Black Paladin!Shiro 4ever bitch!

Orcas breaching in rough seas. Photo taken from a sword fishing boat off the coast of Nova Scotia.

their big eggs are actually that size for a similar reason to human babies having massive heads!! being bigger at birth can be important.

kiwi are trying SO HARD to become mammals. fur-like feathers, whisker-like feathers, little beady eyes, nocturnal, great sense of smell.... that's basically a mammal!! they're well suited for life on the forest floor.

their big eggs work alongside these adaptations to give them a leg up in the bird world. their young hatch already feathered! they're precocial, which means they're born with the ability to open their eyes and move around. like foals.

big egg = more powerful offspring from the get-go. babies don't need to spend precious time vulnerable while they develop on the ground when they've already done all that in the egg!

- needs glasses, has glasses, for no reason hes convinced everyone he has perfect 20/20 vision. he had a pair pre-lazarus healing, then obv died and was fine, then probably got flash banged on top of continuing to strain his eyes by reading in the dark so his vision got fucked again. as far as everyone else knows his vision healed with everything else. he will NEVER catch himself out and about in his glasses the deception has to stay intact. its either contacts or he toughs it out

- minimalist empty safe-house jason is cool, however consider one singular apartment he's unintentionally stored all his favorite things in. the whole thing is decorated like a large bedroom. instruments, records, books, mugs, blankets, candles, posters; everything is scrounged up into a little comfort zone thats entirely unknown to anyone else and always a safe place to hunker down for a bit. its like his little vacation home, it has his favorite dvds and icecream flavors and everything (it also has warm yellow lighting bc he tries to associate it with safety. bright white lights are for when he needs to lock in)

- he has a closet somewhere with a costume for every event possible. yes this includes the nightwing costume and the priest costume. he enjoys dress up

- it totally slipped his mind that he has magic swords. he only remembers them when a demonic threat appears and hes about to make a comment that this is above his pay grade and then he realizes this IS his pay grade

- his fighting style is Some Bullshit. this is how he won against bruce so early into his training, he internalizes everything hes learned and then just spams moves from nothing in particular. he throws in a kick he learned from a video game and a flip be saw once when watching tv

- theatre kid in his every move. fighting and costumes, yes, and hes also monologuing about the bird thats taunting him through the window. instead of journaling hes spitting soliloquies as he makes dinner to organize his thoughts

- likes tiramisu and those purple flamas doritos

- during that lost days era he would alter his appearance to deal with strong emotions. hed get a new haircut, or piercing, or hair color, nail polish, etc. everytime talia saw him there was something slightly different and she couldn't be bothered to ask. the hair dye also fried his loose curls and they havent grown back properly bc dc keeps shaving his head but TRUST theyre coming back

- again his helmet is a glorified speaker and also a projector. he'll debrief his team by propping his helmet on a table and projecting a slideshow of The Plan onto a wall through the eye lenses. he has no reason to do this bc they already know whats happening most likely but he likes making sure everyones on the same page. however he also does it with bruce and dick to sound condescending and rage bait them bc they keep doing it to him

- immortal

- he still dosnt know hes immortal-ish, he thinks his continued survival is bc hes Built Different (hes in denial bc the prospect of not being allowed to leave the mortal realm yet is kind of its own hell for him)

can you imagine?

“I’ve never seen you eat are you insecure” “no…”

“here let me lift that for you” “I got it, thanks” *uses inhuman strength to lift bags*

“I’ve never seen you go to the beach, do you have trouble shopping for a bathing suit” “haha… yeah”

“There’s no way that girl can catch me… she’s huge!” “Hello, dinner.” *running with super fast vampire speed*

“She can’t fit in here! I’m safe!” *turns into a gas and slips under the door*

“How come you never go out?” “Well, I never get invited to parties…”

“Come to the gym with me! We should lose weight” “Not in a thousand years.” (incidentally, that’s when she was last alive.)

There are two great problems with what happened to Margaret (and that her parents are trying to do to Juliet). One is easy for modern people to spot (but was also a common response back in her own day). And that’s the moral implications of what was done to her. She was too young to be married, and it was horrifying that she was forced into it so young. Every one of the adults around her either acted immorally or failed to protect her. They were wrong. This is what modern people see, and it’s important to remember that people back in her day mostly agreed with it. You’re supposed to think it’s fucked up! When girls were married that young (and it didn’t happen often!) it was a formality 99% of the time. It was for dynastic or financial reasons (the girl has lots of money and/or land and/or a title that her husband wants), but the “couple” don’t consummate their marriage for years. And it’s not just that they would have separate bedrooms. They might not even live in the same country until the girl was in her late teens and physically and mentally mature enough to bear and raise kids. Hell, a lot of times they didn’t even meet until the girl was older! They had this thing called “proxy marriage” where you would have two separate ceremonies, in two separate places, with each party saying their vows separately, one in one city and the other in a different one. So, yeah, sure, the girl was technically married at 12, but she didn’t actually meet her “husband” in person until she was 17 and they didn’t start sleeping together until she was 20. That was a thing they did.

The other problem, the one that modern people don’t notice, is dynastic. See, marriage wasn’t generally because you loved someone. It was because you had the resources to support a family, and you or your family wanted to pool those resources with someone. It’s about “our family has these resources, and we want that to continue.” It’s about continuity across generations. It’s about making sure that your children and grandchildren have the best possible resources to survive and thrive, whether those resources are land or a trade or a title or money or whatever. In order for this to work, you have to have kids! The family and the family’s resources depend on the married couple having children. If the couple doesn’t have children, the marriage is a failure. And that failure affects not only the couple, but both families. This is a really big problem. And you can’t have just one kid to pass on the family name, because half of all kids die in early childhood. If you want to be safe, you need several kids, to be sure at least one will survive to adulthood (when they can marry and pass on the family name and resources.

You know what happens when a girl has her first pregnancy too young? She is very likely to either die in childbirth, or have complications that destroy her future fertility. Just like Margaret Beaufort. Just like Juliet’s mother. In other words, the marriage is a failure, not just for her, but also for her family, and her husband (who can’t divorce her, it’s not allowed except in extremely rare circumstances), and her husband’s family. So even the people who didn’t have a moral problem with adult men having sex with pubescent girls had a practical problem with girls married too young because you are very likely to destroy the entire purpose of the marriage by doing it. As Shakespeare reminds us in the play through Juliet’s mother having been married too young and only having one child.

another thing i noticed, the year my local community shakespeare theater did r&j, and i made the costumes so i got to watch the show every night: part of why capulet is telling paris, take your time, get to know each other, no rush, is that he still has his nephew tybalt as his heir. as long as tybalt is in the picture, there is no pressure on juliet to go further with paris, than get acquainted. once tybalt is killed, then suddenly capulet needs an heir, he needs a husband for juliet, now, this week. (the role of capulet is best given to the actor in the company that can do over the top apoplexy, you need to believe his urgency comes at least in part by how clearly he could drop dead any moment from giving himself a stroke)

i feel like this play is often taught in middle schools as if it was somehow relevant to, or about, teen hormone storms. really it's got more to do with the social structures around family and inheritance. leaving that context out makes it confusing, why is capulet suddenly flipping from nice dad to evil dad?