For anyone who doesn't know and is curious about Ronaldo/Ronald's real name:
In the Official Fanbook 2, it was revealed to be 木下 日出男 (KINOSHITA HIDEO), which means his actually English name would be Dawnman Underwood(Woodbottom).
And also that he's the only O in his family, with his brother being Hiyoshi and his lil' sis being Himari.
The reason I decided to share this now has absolutely nothing to do with Season 2 being launched. I’ve just got this cursed thought stuck in my head for a while and REEEEEALLY wish someone would do something with it.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 6/6
Fandom: 吸血鬼すぐ死ぬ | Kyuuketsuki Sugu Shinu | The Vampire Dies in No Time (Manga)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Relationships: Draluc/Ronaldo (The Vampire Dies in no Time), ドラロナ
Characters: Draluc (The Vampire DIes in no Time), Ronaldo (The Vampire Dies in No Time), Fukuma (The Vampire Dies in No Time), Lady Ronaldo's Big Sister Who Is Really Just Hiyoshi, The Progenitor
Additional Tags: 反転, Dragon Draluc, Female Ronaldo, Reincarnation, Romantic Comedy, Angst with a Happy Ending, Nothing Bad Happens In The Present, Draluc Tells Ronaldo A Love Story, The Fake Prequel That Nobody Asked For, Inverted Au, true love magic
Summary:
A translation of 龍與大小姐與吸血鬼的誕生
Ronaldo is advised by the editor to add some romantic elements in his novel, only he knows nothing about romance. To provide him with inspiration, Draluc tells him a love story about a dragon and a lady that happened once upon a time.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: 吸血鬼すぐ死ぬ | Kyuuketsuki Sugu Shinu | The Vampire Dies in No Time (Manga)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Draluc/Ronaldo (The Vampire Dies in no Time), 德拉羅納, ドラロナ
Characters: Draluc (The Vampire DIes in no Time), Ronaldo (The Vampire Dies in No Time), 德拉克, 羅納德
Additional Tags: crack smut, 女體德拉, 肉體是互攻, 心理是德拉羅納, Loss of Virginity, Female!Draluc, Shapeshifting, It's Every Bit As Serious As The Manga, A Mentally 8-Years-old Trickster & A Mentally 5-Years-old Gorilla Virgin, Ronaldo Got Played, Such Is The Way He's Wired, Manga Style Banters
Summary:
(首章完結中文版本& Completed Eng Translation In Chpt2)
On the night of Ronaldo's day off, a vampire lady who calls herself Dralamy appears at Ronaldo Vampire Hunter Agency and has a bunch of fun with the hunter--Or, Dumbonaldo lost his virginity twice to the same vampire.
("Bitties And The Beast" is the alternative title I gave to the Eng Ver, since it's only appropriate)
I just recently reread the Dreaming Books series and got a new theory of what truly happened in LoDB.
There may be some similar theory somewhere, but I didn’t manage to find it, so I’m just gonna let it out here for my own amusement (and most of all, to sooth my obsessive troubled soul):
All three of the mysterious figures in LoDB, first the Biblionaut from whom Inazia has discovered the letter that jolted Hilde out of his mental lethargy and onto his first return to Bookholm after two hundred and so years of fearful distance, second the Biblionaut with the fencer mask whom Hilde met in the Blood Theater, and at last Corodiak the “king” of the new artist community--were the Shadow King, our “secret protagonist”, as stated by Hilde during his first visit to the Puppetocircus Maximus, in disguise.
Let’s start with the Biblinoaut “Belphegor Bogaras”.
I have no idea if the name may be quite different in the original German edition, but apparently, “Belphegor” is a demon who rises from hell to seduce people with ideas of ingenious inventions, in other words, to help people make discoveries, which could be nothing, of course. Nonetheless, it’s clear that his “chance meeting” with Inazia is staged--A figure that put Inazia in mind of the “Darkman”, had a particularly way of speaking (“I was struck by his rather hesitant, effortful way of speaking, which I attributed to his injuries.” - Inazia), and he just so happened to stumble upon Inazia on a rainy night with the one book she couldn’t refuse possessing, with the letter hidden inside the book that began the story.
As noted by Inazia, Belphegor’s a courteous, charming fellow, same as the other Biblionaut with the fencer mask who strongly reminded Hilde of “someone”. I believe that like the fencer-masked Biblionaut , he’s a sort of mechanical puppet (Zamonia’s version of android), like the incredibly lifelike monkeys portrayed in Puppetocircus Maximus, where Hilder is not only shown how realistic a skillfully made puppet could be in the hand of a master puppeteer and at once enthralled and inspired by the art form of puppetry, but is also learned the ingenious concept of “Invisible Theatre”.
It doesn’t matter what the Invisible Theatre shows onstage,’ she whispered. ‘What matters far more is what it does inside your head.’ She put a finger to her lips and pointed to the stage.
The Shadow King in the puppet show was not displayed in concrete form, but he’s present; why couldn’t this concept be applied to the actual book as well?
I could remember when I read LoDB the first time, I kept expecting Corodiak would turn out to be the other mysterious Biblionaut, the one with the fencer mask, who I’ve always believed to be the Shadow King in disguise, because of the indicative artistry of the show in the Puppetocircus Maximus, which could only be composed by a genius artist such as Homuncolossus.
Unless the last book finally comes out and proves me wrong, I’ll never stop believing that Hilde had a conversation with the Shadow King at the Blood Theatre while the latter was using the body of a mechanical puppet to mask his identity.
The supposedly collective Biblionauts’ vision of bringing light and thereby lives into the Catacombs illustrated by the fencer-masked Biblionaut certainly accords with what Homuncolossus had previously said about the same subject in the first book, and despite Hilde’s immense fear and skepticism of the new generation of Bookhunters, he couldn’t help but “melt” and be absolutely captivated--in ways that he didn’t seem to be by other characters’ talks of what he regarded as interesting subjects throughout the book--when he listened to this masked stranger whom he kept having the feeling of knowing personally, whose narrative, like nothing else in LoDB, actually made him feel nostalgic for the Catacombs of which he was otherwise too terrified to come near again.
Even before becoming so conceited and spoilt with his fame that he would even trip and stamp on a dwarf simply for being rude and calling him fat, Hilde’s showed to be quite capable of acting like a little shit to people who annoys him (his making a mess out of Inazia’s place and terrorizing her at their first encounter, for example). Although Hilde might not have the nerves to get rude with a Biblionaut, he’d hitherto loathed the bunch for their resemblance to the Bookhunters and could certainly show his contempt by behaving unpleasantly towards the fencer-masked Biblionaut before running off as he initially intended to, but instead he’s not only compelled to stay sitting with the masked Biblionaut even after the show was finished, he’s in one of his best behaviors in LoDB during their entire interaction.
It’s clear that Hilde was quite humbled by the intelligent, fascinating presence of the masked stranger. And also, I just found it particularly funny that Hilde, being the greatest writer of Zamonia for the past two hundred years and was inured to copious compliments from admirers to the point of blasé, should instantly “melt like butter on a hotplate” when the masked Biblionaut expressed adoration to his first masterpiece CoDB (but never actually mentioned if he admires Hilde the author as would other Mythenmetz fans who thinks he’s the greatest writer ever):
‘It always sounds a bit blinkered when someone says they have a favourite book, but in this case I simply can’t deny it: I know of no better book about Bookholm, period, and there it is. I’ve read it again and again! Get hold of a copy, you won’t regret it.’
That was that, dear friends! Instantly disarmed, I melted like butter on a hotplate. He could have told me that he kept severed heads stacked in his wardrobe or quaffed Booklings’ blood in the catacombs, and I’d still have found him likeable. I loved this masked stranger – I yearned to fling my arms round his neck! He had read a book of mine. Several times, what was more, and he thought it wonderful! Could there be any greater proof of his intelligence and discrimination? Hardly! He had earned himself carte blanche from me – freedom to do anything! As far as I was concerned, he was welcome to pursue a sideline as a serial murderer or an executioner; it wouldn’t have diminished my liking for him.
If this passage and the rest of the scene between Hilde and the masked stranger seems gay, that’s probably becasue it’s gay, like every former intereations between Hilde and his paper giant friend whom he hadn’t failed to think about every day for the last two hundred years.
Apart from the talk about the Catacombs and how it could be conquered and one day become a place teeming of lives despite its still remaining dangers if people could just overcome their irrational fear for darkness, there’s something else the masked Biblionaut said that I found particularly suggestive:
To cite one last analogy with seafaring: when two Biblionauts encounter each other in the catacombs, they resemble two ships on a foggy night. We take care not to collide and drift past each other without really meeting. We only sense the other’s presence. We may hear breathing or a rustling sound in the darkness – and then we’re alone once more. That’s why I tend to bubble over with sociability when I spend time on the surface. Don’t hold it against a lonely Biblionaut if he’s subjected you to more verbiage than Yarnspinner does in his novels.
I’ll admit that this part with the masked Biblionaut is my favorite part of the entire second book, because it seemed to me that my ship are finally reunited (even if they didn’t really “meet” with each other face to face) and that just made my little shipper heart tremble with joy.
Anyway, in the end of their encounter, the masked Biblionaut gave Hilde a card with the hidden message about the Invisible Theatre and on we went to the mysterious Corodiac.
The first time I read LoDB I was rather disappointed to find out that Corodiak is actually a Shark Grub who claims to be Hagob Salbandian’s twin brother, and not, as I’d previously hoped, the masked Biblionaut.
I’ve seen there’s a theory about Corodiak being Pfistomel Smyke who had returned to Bookholm under the false identity of his uncle’s twin after surviving at the end of CoDB and tried to take revenge on Hilde by exiling him again into the Catacombs to die, and I suppose that at the time of my first reading, I’d ended up with a similar conclusion that Corodiak is the next Pfistomel Smyke, the villain of the story (though I’m not sure if I ever thought of him as Pfistomel himself in disguise).
However, after rereading the book, I feel that there might not be any villain in LoDB at all, and Corodiak is just another (possibly the first) “puppet” used by the Shadow King to operate in the upper world.
As far as I know, the Shark Grubs are a race of ingeniously cunning entrepreneurs, but not of an especially strong physique. Their minds are hard but their bodies are soft. So I just can’t imagine that Pfistomel would have the physical capacity to not just escape the Shadow King but also manage to make his way back from the burning Catacombs without some powerful aid. And even if Pfistomel did manage to survive and decide to reclaim his power over Bookholm instead of simply starting over in a different place where there’s far less risk of him getting arrested by the authorities, it seems rather unreasonable to me that he should assume the identity of not just any random Shark Grub but the twin brother of his dead uncle, whom he didn’t look exactly alike given that Hilde could instantly identify Hagob in both the first and the second books.
In order to assume the identity of Hagob’s brother, Pfistomel would have to make himself look specifically like Hagob, which would definitely not be easy with all of his previous resources lost to the Great Fire and the conjoint exposure of his crimes. It’s unnecessary, if not utterly silly, he’d only be more unsuspicious if he just kept his face hidden or returned as a disfigured Shark Grub that doesn’t bear the name of Smyke.
Originally, I’d thought that Corodiak might indeed be Hagob’s brother. In view of the family reputation, it’d not be impossible that Corodiak has some evil plan of his own and that involves luring Hilde into the Catacombs, but surely there couldn’t be anything to gain by luring a famous writer who hadn’t set foot on Bookholm for over two hundred years to his death?
The end of the book reveals that Corodiak doubtlessly knows about the letter, which was almost certainly written, at least the parodic prose, by the Shadow King, whom I’d at first accounted that Corodiak might’ve captured and gotten the letter from before my recent reread of the story.
The puppet show adaptation of CoDB indicated that Corodiak had an intimate knowledge about not just the Catacombs but even the Shadowhall Castle, which was one of the main reasons why I’d been so certain of the show being directed by the Shadow King himself. Knowledges like that, as I now realised, were unlikely to be acquired by Corodiak through personal experience, because, again, a Shark Grub is just not the sort of creature that could survive a journey into the depth of the Catacombs, to which not even Pfistomel had ever dared to venture, by themselves. He could be the ones who built the Biblionauts force and travel into the Labyrinth under the protection of this army of mechanical puppets, but that would mean the fencer-masked Biblionaut was under his control and not the Shadow King himself, and that I refuse to believe.
Or, the Shadow King might somehow gain control of that one Biblionaut; but the masked Biblionaut has never shown any sign of hostility towards Corodiak or in any way warned Hilde about him during their encounter, in fact he complimented Corodiak’s play (and again not said anything directly complimentary about the “author” of the play, which could be the manifestation of a mixture of megalomania and modesty).
Or, Corodiak could actually be another white sheep of the Smyke family who has somehow become friends and co-managing the Maximus with the Shadow King, and the adaptation of CoDB, if not all of the plays, were written anonymously by the latter. Though I rather doubt that it could be true, because if so, then Corodiak would surely imply that he owns the creativity of at least the Maximus plays to someone else or feel uncomfortable laying claim to it during Hilde’s “audience” with him, which he didn’t; and more importantly, Hagob had been described as the only white sheep in his notorious family and never at any point, either in Hagob’s will or by Pfistomel, that Hagob’s twin brother was mentioned in the first book, which Hilde might’ve noticed if he had taken the masked Biblionaut’s advice and read his own book.
Corodiak had initially (perhaps intentionally) perturbed Hilde and thereby the readers with his terrible likeness to the dead and mummified Hagob and his creepy cobwebbed office. By contrast to Pfistomel who was first introduced as a harmless, trustworthy figure and turned out to be the devil, Corodiak actually managed to make a pretty good impression to Hilde as an admirable artist, one “imprisoned” by his physical blindness but still able to see all and find a beauty in darkness that he wishes to share, whose genius Hilde didn’t envy for the price it’d cost him, despite how frightened Hilde had been of him in the beginning.
“This is where the story begins” doesn’t seem as much of a sinister sentence as it seemed to me in my first reading, nor does the Invisible Theatre trip seem so much like a malicious trap.
“If you want to see the Invisible Theatre, you must use your intelligence as well as your eyes” is the inscription on the card from the masked Biblionaut, and it appears to me that it isn’t just a tip for Hilde to uncover the secret but also a tip for the readers as well.
No doubt the Shadow King had survived after his descent with Symke into the Catacombs, for the story couldn’t possibly exist with its secret protagonist being all dead and uninfluential.
Naturally, his appearance would have to become quite different from before. The Homuncolossus created by Pfistomel was destroyed in the fire, but not the Shadow King. He may now look like a figure of complete darkness with whatever rune paper on his skin that hadn’t been incinerated burnt to all black, like the legendary Darkman he’s been heavily associated with, or his entire body had been burnt down and now he’s a spirit with the power to possess lifeless objects.
Sentient incorporeal lifeforms have certainly existed in Zamonia, and personally I prefer the idea that the Shadow King is now a spirit, since that would better explain why he would need a body like the mechanical puppets to operate and how he would be able to control them.
But the mechanical puppets needs to be built, and he couldn’t build one being a spirit, so first he took the mummified body of Hagob, who was so lifelike that it could scare people to death.
The desiccation of Hagob’s body could be remedied by the chemical the giant scientist had used to preserve the dead bodies of his race in the cellar of the Shadowhall Castle.
Homuncolossus’ eyes have never been seen until the end of the first book, and none of the eyes of Corodiak, the Biblinoaut “Belphegor Bogaras” and the fencer-masked Biblinoaut was ever shown in LoDB. While Corodiak unmistakably has no eyes, Belphegor claimed to be blind with his eyes covered in eye patches, and Hilde has never mentioned having seen the eyes of the masked Biblinoaut.
It could be an insinuation that the Shadow King himself had gone blind in the fire and that’s how he came to understand true darkness, in which he experienced what Hilde experienced in the end of LoDB and finally learnt that one doesn’t need to have vision to find the Orm.
Nonetheless, if Corodiak truly is the corpse of Hagob, then it would only be natural that his eyes need to be removed, for even with his skin remoisturised and assumed a lifelike texture, he still had the eyes of a corpse.
When Hilde expressed suspicion of the Murkholmer from the Maximus being a lifelike puppet like other puppets in the show, Inazia said that she could tell the difference, and she might not necessarily mean that she could tell because of her Ugglian mystic power, but because no matter how lifelike a puppet was, it still can’t imitate the eyes of a actual living creature. Though Inazia noted that, as did Hilde in his encounter with the masked Biblinoaut, the Biblinoaut Belphegor had a peculiar way of speaking, she couldn’t notice if he’d been emitting strange mechanical noises from inside his body like the masked Biblinoaut obviously was, because of the rain occuring in their meeting, nor could she tell whether she’s talking with a living creature or an advanced puppet by looking into his eyes.
I’m not sure if Corodiak had arrived before or after the group of Biblinoauts, but I think before will be more likely.
After fixing Hagob’s body, the Shadow King returned to the overworld, discovered puppetry and become infatuated with it just as Corodiak said, then with the combined knowledge of puppet making, the Rusty Gnomes’ mechanical engineering and maybe even some Bookemism, he was able to create mechanical puppets that could imitate living creatures almost perfectly. Such puppets was used for the Maximus’ performance at first, but seeing that, as explained by Ovidios, the new Bookholm couldn’t retain its prosperity without the unique attraction of something like the Bookhunters and the treasure that only such species could retrieve from the Catacombs, the Shadow King therefore created the Biblinoauts of Regenschein’s vision mixing with his own romanticism.
If the character was only created after the Shadow King had been back in Bookholm, then Corodiak wouldn’t necessarily be lying when he said he had never gone to the Catacombs, whose environment required a vessel stronger than the nimble-fingered but feeble body of a Shark Grub, such as the mechanical Biblinoaut, which is the form the Shadow king takes whenever he goes back to the netherworld.
It is possible that, during the last two hundred years while he’s multitasking between his creative work as Corodiak and sailing through the Labyrinth in the form of Biblinoauts, he was too busy to keep close tabs on Hilde and thus didn’t notice sooner that Hilde lost access to the Orm in his self-indulgence, or maybe he did notice quite early but just couldn’t find the time to take care of that.
Anyway, as Corodiak he had for sure been in contact with Kibitzer, and after learning that Kibitzer was dying, he decided to finally lure Hilde back before Kibitzer’s death so as to give Hilde and Kibitzer a chance to reconcile in person.
But of course the Shadow King couldn’t just come out and tell Hilde to hurl his fat spoilt ass back to Bookholm.
Once again a mysterious trail was left, only this time there’s no scraps of paper, only one single letter with five little words that drew Hilde right out of his cozy Lindworm cave into the city from which he had been resolutely keeping away for the last two hundred years, then further down into the Labyrinth, to get some new creativity lessons.
Like the letter, a map of the Labyrinth was given to Kibitzer to pass forwards to Hilde. Kibitzer definitely suspected that Hilde was going to be lured into the Catacombs which has become even more dangerous since the Great Fire, only he didn’t believe that it was a trap made by someone with ill-intention, or no doubt he would’ve told Hilde to forget about the letter and get the hell out of Bookholm at once.
Hilde was in no way forced into taking the trip to the Invisible Theatre. He had received an invitation and couldn’t resist the allure, and although he entered the Catacombs rather perforce, he nonetheless surrendered himself to the darkness and was therefore rewarded: he rediscovered the Orm.
While Hilde was left alone in the dark with assumedly no means to get back to the surface (and out of the Toxin Zone) unaided, he was provided with a map which he was made to keep with him at all time, a map marked the location of unknown treasure, which couldn’t be given out easily, no--He had to be tested first, he had to suffer, he had to beg for it, and quite possibly he also had to be punished for being a pompous prick and wasting away his creative talent for the past two hundred years.
This is it, this is the big secret, or at least that’s what it is to me before the conclusion finally comes out for goddamned real in hopefully 2024.
On a side note, while rereading the first book again (almost right after rereading the second book because that’s just how obsessed I was), I found that Harpstick had also treated Homuncolossus with a bee-bread, as he had done Hilde, back at his initial arrival in Bookholm, and I like to think that’s why the incident with the bee-bread was omitted in the puppet show in the Maximus.
It was one of the few passages from Hilde’s book that didn’t seem to be omitted on the show for any knowable reason.
The Shadow King might have also experienced the sting from the bee-bread in the past and didn’t want to put that scene on because he’s embarrassed of it. And he might leave out the scene of Regenschein’s death for sentimental reason, and the scene with the giant in the cellar of Shadowhall Castle because of the disgusting memory of remodifying Hagob’s body in that place.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 4/?
Fandom: Merlin (TV)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Merthur, Merlin & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Gwen/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Gwen/Lancelot (Merlin), Canon Relationships - Relationship, Past Merlin/Will, Past Merln/Freya
Characters: Merlin (Merlin), Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Gwaine (Merlin), Lancelot (Merlin), Gwen (Merlin), George (Merlin)
Additional Tags: Other Additional Tags to Be Added, crack that got out of hand, Infidelity Treated Humorously, Gwaine is Bi, Gwaine is a Thot, Gwaine being a Bro, First Time Bottoming, Bottom Arthur, Top Merlin (Merlin), but He Bottoms For Arthur, because He's the King, Everyone Who Should Be Alive is Alive, Queen Gwen (Merlin), Fluff, Bickering Idiots Being Bickering Idiots, Very Inexplicit Sex, Court Sorcerer Merlin (Merlin), Who Is Still Servant Merlin
Summary:
In a peacefully united Albion, everyone is alive and well. Everything's great, except for one problem, Gwen has stop having sex with Arthur. When Gwaine discovers that, he advises Arthur to satisfy his need elsewhere, and also that, since he can't cheat on his wife with another woman, he should do it with a man. Merlin the forever loyal servant is willing to help his king with his current predicament. Things turn out to be not as anyone's expected.
A lot of people probably are gonna hate me for this, and if you disagree with what I’m about to say, please don't bother to respond, just ignore me completely and move on, go make yourself happy.
It’s just that I honestly don't see how this:
can be the same as this:
Personally, I don't care for Dick-lite Pre-Crisis Jason at all, because he’s never seemed to me a real character with any real personality of his own, and I just really don’t buy the idea of a teenager, with still very recently murdered parents that might as well be every bit as the same kind of loving parents and positive influences to their kid as the Flying Graysons, getting over the loss of their old parents’ and accepting someone they’ve only just met around the time their parents died as his true new parent in practically no time at all...especially when it’s happened in a world where a preteen could end up spending the rest of his adulthood fighting crimes in a bat suit after witnessing his parents being gunned down by a mugger.
The only thing Pre-Crisis/Earth 1 Jason Robin seemed to have going on was being a son to Batman/Bruce (and a son to Nocturna, because clearly if he could’ve gotten over his real dad so easily, why wouldn’t he have also gotten over his real mom and come to think of this mysterious criminal lady as his true new mom when she had wanted so much for him to be her son and they had lived together for like a week)--and I feel that if the executives at the time had really wanted Bruce to become a dad, they'd probably just let him settle down and give him a biological child as in the Golden Age, but instead they gave him a second Robin; and the way they laid themselves out to make the relationship between him and this second Robin to be exactly father-and-son despite the fact that Bruce would’ve had to be real stupid to actively endangering a young person whom he consider his own little boy by bringing him to fight crimes just never sits right with me.
It always seems to me like they’re just trying to retcon the original Batman and Robin relationship without actually retconning Bruce and Dick, who hadn’t really been Bruce’s adopted kid just then and had often regarded his mentor Bruce as more of his older brother/closest friend rather than just plain old “dad”--It’s like they’re just trying to remove every implication that there's ever anything gay/creepy in the original Batman and Robin dynamic, simply by bringing in another Robin character, one with the exact same backstory as Dick and nothing that could actually differentiate him from Dick (except him being originally blond-haired and himself outright telling people that he’s “not Dick” in one of his few featurings in the New Titans where he’s portrayed as every bit as much as a smart, decent, capable young person equipped to be a successful young hero just as Dick Robin or Tim Robin would’ve easily been portrayed), and making his relationship with Batman to be plainly, unequivocally father-and-son, then with there being no actual difference between Robin II and Robin I and the two Robins being virtually the same, sure the viewers would see that the relationship between Batman and Robin II and the relationship between Batman and Robin I are very much the same too, and no one could say if there’s any resemblance of a gay couple with a creepy age difference in the original Batman and Robin’s dynamic ever again since they’ve always been father and son.
It just feels so manipulative to me and I hate it, but that’s just how I feel and I’m not saying that it’s truly the case. I’m sorry if this offends anyone who loves Earth 1 Jason. If you love him, that’s great. There’s nothing wrong to love a wholesome Robin and his altogether wholesome relationship with Batman, nor there’s anything wrong to love Red Hood Jason but prefer his softer New52 version which would’ve certainly seemed to be a less drastic change from his Pre52 version if he’s more like his Earth 1 counterpart to begin with.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong to prefer one version of a character to another, to just say fuck canon and recreate a character you love into the way you could enjoy them most and have all the fun you want with them.
What gets to me and drives me bonkers, is when people couldn’t just be happy with their headcanon, but have to go out of their way to tell other people that it’s fact that Pre-Crsis/Earth 1 Jason and Post-Crisis/New Earth Jason are the same character, while in actuality, they weren’t even meant to be the same in the first place.
If DC had ever wanted to just keep using Pre-Crisis Jason but give him a new backstory, they would just follow up on whatever he had been doing with Bruce as his pre-crisis self while casually throwing in his new backstory at some point, just as they did with a lot of other characters such as Donna post-crisis, not give him a full reintroduction in Batman #408 and rewrite his relationship with Bruce from the ground up.
It just makes me want to scream, when people, who never seems to have a lot of problems with Under the Hood and maybe also Lost Days, have to go out and call every portrayal of Pre-52 Jason and some of the more recent Red Hood Jason that shares a resemblance to him wrong for not portraying Jason as that sweet little bookworm he really truly was, and that an entire different life experience just cannot change a character in any substantial way, and Jason being an angry kid with aggressive and violent tendencies is just something that had never been established until the more recent retcon/the OOC work of Jim Starlin, while in truth Pre-Crisis Jason with the exact same backstory as Dick just simply cannot be the same as Crime Alley Kid Jason, who doesn’t even have the same biological parents as Pre-Crisis Jason to provide him with the same gene that the Flying Todds, which were Joe and Trina Todd, had created their son with.
If Pre-Crisis Jason and Post-Crisis Jason are one and the same, then it’d mean Dick is also very much the same as Jason is the same as Tim is the same as Damian is the same as Bruce and no one character is truly unique and special because every character ever made is just an alternate version of another character.
It had been shown most clearly since his first appearance that Post-Crisis/New Earth Jason, other than literally being a different kid with the same name, was nothing like his pre-crisis counterpart, but rather a bold, outspoken, confrontational, fully independent and proactive ghetto kid, who had got some serious stones to rob Batman’s gear, actually succeed in taking the tire off the freaking Batmobile and getting away originally, and had only run into Batman when he had come back to steal more, and called Batman a “big boob” after he had given him a good hit right in his Bat stomach.
This precious cupcake here↓
↑...that was often used as a proof that the NE Angry Robin Jason is a later retcon/ mere misconception had actually only ever existed in Detective Comics #569-573 during the earlier part of the writer Mike Barr’s run. These 5 issues from Barr are all notably 60s-ish, and while they’re published after CoIE and Batman Year one, it’s clear that they’re Earth 1 stories, seeing that they’re written with characters such as Earth 1 Catwoman. It was only in #574 that Jason’s New Earth origin was first introduced in Detective Comics, right before Batman Year Two; and although the issue was still written by Mike Barr and it did seem to have followed directly after #573, the previous issue was ended with the caption of “The New Origin of Batman”, and the tone of #574 as well as the writer’s latter issues and his portrayal of Jason Robin were no longer the same.
↑Detective Comics #574↑
It was stated by Bruce repeatedly, in both his own title and Detective Comics, that the reason he had taken in NE Jason as his new Robin was to save him from walking down the wrong path and to provide an outlet for his rage.
While no doubt Jim Starlin’s NE Jason Robin (that everyone hates) was the most aggressive and violent, it had never contradicted how the character was initially written by Max Allen Collins, the writer of Batman #408.
↑Batman #410 by Collins↑
↑ Batman #411 by Collins, after Jason had found out that Willis was murdered by Two-Face and Bruce had been hiding the information from him ↑
Although in the end of Batman #411, Jason did seem to have gotten over his anger and saved Two-Face’s life, judging by the way he’d talked about his dad Willis in his first introduction and the fact that he’d never before bothered to find out what had happened to the man the whole time while he’s in the manor where he had all the resources to acquire the information, it was doubtful that he and Willis had had a good relationship, and what he’d felt for his crook dad then could hardly be the same as what he felt later in “The Diplomat’s Son” story.
NE Jason had always been consistent in being a fearless, proactive, feisty individual with a hot temper, even in the hand of a writer with a much mellower sense of writing like Mike Barr.
↑ Jason and Bruce encountered Two-Face again in Detective Comics #580-581 by Barrs ↑
It had been established from the get-go that NE Jason Robin was the type of kid who would challenge Batman and go out handling a criminal on his own without consulting him or anyone else first, and was morally questionable with tendencies to aggression and violence, which was perfectly understandable for someone with his background--Only at the beginning it’s easy to brush these things off, because there's never any real consequence to his behavior and so Bruce was okay when he’d behaved this way at the beginning, and since Jason’d still got a lot to learn and was eager to learn from Bruce at the beginning, it would only be right that he’s more agreeable and willing to obey Bruce, but once he had completed his training and been allowed on the field, it would also only be right for him to feel like he had learnt enough and gotten the hang of the business already, and so just easily slipped into his old habit of handling things on his own, just as he had always been while he had been surviving in the Crime Alley on his own before Bruce came along.
NE Jason Robin wasn’t suddenly turned from 0-100 in The Diplomat’s Son story (though I really doubt that it’d be impossible for someone, especially someone around Jason’s age, to go from 0-100 if they have to deal with what Jason had dealt with in the story)--
↓ This didn’t happen until after the diplomat’s son was let go by the police due to his status, and on his way out of the police station where he’d been initially brought in by Jason and Bruce for raping and kidnapping an innocent woman, the mofo called his victim right in front of Jason and Bruce and threatened her on the phone, which led the woman to immediately commit suicide.
I’ve always thought it’s a good story and a lot more tasteful than it’s usually given credit for. It wouldn’t even have been the first time a “teenage superhero” has killed in the DCU (whether it was accidental or intentional); it’s certainly not something so dark and controversial that DC wouldn’t go for it, they could’ve easily just gone for it and had Jason Robin murder a criminal then, except they never really showed that he did. The audience just naturally assumed that he did because the whole scene was shown through Bruce’s view, and Bruce could see that even if Jason didn’t really kill the rapist then, he might very well be capable of it, and it makes the whole Under the Hood storyline as well as the continuation of Red Hood Jason possible.
The concept of Under the Hood and the continuing existence of Red Hood Jason works, instead of just being a complete character assassination like One-Year-Later Cass, only with Jason being his post-crisis version with all of his very established traits and his very established problems with Bruce.
If Under the Hood Jason is indeed Earth 1 Jason or similar to him, he would really need to be under some outside influence for him to do the things he had done, for there’s just no other justification for his action.
He would really have to be driven mad by the effect of the Lazarus Pit (which has only ever been showed to exist momentarily on other characters), he would have to be incapacitated the whole time, unable to control his own action or even form any conscious decision--and it would only make it extremely possible for him to do something truly awful such as killing some innocent or other heroes or even someone in the Batfam, since he wouldn’t be able to stop himself even if he wanted to, or be able to tell if that’s wrong; that’s what being incapacitated means, that’s why people who’s committed crimes, even as bad as murders, cannot be held legally accountable when they’re proven to be mentally ill--and if that’s truly the case, then Bruce as well as Dick (who had a pretty amicable relationship with Earth 1 Jason) and everybody else who has any knowledge about the matter would all have to be some real awful persons to not lift a finger to help him, by making it a point to stop him from committing any more murder that he wouldn’t have committed if he could help it, and figuring out a way to relieve him from the influence by means of the various science and magic overflowing in their world, like they’ve repeatedly done for many others who’ve been in the similar position, and eventually getting him the hell out of this altogether traumatic crime-fighting life, so he could finally begin to heal from his extensive traumas, including being forced to kill which has always been a very common cause of PTSD for soldiers at war; and even if Jason doesn’t leave the crime-fighting life forever, he could no longer continue operating as the Red Hood; it’d just make no sense for him to keep up the identity previously belonged to his murderer, and have it constantly remind him of how he didn’t just get brutally murdered, he was also forced into becoming a murderer himself, which.he never would’ve become if he wasn’t literally out of his mind.
Moreover, there could never have been a Tim Robin (even if Tim didn’t go by Robin but something else), if the Jason who died in A Death in the Family had the same disposition as Earth 1 Jason and none of his NE traits which was the one and only justification Bruce had for taking in Tim as his third teenage partner, seeing that Tim is patient and careful and cooperative with all the qualities to become the same kind of hero like Dick, and not at all “reckless” and “rebellious” like NE Jason, and so he’s likely to turn out like Dick and not get himself killed like Jason (that’s the only true significant retcon Pre52 Jason had. Although NE Jason Robin could be rather reckless and rebellious, that’s certainly not why he had gotten killed. They just made Bruce and everyone pretend that that’s what killed him, so it wouldn’t seem so utterly horrible for Bruce to endanger another teenage kid with no superpower or any previous fighting training by bringing them in the business that had already gotten one kid killed, and also for Dick and everyone else to just let him).
It’s a complete disregard of facts and logic to call Earth 1 Jason and Red Hood Jason the same character, which doesn’t really matter as long as it’s only headcanon; but when people push it as a fact, it really just sound to me like they’re saying that it’s wrong to like Pre 52 Jason/Post-Crisis Jason Robin, which I very much do because I actually think he’s an interesting character with an interesting and more coherent story than a lot of other DC characters.
It’s like they’re saying that it’s just plain wrong and unnatural for a person to have aggressive and violent tendencies and be inclined to criminal behavior simply because they had grown up in a most crime-infested place and had to rely on themselves and learned to do what it takes to survive since before twelve, or become more and more violent simply because they’ve been made to work in an extremely violent environment and have never been provided with any kind of actual aid for their mental health the entire time.
It’s like that if a person, after being brutally murdered and then coming back to find that their mentor/guardian who was the closest thing they had to a family and was also responsible for their death in a major way just didn’t seem to be giving any shit about that at all, is filled with such murderous rage that they could very well just go out and kill a bunch of criminals, but they aren’t actually a smol whump baby with no absolutely agency of their own that must be protected at all times all along, then they’re just no good at all and don’t deserve any love or respect or understanding.
...I don’t like myself for ranting about this. I hope I could just not give any shit about this dumb thing, but it’d been driving me crazy and I’d just got to let it out.
Somehow Roy being back and remembering the past (where he didn’t just have a daughter with Jade but had actually been in love with her once) made me crave for some Jaderoy angst, so here it is:
He knocked on the door, then in a few seconds when no one answered, he let himself into the seemingly empty mansion as if he had been in the place dozens of times instead of just once.
They had lain together a handful of times during these last couple of years, where they would run into each other occasionally and they would fight and she would take off and show up again later while he’s all alone in wherever he had been staying at the moment. It had always been just sex, or at least that how he had told himself--always except that one time, not long before his “death”, when she had suddenly thought of inviting him back to her place here.
There’s another place of hers in another time just like this, where the two of them didn’t just get into bed with each other but had been together truly, naked without any of their masks. He didn’t remember the last time he had been here, but now it was coming back to him, the place faraway in Japan; he wasn’t sure if that old place could still be found outside of memories.
At present, the inside of her mansion here was lit dimly with streams of sunlight through the windows. Not bothering to look for the light switch at the hallway, he moved into the living room.
His eyes searched the room for a moment, but could find nothing he was aching to see.
He almost believed he was all alone in this room, when he caught a whiff of her sweet scent, right before the instant she pressed up close behind him from the shadow, her slender hand with sharp poisonous nails that was fully able to send him to a death more painful than his recent one seizing his throat in a soft, almost tender grip.
“You look good for a dead boy,” spoke her lips to his ear.
Without turning his head or trying to break himself out of her grip, he replied calmly, “Hi, Jade.”
“‘Jade’?”
“Your perfume,” he pointed out, knowing for certain that he wasn’t the only one who was in civvies here. “You don’t carry any scent on yourself to let people know you’re coming while you’re in the costume, no costume, no Cheshire, just Jade.”
Her nails dug slightly deeper into his neck as he moved to draw her hand off his throat. Then again she relaxed her grip on him.
“How did you know I’m here.”
“I didn’t. I just hope you’d be,” he replied, turning to stand face to face with her after freeing his throat from her hand. “I needed to see you.”
“You needed to see me or you needed to see if there’s any daughter of ours I’ve been hiding?”
So she did remember.
“Is there?”
She held his eyes with a blank expression. “The memories might’ve been back, but as far as I could tell, the world we’re living in is still very much the same as the last time we saw each other, and in this world you still haven’t been able to put a child in me, Roy.”
“Would you actually tell me this time if there really is a child?”
“So that’s why you’re here instead of having a return-from-death party with your hero families and your hero friends,” she sneered, “to find if there’s a daughter you could steal away from me again.”
“I’m here because I don’t think there’s anyone else I can really talk to. The others, they had lost too, they understand how it’s like to lose someone, but not how it’s like to lose her, not even Ollie. No one but you and me, Jade, her parents.”
“Some parent you were,” her face hardened at once, she stared at him as if she could kill him. She probably could if she really wanted. If she really tried, she could have him dead all over again.
He remembered hoping for her to really try and kill him; at the time she would’ve only been doing him a favor if she did manage to kill him for failing to protect their daughter.
She could never manage to kill him, though; not even when she had wanted desperately to, not even when he had desperately wanted her to.
“I went to your funeral,” after a pause she said, “I didn’t know why I’d bother. I didn’t even remember anything just then, we’ve only been in bed a couple of times before, you’re not supposed to be anything to me, but I went. Even if you’re nothing, you’re still something, you could still weaken me--my love, my weakness, the only one in the world who could break my heart and get away, who had left a child in me, then stolen her away from me. I could’ve killed you and taken her back, you knew that, didn’t you? But I wasn’t strong enough to kill you, and I didn’t take her back because I thought she’d really be safer and better with you. You’re supposed to keep her safe, Roy. What good are you if you couldn’t even keep our daughter safe? Why couldn’t it have been you, why should you be the one who gets to live.”
“I asked myself that too, more than enough times,” said Roy, as he looked right into the accusing eyes of the mother of the child he had had once.
The child more precious to him than life, it wasn’t so devastating right now that he would only be relieved to die as he had been once. It was from a different time, a distant time, but even the distance had made his pain dull, he could still feel the void it had left inside him.
Even before the past had returned, he could feel the void. He never could’ve put a name on it, but all this time he could feel it, just as he could feel the question hanging over his head all the time--Why? Why not me? It should’ve been me.
The malignity on Jade’s face faded to sorrow, she uttered quietly, “I wish it’d been you.”
“I wish it’d been me.”
“Do you remember…? Her eyes, Roy, were they dark or were they green? I remember her, but I can’t...I can’t really see her, there’re so many things, different things--it’s all mixed up.”
“Green.” He couldn’t see the face too clearly either, but he remembered. “Green eyes, dark hair, just like her mother.”
“Yes, yes you’re right, I can see her now. And she’s beautiful, wasn’t she?”
“The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“The most,” a smile crossed her lips; then she paused for a beat. “...There’s another, I don’t think I’d ever told you that. A boy. I wanted...I loved her, but she’s yours. I knew that she’d always be more yours than mine. And I wanted one that’s all mine, so I got myself another one, a baby boy.”
“What happened?”
“He died,” she said in a sullen murmur. “I didn’t think anything could hurt me again since you, but it hurt when he died, and I don’t even remember I’d ever loved him half as much as I loved her. I want to see her again, Roy, I want to hold her; that’s all I can think about ever since I started to remember. Do you think it’s possible? For us to have our daughter again? Here in this world?”
“It wouldn’t really be her, would it? Even if we have another daughter, another Lian. It wouldn’t be the same.”
“Maybe not,” she edged closer to lean herself against him; “but we’ll still have our daughter, you and I, Roy, we may even be able to raise her together this time, don’t you want that?”
Screwing his eyes shut, he tightened his arms around her.
He wished that they could have their daughter back, and he wished it was true that the two of them could raise their daughter together.
Even if they had a daughter again, they still wouldn’t be able to raise her together, not in the way he hoped, not with someone like Cheshire between them.
If they had a daughter again, it wouldn’t be that same little girl as the one in his memories, not the one he had known and loved most deeply for years, with all her unique quirks and habits, the one he had read stories to, the one he had taught to walk, had taught to speak, the one who would constantly cry for him in her crib in the middle of the night until he crawled out of bed to pick her up from the little crib he had made her, and rock her softly in his arms and sing her back to sleep.
The one who had liked to wear her long hair down just like her mommy, who had always said that she wanted to be like her daddy when she grew up.
It wouldn’t be the same little girl, but it would still be the same for her; it would still be the same between her parents.
He might be attracted to Cheshire, but he didn’t love Cheshire. He couldn’t. He could never truly be together and raise a child with Cheshire.
“You know there’s only one way we could ever raise our kid together,” he said to Jade, pressing his lips softly into her long hair, dark and thick and beautiful, just like their daughter.
She pulled back a little to look into his face.
“...You want me to kill Cheshire.”
“I want us to have a chance together, a chance we’d never really had before.”
“Would you ever kill him for me?” she questioned bitterly in reply, “Speedy? Arsenal? Whatever he’s called?”
“I could give him up if you would give up Cheshire.”
As far as he knew, the Cheshire in this reality still hadn’t destroyed an entire country; it wasn’t too late for Jade to leave her behind and start over.
They could start over, here in this new world, in the universe that was finally changing and no longer a hateful generator of endless heartbreaks and tragedies; they could have their daughter again and truly have a future together.
Please, he looked imploringly at Jade, who held his gaze with a look in her green eyes that he could remember seeing in the eyes of someone he didn’t just have a daughter with but had loved once long ago in Japan.
He had never dared to admit it, not even to Dinah. It was just sex, nothing but physical attraction, a stupid mistake not so different than heroin, that it had only happened because he had been too young and too stupid at the point--that’s what he had always said when someone had asked him about it, and everyone had believed him. He didn’t think anyone had known the truth except their daughter, who had never really quite asked him about it but always seemed to know that she wasn’t just a result of some inane attraction.
Please, he continued to plead with the dark-haired woman in his arms silently, as she continued to say nothing but just gaze at him in a mixed anguish and sorrow; please say you could do it, Jade, for her, for us--say you’re different this time, say it, damn you, say we’re more important to you than Cheshire--
Restoring a plain look on her face, she stepped away from him eventually.
“...I’ll see you’re around, Roy,” was all that she said before she started to leave.
ellievsbear
