#and came back in a state where you could see the very strongly presenting symptoms in an intermediate host

[mantisgodsdomain]

Considering their IRL counterparts, we think there's a very good chance that since Heart was Rad God's previous host, while she got transmitted to Mad Rat via bits of her in the heart tissue. There's not a whole lot else going on in that operation besides the heart transplant, after all, and we doubt that the doctor had any extra contamination around to potentially transmit her. We know that she says she lives in rats, specifically, but there's One Specific Protozoan she's based off of, and cats are the definitive host o f Toxoplasmosis Gondii.

Given the givens, it's entirely possible she simply doesn't present the same symptoms cross-species, and a symbiotic host that offers more benefits to her just... won't experience the same trip, especially since trying to feed your cat host to a cat doesn't really offer any benefit to either of you. With Heart, he's probably either asymptomatic or just only experiencing symptoms that don't particularly affect his day-to-day life, possibly in a way where he wouldn't have even known he was playing host to a parasite if it wasn't for the situation with Mad Rat.

Would it be weird for him to be... aware of that, postgame? To know that he's carrying a parasite with the potential to majorly fuck up any rats that might contract it? Is there a proper way to react to the knowledge that you're carrying a hallucinogenic parasite in you that'll cause major issues for any rat you might infect? Would he even, like... figure out the whole "asymptomic/mostly asymptomic carrier" thing before later? These are the questions we really need to ask.

[feralphoenix]

SWEET DREAMS ARE MADE OF THIS: The Mechanics of the Infection

welcome back to feral’s essay tag where the hot takes don’t stop from keep being hot!

this particular meta has a Lot of citations from canon, and my plan is to have them as actual footnotes in the dreamwidth mirror when that goes up (as i always crosspost my meta there in case my layout text is too small for any folks accessing these from computer and not mobile).

CONTENT WARNING FOR TONIGHT’S PROGRAM: This essay contains discussion of body horror, cancer, and many of the darker aspects of Hallownest’s society.

ALSO, AS USUAL: I read Hollow Knight as anti-colonialist fiction and all of my meta approaches the text from that angle. This essay is strongly critical of the Pale King and Hallownest, and affords sympathy to pre-Hallownest societies & native characters, including Radiance. If you come from a Christian cultural background (regardless of whether you currently practice the religion or not), some of the concepts I am going to discuss may be challenging for you. Please be responsible in your choice whether to engage with this content, and also, be respectful here or wherever else you’re discussing this essay. Thanks.

SWEET DREAMS ARE MADE OF THIS: The Mechanics of the Infection

If you’ve ever looked through my Hollow Knight tags, you have probably seen me joke about the Infection like a lot, usually along the lines of Radiance casting Level 9 Inflict Tang on Hallownest, or “(radi voice) the End of EVA will continue until you Let My People Go” or some such. In addition to being some of the most beautiful body horror I’ve yet seen in fiction, its appearance also makes it a veritable meme factory.

It is also something that inspires a lot of very wild theorizing amongst fans, because canon tells us WHY the Infection exists but doesn’t ever directly explain WHAT it is. To name just a few of the guesses I’ve seen, people have posited that it could be some sort of pupa juice, or maybe some type of parasitic fungus.

I have my own guess, though, and it’s based on hints we can find in-game. I would like to share it with the class today, so let’s take a quick look through the sauce, starting with what we already know!

WHY

We learn why the Infection happened from Seer and Moss Prophet, and this is also summed up more directly in Team Cherry’s dev notes attached to Seer.

The Pale King wanted to be the only god of light in the crater,* so he tried to kill Radiance by thralling her children - attracting the moths with his light and making them forget about her,** assimilating them into Hallownest. Radiance survived because some moths still remembered and tried to preserve what they could of their original culture,*** and eventually she attempted to reassert her existence and communicate with the bugs of the crater by speaking to them through their dreams. However, the Pale King realized what was happening and ordered his worshippers to shut her out.****

Radiance did not give up, and continued to broadcast her message through dreams. This unstoppable force VS immovable object conflict could not last forever - something eventually had to give, and what gave was the mortals.***** The Infection was an accident that Radiance did not initially intend, but presumably chose to weaponize after the fact as a way to attempt to pressure TPK into releasing the moths and leaving her alone (or, barring that, a way to thoroughly destroy his kingdom at the very least).

SOURCES:

* “No blazing kin. Only one light shall shine against the dark.” - Lore tablet hidden beside the Pale King’s throne in the White Palace.

** “None of us can live forever, and so we ask those who survive to remember us. Hold something in your mind and it lives on with you, but forget it and you seal it away forever. That is the only death that matters.” - Seer’s 1200 Essence dialogue.

*** “But the memories of that ancient light still lingered, hush whispers of faith... Until all of Hallownest began to dream of that forgotten light.” - Seer’s 2400 Essence dialogue.

**** “The King and the bugs of hallownest resisted this memory/power and it started to manifest as the infection.” - from Team Cherry’s dev notes attached to Seer.

***** “Light is life, beaming, pure, brilliant. To stifle that light is to suppress nature. Nature suppressed distorts, plagues us.” - Moss Prophet's dialogue.

HOW

Now that we’ve recapped why the Infection exists, let’s examine the process of how the Infection works. We see some examples of this with various characters in-game, and the Hunter also shares his observations of the Infection’s mechanics in his commentary on the Infected Crossroads entries.

Since we’ll be bringing up the Hunter's Journal here, I want to first examine three entries to establish its dual authorship and how trustworthy it is: The Shade’s entry, the Lightseed’s, and Radiance’s.

We know that the bottom section of the Hunter’s Journal is the Hunter’s personal notes on each creature because the game itself tells us so. So who writes the notes on top that give a brief explanation of what each creature is? It’s a common fan theory that Ghost writes these, which I believe is indeed the case.

First let’s look at the Shade, which is automatically unlocked when we receive the Hunter's Journal in-game regardless of whether we have died and fought the Shade or not. Mechanically this is important because if the Shade weren’t unlocked by default it would be impossible to attain the Hunter achievements without dying at least once - this would REALLY suck for anybody who likes to suffer enough to try to complete the journal in Steel Soul mode.

The Shade’s entry reads:

Echo of a previous life. Defeat it to retake its power and become whole.

-

Each of us leaves an imprint of something when we die. A stain on the world. I don’t know how much longer this kingdom can bear the weight of so many past lives...

Notice that the top text knows exactly what the Shade is and how it works. In story terms, this would imply that Ghost has died and come back enough pre-game to understand the mechanics of how their revivals work.

The Lightseed’s entry reads:

A single-celled organism, completely infected. Scurries about simple-mindedly.

-

Strange air has been seeping down from above for years. Some of the air became liquid, and some of that liquid became flesh, and some of that flesh came to life. I don’t know what to make of it.

In this entry, the top text assumes that Lightseeds are a Lifeseed-like creature that has been infected, and the Hunter’s notes reveal that this is incorrect and the Lightseeds were actually born from the Infection itself. From this we learn that the top text isn’t omniscient and can be mistaken: It’s written from a limited perspective.

And here’s Radi’s entry:

The light,* forgotten.

-

The plague, the infection, the madness that haunts the corpses of Hallownest... the light that screams out from the eyes of this dead Kingdom. What is the source? I suppose mere mortals like myself will never understand.

Here, the top text has information that the Hunter doesn’t, and which only a handful of bugs are privy to anymore.

From these three examples, I believe it is safe to say that Ghost is in fact the author of the journal entries’ top segments.

It’s important to remember that the observations these characters make can be not wholly correct, and I’ll bring that up when I believe it to be relevant, but for now let’s build a picture of how a case of the Infection generally progresses by looking at the Hunter’s commentary on Infected Crossroads enemies, and at a handful of characters whose Infection we directly observe: Bretta, Sly, Myla, and Moss Prophet.

The Hunter describes the broad arc of Infection progression in the Violent Husk's entry: “First [the bugs of Hallownest] fell into deep slumber, then they awoke with broken minds, and then their bodies started to deform...”

The two NPCs who we can save from becoming Infected, Bretta and Sly, are initially found emitting orange fog and mumbling to themselves. In Bretta’s case, when listened to, she initially talks about being left behind and forgotten** as she assumes that all people will treat her this way even though she craves affection and attention; Dream Nailed either before or after being listened to, she mentions a “shining figure”.***

Meanwhile, Sly speaks about his pupil Oro and someone named Esmy, and when his symptoms subside he identifies that he was led to the Crossroads village ruins by a dream.****

Listening to Bretta and Sly completely brings them back to reality, after which they leave the underground area entirely to return to Dirtmouth. However, when the player encounters Myla after defeating Soul Master and obtaining Descending Dive, listening to her does not cause any change in her condition despite that she is not yet hostile.

During these encounters, Bretta is surrounded by orange fog, Sly is surrounded by orange fog and his eyes have also begun to turn orange, and Myla's eyes are glowing but there is no fog around her. So, we can deduce that for as long as the orange fog is present, a bug may still be awoken and cured (Bretta and Sly both show no signs of relapse over the course of the game), but once the fog disappears the bug can no longer be saved by external means.

The "deformation" that the Hunter mentions in the Violent Husk entry refers to the large blobs of Infection that develop on the bodies of creatures that have been infected for a long period of time. We observe these upon the Infected Crossroads enemies, as well as on Hollow and the Moss Prophet. We also see that these Infection tumors can eventually kill bugs once they grow too large and impede bodily functions, just like real cancer: The Moss Prophet and Mossy Vagabonds are all discovered in this state after the Crossroads become infected, as are the Husk Guards in the Crossroads.

So, the progression we can see here is that bugs become infected through their dreams, and while they can initially be woken, if left alone they will fall into too deep a sleep to wake up. Some time after this they will start to move around again but will be hostile to any creatures that are not infected. And, if left in this state for a very long period of time, they will develop tumorous growths which are potentially fatal.

Potentially fatal. This is an interesting contradiction to a basic assumption that most players - and even Ghost and the Hunter - seem to hold about the Infection: That is, that the Infection functions like a pop-culture zombie plague, and infected creatures are all undead (reanimated dead things that can't be killed); thus that the enemies that respawn after resting or going offscreen are the same ones that Ghost just murdered, and have simply been reanimated by the Infection once again.

But infected creatures can die of the Infection. What’s more, bosses and unique instances of generic enemies (such as Myla and the Moss Knight at the pier of Unn’s lake) do not respawn once killed. And it’s definitely not that Ghost killed them that counts: Traitor Lord dies whether Ghost fights him solo or whether Cloth is brought along, in which case she always gets the final blow. This creates the argument that the respawning generics are NOT in fact the same individuals reanimated over and over, but different individuals of the same enemy class, and that their different respawn rates speak to how plentiful those creatures are - small animals respawning faster because a new one will arrive in the recently killed one’s territory sooner, for instance.

Ghost and the Hunter both seem to assume that infected enemies are all undead - many creatures are identified as “husks” or “the remains of [whatever specific bug]” in the Hunter's Journal. But we’ve already established that sometimes Ghost and the Hunter are wrong.

So, if infected creatures aren’t undead, then what are they?

SOURCES:

* I find it a very interesting tidbit of characterization for Ghost that they refer to Radiance as the Light, as native bugs do, rather than calling her the Old Light, as Hallownest bugs did. This has some fascinating implications for where Ghost feels their allegiances to be, but that's neither here nor there right now lol.

** “Ohhh... please... don’t leave me behind! You... forgot about me...? I knew you would... everyone always forgets about me...” - Bretta’s dialogue, Fungal Wastes encounter

*** “...Shining figure...So bright...” - Bretta’s Dream Nail dialogue, Fungal Wastes encounter

**** “...ugghh, Oro you oaf.... You wield your nail... like a club... ...Esmy... how much deeper do we have to go... Oh! What?! Who are you?! ...I see. This old village. What a strange dream, to have led me down here! If you hadn’t found me, I don’t think I would’ve ever woken.” - Sly’s dialogue, Crossroads village encounter

WHAT

In a move very on-brand for Hollow Knight, there’s actually a line from Seer that gives the whole game away - and I mean this incredibly literally, she declares her loyalty to Radiance and says Fuck Hallownest and also hints at what she hopes for from Ghost all in two breaths!! - except that most players are never going to see this line because Seer only says this if you screw up platforming in the Forgotten Dream and yeet yourself off a platform before picking up the Dream Nail.

I do not doubt that I could wring a whole essay out of this one line by itself (and Seer deserves an essay from me so maybe I will), but today the part we’re concerned with is the third line of this dialogue, i.e. how she describes the Dream Nail to Ghost: “The power to wake this world from its slumber[.]”

Its slumber.

The Infection doesn’t only spread through dreams. It is a dream.

To put it in a more meta/video game mechanics sort of way, the Infection is a status ailment. Sleep exists as a common status ailment in RPGs, strategy games, and even some adventure games and platformers. Usually the status ailment of sleep is a mild nuisance that wears off after time, when a character is struck, or if the requisite curative is used; in comparison the Infection is Sleep But Bass Boosted. Appropriate, for a glorified status ailment that’s inflicted by the literal actual god of dreams.

The Infection can only be cured in the very early stages. Once an infected creature has fallen into a coma, there’s no longer any hope of a third party breaking the curse... and also, infected creatures sleepwalk. Violently.

This may also provide an explanation for why mummified bugs in the catacombs have been infected, too: If they were freshly dead and their lingering spirit was still attached enough to their corpses, and that lingering spirit retained enough of a mind to dream...

Aside from those mummified bugs, though, I believe it likely that most if not all of the infected enemies in-game are very, very much alive.

Beyond all the dialogue and lore crumbs pointing to the Infection simply being a cursed sleep, this explanation makes the most sense when thinking about Radiance as a character. She is the literal embodiment of dreams as well as the sun, so inflicting eternal slumber with bonus malignant sleepwalking is a natural extension of her power and a way to use it offensively without being directly violent.

(I've written about this at length elsewhere, but signs point to Radiance having been a pacifist prior to the Pale King’s invasion. Short version: The Moth Tribe were pacifists and Radiance was the center of their culture so it would be odd if she were an exception; she is incapable of inflicting any physical harm whatsoever in a game where lack of contact damage from an active enemy indicates helplessness and such enemies always flee from Ghost unless they have a tool they can use to fight with; her behavior in her boss battles indicates a lack of combat experience, and her nail-generating spells seem to be based on Hollow’s abilities. Real-life adult moths cannot fight - they defend themselves with flight, camouflage, mimicry, and I’m Poisonous So Fuck Off coloring.)

Now, I don’t want to downplay the harm the Infection causes - it doesn’t have to turn bugs into literal undead zombies to be devastating. What we can glean of Hallownest’s ruins suggests that as a state it was heavily dependent on labor to run its industry, so incapacitating the laborers would have turned the whole country on its head, especially because those laborers cannot be woken. The Infection also created an intense atmosphere of terror throughout Hallownest as bugs tried to discover ways to cure it or at least protect themselves. And as the Hunter observes,* because of how the Infection is caused, the harder you try to block Radiance out, the worse the Infection will get.

(A sidebar: Interestingly, the Infection's progress seems to be very slow when a creature willingly accepts it; Moss Prophet has Infection tumors when met but doesn’t die of them until the Crossroads is infected, though many Crossroads bugs are found dead of tumors immediately. Traitor Lord and his followers opted in to the Infection long ago, but Traitor Lord is still at the “orange fog” stage and could theoretically be cured, if he wanted to be. Both Traitor Lord and Moss Prophet are still completely lucid, too.)

Radiance may not have committed any direct violence against Hallownest, but the Infection does incite violence: infected creatures become hostile to and will attack the uninfected. And as we’ve discussed, the Infection itself can become fatal once it’s progressed far enough for tumorous growths to form.

A god smiting the shit out of her people’s oppressors by nonviolently but thoroughly disrupting their kingdom, Especially if that kingdom is a genocidal colonialist slave state,** as a Let My People Go And Leave Me Alone :) ultimatum is not unreasonable. (And Moss Prophet tells us point-blank that literally just listening to Radiance in the first place would have prevented the Infection before it began!) But despite that Hallownest as an institution is unambiguously awful, Hallownest bugs victimized by their own state (such as the maggot slaves and other menial workers) probably saw much less benefit from Hallownest’s genocides than the rich and nobility, and likely deserved the smiting way less than said rich and nobility.

Meanwhile Hallownest’s neighbors - all native nations who are just as much victims of TPK’s bullshit as the Moth Tribe - did not deserve to get caught up in the smiting at all.

Lateral harm in Hollow Knight is another topic that deserves its own essay - and more than that, lots of in-depth conversation! - but, again, that’s not the topic we want to focus on today. I do want to make it clear, though, that infected creatures being alive and theoretically wakeable if the curse should end doesn’t suddenly mean the Infection was actually no big deal. If you want your jimmies rustled, try Dream Nailing enemies that pull from the generic Dream Nail dialogue pool: They are on some level aware that they’re dreaming and can’t wake.***

Clues that the Infection is literally a dream are littered all over the game, from Elderbug’s initial dialogue**** to the name of ending 3, Dream No More - not only named that because that’s the ending where Ghost sacrifices Radiance’s life as well as their own to end Hollow’s suffering rather than only sacrificing their freedom.

Some of what Bardoon and Moss Prophet have to say about the Infection is suggestive of the nature of this dream, though. Moss Prophet appeals to their audience to find unity through the Infection,***** and Bardoon also remarks on this, though he cautions that this comes at the cost of being reduced to instinct.****** Dreaming does tend to come hand in hand with lack of inhibition and suggestibility, but I’m more interested in what Moss Prophet and Bardoon mean by unity, since infected creatures’ thoughts are different depending on what they are and what they were already doing while awake.

There's less specific hard evidence for this aside from how we can observe that Infection blobs are connected to Radiance, transmitting her heartbeat and birthing the Lightseeds, her unintended creations. But given that those blobs do originate from Infection fluid according to the Hunter... Radiance is not just the embodiment of dreams but the heart of THE Dream. So could the Infection be a forcible pseudo-immersion into that capital-D Dream, the Dream Realm itself?

Whether my hunch here is right or not, I can’t in good faith end this essay without bringing all y’all’s attention to absolutely my favorite bit of The Infection Is A Dream foreshadowing: The way multiple parties mention the fact that the Infection smells and tastes sweet.*******

You know... it’s sweet... it’s a sweet dream... get it.........

And now that you can no longer unsee that brilliantly awful pun, I think I'll see myself out!

SOURCES:

* “The infection that swept through Hallownest so long ago... they say that the harder you struggled against it, the more it consumed you.” - Hunter’s commentary, Slobbering Husk Hunter’s Journal entry.

** I’m referring, of course, to the maggots. See: “Weakest members of the kingdom of Hallownest. Generally looked down upon and forced to do menial labour.” (Ghost’s commentary) and “If they try to bargain for their life, just ignore them. They have nothing to offer.” (Hunter’s commentary) from the Maggot Hunter's Journal entry as well as False Knight/Failed Champion’s backstory. Remember also that maggots are the larval form of flies like Sly (you’ll see the resemblance if you compare Sly’s features to the maggot siblings’), meaning Hallownest employs child slavery. In more cheerful news Sly’s backstory must be absolutely goddamn wild.

*** “I’m not...Dead..” “Am I...Sleeping?” “I can’t....Wake up...” - Dream Nail dialogue from generic Hallownest bugs (Wandering Husk, Leaping Husk, Horned Husk, Husk Bully, Husk Warrior) and from God Tamer for some reason

**** “Perhaps dreams aren't such great things after all...” - Elderbug’s initial dialogue

***** “Embrace light! Achieve union!” - Moss Prophet’s dialogue

****** “Theirs is a different kind of unity. Rejection of the Wyrm’s attempt at order. I resist the light’s allure. Union it may offer, but also a mind bereft of thought... To instinct alone a bug is reduced...Hrrm...” - Bardoon’s dialogue (Listen four times, not counting other dialogue flags)

******* “A thick orange mist fills these walking corpses. It has a sweet, sickly taste to it. I find it foul. After you kill these creatures, I suggest you do not eat them.” - Hunter’s commentary, Husk Bully Hunter’s Journal entry, just for one example.

[dustedmagazine]

Ian Mathers’ 2020: We’re stuck inside our own machines

I’ve had a song I loved in high school and haven’t thought much about since stuck in my head. The song “Apparitions” by the Matthew Good Band is a fine example of the alt rock of the late 90s; if you grew up then but somewhere down in the states (or elsewhere) instead of my southern Ontario you may well have your regional equivalents, and like this one they may not resonate terribly strongly outside of their time and place. It popped back into my head after a long time recently and of course 2020 has changed it a little. A song that as a teen I felt keenly as about loneliness (albeit also about how technology can feed into that) of course now plays on my nerves as another small piece of art about the way that most of us (those scared and/or responsible anyway) have only that relatively narrow, technologically mediated connection to the people we love. All of us, artists and listeners alike, are trying to fit our feelings and art and selves down these little connections, with some success.

On a personal level, 2020 wound up being stressful in ways we couldn’t have predicted even after the pandemic hit. In circumstances that could have seen governments on this continent support those unable to work (and those who shouldn’t have to), support those workers who are truly essential, support workers and renters and even landlords and small businesses, instead we got a near-total abeyance of those governments using the resources we provide them with to save any of us. On a personal level my wife and I were lucky enough to be able to work from home (not that it didn’t come with its own forms of stress, and now that I’m off until January I have several work/stress-related illnesses to recover from) but still saw friends and loved ones lose good, used-to-be-sustainable livings overnight, saw family businesses succumb to a near-total absence of effective government support after months of trying to keep above water, etc.

It is probably no surprise that this is not a situation conducive to listening to music, let alone writing about it; I have deliberately and happily kept busy on behind the scenes stuff at Dusted that I could still manage but looking, at the end of the year, at the amount I managed to actually create is demoralizing if not at all shocking. I’m not sure I think next year will be ‘better’ in many important ways, although at our job there is a growing feeling among coworkers that next year has to have some work/life balance because 2020 was, maybe more than anything else, unsustainable.

That’s not to say I didn’t spend a lot of time and emotion on music this year, and if nothing else constant sleep deprivation, stress, and panic meant I was probably open to being deeply moved by all sorts of art even more than normally (it’s gotten to the point where I can’t even read a sad or moving twitter thread out loud to my wife without getting teary, which is kind of… nice?). Funnily enough the band that did the most to keep me sane didn’t really put out anything in 2020. Personal favorite, Low, instead started, in early April, getting on Instagram with something they called on whim “It’s Friday I’m in Low.” With one brief break they have now done by my count at least 35 shows (catalogued here, by the way), every Friday at about 4 my time.

Admittedly it’s easier for Low to pull this off than some bands, since the 2/3 of the trio that sing are a married couple (they’ve had a couple of socially-distanced backyard shows with bassist Steve Garrington, but he’s mostly been isolating elsewhere). These shows have seen the band’s Alan Sparhawk take a mid-set break to do follow-up phone interviews with the acts featured in the COVID-curtailed touring bands series Vansplainingthat they started on YouTube, or just to give a tour round their vegetable garden and talk tips. It’s seen Alan and Mimi Parker draw on their impressive, 25+ year body of work (averaging 4-5 songs a set, I don’t think they’ve repeated themselves yet) and talk a bit between songs about pandemics, politics, song choices, and whether Alan should grab his bike helmet this time.

They’re not the only musicians out there speaking love and sanity (and playing music) into the strange digital interzone filled with hate and disinformation where we’ve all been forced to gather while locked down, but they were and the most consistent and steady signal being emitted each week. No matter how tired I was from work or what new symptoms I’d developed or what horrific thing I read into the news, even if I had to take an emergency nap while it was actually airing, every Friday the show was there. Once things do return to something more like normal, it’s one of the few things I’ll unambiguously miss about this weird-ass year.

So if that makes an argument for Low as my band of the year (admittedly again… it’s not like Double Negative has aged poorly, either), that does a disservice to those 2020 records I did connect with; even if there are still literally dozens I have to go through, many of which I expect to love, my top picks this year (if as unrankable by me as always) hit me as hard as any top pick in recent years did. So here I present a quick and informal top 5, which the rest of my top 20 following in alphabetical order. Here’s hoping for more time and space in 2021 for music, and even more than that, for more support for those who need it from those who could have been providing it all this time. (The Matthew Good Band, incidentally, always did best with their ballads. “Strange Days” is another I’ve had in my head these days; the image of moving “backwards, into a wall of fire” has stuck with me since the 90s and it’s never felt more grimly appropriate.)

Greet Death — New Hell

New Hell by Greet Death

This one is, in some sense, cheating; it came out November 2019. But that just means it’s the latest winner of my personal Torres Prize for Ian Being Late to the Party (so named because becoming slightly obsessed with Torres’ Sprinter just after I sent in my 2015 list was the first time I noticed that one of my favorite records of each year tends to get picked up by me just after I call it quits on the year, no matter how long I try to wait). This very doom and gloom slowcore/metal/(whatever, just know it’s heavy) trio at first felt very much like my beloved Cloakroom (whose Time Well has also won a Torres Prize) but sure enough nuances revealed themselves. Back in February it felt almost a little too negative, but then the rest of 2020 happened. And the extended burns of “You’re Gonna Hate What You’ve Done” and the title track remain searing.

Holy Fuck — Deleter

Probably the record I’ve been trying to write about the longest in 2020, and the one I’m most disappointed in myself that I just couldn’t get the requisite paragraphs together. It’s a wonderful effort from the consistently great Toronto resolutely human-created (and —mediated) dance music quartet, one that both feels like a summation of everything they do well, and with the addition of some outside voices (including strong turns from the singers of both Hot Chip and Liars) a step forward at the same time.

Spanish Love Songs — Brave Faces Everyone

Brave Faces Everyone by Spanish Love Songs

As the year got worse, this roar of defiance only got more crucial for me to hear every so often; I was a big enough fan of it, even after writing it up for Dusted, that when they solicited fan footage for a subsequent music video you may just be able to get a glimpse of me in it. (I’m the one in a “No Tories” t-shirt.) My punk rock-loving twin brother was the one who introduced me to Spanish Love Songs and we were supposed to spend an evening in June screaming along to them live in a packed, sweaty room. I need that in my life again.

Julianna Barwick — Healing Is a Miracle

Healing Is A Miracle by Julianna Barwick

It’s a sign of what 2020 has been like here that even just this album title leaves bruises, and while I privately worried Barwick would have a hard time following up 2016’s sublime Will (probably my favorite record that year), it seems that continuing to take whatever downtime she needs to keep focusing and refining her particular muse has once again yielded amazing results. Anyone who thinks they know what a Barwick track sounds like should really check out, say, “Flowers”, but much of this record absolutely sounds like Barwick, just even better than before. She also boasted my wife and I's favorite streaming concert of 2020, an absolutely gorgeous rendition of this album with Mary Lattimore showing up.

Phoebe Bridgers — Punisher

Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers

I joked on Twitter recently that I have far too nice a dad (and far too good a relationship with him) to be as obsessed as I am with Phoebe Bridgers’ “Kyoto”, but here we are. Like most of her generation, Bridgers’ social media presence ranges from shit-posting to inscrutable, but even though things are often just as hard to figure out in her beautiful songs (as they often are in life), there’s an emotional clarity to them that can just grab you deep down. Couple that with seriously impressive songcraft and the progress from her already astounding debut Stranger in the Alps and more than anyone else in 2020 I’m excited to see just where the hell Phoebe Bridgers is going to go, because it feels like she’s talented and hardworking enough to go just about anywhere and drag a lot of our hearts with her.

Other Favorites

Aidan Baker & Gareth Davis — Invisible Cities II

Anastasia Minster — Father

Deftones — Ohms

Hum — Inlet

Kelly Lee Owens — Inner Song

Mesarthim — The Degenerate Era

Perfume Genius — Set My Heart On Fire Immediately

Protomartyr — Ultimate Success Today

Rachel Kiel — Dream Logic

The Ridiculous Trio — The Ridiculous Trio Plays the Stooges

Sam Amidon — Sam Amidon

Shabason, Krgovich & Harris — Philadelphia

Stars Like Fleas — DWARS Session: Live on Radio VPRO

Well Yells — We Mirror the Dead

Yves Tumour — Heaven to a Tortured Mind

Five Reissues/Compilations/etc.

Aix Em Klemm — Aix Em Klemm

Bardo Pond — Adrop/Circuit VIII

Charles Curtis — Performances & Recordings 1998-2018

Coil — Musick to Play in the Dark

Hot Chip — LateNightTales

Ian Mathers

[thattimdrakeguy]

I’m writing this fic about the Batfamily and I’m afraid of writing them as OOC. If you are able to, could you please give some tips on each of the Batfam’s personalities and characteristics? To specify, Dick, Jason, Tim, Steph, Cass, Babs, Damian, and Duke are the characters I’m using. It would be really helpful! Thank you!!

This is a tricky question, because I don’t know the story of your fic to help you in any specific way. So if after this you wanna DM me for more specific help on how to work things out, I’ll be there to help you right away unless I’m doing something, but I have no plans.

I’m going to go from easiest for me to do to least easiest, because I obviously know Tim the best, but even then, it’s hard, because going off the character’s you are choosing, it’s set during the part of the timeline were he went OOC, but I’ll do my best just to say his general character so you can use that as a base for things. Like how he was developed in his origin and all that, and notable characteristics he’s had as he grew while still in character. With some that even if they weren’t around with some of those characters, would apply to them.

His is also going to be the longest, like way too long, because he’s a way more nuanced and complex character than anyone ever gives him credit for. So he takes a lot longer to explains by a freaking large margin. Like sorry if it’s too big, I just kept saying more as more came to mind because I feel like his nuances are what makes him interesting and easy to right. Once you get a hang of his nuances, and you get used to it, it makes it easier to put yourself into his mindset to how he works, which makes him easier to write as well.

(THIS IS AN INCREDIBLY LONG POST, AND I APOLOGIZE. I just really wanted to be thorough and give contexts to stuff. It’s less of tips and more of an overly long description of what I know about each character and what’s in-character and what’s not going off of how the character’s were developed to be, and not counting the out of character writing. So really sorry about this being so freaking long)

Tim:

Tim’s origin right off the back is having met Dick at a very very young age, I don’t think he could even strongly walk yet, so I’mma say three. He was instantly attached to Dick, he just admired him instantly just for giving him affection. He was his hero. But he was also there the day Dick’s parents died, which traumatized Tim and gave him nightmares for years. But being able to remember that night so thoroughly, he remembered a specific move that Dick could do that very few could, and that’s how he found out Dick was Batman, and logically, Bruce Wayne was Batman.

There’s a large misconception that as a little kid, Tim followed Batman and Robin around, but that was not the case. At least not physically and literally followed them around. Closest being when I believe he happened to come across Batman in his origin story, and purposely did his best detective work to figure out where Dick would be.

As shown several times but most strongly in his origin, but wasn’t as strong the more he went on, he’s sort of socially oblivious to what’s considered normal or not, or what other people are thinking of him.

For instance he just knocked on Starfire’s and Dick’s apartment, asked Kori (Starfire) if Dick was home because he needed his help, and when she said no, just bolted even when Kori asked his name. Just concerning the crap out of her. Even when he first met Dick, he just wouldn’t say his name because “NO TIME”, he just squirmed around place to place on his bike being completely oblivious of himself. In his first miniseries he searches up information on Clyde (a former government agent he saved and befriends) that he shouldn’t have, unaware that that’d obviously be crossing a line for some people. Even taking his girlfriend to a car show, where there was a lot of bikini models around, and it didn’t even occur to him what it’d look like he was there for. He was just genuinely bubbly to see the cars.

He doesn’t do any of those sorts of things out of malice, he’s always just presented as being incredibly oblivious of himself quite a bit. Most likely from not having his parents around that much as his childhood progressed, and typically just living in boarding schools, or with a nanny. So he didn’t really developed right as one interpretation, and another being (that was actually almost confirmed if it wasn’t for Tim getting a writer before another could say it) is that he’s on the Autism spectrum. Which is technically verified, as he has many symptoms of Asperger’s. But that isn’t technically canon, as it never got to be officially said. But it’s valid enough.

Tim’s main strength is his detective work, he also knows how to use a computer to his advantage. Many modern comics act as if Tim is a master hacker who could hack into anything. But he actually mostly used them for detective work, and small hack jobs, some of which he failed. He seemed to have learned more about hacking from Barbara, or at least some what implied, as Babs let him help her build a big computer, or something of that sort.

He also took karate as a kid, and is implied to have also taken gymnastics. It’s stated that he’s actually really good at gymnastics by Alfred in Tim’s origin, but his fighting skills, despite the karate lessons he had previously taken, isn’t as good as the others. Hence his staff, and having to be clever in how he goes about a fight.

How Tim operates as far as emotionally or mentally depends too. Sometimes he’ll go straight from the heart and get himself in trouble, but other times he’ll take his time to really plan something out for himself on the spot. It depends on how his emotions are at the time. If he was just picked on or beat up, he’ll be more agitated, and if something really really bad that happened, he just go so far in he just beats the crap out of everyone as bad as he can. As shown by trying to apprehend someone that shot someone he knew at school, or Batman betraying his trust (in an honestly out of character story). If he’s calmer though, or at least doing his best to be, he’ll use his brain more before he starts. I think his talents in planning have been overstated for ages, because while he’s good at it, he’s not exactly the greatest or overall good. Just enough to work fine enough to get the job done.

One of his biggest mental weakness’s, is his constant insecurity. Somethings that’s so constantly on his mind is letting someone down, rather it be Batman or his dad Jack, or even Nightwing, or his team. The reason why Tim acted so different and more of a seriously brooding personality in Young Justice, was because he was so insecure about not having powers that he thought he had to push himself to his limits. So he used some Batman leadership tactics, and fought harder than he ever fought before just to seem like he was even worth having around. When by himself though, it’s more of a sadness, an upset feeling in his gut. Tim has anxiety about things, rather or not he’s good enough. He’s not a super confident person when it comes to himself. He doesn’t think much of him.

One editorial person answering fan questions in the back of comics as they used to, even described Tim as meek. He doesn’t brag or think much of himself as super according to it.

He’s also stated and shown to be internally scared quite a bit, even shaking when he first got his own Robin suit. Another occasion saying the cold water might excuse his shivering. Which goes along with his anxiety.

Another thing about him that is more low-key and not as noticed, is how Tim, even though he clearly thinks of himself as a kid, heck even the letter column above says so, he has also said since being Robin he’s never had time to be a kid. But he is also still a kid.

As they specified his voice a bit more, he tended to use heck, Holy crud, dang, fudge, weenie, and even Pus Bucket (a reference to Ghost Busters) as his choice of cussing (if that even remotely counts).

And even if it’s not noticeable at first, is shown as having a secret teddy bear that he kept hidden under his mattress so I assume no one would see it.

He’s also a pretty innocent kid despite what all he sees. His mind doesn’t go to the gutter. He trusts people far faster than he should, even trusting Lady Shiva, the world’s most dangerous woman and know criminal right away.

Even Tim’s step-mother saying so out-loud. Showing that this is also the case in his personal life as well.

It also goes along with his social obliviousness. This stuff being rounded into not having any street smarts, which was a main theme for Tim directly in his first miniseries. As well as being naive.

Of course as life went on that wasn’t the case as much, but in the above screenshot, Dana (his step-mom) is saying that as Tim is already 16.

Tim in-general also being a super hero fanboy. As a kid he watched the news, clipped out the papers on them, collected, and even drew his own Batman art (and potentially) others to put on his wall.

Tim’s general behavior while socializing also depends on his emotions at the time. He’s normally very nice and friendly, when not super depressed or down on himself he’s bubbly. But he’s also still a kid, he can pout when he’s hurt, and passive aggressive to people he doesn’t like. Examples being, literally not listening to a jock that picks on his friends, an over-arrogant jerk he met in France, and even Steph because she kept being reckless and flirting with him when he didn’t like it.

Nothing straight up insults, but just generally passive aggressive, give them a clue he doesn’t like them very much even if it never worked. He just wants them to go away, unless they’re a straight up bully. Tim, if it’s no one he specifically knows that will invade his personal life, will beat up bullies. He really can’t stand a bully.

Another thing about Tim is that even though he’s an introvert typically, he’s also not very shy. A shy kid wouldn’t travel miles on a bike (and I freaking hope busses) to meet someone he barely knows because he believes in Batman needing a Robin. He also stands up to bullies, and unless he’s really uncomfortable could talk to about anyone. He even slept in only his briefs and undershirt in the house of someone he doesn’t know, with two people he also barely knows. With that example also probably adding up to the socially oblivious part of his personality.

As far as his relationships go, he canonically thinks of the Bat-Family as his family. Dick calls Tim his little brother, Babs treats Tim as her baby brother as well as acting like his/ Aunt/ Mom depending on the situation (I think Tim fell asleep on her couch after eating pizza while using his cape as a blanket and drooling. So Mom’s a stretch but still), Bruce is his distant but still father figure, Alfred is his grandpa (who he actually plays video games with), even Cass to an extent treating Tim as a baby brother as well.

He is very much the baby of the family. And Tim talks to them about personal stuff (bar Cass cause he was scared of her in the beginning), most of them from Alfred and Dick, to the mute hunchback in the Batcave Harold (who is a real character and I love him). He was always collecting advice from where ever he could get it.

He’s also intensely morally operated. He hates killing. He said he took an oath to let himself be killed before ever killing, getting PTSD from feeling responsible for a death, and even crying when he had genuinely thought Bruce killed someone.

As far as how he tries to present himself, he is constantly doing his best to take everything as seriously as he can, even shunning himself when he starts to stop taking things as serious, he wants to be seen as serious, trustworthy, and reliable desperately so he doesn’t let anyone down. He is constantly hard of himself, and is always trying to be what he thinks Batman wants him to be. Which is were a lot of his anxieties from. Even trying to think of what Batman or Dick would do because he regards them so highly. Even calling Bruce the great man he’s ever known I believe during one of his post-origin pre-Robin appearances.

He’s naive and oblivious of himself, as well as childish in some areas (I think his nanny yelled at him once for it), but overall what he tries to hardest at is taking everything seriously as possible, and using his brain as much as he can. He may not be the most mature, often actually handling situations very immaturely, but he does his best to at least seem like he’s mature, and to an extent he actually can be genuinely very mature, or at least as much as a naive oblivious child can be.

Dick:

This ones a lot shorter probably, because I don’t read him as much, but still have a good handle on him.

I think he’s a character very few always write correctly, because they ride too much into the friendly, compassionate guy. Which, compassion being his main motivator in how he goes about as much as he can, and he’s incredibly friendly, he’s also a very angsty and angry person deep down.

He’s a perfectionist, a trait fics tend to give to Tim more, but actually belongs to Dick. He gets really hard on himself when he thinks he messed something up badly, having nightmares over it, he doesn’t like himself when he messes up something badly. And even if he’s not a naturally angry person, when he is angry, he can be VERY VERY angry.

And until Batman writers in the early 00s started it, I wouldn’t even had considered him all that chatty. He had some jokes in him, was very light hearted when not in distress or mad, but as he was developed by Marv Wolfman, who basically created the Dick that has remained the base for him ever since, he was relatively a generally calm guy when he wasn’t emotional.

He was polite, a charming guy, the type of person you want to bring home to your parents basically. He dressed well. Did his best to keep people accommodated. 

He wasn’t a goofy, constant jokester that’d talk your ear off or keep begging for hugs. 

He’s not that kind of guy. He’s just a gentlemen.

He’s also not that much of a thot. He’s a “wait till it’s right” sort of guy when it comes to sex.

He’d do anything in the world he could to make sure his friends felt right too, and that they were okay.

But all this doesn’t mean he’s not just a one note personality. Depending on how bad he feels like he messed up, he’ll distance himself from people, stop caring as much about his appearance, get more violent and mean. He also doesn’t take well to Batman’s nonsense, he’s probably the person he got specifically mad at the most. He didn’t like the way Batman went about stuff after a while. He had complicated feelings towards him.

Despite people nowadays just thinking of Dick being Batman’s son officially, adopted, end of. That wasn’t exactly their relationship. Dick had a complicated relationship with Bruce. Part of him looked at Bruce as a big brother, and another half a dad, and he wasn’t even adopted, just a ward. Something that Dick was actually quite insecure about, till apparently he got adopted as a grown adult man (which I dunno is true or an edit, but I’ve seen it somewhere).

Dick’s relationship with Tim is pure big bro baby bro. He was very protective of Tim, calling him the closest thing to a brother he ever had, and little brother, before they were ever even officially brothers. He’d push Tim out of the way in times of big trouble, make him stand back, ruffled his hair all the time, and loved teasing him. But when they started off, Dick just sort of thought Tim was a weird annoying kid, given that Tim was acting so screwy during his origin, Dick really didn’t know what to make of him, but the closer they got, they got very very close. Dick cared a lot about Tim a ton once they got accommodated. Tim would even call Dick on the phone just to talk to him about anything from his day to his problems. Tim could count on Dick to help when ever he could. Tim was Dick’s dweebie baby brother who he took care of when needed. Even teaching Tim how to wash clothes personally since Tim didn’t have a clue. 

I don’t think him and Jason really had a relationship. He gave him a number to talk about stuff like Robin angst, and a few pics show they hanged out at least once or twice, but nothing suggests they were close. It seems like Dick was hard on himself, because Jason died before they could get close. After the Red Hood, Dick’s just kind of a-- dick to Jason, and Tim was too, but I don’t consider that in-character. Neither Tim nor Dick would be even remotely okay about the killing, but I can’t picture them treating him like he’s a joke and less than trash. Too much emotional baggage there. Tim would be distant to Jason, and Dick would be uncomfortable and conflicted. That’s my guesses on a more accurate relationship.

Dick’s always had a really big crush on Babs ever since he was a kid to the point they were stuck in a small area together and Dick lost dignity over-- I dunno, puberty effecting him. There’s no way I can put that that’s comfortable. But Dick has a crush on Babs, that got put into a romantic relationship both ways when they aged down Babs, but for some people the relationship is relatively gross because of the age gap, and feeling the need to age down a character like Babs, who just looked at Dick like a kid, to just date him. It’s complicated, and I dunno enough about them besides that exactly. I’m not the guy to ask on that.

He doesn’t have a proper relationship with either Duke or Steph, but it doesn’t seem like Dick’s ever been the fondest of Steph. And Duke’s new, and they only ever been around each other in fan service moments. So I don’t think he has a real actual relationship with Duke.

Dick and Cass despite I don’t think ever being shown much together, also had a sweet relationship. With Dick doing his best to make sure his sister (before she was adopted, but Dick treated her as one nevertheless much like Tim as Dick’s baby brother) was comfortable, acting goofy, and to  me coming across as if he’s always really wanted a sister. But they weren’t super close, but there’s enough there to say that they easily could become close.

Dick and Damian was mentor mentoree, and to a large extent Dick was Damian’s father figure as Bruce was dead. As written by Damian’s creator, Dick didn’t seem to like Damian at all in the beginning, but as Dick could realize and understand his responsibilities more, they did gain a closer bond. Dick would put Damian in line (besides when bad writers were too afraid to make Damian seem like he’s in the wrong fully), sometimes even the hard way, and could be very proud of him. They aren’t big bro little bro like how some current writers act for pandering purposes. But they did grow to be close, even if Damian’s naturally really emotionally distant. Dick always wanted the best for Damian, even if he couldn’t always handle it the right way or knew what to do. He was a guy in his early to mid 20s with the responsibilities of reraising a 10 year old kid that was raised and abused by a cult, who can blame him.

Damian

I’m kind of just getting Damian out of the way, because to be frank, he’s been a really crappily written character since his origin, because he personality just absolutely switches between every writer, and he’s just so badly written that way.

But I’ll go off of what I believe to be what his writer wanted, since that’s the most accurate you can get.

Damian was raised and abused in a cult. That dictates a lot of how he thinks.

He was not close to his mother (which is out of character for Talia, and they later switched that after the reboot, but to be frank if Talia was always in-character Damian wouldn’t exist as we know him. He’d be a total different person and character). And he seemed to despise the way his dad goes about things. He seemed very indifferent and had his mood set to angry in general when he first met.

Which made it all the weirder when an issue later Damian seems to want his parents to be together, despite making it clear he doesn’t even like or think much of either one of them at all.

He was also very entitled, because despite being treated as an experiment some of the time, he was also treated as a prince the other half of the time. He thought the world was his, and he deserved everything.

He nearly killed Tim because he thought he deserved being Robin, as Tim was just adopted and not a “real” son. Seemingly he thought that was what he had to do to have his dad accept him and treat him as he thought he should.

He also seems to think he’s above Jason as well.

He’s also shown as sexist and homophobic.

He was brash and reckless about everything. Had a talented in just about everything just because of how he was raised, and goes off on his own to do stuff, because I assume he thinks everyone else holds him back.

After Dick though, Damian learned to not be a murderer (which I also think he might’ve learned before cause he wants to live with Bruce, It’s a little weird and not given enough time to actually be developed fully in an easy to digest way. Which is another reason why I think he’s such a poorly written character), also more reserved, and reckless.

As he was originally intended, he was very tall and not cute. His height being around 5′2 to 5′4 at age 10. Meaning he was an inch taller than Tim was at 13 when Damian was 10 off of that first one, and only an inch shorter than Tim at the age he  met him, where Tim was 17 going on 18. It may not be drawn that way, but you also have to remember this is 00s and beyond era DC Comics were Tim despite being described as looking 12 got drawn as big as Dick sometimes. Don’t always use the art to go off of certain information. I say he wasn’t intended to be cute, because there’s a scene were he was at a gala, where a woman clearly wanting to gold-dig Gotham City’s most eligible Bachelor Bruce Wayne by getting close to her son, but she immediately backed away when she saw him.

Which sounds harsh, but Damian’s also basically the “anti-Robin”, he was everything a Robin wasn’t meant to be and he was intended to just die and that’s it. Hence why he was with Dick to keep the Batman and Robin dynamic intact, just in reverse. As you can see, they completely forgot what made Damian interesting when his character gained some consistency with his creator.

Damian’s development was that he grew a actual caring heart even if he still carried the generally same personality. He was dismissive of people, sexually harassed Steph, was generally anti-social-esque.��

And honestly because every writer after (even the one everyone seems to think is his best writer, which I massively agree times a billion and infinite more) just kept reverting him, again and again, even when they wrote stories with character development, it was gone again. And applied a whole bunch of traits that aren’t like Damian in the slightest, so if you pay attention. Ya can tell Damian’s not Damian, he’s literally not even a shell of his self. They just painted another one to look kind of like him, and even then they don’t do that because he freaking looks completely different some of the time. They botched him so much.

But that was the main thing about Damian. 

I think one reason he got close to Dick and no one else was because Damian from his origin (no matter how poorly written they showed it), always wanted to have a proper parent. Which it seemed he could never have. And Dick grew to serve that purpose, as Dick was the one teaching him lessons, and making sure he was actually safe.

But of course later on DC Comics literally forgot everything that was letting him slowly become a better character. So that sucks.

I partially came into this fandom because of Damian. So when I actually got to read him, I was so freaking miserable after. I genuinely wanted to like him so bad, even voicing that to people I was chatting too as I read the comics, but I literally just couldn’t see why anyone cared for his comics. I don’t think any of them are fully well-written.

But it did help me grasp what Damian’s suppose to be like as I could tell what he’s suppose to be and not suppose to be, much like how I learned about Tim’s actual personality vs the one writers that don’t care about him write.

Steph

Just doing this one to get a more negatively centered one out of the way, because I struggle to find any personality traits I deem actually likable when put under context.

Because she’s full of her self, reckless, cynical, more or less sexually harassed Tim, kissing him against his wishes (and before ya say Tim did that first. it’s a little less offensive when Tim didn’t do it sexually or romantically. That was just for a dumb trope. A reward kiss. It’s still gross, but it’s a different context that’s less directly offensive), goes behind people’s backs sometimes, can be emotionally abusive, and shows signs of physically abusive.

So I don’t exactly find her super likable. And her spot in the Bat-Family was so contrived, that often nowadays I just don’t pay attention her anymore, but in fairness a lot of that’s just cause she has crazy stans that start fights that were barely there, be hypocritical, and group bully folks. So it’s relatively hard for me to wanna look at her these days.

But to be more specific before she seems like an actual freaking demon woman or what ever. Some of that doesn’t come across as bad compared to what it could be. Besides the emotional abuse, that was just a thing and the comics and people just elected to ignore it even though that was written by her creator.

She’s reckless in a way where she clearly doesn’t have proper training to make sure no one or herself gets hurt. She’s been shown causing herself to get hurt or underestimate stuff. She also doesn’t listen to people that know more about what they do, and she usually relies on luck to get by.

She’s full of herself, because she more or less says she’s an adrenaline junkie, and might just be beating up bad guys because she finds it really fun and exciting. She likes the thrill. And tries to put a title of super hero on herself sometimes, because she tries to seem heroric as she does it. She also does it to make up for her dad, which is more admirable, but behavior wise and focus wise it’s more pinned on her just being an adrenaline junkie.

She also just constantly just flirt with Tim even when he didn’t want it. Which is what sexual harassment is. She also kissed him for her own satisfaction twice, once nearly getting them both killed cause people were shooting at them, and another as them and other people were close to freezing to death because they were stuck under snow. That kind of behavior able to be under sexual assault given the context for her kisses was just for herself. Even the time she tried to say it was to make up for Tim’s reward kiss, she quickly makes it obvious it was just because she’s very sexually attracted to him.

She also just nearly lets criminals die a lot because “What’s one more life”, and seems to not care much for the lesson of not killing, specifically her dad. Like she still has the moral standard not to kill, but compared to the others it’s not one she takes as serious. She learned her lesson on being cynical, but it’s still ingrained in her personality.

I also have a whole very long post on why her relationship with Tim doesn’t work, and how she was abusive. I don’t feel like going over that again but that’s a thing.

Besides Tim she has no real relationship with the others besides Cass, which is another relationship I don’t fully understand, because Steph borderline insults her, and Cass thinks she gets in the way so much she just fractures Steph’s jaw to knock her out. They gave them some admittedly cute moments, but it’s never felt right to me. Always felt forced and pandery, but it’s a thing. They’ve played tag each other, and talked about how both of their parents are abusive.

She also had one with in Batgirl, but the best I can describe that is, she helps Steph so she doesn’t hurt herself, and she can be pretty gruff sometimes, but is also caring. it’s just kind of a been there done that sort of thing.

A lot of Batgirl is sort of forced. Bat-Family has reasonable criticisms of her, writer does something to make them more unlikable so readers still like Steph, Steph proves them wrong, they respect her. It’s a formula for a few stories in her Batgirl run.

People have also said her and Damian have a sibling relationship, but I don’t agree with that. Damian sexually harassed her and kept looking at her boobs. Damian had a crush on her, but he was also a stubborn entitled jerk to her. Steph just got back at Damian by making him dress as a normal kid to embarrass him, and when she saw Damian never played before got him to jump on a bouncy castle. Besides generic banter that’s about it. And given Damian’s personality, they never did anything like that bouncy castle thing again. It’s a really big stretch to call that sibling-like. And even the stuff you could stretch is still doesn’t pay attention to the Damian talking about her boobs constantly thing. Parts of it was just pandery, as a lot of that Batgirl run was.

So I don’t overall have a good opinion of her. She’s perseverance and doesn’t give up, and won’t take no for an answer, but given the context it’s not in a good way besides saving Tim’s and others lifes a few times.

Babs

Despite having read her a lot I don’t know her a lot, because she’s typically always the other character in things. The lady that gets the information.

So I only know a few things about her.

She has the perseverance and won’t take no traits, but in a more positive context. She has no use of her legs but that doesn’t stop her from fighting crime and helping people.

She’s a serious, and mature personality. Every case is very seriously to her, besides a few Tim got into because they were just very goofy.

She can also joke a lot. She has a very teasing personality in her as well. Especially with Tim, she seemed to find Tim really cute and loved teasing him.

I pretty much only have panels of her and Tim besides a rare few maybe, cause as I said she’s mostly a side character helping out.

I have read Birds of Prey but that was possible a year or two ago, and I didn’t really pay attention so I’m not as sure.

She’s very leaderly, and will direct the traffic so to say. She’s a magnificent detective and hacker. Stands up for herself. Inquisitive. Her mind always seems to be thinking of the next thing to think about.

She’s a character I can’t talk about as well without it being one dimensional.

Cass

Cass is another character I don’t have the best grasp on but been trying to learn because she’s probably my second favorite Batkid even if I don’t understand her as strongly. But I do get a lot of her basic personality, and a bit of the nuances, even if I’m not ultra confident on it yet.

She’s quirky, she knows how to tease, but she can also be a bit objective based unless she’s bored it seems, like she does watch TV, but when she has a goal she will not stop until the goal is done. She’s a fully compassionate person as well, she sees little kid needing help, she helps little kid.

Also given her upraising she can be more socially oblivious than anyone else, even Tim. She’s walked around an apartment she was sharing with others butt naked. I think she accidentally flirted with Babs (not a shippy thing, it’s a, Cass said a thing she didn’t understand thing), because she couldn’t tell the difference between a platonic thing and cheesy romantic thing as she watched TV. 

She doesn’t always listen. She will just beat by her own drum unless she believes in something someone else said more.

Given her mind wasn’t raised to be socializing, a lot of this stuff makes sense and is kind of obvious when you think about it.

Cass can also be very stubborn when she has a goal, even when it’s against someone else’s wishes.

She’s mostly been a loner by herself, but she has grown to seem to genuinely like having company around to bond with.

She’s been shown being protective of Tim. Literally carrying him out of a fight zone.

Babs’s is more or less her mom.

Dick and Steph’s I’ve described before.

Distant with Alfred, but Alfred will occasionally drop by to help out. They’re still carrying if they aren’t as connected as others.

Not gonna lie I can’t remember her relationship with Bruce.

But that’s some of the basics and slight nuances of Batgirl. I’m still in the early part of learning about her. So I’ll probably understand her more later on. I genuinely really like her though. I like how she isn’t a one dimensional character like some writers make her out to be. She’s genuinely really fun to read.

Jason

I actually know Jason quite a bit because I made a big long post about his time as Robin (post-crisis only, not counting the scripts written before the 80s reboot, or anything inconsistent).

He’s anti-authority, angry, cusses, smokes, violent, murderous tendencies, aggressive, but also has a genuine heroic spirit, is appreciative of the opportunities he was able to have, loved being able to learn especially, had insecurities, and a lot of his violence was in the name of being a more aggressive way of justice. He’d never hurt an innocent.

A lot of this is explain by the fact he was raised on the streets more or less.

When ever he got especially violent was because of a bad guy hurting or killing an innocent or committing abusive acts of any sort. He probably seen a lot of bad stuff on the streets and doesn’t handle it.

He’s pretty decently cynical because of thinking that’s the best way to deal with it.

He was also moody, but after his upbringing that’s to be expected, and unlike what some thinks, Batman was actually understanding and did his best to help Jason back even if he didn’t get it as first.

Jason isn’t a villain, he is a pure anti-hero, he wants to help, he loves to help, when he feels like he should help he does. He just has his own way of doing it that lots don’t agree with.

When he became the Red Hood, all of this stuff just became amplified because of the traumatic event he went through and the feeling of not being avenged and abandoned again.

Where as before he’d nearly kill people, he outright does now with even left empathy. He had a sack of decapitated head once just so other criminals knew he wasn’t playing around. 

However his moodiness came out in different ways. He was actually a very calm, chill personality as the Red Hood, until his traumas got poked at, where he’d go back into his angry bitter ways, but to a more unstoppable way. He’d be more violent, more angry, more inconsolable, more unstable.

As the Red Hood, he is a very far ahead planner and tactition. People always call Tim the planner, but to me Jason is the planner and tactition of the group. He had a large plan that took a while to do, but caused him to accomplish a lot in a short time. Tim does it in the moment or moments before and does a fine enough job, but he isn’t a good leader. Dick is a good planner tactition and leader, but it can also just be shortly before he does something. Jason thinks very far ahead and how people will react and think, how to get under their skin, what will piss them off, what will give him what he once etc.

When he’s not unstable, he’s calm and collected, and is always trying to get under people’s skin. Not in a large over the top way, but just a bit. In an almost charming sort of way. A sly way. He pokes buttons when he’s calm and collected.

As to be expected his relationship with the Bat-Family is complicated. He’s mostly just in the Bat-Family almost purely because of his past in it, more than what he is currently. He’s more of a loner type that will get help when needed, but until the New 52 said otherwise, he’s not much of a team player as he mostly works by himself.

Bat-Family wants him to get better, but at the same time I think they recognize it’s gonna take a lot for Jason to get better, and since Jason is dangerous it creates a lot of overwhelming feelings. Bruce is upset at himself and is almost grieving Jason all over again, Dick has regrets he never had a chance to know him till then, and Tim’s relationship has been so varied and never really felt right, I’d say  most likely Tim would be scared of Jason, and upset at him. Jason was a Robin that killed. Going off of how Tim reacted to thinking Batman killed, he’d probably be genuinely miserable at the thought of what Jason became, and be distant from him.

Jason is sly and hard to read unless he’s emotional.

Duke

Duke is the hardest to say anything for, because he’s the newest, most obscure (even tho he is gaining quick prominence), and so therefore has less to go off of. Not helped by a lot of writers making him very two dimensional at best a lot of the time.

He is a natural leader, a dare-devil, very willing to put his life on the line at any time, and passionate and almost stubborn about helping people. He wants to save people, and he’s always wanting to help, because he wants to make his neighborhood a better place.

And that’s almost all I can say, because having read his mini-series he doesn’t have many character traits, and WE ARE ROBIN, where he was introduced and I got that from was short lived.

He’s only with the other Batkids when they really wanna pander, so I can’t even accurately say anything, and the few times you could make a guess it’s not in-character for the other. So he’s just hard to tell. Besides Cass.

I think he’d naturally get along with Bruce, Dick, and Tim, and he’s shown being closest to Cass in the Outsiders series. Considering Cass a sister I believe. They console in each other, care about each other, worry about each other, and look after each other. That’s the closest relationship he has.

But it’s hard to say a lot for him.

AGES:

To be blunt I can’t say with full accuracy because there’s so many inconsistencies plus reboots.

But I’ll go into oldest to youngest, because some don’t realize some ages.

Dick, was 21 when Tim was 13

Jason was 18 when Tim was 15

Cass is the same age if not older than Jason

Steph is two years older than Tim

I believe Duke is around the same age as Steph

and Tim and Damian’s ages off of that is pretty obvious.

--

Sorry this is so freaking long, but like I said, just DM me. I’m about to watch a movie, but I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. I at least hope this helped some, and if it’s too long, just message me because it’ll probably be less overwhelming then.

[realismsx]

the drunk candy corn adventures pt. 2

when: november 1st, 2014. 

time: roughly around 5am? at this point evan has no idea. time has literally just stopped existing. 

where: the rouge room strip club, in west hollywood. far far away from where evan is supposed to be. 

mentions: avia knox.

TWs: sex ( slightly NSFW ), alcohol, and drugs.

it had had felt like years since a very plastered evan had clambered into the back of the pick-up truck. some of the alcohol daze had definitely worn off, that was for sure, as the headache that had previously only pinpricked at his temples was now pounding against them like someone had taken a hammer to his skull. he was still moderately drunk though, so that kept any of the other terrible hangover symptoms at bay for now. 

he’d finally let his body relax on the drive, head slumping back against the tinted window of the suv, eyes drifting closed as the heavy wind of whatever highway they were rushing across whipped at his skin. painted nails pinched at him occasionally through the back window, evan’s eyes flicking open briefly to give reassurance that he was still alive. he could tell these women were worried he was going to keel over and die on them and he didn’t blame them -- the state they’d found him in was damn near close enough to death or at least it’d felt that way to evan. there was no way in hell he hadn’t been accidently roofied this evening. maybe he’d picked up a solo cup not meant for him or maybe some crazy ass sorority chick wanted his guard down -- either way his body and mind were far past what alcohol normally did to him. as long as they got to wherever they were going soon, evan didn’t care. he needed to properly lay down somewhere, even if it was beneath a stripper in some dirty club. anything better than the sidewalk outside a frat house on halloween night.

****

the truck finally came to a stop in the back parking lot of a dingy looking building, smack dab in the middle of a downtown area that evan definitely didn’t recognize. it wasn’t necessarily a high class looking place, but it wasn’t the slums either. the vibe was what he expected it to be. he’d been to a few strip clubs before and this one was no different.

“where are we exactly?” words came easier to him now as the drunken haze started to fade, “don’t think i’ve ever been here before...” 

“the rouge room in west hollywood, baby!” the driver, the gorgeous brunette who seemed to be leading this pack of strippers, cheered proudly as they all began to exit the truck. she slunk around to the back, reaching a hand out for evan to take to help him. hesitantly, he accepted her grip and slid himself off the truck bed, his feet finding solid ground. 

“im sorry, did you say west hollywood? like los angeles?” he asked, the confusion in his tone clear. no wonder if felt like it took forever to get here -- they drove him SIX hours to another state.

“yes?,” the brunette scoffed, her expression giving away her own confusion at his question like it was unusual for someone to be confused in this situation. “you said you wanted to come back with us. regretting that choice now?” evan glanced up at the building once more, taking in it’s exterior appearance. it looked like your typical strip club, nothing particularly shady or alarming standing out to him. he didn’t feel like he had anything to worry about and the company he was with sure made the trip worth it, so any hesitation he’d held was fading away fast.

“nah, not at all,” his eyes shifted to the tiny girl before him, her own gaze already locked on him. she didn’t seem intimated by him like most women did which was kind of a turn on and his curiosity about her definitely was at the forefront of his mind, every other concern disappearing “let’s do this.” he said with a grin, adjusting his costume before his started off in the direction of the back door. 

***

man, did these strippers know how to party. not only did they kick off the evening with each of them giving evan a lap dance, but one also gave him what he suspected was either molly or a low-grade LSD of some sort. she’d been grinding herself against his crotch, so his mind was already elsewhere, and before he could protest, she grabbed his cheeks and kissed him heavily, sliding the little white pill into his mouth with her tongue. it dissolved quickly into his system and soon he was in a state of pure bliss,

so much for the way alcohol made him feel, this is what a real party was made of. 

although his mind was floating in wonderland, part of him was still present and aware of his surroundings. he could feel things ten times stronger than he normally could and oh wow - did he feel everything that happened to him. 

he got his cocked sucked at least twice, that much he knew. the distinct feeling was an unforgettable one thanks to whatever they’d slipped him. he’d never felt it so strongly before and it didn’t take much to bring evan to his climax in this state. on any normal day, a woman making him come that quickly would cause pure embarrassment, but here? he couldn’t find a single negative feeling to even be had. 

the brunette, whose name he never learned, came to check on him a few times, her amused smile floating in his vision each time she came back to make sure he was still having fun. she’d laugh at him and he’d laugh back, nothing mattering to him anymore as he cruised cloud nine.

“i’ll let them have their fun with you,” she whispered as pulled at his eyelids, looking deep into his eyes to see if his pupils were still dilated. at that distance, evan could smell her perfume and she smelled like what could only be described as the perfect mixture of vanilla and lavender and he wanted to swim in that smell, “then you and i are gonna have some fun, ok?” a soft, but lingering kiss placed on his lips made a tiny groan rise in throat and he resisted the urge to pull the woman back to him......

then something hit him -- a memory: the flash of a pretty smile, blonde hair rustling around her perfect face, her own soft kisses trailing his chest as she teased his exposed skin in glow of the morning sun. her body melted into his own, a perfect fit like it was meant to be there. her nails traced gently across the lotus tattoo etched into his bicep, her voice familiar and warm. he couldn’t hear what she was saying, but he could feel how content her quiet words made him, a rare form of joy washing over him. he felt at home in her arms and in presence. who was she? was this another acid trip? no -- he knew who it was. the way her smiled made his heart thump beneath his chest was all too intimate. she wasn’t a product of the high, but the sudden memory was. avia.

well shit --- what has he gotten himself into?

[marq-de-laf]

you've talked about before how Lafayette's letters to someone about Adrienne's death were really heartbreaking, so I really want to read them. Where did you find them?

I have not yet written to you, my dear friend, so plunged in

misery have I been; though I very nearly did so when I trans- mitted to you the tokens of her friendship for you and of her confidence in your feelings for her. You have already been informed of the end of this angelic and incomparable woman. I feel a profound need to speak of it to you at greater length. I seek relief from my pain in pouring out my feelings to the most constant, the most beloved confidant, with whom I shared those vicissitudes which made me think myself unhappy. Until this moment you have always found me stronger than the circum- stances of my life: today the circumstances are stronger than I am. I shall never rise above them.

During the thirty-four years of a union in which her tender- ness, her goodness, her elevation of mind, her delicacy and generosity charmed and embellished my life and made of it an honourable thing, I came to be so used to all she meant to me that I could not draw a line of distinction between her existence and my own. She was fourteen years old and I sixteen when her heart first became inextricably blended with everything that mattered to me. I felt quite certain that I loved her and needed her, but it is only now, when, having lost her, I have to unravel what remains of myself from that sweet entanglement so as to face what is left me of a life which I once thought filled with so many distractions, that I realize how impossible it is that I shall ever more know happiness or well-being. Never did the presentiment of loss come upon me so strongly as when, after leaving Chavaniac, an alarming note from Madame de Tesse was given to me at Brioude. I felt as though I had been struck to the heart. George feared the effect upon me of my feelings at that moment more than he did the actual danger. We made all the speed we could, and on arriving in Paris could see at once that she was indeed desperately ill: but apart from the fact that I had never really believed, why I do not know, that the source of her trouble lay in the duodenum, I attributed to the joy of seeing us again some part at least of the improvement which showed in her next day. Her stomach was eased, but she began to suffer from a thickness in the head. To Madame de Simiane she observed: "I am going to have a malignant fever, but since I shall be well looked after, I shall get over it." But alas! after an illness which had afflicted her now for several years two months of suffering and increasing weakness at a peculiarly critical period of her life this was more than a simple malignant fever, there being a certain dissolution in the blood, which appeared to be the most ominous symptom. Cor- visart, however, had been hopeful for a while, though he had rightly said that only the enlightened and devoted care of Monsieur Lobinhes could have preserved that dear life for so long. There could be no question of saving her, but we owe it to him that the final collapse was delayed and that the pain was eased. We found some comfort in mingling our tears with his. Her dear mind began to wander when her confessor came to see her. In response to my daughters' wish, he withdrew after a few vague words, but the nurse brought him back, though by so doing she incurred their reproaches against which she could put up but a poor defence. Their mother then made her confession. That evening she said to me: "If I am bound for another world, you know how busy I shall be about you, there. The sacrifice of my life would count for little, much though it will cost me to be parted from you, if it could assure your eternal happiness. " The day on which she received the sacraments she set great store on my being present. She then relapsed into a state of unbroken delirium, a delirium more extraordinary and more touching than any I have ever witnessed. Try, my dear friend, to imagine her poor brain all deranged, so that she thought herself in Egypt, in Syria, among the events of the reign of Athaliah which Celestine's lessons had left firmly implanted in her mind, her thoughts all confused and troubled except those in which her heart was concerned. At last the delirium became continuous, though it never clouded an unalterable sweetness, a constant wish to please, so that all the time she was trying to say some- thing that would please me, to express her gratitude for all the care that was being given to her, a fear that she was tiring others, the need she felt to be useful to them for in these matters she never ceased, in her feelings and her innate goodness, to be in any way different from what she would have been had she had full control of her reason. There was also an elevation in her thoughts, an acuteness of observation, a clarity and elegance of expression which astonished all those who were present, and those to whom were transmitted the admirable and charming utterances which issued from that disordered mind. But what above all things was so adorable was the way in which the full flow of her tenderness was unceasingly directed on her children and her sister, the concern she showed for the health of her aunt and Monsieur de Tesse thinking all the time that she was with them at Memphis the delight she took in hearing talk about her friends, and all this while her imagina- tion was hopelessly deranged, though by a miracle of sensitive- ness it never became unalterably fixed on any one object, save when it turned to her relations with me. It was as though the thought of them lay too deep to be troubled, was stronger than her sickness, stronger than death itself. For this angelic creature had already ceased to belong to this world. Everything in her was frozen but for feeling, which, with such warmth and life as still remained, seemed to have become concentrated in the hand that clung to mine. It may even have been that she surrendered more completely to the expression of her tenderness, to the free flow of feeling, than would have been the case had she been in her right mind. Not that the sweet angel was afflicted with any terrors concerning her future life. Her religion was all love and confidence. She had been scrupulous in the observance of her religious duties, even quite recently, for the sake of her daughters, who might other- wise have been more urgent in pressing upon her the taking of the sacraments. But no fear of Hell had ever come near her. She did not believe in it as a possibility for good, sincere and virtuous people, no matter what their opinions might be. "I do not know what will happen at the moment of their deaths," she used to say, "but only that God will open their eyes and save them." She would, however, have thought it incumbent upon her to divert her mind more wholly from the emotions which were the lifeblood of all the faculties of her spirit, and, to quote one of the last expressions of which she made use, "of every fibre of her body". She would have dealt with what she called her sins, but very tenderly, for she could never understand how there could be any divine punishment other than exclusion from the life and presence of the Supreme Being. Many are the times when you have heard me joke with her about her pleasing heresies. Who knows whether the fear of increasing my regrets may not in part have restrained her from giving full rein to her feelings, just as another form of control prevented her during her lifetime from abandoning herself to what was passionate in them? "There was a time," she told me only a few months ago, "when, on your return from America, I felt myself to be so violently carried away as to be almost ill when you entered a room where I happened to be, so that I was afflicted by a dread lest I might seem too importunate and so embarrass your natural delicacy. I therefore tried to keep a tight hold on myself. But what I did allow to show should not have displeased you." Well, in that adorable delirium in which she remained where all that had to do with me was concerned there was nothing to restrain the outpourings of that incomparable tenderness, that if I may so describe it cult of the heart, which then showed itself in all its beauty, all its exaltation, all its plenitude. "How grateful I am to God," she said during her illness, "that so violent a passion should also have been a duty! How happy I have been," she said on the day of her death, "in having had the wonderful good fortune to be your wife." And, when I told her of my love for her : "Is that true?" she said in a voice that touched my heart. "Is that really true? How good you are ! Say it again, for to hear it gives me pleasure ... If you think you are not loved enough," she said, "then you must lay the blame on God for not having given me faculties enough." She also said to me in the midst of her delirium: "I love you as a Christian, as a human being, passionately, even voluptuously, or should do, had I any senses left." And indeed her weakness was extreme. Her poor body was a mass of blisters and running sores. "What a state for your wife to be in," she said, "looking as though she had been skinned." When she was pitied for her sufferings, she was afraid of having exaggerated them to herself and to others. One day when her wounds had just been dressed and I was looking at her with compassion: "Ah," she said, "I am more than rewarded by the kindness in your eyes." She often begged me to stay longer because my presence calmed her, because it did her so much good to know that I was near her. At other times discretion came uppermost. She wanted me to attend to my own concerns, and when I answered that my only concern was to look after her: "How good you are!" she exclaimed in her weak but penetrating voice. "You are too kind, you are spoiling me. I do not deserve so much. I am too happy." The habit she had acquired of always being concerned for me, of reading what I was thinking in my eyes, had left her, even in delirium, with an astonishing sagacity about my every mood, though she could not disentangle the causes of it. "Does your present way of life please you?" she often asked me with anxiety in her voice. One day, when she asked my servant Louis for news of his wife and child, whom in fact he had just lost, she guessed that I was vexed, without understanding why: "Is it that my question to Louis pains you?" she asked. Once, after a day when we had been very unhappy, she said: "Your face is more serene today, but not altogether so." On another occasion, when I had been much oppressed with worry and she was looking at me as I sat at some distance from her bed, she said: "You are looking cheerful ... but not too cheerful;" then, staring at me very fixedly: "I dare swear you have been suffering with your chest, haven't you, now?" I tell you all these details, my dear friend, because they are evidence, among a thousand other things, of that tender, constant and informed attention where I was concerned from which nothing, not even sickness, not even delirium, could distract her mind. The delirium, however, went very deep and was extremely stubborn. It bore chiefly on the troublous reign of Athaliah, which seemed to obsess her; on the family of Jacob, in which she liked to think that I was greatly loved; and on the quarrels of Israel and Judah. "It would be very strange," she said, "if, being your wife, I were obliged to sacrifice myself for a king!" She had a fear of troubles and proscriptions, but was ready to face them with that sweetness and determination which had characterized her when such things had been an actual threat. She rejoiced in the noble courage, the disinterestedness and the greatness of mind of her son and her sons-in-law, and, when inquiring whether there was likely to be a persecution of the Christians, and martyrdoms, counted upon me to defend the oppressed. "It seems to me," she said, "that the world is being made over again from the beginning: there is no end to all these experiments. When, O when, will the world run smoothly on two wheels, as you want it to?" All this was muddled in her brain, and it was in Egypt and in Syria that she believed herself to be. "I do not know where I am," she said. "I seem to have a makeshift head on a mortifying body." One day she was worried because she had a vague idea that she was an empress. "But if I were," she added, "then you would be an emperor, and it would be you who had it on his conscience." There was a moment when we thought the delirium was pass- ing. "I am mad, am I not?" she exclaimed. "Come close and tell me whether I have lost my reason?" I replied that I should be very much distressed if I thought that all the charming things that she had said to me were absurdities. "Have I said charming things to you? ... but I have also said a lot of extravagant ones. We have been playing the tragedy of ATHALIE. What! here I am too, married to the most truthful of men, my children are truthful, yet I cannot get at the truth. It is all because of your goodness: you deal gently with my head: but tell me. I will resign myself to the shame of being mad!" We succeeded in calming her. I told her that she was highly regarded and much loved. "I do not mind about being highly regarded, so long as I am still loved." Another time she said: "See what has happened to my poor head: it is strange, but I cannot now remember whether Virginie and Monsieur de Lasteyrie are betrothed or married ... Help me to find myself again." Sometimes she could be heard praying in her bed. She made her daughters read the prayers of the Mass to her, and never failed to notice when they left out passages so as not to fatigue her. There was an almost unearthly quality in the way in which, on one of her last nights, she recited twice over in a strong emphatic voice a song of Tobit which was applicable to her situation the same she had recited to her daughters on seeing the towers of Olmutz for the first time. I drew close to her. "It is by Tobit," she said. "I sing badly; that is why I recite it." On another occasion she spoke a most beautiful extempore prayer for a whole hour on end. I never knew her to be wrong about me save once, when for a few moments she was convinced that I had become a fervent Christian. But the mistake was fleeting and accompanied by doubts and questions which proved that what she had said was as much the expression of a wish as an illusion. "You are not a Christian, are you?" she said one day. Then, since I made no answer: "Ah! I know what you are: you are a Fayettist!" "You must think me very bumptious,' I replied, "but are you not something of one yourself ?" "Indeed, yes!" she exclaimed. "With all my heart! I fed I would give my life for that sect." This she said with a very discerning look, and added: "But you admire Jesus Christ, do you not?" I told her, as I had often done before, that I did. "Well then, since you admire him so much, you will end by recognizing his divinity ..." I once spoke to her about her angelic gentleness. "That is true," she said. "I am gentle: God made me so. But my gentle- ness is not like yours. I cannot make so high a claim. You are so strong, and at the same time so gentle. But I agree that I am gentle, and you are very good to me." "It is you who are good," I answered, "and above all else, generous. Do you remember the first time I went to America? Everybody else was furious with me, but you hid your tears at the wedding of Madame de S6gur. You did not want to appear sorrowful lest others might blame me." "Yes, indeed," she said, "gentle, but as a child is gentle. How sweet it is of you to remember things that happened so long ago!" She spoke to me very sensibly about the happiness of her daughters, and of the nobility and goodness of her sons-in-law. "But I have not been able to make them as happy as I have been: it would have needed the power of God to do such a thing twice. You are beyond compare!" It is not because I want to boast that I tell you all this, my dear friend, though there is more than enough to make me proud: but because it is a joy for me to talk over with you all that reminds me of her gentleness and happiness. How happy she would have been this winter: the three families all reunited; the war over for George and Louis; Virginie about to have a child; and our love the more increased by the illness from which we had feared that she might not recover! How good it was of her in those last days to worry herself about my amusements at La Grange, and about my farming, matters that had remained quite clear in her head, because for so long they had constituted her daily interest. When I spoke to her about our going home: "Ah," she said, "that would be too delicious! Dear God, dear God! Oh, for six poor years of La Grange!" On one of those last days when the thought of going there with me had made her restless and she thought it would be better if I went on ahead, I begged her to let me stay with her. I made her promise she would rest, and she said that she would do her best to obey me. Then, growing calmer: "Well then, stay," she said. "Wait just a little while and I will fall asleep quite quietly." Poor woman! it was a presentiment of the fate in store for us. In spite of the confusion and disorder of her mind, she knew that she was going to die. Two nights previously, I heard her say to her nurse: "Do not leave me. Tell me when I have to die." I approached the bed. Her fear grew less, but when I spoke of her being cured and returning to La Grange: "Ah no," she said. "I am going to die. Have you any grudge against me?" "What grudge could I have, my dearest?" I answered. "You have always been so sweet, so good." "So I have been a pleasant companion for you?"

"Indeed you have."

"Then bless me." On all those last evenings, whenever I left her or she thought I was about to leave her, she asked me for my blessing. When in those last days I spoke to her of the happiness of our union and of my deep affection, she made me repeat my assur- ances so that she might have the more pleasure, and said: "Promise me to keep that affection always. Promise me!" I need not tell you that I did. "Are you satisfied with our children?" she went on. I told her that I was, profoundly so. "They are very good," she said. "Give them your support: let your affection for me make up for their shortcomings." Then, her delirium getting the upper hand : "How do you think they will do for the house of Jacob?" I told her that our excellent children would enter into all her feelings. "Ah," she replied, "my feelings are very temperate. I have only those I have for you. My heart has kept all its tenderness for you." Only twice did I see her delirium grow violent, and on both occasions the frenzy of maternal affection was the cause. Once when George, to spare her from exhausting herself in talk, came into her room after having stayed away from it for some time, she thought he had arrived straight from the army. So overjoyed was she at seeing him again that her heart began to beat violently and we were frightened. The other time was when she grew much animated at the idea that she had just made me a father once again. She was well-nigh drunk with joy at the approach of that anniversary, so dear to our hearts, of the day twenty-eight years ago when she had given me George. That day of mutual felicitations was

the day on which she died. It is impossible sufficiently to admire the sweetness, the patience, the unchanging considerateness of this angelic woman during her long and painful illness. There was not a moment, even in the course of that month-long delirium, that she did not think about others. She had a dread of being importunate, and frequently said: "I am exceedingly tedious and very tire- some. My children," she added, "must resign themselves to having a stupid mother, seeing that their father is willing to put up with a stupid wife." She never gave the least sign of being made irritable by her condition, of impatience when she was in pain, of resentment at her nurse's attentions or at the remedies prescribed for her. When she most disliked having to drink some draught or other, one word from me or from our children (or, in our absence, the thought that her attendants might be scolded) was enough to make her do so in spite of her feeling of nausea, so that we had to harden ourselves against her wish to please. Up till the very last, everything done for her was greeted with a word of thanks, a nod of the head, a gesture of the hand. "Never," said Monsieur Lobinhes, "in the course of a long practice have I ever seen anything even remotely comparable to that adorable character, that extraordinary delirium! No, I have never seen anything that has given me so complete an idea of human perfection ..." When the moment came for her to breathe her last, the last but one thing she said was that she was not in pain. "That I can well believe," exclaimed her nurse, "for she is an angel." Not only in her sick-room, but when she was staying with her aunt and in those little gatherings of friends who came for news of her, this incomparable woman was a living object-lesson in all that was good, amiable, virtuous and tender. "You have news of Monsieur de Maubourg? Oh, I rely much on him; he is very fond of me and rejoices that our two families are now one." And one indeed they are. Those were her words, and I have sent them to you with all the dear devotion of my heart. Her delirium did not stand in the way of her wishing for news of Victor, of Tracy, of Florimond and saying to me: "How delightful to have letters from Constantinople!" She also charged Emilie to give her fondest good wishes to Augustine.* The news of your brother's arrival put her in a state of the greatest agitation, because there had been some talk of his being wounded and she had no recollection of Friedland! But we subsequently spoke to her about his house at Passy. These, my dear friend, are just a few of the thoughts of those dear to her which emerged from the disorder of her poor brain . . . The remarkable feature of this delirium was the way it varied with the degree of her affection. For me, a steady judgment which mingled strangely with the fantastic situations in which she imagined us to be, so that she saw me always in the light of my principles, my feelings, my tastes and my antipathies. For me, too, an astonishing sagacity, a constant and detailed preoccupa- tion, a passionate and unchanging tenderness. In the midst of her hallucinations she loved to say to me: "You must decide. You are our chief, it is our happy lot to be obedient to you." One day when I begged her to be calm, she gaily repeated to me this line of poetry: " '-4 vos sages conseils. Seigneur, je nfdban- donne...'" With what charm, what nobility of language, did she speak of the high opinion which she had of me ! She had the merit, very rare in pious persons, of being able to believe completely in the virtue of those who did not share her faith, and of acknow- ledging it without the slightest reservation. She never ceased to recognize and welcome her children (I speak of all six of them) and to say the most tender and pleasing things about them. She frequently praised their characters and discussed them with me in the shrewdest way, though she was less constantly lucid when she talked of them than when I was the object of her thoughts. She several times spoke in the sweetest detail about her grandchildren: but more often than not their number, their sex, and even the existence of the two last, led to a strange con- fusion in her mind.* She at all times expressed the greatest affection for her Montagu sister, frequently asking her and me for news of her mother, or saying that she had seen her that morning. It made us shudder when on the day of her death we heard her say quite calmly: "Today I shall see my mother." Everything that had to do with our beloved patient was well organized. The nurse had the assistance of Madame Garet, Jos6phine (Simon's wife), and Noyer's wife as well. The three girls were always in readiness to make themselves useful. George, Charles and Louis relieved one another in such a way that one of them was always in her room. Monet spent all the last nights there. These precautions made it certain that everything necessary would be promptly attended to : nothing was neglected. How many affectionate words our dear good children must have heard in the performance of their duties. Monsieur Lobinhes came several times a day to see her, pondered over the case for hours on end, tried every variety of remedy, and when he was in doubt or thought somebody else could give him an idea, wrote to Corvisart or suggested a meeting to him, even begged him to see the sick woman without being called in so that not a moment should be lost. In a few words, he has been the best of friends as well the most honest and en- lightened of doctors. Our dear Madame de Tesse has during the last few weeks been compelled to keep to the house as the result of an illness which in her present weak state might have taken a serious turn. We feared the effect of emotion upon her if we let her see Adrienne. She wanted to do so, however, while my poor wife was asleep. Ah, my friend, what a condition she was in when she left the sick-room 1 Adrienne had been thinking a great deal about her aunt and, knowing her to be ill, believed (in her delirium) that she had been taken to her bedside. She talked in what seemed a perfectly rational manner about Monsieur de Tess, who is suffering from an eruptive ailment. She sent me to look after both of them, saying: "I wager that my uncle is delighted to have you all about him . . . But is it not rather inconsiderate of us to be staying here : there are so many of us?" "Not at all," I said. "There are only thirteen of us to feed." "It is true," she replied, "that my aunt finds as much pleasure in doing us a kindness as do we in accepting it." I have already told you, without going into unnecessary details, that she had received the sacraments. I was present on that occasion, which was more sad for us than for her, she having already communicated in her bed a little while previously. It was then that her delirium became complete. There was nothing for me to do in conforming to her intentions. But I observed that my daughters were quite calm and that their agitation in this matter showed in inverse ratio to their concern for her. On one of the last days her confessor came. I was perfectly frank with him, and told him that I desired to respect the presumed wishes of my wife. I had no difficulty in persuading him that his being in the room with her was unnecessary, and might be harmful. On the day before her death, however, since my daughters attached much importance to the speaking of certain prayers and indulgences quite close to her, one of the curates of the parish was introduced into her room, concealed behind a curtain, on the other side of which I was closeted with her, and carried out the last duties without her being aware of his presence. The next day, just when her agony was drawing to a close and while she could still speak, my daughters were afraid that her habit of not carrying out her religious observances when I was with her might hamper her wish to hear or to say some prayers. A small crucifix was within easy reach, but instead of taking it she clasped my hand and pressed it between her own in an attitude of prayer. I think it probable that it was for me she was praying. I was asked to withdraw to some little distance so that Madame de Montagu, who had always enjoyed her con- fidence in such matters, might ask whether there was anything she wished to say to her. My first instinct was to refuse to conform with this request, tender and timid though it was. I was afraid lest her last moments might be troubled. I will even go so far as to confess that my love as a husband of thirty-four years stand- ing felt for the first time a pang of jealousy. I felt a passionate need to be her sole preoccupation. But I repressed this feeling so that her every wish should be fulfilled. I gave up my place to her sister, who repeated her question twice. The beloved sufferer, who had always had a deep affection for Madame de Montagu and wanted her to be in close attendance, twice answered "No," and added: "Go to supper." She seemed impatient for me to resume my place, and when I did so again took my hand in hers, saying, "I am all yours." Those words, "all yours", were the last she spoke. It has been said that she frequently preached at me. That was not her way. In her delirium she had often expressed the thought that she would go to heaven, though, may I add, this thought was not enough to console her for leaving me. She several times said: "This life is short and troubled. Let us be reunited in God and pass together into eternity." She prayed that the peace of God should be given to me and to all of us. That is how this sweet angel spoke in her last illness, just as she had done in the Will she had drawn up some years previously. It is a model of delicacy, elevated thought and eloquent feeling. It seems to me that by prolonging these details I am seeking to put off the last terrible moments when, seeing that Monsieur Lobinhes had abandoned all hope of a cure and was thinking only of prolonging her life, we felt with a certainty which would not be denied that there would be no morrow for her. Till then there had never been more than two or three of us in her room at the same time. But on that day it clearly fatigued her to look around for us, and I therefore saw no objection to summoning the whole family and ranging them on chairs in a semicircle so that she could see everybody. "What a charming party!" she said with an expression of great satisfaction on her face. I remember that George's wife and children were seated together in a corner of the room and that she said to me: "See how charming they look!" Then, one after the other, she sum- moned her daughters to her and addressed sweet words to them. Then to each she gave her blessing. I am convinced that the little ceremony gave happiness and comfort to her heart. How could it have been otherwise, since her religion, far from being a cause of terror and scruples, was during the whole of her illness, before and during her delirium, nothing but love and gratitude for those "immense mercies which," as she told her sisters and her daughters, "God has lavished and is still lavishing upon me." In spite of the muddled condition of her mind, she was not for one instant, up till the moment of her last breath, without one single moment of that joy which only a heart such as hers could feel. Even the mists of her delirium had cleared. She no longer suffered from a confusion of ideas about her children, their marriages, and even certain incidents which belonged to a distant period of their lives . . . Everything that had to do with her family was once more clear to her. Instead of asking Madame de Montagu for news of her mother, she said: "I look on you as having taken her place." No doubt she felt that death was near when, after having said in that touching way she so often had, "Have you been satisfied with me? Have you been so good as to love me? If that is so, give me your blessing", I replied: "You too love me, do you not? Therefore you also must bless me." For the first and last time she gave me her blessing with the most solemn tenderness. Then each of the six children went to her in turn and kissed her hands and her face. She looked at them with indescribable affection. Most certainly she felt the end was near when, as I think, fearing lest she might have some convulsion, she signed to me to go away and, seeing that I stayed, took my hand and laid it on her eyes with an expression of the most tender gratitude, thus indicating the last duty she expected of me. Throughout those hours of muted agony we felt torn between the wish to show her that love which gave her so much happiness and the conviction that emotion was draining away such little span of life as still remained to her. And so it was that I was keeping back my words with as much care as my sobs, when the heart-breaking look in her eyes and a few scarcely audible words forced from my lips some utterance of the feelings which were choking me. Her voice became suddenly stronger and she exclaimed: "It is really true, then? You do love me? Ah, what happiness! Kiss me!" Those poor arms which had almost lost the power of movement came from beneath the sheet with a vigour that amazed the nurse. She put them round my neck and, drawing down my face to hers, she stroked my cheeks as though in passionate gratitude and pressed me to her heart, saying, "What joy! How happy I am to belong to you!" For so long as her right hand had any power of movement left, she laid mine first to her mouth, then to her heart. My left hand had all the while been holding hers. I could feel it move, and it was as though that movement were repeating the last words she ever spoke: "I am all yours." We were grouped about her bed which had been drawn into the middle of the room. She signed to her sister to sit down. Her three daughters kept bringing hot towels to lay upon her hands and arms, so as to preserve some little warmth in them. When we held a spoonful of wine to her lips we thought the end had come: but that was not yet. I made the others stand back to give her air, and she began to breathe again. We all kneeled down and followed the slow movement of her breathing, which continued for a longer time, I think, than I should have thought possible in her condition . . . What ours was, I leave to your imagination. It was without any appearance of suffering, with a smile of sweetness on her lips and my hand still clutched in hers, that this angel of tenderness and goodness departed this life. We let our tears fall upon the lifeless body. I felt myself being led away by Messieurs de Mun and de Tracy: my dear son supported me in his arms. They let me kiss her once again, and there I bade farewell to her, and to all my happiness in this world. Everything had been foreseen by George ... I had to say but one word to Barrier and the excellent fellow spent three days and three nights, helped by Madame Garet and Josephine, watching by her and performing those last offices for the dead which are too often neglected. Our dear Madame de Tesse also took part in them with all the religious fervour of her friendship. I knew so well that modesty of hers, that reserve which had never been absent even at the height of her delirium. It would have eased her mind to know that a priest was watching by her. George had arranged everything in accordance with her wishes. My dear daughters have had the idea, first put forward by Anastasie and adopted by their husbands, of giving to their mother as an act of homage what each most valued : her wedding- ring. George superintended everything in person. It was he who, when replica rings had been made, hung the originals with the greatest respect round his mother's neck, and he too who had the new rings touched and blessed; he, finally, who arranged to have buried in the grave with her a ring which was an exact copy of one I gave to her thirty-four years ago, and from which I shall never now be parted. These pious duties he carried out in a manner worthy of her and of him.

It was on Monday that this angelic woman was borne with the greatest simplicity, in accordance with her expressed wishes, to a spot close to the pit in which lie the remains of her grand- mother, her mother and her sister, mixed with those of sixteen- hundred victims. She has been buried in a place apart so as to make possible the future plans dictated by our love. I recognized it unaided when George, who has not allowed his own grief to interfere with his care for me, went with me there last Thursday. We were able to kneel together by that sacred grave and mingle our tears. My three daughters [including Emilie, the daughter-in- law], Charles and Louis paid it a visit on New Year's Day, which is when the special service is held at Picpus. We noticed with feelings of religious awe that during the time, longer in her case than is usual, when her dear body was left with the face exposed upon the bed where she had breathed her last, it showed not the slightest sign of corruption. Her features looked even more natural than they had done in the final days of her illness. Everything about her denoted sweetness and kindliness and gave proof that right up to the last moments of her life body and soul had been at peace. God had made her gentle, she had said, and the imprint of that gentleness showed as indestructibly upon her face as her gentleness (especially towards me) had been beyond the power of violent disease and the derangement of delirium to touch. We found in her desk a letter written to me in 1785, certain dispositions which she had made in 1792, and an official Will drawn up in 1804, the sole purpose of which is to secure to me all that the law allows her to leave. It also contains instructions about certain dispositions to be made after her death, without cost to me, and a detailed list of such small gifts as she wished me to make. A number of people are named in it : myself, each of her six children, the grandchildren already born, her father with a word to Madame de Noailles her two sisters, her brothers-in- law, her two nephews, Euphemie and Jenny de TMsan, Mon- sieur and Madame Beauchet, Madame and Monsieur de Tess6, my Chavaniac aunt, Caret and his wife, F61ix, his wife and his small daughter with a charming word about Olmxitz and Monsieur Frestel. This document, which she intended to be only a rough draft, is nevertheless a masterpiece of simple and touching sensibility. The words she addressed to each one of us fully justify the expression of loving admiration which I saw upon the faces of all who were present when the Will was read. Here, then, are the memories which it is joy for me, dear friend, to deposit in your breast. But for me there are only the memories of her to whom I owe the unbroken happiness of thirty-four years, unsullied by the smallest cloud. She was, I may say, attached to me by the most passionate feeling. Not once did I find in her the slightest hint of any unreasonable demand, of discontent or jealousy, nor of anything that did not allow full play to all my undertakings, to all my absences, to all my affections. When I cast my mind back to the days of our youth, I find in her an unexampled delicacy and generosity. As you your- self know, she espoused all my political views in heart and mind to such an extent that Madame de Tess6 used laughingly to say that her creed "was compounded of the catechism and the Declaration of Rights'*. She rejoiced always in everything that might redound to my glory, and more still, in what, as she said, might make me better known and understood. She took especial pleasure in seeing me sacrifice an opportunity of personal fame to a right feeling. Here let me quote another of her aunt's sayings : "I should never have believed it possible that anyone could be so fanatical a champion of your views and at the same time so little influenced by the spirit of faction." Never once did her loyalty to my doctrines and to me in any way diminish her attitude of forbearance, of compassion, of kindliness, to those who held different political opinions. Nor did she allow herself to be embittered by the violent hatreds of which I was the object, or by the ill-natured and malicious things that were said about me. From the high summit from which she looked down on them and where, because of her good opinion of me, I stood beside her, such things were but meaningless stupidities. Though it cost her nothing daily to exercise this indulgence towards one or other of the extreme parties, it was only a few days before the onset of her last illness that I realized how much of her strong and only too well-founded dislike of the actions and personalities of those belonging to other parties she had felt in duty bound to suppress in the interests of the common weal. You know as well as I do all that she was, all that she did, during the Revolution. It is not her coming to Olmiitz "on the wings of duty and of love", as Charles Fox so elegantly phrased it, that I here wish to praise, but the fact that she would not come before first assuring as best she could my aunt's well-being, settling accounts with our creditors and being brave enough to send George to America. What a noble imprudence she showed by remaining the only woman in France who, though deeply compromised by the name she bore, never even entertained the thought of changing it! Every petition, every declaration made by her, began with the words "Lafemme Lafayette ... " Never once did that wife, so indulgent where party hatreds were concerned and even in the very shadow of the scaffold, allow a thought that might have been critical of me to enter her mind or be unrebuked. Never did an occasion arise for her to make a display of my principles but she took pride in them, and stated that it was from me she had learned them. She was prepared to say no less before the Tribunal, and we have all seen how this wife, of so elevated a mind and so high a courage in great matters, was good, simple and easy in the ordinary commerce of daily life: too easy, perhaps, and too good, had not the veneration inspired by her virtue made of this goodness a way of living that set her apart. A thing apart, too, was her piety. I can truthfully say that during thirty-four years it never caused me the slightest feeling of constraint or embarrassment; that her religious practices were entirely free of affectation and always made subordinate to my ease of mind; that I had the satisfaction of seeing the most unbelieving of my friends as constantly welcomed, loved, and esteemed, their virtues as unhesitatingly recognized, as though there had been no difference of opinion on religious matters ; that the furthest she ever went with me was to express a hope that I would think the whole matter over again with that integrity she knew me to possess, and in the end be convinced. All the recom- mendations she left me are of the same general kind, such as asking me for the love I bear her to read a few books she names, which I shall certainly examine afresh with a mind at peace and truly receptive. I remember how, to make her religion easier for me to swallow, she called it "the sovereign liberty", and often quoted to me with pleasure certain words of the Abb Fauchet: "Jesus Christ, my only master." I had realized that I could give her pleasure by going to Mass at La Grange on Sundays, which I did, and furthermore attended the Sacred Office at Courpalay on Easter Day. Then she would thank me, saying: "It is not for myself that I ask this of you, for, knowing your opinions as I do, I could scarcely hope to see you going of your own accord, but because there will be present persons who love you and might take your absence in ill part, and that would pain me." I need not tell you what pleasure, endlessly renewed, I derived from a complete confidence in her. This she never demanded, but at the end of three months took for granted, always with the same happy thankfulness, and fully justified by a discretion on her part which could face any test, and by her admirable understanding of all the feelings, needs and wishes of my heart, a rare sagacity in all things that concerned my reputa- tion, and also the most exacting taste where my writings were in question. With all this there went a tender affection, a noble exaltation of mind, an adoration which was flattering as well as sweet to me, the more so since it was the expression of the most perfectly natural and sincere person who has ever lived. This letter, dear friend, would never be finished were I to give full play to all the feelings which inspire it. But let me say again that this angelic woman has at least been surrounded by a love and is mourned with a completeness which are worthy of her. If you had seen in the different rooms Madame d'H&nin, Madame de Simiane, Madame de S6gur, all the members of your and the Tracy families, Madame Beauchet, and many other friends, among whom I would single out Carbonnel (one of George's comrades, who spent the day with us) ; if you had been able to mingle your tears with theirs, you would have rejoiced even in your sorrow at the manner in which the loss of her was felt. In Paris, in our canton of Rozoy, and in every place where she was known, we have found nothing but sympathy, admiration and regrets, for her and for us, which have touched us deeply. Goodbye, dear friend. You have helped me to get the better of many grave and painful accidents of fortune which might have gone by the name of unhappiness, were they not now surpassed by the greatest of all disasters. To get the better of that is wholly impossible for me. But though fated to live for the rest of my life with a deep and enduring grief for which nothing can console me; though dedicated as I am to one thought only and an adoration that is not of this world (and I have a greater need than ever before to believe that all does not die with us), I am still susceptible to the sweetness of friendship. And what a friendship, dear Maubourg, is yours ! I embrace you in her name, and in thename of all that you have meant to me since we first knew each other. 'Once more goodbye, dear friend. 'LA FAYETTE'

Here’s a compilation. And an e-tissue.

[ellis07o12904-blog]

Profits Contact Records.

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[ramialkarmi]

Betsy DeVos backs a technique claiming to cure ADHD without medication — but the science is questionable

I was sitting on a black leather chair watching two polar bears have sex on a tv screen when it happened for the first time: I made the image in front of me shrink — with my mind.

I'm not Matilda, nor do I possess any superpowers (short of the ability to polish off an entire quart of Breyer's Cookies N' Cream in one sitting). But in that moment, I was able to control the screen through a process called neurofeedback.

The set-up essentially involves a basic EEG machine, which is hooked up to a video screen or set of speakers that respond to your brain's electrical activity (yep, your brain is electric). That real-time feedback can, in theory, teach you how to control your brain waves.

During my visit to a neurofeedback facility run by a company called BrainTrainUK, social worker Zuzana Radacovska explained the technology by pretending she'd just caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror and noticed she was hunching over.

"Imagine yourself standing like this and you don't realize it because you're just tired. Then suddenly you see yourself in the mirror, oops, you know, and you straighten up. This is similar. But in a good way, it's happening in the deeper structures of the brain, so it doesn't require so much conscious effort."

As the company's founder, Stuart Black, put it: "We're giving the brain little hints and rewards in terms of which way we'd like it to go."

Advocates say this training can make a healthy person smarter, an ill person less depressed, or even treat ADHD — all without medication or side-effects. President Trump's education secretary Betsy DeVos has invested roughly $15 million in the technology.

As part of my demo, tiny sensors were attached to my scalp, and I watched a 30-minute clip from David Attenborough's "Frozen Planet" series — the one where lonely polar bears find each other in the middle of a desolate Antarctic winter and, you know. As Attenborough began to describe the bears' lucky encounter, I let out a slight cackle. Immediately, the screen in front of me shrank, then faded into a sea of grayish pixels.

"Oops," I said.

Our electric brains

To many observers in 1920s Germany, Hans Berger was the picture of boring. When he wasn't repeating the same lectures he gave every year at the university in Jena where he taught psychiatry, he was quiet, tense, and brooding. One student wrote that Berger's "days resembled one another like two drops of water."

So it came as a surprise when, several years later, Berger invented the world's first electroencephalogram (EEG), a piece of technology that revolutionized the fields of neuroscience and psychology by measuring the activity of the brain. What Berger didn't know — and what no scientist could prove for the next four decades — was that people could learn to control this activity, and even change it.

Today, thanks to scientists' use of EEGs to diagnose and monitor a number of brain conditions, we know that most of our brain's electrical activity falls somewhere within a range of roughly 1 to 20 Hertz (Hz). Neuroscientists divide this activity into four ranges, or bands. Each level corresponds to a specific type of alertness — at the lowest, called delta, you're literally asleep; at the highest, called beta, you're focused and attentive. In the middle are alpha and theta.

In a 1966 presentation at Stanford University, psychologist Joe Kamiya said he'd discovered how to coax people into keeping their brains in a certain state. Kamiya focused on the alpha state of 8-12 Hz, since it had been linked with the heightened relaxation and focus, which typically accompany creativity and problem-solving. He claimed that he could use positive reinforcement to "train" his participants to raise or lower the frequency of their brain waves so as to stay in the alpha range.

Not everyone agreed with Kamiya's findings (some researchers disputed the fact that he'd "trained" people to change their brain waves), but the presentation unleashed an avalanche of research into what he called neurofeedback. That work continues today, and while the science is nowhere near settled, advocates say there are reasons to be hopeful.

One of those advocates is Betsy DeVos.

DeVos maintains a $5 to $25 million stake in a neurofeedback company called Neurocore, according to documents filed with the Office of Government Ethics and reported previously by the New York Times. That makes DeVos and her husband, Richard DeVos Jr., the company's chief investors.

Neurocore estimates that its nine centers in Michigan and Florida have treated some 100,000 clients, many of whom have ADHD, autism, or other serious learning disorders. The founder of Neurocore, Dr. Tim Royer, once served as the Chief Pediatric Psychologist at the Helen DeVos Children's Hospital, where the DeVos family still has a financial stake. Richard DeVos Sr., who owns the NBA's Orlando Magic, is one of Neurocore's most prominent clients.

Betsy DeVos served on Neurocore's board until January 2017, when her investment raised questions among some senators about potential conflicts of interest.

The promise of brain training for people ‘at wits end'

Of the approximately 6.4 million American children with attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD), some 85% take stimulant drugs like Adderall. (Another 8 million American adults have the disorder, but estimates of their rates of drug use are less clear).

Studies suggest that treating ADHD with stimulant drugs improves symptoms in about 70% of adults and 70% to 80% of children, but there is a risk of side effects that range from minor to debilitating. These include headaches, insomnia, nervousness, weight loss, and in some cases even heart problems. Some people who have been treating their ADHD with stimulants for years say even more serious issues can arise, from anxiety and panic to social isolation. Often, it can feel as though they're managing two different personalities — one on the medication and one off of it. That's not mention the other 20% to 30% of people for whom medication either isn't an option or doesn't help.

The goal of neurofeedback training in people with ADHD is to pinpoint where the brain was misbehaving and re-balance its activity patterns, says McIntyre. Some new and very preliminary studies using fMRI to measure brain activity in people with ADHD who have done neurofeedback are just beginning to suggest that this is actually what is going on.

"The people who come [to Neurocore] are already at their wits end and struggling because nothing's working," says Michelle McIntyre, who worked at Neurocore for four years as an intern, a technician, and a sales representative. McIntyre's says that during her time as a Neurocore technician, she saw many patients — about half of them children, half adults — with attention issues. Many had previously been diagnosed with ADHD by a physician and were having a rough time finding any treatment that helped alleviate their symptoms.

"Ultimately what we're trying to do is relieve the symptoms that brought the physician to that diagnosis," she says. "Ultimately what we're trying to do is balance the brain."

David Rabiner, a Duke University professor of neuroscience who practices neurofeedback, maintains that the scientific evidence leans more strongly in favor of conventional, medication-based treatments for people with ADHD than it does for neurofeedback. While there has been an outpouring of recent research on neurofeedback in people with ADHD, the largest and strongest studies remain undecided on whether or not it works. And the studies that do say it works have mixed conclusions about how well.

Two large and promising recent meta-analyses (reviews of studies) examined neurofeedback and ADHD in children. While both concluded that the treatment helped reduce children's ADHD symptoms, one said it was "probably efficacious" while the other said it was "efficacious and specific." In the first case, that phrasing corresponds to a level three out of five (3/5) on a scale created to evaluate biofeedback methods (zero is the weakest and five is the strongest). In the second case, the researchers gave it a five out of five (5/5).

A few years after those studies were published, another equally large review came to the opposite conclusion, finding that the "evidence … currently fails to support neurofeedback as an effective treatment for ADHD."

‘I saw and lived a miracle'

Despite mixed scientific research, some people see neurofeedback as nothing short of a godsend.

Mike Moore is one of those people. His youngest son was diagnosed with ADD at 13. He barely graduated high school and ranked in the bottom 5% of his class. A friend once told Moore that his son would never be successful.

Shortly after his son's 18th birthday, Moore took him to a neurofeedback practitioner in San Marcos, Texas, where he completed about 40 training sessions.

"My son learned to focus during those treatments," says Moore.

A few years later, Moore's son graduated from college with a degree in business administration and went into the contracting business, where he worked on water treatment plants across the state. One day when he was hiring supervisors for a new project, a friendly face showed up for an interview: It was the friend who'd said he'd never be successful.

"I recently heard from one of the supervisors in that company that he had the opportunity to work with a bunch of geniuses in that company and my son was one of them," Moore says.

Another neurofeedback devotee is Sam Barclay, a freelance science journalist in California's Bay Area. After struggling with chronic, debilitating migraines for a year and a half and trying dozens of medications, Barclay's Stanford physician eventually referred to a neurofeedback practitioner.

At her first appointment, the practitioners ran a series of tests, including something called a LoRETA (short for low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography), which involved placing a cap on Barclay's head to create a 3D map of her brain. According to Barclay, they found that her brain wasn't producing alpha waves — the ones Joe Kamiya claimed to produce in his patients in 1966. Instead, it was producing lots of beta waves — the short, rapid-fire waves linked with sharp focus but also distractibility.

"So what I had was a brain that was permanently fatigued. That explained why I was feeling completely trashed all the time, why I was having brain fog, and a lot of my migraine symptoms," Barclay says.

Since then, Barclay has been doing the training twice a week and says her migraines have gone from life-disrupting to manageable. But migraine headaches remain an applications of neurofeedback for which the science is far from conclusive, though some limited research suggests it might be helpful.

From Biocybernaut to Neurocore

Despite the mixed science on neurofeedback, practitioners across the world are promising it can help boost human performance in a wide variety of ways — from curing serious issues like ADHD to making people smarter, more focused, or even better athletes.

One neurofeedback provider, called Biocybernaut, offers exclusive week-long, $15,000 retreats in Sedona, Arizona; Bavaria, Germany; and Victoria, British Columbia. Participants sit in darkened rooms for 12 to 14 hours a day, doing rotations of auditory and visual feedback designed to sharpen the mind. According to Biocybernaut's founder James Hardt, a week of the program will "expand your awareness more than 20 years of Zen meditation."

"It sounds like we're selling snake oil,” says Biocybernaut trainer Alice Miller. "‘It does this, does that, it even butters your toast!' But it's true. We see it every single time. [Participants] leave and they say ‘Oh my gosh how come nobody knows about this?'"

Neurocore founder Tim Royer told Michigan-based newspaper Rapid Growth that although the organization was founded to help people lower stress levels, sleep better, and learn to focus, clients have also included people looking to achieve what the company refers to as "peak performance."

"More traditionally you would see ... people who might have been diagnosed with ADHD, or some type of sleep problem, but it could also be what we would refer to as peak performance individuals, which are people who just want to do better with their brain," Royer told the Grand Rapids Business Journal in 2014. "They realize their brain is important to what they do … whether it is for academics, sports, or work."

Royer went on to found Neurocore Pro in 2015, which is geared specifically towards improving athletic performance. The company contracts with the NBA's Orlando Magic and maintains an on-site location in Orlando "where players and staff have access to brain optimization services at all hours of the day," according to the Grand Rapids Business Journal.

However, the scientific research on neurofeedback's applications for healthy people is scant. Many studies have been very small, included only white males, and were not double-blind, meaning either the therapists or patients knew they were receiving the treatment, potentially contaminating the results. In addition, several of the most robust studies have been written by scientists who may have conflicts of interest — the researchers who authored some studies on neurofeedback and ADHD, for example, received money from companies that make drugs to treat ADHD.

In a 2009 review, David Vernon, a professor of psychology at Canterbury Christ Church in the UK, concluded that "the notion that alpha neurofeedback can enhance the mood of healthy individuals has yet to be firmly established."

Neurofeedback training also doesn't requires a certification, and neither the FDA (nor any similar body in the UK) regulates the method. Michelle McIntyre, the former Neurocore employee, does not have a medical degree, but was told she was ready to apply and interpret the method after a 3-month training. Today, social workers perform Neurocore's assessments, not technicians, which is similar to the model at BrainTrainUK. Both companies also employ a medical doctor, but they're not typically involved in day-to-day treatments or interactions with clients.

‘The side effect of this is you're tired'

New studies on neurofeedback and ADHD continue to be published, however, including several preliminary brain imaging studies that came out this year.

During my own recent neurofeedback demo, I struggled to feel any of the treatment's immediate effects. The screen was changing shape and size before my eyes — romantic polar bears and all —  but I didn't feel any different. I wasn't sure how I was making the screen get bigger or smaller, but I was aware that I could do something to cause it to shift.

Settling down at my laptop an hour after the demo, however, I found I couldn't stay awake. My eyelids felt heavy. A late-afternoon coffee had no effect. I felt as though I'd written a massive research paper and had no brain power left to make it through the day. Suddenly, I remembered something Sam Barclay, who'd received neurofeedback training for her migraines, told me.

"I'm frankly a little annoyed that they spent a year and half mucking around with me before they tried this," Barclay says of the doctors who gave her several different medications in an attempt to relieve her migraines. "The drugs had some nasty side effects. And the side effect of this is you're tired."

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