#we inherit so much

[transfemmbeatrice]

Alan Davies, Just Ignore Him

[bigskydreaming]

Imagine looking at a character whose entire premise is that in every stage of his life, he's made every version of himself into someone that inspires people to such a degree that EVERY SINGLE VERSION OF HIM has people wanting to literally follow in his footsteps in some way or another.....

And coming to the conclusion that like.....the most important things about him are the sum of all his trappings. His entirely homemade developed from scratch could not exist if not for what he already was and brought with him BEFORE crafting this newest version of himself trappings, with his greatest trait throughout all of it being his adaptability; his ability and willingness to roll with the punches and not try to simply weather any opposition or changes to his life but instead reshape himself as needed to better fit INTO whatever new shape his life and the world around him takes. All while managing to carry the most innate, fundamental and necessary aspects of himself from one version to the next. Thus every single version of himself is different but simultaneously every single version of himself is also undeniably the same person.

The strength of this character, to me, will always be that he can be so many versions of himself, he can become so many things, all without ever actually losing or discarding any of the aspects of himself he considers most essential, the things he's not willing to lose or give up just to keep going. Finding that road not taken by most, usually because most never even think to look for it as an option. But one that he's always able to find because the one trick he's mastered in his tumultuous life is threading that needle of not just digging in his heels in an unproductive way but rather being selective about when and where he makes a stand and decides "this is not a thing I'm willing to compromise about" but here are places and ways I can and will change and evolve and adapt in order to make it possible for me to hold onto these parts and keep them as they are.

And that's why its always so mind-boggling to me that so many writers can't seem to think of anything else to do with Dick Grayson other than invent some new reason for him to just....not be that person, or to like just take the character whose most basic fundamental trait he's NOT about to compromise on is willingly giving up his spot in the driver's seat of his own life.....and make him just a passenger in his own life and stories.

Dick Grayson at age nine....at age nineteen...at age twenty nine....the one core thread running through all versions of him is the only way he's standing back and letting you call the shots for him or putting him on the sidelines in some way is over his dead body.

HOW he goes about that, what that looks like, who he becomes and what aspects of himself he plays up at some times and what traits he lets fall by the wayside at other times when they offer less in service to his primary goal here....that changes constantly. He changes constantly.

But those changes are almost always (or at least they used to be/should be IN MY OPINION) made with the intention of keeping certain things about him or his life as consistent as possible.

That's the duality of Dick Grayson that I'm here for. The inherent contradiction of him that COULD allow for endless conflict and breaking new narrative ground in all sorts of ways if mined properly:

His eternal willingness to compromise....but only ever in pursuit of doubling down on the ways he's not willing to compromise.

Forever walking that tightrope in ways that only a kid born and raised in a circus could ever hope to.

[lunarharp]

idle leftovers...i drew the dream from my last post

[spacedace]

I don't know if this idea has been brought up before but:

Dp x dc writing prompt where Mr. Lancer is Jason Todd's false identity while going on a long term under cover mission. He's completely disguised himself and let's his literary nerd flag fly as the English teacher/vice principal of the local high school for his investigation (investigating the mad scientist supervillains in the making Jack & Maddie perhaps?).

The mission rapidly goes off the rails as ghosts start showing up to cause chaos and he realizes one of his students is actually the new out of his depths hero Phantom.

[wickmitz]

I decided to start talking about Wick and Rocky's relationship because I like their dynamics too, I like seeing Wick scared of Rocky and Rocky being aggressive with him, which is unusual because Rocky is rarely aggressive with anyone, but of course Wick is an exception to rule

Also my mini opinion about their possible relationship, I think that if Rocky didn't have to fight for his place, then he and Wick could become friends, or at least tolerate each other a little, I also see some superficial similarities, their gentlemanly and romantic natures, and their common love for explosions (remembering the quarrymen chapter), but this is my assumption, I think that I don't understand the characters' personalities well, so I can be wrong in this assumption, something like that. So, what do you think about their relationship?

for starters, i cannot thank you enough for this ask! as i’ve said previously, i have many thoughts on these two, so it’s nice to finally be able to share some of them. although given the extent to which i think about them, i apologize in advance if this is sloppy and sort of everywhere … while i’ll try to structure things the best i can, i cannot promise i’ll succeed! but hopefully this is an enjoyable reply nonetheless.

one of my favorite things about rocky and wick’s relationship is absolutely how aggressive rocky is towards the aristocrat ; he is prone to glares and cruel jokes and borderline hissing whenever the man is within his line of sight, or can be brought to a wailing-fit over the mere mention of his name from miss m’s mouth. there is a childishness to it, but a very prominent threat as well in spite of rocky’s usual incompetence. so he goes out of his way to posture around wick, readily lying and adorning himself with the gangster drapes he so badly wants to wear, in the hopes that it intimidates … will even badmouth wick’s family and make fun of his name and rock related obsession to mitzi, and so on so forth! yet all of this is very reminiscent of schoolyard bullying rather than anything too severe, though we as the audience understand rather quickly that rocky would bash wick’s head in with a tire iron if he could. ( translation : if it wouldn’t earn the tears or hate of a certain beloved mitzi may ) and it’s all very intense despite the absence of actual violence! and i understand why many fans see this as unusual for rocky and believe that it’s only wick who makes him act so aggressively, but i’d argue it isn’t really wick at all that prompts such scary reactions from him … and that rocky is a deeply angry character who’s a.) been boiling quietly for a long, long time and b.) has turned wick into a punching bag of sorts for this inner world of resentment and hurt. basically, when he’s judging the well-to-do or poking fun, his eyes don’t look at wick and actually acknowledge him as sedgewick sable ; instead this is a being, something vague and metaphorical, who threatens to upseat rocky’s permanence in the lackadaisy and steal away his savior, and he’s had a hand in the violinist’s misfortune for a long time.

obviously, rocky doesn’t think wick robbed him of his family twice over and made him homeless, but he is channeling the fear and anguish of those events into his loathing for wick, if that makes sense? it’s easier that way -- to finally have an outlet for everything bleeding inside of you, to be able to bite and claw at something without feeling conflicted or having to take personal accountability for your own mistakes … which is something that i think rocky does struggle with to a degree. he is sort of a finger pointer! his pain has to be worth something, it has to be for someone else ; spending years homeless and losing his last bit of family was for freckle, and the scrambling of his literal brain was for mitzi, and that means he can’t ever be angry with them! well, except that he is, somewhat, but he buries it deep down instead of feeling it. with freckle there is a sense of strain between them -- an air of ‘you owe me’ from rocky to freckle as he uses freckle to appease miss m, and he constantly pokes fun at his cousin too. it’s lighter than his jabs at wick, but there’s a constant pestering, a reminder of how good freckle has it : how he’s got the mom and the house and the job and the girl most notably. i don’t think rocky is intending to come across as mean, and to his credit he hardly does! but it’s rather clear to me that some part of him, some hidden and deeply hurt part, is rather indignant about taking the fall for freckle all those years ago. which he can’t understand, because how could he? he made that choice, he decided to take accountability for something he didn’t do because he loves freckle and knows it’d be so easy to believe this family tragedy was roark’s fault ; the devilish child he was, all troublesome and too broken to properly fit anywhere. so there is a disconnect born here, where rocky can’t comprehend that he’d be angry at freckle, so instead these not so great feelings are placed elsewhere and silently boil over time. and with mitzi … i don’t think he’s angry at her per se, but there is a frustrated and desperate chorus of : why him and why not me, when i’m the one out here dying for you? which is certainly unpleasant. of course, rather than allowing those feelings to be more aimed at miss m, whom he feels unloved by, he ( again! ) represses these emotions and allows them to fester into his greatest fears and fantastical complexes. i think there is a lot of other miscellaneous anger he could have towards others too … perhaps some part of him is sore upon seeing ivy’s normal lifestyle, watching her go to university and knowing that’s been taken from him. or an ache felt when hearing stories from zib and the band and how they used to travel successfully, living as nomads, and rocky is all too reminded of his similar lifestyle and how he couldn’t make it work as effortlessly. people with immense trauma are more prone to irrational anger and jealousy, to viewing everything around them as unfair and believing it’s even more unjust that so many people get to live comfortably while they’ve suffered. a situation that gets more messy when you’re someone like rocky, a man who’s willingly made choices that have harmed himself and wants to continue on with his smiling, bumbling fool of an act. he does not want to be angry, does not want to see it within himself, i think, which leads to an accidental increase of it.

all of this is to reiterate that wick is a scapegoat for rocky and nothing more. it’s why he’s rather hypocritical whenever it concerns the man. for example, it was stated by tracy that he looks down upon wick for his excessive presence at the bar, yet he appears to enjoy hanging out with zib -- who drinks just as often! he makes fun of how all wick ever talks about is rocks, when he himself is prone to poetry rambles that people find irritating or boring, and etc etc. this is also just a human nature thing, to critique someone you heavily dislike and even going as far as to belittle things you love or do in your own day to day because you just hate them that bad! but given rocky’s willingness to befriend anyone, it more so reeks of a dehumanization element. wick is every obstacle in his way, every divine force that threatens to send him packing again, so he is equal parts unnerved by wick’s presence and angry about it. it is mostly a fear response we are seeing, an emotion that’s morphed into long held resentment and anger. so his actions are extremely defensive, with him trying to push wick far away and keep him and mitzi separate, like some sort of animal attempting to ward off a threat that’s come too close to their home. despite the loaded animosity there, this hate has hardly reached its peak … but it shall only grow more intense as things continue onward i’m afraid, since as it stands ( in the comic at least ) rocky is at an all time low … and is ten times more desperate. i’d honestly say wick has become so warped in his mind’s eye that he can only strive towards ‘winning’ over the other man, because that’s all he can see anymore. i think mitzi implying that wick willingly helped her out, the intense head injury, and rocky’s fragile emotional state is exactly what pushes him towards premeditated murder in look-see. i don’t know how people perceive that arc, but to me it’s very clear that rocky actively sought to see the deaths of wes and fish that night. going as far as to lament that he’d be, “very disappointed if ( he ) dreamed them,” and purposefully luring the marigold duo away to have freckle pick them off. while you could argue that this was a smart move, in a gangster sort of sense, there’s still no denying that rocky is oddly chipper about the whole thing and is now seeking death out ; whereas before his methods of vengeance were just, well, ruining people’s livelihood but ultimately leaving them alive. this isn’t to discredit the fact that rocky is going through something! he is in a very muddled and dark place, mentally and physically, but even tracy has said that the head injury hasn’t changed rocky’s personality -- it’s only brought things to the surface.

source : q&a with tracy .

which, yeah! makes sense! head trauma can cause a person to become a wreck emotionally ( think mood swings, irritability, etc ) but it doesn’t completely morph someone either. personality changes may occur, but it’s not like you’re being rewritten entirely, you know? and given tracy’s old statement, it’s clear that ‘personality changes’ aren’t a side effect he’s suffering from. something that adds to my beginning statement, which is that rocky is a deeply angry and troubled person, more so than fans give him any credit for.

however, to touch upon your mini opinion about these two, i actually wholeheartedly agree that rocky and wick could become friends if circumstances were different. they do in fact have many superficial similarities, but one of the more prominent things they deeply share is never really belonging in the groups they frequent. this is more overt with rocky’s character, yet wick faces it too in subtle ways. the well-to-do crowd, seen through the investors, find the gentleman to be lacking in about every place imaginable ; to them he is an obsessive freak who cares too deeply for meager rocks, something they constantly mock him for, while he’s also being noticeably set apart from the rest of them … he seems younger than the investors, more excitable, passionate, and a little less experienced, and doesn’t seem to care for money or reputation as much as them either. there is a constant rubbing between him and them, where what he enjoys is seen as wrong, such as his love for the lackadaisy and his choice in paramor, a grieving widow with extremely dangerous ties. we also know that wick doesn’t have many friends at all, with the only two he has being lacy and church ( church is listed as such on his character profile, in a sort of tongue-in-cheek way ), both of whom work for or with him. they are obliged to hang around, and while they care in varying ways, they are prone to judging him just as much. honestly, it’s not shocking that wick seeks refuge at his chosen speakeasy! but even there he is rather distant from everyone else. he doesn’t speak to zib ever in the comics, nor seems all too close with viktor, ivy, or horatio … it is merely mitzi he is close to, even if he knows of the other people who work there. and, once again, wick very obviously doesn’t fit in. he is not gangster material, could never be an atlas may replacement, much less someone who could get his paws dirty in such an active way. so he has his feet in two different worlds and doesn’t know how to fit into either of them, or which one he actually wants to fit into more. i think in many ways rocky could relate -- these are two very lonely people who wish to belong somewhere and be accepted by some group or another but go about it in all the wrong ways. wick, who is too hesitant to fully commit to what he wants and is worse off for it, and then rocky, who obsessively throws himself against what he wants until he breaks every bone in his body. they also have explosives to bond over, lol, and other miscellaneous things like their taste in women i suppose … but this potential bond adds to the tragedy of lackadaisy, where we see two people who on every level should get along but we’re burdened with the knowledge that it’s an impossibility anyway, because there’s no removing the circumstance of which they’re in.

though i like to believe that despite wick’s fear of rocky, he maintains a kindness towards him regardless. i think his worries about rocky are rather surface level … he doesn’t know the boy at all, really, and thus can’t make heads or tails of him, hence him believing the lie in balderdash. so when i’m feeling particularly self indulgent, i like imagining a world where they’re forced together and sort of ‘stuck’ together ; to which rocky finally breaks and exposes his wounds to wick, in every sense of the word, and wick finally gets him. the aggression, the possessiveness of mitzi … it is all fear and desperation and a profound sadness, things he’d sympathize with. if rocky was able to explain that he loathes wick because if he saves the lackadaisy then mitzi won’t need him anymore and that it’s not fair that wick gets to so easily fix things when rocky would give his soul for his home, for her, and how wick could render every sacrifice he’s already made for naught by smoothing things over with some greenbacks and he can’t lose this, he just can’t --! … which, well, wick is too kind of a man to be able to do anything except feel awful, even though it’s not his fault at all. here we have two people who could coexist! and they should, since rocky logically can’t do every speakeasy job ( band member, rumrunner, mitzi’s shadow, also the guy who gets the money for the hooch ) by himself, just like how wick can’t save the lackadaisy with only his cash and limited booze stash. it’d be a joint cooperation, a collaboration between them, both equally important in the grand scheme of crime’s every turning wheel … but rocky’s rage and fear won’t let him see that, and likely never will. still, in scenarios where everything ends up alright for the lackadaisy and the people involved in it ( which is not how canon will go, by the way ), i fancy wick and rocky getting better within their relationship. rocky will always be prickly and quick to upset around the other man sadly, but perhaps he could see wick in a softer kind of light. or at least understand vaguely enough that he isn’t out to get rocky, so to speak. and then maybe wick learns that pancakes soothe rocky’s ire and poorly makes them anytime he wishes to talk to the man, and other fun things like that! but you should have more confidence in your character analysis skills, because you were spot on ( at least in my eyes ) about them potentially getting along if things were different. it’s certainly a fun aspect to play around with, and is important to note when discussing their relationship so you can fully understand just how warped rocky’s perspective on things are. and how unstable and traumatized he is too, of course </3 sidenote, but i also hope that throughout everything i’ve said here, or anything i’ve said before on my blog, that my love for rocky and my own sympathy for him comes across well enough. while he’s deeply flawed and i have no qualms discussing said flaws in depth, i also don’t think of him as some insane freak who’s evil at his core or anything like that. honestly, i adore analyzing him so much as a character because of how far down his issues go! he’s very well written, i’ll say, as is wick and many of the other characters, but i digress.

once more, thank you for the ask! i’ll end this here because i fear if i don’t i’ll start going in circles, since their relationship is so vast and very important for rocky in a character sense. hopefully i shed some more light on it though! i love these two to bits and pieces and i wouldn’t be half as invested in lackadaisy if their dynamic wasn’t so monumental -- at least to me.

[rosietrace]

Okok I know we all hate Tobias but I wouldn't mind if JLB ever decided to write a book about his life

[welcometogrouchland]

I miss them so bad (Dick and Damian)

[alwayshinny]

Hinny ♥️ - The Chronicles of Harry J. Potter's mind

She's Ron's little sister 😡

She's Ron's sister.😠

She's Ron's... 🫤

She's... 😵‍💫

She's so beautiful. 😍

Shit, she's looking my way. WAIT. DID SHE JUST WINK AT ME? 😳

Stop staring. Look somewhere else. Fuck, I think Dean noticed... Awkward... 😬

Okay, try to act cool. Stand against the wall, cross you arms, and look nonchalant, like you don't care. 😎

*stubbles with hand placement and footing* 🫨

Ginny: "Hi Harry"

tries to cover his dopey smile but ends up swooning instead. 🥴

[worstloki]

Loki didn't even do anything to the other Asgardians personally, unsure why they didn't like him so much and thought he was so suspicious

[useless-catalanfacts]

Btw if you come on holidays and stay at an AirBnb instead of an actual registered hotel I hate you personally. Not "I hate the gentrification and touristic massification and the way we can't live in our homes and are forced to move away because of tourism" in an abstract way- No, not just that. I hate you.

[blacktrekkie]

bruce wayne was not raised by a gay man for y'all to write him as homophobic or confused about his kids' queerness

[astraeajackson]

I'M SORRY YOUR HONOUR BUT THERE JUST WASN'T ENOUGH NASH X LIBBY FANFICTION IN THE WORLD

[quietwingsinthesky]

the last unicorn post from earlier has me thinking about the master. that yana is still in there, you know? is still someone he was, if even for a brief flash across the life of a time lord. there’s no way to unlive that life. there are ways to twist it later, sure, to make utopia into hell on earth. but the life was lived. in much the same way that the doctor can remember, can feel, the love he held onto as john smith even as that life is ripped out of his hands. the doctor choose denial and then grief and then to shutter it all away. and so john smith died, and so professor yana died, and the doctor and the master live on. the doctor has done this before, and he lives in orbit around humanity, trying to keep the best parts of them and hold them deep enough to take root (which he can pretend he gets to choose, as a time lord. as a human, it all floods in and can’t be dug back out.) but what about the master, right?

to borrow a turn of phrase: i think there are two time lords left in the universe, and they both learned how to regret.

[mercutiotakethewheel]

everytime i rewatch black sails, i find myself like vane more and more ngl. the first season really tries hard to trick you into thinking he’s just unnecessarily, banally, and uncompellingly an asshole (in the overwhelmingly compelling asshole show), whose one redeeming feature is that he’s kinda pathetic too. but geez s2 really nails home everytime that hes the best and the coolest and the most honest (maybe even most compassionate) of the mcs up until this point, barring anne of course. and on top of that i actually kind of think he has the best pre-s3 speeches. like obvs s4 flint is yknow s4 flint. and s3 max is so insane i actually cant handle it. but oh my god charles vane’s letter and his fuck your legitimacy eleanor speech and his hanging speech are so good. and fuck what i said earlier isnt even true. bc his s1 speech while hes looking in the eyes of the little boy he used to be is actually like the bestest. like fuck ok. charles vane is the best actually. #1 anarchist boy. 10/10 would want him in my commune. hed point blank refuse to help with the dishes tho so 😬.

[rawliverandgoronspice]

behold: my second least favorite string of words in the entirety of Tears of the Kingdom.

(it's a little less transparent why this time so I'll explain my thoughts under the cut)

So why do I not like this?

In so many words: because if you remove it, the scene still works, but you lose the moral certainty of what is going on.

This single sentence does so much legwork for the entire game (the kind I dislike), to the point where I'm about 60% sure it's the product of a rework that realized how ambiguous Rauru's position was as the Good Rightful King and needed to nervously reassure the players that Ganondorf Is and Always Was the Invader, Actually.

(no matter that it leaves the gerudos in this awkward in-between state of both invaders and victims, while never dwelling in the specifics of their history and their own agency in the entire thing; brushed off as a sin they have to expiate through loyalty to the winners of that particular strife, but without explicitely blaming them either to avoid the implications of what that would have looked like)

If you remove it, not only do you lose a pretty clunky line that detracts from Ganondorf's intimidating presence (who is he even speaking to? who needs to hear this right now?) that honestly speaks for itself when it comes to his experience with warfare, but also you lose any tension and any mystery regarding why he is attacking in the first place.

You also... kind of rob Ganondorf's motivations of their meaning. "Hyrule will bow down before me" leads to asking... why? What does he want? What does he see in those lands? And what little we get with Rauru and then Link during the final fight begs more questions; why do you prefer hardship to peace? Why do you value strength? What leads you to want to rule a land devoid of survivors, become a king without a kingdom? I don't think we ever get satisfactory answers. If you remove this sentence, on the other hand... Subtextually, it becomes pretty clear that his motivations is that he felt threatened by Rauru's power, which is ripe with subtext and questions about whether this is a legitimate reaction, whether his "no survivor" stance is due to a feeling of betrayal when his own people turned against him post the Demon King shenanigans... I'm not saying it would fix the entire game's writing, far from it, but it would already do *so much more*.

(genuinely, I think he could have stayed completely silent during the Molduga Assault, speaking only in the Show of Fealty before going completely nuts after Sonia's murder, and it would have worked MUCH better in terms of characterization but anyway anyway

EDIT: ALSO!!! that way he wouldn't speak hylian to fellow gerudos, which is weird inherently)

Without this line, the core of the tension between the gerudos and Hyrule comes front in his conversation with Rauru; it allows the cause of his hostility to be Rauru's invitations, that he would have taken as a threat, and would have still made him warlike and domineering without making him cartoonishly flat, because, once again, Rauru is not acting in a particularly more legitimate way when Zelda arrives in Ancient Hyrule; and it would have been... fair to point that out. And make for better characterization for Rauru, and Sonia, and Mineru, and everybody. But the priority was for Hyrule to be pictured as unquestionably holy; always legitimate, always truthful, always beautiful, always just.

Also, and this is more of a nitpick but: why would Ganondorf want Hyrule, specifically, to bow down before him also? Was he at war with the rest of the disparate tribes before, and just carried on his ambitions to the very very newly-founded kingdom as they allied under a new banner? (though it seems to be implies the lands were crawling under monsters in a generic sense, and not Ganondorf's attacks in particular) Why would he even consider Hyrule a legitimate entity worth taking over then, if it is so new, born from the will of a powerful rival, founded by what is basically a stranger to these lands? Why would he covet something so young instead of destroying it and just calling the lands Gerudo Lands II or Grooseland or something?

I don't think any of that was even accounted for, because, beyond everything else: to me, this sentence is so clearly and painfully crammed in here to shield Hyrule from any potential blame and immediately characterize Ganondorf as Bad without having to remove any of the causes that could lead one to side-eye Rauru's little pet project as equally questionable.

Beyond the clumsiness, it is cowardly --and, I think, a little damning.

[alagaesia-headcanons]

Hey do you have some Tornac headcanons please?

So. uh. This is probably a lot more than you bargained for lmao, I went a bit crazy. This is mostly a continuous story of his backstory through roughly the first year he raised Murtagh, then some more random headcanons after that.

I just. love Tornac <3

-

- Tornac is the son of the marshal, who oversees the military presence of a nobleman’s castle. His father starts training him in combat when he’s young simply for practicality, with the hope that he can take over his role when he’s older.

- Tornac learns very quickly, even when he’s young. He didn’t have any fervent dreams of knighthood or glory, yet he’s always unwaveringly prepared for new challenges to overcome.

- No one around him entirely recognizes what they have on their hands as Tornac goes through his first several years of training. He steadily masters every skill presented to him, not without struggling, but he never struggles for very long. His father can tell he’s especially talented and he’s impressed when he has nothing more to teach him when Tornac is just 14. He knows his son will be a great swordsman, but it doesn’t occur to him to imagine far beyond the scope of his own largely unremarkable life.

- Regardless, his father is kind and wants him to excel, so he arranges for Tornac train under a more venerated knight in another city. He goes and he learns the more advanced skills the knight teaches him until Tornac can best him too, after only a little more than a year after arriving.

- With the impressed recommendation of his previous tutor, Tornac gets passed around to increasingly renowned warriors, and yet, his capabilities never seem to reach a limit they can’t grow beyond. He never finds a mentor he can’t eventually defeat. Belatedly, his peers and patrons come to realize that Tornac is a true prodigy, something the Empire’s army inevitably takes notice of.

- In his youth, Tornac himself is hard working, reserved, and intensely pragmatic, never particularly outgoing or adventurous. He never cared to question the path his father set him on, even once his father was no longer the one laying it out for him. He’s good at this, and that was reason enough for him to decide to build his livelihood as a soldier. He never stops to consider any other possibility for himself.

- So when the army takes him into the fold to test his mettle, he goes along readily. Even the expertise hoarded by the Empire can’t hold him back by then. He has so little left to learn, and what he does he learns swiftly before conquering every last challenge. At just 20 years old, he earns the simple but resounding reputation of the best warrior of his day- and quite possibly in the history of the Empire.

- (I do imagine Tornac as the best human warrior in the series. In a hypothetical situation where he might have lived, he had the skills to defeat any of the other humans at any point in the story.)

- Tornac needs no convincing to accept a position in the army, especially after his father expresses his support of the opportunity. It is by far the clearest place for him and he struggles to imagine a different option that could suit him, so he doesn’t dwell on the choice to enlist. He honestly doesn’t know what else to do with himself.

- He wasn’t raised with any special loyalty to the Empire. He sees his role in the army as performing a job more so than serving a cause. He’s dismissive of the politics behind the army and he falls short enacting the zealous allegiance that the army prefers to instill in its soldiers.

- Nevertheless, by the merit of his unparalleled swordsmanship, Tornac rises through the ranks swiftly. He doesn’t do much to actively seek out his promotions, not very ambitious by nature, but his reputation elevates him, and after a few years, he settles in the position of commander.

- Tornac spends over a decade in the army, notorious, but no longer just for the fact that he remains undefeated. The years sour him and wear away at every soft part of him, leaving only jagged flint behind. Tornac’s remarkable prowess in combat doesn’t innately suit him to command. He’s adept at it, he would have never lasted so long if he wasn’t, but he hates it. It taxes him horribly, managing so many soldiers- he hates the endless monotony, logistic headaches, enforcing discipline, handling every problem, and ordering around everyone without the common sense to figure out anything on their own. He does it, but he hates every minute of it.

- Tornac grows notorious for being a dismally strict commander, never to the point that he’s called cruel, but famously impatient. It’s an accurate description. He’s utterly intolerant of any disrespect or crassness, irascible and very swift to snap at anyone who’s made a mistake or fumbled their responsibilities, and browbeats his men for talking back to him or his orders.

- It creates an endless cycle of stress and he drinks when he can find the time to try to alleviate the tension. He’s perpetually discontent, but he sees no alternative.

- Tornac carries out his own orders successfully and wins every battle against the Varden’s men when they pressure their borders. While the Empire uses the less effective units of its army to police its own citizens and ensure compliance, it sends Tornac to deal with the real threats. He becomes a very experienced and renowned veteran, but he doesn’t make many friends.

- Tornac is in his thirties when he’s appointed Murtagh’s warden. Of course, in an official capacity, Galbatorix is the guardian of his most loyal servant’s son, but the child’s day to day life is beneath him and so he summons Tornac.

- Tornac is bewildered to be plucked from his post by a direct invitation from the king with no explanation. It’s nothing compared to his absolute shock when Galbatorix announces he is to oversee the upbringing of Morzan’s four year old son. Overshadowing the already confounding revelation that Morzan had a child at all, he cannot fathom why he should have any responsibility over him. He argues that he has absolutely no skill with children and he has duties to fulfill on the other side of the country. Galbatorix informs him that he’s been relieved of his command so he may take on this task.

- Under any other circumstance, Tornac might be overjoyed to hear he doesn’t have to toil in the army any longer, but in the moment, it feels like his world is falling apart. He’s carefully built his whole life around the things he already has full confidence and understanding in, and now, all at once he’s being thrown into something utterly unknown and untried.

- And he has never wanted children. He hates his command because he hates being bothered, and the only thing he can imagine bothering him more is a shrieking toddler. He’ll lose his mind.

- His blindsided panic gets the better of him and he argues against his orders much more brashly than he would have dared to otherwise. Cool and stoney, Galbatorix cuts across him, saying, “Morzan’s son is to become a great warrior. I am giving him the guidance of Alagaesia’s finest swordsman so that he will not fail that expectation.”

- The king leaves not even a hair’s breadth of room for defiance and so Tornac stops showing any. It gets through to him that this is real, so he bows and accepts the task. He might not feel much loyalty to the Empire, but he’s not a fool and he knows full well that the king is not someone to be denied.

- And so it happens that the most famed and maladjusted commander of the Empire’s army becomes the caretaker of Morzan’s four year old son.

- Galbatorix was being honest in his explanation to Tornac. His reason for assigning him to raise Murtagh was Tornac’s martial prowess. From the beginning, he intends to use Murtagh as a weapon when he’s old enough, whether he becomes a Rider or not. So it’s of the greatest importance that he learns to be a strong warrior, and since that requires dedicated training throughout his youth, that’s what he needs Tornac to provide more than anything else.

- The rest Galbatorix is confident he can handle when the time comes to recruit Murtagh. He knows Tornac is rather dispassionate about the Empire and is unlikely to instill much loyalty in Murtagh, but he feels fully willing and able to force Murtagh into compliance if need be, so he doesn’t let that get in the way.

- He’s also aware of Tornac’s less than kindly reputation, but that doesn’t bother him either. In fact, Galbatorix welcomes the possibility that Tornac might mistreat him similarly to how Morzan did- as long as he doesn’t cause more lasting, physical harm. Instinctive, ingrained fear of punishment is something he could make effective use of later down the line.

- So Galbatorix ignores Tornac’s objections that he would be a bad warden for a young child. He will serve the purpose the king actually cares about- forging a weapon.

- Thus Tornac is provided a new life in Uru’baen’s citadel, more lavish than he’s ever known. He’s introduced to his quarters, the household staff, and finally, his ward.

- He doesn’t know what he thought Morzan’s progeny would be, but it certainly wasn’t Murtagh. He’s scrawny and oh so small, with huge, gray eyes deep with uncertainty. He holds himself tense and moves around carefully- because of his wounded back, Tornac soon learns.

- And he’s quiet. Murtagh is remarkably, blessedly quiet.

- At first, Tornac revels in this, astounded by his good luck. He expected a shrill, petulant, and entitled child he simply wouldn’t be able to cope with, but Murtagh is so withdrawn and out of the way, he can almost forget he’s even there. He can live with this, and the relief is profound.

- It doesn’t last, though. After the first week, Tornac starts to get frustrated by how difficult it is to communicate with his new ward. He shies away from his attempts to glean anything about him, mumbling only the most noncommittal answers, then when he does tug on his sleeve, he fails to say what exactly he needs. Murtagh needs so much coaxing to come out of his shell, only to retract again at the drop of a hat, and Tornac finds himself struggling to keep his patience.

- In the way Galbatorix silently anticipated, Tornac does snap at Murtagh in those early days. His habitual stress responses make him raise his voice and reprimand him for being difficult, trying to forcibly override Murtagh’s behavior. It’s counterproductive enough that it starts to make Tornac uncomfortable in a way he’s never felt before.

- Any satisfaction he first felt at Murtagh’s quietness has vanished. He’d rather deal with a well behaved child, but a four year old should have more energy than this, no matter his shyness. His reticence strikes him as more and more unnatural.

- A far cry from what he dreaded when he was told to care for a child, this is how he would imagine having an exceedingly skittish cat. Murtagh hides under the furniture, he tries to leave the room the moment someone else enters, he never makes eye contact with him for more than a heartbeat, and he’s so damn quiet!

- He’s concerned for Murtagh, Tornac realizes, grieved by the signs of fear and pain in a child so young. This is as far as he can get from his responsibilities in the army, and his methods of dealing with it like a commander are clearly making things worse.

- Tornac pulls back to reevaluate. He may be woefully unknowledgeable about children, but his father always told him that his natural talent as a warrior came from his impeccable intuition. He can intuit this. He can observe and analyze and adapt to figure this out, because those are skills he does have.

- He breathes and steadies himself, calming himself like he does before a duel. He aligns himself to Murtagh’s own pace to start off, then adjusts from there. He forcefully reminds himself he’s not working under any deadlines anymore, he has no duties that pile up during any delay, and he lets himself wait for Murtagh to find a degree of courage and comfort in his own very lengthy time. Some days, he never does, but as Tornac allows himself to take this as a chance to rest and recuperate as well, patience comes so much easier. Enough that Murtagh occasionally overcomes his anxiety and opens up to him.

- Tornac resolves to better step into the role assigned to him. He involves himself more consistently in Murtagh’s day to day, he bends his focus and decisions towards his safety and comfort, and he starts to teach him lessons. Murtagh’s still so young that they’re hardly vital, so he keeps them short and light, hoping for enjoyment over education.

- He does that so Murtagh can gain a semblance of routine and, more than that, so he can get a sense of Tornac’s role in his life. It lets him see that he doesn’t need to fear his presence and intentions. It’s a way for Tornac can demonstrate that he has no desire to hurt him.

- And not just that he doesn’t want to inflict new hurt, but he doesn’t want to exacerbate his old wounds either.

- Murtagh won’t talk to him at all if he can smell any whiff of alcohol, doing everything he can to escape his presence, so Tornac cuts back on his drinking. He finds himself remarkably unbothered by it, and it’s far easier than he imagined.

- Murtagh flinches and cowers whenever Tornac pats him on the head, immediately on the defensive. It leaves him so on edge and desperate to perform perfect behavior that Tornac can’t unravel the source of his fear when it happens. Only after a while does he coax Murtagh into revealing that his father used to manhandle him by dragging him by the hair.

- So Tornac trains himself not to reach for his head and pats his shoulder instead, squeezing lightly to comfort him. And he tries to come up with another way to convince him not to worry about it because the child has a real knack for getting his hair tangled and he could really use a brush.

- As Tornac lets go of his habits and reinvents his approach to this new situation, he changes. His anger and discontent peter out. His impatience is nowhere to be found. Once he stops expecting every little thing to stress him out, it stops happening, and he realizes that his stress was a habit in itself, born of years and years in a role that didn’t suit him.

- Tornac finds happiness and fulfillment he never imagined in being a caretaker, a guardian, and a teacher. It gives him peace.

- There is a span of time in the midst of this, when Murtagh starts to trust him but before he learns how to fully opens up, that he shares himself with Tornac without the words he’s not yet comfortable with. Quietly, mumbling sometimes, he gives Tornac a small, worn book of sweet poems for him to read to him. He grabs his hand and leads him to meet the cat he befriended in the yard. He presents him with his most cherished and only remaining toy and even lets him hold it.

- At this point, two things happen. Watching Tornac engage with the things he loves with careful and genuine care makes Murtagh accept Tornac and give him his complete trust. He decides he’s someone he can rely on and wants to turn to whenever he needs to. Murtagh sees in Tornac what he always wanted to have from his parents.

- Simultaneously, Tornac falls in love with Murtagh. He discovers such a wonderful, precious child, and the tendencies he previously saw as stains of fear and damage, now he can see nothing but bravery and resilience within them. He wants to see him grow and thrive and he wants to contribute anything he can to that. If someone told him just a few months ago that he would be doting on his ward like a parent pampering their firstborn, he would have laughed himself to tears. But before he even realizes what’s happening, Tornac’s wholeheartedly dedicated to raising Murtagh.

- Tornac gets over the initial hurdle of putting Murtagh at ease. He comes out of his shell and has a lot more energy and talks much more. He’s eager and expectant, so Tornac now faces the overall task of parent with a feeling of, Okay, now what the fuck do I do?

- That is the recurring theme through the next 14 years he spends raising Murtagh.

- Things balance out now that Murtagh’s recovered enough to start a routine more typical for a young child. He has tutors and training and activities through the days. And now that Tornac himself is better adjusted and doesn’t need to spend all his energy on Murtagh’s immediate issues, he notices his own isolation. He doesn’t have any friends. He’s so used to that that he doesn’t feel particularly upset by it, but he figures Murtagh probably shouldn’t be raised by a recluse.

- So he tries. He’s not very social and his early efforts to make friends feel painfully awkward, but he slowly gets closer to a few people. Not many, but he’ll just never be that type and he’s fine with that. The head retainer of the household with her vicious wit. The jovial old man who makes the combat training regimens. The head groom of the castle stables.

- They become the closest. Tornac tells him a lot about the antics of raising Murtagh. His friend always laughs and says he’s got a great kid, but for his part, he’ll stick to horses. He is the one who provides the foal Tornac gives Murtagh.

- Tornac tries his damnedest to stop him from naming the horse after him, but it’s a losing battle. The kid’s too stubborn to admit that he just couldn’t come up with anything better and refuses to change it. Depending on who’s being more cooperative with his interests, his horse or his warden, Murtagh enjoys designating “the better Tornac”. When Murtagh’s not using the name for jokes, the horse is often called “Tor” for clarity.

- Tornac sleeps like the dead, he is so hard to wake up. Murtagh is always a restless sleeper and struggles with nightmares. When he’s young, sometimes when he wakes up in the middle of the night, he goes into Tornac’s room to sleep with him. He crawls up onto the bed and full on rearranges Tornac, moving his arms and shuffling all around him until he’s finally comfortable and Tornac sleeps through the whole thing. He wakes up with his arms wrapped around Murtagh who’s snuggled against his chest as he tries to do the bleary mental math of if he was there the whole time or if he’s a new addition.

- Tornac is aromantic. He was focused on other things when he was younger, and whatever shift was supposed to add romance to his focuses as he grew up just never seemed to happen. He makes plenty of excuses for that to himself, all the while finding other people’s dedicated interest in romance vaguely weird. He never feels the urge to know what he’s missing.

- He doesn’t quite identify it as an underlying lack of attraction. In his brief musings about it, he comes to the conclusion that, oh well, he must just have unreasonably high standards that no one can actually meet and that’s the reason no one appeals to him, then he shrugs and never thinks about it again. He never marries or has any kids other than Murtagh.

- Murtagh does get an impression of this when he’s a bit older, starting when he gets his first crush. Of course he turns to Tornac, because he knows everything, only for him to shrug and go, “Maybe flowers, I think flowers are supposed to be romantic, right? Try that?” He’s no help at all.

- Murtagh considers what Tornac does not, which is that if too high standards are what’s actually behind his disinterest, that would be extremely frustrating. But Tornac seems perfectly content without a partner. Murtagh knows even if the perfect person walked into his life, Tornac wouldn’t want them.

- Both Tornac and Murtagh have conflicted feelings about outright calling each other father and son. It’s something they never fully work through before Tornac’s death.

- For Tornac, he’s reluctant to call himself Murtagh’s father because of self consciousness. Despite his best efforts, Murtagh has a rather tumultuous upbringing with no small amount of suffering. He’s mistreated by many people around him and some get close enough to hurt him more dramatically. Murtagh endures attacks, manipulation, betrayal, coercion, and a few, worse things.

- Tornac beats himself up for not protecting Murtagh from these wounds. He believes a real father should take better care of his child and balks from claiming Murtagh as his son when he feels like he failed him in that regard.

- For Murtagh, he refrains from declaring himself Tornac’s son because he feels like a burdensome child. Murtagh sees himself as trouble, unreasonably difficult and hard to deal with. He’s so conspicuous and marked by preconceptions he never had the chance to control, and trouble flocks to him without end. His life will be a thorny mess no matter what either of them do, and Murtagh fears Tornac would never want to claim a child like that.

- Even when he’s trying his best, awful things happen to him that Tornac has to manage and that makes Murtagh so deeply guilty. He doesn’t want to force Tornac to accept him as his responsibility more than he already has to through the even tighter bond of being his son.

- Wholeheartedly, they mutually feel that they are truly and fundamentally father and son. But they never find the courage to say it as profoundly as they feel.

- Murtagh blames himself for Tornac’s death- for not fleeing the moment Galbatorix first tried to beguile him, for asking Tornac to escape with him despite the danger, for not protecting him better.

- Tornac would be inexpressibly proud of who Murtagh’s become.