#this also kind of explains why everyone fucking hates batman beyond
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...i have learned more about the batman canon/dc universe against my will and i think i get it now
i think i get why everyone is angry
because right now?
right now i'm furious
#congrats whoever has been running dc because now i HATE batman and its your fault#motherfucker is ON. MY. SHITLIST.#right at the TOP#just below the joker and just above The Bat Who Laughs because at least that second motherfucker HAD AN EXCUSE#i want to kill the bat i want to kill the bat i want to KILL the bat#honestly i think the only reason ANY of us like batman anymore is because we don't know/remember this comic bullshit#and none of the movies or games GET THAT FAR because they only have a few hours of run time to do so in#this is like the fictional version of Never Meet Your Heroes/ Favorite Celebrities#this also kind of explains why everyone fucking hates batman beyond#because it STARTS OFF in the aftermath of a lot of this bullshit and so can't handwave it away as easily#it basically triggers the entire goddamn fandom that IS aware of this bullshit and i Get That Now#which makes WHY i liked it so much fucking ironic as shit#i was too traumatized to believe in the wholesome shit#so one that went 'you were a shit tier man and that affected your heroing but i'll be BETTER than YOU' made more sense#fuck you DC my canon now - we're starting from scratch and i'm flushing most of this shit down where it belongs
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Day 6: Party
WARNING: GRAPHIC VIOLENCE
Continuation of days two and three
Marinette grins at her reflection in the mirror. The costume was perfect- close enough to the original that you could tell who she was, but also with her own touch so that she didn’t hate looking at the costume. She’d even curled her hair slightly. The knock at the front door makes her squeal in excitement, knowing exactly who it is.
“Cass!” She cheers, opening the door and grinning widely at her best friend. Sure, Cass didn’t talk a lot (she was like Luka in that way), but she always seemed to know when Marinette needed help out of her own head. And she was eternally grateful for that. She was even more grateful that Cass had agreed to do a duo costume with her since Jason apparently didn’t want to dress up. He was ‘too old’ or something. Well, Marinette wanted to have fun and wear a damn costume.
“The suit is amazing! I’m not sure the cowl I made will be good enough for it.” Marinette says worriedly, examining the stitches on Cass’ costume. “Where’d you say you got this?” She asks, frowning. It was definitely higher quality than the Halloween store downtown. Cass just smiles, the one that basically says ‘not telling’. Mari just grins, used to it by now. She passes the cowl to Cass and grabs her own domino mask, sliding it on. Posing next to Cass in the full length mirror, Marinette takes a picture and sends it to the group chat that Jason had recently added her to. Dropping her phone into her purse and grabbing her keys, she turns to Cass.
“Ready?” She asks.
“Ready.” Cass says. Marinette grins. Look out, Gotham, Batman and Robin are out on the town.
---
Dick squeals as the picture comes through on the groupchat. He was beyond relieved that Jagged had scheduled his Halloween party two weeks before the actual holiday. It meant that he, and the rest of his brothers, could actually go instead of being on the extra patrols they always had to schedule around the holiday. Grinning, he opens twitter.
@flyingrayson
Look at my little sisters! Aren’t they the cutest?! #halloween #Waynefam #jaggedstone
[image description: One girl stands with a hand on her hip, dressed in what is obviously a spin on a Robin costume, including: a domino mask, black tights, dark red tunic with a Robin logo, gold belt, knee high emerald boots, and a dual sided cape black on the outside and gold on the inside. Another girl stands next to her with her arms crossed over her chest, dressed in what is obviously a Batman costume, including: black catsuit, yellow utility belt, black cape, and a redesigned black cowl.]
---
Marinette pecks Jason’s cheek and grins.
“What, not a Robin fan?” She asks teasingly at his frown. He huffs.
“Not really. More of a...Red Hood guy.” He says, and she snorts.
“Of course you’d like the one with guns.” She says, shaking her head with a smile. “His costume is actually probably one of my favorites. Well, besides the whole helmet thing.” Jason grins, pulling her in and giving her a sweet kiss before he glances behind her and groans.
“My brothers just walked in.” He says and she smiles.
“Go say hi, I’ve gotta go ask Uncle Jagged a question really quick. I’ll be right back and Cass and I can show your brothers our awesome costumes in person.” She says, pecking his cheek before walking away. She looks around for Jagged, but frowns when she doesn’t see him in the main room. Pulling out her phone, she sends him a quick text asking where he is.
In the garden with Fang!!!!!!!
She shakes her head fondly. Of course he skipped out on his own party to spend time with his crocodile. Smiling, she heads out to the garden to try and get to him. She’d wanted to see if the man planned on being in the US around Thanksgiving. Bruce had already invited her (probably to get Jason to show up) and said she could invite any of her family as well. Since her parents and superhero partner were both dead and her grandparents didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, she decided she’d really love Jagged and Penny to come instead. As she walks outside, she’s shocked that Fang doesn’t immediately run up to her.
“Uncle Jagged?” She calls, frowning. Where was he? And why was it so dark out here? Fang was scared of the dark. Jagged never would have brought him outside without more lights on, he was too protective of him. She tenses when she notices a slumped figure next to the bench Jagged had put in the gardens for when she visits. It was one of her favorite places to sit and design.
“Hello?” She calls, watching the figure for any movement. Seeing none, she steps closer and her stomach drops. Immediately she runs over and checks her Uncle for a pulse. She sighs in relief when she feels it, but the gash on his head is worrisome. How-
“Hello, Birdie!” An amused voice rings behind her, making her blood run cold. She whirls around and manages to catch a glimpse of the man’s pale face before a thick piece of metal flies at her head and the world goes black.
---
“Jaybird! Where’s Mari and Cass? They’re blowing up on twitter, even MDC liked my tweet!” Dick says happily, making Jason scowl.
“Did you seriously post my girlfriend all over your twitter?” He asks grumpily. Dick nods.
“Oh yeah. Her and Cass looked too cute to keep it to ourselves. Where are they anyway?” Dick asks, scanning the room.
“M said she needed to go talk to her Uncle about something. Personally, I think she was just avoiding you guys. You all crowd her every time you see her.” Jason reprimands, crossing his arms. Replacement rolls his eyes.
“It’s ‘cause she’s so much cooler than you. And she’s not an asshole like you are.” He says.
“Something’s wrong.” Cass says, suddenly appearing at Jason’s side. He jumps slightly, but then frowns at her.
“What?” He asks, surprised to see the deep scowl form on her face.
“Don’t know.” She huffs.
“Well if Cassandra believes that something is wrong, we should investigate.” Damian says, looking relieved that he wouldn’t be asked to socialize with anyone. A startled scream from outside makes the five vigilantes tense before running towards the noise. Jason curses when he realizes it’s Penny Rolling, Jagged Stone’s….something. She’s kneeling by a slumped figure, shaking it until a groan escapes it. Jason feels his blood run cold when the figure’s hair catches the light. It’s Jagged. Then where-
“Where’s she? Where’s she at?” Jagged slurs out, blinking wildly.
“Who?” Penny asks, gently holding the man’s face. Jason frowns at the gash.
“M. He wanted ‘er.” He says, and though the man is looking around crazily and slurring his words, Jason can tell he’s completely serious. And M-
“Do you mean Marinette?” Jason asks, stepping forward. Jagged frowns, but nods.
“Crazy clown.” He adds before turning and throwing up in the grass. Jason growls and turns on his heel, ready to go hunt the damned clown down. Out of everyone in this damned city that he could’ve targeted, why did he choose her?
“Jason, wait.” Dick says, grabbing his wrist. “We need to have a plan. Come on. You can’t just go out like this.” He reminds him lowly, Jason’s eyes narrow but he follows anyway. Might as well use the good tools. That fucking clown won’t make it to morning.
---
Ice cold water falls over her and Marinette sits up, gasping in shock at the sudden temperature change.
“Little cold, Birdie?” A voice asks before walking around and standing in front of her- a huge smile on his face and a thick piece of metal in his hands.
“Nothing I can’t handle.” Marinette says, trying not to let her voice shake. This was the villain. The one she never wanted to meet. The one that gave her boyfriend nightmares that he couldn’t explain to her. And now she was alone with him.
“If you’re sure, we could have some...fun before Batsy arrives.” He laughs.
“Why would Batman show up?” She asks. “You do realize this is just a Halloween costume, right?” She flinches as the piece of metal- a crowbar, she thinks shakily- stops inches in front of her face.
“How stupid do you think I am? Of course it’s a costume. A costume posted by one Dick Grayson. You’re a Wayne, somehow. And Batsy always shows up when a Wayne is involved.” Joker says, his twisted grin making her sick to her stomach.
“I’m not a Wayne! Batman isn’t going to come for me.” She argues, cursing her decision to not wear her earrings today. Some days were harder than others, especially leaving in a mask. Even if the mask was a costume. Every time she tried to put on her earrings today, she shook and started to panic. Granted, it was probably for the best. Because she would definitely be tempted to transform and she did not want to give Joker that kind of knowledge.
“Wayne or not, one of the bats will come. You have friends in very high places, Birdie.” Joker tuts, twirling the crowbar in his hand. She flinches as it nears her face, making Joker laugh. “If I wanted to hit you, I would.” He says. She doesn’t even have time to figure out what he means because her shoulder explodes in pain. The pain is blinding and she wants to scream but no sound will come out of her mouth as she gasps for breath.
“That’s no good. A silent bird is a dead bird. So sing, Birdie.” Joker demands, and he aims slightly lower this time, shattering her left arm. And she screams. The pain tearing at her throat nothing compared to the pain in her arm, her shoulder. She sobs, the shaking making the pain worse, but she was unable to stop. It hurt.
“S-stop!” She manages to yell, nearly biting her tongue when Joker grabs her chin and forces her to look up at him.
“Hmm. You’re right! The internet should definitely see this.” He laughs, pulling a phone out. She shakes her head, flinching as he whacks the crowbar against the floor near her chair. He points the phone at her, and she knows he’s recording. The bastard.
“Hello Gotham! Look at this little Birdie. I’m afraid she flew too far, and now we have to clip her wings.” He says, sighing as if he’s actually apologetic. He sets his phone up on the table and stalks over to her before turning and waving at the camera. She watches him move the crowbar around warily, her breathing shaky. God, she hoped Jason wasn’t watching this. Hoped he was somewhere safe, not trying to go do something stupid. She winces as Joker acts like he’s about to hit her, only to stop before the crowbar actually connects with her good arm.
“I told you, I’d only hit you if I wanted to.” He chuckles.
“Go to hell.” She spits out, ignoring the voice in her head (that sounded suspiciously like Tikki) telling her to shut up. To not antagonize the crazy man with the crowbar.
“Gladly.” He says with a grin, rearing back and swinging the crowbar out to hit her in the ribs. Her scream echoes around the room and she has no time to catch her breath before he’s attacking her ribs again. Tears stream down her face, but she can’t scream, she can’t even catch her breath. I’m going to die, she thinks, and the thought is terrifying. She didn’t want to die, she wanted to live.
---
“Do we have a fucking location or am I about to go shoot up every goddamned warehouse in this city?” Jason growls as he zips through the streets on his bike. He knew Babs and Alfred were back at the cave, watching the livestream and working to locate Marinette. And even though he couldn’t see the video, the audio playing through the comms was enough to make his stomach churn.
He didn’t give one singular fuck what Bruce said. He was going to kill that goddamned clown the minute he saw him.
---
Marinette glares at the Joker, barely able to keep her head up. For some unknown reason, he’d decided to use his fists on her face instead of the crowbar. Not that she was complaining. She wouldn’t have survived multiple hits to the head. Not with the force he had. She watches him, and she knows he’s saying something, but she can’t tell what it is. She’s too tired, too hurt, to care what he’s saying anyway. Unless it’s some magical cure to stop her from feeling like she’s broken into a million pieces, she doesn’t want to hear it.
Eyes wandering behind him, she’s relieved when she notices the costumed figure. The cowl, the cape- Batman did come. How strange. Though, she had assumed that Joker was live streaming. So that could definitely explain that one. Deciding she was out of immediate danger, she lets her eyes droop shut, reveling in the darkness that surrounds her. She let’s it stay, and she can feel things slipping away, some of the pain lessening. It’s nice, until someone is poking her and talking much too close to her. She lets out a whine as the person forces her eyes open.
“‘m tired.” She mumbles, wincing at the pain that comes with breathing, with talking.
“I know, kid, god I know. Just keep your eyes open.” A voice says. She blinks, the blue marks on the suit in front of her helping her to identify the vigilante.
“Couldn’t fight.” She spits out, tears springing to her eyes as her attempt at conversation makes her chest ache.
“But you’re fighting now, you’re staying awake. You’re doing such a good job, I’m proud of you. Stay awake kiddo.” Nightwing says quietly. She vaguely feels the ropes slide off her wrists and ankles. Fighting to stay sitting up, because slumping will hurt more than she’s willing to allow, she sighs.
“Jason’s gonna worry.” She mumbles, and Nightwing hums.
“Ambulance is almost here, kid, just stay awake.” He says instead of asking about Jason. She hopes Jason is okay. Hopes he isn’t mad at himself for letting her go talk to Jagged alone. Suddenly, sirens are close and she lets the world finally slip away.
---
The pain is the first thing that clues her in. She isn’t dead. Which is a relief. But the way her entire body aches, is not a relief. Forcing her eyes open, she sighs at Jason’s slumped form in a chair next to her bed. She wished she knew how long she’d been in the hospital so she could scold him. Because he was still wearing the outfit he had on at the party. Which meant he hadn’t given himself a break. Just as she’s trying to decide how to ask the nurses for pain medicine, Jason’s eyes open.
“Marinette!” He gasps, starting to lunge forward, then stopping himself. “I thought, god, M, I thought-”
“‘m okay.” She says softly, and he frowns.
“Okay? You were nearly beaten to death with a goddamned crowbar. You’re not okay.” He argues. She sighs.
“I’m alive, and I’m with you. I’m okay.” She insists, wincing. He looks like he still wants to argue, but stops himself. He scoots closer and holds her hand, kissing the back of it softly.
“I’ll never leave you.” He promises. She smiles softly, before falling back asleep, finally safe.
Tag list: @maribat-october-rarepairs @stainedglassm @kittenmywaythrulife @laydeekrayzee @doll246 @queenz-z @deathssilentapproach-blog @literaryhiraeth @unoriginalmess
#angst#maribat#maribat oneshot#jasonette#maribat marinette dupain cheng#maribat jason todd#maribat joker#maribathalloween21#maribat dick grayson#maribat tim drake#maribat batman#maribat damian wayne
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In Times Past
Character: Bruce Wayne x Fem!Reader
Summary: Bruce Wayne’s life doesn’t exist beyond the fake storylines he performs for the media and citizens of Gotham. Maybe the only person that can change that is someone who knew him before Batman ever even existed.
Word Count: 8,200+ [One Shot]
Warnings: Violence, mentions of sexual harrassment
A/N: As I teased before, this was inspired by this scene from Batman Begins.
Bruce could sense Alfred’s tension when he walked into the kitchen that morning. The man was not one to hold back his thoughts and feelings. It was both a blessing and a curse. But Bruce sensed it was the latter today.
Before Bruce could even get a sip of coffee in, Alfred tossed the Sunday newspaper in front of him.
On the front page was a photo of Batman, far too high of a resolution for Bruce’s liking. ‘BATMAN: SAVIOR OR MENACE?’ the headline read.
“A little too close for comfort, don’t you think?” Alfred asked with a hint of sass.
However, Bruce controlled his reaction.
“Not the first time I’ve been photographed, Alfred.”
“You’re dancing with the devil, Master Wayne.”
“So, what? You want me to lay down the cape because everyone in America has the ability to take a photo on their cellphone?”
“Of course not,” Alfred retorted. Though Alfred secretly wished every day that Bruce would say goodbye to the Batman. “I just thought perhaps you should be putting a bit more effort into Bruce Wayne’s life if you really want to throw Gotham off your trail.”
Then he tossed another newspaper. This one of Bruce Wayne, the other mask he wore.
‘Bruce Wayne Lights Up the Room at Charity Ball.’
Alfred points to the date…it was 9 months ago. And it was unfortunately the last time Bruce Wayne was in the press.
“You better start creating alibis, Master Wayne, or the dark web will start to putting two and two together…”
Bruce sighed. He knew Alfred was right. But he hated all that went with what he had to do. He’d rather face off with Gotham’s deadliest criminals than go galavanting around the city as the self-absorbed and reckless playboy persona that he’d created.
“There is a birthday party for Eaton Elliot next weekend. Naturally, being old family friends, you received an invitation,” Alfred explained. “Plenty of press will be there to note your attendance. Seems rather convenient."
Bruce recognized the name. It was the older brother of Thomas Elliot, a childhood friend that he slightly lost touch with. He’d see him or his parents at various events, and things were always cordial.
But it didn’t really matter how absent or quiet Bruce was when it came to maintaining such relationships. Everyone forgave such behavior when it came to saving face with the only living member of the Wayne family. Bruce could spit in the faces of Gotham’s elite and they’d probably thank him for it.
“Black tie affair, as always,” Alfred added as he slipped the invitation to Bruce. “Perhaps you could bring a date…”
Bruce glared up at the butler. “Dates make it harder to make a quick and quiet exit, Alfred.”
“Well, maybe that’s the point, Master Wayne.”
————
Just like he was on patrol or working on an op, Bruce had prepared for every single scenario. He made a plan that would be the most effective in the shortest amount of time. He didn’t want to torture himself any longer than absolutely necessary.
When Alfred asked him again if he was planning on bringing a date, Bruce had only replied with a mischievous smirk.
Because he walked in with a girl on each arm.
It wasn’t the classy or gentlemanly thing to do. And that was exactly the point.
Conversations paused, attention was turned, and flashes went off.
Bruce Wayne made his entrance.
He carefully fell into the groove of being the spoiled brat everyone had painted him out to be. It had been awhile since he played the part, but Bruce always found it easy when he was surrounded by these kinds of people.
Bruce made sure to slightly slur his words. He would get too handsy with his dates. He would rudely interrupt people to share his own useless opinion on whatever topic was leading the conversation. He never looked waitstaff in the eye.
But now it was time for the finale.
Bruce whispered a certain suggestion into the ears of his dates.
They shared a look that proved they were both game.
The three of them stumbled into a bathroom – one out in the open that most of the guests would be steered toward.
The kissing began and clothes were quickly shifted.
There was a split moment when Bruce wondered what this would feel like for a man who actually wanted to be in this situation.
The two woman managed unbuckle his belt, the clanking metal echoing in the all-tile bathroom.
But just as they unbuttoned and then unzipped his pants, Bruce’s cellphone rang loudly.
Right on cue.
“Ladies, ladies, ladies,” Bruce whined. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” his words stumbled out. “But I just have to take this call.”
“Aww. Brucie. You’re no fun,” one of the women fussed.
But Bruce gave off enough dominate energy that they didn’t try to fight him on it.
Hair disheveled, mouth swollen and pink, lipstick stains on his skin and his pants and belt barely put back together, Bruce stumbled out of the bathroom first.
The two women didn’t bother to stay back and spread out their exits, making it very clear what had just happened – or what it looked like just happened.
It didn’t matter that Bruce didn’t actually have sex with them, every woman in Gotham wanted to say they’d shared a bed with Bruce Wayne. His two dates would lie to save face and get street cred. Bruce hated that he knew that, that it was guaranteed.
Dozens of people, who were socializing near the bathroom, stopped what they were doing and watched with judgmental looks. Some men looked jealous. Some women looked disgusted and eyed the two women up and down.
Then there was the flash of a camera.
Bingo.
Bruce wouldn’t have to linger much longer now.
He played up being somewhat embarrassed.
But just as he put his phone to his ear to take the fake call that Alfred dialed, he saw the last person he expected.
It caused him to do a double take and freeze.
His focus fell for a moment as they made eye contact.
Why did she have to be here?
Why did she have to be one of his witnesses?
Why did it hurt so much to see how she looked at him as if he were a stranger?
And why did she have to look so god damn beautiful?
Y/F/N Y/L/N.
The Y/L/N family were another one of Gotham’s elite – well, they used to be.
Y/N’s father was once worth billions. But being born into wealth didn’t guarantee intelligence or the skills to properly run the family business. When Bruce and Y/N were in high school, Y/N’s father filed for bankruptcy and confessed that the family was about to lose everything. With the announcement, the press also exposed Mr. Y/L/N’s many lustful affairs.
What came next was a messy and brutal divorce that the media ate up.
Out of spite, Y/N’s mother remarried her ex-husband’s biggest competitor, maintaining her status and wealth, and making sure she still came out on top. It was the greatest revenge and even Y/N had to give her mother credit for the ingenuity of it all.
Bruce remembered how terrible it all was for Y/N, who was used as a pawn in her parents war against each other.
Having had enough of it, Y/N fled Gotham and chose to live with her eccentric great aunt in London and finished her last year of high school there.
But Y/N didn’t run away from Bruce. They emailed, texted, video chatted, called.
They had always been good friends.
The elites of Gotham always suspected the two would get married. But both Bruce and Y/N pretended to ignore such whisperings.
But when Bruce shifted his life, when he changed his life’s purpose, when he started becoming a vigilante…he stopped taking Y/N’s calls and he stopped returning them.
He told himself it was better that way. He couldn’t handle any distractions. Batman didn’t have time for personal relationships, so neither did Bruce Wayne. But more importantly, Y/N deserved someone who would prioritize her – even just as a friend.
Now Bruce needed to get actually drunk.
Putting the phone back to his ear, he broke eye contact and made a beeline for one of the bars.
“Did you forget to tell me about the guest list, Alfred?” Bruce muttered evenly to the phone, knowing that Alfred would easily be able to hear his anger and irritation.
“How was I to know who RSVPed yes or no…” Alfred bit back. But he knew exactly who Bruce was looking at.
Bruce frowned as he ended the call abruptly and asked for a whiskey.
“I don’t know, man. She’s not my type,” a man said to his friend.
The two of them were just a foot or two away from Bruce.
“What do you mean ‘not your type’? She’s fucking hot.”
“Don’t get me wrong, she’s beautiful. But she’s so stiff and uptight. Look, she’s had a resting bitch face all night.”
Bruce’s grip on his face tightened as he easily put together who they were talking about. It was moments like these that Bruce hated being lumped together with men like this.
“You’re an idiot,” the friend said with a laugh.
“Oh, yeah? Alright. If you’re so obsessed with her, why don’t you go over and talk to her?”
Bruce saw his window.
With a sloppy haste, Bruce turned right into the two men and just happened to spill his drink over the man who was about to make a move on Y/N.
Bruce laughed and spilled another drink on the bar as he tried to grab some nearby cocktail napkins. “Gentleman, gentleman…I so dearly apologize.”
Both of them were clearly annoyed, but then realized who he was.
Bruce gripped them by the shoulders and made sure his eyes were struggling to stay open. “I could be wrong…but it’s possible…that I have been over served.”
He broke out into a chuckle and both men forced their own laughter.
Bruce subtle glanced over to where Y/N had been standing. She’d disappeared.
He’d spared her…for now.
“I think it’s time I go home,” Bruce told them too loudly. “Do me a favor? Wish her congratulations for me?”
The two men looked at one another. “Congratulations? To who?”
Bruce frowned in confusion and looked around. “Isn’t this an engagement party?”
They tried to hide their laughter. “Wayne, this is a birthday party. For Eaton Elliot.”
Bruce’s brows shot up. “A birthday party? Look at that!”
Then he turned around, zigzagged his walk, and threw a wave over his shoulder.
But Bruce wasn’t that lucky.
Because when he made his way to the valet, he found Y/N waiting patiently with her back to him.
Her fancy dress and gloves seemed to do nothing to help protect her from the cold night.
Bruce could’ve left. He could’ve left her alone, gone back into the party, and made more of a fool of himself.
But next thing he knew, he was walking forward.
“Waiting for your car?”
Y/N didn’t turn to him, but it was clear that she heard his question and recognized who it had come from. “I didn’t drive. They’re getting me a cab.”
Bruce nodded slowly even though she wasn’t looking at him.
All charm had left his body now that he had quit the act. It wasn’t going to do any favors for him. He needed to do this on his own, as his real self.
Y/N finally turned with a slight attitude and Bruce was taken aback at how she was even more beautiful up close.
“What are you doing here, Bruce?”
He smirked. “I’m here for the party, of course.” He didn’t want to play the part anymore – not with her. But it was second nature at this point.
Her lips pursed at his response.
“Leaving so soon?” He asked.
Y/N sighed. “Between you and me, I’m only here as a favor to my mother. She wouldn’t get off my back about coming. I tried to leave sooner, but…”
One of the valets hopped up the steps. “I’m sorry, Dr. Y/L/N. It can take awhile to get cabs in the area at this time of night.”
Y/N gave him a sympathetic smile and opened her mouth to say she’d walk home.
“I’ll drive her home,” Bruce spoke before she could. Then he handed the valet his ticket.
Y/N looked at him with confusion and a bit of annoyance. “You really don’t have to do that.”
Bruce just gave her a look that said he absolutely did.
Then Y/N gestured back to the party. “You’re just gonna abandon your dates?”
The way she asked made it clear that Y/N had seen Bruce stumble out of the bathroom with the two of them. He also didn’t miss how she emphasized the plural.
“They’ll be fine,” Bruce told her.
He took a step toward her. “Let me give you a ride, Y/N.”
She took in a deep breath.
She knew she needed the ride. Only an idiot would walk home at this time of night, even if the walk to her apartment was a relatively safe one for Gotham standards.
Y/N just nodded.
A minute later, an Aston Martin drove up.
Bruce offered his arm to Y/N and helped her down the stairs before opening the passenger door for her.
He handed the valet a few bills, not even noticing they were all hundreds.
“Where to?” Bruce asked her.
“Oh, umm…” Y/N quickly gave him her address.
“I know you’ve been gone awhile, but you definitely shouldn’t be walking around the streets of Gotham at night.”
Y/N scoffed. “I’m aware. I moved back awhile ago.”
“Oh. I didn’t know…”
“Yeah. Well, why would you? It’s not like you kept in touch.”
The car filled with silence.
Y/N stared out the passenger window, looking at the skyscraper lights of Gotham
It seemed Y/N had no issue with staying silent for the whole car ride.There was nothing awkward about it for her.
But Bruce knew there were things he needed to say. “I’m sorry.”
This was the last thing Y/N expected and her head whipped to him.
But Bruce kept his eyes on the road. “For disappearing like I did.”
Y/N slowly turned back to the passenger window and said nothing.
Bruce didn’t expect to win her forgiveness. He would have to deal with that. But at least he could apologize.
“Y/N.” Bruce said it ever so quietly, like he was forbidden from speaking it. “This isn’t…I’m not…” Dammit. What was he even trying to accomplish right now? “Back there–”
“Back there?” Y/N interrupted his fumbling. “Oh, you mean the threesome you had in a bathroom at a party?”
Bruce’s jaw tightened.
Everyone bought his performance. Unfortunately, even Y/N.
Bruce pulled over and Y/N realized they were at her building already.
“You can say whatever makes you feel good, Bruce. Have at it.” Then she threw open the car door.
She put her hand on the handle to help herself out.
But she hesitated.
No. She wasn’t going down without a fight.
Y/N spun around to face Bruce, his blue eyes already waiting for her.
“You used to be kind. Strong and brave. You were better than all of them.”
And for the first time, Bruce really saw the damage he had done.
“Is that boy really gone?” She searched his eyes for the answer. “What is the act and what is the truth?” She whispered. “Huh, Bruce?”
He wanted to tell her.
Bruce had never felt the urge to expose his secret ever before.
But right now? Right now, he wanted to take Y/N back to the manor, drag her down to the cave, and show her all of his secrets – every single one.
But he couldn’t. And he knew that.
Bruce kept his face reserved.
His brow furrowed for just a second as he took Y/N in. All of her. Her eyelashes. Her lips. The styling of her hair. The dip of her neck.
“You became quite the woman, Y/N.” He told her. “And a beautiful one at that.”
Y/N blinked at the statement. Her mind desperately tried to decipher the hidden message in his words, in his actions from the night. But she came up with nothing.
She wanted to say that she knew he was using flattery to divert her attention from what she wanted to know. But it was also clear that he genuinely meant what he said as well. His eyes seeming to be taking in every moment of being in her presence.
If Y/N weren’t so irritated, she probably would’ve been more taken aback by his compliment, feeling vulnerable and almost embarrassed.
There wasn’t any point in pushing.
So Y/N took in a breath. “Thank you for the ride, Bruce.”
He just nodded. Then he watched her walk to the door of her apartment building. He probably lingered a few moments too long, but he couldn’t bring himself to once again put distance between them.
————
Alfred brought down food and an espresso to the cave.
When he looked up, Y/F/N Y/L/N’s face was on the giant screen.
“Working on a case, Master Wayne?” He asked with his usual sarcasm.
Bruce ignored the question. “She attended undergrad in Metropolis and then went to grad school in New York City.”
“Yes, I can see that…considering you have her student records exploited all over the screen,” Alfred responded with a smirk. “She’s been living in Gotham again for a few years, working as a psychiatrist. Even volunteers her services at Arkham – pro bono.”
That caught Bruce’s attention. He turned away from the screen to look at Alfred.
“I found no record of that,” he argued.
“Yes. Well, her mother is rather embarrassed by it. Thinks it gives the family a bad image. She insisted Y/N’s philanthropy was kept secret, even approved the NDAs herself.”
Bruce gave him a look, utterly confused how Alfred had access to such information.
Alfred raised an eyebrow. “Never underestimate the power of gossip, Master Wayne. Most family secrets cannot be found on the dark corners of the internet.” Then he smirked. “You would gain quite the knowledge if you didn’t turn your nose up at it.”
Bruce smiled at that and turned back to the computer.
“So, I take it that it was good seeing her?” Alfred pressed.
Bruce tensed at the question. “Not entirely. I’m certain that she hates me.”
“Hates you or hates the character you’ve so carefully created?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m just Bruce Wayne to her.”
Alfred opened his mouth to say more.
“Leave it, Alfred.” Bruce cut off before he could.
“Well, it appears I’m not the one struggling with leaving it alone, Master Wayne.”
Like many of Gotham’s elites, Alfred had humored the idea that Bruce and Y/N would make a marvelous couple. Like Bruce, Y/N didn’t let money and power sway her morals or damage her good and kind heart.
Alfred had always enjoyed having her over and listening to her and Bruce’s laughter as they caused trouble around the manor and entertained themselves.
But he also saw how her departure effected Bruce, no matter how much the teenager had tried to hide it at the time.
Maybe Alfred was an optimist or a romantic, but he still believed there was a chance for the two of them. But Bruce, quite frankly, would have to get over himself and his stubbornness.
————
Bruce was looking down at the city from yet another rooftop. It had been a quiet night. And he hated nights like that. It was always ended up being the calm before a storm.
“Batman?” Alfred spoke into his comms.
“Yes.”
“It appears there’s been a breakout at Arkham. The media hasn’t caught wind of it yet. But law enforcement has already been dispatched.”
“I’m on my way,” Bruce announced as he slid down a fire escape and made his way to the batmobile that he’d hidden in the shadows of an alley.
“Master Wayne…” Alfred knew to only use codenames on comms.
Bruce tense. “What is it?”
There was hesitation from the butler. “Y/N was scheduled to work a shift there tonight…”
Bruce said nothing. But his foot pressed the gas pedal down further than necessary.
—
Y/N was sitting with a patient when the alarm went off.
The people that worked there called them inmates, and corrected her every time she chose not to use that title.
Harleen Quinzel had been sitting across from Y/N for almost 30 minutes when they were interrupted.
“Oh, fun!” Harley clapped and giggled as the sirens filled their ears.
Harley and Y/N had formed an interesting relationship. The criminal seemed to like her and looked forward to her visits. She never threatened Y/N or tried to manipulate her.
Y/N believes she won her over by addressing her as Dr. Quinzel and often asking her professional opinions on trends and news in their industry.
Most people there only referred to Harley as if she was property of the Joker, no matter how many times Harley clarified that she wasn’t his anything anymore.
“Does this happen a lot?” Y/N asked her, trying to remain calm.
“Not enough, if ya ask me!” She laughed.
Y/N made the mistake of opening the door and seeing that the majority of the cells had been opened and prisoners were slowly making their way into the hallway.
“Not good,” Y/N muttered.
“Don’t worry, doc. I’ll protect ya! Us gals gotta stick together.” Harley said from behind her shoulder.
Y/N whipped around and looked at her and then at the table she’d been sitting at. “Dr. Quinzel! How did you get out of your restraints?”
“Oh, I’ve always been able to. I just leave ‘em on to be polite.”
Y/N sighed. No one had explained any sort of protocol for such a situation.
“Where the fuck are all the guards?” Y/N asked.
Suddenly the lights shut off.
“Yippy!” Harley cheered.
Y/N turned to her and softly grabbed her shoulder, but gave her an insistent look. “Harley, we need to get somewhere safe.”
Her face did dip to serious for a moment. “You don’t need to worry about me. But you’re right. Not everyone in here appreciates a shrink…”
To her surprise, Harley starts pulling her through the darkness with a purpose.
Y/N had no idea where she was planning on taking her. It seemed all the doors were in lock-down mode, leaving her stranded. If she survived tonight, she’d definitely be bringing that up to the board.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Y/N yelped at the sound.
Someone had either gotten a hold of a gun or security guards were opening fire.
Either way, it caused chaos to erupt.
Suddenly the dark hallways were being filled with a stampede of prisoners. Either they wanted to take down the guard who was shooting or they were getting an adrenaline rush at the concept of their peers attacking their wardens.
The crowd ripped the two women apart. Y/N was shoved up against the wall and her head slammed against the cement.
Y/N swore under her breath from the pain.
“Is that…No, it can’t be…”
A voice called out over the madness.
A chill went up Y/N’s spine. She’d know that voice anywhere.
The Joker.
He wasn’t one of her patients. All researchers and doctors were forbidden to speak with him – especially after what happened with Harley.
But that didn’t stop the Joker from knowing who Y/N was. He whined and whined about feeling left out. “All my pals get to chat with her and all I get to do is look!”
Now, Joker was free from him isolation.
Y/N suspected he was behind the breakout.
And he was going to make a slight detour. A detour that was doing whatever the hell he wanted to with Dr. Y/L/N.
Y/N didn’t even bother hiding her fear. With a new found strength and endurance, she started shoving her way through the mob.
“I hear you and my pumpkin’ pie have gotten close.” Then his smile dropped. “Too close, if ya ask me.”
Y/N ignored him as another prisoner shoved into her shoulder.
“I don’t appreciate you putting ideas in her head!”
Y/N stopped, realizing she had miscalculated her escape and had come to a dead end.
So she slowly turned around to face him, putting her back to the wall. “And what ideas are those?”
“Independence. Self respect. A life beyond crime and incarceration,” he spat.
Y/N realized he had his goonies flanking him, only making her odds that much worse.
“Those aren’t ideas. They’re a reality, a possible future,” she defended.
Joker didn’t like that answer one bit. He threw himself against her, once again slamming Y/N into the wall.
He gripped her chin roughly and smiled with his yellow teeth. “You know…she’s not the only doctor I’d like to break in. And in more ways than one, if you catch my drift,” he giggled.
Then his eyes raked over her body, up and down. His hands slid down her hips and the side of her legs until they got to the hem of her pencil skirt.
Y/N shoved him away with all of her strength.
But that earned her a slap across the face from him.
Joker gripped her waist tightly pressing her between the wall and his body. “I’m in charge now, doc. And I’ve got a few lessons to teach you.”
His hands grabbed at the buttons of her blouse and with one jerk, he ripped open her her blouse.
But before he could go any further, a few of his lackeys cried out in pain.
Y/N swore she heard the sound of objects whipping through the darkness.
She didn’t want to let herself feel any relief. But she hoped Harley had made her way back to her. She’d probably pack an even heavier punch once she realized Y/N needed protecting from her asshole ex.
But when Joker turned around and Y/N followed his gaze, Harley was nowhere to be found.
Yet three men were on the ground, unconscious.
“Well, well, well,” Joker muttered in amusement. “Has Batsy come out to play?”
Next thing Y/N saw was a shadow dropping down out of nowhere and taking out even more of Joker’s men.
Joker seemed to be prepared for such an interruption. Because he grabbed a knife from somewhere hidden on his body and ripped Y/N off the wall. He pressed Y/N’s back to his chest and put the tip of his knife to her throat.
“Come out, come out wherever you are,” Joker sang.
To Y/N’s shock, Batman stepped into what little light was in the hallway.
“Long time, no see!” Joker screamed so loudly that Y/N flinched. “Did you miss me, Batsy? And you came all this way to see little old me?! How very sweet!”
“Your attempted escape was a failure,” Batman stated. “There’s nowhere for you to go. All the exits are blocked. Arkham has been contained.”
“What a shame! I really felt this one was gonna work!” Joker laughed.
Batman took a step toward him. “It’s over, Joker.”
“You’re probably right,” Joker shrugged. “But I really wanted to have some fun with doc here. So, if you could give us some privacy.”
Batman’s eyes flickered to Y/N’s for a brief moment. “Let her go,” he warned.
“How about…no?” Joker laughed.
Just as Batman was about to make his move, Y/N grabbed the wrist of Joker’s arm that held the knife. She twisted it and dived in such a succinct motion that it was obvious Y/N had been trained.
Whipping herself out of Joker’s grip, she twisted Joker’s arm so roughly and quickly behind his back that he had no choice but to drop his knife from the pain.
Then Y/N was now facing him, and with one swift swing of her leg, she kicked him right in the groan.
Batman saw his opening and rushed forward, cuffing Joker in place.
While Batman neutralized him, Y/N stumbled for the knife that Joker had dropped, still not feeling safe and out of danger.
She looked around, realizing that the police had filtered in and apprehended all the escaped prisoners. Some were already locked back into their cells. Other’s were in handcuffs with guns being pointed at them in warning.
“Dr. Y/L/N,” his voice made her whip back around.
How the hell did Batman know her name?
She squinted wearily at him.
“You can drop the knife,” Batman told her quietly.
Y/N blinked and looked down at her hand, having forgotten that she even grabbed the knife. And she now had a vice-like grip on it.
Her hands were shaking when she dropped the knife and the clatter echoed in the hallway.
She eyed the Joker, not trusting any sort of weapon to be in his vicinity, despite being handcuffed now.
“He’s not going anywhere,” Batman noted, as if he could read her mind and hear the concerns she was thinking.
Police officers surrounded them now.
“Until next time, doc!” Joker sang loudly.
Batman stepped between him and Y/N, shielding her from even being seen by the lunatic.
Y/N eyed him, wondering if he did that on purpose.
“This way,” he directed lowly as he led her out of the hallway.
Y/N was surprised when he escorted her all the way out of the building.
Wasn’t this supposed to be Gotham’s Dark Knight? A disappearing act? An urban legend that some people still didn’t believe in?
When they got outside, there were even more officers. The night was flickering blue and red from all the patrol car’s lights still being on.
Commissioner Gordon was having a field day with Arkham’s warden, yelling at him about lack of protocol and no protection for the volunteers and workers that had gotten caught in the crossfire.
But finally, the reality of what just happened was starting to set in for Y/N. And she realized that her entire body was shaking.
All of a sudden, a blanket was wrapped around her shoulders.
She looked up to see that Batman had draped it over her. When and where he’d grabbed it, she had no clue. But the warmth was helping, so she didn’t question it.
“Thank you…for saving me back there.”
Was that a smirk on his lips? Was Batman amused by her?
Why was it so comforting when he was a mere stranger?
And his eyes, even when they were surrounded by a cowl and dark paint, they still felt familiar. Y/N had a similar feeling to deja vu.
“Looked like you had it handled,” he replied.
“Oh, I definitely didn’t. But thank god for those self-defense classes.”
They looked into each other’s eyes for a second.
“Make sure you get checked out by the paramedics,” he told her gently, but insistent.
It was far too gentle for his Batman alter ego. But she caught how it sounded like it personally mattered to him.
Y/N looked behind her, where the ambulance was.
But when she turned back around, Batman was gone.
Next thing Y/N knew, she was being surrounded by two paramedics and Commissioner Gordon who was careful not to push her by asking too many questions at once.
“Does he always do that?” She asked him in a daze.
“Do what?” Gordon asked.
“Disappear like that?”
Gordon smiled and nodded. “Annoying, isn’t it?”
———
“What’s the gossip of the privileged this week?” Bruce asked Alfred at breakfast a few days after the outbreak.
“Something specific you’re looking for, Master Wayne?” Alfred asked as he poured Bruce a big mug of coffee.
Bruce glared at him, knowing he was playing coy with him.
But he put his pride aside. “How is she doing?”
Alfred took pity on him. “She took some time off work. But seems to be handling it better than expected. Makes quite a bit of sense, doesn’t it? Her being psychiatrist and all.”
Bruce just nodded with a dazed look.
“You could always see for yourself…” Alfred added.
Bruce snapped out of his daze and looked up him questioningly.
“You could go see her,” Alfred confirmed.
“Alfred, don’t you start.”
“Start what, Master Wayne? Pushing you to form any sort of relationship?”
Bruce sighed and got up from the breakfast nook. He didn’t want to fight with him, so he’d made his exit before that happened.
“Batman has plenty of friends,” Alfred stopped him. “But what about Bruce Wayne, hmm? Who are his friends?”
“You saying we’re not friends, Alfred?”
“I’m all you’ve got, Master Wayne. And that’s my point.”
Before the discussion could go on any further, the doorbell rang.
The two men shared a look.
No one stopped by the manor.
Alfred made his way over.
Bruce figured he’d wait where he was. But the front entrance was too far away from him to overhear any conversation.
A few minutes later, Alfred walked in with an unreadable expression.
“Dr. Y/L/N is here, Master Wayne. She is waiting for you in the drawing room.”
Bruce opened his mouth to tell him to make an excuse and get her to leave. But Alfred was already disappearing, making it clear that he would do no such thing for him.
When Bruce walked into the drawing room, he found Y/N’s back to him as she looked at the family heirlooms and trinkets that were displayed on the shelved.
She was dressed casually, which caught Bruce off guard since he’d only see her in formal wear and professional outfits since their reunion. Her hair was in a messy bun and she didn’t appear to be wearing much makeup, if any at all.
“Hi,” he greeted softly, making her quickly turn around.
“Hi,” she replied.
Bruce stepped further into the room. But neither of them moved to sit in any of the many seats that surrounded them.
“I heard what happened. How are you doing?” He asked.
She nodded and shrugged. “Alright.”
“I’m surprised to see you here,” Bruce admitted.
Y/N ignored his comment and her eyes went around the room. “I missed this place,” she thought aloud. Then her eyes fell back to his, softening. “I missed you.”
Bruce was taken aback from her confession. Seeing as the last time they were together, she was rather blunt about how disgusted and disappointed in him she was.
The energy between them felt so different than last time.
To his surprise, Y/N stepped toward him. And she didn’t stop until she was at a proximity that most would call rather intimate.
There was a voice in the back of Bruce’s mind, urging him to close the last bit of distance and place his lips on hers. But he managed to ignore it. That didn’t stop his heart from beating faster, though.
Y/N stared into his eyes for a few seconds, almost like she was searching for something.
“I have something that belongs to you…”
Bruce waited, not sure what she could possibly have to give him.
But then she pulled out one of his batarangs from her coat pocket, offering it to him.
She had found it embedded in the wall when she had gone back down to grab her personal belongings that night.
Bruce kept his face composed. “I’m not sure I understand.”
But he grabbed it from her anyways.
“He’s you,” she whispered. “Or I guess…you’re him.”
Bruce let out a breath, “Y/N…”
She took step away from him. “Don’t lie to me, Bruce.”
So he shut his mouth and said nothing instead.
“I’ve been doing some research. Things started lining up,” Y/N explained. “The first Batman sightings were right around when we stopped talking. The more Batman was in the press, the less Bruce Wayne was. And when he was, it was never positive – like it was meant to be a distraction.”
Her eyes went sad. “I never understood how the boy I used to love could grow into the man I’m so disappointed in. It never made sense.” She paused. “But when you wonder if the man himself is the mask, it all fits.”
“I’m sorry.” Bruce hung his head slightly. “I couldn’t tell anyone. Not even you.”
“I’d never share your secret.”
“I know,” he answered instantly.
Y/N couldn’t hold back her emotions any longer. Her eyes welled with tears. “Bruce…living like this has its consequences.”
Bruce said nothing.
She stepped forward and grabbed his hand. “You can’t change the world on your own. You don’t have to do this alone.”
Y/N wasn’t giving him advice. She was offering him something.
Her trust.
Her secrecy.
Her love.
He shook his head, but gripped her hand tightly. “You would just end up in the shadows with me. And I…I can’t do that to you.”
“I’m stronger than you think,” Y/N defended.
“I’ve always known how strong you are, Y/N.” His jaw tightened at even the thought of being selfish. “You deserve more than what I can give. Gotham will always come first. That’s the sacrifice I made. That’s what is required. I can’t be what you need.”
Y/N studied his face, knowing that there would be no winning with him.
She nodded once, not even slightly hiding her heartbreak and disappointment.
Then she stepped closer and gave him a slow kiss on the cheek.
“It’s not a one time offer, Bruce.”
Bruce couldn’t move a muscle. He was rooted in place.
He heard Y/N have a short conversation with Alfred, then the door closed, and she was gone again.
———
Bruce Wayne was a fool.
Alfred could probably make a list, in seconds, with a hundred reasons why.
But, no, Bruce Wayne was a fool for believing Y/N would give up so easily.
Two weeks later, Y/N was at Wayne Manor again.
Bruce knew something was going on when Alfred didn’t seem surprised in the slightest.
In one of her arms was popcorn seeds, twizzlers, sour patch kids, and chocolate covered pretzels. In the other arm was a case of beer.
Y/N barely said hi to Bruce as Alfred helped her out of her coat and took the things out of her grasp so she was no longer struggling to hold it all.
“I’m here to use your theater,” she announced.
And with that, she walked right past Bruce like she owned the place.
Bruce looked at Alfred and silently asked, ‘What the hell is going on?’
“I believe you have a guest to entertain, Master Wayne.” Then he looked at the items in his hand. “And I believe I have some popcorn to make.”
Bruce still didn’t move.
“You successfully closed yet another case last night, it’s Friday night, and you have a beautiful woman who decided she wants to spend her time with you. Best you don’t keep her waiting, Master Wayne.”
Bruce narrowed his gaze as if telling Alfred they’d discuss this matter at another time.
“I presume you shouldn’t go empty handed,” Alfred added quickly and handed Bruce two beers from the case in his arms.
Bruce chuckled, but started walking away. “I’m surprised you even let this stuff in the house, Alfred.”
When Bruce reached the theater, Y/N had already started a movie.
He watched her a for a moment before she could realize he'd joined her.
Y/N looked like she belonged there. Even after all this time apart, she just burrowed herself a cozy nook in Bruce’s life.
It was something she had been able to do even when they were kids. When Bruce had his mood swings or his depressive episodes, Y/N didn’t scare. She just found her way to stay at his side without upsetting him further.
Bruce grabbed the seat to the left of hers.
They weren’t really seats, more like small beds. A dozen were placed in the theater.
A couple could easily share one, but Bruce wasn’t planning on even approaching that fine line.
When Bruce sat down, he didn’t look at Y/N. But she gave a shy smile at his joining.
It was a long movie – almost a 3 hour run time.
And Y/N almost made it.
Without only 30 minutes left, Y/N had fallen asleep. Meaning Bruce’s attention was now taken from the movie.
He got up and grabbed one of the many blankets in the trunk hidden in the corner and placed it carefully over her, before silently leaving.
This was not a one time thing.
These type of visits continued.
Bruce knew Y/N and Alfred had to be in cahoots together.
Y/N seemed to always come to the manor when Bruce needed her most.
Alfred would force Bruce out of the cave and moments later, the doorbell would be ringing.
On the bad nights, she wouldn’t make him talk. She wouldn’t ask questions or try to make him magically feel better. Sometimes she would talk – mostly about mundane things. She’d tell Bruce about her day or how her neighbor always left baked goods at her door or about the new show she started watching. Sometimes she wouldn’t say anything at all, just sit there silently and make sure he wasn’t alone.
Sometimes she would bring coffee and pastries.
Sometimes Bruce would just walk into the library and find her reading.
Sometimes she would sit and chat with Alfred as if he was the reason she was visiting, and not Bruce.
Bruce couldn’t sleep one night. Nothing specific was causing his insomnia. Just the overall weight of being so many people.
It was 3AM when Y/N texted him to open the door for her because she didn’t want to wake Alfred.
When Bruce did so, Y/N was standing on the other door in sandals and a slightly transparent coverup that barely showed the outline of the bathing suit underneath.
He said nothing, but his face clearly showed that he wanted to know why the hell she was there in the middle of the night.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Y/N told him quietly. Then she shrugged a bit,“I decided I wanted to go for a swim."
Whether she was lying for his benefit, Bruce wasn’t sure. But he followed her to the indoor swimming pool like a sailor would follow a siren.
Without hesitation, Y/N kicked her sandals off and tossed her coverup on the nearest chair. And the next second, she was diving into the pool.
Bruce smirked at her nonchalance, but made sure to hide it when she breached the surface once again.
“Doesn’t your apartment building have its won pool?” He asked.
Y/N smiled and tilted her head back to get her hair wet again and out of her face. “They put too much chlorine in it.”
Bruce crossed his arms, “I see.”
“Coming in?” She asked teasingly.
He shook his head.
“At least keep me company,” she requested.
Bruce glared playfully at her, knowing the game she was playing.
But he finally sighed and nodded.
He was in cotton shorts and a t-shirt. But he decided to sit on the edge of the pool and dip his feet in.
He watched as she swam around, looking as natural in the water as a mermaid. She had always loved swimming as a kid and it appeared not much had changed.
“Why couldn’t you sleep?” He finally decided to break the silence.
Y/N swam to him and crossed her arms on the edge of the pool to rest and tilted her head to look at him.
She shrugged, “The usual: stress, nightmares, insomnia, too much caffeine.”
Bruce’s concern spiked instantly. “Nightmares about what?”
She watched him for a moment, seeing how quickly her subtle comment triggered him.
“You’re not the only person who’s seen fucked up things, Bruce.”
An hour later, Y/N asked for a towel.
When she climbed out, she was taken aback by Bruce wrapping it around her shoulders and rubbing her down gently. It was innocent, but subtly intimate.
As their eyes locked for a prolonged time, and he seemed to realize what he’d done accidentally.
Y/N cleared her throat. “I should head home and let you try to get some sleep.”
“You could stay,” he offered. “I mean, we have plenty of bedrooms here,” he quickly added and saved himself a bit.
“Is that…what you want?” Y/N asked slowly.
Bruce knew what she was trying to ask. He didn’t trust himself to answer the way he should, so he didn’t answer.
“Let me drive you home,” he asked as they left the indoor pool and started toward the front entrance.
Y/N ignored the request until they were at the door. She turned to face him with a smug look, “I’m perfectly capable of driving myself. Thank you.”
She hesitated before kissing him on the cheek. “Get some sleep, Bruce.”
————
Months after Y/N’s visits started, Bruce was doing some research for a case on his tablet as he ate dinner.
“Margaret Caulfield’s engagement party is tonight,” Alfred broke the silence of the manor as he took Bruce’s finished plate.
Bruce looked confused on why he was supposed to care.
“Y/N will be there,” Alfred added.
But Bruce still didn’t understand what he was trying to say.
“Master Wayne, when you attend all those sufferable parties, what is the first question people ask you?”
Bruce thought for a moment. “When I plan on settling down, I guess.”
“Now imagine that, but magnified by about 100…and that is what Y/N’s experience is at those same parties. That young woman is one of the brightest people in Gotham and all those people care about is who will put a silly ring on her finger.”
Bruce leaned back in his chair, now understanding what Alfred was getting at. “I’m not her boyfriend, Alfred.”
“And you’ve made damn sure of that,” Alfred said a little too harshly.
Bruce watched him carefully.
“Y/N has fought off every one of your attempts to be a miserable recluse.”
Bruce opened his mouth.
“And don’t you dare try and tell me her efforts are wasted,” Alfred cut him off. “I’ve seen a change in you. And she has asked for absolutely nothing in return. She’d never ask you to pick her over Batman. Though she bloody well should!”
He wasn’t done.
“You’re not living, Master Wayne. And I won’t apologize for wanting more for you.”
Bruce just sat there and took it.
Alfred took in a breath, calming himself down. “There’s a suit waiting for you in your bedroom. I’ve decided I’m going for a evening walk.”
——————
Y/N didn’t know how many more champagnes she’d have to shrug to start feeling the buzz she so desperately needed.
Not even an hour of being at the party and she’s already been asked 15 times if she was seeing anyone. And when she answered no, half of those ended in them trying to set her up with someone.
As Y/N was trying to think of an excuse to escape, an old family friend approached her – a friend of her grandma’s unfortunately.
“Y/N, dear, let me see those hands!”
Y/N wanted to roll her eyes and snap, but she did as requested.
“No ring yet,” the woman teased, but she was also genuinely disappointed.
“That would be my fault, actually.” A voice said behind Y/N before she felt a hand on her lower back.
“Oh, Mr. Wayne, how nice of you to come!” The woman beamed. “Now, Y/N, why wouldn’t you tell anyone that you and Bruce are an item?”
“My fault again,” Bruce chuckled, “I’ve always enjoyed a good secret.”
Before she could ask more, Bruce smiled politely. “If you could excuse us for a moment.”
He steered Y/N to a private area of the party.
“What are you doing?” Y/N hissed at him. “The press are gonna have a field day. You and I will be every headline tomorrow.”
He smiled at her frantic concern.
“Why are you looking at me like that? I’m serious!”
Bruce captured her lips, silencing any further panic from her.
Y/N was completely caught off guard, but he wasn’t letting her go so easily. And soon, her hand went to the back of his head and she kissed him back.
Damn all the people who were probably watching them.
When Bruce finally let her pull away, he smirked at her dazed look and cupped her cheek.
She matched his smirk.
But then reality set in like a splash of cold water and she frowned.
“Am I – Is this your new cover?” She asked shakily, so scared that the answer was ‘yes.��
She could tolerate being Bruce’s friend for the rest of her life. But she wouldn’t survive being used in such a way. She couldn’t live in a fake relationship with a man she actually loved. She’d rather watch his sloppy persona with girls hanging off of him.
“No cover-up,” he muttered to her. “Just me and you – the real me.”
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I worked so hard on this 😩
Please let me know your thoughts.
#bruce wayne x reader#batman x reader#batman reader insert#alfred pennyworth#alfred pennyworth & reader#batman fic#batman universe#dc#bruce wayne fic#bruce wayne reader insert#batfam#batboys#batman x you#bruce wayne x you#bruce wayne angst#batman angst
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Has Jason met the Flashpoint Universe's Thomas Wayne? Like, actually spoken with him or voiced an opinion on the guy? If not, how do you envision their interactions?
Hello friend! I really like your questions; they make me read new stuff!
To answer your first question, nope, Jason Todd from main continuity hasn’t met Thomas Wayne from flashpoint! The only issue in which they “appear together” is Batman (2016) #71, but Jason only appears there when Barbara calls him so he can team up with the “Batfamily” to help Bruce. And that’s where this iconic Jason panel comes from!
Now, as a little heads up, I haven’t read flashpoint but I have done my research on Thomas Wayne’s story in Flashpoint. What I have read, though, is Batman vol.3 issues, 21, 22, 50, 58, 60, 69, 71-77, 80-85. I read that to answer this question Batman is not necessarily a book that I follow, from those I think I had previously read four or five issues.
("City of Bane" was so boring, confusing and stretched out too long. It would have been an easier read if Tom King stopped writing everything in pauses, I really don’t know how to explain it, but between that and the “Bat” “Cat” stuff I was ready to cry).
But because I read all that and did my research on Thomas Wayne, I believe I can give a pretty solid answer to your other question, “If not, how do you envision their interactions?”
I think Jason’s first impression of Flashpoint Thomas Wayne would have been, “I now understand why Bruce is so scared of killing the Joker, he just won’t be capable to handle himself and go on a killing spree. Suppose being not strong-willed runs in their blood”
Then as time passes by and he gets a glimpse at Thomas’ actions in main continuity I think that Jason would have reached the conclusion that Thomas was pathetic, crazy and dangerous. I can really see Jason writing down Thomas’ name in his own “to kill” list.
I really don’t think they could have gotten along from the very start. Yes, they both kill criminals but Thomas is deranged compared to Jason as he is now. (I will be talking about Jason as if he were a solid mix between UtRH and RHatO Jason).
Jason kills criminals such as drug dealers that sell drugs to children, rapists, people who work for the wrong kind of people and monsters, or things like the Untitled. Thomas on the other hand kills every kind of criminal, and sometimes he thinks that killing innocents and children is a means to an end.
In the Batman run, Thomas wasn’t happy about Bane killing Alfred but those were the rules, basically, he stepped aside from protecting Alfred because Bane had set a rule that said that if any of the Bat-People stepped foot in Gotham Alfred would be killed, and Damian went to Gotham so Thomas was like “oh well, time for Alfred to die, I guess”. After Alfred was killed by Bane, Thomas took Damian hostage and decided to use him as leverage now that Alfred was dead.
Thomas was nasty. But, I kinda started explaining Thomas’ thinking process from a weird place, so let me give you a little context if you haven’t read this arc.
Thomas Wayne is the Batman from Flashpoint. Flashpoint isn’t another universe, it is like a re-written main continuity universe so that Thomas is main continuity Bruce’s real father. How are they both in main continuity? Flash and Reverse Flash nonsense, I am not a Flash person so that’s the best way I can explain it. Reverse Flash and Flash did something weird and Thomas ended up in main continuity after they deleted the Flashpoint “timeline”.
Thomas Wayne asked Bruce while they were both in Flashpoint that he stopped being Batman, he told Bruce to find happiness and leave Batman behind because it would only bring him pain and suffering. (Batman vol.3 #22)
When Thomas Wayne woke up in main continuity, he got to see Bruce proposing to Selina, and going on a double date with Selina, Lois and Clark. But he also got to see that Bruce and Selina didn’t get married. That was what made Thomas Wayne go to Bane so he could help him break Bruce’s mind so Bruce finally let Batman go.
Yeah, Thomas really thought that the best way he could make his son give up the vigilante life was by helping Bane take over Gotham and breaking Bruce’s mental stability (or whatever he has left of it).
By helping Bane take over Gotham, Thomas was actually working with people like Joker, Riddler, Scarecrow and other villains. So, from that alone Jason would have been like “Who the hell is this guy and how can I kill him before Gotham falls apart?”.
I have to be honest though, I am really happy that Tom King didn’t include Jason in this stupid story, it just wouldn’t have made sense because even though Gotham was falling apart and villains were roaming free and terrorizing Gotham’s people, King actually made the “Batfamily” fight only for Alfred (who was already dead) and then they all got beat by Thomas. Tom King never made anyone care for Gotham itself, and no, I am not counting Selina and Bruce because those two were fucking and having drinks while Gotham fell apart, they only showed up at the very last second.
But your question wasn’t about my thoughts on this dumb story, it was about Jason and Thomas interacting. Well, I think that if Tom King had invited Jason to this party, he would have shot Thomas without hesitation and then would have told the “Batfamily” to get their shit together because Gotham’s people were suffering while everyone was looking away.
Thomas was working with Bane and letting Gotham’s rouges do whatever they wanted, Jason would have killed Thomas instantly! There would have been no talking, no “What are your thoughts on the Joker being alive after he killed me that one time? Do you think Bruce was right?”, Jason would have wasted no time on that because he would have seen his city fall apart at the hands of Thomas and Bane AND Bruce’s negligence. Oh, yeah, I blame Bruce too, I can’t really help myself, I hate that guy.
So, that’s what I think Jason would have done if he got to interact with Flashpoint Thomas Wayne.
Now, there was one thing in Thomas’ whole speech and idea that I kinda thought UtRH Jason (mostly) would have agreed on.
“All of you. He made you. Children fighting for him. An addict spreading his poison. Trying to make himself seem normal”.
Alright, Thomas, I hear you, you are one crazy mf but I see your point! That’s what I think and what I think Jason would have thought if he heard him say that but he would have killed Thomas anyways. Thomas really fits among the type of people that both UtRH and RHatO Jason would kill, so even if he kinda agreed with that statement Thomas would have been done for, no hesitation.
I wish I could have come up with something else but really, I don’t see Jason ever agreeing with Thomas’ ideals as a whole. While Thomas’ initial motivation to kill was to avenge his son then he went on a path of pure destruction, killing just to kill, and that has never been Jason (Battle for the Cowl and Batman and Robin vol.2, I don’t know them), in UtRH he expressed his desire for Bruce to kill Joker but he also said that he didn’t want Bruce to go on a killing spree, that wasn’t going to solve anything! No matter what Zdarsky tried to tell us with his two interpretations of Bruce and Jason’s perfect worlds, Jason has never wanted Bruce to kill every one of his rouges so then they can become a happy family.
That’s just an obscene lie. Jason knows better than everyone else that Gotham is corrupt beyond salvation and that killing Batman’s rogue gallery won’t solve Gotham’s problems. If it were that easy Jason would have done that a long time ago.
Anyway, I hope this isn’t a lame answer, I just don’t think that Jason would want to see or hear more about Thomas in general.
Thank you for the ask! I hope you had a great day!
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Batwoman Could’ve Been the PERFECT Batfamily Show
After Gotham ended so recently, Batwoman should've positioned itself as the Ying to that show's Yang by focusing on Batman's allies instead of his enemies.
The 'Bruce disappears hook is a brilliant way to do this
Kate is our audience entry point into this world
ORACLE + GORDON
Barbra Gordon has already been paralysed via The Killing Joke, and hasn't yet become Oracle - she's still recovering
Comissioner Gordon took an early retirement after his daughter was paralysed, which is why Kate's Dad's private security force the Crows runs the streets
Batwoman and the series' events inspire him to return and reclaim Gotham for the Law by the end of season 1
TIM DRAKE + WE ARE ROBIN
Robin disappeared with Batman, so we can introduce the We Are Robin gang. At the beginning of the season they're just criminals, but after Kate defeats their ringleader she shows them a better outlet for their rage, and inspires them. Duke Thomas (future Signal) is among them
Once the we Are Robins are established Tim Drake returns to Gotham. Kate is surprised - few people outside of Gotham know there have been multiple Robins. This way we can explain the different versions to people not in the know
Just like after Bruce was sent back in time in the comics, Tim has gone travelling the world as Red Robin, searching for him. Tim heard about the Robins causing civil unrest and is concerned about them marring Robin's good name.
Tim and Kate clash over the Robins' chaotic, violent modus oprendi - Tim enforces a philosophy of Robin as the light to Batman's dark - promoting positivity, not violence. A loose adaptation of the Robin War storyline follows where Duke Thomas emerges as the Robins' leader and rallies them to be more controlled and less violent
Tim leaves after this mini-arc, satisfied Gotham is in good hands. He also teaches Kate more about the detective side of Batman - he isn't just a blunt instrument. Tim will be our primary link to the 'Bruce's location' mystery throughout the series
NIGHTWING
Dick arrives in Gotham on a case from Bludhaven. Kate thinks he's abandoned Gotham - he should've taken up the mantle while Bruce was gone.
Explore Dick's troubled history with Bruce (not to F**k Batman levels), how Babs being Batgirl caused him to quit, and the one-two punch of Jason Todd's death and Barbra's paralysis only validated his getting out while he could
Tender scenes between Dick and Babs alluding to thier teenage crushes on each other.
As a cop, Dick hates the Crows being on Gotham's streets and more actively conflicts with Kate's father, driving up the tension between them and Batwoman
RED HOOD
This arc would be like a finale-style thing
Jason Todd returns and starts assassinating criminals with the ambition of 'controlling' crime. Kate is a soldier, more brutal than Bruce, so she has greater sympathy for Jay's methods
Jay is after the Joker. Like in The Dark Knight Returns, the Joker has 'retired' to Arkham since Batman left - he got bored pretty quickly. This arc introduces him properly after a few teases earlier in the series.
Jay learns of Barbra's paralysis (which happened after he died) - even then Bruce wouldn't kill him. A scene where Jason visits Babs (little brother/big sister dynamic).
Both Dick and Tim return for this arc, losing their shit over the Joker. Kate's reaction to the Joker is much like Terry McGuiness's in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. She doesn't get why everyone is so scared of this stupid clown.
Tim is the one who figures out how Jason was resurrected; just like in the Red robin comic he's been travelling through the world of assassins and knows about the Lazarus Pit.
I think doing the Red Hood arc without Bruce - the main target of Jason's anger - is super interesting. Most people share his anger at Bruce for disappearing.
It also lets us dig deep into the inter-Robin dynamics - Jason hates Dick because he always had to live up to him (do that thing in the comics where Jay had to dye his red hair black to 'look like Robin')
Jay hates Tim for replacing him, for being proof Bruce didn't learn his lesson, for Bruce treating Tim better, the way he should've treated Jason
Kate is instrumental to this arc because, being outside all the drama, she has objectivity. She forces Dick and Tim to get their heads out of their asses and talk to Jason, forces them to confront the problem.
Instead of taking the Joker to Bruce as he does in the Under the Red Hood movie, Jason takes Joker to Babs, who has suffered the most because of him. Confronted with the man who 'ruined' her life, Babs proves bigger and stronger than him. She refuses to kill him. Unlike Jason, she's moving on and growing past her trauma, not looking for revenge.
Joker (being the Joker) turns the tables on Jay and has him at his mercy. Kate swoops in and, like Terry in Return of the Joker, messes with the Joker's head by refusing to take him seriously. The Joker is distracted, screaming about Kate not being Batman, and Babs gets to knock him the fuck out.
Jason escapes, but not before dropping a clue connecting Bruce's disappearance to the League of Assassins
I know the showrunners admitted they have no clue where Bruce is yet, so in my version he's off on some quest with Ras Al Guhl. In the time since he's been gone he's married Talia and had a kid. no-one in Gotham knows this yet.
VILLAINS
We can explore how Batman’s absence has had a strange effect on Gotham's villains - many have gone into states of hibernation similar to the Joker.
Two Face gets his dark Knight Returns plotline where the attempt to repair his face,
Mr Freeze has a similar ‘cure’ story a la Batman Beyond
Clayface (as in the Rebirth run of Detective Comics) is trying to go straight - using his shape-shifting gift to make a name for himself in the movie business. He thinks he's finally been accepted, but people are just sucking up to him because of his talent - the reality of their disgust threatens to push him back over the edge
Without Batman there to fight her, Poison Ivy has pretty much taken over Gotham's main park space, but a kind of stalemate has been reached - she won't attack the city as long as the city doesn't move against her plants.
Kate's central dilemma is navigating these unusual waters - she toys with the idea of putting Ivy behind bars and we get an episode of her exploring the micro-climate of the transformed Park. Kate's disturbance makes Ivy threaten the city, and she has to stretch her underused negotiation muscles to talk her down.
I like the idea of Ivy as an ambivalent character, not good or evil. She'll do whatever she wants. Also she and Kate would have killer sexual chemistry.
Harley. Exploring Harley in such a strongly feminist show would be fascinating. Joker has closed off, given himself up. Harley is forced to fend without him, and finds an antihero niche with the Gotham City Sirens (hi, Ivy!)
With Bruce's disappearance, Wayne enterprises is designing revolutionary new weapons for the Crows. It's revealed that they’re using the Riddler to design these. After Batman disappeared it was presumed Nygma went through therapy and was moved away from Gotham - in fact he's here.
This plot point is inspired by the New 52's Zero Year arc. Kate discovers the foul play when the Crow's systems go haywire because of a virus Nygma planted, sending Gotham into a blackout and giving the Riddler control of its municipal systems
Kate finds Nygma and exposes Wayne Enterprises' corruption, but in the process Riddler escapes.
Similar to Ivy, Kate's appearance excites the Riddler and he reactivates his Saw-like trap rooms across the city. Kate has a different, much blunter way of solving puzzles that frustrates him, used to Bruce's genius-level intellect.
This raises the question - is Batwoman a liability to the city?
BATGIRL(S)/BIRDS OF PREY
With Riddler's re-emergence triggers the appearance of Spoiler. In the comics Stephanie Brown is Cluemaster's daughter, but no-one really gives a shit about him. The benefit of a decade-plus old Batman means his rogues gallery can easily have kids - Stephanie had her name changed in witness protection.
Steph helps Kate beat the Riddler in collaboration with Bab's hacking skills. Kate sees potential in Spoiler and sends her to Babs to be trained.
As Batwoman's appearance reawakens super-crime in Gotham, the Crows get desperate. They hire world- renowned assassin David Cain to start taking out targets
Intro Cassandra Cain.
Cass + Steph + Babs are this series' version of the Birds of Prey
Babs teaches Cass sign-language to communicate. Steal her friendship with Clayface from the Rebirth Detective Comics - Clayface leaves the movie business again because it was unhealthy, and is trying to do good
Everyone is very protective of Cass and determined she won't fight
#batman#batwoman#robin#Red Robin#nightwing#batgirl#oracle#kate kane#barbra gordon#dick grayson#Tim Drake#Jason Todd#batfamily#BatFam#batfam headcanons#cw#arrowverse#gotham#Stephanie Brown#cassandra cain#dc#dctv#we are robin#duke thomas#Under The Red Hood#the killing joke#birds of prey#zero year#dc rebirth
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Toughts on this deviantart post?
Found this https://www.deviantart.com/hotwar696/art/Who-is-the-real-Gary-Stu-835695208 it’s pretty bad i think. Or at least misleading. Toughts?
Let’s throw up the image and text for full context
A lot of Conway/Romita fans think that Venom is an awful Gary Stu. Ironically they like the post clone saga Norman Osborn who is not even the same character as the one back the in Conway/Romita days. Despising Harry Osborn when back in the days he simply did not have enough time for him. Also despite what post clone saga stories might have told you he only became a villain because an accident gave him brain damage. Yes, that’s right with the exception of the animated Spider-Man series from 1994 the pre clone saga Norman Osborn was not some inhuman monster who became insane. He was a tragic bussinessman who lost his wife and got brain damage after an explosion to his face.
Becoming a villain after an explosion to the face by the way is also the villain origin for Dr. Octopus so yeah Norman Osborn was not a very original villain even before becoming the Gary Stu version of Lex Luthor.Image size
I am going to address every point here, but let me get the most important thing out of the way first.
This is not a valid point to make for two big reasons.
1) The first is that antagonists* do not count as Gary/Marty Stus/Mary Sues.
The function of an antagonists within fiction is to oppose and challenge the protagonists. By having them be extremely powerful, hyper capable, have immense accomplishments and so on, you build them up as a challenge to over come, as someone the protagonist is the underdog in comparison to.
A classic example from manga and anime is Freeza from Dragon Ball. As originally portrayed he can reduce whole planets to dust with a single finger and the true limits of his power are beyond imagining. Had the protagonists all attacked him at once along with all of Freeza’s subordinates they still would’ve lost because he is more powerful and all of them combined. He withstands the most powerful version of the most powerful technique in the series up until that point.
Were this character the protagonist he’d almost certainly a Marty Stu. But as the antagonist he is a supremely effective challenge for the heroes to over come precisely because he does outstrip them so throughly.
2) It’s very obvious the OP is reacting against arguments he’s heard from one specific or several specific people on an incredibly narrow topic. That’s fine. But he’s broadbrushing it as though it’s a widely held opinion when it’s at best widely held within a niche within a niche within another niche.
Like, this is obviously a discussion he’s had at Toonzone or some other similar forum because he references BTAS, Spec Spidey and has drawn both Norman and Venom in their 1994 designs.
But let’s talk about the broader points made.
- None of that symbiote crap. I don’t disagree that it’s myopic and disingenuous to dismiss symbiotes on principle. Putting aside how they’ve been a staple for over 30 years now (and their recent stories have been very good in fact), it smacks of failing to look beyond your own preferences. There are bad symbiote stories and characters. There are even things that inherently suck on principle within Spider-Man. But the symbiotes are not among them. They are exceptions to the rule and proven that over and over. The person the OP is referncing is entitled to not like them but not to dismiss them on principle. I hate Screwball but I don’t think her concept is inherently shit. I liked her in he Fake Red manga!
- Joker in BTAS was a wuss, Spec cartoon Norman was better. I mean, maybe that’s true. there can be extenuating circumstances applying to both. But the Joke screaming doesn’t make him a wuss. if he was a wuss he wouldn’t have taken on Superman or Batman repeatedly. Norman might have been scared but so full of spite that he wasn’t going to give Vulture the satisfaction.
- He technically killed Spider-Man because he killed Ben Reilly. Well, first of all he was trying to kill Peter. Second of all ben didn’t look stupid. he looked identical to Peter but with blonde hair; how is that stupid? Third of all killing a clone of Spider-Man isn’t technically killing him, if it was Norman would’ve routinely been murdering Spidey clone. Fourth of all the OP is framing this as a grand win for Norman because he got to kill Spidey technically. it is a win for him but not for that reason. Ben sacrificed himself to save Peter who Norman was really aiming at
- Killing off baby May, apart from being debatable at all due to the presentation of that story, didn’t prevent Peter from maturing. it prevented him from maturing a specific way but it didn’t stop him from maturing period. Dealing with a miscarriage is an experience that can age a person. Peter went back to ESU to complete his education immediately after that and some years later he became a teacher under JMS’ run. That’s also a totally meta-textual point to make and therefore doesn’t apply to Norman being a Gary Stu. Successfully preventing character development is something you attribute to writers not the characters.
- I don’t get rh point about Nathanial Gray or Von Strucker
- Yes he was the Kingpin of Europe. How does that make him a Gary Stu? Wison Fisk was the Kingpin of America as were many other characters.
- Yes he was President of the USA but only in an out of continuity story, Earth X (and maybe other ones too). The argumentation of the OP is broken because he is conflating multiple different versions as the same thing. pre-OMD, post-OMD, Spec cartoon, Earth X etc. By this logic Venom would also be a Gary Stu and so would countless other characters. Superman would be a Gary Stu because he is DC’s Jesus but also DC’s Hitler.
- The next point is a total strawman. Putting aside how in my experience people throw more shade at Norman than is deserved, even Norman fans like myself do not deny BAD stories with the character exist. What’s ironic is that he has chosen the more obvious targets like the Gathering of Five or the Final Chapter.
Both of those stories are in most respects much worse than Sins Past and the element that makes Sins past bad isn’t even the fact that Norman slept with Gwen. It’s the simple fact that a woman who was clearly not pregnant in the Romita years apparently was and neither she nor MJ seemed to give a shit about the children after they were born. The further irony of his referencing this story is that he’s framed his argument as Silver Age stans are ignoring stuff like Sins Past. the reality is it is Silver/Bronze Age stans who HATE Sins Past more than anyone else in the Spider-Fandom precisely because it messes with the stuff they stan
His referencing of the Clone Saga is also divorced from context. Everyone worth their salt is aware Norman was never originally intended as the villain of the Clone Saga. That was a late addition, and noticeably a late addition at a time when the Clone Saga stories being told were on the whole actually good! Norman’s return story was on balance good! It got a trade paperback in the 1990s when only the most popular stories got such treatment. It is utterly disingenuous to hold the worst of the Clone Saga up as a Norman Osborn story because those were never written with him in mind as the villain.
Additionally I do not know why he is referencing Maximum Carnage or Superior Spider-Man. Okay, maybe he means the former is a symbiote story as opposed to a Carnage story specifically. But if he’s trying to prove Norman is a gary Stu but Venom is not why would you treat Maximum Carnage as a general symbiote story rather than cite a Venom specific story? And it still wouldn’t explain citing Superior Spider-Man. This is about contrasting Norman and Venom, what did Doc Ock have to do with any of this?
- Citing Morlun is equally confusing. The point the OP is trying to make is that silver/bronze age fans put Norman on a pedestal and look down on Venom. Putting aside how that really misrepresents the situation, why would you cite a villain who is not only NOT a silver/bronze age character but appeared long after Venom and if anything gets more disdain than Venom does. Old school fans who dislike Venom or symbiotes on principle do not generally like Morlun, if anything they dislike him more than Venom as they regard mysticism even more inappropriate for Spider-Man than aliens.
- The OP finally cites the Final Chapter but failed to do it at the appropriate point in his rant and also misrepresents it. He’s conflated the bomb implanted into Aunt May’s head in that story with the revelation that she was impersonated by an actress in ASm #400. He’s combined both characters and events. How do you fuck up that badly? The actress died of natural causes and then much later we got the implanted bomb. Norman never killed the actress, the actress agreed to work with him specifically because she was already dying. Also the guy’s grammar is messed up. I’m pretty sure ‘operated into her’ isn’t a real phrase.
- ‘A chad lady killer’…um…what? Isn’t that term intended to be slang for a kind of James Bond figure? A ‘man’s man’ who has lots of sex with women? It doesn’t mean a man who kills women is a manly. Whether people use the term chad ironically or sincerely the overwhelming majority aren’t going around proclaiming Jack the Ripper as the ultimate real life Chad.
- The framing of Norman’s relationship with Gwen is misrepresentative of what happened. It pretends like Norman had se with Gwen specifically to get one over on Peter. He didn’t. He wasn’t even aware he was the Goblin at that time, that Peter was Spider-Man and very likely didn’t know Peter had feelings for Gwen as they weren’t dating at that time. Norman had sex with Gwen because they were both vulnerable and had a moment of passion.
I’d also question his designating Gwen as Peter’s second love interest. I guess that’d be accurate if you are speaking strictly in terms of Peter’s regular girlfriends. But normally love interest means someone the readers are aware is being framed as potential romantic partner for the protagonist. In this sense Liz was the first love interest, Betty was the second and Gwen was the third.
- WTF does shit was so cash even mean?
Now for the text.
-A lot of Conway/Romita fans think that Venom is an awful Gary Stu. Ironically they like the post clone saga Norman Osborn who is not even the same character as the one back the in Conway/Romita days.
Yeah, there isn’t a lot. The vast majority of Conway/Romita stans do not like post-Clone Saga Norman.
And is he not the same character s he was before.
From a certain POV that’s true. But that’s chiefly because silver Age Norman was usually an amnesic who wasn’t his true self. His Goblin persona in the Silver Age is actually fairly similar to his post-Clone Saga self. The reason for the different presentation is simply a passage of time. Doc Ock in the 1990s wasn’t presented identically to how he was in the silver age just because times had changed. The Joker wasn’t presented the same way in the post-Killing Joke or Death in the Family eras of Batman as he was back in the 1940s.
The core of the character, that this guy was a real nasty, egotistical, sadistic and power hungry monster? No, that was all the same it was just ramped up. Norman’s ‘ghost’ had evolved in the interim between his death and his return too. In a sense his place and framing within the mythos had always evolved with the times. It’s just that when he came back suddenly that wasn’t a metaphorical ghost but a flesh and blood character.
But the same can be said of any successful character over time as I outlined above. Shit Absolute Carnage depicted Carnage in a way that is not identical to how he was initially presented. But it was most definitily an evolution of that.
- “Despising Harry Osborn when back in the days he simply did not have enough time for him.”
Not true. The first time Norman began to remember he was the Goblin he got passive aggressive towards Harry. When he got his powers he was downright mean to him as depicted in ASM #40. But he also never despised Harry either. Norman always loved Harry in a toxic manner, through neglect or abuse. That was true post-Clone Saga.
In fact the entire reason Norman initiated the Clone Saga was specifically because he wanted revenge for Harry’s death.
And again, the OP is treating this as a wholesale invention of the post-clone saga era when it wasn’t. Norman being an abusive father was introduced long before anyone was thinking about the Clone Saga. It was established in the Child Within circa 1991 IIRC. Later (when the Clone Saga was being planned I think) it was further explored in Spec annual 1994, but that just added to what we already knew from the forrmer story. Shit, this depiction of Harry and Norman’s relationship was showcased in Untold Tales of Spider-Man. That was both set long before the Clone Saga, IIRC written before Norman’s return was decided upon and written by someone who definitely didn’t agree with his return.
Norman never despised Harry, but he was a shitty Dad. He was a shitty Dad in ASm #40. He didn’t just have no time for Harry, he neglected him specifically because he wanted to gain money and thereby gain power.
Even if you do argue that Norman didn’t despise Harry in the silver age but did post-clone saga, so long as that change was organically introduced that makes it fine. better than fine as that’s simply more dramatically enriching than him being a nice guy who happens to not have time for his son.
- “Also despite what post clone saga stories might have told you he only became a villain because an accident gave him brain damage.”
LOL nope.
a) As I just said, even if this was a retcon of the post-Clone Saga era (which it wasn’t) it made Norman a better character. A man being bad because he got brain damage is a cliche, lazy, over simplistic explanation for his villainy. It’s also arguably less realistic and actually makes the characetr a lesser villain as some surgery and thereby might be able to fix them. In fact you could argue they are in effect a victim of their brain damage and thereby not accountable for their actions. That’s so much less substantive than someone’s life experiences shaping them into a horrible human being. By this author’s wn logic Doc Ock’s origin (pre-Clone Saga I might add) makes him a LESSER villain because it established that he was actually evil because of his life before his accident. that was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, he didn’t just get a knock to the noggin and wound up evil
b) If Norman’s evilness stems from brain damage how come when he was a nice guy in the silver age neither he nor Harry suggested surgery or medication to help heal that damage? That would’ve meant he’d never have been evil again
c) ASm #40 makes it clear he was a piece of shit BEFORE his accident. He was neglecting his son, railroading his partner, stealing his inventions and power hungry before getting brain damage.
d) You could easily argue Norman was always brain damaged the doctors just mistakenly believed his injuries stemmed from the accident
e) Child Within and Spec Annual 1994 established Norman as a psychopath before he got his powers. Both were written before the Clone Saga. Post-Clone Saga stories like Revenge of the Green Goblin merely built upon this, they didn’t wholesale invent it
“Yes, that’s right with the exception of the animated Spider-Man series from 1994 the pre clone saga Norman Osborn was not some inhuman monster who became insane.”
LOL nope again.
First of all, 1994-cartoon Norman WAS fairly sympathetic before becoming the Goblin. In the show he got a loan from Kingpin and was forced to pay off the debt by targeting Spider-Man. Even if he didn’t initially realise Fisk was a criminal when he got the loan, by the time he did realise going to the police would’ve resulted in him losing his son and/or his life. He wouldn’t be the first man to get in deep with the mob after all.
When his inital effort to kill Spider-Man failed he was forced to give Kingpin his company and attempted to get out from this by assasinating Fisk. This backfired hard endangering his son, but Norman risked his life to save Harry.
His whole character until season 3 was basically defined by being a morally grey character. he loved his son, he was maybe egotistical and a ruthless businessman but the worst things he did were either on Kingpin’s orders or attempts to free himself of a very powerful and very dangerous controlling force in his life.
Not a nice man, but a far cry from an inhuman monster or an insane person, at least until he was exposed to the Goblin gas.
SECOND of all if you are an inhumane monster how exactly do you then ‘go insane’? Aren’t they functionally the same thing within the context of the dicussion?
It’s also not representative of canonical Norman. Canonical Norman was a psychopath because of his life experiences and possibly hereditary mental illnesses within the family. The Goblin formula by empowering him sent him on an ego trip.
The OP isn’t even using the commonly held misconceptions about Norman Osborn, he’s just using his own very specific ones. Most people mistakenly believe the Goblin formula drove Norman nuts when ASM #40 just claims the accident gave him brain damage. Over time creators decided the formula itself makes the user nuts.
“He was a tragic bussinessman who lost his wife and got brain damage after an explosion to his face“
a) Unless I am mistaken there was little word paid to Norman’s wife in the Silver Age. And what little we got never presented Norman as being affected by her passing. That was an invention of the 1990s and 2000s; and a very good one at that.
b) Yes how tragic a businessman he was to have neglected his son, sought power, rail roaded his partner and stolen his inventions. Obviously none of that is bad. he only became bad after an explosion gave him brain damage.
c) Even if he really was a tragic businessman blah blah blah, that is a LESS EFFECTIVE villain and a LESS complex character than the post-clone saga guy we got
“Becoming a villain after an explosion to the face by the way is also the villain origin for Dr. Octopus so yeah Norman Osborn was not a very original villain even before becoming the Gary Stu version of Lex Luthor.”
I’ve already addressed the idiotic criticism that Norman became a Luthor knock off.
The OP is disingenuous on several levels with his other point as well though.
For starters brain damage was never the sum totality of Norman’s origin as a character. Doc Ock was just a guy who was at best maybe a little odd looking due to his arms then had an accident and became evil. that was it.
Not only was Ott far from the first villain with such an origin, but to sit there and say Norman was unoriginal merely because he also took a boom to the face is moronic. Norman’s life before his accident made him incredibly different to Otto. It made him comparatively more layered and complex next to the likes of Otto or the other rogues because he wasn’t nice initially, he had this strained relationship with his son and above all else he had this internal denial over his failings as a father. THAT shit doesn’t count as part of his origin? ALL that matters is explosion+brain damage=evil?
That’s obviously moving the goal posts to win.
And it’s a self-defeating argument. Silver Age Norman is bad because he is unoriginal (even though functionally he actually was). Okay, in the 1990s and beyond he got a revised origin that was more original. But that’s bad because changed him from his Silver Age self.
Goal posts. They a movin!
Not to mention as I already said DOC OCK’s origin was also changed so his villainy didn’t just stem from a random accident that knocked his noggin.
So Doc Ock sucks too right?
Finally, I say this as someone who likes Norman AND Venom.
I would never call Venom a Gary Stu. I’ve never even SEEN anyone claim Venom was a Gary Stu. BOTH Norman and Venom get under appreciated.
Fuck i wrote like over 10 essays DEFENDING Venom.
You can pass my comments onto this idiot if you wish.
*Not necesarilly villains as you can have a villain protagonist, see Superior Spider-Man
#Venom#Norman Osborn#Green Goblin#Eddie Brock#Spider-Man#Doctor Octopus#otto octavius#Gwen Stacy#Clone Saga#Venom symbiote#symbiotes#Superior Spider-Man#Maximum Carnage#submission
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I loveeee all the songs u chose for Tim!!! Can u maybe do a post or smth explaining why cus it’s so interesting seeing the choice behind these songs
Hi yes I can!! I’m not gonna do all of them here (I can def do the rest if you’d like!!) bc that’s just a Lot all at once lol. Also I might have typos and I apologize but dkjsfhakh I have bandaids on my fingers and it’s hard to type :^/
Disclaimer: some of these songs fit a lot better than other ones
Hard Times by Paramore
I chose this song bc it’s abbout being sad, but the tone is upbeat and happy. Something I’ve noticed abt Tim is that he is (usually) functionally depressed. Like, I read an article about high functioning depression, and it said that a lot of people who have it have a hole in their life – that they can have a job (and Tim does, being either CEO or Red Robin or both), a partner (who I like to think of as Kon), and be part of a family, maintaining this happy/upeat facade, but if you ask them what they do for fun…they usually can’t answer that. And I don’t think Tim can. When he was younger, he could, but what now?
Fave Lyric: “Walking around / With my little rain cloud / Hanging over my head/ And it ain’t coming down / Where do I go? / Gimme some sort of sign / You hit me with lightning! / Maybe I’ll come alive”
Little Lion Man by Mumford & Sons
I chose this bc I can picture Tim, during a low moment like when Kon or Bruce died, just falling apart and thinking he’s not going to survive it, isn’t strong enough, had something to do with their deaths happening,,, etc. Also there’s a line that references anxiety and like lmao that’s Tim!
Fave Lyric: “Tremble for yourself, my man, / You know that you have seen this all before / Tremble, little lion man, / You’ll never settle any of your scores / Your grace is wasted in your face, / Your boldness stands alone among the wreck / Now learn from your mother or else spend your days biting your own neck”
Heroes (we could be) by Alesso feat. Tove Lo
I chose this bc Tim needed a happy song and also because this has such Young Justice vibes !!!! This is Tim and his friends having fun, roaming around, kicking bad guy ass together!! Actually upon looking at the lyrics again, it’s both YJ and Batman & Robin. It just encompasses Tim’s early days of being a hero I think, the happy carefree nature and the bravery and the hope
Fave Lyric: “Everyday people do everyday things but I / Can’t be one of them / I know you hear me now, we are a different kind / We can do anything”
Burn The House Down by AJR
Tbh I mostly chose this bc its a bop and I think he would sing along to it. BUT I also think this kind of represents his life as a public figure/celeb??? And if I wanna go even further, I think it could represent him when he’s older and more confident, with a better self esteem and maybe a lil less depressed (which I hope is in the cards for his future). Also it talks about lying a lot???? I’m sorry, I don’t have a good analysis for this one lmao
Fave Lyric: “Way up way up we go / Been up and down that road / Way up way up, oh no / We gon’ burn the whole house down / Watch me stand in the line / You’re only serving lies / You’ve got something to hide / We gon’ burn the whole house down”
Don’t Let Me Down by The Chainsmokers feat. Daya
I chose this bc it reminded me of Tim and Dick. I’m of the opinion that Tim getting fired from Robin was the right choice and that Dick wasn’t being cruel or anything like that at all, but I also think that Tim probably saw it that way which is valid. So it’s like, to him, Dick was his big brother who was basically always there for him, and then suddenly… he’s not. And everything else going on in his life starts to suck dramatically, and not having his big brother makes it worse, and he feels betrayed. Meanwhile Dick really is on his side, life is just also terrible for him too so they can’t be as close as they were when Tim was Robin. It can also be about Bruce or Kon tbh – just, wanting one of them to be there and they’re not.
Fave Lyric: “Crashing, hit a wall / Right now I need a miracle / Hurry up now, I need a miracle / Stranded, reaching out / I call your name but you’re not around”
More under the cut!!
Don’t Play by Halsey
This…. I chose this bc I really love the celebrity versions of the Bats, and also how competent Tim can be, and this song brings both of those together. Lol this could also be like…what other people think the Bats/Tim think like?? “Don’t play with me, I’m rich and will fuck you up” kinda thing. This is one of the ones that fits less well than the others but I still get Tim vibes from it so I’m keeping it
Fave Lyric: “Tryna take back what you say to me / I don’t give a damn what you say to me / There ain’t no time for games with me”
Over My Head (Cable Car) by The Fray
I get the feeling that after bad shit happens to Tim, he feels the way this song shows. I haven’t read much YJ so I can’t be sure, but I get the feeling that Tim, no matter what the truth is, feels like he’s alone and there’s no one who will help him. Obviously that can be tied back to his childhood and how he had to take care of himself, and so when there are people who actually do wanna help him he doesn’t see it?? And he’s down on himself so he’s probably thinking “they don’t want to help me, and I can’t blame them”
Fave Lyric: “But that’s how it’s got to be / It’s coming down to nothing more than apathy / I’d rather run the other way than stay and see / The smoke and who’s still standing when it clears”
Icarus by Bastille
Okay not so much the drinking aspect of this song but EVERYTHING ELSE. I even used one of the lyrics for a fic title. Basically my thoughts here are: 1) everyone looks to the Robins and sees how much they do and it’s just A Lot, 2) Tim knows Jason died and so he probably thinks that’s in his future too even if Dick survived, and 3) Tim is doing a lot and feeling a lot and trying to protect himself and his feelings, which is hard work especially for someone so young
Fave Lyric: “Living beyond your years / Acting out all their fears / You feel it in your chest”
Needed Me by Rihanna
Again,,,, the Competence. I love that shit. I love BAMF!Bats, and tbh I think this could apply to more than just Tim, but I picked it for him bc of the first lyric!! This is also one of those ones that doesn’t fit super well but djkhfjkdshah I think this could really fit an AU Tim where he’s like. More morally gray. Not necessarily a bad guy but just more confident, more arrogant maybe, and more jaded from the hero-ing life
Fave Lyric: “I was good on my own, that’s the way it was, that’s the way it was / You was good on the low for a faded fuck, on some faded love / Shit, what the fuck you complaining for? / Feeling jaded, huh?”
What I’ve Done by Linkin Park
Okay I think this fits a lot of different things: his actions after Kon’s death, his and Damian’s relationship, the lies he’s told (to ppl like Steph, his dad, Tam?), his relationship with Bruce maybe?? I can also see it as him thinking on who he was as a kid – a stalker basically lmao, but ultimately harmless – versus who he is now – a skilled vigilante who’s definitely not harmless. Stark difference there. Also he’s forgiving himself, which is something I think is important for somebody with a low self view
Fave Lyric: “In this farewell / There’s no blood / There’s no alibi / ‘Cause I’ve drawn regret / From the truth / Of a thousand lies”
Tell Me You Love Me by Demi Lovato
I chose this because I think Tim is fucked up by the neglect he suffered in his childhood. I think parts of this song can be directed at his parents, the Batfam, his partner(s). He’s afraid that they’ll leave him and he needs the reassurance. Whether or not he gets it is another matter but kdsjfjkdsah. Really, I think this is all just what he’s thinking, and NOT what he’s saying. He needs the reassurance, yes, but he’s not actually asking for it because he doesn’t know how
Fave Lyric: “Bad at love, no, I’m not good at this”
bellyache by Billie Eilish
When I first added this to his playlist I somehow didn’t realize it was about a murderer but dkjfhkjshjkah whatever I’m keeping it. Let’s just go with this is a song about being fucked up (in whatever sense u wanna take that as) and it’s not happy? But like the first one, it’s upbeat and positive. I think the happy sound hiding the less pretty truth is something that explains Tim a lot. Also its a bop and he might sing along to it
Fave Lyric: “Everything I do / The way I wear my noose / Like a necklace / I wanna make ‘em scared / Like I could be anywhere / Like I’m reckless”
Migraine by Twenty One Pilots
Just Another Song About Tim’s Abysmal Mental Health
Fave Lyric: “Behind my eyelids are islands of violence / My mind ship-wrecked / This is the only land my mind could find / I did not know it was such a violent island / Full of tidal waves, suicidal crazed lions / They’re trying to eat me, blood running down their chin / And I know that I can fight or I can let the lion win / I begin to assemble what weapons I can find / 'Cause sometimes to stay alive you gotta kill your mind”
Fake Love by Drake
I hate Drake but kjdsfkjdsfhajh this goes back to a few things. His celebrity and how he’s seen/treated differently by others because of it, his low self view and the paranoia that people aren’t really there for him no matter what the truth might be, how he sees things others wouldn’t, his relationships with people like Damian and Bruce. I think he’s more forgiving than this song would imply, so maybe this is also for that AU Tim I mentioned above???
Fave Lyric: “I’ve been down so long it look like up to me / They look up to me / I got fake people showin’ fake love to me / Straight up to my face, straight up to my face”
Six Feet Under by Billie Eilish
TIMKON TIMKON TIMKON. Post Kon’s death TimKon and Tim is grieving and trying to forget bc it’s so painful!!!!!!
Fave Lyric: “Our love is six feet under / I can’t help but wonder / If our grave was watered by the rain / Would roses bloom? / Could roses bloom / Again?”
Flaws by Bastille
Idek, I feel like this could be how he could view his relationship with Steph, Cass, Damian, Bart, Dick??? Anyone? Just feeling like he hides his flaws and how he feels, and they don’t really (or at least, he thinks they don’t), and he likes that.
Fave Lyric: “There’s a hole in my soul / I can’t fill it, I can’t fill it / There’s a hole in my soul / Can you fill it? Can you fill it?”
do re mi by blackbear
I’m mostly joking when I say this but this is how he feels about Ra’s al Ghul. It doesn’t fit exactly, bc Tim and Ra’s were NOT together ever at any point, but this song is about being annoyed by someone you have a history with and wishing you’d never known them. Which is how I feel Tim should feel about Ra’s. lol
Fave Lyric: “If I could go back to that day we met / I probably would’ve stayed in bed / You wake up everyday and make me feel like I’m incompetent”
Bored by Billie Eilish
I really think this is Tim talking to his parents. Like, when he’s a kid, or when he’s older and looking back, he’s thinking “I did everything I could, it wasn’t enough, and I know it’s not fair but I can’t do anything about it.” I think this song is supposed to be romantic but I’ve never heard it that way skdjfkjsdhakjh I just always think about Tim, home alone and thinking about his parents.
Fave Lyric: “I’m not afraid anymore / What makes you sure you’re all I need? / Forget about it / When you walk out the door and leave me torn / You’re teaching me to live without it / Bored, I’m so bored, I’m so bored, so bored”
Rose-Colored Boy by Paramore
This one is like… everyone else seems to have an easier time being optimistic and positive than Tim does, in his mind. Idk I don’t have much to say kdsjfhsdjkah
Fave Lyric: “Hearts are breaking, wars are raging on / And I have taken my glasses off / You got me nervous / I’m right at the end of my rope / A half-empty girl / Don’t make me laugh, I’ll choke”
King of the Clouds by Panic! At The Disco
This is mostly because it’s a bop and Tim would like it. But also…this is a song about dimensional travel (apparently) and having ambitions that seem lofty, both of which I think Tim can definitely understand!!
Fave Lyric: “And when I fall to rise with stardust in my eyes / In the backbone of night, I’m combustible / Dust in the fire when I can’t sleep a wink, I’m too tired / This old world, this old world”
#tim drake#song analysis#asks#idk what to tag this as#meta#???#this is 20 of them!! if u want more lmk (there are still like 40 more songs I think)#but im done for the day ksdjfkdash#its so hard to type like this#Anonymous
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Dear Fans of Watchmen,
Hello there. My name is Damon Lindelof and I am a writer. I am also the unscrupulous bastard currently defiling something that you love.
But that’s not all that I am.
I am a twelve-year old boy being handed the first two issues by my father. “You’re not ready for this,” he growls with a glint of mischief in his eye. My parents have recently divorced and he has gone rogue, so there I am in my bed, flashlight beam illuminating pages, watching the Comedian fall again and again and again. The old man was wrong. I am ready for this. Because this was written just for me. I am thirty-eight. A man offers me the opportunity to adapt Watchmen for television. The filmed adaptation came out less than a year ago, but that doesn’t matter. I tell him I am not interested and that perhaps he should let sleeping dogs lie with hopes they will eventually be run over by a car tire, bursting their stomachs. He does not get the reference.
I am watching my father haggle with a man in a wheelchair. I am fifteen years old and we are at a comic book convention in New York City, long before attending a comic book convention was something anyone wanting to ever have sex with another person would admit to. I definitely want to have sex with another person. My father finally harangues the merchant down to thirty dollars for a guaranteed authentic screenplay of Watchmen, soon to be a major motion picture! Now, he reads aloud from the script as “The Watchmen” battle terrorists at The Statue of Liberty. Something is wrong. The old man’s brow furrows, scanning the text in a mixture of disappointment and rage, a child who has just been told that Santa didn’t bring him presents this year, then robbed the house and beat up his parents. “What the fuck is this?” my father mutters. It is the first time he swears in front of me.
Another man offers me the opportunity to adapt Watchmen for television. I am forty now. I tell him someone else asked me to do this a year ago and I declined. He inquires as to why I said no. I tell him that Alan Moore has been consistently explicit in stating that Watchmen was written for a very specific medium and that medium is comics, comics that would be ruined should they be translated into moving images. The Another Man pauses for a moment, then responds – “Who’s Alan Moore?”
I am twenty-three and living in Los Angeles. My father flies out from New Jersey for my birthday and gives me a present, a new edition of the “graphic novel” that is Watchmen. He explains to me that this is the publisher’s way of retaining the rights to the characters. He tells me that Dan and Adrian and Jon and Walter and Laurie are all serfs, working the land for a Feudal Lord that will never grant them freedom. My father is more than a little drunk.. More so, he is a hypocrite for buying me the new edition. “I know, I know…” he says, that same mischievous glint from years ago obscured by now thicker lenses, “But it’s so goddamned good.”
Yet Another Man offers me the opportunity to adapt Watchmen for television. “Just a pilot,” he says, “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” I am forty-three now and I am thinking about something I read about Orthodox Judaism. While most religions are cultivated by evangelizing and conversion, Orthodox Judaism doesn’t solicit. If someone from another faith wishes to become an Orthodox Jew, they are rejected. If they are stubborn enough to ask again, they are denied even more harshly. But should they have the audacity to ask a third time? The door cracks open. And if they’re willing to invest an immense amount of time and effort and sacrifice and faith, they are embraced into the fold. Why am I thinking about this? I have said no to Watchmen twice now. This makes me Orthodox Judaism. I crack the door. And now I’m a hypocrite too.
I am standing over my father’s hospital bed. I am twenty-nine, the last age at which I will consider myself “young.” The breathing tube was removed two hours ago and they said he wouldn’t last longer than fifteen minutes. It’s a cliché. I’m living a trope. He is unconscious and unable to impart final wisdom nor tell me he was proud all along, even though he never said it out loud. There is no beeping machine showing his weakening heartrate. My father is beyond machines. I hold his cool hand and try not to pray to God because he detested the very idea of God so instead I pray to his gods. I pray to Cthulhu. I pray to 42, the Eternal Cosmic Number. I pray to Dr. Manhattan, far away in a galaxy less complicated than this one. The television is on and the Lakers win the championship. My father never cared about basketball. He didn’t even know the rules. When he dies, I finally understand that I don’t know the rules either. No one does.
I am forty-five and I am writing a letter to the fans. The fans of Watchmen. It’s unnecessarily wordy and an exercise in oversharing, but nothing gets people on your side more than telling them about the moment your father died. Sharing such intimate details with strangers feels needy and pathetic and exploitative and yucky and necessary and freeing. I am also looking for an elegant way to escape from this device of quantum observance, a device appropriated from Mr. Moore so that I can speak to those fans from the bottom of my cold, thieving heart. Perhaps I could switch from referring to them in the third person and shift into the second, thus bringing them closer to the first?
Would that be amenable to you?
First and foremost, if you are angry that I’m working on Watchmen, I am sorry. You may be thinking I can’t be that sorry or I wouldn’t be doing it. I concede the point, but I hope it doesn’t invalidate the apology, which I offer with sincerity and respect.
Respect. That’s second and twicemost. I have an immense amount of respect for Alan Moore. He is an extraordinary talent of mythic proportion. I wrote him a letter, parts of which are not dissimilar to this one, because I owed him an explanation as to why I’m defying his wishes and to humbly ask him not to place a curse on me because he knows magic and apparently, he can do that. His response, or whether he responded at all, is between he and I. Suffice to say, even before I sent it, Mr. Moore had made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t want anyone to “adapt” his work. To do so is hubris. Worse yet, it’s unethical.
There are a million ways to rationalize unethical behavior – I could argue that Mr. Moore’s partner, the brilliant artist, Dave Gibbons, is equally entitled to authorize access to his masterwork and that he has been kind enough to offer us his blessing to do so. Or I could offer that Mr. Moore cut his veined teeth on the creations of others; Batman, Superman, Captain Britain, Marvelman (he’ll never be “Miracleman” to me), Swamp Thing and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, not to mention The Charlton characters upon whom his Watchmen characters are based… So am I not allowed to do the same?
No. I am not. I am not allowed. And yet…
I am compelled.
I am compelled despite the inevitable pushback and hatred I will understandably receive for taking on this particular project. This ire will be maximally painful because of its source. That source being you.
The true fans.
I once said that if one were a true fan of something, they weren’t allowed to hate it. A prominent writer took me to task for such heresy, arguing that just because one was the creator of a show, this did not permit them to pick and choose who was and wasn’t a fan of it.
The writer went on to win a Pulitzer for television criticism. I went on to get snubbed by the Razzies for Prometheus.
As such, I concede this point, too. After all, even the most fervent lifelong fan of, oh, let’s say the New York Jets, is allowed to shout at the top of his lungs, “YOU SUCK OH MY GOD YOU SUUUUUUUUUCKIII II” and do so while wearing a replica Namath Jersey he purchased for an ungodly sum of money that may or may not have constituted his entire first paycheck on Nash Bridges. But the point.
The point is, you love Watchmen. That gives you the right to hate it, too. Because no matter what… You’re still true fans. But to quote the immortal P.W. Herman…
“I know you are… But what am IT’ What am I? I’m a true fan, too. And I’m not the only one.
What I love most about television is that the finished product is a result not of singular vision, but the collective experience of many brilliant minds. I have the pleasure of sitting in a Writers Room each and every day that is as diverse and combative as any I’ve ever been a part of. In that room, Hetero White Men like myself are in the minority and as Watchmen is (incorrectly) assumed to be solely our domain, understanding its potential through the perspectives of women, people of color and the LGBTQ community has been as eye-opening as it has been exhilarating. We’ve committed to doing the same in front of and behind the camera. And every single person involved with this show absolutely adores Watchmen. But in the spirit of complete honesty, we also sorta want to… uh…
Disrupt it?
Except I hate that word because now it’s not disruptive anymore. And how can I present as punk rock when I’m now cozy in bed, spooning with Warner Brothers, HBO and DC? Truth be told, everyone there, particularly Geoff Johns (who is as true fan as it gets) has been extraordinarily supportive. Sure, it’s fun to kick around the comic corporate overlords for exploiting writers and artists, but we all know what happened to Jack Kirby and we’re still first in line for every Marvel film. So… how do we answer the challenge of when it is appropriate to appropriate?
Which brings us to the most important part. Maybe the only part that really matters. Our creative intentions.
We have no desire to “adapt” the twelve issues Mr. Moore and Mr. Gibbons created thirty years ago. Those issues are sacred ground and they will not be retread nor recreated nor reproduced nor rebooted.
They will, however be remixed. Because the bass lines in those familiar tracks are just too good and we’d be fools not to sample them. Those original twelve issues are our Old Testament. When the New Testament came along, it did not erase what came before it. Creation. The Garden of Eden. Abraham and Isaac. The Flood. It all happened. And so it will be with Watchmen. The Comedian died. Dan and Laurie fell in love. Ozymandias saved the world and Dr. Manhattan left it just after blowing Rorschach to pieces in the bitter cold of Antarctica.
To be clear. Watchmen is canon.
Just the way Mr. Moore wrote it, the way Mr. Gibbons drew it and the way the brilliant John Higgins colored it.
But we are not making a “sequel” either. This story will be set in the world its creators painstakingly built… but in the tradition of the work that inspired it, this new story must be original. It has to vibrate with the seismic unpredictability of its own tectonic plates. It must ask new questions and explore the world through a fresh lens. Most importantly, it must be contemporary.
The Old Testament was specific to the Eighties of Reagan and Thatcher and Gorbachev… ours needs to resonate with the frequency of Trump and May and Putin and the horse that he rides around on, shirtless. And speaking of Horsemen, The End of The World is off the table (THE LEFTOVERS! NOW STREAMING ON HBO GO!) which means the heroes and villains — as if the two are distinguishable — are playing for different stakes entirely. The tone will be fresh and nasty and electric and absurd. Many describe Watchmen as “dark,” but I’ve always loved its humor -worshipping at the altar of the genre whilst simultaneously trolling it. As such…
Some of the characters will be unknown. New faces. New masks to cover them. We also intend to revisit the past century of Costumed Adventuring through a surprising, yet familiar set of eyes… and it is here where we’ll be taking our greatest risks. Risk is imperative. I need the feeling in my stomach before I leap from a great height without knowing the depth of the water below. If my body should shatter upon impact, at least it was in pursuit of glory. And let’s be honest… Isn’t there a small part of you that wants to see me explode like a fleshy watermelon?
But hopefully, there’s also a part that wants to experience something sort of amazing. As for what I want? I want your validation. I also want not to want it. I’ve given up the opioid highs of Twitter, but continue to score my methadone in the threads of Reddit and the hot takes of morning-after recappers. I’ll be reading and watching and listening to what you have to say because even though I wish I didn’t…
I deeply care about what you think. Which brings us, Thank God, to the end of the missive. Endings. I’m GREAT at them. A wise, blue man once said that nothing ever ends.
But maybe he wasn’t wise. Maybe he was just scared and alone and sad that he would outlive everything and everyone he ever loved. So I hope this isn’t the last time we correspond, fellow fans… after all, it’s just a pilot and we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. But maybe… if everything works out the way I hope it does… and if you’re willing to give me a chance, it’s not the end at all…
It’s the beginning? With Respectful Hubris,
-Damon
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Random thoughts on my DC Universe.
Remember the DC Pseudo-AU I made which detailed a timeline for Batman and had some mention of stuff I was going to do in the future. Since I don’t have access to my post on The Riddler and his connection to the end of Batman (spoilers, it’s an alternate version of the events of Batman: Arkham Knight), I’m going to remake it from scratch. Until then, I wanted to get out some thoughts on this kinda-sorta AU and similarly invite others who may be more well-versed in DC lore than I, to help me refine some ideas. I might not ever write fanfiction about it personally since I’m not that good when it comes to constructing a narrative, but I can at least help build the world and give out a broad scope of the events and characters. My mad ramblings continue under cut:
I’m also taking inspiration from Justice League: Gods and Monsters and another idea for Batman, link here.
So first off the bat, I wanted to stress that the Arkham Games, or at least events highly similar to them still occur here in this pseudo-AU. Just an FYI. If I remember correctly, I believe that it was originally planned for the now-alive-again Jason Todd to be explained that he was from another dimension. I bring this up because that’s going to be my explanation for Jason Todd’s resurrection. It’s not too far-fetched to assume that another version of one of Batman’s sons got dimensionally displaced considering the bizarre nonsense that happens in the DCU. Also, like Rick Sanchez, science advances in my DCU, but never really finds the cure for death. Even the Lazarus Pit can’t overcome it. To the still alive, it only elongates one’s lifespan and ONLY brings the recently deceased back to life. Ra’s Al Ghul ALWAYS makes sure to have some Lazarus near him for this. Because I’m also planning on incorporating iZOMBIE or at least elements from it in this AU, one could argue that Jason could just come back as a revenant, but that would be at odds to the events of Arkham Knight, wherein Jason is held for well over a year (a few MONTHS at the very least) and is tortured and brainwashed into hating Batman. Plus, here Jason would have been killed when he was in his early to mid teens and by my currently loose timeline, the events of Arkham Knight don’t occur until well over 10 years later. Jason’s deceased body would be almost completely rotted away by then, assuming he wasn’t cremated by Bruce.
Brainiac, everyone’s favorite homicidal space computer, is in this AU, appearing some years after the appearance of Superman on Earth and a currently unspecified amount of time after the formation of the Justice League and it’s original seven founding members. (I love Cyborg, but why does DC keep trying to make him a founding member of the Justice League?) In this AU, Brainiac is a type of semi-cybernetic hive mind that rules the planet Colu and is currently on a warpath to assimilate the entire universe and beyond. Brainiac is above all else a scientist, so he’s also conducting a few experiments beyond that. Brainiac has allowed scant individuals from Colu a modicum of free will. They’re still subservient to him, but they have their own thoughts and feelings separate from the hive mind. These individuals are Brainiac 2 (Vril Dox), Brainiac 3 (Lyrl Dox), Brainiac 4 (Kajz Dox), Brainiac 5 (Querl Dox), and Brainiac 8 (Indigo). The other Brainiacs are either dead or assimilated Drones. Brainiac is conducting this independant thought experiment under the pretense of observing behavior, but he’s just desperately lonely and needs some kind of audience to witness his greatness. The other experiment about this is actually more reasonable. Brainiac takes cities from planets to observe the populace, both in captivity and unassimilated. He then either assimilates the rest of that particular planet’s population, destroys the planet, or leaves. (The last one only happening if Brainiac detects that the civilization he just stole from will end soon regardless if he has a hand in it. He sensed Krypton was dying, so Brainiac just took Kandor and Argo and just went on his (they’re) merry little way.)
I’m debating myself on whether I want to keep Superman’s powers dependent on the environment of Earth (yellow sun, lower gravity, different atmosphere) or if Kryptonian abilities are just an inherent part of their biology. Like, different Kryptonian castes are engineered with certain abilities in mind. Gaining MASSIVE amounts of inspiration from the Alternian Trolls from Homestuck and spin-off, Hiveswap, there are about 12 specific castes that rank from blood color, which is reflected in the color of their clothes and the different occupations available to them. I think it’d be kinda poetic if an alien as human looking as Superman still had something inherently alien about him, and I’m not about to give him horns or technicolor skin. Kryptonian reproduction (at least in Man of Steel) works similar to Alternian Troll reproduction, and those parallels are more highlighted in my AU. 2 donor parents, preferably from the same caste but it’s not a requirement, do not have intercourse, but rather literally donate bodily fluids to be mixed by an organism that acts like a living cloning facility. The child grows up not knowing who their biological parents are and people who don’t participate in donating genetic material will have police drones sent after to either collect some in person or purify the gene pool by expelling the malcompliant. As Krypton is beginning to come to an end, Lara Lor-Van and Jor-El decide “Fuck this, our world’s ending and our plan to escape the Krypton Empire is gonna go tits up, might as well create our own son and get him out of here so he can grow up to lead a better life than this.” Jor-El does another impromptu fuck you when Zod’s trying his takeover by stealing the Codex, the Kryptonian Equivalent to the Human Genome Project, with genes for EVERY ABILITY/BLOOD CASTE THAT MAKES UP KRYPTONIAN BIOLOGY, and infuses it into Kal. Although Kal-El presents as a Blue/Indigo Blood, biologically he’s a Gold Blood (Due to his parents, who are scientists). In terms of abilities, he mixes the super strength of Purple and Indigo Bloods with the flight and lazer eyes of Gold Bloods. As Kal, now renamed Clark, grows up in a small Midwestern Town, he goes through some angst regarding his unusual blood color and his strange abilities. His parents eventually tell him of his alien origins and Clark feels a need to help others. Like his arguable Marvel counterpart, Captain America, Clark Kent doesn’t like bullies or oppressors and jumps to try and defend the helpless any chance he gets. Although he’s been able to keep his powers mostly hidden, his parents are exceedingly worried about them being revealed in their entirety since they’ve the sense to realize that aliens existing could lead to bad things for their son, not to mention they’re almost constantly paranoid that government will find out about Clark and separate them. Clark’s angst about his life being a lie on account of him being an alien, along with his powers and the implications they cause runs into a head when he’s unable to save someone from a tornado. It’s not his father, but not helping is at odds with who Clark is as a person and he, soon after graduating high school, goes off on his own to ind himself. He eventually begins doing heroic acts while traveling abroad, inspiring some people the world over. He lets his powers slip up time and again, but they generally stay as rumors or urban legend until they’re eventually investigated by Lois Lane and her partner, Jimmy Olsen.
The nanite event in this universe occurs somewhere during the 8-10 years that Bruce retired from being Batman at the hands of Project Cadmus. The project, which has MASSIVE portions of it kept secret from the public, is a multinational collaboration project headed and funded by LexCorp, S.T.A.R. Labs, Stagg Enterprises, and Ferris Aircraft, among others, with a number of different scientists leading the project, these include:
Lex Luthor
Harrison Wells
John Henry Irons
T.O. Morrow
Michael Holt
Victor Fries (Contributing Scientist, Possible Test Subject)
Pat Dugan
Emil Hamilton
Ray Palmer
Silas Stone
Dr. Thaddeus Sivana
Kimiyo Hoshi
Stephen Shin
William Magnus
Kirk Langstrom
Dabney Donovan
Francine Langstrom (Assistant and Wife of Kirk Langstrom)
Victor Stone (Son and Assistant to Silas Stone, Test Subject)
Karen Beecher (Assistant to Ray Palmer)
Ryan Choi (Assistant to Ray Palmer)
Reginald Augustine (Assistant to Dabney Donovan)
Thomas Tompkins (Assistant to Dabney Donovan)
(I’d like to stress that this doesn’t tie into the origin of Mr. Freeze as his origin happened a number of years ago relative to the projects founding. He joined the project as a way to potentially find a cure for Nora’s disease and his own condition. Neither ventures yielded much fruit.)
The project’s public goals were a genuine attempt to solve various issue plaguing humanity and to try and improve scientific fields to gain things like full A.I., cybernetic implants, and to just save people and improve the world. The secret and true goals of the project were known only to a few who worked in the project and were much darker and complicated than previously believed. Like in 2014s The Flash, Harrison Wells’s identity was stolen by a time traveler name Eorbard Thawne, who, in the ultimate example of Why the fandom can’t have nice things, is currently on a mission to destroy the life of the currently soon-to-be Flash, Barry Allen. To this end, he’s manipulating events to bring about superpowers in a very Vriska-esque method of “Creating him so I can destroy him.” Lex Luthor on the other hand is worried and paranoid. During the 8-10 years that Bruce let Jim go on a joy ride in the IronBat suit, a lot of the supernatural and paranormal elements of the DCU started to show their faces and Lex naturally hates magic, especially in regards to the implications of it’s existence, and is looking for a way to counter it. (Batman and Green Arrow had some experience dealing with magic and the supernatural before the timeskip, but the statute of secrecy officially ended during the timeskip) A Mother Box was discovered during a LexCorp expidition and one of the projects goals, among the other previously discussed stuff, was to reverse engineer it or otherwise find a way to access the massive energy reserves inside it. A Father Box was soon after discovered and lets just say that “playing with fire” is now an understatement. These “God Boxes” as they were nicknamed acted like Holocrons from Star Wars except they can do A LOT MORE. The Nanites being churned out eventually and accidentally yielded the Alpha-Nanites (which bacame the basis or things like OMAC or the Metal Men), the Omega Nanites (some of which went into Cyborg and characters in the DCU that are technopaths), and Meta-Nanites (which if combined, could make someone a literal god). I currently don’t know what the actual events are or who did it, but the Nanites were eventually released in a massive explosion. The Nanites eventually permeated EVERY LIVING BEING ON EARTH. As the Nanites were meant to improve the human body, but were still (for the most part) prototypes, they could malfunction when activated, creating monstrosities like the Parasite, the various different Clayfaces, among others. They didn’t really affect Superman and other aliens since they’re programmed to affect things native to Earth. The project was later absorbed into A.R.G.U.S., an international agency founded in the wake of the disaster that’s essentially the DC version of Providence, a global agency/milita that deals with Meta-humans. This was done to offer various people in Cadmus redemption of a sort. Still, in the business of dealing with superpowers, magic, ancient societies (both benevolent and malevolent), monster, aliens, and even gods, morally ambiguous stuff still has to happen. This leads us into....
Jimmy Olsen. Did you know that in the Silver Age of Comics, Jimmy Olsen got superpowers every other week/was essentially the DC version of the Doctor with all the weirdness that went his way. This is my attempt to explain that. Jimmy Olsen is, like (FFXV Spoilers) Prompto Argentum before him, a line of clones made by Project Cadmus (the secret portion at least) made for being experimented on with specialized Nanites. Olsen was somewhat unique in that his nanites were almost like stem cells in that, unlike nanites that become unique to a specific person or type of people, his could be molded, at least temporarily, into any other type of nanites. As Cadmus was absorbed into A.R.G.U.S., a heavy moral decision of the higher ups was whether or not to continue his line and what would be done if it did continue. On the decision of putting regular humans on the front lines against the stuff the DCU has to deal with, they essentially became like Clone Troopers. One of the clones was smuggled out by a currently unknown A.R.G.U.S. scientist and was raised like a normal child. The stem cell nanites and the combat training were programmed into him during his development so they stayed. This wound up helping Jimmy during a freelance journalism career as war correspondent, which is how he met Lois and eventually got employed at the Daily Planet. My other option was to make Jimmy the human disguise of Brainiac 5 for an impending invasion of Earth that would have ended with him severing his connection to the hive mind and becoming a hero on Earth. I wasn’t sure how all that would go though.
Should Dick and Jason have two separate superhero identities or can they share the identity or Robin? I’m actually not too sure on what to do. In the case of Jason being Robin exclusively, it would make Batman more paranoid over Tim becoming Robin, which is in keeping with Batman’s behavior during the events of Batman: Arkham Knight. When he’s with Batman, I’d imagine Dick to wear an outfit similar to Batman Earth 1 as Nightwing considering what Nightwing in The Lego Batman Movie looks like. What do you think I should do? I do know that after leaving to be his own hero, which is done in a combination of Bruce trying to forbid Dick from fighting crime and a sharp increase in ruthlessness from him during his search for the Joker, (reinenting the Nightwing persona to be more independant from Batman if he had started AS Nightwing) Dick goes on to meet other superheroes like Katana, Roy Harper, among others and finds the Outsiders.
This version of the DCU runs on the Alternate History trope to an extreme with a backstory inspired by the recent Justice League Movie. See, in the beginning, as the universe began, various beings that came to embody different aspects the mind or personality emerged. One of the earliest races in the Universe met these beings and decided to collaborate with them, eventually creating the Lantern Power Batteries as these beings were pure energy. One of them, Parallax, wasn’t on board with this plan and was imprisoned alongside Ion in the Green Battery. The White Light Entity went around creating or encouraging the growth of life across the universe, at least until it fell asleep and, like Unicron in Transformers Prime, began to have the earth form around it in it’s slumber. As life developed on Earth various beings from other worlds came to Earth and helped influenced the growth of life, humans weren’t created by aliens or gods necessarily, but they certainly got as much help as they could from it. The gods and aliens were really only doing this to endear themselves to The Entity in the Earth as, while they didn’t know it was there for sure, they sensed that humanity, or at least the planet they inhabit, was special and it might do good to brown nose them. That is until a race of beings called the New Gods brought their war to Earth. Realizing that the New Gods war could destroy the planet, the various pantheons and aliens teamed up and fought them to a stalemate. At least until the newly created Green Lantern Corps stepped in. With so many united against them, the New Gods called a truce and swapped sons to seal the deal. The Guardians also shamed the aliens or pantheons who only showed up to kiss the Entity’s ass and implements a Star Terk-esque no interfering with the native life until they’re capable of intergalactic travel policy. The aliens and Gods agree and withdraw from the Earth, but not before the pantheons in an attempt to redeem themselves and do actual good, have the societies dedicated to them, like the Amazons, Atlanteans, various Mages and Wizard tribes, etc. do a King Arthur like thing, by retreating from the rest of human civilization and emerging to save them in it’s darkest hour. While some Atlanteans or Amazons emerged during the 2 world wars that occurred a really long time later, they strictly held to this rule, at least until Wizards dropped the ball and exposed magic in it’s entirety. Afterwards, the Amazons, Atlanteans, and other ancient societies slowly emerged from the woodwork, sending ambassadors and slowly reintegrating and re-conciliating with humanity.
#dc comics#vertigo comics#fawcett comics#quality comics#charlton comics#milestone comics#justice league#batman#superman#wonder woman#aquaman#zatanna#new gods#multiverse#world building#amazons#atlantis#green lantern#great ancient nebulous war for the earth#last tag should be a new trope#gotham#metropolis#krypton#brainiac#supergirl#alternate history#earth 2#batfamily#project cadmus#a.r.g.u.s.
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GoT 7x03 Musings
My initial reaction to “The Queen’s Justice”
^I dub thee “Casterly Castle”
I guess the title refers to Cheryl finally delivering that poetic justice for Madison’s death via Poison Ivy lipstick (which I’ve been told was only a thing Ivy did in Batman and Robin; she’s usually just more a dramatic biochemist nerd with pheromones. I’m so sorry, Ivy.). I guess it could also be Deadpan not randomly giving Jon her help for nothing in exchange, because that’s actually a decent sense of justice. It was pretty obvious D&D were writing this one again, with the nonversations featuring strongly. Let’s dive in.
Dragonstone
A lot happened here, and yet nothing did at all.
Jon is a fucking idiot for arriving with just Davos, and it’s beyond clear that he should have listened to Sansa and everyone else cautioning him from going, because he was immediately in a position where he had no capacity to defend himself, and nothing to offer Deadpan at all.
Really glad Tyrion reminded us HOW NICE he is about not raping Sansa when they were married. More points for him being THE BEST. Sorry. If you know me, you know this one is a specific bugaboo.
Some say the dragon CGI didn’t look good, but frankly it didn’t bother me that much. I was much more distracted by Tyrion’s alcoholism jokes and Jon’s mouth breathing
The Mel & Davos scene felt like it worked last night, but after reading over Jess’s review today, I have no idea why I thought that. Mel was literally just saying she was peacing out, and then creepily said she and Varys would both die in Weisseroff, so I guess they will. It was…fine? But also “the plot needs me over here now!”
I felt like Deadpan and Jonny were asserting different things every few minutes. I’m also assuming we’re supposed to view Deadpan as the spoiled entitled shittier leader, while Jonny is a man of the people who drops his g’s at the ends of his sentences.
this would have been somewhat possible to be sold if Jonny hadn’t been given a kingship for being the world’s biggest fucking idiot
Also, Tyrion’s point about “you should just kneel if this war to the North is all that matters to you” is really, really salient. Like…what did Jonny expect in this? He *said* Deadpan needs him, but actually how? What she needs his 4 surviving Wildlings? The Manderly forces?
Oh wait, that’s right, the whole theme of this season has been “how can we illogically deplete Deadpan’s massive and unbeatable army?” She learns about Yara’s fleet and decides not to keep Jonny as a prisoner, but a guest, before storming off.
I’m probably remembering this out of order, but we get some kind of war council scene where she suggests riding her dragon to like…BURN Euron’s wormhole-navigating fleet?
But no. Apparently she could get shot with an arrow so it’s never going to happen. Let’s ignore her biggest military advantage.
We also get Jonny & Tyrion 2.0: who broods best? Aka D&D write shitty lines for cheap fandom jokes.
It is kind of amusing to watch Jonny have his own idiocy pointed out to him
Then Tyrion runs to Deadpan and tells her to play nice, because she’s been a very naughty little school girl lately. Also they need allies because things are going tits up with his masterplan of incompetence. I just can’t take the fucking infantilizing tone, though I did legit laugh when Deadpan called him on “a wise ma n once said.”
Uhhh finally Deadpan & Jonny’s 2.0 scene? She decides to let him mine dragon glass because Tyrion asked nicely. I can’t think anything positively about either of their leadership capabilities, nor do I think D&D have much interest in showing them. Can we just get on to boat sex already?
Cheryl’s Landing
The biggest issue I have is how the smallfolk of Cheryl’s Landing are even more mercurial than the Northern Lords. Now they’re CHEERING Euron despite knowing Cheryl burned everything down? Why don’t they give any shits?
I don’t know who Euron is playing this week. Moriarity? Julia says a bad magician. Are we supposed to find him intimidating?
Legit found Cheryl’s approach to governance compelling this week. She secured an ally with a promise of marriage *after* the war is won (why the fuck is Euron so interested in this?), and was a savvy negotiator with the “we love the slave trade” Iron Bank of Braavos.
I can’t begin to deal with the Faullaria death scene. Longest fucking thing in the world, and it was just D&D reveling in murdering characters we hated because they put no depth into them. Everything about it was horrible, absolutely everything.
even the stupid “poetic justice” of the kiss. Just stop.
Larry loves Cheryl! Cheryl’s maid loves Cheryl’s style! What in the fuck is happening??
Winterhell
BRITTANY’S BACK
Anonymous said to gotgifsandmusings:
"a female character is empowered without resorting to violence, sexual manipulation, or dismissal of typically feminine-coded traits or activities" happened tho, with Sansa's ruling scene. It was one of the scenes I really enjoyed this episode (until littlefinger started to talk)
Yeah man, for sure. It was actually nice to watch, even if the larger pattern of their conception of empowerment is totally fucked. I have a feeling this one won’t be staying around
Also my god, that Batfinger speech was one of his worst yet. It makes chaos is a ladder seem like the smartest thing ever uttered. “See all possible outcomes”? Um…you didn’t, you fucking moron. Remember when the Sansa Marriage Strike blew up in literally everyone’s face?
at least Brittany wasn’t into it
Aaaaand then Bran came with a brand new personality! He wasn’t able to emote or give any shits about his sister, and then forced her to relive her trauma by talking about it in really creepy, deadpan, voyeuristic tones. Yay!
this Bran came out of NOWHERE. He became the Three Eyed Sydow last year (or something), so…where was this creepiness then? He seemed to be able to engage with Meera and Benjen and stuff. Was the baby crossfade THAT momentous?
I’m glad Brittany ran away from him. I rather stanned her this episode
Oh btw Theon is alive.
Apparently the Ironboors who survived can intuit exactly what happened on his ship, rather than thinking he got thrown overboard or something.
Hogwarts
I almost forgot this was in the episode
Greyscale is cured! Forever! This plot really mattered so much!
no are we supposed to be affected that Jorah was contemplating suicide? Are we supposed to care that Sam figured this out from what Jess described as a “wiki-how”?
just someone kick Sam out already. This is going nowhere
THE BATTLES
I’ll direct you back to Jess’s review if you haven’t read it already. She does an AMAZING job at explaining how Tyrion’s voice-over removed all dramatic tension.
Fuck traveling logistics, amirite? Of course Larry can sprint around Weisseroff in two weeks. I feel like they threw that timeframe in there just to piss us off.
Again, the importance of Casterly Castle was never in evidence. Larry didn’t care about it enough to abandon it. Tyrion described it as “impenetrable” and even went on to say how once inside, the Unsullied would *still* be outnumbered.
it makes Tyrion seem like an idiot, especially with Larry knowing he’d take it, so was this supposed to be his hubris? But it was never framed as hubris. So…
Oh look, Euron’s fleet warped from somewhere in between Cheryl’s Landing and Porne to Casterly Castle. That works!
Then Larry just warps and takes Highgarden off-screen, because apparently D&D say that the Tyrells are shitty fighters. What. No seriously, what? Where did that even come from? And taking a castle is still kind of a big deal.
^this was a tad disappointing for Highgarden.
Frankly, where did the Tyrell army even go? Tarly’s an important bannerman, but not like ALL of it
The best part was that Diana Rigg seemed as happy to be done with this stupid show as I was for her, so there was a good amount of energy in her scene.
the whole “Cheryl is the worst” thing didn’t land as usual, especially when immediately followed by her confession about murdering Joffrey, but she was just so gosh darn plucky about it!
Aaaand that’s all I’ve got! Boy Deadpan sure is in a pickle that her amazing “divide and fail to conquer” plan was as bad as @turtle-paced described it last week. Add to that Larry’s sudden competence, and she just might yet need Jonny!
Top 3 nitpicks:
Casterly Castle being single-handedly built by Tywin and Tyrion having actually constructed the sewers himself. Not just running them…constructed them.
The Iron Bank investing in the slave trade
The smallfolk LOVE Euron and Cheryl now
Did this land for you? I was seeing tweets about how smart the writing was and just...WHAT. Though Brittany was boss ass, if I may say so myself.
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Headcanon: Bat Treaty
• Agreed upon yearly date where all Batman's villains just be cool for an evening and have movie night with the Batfamily. • Joker's not invited, but gets sent a copy of the movie anyway so he feels included. • Duela HATES that he can't come, despite the fact that the many reasons why have been explained over and over again. • Bruce has commissioned a building specifically for watching movies. It's got like a fucking ginormous cinema screen and top hi-def surround sound and luxury seats with their own arm rests so no one is trying to steal yours and all the heroes, villains and anti heroes all agree it is the best viewing experience in Gotham. Those who know congratulate Bruce. Those who don't tell Batman to congratulate Bruce. • The Batfamily all have their secret favourite villain. Damian expertly hides his respect for Mr. Freeze. Barbara tries to hide her admiration of Ivy and fails HARD. Katherine kind of low key wants to get in Harley's pants. Pussy blocked by Ivy EVERY DAMN TIME. • Harper desperately wants to get in close with Cass so she's begging her to sit at the back. • Cass knows what's up but doesn't say so, she just smiles and plays along. • Selina is just endlessly flirting with Bruce. She knows Talia is right there. She just doesn't care. • Clayface has assumed the form of Joker and does a spot on impression all night just to fuck with Harley and Duela. Also Jason a bit. • Pamela's in the corner with Alec and Jason talking flora (Jason Woodrue, the Floronic Man, not Red Hood). None of them really want to socialise and people just kind of accept this, it's pretty much routine by now. • The only time Two-Face is more Harvey than Two-Face cause he knows he's just here to watch a movie and no one's going to try and arrest him. • Roman and Oswald are ALWAYS talking business and Roman ALWAYS sees Jason over Oz's head just giving him a hard stare. He doesn't like to say so, but Jason scares him quite a bit, what with the whole 'I Actually Kill' thing. • Actually all the villains are kind of scared of Jason except Scarecrow. • Rule #1 of movie night is no weapons and they all stick to it but Scarecrow has one small vial of insanely powerful fear toxin, just in case. • Harley always brings like 10 piñatas and a fuckton of baseball bats. It's a Gotham family tradition. No one knows where she keeps them or how she brings them, but they're glad she does. • Duela's really upset that Joker doesn't get to come but she just like mooches around with her father and Red Hood on her phone. She and Damian both feel strangely connected somehow. • Duke is just really social the whole evening and says goodbye to everyone at the door. He also bolts down everything that can be bolted down so Selina doesn't get any bright ideas. • Tim and Steph are the same, generally mingling. • Dick tries to get anyone and everyone to play Twister with him but fucking everyone knows he's an acrobat and gymnast so they're all like nah except Selina who takes the challenge every year and comes so close to beating him every year. This is the one thing that irritates her beyond imagination about Dick. • Nygma's just giving puzzles to everyone and they're all just like "the point of this is to get AWAY from work, fuck off Eddie". And he pretends to be hurt but really he's just happy to be a part of this. • Deathstroke and Deadshot drop the professional façade completely and have all the beers and sing Piano Man a lot and treat Jason like their son, much to the disdain of Bruce. Harley has come up with many different comedic nicknames for this sight. • No one sits at the back because it's owned by the Gotham City Sirens and Harper, Cassandra and Stephanie. No weapons is the official rule #1 but socially, rule #1 is don't sit at the back unless you want Ivy to beat you with a thorn whip. Everyone knows they're the big female family and everyone knows the structure off by heart: Ivy and Harley are the moms and Selina is the cool aunt who brings wine. Harper is the rebellious daughter, Cassandra is the best daughter and Stephanie is the gay in training. Katherine is the friend of the family and joins them sometimes. She is one of 4 who isn't officially part of the family who's allowed to join them. One is Harper's younger brother Cullen. Wonder Woman can also hang, along with any Themyscira pals she brings, if any. The other is Alfred. It's an iron-clad policy. Sometimes (rarely) Superman has free time and joins movie night. The first time he tried to sit at the back, the smell of chlorophyll and freshly cut grass stayed in his costume for MONTHS. He always sat right at the front from then and has been secretly terrified of Ivy ever since. They've been given many nicknames but The Back Pack or The Backfamily has been used the most. • Everyone loves Mr. Freeze at movie night because he makes the best slushies. • Bane arm wrestling Solomon Grundy. • Azrael is the social pariah. He never says hi and rarely talks. When he does it's yes or no or an unintelligible grunt. But when the movie starts you can hear him quietly in the background laughing or crying or gasping and everyone smiles cause they know he's a big softie. ESPECIALLY when it comes to dog movies. • Damian isn't even pretending to not want to be here. He isn't warm and friendly but he enjoys the company. He fights Ra's and Talia and always tries to get pointers from Lady Shiva. • The Court of Owls do not show up on principle but they promise not to terrorise Gotham while everyone's away. • Some people bring non-powered loved ones. The Backfamily love Harper's brother Cullen, so he's also allowed to sit there. If Superman shows up, you know he's bringing Lois. Diana also doesn't normally show up, but when she does, she shows up with her Amazon besties and you know they're bringing the feminism. • Killer Croc doesn't want to come but Harley, Deathstroke and Deadshot take lots of pictures and tell him loads of funny stories at the next Suicide Squad meet. • The alcohol is kept in a backroom only Alfred has the key to. No one is taking any chances with Garfield. • Everyone tells Riddler to be quiet because he always points out the plot holes and continuity errors and stuff like that. Usually he gets kicked out, unless it's finance movies like the Wolf Of Wall Street or something where he can distract himself with math. • ALFRED IS ALWAYS THE LIFE OF THE PARTY. NO ONE CARES HOW MUCH THEY HATE BATMAN OR BRUCE, EVERYONE APPRECIATES AND RESPECTS ALFRED. EVERYONE KNOWS AND AGREES HE'S THE BEST OUT OF EVERYONE IN THE ROOM. He's always coming around with the drinks and the snacks, giving out hot dogs and popcorn and nachos and corn dogs tirelessly and he smells really bad at the end of the night but he still gets the biggest hugs and most people bring like $20 spare just to tip him. He's also allowed to sit at the back, but it doesn't matter because he's more of a mid sitter anyway.
#batfamily headcanon#batfamily#dc#batman#bruce wayne#barbara gordon#batgirl#nightwing#dick grayson#harper row#bluebird#cassandra cain#black bat#stephanie brown#spoiler#pamela isley#poison ivy#harleen quinzel#harley quinn#selina kyle#catwoman#duke thomas#lark#katherine kane#batwoman#damian wayne#robin#duela dent#joker's daughter#joker
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Netflix’s Death Note: A Trailer Analysis
So Netflix released a trailer for their Americanized (aka whitewashed) movie based on the beloved Japanese manga/anime series Death Note and, what a shock, everyone and their mother hates it. I’ll be honest, I knew about the casting months before, and it’s still pretty shitty, but given what happened with Ghost in the Shell, should we be surprised at this point? And that one’s getting a theatrical release. But the problems with this Death Note adaptation go beyond just whitewashing two characters; that’s just scratching the surface of the confusing mess and even more problematic implications we might expect from this movie. Also it should go without saying that I will be going into spoilers of the original series, so if you’re one of the five people unfamiliar with Death Note until now, you have been warned.
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DISCLAIMER FOR ANYONE WHO THINKS I’M BEING TOO HARSH ON A ONE MINUTE TRAILER
Okay, I know there are gonna be a few people going “Just give it a chance! Maybe there will be something good! It’s unfair to judge before it’s even released!” And with all due respect, that kind of mentality completely disregards the entire point of marketing. Trailers are supposed to draw in an audience and give them a reason why they should spend their time and money to see a movie, TV show or any piece of media ever to exist. How many of you saw the trailer for The Force Awakens and almost shit your pants out of nostalgia when Han Solo came on screen and said “Chewie, we’re home”? How many of you got chills listening to Lin-Manuel Miranda sing for Moana? How many of you got pumped to see Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman together on the big screen? That is the power of trailers when done successfully, even if the movie itself doesn’t turn out well; if film makers want to make money, they need to show that their product is worth something.
If all you have to show is shit, then people will think it’s shit. This is increased exponentially when doing an adaptation of a pre-existing work because there’s already an audience with their own visions on what everything is supposed to look like down to the smallest of details. Most everyone I’ve seen who’s into Death Note now has low expectations for this movie. It’s fine to give the benefit of the doubt and hope some good will come out of it, hell, I always want to hope I’m wrong in some cases. But there is a fine line between (sorry live-action Beauty and the Beast, I just have to) going “Okay, maybe this will be a good Disney remake and they’ll do something new” and “Oh my fucking God, Emma Watson can’t sing. Please fire someone.”
So yeah, I’m still judging the trailer. I’m a Taurus, I’m stubborn, and I got some grievances.
From the get-go, the most glaring issue we can tell is that it is not going to follow remotely close to the original story at all. When is Light running from the police in his early days as Kira? And what even is up with the Ferris wheel bullshit? At that point, they might as well have created original characters; it would have saved themselves a lot of criticism of whitewashing and turning Light and Misa into absolute edgelords even when it’s so out of character, and topping it all off by giving them 4Kids dub names as a way to rub the salt in the whitewashed wound. At least Ghost in the Shell had some decency left to leave Motoko’s name alone. But thanks for getting rid of Light’s literal juxtaposing name of light and darkness to emphasize the moral ambiguity of his actions.
It’s only made worse when in fact an Asian American actor, Edward Zo, did audition for Light and was rejected for “being too Asian.” TOO ASIAN FOR LIGHT YAGAMI, A JAPANESE CHARACTER. What the fuck does that mean “too Asian??” So these filmmakers went out of their way to NOT cast any Asian American actors since apparently people still think American equates to whiteness (spoiler, no it doesn’t) and instead get that kid from the Naked Brother’s Band and some obscure HBO actress.
Not only are Light and Misa unrecognizable because of the whitewashing, they don’t even match on the same damn personalities. Yes, Light becomes a sociopath, but he doesn’t start off as some misunderstood loner or whatever vibe I’m getting from Natt Wolf (by the way, wash your damn hair, it looks greasy). Light was actually a very popular student with good grades, good manners and could easily get dates with any girl he wanted. And he’s very clever to hide his true intentions and manipulate. He’s your average, unsuspecting young adult which works well for the series to show how no one is above this kind of descent into madness. This white kid looks like fucking Dylann Roof, it’s so unsettling and ruins any subtlety to Light’s character. Even this whitewashed Mi(s)a suffered the edgelord syndrome with the image of her against grey colors smoking a cigarette. “Look at me, I’m so fucking dark and edgy.” You’re not making Heathers, give me back the hyperactive idol.
But what about Keith Sutherland, a black actor, as L? On one hand, I’m not too bothered with this change since L is canonically only a fourth Japanese so casting him as a black person isn’t too much of a stretch even though it takes away the iconic image. But at the same time, it lends itself to a lot of problematic territory when setting up a black character as the antagonist to the white character. L is killed in the original series, he loses, and his fight is picked up by his successors. So now we’ll potentially have a case of a white male serial killer with a god complex killing a black man who we’ve only seen so far in shadow and in a hood. Because that is not familiar to cases of racially motivated crimes of black people being killed because they looked “suspicious.” Classy, real motherfucking classy. I can only hope that they change up L’s fate like the Japanese live-action movies did, but this is already looking like a slippery slope to racist tropes as old as time.
And what the series chose to Americanize and to leave alone is just a set up for confusion as they left some of the original Japanese elements. For starters, the hell is Ryuk still doing here? Yeah, I want to see Willem Dafoe as Ryuk, it fits perfectly, but what is a JAPANESE god of death doing in SEATTLE, WASHINGTON IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA? Like how will you explain yourself out of this one, because I doubt your typical white American teenager will be familiar with Japanese spiritual beliefs. There’s also some graffiti briefly seen that says “Justice of Kira,” but in the original series, Kira comes from the Japanese pronunciation of the English word “killer.” So where do these Americans get Kira from? Explain, movie! Explain!
The themes will also not carry over well in this adaptation because of the differences in justice systems between America and Japan (this one I borrowed from @tadasgay‘s critiques, and it really puts into perspective the problems of Americanizing a Japanese story; giving credit where credit is due). A major driving force of Light’s motivations in the original series are because of criminal cases that don’t even make it to court. Therefore, criminals who are obviously guilty get away with their crimes despite the evidence against them. With the Death Note, Light acts as the prosecutor to "properly” deliver justice because of the facts he can obtain from police records. We don’t know if they will follow through with this, or if this Light will just kill whoever because they are bad. To top it all off, the American crime narratives tend to be biased on race, especially given the disproportionate amount of people of color in the for-profit prison systems. Japan doesn’t have that because it’s a mostly racially and culturally homogeneous country. Just a reminder that our protagonist is now a WHITE guy with a god complex and a black man as his antagonist. This is a slippery slope to twist the original narrative into something horrible and potentially racist. I’m sure I’m not alone when I hope I’m wrong on those aspects, but the fact is that we don’t know, and we won’t know for certain for another few months. These thoughts will be lingering over our heads until then.
At this point, we can only hope that the filmmakers will come out and explain themselves, and more trailers can be released to see more of the story and characters. At best, it will probably just be mediocre, but at worst, it could probably be another shitty American adaptation of an already great Japanese manga/anime. We won’t know for a while, but for now, we still have the original and I think we can all agree nothing will ever top it.
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The Logan Supremacy.... (no spoilers)
I’ve kind of gotten sidetracked away from doing movie reviews for a bit here. Sorry about that. I’m still not quite sure if anyone cares. People say they want my take, but it always feels like there’s far more people interested in my political stuff. Anyway, I’ve been meaning to write one for Split for a while (saw it a few weeks ago) and didn’t get to it. So now I’m not sure if anyone is interested anymore. Let me know.
That said, there’s a new superhero movie out. Logan. And of course I have to review that one. So here we go.
I’m kind of wondering if the post award season hard-R superhero movie spot is just going to become a thing with Fox. After last year’s Deadpool (which I liked a lot) and this year’s Logan, Fox seems to have something. Certainly something beyond what they did with Fant4stic and X-Men: Apocalypse, both of which pretty much royally sucked. I’m actually quite happy to say that with Logan, they actually had something going here.
I always try to avoid spoilers in these as best I can. Here it’s going to be quite easy because my thoughts on what made Logan work really don’t have much to do with the movie at all. It’s more about what they DIDN’T do that really works for me.
I’m actually kind of starting to hate movie franchises. It’s not just that they’re cash grabs. All movies are cash grabs. All products are cash grabs. That’s just how it works. Everyone wants to make money. And I understand that you need big tentpole films in order to make Hollywood work. And that’s the honest truth of it. For anyone who likes to say that they don’t care about these big budget extravaganzas, you need to understand that they keep Hollywood running. Without big budget superhero films, there is no La La Land or Moonlight. It’s a sharing of the wealth. That’s just the business. And movie franchises have always been a big part of that. I mean literally always. Go all the way back to the Golden Age of Hollywood. We have Casablanca, Citizen Kane and Singing in the Rain because your great grandparents sat through a shit ton of really godawful Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies and that’s not to mention Ma and Pa Kettle or Andy Hardy. Because no matter what you like to remember about the Golden Age of cinema… no matter what La La Land and Hollywood want you to believe… most of it was basically a big shit show. Just like now. In fact, in those days — Code Era Hollywood — it was even worse.
But one of the things that the franchises understood back in those days was that they weren’t TV (or maybe more accurately they weren’t radio). The Tarzan films are not high art, but they all stand alone. They are related, but only nebulously. The order of them doesn’t even really make all that much difference. So long as you saw the first one and know the origin story, you’re good to go with any of the. Frankly, if you missed the first one, you’ll basically figure shit out. White dude with the accent of a caveman, swings from vines and yells a lot. Hell, if for some reason you want to make a Tarzan movie without Johnny Weissmüller, just throw in Buster Crabbe. Who the fuck will know the difference?
And this is how franchises have always worked. After the days of movie serials (which were weekly, like TV shows), Hollywood learned that you couldn’t expect everyone to see every film in the franchise and certainly not to wait a year or two for the next installment of a story. This has been the way of franchises for movie history. Even serialized films like Star Wars didn’t require all the parts to tell the story. That’s why they were able to start with EPISODE FUCKING FOUR and most people never even noticed. James Bond is theoretically one ongoing franchise, but it doesn’t make sense in the slightest. Actors change. Events contradict each other. There’s a soft reboot for the most recent Daniel Craig films which takes them back into being prequels to most of the other ones (or a replacement in the case of the Casino Royales) but even those don’t make sense, because they retain the M (Judi Dench) that was hired in the final Pierce Bronson pictures. But it all just kind of works. Because there’s just an understanding by the viewer that continuity in the Bond Universe only matters when it does. The individual films are consistent in themselves and that is is enough. You can watch any Bond film and its fine. The others may or may not have canon that happened. It doesn’t matter. No one cares. If you’re doing a Bond marathon and you happen o hate Octopussy. Just skip it. I doesn’t matter. The same is true of Tarzan, Andy Hardy or (to a lesser extent) even Star Wars.
But somewhere along the way, this broke. Maybe it was Empire Strikes Back that broke it. Even though i remains the best Star Wars movie, it really doesn’t have a beginning or an end. It’s all middle. But it was certainly broken by he time we got to Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. Hollywood figured out that they could make us pay to see episodic TV in theaters. And frankly it kind of sucks.
Not all franchises are like that. The success of the Marvel films is that even though they’re sort of episodic, they don’t really rely on each other much. At least not really Avengers: Age of Ultron kind of did, and it’s one of the things that I really don’t like about that movie. It’s one of the big problems with Batman v. Superman. That’s not really even a movie. It’s a lot of set up for other movies that hasn’t been earned yet. What makes the Marvel films work is that when I walk out of the theater, I (usually) feel like I’ve seen a complete and conclusive story — even if it is a story that is part of a larger one. What makes a franchise not work is when each installment is more concerned with locking the viewer in for the next installment OR PREVIOUS ONES than it is with telling it’s own story.
What made Logan work is that it just didn’t give a fuck.
And it was great because of it. Like Deadpool, this is a movie that exists within the X-men universe. But only in the most superficial of ways. It matters in the same way that it matters that any Bond films related or any Tarzan films. Instead of trying to tell an X-men franchise story, James Mangold directed a simple and compelling action movie that happens to be set in the X-men world. In effect it isn’t really an X-men movie at all. It’s a Jason Bourne movie. It’s a John Wick movie. It’s Léon, The Professional, where the part of Léon will now be played by Wolverine.
And it was fucking awesome.
Ot at least it was awesome for what it was. If you like Jason Bourne style action movies, you should love this. It is the story of a reluctant hero, put into a situation which he didn’t choose, where his only way out is to kill a lot of people. REALLY a lot of people. And kill them… like a bunch. Like so much killing. Like if you’re into a movie where dead fuckers are stacking up left and right. This is the movie for you. If you don’t want to see that, you will not enjoy this. Because there is so so so so so so very much killing going on.
And I’m trying to review this for what it is. This is a franchise movie. It is not high art (which The Professional inexplicably is). It doesn’t want to be. It is trying to be the best franchise movie it can be and the best killing spree movie it can be. I am judging it on that merit. The action was fun. The killing was gory. It gives movies like Bourne and Wick a serious run for their money. At the same time, there is enough of a compelling story to gesture towards something like The Professional to make it something more than a mindless action spree. It has heart and soul in a way that most movies in this genre really don’t. There are real stakes for the character and between the killing… oh so very much killing… the film gives you a reason to care for the characters and want them to succeed. I mean, a reason beyond wanting to see them survive to kill some more.
But it didn’t rely too heavily on it’s franchiseness. What you need to know about the other X-men/Wolverine movies. Logan is a guy with claws and a healing factor. Professor Xavier is a guy with mental powers. They’re mutants. Nothing else matters. These things aren’t explained. Much like it’s never explained why Tarzan is in the jungle or talks funny after the first movie. Why does John Wick have a gun? Cuz he’s a dude with a gun. That’s who he is. Let’s move along.
Beyond that, the other movies don’t matter. Frankly, a lot of the events of the other movies are kind of contradicted by this one. And that’s fine. It just doesn’t matter. Like Bond, continuity only matters in this film when it does. And when it doesn’t, Mangold just doesn’t give a fuck. In fact, probably my least favorite part of the film are the time (relatively few times) that Mangold tries to address the ongoing X-men continuity just to keep the geeks off his back. It’s done with a bit of a wink. He lets you know that the film doesn’t really “fit” and he doesn’t care. The Wolverine character pretty much tells you that directly. It’s too much. I don’t need it and it took me out of the movie. It’s a double edged sword I guess. If he didn’t do it, there’d be a bunch of assholes on Twitter saying “but this doesn’t work, because the events of X-men: The Last Stand say this other thing. Mangold is explicitly saying “I know. I don’t care. That movie fucking sucked and this one is better. Deal with it!” And he’s right. He did make a better movie. But it would be even better still if he didn’t have to say that in the film itself. Bond films never apologize for being Bond films.
The particulars of the film are pretty good. Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart are excellent in their characters… and they should be since they’ve had 17 years of practice. Dafne Keen is also very good in the role of Laura. She’s not going to be getting Natalie Portman/Mathilda style accolades… but she was good and I hope she has a future in it. Seeing her fight as an 11 year old girl was cool, though there were some points where it was kind of obvious that she was stunt doubled or CGI’d out in a way that it isn’t as much so with Jackman and that makes her seem a little more artificial in an otherwise very gritty film. The rest of the cast is basically “okay.” I don’t feel like there is anyone else I can really rave about, but no one is offensively bad (and that’s a positive in a movie like this).
So I recommend seeing it. Especially if you’re a fan of Bourne style movies. It is an excellent entry into that genre (generally not one of my favorites) and, assuming this really is Jackman’s final time in the role as he has said, a great send off to his version of the Wolverine character. Just don’t look for much else out of the film than that. Instead, appreciate it for all he things that it doesn’t do.
And it is the best there is at what it doesn’t do… well… maybe not the best… but pretty damn good.
★★★★☆ (4 out of five stars)
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The Logan Supremacy…. (no spoilers) was originally published on ChrisMaverick dotcom
#franchises#Hugh Jackman#James Mangold#laura#Logan#movie review#Patrick Stewart#Professor X#X-23#X-Men (film)#X-Men Origins: Wolverine#X-Men: Apocalypse#Xmen
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FoZ Notes 18
Alright, we finally are having the plot start moving. Kinda. In any event a decent amount of stuff I felt like making notes of is happening.
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Saito literally glowing after him and Louise affirm their love. Neither of them notices. [You know, I’d forgotten about this because it doesn’t come back]
Fouquet giving money to Romalian orphans out of kindness. This is apparently just a thing with her. Oh, excuse me, to Albionese orphans in Romalia. So she's got loyalty to her country, I guess?
Also, Wardes is back. Apparently him and Fouquet have been hanging out in Romalia for... some reason... since Albion lost the war. He's been reading some secret Romalian book detailing historical events involving people revolting against Church power etc, among other books he's been reading in this period. Apparently Fouquet stole it for him.
Wardes mother was a researcher at the same facility Eleanore works at. She researched history (I guess she was an archeologist?) and 'earth history' (??), eventually went crazy, sexist commentary ensued because the author STILL cannot make up his goddamn mind. It's heavily hinted that the Wind Stone Catastrophe I've been spoiled on is her Go Mad From The Revelation moment, which she for some reason decided to not tell anyone about. Wardes is now trying to follow in her footsteps. Why? Because he semi-accidentally killed her when he was twelve by giving her a shove at the top of some stairs, so he's felt guilty ever since.
So. The fuck does that have to do with his original plot of wanting to become God-King of Halkeginia? [No, the story makes no attempt to explain what his original storyline was about]
Romalia knew Wardes and Fouquet were here the whole time, did nothing until just now because Reasons.
Josette has never felt happiness in her entire life. It takes her a bit to recognize it when she first experiences it. She's fully aware Julio is just using her, but loves him such that she's fine with that, which would be creepysweet except she's like the fifth such character at this point, so really it's just plain creepy. Especially since they're all women.
I am getting REAL damn tired of Romalia knowing everything everywhere all the time EXCEPT when they fail to know a thing that it would actually be plausible for them to guess at. (eg Joseph being the Gallion Void mage) The story almost never makes the slightest effort to justify it. It's ridiculous.
More generally, Julio is a goddamn Sue of the highest order. More so than Saito! That's nuts!
Isabella has a knife that talks. Unclear if it's a knife-person or just a knife-radio. Later narrative implies it's a radioknife.
Tabitha saying she isn't foolish enough to help a religious fanatic -to the Pope. Gutsy.
The Pope replacing Tabitha with Josette is intended as a plot to bait out Saito and company because of fucking course.
Guiche views stealthy action as un-noble. No wonder he's so shit at his attempts to court a zillion women without them knowing about each other.
Oh hey now WE are using 'Skillnir' to fool enemies. Skillnir apparently require blood from the person you're wanting them to imitate... which raises the question of how Romalia got a sample of Saito's blood without him knowing. This is a dumb plotpoint.
Kirche will fucking murder you if you kill Tabitha. No hesitation. That's pretty darn close, emotionally! It’s more emotion than she’s shown for, say, Colbert, who I’ve utterly failed to mention her having the hots for after his ridiculous non-death because it’s an idiot plotline.
Saito is fucking baffled by someone having seemingly changed their face with magic. Don't think too hard about how Louise told him about the bastard-hiding place with its face-changing magic, you know, last volume. That was a whole volume ago, how dare you expect the author to remember things from so far back!
Abruptly, we're told Earth Stones are a thing and are necessary for golem production. Okay, cool. Fuck you, you horrific piece of shit, this is either some of the worst planning I have ever seen or some of the most blatant, disrespectful retconning I have ever seen. We should've been hearing about this in Volume Fucking One. Volume Two at the latest, where we were introduced to Wind Stones. We should not be hearing this nonsense in VOLUME EIGHTEEN.
Abruptly we hear that the Pope, when traveling, has to stop and bless people, thank people, etc etc. Why has this never cropped up before, then?
Chikasui -the girl of face-changing and Isabella's right-hand woman as far as I can tell- showing up as a man. Is she a shaspeshifter?
You know, I only just realized the "Mountain of the Fire Dragon" is actually something we heard about back in Volume One. Holy Continuity, Batman!
Really annoyed that Tabitha being pulled from the Pope's carriage doesn't cause Vittorio's men to second-guess their loyalties. Their outrage seems to be over, essentially, casting aspersions upon a man who should be beyond reproach, and then the aspersion turns out to be true. They ought to be horrified and/or outraged to discover that Vittorio has abused the trust that everyone puts into him, NOT blithely, angrily fighting for him like nothing has changed. [Reader note: Saito and company accuse the Pope of kidnapping Tabitha, basically, the Paladins are all “His Holiness would NEVER and how dare you claim otherwise!” and then out comes Tabitha and they don’t acknowledge how this contradicts their belief in the man]
Also getting tired of Vittorio and Julio insisting people should trust them, as they totally have a good reason for it honest! Nope, don't care. Behave in a manner not worthy of mistrust before you demand trust, assholes.
I'd be thrilled to see Saito calling Julio on his manipulative womanizing bullshit if he wasn't a massive goddamn hypocrite. Also because it devolving into a fist fight while Tabitha, Kirche, and Louise stand by and watch is idiotic nonsense.
Earthquake interrupt! Vittorio makes a comment that implies this is the Wind Stone Catastrophe. Specifically, Fire Dragon Mountain takes off. Julio claims this Wind Stone issue is why they need to retake the holy land... which explains fucking nothing.
Ugh.
Ridiculous claims that half the landmass of Halkeginia will rise up and this will cause a land war. Guys? You remember Albion? That place people live on right now? I know you do, because you're mentioning it in this conversation. In fact, this will INCREASE the amount of land available to Halkeginia! There will definitely be chaos and death, but you're all wrong ANYWAY.
Oh and we learn Brimir made a device that's in the holy land that requires four Void Mages to activate and which will somehow fix this. Dude. It's been 6000+ years. Even shaving it down to 5000 since Halkeginian years are shorter than Earth years, that's way the fuck too long. It's probably rust and dust, or at least buried. This should be obvious to everyone. Yes, I know, there’s those stupid preservation spells, but the plot itself seems to have entirely forgotten about them.
Why did all this stupid shit happen? Because! In true Shonen style, Julio wanted to fight Saito! Okay, so? What, Vittorio obligingly did a bunch of pointless bullshit to accommodate his familiar secretly being hijacked by an Entity? This is not an explanation that makes any kind of sense.
Of fucking course there's a spell for turning a wand's tip into a whip. And of course Eleanore knows it. As an aside, Malicorne is a masochist. It looked that way for several volumes, but A: I thought he was nobody important, a temporary character and B: it was ambiguous. Nope, he likes being whipped. sigh
Aaaand Louise saying she's "not a child anymore" seems to be taken by everyone as a shocking admission that she's had sex. Oh god she's had sex with Saito. I need brain bleach.
Naturally, Tristain digging into the Wind Stone issue causes them to agree to participate in the Crusade. This is stupid. The stupidity is unending. I'm having trouble making myself keep reading in the face of the biggest, most world-building-est plot twist of the series being such a crock of shit on every level.
Luctiana gets Ali to accept this mission he hates by virtue of refusing to marry him if he denies her the "greatest adventure" she can imagine. Because she wants to come along too, you see. Bidashal Just As Planned this, pretends innocence when Ali calls him on it. [Wait, did I mention Luctiana and Ali before? I don’t remember that being in my previous notes, did I lose the original notes or is this misplaced? In any event they’re both Elves. Luctiana has a fascination with ‘barbarians’, which is her entire character aside from being pedobait, while Ali has basically no character at all]
Oh fuck no. No, don't have Louise throw away her noble title to be with Saito. This is heinous bullshit. (Okay, it doesn't actually happen, but that Louise would consider it worth it horrifies me regardless)
Something I ought to have mentioned back on Volume One: magic lamps. Thing is? They've never been explained. Who makes them? Why are they in noble houses/institutions, but nowhere else? What powers them, given that magic is chant-based? They're just... present, and questionable worldbuilding.
Elves murdering bandits. Ali purports to dislike killing, but none of the Elves seem upset at the gruesome deaths they're inflicting. Wow, what pacifists. I am very convinced.
End volume 18.
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In which we finally learn about the Wind Stone Catastrophe and learn that Romalia's Crusade is not just fanatical religiousness. Oh and we finally see a bit of Elf culture/lands.
Alternative summary: Stupid Nonsense Pileup. Like a thirty-car pileup, but of stupid nonsense.
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