand what Remus and I have been through! You should just go with Patton and leave us forever!” Janus screams. Virgil pulls Janus into a hug. “Janus, calm down. You're speaking in lies.” Janus takes a deep breath then pushes Virgil away. “You go with them and leave forever, or you stay with us.” Janus looks into Virgil’s eyes. “You stay with me”. When those words left his mouth they sounded like a plea, a cry for help, a last resort. Virgil sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “I-I have to think about it.” And with that he sunk out of Janus' room to go to his own. 

Virgil sighed and flopped on his bed. A fight with Janus was not on his agenda for today. Virgil didn’t understand why he was so worked up over this. What did Patton do? What could sweet innocent Patton could have possibly done? The man didn’t even curse! Virgil groaned and pulled on his hair. This was stressing him more than he planned, the last thing he expected Janus to say is no, and so strongly… Maybe he shouldn’t do this… 

Is being with the light, getting a chance to be in Thomas’ life, getting a seat at the table, a chance at a better life, was that really more important than the others? Than Janus?

Don’t get Virgil wrong he loved his boyfriend, he loved his friends. He would do almost anything for them. Maybe this was one of those things he had to do. To show the lights that them and the dark sides shouldn’t be separated. That there should be no Light and Dark sides. Virgil honestly thought that his whole Light and Dark side bullshit was stupid. 

But... if this all goes south where will Virgil go? If he wanted to come back Janus would never allow it, he was too stubborn to let go of his pride so easily. Virgil sighed again pushing his face into the mattress. He wanted to scream.

“Hey Kiddo! I was just-” “AH!” Virgil jumped up and squeezed his heart. “Jeez Patton you can’t just…” Virgil waves his hand up and down, “Do that.” Patton giggled and smiled, “Oops sorry kiddo! I didn’t mean to scare you! I just wanted to check in!” “That’s fine…” Patton frowned, “Is something bothering you kiddo? You look upset.” Virgil rubbed his face then sat up quickly.

Maybe Patton can tell me what happened.

“Uh yeah me and de got into a fight… Hey Patton can I ask you a question?”  “You already did but go ahead.” Patton said giggling at the end. “Did something happen before I formed? Between you, De and the Duke?” Patton’s eyes flashed with emotions rapidly before only one showed. Pain. Virgil jumped “Uh youdon’thavetotellmeifyoudon’twantto-” Virgil said quickly. Patton sighed “No kiddo it’s fine, I just though they would’ve told you…” “Um tell me what? Exactly?”  “Do you mind if I sit?” Virgil scoots to one side of the bed and pats the side nearest to Patton gesturing for him to sit. Patton sat down crisis-cross applesauce (There's got to be a better name for this) next to Virgil on the bed. “Well…”

Long ago there were 4 main sides.

Logic: The smartest but also the weakest. 

Morality and Deceit: Equals but polar opposites. They were also fairly strong.

And Creativity: The strongest and most powerful of all the side.

They called him King Creativity for he was the most powerful and practically ran the place.  Logic found the King obnoxious but didn’t bother him much. Morality really liked him at first but as he got older he became more inappropriate but Morality stayed quiet for the King had a special place in his heart. 

Now this is where the problem starts. The two opposite sides had more in common than they would want to believe. They had both fallen for the King. They loved everything about him, and it didn't take them long to find out the other’s intention. 

Deceit in a rush of hope confessed his love and got the King before Morality did. Now as heartbroken as Morality was he stood back and attempted to move on. 

As Thomas grew and changed so did the other sides, Logic became stronger, Morality and Deceit were no longer equals one was now stronger than the other, and the King… The King grew split in his head and he was suffering. He was stronger than ever but it was too much power for one side to handle. 

And one day he s p l i t . 

Suddenly there were two Creativities, The Duke and The Prince. When Deceit found out he was furious and heartbroken. He screamed and cried and blamed Morality for his lover being gone. Morality just as heart broken as Deceit tried to defend himself but Deceit wasn't having it.  He took one half of Creativity and left the others.

Thus the start of the separation of the Light Sides and the Dark Sides. 

When Patton finished his story Virgil was in shock. Never in his life did he think Janus, his Janus was the reason for the Light and Dark side split. He didn’t even notice Patton had tears in his eyes until he looked up. “Oh Patton, I’m sorry!” Virgil pulled Patton into a hug. Patton chuckled and hugged Virgil back, “It’s fine I’d just wish Deceit would understand. I still feel awful about it.” Patton said. “I’ll talk to him. I’ll try to get him to talk to you again so we can work this out.” Virgil said Patton looked at Virgil and smiled through the tears. “Thanks Virgil.”  

‘Was this whole thing really just a big misunderstanding? Maybe the reason Jan didn’t want to talk about it is because he feels guilty?’ 

“Would you like me to stay for a little bit or?” Patton moved away from Virgil’s embrace, “No, You can go. I’ll be okay!” Patton had stopped crying but he still gave off a sad vibe. Virgil didn’t ask questions and just nodded his head and sunk out.

He appeared in Janus' room and saw Janus on his bed wrapped up in a yellow blanket. “I did think you’d be back so soon…” Janus says from the bed but doesn't make any attempt to move. “I’m assuming you made up your mind?” 

Fuck. Virgil forgot about that part of the fight just that quickly. “Um no. Well not exactly… um I know.” Janus made a face, “You know what exactly?” Virgil rubbed the back of his neck, “What happened… Why you hate Patton…” Virgil made a really long pause. He was hesitant to say the next part. “About King.” Virgil said softly. Janus visibly tensed. “How” He hissed out. “Patton told me…”  Janus barked out a laugh. “Yeah right. I doubt he told you the truth but that’s not important, what did you come to my room for? To ask if it was true? To accuse me of the splitting of sides?” Virgil's eyes went wide “What!?! No! Actually…” Virgil rubbed the back of his neck now unsure if he should’ve done this today. “Well? Spit it out.” Janus said impatiently. “Actually Patton wanted me to talk to you. He wants to talk to you.” Janus scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Jan to me it just sounds like one big miscommunication. I think if we all just sat down and talked-” “No.” Virgil was getting frustrated now. He knew everything and he still felt lost. Why was Janus being so difficult about this? “Why? What could you possibly have against the light sides? It wasn’t his fal-” “You know nothing , absolutely nothing. You do not get a say in what I do and or say to them. You may think you know something but you don’t.” ‘Then tell me! Help me understand! Because to me you're being unreasonable!” “No. You don’t need to know, I don’t want to talk about it. Beside you knowing won’t change a thing.” “It may change my mind.” The room went quiet. “So you did decide.” “Maybe…” Janus took a deep breath. “And your decision?” Janus asked even though he already knew the answer. “Janus I have to do this.” “No you don’t” “Why can’t you try to see it from my perspective.” “Leave Virgil, but don’t come crying back to us when it doesn’t work out.” “Janus…”

“Leave Anxiety.” Virgil scoffed “Fine Deceit.” And with that Virgil left.

Next

[josefavomjaaga]

Helfert, Joachim Murat, Chapter 6, Part 3

We left with Murat kinda hiding in the open on Corsica while fantasizing about sneaking into the royal palace of Naples.

A flicker of prudence came over him when he decided to send one of his confidants, Simone Cambruschini from Bastia, who was to visit Elba and Naples: there to contact General Dalesme, the commandant of the French garrison left behind by Napoleon; here to obtain information about the prevailing mood in the city and the country. But weeks would pass before the messenger could return with his news, and was Murat, once his head was on fire, the man to bide his time?

Elsewhere in Europe, it was not known for a long time what had become of the ex-king. On 23 July, London papers had brought the news that he had left Toulon, but they did not know where he had gone. Some thought he had gone to Tunis, and Murat himself had helped to spread this rumour; others had him sailing for America; the third wanted to know that he was near Paris, in Fontainebleau, in Compiègne. According to still other rumours, he was lying near Lyon - the country house of the president of the Court of Appeal was called Vouti - mortally ill from wounds he had received, or was wandering about on land or at sea.

Here, again, there is a somewhat cryptic source in a footnote:

M*** Vie de Joa. Murat p. 95 f., probably written in September, at any rate before the bloody drama in Pizzo: "Murat ne parait pas s'être éloigné de la Provence"; he is said to have spent some time in Antibes and then been in Toulon, "enfermé avec divers corps armés qui, comprimant le voeu bien prononcé du peuple, méconnaissaient encore l'autorité du Roi ... Il erre maintenant dans des montagnes déguisé sous des vêtements communs et suivi, dit-on, de deux seuls domestiques". The "Journal du Departement du Var", on the other hand, brought the news that Murat, who had pretended to be a naval officer named Campomele, had been recognised and arrested on his arrival in Bastia.

The text continues:

In the meantime, without paying attention to such groundless talk, diplomacy in Paris dealt with the future fate of the dethroned king. According to a document signed by Prince Metternich on September 1st, Emperor Franz offered him admission and protection in his states, provided that he accepted a private title, possibly the one chosen by his wife, and undertook not to leave his place of residence without first obtaining the consent of the emperor. A passport for him was also issued on the 7th under that name "von Lipona", "in order to go from southern France to Trieste", by the Imperial and Royal Court Chancellor Count Mercy, signed by the English envoy Lord Steward.... It was previously related that Colonel Maceroni, whom Murat had sent from Toulon to the Duke of Wellington, had been arrested in Paris; the latter was now brought out of his custody and entrusted with the task of delivering the two documents to his former king and master. Maceroni left without delay for the south, where it was already known that Murat had succeeded in escaping to Corsica, and that is where the colonel went in the second half of September, first to Bastia.

In Naples, too, people were not only aware of Murat's presence in Corsica at this time, they also suspected that he was up to no good against the kingdom. Perhaps it was precisely Lambruschini's mission, whose appearance and covert reconnaissance could not have escaped the attention of the police, that caused the first unrest in Neapolitan government circles. Lambruschini had reached Porto-Ferrajo on September 1st at a time when General Dalesme, in accordance with an agreement concluded with the Tuscan troops, was about to evacuate the island. The first part of his mission had thus come to an end and only the second remained: to find out the prevailing mood for the ex-king on the Italian mainland. Consequently, he had gone to Livorno, to Florence, to Rome, September 8 to 11, where he endeavoured to put his travel documents into order so as to be able to sneak into Naples. It is certain that both in the capital and in Gaëta, still occupied by Lauer's troops, fears were harboured in the second half of September about Murat's activities in Corsica and from Corsica. On the 18th, our envoy had a lengthy discussion on this matter with the King, to whom he advised: first, to have several larger warships cruise along the most exposed stretches of coast from Gaëta to Terracina, then along the Calabrian shores; second, to reinforce the garrison of Gaëta with Sicilian troops; third, to have the forts of Naples provisioned for at least a fortnight. It does not appear, however, that these precautionary measures were carried out in any great hurry; at least there was no sign of frigates crossing the coasts for a long time. On the other hand, the Minister Medici sent a trusted man, Ignazio Carabelli, in a hurry to Corsica, from where he was a native, with the order to approach Murat and to talk him out of any hostile enterprise against King Ferdinand.

Lambruschini did not arrive in Naples until September 28th, where he had secret talks with both General Filangieri and the banquier Falconet, both of whom implored him to leave the city as quickly as possible, since the police could track him and them down and the mood in the country was such that his patron should not entertain any favourable expectations. At this, Lambruschini, after barely a four-day stay in Naples, left for Rome again, with the firm resolution to dissuade the king in the strongest possible terms from carrying out his foolhardy plan.

But in the meantime everything had changed on Corsica. Verrière had retreated to the Citadelle in the face of Murat's daily growing number of followers and, on September 15, issued an appeal in which he called Murat a "disturber of the peace", an "agitator" and called on the loyal followers of King Louis to take up arms and be ready to march out against the high-treasonous gatherings in Vescovato.

Now Murat too believed that he should no longer delay. On the 17th, he set off with his men from their previous base, but not to Bastia, but over mountains and valleys in short marches to Ajaccio. On the 20th they camped for the night in Bogognano, from where Murat sent General Franceschetti on ahead to Ajaccio to hire vehicles in the harbour for the crossing, but also to find money and bills of exchange, as the funds he had taken with him on his escape from Naples were running out. It was also in Bogognano that Murat dictated into the pen of his secret scribe a very verbose manifesto, which he intended to distribute on entering the soil of his kingdom. "Neapolitans," it said, among other things, 'do not fear that the allied powers will arm themselves anew against your king. Your Joachim never abdicated. A military failure could not make him lose the crown of Naples. By regaining his throne, he only imitates the example of the sovereigns who have regained theirs. The Emperor of Austria, who, misled as to the true policy of the Cabinet of Naples, and thinking that your Joachim was in agreement with Napoleon, has overtaken him with such a disastrous war, will again become his ally, do not doubt it." He spoke of his conciliatory disposition, with a scarcely veiled sidelong glance at Ferdinand who, as his courtiers had always told him, was nothing but a hateful tyrant: "Your King does not speak to you of forgiveness, you have never offended him, he rather renews the oath he made to you in former times: to make you happy. He will not be like those who pause only for the moment with their revenge, in order then to allow it to shoot the reins all the more freely". This was followed by outbursts at Ferdinand's letter to Bianchi, in which Murat's troops were spoken of in a contemptuous manner, at the treaty of May 20: "the castle of Casa Lanza, this monument to Ferdinand's disgrace, shall be razed to the ground, and Ferdinand, who has called your brave army covered with glory a bunch of enemy bands, shall be declared by the nation unworthy to govern it and deprived of the throne!"

Sometimes I wonder if these men, as they had grown up in the army, simply were mistaken about the little importance military matters had for most civilians, particularly in times when everybody was so war-weary. I do not think many people outside the army were ready to rise up against a king because he had talked badly about the army.

But seeing how so many people actually tried to save Murat’s life, with him actively working towards his own distruction, is heartbreaking.

[wordsfromafangirl]

@cookiedoughmeagain

Saw this post.

Answered some of the questions.

Long post warning. Spoilers too for those who haven't seen the show or want to. Bare with. I did mostly answer Nathan and Duke oriented questions and there's no way I can answer those without shipper goggles on, sorry. Also, I think Haven left a lot of holes for the audience to fill in about the town. Don't know if that was intentional, but I often found myself wound up in subtext, things that could happen off screen with just those one lines, like you brought up about hijinx and illegal things Nathan might've done but we never see or really hear about.

For many of the questions concerning Vince and Dave, I just kind of assumed that half the time they were the old guys of Haven who kept its secrets and so anything they did was always suspect. They covered up the truth. They basically tried to keep their involvement a secret (all the time). Look at Vince and how he was the apparent leader of the Guard to keep troubles in check and help those (with mostly volatile and uncontrollable troubles) in need, but the Guard looked like that oppressive middle ground where they sometimes play both sides with or without Vince in charge…? Personally, Vince and Dave would be the sus people of the town. They know everything and sure when they are giving me my Haven newspaper everything seems peachy, but how far could you delude a town until it starts asking questions or rather everything implodes, and everyone just knows? Not an inner circle of people, the whole town knows now either because they were newly given a trouble or because they finally caught on that Haven was not a “normal” town. Vince and Dave are the gossipers and busy bodies but kept (dare I say) hypocritical secrets of their own? (<And this could answer the very last question about why they'd write an article if they knew, but memories were wonky that day except for knowing they found "The Colorado Kid" dead...?)

Now onto the questions that really got me curious:

5. What was Evi doing working with the Rev? Was she genuinely simply trying to help Duke, or was she working an angle? Did she know about the Troubles? What did she think the Rev’s motivation was? What were her final words (“If you don’t tell him, I will.”) about?

Honestly, this intrigued me, but I assumed Evi had to know. Didn’t she also mention something about Duke being powerful? I do not know, it has been a while since I watched it, but she had to know about the troubles. The Rev must have filled her in that Duke is a vital part of the plan but as my mind goes back to 2x09; in order to sway Duke, they could not allow Nathan to oversee anything. Nathan would stand in Duke’s way because it is someone who can convince him otherwise. Someone who would see the use of Duke’s trouble as “wrong” and uncontrollable and always try to stop him. Of course, we know there is more emotional ties between the boys that would make Duke stop and think about abusing his trouble. Or not even at this point because in 2x09 Nathan has no qualms about locking Duke up even if that meant they would (as they did) shoot Evi. Nathan could not stand the thought of Duke being injured?? I am digressing from the point, because you mention, “if you don’t tell him, I will” and that must mean she knew about the trouble(s)? She knew what Duke could be capable of, but they had to get Nathan out of the way? Literally, the Rev wanted to attempt assassinating Audrey and mostly Nathan because…that is the one person who would be in Duke’s way…in the guise of the Rev’s prejudiced mind when dealing with people who had troubles…then in the end look who Duke ends up siding with? "Just so you know I'm the lion."

6. On one of the commentaries there is talk of how Duke and Nathan got up to “hijinks” together as teenagers. WHAT WERE THE HIJINKS?

Many of their HIJINKS were probably pranks, you know. Duke would mostly prank Nathan of course and then occasionally Nathan finds himself wrapped up in one against other people. Or they are the kids riding around on their bikes (like the IT gang) and just causing a ruckus? They could be in a group. Yet I think sometimes Nathan and Duke ventured off alone…

I think if you consider off screen hijinks as teenagers it is probably why Duke acts so snubbed towards Nathan all the time. If you think about it, Duke lost a friend who would be the “bad boy” with him. Nathan turned into stuffy, stick up his butt Nathan either A. because of his trouble or B. because he had to follow in Garland’s footsteps and be a cop. It reminds me of Harmony right there at the beginning of the show, episode 3? Nathan is lying about everything, according to Duke and so he is being a Pinocchio like usual; not a real boy, which is also in reference to “his condition” of feeling no pain/nothing. And it is probably because Nathan was a “bad boy” and the only one who keeps that information in confidence is Duke. Nathan wants to keep it that way. Duke never really tells anyone anything and truthfully, he just likes fucking with “law-abiding” Nathan. Duke of course misses those times when they were teenagers just messing about and getting heckled by Garland, but maybe once or twice getting cuffs slapped on them only to be let go an hour later? Sooner or later, Duke would see that shift. Nathan would start becoming interested in law enforcement and Duke seeks a path towards smuggling/criminal activity. Duke is the only one being arrested by the time they are 17-30 and sometimes it is by Nathan (small head canon: Duke does it on purpose. He is an attention seeker and hell if he does not like Nathan putting him in handcuffs). Then suddenly Duke has up and vanished for a little while (guessing from 30 to 35ish? Or some time frame shorter). Nathan would lie about missing him, but because his trouble was activated how does Nathan really know? He just knows, but never admits it, hence the whole love/hate game we get between them when Duke does come back.

24. In Harmony Duke says something to Nathan about “does she know the things you’ve done?” - implying that when they were younger Nathan did something illegal and/or possibly immoral that Duke knows about (because he was also involved?) but most people (or at least, Audrey) don’t. WHAT THINGS?

Primarily? IT’S LOOKING THE OTHER WAY WHEN DUKE DOES SOMETHING ILLEGAL. It is essentially just being there as a participant while Duke breaks and enters? Or being there while Duke is smuggling something because I venture to think that business started early on for Duke. 18ish and onward? It is giving Duke a pass once, twice, three times and more. Nathan cannot be mad at Duke. Then there is maybe those few times is it was Nathan picking the lock. It was Nathan doing something illegal and Duke of course did not care. He would look the other way or help him along. This is something that would always stay between Nathan and Duke, which is why I think the relationship is so rocky. Duke is holding secrets that could jeopardize Nathan’s “law abiding” reputation and he never once tells a soul, right? This is a testament to loyalty and how neither of them hates each other. Of course, for me, from space they can be seen as exes. The on and off type of relationship because Duke’s smuggling business got in the way or as I think of it, Nathan got so tired of Duke being sort of unchanging that he would break it off and then suddenly he had run back to Duke, hop on the boat and beg to be taken back. Duke would chuckle and take him back. Was this secret? Or did the whole town see it? Most likely people knew, even Garland. Not so sure Simon approved, but somehow while their relationship was fucked up and Simon ends up dying, I don't think Duke necessarily sought his approval on anything? Truthfully, his feelings for Nathan were his business alone and Nathan mostly felt the same way so who cares?

26. What’s Duke’s side of the story about the fishing trip when Nathan’s Trouble got triggered?

Duke knows he fucked up.He used Nathan as a distraction while some illegal procedures were happening underneath his nose. Nathan thinks oh well maybe I still have a friend, because they’re probably in the middle of their: “Oh, seriously, Duke. Put your hands behind your back.” “Oh, come on Nathan, can you just this once not.” Too late. Nathan grabs his wrists and puts his hands behind his back. Duke feels the familiarity of handcuffs and smirks his whole to Nathan’s Bronco. Ironically.

If I track it right Nathan’s trouble was triggered on this fishing trip before Duke left Haven right? So therefore, this was probably to make amends? It might have been that good old let us just actually hang out as friends (or more…because my brain goes there) but it turns out I need you as my cover while shady shit goes on in town. Nathan finds out. They fight. It triggers the trouble. And presumably Duke feels so guilty and thus he decides to leave. Or he had already decided and did not know how to tell Nathan on the fishing trip, but part of leaving and getting out of dodge meant also doing some smuggling for parts, money etc.

35. Wouldn’t Nathan have recognised Duke in The Colorado Kid photo? (Especially given that he would very probably have seen the photo when he was a kid?) And wouldn’t he have told Audrey that from the beginning?

Everyone’s memory was effed up right? So perhaps Nathan did not remember? Though, you are right. Nathan would have recognized him. Would he have told Audrey? Not so sure, because Nathan would be in that battle inside his head. How far can I trust Audrey? I immediately liked her. Duke does too. That should mean she is great. But Duke is kinda sorta my friend…my ugh whatever, tell him or do not tell him? Imagine Nathan knowing about the photo before Duke reveals to Audrey that it is him…and so Nathan is sitting in his house waiting for coffee to cool off and contemplating…I could tell Audrey. It is crucial information, and I don’t know why Duke isn’t saying anything? Is there a reason? Should I talk to him first? Then at one point he just gives up and lets Audrey continue playing detective in hopes Duke would just fess up. For me, Nathan is in a constant battle of loyalty when it comes to Duke and Audrey, but when he realizes that Duke cares just as much about Audrey...(okay, we're not talking about threegulls and the relationship that is the three of them...)

23. Were there ever any female Crockers? If there were, would they have had the same curse?

Hey! There is a female Crocker isn’t there? Or does she since she cannot even be near Dad at all, inherit the trouble of the dock worker only? Whose name slips my mind. But I venture to think that Duke’s blood would overcome that, but the baby had life draining powers because that was the trouble of the dock worker. Baby after baby only to suck the life out of the father like some metaphorical siren.

Personally, I always think that if the babies survive and we know she did, then I think by the time she’s a teen all life draining powers would just go away [because I assume that’s the curse, never being able to keep the baby but the baby doesn’t get the full curse; however what about duke’s trouble [at this point is his trouble is inactive like a volcano, but can it still be passed on? Volcanoes sit there and stew so the genetic thing of the trouble must still be there…isn't it implicated that families still have the trouble but can go on without it being activated?]…anyway, Duke’s blood is taking over and she finally realizes something funky is going on so she searches out her father because Nathan made sure to tell the adoption services that any parents who fosters or even adopts her down the road they should tell her that her real father is out there and he did not, would not just abandon a baby (even if it happened in real time and not some sped up sci-fi version).

Basically, in any version (in my head) of the Crocker bloodline, Duke is probably the first to have a girl and yes she'd get the same trouble, because imagine a badass woman who looks like Duke manage the Crocker trouble (the eye thing). It seems to me though that it was bloodlines/legacy that stuck with men because apparently boys were it in the Crocker family. And many other families seemed that way too. Some troubles seemed bound by legacy born from the men and carried on, etc. I like to think that Duke subverted all that shit. And funny enough, his trouble went away at one point, but I think if there were ever any female Crockers? If there were, would they have had the same curse? If there were that baby girl could have still had it. Meaning his fate could have been different if they played an angle of that daughter coming back into the story. Someone else who had Duke’s trouble and then of course, it would turn into a reason for Duke to live (still bitter because I’m being biased as to who is my favorite in the Haven world). Imagine juxtaposition story lines of Dwight and Duke fighting… Duke: “She’s my daughter!” Dwight: “Well, that’s my daughter too!” Then they would both just take a deep breath and realize they are fighting on the same side.

Okay, so I am blowing smoke with an answer to this question but really, I see it and go, damn, I wish we could have seen more of Duke being fatherly. I mean we got the pirate episode of him taking care of that young girl who could manipulate your will, but honestly, Duke raising a kid…

__

Much of this may not be an answer at all. It's head canon really, because often with Haven I felt like I had to fill in experiences of the characters. Mostly did so with Nathan and Duke, individually and then together. However, there's something about this show, because questions always pop up even when you revisit it. Like wait a minute? What? Was this intentional? How in the world did this happen? Sure, we'll just accept some things even if it's strangely abnormal to the plot, but after all it's Haven.

[longsightmyth]

OKAY SO. Here are my goodreads status updates from my first readthrough of ToD. These are from three years ago, some things are out of date, some aren’t fully fleshed out, and some problems I have this time around are absent from my notes the last time. I will eventually get back into this on my goodreads, but until then have these older updates to tide you over. Cut to save everybody’s dashes.

September 5, 2017 – page 12 

 1.82% "When will people realize that gold is an incredibly soft metal"

September 5, 2017 – page 18 

 2.73% ""The final blow hadn't been an act of brutality or hate" it sounds pretty brutal and hateful?"

September 5, 2017 – page 18 

 2.73% "Call me crazy, but attempted sneakymurder followed by screaming plunging into heart murder with the same knife, again, sounds pretty brutal and hateful to me"

September 5, 2017 – page 28 

 4.24% ""And then he'd ask that servant girl to comb every merchant ship for information about the attack."

First of all, the fragments are strong with this one. Second, that is a stupid idea. You don't know this servant girl, as evidenced by the fact that you don't even know her name. You don't know if she'll be good at extracting info. I mean, she could be. She could also be spying on you right now."

September 5, 2017 – page 28 

 4.24% "Why did Dorian send ambassadors without a retinue"

September 5, 2017 – page 28 

 4.24% "Why is the CAPTAIN OF THE ROYAL GUARD being sent on a diplomatic mission?!"

September 5, 2017 – page 28 

 4.24% "Seriously how did these people not get conquered earlier? How did Adarlan stay in power all these years? How on EARTH has no one assassinated the king of Adarlan?!"

September 5, 2017 – page 48 

 7.27% "Okay for real though what are the responsibilities of the royal guard in this world because they seem significant in their scope and I question why a captain of the guard was commanding armies"

September 5, 2017 – page 53 

 8.03% "Idk man I feel like 'why did your previous king enslave and/or murder his own and various other peoples' to be a valid question"

September 5, 2017 – page 66 

 10.0% "I find it utterly ludicrous that a trained medical professional won't just say the word penis"

September 7, 2017 – page 85 

 12.88% "Okay look you've admitted that Kadja (the servant, who at last has a name)could be in the pay of someone but you're still trusting the information she gives you with no qualms whatsoever?"

September 7, 2017 – page 90 

 13.64% ""It will totes be a weakness if I mention that I'm looking for THE ONLY OTHER MEMBER OF MY DIPLOMATIC GROUP who has gone missing because it will reveal that I care about her"

I don't know what to do with these people I really don't"

September 7, 2017 – page 91 

 13.79% "I take back whatever points Chaol earned for bothering to learn Kadja's name. Stop yelling at Nesryn for unreasonable things. It's stupid, first of all, and weird, second"

September 16, 2017 – page 91 

 13.79% "I seem to have misplaced my copy but rest assured I will be back"

September 23, 2017 – page 30 

 4.55% "On the one hand I can understand a grieving sibling not thinking about every possibility, but on the other, "no one within our lands would be stupid enough to [murder a princess and make it look like a suicide]"

First, if they have successfully fooled everyone into thinking it was suicide, that argues for cleverness, no matter what nationality."

September 23, 2017 – page 30 

 4.55% "Second, this is a nation where apparently siblings are supposed to duke it out for the throne and murder the offspring of their less skilled or less lucky siblings. Why wouldn't you murder your siblings at that point? Look at the princess who's married and pregnant - maybe she doesn't like her odds if things proceeded on the up and up. Maybe her spouse doesn't. Maybe they just don't want to risk it."

September 23, 2017 – page 30 

 4.55% "Even if it wasn't a sibling directly, any of their supporters could have done it, or even somebody who just had a grudge and was particularly clever."

September 23, 2017 – page 30 

 4.55% "Third, someone trying to destabilize the current royal family could be murdering folks. It's not like you guys seem to actually DO anything about possible traitors."

September 23, 2017 – page 30 

 4.55% "All of these things Chaol, as the former captain of the royal guard, should be considering. Instead he takes Kashin's word for it, because no one in these books has the sense of a turnip."

September 23, 2017 – page 30 

 4.55% "Also, in case you couldn't tell, I found my book."

September 23, 2017 – page 30 

 4.55% "But seriously why are the leading suspects not her siblings"

September 25, 2017 – page 37 

 5.61% "These fragments keep getting weirder. I'm starting to truly believe this book was just never proofread. Example:

"There were two such vials on the desk now, clear orbs atop silver feet fashioned after ibis legs. Being purified by the endless sunshine within the tower."

Does that not read like someone accidentally hit the space bar twice while typing on an iPhone?"

October 5, 2017 – page 106 

 16.06% "I can't quite put my finger on why the new and strange veneration of Dorian's father bothers me as much as it does. Maybe the utter lack of foreshadowing? It could be that the man made more evil decisions pre-possession, or at least early possession when he ostensibly had enough control to try to make an eight year old..."

October 5, 2017 – page 106 

 16.06% "...lose control and burn him up, thus causing major political unrest and war. The eight year old was an awful child, true, but that's no reason to trick or trap a child into murder and causing a war."

October 5, 2017 – page 106 

 16.06% "Honestly he was a much more effective villain before the series started if you count extreme selfishness as a villainous trait.

 Which I do."

October 5, 2017 – page 107 

 16.21% "Why is everyone STILL fawning of Celaena she isn't even supposed to be in this book GIVE IT A REST"

October 5, 2017 – page 107 

 16.21% "Do we have to have every single POV character independently explain to us who Silba is? Is this a requirement? Is this author being paid by the word?"

October 5, 2017 – page 108 

 16.36% ""In that court of vipers" [footage not found] you can't tell me CONSTANTLY that a court is pretty and valid and useless and only show us the court once (where they are dancing and Dorian is thinking about how his mother and her court are pretty and vapid and useless) and then try to tell me that they were all Evil Politicians working to drag Dorian down. You just can't."

October 5, 2017 – page 109 

 16.52% "More Celaena worship. Should I stop noting this? I probably won't."

October 5, 2017 – page 109 

 16.52% ""I told you what happened," he simply said.

 I will go to my grave saying that if you add dialogue tags to something you want to be plain and simple you are doing it wrong. MY GRAVE."

October 5, 2017 – page 110 

 16.67% "Are these glass bells magical this seems like a bad plan to me"

October 5, 2017 – page 111 

 16.82% "Are only women healers? Why? Is it a magic thing or a cultural thing? Would a man be allowed to be a healer or would he be laughed out, magical healing ability or no? Would he be allowed but looked down on? Do men even get healing magic? Is there a stigma? TELL ME."

October 5, 2017 – page 111 

 16.82% "How does no one in this book have an ex they can just kinda nod at in the street why is it all Tragically Dead or evil past loves"

October 5, 2017 – page 117 

 17.73% ""How many times had he laid into his men for slouching, for chattering amongst themselves, and reassigned them to lesser watches?"

 I mean going by the way you dealt with two guard who literally just peaced out and went to hang out at a party (ie, ah well, this happens, try not to do it again, come back tomorrow) not that many times."

October 5, 2017 – page 123 

 18.64% "Baast cats. Sure, why not, I guess."

October 5, 2017 – page 125 

 18.94% "I guess we do have printing presses in this world somehow"

October 5, 2017 – page 126 

 19.09% "Wait she named one of the Valg kings Orcus? I'm going to laugh my way to my dnd group this weekend"

October 5, 2017 – page 128 

 19.39% "This MADWOMAN is stuffing scrolls that are CENTURIES OLD into her CLOAK POCKETS. I feel faint."

October 5, 2017 – page 130 

 19.7% "Why do so few people get names in this series? Why does nobody think about the fact that they don't know people's names?!"

October 5, 2017 – page 132 

 20.0% "The bell alarm would be super clever if you discount the fact that anyone who watched the library for any length of time would know it never closed, and would therefore know that there was no bell toll to signal the library closing, and would THEREFORE know that the jig, she is up"

October 5, 2017 – page 135 

 20.45% "This isn't quite as bad as Dorian letting Sorscha take the blame for the damage caused by his magical temper tantrum, but come on, Yrene. You want a servant to leave so you can talk to Chaol in private so you straight up say that she HARMED him?"

October 5, 2017 – page 135 

 20.45% "That is quite frankly despicable, even if we ignore the possible consequences to Kadja. You just told the woman she hurt somebody! You put that on her shoulders! You have officially become awful."

October 5, 2017 – page 136 

 20.61% "Wait wait wait Yrene KNOWS that she has made Kadja worry about her position and wellbeing by literally saying that she hurt Chaol, and Yrene doesn't even care? What the everloving FUCK."

October 5, 2017 – page 138 

 20.91% "Why would bodiless shadow entities care about what bodies they inhabited? Is there a reason they only take dude bodies? Did they study humans for a while and decide they should be aesthetically pleasing men to be most effective? WHY"

October 5, 2017 – page 145 

 21.97% ""Either your lack of consciousness during that initial healing kept you from feeling this sort of pain, or perhaps whatever this is had not... settled."

Aka, I needed a wordy way to explain this particular asspull plot device.

Sorry, true love device."

October 5, 2017 – page 148 

 22.42% "Are the ruks basically the eagles. Are they. (In fairness I was thinking of the seanchan flying lizard things whose name escapes me from Wheel of Time until this point)"

October 5, 2017 – page 150 

 22.73% "How are they having this conversation up in the air with the wind"

October 5, 2017 – page 151 

 22.88% ""[Celaena] and Dorian both possess considerable magic. But I would say it is their intelligence that is the stronger weapon."

Celaena and Dorian's intelligence: [footage not found]"

October 5, 2017 – page 153 

 23.18% "Does nobody suspect Yrene? She found the body, she sounded the alarm for something nobody else found, she has all those weird books about death magic and stuff, she has access to the royal family..."

October 5, 2017 – page 159 

 24.09% "You just told Kadja to add lots of honey Yrene don't fucking complain like it's her fault the tea is too sweet now. What the hell. Why are we hating on Kadja so much. She's doing her job as stated by the book.

It's because this is when the author decided that Yrene was going to be Chaol's new love interest isn't it"

October 5, 2017 – page 160 

 24.24% "Of course Chaol instinctively puts the right amount of honey into the tea. Because why not I guess."

October 5, 2017 – page 165 

 25.0% "WHY DOES THE GRAND EMPRESS NOT HAVE A NAME"

October 5, 2017 – page 175 

 26.52% "I'm not saying the idea with the horse is impossible or even ill-conceived, but did you train the horse to answer only to rein? Because it doesn't matter how patient the horse is, if Chaol doesn't have control over his legs they'll either swing a bit, giving the horse commands it has been trained to obey, or keep constant hard pressure, which would confuse the horse if it was trained traditionally."

October 5, 2017 – page 175 

 26.52% "In other words, this is actually a considerate idea. Unfortunately it lacks the knowledge of someone who knows about horses. And I'm not saying all horses are trained the same way, but that's another factor - is this horse trained to ignore legs, one of the main forms of signaling for riders - in favor of rein? Never mentioned."

October 5, 2017 – page 178 

 26.97% ""You have a good seat" he says, at which point Yrene promptly flails everywhere and slides back and forth in her saddle. That means she does not have a good seat. Do a teensy bit of research on horses and riding please"

October 5, 2017 – page 178 

 26.97% "Here's the thing. "No lady, beautiful or plain, young or old, deserved to be gawked at."

It's a great sentiment. It's a sentiment I applaud. It's a sentiment that is completely undermine by this appearing to happen only to Yrene as a tool to tell us how desirable she is, and don't try to tell me it's not."

October 5, 2017 – page 179 

 27.12% ""You encounter that [harassment] here?"

Chaol. Literally one page ago you were commenting on people ogling her creepily. Keep up."

October 5, 2017 – page 180 

 27.27% ""Dorian has long studied and admired the khaganate."

Uh-huh. That's why it was never mentioned before the beginning of this book as anything other than the mysterious southern continent where Nesryn was from. Makes total sense."

October 5, 2017 – page 185 

 28.03% "Look I'm no fan of Chaol these days but it doesn't matter - you're shouting about the man's disability that he is clearly insecure about to a crowd while he sits there after having agreed to help you with something entirely different. You don't have his permission. He didn't ask you to talk to other healers. Why are you being a dick?"

October 5, 2017 – page 185 

 28.03% "Also, the medical professionals still refuse to say the word penis. I don't know why manhood is better, but apparently euphemisms rule the day in this world."

October 5, 2017 – page 185 

 28.03% "Also, the medical professionals still refuse to say the word penis. I don't know why manhood is better, but apparently euphemisms rule the day in this world."

October 5, 2017 – page 186 

 28.18% "No nope nuh-uh this is actually nausea inducing my blind eye isn't even that big a deal but somebody shouting about it and giving my medical particulars to a giant crowd of people I wasn't even told about and pointing out (loudly) that it was rolling off to the side or something would be SO AWFUL. Jesus Christ, I didn't even know I could have this kind of reaction."

October 5, 2017 – page 186 

 28.18% "Fuck this book."

October 5, 2017 – page 186 

 28.18% "Fuck Yrene."

October 5, 2017 – page 186 

 28.18% "This is the WORST."

October 5, 2017 – page 186 

 28.18% "He's literally either strapped to a horse or being carried by these so called healers he can't even just LEAVE. Fuck."

October 5, 2017 – page 187 

 28.33% ""She means well, my Yrene."

I.

Don't.

Care."

October 6, 2017 – page 187 

 28.33% "Still not over it (she literally goes, as if it's a treat, "who would like to assist lord westfall from his mount to his chair?" Could that have even been PHRASED more insultingly?) but let's see what horrors come next."

October 6, 2017 – page 188 

 28.48% "It's a small thing but he keeps referring to them in his brain as 'these ladies' like way to be patronizing Chaol I'm trying to give you a pass because of the EXTREME AMOUNT OF DICKISHNESS that has recently been visited upon you but come on"

October 6, 2017 – page 188 

 28.48% "Stop with beheld.

Also, not to harp on this, but can YA in general get its facts straight in regards to self defense? Chaol has never trained non-soldiers. Chaol has never been trained BY non-soldiers. Chaol has never studied or considered the types of self-defense necessary for, say, a twelve year old girl who ha otherwise had no martial arts training and will probably not have other martial arts training."

October 6, 2017 – page 188 

 28.48% "The techniques involved are ENTIRELY DIFFERENT."

October 6, 2017 – page 190 

 28.79% "I ask again, what duties went with captain of the royal guard?!"

October 6, 2017 – page 195 

 29.55% "She gets mad at him when he makes a jibe about her getting the apprentices to haul him off his horse without asking him. She literally just walks away from him while he's still strapped to the horse. Now she's demanding if she DID something to him"

October 6, 2017 – page 195 

 29.55% ""Your piss-poor attitude helps no one and nothing"

Go fuck yourself Yrene"

October 6, 2017 – page 196 

 29.7% "But it's NESRYN who's the bad guy for expressing surprise that Chaol rode somewhere?!"

October 6, 2017 – page 199 

 30.15% "Okay, at least she apologized. Sorta? "I'm sorry. I should have considered your feelings on the matter."

Yeah. You should have. Or maybe, like, ASKED."

October 6, 2017 – page 203 

 30.76% "In my quest for fairness, that passage about Chaol feeling guilty for shit that went down in his past was significantly better done than most of the whole book. Unfortunately we've seen no sign of these things in Chaol's POV before, so it still comes out of left field."

October 6, 2017 – page 217 

 32.88% "Of course the princess' favorite story is about Celaena even if she doesn't know it's about Celaena"

October 6, 2017 – page 223 

 33.79% "It's possible I just like badass queer ladies, but Hassar is sounding cooler and cooler outside the weird jealousy thing with Renia. It's also possible that it's because the narrative doesn't try to tell me she's Good and Pure while she's talking about beheading folks."

October 6, 2017 – page 224 

 33.94% "I take it back. Why is everyone awful."

October 6, 2017 – page 233 

 35.3% "All of a sudden they're so attracted to each other that him saying her name 'made her toes curl'. It's not that I didn't see this coming, it just feels super abrupt."

October 6, 2017 – page 247 

 37.42% ""He hadn't quite realized how slim her waist was, how her hips flared beneath it. How her other assets swelled above."

I leave this for y'all without further comment."

October 6, 2017 – page 254 

 38.48% "Where are all the question marks?"

October 6, 2017 – page 256 

 38.79% "Apparently because Chaol is not cave-man jealous that Nesryn is talking to another dude, he and Nesryn aren't meant to be. Wow."

October 6, 2017 – page 271 

 41.06% ""But the scroll... it was too precious. Too ancient to treat so callously. Even flattening it out might harm the integrity of the paper, the ink."

Didn't stop you from SHOVING IT INTO YOUR POCKET EARLIER, YRENE"

October 25, 2017 – page 282 

 42.73% "I'm back to ask where all the question marks went"

January 5, 2018 – page 285 

 43.18% "That was a paragraph made almost entirely of fragments."

January 5, 2018 – page 293 

 44.39% ""The scent of lemon and lavender [from the Torre]" that is my perfume how did I never notice it before I AM SO MAD"

January 5, 2018 – page 299 

 45.3% "More retconning to make Dorian's still unnamed father a sort of antihero making hard decisions by murdering everybody who could maybe use magic."

January 5, 2018 – page 299 

 45.3% "I hate everything about this idea, and everything about how all evil men are redeemed or found to have not been under their own power while women who do something 'wrong' (like doubting Celaena) are given grisly punishments even when they are revealed to be misguided or whatever in the case of Kaltain."

January 5, 2018 – page 299 

 45.3% "I hate everything about this idea, and everything about how all evil men are redeemed or found to have not been under their own power while women who do something 'wrong' (like doubting Celaena) are given grisly punishments even when they are revealed to be misguided or whatever in the case of Kaltain."

January 5, 2018 – page 308 

 46.67% "I actually do appreciate this. The handling of Chaol's disability has been pretty crappy, but this guard (with a name!) has a prosthetic arm and he uses it and goes about his life. Props."

January 6, 2018 – page 317 

 48.03% "I actually do like this part. If Yrene were always like this I'd like this book, but the book can't seem to just let Yrene be this person who always wants to help people. I can't put my finger on why she seems so inconsistent to me. It could be the many mentions of Celaena are off-putting, or it could be that we rarely ever see Yrene helping the poor."

January 6, 2018 – page 317 

 48.03% "I won't say never because we have at least two examples. As always though, these books rely too heavily on telling while they show us something else."

January 6, 2018 – page 319 

 48.33% "This is part of the reason these books frustrate me so much. Every once no a while a line or a paragraph comes that makes me think that maybe the author Gets It, but then it's lost in a miasma of Celaena worship and males and females and all that nonsense."

January 6, 2018 – page 324 

 49.09% "Then we get "don't you waste one heartbeat being afraid of a coward who hunts women in the darkness."

First of all, that could be polished up to be a better line. Second, it's literally a demon hunting her. Third, she has the bare basics of self defense. Fourth, YES WE ARE AFRAID OF PEIPLE HUNTING WOMEN IN THE DARK, YOU DICK. That doesn't mean we can't do something about it. Fuck off."

January 6, 2018 – page 328 

 49.7% "Men are "silky, Court-trained liars" a la Black Jewels, but women are apparently "smooth, pretty" liars. Make of that what you will."

January 6, 2018 – page 338 

 51.21% "Nope we have spent five books and multiple short stories in Celaena's mind we never see any of this planning I will not be convinced by this toadying"

January 6, 2018 – page 340 

 51.52% "Why does no one seem to understand that being good at using a weapon does not immediately equate to being a good tactician or a good leader?!"

January 6, 2018 – page 347 

 52.58% ""But what is more unusual: that a Balruhni woman is their captain, or that a captain of Adarlan has ventured so far?"

Idk she's supposed to be running the military body responsible for the protection of a king so I'd think it would be unusual for her to leave said king but what do I know"

January 6, 2018 – page 347 

 52.58% ""The real question is... does she come as emissary or bride?"

That would not be my real question I have to admit. Also it's a stupid question. These books are written with a juvenile humor and juvenile character interactions while trying to give graphic adult content and I hate everything."

January 6, 2018 – page 349 

 52.88% ""Made sure he notes that the grace with which she moved was not some feminine gift"

Sorry do you think women just naturally move gracefully?"

January 6, 2018 – page 371 

 56.21% "Apparently the sentient southern spiders are not as civilized as the northern sentient spiders idk y'all"

January 6, 2018 – page 378 

 57.27% "Of course the fae brought 'civilizations to the southern continent of course they did"

January 6, 2018 – page 405 

 61.36% "Hang on can the giant birds talk now?"

January 6, 2018 – page 405 

 61.36% "Nope, sorry, pronoun confusion. All good."

January 6, 2018 – page 421 

 63.79% "I mean we all know my stance on Celaena, re: her supposed brilliance and/or that of her advisors, so it should surprise no one that it seems like all the royalty here are talking sense when it comes to not helping her."

January 6, 2018 – page 453 

 68.64% "Apparently love can make you walk again after a spine injury. I guess that's good to know. (What the hell)"

January 6, 2018 – page 470 

 71.21% "Remember girls if you win anything it's only because the boys you're competing with are worried you'll hurt your fragile feminine selves and let you win (unless you are Celaena Sardothien, in which case sometimes you are allowed to win on your own in the most obnoxious way possible)"

January 6, 2018 – page 471 

 71.36% "I think I'm supposed to find this cute but frankly everything about this fucking stinks, a dude had his father declare he was betrothed to a woman and she didn't know it was going to happen and because she hasn't outright told the dude to jump off a cliff everybody's like 'ah yes she really does want him' even as they talk about how the marriage might help a strained and grouchy alliance"

January 6, 2018 – page 481 

 72.88% "It's not a chestnut if it has a black mane it is a bay I swear to god it will be trivial horse details in YA lit that make me lose it in the end"

January 6, 2018 – page 483 

 73.18% "MY KINGDOM FOR A GELDING"

January 6, 2018 – page 486 

 73.64% "I'm getting the feeling that people don't understand how much leg muscle it takes to ride a horse successfully even if you don't use your legs to guide them. Is Chaol's tricked-out saddle being used and I missed it?"

January 6, 2018 – page 498 

 75.45% "Everything good is apparently fae, even healing magic. Watch Yrene turn out to be the long lost heir to the Magical Healing Fae Dynasty or something."

January 6, 2018 – page 498 

 75.45% "Still no word on why only women are healers"

January 6, 2018 – page 509 

 77.12% "Of course the gay princess is the high tempered murder-y brat princess. Of course."

January 6, 2018 – page 520 

 78.79% "It should be impossible to glorify Celaena without even knowing who she is AND YET"

January 6, 2018 – page 530 

 80.3% "I call bullshit. No foreshadowing, no nothing. This is yet another goddamn asspull for shock value and I am TIRED OF IT"

January 7, 2018 – page 563 

 85.3% "Once again there are parts of this that would be good if they made any sense at all in the narrative or had anything leading up to them or didn't DIRECTLY CONTRADICT other parts of the book"

January 7, 2018 – page 565 

 85.61% "Once again, abusive asshole dude given benefit of the doubt and apparently was actually trying to save his son I swear to god how many of these can there BE."

January 7, 2018 – page 567 

 85.91% "For the love of god how much more veneration of Celaena can one woman be expected to stand"

January 7, 2018 – page 570 

 86.36% ""He did not deserve to serve such a man. Such a king."

I am of the opinion that there are few people terrible enough to DESERVE serving Dorian, but here we are."

January 7, 2018 – page 575 

 87.12% "Of course he's fully healed of course he is love apparently heals spinal injuries so well it's as if they never were aside from an easily overlooked scar much like Celaena's three parallel whip scar marks on her back I swear to god"

January 7, 2018 – page 576 

 87.27% ""Then Sartaq clasped arms with Yeran, whine Borte pointedly ignored, which Nesryn supposed was an improvement on outright hostility"

Nah man dude decided he and Borte were engaged without even letting her know and made a FORMAL ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT IT and she seems to feel that telling him to fuck off would endanger a precarious alliance"

January 7, 2018 – page 579 

 87.73% "Sorry the Borte quote was supposed to be 579"

January 7, 2018 – page 579 

 87.73% "Either way, why is everyone treating this like it's cute?"

January 7, 2018 – page 579 

 87.73% "It's creepy in the extreme and manipulative AT BEST"

January 7, 2018 – page 580 

 87.88% ""Yet as she left, Nesryn could have sworn Borte gave Yeran a secret, small smile"

No. Stop it. This isn't cute. This is creepy as fuck. Stop telling people that all you have to do is make the girl yours and she'll love you eventually. That's some Stockholm bullshit. I hate everything."

January 7, 2018 – page 580 

 87.88% ""She set a date. That's how she got my hearth-mother to approve."

Cool so Borte BARTERED HERSELF OFF to save her hearth-brother dude but we're just going to pretend this is cute I hate EVERYTHING"

January 7, 2018 – page 591 

 89.55% ""It would have been like Aelin, to shift the battle between her and Maeve to the shore. To minimize casualties, so she could unleash her full power without hesitation."

FOOTAGE NOT FUCKING FOUND Celaena has never given any sort of shits about innocent bystanders aside from useless lip service and has in fact BURNED ENTIRE SHIPS OF HER ALLIES ALIVE and been irritated that people were upset with her about it"

January 7, 2018 – page 591 

 89.55% "I am SO ANGRY"

January 7, 2018 – page 601 

 91.06% "Once again, no foreshadowing whatsoever."

January 7, 2018 – page 609 

 92.27% "No fucks given about Duva, it's all about the fetus now apparently"

January 7, 2018 – page 639 

 96.82% "I fail to see why the gender of a demon makes any difference at all. Why is this an OMG BIG REVEAL?"

January 7, 2018 – page 640 

 96.97% "God the book is trying it's trying SO HARD to make not all women terrible people unless they bow to Celaena but like. This is a complete reversal of Hassar. We've never seen her care about anybody but Renia."

January 7, 2018 – page 654 

 99.09% ""No longer Yrene Towers - but Yrene Westfall"

The Towers women have kept their last name through at least ten generations this is BULLSHIT it's a healer thing why can't she be Yrene Towers, Lady Westfall it's not without precedent irl and all it would do would keep character consistency and not immediately behold her to a man oh wait"

January 7, 2018 – page 656 

 99.39% "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD MORE CELAENA VENERATION"

January 7, 2018 – page 659 

 99.85% ""A coffin built by an ancient queen to keep the sun inside"

The sun is Celaena/Aelin, in case you were curious."

January 7, 2018 – Shelved as: 1-5-stars

[bigskydreaming]

what are your opinions on we are robin?

Massively complicated by the fact that DC's writers don't have an ACAB bone in their collective bodies.

Dunno how new to my blog you are and thus how familiar or not you are with my ACAB stance for Dick and my personal tendency to never acknowledge or interact with the specific idea of Dick as a cop...like there's more than enough material for me to work with without ever having to delve into that and I fundamentally believe being a cop is counter to everything I see as Dick's core premise and makes no sense given the specific origins and continuities I view as most 'him' -

But I WOULD have a lot of thoughts about how Dick would feel about this massive city-wide movement that he had no hand in creating and how he would inevitably feel personally responsible for every life to put on a facscimile of his family's costume AND the things they did in those costumes (such as the kid who was manipulated into killing someone while in that guise, per the Court of Owls' agenda).....

AND I would have a ton of thoughts about the fact that it was Alfred who secretly engineered this movement and how he of all people should know how Dick might feel about that, and thus how Dick WOULD feel about that information, but complicated and coupled with the fact that Alfred most certainly was motivated in part by his grief for Dick and seeing this as a kind of legacy, a way to honor his grandson, and able to justify to himself any transgressions towards Dick's feelings here with the idea that Dick wasn't alive TO be hurt by his actions here....

BUT the reason I avoid engaging with We Are Robin content beyond acknowledging it as Duke's origin story in the background of Duke content I write....

Is I absolutely can not - or more to the point - WILL NOT - attempt to justify Dick's decision to get all the kids arrested and locked up for their own safety while he went after the Court alone.

To be clear - I absolutely am of the opinion that Dick was and always will be right and justified in not wanting to see anyone get hurt in the colors and image of his family's legacy. That this has absolutely NOTHING to do with his impression of any such individual's competency, nor is it about trying to restrict their agency. That its wholly a PERSONAL thing for him, its a private instinct that is entirely reasonable and allowable, for him to have a kneejerk need to keep more people from dying or suffering in that specific mantle that he never intended to BE a legacy beyond just himself.

I headcanon that after Jason himself, nobody hated the memorial in the cave more than Dick, because the last image he had of his family was them lying dead on the ground of the circus ring, just broken bodies colored from high above in the classic Grayson colors and covered in blood. That THAT specifically is the image Dick so often saw in his nightmares in his early years in the Manor, that is the SPECIFIC visual Bruce so often comforted him about upon waking....and that it was a massive slap in the face and an indication of Bruce's most unfortunate tunnel-vision tendencies in his own grief, that it never even OCCURRED to Bruce that in memorializing Jason in the specific way he did, he was also subjecting Dick to a constant, ever present visual reminder of one of Dick's personal most traumatic images....the sight and idea of his family, now not just his parents but also his brother....reduced to just broken, bloody costumes he'd never get to see as anything but that again.

Not to mention then captioning this memorial with "a good soldier" and thus in the process of disrespecting Jason's true bond with Bruce, simply because Bruce couldn't handle that at the time and was trying to literally DISTANCE himself from that view of his loss, the loss of a son, of family....Bruce simultaneously disrespected Dick's legacy of his family and everything he'd created Robin to be, and envisioned Jason-as-Robin to be from the moment Dick gave Jason his own old costume and embraced him as the new Robin and by extension, HIS family as much as Bruce's.....like, no matter what Bruce intended for HIMSELF and his feelings about Jason's death with that caption, he literally reduced Dick's tribute to his parents and expression of brotherhood to his brother to.....nothing more than the uniform of a child soldier, a subordinate of the Batman in HIS personal crusade. Something that Jason never actually was, and Dick CERTAINLY had never created - or gave Jason his blessing as - Robin to be.

So on that front, I have no problem with Dick WANTING to keep all the Robins, every child who called themselves one, safe - and to take on the Court of Owls alone, by himself, because like it or not, that will ALWAYS be personal for him. That is about HIS family in a way that it will never be about the family, the heritage, of anyone else, even his adopted siblings. The Court were after HIM, specifically, and always were and always would be. I don't see anything hypocritical about Dick's desire to keep kids out of that fight when he himself would have never been okay with Bruce benching him as Robin in some random fight....because this fight is deeply personal for Dick in a way that's not transferable, and to be honest, I see his desire to keep anyone else from dying as a Robin, in a fight against the Court ESPECIALLY....I see it as an inherently selfish want of Dick's. 

A selfishness that I think he's entirely justified in having. Its not about anyone but him. Its about HIM not having to deal with the burden of any more deaths in his family's colors, his family's name, when he in all likelihood originally created Robin in that particular guise because he figured he'd likely die as Robin at some point, and thus he'd never have to see anyone die in the image of his family's costume and colors ever again because the only person left TO die in them, at the time, was he himself.....thus kinda ensuring for Dick that when he did die, he'd go out just as his parents did, which in his youth at least was likely a weirdly kinda comforting idea for him.

So on the one hand, Dick's desire to keep the kids out of harm's way was ultimately a selfish - but justifiably so - desire to not see anyone else dead or injured in a literal WAR of CHILDREN being fought in his personal family colors and image....especially when 99% of them had literally no idea what the colors they were fighting in signified and meant for the mantle's original creator.

BUT.

BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT.

Where this all falls apart for me, and why I don't just go with this take and instead just kinda sidestep around the whole story itself and don't engage with it....

Is there's absolutely no way to 'fix' the story as is.....without coming up with an entirely different middle climax, in which Dick finds some way to sideline the kids without getting them all arrested.

Cuz see, what I'm NOT gonna ever do, is try and argue from an in story perspective, that Dick would ever be stupid enough, or try to justify, getting kids - many of them marginalized, and people of color specifically - arrested in the name of keeping them SAFE.

That's just stupid to the nth degree, and unilaterally the fault of DC's writers being oblivious to the real-world realities of police brutality and the interactions and dynamic people of color have with the actual police.

It was DC's fuck-up there, but I - especially as a white writer and fan - am not going to try and fix or transform that fuck up short of entirely rewriting the whole second half of We Are Robin's plot, which to be honest, I don't see as likely to ever be a priority for me as there's so much other content in Dick's narratives I'd rather get to first. Its just way too far down the list, the premise itself doesn't interest or engage me enough to make me WANT to invest in that particular story heavily enough to create a whole other direction for it, that navigates around the issue I have with it here.

So again, I mostly just....don't engage with it. Because I can't see Dick's stance on the issue of his family's legacy ever being other than what I always see it as, and thus see it as here, but I'm definitely never going to find it appropriate to write Dick trying to justify his decision to ENGINEER the police arresting all these kids for their PROTECTION....to a black character like Duke in specific.

Because its not. But again, this wasn't Dick's decision at the end of the day, because he's a fictional character who can only make the decisions he's written making. And thus it was the decision of writers who wrote these characters in situations that contained analogues to real world issues without keeping centered an awareness of how those issues intersect with people of different identities, particularly people of color and black people in specific.

So its not a decision that made me like, dislike Dick, because its one that I don't think he should have ever been written making, but its not a decision I care to justify in universe.

And that's about all I think I ever intend to - or even could - expand on that subject, I'm pretty sure. *Shrugs*

Oh wait, no, I lied!

Quick thought for white fans in particular....because I HAVE seen this subject tackled at least once or twice in fiction, from an ACAB standpoint that had Duke reaming out Dick for his decision here, for the same reasons I'm outlining above.....

This isn't an attempt to gatekeep or police anybody as like, I'm not actually ever trying to do that, I'd have to know every fic writer's personal identity and marginalizations TO do that, and I'm not pretending to know that or asking to, like, its just not on the menu for me so please don't get me wrong, this is purely aimed at a plea for white writers in particular to exercise personal accountability and good, sincere judgment in this regard:

No matter your personal feelings about Dick Grayson, the subject of Robin, or any of this in general, PLEASE keep in mind before utilizing Duke as a mouthpiece for giving Dick shit for this in the name of smearing the latter's character or making him look bad, like.....

Dick is of Romani descent. In the New 52 continuity as well as pre-Flashpoint. That's been made explicitly clear, and as such......there is no substitute in our current real world zeitgeist for the interactions the police have with black people, but please keep in mind that Romani people have a very, VERY long history of being subject to police brutality and persecution in a wide range of countries. Its a big part of why so many people are so uncomfortable with cop!Dick in the first place, and as such, it makes treating him as this naive, privileged white guy when having the realities of police brutality explained to him by another character, like.....not look exactly like you might intend there, because the reality is he's not SUPPOSED to be that character, but too few people at DC, and ESPECIALLY the people writing the We Are Robin stories, like, completely fail to ever extend the idea of Dick being Romani to any kind of examination of what kinds of lived experiences, perspective or perceptions this results in him having specifically.

And that's a failure on DC's part, but you don't need to go making it your failure as well, so for those of us who are white like, this really is something that should be kept centered before we decide to engage with story elements like the above one from We Are Robin, and like, if we do, then HOW we go about that specifically.