I'm thinking more along the lines of like, I'm absolutely sure that if such-and-such dude knew I was in this particular area, he would try to kill me, so to defend myself I'm going to kill him first.
So, self-defense, but like...before the other person does the thing that you would be theoretically defending from.
Like, is it enough to know (or at least be pretty convinced) or do you have to wait until they actually do it.
ALEX YOU'RE THE LAW PERSON NOT ME I HATE THIS i hate bats
First of all, you shouldn't be killing anyone period. If you kill him first, regardless of perceived threat, it's murder. Court could get you for first-degree if they can prove it was premeditated.
File a police report so he'll be on record. It sounds ridiculous since neither a report nor a restraining order will stop someone with criminal intent. But it brands them legally, and if something happens, the justice system can do its job.
Anyway, to answer your hypothetical question: For it to be self-defense, you'd have to wait for him to attack you first. It'd be considered "justifiable homicide" if he's continuously assaulting you and you have reason to believe your life or someone else's life is in immediate danger.
If he attacks you and runs away, and you chase him to kill him, it won't be considered self-defense any longer. You wouldn't be defending yourself, you'd be attacking someone.
Why are you asking this?
IT'S OKAY YOU'RE DOING FINE and you nailed all of it spot-on so :|b
I wish I could file a police report but there aren't exactly...police. Where Harassy-Guy is, I mean.
And I dunno. I guess I was just kind of thinking about, like...the things people tell themselves, to try to make themselves feel better about shit like that. Like it's right there in the name of "justifiable homicide", like...yeah, you killed somebody, but we get why you did it. Means the question's not so much about whether or not you killed somebody, but whether or not it's still Bad™ that you killed somebody. Sometimes it's like "yeah, you know what? Fair."
I did some awful stuff once and I always told myself that once I was safe, I'd worry about what it said about me, that I'd done all that awful shit. I guess now I'm just starting to get around to doing that.
Figured I would ask you because 1) you don't stand for people's bullshit and 2) you say stuff like "you could have a pretty good career as an assassin" with a straight face so I'm pretty confident you're not entertaining any illusions that I'm pure as the driven snow.
i'm glad my gen college credits and google actually came in handy
It's a lot to unpack, honestly, but what Damian focuses on first and foremost is how much he wants to kick his own ass for what seems like a completely insensitive comment he made without thinking. Not because it wasn't truthful, but because it was unnecessary and it seems to have plagued her thoughts for some time.
He really needs to practice thinking before speaking.
Apologizing feels embarrassing since he doesn't want to make it even more obvious, to dwell on what he hopes she'll not think about. Being an assassin. Had he really told her that? Why is he so stupid?]
You would probably do better speaking to my father.
When he was young, his parents were murdered by a man attempting to rob them in the street. He shot my grandfather and grandmother and left Father alive because he was a child.
But even though this happened, my father doesn't believe anyone should be killed. No matter how angry he was, how close he came to revenge, he doesn't think it's right. He doesn't believe criminals should die, not even the worst ones. He believes in circumstances and mental health. He believes in rehabilitation and legal restraint. He believes in second chances.
It has its flaws, the justice system. Father knows this, and he knows not everyone will feel this way about certain people. Even so, he thinks killing makes you no better than the ones also killing, and there isn't any way to pin a "right" and "just" onto the death of any person.
It's homicide because you are taking someone's life, and taking someone's life isn't your decision to make.
Nevermind about being an assassin. I was stupid. No one should have a life like that. I should know, after living it.
Killing is easier. I know it is because I've done it. I use to think there wasn't anything more satisfying than watching the life drain from someone who hurt other people. But Father says it isn't about easy, it's about what's right.
And in the end, after staying with Father, I realized I felt filthy.
[It's sort of a relief, the confirmation that she wasn't precisely wrong about Damian. A little bit horrifying, to hear a kid in his early teens admitting that he was an assassin, that he'd found killing satisfying. But also kind of...reassuring, in a twisted way. That he gets both sides of it.
The part about feeling filthy after, but also the part about finding it satisfying in the moment.]
I didn't always have magic. I wasn't born with it. I only just got it a few...I don't know. Maybe less than a year ago? I hope it hasn't been a year yet.
But basically what happened is this fucko kidnapped me and a handful of my friends and pulled us across dimensions into another world, and told us to go be heroes, save this world, we're its only hope. Something about getting hauled through fucked us all up, gave us all powers. That's why I don't know much about how to use mine.
I'd never killed somebody before that happened. But then it seemed like everywhere we went, everybody wanted us dead, and so I just decided...that I didn't care? That I didn't have the luxury of caring, I guess. That it was better to be alive and a monster than dead and righteous, or something. I always figured I'd make my peace with it when I got home, because that's what the fucko was using against us to make us do what he wanted. He was our only way home.
So we did what he wanted and he mostly kept his word. He sent all my friends home. But he kept me because I was useful. You told me the other day that I'm not a tool, well, I was to him. I was useful to him.
This is the first time I've been away from him since. I think me being here is kind of like you staying with your dad. Now that I'm not living it anymore, it's harder to try to act like you're okay with it, because you're not stuck in a position where you have to be okay with it, or you'll go crazy.
[It's a lot easier for him being able to write what he's thinking, what he's feeling. He has time to plan, to type and then erase if it's not perfect, not sufficient.
But his father said it isn't about what's easy--it's about what's right. So the only thing Summer gets back after a long few minutes is:]
[Summer won't ever know (or maybe she can guess), but the morbid humor gets a bit of a wry smirk out of him.
Getting to the church takes a little bit considering he has to get off his boathouse the old fashion way by wading across the water on the raft. It's fine. He takes his time for once, trying to think of a hundred different things to say and how to phrase them. Just in case.
Like, in case Summer asks some off the wall shit or something.
She's probably already there by the time he shows up, depending on where she came from. Maybe they run into each other at the front around the same time. Small miracles.]
[She's sitting on the porch steps when he arrives, which is part because she's gotten pretty good at the whole "haul ass to Flavo" thing over the weeks she's spent here — it's a trip she's made often, for various reasons — and part because she'd had a head start, being already on the mainland when she'd signed off of the forum and started her trek.
The church steps are ostensibly church property, too, which presumably provides an unspoken answer to the previous question about burning witches.]
Hi.
[Always a good start.]
I'm kinda curious why you picked the church for a rendezvous. Not complaining, just wondering.
[Damian could have walked up to a burning, crispy corpse, but thank God (no pun intended) that darkest timeline didn't come to pass. Small blessings.]
It felt... appropriate. [His head tilts, and he glances up along the height of the building. Strange. It doesn't have any kind of denomination and, yet, it's very clearly a church. It feels like a church.] I'm not religious, if you're worried.
[Carefully, he begins to pick his way up the steps by her then keeps heading on inside.]
Not this particular one. I've been in a church before, though. I used to think that the reason they made services from eleven to noon was because that was when the sunlight came through the stained glass best. Made colors all over the floor.
[She shrugs a little, like she's shrugging the old memory off her shoulders and back into oblivious, then ungracefully gets to her feet to follow him.]
[Going in, it doesn't exactly seem like much of anyone has taken time up with the church. It's a little disheartening. Even if he's not religious, there's something distinctly sad about a place of faith being... empty, being somewhat dilapidated.
He stands in the foyer area just through the door and glances around from top to bottom. Their movement echoes--whoever had been here before took the time to make the church out of stone rather than wood.]
If we want the sunlight to make colors through the glass, we're going to have to do more work with the church to restore color.
[On the bright side, neither him nor Summer are erupting into flames. SO THAT'S GOOD.]
Tt. There's no denomination, but there might have been more to it than weddings.
[Please don't mar his pristine image of a place of worship with horseshit like feelings and eternal love.
On the other hand, it reminds him of two people in particular, nevermind the rest of Chroma that definitely need to be blessed and cleansed by someone while becoming a married couple.]
My father and his fiancee were planning to marry before we were brought here.
[His voice is quiet, though it still echoes somewhat. The pensive knot to his brows and the sour frown of usual times is back on his face.]
No, I mean — fairy tales. They always end with a wedding, right? They kiss, they get married, they live happily ever after. That's as much a staple as "Once Upon A Time" is. So of course there has to be a church, you have to have some place to put the wedding.
[Also the mention of Damian's dad and fiancee suddenly has this whole conversation spinning into the makings of a Colortown version of The Parent Trap, oh lord, someone stop this before it begins.]
I suppose it isn't an inaccurate assumption. [Slowly, he starts through the church, picking his way along carefully and slowly enough to inspect what's left.] They're both here. Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle.
[He wonders if there's an official way for them to marry here instead. Going back home is something most of them are striving for, but getting there doesn't seem as if it'll be quick. They could be here for years.
Selina said she didn't need a piece of paper to call his father husband, but... It feels right. To give them what they had planned to do all along.]
Nevermind about that. I wanted you to tell me about this "fucko."
[He pauses. There's no lightning strikes. It's okay to say fucko in church.]
I bet there's enough people here to do a wedding. Get a cake together, set up some flowers. People here are decent, I bet they'd help out.
[But. Hmm. So that's it, then. They're not here for fairy tales, they're here for nightmares. Okay.
She looks around, finding a pew that seems relatively sturdy, and hops to perch on the back of it with her feet on the seat and her seat on the raised back.]
...It's kind of a long story. So if it seems like I'm avoiding the point, I'm not. I'm just trying to, y'know. Explain things in a way that all adds up by the time you hit the end of it.
[She shucks a hand through her hair.]
So. I was normal, once. Average kid. I was going to college. There wasn't anything particularly special about me, I guess. So my friends and I, we're walking home from class, when all of a sudden this — it was like this rip in reality just opened up and sucked us through. I'm oversimplifying it so that I can get to the actual point, but in a nutshell that's what happened. We get yanked through some aether or something, land in a strange world on the other side, and there's this guy waiting for us. Expecting us. And he says he's a wizard, and the world we've been brought to is in grave danger, and will we be the heroes the world needs, blah blah blah.
[She sighs.]
Some of the boys really bought into it. I mean, hook, line, and sinker. I didn't, because that was bullshit. Nobody asked me if I wanted to be there and he sure as hell wasn't going to send me home if I refused. But that was the trade-off, save the world and earn our way home.
[...]
Except that he didn't like me. I was always too skeptical, I didn't buy into his bullshit. So when the time finally came around to send us back, he found a loophole to...not send me. Mostly because I was useful, but I think in part because he knew how much I wanted to go home. He probably enjoyed it, making me see how close I'd gotten and then taking it away.
[She sighs.]
So he took me back to his stupid fucking wizard castle on this boondock island in the middle of nowhere. He said it was so that he could "train" me but really it's just. He fucks with me. Sets me up to fail at shit. He's always got eyes on me, no matter what. Sometimes I piss him off and he throws me into a mirror, traps me on the wrong side like it's fucking time-out. Sometimes I really piss him off and he throws me across dimensions again, but never home. And sooner or later he reaches back through and hauls me back — that's what I thought had happened when I first showed up here. I thought the old man was pissed and he'd dumped me off here.
[As quietly as possible without interrupting Summer, Damian comes to sit in a pew one down from her, facing. Being in the same pew her feet are on feels too... intimate, in a way, but he wants to be in one close enough, one he can look her in the face.
It's respectful, and yet, also a very nice method of seeing when people are being truthful and embellishing.]
So what was his M.O. from the beginning? If the dimensional tear which sucked you in gave you all powers... he hadn't been expecting you to show up with powers, had he? Or did he know it would happen?
Also... were you the first group he ever tried it with?
I don't think it really mattered if it did or not. I mean — he was smart enough that he could've played it either way, you know? We were part of his sleight of hand. Misdirect the eye over here so you're not paying attention to what's really happening over there.
[Neither one of them is sitting appropriately in these pews and it's a good thing that this isn't really church, or someone would be getting their knuckles rapped with a ruler.]
He wanted us to go find some thing, these six artifacts that when you brought them together, they could open up doors between worlds. There was this other guy, they called him the Dread King, who was trying to get all of them so that he could, I don't know, conquer every universe or something. Evil guy stuff. The idea was for us to get them before he did, and bring them back to the old man so that he could send us home, I guess. I was the only one who noticed that the old man didn't need any artifacts to send us home, because he'd already done it once to bring us there at all. The boys were okay with being willfully oblivious to it, maybe. They wanted an adventure more than they cared about seeing behind the curtain, I dunno.
[She shrugs again.]
I think the idea was, if Skul was watching us, he wouldn't be watching what Maerlyn was doing. We were buying the old man time to get ready for a showdown, I think.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
#AA3333
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[Watching?? Looking?? Whatever!!]
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Is someone harassing you?
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I'm trying to be philosophical here. :|
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Wouldn't self defense be perpetually preemptive? Unless you're a moron who is gullible enough to assume nothing would ever attack or hurt you.
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So, self-defense, but like...before the other person does the thing that you would be theoretically defending from.
Like, is it enough to know (or at least be pretty convinced) or do you have to wait until they actually do it.
ALEX YOU'RE THE LAW PERSON NOT ME I HATE THIS i hate bats
File a police report so he'll be on record. It sounds ridiculous since neither a report nor a restraining order will stop someone with criminal intent. But it brands them legally, and if something happens, the justice system can do its job.
Anyway, to answer your hypothetical question: For it to be self-defense, you'd have to wait for him to attack you first. It'd be considered "justifiable homicide" if he's continuously assaulting you and you have reason to believe your life or someone else's life is in immediate danger.
If he attacks you and runs away, and you chase him to kill him, it won't be considered self-defense any longer. You wouldn't be defending yourself, you'd be attacking someone.
Why are you asking this?
IT'S OKAY YOU'RE DOING FINE and you nailed all of it spot-on so :|b
And I dunno. I guess I was just kind of thinking about, like...the things people tell themselves, to try to make themselves feel better about shit like that. Like it's right there in the name of "justifiable homicide", like...yeah, you killed somebody, but we get why you did it. Means the question's not so much about whether or not you killed somebody, but whether or not it's still Bad™ that you killed somebody. Sometimes it's like "yeah, you know what? Fair."
I did some awful stuff once and I always told myself that once I was safe, I'd worry about what it said about me, that I'd done all that awful shit. I guess now I'm just starting to get around to doing that.
Figured I would ask you because 1) you don't stand for people's bullshit and 2) you say stuff like "you could have a pretty good career as an assassin" with a straight face so I'm pretty confident you're not entertaining any illusions that I'm pure as the driven snow.
i'm glad my gen college credits and google actually came in handy
It's a lot to unpack, honestly, but what Damian focuses on first and foremost is how much he wants to kick his own ass for what seems like a completely insensitive comment he made without thinking. Not because it wasn't truthful, but because it was unnecessary and it seems to have plagued her thoughts for some time.
He really needs to practice thinking before speaking.
Apologizing feels embarrassing since he doesn't want to make it even more obvious, to dwell on what he hopes she'll not think about. Being an assassin. Had he really told her that? Why is he so stupid?]
You would probably do better speaking to my father.
When he was young, his parents were murdered by a man attempting to rob them in the street. He shot my grandfather and grandmother and left Father alive because he was a child.
But even though this happened, my father doesn't believe anyone should be killed. No matter how angry he was, how close he came to revenge, he doesn't think it's right. He doesn't believe criminals should die, not even the worst ones. He believes in circumstances and mental health. He believes in rehabilitation and legal restraint. He believes in second chances.
It has its flaws, the justice system. Father knows this, and he knows not everyone will feel this way about certain people. Even so, he thinks killing makes you no better than the ones also killing, and there isn't any way to pin a "right" and "just" onto the death of any person.
It's homicide because you are taking someone's life, and taking someone's life isn't your decision to make.
Nevermind about being an assassin. I was stupid. No one should have a life like that. I should know, after living it.
Killing is easier. I know it is because I've done it. I use to think there wasn't anything more satisfying than watching the life drain from someone who hurt other people. But Father says it isn't about easy, it's about what's right.
And in the end, after staying with Father, I realized I felt filthy.
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The part about feeling filthy after, but also the part about finding it satisfying in the moment.]
I didn't always have magic. I wasn't born with it. I only just got it a few...I don't know. Maybe less than a year ago? I hope it hasn't been a year yet.
But basically what happened is this fucko kidnapped me and a handful of my friends and pulled us across dimensions into another world, and told us to go be heroes, save this world, we're its only hope. Something about getting hauled through fucked us all up, gave us all powers. That's why I don't know much about how to use mine.
I'd never killed somebody before that happened. But then it seemed like everywhere we went, everybody wanted us dead, and so I just decided...that I didn't care? That I didn't have the luxury of caring, I guess. That it was better to be alive and a monster than dead and righteous, or something. I always figured I'd make my peace with it when I got home, because that's what the fucko was using against us to make us do what he wanted. He was our only way home.
So we did what he wanted and he mostly kept his word. He sent all my friends home. But he kept me because I was useful. You told me the other day that I'm not a tool, well, I was to him. I was useful to him.
This is the first time I've been away from him since. I think me being here is kind of like you staying with your dad. Now that I'm not living it anymore, it's harder to try to act like you're okay with it, because you're not stuck in a position where you have to be okay with it, or you'll go crazy.
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But his father said it isn't about what's easy--it's about what's right. So the only thing Summer gets back after a long few minutes is:]
Do you want to go to the church in Flavo?
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[Score one for twisted humor.]
Sure, I can meet you there.
action
Getting to the church takes a little bit considering he has to get off his boathouse the old fashion way by wading across the water on the raft. It's fine. He takes his time for once, trying to think of a hundred different things to say and how to phrase them. Just in case.
Like, in case Summer asks some off the wall shit or something.
She's probably already there by the time he shows up, depending on where she came from. Maybe they run into each other at the front around the same time. Small miracles.]
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The church steps are ostensibly church property, too, which presumably provides an unspoken answer to the previous question about burning witches.]
Hi.
[Always a good start.]
I'm kinda curious why you picked the church for a rendezvous. Not complaining, just wondering.
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It felt... appropriate. [His head tilts, and he glances up along the height of the building. Strange. It doesn't have any kind of denomination and, yet, it's very clearly a church. It feels like a church.] I'm not religious, if you're worried.
[Carefully, he begins to pick his way up the steps by her then keeps heading on inside.]
Have you ever been inside?
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[She shrugs a little, like she's shrugging the old memory off her shoulders and back into oblivious, then ungracefully gets to her feet to follow him.]
That was a long time ago, though.
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He stands in the foyer area just through the door and glances around from top to bottom. Their movement echoes--whoever had been here before took the time to make the church out of stone rather than wood.]
If we want the sunlight to make colors through the glass, we're going to have to do more work with the church to restore color.
[On the bright side, neither him nor Summer are erupting into flames. SO THAT'S GOOD.]
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[She glances around, too, taking stock of the vaulted ceilings, the stone, the dusty barrenness of it all.]
...It's probably here for a wedding, you know. I'd be willing to bet there were never services in here or anything. Just weddings.
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[Please don't mar his pristine image of a place of worship with horseshit like feelings and eternal love.
On the other hand, it reminds him of two people in particular, nevermind the rest of Chroma that definitely need to be blessed and cleansed by someone while becoming a married couple.]
My father and his fiancee were planning to marry before we were brought here.
[His voice is quiet, though it still echoes somewhat. The pensive knot to his brows and the sour frown of usual times is back on his face.]
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[Also the mention of Damian's dad and fiancee suddenly has this whole conversation spinning into the makings of a Colortown version of The Parent Trap, oh lord, someone stop this before it begins.]
Are they both here? Your dad and his fiancee?
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I suppose it isn't an inaccurate assumption. [Slowly, he starts through the church, picking his way along carefully and slowly enough to inspect what's left.] They're both here. Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle.
[He wonders if there's an official way for them to marry here instead. Going back home is something most of them are striving for, but getting there doesn't seem as if it'll be quick. They could be here for years.
Selina said she didn't need a piece of paper to call his father husband, but... It feels right. To give them what they had planned to do all along.]
Nevermind about that. I wanted you to tell me about this "fucko."
[He pauses. There's no lightning strikes. It's okay to say fucko in church.]
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[But. Hmm. So that's it, then. They're not here for fairy tales, they're here for nightmares. Okay.
She looks around, finding a pew that seems relatively sturdy, and hops to perch on the back of it with her feet on the seat and her seat on the raised back.]
...It's kind of a long story. So if it seems like I'm avoiding the point, I'm not. I'm just trying to, y'know. Explain things in a way that all adds up by the time you hit the end of it.
[She shucks a hand through her hair.]
So. I was normal, once. Average kid. I was going to college. There wasn't anything particularly special about me, I guess. So my friends and I, we're walking home from class, when all of a sudden this — it was like this rip in reality just opened up and sucked us through. I'm oversimplifying it so that I can get to the actual point, but in a nutshell that's what happened. We get yanked through some aether or something, land in a strange world on the other side, and there's this guy waiting for us. Expecting us. And he says he's a wizard, and the world we've been brought to is in grave danger, and will we be the heroes the world needs, blah blah blah.
[She sighs.]
Some of the boys really bought into it. I mean, hook, line, and sinker. I didn't, because that was bullshit. Nobody asked me if I wanted to be there and he sure as hell wasn't going to send me home if I refused. But that was the trade-off, save the world and earn our way home.
[...]
Except that he didn't like me. I was always too skeptical, I didn't buy into his bullshit. So when the time finally came around to send us back, he found a loophole to...not send me. Mostly because I was useful, but I think in part because he knew how much I wanted to go home. He probably enjoyed it, making me see how close I'd gotten and then taking it away.
[She sighs.]
So he took me back to his stupid fucking wizard castle on this boondock island in the middle of nowhere. He said it was so that he could "train" me but really it's just. He fucks with me. Sets me up to fail at shit. He's always got eyes on me, no matter what. Sometimes I piss him off and he throws me into a mirror, traps me on the wrong side like it's fucking time-out. Sometimes I really piss him off and he throws me across dimensions again, but never home. And sooner or later he reaches back through and hauls me back — that's what I thought had happened when I first showed up here. I thought the old man was pissed and he'd dumped me off here.
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It's respectful, and yet, also a very nice method of seeing when people are being truthful and embellishing.]
So what was his M.O. from the beginning? If the dimensional tear which sucked you in gave you all powers... he hadn't been expecting you to show up with powers, had he? Or did he know it would happen?
Also... were you the first group he ever tried it with?
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[Neither one of them is sitting appropriately in these pews and it's a good thing that this isn't really church, or someone would be getting their knuckles rapped with a ruler.]
He wanted us to go find some thing, these six artifacts that when you brought them together, they could open up doors between worlds. There was this other guy, they called him the Dread King, who was trying to get all of them so that he could, I don't know, conquer every universe or something. Evil guy stuff. The idea was for us to get them before he did, and bring them back to the old man so that he could send us home, I guess. I was the only one who noticed that the old man didn't need any artifacts to send us home, because he'd already done it once to bring us there at all. The boys were okay with being willfully oblivious to it, maybe. They wanted an adventure more than they cared about seeing behind the curtain, I dunno.
[She shrugs again.]
I think the idea was, if Skul was watching us, he wouldn't be watching what Maerlyn was doing. We were buying the old man time to get ready for a showdown, I think.
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