#but obviously one of them is not my biological grandfather

[innocent-until-proven-geeky]

When people say autism is genetic, I see what they mean, because I have three grandfathers and all of them are Train Guys.

#joke post #just ver things #actually autistic #autistic humor #i actually do have three grandfathers and they are actually all train guys #but obviously one of them is not my biological grandfather #my mom’s dad and stepdad both have big fancy model train setups #my dad’s dad doesn’t have the space for one but he has all sorts of train books and does train trips for his birthday like. every year #like if that is not Genetically and Environmentally Predisposed To Autism #I don’t know what is <3

[antimony-medusa]

hi saw your daddy kink post discussing the phenomenon of giving grown characters surrogate parental relationships, and I understand where you’re coming from, but i really feel like it’s just a matter of the circles you run in, and the assumptions that you might make because of that. you mention how platonic reads of these dynamics are more uncommon than kinky reads, which i just don’t think is the case, and I think that arguing that people don’t even realize that they’re writing a kink is a little bit bizarre, and sort of assumes that you know more abt them than they do by projecting your own experiences onto them.

it isn’t inherently sexual to crave protection or a parental relationship that you may have missed out on, and it is certainly not universal. in my own family, my “grandpa” isnt my biological grandfather (nor do I really consider him to be my grandfather), but he’s my mother’s surrogate father and has been since she was in her twenties. an adult. he sees her as a daughter. she sees him as a father. there’s absolutely nothing kinky about it. and anybody who automatically assumes that must have their mind deep, deep in the gutter and/or the stranger side of the Internet. really, i find it a bit of a strange argument to randomly post in the first place—as if it’s a problem that so many people enjoy non romantic and non sexual relationships, and that these people must, in fact, have a daddy kink that they are unaware of.

that said, i do absolutely agree that fans bringing any part of that into phil’s chat is weird and they should Not do that, and that infantilizing characters is also very weird, and personally i dont even see him as being father figure to anybody on that island except his eggs, wilbur, and MAYBE an argument could be made for tubbo (which other cc’s on the island have joked about), but to each their own and all that.

sorry this is so long. TLDR, i get where ur coming from in terms of “warning , some people might read your stuff differently than you want here” but really not everything is a kink and paternal dynamics can easily happen in regards to adult characters, particularly young adults, without there being any inappropriate connotations. i know nothing i said will change your mind, obviously it’s set, but ykno diff perspectives and all that. hope ur doing well

Thank you for the ask! I see you were on mobile, I believe. :D I am also going to push the character limit with this response, I fear.

I agree that it isn't inhernetly sexual to go after a parental relationship that you missed out on, and there are many such cases. I'll even go so far as to say that it's not inherently kinky to go after a parental relationship that you missed out on, because there is such a thing as non-sexual kink, and heaven knows that MCYT writing is full of non-sexual kink. Lots and lots of stuff that is platonic that is kinking on fear, or being drugged, or kidnapping, or hypnosis, or familial relationships, etc— there's lots of people who aren't doing that. There are tons of people out in the real world (and in fiction), who are simply just expanding their family as an adult, and that's awesome. When I was in college there was this older couple who kind of adopted me and invited me over for thursday dinner, and they were awesome. There was nothing untoward going on there.

But look. I am an emduo fan who likes to see my guys be murdery, and because of that, I've ended up reading a bunch of Dark SBI. I've ocassionally gone "this cannot be what everyone is doing" and I've read stuff tagged as "family fluff" that I find recommended. I am aware of where the genre is going, particularly with the rise of "dadbur" and "dadnoblade" interpretations.

And look, you have just got to trust me on this one. People are writing stuff that in any other fandom I would be recommending they put kink tags on the work so that people who liked that trope could find it and people who didn't like it would avoid it, but that comment in DSMP would just lead to people getting doxxed, so I just grit my teeth and go "i guess that's baked into Dark SBI or Tooth Rotting Fluff now, I sure hope that doesn't hit anybody's triggers".

Like I PROMISE you. The first draft of this response included excerpts of fics that I've read and I was like "can YOU pick the ship fic from the /p fics here"? But I have a horror of ever leading to someone getting cancelled on twitter, so nothing that could possibly be identifiable of these writers. But like—

Some of the ways that Tommy gets treated in the narrative are almost indistinguishable from a bodice-ripper romance. Some of the tropes being used— within DSMP we've all clasped hands and agreed to interpret it being platonic, but in any other fandom, you are going to start getting comments that you might not want to get. The tag is FULL of stuff that is DD/LB in everything but name. Maybe my mind is in the gutter here, but if you move out of this fandom, you are going to move into circles where a lot of people's minds are in the gutter, and you are going to get a very different response from your comments!

And I was talking about daddy kink here specifically, because I see that one come up a lot and it's gotten egregious lately, but this also applies to dehumanization, and fearplay, and predator/prey, and "instincts" (in every other fandom that's gonna get people in a mashup of A/B/O, Hypnosis, and sometimes Agere responding to it), and kidnapping/drugging, AND the way a bunch of "piglin instincts" stuff is just a BDSM au now where the Brute (dom) needs to be callmed down by their Runt (sub). The SBI tag is super kinky right now. And I don't have a problem with that idealogically, write your truth, but a) please don't bring that up in front of the streamers, b) if you move to another fandom you have got to be prepared that not everyone is doing their kink platonically.

Like I'm assuming that people don't know what tropes they're playing into, they're just building them from first principles, because the other alternative is that they are deliberately and knowingly writing kink and posting it in the & relationship tag with insufficient trigger tags, and I prefer to believe that people don't know.

I'm glad we agree about people bringing that into Phi's chat, or Pol's, or Luzu, or any of the other streamers that people have decided is So Old. A lot of people aren't comfortable even being assigned dad, as we saw with Felps, so bringing it even further is just— uh oh, no.

I do not have a problem with people liking non-romantic and non-sexual relationships. I find it a bit odd that much of the fandom can't concieve of a non-romantic and non-sexual relationship without making it familial and specifically lately father-son— don't you have close friends?— but I am fully in support of gen writing. I primarily write gen! I'm an avid commentor on gen fics!

But some of the tropes at play in the fandom are kinky, there is no way to avoid that. The fact that they are set in a familial relationship doesn't negate that. Some of the ways that the DSMP characters get treated would be distinctly non-familial if you ever brought it out of that context. And I am just warning people, if you bring it out of that context, be prepared for the response you get.

You cannot take DSMP tropes and apply them one-to-one in other fandoms, with other streamers swapped in, and expect them to be read the same way. Like i'm sorry, but that's just true. If you are posting the same sort of stuff that for Cellbit & Phil that you would post for Tommy & Phil, people will assume that you have a daddy kink, because usually when a relationship between a adults that are actually similar in age is refered to with paternal language it's a kink thing. That is how the broader internet works. (And anon, if I had a daddy kink, would I be complaining about the fact that I can open any SBI fic and have about a 40% chance of hitting it and I'm seeing signs of this appearing in QSMP? I assure you I'm not "projecting [my] own experiences onto them" here.)

#long post #anon #discourse #ask #fandom meta

[thewertsearch]

GG: aaaaa please dont tell anyone i told you about him! […] CA: settle dowwn jade youre radically underestimatin the amount of shit i dont givve about this […] CA: i got bigger ships to sink and soon wwhen im good and ready me and my luminous fuckin science stick havve got a date wwith jack noir

Seems like Eridan's planning to join Vriska.

Correction - he's planning to rejoin Vriska.

If he's trying to restart their kismesissitude, he's going to be sorely disappointed. Vriska is out of his league, and not just as a romantic partner. She's a god, and he's an angry kid with a wand who represents no threat whatsoever to Noir.

CA: wwhys this matter so hush hush anywway GG: he didnt want me to tell my friends who he really was […] GG: he was so nice, and it really did feel like i was talking to family, so i really dont think he was making it up

I think your intuition is correct, but that doesn't mean he's specifically your grandson. After all, 'family' is a term which can encompass all sorts of relationships.

GG: i couldnt help but try to imagine his parents… GG: and more interestingly……. GG: his grandfather :O

Even if he is your grandson, that doesn't necessarily mean he has a grandfather. As far as I can tell, there's no reason why the Veil's DNA-mixing machine couldn't merge the genes of two women.

For all we know, Pen-Pal could have four biological grandmothers!

CA: that gun i just gavve you is somethin of a hatchright to the kid CA: happy i could play a role in your dirty stinkin lineage GG: like an heirloom? i guess it could be GG: do you even have those? if you dont have parents how could you? CA: no wwe dont knoww our direct forebears and im pretty sure any attempt to seek out or evven inquire about the supplier of your genes wwould be a fine wway to get yourself killed

I didn't think a troll's genes had an individual supplier.

Based on the fact that their genetic material is combined in the Mother Grub, I've been assuming that each troll is created from a large number of 'parents', whose DNA is mixed in the Mother's stomach.

Obviously, our Sgrub trolls are going to be an exception to this rule, since the game presumably cloned them from twelve Guardians - but Eridan seems to be implying that all trolls have an individual parent.

This doesn't align at all with what we know about troll reproduction. There also seems to be a certain amount of secrecy surrounding this process, since Eridan thinks you'd be killed for looking into it. Is there some sort of conspiracy at play?

CA: but wwevve got our lore and it says wwe all got indivvidual ancestors wwho contribute to most of our genes abovve and beyond wwhat the grubs slurry does

Alright, that makes a little more sense. So trolls are derived from a large mixture of DNA, but they have one true 'parent' who contributes the lion's share of genetic data.

Maybe an embryonic troll starts off as a clone of this parent, and other trolls' genes are slowly spliced into it as it develops.

Again, for the Sgrub trolls, things are a little different. We have reason to believe they were cloned in sets of three, implying that each of them has three genetic donors. Perhaps, then, they each inherited the majority of their DNA from one of these trolls - their 'ancestor' - and only share a small number of genes with the other two.

These ancestors have been mentioned before - quite a while ago, now - and I think they may be the key to solving a major mystery of the Hivebent arc.

Namely, Aradia mentioned her ancestors, and seemed to believe she was following their orders. When Scratch's plans started to reveal themselves, I assumed that he was the one directing Aradia, and was only pretending to be these unseen forebears.

With this new revelation, however, I'm forced to reconsider my stance. What if the Voices were those of the ancestors?

What if Aradia was being instructed by the troll Guardians all along?

#homestuck liveblog #full liveblog #act 5.2 #s107 #3176

[videogame-ocs]

My DA Canon Worldstate family trees #1- The Cousland /Theirin family tree

I thought I’d share my (slightly headcanoned) family tree for my canon Worldstate, The Shattered Crown.

I plan on doing this again for my canon Hawke and inky at a later date because it was so fun making this. Anyway here’s the family tree and some explanations for some of the information:

Explanations:

In my head Bryce Cousland was younger than Eleanor by a year.

Oren can’t be more that 5 years old at the start of the game hence my headcanoned birth year of 9:25.

I headcanon Fergus to be 10 years older than my Cousland.

Maric dying in 9:38 Dragon is from the Silent Grove comic series set in biowares own canon, I treat these extended universe stuff as canon to my Worldstate but with some differences (similar to how BioWare treat canon in the games). But obviously he goes missing in 9:25 and is assumed dead, it’s actually Alistair who finds him along with Isabella and Varric (it’s a great comic series).

I couldn’t fit Eamon, Isolde, Connor and Tegan on there, but given they’re not Alistair’s biological family it doesn’t matter so much on the tree as I’m mostly looking at the direct line.

Ardal Cousland isn’t stated to be Bryce’s grandfather but going from his death defending King Vanedrin Theirin in the Battle of Lothering, we can presume he’s William Cousland’s father and therefore Bryce’s grandfather.

I forgot to add the Mac Eanraig family on there, I do have a head canon that Eleanor has at least one niece from her fathers side I mean she’s got three siblings but the Cousland children only met that side of the family once or twice and never met them on the Storm Coast due to how dangerous it can be.

Why Anora doesn’t have a updated image from DA:I unlike Alistair and Morrigan- she didn’t appear in DA:I unless you make her queen. Hence the origin image. She’s not queen in my canon because my Cousland Amelia basically was like ‘look no hard feelings and it’s not your fault but you can’t be trusted on the throne after all that’s happened with your father and you willingly trapping me in a dungeon to be killed even if you apologised for it’ and put Alistair and herself on there instead. I do have a headcanon on what happened to Anora in my Worldstate that I’ll get into at a later date (it’s not bad, because I do like Anora because she a) didn’t know the whole truth for most of the game and b) she was just doing what she needed to survive as a strong minded woman and new widow in court but I find her a bit frustrating).

Updated image note: I found out how old Anora is so I updated the image. According to Eamon’s letter to Cailan found in the royal chest in the Return to Ostagar DLC, Anora is approaching her 30th year, making her 29 when this letter was sent presumably not long before Ostagar, so she has to be at least 29 at the start of the game and 30 by the time the Landsmeet happens. Anyway this age gap actually helps explain why Anora never met my Cousland, despite attending some of Eleanor’s parties, and despite her father presumably knowing Bryce as the only other Teyrn in Ferelden, as she is 11 years older than her so Amelia wasn’t old enough to attend when Anora was attending her mothers events and Loghain canonically kept Anora at home most of the time when she was growing up anyway.

#dragon age #dragon age origins #da: inquisition #oc: amelia cousland #alistair theirin #alistair x cousland #Cousland family #the Theirin family #oc family tree #slight spoilers #i guess

[stargazer-sims]

Doctor Max

Félix: Max! We were starting to wonder where you were.

Maxan: You know how it is at the hospital. Everyone always needs one more thing. But don’t worry. Nobody’s expecting me back there tonight or tomorrow.

Félix: That’s good. I think you’re going to have your hands full here anyway.

Maxan: So I gathered. How’s Kaji doing?

Félix: He’s doing as well as you could expect. He’s resting right now. He and Xaela are in the kiddie pool.

Maxan: I won’t disturb them, then. This’ll give me a chance to change out of my work clothes and help myself to some tea.

Félix: Go for It. Xaela told me to tell you to make yourself at home.

Maxan: I always do.

Félix: That’s one of the things I like about you. Nobody could ever accuse you of being shy or reserved.

Maxan: Life’s too short for that. I’d much rather take full advantage of all my opportunities.

Félix: A philosophy I can agree with.

Maxan: So, how are we feeling about having our first grandchild?

Félix: I’m looking forward to it, although I have to say I find it kind of ironic that we’re referring to her as our grandchild when neither of us are actually related to Kaji.

Maxan: DNA isn’t everything, you know. If anyone were to ask me, I’d say you’re just as much Kaji’s parent as Kiri is. Perhaps even more so, in some respects.

Félix: I do feel like Davian and I raised him, even though he was practically an adult when he came to us.

Maxan: An adult biologically, but from my point of view, you did raise him. So, technically, Esri is your grandchild.

Felix: I’m excited to meet her, but I’m not sure I’m okay with being Grandpa at forty, honestly.

Maxan: No less dubious than I am about being a grandfather at forty-nine, I expect, especially since Kiri and I aren’t done being parents yet.

Félix: Right. Your little ones are younger than Belle.

Maxan: And our youngest will be younger than Esri. How’s that for irony?

Félix: Oh! Is Kiri pregnant again? I had no idea.

Maxan: No, Kiri’s not pregnant this time.

Félix: Wait... you're pregnant?

Maxan: Can't let Kiri have all the fun, can I?

Félix: I'm not sure 'fun' is how I'd describe it.

Maxan: It's scientifically fascinating. I'm enjoying the experience so far.

Félix: Get back to me on that when you're in labour. Not that I personally know about it, obviously, but poor little Kaji is already suffering, and I don’t think he’s even close to the end yet. It’s safe to say he’s not enjoying it.

Maxan: I probably won’t find it pleasant, but pleasure and enjoyment aren’t the same thing, you know. I’m sure I’ll find labour as scientifically fascinating as the rest of the experience.

Félix: Have you ever heard the phrase ‘famous last words’?

Maxan: Once or twice, yes, but I’m not worried. Kiri and Zira have already been doing plenty of that on my behalf since we found out.

Félix: If you don’t mind me asking, when did you find out?

Maxan: We’ve known for a while. Kiri and me, I mean, and Zira of course, but we haven’t told anyone else. I’m about sixteen weeks.

Félix: Really?

Maxan: At my size, it’s been easy to keep it a secret. Kiri would certainly be showing by this stage, but I started with a belly, so our latest addition has had good camouflage.

Félix: Any particular reason you’ve been keeping it quiet?

Maxan: If I’m being truthful, this baby was a bit of an accident. We… consumed too many intoxicating plants, and one thing led to another…

Félix: No need to elaborate. I totally get that.

Maxan: Yes, I’m sure you do. I’ve heard you and Davian on the roof.

Félix: We’re not the only ones making noise on our roof, neighbour. Dav and I have heard some things too.

Maxan: Yes, well… this did not occur on the roof, and I discovered exactly how agile my mate can be when he’s feeling strong and healthy. It was quite… enlightening.

Félix: *amused* I can imagine.

Maxan: In any case, I was shocked when I realized what happened. We wanted more children, but we also wanted to plan for them. At my age, it’s still perfectly possible for our kind to have children, but just like Terrans, our risks increase the older we get. We wanted to wait until we were past the most delicate stage before we told anyone.

Félix: That’s understandable. And now you’re past that part?

Maxan: Yes.

Félix: And everything’s going well?

Maxan: So far, so good, as the Earth people say.

#ts4 #sims 4 #Félix Blanchet #maxa’naraji #life on earth #stargazersims

[poisonouswritings]

Soooooo idk if you’ve already done this type of ask buuutttt M3+Rime being parents! The absolute softness of it alll!!!! My cheeks hurt from smiling about the thought it!!!!

Yeah I can combine these

GN!Reader, everyone has daddy issues so that'll be interesting, love the modifier than Lucan and Balsam are the stinky godfathers

Felix Escellun

Have an honorary and legally required shout-out to this post by my friend @sweet-milky-tea705 (go give it some love)

Anyways whether you guys have a normal kid or an Amogus baby, Felix is nervous!! It's not like he had the best father figures growing up (much as he loves Florian, he has to admit the man was,, not,,, the best possible dad,,,,, though obviously leaps and bounds better than Escell). But once he holds that lil' baby in his arms and looks through it's shield visor all of those worries vanish.

Momentarily.

They come back thirty minutes later but that's not the point.

He was gonna ask Scylla to be the godmother but I... really... don't think she'd want to. Nor do I think she'd be emotionally equipped for that. So the honor promptly gets passed to Anisa.

...how..... how horrible would it be of him to ask Rime to be the godfather? He doesn't trust Sage so... man...... that's a rough one.......

Anyways Felix as a dad would be so cute!

Tries to teach them magic ofc. Instead of bedtime stories, he reads them passages from his various textbooks. Will go on long-winded rants while the baby just looks up at him like 'o-o'

Or like

If the kid makes mud pies then Felix will eat them (but get sicks afterwards. Now feels bad for all the times he made Florian eat his mud pies).

Spoils them with toys and outfits and games and anything else they want.

Probably is not the best at discipline. He doesn't wanna risk being too mean, y'know? Especially after everything with Escell.

Child's room has taxidermy animals in it. Felix says it's cute, like they're 'guarding' the kid or something.

Always indulges the kid's infinite questions. If he doesn't know the answer then he'll help the kid find it, either through research or experimentation.

Your kid ends up being tutored by Felix himself, so by the time they do get into the school system (private school presumably) they're several years ahead of the curve.

That's how your kid knows how to fix the wires in Electrical

Anisa Anka

If the spawn is biologically Anisa's then she's the most terrified out of everyone. She doesn't want her evil LoS blood infecting the little thing!!!

But when she sees how adorable they are, it's hard to imagine they could ever be evil. So that helps.

Anisa loves cuddling your kid. She always has them in her arms or on her hip.

When they're old enough to handle solid foods and more complex spices and stuff like that, she absolutely takes them out to the food market. Makes sure to be careful with allergies and doesn't let them eat enough to risk getting sick. You specifically told her not to let the kid spoil their dinner - actually you specifically told her not to spoil either of their dinners - but lo and behold once evening comes they're both too full to eat anything else.

If your kid is a baby then they constantly chew on Anisa's hair, skirt, ribbon, etc. And she just lets them.

A kid is picking on your kid and you have to hold Anisa back from committing a war crime. She is just,, really,,, really protective over them.

Tucks them into bed,, tells them stories about knights and royalty and fearsome dragons where good always triumphs over evil.

Wears matching outfits with them. Sorry not sorry.

For your birthday, they make you breakfast in bed! It doesn't go well but the effort is there.

Ayanna officially becomes a gilf. No further comment.

Saaros and Azimuth bringing toys and candies from Rivath!!

Sage Lesath

Okay so in Chapter 2 Sage mentions that his grandfather on his mother's side was nicknamed 'The Wolf' or whatever on account of his temper and my point is that that means Sage did know at least some of his bio family. So I ask you all, what do we think happened there?? Afaik we don't have a canon answer. And as far as I know we never hear anything about his father's side of the family, so I have to believe he probably had no idea who his dad was.

Which makes him stick to your side even more after your child is born/acquired. He doesn't want the kid having the same questions.

As expected he's also very protective of both of you.

If the kid is an ilephta or a half-ilephta, Sage makes sure they get enough play time and deals with any late-night zoomies.

Auntie Tulsi!!! Hand-makes toys herself. Sings a lot of the same lullabies that Sage used to sing for her. All very soft and sweet.

(Stinky) Uncles Lucan and Balsam! They take your kid out for day trips or overnight so that you and Sage can go on date nights and whatever. Love telling them stories about the dumb shit Sage has done in the past. Lets them cuss if they're old enough. I think they're both actually really good with kids! Lucan is like the excitable fun uncle and Balsam is the responsible in-charge uncle. Balsam gets his horns nommed on a lot. They both love your kid dearly and would go to the ends of the Earth to protect them.

There's a parade or something and Sage puts them on his shoulders so they can see.

SAGE TAKING A CAT NAP AND THE KID COMES OVER AND LAYS DOWN WITH HIM AND THEY'RE SNOOZING IN A SUNBEAM.

s o f t

Rime Varela

We run into the same question, who would Rime pick as a godmother/godfather? Maybe Anisa to be the godmother because I think they were close (and it's not like he has friends anymore) but,,,, would,,,,,,,, would Felix be the godfather? That seems really awkward. I dunno. Think about that.

You start calling the kid Bambi. Rime doesn't really get it, especially when you grab him by the shoulders and tell him not to get shot by a hunter.

Rime frequently watches your kid sleep. Just kinda thinking about his life, how he got to where he's at and how thankful he is for it. Appreciating the good things. Living, I guess.

Is very anxious about your kid finding out about his cultist background but also kinda realizes it's inevitable. He's at least hoping it won't come up until they're old enough to maybe understand.

Hopefully understand.

If you guys are near Sage, Rime will conjure up a snowball and tell his kid to throw it at him. And what is Sage gonna do? He can't get mad at a kid. He glares at Rime but that's about it. Always very nice to your kid tho

Sorry but it'd be hilarious if over time that backfires and now your kid loves playing with Sage and calls him Uncle and Rime is just stewing.

Sings the kid to sleep. If they have nightmares then he's always there to chase the monsters away.

His horns also get nommed on a lot

#last legacy #fictif last legacy #felix iskandar escellun #anisa anka #sage lesath #rime solano varela #felix escellun #felix escellun x reader #anisa anka x reader #sage lesath x reader #rime varela #rime varela x reader #fictif felix #last legacy felix #last legacy anisa #fictif anisa #last legacy sage #fictif sage #fictif rime #last legacy rime #fren asks #ozzy answers #ozzy daydreams

[limeade-l3sbian]

In that one "we need better feminism" post people are fighting about biological essentialism I think is called, about how supposedly radfems believe men are evil for the simple reason they're born male and that their high levels of testosterone is what makes them violent and a danger for women. I have heard a lot of women agreeing with this before, how once your testosterone levels drop you become more calm, even gentle and nice, I saw it happen when my abusive grandpa became ill and pretty much acted like a completely different person for months before dying.

I know MtFs like to use this as "my girl hormones are making me feel so weak and gentle and agreeable" and I honestly don't know if radical feminism agrees/supports this or not but it is a fact that hormonal levels directly affect our behavior, isn't it?

No, men are not evil just because they are men. Men are shaped by their society, and it is very fortunate for them that every society in this world places men as the end all, be all and everything else (women) is there directly for them.

Saying stupid shit like "my girl hormones are making me feel so weak and gentle and agreeable" is just further evidence of gender norms, which are socially constructed. Not all women are agreeable (see: this whole damn community), not all women are "weak" and not all women are gentle so to insist that "girl hormones" (estrogen) is somehow making them more of a woman is false and stupid as shit.

Hormones DO affect our behavior, but on a chemical level such as our mood regulation, how we respond to stress, sleep, appetite, etc.. Aggression levels can change from a dip in testosterone (ex. your grandfather). But implying that less aggression has somehow made a man more of a woman is, obviously, very dumb.

#ask #not calling you dumb anon

[nellie-elizabeth]

Outlander: Singapore (7x05)

Huh, interesting. A couple of significant changes I'm not sure how to feel about, but an otherwise solid episode!

Cons:

Now, as a caveat, it has been a minute since I read the books, but I'm almost sure the scene with Ian meeting Emily's son goes a lot differently. For one, Ian is the one to name the kid Swiftest of Lizards, and Emily actually asks Ian to name her daughter, but he feels a connection to the older boy, and names him instead. It's left incredibly ambiguous as to whether or not this really is Ian's biological son, although later events strongly suggest this to be the case. In the show, they cast a little white kid to play Swiftest of Lizards, so it seems pretty clear we're not supposed to have any doubt. And he already has his Mohawk name, and Ian gives him an English one: Ian James. I'm... not sure how to feel about this. I liked the subtlety, the ambiguity, in the book. And I liked that Ian claimed the right to name him in the Mohawk fashion, instead of being handed the opportunity by Emily. It makes Ian's connection to his Mohawk identity stronger, that he names this child of his spirit in the tradition of one of his chosen people, instead of the people of his birth. I don't know, it just felt a little too neat and tidy, the way this played out.

Another change from the books is that I think Brianna realizes that the hazing is something they've done to the other people a little sooner? She doesn't go home and talk about how this was an act of sexism with Roger, and get his reassurance. I don't... mind that, strictly speaking, but I do think the stuff with Roger works a little better if he's not quite so perfect at atoning for his mistake of not supporting her perfectly. He's got a lot of sexist ideas that he has to work to overcome consistently.

Pros:

I will say, Bree and Roger are a lot easier to like as a couple in the 1980s than they were in the past. I don't know why, exactly, but something about Sophie Skelton's acting style (she's still a weak point in the show for me) works a little better in a more contemporary setting. And gosh, Roger looks handsome with his 80's haircut and clothes, holding his daughter in his arms... I also like the sinister hints that something's going on, with the food wrappers, and Mandy seeming to see someone lurking outside.

I'm glad they kept in things like Jem talking to his grandfather in the graveyard, and Brianna wondering if her parents might be buried there at Lallybroch. She's afraid to look. And the bit about Jem speaking Gaelic at school and getting in trouble for it - it's so wild to me that things like that can happen. How evil do you have to be to actively try and stamp out language and culture like that? It's cool that we're keeping these little subplots in, when there's so much else we need to cover. Another highlight is Brianna weeping over her parents and deciding to read another letter. The device of having Claire's narration come through the form of letters to Bree and Roger works better than just the out of nowhere narration that the show has been struggling with since day one.

Meanwhile, the Hunters and William are traveling together, and they stop for the night with a couple who lures them off the road and tries to murder and rob them in the dead of night! William saves them by killing the man and incapacitating the woman, but he has complicated feelings about having killed someone for the first time. I loved that the scenes with them started with a moral debate over the merits of taking a human life. Obviously the Quakers are anti-violence, but William points out that part of what allows them their stance is that they depend on others to enact violence on their behalf. Denny used medical cadavers for his research, and they were executed criminals! How does he circle that square?

I will also say, in contrast to my thoughts last week, I was a little bit charmed by Rachel here. I thought she had decent chemistry with William, and I also thought the moment when she and Ian ran into each other was pretty sweet. I've found that when Ian gives a big smile, it makes him look young and boyish and super charming in a not-conventionally-attractive way. (The scene between Ian and Claire about his chances to father children in the future was very sweet, too.)

I was excited for Claire and Denny's team-up as surgeons at Fort Ticonderoga, it was super refreshing to have him show up and immediately respect her opinion, the same way she respected his. They work together to amputate a man's leg, but are forced to leave the injured man behind as the British approach to take the fort, meaning he'll end up a prisoner of war. Book readers know that this man has a role to play later on, so that'll be interesting to see.

Meanwhile nobody takes Jamie seriously about his worries that the British army will approach from over the water and take the high ground, and even after he tries to convince the higher-ups, they ignore him. Turns out, he was right, and the Americans are forced to flee and let the British take the fort. You should always listen to Jamie Fraser, he knows what he's talking about here! I like that we're seeing some of Jamie's tactical brilliance, but also the way he stays cool under pressure, and has learned how to keep his mouth shut when he's being disrespected. He will lead the men under his command with honor, he'll fight for what he thinks is right, but he's also got his survival, and that of his family, front of mind. It's a good balance for his character!

So there ya have it. Lots of stuff going on. I know I keep saying this over and over, but it impresses me how little they're cutting out of the books. Every time I realize we're getting a particular scene or a setup for a character to arrive, I find myself a little surprised, thinking about all the stuff that could have been cut off to make room for the main plot. There wasn't a lot of Claire in this episode compared with most of the other characters, and I think that's okay - she has plenty of time to shine later on!

8.5/10

#review #outlander #outlander review

[to-be-cringe-but-free]

Have you ever heard of the anime/manga called Nana? It's about two girls named Nana who are complete opposites and start living together after one fateful encounter.

I haven't watched/read it yet, only watching a couple reviews because I was interested. So, I wanted to start making a comic loosely based on the concept.

Raiko is my oc. This is a modern au (obviously). Scaramouche is moving to Sumeru City to find himself and start a band, while Raiko is trying to search for her biological family after her adoptive grandfather died

Yes, I drew Scaramouche with only one thought in mind: babygirl

Meanwhile, the obvious twist is that Scaramouche and Raiko are brother and sister. I based the two off of contrasting fashion styles. Scaramouche is more punk/visual kei while Raiko is decora kei.

I might add more to the concept or not. It really depends on if I am motivated to create the comic in the future. I might just draw them digitally and call it a day

#genshin impact #genshin #modern genshin au #genshin impact oc #genshin oc #genshin scaramouche #scaramouche #original character #oc #loosely based on Nana #traditional art #sketches #might make this a comic

[lindsayb-406]

Of course I want to say something about this school shooting. Being trans, being pro-2A, and more importantly being a human.

I don’t get it. Why shoot up a school? I don’t understand that reasoning. “I am mad at politicians for banning gender affirming care for children so I am going to kill children!” I just don’t understand.

Of course now comes all the people shouting that the person is trans so obviously had mental health issues. No, the person shot up a school which shows that they have mental health issues. Being trans doesn’t make one automatically crazy, but not sane either. The biological, psychological, and physiological differences in trans people is real. The social push for transitioning is another topic. But we do need to look at the people who are committing these crimes. There’s a lot of hatred out there, in the mentally unstable that is a dangerous thing.

And of course, the ban guns crowd is shouting about the usual rhetoric of increased background checks, we need to ban assault rifles, and abolish the 2A. Because they want to deflect from the real problem. The people. I have arms. Not just firearms, I have knives, swords and other medieval weaponry, and firearms ranging from my too many greats to count grandfathers musket loader to rifles and pistols. I have yet to see any one of my weapons get up and harm someone on their own. Weapons are a tool. They are inanimate. They can’t do anything without someone controlling them. Until I see a flying sword in real life, not just in D&D, then I will continue to shout out against disarming the populace and to point the finger at the responsible party, the person pulling the trigger killing the kids.

Is this school shooting a tragedy? Yes, absolutely. Was it preventable? Yes, absolutely. Was it preventable without violating the rights of the American citizens? Yes absolutely.

A lot can be said for brining back god, bringing back families and ensuring that children have a mother AND father in their life.

We also need to be listening to each other. If a person writes a post like this Nashville shooter did, pay attention and call the police. Don’t hesitate. If a person is making statements like they want to die. Get them help.

It’s a sad day in our country. Focus on the problem, the people.

[collymore]

Sycophancy is the egregious evil that likes to masquerade as tenable commonsense!

By Stanley Collymore   I really do not understand how   in this internet age there are   still essentially significant   numbers of pathetically very stupid   people, that evidently rather like to   pretend, that one quite discernibly   basically effectively dysfunctional family of crucially, very mediocre   at best, human beings are clearly   in some way, deservingly special   and consequently, automatically   literally deserving, of unlimited   deference; cravingly unstinting   and effectively unquestionably   likewise massive unwarranted   respect instinctively delivered.   And as if that wasn't more than   enough for them; similarly in   addition crucially routinely   as well acquire massive quantities   of unearned wealth essentially of   course literally at the general tax   payers expense, which distinctly   is really so obviously insultingly   to any logical individual: with a   modicum of commonsense and   effectively additionally; a truly   functioning brain! Then rather   copiously and routinely all the   same, topped up with obscene   amounts, of quite hereditarily   bequeathed billions on which   literally unlike everyone else,   no inheritance taxes are ever   paid. And all this basically in   spite of the quite irrefutably,   fundamental and distinctive   overwhelming proof clearly   of their real and inherently,   very biologically distinctive   at best rampant mediocrity.   (C) Stanley V. Collymore   27 January 2023. Author's Remarks: Quite honestly what is the purpose of any, and most particularly so given their odious history, the British monarchical family? Clearly civilization should have progressed sufficiently enough and actually realize that it’s both morally and repulsively wrong for just one family to delusionally believe, and furthermore actually encouraged in that belief, that they’re better than everyone else and consequently they automatically deserve to be looked after, fawned over and similarly too, be liberally ensconced within the absolute lap of luxury by the rest of society.   From my honest and thoroughly unapologetic perspective the only thing in these sequence of events that Charles, and through no effort or planning on his part, has done right in his life is to have literally popped out of Liz Windsor’s useless fanny first, quite relative that is to the subsequent appearance of his three officially recognized siblings, Anne, Andrew and Edward. Diana Spencer, Charles’ wife meanwhile, was specifically and most callously used for strictly breeding purposes and when this concerted enterprise was effectively complete Charles once again turned his full attention to his slapper mistress Camilla Parker Bowles who was herself married with her own sprogs. Charles markedly and rather enforcedly callously married Diana at the insistent behest of his mother, father and similarly too his maternal grandmother to produce the Windsor’s so-called Firm’s heir and spare, but none of these hypocritical bitches: Liz Windsor herself and also her own mother or the similarly, deeply involved adulterous bastard that he likewise was, Philip Mountbatten, ever saw fit to be honest with Diana and most specifically so brief her on how she would be most cynically, distinctly malevolently and rather repugnantly and egregiously be odiously used. And having effectively done what she was quite unconsciously meant to do: be fucked by Charles and thus legitimately and twice over be got up the spout by him, it was Charles’ task over and essentially he had no further interest whatsoever in either Diana herself or the family he’s created by her! Since the only person who actually mattered in the pathetic life of Charles Windsor was the scheming, manipulative, distinctively controlling, deviously malicious whore and deeply ingrained slapper, exactly like her great grandmother Alice Keppel: the ongoing whore mistress of Edward VII, Charles’ own great grandfather; and in Charles’ case it was Camilla Parker Bowles that he himself was personally obsessed with and still is. Not that sure that the same feelings are reciprocal on Camilla’s part, since it’s more the status and ranking that actually turns her on; and not this old fool Charles. A state of affairs that this horse-face featured old tart of a supposed female has always been fully cognizant of, and fully utilized to the maximum for her personal advantage. Diana Spencer was murdered and has been gone these past 25 plus years; likewise also the Aussie female Kanga Taylor who similarly quite mysteriously “died” less than three months after Diana was killed; and who was herself a mistress of Charles Windsor and a discernibly staunch rival of Camilla Parker Bowles; makes the Soviet Union era KGB distinctly look like ineffectual amateurs. However, the odious way that Camilla and Charles treated Diana was undeniably despicable, regardless of what Camilla’s PR make over team endeavours to both portray her as and feed that load of tripe to the surfeit of British sycophantic serfs and also their overseas supposed kith and kin; significant number of whom are entrenched bastards who don’t even know who the hell they really are, and it doesn’t need Long Lost Families to actually clarify that matter. So what next? A makeover as well of Jimmy Saville and Bishop Peter Ball? Both, among other entrenched paedophiles, distinctly close intimate friends of all the Windsors? And conjoined with all of this is Camilla the egregiously scheming cow who knew she would get away with what she did and is still doing because a clearly besotted with her Charles is discernibly weak – always was – and moreover is relatively easily manipulated by this odious trollop who literally controls him and quite laughably so is now your distinctly honourable “queen”. Not mine, I hurriedly hasten to add; for even though enforcedly born a British citizen my cultural roots are distinctively Bajan and my cultural homeland Barbados is now sensibly a Republic. Having had quite enough of you utterly repulsive serfs and rather liberally having for FOUR Centuries financed your offshore European country, first England and then the UK after it was formed, and turning them into the global power they became. Camilla and Charles the purportedly massively loving married couple who nevertheless live separately and in different residences a significant distance from each other. And who even on the night following the earlier in the day fake funeral and burial of Liz Windsor who was already distinctively dead and actually buried some time back – I wonder if her stand ins are being financially rewarded for their sterling work – an over the top staged funeral to literally milk fickle British public sympathy in favour of a not that popular Charles, Liz’s incoming and pathetic successor! Yet the very intensely loving Camilla couldn’t even be that bothered to spend the night in the aftermath of Liz Windsor’s “funeral” earlier that day with this great love of a husband of hers allegedly grieving the loss of his dead mummy! Instead, it clearly was a strange case of Charles dropping Camilla off by helicopter at her place and then flying off directly afterwards to his own place of residence some considerable distance away. And they were supposedly grieving the passing of Liz? A most bloody strange way actually, for any married couple to behave let alone one that would basically have the ignorant world or more precisely the Brits and their ilk believe they’re so much in love (NOT!)   Charles’ totally unnecessary vanity parade is now actually going to cost us the taxpayers over £100 million Pounds Sterling and with the extra accorded bank holiday for the occasion will similarly too coast the UK’s economy an extra £6 billion Pounds in lost production according to the CBI. And all to “celebrate” the UK’s subservience to this one unremarkable, yet highly self-entitled family whose ancestors in conjunction with themselves stole the peoples’ lands and wealth, not only within the UK but likewise globally. So what are the chances of a rogue nuclear missile – it needn’t be a Russian, Chinese or a North Korean, it would easily be a US, UK or a NATO one accidentally going astray and blowing Westminster Abbey and all of its occupants to Kingdom come on the 6 May 2023. Now that frankly, and most gloriously would be an historic event truly worth celebrating!

[phoenixyfriend]

Rey Gives No F*cks About the Grandfather Paradox

Okay so since nobody’s suggested a fic under these terms, I ended up expanding on this post on discord and things snowballed. We kept to the basics of the entire plot revolving around Rey really hating her grandad and leveraging her blood relation to not be unalived about it.

With contributions by @atagotiak​, @dracothulhu​, @thepallaspalace​, and several others. The title comes from @gelpenss​.

The basic thing I absolutely need is this: Rey gets thrown back to the middle of the clone wars, and the subsequent plot leans in really heavily on her being, genetically-via-clone-dad, the daughter of the guy running the entire galaxy.

Nobody knows what to do with her.

The timing is mid-TCW for the past (because I want Ahsoka there) and vaguely between Episodes 8 and 9 because I... never watched E9 and don’t want to worry about the timeline. The only things that matter is that Luke is dead (he can die as he did in canon) and that Rey knows she’s Palp’s granddaughter (not the way she does in canon).

We'll say Luke found out from Anakin's panicked force-ghost and just went "well, fuck, okay, I should tell her this before she ends up in a situation like mine and finds out mid-battle or something."

Luke, prior to time-travel: Okay, so, now that I'm dead I know some things I didn't before. Like who your parents were. In the interest of full disclosure because I was in a very similar situation and I don't want you learning the way I did, I'm just going to come right out and say that your father was a clone was Sheev Palpatine. Rey: ... Luke: Are you okay? Rey: I don't know who that is.

(She grew up on Jakku, the history education was a little subpar.)

Setting The Scene

Imagine Rey showing up during or immediately before the clone wars. There’s this phenomenally powerful feral teenager from a desert backwater who tells you that if you ran a paternity test, it would probably pop up the Chancellor. She may or may not bring up cloning. She accuses said Chancellor of being a Sith Lord.

Your other phenomenally powerful feral teenager from a desert backwater, who may not be a teenager anymore but only barely, is very offended by this because Palpatine’s a Very Nice Old Grandfather Figure, but also he’s a little full of side-eye because if the blood test comes back as proof, then Palpatine had a kid and didn’t even know about them, or lied to Anakin, and that’s! Bad! Family’s important!!!

Palpatine hears about this daughter he apparently? Has? And is very confused because the timing doesn’t match up with ANYTHING he was doing, so the kid isn’t natural, and he says as much. (There is an explanation! It’s not a correct explanation, but he does come up with one.)

Finn and Poe and BB-8 all get dragged along because why not have the gang there? Nobody that’s already born, because [handwave] conservation of souls or something, IDK, point is the only person dragged along that’s even remotely close to already existing is Luke’s Force Ghost, who mostly hangs around begging Rey to be less impulsive. Finn is good because he is a nice polite boy, but for actual useful information they need Poe. The unfortunate situation is that the three do not land together. They land at the same time, in completely different corners of the galaxy. This means that nobody is there to curb Rey being her most impulsive self.

Time travel Rey knows two things. Luke’s dad ends up evil. Palpatine has always been evil.

She can solve one of these problems by killing the other, yes?

Rey: Ready to Rumble

See, the initial idea was this: Rey tried to break into the senate to kill Palpatine, got arrested, and then used the "he's biologically my father" card to get out of jail free. (Force Ghost Luke follows her like “please take five seconds to think this through.”)

But.

But.

It would be very, very, very funny if The Force just dumps her in a flash of light in the senate building and she just attacks Gramps on sight. Just a shouted "YOU!" and no-hesitation attempted murder.

Palpatine has no idea what's going on.

Rey took maybe two seconds to get identity confirmation and then started swinging.

[Image Description: An individual in a green metal helmet with an eye slit, holding a pistol. In the upper left, upper right, and lower middle are the phrases “I do not know who I am...” “I don’t know why I’m here” and “All I know is that I must kill.” End description.]

Of course, she gets arrested. There are Master Jedi in the Senate. There are Clone Troopers. Palpatine isn’t the weak old man he pretends to be. Of course she’s stopped.

But she isn’t executed in time for Palpatine to stop her from ruining his entire reputation.

Immediately after Rey fails to kill her Shitty Granddad, Luke's ghost shows up and begs her to not talk about the Sith thing because it will completely undermine everything she's trying to do. Pass off the attempted murder as something else!

Rey, panicking: "that fucker left me on a desert planet for 10 years!" "You owe me 19 years of child support you son of a Hutt!"

The Jedi have to do the investigation, because the girl showed up with a laser sword, and the conversation is, uh... interesting. (“Where did you get that lightsaber?” “I got it from a mysterious old pirate lady I never met before. I don't know, I was being shown around by a smuggler and a Wookie.”)

Interviewer: Why did you try to assassinate the Chancellor? Luke: Say it wasn't assassination. Rey: It wasn't assassination. Int: You weren't trying to kill him? Luke: Assassination has to be politically motivated. Rey: This was, um... not political. Assassination is political, right? Int: You mean this was personally motivated? Rey: Yes. Int: I see. What personal motivation? Luke: Jakku! Rey: He's my grandfather. Int: ... Rey: Possibly father. Nobody was very clear on that. Int: ... Luke: Tell them to run a paternity test. Rey: Oh hey, a blood test would tell us which, right? Int: ............ Rey: I spent ten years as an orphaned scrapdealer on Jakku. He's my father. I'm kind of a little angry. Int: ........... Luke: Good job, kid. You bought yourself some time. Int: I'm going to get a medic to see about that parternity test.

Obviously, it comes back positive. Congratulations, Sheev, you’re the father.

Rey comes with a ready-made built-in excuse for hating Palpatine that nobody can question or fault her for!

Rey, pouring Truth into the Force: I didn't even know I was related to the Chancellor until a few months ago, but it's his fault I grew up the way I did, and he should take some responsibility!

The entire thing is mostly kept hush hush but someone leaks it to the press and Palpatine's ratings tank.

"Chancellor, I think we'll need to waive family visitation until she wants you a little less dead." "I would like to find out why she wants me dead, and indeed, where she came from." "...sir, for your own safety--"

Who would win? A master plan years in the making spanning decades of manipulating and work? or One (1) paternity test

"Okay, so, Rey Palpat--" "Ew, no, I don't want his name." "You--okay. Sure, we can understand that. Is there a name you would prefer to put on the paperwork?" Rey, who would have gone by Skywalker in honor of Luke but can't do that when Anakin is right there and all: "Can I think about it?"

Rey: I don't know what I want my last name to be but I know I don't want his, and most of the people I’d want a name from have famous families like you... Luke's ghost, pointing out the Literal Nobody that she cares about a lot: How about Solo? Rey: ...Solo, then.

(A few months later she runs into Poe again and he offers for Finn and Rey to both take his name because honestly they need SOMETHING but at that point she’s already decided on Smuggler Dad.)

Backtrack a bit. We’ve got a bigger cast.

They all arrive separately. Poe, for one, does better than Rey, who is aiming for a murder, but not quite as well as Finn, who is currently being adopted and hidden like a secret cat by a bunch of Alpha Clones on Kamino. He vibes with the names-or-numbers thing. He doesn’t necessarily tell them where and when he’s from, but he’s very sweet and a great liar and they adopt him wholesale anyway.

The Finn situation is just... "Buir Ti, we need you to hide this man, we've decided he's our little brother but if Nala Se finds out she'll make him leave."

Of course, this leads into Shaak Ti teaching Finn how to Jedi.

Maybe consider Finn needing to almost be tricked into learning Jedi things because he willfully forgets it could apply to him. Finn does not like to think of himself as special, which is super valid, but frustrating for Shaak Ti when it comes to, you know, getting him to acquire knowledge. Finn's training at some point is "here, levitate objects with the Force to entertain the tubies." It’s a lot easier to convince him to practice when it involves the babies.

(Everyone on Kamino looked at Finn and went “oh I love him I’m keeping him and teaching him things.”)

(He’s just very lovable.)

Poe, meanwhile, buys the trust of Anakin Skywalker via R2D2 declaring BB-8 the absolute most baby of droids. R2D2 met BB-8 three hours ago but.

"Hey Obi-Wan this is Poe I met him like five days ago but R2D2 says he checks out because his droid is a baby." "That's nice, Anakin, did you know the Chancellor has a daughter who tried to assassinate him in broad daylight yesterday? Because guess who had to stop the Chancellor from getting assassinated by his daughter in broad daylight yesterday."

A summary so far:

Finn, on Kamino: Hey, um, I don't know where this is, but it's not where I was a few minutes ago. Do you think you could get me a comm? What's your name? Poe, on [dice roll] Denon: Oh, hey, you're General Skywalker? Nice to meet you, I'm so sorry about my droid, she's a little excitable and thought your R2 unit looked like a friend of hers-- Rey, on Coruscant: DIE, GRANDFATHER

Finn: [Peacefully vibing on Kamino, unaware of the chaos and bonding with the clones] Poe: [Trying to explain how he knows someone who tried to kill the chancellor and defend Rey] Rey: [Arrested for trying to kill the chancellor]

Just... just...

Anakin: Some guy ended up lost on base yesterday with his droid, how’s your day going? Obi-Wan: I had to stop someone who claims to be the chancellors daughter from murdering the chancellor after she seemingly blinked into existence in the Senate building. Poe: 😐

(Poe: Oh, so that's where Chaos^2 went.)

Poe: In her defense, she is his... well we don't know if she's his daughter or granddaughter, but she's definitely related to him, and she definitely grew up in a shitty situation that was his fault, so...

(Poe is trying very hard to explain this and not get arrested on the military base.)

As you’ve probably guessed, what's especially funny about all of this for me is the fact that Palpatine is fully aware that this girl shouldn't exist, but can't find a single piece of evidence about where she came from. He didn't start any experiments that could result in a female child, and he didn't have sex in that period of time, so where the hell--

Rey spends so much time in jail... BUT they do eventually assign her a Jedi Master. Possibly before she actually proves her evil grandfather is in fact evil. Most votes went to either Plo Koon or Obi-Wan. Plo, because he’s dad-shaped, and Obi...

"Obi-Wan, you already raised one feral desert child with implausible amounts of power, you handle this." Rey in return is very "Sweet, you vaguely remind me of Master Luke," and nobody knows who the hell she's talking about. Obi-Wan is NOT on board with this plan, she'd really be better off with Plo or like........ Mace.

Reunion Tour

What I need out of this is the eventual Finn and Rey reunion scene that is just excited screaming while someone in the background explains to Shaak Ti that yes this is apparently Palpatine's terrifyingly force-sensitive daughter who hates him.

(Finn senses Rey’s approach and just. Gathers the everyone to wait. He’s just :D REY MY FRIEND REY GUYS MY FRIEND REY IS COMING.)

Anakin shows up with Poe--just a guy who signed on to the military, no big deal--and then Poe and Rey are EXCITED and everyone's just like "Cool, how do you know this literal terrorist child?" And Poe has to scramble and "Uhhhhhhhhhhhh she saved my droid from a scrapheap once and BB-8 is basically my child so I owe her one."

Rey knows that Anakin ends up evil so she’s maybe not actively hostile but definitely very “I’m watching you.” That said, she vibes with him on a lot of things that he maybe doesn’t actively notice.

Rey picks up a snake, snaps off the head for venom avoidance, and starts biting off chunks. Obi-Wan's reaction: [undisguised horror] Anakin and Ahsoka: Ooh, where'd you find that? (Obi-Wan: And now I’m up to three feral children.)

What Does Palpatine Even Do?

OBVIOUSLY at a certain point, Palpatine is just phoning up every ally he has to figure out who broke protocol to synthesize a daughter for him.

So of course, Palpatine blame Plagueis.

She'd have been born five or so years before Naboo, just a few years younger than Anakin. It's such an EASY theory to build a conspiracy around. It is ENTIRELY WRONG, but it’s plausible! And anyone who might have been involved to say otherwise is probably dead!

A random bio-kid shows up you can’t possibly have contributed genes to? Maybe it’s the evil bio spark that did it.

Palpatine tries to placate her with the ‘my genes were stolen for an experiment and I didn’t know’ thing. It doesn’t work because her actual main complaint is he’s evil in her future but he tries.

It'd be a struggle to even get access to her, because of the aforementioned “maybe don’t try to talk to the daughter(?) that hates you” thing, but you know who Palpatine does have access to? The Chosen One.

Rey kind of decides on her favorites early on (she gravitates to Dad Energy and Sad Old Men so Plo and Obi-Wan are on her list, and that means decent time around Anakin and Ahsoka). It's really easy to talk Anakin into helping to some degree because "he'd like to connect to a daughter he never knew" and "a child of her power on a planet like that, you'd know her struggle, my dear boy" and so on. Anakin tries to connect! He tries to play up Sheev’s kind political work and how it can’t have really been his fault! It doesn’t work. Rey does not believe a word of it. Mostly she doesn’t even seem to hear him.

Rey's just like "...oh right, you're the melted mask that Kylo Ren was always ranting about," which means absolutely NOTHING to Anakin, but he mentions it to Palps, who loses his goddamn mind trying to figure out what she's talking about, because it also means absolutely nothing to him.

Here’s the thing: Rey’s already decided that Obi-Wan is cool, because Luke said so, and Plo Koon is dad-shaped, and she also gravitates towards earnest kindness in general, like she made friends with Finn real quick, so Ahsoka? Already getting along great.

She doesn’t dislike Anakin, really, he isn’t evil yet, he’s just... meh. She’s a little suspicious and she likes him less than the others but... Anakin.

Rey, to Anakin: You are my least favorite. Anakin, to Palpatine: YOUR DAUGHTER HATES ME???

And he goes from “she’s a lil standoffish” to “she doesn’t like me” to “she hates me” as is normal for Anakin.

It’s just an escalation of this one time Palpatine wants Anakin to not have rifts and trust issues with a person, at least not until later, because he needs information.

Meanwhile, that very moment, Rey is just like "huh, nobody here is listening to me about how make a sixth-hand carburetor work, where's Luke's dad?"

Anakin is venting to Palpatine about how hard it is to talk to Rey, and she's over in the Temple just like "Hey, that guy was useful last time, I should ask him," but also she only ever thinks of him as Luke's Dad.

(At one point, Obi-Wan is having a bit of a break down, and then Anakin starts having a breakdown about that, meanwhile the clones are (badly) trying to hide Finn behind their backs, Rey is watching Ahsoka practice and being like "I want two lightsabers," and Poe is trying to keep R2 from stealing BB-8 and Force Ghost Luke is just face palming in the background.)

(Rey deserved a saber staff, maybe one that can detach and turn into a jar’kai set. Possibly a pike. Mostly I just wish she got more chances to whack things with a big stick.)

#Rey #Finn #Poe Dameron #Sheev Palpatine #Luke Skywalker #Anakin Skywalker #Obi Wan Kenobi #Darth Sidious #Plo Koon #Shaak Ti #Ahsoka Tano #r2d2 #bb 8 #star wars #time travel #Rey and the Grandfather Paradox #Phoenix Posts

[jojaqualityheadcanons]

SDV's 1.5 update contains content that plays into racist, colonialist, and imperialist myths and beliefs.

Disclaimer: I loved SDV (which is a given, considering I have an SDV sideblog lol?), and I'm not writing this post to get people to boycott the game or stop liking it or whatever. I just want people to understand why this content is harmful, how it might be affecting your biases and beliefs, and think of how they can engage with this media without exacerbating the harm that it does. I'm Filipino, and I don't speak for all POC or all brown people, but I felt deeply hurt and betrayed by the content update. Please keep that in mind before you interact with this post. Explanation under the cut because of 1.5 spoilers (obviously) and because this got long.

(I will block people who clown on this post. Keep your opinions to yourself unless you also have firsthand experience with the issues I describe.)

Background

I was already wary of the 1.5 content update because of how the previews featured ~tropical~ and ~exotic~ stuff, but I decided to give it a shot because maybe I was being too hasty with my judgment.

I wasn't. I made a new save to play with the 1.5 content update, and at first, I was having a great time! The new special orders made gameplay more exciting and varied! I could finally get rid of the nursery from my house without mods! The remixed junimo bundles made me change my usual game strategy. And then, I finally unlocked Ginger Island.

It seemed cool at first, but I had a sinking feeling growing in the pit of my stomach as I kept playing. It got to the point that I started nursing a stomach ache and lots of anger that took me days to shake off. I know SDV has never been a shining example of racial/ethnic diversity and sensitivity (I mean... there's a reason why mods like Diverse Stardew Valley and a bunch of other diversity mods exist lol). But while the lack of diversity in the pre-1.5 content is more of a missed opportunity, the 1.5 content is just... actively harmful and hurtful, imo. Here's a breakdown of the issues with the setting and the characters:

The Setting

Ginger Island, along with the Fern Islands in general, is a tropical island that is clearly based on islands in the Pacific. Its features include fertile soil and an abundance of natural, foragable resources. And for some unknown reason, it has no native human population.

Many islands in the world are uninhabited by humans, and there's always a good reason why. The island's environment may be too hostile, it could be too small to sustain human life, it could be sacred or otherwise culturally unacceptable to live there, or some disaster may have occurred to wipe out the local population or cause them to flee. Some uninhabited islands are nature reserves or privately owned. The point is that if an island is habitable, people are bound to call it home.

Writing Ginger Island as an uninhabited "tropical paradise" feels like a copout. It's as if the game is saying, "don't worry, you're not colonizing this land because no one really lives here! You're not stealing this land or anything because it's up for grabs and is just waiting for the right person to come along to develop it and turn it into a resort for other people who don't live here!" But that claim rings hollow when there are so many signs of civilization there, such as literal computers and ancient structures. And the canon reason for the existence of these things is that dwarves, non-human creatures, lived there once. I just think it's ridiculous and harmful that the game completely ignores and erases the existence of the people who lived and still live in the places that Ginger Island is based on and goes even further to use non-human creatures as stand-ins. I don’t think I have to explain why this isn’t good, considering that people of color have been compared to animals and treated like animals to dehumanize us and justify our oppression for ages.

To really hammer in my point about whitewashing and erasure, all the human labor on the island is done by a flock of parrots that you pay with golden walnuts (i. e., resources that you get for free from the island they live on). There's even an anthropomorphized bird who's a shopkeep! I get that creating a whole cast of human NPCs to fill a town would have been way too much work for a content update, but CA didn't need to use a bunch of animals as stand-ins for non-white human characters. There’s a troubling trend of creators prioritizing animal characters over characters of color, and CA plays right into it. He seriously chose to create more anthro characters instead of adding characters of color to the game in a setting that in real life has populations that are primarily made up of brown people. The game includes brown people's land and cultures, but it draws the line at brown people themselves.

The erasure of brown people and the portrayal of our lands as wild and untamed have been used to sanitize the narrative of colonialism for centuries. Pretending that our lands were wild tropical paradises that were ripe for the taking is pretending that colonizing forces didn't use violent, dehumanizing means to subjugate or wipe out countless peoples and cultures in order to make these lands available. Ginger Island's erasure of brown people just perpetuates this colonialist myth, and the context in which it does so disgusts me: the farmer, who already runs a successful farm that was inherited from their grandfather, goes off to a tropical island they have no personal connection to and uses its natural resources to expand their business further. They also open up a resort on the island for the enjoyment of other privileged people from their homeland, and going there is treated as a luxury. This is a classic colonizer narrative, and I cannot believe the game forces players to colonize an island in order to win.

The Characters

I'm honestly amazed that the amount of feedback about the lack of diversity in SDV didn't prompt CA to create characters of color. I'm amazed that he chose the setting he did and still didn't bother to create any characters of color. The fact that all three of the new human characters who live on this tropical island are white makes me go a little apeshit, to be honest! I hate all three of them for a variety of reasons, so I'll go over them one by one:

Birdie

My reasons for not liking Birdie are primarily related to misogyny (lady spent literal decades in isolation on this island moping over her dead husband?) and ageism (if you tell her to live her own life, she tells you that she's too old to???). Sooo they're not really related to the rest of my discussion here, and I won't get into them further. Moving on!

Professor Snail

White historians, archaeologists, and paleontologists have been stealing and plundering artifacts, relics, and fossils from colonized lands for centuries. These white scientists would send their “discoveries” back to their homelands with little regard for the people they stole from. I’ll acknowledge that Professor Snail doesn’t bring the bones and fossils off the island, so his character isn’t as awful as it could be, but he still canonically has this line:

I really just don’t understand why it was necessary to make this character white when making him a character of color could have easily prevented the uncomfortable real-world implications of a white man coming to a foreign land to plunder fossils without asking anybody for permission. If he he’d been created as someone who traced his ancestry to Ginger Island and wanted to study the island’s biological history, his character could have been so sympathetic and even admirable to me! But his character as it is just makes me think of this meme:

Here are some links for further reading about colonialism in paleontology and other social sciences: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Leo

I had a hard time figuring out how to write about this character because the way CA wrote him is arguably one of the most racist parts of SDV. So many aspects of his character left me speechless and appalled because I cannot believe people are still writing shit like this in the 2020s.

I’ll start off with his storyline: this white child gets stranded on an island and is raised by animals. When the farmer meets him, he speaks in broken English to show how “wild” he is:

As the farmer continues to interact with him, he begins to speak more “proper” English:

Wow... he’s becoming more “civilized” because of the farmer’s influence!

As his story progresses, he reveals that he’s lonely because he doesn’t fit in among the other birds. Eventually, he leaves behind his non-human family and assimilates into a primarily white, Western-coded society because that’s supposedly where he belongs.

This whole storyline is made possible by the problems with the setting that I mentioned earlier. Leo wouldn’t feel so lonely and out of place if there were people on the island. He wouldn’t be depicted as wild and animal-like if he had an adoptive family made up of humans instead of parrots. But because CA chose not to have native human characters on this island, Leo can only be around other people if he leaves his home and family behind. As a result, Leo’s story has very uncomfortable parallels with how colonizers have historically separated indigenous children from their families and cultures and forced them to assimilate into the dominant colonizer culture because they considered indigenous cultures to be savage and barbaric (1) (2).

Leo’s whole narrative unintentionally implies that a good life in a good community can only be had in civilized white Western societies. I’m honestly having trouble with further explaining why Leo’s whole character makes me feel so gross, so just read up on the White Man’s Burden, The Jungle Book and other works by Rudyard Kipling (1) (2) (3) (4) (5, PDF download link), and even Tarzan (1) (2).

Leo’s character is also used to further whitewash non-white cultures: 

Poi is a Polynesian dish. Mango sticky rice, which is also a recipe that Leo teaches you in-game, is a Thai dish. In the letter, Leo says that the dish is from his home and enjoyed by his non-human family. Considering that he probably learned these recipes on Ginger Island, and that the only “people” who could have taught him this recipe are literal animals, including these recipes in the game in this way just reinforces the equation of brown people to animals. I’m not Polynesian or Thai, but I know that if CA had included a Filipino recipe in the game and not only had it taught to players by a white character, but also passed off as something from the white character’s culture, I’d be angry. I’ll repeat myself: The game features brown people's food and cultures, but it draws the line at brown people themselves.

I don’t think there’s any way to tweak or edit Leo’s character to fix the issues I described. No matter how we change things, he’s still an orphan raised by animals coded as indigenous people, and he assimilates into the dominant white Western culture. The only way to address these issues is to completely redo his character and even the setting of Ginger Island. Here are some options that I’ve thought of:

Leo is related to someone in the Valley and stays with them for part of the year.

Leo lives with his human family and community on Ginger Island.

Leo’s parents are specifically from Stardew Valley/Pelican Town and he wants to visit in order to reconnect with his heritage.

This list isn’t comprehensive, but it does show that there are so many alternatives to having yet another Mowgli story in Stardew Valley.

Conclusion

I don’t think that CA had bad intentions when he made this content, but the fact is that he did create this content. I’m not calling him a bad person. However, he does have a lot of racist, imperialist, and colonialist biases that he has yet to unlearn. Considering the setting and subject matter of the new 1.5 content, he really should have hired some sensitivity readers to avoid creating harmful content. The man’s sold over ten million copies of his game, and he certainly has the resources to put together a sensitivity team.

I can’t look at Stardew Valley the same way I did before 1.5, but I’m not going to condemn the game as a whole. I might play the game again someday, but I absolutely won’t be going back to Ginger Island. If you’ve enjoyed the Ginger Island content, then good for you! Please just keep all that I’ve written here in mind and accept that that content hurts some people like me.

If you’re a content creator, I urge you to get sensitivity readers if you’re featuring  cultures that you’re not a part of to avoid making the same mistakes that I’ve discussed here. Creating from a place of understanding and respect can only make your work better and more accessible to a wider audience, especially to the people whose culture you’re borrowing.

#stardew valley #sdv #sdv leo #sdv birdie #sdv professor snail #racism cw #imperialism #colonialism #blabbering #ids for images are in alt text btw!

[alyssadeliv]

The Forgotten One

First      Previous

Chapter 12

They were going to the zoo. Richard had decided that after two months of her living in the Manor it was time to have some family bonding time. It didn’t matter that most of her time in the last months was used to get to know her new extended family or get reacquainted with her old one. 

He was adamant that she needed the full Gothamite experience, so here they were on a Friday afternoon on a crowded metro, listening as the oldest one tried and explained how Metro’s worked to her. He was so happy, gesticulating and smiling, that she didn’t have the heart to tell him that she indeed knew how the metro worked, having lived in Paris for almost two full years.

After Damian, Richard was her favorite sibling, mostly because she had always seen him as a role model, as part of her training had been inspired by him and his trapeze maneuvers, but she did enjoy the warmth that she tended to feel when he was around. He was patient and had no problem explaining pop culture references to her. Not that she didn't enjoy spending time with her other siblings, it was just that Richard went out of his way to make her feel accepted.

Tim was a very busy person, and their interactions were reserved to 3 a.m. coffee hunts. He wasn’t bad, just closed off, and a little wary of her after his first experience with Damian. Not that she could blame him. But she was a bit closer to his girlfriend, Stephanie Brown, who would come to have dinner at the Manor every week. 

And there was Jason. She refused to address him as her brother, that would just be plain weird. After the initial shock of finding each other again had worn out, it had taken a few weeks for them to finally address the elephant in the room. She could tell that he had struggled with the news that she was Bruce’s biological daughter.

“Dick, maybe speed the lecture a bit so we can still get to the zoo before it closes.” Jason was leaning casually against a wall, finding this whole situation funny. He was wearing jeans and his red leather jacket, nothing special, but if she was honest he looked rather handsome. 

“It’s fine Jaybird, I was just wrapping it up!” He says with a smile, just in time for them to catch the next wagon. Because they spent at least 25 minutes listening to Richard’s lesson, the metro had emptied a bit so they were able to find seats. It was just the three of them, the others would meet them there, after being picked up by Alfred, Damian after school, and Timothy after a meeting. 

“So… I know Bruce said not to ask, but I’ve been dying to know…” Richard starts unsure, afraid to cross a line. They were lucky to score seats in the same section, she was seated with Jason by her side, with Richard in front of him facing them both. “But how exactly did you two meet, I mean it was obviously at… Tibet-'' He caught himself before he could out them as members of the League, you never knew who could be listening in their conversation, so better safe than sorry. “- but why do you know Jason, but Damian didn’t?” 

With a glance to the side, she was more than happy to allow Jason to explain that part. In the two months she lived at the Manor she saw how much they wanted to ask about their relationship, but kept their distance. Aside from Damian, they didn’t feel the need to inform the family about their past. 

“Well, Pixie Pop here was the one to train me for the duration of my time in the Temple. Kicked my ass more times than I can count.” He says with a smirk, while casually butting an arm on the back of her seat. “She taught me most of what I know”

“Most of it?” She was indignant, but the smile on her face betrayed her true emotions.

“To be fair B didn’t totally suck as a parent.” She knew that he and Father didn’t have the best relationship after he came back from his time at the League, but according to Damian, it used to be way worse, not that she would know. Richard seems content with their explanation and didn't demand more information, even if he desperately wanted to. He respects their boundaries, and that only makes her like him more.

When they got to the zoo, Damian and Timothy were already there, but surprisingly Stephanie had tagged along, so now she wasn’t the only female in the group anymore, not that she cared, but she liked her brother’s girlfriend so the surprise was appreciated. 

She had never been to the zoo before, just to see the attractions. The times she went to fight an Akuma did not count. It was a bit sad seeing all these animals stuck in a cage, and she could tell her brother felt the same. Damian always had a soft spot for animals, and would not tolerate if they were being mistreated. Not surprisingly, the Waynes made annual donations to the zoo to ensure that all the animals were well taken care of. When she first heard about that she was glad that Father cared about Damian’s interests enough to pay to support every zoo and animal shelter in the city. It helped ease her guilt for abandoning him for two years knowing that now she was not the only one who cared for him.

They spend the rest of the afternoon enjoying the animals. And Dick was glad he chose to go to the zoo as a family bonding experience. When Damian first came into the family he had taken him there, after discovering that his younger brother absolutely adored animals and he was happy to see that Marianne liked it as well.  

Efficient as always, Alfred was already there waiting for them the minute they crossed the exit of the building. As she came to know, the men seemed to have a six sense when it came to all of them. Just by his aura, she could tell he wasn’t someone you wanted to cross, but she could see how much he loved each one of his grandchildren (because she could never kid herself to think of him any less than a Grandfather).

“I assume that today's activities were enjoyable.” The butler asks as he opens the back door of the limo for them. Richard enters first thanking the men.

“It was acceptable” Damian voices, as he too enters the vehicle.  

It was a bit of a ride, seeing that the Manor was almost outside of Gotham, but she didn’t mind. Seated between Richard and Damian she spent most of the journey chatting with everyone. But by the time they arrived at the house everyone was a bit tired, so dinner was a relatively small affair. But not uneventful, because as revenge for Bruce bailing on family day, the boys started sharing with her all the shenanigans of her father’s public persona, Brucie Wayne. It was amusing to see this new side to her father, always so reserved and serious. 

“If you are all finished sharing Master Bruce's embarrassing moments, I believe it is time for patrol.”  Alfred as always came to defuse the situation before it could implode. 

Because she spent most of the last two years fighting almost every single day, she decided that she needed some rest from her hero lifestyle. Even after her father asked if she would like to accompany them on patrols, she decided to turn it down for now. So while her family directed themselves to the cave, she made her way into her suite. 

It was a beautiful room. Although the color scheme wasn’t something she would have picked herself, it fit with the furniture rather nicely, and her artist side appreciated that. The room itself was simple, but the red colors and the dark wood made the room seem cozier than it was. With a double bed with a canopy, two bedside tables, a vanity with a mirror, and a wardrobe, it had everything she needed. Her Father had encouraged her to decorate her room the way she wanted, and she had been tempted to do so, but ultimately decided to wait until she settled into her role as a family member before she went and added more change to the mix. What she had been very close to doing was adding a desk so she could draw and design, but after she discovered that there was a big one in the library just a few doors from her room, she dismissed the idea.  

Quickly she showered and changed into something more comfortable than her street attire, before exiting the room and making her way into the library. It wasn’t as big as the one downstairs, but it had a big balcony that overlooked the gardens, so she liked to just sit in a shadow and sketch away. Damian had been kind enough to spare one of his unused sketchbooks and some pencils, knowing that she liked to draw just as much as he did. She leaned forward into the railing resting her arms and head, but still looking upwards.

The sun had already set, and she was glad that they were far enough away from the city that she could see some stars in the sky. Having lived in Paris, she had really missed all the stars she could see at night from her home on the League. One of her studies had been about the Astros, so she spent a lot of time as a kid contemplating the skies. 

“It’s going to rain soon” A voice comes from behind her. Without having to turn around she knew who it was. A smile appears on her face.

“Aren’t you supposed to be getting ready for patrol?” She asks, straightening her body, but still not turning around. She could feel the person getting closer to her until she felt a presence at her side. 

“That’s the whole point. It's gonna rain.” He carries a hint of humor in his tone “And besides I prefer to keep you company, Pretty Girl. Besides, I believe Red Hood deserves one night off. The guy has been working hard.” He jokes.

With a smile she finally faces him. He had showered and changed, and without his red jacket, he looked so relaxed. It reminded her of their time in the League. Like that he looked so much like the angry boy she helped train. So young and while broken, so full of life and fight in him. He smirks at her but turns his face upwards to look at the night. 

“You always did love the stars.” He commented, not looking at her. “It’s sad that here you can't see them as much.” 

“It’s not that bad. In Paris, you couldn't see any. It was sad, but to be fair the whole city more than compensated for that. It’s beautiful there.” She recalled all the times she went on a midnight stroll around the city, just enjoying the architecture. “I could spend eternity drawing all the details in the buildings.” 

“Do you miss it?” He asks, looking at her. His tone is neutral, but by his body language, she can tell he’s anxious for her answer. She had always been good at reading him, and she was glad that their time apart had not changed that. 

“In a way…” 

She sighs.

“I liked the city, but I spent most of my time there fighting and training. Not much different from before. It was like everything changed but was still the same. To be completely honest… I miss our time at the League the most.” She confesses but hurriedly continues. “Don’t get me wrong, it was hard! But still… at the same time…”

“I get it.” He interrupts her. He has a small side smile, and the dimples on his face make her want to freeze this moment and draw him so she could eternalize him. Instead, she gets closer to him, seeking comfort in his presence at her side. He embraces her. Securing her in his arms, her body pressed against his, her head buried in his chest.

It was funny to think that the most capable woman to take care of herself he knew, chose to be vulnerable around him. It made him feel loved.

“I miss it too.” He whispered in her ear. She raises her head, just enough that she can see his face without removing herself from his arms. Staying like this reminds her of all the nights he used to sneak into her chambers. And they would talk and hold each other for hours. It felt like it was just yesterday the first time he got the better of her.

“Focus!” She yelled while landing a kick at his unprotected left side. “You are unbalanced- in three moves I could have you on the ground again” She punched him to his right, but he was able to block her and tried to deliver a punch of his own. His knuckles were bloodied, and he knew that in the morning his ribs would hurt. But at this moment he was high on adrenaline. She dodged. 

They were training for what felt like hours. But both were too stubborn to ask for the fight to end. 

But just as promised, in three more moves he was on the ground. He tried to get back on his feet to continue with the fight but was stopped by a foot on his torso.

“That’s enough.” She helps him to get on his feet. “You were great! You could have overpowered me so many times! I left you so many openings!” She laughs. This was routine for them. After a fight, Marianne was usually so pumped with adrenaline that she spoke at a mile per hour. “We really need to work on your tactics this week. Oh! You also need to improve your stance, you’ve been favoring your right side too much. I know your ribs hurt but you still need to protect your body as a whole.” She comments only stopping to take a large sip of water. “Well, I am spent.”

“You’re spent? I’m the one that has been eating dirt for the whole hour!” He complains indignantly. She tossed a water bottle in his direction, which he grabs and happily finishes in a single gulp.

“Just another reason you need to study more!” She grins. And turns to exit the room, and while walking to the door turns to him again. 

“See you in a bit” She winks. 

When they meet again they are in her room. She’s seated on the bed sketching some view, while Jason sits on the floor sharpening his knife. They chat casually for some time, but ultimately end speaking about their training session earlier. 

“That move would have totally worked!” He exclaims, knife long forgotten he now kneels facing her bed. 

“There’s where you are wrong, you need strength on your fist on both sides to push my torso, otherwise I would easily be able to doge only one. You need two punches at different sides in succession for you to distract your opponent!” She explains in a hurry. Her thoughts jumped around her head. 

“No way! If it’s strong enough, only one is needed!” He argues.

Worked up she threw her notebook to the side, forgotten. In a second she was up, signaling for him to do the same.

“There is no way. Stand there, pretend to be in stance.” She directs, and without a second thought, he complies. “Okay, so I come for your right side first, you are stronger there.” 

Her movements are slowed, as she demonstrates the move. “That’s going to distract you, and keep you focused on your stronger side, leaving your weaker one unprotected.” She shows him where he left an opening for her. “So all I need to do now is strike again, focusing more strength now. Either a punch or a kick would do the trick.” As she goes to demonstrate her point, he grabs the incoming slow punch and pulls her into his body. 

Unprepared she loses her balance, falling into his chest. In a second he secures her with his other arm, keeping her in his embrace. She feels her face burning with embarrassment. He caught her by surprise, and she felt ashamed.

“Hey that wasn't fai-” But he silences her, bringing his face closer to hers and giving her a heated kiss. It lasts for some time, but when they finally separate themselves he has a grin on his face.

“Just to be clear, I knew the move wouldn’t have worked. You just look cute when you're angry.” 

And before she can protest he shuts her up with another kiss.

So this is by far the biggest chapter! Hope ya’ll like it! We finally get the story behind Jason and Marianne. Let me know what you think!

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[goodqueenaly]

there is a fan theory is that Robert Arryn is actually the son of Baelish and Lysa, rather than Jon and Lysa. I thought this seemed pretty plausible, cause why would Baelish kill Robert when keeping him alive means he is regent and de-facto ruler of the vale longer than with Harry the heir. Then someone added that Baelish needs Robert dead because if he grows older, people might see a physical resemblance between him and Baelish. What are your thoughts on this?

I don't believe Robert Arryn is Petyr Baelish's biological child. (Long, more under the cut.)

Consider the evidence. Sure, Lysa and Petyr were in physical proximity to one another during his tenure in the royal government (though what Littlefinger's exact start date was as a member of the central government or master of coin is unclear, meaning it's impossible to verify whether the timelines match up; likewise, it's unclear what amount of time Lysa was spending in the capital versus in the Eyrie, as she was certainly in both during her marriage). Lysa was obviously extremely physically attracted to Baelish, and Robert shares some general physical features with Littlefinger in being small and brown-haired (although it's worth noting that Robert Arryn was very possibly if not probably born premature, which might contribute to his small size, and that Robert's maternal grandfather Hoster Tully also had brown hair).

However, there are a number of statements which suggest that there was no physical relationship between them during her marriage to Jon Arryn. Lysa herself certainly seems to have believed Robert was Jon's son, given her confidence that "the seed is strong" was Jon "want[ing] everyone to know what a good strong boy my baby was going to be", since "Jon knew" that Robert was "strong too". While Lysa's declaration to Petyr that "after all these years of silence and whisperings" she "mean[t] to scream" during sex with him might suggest they had carried on a (literally) quiet sexual affair prior, Lysa's note to Sansa that "[t]hat [i.e. Littlefinger coming to King's Landing] was hard, to see him every day and still be wed to that old cold man" seems to indicate a distinction in Lysa's mind between what she could do with Littlefinger (in her mind, frustratingly little) and what she had to do as Jon Arryn's wife (which would have included Jon Arryn's right under Westerosi law to demand sex from her whenever he liked). Likewise, that Littlefinger found the idea of sex with Lysa unappealing seems clear: not only does he twice note - to Ned and then Tyrion - that "when you find yourself naked with an ugly woman, the only thing to do is close your eyes and get on with it", but the latter instance happened explicitly in the context of considering sex with Lysa (Littlefinger having prefaced the statement with "I may need to bed Lysa Arryn again to get her consent to this marriage"); this is not to say that Littlefinger could never have had sex with her - as he certainly did when he married her in ASOS - but rather that he seems to have regarded sex with her as an unpleasant situation he would only undertake out of necessity. (Note too that even when he did marry Lysa, he attempted to delay sex with her by arguing that they should be married at the Eyrie instead of his keep.) Perhaps most damningly, Lysa's last confession included her declaration that "I would have given you a son too, but they murdered him" - in other words, a speculative, unrealized wish on Lysa's part which in no way can refer to Robert himself (who is never mentioned in Lysa's declarations, despite her not hiding anything else, including premarital sex with Littlefinger and the poison plot with Jon Arryn). (This, incidentally, is the context in which I think we should take Lysa's insistence that "I want us to make another child"; she knew that she created a child once with Baelish, and she knew that this child was forcibly aborted, without her getting the chance to make a happy domestic life with herself, Petyr, and their child.)

So think about how Littlefinger would have approached the situation. Littlefinger is someone who likes to dangle promises in front of people, then snatch back the realization of those promises once those people have exhausted their usefulness to him; we see this with Dontos Hollard (promising him a huge amount of money to smuggle Sansa out of the city, then murdering him once he had done it); we see this with the Tyrells (likely indirectly promising them Sansa for their help in poisoning Joffrey, then stealing Sansa himself at the Purple Wedding), and we see this with Sansa (promising to take her home, then actually taking her to the Vale so that she can be part of whatever his master plan is), among others. It seems reasonable that Littlefinger would have taken the same approach with Lysa, at least during their time in King's Landing; as Dontos desperately wanted money, the Tyrells Sansa, and Sansa home, so Littlefinger might have seen that Lysa - separated from the one person she loved after enduring a horrific abortion, then married off to a man four decades her senior purely for the political and dynastic gain of her father - desperately wanted love and intimacy, especially from someone she loved. It would be completely in his pattern to dangle a similar promise before her: he had the thing Lysa wanted - intimacy with him - and he would withhold it so long as she wanted it, the better to assure that she would do what he wanted her to do.

Littlefinger also would have had his own neck to worry about. He of all people would have known the virtually impassable abyss of rank between himself and Lysa (and certainly as it would have been while he was on the small council): if he had been very nearly violently beaten to death by Brandon Stark for daring to think himself worthy to marry Catelyn Tully, he could have imagined what might happen if it were discovered that he was engaged in a sexual affair with Lysa Arryn, née Tully. Even if Lysa would probably not have accused Littlefinger of raping her, as Mathis Rowan's daughter is said to have done with Dareon, Lysa might not have had the chance to defend him at all; it might simply have been assumed, by virtue of their having sex, that Littlefinger must have forced himself on her (and so might have found himself tried for rape and executed or sent to the Wall). At best, he would have been seen as assisting a married woman far above him in rank commit adultery against her (likewise very high-ranking) husband; the least punishing outcome for him would have been permanent banishment from court, back to a miserable existence on the Fingers as "one step up from a hedge knight". Would this really have been a risk worth taking for him, especially when he could avoid doing so?

So no, I think that Littlefinger purposefully avoided sex with Lysa during their time together in the capital. I think Littlefinger realized that he had a lot more power over Lysa as someone who both represented and withheld what she really wanted than as someone who gave that desire to her directly. I think he exploited that power dynamic with Lysa, being around just enough to remind her that she wanted him while not actually giving her anything. I also think that Lysa was regularly having sex with Jon Arryn (as the timing of her pregnancies seems to indicate), not out of any personal desire for Jon but out of a shared desire on both parties' part for more children (as much as Lysa seems to have wanted children for the sake of having children, Jon himself had married Lysa expressly because he was out of an heir and believed Lysa fertile enough to give him one). I think that Robert is simply the sole surviving product of that regular sexual activity between the Arryns.

But even if it were the case that Robert were the biological child of Petyr Baelish, I think it is important to clarify a few things. One, at no point does Baelish even remotely show any sort of understanding that Robert is his child, much less resembles him. Far from it, in fact: not only is he dismissive, annoyed, and outright mean to and about Robert (contrasted with Sansa's clear care for him), but he is also actively poisoning Robert, encouraging the maester to give Robert what he, Littlefinger, has every reason to know will kill him sooner rather than later. I also don't see any evidence that this is happening because Littlefinger thinks Robert is his son and wants to remove him before Robert looks like him; again, Baelish is doing nothing to even remotely suggest the idea that Robert in any way looks like him, even when he is telling his plans to Sansa and not attempting to hide anything.

Too, no one else - literally no one - even hints at the idea that Robert is anything other than Jon Arryn's son. There is no whispering in the byways of the Eyrie (as there is about the parentage of Mya Stone, for instance); Sansa isn't wondering about Robert's personal appearance compared to Littlefinger's. Indeed, the Lords Declarant were extremely insistent on defending the rights of Robert Arryn as the heir of Lord Jon and taking him away from Littlefinger, not denouncing Robert as Baelish's bastard. And what would they base such a claim on anyway? The fact that Robert has brown hair (which, again, could be easily explained by Hoster Tully)? The fact that he's small (which, again, could be attributed to his general "sickliness", an argument assisted by Lysa's history of poor reproductive health)? The fact that Littlefinger and Lysa were in general proximity in the past decade? It's an incredibly weak argument with no source of proof - the only people who would know for sure are the dead Lysa and Littlefinger himself, who would be unlikely to admit to it even if it were true - and much more easily supplanted by the idea that Robert is not long for this world.

(This is where I think it is important to avoid reader presentism and assumptions about the beliefs of characters. GRRM usually plays pretty fair as an author; if he wants the reader to make a connection, he's going to have the characters spell out the connection. If Littlefinger isn't suggesting that Robert is his son, and no one else in the Vale is suggesting that Robert is Littlefinger's son, and the author already planted plenty of evidence that Littlefinger and Lysa did not sleep together during the former's time in the capital, and Robert is almost certainly going to die from poisoning soon anyway would it really make sense for the story to say "Surprise! Actually he was Baelish's son the whole time!"? What would be the gain for the story in that?)

I don't think the idea of Robert being his child, or suspected of being so, ever crossed Littlefinger's mind (in no small part because I think he knows he never slept with Lysa). Littlefinger is killing Robert not out of some elaborate fear of potentially being accused of being Robert's true father, but because Robert simply gets in his way of whatever Littlefinger's ultimate plan is with Sansa. In Littlefinger's mind, I think, Robert is an annoying, uncontrollable, spoiled brat of a lordling who will only get more annoying and difficult to puppet with time (and time which Littlefinger may not even get, given the pressures of the Vale's bluebloods to remove him from power). By contrast, in Littlefinger's mind Sansa is both the fantasy daughter he never had with Catelyn and his fantasy version of Catelyn - beautiful, highborn, but completely in his power (again, so he believes). I think Littlefinger wants to be in a position where he is both totally in control of Sansa and totally in control of as much power politics as he can through Sansa. If he marries Sansa to Harry Hardyng - hardly the most intellectually impressive of characters - and oh so sad Robert happens to die, then Littlefinger is running the joint Vale-North takeover through Sansa (with Harry as little more than a convenient male mouthpiece).

Finally, I think it's worth noting that when GRRM himself was asked this question, his response was to say that "[s]o far as anyone knows", Jon Arryn was Robert's father, and that "[w]ithout blood tests or DNA, establishing paternity was a lot more hit and miss". That to me doesn't sound like GRRM is really interested in exploring this idea any further.

#asoiaf meta #robert arryn #petyr baelish #littlefinger

[abizarreyodelingincident]

Braaaaaaains...

Jason Todd is legally – and biologically – dead. His family noted his lack of pulse at three in the morning, inside the cave, his body laid out on a table with medical instruments.

No, really, tell him something he doesn't know.

What else crawls out of a grave moaning and groaning?

Or, Jason thought his family full of the world's greatest detectives was smarter than this. Apparently not.

****************************************************************

It had been an ordinary night. Calm. The stage for very little costumed crime and barely more regular, non-insane crime as well. Half the menagerie that made up Dick's loving ragtag bunch of younger siblings had even taken the night off.

Nothing should have make him arrive to silence this thick, to this faint echo of sniffling.

He sprinted after the noise.

Damian's fine, left before me. Duke didn't go out, nor did Steph. Babs spent the evening with Cass in the cave, Tim swept the bowery and said he was going to stop by Jason's place to-

He collided with a shaking, tear stained Tim right outside the medbay.

There was a body on the closest table. Others around it, crying, pacing, muttering in denial.

Dick couldn't look.

No, no, please, please no. I can't do that again. I can't!

Scarred skin, too pale – to be Duke or Cass – by death. His breath hitched. No. He. Fuck.

He knew those scars. Those arms. That chest and that fucking Y from navel to shoulders.

“Dick! Jason... he was...  I found him in his apartment. And I brought him to the cave... but... Jason doesn't have a pulse. He's... cold...”

Dick stumbled.

No.

No, no, no, that... that couldn't be real.

He caught himself on his little brother. Brought himself into a hug too tight, as painful as the arms gripping his ribs and back. A grip meant for a lifesaving light at sea. For a safeline over a ravine.

Twice. He'd lost the same brother twice. And this time, he didn't even have the excuse of inexperience and unstable situations. He... he patrolled the city whilst his brother was dead, completely oblivious to the fact. How could he? How dare he not know?!

“Shh, Tim, I'm here. I'm here.” But not for Jason, whispered a vicious part of him.

“What's all this?”

Dick's heart just about stopped.

Damian stood at the entrance to the lockers' room, uniform folded under one arm, hair slightly damp from a shower and Bat-themed pajamas worn without shame. His mild annoyance was proof he had no idea of the drama that had happened not twenty feet from him.

With reluctance, he let go of Tim, a gentle hand lingering on his shoulder, before he took a few steps toward his youngest, most vulnerable brother.

“D-Dami, I... ”   Damn it, he had to be the one to tell Damian about this. Because otherwise, the person to break the news would be Bruce, and-

Shit.

Bruce.

Oh God. How could they possibly tell him- ? After all their fights, the goddamned shattering that had broken the man he had been, and their last conversations even being more admonishment about protocols that Jason had flippantly disregarded. Bruce would never recover. That was it. The end of Batman.

...But first, God he hated himself, wanted to just curl up in a corner and forget everything, first he had a young brother he needed to talk to. One... one little brother less than just this afternoon.

“Jason... ” He swallowed, his throat tight, his heart in denial, the words so damning, but needing to be said. “Jason did not make it. He... he's dead.”

Damian stayed thoughtfully silent.

Not... not the tearful reaction he had expected, but Damian had grown up surrounded by so much death and horror that he would obviously be guarded. And oh, Dick's heart went to his baby brother, and he truly wished he could

“I do not understand. Why such theatrics for the zombie?”

Dick gasped, knowledge warring with the flash of anger.

“Damian! He's our brother!”

“Did he lose his head?” Damian demanded, and Dick's mind buckled.

“Huh, no, but that doesn't have anything to d-”

“Then, why are you acting so weirdly emotional, Richard?”

Before Dick's temper could catch up to his mouth, the longest and most painful-sounding gasp erupted from the medbay, where, to the general shock of all, Jason's gray-ish body shot upward with both his arms raised.

Electroshocks didn't make you jolt like that.

Electroshocks, in fact, remained in their kit on the other side of the medbay, unused. Because Jason had seemingly been dead long before he had been brought to the cave.

That was roughly the moment when Dick's brain caught up with the first of many hints. Latched onto it with a fool's hope.

“... Damian... When you were calling Jason a 'zombie', what did you mean?”

Damian's brows scrunched up together, a look he meant to be intimidating, but had more in common with a disgruntled kitten. “Exactly that, Richard. Do we not have files on zombies in the computer? Dead bodies walking about animated by unholy powers?”

Jason's not- Dick forced the half formed thought to a halt. For once, he rather wanted to be very, very wrong in how he perceived his family.

“What's with all the noise? Can't someone try to sleep like the dead without screaming?” Jason groused. “Should have gotten myself buried ag-OOF!”

“JASON!” screamed the hysterical teenager that had launched himself at a very lively dead body.

“Huhh? Hi, Timmy?” Jason said blearily, ruffling Tim's hair, eyebags suspiciously prominent. “... Fear gas?”

The blinking slowed, the fog of sleep drifting away as he silently begged the rest of them for an answer.

Happily provided by a still crying Tim. “I thought you were gone!”

“What is dead may never die,” Jason quipped, his mouth twisting in that cocksure grin from his Robin days.

And Dick wanted nothing more than to stop right there, pass out from the relief and joy of his little brother being alive and kicking, but...

But... 

That joke. One of many morbidly unfunny jokes and puns.

Bone-deep fatigue crushed his back. A bitter curse for whatever higher forces messing with them echoed strongly inside his skull, before he gave in to the inevitable and inhaled a few times for patience.

“Jason. We thought you were dead-dead.”

With prickly, hedgehog style affection, Jason pushed Tim back and stood up, stretching. “Come off it, Goldie. I wasn't even decapitated. I mean, if you were really worried, you could have just called a necromancer or something.” His expression hardened. “But if you ever call a necromancer on my ass, I'll shoot your perfect glutes.”

Yup, yup, yup, this is happening.

Tim finally wiped the rest of the tears away, helped by one of Stephanie's handkerchiefs, when he froze. “Wait. Your skin's still pale as a corpse.”

The flicker of amusement in Jason's eyes killed it for Dick.

God, how could they have all been this idiotic? If Wally ever learned about this – Shit, did Roy and Kory know before him?!

They were going to laugh their asses off at him.

Jason, unaware of the world recalibration happening in his poor big brother's mind, shrugged and rolled his shoulders – who creaked suspiciously loudly, more like rusty hinges than normal body parts. “Eh, I'm just a bit hungry. Nothing a meal or two won't fix and get some blood flowing back under my s-”

“You're a zombie.”

They turned toward him.

“Way to cross the finish line on time, Mister Rabbit,” Jason drawled.

Barbara, for once, looked completely unprepared. “A zombie,” she repeated, dazed.

Stephanie's nervous giggle died out when she noticed the lack of humor. “... No!”

Cassandra furiously looked down, muttering in her fist. Duke, by contrast, had the expression of a person stuck in a very awkward nightmare.

Even Jason's good-natured ribbing faded in when faced only with the distant screeched of bats. “... Hm, guys, bats, roostery, parasites and octopi? This is old news. What's with all the... ”

He vaguely gestured at their faces.

“Old news?” Tim rasped like he was being strangled.

“I came back from the dead years ago! Come on! Am I in a parallel universe? Hey, Demon Brat,” Jason called, baffled, “you knew, right? I didn't imagine that, right?!”

“Of course, Todd. Mother informed me of everything. Besides, Grandfather's interest in your state of being was of interest for a few weeks. How could I have been ignorant about your zombified state of being?”

In the corner of his eyes, Dick noticed Tim's, Barbara's and Cassandra's expressions all pinching in displeasure. In a way, Dick was reassured. He hadn't been the target of a family-wide hoax to discredit him as an attentive and loving eldest brother. No, he was just naturally blind, apparently.

“He knew?” Tim growled, like it was a personal failing of the fabric of time and space.

Damian's tone was the exact opposite. “And none of you realized...?”

Dick squirmed. “I... huh... you see...”

His baby brother eyed him, completely unimpressed, and for once after years of partnership, Dick felt he deserved every single ounce of it.

“I see... I shall reevaluate the value of this 'detective training' I've been given if this is the result then,” he said, the nearest thing to completely disavowing his older siblings without saying so.  

In other circumstances, perhaps the others would have demanded that Damian stay and explain, but he suspected the quelling look it would have deserved prevented them. Not one of them spoke until Damian had disappeared upstairs and the elevator doors had closed.

“Jason, since when have you been a zombie?”

Jason blinked, jaw hanging. Juuuust enough for some of the scar tissue on his face to stretch past normal. Why did Dick only notice that now?

“Wait, you're all serious? How could you not know? I told you guys!”

And there was Dick's pride rearing its ugly head, because no, no he had not been told and maybe his deductive skills needed a very complete overhaul, but his memory was still excellent!

“You never said that. Heck, we weren't even talking until two years ago!”

“I literally told you all that I crawled out of my grave by myself, groaning the entire time. No experiment, no Lazarus Pit, just a body waking up in its own coffin and deciding to breathe fresh air. Does that not scream 'zombie' to you?”

They cringed.

“Not the only one that returned from beyond,” Babs mumbled. He could see her pull up the mental list right there.

“I greeted you all last meeting with a 'What's up, my bat folks? It's me, your favorite zombie!'. What did you think that meant?”

“That you're an asshole with a morbid sense of humor?” Stephanie quipped, and Jason momentarily paused his indignation to high five her. Fair's fair.

“Okay, but what about that time I got shot in the chest and I told you all not to worry about it?”

“I just figured you were going to get stitched up by Leslie or yourself, you know, regular bat neuroses,” Tim confessed.

Dick made a mental note to keep a much closer eye on Tim's patrols for the next few months.

“From a bullet chest wound?” Jason asked with an incredulousness that was not at all earned, because he was a freaking zombie!

“I thought your armor had blocked it! The hole wasn't bleeding!” Tim protested, cheeks red and tone defensive.

“Well, yeah,” Jason replied. “I don't bleed. It's like some fruit pulp or something. Ain't coming out if you don't press. My heart's not pumping.”

That's a 'nevermind' on the smoothie I saved for after patrol.

“Well, I know that now,” Tim said.

“I feel like I should write it down on the plaque or something,” Jason still sounded amazed, and might have pinched his arm just to be sure he hadn't been daydreaming, “Like, 'a good soldier AND A VERY DISCRETE ZOMBIE!' in big flaming letters. With a spotlight. And a dictionary opened on 'Zombie' or 'Undead'. You know, just in case the next batbrat to come along needs a few subtle hints about my true nature. What'd you think, Dick?”

He could not have been blushing harder than he currently was. “I think shut up.”

“Of course. What about when I shoved my deadly cold toes at Tim under a blanket?”

“Cold feet.”

“Never eating around you guys?”

“Daddy issues with Bruce,” Barbara deadpanned, and got a sock thrown at her for her honesty.

However, Duke, poor kid, turned green. “Wait, so when you offered me some jellied brain... was that not a death joke?”

Dick's stomach spontaneously shrivelled.

By the grimaces and sharp inhales all around, that was a common reaction.

Then the worst possible thing happened: Jason grinned.

He strutted, all confidence and brashness, and viper-quick, snatched an arm around Duke's shoulder. “Narrows, Nightlight, my tiny bitsy bro, everything I do is a death joke. My very existence laughs at death.”

Inside the batcave, the groaning was long-suffering and shameful.

“But that was actually brains,” Duke countered.

“Yeah. Calf brains. It's a delicacy.”

Tim massaged his forehead. What a mood.

Duke narrowed his eyes. “It was purely for the joke, wasn't it?”

Jason patted him on the back so hard Duke faltered. “One tragically wasted on your obtuse mind. I prefer me some Tête fromagée instead. Less like grainy jello.”

Stone-faced, Barbara wheeled herself toward the batcomputer. There, upon a series of quick clicks, she opened up the Bats's files. “Alright, you had your fun. Do you need to eat brains or are you just the world's least funny meathead?”

“I'm the world's most misunderstood vigilante!” Jason loudly protested, milking their pain for all it was worth. And then some. “But yeah, I do. No grey matter in there” -- he tapped his belly -- “no thinking up here.” -- his skull.

“Need some better quality brains then,” Tim stage-whispered to Stephanie.

Cass pointed the finger at Jason. “No killing for brains.”

Jason's good humor flickered with a flash of green. “Ain't ever done it, never will. It's a matter of morals, not hunger, Cass.”

Dick swooped in that minefield before it exploded.

“Great! Proud of you, Jay! You're the good kind of vegetarian zombie,” he said, putting an arm around his ginormous little brother's shoulders.

Wait a minute...

“Hey, you're older than when you died! Zombies don't age.”

“No, I was thrown into a Lazarus Pit, and the evil waters cured the malnutrition-induced delay on my growth. Haven't aged a day since.”

“I just thought you had a weird babyface thing going on,” Tim said.

Jason's grin turned sardonic. “Quite the opposite, Timber.”

Dick put his head in his hands in some vain attempt to prevent his brain from leaking through his ears.  With his luck, his little brother would 'playfully' eat some of it. “There's no way you look this rugged at biologically sixteen! I refuse to believe that.”

“Can you imagine my power if I'd been allowed to reach my full potential?” Jason leered, eyebrows waggling like waves in a sea at storm. “So many heart attacks.”

Barbara and Cassandra exchanged a silent look, and, after a solemn nod, Cassandra reached up to slap Jason upside the head.

“Thank you, Cassandra,” Barbara told her. “Jason, never do such a thing again.”

The disgruntled groan that followed must have been on purpose, because Jay was indeed an asshole.

“Besides, it's not like the world will ever know,” Tim said, cutting, a smirk hiding by his hand.

Dick really thought his little brother was far too relaxed upon learning that Jason was one with the undead. Sure, they had all encountered various levels of zombies during their missions, from all sorts of oral traditions and cultures, alien viruses and hidden nanobots piloting meat puppets. It wasn't even classified as a nation-wide crisis to encounter free-roaming zombies. But since the chronically unalive individual in question was one of their own, Dick felt he was owed at least a whole evening of frazzled panic and incomprehension for once.

“Oh?” Stephanie instead asked, sensing blood.

Tim shrugged. “Well, you know, no pulse, no blood flow,” he said with an angled eyebrow nodding at Jason's crotch

Stunned silence followed, their expressions varying from disgust, horror, unholy glee and, from Jason himself, wide-eyed shock that his shrimp of a little brother had had the balls to assimilate the zombieness fast enough to mock him for him.

Dick prayed for patience. For fortitude. And for an alternate timeline where he was an only child.

Why, for all the love of cotton candy and professional uncriminal clowns, did Tim put THAT image of Jason inside their brains? What had he done, him, a loving model for all of society, to suffer like this?

Maybe if he asked nicely, Jason would eat the image out of his head. He owed Dick that much after this clusterfuck of a conversation.

“Ooooooooh,” Stephanie crooned, miming getting dunked on. With acrobatics.

Jason huffed. “Like I was ever interested in the first place. I ain't Dick.”

“Okay, no slut shaming or virgin shaming, in fact, no shaming at all, please. In this house, we accept all sexualities, but we don't give out raunchy details about any of it, I only have so much brain bleach.”

“Share?” Duke pleaded in a whisper.

Oh, I wish I could, you young innocent soul.

A few beeps turned their attention back to Barbara and the batcomputer. “Well, that's one long overdue update to Jason's files. Anyone else want to share their 'obvious' medical condition?”

“Excuse you, being dead is not a medical condition.”

“I will make you wish for the peace of the grave, Jason.”

Droplets dripped from nearby stalactites.

A few bats flew overhead.

Jason turned to them like nothing had been said.

“Right. That was fun. Best night of my month. Can't wait to tell the Outlaws.”

Dick resigned himself to a series of unflattering texts by the absolute dickheads that were his second family. He could already tell the messages would blow up his phone to the Moon. 'You didn't know your brother that came back from the dead is a zombie?!'

“Have mercy and wait tomorrow morning?”

That smile could have been great or terrible. “You're lucky I'm in a spectacularly good mood, Dick.”

He had lifted his leg over his bike's seat when Duke was struck by genuine worry.

“Wait. Does Bruce know?”

Jason barked out a laugh.

“Of course he does! God knows he's got some massive blind spots, but he's obsessive, paranoid and I find subcutaneous trackers on me every week. No way he didn't get the hint before now.”

But, as his gaze went over the rest of them, his good cheer dimmed, his grin slipping off his face as surely as a bit of decayed flesh.

“... Right?”

#fanfic #Jason Todd #Zombie Jason Todd #Dick Grayson #Batsiblings