#it’s often gritty

[bpdohwhatajoy]

Thank you for being so open and honest about your experiences. It's easy to forget that such bravery is not easy and that the ability to keep moving forward and constantly processing all these things is not something anyone can do. Positivity-focused blogs have their places, but documented rawness like this is inspirational in its own right. I can tell you've fought hard, and that you are still fighting. I really enjoy reading your experiences, because I find myself in many of them and I find it beautiful that you're still growing and learning. I don't wish to offer my sympathies; more simply a thank you for being here, and for what you do. My best wishes.

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[silverwhittlingknife]

When people say that Dick “has a temper” what do they mean?  Is he the type to blow up over an inconvenience, be impatient, or rage-quit?

Ahhhh, I had a lot of fun with this. Thanks for the ask, anon. <3

My main feeling about Dick's temper is it's an important part of his characterization, and it's a fun part of his characterization, but I also try not to overemphasize it? A lot of my thoughts are here; also @theflyingwonder has some good panel collections here and here and here if you want to see what Dick generally looks like when he's grumpy about something.

General thoughts / caveats:

Anger is obviously not the only emotion Dick ever feels!! He feels many other emotions too!! The fact that he is capable of getting really angry sometimes does not mean that he is angry all the time!!

He's a person who feels emotions very deeply - anger, love, loyalty, etc. - but also has a very conflicted relationship with his emotions. He aspires to be perfectly controlled, like he imagines Bruce is, and he's ashamed of moments when he loses control. Because he's wound pretty tight and represses a lot, his emotions can be a bit explosive when he loses his grip on them.

I would never describe him as "an angry person." He doesn't walk around fuming at the world and looking for things to be mad about, y'know? He's a person who wants to be optimistic and tries to be optimistic. This very much includes when he's Robin.

He wouldn't blow up over an inconvenience unless he was already really upset about something more serious. But yeah, if he's upset about something important, sometimes he'll lash out at whatever's closest.

He's methodical and focused; he'll sometimes get impatient when he's, say, bored by his friends' TV preferences, and in general he gets restless and likes to be moving, but if he's got a challenging task to complete he's completely capable of hyper-focusing on it.

In his civilian life, he generally has a pretty good grip on the anger - so e.g. I don't remember him ever shouting at Clancy or civilian friends in general. When a reporter tries to get dirt on him by interviewing his neighbors at his apartment complex, they universally gush about how nice he is.

Meanwhile, in his vigilante life, he's got a rigid moral code and a rigid sense of duty. He cares a lot about helping people and protecting civilians, and he's emotionally-fulfilled by it, and he can be very kind. But he's also a super-intense person who takes his responsibilities seriously, and he'll get sharp with people that he feels aren't being serious enough. He only screws around when he's with people who are very serious themselves, like Bruce.

In an argument, Dick's generally direct and confrontational: he'll snap at you to your face, not sulk behind your back. Even when he's being a bit more passive-aggressive, he's not subtle about it. If Dick's annoyed with you, you'll know. If he doesn't like you, he makes it obvious.

Jean-Paul: I've seen you with Robin - you like Robin. Dick: You got a problem with Robin? Jean-Paul: No! I like Robin, too. He's an exceptional young man. I just mean... it's obvious when you like someone. And equally obvious that you don't like me. (GK 14)

Dick's just a very dynamic character in general, rather than a static one. When he's relaxed, he can be very easygoing and friendly; if you get off on the wrong foot with him, he's prickly and often harsh. He's got a very serious core, a strong sense of principle, and a passionate sense of loyalty to the people he cares about. Here's a light-hearted moment with Dick and Tim fooling around playing tag:

Dick (grabbing Tim from above): Gotcha! Tim: Augh! (B: Transference)

This is from the exact same arc as the panel at the top - but before Hugo Strange almost kills Bruce. And just in general I think this panel is a good reminder that Dick does all kinds of things that are not about being angry, that he's also the person who keeps Tim fed and repeatedly saves him from falling, that sometimes he'll pour his heart out to Bruce, that he really really really loves his friends, and so on.

Now, all that said, if you would like an extensive deep dive into Dick yelling at people (and really, who wouldn't? yelling is fun!), I've collected a super-long list of quotes which I've attempted to corral into organization. Below the cut:

Dick vs. criminals

Dick vs. Bruce

Dick + list of reasons he gets upset

Dick + annoyance at friends/teammates

Dick + lashing out at loved ones (rare! but, uh, very memorable)

Dick + first meetings with future siblings (+Steph)

In conclusion

Anger at Criminals

Dick's temper is an important part of how he thinks of himself: he's intensely self-aware about his temper and also conflicted about it. It comes up most often when he's fighting criminals, especially when they're threatening people he loves:

Dick (internally): At first, I couldn't believe what they were saying… but as the truth sank in, I felt a rage growing so great inside me - that it felt like I was just a part of the anger, instead of it being a part of me. Kid!Dick: Those animals! They murdered my mother and father! I'm going to the police! Bruce: No... not yet. (Secret Origins 13) Deathwing: You've been so angry for so long, Dick. Learn to accept it because you have no choice. You will become me, Dick, and I know because I am your worst nightmare! I am you! Dick: Never! I'm not you and I'll never be you! Yeah, I get angry. Sometimes I get so pissed I want to break everything in sight. But everyone gets mad. Everyone gets frustrated. But I don't fight out of anger! I fight when there's something wrong that needs to be stopped! And that's why I'll never be you! I don't fight to kill - I fight to protect! And what you said about Batman - well, pal, screw you. He's the best mentor anyone ever had! (NT 100) Dick (internally): I hit him harder than I should. Not sure why. It worries me that it feels so right. (N 2) Dick: I thought I was more in control than that. But I lost it. Tim: It was made right, Dick. The Joker is alive and not well in a maximum security cell. Dick: It’s not right with me. I never thought I could be a killer. I’m wrong. There’s a part of me I never saw before. The rage. I never felt anger like that. I feel like it clawed me up inside. (N 64) Dick (internally): Nothing Jason says can be taken for truth. He says Tim is dead. I'll need more proof than his word and an empty cowl. Because right now, I need to keep that hope alive. If for nothing else, then to keep me from losing control… and I won't let that happen. Can't let that happen. Can't. Dick (punching Jason): WHERE IS HE, JASON? Jason: Depends on what kind of life he led. Dick (breaking Jason's nose, then internally): There goes his nose. Control your anger. (BftC 3) Jason (internally): Dick is different from Bruce. In the way he fights. In the way he thinks. And the way he feels. And he gets angry. Really angry. That anger, it'd make him a great Batman, if he'd let it. He's trying too much to be like him.  The good son. Man, I hate him.  (B&R 25)

So something you'll notice about all of these moments is that Dick isn't proud of his anger. He doesn't experience it as cathartic, and he isn't proud of the things he does when he's angry. His anger is an enemy; it's the person he doesn't want to be, to the extent that after the fact being angry almost feels like an out-of-body experience, because in the burn of anger he'll do things that his conscious mind rejects.

I tend to think of anger for Dick as akin to a temptation. He's strong and talented and smart. He's capable of really hurting people. He also believes - viscerally, fiercely - that it's wrong to do so.

Worth remembering: Dick's big confrontation with Zucco, in most of his origin stories, involves taking the photo that gets him arrested:

Dick (remembering): Twenty-four hours later, we were on the trail of Boss Zucco... and when he murdered his own henchman, I took the photo that sent Zucco to prison! (Secret Origins 13)

And in Batman: Year Three, he's furious when he thinks that Bruce might have arranged for Zucco to get killed - when Dick's calm and thinking clearly, he believes it's wrong to kill even people who are clearly evil. It's only when he's swept up in emotion that he'll get violent.

Anger at Bruce

... Look, I had to give Bruce his own category.

Dick and Bruce have a lot of fights. Like, a lot of fights.

Now, this isn't at all particular to Dick! Dick's just one of many, many, many people in Bruce's life who periodically get fed up with him. So I wouldn't gloss this as Dick being unusually short-tempered - post-Crisis Bruce would provoke a saint (and does! at one point Clark briefly votes him out of the JLA!). And Dick doesn't always get angry when Bruce is being a jerk to him - sometimes he's just discouraged, or depressed.

But at the same time, Dick's not a pushover, and when he's sufficiently provoked, he'll often track Bruce down to confront him / demand an explanation / demand better behavior / etc. Paradoxically, I actually tend to see these confrontations as an expression of Dick's faith in Bruce. He gets angry because he expects better.

Here's a small sampling of Dick-angry-at-Bruce moments (some confrontations, some where Dick's just fuming on his own):

Bruce: Listen to me. Dick: Listen to you? You hand Gotham over to that nutcase altar boy. You leave this kid out to dry without a snowball's chance. Then you throw everything you’ve lived for aside like it was nothing! Killing this creep doesn’t make you as bad as the scum we hunt. It makes you worse. Because they never stood for anything. (R 8) Dick: If you say anything about 'finding myself,' I think I'll puke. Bruce: I thought you'd be glad to see me back. Dick: That depends on why you came back. Bruce: To take up the mantle again. To take back my place. Dick: For how long this time? Bruce: Not now, Dick. We can talk about this when - Dick: Right now. We're settling this right now, Bruce. (R 12 - Bruce has abruptly reappeared in the Batcave after leaving Dick and Tim in charge during Prodigal)

Dick: It was you who told us to stay out of Gotham. I’ve got a life here. I can’t just walk away from that. You’ll have to - (Bruce hangs up on him) Damn you! (N 34 - Bruce has been AWOL for months and now abruptly summons Dick to join him in No Man's Land) Dick (internally): Bruce is playing martyr. Keeping us at a distance. […] Why does it have to be this way with us? WHY? (He punches his car, and his hand comes away bloody.) Uncontrollable rage. The same rage I felt when I killed the Joker. Thought I had it under control. (N 65 - Bruce is accused of murder and freezing out the Bats) Bruce: What are you doing out of bed? Dick: You did it again, didn't you? You pushed everyone away! (N 99) Bruce: I assume this isn't a social call? Dick: What the hell is the matter with you? I mean, aside from the obvious! Ignoring the many layers of denial, and the fifty feet of psychological body armor that you throw up to avoid feeling anything! Aside from that! And the pathological need to control everything on Earth and beyond! Ignoring all that! What exactly is your compulsion, your burning desire to deceive, lie, and manipulate the only people who give a good god damn about you?! Bruce: You getting to a point? (O 21 - Dick just found out that Bruce was secretly funding the Outsiders)

Dick's relationship with Bruce is Complicated (TM), because he's also incredibly loyal, and - despite everything - he loves Bruce a lot. A lot of Dick's anger comes out of this frustrated loyalty - Dick feels betrayed and hurt because he loves Bruce so much. Here's a panel from later in Outsiders 21:

Bruce: You shouldn't place that much faith in me. Dick: I have more faith in you than anyone.

Reasons why Dick gets angry: an incomplete list

So if Dick isn't really the type to, say, rage-quit a game, then what does he get angry about (other than criminals and Bruce in general)?

I've tried to loosely categorize what seem to me to be the main things that can make him lose his temper:

as above, somebody Dick loves has been hurt and he's furious at the person who did it (so e.g. trying to kill the Wildebeests when they threaten the Titans, trying to kill Hugo Strange for trying to kill Bruce, lashing out at Tumult when he hurts Tim),

he's feeling attacked or betrayed and he's lashing out in self-defense (so e.g. a lot of the fights with Bruce, punching Roy after Roy fires him in New Titans, or calling Roy a junkie when Roy tells him he's just like Bruce in Outsiders, or yelling at Tim when Tim's insisting he should be Robin again),

he's angry about a lack of loyalty (so e.g. he's furious and feels betrayed when he learns that Bruce has replaced him with Jason; he's angry at Bruce for picking Azrael as Batman instead of Dick; he's angry at Tim when Tim suggests Bruce might be a murderer)

he's jealous (so e.g. he's hurt and angry when Kory marries someone else; his resentment of Azrael is much more about Bruce than it is about Azrael)

he's angry at another vigilante for behaving too violently/irresponsibly (so e.g. he has multiple fights with Kory insisting that she can't kill anyone; he's similarly furious with Bruce when he thinks Bruce has tried to kill someone; he snaps at the Titans in general after a failed mission; he's harsh about Tim and his team during Graduation Day)

he's unhappy and taking it out on someone else, often to drive them away (so e.g. he snaps at Donna and Alfred when he's depressed about Kory's marriage - arguably there's some supernatural influence here, but IMO he'd do it anyway; he gets snappish with Tim when he's depressed about his own lack of progress with Chulo/in Blüdhaven and also when he's actually mad at Bruce about Jean-Paul; he's very harsh to Babs and Wally when they try to comfort him post-J:LL; arguably most of his behavior in Outsiders after Donna's death falls under this category too),

he's unhappy and he's taking it out on an inanimate object (so e.g. smashing things after hearing about Kory's potential marriage; punching his car until his hand is bloody after Bruce has been a jerk to him, smashing a sign when Babs is jabbing at him by comparing him to Bruce),

his privacy is being violated by paparazzi (Dick hates photographers and will not hesitate to punch them or destroy their equipment)

I think something important about all these reasons is... they're understandable? It's not surprising that Dick is upset about the woman he loves marrying someone else; it would be stranger if he wasn't upset. It's not surprising that he lashes out defensively when he's feeing attacked - this is an extremely common thing to do! Dick's anger isn't a weird cloud of rage that just descends on him for no reason; he gets angry when he has something to get angry about.

That said, he does have particular things he's especially touchy about - loyalty, privacy, control, etc. And his anger can be physical - he does break things.

Dick + annoyance with friends/teammates

Dick calls a team meeting to rebuke the Titans in Titans 13

This is lower-key, so I wouldn't always describe this as anger per se, but it feels relevant: Dick can get snappish if he's in a bad mood, though he'll usually back off if it's pointed out to him:

Dick: Half this world goes to hell in a handcart and you do nothing? Donna: Hey, don't shout at me because your personal life has gone crazy. We had a crisis… Dick: You had a crisis? Who hasn't? And my personal life, for what it's worth, is a: just fine, and b: none of your business. Do me a favor and go. I want to be alone. (NTT 18 - Dick's upset because Kory is marrying someone else)

Dick: Roy! What the hell is this? Why is Lian in the way? She should be in a crib or something, not where people can step on her. Roy: Dick, my daughter is in nobody's way, and I'm watching her every move. Dick: Oh, yeah? Well, I've had it - Roy: Dick, your friends are here to help you and you're not making it any easier. C'mon, pal - calm down. Dick: You're right. I'm sorry. This is all getting to me. Roy: Really? The immediate world and I never noticed. (NT 100)

Dick (surprising Tim): You should've known you wouldn't hear anything. Not in this wind - but if you'd been downwind on the other side, you might have scented me. Tim (startled): Nightwing! Dick: You did want to meet - or do you just like playing computer games? Now let’s make it snappy - I’m in New York on my own business. Tim: And a big fat hi to you, too. (Showcase '93 11 - Dick's upset because he's blaming himself for someone Chulo murdered)

Dick: He didn't send you to check up on me? Tim: Huh? Dick (scowling): Don't play dumb. Tim: Batman? I came down on my own, Dick. What's with the attitude? Dick: Sorry, Tim. I haven't been making a lot of progress since I got here. (N 6 - Dick's self-aware here - he's on edge because he thinks he's doing a bad job)

Babs: Okay, calm down, take a deep breath, and explain again why you’re so angry… Dick: Why am I angry? I’m not angry, I’m–I’m–I’m dismayed, okay? I’m dismayed that there can be a Robin who believes Batman could be guilty of murder! How could that happen, Babs? How could that happen?! (GK 26) Kory: You could say goodbye to your teammates. Dick: They're not my teammates anymore. Kory: They noticed. (TT/O Secret Files 2005)

You'll notice that several of these include Dick backtracking and apologizing. He doesn't hold grudges or fume forever! And Dick's generally self-aware enough to realize why he's snappish once he takes a step back:

Dick: I…I’m sorry…I know this isn’t your fault. Here I’m attacking you - and you’re probably just as scared as I am. I just feel so frustrated. Batman could always remain calm in a crisis. I guess that’s just another difference between us. Maybe I’d be better off if I just cut myself off from all feeling like he does. (NT 77)

Something Dick generally isn't apologetic about: Dick is intensely self-critical about badly-done vigilante work, and in a team setting, he's not that patient with other people's mistakes.

Here's Dick calling a team meeting so he can scold the team in Titans 13:

Dick: Lock the doors, sit down, and pay attention. And that's an order. ... Our performance against Tartarus and the HIVE was unacceptable. Each and every one of you should thank God you weren't killed.

Here's an argument between Dick and Donna in Graduation Day 2 - the context is that Young Justice just screwed up an earlier fight, and Tim's berating himself and Conner while Dick and Donna eavesdrop (you'll notice that like Dick, Tim tends to be pretty self-critical + impatient with teammates):

Conner: The Titans got their lumps. Tim: No, the Titans got our lumps. They were looking out for us. There we were, shoulder to shoulder with the inspiration for Young Justice. And we lose half our team and half of theirs. Conner: Tim, I bet they were a lot like us when they started. Tim: No, I don't think so. (Donna and Dick are eavesdropping.) Donna: He's being awfully hard on himself. Kind of reminds me of someone. Dick: I don't know what you're talking about. Donna: You could tell him he's wrong. Dick: Is he? Donna: We stepped in it plenty of times, Dick. Plenty. We got beat by Dr. Light. Completely pantsed by Trident. We had the ill-conceived idea that the Mad Mod was a threat. There was that time in South America when we left Garth in the sun for three hours. Lots of stuff… We even got kidnapped by Count Vertigo. How embarrassing was that? Dick: I didn't get kidnapped. I got nabbed when I was coming to save Roy. Donna: Nevertheless, they could use a kind word. Dick: I'm not sure a kind word is what they need.

The upshot is that Donna goes to comfort Cassie while Dick goes off alone.

Again, the point is not that Dick goes around fuming about his teammates 24/7! He cares about the Titans and trusts them to watch his back; he feels the same way about Tim.

But in the heat of the moment, he'll sometimes get snappish or impatient, especially with people he's close to. The friends that Dick has who stick around are the ones who are tough enough to stand up to him, and who understand him enough not to take his occasional moods personally.

Dick + lashing out at loved ones

This one's a bit meaner. Dick's really good at picking out other people's insecurities, which he almost never uses against them ... but when he's retaliating, he's got an instinct for what will hurt the most:

Dick: No, I won't stop it. How dare you tell me what to do when you screwed up so badly Raven could be dead by now? Who knows what Mento did to Gar and Vic? Maybe your failure killed Kole. No, I won't stop. I won't! Donna (punching him): Shut up, Dick! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! I don't want to hear anymore! Dick: But you're going to, Donna. You made me listen to what you had to say. But you don't like hearing the truth about yourself, do you? The perfect Donna Troy maybe isn't so perfect after all. (NTT 19 - Dick's under an ambiguous amount of Brother Blood influence during this period, but he's also just really upset about Kory, and I tend to interpret BB as "reducing his self-control" not "he's a totally different person")

Bruce: I didn't expect to see you again. Dick: I heard about Jason. I'm really sorry, Bruce. Bruce: You weren't at the funeral. People asked about you. Dick: C'mon, Bruce - talk. Don't turn your back on me. I'm here… now. Bruce: You were lucky. When you didn't listen to me, your injuries weren't fatal. Of course, by the time I properly trained you - Dick: Bruce, c'mon…lay off. I'm not here to fight. Bruce: Then don't! Dick: Are you blaming me? I left, so Jason replaced me, and because I left he died? No way, pal. Jason wasn't me. I was a trained acrobat. I could think quickly in perilous situations. But why did you let him become Robin before he was ready?!? Bruce (punching him): Don't you dare blame me for Jason's death! Don't you dare! (NT 55 - this fight is ofc 110% Bruce's fault even before the punch, but Dick absolutely is blaming Bruce for Jason's death here) Dick (trying to punch Roy): GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME, YOU TRAITOR!  Roy: Dick, I'm your friend… Blast it, man - why are you doing this?  Dick: Friends don't turn on friends, Harper. I've been there every time you called me. I sat up with you all night while you were detoxing. That was not a pretty sight.  (NT 101 - Dick's upset about getting fired as team leader)

Dick: I disgraced myself and my uniform. Both uniforms. I have to learn to live with that or quit. No more surprise visits, Babs. Don't make me sorry I put an elevator in this building. (BoP 37)

Roy: Look at you! Your greatest fear in life, the thing that eats at you - is that you're terrified of becoming Batman!! A cold, detached, emotionless loner. I've got news for you, that's exactly what you are. You've become the man who raised you. Dick: Yeah…and you're just like the man who raised you. A shallow, self-loathing, womanizing thrill-seeker. Except he was never a junkie. (O 16) Gar: I guess it doesn't bother you that your new teammate killed your old one? 'Cause it sure bothers the hell outta me. Dick: Enough. I'm here to find Kory and Tim. I don't need Terra's best friend lecturing me about loyalty. (TT/O Secret Files 2005)

Dick + 1st meetings with future siblings (+Steph)

I hesitated including this on the list because it's lower-key and not always anger per se, but I think a lot of times when people say Dick "has a temper," they're not necessarily talking about his angriest moments so much as pushing back against the idea that he's happy or welcoming all the time.

If you're reading post-Crisis canon, Dick's a prickly introvert who can be slow to warm up to newcomers in Gotham. He's not exclusively cranky by any means! But he's not all smiles, either. Here are some snappish moments from first meetings with Jason, Tim, Cass, Damian, and Steph:

Dick: They'll probably switch to another lab, now that you've spooked them. Jason: Then it's no big deal! We'll just locate their new digs and bust them when they take possession. Dick: Wrong! I'll locate the new lab all by myself! You're going home to tell Batman how you screwed up tonight! Jason: Come on... (from Dick's first meeting with Jason in B 416 - Jason attacked a group of criminals too hastily)

Dick: Now, who the hell are you? Tim: That doesn't matter now. Dick, look at this please. Dick: Kid, I don't like games. (from Dick's first-technically-second meeting with Tim in LPoD - Tim's been chasing him all around the circus, and although Dick doesn't yet know this, also broke into his apartment)

Bruce: You can trust her. Dick: Six months ago, that would've gotten you further than it will now. Now, I'm not sure it's enough. Bruce: What more would it take? Dick: An explanation of who she is for a start. (from Dick's first meeting with Cass in B: LotDK 120 - Bruce went AWOL for months and has now resurfaced with a protégé) Jason: It's a new world. It's not all backflips and balance bars. You were good. Were. But Gotham needs a tougher Robin now. Dick (internally): A sneaky, mean little punk. Maybe you hired him before the Joker could. (from the retold version of Dick's first meeting with Jason in N 104 - Bruce gave stupid instructions leading Jason to misunderstand and pick a fight with Dick)

Dick (internally, when he notices Damian's makeshift Robin costume): Damian's costume. Note to self: smack a clue into this kid. Damian: You're embarrassing me! Dick: You do that just fine on your own. (from Dick's first meeting with Damian in N 138 - Damian's probably scared, which means he's snarky; he's making rude remarks and resisting Dick and Tim's attempts to protect him)

Dick: What in the hell were - are - you thinking, throwing someone so reckless into the field like that? Babs: Gosh, Dick - I'm sorry I haven't spent more time trying to train a murderous little twit. (from right after Dick's first meeting with Steph in BG 5 - Steph accidentally froze Damian)

How much you weight these moments depends a lot on your personal aesthetic preferences! I love conflict, and Dick's initially kinda thorny relationships with his siblings are part of why I enjoy him as a character. I don't feel the need to "fix" this kind of grumpiness and honestly I don't even really see it as a flaw? Dick's not morally obliged to like his future siblings on first meeting them, and if he never got snappish with any siblings ever, no matter how annoying they were being, he'd be a lot less interesting to me personally.

For me, Dick's prickly side adds an important nuance to his characterization, and makes it more compelling. He's a human being, not a conduct book! His strength is that he's willing to reconsider his first impressions, not that he never has negative first impressions.

That said, obviously genre and context matter! I have enjoyed plenty of softer takes on the Batfamily in fanworks, and in a softer, gentler world like e.g. WFA, it would be weird to keep Dick's grumpier moments. Also, Dick obviously isn't 24/7 harsh to his siblings - he can also be really empathetic and protective, and although he never gets especially close to e.g. Steph, he does change his mind about her, and he's ultimately a huge source of emotional support to Tim and Damian (they grow on him! ... eventually).

In Conclusion

One of my favorite Dick stories of all time is Nightwing 139, and I think it nicely encapsulates how I see Dick's anger - it's an important contrast to his softer side. He's a person with an instinctive temper, and compassion and understanding aren't always immediate or easy or effortless for him. But he's also a loving person with a big heart, and it's the love that always matters to him in the end.

Here's Dick discovering that Tim is thinking about using the Lazarus Pit, getting angry, and leaping down to try to physically stop him ("He may not stop you, but I sure as hell will!")

Dick (sarcastically): So, Robin... you think maybe we can hug this out?

It's important to me that Dick's first instinct is to have a physical fight, not to try to talk! He does all the wrong things before he does the right thing! He doesn't magically know the right thing to say to Tim right away!

But doing the right thing matters to him, and Tim matters to him, which is why he gets there eventually. When Tim tears up Dick softens at once:

And in the end Dick backs off and lets Tim make the choice, which isn't easy or instinctive for him either! But it's the right thing to do, and it's what Tim needs to pull himself out of the power struggle and realize he's making a mistake, and then Tim stammers apologies and Dick reassures him and they do hug it out, and it's very tender:

Without Dick's anger, you don't have a lot of his stories. But his anger doesn't define him - he doesn't let it. As Dick puts it,

"Yeah, I get angry. Sometimes I get so pissed I want to break everything in sight. But everyone gets mad. Everyone gets frustrated. But I don't fight out of anger! I fight when there's something wrong that needs to be stopped! And that's why I'll never be you! I don't fight to kill - I fight to protect!

And that's a big part of why I think he's great.

[frostbeees]

@/icyfwkomets • 10.28.23

[nerevar-quote-and-star]

And the dresses in that mod 🤢 none of them at all fit the time period and I hate how they went through the effort to give the women dresses but put no effort into the men's outfits so they all look like they're attending different events

Also the fact that the dancing couples just kinda float around each other looks bad

I should preface this by saying my opinion is based entirely on the 3.0 and 3.1 versions of the Grand Crystal Ball. I don't know anything about any other versions that may exist.

Like, the closest comparison I can make between the dresses from the Grand Crystal Ball and literally anything else in The Elder Scrolls is the dresses from the Shivering Isles. You know, over two centuries and a realm away.

A little gaudy? Maybe. But these dresses blend into their environment. The SRM ballgowns don't really do that. (I don't have any screenshots, but if anyone else does, please feel free to share them.) They are Disney Princess dresses, completely out of place in a pseudo-medieval/Viking Age society like Skyrim.

This isn't to say I don't think ballgowns don't exist in Tamriel. I think it's perfectly plausible and altogether probable that culturally appropriate gowns exist. But the SRM ballgowns aren't it,

The men's outfits are just. Okay. They're okay. Nothing is particularly special about them, but nothing is really bad either. Honestly, they look kinda foppish. But yeah, they don't mesh with the saturated Princess Barbie thing the ballgowns have going on. Which . . . is a shame, because I'm sure the artists (not Mara, she didn't put these outfits together) did their best, but their best would look better in a different game.

The only thing I can say about the dancing mechanics is that it's freaking hilarious that the Skyrim Romance Mod requires the Skyrim Sex Lab to allow the LDB and Bishop to twist each other into pretzels, but nothing is done to make the dancing even look dynamic. By Talos, I can't decide if it's haha funny or sad funny.

[strange010]

I love yuri on ice and the Victuri/Viktuuri ship but I rlly wanna see if anyone has broken down their power imbalance

I am a SLUT for couples that are mostly healthy with an underlying toxicity that doesn’t show on the surface

Like Yuri idolized Victor and now he’s his coach like…I NEED SOMEONE TO DO AN ANALYSIS ON THIS BECAUSE I DONT HAVE THE KINDA BRAIN TO MAKE ONE MYSELF I JUST DONT HAVE THAT KINDA THINKING ABILITY TO GO INTO IT EVEN THO I KNOW ITS THERE

So if anyone knows a video or a post that talks about it please link it PLEASE IM ON MY KNEES I WILL EVEN TAKE A FANFICTION ABOUT IT

[kelvintimeline]

Okay, I know in light of everything I've posted recently... this isn't gonna make much sense but I don't get people who argue that the ending of the last of us is complex or thought provoking. "Save Ellie vs Save the rest of the world" isn't that thought provoking to me because... like... we HAVE had a history of medical experiments on unwilling/uninformed patients. That history... was... of war crimes and general crimes against humanity.

And, in general, the history of ignoring bodily autonomy has been tied to systemic oppression. "We are doing things to your body for the rest of society" has been the wrong call... every time. If we can understand that like... the state forcing you to donate your kidneys to keep someone else alive is bad... why is this such a struggle?

Yeah, we can make the offshoot arguments of "The surgery might not even have been successful!" or "How would the fireflies distribute the cure without any trust" or whatever else but like... at its core... there isn't even really a moral dilemma worth hashing out.

No, doing 100% fatal surgery on a CHILD who cannot consent (and wasn't even asked to consent) is not the right call. Even if the fireflies were doing this in a high end facility, with an assured path to the mass production and distribution of a cure.

How can you play a game about how federal agents took advantage of the apocalypse to exert further control and oppression over their people and get left with the conclusion of "Oh, yeah, taking advantage of a child for a medical solution will fix this?"

Like... HUH?

[amygdalae]

i need to replay twau its like. really good

[susurrationofthewind]

god, father's day as an episode especially just nails in how different the first season of the revival is compared ot what followed

[duckingwriting]

hi! ship of your choice + fantasy film noir + spyglass 👀

How to train your dragon! Astrid and Hiccup because I love that pairing so much. First movie, all the wrecked ships on the way to the dragon nest? On one of them hiccup discovers a spy glass and while looking through it he spots a misty semi transparent dragon that zips around. When he lowers the glass to get a better look there's nothing there. No one else saw anything either. The dragons are all uneasy too. Joking around they tell Hiccup he's just running on too little sleep. Hiccup takes the spy glass with them when they leave and they all continue without much thought. Until using the spy glass again hiccup spots another wispy dragon. He eventually convinced Astrid to look through and they discover that through the spy glass a person can see ghosts. They discover not just dragons but humans as well. While they don't seem to interact much with the living room they do interact with each other...and they weren't the first dragon riders. Why were they erased from history? How can they avoid the same fate?

Gotta have some soft comfort of Astrid doing his hair while he's fretting about what they see through the spy glass. Just hiccup being obsessed with solving this mystery and Astrid having to pull him back or remind him he can't go off alone. They're a team.

Bonus fic idea(no pairing really which is why I didn't go with it) but Charmed(original series). Wyatt and Chris are trying to find a demon of some kind. The only clue they have is a spy glass. And they say "dame" and "broad" alot. In the end it turns out it's all make believe and the spy glass is just a toy they have because it's just young Wyatt making up a story for his baby brother who's sick. And he's been watching a lot of aunti Paige's black and white old school detective shows.

[partialbirthabortion]

Thanks for everything you do tbh. I’m 28 and I always wanted to do what you do. That probably sounds weird so please don’t take that the wrong way, I’m not intending on making your job sound pleasurable and easy, it’s just something I’ve always wanted to be able to help women with. A service I always wanted to help provide them with…but it’s not exactly an easy thing to just break into, especially once you’re already settled on a completely different career path. I was talked out of pursuing abortion care and now I’m like ???? I should have pursued that.

The point is, I think about women like you often. Your work is unseen 99% of the time and now you’re in the forefront at unseen precedence since pre Roe. I think you’re a fucking badass, personally. I’m also of the “access to abortion at any time at any point no matter what” belief and it’s not a particularly well liked set of beliefs, nor should it be necessarily. But the work you do holds up the backbone of society, quite frankly. Gritty and ugly at points and probably incredibly fucking scary as pro lifers continue to increase their Literal Psychotic Behavior.

Sorry for rambling, but thank you. Also, cool shirt, I’m jealous of that too 😩😂

I don't think it's weird at all to say- I started this job because it was always something I wanted to do, too. I love my job and I am grateful grateful be able to do it. Thanks for sending love! I'm gonna save this :)

[bisexualdinahlance]

I read the gunslinger at the behest of one of my friends, finally finishing it today, and while it started off slow to me I got really into it by the end. I enjoyed it a lot! However the dust jacket summary haunted the entire book for me because it described the book as "fiercely realistic and eerily dreamlike" and I spent most of the book going... Okay what about this is supposed to be fiercely realistic, the sexism? Like it was a good read, Stephen King is talented but I'm just... That one line baffled me SOOO much. Especially when Roland practically has a banner above him that says "here comes a special boy" lmaoo

[zorilleerrant]

I kind of think that like. if one person, or a small group of people, is thinking some movie/book/song/whatever needed to be a different genre, then that's just the artistic process. it just sparked a thought in their head(s) and it's maybe a weird thought! and you maybe don't get it! but that's how art is supposed to work, so that's not really a problem and should be celebrated instead.

but if. a very large number of people. all think the thing should've been a different genre - or worse, they agree on that but have individually picked wildly varying genres that it should've been - then perhaps it was just. bad

[teaboot]

One of the best parts about working at a sex shop is the employee discount, and yeah that means excellent deals on sex supplies but that's not the big brain part.

You come to my house. Something is cooking in the kitchen- it smells wonderful. What is it? It's novelty dick-shaped pasta. I've set up a sensual sexy Italian dinner. There are candles set up on the table. They're melting too fast, dripping everywhere- they're low temp waxplay pillar candles. For dessert, I serve you a delicious ice cream topped in penis-shaped rainbow confetti sprinkles and strawberry body paint drizzle, and afterwards, serve coffee with roasted hazelnut warming lube.

We play a board game while we drink. It's sexy monopoly. It's your turn. You roll the dice. They come up as 'whisper into' and 'butt'. I lost the original dice. We're using the sexy dice. You move four spaces.

After dinner, I run you a bath. A bubble bath. The bubble gel? Sensual ocean breeze. There are candles lined up around the tub. The scent is overpowering. Why? They're three-in-one fruit flavored massage oil candles. I'm using so much. It's so wasteful. Do you want to shave? I have conditioning shave cream that smells like limes. And an electric body razor, but you can't use that in the tub.

How about a bath bomb? You toss one in. It's cherry blossom scented. As it dissolves, three sexy bath sex suggestion cards fall out. They're all variations on doggy style, probably because fucking in a bathtub is probably the easiest way to break your hip.

The water cools. You get out an dry off with a novelty towel. If you wrap it around your chest, it looks like you have gigantic tatas bursting through the fabric like the Hulk.

You walk into the bedroom. I'm there, reading an instructional book titled "The Housewife's Guide To Every Day Stripping". I'm wearing a neck pillow designed to look like a massive curved weiner. Also a pair of fake leather bondage leggings and an oversized men's christmas T-shirt that says "Jingle My Bells" across the front.

I see you come in. I put down the book, take off the pillow. Offer you a massage. You accept. I already burned up all the massage candles so I pop a new bottle of CBD massage oil that says something wrong about Chakras on it. It's very gritty. That's because there's little chunks of amethyst in it for some fucking reason. It's fine, though. You say you don't mind.

I don't do massages very often. It's bad. You end up more tense than before. One of your muscles starts to cramp- it's okay. I whip out a bottle of Lidocane topical masculine performance numbing spray. You immediately feel like your shoulder went to the dentist. It's not ideal, but it's better than cramping.

You're not in the mood to bone after that. Which is good, cause I'm actually pretty asexual, but it hasn't come up yet so I'm relieved to avoid the conversation. Instead we get ready for bed. (The weather is terrible, and I insist you stay over.) I set up the futon, then realize it smells like cigarettes from the previous owner and shyly ask if you wanna cuddle in my room. You're down.

I crawl under the covers, placing my penis-shaped pink glitter pride bottle on the side table in case one of us wakes up thirsty. Once you're settled in, I turn off the glowing bare ass night light and the room goes black.

It takes a few seconds for your eyes to adjust, but when they do, you look up at the ceiling. It's dotted all over with little green flourescent lights. Are they plastic stars? No. I've pinned up a thousand glow in the dark condoms. God bless

[crystallinestars]

How They React to Your Death

My HCs about how I think the Genshin boys would react to your death. I wanted to write Kaeya too, but ran out of steam.

This month has been terrible to me, so I was in the mood for angst. I don't know how well these turned out, but they were fun to think about.

Part 2 here.

Characters: Alhaitham, Childe, Heizou, Kaveh, Lyney, Neuvillette, Venti, Wanderer/Scaramouche, and Wriothesley

WARNING:

Reader has death descriptions. Some are more graphic than others, but I don't get into the nitty gritty details.

Spoilers for the backstories of all the mentioned boys.

MAJOR SPOILERS for Act V of the Fontaine Archon quest in Neuvillette's part.

Childe's part contains mention of suicidal thoughts.

Kaveh's and Venti's parts contain alcoholism

🎧 Alhaitham

Despite Alhaitham’s considerable wealth, no amount of money could cure your Eleazar sickness. His money could only buy treatment that prolonged your life a little bit, but ultimately your many years of battling the illness ended when he got news from the doctors that you had passed away in your sleep.

Alhaitham had accepted the news fairly quickly. He knew your death was inevitable, could see you slowly wasting away each time he visited you in the hospital over the past few months. So it was no surprise to him when the day finally came. The other patients and staff thought it strange how Alhaitham had no visible reaction to the news, but some chalked it up to shock when in truth the Scribe was simply accepting of that fact. There was no use denying something that already happened.

When Alhaitham came home that day, the house felt silent and empty. It reminded him of how the house felt when his grandmother passed away when he was younger. The sensations were similar. However, he did not cry over your death. Instead, he carried on his life as normal, or as close to it as he could now that you were no longer a part of what he considered ‘normal’.

At first glance, people thought that Haitham was unaffected by your death. Nothing about him changed. Not his mannerisms, his quality of work, or his expression. He remained the same reserved, stoic Scribe who had no time for trivial nonsense or extra work. He also never talked about you to others aside from confirming their question if you were truly gone. Alhaitham was like a well-oiled machine that worked efficiently like clockwork, keeping up the same even rhythm.

What they don’t see is how he comes home with the expectation of hearing your voice greet him upon entering, only to be faced with a defeating silence that makes his heart sink. They don’t know that Alhaitham wakes up throughout the night, expecting to find you snuggled up next to him in bed the way you used to before your sickness got worse, and you had to be hospitalized. However, you weren’t there no matter how many times he looked towards your side of the bed, and the Scribe could only sigh and try to fall back asleep while ignoring his aching heart.

No one sees how Alhaitham gets too lost in his books in the mornings and accidentally makes two cups of coffee instead of one due to force of habit. Or how, for once, he finds the silence of his house bothersome without your voice and the sounds of your activities resounding within the walls, and it’s enough to distract him from reading. He could be found reading at the House of Daena and Puspa Café more often from then on.

During his afternoon naps, Alhaitham sneaks back home and cradles your favorite blanket to mimic the sensation of holding your soft body in his arms the way he used to when you joined him for naps. He listens to recordings of you talking with him just so he can hear your voice again. He was glad he made the decision to record your voice at the hospital before you became too weak to speak. It gave him the chance to hear you one more time even if the sound of your voice made his chest hurt so much that he occasionally had to stop the recording to collect himself.

Nobody sees how Alhaitham finally picks up the fiction books you recommended him because they were your favorite. He prefers non-fiction, but these books are the last things he has left through which he could connect to your mind and way of thinking. He reads them all cover-to-cover even if he finds the story lacking or the writing not to his taste. He will learn to treasure each and every word because you once did.

What someone might see, as Kaveh did when he moved in with the Scribe, is a bookshelf filled with a few journals, a thick book with an emerald cover, and an assortment of fiction books that exist nowhere else in the house. Alhaitham never talks about these books unless asked, but their well-worn covers are a sign of frequent use, and sure enough, one can catch him reading a rare fiction book during one specific month each year.

🐋 Childe

You went missing after going out to collect some firewood in the woods near Childe’s home. A search party was arranged to find you with Childe in the lead, and he was also the first one to find your remains. Your body had been torn apart, blood and innards splattered across the snow, no doubt the work of some rifthounds. Usually, Childe would relish in such a gory sight, but not this time. Not when it’s your blood and flesh painted in the snow.

The sight leaves him numb. He’s numb when the search party comes to retrieve you, numb when he sees your parents weeping over your gruesome death, and numb when he takes on the duty of exterminating every rifthound he finds around Morepesok.

He wants to cry too, to grieve for you the way he needs, but refrains. He doesn’t want to appear weak and unreliable when his younger siblings mourn and cry over your death. You were like family to them, and your death broke their little hearts to pieces. Childe didn’t want to burden his siblings further by breaking down in front of them. He needed to remain a reliable older brother who could support them through this tough time, even when his own heart bled and he cried in his sleep when he dreamed about you.

Childe’s underlings noted that the Eleventh Harbinger became colder and more irritable after your passing. Any mention of your name would garner the speaker a harsh glare, and if Childe assumed what said person said about you was disrespectful, he didn’t hesitate to start a fight and beat the other person within an inch of their life. He became violent and unhinged, much like how he used to be when he returned from the Abyss as a fourteen-year-old boy.

Childe knew his behavior was irrational, and it pained him to see even his own family fear him due to his violent actions. He felt restless. Spending time at home among your belongings summoned feelings of longing and sadness, but even so, he couldn’t bear to throw anything away. He lived among the ghosts of your existence, however, it drove him mad with grief.

Childe needed an outlet for his emotions, so he took to fighting monsters and other strong opponents. He became even more reckless in battle. If before, the Harbinger sought out strong enemies to test his mettle against them and grow stronger as a result, now he sought out an opponent that would be worthy of taking his life.

Childe didn’t want to abandon his family. He loved them dearly and wanted to see his siblings grow up to be happy and successful people, but life without you felt so hollow. A part of him wanted to return to his family, but the sense of his family feeling incomplete never left him. You were just as much of a family to him as his siblings and parents were. He had plans to start his own family with you. But now… now, a part of him yearns to reunite with you in the afterlife. He promised he would stay by your side no matter what, and Ajax is not one to break his promises.

🔍 Heizou

Heizou was one of the first to hear about your stabbing that occurred in an Inazuman alleyway late that evening. You were rushed to a doctor to have your wound treated, but the robber who attacked you hit a vital area. Your blood loss was colossal, and it wasn’t long after arriving at the doctor’s that you succumbed to your injury.

To Heizou, the news brought on a sense of deja vu. He’s already lost a friend to crime in the past, and now he lost you to crime, too. The knowledge made him furious and heartbroken. He was angry at the robber for stabbing you just so he could steal some money that you didn’t want to part with, and he was angry at himself for failing to prevent this. After his friend passed away, Heizou swore to nip crime in the bud by discouraging criminals from committing crimes with the threat that he would find and capture them no matter what without fail. But what good did his resolve do if you still died because of an armed robber?

The heartache and guilt he felt ate away at him as the memory of your ashen face during your last few moments haunted him. He lost you. Never again would he get to spend time with you and make you laugh, kiss and hug you, or tell you he loved you.

His anger drove him to capture the murderer in record time, but hearing the criminal’s subsequent sentence for theft and murder didn’t comfort the detective. No amount of jail time would ever atone for the loss of your life.

After that day, Heizou lost his playful demeanor, becoming somber and reserved. He threw himself into his work, feeling pressured to capture as many criminals as he could in as little time as possible. However, his grief and exhaustion caused his mind to dull and make mistakes while investigating clues. It got to the point where Kujou Sara had to forcibly send him on vacation so he could take a break and properly process your death.

Despite his protests, Heizou knew he wasn’t much use in his current state, so he took this free time to visit your family and mourn together with them. He apologized for not doing a better job of protecting you, fully expecting your parents to lay blame on him for not protecting their child. To his surprise, your parents didn’t blame him at all. They even thanked him for catching the murderer and helping them to feel a little more at peace. Heizou’s interaction with your family helped him feel a tiny bit less guilty about your death.

The experience left him feeling a little less broken, so in the following days he sorted through your belongings in your shared home. He packed away some items to return to your parents, some things he put in storage, and others he gave away that he remembered you wanting to get rid of. A few of your items he kept for himself, one of which was a scarf you mentioned you bought because it was the same shade of green as his eyes which reminded you of him.

Heizou wore your scarf as a keepsake and good luck charm and would hardly be seen without it when he finally came back to work. What once served as your reminder of him, now served as his reminder of you, the person he loved with his whole being. But with the memories of you came the reminder of how you died. Though the memory was painful, it helped Heizou work up the will to keep pursuing his goal of eradicating crime. Even when the case was extremely tough with conflicting clues, your scarf would remind him to not give up, to not let another incident like yours happen again, and Heizou would persevere. He would continue to persevere no matter how long it took because he didn’t want innocent lives like yours to be snatched away so cruelly. Maybe one day, he will see you in the afterlife and proudly tell you all about how he achieved his dream. Until then, he will work hard to be worthy of the title of Inazuma’s best detective.

🍷 Kaveh

Kaveh had a lot of work to do. He was saddled with creating drafts for another large project while also trying to work on the commission for constructing a library in Aaru village for the children. Wanting to help alleviate his burden, you offered to take the finished drafts over to Aaru village yourself so he could focus on finishing up work for his other project. Kaveh tried to object, saying you really didn’t need to trouble yourself on his behalf, but you insisted, expressing your desire to help him finish his work sooner so the two of you could spend more time together again. After some deliberation, he let you go to the village by yourself, confident that you could make the trip since you accompanied him there several times before.

A few days later, Kaveh received news that you had died on your return trip from the desert. When he heard the cause of your death, his stomach roiled. You perished in quicksand just like his father. You died doing something for his sake, just like his father did.

Whatever future plans he was building together with you, whatever progress you made in helping him slowly heal from his trauma, it all came crashing down around him. Your death reopened old wounds Kaveh was only starting to heal from, as well as left new scars that tormented him every waking moment.

The first few weeks, Kaveh couldn’t stand to be in your shared home. It was full of memories of you, and each and every one of your belongings would stab at his heart like a blade. Moreover, the house felt so silent without you around. It reminded him of when his mother left for Fontaine, leaving him alone in a house too big for only him to live in. Now, he was reliving that moment all over again, but it was worse this time because, unlike his mother, he would never see you again.

Kaveh also couldn’t stand to look inside his sketchbooks. The pages were covered in various sketches of you, and looking at them only made the anguish and guilt grow in him tenfold. He blamed himself for your death, attributing it to being his fault just like he attributes his father’s death as his fault too. No matter what anyone says to console him, he will never stop believing it’s all his fault.

Fueled by guilt and self-loathing, Kaveh spent several weeks visiting Lambad’s tavern practically every day. One could even say he lived there since the architect seldom went home. He used what little money he had to buy alcohol, especially of the stronger kind. He wanted to numb the pain in his heart and to pretend that you weren’t really gone from this world. The alcohol helped to muddle his mind until his intoxicated brain conjured happy memories of you together, and Kaveh would mumble your name in a drunken haze. Other times it didn’t help, and Alhaitham, Cyno, or Tighnari could often find a drunk Kaveh quietly crying while slumped over a table and trying their best to drag him home while listening to his drunken babble of self-loathing and regret.

It will take a long time for Kaveh to feel okay again, and even then, he will never be the same optimistic and cheerful person he used to be. You were his muse, the one who made him feel like maybe he was deserving of love after all. But with you gone, he lost his creative spark. His designs no longer held the same extravagant and artistic flair they used to. Now, they’re more tame by comparison. With your passing, you took with you the little bit of joy he felt towards the world, and it seemed more bleak than it used to be when he was with you.

Kaveh refused to seek out love after your death. He’s lost too many people he held dear and has been left alone over and over again. The pain of being left behind and of feeling like he will only bring misfortune to those he cares about, made him seal off his heart. He doesn’t want to let people close to him like that again, and neither does he want to replace you. You were, and still are, very special to him.

Despite numerous years going by after your passing, Kaveh never forgot you, and he didn’t want your memory to be forgotten either. He built an art school and dedicated it to you in honor of being the one who inspired him so much in his creative endeavors. He hopes that your name will live on and continue to inspire future generations of artists long after he is gone from the world.

🎩 Lyney Having grown up in the House of the Hearth with Lyney and Lynette, the twins were practically like family to you. Though admittedly, Lyney and you developed romantic ties rather than familial ones the more you got to know each other. It was no surprise to anyone when the two of you became a couple, and Lynette even encouraged it.

Being a member of the Fatui, you were often sent out on dangerous missions to infiltrate enemy territory and report your findings back to Arlecchino. You were good at your job and had major successfully completed missions under your belt, but even the best slip up sometimes. After infiltrating enemy headquarters, you regularly reported your findings back to the House, however, one day the correspondence stopped. You went completely silent. The thought of you being caught immediately crossed Lyney’s mind, but he was hopeful that as an experienced agent, you would manage to find a way out somehow. You always have in the past, and after having worked together with you during joint missions, he saw first-hand how capable you were. To pass the time, he focused on polishing a magic trick he wanted to show you upon your return.

Days go by, and just as the magician is about to lose his patience and run off to try and find you, news about your body washing up on a riverbank reaches his ears. The heartbreak Lyney experiences upon hearing the news is indescribable. He felt lost, disoriented, and anguished. A part of him refused to believe the facts, but after witnessing the gruesome sight of your corpse, he had no choice but to face reality.

You were dead.

Lyney wondered at length about the cause of your death, and while his own guesses made his stomach knot, the autopsy report he read a few days later made him livid. Numerous torture and abuse marks were found on your body. It seemed that the enemy had captured and tortured you, hoping to force you to spill some of the Fatui’s secrets. Judging by the severity of the most recent wounds, you must have kept quiet because more brutal torture methods were used on you until the enemy figured out they wouldn’t get anything out of you, and disposed of you. Lyney knew how loyal you were to your family. You would never betray them even at the cost of your own life, but in that moment, he really wished you would have treasured your life more. Maybe then you could have survived. Maybe then he would have had the chance to hold you in his arms and tell you he missed you while you were gone. Maybe he would have had an opportunity to show off the magic trick he created specifically for your eyes only. But now, he’ll continue to miss you until the day death comes for him too. Lyney’s initial reaction upon hearing of your torture is overwhelming fury. Lynette had to hold him back from recklessly running off to take revenge against the enemy. It took a lot of reasoning on her part, but eventually, her brother calmed down.

Once his bout of anger passed, Lyney broke down. Lynette didn’t hide her own tears as she held her brother in her arms while he cried. The siblings both missed you dearly and mourned your loss, but Lyney took your death especially hard. He felt broken. One of his most precious people was taken from him in such a cruel manner, and the mere thought of how you must have spent your last few waking hours made him feel horrible.

He was anguished and angry, and the potent concoction of negative emotions weighed down on his heart and mind. Gone was his cheerful smile and outgoing attitude, replaced with a cold and somber frown. His calculative side took center stage. Though his initial burst of outrage passed, he wouldn’t give up on his desire for revenge until the act had been carried out. Aside from the twins, Arlecchino also refused to take your death lying down. You were her precious child, someone she put in a lot of love and effort to raise, and this transgression angered her as much as it angered Lyney. Together with Arlecchino, Lyney and Lynette infiltrate enemy headquarters and make every person a part of that organization pay. The magician ensures that the perpetrators experience the same pain you went through during your torture, and by the time they’re done, not a soul is left alive.

Even after exacting revenge, Lyney barely feels a smidge better. Though your captors have been neutralized and won’t hurt anyone the way they hurt you ever again, it doesn’t satisfy Lyney. At the end of the day, all he wants is to have you back in his life. He consoles himself with pieces of your clothing. Your clothes smelled like you, and Lyney hugged one of your items every night, breathing in your scent and soaking the material with his tears as he quietly cried. It takes a long time for Lyney to get himself together and act like himself again. Though he could easily put on a fake smile for his audience, his heart still aches inside. He misses you no matter how many months go by, and Lynette has her hands full comforting him when he breaks down at night and cries about how much he wants to see you. Lyney would have had an easier time accepting your death if you had passed away more peacefully, but knowing you were tortured to death will forever haunt him.

Once he feels more like himself, Lyney incorporates the magic trick he originally wanted to show you upon your return into his magic shows. He only performs it during special occasions so it would leave a great spectacle upon his audience. It was once made to awe you, but now it awes his audience, and a part of him feels some semblance of catharsis in knowing he could inspire others to feel the same joy you made him feel using just this trick. At times like these, Lyney feels as if a part of you was still there with him, enjoying the show he secretly dedicates in your honor.

⚖️ Neuvillette

You were visiting your friend Navia in Poisson, when the Primordial Sea flooded the area and caused a great catastrophe that took the lives of many of its residents. Neuvillette was aware you were in Poisson when the disaster struck, and he tried to get there as quickly as he could to check on you. He would have arrived there immediately were it not for the pressing matters he had to settle prior. He hoped the Traveler and Paimon would find you and keep you safe since they knew you were the Iudex’s beloved.

When he finally made it to Poisson, to his morbid surprise, he found neither you nor Navia, but some Fatui members helping to mitigate the damage. When he asked about your whereabouts, he was told that nobody had seen you. Immediately, his thoughts ventured to the worst scenario, but he refused to believe in his fears until he could get confirmation. He held out hope that you were alright, and went in pursuit of Navia and the Traveler, hoping that maybe you were with them, or they knew what happened to you.

It wasn’t until he was saving Navia from getting dissolved in the Primordial Sea water, did he catch a glimpse of your face. You were trying to protect Navia from certain death, along with Silver and Meluse. At the time he was too anxious about saving Navia to fully register the implication, but an unsettling thought sprang in his mind that maybe you really were— No, he didn’t want to accept it.

When Navia regained consciousness, Neuvillette asked her about your whereabouts. Her answer pierced through him like an ice-cold lance. With tears in her eyes, Navia recounted how you were helping Silver and Meluse rescue the residents of Poisson when the Primordial Sea flooded in, and how she saw your body dissolve in the water along with her loyal subordinates with her own eyes. The news settled in Neuvillette’s stomach like a boulder, causing it to sink and make him feel nauseous. Dread filled him, but he could only muster a quiet “I see…” and stare off into the distance. He felt crushing sadness, but he wasn’t given time to properly process his emotions and your death until he managed to make it out of the ruins.

That evening, Fontaine was hit by a torrential downpour that lasted several days. The rain fell in heavy sheets, flooding the streets and urging most of the citizens to seek shelter in their homes. Only the Chief Justice had the gall to stand outside and let the rain seep and soak through his clothes.

Neuvillette let the water droplets cascade down his face, imitating the tears he wished to shed as the realization that he would never see you again settled in. It was strange. Though he was on land, each waking moment he was pursued by a constant feeling of drowning. His chest felt heavy as if burdened by a great weight that made each breath he took feel like a herculean task.

Neuvillette felt a lot of emotions he couldn’t find the words for. He was frustrated and angry that innocent civilians had died in the flood because nothing was done to prevent it. So many people died. You died. If nothing else, he wanted to get justice for your and the others’ deaths.

However, Furina refused to provide answers to his questions despite his probing and insistence that now was not the time to keep secrets that could potentially help prevent an even greater catastrophe. That was when he turned to seeking aid from his companions, in the hopes that Fontaine could still be saved. Neuvillette lost and gained many things in those few days. The citizens of Fontaine were freed of their curse, and Neuvillette had obtained a position of complete authority, however, it all came at the cost of the lives of innocent civilians, Focalors’s life, Furina’s mental state, and… your life. Those were great prices to pay, and Neuvillette mourned each and every sacrifice.

Now that he had some time to himself to process his feelings, Neuvillette recognized that what he felt was grief and longing. He wanted to see you at least one more time, to feel you in his arms again. To have you taken from him so suddenly was too painful. He never got to tell you one last ‘I love you’, and he could only hope that his words reach you wherever your consciousness might be now. Fontaine will see frequent rainfall in the coming months. It won’t be easy for Neuvillette to get over your death, and some part of him will always ache and yearn to see you again. But one thing he can do is strengthen his resolve to make Fontaine into a nation that both you and Focalors would be proud of. A nation where tragedies like these will never happen again.

🍃 Venti

Venti liked to climb up on high places like his statue in front of the Favonius church, the rooftop of the Cat’s Tail, or the great tree at Windrise. Today, you found him high up in the tree, absentmindedly strumming a new tune on his lyre. Wanting to surprise the bard, you tried your best to climb the tree as quietly as you could, but right as you were about to pop up and surprise him, the branch you were on snapped, and with a heart-stopping shriek, you plummeted down to the ground.

Your scream alerted Venti. He felt your presence before you even started climbing the tree, but he failed to foresee the danger until it was too late. He didn’t react fast enough to summon a gust of wind to safely lower you down. The sickening crunch of your skull hitting the ground made his stomach roil, and for a brief moment he felt as if the blood in his veins turned to ice. He felt frozen in place.

Snapping out of his momentary stupor, Venti rushed to your side to check on you, but the enormous pool of blood blooming around your lifeless body made him throw up.

Not again. He lost someone he loved once more. The painful emotions of losing you triggered a cascade of memories of seeing the broken body of that one boy he called a friend thousands of years ago. The same boy whose face he now wore as a way of honoring his memory and giving him an opportunity to live out his dreams of freedom through Venti.

Venti felt that same feeling of heavy emptiness once again as he cradled your lifeless body in his arms, your blood smearing the white sleeves of his shirt. One of the bard’s hands cradled your still-warm cheek, and he wept. To have you taken away so easily through such a small accident… it was too much.

Venti didn’t attend your funeral. He couldn’t bear to. However, he forced himself to watch from a distance as your loved ones gathered around your grave. He fully empathized with their grief.

In the following days, one could often find Venti at a tavern. He started with Angel’s Share, but after consecutive days of heavy drinking and drunken ramblings about how remorseful he felt and how you deserved better, Diluc put a stop to Venti’s visits. The Anemo Archon wasn’t getting any better from drinking himself into a stupor until he could barely hold himself upright. It was heartbreaking to see.

Even after being banned from the Angel’s Share, Venti would visit other taverns in the city and rinse and repeat. He so badly wanted to numb the pain in his heart and forget the awful memory of your lifeless body. Only after several bans did Venti finally stop coming to the city altogether. He disappeared for a while, and nobody was able to find him. Only after many weeks did the bard suddenly pop up in the town square with his lyre in hand.

During his absence, Venti wrote a few songs as a way to cope with his grief, and after a while, finally felt well enough to play them. As a bard, he was well-known in Mondstadt for playing cheerful and beautiful tunes, but this time his melodies were melancholic, even sad. They listened to him sing about a love he can no longer say ‘I love you’ to anymore, someone he can no longer forge new memories with and can only carry on in his heart as a memory. The music he played captured the attention of every member of the audience and touched their hearts so deeply that they, too, could feel the sorrow the bard was trying to convey through his melodies. His pain became their pain, too. The heartache was so profound, so raw and crippling, that many people couldn’t hold back from crying.

Venti wasn’t playing the songs to earn money or share his sadness with others. He was playing them for you. He hoped that his feelings would reach you wherever you were and that your memory wouldn’t fade away even if he remained the last person alive who knew of your existence. His songs will keep your memory alive in the hearts of the Mondstadt citizens, never to be forgotten.

☂️ Wanderer

You have been fighting chronic sickness for months, but despite the treatments, each week you seemed to get worse and worse. Neither the doctors of Sumeru nor even Nahida herself could figure out a cure for your condition. You were bedridden with barely any strength to move. Wanderer took responsibility for nursing you back to health by helping you get to places you needed, cooking all your meals and feeding you, as well as getting your medicine and administering it.

Despite his efforts, you could tell you wouldn’t last long. While you still had the strength to talk, you apologized to him for being forced to part from him.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he scoffed, with a frown pulling at his lips. “Rather than talk about such nonsense, use that energy to get better instead.”

He didn’t want to face the facts, to accept the reality that you could disappear from his life. But then came a day where you no longer opened your eyes when he called your name, nor stirred when he tried to shake you awake. Your body was cold and stiff and so unlike what he was used to seeing you as. The life you possessed was gone in all senses of the word.

Something in Wanderer snapped that day. Falling to his knees, he let out a guttural scream that tore at his vocal cords. He unleashed a wail that carried all the anguish and misery he’d been keeping bottled up inside for hundreds of years. He’s lost so many people he cared for in the past. Each time he met someone he grew attached to, fate would always tear them away from him, and you were no exception.

He cried bitter tears in the privacy of your shared home, cursing Fate for doing this to him over and over again. He was angry and heartbroken. Though he lacked a real heart, the sensation in his chest felt like something inside him broke into a million tiny fragments. As if sharp needles pierced through his non-existent heart and caused him to scream until he lost his voice.

He wanted revenge, but how can one get vengeance against Fate itself?

You were gone, so cruelly torn away from his side despite his best efforts to keep you alive. You were the little ray of light that never gave up on him no matter how cold he was towards you or how much he pushed you away, and helped him heal little by little. You accepted him in his entirety and wormed your way into his non-existent heart, so how dare Fate mock him like this? Wanderer truly felt as if Fate was purposely torturing him by taking away all those whom he held dear.

Helpless and anguished, Wanderer reverted to the days when he used to be Scaramouche, the sixth of the Fatui Harbingers who was infamous for his callousness and mercilessness. His roiling emotions spurred him to repeat these spiteful acts against anyone who got in his way. It was the only way he knew of how to vent these overwhelming emotions that made him feel like he was choking on his grief.

It took Nahida’s interference to calm him down and get through to him that you wouldn’t want him to be like this. The Wanderer you fell in love with wasn’t such a hateful person driven by negative emotions, and though he was loathe to admit it, the God of Wisdom was right.

Having quelled the initial burst of wounded anger, Wanderer would think more clearly about what he should do from now on. He could keep all your items, photographs, and letters, but they would never replace you, only help preserve some of the memories attached to them, which a puppet like him had no need for. He won’t forget even the smallest thing about you, not as long as he’s alive.

Wanderer becomes a regular visitor of your grave, taking care of it so your name won’t be erased from the gravestone by time too quickly. He would frequently bring your favorite foods and flowers and place them in front of your grave, before taking a seat next to it and staring off into the distance without saying a word. He did this mostly at night so he could stargaze, just like how you both used to when you were alive.

Even centuries later, when everyone who knew you took their memories of you to their graves, Wanderer will remain to watch over your final resting place, unwavering in his devotion.

🐺 Wriothesley

You accompanied Wriothesley on another one of his swims out in the open waters surrounding the Fortress. Since you weren’t a vision holder, you had to wear a diving suit to breathe, unlike your beloved Duke. You’ve had these private little swim dates a few times before, so your guard was down when you swam through some jagged areas of the Fortress’s scaffolding. The shoulder of your diving suit caught on a sharp edge of metal and tore a hole in it. The tear was fairly large, and you panicked when you felt water rush inside your suit. Wriothesley was quick to freeze the hole and pull you up to the surface to get the suit off of you, but by the time he did, it was too late. You had inhaled too much water and were unresponsive. Wriothesley tried to keep his anxiety at bay and utilized all the CPR knowledge he learned from Sigewinne to try and save your life. He breathed air into your lungs and did chest compressions with enough force to hear your ribs crack, but even after 30 agonizing minutes of trying, you wouldn’t wake up.

Wriothesley had no choice but to accept the fact you died. Wriothesley doesn’t cry for you. He’s no stranger to death. His exposure to it in his younger years made him all too aware of how easy it is to die, and that death came for all without exception. As a result, he was able to accept your death a little easier than most, but it doesn’t mean he made peace with it. The staff and inmates at the Fortress all said Wriothesley looked the same as usual even after your death. He kept up his laidback yet intimidating demeanor and busied himself with the variety of work someone in his position was required to take care of. Only Sigewinne could tell that Wriothesley was not alright despite all the strained smiles he gave everyone. The bags under his eyes grew more prominent by the day, a clear indicator he wasn’t sleeping well. She saw how he threw himself into his work, barely taking any time to rest properly, as if wanting to keep his mind busy from the horrible memory of seeing your corpse. Though he tried to mask it, in truth, your death affected Wriothesley deeply. He had frequent nightmares about watching you drown and being unable to save you, and they would keep him up at night. He usually awoke in a cold sweat, his heart pounding from intense panic and dread until his mind cleared, only to be replaced with a stone-cold reality that made the feelings of guilt come rushing back. Out of habit, he turns to your side of the bed to seek comfort in your presence but seeing it cold and empty served as yet another harsh reminder that you were gone. Wriothesley can’t sleep after his nightmares, so he opts to work out or fuss over his gauntlets to distract himself from his feelings. It takes all his self-control to keep a lid on his emotions and not become the angry, irritable mess he knows he will be if he’s not careful.

When he makes tea, Wriothesley accidentally makes two cups out of habit. One for you and one for him. Even weeks after your passing, it was still a difficult habit to break. For the first while, Wriothesley would even stop drinking your favorite tea blend because it reminded him of you. Rather than enjoy the flavor, all he tastes is bile in his throat. The flavor of your favorite tea makes him nauseous because it makes him think about how you will never taste this again or have another tea date in his office.

There was one occasion when he tried to drink your tea shortly after your death. He thought maybe the flavor would remind him of the happy times he shared with you, but all it resulted in was a broken teacup from the force of his grip, and Sigewinne fussing over his cuts and burns. He didn’t drink your favorite blend for a long time after that, only being able to find enjoyment in it again many years later when the startlingly clear memory of your death didn’t hurt him as much. Wriothesley felt lonely without you. You were the friend and confidant he told his deepest and darkest secrets about his past, the comfort he sought after a difficult day, and the soothing presence that made him feel accepted for who he was without all the embellished titles. But after your passing, the Fortress of Meropide seemed cold and gloomy, as if devoid of the warmth it once had that made him call it home. It was as if your death snuffed out the little ray of warm sunshine he felt when spending time with you.

[karinyosa]

need someone to do a video essay on nudity in breaking bad/bcs because like i know there's something going on with it but i don't know what

[writers-potion]

Writing Weapons (1): Swords

The Thrusting Sword

Type of fight scene: entertaining, duels, non-lethal fights, non-gory deaths, swashbuckling adventure

Mostly used in: Europe, including Renaissance and Regency periods

Typical User: silm, male or female, good aerobic fitness

Main action: thrust, pierce, stab

Main motion: horizontal with the tip forward

Shape: straight, often thin, may be lightweight

Typical Injury: seeping blood, blood stains spreading

Strategy: target gaps in the armous, pierce a vital organ

Disadvantage: cannot slice through bone or armour

Examples: foil, epee, rapier, gladius

The Cleaving Sword

Type of fight scene: gritty, brutal, battles, cutting through armour

Typical user: tall brawny male with broad shulders and bulging biceps

Mostly used in: Medieval Europe

Main action: cleave, hack, chop, cut, split

Main motion: downwards

Shape: broad, straight, heavy, solid, sometime huge, sometimes need to be held in both hands, both sides sharpened

Typical Injury: severed large limbs

Strategy: hack off a leg, them decapitate; or split the skull

Disadvantage: too big to carry concealed, too heavy to carry in daily lifem too slow to draw for spontaneous action

Examples: Medieval greatsword, Scottish claymore, machete, falchion

The Slashing Sword

Type of fight scene: gritty or entertaining, executions, cavalry charge, on board a ship

Mostly used in: Asia, Middle East

Typical user: male (female is plausible), any body shape, Arab, Asian, mounted warrior, cavalryman, sailor, pirate

Main action: slash, cut, slice

Main motion: fluid, continuous, curving, eg.figure-eight

Shape: curved, often slender, extremely sharp on the outer edge

Typical Injury: severed limbs, lots of spurting blood

Strategy: first disable opponent's sword hand (cut it off or slice into tendons inside the elbow)

Disadvantage: unable to cut thorugh hard objects (e.g. metal armor)

Examples: scimitar, sabre, saif, shamshir, cutlass, katana

Blunders to Avoid:

Weapons performing what they shouldn't be able to do (e.g. a foil slashing metal armour)

Protagonists fighting with weapons for which they don't have the strength or build to handle

The hero carrying a huge sword all the time as if it's a wallet

Drawing a big sword form a sheath on the back (a physical impossiblity, unless your hero is a giant...)

Generic sword which can slash, stab, cleave, slash, block, pierce, thrust, whirl through the air, cut a few limbs, etc...as if that's plausible

adapted from <Writer's Craft> by Rayne Hall