#Meanwhile he’s bombing some orphans
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wouldn’t it be funny if Fyodor had two living parents who thought he was just off at college but he was using his tuition money for terrorism instead
#We always talk about Dazai’s potential backstory but imagine fyodor’s#Imagine how funny it would be if he had two loving parents who text him daily#“How are your classes? Do you like your professors?”#And he’s like “hello mother classes are rather boring this semester. Not challenging enough”#And his mom is like “keep up the great work sweetie!! Love you!!”#Meanwhile he’s bombing some orphans#Bsd#bungo stray dogs#bungou stray dogs#fyodor dostoevsky
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Hi can you plz help me to understand. My feed is mainly talking about Palestine, showing the atrocities happening, wanting Palestine to be free and I agree the Palestinian civilians should be safe and the bombings and attacks should stop. But I’m failing to see why people aren’t caring about the Israeli civilians as much? They are also being killed, many innocently at a music festival only to never return home again. But it’s like no one cares about them bc they’re they enemy! But they’re not they’re innocent people. Just like the Palestinian people are. And I kinda get the war between both but also what happened was over 70 years ago most of the people living there now weren’t there 70 years ago so why should they still be talked about as though they’re the enemy when living in Israel is all they’ve known? It shouldn’t be just swept under the rug no and I know everyone isn’t just going to stop and make up and hold hands singing songs but It’s 100% the governments problem I just don’t understand why people now are failing to sympathise with the Israeli victims? And why some Jewish people/celebs are being made out to be bad people just bc they speak up on what’s being done to their fellow Jews? Not sure if you’ve seen Brett’s ig but he’s been very vocal and if I’m honest does seem quite extreme but ppl like Noah just seem like he’s upset and worried and doesn’t want harm to come to either side but ofc he’s going to show support to Israel when he’s been there to learn more about his religion? Idk what to believe in terms of news anymore bc some seem very pro-Palestine and others pro-Israel and some switch between both every other day. It’s just all very confusing but it has made me a little sad to see not many people talking about the innocent Israelis who have lost their lives and are still in the middle of all this too… sorry if this is too much I just needed to say it to someone :/
Okay, anon, I think I know where the disconnect lies: scale.
1,400 were killed in the attack on Israel, and that’s a horrible thing. Loss of civilian life is never a good thing.
However. Over 5,000 and counting Palestinians have been killed by the Israelis just since the Hamas attack. That’s not including the 70+ consecutive years of occupation and mistreatment continued mistreatment enacted on them by the Israeli government (It’s not something that “happened 70 years ago”, anon. It has been constant). They have been and are being driven out of their homes; their lives, livelihoods, and land are being stolen out from under them. 70 years’ worth of children have been and are being murdered or left as orphans.
Here are some numbers just since 2000:
And there is no “both sides”, here. There is no “war”, Anon, because Palestine has no army, while Israel is backed by the governments of most western countries, the US army included. They have the backing of the most powerful army in the world…against a people with no army. Palestinians, anon, are defenseless. Israel is bombing their hospitals and schools. It’s an unceasing massacre. Gaza is an open-air prison. The Palestinians cannot escape the violence.
So yes, it’s deeply unfortunate that Israeli civilians were killed, and I sympathize with those who were hurt by that attack, emotionally and/or physically…but they are not victims of genocide, here.
Palestinians are.
That is why we’re more vocal about Palestine, anon. The scales aren’t even close to the same.
This isn’t even going into the fact that Hamas was founded and funded to destabilize Palestine. To quote Avner Cohen, an ex Israeli official: “Hamas, regrettably was Israel’s creation”. Meanwhile, the current PM of Israel, Netanyahu, has said “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering hamas and transferring money to hamas. This is part of our strategy—to isolate Palestinians in gaza from Palestinians in the west bank.”
Israel’s blood is on its own hands.
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Gwitch and Minimum Viable Queerness
Trusting companies to make queer art is always asking for heart break even when it really and deeply seems like they made some queer art. However, despite my love for Gundam: The Witch From Mercury it must be said there is plenty of issues with the show that pointed towards the direction they have gone now that we've entered the post release era.
In the magazine Gundam Ace they edited our a writer stating that Sulleta and Mio were married. They apologized for that statement ever making it in to begin with on Twitter the X gonna give to you dot bomb with this.
This obviously lead to tons of angry fans and queer folks but it wasn't like this came out of nowhere. Despite some people saying it's just "western brained losers" or something that thought there was queer bait in the Witch From Mercury there is something that queer people forget which is that most straight cis people literally have no brain cells. They espically have an inability to see sapphic relationships as real or valid.
Gundam The Witch From Mercury was explicit, more explicit than a lot of media but they intentionally excluded the three universal signifiers of romantic or sexual love from the show despite it being centered for all 24 episodes around the Sulmio engagement. These three signifiers are an "I love you" "I Love You too", a kiss, or fucking. Gundam is a toy commercial for kids so while sex is probably not on the table it isn't actually even off the table for Gundam given the series history has had off scene sex and bad stuff too like adult women trying to seduce like a 10 year old boy. So like these shows aren't afraid to do some shit. Many say that Gundam doesn't do kisses that is a lie, Z, 00, Seed, and Iron Blooded Orphans's all have done kisses. I love yous also happen across the series, the end of G Gundam has a special love attack that blows up the last boss.
This is all to say Gundam: The Witch From Mercury activated a strategy corporate media called minimum viable queerness. In order to get the gay dollar, to seem progressive, whatever it may be a company will do as little gay as they can get away with to get the gays actively invested in their art. Ultimately, their aim is to have it be blaringly obvious to queer folks but invisible to the hets. The show also did the minimum viable amount of women making sure the men had utterly meaningless fights near the end just for women to be on screen less. These fights involve men who are not either of the main two girls getting mad at each other for some kind of connection or action towards one of the girls. These take up a significant amount of the second seasons run time not to mention one of these men got a full episode devoted to him. Meanwhile the main couple of the show was away from each other for the vast majority of episodes, almost never in the same room and almost exclusively on somewhat bad terms.
In the show Sulleta is the main character but in season one she is mostly piloting against men with one fight against a pair of girls near the end. Chuchu is given sidekick pilot status and lives to the end but she doesn't get her own highlighted battle ever unlike a side side character in Guel's brother who gets a major fight against his brother weighted against the fate of quite zero and Sulleta and Ariel fighting. Which comes after Guel fought Shadiq for no reason which came after Guel fighting Sulleta again for Ariel which came after Guel trying to survive in a mech when he was stuck on earth earlier. Guel was in a mech 1 more time than Sulleta was in season 2. The two other witch girls die in their first and second time respectively of being in a gundam in season 2 and the second of the pair gets maybe a word in with our main character her whole existence and never talks to our secondary main character at all. The action is still in large part being given to men even in the woman centric series.
And in this "queer centered" story we see very explicit delectations of feelings from Guel, Shadiq, Petra and Lauda which are all heterosexual ontop of all the adult characters being hetero, implied hetero E5 with Nora dying for considering being with a man and E5 sexually harassing Sulleta. The series overwhelming overcompensates for it's queerness by aggressively pushing straightness and in particular having other main characters want our lesbians heterosexually.
This does not mean that the writers or animations didn't want to be more explicit or that they did a bad job. they did a great job but we cannot know what is Namco Bandai and what is Sunrise. We just can't but it seems given recent statements that likely Bandai was very hands on in controlling the show. Not to mention giving it's first woman lead series a much shorter run time than most other Gundam series got and intentionally closing it off from an easy sequel series despite it being the most profitable series ever for them.
It appears to me as if Namco Bandai's intention was to convert a bunch of lesbians into gundam fan and throw mild gay bait at us to keep us coming now that we converted, far less explicit than Sulleta and Mio but attempting to ride it out in good faith and have us enjoy the men shows that appealed to boys to not break their delusion that they are making a boys toy for boys. Feeding us right into more Gundam Seed is like trying to choke out any potential life and I think we're gonna see a decline in Gundam sales following Gwitch representing the betrayal of these sapphic fans but more so simply the lack of interest in the bar being lowered.
As fans of Gwitch we need to demand better, it does work, we've seen companies fix statements about Sailor Uranus and Neptune before and other similar instances. We can also make them see if they want to reach the high highs again we need the great shit we get in Gwitch but then even more that the minimum we'll let them get away with is far more than the last time.
If you enjoyed this post consider throwing me some money on Patreon to help me make actually queer art without corporations controlling my voice. I'm hoping to write a bit more about minimum viable queerness in the future but I wanted to really just talk about this while I was mad about it and get it up there. Anyway, back to the writing mines with me, hope you have a great day and go out there and be gay.
#miorine rembran#suletta mercury#sulemio#Gwitch#G witch#gundam the witch from mercury#Gundam#Queerness#Lesbians#Queer Theory#Gwitch Spoilers
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I think that people have the weird idea that other people's liking for villains or desire to see them redeemed comes exclusively from whether or not that villain committed bad actions. And it's like, yes, bad actions are considered as part of why I'll like or dislike villains or want them to be redeemed, but there's a lot more to it. Typically it looks something like this
For instance, Emerald grew up as a houseless orphan, that's a sympathetic and interesting backstory. Her motives are to try and please the abusive woman she has a misplaced attachment to, that's a sympathetic motivation. She's shown care towards Mercury. Her personality is so interesting. As a villain her possible dynamics with Team RWBY who she deceived - and specifically with Ruby who she interacted with the most - could be very interesting if she got redeemed. Her writing was consistently good for six seasons and only just started suffering from bad writing in the last season she was in. The voice acting has been consistently good. There's at least a strong fear element at play in some of her villainy, that's at least a bit of coercion. She was clearly unhappy in her villainy. She's not directly abusive past her regular every day fighting. My sis and I started writing for Emerald when we did a 'V6 rewrite' before volume seven came out and I love how we write for her. And the rwby writers rushing her redemption arc and not paying attention to her emotional state so far leads me to just want to write a good redemption for her. So her chart looks like
The fact that she killed Penny doesn't make her unredeemable to me. I don't feel obligated to hate her just because she did a very bad thing. If she didn't do bad things, she wouldn't be a villain at all. People getting angry because she's done bad things and 'gets to be redeemed,' is weird to me because like, I'm just sitting here thinking about how the problems with her supposed 'redemption arc' to me are things like the writers bypassing her attachment to Cinder and not giving enough time towards unpacking Emerald's emotional state, and not giving it a slow enough burn.
While meanwhile Cardin's list looks like this
Cardin has technically done less worse things than Emerald. But do I want him redeemed? Do I like him as a villain? No. In fact I like him less than almost every single other RWBY villain. He is so much more boring to me than Cinder or Salem, so despite not wanting Cinder or Salem to be redeemed, I would much rather see them redeemed than Cardin. He might technically have not committed as terrible of things as... Every RWBY villain, but also he's boring, badly voice acted, I'm uninterested in his dynamics, I feel like every other villain is more interesting and also the majority of them are more sympathetic, and pretty much the only way I think he should have been given more attention is as a cautionary tale about how racists shouldn't be given law enforcement badges.
"How could you like Ironwood and not Cinder?" Because even though 'wants to bomb a city' and 'wanted to destroy Vale' are very similar acts, the act itself doesn't matter as much as the writing, how the character was done, whether or not the character is sympathetic - Ironwood was on the hero side for like seven seasons, he's going to have more people who wanted him to stay a hero than 'villain from the start, badly voice acted, and increasingly badly written for' Cinder who only got a tragic backstory in volume eight that many people felt was also disjointed and badly done.
Like, yeah, Neo tormenting Ruby and killing Little makes her a lot harder to redeem in the show, but I don't like her less, especially because she's existed since V2 and I started writing for her when V6 was still coming out, and I think it's actually gross that the writers had the disabled woman get her body taken over and someone puppeteering her mouth to SPEAK and then had her commit suicide. I'm not just going to obligatorily require myself to stop liking her because people who kill mice characters I already found annoying no longer 'deserve redemption.'
Like yeah, Roman's a horrible little bitch tbh who tried to kill a fifteen year old and attacks people with a laugh, but at the same time he's such a fun, dynamic, interesting, and well written character that I love imagining him as a good guy. Why do I like him more than Cinder when Cinder has a more sympathetic backstory and has been around a lot longer? Because the writing for Cinder has sucked since volume four, she's horrible to her underlings, and her voice acting has always been awful, plus Roman's possible dynamics with the heroes are much more interesting to me than Cinder's connection only to Ruby and weirdly Jaune when even that hasn't been well explored, Roman was a less serious villain making the transition from villain to hero easier for him than it'd be for Cinder.
People actually measuring whether or not they feel like they're allowed to like villains based on whether or not they exceeded some ever-moving bar of 'evil-enough-to-be-a-villain-without-being-too-much-of-a-villain sounds exhausting and very unfun. Like watch people try to justify why people have to hate Adam but don't have to hate Hazel. Watch people try to justify why people have to hate Ironwood but don't have to hate Cinder. It's so silly lol. I can't imagine living like that. If I like a villainous character and they do something that takes it too far for my personal tastes, I number one understand that what I personally consider too far for a fictional villain isn't what other people consider too far and number two I just cut it out of my headcanons and keep enjoying the villain and writing redemption arcs into my fics anyway.
They are fictional villains, the fictional actions they do to other fictional people in their fictional stories oddly isn't my only concern lol.
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Sharing some stuff about my vashwood2077 AU, simply because I fucking want to. Lemme know if yall have any ideas or questions
Vash / Nai:
- vash and nai got born into the arasaka family, but vash was incredibly sick from the start and it was unsure if he'd make it, so they just started to use him for implant-experiments. Best case it would save his life along the ride, worst case they'd get lots of new info for the development of new weapons, implants and the like
- the implants helped vash grow up and become relatively healthy and stable, but he also turned out to be immune against cyberpsychosis.
- vash ran away from his family once he learned that they want to figure out what caused the immunity, so they could use it to gear up for a new corpo war and obliterate militech
- vash has been living in the badlands as a single nomad ever since and kinda got adopted into every nomad family around night city, that he regularly pays visits to or gets patched up at from time to time. They just accept him as this weird orphan nomad
- nai, meanwhile, became the new ceo of arasaka and is trying to catch his brother, so they would have access to that valuable knowledge
Wolfwood / Livio:
- wolfwood and livio both "worked" for arasaka to gather few bucks, their "work" being to play test subjects for implants and the like. After a while they both left the corporation deal, since both were at the brink of cyberpsychosis at this point
- while wolfwood is earning money by doing gigs from fixers all over night city, livio lives in their flat, sliding in and out of cyberpsychosis and being a living time bomb.
- wolfwood tries to hide livio from the rest of the world and uses majority of the money he earns to buy medicine to keep their cyberpsychosis at bay, but he can't help but notice that the state of them both worsens as the days pass by
- wolfwood first stumbles over vash while doing a gig that consists of escorting and protecting a journalist named Meryl Stryfe, who was determined to write an accurate and fair article about nomads, despite her bosses concerns.
- Afterwards, lots of the gigs that played in the badlands ended up letting their paths cross once again
#vashwood2077#vashwood#trigun stampede#vash stampede#vash the stampede#cyberpunk2077 x trigun#nicholas d wolfwood#nicholas wolfwood#claain rambles#i left out a few plotpoints for the case i want to write the ff#but honestly im open to any ideas#pls i just dont wanna brainrot alone LMFAO
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One of the things about IBO is that if you listen to what it was inspired by, those inspirations serve as hints to the show's true nature.
Barbatos was designed in s1 to start off looking like a kid wearing a samurai helmet, only to gain more samurai armor as it evolves. Therefore, it's linking Tekkadan to the honorable samurai. It's pilot Mikazuki is even described as honorable in episode 3, but there's a catch. Orga said that about Mikazuki after Tekkadan drugged their superiors, tied them up, stole the company from them with Mikazuki executing those who resisted earlier in the episode. It was said because Mika accepted a challenge for a duel, something he rejects towards the end of the season in an act that Yaraon reported had him being called evil on Japanese forums. That samurai-armor was ripped off Barbatos in the final battle of s1, with Mikazuki being called a monster. Barbatos would then become more demonic looking in the following season to the point it stopped looking human.
The thing about the samurai is they weren't that honorable. That was PR after the samurai class was abolished following the Meiji restoration, where the former samurai boosted their image in order to look better from the masses. It was also this image that fueled Imperial Japan, this belief that bushido made them better than others and acted as a justification for what they would do to them.
The story was also said to be inspired by the Shinsengumi, who fought against the restoration. Stories at the time paint the group as violent thugs, but following the Meiji era people began to romanticize them. So, like with the samurai we have Tekkadan being linked to groups that were made to appear better than they were in hindsight. Even in the show, Tekkadan having PR on their side is actually the truth, with Nobliss Gordon in s1 and McGillis in s2 spreading stories that they are heroes in order to further their own goals.
The director said following the first season the show was a mafia story, based on the same events that the Battles without Honor and Humanity series, treated as the Japanese version of The Godfather, were. That film series actually went against how the yakuza were portrayed in media at the time, as outlaw heroes looking out for the common man and even the modern-day samurai, by instead presenting them as crooks feeding off the poor and not giving much of a damn towards honor or the code of the yakuza.
They all link back to the samurai in some way, but now we have another link to WW2. Doesn't help that the show's name, Tekketsu no Orphans, invokes the tale of the Tekketsu Kinotai, where Imperial Japanese sent kids from Okinawa to fight against Americans. Tales involve giving them two grenades, one to toss at the enemy and the other to act as a suicide bomber with. One of the survivors of this talked about being rescued by Americans and crying when he realized they weren't the monsters he was told they were.
The last quarter of the show also reflects the Japanese far-Right narrative concerning WW2. In that narrative, America put Japan's prosperity into question with it's embargo so they bombed US bases across the Pacific in a surprise attack. Japan was beaten back to it's homeland, where they tried to negotiate a surrender before being illegally bombed with nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, the yakuza gain strength in Japanese politics with approval of the Americans to keep the country from going commie. That's pretty much what happens in the show, except the show leaves out that Tekkadan being hit with illegal weapons was a response to Tekkadan's usage of the AV-system, which itself was banned.
It all goes back to this idea of false narratives, which fits when the director talked about how following s1 we weren't supposed to think of Tekkadan as wrong or misguided only to say that Merribit was the one who was right at the time following s2. It was this director who pushed for Tekkadan to be punished for their crimes by the ending. And when you think about it, it's really... calling out Japan over WW2.
The standard Gundam design is based on the samurai, and Tomino has talked about growing up post-war and seeing the adults trying to pass on their ways to the next generation. It's why in his works he's so adamant that we need to empower the youth so they don't make the same mistakes. Miyazaki has also talked about growing up in this era and being disgusted both at the Americans for acting like they're the good guys after nuking the country and the Japanese men who bragged about what they did in China. The things these men, supposedly honorable men acting in accordance with bushido, were doing. Fukui even got in on this with Unicorn, with Full Frontal basing his plan on the Japanese co-prosperity sphere which was, in reality, just Japanese Imperialism while making themselves look as though they're defending the rest of Asia from the West.
Fukuda can fuck himself over his claims the original show was based on Vietnam.
Even the special edition of the show plays into this, reflecting how WWII wasn't taught in Japanese schools and even today they'll spend so much time on the history leading up to WWII they run out of time to teach the war. That ends at Hashmal, right before the start of the final quarter where Tekkadan are punished.
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The Venture Bros. #35: “What Goes Down, Must Come Up” | July 13, 2008 - 11:30PM | S03E07
I throw this episode in with what I consider a slump for the show, but this one has a lot going for it. Jackson Publick calls this a “kitchen sink” episode, which Doc Hammer balks at in the blu-ray commentary track. What he means by this is that he cobbled together a story out of disparate ideas from his notebook of ideas. Most of these ideas are based on references. We have an Ant-man, a Hal-9000, and various characters cut from a VH1 Classic cloth all populating this episode.
Both Rusty and Brock wind up getting trapped underneath the Venture Industries compound during a mishap trying to remove the Venture Industries drillship out of storage. Rusty winds up in some underground tunnels, menaced by a shadowy figure (later revealed to be a guy who resembles the guy from the Firestarter video). Brock winds up locked in some kind of control center, where he encounters a shrunk-down man who’s apparently been down there for decades. He’s the result of an experiment by the Sr. Jonas Venture and forgotten about before his untimely death.
Meanwhile, Hank and Dean enlist Orpheus who enlists the rest of the Order of the Triad to help find Doc and Brock. While on the hunt, Orpheus feels an evil presence. This turns out to be MUTHER, the aforementioned Hal-9000 of the episode. She was created both as an personified operating system for the fallout shelter under the compound and also as a potential mother-figure for Rusty in case World War 3 breaks out and they have to move underground. Jonas also left behind copies of his video education modules he made just for Rusty, educating him on various aspects of hygiene and how to put on a condom. Jonas was a real “kids need both parents” bumper sticker kinda guy, I guess.
MUTHER had gone self-aware and was taken offline after an incident in which she spitefully pumped a toxic amount of mood-altering gas into the tunnels. Team Venture and a visiting tourgroup of orphaned children are among those effected. Jonas helps Team Venture out of there, but they callously leave the orphans behind.
Their brains permanently poisoned by trip-out gas, the orphans wind up developing a cult based around the video modules left behind by Jonas, believing him to be a god-like “father”, whom they worship. They also, as laboriously explained in a post-credit scene, receive VH1 Classic, which explains why they’ve each taken on the dress and manners of various 80s and 90s pop stars. This is why Rusty is eventually kidnapped by the Art of Noise and the little girl who yells “HEY!” from their one video. I remember the first time I saw this, I lost my mind. What a reference!
The good news is, MUTHER has been taken offline. The bad news is, one of the boys plugs her back in. She demands to see Jonas, and to show that she’s serious she threatens to deploy a nuclear warhead. Meanwhile, Rusty is ironically deemed a non-Rusty by the cult, who all call themselves Rusty because the Jonas Ventures edu-tapes address “Rusty” directly.
The real Rusty pulls the video out of their machine attempting to intimidate them. This doesn't work, so he has to flee from their wrath by hiding in the missile silo just as MUTHER's bomb is about to be launched. He clutches the nosecone of the missile, which does not actually launch successfully. It teeters over, and the warhead pops off, spilling sewage everywhere. Turns out the cult were storing their waste in there. In a post-credits scene, we see Brock set up a monitor in front of MUTHER with one of Jonas’s video modules playing. She thinks he’s the real deal and awkwardly interacts with it.
The story is pretty solid in this one, but it still feels slightly overstuffed. The Antman guy feels tacked on. This episode suffers a loss: a scene featuring H. Jon Benjamin as the master, who is now in the form of Doug Henning. Apparently that character model was used in the VH1 Classic Cult crowd scene without Jackson or Doc’s approval. The deleted scene is on the DVD, and like most of the deleted scenes it was deleted before animation was done. This was also done before they recorded the radio play for the episode, so Jackson is doing a scratch-track that sounds like he’s doing a Pete White voice.
I don’t think this is one of the best episodes, but I do think it’s pretty good, and has some really inspired moments. A lot of season three episodes feel like the humor is an afterthought. The jokes in this one are good enough for me to not think that about this one. But this being a high-point in season three says more about season three than it does about this episode.
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i did mean reggie but now im curious about the barry reginald hcs
*evilly rubs hands together* >:)
Alright SO! I got most of these hcs down in an unfinished fic of mine, and have been able to properly develop my hcs for Barry in the rp im doing with my gf, so I got plenty to talk about
So, Barry had been a single father to his son, who's unnamed because me and my gf decided Lionel's dad is an asshole and he doesnt deserve a name, Barry's wife (Susannah, name based off the in game file name for the Rootbeer Tender theme, Oh_Susannah, which is shortened in the official soundtrack as just being,,,t h a t 3 letter word) having died shortly after giving birth due to health complications. I might change the reason for her death but that's the current idea.
One night when Lionel's dad was ~3, Barry had left his son with a babysitter so he could go for a night out with some coworkers (he was. talked into it. after lots of talking). Weeeell things took a turn for the worse, and Barry was attacked in an alleyway, having originally been left to slowly die. Well, our good friend mister satan himself, aka Lou Natas finds him. He offers, in exchange for Barry's soul, he heals Barry's wounds so he can get home to his son. Barry only agrees because he doesn't want his son to be an orphan.
The two dont see each other for a while after that. When Barry's in his late 40's or so, Lionel's born. And seeing how Lionel's parents suck at the whole parenting thing (despite barry trying his best to get them to STOP being shitty parents), Barry pretty much ends up becoming Lionel's parental figure. Like. Barry calls him son and Lionel calls him dad.
He and Lou eventually bump into each other again, and Lou insists on chatting, and also insists on exchanging numbers. Barry begrudgingly agrees, and they go on with their lives, with Lou contacing Barry often to chat. Much better than talking to his annoying ass demon employees who can't do their jobs to save their fucking lives.
Anyways, moving on from Lou being a shitty boss, he eventually calls Barry asking for a favour, that he needs something retrieved for him. He even offers to give Barry his soul back. Barry agrees, and then ten seconds later finds out he’s stealing files from the Russian government. But he’s already agreed, so he isn’t allowed to chicken out now. By Barry’s request, Lou gives him one last month before they head to Russia.
At the end of that month, the Wilkinson-Snill family gets a call the morning after he leaves saying that Barry died overnight. Lou creates a fake body for the funeral and everything.
Meanwhile, Barry’s arriving in Russia with Lou, who insisted on tagging along. Only reason Lou needed help is because the Russian gov. Is already witch-hunting his ass so he can’t go near them. Barry’s wishing he really was dead right now.
They stay in a cabin together, and Barry starts working out by a nearby, frozen over pond. Because he’s basically a spy, he might as well be able to defend himself.
Well, Lou, the idiot devil he is, ends up catching feelings. The relationship is rather short lived, since Barry’s too good of a person to be able to comfortably date Lou, and it’s just kinda. Very awkward. At this point, Lou can’t run his game business, Gamefuna, overseas anymore. He heads back, visiting Barry every so often to check up on his process. At this point, Gamefuna’s purchased and butchered the SWK franchise.
Barry does eventually manage to get the OLD_DATA, getting it safely contained on a floppy disk. Well, the Russian government finds out, and now the cops are fuckin looking for him. He manages to ship off the floppy disk in a large box of them to one of Lou’s acquaintances, Kaminski, before getting shot and killed. Secrets of Legendaria bombs a few weeks later.
To add onto that, because I have a personal timeline of events that fit into any dmg content I make, progress on Inscryption starts at around the same time as Waste World. And Lionel still thinks his grandpa died of health issues.
#the hex#the hex game#scov.txt#inscryption#barry reginald wilkinson#reginald wilkinson#lou natas#lionel snill#no one else is frequent enough to be tagged
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Emissary of Auspices
At the age of eleven, Fusajiro Tezuka, a future nuclear physicist, fled wartorn Japan in the late 1940s and settled in Fairfax County, Virginia.
Tezuka was a straight A student and following high school, he graduated from Columbia University egregia cum laude and decided to study abroad at Cambridge University in England. His PhD thesis was rather in-depth in its analysis of nuclear fission and nuclear fusion reactions and their implications on a number of scientifically driven twentieth century innovations of highly significant technical pre-eminence.
Fusajiro had a shot at working for RAND corporation, but this was intercepted by his seemingly sudden habitual use of lysergic acid diethylamide after meeting a certain Harvard psychology lecturer turned psychonaut revolutionary.
Meanwhile, Fusajiro’s brother, Gunpei, had just arrived in America eager for a fresh start and unprecedented opportunities. Gunpei was a mathematics prodigy with a somewhat self-righteous disposition and was two years Fusajiro’s senior. Their maternal uncle, Hamato Yamauchi, accompanied Gunpei on his emigration.
Soon enough, Fusajiro kicked his acid habit and was back on the straight and narrow. He may have been subconsciously motivated to do this by the fact that his holier-than-thou brother had just made his way into the States. Their bond was initially strong during early childhood, but they eventually came to almost hate each other in what was indeed a case of sibling rivalry that bordered on resentment. Fusajiro was quite agitated over his elder brother’s claims at superior intelligence, which Gunpei picked up on. The truth was that they were pretty close in terms of intellect, however Fusajiro was maybe five to eight IQ points ahead of Gunpei and was quite a bit more knowledgeable. Uncle Hamato was not anything special when it came to intelligence, but he was very cordial and genuinely cared for his nephews. He loved them as though they were his own children as he had no progeny of his own. The Tezuka brothers’ mother had been killed in the bombing of Nagasaki (Hamato and his nephews were vacationing to Okinawa at the time) and their father died during a Kamikazi mission, leaving none other than Hamato Yamauchi to raise the orphaned children.
Fusajiro Tezuka had fortunately formed alliances with some rather powerful people during his studies at Columbia. His connections were able to pull a few strings for him which led to Fusajiro landing a job at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in the Pentagon. He and 175 of what may very well have been his intellectual equals made the concerted effort at creating a small army of quasi-immortal super-soldiers, who were armed to the teeth with ineffably advanced weaponry and state-of-the-art kevlar. They had peak physical conditioning, with cardiovascular endurance which surpassed that of even the greatest professional athletes. Dr. Fusajiro Tezuka had lent a wealth of expertise and crucial information regarding the augmentations to be made to the inductees of the super-soldier program, who had been recruited from 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-delta and the Naval Special Warfare Development Group. Additionally, a handful of the finest reconnaissance Marines had been selected.
Meanwhile, the 1970s had arrived, and Gunpei had written a number of treatises on social issues as well as pure mathematics, which won a moderate amount of critical acclaim and allowed him to live comfortably. He’d also been giving lectures at state university graduation ceremonies due to his achievements in academia. In 1973, Gunpei and Fusajiro happened to stumble upon one another when Fusajiro had taken a two week vacation from his work for the Department of Defense. At this time, Gunpei had become more humble and the brothers actually struck a conciliatory tone. They decided it would be best if they put their heads together on future projects. Fusajiro had become morally conflicted regarding his work for the government, and upon expressing that to Gunpei, the two agreed that a mind such as Fusajiro’s was best applied to more meaningful purposes than creating a band of state-sponsored killing machines.
While it may have been practically unheard of, the Tezuka brothers, both prominent members of academia, decided to turn to a life of organized crime. They drew up schematics of some of the most prolific cash repositories in the country, and decided to hit the Federal Reserve on July 4, 1976. They’d hired a team of about seventeen mercenaries and career criminals to assist them in their exploits, and the Tezuka brothers were deemed the ringleaders by the district attorney weeks after the job was compromised when the brothers and their accomplices were nearly killed by authorities.
Due to the extremely high profile nature of their crimes, Fusajiro and Gunpei had no trouble whatsoever finding the best legal representation. Their henchmen/underlings had cooperated with the police, signing deals left and right to save themselves from imprisonment.
The trial resulted in a guilty verdict, and the Tezuka brothers were stripped of their citizenship and subsequently deported back to their native Japan. They lived out the remainder of their years in Osaka.
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N/A = Majin Buu just be existing for the lolz
??? = lmao, the balls that are very Super were made
??? = The gods were having so much drama without Gowasu existing
??? = Who is dafuq is Yamoshi? He fought his race and his race won-
??? = back then, Tapion was just that guy... now sealed in a little box
261 = rip Classic Namek, maybe...
461 = Roshi gets traumatized by King Piccolo or something
732 = King Vegeta gets punked by his old boss's tiny ahh son
734 = Goku is born
749 = Goku's adventure begins
750 = Goku competes in his first tournament
753 = Goku dogs King Piccolo after drinking special water
756 = Junior gets dogged too cuz Goku was trained by like... God
761 = Goku dies
762 = The Saiyans attack and "broski" goes Super Saiyan
763-ish = Cell is bitch-made and devolves after sneaking Trunks
764 = Mecha Freeza gets diced the figgity fuck up and blown-out
767 = The Butterfly Effect bullies Trunks, Vegeta, Cell & 17
774 = The Super Saiyan Bargain Sale is real and peeps forget Buu
778 = Goku kinda becomes a god or something like that
779 = Ayo- there's a couple of Super Saiyan God: Super Saiyans
780 = Go Broly Go Go! Go Broly Go Go! Oh, and a Gohan dies, lmao
780? = Moro swallows a guy and gets neck to go Ultra, but crumbles
781? = Granolah & Gas cheat at life, then Freeza gets a paint-job
782? = Goten & Trunks steal Gohan's entire flow + Trunks simps hard
783 = Gohan Blanco is REAL?!?! minus the blue skin though
784 = Goku sets off to train Uub in off-screen land for eternity
789 = But that other Goku though... He gets turned into a kid!
790 = NOBODY CAN BEAT ME WHEN I'M SUPER 17 & Goku ascends
790 = Meanwhile in another timeline, Miss Buu is born! OMG
791 = Can Majins fuck? Probably, 'cause they become an entire race
793 = Satan retires only to try scamming another way
794 = Pan low-key creates Hero Colosseum; Remote Fighting frfr
796 = Pan teaches randoms how to use their ki
801 = Goku & Vegeta probably kill each other or something
804 = Gohan finally sliced Katchin and wrote a book about it
805 = Goten & Trunks gets zesty with a sword
820 = Satan dies and the Freeza Force try to RoF without a Freeza
821 = Tien & Krillin create schools... Fighting schools...
826 = Yajirobe finally decides to plant some damn beans
834 = Majin Mani Mani is the REALEST Majin to ever Majin, dying
850 = ATTENTION ALL PROUD WARRIORS, HAVE YOU CONSIDE-
851 = Mira bombs Namek with... A SPIRIT BOMB?! Bro cheating
852 = Mira fucking dies, but not before going monkey
889 = OMG Goku Jr. & Vegeta Jr?? What's the Change!Goku doing?
890 = Hi, Beat! Hi, Ultimate Tenkaichi. The world's ending... again...?
900 = The Yardrats really got put on Time Machine construction
940 = Something something, Evil Namekians (hi) start hacking eggs
991 = General Bon, the Animal-human nationalist creates Red.. Pants
998 = Mira threatens Earth and Piccolo... orphans many, legally
999 = Trunks cant help but do Time Breaker shit by snitching on Mira
1000 = Just about everybody's able to box with ki now
2016 = Tekka & Pinich let their intrusive thoughts fuck time-space
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Story concept 17 conclusion
The war was almost over. The Allies had invaded Germany from the west and the Soviet Union from the east. The Nazi regime was collapsing. The resistance fighters had played a crucial role in sabotaging and undermining the enemy’s operations. They had also uncovered and exposed some of the Nazi’s darkest secrets, such as the experiments at Le Château de la Folie.
One of the secrets that they had revealed was the existence of the creature that had killed Jacques and his group. The creature was the result of a secret project called “Projekt Walrider”, which aimed to create a super-soldier using a combination of human and reptilian DNA, enhanced by a mysterious substance called “Morphogenic Engine”. The project was led by a German scientist named Dr. Rudolf Wernicke, who had a vision of creating a new world order under the rule of the “Ubermensch”.
The creature was the only successful specimen of the project, but it was also uncontrollable and unstable. It had escaped from the laboratory and rampaged through the asylum, killing anyone in its path. It had also developed a psychic link with Wernicke, who was the only one who could communicate with it and command it. Wernicke had planned to use the creature as a weapon against the Allies, but his plan was foiled by the resistance fighters, who had infiltrated the asylum and taken pictures of the experiments. They had sent the pictures to the Allied forces, who had launched an airstrike on the asylum, destroying it and killing most of the Nazi scientists and soldiers inside.
However, Wernicke and the creature had survived the attack. They had escaped through the underground tunnels and made their way to a secret bunker, where they had hidden and waited for the war to end. Wernicke had hoped to rebuild his project and resume his research, but he had no resources or allies. He was alone and isolated.
Meanwhile, the war had ended with the defeat of the Nazis and the division of Germany into four zones of occupation: American, British, French, and Soviet. The Allies had also agreed to share the scientific and technological discoveries and achievements of the Nazis, such as the rocket, the jet, the atomic bomb, and the Morphogenic Engine. However, the Soviet Union had a different agenda. They had learned of Wernicke’s project and the creature, and they had become interested in acquiring them for their own purposes. They had sent a group of spies and scientists, disguised as refugees, to track down and capture Wernicke and the creature. They had succeeded in finding them and bringing them to the Soviet zone, where they had interrogated and tortured them for information.
The Soviet group was led by a young and ambitious scientist named Dr. Richard Trager, who had a vision of creating a new world order under the rule of the “Communist Man”. Trager was fascinated by Wernicke’s project and the creature, and he wanted to replicate and improve them. He had convinced his superiors to fund and support his research, and he had established a secret organization called “The Murkoff Corporation”, which operated under the cover of a humanitarian and philanthropic foundation. Trager had taken Wernicke and the creature to a remote and secure location in Siberia, where he had built a new laboratory and a new asylum. There, he had continued Wernicke’s experiments, using prisoners, dissidents, and orphans as guinea pigs. He had also experimented on himself, injecting himself with the Morphogenic Engine and developing a psychic link with the creature. He had become obsessed and insane.
Trager had also expanded his network and influence, recruiting and bribing other scientists, politicians, and businessmen to join his cause. He had also infiltrated and corrupted other institutions and organizations, such as the military, the media, the church, and the academia. He had used his power and wealth to manipulate and control the masses, spreading propaganda and lies. He had also used his agents and assassins to eliminate and silence anyone who opposed or threatened him. He had become a shadowy and sinister figure, who ruled from behind the scenes.
Trager had also developed a new plan. He had learned of a former tuberculosis sanatorium in Colorado, USA, called “Mount Massive Asylum”, which had been abandoned and neglected since the 1950s. He had seen the potential of the place, and he had decided to buy it and renovate it. He had planned to turn it into a new and improved facility for his project, where he could conduct his experiments on a larger and more advanced scale. He had also planned to use the asylum as a base for his operations in America, where he could expand his network and influence, and prepare for his ultimate goal: to unleash the creature and the Morphogenic Engine on the world, and create a new world order under his rule.
In 1969, Trager had completed his preparations and started his production of Mount Massive Asylum. He had transferred Wernicke, the creature, and some of his staff and subjects to the asylum, where they had resumed their work. He had also installed a sophisticated security system and a loyal army of guards and mercenaries to protect the asylum from any intruders or enemies. He had also kept his activities and intentions secret from the public and the authorities, using his cover as a humanitarian and philanthropic foundation. He had also kept his identity and location hidden from anyone who might recognize or expose him. He had become the master of Mount Massive Asylum, and the leader of the Murkoff Corporation.
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Toonami Weekly Recap 01/20/2024
Lycoris Recoil EP#01 - Easy does it: Behind Japan's prolonged period of peace, lies the intelligence organization "DA", which employs young orphaned girls known as "Lycoris" to covertly eliminate criminals and terrorists. Lycoris Takina Inoue is dismissed from the DA and partnered with Chisato Nishikigi after disobeying orders, risking the life of fellow Lycoris Erika. She reports to one of DA's front operations, Café LycoReco, run by its owner Mika and former DA agent Mizuki Nakahara. Meanwhile, the DA investigates a hacker named "Walnut" who breached their systems, as well as weapons which went missing from an arms deal. Chisato informs Takina that their job is to help others in need any way they can while showing her around. While protecting Saori Shinohara from a stalker, they realize she accidentally caught the ongoing arms deal in a picture she took. Takina uses Saori as a decoy to lure out the terrorists stalking her, but Chisato nonlethally subdues them before she can kill them. Meanwhile, a man from the Alan Institute who hired Walnut to spy on Chisato presumably kills him after bombing his apartment. The next day, Takina officially becomes LycoReco's newest waitress, and the man from the Alan Institute visits, who Mika recognizes.
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: Entertainment District Arc EP#09 (35) - Infiltrating the Entertainment District: In order to investigate the suspected demonic presence in Yoshiwara, Tengen had sent his three wives to infiltrate the three largest courtesan Houses in the district. However, having stopped receiving messages from them, he has started worry for their safety. As such, Tengen disguises Tanjiro, Inosuke, and Zenitsu as girls and sells them to the three Houses in which his wives were deployed, in order to find clues to their fate and whereabouts. Though with some difficulty, all three Demon Slayers are accepted to work at the Houses. As Tengen surveys the district from the rooftops, it is revealed that Makio, one of Tengen's wives, is held captive in a secluded room in Inosuke's House, being restrained by numerous obi, and enduring interrogation from a mysterious female voice.
Dr. Stone: New World (New America City Arc) EP#55 (20) - First Dream: Senku revives Chrome for help making revival fluid for everyone. Chrome worries about Ruri whose call to Senku ended when the phone battery died, and since Ibara smashed all the equipment on the Perseus they can’t call her back. After reviving the rest of the crew Senku also revives Kirisame who leads them to the statues of Kohaku and Ginro, whose fatal stab wounds are completely healed by the revival process. They also revive and befriend Oarashi and Ibara’s soldiers. Senku repairs the telephone but Why-Man interrupts his call to Ruri and attempts to voice command Medusa to activate a blast of 12,800,000 meters, big enough for the whole planet. Such blatant hostility confirms Why-Man is an enemy but confuses everyone as Why-Man speaks with Senku’s voice. Ukyo confirms the voice is somehow computer-generated in the stone world. Needing answers they revive the extra statue Taiju retrieved from the ocean, which has a visible Medusa tattoo. The man, Matsukaze, who was petrified hundreds of years ago, reveals he and his village were petrified when dozens of Medusa fell from the sky. Excited, Senku repurposes the old sonic cannon into a Parabolic antenna to track Why-Man’s signal, confirming without a doubt Why-Man can only be in one place; the moon. Senku decides his next goal is to reinvent space flight.
IGPX: Immortal Grand Prix EP#09 - Holiday: Takeshi tries to get away for some time alone with Fantine which isn't easy with Liz, a fan and a few thugs hot on their trail.
#Toonami#Toonami Weekly Recap#Lycoris Recoil#First Episode#Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba#Demon Slayer 2#Entertainment District Arc#Dr. Stone#Dr. Stone: New World#New America City Arc#IGPX: Immortal Grand Prix#IGPX
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THE SKY WE SHARED
Fourteen-year-old Nellie Doud, a White American in Bly, Oregon, worries about her father, away in the war; her mother, who hasn’t been the same since he left; and her once best friend, whose brother died in combat. Meanwhile, 14-year-old Tamiko Nakaoka, an orphaned Japanese girl, lives with disability due to polio. As the war drags on, she struggles to find food for herself; her older brother, Kyo; and their Auntie. Eager to help both the war effort and their family, Kyo joins the army, and Tamiko and her friend go to a nearby city to make paper balloons for the military. Though the work and housing conditions are poor, she is proud to do something for her country—anything to make the war end sooner. But Tamiko’s balloons are bombs, some bound for Oregon. Soon both girls question what’s right during wartime, when forgiveness is justified, and when it isn’t. Vernick has made an effort to portray both Nellie and Tamiko sympathetically and with historical accuracy even as both navigate the propaganda and biased news around them. However, the conclusion is more expected than earned, and the characters’ development feels heavy-handed; the manner in which cultural details are added to Tamiko’s chapters is particularly intrusive. Simplicity aside, the overall message about war’s human cost is clear.
from Kirkus Reviews https://ift.tt/AyUgcF9
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Unique Podcasts:
If you’re looking for something different, try one of these:
What’s the Frequency
What’s The Frequency is a psychedelic noir audio drama podcast set in 1940s Los Angeles. Recently radio broadcasts in the city have been reduced to static, leaving a popular radio serial as the only remaining show on the air. Even then the show finds itself continuously interrupted by a mysterious broadcast. A lone distorted voice reaching out for help. Follow Walter “Troubles” Mix and his partner Whitney as they search for a missing writer and navigate through a city quickly falling into madness. Could the mysterious voice be the culprit? Will anyone be able to stop the madness from spreading? And… What’s The Frequency?
Why I love it: This podcast has some of the best and most loveable main characters ever written.
Alba Salix, Royal Physician
A witch, her apprentice, and her fairy herbalist treat the ills of a fairy-tale kingdom.
Why I love it: A fantasy podcast that not D&D or based on D&D? What? Also, Its absolutely hilarious once you get over Magnus’s voice.
Windfall
Ever since the castle first appeared in the sky above the city of Windfall, its residents have been building upward. Now the city consists of towers where the wealthiest residents live at the top while the poor eke out a living on the ground. Our podcast follows Cas, Shaima, and Argus, three brothers who live with their Uncle Vern after being orphaned during the grounder rebellion twenty years earlier. When Cas’s best friend, Kendall, is offered a position with the Wolfpac, Windfall’s military cult that acts as the city’s police, Cas is forced to decide where his loyalties lie. Meanwhile, something sinister looms over the city itself, threatening the lives of all who live in Windfall, from the wealthiest residents to the ground-level poor.
Why I love it: This is so well written, and so well voiced, and the sound design is amazing, and I don’t understand why it doesn’t have a cult following to be honest.
Time: Bombs
Created, written, recorded, produced, and released in just one week, Time Bombs is a new audio drama podcast about the hilarious world of bomb disposal. From the team behind the Webby Award nominated sci-fi audio drama Wolf 359, ride along with EOD technician Simon Teller on the busiest night of the year for him and his team - when business is, quite literally, booming.
Why I love it: Its literally the same team that made my favorite podcast ever of course I love it.
StarTripper!!
Feston Pyxis, native of the bureaucracy planet Lorvin, has left it all behind! He’s said his goodbyes, he’s sold all his B-movie memorabilia, and he’s bought a Physiclast QCS-25 K-series ship, known to the wise as a “StarTripper.” Together with the onboard assistant PROXY, Feston’s looking for any and every good time there is to be had across the stars!
Why I love it: Its actually happy. There are so many sad podcasts with angst and inetemse emotion and this was something I could just…. Enjoy? With no hurt? Yes!
Zero Hours:
Zero Hours is an anthology series, where every story is a different take on the end of the world - or at least something that feels like the end of the world. Each episode is organized around a kind of apocalypse, whether the cataclysm is planetary or personal. The stories are also set in succeeding centuries, with 99-year intervals separating each episode. The show begins in the past, catches up to the present, and eventually overtakes it.
Some installments are darkly comedic, others grimly contemplative, and others still thrillingly contentious. But they all explore the same question: how do we keep going when the world is crashing down around us? Again and again, issues of survival, trust, and personhood will plague our characters as they attempt to navigate dangerous, changing circumstances and figure out how to avert The End, or at least how to meet it.
Why I love it: This was also made by the team behind Wolf 359, and its such a unique concept.
Fairy Tales for Unwanted Children
Imagine if fairy tales were written like episodes of the Twilight Zone. Now imagine listening to them while happy music plays in the background.
Why I love it: I love the Twilight Zone, and nothing really filled that gap after I watched every episode ever produced. But Fairy Tales for unwanted children fills my need for more Grimm’s fairy tales and more twilight zone at the same time!
Janus Descending
Janus Descending is a limited series, science fiction/horror audio drama told through single perspective narration. The story follows the arrival of two xenoarcheologists, Peter and Chel, on a small world orbiting a binary star. But what starts off as an expedition to survey the planet and the remains of a lost alien civilization, turns into a monstrous game of cat and mouse, as the two scientists are left to face the creatures that killed the planet in the first place. Told from alternating perspectives, Janus Descending is an experience of crossing timelines, as Peter describes the nightmare from end to beginning, and Chel, from beginning to the end.
Why I love it: Watching it all come together as Peter slowly works his way backwards through the story, and Chel forwards, was fascinating.
The Antique Shop
In desperate need of a job, Maya finds work in an old antique shop owned by a mysterious woman. The more time she spends in the shop the further the real world becomes, and Maya soon begins to realize that nothing is as it seems.
Why I love it: This is the Genre that just Hits The Spot. It’s like Howls moving castle (Book version) but podcast form and slightly darker. Why is there not a bigger following for this podcast? It deserves a bigger following!
#podcast#podcasts#Podcast Recommendations#podcast recs#recommended podcasts#the twilight zone#whats the frequency#wtf pod#alba salix#alba salix royal physician#windfall#time bombs#startripper!!#startripper#zero hours#fairy tales for unwanted children#ftfuc#janus descending#the antique shop
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What would happen if you were sent back and ended up in the orphanage with Tom Riddle—and say you also had magic?
Oh boy.
Well, there's a lot to question here. Judging by the... spirit of this ask, I presume I'm... pretty much reincarnated. I'm in the orphanage, I'm much younger than I am now and a child, I'm pre-Hogwarts age, and I retain my current knowledge.
For the purpose of this ask I suppose I also retain my current mental faculties. Despite being in the body of an eight-year-old, I'm not The Carnivorous Muffin at eight.
Welp, there's a lot to consider here.
First, I probably don't realize I'm in Harry Potter for quite some time and instead assume I've been reincarnated to some parallel universe. It's the 1930's, I'm in England in the depression, WWI has occurred and the vast majority of major historical events I know about seem to have happened in the right order, and this Earth is eerily similar to the Earth I left behind.
Strange that I appear to remember everything of my past life with my adult mental abilities, but alright universe, I guess that's how we're going to play this.
What I do know is that I'm dirt poor, presumably still a woman which does not bode well for my career prospects, and if I want any prospects in life period I'm going to have to fight tooth and nail for it. It'd be great if I got adopted to help with this, and might be nice to have people in my life who love me, but there's a lot of orphans in the world and a lot of orphans who are much less weird than I am.
The orphanage is the orphanage and not great, Mrs. Cole is overworked, the orphanage is chronically understaffed, and the kids are running wild beating the shit out of each other.
Being a girl, I probably don't have to worry about getting the shit kicked out of me quite as much, but I still probably try to keep my head down and don't aggravate the particularly beefy looking orphans.
Yes, there's some very angry gremlin named Tom Riddle around who will shove you down the stairs in retribution, but that's just a weird coincidence. And then supernatural shit starts happening. Billy's rabbit hangs itself, people get injuries when Tom is nowhere near them, and I start wondering if this is really the Tom Riddle.
I'm in Wool's Orphanage, my matron is Mrs. Cole, Tom Riddle is running around lighting things on fire. It's possible, though it could all be a strange coincidence.
Now, how things go from here depends on how controlled my own magic is. Since accidental magic typically does manifest at least once or twice, it probably does manifest for me for.. something. If Tom Riddle's there to witness it then...
Well, I imagine he's very offended. Here he was, special, different, better than everyone else, and then some girl in the orphanage (who dares to get very good grades on her assignments in school) has it too.
And I just stand there, smiling, going "Tee hee".
He probably confronts me to prove that he's better at it than I am, and he probably is unless the universe hates both him and me, but having someone else with the Shining around probably prompts him to take me as his protégé (in part so he can show off and in part because he's genuinely excited to be able to share this super cool talent).
I am now apprentice to eight-year-old Tom Riddle. Whoop de doo.
Well, I don't remember this part of Harry Potter, so now I'm probably confused as to where I am again. Regardless, I try to advise Tom on how to tone it down and not, say, traumatize Amy and Dennis for life and antagonize all the other orphans forever. He probably doesn't take me seriously. What do I know, I can't even light that patch of grass on fire?
Hanging around Tom Riddle gets me a reputation to, given the difference in genders, probably a fairly nasty one at that. When Dumbledore arrives he's undoubtedly told hot gossip about how eleven-year-old Tom and I have had sex in a ritual to summon Satan. Dumbledore takes this seriously.
Dumbledore probably meets us both at the same time and it's a disaster. I tried my best to prep Tom without revealing I'm a prophet, Tom first doesn't believe there might not be others, then doesn't believe they would be antagonist/anything but amazed by how awesome he is.
Well, Dumbledore lights his wardrobe on fire while I sit there. Dying inside. Dumbledore probably also does something to me too, to teach me some kind of lesson about something.
I imagine he temporarily disfigures me/makes me appear very ugly, then sticks a mirror to the wall, that way I realize that looks aren’t everything/being a whore is wrong. Tom, still traumatized over the wardrobe, is no help and my magic’s probably not controlled enough to do a thing about it.
I spend a day looking like a pig, Tom and I are given just enough money to buy new wands and second hand/barely functioning everything else and given the world’s worst directions to Diagon Alley. Thanks, Albus.
Well, months pass, we get our wands, Tom gets excited for Hogwarts and I... start seriously considering the future. WWII is coming, the Blitz is coming, Tom and I live in east London and must be able to evacuate during the bombing of London (which went on well past the Blitz to the end of the war). I also start considering my future in the wizarding world. Do I now actually have career prospects?
Probably not because I’m muggle born and a woman. My best bet is doing very well in useful subjects and finding employment with the goblins, I can’t imagine they have the same hang ups as the wizarding world.
Tom wants to go to Slytherin, of course, I tell him this is a bad idea. “Gee Tom,” I say, “Not sure how I know this but I have this feeling that Slytherin is filled with people who loathe our very existence and will shank us. Why don’t we pick Ravenclaw or Gryffindor instead?”
No one shanks Tom Riddle! Tom says. Tom is still eleven and while he admits that sometimes I may, in retrospect, have been right about certain things that doesn’t mean he wants to go to the house known for hard work. That’s code word for everyone there being a moron and having no other redeeming features than tenacity. As for the other two, Ravenclaws sound like smug, elitist, nerds and Gryffindors like dumb jocks.
Better to be known for ambition, cunning, and actually being competent.
Well, there’s no talking him out of this one, and goddamn it we’re all each other has.
I’m the closest thing Tom Riddle has ever had to a friend in all these years and in the orphanage the only one who could hold a decent conversation with him. And while it’s not my moral obligation to keep Tom from becoming a domestic terrorist, and there’s no guarantee I even can, dumping him for one of the other houses and drifting apart won’t help.
Not to mention that, after all these years, I’m undoubtedly lonely, I’m in this foreign land, and he’s now the closest thing to a friend I have.
Looks like I’m going to Slytherin, YOOOOOLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOO! I shout as a battle cry as tears run down my face. I may have to convince the hat to put me in Slytherin, but like all human beings I am a mixture of many qualities. I’m not cunning in the least, mind games exhaust me unutterably, but I’m full of ambition.
This confirms every bad opinion Dumbledore had regarding me and Tom.
For the next several months, Tom probably beats the shit out of dormmates who steal his things/harass him. He beats up mine too because feminism (TM) means that he should treat all people equally when guilty of the same crime. I... am not sure I can win that fight so I just resign myself to having to adopt some of Tom’s tactics to make sure I’m not shoved in lockers, have tampons thrown at me, or pig’s blood dumped on me at the prom.
Once again, everyone thinks Tom Riddle and I are dating. I don’t even know if they’re wrong at this point.
Well, being in class with eleven year olds who seem to have had little to no prior education, Tom and I are undoubtedly blazing through class. I imagine I’m bored out of my mind (the Hogwarts curriculum sounds unbelievably boring) and Tom is... well, probably devouring the library but probably also bored. I decide to try and see if I can find some real history texts on this world (there are probably none, the wizarding world seems to only have two historians and both... have a different approach to history than current modern thought as I know it) and discover what magic even is. That shit is fascinating: wingardium leviosa is not.
Dumbledore likely gives neither me nor Tom points in class, I think the house cup is stupid, so I really don’t care. I have no interest in playing quidditch, neither does Tom, so that doesn’t happen.
The second world war starts up, Tom, me, and the muggle borns are the only ones who give a flying fuck. I work harder on figuring out how to get lodging during the Blitz/the bombing of London. Unfortunately, Mrs. Cole hates me too for being the Bride of Satan, so that’s a no go. Third year, 1939, I probably write her in earnest anyway telling her to PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, send Tom and I instructions for the summer/where the orphans are staying/how they’ve been dispersed to the countryside. As a back up plan, I try desperately to shmooze shopkeepers in Hogsmeade during every Hogsmeade weekend to get myself and Tom part time jobs and lodging over the summer. As a back up back up plan, I spend my time badgering Tom to become very good at survivalist wandless magic and if the Lord has pity on me gain some ability in it myself.
Hopefully, either Mrs. Cole or one of the Hogsmeade shop owners take pity on us. If not, then Tom and I are going extreme camping. Given Mrs. Cole (and the brain damage brought on by Dumbledore erasing memories left and right) and the likelihood of Hogsmeade shop owners just not getting it, Tom and I probably go extreme camping.
(Tom, meanwhile, asks Dippet and Dumbledore if we can stay in Hogwarts over the summer. He’s told no exceptions. London’s being bombed, you say? No exceptions. Toodles. Tom is never the same.)
Me, Tom Riddle, a tent we made ourselves, several rabbits we had to catch and skin ourselves, and the pitiful fire that we can keep going through pure will alone because if we try to use real people spells then we’ll get arrested. It has the benefit of making Tom feel very manly and impressive, catching his own food, but both of us are well aware that this sucks.
But hey, we aren’t dead.
Well, I’m sure Tom doesn’t appreciate that and this is where I imagine he seriously starts talking about violent revolution. I imagine much of my time is spent discussing the merits of not violently overthrowing our ant overlords. I imagine a thirteen-year-old Tom isn’t impressed by my pacifism, but he’s not married to Voldemort yet (probably).
Then I imagine the horcrux thing comes up and... Well, I will argue hard against it. Humans die, it is a truth of the universe, and simply something we have to accept. Horcruxes are not a measure against that, they can be destroyed, given infinite time they will be, and the sacrifice they require is too high: human life as well as the very essence of who you are.
What is a soul? I’m not sure, we never really learn in HP canon, but whatever it is, it is in some way the essence of yourself. If you take half of it and throw it somewhere else, you will cease to be you, someone or something else is walking around in your body while the other half of you exists in endless agony.
If you must chase immortality, create a philosopher’s stone (as I darkly wonder why it was that couldn’t be replicated and what Flamel had to do to make it in the first place). On second thought, maybe we should search for the Holy Grail.
Whether I can talk Tom out of this or not is... unclear. I’m going to say that I can, in part because I imagine he’ll want to show the chamber off to me, tell me when he realizes he’s Heir of Slytherin, and in doing so I can prevent the basilisk incident from occurring. Without that, there’s no dead Myrtle, which means no first victim. That summer, when he goes to the Gaunts, I’ll go with him and convince him that it’s not worth it. He can just turn around and leave these people alone, I hopefully can talk him down. Which means no second victim.
I start writing Flamel to see if Tom or I can get an apprenticeship (Dumbledore probably beats us to the chase and poisons him against us, but it’s worth a shot).
Then, should all go well, I can convince Tom to find employment with the goblins rather than shady antique dealers on the bad side of town. Hopefully, I can convince him to never become Voldemort, and instead we travel the world together looking for the origins of magic or something.
Dumbledore goes around taking people’s memories of us in preparation for when Tom becomes a dark lord and I his lady of the night darkness.
TL;DR Apparently my life would become an SI/Tom Riddle fic. So, thanks anon.
#harry potter#harry potter meta#harry potter headcanon#tom riddle#albus dumbledore#anti albus dumbledore#meta#headcanon#opinion
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What’s so Funny About Vengeance, the Night, and Batman? – Two Superhero Parodies in Conversation
Back in 2016, the first trailers for Director Chris McKay’s The Lego Batman Movie hit. A spinoff of the take on the iconic hero, voiced by Will Arnett, from 2014’s The Lego Movie. Those trailers spelled out a plot covering how Batman’s life of crimefighting is turned upside down when Robin unexpectedly enters the picture. It was a funny trailer, promising another insightful comedy from the crew behind The Lego Movie. A promise it handily delivered on when it came out in February 2017 with an animated feature steeped wall-to-wall jokes for the sake of mocking Bruce Wayne’s angst filled crusade that can only come from understanding what’s made the character withstand the test of time.
But there was a thought I and others had from seeing that trailer up to watching the actual movie:
“This seems… familiar.”
Holy Musical B@man! is a 2012 fan-made stage production parody of DC Comics’ biggest cash cow. It was produced as the fifth musical from YouTube-based cult phenomenon Starkid Productions, from a book by Matt and Nick Lang, music by Nick Gage and Scott Lamp with lyrics by Gage. The story of the musical details how Robin’s unexpected entrance ends up turning Batman’s (Joe Walker) life of crimefighting upside down. Among Starkids’ fandom derived projects in their early existence, as they’ve mainly moved on to well-received original material in recent years, Holy Musical B@man! is my personal favorite. I go back to it frequently, appreciating it as a fan of both superheroes and musicals. (Especially since good material that touches on both of those isn’t exactly easy to come by. Right, Spider-Man?)
While I glibly summarized the similarities between them by oversimplifying their plots, there’s a lot in the details, both major and minor, that separates how they explore themes like solitude, friendship, love, and what superhero stories mean. It’s something I’ve wanted to dig into for a while and I found a lot in both of them I hadn’t considered before by putting them in conversation. I definitely recommend watching both of them, because of how in-depth this piece goes including discussing their endings. However, nothing I can say will replace the experience of watching them and if I had included everything I could’ve commented on in both of them, this already massive piece would easily be twice as long minimum.
Up front, I want to say this isn’t about comparing The Lego Batman Movie and Holy Musical B@man in terms of quality. Not only are they shaped for vastly different mediums with different needs/expectations, animation versus stagecraft, but they also had different resources at their disposal. Even if both are in some ways riffing on the aesthetic of the 1990s Batman movies and the Adam West TV show, Lego Batman does it with the ability to make gorgeously animated frames packed to the brim with detail while Holy Musical often leans into its low-fi aesthetic of characters miming props and sets to add extra humor. They’re also for different audiences, Lego Batman clearly for all-ages while Holy Musical has the characters cursing for emphasis on a regular basis. On top of those factors, after picking through each of these for everything worth commenting on that I could find, I can’t say which I wholly prefer thanks in part to these fundamental differences.
This piece is more about digging through the details to explore the commonalities, differences, and what makes them effective mocking love letters to one of the biggest superheroes in existence.
(Also, since I’m going to be using the word “Batman” a lot, I’ll be calling Lego Batman just “Batman” and referring to the version from Holy Musical as “B@man”, with the exception of quoted dialogue.)
[Full Piece Under the Cut]
Setting the Tone
The beginning is, in fact, a very good place to start when discussing how these parodies frame their versions of the caped crusader. Each one uses a song about lavishing their respective Batmen with praise about how they are the best superheroes ever and play over sequences of the title hero kicking wholesale ass. A key distinction comes in who’s singing each song. Holy Musical B@man’s self-titled opening number is sung from the perspective of an omniscient narrator recounting B@man’s origin and later a chorus made up of the Gotham citizenry. Meanwhile, “Who’s the (Bat) Man” from Lego Batman is a brag-tacular song written by Batman about himself, even playing diegetically for all his villains to hear as he beats them up.
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Holy Musical opens on a quick recap of Batman’s origin:
“One shot,
Two shots in the night and they’re gone
And he’s all left alone
He’s just one boy
Two dead at his feet and their blood stains the street
And there’s nothing, no there’s nothing he can do!”
We then get a Bat-dance break as the music goes from slow and moody to energetic to reflect Batman turning that tragedy into the driving force behind his one-man war on crime. Assured by the narrator that he’s “the baddest man that there’s ever been!” and “Now there’s nothing, no there’s nothing he can’t do!” flipping the last lyric of the first verse. For the rest of the opening scene the lyrics matter less than what’s happening to establish both this fan-parody’s version of Batman and how the people of Gotham (“he’ll never refuse ‘em”) view him.
Lego Batman skips the origin recap, and in general talks around the death of the Waynes to keep the light tone going since it’s still a kids movie about a popular toy even if there are deeper themes at play. Instead, it continues a trend The Lego Movie began for this version of the character writing music about how he’s an edgy, dark, awesome, cool guy. While that movie kept it to Batman angry-whiteboy-rapping about “Darkness! NO PARENTS!”, this one expands to more elaborate boasts in the song “Who’s the (Bat) Man” by Patrick Stump:
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“In the darkest night
I make the bad guys fall
There’s a million heroes
But I’m the best of them all!”
Batman singing this song about himself, as opposed to having it sung by others aims the crosshairs of parody squarely on the hero’s ego. His abilities make fighting his villains effortless, like this opening battle is more an opportunity to perform the song than a life-or-death struggle. Even Joker’s aware of that as he shouts, “Stop him before he starts singing!” This Batman doesn’t see himself as missing out on anything in life, even if he still feels that deep down. Being Batman is the coolest thing in the world that anyone would envy. He’s Batman, therefore everyone should envy him.
The songs aren’t only part of the equation for how these two works’ opening scenes establish their leading hero. While both songs are about Batman being cool, they’re separated by the accompanying scenes. Lego Batman keep the opening within the Joker’s perspective until Batman shows up and the action kicks in. Once it does, we’re shown a Batman at the top of his solo-hero game. Meanwhile, Holy Musical’s opening is about B@man building his reputation and by the end of the song he has all the citizens of Gotham singing his praises with the titular lyrics. Both are about being in awe of the title hero, one framed by Joker’s frustration at Batman’s ease in foiling his schemes yet again and the other about the people of Gotham growing to love their city’s hero (probably against their better judgement.)
That’s woven into the fabric of what kind of schemes Batman is foiling in each of these. Joker’s plan to bomb Gotham with the help of every supervillain in Batman’s Rogues Gallery is hilariously high stakes and the type of plan most Batman stories, even parodies, would save for the climax. Neatly exemplified by how that’s almost the exact structure of Holy Musical’s final showdown. Starting with these stakes works as an extension of this Batman’s nature as a living children’s toy and therefore the embodiment of a child’s idea of what makes Batman cool, his ability to wipe the floor with anyone that gets in his way “because he’s Batman.” It also emphasizes Joker as the only member of the Rogues Gallery that matters to Lego Batman’s story, every other Bat-villain is either a purely visual cameo or only gets a couple lines maximum.
The crime’s being stopped by B@man are more in the “Year One” gangster/organized crime category rather than anything spectacle heavy. Though said crimes are comically exaggerated:
Gangster 1: Take these here drugs, put ‘em into them there guns, and then hand ‘em out to those gamblin’ prostitutes!
Gangster 2: Should we really be doing these illegal activities? In a children’s hospital for orphans?
These fit into that model of crime the Dark Knight fights in his early days and add tiny humanizing moments between the crooks (“Oh, Matches! You make me laugh like nobody else!”) in turn making the arrival of B@man and the violence he deals out a stronger punchline. Further emphasized by the hero calling out the exact physical damage he does with each hit before warning them to never do crime again saying, “Support your families like the rest of us! Be born billionaires!” Later in the song his techniques get more extreme and violence more indiscriminate, as he uses his Bat-plane to patrol and gun down whoever he sees as a criminal, including a storeowner accidentally taking a single dollar from his own register. (“God’s not up here! Only Batman!”)
A commonality between these two openings is how Commissioner Jim Gordon gets portrayed. Both are hapless goofs at their core, playing more on the portrayal of the character in the 60s TV show and 90s Burton/Schumacher movies than the serious-minded character present in comics, Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, and other adaptations. Lauren Lopez’s portrayal in Holy Musical gets overwhelmed by everything thrown at him, eventually giving up and getting out of B@man’s way (“I’m not gonna tell Batman what to do! He’s Batman!”) Hector Elizondo’s Gordon in Lego Batman clearly reached the “stay out of Batman’s way” point a long time ago, happy to have “the guy who flips on the Bat-signal” be his sole defining trait. While the characterizations are close, their roles do end up differing. Lopez’s Gordon sticks around to have a few more comedic scenes as the play goes on, where Elizondo’s exist to set up a contrast with his daughter Barbara and her way of approaching Batman when she becomes Police Commissioner.
These opening sequences both end in similar manners as well; the citizens of Gotham lavishing praise on their respective Batmen and a confrontation between Batman and the Joker. Praise from the citizenry in Holy Musical comes on the heels of a letter from B@man read out on the news about how much they and the city of Gotham suck. They praise B@man for his angsty nature as a “dark hero” and how they “wouldn’t want him any other way!”, establishing the motif of Gotham’s citizens in Holy Musical as stand-ins for the Batman fandom. Lego Batman uses the praise of the Gotham citizens after Batman’s victory in the opening scene as a lead in to contrast their certainty that Batman must have an exciting private life with the reality we’re shown. Which makes sense since Lego-Batman’s relationship to the people of Gotham is never presented as something at stake.
Greater contrast comes in how the confrontations with the Joker are handled, Lego Batman has an argument between the hero and villain that’s intentionally coded as relationship drama, Batman saying “There is no ‘us’” when Joker declares himself Batman’s greatest enemy. The confrontation in Holy Musical gets purposefully underplayed as an offstage encounter narrated to the audience as a Vicki Vale news report. This takes Joker off the board for the rest of the play in contrast to the Batman/Joker relationship drama that forms one of Lego Batman’s key pillars. While they take different forms, the respective citizenry praise and villain confrontation parts of these openings lead directly into the number one common thematic element between these Bat-parodies: Batman’s loneliness.
One is the Darkest, Saddest, Loneliest Number
Batman as an isolated hero forms one of the core tenants of the most popular understanding of the character. Each of these parodies picks at that beyond the broody posturing. There’s no dedicated segment in this piece about how these works’ versions of the title character function bleeds into every other aspect of them, but each starts from the idea of Batman as a man-child with trouble communicating his emotions. Time’s taken to give the audience a view of where their attitudes have left them early in the story.
Both heroes show their loneliness through interactions with their respective Alfreds. Holy Musical has the stalwart butler, played by Chris Allen, try to comfort B@man by asking if he has any friends he enjoys being around. When B@man cites Lucius Fox as a friend he calls him right away, only to discover Lucius Fox is Alfred’s true identity and Alfred Pennyworth was an elaborate ruse he came up with to protect Bruce on his father’s wishes. Ironically, finding out his closest friend was living a double life causes Bruce to push Alfred away (the play keeps referring to him as Alfred after this, so that’s what I’m going to do as well.) After he’s fired he immediately comes back in a new disguise as “O’Malley the Irish Butler” (same outfit he wore before but with a Party City Leprechaun hat.) That’s unfortunately the start of a running gag in Holy Musical that ends up at the worst joke in the play, when Alfred disguises himself as “Quon Li the Chinese Butler” doing an incredibly cringeworthy “substituting L’s for R’s” bit with his voice. It’s been my least favorite bit in the play since I first saw it in 2012 and legitimately makes me hesitate at times to recommend it. Even if it’s relatively small bit and the rest holds ups.
That disclaimer out of the way, that conversation between B@man and Alfred leads into the title hero reflecting on his sadness through the musical’s I Want Song, “Dark, Sad, Lonely Knight.” The song’s split into two halves, the first Alfred reflecting on whether he played a part in Bruce’s current condition and the second B@man longing for a connection. The song does a good job balancing between the sincerity over the hero’s sadness and getting good laughs out of it:
“Think of the children
Next time you gun down the mama and papa
Their only mama and papa
Because they probably don’t have another mama and papa!”
The “I Want” portion of the song coming in the end with the repetition of the lryics “I want to be somebody’s buddy.”
Rather than another song number, Lego Batman covers Batman’s sadness through a pair of montages and visual humor. The first comes after the opening battle, where we see Batman taking off all his costume except for the mask hanging out alone in Wayne Manor, showing how little separation he puts between identities. Compared to Holy Musical where the equivalent scene is the first we see of Bruce without the mask on, which may come down to practicality since anyone who’s worn a mask like that knows they get hot and sweaty fast. Batman is constantly made to appear small among the giant empty rooms of his estate as he eats dinner, jams on his guitar, and watches romantic movies alone.
Ralph Fienne’s Alfred coming in at the end of this sequence witnessing Batman looking at a photo of himself as a boy with his parents for the last time. Alfred outlines Batman’s fear of being part of a family again only to be met with Batman denying he has any feelings ever. Pennyworth’s role as a surrogate father gets put into greater focus here than in Holy Musical, as we get glimpses of Alfred reading a book titled “How to Deal with Your Out-of-Control Child.” Also shown in smaller scenes of Alfred dealing with Batman’s insistent terminology for his crime fighting equipment, like calling his cowl an “armored face disguise.”
Batman’s denial of his pain contrasts how B@man wallows in it. Though he’s forced to confront it a little as the Joker’s plan ends up leaving him with no crimefighting to fall back on to ignore his issues. This montage gets set to the song “One” by Harry Nilsson and details Batman, unable to express his true feelings, eventually letting them out in the form of tempter tantrums. There’s also some humor through juxtaposition as Batman walks solemnly through the streets of Gotham City, rendered black and white, as the citizens chant “No more crime!” in celebration, while flipping over cars and firing guns into the air.
A disruption to their loneliness eventually comes in the form of a sensational character find.
Robin – The Son/BFF Wonder
Between both Bat-parodies, the two Robins’ characterizations are as close as anyone’s between them. Each is nominally Dick Grayson but are ultimately more representative of the idea of Robin as the original superhero sidekick and his influence on Batman’s life. The play and movie also both make the obvious jokes about Dick’s name and the classic Robin costume’s lack of pants at different points. Dick’s origin also gets sidestepped in each version to skip ahead to the part where he starts being an influence in Batman’s life.
Robin’s introduction to the comics in Detective Comics #38 in 1940, marking the start of Batman’s literal “Year Two” as a character, predating the introduction of Joker, Catwoman, and Alfred, among others. Making him Batman’s longest lasting ally in the character’s history. His presence and acrobatics shift the tone by adding a dash of swashbuckling to Batman’s adventures, inspired by the character’s namesake Robin Hood, though both parodies take a page out of Batman Forever and associate the name with the bird for the sake of a joke. Robin is as core to Batman as his origin, but more self-serious adaptations (i.e., the mainstream cinematic ones that were happening around the times both Holy Musical and Lego Batman came out) tend to avoid the character’s inclusion. These two works being parody, therefore anything but self-serious, give themselves permission to examine why Robin matters and how different characters react to his presence. Rejection of Robin as a character and concept comes out in some form in each of these works, from Batman himself in Lego Batman and the Gotham citizens in Holy Musical.
The chain of events that lead to Dick becoming Robin in Lego Batman are a string of consequences for Batman’s self-absorption. A scene of Bruce barely listening as Dick asks for advice on getting adopted escalating to absentmindedly signing the adoption paperwork. Batman doesn’t realize he has a son until after his sadness montage. Alfred forces Batman to start interacting with Dick against his will. The broody loner wanting nothing to do with the cheery kid, played to “golly gee gosh” perfection by Michael Cera, until he sees the utility of him. Batman doesn’t even have the idea to give Robin a costume or codename because he clearly views the sidekick’s presence as a temporary measure for breaking into Superman’s fortress, made clear by how he lists “expendable” as a quality Dick needs if he wants to go on a mission.
This makes Robin the catalyst for Batman’s shifting perspective throughout Lego Batman. When Robin succeeds in his first mission, the Dark Knight is hesitant to truly compliment him and chalks up his ward’s feats to “unbelievable obeying.” Other moments have Robin’s presence poke holes in Batman’s tough guy demeanor, like the first time Batman and Robin ride in the Bat-mobile together, Robin asks where the seatbelts are and Batman growls “Life doesn’t give you seatbelts!”, only for Batman to make a sudden stop causing Robin to hit his head on the windshield and Batman genuinely apologizes. They share more genuine moments together as the film goes, like Batman suggesting they beatbox together to keeps their spirits up after they’ve been imprisoned for breaking into Arkham Asylum. Robin’s representative of Batman gradually letting people in throughout these moments.
On the exact opposite end of the spectrum, B@man needs zero extra prompting to let Robin into his life. Nick Lang’s Robin (henceforth called “Rob!n” to keep with this arbitrary naming scheme I’ve concocted) does get brought into his life by Alfred thanks to a personal ad (“‘Dog for sale’? No… ‘Orphan for sale’! Even better!”) but it’s a short path to B@man deciding to let Dick fight alongside him. The briefest hesitance on the hero’s part, “To be Batman… is to be alone”, is quelled by Rob!n saying “We could be alone… together.” Their first scene together quickly establishing the absurd sincerity exemplified by this incarnation of the Dynamic Duo. An energy carried directly into the Act 1 closing number, “The Dynamic Duet”, a joyful ode between the heroes about how they’re “Long lost brothers who found each other” sung as they beat up supervillains (and the occasional random civilian.)
That song also ties into the contrast between the Batman/Robin dynamic and the B@man/Rob!n one. While Holy Musical is portraying a brotherly/BFF bond between the two heroes, Lego Batman leans into the surrogate son angle. While both are mainly about their stories’ Batman being able to connect with others, the son angle of Lego Batman adds an additional layer of “Batman needs to take responsibility for himself and others” and a parallel to Alfred as Batman’s own surrogate father. It also adds to the queer-coding of Batman in Lego Batman as Batman’s excuse to Robin for why he can go on missions is that Bruce and he are sharing custody, Robin even calling Batman’s dual identities “dads” before he knows the truth.
In the absence of the accepting personal responsibility through fatherhood element, the conflict Rob!n brings out in Holy Musical forms between B@man and the citizens of Gotham. “Citizens as stand-ins for fandom” is at it’s clearest here as the Act 2 opener is called “Robin Sucks!” featuring the citizens singing about how… well, you read the title. Their objections to Rob!n’s existence has nothing to do with what the young hero has done or failed to do, but come from arguments purely about the aesthetic of Rob!n fighting alongside B@man. Most blatantly shown by one of the citizens wearing a Heath Ledger Joker t-shirt saying Rob!n’s presence “ruins the gritty realism of a man who fights crime dressed as a bat.” It works as the Act 2 opener by establishing that B@man and the citizens conflicting opinions on his sidekick end up driving that half of the story, exemplified in B@man’s complete confusion about why people hate Rob!n (“Robin ruined Batman? But that’s not true… Robin make Batman happy.”)
Both Robins play into the internal conflict their respective mentors are going through, but what would a superhero story, even a parody, be without some colorful characters to provide that sweet external conflict.
Going Rogue
Both works have the threat comes from an army of villains assembled under a ringleader, Zach Galifianakis’s Joker in Lego Batman and Jeff Blim as Sweet Tooth in Holy Musical. Both lead the full ensemble of Batman’s classic (and not so classic) Rogues at different points. As mentioned before Joker starts Lego Batman with “assemble the Rogues, blow up Gotham” as his plan, while Sweet Tooth with his candy prop comedy becoming the ringleader of Gotham’s villains is a key turning point in Act 1 of the play. Part of this comes down to how their connections to their respective heroes and environments are framed, Sweet Tooth as a new player on the scene and Joker as Batman’s romantic foil.
Lego Batman demonstrates Batman and Joker are on “finishing each other’s sentences” levels of intimate that Batman refuses to acknowledge. Shown best in how Joker’s plan only works because he can predict exactly how Batman will act once he starts playing hard to get. When he surrenders the entire Rogues Gallery (without telling them) and himself to police custody, he describes it as him being “off the market.” He knows Batman won’t settle for things ending on these terms and tricks the hero into stealing Superman’s Phantom Zone projector so he can recruit a new, better team of villains for a take two of his masterplan from the start. Going through all this trouble to get Batman to say those three magic words; “I love hate you.” Joker as the significant other wanting his partner to finally reciprocate his feelings and commit works both as a play on how the Batman/Joker relationship often gets approached and an extension of the central theme. Batman is so closed off to interpersonal connections he can’t even properly hate his villains.
Sweet Tooth, while clearly being a riff Heath Ledger and Caesar Romero’s Jokers fused with a dash of Willy Wonka, doesn’t have that kind of connection with B@man. Though there are hints that B@man and his recently deceased Joker may have had one on that level. He laments “[Joker]’s in heaven with mom and dad. Making them laugh, I know it!” when recalling how the Clown Prince of Crime was the one person he enjoyed being around. This makes Joker’s death one of the key triggers to B@man reflecting on his solitude at the start of the play.
What Sweet Tooth provides the story is a threat to B@man’s new bond with Rob!n. Disrupting that connection forms the delicious center of the Candy King of Crime’s plan in Act 2. He holds Rob!n and Gotham’s people hostage and asks the citizens to decide via Facebook poll if the sidekick lives or dies (in reference to the infamous phone hotline vote from the comic book story A Death in the Family where readers could decide the Jason Todd Robin’s fate.)
With the rest of the villains under the leadership of the respective works’ main antagonists, there’s commentary on their perceived quality as threats. When Holy Musical has Superman talking to Green Lantern about how much B@man’s popularity frustrates him, he comes down especially hard on the Caped Crusader’s villains. Talking about how they all coast by on simple gimmicks with especially harsh attention given to Two Face’s being “the number two.” Saying they’re only famous because B@man screws up and they get to do more damage. Which he compares to his own relationship with his villains:
Superman: You ever heard of Mr. Mxyzptlk?
Green Lantern: No.
Superman: No, that’s right! That’s because I do my job!
Lego Batman has commentary on the other villains come from Joker, recognizing that even all together they can never beat Batman, because that’s how a Batman story goes. The other villains get portrayed as generally buffoonish, struggling to even build a couch together and described by Joker as “losers dressed in cosplay.” Tricking Batman into sending him to the Phantom Zone provides him the opportunity to gather villains from outside Batman’s mythos and outside DC Comics in general. Recruiting the likes of Sauron, King Kong, Daleks, Agent Smith from The Matrix, and the Wicked Witch of the West, among others. When I first saw and reviewed The Lego Batman Movie, this bugged me because it felt like a missed opportunity to feature lesser-known villains from other DC heroes’ Rogues Galleries. Now, considering the whole movie as meta-commentary on the status of this Batman as a children’s toy, it makes perfect sense that Joker would need to go outside of comics to break the rules of a typical Batman story and have a shot at winning.
The Rogues of Holy Musical get slightly more of a chance to shine, if only because their song “Rogues are We” is one of the catchier tracks from the play. They’re all still more cameo than character when all’s said and done, but Sweet Tooth entering the picture is about him recognizing their potential to operate as a unit, takeover Gotham, and kill B@man. The candy-pun flinging villain wants all of them together, no matter their perceived quality.
Sweet Tooth: “We need every villain in Gotham. Cool themes, lame themes, themes that don’t match their powers, even the villains that take their names from public domain stories.” (Two Face’s “broke ass” still being the exception.)
Both Joker and Sweet Tooth provide extensions of the shared theme of Batman dealing with the new connections in his life, especially with regards to Robin. However, Robin isn’t the only other ally (or potential ally) these Dark Knights have on their side.
Super Friends(?)
The internal crisis of these Caped Crusaders come as much from how they react to other heroic figures as it does from supervillainous machinations. In both cases how Batman views and is viewed by fellow heroes gets centered on a specific figure, Superman in Holy Musical and Commissioner Barbara Gordon (later Batgirl) in Lego Batman. Each serves a vastly different purpose in the larger picture of their stories and relationship to their respective Batmen. Superman reflecting B@man’s loneliness and Barbara symbolizing a new path forward for Batman’s hero work.
Superman’s role in Holy Musical runs more parallel to Lego Batman’s Joker than Barbara. Brian Holden’s performance as the Man of Tomorrow plays into a projected confidence covering anxiety that nobody likes him. Besting the Bat-plane in a race during B@man’s Key to the City ceremony establishes a one upmanship between the two heroes, like Joker’s description of his relationship with Batman at the end of Lego Batman’s opening battle. Though instead of that romantically coded relationship from Lego Batman, this relationship is more connected to childish jealousy. (But if you do want to read the former into Holy Musical B@man, neither hero has an onstage relationship with any woman and part of their eventual fight consist of spanking each other.)
B@man and Superman’s first real interaction is arguing over who’s the cooler hero until it degrades into yelling “Fuck you!” at each other. B@man storming off in the aftermath of that gets topped off by Superman suggesting he should get the Key to the City instead, citing his strength and longer tenure as a hero (“The first hero, by the way”) as justifications. This only results in the Gotham citizens turning on him for suggesting their city’s hero is anything less than the best, which serves both as a Sam Raimi Spider-Man reference (“You mess with one of us! You mess with all of us!”) and another example of the citizens as stand-ins for fandom. Superman’s veil of cocksureness comes off quickly after that and stays off for the rest of the play. Starting with his conversation with Green Lantern where a civilian comes across them, but barely acts like Superman’s there.
One of the play’s running gags is Superman calling B@man’s number and leaving messages, showing a desperation to reach out and connect with his fellow hero despite initial smugness. Even before the first phone call scene, we see Superman joining B@man to sing “I want to be somebody’s buddy” during “Dark, Sad, Lonely Knight” hinting at what’s to come. The note it consistently comes back to is that Superman’s jealousy stems from Batman’s popularity over him. This is a complete flip of what Lego Batman does with the glimpse at a Batman/Superman dynamic we see when Batman goes to the Superman’s fortress to steal the Phantom Zone projector. The rivalry dynamic there exists solely in Batman’s head, Lego-Superman quickly saying “I would crush you” when Batman suggests the idea of them fighting. Superman’s status among the other DC heroes is also night and day between these works. Where Lego-Superman’s only scene in the movie shows him hosting the Justice League Anniversary Party and explaining he “forgot” to invite Batman, Superman in Holy Musical consistently lies about having friends over (“All night long I’m busy partying with my friends at the Fortress… of Solitude.”)
Superman’s relationship to B@man in Holy Musical develops into larger antagonism thanks to lack of communication with B@man brushing off Supes’ invitations to hang out and fight bad guys (“Where were you for the Solomon Grundy thing? Ended up smaller than I thought, just a couple of cool guys. Me and… Solomon Grundy.”) His own loneliness gets put into stronger focus when he sees the news of Rob!n’s debut as a crimefighter, which makes him reflect on how he misses having Krypto the Super-Dog around. (The explanation for why he doesn’t have his dog anymore is one of my favorite jokes in the play and I won’t ruin it here.)
Where Superman’s a reflection of B@man’s loneliness, Rosario Dawson as Barbara in Lego Batman is a confrontation of Batman’s go it alone attitude. Her job in the story is to be the one poking holes in the foundation of Batman as an idea, starting with her speech at Jim Gordon’s retirement banquet and her instatement as commissioner. She has a by-the-book outlook on crimefighting with the omnicompetence to back it up, thanks to her training at “Harvard for Police.” Babs sees Batman’s current way of operating as ineffectual and wants him to be an official agent of the law. An idea that dumps a bucket of cold water on Batman’s crush he developed immediately upon seeing her, though that never fully goes away.
Her main point is that Batman “karate chopping poor people” hasn’t made Gotham better in his 80 years of operating. A contrast to Holy Musical’s Jim Gordon announcing that B@man has brought Gotham’s crime rates to an all-time low (“Still the highest in the world, but we’re working on it.”) She wants to see a Batman willing to work with other people. A hope dashed constantly dealing with his childish stubbornness as he tries to foil Joker’s schemes on his own, culminating in her arresting Batman and Robin for breaking into Arkham to send Joker to the Phantom Zone.
Barbara’s role as the one bringing grown-up attitudes and reality into Batman’s world does leave her in the role of comedic straight woman. Humor in her scenes comes from how she reacts to everyone else’s absurdity rather than anything she does to be funny. This works for the role she plays in Lego Batman, since she’s not there to have an arc the way Superman does in Holy Musical. She’s another catalyst for Batman’s to start letting people in as another character he grows to care about. Which starts after she lets the Dynamic Duo out of prison to fight Joker’s new army of Phantom Zone villains on the condition that he plays it by her rules. Leading to a stronger bond between Batman, Robin, Alfred, and her as they start working together.
The two Batmen’s relationships to other heroes, their villains, Robin, and their own solitude each culminate in their own way as their stories reach their conclusions.
Dark Knights & Dawning Realizations
As everything comes down to the final showdowns in these Bat-parodies, the two Caped Crusaders each confront their failures to be there for others and allow themselves to be vulnerable to someone they’ve been antagonizing throughout the story. Each climax has all of Gotham threatened by a bomb and the main villains’ plans coming to fruition only to come undone.
Holy Musical has Sweet Tooth’s kidnapping of Rob!n and forcing Gotham to choose themselves or the sidekick they hate sends B@man into his most exaggerated state in the entire play. It’s the classic superhero movie climax conundrum, duty as a hero versus personal attachment. Alfred, having revealed himself as the “other butlers”, even lampshades how these stories usually go only for that possibility to get shot down by Bruce:
Alfred: A true hero, Master Wayne, finds a way to choose both.
B@man: You’re right, Alfred. I know what I have to do… Fuck Gotham, I’m saving Robin!
B@man’s selfishness effectively makes him the real villain of Holy Musical’s second act. Lego Batman has shades of that aspect as well, where Batman gets sent to the Phantom Zone by Joker for his repeated refusal to acknowledge their relationship. Where the AI running the interdimensional prison, Phyllis voiced by Ellie Kemper, confronts him with the way he’s treated Robin, Alfred, Barbara, and even Joker:
Phyllis: You’re not a traditional bad guy, but you’re not exactly a good guy either. You even abandoned your friends.
Batman: No! I was trying to protect them!
Phyllis: By pushing them away?
Batman: Well… yeah.
Phyllis: Are they really the ones you’re protecting?
Batman watches what’s happening back in Gotham and sees Robin emulate his grim and gritty tendencies to save the day in his absence makes him desperately scream, “Don’t do what I would do!” It’s the universe rubbing what a jerk he’s been in his face. He’s forced to take a look at himself and make a change. B@man’s not made to do that kind of self-reflection until after he’s defeated Sweet Tooth but failed to stop the villain’s bomb. He’s ready to give up on Gotham forever and leave with Rob!n, until his sidekick pulls up Sweet Tooth’s poll and it shows the unanimous result in favor of saving the Boy Wonder. Despite everything they said at the start of Act 2, the people want to help their hero in return for all the times he helped them. All of them calling back to the Raimi Spider-Man reference from Act 1, “You mess with one of us. You mess with all of us.”
Both heroes’ chance at redemption and self-improvement comes from opening themselves up to the people they pushed out and dismissed earlier in their stories. Batman takes on the role he reduced the Commissioner down to at the beginning of the movie and flips on signals for Barbara, Alfred, and Robin to show how he’s truly prepared to work as a team, not just with his friends and family but with the villains of Gotham the Joker pushed aside as well. Teamwork makes the dream work and they’re all able to work together to get Joker’s army back into the Phantom Zone but like in Holy Musical they fail to stop the bomb threatening Gotham. Which he can only prevent from destroying the city by confessing his true feeling to Joker
Batman: If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have learned how connected I am with all of these people and you. So, if you help me save Gotham, you’ll help me save us.
Joker: You just said “us?”
Batman: Yeah, Batman and the Joker. So, what do you say?
Joker: You had me at “shut up!”
The equivalent moment from Holy Musical comes from B@man needing to put aside his pride and encourage a disheartened Superman to save Gotham for him. This happens in the aftermath of a fight the two heroes had where Superman tried to stop B@man before he faced Sweet Tooth, B@man winning out through use of kryptonite. That fight doesn’t fit into any direct parallel with Lego Batman, but it is important context for how Superman’s feeling about B@man before Superman finally gets his long-awaited phone call from the Dark Knight. Also, the song accompanying the fight, “To Be a Man”, is one of the funniest scenes in the play. What this speech from B@man does is bring the idea of Holy Musical B@man as a commentary on fandom full circle:
B@man: I forgot what it means to be a superhero. But we’re really not that different, you and me, at our heart. I mean really all superheroes are pretty much the same… Something bad happened to us once when we were young, so we dedicated our whole lives to doing a little bit of good. That’s why we got into this crazy superhero business. Not to be the most popular, or even the most powerful. Because if that were the case, hell, you’d have the rest of us put out of a job!
This speech extends into an exchange between the heroes about how superheroes are cool, not despite anything superficially silly but because of it. Bringing it back to the “Robin Sucks!” theme that started Act 2, saying “Some people think Robin is stupid. But those people are pretentious douchebags. Because, literally, the only difference between Robin and me is our costumes.” The speech culminates in what I genuinely think is one of the best Batman lines ever written, as B@man’s final plea to Superman is “Where’s that man who’s faster than a gun?” calling back to the trauma that created Batman across all versions and what he can see in someone like Superman. So, B@man sacrificing his pride and fully trusting in another hero saves Gotham, the way Batman letting Joker know what their relationship means to him did in Lego Batman.
Each of these parodies ends by delivering a Batman willing to open himself up to a new team of heroes fighting at his side, the newly minted Bat-Family in Lego Batman and the league for justice known as the Super Friends in Holy Musical. Putting them side by side like this shows how creators don’t need the resources of a Hollywood studio to make something exactly as meaningful and how the best parodies come from love of the material no matter who’s behind them.
If you like what you’ve read here, please like/reblog or share elsewhere online, follow me on Twitter (@WC_WIT), and consider throwing some support my way at either Ko-Fi.com or Patreon.com at the extension “/witswriting”
#batman#holy musical b@man#the lego batman movie#wit's writing#movie review#misc writing#musicals#animation#starkid#team starkid#starkid productions#superhero movies#robin#joker#dc comics#comics#chris mckay#matt lang#nick lang#joe walker#will arnett#michael cera#superheroes#superhero animation
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