Hello.
Okay, this is a long story, a really long one, but basically: I found your blog, and through it your fanfiction, and you are kind of the main reason I'm interested in Batman villains. You're just a great author and I don't know how to convey my love of this story, but it's awesome. I hope to be able to do anything even a tenth as good as it in my own(unpublished) fanfic where Harvey Dent is a major character(it's a crossover with an ensemble cast, but yeah). This is one of the best stories I've ever read, and I hope you update it someday.

As always, I love the way you write Harvey's POV. You've nailed his personality perfectly, as well as the way he interacts with other characters in the story. This really does feel like a seamless amalgamation of the different versions of both Harvey and his backstory that I know of, and I congratulate you on doing such an excellent job with canonical material. I love the use of action and the dramatic opening involving Hill - that was a very striking opening to the chapter, especially with the dialogue at the very beginning. Your knowledge of the characters and the source material shone through in this chapter while making this piece your own, and your version of pre-scarring Harvey is my personal favorite out of all the fics I've read on this site.

The skillful way you use canonical characters like Gordon and Loeb is another thing I really like, especially how both characters are seen through the POV of Harvey. The imagery is great, too; my favorite description was "Icicles drip from every letter." That both says a lot about Loeb and his attitude towards Gordon. You have a great use of foreshadowing; I strongly suspect that Harvey will be at odds with Loeb soon, and I'm especially interested to see Harvey interact with Gordon. Your use of slang also adds a feel of the setting and adds a lot of characterization to Harvey as a narrator. First-person writing can be very challenging, and you did a great job with it.

As for the chapter's ending, the repetition added a great deal to the rhythm of the piece and a great deal of foreshadowing, especially when Harvey reflects on the phrase "I Believe in Harvey Dent" and what it means for Gotham and himself. You got across Harvey's emotions and the environment surrounding the scene wonderfully, in particular Harvey's musings on the crowd and his grassroots supporters who helped him get to the position he is now in. You did a wonderful job of keeping Harvey in character while foreshadowing both the struggles he will face as DA and his eventual fall.

Once again, this is the absolute best piece of its kind that I've seen, and is one of my favorite fics of all time. When you continue, I'll be happy to read more. This is truly an excellent piece of work, and I congratulate you for all of the work you clearly put into stitching together various pieces of canon and keeping Harvey in-character. It really shows in the extremely high quality of this piece.

Excellent, excellent work. I am both eager and excited to see where this story leads.

This remains a deeply fascinating piece, and I continue to enjoy the way you write Harvey. His interaction with Gilda continues to be beautifully written, deeply engaging, and extremely well-written, and you have a true gift for first-person narration and dialogue. The way you seamlessly mesh together all the different versions of Harvey's character and backstory is, as always, one of my favorite parts of this story. You build up that sense of tension very well, and pulls me into the world of the story.

The tension in the scene in which Harvey first encounters Batman was very well done, and you captured Harvey's emotions very well. I especially liked Harvey's shock and surprise on meeting the vigilante, as well as his slight relief that at least now he knows that Batman exists. The way you use terse dialogue and incomplete sentences adds a great deal to the feel of the story, especially when combined with your use of the present tense. I also liked how there are two "bats" in this chapter - both Batman himself and Harvey's baseball bat. Harvey's comparison of Batman to a "Judge from Hell" felt appropriate to Harvey as a character and was a striking image. The quick nod to Gordon was well-done, too - I love seeing references to familiar characters in this story.

As usual, I love Harvey's interaction with Gilda. This is one of the best takes on their relationship I've seen, and makes me wonder why I don't see more of her in the fandom - she's a very important character to Harvey. The way you write her as a capable, intriguing character in her own right is one of the real strengths of this piece, and something I haven't seen in many other places. You write their relationship in a touching, intriguing, and believable way, and the ending paragraph was very touching, especially the part with Harvey thinking of Gilda. I look forward to seeing what happens on Election Day.

Great work! I'm really enjoying the way this story is building up, and will look forward to reading more!

The description of the relationship between young Harvey and Bruce at the beginning was very touching, especially given how they were both lonely children. Your take on Harvey's "voice" is absolutely fantastic, and you wrote his conversation with Bruce in the beginning excellently. It's interesting to get a look at Bruce from the point of view of another character, and his conversation with Harvey deepened both characters. Their relationship is clearly strained, especially during that intense argument later in the chapter.

I like how you've integrated a variety of different sources for this story. They fit together seamlessly, and the end result shows all the work you've put into it. Your use of slang and colorful words, like "yoinking" and "schmooze", give it a unique feel. I also liked the way you explored Harvey's relationship with Bruce in this chapter, especially the scene with the argument between the two. It's interesting to see Harvey's perspective of Bruce - especially with the contrasting conversation in the beginning. The scene with the gun was very tensely written.

I'm still deeply enjoying the way you write Harvey, and you're brilliant at writing Gilda. Your story is the first time I've seen her on this site, which is surprising given how important she is to Harvey's character, and the way you portray her is excellent. Her interactions with Harvey are realistically written and a pleasure to read, and your story has given me a new appreciation for her as a character. You have a real gift with dialogue, too - the exchange between Bruce and Harvey was extremely well-done and an intense read, and I liked the throwback to the therapy Harvey recieves in the first chapter.

The way you write the characters and tie all these pieces of comic lore to create such a rich backstory for Harvey is absolutely fantastic. Great job - I'm really enjoying this story, and look forward to reading more.

I really like your portrayal of Gilda, and I love the idea of fleshing out her character, especially given how important she is in connection to Harvey. I continue to enjoy the very unique way you've written this piece, and the first-person style continues to be interesting and engaging. The dialogue was well-written, realistic, and you have a very skillful use of slang which fits Harvey's character perfectly. It's especially interesting to see Gilda through Harvey's eyes, and I look forward to seeing more of her and her role in Harvey's life as the story goes on.

Your use of description is fluid, well-written, and intriguing, in particular during the interaction between Gilda and Harvey in this chapter. There was some very nice use of alliteration and imagery (for example, "sending little shockwaves through my system") that capture scenes perfectly. You have a very rich vocabulary and use of language. Nice use of foreshadowing, too, with Harvey feeling that he may have done something reckless in confronting Moroni in front of the city. I also like how Bruce doesn't appear right away, and is a secondary character - this is Harvey's story, after all, and that reflects it nicely.

I also really, really loved the moment between Gilda and Harvey at the end. It was very well-written and the detail worked nicely. I especially liked the use of "Apollo" to refer to Harvey. I also loved the line about how Bruce wouldn't appreciate being upstaged in the tabloids. This is a deeply fascinating look into Harvey's characterization and relationship with Gilda before everything goes horribly wrong. You're one of the first writers I've seen who gave so much attention to her as a character in her own right, which I deeply appreciate.

Great job. I look forward to reading more of this fascinating piece.

I'm still deeply enjoying this lovely piece, and it's helped give me a new appreciation of Harvey as a character. You clearly put a lot of work into this, and it shows. Its being in first person is a nice touch, and something I very rarely see used in the way you did it, so good job in taking the challenge. You've nailed Harvey's POV very nicely, especially the slang and use of dark humor. It's interesting to see him still in the crusading DA stage and not the Two-Face stage. I see familiar characters here like Loeb, which further adds to the feel that this is a very well-researched piece. Harvey's thoughts on Hill were especially interesting and enlightening, especially as it show's Harvey's feelings on corruption in politics.

You have some very nice use of language here, and capture the "sound" of Harvey's narration perfectly. You also make it very clear how the odds are set against Harvey and how much Falcone and co. have entrenched themselves in the city, even to the point where they turn up at Harvey's speech. Harvey's very cynical - I liked how he compared himself to Mayor Hill's puppet. "Pull the string and watch me dance" was probably my favorite line in the chapter. Gilda's clearly very important to Harvey here, especially given how he used her name almost like a mantra. That was quite powerfully done.

Harvey's speech was another excellent piece of work. You captured pre-Two-Face Harvey perfectly there, and you clearly put a lot of effort into it - the theme of fairness and integrity certainly fits him, especially given the previous chapter's childhood trauma. That's an especially nice bit of foreshadowing at the end where Harvey confronts Moroni. As a comic reader, I know there's only one way that can end, but you do a good job in not making it blatant. The various canon sources are seamlessly blended here. This is shaping up to be a very well-written and characterized focused on a character who can be very challenging to get right.

All in all, this piece has definitely caught my interest and I look forward to reading more.

I'm really excited to read this, since I've always been interested in Harvey as a character. You've got a very solid grip on his characterization, in particular his relationship with his father and the two-faced coin. The dialogue was sharp and well-done, and I like the decision to tell Harvey's story from his own point of view. There's a lot of potential in that idea, and the terse feel of the story both fits the character and the kind of piece that it is. The use of slang is a nice touch, especially considering the end, where it''s revealed that Harvey's talking to Doctor Cross.

The relationship between the members of the Dent household was remarkably well-done, in particular Harvey's parents' relationship and how Harvey is sure that Ms. Dent absolutely loathed her husband deep down. Those were just remarkably powerful sentences. You certainly got the feel of Harvey reminiscing about his past down pat, especially how traumatizing it was considering how cruel Christopher Dent was to Harvey. And as for Harvey, your way of writing him is just brilliantly done - perfectly in character, and I'm interested to see his inevitable slip into madness and how you write it.

The part about God and the Easter Bunny was another extremely well-done paragraph. I can rather see why Harvey got so fixated on justice now, especially after that speech from his father. You have a great way of revealing so much character in so few words, and you clearly have a great knowledge of the comics. The use of sound in this piece really helps it shine, too - "clink", "fwap", and "ting" were standout pieces of onomatopoeia that jumped out as especially striking. Your style is unique, very terse but very detailed and well-written. That was an excellent reveal at the end - Harvey in a therapist or psychologist's office, talking about his childhood. And the last two paragraphs were just beautifully written and chilling.

I'll certainly be eager to read more of this piece. It's grabbed my interest in a big way, and I'm excited to see where this goes.

MUST,...HA...VE MORE!

dude... how can I read more of this? I am an actor and I do my own TwoFace make-up at home, I even wrote a tiny script for a scene where he Turns into TwoFace... and this chapter alone has blown my mind..., so what more is there of this?

This story is so utterly fantastic that I can hardly wrap my head around it. It shines brilliantly; it's well-written and has a strong cast and plot. So much Batman content has been published, that sometimes it's like swimming in an ocean trying to figure out Gotham and her inhabitants' history. You've done a great job of synthesizing all that content into one story that feels wonderfully all-encompassing. You touch on many different stages of Dent's life, but the time transitions are so expertly done that the entire story has one continuous feel. You set out to do one whopper of a character study, and you're doing a great job of studying the many different points of Dent's life, and how they've all led him to become the man- and later villain- that he turns into.

I especially liked how stylized and narrative the first chapter was, and how we realized Dent was recounting his history to a psychiatrist. I'm still trying to figure out exactly when that last snippet of chapter one happened...it could be a doctor from Arkham Asylum and Dent is already Two-Face, but the honesty of him recounting his past makes me think he's still completely "Harvey Dent" when that conversation happens. My Batman knowledge is pretty limited, but I know that Batman: the Animated Series played off Harvey Dent as having a "duality" and "anger" issue even before he became Two-Face (you've alluded to his anger issues already with his bursts of short-lived but violent anger). And just like with your chapter one, Dent talks to his shrink while it's raining and thundering outside. So the similarities made me think of that episode. If you decide to do anything like that episode, that means Harvey Dent will become Two-Face shortly after that meeting with his shrink. But once again, there's so much Batman content out there that it's hard to predict the nitty-gritty details, so I'm very eager to get your take on Dent's past.

And on small side tangent, I just wanted to say...while Dent may be called Two-Face, you've done a GREAT job showing the two faces of Wayne, the public playboy and his serious side. I like that Dent, since he grew up with Wayne, was able sense that somehow Wayne's playboy antics had a...fake feel to them. Dent doesn't know Wayne well enough anymore to call him out on it, but he was able to break past Wayne's superficiality, even if only for a moment when they discussed their shared past. (Love that line about Wayne's fist hurting, but not as much as Dent's face!)

It's been a while since you've last updated this story, but I hope you do continue writing it. It's too precious a gem to leave uncut and in the rough.

I cant express how much I love you right now.

Is this Story still ongoing? (oh please, please, please, please..)

I swear to God and mighty Titans that this is by far the best Story i've read so far and i'm through with all rec'd stories, ao3 and then some. Have my love Dx

I'm now going to read your lj-forum from bottom to top (i tried before but always got sidetracked by a headline while clicking "previous 10", hehe). Thanks to your post and nice scans of the No man's land novel i recently bought it from amazon (god bless amazon, bringing me american stuff to germany!) and are currently waiting for it. (Thus having found this jewel.) I have no livejournal-acc but i really wanted to express my gratitute for sharing your opinion on.. well, so much two-face!

Okay enough already.

Thank you. I love you. Dont change. WRITE MORE I DARE YOU.

- a German Twofy-Fangirl

I had given thought to writing a Harvey Dent/Two-Face origin story for Askham City, but any attempt on my part would just be a pale shadow of this master work. Your use of language is subtle and pointed. Bravo.

'Allo! Techie sent me your way, so I thought I'd take a look.

I'm not usually much of a Two-Face fan but...wow. Just wow.

Where to start?

Your descriptions bring Gotham to life. Your characterization is fantastic; I can see Harvey's decency, his flaws, his self-doubts, and the hints of his darker side lurking around the edges. I don't know if Gilda's ever had this much characterization in the comics, but you've done a fantastic job here. I love the dialogue between the two of them. The warmth and humor in their interaction just seems very natural. Seeing this side of Dent's life, in addition to everything else, makes him very human.

I also liked the history between Harvey and Bruce. It adds an extra layer of depth to the story.

This is masterfully done.

can has more?

The interaction between Harvey and Batman had the potential to be stale, simply because that scene has been done so many times (mostly with Gordon.) But it worked, because you clearly put so much more thought into it than most writers.

Gilda is moving away from potential Manic Pixie Dream Girl status. nice job