May 3rd, Jonathan Harker’s journal
(Mem., get recipe for Mina.) I asked the waiter, and he said it was called “paprika hendl,” and that, as it was a national dish, I should be able to get it anywhere along the Carpathians.
I had for breakfast more paprika, and a sort of porridge of maize flour which they said was "mamaliga," and egg-plant stuffed with forcemeat, a very excellent dish, which they call "impletata." (Mem., get recipe for this also.)
Recipe blog casually interrupted by nightmares and the howling of wild dogs. I’m sure it’s nothing.
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Despite having more teammates, Neil still regularly plays full games bc he knows he can and likes to. Wymack let's him bc it's one of the only sure-fire ways to get that boy worn out enough to chill. His stamina is out of this world by the time he goes pro and his team doesn't know how to handle him bc pros have way bigger teams and there's no way a rookie is going to get that much play time (not to mention, you just don't do full games that's ridiculous)
But like
What are they supposed to DO with him
He runs circles around them at practice despite being there long before and after official times. He's been caught multiple times by himself late at night. And when he's not on the court, he's on the bench running his mouth.
His coach reaches out to the coach of another team, one he thinks might be able to give some advice. But Kevin's coach just says "oh god i was going to call and ask YOU wtf to do he's going to decimate my team"
They conference in a third coach who is not much help bc the only thing David Wymack says after laughing himself breathless is "good fucking luck" and he hangs up
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Alastor Episodes 7 and 8 Thoughts
These two episodes really gave us a lot in regards to Alastor and I cannot wait to see where they go with him in season 2. What I find most fascinating about what they established with him in these episodes is how I think this perfectly sets up Alastor to directly challenge the show’s main themes of redemption.
Alastor is the only character in the main cast that I think could effectively challenge Charlie’s idea of redemption by making her face the question of “where the line for who can be redeemed and who is too far gone is?”
Even Vaggie and her past as an exorcist couldn’t challenge Charlie’s ideals in the same way because Vaggie so clearly wants to be better and is trying to be better. She could only challenge Charlie’s idea of who could be redeemed. She couldn’t truly challenge the line of when someone is too far gone unlike Alastor.
And to explain this I'll just jump right in.
It’s clear these two episodes were meant to show a shift in Alastor and Charlie’s relationship in some capacity. It’s a bit more of a subtle shift than with the other characters, but I think it’s setting up this future conflict well for the limited time the show has.
At the start Charlie doesn’t think Alastor cares and calls him out on this. She directly states that she believes he enjoys the suffering. He refutes her idea of him by stating she doesn’t know what he feels. He purposefully hides his feelings behind a smile as a sign of control. (The first shift. It tells her there’s more beneath the surface)
Then Alastor helps Charlie enlist cannibal town and says he wants to mentor her in the song. This is more than the initial indifference and humor he got out of Charlie at the beginning. There’s an interest in seeing Charlie grow and being a part of it that wasn't there before. And, with Alastor helping Charlie here, trust is being built (at least on Charlie's end).
Then Alastor talks to Niffty (who he is clearly fond of) and admits he finds the group enjoyable to be around. He says he could grow accustomed to them after Niffty says she really likes them almost in agreement with her. He's very candid with Niffty and doesn't seem to feel the need to hide his emotions around her. They appear to be on the same wavelength.
And finally, Charlie is upset when she thinks that Alastor died against Adam and hugs him happily when he returns. In Charlie’s eyes Alastor has been helpful and risked himself and his power to protect the hotel. This is a true shift in their relationship on Charlie's end.
This bond is necessary because if (at the very least) Charlie doesn't care about Alastor then he won't be able to truly challenge her idea of redemption and the show implies it doesn't just go one way. It's just obscured.
To explain what I mean I want to look at Alastor's role in the final battle and that moment when he is alone after he escapes.
At the beginning of the battle he felt like the trump card he should have been. He makes the exorcists, before Adam destroys his shield, look like a joke. And he gives Adam a run for his money before he becomes overconfident and lets his guard down. He didn’t expect Adam to bounce back and have that much power left to show. He was caught completely off guard and paid the price.
And instead of staying to face the end with the rest of the people in the hotel Alastor opts to save himself. He places himself first. When he leaves he seems almost smug, spouting off a one liner and smiling as he sinks into the shadows. It seems calculated and calm, but alone is a completely different story. This moment shakes Alastor and that moment alone puts his fight against Adam and decision to flee in a different light.
In this moment when he's alone he starts to lose it, saying there has to be a way out. This isn’t where things end. He will come out on top.
He can feel his control over the situation slipping. His power and notoriety has been challenged left and right this season. First Vox, then Lucifer, then the loan sharks, now Adam. It’s one right after the other. And Adam almost killed him.
He’s struggling to grasp onto what little control he has left by forcing himself to keep on his smile and it calls back to the beginning of episode 7 when he says to Charlie that just because she sees a smile doesn't mean she knows how he really feels. His smile is a sign of control. And even in this moment you can see that last bit of control slipping. And it’s left him even more desperate for his freedom than before.
The Radio Demon was introduced almost as if he was an all powerful entity and now he is being brought back down to earth and he’s raging against it, barely keeping it just below the surface.
But there’s even more to his breakdown than just his pride. The lines “Great Alastor, altruist, died for his friends. Sorry to disappoint that is not where this ends. I’m hungry for freedom like never before. The constraints of my deal surely have a backdoor.” strongly imply that he really does care for the residents of the hotel more than he wants to admit even to himself.
He is freaking out because he got too close to dying trying to protect and help people that he never thought he would care at all about and he’s doubling down on his plans from before.
His immediate desperation to be free implies he is at the hotel because he is forced to be there, but he’s desperate to get out of the contract because he doesn’t like how it’s changing him. Alastor has always put himself first and here he is almost dying trying to protect this hotel and it's rattled him even more deeply than the blow to his pride.
I feel like they know exactly what Alastor can mean thematically and they want you to know he’s a villain while seeding hints there could be change under the surface (ones that Alastor himself is afraid of and wants to double down against). There’s a balancing act going on with him and it seems they really do want to challenge the idea of redemption with him. Not just Charlie’s, but his own as well.
Alastor is still in my opinion the best written character in the series. There’s just so much to unravel with him and he’s the most fun to try and dissect to me. I can’t wait to see what they have planned for him in season 2.
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Your name is Tim Drake and you are nine years old.
Today, tomorrow, and soon, you're going to save Robin.
----
Tim stares at his reflection on the sink tap. It trembles, along with the plane, as he contemplates his situation.
His face is rounder, now, with unfamiliar baby-fat rounding out the sharp lines he'd come to expect. Even with the subpar reflection, Tim can tell that his dark eyebags are all but gone, replaced with youthful skin.
Magic. He's being quite literal, seeing as he's been tossed into the body of his younger self at the hands of a crazed magician.
He could find a way back... or he could create a completely different timeline by fixing everything that went wrong. It's not like he has anything to go back to, anyways. That crazed magician was actually competent and killed everyone he ever cared about. Tim barely got away with his life. He could go back to save that shell of a world- surrounded by people whose minds were broken beyond magical and medical repair- or stay here, fix his own personal troubles and cut off the magician before he could start with his world domination bullshit.
Well, Tim already has an idea of what he wants. So he begins a list, after having oriented himself.
Save Robin
There's no point trying to convince Bruce that he knows where Jason's being held. So, Tim finds himself on a plane to Ethiopia a day before Jason's meant to die. This was long before Barbara even thought of being Oracle, and the tech is ancient in his hands. In short order, nine year old Tim has a trust fund with millions in it, all siphoned from billionaires like Lex Luthor and his own parents.
Tim toddles back to his seat, after washing his hands because he still can't shake the extra bit of paranoia that came with a missing spleen. Oh. Tim blinks guilelessly at his seat neighbor, smiling like Timothy Drake, Angel of a Son as he reels from the realization that he still has his spleen.
Tim adds another box to his list:
Keep Ra's away from my spleen, creepy bastard.
What else...? Ah, the League of Assassins.
Damian
Tim pauses. Holy crap. Damian's only six right now. Tim moves Damian's box upwards in urgency. Tim might have a mildly antagonistic relationship with his younger brother back then, but he wants baby pictures of his siblings, dammit. He's gonna put that photography expertise to good use if it's the last thing he does.
Watch over Z, Owens, Pru
'They're alive!' His mind screams. Cold rationality slaps the sentimentality down with a quick 'But they won't be if I fail.'
His mind wanders to Dick Grayson. He scowls as something pops up in the back of his head.
Catalina Flores
Contact Nightwing- in space
He's gotta call Dick back from that Teen Titans mission, Jason's gonna need all of the support he's going to get.
Find Cass
Train Steph
Save Duke's family from Venom
Tim taps at that last point. He'll save them. But that might mean Duke might never join their family.
But he'll be happy and Tim... will deal with it. He'll be the only one mourning, anyways. To end on a lighter note, he adds something that he should have done ages ago.
Give Tam a raise.
Tim sighs as he gets out of the airport, the hired escort he found and vetted, delivering him to a predetermined hotel. They think his parents are already inside. He laughs and does not say anything to make them think otherwise. He has so many things to do, Tim laments as he settles down to track the Joker's movements. Here. That's where Jason's being held. Being tortured.
He can, however, knock two things off his list in one go. Tim picks up the burner phone he acquired. He doesn't have time, or else he would have done this sooner and saved them all the trouble.
[RR: Are you in Ethiopia yet?]
[Deathstroke: Payment confirmed. In Ethiopia.]
[RR: Third building by the docks.]
An hour.
[Deathstroke: Confirmed. Target spotted.]
Ten minutes.
[Deathstroke: Target eliminated. Bringing Robin to Safehouse.]
Twenty minutes.
[Deathstroke: Basic first aid applied. Leaving.]
[RR: Secondary payment sent. Confirm?]
[Deathstroke: Confirmed. Pleasure doing business with you.]
Tim sprawls on the king bed. He sighs a breath of relief. He'd check on Jason in person, if he weren't paranoid about leaving traces that would get back to him. Tim's pretty sure that Deathstroke's going to get hunted down in the near future, regardless, so he made sure to add a huge tip on top of the extra fees for burning one of Deathstroke's safe houses and the emergency first aid. He taps into the rudimentary camera Deathstroke had given him the access codes to, to stare at Jason's rising and falling chest. On a further table, the Joker's head laid in a preservation box.
He bypasses all of the security on the Teen Titan's tech to send Dick a message.
[Robin has been retrieved from the Joker. Contact Batman for details.]
Then, he sends Bruce the location of the safe house. Tim spends the rest of the day staring at Jason and watching his father in another timeline break as he huddles close to the broken body of Tim's Robin.
Timothy Drake destroys the burner phone.
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