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arandomao3user · 1 month ago

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. . . F#&% you.

*Makes a Timbern Baby AU, but they... Forget to tell any of their family they had a baby for a few years.*

—

Tim, stumbling inside, half asleep, fell through the window, face planted, got back up, blinks slowly:

Bernard, standing there with a newborn in his arms: Uh, hey, Tim?

Tim, army crawling on the floor because getting up is a lot of work: Huh?

Bernard: Some ninja looking dude showed up at our doorstep, said something about owing you and making amends and stuff...

Tim, pulling himself into bed: Uh huh?

Bernard: He gave us a baby.

Tim:

Bernard, holding up baby: She's made of our DNA and stuff.

Tim:

Bernard: Sooo...

Tim, confused screaming:

—

Tim, holding up his new daughter: I lost my spleen to that man, got thrown out a window, had an army of assassins sent after me... anD HE HAD THE AUDACITY TO MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE YOUR FATHER!?

Bernard, laughing:

—

Tim, setting their new baby in a box they made into a crib: Should we, like, name it?

Bernard, observing the sleeping baby: That's probably the responsible thing to do.

Tim: So, first name?

Bernard: First name. Uhh, could name her after your Mom?

Tim: Which one?

Bernard: Okay, so that's a no. After your sister?

Tim: That'd get confusing later.

Bernard: . . . We could name her after Darla.

Tim: I'm game if you are.

Bernard: Nice, so, we're great at this parenting thing! So... Who's last name does she take?

Tim: I'm convinced the Wayne name is cursed, so.

Bernard: Darla Dowd?

Tim: Wait.

Bernard: Yeah?

Tim: We could do the funniest thing ever.

*She was later dubbed: Darla Janet Dowd-Drake-Wayne.*

—

Jason: Damn, Timmy, you look exhausted.

Tim: I'm a parent now.

Jason, assuming he adopted a plant or something: Pfft, well, good luck with that.

—

*Exactly four years pass, and somehow nobody's pieced together / realized Tim and Bernard have a whole ahh child...*

Tim: Ugh, Darla has been such a handful lately. She heard Jason on call last week and now knows exactly four swear words, she uses them religiously.

Bruce: Darla didn't already know swear words?

Dick: Your friend? Isn't she, like, in her twenties..?

Tim:

Tim, with a horrible realization: You... When I talk about Darla, you thought I was... Referring to mine and Bern's friend, Darla?

Bruce: Who else would you be referring to?

Jason: I thought Bernard had a little cousin or somethin'.

Tim:

Tim: Uhh... I meant... I meant... My daughter.

Jason:

Bruce:

Dick:

Alfred: About time!

—

Darla: Why do you look like a skunk?

Jason: I died.

Darla: Shouldn't have done that.

Jason: It wasn't my choice! I got sold to a clown!

Darla: Skill issue.

Jason: Are you victim blaming?

Darla: No, just saying you have skill issue. I haven't been kidnapped by a clown!

Jason: I can change that.

Darla: Bet I won't die.

Jason:

Jason: PRETENDER, COME GET YOUR BRAT!

—

Darla: Why are you Robin?

Damian, a full on teenager, researching medical schools: Because I was chosen.

Darla: Why?

Damian: You ask a lot of questions.

Darla: Can I be Robin?

Damian: Why would you be Robin?

Darla: Papa was Robin.

Damian: Your point?

Darla, with a sh!t eating grin: I'm the blood daughter.

Damian, having flashbacks:

—

Dick: You're pretty smart for a four year old.

Darla: You're pretty smart for a high school dropout.

Dick:

Dick: Your Dad is a high school drop out!

Darla: And he didn't become a cop, in a city worse than Gotham!

Dick:

Dick: Well—

Darla: Fumbling aliens does run in our family though, I noticed...

Dick: Are... Are you talking about Connor or Kori?

Darla: Both, but I'm glad I don't have alien DNA, uncle Kon has mad skill issues, man.

Dick: How do you know any of this?!

Darla: Papa and I have talks over breakfast.

—

Bruce: . . .

Darla: I have that effect on people.

Bruce: What... What do you do for fun?

Darla: I like to ice skate!

Bruce: Can... Can I buy you a skating rink?

Darla: Only if we can play Chapel Roan on the speakers, and I want a disco ball.

Bruce: Done.

—

Tim: Thanks for watching Dolly, Duke. Was she good?

Duke: Oh, she was great! We s#%& talked B!

Darla: Damned emotionally constipated furry!

Tim: So proud.

—

Stephanie: So, aiming to be Robin and a Batgirl someday?

Darla: Oh, I'm gonna steal all your mantle at some point, then make my own.

Stephanie: An overachiever, I like it.

—

Cassandra: Do you want to learn how to be one with the shadows and remain completely silent?

Darla: Stealth training? YEs!

—

Jason: To be completely clear, I gave Bruce his first granddaughter.

Tim: I gave him his favorite in-law though.

Jason: WHAT?! B totally prefers Roy over Bernard!

Tim: Please, Bernard can cook, has Alfred's approval, graduated high school AND college with two majors, as well as opened a restaurant AND isn't a meta in any way!

Jason: He hasn't even saved the world! Once!

Tim: Oh, and he's not a ginger.

Jason:

Tim:

Dick, rushing in: WHAT'D YOU SAY ABOUT GINGERS!?

Jason: YOUR DAUGHTER IS ABOUT TO BE AN ORPHAN, PRETENDER!

Tim: I believe I've made a mistake...

—

Tim: Now, what do we do if someone asks to follow them down an alleyway?

Darla: That's how one set of my great grandparents died, do I look like a sucker to you?!

Bernard: Uhh, Tim..?

Tim: Then what?

Darla: Kick them in the crotch and call uncle Jay to shoot 'em!

Tim: No, wait, we don't kill people.

Darla: And why not?

Tim: I haven't figured out yet myself, but the most I can gather is that we can't afford those types of crashouts.

—

Babs: I guess you explain why Tim and Bernard had so many searches about babies...

Darla: . . . Do you have access to my search history?

Babs: Why..?

Darla: No reason.

—

Darla, at daycare, not having a clue what she's saying means: MY GRANDPA CAN F#%$ YOUR GRANDPA!

—

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sourcherrybites · 1 month ago

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Till time breaks apart. (1 out of 2, probably)

Character: Dick Grayson x Tamaranian! Fem! reader

Submission by @mourakitana "Please do if you are Starfire's sister and you love Dick very much and he is her ex, (if on one of the missions Dick and y/n's son come from the future)"

Disclaimers: Sorry for the sloppy ending. I imagine Reader being black (like Kory). Sweariing. Probably two chapters cuz I want to explore this reader more. DICK IS ROMANI RAAAAGHHH!!!!!!! (This is not relevant to the story but yes)

a/n: Chapter one of legally binding affairs is almost done, babes. I post this, and maybe in one or two days I'll post the chapter one.

Word count: 1,179

Masterlist

You were never quite like your sisters (also not planned, ijbol). Of course, being the youngest meant you had traits of both of them. Komand'r had taught you her ambition and Koriand'r her curious nature, but there was also something really weird about you. You were just too quiet. You lived in your own world, unbothered by your older sisters' doings, but you still had some special spark.

But let's talk about your time on Earth, that's what matters, after all.

Earth was fascinating, in your eyes, those childish, big and curious eyes, the soft warmth of the sun, the fields of grass, the melodic sounds of the countryside your new earth friends sometimes took you and your sister to, the stupid romance movies you saw to which everyone fell asleep to halfway, but not you, you saw them from beginning to the last credit rolling in the big screen of the titans' tower... and you were also fascinated by the smiley dark-haired boy who your sister fell for, but human movies and books had told you humans only loved one person for all their life (you were so young that you just rolled with it, slowly losing the free nature of Tamaran to the human culture) so you weren't even in the picture in your head.

So you kept the smiley face, teased and laughed as Koriand'r told you about her 'boyfriend', never telling her how much you wanted to be in her place, because he was just a boy and Earth had a lot of boys, and Kory was your sister, and you loved each other more than either of you would love anyone else, your love for Dick would never overcome your love for your sister. But Kory knew, and it pained her so much to see her little sister suffer for something normal in their homeland to human taboos.

As your friends turned into adults, you slowly drifted away from the superhero lifestyle, focusing on your studies of human art and music, though you still helped the Titans from time to time. You explored your curiosity with the help of your outworld gaze and became a renowned historian half the time and a bar singer the other half, living away from the public spotlight.

It was during one of those friendly reunions, the ones in which you just talked about your lives and catched up, at Wally's place that it was brought up a weird ancient dungeon found on the outskirts of Central City by a construction group.

"That's your Major, right?" He had inquired. "Actually, it isn't; my major is in art., so I don't think I'd be of much help," You chuckled nervously, sipping on your drink.

"Out of all of us, you are the one who understands this the most, Sweetcheeks." Garfield ruffled your hair. "Touch me again and I'm burning off your hand." You raised your fist before letting out a soft laugh and looking at your sister, who had placed her warm hand on your shoulder, making you sigh. "But...I guess I can give it a look." You reluctantly gave in, making the team cheer and clap and earning you a playful nudge from Grayson, whom you had, in fact, not forgotten in all these years, not even after his breakup with Kory.

The next morning you had all gotten into a jeep and driven over the said location, a drive during which Dick had sat incredibly and uncomfortably close to you, and during which his hand seemed hesitant to touch yours, you hated it, in every single one of your partners.

Luckily, your Stanford ID came in handy to allow you and the crew in the cave once you arrived. It was a big space, with long, thick pillars made of dark stone and a big platform right at the end, pretty similar to every ritual room you had seen during your college years. It is left unsaid that you warned the group not to touch anything.

It wasn't Something you'd recognise, even when you pulled out your phone to check for similar constructions on your university's database you found absolutely nothing. The architecture and the engravings on the walls weren't Native American, not pre-hispanic, not even Nordic or anything that made sense in this specific zone!

"Any ideas in that big brain of yours?" Dick said from behind you, making you squeak and jump in surprise. "Don't- do that, Grayson." You huffed, making him chuckle as you attempted to focus back on the room ━That's when Garfield, ever so smart, shouted, 'Check this out!' While pointing at a weird artefact that looked spot on like an hourglass.

"Looks like an hourglass," Wally murmured.

"No fucking shit, Sherlock." You huffed as you bent over to look at it closely. It was made of pure stone, and the crystal looked pretty much clean, but the thing that caught your attention was not only the weird appearance of the sand, like small stardust that produced UV light just by existing.

"There's something written on the edges, but I don't know what it means..." you mumbled, looking back at the group, accidentally meeting Dick's eyes, the same pair of sapphire eyes that had haunted your life since the first time you saw them. "Sorry. As I said, my major is not in ancient caves." You smiled sheepishly before the sound of the stone turning snapped your head right back to the hourglass.

The scripture on the hourglass and the walls started glowing far too brightly, cycling through every colour under the visible spectrum. The hourglass started spinning, gaining speed with each passing second.

"Out. Out. Out, " Dick grabbed your wrist; the rest of the group followed and quickly began sprinting away from the cave as the time seemed to slow down. Why was he touching you? Why did he look so concerned? Why did your heart flutter and your stomach spin? And why did you hear a sound similar to an arrow's whistle approaching you?

And then there was pain... Like a stab on your heart.

It was hot... Like you were in a sauna for far too long

And then there was light... Flashes of scenes that seemed oddly familiar.

And then silence and quietness... Before you felt the familiar warmth of your sister's hands pressing down on your chest over and over, you turned your head slowly to look at the man next to you, his hand still tightly wrapped around your wrist and a young, black-haired teenage girl doing chest compressions on him as well until he coughed out and gasped to which the girl threw one of her arms around Dick, hugging him tightly and the other went to grab your arm.

Between the blurred sounds of the chaos and the paramedics rushing into the space, you managed to make out.

"I thought I had lost you and mom..."

Mom? Mom!? This was worse than any low-budget drama you had ever seen. You had a daughter with Dick Grayson! And the little shit looked just like her father.

©sourcherrybites 2025

#dc batfam #dc nightwing #dc dick grayson #dick grayson x reader #dick grayson #dick grayson x you #dick grayson imagine #batfam x reader #batfam #sour cherry thoughts #I did't say it on sunday but fuck you gayle rubin

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misscammiedawn · 1 year ago

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Ange Ushiromiya's Recontextualized Memory and Unprocessed Trauma in Umineko No Naku Kori Ni

CW: Full spoilers for Umineko, a mystery visual novel game which is best enjoyed without knowing spoilers in advance. The game and thus this essay will feature discussion of child abuse and suicide.

For those unfamiliar with my blog I have a tag called Media, Myself and I where I talk about positive/accurate representation of dissociative disorders in media.

Today I want to talk about Umineko No Naku Kori Ni the third and fourth titles in 07th Expansion's "When They Cry" franchise. The game is a multi-layered fiction that starts off as an Agatha Christie inspired closed circle murder mystery taking place during the weekend of October 4th 1986. The murder mystery displayed has no more than 18 humans stranded on an island in the middle of a storm and the audience is invited to try to work out the mystery of what happened.

As the story progresses the audience are presented with a number of different possibilities, each an in-universe attempt to rationalize the tragedy that took place and killed all but two members of the Ushiromiya family.

It is eventually revealed that to the eyes of the world, no more than 18 humans were on the island that weekend and only one returned to their life afterwards. Some in the world have been quite focused on working out what happened during that weekend.

It's a complicated narrative that has multiple layers and each layer communicates not only with the audience reading the game but an audience of people in-universe trying to solve the mystery as well. When we first experienced the game we had joked that it was sold to us as Anime Homestuck but it ended up being Anime House of Leaves.

The easiest way to describe the narrative structure is that the first 7 episodes of the game, each containing about 20 hours of narrative, have within them a fictionalized version of events written in-universe by people who may or may not have been present at the event with episode 8 is mostly its own thing. To explain in further detail would distract. The point is Umineko is a complicated narrative and there is too much to cover a play-by-play.

The narrative is intentionally convoluted and contradictory with part of the fun of playing the game being to work out what events are true and what the rules are for discerning "magic" from "truth".

Even with a concept as seemingly opaque as Truth, there is the often quoted "Without love it cannot be seen" motif, that our emotional connection to events will always color how we interpret events.

The story is remarkably long. How Long To Beat puts each half of the game up at about 60 hours. So that's 120 hours of pure reading with very little gameplay.

There are multiple plural characters ("Oh, I am one yet many", indeed) and we shall discuss them in due course, but for clarity I wish to focus my discussion today upon the relationship between a survivor and their histories. The novel has much to say on the topic.

The above image discussing the nature of truth is from Episode 4, the chapter where the protagonist is Ange Ushiromiya. Younger sister of the protagonist of the first Episodes, Battler Ushiromiya.

Ange, 6 years old at the time, was sick on the weekend of October 4th 1986 and was not present on the island for the massacre. One weekend she had a full and lively family and then in the span of a single week everyone she had a connection to was killed in unknowable circumstances, she was whisked away to live with her aunt, the sole survivor of the tragedy, and would live the life of a cursed child, forever haunted by the tragedy that stole away her life.

Ange's story takes place in "The World of 1998" where she seeks The Truth. She states multiple times how she is incapable of going on with her life until she knows The Truth.

The events of 1986 are presented via "forgeries", published stories which tell the story of the 1986 tragedy utilizing facts that are known about the family. Ange pours through them, attempting to uncover the truth. She suspects her aunt may be responsible. Why wouldn't she harbor suspicions? Aunt Eva was the only one of the no more than 18 humans to leave the island and became the sole inheritor of the Ushiromiya family fortune.

Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is formed when an individual endures long-lasting and repeated bouts of ongoing trauma, typically in childhood. Survivors often find themselves caught in an inescapable cycle of grieving that lasts months and years beyond the loss and remains fresh and raw in spite of the time and changes that have occurred since the event. The individual is tethered to the past by an inability to move on from their loss. In psychology this is referred to as Complicated Grief and though it is most commonly discussed with death, it can present itself for grieving lost time, stolen youth and lives unlived.

Ange is riddled with Complicated Grief. Her story takes place 12 years after the events on the island of Rokkenjima and yet she constantly tells those around her that she is unable to live without knowing the truth. Ange's unprocessed grief is unearthed when her aunt, the only survivor of the massacre, passes away while maliciously refusing to give Ange any insight into the truth that she alone knew, twisting the knife as she turned over the family fortune to a child that was not her own beloved George.

Ange's sole reason for existing is to make peace with the tragedy of her past and Eva's final act was to tell her she would never have it and would instead live a cursed life of a victim in the public's eye. Eternally scrutinized and criticized.

Ange, now knowing that the only chance she had to be given the truth and still feeling that she needs it in order to live her life, runs away and starts a journey to either make peace with her tortured past or end her own life.

Ange's suicidal tendencies are played up dramatically and much of the final episode is the conflict between Ange's inability to live with her grief being played out in hyperbolic fiction. The stakes of the story amounting to "will she be able to live after learning The Truth."

But what is Truth? Would learning who is responsible for her family's death truly give her peace or would it only serve to trap her further in her endless cycle of grief?

Trauma therapy tends not to focus on Talk Therapy for the most part as such therapy indulges a survivor to dwell on their unprocessed traumas and will only serve to retraumatize the client. In many cases it is detrimental to perform Motivational Interviewing (reflective statements designed to display to a client that the clinician is listening and interpreting their words without offering direct guidance or intervention) or Rogerian "person centered" (a similar tactic designed to keep a client talking without engaging in a back-and-forth, every reply should be a prompt that inspires the client to continue sharing without boundaries and reach their own conclusions) techniques.

The reason why is that these forms of therapy have a belief that "the client holds all of the answers" and the clinician's job is to let the client get out of their own way and walk towards the answer. It is a solutions based therapy where the client is trusted to clear cognitive distortions and navigate around mental blocks between themselves and what they need.

Ange's stated goals are far from healthy.

In survivors their Core Beliefs are informed by their trauma. Those who were raised in a house of neglect may have an unresolved core belief that they are unworthy of love, those who feel shame and guilt for what happened/how they were treated may have a belief that "I should have..." - A helpful list of common negative core beliefs and positive beliefs that can be instilled, click here.

Trauma therapy contains an element of identifying these beliefs and where they originated and working to overcome them. There are many different therapies in the world that attempt to do this but they all include some element of processing trauma, accepting trauma and committing to the future.

In Ange's case she does not need to know what happened in order to live. She has to accept what happened and live.

To make this clear, should Ange learn what is presented to be The Truth it will break her and she will be unable to accept it and in doing so ends up unable to live.

All of this is a prologue to talk about acceptance and our emotional connection to memory.

Prior to Eva's death, Ange was raised in a boarding school where she was ruthlessly bullied by the other students. Both Ange and her aunt are in the public eye for the scandal associated with the Rokkenjima massacre and Eva actively despises Ange and refuses to give her the care, nurture and privilege that the other students of the rich academy enjoy.

She lives a lonely and cursed life. Her one solace is getting to find time alone to sit and read her cousin Maria's "Grimoire", her journal. When she reads the journal she can clearly picture her cousin in her mind and interact with her. A form of "magic" that Maria taught Ange back when the two of them were friends, prior to the massacre in which Maria lost her life. In the past Maria had created a magical society called Mariage Sorciere and Ange was one of the members before being excommunicated.

We'll discuss it further in a while however while introducing Maria I wish to note that she was most likely forming a dissociative disorder prior to the massacre. The series writer Ryukishi07 was a social worker prior to his career in visual novels. He does a remarkably good job of displaying how abusive and neglectful family dynamics can impact a young mind. Maria, despite being 9 years old, has speech patterns linked to an infant's maturity, she often switches into a "witch" persona and she will hold up her stuffed animals and voice out their speech, treating them like separate individuals. She is bullied at school and her mother hits her when she does this but she is incapable of acting any other way. It's who she is.

A small portion of the second chapter even having some of the cousins stop to discuss the possibility that her overactive imagination and play-acting may contain elements of dissociative identity disorder. It's never fully confirmed and she dies at age 9, but Ryukishi07 displays a convincing depiction of extreme childhood neglect that would lead to a severe dissociative disorder had she have grown up.

We learn throughout the story that her journal contains sketches of many magical entities impressed upon the servants of the island and toys that Maria has. These entities becoming the magical cast of the "Gameboard".

Though not the focus of this particular essay, each episode of the game is depicted as a chess match between a game master (representing the author of a murder mystery) and an opponent (representing the reader trying to solve the mystery) and these matches take place in a world of purgatory. This world is populated by a magical cast of characters each of whom is paired with a member of the mundane cast on the island.

The game often repeats that it takes "two to create a universe". There needs to be one to imagine it and one to perceive it and mark it as real. This is displayed on the gameboard but it is also displayed with the way that for every imagined character who exists as part of the magical cast, there is the one who imagines and then there is one who their imagination is displayed onto.

Maria is a child of extreme neglect, as we will discuss soon, she had no one to displace her imagination upon (spare for her mother who she imagined as being possessed by an evil witch when she became violently abusive) and so she imbued life into her toys. Bringing Sakutarou, her stuffed lion doll, and her band of toy rabbits to life. This earned her the title "Witch of origins".

The magic in the game's universe operates on a rule that "it takes two to create a universe" logic. The concepts of Magic and Love being intertwined. "Without love it cannot be seen" has many meanings but in terms of creation it means that anyone can apply "the anti-magic toxin" of mistrust/disbelief by simply rejecting another person's reality.

So much of the magic and love in this world is built on trust and being able to believe in that which is shared. The concept is explored from many angles throughout the game, Episode 6 focusing on love in the form of trust between a writer and a reader and the contract between them requiring a murder mystery to be solvable and for a reader to earnestly engage with the fiction and accept it as it is written.

Within Mariage Sorciere, this love is to accept that the characters and imaginings of its members. To be a member is to accept all as it is presented. Sakutarou is a magical lion boy who speaks. To doubt this is to be excommunicated from the order, which is why Ange was kicked out of the witches alliance. To say Sakutarou wasn't real was tantamount to trying to kill him.

Maria's love is without doubt. In Episode 7 we learn that she is not capable of viewing people as anything more than how they present to the world. Her imagination paints how she perceives the world. When her mother's behavior drastically shifts when she enters a violent and abusive rage she firmly believes that her mother has been possessed by a cruel witch.

When a familiar adult approaches her speaking as the Golden Witch Beatrice, she does not see the adult. She only sees Beato. This is vital to her testimony throughout the game regarding the murder mysteries.

One last thing I wish to go over during this analysis of Ange and Maria and their relationship to their traumatic childhoods. That is the title of witch.

By now I hope it's been made clear that magic is imagination and love is trust. Whether it be testimony being believed, the contract between author and reader or the inner reality of one being seen and regarded and acknowledged by another.

As someone with DID, I like this concept a lot. It would be so easy to simply dismiss our condition and the presentations. But with love it can be seen.

The game shows a number of different types of witch. From the witch of origins who can make new imaginings that do not require another person to validate them to the Golden witch who has enough money to make reality via sheer financial coercion or the witch of truth who can make reality by asserting it to be so or witch of resurrection who can keep those who died alive in their memory.

Each witch is using their magical ability to "create" by taking their imagination and moving it out into the world. The Witch of Truth is a detective whose deductions are believed to be fact even if the accused disagrees. The Golden Witch can take any scheme or desire and pay people to make it a reality.

And Ange, the Witch of Resurrections, can bring back the dead by remembering them and keeping their voices in her heart. They live on in her writing. In her words. In her memory. So when she reads Maria's journal she can bring the Maria of 1986 into the world of 1998. When she reads of Maria's magical companions they can accompany her.

With this context, we return to Ange in her teen years.

Lonely and consumed by grief she is only able to find solace in imagining Maria with her, imagining Maria having forgiven her for saying Sakutarou wasn't real.

As she accepts the role of apprentice witch she is allowed to perceive Maria and her menagerie of imaginary friends.

Though there's a certain amount of strain and physical discomfort in maintaining the thought process of so many at once. Maria is able to do it remarkably easy but Ange has to struggle.

It's okay, Ange, dissociation headaches are an absolute bitch. They get better after a certain amount of stabilizing and communication work.

All the while she reads about Maria's home life.

To break the essay structure and be real for a moment. This segment hit me hard. I choked up crying and needed to take a break from the game for a while. The depiction of child neglect and abuse was too real and I feel it serves the fiction to depict it as such but it is a hard read. Please be kind to yourself as you read on.

Rosa Ushiromiya is the youngest of the Ushiromiya children, furthest from the inheritance and least respected of Kinzo's progeny. She likely suffered a large amount of abuse and neglect in her own childhood both physical from the eldest sibling, Kraus, emotional/psychological from her sister Eva and a combination of both from her other brother Rudolf.

Children raised in abusive households are more likely to develop personality disorders born from attachment trauma. A typical display of this is dichotomous thinking, praising and devaluing the same subject in waves based on stimulus. Within Borderline Personality Disorder, for instance, this is where the concept of Splitting and Black and White Thinking come from.

For Rosa, this manifests with her mood swings that have her violently scream and hit her daughter before lavishing her with apologies, affection and attention.

Every character in Umineko is burdened with a painful past. Each character feels the need to displace that pain outwards and project it onto other people. For instance Rosa displaces her pain onto Maria. Both of Ange's aunts displace theirs onto her. Kyrie displaces hers onto Battler.

Generational trauma is a heavy theme of this game.

Rosa makes her way as the head of a small fashion design label though she does not see a lot of success in her role. Early in adulthood she had a relationship that ended with her pregnant with Maria. Maria's father, upon learning of the pregnancy, left.

Rosa is young, lonely and feels that having a child makes it difficult for her to find love; in the time and culture of 1980s Japan being a single mother was seen as shameful. She finds that the best way she is able to date is to act like she does not have a daughter and take extended vacations across the country on weekends with her dates.

Leaving her daughter home alone.

Rosa has a number of hang-ups about the optics of leaving Maria in someone else's care, she is shown on multiple occasions in the story to fly into a rage when her ability to be a parent is put into question and she has massive cognitive dissonance in that she cannot bare to be seen as a bad mother and so she acts like a horrible mother to avoid looking bad.

I have seen a lot of debate on the logic here and first off, anyone who approaches this story with a view of "it does not make sense that a character acted this way" lacks the Love required to enjoy this story in full. The author enters a firm agreement with the audience to work within the confines of the fiction and not to disrespect the fiction by rejecting that which is offered. He will deceive us but never lie. In that we have to believe in the story.

But it's also a sign of those who have grown up with a proud optics obsessed parent and those who did not. Sad to say, I have experienced a few of the things which happen in this chapter and I have no doubt that Ryukishi07 saw some of it in his social worker career.

When Rosa leaves Maria alone at home, for days at a time, she orders her to never make anyone aware of her situation. More important than anything else never speak to the police about what goes on in this house.

That. I have lived that one.

What Ange reads and what Maria shows us in this episode is a weekend where Maria is home alone, her mother having forgotten a promise that was made to her and Maria is locked out of her house. She spends an entire evening searching for the lost key and eventually needs to seek a friendly store worker who recognizes her to get help.

This leads to police intervention, a social worker showing up at Rosa's house and...

I glossed over a lot. This is a dense book and this story takes up much of Episode 4. Suffice to say, Maria's friend Sakutarou was murdered in retaliation for Maria summoning attention of Rosa's bad parenting. Rosa abandoned her daughter for a full weekend after breaking a promise and when she was locked out and defenseless she asked for help and was violently punished for doing so.

Another function of the witch of origins is the ability to break the cycle of generational abuse. She does not take her pain and push it into someone else, she creates an imagined evil mother to hate and fear while continuing to love her 'real' mother. This way she never has to doubt the love she has for the mother who she has happy memories of and who custom crafted a lovely plush lion just for her.

Which leads to the discussion of trauma, memory and processing.

Ange, upon reading this story is crestfallen. She views Maria as a pitiable child, only to be confronted by MARIA who defends Rosa. Arguing that she legitimately forgot her promise, rather than deciding that her daughter was not worth the time or effort.

She claims constantly that Rosa is a good mother and that she is happy.

Maria, a being who can only view the world with love, despite being abused and hurt; chose to be happy and so through her magic it was so. She was happy.

There's a misconception I have seen and I will admit I held for myself upon reading Episode 4 that Maria was preaching to deceive ones own self in order to be happy. That it was enabling and accepting of her own abuse.

But this is actually one of the deepest things Umineko has to say about generational trauma...

Chapter 8 revisits the idea with a version of the gameboard where the Ange of 1986 is allowed to be on the island, something which was impossible because in truth she was not. Not even the witch of miracles could change that which is certain.

In this game, set by Ange's older brother BATTLER, the 6 year old Ange is treated to a fun halloween party with her aunt Eva run by her loving family. Throughout the entire story Grandfather Kinzo was made out to be the source of all evil and in this episode he is displayed as a kind and loving grandfather.

The entire reason I wanted to write this post and include it in my Media, Myself and I series (in lieu of discussing the overt plurality in the game, even) was due to a conversation Ange has with Battler about this deception.

Source: LP Archives - The full conversation can be found on this page for anyone who wants the full breakdown.

The entire story of Umineko is a struggle for those who experienced horrors to be able to come to terms with their memories and process them. This is true for Ange, it is true for Maria and it is true for the other members of the cast also.

Memory is malleable and uncertain and can and does become distorted due to understandings and contexts gained at a later stage, particularly when bias is in play.

For a graphic of how this works please look at this:

Source

The more a memory is reactivated the more it is eroded of its initial context and additional contexts bleed in. For Ange's circumstance she remembers her parents through the lens of knowing that her father was embroiled in legal troubles from his womanizing behavior. It is unlikely a 6 year old Ange remembers Rudolf in this light but her view of her father is painted through this lens and thus when she retrieves these memories the present context forces itself into the past.

This is just how the human mind works.

EMDR and other trauma treatments are focused on hijacking this system. When a traumatic memory plays out the amygdala processes the emotions and sense of danger which activates the nervous system. This process does not even require a conscious recollection; should a trauma memory be associated with a certain scent the nervous system will activate upon smelling it even if the survivor does not recall the event attached to the stimulus, the amygdala most certainly does.

I have spent too much of my life considering which of our memories had lavender scenting…

For EMDR the process involves retrieving the traumatic memory without allowing the client to reexperience it while ensuring they do so within the context of the present while highlighting safety and security. This allows the memory to be filtered through without the activating the nervous system. In some therapies this can be a process of re-parenting in which the emotional absence is provided either by the self or via a proxy. The idea is to allow the memory to break association with the trauma and be decontextualize until the memory no longer has negative associations.

Where I had assumed Maria's choice to be happy and think the best of her abuser was an act of enabling and self-deception, I now see was an attempt to stop dwelling on the negatives of the situation and allowing the past trauma to become a defining point within the present.

Maria cannot choose what happened to her. She can choose how she intends to live with what happened with her. She cannot know for certain what Rosa's motivation was in her actions. In fact as we go through the game the audience comes to be given some sympathetic information which though can never redeem Rosa's terrible parenting, can allow one inclined to feel sympathy for her. Like everyone else in the game, she's a victim too. Quite literally in 1986.

There's no way of knowing if she maliciously lied to her child and went off on vacation abandoning her or if she legitimately forgot her promise. No one is arguing that what Rosa did was forgivable. But it helps Maria continue living a happy existence knowing that she was loved and that the good memories she has of her mother are true, even if the bad ones are also true.

Maria, filled with love as she is, elected to see The Good Mommy and The Bad Mommy. Is this right or wrong? It's unimportant. What matters is if Maria can be happy.

Sakutarou was a stuffed lion said to be handcrafted by Rosa. Given as a gift and beloved above all things for Maria. When Rosa destroyed the Sakutarou doll the lion cub boy died and could not be resurrected by Beatrice because it was a unique item created by Rosa.

In Chapter 4's conclusion, Ange does the impossible and resurrects Sakutarou. She does this because Sakutarou was never a custom made doll crafed with love. He was a mass produced toy sold in travel gift stores that Rosa happened to pick up on her way home. She lied. Ange never tells Maria this. The miracle of Sakutarou's rebirth is enough. Knowing that the beloved handmade toy was not hand-crafted would not make Maria's life any better. Sometimes believing in magic is the best thing for someone living in a world painted by despair.

Funny that Ange understood that much for Maria and yet still sought after the One Truth up until the very end.

The finale of the game comes down to presenting this option to the player and by proxy Ange herself.

In a world where you cannot change the past and you cannot fully accept what happened, is it better to continue digging up the past and re-experiencing the trauma in hopes that there lays a truth that will make it all finally make sense or to try to make peace with the past and find moments of peace to hold onto. Holding to hate and pain only serves to bring the pain of the past into the present.

Ange, the witch of resurrection, has the ability to keep her family with her long after their death. Should she be haunted by the family that she was deprived or be happy for the limited memories she had and not be tethered to a world of the past she could never have possibly been part of.

Healing in Umineko is accepting love and making peace with loss. It is learning to live unburdened by tragedy and do the best with what was done to us.

If we cannot let go then we'll continue living in the world of the past turning over the events over and over trying to make sense of it and even if we are somehow granted the magical context, the one and only shining truth... it will only serve to make things worse. You can keep the past alive without letting the past control your future.

And Umineko does a remarkably good job of showing that.

Gosh... that took far longer than I'd hoped. Umineko is a difficult piece of fiction to type about because so much of it is subjective and hard to present to a broad audience without providing ample context.

I'd hoped to talk about Yasu's DID but I suppose that shall have to await another update. My original draft for this discussion was to discuss the different forms of dissociative amnesia with Ange's story serving as an example of how recontextualizing memory works. I may yet go back and do a full amnesia based ramble in the coming months. I just needed to get at least one aspect of Umineko drafted as it's been living rent free in my brain since December.

If you enjoyed this breakdown and found it interesting, please check out some of my other Media, Myself and I essays.

Derealization in Night in the Woods and Metal gear Solid 2 - Describing the sensation of derealization where the brain stops connecting associations between the self and the things one perceives in their surroundings. One example displaying how this impacts a person living with DPDR and the other showing an example of a game attempting to make a player share the experience with the player character.

DID and the healing process in Mr. Robot - A run down of the experiences of discovery, exploration, rejection and healing within DID as displayed in each season of Mr. Robot, along with a disappointed rundown of why the final episode fumbled the ball.

Bruce Banner and the roles of his alters - A breakdown of the formation of The Incredible Hulk's DID and what roles his many alters play.

Romantic relationships with systems - A look at the marriage between Bruce Banner and Betty Talbot-Ross Banner in Hulk comics and a frank discussion between Betty and one of Bruce's alters about how relationships function in a system.

Personality Play in Penlight - A review of one of the routes for a hypnokink visual novel called Penlight in which the protagonist hypnotizes a woman to have an alter personality, along with some descriptions of how dangerous play like that works in real life and what the consequences could be.

#dawn posting #umineko #ange ushiromiya #maria ushiromiya #ahaha.wav #media myself and i #media essays

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nitewrighter · 6 months ago

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Blackfire corners Dick and Kori at a concert

Blackfire: alright Grayson, where are Starfire and Robin?, I’m here to take my revenge!

Starfire, wearing a sweater and glasses with her hair styled different: Richard, who is this strange woman, and what is she talking about? I’m merely mild mannered singer, actress and model Kori Anders, and I only wish to perform for these good people. (winks to Dick)

Blackfire: you’ll be fine as long as your date tells me where my sister and her boyfriend are!

Dick:……..you’re kidding right? You don’t think she looks like Starfire?

Blackfire: don’t insult my intelligence! My sister and I may be enemies, but I still acknowledge her as a proud warrior of tamaran- she’d never stoop to posing as this meek little moon mouse. Plus, Starfire doesn’t wear glasses.

Dick: ok, hypothetically, what if she took off her glasses when changing out of her disguise?

Blackfire: then she wouldn’t be able to see!!

Kori: well obviously we don’t know anything about this star-fire, now if you excuse us, Richard and I need to find the nearest phone booth! (Whispering to Dick) you see, the glasses work like a charm, Mr Kent wouldn’t steer me wrong!

Kori: Wait--WAIT--I'm going to do the spin.

Dick: I mean, the spin thing only works for Wonder Woman because she's magic. Spinning isn't going to make your clothes--

Kori: *spins and just fucking burns her civilian clothes off to reveal her Tamaranean clothes* :)

Dick: ...I mean I GUESS.

#dc #have donna or cassie ever done the lynda carter spin? Much to think about...#starfire #dick grayson

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sliipppy · 9 months ago

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Self Indulgent Young Justice/Teen Titans 2003 Relationship and Sexuality Headcanons

Cassie and Kon convince themselves they like each other in Young Justice because they're both gay and closeted. They do love each other, but not romantically. They confuse that for attraction. Plus, I think Cassie is a lesbian stereotype, and Kon is like a gay man stereotype, so it makes sense that the two would go for each other. When they finally get together, they don't kiss because they tell their friends its cause "they both wanna take things slow". Sometimes they'll hold hands (scandalous)

Meanwhile, Cassie is like madly in love with Cissie but doesn't realize it because that's just how best friends are. Plus, she has the whole 'crush on Kon' thing going. I know everyone and their mom loves TimKon, and don't get me wrong, so do I! But in Young Justice, Tim and Kon are constantly butting heads. I don't think Kon starts liking Tim like that until the end of young justice, and he starts to like REALLY like him during Teen Titans.

Cissie and Anita kissed once at a sleepover but never told anyone. Young Justice for Cissie is like a crush fest. She's a bisexual icon, and she's had a crush on every single member of the team at some point (but her most serious ones were Cassie and Anita). She kissed Tim on the cheek in that one panel. She had a crush on Kon in the beginning, and I like to think she had a small crush in Bart but got over it pretty fast, because I've always saw Bart and Cissie as like brother and sister kinda lol (I always think of the panel where she comforts him about Max during the intergalactic baseball arc.)

Cissie can't decide whether she likes Anita or Cassie more and she also can't really come to terms with the fact that she might like girls.

Anita was basically always solid in the fact that she's bisexual. While the kiss with Cissie definitely awakened something in Cissie, Anita was like, "That was nice, but I think we're better as friends." She dates Slobo but doesn't really like him like him, but she thinks he's endearing, so the two are just a generic silly freshman year couple. Yeah, they won't last, but it's cute while it lasts, and they'll be friends when it ends. Anita's dad is super chill and had some "if you're gay I'll till love you the same." talk with her after he saw her concerning obsession with Diana Ross.

Greta hated Stephanie at first because she had a one-sided crush on Tim and was jealous of Stephanie because of it, but she gets over it and develops a crush on Stephanie. (This is canon, trust me. This is my craziest pair, I think, but trust me on one-sided GretaSteph)

Teen Titans era – later teens, Cassie and Kon are on and off dating. Kon and Tim start to get closer. They like eachother. It's so obvious to everyone else. Kory and Donna think it's cute. Cassie meanwhile, still madly in love with Cissie, beings her toxic doomed yuri arc with Rose Wilson. Rose is her official gay awakening. Her and Rose have the most tragic situationship of all time for like a year.

Okay skip forward to the sadness. Kon dies, leaving Cassie and Tim more confused and sad then ever. Cassie loved Kon, really loved Kon, but not in that way, which makes her feel even more guilty about his death because she felt that she was lying to him while he was alive and she still didn't understand her feelings. Tim on the other hand is going FUCKING crazy. He just lost Steph, then his dad, and now Kon and he's not understand ANYTHINGGG!!! Bro tries to clone Kon and when Cassies like "bro what the hell are you doing?!" It causes like this falling out between the two despite the fact that Cassie and Tim were literally bestie because they both loved Kon so much in such different ways and had all this pent up confusion...and then we get to the infamous panel where they make out while crying. In their shared grief and confusion in their own emotions they kiss. It's weird and both of them literally hate it because they literally are like siblings to eachother also she's a lesbian and Tim just lost like 3 of his actual lovers in the span of a year (Steph, Darla, and Kon) so it was weird and fucked up but they were weird and fucked up.

Skip forward, and Kon comes back to life. Everything's happy! Yay! Kon and Cassie have a heart-to-heart and breakup because they're both gay. Cassie asks Cissie out. Tim comes out as bi and dates Bernard. Kon is like, "omg I have a chance," but it is also sad because like Tim has a boyfriend that isn't him. Stephanie is like "no bro he totally likes you" Eventually, they break up. Idk why bro. (I'm not really a Bernard fan, sorry, remember the self-indulgent in the title?) and Steph convinces Kon to ask him out (I love thar after Urban Legends Stephanie and Kon are like, best friends) and BOOM timkon. Everyone is happy. Happily ever after.

And rip Greta and Anita, we haven't seen you in forever miss you queens 🙏🙏🙏

#dc comics #dc #young justice #timkon #cassiecissie #young justice 1998 #bring back butch lesbian cassie sandmark #delirious tumblr user slippy rants

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ellzilla · 1 year ago

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An extreme warning for everyone in the Creepypasta community, especially the Creeps Comic sub-community

This is a post 6 years too late, but I've finally gained the courage to speak up. Trigger Warning for: Pedophillia, child grooming, suicide and beastiality There are two manipulative pedophiles in the creepypasta community that go by the name Kori [Konpeito-Starfox on tumblr, korgifemboi on discord] and Michael [kitsuneaniki on discord] who have: Dated a minor, have been sexual in the presence of minors, exposed minors to hardcore pornography and have drawn pornography FOR minors. When I was 15 back in 2018, I was invited to a creepypasta discord after I was found because of my Old LJ ask blog. I remember Kori and Michael [Trixi at the time] were 21 and 24-25 and were 'tame' at first, but they slowly became more and more sexual as months went by. A few raunchy jokes turned into full on porn posting. They talked about sexual situations with Creeps characters with two 16 year olds and a 17 year old. I felt uncomfortable with it, but I couldn't get why. This next part may be worded poorly, as it's extremely emotionally hard on me to bring up the memories, but I'll try my best and will be the most coherent I can make it. As a dumbass 15 year old, I didn't get the difference between being gay and being sexual due to the homophobic town and family I've grown up around I had never been told otherwise, so I thought it was fine, that lgbt people in their 20's being highly sexual around and directly to lgbt teenagers was fine! Everyone was happy! And me bringing up the uncomfortableness was just me brining everyone down! But then Kori and Michael made porn for a 16 year old's oc having sex with their sonas. And something in me finally shouted "Something is wrong." I didn't know how to word it, but I approached my family [good!] and said "My friends are being a little too gay, what should I say?" [bad!!!] and so I was told "tell them to stop that." And so, in I said "can you stop being gay?" in an attempt to say "hey stop being sexual" [I know, I know, point and laugh at 15 year old me for being confused] and obviously got kicked out for that. There was shit said by them that made me want to commit suicide [thought I must stress they never directly told me to kms] And then got death and rape threats that MIGHT have been from them on my old LJ ask blog after that, but that's a side note. In the same year, the 16 year old who was given porn of their oc, [who I will refer to as Victim 1 and censored in black] started dating Kori and Michael. Note: Victim's 1's birthday is in October and this screenshot is from September

It is of note that Kori and Michael are extremely manipulative and hav convinced Victim 1, that it's better to lie to me and tried to say they were 17 when they started dating, despite me knowing their age and not correcting another [I will refer to as Victim 2 and censored in red] mentioned it in a conversation. There are two other victims who I will also censor the names of.

Below is a continuation of this conversation to show that Kori and Michael have convinced Victim 1 that them showing porn to minors is okay.

I also showed Victim 1 that what Kori and Michael did is VERY ILLEGAL, let alone immoral, but was brushed off. Granted, I should have showed him more but I was rushing to the hospital because of my heart issues and was not thinking straight due to the stress.

Michael has also been proven to quite literally speak for Victim 1 as well. [The sibling comment was because they thought Victim 2's [trans] sister was Victim 2 referring to me]

This is the end of the post, and I hope this is enough to show how much of a threat Kori and Michael are to minors, but I physically cannot show the mountain pile of trauma without putting myself in a medical emergency. There is far more receipts of Kori and Michael's emotional manipulation, but again, if this post went on for too much longer I could end up in the hospital because of them and I don't want it to be a fourth time. If you or someone you know are friends with Kori and Michael, please distance yourself from these pedophiles and show your friend this post. If I could, I would personally report them to the police, however they are in America and I am in Australia with no knowledge of how to report across-seas. If you can, please report them to the proper authorities, although I do not know if they can get into legal trouble for what they did to us years ago, it will stop any on-going child grooming. Please note, I will not be mentioning this or replying to anyone specifically IN MY INBOX until AFTER I recover from making this post. Do not send me anon messages if you're going to tell me something private, instead, message me. If you have a public issue with this post, say it with your chest and off anon. Before this hell is through, I have three more screenshots to share. One of Victim 2 being shown drawn Beastiality while they were still a minor [I have been informed Victim 2 was still 16], one of Kori [with a pfp of LJ having sex with Will in a server full of minors] mocking me while I was still 16 and against them being sexual [and mocking me for my LJ design and having a non-sexual lizard hyperfix], and a miscellaneous message of Michael admitting he likes dog genitalia and mocking me for not liking porn but being fine with gore. WHILE I WAS STILL A MINOR. I will put them under the cut as two of them are censored but still visual images of nsfw. IF YOU ARE A MINOR, DO NOT CONTINUE THE POST AND PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM THESE PEOPLE.

Grown ass adults talking to and about children...

#cw: pedophillia #cw: grooming #grooming tw #pedophillia tw #child abuse tw #public service announcement #i don't know what else to type.

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smellslikemultifandomimagines · 2 years ago

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hi can I request a smut or blurb of Jason where the reader is Starfire’s younger sister (Jason’s age ofc) and there is something about her that Jason can’t resist and he can’t stop thinking about her especially during training then he eventually gets frustrated and does something about it

[❤︎] pairing: Jason Todd x starefire!sister!reader [❤︎] warnings: [❤︎] word count:

requests are open🖤 request guidelines✨ 🌻masterlist🌻 smut night masterlist 💦

JASON KNEW YOU WERE OFF LIMITS. Kory had made that very clear from day 1 of you living in the tower. While she could appreciate his skills in the vigilante world, she would never trust him to be with you. Jason knew that, Dick knew that, hell even Rachel sided with Kory. Jason wasn't to be trusted around you.

But there was certainly a fire in you (no pun intended, of course) that kept Jason on his toes. He first noticed in one of the first training sessions you had with Gar, Jason and Rachel. Your skills in martial arts blowing them away immediately. He quietly paid attention to you, taking mental notes on that you liked and didn't like.

At first, he found it cute that you were oblivious to his flirting. Though, you were warned by pretty much everyone, that Jason was a massive flirt. But as more time passed, the more he couldn't stop thinking about you. He wanted, needed even, to be with you. It was odd, he thought, that you are the only one in his house that keeps him level headed. You weren't even together, let alone close enough friends, so how do you manage to do that?

Training got even harder too, the more you pinned him to the wall or the floor, or even did that to the others, the more infatuated he got.

"That's it. I'm gonna ask her out," he tells Gar. The two had been talking about you about the better of a half hour now. Of course Gar noticed Jason's little crush, and he told Jason that it wasn't long before everyone else figured it out too, that is, if they haven't already.

"Dude, you can't. Kory-"

"I couldn't give two shits about Kory right now. I can't keep waiting around for [y/n] to make a move on me, so why-"

"It's a dumb idea."

"I don't care."

"Well, don't tell you I told you so if Kory finds out," Gar throws his hands up in surrender.

"She won't find out," Jason tries to argue, but failing. Even he could see how weak of a point that was. He sighs, rubbing a hand over his face, "She consumes my every thought. This obsession, this - I don't even know what this is - it's too much. Of course you'd never understand, I mean-"

"Hey, who said I've never had a crush before?" Gar defended himself with a slight chuckle.

"You know what I mean," Jason rolls his eyes. He flops down on his bed, a heavy sigh running out his mouth. He rubs his face in his hand again before standing up. "Right, well I'm going to blow off some steam."

Jason stops in his tracks when he sees you in the training room, looking as flawless as ever. Your hair's a mess, strands coming out of your bun from every angel, sweat glistening over your forehead and chest, tired hands gripping the sword as you try another trick.

"Hey," you smile at him, noticing his presence. He can barely get a word out, so all he can do is give you a small wave. "Wanna train together? I've been trying this new thing, and I think it'll work better if I actually have someone else here," you laugh charismatically.

"Uh, yeah, sure." You've learned not to take Jason's tone too seriously. There's no point in getting upset over an angsty, brooding guy. Jason was cute though, there's no doubt about that. Rough around the edges, sure, but over the last few months that you've been here, you've gotten to know him better. A lot more than he thinks.

Jason grabs a sword and positions himself to get ready to fight. The two of you start sparring, swords clinking together from contact. As impressively good as he was, he seemed distracted.

With a flick of your wrist, you easily caught him off guard and made his weapon drop from his hand. “Everything okay? You don’t seem yourself?”

“What makes you say that?” Jason rubs the back of his neck, his eyes boring into yours. He needs a plan, and he needs it now. If there’s any time to ask you out, or at least try to, it had to be now.

“Your footings off. Your footing is never off,” you stand closer to him, a hand on his shoulder. It was a simple gesture, really. A sign that meant he could trust you no matter what. But the sensation jason felt all over his body was too much. He pulled away, not wanting too, but his body seemed to do it for him. Almost like your touch caused a knee-jerk reaction. Your brows not together.

“Jason-“

“I like you, okay! I know Kory’s sworn me off as the bad guy, but you-you’re just so-“ he couldn’t even put into words on how to describe you. Your eyes softened, hands cupping his checks as a soft, flattered laugh slips your lips.

“Took you long enough.”

#jason todd #jason todd x reader #jason todd imagine #titans #titans imagine #titans!jason todd

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tenpintsof-sundrop · 11 months ago

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I had one of my most brilliant Titans revelations today

a huge overarching theme of Season 3 and Titans at large:

Be Better Than Your Parents aka The 51% Rule

The episode titles of Titans are always something I find utterly fucking fascinating and so well chosen - like how the episode where Hank and Dawn are introduced is called 'Hawk and Dove' (because they are struggling with their hero identities and considering quitting), and the episode with their backstories is called 'Hank and Dawn' - because we get to know the real them, and the episode where Hank dies is called Hank & Dove - because Dawn is wearing her costume, trying her hardest to save Hank when the bomb goes off, and Hank is stripped down and completely vulnerable (and because Hank was trying to retire and he only came back to the Titans lifestyle because Dawn was continuing on as Dove).

51% is an episode that I fucking love as a title and as an episode overall, and I love how it speaks to the theme of the show overall

if you don't remember the specific episode or where the title comes from, let me catch you up. Blackfire and Kory are trying to track down a machine that Crane could be using to mass produce the anti fear gas (which makes people erratic and more likely to commit violent crimes) at a much faster rate, and they have gotten a tip that one of the mobsters Crane is working with isn't satisfied, so they go to talk to her.

Kory is hesitant to willingly work with a criminal, even if the outcome gets the drug off the streets and keeps people safe, so Blackfire reminds her of something that their father used to say:

When making decisions, think of the 51% Rule. If a decision is 51% good and 49% bad, then you do it anyway. Because if it's only by a slight bit - the good outweighs the bad.

Kory says 'I hope you reminded father of that when you were killing him' - and this leads Blackfire to remind Kory that this rule was implemented all throughout their childhood. And it lead to Blackfire being abused and neglected while Kory was beloved and favoured - something that Kory is trying to heal by being an ally to her sister rather than leaving her to let that abuse continue at the hands of the US government.

The theme of breaking away from abusive parenting comes up in the episode again - the mobster agrees to work with them as long as Kory and Blackfire bring her son to her, and Kory (being good natured) believe that it's because she wants to reunite with her son and make amends with him, but the woman ends up murdering her son because he was supposedly giving information about her criminal empire to the FBI. And so, Kory lashes out and (rightfully) murders the woman - and we see Blackfire have a fondness for Kory murdering an abuser and bringing justice, be better than their parents would have been in the face of a situation like this.

And it's not just this episode, the theme persists throughout the season.

Barbara and Dick - but let's just focus on Dick for a second.

"Be a better Batman."

This is from the ... first? Episode I believe. (The first or the second.) Bruce murders the Joker and then shows up in Dick's room in the middle of the night, covered in blood, and drops a bloody crowbar on Dick's floor - he tells Dick that he's done with Gotham, and that Dick should 'be a better Batman'.

When Dick brings this up to Barbara, she tells him how utterly ridiculous this is - and how it's just Bruce goading him with temptation and Daddy issues, and he reminds her that she became Commissioner Gordon after her own father died, and almost instantly - we see Commissioner Gordon and a new Head Bat, working together seamlessly, but in a new way.

Barbara always desired to be different from her father - she never puts too much trust in Dick, and if she does, she knows when to step back from it. She has a strong sense of justice - she's intelligent and vibrant and energetic and she feels that no person is 'too small' or too unimportant to save.

Dick instantly understands compromise. He's not as independent or stubborn as Bruce because he's used to working with a team, and he learns to delegate early on. He understands the importance of others playing a role aside from himself.

More threads I find important under this theme:

Crane has a scene with his mother. He blames her for pressuring him too much in life, and the fact that he even became a doctor - later on, when he has a mental breaking point, it seems like he goes to the mental extreme of mutilating himself because he believed that he was never good enough in his mother's eyes.

Jason and Dick as 'brothers' - the whole show has a lot of interesting threads about these two and their 'brotherhood', even though in this universe they weren't raised as brothers. But every single fight they have, or every single discussion Dick has about Jason (even discussions that Jason has with Bruce in the flashbacks) - always goes back to Bruce.

It goes back to how Bruce treated them differently.

And I think because Dick always finds opposition and competition in Jason, he never found it in himself to forgive Jason, and he misdirects that 'forgiveness' and better treatment to Rachel and Gar, and in a sense - he feels the need to oppose Jason continually, right up until the end - because he feels that Jason always got better treatment from Bruce. (When neither of them were treated as a child should be, they were just treated very differently.)

I mentioned this earlier, but the fact that Kory rescues Blackfire from the government facility, seemingly to make up for the damage that their parents caused. And finding out later in the season that their parents treated them so unfairly because they used magic to steal Blackfire's natural powers and give them to Starfire, and then treated Blackfire like a powerless outcast her whole life - there is just so many layers to unpack there. But Kory was basically ending the general trauma and abuse by discovering this family secret and finally giving her sister fair treatment.

Dick has closure in having a dream about his real father - and then dreams of becoming a parent himself. I am not a huge fan of the visions with M'ari, not because I don't like her (that baby is so stinkin cuuuuute omg) - I am just not a huge fan of the trope of 'having a baby and getting married = happy ending'. Especially because the show split up the Titans family and Dick and Kory stayed together under the impression that this would happen.

BUT - I did love how Dick's form of closure, after obsessing about following in Bruce's footsteps as Batman, and reflecting on how Bruce treated him and Jason, and having all those flashbacks to his childhood where Bruce treated him horribly (but in his adulthood, he considered it 'training') - Dick gets to have genuine closure by seeing his real father one last time, who tells Dick that he is proud of him.

Especially after the Pit shows him a vision of himself as The Joker, killing Jason - which I have just now realized represents Dick taking on Bruce's burdens. Holy fuck. Because it has been established throughout the whole season that if Bruce had treated Jason better, then Jason wouldn't have run off on his own, and he wouldn't have gotten killed by the Joker.

And Dick probably feels the same way about Jason getting kidnapped and tortured by Deathstroke, and be probably still feels responsible for everything that happened there, like when he dropped Jason and a hallucination of Bruce was tormenting him for not taking better care of Jason - so in that torment, and after trying to BE A BETTER BATMAN for weeks, maybe months, and seemingly failing after he dies in an altercation with Jason (someone who wouldn't be Red Hood without Dick's own mistakes) - Dick steps into The Joker's costume and literally murders Jason while Jason is wearing his Robin outfit.

He is killing this more innocent version of Jason because he feels deeply responsible for doing so.

(I have to take a step back because I literally had this realization while typing this.)

And then he is told by his own father that he can let go of that burden - and it's one of the only times he actually gets real, true closure.

I know a lot of people think that the vision of M'ari turned Dick into RV Dad Bot 1.0, but I think it was his father giving him closure that truly made him ready to take on the family and play the part.

Anyway - that's all I have for you today. I have to go before I make anymore mind bending revelations

#sundrop speaks #discussion #jason todd #dick grayson #kory anders #blackfire #barbara gordon #dc titans #titans #titans 2018

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vodrae · 2 years ago

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We all know Kori-Starfire can learn new languages by kissing someone.

And she had a team(euphemism) with Dick "I speak dialects forgotten till Babel's Tower" Grayson and Jason "I have the biggest booktok account" Todd.

Both have a gentleman agreement that

"Kori came back in the Titans knowing how to speak 400 BC's Greek, let's not talk about it"

But years after years, they meet Kori speaking languages they don't know, and that itch them harder and harder

"CAN YOU STOP KISSING MY EX-WIFE/BIG SISTER ?!"

Blank.

That was neither of them.

Who ? Who kisses her on a regular basis ? And knows so much ?

A necessary investigation takes place (you know bats and boundaries...)

She was on Themyscira. Kori went somewhere homly for her, filled with warriors and one of the biggest library in the world. She's been kissing all the archivists who speak together nearly every languages created.

Knowledge is a pair of lips away. Did Kori told them one kiss works to learn it all ? No. Did they ask ? No. Acquisition comes from repetition after all.

And now Dick and Jay are pissed they can't learn anything she doesn't know anymore. Kori didn't even kissed them all this time, they were studiying together. It was a great bonding time.

#batman #batfamily #batfam #batman headcanon #batfamily shenanigans #jason todd #red hood #starfire #koriand'r #dc titans #red hood and the outlaws #dickori #dickkori #dick grayson #Nightwing #themyscira

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riks-hot-stuff · 11 days ago

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Okay, look. Sit down with me. Let’s talk.

It’s time for more of my opinions!

Today’s episode: I Am Not Starfire. I know everyone in the DC Community keeps whining about how awful it is, how the main character is a self-insert and how sucky it is, how blah blah cliche it all is..

Look. I am not a DC person. I don’t claim to be. But this is ridiculous.

Yes, the book has flaws— the main character is sort of unlikable. It is kind of cliche. The author has been bashed for being too “politically correct” and the author bears a resemblance to the main character.

But I feel like when people say they dislike this book, the reasons they use are the most shit reasons ever. Do you have any idea how much “criticism” of the story is just fatphobia?

Like, actually. I understand people say she doesn’t look like Starfire enough— but she’s not sexy enough I hear you say, well, she’s supposed to be a teenager, and sexualized female characters is a huge problem in comics anyway. Starfire is a legend, but she is heavily sexualized, and just because the character who is her daughter doesn’t have the same unreal proportions doesn’t mean the story is awful, it just means your being an asshole.

Yes, the main character is often unlikeable and not a very good friend. But it’s also kind of the point of the story? That she’s an angsty rude teenager who’s trying to figure things out? Yeah, the Blackfire storyline was messy and pulled out of nowhere, but it wasn’t really THAT bad. The main character’s habit of swearing does sound cringy— I don’t know many people who talk like that —but a lot of stories have really cringy dialogue anyway. Even though it sucks, it’s not really as bad as everyone thinks it is.

Also, I really liked the detail where Starfire— going by the human name Kory Anders —named her daughter Mandy Anders. Not short for Amanda or anything, just Mandy, mate. And in this story Blackfire is evil, very evil, but she’s still Starfire’s sister.. because Blackfire’s real name is Komand’r. STARFIRE NAMED HER KID AFTER HER SISTER BECAUSE SHE STILL BELIEVED THERE WAS HOPE FOR HER.. and I honestly think that that’s a really sweet detail. I wish that was outlined in the story a bit more, but eh.

So yeah. It’s not perfect. But it sure as hell isn’t the Harley Quinn Fart Comic and all those other crap-show DC comics. It’s actually pretty okay, and people need to learn how to critique it without reinforcing fatphobic ideas and their female-superhero-sexualization crap.

Rikki out.

#rikki chadwick #h2o mermaid #rikki’s on tumblr #rikki h2o #h2o just add water #mermaids #opinions #i am not starfire #starfire #blackfire #kory anders #koryand'r #komand’r #dc comics #come at me #isnt that awful harley quinn fart comic also dc? it’s gotta be right?

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timdrakeinorder · 7 months ago

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Batman #442 (My thoughts)

Alfred has known him for ONE NIGHT and he already gets Master Timothy status. It's unreal how fast he got endeared to this little shit. Alfred and Tim's relationship is so underrated and I will never stop saying it! In a way, Alfred mentored him before Dick or even Bruce did. Alfred has such an important role in teaching him how to be a support for Batman, and accepting how dangerous what they do is as someone on the sidelines

Alfred is so strong, he really doesn't get enough credit for how hard being Batman's guy in the chair, emotional support, nurse, and father is. He could lose his son every single night and he just has to sit at home and hope for the best

Right of the bat (hehe) Tim has SO much respect and appreciation for Alfred and it's really nice to see.

Hey look, it's the profile thumbnail!

It's like Tim can't physically restrain himself from jumping in to help when he sees a problem. He's so worried

This is where we get into one of my biggest gripes with fanon, the "tim forced batman to make him robin" thing, and also a bit of the "bruce was irresponsible and chose to endanger a random civilian child" thing, although the 'are robins child soldiers?' discourse is too heavy for me to get into.

The biggest problem I have with it is when Dick and especially Alfred are portrayed as being against the decision and forced to accept it by Bruce

As with a lot of fanon, it's rooted in canon and then horribly exaggerated. Tim talks Alfred into taking him to save Bruce and Dick, despite multiple attempts to talk him down both in the cave and in the car. Tim followed Dick all the way to Haley's circus to try and talk him into being Robin, if Alfred didn't drive him the little shit absolutely would've found his way to the fight anyways the second the man turned his back. He's extremely stubborn. And, as established in earlier installments, Batman has been reckless to the point where it is VERY likely he'd die out of his own lack of self-regard any day. I really can't blame Alfred for having a moment of weakness here. Bruce means more to him than anything in the world and Alfred can see that in Tim.

This is also where we get into the "did Tim stalk the bats and take pictures of them regularly?" fanon discourse. I definitely don't think there's canon support that he was following them every night on patrol as an extremely young child (he didn't even figure out their identities until he was 9. I've seen writers make him as young as FOUR trying to follow them and as a big sister to a 4 year old, y'all are insane) That being said, I think his use of the word "followed" could be interpreted in a few ways. It would be a perfectly valid interpretation that he means 'followed' in the way one follows the news, as in keeping track of. However, he does have A LOT of pictures of Batman and Robin and, in my opinion, a lot of them don't look like newspaper clippings. Plus Batman and Robin are rarely caught on film, I don't think the newspapers would catch them often enough for Tim to build a collection that big.

Tim also knows when Titans meetings are, where Dick's apartment with kori is and the fact that they're together as well as knowing what angle to peep through the window at and where to view both the tower and that apartment stealthily. He knows where Dick's New York apartment is, he knows how to get in, he knows how to get into Dick's safe.

He DID manage to follow Batman to that fight on the dam and photograph it.

I think that's too much evidence to completely dismiss the idea that he's followed them before

And here's the real kicker about the 'Tim forced them' thing. TIM DID NOT GO IN WANTING TO BE ROBIN! TIM SEES THIS AS THE ONLY SOLUTION TO BATMAN'S SELF-DESTRUCTIVE VIOLENT SPIRAL!

Tim is selfish. He is stubborn. He's reckless. He wants to help no matter the risk. He sees a problem that affects him deeply out of a VERY parasocial relationship and demands to be able to fix it no matter what anyone else has to say about the matter. And he's a 13 year old boy with a heart too big for his chest. Tim was made to be robin

(coming back for part two after work. we're still only on page seven and I have MUCH more to say)

#deerector's commentary #tim drake #a lonely place of dying #batman comics

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paladin-of-nerd-fandom65 · 2 years ago

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How Would I Do….An Official DickKory Wedding Had I been in Charge if DC Comics

To clarify, the following proposal takes place within my version of a reboot for DC Comics Mainline books and continuity, as per my pinned post.

To catch everyone up to speed to when this will take place:

Two Event comics would’ve by now took place (Dawn of Fire and War of the Supervillians)

In between said events, Titans Leader Nightwing aka Dick Grayson would’ve had his secret identity discovered by a crime boss in Bludhaven with a massive grudge and used against him, more or less ruining his life and leaving the black and blue clad alter-ego wanted by the state Bludhaven is within with a massive bounty for a crime he didn’t commit (Clipped Wings and it’s subsequent Batfamily crossover Blue Hawk Down)

At the same time, the rest of the Titans would be attending to a crisis in space no doubt Tamaran related which leaves Starfire aka Princess Koriand’r emotionally shook to her core, and the B team of the Titans split with Red Arrow aka Roy Harper forming his own splinter anti hero team called Arsenal Inc. this combined with other unfortunate events to an entire half of the Titans leaves Wally West and Tempest aka Garth with no other options but to travel through time and ask for help from….themselves, their young Teen Titans selves, to which the Fab Five agree to and they travel forward in time and resolve to stay in this new future until things are set right. (See here)

Before the events of War of the Supervillains, Dick and Kory, now more or less in temporary retirement, are able to meet up with one another and share their experiences and interpersonal matters between them. Sure both are emotionally exhausted and burnout by recent events in their lives but they go through their issues together and strive to stay together, whether it be at Haly’s Circus once again traveling across the country or Kory taking a residence at Key West, Florida.

Once War of the Supervillains wraps up and status quos are reinstated especially for the Titans, Dick and Kory’s relationship is now stronger than ever before, thus leaving a pathway to their marriage wide open. Thus in this post, we shall cross it.

(Read more Below the Cut)

For a bit if Meta context , both Dick and Kory would have solo books in addition to Justice Titans at the very start of the reboot, released around the same time. So about around the 74th issue, what I had in mind was that the wedding would be a Seven Part Storyline with the following books in order:

An Alpha Issue (The Issue to which Dick, with a subplot in his solo book up to here would be finding a perfect ring for Kory once they approach the altar, and Kory finalize their plans for the wedding, their place, their minister/priest and all they talk of all the implications that can come from such)

Then Starfire #74 (We see her perspective of the big day fast approaching while the sub plot can deal with her further reconciliation with her sister Empress Komand’r aka Blackfire and as of this point in her solo book, her attempts to reconnect with her younger brother Ryand’r aka Wildfire starting to bear fruit; both siblings are given their perspectives of this wedding)

Then Nightwing #74 (On the flip side we see Dick’s perspective as he finally moves back to Bludhaven after Bruce Wayne and senator Janet Drake are finally able to lift the Wanted Bounty off Nightwing and find him innocent of all charges. We see the reactions of his fellow Haly’s Circus crew members and friends within the city of his upcoming wedding and their words they can give to the Boy Wonder)

Then comes the triple whammy of…

Justice Titans #74 (The main A team; other members besides Nightwing and Starfire are Cyborg, Beast Boy, Raven and a resurrected and fully heroic Terra)

Titans #74 (The B team; consisting of Troia, Red Arrow, Tempest, Wally West Flash, Omen, Herald and Bumblebee)

And Teen Titans (The time displaced Fab Five of Robin I, Wonder Girl I, Aqualad I, Speedy I and Kid Flash Wally) #14;

These three take place on the Wedding Day itself but with a twist. They’ll fend off multiple supervillain attacks orchestrated by Benito ‘Boss’ Zucco (son of Anthony ‘Boss Zucco; see here) so that Dick and Kory can have their wedding in peace*. All the while each issue focuses on a particular character in their book and their perspective on the events unfolding. For example, Robin!Dick would be the one giving his thoughts about his future self’s wedding in Teen Titans.

Then finally a double-sized Omrga Issue (in which via a ceremony that combines Tamaranean and Human customs, I.e. the rings and the “You May Kiss the Bride”, Dick and Kory FINALLY are wedded together in harmonious matrimony. We follow that up with the reception attended by Batfamily members, the Titans, the Justice League, Komand’r with her royal court and even the time displaced Titans, allowing both present!Dick and Past!Dick to meet face to face. This issue and the storyline end with Dick and Kory beginning their journey across the galaxy for their Honeymoon)

Within the Post-Wedding aftermath, I’d combine the Nightwing and Starfire solo books into one.

Now it’ll be called ‘Nightwing & Starfire: The Flying Graysons’, starting with issue #75

Side Notes:

*This follows a a similar plot point within the Wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm aka Mr Fantastic and The Invisible Woman in the pages of Fantastic Four

At the wedding itself, yes indeed Tim Drake, despite being technically older than the standard age ranged can be the ring bearer for Dick and Kory, out of wanting to take some part for his big brother

Please, reply and especially reblog to share your thoughts about this idea, that’ll be very appreciated

Tagging: @spider-jaysart @lightdusk96 @camo-wolf @meara-eldestofthemall @sillymanwithocs @mothnem @wisegirlandseaweedbrainforever @anasmoonworld @bluegarners @adalineozie @sbd-laytall @starlightbelle

#dick grayson #koriand'r #reboot #komand'r #victor stone #garfield logan #rachel roth #tara markov #donna troy #roy harper #wally west #garth #karen beecher #benito zucco #tim drake #my posts #rambles #elseworld

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