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dfortrafalgar · 2 days

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I'm Losing You... (But We're Filling the Cracks)

Having a family isn't always as easy as fairy tales make it seem. But sometimes, you just need a little bit of love... and a little bit of science.

Warnings: read chapter 1 for warnings

(also it's far too late in the game for me to be asking this but can someone help me figure out why everyone's blogs outside of the first five people in the tag list dont show up. ive been on tumblr since like 2014 and still cannot figure this stuff out im sobbing)

Chapter 28

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Your maternity leave had started early, not helped by how active one of your babies was at the crack of dawn. Every morning when you woke up to the sound of your alarm and rolled over to hoist yourself out of bed, you felt a kick against your abdomen. When you stood up, you felt that familiar fluttering sensation. One morning, you slept in only a few minutes longer than you normally did, and were punished with a small shove against your bladder that had you involuntarily unloading your urine into your pajama bottoms.

That one made you cry, Law keeping his chuckles to himself as he helped you clean up in the bathroom.

“Stop berating them through my stomach,” you sobbed. “I just pissed my pants.”

Your husband had answered you with a soft kiss to your swollen skin as he bent down to pick up your soiled clothing and bring them to your washing machine. “It happens, darling. It wasn’t your fault.”

Needless to say, it had been an emotional third trimester thus far.

On a Friday evening, you were sitting reclined against the arm of your couch, a book resting on your belly as you munched on some apple slices when Law came bursting through the door. He was frantic to kick off his shoes and shrug off his lab coat, hanging it on the hooks in the entryway before scrambling into the living room and plopping himself down next to you. He was holding a notebook in his hand.

“Hello to you, too,” you stated sarcastically, placing a paper bookmark in your novel to mark your spot and adjusting yourself on the couch to sit with your legs crossed under you.

“I was busy on my break today,” Law stated matter-of-factly, flipping through the wrinkled notebook with a fervor. When he found the page he was looking for, he folded the journal in half and held out the exposed page to face you.

A bunch of squares and barely legible writing covered the lined paper. You squinted. “I have no idea what I’m looking at, babe.”

Law rarely had moments where he got so excited that he couldn’t speak, but this was clearly one of those moments. He would forget that other people didn’t have over 20 years of medical training going back to the age of five. “Sorry, sorry.” He turned the notebook back toward him, using his finger to point out what he had scribbled down. “These are genetic predictions. It’s estimated that about 50% of fraternal twins will be opposite genders, so a boy and a girl. Which means about 25% will be both boys, and about 25% will be both girls.” He moved his finger from one scribble to another. “I have black hair, which I’m assuming to be the dominant gene among the two of us. However, I’m also a carrier for brown hair, because my mother and sister both were brunettes. Accounting for your hair color, I’m estimating that it’s a 75% chance that both of our babies will have black hair. At least one of our babies will have my eye color, but I believe your eyes are the dominant trait. I remember you saying at one point that someone in your family had curly hair, right? I’m estimating a 25% chance that at least one of our kids will have curly hair. If both of our babies are boys, the chances are 75% that they’ll be colorblind, and 25% that only one of them will be colorblind. If both are girls, it’s a 75% chance that both of them will be carriers for the colorblind gene, 25% that only one of them will be. But again, this is all approximations. So then I started thinking about more technical stuff. I have B+ blood, but I couldn’t remember what your blood type was, so we have to go off of the Rh factor, which is dominant with positive Rh, which means that at least one of our babies will have Rh positive blood, likely both. Male pattern baldness is also a dominant trait in most families, but I’m 26 and still have a full head of hair, so hopefully if we have a boy, he won’t have to worry about hair loss. Funnily enough, I learned today that having six fingers on one or both hands can actually be a dominant allele in some genetic lines, but neither of our family members have had any form of polydactyly that I can recall. Just an interesting thought. Anyway–”

Your shoulders were shaking with your laughter. “Law, slow down! Breathe!” Your hands reached forward to grab his shoulders to settle his excited rambling, his face slowly losing color as he was speaking more than he was absorbing oxygen.

You watched as your husband took a long gulp of hair in before blowing it out slowly. “Sorry. I got excited.”

“Don’t apologize, you’re adorable,” you replied, stroking your hand along his cheek. “How long did it take you to write all that down?”

Law glanced one more time at his notebook before closing it and discarding it on the coffee table. “About 15 minutes.”

You snorted. “I hope intelligence is a dominant trait so that both of our kids will be as smart as you.”

“You’re smart too,” he argued back, his voice light and content.

“Not ‘scribble down multiple punnett squares in 15 minutes’ smart,” you countered. “Have you eaten anything yet?”

He shook his head, stretching his arms behind his back. “Nope, I came straight home. I was too excited to show you that.”

You grinned, struggling to lean forward to kiss the tip of his nose. He assisted you by leaning forward on his own legs, pressing his forehead to yours.

“How have you been feeling?” he asked suddenly, diverting the topic. One of his hands came to rest on the crest of your belly, petting the taught skin through your shirt.

“Tired,” you replied. “It’s hard to stand up. Robin said both babies are probably around 2 or 3 pounds by now, but honestly it feels like I’m carrying lead weights when I stand. I feel like a turtle.”

“Any more movement?” he asked, scooting over the cushions to be closer to you, wrapping one of his arms around your shoulders to pull you into him. You gladly followed his gesture, dropping your head into his neck.

“One of them moves in the morning still, the other likes to kick when I go to bed. The only reason I’ve been able to tell is because I feel them on different sides,” you groaned. “I don’t know what it looks like with them folded up in there, but they haven’t made it easy on me.”

Law hummed in response, his free hand stroking your belly. The feeling of his palm against your bump felt more soothing than the finest lotion. “I’m just glad that they’re both okay… not like I’m thrilled that you’re in pain, obviously, but…”

“No, trust me, I am too,” you sighed, closing your eyes. “I’ve made it this long now, and both of them are still alive. And pretty soon…”

Your husband knew exactly what you were going to say when your voice trailed off. It was a subject the two of you had been tip-toeing around for quite some time.

The birth.

“That’s the one thing that’s still scaring me,” you admitted. “I’m already high risk, and anything could go wrong. I might have to be ripped open while awake to get them out. I might die, even.”

Law felt his chest clench. “Don’t say that, you won’t die.”

“But we don’t know that,” you sighed, your voice growing more nervous by the second.

“No, you won’t die,” he replied firmly.

You felt mildly guilty for broaching the subject. You knew how difficult it was for him to even think about the slim chance of losing his family again, not when he had come so far and achieved so much with you. You leaned your head upward to kiss the soft skin of his neck, his sideburns tickling your forehead. You felt his arm around your shoulder pull you even closer to him, his breaths shallow.

“I’m sorry…” you muttered.

“Don’t be,” he responded quickly. “I mean it. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

His hand dropped from your belly to grasp your own, tilting his head down to meet your own as his lips gently pressed against yours. Your eyes slipped closed, leaning into his tender kiss and wrapping your free arm around his torso. The size of your belly made it hard to be flush against him, but you made do. After all, you would have to get used to cuddling with two babies soon enough.

You pulled away from his lips. “Hey, so how’s the studying been? For that surgery?”

Law groaned, not at you, but at the mere thought of the looming procedure that had been bearing on his mind for the past eight weeks. “I feel like I’m back in med school, that’s for sure. I feel ready for it, but at the same time I can never be too prepared. It’s going to be… a lot.”

Dual heart-lung transplants were very, very rare, and used for the most severe of cases. The procedure had never been performed at Law’s hospital before. Single heart transplants had been done, and a few lung transplants, but never at the same time. Law’s cardiac ward was specifically chosen for the operation because of the young doctor’s expertise in the field. The patient’s life was quite literally in Law’s hands.

A small smirk flashed on his face. “I started wearing gloves in that patient’s room with his family. I don’t want them to see the tattoos on my fingers.”

“Do you not wear gloves for any other patients?” you asked with a small giggle.

“No, I do, when performing treatments. When I’m on rounds, I just stick my hands in my pockets,” he explained. He had one dimple on his cheek that showed up when he smiled. You couldn’t help but peck a quick kiss to it. His stomach suddenly grumbled, startling the two of you.

“You stay right here, I’ll make us some dinner,” he said, making a move to stand up.

“Pancakes,” you demanded with your own mischievous smirk.

“We had pancakes a week ago,” he replied with a smile.

“And?”

Law leaned down for one last kiss on the crown of your head. “Alright. Pancakes it is.”

—

Your pregnancy journal had gone from an anxious possession that you worried would jynx your good luck to a vice that you crawled back to whenever you were bored. The pages were filled with the ink from your pen as you used the prompts to delve into some of the thoughts you kept to yourself, your feelings about your body, your babies, your relationships, the hopes and dreams and the worries and troubles you tried not to stress about. You kept track of the gifts you had received, the words of advice from your doctor, and the unprovoked comments from elderly ladies at the supermarket who liked to comment about how cute of a couple you were when you shopped for food with your husband.

The grouchy, black-haired surgeon with bags under his eyes and a resting bitch face, and you, his slightly shorter, glowing wife with a very large pregnant belly and a polite, shining smile on her face. You were truly a match made in heaven, one might say.

Law had been busier and busier in the weeks getting closer to your due date. As the weather got colder, the holidays came and went, and the new year began, he was diving more and more into his studies preparing for what was easily the largest, most intense, and most serious surgery of his professional career. Some might assume that you would get tired of the neglect, growing frustrated that he wasn’t around to spend time with you in your third trimester, but in reality, you couldn’t be more proud.

The sight of him hunched over your kitchen table surrounded by old textbooks and papers was an image straight out of your college days, where you’d let yourself into his single dorm room close to midnight and find him on his floor in the dim lighting surrounded on all sides by professional journals, research papers, and textbooks from every esteemed surgeon in his field. You’d sit down next to him and diligently push french fries against his lips as his eyes stayed glued to his studies, rewarding you during his sparse downtime with awkward kisses that tasted like salt and firm yet shaky hands that were obsessed with traveling up and down your body.

The only difference now was that Law was that professional in his field, that he was in an apartment, and that you both had rings on your fingers. The french fries stayed the same, but he at least had a piece of mind to feed himself while you watched from the couch and giggled. Every once in a while, he would lean back against his seat and pop his spine with a satisfied groan, toss you a fond look across the room, and go back to reading. Sometimes, you would stand behind him and rub his stiff shoulders, encouraging him to stand up and stretch his legs just as he would do to you to ensure you remained strong during the final weeks of your pregnancy.

The only thing weighing on your mind was the panging worry that he would be in the middle of this massive procedure when you went into labor. You were both informed by your doctor that most twins would be delivered either naturally or induced at around 36 weeks, almost a month before single babies were usually born, and with your due date at 38 weeks being in the middle of May, you had a nagging feeling in your head that he would miss it.

You both tried to hold onto hope that your babies would be delivered any other day that month. He would be gone for only a day, a full 24 hours, in total the day of the surgery. What were the odds that your babies would be born on that specific day? Slim, to say the least.

At around 32 weeks, it was getting hard for you to stand up. Your movements were slow and labored, and you were spending most of your days in your apartment either on your couch or in your bed, standing up when instructed by Law, or Shachi and Penguin when he was at work, to walk laps around your home. The fear of blood clots forming in your legs and traveling to your lungs, as described by your lovely husband in far too much detail, was enough to make you more determined to keep the blood pumping in your body.

“Alright, ready?” Law stated, standing behind you in the kitchen as you slowly made your way through a pile of dirty dishes in the sink.

“Ready,” you stated back, your eyes focused on washing the silverware in your hands.

His inked hands traveled around your torso and under your belly, lifting up against the bottom of your bump. The sudden relief of having the weight lifted off of your back made an almost erotic moan leave your lips, your grip on the silverware releasing slightly as the tension in your entire body flooded from your veins like a broken dam.

“Feel good?” he asked from behind you with a smirk, his chin resting on the crown of your head.

“Oh my god,” you groaned. “I saw a lot of posts that said that it feels good, but I didn’t think it would feel this good. I wish you could do that constantly.”

Sparse kisses were placed to the back of your head as his hands slowly released their pressure against the bottom of your bump, leaving your back aching once more as your body was forced to bear the brunt of the weight in your abdomen. You stifled a whimper as you were forced to hold what felt like 50 extra pounds on your own again, but Law’s lingering presence behind you with his hands resting idly on your belly soothed your aches subconsciously.

“Busy spring, huh?” he asked, filling the room where the only other sound was the sloshing from your dish washing.

You hummed in response, rinsing your hands and turning off the tap, drying your hands on a towel that lay on the counter beside you. “You could say that.” You turned around to lean against the counter, Law’s hands remaining on your body as you rotated. He leaned forward to capture your lips in his, you rewarding him with a smile.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been able to be more physical with you…” you sighed.

Law pulled away. “Why are you sorry for that?”

You shrugged. “You seem like you’ve been a lot more handsy with me lately, and I can’t reciprocate. And I’m probably not going to be able to reciprocate for a while after I give birth.”

Your husband chuckled, planting chaste kisses across your cheeks. “I’m not ‘being handsy with you’ because I want anything. I’m ‘being handsy’ because I want you to be happy and comfortable. I’m not expecting anything in return. And by the way,” he pulled away to stare into your worried eyes. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking about your post-birth body being somehow inferior to how you were before pregnancy, I know it.”

You averted your gaze, your lips pinching together.

“And I know you don’t like the stretch marks on your belly,” he added.

“Where are you going with this?” you asked, your voice quiet.

“Because I’m going to remind you every day how beautiful you are. Always. Even the changes that come with having a child. You’re always going to be beautiful to me. I’ll never be repulsed by your stretch marks or wrinkled skin or cellulite like you think I’m going to be. The person standing in front of me is a beautiful woman who has given me a life worth living, and I’m going to cherish her and support her through everything.”

Your eyes darted toward his neck, where his glass necklace still sat between his collarbones. He religiously wore it every single day, only taking it off to shower, sleep, and perform surgeries. Likewise, you never removed your glass ring. Hot tears began to form in your eyes, but your lips curled into a smile. Your expression fought for dominance over being happy or sad, and what resulted was a shaky grin, furrowed eyebrows, and watery eyes.

“What did I do to deserve you?” you asked, letting a few lose tears escape the corners of your eyes.

Your husband kissed the damp streaks that your tears left behind on your cheeks. “You fed me french fries on the floor of my dorm room in college. I think that’s when I knew you were going to be my wife one day.”

A bubbly laugh left your throat as your hands gripped his shoulders for stability. “I think I knew when you found me out behind my dorm building that night.”

Law leaned in to kiss you one more time, but a sudden gasp left your lips as your entire body tensed up. A stinging cramping sensation rippled across your abdomen, lingering in your muscles. It lasted about 30 seconds, where your shaking hands clenched the cotton of Law’s shirt, his eyes wide and frenzied as his hands supported your upright posture, before the pain finally dissipated into a mild buzz, then nothing at all.

You stared into Law’s eyes. “Can you help me sit down?”

#x reader #reader insert #fem reader #law x reader #trafalgar law x reader #one piece x reader #op x reader #trafalgar d water law x reader #trafalgar d water law #trafalgar law #i'm losing you

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nightwolf14292 · 2 days

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Jason Todd Canon Lore Stuff:

@jashjdh Ask and you shall receive! :D this is sort of part 2 to this post of mine, where I did the same thing for Dick Grayson. Here, since there are so many comics and so much conflicting lore, I read the fandom . com entry for the character and then type out the most important bits of what I learned, both to help myself remember it, and to teach others ^w^

!TW for Batman-like things, such as spoilers, mentions of injury and death, a brief mentions of drug use, a brief mention of sewerslide and r(😬)e, etc)!

•To begin with, a lot of people argue "Jason is the angry Robin!" Or, "Jason ISN'T the angry Robin!" I think for the most part, this misunderstanding happens because originally, Jason was a very calm kid. In his original appearances he had a similar backstory to Dick Grayson(Being an acrobat in the circus) and was much more chill, however in the post-crisis revamp, he became more violent and troubled. In the words of the wiki, "the post-Crisis Jason is impulsive, reckless, and full of rage."

•Jason lived a troubled childhood, with his father being a petty crook. His dad at one point served a jail sentence for his crimes, but even once he got out of jail, he never came back to the family. This left Jason alone, taking care of his drug-addicted mother. He would rip and remove the parts from cars around the city, selling them for cash to make sure they were fed and clothed. His mother eventually died from an overdose so he took to the streets, continuing to take apart cars for cash.

•One night he came upon the Batmobile parked in an alleyway. Batman had just replaced the tires, but had not yet put on his new custom hubcaps. Jason took this opportunity to snag the tires, and managed to get one and out of there before he came back for a second tire. This is when Batman caught him, hence the iconic interaction of him throwing his tire iron at Bruce and calling him a 'big boob' as he ran away.

•Batman tried putting Jason in a boarding school for troubled kids, however this didn't work out either because the owner of the school was actually running a program to train young criminals. When Batman busted the criminal operation, he decided that perhaps Jason's anger could be used for crime fighting, so he took him in because he was worried that if he didn't, Jason would become a criminal. While Jason wasn't an acrobat like Dick, he was strong, and had lots of skills from his time on the streets.

•On their first official mission together, though, it was revealed that Two-Face had killed Jason's father. Despite the fact that Jason's father had abandoned him, he was still enraged by this and he went on a rampage. However, he showed restraint when he allowed Two-Face to be arrested instead of killing him, which made Bruce very proud.

•As much as Jason was a good, enthusiastic student, he was also a very troubled one. His time on the streets had raised him with a tilted sense of morals, and with the tendency to lash out and get violent when threatened because of his street survival instincts. Because of this, Jason often had the opposite ideals and morals to his mentor. He tended to use excessive force when trying to stop criminals, such as how in one adventure he was asked to 'hold off' some villains, and he immediately shot at them despite Bruce's dislike of using guns.

•The most notable of these times was on the case of Felipe Garzonasa, a man who had r(😬)ed a woman, an event that led to her sewerslide. Jason tracked this guy down, and moments after Jason arrived, Felipe fell to his death off of his apartment balcony. While it was never confirmed nor denied, it's fairly possible that Jason pushed Garzonasa off, breaking Batman's no kill rule. (We love a man who respects women ✊)

•Bruce was so afraid that Jason was going to possibly kill someone, either intentionally or with his reckless actions, that he called Barbara Gordon and asked her to work a case with Jason, in an attempt to figure him out. They did work together, however Barbara could come up with no real way to help him, and simply warned Bruce that there was 'a darkness in Jason'.

•Jason eventually discovers that his mother was not actually his biological mother, so he runs away from home on a mission to find his real mom. He follows lots of leads, but eventually ends up in Ethiopia, finding his bio mother Sheila, working as an aid worker. He's incredibly happy to be reunited with his real mom, but he soon discovers that Sheila is being blackmailed by the Joker, being forced to supply him with medical treatment. Sheila herself has been embezzling funds from the agency, and to keep from getting caught, she directly hands Jason over to the Joker who brutally beats him with a crowbar and leaves him and Sheila in a warehouse with a bomb. Batman is unable to save them on time, and both of them perish in the explosion. Bruce is obviously devastated (and starts going crazy because of this a bit later on), and the bodies are both buried in Gotham City with the cause of death on Jason's death certificate being labeled 'smoke inhalation'.

•Jason is dead for at least a decade, his memory constantly haunting Bruce as his 'greatest failure', keeping Jason's Robin suit on display in the Batcave. Bruce begins to spiral over the thoughts that he himself had failed to train Jason properly, and that he had also failed to save Jason from the Joker. (Personal opinion, I don't know if I actually blame Bruce for 'Not saving Jason in time'? Because the way the wiki framed it, it made it seem like Jason ran away and didn't tell anyone that he was going to do this, plus I don't know how Bruce would've known that the Joker was blackmailing Sheila to begin with? Idk, maybe I'm missing some context here)

•Many years later, while Bruce is fighting with Hush, Tim gets kidnapped. When he confront the kidnapped it ends up being 'Jason', but it turns out that this version of Jason isn't Jason at all, and is just Clayface pretending to be Jason.

•Superboy-Prime, trapped in the Paradise Dimension, alters reality. This shift results in Jason's revival, as he's once again given life. He breaks his way out of his own coffin with his bare hands, and drags himself 12 miles before eventually collapsing (since he still has many lasting injuries from the Joker's beating). He's found at some point and hospitalized, where he stays in a coma for a full year, and even when he awakens he has amnesia. At some point he's recognized by a petty criminal, who informs Talia. Talia brings him to the Lazarus Pit, where she immerses him in the water where her father Ra's is also bathing. This restores Jason's memories and his physical health, however it's implied that the Pit's energy + Ah-Gul's energy messed with his mind and personality (Though it's always possible that these changes really just came from his trauma)

•Jason Todd takes up the mantle of Red Hood, and returns to Gotham City.

•Jason goes to find the Joker (who had been run out of town by Hush), and gives him a beating with a crowbar just as the Joker did to him, though he keeps the Joker alive to use him against Batman later on. He also assumes the control of several gangs, and starts a mini war against the Black Mask criminal empire. His general plan is to clean up the cities violence and drug dealings(probably because he doesn't want anyone to end up like his non-bio mother), as well as kill the Joker for revenge. Because of his intense and violent methods, he has many brushes with Batman. It's around this time that Bruce finds a Robin mask in the Batmobile, one that never belonged to Dick or Tim, but looked like a mask in the style of Jason's old Robin costume. He also realized at this time that Jason's coffin is empty, and that's when he starts to believe that Jason may have genuinely come back from the dead.

•Jason, hearing that Tim had replaced him and was supposedly a 'better Robin' then him, he got angry and broke into the Titan tower to confront him. Wearing a newer version of his own Robin costume, Jason makes quick work of immobilizing the other Titans. He was absolutely furious that there was no memorial for him in the Hall of Fallen Titans (Despite the fact that he was only a Titan for a very short time), Jason demands Tim tell him if he was really as good of a Robin as Jason himself was, and Tim stubbornly says 'Yes' before he passes out. As Jason is leaving the tower, he rips the 'R' logo from Tim's costume. However, it's revealed in the epilogue of that comic that Jason actually holds some respect for Tim now, begrudgingly saying an "I'll admit. He's good." As he ponders how he could've been a better Robin had he acted more like Tim.

•At some point Jason kidnaps the Joker and uses him to lure Bruce to Crime Alley, where they had first met all those years ago. Jason is of course angry that Bruce never 'properly avenged' him by killing the Joker, since Jason believed that Bruce would because the Joker had "Taken me away from you". Bruce explains that it would've been easy for him to kill the Joker, that he continuously fantasized about taking the Joker away, torturing him and eventually killing him, but that he wasn't willing to cross that line (Partially because he wasn't willing to stain the memories he had of Jason [that he clung so tightly to while losing his sanity] with blood). Jason decides on a deal. Either Bruce kills him, or he will kill the Joker. So he holds one gun to the Joker's head and gives the other to Bruce, counting to three. However Bruce, obviously not wanting to kill Jason but also not wanting Jason to commit this crime, uses a Batarang to cut down an object that ends up slicing Jason's throat. The Joker uses this time to detonate some explosives and plunge both of them into the waters. (I don't even know what to say about this part, I have a lot of opinions here. I will say though, I think that if Tim hadn't become Robin, Bruce might've legitimately killed the Joker.)

•Jason shows up again after about a year, now as an evil version of Nightwing. Jason uses this costume to taunt Dick, suggesting the two become a crime fighting team, but Dick refuses because he doesn't want to be associated with Jason's violent methods. Not long after, Jason is kidnapped by unknown mobsters. Dick, albeit hesitantly, saves him, and they team up to defeat the Pierce brothers. After the fight Jason leaves New York and drops the Nightwing mantle, leaving Dick a telegraph that says he has returned to normal, and that he still considers Dick family.

•Jason's kidnaps a girl named Mia, wanting to convert her to his side since they both had somewhat similar pasts and he feels they're kindred spirits. She refuses, so he blows up her high school. (WTF JASON???? 😭)

•I dunno how to explain this one too much, but basically he went on a mission with a Monitor that he called Bob? And he met an alternate reality version of Batman, who had started killing after Jason's death.. And then the Darkseid thing happens and Batman 'dies', which makes Jason absolutely furious (Because he cares about Bruce despite not agreeing with the way that he handled things back when he died).

•Jason, back as Red Hood, tries to take control of some gang wars to calm things down, but it actually makes things worse. Since Batman is supposed to be dead, and Nightwing is unavailable, Tim is the one who has to help clean up the mess. Jason asks to team up, but Tim refuses because of Jason's questionable methods. Due to a combination of some things, Jason gets shot in the leg and arrested. When the gang war is resolved, Tim stops by the prison Jason was in, using a disguise and a fake name to deliver Jason the code that will let him out of his cell because he believes Jason deserves a chance at redemption.

•After his escape Jason is summoned to the Batcave, where he is brought in to hear his part of Bruce's Last Will and Testament for him(Y'know, since Bruce is supposedly dead lmao). He listens to Bruce's final piece as he talks about out of all his failures, Jason was his biggest, and how he regretted not getting Jason actual help or showing much empathy over him hardships, instead dressing him up and having him fight. Unfortunately this heartfelt message is what makes Jason fully snap.

•Jason began dressing up in a Batman-like outfit, leaving slips of paper saying 'I AM BATMAN' where he worked, however he used much more aggressive and lethal forms of punishment on the criminals he fought. Due to the violent nature of his vigilantism, Nightwing and Damian are after the fake Batman. Dick figures put pretty quickly that the imposter Batman is Jason, and after an argument, Jason shoots Damian. Tim is also searching for the fake Batman at this time, dressing up as Batman as well to demonstrate how Bruce would've really acted. Tim finds Jason's fake Batcave, but has to be saved from a boobytrap by Catwoman. Jason returns to his 'cave' and finds them there, impaling Tim with a Batarang. Dick and Jason fight, with Jason thinking and claiming that Tim is dead, while Damian and the Squire are actually busy saving Tim. Dick kicks Jason off a moving train, but when he tries to pull Jason back up to safety(Because he still considers him family, just as Jason does him), Jason refuses his help and falls to his 'death', while claiming they'll meet again soon. This is when Dick becomes Batman.

•When Jason returned, having survived the fall, he decided to become direct competition to Batman and Robin, making it his mission to get to all of the criminals before them and become the new Gotham Hero. He even got his own sidekick, a girl named Scarlet. Jason was very public about this, posting things on social media, talking about how killing the villains was the best way to do it, and a lot of people actually agreed. At one point Jason kidnapped Dick and Damian, locked them up and stripped them both naked(😰), claiming online that if the post got enough attention, he'd reveal Batman and Robin's secret identities. However his plan was interrupted by an assassin names Flamingo, that he and Scarlet weren't strong enough to beat. Dick and Damian escaped and saved them from death, though Damian got pretty seriously injured.. Jason just ran Flamingo over with a truck- Jason was taken into police custody and as they took him away, he claimed that if the Lazarus Pit could revive him, why couldn't it revive Bruce too?

•After Bruce's revival, Jason files an appeal to Arkham Asylum, wanting to be released because the tests show that he's perfectly sane, just willing to kill. He ends up being transferred to a Gotham prison, where as soon as he arrives, the sewerslide rates spike and there are several homicides(Though these mainly occurred in self defense from Red Hood killing people in the prison who attempt to kill him first). On top of this, Jason poisons the food and kills 82 inmates, making 100 more sick. He's immediately taken back to Arkham Asylum, but is quickly broken out by some mercenaries. Jason breaks free from the mercenaries and fights them off as Batman and Robin arrive. At the end of this mission, Red Hood and Scarlet escape in a helicopter, warning Bruce and Damian not to chase them because he planted bombs all over the city months ago, and he's willing to detonate them. Dick doesn't do anything about, deciding that Jason was lying about the bombs, and that even if Jason decides to do better he'll only rejoin the family when he's ready to.

•Jason, trying to reform, forms his own hero team called the Outlaws. He changes the red symbol on his chest to a bat, a sign of his somewhat awkward but slowly-beginning-to get-back-on even-ground relationship with the Batfamily. The costume he now wears also used to belong to Dick. His relationship with Tim is now at least neutral, if not a little friendly, as the two can be seen eating together and making some jokes. However his relationship with Bruce is still strained, and a bit hostile. While he keeps his aggressive and lethal style of fighting, he now only uses it when he believes necessary, and doesn't always shoot the second he sees a problem.

•At some point his team disappears, and he goes back to being a solo hero.

Extra Fun Fact! Because of the Lazarus Pit, Jason no longer ages and he heals much much faster then a normal human!

TAADAA! I might do more if I get the motivation ^w^

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cassandrva · 20 hours

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let's talk about the fish/water/christ symbolism in the game of kings. with spoilers

fish (as ιχθυς) is an acronym for christ, and it's the first food jesus eats after being resurrected, right? it symbolizes rebirth, life, and christ himself. i personally think fish are slippery and cold-blooded too, but that's neither here nor there.

now look at how the game of kings starts: "lymond is back". we immediately know this book is about returning, it's about rebirth. in fact, the first thing we see is the man himself submerged in a body of water and coming out on the other side, after a baptism of sorts, as the character he will play for most of the book: lymond the outlaw, lymond the traitor.

the first words out of his mouth are "i am a narwhal": he identifies himself as a fish right away, and not just any fish but the unicorn fish; the unicorn of course being scotland's national animal. in perspective, he tells us everything we need to know about him: his status as a christ figure, his destiny to be reborn, his complicated relationship with his country.

the next time he's in a body of water, it's the second chapter and he's dying from a head injury in a bog. he's washed clean, this time, too: from his own identity. he's free to inhabit another character from the lymond constellation. it's also pretty funny that he's found by sym while he's going fishing ("you’ve hooked a twenty-pounder this time, my lad"), and he's nursed back to health by someone named Christian. not subtle.

lymond seems to be pretty into this whole fish and rebirth thing, does he not? he wouldn't lie to us. he wouldn't pretend to embrace life while actively seeking death, right? anyway, no relation at all, when the baby queen mary tries feeding him a fish he pretends to eat it and secretly throws it away. the fish is described as struggling and barely alive, which again i am sure is a coincidence.

then some stuff happens, and the next time lymond is offered fish he doesn't have it in him to keep pretending. he doesn't want the damn fish. newsflash, asshole (richard): he really, really wants to die. this is my favorite scene for many reasons, and one of them is the perfect juxtaposition of its literal and symbolic meanings: richard says he wants to see lymond hanged, but what he does is to drag him away from the tomb-like dovecote and towards running water, makes him eat the damn fish again and again until the miracle is complete. he's holding on to his brother with both hands and teeth before he even realizes he's doing it.

when it comes to an end the fish is off the hook, christ is off the cross and for once he's not sacrificed for the sins of others, and we close on him in his mother's arms in a beautiful literary pietà.

there's so much stuff i purposefully didn't mention and probably didn't notice, this is just a tiny example of the gorgeous figurative and thematic cohesion in this novel. i love it. thank you dorothy dunnett.

#lymond chronicles #the game of kings #the amount of symbolism in 4.3 knight adversary makes it almost look like a tarot card #something between the star and the knight/king of cups #i have a lot to say about tarot too #probably for a later post #i seems like you can't run out of things to say about the game of kings it's sooo well done #dorothy “three meanings at least per line” dunnett #if you think i'm annoying just know i've been talking like this on discord with the book club for the last two months and a half #thank you book club #anyway this is a rambling mess but you get it. you get it #ughhh lymond my brain will never be the same

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dairyfreenugget · 10 days

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(Going insane boinkinh one AU in my head)

Hey hey hey

May I interest you in

(Slowly slides my FaaF AU towards you but void just Disappears without a trace one day before the accolade)

Teehee

#thylacines can talk #faaf au #i love this au very yummy. a very fun twist on how Flower's dynamic with their parents would progress afterwards #the vessels live but the void exits their bodies in quite a violent manner (extreme pain and literally throwing up an entire person worth of #void). Flower was on guard duty and theyre found barely conscious in a pool of rapidly evaporating void. passes out seconds later #PK also had the displeasure of experiencing extene pain and burning as void forced its way out through his skin <3 And his moulds all melted #and evaporated. after the initial shock wears off theyre hit with “Oh No #the vessel“ and rush to find them. Well somebody else was already looking for the royal pair about this #Flower wakes up dazed and in pain in their father's workshop. their stomach hurts their throat burns and they feel lightheaded. the entire #place is considerably brighter than they remember and in they can hear two faint voices in the background but theyre too preoccupied with #examining their now pure white hand in shock to focus on anything else. until they hear their mother say “My wyrm they're awake” and #suddenly their parents are by their side. Now the two have no idea what void leaving their body might have done to them. Are they still #hollow? are they still dead? do they understand anything are they sentient? or was what was done pernament even without the void? do they #have the mind of a child if their sentience was restored? or do they remember anything? So WL stays by their side and helps them sit up #while their father goes to grab his tools. She's trying to keep them calm and comfort them but theyre still too disoriented to pay her much #attention. Until their father checks their breathing and they yelp audibly from the cool metal contacting their skin and suddenly they seem #much more alert. theyve never experienced true coldness before. PK quickly apologises and tries to be gentler with them. Theyre breathing #properly and they have a heartbeat. And he just pauses for a long while just. listening to their heart beating. Many emotions to be had #after the exam's over he asks them point blank how theyre feeling. And Flower looks up at him still seeming a little disoriented. and then #they lower their hand to their stomach and mutter 'My tummy hurts...a-and my throat burns'. It's to be expected after the way the void #left their body. so he goes to grab them some water and meds and they also ask for food and a mirror. And after he returns they just stare #at themself in the mirror and pull on their bangs for a while then blurt out 'I have your eyes' when PK asks if everything's okay. And he #and he almost chokes up as he replies 'Yeah...Yeah you do'. Flower eventually spins a lie that they remember everything but its all distant #and blurry. Like they were not aware until now. They figured it'd be better to not break their hearts #And now the three have to figure out how to be a family while PK is also scrambling to find a new solution to the infection #oops i meant to only give a brief rundown in the tags which is why it was in the tags. but i got too invested KDHDKFB

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yardsards · 10 months

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thinking about the fact that i was so socially awkward as a teen that the school wanted to me out of class to attend "social skills classes" once a week (to which i attended one and demanded i be removed from the program cuz it was just me and about a dozen equally uncomfortable probably-autistic kids who also probably did not want to be there, being forced to do icebreaker activities by deeply condescending special education teachers)

how did i not receive an autism diagnosis til i was nearly an adult and specifically advocated for myself to be taken to a professional to get checked out for autism and adhd???

#eliot posts #i'm really curious whose call it was to put me in there #it wasn't my parents because my mother was Outraged that her kid got put in a special ed type class and signed the papers so i could leave #so like. what teacher made that call.#and what exactly sparked that #was it my general being a loner or was there An Incident #i don't remember exactly what grade i was in. probably 8th or 9th?#so still kind of stuck in my ''convinced myself i was just Better than my peers and that's why i didn't have many friends'' phase #following that was a phase where i got over myself but was kinda just shy #and then a phase where i went okay fuck it we ball and acted weird but in a way intended to be funny #that annoyed some people but some people enjoyed. by then i figured ''eh i aint seeing most of these ppl ever again after graduation''#i had some friends in high school bc of marching band but they were all in different grades than me #tho even then i was only close w like 2 of them and the rest all seemed closer to each other than to me #edit: dug through my blog and it was 7th grade (yeah ive been on here that long)#so this was before i even had my marching band friends. but probably after my singular friend from elementary school moved away?#i forget if he left in 6th or 7th grade #(im still friends with that friend. he's great we love him)

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thedeadthree · 1 year

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lila thoughts under the read more <3 🥀✨🌹🎸

lila getting with griffin / g reign and having their little thing in “secret” not only bc it’s what her parents did to each other to get back at the other for slights and arguments but also bc she wanted to not only get back at seven but also to be like “oo look at me i can pull griffin freaking reign i won teehee.” and then the clown catches real feelings for griffin and calls jazz near in tears bc she’s just like her mom 🥀✨🎸🤡 and using someone she loves to get back at someone who she loved may or may not have even loved (i think she did but loved more the idea ? it’s complicated!) but loved the IDEA of seven loving her? dear you know it everyone knows it you want to be loved so bad!!!!!! the sooner you admit that lila the sooner you’ll be much happier my love! so excited to see where things go for her ! and things for her and her beloved g!!!!!

(x) for the divider <3

#oc: lilia laurent #long tags bc lila brainrot I APOLOGIZE 🥀✨😭 (i need to rb that ask game i need to yell about these dears🌹❣️!!!)#baby girl you literally wrote to live and die in la / aka gibson girl by ethel bc you wanted griffin to HEAR IT and pique his interest like #AND YOU DIDNT THINK YOU WOULD FALL IN LOVE WITH HIM???? and it’s the song you auditioned with too?#and jazz was likely like UHH I SAW THIS COMING ! she’s literally lilas voice of reason soizjxxh #caroline catch lila calling halle too at like 3 am sosjjzhx in the bathroom of griffins trailer akzjjzjx she’s a hot mess !!!!!! truly!#she has a panic moment because she’s just like her mother and now has to face to consequences of her actions! yikes!#i think she owns up to it you know? god i want to write a fic of that so bad too AHH #i am still going to be gaming HARD for vic and her to be friends at the end of it all u know?#and some more lore that’s a tad unrelated but maybe has some insight into why she does what she does to cope with things?#her parents spent more time socializing with their friends and playing mind games traveling and the etc then being parents to her?#so she spent a lot of time in beautiful homes alone throwing parties as they did because she was bored and that’s what they did too?#for someone who didn’t want to be her aristocratic messy parents she’s scared she’s turned into them 🥀✨😖#she’s like a nepo baby u wouldn’t think was a nepo baby bc her parents almost never are seen with her outside of a fashion campaign or too #or a tabloid RUMORING they had a daughter (those hurt her more than she admits) it bites to have famous supermodels for parents 🥀😵‍💫#she wants friends and parental figures more badly than she cares to admit (she won’t akzjzjjz but! she does! really bad!)#this baby girl can fit SO many parental issues 🥀✨😌#(also aj she might yank griffin along to visit Flor and her grandma bc of that 🥀✨😖)#leg.txt #your not as much of a manipulative snake as you think you are lila ! you want to be loved !!!!! really bad!#ofc this all could change as the story develops and her arc unfolds but oh my god i love lila so much thats my hot mess express!#jazz being like ‘you aren’t going to like this you’ll block me for a months for this but u need to hear this.. ur a mess my dear’ SHES RIGH #(me hoping this isn’t too ooc GAHH 🥀✨😭)

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teeth-draws · 2 years

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Mild spoilers for a romanced Blade in @shepherds-of-haven chapter 7 💌 🤭

#shepherds of haven #blade bronwyn #haha whattaya got there buddy…?#confirmed in trouble route we get heaps of fan mail…#confirmed blade collects our mail while we’re away in Lockwood….#h-how many love letters to mc was he forced to keep in an orderly pile in his office…#our mail has never been safer #if by some miracle an interloper gets through his super strength + peak assassin skills + fancy sword he would just eat them before dying #in blade we trust #why is he wearing compression sleeves and tights with no shirt???#the narrative: he is on his early morning run (so that he can keep fit but more importantly be the first one to come get the mail)#the reality: idk man I was trying to figure out what he’d look like from the front with his newly designed face and it got away from me and #I had done all this defined anatomy and I thought why hide it…? why cover this up??#as for the tattoo…? originally it just said KET bc I forgot it was meant to be for the city state lmao #sketch of him in the discord with KET in pink glitter pen but he lowkey just looks like a club bottom hooked on ketamine #me thinking it would be great to have a bare chested babe and then remembering at the last minute he had a fucking tattoo I’m a bad fan #also intermittently drawing this in between playing the new red update and being mighty disloyal sorry blade #happy Mother’s Day anyway hahaha #idk why but I always want to give blade beauty marks…

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nexus-nebulae · 3 months

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found a really old plushie of ours and oh my god i have never been filled with such Motherly Instinct for something before. who came back from dormancy

#like its a familiar feeling with Specifically And Only This Plushie #familiar in the sense of *I* haven't felt that but *someone else* here has #someone here loves this plushie like their child #we had a huge group of 'imaginary friends' as a kid that now with evidence we know they were all system members #and I know someone in there was absolutely a mother figure but i can't remember who #we've been getting back into a ton of old media we used to like as a kid and rediscovering so many things we completely forgot #so maybe we'll find her someday?#for now my goal is to take care of all of these plushies as best as i can #i consider myself the steward of this system #this isn't my stuff or memories or feelings but I'm taking as much care of it as i can until the owners return #and if they don't return then I'll keep caring for them until someone else wants to take them

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megarywrites · 5 months

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Oh no we’ve added another mother figure to the roster of Seafoam characters (no one is surprised)

#writing journal #wip: seafoam #there are so many sjdjsn #Mitapi obviously since she’s Thala’s actual mother #but then we also have Cilia and Samra and Mitha and Olena lowkey and now officially Kolette #this has inadvertently become a study on the importance of mother figures and the cultivation of female connections #as well as ofc female rage and everything that comes with it #anyways Kolette my beloved #all of them my beloved i love all my girls in this book

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lieutenant-amuel · 10 months

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Happy father’s day to Angel’s dad :D

The best dad in the WBTL universe <3

#Ask me anything #Was Born To Lead #And to Emilio because he deserves it too <3 #Let’s think about other fathers in my fic because I’m not sure I have many good ones there XD #Okay Frida’s dad and Valerio’s dad could easily win the worst father of the year competition so let’s not even talk about them #Hmm #Roberto is not my character so he doesn’t really count but he’s at least trying to be a good dad #…..#I have good father figures XD #Valerio Matías and Bernal #As for Valerio I think it’s quite obvious but if not I’ll show more of it in the next chapters #As for Matías you’ll see why soon (or not soon)#Bernal was a good father figure to Valerio and Valerio simply needed it because his own father was horrible #(and Bernal was in love with Valerio’s mother so)#Alright I have minor father characters who are nice #Ángel’s uncle and Señor Murillo (he has a granddaughter and therefore he has kids too and he’s a good father to them)#Clemente (Roberto’s father) was good too #And I’ll introduce some very cool character who is a dad too some day #Hmmm wait does Karel count #I mean he’s Frida’s uncle and he doesn’t have his own kids but he loves her more than her father does so #Alright looks like I have many good fathers in my fic but in theory XD #Happy Father’s Day to all of them tho <3

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storms-path · 7 months

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FFXIV Write 2023 Day 15 - Portentous

Terror stalks the skies,

Death’s blossom on eagle’s wings,

Her touch is your end.

-Doman haiku suspected to have been written shortly before the invasion of Garlemald, author unknown. Historians speculate that the subject of the haiku was the Warrior of Light’s mother, but little corroborating evidence has been found to support this.

#ff14 #ffxiv #final fantasy 14 #final fantasy xiv #ffxivwrite #ffxivwrite2023 #another day that i just couldn't figure out a good hook for #or rather i had too many hooks and none of them snagged harder than the others #so instead i decided to do something different #arashi and sanda's mother is a real interesting gal in her own right #demon on the battlefield and probably some kinda war criminal #she basically raised arashi and sanda to be weapons for liberating doma #but she also loved the shit out of her husband and kids #complicated woman that hana #i should write more about her some time

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jimkirkachu · 2 years

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are there any 30-something single tos spirkers out here desperately wishing for a human fixer-upper to share their life / never ever ever have children with?

asking for a friend of course

#not trek #personal log #fatigue #exhaustion #wishful thinking #tomorrow will make 5 days of babysitting the niblings and i want to make it abundantly clear that i literally never signed up for this #children are so hard on ocd/germophobia #i love my niblings to death but holy mother of macaroni and cheese i have ZERO nurturing or caretaking impulses #they have so much energy and ask so many questions and make SO MUCH EYE CONTACT it freaks me out #stop looking at me stop visually perceiving me it's too much #and i probably only have a few good years left with them before they figure out what a fucking loser i am #so i feel like an absolute monster for not knowing how to cope with my stupid symptoms & just suck it up in favor of creating nice memories #but asdfghjkl my limits are so frustrating and i don't know how to push through them or let them go or whatever it is that normal people do #niblings #family drama #nd problems #and somehow having no one to snuggle with to recharge my stupid batteries makes everything feel so much harder #because the kids' parents have each other #both their sets of grandparents have each other #and i am literally the only single and/or childless person left in my entire family 👍#never want children #but do want snuggle buddy or spouse or something idk?#but lest we forget i am #unloveable #forever alone #soul sick #heartsick #jtkchu's brain #jtkchu is toxic #stfu jtkchu

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arklay · 2 years

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sorry i can’t shut up. posts one thing and can’t stop

#leah.txt #so that little nod to diana’s grandma i’m sorry i’m just. i haven’t talked about this before so argrhrhrg but diana grew up in a very arts #based family. her mother an opera singer and her father a dance. her younger sister also went on to become a professional dancer to with #mainly ballet but also contemporary. diana also did those two growing up alongside learning to play the violin and piano. her grandma was a #sculptor and while diana’s parents were often just not home she spent a lot of time with her grandma and would just sit with her in her #studio and watch her work. but you can kind of imagine everyone’s surprise at her wanting to go into science… she really just had such an #interest in snakes from a young age and she wanted to learn more about them. just loved little creechurs. always wanted to go to zoos and #whatnot and like i thinks she may or may not actually have a tiny little snake tattoo somewhere. not sure yet. but when she was like i want #to study snek her parents were so like… you want to go into science? how about medicine then instead? maybe be a doctor or a dentist or– no #i wanna study reptiles thank you :) and like that was that kind of but her parents were so like. no. but her grandma made her a little snak #figure for her birthday one year and always told her if that’s what she wants to do then she should do it. and they were really close and #diana isn’t really sentimental about much of anything with her family but she still has the bangle her grandma gave her when she graduated #with her bachelors. and like i know it’s such a tiny detail to just chuck in about sculptures but diana’s just connection to art despite #being very much like super sciencey seems like she doesn’t really like that sort of stuff it’s kinda just like always going to be there. i #also have a vague moment of just like [refacted] watching her play violin once and being like in awe like as if she couldn’t be skilled #enough you know? but anyway yeah diana very much broke the mould in her family and was like no i’m going to uni to study biology i don’t #care what you think i don’t want to dance i hate it you already know this and she just went from there… working in her little zoos and #animal sanctuaries and being just the weird snake lady before like moving to america on research opportunity where she ends up getting her #phd like argjrgrhrhrgrh i have so many thoughts and feelings about her at all times you don’t understand #i need to go to sleep lmao but aaaaaaa #lmao i’m not fixing more of these typos it’s too funny

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flovverworks · 3 months

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(post about akira w/ mitile & riquet i still havent written)

#stardust speaking !#i need to read their bday cards...........#whenever i think about akira & riquet i always think about that time riquet asked who their favorite is and #and akira responds its riquet LOLT_T guy who loves them all equally but would do anything for the kid still figuring out life & the world #for mitile i always think about crybaby bunny...so its more rutile.............flores brothers makes me cry sm i..T_T #mitile who locked himself in hit me rly hrd too #oughhh i love riquet sm........the token religious kid grew up in a cult & now has to navigate his feelings about so many things #mitile..........whos mother died in childbirth.....whos brother gave him some of his magic to save him.....whos brother continously tries #so hard to make him smile & happy....mitile whos prophecy................#i think about oz opening up about arthurs prophecy sometimes & figaros reaction. wouldve loved for figaros pov in that moment #wouldve loved for him to think about mitile #figaro whos been trying to slow mitiles growth so the prophecy will be as far away as possible.#figaro who wonders if tiretta didnt want him at mitiles birth cuz..........#tiretta who was more worried about rutile than herself when he dissappeared in that forest #ughhhh mothers T_T tiretta.........tiretta who asked rutile to save mitile..............

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boxingcleverrr · 4 months

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Popular Hades & Persephone "retellings" are, rightly, getting dunked on all over the socials right now and, as a Pagan who has an altar to the Queen, I could not be happier. But also, I feel like a lot of people miss WHY they're bad - aside from just plain bad writing and lazy tropes. Which are, yeah, also REALLY bad.

Pretty much all retellings try to wave away, or excuse, or twist the whole kidnapping bit. And I actually do have sympathy and understanding for why, when speaking from a modern perspective.

But honestly...you gotta get over it. There are other stories to play fix-it with, not this one.

The Abduction is The Thing.

Were I a little more sober I could bring up chapter and verse of the Hymn to Demeter but frankly, if you know even the middle school mythology curriculum version of the story, you SHOULD know the themes. The story of Persephone was one mothers and daughters in the ancient world held dear, because it was a reality: you will, one day, be swept away from your home to go cleave to a man you most likely know nothing about. You will miss your mother, but chances are very good that he will be a good husband, once you get to know him, certainly better than Zeus or Ares, and he will make you a queen of his home.

Leaving home to marry was often scary, and violent (look up the history of the tradition of Bridesmaids, if you don't already know it - they were originally decoys on the marriage road). Centuries later we'd have tales like Beauty & The Beast serving the same function: comfort, hope, you are leaving your safe loving home to figure life out with a (often older, powerful) stranger. Your trauma over this sudden ending of your childhood made manifest in a Beast, or a God of The Underworld.

It's wonderful that we don't NEED stories like this anymore to comfort us (here, at least, in this culture). But if you try to force them into modern vernacular it just will not work, not really, because you're gutting out the whole point just to have a more tidy romantic male hero.

I have read MANY very good ...novelizations? fanfic(? however you would frame them, but they're certainly not "retellings"), etc. that simply take advantage of the blank spaces in the myth, and there are many!

It's not explicit that sexual assault happens - "The Rape of Persephone" as a title was coined in much earlier eras, when the word was just as often used to simply refer to abduction.

"She was starving!" the gods didn't need to eat. So it's easy to read her eating the Pom seeds as a deliberate choice on her part. Like, shit, people, scholars have written whole papers on the symbolism of this moment, between marriage rites and even yeah, Seph choosing both worlds with her husband's knowing consent.

And that, I think, is the real heart of the thing. People want an utterly mundane, spelled-out story here, as opposed to what it really is, has always been, just like any other myth or religious parable: IT'S A METAPHOOOOOOR.

They don't need to be destined, or meet at a goddamned BALL and then CONSPIRE to fake her kidnapping, or shit, I once saw one where Hades got MIND CONTROLLED by Zeus?! Jesus.

Persephone was yoinked into the Underworld against her will.

That's how it went.

I don't mean this in a "stay out of my belief system!" way, shit I'm a white American chick with delusions of witchery. I mean this in a "stop stressing yourself out trying to make things palatable" way:

This is a very real, very precious myth to many people, BECAUSE for at least that one event, Persephone had no autonomy, BECAUSE for thousands of years most women had no autonomy. Erasing that, sanitizing the fact that a girl is ripped out of the spring, from her mother's arms, is erasing the thing that gave comfort to women for centuries. And people can and should still find power and healing in it now!

Fill in the blanks the story leaves in whatever manner seems fit to you, there's plenty of room, but. Come the fuck on.

#blathering #truly had a ramble bubbling for weeks #just pagan things

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