#AND I KNOW THAT ALL OF THIS IS CORE BATMAN SHIT BUT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW TIRED I WAS OF MODERN MOVIE BATMAN

[mustangs-flames]

Finally watched The Batman 2022. It was extremely good (it only took me this long to get around to it bc I was so burned out on Batman ngl)

[pluckyredhead]

“I have larger thoughts about how DC has kind of written themselves into a hole with Jason and now he's stuck in this limbo that's unsatisfying to everyone which is why so many Jason fans are mad all the time, but that's for another ask.”

🤓 Do tell…

Okay, let's see if I can do this in less than a thousand words!

So Jason, at his core, represents a challenge to Bruce's ideology, right? Bruce's #1 rule is No Killing, and Jason's basic idea is: "That doesn't work. Some villains are bad enough that they have to be killed for the greater good." (There's something very funny about Jason, famously undead, thinking killing stops ANYONE in the DCU, but we'll leave that aside for now.) This is a really interesting ethical quandary to throw Bruce's way, and by having it voiced by his beloved son, his greatest failure, his second most profound tragedy, it becomes a deeply thorny emotional problem as well as an ethical problem. That's all great.

The problem is, DC can't allow Jason to be right, for two reasons:

Batman must always be right and must always win.

...I mean, come on. They can't actually publish a story advocating for a traumatized 19-year-old with assault weapons to be the arbiter of who lives and who dies, that's nonsense. I love Jason but really.

The problem with that is, Jason is a major recurring character.

UTRH works great in a vacuum. But if Jason is showing up in a comic every month, or even just a few times a year, this central conflict has to be addressed, and the options for doing that are limited:

Bruce and Jason fight and Jason wins. DC will never let this happen. (And what would "Jason wins" even look like, honestly? He's not going to kill Bruce.)

Bruce and Jason fight and Bruce wins. They've done this a bunch (sometimes with Dick in place of Bruce), but Jason fans don't want to see him repeatedly getting his ass kicked while being lectured, and frankly it doesn't make Bruce look great either.

Bruce allows Jason to kill people. This can't happen either; it would be wildly out of character for Bruce, not to mention literally everyone in the Batfamily. They are all canonically pretty opposed to murder.

Jason continues to operate however he wants, but outside of Bruce's reach/jurisdiction. As wretched as RHATO was, I actually think it was a smart decision to keep most of the action outside of Gotham, because then we can pretend Bruce doesn't know what Jason's up to, just like we pretend Clark couldn't super-hear everything in Gotham and save Bruce's ass every single night without breaking a sweat. The problem here is that it means Jason is unavailable for the kinds of casual team-ups and crossovers that fans of all stripes crave - plus, every time he comes back to Gotham, he and Bruce have to relitigate their entire relationship AGAIN.

Jason compromises and agrees to follow Bruce's rules in order to have a relationship with the Batfamily. This is basically where DC has landed, and I understand why they did, because it's the option that allows them to publish the most comics with Jason in them, which they want to do because he is an immensely popular character who makes them money. However, it leaves him in this awkward position where instead of being a tragic villain/badass antihero, he's just...the sassiest member of the family, while simultaneously always being available to be treated like shit because he's Bad. He gets punished without even the fun of doing the crime anymore.

So what's the solution? I don't know. Theoretically, DC could try to do what Marvel does with the Punisher. People always get mad when I say Jason is DC's Punisher, but he kills pretty much indiscriminately in UTRH and RHATO, for pretty much the same reasons. ("Dudebros think it looks cool.") And Marvel heroes inexplicably let Frank just kill however many people he wants unless they're appearing in a Punisher comic, at which point they go "Frank, you naughty boy, I shall stop you!" and then Frank kicks their ass and makes them look like an idiot. DC is never going to let Jason do that to Bruce, plus it would put a real damper on the Wayne family Thanksgiving dinner.

Alternately, they could make him a Nightwing villain. Dick has spent 40 years fighting inconclusively with Deathstroke; he's much better suited to go endless rounds with Jason without either of them Always Triumphantly Winning than Bruce is. I don't personally want this option because I just don't care that much about Dick, but it could be really interesting, though it would limit Jason to fewer appearances and primarily in Dick's book. (Jason would have made a superb Red Robin villain 15 years ago for similar reasons.)

My vote, I think, would be for a really good (god, if only), really thoughtful Jason series where he has reason to seriously reevaluate his philosophy towards crime - something that reshapes him into a character who can still challenge Bruce's entrenched ideas without being so diametrically opposed to them as to make him a villain. He needs to be close enough to Bruce's rules to appear in crossovers, but far enough and specific enough that he's not just Meaner Nightwing. Jason is a passionate character; DC needs to find a new way to let his passion work for him, because right now he doesn't have anything driving him, and it's satisfying no one.

(900 words, BOOM!)

[radiance1]

de-aged Danny is one of my babies,

Shit hits the fan with the giw and Danny is super injured and Clockwork has to mess with some things so Danny doesn’t return to his core being vulnerable and sends him millions of miles away to Gotham and in the process Danny becomes 6/10 years old and is weeks healed due to being smaller and costing less ectoplasm but is still achy, Danny is steered to Jason’s apartment where he just got off his shift and then his is the twist! Jason is mute due to an accident with the joker and Batman (batman unintentionally causing his muteness) and out of reflex of a child on his counter hand first into a box of Cheerios let’s put a exasperated noise of flames and a lighter and Danny responds with his own spark of electricity and Jason is shocked (hehe) that Danny can understand and even communicate can he just lets out everything he’s been doing since “holy shit I can talk to someone normally” and then he realizes this child has the same scar as him and is pissed but Danny calms him down and calms the pits and he’s like “okay you’re mine now shit- I’m like Bruce- no. I’ll think about this later-“ Danny is super cute and Jason is having a field day with parent hood and Jason gives Danny a comm for when he goes out but he’s only allowed to speak in ghost speak and the rest are confused when Jason sprints away and they follow to see Danny in Jason’s arms being lulled to sleep with a man on the ground knocked out or dead who knows not Jason because it was shoot & punch and ask questions later and then Danny says sleepily “Oh your daddy’s brothers, hi” like it’s normal to meet family in this situation and Jason puts him to bed before signing “Say anything to Bruce and you will never be called uncle or attend his birthday in your life.”

Bruce only finds out when Jason some how ends up super injured and can’t sign and Danny translates (no editing just straight he said fucking hell) and introduces himself as Danny Todd, Bruce privately cried a little

The Joker catches wind of Red Hood's son and as you know, the Joker loves breaking people, both physically and mentally.

So he tries that shit with Danny, and because this is highly targeted specifically towards Red Hood. He even uses the method he killed Red Hood with when he was just a little itty-bitty robin.

Don't even talk about time because the entire Batfam suddenly gained fucking superspeed (They don't, but at the rate they're going they might as well have it), find the location the Joker is holding Danny at and descend on the Joker like a pack of starving wolves catching their prey.

Like, no joke (heh). They all throw straight hands; Joker gets tag teamed to hell and back by every one of them and none of them are holding back.

Later the Joker is on the ground a mangled mess, passed the fuck out and Batman just decides to go "Peace" and leaves him for dead without looking back, takes Danny (With Jason's explicit permission) and drives off in the Batmobile to Batburger because Danny was hungry.

Literally everyone else:

Joker just gets absolutely violated even further than what he already got, now that Batman's gone and very much left him for dead there ain't no one here to even try and stop them.

Gets beaten so hard he regains consciousness, and that guy still finds some reason to laugh.

A couple hours the Joker is just a mangled corpse with an inch of life in em and they give Jason the honor of finishing him off because not only was he the one to kill him, but he also tried to kill his son. Joker gets a bullet through his skull with both Danny and Bruce none the wiser because Bruce suddenly found himself on babysitting duty.

Danny was fully well and capable of getting out of that situation on his own, and he would've, but the Batfam was literally just faster in getting to the Joker than he was.

And he was literally with the Joker.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

batman recommendation anon!

i've been looking to get back into comics lately so i'd be up for a bigger series

i prefer a more serious tone but typically try to avoid gore simply for the sake of it

i don't know if this is canon to the comic books, but i like the kind of partnership between catwoman and batman in some of the movies

oh, ideal! this is such helpful information, thank you!

bearing in mind that these are some personal preferences, my taste is what it is, more recs are welcome but nobody give me shit about my shit:

Batman: Year One (Frank Miller and Mazzuchelli, 1987) - this is a short, 4-part series that locked down the new official origin story for Batman after Crisis on Infinite Earths. it's pretty serious but not gory, following Bruce and Gordon as joint protagonists as they each struggle through their first year protecting Gotham. Selina is also present whooping Bruce's ass before they ever become Batman or Catwoman, and if you want to see more of her side of things there's a Catwoman mini-series (Mindy Newell, J.J. Birch, and Michael Blair, 1989) that takes place alongside the events of Year One (warning for that one dealing much more heavily with the violence Selina was facing as a sex worker!). also I don't know how important the art is to you but I LOVE the art in year one, it's so moody and evocative and really makes the most of an extremely minimalist palette.

for serious, self-contained stories you really can't do better that Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's triptych of the Long Halloween (1996), Dark Victory (2000), and When in Rome (2004). the Long Halloween is iconic for a reason, taking you on a tour through Gotham's rogues gallery early in Batman's career when costumed villains are just starting to overtake the old mob families with a newer, much more unpredictable breed of crime. the story is fairly simple - an unknown killer strikes each month on a holiday, and Batman, Gordon, and Harvey Dent are on the case - but sweeping and atmospheric. the sequel, Dark Victory, sees young Dick Grayson added to the Bat-family, and When in Rome follows Selina on a solo adventure to Italy seeking out information about Carmine Falcone. you only need a broad strokes understanding of Batman lore to follow along with the plots here, and Bruce and Selina's relationship in here is interesting and tense because they only know each other as Bruce and Selina, while Batman and Catwoman are still unsure how much they're on the same side. also I just really like how Loeb writes Selina, especially when she gets to be the star in When in Rome.

for a story that is part of the larger Batman narrative at the time but can be read as a standalone, I like Heat (Doug Moench and Russ Heath, 1993)! It's a 4-part story from Legends of the Dark Knight, a series whose rotating cast of writers and artists could introduce a brand new Batman story every few months. Heat is a pretty grounded crime story, featuring Batman, Catwoman, and Gordon all chasing a cat-themed serial killer while Gotham is in the grip of a crushing heatwave. aside from the costumed vigilantism of it all it's a relatively grounded story, with Catwoman dealing with the fallout of being a suspected murderer and Gordon having to quell racial tensions that arise in the city when the serial killer is suspected of being a Black man.

skipping WAY ahead in time, can I tell you about Their Dark Designs (James Tynion IV, Tony S. Daniel, Danny Miki, and Tomeu Morey, 2020). TDD runs from Batman vol. 3 issue #86-94 and is SUCH a fun story, centering on old plans that the Batman's fab four - Catwoman, Joker, Riddler, and Penguin - made in the early days of their crime careers coming back to bite everyone in the ass and rock Gotham to its fucking core. Bruce and Selina's relationship is very central, as she's officially made the leap to be more hero than anti-hero as she works alongside him, and it's very grounded in well-known characters while still serving up just a heap of premium bananagrams comic book bullshit. the plot is convoluted but a lot of fun, I had a great time with it and I infamously don't care for modern comics. this is important: you will be tempted to read what comes immediately after this. it's Joker War, and it's very bad. do not say you weren't warned.

lastly, if you want to get Catwoman-heavy I cannot recommend Catwoman: Lonely City (Cliff Chiang, 2022) nearly enough. although it takes place in a Gotham 20 years after Batman's death, Selina is still heavily influenced by her relationship with him and spends much of the series trying to puzzle out the legacy he left behind. it follows her fresh out of prison in a Gotham where Mayor Harvey Dent has outlawed costumed vigilantes and criminals alike, and you get to see Selina fighting to rebuild her life when the entire world around her has changed. you get middle-aged versions of classic characters - Selina, Dent, Barbara Gordon, Killer Croc, the Riddler - and some sparkling original characters - Edie Nygma, my beloved!!! - taking on a world after Batman, once again requiring very minimal knowledge on behalf of the reader to just sit back and enjoy the world. also, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that Cliff Chiang's art if fucking gorgeous.

[reachartwork]

Noblesse oblige isn't any more leftist than the individualist power fantasy tho 😭 That superhero post is such dogshit I seriously can't believe u reblogged it without comment... I'm at a loss for words how can anyone think that's compatible with any kind of progressive thought and not just white supremacy/white man's burden repackaged in a kinder, empathetic wrapper?? Like I'm not demanding u take it down or anything (which would be silly to expect regardless of content) I literally just want to understand how someone otherwise reasonable and generally thoughtful can square such a thoroughly reactionary concept with an otherwise progressive value system (which admittedly is something I've projected onto you as I don't actually Know you but seems a reasonable assumption to make based on how you present yourself)

note: extremely sleep deprived but also i think the point of noblisse oblige requires one be of noble status or otherwise privileged which the common superhero fantasy is not really about! almost every single superhero in modern times "lucked into it", iirc even superman is just normal without our super special sun empowering him or some shit like that (if you point out batman to me i'm throttling you, with love). anyway, nitpicking aside:

with all respect anon i think framing the idea of "someone getting power and using it to help people instead of becoming a tyrant" as something that's bad is an antisocial point of view, to say the least. i think framing it in the language of the white man's burden is......... strange, to say the least. there's a severe difference between "the supposed obligation of white people to manage their supposed lessers because they're supposedly too dumb to do it themselves" and "saving people's lives in an emergency situation". helping people is good! having the ability to help people and not doing so is bad - in my religion (judaism) it's in fact explicitly prohibited[1]. wanting the power and ability to help people because you as a normal mortal person feel helpless in the modern world is not exactly a power fantasy i would call "white supremacist" in its core messaging, even if many modern cape comics and stories end up taking that bend by virtue of many authors just being bad.

the *reason* i reblogged that post was mainly to make a pithy joke about chum. but also i think if you view the idea of craving the ability to be a helper in the world we live in the day as, like, a reactionary concept, i think that says more about you than it does about what is otherwise a fairly milquetoast feel good post.

if i had superpowers i would become a first responder with them! this is something i think about all the time, so much so i have written 250,000 words about it in the past three months.

works cited:

[1] Shulchan Arukh, Choshen Mishpat 426

bonus reading:

The Golem and the Jewish Superhero, Jacob Geller

[caffeinatedattorney]

No problem! Yeah I think what happened with those twists was that the writers saw how Goyer's original three-villain plot twist in Unburied (the Harvester actually being Stirk, him being manipulated by Hugo Strange, Hugo Strange being manipulated by Kell who is actually Poison Ivy) was well received and deciding that they should just copy that strategy for both SitD and Fallen City?

But the Court of Owls being involved and having caused the Waynes murder especially seems like it doesn't line up with the worldbuilding in Unburied at all - Unburied specifically points out that police corruption isn't something specific to Gotham but inherent to the police system itself, it wouldn't make sense for that sort of story to introduce the Court and go "actually it wasn't the system after all , it was all just caused by this shadowy organisation". Same with Unburied having Bruce learn to let go of his obsession with his parents deaths only for Fallen City to roll this development back by making their deaths a conspiracy, or Unburied Bruce learning about the abuse the villains face in Arkham and blaming himself for it to the point of needing to be consoled by King Tut only for SitD to make him unsympathetic to their deaths and torture - it just doesn't fit together. Not to mention the lack of following up on Barbara's plotline with Flass or Eddie's plotline about potentially losing his grip on his sanity that were core elements of their character arcs in Unburied that subsequently got ignored as if they didn't happen.

It's like the new writers wanted to separate themselves from the core of the original first season (the characterisations and arcs) while trying to emulate what they think made it successful (the plot twists) and completely failing because of this

Oh, gosh I should listen to the first one again. I forgot about that shift in sitd. It's the little things that make Bruce / batman come a cross so differently. Like the first one feels like a batman that's been around, knows all the rogues and cares for them, is constantly monitoring himself knowing how bad things can get and still he goes above and beyond for everyone. It's so... Mature.

I described fallen city as cartoon because frankly all I could think about was Btas and tnba. A bruce that has seen it all... Except a guy who cannot die? Deception? There's no... Nuance? Bruce's grieving is confined to visiting the mausoleum almost. It's like he just started to deal with it instead of someone who has grown around it.

I was excited at first, thinking it was a prequel? The relationship with harvey felt starnge in that it makes you wonder how long he's been a DA and if he has any issues with the job. But Barbara being oracle and mentioning (am I remembering wrong?) the events of the last season only prepared me for the weirdest Ra's reveal ever.

Also you mentioning the corruption in the system! It just clicked to me why it felt so removed from the first and sitd, not just emotionally. It's like, Barbara is encouraging gordon to be a cop bc be was the best there is and, in a way, 'gets shit done'? She forgets about flass and the department making Gordon's life hell for wanting due process at the very least? The premise is too different. And, I might get flamed for this, almost ridiculous to introduce the most larger than life villains batman has.

I reiterate they aren't my favs and I don't read about them, but my understanding is that the court is meant to terrify Bruce, they're the horror in his own home, one he had never accounted for but knows him very well and has tons of power he cannot imagine. And the other is Bruce's first 'oh shit, how do I deal with this guy without getting him or more people killed for some world domination plan'. It's so different from the more grounded ever-present issues in Gotham and having batman still be challenged by them.

I could yap about this all day long lol. I just... The combo baffles me.

[made-this-cause-why-not]

DC Comics Characters as Mauraders

So this initially stemmed from my bi yearly harlivy brainrot session where I thought "oh my god, Dorcas and Marlene are so Ivy and Harley." Specifically Dark Knights of Steel Harlivy (I would bury an army for you) (In return you will live here with me/ In return you won't fight in the war. This again? This always) . Want me to explain- gladly. Marlene "dive in head first, my blood runs red and gold, if I go, I will drag you to hell with me" McKinnon, working for The Order and thinking "hey this is kinda sketch, I don't know if we can trust Dumbledore" and Dorcas "every acquaintance is a new connection to better myself, killed by Voldemort personally, I will slither on my stomach if it means I can slice as your Achilles tendon and watch you fall" Meadows being the Anti-Heroes needed to end the Voldemort. They know they must fight in the war, they just need to fight on their own side.

And then I thought- why stop at them. So I present, the Mauraders as DC Comics Characters:

Starting off strong, James and Lily as the Iconic Blue Boy Scout and Pulitzer Prize winning Lois Lane. Do I need to explain? The Kal-el is so James/Mirrorball coded, and if James ever became a supe, Lily Evans would be the first to know.

After this, we have Remus and Sirius as Bruce and Selina Kyle. Remus is so Bruce Wayne- an orphan with a bad experience with animals at a young age. Reserved and quiet but a commanding authority figure that eyes turn to in times of need. Like, Remus is so batman but Brucie- oh that all Remu. Remu is a cassanova that everyone has a crush on, the life of the party that drinks iced tea at Gala's and is always limping or wincing over something. Sirius, well for a second I did switch the two and have Sirius be bruce but no, Sirius is so Selina. Sirius steals diamonds from museums, knowing that he has the money and Remus could buy them if he really wanted because "well where's the fun in that Moony." (Sirius has a huge platonic obsession with Superman and when Remus makes the Justice League he is ELATED. He loves going to HQ and telling embarrassing stories to James. He even let it slip that he calls Remus Moony and now all of the Core Members do it too. He loves hates it.) (Also, Sirius is friends with Marlene in any universe and he loves that it annoys Remus a little bit. When Harley/Marlene finally joins the league, they celebrate by breaking into a new art exhibit)

After this we have Pete as Barry "I could have finished this myself but that wouldn't be as fun" Allen. Pete is kinda just at the meetings as a favor to James and doesn't understand why Batman won't just let him take care of the Joker himself. Peter is nice and always a bit confused as to what is going on. Batman used to scare him, but shortly after learning about Moony, the two started bonding over nerdy shit together.

With the Arrowverse being the origins of my love for D.C (yes, I know it isn't comic accurate, but middleschool me loved it so fuck off), I have to make Mary as Dinah. I don't know much about comic accurate Dinah- a problem I plan on rectifying in the future- but her general "I'm done with this shit" vibe is matches Mary "i'm leaving the wizarding world and not turning back".

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Alice and Frank as Hawkman and Hawkgirl

Evan and Barty as Penguin and Riddler (Gotham's Penguin and Batman 2022's Riddler because yes)

Regulus as Jason "Do I look like Batman? Musty Bitch" Todd

[mangoisms]

Im just soso obsessed with figuring out tim as a character rn i cant stop thinking abt it (ive always been a jason todd girlie but i read ur fic and that angsty twink latched onto me and refuses to let go)

I think u have a pretty good hold of him, especially bc in present comics writers are so intent on elevating tim in spite of other characters (barbara and her hacking skills for example, or any comparison made btw him and any robin, really) that most portrayals of him are so boring it makes me cry, while you on the other hand took the approach to write about his flaws (which are MANY) while still making him charming and handsome (he is so... !!!!)

To me flaws are also tied to not only the good traits of characters but also their core beliefs and ideals so what can you say abt tim?

I know he can be stupidly arrogant and patronizing at times, that he's always idolized the position and legacy of robin and constantly fights his insecurities with this role and his abilities for the job, that he can also be incredibly selfish or outright mean when it comes to being mindful of other people's feelings for the sake of logic (re when he didnt tell tam abt his dad not being actually dead), but at the same time i cant figure out exactly what he wants to do with his role as robin (or red robin) or why he would want to keep going when his main goals first were just making sure bruce wouldnt go down a dark path, im pretty sure he mentioned not being a vigilante forever but his actual goals remain unclear to me

(Im in the midst of reading his solo robin run but ive read red robin so give me a little room for this, you are definitely free to talk abt more of his comics bc i havent read everything yet and everything im saying should be taken with a grain of salt, video essays and the issues ive read can only get me so far)

He could have gained an inherent desire to help people after all his time as robin and the so fucked up shit that happened to him, maybe as a ways to channel his grief (much like dick and jason and bruce, im thinking abt identity crisis here) after he isnt "needed" as robin anymore, but at the same time that would be so tragic because he was supposed to be different to them, he was supposed to remark the importance of robin's role in helping be "batman's light" and not becoming like batman himself, its just so interesting and im still trying to really understand the extent of his character so id just. Love to get ur thoughts and musings on what fuels tim as a character and how you see him

(I dont have this problem with jason bc his moral conflict is very crystal clear to me and also so freaking juicy, his actions are logical and so understable, granted he also hasnt had as much screentime as tim and i can see when writers just Dont Get Him, misunderstanding the original intent of his character coming back etc etc etc, tim has grown and evolved throughout his tim as robin so this might factor in too)

Anyways sorry for the long post i hope this is alright !!! Loved ur fic to bits and ur writing is a blessing mwah

okay HI i am not exaggerating when i say that i have been thinking about this ask since you sent it HAHA tim is just a parasite in my brain he won't let go...

that's the funny thing about portrayals of him today... i feel like people want to elevate him as a potential batman or a character closest to bruce in terms of intelligence and detective skills, which isn't true at all, i think (because, exactly, you have babs Right There), and of course, narratively, this is all a good thing (this post covers it well, i think). it's in the same vein of people making tim out as the most dangerous person in the batfam, should he ever chose to go down the path, which i can partially blame red robin (2009) for with this panel....

(and i don't think that's true either. he has the potential to be dangerous just like any of the others but i think the ones to really be scared of are babs, dick, and cass but ANYWAY)

in general, red robin 2009 was a bumpy time for tim with bruce's death and his spiraling, but it seemed to really inform what they were going to do with his character. no more time for the civilian life, committing himself much more thoroughly to The Mission like bruce. which is, if you ask me, a negative progression of his character, which isn't bad, exactly, in terms of storytelling, but it feels like all we get are the 'good parts' now -- the intelligence, the status, the resources, and then we don't get to grapple with the consequences.

there were some in red robin 2009 but it was more tim accepting them and making no move to change his actions, which is fine, but now... idk. but i also don't touch modern comics with a ten foot pole so this could just be. Wrong. but that seems like what's going on. so i feel like that's where people get the idea of him being... idk not the Perfect Robin exactly but. you know?

no no yeah i totally agree!

re (because i want to break this down i'm telling you i have Been Thinking About This): at the same time i cant figure out exactly what he wants to do with his role as robin (or red robin) or why he would want to keep going when his main goals first were just making sure bruce wouldnt go down a dark path, im pretty sure he mentioned not being a vigilante forever but his actual goals remain unclear to me

exactly this. he did say that and i've reblogged this at some point i think, showing a panel from robin 1993 where he mentioned he wouldn't be a vigilante forever, then paralleled with that panel i put in earlier from red robin 2009. (there's this post, which touches on another thing about tim trying to set himself apart as having friends and thus not being bruce LOL which is another topic entirely)

i think that was what red robin 2009 was - a negative progression of his character, one that, again, we never really grapple with, especially as dc shoves robin back onto him now.

his motivations are an interesting thing to me, because he did start out coincidentally, saying batman needed a robin but he didn't assume he'd be that robin, it just kind of happened because he was there (well much more went into it but you know?).

but aside from that, i've never gotten the impression tim really does it for people. i mean batman in general has been about the detective work but i think towards the 80s/90s/00s there was a shift to focusing on the people but tim has never really struck me as a hero of the people. he's more about fighting crime than he is about helping people. i think it is partially informed by the genre - re detective comics, etc - but still. he's not like, say, peter parker/spider-man, who is a hero of the people, of the working class. the people are inherent to him as spider-man. tim does it out of duty and responsibility i think, being the light to batman's dark, of course, but he's also very much a teenage boy about being robin - the cool factor, pointedly mentioning he wants to let off steam by knocking around 'criminals' that kind of thing

which doesn't mean he's unfit for it but he operates in an odd grey area as far as his motivation goes, which i think is where we get red robin? he was defined by being robin and he did his job, then he got the boot. so it is very much an identity crisis but we're seeing that negative change as he changes for the worse, for something darker. i mean, yes, red robin 2009 was again bumpy because he was at a very low point in his life but in general, that run was dark for him.

editorial wise, we'd never get to see what they made of it because they did the reboot and started new-52 a few years after. but whether he'd continue being red robin/going down this path, or if he'd shed the identity and go for something lighter... it's hard to say.

i kind of like the thought that he'd change his identity and try to take a lighter approach, try to pull himself from bruce's influence, though with how it's all set it up, it seems fated that he'd end up there. there was red robin 2009, but then there was his sixteenth birthday incident (which sounds bad here and i'd read this before reading it myself but god when i read it it pissed me off so bad... really what turned me off bruce as a 'good' father figure, i can't lie). he ultimately ends up going back and becoming robin and this is the turning point for him where he agrees to enter this mindset that bruce wants him to be in. (this post talks mainly about timsteph but it is also a point to the end about the shift in his character and how that affected his relationships as well)

i mean i know red robin 2009 is marked by the grief of bruce's 'death' and a bunch of other Very Bad Shit but even when we got past that and he had his little 'Let me let in the people who love me because i am Not batman' he then proceeded to go a little surveillance crazy and make a hit list (something like that, it's been a while..) but. yeah.

ultimately, at the core of his character, i think he is good and compassionate and kind, so, even aside from all that (like the birthday incident), i think he would've made his way there eventually. it could maybe be why we see him returning to robin, if we wanted to try and pretend dc making him be robin is a completely normal and logical decision that they actually thought through. like a way to return to the bases and feel it out from there. though i still think they could've just. idk. given him a BREAK from vigilantism to figure it out. i'm a big proponent of civilians and their place amongst vigilantes and superheroes and i feel like tim's due a break, which is why i put that stuff in my fics. i do want to see him step back and try to figure out his life, because at one point, though robin 1993 was arguably defined by the balance between robin and tim drake and had plenty of civilian friends to keep things interesting, we don't see much as far as what he wants to do. which i suppose could be part of his relatability factor that tim drake, the character, was conceived with

but idk at this point they have to give us something 😭 anyway. this got VERY long i am very sorry.. i don't mind long asks either but i might've overshot my response... alas. i also hope i more or less answered your question??? if not feel free to slide back in here and talk to me! i rambled a bit here and it's like. 3am rn i'm scheduling this to post because i wanted to get it all written Now and. yeah.

thank you SO much very happy to hear you're enjoying everything <333 hope you continue to enjoy :**

[miriamundertale]

Skate-Leading Stars, The Bane of my Fucking Existence

I've partially wanted to talk about this anime for a while, but after Confirmation that it's real and I haven't been fucking hallucinating it, I think now is likely a better time than ever to uh, Discuss this weird ass show. Skate-Leading Stars was first revealed to me while working on a separate whole project (My attempt to watch every anime where Hiroshi Kamiya voices a main character) and saw it as the main currently airing show that he was voicing a character in. Unfortunately for me, the thought that formed was "oh sweet, this is a currently airing one I could watch this as it airs," not realizing the two fucking year long brainworm I was about to nourish. As a precursor, I need to make clear I'm going to be jumping around in focus a lot. moreover, this is NOT a review, i just want to vent about something that's been taking over my mind. there is a LOT of weird shit going on with this anime that I'd like to at least cover so if I leave something hanging for a bit, I will get back to it at some point.

Spoilers for Skate-Leading Stars, Your Lie In April

What the fuck is Skate-Leading?

Have you ever watched like, a sport, a game, or some other activity (Including Single player ones!) and just wanted to add people to it for no fucking reason? like, "What if chess was 5 people on each side per board deliberating every action while really hoping nobody else listens in" tier shit. That's the main premise of Skate-Leading. It's a sport where 5 anime boys do figure skating all at once in a formation together. The obvious concerns about safety are not even mentioned and the idea of "how do you even judge this on a regional level well without a LOT of judges" is settled by having the numbers be put up as a box that they say is an AI judging it. a core plot point is the One Interesting Character figuring out how the AI works in his gamer cave and gaming it.

Your first bit of confusion you may encounter with that premise is of course "isn't there already pair skating as an actual real sport one could use for the drama of multi-person skating?" or maybe "doesnt this mean this just a more fucked up yuri on ice?" which to me are both great questions, with only the first easily answered with a Yes. Yuri on ice is the obvious comparison for what SLS is attempting to draw from here, given you have seen literally anything about yuri on ice and the timing of the two shows, but you need to understand that the figure skating is a bait. the yaoi is the point but is bait in regards for understanding this plot. they're not trying to do Yuri on ice. They're trying to do Your Lie In April.

Let's Talk about the OP (Updated info in final paragraph)

For some fucking reason that I originally credited to COVID delays, half the fucking OP is black screens.

I don't think anything of it is especially standout aside from that, while SLS has many weaknesses the OP isnt one of them. Unfortunately it's not anything to write home about either, so I don't want anyone else to feel like we're truly missing out when I reveal the fact that as far as I can tell the OP was censored for the western release. I'm operating on my own anecdotal evidence and what is one of my two current white whales (the other that isn't about to be mentioned is the Japanese dub of Batman Vs Superman) so if my theorizing here is completely incorrect than that's Fine. Thats Fine. About a month into watching the show while it was airing, the half black OP started to get to me. I wanted to see more, try and get to the bottom of it, and eventually managed to find the full uncensored version uploaded which remained up for about two weeks before disappearing. I know that the version we can find online is fucking censored. I have no idea why. once again, so little people I know have any knowledge about this show aside from me, let alone have talked about it. I cannot find anything online talking about the OP aside from light mentions in the comments of the Crunchyroll upload sandwiched between Jesus Bots.

While spending a pathetic amount of time delaying this, I actually in fact have been sent proof of the uncensored OP existing. from anything I could tell or from what the friend who sent this from me could tell, the entire reason is something involving covid delays (Confirming my original suspicion, at least!) making them rush out the international version before the broadcast version, thought the delay wasn't that huge? its still definitely a mystery to me that haunts me a little but at least I know it Exists.

Since I've spent enough time talking about not the plot I think its a good time to address the whole Your Lie In April thing

What the Fuck do you Mean Its Trying to do Your lie In April??

Your lie in April, if you haven't seen it, is a story about dealing with grief, parental abuse and falling in love again with your passions even after loss. it's a very rough anime to sit through emotionally, and while its very much a show i have mixed feelings about personally, it's still a very well written example of its genre. Skate-Leading Stars spends has the main character parallel Kousei Arima's (The Main character of Your Lie in April) very basic arc of a teenager getting back into the area he used to be a prodigy in as a child, any forms of subtly or trauma have been entirely replaced with as many meatheaded brash qualities as they can in order to fit the true BL purpose of the story. Instead of having the love interest heavily foreshadowed to die being someone who views said passion in an entirely different light than him as a way to work through trauma and difficulty handling the act of playing piano again, the love interest is a mysterious boy who's using him to try and get back at his brother. Skate-Leading Stars, unabashedly, apes the format and ideas of Your Lie in April, barely understanding anything else going on, and uses it for a bl anime about a sport that is at best impossible to judge and realistically physically dangerous to exist.

Ok now what?

I don't think its necessary to do a plot summary of SLS, partially because I don't want to, but mostly because who fucking cares. I love bad shows, and while the start of the show is undeniably strong in its garbage it goes nowhere with anything. It spends a large amount of its time as a story setting up beats that never pay off, having loud yaoi boys yelling constantly, or underusing Hiroshi Kamiya. There IS a manga I could read for the rest of the story that's likely been playing out, but since only the first chapter is translated I don't see any reason to examine it too closely. If you want to watch gay ice skating anime, Yuri on ice is talked about for a reason. if you want to watch bad anime with Hiroshi Kamiya Ultimate Otaku Teacher exists. If you have read the manga please tell me if Sasugai actually has some sort of fatal disease or they're just aping the framing from Your Lie in April without meaning again.

[fantastic-nonsense]

so my general almost non-spoilerish review for The Batman:

best depiction of Batman we've ever gotten on screen; he actually acted like a real detective and had a fantastic character arc. Some of the fight scenes were a bit awkward, but that was also clearly a purposeful choice made to highlight the fact that this is Year Two Batman, who's still figuring things out

It was extremely clear which comics Reeves took inspiration from. The movie is very clearly a love letter to Batman, the fans, and the comics people have spent decades reading, and you can tell. If anyone's interested, the most obvious inspirations were Year One, Long Halloween, Ego, and Zero Year, with some elements from Batman: Earth One thrown in as well.

I personally thought the core themes were woven through the main plotline well. There were a couple of instances of clunky dialogue, but overall, it was fairly effective at getting across the points it wanted to

Bruce's opening/closing narrations were A+

the opening scene (y'all know the one) was excessively long. That shit could have been effectively told in 2 minutes tops and it went on for 5-6. There were a couple of other scenes that felt like they needed editing down too, but that was the most obvious one

Generally, I wish Pattinson had emoted a bit more (both as Bruce and as Batman). He had some fantastic moments, but I just wanted more from him. I understand that it was a deliberate acting choice that he didn't and I understand why Reeves and Rob made that character choice, but there were several points throughout the movie (particularly during his talk with Falcone and a few of his scenes with Selina) where I was just like "come on Rob...give me something here!"

Submit the hospital and Arkham interrogation scenes to the Oscars for Pattinson's Best Actor nom. That's all.

Reeves made some interesting choices for Selina and I actually really liked most of them. I enjoyed how she was clearly the pathos and conscience of the movie, which we rarely get outside of Selina-focused comics

This is the funniest depiction of Bruce and Gordon's relationship we've ever gotten, and I'm actually obsessed with it

I'm ultimately still not happy with the Riddler. He was effective. He was smart. He had his riddles and his question marks and his obsession with Batman. Like Pattinson's emotions, I understand why Reeves did what he did. Dano's particular interpretation of Eddie just didn't work for me.

I can't believe some critics are calling this movie humorless. I was stifling laughs every time Penguin was on-screen, and there were some just Grade A-level puns baked into the script. I guess maybe they didn't like that it was tasteful, smart humor and wasn't just quippy one-liners every 5 minutes?

the soundtrack: A++++. Batman's theme was appropriately forbidding and it feels like you're watching a Big Cat stalking his prey every time it plays

if this movie doesn't scream "Harvey Dent will co-star in Batman 2" I simply don't know what movie you watched, but it wasn't the same one I did. Whether he'll appear as Two-Face or not idk, but Batman 1 was literally the perfect set up for Harvey's appearance and that's WAY more than I expected to get

Finally, fuck the critics who were like 'the third act is weak.' No, the third act was NOT weak, that was peak Batman cinema you cowards. The flare scene, my beloved...................

Basically, I have some issues with it, but overall, an absolutely solid movie. Absolutely thrilled to see where Reeves goes with Batman 2.

Also...get this absolute disaster of a man a Robin!!! If there's ever been a live-action Batman who desperately needs a Robin, it's DEFINITELY Battinson.

[sneezemonster15]

What do you think about ppl like this https://sasukeyncoreblog.tumblr.com/post/686622642398183424

Hi.

What's there to say that I haven't said a hundred times before? The last comment made me smile. There is already a credible degree of obsession involved once you become a fan of a piece of art and write about it in an exclusive blog. It indicates a substantial level of commitment and effort, that you wouldn't just invest in something you didn't feel strongly about.

Sasuke and Naruto's love story finds its inspiration in Japanese Shakespeare (Chikamatsu), someone who idealizes the notion of romantic love in Japanese literature. Kishimoto's gargantuan effort in finding all kinds of romantic tropes found in literature, along with his maniacal obsession with making them visually and narratively compatible, using symbolism from South and East Asian mythology, all of it is evidence of his passion for Sasuke and Naruto's story. He has a persistent SNS brain rot himself. I have also discussed the cited interview before in a couple of my posts. It isn't really that difficult to put two and two together. heh.

The last comment in this thread made me think, it must be one of those fans who have their own unsubstantiated headcanons, for which they would easily dismiss glaring evidence of SNS. Meh, I can only snicker at them. What else can I be expected to think, looks like a case of sour grapes to me. And yes, those who deny SNS despite all the evidence are homophobic, directly or indirectly, whether they realize it or not. I don't expect a lot of emotional honesty from Naruto fandom, most of them aren't really aware that they are being emotionally dishonest with themselves, the extent of their denial is so far reaching, I can't really hope to hold an honest exchange of thoughts and opinions with them.

SNS inspires obsessive shipping. Full stop. If you understand the core ingredients of what makes SNS, SNS, if you really have that depth of feeling and understanding, if you are capable to feel what Kishimoto wanted you to feel, then you cannot be compared to shallow shippers and fans. Not all audience is alike. Godfather is an instant classic, one of the greatest films ever made, a masterclass in film theory. But one of my film buff friends fell asleep in the middle of watching it, it just wasn't her speed. Likewise, I usually like to watch Nolan's films but I fell asleep (twice, I tried twice and fell asleep both times) while watching his Batman trilogy. My ex, who happens to be a Batman obsessive themselves, haven't forgiven me for it yet.

So I understand not everyone gets SNS, the major themes that make their story so great. I appreciate it the way I do, because I come from a background where I have seen a hell lot of drama, romantic and otherwise, in films and literature and theatre. I am an art enthusiast, and as a former academic, I have written expansively on it. So, my context is different from a layman's context. I can identify things in it that most fans of a certain age and background can't, and I can't exactly blame them. My personal experience of life is also rich and diverse enough for me to appreciate SNS in a way that most others can't. If you don't know what you are looking at, you wouldn't understand why it is meaningful. But I can, and so can other fans such as me.

Understanding Naruto and Shippuden in its truest sense is a liability. It is a privilege and a curse. It's a boon and a burden. If one can get obsessive about literature such as Romeo and Juliet, then why not SNS, it's loads better than Romeo and Juliet. Yeah, I said it, and I stand by it.

I have said it before and for the purpose of this ask, I will say it again. If you ship Naruto and Sasuke for the right reasons, reasons that Kishimoto delineates himself, you believe in love for the right reasons. I am a childhood trauma survivor, and I really don't have time for shallow, superficial shit. I like substance and emotional heft in my stories. Kishimoto wrote his magnum opus with definitely this one thought in his mind, to write the greatest love story about two orphans in a conflicted world, a reflection of his own world, marred by the vagaries of war and loss and grief. Look at his interview that is mentioned in the thread, it is quite clear that his focus is on relationship and feelings. Love despite all odds. So intense and extreme and all consuming, that he is afraid people think of the boys as lunatics. He thinks perhaps they won't be able to get it, get the boys. He is aware how it looks to people who don't understand it. But he also knows that people who have experienced the stuff he writes about, they will understand. And they do. People who have survived childhood trauma, understand things about human condition that most people aren't able to, throughout their entire lives.

At the risk of being vulnerable, I would like to talk about what broke me first when watching Naruto the first time. No, it wasn't SNS. This scene. When little Gaara decides that if nobody loved him, he would love himself. Yeah, I had a breakdown after that. A very very deeply repressed memory came to surface. When I was a kid, entirely neglected and abhorred, I used to lock myself in my room, squash myself in a corner and imagine an adult me, rocking and hugging myself like a baby, while I wrapped my own arms around me, and telling myself that the adults in my life might not care, but the future adult me cares. So if they won't love me, I would love myself. That's how I used to comfort myself. Of course, later, it became kind of a part of my pathology, just like Gaara. Couldn't be helped. heh. But yeah, Kishimoto really put his finger on my most sensitive and deeply repressed nerves, he brought them out in the open and played them like a fucking harp, but it made the most haunting and beautiful melody so I stayed for the whole concert. Lol.

When I say their story isn't really age appropriate for its target group, I am not joshing, it really isn't. So I get that it's not for everyone. Maybe not even for adults who don't have that depth of emotions and understanding that this story requires. And it becomes clear that these are the same people who end up mischaracterizing both Sasuke's and Naruto's characters. It also helps that I have seen/read a lot of LGBTQ+ media, so the kind of tropes that I can identify in it, most others can't. Only the other day, I was talking to a friend of mine, he is an animehead. And even he doesn't get it. He also maintained that they were brothers and that Japanese media tends to depict male bonds as especially close, which is the case for Naruto and Sasuke, but that it isn't romantic. He compared them to Vegeta and Goku, sigh....

Now, he saw Naruto as a kid, so that's what he remembers. I could not keep it in at that point, I took my sweet time, but I proved him wrong. He still is resentful and doesn't completely agree, because he has this complex, whatever, as a long time Anime fan, in comparison, I have only been here a year. But he doesn't contradict me anymore. He knows his arguments will be stripped naked and spread to crumble in the sun, and good thing about him is that he defers to my critical evaluation.

But he is my friend and I care enough to invest in him. I can't do that for every Tom, Dick and Harry. But I do write a blog and when I am offered resistance to my posts, I don't react too much, unless the opportunist in me wants to make poor jokes, because what's it gonna accomplish? SNS is so in your face, that it takes a special brand of denial and homophobia to dismiss it. And I can give one all the technical reasons to prove it's a love story, but like I said, it really is about emotions. Feeling. If you can't feel it, you won't get it.

Perhaps some of these commenters also think either Sasuke or Naruto or both are straight? What can I say to that level of incomprehension? Maybe read more? Or live more? But that kind of advice should be coming to them from their mentors and therapists, not me.

In summation, Naruto and Shippuden aren't everyone's cup of tea. Those who scrunch their eyebrows at the obsessive passion that shippers show for SNS don't really get what makes SNS so damn special, and what exactly inspires such strong emotions in the shippers. It inspires an entire sea of emotions. And not everyone has the kind of mind or disposition to contain and process that kind of emotion. And I don't expect them to.

[reynardwrites]

originally written after ep 2

this post holds up shockingly well, especially in the context of the conversation Oz and Sofia have in their final car ride.

Sofia didn't see him. She didn't see his ambition, she didn't see his resentment, she didn't see his desperation. To crib some terminology from @maxwell-grant in the ep 7 breakdown, in her mind she was a victim who knew what it was like to have a boot on her neck and he was a victimizer who didn't. Maybe there was a moment she could have learned that in ep 3, but after Oz's immediate betrayal, I think everything he said in that scene got filed away in her head as self serving bullshit.

Which it was, to be clear.

But that doesn't mean it wasn't true.

This whole show, Sofia has been pretty blind to her own privilege, and so she thought of herself as the only one who was so hurt and desperate that she would resort to extreme measures to get out from under someone's thumb. But what Oz convinces the deputies to do, to kill their own bosses... that's literally the move Sofia makes, gassing the family so she becomes boss by elimination.

She didn't see it. Not because she doesn't know what it's like to be downtrodden, but because it didn't occur to her that other people might feel the same way, and about her.

She does now, I think. Whether she is able to internalize it, whether she will act on it, whether there's even a chance for her to change, god knows, I guess we'll find out in Batman 2 or a Catwoman miniseries or whenever we next see Sofia (fingers crossed it's sooner rather than later)

Oz, though... Oz didn't really get her, early in the show. And strangely, I don't think he gets her now, even at the end. "You think I don't understand that," she asks, and, yeah. It seems so. Oz knows how to hurt her in the worst way possible. But I don't know that he really grasps what makes her tick.

When I first watched the finale, this felt like kind of a weird choice. These two have spent the whole show as rivals and foils and it just felt wrong to have this final scene between them where they just talk and have it end with Oz just. Still not getting her.

I think I've come around to it now. I've mentioned before I see Sofia and Oz as being really twinned characters, each having in abundance what the other lacks, and through that lens, this feels really fitting.

By the time she steps out of that car, Sofia understands Oz because she understands herself, sees the way that he has felt how she has felt, how he stoked that same pain in others and made it into his strength.

And Oz doesn't understand Sofia, because he doesn't understand himself. He can't. Oz is so deep in layers and layers and layers of denial and self delusion, he has to walk away from any possibility of really seeing Sofia because if he understood her, he would have to understand the truth about himself.

If Oz were to acknowledge Sofia as someone who was in pain, who was hurt, who was victimized, he would also have to admit to himself that he hurt her, and doesn't give a shit. That there is no real justification in all the justified evil he commits, that he's not a man of the people, he's just a man out for himself.

I find something weirdly satisfying about that, personally. Oz is the most talented bullshitter in Gotham, so much so that even he buys into the shit he spews—it feels right that it is Sofia, whose core and weapon has always been truth and honesty and self awareness, who sees through his bullshit so clearly that he cannot even look at her without his sense of self being challenged.

absolutely obsessed with sofia and oz both seriously underestimating each other, and specifically buying into the public opinion everyone has of them.

like nadia, sofia thinks of oswald as an innate follower, a dog looking for a strong leader who will rise to the top and bring him up along. Even seeing through his manipulations after the maroni raid, she thinks he's trying to ride her coattails, and it doesn't occur to her that he might be so greedy as to want to take everything for himself.

and like the other falcones, oswald doesn't seem to see sofia as anything other than a loose canon he can point and shoot. he's so focused on finding which buttons of hers to press he doesn't even seem to realize he's exposing himself and his methods to her. He's a short con grifter, and sofia is exactly the kind of perceptive that can pull his bullshit apart piece by piece as time goes on.

ngl i am so keen to see how this relationship develops uaghghghgh i want it to be next week already.

[dalekofchaos]

I know you don't like Chloe Price anymore. But since you like to change things about your favorite things like Star Wars, DC, Marvel and Horror, how would you change how DONTNOD/Deck Nine handled Chloe?

A lot. I will start with BTS and then LIS. But to be fair, I’ve grown to like Chloe again. My big problem is how she treats Max, the fact that we cannot choose who Max focuses on(again I’d choose Warren and Kate if I could) and well the hateful and toxic Pricefield fans ruined Chloe for me. But here’s how I would change Chloe if I could

BTS

First of all, hire someone who actually understands how teenagers talk(especially teenage girls) and make the dialogue less cringey(this goes for both games)

Give Chloe more of a character arc. I don’t feel that Deck Nine did Chloe justice. The writers attempt to evoke empathy with Chloe feeling grief which is done via exactly one emotion- which is a very childish understanding of how loss and coping works. She had no character arc, considering she was the exact same character that we already knew in LiS Episode 1 (A bitter disaffected teenage youth with no regard for authority) so we didn’t get to see Chloe evolve into the character we loved in the first game. She just already was it.  The gameplay undid the narrative we were given about Chloe being a loner in that you can talk to and make friends with pretty much anybody and they all acted like they liked and were genuinely happy to see Chloe. Very rarely were there interactions with Blackwell students that ended with Chloe’s presence not being welcomed, only Wells, Victoria and Nathan showed contempt for Chloe(even with Nathan that goes away when he claps for her at the play)  The reason this is done is because the game wouldn’t be fun if Chloe actually was a loner. The core mechanic of Life is Strange is being able to talk to people and experiment with your surroundings. A game where nobody wanted to talk to Chloe works against the core mechanic. But in making her the main character it undoes the weight of the narrative of Chloe being alone until Rachel/Max. I just strongly feel that Deck Nine did not understand Chloe as a character and did not do her justice. We should’ve gotten Chloe at her lowest, evolving from Max’s best friend to the character we know in the first game and Rachel helping lift Chloe through the worse point of her life.  Chloe and Rachel together having fun rocking out and Chloe starting to live again and show that Chloe Price loves Rachel Amber and Rachel loves Chloe. Chloe losing Rachel and showing how Chloe has to deal with Rachel missing, how she became in debt to Frank and how she got involved with Nathan and how Chloe ends up in the bathroom. 

The game should have 5 episodes. The first 2 episodes focus on Chloe and Rachel’s first year together. Episode 3 focuses on 2011. 4 focuses on 2012 and the final episode focuses on 2013 and Chloe’s breakdown over Rachel’s disappearance. A bonus episode “Firewalk with me” to show us Rachel’s final days and the choices that led her to the Dark Room. Needless to say, those fans who were against LIS 2 would have something to look forward to cause Deck Nine would take their time with BTS in this scenario.

Make it very clear that David is abusive. The problem with their dynamic in BTS is that they go out of their way to make Chloe irrational for not giving David a chance. In BTS Chloe says she hates David because he calls her “girly” and the game practically implies Chloe is at fault for the conflict between Chloe and David for not accepting David’s photo...what kind of abuse apologetic bullshit is that?  Okay so start off by saying in her journal that “Joyce really remarried the first asshole she saw in Two Whales.” because by the time of 2010 in the canon of the first game, they are already married. Have it implied in her entry about David that it’s like “living Full Metal Jacket” that alone implies emotional and mental abuse if you’ve seen the Bootcamp scenes. Chloe in the entry would continue to say, life’s been a living hell ever since David entered the picture and Joyce takes his side every time. We would get the impression that David does not understand nor does he care about Chloe's depression and grief for losing William and Max moving away. When fighting with Joyce about David, say “he keeps hitting me and you keep defending him, how do you expect me to get over dad by letting some abusive asshole take his place?” Joyce would respond with “you keep pushing him, what did you think was gonna happen” And worse, David just started the Security Officer job at Blackwell. Needless to say Chloe is not taking any of this well. So when David and Chloe go to Blackhell, he’s basically ordering her around, talking down to her. Telling her “You’ve had two years free of having a father figure in your life. I am your father now. I’ve been showing you what a stable home is like, yet you keep pushing me.” Chloe back talks him and it results in David smacking her. David would then say “Look what you made me do.”  Later in the game, Chloe would get herself expelled just to get away from David and David would berate her and call her a loser. Near the end of Episode 3 or 4, Rachel would have dinner with Chloe, Joyce and David. Rachel would see the way David treats Chloe and stands up for her girlfriend. Threatens to call the cops on David if he ever hurts her girlfriend ever again. This of course would spark down David’s obsession with surveillance and his investigation into stalking Rachel, all because he wanted to save his pathetic fucking ass. 

Actually give Chloe a transformation. The problem with BTS, is that Chloe is the same character from the first game.  We don’t get to see how the innocent and happy Chloe  becomes the Chloe from the first game. She’s just like this immediately.  We should get a Batman Returns Catwoman like transformation for Chloe. Chloe’s had it with David, Joyce, Blackhell and now Rachel for leaving. So Chloe would basically be destroying her room and tossing everything away that belonged to the old Chloe. 

Make the game about Rachel helping Chloe down the worst moment of her life. Chloe’s “Rachel was my angel” comment showed a lot to how Chloe loved Rachel and how much she meant to her.  Chloe tells Max that Rachel entered her life when was at her absolute lowest and that it was she who helped her deal with the grief of having lost her father but the entire game is centered around Chloe being the one who is supporting Rachel as she deals with a serious family drama of her own.  What Before The Storm should have been. Rachel helping lift Chloe through the worse point of her life. If Rachel had stopped Chloe from committing suicide… as was the commonly believed interpretation to what happened between Chloe and Rachel up until BtS, then Chloe’s ”“she was my angel” would have meant it was truly special and real. But instead they bump into each other at an illegal concert and Rachel distracted some thug who works for Damon and we spend the game finding out who Sera is in a reveal we all saw it coming and only to have Rachel taken out of the third episode where Rachel never talks to her and makes the whole thing feel pointless. What the game should have been was Chloe and Rachel together having fun rocking out, becoming girlfriends and Chloe starting to live again and show that Chloe Price loves Rachel Amber and Rachel loves Chloe.

Do Chloe’s past with Victoria better. A minor change, but they kind of make Chloe and Rachel look like jerks in the Victoria drugging in part 2. If you let Rachel drop out the play, you drug Victoria or back talk her out of doing the play that she was given. Also it lines up with the first game better this way. In LIS, if you choose to take the picture with Victoria in paint, when seeing said picture, Chloe will say “Boo-Yah skank! Karma’s a bitch!” So I guess we can have Victoria bullying Chloe with her mean girl bullshit, Chloe fights back, Victoria gets scared, so Victoria helps get Chloe expelled by reporting her graffiti(as is the reason she was expelled from Blackwell)

When Rachel goes missing, we spend the final episode looking for her. It’s a very sad and tragic episode. We all know there is no hope in finding Rachel, but we still try anyway, in some hope that Rachel is still out there. So Chloe leaves up the posters, is in debt to Frank and tries to steal money from Nathan. Which leads Chloe to that faithful day in the bathroom.

LIS

Chloe does not park in the handicapped space(I don’t even have to tell you why this was a bad idea to begin with)

Chloe stops guilt tripping Max after the first truck ride

If you chose not to come out of the closet or not take the blame, after lashing out at Max, Chloe will apologize for lashing out at us. Same for if we chose not to fire the gun. 

Does not get pissy if we take Kate’s call, in fact prior to Chloe’s test, Max would explain the situation with Kate and Chloe would be understanding as she understands being depressed herself and would even help Max out in finding evidence to implicate Nathan and David. 

It’s not the handicapped fund, it’s the “Prescott Donation”(aka Sean’s bribery money) this way we can feel less guilty about not stealing from the handicapped fund and Chloe doesn’t look like an ableist

If Chloe does snap after finding about Rachel and says the same things she did about Kate as she did in canon. Max can then lose her shit and stand up to Chloe. Basically says the way she treats her is not okay and if she wants to help her find Rachel and seek justice for Kate, then things are gonna have to change or they are finished. Then Max leaves Chloe behind with Chloe realizing that she needs to change. Ideally something like Bojack Horseman “You can't keep doing this! You can't keep doing shitty things and then feel bad about yourself as if that makes it okay! You need to be better!  Chloe, stop. It's not alcohol, drugs, or your parents, David, Rachel or all the bad things that happened to you before. It's you. It's you. I want to find Rachel and get justice for Kate, but if this is how you’re gonna keep treating me...Fuck, man... What else is there to say?“ I know LIS came out way before BJHM or that particular episode, but it’s the perfect example of how Max could’ve stood up to Chloe’s toxic behavior

After the returning from her time jump, Max returns to her dorm and goes to Chloe. Chloe properly apologizes for how she’s been acting since they got back together and agree to put everything in the past so they can work together to find Rachel and give Kate justice

Max is given the option to enter the Everyday Hero’s Contest. If you saved Kate, Max with Kate’s permission, Kate would let Max take a photo of her in the hospital. And Max enters her photo at the last minute when she returns to Blackwell. If you did not save Kate, then Chloe would give up the Butterfly photo so Max can enter the photo. Either way Max will win the contest. Max wins the Everyday Hero Contest. Max gives an inspiring speech about how everyone can be a hero and that Kate has always inspired her, how much she loves Kate and that she hopes that Kate knows that she is loved by everyone in Blackwell and everyone, especially Chloe, Warren, Victoria would cheer Max on. This would also give Jefferson the means and opportunity to drug Max without killing Chloe at the Junkyard. Chloe doesn’t die because it’s a public place and Jefferson has Max where he wants her. It honestly works better than Jefferson magically appearing at the Junkyard with no explanation(and it never being brought up).

What could happen in Episode 5 is basically the same thing, only in an act of desperation, Chloe goes to David to help save Max. They put their differences aside to save the person Chloe loves the most and David gets to stop Jefferson. Chloe could not be there to save Rachel, but she can be there for Max. Chloe saves Max and Jefferson goes to jail. Together Max and Chloe goes directly into the eye of the storm to save everyone at the diner. However instead of using Warren’s photo to save Chloe, Max uses it to warn David about Jefferson and to reach the Lighthouse. The same choice is given to us and instead of a copout ending,  Max actually uses the photo to save Chloe and the town. Warns David and David barges in and catches Nathan redhanded with the gun and uncovers the truth of Rachel, Kate and Jefferson. Max warns the town of the storm. Everyone listens. After Jefferson’s arrest, the police clears the bunker of Jefferson’s predatory display and the town hides in the bunker. The town is rebuilt. A town can be rebuilt, but you can’t build another Chloe. Jefferson and Sean are rotting in prison and Nathan is getting the help he desperately needed. Chloe finally moves on from her hatred of David and the Price family gets to start over. A montage of Max and Chloe together either romantic or platonic and if you chose to romance Warren, a little clip of Going Ape, if just friends, then we see Warren, Kate, Max and Chloe Going Ape! It ends on Rachel’s funeral and the final scene shows the Doe spirit as both Max and Chloe smile as Rachel’s spirit finally rests. 

Chloe’s arc is lashing out at a cruel world, learning to let the right people in, healing and letting go of her hate and starting over. It just doesn’t work if she has to die to actually learn this and also that character arc goes out the window of you choose the save Chloe ending (and makes max look like an awful person for killing all her friends and Joyce). Chloe gets to live, she’s at peace knowing that Rachel was brought to justice, she’s willing to start over with David, she has her best friend and mother in her life. If you chose the Pricefield route, then Chloe is at peace with Rachel passing on and she starts anew with Max. If not, then Chloe still has her best friend and knows she will always be there and she will always be there for Max in return.

Also, I like the idea of Max and Chloe road tripping together as was demonstrated in LIS 2, but I also like the idea of Warren, Victoria and Kate joining them as well and they live in their own commune. Maybe Max, Warren and Chloe are in a poly relationship, while Kate and Victoria are together!!!

[evilminji]

Ooooooh a Red Hood situation~! Teenager built like a tank, going "why yes, I am Adult Person, take me seriously. Am not Baby" but once you take OFF the mask... yeah, no, this kid should be in school.

Danny might even be just BARELY younger then him.

So Handler is FREAKING OUT. Batman KIDNAPPED Danny. His weirdo, sorta hermit, engineer friend. They had PLANS, man. Were gonna make it. Save up enough to get the hell out, fake their deaths, set up somewhere nice with beaches. Him n Danny, the kids Gotham couldn't kill.

But now BATMAN has him!

And oh god, those Rouges are gonna come for their shit! Batman is gunning for him! He has to rescue Danny before they cart him off to Arkham!

EVERYONE knows you don't get better in that place! They fuck you up WORSE! And yeah, Danny's a little nuts. Doesn't talk about it, that his parents were probably Rouges, but he's not DANGEROUS. Just... weird! Dysfunctional. No sense of danger AT ALL! He NEEDS Handler! Dude'll get himself KILLED without him!

So Danny is being dragged back inside by the Ex-Army Bat that's Lucius son. His being loving and kindly STEAMROLLERED by this incredibly No Nonsense and highly efficient Type A family. Just absolutely dragged along, blinking in confusion, wondering how they convinced him to agree to... wait, what are they doing now?

He keeps trying to leave. Gets picked up and brought back by this absolute tank of a dude. In fact, everyone around here seems Suspiciously Tank-y. Why is a Himbo swol? Why does the child look like he can break me? These are questions Danny both HAS and doesn't think he's getting answers too.

Then the docks explode. He can see it from the side office his NOT-a-new-Dad stuck him in. He's made it VERY clear. He HAD a Dad. He will only ever HAVE one Dad. Stop pushing. And? Mr. "Call me whatever makes you feel comfortable" Fox? Just nodded? Looked him in the eyes and was clearly listening? Taking his words seriously?

And he just... told Danny in this calm, reasonable, voice... the kind Danny's kinda been wishing to hear since everything went so WRONG... that he understands. That Danny is his ward. They are fostering him, not adopting, and only want to make sure he has the things he, as a child, deserves. Safety, security, and a place to grow.

And, see, Danny REALLY wants to believe him.

He does.

But when is life ever so easy? When is ANYTHING ever just handed to him? And more importantly... what about Handler? Danny doesn't have many friends. Not anymore. And even if this IS as too good as it sounds? He's not turning his back and running off alone. Handler took care of him. They made plans.

A place with beaches.

So when he sees the docks explode? His core burns and his gut drops. Distantly, he hears himself stand, and mutter an excuse from what feels like a lifetime ago. Gotta go to the bathroom.

He ignores the bathroom attached to the office he's in. Heads for the hall. Doesn't stop when he hears Mr Fox's concerned voice call after him. Walks faster. Faster. Bolts.

From the locked bathroom stall, transformation, down and down and down. Flying as fast as he can. Invisible. It's his lab. Cop cars. Bomb disposable teams. Idiots! They set it OFF? On purpose!? Now the lab'll be burning for WEEKS, bare minimum. But at least... at least Handler can't have been there.

But where?

Think. THINK! He TOLD you. Made a joking little lecture. Flashcards. Said it was just in case, since "you never leave your hovel, you damn hermit". They gotta... they gotta.... meet...

The ecto-pump! He needed a reliable source! So he had Handler set up his passive collection pump near the Cemeteries! They ended up having to pay tribute to Grundy since they didn't realize it was his haunt, but he let them stay. Danny remembers!

They were stashing the cash in a mausoleum near the pump. As a sorta "get it, cause we faked our death" joke.

He bolts. Please, Handler. Don't be dead. Danny can't do this again. He CANT. He doesn't care if he has to PERSONALLY fly the two of them somewhere tropical. Dodge the ENTIRE justice league while doing it. Just be okay.

And meanwhile? The Bats have I.D.d their mystery Handler. It's... a homeless teenager WAY over his head. God damn it. Now they are looking for TWO(2!) teens that need a home and to Not Be Doing Crime. And so is the criminal underworld. It's a race against time.

All these Heroic Adults want these kids to be okay. These KIDS want these kids to be okay. All those villians want their god damned lazer-guns. Also fuck those kids, where's their money? It's a high octane, stressful, Dramatic Few Days in Gotham.

imagine with me Danny ends up in Gotham some how and is a mad scientist that is hired to make cool shit and gets BANK but then the bats crack down on the shit and they see a 13 year old boy with big ass goggles with machinery all around him and looks up for a second before glancing up again as if confirming what he saw and then slowly turns around “Hi…? I swear if these are one of my delusions than I will be complaining to HR- wait am I… HR?”

Danny ends up in Gotham after Nasty Burger happened, but to not become Dark Danny, he buried himself in machine work, using some blueprints from his parents' lab as a baseline and then eventually creating his own.

Some guy in Gotham found him one day and decided that he had a talent for making stuff like this, and that he'll pay Danny handsomely if he made some things for him, and, well. Danny was pretty low on money from his parents' bank account after blowing most of it on machine parts.

So he accepted.

Then the guy started requesting some other things for some other people and he eventually became his middleman for the big hitters in Gotham who wanted his stuff. Well, not that he knew his stuff was being given out to the big hitters that also include villains, since he spent most of his time just building, then eating, then passing right the fuck out, and repeat.

Then the bats crack down on him, and Danny's been making some shit for more than 24 hours already with no rest time and just a little snack here and there, and then he questions if he accidently inhaled something he wasn't supposed to because the bats are literally in his workshop/house.

So he thinks he maybe high as shit right now and then just treats them like they weren't there and goes back to making his thing because that one guy said a person with a fuck ton of money wanted it. Then Batman pulls him away from the machine and he's like: "Huh."

Still thinking this is a massive hallucination because he's high as a kite, he tries to get Batman to let go, but his grip is pretty strong, then he pokes him and then goes: "Oh, maybe this isn't a hallucination."

"Oh sugar honey iced tea."

[jinxofthedesert]

Hi there! Annoying anon that loves rambling about the Valeska twins is here again 🤣 Let the discussion continue! 😂 Yeah, I totally get your point of writing such stories as a means of fulfilling wishes. I guess it makes sense from the writer's pov that they want to give these characters a different (better) treatment. Valid point, but still, they don't feel real to me.

(Below this is the rest of the messages, put together. Farther down, below the line, are my responses)

It's like I'm reading a story with a character that's called Jerome/Jeremiah Valeska and looks exactly like him, but it's not truly him (just like you said, at their cores they are bad guys). But it's perfectly understandable and all right that people want to give them a rest from their chaotic lives haha 😊 everybody’s got their cup of tea ☕

Damn, yes, these stories are so hard to find! I imagine that writing something of the sort and investing so much in such complex characters can be draining and daunting, so yeah I get the reason why there are not so many fics out there... and OCs are so difficult to write haha you are right. They take too much time and effort 🤣

Yeah, I guess Ecco was not the best example. It's very true what you say about Jeremiah's and Ecco's relationship. In the show it was portrayed as a professional one. So we don't really know if there's anything else beyond that, save for some level of concern. So I guess I should have gone with Bruce instead because, just like you said, Jeremiah went totally bonkers when he realized that Bruce was the only one who saw past his resemblance to Jerome.

Basically, what I was trying to say is that in these fics there's not really that same vibe of evil obsession and lunacy from the twin's side. Maybe just some sort of heightened jealousy when their partner is addressed by other characters, but not in a really "Valeska" way. In fact, it is also strange when Bruce is completely absent in these stories when the twins' obsession revolves around him.

Yeah, there is sooo much to explore, so that is why I am very curious to see how people construe their backgrounds, but usually it's just the repetition of the show with some added scenes and dialogues here and there 😅 I would love to see something a bit different, but well, I guess I am being very demanding 🤣 Don't worry about it and thanks so much for replying! 😘 I am now doing some research in different sites 🤣

It's a bit weird because even though I enjoyed the show, I have to say I merely watched it to see ma broski boys in action 🤣 so If I wasn't so lazy (and didn't have other unfinished projects) I would try to write something (my mind is already full of vague ideas OMGGG 😏🤔😂), but I don't really know much about other characters or subplots, so I would not be sure how to tackle it 🤔 Thanks again for the lovely discussion! 😊

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Hi anon! Don’t you worry about your rambles, they’re not at all annoying! I find it rather fun to discuss the twins. 

I’m sorry you’ve not been able to find the content you’re looking for; usually, I always run into comments on Tumblr or Pinterest about how you look for certain fics and when you can’t find them, then it’s time to try a hand at writing it yourself. I’ve done that and, even though I enjoy writing, it’s still pretty hard, especially to find a drive to do it when I really am not feeling it.  With the twins not feeling real, I understand, ‘course I now think I’m at the point where I might read anything if I’m gifted with more content lol (though there are some tags that, if I see them, I don’t touch if I can help it). 

I think, usually, with most writers, it’s easier to take a character like Jerome/Jeremiah and, instead of doing the tremendous work that comes with trying (emphasis trying) to change them, they do a few things and that’s enough for a road to recovery. Because, most of the time, they’re not writing to change the character, or even to make it realistic; sometimes they’re just writing, or they wanted to try a different aspect. There can be so many reasons and sometimes digging deep and getting a character 100% correct isn’t at the top of the list of what you want in that story. Personally, I’ve learned to broaden my sense of disbelief with characters and just enjoy what I manage to find, especially since the Gotham fic-oriented content is sooooo small 😢

After reading your last message, I actually went onto Ao3 and searched ‘character studies’ under the characters and yeah, there’s not much, I read a few and I honestly wasn’t sure what to think (not to call anyone out). It reminded me a lot of my years reading batjokes on fanfiction or, again, Ao3 where, if you search long enough, there’s a fic for almost all your needs. There have been some good gems in there that delve into character studies and helping these characters try and become better. Comparing that to Gotham’s arrangement of fics is sad, to say the least, but batjokes in all media have a lottttt of years to have such a collection of wonderful content. (Even if you’re only a Gotham fan, stretching out into the actual Batman fandom can be very rewarding, even if your next step is into the Nolan movies or even Batman in general cause you can replace the characters in your head if you really want too)  I think one big problem with Oc’s is that, in a way, they’re easy to make, but in the worst way. You can create a character to put in the place you want, a blank space and they’re just nothing. This comes up a lot in anime type works, where the main character is so blah for the purpose of the audience (reader in our other case) to put themselves in the place of the main character. This also happens in a lot of movies as well, instead of fleshing the character out and allowing them to move and breathe the way THEY would and not how the audience thinks they themselves would. Because of this, oc’s can be very flat. There are the exception, of course although I have no examples since I don’t remember the last Oc story I read . . .  *wracks brain* yeah no idea. Though I’m sure it’s somewhere in my saves.

Even if one doesn’t ship Jeremiah with Bruce, it’s very difficult to ignore/brush under the rug that there was definitely an obsession and that originally, during their weeks of spending time together, building the generator, there started a friendship. The first is very obvious, show-wise (and friendship kinda came with the territory) and the gay subtext can be there if you look at it that way. As much as an interesting character Ecco is, she’s both not important enough in the show (sorry Ecco lovers) or to Jeremiah or to anyone for that matter. While with Bruce and Jeremiah, with how their first meeting go’s and all the meetings that follow after (very willingly on Jeremiah’s part even though I’m sure before this NO ONE was allowed in the inner parts of his bunker for long periods. Probably not even Ecco) the relationship is much more pronounced than anything we’re given prior.  I like to think that even though Bruce was manipulating Jeremiah when they first met, he actually did see him as his own person. Even though he, like Jim and Harvey, have personally bore witness to Jerome’s tyranny. (And that only twists the knife harder when Jeremiah eventually loses his mind because both him and Jeremiah saw him as his own person and in a way Jeremiah doesn’t become like Jerome, he becomes worse)

One could argue that since we didn’t see a ‘true’ way the Valeska’s love that any type of them showing affection might never seem very Valeska. Unless one looks at their reactions and interactions with Bruce as something more than just ‘wanting to kill him’ or ‘obsession’. This would be another reason I’m don’t read much in the oc-area or out of the romantic’s lol mainly because the moment they take Bruce out of the picture, everything seems off. Jerome, while willing to divide his attention, only does it with specific people, who are: Jim, Bruce, Jeremiah, and, on occasion, Oswald (though he’s much less in comparison to the ‘big three’). Other then them, we don’t see him hyper-focus on anyone else in the show, and if he does, it’s for a second and to simply kill them after. If these three aren’t integral to his behavior and actions then things feel flat and out-right ignoring his obsession with Bruce and his inner darkness can be unrealistic. With Jeremiah, this is much worse because in canon, once No Man’s Land starts, all he can think about is Bruce. Everything he does in that setting and before this even started was for Bruce. This type of obsession is . . . well, something that can’t simply be ignored, it’s a big part of his character and also very integral to just who he is after the spray. It may not be as bad at the start of the spray (because he’s too busy rebuilding Gotham in his image) but literally second to that desire is his connection with Bruce. If there were a summary of Jeremiah as a character it would be IMPOSSIBLE to write it without Bruce (same with Jerome though his might be a footnote, depending). So him suddenly focusing on someone else is . . . odd (even with Jim he doesn’t give his full attention too and, in the finale, Jeremiah only starts moving around and doing shit when he realizes that Bruce has come home early and that it’s time to finally come back to the spotlight). Especially since he’s supposed to be the ‘Joker’ in the Gotham world, which, technically speaking, means this obsession with the Bat (a.k.a Bruce) will only ever get worse from here (not to mention the fact he knows Batman is Bruce because he remembers the prophecy Ra’s told him, which we’re shown in the finale when he first sees the Bat and comment’s ‘you’ in a knowing way; this can be argued he’s just recognizing that this is what the prophecy was talking about or that it’s Bruce but personally I think both cause the prophecy was about both of them.).

It’s hard not to repeat things in canon though, believe me, I know and if you ever try writing a time travel story, it’s much worse cause then you have to change literally everything if you’re doing it that way.  Nah, you know what you like; the only problem with that is it’ll be hard to find it most of the time. I wish you luck in searching! Hopefully, you’ll find something.

Same. My older brother introduced me to the show and his way of doing so was first telling me it was a batman show, that I would LOVE Oswald’s aesthetic and that there was a Joker-type character just introduced. I was sold lol. There’s been a lot of drama with the show though, concerning the twins and I honestly wish they’d just stuck with Jerome or if they did still use Jeremiah that he wasn't just . . . a backup plan for killing Jerome off. And, if they’d been allowed to go on for a few more seasons, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they would have also killed Jeremiah and a third (never heard of) Valeska twin (triplet) would show up, playing into the overall Joker lore about there having been three. 😒🤨😑 Which I find humorous because they did so well with Jerome, he was a well-rounded, fleshed out character and, as much as I love Jeremiah, it’s hard not to consider what we could have gotten if Jerome had lived *wistful sigh* I won’t lie that the drama hasn’t affected how I watch it too these days, or at least left me with a lasting impression.  I was very invested in the first few seasons, it was a good show, minus the plot-holes and annoying characters (yes, some annoy me and there are some I can’t stand) but when the twins were on screen, it was probably the show at its best. If they had implicated them more so into the main story I probably would have watched all the way to the end (I can admit, I’ve never seen season five, but I saw many clips, have been completely spoiled and DID watch the finale lol and . . . I think I saw some of season four? Maybe, not sure anymore.) because when they’re also interacting with Bruce, perfection. I could watch that shit for days. 

Also, if you did write it, it wouldn’t have to be about other characters if you don’t want it to be. You’re talking to me, who has never seen the last few seasons and when I wrote my first fic ‘Blindly Evident’ literally all my scenes I had to LOOK UP because I only knew the base of what the scene was even about lol. So sometimes, you can totally bullshit your way lol and somehow it turns out to be really good and you like it. Or it’s just snippets of small scenes with your characters (I’ve been writing a fic like that for awhile because it’s fun and easy and yet you can make it so thought provoking because these snippets are so smallll.) I would implore you to give it a go. Even if you have no idea what the other characters are doing or even what their names are. 

I feel like this has just become me rambling about Gotham and writing tips at this point lol but you’re welcome~ I am here to try and help and always willing to listen about Gotham and talk (or rant, I’m not picky lol). Thanks again for your ask, anon! Hope you find that content you’re looking for 🥰🧡💛

[fishfingersandjellybabies]

Did you see the new panels were future Batman!Tim admits to killing Batman!Damian because Damian's methods were too destructive. I guess it was because Dami rigged parts of Gotham like in Batman #666 but I just don't understand why DC keeps implying Damian of today would be a bad batman! Although I guess we probably should take Tim with a grain of salt because he always hated Damian and future Tim full on murdered Dami. I just don't get where DC is going with Tim and Damian!

Anonymous said: Well in regards to the Tim and Damian situation, in the recent TEC issue future Batman Tim told present Tim that Damian became Batman in the future after Dick stepped down/left and Jason went missing. Then apperently Damian screwed up Gotham so bad Tim decided to kill Damian and take over as a Batman. =/ at least present Tim seemed disturbed. Xp

haha I’d more take it with a grain of salt because the writer of this issue, James Tynion 4, hates Damian to his core and refuses to write him a) at all or b) in a positive light. Notice even in those panels Damian was the only one Tynion’s Bat!Tim killed. Ridiculous. 

And sadly, with DC having Tynion running such a major Batman/apparently Tim-centric book (As it has been since he’s started it *eyeroll*) don’t hold your breath on any good/’positive’ Damian and Tim interactions. Especially from Tynion. We’ll have better luck getting it from Tomasi in the Supers’ books, who, you know, actually gives a shit about multiple characters, doesn’t just stan after one and shits on all the others.