#Danny is having a bad time. joker is having a time once he realizes Danny would rather not be here but is seemingly stuck

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

Danny Fenton, aka Phantom, has been given a new task!

In short, literally no one in the Ghost Zone/Infinite Realms wants their mostly peaceful afterlife to be rocked by a certain Gotham rogue named Joker. Which, when he dies, is almost sure to happen because of whatever the hell was in that vat he dropped in included ectoplasm. So, yay, he’s also a little ghostly too, meaning he *is* pretty hard to kill. Unfortunately, there’s also a certain vigilante that is quite keen to murder him in recent years.

So now Danny has to keep the mass murderer trauma clown alive for as long as he possibly can while attempting to keep the Joker from. Well. Being the Joker.

Oh, and naturally, Danny got this assignment AFTER Joker got out of Arkham. Again. And entirely blew up the asylum. Time to join the Goonion, he is NOT doing this without getting PAID, thank you.

[somnoir]

The family of rogues

The Fentons/Masters siblings move to Gotham for various reasons. Jazz gets herself an internship in Arkham and spends most of her time trying to finish med school. Danny gets himself a scholarship and attends Gotham U for his aerospace engineering. Elle doesn't want to be away from her siblings and gets herself enrolled into Gotham Academy after pestering Vlad. Dan, who had no trust in the world to keep his siblings safe, follows after them as expected.

None of them realized that they were rogue material. The entirety of Gotham knew to stay the fuck away from the Fentons.

The Bats find out very quickly why these newcomers were considered the future rogues.

Their youngest was in Damian's year, a seemingly normal girl if not for her acrobatics and agility that rivaled a Robins. Danielle Masters��Elle—was also part of the fencing club. But that didn't make her rogue material. No. She had her own penchant for violence and was known for her intelligence, actively threatening anyone who tried to hijak the academy while she was present. The last story Damian told them was filled with his admiration and a hint of swooning when he mentioned that she had taken a rapier and almost cut a man for trying to bomb the school.

Not so bad, right? Just... A really shabby teenage girl. Damian was the same! So...

Next came the second son of the family. Danny Fenton was an obvious genius. He was capable of making the most dangerous things from mere scraps. Tim had been there to witness the boy make a fully functioning flame thrower from a lighter and what seemed to be a toaster. Said flamethrower was then used to melt away Mr. Freeze's ice and the man had been very concerned when a college student with eye bags darker than Barman's was pointing a DIY flamethrower at his head. Ever since then, Tim has been hellbent on figuring out how the fuck Fenton did that. Unfortunately for him, Danny Fenton was prone to vanishing just like the rest of his siblings. In addition to that sort of intelligence and skill, the young man was adept at combat like his sister. The group of 4 were clearly trained. Very well trained if the witnesses were honest.

Okay, very concerning. Clearly someone who knew how to make weapons on the fly and was not scared of barbequing people if he was threatened.

Then we get to Dante Masters, the first son and second oldest of the bunch. He'd arrived a little after his siblings and had started of as a mechanic, tinkering with everything and anything. Jason had been to said shop to have his bike fixed and once Dante Masters got his hands on it, the bike was suddenly better and faster. Apparently there were some slight modifications here and there to upgrade the bike. But then he'd quite—Jason was devastated—and proceeded to become a guard in Arkham. No one managed to escape Arkham when it was Dante's shift. Red Hood had gone to Arkham himself to check what was wrong. All the in mates were scared of the man who'd suddenly appear at the end of the hallway as the lights flickered whenever they tried to escape. The best thing the Scarecrow did when he saw that slenderman bullshit was walk back to his cell and wait for Dante to lock it.

Concerning, horrendously concerning. This was a confirmed future rogue that has the mechanical ability of his brother, a body bigger than Jason's, and Batman's melt into the shadows shit.

But the eldest? Jasmine Fenton looked utterly harmless, positive and sweet compared to the menaces that were her younger siblings. She sought to change Arkham from the inside and even the inmates were fond of this mothering redhead. Dick had come to visit Harley once when she was caught doing crime and he'd seen her get assigned to the Joker. Everyone was scared shitless that he'd make another Harley, another good woman turned rogue by a madman. But what came out of that session was the Joker, suddenly all quiet and a face stuck in a quiet smile. It was like Jasmine had given him a lobotomy. He'd go manic and laugh all day, everyday, but once Jazz entered his cell with her clipboard and pen, the laughing immediately died and Joker was left looking utterly haunted after every session.

Not a rogue made by the Joker but a future rogue that seemed to have tamed? Traumatized? They weren't sure but something happened and the Joker was both scared and respectful when it came to Jazz Fenton.

Everyone in Gotham knew to not fuck with the nice ones.

Everyone in Gotham knew to stay the fuck away from the Fentons.

(At the end of every week, Jazz continues to respect confidentiality clauses and doesn't tell her siblings a thing. The truth of the matter? Jazz was as liminal as she was and on the verge of becoming a halfa. Her younger siblings may consist of the ghost king and halfas about to become ancients, but the ghosts listened to her words.

For every session that she has with the Joker, she invites as many ghosts as she can to join in on the session. When the Joker grows mad, she interrupts with information on his past that no one should know.

The Joker's laughter went quiet the moment his new psychologist closed the door behind her and smiled, "Good afternoon, Jack. My name is Jasmine."

No one knew the Joker's real name, not even Batman.

No one alive knew his real name. He'd killed all of them.

Good thing for Jazz that she had so many ghosts floating behind her, whispering his name and secrets into her ear.)

Masterpost

[flamingpudding]

(Un)fortunate Courting (Request)

Requested by @silverblueglitter

Original Prompt Post this is based on by @diabolichare

A/N: Thank you for the request! I hope this will not disappoint. I am slowly getting back into the grove of writing and out of my block. Also on a side note I am not posting / writing as much right now because work is currently keeping me busy.

Danny was very sure he was doing everything right in regards to ghost culture. Clockwork and Pandora had been educating him very well on that. Sure they did it with some ominous explanation in regards to his future but Danny had shrugged that off. Clockwork had always had a way with words that didn't make sense but somehow did too. Now as he had learned if a ghost wants to cross through another ghosts haunt an offering needs to be made. Ideally the offering is in regards to something the other ghosts likes.

So if he would need, for example, cross through Embers haunt, he would offer her something like guitar strings or something other music related stuff that could be useful to her obsession. With that logic, Danny knew that if he wanted to use the short cut to his collage through Red Hoods haunt he would need to offer the other something. Like he had offered something to Lady Gotham for his stay in Gotham for his collage education. The thing was he would have to offer Red Hood something every time he needed to go through the others haunt, unlike with Lady Gotham who had just accepted a single offer since he wasn't constantly going in and out of her haunt.

But that also left him with what to get the other Halfa as offering.

He had contemplated offering something Red Hood might need for his duty. You know? Maybe some self engineered bullets he could use against ghosts, though Danny knew that was probably unnecessary considering Gotham's protector spirit, Lady Gotham, had a pretty good handle on everything here. Which good, because that meant Danny could fully focused on his studies for once.

That was until Danny realized how much the core of that other Halfa was malnourished. Which gave Danny the perfect chance to catch two ghosts with one thermos, okay bad joke. But seriously, that gave Danny an idea of what to offer for his right of passage through the others haunt. So he made simple care packages that would help the other Halfa. He had thought about supplying some Ecto-Dejecto directly but that felt a little to on the nose and someone who didn't know his family would probably think Danny insane, as if there weren't enough people in his collage thinking that already. Besides he was in Gotham and with villains like Scarecrow and Joker he didn't think a syringe with glowing green contents would be a trustworthy offering.

Anyway, Danny decided to be a bit more discreet, infusing ectoplasm into simple foods, that most importantly, COULD NOT COME ALIVE. So Danny's care packaged ended up consisting of chocolates, snacks and other sweets that would NOT start fighting back. He also figured out how to mix ectoplasm into drinks so it wouldn't taste to overwhelming.

Danny did not anticipate the side effect offerings like that would have or realise what his offerings looked like to someone who did not know about ghost culture.

Jason was torn as he found the n-ed little present box during his patrol route with a little card stating it was for him. He eyed the box having gotten familiar with these boxes over the past month. He lifted the lid and yep.... chocolates.

"Again?" his distorted voice came through his voice modulator as he eyed the chocolates suspiciously. Either he had a very insistent admirer or one of his enemies cooked up a new idea to make him paranoid. Not like his brothers didn't joke about him getting Bruce's paranoia when he had run the sixth box of chocolates through the substance tester to figure out if someone was trying to poison him.

Turned out poison was not in the chocolates but something else. An unknown substance but in small dosages. Jason was currently allowing Tim to run wild in figuring out what was mixed into the chocolates. Also the seasoned vigilante had to admit, that there was something tempting about these sweets. Like something inside him really urged him to eat them. It was only his self-restraint and discipline that helped him resist the urge to taste test some of these chocolates.

Also sometimes there were drink in these packages too. Yes, Jason had run them through the tester too and got the same results like with the sweets and chocolates. No poison but that other strange substance. At first Jason didn't really want to bother with it but these boxes appeared every damn night when he was on patrol, but strangle not on weekend or holidays.

"Oh got another little present, Little Wing!" Jason barely turned around as his older brother dropped onto the roof next to him. "Chocolates this time! How cute! They must really love you!"

Sometimes Jason wished his helmet could portray emotions better as he gave Dick a deadpan stare. "More like wanting to poison me." He muttered his voice changer doing nothing to support the sarcasm in his voice.

"You have to admit it is kind of cute! You have a little fan or admirer! And look these chocolates are even heart shaped! Oh and pralines are in there too!" Dick gushed on about Jason's admirer, while Jason rolled his eyes under his helmet. It would be cute if there wasn't an unknown substance mixed into the stuff left for him. Though he had to admit, whoever left that stuff was getting creative. From what Jason saw they rarely used the same brand of chocolates or sweets to give to him twice. Like they were trying to figure out what he liked. For a brief moment that made Jason wonder, if he actually ate one of these for once, would his admirer present him with the same brand again the next night?

He shock that thought off, no way was he going to eat something with an unknown substance in it. So instead he shoved the box at Dick. "Take that to the cave Dickibird. Gives Pretender more materials to test with."

Dick, to his credit stopped gushing for at that and chuckled. "Can do, but seriously though, what did Oracle say. Did she catch your little admirer on the security cameras at least."

Shaking his head Jason let out a sigh. "No, its like these boxes appear out of nowhere."

"Well at least they are harmless."

"For now." He grunted in response. While they didn't pose a danger, Jason didn't like the implications behind their appearances. For one no matter how much he changed up his patrol routes, these boxes would still appear. There is no video proof of someone placing the boxes. They just appear out of thin air or roofs or his path right when he comes by. If he could believe that the videos that Barbara had showed him weren't manipulated then they just appeared like a couple of seconds before he would find them.

It was suspicious and Jason was determined to find out who leaves them.

Danny hummed his latest earworm song, which happed to be Embers newest hit in the Ghost Zone, as he prepared his next offering to Red Hood. He had thought about leaving these boxes by Red Hoods Safe house during the day on his way to collage but he figured with his own history of being a hero. Secret identities were important and should not be revealed against the others wish.

This time he had gotten the expensive brand of pralines. He hoped Hood would actually like them and eat them hopefully. Danny threaded the moment he would have to try infusing ectoplasm into something other than safe sweets, chocolates and snacks that won't come alive if he didn't find something Hood would eat soon.

The Halfa was so focused on his task of infusing the pralines with ectoplasm that he did not notice the arrival of three of his old ghost rogues, until he got grapped by the collar and throw across his own appartment.

"OW! What the...?!"

"Long Time not seen Pelt." Danny blinked as Skulker stood over him, Ember and Wulf a bit further behind. Wulfs presence explained how the other two managed to show up in his place.

"What are you guys doing here?" He was so not up for a round of ghost body that could potentially destroy his flat.

"Fixing your love life." Ember grinned down at him with Wulf nodding.

"My love life...." Something was definitely wrong. Danny does not remember currently dating anyone. He also didn't have crush, well not a obvious one he thought at least. He was distinctively pushing way that fleeting image of Red Hood out of his mind.

"Yeas your love life Baby Boop." Ember reaffirmed. "Didn't the old ghosts teach you anything. You don't use the human of giving presents when you court a ghost!"

"I... what?" Danny's brain currently really had trouble catching up with what was going on.

"Pelt you need to assert yourself, fight your damn object of attention to proof your worth." Skulker added arms crossed.

"Don't worry we will help you! So you wont fail!" Ember added.

Before Danny could answer or ask what the hell they were going on about though Skulker grabbed him by the back of his collar again and promptly dragged Danny long with him flying out of his flat to who knows where. Distinctive Danny swore he heard laughing that sounded suspiciously like Lady Gotham.

"WAIT SKULKER!" The shout escaped him as his brain finally caught up but before he could go ghost and actually do something he was thrown against someone. Whoever he landed on let out a deep 'oof' that sounded distorted and Danny had a sinking feeling as he hurriedly sat up and came face to face with Red Hood.

"Aw shit...." Danny muttered instantly choosing to turn invisible and hoping that Red Hood had nod seen him long enough to get recognised, worst of all Skulker had dragged him all the way to Hoods haunt when Danny didn't even have an offering! Now he owned Hood two offerings!

"What are you doing Pelt! You are supposed to challenge for the right of courtship first! The courtship presents come later!" Skulker shouted at Danny to which while still invisible Danny choose to flip the other ghost off. Something he would have never done as teen but now that he had come to some sort of understanding with his former rogues was not rare happening, as long as Jazz wasn't there to witness it.

Meanwhile Jason was sitting utterly confused on the roof now, just a moment ago a twig of a man had landed on him and he had seen the other guy for a brief moment before he had disappeared out of nowhere again. He grumbled muttered curses and knew he would have to go though the video footage of his helmet to get a clearer picture of what or rather who had knocked him over.

But he had a feeling it was related to the boxes of sweets and chocolates.

[alyakthedorklord]

Welcome to Danny’s

Danny making a cafe/restaurant/whatever named Danny’s, in gotham, while on the run from GIW. A bunch of ghosts visit bc danny also makes ecto snacks from the secret menu in a side room. Due to this, it has the same liminal feeling and insane shit that happens in denny’s parking lots. (It’s like the fun sized and feral au by @nutcase8691 but i have a funny name.)

Sometimes Danny’s holds concerts for a famous rockstar (ember). Sometimes suspicious patrons walk right through a wall (into the ghost section). Sometimes there’s a frankenweenie outbreak if Danny is sleep deprived. It’s always freezing and yet somehow no one ever really gets uncomfortably cold. There’s ice sculptures. Plants that twitch and wave even if poison ivy isn’t around. Astrology maps on the walls that sometimes shift into occult symbols and hieroglyphics. Sometimes, after closing, (which is at the weirdest times honestly its open all night but closes random hours of the day) if you look through the slats in the window blinds it’s like you’re staring into the cosmos.

If you set up a fight (meet me in danny’s parking lot, 3am) there will be a referee even if you didn’t communicate it with the shop. The ref gives weapons, knows first aid, and stops fights if they get too rough. The second the fight is over they vanish into thin air.

Danny’s is neutral territory. Sometimes bad guys try to claim it but danny sets them straight. He doesn’t care if its a gang or a rouge, if they mess with his shop, or with anything/anyone too close to his shop, the Man Himself will emerge with a baseball bat, knock people out cold, stand over their groaning bodies and announce, “welcome to danny’s.” He’s never lost. He took out bane once. The Joker he didn’t even use the baseball bat he came after him with his fists. The joker doesn’t even have to be doing anything if he comes near danny will hunt him down. It’s like he has a radar around the shop. Once a really tired Red Robin herded him into the radar with a confused Red Hood’s help bc he just didn’t want to deal. Danny takes the clown out with a spectacular flying tackle before joker even realizes he’s wandered too close.

Jason goes to check it out later. Comes up to the counter to order and the tiny wayne bait guy behind the counter takes one look at him and goes:

“let me grab the secret menu”

“Uh… no, i just want a-“

“Trust me.” The guy says, eyes turning Lazarus green. “You want the secret menu.”

Part 2 of my ramblings (NOT a proper fic)

[kittyfrisk9]

Idea Dp x dc - Amnesia/2

Note: Sorry, I don't know English, so please use a translator. I apologize if you don't get the idea.

Note two: This takes place before Danny went into a coma and woke up with amnesia, I'm not sure if it counts as a flashback.

Dead On Main.

---

The fall was the least of his worries when silence spread across the area, making every second feel like an eternity. But now wasn't the time to panic, because experience had taught him this only symbolized danger.

He had to find Danny! When he tried to move, he let out a groan of pain, realizing his right arm was dislocated. Eh, what a problem.

"Nightwing, respond, are you okay?!"

His mind, finally lucid, could hear Barbara's concern. He smiled, stood up, and put his good hand on the earpiece; he needed to communicate that he was okay.

"I'm fine, Oracle. It was just a minor mishap. I need to find... Danny!" As he spoke, the panoramic view showed him the man's location, and it was clear he wasn't in good shape.

Not at all.

Nightwing rushed to the boy's side. Oracle, from the other end, was asking what was happening, but Dick didn't have time to respond. Especially when he saw, horrified, how blood was pouring from Danny's head. Oh no!

"Danny, Danny! Can you hear me?" He struggled not to shake the man, knowing that moving him in his condition would be fatal. "Oracle, I need you to call an ambulance. Danny is not okay."

"Understood, I'll send an ambulance." Barbara understood the gravity of the situation.

While waiting, Dick made sure to place the boy in a safe position, though it was somewhat difficult considering his injured arm. The essential thing here was to keep Danny's head, neck, and spine aligned.

In the process, he heard a moan from Danny.

"Danny! Can you hear me?" Dick asked, leaning close. Danny's breathing was dangerously slow. "Don't move, okay? I'm here with you."

Danny's eyes slowly opened, filled with confusion and pain. "It hurts..." Ignoring his order, the boy tried to move, but Nightwing stopped him.

"I know, buddy. But I need you to stay awake and calm, okay? Do you remember what day it is today?"

Danny blinked, trying to focus. "Wednesday... I think." No, today is not Wednesday. His hands were trembling, and his heart was beating in an almost painful way; the boy's disorientation scared him a lot.

He has to stay calm.

"Good, very good," Dick replied, keeping his tone firm but reassuring. "Just stay with me, help is on the way." As he spoke, he constantly looked around, hoping to see the ambulance lights.

He began to lose his composure when the light in Danny's eyes started to fade.

"Danny, please, hold on a little longer, you're going to be okay." He pleaded with a trembling voice, though he knew that statement was more a form of self-convincing to try and keep his sanity.

He can't lose his younger brother's boyfriend! Everyone knows how much good Danny has done for Jason, for the family, for everyone. If they lose him... he doesn't want to think about that.

"How do you know my name?" With the weakest sound Dick had ever heard, Danny asked.

There was silence. Dick didn't know what to answer. However, his evasion seemed to clarify something in Danny's mind; the gears started turning. "Dick?" What a bad time to discover his secret identity.

Once again, Nightwing said nothing, but Danny understood everything.

"Jason too?"

He nodded, and Danny's eyes widened. Despite his deplorable state, the boy began to smile. Dick was sure that if Danny had more strength, he would laugh. "I should have guessed."

Subsequently, Danny began to close his eyes and, before Dick could panic, the boy looked at him and said, "Relax, I won't die." Then, silence filled the area. Nevertheless, for some strange reason that Dick couldn't explain, he felt that Danny's declaration wasn't a lie.

He laughed; indeed, hope is the last thing to be lost. What a bittersweet feeling. Suddenly, the communications began to sound.

"We've captured the Joker," Red Robin reported. "He is currently being held by the police and will be sent to Arkham. B, something seems wrong with him, much more than usual." Tim shared his suspicions.

"Understood, Red Robin. Maintain vigilance and notify me if there are any changes. We'll investigate it in the cave, the others report," Batman ordered.

A bad feeling approached.

"The bombs are deactivated," Spoiler transmitted, joy evident in her voice.

In contrast, Dick didn't feel ready for what was to come next. Before disaster struck, Signal confirmed, "The hostages are safe."

He swallowed hard, aware that the question he feared most was coming. Guilt began to surface, questioning every decision he had made up to that moment. What could he have done differently?

"And Danny?" Asked Red Hood, his younger brother, the younger brother he had once again failed.

He turned to look at Danny: shallow breathing, pale, pulse worryingly slow. Unease lodged in his heart, wondering how he would tell his younger brother that his boyfriend was about to die. No! He shook his head. He has to remember Danny's promise; he's weak, but still alive.

"Oracle has already called an ambulance," he commented. He knows this won't ease Jason's anxiety, but at least it will help alleviate the tension, more or less. He's not sure. Hesitant, he continued adding, "help is on the way-" he was brutally interrupted by Jason's demands.

"How is Danny?!" This is no game. He understands that evading the issue will only make things worse, but he simply doesn't know how to tell his little brother the state of his boyfriend.

The memories of Jason being happy...

The silence seemed to drive the aforementioned crazy. "Nightwing!"

"He's not well!" Dick spat out, pressured to confess. "Danny, he lost consciousness a few moments ago, has a head wound, is bleeding. I'm sorry, Jason, I'm sorry."

Silence. Jason didn't respond. Nightwing bowed his head. Probably, it was only seconds, but it felt like an eternity. Suddenly, his brother asked, "Where are you?"

"What?"

"Where are you? Where are you both? Where is Danny? I need to go to him, tell me." The urgency in his voice. Dick was sure his brother was clenching his fists, desperate to be by his boyfriend's side. How sweet, Dick wholeheartedly wishes Danny survives.

On his side, Jason lost patience at his older brother's continued silences. Ignoring Bruce's rule and throwing the code names to the wind, Jason exclaimed, "Damn it, Dick, talk!"

At that moment, Oracle responded. "Enough, Hood. I've sent you Nightwing's location, the ambulance will arrive in fifteen minutes. Don't worry, Danny will be fine."

Nightwing was surprised. Wait, fifteen minutes? Why is the ambulance taking so long? He called for help at least thirty minutes ago! Oh no, Dick looked at Danny and, consequently, at the wound on his head, the bleeding wound on his head. Oh no, no, no, no, no.

They're taking too long!

---

Note: Sorry, I don't know English, so please use a translator. I apologize if you don't get the idea.

[ectoentity]

I realized I haven't updated in a long time. Very sorry about that. My job got much more difficult over the last year and it's really cutting into my brain capacity. Here are the next 38-ish lines:

Thankfully, Jim seemed to get the picture, because he changed topic to whatever bullshit Two-Face was doing this week. Mo was more than used to that. Most people who came in here were goons or henches who just needed space to whine about their lot in life. Danny, unfortunately, was not. He tried to look disinterested, but Mo caught him glancing at Jim with a curious expression more than once. It only took two beers for Jim to notice he had an interested audience. "Hey kid! What do you know about Dent?" Danny took the opportunity to clean a glass that hadn't been used. Mo almost smiled. He might be greener than grass, but he had some good instincts. "He used to be a judge or something, right?" Danny asked. "Or something! Boy, he was the best fucking DA this city ever had!" Jim cried. He downed the last of his third pint. He launched into a history of Two-Face, at least as Dent probably told it. Danny hummed and nodded politely. He kept glancing back at Mo, but she did her best to appear to ignore the whole situation. Only when a group of other regulars had come in and distracted Jim did she decide to take pity on Danny. "Never met an old goon before?" she asked. "A what?" "Goons. Henchmen. Thugs. Lackeys. The guys that work for rogues." Danny shook his head. "There aren't a lot of rogues back home," he admitted. Lord help her. This kid was going to fall face first into a Riddler trap and not even know it. Mo tried her best not to let the annoyance show on her face. "Lotta folk here, they don't have any job opportunities. Easiest thing to do is sign up with a rogue and hold a gun for eight hours a night," Moe explained. "Most companies don't dare step foot in Gotham. Supermarket chains, restaurants, whatever. They don't want a headline like 'Joker kills twelve in an Arbys'." Danny winced. "Yeah, I guess that might be bad for PR." Mo barked out a laugh. "No shit, kid. Anyway, most people here don't get chances for respectable jobs. Most of the businesses are owned by one of the mobs or rogues, but the biggest hauls come from working for them directly. So we have a lotta people who're poor as dirt without prospects trying to get rich." "And they think they'll get a big payout by being bodyguards or whatever for like, Joker or Riddler or whatever."

WIP Wednesday: Bartender Danny

This fic got 28 votes, which means 78 lines. I can't finish it all in one go, so I'm gonna break it up. Here are the first 28 lines.

The first patron came in when Mo unlocked the door at five. Old Jim was a bum who would stumble through multiple bars in a night before passing out on a chair and getting thrown out. Mo liked the guy, as long as he came in early. "Hey, Mo," Jim mumbled. He looked blearily at Danny. "You get a new guy already?" Jim took a seat at the bar. "Trial run." Danny smiled at Jim and gave a little wave. What the hell. "Hi! I'm Danny. Can I get you anything?" Jim gave Mo a look like he thought she was yanking his chain. "Yeah, sure. Gimme a Miller." Danny took out a clean glass and filled it from the draft, held just like Mo had showed him so it got a clean pour instead of a whole glass of fizz. He slid it over to Jim with a napkin. "There you go. Want to start a tab?" Jim laughed. "Hell, Mo, you better hope this one doesn't get killed in a week. Yeah, start me up a tab." Danny seemed to ignore the comment about him dying. He just went to the register and put in the information from Jim's card. Mo scowled at Jim and made a cutting motion. Last thing she needed was for her new hire to find out his predecessor got cut down by some Penguin goons right outside the bar.

[danny-chase]

@karrya

“I couldn’t tell from your OP if you hate Jason or not. So I was scrolling through your blog, reading a lot of relatable batfam stuff, but still struggling to figure out your exact tone for Jason. In some posts it sounds like you’re cool with him, others you dislike him. So what exactly are your thoughts on Jason’s character? Does it depend on the comic/series?”

This is going to get way too long so I’ll add a cut to this one.

Right so my opinions on Jason are informed both by comics and fandom so I’ll do my best to separate them here. My opinions are subject to change, and quite frankly they change a lot, this is doing its best to be a comprehensive list of my current opinions. Be warned this is a literal essay on Jason Todd.

1) Canon - Robin Jason

Right so let’s start with the very beginning, Jason as a copy paste of Dick Grayson with strawberry blond hair. He was a cutie. I thought the blond hair was very funny. I adore the panel where Dick is like “i wanna adopt him” and Bruce is like “no me first”. 

Next up I read his appearances in The New Titans (or NTT - can’t remember which one he was in). They were pretty fun, he was a funky little guy and it was fun to see him interact with Dick’s friends (they’re all like please lead us and Jason is like... I’m 12, please get your crap together). These comics have Dick giving Jason his number and old costume and thanking him after the Brother Blood fiasco (I have no idea how much you know about NTT/NT, but Dick spent a looooooong time brainwashed and Jason helped save him and Raven).  

From here I read Death in the Family (I haven’t read any of the stories leading up to it though). Firstly I can’t believe he just up and flew to another continent by himself, like bruh, I’m in college I was so scared to like move to another place and live on my own during my summer internship I don’t know how the little guy did it. He is a bit impulsive in this arc - and I think that’s forgotten by a lot of the fandom - they retconned Jason’s character before his death to be impulsive/brash. Yes it’s 100% Sheilas and Jokers fault, and both Bruce and Jason make bad decisions. One bad decision shouldn’t condemn you to death - and I think it would be interesting if DC explored this idea more (instead of making it only about brash and impulsive Jason - that’s boring and victim blamey) that dying was an extremely disproportionate response. 

Think it of it this way, consider Jason found out his mother was alive, and telling no one, got on the plane, but then the plane crashed. It’s not Jason’s fault that the plane crashed, but Jason made the decision to get on the plane, and Bruce didn’t realize it. Unfortunately DC pretty much is incapable of nuance and hasn’t really handed the situation in a way I like.

2) Canon - Aftermath of death in the family

Jason is not brought up much in canon post Death in the Family, but the times he’s brought up it’s really interesting - as long as it doesn’t fall into the victim blaming mentality. 

First - an arc I like - Dick handling the fallout of Jason’s death. So in The New Titans, Dick returns from being on an off world mission with the Titans and Danny - a newer member had been looking through files and noticed Jason died. He tells Dick that Jason dies (very rudely). He confronts Bruce, and in an incredibly raw scene, is punched by Bruce and kicked out of the Manor (and unfairly blamed for Jason’s death). Dick’s upset to the point of going to therapy and actually fires Danny from the team because he can’t be responsible for someone Jason’s age.  He feels guilty about not being there for Jason, but overcomes this guilt in a Secret Files issue - he knows there was nothing he could have done. 

Later on the only times I can recall Jason being brought up with Dick are once in a fight between Tim and Dick where Dick says something along the lines of “You never have to worry about your safety with Bruce and I” and Tim responds with “Jason Todd”. The moment is kind of heart wrenching because you can see Dick just look so utterly devastated - you can tell how much he misses Jason. The other time is Last Laugh where Dick kills the Joker  (you can watch him snap in real time when joker invokes Jason’s name) and afterwards while beating himself up over the incident, he’s found looking at a bunch of photographs, one of which is labelled “Me and Jason”. There’s another time he’s passed out and hallucinates/dreams Jason who talks to him in a dreamscape, but I don’t rember details.

In Dick’s reaction to Jason’s death, you don’t see any (or maybe there is and I haven’t read the comic) of the victim blaming. It’s Dick’s stories so it’s mostly focused on Dick’s reactions rather than saying much about Jason. Dick takes responsibility (maybe a bit too much though) - he recognizes that he gave Jason his old costume - his seal of approval, and accepts his part of the blame. It’s a story about losing a loved one and never being able to properly say goodbye and dealing with the thoughts of “what if I had done something different” as well as having to deal with his grieving father not handling things well (i’m being generous with the phrasing). 

Now Bruce’s arc is different and it’s interesting to compare the two. Bruce starts working himself to death and becoming reckless after Jason dies. He doesn’t talk about it and has to be stopped by Dick and Tim from going down a self destructive path. What I think is really interesting is that Bruce was willing to take Tim in after Jason died. Because logically it just doesn’t make sense - and Bruce is grieving so it doesn’t have to be logical, but it’s interesting all the same. Why would Bruce take in another kid after Jason? This is something I wished was explored more.

There’s also the claim of “Bruce was only a bad dad after Jason died” which depending on the canon you use is or isn’t true. Robin Year One and Teen Titans Year One and Titans 1999 show him not being a great dad to Dick, but I do think it’s interesting to see how Bruce’s parenting was impacted after Jason died.

Bruce brings Jason up to Cass once as a reason for not letting her go out, and it’s very clear he sees Jason’s death as his failure (and naturally DC leans it into Jason being reckless/impulsive which is disappointing). Tim hallucinates Jason at one point who victim blames himself during the dream sequence. I see Cass’s relationship with dead!Jason more interesting because it shows the disparity between how much Bruce values Cass’s life with the amount Cass values her own life.

Opinions of Jason based on this era - overall it’s very interesting to see how different characters respond to his death, and when he’s brought up it’s generally pretty interesting to see how characters react. This can fall into victim blaming territory which isn’t great but it does tend to pique my curiosity about Jason’s early days and what things would have been like had he never died. I don’t like some of the retcons made during this era with Jason being shown occasionally in flashbacks.

3) Canon - UTRH, PreNew 52

The villain Jason era. Under the Red Hood was pretty meh in my opinion, and I would have liked him to have been revealed as the true identity of Hush instead. I guess I just like Hush as a story better, and it was kind of anticlimactic to see him be revealed in UTRH after the Hush tease. 

I read the one Titans Tower issue and was kind of underwhelmed. But Jason dressing up as Robin was pretty iconic and he made for a pretty terrifying and ruthless villain here. 

I read the Brother’s in Blood arc and Jason as a villain in that was pretty weird/funny. This is tentacle jason so like... idk what anyone expects me to say about it. I thought it was hilarious and a funny arc. His dynamic with Dick is also kind of funny (i don’t like Dick’s characterization in the 1 year later comics though), but it’s really funny that Jason dressed up as Nightwing and ran around killing people to fuck with Dick. And then kept calling him Dickie and harrassed him. In conclusion I think this jason was funny, I kind of wish there was more because I thought the arc was hilarious.

Battle for the Cowl Jason - this Jason was a terrifyingly competent villain capable of hacking his way past the batfamily’s sensors and invading the batcave. He was also ruthless, nearly killing both Damian and Tim. He even sprayed Dick with fear gas during their fight and fell off a bridge afterwards to make a point. His costume was on point imo, while most people take this entire thing as not being in character for Jason, I actually despite all odds like him in this comic. He was dramatic. Unapologetically evil. Incredibly deadly. He seemed like he was being set up as a villain on Dick’s level and I was interested in seeing how this would be resolved.

Batman and Robin 2009 Jason. Ah. How Battle of the Cowl Jason was resolved. I liked the red hair coming back (yes i know i’m weird) but I thought him dying his hair as a child was a fun bit of backstory drama. He had pimples which was eh? Condom head costume was... sigh. I wish he kept the scary batman suit. It seemed like he was kind of there to laugh at. Also him having a child sidekick and then calling Dick out for having a child sidekick was... LMAO. Anyways this Jason ends up in Arkham after Arkham was renovated into being like... actually kind of nice and I wish canon had expanded on that more, because it would have been interesting seeing Jason in therapy sessions (and maybe Dick, Tim, and Damian visiting) but instead he just switched to Black Gate because Bruce is dumb and ended up killing 80 people. Thanks DC.

So anyways. I liked Jason as a villain most of the time. I thought he made an interesting character as a villain, I don’t think he had a moral code, I think he was just selfish and angry and honestly? I liked him like that. He was dramatic - you knew he could put up a good fight, and he could keep pace as he was on the same level or above the heroes he was fighting. He was unpredictable - kept you guessing, and you could never be quite sure how the fight would end. Unfortunately his character was no where near consistent, with morrison’s Jason being (unsurprisingly) particularly bad.

4) Canon - New52

I read RHATO 2011. I hated it. There was no plot. Jason was a generic sad boi that I really didn’t care about. And it destroyed two characters that I like: Roy and Kory (Titans 2008 had started the job but ohhh boy did RHATO finish it). I hate the retcons made to Roy’s character - I hate that Kory’s only there to be a sex object, and it makes me resentful of Jason as a character that the others were used to prop him up.

Jason was also just... generic in this. Like he reminds me of every angsty boy I knew/know in high school/college. The entire series fell flat for me and turned me off of Jason content for a bit - hence why I haven’t read Rebirth RHATO.

I have read Robin War, Batman Eternal, and Batman and Robin Eternal, all of which include Jason. Robin War and Batman and Robin Eternal were both bad imo, the characterizations were flat and for some reason Tim and Jason are besties for no reason, with no build up. Iirc Batman Eternal has Barbara retconned into telling Jason something like “you’ll never be Dick Grayson” or something and I think this storyline of people being retconned into hating baby jason for being rash and impuslive is dumb af and lessens the tragedy of his death and makes characters I like seem shitty for no reason. Hence, I didn’t like Jason in any of these, or at the best, was indifferent.

5) Canon - Now (Robins, Robin, Urban Legends)

I think it’s dumb. I think Jason being the most emotional one in this way is dumb. I think him giving up guns is boring. I think him hugging Damian was fanservicy and literally just made Jason look stupid. I think current Jason is stupid. It seems like the Robins in general are suffering from standing too close to the kid genius that is Tim Drake (which i think is stupid) and losing all their brain cells. Everything I’ve seen Jason in recently has been one dimensional and boring and it’s kind of neat that Jason’s utopia is everyone being together and happy but I don’t want to see that become a reality in comics because I like messy Batfamily drama. I thought the plotline where he adopted Tyler for a bit had potential (especially in making Jason reflect on his morals) but I never finished it because I lost track of it amongst all the comics coming out. 

WFA Jason full-body tackled a 9 year old for a cookie and I can respect that. 

6) Fanon

I’ll state right now that horny/hot Jason art doesn’t pique my interest. I don’t think he’s hot. I don’t really think men are hot (ironic, I know, considering I’m a Dick Grayson fan). That part of the fandom doesn’t interest me.

The pit mad headcanon - I hate it. It often comes off as people being like I want to justify everything Jason’s done, therefore he was “pit mad”. This post sums up why I don’t like it. 

Feminist Jason. I don’t like it. It comes across as “extrajudicial murder is feminist, actually” and I just don’t know where it comes from (and every single time it boils down to he reads Jane Austen like I get it)? It seems like part of the fandom wants Jason to be super progressive, while keeping his murdering criminals way of thinking and just like no??? Murdering people who’ve committed crimes (even the “worst crimes”, yes) is not progressive and tbh it worries me that some people think this way. It also sometimes comes off as, Jason must be feminist/progressive because he grew up poor in a bad part of town and was homeless. And that’s just not how people work? His world view would be impacted by his childhood, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he would grow up to be progressive.

The “Jason’s moral code is justifiable” arguments don’t sit right with me because it sounds like Punisher rhetoric, and it sounds like y’all condone murder sometimes and that ain’t it. Nope it doesn’t make it better if its only “drug dealers, abusers, and rapists” Jason is human, fallible, and has not only targeted these groups in canon (he tried to kill tim and damian remember?). Besides that I kind of like... believe in human rights, and yes those rights apply to criminals. But y’all can call me out as an idealist, and I’ll just call you brainwashed by crime and punishment rhetoric.

Jason as part of the batfam. His relationship with Dick (WHEN NOT INCEST) is the most interesting to me, and the relationship I think has the most potential - Dick’s killed the joker which is something Bruce never did, and Dick and Jason were chill when Jason was younger which could be fun (sometimes I dream of an AU where Dick adopted Jason and co-raised him with the Titans). But mostly fanon seems interested in portraying Dick as a bad big brother to Jason and I’m not interested - why would I read stuff that trashes one of my faves without any basis in canon? I find the stuff with Tim kind of boring because I’m not really interested in Tim and I’m petty so I resent the New52 for making Tim and Jason close at the expense of Dick and Tim’s relationship. I also am not interested because half the time it’s just Tim fans trashing Dick with no basis in canon or demonizing Damian for trying to kill Tim despite Jason who tried 4 times to kill Tim being completely forgiven. Anytime I’ve seen Cass in a fic with Jason, she’s so ooc it hurts because imo her Batgirl run is soooo much better - not just better than Jason’s but better than like every comic I’ve read. I’ve seen some people ship Steph and Jason and i’m really not interested. I’m also not interested in Jason in relation to Damian because it comes off as weird seeing as they don’t really have a relationship in canon/Damian’s not really a fan of Jason. Duke deserves more content and could potentially have some fun interactions with Jason but I don’t know if I trust people to write Duke after seeing how Cass gets written when Jason’s around. Barbara and Jason I think also has potential as an interesting relationship, but i do not give one crap about able bodied Babs, or Jasonbabs 

My own fanon Jason Todd that I’ve included in some of my writing is generally just me having no idea wtf to do with him and working off of some of the better fics I’ve seen him appear in. He’s kind of frustrating for me to write because I have almost nothing but fanon to work off of, and I genuinely don’t really know how he would react in a lot of circumstances. I might start writing him as a villain eventually, because despite everything, I’ve kinda warmed up to villainous Jason. 

TL;DR

A lot of my dislike of Jason boils down to - he literally sucks the personality of everyone. It seems like writers tend to make the characters he’s with less interesting to prop up Jason and those happen to be characters that I like. Another petty dislike it seems like writers are just trying to make him Dick Grayson 2.0 and I like Dick Grayson, I like DickRoy, I like Dick and Tim’s relationship, and it seems like DC just gave Jason connections with these characters without any build up, and took them away from Dick for no reason.

What I like about Jason is his time as Robin and his time as a villain. I might just have bad tastes (true statement) but I thought he was more fun as a villain - he was someone that knew all their methods and how they think which made him a unique opponent. There was the dramatic irony of Jason not knowing the Joker was killed (somewhat over him). There was Jason being the most dramatic villain ever to the point of dressing up in the Robin, Nightwing, and Batman costumes to make a point. To the point of falling off a bridge to make a point! He was so dramatic and the family drama was juicy and I was so there for the tea.

[fungalnebula]

Prologue

Chapter One (will be linked when published)

Please leave critiques and suggestions in replies and/or reblogs!!! Click the cover image for a surprise!

There was a large tube inside the basement of the Fenton building. It was closed off by a large, military grade door, securing the emptiness of the tube. This machine had been sitting in the basement of the Fenton building, unused, since its conception two long years ago.

“Danny, why didn’t you tell us about this?” One of Danny’s best friends, Sam, asked as Danny punched in a code to release the contents of the empty tube. “This is so cool!”

Sam loved the Ghost Aesthetic. Danny felt a little bad for not telling her about the broken portal because of that.

“It didn’t work so I thought you guys wouldn’t care,” Danny said. “It was broken anyway…”

“Dude, it’s still a ghost portal!” Danny’s other best friend, Tucker, exclaimed. “Even if it doesn’t work, all the bones are still there.”

“I’m sorry, guys. I didn’t know it would be that interesting.”

“Are you insane!?” Sam exclaimed, “this is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. Let me take a picture of you!”

“No way, Samantha.” Danny groused, “there is no way I’m getting in that thing. What if the reason it didn’t work is because of loose wires or something? I don’t want to die.”

“You won’t die and you know I hate it when you call me Samantha,” she chastised. “You said it’s been broken for years! There’s no way it’ll work if it hasn’t already. It’s like a dead bear, it can’t hurt you.”

“Oh, yeah?” Danny laughed at her analogy. “You can still fall on a dead bear and get maimed by its teeth AND SLASH OR claws, Samantha.” Danny mocked Sam, waving his hands with each syllable of her name.

“Yeah, bad metaphor, just get in there. You won’t get electrocuted or anything. Your parents probably disconnected it from the power when they gave up on it.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Danny finally conceded, “let me at least wear one of the suits my parents made for me. You know, just in case.”

“Is it insulated?” Tucker chuckled.

“Yes, Tucker,” Danny retorted. “It is insulated, as a matter of fact.”

Danny walked to a cabinet labeled “Ecto Suits” and pulled out a white jumpsuit with a black collar. He adorned it as well as some black gloves and black boots. He noticed Tucker smirk as Sam attempted to suppress a snort. Danny stuck his tongue out at his two best friends in the world. He’d do anything for those jokers. Danny zipped up his new outfit and took a hesitant step towards the defunct portal.

“You guys really want to do this?” Danny had to force this last word out of his throat. He had been assured that he was safe, but was he really?

“Yeah,” Sam was gentle now. “You’ll be fine. All I want is a little picture of you in that neat thingy.”

Tucker put his hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Don’t worry man, it’s unplugged.” Tucker pointed to a plug on the ground nearby, assuming it was the power source for the portal.

“That makes me feel a bit better.” Danny sighed, relieved. He took another few steps and was in front of the portal. It was eerie and echoey. “Oooo” Danny made a noise and heard it bounce off the metal walls inside.

“Go on,” Sam pushed Danny lightly.

“Hey! Okay, I’m going!” Danny took a step inside the portal. It felt … empty and big. Much bigger than it was. Longer too. The tube felt more like a tunnel at this point, Danny could see the end of the tunnel, but it felt like it was miles away. Danny felt heavy just taking one step inside. He took another and felt his body weigh him down even more. It was just the anxiety, Danny thought to himself. Your body gets heavy when it’s dreading something, right? But there was nothing to worry about, Danny assured himself.

Danny took a few more steps inside the portal and turned around to face the outside. He tasted ozone and he felt like his blood was made of lead. There was the quietest of ringings bouncing around in his head making him somewhat dizzy and his eyes felt like they were vibrating.

“Danny?” Sam asked.

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay?” Sam looked concerned.

“Yeah, I’m fine, it’s a bit spooky in here, though,” Danny let out a slight chuckle. “I’ll just suck it up for the picture.”

“Yeah, alright…” Sam trailed off. “Can you do a cool pose? Maybe put your hand against the side and lean or something?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Danny began to place his hand on the side of the portal. As his hand neared the wall, the taste of ozone intensified and his nose started running. His hand was almost to the wall when Sam snapped a picture with her polaroid camera.

“Oops,” she looked nervous as she took out the not-yet-developed picture and handed it to Tucker.

Danny knew she wanted a better shot so he finally put his hand on the wall. Millimeters before his hand made contact, Danny’s fingers felt like cold metal replaced all of his bones. He let his hand rest on the wall to his left as he felt a button depress. Immediately, his heart started racing as he felt panic run up his chest. Daniel Fenton suddenly felt the most excruciating pain he had ever and will ever feel in his life. He felt hundreds of knives stab him at once in every single nerve in his body. An army of knives marched through his nervous system, stabbing down hard with every step. This march of pain within his body moved incredibly fast but at the same time that it moved agonizingly slow.

Danny didn’t feel his throat open up to release a blood curdling scream of pure, horrific pain. He didn’t feel himself drop to his knees, but he did feel that militia of marching, stabbing pain start again at his knees. All he saw was green, neon green, everywhere. He tasted blood and ozone, the lower half of his face, beneath his nose, was wet and sticky. His lips felt like they were drenched in lip gloss that tightened at every breath he took. His left wrist felt like he had laid on it for hours and suddenly moved. Danny knew he was dying.

When his face smacked the metal floor of the now functioning portal, he didn’t feel his nose break, just the pain get more intense and the struggle to breathe increased with his mouth submerged in a shallow pool of blood escaping his nose like a dam had been opened. Danny didn’t feel himself being dragged by his friends out of the portal and he didn’t see the horrified looks on their faces when they saw all the blood and smoke coming from his body. He didn’t feel Tucker grab a broom and poke him with it, he didn’t hear Sam smack Tucker and throw the broom to the wall. Danny didn’t hear his sister pound down the stair and scream at the sight, he didn’t hear Sam wailing and sobbing and pleading with Danny to please wake up, he didn’t hear her whisper, “I’m so sorry Danny, I’m so sorry, this is all my fault, why am I so stupid,” to his head. He didn’t hear his sister, Jazz screaming through her tears at Tucker, “What happened to him? Why is his hair white? Where did all this blood come from?” He didn’t hear Tucker crying, “I’m sorry, I thought it was unplugged, I’m so sorry Jazz, I’m so sorry.”

Danny did hear a ringing, though. He heard waves too. Or was that wind? Danny heard someone whisper but they were so far away.

Then, Danny saw black. Danny saw black and a very dark red. “What did you say?” Danny tried to say, but it was so much less than a whisper. Danny heard a thump, like someone dropping down to sit on a tile floor and the red he saw got brighter.

God, his eyes were so heavy. His lips felt like he had just eaten Elmer’s glue, like he used to do in Kindergarten. When Danny smiled a slight smile, as much as he had the strength to, his lips cracked and he relaxed his face to appease the pain.

Daniel Fenton cracked his eyes. Slowly, sound came back. A ringing gave way to someone screaming, “How could you let this happen? I thought you cared about him.” Someone else bawled, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t want this to happen. Please, I’m so sorry, I love him so much.”

Danny was confused. Did he just walk in on someone's death? He couldn’t have, his back was cold and against the tile floor in… his basement? Who died in his basement?

“Oh, god.” Danny felt his stomach drop to his toes. “Did Tuck get hurt by some of Mom or Dad’s ghost shit?”

The room went silent. Danny pulled his eyes open, worried by what he might see.

“What the fuck was that Samantha,” Jazz had murder in her eyes. “Tell me what that was right now.”

“What was what?” Danny asked. He saw Jazz huddled over something in the middle of the room with Sam and Tucker near her. The body wasn’t Tucker’s.

Danny walked over to Jazz and his friends when Tucker looked his way and screamed as loud and as hard as he was capable of screaming. This spooked Danny who took a step to the side and looked at what was on the ground.

It was him.

Danny was looking at his own body on the floor. His now white hair was singed, his left arm was black, contrasting against his pale skin which had been exposed by a large rip in his not-so-insulated suit. It looked like the hand and half of the arm on the left side of the suit had burned off.

Suddenly the body moved and Danny saw the ceiling and his Sister looking over him. He turned his head and saw two scenes. He was looking at Sam while also looking at the now functional ghost portal with a different set of eyes. Danny moved his head back and was now only looking at his sister again.

Danny attempted to move to a sitting position, coughing droplets of blood when he tensed his muscles.

“Oh, my god.” Jazz breathed a sigh of relief, “Danny! Don’t sit up, here. I’ll help you.”

Jazz sort of dragged, sort of pushed Danny’s body closer to the wall, glaring at Tucker and Sam when they moved to help her. Jazz picked up Danny’s head and sat him against the wall of the Fenton Laboratory basement and inspected his face.

“God, Danny.” Jazz’s voice was soaked with concern. “There’s blood all over this place. Your nose is broken.”

Danny realized he couldn’t feel the ground beneath him the second he felt himself fall an inch and hit the ground. He saw a flash as he noticed a ring of light circling around his waist.

“Sam,” Jazz screamed, “what the fuck? My brother almost dies and you think this is the best fucking photo op to snag?”

“I’m sorry Jazz, I-I,” Sam stuttered, “I saw something.”

Jazz turned her head back to her brother, and gasped. “Danny! Your hair is back to normal!”

Barely audible, Danny mumbled; “myhairwasn’tnormal?”

“It was white,” Sam whisperspoke.

“And your suit went all reverse,” Tucker added at full volume from halfway across the room.

“I taste metal,” Danny stuck his tongue out, it looked like he had just been licking blood off of something.

“Probably from all that blood in your mouth.” Jazz’s forehead was the rocky mountains of concern. “And on your chin, down your shirt, all over the floor. God, Danny. We need to take you to the hospital.”

“No!” Danny and Tucker yelled at the same time.

“I’m fine, I feel fine, watch this!” Danny stood up and quickly fell back down demonstrating how not fine he was.

“Sorry, I just hate hospitals,” Tucker murmured. “I didn’t mean to say that…”

Sam waved a polaroid in the air, then gave it to Jazz.

The picture showed a bloodied Danny on the ground wearing a reverse colored “insulated” suit. It’s just a fucking picture of my almost-dead brother, Jazz thought. Then she saw it. There were two rings of light around his waist that looked like they were revealing the outfit Danny was wearing when he went downstairs. A NASA T-Shirt and blue jeans were peaking through the two circles of light. Jazz looked at Danny again and realized he wasn’t wearing the black version of his ecto suit anymore. It went away with the white of his hair.

“Danny, you’re still going to the hospital with me.” Jazz insisted. “Your nose is broken.”

Danny touched his nose and was immediately met with searing, red hot pain.

“Don’t touch it, idiot!” Jazz smacked Danny’s hand away from his nose. “When a part of your body is broken, that’s not an invitation to touch it!”

Danny looked at Sam and Tucker, scared.

Sam smiled at Danny. “We can talk about it after you go to the hospital. Do you want to have a fucked up nose for the rest of your life?”

Tucker walked closer to Danny and put his hand on Danny’s head. “I’m so fucking happy you’re okay, dude.”

“Can you walk?” Jazz asked as she stood up and reached for Danny’s hand.

Danny grabbed her hand and tried to get up for the second time. He watched his hand disappear from his sister's hand as her grip tightened around nothing. Danny fell back to the floor and screamed at his missing hand before it came back.

“Danny,” Jazz hissed, “we are going to the hospital now.”

Danny stood up on his own and followed his sister up the stairs to her car, parked outside. They drove to the hospital.

[flipwizardstarlight]

So anyway going back a bit, i imagine Jay is more emotionally stable in this. Like, dead-jay met phantom like, really soon after he formed. Like, he has been dead for a week and his ghost forms in the realms, and because Robin is, genuinely, magic, he keeps his memories of living! About six months in reality goes wonky for a second and a piece of jay (small, not enough to really notice) gets yeeted back into his revived body. About a year passes, danny and jay are super close, things are going good, danny gets ghost king and makes jay his fright night. The same time, talia finds jay in the hospital. Another year passes, lets go with bad fanton parents reveal where jay is injured in the rescue. Nothing life threatening, but it still scares danny, who is heavily injured.

This got so much longer then originally intended so imma add a read more lol

Two days later, jay is p mich healed but danny is still pretty messed up, and talia throws jay's body into the pit, which rips jay away from Danny's side and into his body. The pit fills that last bit of damage he took and fucks him up emotionally royally, blocks a lot of the realms information. He spends about a month in the throes of the pit rage before danny finaply tracks him down and has to trick him into going to see frostbite. Thankfully, he had JUST left for his world tour of training, so the loa doesn't catch wind of this. He gets cleansed, gets his memory back, knows not to trust talia or ras, but also. Being undead? And fright knight? And dating trhe king of the dead? Kinda fucks with your morals a little bit. U know? So he and danny go together to learn the skills and they spend like, the next two years travelling and training, and he is much better adjusted by the end of it, but still hurt and misses his dad. The main change for his takeover is that he makes it clear from the start that robin is one of the kids he will not tolerate his people touching. Jay makes it clear that his beef is with batman and Nightwing. He still goes to titans tower and fucks tim up pretty good, but it is clear from the start that he isn't there to genuinely maim or hurt the kid. He doesn't hold back, hence how tim ends up battered and bruised, but once he wins he helps tim back up and to the med bay and they end it not really as allies but def not enemies.

Jay is still just as brutal and violent with everyone else, he just keeps robin out of it.

Also to be clear on tim's age, i have him starting as robin around age 11? I think? By the time jay comes around it has been about 5 years give or take, so he is at least 16. Jay is 20, danny is 18? I think? Something like that.

But anyway, things are still violent and bloody. Danny is away for most of it. Jay wants to do this alone and danny has realms business he needs to see to anyway. They live together in an apartment in gotham that is literally impossibly to track down (perks of having powers lmao) so they still go home to each other, but they are super chill about doing separate things. They are both seeing ghost therapists, jay is aware the whole "me or him" thing is fucked up, but he also has it set up so that no matter whst B chooses, jay will make it out and joker will end up dead. He is supposed to, at least.

So going back to tim:

Tim def goes to B about the missing time and gets the timeline drawn up separately and realizes that sonething fishy is going down, so he goes to babs next to ask about the missing footage. She can't find it. She can find where it should be, but it's gone. Completely. I think his next step at that dead end would be to shift gears. The king of the dead, right? Well, who does he know that B knows as BATMAN who has potantial links to all involved parties? Superman has probably technically died at this point, probably a good number of league heroes have too, but supes has sorta a connection to the joker in that he stopped b from killing the guy once. Not strong but still possible, so he checks the guy's alibi and itrules him out. Next is maybe babs? But she was provably working as oracle on something separate and the king of the dead would only be a thing for her because her mom is dead. Not the kind of tie that would have him hunting b down for her. Jason though?

He doesn't know much about Jay's time dead and in the league. Knows the guy is sane, knows the guy was dead but is alive now, knows the joker killed him, and knows he has been working up to some big showdown between himself, B, and the Joker. He realizes that last point and is immediately like "i should have thought of him first" and goes to get some sleep about it.

Knows jay would refuse to answer any questions until he has, so he preemptively goes to do it.

So he goes to find jay the next day. Except. No one has seen him in a couple days. His gang is still running, he has called his higest level goons and has them running things, but no one has talked to him in person or seen him since the night if the missing footage.

Tim has a very bad feeling about this.

Tim goes to babs again, cause it is well established that she will fight b if he steps out of line, and he presents his findings and asks for help tracking Jay's movements for the lead up to the missing footage. They get his last known location and manage to find a cctv that captures him dragging joker into the warehouse.

They do not find anything with b on it, but that isn't surprising. What they do manage to find is a flash of light followed by some intense static for about twenty seconds before the video comes back as though nothing happened.

Tim tries to call jason again and gets nothing.

Babs calls dick to see if he knows anything he will tell her that he wouldn't share with tim. Babs calls b about the missing footage as though she just noticed it. Tim knows he absolutely shouldn't call the ghost king to ask why, but at this point he is pretty sure it has something to do with why jay hasn't been seen since then and why bruce wont talk about how he got the joker.

He confront B one more time about the footage and the joker and asks about jason specifically. He knows jay is a sore subject and usually off limits but he has to poke. B dismisses him on the first question, repeats his story about finding him in a warehouse for the second, and then gets pissy about the third. Doesn't yell, not at first, but definitely gets pissy and angry because tim knows how to press and jay has always been a surefire way to ruin B's emotional control.

I think B threatens to fire him, or something equally devastating to sixteen year old tim. Gets tim to drop it to his face, but he has been lying to batman successfully for five years now. He embezzled a fucking batmobile. He knows B is in the wrong here, he is going to get to the bottom of this.

So. He does the thing everyone told him not to do. He finds a way to send a missive to the ghost king. He asks, very politely, if he can have a few minutes to ask some questions because he is a detective first and foremost and B is lying about something pretty significant right now. Is clear that Phantom can set the terms, the time, the place, etc, and that he only requests it be after school lets out for the day (not that he gives a shit about high school, really), and that he not be forced to betray B, that he be given time and space to make his own decisions on the situation so he can be as objective as it is possible for him to be. He also asks, again very politely, if Jay is okay.

It's the last question that gets him a response. Jay wants to talk to the little bird, actually. He is trying to talk Danny down from immediate action against batman (he knows how important batman is to gotham and even though he hates the guy he still loves alfred and also his mom is gotham? And she loves batman? And since Jay is gonna be okay she isn't likely to see the bloodshed as worth the kind of pu ishment danny wants? At least while b is still alive.) And is actually genuinely touched that tim thought of him and knows tim suspects something and wants to talk to him about it, especially cause his opinion on B just plummeted and he is reevaluating how the guy treats tim and is realizing a lot of things and really wants to try and get tim out of there if he can. The dude slit his son's throat to save the man that killed said son, no way Jay thinks he should be trusted to look after another kid! Doesn't matter that said kid is already 16 and very independent and has been taking care of B for years now. All the more reason for jay to get the kid a better support network, and if that means being the guy's friend then he will do it!

So danny, at Jay's urging, brings tim to see jay in his room at the keep (they are staying in the zone for while jay heals and the keep is more comfortable for Jay's fire core then the far frozen). Tim takes one look at the bandages and is like "B did that, didn't he?" And now jay has to talk down TWO very angry peopke who care about jay and are very pissed at batman. Tim, at least, agrees that any reprimand while the dude is alive should be done by his peers in the living realm. He has some. Opinions. On what those should be. But def living realm justice for him at the moment. Tim successfully talks danny into rescinding the sacrifice order via "let him face justice in the human realm first. He will face your wrath and judgment eventually no matter what, why speed it up when the anticipation is going to fuck him up so thoroughly also?" He points out that at the end of the day, Batman is meant to peotect him from the pain of losing anyone else and with this one act, not only has he lost his son for good, but he lost his robin, he is going to lose many friends when they find out about it, he is probably going to lose the man who raised him, he will lose barbara, he might even lose dick, he might lose just about everything, because he couldn't handle gaining his son back if it meant he would just lose him again.

Cause i personally read that whole situation as Bruce never truely grieving Jason like he should have, never truely allowing himself to feel that pain and heal from it, so when Jason came back different it hit him two-fold: on one side, every time he saw jason he was only seeing the pieces that he lost and feeling that old pain just as cutting and fresh as when he died, and on the other, he was seeing the pieces that had changed and knowing that if he allowed himself to acknowledge that he still loves his son and wants to get to know this new version of him then he is only oepning himself up to losing him again. To me, Bruce's whole thing about Jason is rooted in his inability to truely allow himself to grieve what he lost coupled with the reluctance to open himself up to feeling that hurt again. It's why he was so awful to tim at first and i don't think the problem ever went away, it just took a back seat after he was forced to acknowledge how much he cares about Tim.

So anyway, tim brings his findings to babs so she can talk to dick while tim talks to alfred. Then the three of them present the case to the league the same time danny comes forward as phantom to explain that "no, I am not asking for batman anymore, but it isn't because I have forgiven. It is because I will Not Forget, no matter how long it takes for his time to come. You can have your protector for as long as he is alive. Once he dies... Once he dies it is my turn."

After all that tim ends up going red robin early (jay offers the call sign while they are brainstorming new costume and call sign designs while jay is still stuck in bed) and takes an interest in the community building aspects of Jay's gang, ends up doing some admin stuff money-wise. He and jay are honorary birds of prey members. Dick does a lot of travelling heroics, tours the world, goes back to his roots in that way until the black glove stuff starts happening and damian shows up. No less murder attempts on tim, since talia set those up, and Tim is pretty close with jay and danny at that point so he is super liminal, which comes with that increased durability, so it doesn't come nearly as close to killing him as before.

I think the bat family as a whole still exists, most of them still care about B on some level so they don't just cut him out completely. Tim gets emancipated early, i think, but still lives with B publicly. Alfred stays, but gets more vocal about calling B out and makes it clear that he is there for Tim and Steph (when does she die again? I don't remember...) and jay and dick and barb and cass. I think he joins cass in hong kong for a month or so right after it happens, as a vacation of sorts to help him figure out what he wants to do.

Black glove happens and B ends up globe trotting, Barb is galavanting with the birds of prey, dick is still travelling mostly with the titans but still, Cass is in hong kong, i think steph is dead(?), which leaves tim and jay as the only permanent gotham vigis. Danny steps in every once in a while to help if they need it, and Tim and Alfred move into the penthouse to be closer to the two of them. Damian's appearance brings B and Dick back and alf goes with them back to the manor, eventually Darkseid happens and B gets hit with that omega beam.

Since Tim is Not Dating the king of the dead and his fright knight, people take him seriously about B not being dead. He still goes on BruceQuest, and he still goes alone, but he has backup if he needs it. Battle for the cowl doesn't happen, Jay wants NOTHING to do with batman. Only reason he has a bat on his chest is because it turns him from Just Another Crime Boss to an actual Protector and makes the Community building efforts so much easier and more successful. Dick still waits a little too long to take up the cowl on his own, but once he does it goes fairly smooth. Tim leaves on BruceQuest and ends up isolating himself on accident and gets tangled up with the loa. Still loses his spleen cause im a fan of Making Tim Drake Suffer, but when he calls to check in with Danny and Jay about it Danny joins him invisibly in the LOA. They have a grand old time of making Ra's regret ever trying to manipulate Tim.

To explain why clockwork/danny couldn't just pluck bruce from the timestream and put him back: the Omega energy acts like oil to the water of clockwork's kind if time magic. It cloaks B's presence and makes it so if they tried to pluck him up it would just cause more problems.

If you want b to get his head out of his ass and reconcile with his kids, when he gets back would be a good time to do it. Tim saves his ass and is still like "ueah im still mad at you, this doesn't mean you get your kids back, fix your shit and I might consider it but no promises" and B does, actually, fix his shit about it.

I don't think Jay ever forgives him tho. I think jay (and danny) tolerate him like once or twice a year because Tim does eventually reconcile with him and he is important to tim, so they tolerate him, but they never like the dude.

I think Tim continues to Not Date danny and jay for several years before he finally makes the first move. He still runs WE, that is important to me. He likes to fuck with the tabloids by never clarifying his relationship status to them. It's great.

DPXDC prompt. Dead on main.

Okay, Danny’s revenge for Jason through the Joker murder is fine.

But imagine the wrath of the Ghost King who responds to a call for help from his boyfriend and finds Red Hood with his throat cut and bleeding. Aside from it, there’s a bloody batarang on the roof. And it just pisses the Phantom off. Bat just left main treasure of his core to die.

Danny is still terrified even when Frostbite confirms that Jason will survive. Dan’s future is still fresh in his memory. That’s probably why when the councilman takes him off hospital ward duty to clarify what His Majesty wants as the guarantor of the Peace Treaty with demon race and what price to set for summons from cults Danny answers without a second thought.

Phantom: Batman.

Ghost: From a cult, Your Majesty?

Councillors have long been accustomed to Phantom giving strange requests so that people would not have the opportunity to really summon him.

Phantom: From the cult, from demons, ghosts or elves. Whatever. I need Batman and I need him yesterday. I give any reward to whoever delivers him to me, the price will be fair.

Ghost: Your word is our command.

~~~~~

In Gotham it’s 4 AM when Constantine is calling an emergency Justice League meeting.

'What did you do, Bats?' Shazam asks with undisguised concern.

~~~~~

Bonus points if Jason has to teleport himself directly to the JL space station and stop his feral lover from murder. Yeah, this is definitely not how he planned to reveal who was hiding under the Red Hood.

[365days365movies]

January 6, 2021: Last Action Hero (Part 2)

SPOILERS! And check out Part 1 beforehand! Anyway, let’s go! Got a lot to cover, TRUST me.

So, this movie is incredibly cluttered. Anyway, Slater makes his way to the Fart Bomb, and Practice (makes perfect) is a dirty cop working for Vivaldi. Danny and Slater get chained to a pipe, and I’m still surprised we haven’t even slightly revisited the time Danny got taken hostage about, what, an hour ago? Whiskers the Cat Cop arrives and shoots Salieri, and I weep for the part of my sanity that just died typing that sentence.

I want you to know, I mad that GIF. I had to type “furball problem.” I’m losing it, you guys...and I think I’m enjoying it.

Together, Slater and Danny steal the body of Leo the Fart (HUP, there goes a little more sanity), everybody at the funeral has a gun (including one old woman with a straight-up grenade launcher), and so, SO much property is abused and damaged. In other words, it’s a pretty fun action sequence. Leo drops into a conveniently placed tar pit alongside Jack Slater, and Danny briefly becomes a domestic terrorist by shooting a gun in a public area, WOW, the ‘90s was a different time!

So, it’s at this point that I start getting annoyed by Danny always being meta. I realize that I've been praising it for this, but...yeah, no, it’s starting to get annoying now. Especially considering that we’ve got an hour left in the movie. But, on the bright side, it’s also at this point that Benedict becomes my favorite character. This gorgeous motherfucker kills Vivaldi (whose plan was completely nonsensical, by the way), and then turns to the screen. Charles Dance effortlessly channels the spirit of Shakespeare’s Richard III, Duke of Gloucester, as says this to the audience:

If that little turd, Daniel Madigan, can move through parallel worlds, I can move through parallel worlds. In and out! In, steal whatever I want, and out again! Impossible to catch!

I can add colors to the chameleon, change shapes with Proteus for advantages, AND SET THE MURDEROUS MACHIAVEL TO...Anyway...  

Charles Dance is giving his absolute best energies to this role. And this might be a silly movie, but godDAMN is Benedict a great villain for it. It’s immediately followed by the surreal image of a monster truck crashing through the wall of this mansion, and the fight leads to Benedict, Professor Toru Tanaka, Danny, and Jack Slater falling through a portal created by the ticket, and ending up in the real world.

We put Jack’s action-movie world in contrast with the real world, first with little things, and then with a legitimately vicious-looking car accident. Like, wow, it’s a VERY realistic-looking accident. I’d show a GIF of it, but...wow, it’s extremely affecting. Toru dies, and there’s, uh...there’s blood. Man. It’s rough, honestly.

Speaking of affecting, Jack is beginning to understand the true nature of his reality. And Schwarenegger does an OK job pulling that pain off...but like everybody in this movie, his emotions are way calmer than mine would be if I were in his shoes. But there is one character I can identify with: Nick, the theater owner. When he finds out that the ticket works, he starts to talk about the movies he could now visit, the people he could meet. OK, most of them are beautiful female starlets, but still! I get it! Do you know how much I would love to meet Stan Lee? SERIOUSLY? It’d be amazing.

I can also identify with Danny’s mother, who is rightfully PISSED. Seriously, this kid just got assaulted by a robber, brought to the police, and went directly TO THE MOVIE THEATER. GROUND THIS CHILD. GROUND HIM SO GODDAMN HARD.

And then, Benedict experiences the darkest part of the real world, and Dance again shows his talent. He begins by showing surprise and mild horror at the depravity of an early 1990s New York City (a little more dramatically bad than it was in real life at this point, but still), then sees a man assaulted (and possibly killed) for his shoes. He remarks at this in horror...then realizes that the police don’t come as quickly as they do in his film universe. He experiments by killing a man in cold blood, in public, and no one stops him. 

Upon realizing his potential freedom in this world...he makes a plan. He uses the ticket, and brings back...the Ripper. ANY OTHER MOVIE VILLAIN? Dracula? Freddy Kreuger? Jason? Like...nobody? That is...such a missed opportunity, goddamn.  Anyway, their plan is to kill Arnold Schwarzenegger. As in the REAL Arnold Schwarzenegger, who actually appears upon his real-life wife at the time Maria goddamn Shriver! Which...yeah, that’s cool, but...the amount of celebrity cameos in this scene is, frankly, INSANE. 

Here’s a list: Little Richard, Jim Belushi, Damon Wayans, Chevy Chase, JEAN-CLAUDE VAN DAMME, MC Hammer. And that’s not counting Tina Turner (the mayor earlier), Sharon Stone, Robert Patrick, Joan Plowright, and...well, I’ll save the best for last.

I haven’t even mentioned the development of Slater’s as a three-dimensional character in multiple different ways; the Ripper showing up at the movie premiere alongside the movie actor, Tom Noonan; the Ripper KILLING NOONAN’S REAL WORLD AGENT...

This movie is insane. So much to cover, and yet it’s SUCH A LONG GODDAMN MOVIE. This movie is 2 hours and 11 minutes long! SERIOUSLY! I am tired, I gots to go to BEEEEED. Let’s get this climax over with, shall we? Arnold Schwarzenegger meets Jack Slater in some REALLY seamless effect work (this movie has actually aged SO well, damn), the Ripper kidnaps Danny and brings him to the roof of the theater, in a bid to reenact their old battle. Some meta dialogue takes place from the Ripper, and he THROWS DANNY OFF THE ROOF. Noonan’s also actually pretty good at playing this unhinged, Joker-esque maniac, by the way.

Jack kills the Ripper (again), and Danny’s saved from falling by Jack, just in time for Benedict to show up and make my day once more. He expounds the true potential of the ticket and film villains (frustrating me even more), while also chewing the scenery splendidly. He points out that any movie villain would love the real world, noting that in this world, the bad guys win. He shoots Jack Slater, and as he’s about to win, Slater shoots him in the eye, resulting in this shot.

Nice. 

But he drops the ticket, which lands near a theater showing the classic Ingmar Bergman film, The Seventh Seal, a movie which is on my list for Drama December. Or maybe Experimental June, I haven’t decided yet. Anyway, the ticket activates in front of that theater and...that’s Ian fucking McKellen.

THAT IS IAN. FUCKING. MCKELLEN. PLAYING INGMAR BERGMAN’S DEATH. WHAT. HOLY SHIT. And that happens just as Slater is literally about to die in the ambulance, and Danny summons his domestic terrorist impulses again, whipping out a gun and hijacking the ambulance to get Jack back to the theater. Meanwhile, Ian McKellen just KILLS a dude on the street, because this movie is secretly AMAZING. DeathKellen follows the ambulance to Nick’s movie theater as Jack is dying. Leading to one of the most surreal things I’ve ever seen.

McKellen fucking TAKES this movie as an omnipotent death, and is essentially Death ex Machina. My God. This movie is the silliest, craziest, wackiest, most nonsensical, crazy movie that I’ve seen...and goddamn does it have some amazingly great moments. To the extent that I only just realized that the fucking cartoon cat is voiced by DANNY FUCKING DEVITO. WHAT. THE FUCK.

And all of this is also running over the almost completely ignored fact that Danny is still greatly saddened about the death of his father. And this film completely passes that fact over. Like I said, there’s so much extra folderol in the film, and it really did have the chance to be this emotional, existential epic. But sadly...it’s kind of all over the place.

Anyway, Jack’s back in the movie, where his wounds heal, and he now has a new understanding of his own fictional existence. He officially becomes the meta. And also ruins the Jack Slater franchise forever. Yeah, uh...the franchise has literally become self aware. And that’s not gonna be a good thing for the movie.

And that’s Last Action Hero! Epilogue coming in a few hours, so stay tuned for that. And I gotta tell you...I have some words to say about this movie. Some great, and some...stay tuned.

[dappercritter]

You have been granted the oppurtunity to recast your favorite animated movie! The only catch is that each of the characters in said movie are animated characters from different shows/movies (X from show/movie is Bob, X from show/movie is Larry, ect.)

Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo boi. You have no idea what you’ve just unleashed, my friend!

Once long ago, before the Cringe Ages, I loved recasting my favourite and sometimes least favourite movies with characters from my favourite shows. But then I started taking storytelling more seriously and sentimentally and… art-y, and I started acting as if I was above the stuff somehow. To this day, I still don’t know whether to blame the masses or my own hubris.

But now! Now, the floodgates of my childish, innocent mind are open once more! And I have just the idea: The Nightmare Before Christmas but with Villainous and Batman* characters! (With a few CN villains on the side.) So, I guess you could call it…

The Villainous Nightmare Before Batman! 

(No, wait. Uhhhhh…)

The Dark Knight Before Villainous!

Ok, yeah, that should do.

Now you’re probably asking yourself, “Dapper Critter, what are you doing this? Sure, Batman meets Villainous could work, but why are you bringing The Nightmare Before Christmas into this? It’s not even Halloween or Christmas! What are you thinking?!” Well, first of all, Christmas and Halloween aren’t just holidays, they’re states-of-mind. Second, I think it’s time you guys learned something important: I’m a big ol’ lowkey goth baby, baby! If it’s spooky or gothic, I’ll soak it up like a sponge in sink full of soapy water. And nothing says gothic like the hero of a city literally called “Gotham,” a show with a grotesque monster hiding behind the guise of a well-dressed man, and the classic story of Jack Skellington himself! What’s more, all three of these hold a special place in my heart, as they all played a huge part in helping me develop and realize my interest in gothic culture. Lastly, I can see the worlds of these three stories coming together quite easily. Behold, this plot pitch I just made!

“Another Halloween has come and gone in CN City, and another cheerful Christmas is on its way. Black Hat, unofficial master of all that is dark and evil, is thoroughly disgusted that the multiverse will soon be returning to it’s obnoxiously cheerful and wholesome state. He morosely tears a hole through time and space to talk a walk through reality, miserable that he’s stuck living in such a wonderful place. That is until he stumbles upon the city of Gotham, where no matter what time of year it is, the streets are filled with misery and malicious mayhem. Delighted, he sets out to celebrate Christmas his own way: by taking a certain caped-crusader out of the picture and making Gotham his very own holiday vacation home! Little does he know, there’s one special girl who thinks he can celebrate right where he is, as well as a certain clown who’s got his own sinister Christmas party in mind…”

So now that I’ve convinced you, I think it’s time we got down to the actual recasting! Let’s begin, my darling children of the Hot Topic night…

Black Hat as Jack Skellington: This couldn’t have been easier—they’re both creepy gentlemen with excellent taste in fashion. Yes, I know Black Hat is a lot less nice than our dear Pumpkin King, but let’s just say this story takes the odd liberty here and there. Not to mention, Black Hat could easily match Jack’s enthusiasm, intelligence, style, and obsessive inquisitions. Plus, he could totally pull off an evil Santa suit. (Though to be honest, I’m not sure if his snarling, slimy, cockney-accented voice could match Danny Elfman’s melodious singing.)

Demencia as Sally: A devoted, mildly ghoulish, and totally cute fangirl who’s always pining after their darling idol, and who may or may not have been made in a lab? It’s like this fancast is writing itself! Demencia might be a bit more proactive—and scary—in the plot, but I can see her a lot Sally’s dilemma in her as she tries to get Black Hat to notice her and not to abandon them in pursuit of a crazy dream. (Well, that I’m filthy Lizardhat trash.)

Dr. Flug as Dr. Finklestein: Flug, being the only mad scientist who’s employed by Black Hat, as well as the only to survive this, seems like a good pick. Sure, he’s not in a wheelchair and, no, he’s not as creepy as the bugger, but he could still work as our horrid hero’s right-hand man. Plus, since a big part of his canon character is putting up with Demencia’s BS (tell my family that means “baloney-sandwich”), he’d also do great as the one trying to keep the free-spirited love interest under control. Only here, it would be because he’s trying to keep Dem out of trouble so she doesn’t make his boss mad and try to kill him, as opposed to… whatever Finklestein’s problem is. And of course, he can still be menacing if need be. (Just watch the Lost Cases of Townsville and The Tree House…)

5.0.5. as Zero: A cute animal sidekick is a cute animal sidekick, I always say! And 5.0.5. was basically designed to be the ultimate cutesy animal sidekick. Therefore, he can be basically do anything Zero did. Try to cheer up Black Hat? Check. Pull Black Hate’s sleigh? Why couldn’t he? Yeah, he can’t be a flying ghost dog with a glowing nose, but I could just throw bedsheet on him (it was just after Halloween after all) and maybe say he swallowed that anti-gravity device.

Batman as Santa Claus: For Santa Clause, I needed someone who could be the absolute good guy in a world filled with bad guys and weirdos, much like Santa was in the movie. Likewise, since Jack kidnapped Santa to take over Christmas, Black Hat would need to kidnap the guy in charge of Gotham in order to take it for himself. So, of course he’s going to go after it’s #1 protector. I can also see Batman being the voice of reason in this madcap story. Not to mention that he could pull off a Santa suit even better than Black Hat! (In fact…)

The Joker as Oogie Boogie: This one I had some trouble with. I kept asking myself stuff like, “who would be brave enough to usurp Black Hat?,” “who could match Oogie’s siz—er, presence?” or “who would want to kidnap Santa Claus?,” and “Who would be into gambling and crazy funhouse stuff?” And then it came to me: The Joker. I mean, he’s got charisma, a sense of menace, he’s a cutthroat who loves to play with his enemies, and almost always has a big ol’ amusement park deathtrap on hand. Sure, he wouldn’t have the creepy demise like Oogie, but he could get a good beating and traumatizing from Black Hat and/or Demencia (who’d really hate being a damsel in distress, I imagine).

The Delightful Children from Down the Lane as Lock, Shock, and Barrel: At first, I thought of using other Batman villains or Shannon, Darrell, and Ernesto from OK K.O.!, but then I thought it would make more sense to have child villains from a CN show who could do bad things for slime-balls like Black Hat and Joker with pleasure. I instantly thought of these scheming, little monsters from Codename: Kids Next Door (an old favourite of mine). Although they’re usually talk and act in unison, they could have some comical bickering now and then. (After all, “Lenny is an idiot.”) Likewise, I can see Black Hat using Batman’s affinity for young people to get him while his guard’s down. They could make for great trick r’ treaters as well!

Lord Boxman as The Mayor: The mayor wasn’t a very important character, but he was definitely a memorable one, and the first character I thought of who could match his dual personality was Lord Boxman from OK K.O.! They both act like leaders but are really terrible at their jobs, suck up to better villains, and throw a whimpering tantrum like nobody else. (Also, I get to imagine Jim Cummings singing lines from The Nightmare Before Christmas songs, so that’s nice.)

Various CN Villains as The Citizens of Halloween Town: Like with The Mayor and the Trick R’ Treaters, I like to think that the various CN villains who cameoed in the Villainous Orientation series would show up as the denizens of the seedier side of CN City which—as you probably guessed—would be standing in for Halloween Town. Unfortunately, I do not have an encylcopediac knowledge of either Halloween Town residents, nor CN villains, so I’ll just list the ones I can remember and am the most proud of without offering any real justification.

Nohyas as Mr. Hyde: I couldn’t think of anyone besides Black Hat with a fancy hat or smaller versions of himself. Nohyas just so happens to have a suitable villain’s hat, and Handre (his hand puppet) could work in place of tiny clones living under his hats. (And yes, I like Mighty Magiswords. Deal with it.)

Zombozo as Clown with the Tear-Away Face: I don’t believe all creepy clowns look the same, but a ghoulish clown could easily stand in for another. Plus, I used to be a big Ben 10 fan, so I thought I ought to work something in.

Donny as Behemoth: This grass ogre from Adventure Time was more of an outright jerk than Behemoth, but he has a softer side so that would make him a great candidate for a resident gentle giant.

Loony Toons’ Dracula, Billy and Mandy’s Dracula, and Count Spankula as The Vampire Brothers: Do I really need to explain this one?

The Red Guy as Devil: I sure don’t need to elaborate on this one.

The Gangreen Gang as the Zombie Band: The Gangreens were basically based off edgy bands of the late 90’s, and thanks to Gorillaz, we know Ace can play the bass like a boss. Also, I can totally hear Ace saying, “Nice work, bone-daddy.”

Earl (AKA Dopey Black Hat) as Igor: Earl doesn’t get enough to do, inside or outside of Villainous canon.

The Beast as The Hanging Tree: Yeah, I know, I’m messed-up.

HIM as Harlequin Demon: Seriously, this one cast itself!

The Queen of the Black Puddle as Undersea Gal: I don’t watch Courage the Cowardly Dog much, but I remember seeing this villainess once before and I instantly thought she’d be a dead-ringer!

Morbidia and Gateaux as The Witches: Another natural casting derived from my soft spot for Mighty Magiswords. Although Gateaux is a male and a tall one at that, he’s perfect for being a huge suck-up. (I originally considered Miss Endive from Chowder and Duchess from Fosters’ Home for Imaginary Friends, but then I remembered that no matter what they dressed-up as, they’d be unlikeable.)

Monstrous Black Hat as The Monster Under the Bed: Like Earl and the other Black Hat clones, he doesn’t get enough love. (Though this may be a good thing, since he seems too nasty to receive or return it…)

Rob as The Melting Man: There aren’t a lot of CN villains who are melting, per se, but I figured this poor bad guy from Amazing World of Gumball and his unique media-mixed malformity could work.

Biowolf as The Wolfman: Because they’re both well designed wolfmen and I refuse to forget Generator Rex.

The Robins, Batgirl, and Alfred as the Elves: If Batman’s going to be Santa, then his support staff/family might as well be his helpers. Not to mention, they’d look great in cute little elf outfits happily working on Batman’s gadgets in preparation for the big Christmas crime wave.

The Justice League as The Army: Someone needs to show up to shoot-down Black Hat and his idea of Christmas at the end, and since he’s kidnapped Batman, I think it only makes sense that the Justice League would retaliate and come to clean up Black Hat’s mess. He’d also get a reminder that he isn’t just in Gotham City, he’s in the DC universe.

Unikitty as The Easter Bunny: I have my reasons. Them being, Unikitty is good at being sweet and innocent, the episode “Batkitty,” and her world is one of the few Black Hat has interacted with so far. I like to think that’s because he’s too repulsed by her cuteness to touch it. So imagine his reaction when the Delightful Children bring him to her by accident while she’s cosplaying as LEGO Batman or something.

And there you have it! I had a lot of fun making this recast. It was a great way to step out of my comfort zone and to have some fun. Not to mention, I had an excuse to listen to the Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack early. I sincerely hope you like it as much as I do, @good-guy-is-alive!

Now I just need to make sure Black Hat himself doesn’t see this, or else he might find me and—

Oh no.

No, please, Mister Black Hat, sir, you don’t understand. I just was doing this for fun. I wasn’t trying to make you look—

OH NO.

NO!

NOOOOOOOOOOjglkajgflkjdshGH;LJF’W abfklghlfuGFARGTADS!!!#%RQ#@!

…

…

…

*Since DC changes their Batman shows like people change their socks, we’ll just say that this is your standard DCAU/Bruce Timmverse Batman.

[fandombrainrots]

I’m stuck in a car, SO HERE’S PART TWO!! (This is written on a phone lol)

—————————————————————

After everything calming down, (aka Danny being dragged away while the Joker was arrested), Mr. Lancer was able to heard the children together so they could properly start the tour.

The tour was cancelled. “Oh your kidding me!! This is so unfair.” Sam groaned out as they made it back to their hotel. “Tell me about it! I was hoping to try and meet a Wayne. Get some autographs or somthing.” Tucker mopped as the trio sat down in the lobby.

“Guys, it’s fine!” Danny spoke up, his smile a little to wide. “Danny, your eldritch is showing.” Danny quickly fixed his smile at Sam’s comment. “Doesn’t matter, I have found a dumb clown.” Sam and Tucker turned slowly towards Danny. “Dude, what the hell does that mean.”

“Clown hunting!! Boxy has reformed so I lost my punching bag, but this clown is still bad, therefore, hunting!” Danny was digging through his backpack, pulling out the few ghost weapons that would actually hurt humans. “Dude, absolutely not!” Tucker cried out, grabbing at his backpack.

“Danny no! Put down the gear!” Sam tackled him from the side as Tucker wrestled to get the bag. At this point, the other students and guests were looking at the group. “No! I wanna hunt a clown!!” Danny yelled out as his bag was ripped from his hands. “Mr. Lancer!!” Tucker yelled out as Sam kept him on the ground.

“What is it this time you three.” The old teacher sighed as he walked over, not even fazed at the fighting. “Danny wants to hunt the Joker, take his ghost weapons.” Tucker shoved Danny’s backpack into Mr. Lancer’s arms, the teacher just sighing once more. “Ok, and Danny, no hunting villains.” Danny stopped trying to get free with a pout. “Fine.”

————at night————

Needless to say, Danny was not just going to sit still. Everyone in was basically asleep, and Danny knew he could just slip out to go after the man, but he did want something to protect himself. Meh, he’d find a pipe or something on the way there. The news said that Clown man was in Arkham, so Danny transformed to head over. Flying invisible was easy, and allowed him to spot a old wooden bat on his way there! Score! Getting into the building would be easy, just get in, misplace your aggression, and out! (Danny seemed to forgot that he was not a technical meta. Danny also forgot, normal people have no chance against Arkham’s security.)

-+Joker’s POV+-

That darn kid! Ruined his hostage plans for the day, made him miss seeing good old Batsy, and even beat him up! The kid didn’t even hesitate at the sight of a weapon! Now he’s back in the stupid Asylum, no fun in sight. Arkham was so boring to him! There was no laughter, no fun. But also no bats. He knew that he would break out again soon, but it was the principle! Maybe he could make that boy play a fun little game with him after getting out. Yes, that’s what he will do. If the kid wasn’t afraid of him, he would make him. Give them each a gun, old Russian Roulette style.

His plotting was interrupted by a rustling in the corner of his cell. What on earth could that even be? There’s nothing in these boring rooms after all. Yet to Joker’s surprise, the kid was standing in the back corner of his cell, holding an old rotten baseball bat.

“How in the world did you get in here?” The Joker just managed to get out before he realized that the teen had a weapon. “Guards?” He called out, looking out from the bars as people’s attention turned towards him.

“Hi clown!” Danny grinned too wide, his eyes too blue, arms too long. The Joker backed all the way up against the cell bars, calling out once more. “Guards!!” No one was fast enough to stop Danny from rushing towards the Joker, hitting him in the face with a baseball bat as he brought it back around into the villain’s stomach. The Guards who bothered to respond to the Joker were greeted to the sight of a scrawny kid, the same one from earlier that day, absolutely wailing on the Joker with a back, beating the man to the ground. Right as they got the cell door open, the kid jumped down right on one of the Joker’s legs, a sharp crack ringing out as the kid giggled in glee.

“Hope you don’t mind I roughed him up a bit, I was still upset about today. Bye!” Danny sprinting out of the cell, guards shouting in shock as some took off after him. Yet the boy was gone after rounding a corner, no where to be seen…

“Todays news, last night, the Joker has been reported to have been attacked while in Arkham. The same boy who had defeated him earlier that day was found inside of the villain’s cell, beating him with a bat. Before the guards could grab him, he got away without a trace. The Joker has been reported to have one broken leg, four fractured ribs, and a severe concussion. More later, after the weather…”

——————————————————

Ok tags! I desperately hope I get them all haha.

@bruh-incoming @xarexraven @akikoyuii

@dontfightmecauseillcry @treepainting

@onyxlightdragon @iamthefryiestfrench-blog @undead-essence @the-legal-shipper @roxasconan @may-rbi @phoenixdemonqueen

Joker sees a skrungly teen walking on the street and just everything in his body screams to fight

Danny sees the joker and his hatred for clowns go up by a fuck ton

They always fight, absolutely feral too, biting and scratching

Joker will be mid monologue and Danny will body slam into him and there they go

Gotham is on lookout for the kid who keeps fucking joker up

It escalates when Danny breaks into arkham to fight

[thesportssoundoff]

“Let’s Have Some Fun In The Mornings” UFC in Prague Preview

Joey

February 18th, 2019

It's about that time of year where we start seeing the UFC go to some obscure ass places! The UFC is heading to Prague which is a pretty interesting stop for the organization that seems obsessed with a show on every city in every country in the world at some point. Prague's getting a very European card; a good main event, some good undercard filler but nothing that feels like it has a definitive place in the universe. A lot of this card will be forgotten, probably even before the end of the day. At the same time, some really good European prospects are on here, the main event is superb and there's some fun filler action fights within the fluff. It isn't the sort of card you'll remember three days from now but hopefully for an early morning Saturday hang out, we'll all do just fine!

Fights: 13

Debuts:  Ismail Naurdiev, Joel Alvarez, Klidson Abreu

Fight Changes/Injury Cancellations: 3 (Sam Alvez vs Gadzhimurad Antigulov/Ramazan Emeev OUT, Ismail Naurdiev vs Michel Prezares/Darko Stosic OUT, Klidson Abreu IN vs Magomed Ankalaev)

Headliners (fighters who have either main evented or co-main evented shows in the UFC): 10 (Francis Ngannou, Cain Velasquez, Andre Fili, Jimmie Rivera, Paul Felder, James Vick, Cynthia Calvillo, Alex Caceres, Jessica Penne, Renan Barao)

Fighters On Losing Streaks in the UFC: 2 (Stefan Struve, Daniel Teymur)

Fighters On Winning Streaks in the UFC: 6 (Thiago Santos, Jan Blachowicz, Petr Yan, Michel Prezares, Rustam Khabilov, Carlos Diego Ferreira)

Main Card Record Since Jan 1st 2017 (in the UFC): 24-15

Jan Blachowicz- 4-1 Thiago Santos- 7-1 Marcos Rogerio De Lima- 2-1 Stefan Struve- 0-3 Michal Oleksiejczuk- 0-0 Gian Villante- 2-3 Liz Carmouche- 1-1 Lucie Pudilova- 2-2 Jon Dodson- 2-2 Petr Yan- 3-0 Magomed Ankalaev- 1-1 Klidson Abreu- 0-0

Fights By Weight Class (yearly number here):

Light Heavyweight- 3 (6) Lightweight- 3 (12) Women’s Flyweight- 2 (7) Welterweight- 2 (8) Bantamweight- 1 (8) Heavyweight- 1 (4) Featherweight- 1 (6)

Women’s Strawweight- 3 (4) Middleweight- (4) Flyweight- (4)

2019’s Records We Keepin Track Of:

Debuting Fighters (3-10): Ismail Naurdiev, Joel Alvarez, Klidson Abreu

Short Notice Fighters (2-4): Ismail Naurdiev, Klidson Abreu

Second Fight (11-3):  Chris Fishgold, Damir Ismagulov, Dwight Grant, Michal Oleksiejczuk

Cage Corrosion (Fighters who have not fought within a year of the date of the fight) (3-5): Michal Oleksiejczuk, Polo Reyes

Undefeated Fighters (4-8):

Fighters with at least four fights in the UFC with 0 wins over competition still in the organization (1-2):

Weight Class Jumpers (Fighters competing outside of the weight class of their last fight even if they’re returning BACK to their “normal weight class”) (5-4): Lucie Pudilova

Twelve Precarious Ponderings

1- Number of fights from 2017 onward for the two dudes in the main event: 13/2 = 6.5 fights per dude

Number of fights from 2017 onward for the rest of the main card: 26/10 = 2.6 fights per person

That's normally not that discrepant.

2- There's something really weirdly cool about this main event. It's the best and worst of 205 lbs all at once and I'm kinda enjoying that madness. Thiago Santos vs Jan Blachowicz pits a dude who started 2018 as a middleweight whooping another middleweight who is now fighting for the LHW title. He fights so often and is so much damn fun that he's like an action version of Michael Bisping; winning is amplified because it seems like he always does it and losses are hard to ever dwell on because he's back in there before people realize. His ascension at 205 lbs seems weird until you realize that he's probably equal to Jan Blachowicz's best win too. SPEAKING of Jan, he debuted and wiped out Ilir Latifi and then the UFC decided the next course of action was to throw him in there with Jimi Manuwa and THEN try Rumble Johnson. Rumble fight fell apart (Thank God) and Jan wound up getting decisioned vs Corey Anderson.  He got a gimmie vs Igor Pokrajac that he ALMOST lost then fought Alexander Gustafsson and Patrick Cummins back to back. Four straight wins including a redemption win in an awesome fight vs Jimi Manuwa has gotten him back here. This is a battle between a guy who was rushed and rebounded vs a guy who was flailing at 185 lbs then realized he could just beat up on a bunch of dudes at 205 lbs if he wanted to. I'm with it.

3- Imagine not wanting to see Thiago Santos vs Jon Jones. It may last a round but it'd be worth the price of admission.

4- Stefan Struve co-main eventing in 2019 is proof that the co-main event down doesn't matter anymore.

5- The true co-main event is Petr Yan vs John Dodson although I have questions about said fight. In all truthfulness, this fight should be at the top of the helm just under Blachowicz vs Santos. My guess beyond just genuine concern about yet another bantamweight decision in a big fight is that they sort of realized that this fight is inherently risky for Yan and don't want to put him in the co-main spot just to have Dodson 29-28 him. The counter argument would be "Well then why book him with a spoiler?" but I guess they figure they'd get that out of the way first before they move onto bigger and better things? Hopefully?

6- We're about to get our once a year Liz Carmouche fight and it's a pretty damn good one with Lucie Pudilova. Pudilova has become something of a force to be reckoned with as this march forward all hands and feet no defense action style brawler. She and Irene Aldana had one of those awesome fights you might've forgotten about last year and Pudilova's style is something that 125 lbs could really use even if it has a limited shelf life. Liz Carmouche is going to clinch and grapple a lot so here's hoping Pudilova's takedown defense and strength is up to par for it.

7- Michel Prezares is here to fight a bunch of fights at 170 lbs until he loses and then eventually get cut. The Ramazan Emeev fight felt like another attempt at getting him out of here but now he's getting a short notice dude in Ismail Naurdiev. Feel the need to point out Prezares is undefeated in the UFC vs short notice fighters.

8- Chris Fishgold vs David Teymur should be really, really interesting. Chris Fishgold is really good European fighter who had a pretty tough debut vs Calvin Kattar where he DID put on a pretty good performance in a first round defeat. David Teymur has had a rough go of of it but look who he's fighting when it's Danny Henry and Julio Arce. This is a really good regional European MMA style fight.

9- Damir Hadzovic vs Polo Reyes is a damn good fight and I will not have you jokers disparage that.

10- I feel like there's a direct correlation between Gian Villante and genuinely bad MMA cards on paper. He and Sam Alvey are like the common denominators.

11- Carlo Pedersoli vs Dwight Grant is another really good fight that sort of has no meaning or purpose but should be fun for entertainment sake.

12- It’s a European card so guess what! Rustam Khabilov is here!

[talking-head-productions]

If I Go Back In Time Part 2

I realized that were I to actually pitch the movie, the executives and producers would probably ask about more movies going forward. After all, this is supposed to be a cinematic universe to compete with Marvel. I've given it some thought- firstly, the casting of the heroes will be the same, because as far as I'm concerned they all did okay. Secondly, here's a list of possible films in my version of the DCEU:

Man of Steel 2

Plot: See the old post.

To Be Released: Given I said I'd go back to 2012, earliest release would probably be mid 2014

Marketing Notes: Keep it to a minimum. Maybe 2 trailers and a handful of tv spots. Around 4 minutes of footage total, all of it from the first half of the movie. Lower people's expectations a little so they can be surprised if it's any good.

Wonder Woman

Plot: Mostly the same as the one we got for real, but a few significant changes...

Lois Lane is the one conversing with Diana about the photograph, not Batman.

Ares did not kill all of the gods, they simply withdrew from the world of man once humans got too violent. They're in some pocket dimension version of Mount Olympus, waiting for future movies.

Diana does not think that Danny Houston's character is Ares. But she does think he knows where Ares is, because she has a very black-and-white view of the world right now, and Steve told her that Britain and their allies were the good guys. So obviously Ares is on the side of the 'bad' guys, the Germans.

Towards the middle of the movie, when Charlie the sniper is having his breakdown, Diana takes him aside and tells him that the older Amazons still have nightmares about battles from thousands of years ago. It's nothing to be ashamed of. It tends to help them when their friends are nearby. Now, they're not going to force him to fight, but they do want him to come with them. After all, if he stays, who will sing for them? I just think that having that conversation beforehand would be a bit more respectful of his condition. Also it comes back in the climax, Diana at one point has a gun to the back of her head in the middle of a fight, and Charlie shoots the guy first.

When Ares shows up towards the climax, he's actually a good guy who's been trying to end the war peacefully. Turns out, the mythology Diana was taught was wrong. The gods withdrew towards the end of the reign of the first Amazon queen, Otrera. Otrera according to the real world myths had a fling with Ares, which probably ended badly. Here, she would have lied about the reason for the gods' leaving just because she doesn't like Ares. And turns out, mankind really are just a bunch of warmongering assholes. Sometimes.

The real big bad is Doctor Poison. She uses Diana's discarded sword to stab Ares in the back, poisons Diana to weaken her, then huffs some of her own super-serum gas to make the boss battle a fair(-ish) fight.

When Steve comes up to Diana to tell her about his plan to destroy the plane, she can hear him and actually gives him her blessing. So no more 'hung up on her ex' version! It's just not possible if she told him to do it.

There are a couple bits of set up for the next film. First, at some point underwater ruins are mentioned, and Diana asks if Atlantis has fallen in the war. Steve asks if it actually exists, to which Diana replies, “Last time I knew...” The second part is a mid-credits scene where Lois sends Diana another message, asking her to look at a video. The video is exactly the same as the one we got in BvS, of Aquaman underwater stabbing the camera with his trident. During the clip, we hear a part of what will be Aquaman's theme, same as how WW's theme played in her pre-credits scene.

To Be Released: Probably late 2015, early 2016

Marketing Notes: Nothing is released or announced regarding this film until after MoS 2 has been in theaters for a week. I want people to go absolutely fucking apeshit in theaters when they realize that Wonder Woman of all characters will be the next film. Considering how she'd been regarded by Warner Bros. in the past.

The Aquaman

Plot: It's like a crazy Star Wars/Black Panther/Moana fusion. An Operatic Superhero Political-and-Family Drama based out of a futuristic Polynesian magitek version of Atlantis, with only a few scenes above the water.

To Be Released: Mid to late 2017.

Marketing Notes: Don't have a lot of action in the trailers. There will be action in the movie, including a badass final fight, but it'll be less than most superhero films. Focus on the drama in the trailers to accurately represent the movie.

Knight of Gotham

Plot: This movie will be the smallest scale movie in the franchise. It'll focus in on Batman's detective skills more than anything (though he'll still kick major ass).When the movie begins, all of Batman's more famous foes are locked up in Arkham Asylum. He hasn't been seen much lately. So smaller criminals are starting to think it's safe to operate in Gotham again. Mob boss Don Carmine Falcone wants in on it. So he puts out a hit on Commissioner Gordon, the only non-corrupt official in the city. The first taker is Deadshot (setting him up for you-know-what, but a better version). After that a couple of small-time killers. Then Ra's Al-Ghul shows up and tells Batman that every assassin not a part of the League will likely be heading to Gotham to try and kill James Gordon. However, there's only one to really be concerned about: a man named Victor Zsasz. The rest of the film is a cat-and-mouse game between Batman (plus Jim and Batgirl) and Zsasz, culminating in a boss fight that would rival both John Wick movies put together. At the end, Zsasz is a sore loser and blows up Arkham, releasing the villains for future films. At some point, Batman talked to Deadshot in prison and got him to give up Falcone as the one who put out the hit, so Falcone goes to jail and Deadshot is placed in lesser security, with his name marked under the Task Force X label.

To Be Released: Early to mid 2018.

Marketing Notes: Give a significant amount of focus to Batgirl's involvement. People will love that, so long as there's no hint of anything between her and Bruce (there won't be).

Justice League

Plot: We introduce The Flash and Cyborg as a comedic duo of superheroes from STAR Labs, with a dynamic not too dissimilar from Deadpool and Cable, or maybe Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch. The villain of the film is Abra Kadabra, a Flash villain from the distant future who uses nanomachines to do... a lot of different things. He styles himself after a stage magician. As a character in the film, he wants to shunt the Earth into a pocket dimension (make the whole world... disappear!) in order to save it from future disasters. However, the process would kill most of humanity, which is why the League have to stop him. It takes all five powered heroes to hold him down, while Batman delivers the disabling blow using one of his gadgets.

To Be Released: Day after New Year's, 2019.

Marketing Notes: In the film, Abra Kadabra will use his powers to shape shift into the heroes at multiple points. We can use this to run a “Who can you trust?” tagline, with emphasis on the fights, because this movie is spectacle incarnate. With a simple plot.

Man of Steel 3

Plot: This is the one where Lex Luthor reveals his true nature. The big fight will be Warsuit Lex vs Superman. Kryptonite will be introduced here. Other than that, I'm not sure.

To Be Released: Fall 2019.

Marketing Notes: Fake anti-Superman propaganda clips put out by Lex Corp.

Wonder Woman 2

Plot: Villain will probably be Cheetah, since she's the one of the most popular. Might be good to have Diana team up with Flash, just to bring that fun element in, and maybe some time travel stuff. Possibly bringing Steve Trevor back.

To Be Released: Late spring 2020.

Marketing Notes: If Flash is involved, focus on his and Diana's dynamic.

Gotham Sirens

Plot: Catwoman and Lady Shiva have been partners in thievery for a while now. They're hired by Silver St Cloud to steal a sacred amulet (it's actually magic), and they decide to team up with Arkham escapees Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn for the extra muscle. Ivy has her own plans, however, and it involves using the amulet to turn the whole city into a jungle.The reason they needed the extra muscle to steal the amulet is because it was guarded by a private security firm named Grayson and Sons. One guess to who the survivor of the Siren's attack is. Yeah, this movie introduces Nightwing (he skips the Robin identity). He teams up with Batman, Batgirl, and most likely our two thieves to stop Poison Ivy.

To Be Released: Mid fall 2020. Hitting a rhythm now.

Marketing Notes: One half of the material is about the all-girl villain team, the other half is about the growing Bat Family.

Fall of Justice: Tower of Babel

Plot: After Abra Kadabra's tricks, Batman realized how dangerous the rest of the League were and created weapons to stop them if they ever went bad. Unfortunately, someone (maybe Joker? Who would not be played by Jared Leto- I'm thinking Nicholas Hoult, considering his performance as Nux in Mad Max Fury Road) has stolen those weapons and the League is in genuine danger. If not the Joker, perhaps The Rogues came over from Central City and this is Leonard Snart's origin as Captain Cold (the cold gun is in the weapon cache).

To Be Released: Spring 2021.

Marketing Notes: This'll be the darkest entry in the canon so far. Someone will probably die, though who I don't know. Probably a supporting character, but an important one.

There will of course be more movies, but I'm not sure of the order or most of the details. Here's a really quick list:

Constantine (introduce the weird mythos of Dream and the Endless)

Dark Justice (aka, Justice League Dark- the villain will be Enchantress)

Titans (a second superhero team is started by Nightwing and includes Beast Boy, Starfire, and a couple others, and Deathstroke is the villain)

Crisis on Infinite Earths (eventually)

Fall of Justice: The Crime Syndicate (evil versions of our heroes from another Earth)

Flashpoint (without the major reboot aspect)

An Untitled Green Lantern Film (used to introduce planets like Thanagar and Tamaran, as well as the Manhunters)

Identity Crisis (without the “Doctor Light is a serial rapist” part)

Final Crisis (not the last movie)

Suicide Squad (alternately titled “Task Force X”, with a different villain)

Untitled Justice League Sequel (with the Legion of Doom as the bad guys)

Untitled Titans Sequel (with Brother Blood as the villain)

New Gods (I don't know enough about them to even speculate, but this oughta be cool)

Untitled Man of Steel Sequel (uses “Death of Superman” plot)

The Dark Knight Lives (at some point, probably in a League film, Bruce Wayne retired and Batman was believed to be dead. Now he comes back, because Gotham City truly does need him)

Batman Beyond (so it turns out Bruce needs to retire, too, so he finds a protege to take his place)

Justice League Kingdom Come

Man of Steel: Rising Son (deals with the “multiple heroes trying to be Superman” scenario from the comics, before bringing Kal-El himself back)

Shazam

Green Arrow

Untitled Flash Movie

Untitled Green Lantern Sequel

Untitled Justice League Dark Sequel

Blue and Gold (Blue Beetle and Booster Gold buddy comedy film)

All Female Justice League Film

The final film in the entire universe would be titled Fall of Justice: Blackest Night (the “FoJ” title is applied to all the truly dark entries). This is the finale because it would include every character ever introduced in all the films, at least as a cameo; even the dead ones would return as Black Lanterns.

[textsfromumbridge]

Can you do the second reunited au with the singer for Enjonine? :D

“this is so unfair there’s this song getting popular and the singer sounds like you and all these lyrics almost sound like they could be about me but you’re singing about lost love and you weren’t in love with me wait I’m watching the music video and crying and hey that’s definitely you wtf” au

(for you, always, even doing this TWICE because my laptop fucked up and closed the wrong thing and made me lose EVERYTHING)

…

Her arms are held tightly behind her back by a burly security guard, while his comrade talks into a walkie. It leaves her free to kick at him, but she doesn’t appear to be doing much damage to him, seeing as he’s a head taller and about three or four times her weight. 

“This is a violation of my rights,” she hollers as loudly as she possibly can. “I didn’t do anything and then mister Gorilla just grabbed me.”

How she ended up like this? Well, that is quite a story. 

This whole thing started back in freshman year of high school, when she had a stupid crush on her old neighbor Marius. He’d just always been nice to her even when everything went to shit. 

Not the point. 

So, to make him notice her, she started hanging out with his friends, all guys and most of them pretty damn cute. And she figured, why not make Marius jealous by hanging out with these boys and talking to them and maybe doing a little flirting?!

Well, it only worked with one guy. The only times Marius ever got annoyed was when she talked to Gabriel, the friend Marius only referred to as Enjolras. 

The first time she backed Gabriel up in a discussion, Marius about had a coronary before dragging Eponine off to lecture her about how Enjolras was a bad influence and she should not be hanging out with him. 

These guys were surprisingly hostile towards each other for people who were considered friends. They yelled at each other about most everything, from general political theory to popular culture to the merits of Napoleon. Gabriel usually made more sense than Marius, but she was never going to say that to her stupid crush. 

So she continued to side with Gabriel (when he wasn’t blatantly wrong about everything), figuring that Marius would soon figure out that he was just jealous of Eponine’s support and attention. She continued to think that until Marius showed up with a pretty blonde girlfriend Eponine recognized from a girl she’d been in a group home with after the first time her parents got arrested. 

She didn’t get along with the little bird then, and she knew that was not going to change - Marius was already lost to her. 

But by then she’d actually started to like Gabriel as a person. He was her friend, even though he was the epitome of a rich, privileged white boy and there was no way their worlds were supposed to collide like this. 

Still, he made sure to listen to her point of view, and he did not try to force any charity on her and her siblings. Most of the kind things he tried to do for them were framed as being a part of a decent friendship, and she let him do that - because there had been many a time when she’d hidden him from a debutant his parents were desperate to set him up with. 

His parents were terrible elitist snobs and she occasionally wondered how they even managed to spawn such a sincere son - until she realized what a terrifying force of nature Gabriel could be. All for the sake of a better world, of course. 

The friendship lasted all through high school, but by senior year her now best friend started keeping secrets and keeping his distance from her. Clearly he’d figured out that she’d started having not so platonic feelings for him and was trying to let her down gently and with her dignity intact. 

When they went to colleges on opposite sides of the country, the damage was already done. He’d helped her so much with applications and scholarships, but they couldn’t manage to bring their friendship back to where it used to be. 

She hadn’t seen him in six years, not since that dreadful Thanksgiving sophomore year of college, and while she did miss the boy he used to be quite terribly, she’d managed without him. Even though that stupid crush had never quite gone away completely. 

That and her college friend Chetta, while amazing, could not quite replace her Gabe. And he was hers, in a lot of the ways that mattered - that nickname was hers and hers alone. But now, after six years? There was no telling how many boys and girls would have been allowed to call him that over the years. 

Even though she definitely worked with a big part of their target demographic, she’d barely heard of Les Amis de L’ABC - only to understand the French pun inherent in their name (her high school fosters had taught her that language). But they were obviously a boyband, so she hadn’t actually bothered with the band members or the songs. 

Until fourteen year old Claire, one of her favorite clients and a big fan of the Amis, had a terrible day and all she wanted was to listen to her favorite band with her social worker. Eponine figured she could tune out for most of it - she’d put herself through a lot if it helped her kids. 

And then Claire played the first song, the latest single “The First To Fall”. It seemed slightly different than the average boyband fair, but it was obviously still a love song - it had to be. 

When the lead singer started to sing, Eponine just about choked on air. It sounded like him, like that time in junior year when he revealed that he was actually quite the singer and he made her blush by crooning a classic in the secrecy of her bedroom. 

“Is something wrong?” Claire was always astute. 

“Just a bit of a cough,” Eponine tried really hard to sound casual. “Just start again at the beginning.” 

Claire listened well, for once, and Eponine steeled herself. She just had to get through this one song without choking on the memories of a high school crush and her first real love. She could do that. 

Until she heard the lyrics to the chorus: “I was the first to fall / you built your barricade / I fight here in your name / feelings won’t be betrayed”. 

Feelings? How did this song sound so much like him, like them? How did this singer manage to sing her high school experience back to her?

It couldn’t be! 

“So, what did you think?” Claire asked. 

“Not bad for a boyband,” Eponine shrugged. 

Of course, Claire considered that very high praise from her usually so stoic social worker, and pulled up the music video, just to torture Eponine some more. Oh, she wasn’t doing it on purpose, but Eponine really did start to believe in karma at that point. 

She obviously deserved this pain. 

Ferre was the first one she recognized, dorky glasses exchanged for a model that was a little more hip, and his pin straight hair styled into a messy just out of bed look. He’d come a long way from the geek he was in high school, unlike Courf, who looked basically the same as he did back then. 

And then the screen was filled with Gabriel Enjolras himself.

That and a single ticket to an almost sold-out concert is what led her to this point, being held by Burly Security Dude right at the entrance to the backstage area. 

“I just need to talk to Gabriel,” she is trying to explain to Walkie Guy. “I went to high school with these idiots. You can just tell him Eponine is here.” 

Burly Guy continues to have a tight hold on her hands, and she knows that there will be bruises. She is not a fangirl, but clearly they think she is out here for nefarious reasons. 

It should make her happy that Gabe and the boys are so well-protected, but right now she just sees it as a giant annoyance. She is someone they actually know, and someone Gabe will actually want to see - or so she hopes. 

“I promise to leave if he won’t see me,” she vows. “I’d cross my heart and hope to die but I’m losing feeling in my hands.” 

That finally loosens Burly’s grip, and he actually appears to look a little guilty as he sees the state of her wrists. She would feel triumphant if she wasn’t exhausted and in pain, but at least Walkie is finally trying to get in touch with Gabriel for her. 

She waits for only a minute or so, but it feels like three days. 

“Apparently she’s cool,” Walkie only seems slightly skeptical. “You can follow the PA and he’ll take you straight to Mr. Enjolras.” 

With some muttering about how he isn’t aware Mr. Enjolras even has a first name, Burly holds the door open for her. The PA boy - is he even old enough to buy his artists alcohol? - is already waiting for her, motioning for her to follow him down a partly lit hallway. 

There’s a door at the end of the hall, and just like the last one it is opened for her. The PA waits for her to enter the room before closing it behind her, leaving her in a dressing room with just… Gabe!

“Eponine,” his voice is deeper than it used to be as it wraps around her name. 

His blond hair is longer than the spikier look he had in high school - he looks more like Danny Zuko now than he did in their version of the musical. There are hints of laughter lines around his bright eyes, and it looks like he finally filled out his formerly gangly form. 

But his bright smile is somehow exactly the same - it even has the same butterfly-inducing effect. 

“Gabe,” she almost whispers. 

He hears her, judging by how his smile gets impossibly wider. He’s pretty much giving the Joker a run for his money at this point. 

“I can’t believe you’re here,” he breathes. 

Before she can say another word, he pulls her in close for a hug that isn’t quite like the ones they used to share. The smell she breathes in is similar but not quite the same, but her head still ends up snuggling into his neck business. 

Oh, she still remembers that ridiculous rant fondly. 

Just when she relaxes in his arms, her arms having rediscovered their old familiar place around his waist, he pulls away slightly. They are no longer hugging, but he still pulls her into his side. 

“I missed you,” he is somehow still smiling. 

Can they really just slip right back into a friendship after six years of nothing, and does she even want that? Sure, she’d be lucky if he still wants to be her friend, but after that song she’s wondering if maybe, just maybe, there is more still in the cards for them. 

“You were in love with me?” she has to ask about the song. 

It’s been going through her head ever since she heard that damn song - he did have feelings for her then. Unless it’s all for the song, but she doubts that. He never used to be that kind of guy. 

Gabe has always been open and genuine about his feelings - except for senior year. She thought it had been about her crush - but maybe not. 

“You didn’t know?” Gabe appears stunned. 

“Of course I didn’t know you felt the same way,” she is exhausted and the words just slip out. 

He freezes briefly, and then he presses a soft kiss into her hair. 

“We’re idiots,” he mutters. 

“Not so much anymore,” she grins as she finally pulls him down to kiss her. 

[arzuera]

Alrighty, I'll give this a go! I hope you don't mind put I pulled your prompt to hold a special edition of @haunting-heroes-creative-games 's semi-regular Who Wrote That? games - with the writer's choice of a few select prompts from tumblr! I picked yours <3 ---------

“One day, Bats! One day! That’s all it will take!”

“That’s enough, Joker!”

“Oh? What are you going to do? Kill me? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Danny groaned to himself. The loud noises around him rousing the teen out of a dead (ha) sleep. It took him a moment to realize where he was. It was dark. But there were small beams of light that seeped through the cracks in the wall he was hiding in. It wasn’t much but he could get an idea of what was going on in the room.

Pulling himself up, his body was screaming at him to lay back down. To rest. He had taken one to many shots from the GIW and it was only a matter of time until they found him again. Taking the chance to rest when he could was vital. Yet, his core wouldn’t let him. Something was telling him to pay attention. Even for just a little bit. So Danny tried to shake the fuzz that was clouding his mind to figure out what was driving his core to be so protective.

“You know, I don’t kill, Joker.” the gruff reply came from a black blob in the distance. There were a few other colorful blobs surrounding one that was mainly purple.

“For now. But one day. One slip. Is all it will take and once that happens… I win.” Joker laughed holding a remote in his hand. “As of this moment, the entire city of Gotham is at my mercy and so are you Bats. If I get hurt, if I hit this button… the all the hidden stores of Joker gas will be unleashed upon the entire city. It doesn’t matter what you would do. There isn’t any way that you could get there in time to save everyone. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Danny growled holding his throbbing head from the Joker’s grating laughter. Standing up and then floating, he made his way over to where the clown prince of crime was backed up to the wall. Even at this close proximity, the heroes and villain still looked like blobs. His concussion may be worse than he originally thought. “Okay… enough of that.”

“What? Who said th- GAH!” Joker screamed as Danny phased his hand through the wall and pressed it to the ground. Ice sprouted from his fingertips and scaled up the clown until he was completely immobilized from the neck down. He didn’t care if using his power might out him. He just really wanted the clown to shut up.

But his strength was failing him. Danny felt himself fall forward into the open. Landing in a pile at the clown’s feet with a pained groan. “If you wanna talk about bad days? I’ve been having a bad day.” Danny groused from the floor. Not bothering to lift his head and choosing to let everyone else figure out what his muffled words meant.

“What?! Just who do you think you are you pest-mmm! Mmmmm! Mm!” Joker’s words were cut off as ice crept up and sealed his lips shut.

Danny sighed in relief now that the grating voice wasn’t causing waves of pain in his skull. “Ahh… that’s so much better.”

“Uh… kid? You okay?” one of the colorful blobs got closer and knelt down beside him. Giving Danny the chance to finally see who was talking other than the Joker. It was Nightwing. The black and blue combo of the suit was a dead giveaway.

“Great… never better.” Danny grumbled and let Nightwing nudge him so that he was on his back. “First I get outed to my parents who kick me out then a government agency chases and CATCHES me. But I escaped before I got vivisected, so that has to count for something right?”

“You do realize that doesn’t make things sound better right?” Red Robin spoke up as he approached the frozen villain with a frustrated sigh. “Do you mind unfreezing the remote so I can get it out?”

Danny offered the vigilante a thumbs up from the floor and he could hear the other teen struggle to get the device out of the clown’s hands. “Well, what else am I supposed to say? That its great that, while on the run, I ended up in Gotham and accidentally found a group of people who should have been helping me so that my life didn’t get to this point. But nooooooo… the Justice League just thinks Amity Park is weird and NOT haunted by ghosts. Yet, here we are!”

“Kid… what are you talking about…? What is Amity park- oh these injuries are bad and your eyes are tracking my finger. Guys this kid has a concussion.” Nightwing called behind him to the others as he very carefully picked up Danny, who was now close enough to see the frown appear on his face from how light he was.

Before anyone else could ask Danny anymore questions, the door was blasted off its hinges and in walked several men in white holding weapons that looked like they came out of a cheesy sci-fi film. “Oh great… the government assholes are back.” Danny grumbled as he tried to morph into his Phantom form only to hiss as pain shot through his entire body.

“Uh.. kid? Just what did you do to make the government mad?”

“Exist.”

“Hn… Nightwing, get the kid out of here. Red Robin, keep working deactivating whatever Joker has on him. Black Bat, Spoiler, and Robin, we are going to get information from these newcomers.” The growly voice of Batman left no room for argument.

Danny felt Nightwing move and, within moments, they were no longer in the weird building he had decided to hide in and were sailing through the sky via a grapple. “Sooo… what’s your name kid? And is there anything the hospital should know about when I take you there”

“No hospitals.” Danny groaned but didn’t have the strength to fight against the strong arms that held him. “They would have to legally turn me into those guys who just stormed the building.”

Nightwing hummed in thought. “Okay. No hospitals. I can take you to a friend who has her own kind of clinic. On that note, I can’t very well keep calling you kid all night.”

If it wouldn’t hurt his head so much, Danny would have rolled his eyes. He could tell that the vigilante was fishing for information. But they hadn’t, immediately, handed him over to the GIW so maybe there was some hope to this predicament after all. “Danny. Daniel Fenton. I’m from Amity Park, Illinois and I was forced out when my parents learned of my ghost status that falls under the Anti-Ecto Acts. The GIW has been hunting me ever since I got kicked out and they are a government agency. So please don’t mind me being skeptical over this ‘rescue’ since you guys are part of the government.” At this, Nightwing laughed hard and had to stop on a roof to catch his breath. “What? What’d I say?”

“We work *with * governments. We don’t work *for * them. Vigilantes are actually very much illegal in most countries but since they are kind of a necessity nowadays? Those laws kind of get… ignored.” Nightwing was grinning from ear to ear as he relayed this information to Danny who froze in surprise.

That… that made a lot of sense.

“So could you please tell me which laws those were again? They sound like they would be in direct violation of the Meta Protection Acts and it’s been a little while since we’ve had a good reason to take down a government agency.”

“Wait… you believe me? Just like that?” Danny fumbled over his words and squinted to try and make out Nightwing’s face better. The vigilante just laughed again.

“Well, we have seen some pretty crazy things in our lives and it could be easy to miss something such as ghosts. You are innocent until proven otherwise.” Nightwing paused and Danny could hear someone else speaking through the comms in the vigilante’s ear. “So I have to ask, is the ice Joker is trapped in lethal or…?”

“No. Not unless I decide to make it colder. It also won’t go away unless I will it too.”

Nightwing hummed thoughtfully again. “That’s pretty handy. Okay! Let’s get you to our doctor friend! This may be your worst day so far but it isn’t over yet. Let’s see if we can’t make it better.”

Danny huffed but settled in Nightwing’s arms a they began sailing through the air again. He hadn’t even intended to end up in Gotham. Let alone accidentally find the local vigilantes’ cornering one of their more dangerous villains. Maybe… maybe this wouldn’t end like he thought it would.

Maybe there was still some hope left.

@haunting-heroes-creative-games

Danny’s hiding in the walls when the Bats corner the Joker and the clown starts spewing stuff about how if they kill him they’ll be just like him, one bad day etc. etc. so Danny just… freezes him.