#Some sort of Gotham Facebook | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

d-field22-blog · 22 days

Text

Story link: https://www.deviantart.com/d-field22/art/Batman-Oc-Villain-16-Red-Riding-Hood-Digital-867360346

Bio: Real name: Rufina R. Dooh Occupation: Murderer, Professional criminal Base of Operation: Gotham City Eyes: Green Hair: Black, (ends dyed Red) Height: 5ft 7 in Weight: 130lbs

Attributes: Obsessed with old fairytales, particularly Little Red Riding Hood Suicidal Uses hand crafted baskets as not just her means of fitting her gimmick of filling it with dead body parts, but also as her calling card. With a quote of a famous fairytale written on a white card tied to the handles. Uses an exaggerated personality of an innocent girl. Surprisingly good in hand to hand combat. Mainly sticks to knives, or her cleaved she hides in her cloak Mainly sticks to old people as her victims. But is known to kill much younger folk that cross her, or whom she feels like killing.

Dream voice actress: Chloë Grace Moretz. You could say I have sort of a crush on Chloe, I can say that instead of some old perverts on Facebook or Twitter because she and I are a lot closer in age. But aside from that, she has grown to be a very competent actress, whether it be kickass heroes, smart allices, or even tortured souls, she for the most parts gives it her all in acting. I can't seem to recall seeing a "bad" performance from her. Though I think her choices need to be a bit better for some movies, Chloë Grace Moretz has the perfect voice for Rufina. I also tried to model Rufina's face after Chloe, but I'm not that very good at drawing real people. But I did my best, and I think I did it well enough.

Featured song: Little Red Riding Hood by Amanda Seyfried.

Notes.

Red Riding Hood was a rogue that desperately needed a redesign, and I was so looking forward to the day that she would get one. And dare I say, this one blows the original out of the water.

I decided to draw the basket in the crutch of her arm and placed her trademark killing weapon in where the basket use to be, along with an additional butcher knife, 3.Some of the colors of her outfit were changed and now she pops at you much more, because I didn't think to do the inside of her cloak in a different shade of red.

How could I not incorporate the Mad Hatter into her origin? It would have been a missed opportunity if I didn't have them meet/ work together in any point in time.

Now as I have said in my Joker page, I am not a big fan of the film, However I do like elements/ characters from it. I like Murray, I like Gary, and Randall(to a point) so I decided to incorporate the former 2 into Red's origin. For the Batman universe that I am creating is taking bits and pieces from all across Batman history, official, spin-off, or fan created, and finding a way to mesh the elements without going completely nuts.

I am a big Stephen King fan and one year on Christmas I asked for Carrie. I read half of the book in one day and I had to stop myself from reading it to have Christmas. Carrie in the book and the films was a huge inspiration for Rufina right up to the actress and even the main tormentor of Rufina, who shares the name of 2 other characters from the book.

1 note · View note

greenjam66 · 2 years

Text

Brenda Bakke Stars In The Most Romantic Movie on Tubi

WATCH TWOGETHER ON TUBI FOR FREE!

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: January 2, 2022 (ReportWire.org). FreeStyle Digital Media recently announced the re-release of the summer classic “TWOGETHER” for HD streaming and download on each of the leading online digital streaming platforms. In 1995 Sony Pictures Entertainment initially distributed “TWOGETHER,” which at the time, stunned audiences world-wide. Click the Following Page (“Entourage”) as Arnie, “TWOGETHER” is a story about a sultry duo of lovers who lose themselves in a holiday weekend of wild, adventurous, intimate, raunchy love-making. “In many ways, “TWOGETHER” is timelier today than when it was first released,” comments Writer/Director Andrew Chiaramonte. “Casual sex leading nowhere is a sign of the time; another 'drug' of sorts to help distance oneself from the harsh reality of today's world.” Produced by Emmett Alston and directed by Andrew Chiaramonte, the movie stars Nick Cassavetes (“Hangover II,” director of “Notebook”), Brenda Bakke (“Hot Shots! Part Deux”), Jeremy Piven (“Mr Selfridge”) and Jim Beaver (“Supernatural”). "Brenda Bakke is terrific. She has quite a career ahead of her." - NEIL HIRSH, THE NEW YORK LAW JOURNAL John Madler (Nick Cassavetes) is a focused, volatile, hungry artist who believes in the liberation of artistic expression who forms a dynamic affection to Allison McKenzie (Brenda Bakke) a well-off girl from Bel Air who's striving for an escape from her reality. The moment the couple connect at an art event, it's lust at first sight, and practically nothing can stop them from leaving for Sin City with each other for what turns into an erotic time of dirty sex and intoxication - a wasted holiday weekend in which they surrendered their lust for each other and their affections free of restraint. Nevertheless emotions become involved, their affair created upon sex starts to shape in to something out of the blue. “TWOGETHER” is centered on a overview of the love amid two lovers; an example of how people have the ability to seek each other even when they shouldn't, but they can make it work even when the bond is just not worthy it.

“TWOGETHER” is now available for rent or purchase - immediate download on:

iTunes

Amazon Prime Video

Google Play

YouTube

Microsoft Movies & TV (including Xbox)

OR…

WATCH IT NOW FOR FREE ON TubiTV!

The film is distributed by FreeStyle Digital Media and is unrated. For More Information please visit:

Twogether Website

Twogether YouTube Channel

Twitter

Facebook

Top latest Five World-wide Box Office Urban news War for your World with the Apes will probably be the greatest from the 3 vast releases popping out this week. This Considerably is really a close to certainty. Having said that, There may be some question if it can open in very first place, or if Spider-Man: Homecoming will continue being the best attract above the weekend. The sole other large launch of the 7 days is Desire Upon, a low-spending budget horror film, if it might just reach the top 5, then the studio will likely be pretty joyful. Excellent Beasts and The place to search out Them is carrying out anything Warner Bros. might have wished for this weekend, publishing a lively $75 million opening inside the US, hitting $143.3 million internationally for a world opening around $two hundred million, and obtaining a A CinemaScore that should give it good term of mouth going into Thanksgiving. For a franchise reboot, that’s many motives being delighted, Even though its opening is properly beneath the openings savored by the initial Harry Potter franchise. Helpful but forgetful blue tang Dory commences a hunt for her long-shed moms and dads, and everybody learns a couple of things with regard to the authentic meaning of spouse and children alongside just how. Once the menace often called the Joker wreaks havoc and chaos within the persons of Gotham, Batman ought to settle for among the best psychological and Actual physical checks of his power to struggle injustice. Solo: A Star Wars Story opened by having an approximated $eighty three million / $one hundred and one million around the three-working day / 4-day weekend. It had the best Memorial Working day lengthy weekend considering that 2014, when X-Adult males: Days of Potential Earlier opened with $111 million over 4 times. In actual fact, this result's the fourth very best Memorial Working day very long weekend opening prior to now ten years. Having said that, it absolutely was much reduced than envisioned and some are contacting it a box office failure. That’s difficult. The movie was at first planning to Charge $150 million to generate, which makes it the cheapest installment in the new Star Wars franchise. Even so, they reportedly needed to reshoot 70% of your Film, which lifted the value to $250 million. President Biden says he was ‘instructed’ to get in touch with on reporters from list at presser next Kabul assaults 52 million by Warner Bros., though Disney has Panther coming in with $27.024 million. If your numbers keep (and It might be a big shock should they don’t), Black Panther will grow to be the very first film due to the fact Avatar to spend its to start with 5 weekends at the best on the chart. This could conveniently be the best weekend of 2019 as Captain Marvel is extensively anticipated to become the most important domestic hit of 2019 and it must choose just three times to have there. It could get just two days to obtain there. “Hulk Smash!” is a common phrase during the comics and it’s clear Avengers: Endgame is next Hulk’s guide. The movie pulled in $156.seven million on Friday. This not merely Unquestionably demolishes the previous report for most important solitary day with the domestic box office, it's previously over The Amazing Hulk manufactured in its entire operate. It took less than thirty several hours from the start from the movie’s previews to increase from previous put inside the M.C.U.. This is solely spectacular. Furthermore, due to the film’s 96%-constructive testimonials and its unbelievable A as well as from CinemaScore, it might have respectable legs. Even though anticipations are really lower domestically, it is smart to start releasing movies which have some Intercontinental attraction, can lure moviegoers back to theaters in compact quantities in the US, after which could make again extra money from domestic video releases. As for past March, there have been only two movies that hit $100 million, A Wrinkle in Time and prepared Player Just one, and neither of these came near to $two hundred million. There’s a slim probability this March are going to be much better than previous year, even though we dismiss Captain Marvel. We could Reduce the deficit in fifty percent by the top of your month, if all the things goes perfectly. However, if anything went properly in the first two months of your yr, we wouldn’t be in this type of deep hole at this stage. More... ‘No cost Person’ repeats world-wide box office get with strong maintain; ‘Reminiscence’ falls flat with $5m debut Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow confronts the darker parts of her ledger each time a hazardous conspiracy with ties to her earlier occurs. Amazing Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is the newest installment while in the Harry Potter franchise, but sadly, its testimonials are, definitely, the worst from the franchise. It need to however don't have any difficulties earning initial place and will really probably split even just on its Intercontinental quantities, but this remains to be troubling for its future. The 2nd most significant release of the 7 days is Prompt Family and its opinions are great, although not terrific. They're surely high-quality for your loved ones comedy. Widows is the greatest-reviewed new release, but its Excitement is silent plenty of that it'll scarcely finish in the top 5. Not known Factual Statements About Film Entertainment has lots of murder and thriller. You'll have to wait and find out who's guiding the Ghostface mask in this terrifying (nonetheless sharply clever) Tale a few mysterious killer who terrorizes a group of high school college students. according to the novel by Gillian Flynn might not Stick to the classic "whodunit" formula, there's surely a thriller at the middle of Absent Lady It will take among the studio’s most legendary villains, one particular whose most important objective is usually to destroy and skin a gaggle of dalmatian puppies, and attempts to make her likeable. If they reach this He tours a ghost city the following day, leaving an extremely despondent voicemail for his daughter during which he laments how hard it is to reach her. He spends the remainder of the day with his cousin John, who drunkenly tries to really encourage the most crucial character that evening. The comic goes into a bowling alley plus a capturing park the following working day prior to crashing a chromotherapy seminar that night and slipping asleep from the midst of it. At his lodge, he runs into the woman who was offering the lecture (Lotte Verbeek). is obtaining an approaching remake — which means there's no improved time for you to familiarize yourself with the Tale (this time involving a murder on a cruise ship!) than now. PEAK Family members TIME Kick back with The full loved ones to soak up the easiest animated series & movies, or let the little types stream with our kid-helpful profiles. Test It Free of charge WatchMojo is a number one producer of reference on line video written content, masking the Men and women, Sites and Trends you treatment about. With Ga’s broad output infrastructure, There's minor you need to usher in for your personal upcoming manufacturing, saving you time and additional expenditure. Be sure to subscribe For brand new videos each individual 7 days. Have a list notion? Let us know while in the feedback under and we are going to do our best to acquire it designed. While we’re open up to thoughts and criticism, we do not abide spam or hateful feedback. We’re listed here to offer entertainment, so be sure to love. When autocomplete final results are offered use up and down arrows to review and enter to choose. Contact product users, check out by contact or with swipe gestures. He enters the list of the cleaning soap opera that he were observing; the film finishes as being the comedian contains a manic episode when seeing himself on monitor. Cast[edit] A film director is often a individual who directs the creating of a film. Typically, a film director controls a film's creative and dramatic facets, and visualizes the script when guiding the technical crew and actors during the fulfillment of that vision. “Question Female 1984” was the start of Warner Bros.’ 12 months-extended experiment with releasing movies in theaters and on HBO Max at the same time; but even though director Patty Jenkins stated it was a necessary move, she hopes she can “keep away from it without end. Usually viewed as amongst Alfred Hitchcock's ideal films, this vintage mystery thriller follows a photographer using a broken leg who passes some time by observing his neighbors by means of his window and, just after turning into convinced he witnessed a murder, sets out to discover the killer himself. Top latest Five Online Movies Urban news Viewster can be a Film streaming site that permits you to view unrestricted Bollywood and Hollywood Motion picture at no cost. Additionally, it incorporates a look for button whereby you could look for your preferred Motion picture by genre. Despite the fact that Individuals you will find will probably be of absolutely superior quality and can be relished on large-resolution screens and TV’s also. You have to have an account on This great site to begin seeing the movies and television series. If You aren't absolutely sure if the Film is worth viewing, you are able to look at its trailer and after that determine if you must Opt for that movie. The interface is exactly what sets the bar substantial to start with, the content is displayed in various groups and the System is smart enough to recommend movies and collection depending on your viewing historical past. The Loud family members journey to Scotland and discover they are descendants of Scottish royalty. The family members speedily take pleasure in by far the most desire-fulfilling substantial-existence ever after they uncover their ancestral residence is usually a castle. Vudu.com is definitely one of the best free movie and TV streaming websites on the internet. With countless totally free movies and television series to choose from, you'll be really hard pressed to r... In addition to letting you to definitely stream and download movies, the internet site goes an additional mile in delivering hyperlinks to movies that are merely becoming introduced. Their database of movies also receives current Tremendous fast although the caliber of their movies can be great. Nicolas Bannister, a rugged and solitary veteran living in a close to-foreseeable future Miami flooded by mounting seas, is a specialist inside of a dangerous occupation: he delivers shoppers the possibility to relive… With SolarMovie, you can certainly filter by Group like style and place for a customized streaming experience. However, any time you would like to us shady/Uncertain platforms for streaming movies, the minimum you can do is get by yourself a VPN. This may mask your IP address and continue to keep you Secure. You'll be able to search through all the latest movies by style, alphabetically, or rating. You may also research by which supply you might previously be considered a member of or maybe a subscriber to. Here are a few approaches to observe streaming movies online with Yidio. Netflix doesn’t really want an introduction, does it? It’s the most popular streaming platform out there Whilst some may perhaps want other available choices. VPNs help it become practically difficult so that you can be tracked or in your online exercise to generally be considered by any one (even your World wide web support company). Yow will discover a very good for under $five a month, way too, and it is without a doubt a worthy investment. Ryder and also the pups are known as to Journey City to prevent Mayor Humdinger from turning the bustling metropolis into a point out of chaos.

#Twogether #Nick Cassavetes #Brenda Bakke #Jeremy Piven

1 note · View note

rjshepofftheshits · 3 years

Text

i was talking about abo dynamics with @givemeuniversalcrossovers earlier and like

cant get the thoughts out of my head so i guess i gotta write them down

i'm just sat here thinking about some sort of sudden heel turn into an abo world in arkham verse. like everything is normal then one day all of gotham wakes up with a second gender and oh boy if you thought the city was off the shits before you are NOT ready for abo gotham fulled by hormones and horny.

Jelly brain says "ok but what if all the gotham girls are alphas for a change" and like ok jelly brain interesting enough but where you going with this? "what about all ur favs as omegas regardless of personality" and hmm yes THAT i could get behind

obviously batman was my first thought. i have never read a fic where batman wasnt an alpha ( edit ive just read one of him as an omega it was just ok) but i kinda just want either beta or omega batman. like either hes nothing special which is a nice change or hes an omega and selina is his alpha. i do really love batcat and like. dom batman is boring as fuck, you know selina wears the pants and the strap in this relationship and im not taking critique on this right now.

then i was on riddlecat which lets be clear, selina is always the top in that relationship so no change there. but can you mcfuckin imagine eddie 40 year old virgin nigma, known prude and probable incel (/hj ) having his first heat??? he's so adamant hes not an omega even as he's sitting on the floor shaking and stinking of pheromones. he probably kidnaps some random alpha because he's decided theyre the best and he only wants the best but LOL they already have a mate so he's just lying on the floor legs spread for nothing maybe having a little cry because he's painfully hard and no one is there to help him.

SIDE NOTE BUT BETA BATMAN MEANS HE'S IMMUNE TO MOST OF THIS ALPHA OMEGA NONSENSE. >:D

while i was thinking about omega eddie i was also thinking "haha what if scarecrow was omega too haha" and like. this could be either really funny or really fucking boring because i can def see crane not being affected by heats like others, he just gives no fucks or his brain is messed up from all the fear toxin and he just doesnt react to chemicals like the others. BUT on the other hand, as i've mentioned i hate how composed scarecrow is in ak even when he's losing. i wana see him unravel and devolve into whatever whimpering mess he was at the end of ak all hopped up on fear toxin >:}c

i would go on about the others more but this is all i care about rn: harvey switches back and forth depending on who he's with, but alone he's a beta . Selina is an alpha and for pure bigdick energy everyone in gotham wants her, riddler especially, to pick them. Riddler doesnt even really like selina that much but you know she'd treat her omega right. personally i was still leaning towards her picking bruce but maybe she likes to fuck around with the other rogues when he's busy. i was going to say ivy is also an alpha but i think it might be fun to flip the script and have her completely immune to this, all of a sudden not be able to use pheromones to influence men . its just amusing to me to imagine her sitting on her little flower pouting like "well. shit. now what???" then she just goes back to giving harley kisses and harley has already had her fill of bonding with joker so shes more than happy for ivy to pick her regardless of what their hormones are telling them to do.

ALSO @givemeuniversalcrossovers has me thinking about our ocs. Clara and clario are omegas because she said so ( or gammas if i include them in this au) theyre vicious people but still subby . she also wants penguin to be an alpha genetically speaking but like. not as alpha as the rest, which i get but rules are rules and hes an alpha just as potent as the others.

ALSO ALSO she was watching this facebook ad for werewolves where it mentioned royal alphas ( or something) and she said shep is a royal alpha, creme de la creme sort of alpha which is fire and very sexy of her . im going to include selina in that because shep and selina are a top of the chain vibe but i cant think of anyone else who deserves that title

ok i think im done for now

#shut up shepherd #batman #riddler #scarecrow #arkham scarecrow #arkham knight

16 notes · View notes

gothic-safari-clown · 3 years

Text

The Mind’s Power Over the Body

Part 27: With Friends Like These

Story summary: They only ever had each other. It had been that way since high school, ever since Elianna transferred to dreary Arlen and took Jonathan under her wing. They go separate ways for college, and when they're reunited at Arkham Asylum professionally, Elianna comes to find that they've both changed during their time separated. Can she look past the promise of danger and stay by Jonathan's side as they slide further and further into the darkness while she grapples to come to terms with the truth about herself? Can she accept what needs to be done in order to hold onto the only person who holds any meaning in her life? This is a very self-indulgent AU that draws from several different canons of the DCU and ignoring others, starting in the Batman Begins Nolanverse. This will follow the plot of the movie, although the timeline has been very slightly tweaked.

Word count: 1556

Sorry it’s been so long! I’m a full time employee again, so it’s been hard to find the time to actually sit down and work on anything. Plus, we’re getting to the end of TMPOtB! Make sure to keep an eye out for the sequel Why I Do What I Do, and I hope you enjoy!

It had been four weeks. Two since ex-warden Sharpe had disappointed them. Regular police had begun to avoid them, and they had amassed a new following of goons. Even found a semi-permanent hideout.

Though, for all of their success, Jonathan had begun to sink lower and lower into himself. In fact, more and more often, he preferred to let Scarecrow be in charge. The only sure-fire way to keep him around for more than two hours together was when more toxin needed to be made.

At first, Scarecrow had been thrilled to be in charge. He had gotten quite a kick from going on sprees, terrorizing the public, especially if it might help them find Elianna. Jonathan wanted to find her for sentimental reasons, but Scarecrow?

Scarecrow wanted her back for possessive reasons. But, if he thought about it, he supposed the history behind their motivations was the same—companionship, kindness, loyalty. Jonathan seemed to crave it, but only from her.

But the straw man felt that it was something they were entitled to after all those years of consistency from her. Oh, he cared for her wellbeing, sure, but only because no one else would give them anything. As such, no one would ever be allowed to lay a hand on her again. But, more than anything, he craved attention, and despite Jonathan's endless warnings not to give it to him, El had always satisfied that need with a strange sense of fulfillment. The world owed them something, and she was the only person who would give them anything.

She was theirs.

So, when after weeks of rampage and fearmongering had yielded no results, Scarecrow found himself in a similar stupor to Jonathan, although it affected him differently. He seemed forever bored, irritated, and volatile.

It wasn't just Jonathan and Scarecrow who were affected by Elianna's absence either. The goons that had flocked to them (some out of fear, some out of necessity, some out of ambition) had very quickly come to regret the decision. Violent outbursts were often expected, and the men had had to take measures in order to keep themselves out of the line of fire.

Regardless, it was becoming more clear day by day that the longer El remained unaccounted for, nobody would last very long.

So when one day a young blonde tentatively approached the base of operations, folder in hand, asking for "doctah Crane," claiming to have an idea for where to find the elusive woman, Axel was more than happy to tell his men to stand down and let her through.

"He's upstairs, but it ain't the doctor, so don't call him that," he advised. "I'll take you up and stay in the room with you, but you gotta just give him the file and get out." The blonde nodded, a sad look on her face. "Did you know him before?"

"Yeah. We worked together at the Asylum. We weren't friendly or nothin', but he was always polite. I was—am, friends with El. I want her back too, so I started askin' my friends from med school to keep an eye out. So when I got this, I thought the best way to get her back was to bring it here." Axel nodded.

"Alright, well let me take a look. If it doesn't look good to him, he's gonna get angry and that won't be good for any of us." The blonde nodded and handed over the folder with the file inside.

Some of the information had been redacted (for legal reasons, no doubt) but as Axel scanned the paper, he felt a weight being slowly lifted.

Patient name [REDACTED]. Female, 30 years old, red hair, green eyes. Transferred to [REDACTED] from Gotham County General. Admitted with an unknown substance present which affected brain function. Severe injuries to full body. The patient was detoxed and consented to a medically-induced coma in order to treat mild trauma to the brain.

Notes: Patient has made a swift recovery, but will likely be admitted to psych. Demonstates an unhealthy obsession with "scarecrow," which has caused multiple outbursts against personnel.

The name of whoever had provided this information had been blacked out, but it seemed likely that this information was what they had been looking for. Looking up from the file, Axel was met with big blue eyes staring up at him hopefully.

"Alright, this looks good," he sighed, and the blonde was visibly relieved. "Come on, you should be the one to give this to him," he handed back the folder and jerked his head for her to follow. "You know where she's at, right? That information was taken out." She bobbed her head, anxiously rubbing her thumb over the spine of her folder.

"Yeah, the girl that sent this to me had her place of work listed on her Facebook."

"Good."

The pair walked together through the previously abandoned building, up two flights of stairs and down a series of halls.

"Do you all live here?" The young doctor asked, gazing around the environment as they walked.

"Sort of. All of us take shifts staying in groups here to keep trespassers out. The big man," here, Axel pointed to the door at the end of the hallway as they approached, "has a place in the Narrows so that he doesn't have to stay if he doesn't want. Between the two of us, it's a much better gig when he's not around." She nodded in agreement. Based on the news reports, that was to be expected.

Reaching the door, Axel held up a finger for the woman to wait as he knocked. "Boss? There's a woman here with some information. I looked it over, I think it's her." It was silent on the other side of the door for a moment before a muffled voice told them to come in.

Axel opened the door with a pointed look at the woman, letting her enter first.

The man sitting at the desk inside certainly looked like Jonathan, but it didn't take Harley long to notice the changes in him. Jonathan always kept himself clean-shaven and carried himself with an air of uprightness. Scarecrow didn't seem to share those concerns. Stubble had been allowed to grow along his jaw, and he was slouched into his chair like he was bored.

When he caught sight of her, there was a glimmer of recognition in his eyes before a lackluster grin broke over his face. "Doctor Quinzel, I don't think we've been formally introduced." The sentence was accompanied by what was surely meant to be an intimidating chuckle. He just didn't have the energy.

"Scarecrow," she greeted, unable to help the pity that crept into her heart. "I...I guess I'll just get right down to business. I know you're looking for El, and you haven't been able to find her in the city, so I reached out to some people that I know who work in neighboring cities, and I think I found her." She stepped forward, folder outstretched for him to take.

He frowned, skeptical of the information, but took the folio anyway with a telling look at Axel: if this isn't her, you're the one to face the consequences.

But scanning the memo through narrowed eyes, his attitude slowly changed. Suddenly, there was no way that it wasn't her, and a sudden urgency took over everything as he stood.

"Where." Not a question, a demand. Harley quickly gave him the city and hospital, startled by the abrupt turnaround. "Good," seeming to briefly forget that she was even there, he turned to Axel with a sense of urgency. "Get our best boys ready, we're going now." The thug nodded and began to pull Harley out of the room before the voice stopped them again. "Harley," it barked, and the blonde's head swiveled to look at him again. "You know what's going to happen to that hospital. To your friend that works there."

"Yes, I do." She had known from the beginning. It had been so many years since she had even thought about the other woman, and they hadn't been close to begin with. To be perfectly honest, Harley wasn't even sure if she had ever liked her to begin with.

It made it easier to make this decision, although realizing that she even could make that decision had been surprising.

Scarecrow seemed to understand and went back to studying the file further, leaving the pair to leave the room, closing the door behind them.

"You did good, doc," Axel assured the blonde as they retreated down the hall. "But if it isn't her somehow..."

"I know," Harley gulped. She had seen plenty on the news of what happened to people who let Scarecrow down in this particular search.

Sensing the woman's apprehension, Axel spoke again. "I don't think you have anything to worry about. Who else could that be, right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, you're right." She nodded. "I'm gonna get outta your hair now. Good luck, all of you. bring her home, yeah?"

"You got it, doc."

With that, Harley left and Axel went about rounding up the troops. He wasn't exactly looking forward to the havoc they were about to wreck upon the unsuspecting hospital, but ultimately having El back would be best for everyone involved.

For everyone's sake, it'd better be our girl.

#batman begins #Nolanverse #Jonathan Crane #jonathan crane fic #jonathan crane x ofc #Elianna Montgomery #scarecrow #scarecrow fanfic #cillian murphy #cillian murphy scarecrow #the mind's power over the body #attraction to the insane series #multi chapter fic #slight au #tmpotb chapter 27

6 notes · View notes

mrnerdteacher · 5 years

Text

That One Scene in “Joker” That Changes Everything

Let’s get this out of the way right now.

“Joker” is a revelation.

It’s artful, gut-wrenching, thought-provoking, darkly funny, and utterly compelling. It’s everything the Marvel Cinematic Universe is not. No action-figures will be sold. No Disney rides will be planned. There won’t even be any crossovers or teases to a sequel. I felt downright bad for the 8-year old boy in my audience (whose father clearly had made a horrible mistake in bringing him). And yet this movie is not only the best comic adaptation ever, it might be the first truly important film based on a comic, period. (Black Panther and Wonder Woman are also high on that list for the ceilings they helped shatter)

You can tell from the very first shot, which lingers on the titular character’s face for an uncomfortably long time, that this movie is going to be something new. In nearly every frame it defies your expectations, and in every plot beat flirts with controversy and political commentary, unabashedly making a myriad of powerful statements, most of which center around America’s treatment of the mentally troubled.

And it is in that vein that the movie has its greatest power, including a scene that I think should be studied in every film class (except I’m not being sarcastic). I understand if you leave now. If you haven’t seen the movie, you think I’m being pretentious. But those who have will likely understand my awe and glee. And it all starts with this moment.

It’s early in the film, but I’ll hide it behind a spoiler tag since I am really glad I wasn’t ruined on this INSANE twist.

SPOILERS AHEAD.

Over and over, Arthur Fleck (aka Joker) has increasingly tense encounters with the unfeeling masses of Gotham. Things escalate beyond your wildest expectations, but it all starts with an overly-protective mom perceiving Fleck’s incessant laughter as some type of threat or insult to her and her child. The audience is on edge, waiting for the “Joker” to emerge and become some sort of monster to these helpless civilians. And then he hands her a card, “laminated” with clear packing tape, clearly wrinkled from years of use. It says: Pardon my laughter. I have a condition. It was all I could do to keep from crying on the spot. Director Todd Phillips figuratively (and almost literally) shows you his hand in this scene, and from then on you realize everything you thought you knew about Joker was wrong. He is a victim. He is wounded. He is incredibly scared. But most importantly, he is a human being. And his downfall is not here to entertain you. His insanity is not “fun,” but it will captivate you, consume you, and resonate with you in ways no family-friendly film ever could. People praised Heath Ledger’s performance for being such a convincing “Agent of Chaos,” whose backstory could never be pinned down by character or writer alike. We thought that’s what we wanted. We thought that’s who the Joker was at his best. That’s why we bought t-shirts and bobbleheads and quoted him incessantly in Facebook posts.

But Joaquin Phoenix’s Oscar-destined performance shows us that he can be so much more, in a film that’s not only worthy of your time and money, but also deeply culturally important.

And pay no heed to the haters. To paraphrase a powerful line towards the end of the film, “They just don’t get it.” But I think you will.

#joker #joaquin phoenix #Warner Bros #DC comics #marvel #MCU #Disney #heath ledger #movie #movies #comic books #batman #the joker

1K notes · View notes

thenightling · 3 years

Text

Opinion on the rioters who dressed as The Punisher

Opinion on the Rioters dressed as The Punisher:

I recently found out some of the Capitol rioters were dressed as The Punisher from Marvel comics. Do I blame the character? No. However, i have become very cautious in regard to hardcore fans of the character and not merely over this.

First, I admit, I never really liked The Punisher as a character. I thought of him as an edgy byproduct of comics gradually shifting to being darker and grittier. He was one of the first heroes to not preach about justice and redemption but instead wanted to kill. He was not a protagonist. He started as a villain in the Amazing Spider-Man comics. Stan Lee had not liked the character. (This is a fact that is easily checked and Googled).

In the late 80s and early 90s he became very popular as comics became darker and so he was given his own comic and appeared more often and often as a protagonist anti-hero.

I never liked the concept of him. Sure, he had a sympathetic backstory but the “Killing is the only answer” never sat right for me. The lack of mercy he showed even to the repentant, it always bothered me. I got that he was supposed to be mentally-ill but in his own comics his behavior was, far too often, justified.

Other media tried to mimic the character. The Ben Affleck Daredevil behaved more like The Punisher than Daredevil. Instead of a defense attorney he was now a prosecutor. And if he lost a case he would hunt down the criminal and kill him, brutally. There’s one scene where he severs a man’s spine and then gloats as a train comes to hit him, as he lays paralyzed on the track. That’s not Matt.

Ben Affleck again played totally-not-Punisher in his portrayal of Batman. A gun-using batman that was loosely inspired by Frank Miller. And all the Zack Snyder Fanboys came crawling out of the woodwork, insisting that this was “realistic” and “more accurate to the comics” and “but look, he killed in these old comics!” They either were lying by omission or didn’t know about Crisis on Infinite Earths and how main continuity Batman had been anti-gun and anti-killing since at least 1985. The entire plot of Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke was based on this established lore.

There’s no doubt Punisher has had a serious influence on popculture and something I called Darkity, dark, dark writing or as others have named it: “Edgelord.”

It’s a sort of “dark and gritty” “realism” popular among boys between the ages of eleven and fifteen who genuinely think crime would end if we shot every criminal and don’t realize that most real world police officers have never drawn their gun, despite what you might see in the news. If murder truly was the norm, people wouldn’t still be horrified by it.

Now on to the fans. There are far too many Punisher fans who think he was and is in the right. They think he is an aspirational figure to admire and look up to. A “realistic” hero by Zack Snyder standards, because hope and mercy are what is apparently unrealistic in a world consisting of aliens, Greek Gods, witchcraft, and even the folkloric Sandman (That’s in DC, not Marvel though Nightmare is arguably the Marvel equivalent).

I used to be Facebook friends with a Punisher fan. He was equally obsessed with The Joker. At first i just let it be. You’re allowed to like edgy or dark characters. There’s no harm in that. But... he got creepy. He would quote the Joker in conversation about “SJWs” and “progressives.” He would say things like “My eyes were opened as yours soon will be.”

He was convinced liberals tried to ruin The Joker movie and posted pictures of the Joker dancing down the stairs with “HAHAHAHAHA! Suck my dick, Progressives!” in at least two of the facebook groups I run. It got embarrassing that when people would search for my Horror Comics group, the sample post Facebook gave was that one.

He kept talking about how both The Punisher and The Joker are right. His facebook picture would alternate between the two characters depending on his mood. He would post memes “explaining” why The Punisher is right.

He would post articles about this or that criminal being arrested and refer to them as “it” and “thing” and how “it should be tortured four hours before someone kills it.” things like that, about various people who did things that were (admittedly) horrific and reprehensible but he would go into graphic detail about what he wanted to do with them Very sadistic, Saw-like tortures before “Mercifully” killing them.

He once casually told me how he wanted to kill all progressives. I gently reminded him that I have liberal leanings and I got a “You’re different” sort of response.

As his behavior got more fanatical and disturbing, the more uncomfortable I became. After the progressives threat I made the mistake of telling someone who was mutually friends with us both that I felt threatened. Needless to say the one I have just described to you called me a liar, insisted he never said anything threatening. And accused me of being “one of them.”

I told him he had been acting increasingly strangely and needed to stop posting the pro-Joker stuff. And it wasn’t just the film The Joker. It was the version from Gotham (TV series) he tried to emulate and praised. A woman celebrity he didn’t like was soon being called “It.” Then some feminist (I didn’t agree with this person) was saying how The Mandalorian didn’t have enough female characters or diversity and should be canceled. It was some stupid opinion piece published by a site like Buzzfeed or Io9 during the first season of Mandalorian.

This guy was very conservative but had a bad habit of seeking out fanatical articles like this to make himself angry. The only time I ever agreed with him on the matter was when he came to my defense for not liking the 2016 Ghostbusters. Someone in my own Gothic Horror Facebook group had decided to call me a self-loathing misogynist and insisted the only reason I didn’t like it is because the characters were women. No, I don’t like slapstick comedy. I didn’t like that they didn’t bother to use real parapsychology or theoretical physics (as the original had done). I didn’t like that the “genius” of the group licked her proton blaster and that was the common promo image for the film. I didn’t like that people who praised the film entirely forgot that there was a diverse team lead by a woman in the 90s. (Extreme Ghostbusters). I didn’t like that they destroyed ghosts instead of trapped them. That violates the law of conservation and most spiritual beliefs as even being possible. It was just a bad movie.

I agreed with him on that one but when this anti-Mandalorian article came out he went too far. He insisted the woman who wrote it should be dragged out into the street and shot. He called her “it” and “thing” and said she didn’t deserve to live . I told him he was going too far, and she couldn’t take the show away, that he was over reacting.

He then blocked me. I thought it was done and over with, then the Pandemic hit.

When the Pandemic happened he unblocked me and in a revisionist history of events insisted he had blocked me because I had “lied” and said he threatened me. No, he had told me he wanted to kill all progressives, knowing that I am one. And that was not why he blocked me. It was because I disagreed about his death threats about the writer of a Mandalorian article. He wanted to fight. He alternated between insulting me and trying to show how good he was to come to me during a world crisis, like he was doing me a favor. I blocked him this time.

That night my Facebook account was disabled. Someone had reported my account as not being a real person, and Facebook wanted photographic proof that I’m real. It was re-enabled as soon as I sent in a photo but as I don’t have a smartphone (I live in a deadzone) and I’m visually impaired it was a little bit of a pain. This was not something that had ever happened to me before. And I had witnessed this Punisher fan report accounts of those he wanted to “punish” before.

And now I find out some of these rioters were wearing Punisher shirts. So yes, I keep my guard up around Punisher fans.

Do I blame the character? No. Not really. If not him they would have found someone else to try to emulate and idolize. Getting rid of the character won’t get rid of this mentality. I never liked the character but I don’t want him banned. I would be happy if less people were obsessed with him. I would be happy if those obsessed with the character didn’t all remind me of the man I described here. I would be happy if fans of the character were more likely to say that they don’t agree with the character’s actions, they just like his story.

There’s nothing wrong in liking a character with problematic behavior. But if you can’t acknowledge that it’s wrong and instead glorify and romanticize the actions of the character, that’s the problem. I love lots of characters who do bad things. I love Count Dracula. I don’t intend to drink blood and sic wolves on people. And I have absolutely no interest in impalement.

I think far too many Punisher fans don’t realize he’s in the wrong, instead want to be like him, and have trouble separating fiction from reality. I do not blame the character. They would have found someone else if not him. But unfortunately, I AM starting to view hardcore / obsessively being a fan of The Punisher as a bit of a red flag considering how many of them behave this way...

#The Punisher #Marvel Comics #MCU #Marvel Cinematic Universe

5 notes · View notes

skateofministry · 3 years

Text

The Mercedes-Maybach 6 Stars as Batman’s Daily Driver in ‘The Flash’ – Robb Report

Can any vehicle, real or imaginary, compete with the Batmobile? As far as Batman is concerned there’s only one answer—the Vision Mercedes-Maybach 6.

No, the futuristic concept car wasn’t the winner of a recent poll of the Caped Crusader’s most auto-obsessed fans. Instead, it’s the vehicle his alter ego, billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne, will drive in the upcoming Flash movie.

Wayne’s love of the sleek speed machine was revealed in some candid photos from the set of Warner Bros. and DC’s latest superhero movie that were posted to Twitter by YouTuber Grace Randolph over the weekend. The pictures show Michael Keaton, returning to the role for the first time since 1992’s Batman Returns, dressed in a snazzy suit just feet away from his even more stylish ride. If you’re wondering why Keaton is appearing in the film after nearly three decades away from the role, it’s because the movie will feature inter-dimensional travel as a key plot point (Ben Affleck will also appear as Batman/Wayne).

First look #michaelkeaton on #TheFlash

This is his car, not Affleck’s, and I hear this is from the end of the movie and he’s now permanently in the #DCEU

Video tomorrow with full breakdown of all these set pics! pic.twitter.com/pO38KSIUUJ

— Grace Randolph (@GraceRandolph) June 20, 2021

What a car Gotham’s most famous resident has chosen for himself. First unveiled as a coupé at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in 2016 (and again as a cabriolet the next year), the car stretches nearly 20 feet from bumper to bumper and features a head-turning Art Deco-inspired body and a spaceship-like interior. Under the hood is a fully electric drivetrain capable of generating 750 horses and launching the car from zero to 60 in under four seconds. One interesting thing about Wayne’s Vision Mercedes-Maybach 6 is that it appears to be finished in a glossy black or midnight blue coupé. The vehicle has previously only been shown off as a red coupé or a blue convertible.

Of course, the appearance of the Vision 6 in the movie isn’t all that surprising. Warner Brothers and Mercedes have a long-running placement deal, according to The Drive. Two of the automakers cars—the E-Class Cabriolet and AMG Vision GT—were featured in the studio’s last superhero extravaganza, 2017’s Justice League. Still, product placement or not, the Vision 6 does seem like the sort of car an unimaginably wealthy thrillseeker like Wayne would use as an everyday driver.

The Vision Mercedes-Maybach 6 Coupé and Cabriolet Daimler AG

Bruce Wayne’s ride isn’t the only Vision 6 to grace a screen of late. Pop culture obsessives may remember another Vision Mercedes-Maybach 6 cameo from the last year: Drake drove the dazzling car in the video for his 2020 single “Laugh Now, Cry Later.” But unlike his comic book counterpart, the rapper managed to get his hands on two examples of the concept—the coupé and the cabriolet.

(function(d, s, id){ var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) {return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.async = true; js.defer = true; js.src = "https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); Source link

from Skate World. Skateboard News, skateboard shop https://ift.tt/3quUd7H

0 notes

ryanmeft · 4 years

Text

Movie Review: Birds of Prey

Birds of Prey is absolutely a product, and Grrl Power, as a brand, is being used to sell it. To deny this was a factor at every stage of production would be credulity beyond reason---the characters frequently point it out, managing to work comments about the power of women and the horribleness of men into conversation about every ten minutes. It just so happens that it works. The movie’s operating on the same turf as hundreds of flicks where one team of hard men takes on the world and wins, seducing or dominating any women they happen to come across. It’s just that the roles have been flipped.

If you’re expecting more, you’ll be disappointed. The plot’s as thin as they come. Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie, also a producer and chief motivator in getting the movie made) has, sometime after the events of the godawful Suicide Squad, been given the boot by the Joker, who is never seen outside of animation or brief silhouette because Jared Leto is presumably expensive. Without the protection offered her by Gotham’s #1 crime figure, it’s open season on Harley. Text flashes on screen to break down what she’s done to piss off each new assailant, and some of the offenses are genuinely funny. Eventually, though, she realizes it’s too hot for her to handle, and in exchange for her life agrees to track down a valuable diamond for twisted small-time crime lord Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor). The diamond is nothing but a plot device which serves to bring the other characters into the fold. There’s aging police detective Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez), who was passed over for promotion in favor of a man. Dinah Lance (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) is a singer at Roman’s nightclub and later bodyguard, whose inept colleague Zsasz (Chris Messina) almost immediately loses the jewel to a teenaged pickpocket (Ella Jay Basco). Mary Elizabeth Winstead is a crossbow-wielding killer tracking down underworld figures. Not a single bit of this matters in the least---it’s all there because the movie needs a reason, however flimsy, for these people to be out there fighting against and eventually with each other.

The fuel of the film is energy, not plot. With respect to the talented cast, two of its members bring most of the heat: Robbie and McGregor. Robbie previously played the role in Suicide Squad, where she and Will Smith were the only reasons not to walk out. Her co-stars aren’t as dull this time around---Christina Hodson’s script has a few good ideas for them, like Winstead’s frustration over her superhero name. Without Robbie’s Quinn, however, the team would be largely standard (the ending offers a convenient way to remove her from the sequel, which also provides a convenient reason not to make one). She mercifully puts paid to the idea that her “relationship” with Joker, long idealized by comic fans who confuse regular abuse with love, is a good thing. Robbie gets the most out of the character, breaking the fourth wall and causing low-key mayhem with a lot of profanity while secretly wishing for a more ordinary life.

McGregor, in turn, is perfect as the villain, and it is to the credit of director Cathy Yan that she seems to have mostly allowed these two characters to do their thing---no amount of micro-managing could be responsible for Sionis’s deeply disturbing-yet-magnetic mad criminal, who gets a clearly sexual charge out of having people’s faces cut off and struts about in pink shirts like a maniacal parade float. When he eventually puts on the character’s titular black mask, it feels like performance art. I don’t typically read cast lists going in, and was surprised to find someone of McGregor’s caliber, known for playing heroes, in the role. He’s usually got a fairly relaxed style, a sort of Aw, Shucks leading man in the vein of Jimmy Stewart. Tasked with playing a scene-chewing baddie, though, he licks the plate clean and orders seconds.

When Martin Scorsese said superhero pictures were amusement park rides and that they had their place, I feel like this is the sort of movie that exemplifies that comment. It’s not there to suggest new ideas to you, to take you into the souls of any of the characters, or even to try out new concepts in technical filmmaking, It’s there to offer the target audience exactly what they came to receive, and is very careful to disguise or omit anything that might get in the way of that. As an example, many of Harley’s stunts---blowing up a chemical factory, drunkenly assaulting nightclub patrons, charging down a supermarket check-out line with a full cart---are, in keeping with the character, snap decisions, and if she did them in real life would be incredibly likely to get women and men hurt. The film makes sure to only place men in the path of these rampages. At times you can hear the screenwriter’s voice, saying “Okay, we made sure not to alienate anyone we want to impress with this scene.”

Normally I might kick more about such things, but then the movie is only doing what testicle-centric action pictures have been doing since the dawn of film: carefully arranging things so that the heroes don’t do any serious or lasting harm to anyone or anything which might affect our identification with them. It happens every time John McClane mows through city streets in a truck or a snowplow or whatever, and miraculously only the bad guys get hurt; no accidental flattenings of a family minivan here. That places Birds of Prey not so much as female empowerment---which is more the goal of Wonder Woman or Captain Marvel---but as female catharsis, as the kind of power fantasy normally aimed at men but now being offered to women. Men who think the very existence of such a movie is political would do well to remember they do not think that when Liam Neeson and his particular set of skills single-handedly end sex trafficking without once harming an innocent bystander.

Verdict: Recommended

Note: I don’t use stars, but here are my possible verdicts.

Must-See

Highly Recommended

Recommended

Average

Not Recommended

Avoid like the Plague

You can follow Ryan's reviews on Facebook here:

https://www.facebook.com/ryanmeftmovies/

Or his tweets here:

https://twitter.com/RyanmEft

All images are property of the people what own the movie.

#margot robbie #Ewan McGregor #birds of prey #movies #batman #joker #rosie perez #Mary Elizabeth Winstead #cathy yan #DC comics #comic books #black canary #jurnee smollett bell

16 notes · View notes

halfshellkayela · 4 years

Note

VIOLET. AND. HER DADS??? IS LENA NOW HER ADOPTIVE SISTER????? Just general thoughts on this. And headcanons. I'll take whatever you say about them, really *cries*

Violet and her dads are sweet I love them already I want more of their family. And yes I think Lena is adoptive sister now?

I think it’s really cute that Lena has a family of her own now. She can have a normal life with a sister and dads that love her.

Lena is a good big sister she has big sister energy. She takes that role seriously always hyping violet up now I love her so much. She’s going to go all of Violet’s activities. All of her award ceremonies you name it. She’s that sister that’s gonna say “Hey yeah my sister is a straight A student, she’s also a woodchuck, valedictorian and she does volunteer work :)”

She’s going to help her get ready for prom. She will try play it off and act like she’s not crying when she sees her in her prom dress. She will give the standard “If you hurt my sister I’ll destroy you ya da” to whoever Violets date is.

She’ll fight anyone for her sister ok? She will. Violet comes home crying she’s already asking who did it? Where are they? Where do they live?

Seriously when Violet graduates she’s going to be the one in the stands screaming her name. “THATS MY SISTER!! GO VIOLET GO VIOLET!!”

Violet is also happy to have a sister she was a only child and she’s excited she has one now!

She talk about her reasearch with her sister now! They can stay up late watching movies and eat all the sugary junk they want! She talks to her dads about everything because I believe they have a very open relationship. But you know it’s nice to have a girl to talk to about things.

Ok now for they’re dads

“Indigo “Indy” Sabrewing and Tyrian “Ty” Sabrewing.

Ty is the one with the buzzcut.” direct qoute from Frank himself

First of all they’re names are super cute I love them so much. Second of all they name their daughter Violet? Even more wholesome I like her name.

Anyway my headcanon for them is they grew up together. They’ve known each other since childhood. Ty confessed his feelings for Indy in senior year. He didn’t think Indy would like him back being they’re supposed to be friends all. But Indy was like “?! Really?! Yeah I like you too?! Since I was like 13” and Ty is like “?!???”

They both like going to museums so museum dates are a must. Since they both live in Calisota(which is basically California) walking on the beach during sunset is romantic and they do it all the time.

Ty will stop every five minutes and collect seashells. Because he loves collecting them. Indy will see how many hermit crabs he can find and study them. Just like Violet he likes to go on the beach and study all sorts of marine life.

So they’ve been together since they were like 17 I like to believe they’re like the same age as Donald and Della so like 35 at the moment. Somewhere in that age range. So they’ve been together for a long time.

They got married after they graduated college. Who proposed? I’m sure maybe they both did at the same time. Because that sounds sweet to me.

They both want kids so they go into the process of adopting a baby. I’m not sure if Violet is adopted or they did like a surrogate. Either way Violet is their daughter ❤️.

When Violet arrives they’re just over the moon about her like they’ didn’t a little baby could but yeah. They’re so in love.

And they absolutely love what amazing intelling young lady she’s become. They’re so proud of her. She’s amazing. They have the typical posts on facebook like “Oh my god my baby girl just became a woodchuck, we’re so proud of her” they share her baby photos of her all the time.

(Random but I want Della, Donald, Goofy, Indy, and Ty to have a group chat where they gush about their children’s baby pictures damn it. Beakley can get on it too and share some pictures of Webby)

Violet is like “Dads please stop-“

How they came up with the name Violet well there names are “Indigo” and “Tyrian” they had to. It’s cute all their names are colors.

In the episode that they aired they have those sad t-shirts which made me think one of them makes their shirts like that. What I’m saying is Ty has a cricket, this thing below

And he can make all sorts of fonts and irons them on they’re shirts. Yes he’s that dad that makes all sorts of crafts.

They welcomed Lena with open arms excited to have another memeber to their family. They just have a lot of love to give.

That’s it for now, I mean I think of more headcanons but let me just answer this for you. I told you I was gonna make your heart stop 😈. I can get even more cuter don’t test me Gotham.

#ducks #enjoy the fluff

5 notes · View notes

violetsmoak · 4 years

Text

Pieces of April [16/?]

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21099044/chapters/50202530

Summary: On the anniversary of his death, Jason’s second life takes an abrupt new turn and he’s faced with a challenge that neither Batman nor the All-Caste prepared him for.

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

Author’s Note: Here’s your daily dose of JayTim and baby for your quarantine reading pleasure! Stay safe, wash your hands and support your local healthcare, waste management and retail workers!

First Chapter

________________________________________________________________

The rest of the afternoon is spent on the phone, fielding calls from various departments and sorting out production complications. Interspersed are texts and Facebook messages from friends and family—Dick, wondering if dinner is still happening on Friday, Bruce wanting updates on the mob case, the Titans wanting to know if he’s coming to San Francisco that weekend—

Tim is evasive with all except the last one, informing Bart that there’s some family drama going on that will keep him home for a while. Once the speedster knows, everyone else will know, so it’s about as effective as sending a group text.

He resists the urge to phone Jason and see how he’s doing; he’s rather sure he won’t pick up.

(“I ain’t a damn kid that needs checkin’ up on, Drake.”)

Not that Tim is checking up on him. He just knows that whenever someone in the family is going through a personal crisis, that’s usually the time when Gotham’s rogues decide to act out.

So really, ensuring Jason’s stress levels stay manageable is a public service.

“Because that sounds like logic,” he chides.

Damian shows up around 3 o’clock and spends the next two hours alternatively disparaging everything about Tim from his too-long hair to how he organizes his filing system, to discussing WE resource allocation for an animal shelter he wants to open. The conversational whiplash is enough to make Tim’s head spin, and he makes a note in his phone to talk to Bruce about whatever it is that’s going on between them that’s so bad Damian prefers Tim’s company to his father’s.

Either Bruce put his foot down about another of Damian’s strays, or he still won’t agree that Robin should have a private prison to lock up rogues.

Whatever the reason, Tim is very much out of his depth at the youngest Bat’s newest tactics for taking his frustrations out on Tim.

Though I guess workplace inconveniences are a huge step up from swords to the gut. Could always be worse, I guess.

It turns out he’s not the only one learning new and interesting coping strategies. Upon arriving home at six, he finds Jason tweaking the tech in his gear on the kitchen table, baby carrier three feet away.

His entire body is tense, like a spring ready to snap.

“Was she up all day or something?” Tim asks on the way in, putting his bag on the floor and loosening his tie.

Jason shoots him a baleful look. “She’s been crying all day. And she’s still barely eating. I think she’s starting to look a little yellow—Tim, why is she yellow?”

And Jason sounds—dare he say it—almost frazzled.

Right. Time for more damage control.

“I’ve got her,” Tim says, easing into Jason’s personal space and taking the baby. “You go to sleep. Or shower. Or watch TV or something. You’re starting to go batty.”

That earns a disgusted look, and even Tim winces because that was just bad.

“Did you seriously just say that?” Jason asks.

“No, you’re sleep-deprived and hallucinated it,” he replies.

“I’ll allow it,” Jason says, yawning. “But only because it could be true.”

Jason shuffles off upstairs and Tim heaves himself onto the couch, pulling out his phone to check his usual online haunts for potential cases or clues for his current case. Social media and forums are pretty good sources once you learn how to weed out the sensationalist crap.

After thirty minutes of nothing, he gives it up and wanders over to the dwindling pile of baby items. Jason hasn’t returned yet, so he’s either passed out from exhaustion in the shower or actually made it to bed. Since Tim can’t hear the water running, he supposes it’s the latter.

It won’t kill me to go without the pre-patrol nap today, I guess.

Studying the pile, he notes that the boxes with the crib, changing table and whatever else needed assembly, have all gone missing. Presumably, Jason set those up this morning in a fit of boredom or paranoia.

The only things that haven’t been touched are the blankets, soft toys and garments, other than whatever Isa’s been changed into already.

There are only about twenty different pieces of clothing, and according to his not-so-new best friend the Internet, that’s not going to be nearly enough given infant propensity to upchuck. Especially since it’s not all the same size. Tam had to guess how big Isa was, so at least half the onesies here won’t fit her for another month or two, which isn’t supremely helpful for right now.

Back to fiddling with his phone, Tim goes online to order some more supplies and discovers, to his delight, that there’s an entire line of pop-culture related babywear. Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, Superhero logos…

He grins as he orders one of everything for next-day delivery, wondering whether Jason’s more likely to complain or find it funny.

Under normal circumstances, he’d probably find it funny. For someone else’s kid.

There’s still no sign of Jason after sunset, so Tim feeds and burps the baby, then sets up his laptop and tablet in the kitchen to check some of his surveillance feeds for the mob case. However, Isa protests every time he tries to put her down.

“What’s wrong with you now?” he asks. “You’re warm, you’re fed—” He takes a pause to check and change her diaper, during which time she continues to mewl at him, “—and you’re dry. Which means now’s the time you got to sleep, okay? New babies are supposed to do three things: eat, poop and sleep. So get on that.”

Once again he attempts to wrap her up and place her in her carrier, but the whimpering becomes flat-out crying, her tiny face becoming purple with rage and her eyes pinching shut.

“Okay, okay—putting you down is a no,” he sighs, tucking her back in his arms to rock her gently. He watches his computer monitor balefully, knowing if he’s holding the baby, there’s not going to be any hacking of Gotham’s CCTV tonight.

Could text Babs and ask her to do it. Except then she’ll want to know why.

Which is also a no.

One-handed, he searches out his phone again, looking up possible reasons for Isa’s current temper and potential solutions online. One thing jumps out at him and he brightens. A quick trip to the Nest and back, and he has what he was looking for.

Which is how Jason finds him when he finally comes back downstairs around eight o’clock, showered, rested and altogether more human-looking than what Tim came home to. He pauses at the foot of the stairs, squinting at Tim. “Is that your cape?”

“My cape is made out of state-of-the-art piezoelectric fabric substrates that can become a weapon with the right electrical frequency,” Tim retorts, trying not to feel entirely self-conscious from his seat at the kitchen table, wrapped in a makeshift mei-tai with Jason’s daughter drooling into his chest. “Also, that thing’s filthy.”

“And this is…?”

“My old cape,” Tim replies, going back to his computer. “Sometimes newborns just need to hear a heartbeat to calm them down. The best way is skin to skin, but I’m kind of in the middle of something, so this is the next best thing.”

Jason tilts his head to one side in consideration. “That’s a good idea.”

“Yeah, I looked it up online.”

“Of course you did,” Jason groans, rubbing his temple. “Because that’s what normal people do. I didn’t even think of it, I was too busy trying to get her to stop crying.” He huffs, almost rueful. “Why the hell am I surprised that you’re good at this? You’re good at friggen everything.”

Huh. A compliment. Those are almost as rare coming from Jason as they are from Damian. He must really be out of his comfort zone.

“Maybe it’s just because I have a certain measure of distance from it all,” Tim suggests, standing up to leave his temporary workstation. “If I suddenly found out I had a kid, I don’t know how I’d react.”

“Bull. You’re just like B. You’d just stick it in the back of your mind and forget about how to feel about it until you’re ready to deal.”

Tim feels a sudden flare of anger. “Is that actually how you think I am?”

“You going to tell me you’re not?” Jason challenges.

Tim opens his mouth to do exactly that, only to wrinkle his nose at the sudden stench arising from the lump of baby tucked against his chest.

“Ugh. Someone needs a change.”

Again. Guess I wasn’t so far off about the ‘eat, poop and sleep’ thing.

Jason snorts. “As far as conversation enders, that’s a pretty good one.”

Tim carefully unwinds the fabric from around his body and deposits the slowly waking baby into her father’s arms. “Tag.”

“You suck.”

“Serves you right for being a dick.”

He feels almost no guilt leaving Jason to deal with the soiled diaper and cranky baby this time, still smarting a bit about the resentful accusation that was lobbed at him.

Just because I can compartmentalize doesn’t mean I forget about things. Or that I don’t feel them.

He’s just not like Jason, or Dick, or Damian, who get angry and lash out as loudly and as viciously as they can. And he’s not like Bruce, either, since Bruce really can flip a switch and put something difficult out of his mind if it interferes with the all-important Mission.

Tim’s tried doing that, and as successful as he was in his quest to locate Batman when he was lost in the time stream, that period of Tim’s life was the most desperate and hopeless he’s ever felt. It was painful in a way that was different from losing his father, or Connor, or Bart—mostly because he was forced to bottle everything up to get the job done.

It was months after Bruce returned before Tim started processing things normally again.

Not that I should expect Jason to know that, he muses as he grapples through the rooftops of Gotham. He might know about me from my files and when we occasionally work together, but he’s never stuck around long enough to get to know anyone who came after him.

The night is at its darkest, cut through only by the Bat-signal in the distance. He won’t be running into Bruce tonight then unless the GCPD is bringing him in on the Gazzo case. It’s unlikely since there hasn’t been any retaliation yet. GCPD protocol dictates they’ll pass it off to Homicide until orders from on high turn it over to Major Crimes.

Red Robin ends up stopping two muggings and a drug deal before making his way to Gazzo territory to take some surveillance photos of his own. Security images are helpful in general, but he has camera tech that will let him focus on details the CCTV won’t pick up.

It’s another relatively early night for him, returning home just after midnight to upload his findings to the servers and shower off the grit and grime of the city.

The apartment is silent, and he expects Jason and Isa to be upstairs in the newly built nursery, but upon closing the secret door again, he notices the faint sound of breathing. Creeping over to the sitting room, he finds Jason passed out on the couch beside Isa’s carrier. The television is on but not showing any channel, instead casting a solid blue light across the room.

Tim can’t help noticing how Jason’s habitual frown has eased in slumber. There’s no trace of a sneer or growl on his lips right now, his mouth parted only to breathe.

He has never seen the older man like this.

There are pictures of him at the manor, of course, most of them hidden away in dusty boxes. It’s only recently they’ve started cropping up at the manor again, though Tim isn’t sure whether it’s Dick or Alfred that’s been putting them there.

Hell, maybe it is Bruce. It’s the exact kind of gesture he’d make to try to tell Jason he wants him around more, without actually having to tell him directly.

Whoever’s responsible for them, Tim’s memorized all of those photos. The boy in those is always grinning or making silly faces or not paying attention to the photographer because he’s busy doing something he shouldn’t be.

If there’s a picture of Jason looking so calm and peaceful, it’s hidden away in Bruce’s personal files where no one can find them.

Tim can sort of see why given how vulnerable his predecessor looks right now. This is the Jason that Bruce remembers, the one he’s built up in his memory that’s different from the Jason once enshrined in the much-maligned class case in the Cave. This is the Jason Bruce is trying to find whenever he squares off with Red Hood and mourns as lost when he can’t find him.

Which is stupid since he’s still right here. I wonder if anyone else will ever realize that?

Tim decides not to wake Jason; he might have been a jerk before, but he should sleep while he can.

Instead, he settles in on the other couch with his laptop to review the surveillance shots he took himself and from the security feeds. If he can figure out just which of these mobster muscle heads is the easiest to break, he can get a better idea of what might have happened to the teenager in concrete.

I’ll just do a quick scan tonight, and study them in more detail tomorrow.

Of course, as usual, he gets invested in his work and doesn’t look up again until about four o’clock, when Isa’s sharp cry pieces the silence. Tim jumps, having completely forgotten her presence, but that’s nothing on Jason, who vaults upward from his spot on the couch, body tense and prepared to react to whatever caused the noise, friend or foe.

His hand is already reaching for a gun—one that Tim is thankful to see is no longer there.

“It’s okay, it’s just time for the next feeding,” he says quietly, trying to sound both casual and soothing at the same time. Based on the bleary look he’s getting from Jason, he’s less than successful.

Jason glares at his empty hand, clenched as if to hold onto something, and Tim must be on the verge of falling asleep himself because for a moment he imagines he can see the outline of a sword.

Great. Hallucinations. Tomorrow’s going to be a triple-shot of espresso day, I can tell.

And it’s suddenly occurring to him that babies and their sudden loud noise-making skills might not be the best thing for someone that’s suffered the kinds of trauma Jason has.

He makes up a mental note to look up some strategies for that. He’s not quite sure how he’ll bring up the subject with Jason. While Jason is adamant that Tim’s the most like Bruce, when it comes to avoiding problems, he’s the one that has more in common with the man.

For now, he decides to just act as normal.

“You know there’s a perfectly good bed upstairs?” he quips. “Thousand thread count, fluffy pillows, solid mattress…”

“Shut up. I was watching something. Guess I fell asleep.” Jason swings around and makes a move toward the baby, but Tim makes a motion to stop him.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ve got it.”

“You already took her when you got back.”

“How do you know? You were sleeping?”

“I was resting my eyes.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Go to sleep or you’ll be face-planting in your coffee tomorrow.”

“I’ll be fine, I—"

“This isn’t your responsibility, Replacement. Go to bed—I’ll handle this.”

Jason is clearly not someone to be reasoned with when sleep-deprived; Tim always suspected that, of course, but he’s never had the up-close-and-personal experience. It doesn’t make him any less frustrated.

“The whole point of you staying here is for me to help,” he reminds him. “So would you just accept it already?”

“You’re also the one with a nine-to-five job and actually need the friggen sleep.”

Tim grimaces. “Fine. But I’m going to make up a schedule for us tomorrow so we can divide the babysitting more equitably.”

“You do that, boy scout. Why don’t you make a chore-wheel while you’re at it?” Jason jeers, taking the baby and heading for the kitchen. “This isn’t kindergarten.”

“Are you sure about that?” Tim shoots back, scowling in frustration.

Just for that, I will make one. See if I don’t.

⁂⁂⁂

Your feedback matters! I want to know what you think of my story, so feel free to leave kudos, a comment or as many of these emojis as you want and let me know how you feel!

❤️️ = I love this story! 😳 = this was hot! 💐 = thank you for sharing this 🍵 = tea spilled 🍬 = so sweet and fluffy! 🚔 = you’re under arrest! the writing’s too good! 😲 = I NEED THE NEXT CHAPTER 😢 = you got me right in the feels 🤯mind blown 🤬god damn cliffhanger 😫 whyyyyyyy?!?!?

Next Chapter

#jaytim #timjay #babyfic #kidfic #slow build #slow burn #tim drake #jason todd #bringing up baby #baby isa #toddlet #adulting #slice of life

3 notes · View notes

nightwingvixen23 · 2 years

Text

RedKINRoy Updated His Status :

SERIOUS QUESTION @Jason Piece'a'Me Todd. you're in a room with 5 dudes. how many dicks you choking on ⁉️🤔

3,198 Likes 2 Comments

Jason Piece'a'Me Todd : bro none ????

RedKINGRoy : damn you that good at throating ?

#some sort of gotham facebook #jayroy #jason todd #red hood #roy harper #arsenal #artemis #artemis of bana mighdall #gotham facebook series will never die #im creating my own hell

71 notes · View notes

aion-rsa · 4 years

Text

How Batman Evolved During Tom King's Run

https://ift.tt/2Pxp0je

Bruce Wayne's adoptive father is the key to Tom King's conclusion to his run on Batman.

facebook

twitter

tumblr

This Batman article contains spoilers.

Tom King did the impossible. In a comics industry founded on the bedrock principle that only the appearance of growth should ever be shown, he’s told a massive, three-year, 85-issue story that has Bruce Wayne actually develop as a character.

With Alfred’s death earlier in the final story arc, "City of Bane," many would have expected Bruce to shun his supporting cast and dedicate himself to revenge, leaving Gotham littered with shattered criminals as he pushed his grief through his fists and his enemies’ faces. But that’s not what happened.

We got a chance to talk with King about character growth, how his epic tale developed, and what’s next for Batman, Catwoman, and King himself in the DCU.

Den of Geek: You talk about Vision, Omega Men, and Sheriff of Babylon being a thematic trilogy, right?

Tom King: Yeah.

Can we look at Mister Miracle, Heroes in Crisis, and Batman the same way?

Oh yeah, 100% yeah. That's what I think of it. Yeah. I'm glad someone noticed.

It's about heroes managing trauma, right?

It is. I call it the Trauma Trilogy. That's just too easy, maybe. I feel like the first story about my war experience and [the main characters of each book] were all someone naively going into a situation and finding it much more complicated than they thought. And then these three were all about, I’ve said this publicly a billion times, about this nervous first-season-of-the-Sopranos breakdown I had in 2016 when I first started on Batman, and sort of how I recovered from that. And I sort of wrote it three different ways. Yeah, it's like some fancy dish, you know. The Trauma Trilogy.

Read More: How Batman Will Change in 2020

So the breakdown in 2016 happened after you had already started on Batman. How far is what ended up on the page drifted from what you initially conceived it to be?

I mean it's pretty close. There's some stuff that didn't quite pan out. Batman isn’t like a series like Mister Miracle or our upcoming Strange Adventures that we're doing. You have to write Batman with some degree of compromise because it's a much bigger platform and overlaps a lot of other books. You have a lot more eyes on it in terms of editorial control. And so yeah, it wasn't entirely a straight line, but considering it was 85 issues of DC's best-selling comic, I think it was a lot straighter than I thought it would be in terms of going from one spot to another.

It was always supposed to be about a love story and that was there from day one. I remember talking about that with my first editor, Mark Doyle...being like, “What is this book about?” And me literally just searching and searching until I found an old clip of the Batman ‘66 TV show. It was just like, “Oh man, I love this." The Catwoman, Batman dynamic.

And it hadn't been in the books in a long time. Not since, like, Judd Winnick, New 52 stuff. So that part about it, the fact that it was just one big love story. That was the same and Bane was supposed to be the main bad guy. But the stuff with Flashpoint, Batman evolved as we went along. I'd say that's the thing that's evolved the most.

We talked that second arc, I think, about Bane, Catwoman, and Batman being three sides of the same shitty coin. But now with Thomas included in there, it feels like it's kind of four points on a graph, labeling each axis. You've got like Batman who had privilege but lost everything at a young age. You have Thomas on the other end who had everything for most of his life and then lost everything. You've got Catwoman, who was born into nothing and kind of hangs on to everything but keeps it at arms length. And you've got Bane, who kind of grabs whatever he can and crushes it to death. As Thomas evolved into this, does that sound like what you were thinking at all?

Yeah, I do think they all represent this idea of who's top of the mountain in their own way. I guess you could say who does Gotham belong to? Bane sees Gotham as a prize that he has to win. Thomas sees Gotham as a burden. For Catwoman, Gotham is just who she is and she's sort of queen of that city. And then for Batman, it's ... I mean that's what the whole question is. What does he mean to Gotham?

With Alfred's death, was it kind of a backdoor way of you taking a look at Bruce's origins? You know, using the death of a father figure to kind of shock him out of being Batman the way that he was shocked into being Batman?

Yeah, but it was also a way to show what the difference is between Bruce losing his parents when he was young and connected to them, and Bruce losing Alfred having been raised by Alfred. To me that was a tribute to sort of Alfred's parentage of Bruce for all these years and him guiding him through that trauma. Because you expect Batman in that moment to bury himself in anger and go insane and do all the things that drove him to be Batman in the first place. But instead of that, he hears Alfred's voice and he composes himself. To me it's sort of about the maturing of the character and maturing of it through the love of Alfred. I know I said this in the book, there are no good deaths. There's a nobility to death if you've treated your children right.

Read More: Batman and Catwoman Face Thomas Wayne in Final Tom King Issue

Well, I would quibble with that only because I think you could have killed Batman at any point in the last 85 issues and whatever was happening would have been a hell of a way to go. Right? Like he has a heart attack on a ferris wheel with Superman. That's a pretty okay way to do it.

Wait I did kill Batman! I killed him in annual number two.

Oh yeah! Yeah.

I gave him my ideal death. He dies instead as an old man surrounded by his family.

And that's the good death.

That's a good one. That's as best as you can do with no other choices.

After 85, it feels like that's kind of the direction, right? Batman for so long has been that traumatized little boy, to the point where it's almost a parody, and many of your predecessors have done something interesting with that. But it always feels like the traumatized little boy has been the dominant perception of him, at least in my adult life. Is this your way of kind of trying to push him through it?

The story of Batman is unending conflict. I'm sure whoever comes after me will embrace the Batman of their own and I bless him for doing it. I know James [Tynion IV, the writer taking over Batman with #86]’s stuff is going to be, from what I've seen, amazing. Batman's not a story that I have the power to end. I just kind of come in and take the reins for a while and then pass it onto someone else as brilliant as James and Tony [Daniel, the artist on the first arc].

But I can sort of, I don't know, tell my story. I don’t know, maybe I'm too old to write Batman. Frank was 29 when he wrote The Dark Knight Returns. I'm 41. But it seems like as you get older and you actually see your parents pass, you see your loved ones pass, you realize that everyone has to go through that trauma. Right? You sort of realize that it can become part of you and something you're proud of as well. The grief never leaves you. It never leaves Batman. It's a wonderful metaphor. But also there's a certain joy to that grief because it sort of unites you with your lost ones.

So hopefully, as you go on, you sort of mature into that. I hate to say that the greatest hero America's ever created, which is Batman, never got a chance to mature into it like the rest of us hopefully get to do. Yeah, I mean that's what that's about. He says, when I was a child, I did childish things and now it's time to grow up a little bit.

Read More: Why Tom King Is Leaving Batman

So the action sequences have been phenomenal through the whole thing. There have been some stellar fight sequences, especially Jorge [Fornes'] last ten issues. Every time he comes in it's incredible.

He’s ridiculous.

They've been phenomenal. When I think back on the run, what I think is going to jump out at me are going to be the quiet moments. The double date, 12 Angry Batmen, Bruce and Selina grabbing a beer and watching football at a bar. What do you think was about those quiet moments that let you make them sing?

I mean, the first thing is the art. All three of those things you mentioned, you've got Lee Weeks...there's not a lot of people who can draw a dynamic room with just 12 people talking. Clay Mann doing the double date. Just him elevating himself and becoming the best artist in comics while I was watching. And then Mikel [Janin]. I've been with Mikel for five years now since Grayson. He did the first Batman I did and he’s doing the last.

It's really hard. I mean, as dumb as it sounds, it's probably easier to draw a dynamic fight scene than a dynamic quiet scene. So those guys are doing the heavy lifting.

As far as the other stuff goes. You know, it's ... DC Fontana died yesterday, right? The Star Trek author, and she's famous for saying, “Star Trek is not about objects. It's about characters.” Like, that's her thing. If you're writing an episode of Star Trek, don't make it about the thing. Make it about the people's relationships. So I think that that's what those moments are about is we've had a lot of conflicts. Fantastic, amazing conflicts about things. But I try to make my conflicts about the characters. Just trying to follow what she told me to do. What she said. Not that I ever met her but I remember what she said to do.

So looking back, is there an issue that stands out in your mind as something that you just absolutely nailed? Like, it's the Batman/Elmer Fudd issue, right?

No, I hate it. [laughs] I love that issue, but there's two typos in it. It still drives me crazy. I'll never manage to get them to fix those. When I first got the comp finished, I threw in the trash I was so pissed. "Oh, I ruined this one. Oh well. I'll try again next time." And then I won awards for it, it was ridiculous.

All three of the annuals I really like. I like the dog story that David Finch and I did in the first annual, which was suggested by my daughter when she was like five.

And I liked the second annual, which has sort of the first dates and the beginning of the end of the Catwoman/Batman relationship. That annual's the jumping off point for the whole Batman/Catwoman series. So that's how much I like it, I'm trying to copy it.

And I like the fourth annual I did with Jorge, which was just sort of like a chance for me to do a thesis statement on what Batman is. And there was seven days of Batman in seven different genres and then it continued sort of forever. I like those three.

Read More: Why Tom King's Batman #86-106 Would Have Been About

Similarly, is there an issue that you wish you could get another crack at?

Oh man, there's a ton of issues I wish I could ... I mean, I look at the dialogue and I’m like, "Oh, I could have done that better."

It took me a while to learn how to work with Joelle Jones, who's one of the most talented artists out there right now. And I think, I feel like I did a Wonder Woman issue with her and I feel like I wasted two of them first of all, because the story I wrote turned out to be very similar to a story that Joe Kelly had done. I hadn't read the story but I was very...I would have changed it if I had known. I sort of understood how to write for [Joelle] by Batman #44, which I think is really nice, but I think it's 39 and 40, the two Joelle Jones issues, I wish I could have another shot at doing well.

I really liked those.

TK: They're beautiful! They're drawn beautifully, but I don't know, we could have done something...it was really fine, but I feel like it could have transcended. I missed it.

I guess. The Justice League flirting between the two of them in the cartoon is high on my list of preferred pairings. So like the way that you played with that made me happy. Is there a character you feel particular ownership of now? Like if somebody comes in and changes Kite Man, are you going to throw the issue across the room and scream, "Fuck no, that's not how this is supposed to be done."

No, I think that's kind of silly. It's kind of like when you sign up for this gig, that's part of the agreement and coming into comics is realizing that this is a medium that extends to other people and no one has benefited more from that than me, who's twisted the work of Jack Kirby and Marv Wolfman and Bob Kane and Bill Finger for my own benefits. I feel like denying that to others would be hypocritical.

Gotham Girl's named after my daughter Claire. Claire Clover is her name. So I do like her. Like I have in my daughter's room a David Finch piece or a page that he did and a page that Clay Mann did they gave to me for her. So I like her because she's named after my daughter.

Wow. That's got to be pretty sweet.

I know. I try to tell her brag, brag to your friends! But does she brag?

Read More: Why Batman Still Matters

She'll get there. As soon as she shows up in a movie, everyone's going to be like, "Oh, you're so cool." Would you do it again? Marvel comes to you tomorrow and says, “We want a hundred issues of Spider-Man. Do whatever the hell you want.” Do you jump at or do you run screaming?

I don't remember anyone ever saying, do whatever you want with Batman.

Well, fair.

It never happened. Would I do it again? I mean I have no regrets about doing it. On many levels, I feel like I'm artistically satisfied with what happened. I feel like I made my career and made my life and I had fun.

But it's that second thing you said, the control of it. As I move forward, I kind of want to do, I don't know, like, I want to do super ambitious stuff and it's hard to do super ambitious stuff in that environment.

I feel like I got as close as I could get with [Batman]. I had a brilliant editor in Jamie Rich, huge support from Dan DiDio, but I don't know if I'll ever get that much again. Going forward, we'll see. But I just want to do something, I don't know, big and ambitious and literary and I don't know if that's possible anymore. If it is, I'll go.

You did the Sheriff and Omega Men and Vision Trilogy. You did the Heroes in Crisis Trilogy, or the Trauma Trilogy. Where are we going next?

Yeah, something new. I'm trying to move on. I'm trying to move on from fat middle aged men looking out windows, thinking about their lives. I think it'll be like another trilogy of books. It will be Strange Adventures, [Batman/Catwoman], and another book that hasn't been announced yet.

And all of this will be these 12-issue miniseries, like these little novels and they'll all be focused on a new, bigger theme. The way things develop when you're writing, you can write it one way where you're like, "I'm going to write about this theme," then you go write it. But when I do that, it just turns out shitty.

The best way I think to do it is just to write straight through so your unconscious mind brings it to the surface while you fight doing the same thing over and over again. So I'm not 100 percent sure these things are still forming as they form, but it's going to be a lot about all the shit that's in the news every single day.

As much as Mister Miracle was about sort of the trauma of looking around our current environment, thinking, "My God, this can't be real. I feel like I'm trapped here," Strange Adventures will be about how do we fight back this pernicious stuff that seems to surround us. And I think that's what Batman/Catwoman will sort of be about too.

Read More: The Actors Who Have Played Batman

So hopeful.

Hopeful is the wrong word because some of them are dead dark books. I don't feel hopeful right now. But I feel like, I don't know, it feels like we're in the middle of the war and you don't feel hopeful in the middle of the war, but you still feel like you'd have to fight. You know?

Yeah.

It's more about that feeling, not the feeling that, "Oh God, we're going to win." But the feeling of, "Oh God, we can't lose or else."

And Strange Adventures, I've read the first one and it's ... I couldn't love it more. It's 28 pages. Doc [Shaner] and Mitch [Gerads] are doing crazy new stuff you haven't seen in comics before, which I think is cool in terms of mixing the two arts together. The two, I don't know, styles or whatever.

I couldn't be more proud of it. I remember Garth Ennis famously saying that with The Boys, you out-Preacher Preacher. So we're going to try to out-Mister Miracle Mister Miracle, to steal from Garth.

facebook

twitter

tumblr

Feature Jim Dandy

Dec 18, 2019

DC Entertainment

Tom King

Batman

from Books https://ift.tt/34z0t1B

#aion-rsa #Books

1 note · View note

tessatechaitea · 5 years

Text

Teen Titans Spotlight #13: Cyborg

What are the two faces of evil? Cyborg's two halves? The two different houses Cyborg is climbing into at the same time? The gun and not the gun? The two cats in the painting? Probably Two-face?

Oh! I just understood this! I figured the chrome was Cyborg's face and the green was Two-Face's face. I thought maybe the pink was the other half of Two-Face's face but I couldn't figure out the other one until I finally started discussing black super heroes! I blame the lighting in my office and/or the colorist because the Victor "face" just seemed gold to me.

Two-Face sees Cyborg on television recognizes himself on a completely superficial level. But the superficiality is the point! He sees that Cyborg is accepted as a hero while he's seen as a monster. Maybe if Harvey Dent had become half sleek and shiny instead of half gross and disgusting, people would have accepted him and he could have gone on being a district attorney. But then it's also not the point because Two-Face understands that the people see Cyborg's deeds before they see his deformities (I probably would never refer to Cyborg's robotic parts as deformities but when you see some nice alliteration flashing its genitals in your face, you just got to put that shit in your mouth and go with it). And that's sort of the problem. Two-Face saw himself as a monster and thus began acting like one. Cyborg may think of himself as a monster from time to time but he doesn't let it stop him from making the world a better place. Harvey just uses his deformity as an excuse to not give a fuck anymore.

"We need an ad that declares 'Little kids who build our models fuck!"

I know I've suggested a ton of ways I'd use a time machine if I had access to one but I think I just came up with the thing I'd do first. I'd go back in time and tell the MPC model car company to get a different advertiser because I think their current one is a total pedo. Victor goes on a date with some woman named Cynthia Adams. I'd probably remember who she was if I didn't constantly fall asleep reading Cyborg comic books. I'm fairly certain I've used that line before but it's also possible I've just dreamed it every time I've fallen asleep reading a Cyborg comic. After the date, Victor doesn't score but mostly because Cynthia was being modest and chaste and instead of saying, "Show me that cyber-weenie, you sexy hunk of metal!", she just lets him go while secretly hoping he comes back to ravish her.

If she wasn't so thirsty, she never would have buzzed Two-Face right up!

Two-Face kidnaps Cynthia and uses the threat of her death to make Cyborg do what Harvey wants. Two-Face is all, "They'll see! There's no difference between us! None at all! Except maybe the kidnapping. And the obsessive coin flipping. And all the crimes. The only people hate me is because I'm not hot! But I'm a nice guy to! They'll see! They'll all see!" Cyborg's first task is to sneak into a woman's room and get his next task on a note under her alarm clock. But when the alarm goes off and she catches him, she calls him a monster! After escaping, Victor Stone doesn't think, "Fucking Two-Face. He made me scare the shit out of that woman by breaking into her house and startling her awake! Of course she was scared and called me a monster! Fuck, at least she didn't call me the n-word!" Instead, Victor thinks, "My name is Victor Stone. I am not a monster." Damn. Two-Face's plan is really going to work, isn't it?!

I'm perplexed as to why Cyborg begins jerking off in this panel.

While arguing with himself, Harvey admits that they first began calling themselves a monster. So the entire experiment is flawed! Two-Face wants to be able to blame his monstrous tendencies on the people who called him a monster because of the way he looked. So he's going to get Victor called a monster multiple times in one night and Victor will obviously snap! Who wouldn't?! I remember when I was called fat in junior high all those times while being fat that I became fat. No wait. Maybe that was somebody else. Nobody made fun of me because I was so fucking disconnected from what was going on around me that I never noticed. There were way better targets in junior high than me! I just went around telling everybody about how awesome Elfquest was. And they were all, "Really, fatty? Can I read your copy?" And I was all, "Sure! See you at the D&D game at lunch!"

I know I'm supposed to be reading this as if it took place in 1987 where you were supposed to think it was the robot half that everybody was afraid of and judging as a criminal. But this is 2019 and, well.

Imagine how short this issue would have been if Cyborg was connected to the Internet or had an internal cell phone. He must have had some internal gadget that could page Nightwing or the Gotham Police that he simply forgot about in the moment. Oh no, of course not. What am I thinking?! This is the era where Cyborg's only attachment was the white noise cannon! Cyborg finally confronts Two-Face on page 23 because this story is 25 pages long! Wow, I thought I was yawning a lot more than usual, even for a Cyborg story. Anyway, Two-Face declares he killed Cynthia thirty minutes ago because he totally read Watchmen and was all, "Oh fuck. That's a cool line. I am so using it some day!" But even that doesn't convince Cyborg to kill Two-Face. And while it means Two-Face gets to live, it also means Two-Face has to live with himself and the knowledge that maybe he was the real monster all along. Surprise! It wasn't society at all! Even though we all know it actually is society. People are fucking terrible. Surprise again! Cynthia was in a Two-Face mask and Two-Face was trying to get Cyborg to kill her! What a dumby! Hasn't he learned anything from Batman? If a hero doesn't kill, the hero doesn't kill! Sure, if this was Red Hood, Cynthia would be a fucking bullet sponge right now. But that's because he's expected to kill! How often does a hero who doesn't kill suddenly start killing? If you discount Hal Jordan. And Green Arrow. And Black Lightning. And Wonder Woman. And Black Canary. And Guy Gardner. And Fire. And Starman. And Obsidian. And Dr. Fate. And Black Canary. And, you know what, maybe this is too many ands for my initial premise to remain valid. Never mind. The issue ends with Two-Face realizing the problem wasn't "Cyborg could have been Two-Face" but that "Two-Face could have been Cyborg." Live with it, asshole. Teen Titans Spotlight #13: Cyborg Rating: B. I often tout Cyborg as boring because writers always simply do the same things with him. And while this is still another "Am I human?!" story arcs, at least it had a nice twist in that Cyborg plays off of a villain that you wouldn't have expected. Usually the writer brings in another character that's part robotic so that Cyborg can see his own humanity through the flaws of his foe. But has a writer ever thought, "Hey! Cyborg and Two-Face look fairly similar. I bet there's a story there?" Well, at least one did! And I'm happy to say they made a fairly decent go of it. Although wouldn't it have been nice if this story had been the last word on Cyborg's anxiety about how human he is?! Man, what if this was all the therapy he needed and for the next thirty years, DC audiences had been given a healthy Cyborg who would always be, "Oh yeah, I'm part robot! But I'm still all human! Want to fuck, baby?!" I miss that Cyborg that never existed.

#Teen Titans Spotlight #Cyborg #DC #DC Comics #Teen Titans

3 notes · View notes

dcarevu · 5 years

Text

Introduction (Cue Elfman Theme)

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the DCArevU blog! I guess to start things off, I can introduce myself as a 23 year old college student, who happens to be a huge fan of the DC Animated Universe. For those of you not entirely familiar with this term, the “DC Animated Universe” (“DCAU” for short), “Timmverse”, or even “Diniverse” in earlier years is a name given to a specific group of shows, much like how the term “MCU” is used for a specific sector of Marvel movies that all share the same continuity. The shows included in the DCAU are as follows: Batman The Animated Series, Superman The Animated Series, The New Batman Adventures, Batman Beyond, Static Shock, The Zeta Project, Gotham Girls, Justice League, and Justice League Unlimited (there was a Lobo flash cartoon that some say is canon as well, but that is mostly speculative). There are a few films as well, but we’ll get to that when we get to that.

The idea for this blog came from two sources of inspiration. The main one was Doug Walker (Nostalgia Critic) and his Avatar the Last Airbender vlogs. Every night he would sit down, watch a new episode of the show, post a video giving his thoughts, rinse and repeat. The other is legion1975, a blog dedicated to every episode of Animaniacs. I got great pleasure in watching a new episode of that cartoon every night, and then reading about his thoughts afterward. It made me feel like I had a way of bouncing/comparing my reactions with another, and it became an essential part of the experience for me. While I may not do things exactly as those two have, nor may I be quite as proficient, my hope is that I can at least give some pleasure to someone in the future as the two mentioned names did for me. Sometimes watching a TV show alone can be repressing, believe me, I get it. And I know that there are plenty of dedicated DCAU fans out there too!

I’ve been a DCAU fan for much longer than I have been aware of the term. Although Batman the Animated Series started a few years before I was born, as a little kid I remember renting Batman tapes from the local video store. I collected action figures as well which were based on the DCAU version of the character. This is probably what truly started my obsession, but as I got older, that died down quite a bit. The fan in me had a bit of a resurgence when I was in middle school, and went back to watching Batman Beyond, but at the end of high school is when I somehow learned about the term, did my research, and was hooked likely forever.

Since then I have acquired every episode of the show (it may technically be a bunch of shows, but I personally also consider it one giant show on its own), whether it be on Blu Ray or DVD, and, well, here we are. I have seen every episode as well, minus the entirety of Static Shock and The Zeta Project (these took a very long time to receive an official release…believe me, I was on Warner Archive’s Facebook page often, as well as toonzone forums, trying to kick their asses into giving us the episodes), but my girlfriend has not seen any of it. Not a single episode. I thought it would be interesting to have her watch it with me so I can get the reaction of what is essentially a newbie/outsider.

Speaking of newbies/outsiders, I have never done anything like this before in the past, so there may be some growing pains. But with 423 individual “episodes” there are to watch, those will likely be sorted out with time. We can only hope, anyway!

I think that’s mostly all I have to say as part of this introduction post. Will be back with more as we look at our very first episode of the series, On Leather Wings!

#DC #DCAU #dc animated universe #batman #superman #batman beyond #static shock #zeta #zeta project #the zeta project #wb #warner brothers #dc comics #superhero #superheros #comics #intro #introduction

15 notes · View notes

really-bad-arsonist · 6 years

Note

-slides into ur ask box- do you have any hcs for Anarky, aka Lonnie Machin, aka my BOY

I actually haven’t put a lot of though into Lonnie headcanons, and I’ll be sure to make a better list at some point! Here’s some while I was sitting here

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

- Lonnies a low key adrenaline junkie. Whether it’s scaling a building to do some street art without a harness or just stupid stuff like a rollercoaster or horror movie, Lonnie is always down

- When he isn’t trying to destabilize governments or purify cities, he loves videogames, painting, and just doing normal teenage shit

- Basing it off of the art in his hideout in AK Origins, he’s a damn good artist. He uses it to make statements sometimes, leaving street tags, paintings, and vandalizing capitalist advertisements to make his points

-He has one of the biggest and most dedicated followings of any rogue. He’s a metaphorical, and physical voice of the people in Gotham. Though his means are violent and less agreeable, the people of Gotham can’t deny that what he stands for and preaches is true.

- He’s actually considered a high threat terrorist to the government regardless of his petty crimes and actions in Gotham. What he stands for is a threat that they’re too afraid to poke and prod at

- He acts way older than he is. Most people and rogues have no idea that he’s actually only 17, but a few that have worked with him have figured out he was on the younger side.

- Some of the older rogues tend to discreetly look out for him, whether its generous donations of money to fund his projects or providing arms/hired muscle, there’s usually someone looking out for him

- Not a lot can get to him. The only thing that really bothers him is not being taken seriously based on his age, or being called a child. People learned their lesson pretty fast with that one

- He isn’t a huge fan of directly killing someone; it’s been done yes but he prefers other means of subduing someone like a taser. That being said, he has a merciless disregard of human life as long as it contributes to his cause and he doesn’t have to do it himself. He will do anything including explode buildings, people or not as long as its for his goal

- Incredibly driven, will do anything for his cause. God help anyone who stands between him and his goals

- The biggest feminist/equalist you will ever meet.

- The ultimate king of vandalism. Between his skills and his inability to be caught, no billboard stands a chance

- He spends literal hours preaching political stuff, rants and general opinions as we all know

- In fact, almost every conversation is probably about politics of some sort

- Surprising capacity for hatred (especially for Batman). He’s like a chihuahua, a lot of anger and hate can fit into tiny boy

- In fact, he doesn’t get along well with anyone in the batfam. He can tolerate/get along pretty well with Batgirl/Oracle. Every now and then he’ll hack into her systems and send her a link to some stupid shit. She lets him hack them of course. When Joker shot her, he visited her in the hospital once.

- 17 year old or not, some of the rogues actual do harbor (appropriate) fear for the newer rogue. He has been known to double cross rogues who go against his purpose and get between him and his goals

- He probably has a facebook or twitter account where he fights people in the comment section about his beliefs

- He isn’t super strong or advanced when it comes to physical abilities/fighting but he can out do most people with his technological skills and his dedicated following

- The rogue that dislikes him the most would be Penguin. Oswald is the dictionary definition of everything Lonnie’s against. He does his best to suck up to him, but he knows one of these days Anarky is gonna be done with his bullshit. Batman can throw Penguin into jail sure, but Anarky could take down Penguins entire operation if he wanted to and he knows it.

- When it comes to the Rogues he has a clear preference for Drury Walker and Harvey Dent. Drury because he’s on a friendly basis with him and he’s something of a big brother figure to him (his crispy boyfriend is okay too; too crude for Lonnies tastes) and Harvey because despite him being an asshat and being one of the people who ‘plague’ gotham, he is fair and equal.

- Ironically he has a grudging respect for Bruce Wayne. He’s a businessman, but he’s an ethically good one.

- Despite his lack of intimidating nature and his attempts to try not to take life for no reason, he’s violent when it comes to his beliefs. He punishes certain criminals more than Batman ever could dream of.

- In a perfect world, he would have loved to go to school for bioengineering or biotechnology

- He doesn’t really do the whole dating thing. Maybe if things were better or more settled, but with how much he moves around and what he does he tries to stay away from it. That being said, he’s as open and equal with his preferences as he is with everything. He has no preferences.

- He once ran two miles to catch the ice cream truck

- And also told batman off for not involving Barbara/Oracle in enough things

- He’s really good at sassing someone without them even knowing until they think about it

- Thinks the public school system is shit but he still finished highschool

- He once flipped Red-Hood off and earned enough of Jasons respect for him to go easy on him

- Each of his safehouses is littered with air mattresses for people who works for him that don’t have homes or places to stay overnight

- He’s a total sweetheart personality wise. He was just lead on the wrong path and had a rough upbringing in an equally rough city

- Dog person don’t @ me

#lonnie machin #anarky #anarky headcanons #dc #headcanons

21 notes · View notes

aerialsquid · 6 years

Text

Metashipping?

Title: The Men Upstairs Fandom: The LEGO Movie, The LEGO Batman Movie Pairings: Batman/Joker (…sort of), The Man Upstairs/OC Characters: Finn, The Man Upstairs, Batman, Joker, Original Male Character Tags: Meta Fic, Dating, Legos, Metafiction, Symbolism, Parenting, Fatherhood, Businessman Description: Borrowing from the meta reveal at the end of The LEGO Movie, where we find the plot to be a metaphor for a child playing with his father’s Lego sets, this offers a ship-ish look at the meta subtext behind The LEGO Batman Movie. Closet nerd Jack goes on a lukewarm date with a closet LEGO collector, and finds a Batman in dire need of a Robin…and maybe a Joker too.

"-so the main goal is increasing our audience base by 40%. Which let me tell you, is hard when we've got a 30% churn rate, but our senior initiatives team is expanding the database capabilities to-"

Jack made eye contact with the overexpensive coffee maker on the other side of Hank’s overexpensive kitchen. This was he didn't date people in the business. Why in the heck had he decided he should go on a date with someone in the business? Especially one who was just some stranger he’d met on a dating app?

Oh, right. Because he was an idiot who had a hard time saying no.

“Yeah, audience segmentation’s tricky,” Jack said with as much passion as he could manage, which was the same amount of passion he raised for an extra ketchup packet at McDonalds.

“Exactly!” said his date, raising his glass of wine emphatically. “Especially when the sales demographics are changing so fast.”

Jack’s plan had been to get to the bar, have two drinks, and if the guy wasn’t done being dull by two drinks Jack would find an excuse to go wash his hair. Unfortunately, when they got to the bar a sign in the window indicated it was closed due to “Personal Issues, Don’t Ask, But It’s All Her Fault”. Jack’s date had mentioned that his own house was right up the road, and his kids were at tutoring. They could still enjoy a few glasses of fancy nineteen-whatever French wine, and they wouldn’t have to worry about overpaying for imported cheese and French bread.

And Jack was an idiot who had a hard time saying no.

Jack was considering discretely texting his BFF an SOS for GTFO support when the door opened. A kid with a frizzy, curly mop of hair and a solemn expression usually reserved for priests conducting funerals entered, one hand tugging along a younger girl and the other holding a tiny bag of bulky toys.

Hank snapped around, wine sloshing out onto the cheese platter as Jack leaned out of splatter range. “Finn? What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be with Susan!”

Finn looked up at his father with a dulled expression. “She didn’t show up.” The kid sounded as if this sort of thing was business as usual – being left behind, left out, ignored, forgotten. The younger girl took the bag of toys from his hand and wandered off into the depths of the house with it clutched tightly to her chest.

Hank rose to his feet, nearly snapping the stem of the wineglass in his hand. “And how did you get home?”

“Bus.”

“Bus? You went on the bus alone? The school just let you get on the bus alone?” Hank’s voice was rising in pitch with each sentence, heading towards a shriek. It didn’t seem to make a dent in Finn’s dulled demeanor.

“Yeah.” He gave an idle shrug.

“Oh, I am going to murder them!” Jack’s date stormed upstairs, likely to get his phone, leaving Jack forgotten next to the fancy cheese.

Jack and the kid stared at each other.

“You’re…Finn, right?”

“Mhm. He’s pretty mad,” the kid noted. He grabbed a slice of cheese with cracker and stuffed it into his mouth. “Who are you?”

“Jack. I’m a friend of your dad. We were…talking.”

“About business?”

Jack opened his mouth for a yes. Then he looked the kid in the eye as Finn stuffed grapes into his mouth, and considered the sad way that the word ‘business’ had tumbled out of his mouth. Hank had barely talked about his family life but Jack knew enough about Hank’s job to practically do it himself.

“Honestly, I hate business,” he said instead. Jack leaned over, elbows resting on his knees. “What do you like, Finn?”

Finn shrugged. “Stuff. TV shows." When it was clear Jack wasn’t going to move on to another topic, he mumbled, “Legos.”

“Oh. Cool. I love Legos.”

The sound of a very angry middle class white man tumbled back down the stairs. Hank’s exact words were muffled but the intent and emotion behind them was fairly clear. Jack winced.

“I think your dad’s gonna be busy for a while.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think I should leave?”

“I dunno.”

Jack sucked his teeth and considered the matter. Something about the kid just made him ache. It was that look in his eyes, like this was inevitable. A kid shouldn’t feel like he was an extra load.

Jack knew that much from experience.

“Hey, Finn? You want to show me your Legos?”

“Wwwwwwow. When you said Legos, I didn’t think you meant you were running an entire Lego store out of your basement.”

“Dad collects them,” Finn said. “And builds them. He’s got all the sets. He likes to build the sets.”

Jack’s jaw hung open as he wandered the basement, staring at models of Isengard and the Sears Tower that were almost as tall as he was. The figures could have been shop models for how perfectly they were built, each Stormtrooper storming the plains of Hoth and pirate swinging across the ratlines of the Black Pearl in perfect position. “Your dad collects enough Legos to build a literal house and he had me talking about demographic segmentation?” That asshole.

Jack followed Finn around as Finn named off the sets in regimented order. The constructs were built box-picture-perfect but each had some endearing little quirk to it. Firefighters were trying to get a kitten down from the Eiffel Tower. Gremlins had invaded Hogwarts and built a crude airplane on the parapets so they could sit on its wings.

“He used to keep them to himself, but now we play together sometimes. When he’s not doing business.” Finn said the word business like it was a slur, which was something Jack could get behind.

“I love it. This is amazing. Oh my god, is that a Batman set? That’s huge!”

“That’s Arkham Asylum. It’s from a set. This is Wayne Manor, I built this one, and the Batcave one.” Finn pointed to an immense house construct. It was furnished with at least two dozen rooms, each with small chairs and tables or cute little plastic toilets. On the shelf below it was what was indeed the Batcave, full of at least a dozen Bat-appended vehicles.

“Have I mentioned I’m a huge Batman fan? Huge.” First crush huge, but he wasn’t going to say that in front of the nine-year-old.

“Really?” Finn gave Jack a once-over. Jack realized what an absolute square he must look like, wearing his finest business casual and looking as professionally average as possible. It made him regret everything he was doing with his life.

“You want my cred? I got cred.” Jack whipped his phone out and swiped through Facebook, back through the carefully curated archive of incredibly dull, employer-safe vacation and brunch imagery. He stopped on a specific photo and held it up, gloating.

“This was me last year at Halloween.” he said, pointing to the central figure in a generic ‘badly lit people at table in bar with beers and arms around each other but not in a sexy way’ shot. “Check out what I’m wearing.”

Finn leaned in to look at the picture, then giggled. “You have Batman pajamas?” he squeaked, one hand over his mouth.

“Batman pajamas with cowl.” More of a onesie, really. There’d been a sale at ThinkGeek.

The first real smile Jack had seen on Finn for more than a few moments began to creep to the surface. Upstairs he could still hear the faintest of yelling—if Hank was the kind of guy Jack thought he was, he’d be there a while and ask to speak to at least two managers. Jack’s eyes roamed the table until he found the airport set (with a little TSA and metal detector, wtf).

“So now I’m going to need you to show me your Batman cred. Trivia time. What if, uh….so what if there was a plane coming into Gotham city that was full of bombs, and explosives.” He leaned over to the ‘Old West Gold Mine’ set and grabbed a pile of TNT. Finn looked mildly concerned as Jack distributed the explosives around the plane like salt on pasta.

“Aaaaand it got taken over by ninjas!” Jack ran to the Samurai set and plucked up fistfuls of ninjas. Finn’s expression went from concerned to alarmed.

“You’re mixing up the sets…”

“It’s fine, I’ll put them back later.” Jack was on a roll now. He grinned eagerly, distributing the ninjas on top of the plane and walking a few of them inside. He looked over his shoulder and eyed Arkham Asylum. “They’re toys, right? What’s the point if we’re not playing with them?”

Damnit, he was going to entertain this small child if it killed him.

“—and I always come to work with a smile!!!!”

Jack grinned wide, wiggling the tiny Joker menacingly between his fingers. The little pilot cap balanced on the molded hair fell off and he quickly balanced it back on top of one tiny green spike.

Finn was silent, staring at him from the other side of the table. The little pilot figure that Jack had forced into his hand hung loose between his fingers. Jack could feel his pulse pounding in his throat. “You should be terrified,” he prompted.

Finn offered another of the apathetic shrugs that were starting to be cheese graters on Jack’s soul. “Why?”

Jack pitched his voice high again. “Because! I will be taking over the city!” he made the little Joker dance back and forth.”

“Hmmm.” Finn’s eyes roamed around the model city as he let out a noise of unclear emotion response.

“What? I mean it!” The high pitch in his voice grew higher and just a shred more desperate. He felt like someone trying frantically to start their car by turning the key again and again, each roar of the engine even more subdued and upsetting.

The moment of ‘hmmmmmmmm ‘ stretched out again, until finally Finn looked up, humor dancing in his eyes, “Batman will stop you.”

Yes!!!!

Jack blew a gleeful raspberry. “Pffft!”

“He always stops you.” Finn insisted.

“No, he doesn’t!”

“Yes, he does.”

“No he doesn’t!”

“Like that time with the two boats?

“Your dad let you watch—I mean, this is better than the two boats!” Finn was still looking up in skepticism. Jack wracked his brain, trying to yank in what little shreds of his improv classes hadn’t been violently repressed by his mind. “Tonight is going to be different! Tonight is my greatest plan yet! And trust me, Batman’s never gonna see it coming.”

“Like that time with the parade and the Prince music?”

“Hey, quiet! Your city is under attack by Gotham’s greatest criminal masterminds! Including...”

Jack scrambled for the Arkham Asylum set, ripping tiny plastic figures off their pedestals and out of their cells.

“Riddler! Scarecrow! Bane!” He snapped the characters down to the table one by one, their arms upraised in defiance of the law and common decency. “Two-Face! Catwoman! And let's not forget Clayface! Poison Ivy! Mr. Freeze! Penguin!”

Jack dove into the plastic bin of spare minifigures and started yanking out random bodies, slapping capes and hats onto scowling figures and setting them down on the table one by one.

“Crazy Quilt! Eraser! Mime! Tarantula! King Tut! Orca! Killer Moth! March Hare! Zodiac Master! Gentleman Ghost! Clock King! Calendar Man! Kite Man! Catman! Zebra-man! Annnnnnd the Condiment King!”

He paused, panting as he set the last little caped figure on the platform, tapping a tiny red bottle into its hand. A row of hastily cobbled second-stringers stretched out down the length of the table, all glaring menacingly towards the perfectly constructed cityscape.

Finn raised an eyebrow at him. “… Okay, are you making some of these up?

“Nope, they’re all real!” Jack winked. “Probably worth a Google.”

Hank came down the stairs just as Batman was delivering t-shirts to the orphanage, and stayed silent until the Batmobile slid elegantly into the Wayne Manor and Batcave sets.

“What are you doing?”

Both Finn and Hank froze, their expressions of childish guilt almost identical.

“We’ll put it back, Dad,” Finn mumbled.

“We just saved Gotham City anyway, so I think this episode’s wrapped up.” Jack sat back on his knees, disconnecting the Joker from his little balloon harness. Finn was already collecting up the ninjas and running away to quickly put them back into position.

“Well. I’m glad you have that handled,” said Hank, his expression carefully free of every emotion, including that of apathy, which on reflection was kinda impressive.

Jack rolled the airplane back to its landing pad next to its little government-empowered metal-detecting autocrats.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this? Heck, why isn’t this the first thing in your dating profile?”

“Some people think toy collecting’s a little childish.”

“Some people can suck my Loot Box Exclusive Batarang Multi-tool. Seriously. This is great.” He began stripping the plane of tiny bombs.

“Hey, Hank? Why don’t you have a Dick?”

Jack’s date stopped, jaw working as he tried to muster up a reply. Jack’s penny dropped and he rushed in with “A Dick Grayson! A Robin! Red shirt, yellow cape, green tights. Sorry. Finn says you have about fifteen different Batmans but there’s no Robins.”

Hank blinked. “Oh. I think the dog ate it. I haven’t replaced it, I haven’t been into the media tie-in sets for a while.”

“You should get one. Actually, I will buy you one if I have to.”

“Uh. Why?”

“Batman’s got all this crap but he hasn’t got a family. I had to dig the Alfred out of the back of the Wayne Manor set. Batman needs people to back him up, always has. And Robin’s his son. I mean he’s adopted, or at least the Dick Grayson one’s adopted, and they’ve got this really tight bond, and I feel like Finn would really relate to that.”

“You sure you’re not getting a little too into this?”

“It’s not me who’s getting into it. I mean, not just me.” Jack looked over his shoulder at Finn, who was cleaning up the discarded piles of Batvillains and neatly placing them back into Arkham. “It’s him. Kids work out stuff through play, and his idea of a strong person isn’t one that needs to deal with sidekicks. His Batman doesn’t need a family, and he definitely doesn’t do ships.”

“Ships?”

“Relationships. Connections. He’s not even that into the Joker and lemme tell you, every good Batman has some twisted fixation on Joker. This the kind of Batman you get in the Nolan movies where he’s emotionally stunted, not the kind that winds up opening up to people like in some of the better comics. I’m not sure that’s…”

Jack abruptly stopped the word fountain flowing from his mouth, biting down hard on his thin lip to keep the words inside. His gaze fell away as the weight of adulthood abruptly fell down on his shoulders. Here he was, a grown man with a professional job, messing around in some other guy’s basement with his Lego models like he was one of Finn’s colleagues here for pretend play and video games after elementary school, talking his head off about the significance of superheroes having sidekicks.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m a huge dork.”

“No. It’s, um.” Hank peeked over Jack’s shoulder. “Hey, Finn? We’ll clean this up, why don’t you go start your homework?”

“Okay, Dad.”

Hank lowered his voice once Finn had scrambled up the stairs. “It’s hard to get him out of his shell with other people,” he whispered. “He’s up in his head so much of the time, and he’s so shy with other kids. I’ve never seen him just click with someone like that. I’ve been trying to play with him more but I can never seem to get it right.” He reached over and readjusted the angle of the airplane, almost looking guilty for needing to do so. “I don’t think I’m on his level. I spend so much time around people hyperfocused on the profit line that I forget how to be a kid.”

“You’re saying I’m immature?”

Hank smiled. He reached out to take the Joker from Jack’s hand, and his fingers lingered a few moments longer than necessary against Jack’s skin. “I’m saying that’s not the worst thing in the world for me right now.”

#lego batman #the lego batman movie #lego batman movie #lego batjokes #batjokes #batman #joker #squid writes fanfic

41 notes · View notes