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deadsetobsessions · 11 days

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Sea Cryptic! Danny AU- Pt. 7

[Pt.1] [Pt.2] [Pt.3] [Pt.4] [Pt.5] [Pt.6]

“I’m having a child.”

Danny stared at Batman.

“…Uh, congrats?”

Batman whips out a stack of paper and a pen. “It’s you. Sign here and initial the highlighted spots.”

Danny instinctively, from years of dealing with Vlad, whacked the stack right out of Batman’s hands and into the bay. He doesn’t even feel bad about littering this time because, “Begone, fruitloop!”

Wait, no, that’s not what he meant.

“I mean- I have parents!”

“Not for long.” Batman muttered and then did a double take. “You have parents? How?”

Danny gasped, placing a hand on his chest to clutch his metaphorical pearls. He ignored Batman’s mutters. Everyone knows the vigilante has an adoption problem. At least, everyone who lived in Gotham did, as everyone who didn’t was somehow convinced that he “worked alone” or some bullshit like that. “Are you naturally this insensitive or were you dropped on your head as a baby? Obviously I had to come from somewhere.”

“They’re still… alive?”

“And kicking,” Danny said, inching away from yet another rich weird guy trying to adopt him. “Mostly the kicking part, though.” He said, remembering the sparring sessions. His mom could kick his as six ways to Sunday with nothing but jiu-jitsu and still have time to work in the lab.

“I see.”

“I’m charging you extra for the emotional upheaval. I have trauma regarding rich people trying to adopt me.”

Batman sullenly handed over a thousand.

“Sweet. There’s a group of shades down here asking if you could find their murderer. Apparently the serial killer is still at large.” Danny pointed.

“Of course. Tell me everything.”

The adoption papers disappeared as Batman went into detective mode.

Danny shoved the cash into his glowing chest and breathed a sigh of relief. He needed to make rent this month so it was a windfall running into Batman.

——

“Hey, Tim?”

Tim woke up from his Power Nap. “Huh?”

“Phantom’s complaining that Batman kept trying to adopt him.”

Tim blinked. “Uh.. what does that have to do with me?”

Danny stared at him, a patiently amused smile on his face. “Just in case the rumor about the Wayne’s sugar-daddy-into the Bats was a thing. Other than that, we might have to confront Batman to get him off of Phantom’s back. ”

“You… want to confront Batman.”

“Hey, man, Phantom’s a friend and it’s ride or die.” Danny snickered. It was literally die, with his Phantom side of things. He held two fists up, and wound them, like Popeye right after eating spinach or something. “And if Batman bothers Phantom, we ride at dawn.”

“Batman doesn’t come out unless it’s dark, though? Or for the Justice League.” Tim grinned. He mentally classified Danny under his “to go to” list. That’s where Bart, Bernard, Cassie, Kon, and Garfield were. If he starts shit, he could count on them to have his back and cause even more shit. Danny, wanting to fistfight Bruce over the man making Phantom uncomfortable? He absolutely is making that list.

“Then we ride at, like, dusk. Or uh, like 10PM. I gotta get my beauty sleep.”

“You’ll definitely need it,” Tim inconspicuously texted the group chat, which quickly blew up.

“Shut up,” Danny playfully shoved Tim. “Wait, can Batman even legally adopt? Isn’t being a vigilante illegal? And how can he adopt someone dead?”

Tim dramatically flailed and splayed over Danny’s carpeted living room. “Dunno about his identity,” he lied to Danny, like a liar. “But Gotham has a bunch of laws for the undead/restored to life people so there’s probably enough gray space there.”

Danny spluttered. “You guys have undead friendly laws?”

“Yeah, geht do you think Grundy just chills out? Plus, we have like a minor resurrection event every few years. It usually doesn’t stick but sometimes it does. Bruce pushed for those laws when Jason came back to life, except he doesn’t actually want people to know he’s like, alive.”

“Jason died?” Danny blinked. Well, that would explain the vibes. “Huh. So what’s up with his rank vibes then?”

“Rank vibes?” Tim pressed record on his phone.

Danny nodded. “Yeah, you know how Phantom’s got like a really chill green vibe?” Inwardly, Danny snickered at his pun. Chill. Yeah, he meant that very literally. “Jason’s got kind of a rank green vibe. He’s kind of stinky? Definitely never introduce him to Phantom.” Danny’s senses got worse in his ghost form.

“Jason regularly showers, though?!”

“Not smell! Like, a spiritual smell?”

“You can smell souls?!” Tim sat up. “Bro, you’re a meta?!”

“Uh.” Danny hesitated. “Yeah. I can smell souls. It’s a thing. Everyone from my town can do it.”

“What?!” Tim paused. “Wait, can Phantom smell souls?”

“Yeah. We’re, uh, from the same town.”

“Danny, what the fuck?”

“Hey, don’t look at me like that, you’re the one with a soul-sick brother! Not to mention, you’re kinda stinky too!”

“Hey!”

“Soul-stinky nerd man!”

——

“I stink?!” Jason spluttered out, extremely offended.

“The Lazarus pits. He’s most likely smelling traces of Lazarus pit on you, you imbecile.”

“We need to speak to Phantom. This instant.”

“I dunno, B. Danny sounded like he was gonna break your face if you bothered Phantom anymore.” Dick snickered.

“Yeah,” Tim chimed in, from his seat in front of the Bat-computer. “He was pretty serious.”

“Are we just gonna glaze over the fact that they’re from the same town?!” Stephanie exclaimed, practicing her moves on a training dummy.

“How does that even work? What does that mean? I thought Phantom was an immortal?” Duke asked.

“We also can’t rule out time-travel.” Barbara slammed her baton into a training dummy, twisting her wheelchair in an agile maneuver that left the dummy on the floor.

“No bothering Phantom.” Cass proclaimed.

“That’s quite right. You all have a warm dinner sitting above your cave and should it remain uneaten, I assure you that sherbet Sunday and crêpe Tuesday shall be canceled.” Alfred stepped in. The Bats, threatened, scrambled to ditch their gear and go upstairs.

#Danny: not another adoption!#Vlad and Bruce trying to adopt Danny even though he’s got parents:🤝#batman #danny phantom #tim drake #jason todd #bruce wayne #dc x dp #bamf danny phantom #dpxdc #dcxdp #dcxdp crossover #sea cryptic! danny au

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long-live-astronerd-ghost-king · 8 months

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DPXDC prompt. Family? Assemble!

Reporter: Gotham News, and we have a new supervillain on the line. Mr Phantom, what are your demands at the moment? Phantom with lack of sleep and with tears: I..I want a titanium model of a spaceship! And to get a good night’s sleep and to go to the local school…and some fudge and.. Reporter: Oh, my bad. Just one question for clarification, are you by any chance an orphan or are your parents villains? Phantom: I prefer the term mad scientists Reporter: Okay. So, Gotham news! And with me on the line is the new potential child of Wayne or Batman. Want to know how two serial adopters will share a child leading a double life? Stay with us and find out. Now let's check in with Jessie for our weather report. Phantom: Wait, what?

~~~~~

Danny spends the night running from the Red Hood with a bag of fudge, Red Robin with a pot of coffee, Batman with the adoption papers and, for some reason, Brucie Wayne with an idea of internship at a space station. Ha! The Justice League will never let a ghost into orbit. Not that Wayne can blackmail superheroes or smth. Danny: Fuck you all! I’m done with vigilante activity, I’m not your competitor! What do you want from me? And I’m done with crazy billionaires too. I swear, I’d rather be adopted by a local mob boss just to piss you off! ~Later~ Danny *sees peering out of the corner Matches Malone*: Are you kidding me?! Robbie *jumps off the roof and lands right behind Danny*: Stop running, lil brother, No one’s left the family yet. Minnie: What about Neal? Robbie *shakes a knife with a bow on the handle negatively*: He’s on sabbatical, that doesn’t count. Anyway, it’s a gift for you, cub. Danny: Um, thank you, but my lab scalpels are definitely sterile, and your blade was in who knows who before you brought it here. Robbie: It’s brand-new! And Archie decorated it with a ghost on the handle. Look! It's cute! With a smile and… Dick: Hands up! You’re under arrest for trying to steal our new member! Minnie: Why is he yours, damn cop? Selina: Boys, don’t fight. He’s mine. Schrodinger’s cat is still a kitten. Killer Croc: No way, my niece is staying with me. Danny: Uncle Waylon? Long time no see. Ra's: My grandson needs steady access to ectoplasm. Danyal, come with me. Danny: Over my dead body! Oh shiii…I mean no. Anyway, don’t you think the alley’s getting a little crowded?

~~~~

Killer Croc: Is he still mad at me? RR: Danny doesn’t talk to uncles who tried to eat his beloved brother Red Robin. Killer Croc: He wasn’t even your brother then. What do you want? An apology from me? RR: That would be nice.

~~~~

Danny: I didn’t think the GIW agents would really fear the reputation of Gotham and not follow me. What a relief! Jason *quickly throws the knife into the sink*: Wow, you got lucky. Alfred: Master Jones, why don’t you eat your steak? I thought last week you were complaining to Batman that 'cause of him you got not many prey. Croc *pulls a piece of white robe from the teeth*: Well, now there is a lot of it. Bruce *gives Jason and Croc the side-eye*.

~~~~

Ra's: You do realize that Malone, Wayne and Batman are the same person, right? Boy, you were born into a family of geniuses, don’t disappoint Grandpa. Danny: Triple pocket money, triple gifts for the holidays, the opportunity to complain about the same family member three times. No, Grandpa, I definitely don’t understand. Ra's: Smart little weasel.

~~~~

Selina: Okay. Purely theoretical. Do you like to steal? Danny: I wouldn’t say that. But somehow I stole the sword from the fright knight. And also stole few jewels but then I was under the mind control. I returned them. Well, the crown and ring of the king of the ghost zone I also took without permission. Oh, and the answers to the test once. And I’m really sorry about the last one. Neal: I feel the story behind it but I prefer to know nothing about it.

#dpxdc #dcxdp #dp x dc crossover #dpxdc prompts #dpxdc prompt #dpxdc memes #dpxdc meme #rip giw

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satoshy12 · 3 months

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Brought Hell to Earth for a Date

Gotham was in chaos; the dead didn't stay dead, and Skeleton came from the ground! It was like the Day of the Walkind Dead.

But not in a world-ending way, but more as a way for the people to talk with their lost ones. So it wasn't that bad for many people in Gotham.

The Massive leader of it seems to have walked to Bruce Wayne and his family. And did go one knee before Wayne's adopted daughter, Stephanie Brown.

The massive armor was not even bothering him as he was on the ground. As he looked up at her, " I did just as you wanted."

Steph:" I didn't mean this! DANNY!"

The leader they learned was named Danny. Maybe short for Daniel. Danny:" You said make it very special for a date. If I ask you out again?"

Danny dressed in his King Armor full of Skulls Fur (think of Lich King Armor(World of Warcraft) without the Helmet), and around him were many skeletons that came from the ground in the Gala. Danny legit brought back the dead and stopped death in Gotham. Danny:" So?"

Steph:" Yes, let's go on a date."

Danny's armor started to fade, showing a suit he wore under it, and the army started to go too. Danny. "Well, are you a good place to go?" Steph laughed. " Yeah, I know one."

Both left smiling as the dead suddenly faded and the people were able to peacefully die without pain.

Bonus. Bruce was once again the big talk because his adopted daughter dated the God of Death. Yeah, he had no fun trying to explain it. The joke about him being the father-in-law of the Lord of Death was already talked about.

Bruce:" So other than the Joker, no one was hurt?" Dick:"Well, not just the Joker, but a few other serial killers too."

The dead who couldn't die took revenge on their killers; after all, they can't be killed again. And that kind of was why Gotham wasn't that shocked about the day of the Walking Dead. It wasn't like a zombie apocalypse.

It was just Gotham

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im-totally-not-an-alien-2 · 1 year

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Danny thought the guy Tucker had dragged over to talk tech with was cute but there was something...off about him. He seemed nervous but not in a "a ghost is about to attack way" but in the subtle ways he checked the exits every so often or the way he made his body language purposely relaxed.

Sam would say he's just being paranoid since Tim Drake was the adopted son of a billionaire (and independently wealthy too) and Danny did not trust billionaires or wealthy people in general. Danny still felt something was off.

Seeing as Tucker and Tim were hitting it off he decided to leave them to it and continued to manage his own stall at the glorified science fair Bruce Wayne was sponsoring. Billionaire or not he really wanted that scholarship to Gotham University. He had pulled out the best designs he could make such as a fully functional portal gun, some variation of wrist rays that did different things and were disguised as normal watches, force field shield generators designed into bracelets, and even a modified version of of the fenton thermos that instead of working on ghosts it worked on physical matter such as chairs and other items...and it wasn't disguised as a soup container!

He preemptively put a note on it that it wasn't safe or designed for the containment or travel of organic beings.

He had some other things too, but these seemed to be the ones Tim were the most fascinated with. He asked a lot of questions to Tucker who happily chatted with him about the tech up until he asked a question Tucker didn't know the answer to and he turned to ask Danny.

Danny answered without looking up from the metal boots he was working on. They were going to allow the user to jump to great heights and deliver electrified high powered kicks. Tim then asked if Tucker wasn't the one who made these.

Tucker laughed and told him it was all Danny and jokingly mentioned that Dannys parents were evil mad scientists, hence his move to Gotham. Tim looked...alarmed. Danny pointed his screw driver at Tucker in warning, "What Tuck means is that I wanted to get away from the stigma of my parents being criminals, which is why telling everybody is counterproductive."

Tucker sheepishly apologized and admitted he had gotten carried away. Danny didn't think Bruce Wayne would disqualify him for having crappy parents but hes been treated pretty badly for less. Tim made an excuse to leave which Danny took as a bad sign. Crap. But he still had some confidence seeing as his inventions had caught the attention of Tim and kept it for so long. That had to mean something right?

---

Phantom knew that Gotham was "Batmans" territory and he didn't like others interfering on his turf but there was something so unnerving about Tim. He needed to find out more. He may have only been in this dimension for a few months but something smelling fishy had the same meaning in all the dimensions he's come across before.

So when he phased into Tim Drakes apartment under the cover of invisibility and found the cold case files of several murdered individuals going back the last two years alarm bells started to ring in his head. Last he checked Tim was in no way affiliated with the GPD and shouldn't have access to these. Then he noticed he had jewelry matching what one of the victims was wearing in thier photo. The same antique necklace that was noted to be missing from the victims body in the report. Upon further investigation Tim also seemed to have the murder weapons for a few of the crimes as well.

Wtf.

Tim Drake was a serial killer.

---

Tim stared at the batcomputer. He now had no doubt that "Daniel Nightengale" was some form of alias. It was a well crafted one he could give him that but after days of meticulous digging he found an inconsistency. Following that led to another and another until he finally had enough to unravel the lie.

Unfortunately it didn't give him a single clue towards the truth, at least not that he could see.

Yet.

All the same, Tucker didn't seem to realize the situation he was in. It was clear Daniel was dangerous if the gear he had at the presentation was anything to go by. Some of that stuff could give Bruce a run for his money.

Tim was sure Danny was up to something and would strike soon. Mad scientists usually have some sort of goal in mind after all.

---

This kicks off a period were Danny and Tim keep trying to stalk one another both in and out of costume. Both of them making flimsy excuses to escape one another- Tim because he's needed as Robin/Red Robin and Danny because he doesn't want to be murdered or outed as a "meta"

Jason finds out about both of thier suspensions by stalking them both as civilians and laughs until he cries. He then throws fuel on the fire by planting "evidence" that would point to Danny being evil/a serial killer such as hacking into dannys laptop while Tim is "visiting" Dannys apartment while he's away and making the screen show partial blueprints labeled "Death Ray Plans" only for the computer to crash when Tim tries to click on it, thus erasing everything.

He messes with Danny in a similar way, planting fake bloodsplatter in Tim's kitchen around the sink and watching the metas horrified face via Tims security cameras that he hacked into before later breaking in to clean it back up before his little brother got home.

Jason doesn't think he's ever had this much fun.

#two heros think the other is a serial killer #fanfiction prompts #prompts #dp x dc #danny phantom #danny fenton #tim drake #red robin #yum #robin #batman #robin iii #jason todd #red hood #robin ii #this was funnier in my head #the other bats find out about Tim stalking this guy and are like: oh he has a crush #dispite him vehemently denying it #most of the bats are like: yeah if my parents were well known supervillians id probably change my name and move towns too #Tim: You dont get it #Tim proceeds to show what little proof he has only to get a pat on the back and told he should just ask him out like a normal person #Jason is having the time of his life #i was originally going to have the cameras and fake bloodsplatter around the tub before i realised that was creepy in a different way #oops #tw: blood #tw: serial killer #i had fun with this #im still smiling like a loon as a type out the tags #long post

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castrianamore · 1 year

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Bitter, Had the Heart

DC X Danny Phantom Crossover

Chapter 1: to see or to mistake

TW: Graphic depictions of Corpses, Mutilation, vile smells

Tim Drake was a brilliant Detective. He was a shareholder of Wayne Enterprises. Middle child of the family really. He was working on his degree in business at Gotham U, as expected. He also excelled, as expected. Nothing could have prepared him for this, though. I’m all his years of detective work nothing was quite this gruesome, this brutal. This slow.

A horrified terror filled expression struck across two gang member’s faces. Their deceased bodies had entrails splayed over the alley and he held a rag over his nose and mouth at the smell. It wasn’t just the decay setting into the bones and souls. It smelled like rotten eggs, sulfur. Mixed with the metallic scent of iron and blood and disgust.

Nightwing landed next to him.

“Oo that’s not pretty,”the man whispered. “Damn that stinks.” Time handed over a rag to his elder brother who very gladly put it over his nose.

“You’re telling me. This is one of the more brutal and gruesome cases I’ve seen in a while…” Tim was trying to take in what he could from below. They had to have been tortured alive as they had their entrails removed, at least most of the other rogue’s in Gotham made their subject’s deaths quick, even if painful but these? This was a new breed of brutal and horrific.

Tim was frustrated. He was a fucking detective for gods sake.

“How many is this now?”Nightwing looked at his younger brother before back down at the bodies.

“8… I think we can classify this as a serial case right now,”he huffed. He pulled out a notepad writing things down.

Smell of sulfur.

Entrails spread out.

Claw marks on the walls.

Symbols written into the alleyway walls in the blood of the fallen.

Faces frozen in horror.

This was the 7th and 8th one and of course it was similar to the others. Smell of sulfur. Entrails spread out. Once they got the autopsy report back he high suspected the heart will have been removed and a bite being taken out of the kidney if there even was one.

“So Gotham has another mysterious serial killer whose signature is as gruesome and messy as the Joker’s entire existence.” Tim had been frustrated with this case since it started and he was beyond grateful for the help. A lot of the bats were in on the case at some point. Duke had been trying to do Daytime recon. Tim and Dick were keeping up with police investigation, namely Dick who claimed he was coming from Bludhaven to help with the case. Got them both the inside information.

Bruce and Damian were trying to track down anything and it had been all hands on deck to keep a watchful eye on the city. Cass and Steph were off-planet apparently dealing with something from the covert ops team of Young Justice. Barb was doing her best to play eyes as she kept an eye on the various cctv footage around the city, but Gotham was big and there was always crime to attend too.

Tim was stretched thin himself. He normally had shareholder meetings in the mornings at least once a week, sometimes twice, and after that it was to his college classes. Tim had college, patrols, the company. Fuck. Let alone the occasional charity galas and other events he had to go to not only as a wayne but as a head of the company as a whole.

Tim was running on fumes as this case was running him dry. That was another reason why Dick was in town to lessen the load on Tim. He liked college and he knew that he wan’t exactly the most social person let alone the most normal(look at his job?) but he did want to do things sometimes with his friends. Though, he was sure his ‘friends’ probably wouldn’t be around for super long. Having mundane friends outside of super hero life was hard, let alone a romantic relationship. He had tried with the other heroes. He had tried with civilians but the civilians just couldn’t understand the time necessary and the excuses he was going to have to make.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to pursue a romantic relationship but it just simply felt as if he had no choice but to not. Wow, he was tired if hid mind was going off on it’s own separate tangent in mind distracting him from the task at hand. Speaking of…

A small flash of one of the police’s camera’s caught him off guard. Unbeknownst to the group a man in black tech wear with white accents and a mask pulled over his nose was crouched by the body. Hands gloves and a hood up over barely visible black hair. He was taking a sample it seemed of, what was that? How did he not notice that?

There was a green viscous liquid and he just collected it, not just an incredibly small amount, but what was on the body at all. It reminded him far too much of Lazarus water for his liking, but if someone had poured gelatin in it.

“Wing,”Time stated wide-eyed at him.

“I see.”

“We have eyes on a potential suspect,”Tim called over coms.

“Do not engage, follow,”Batman’s words echoed back to him. Duh. They wanted information on the dude. The two backed into the darkness a little more as soon as the police-men turned around he was gone. Tim and Dick watched his foot catch on the ledging as he climbed onto the roof of the building pulling down his hood and looking around. Eyes covered by a pair of goggles that were a stunning and haunting green color. Then it seemed he spotted the bats even from their vantage point, and as soon as they noticed. The man took off running.

“Shit!” Tim exclaimed, moving to jump onto the roof to pursue .

“Red! No engaging!”

“I’ve been following this shit for months, I’ve never been then close to a lead Nighty!” He exclaimed moving to follow.

“Language! But, really?!?” Nightwing followed after time the two moving with ease.

“Stop!!!” He yelled at the black masked figure who merely cocked his head to the side running backwards for a moment before jumping across to the next roof doing a roll. Experienced in parkour at least as Tim and Dick followed suit. Fuck he was fast.

“We need to corner him,”Dick hissed.

“Don’t tell B…”

“Don’t tell B what?”Dick replied before Tim threw two batarangs at his target.

“Red!” Dick exclaimed as the man dropped sliding on his knees to avoid the first one but as he got up the second one hit his leg. Bullseye. The person tripped holding his leg for a moment. A small grunt of pain could be heard as he scooted away from the two of them. The way their face was covered left no idea what thoughts crossed their mind. Nightwing landed next to Red as they stared at the man backing up against the wall to the roof.

“Don’t make us hurt you anymore. Tell us what you were removing from that crime scene,”Red threatened, grabbing his bo staff off his belt and letting it unfurl. The person shook their head as they used the short wall to stand up limping heavily. They weren’t incredibly close to the ground at the moment. At minimum a solid 8 stories high.

Pretty far up Tim would say. Which made the next move shake him. The man looked at them and slowly shook his head and by the time they both realized what they were doing their hearts broke. They gave him a farewell salute with two fingers and fell backwards off the edge of the building and neither himself nor Hightwing could catch him in time. Both running desperately to the edge wide eyed with panic.

It wouldn’t have been the first time someone had committed suicide to escape them. Tim doubted it would be the last either. Fate had it out for them in that way. Fate had it out for them in a lot of ways as Tim would find out over the course of events.

Though they never heard a smack against concrete as they rushed to the side, nor a scream of terror. So when they looked into the alley way the man wasn’t there anymore. Dick and him quickly using grappling hooks to get down.

“What the…”

“Where did he—“

“Infrared?” Dick suggested they both moved to look around them. Just the coldness of the alleyways and setting mid January weather. It was freezing in this alleyway.

“Is that a bed?”Dick pointed out the small campaign at the very back of the alley. A few cardboard boxes set up as a table with a few remains set there. Messy soaked sheets sat on top a cardboard bed with a messy pillow half destroyed it seemed

“Of course it’s a bad.” voice drawing them both out from their mission. “I never thought this would be the way I finally run into Two bats. You’re in front of my sleeping spot.”

They looked up to see a young man(teenager?) he only stood about 5’3. He was bundled up with a hoodie and a black trench coat over it. A soft blue scarf wrapped around his neck, hands shoved into his pockets with piercing blue eyes and ruffled black hair being held down by the matching blue beanie. He looked cold and from the infrared sensors on him the man was abnormally cold compared to most normal humans. A metà Maybe?

He had deep tired circles under his eyes. Skin far too pale to be healthy and a guant looks to his cheeks. His clothing almost just draping off his thin frame. He looked like he was very very sick if Tim could guess.

“Sorry for intruding, then,”Dick spoke up walking in front of him. Giving him a nod that he saw it too. “Did you happen to see a man fall from what roof?”

The man shifted and looked concerned Tim’s eyes looking of his shoulders, eyes, lips. Trying to pick up any subtle mico expressions.

“I just got back from classes, man,”The man sighs rubbing his forehead. “I’m half asleep and running 3 red bulls and a pack of saltine crackers.”

“Can we ask where you’re coming from?”Dick gave a charming gentle smile.

“The library.”

“I see, well we’re looking for a man dressed in all black with goggles with bright green lenses and black hair. He was sporting tech wear. You can give the police a call if you see anything?” Tim pulled out one of Greyson’s cards after he spoke. “We’re working with Detective Greyson at the moment for any leads so you can call the precinct if you see anything.”

The man took the card tossing it over his shoulder.

“ACAB, so can I sleep now? Or are we going to be playing a fun little game of 20 questions with me being the epicenter of the bats hyperfixations.”

“Ah… no, not at all. Have good night,”Dick stated as Tim was trying not to laugh as the man grabbing him grappling them up onto the roof. It was silent as they got a few blocks away before Tim burst out laughing.

“He just…”another laugh,”YEET!” Mimicking the card being thrown over his shoulder.

“That kid is suspicious.” Dick huffed maybe a little salty his normal charms didn’t work on him.

“He’s sassy not suspicious.”

“But his body temperature was—“

“He’s probably a meta Nightwing. Don’t tell the bats that you’re a meta, remember? It’s kind of Batman’s whole reason for keeping the city the way that it is, to protect metas.”

“You’re right.”

“I know. The kid looked exhausted the only thing I picked up from him was that he was beyond annoyed that he had to wait a second longer to go to bed. It’s,”he paused to look at his wrist. “2am.” A pause. If we was a student the mostly likely place he would have been would be the library. Even if you were walking from Gotham U library or a cafe it wouldn’t have taken you two hours to get where they were.” The library and most cafes closed at 11 or midnight.

“What did you realize? You’re smile fell.”

“The university library closes at midnight.”

“Okay and?”

“And this part of town is only a 45 minute walk from the library.”

“Is he our culprit they both have black hair. Could be especially if he’s a Meta explain why he was able to get away from us so fast.”

“I doubt it, that kid looked… sickly to say the least, but he was definitively hiding something.”

“So what was he hiding that he didn’t want the bats to know?

By the time they made it back to the alleyway the mysterious kid was gone.

“Dammit!”Tim exclaimed. This case was frustrating. Everything was going wrong.

“Look we at least know one thing right?” Dick was trying to make light of the situation. “He goes to Gotham U.”

“Dick.. we’re going to find hundreds of people who fall under the broad category. Let’s search “Black hair blue eyes” into the student database and see how many we come up. Let alone the fact that black might not be his natural hair color.”

“Hood could find him…”

“No, Hood has enough on his plate with these murders finding a homeless kid is not part of the problem at hand. The dude didn’t hurt anyone.”

“But if we run into him again,”Dick stared at the quickly disassembled bed the few ratty sheets now gone. “Do you think we could get him to the hospital for some help? Meta or not his readings were… rough.”

“We can’t force people into getting help all the time. It’s one thing for rogue’s who are more than a little insane but a guy who’s sick in the alley way?” Tim shook his head with a sigh rubbing the back of his neck. “We’d be chasing after half of Gotham.”

Tim rubbed his forehead a little frustrated with the general turn of events going on right now. Why couldn’t he get a lead on this fucker. He doubted that googles person would be much help. They looked like an investigator themself but at this point it was a lead and Tim was desperate. Each murder was more gruesome than the last like they were pushing their victims and themselves every time they did it. It had to have been a beast right?

“We need to find the masked person…”

“Yeah no I agree. Whatever they pulled off the body they were looking for that. They knew it would be there.”

“Think he’s the murderer?”

“Probably not, but they seem to know more than us which is concerning in its own right.”

“Not wrong there little bird.” Dick sighed. “We should leave. Head back to the cave.”

“Best, I have too many classes in the morning.”

“You have coffee addiction, you’ll be fine.” Dick smirked as they started back towards the cave moving to write a report of what they encountered on their patrol.

“You trying to feed my coffee addiction?”

“Absolutely not, B might kill me with that one,”Dick snorted.

It wasn’t as if Tim could sleep even as they got back to the manor to crash for night after writing their reports. He remained long after Dick had gone to get some sleep. Eyes focused on the screen and then down at his drawing in front of him. A rough sketch of the new person of interest.

Those eerie glowing goggles were stained into his mind as he leaned back in his chair looking at the file they had created for him.

Name: Unknown

Age: Unknown

Height:5’3 ~

Weight: 115-130lbs~

Appearance: Black hair in black tech wear and a respirator over his mouth and glowing green lensed goggles. White motifs along the outfit with a white D symbol over the left side of the chest.

Status: Unknown

Alignment: Unknown

All these unknowns. How were they supposed to figure it out. He had to meet this person again. He had to find them. He didn’t have a choice. This person was a key in his case. He sent a text to Jason.

“Keep an eye out for a guy that roughly looks like this” He sent an attachment of the drawing he did of the rough outfit in greyscale and what he saw.

“Oh… I know that dude. The people called him Distortion.”

What?

Jason knew of him? How did?

“How?” Cue Tim’s annoyed thoughts at how Jason didn’t care to share this information with them. Any of them. “And you didn’t think a new body on the streets who has a name wasn’t something you wanted to share with the class?!?”

More little bubbles as he was typing.

“He belongs to me that’s all you need to know. He’s an associate. A valuable acquaintance.”

“Well your associate was found removing evidence from my crime scene and bolting.”

“Need to know basis, Tim.”

“Do you know his identity?”

“No.”

“Age?”

“Yes.”

“Can i have it?”

“Absolutely not. He doesn’t want to be involved with the Bats or on your radar. I’d advise deleting the file you’re creating on him. He doesn’t take well to being on record right now.”

“Why?”

“Don’t know Don’t care but he’s incredibly useful and I’d like to keep him on our side and he was very hesitant on even coming to me. He only came to me because he’s operating out of my territory.”

“At least the guy has some respect.”

“He has street smarts. Now back off Tim. You know I let you in on a lot and that’s why I’m telling you this, but him? Distortion? Let him do his thing. If he tells me anything I’ll let you know.”

“What do you get out of this?”

“An investigator.”

“You have us?”

“Not all crime is big enough to involve the bats. Not all crime I can do all the work for for myself. He helps me out locating information and in exchange I leave him the fuck alone.”

Tim stared at the texts.

More typing bubbles.

“You tell Dick, Damian, or especially Bruce about this and I will rat you out for the Yelen case.”

Tim would be silent after all…

He stared at his doodle, ripping it up. It looked like shit anyways. He rubbed his face frustrated really as he made no changes to the file. Dick didn’t have to know about what he knew. This felt wrong to him though. Not just the whole Jason apparently knowing of the guy. If Jason knew of the guy but he remained under the radar of the rest of the bats it was concerning, and even as close as he was to Jason he wouldn’t put it past that guy to keep his issues to himself.

He always thought of himself really. First and foremost. It had been that way since his return mostly. It wasn’t like he never tried. Birthdays and holidays he’d show up. Tim wasn’t going to like that he noticed the mans change in demeanor the past year had done for him. A decrease in murders Jason committed in Crime Alley.

It was subtle enough unless you were looking for it, it wouldn’t be noticed, but tim did. Tim did notice. It reminded him of that breakdown he had a while ago. The anger returning to his brother like it had been there all along slowly increasing. The pit madness returning with a full force nearly driving Jason away from everyone. Jason wouldn’t talk about why the pit madness hit him so hard again.

He wasn’t exactly a feelings guy. None of them were. Dick was the most open of the Bat siblings to openly talk about their emotions and hell Duke had the most normal of a life before it all. Even he was hesitant. They all saw the Black Canary at least once every 6 months and that was only after a begrudging agreement with Black Lightning and the rest of the justice league. Most of they, themselves, weren’t involved in the justice league.

It was also why Cass and Steph being asked to go seemed to set him off. It wasn’t his place.

“He belongs to me..” Tim whispered out the words with a slight possessive tome looking at their texts chewing on his lip a little. A small habit he picked up when he was lost in thought and alone. Usually only when he was relaxed and with family. He couldn’t let people read his microexpressions out in public.

“For a solitary man, that’s quite a possessive statement Jason,”he mumbled into the batcave before standing up and walking up the stairs to his room. Not that he got much sleep either.

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captainkirkk · 11 months

Text

✩ WEEKLY FIC ROUND-UP ✩

ATLA

Divergence of Destiny by Fernandidilly_yo

This is his life now, here on this ship, serving tea with Uncle and the crew. Traveling the world and staying far, far away from the ongoing war.

The Jasmine Dragon is Zuko's home.

Meeting the Avatar does not change that.

It changes absolutely nothing.

(Until, inevitably, it does.)

Tea and Cakes by ghosteyes

Zuko is having trouble pretending he doesn't has a problem with food and through a series of field trips with friends, the gaang starts to pick up on that as well.

Wishful Thinking by mindbending

Right after Boiling Rock, Zuko found Sokka sprawled in his tent with a bouquet of red roses, and a ring of romantic candles, and one final rose set between his teeth. With the littlest twinge of envy, Zuko realized the entire display was for Suki.

The point is Sokka's flirting is about as subtle as a buffalo yak. To miss it, you’d have to be a complete and utter airhead.

Stranger Things

Down in a Dead Man's Town by holyfudgemonkeys (erraticallyinspired)

When Steve nearly runs over Will Byers on that fateful night in 1983, he doesn’t expect offering him a ride home would result in both of them being hunted into another dimension. Surviving there is hard. Adapting to normal life again is even harder. His old self settles like an ill-fitting suit, and there’s no room for nightmares and fear and his new bond with Will in it. As he struggles to find a new normal he can live with, Steve finds himself befriending a bunch of kids and maybe (definitely) falling in love with a local weed dealer.

BNHA

Overcome by redrobin1989

When Izuku accepted All Might's quirk, he never expected to feel this helpless again. Sitting in on the interrogation of a serial killer, he realizes that the past can't always be left behind. Sometimes it comes back and brings with it a body count.

One can either overcome the problem or yourself be overcome.

DC (Batfamily)

Conference Room 2B by motleyfam

And okay, fine, Tim can admit it: his parents paying off a school official to circumvent social services just to see him was sketchy at best—probably illegal at worst. They really shouldn’t have done it. Bruce and Alfred would be furious to find out that they had. Not to mention Jason, who would go absolutely apeshit.

But–

But it was also just really fucking sweet of them.

Tim hasn’t felt this loved, this cherished, this fought for and desired by his parents in years.

Doesn’t he at least owe it to them to hear them out?

(Three months into Tim’s foster placement with the Waynes, Jack and Janet Drake decide they want back into their son’s life.)

Another Mirror by byrambles

It’s over remarkably quickly. The winning Batman leaves the losing Batman on the floor, still and broken, and Superman moves quickly to tie that one up as Winning Batman turns away. Turns toward Damian.

His shoulders slump, and Damian feels numb. This is not his Batman.

Anton Syndrome by Anonymous

Tim's parents have been away for six months and counting—the longest he's ever been left alone at one time—and it's starting to have some unpleasant side effects. Luckily, he has a solution.

OR, the one where Tim attempts prostitution to cure his touch starvation. His plan goes wrong pretty much from step one, but it all works out for the better.

DC/Danny Phantom

I Just Wanna Talk by foldingfacets

John Constantine beat the system of life and death until it fully refused to touch him anymore, and when it did, it never went well. It was a fact that the League had come to terms with, or those that knew, anyways. None of Constantine’s past could explain the kid in fuzzy pajamas that was curled up on a chair in the Justice League’s control room asking for the elusive brit.

Danny had barely made it to high school graduation only to be thrust into dealing with the millennia of bullshit waiting ever so patiently for the King of the Infinite Realms to look at. The fact that there was a weird amount of paperwork filed regarding some dude named John Constantine that looked like the weirdest form of tax fraud he’d ever seen was puzzling, and his parents committed that regularly. He has no idea what the hell he’s looking at.

Alternately: Danny is the inter-dimensional personification of the IRS for Death and the Unliving, and he just has a couple questions.

#happy weekend everyone #weekly fic round up #my posts #fic recs #stranger things recs #dc recs #bnha recs #atla recs

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castrian-amore · 6 months

Text

Bitter, had the Heart

Dead Tired(Danny Fenton x Tim Drake), Tim Drake-Centric, unfinished, the author is plotting, temporary character death

1/46 chapters | Chapter Length: 3,486 words

TWS FOR THIS CHAPTER: Graphic Depictions of corpses and mutilation, Mentions of vile smells

Chapter 1: To see or to Mistake

Nightwing landed next to him.

“Oo that’s not pretty,”the man whispered. “Damn that stinks.” Time handed over a rag to his elder brother who very gladly put it over his nose.

Tim was frustrated. He was a fucking detective for gods sake.

“How many is this now?”Nightwing looked at his younger brother before back down at the bodies.

“8… I think we can classify this as a serial case right now,”he huffed. He pulled out a notepad writing things down.

Smell of sulfur.

Entrails spread out.

Claw marks on the walls.

Symbols written into the alleyway walls in the blood of the fallen.

Faces frozen in horror.

“Wing,”Time stated wide-eyed at him.

“I see.”

“We have eyes on a potential suspect,”Tim called over coms.

“Shit!” Tim exclaimed, moving to jump onto the roof to pursue .

“Red! No engaging!”

“I’ve been following this shit for months, I’ve never been then close to a lead Nighty!” He exclaimed moving to follow.

“Language! But, really?!?” Nightwing followed after time the two moving with ease.

“We need to corner him,”Dick hissed.

“Don’t tell B…”

“Don’t tell B what?”Dick replied before Tim threw two batarangs at his target.

“What the…”

“Where did he—“

“Infrared?” Dick suggested they both moved to look around them. Just the coldness of the alleyways and setting mid January weather. It was freezing in this alleyway.

“Of course it’s a bed.” voice drawing them both out from their mission. “I never thought this would be the way I finally run into Two bats. You’re in front of my sleeping spot.”

“Sorry for intruding, then,”Dick spoke up walking in front of him. Giving him a nod that he saw it too. “Did you happen to see a man fall from what roof?”

The man shifted and looked concerned Tim’s eyes looking of his shoulders, eyes, lips. Trying to pick up any subtle mico expressions.

“I just got back from classes, man,”The man sighs rubbing his forehead. “I’m half asleep and running 3 red bulls and a pack of saltine crackers.”

“Can we ask where you’re coming from?”Dick gave a charming gentle smile.

“The library.”

The man took the card tossing it over his shoulder.

“ACAB, so can I sleep now? Or are we going to be playing a fun little game of 20 questions with me being the epicenter of the bats hyperfixations.”

“He just…”another laugh,”YEET!” Mimicking the card being thrown over his shoulder.

“That kid is suspicious.” Dick huffed maybe a little salty his normal charms didn’t work on him.

“He’s sassy not suspicious.”

“But his body temperature was—“

“He’s probably a meta Nightwing. Don’t tell the bats that you’re a meta, remember? It’s kind of Batman’s whole reason for keeping the city the way that it is, to protect metas.”

“You’re right.”

“What did you realize? You’re smile fell.”

“The university library closes at midnight.”

“Okay and?”

“And this part of town is only a 45 minute walk from the library.”

“Is he our culprit they both have black hair. Could be especially if he’s a Meta explain why he was able to get away from us so fast.”

“I doubt it, that kid looked… sickly to say the least, but he was definitively hiding something.”

“So what was he hiding that he didn’t want the bats to know?

By the time they made it back to the alleyway the mysterious kid was gone.

“Dammit!”Tim exclaimed. This case was frustrating. Everything was going wrong.

“Look we at least know one thing right?” Dick was trying to make light of the situation. “He goes to Gotham U.”

“Hood could find him…”

“No, Hood has enough on his plate with these murders finding a homeless kid is not part of the problem at hand. The dude didn’t hurt anyone.”

“We need to find the masked person…”

“Yeah no I agree. Whatever they pulled off the body they were looking for that. They knew it would be there.”

“Think he’s the murderer?”

“Probably not, but they seem to know more than us which is concerning in its own right.”

“Not wrong there little bird.” Dick sighed. “We should leave. Head back to the cave.”

“Best, I have too many classes in the morning.”

“You have coffee addiction, you’ll be fine.” Dick smirked as they started back towards the cave moving to write a report of what they encountered on their patrol.

“You trying to feed my coffee addiction?”

“Absolutely not, B might kill me with that one,”Dick snorted.

Those eerie glowing goggles were stained into his mind as he leaned back in his chair looking at the file they had created for him.

Name: Unknown

Age: Unknown

Height:5’3 ~

Weight: 115-130lbs~

Appearance: Black hair in black tech wear and a respirator over his mouth and glowing green lensed goggles. White motifs along the outfit with a white D symbol over the left side of the chest.

Status: Unknown

Alignment: Unknown

“Keep an eye out for a guy that roughly looks like this” He sent an attachment of the drawing he did of the rough outfit in greyscale and what he saw.

“Oh… I know that dude. The people called him Distortion.”

What?

Jason knew of him? How did?

More little bubbles as he was typing.

“He belongs to me that’s all you need to know. He’s an associate. A valuable acquaintance.”

“Well your associate was found removing evidence from my crime scene and bolting.”

“Need to know basis, Tim.”

“Do you know his identity?”

“No.”

“Age?”

“Yes.”

“Can i have it?”

“Absolutely not. He doesn’t want to be involved with the Bats or on your radar. I’d advise deleting the file you’re creating on him. He doesn’t take well to being on record right now.”

“Why?”

“At least the guy has some respect.”

“What do you get out of this?”

“An investigator.”

“You have us?”

“Not all crime is big enough to involve the bats. Not all crime I can do all the work for for myself. He helps me out locating information and in exchange I leave him the fuck alone.”

Tim stared at the texts.

More typing bubbles.

“You tell Dick, Damian, or especially Bruce about this and I will rat you out for the Yelen case.”

Tim would be silent after all…

It was also why Cass and Steph being asked to go seemed to set him off. It wasn’t his place.

“For a solitary man, that’s quite a possessive statement Jason,”he mumbled into the batcave before standing up and walking up the stairs to his room. Not that he got much sleep either.

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ao3feed-brucewayne · 8 months

Text

Blood on the crown

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/vm3g5FA by SkylarkSky She leaned over and placed a soft kiss on his brow, a covenant between them, a secret promise that she would tear the world asunder if it meant keeping him safe. --------- “Close your eyes, have no fear. The monster’s gone, he’s on the run.” She turned to the whimpering man before her. “And your mommy’s here.” She didn’t hesitate this time. “Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful boy.” The knife glinted in red as the man choked on his blood. “Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful boy." ---------- AKA: The fic where I accidentally make surprise single teenage mother Jazz, an overprotective serial killer. (She's cool with it) Jason is definitely swooning, cause that shit is hot. Words: 4809, Chapters: 2/?, Language: English Fandoms: Danny Phantom, Batman - All Media Types, Justice League - All Media Types Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Categories: F/M, Multi Characters: Jazz Fenton, Jason Todd, Danny Fenton, Clockwork (Danny Phantom), Jack Fenton (Danny Phantom), Maddie Fenton, Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, Damian Wayne, Barbara Gordon, Stephanie Brown, Cassandra Cain, Duke Thomas, Guys in White (Danny Phantom) Relationships: Danny Fenton & Jazz Fenton, Danny Fenton & Jason Todd, Jazz Fenton/Jason Todd Additional Tags: De-Aged Danny Fenton, BAMF Jazz Fenton, Anger Management, Serial killer Jazz, How Do I Tag, hot mama Jazz, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, or a Jazz, Torture, like Jazz is not playing around, She will fuck you up, don’t even think about touching her son, Ecto-Contaminated | Liminal Jazz Fenton read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/vm3g5FA

#IFTTT #bruce wayne #batman #the caped crusader #the dark knight #dcu #ao3 #ao3feed

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fyeahbatcat · 2 years

Note

Yo we're dying to know how you liked the batman movie pls 👀👀👀

It's been a long time coming. Here is my long review The Batman movie.

If you're reading this I'm assuming you've already seen the movie. Spoilers abound.

Getting right into it The Batman takes a slightly different but familiar route with the Caped Crusader. Batman has only been operating in Gotham for two years at this point, which immediately raises some inconsistency in the plot. Batman has only been operating for two years yet is already familiar enough with Gordon and the GCPD to walk right into high profile crime scenes. The other cops don't seem to really trust him, and yet he's worked with them enough times to warrant a bat-signal. There’s the novelty of a rookie Batman that isn’t universally feared or respected yet, but the convenience of a seasoned Batman that inexplicably has every advanced gadget and tool at his disposal, including what I can only describe as a flying-squirrel kite/parachute suit.

This isn’t the first time Batman’s early career has been covered in film. That honor belongs to Batman Begins. Where Batman Begins took a deep delve in Bruce Wayne’s psyche to understand the motivations for his transformation into Batman, in The Batman it is merely understood, or at least it’s supposed to be.

If you’re reading this review, I’m assuming you’ve already seen the movie, so I won’t belabor the point with a lengthy summary of the plot.

The Good

-The Plot-

As was implied by the filmmaker The Batman is not a superhero movie. There are mild nods to the previous Batman films: Burton’s gothic aesthetic, Nolan’s criminal politics, and Snyder’s operatic brutality. It’s a noir-horror film inspired by other noir-horror films particularly Se7en, Zodiac, and Prisoners. Paul Dano’s own performance in the latter film is I think why he was brought on to play the Riddler, a macabre masked serial killer who takes it upon himself of exterminate the most corrupt among Gotham society, leaving enigmatic clues with each of his victims. As Batman unpicks his clues, he uncovers an even greater conspiracy and the Riddler’s motivations which tie back to Batman himself.

The Riddler targets and exposes actors that contribute to the corruption of Gotham City. Thomas Wayne was running for mayor on a platform of change and revitalization for the city. After he was murdered the city fell into the hands of various mob factions, especially Carmine Falcone who became the defacto mayor of Gotham, operating in the shadows. While Gotham was being carved up by the mob with the assistance of the DA’s office, members of the GCPD, and the mayor the people of Gotham were left to mercy of criminals, drugs, and poverty.

The plot is solid. Given the inspiration for the film the use of the Riddler as the main villain is serviceable and gives an opportunity to see Batman doing significant detective work, which in the previous movies was more implied.

-The Penguin-

Colin Farrell’s unrecognizable portrayal as the Penguin, right-hand man to Carmine Falcone, was a highlight of the film. He stole every scene he was in. While darker and more Godfather-esque than Danny DeVito’s turn as Penguin, he still manages to capture subtle humor. The scene when Penguin humbles Batman using eighth-grade Spanish while Batman and Gordon just stand there looking dumb AF had me in stitches. I hope to see him in the sequel with an even bigger role.

-Score/Batman theme-

I’d hate to admit that I’m one of those people who don’t pay a whole lot of attention to film score, but when it grabs me, it grabs me. The score very effectively used a dark symphony and sense of dread and foreboding. The main theme by Michael Giacchino might by my favorite Batman theme of all time.

The Bad

-The runtime-

This movie was too damn long, and the film in no way justified its three-hour runtime. The first time I went to see it, there was about ten to fifteen minutes left in the movie when the person I was with turned to me and told me we had another hour to go.

There were unnecessary elements that could’ve been left on the cutting room floor. A prime example is Selina’s storyline with Falcone. It was interesting, gave her some backstory, and I loved that they were referencing When in Rome by Jeph Loeb, but it ultimately didn’t contribute to her development or the overall plot in a meaningful way and only accomplished extending the runtime by another ten-fifteen minutes. It felt more like a side-quest. If it had been only mentioned or cut entirely the movie would remain completely intact.

-Questionable morals-

Unfortunately, The Batman fell into the same pit as Joker by aligning the villain with a legitimate class struggle. I’m all for making villains multi-dimensional and even a bit empathetic however their motivations undermines the very legitimate issues being faced by the people of Gotham. In both films the movie villains expose the horrors of late-capitalism and the exploitation from those at the top of the social hierarchy. Every one of Riddler’s victims was corrupt and he is able to farm the legitimate anger from those who have left behind to cultivate a small cult following to get back at those who have made their lives difficult.

It is later revealed that Riddler has also been let down by structural failures and poverty brought on by the greedy upper class and the mob. The people of Gotham have every right to be angry at those in power, including Batman. By associating the villain with a legitimate class struggle it de-legitimizes protests and revolutions. Those who rebel, regardless how righteous their anger is, are written off as violent, radicals willing to do the bidding of serial killers.

-Batman’s personality/characterization-

The biggest and most egregious misstep for me in The Batman is Batman’s characterization, or lack thereof. To put it plainly Batman this version of Batman is boring and does not possess one iota of anything even remotely resembling a personality. What’s even more sinful is that Bruce Wayne was not used to compensate for this, as he is even more one dimensional than Batman. There is no charming, philanthropist. Bruce Wayne is a recluse, indifferent to his family’s history of philanthropy and the suffering of those around him, and generally detached from society. In one very telling scene Bella Reál, a mayoral candidate, calls Bruce out for not doing enough to help the city. Not only does he not respond to this challenge, he doesn’t even react. He has even allowed the city’s orphanage to fall into ruin. This is a jarring departure for almost all other versions of Batman.

If Bruce Wayne does not care about Gotham, why does he bother being Batman at all?

When BVS came out there was a revitalized discussion of depictions of Thomas and Martha Wayne’s murder. How many times do we have to watch the Waynes getting gunned on screen? The Batman skips this, and here it was needed probably more than ever. It’s supposed to be understood by the audience that Batman was spurred to action by his parents’ murder, but if he’s turned his back on everything else, they stood for we begin to question his motivations. Batman says that he’s about vengeance. He says that Batman is his family’s legacy, but even he questions the effectiveness his presence has had in Gotham. Crime is up after all.

Reeves includes some voice-overs that read like Rorschach’s journal, but they do very little to give and internal explanation for Batman’s goals. With each new franchise Bruce Wayne is pushed more and more into the background and Batman loses more and more of his humanity along the way. He’s barely human at this point. He doesn’t feel. He doesn’t have wants or desires. He barely gets hurt. Batman has become less of a character and more of caricature.

This depiction can lead to very damaging interpretations of Batman and Bruce Wayne’s character. It makes Bruce look like an uncaring billionaire he uses his money to hospitalize poor people as therapy and gives validation to the perception that all Batman does is beat up the mentally ill. The ability not to care is of course a privilege. Batman fans in the past have been very (and rightfully so IMO) defensive when people say that Bruce Wayne doesn’t use his wealth and privilege to help people. In this movie he doesn’t. He doesn’t care about his family’s money, (outside of how it funds his ability to operate as Batman. A bit of irony that he’s completely blind to), he doesn’t care about helping the city. He doesn’t care about anything at all. All he does is brood, speak in a very soft voice, and be rude to Alfred. To be blunt: this Bruce Wayne is just a rich douche.

I’ve already seen all over twitter people heaping praise onto Reeves for exploring how “Bruce Wayne is the mask and Batman is who he really is,” a common and unfortunate misconception about Batman.

The excellent and underrated story Bruce Wayne Murderer answers the question: what would Batman be like without Bruce Wayne? How would Batman operate if he was free to be “who is really is”? The answer is Batman would be willing to go to the very edge. He would become extremely violent. He’d push away all his allies and tiptoe on the line of his own morality. Bruce Wayne humanizes Batman, and they exist symbiotically. Batman wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for Bruce Wayne’s personal tragedy. Batman’s morals are formed by values that were instilled by Bruce Wayne’s parents. Bruce Wayne is Batman’s anchor to humanity. Without Bruce Wayne Batman would have no limits or morals and would become just like all the other criminals he was fighting against, with slightly more righteousness. Of course, writers are often too preoccupied with making Batman the stoic, hypermasculine, bad-ass to be bothered by such inconvenient truths.

One of the main “twists” in the movie is discovering the role Thomas Wayne played in the contributing to the corruption of the city. It is revealed that Martha Wayne’s mother committed a murder-suicide, the trauma of which led Martha to being institutionalized during her life. When Thomas Wayne was running for mayor, a reporter threatened to write an exposé so Thomas asked Carmine Falcone to deal with the reporter to protect Martha’s well being and reputation. Falcone then had the reporter murdered.

This isn’t the first time that the Waynes have been portrayed as anything other than saints. In recent media it seems to be becoming more common. Bruce takes this news hard. Given is well established indifference to his family’s work in the city and makes me wonder why Bruce even cares about his father’s tarnished reputation. As he said, Batman is his family’s legacy. His motivation is vengeance.

Over the years Batman’s internal dialogues have given readers a window into his values. He often talks about the influence his father had of them while he’s doing his detective work. Given that this was the first time that Batman has been given voice overs, this was a missed opportunity and could’ve been used to make sense of this contradiction.

Batman’s lack of personality hurt other aspects of the film. Which leads me to my next point…

-Batcat relationship-

I’m sorry y’all...the romantic chemistry between Batman and Catwoman here is zero. Compared Michael Keaton and Michelle Pfeiffer’s palpable onscreen chemistry and managed to capture the sexual tension probably better than any other on screen pair thus far. By comparison Pattinson and Kravitz are very limp. It isn’t that the actors are bad or lack chemistry together. I think they did the best they could with the material they were given. It’s solely to do with how Batman has been written. There’s not much about him for Catwoman to like so the attraction comes off as superficial.

To start there isn’t any real convocation for this relationship, and even by the end it’s unclear how either character provides anything for other. There’s no dynamic. In Both Burton and Nolan’s film meeting Selina Kyle gave Bruce Wayne a spark of light that spurred him into action.

From Travis Langley’s Batman and Psychology: A Dark and Stormy Knight

In Burton’s movies, Bruce Wayne starts off in Batman as a hollow figure, but he’s at least trying to socialize and maintain some pretense of a life. By Batman Returns, he has stopped trying to pretend. Gone is the party he threw at the start of the first film. Now he sits home alone in the dark until the Bat-Signal flips his Batman switch and his ideal self springs to life.

Selina must enter his life before he’ll consider revisiting Gotham’s social scene. The anti-heroine who challenges Batman and dates Bruce Wayne awakens his human nature in a way Vicki Vale never could–by attracting and matching both sides, bat and man. By the film’s end, he has discovered he does want someone else in his life.

In The Dark Knight Rises Bruce Wayne has become a hermit, he’s been retired from Batman for nearly a decade, and has given up on finding love or happiness in his life. Meeting Selina Kyle gave him a jolt of life. He’s back in the bat-cave for the first time and starts getting involved in crime-fighting again.

Here’s Christian Bale discussing Selina Kyle in The Dark Knight Rises

The character, Selina Kyle, arrives and she starts giving him that spark of life again. She’s stealing from him, but he finds it hilarious. He just loves how brazen she is. In a world where he is accustomed to everyone kissing his feet, this woman couldn’t give a damn who he was. And that just fascinates him.”

For her part Bruce believes that Selina is a good person deep down who, despite for mistakes, deserves a second chance. His belief in her inspires her to do good. Both characters contribute towards each other’s development, and by the end they both ultimately get what they want, it just so happened to be with each other.

In The Batman there’s no initial spark. In one extremely uncomfortable scene, Batman steamrolls over all possible boundaries and follows a woman (Selina Kyle) that he did not know at the time, back to her apartment and watches her undress from the window. This voyeurism is barely different to how Riddler stalked and surveilled his victims.

Batman and Catwoman spend some time together as their individual investigations, Batman’s hunt for Riddler and Selina’s search for missing and endangered friend, intercept but doesn’t come a moment where you can see an attraction or commonality. Selina opens up about her mother’s murder as a kid, and there is a momentary window for them for bond through a unique shared trauma, but Selina doesn’t know this because Batman does not reciprocate that vulnerability. He remains closed off.

I actually got a chance to see this movie twice. The second time I went with my dad, and I didn’t say anything about the movie, so he’d form his own opinion. After it was over the first thing, he said to me was, “what did Catwoman see in Batman?” My thoughts exactly.

Selina kissed Batman twice in the movie and, in classic Selina Kyle fashion offers to run away with him. Given Batman’s emotional closedness and bland personality it’s hard to imagine why. The first time comes roughly 90 seconds after Batman makes sexist and offensive implications about her. My dad made a joke that if Batman and gone off with Catwoman she’d get sick of him in a week.

That’s all I really have to say about that. I think this is a fixable problem, but they need to make giving Batman more dimension and personality a top priority in the sequel.

The In-between

-Selina Kyle’s Characterization-

I don’t have much to say about Selina Kyle’s characterization other than; it’s fine. Is it super-fantastic, best of all time? No. But it’s by no means bad either. She could use more depth and development (as could everyone else in this movie) as she ended the film in more or less the same position she started, but of the many characterization issues within the film hers was by not the most egregious by a wide margin.

This is probably among Zoe Kravitz’s strongest performances to date. She brought onscreen charisma and some much need warmth to the character. Warmth which was further amplified next to Pattinson’s Batman who had the emotional range of a piece of wood.

-Batman is not a hero…yet-

Because I just spent a lot of time being highly critical of Batman’s characterization this is going to seem like an about-face. Batman is thinly characterized, and his motivations are dubious. Batman is about vengeance; nothing more, nothing less. In the beginning of the movie when Batman unleashes upon a group of thugs who are attempting to mug an innocent civilian. When Batman is done the civilian begs Batman not to hurt him. To people of Gotham, Batman is not a hero. They see no difference between him and the criminals that he seeks to stop.

Whether or not Batman cares about the people of Gotham is unclear. Did Batman stop that group of thugs because he wanted to save the man or simply because he wants to stop criminals? When Batman and Catwoman team up because their investigations intercept Catwoman is concerned with finding her missing friend. Batman is trying to get intel on the mob. He even tells Catwoman to forgo a lead that might help her find her friend in order to get more information on the mob. Even Catwoman seems to care more about saving people than Batman does.

Typically, Bruce Wayne and Batman take a two-tiered approach to stopping crime. Bruce uses his money, power, privilege, and connections to enact positive change by way of intervention and harm reduction programs to improve conditions in the city so that desperate people aren’t driven to life of crime. Batman handles all the seedier things that Bruce Wayne’s money can’t fix.

This Bruce Wayne has detached himself from society and gives a very distinct, if unintentional, perception that he doesn’t really care about people. He’s not involved in things that might actually improve the lives of the people in Gotham and reduce crime. Even Batman admits that since he began to operate as Batman crime has gone up, not down. His presence has only worsened things, and yet he doesn’t consider adapting his methods. This makes Batman seem like he’s operating for selfish reasons. If Batman is only making things in the city worse (and attracting megalomaniacs along the way) and Bruce Wayne can’t be bothered to disrupt systemic problems in the city that lead to crime, what’s the point of having Batman around?

I’m back and forth on whether I think this was intended by the writers or not. Did proper characterization just get neglected, or is this just the start of Batman’s evolution as a hero?

This seems to get at what Riddler was saying was wrong with those in power in Gotham City. Many people in the administrative level were looting the city and handing it over to the mob. Batman is potentially using Gotham as his own therapy playground. Bruce Wayne doesn’t help as his money and privilege has isolated him from the repercussions. It’s the most vulnerable people who must live with the most severe consequences whom are forgotten about and left to fend for themselves. Riddler tells Batman the horrors he faced growing up in the orphanage, the orphanage that Bruce allowed, through his indifference to his parent’s philanthropic endeavors, to fall into disrepair. Because Bruce had money, he didn’t need to be concerned with the condition of the orphanage or what happened to the children who had to live there. Riddler resented that Bruce was given so much sympathy after his parents murdered. Sympathy that was not given to the orphaned children growing up in very deplorable conditions. Unfortunately, he’s not 100% wrong.

The most crucial aspect of this comes at the end of the movie.

Batman jumps into action and puts his own life at risk to stop a live wire from electrocuting a group of people in a demolished area and stays to help civilians escape and get medical attention. This is first truly heroic thing that Batman does in the movie. Because Batman is still early in his career perhaps, he did not really consider himself a hero and was operating as Batman for somewhat selfish reasons. This is the turning point where is decides that he does care about people and wants to be more than just vengeance. He wants to be a symbol of hope. The implication is that Batman will change his ways going forward.

This makes me hopeful that a lot of the issues that I had with Batman’s characterization in this film will be rectified in future movies. This is the perfect window of opportunity to reinject Bruce Wayne prominently and appropriately into the films and show a Batman that is actually about saving people. The potential is there.

I believe this is Matt Reeves’ intent, but I am not going to give credit for things that were not done or things that might happen in the future. To have Batman acting heroic in the last five minutes of a three-hour movie feels like a cop out. Will this be the start of a new hopeful Batman? Or is this just lip-service so people won’t complain that Batman just beats up mentally ill people? It’s too early to tell.

The Batman seems to suffer from Dune syndrome where the first movie is just one big set up for a better sequel.

What I Hope to See in Future Films

Shorter runtime

Get that shit down to 2.5 hours

Batman more dimension/personality

Batman being more heroic

A more hopeful approach

This would be a great place to introduce elements from War Games

Villains with superpowers

I feel like the studio only wants to choose villains that seem more human for a hyper-realistic tone, and think that villains with superpowers are too campy. We already did this in the Nolan movies. Batman has the greatest and most well-known rogue’s gallery of any superhero and there are lots of really great and interesting villains who haven’t gotten a turn on screen yet. There are comic books; they should lean into the fantasy. I see no reason why Poison Ivy, Clayface, Mr. Freeze, Mr. Bloom etc. can’t be written in a way that fits the tone.

Who am I kidding? We all know it’s going to be Joker again.

Conclusion

The Batman is a good, not great entry into the Batman film universe. The plot is solid and there’s never dull moment in all 176 minutes. Characterization across the board was a weak point in the movie, particularly of its titular character. If this is a Batman that Matt Reeves expects us to stay invested in, he’ll need to add some much-needed personality to future films.

3/5

#ask #anonymous #personal note #review #long post #the batman spoilers #analysis

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pinkiepiebones · 3 years

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please infodump on zsasz

literally any and every thought youve got on him would be amazing

i love how you write zsasz !!!!

And I love you for loving my writing!! As for an infodump where to start hhhhh

-Zsasz’s first appearance was in Shadow of the Bat #1 published in July 1992

-He was created by writer Alan Grant and artist Norm Breyfogle (RIP)

-Grant chose the last name ‘Zsasz’ because he randomly saw the name on a book in the library

-Zsasz was created to be Gotham’s Hannibal Lecter- An incredibly deadly, dangerous, cunning, intelligent monster in a human costume… minus the cannibalism, of course.

-Zsasz was first drawn with black scalera and white irises in Shadow of the Bat #4, when Batman grabs him by the back of the neck and pointedly tells Dr. Arkham, “THIS is madness!” This depiction, the opposite of how eyes look, was meant to represent Zsasz’s utter detachment from and lack of humanity. Over the years this depiction “evolved” into fucking Kamina shades because, hell, it was the 90s, I guess.

Zsasz’s backstory has been told two times that I care to recall*- once in the 1996 short story “The First Cut is the Deepest,” and in Rocksteady’s 2013 Arkham City game. In both of these instances, Zsasz is the one telling the story, which has always made me wonder just how truthful it is. Zsasz has no motive to lie or omit or exaggerate, but I’ve still felt like we don’t have the whole story of his fall as Victor and his rise as Zsasz. IF ONLY THE COWARDS AT DC WOULD WRITE A FUCKING YEAR ONE FOR HIM… (totally typed that as ‘for me’ at first….)

Danny Jacobs, the voice actor for Zsasz in the Arkham games, also voiced King Julien in the Penguins of Madagascar series.

I personally headcanon Zsasz as in his early 40s with anywhere from 200-300 kills

Zsasz started killing sometime after the age of 25- that was when his parents died in a completely normal and not at all suspicious as fuck boating accident. At that age, Victor had already graduated magna cum laude with a degree in business and started his own empire, amassing a small personal fortune. The death of his parents gave him a huge inheiritance on top of that; the immense depression that followed their deaths directed him to gambling (and, one can imagine, other vices), and within an unspecified amount of time (a year? Two?), he lost every dollar he had.

Victor Zsasz is canonically the only rogue who can successfully sneak up on Batman

Zsasz has absolutely no MO beyond “is this person alive?” He kills regardless of gender, age, race, etc. Diversity win! This serial killer kills everyonr equally!

In his debut, Zsasz was depicted as a patient far too dangerous to be allowed to walk free. He had a collar to which three guards would attach guidance poles to manuever him around. Zsasz was depicted as not even being allowed to have soap to wash his hands, nor being allowed to feed himself- “After what you did to that last orderly? He’ll never walk again!”

Due to the extreme nature of his confinement, Zsasz practices isometric exercises to stay in peak physical condition

I have been writing about Zsasz for maybe a decade now and DC continue to coward out when it comes to the rich potential Zsasz brings. I mean, he’s such a perfect g-ddamned foil for Batman! Both rich kids, from Gotham dynasties, both severely psychologically impacted by the sudden loss of parents, one young and with support, one an adult and with seemingly no one… Like, if the ages were different, if Victor had been eight and Bruce 25, would they have become who they are? Or would we have Murderous Mister Wayne and Bat-Zsasz? DC COME OUTSIDE I JUST WANT TO TALK

Victor is deathly allergic to pineapple

Zsasz canonically hates guns due to their noise and smell

Anthony Carrigan is a lovely guy but the character he played on Gotham was NOT Zsasz

Chris Messina is a lovely guy but the character he played in Birds of Prey was B A R E L Y Zsasz

Anyone who thinks Zsasz is the type of criminal who would team up with or work under the command of another criminal will see me haunting them every Thursday night at 11:46PM

“Streets of Gotham” fucking sucks

*(I guess his backstory was referenced in that whole Court of Owls bullshit but I choose to ignore said bullshit because they made Zsasz call Penguin “little bird man” and I hate it so much)

#zsasz #victor zsasz #mister zsasz #mr. zsasz #death mention #murder mention #ALL OF MY OPINIONS ARE GOOD ONES

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auteurcinemablog01 · 3 years

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Director’s Cut - Auteur Cinema

Assignment 1: Which themes and motifs are represented and articulated in the films of one case-study auteur?

Auteur is a theory which is often applied to film, when we discuss either a director or a writer of a film, this is a theory which can be defined by “argues that a film is a reflection of the director’s artistic vision; so, a movie directed by a given filmmaker will have recognizable, recurring themes and visual queues that inform the audience who the director is (think a Hitchcock or Tarantino film) and shows a consistent artistic identity throughout that director’s filmography”. (Indie Film Hustle. 2020). This means that the creative vision of the film, the way in which it is presented to the audience is done through the artist, in the case of film, this is the director of the film. However, the concept of the Auteur dates back further than the history of film itself, the Auteur theory doesn’t only just apply to film, but applies to various other mediums of art. “Auteurism, as it emerged from the pages of Cahiers du Cinema, thus not only imbricated cinema with the traditional arts through the ascription of director-as-auteur but evolved into a critical strategy for sorting artistic wheat from the generic chaff of Hollywood Cinema”. (Nelmes. 2003. 136). Given that this is a core understanding of the Auteur theory, it can be applied to various directors.

An example of director which this applies well to is Tim Burton. Burton has been making films since 1971, for the first several years of his career, he focused on making short films. However, this would change in 1985, when he made his first feature film, this being Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (Burton, 1985). From this, Burton would create various films which gained financial and critical success at the same time. Burton has had a presence within the Hollywood since. This includes his more recent films, this includes his remake of Dumbo (Burton, 2019). Burton is known for his visual style, with recurring Motifs present throughout the films which he has directed, not only is Burton known for the visual motifs, but the various themes which are present throughout his works. Usually, these themes are similar in each of his works, these themes bring an understanding of the director himself as well.

Themes

Firstly, themes are often present throughout the course of many artists works, these themes are often subjective to each individual. In Burton’s films, he often focuses on various themes, the first of which is a protagonist who often is excluded and isolated from the normality, these are characters which include, Alice, from Alice in Wonderland (Burton, 2010). This includes other works such as Mars Attacks (Burton, 1996), this is where the antagonists of the film are Martians. While the focus on the protagonists or antagonists which stand out from the normal within their respect worlds, there is also another common underlining theme which is present throughout many of the works of Tim Burton. This is the theme of Loneliness and there are many examples which can be talked about for this theme, whether this being Edward Scissorhands in Edward Scissorhands (Burton, 1990), the main protagonist of the film, Edward is played by Johnny Depp in the film. He is isolated from the rest of society because he has an abnormality, this being that he has hands which are scissors. He is isolated from the other people in society, firstly because he is different from the rest of anybody else, and secondly that people would judge him for being physically different from everybody else.

This theme can also be applied to a bunch of his other characters, what is very unique is that in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Burton, 2005), both Charlie and Willy Wonka, these are characters which are very similar to one other, in the fact that they are isolated from society. Charlie is isolated from society, and this is because he is poor, and the other is Willy Wonka, he chooses the isolate himself from the rest of society, because he felt shame for an event which happened to him. However, the more interesting aspect is that while these characters are based on loneliness in some sense, family is a key aspect to these characters more than anything else, either reuniting with their family members or caring for their loved ones, this can be proven when Charlie win the last Golden Ticket and thinks more about the money and selling the ticket, to help his family out, rather than experience a once in lifetime experience. There are many more examples which can be talked about when it comes to the outcasts, this is the one consistent and present theme throughout out the course of Burton’s work, even his films such as Ed Wood (Burton, 1994) & Batman (Burton, 1989).

This is the main theme which is present through the work of Tim Burton. It can be applied to many of his characters throughout his filmography. There is another theme which hasn’t been mentioned throughout the course of this work, and the main theme of Death is also present throughout the course of his work. This is present in several of his works, this includes the death of Bruce Wayne’s parents in Batman (Burton, 1989), another example which this can be applied to includes Beetlejuice (Burton, 1988), this film focuses on the protagonists played by Alec Baldwin & Geena Davis who are involved in a car crash at the beginning of the film and are dead throughout the rest of the runtime, and the final example would be Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Burton, 2007). This film focuses on the serial killer, Benjamin Barker, also known as Sweeney Todd, someone who would take the lives of individuals, hence death being present throughout the runtime of this film.

Motifs

Those are the themes which are present throughout the majority of films of Tim Burton, another aspect to focus upon is Motifs. Motifs are various aspects which can be reoccurring within either a text such as a Film, or in the case of the Auteur is present throughout the course of their filmography. Tim Burton is no different in this aspect. The first Motif to highlight which Burton uses, is a Gothic presentation of the characters, while having a contrasting visual style with the setting and cinematography, with the background juxtaposing with the character’s visual aesthetics. A prime example of this would-be the film Edward Scissorhands (Burton, 1990), while the character is dressed in rather dark clothing, but the settings are rather bright and colourful, an example in the film, would-be the local town. Another example of this would-be Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Burton, 2005), the world outside of the factory is dark and lacks colour, however the interior of the factory juxtaposes this, and the factory is bright and colourful. There are many more examples of this throughout the course of his works! Another motif which Tim Burton tends to use is German Expressionism Inspirations, this can be anything from the costume design of the characters or the set designs and way that the sets are made and look. This is because Burton is a director who loves this era of cinema and uses it to actually convey something, usually this is related to the characters and their mental state. Although, an example which actually isn’t related to a character’s mental state, would-be Charlie’s home in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Burton, 2005), the house is designed like many of the sets are designed in the German Expressionism Movement of films, this would include films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Wiene, 1919), and the mental asylum which is present in that film. This is common throughout his films, and a common motif, this iconography means that a Tim Burton film can be easily identified by the audience and fans of his work.

A common trait which Tim Burton uses in his film would-be Flashbacks, often Burton uses this for storytelling and draw out a character’s backstory or in some cases, it can even be the story of the whole film. A film which actually has a lot of flashbacks includes Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Burton, 2005), this film tends to have a lot of the signature stylistic choices that Burton likes to use within his films and is a perfect example in understanding the signature style which Burton uses and also when it comes casting as well. In the film, the flashbacks are used, to tell the story of Willy Wonka, this includes how he found his workers and there are even some more flashbacks which go through the past of Willy Wonka and explores his childhood, understanding the character that he is and why he has become the character that he has in the film. Flashbacks are a tool which the directors of films can use to inform the audience of a backstory, it is a creative method to use, they are only other alternative to this would expositional dialogue

Finally, motifs aren’t just the aspects which are stylistic choices which can be present, another would be the reoccurring cast and crew members, which also work with Burton on his projects. There are two main actors who Burton has worked with over the course of his career, the first being Johnny Depp. Depp has starred in many of Burton’s films, and such examples can be listed throughout his career, from Edward Scissorhands (Burton, 1990), up until their most recent collaboration which is Dark Shadows (Burton, 2012). Another cast member which used to work with Burton was Helena Bonham Carter, she started to appear in his films with his remake of Planet of the Apes (Burton, 2001), and the final appearance which she made in a Tim Burton film is Dark Shadows (Burton, 2012). While Burton does have some other actors involved with his works, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter are the most consistent actors to have appeared in his works. Another person who tends to work with Tim Burton a lot, is Danny Elfman, Elfman is a film music composer, he has composed scores for various films over the years with his most recent film being Don’t Worry He Won’t Get Far on Foot (Sant, 2019), his first major score which he composed was for Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (Burton, 1985). Elfman often works on various films, and has created some iconic scores, and some of these are from Tim Burton films. Elfman often creates music which represents the character moments and themes within the story and the film.

Conclusion

As demonstrated throughout the course of this work, the Auteur theory can be applied to directors such as Tim Burton. While the themes are not unique to Burton, many other directors have explored these themes as well, the motifs that he uses them, and visual style of his films make him stand out as an Auteur. There are various directors in Hollywood which have a signature style and tone, and Burton is one of these directors. He uses a certain visual style within his films, and uses themes such as loneliness, Death, and Isolation in some cases. There are also visual motifs which are present throughout the films which he makes, this includes the gothic presentation, juxtaposing the colourful visual settings which Burton presents his characters. There is also the usage of homage to the German Expressionism movement, this either being in the presentation of the characters or the sets which are used. There is also the common trait of flashbacks which are used for a storytelling aspect and build upon character’s backstory as well, to flush the character.

Finally, there is also the usage of same actors and Danny Elfman who are part of his works, overall, this makes Tim Burton an Auteur and the reason for this is because he has a unique visual style. These are the themes are motifs which Tim Burton represents and articulates throughout his filmography. These have been highlighted throughout the course of this work and bring about a clear light on his trademarks as a filmmaker. Burton has given some excellent films, which good characters and amazing sets, which make his work stand out, compared to other directors, but also means that the films are easily identifiable.

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oneinathousand · 5 years

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I wouldn’t be surprised if DC does more movies in the same vein as Joker and makes more artsy grimdark origin stories for their villains set in the same universe, and then they all team up to stick it to The Man but by the time they do Bruce Wayne is ready to fight back.

For funsies I’ve decided to imagine what some of the other villains would be like in this 70’s-80’s Gotham City:

Pamela Isley is a Patty Hearst type of person, a normal woman who gets involved in terrorist organizations to save the environment (Jason Woodrue is also involved in her origin). Firmly believes the world will end if all this pollution doesn’t stop, and also Vietnam was a mistake. At first the media don’t take her very seriously, calling her Poison Ivy to be sarcastic, but as her attacks grow deadly they begin to fear her. Eventually she’s caught and sent to Arkham as people believe she’s totally insane even though she really isn’t. (Played by Jessica Chastain or Amy Adams?)

Harvey Dent really tried to make a difference as a D.A., but having a mental illness that most people think is a hoax really sets him back. His origin story is pretty much the same as established in Eye of the Beholder minus Batman, though the events of the Joker movie helps make him more cynical. After getting acid in the face he believes that the game of life was rigged from the start and the only way to be fair is to rely on random chance. He befriends Arthur over their shared nihilism. He’s gonna go on a revenge streak and flip his coin to decide if corrupt politicians and cops should be punished or given one last chance to redeem themselves. (Played by Oscar Isaac?)

Jonathan Crane was a psychologist at Arkham. Around that time, he began dabbling with all sorts of the drugs popularized by the hippie movement, especially the psychoactive ones. The stories involving his abusive great-granny down in Georgia apply here, and it helped shape his worldview; as he observes society around him, he concludes that the only way to influence change is through fear. The final straw is being let go thanks to budget cuts for social services, so Jonathan dons a costume based on a figure he often sees in his drug-fueled hallucinations: a scarecrow. His “fear toxin” is basically a hardcore LSD and whatever other hallucinatory drugs were around at the time. (IDK who would play him)

Oswald Cobblepot knew what it was like to be at the top. His family were almost as wealthy as the Wayne’s. But as an adult Oswald made some poor financial desicions that left him broke and his violent temper alienated the rest of his family. He is deep in debt and at risk of being arrested for tax evasion. He sees the riots going on around him and longs to be a part of the movement. As a “screw you” to the family that abandoned him, he takes on the nickname given to him by the people who mocked him of Penguin and starts wreaking havoc on the 1% of Gotham. (Played by Danny DeVito again cause why not)

EDIT: Oh, I just thought of another one that would be a little different from the rest - Victor Zsasz is a part of the tsunami of serial killers that were around in the 70’s and 80’s. Like his comic counterpart, he was well to do but had anti social tendencies from a very young age. My version would not have him put tally marks on himself, but on his VICTIMS instead, because this one tried to lead a double life. He and Arthur do NOT get along. Zsasz has absolutely no excuse for anything he did, and no tragic backstory either. He and Joker become rivals who try to kill each other. (IDK who would play him)

And that’s all I got for now. These are the villains I thought would fit in most with the tone of Joker.

#joker 2019 #the joker #batman #dc #pamela isley #harvey dent #jonathan crane #oswald cobblepot #victor zsasz

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littlebitwriter · 5 years

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THE BATMAN 2021 POTENTIAL PLOT THEORIES, CASTING IDEAS & MORE

The official casting announcement for the title character of Matt Reeves’ 2021 film THE BATMAN had been announced a little while back. It is a done deal with Warner’s and Matt Reeves having agreed to Robert Pattinson’s visions for the character and to really make the character his own. This film will be a standalone with no connection to the now pretty much dead DCEU. Set in its own universe with opportunity of introducing different Batfamily members meaning Red Hood movies, Nightwing movies, Batgirl movies, Ace The Bathound, the possibilities are endless which not long ago weren’t with the ‘Snyder verse’. This film and potential Batman franchise will be its own standalone film(s) much like the Joker (2019) film arriving later this year in October, which also much like this film takes place outside of the DCEU continuity.

One of the most exciting things for me about Pattinson’s casting is the possibility of the Batfamily and I also like the direction they will be taking with the character. From what I hear Reeves is not opposed to storylines from The Animated Series as a reference point for their trilogy. I’ve been hearing things about Mask of The Phantasm which gets me giddy as a school girl and I think that film is the epitome of comic book adaptations, especially for the hero’s journey arc, as well as a lot of the other emotional aspects of a superhero that we don’t really see in Marvel or DC films. The fact that they are even open to including ideas from that animated motion picture that should have everyone screaming their heads off with excitement. I have heard more than one source talk about Mask of The Phantasm when speaking of Reeves’ script and that has me super thrilled.

Showing the detective side of Batman is going to be exciting since that hasn’t really been portrayed in live action before. Since they are potentially using the animated series for reference, as well as Frank Miller and Matt Reeves has expressed his fondness for the early years of Batman and it won’t be a full adaptation of stories like Year One or Long Halloween or Dark Victory of course, it will potentially be a bit of a combination between Frank Miller and Scott Snyder potentially bringing in elements from Zero Year. They are planning a trilogy but that doesn’t mean actors playing certain characters can’t be signed on for other films such as launching a Nightwing film for example. There will also potentially be quite a lot of Arkham villains. I’m hoping in Matt Reeves’ trilogy there will be quite a lot of animated series influences with Batman sticking to the shadows and having it pretty much be the equivalent to the animated series in live-action in parts. Also I’m excited to see more of Batman’s brilliant mind which is something Matt Reeves is going to really bring forward to the screen. There is a tremendous amount of things I am super excited for I have a couple of potential ideas for where this film and potential franchise can go. Considering they are going to film soon take all this with a grain of salt this is all fan theoretical nonsense. Here are my weird theories based on what we’ve heard.

The film will be set in the 1990’s and will be loosely based on The Long Halloween though mostly on it’s sequel Dark Victory and it will be a noir detective driven murder mystery with Batman trying to stop a dangerous serial killer copycat. It is a normal time in Gotham aside from muggings, murder, consipracies, criminal activity, and of course the Gotham rogues until a new copycat killer starts bumping off gothammites and criminals left and right it is up to the batman to uncover the mystery to find and stop this deadly mimic before it is too late. The scope and feel of the film in my mind would be inspired by particularly Dark Victory and Mask of The Phantasm (which in its own right is a murder whodunnit story with a massive twist ending that blew people’s minds even to this day.)

Matt Reeves’ The Batman (2021) will star of course Batman, Alfred, James Gordon, Catwoman and Penguin as the main leads though Robin will appear in some capacity and considering Grayson played a huge role in Dark Victory his inclusion would be very important and omitting him from this adaptation I think would be a very bad move since it would remove the heart of the story because in my mind seeing a young Robin work with Batman is something very much needed. Side characters would include Two-Face, Firefly, The Riddler and another villain who will play a key role in this story overall. Batman will visit many iconic locations in Gotham City such as Arkham Asylum to question his famous rogues as well as other locations.

The film will mirror The Long Halloween although it would not be an origin for Two-Face because I’m sure many people still have that tragic story in there head from Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. One thing I’ve been hearing constantly about the film is that the focus will not be on origins and it will show a living, breathing, established Batverse with this young interpretation of The Caped Crusader at the center will eventually lead to more of a Bat-family cinematic universe and help Warner’s make some of that MCU/Disney money.

With this film taking place in the nineties there is potential to establish a young Dick Grayson before the solo Chris McKay directed Nightwing movie. Also we live in a time where people love Robin regardless of who is taking the mantle, he is an iconic character who deserves respect.

As for Catwoman she is expected to have a role in the film. I think one of the runner ups for the role of Selena Kyle may not be a bad Catwoman. Her and Pattinson really look the part of Bruce Wayne and Selena Kyle so I could see them having some good chemistry and I can see her being a very good Catwoman. The Penguin is going to appear in this movie as it is his first film appearance since Danny DeVito in Batman Returns. He’ll be a crime boss but more swanky nightclub owner of The Iceberg Lounge and black market dealer rather than a murderous flightless bird. Batman could have a scene with The Penguin interrogating him for intel on the serial killer and outside of that I’d see him playing a fowl role in this film. I’d see Penguin being played by Josh Gad. As for the Riddler’s role he will focus on a battle of wits with the Caped Crusader since the character uses his keen intellect to challenge The Dark Knight over his lack of brawn, I’d like him to be like John Glover’s Riddler from BTAS. I don’t really see him as the sole mastermind behind the killings but he will pester Batman and it’ll be a great take on The Riddler hopefully. I’d see James Macavoy play The Riddler. Firefly is said to play a role I don’t see him being the killer but maybe he could be one of his victims. I can see some of the victims this killer hunts down would also be rogues too. Very Mask of The Phantasm style where there’s this killer bumping off mob bosses and costumed croanies.

As for the killer himself… The Joker is the crazy killer. The Joker being the clown mastermind behind everything would be perfect and a total wild card especially if Warner Bros. hid his reveal until the film’s release. That means no promotional material, no announcement and the actor would have to be cool with not getting a ton of publicity until after the film’s release. That would be very cool. That twist would have people talking for years. The actor I’d be interested to see portray The Clown Prince to Pattinson’s Dark Knight is Macculy Culkin. He’ll have to dodge questions left and right but he would be a great addition to this cast as The Joker.

CAST

Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne/Batman

Ralph Fiennes as Alfred Pennyworth

Bryan Cranston as James Gordon

Vanessa Hudgens as Selena Kyle/Catwoman

Josh Gad as Oswald Cobblepot/Penguin

Finn Wolfhard as Richard Grayson/Robin

Oscar Issac as Two-Face

Johnny Depp as Mad Hatter

Milo Ventimiglia as Firefly

James Macavoy as The Riddler

Macculy Culkin as Joker

This is my dream for The Batman 2021 movie. If it was anything like this, I would be very, very, very happy.

(Batman/Robert Pattinson fan art above by Diego Riselli)

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davidmann95 · 7 years

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Since you've listed the preferences of the Superman actors, and also have done a FrankenBatman, can you do a similar worst to best list of the Batman actors in your opinion?

Skipping over Lewis Wilson and Robert Lowrey, as I haven’t seen the Batman film serials:

9. Dick Gautier

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Adam West’s fill-in for a 1974 Equal Pay PSA, his impression is far from up to snuff, with not an iota of West’s hilariously sincere conviction.

8. Val Kilmer

I’m what might be called a Batman Forever apologist - as opposed to Batman and Robin, which requires no apologies - but Val Kilmer’s flat, passionless performance is certainly not one of the aspects I would leap to the defense of. I suppose he deserves some credit for being the last to wear an acceptable big-screen Batman costume for 21 years, but bleak as 1995-2016 was in that regard, no cowl is enough to cover up that he just wasn’t a very good Batman.

7. Bruce Thomas

The Onstar Batman may not have had a chance to make much of an impression in his 6 commercials - nor did he give any kind of impression that there was some kind of grand take on the character just waiting to show itself - but he did pretty well with what time he had, with some decent comic timing and a straight-faced attitude to fighting the Joker, Penguin, and Riddler that managed the tricky balancing act of showing a serious version of Batman who regardless still clearly enjoyed his job.

6. Michael Keaton

I’m not totally certain I ever fully bought Keaton as Batman - his greatest performance in superhero movies wouldn’t come until, of all things, his time as the Vulture in Spider-Man: Homecoming - but I still most certainly bought him as an unhinged trust fund millionaire who would beat the snot out of sword-wielding street punks and a sewer-dwelling Danny DeVito, and that goes a long way. Plus he casually backhanded that one guy so fantastically it’s been a cultural shorthand for how awesome Batman is ever since.

5. George Clooney

While he delivered maybe the 5th-best performance of the thoroughly amazing Batman and Robin, it was regardless a seriously underrated one. His Batman may not have quite found the line overall between serious and camp it seemed to be aiming for, but he still had a number of great individual moments under the cowl, he was a smooth as hell Bruce Wayne, and his work bouncing off Michael Gough’s Alfred and Chris O’Donnell as Robin was A+ all the way. If nothing else, his delivery of “She wants to kill you, Dick” was Oscar-worthy.

4. David Mazouz

From what fairly little I’ve seen, Gotham is an utterly bonkers and entertaining Batman show at its heart, but one utterly and irrevocably crippled by a delusional self-image of actually being about Jim Gordon and generic cop show bullshit, rather than baby Batman hanging out with baby Catwoman under the world’s crankiest babysitter in Alfred as supervillains ham it up at each other. Insomuch as there’s a soul to the thing though, it has to be Mazouz, who pulls off a solid performance of a Bruce Wayne who deep down is already very much Batman, but in spite of his willpower and conviction simply doesn’t yet have the skill, maturity or perspective as to how to apply himself yet, with all the frustration that brings as he figures it out a bit at a time. Seeing him confront his parents’ killer or hold strong in the face of Cameron Monaghan’s proto-Joker, it’s honestly difficult to believe he’s even operating in the same genre as most of his co-stars, much less the same actual program.

3. Ben Affleck

Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice has a boatload of sins to be held accountable for, but the casting of Affleck as the caped crusader to fill Bale’s considerable shoes was not one of them. His Bruce Wayne is simultaneously genuinely charming while having *just* enough of an air of sleaze that he’d be believably overlooked, while his Batman…well, feels like Batman in a way no one else has quite matched, with the kind of visceral, focused intensity and righteous hate you’d expect from a guy who’s spent almost of a quarter of a century trying to fist-fight crime into submission, with an entire unseen history of allies lost and ground wars against brilliant, sociopathic crimelord-artists, while still showing the kind of sympathy in his rescue of Martha Kent and encounter with Deadshot in Suicide Squad to make clear there’s a soul underneath. While he hasn’t gotten a proper opportunity to strut his stuff yet - even the most generous interpretations of this version up to this point hold that he was *intentionally* being written entirely out of his character in his debut - if Matt Reeves and Chris Terrio bring it for The Batman, I could absolutely see him topping this list down the line (especially if they don’t try and fix what’s broken with that suit, the first palatable modern take on his uniform that only makes him look all the more like he stepped off the page).

2. Christian Bale

If Christian Bale committed a single sin in his tenure as Batman, it was that when he screamed “SWEAR TO ME!!!!!!” in that one crooked cops’ face before dropping him 10 stories, stopping him right above the ground, and then having him fall on his face, he was fully conscious that it was the hypest shit of all time, and mistakenly believed his Batman voice should be at that level of intensity all the time rather than the lighter degree of raspiness he went with in Begins. The voice aside though - I think it largely worked given it was meant to scare the shit out of muggers, though I’ll admit it really did get to be a bit much in Rises - he was tremendously better as both Bruce Wayne and especially Batman than he was ever really given credit for at the time. It’s not entirely surprising; he was surrounded by bold, charismatic figures being pushed to their limits and capital-A Acting, while the very nature of what he was doing meant keeping it a bit more emotionally reserved. But his Bruce Wayne was almost immaculate in his grand douchebaggery, his sparring with Alfred gave us some of those characters’ best scenes in their almost 75 year relationship, and his Batman was haunting, enraged, and unstoppable. I suspect he could have been pushed a bit farther though; while I entirely disagree with the notion of Christopher Nolan’s films being cold and emotionless, I feel like a lot of the time he was played a note or two low in terms of intensity when taking it further could have made him stand out much more, and made clearer his actions under the cowl were as much an extension of his personal rage as an act to frighten the superstitious and cowardly. Regardless, he can absolutely hold his head high as the definitive modern interpretation of the character to the world at large.

1. Adam West

With every Batman up above, there’s always at least one ‘but’. They were great except; he’d be perfect if not; so on and so forth. That is not the case with Adam West. The superheroes’ superhero, he was the ultimate straight man to a world of camp madness, whether refusing to throw a bomb in a lake when it’d endanger a group of ducklings, making leaps of deduction that held more in common with dadaist poetry than criminal psychology with a 100% success rate, or somehow summoning up the willpower to not stop Batmaning to go run off into the sunset with Julie Newmar’s impossibly gorgeous Catwoman. The epitome of Batman as father-figure, dedicated keeper of public order, and crimefighting savant - as well as a damn smooth Bruce Wayne - he leapt off the pages of the New Look-era titles and defined a platonic ideal of decent-hearted superheroism that carries weight to this day. More than any to succeed him to date, he was a perfect, hilarious embodiment of his time’s vision of Batman, taking it to a level that can truly be said to have redefined the character to an extent no one else to wear the cape has come close to matching.

#Batman #Batman '66 #The Dark Knight #DCEU #Adam West #Christian Bale #Ben Affleck #David Mazouz #George Clooney #Michael Keaton #Bruce Thomas #Val Kilmer #Dick Gautier #Opinion

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