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duke-thomas-stan-blog · 3 years

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Duke's relationship with the other bats

Bruce: Duke bullies the FUCK out of him. "boohoo Mr White Man" type bullying. duke plays the best pranks and Bruce is the target 98% of the time. on the other hand he's his father figure and mentor so he loves him.

Dick: Dick gives the emotional support Bruce is allergic to so he's basically everyone's dad. duke would probably get on the signal cycle and drive over to Blüdhaven just to crash at Dick's place because that house is a FUCKING NIGHTMARE

Jason: you know the bad boy older brother? yeah. that's Jason. *barges into Duke's room at 3am* "wake up loser." duke, not asleep but looking up from his computer: "what". Jason: "we're going to blow up a joker base" duke: "oh neat, lemme grab my suit". that's it that's their relationship. Jason has arson tendencies and duke is an enabler who absolutely wants to see a building go up in flames.

Cass: quiet kids with chaotic flames inside. they are absolutely the cause of a large majority of the pranks the played around the manor and they did not get in trouble for a SINGLE one. you do not wanna put them on the same team for paintball, they win every time and you never see them coming. sometimes duke cuddles Cass and reads to her and it's ✨✨soft✨✨

Tim: duke 🤝 tim - sleeping at like 5am. they're close enough in age and have similar enough interests that they're Chaotic Best Friends. Tim has brain melting ideas at 3 am while feeling heavy sleep deprivation and duke, as we said, is an enabler so Tim can say something like "we could beat riddler with unicorn powered grocery carts filled with glitter" and duke would go "let's do it"

Damian: teasing-older-sibling & literally-gonna-kill-you-younger-sibling. duke is like "lol short" and Damian's like *DEMONIC SCREECHING*. they get into lots of shenanigans tho. they'll go missing for a few hours and the other bats go *side eye* "where did they go?" and they find them sitting at an Arabian restaurant laughing happily after watching a play at a small theatre where they paid like four times the amount needed to give them more funding for future performances.

Steph: I made a post about this, go read it >;3

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mst3kproject · 4 years

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The River of the Giant Alligator

A bunch of Italians pretending they’re not Italian in a movie about a guy who chose the wrong place to build a hotel… it’s like Avalanche by way of Devil Fish, with an alligator. And racism. You can’t have a 70’s Italian jungle movie without the racism, and this one layers it on real thick. I think The River of the Giant Alligator has its MST3K bases covered.

Rich Asshole Joshua has opened Paradise House, a resort in the middle of the ‘virgin jungle’. He proudly tells visitors that not only has he left the surrounding ecosystem undamaged, but he’s helping the local people by giving them jobs and improving their standard of living. Naturally it’s not as simple as that. Trouble begins when Sheena, the model they brought for their advertising photographs (just for a dash of Killer Fish), vanishes overnight. Photographer Daniel and hotel manager Ally go to the locals looking for her, and are told that the River God has awakened and intends to drive the white people away by assuming the form of a giant crocodile and eating them all. Considering how mind-bogglingly stupid the tourists in this movie are, that should take all of twenty minutes.

The locals, who call themselves the Kuma, have a name for their River God but it’s pronounced five different ways and I won’t guess how to spell it. Because of the deep breathing sounds that presage its first appearance, I shall call the creature Darth Gator.

Let’s get the basics out of the way first. The whole movie is dubbed and the voice actors are bad. The Darth Gator prop is completely immobile but they mostly keep it in the dark or in really tight shots so we don’t notice… it’s only the occasional ill-advised wide shot where it’s obviously fake enough to be funny. There’s a spiky fence that exists mostly so that people can get impaled on it and a cloying little kid for no reason whatsoever. The ‘wildlife’ is a stock footage smorgasbord that includes orangutans and hippos on the same river. The worst effect in the film is a terrible miniature shot of the hotel on fire, which would have looked just fine if the people involved hadn’t forgotten that flames don’t scale.

So all that sucks, but is fairly harmless. Now let’s talk about the racism.

We’ll start with the movie’s treatment of its two ‘love stories’, and I use the floating commas because neither of them quite qualifies. Daniel and Ally are the main ‘couple’ of the movie. The camera lingers on each of them to show that he thinks she’s beautiful and she thinks he’s rugged, and they spend the whole movie hanging out on balconies and boats together and discussing whether the resort is good or bad for the local people… but they never get so much as a kiss. This is kind of nice, actually, because there’s very little time to stop and make out when you’re being chased by a large carnivorous reptile. It does, however, make for a hell of a contrast between them and the other ‘couple’ we see.

This is the model, Sheena, and her Kuma boyfriend. I am unclear on where this movie is set (the closest we get to a clue is Ally referring to the area as ‘the Orient’, which could honestly mean anything) but it’s perfectly clear that the reason they hired a black woman for their publicity photos is to make the place look ‘exotic’. There’s a weird moment when Joshua attempts to flirt with Sheena by telling her, “it occurs to me that Eve herself may have been black”, which… yes, that is how human evolution worked, what about it? All that aside, at the end of the day, Sheena runs off for a romantic evening with one of the tribesmen. We never see her talk to this guy or have any clue what made her pick him over any of the others. They just go fuck on a beach and then get eaten by an alligator.

So… we have blonde, blue-eyed white people having a perfectly chaste, wait-for-marriage love affair in which they actually get to know each other… and black people who run off with a stranger and screw out in the open like animals. Holy shit. I want to say I hope this wasn’t something the film-makers actively thought about, but it might be worse if they didn’t. Naturally, this is also a version of the ‘people who have premarital sex must die’ trope from slasher movies, and the movie makes doubly sure we know this is Bad Behaviour by having Ally remark that the Kuma are forbidden from visiting ‘the Island of Love’ on the full moon.

The deaths of Sheena and Nameless Kuma Guy also begin a pattern that lasts almost the entire movie. Even though we’re told, repeatedly, that Darth Gator wants to drive the white people out of his jungle, for the vast majority of the running time it’s the brown people who are getting chomped. We’re told that twelve white missionaries came here years ago and Darth Gator ate all but one of them, who then became a crazy jungle man (not gonna lie, Father Jonathan was my favourite character and I wish we’d seen more of him). We see Sheena, her boyfriend, and the boyfriend’s brother get eaten alive. Furthermore, most of the white deaths in the movie are at the hands of the Kuma, who run in and kill the tourists with spears and fire arrows in the belief that they’re doing their god’s bidding, and much of this happens offscreen. Those hit by the arrows quickly fall into the water and vanish from sight. The only time the camera lingers on a white person dying is Joshua, who I guess they think deserved it. The impression one gets is that white death is a horror better implied than shown, while brown death is a spectacle. Again… holy shit.

The River of the Giant Alligator can’t seem to decide what we’re supposed to think about the Kuma people. Early in the film they’re portrayed as victims. These foreigners have invaded their land and built this giant hotel, and claimed to be helping them by giving them ‘work’. Ally notes that they’ll be able to live longer, healthier lives, but Daniel wonders if it’s worth it when they’ve basically become Joshua’s slaves. The movie leaves this question hanging there without exploring it any further. When Daniel and Ally come looking for information about the alligator attacks, the Kuma direct them to Father Jonathan, knowing they’re more likely to believe a white man, even one who’s obviously not quite all there. The movie really wants to be about the exploitation of indigenous peoples, treated as decorations and curiosities by white tourists.

The problem is, it wants to eat that cake, too. By the end of the story, the Kuma have devolved into stock savages. They attack the hotel and kill everybody, and kidnap Ally so they can tie her to a horizontal King Kong contraption as a sacrifice. The ending just makes it all the more confusing, as they turn up to discover that their god has been blown to bloody chunks after biting into a van full of explosives, and they cheer and they just leave. Is it really that easy to kill a god? Won’t a dead god demand vengeance anyway? Does this mean they actually like the white people after all, and were only angry because Darth Gator was eating them?

The ending also muddles the movie’s other point, about the nature of eco-tourism. One of the selling points of Paradise House is that it’s in the middle of virgin jungle. Joshua brags about how he’s left the surrounding ecosystem untouched – but then we cut straight to trees being cleared using dynamite, and later we see live piglets being thrown into the river to keep the crocodiles hanging around so people can gawk at them. You can’t build a hotel in the middle of a place and then call it ‘virgin jungle’. You’re the one who violated it!

The script is a little unclear on whether Darth Gator is a natural or supernatural threat. Ally and Daniel insist that it’s no mere alligator (I don’t think this movie knows the difference between crocodiles and alligators any better than I do) and Father Jonathan seems to believe it’s the Devil Himself, but it certainly dies like a flesh-and-blood creature. Whatever its nature, it’s clear enough that Darth Gator represents the jungle striking back at these intruders to drive them out. The Kuma literally say as much. So what are we to take from the fact that it dies at the end? Have we won the right to destroy the forest by killing its guardian? I don’t believe the people who make these movies think this stuff through.

I can tell that we’re supposed to hate the tourists, and we do, although not always for the reasons the movie wants us to. Minnow, the red-haired little girl who ‘only likes to play with boys’, tries so hard to be Adorable that you want to punt her across the room. Her mother leaves her to wander around the hotel alone, because Mummy’s got a smarmy mustached boyfriend to bang (even this relationship gets more attention than Sheena and Unnamed Kuma Guy, by the way… we are told that Mummy and Mustache have met before, and are here mostly to see each other rather than the jungle). Other notable annoyances include a lady who seems perfectly sane until she starts talking about the aliens, and a guy who loves to complain about Youth These Days and will seize any opportunity to do so.

I kinda wanna gripe about these obnoxious characters, but I don’t feel like I can. You may recall that I spent a month stuck on a cruise ship earlier this year. I can tell you definitively that these people do exist, and I hate them even more in real life.

Man, this could have been a fun monster movie. I’ve seen movies about man-eating crocodiles (or alligators… does it honestly matter that much?) that I really enjoyed. Primeval wasn’t even that bad – it was about how humans are more monstrous than anything nature can produce. Lake Placid had that immortal bit where Betty White says if I had a dick, this is where I’d tell you to suck it. The River of the Great Alligator is just boring bullshit and things that seem kinda racist on the surface but then you think about them a little longer and realize they’re incredibly racist. I went into this one hoping to like it, but it absolutely pissed on the last shreds of my optimism... like a lot of other things in 2020.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #the river of the great alligator #the great alligator #fuck this movie #fuck it so much #70s

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365days365movies · 3 years

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February 9, 2021: Doctor Zhivago (Part 3)

INTERMISSION’S OVER! Hope you got your snacks and popcorn, because we’ve got an hour and 20 to go!

Recap (Part 3/3)

Train’s stopped, but not at its intended location. The reason is because there’s a battle taking place up ahead in Yuriatin, where the train is headed through. See, the Bolsheviks - well, actually, the Communists now, to be accurate - are waging battle against the anti-Communist White Army, and have occupied Yuriatin.

Yuri leaves the train to find out what the deal is, and he’s captured by the Communists under suspicion of being a spy. Leading them, of course, is Pasha, now going by Strelnikov. After a brief round of suspicion, Pasha admits a former admiration of Yuri’s poetry, now viewed as anti-Communist. Yuri reveals his connection to Pasha’s wife, and Pasha reveals that he has not seen her during the war, and she’s living in...Yuriatin.

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JESUS PASHA WHAT THE HELL

Well, after having this friendly discussion with a GODDAMN MONSTER, Pasha lets him go back to his family, luckily for him. He gets back to the train JUST in time, and the family are left at their intended destination, as planned. It almost seems that their struggles are over, as flowers are blooming amidst the previously ubiquitous winter.

Can’t say the same for Yuriatin, as we see it on fire in the distance. However, the Gromeko’s cottage is apparently totally fine, untouched by the Red and the White Armies.

Well, mostly untouched, as it’s been sealed up by the Red Army. Stopping Alexander from breaking in, Yuri and their local friend, Petya (Jack MacGowran) figure out that the cottage of the house is still open, and the family happily settles in there.

During their time there, Tonya becomes pregnant once again. Strelnikov leaves for Manchuria, which seems like good news. But that’s tempered with the very, VERY bad. Czar Nicholas and the Romanovs, exiled for years, have been shot. Sorry, Anastasia.

Spring to summer, summer to winter, and winter once again to spring, and the family is doing well, in relative poverty as they are. By the way, before I forget to mention this, why does Omar Sharif (he plays Yuri) ALWAYS look like he’s been crying? Dude has perpetually red puffy eyes, I swear. Like, look at the GIF below. See? He wasn’t crying, he wasn’t even sad there, but his eyes ALWAYS LOOK THAT WAY. Not his fault, but I just can’t not notice it.

But now, we go to another place, and another set of eyes. Yuri makes his way to Yuriatin on a visit, and there, a reunion takes place at the library in town.

Yuri and Lara catch up, have a good time, and then OH GODDAMN IT

EVERY TIME! WHY IS IT INFIDELITY IN EVERY ONE OF THESE GODDAMN MOVIES??? Yuri’s seemingly happy, he’s got another kid on the way, and I get that he’s loved Lara for a long time at this point, but can we just have a SINGLE. FAITHFUL. RELATIONSHIP in these movies, for the love of CHRIST!!!

And this is just as Tonya’s close to giving birth to their second child. Yuri seems to realize this, and he heads to Yuriatin to officially end it with Lara...and he does, to some credit. It hurts them both pretty grievously, but he does what’s right. But NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED I GUESS

Red Partisan Army just kidnapped him! BECAUSE OF COURSE THEY DID. His poetry has finally caught up to him, and he is taken away from his “private life.” After all, like Pasha said, private life is dead in Russia. Fuck me, man.

So, Yuri’s been kidnapped as a field doctor for the Civil War, as the Red Partisans go up against the White Army, at one point killing a unit of literal children. During his stay, allies advocate for his release, but to no avail. Yuri is stuck with the army for TWO GODDAMN YEARS, away from his wife and two children.

He eventually just leaves, in the middle of the winter during a trek. He just...wanders off. Frozen, tired, and probably badly frostbitten, he makes his way back to Yuriatin, where he discovers that his family has left. However, it would appear that Lara may still be in town. Finding a key and letter meant for him, he makes his way into the apartment, where he passes out.

Lara cares for him as he wakes up, and reveals that Tonya and the kids are safe. Later, she gives him a sealed letter from Tonya, which was sent six months prior. It’s revealed that he was a daughter, Anna, and that they have been deported from Russia, and are going to Paris. They don’t know where they’ll be headed, and there’s no telling if Yuri will ever see them again. Which...sucks.

But then, soon after, the two get an unexpected visitor: Victor Fuckin’ Komarovsky! Yeah, thought you’d seen the last of him! he comes from Moscow, and offers the pair his help. See, Tonya and the kids are not in the best of situations down in France, and Yuri’s not only a deserter, but seen as a dangerous man by the government for his poetry, which has officially been labeled anti-Communist propaganda. Fuckin’ YIKES.

The two refuse their help at first, but Lara realizes the real danger that Yuri’s in. Turns out that Victor knows so much because he’s been appointed the Minister of Justice, and offers the two an out from the country. They continue to refuse him, and it’s revealed that Lara’s ALSO in trouble, as her husband is still technically Strelnikov. But, after Victor is ONCE AGAIN a DICK, they kick him out.

Realiing that they’re in trouble, the two escape to Varykino, which is gorgeous, by the way. Although the whole place appears to be dusty and a bit snowed in, the two and Lara’s daughter, Katya (Lucy Westmore) settle in. There, Yuri does something we’ve never actually seen him do: write poetry. To be specific, he writes a set of poems that he is famous for, by the time we get to the time period from the beginning of the film, all of which are themed around Lara.

It’s also at this point that the two begin their love affair in earnest, and...I weirdly am OK with this. Look, they’ve loved each other for a long time, and the likelihood that either of them will see their spouses again is EXTREMELY low. The two embrace their love, and begin to imagine what life would’ve been like if they’d met each other before.

But Victor, surprisingly, returns. He makes them an offer once again, and it’s revealed that Strelnikov is dead. Turns out that he was sought by the government, as they wished Strelnikov dead all along. He was headed to Lara when he was caught, and comitted suicide while in custody, returning to his true identity of Pasha at the end. Fuckin’ WHOOF.

But there’s the problem: with Lara’s usefulness as a lure gone, she’s now set to be executed, along with Katya. Given this information, Yuri agrees to go with Victor, and Lara and Katya come along. But guess what! THERE ISN’T ENOUGH ROOM ON THE CARRIAGE OUT OF THERE. BECAUSE OF COURSE THERE ISN’T.

And in case you weren’t sure, Zhivago is indeed left behind, as he actually never intended to go with Victor, due to his dislike for the man. But Lara’s now safe, which is what he wanted all along. Not to mention the fact that Lara is now pregnant with Yuri’s daughter. Which is when we cut back to the present day.

Tanya, from the very beginning, is almost certainly Lara and Yuri’s daughter. Born the same year, in the China or Mongolia (where Lara was headed with Katya and Victor), and with similar eyes and complexion, it’s a near certainty. She denies it, but Yevgraf continues. See, he eventually did find Yuri, malnourished, and cared for him.

Stalin’s now in charge, and Yuri is practicing Dr. Zhivago once more. Years later, he boards a trolley in the city, suffering from a heart disease at this point. On the trolley, he sees Lara walking on the street, and tries to get off to see her. But, once he finally gets off the trolley, the strain is too much for him.

At Yuri’s funeral, Lara and Yuri meet. There, she asks for Yevgraf’s help to find her child, but they never do. And after that, at some point...she’s taken to one of Stalin’s labor camps, where she most certainly died. Jesus, man.

And now, we learn of Tanya’s fate. Komarovsky, whom she believed to be her father, abandoned her on the streets when running from the chaos of the Russian Civil War. BECAUSE HE IS A GODDAMN DICK. She does not want to believe that this is the truth, but she says that she’ll consider it. As she and her partner, David, leave the interview, it’s revealed that she can play the balalaika, which her departed father could never do. But the fact that she’s a self-taught master of it speaks to her ancestry, as Zhivago and Lara’s daughter.

And uh...I’m gonna be honest, that didn’t even feel like 3 hours and 20 minutes. Really! That was Doctor Zhivago! I really liked this one! But more on that in the Review. Stay tuned for that!

#doctor zhivago #david lean #omar sharif #julie christie #geraldine chaplin #tom courtenay #alec guinness #rod steiger #romance february #user365 #365 movie challenge #365 movies 365 days #365 Days 365 Movies #365 movies a year #useramby #mygifs #my gifs

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camsthisky · 6 years

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Batfam Feb (2018) Fic Recs

Sorry for such a long wait. I forgot about January, so to make up for it, this is a little longer than the past rec lists.

Mistakes Were Made by CaramelMachete Words: 7,369 Summary: Nightwing joins Jason as Robin and Batman for a stake-out. When Batman gets called away, Nightwing and Robin are unable to follow Batman's orders. They bite off a little more than they can chew. So, how much first aid training does Robin remember anyway? Jason worries that if he can't handle this, maybe he's not fit to be Robin after all. Comments: This is a great Dick ad Jason bonding fic, and I think I’ve read it before, but I don’t think I’ve rec’d it. The characterization is amazing, and it does a good job juggling the strained dynamics between Jason, Dick, and Bruce. It’s from Jason’s POV as Robin, too, which I don’t think we see enough.

been trying to do it right, been living a lonely life by streetlight_skeletons Words: 2,287 Summary: “Kid, what are you doing out alone?”

Even in the cold, shivering, the boy glared defiantly, the white lenses in his mask pushed up, and pushed out, “I- I’m not alone. Batman’s here”

To his credit, his voice seemed to shake from the cold and not paralysing fear, which Selina had expected. She grinned, looking around her mockingly. “Well, I don’t see him, do you?”

“He’ll- He’ll find you and beat you up if you hurt me,” the boy informed and, of that, Selina had no doubt.

Or,

There's an injured bird, but it wasn't the cat who did it Comments: I need more Robin Dick and Selina interacting. Also the fact that it’s hurt/comfort and Bruce is like an overprotective mother bear? Gold.

Brunch with Bruce by DawnsEternalLight Words: 2,014 Summary: Dick's overworked and exhausted, but he's not going to let that (or a cold) keep him from having lunch with Bruce. Comments: Dawn always manages to hit me right in the feeling with her fics, because sick, overworked, tired Dick and overprotective and worried Bruce is one of my biggest weaknesses.

The Blame Game by DawnsEternalLight Words: 5,669 Summary: While on a case together Jason gets hurt, and Dick realizes he's sicker than he thought he was. Comments: Dick and Jason angst!! This plays off the events of Batman #16 with Bane, and it’s done wonderfully. It was disappointing that we didn’t get the full account of what happened in comics, and this is a great insight into what could have happened! Plus, all of the hurt/comfort and angsting between brothers is amazing.

Scatter the Heavens into Stars by DawnsEternalLight Words: 2,416 Summary: Dick is getting over fear toxin, and finds the best way to do that is work a little and spend time with his dad and little brother. Comments: Cookies!! Dick spending time with his family!!! Cookie Dough!! His family loving him!!! Dick eating the cookie dough!!!!!!! I’ve read this no less than six times since it’s been posted.

Foreign Object by audreycritter Words: 86,122 (37/37) Summary: Bruce Wayne deals with a serious illness, one that threatens the most crucial part of himself. He and the family try to cope with their own fears and expectations about it and then the aftermath. This is written partly as character study, partly as family drama. Originally posted to tumblr. Comments: I’m going to be honest and admit that I had a really hard time starting this fic. I’ve read other things from the Cor Et Cerebrum series, but I hadn’t gotten to this one since it hits so close to home. However, I read this entire fic in one night, and it was absolutely worth it. The characterization is so on point, and there’s a balance of hurt, comfort, angst, fluff, and everything else.

Cold Hard Want by audreycritter Words: 12,310 Summary: “Are you happy?”

“I...I’m getting there.”

A follow-up to DC Rebirth Batman #35, in which Bruce recovers from being stabbed in the back and Damian considers the elusive nature of happiness. Comments: Holy shiitake mushrooms. Okay, so I’ve read this a few times, because it’s so good. Damian’s emotions are so real and present and I feel like I’m riding or dying along with him. It’s like I’m in the story and I’m seeing everything unfold, and my heart hurts for every single one of them. For Bruce, Selina, Dick, and Damian. It’s just so good.

Every Fiber of My Being by scxlias Words: 21,376 (5/5) Summary: As much as Dick and his siblings have argued, Bruce has never budged on his "Keeping Secrets Policy". There's not a person alive outside of the family that knows the secret identity of any of the Bats. Not even Dick's boyfriend. Dick understands the need for some secrets, knows that keeping their identities safe keeps them and their loved ones safe, but when he takes up the cowl, team dynamics aren't the only things that begin to change. Comments: This is a birdflash fic that I absolutely love to death. It’s an AU of the batfamily never telling anyone their identities, and it’s absolutely heartbreaking. You can feel how absolutely alone and stressed Dick feels as the weight on his shoulders grows heavier and heavier, until he’s just about to break, and it makes my heart hurt.

Fallen Bird by Croppmar000 Words: 2,887 Summary: Something had happened, something bad. Dick was a wreak. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Batman's birds didn't just die. Comments: A YJ fic that deals with Jason’s death and how Dick reacts to it. I love that it’s Wally and Roy that are there for Dick. I just love their friendship so much.

The Joys of Fatherhood by theragingstorm Words: 2,408 Summary: Young Bruce Wayne has a chance encounter with two small children, while all of them are still ignorant of how important they’ll become to each other. Comments: This is a cute little fic. It’s probably an AU, but it’s still cute nonetheless. It’s a “if Dick and Babs met as small children and hide from their fathers as they go absolutely mad with worry” fic, and it’s the cutest thing. Especially when Bruce comes into it.

Two Dead Birds by InsaneTrollLogic Words: 29,034 (15/15) Summary: There's some lunatic in red helmet running through Jason's territory. He wants to think it's a copy cat.

He's wrong. Comments: A Jason-centric fic. I’m not usually too big on fics that don’t have a lot of Dick in them, but this is a very good fic in my opinion. Jason’s characterization is very well done, and I love Dick when he comes into it as well. Time travel stories are also one of my favorite tropes though, so maybe I just have a weakness for it. The only thing is, it ends in a slightly open-ended way, and I’m not sure if that means there will be a sequel of if it’s just how the fic was meant to end. Either way, it was worth the read.

Catch Me by TantalumCobalt Words: 1,453 Summary: He hates these nights. When he’s stretched thin from chasing leads on three cases, when he’s trying to wrap things up as quickly as possible because he’s hyper conscious of what date is approaching, when a severe thunderstorm has driven him off the streets and back to the Manor. Comments: Again, stressed, overworked, tired Dick is my weakness. And Ren does a really good acknowledging the Blockbuster situation and the effects it has on Dick.

The Bat's Crest by lilylamaire Words: 168,328 (29/?) Summary: Tragedy strikes the hero community when Bruce Wayne commits a crime so heinous even the best start asking for blood. However, as the heroes try to recover from the hit and carry out justice for their friends, a random assortment of people start acting oddly, including the current Speedy Tim Drake, a child hostage in Gotham, and a young man from an unremarkable circus amongst others. All of them seem intent on saving Bruce Wayne from the grasp of the Justice League for no apparent reason, going as far as betraying their previous allegiances.

Unknown to the Justice League, these people are equally confused. Clearly they're stuck in another dimension, but how do they get back? How did they even get here? Who else is stuck in this world? And how long will Tim's patience last? Back home, the Bat was a planetary symbol that struck fear in the hearts of criminals. In this new world, it has no meaning, save for the handful of stranded souls. Comments: Okay, so this fic is Tim-centric, and it has a lot of Damian in it, too. I was a little disappointed because I’d hoped that there would be more Dick Grayson in it, but it makes sense why there isn’t. And it's a very good fic to address the problems of what would happen had Bruce Wayne not become Batman. It kept me on my toes, and when Dick does come in, I definitely think it’s worth the wait.

All your resolve (dissolves) by animegoil Words: 5,424 Summary: Season two: Tim watches Dick fall apart. Comments: Another YJ fic. I think this is one of my favorite topics to read about. Dick was under so much stress during the time while Bruce was on Rimbor, and I don’t think it’s addressed quite enough. This fic is one of my absolute favorites to go to when I think about Dick in season 2, and it does a really good job with Tim’s POV and his helplessness of being unable to properly figure out why Dick’s so stressed. There’s a lot of levels to this fic, and I honestly think it’s some of the best writing I’ve ever read.

The Wayne Family Ghost by pupeez4eva Words: 1,713 Summary: In which Bruce realises that having a legally dead son, who regularly hangs around the family, might be slightly problematic. Comments: This fic is kind of hilarious. I don’t often read funny fics, but Damian getting in trouble for accidentally including Jason Todd in the family and Bruce having to deal with the fallout is always great.

Pixar by ChimaeraKitten Words: 3,076 Summary: Sometimes, favorite movies are influenced less by the movie itself, and more by the people one shared it with. (batfam + Favorite Pixar movies) Comments: This is literally one of the cutest fics out there. It addresses each individual kid with Bruce, and I love that I get emotions about each kid through their favorite movie. Chi does the dynamics between all of them really well, too.

Monkey by ChimaeraKitten Words: 570 Summary: Dick has a new shirt. Comments: Baby Dick is so cute and Bruce is such a good dad in this.

#fic recs #february fic recs #dc #monthly fic recs

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flauntpage · 6 years

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OPINION: I Saw a Diverse and (Mostly) Well-Behaved Parade Crowd

I walked at least eight miles on Thursday.

My wife went down to the parkway around 7 a.m. and my dad and I got on the EL at Girard Avenue around 8:15 a.m., headed to City Hall.

We had some trouble, ironically, crossing Broad Street, so we had to get back on the Market-Frankford line and walk down from 30th Street Station.

Not totally ideal.

For some reason, the subway concourse was blocked when we tried to get through, though other people, like Russ, had no issues moving underground to the other side of City Hall. And sections of Broad that were opened earlier (like Locust Street) were completely blocked off by 9 a.m., so whatever.

Anyhow, because of that “roundabout” trip throughout Philly, I feel like I got a good, long look at what I thought was an incredibly diverse turnout.

If I had to guess, I’d say 50% of the crowd was white, 40% was black, and the other 10% was anybody and everybody who lives in Philly. I saw a decent number of Hispanic and Latino families, and some Asian families, too. Women were well-represented (40% maybe?) and I saw lot of children, too, who seemed to be doing okay in the large crowds. The area I walked was Locust up to 17th and the Parkway, on both sides of the route.

After the motorcade passed by CB headquarters at the Ritz, I saw a black guy taking pictures with his group and a makeshift Lombardi trophy. A random white guy walked by to look at the faux trophy and the first guy, Lamar, grabbed him and told him to get into this photo:

I walked over to Lamar and asked if he’d share some thoughts on the parade experience.

“It was Shangri-La,” he said. “It was a utopia of Eagles green everywhere. We waited all these years, my whole life. I’m 34. It was beautiful, everybody getting along, everybody in unison. There’s nothing bad I can say about it.”

Lamar described the crowd as cool, and wild, but in a “fun way.”

“They were behaving themselves. It was all fun stuff, like a ‘fun’ wild, not a ‘destructive’ wild, because there were kids around. It wasn’t any of the negativity that the national media wants to give us. It was just Philly. We’ve got another level of fun. You have to be from Philly to understand it.”

A pair of guys across the street, Andrew and Sean, flew in Thursday morning from Tampa.

“We were born up here but we moved when we were younger and we’re still diehard fans,” said Andrew, who grew up in Cherry Hill. “We flew up at 6 a.m., got in at 10:35, and came right over to the parade. It was an awesome experience. I’m 28 years old right now and my dad is 62, so he was four years old for the 1960 championship and has never seen a Super Bowl. And we haven’t obviously, so it’s the only championship I’ve seen outside of the Phillies in 2008.”

Andrew says he and Sean bumped into some other people from Jersey that they didn’t know and spent part of the parade hanging out with total strangers.

“Honestly, it wasn’t as bad as some of the things you see,” he added. “Mostly it was family fun. Most of it. I mean, there are those guys who are on top of statues, and it’s fun to see because it’s part of the experience, but everybody was pretty well behaved overall. I didn’t see any fights or anything like that. I think everybody was unified by the win.”

Torrey Smith seemed to share that opinion:

People keep asking me what was the best part about the parade…to me it was looking around and seeing people from different races, social class, and their families together…United for one reason…To celebrate the success of their football team!

— Torrey Smith (@TorreySmithWR) February 9, 2018

So when I look at that crowd I want people to experience that type of unity all the time. So when you question if athletes should just stick to sports you are dead wrong…we can help be and create the change we want to see because the people are connected to us and we are them!

— Torrey Smith (@TorreySmithWR) February 9, 2018

There was, of course, some dumb stuff that happened.

Here’s an idiot damaging city property and wasting taxpayer dollars on the future repair:

Shoutout to the guy at the parade who fell off the light pole pic.twitter.com/4Mqt6iXL6w

— Austin Vitelli (@AustinVitelli) February 8, 2018

I don’t have any context for this, but it looks like drunk dorks going after each other:

Classic City of Brotherly Love pic.twitter.com/PpS4pYeb7a

— Barstool Heartland (@barstoolhrtland) February 8, 2018

And Glen spotted a couple of morons being morons:

First trouble of the day. Two idiots start fighting for space in front of the Palm. One takes a swing at a cop. Someone will see the end of this parade from jail. pic.twitter.com/kbJs6eBcyc

— Glen Macnow (@RealGlenMacnow) February 8, 2018

And if more idiot lawbreakers were in action, they’ll hopefully be identified and tracked down, like the suburban kid who was arrested post-Super Bowl for flipping the car. His father, ironically, is named “Whitey,” which is perfect.

Otherwise, I didn’t see a ton of misbehavior. Pissing in public was probably the worst, though I only saw four port-o-jawns on the south side of City Hall. I’m not sure how it looked on the parkway. A lot of businesses closed their doors and others were just swamped with people, so the bathroom situation was highly questionable and logistically impossible to nail down. Market Street near 13th was a clusterf#@! of people trying to stay warm while waiting in line for the EL, post-parade.

And the pot smoke is expected, so whatever, should be legal by now anyway. If you’re bothered by a whiff of that in the air, might be time to recalibrate your moral compass, though I do empathize with parents who have to explain the smell to their kids.

The thing that really bothered me isn’t even specific to this parade, or white people, or black people. It’s actually a Philly problem in general, but people just throw their trash on the ground with total disregard for decency. I understand that this is a massive parade with thousands of people walking around, and the trash can situation is less than ideal, but show some pride in your city. I see garbage and dog shit and cigarette butts laying around EVERYWHERE in Philly on a normal day, so we really have to do a better job here, as Andy Reid would say.

Also, it was just people being lame in general by overdoing things. For instance, the “Fuck Tom Brady” chant was funny the first time, but not the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, or 27th time, so that got old quickly. Same with the “Nick the Dick” cheer. Some of y’all need new material.

And when people are trying to get from one place to another, don’t just shove them in the back from behind; take a look ahead to see why they’re standing still. Maybe they’re stuck also. I had to wait 15 minutes to leave the Ritz because people simply could not organize themselves in a two-way fashion. Employees had to come down to the lobby and literally tell people when to leave and when to enter, sort of like that road construction where one lane is shut down and you wait for the PennDOT dude to flip the sign to tell you when to go.

Another thing I spotted was this crew, the same jabronies who showed up at the NFL Draft with their fake Christian message:

I followed these guys for a bit and didn’t see a ton of folks harassing them. I think people were just sort of rolling their eyes instead of wasting their time engaging in the pointless back and forth. That’s different from what I saw in April, when the “Jesus or hellfire” peeps had a larger group and garnered more attention from the crowd:

This guy says you don't need the Eagles when you have Jesus Christ pic.twitter.com/fsvrjCxeGQ

— Kevin Kinkead (@Kevin_Kinkead) April 27, 2017

“The Eagles are masturbators!”

“No, not that!”

That’s about it, as far as my experience, which was five or six hours in a relatively small portion of the parade route near City Hall.

I didn’t see it all, but neither did Ernest:

Staying in my empire today while the plebeians, I mean Eagles fans, enjoy the #EaglesParade. pic.twitter.com/vILnxlJXNt

— Ernest Owens (@MrErnestOwens) February 8, 2018

Better to be a “plebe” than casting judgement from the ivory tower.

Just my opinion.

OPINION: I Saw a Diverse and (Mostly) Well-Behaved Parade Crowd published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

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