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This group has everything. A Martian leader who refers to the team as "my children" which is accurate because they're constantly questioning his authority. A guy with a huge ego, no people skills, and a truckload of resentment at being relegated to the training team after a decade of being erased from the timestream. A guy who spent the last eighteen years thinking sunlight would kill him and is still learning to function in the real world. A girl with massive trust issues who isn't too thrilled to be on the same team as the monster that killed her parents--even if said monster's body is now inhabited by a friendly artificial intelligence who is struggling against his host's violent nature. A girl whom no one realizes is a girl because she's hiding her true self and a lot of secrets (that we never learn) behind her mech suit. They consider themselves family. They don't trust each other. They're all each other has. They conceal so much. They're hurtling toward tragedy but the bonds are still there and they mean so much and it can't possibly last. I am rotating it all in my brain.

Priest's run on Justice League Task Force (#0, 17-37) is a weird weird book but I am losing my mind over the team dynamics.

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I may have misunderstood, but how precisely did Elystan manage to get rid of his doctor, his nurse, and his tutor prior to our visit to him in June of 1908? I presume that as he is twelve, he can't just dismiss them, even if he is the king's brother. (Though maybe the tutor at least said, "Good enough for me?" It doesn't sound like he was the most committed or honest chap.) Did Elystan somehow manage to boot Gillisall and Edmara, or were there other factors here (possibly in the scandal's wake?)

You haven't misunderstood anything, because I haven't explained it!

You're right; Elystan did not dismiss the major members of his household staff. They all ended up leaving him, in one sense or another, unfortunately very close to the same time.

Edmara leaves his service around the end of Book 2, for reasons that I can't disclose here. She has been writing to Elystan since then, but he has not received any of her letters due to meddling on somebody's part, and thus as of June 1908 he is unaware of what is going on her life (Amarantha was visiting him for a while at the start of 1908, but they had a falling-out and she stopped coming). A replacement was not hired, on the grounds that Elystan is now too old for a nurse anyway.

Gillisall has a young son who is in a sanitarium (implied to be consumptive), and he hasn't been able to visit him much for a long time because of commitments to attending Elystan. But around early 1908, the son's condition worsened, so Gillisall left Elystan's service to concentrate on being present for his son. A replacement full-time doctor was not hired, on the grounds that a local doctor could tend Elystan just as easily.

Elystan's tutor officially took on the additional role of governor after Edmara left, which makes him responsible for both educating Elystan and being a sort of guardian/general adult supervision. Unfortunately, he was very unfit for his position and took advantage of his charge's illness to basically check out of most responsibilities and loaf around drinking and pretending to himself that he's writing some Great Book. His reports to Bethira became more and more infrequent and often falsified. He figured that Elystan was no one's priority anymore after the failed revolt and that he probably wouldn't live much longer anyway, so what was the point of bothering with the little brat.

So by the time Bethira comes to Endean to investigate, Elystan is being attended by a diminished household staff who are humoring him for their own survival, a local doctor who visits sometimes and hates every minute of it because Elystan at this point is an absolutely insufferable patient, and a frequently drunk governor who mostly ignores him (which Elystan claims he's fine with).

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Priest's run on Justice League Task Force (#0, 17-37) is a weird weird book but I am losing my mind over the team dynamics.

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Hello! If I may ask:

What was Tamett's valet training like? And how did that go for him?

Oh, good question! I hadn't really thought about it. My guess would be that he received instruction from Odren's valet. Odren is very particular about surrounding himself with only the most highly competent people, so I think his valet is probably like Jeeves-level excellent at what he does. He was very thorough about training Tamett but barely concealed his frustration with Tamett's lack of dedication to the job. It wasn't that Tamett couldn't handle the work, but rather that he just didn't care as much as Odren's valet felt was appropriate. He had hoped to transform Tamett into someone whose life mission was to practically telepathically anticipate Josiah's every need or whim. He had some stern conversations with Tamett about how he needed to correct his attitude toward Josiah, that it wasn't his place to have any personal opinion about the Hope of Lienne that was anything less than unquestioning adoration. Didn't happen of course. Tamett came away from it capable of performing his tasks adequately but with no increased regard for Josiah and probably some degree of resentment at having to take on such a menial role. He is, after all, a duke's nephew.

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Hello! If I may ask:

What was Tamett's valet training like? And how did that go for him?

Oh, good question! I hadn't really thought about it. My guess would be that he received instruction from Odren's valet. Odren is very particular about surrounding himself with only the most highly competent people, so I think his valet is probably like Jeeves-level excellent at what he does. He was very thorough about training Tamett but barely concealed his frustration with Tamett's lack of dedication to the job. It wasn't that Tamett couldn't handle the work, but rather that he just didn't care as much as Odren's valet felt was appropriate. He had hoped to transform Tamett into someone whose life mission was to practically telepathically anticipate Josiah's every need or whim. He had some stern conversations with Tamett about how he needed to correct his attitude toward Josiah, that it wasn't his place to have any personal opinion about the Hope of Lienne that was anything less than unquestioning adoration. Didn't happen of course. Tamett came away from it capable of performing his tasks adequately but with no increased regard for Josiah and probably some degree of resentment at having to take on such a menial role. He is, after all, a duke's nephew.

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I'm not feeling super hyped about any of my Christmas story possibilities, and I'm running out of time, so I may just need to settle for a Christmas story in one of my established worlds. So I'll make it a poll

Trust me, they're both Christmassy.

Mia would be in a time just after Danny went home, so now she's queen and is feeling very alone, and Ben has to provide some much-needed timey-wimey support from the rest of the family.

David's got a bit of a King Wenceslas vibe going--he's been troubled by dreams, goes out in the snow, finds someone who needs help. Considering making it from the POV of a page who idolizes this legendary king who has crossed worlds, but could also stay in David's POV to see the ordinary guy who's dealing with being a legendary king.

I'm thinking it's a win-win--either the poll gets me excited for one, or it makes me terrified to mess it up so I procrastinate with the other.

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I am consuming a media and you are going to hear about it

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Man, I need to get Delclis some friends. Like, actual human friends. He's not making this easy for me, though.

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Here I am, unintentionally side-eying a first-Titans-era Grant.

stealing Yet Another tag game from @thatfriendlyanon >:} the game is to make yourself and your current blorbo with makowka picrew!

this is me (left) and Pannacotta Fugo (right) <3

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The likelihood of me voluntarily holding any live animal in my hand like this is pretty much nil, so let's say I am pondering a ceramic frog :)

taking @swinging-stars-from-satellites up on the open tag <3

picrew game! I'm leaving an open tag as well—feel free to do your own post or reblog this one :]

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So it's this whole thing that Will doesn't readily share his real name with anyone he works with (too vulnerable!). The JLA he founds has no idea who he is despite his being the one to bring them together and boss them around lead them. It's a big deal when he shares his real name with the current JLA. His admitting his real name to his personal revenge squad in his solo series and learning their real names too is a major emotional moment, probably the most heartfelt thing in that narrative.

And yet. this is him. like five seconds after meeting Ray:

(Justice League Task Force #0)

And just like that. beginning of a really weird and ultimately failed friendship.

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SUPERMAN (2025) dir. James Gunn

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The trailer for the new Superman movie looks fantastic, but I did not go into this expecting to have the "Mr. Terrific from my JSA?!" reaction that I did.

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how am i supposed to go to work when im literally thinking about The Character

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(New Titans #118)

I watched the TNG episode introducing Lore so I could understand this reference better, and I love that Bart somehow foreshadowed Thad long before that storyline was even set up. Very interesting that that episode of all of them would be (presumably) one of his favorites.

At this point, Bart has been in the twentieth century for a few weeks? a month at most? And apparently he's spent a lot of his time watching TV (as we see him do early in Impulse as a means of "assimilating"). Star Trek: The Next Generation wouldn't be likely to help him better understand life in the 1990s, but it's probable that a show set in an imagined version of the future--closer to his own time--would be comforting for him, in a way.

Grant's being a Star Trek fan is also indicated here and there throughout his solo. He has a model of the Enterprise in his room and drops references to the series occasionally (including a dreadful knock-knock joke with the punchline "Damage, Jim! I’m a superhero, not a trash collector!"). This is a common fandom for this generation, apparently; Kon and Ray also make their share of references.

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Once again, security at this airport cannot handle how many books I can cram in a carry-on.

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🙄