Obligatory Pseudonym

And how he raises his boys to do the same...

In Batgirl Year One #4, we see Bruce dictating what Dick is allowed to call Babs. You could argue this is control over his "brand," but it's part of a larger pattern of control over Babs throughout this run:

And it's immediately followed by drugging & abducting her to the Batcave, where he interrogates her to try and find out her identity...

Followed by drugging her again and making it clear that she does not get to decide what is done with her identity or her body

They maneuver her unconscious body multiple times in this issue and forcibly unmask her. Alfred and Dick are Bruce's accomplices in this. Dick occasionally challenges Bruce, but never with any real seriousness. There is no reciprocity in Barbara and Bruce's relationship here--she is entirely at his mercy at all times, and he wants her to be aware of this & works to crush her down whenever she defies him.

Bruce controls Steph also from as soon as he knows who she is: we see him do this in Detective Comics #649... her third appearance

Her identity is a bludgeon he can deploy against her-- and he's eager to do it immediately. He always goes for this blow (and yes, I'm aware he uses Tim's secret identity against him later + sabotages his relationship with Steph... but he only does it to Tim after he's been really upset with him. With women, he will deploy it right away)

In this case, Tim is apparently the first one to discover Steph's identity, but immediately gives it to Bruce, who then uses it against her. (I am admittedly so very tired so my chain of events could be off here as I am kind of throwing this post together).

He ambushes Helena with Dick to scold her for not being good enough while calling her by the hero identity she's currently not using, revealing that he's "known from the start" who she is.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #120

He browbeats her into giving up the cowl and Dick cooperates with him, calling Helena by the same name:

Then he takes the costume and basically kingmakes Cass into the new Batgirl... then prefers that she never step out of the role. The one girl he chooses and she can have no other identity. The moment she "gives up" the secret, he supports her & builds up a way to avoid getting it back.

Batgirl (2000) #14

many clip the wings of the queen, destroy new queen cells, cull queens they don't like and use bee pheromones to prevent a hive from naturally swarming or absconding. They also try and prevent mating with the African honey bee, which makes them less docile among other things. During artificial insemination of queens, drones are crushed and „spare“ queens are killed.

and commercial beekeepers even cull their hives during winter, or when they are not producing well.

Coupled with the fact that there is evidence that insects do feel pain, this is not great.

That said, it IS a book that mentions clinical studies and brain anatomy, so if you struggle to read stuff like that in English, you might not want to get the book in English, but a translated edition instead.

There are also specific case studies of traumatised individuals, so while anonymity was preserved and care was taken to be respectful, details ARE provided about those traumatic experiences where necessary. There are no euphemisms, there is no going out of the way to whitewash the brutal reality of what these people went through just to make it palatable to the audience. So bear in mind that triggering subjects are an inescapable part of the reading experience for this book, and take precautions when doing so.

I'm also aware some of the concepts he talked about, like mirror neurons, are still up for debate in the field of psychiatry and psychology. I'm not recommending this book as a mental health practitioner, it is not a substitute for going to a doctor and I'm certainly not opening myself up for debate regarding those controversial concepts. This is more of a "I'm a sick person whose lived experiences with trauma started making more sense due to this book, giving myself more control and agency over my situation, so maybe it will help you, fellow traumatized individual, make more sense of the chaos of your PTSD/CPTSD too, while you continue your therapy, the medications that work for you, and self-care".

The senior crew of Starfleet's most controversial starship, the USS Normandy SR-1.

blurb and crew list under the cut!

tumblr is very rude for making me make a censored ver of this

Drawing cass until I’m happy with it

Bonus Kons (yay for being living weapons created to enact someone else’s perfect vision)

It's, it's just that dragons are the primordial embodiment of avarice wrought into fire and flesh. They are truly, supernaturally good at finding large amounts of valuables, that's why the big mines hire those Dragon Scouts to go sniff out their lairs and mark them on the maps as potential mining ventures. You know, in case someone slays the relevant dragon. Which doesn't happen often because, milord, they are simply not that easily slain.

No I know you've hired many knights, blooded warriors and true. Yes, I was there when you gave the ten most impressive ones their special sashes. Very grand, very high honors, of course. Ehm. It's just, none of them have ever actually faced a dragon. Yes no I know Sir Edbert says he did but Sir Edbert is rather notoriously prone to exaggerated and tragically unverifiable tales---

Well no milord of course I would not doubt the word of a sworn knight. Perhaps his sobriety, but not his word, as such.

The point is that the grand treasury, while surely grand and a very special notion, is just... it is mayhaps not the ideal way of handling the realm's finances? Perhaps a series of smaller vaults, capped well below the dangerous wealth threshold at which gold is known to whet the appetite of colossal winged harbingers of death, in different corners of the realms or...?

No, I, yes well I do realize that will impede anyone's interests in coming into the vault to hurl around the gold coins and go "whee, I'm so rich!" I am aware of its deficiencies as a plan in that regard. No, I see I've misjudged a few things.

Actually, thinking on it, milord, I truly believe what you need is a fresh set of skilled wizards on this job. The court magician and I, we cannot keep up with your visionary thinking. We're too old-fashioned. But the wizards revolutionizing the eldritch academies seem to be more on this sort of level. I hear they've made some truly remarkable choices in terms of outsourcing all of their spellwork to the Ever-Whispering Void, such that it takes mere minutes for them to set up an entire defensive array. That's just the sort of innovative thinking you require.