#unofficial rules are that he has to be in a place where someone could feasibly discover him (no back of the closet or storage boxes)

[thevegetablewhichnoonedaresname]

I put Geordi in a food storage container in the fridge like two weeks ago thinking that surely someone would clean it out or pick up the container and notice there was nothing but a little plastic action figure in it at some point. After three days, I started moving the container to the front every time I get something out of the fridge. I even called my sister a few days ago before she made dinner and asked her to clean out the old leftovers. BUT HE'S STILL IN THERE. NO ONE HAS FOUND HIM YET. WHAT HINT AM I SUPPOSED TO DROP NEXT. HOW CAN I POSSIBLY GET MORE OBVIOUS.

[spacedace]

Honestly feel like Jason would go for St. Olga for a confirmation name, not because of what she's the Saint of officially (officially I don't think she has an official Thing she's a Patron St. Of) but because of just her general vibe.

I highly recommend looking her up (History Puppet Time has a great vid on her) but for a quick and dirty overview:

Olga was a Norse queen of Kiev in the 900s CE who took bloody, bloody revenge upon a group called the Drevlians after they very gruesomly murdered her husband.l and then had the gaul to try and get her to marry their prince (who ordered the husband murder).

Olga's revenge highlights include:

- burying alive the matchmakers sent to try & convince her to marry the guy who killed her husband

- sending a message saying "totally on board, just need to see your best men, send em over" theb barricade said best men in the bath house and burning them alive

- sending another message saying "wedding totally on, but we gotta have a funeral feast for my dead husband first, can we have it at your place?" & when the poor fools sakd yes, brought her whole crew (vast army) with her where they all sat & watched everyone get smashed & then went ahead and started a teeny tiny lil murder frenzy that turned into a year long beige war

- offered them the chance to just give her tribute and they could call it even after a year, which the Drevlians (rightly) were wary that she would do another brutal murder on em, she convinced them they were square & sweetened the pot by saying she'd be cool with a tribute as small as a sparrow and piece of sulfer from every house as the seige had to be rough on them

-upon receiving the Birds and suffering she had her army tie the sulfur to the birds and the light it on fire so that all the panicked birds would fly back to their roosts...which was in the city.

Anyway feel like fresh from the pit and ready for revenge Jadon Todd would absolutely get a confirmation name in honor of the clear (unofficial as she may be) Patron Saint of Revenge

(Also sadly don't think he could be an official Saint himself. No one can be put forward for consideration until at least 5 years after their death and even then there are specific requirements that someone has to meet to be considered. That being said though, thr Catholic church would have to have some kind of feelings about Red Hood apparently being brought back from the dead seemingly by godly miracle and depending on things the Pope could feasibly pull a "earthly voice of god" and say that Jason is a Saint now which I feel like would only fuck our boy up even more with the Catholic guilt)

Unofficial St. Robin of the Alley though 👀👀👀

Like, Robin II with his Crime Alley accent and his Good Catholic Boy (TM) vibes, showing up for midnight mass in his Robin uniform and confessing the wildest sins the father has ever heard and always lits a votive every night at the end of his patrol?

The one they know is gone because Batman starts being seen instead, lighting two candles - one for whoever Robin always lit one for, another for the boy himself- and looking so broken despite the face hiding cowl he wears?

The Vatican might not canonize that boy as a Saint, but Gotham's never bothered playing by anyone else's rules and Crime Alley even less so. They have no qualms at all adding a statue of their lost Robin to the Votive altar, of invoking the name of their martyred Saint for strength or guidance, no one tells the kids getting their confirmation that Robin can't be their confirmed name. That's Crime Alley's Patron Saint right there, and no one is going to say shit about it if they wanna keep their knees - and that includes the Pope and God himself.

Maybe I've just missed it, but I feel like there's not enough discussion on Catholic Jason Todd and his feelings on being seemingly resurrected by God Jeesie-Chreesie style.

Like, we as the readers know that it was a reality bending punch from Superboy Prime that brought Jason back, but in canon no one has any explanation at all for how that happened.

The Lazarus Pit fixed him, but he was already alive (just in super bad shape) to be fixed. He woke up in his own coffin and had to claw out of his own grave and no one in-universe can explain how or why it happened.

And that alone would fuck someone up, but add in Catholic Guilt (TM) and references to the resurrection floating around every Easter and Jason's gotta wonder at least a little bit if the Big G brought him back and if so has to absolutely agonize over what he's done with his big second chance.

I just wanna read 100k words of Jason's complicated feelings on his death, rebirth (resurrection?), Red Hood, God, Bruce and what it all means, if anyone's got any recs please share them I'm begging 😭

[wingletblackbird]

Number of Children in the Wizarding World

People have been confused by Rowling’s statement that there are about 3,000 witches and wizards in the U.K. with about 600 attending Hogwarts. (She also said 1,000 at one point so I’ll just assume that that number refers to all children, even if they don’t go to Hogwarts. Also, the argument that there are only a couple hundred students at Hogwarts, given we only see five boys in Gryffindor in Harry’s year will be disregarded as a) if they aren’t relevant to Harry, they aren’t likely to be mentioned even if they exist and b) from a logistical perspective neither 200 nor 600 is feasible given what we see. I’ll have to devote another post to that later. Meanwhile, this post will discuss why 600 is more likely/realistic.) This confusion is understandable when you consider that in the modern Muggle UK, children don’t make up up to a third of the population. Surely these numbers make no sense? This would be true of the Muggle World, but in the WW, I think the institution of childhood would be vastly different, and this is why the number of under-seventeens is higher, because in the WW, there are many considerations in having children that just aren’t present in the Muggle world.

Firstly, you have werewolves, hags, trolls, dementors, banshees, doxies, vampires, as well as numerous other potentially deadly creatures. If your child encounters them, they will probably die. In Hogwarts, there are also acromantulae, a basilisk, and whatever else is in the forest that makes it “Forbidden.” Then, you have people like Charlie, who deal with dragons, who have very high-risk jobs. In fact, the original Care of Magical Creatures professor, Kettleburn, had lost several limbs which is why he chose to retire. On the basis of dangerous magical creatures alone, you have a high mortality rate. Ergo, you will have more children “"just in case.”

Secondly, magic in and of itself can be dangerous. Luna’s mother was killed by magic gone wrong. Transfiguration done wrong on a person can have severe damage on someone and may even kill them. Remember that McGonagall warned her students that “any one caught messing around in my class will be asked to leave and not return.” Of course she said that; what she’s teaching could be lethal. Obscurials are formed in children when the magic they’ve tried to repress explodes out of them. Magic, in and of itself, is wild, untamed, and often dangerous. Hogwarts only helps teach one how to control it. Of course, as (I’m pretty sure) Hagrid said, “You lock a bunch of young wizards together for the better part of the year. Parents expect a few accidents.” I’m sure they do; in some cases, it’s even lethal. You’re placing a wand in the hands of an eleven year old, after all. Heck, you’re placing it in the hands of hormonal teenagers. That’s dangerous. This thing can kill. Ergo, you’ll have more children, as child mortality/disability is going to be a bit higher than on the Muggle side of things.

Thirdly, young couples are going to be encouraged to have more children than the Muggle couples are. They need to have kids to maintain the small Wizarding population, preferably even to increase it. This is doubly important, as to maintain the balance of power against the angry centaurs and the resentful goblins, the Wizarding community needs to keep their population up. Goblin rebellions are known to happen after all, so are centaur rebellions. Furthermore, Voldemort was only the greatest Dark Wizard in a CENTURY, at least before he took over the Ministry, which makes it sound like minor scuffles with Dark Wizards is normal. Basically, there’s a lot of tension in the Wizarding World-duelings a thing there too-so young witches and wizards dying in a battle is not exactly unheard of. They definitely should have larger families then. If the WW has a prayer of surviving, they need them.

Fourthly, the WW may have a cure for common colds. They may be able to regrow bones and mend ribs, but they don’t do so well against magical illnesses like dragon pox or spattergroit. Given the number of deaths we see on family trees in 1977-9 and 1990-2, I’d say epidemics are a thing too. Wizards associate too closely with magical creatures not for there to be. You see, often the most deadly epidemics come from diseases that affect animals, mutating, and being contracted by humans. These are called zoonosis.  Given how often wizards and witches handle dragons blood or newts eyes, I’d say epidemics are not infrequent. (Especially when you have lots of “wars.”) Vaccinations probably haven’t reached the WW either. They only became popular around the ‘50s, so they’re probably only starting to reach the WW now, if at all, whose medicine has developed differently. The WW may possibly be able to handle cancer, but are hopeless against infectious disease. I bet loads of people die from those too. Answer: Have more kids.

Finally, apart form the high child mortality rate, for socioeconomic reasons, having more kids is pretty important too. Firstly, the WW population is too small to support professional care for the elderly, as a general rule. Moreover, they don’t likely have welfare or foster care. As a consequence, parents need the security of having multiple children to take care of them into old age. They also need the security of having siblings in case their children are orphaned. When the government cannot support you, you only have your family. Hence, family ties are HEAVILY important in the WW. This is doubly true as the WW runs on a system of “bastard feudalism,” or what are, basically, unofficial “patron-client” relationships. In other words, who you know is quite important, as is your reputation and your family's reputation. You need connections to survive in a world where everyone is armed, the government is weak as a result, and it is pretty much the Wild West. Thus, have more kids. You’ll gain more influence and protection that way.

The fact that child mortality is probably high in the WW, even expected, goes a long way to explaining Hogwarts. In the Muggle world you wouldn’t send your kids to school with a “Forbidden Forest” that anyone can access, a lake with a giant squid, merpeople, grindylows, and who knows what else, and a whomping willow. Moreover, when the Chamber of Secrets was opened, some security measures were eventually taken, but it takes the kidnapping of Ginny Weasley to shut it down. A couple  years later, you’ll have blast-ended screwts in class, and teenagers facing down dragons-and this was after the Tournament was deemed “"safer.” The attitude here is that children will probably die young anyway. It doesn’t mean the adults don’t care, but that they’re resigned to it. Therefore, the emphasis is on teaching the children to protect themselves, rather than in coddling and protecting them, (Mrs. Weasleys’s antics aside.) It’s a mindset that the Muggles used to have too when they lived in a society that expected war, death, and disease. I’d say that the average family size in the Wizarding world is 3-5, compared to our 1-3, but invariably many individuals will die young.