Thoughts, readings and other stuff

Also, getaway driver Dick teaching Damian to drive way too early for it by any sensible margin, but as Dick put it, if he can reach the pedals and see the street (even if it involved some creative use of shortened slits and a few pillows (Damian as a 10-year-old is tiny)) he's good. Damian thinks this is all perfectly sensible, of course

Then one day, when Batman is down and the rest of the Bat team is out, and they are in no position to get back to the cave, now 13-year-old Damian hauls them inside, adjusts the Batmobile to a secret setting Dick showed him, and he's off like a bat out of hell

Meanwhile, the Bats draw the completely wrong conclusion, thinking that The Menace also managed to get himself employed by Ra's somehow too. Like he wasn't already everywhere, taunting them with his unsolvable identity at every corner!

Ra's, who knows damn well it is his eldest "grandson", is of no help whatsoever. Damian refuses to clear the confusion because he promised Dick, Dick thinks it is hilarious

Dick, 18, looking at the 8 year old Ra’s just brought in the room. This is apparently his little brother. And Ra’s wants Dick to teach him how to drive.

He turns back to Ra’s and says, “I want a McLaren as compensation.”

“Of course, grandson.”

Dick smiles then, and he squats down in front of Damian and grins.

“So you wanna learn how to drive?”

“Grandfather says you’re the best.”

“I am, actually,” Dick agrees. Then he turns to Ra’s and asks, “Which car do you want me to teach him in? I don’t think he’ll be able to really reach the pedals yet.”

“Take him on a drive first, let him get a feel for it. He’ll observe for now. Take whichever car you wish.”

“Awesome. Let’s go, Little D,” he says, clapping his hands as he stands.

“Don’t call me that.”

“What was that, Little D? I couldn’t quite hear you from down there.”

Damian glares and stomps after him.

The Pariah blades are no longer hidden away in a museum. They’ve been soaked in the freed blood and spirit of the people who forged and wielded them.

They are in the hands of Rungjani, clanging in the streets of Dol-Makjar, calling the people to witness a story.

The Hallowed Round is also covered in the liberated blood of Rungjani. Blood held captive for centuries now shapes the forms and faces of Rungjani, captives who strove and died, but did not fail, because their rebellion was a step forward on the path toward freedom.

The play is going forward, with no influence from the Creed. Everyone in the city will see it in its true form— a story of rebellion.

It makes me think of the Falconer’s Rebellion, another failed rebellion. Two rebellions that failed with the fall of a single great man.

But there were nine blades used in the Rebellion that succeeded. Decades later, the Lloy name is held in highest honor as the creators of the Blades, not the wielders.

It makes me think of Uli saying, “I know now that those who sang songs in this place, even if the words were meant to soothe [Azgra’s] wrath and keep our lives in propitiating his fury; the melody, the dance, the fury and the passion, that was always for us.”

It makes me think of Demodus, saying that things have to start as an illusion first.

It makes me think of Thaisha, speaking a Rungjani blessing, blessing the Conqueror, “for in his appetite, he saw Aramán forever changed from what it was to what it might be. A blessing to him, then, that the Rungjani reject peace in favor of a dream.”

Why do we tell stories?

Happy pride month to all my rainbow friends (and rainbow-adjacent pals) 🤩🏳️‍🌈