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buttofgrayson · 4 years ago

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As someone, who's favorite character is Dick Grayson and I find often reasons to be angry at or even hate the batfam, can I ask you to rank them from your most preferred character to the one you dislike the most?

Haha you feel my pain! Yeah being a Dick Grayson fan is rough when it comes to the batfamily. Let's see if I can rank them for ya!

1. Dick Grayson

Of course my favorite batfamily member and my favorite fictional character of all time! I tend to really like characters I feel like I would like if they were a real person and Dick fits that perfectly. Not only that I feel like he works as a character more than so many others. He's Batman and Superman without their narrative problems (being to powerful, not able to be an underdog, limited story potential, lack of fun). So honestly I think he's DC's best protagonist. Likeable, admirable, fun, sexy and exciting and engaging. Dick has this energy to his character that leaps off the page and it just pulls you to him.

2. Barbara Gordon

I love Barbara so much and really always longed for better stories for her. She's someone (like Dick) that you really feel like you would like and admire even if they were real. She works amazing as a character and could fill almost any role you want for her. So versatile. Personally though I think she's pretty hard headed and can come off as very condescending. I feel she's kinda bad at thinking about others feelings because she's just so in touch with her own. Not a total bad thing but something that can be a bit annoying.

3. Bruce Wayne

As I get older I find myself amazed at how much more interesting the rest of the batfamily is compared to Bruce. He's like our window into these more likeable characters lol. That sounds bad. I like Bruce because he's such a pure idea. You always understand his actions through the person you know him to be. He's such a clear understandable character that you can instantly spot something he says or does that's off because "Bruce wouldn't say or do that". He has a consistent voice. As a person? He's infuriating. He's hard headed and he expects his family to take sacrifices for him just because it's what he wants. He's been especially terrible to Dick but in all its consistent with the person I know him to be.

4. Cassandra Cain

Cassandra just like Bruce is a very boiled down consistent character. And she's best girl! So strong and so caring she really is a lot like Dick. More than a lot of other batfamily members (minus the quips). And she just has such an interesting backstory and themes of her own. I can't find things to dislike about her. The only thing is that I'm just more likely to read other batfamily characters because sometimes she can be a bit one note.

5. Damian Wayne

Damian is a mistake. He should've never been invented. As a character his entire purpose is "what if batman had a son?" But he does. He had three of them already. Damian's existence actively makes the batfamily worse because it takes from all his brothers relationship with Bruce in a "well those weren't his REAL sons" sort of way. This was the moment there became too many batman characters. Does he work as a Robin? Yes. Does he work as a Robin as well as Tim? No. So why is Damian higher on the list than Tim? Because Damian breaks everything around him but isn't broken as a character. As a person though I like Damian a lot. His demeanor as a mean kid is pretty charming and it makes it really mean something when he progresses and is actually a really good person.

6. Tim Drake

Poor Tim. He's too old to be Robin and too young to be his own man. Red Robin and Drake both didn't really work well as identities and at this point he might just be the character with the most unused potential. It sucks because this character used to work so well. He works as THE NEW ROBIN! A Robin for the new age! Kinda spiderman-like. Learning from the successes and mistakes of his predecessors and making his way to be Robin the way he wants to be. It works so well! He's so likeable and charming and he fits the role so well. Sadly he doesn't have it anymore. Big oof. Sorry Tim.

7. Jason Todd

Jason is a broken character. And I don't mean that in a "he's so broken and sad!" Kind of way. I literally mean he doesn't work in a storytelling sense. He's incredibly inconsistent. A muddled character because people wanted to have their cake and eat it too. They want Jason to be a killer who hunts criminals and is against the batfamily but they also want him to be a part of the batfamily and to have his murders overlooked. It makes no sense unless you want everyone involved to look like an idiot. Look guys I know the animated movie was good but that character that was in that movie is only worth telling that one story with. Keeping him as the killer villian would be to tell that story over and over again (like we've been doing forever) and making him a proper batfamily member would take everything his fans like about him away from him. Jason isn't who fans want him to be either. He isn't charming or funny or sexy like Dick. He's pretty unlikeable and the parts you like about him is the parts he got from Dick (and Dick does better). I know I sound like I hate Jason but I really don't want to. It's just the honest truth.

8. Stephanie Brown

How dare I! Stephanie is best girl! She really is. I think she's pretty fun and likeable. I never dislike seeing her or anything. I like her spoiler costume a lot. So why is she so low on the list? Because I don't know much about her. Something really just stopped me from connecting to this character and I don't know why? Unlike Damian or Jason I have zero strong feelings for Stephanie in either direction and that's almost as bad as if I disliked her. I don't know there just hasn't been a hook for me to feel like she's worth taking a dive into. I can tell at the very least she is a better character than Jason but aside from that I can't say I like her. I have no attachment to her.

#nightwing #Dick Grayson #barabra gordon #batgirl #Oracle #Bruce Wayne #batman #Cassandra cain #spoiler #tim drake #red robin #damian wayne #robin #red hood #jason todd #Stephanie brown #batfamily #orphan #dc comics

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bigskydreaming · 3 years ago

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I'm so used to Dick getting hit because his family or friend was annoyed and decided he was the closest wall to punch that I never expect anything different anywhere, and then Young Justice s3 and Titans s2 caught me by the neck and threw me into a pool of unexpected catharsis. I never expected Dick to defend himself, I never expected the catharsis, I never expected how much it'd affect me. Although now that Titans s3 is upon us with a Dick vs Jason fight I'm back to the default.

I really, really, REALLY wish more people had even the slightest idea of the catharsis that can come from one character just fucking INTERVENING in a situation like we see happen so often in fics and the comics and just be like....no. That is not fucking okay. And like, without that, it literally is just...permissive? Like when Jason punches Dick in Grayson #12 after the Spyral thing, and Tim just stands there.....Tim's essentially saying its okay, he sees nothing wrong with what just happened. Which....dun dun dun....not all that surprisingly then turned into Tim punching Dick in Batman and Robin Eternal.....again with nobody upset.

Its why I've never even been able to like, go with the idea that Alfred or any of the Titans knew about what happened between Bruce and Dick in NTT #55, specifically, because like....I can't make peace with nobody saying anything about that ever. Bruce is a Big Time Superhero. Who frequently rubs people the wrong way. I don't buy that nobody's ever gonna throw that back in his face to make a point about how he's got no business being holier than thou about various topics. *Shrugs*

But yeah, unfortunately its not just canon. Like, I've read a fic where the prompt was literally like....people being glad to see Dick back from Spyral and getting actual catharsis for everything he went through instead of what we got in canon....so I went into the fic like okay, cool, this is exactly what I'm looking for. LOL nah, we got Jason STILL punching Dick anyway, even AFTER finding out about the events of NW #30 and Dick actually having died, and like, Jason was still so pissed at Dick for not TELLING them this that NOW, THAT'S why he just has to punch Dick before THEN hugging him and saying okay I just had to get that out, but now I'm over it and glad you're back.

And I was just like.....ummm. The author and people in the comments are treating this like an lol moment where all's well that end's well, and I'm like ARE YOU KIDDING ME, THAT'S THE EXACT SAME ISSUE CANON PRESENTED. Only now its WORSE, because people act like that addressed and resolved it, but with it STILL including Jason punching Dick cuz he was mad, and now with this even MORE formally being treated as like....something fine and necessary to repair their relationship. And all of this is packaged as like...the specific catharsis that people who were UPSET with how that all played out in canon like, came into this specific fic looking for....and this is what we got instead, with zero warning.

That's not even getting started on like, the super long super serious fic set during the Ric Grayson era that was supposedly about addressing Bruce's abusive actions towards ALL his kids, which FEATURED Ric as a regular character, but only ever actually DELVED into the times he'd hit Jason and then Tim. With Tim as an unreliable narrator making some reference to Bruce having hit Dick a couple times but that was different because Dick was an adult....and the author and narration at NO POINT pushing back against this to be like well actually Timmy, that's not fucking different at all, Dick is still his kid, Bruce was still taking out his anger on him, that was still abuse, and saying or even just implicitly framing it as NOT abuse the way it played out in Tim's head, when you're presenting this entire fic as a whole as like, an ode to actually acknowledging the abusive aspects of how Bruce has been written with his kids....

Again, SUPER upsetting to read and witness, because people are absolutely going to read that and internalize that as reinforcing their belief that the situations with Bruce and Dick WERE substantially different and thus not qualifying as abuse and belonging in a separate category the way Tim slotted it in his brain.....because why wouldn't they?

The author only wrote it that way because they perceived it that way, clearly, otherwise by their own stated admission of trying to tackle this subject honestly and completely, like....they would have actually made some kind of point or acknowledgment of it not being different at all and still very much abuse....and the fact that they didn't suggests they very much did see it as somehow different.....so why would readers perceive it any differently and why wouldn't its inclusion in a fic that delved into abuse so extensively NOT at least on SOME level potentially reinforce whatever leanings or perceptions they had in the same direction already? And meanwhile, this story like sooooo many others that wants to talk about abuse SERIOUSLY, all the while calls this their hobby that they do for enjoyment, so please don't criticize anything because that would ruin the HOBBY of it all for them, and its like....

And then there's the fic where its Dick hitting Jason while in the midst of a narrative that's bringing all of Jason's abuse issues and related triggers front and center, and this one is highly recommended as like, a great Dick Grayson characterization by an author who hates any and all canon renditions of Bruce being abusive and so doesn't include anything like that, and so you're going into it like okay, I'm not expecting any catharsis or anything along the lines of acknowledging Bruce's worse moments with Dick or Jason because clearly that's not what this fic is about and that's fine...but by the exact same token, I ALSO was not expecting that an author who is so vehement about how abusive Bruce is wildly OOC writing because the real Bruce would never do that and that's not how they perceive the characters, like....what I'm NOT expecting is for Dick, in a fic PRAISED for a good and complex depiction of him, to like....just fucking pop Jason one in the face and bring to mind how this makes him no different from Jason's abuser and then he runs and seeks comfort in Bruce who whether people like it or not, is canonically someone who has made Dick an abuse survivor himself....

And I'm just sitting there fucking BLIND-SIDED thinking wow, not only did I NOT want this recommended to me by the whole freaking fandom as a wonderfully nuanced portrayal of Dick Grayson, I would have kept a ten mile radius from it if it had say, a tag warning of sibling abuse, which is what they wrote between Dick and Jason, just the other way around. And its like.....I completely understand the author's dislike of abusive Bruce in canon and their desire not to engage with that content on any level, and would have been totally fine with that.....except, I naively figured there was no reason that same logic wouldn't extend to Dick, especially in so lauded a fic, because like, what? Bruce would never ever hit his family and its wildly OOC and simply not believable, even though its happened like five different times with Dick alone, but Dick hitting HIS family is a wonderfully nuanced and complicated portrayal of him? In what universe is that not gonna be a problem for some people??

But because we live in a fandom that's like, umm, this is just peoples' HOBBY, they're doing it for FUN, we're expected to be silent about stuff like this which are very real fucking problems to watch go unacknowledged in fics that claim to be TRYING to treat these topics seriously, but in reality only want to be entertainment just deep enough to move people but NOT deep enough to warrant criticism for having an undue influence on peoples' emotions or perceptions of various dynamics.....and we're supposed to be polite and just smile and say this isn't for us and let it all go, even though like, we would have KNOWN it wasn't for us and not gone anywhere near it in the first place if like, it had been tagged as sibling abuse or something like that. That would have been a clear advertisement to me that like, this is not something you want any part of.

Like, I go to fics that do acknowledge or reference Bruce's abuse to his kids because I'm LOOKING for the catharsis of having abuse actually called out as abuse....and what about that makes anyone think I or someone like me is in doing so LOOKING for characters who AREN'T already abusive to each other in canon NOW being abusive in ways that only the individual fic writer chose to depict them as? And by the same token, its not like I want to go into any fic and see more of the same thing as we get in canon, which is.....more instances of actual abuse being framed and treated as something that's just fine, actually, and nothing to worry about or take too seriously....

But meanwhile, back at the fandom farm, everyone's still totally convinced that they're so superior to canon and doing things so much better than them and fixing all their mistakes....and its like....well then why are you MAKING the EXACT same mistakes, and what the hell are we supposed to do about it with YOU guys if unlike with canon (where we can criticize but it doesn't do much good because there's no guarantee of the people who need to see it actually seeing it), we're not supposed to bring it to your attention as 'criticism-worthy' (thus making the opposite problem of where we CAN bring it to the attention of people who can see it, but we're not 'supposed to' because fandom etiquette)?

And back to the whole thing about using a sibling abuse tag as a warning for people to steer clear if this isn't something they want in their dynamics between the Batbrothers, not just Bruce and his kids....

The thing that fucking gets me every time here, is like......THIS WOULD BE SUCH AN EASY PROBLEM TO FIX, IF PEOPLE WEREN'T JUST SO FREAKING EMBARRASSED TO ADMIT THEY ACCIDENTALLY WROTE IT WITHOUT NOTICING WHAT IT WAS IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Like that first example I used....I very naively DID try to bring it to the author's attention when I was new to dipping my toes back into this fandom, and boy oh boy did that just exemplify how counter-productive that is as long as people can hide behind the DONT CRITICIZE MY WORK shield. I sent a private message on Ao3 so it wouldn't even show up in their comments, and just said very simply:

"hey, I really enjoy your stuff but I was wondering if you would mind putting a warning tag of 'sibling abuse' on your latest fic? I'm not trying to tell you how to write the characters and I figure you probably didn't intend it to come across that way anyway, but as an abuse survivor, I can't help but see that dynamic pop out as such for me in a way that I would at least have liked a heads up about, if that makes sense? Its just I do see how you paralleled how the canon presented this scenario and thus get what you were trying to do there I think, but I kinda only came into this fic for the specific lure of the catharsis we DIDN'T get when things played out somewhat similar in canon, with a lot of it having to do with that dynamic between Dick and Jason, and so...yeah. This part of the comics is obviously emotionally charged for a lot of us and I just know personally, this wasn't quite the catharsis I was after for that scenario and just a quick tag like that would have helped warn me of that. Anyway, sorry for this and hope you can understand my position, I'm not trying to be heavy-handed here or anything, but this was a problem for me and just in case it might be a problem for anyone else in the future, I thought I'd try and send a quick message about that for you to do whatever you want with."

I mean, I thought I was pretty reasonable there, personally?

Yeah.

The author did not.

She went off on me for constructive criticism which she did not ask for, and did not appreciate my insinuations into her character about her being an abuse apologist, because that's clearly what I was saying there. But I mean, that's what happens here. I'd bet anything that she was just embarrassed to have written the dynamic in such a way and then been called out about something she was previously oblivious to and then felt self-conscious about having overlooked or perpetrated herself.

But like....as understandable as that is, like....that's not my problem? And that's not a reason to shut down ANY avenue for people to raise the issue when writers unknowingly perpetrate stuff like this, in ANY way, no matter HOW delicately.

I get being defensive about someone thinking you INTENDED to write a pair of brothers as abusive and saying that was fine, and I even get how, being in a defensive mindset, she could have jumped to that interpretation of what I was saying rather than what I was ACTUALLY saying which was just....look, I don't know you, I don't know your own story, but for whatever reason you didn't pick up on this potentially troubling element of what you wrote in ways that I did because of my own experiences, and I'm just trying to point the issue out as delicately as possible because I KNOW that chances are, you WOULDN'T have written things that way if you had at all perceived the dynamic as I did. And I also KNOW that for people who don't have necessarily the same experiences or perspective I do, that they're not going to be as naturally inclined to perceive trouble spots the way I'm kinda....primed to notice them, and its NATURAL for some of this to pass by peoples' notice for a variety of reasons and like....I'm not freaking mad about that?? That's FINE. That's NORMAL. You're not a bad person for writing something a 'problematic' way purely because you LITERALLY DIDN'T SEE THE PROBLEM WHEN YOU WROTE IT.

Nobody has universal experiences. Nobody has all experiences. The problem is almost NEVER somebody just WRITING something in a way that they 'should have' known better than to, especially when it comes to topics like abuse or whatever.

No, the problem is ONLY when they get all up in their butthurt feelings about being embarrassed that they DIDN'T omnisciently know that and they feel self conscious now about how they think it makes them look now that the issue HAS been raised in a way they can recognize, and so they just fucking double down on pretending there's no issue whatsoever and whomever brings it to their attention is just overstepping and who even asked, anyway.

And thus a problem that can easily be solved in TWO ways....1) by adding a simple tag acknowledging the problem area for what it is, or 2) by editing the problem area to erase or write around the issue it raises that the author didn't perceive initially and likely would have avoided from the start if they HAD, because they AREN'T someone who wants to stand KNOWINGLY by that implication and what it says or suggests.....

Instead, this problem just gets turned into a generic fandom discourse issue about critique etiquette that addresses absolutely nothing, changes nothing, makes nothing about any of this better for ANYONE, just extends the problem to one likely to be repeated over and over again because it WILL never change so long as it remains something that isn't SUPPOSED to have attention brought to it, and all of this.

All of this.

Is just self-conscious defensiveness because people didn't want to be perceived as someone who either actually thought the things they'd unknowingly implied for WHATEVER reason, or didn't care/pay enough attention to notice as a problem in the first place....

Or else they just literally DON'T care enough about the content of what they're writing enough that they actually GIVE a shit about becoming better informed on it and thus better able to steer away from troubling implications or points of view in the future. Even if pointed out by survivors or people with personal experience as such that they recognize a problem even where the author didn't themselvse, no matter WHAT their own personal relationship with the subject matter is -

(because yeah, survivors of rape and abuse can absolutely perpetuate harmful viewpoints ourselves as well, because experiencing these things doesn't take away from our being exposed to just as much of the abuse/rape culture and apologia society and media churns out regularly enough that it can cloud ANYONE'S mind on this subject, without the addition or input of other points of view).

And either way, no matter what the reason is, when people aren't willing to even ENTERTAIN input, feedback, or potentially negative or even just AWARENESS-RAISING viewpoints in response to culturally influencing fictional content they put out via a variety of fairly wide-reaching platforms that can thus reach and influence any number of mindsets, from those of survivors to potential survivors to friends or families of survivors to people with no connection to abuse or rape whatsoever currently but for whom that could change at any time because we all meet new people every day and survivors could come into your life and be affected by your views and knowledge of abuse and rape culture and apologism at any point, even if you never become a survivor yourself -

(as is my ardent wish for anyone no matter HOW much I dislike or disagree with them personally. I don't expect or WANT people to be as fully informed on a lot of this stuff as I am personally, just like I'm not like, sad about not being MORE informed on the aspects or experiences stemming from it all that aren't personally relevant to my own life, because I'm additionally very aware that my own viewpoint is not definitive and not the monolithic voice for all survivors everywhere, I've literally only ever advocated for my own perspective on these matters and anyone of a like-mind which is an entirely opt-in POV that people have to decide for THEMSELVES if they feel that applies to them versus something that I'm CLAIMING on behalf of anyone but myself) -

Anyway. Bottom line is whatever the reason for WHY people are so avoidant on this topic, the end result is we've created a culture that says people are allowed to craft fictional viewpoints on any topic in any way to any degree...but the only impact that can ever be acknowledged is positive. Nobody can point out where things can be better. Nobody can point out where things are just fucking WRONG. The entertainment of whomever wrote the thing and whomever reads it and ISN'T bothered by it in any way, is eminently more important and worth protecting than the comfort of anyone who reads the thing and is not only troubled by the viewpoint made or claims presented on a matter they're intimately acquainted with in some form or to some degree themselves.....but then merely wants their viewpoint and concerns acknowledged and made part of the conversation so that both writer and readers can potentially apply that viewpoint and ANY additional perspective or information it contains to future works.

In essence, for all the free speech and censorship talk that gets thrown around fandom spaces....THIS kinda thing RIGHT HERE?

Is the most self-evident example I can come up with of ACTUALLY shutting down conversation and the spread and dissemination of information relevant to the topics being raised as points of interest every. single. day. in this fandom and most every other one I can think of.

So if peoples' ACTUAL goal was creating spaces where the people for whom fictional content is actually MOST relevant to are encouraged and outright TOLD to try and separate their feelings from that relevancy and treat it all as an abstract.....

Just so that people for whom this content already IS an abstract and nothing more, can refrain from having it made real and thus reality-impacting, and in doing so take away some of the escapism and FUN of it all, and make it a little more 'heavy' than they wanted when they turned to it for a bit of self-indulgent angst they never intended or expected to treat (or see treated) as anything more than that?

Then its like, congrats. You did it guys. That's what you've got here. That's what you've made.

Yay.

Go team.

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overheard-at-camp-half-blood · 4 years ago

Text

A Rant About Heroes of Olympus Character Arcs.

Just as a warning most of this is negative, but I put the names in big bold letters, in case you want to skip. I do have some controversial opinions in here, specifically towards Percy and Annabeth, and their relationship, but I don’t think I’m negative towards their actual characters... I more so critique how it could have been written better.

I do still love the series, and even though I poke fun at Rick a bit, I still like him as a writer (though I recognize the problematic elements in this story). These are my own opinions on the books, and I’m sorry if I criticize your character in ways you don’t like.

Also, I may do another post about some other problematic elements, so be on the lookout for that.

Percy

Let’s start with Percy, shall we? After all, he is the one who started it all, and he was the one who introduced us to this world. If I’m being extremely honest, and I know I’m going to get hate for this, but I think Percy’s arc should have ended in the first series. He could have still remained a major character in this series, but I think as far as his main arc went, it wrapped up better in the first series, because I feel like this series added nothing to his arc.

I mean, he and Annabeth went through some majorly traumatic shit in The House of Hades, and then nothing was done about it, and I feel like it would just be better had it not happened. Besides I have some major issues with how his relationship with Annabeth played out.

Annabeth

I was really excited for Annabeth, and I did like her arc in MoA. It seemed like a good continuation of her arc in the first series, where Annabeth wanted to prove herself to everyone else, and now she wanted to prove herself to... well, herself. The arc had potential, and I really enjoyed seeing her arc in MoA, but as I said, I didn’t like how her and Percy’s relationship ship played out.

Now, let me preface this by saying that I am NOT anti-Percabeth, in fact, I do post a lot about it on this blog, but I am critical of how Rick writes established relationships. Perhaps it is because I’m older, so therefore my mind is more critical of these sorts of things.

I love Percabeth, but I really dislike their codependency.... I mean Annabeth’s arc in MoA was great because there was a focus on her relationship with Percy, but it was still about her. And yeah, I understand they’ve been through a lot together, but I really don’t like how their development was dependent on each other.

The reason why I put this under Annabeth and not Percy is because for me, it was much worse for Annabeth, because this was our first time getting this from her perspective. We got to see Percy develop through his own eyes, but we never really got the same for Annabeth. Most of Annabeth’s development was through Percy’s eyes, which was why I was so excited that Annabeth was getting her own POV.

And it was great in MoA! But after that, it honestly felt to me that her story was more about her relationship with Percy, than Annabeth herself.

Jason

Jason was doomed from the beginning.

That’s the main issue, is in the beginning, he was literally a blank slate, and while we were worried about the mystery of his character, there was really no way for us to know who he was as a person, because HE didn’t even know. So, as he was introduced at the same time as Piper and Leo, he didn’t get the same development as Piper and Leo. As we learned the other two’s backstories, and how those backstories represent who they are in the current story.

And the thing is, when we finally DID find out who he was, it was too late to do anything with it, because the story ended. I think by the time Blood of Olympus rolled around, and we did learn more about him... a lot of people had no interest in him.

That being said, I love fanon Jason, and I didn’t like how he was treated in the Trials of Apollo series.

Piper

Piper... I have a very complicated relationship with Piper. I kind of wrote this several times, because I couldn’t quite pinpoint my issues with Piper, and she is such a controversial character for whatever reason, and whatever I say will be perceived as me hating on her. That is not the case. I like the idea of Piper’s character, though I can agree she, as well as the other Aphrodite children, are written with sexist tropes, which is another post.

My main issue with Piper is that most of her development happens off the page. In the first few books, she her charmspeak is shown getting her in a lot of trouble, and she often lacks confidence when using it. My issue is the resolution for this happens mainly off the page.

A huge internal conflict with Piper is her lack of self confidence, which is something that I personally can relate to, but we never see her develop that confidence, we’re just told that it happened. Like she worked with Hazel and Annabeth on xyz, so suddenly she is much better and confident in her abilities of xyz. This kind of made her hard for me to connect with her in general, because it seems like most of her struggles happened off page.

This isn’t even just with her overall character; it’s with her relationship with other characters. We do see her friendship with Leo develop to some extent, but that’s because they already had an established friendship before the series started. Her other relationships? Jason and Piper went from barely knowing each other to dating between books. We never saw her friendship with Annabeth develop. She apparently was friends with Hazel, but that happened off the page.

Now, this happened to each character to some degree, but I think Piper got hit the hardest with the “tell, don’t show,” thing. I do think that because a lot of people didn’t like Piper, and imo, most of the criticisms were bullshit, Rick tried to overcompensate by trying to force development on her, without doing the work of showing us her development.

Leo

To be honest, his wasn’t as bad as others, but I feel like more people were disappointed, because he was a relatable fan-favorite. His arc went wrong for the exact opposite reasons as Piper’s, as there was legitimately a lot of development on the page, and he had a good arc set up, but Rick literally forgot everything that initially made his character so likeable to the audience.

So, here’s my thing with Leo’s arc; it was really good for the first three books, as Rick did develop him while leaving room for more development in new books. He also had a consistent arc; in The Lost Hero his arc was about his inferiority complex, which was directly connected to his trauma. He never felt like he had a home, and never felt like he belonged.

This was the direction I was hoping they would go with the “seventh wheel” storyline; meaning, yeah, he’s the only one in the seven who’s not in a relationship, but why does this bother him so much? Because, I don’t think it was the fact that he was in a relationship, I think it was trauma.

I so badly wanted the seventh wheel plot line to be an extension of what happened in TLH, but it became ignored, and it just seemed like a reason to put him in a relationship.

I’m not going to sit here and say that Leo shouldn’t have been in a relationship (though I will say I had an issue with Caleo), but I will say that I hate how a relationship was supposed to solve his feelings of inferiority- when it’s clearly indicated that Leo had those feelings because of trauma. A relationship can’t reverse years of trauma.

I also thought it would be so much more impactful if Leo made his sacrifice because of his feelings of inferiority, then perhaps the resurrection happens through one of his friends.

Hazel

I fucking hate how little Hazel (and Frank) were written into the series, especially considering she was one of my favorite new characters introduced in HoO. I also think she had the most potential, and her backstory was the most intriguing of the seven.

Why the hell was she not in the books more? Rick literally wrote a whole ass book in the series that mostly centered around the two already developed characters of the series, but he couldn’t give Hazel and Frank more POVs?

I don’t have anything to say about Hazel’s arc, because she barely HAD one, at least not after her initial one in SoN. The Sammy arc was made about Leo, which I get to some extent, as they sort of have a connection through Sammy. That being said, Leo never actually knew Sammy, and I feel like the flashback scene would have been so much more impactful from Hazel’s POV.

The biggest issue with that is it didn’t really feel like a way to develop any of the characters, but it was used as a way to justify a love triangle... that was barely even a love triangle.

In conclusion, Hazel was screwed over.

Frank

Frank, oh I have some things to say about the writing of Frank’s character, because my issue with Frank’s writing is a combination of the off-the-page development that happened with Piper, and the lack of POVs issue with Hazel, but to different degrees. Most of my issues with this comes from between Heroes of Olympus and Trials of Apollo

See, I do think his lack of POVs contributing to his lack of character development, you know what pisses me off?

The fire stick thing was a HUGE part of his character arc. It caused him legitimate fear and partially affected his relationship to some of the others (coughLeocough). And the resolution? Happened between series, and it’s literally mentioned in passing. What the fuck, Rick?

I don’t know, to me, it just seemed like a betrayal to his whole character arc, because we saw him struggle so much because of this, and the resolution just happened off page? I can just rant about how annoyed I am by that, because it just felt like Rick realized he forgot about Frank, and resolved his whole internal conflict off the page.

Nico

I love Nico! But, of course, I do have my criticisms of his character.

First of all, I really enjoyed how we got his point of view in Heroes of Olympus, but I really just wish he was part of the seven to begin with, for a number of reasons. First of all, it just makes sense- it’s indicated that he is the only demigod who knows about both camps... so wouldn’t it make sense that he would be part of the plan to reunite them? Don’t get me wrong, he does play a big role in this anyways, but it’s kind of weird that he just knows, and nobody thinks, “Hey, maybe we should include Nico!”

Another huge issue I had, was Nico’s coming out scene was in Jason’s point of view... which I get, because I’m reality, he wasn’t one of the seven... but it just seems fucked up? I mean I like headcanons of Nico and Jason’s friendship, but the unfortunate truth is... they didn’t actually know each other.

In fact, Nico wasn’t really that close to any of the seven- he was probably closest to Percy, and even he didn’t know that much about him at times. It just felt weird, not only seeing Nico come out in someone else’s POV, but in a POV of someone he barely even knew.

Also the fact he was forced to come out... I see the intentions, but it’s just not a good look.

Reyna

Reyna... don’t have any issues against Reyna, other than I wish we had more time with her before the last book. She was such an interesting character and I needed more of her.

#heroes of olympus criticism #heroes of Olympus critical

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the-middle-grounds · 4 years ago

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So now that I have energy and have rewritten this about 5 times! Blind (and colorblind) Batfam!

*I tried to be as sensitive about how I wrote this since I’m not 100% familiar with the blind community (I know basic etiquette) so if I did something bad or inappropriate, send me an ask with where and what can be fixed!

BRUCE

Bruce’s occipital lobe was severely damaged during the murder of his parents, and he was blinded as a result.

He got Ace, a service dog, to help him with the trauma, as well as helping him get around whenever he wasn’t in the mood to be with Alfred. The two of them are close.

Bruce eventually started hearing about echolocation in humans, and started to learn about that and even using it. He’s so proficient in it, he doesn’t even really need Ace anymore, but there’s not a chance in hell he’s getting rid of his best bud.

People know Bruce Wayne is blind, and they try to use it to their advantage. Bruce is smarter than that, and is very much aware of how shallow people are.

Most people don’t know that Batman is blind, however. Catwoman is one of the notable people who know, and whenever she’s being playful, she likes to sneak up on him and surprise him.

The Justice League also know, but don’t treat him any differently because why would they? Dr. Mid-Nite exists for one.

DICK

Dick lost his vision when Hayley’s Circus was set on fire. While escaping, he was hit by debris and blinded. By the time he’s a young adult, the scarring is pretty much gone.

In an effort to help out Dick, Bruce helped developed a device that could pinpoint noises. Dick then proceeded to thank Bruce by using it to get into trouble and play hide-and-seek.

Bruce eventually stopped using Dick as a guinea pig, and offered up the tech to the public. Dick still kept his, however; even when he left to join the Teen Titans.

Since Dick likes to drop several dozen feet off buildings, Bruce actually shed a few tears when Tim gave him more advanced echolocation tech. Dick will never admit how many times he miscalculated because of rain.

Bruce has seen his hospital bills; he knows.

JASON

Jason was born blind, and since he was a street kid with not so great parents, had to learn to get around by himself. He was pretty good at it too, and was stealing the Batmobile’s tires when Batman arrived. Jason tried to beat him up, and he made a real good effort too.

Jason got used to using the tech after a while, though he prefers only using it for fighting.

When he came back to life, he ended up becoming better at hand-to-hand without the use of technology. But he does use it for accuracy whenever he aims.

People have lied to Jason and told him he’s put his helmet on the wrong way around. These same people have gotten said helmet pelted in the direction of their face.

TIM

Tim and Cassandra both have a degenerative eye disease. When Tim found out Batman’s identity, he insisted that Bruce take him on because they weren’t too close from different.

Tim later ended up improving on Bruce’s tech, and even customized some for the others.

Tim eventually went completely blind, but he’s adjusted just fine.

His favorite thing to do is get carried by Kon for a flight. That and doing a Dick Grayson and gliding off buildings.

Tim is very much still tech savvy, working off muscle memory and occasional assistance whenever he needs it. Admittedly, it’s pretty rarely. But you will never see him ask Barb or Steph for anything involving colors.

BATGIRLS

Barbara has monochrome colorblindness, and Bruce didn’t realize it until he realized she kept describing colors by how dark they were. This led to a bunch of reminiscing about colors, and Dick even joined in to describe colors to her.

Whenever Bruce pisses her off, Barbara realigns things ever so slightly. Bruce could care less, but Dick will trip over something and play it off like it was a stunt.

After her incident with Joker, Barbara took to the moniker of Oracle, and her colorblindness was hardly a hold back for her.

Cassandra did manage to retain some of her eyesight. As it stands, she can see somewhat, but it’s all pretty blurry. She wears glasses most of the time, but prefers fighting with the tech Tim designed.

Because they can’t use sign language with Cass, she had a rough time learning to fit in. Eventually, they learned to communicate through morse code and occasional fingerspelling.

Even though Cass learned to speak, she still prefers morse code with her friends and family.

No one (except Barbara) actually realized what form of blindness Steph had until she asked Barbara if waffles were pink. It turned out she had Tritanopia.

Steph and Barbara tried out colorblindness glasses once and Barbara lost her shit.

“I THOUGHT THIS WAS PURPLE!” “I don’t know what to tell you except that that’s 110% dark blue.”

Cass has to tell the other two which colors they’re looking at whenever they hang out. Specifically when they start debating colors.

DUKE

Duke, like Jason, was also born blind. He’s also the only one who uses a cane for when he walks.

Unlike the others, however, Duke doesn’t need to use any external devices to see; his powers work well with sound and allow him to move around just fine. (I know his powers focus on light, which would require him to see, but I changed it slightly for this AU.)

Rather than ‘seeing’ in color/definition, Duke perceives shapes and figures in something like a bunch of different parts of sound altogether.

Duke has the ability to ‘steal the light’ out of people’s eyes, and temporarily blind them so they’re on the same playing field.

People typically know when Duke is coming because of the sound of his cane moving around. But he once scared Bruce because he didn’t use it and Bruce didn’t hear him coming.

Duke is still a great writer, though he obviously writes in braille. His teachers love him.

Some people don’t even realize Duke is blind unless they watch his eyes; they’re unfocused and occasionally ‘wander’.

DAMIAN

Damian lost his sight as a young child. Talia was regretful, and put a lot of attention on Damian to help him. Damian disliked the babying behavior, and felt as though Ra’s was disappointed in him.

Talia sent Damian to Bruce because she knew about how he had learned to adjust to his disability.

Damian was LIVID. He hated everything, he would throw fits, and he hated every- oh hey is that a dog.

Damian got Titus, and over time, began to settle into the family.

Damian initially refused the echolocation tech, but took it because it was helpful for fighting. Over time, he learned how to work with and without it.

Damian once offhandedly admitted to Jon that he couldn’t remember colors, and Jon sat with him for over an hour describing colors.

Eventually, Damian started getting into abstract forms of art and presented them to everyone. Since he couldn’t see what he drew, he took to 3D pieces for his family and friends. No one even cares what they look like, they all love everything he makes.

Jason is jealous that Damian got a dog but he didn’t.

MISC

They keep playing hide-and-seek and Bruce is tired.

Except for Barbara and Steph, everyone is very sensitive to sound, and it is most definitely their biggest weakness. Meanwhile, Barb and Steph keep getting blinded by flash bangs and other bright things.

Damian keeps sneaking animals into the house because he knows they won’t see it. What he keeps forgetting is that roosters scream in the morning, and they can hear that.

In-family fighting is an absolutely insane event. Things have been thrown and people have fallen down things that shouldn’t have been fallen down. Dick once tried to pull apart a fight between Tim and Damian and he honestly can’t tell if he slapped Tim or if Damian did it.

They can all tell each others footsteps apart easily, and can even tell who’s arguing even if their in the Batcave and the argument is in the attic.

Someone keeps moving containers out of the typical places, and the finger pointing is always at optimal level. Alfred is just as frustrated.

Bruce is tired.

They also save a lot on electricity!

#Blind as Bats AU #Batfam #Dick Grayson #Jason Todd #Barbara Gordon #Tim Drake #Cassandra Cain #Stephanie Brown #Duke Thomas #Damian Wayne #Bruce Wayne

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wordsfromthesol · 5 years ago

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Mixed Signals

Author: @wordsfromthesol Taglist: @lana-king @marvelfreakbrynnlee Pairing: Older!Damian x Reader Summary: *cough* read the request pictured below *cough* Warnings: Violence, cursing, the good stuff Word Count: 2k A/N: Quarantine requests have begun! I’m going to try and post a little more frequently during this time so ya’ll have some new content while you’re bored (my work has not been suspended...but trying to write as much as I can!)

“Master Damian, your father wished that I remind you of my granddaughter Y/N’s arrival tomorrow.”

“Tt, and why would I need this reminder?”

“Well, she is staying with us at the Manor. Vigilantism is to be kept to a minimal, as Y/N is unaware of this family’s nighttime activities. Your brothers have been informed and as such, will only enter the cave, if necessary, from the exterior.”

“I shall do the same then.”

“I was hoping you could refrain altogether. Perhaps accompany her around Gotham?

“Tt, I am not a babysitter Alfred.” And with that Damian stormed out of the living room and headed immediately for the training room.

“Papa!” You exclaimed as soon as Alfred opened the door. You quickly enveloped him in a hug, before stepping back and admiring his living quarters. “These Wayne’s you work for are clearly loaded.”

“Y/N, you know that is no way to talk.”

You just shrugged as you walked inside. “You’re happy though, right? They treat you okay?” You knew exactly how ‘the help’ could be treated.

“My dear, of course. In fact, Master Damian has agreed to show you the Gotham sights.”

“Somehow I doubt he did that willingly.”

“Some coercion from his father may have been necessary.” Alfred smirked. The two of you sat at the kitchen counter catching up on life, when Damian turned the corner. You glanced his direction.

“You must be my tour guide I’ve heard so much about!”

“Tt, only if you wish to go to the worst parts Gotham has to offer.”

“Hm, sounds much more fun than the best parts. Everyone gets to see those.”

“I am confident Alfred can accompany you around the city.”

“I am too, but he said he’s got something to do for your father all day tomorrow.” Alfred shot a look of disappoint towards Damian, as you continued. “I don’t want to intrude, if you have something to do. I’m sure I can entertain myself for the day.”

“Fine. I will escort you through Gotham tomorrow.”

“So Dami, how’s babysitting?” Jason teased his younger brother.

“Fantastic. I must chaperon the ray of sunshine all day tomorrow. See the sights that Gotham City has to offer.”

“From what I remember, Y/N is capable of handling herself just fine around Gotham.” Dick chimed in, trying to ease Damian’s clear frustration.

“Well Father would be most disappointed in me if I left her to fend for herself.”

“Lighten up, I’m sure her positivity will make the day enjoyable.” Jason smirked knowing full well that would only further agitate his brother. You didn’t want to hear any more of the conversation, clearly Damian disliked you. You would just have to live with that, you thought as you stalked up to the guest room.

“I just do not comprehend how she can be so positive. All the time.”

“Hm, been thinking about her a lot since that first meeting…haven’t we?” Now Dick joined in on the teasing, realizing the effect you had on his youngest brother.

“Of course not. The notion is ridiculous.” With that Damian left his brothers, no longer wishing to endure their quips.

You expected the day to drag on. In fact, you didn’t even know if Damian would actually take you on a tour of the city of not. To your surprise, he was waiting for you in the kitchen when you sauntered down to grab some coffee.

“Damian. You’re awake.”

“I was unsure of when you wanted to leave.”

“Honestly, I’m more of a nightowl. Mind if I grab some coffee and then go get ready? Say we leave in an hour?”

“I will meet you here in an hour.”

You smiled and nodded as you passed him to get to the coffee machine. “So from a true Gothamite’s perspective, any places that are a must see?”

“Tt, I am not from Gotham.”

“Oh. I thought – nevermind – where are you from?”

“No where you would be privy to.”

“Sorry for asking then…” you stumbled out of the kitchen, preparing yourself for an awkward day.

You put on a smile as you walked down the stairs, determined to have fun despite the storm cloud accompanying you. “Ready?” Your cheery voice echoed through the hall.

“As much as one could be.”

You were okay with the silence as you took in the sights. You grew up in a fairly small town, no building was over five stories. This was astonishing. The amount of people and cars around you, everything constantly moving. Finally, the car you were in stopped.

“Where are we?”

“Wayne Botanical Gardens.”

“How rich is your family…?” You question as the two of you got out of the car.

“Heh, I am not sure that I can answer that question.”

“Maybe one day I’ll ask a personal question you do know the answer to.” You sighed before gliding over to the garden entrance. You didn’t talk for the next hour, you were too enthralled looking at all the plants and flowers. Damian was too enthralled gazing at you. You saw the beauty in everything, granted flowers are a typically beautiful plant, but you seemed to admire everything around you. He even watched as you bent down and picked up someone else’s trash. The action seemed to be done subconsciously, as you hadn’t even realized what you just did. As you neared the end, you turned towards him, an undeniable sparkle in your eye.

“Oh, where to next? Is every place in Gotham this beautiful?”

“Tt, that would be impossible.”

“Right,” you sighed, remembering who you were talking to.

“Wayne Tower is near here.”

“A garden and a tower, my oh my, the Wayne’s do get around.”

“Yeah. Want to go?”

“Why not, perhaps we can stop for lunch nearby?”

“Okay.”

You trudged forward, ignoring the short responses. Before you knew it, the day seemed over. You knew you hadn’t seen half of Gotham, but Damian seemed rathe insistent you head back as darkness enveloped the city.

“Oh, come on, Damian. Are you scared of the dark?”

“Of course not. I am not a child.”

“Good. Let’s go to a bar! I’ve heard the Iceberg Lounge is a must!”

“A must avoid, perhaps.”

“Well, I am going. You are more than welcome to join me.”

Surprisingly, the rest of the night went on without a hitch. Damian didn’t even suspect that you were actually gathering intel at the lounge. Unbeknownst to Alfred, you had ulterior motives for visiting him in the big city. Your dad was finally letting you in the family business, this was your first assignment. Gather intel on the drugs being pushed out at the Iceberg Lounge in Gotham City.

A few more days had passed, and you managed to get to or near the lounge every night. Sometimes you went inside, sometimes you waited and watched from the rooftops. Thankfully, the Wayne Manor was surprisingly easy to sneak out of. Or so you thought. Alfred, however, was growing more and more concerned by your nightly disappearances.

“Master Damian, might I inquire how your day of sightseeing with my granddaughter went?”

“Fine? Did she claim otherwise?”

“No. Did she seem particularly eager to go somewhere?”

“The only place she requested was the Iceberg Lounge. Why she would associate herself with such an establishment is beyond my comprehension.”

“Hm. I feared as much. Master Damian, I might request a small favor.”

“Does this favor involve Y/N?”

“It does.”

“What do you require?”

“She seems to be leaving each night. I am afraid she may get herself into trouble. As you know, Gotham is no place to wander. Could you follow her?”

“Of course.” Damian left and immediately geared himself up, as much as he dared to in civilian clothing. Then, it was the waiting game. Just as Alfred said, around 10 you snuck out through the window. Luckily, Damian was waiting close by on a motorcycle.

This time you decided you would go in the lounge. You discarded the dark robe, uncovering the rather revealing outfit you donned, as you entered the taxi. Upon entering the lounge, you saw a few of the suspects already downing drinks. You didn’t hesitate in approaching them. Unfortunately, this approach had caused wrong person to take notice of you.

“Hey beautiful. I’ve seen you in here a lot lately. Yet you haven’t come and talked to me. I thought I’d take the initiative.”

“How sweet of you. I’m afraid I can’t indulge your fantasies tonight. Perhaps another.”

“Huh, see…I think you can.”

You smiled at the unsavory character, as you did he latched onto your wrist.

“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.”

“Awe, does the pretty lady know self-defense.”

“Yeah, she does.”

“Good.” The man seemed to sober up almost instantly. “Then you can tell me why you’ve been grilling my men.”

Shit. You quickly brought your knee up into his groin, causing him to release you. You grasped the gun in your purse and shot in his direction.

“Can’t even hit me?”

“Oh honey, I wasn’t trying.” You smiled as a light fixture swung down and crashed between the two of you. As you turned to make a run for it, the room filled with smoke and someone grabbed you by the waist and placed the other hand over your mouth. You quickly realized they were pulling you to safety and decided to see how the situation played out. Once you cleared the smoke, you recognized the figure. “Damian?!” You stopped dead in your tracks.

He looked back at you, once he noticed you weren’t going to move, he pulled you in close and pulled out what looked like a gun. Except this gun pulled the two of you up through the air, landing you on a rooftop.

“What the hell were you doing?!” You had never heard Damian raise his voice; you didn’t even think he was capable of it. “You almost got yourself killed in there!”

“What?! Did you follow me here?!”

“Of course, I followed you. Gotham is not a safe place. You should not be out here alone.”

“Why the fuck do you even care? You hate me!”

“Hate yo – ? I was protecting you!”

“Well, I don’t need your protection. I can handle myself.”

“Clearly. But I could not take that risk.”

“You barely know me.”

“I can tell Alfred loves you.”

“Oh, you followed me because my grandfather asked you to.”

“No. Well, yes. However, I would have followed regardless. If I had known earlier.”

“Why?”

“You seem hold this astonishing ability to acknowledge the good in everything and everyone. It amazes me. But Gotham…everyone in Gotham is capable of tremendous evil. I could allow it to take you as it has so many others.”

You took his hands in yours, causing him to momentarily tense. “Damian, I choose to believe that everyone has the capacity for good. But I am not so naïve to believe everyone utilizes that.” You sighed, “If I tell you something. Do you promise not to tell my grandfather?”

Damian just nodded at your words.

“My father, he followed in his father’s footsteps. And I, I’ve chosen to follow in my father’s. We, I suppose the closest thing to what we are is spies. He told me just to gather the intel. I guess I got a little trigger happy.” Your gaze seemed to freeze Damian on the spot. “Though, I’m guessing your family knows a little about that. Unless normal citizens of Gotham carry smoke bombs with them.” Your statement shook him from the trance.

“No, unfortunately, I cannot say that is true. I am a vigilante, spy, hero, whatever terminology you wish it to don.”

“Good. Then you can continue protecting me. And maybe I can return the favor.”

#damian wayne x reader #damian wayne imagine #damian wayne fanfic #Damian Wayne #older!damian x reader #older!damian imagine #robin x reader #robin imagine #robin fanfic #batboys #batboys fanfic #batboys x reader #batboys imagine #batboys x you #batfamily #BatFam #batfam fanfic #batfam imagine #batfam x reader

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kimberlyannharts · 4 years ago

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Rangerboard is eating these comics up just so they can shit on Tommy. I get people not liking "Tommywank" but going the complete opposite direction isn't the answer. I was wondering what you thought on the subject of "Tommywank" and whether it's a genuine problem or something the fandom overblows?

it’s because a) they don’t see Tommy as an actual character on his own, just a vessel they can project all of their hate for JDF and their longtime frustrations of Tommy onto and b) Ryan’s narratives usually frame Tommy as being in the wrong, so their dislike of him is seemingly justified. Tommy’s mad at Jason for lying to him about the peace conference and being an Omega? Tommy just didn’t consider how Jason felt. Tommy’s angry again that the Omegas ONCE AGAIN lied and went behind everyone’s back? He’s being irrational, he’s only seeing this as a black and white issue, he’s not considering the Omegas’ feelings (people are already making memes out of the panels of Kim and Billy talking down Tommy and him looking away sadly, acting like this is a jab at what you’re calling “Tommywank”). and i’m sure whatever Matt/Kim/Tommy love triangle nonsense will work off of a similar attitude.

and what makes this especially weird is that even though Ryan writes Tommy as in the wrong and consistently punished for his feelings, he doesn’t FEEL wrong because he’s not written as a hateful character. he’s not even unlikeable. he’s consistently been kind, empathetic, and genuinely wants to look out for everyone - look at how he treated the SCT compared to Kim in NE. he’s totally supportive of the new green, even if he would be entirely justified in being upset that his old powers have been taken up by someone else without his knowledge. even when he DOES get upset, he doesn’t hold a grudge and sincerely apologizes. this is the same character who responded to Kiya blaming him for Drakkon’s crimes not with violence or yelling or flinging accusations back, but with an apology:

(note again that this apology is 100% more genuine than Jason’s “apology” to him)

the most unreasonable Tommy’s been lately was when he acted cold towards Matthew, and even that wasn’t THAT bad, especially when you consider how Matt negatively affected Tommy and Kim’s relationship ages before they actually met. and we know Matt’s being rewarded enough with becoming a green ranger for no reason at all, so why should i feel bad he got the bare minimum of disapproval through tommy not wanting to shake his hand?? this is why the comics have felt so exhausting for me lately; it feels like it’s constantly punishing Tommy when he’s never done anything to deserve it, or punishing him when others have done far worse and gotten away with it.

so as for “tommywank” - i’m not denying that PR relies a lot on Tommy in order to make money. i have issues with how dimensions in danger prioritized tommy. but honestly i can’t really see the complaints as RB and others do it as valid because it’s barely ever really a legitimate criticism of writing, not just because they celebrate any bad writing that brings down Tommy and dismiss any good writing that focuses on Tommy (people were asking Kyle Higgins when the comic would focus on characters other than Tommy as early as Issue #1 of MMPR - meanwhile what have the SCT done lately?) especially when RB brings up Tommy/JDF every chance they get, no matter if the thing they’re talking about has anything to do with Tommy/JDF. like even when they got the thing they WANTED - ASJ returning for beast morphers - they wouldn’t shut up about how it’s actually hasbro taking a jab at JDF, they brought in jason specifically to spite JDF, let’s check up JDF’s instagram and cycle around all his posts just to tear them apart and talk about how much he’s a sad old guy. i LIKE JDF and i don’t see all of his posts, lmao.

honestly nowadays i’d argue it’s less “tommywank” and more just general “mmprwank” - when hasbro releases a new series of toys, it’s always MMPR, but tommy is not always included

#long post #transmission #anonymous #SORRY THIS IS LONG but i have a lot of Thoughts kdjfkd

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greekgeek21 · 4 years ago

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Percy Jackson & The Avengers: Convergence - woah! shy guy is a bear now!

Oyasuminasai! Or Ohayoo! Or Konnichiwa! And if you were wondering, yes, I am taking Japanese as my language. So if I ever find a way to incorporate Japanese into this, I KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!!! Sorry, sore subject.

Anywho! I'm sorry for taking too long to update. I was lazy and didn't feel like it. It's as simple as that. I also found some REALLY good fanfics to read recently, and they are super long and have sequels so yeah you know how that is, right?

Now on with the story! Stay safe and happy reading!

- your author

Ω ♆ Ω

"Well, this makes our job a whole lot easier," Percy said.

Percy looked around and saw all of the avengers besides "Thor." Magnus had told them what the real Thor looked like, and from what they saw on the news, this version of the guy was not the real one. Annabeth had theorized that they were aliens who had taken to calling themselves gods when Percy had asked about it. Whether they were real or not, Percy still immediately disliked gods in any form.

"What are you doing here, Mr. Jackson?" Director Fury asked, leaning onto the table.

"Yeah! What are you doing in my tower?" Tony asked, finally tuning into the conversation.

Percy smirked, and Annabeth knew what he was about to say would be offensive to somebody, but he spoke before she could stop him, "We're here to do your job."

Tony scowled, "Listen here, kid. We deal with serious threats, and we don't have time to help you. Plus, we're the Avengers, and you're kids."

Annabeth narrowed her eyes, a small blow to her pride being felt, "Unless you want to die, you need our help. We deal with this stuff on a daily basis."

Okay, so they don't really deal with it on a DAILY basis, but close enough. Besides, the guy's ego needed to be knocked down a peg. Annabeth was even thinking about showcasing their skills to prove their worth.

"I think we got it handled, kids," Steve said, holding out a placating hand.

Piper thought it was the perfect time for her to butt-in, "Oh really? So you know where the green fire comes from? And how to put it out?"

At their silence, Piper gave a smug nod, "Thought so."

Fury saw this getting out of hand, so he brought it back on-topic, "Mr. Jackson! I asked you a question. Does your answer mean you are offering your help in this case? And does that mean this is a part of your world?"

Annabeth and Percy seemed to be having a silent debate with each other, and it seemed that Annabeth was winning. And when Percy answered Fury, it was obviously not what he wanted to say.

"We are here to help however we can. This is equally a part of our world and yours," he said, voice monotone like he was reading from a script.

Annabeth seemed satisfied with his answer, but she also wanted to add her own part, "We would also prefer that we keep our involvement as inconspicuous as possible. The gods know you guys have trouble with that."

"Hey! I take offense! And did you say 'gods'?!" Tony exclaimed.

Everyone ignored him, and only paid attention to what Steve said: "Are we really going to be bringing kids into this, Fury? I don't like this."

Fury sighed, and answered on his way out for the second time, "Yes, we're doing this. Get acquainted with each other, no fights, same expectations. And I don't care if you like it or not, Rogers, we're doing this. Jackson! Can I speak with you outside?"

Percy nodded and followed him out the door.

"What do you know that we don't? Are you telling them what you are? Are the other kids in there like you?" Fury rounded on him as soon as the door was closed, speaking in a whisper.

Fury didn't know what could be considered an insult to these new gods. He was treading in unknown territory here.

"We don't know much more than you, probably. And no, we're keeping what we are a secret. We're all the same, though," he answered, choosing his words very carefully.

Percy suspected that Tony Stark had eyes and ears everywhere, and would no-doubt try to figure out their secret on the first night. His job was to make sure that didn't happen.

"Be careful, Jackson. These people don't like secrets," Fury warned, walking away without another word.

Percy tried not to take the man's words too seriously. Doing that would just distract him from the quest. They needed to deal with these bombings quickly, and then go their seperate ways from the Avengers. Telling them their secret was NOT a part of the plan.

With a deep, preparing breath, Percy reentered the meeting room. Inside, he found both groups glaring at each other in silence. It was clear that nobody trusted each other, and that needed to change. If they were going to fight together, they needed to have some semblance of trust. Without that, they weren't going to last that long.

"Hey, guys! Why don't we start with introductions! I'm Percy," he said, clapping his hands together.

It was clear that nobody was buying his cheery mood, but at least Hazel was willing to try.

She said, "I'm Hazel."

"I'm Piper, and that idiot over there is Leo. We've forbidden him from speaking, so he's not able to introduce himself," she stuck her thumb in Leo's direction, who was literally bouncing on the balls of his feet.

It was a miracle that he hadn't caught on fire yet, honestly. Usually, at least his nose will start smoking when he gets too excited.

"Jason," Jason introduced.

"Hi. I'm Frank," Frank said, nervously twiddling his thumbs.

Annabeth's glare intensified when she said, "Annabeth. Not Annie, or Beth. Annabeth."

Percy smiled, slinging an arm over his girlfriend's shoulders in hopes of calming her down. She was way too high strung in the moment when they all needed to be relaxed and open.

The demigods looked at the Avengers, waiting for their introductions. Some of them didn't really need it, but it was nice to be formal.

"I'm Captain Steve Rogers. It's a pleasure to meet you all," Steve nodded his head in greeting and pointed to each Avengers respectively, "This is Dr. Bruce Banner, Clint, Natasha, and I'm sure you know Tony Stark."

"Of course they do, Capsicle. Why wouldn't they?" Tony gloated.

Annabeth rolled her eyes, but Leo couldn't hold his tongue any longer, "Oh my gods! There are so many things I need to ask you about! Why did you keep the name Iron Man when the suit is obviously made of a nickel-titanium alloy? Why don't you protect the arc reactor more? With the amount of power that thing holds, you'd think you would take bet–"

"Leo! Shut up!" Piper yelled, charmspeak weaving through her words.

His mouth immediately shut and was physically withheld from opening again. Piper seemed satisfied with her work when Leo attempted to speak again, but his lips weren't moving.

"Gods, I love charmspeak," Frank murmured under his breath.

"I know, right? But sometimes it can get a little annoying. Like when she doesn't realize she's using it, and then you do exactly what she wants, no matter what? I mean, that's a little..." Percy trailed off, realizing he had let his ADHD get out of hand, "Sorry."

Annabeth fondly smiled up at him.

"Can we get back on track, please? How are you kids going to be able to help us?" Clint asked, speaking up for the first time.

"Can we address what this Leo guy just said?!" Tony exclaimed.

"We have...special abilities that make us fit to deal with these kinds of things. Usually, we'd deal with this on our own, but...this is the first time it's been done like this. Our people don't usually work with your type of people," Annabeth ignored Tony, hating to admit that they were different from the mortals.

"What kind of abilities?" Natasha asked, scepticism lacing her words.

The demigods shared looks with each other, all evidently asking Percy and Annabeth what they should do. Their decision was to show them.

"They're hard to explain, but we can show you. It might be easier to be somewhere with more room, though," Percy answered, looking around at the small space they were all standing in.

"We can do this in the living room. I need a drink, anyways," Tony said, exiting without waiting for a consensus.

The rest of the group followed him, albeit a little reluctantly in some cases. Percy made sure to pull Annabeth to the back so they could talk. He was worried about his control. His powers did not like to be used in small areas. The ocean did not like to be restrained to precise movements. That's what he was worried about, and he told Annabeth that.

"I'm not sure about this, Wise Girl. I still haven't really had enough practice since 'that place,'" he whispered.

Annabeth pecked him on the cheek, "You'll be fine. I trust you, but you need to trust yourself. I know you have control over your powers. Just look at what happened at the Brooklyn Bridge!"

He was still tense, but her words did have some effect. He was at least willing to try now, even if he refused to do anything big. He would only do something basic enough to prove he was capable, but nothing dangerous. Percy wasn't Leo; he wasn't in this to show off.

"Now let's catch up. You know we can't leave Leo alone for long," she cracked a grin, trying to defuse even more of his tension.

Percy forced his troublemaker smirk back onto his face before lacing his hand with Annabeth's, and walking in the direction the others had gone. They found them in a large room with a very open-floor plan. Off to the side, they could see Tony fixing himself a drink at the bar. Everyone else was sitting on the unnaturally-long couches, the Avengers on one and the demigods on the other.

Everyone seemed to be waiting for the two to join them to start. That or none of them had the guts to go first. But with Leo there, it was most likely the first option.

"Who wants to go first?" Annabeth asked as she and Percy sat down.

Leo seemed to be pleading with his eyes, and Annabeth, for some reason, decided to pity him and let him go first. With a simple nod of confirmation, Leo shot up from his seat and went to the side, where there was more room.

"Keep it low-key, Leo," Jason warned, knowing full-well nothing his friend did was low-key.

"Of course, Lightning Boy! I get it!" Leo reassured.

He positioned himself in a square stance before lighting his whole body on fire. If it was possible, Leo defied expectations of how not low-key he could get.

"Oh! Somebody put it out!" Bruce exclaimed, rushing over to Leo.

Before anyone could start dousing him in water, Leo turned it off, revealing himself free of burns. Luckily, he had been wearing one of Calypso's fireproof outfits, so his clothes had stayed intact. His skin was covered in a thin layer of soot, and his hair was letting off some smoke, though.

"Tada!" he proudly said.

Tony's interest seemed to be piqued, "That was awesome! How are you still okay? Is it some sort of mutation?"

"Something like that," Annabeth answered for him, fearing that Leo would let something slip on the first day.

She knew there was a high chance that their secret would be revealed at some point, but she wanted to prolong the mystery as long as possible. That meant constantly watching what the others said, especially Leo and Percy.

"Frank! You're up next, bud!" Leo pointed at the chinese teen.

Frank seemed to shrink in on himself slightly before convincing himself to stand confidently and walk over to replace Leo on the scorched floorspace.

"I'm not really sure what to do, so...I'll just do this," he said, before turning into a guinea pig and back quickly.

Percy shuddered, bad memories flooding in. He would never look at celery the same way again...

Tony did not seem impressed, "So...you can change into a rodent? How's that gonna help us?"

Frank straightened up again before staring right at Tony as he turned into a grizzly bear, raising on all fours and letting out a growl. Tony seemed to be in a state between fear and curiosity, but before he could speak again, Frank turned back and walked back to his spot on the couch between Jason and Hazel.

"I stand corrected," Tony muttered before going and taking a seat himself, a brown drink in hand.

"I guess I'll go next. You guys have kinda already seen what I can do, but I guess I'll showcase it again," Piper said, standing up but not moving to where Frank and Leo had.

She looked around the room and its occupants before choosing her targets, "Tony, pour your drink in your lap."

Tony got a dazed look in his eyes before he robotically moved his glass over his lap, tipping it to the side and letting all of the liquid drop onto his legs. When it was all gone, he snapped out of his fatigue and jumped up.

"What the hell happened? Who did this?!" he explained, looking down at his pants.

Natasha actually SMILED, "I like her. We need more girls around here, especially ones who can do that."

Tony turned to glare at Piper, "You did this!"

Piper only smirked smugly in response, "Yep. I did. Now, sit back down."

Tony complied immediately, causing his team to break out in laughter.

"We call it charmspeak. Only Piper can do it," Annabeth informed the Avengers, "Jason? Why don't you go next?"

"Alright. I can't do anything too major, since we're inside, but I think I have an idea," he said, moving to the same open area.

He glanced around before zeroing his gaze on a power outlet in the floor. He reached out a hand in its direction, and slowly, a string of electricity snaked its way out of the outlet. It built in his hands until it was in the shape of a ball, and then he stopped gathering it. He tossed the ball between a couple times before throwing it at Tony's chest, causing his arc reactor to glow brighter.

Jason smiled and went to sit back down again, "That's what I can do."

"Cool," Clint commented, "What about Hazel?"

"I can do this," Hazel stated simply, breaking a chunk of concrete off the floor before placing it back in place.

She didn't even move from her spot, the only part of her moving was her arm. She made it seem effortless, but if more attention was paid, someone could see that a beat of sweat had formed on her brow. Unnatural minerals, like concrete, were harder to control.

"Impressive," Steve sat forward, "What about you, Annabeth? What can you do?"

Before she could explain that she didn't have any powers, Percy answered for her, "She's a genius. Plus, she can fight, like, really well."

"Very eloquent, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth teased, but her smile was thankful.

He knew she was self-conscious about being the only one in the Seven without a demigod power. But he also knew that she didn't need it. She was the best at everything else already.

"I'll be testing that later," Tony said, clearly telling the truth.

Annabeth sat up straight and looked him right in the eye, "Looking forward to it."

"The only one left is you, Percy. What can you do?" Natasha inquired.

The superspy had noticed that the boy had tried to sink into the background. He was uncomfortable with answering the question, and that meant that it was worth pressing for. She wasn't afraid to do it, either. Natasha didn't like that Fury had kept something from her, and she was determined to find out the full story.

"Um...well, I can control water, basically," he answered, squirming under all of their gazes.

"Can you show us?" Steve asked, tone gentler than Natasha's was.

"I guess. It'll be something really small, though," Percy responded.

He saw that there was a vase full of flowers and water in the corner, and he chose that as his example. He held out a slightly-shaking hand in its direction and called the water to him. The familiar tug in his gut was almost indecipherable when the water trickled out and into the air. It did the same thing as Jason's electricity when it formed a line to his hands before forming into a ball. Percy held it above him, eyes narrowed in concentration, and willed it to become the shape of a small spear. He focused his attention on a spot between Clint's open legs and through the water-spear at that area. It hit its mark and dissolved on impact.

After it was over, Percy let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. That had been far too easy to do, and it worried him. His powers were growing, but he didn't want them to. He had to concentrate on only that small amount of water so that he didn't accidentally burst the pipes running all throughout the walls. When he wasn't using his powers, Percy could contain his reach and not make anything explode, but when he let the water in, it was like a sensory overload. You would be surprised how much water runs through a skyscraper.

"Yeah. That's what I do," Percy shrugged, sitting back down and choosing to ignore the awed stares he was getting from most of the Avengers.

"He's just being modest! He can do so much more awesome stuff! Like when he and Jason created–" Leo began.

"Leo! Stop talking!" Piper yelled, noticing Percy's discomfort.

Leo would have been grumbling if he could open his mouth, but he couldn't.

"Those are some basic abilities we have. We are all trained in combat and in various weaponry. I'm best with a dagger, but I can use just about anything you give me," Annabeth steered the conversation away from Percy.

Her boyfriend sent her a grateful look.

"Can you show us a little something?" Natasha asked.

"Sure," Annabeth answered, pulling a celestial bronze dagger (not the one Luke gave her, of course) from her thigh-strap.

She aimed it at the small space under Tony's arm, and quicker than anyone but a demigod could notice, she threw it with perfect accuracy. It lodged itself in the couch in that small space, not even nicking Tony one bit.

"Hey!" Tony exclaimed, eyes widening.

"You're fine," Clint rolled his eyes.

"So...yeah. That's us. You'll learn more about our fighting styles as we fight together, but that should be enough for now. Well, you should know one more thing: Percy can't use a bow. At all. Don't even let him NEAR one. Got it? Good," Annabeth said.

"I love you, too, Wise Girl," Percy remarked.

"Uh-huh," Annabeth mumbled teasingly, leaning into his side.

Ω ♆ Ω

I hope you like this chapter! I'll try to be better at updating, but we both know that's a lie. This would not be possible without my beta reader, nightskywithrainbows, so show them some love by reading their stuff on Ao3. Remember to comment, follow me, and like! Stay safe and happy reading!

- your author

other chapters :)

#pjo #Percy Jackson and the avengers #percy jackson #the avengers #mcu #annabeth chase #Leo valdez #Tony stark #heroes of olympus #the seven #team up

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m00nslippers · 6 years ago

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How do you think Jason's relationship with Cass and Steph would be like? I mean canon already shows us (depending on the writter) that Jason has a friendly relationship with Barbara but it does not show much on his relationship with the other batgirls.

Well, I thinking ‘friendly’ is over-stating Jason and Barbara’s relationship a little, but I digress.

Okay first, Cassandra. I’ve seen people argue that Cass would hate Jason because he kills and I’ve seen people insist they would be like best friends. I think a lot of their relationship hinges on whether or not Jason is killing people at the time, but I don’t think Cass would ever hate Jason or call him an enemy.

Cassandra would empathize with Jason, would see his pain and the emotions behind his actions. I believe that she would see that Jason’s motives for most of the things he does, especially those things the bats don’t approve of, are not based on selfishness, madness, sadism or any of the other things that the other bats occasionally accuse him of, but rather most of his actions are based out of fear and an earnest desire to protect. Cassandra recognizes that Jason is not in need of lectures/punishment for the vast majority of mistakes he makes, but of empathy and acceptance. Furthermore, because Cass cares about Bruce so much, she recognizes that the broken relationship between them is painful for Bruce, and she is vested in mending that relationship.

So basically, if Jason is still killing, Cass would not see him as an enemy, but a fallen brother-in-arms, someone who is fighting the same crusade she is, and who used to wear the same symbols she idolizes, but who has been hurt so much that he’s turned away from the path out of fear. She would want to ‘save’ Jason, both for herself and for Bruce. Unlike the other bats, she would probably work with Jason without question and trust him without issues, because she can see that his heart is in the right place and because she knows he was Robin once and Cass holds the bat/bird-symbols to be almost sacred–in her eyes, no one who was ever one of them could ever truly be bad, that would be an impossibility in her mind. However, if Jason tried to kill someone she would absolutely stop him. If he somehow managed to get away with killing someone in her presence, she would definitely be angry, and probably question herself and her beliefs, but I think she’d still forgive him after some time to grieve.

As for Jason, because she has killed before and it obviously affected her adversely, he would respect Cassandra’s vow not to kill, but wouldn’t put up with her trying to make him stop or trying to get him to reconcile with Bruce. He’d admire her pure motives and beliefs, but ultimately think she’s really naive and even childish to think she can always find a way without killing, or that just because she’s borderline-superhuman and can maybe do that, that others who don’t have that same ability should also abide by her rules. I think Cass is a bit of a shallow-thinker in some ways, she deals with the problem in front of her and thinks about the consequences later. She sees a gun pointed at someone, she tries to stop someone from being shot–whether that person surviving means they kill other people is a whole separate issue to her, but to Jason they are connected intrinsically, they are direct cause and effect. Thinking about whether it would be better if that person was dead is secondary to the issue of that person being killed for Cassandra but that kind of thinking is just wrong and childish to Jason.

But that aside, assuming Jason reconciles with the family and stops killing, I think Jason and Cassandra are the type to not appear especially close from the outside but who have a lot more mutual respect and shared moments than people might expect. Jason is an introvert. As such, he is easily overwhelmed by social interaction, especially if the encounter is outside his control, and when that happens he lashes out and gives people a reason to leave him alone or for him to leave. Cass and his relationship would be pretty good I think because she can tell when he is becoming overwhelmed and would leave him alone or help to extricate him from whatever situation he is in when that happens (like she’d distract other family members so he could slip away, give people false information about where he is so he could avoid them, etc.)

Cass herself is more of an extrovert though, and she would probably feel the need to push him to interact even when he doesn’t want to on occasion, but mostly it doesn’t backfire on her, because if nothing else she isn’t loud/chatty about it. Cass and Jason are also both very hands-on people, they enjoy physical activities, though Jason also enjoys the kinds of quiet, intense things Cass finds difficult, like reading, history, art, contemplation, etc and I think she would admire that about him, that he can do both. And Jason would like that interest and want to share that with her, but her lack of attention span would keep it from being something they did very often.

The things they would do often together are taking rides together, racing, sparring, and Jason reading to her or cooking for her. Rarer things might be her reading to him, them teaching each other things (maybe Jason teaching her cooking, her teaching him sign language?), going out to public events, watching movies at home. They aren’t like joined at the hip, but there is camaraderie and respect there. Like, others would think they barely know each other, because they never really see them together doing much but maybe sitting together quietly, but they could predict each others actions/reactions to things with like 100%, they aren’t the type that have to constantly hang out to maintain their friendship. Between them, they are both very good at reading people–Cass is amazing at recognizing emotions in others and Jason is good at predicting/interpreting thoughts and motives (that’s one of his problems sometimes, he makes assumptions about what others are thinking, usually negative, and doesn’t give them a chance to prove him right), so they manage to ‘get’ each other more than almost anyone else does. That doesn’t mean they always get along or they always agree, but that ‘why did he/she do that? What was he/she thinking?’ is never really an issue.

As for Steph, Jason and her have so much in common, similar background, similar issues with Bruce, similar personalities and even fighting styles. I think Jason would see himself in her right away. They are the type who would either love or hate each other, no in between.

The issue of Jason killing would definitely be a problem with Steph. She doesn’t condone killing any more than Cassandra does. Honestly? I think he would try to recruit her away from the bats like he did to Mia Dearden and Scarlet. It probably wouldn’t work, Steph isn’t as jaded as Jason is, she still thinks she can change things without resorting to killing. Stephanie would probably actively dislike Jason, and even if he gave up killing and rejoined the family, she would be suspicious of him until he proved himself to her. But I think even if Jason thinks her idea that Gotham still has any hope of changing without someone putting down the rogues is naive and ignorant, he’d still admire her courage a lot and would actively back her up in most situations. He’d want to help her be a better vigilante, teach her things, not put her down or tell her to go home, like so many have in the past (i.e. Bruce and Tim).

In this way Jason would eventually win her over. Even in situations where Tim would probably be on Bruce’s side, Jason would be on hers and would probably try to step in the way and take the heat off her (since he’s such a target for Bruce’s lectures anyway). At first she might be annoyed about this as if Jason thinks she can’t protect herself, but when she realized it wasn’t manipulation or some demeaning sense of chivalry–he just honestly thinks she is right–it would mean so much to her.

Once Stephanie warmed up to him, she would take it upon herself to interact with him more. She is definitely an extrovert and she would actively invite him to things and interrupt his alone time to bother him. Since she and Cass are best friends, they would probably do this together often and try to drag him off to places. Jason would hate this the vast majority of the time, and try to actively sneak way. Whether Cass helps Jason or Stephanie is completely based on if she thinks Jason can take the social interaction or not. If she does, she isn’t going to give Jason any breaks and let him brood or hole-up, she will hunt him down and drag him off like a prisoner to whatever Stephanie is planning. If she doesn’t, she’s going to nudge Stephanie into giving up and doing something else.

One thing I think they would be able to bond on a lot is school. Jason likes to study, read and learn. Steph will notice him reading so much and take advantage of this. Jason will be proofreading all of her essays and reports for college as soon as she realizes he’s a wiz at reading comprehension/writing, and will probably try to get him to read her textbooks and do worksheets and such for her too when she’s swamped. Jason would grumble but probably help and she would be one of the first people to see that he is interested in higher education but has lingering self-doubt and encourage him to just go for it.

Also I don’t think Steph is big on personal space or ‘alone time’. I headcanon Jason is a great cook and she would also take advantage of this as often as she could get away with, dropping in unexpectedly all the time to the point it would drive Jason crazy. She is used to people who don’t talk much (Cass) so she’s unusually good at holding one-sided conversations and doesn’t push people to talk if they don’t want to but on occasion she might still push Jason to socialize more than he wants to and get blown up at, but she would confront Jason about that and not give him long to beat himself up over it, and since she actually listens they would figure things out fairly quickly. All in all, once Jason managed to win Stephanie over, nowhere is safe for him, he will find himself being dragged everywhere, shopping, cafes, events, school stuff, dropping in on him and hanging out without warning. Possibly even against Jason’s will, they would be very close.

If/when Jason began killing and left the family again, both of the girls would be pretty devastated. Cass would be bent on getting him to come back and Steph would probably be angry and feel duped and betrayed and even grieve him as if he was dead at first. Cass would convince Steph to help her ‘get him back’ though and she’d come around to the idea that he hadn’t been trying to hurt her, but he was himself hurt and needed to be ‘saved’. And I think once she came to that idea she’d be extremely determined and stubborn about it. Jason wouldn’t stand a chance against them both.

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tlbodine · 5 years ago

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A Decade of Horror Recommendations: Millennium Edition

After my 2010s horror recs post, @comicreliefmorlock asked me to do some for older films. So I figured I’d just work my way backward.

The lists might get a bit shorter and less diverse as I go back in time as I’m not as well-versed in older horror films, but I’ll toss out some recommendations for what I’ve seen and maybe some will be new to you anyway :)

Long post under the cut!

2000: A Surprisingly Good Year for Horror

Maybe we don’t think of the Y2K year as a big one for the horror genre, but it was still riding the tail end of the slasher/teen horror revival. Some must-sees:

Final Destination: I’ve written pretty extensively about this movie and it’s no surprise that I like it a lot, even if the sequels get downright ridiculous. The original still stands on its own feet.

Ginger Snaps: Maybe one of the best werewolf movies, period. Smart writing and a strong female cast as an added bonus.

American Psycho: Did you know this came out in 2000? I honestly always thought it was older, somehow, maybe because by the time I watched it in college it seemed like everyone had seen it. Fun fact: did you know it was directed by a woman?

What Lies Beneath: Part psychological horror, part drama-thriller, and sporting a surprisingly A-list cast. It has some well-worn tropes, but it’s a solid watch.

Battle Royale: Speaking of movies that seem like they’re way older than they are, did you know Battle Royale only came out in the year 2000?

There were a smattering of Asian imports in 2000 but none of them quite got their feet under them. I will make a shout-out/honorable mention here for Blood: The Last Vampire, an anime film that’s pretty well-known and gets referenced a lot.

2001: The Beginning of the End (for a little while)

Some solid stand-alone titles came out this year, but it also was the start of when the 90s revival started to dwindle down, I feel, with plenty of disappointments to go around. Scary Movie didn’t help much (and it also launched a whole trend of really awful spoof movies, which tried real hard to kill the comedy genre for a long time, imo). Anyway, some recs!

Jeepers Creepers: The director is an unfortunate sack of shit, but the movie is quite good. The first part, which draws heavily from a true story, is especially chilling.

Thirteen Ghosts: An underrated gem. The plot twists too much for my liking, but the ghost designs are super cool and the whole concept of the house is neat. A+ for originality.

The Devil’s Backbone: Maybe my favorite Guillermo Del Toro film, and a damn good ghost story to boot.

Suicide Club: A Japanese import that feels a bit ahead of its time in terms of pop culture (and internet culture especially). Features a couple of squick-heavy scenes I still struggle to watch (but, like, in a good way).

Ichi the Killer: Another Japanese import and my introduction to Takashi Miike, who makes me more viscerally uncomfortable than just about anyone.

It’s also probably worth mentioning From Hell, the Johnny Depp movie about Jack the Ripper, which many people enjoyed. I personally strongly dislike the film for reasons I can’t fully explain.

2002: Wait, That’s When That Movie Came Out?

I feel like 2002 was a big year for me in the “movies I enjoy but didn’t watch until years later” department, probably because I was a teenager with minimal access to decent cinema. It was also a rocking good year for Japanese horror.

28 Days Later: A movie that brought about the return of zombies in a big way, and also introduced (or at least popularized) fast zombies. Also it’s super scary.

May: I don’t even know if May counts as horror, but it’s a dark, quirky movie that I try to make everyone watch because I love it so much.

Ghost Ship: Honestly the bulk of the movie is pretty forgettable, but the opening scene is one of my favorite moments in gory cinematic history.

Signs: M. Night Shyamalan’s last decent movie or his first shitty one, depending on who you ask. I liked it a lot when I first watched it, and it started to fall apart more and more as I got older.

Ju-On: The Grudge: One of the better-known Japanese horrors and one whose tropes still get referenced and re-used. Skip the 2004 remake and watch the original trilogy.

The Ring: Probably the best-known Japanese horrors and maybe the import that put “Japanese horror” into public consciousness.

There was a lot of shlocky dreck in 2002, some of it decent (Cabin Fever) and some of it downright awful (Pinata: Survival Island/Demon Island). I should also mention Red Dragon, based on Thomas Harris’s novel of the same name, which quite a few people liked (I’ve only seen it once but I recall being underwhelmed). Also an honorable mention to Dog Soldiers, which I have not seen but which I hear frequently recommended as an A+ werewolf film.

2003: Wow that’s a lot of dreck

Look fam nobody said these film recs would be objective. There were a ton of horror movies that came out in 2003, I just didn’t really like hardly any of them. Some exceptions:

Willard: The movie that made me want to start keeping rats as pets, which says more about me than it does the film. It’s a great movie, though, the first thing I ever saw Crispin Glover in (and god, he’s amazing), and one of the few films that I think is better than the book.

Identity: A pretty decent psychological horror starring John Cusack. Watch this and 1408 together as a double-feature for maximum fun factor.

House of 1000 Corpses: Look, if you’re reading this blog, you probably already have an opinion one way or another of Rob Zombie. The movie’s on the list because it’s arguably historically important, not because it’s objectively good.

A few other notable moments from 2003 included a Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake (just watch the original, but if you insist on a remake, this is one of the better ones), the second Final Destination film (the last good one in the franchise), the Jeepers Creepers sequel, Freddy vs Jason, Darkness Falls, and Dreamcatcher. Like I said, there were lots of movies that came out this year, I just don’t think they were very good.

2004: Oops we created torture porn

I was in college at this point, which meant I was watching less horror than at any other moment in my life (I had a roommate who really hated scary movies) so maybe that’s why I haven’t heard of the majority of movies that came out that year. Or maybe they were all just really bad, hence why I still haven’t seen them. Hmmm. But! A few shining stars:

Saw: Obviously a classic. I’m lukewarm about the franchise, but the original is an excellent film and well worth watching, especially given the impact it would have on the next many years of horror cinema.

Shaun of the Dead: Hilarious, and honestly one of my favorite zombie films of all time.

Dumplings: A Korean important you likely missed in 2004 but may have seen in a Three Extremes compilation. Well worth the watch if you’re not squeamish.

Otherwise 2004 was pretty lackluster. Some forgettable franchise installments, some shlocky creature features, some unnecessary remakes. Lots of titles I’m unfamiliar with, though, too, so somebody tell me if I missed a big one that year!

2005: Ehhhh

Just a couple important titles this year too:

Hostel: Not a great movie. In fact, pretty damn campy. But an important one to watch to understand the torture porn genre.

The Devil’s Rejects: See above re: House of 1000 Corpses. Hit or miss but a well-liked film by Rob Zombie fans.

And you know what, I think that’s actually it. I mean there were other movies -- a remake of The Fog, the infinitely predictable Hide and Seek, the second Saw installment, and of course Doom. But it just wasn’t a great year for horror, imo. One shout-out here though for Wolf Creek, which is on my to-watch list; I haven’t seen it so I can’t vouch for it, but it does get recommended to me a lot.

2006: Mostly more of the same

Did we seriously have a Saw movie every year in the 2000s or what? No wonder everybody got sick of them and thought all horror was torture porn for a while. Talk about market saturation.

Anyway, some shout-outs:

Stay Alive: This movie is ridiculous, but I love it a lot. It’s about a video game that kills you in real life, and is a more successful video game movie than most actual adaptations.

ReCycle: An Asian import. I missed this one entirely when it came out, but it’s one of my favorites to have discovered in later years. It’s a seriously cool movie, both fanciful and deeply uncomfortable. Content warning for abortion, but it’s not what you think.

Otherwise, just some mostly soulless remakes (The Omen, The Hills Have Eyes, The Wicker Man), some franchise installments (Saw III, Final Destination 3, The Grudge 2). I will give an honorable mention to Black Sheep, which is so-bad-it’s-good ridiculous, and to that cult favorite Slither.

2007: Wait, is horror getting good again?

Well, not quite, but we’re back on the map with some promising additions in a year where the genre seemed to be struggling to rediscover its identity:

The Mist: One of the better Stephen King adaptations.

30 Days of Night: A divisive entry in the canon, but a pretty interesting piece to study for anyone interested in vampires.

28 Weeks Later: Not exactly a direct sequel to the earlier 28 Days Later, and probably not as good of a film, but pretty good in its own right.

1408: Watch this one with Identity (see above) and enjoy a night of John Cusack going crazy in hotel rooms.

The Orphanage: One of my favorite horror films of all time, both deeply unsettling and agonizingly sad.

Paranormal Activity: The highest-grossing film of all time thanks to its low budget. Also what we can blame for the burst of popularity in the “found footage” style.

Dead Silence: A movie that still frequently gets recommended and delivers some solid spooks. I’m not as fond of it as a lot of people, but it deserves a mention for how often it gets referenced (and for playing “killer ventriloquist dummies” straight as a trope).

Trick r Treat: A Halloween classic.

Of course the year brought us another Saw and another Hostel, a contentious Halloween reboot, another stab at I Am Legend (often adapted, rarely well), and a smattering of other sequels. I have not seen The Girl Next Door but based on how rarely I hear it recommended compared to the book, I imagine I’m not missing much. Borderlands was OK but, for my money, forgettable. Oh, there was also Grindhouse, a double feature which I quite enjoyed (I saw it in theaters, where it came with a warning for length, which I found amusing) but which history does not seem to have remembered positively.

2008: Did Somebody Order a Recession?

Back to slim pickings, although I admittedly have not seen most of the films released that year (I was pretty damn broke in 2008, so maybe that’s why). Still:

Let the Right One In: Skip the later English remake, you cowards, and watch this with subtitles. It’s so good. SO GOOD. An unexpected twist on the vampire story, and kind of a romance to boot. Sort of. In a really messed up way.

Cloverfield: A couple things are neat about Cloverfield. One, it was an early adopter and trope-setter for found-footage movies. Two, it successfully spawned a franchise where none of the movies feel related at all. Three, it launched with some really cool viral marketing that was utterly ahead of its time. On the downside, the shaky cam may in fact make you vomit if you get seasick easily.

Repo! The Genetic Opera: A classic. Also may in fact be the only film of its kind, or at least the only rock-opera scifi-horror that comes to mind.

I haven’t seen Pontypool, though it’s on my watch-list -- I’ve heard it’s quite good. Ditto Tokyo Gore Police which delivers, to my understanding, exactly what it says on the tin. Speaking of movies I didn’t see, can we take a moment to appreciate that a film called “Sauna” with the tagline “cleanse your sins” came out this year? Jfk 2008, are you OK?

2009: Why are all the best horrors comedies this year

It really does become obvious just how much the genre was floundering to figure out what it was doing the latter half of the decade, because the movies are so weirdly hit-or-miss. I do have some favorite hidden gems, though, alongside a couple well-known recs:

Zombieland: A genuinely funny feel-good zombie comedy-horror, feeding right into a growing cultural fascination with zombies.

Jennifer’s Body: Is this a comedy? Is this a horror? What is this? I’m not sure how to classify it but I sure do like it.

Antichrist: Ok I don’t know if this is a recommendation per se, but if I had to watch this with my own eyes, I’m making y’all watch it too. Have you ever wondered what it might look like to watch a filmmaker have a psychotic break while making a movie? That’s almost literally what this film is.

The Human Centipede: This is a cop-out because I have not watched these movies and I in fact refuse to watch these movies because the premise is fucking stupid, but I will acknowledge the historical, ah, importance? of this film in the greater scheme of 21st century horror.

Dread: One of my favorite movies, and the film I recommend to anyone who wants to watch a torture film done right. I love the shit out of this movie. Please go watch this movie.

Grace: Deeply disturbing and pulling approximately zero punches. It’s one of the best films to tread the “horrors of motherhood” territory, which is saying something because that’s very fertile (ha, ha) ground.

I actually have not seen Drag Me to Hell or The Last House on the Left, although people have recommended both to me. Anyone want to chime in with how good they might be? I also want to make a shout-out to Daybreakers, which I feel like nobody ever talks about but which actually has one of the most fascinating vampire concepts I’ve ever seen on film. The movie itself is kind of boring and forgettable, but the idea is really neat.

And that wraps up my journey through the 2000s in horror. Next decade: The 90s, coming right up!

#horror movies #film recs #movie recommendations #horror #horror by the decade

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bluboothalassophile · 6 years ago

Note

kisscam? what kisscam? I need kisscam!

Hello,

Kisscam is apparently going to be a multific mini story for the HfaB stories, so I hope you enjoy Part 1! =)

Knights vs. Mets…

It was a muggy July morning for Gotham City, the Fourth ofJuly weekend was the first family outing, since the controlled, leaked feeds ofthe wedding. Somehow Jason had been dragged to this outing, which was anagitation that had him checking on the news every five minutes and an Arkhamsecurity check (which courtesy of Harley and Ivy, he had), monitoring the Joker’scell. Roy was even here, mostly to ensure he was here, Jason had managed tofinagle Roy out of the Starling Rocket colors for the game, wrangling Roy intothe Knights colors. Terry was perched on Jason’s shoulders as he stood in thecrowd feeling agitated as he scanned the crowd.

Naturally Jason was in the Knights colors, as only any trueGothamite would be, and he’d beat the shit out of anyone who talked down abouthis team.

“This is dull,” Kate huffed out.

“You didn’t have to come,” Selina pointed out sweetly as shewalked to the group, he smiled a bit at her. She had taken the role ofmothering him seriously, and he kind of liked it as she looped her arm aroundhim.

“My cousin is always welcomed,” Bruce said as he walked intothe group.

“Thanks B,” Kate said reluctantly. Jay kind of got why B wasso intent on inviting Kate into the family now, a year ago she had kind of gonerogue after being kicked out of West Point for Conduct Unbecoming of anOfficer. Something about her unsettled Jason, but what was infuriating was thedouble standard B had for her. Another reason to dislike Kate, but Jason wastrying desperately to be a bigger person. Failing.

“Hey, we’re here!” Dick appeared grinning as he ran to them,holding Kori’s hand. “Hey Roy!” Dick greeted as he held Mar'i tight to his hip.

“We’re just waiting for Drake and the girls now,” Damiansneered, Jason caught Helena with his foot before leaning over and hoisting herup.

“Kitten,” he mused holding the giggling kid face level.Helena’s curls were everywhere, and he chuckled as she securely grabbed hisGotham Knights jersey before she climbed up to his shoulder.

“My Jay!” Terry shrieked.

“No screaming Duck!” Jason warned the older toddler.

“We’re here!” Tim announced.

“Why am I here?” Raven demanded.

“Cause we said so, and we’re the Waffle Queens, incompletewithout our third Queen.” Stephanie announced.

“Traitor,” Jason stated seeing his best friend dressed in aNew York Met’s ballcap and jersey, mini shorts and boots. The demoness frownedat him and he glared in retaliation.

“I will remind you heathens I am a New Yorker.” Ravensnapped.

“What would your mothers say!” Selina gasped.

“Harley’s from Staten Island,” Raven remarked. “And Ivyasked who’d want to be from Gotham. Vic said it was only slightly better thanPhilly, but we’ll leave the semantics of that alone.”

“I can’t believe my best friend is a Mets fan! I’m gonna bemugged by the end of the day!” Jason grimaced.

“Your husband is a Rockets fan!” Roy chimed up.

“Rockets suck worse than the Meteors,” Jason snapped.

“I’d be insulted, but I can’t be,” Roy sighed.

“This is normal?” Duke sputtered.

“What about it kiddo?” Selina purred as they started movingthrough the lines.

“You’re all billionaires,” Duke said.

“Actually, B is, we just mooch off him,” Stephanie retorted.

“Only moocher here is you Steph,” Tim countered.

“What about Rae!?” Stephanie balked.

“The Queen of Hell is no moocher!” Jason stated.

“That’s right, besides, I mooch off Vic, so I’m not B’s,” Ravenresponded.

“Naturally, besides, the Queen of Hell is far too good forus mere mortals, especially the Drama Queen,” Jason said slinging his free armover her shoulders. Raven’s arm wrapped around his waist then.

“You’re one to talk,” Dick said.

“I’m not Drama Queen!” Jason snapped.

“Just a Damned Prince of Gotham,” Tim snickered.

“Prince and Queen!” Cass giggled.

“Hardy-Har-Har, No.” Jason snapped at the two idiots.

“You’re an imbecile Todd.”

“Only for getting caught,” Jason rolled his eyes as theywere now being directed into the stadium. Roy shoved his shoulder and Jasonrolled his eyes, he was very reluctant to go to this, but he was eternallygrateful to Roy for coming along. Though Roy did kind of owe him for all theArrow stuff Jason went to. But this was all besides the point. Raven and Roywere helping his agitation levels stay somewhat reasonable, he still wished he hadbrought Ace; the dog helped a lot for his agitation levels. The Pit was boilingbeneath his skin as a conscious itch he wanted to scratch but he was ignoringit and his craving for a cigarette since he was in the presence of the kids.

“At least you’re not a Yankees fan,” Jason resigned.

“I’m the Devil’s Spawn, not the Devil, Jay,” Raven remarked.

“You know, statistically speaking, the Yankees could beunder a Devil’s contract, their stats are just way too good for normalbaseball,” Tim piped up.

“The Devil has owned that team since the start,” Ravendismissed.

“What!?” Stephanie and Duke sputtered.

“You didn’t honestly think that Lucifer would go into thepro baseball business if he didn’t have a winning horse team did you?” Ravenasked.

“You’re joking right? She’s joking,” Duke demanded as helooked at Cass for answers.

Cass shrugged.

“That explains a lot, you don’t even know,” Roy sighed.

“Dick we must smile, the paparazzi are here,” Koriannounced, immediately Jason pulled his cap lower as Terry giggled.

“No, Kori, we’re here for a ballgame, and family time, screwthe paparazzi!” Dick snapped. For the first time in Jason’s memorable life hewas eternally grateful to Dick for that simple statement. But then again,paparazzi had screwed up his and Kori’s honeymoon. The trip to Madeira wascancelled entirely because of paparazzi and the million dollar photo bribe tosee the happy couple intimate. Dick had been furious. Especially when Kori hadbeen cornered in the private airport’s bathroom by a male photographer andreporter wanting answers about their marriage. They had now postponed to attendWally and Artemis’ wedding, then sneak out of San Diego for their Honeymoonwhich would be about October rather than the original June date now. Jay almostfelt bad for Dick and Kori, but he also knew they were reluctant to leave Mar'ialone for three weeks with B and the family as her powers were manifesting morerapidly now.

“Oh, Jay, chilidogs!” Selina gasped, and he looked at hismom’s pointing. His stomach growled a bit at the sight before him.

“Just like old time’s Jaylad,” Bruce said softly, andJason’s eyes flicked to B’s. B was trying, Jason didn’t know how to take thatthough, but today he’d give him the benefit of the doubt.

“Yeah,” he nodded.

“Those are disgusting, do you even know what they do tothose animals!?” Damian hissed.

“No, and we get you don’t like meat but respect that we doand don’t tell us,” Raven said.

“No waffles,” Cass pouted.

“We’re at a ball game, not a diner!” Tim stated.

“We’re going if the Knight’s lose.”

“Well in that case we’ll be there this evening, Dick’s paying!”Duke shouted.

“WHAT!?”

“So long as it’s not me paying I’m in!” Roy declared.

“You’re a traitor, the Knights are going to win, the Metssuck.”

“Jay, My Mets Might Suck, but Jay, your Knights are fuckingcursed.”

“Did you curse them? That would be cheating if you did.”

“Do I look like I have a goat on had to do cursing?”

“What’s a goat have to do with anything?”

“How do you think the Cubs got cursed?” she demanded. Jason scowledat that as he walked through the security, he was vastly relieved that they didn’tnotice his ceramic knives. Raven squeezed his arm as they walked into thestadium, he kind of felt relieved having Raven here, and he knew that wasn’ther empathy.

“You better not curse my Knights,” Selina snapped at Raven.

“Again, I don’t have a goat.”

“Still,” Selina warned.

“Why’s it always goats?”

“Goats are naturally magically endowed, dumber than a box ofrocks, but the amount of magic in them, it’s so dark, tasty too if cookedright.” Raven informed them with a smile.

“I Hate Magic,” Bruce muttered.

“I love Magic, the world needs more Magic.”

“Not in Gotham,” Bruce warned her.

“Please, Gotham is a cesspool of the dark powers of theuniverse.”

“Really!?” Dick demanded.

“You’re surprised?”

“No, not really,” Tim omitted, holding Tammy’s hand.

“I hate Gotham,” Jason muttered. Raven elbowed him and hehissed at the jostling of his ribs. A few hits from Artemis sparring hadcracked them, he felt the burn of the Lazarus Pit over them. “Little bird, you’relucky you’re cute, but touch my ribs again and I’ll make your life hell.”

“I can fix them,” she offered.

“Don’t,” he warned, he could feel the Pit too close to thesurface. Raven’s head snapped over and he saw her eyes pulse white before hefrowned.

“The Pit?” she asked softly.

“Let’s just enjoy the ballgame.” He gestured for her tocontinue forward.

“Oh look Mar'i cotton candy!” Kori announced.

“Come on let’s get cotton candy!” Kori announced, Ravenchuckled as she caught Terry, Lian and Helena ran after Kori with Roy shoutingfor them to wait up.

This wasn’t so bad, Jay decided. It was just a day, at aballfield with a couple of mooks, and nobody would care, and Gotham wasn’tgoing to hell. It wasn’t a bad day, not yet. Jay could do this.

“You’re an imbecile,” Damian announced.

Jason rolled his eyes at that.

“Dude, do you ever shut your mouth?” Duke demanded.

“Twerp, hit puberty and a growth spurt then maybe you cancall me an imbecile, and only if you can beat me in a fight.” Jason warned thekid.

“No killing!” Bruce snapped.

“B, settle down, it’s just brothers, being brothers,” Selinacaught B by the shoulders and Jason snickered. “Besides, my favorite son wouldnever harm his little brothers.”

“Yes, yes I would, I just wouldn’t get caught.” Jason said smugly.Many multiverse ventures had been this way, and when he had been cornered or caught,he’d beaten the shit out of them.

“See, we’re fine!”

“That’s not encouraging!” Tim balked.

“We can always beat up Drake.” Damian offered.

“We’re not beating up Tim!” Dick shouted.

“I could take him,” Tim decided.

“I side with Tim.” Jay decided.

“What?”

“Man if there’s going to be a war then Tim’s going to win,only way I lose is if all the coffee in the world disappears,” Jason decided.

“It’s scary how you decided that,” Tammy decided.

“Just saying, Him and the Little Bird together, worlddomination.” Jay shrugged.

“Nah man, Rae and Alfred,” Duke corrected.

“No, that’s universal domination,” Tim corrected.

“Don’t get them teaming up, evil will run then we’ll have nomore waffles!” Stephanie balked.

Cass nodded in agreement.

“I as the cook for the Queen of Hell can assure you that thewaffle supply will never cease to be,” Jason stated.

“So you admit you and Raven are an item!?” Tammy squealed.

“No, I’m the Adviser and the Cook.”

“What am I?” Dick demanded.

“The Fool?” Jason offered.

“Why do you get a say in the Queen’s court?” Stephanie pouted.

“Cause I was self-appointed. The Vice President positionwasn’t available to have also,” Jason shrugged.

“Well I want in,” Tammy decided.

“Me too,” Stephanie decided.

“Yes!” Cass grinned.

“You want in on Hell’s Court?” Tim sputtered.

“Why not.”

“Dibs on being the Fool!” Dick announced.

“Who’s a Fool?” Raven asked.

“Batty family wants in on the Court of Hell,” Tim smiled ather.

“Well, in that case I have a Prime Minster, a Queen’sConsort, Vice President, Advisor/Cook, and Captain of the Guard, and a WineBearer.”

“That’s not how a court is built,” Bruce said.

“I’m the Queen, I make the rules.”

“I’m aunt of the Queen.”

“NO!” Damian shouted.

“Why not!?” Selina sputtered.

“No incest,” Damian stated.

“Again with this, Damian, it’s not happening!” Ravensnapped.

“Seems like it already did,” Kori giggled.

“I will kick you.” Raven warned.

“I’m the sister to the Queen,” Kori purred.

“Familiar claims can be revoked at any time due to annoyances,”Raven warned.

“Doesn’t work that way sunshine,” Jason grinned.

“Hey, Rae, if everyone has a part in this Court, what am Iand what’s Donna?”

“Well, Donna’s an ambassador, obviously. And you can be aconsort if you want.”

“Oh! So I get to be sexy arm candy!?” Roy grinned.

“Yeah,” she shrugged.

“I like that, I’m the Queen of Hell’s Consort!” Roy grinned.

“You have no power, you nimrod.” Damian snapped.

“So? I just wanna be paid to look pretty!”

“I Princess!” Lian declared.

“Befitting,” Jason shrugged.

“I’m Kitten!”

“Can I be Duck Dodgers!?” Terry squealed delightfully.

“The Court can use a Duck Dodgers,” Raven decidedthoughtfully.

“This is getting seriously out of hand,” Bruce decided.

“No killjoys are permitted in the Court of Hell,” Ravendecided.

“Young lady,” he started.

“You will address the Queen as your highness or your grace,”Tim snickered.

“Oh, I like that! Your Grace! Makes me sound important!”

“I will sooner call you a slew of curses than your highness.”Jason warned.

“You are permitted to call me your grace, little bird,sunshine, but call me princess and I’ll break your nose; again.” Raven warned.

“Deal.”

“That’s not fair!” Tim whined. “The rest of us benevolentsubjects have to call you ‘your highness’ why not him?”

“Because he’s a bastard,” Raven decided. Jason chuckled ashe slung his arm around her shoulders, Raven smirked as she took a bite ofcotton candy.

“You two sure you ain’t a couple!?” Tammy chuckled.

“We are secretly dating and have a secret love child named Alicewho resides in the realm Wonderland for her safety and our sanity while we area diplomatic envoy for the Green Lantern Corps of fuck ups. Obviously we’re notdating,” Jason snapped as he held up a hand for the beer guy who was walkingtheir way.

“You two act awfully couple-ly.”

“Trust us, we’re not a couple,” Raven said.

“I don’t trust you two,” Stephanie and Cass announced.

“Too bad.”

“Jay!” Terry shouted.

“Duck.”

“Team!” Terry pointed.

“Good call little man.”

“Jay?”

“Hm?”

“Can I be Robin?”

“No!” Damian snapped.

“Well, maybe in the future but you’re too little little bro,”Dick chuckled ruffling Terry’s hair.

“I wanna be Robin!” Mar'i stated.

“Over My Dead Body,” Dick stated.

“She is not fragile Dick,” Kori protested.

“She’s my little girl!”

“So!?” Kori demanded.

“Girls… can’t be Robin!” Dick decided quickly.

“Excuse me!” Stephanie squawked.

“What about that blonde who was Robin!? I have clippings ofher!” Tammy stated.

“Robin is always a boy, Mar'i will not be Robin.” Dickstated.

“That’s sexist and we’ll be having none of that!” Jaydecided. “Mar'i can be whatever she wants to be when she is old enough to makeinformed decisions.”

B flinched a bit at this.

“Hey look, the game is about to start,” Selina cheered.

“Yes!” Raven grinned.

“Finally, beer is getting warm.”

“I miss beer.”

“You like being sober.”

“I like being sober.”

“If anyone is a couple it’s Roy and Jay,” Raven decided.

“You dare to call me and my husband out in public!” Roy gasped,grasping his heart.

“You two have a kid and a dog together with a business, I’msurprised the paparazzi hasn’t used this information to shatter young girlsheart’s everywhere!” Raven mocked.

“But you know you’re my only Queen right?” Roy asked.

“You’re a consort, I demand loyalty, not fidelity,” Ravenoffered.

“And this is why we bow to the Queen,” Roy and Jay decidedin unison.

“Oh little brother,” Cass giggled.

“The answer is no. And remains no.”

“Jay and Rae sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g!” Stephanie andCass started.

“I think you mean Roy.” Roy said.

“Buddy, I’m not into redheads,” Jason warned.

“So what darling!? I’m not into busted noses.”

“Are you insinuating there’s something wrong with my face?” Jasondemanded in mock outrage. He was kind of enjoying this.

“Yup.”

“That’s okay, you have a handsome face if I ever saw one,”Tammy promised.

“You’re stealing my girl now!? Get your own!” Tim shoutedhugging Tammy beside him. Jason snickered.

“He’s got Rae,” Damian, Tammy, and Stephanie shouted.

“NO!” He and Raven shouted.

“JayRae forever!” Cass and Stephanie swooned.

“And this is why I don’t come around home.”

“You should come around more often,” Duke said.

“I don’t even know you.”

“That’s the point, besides this isn’t so bad,” Dukeshrugged.

“I renounce all ties to this family and wish to resume beinga member of the dead,” Jason announced. Raven whacked him up the back side ofhis head.

“Rethink that you bastard.”

“Awe! They have pet names for each other, so adorable,” Dickcooed.

“I will shoot you asshole.”

“I’ve already shot him!” Kori giggled.

“Atta girl,” Jay cheered.

“You are the biggest feminist,” Roy observed.

“Women rule the world,” he shrugged.

“And that is why he’s my favorite child,” Selina decided.

“What about Helena?” B sputtered.

“The little ones are just developing personalities babe, we’llpick when they’re older,” Selina mused.

“What about me!?” Dick sputtered.

“Suck it up boy blunder.”

“You trip one time and you never let it go,” Dick muttered.

“You’re too perfect child,” Tim decided.

“I’m superior,” Damian decided.

“You know, your Napoléon complex is getting out of hand.” Jasonstated.

“Be nice,” Raven waved him off.

“He has time to grow into it.” Stephanie smiled.

“Well, there is a quarter chance he could be a dwarfforever,” Tim observed.

“He’s already taller than you, so lose that hope that you’llbe taller than someone.”

“I’m taller than Raven!” Tim shouted.

“I’m not family.”

“You’re Jay’s wife!” Tammy decided.

“And Now Stand For Our National Anthem!” the announcershouted, Jason caught Terry and dropped the kid on his shoulders as he pulledhis cap off while standing.

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 7 years ago

Text

Ready Player One review

People who say “The book is always better than the movie!” tend to be foolish people who view literature as an inherently flawless medium incapable of doing wrong. To say that, you need to ignore literature that is objectively better than the source material to the point even the authors prefer it, such as Fight Club, Jaws, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, or films that greatly improved the work they’re adapting by trimming the fat, such as V for Vendetta and (oh boy I’m probably gonna get shit for this) The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Today’s film is one such film in the latter category, directed by a man behind one of the films mentioned in the former category, a film no one except me thought would be as good as it is: Ready Player One.

The book is easily one of the most contentious novels I’ve ever seen, a truly “love it or hate it” affair. I liked the novel; I read it when I was going through a really rough time back in 2012 or so, and a lot of its themes resonated with me. It’s a cheesy, charming book that unfortunately has a few really cringey bits of writing in it and unfortunately due to its medium spends a lot of time explaining references you wouldn’t see otherwise. I’d put the book on the same level as Eragon; it’s cheesy and has some dumb writing here and there, but overall it’s enjoyable. But even I realized a film could help trim a lot of the fat of this novel and polish it into something grand, and when I heard Spielberg was at the helm I slept a lot easier, figuring that would be the case.

And it was. This movie is a lot better than the book in most regards. But let’s look at the plot first:

In the year 2045, in a world where things seem bleak and joyless, people turn to the virtual reality world of the OASIS, where they can be anyone or anything they want. Its creator, a man named Halliday, created a contest for all the people of the OASIS to take part in after he died, in which the goal was to find the ultimate Easter Egg. Whoever found the three keys and then the Easter Egg would become rich, powerful, and most importantly they would own the OASIS. Wade Watts, known in the OASIS as Parzival, is an average guy who eventually stumbles across the answer of how to get the first key. But he’s not the only person gunning after the prize; the corporation IOI and its douchey head honcho Nolan Sorrento are after total control so they can spam ads and basically make the place a microtransaction nightmare. Can Wade, with the help of his best pal Aech, his love interest Art3mis, and his buddies Daito and Sho manage to stop IOI or is this end of line for the users?

WARNING: THERE’S GONNA BE SPOILERS BELOW.

So I’m gonna go over some of the things I didn’t like in the adaptation first, which honestly mostly amount to nitpicks. The diminished importance of Rush is a bit sad, though it’s kind of understandable since all of the challenges were streamlined and simplified for the movie. That doesn’t suck as much to me as the complete cutting of the Ladyhawke segment, as this book is what introduced me to that movie and I was hoping to see some reference to it. Changing up Aech the way they did kind of diminishes the impact of her reveal, and speaking of which, a lot of characters and backstory are glossed over or ignored, most egregiously Ogden Morrow. The book went into a bit more detail into Morrow, co-creator of the OASIS, and Halliday’s relationship, but in the film Morrow is seemingly shunted aside for much of the film. I don’t think any of this really ruins the film per se, but it certainly makes it a different beast from the book.

Now, time to sing the praises of this film: the visuals are stunning. The OASIS is a major focus of the movie, as it should be, and we get to see so many creative visuals and ideas take place, as well as insane amounts of crossover characters. You’d need to freeze frame every single crowd shot to catch them all; just watching it as I did I saw Duke Nukem, Jason Voorhees, the Battletoads, Hello Kitty, Harley Quinn, the Joker, Batman, and more among the crowds. It’s a lot like Wreck-It Ralph in that regard. Frankly, I kind of wish the entire film was just in the OASIS, because all of it is just so fascinating and fun and visually appealing… special props need to go to the extended trip into The Shining, which was recreated with eerie accuracy up until the parts where things go off the rails. I think this movie may be Spielberg’s greatest achievement visually speaking.

The parts of the film that take place in the real world aren’t nearly as good, but I don’t think they were necessarily bad either. They definitely had their good moments, and they certainly helped progress the plot forward as well as being important to the film’s overall message of “Don’t ignore reality in favor of escapism, because reality is where what’s most important really is.” And a good message that is, especially in today’s day and age. Still, some of the acting in the real world can be wonky, mostly whenever Wade is having romantic moments with Samantha AKA Art3mis. They do get better as the film progresses, but their romance arc in this movie is easily a weak point with how rushed and awkward it is. Guess Ernest Cline’s co-writing credit is really shining through there.

Our main characters themselves are all fairly well done, in OASIS and outside of it, though again, Wade and Samantha’s relationship in reality is a bit awkwardly written, and it’s not much better in the OASIS though there’s some more cool visuals to help you stomach things, but overall those two are enjoyable protagonists. Aech is still as cool as ever, though I am a bit disappointed they changed her character so much it made the impact of learning she’s a black lesbian (the latter fact is there but glossed over) a lot less impactful, as instead of her avatar being a white dude, it’s a hulking cyborg ogre. Still, I can’t deny Aech is still as cool as ever. Daito and Sho are also cool and have their roles expanded a bit from the book. Better yet, Daito does not get killed, so no awkward seppuku references that will make you cringe!

The villains are pretty cool too. First up is the OASIS insider I-R0k, played by T.J. Miller in his first act of penance for The Emoji Movie. It’s so fucking funny seeing this hulking, menacing death lord with skulls and shit all over him talk in the most nerdy voice imaginable. Still, he manages to shockingly be a menacing and capable threat, unlike his lame book counterpart. Then w e have the new villainess, F’Nale Zandor, a new character created for the film who serves as big bad Nolan Sorrento’s right-hand woman, acting out his evil schemes in the real world. She’s pretty cool and badass, and plays her role well enough; she’s sort of like a low-tier Bond henchman. Then we have Nolan himself, and while he is a stereotypical 80s corporate villain – a fact that even he lampshades – it’s hard not to appreciate a villain whose online avatar looks like Senator Armstrong and who calls forth Mechagodzilla as his ride in the final battle.

Speaking of the final battle, it is absolutely epic, but there has been a bit of contention due to the inclusion of the Iron Giant, and how it somehow goes against the non-violent themes of his titular movie. Well, you can rest easy in knowing that it’s just a giant mecha being piloted by Aech, and mostly what it’s doing is protecting everyone else from Mechagodzilla. The Iron Giant vs. Mechagodzilla is the greatest matchup I never knew I wanted.

Spielberg managed to do exactly what I expected him to do: he distilled everything that was good about the book, filtered out what didn’t work, and made a fun movie out of it. I can’t really justify totally calling this a style over substance film like I could with Batman v Superman or Miss Peregrine’s, because there actually is enough substance here to be serviceable and it has a very good message about the dangers of escapism and how allowing corporations to take away the neutrality of things is bad, but it’s definitely a movie you’re gonna wanna see for all the visuals more than anything. It’s a lot like Doctor Strange in that regard.

This is a great movie. Yes, great. If you love some really fucking cool visuals and can handle tons of cheese, this is the film for you. Honestly, it’s weird, but I’d really recommend this to everyone who disliked the book; you may find in a lot of ways that this is the book done RIGHT. As for people who love the book, this may be very much a love or hate affair; me, I loved it. I honestly can’t wait to watch it again and see what other secrets and cameos I pick up on, and just to bask in the glorious visuals of the OASIS. Leave it to Spielberg to polish something like Ernest Cline’s writing and produce a diamond, or at least a gemstone of significant value. It’s not a perfect film at all, but it IS a fun, enjoyable, and exciting one… kinda like a lot of the 80s films that inspired it.

#Review #movie review #Ready Player One #RPO #Steven Spielberg #Ernest Cline #VR #Virtual reality #OASIS #80s #sci-fi #action #adventure

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old-long-john · 7 years ago

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Hey Laura would you be willing to talk more about those John Silver gender feels?

Sure. Thismight be a bit disjointed and weird, because I’m not sure I fully understandthem, but I’ll try to lay them out in some kind of coherent way. Also, if thisall spells out something blatantly obvious to anyone then I guess I don’t mindif you say so, because various words and labels do float around my brain fromtime to time, but I’m not about to undertake any huge personal re-evaluationsor re-labelling or whatever else, because I just don’t have the energy forthat. So yeah. Although it’s entirely possible this is all a huge mess ofnothing that’s any different to anyone else, which would be vaguely embarrassing.

This stuff isby no means limited to John Silver/Luke Arnold, or even ever present with him,but I think partly because of the way I’ve projected onto Silver a huge amount andnow largely write and think about fanfic (and the show) from his viewpoint,these sorts of feelings have slipped into the mix as well. So sorry if thisgoes off on tangents that weren’t what you wanted to know at all, but the moreI think about it, the more I remember things that tie in and ways in which thisreally isn’t about him specifically. I’m gonna put most of this under a cut,just because it’s quite long and personal and I’m not sure how I feel aboutputting it right out there on people’s dashes.

Basically,all of that classic wlw stuff where it’s sometimes difficult to distinguishbetween girls you’re attracted to and girls you want to look like or be like, Ialso experience quite a lot with men, and he’s one of them. I have it even morestrongly with people who are a certain type of androgynous, which is probablygetting straight to the heart of the matter really. There’s a certain look that Silver/Lukeoften has that falls right into the type that messes me up: (big) long hair,facial hair, reasonably muscular arms and legs, and a masculine-but-soft-ish,grungy kind of style.

The waySilver looks mid-S2 is probably the most intense instigator of these feelingsfor me (though any time his hair is down in S4 I get it badly too.) It’sattractive, but it’s also in a lot of ways what I want for myself; thebit of face scruff, the toned, veiny forearms, the wide shoulders, the narrow waist under the big belt, and themuscular thighs. He moves in a masculine way too, and he has that deep voice,and I like those things in the same confusing mixture of ways.

I’ve dressedin a pretty masculine way for a long time, but I’m always kind of disappointedthat my frame doesn’t pull off the look the way I want it to. I almost always wearmen’s hoodies, tank top style tops, sports bras, close fitting dark jeans, belts,and converse or boots. That’s my look. But I want to be taller and harder andmore angular. I want to be stronger. Most of the time I don’t like being softwith round edges, but I do like that I’m naturally quite muscular underneath it.I don’t hate having boobs, but I don’t particularly love them either. I wish Icould take them off for 99.9% of the time and maybe just put them on forspecial occasions. I’m just glad they’re not bigger. I don’t exactly dislike being awoman, but I feel deeplyuncomfortable when I think I look too performatively feminine, like I’m goingto be ‘found out’ as a fraud or people will assume I’m something I’m not. I don’teven know where to start with the fact that I enjoy manual labour partiallybecause I like how it makes my hands rough and calloused and cut up, and itgets dirt so embedded around my nails that it doesn’t come out for days. I’mcareless with my hands when I’m on an excavation (I’m anarchaeologist in theory) because I want them to look more masculine and be less soft.

Tbh, for along time I’ve had a slight obsession with wondering what I’d be like if I wasa man. If literally everything was the same, except I got the Y chromosome frommy dad instead of another X. What would I look like? How would I present myself?What looks could I pull off? Would my personality be the same? Would I fancythe same people? Would I be ignoring confusing ‘do I want to be or be with’feelings about women? And if we lived in a world where it was possible tochange your sex or just your appearance back and forth at will, I thinkI’d spend a lot of time either as a man or at least as an androgynous,masculine looking woman. But not all the time. And that’s kind of the most confusingpart. I regularly wear mascara and eyeliner, I sometimes wear lipstick, and I keepmy nails pretty long when I’m not digging (which is most of the time). Thereare multiple ways I often like to look and feel feminine. It’s such a mixed upmess that it’s hard to pull apart. Honestly, that photo of Ezra Miller with hishair piled up and his adorable patchy beard and with lipstick on too is somehowgoals. But without the dress.

I thinkSilver really plays into all this because he both embodies a lot of the ways Iwant to look, and he also looks some of the ways I already do look. I think wehave a fairly similar face shape, and similar eyes, and somewhat similar hair (mine’sfar less curly, but it’s big and unruly and about the same colour when it’s notdyed), and he’s also fairly short and muscular in that maybe attainable kind ofway that someone like Jason Momoa (who I get it with a little) is not. I think actually, subconsciously, hereally fits into my brain’s ideas of best version male me, and I find it verycomfortable and kind of a release to put myself inside him when I write fics.It’s like playing dress up with a different imaginary body, with all thedetails filled in for me, and a conveniently familiar personality through whichI can express myself in different ways.

On top of allthat, while my memory can be pretty spotty for short term things, my long termmemory is actually very good. So I remember vividly the way I felt about developingfacial hair and a little happy trail when I was going through puberty, before I internalised all that societal bullshit aboutwhat women are supposed to look like. I liked both of them. I liked happytrails on men, and so I liked how it looked on me, because I didn’t really knowyet that I wasn’t ‘supposed’ to have it. The older I get, the hairier I get,and I’m torn between hating it because I’m meant to be a woman and I don’t look‘right’, and feeling weirdly validated by it because it’s like my body wants tobe more masculine too.

I’m not sure whether I’m making the best job of explaining this, but it’s because I’ve spent along time kind of glancing at these feelings and just accepting that they’rethere without actually looking harder at what they all mean when I put themtogether. I’ve also not bothered delving too far into what kind of tumblr-esquelabels exist that could encompass it all, because I’m worried if I settle onsome kind of label for what it is (if it is anything at all beyond ‘you’re justtomboyish, dude, get a grip’) then it’ll only become another thing that the mirror doesn’treflect and my dissatisfaction over the way I look will have new specific and excitingbranches to explore. It’s not just that I don’t look a certain way, it’s alsothat I can’t make myself look very different in any direction. The way I lookisn’t flexible. I always just look like a short, chubby woman. My face alwaysjust looks like my face, only sometimes the lips are a different colour or myeyelashes look longer. I still hope my face will get more angular as I getolder, but it’s not like I’m a kid anymore. I’m almost 30. If I had a beardthough, I’d treat that thing like a god damn etch-a-sketch. I could change myface drastically on a whim. Which is maybe why I’m kind of overly fascinated bythe way Silver’s look shifted so significantly throughout the series.

I’m probablyforgetting obvious stuff, and I’m omitting some other stuff, but Ithink that covers a lot of it. Hopefully it makes some kind of sense. This isprobably a lot more than what you were really asking about, but Silver isessentially just the latest focus (and avatar, really) in a long line of thingsthat fall into this pattern.

#personal #welp that's out there now #other queer stuff?#not sure why anyone would but please don't reblog this #I might delete it later #Anonymous

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bigskydreaming · 5 years ago

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Beware: do not consume the following post in the belief that there’s a point being made with it or like. Any real reason to it whatsoever. LOL. Just something I’ve been pondering.

So, its interesting to me that there’s such a lack of fics about Bruce raising his kids with a partner. And by interesting I mean just that, lol....I’m not trying to imply anything, I’ve no specific opinions or conclusions on that myself, I’m just...thinking about it lately.

Literally just that. That I’m kinda intrigued by how rarely I see fics where Bruce has a co-parent that his kids would equally deem as much their parent as Bruce himself. There’s plenty of Bruce ship fics, with various of his children usually playing fairly large roles in the fics rather than it just being about Bruce and his ship partner. But not a lot that pursue or at least show that relationship through to the point where they’re effectively a co-parenting team rather than like...Bruce and his kids, plus Bruce’s new partner who likes his kids well enough but doesn’t really feel its their place to parent them.

There are a number of Batcat AUs where Bruce and Selina have a pretty established relationship from fairly early on in the timeline, but in general, most of them tend to have her take a pretty hands-off approach to the kids. They’re still pretty much viewed as Bruce’s kids. While she’s someone they might come to when they need to vent about Bruce and want a sympathetic ear, she’s not really front and center making the child-rearing decisions alongside Bruce. (In a lot of the ones I can think of, she usually doesn’t even officially live in the Manor herself, she’s more just a strong presence who will still leave to return to her own space when things get too chaotic around the house).

And even in fics where she and Bruce marry, she’s usually written as the stepmother to his kids rather than....hmm, I don’t mean to come across as disparaging of step-parents or to imply that they can’t be just as fully a parent to a child as any biological or adoptive parent.

Let me put it this way. Just to clarify, when singling out Selina, Clark and Talia as step-parents in fics I’m generalizing about here, the thing I’m really trying to get at is like....for instance, you might see plenty of Selina having a positive relationship with the Batkids, but you rarely see her being like...equally involved in the decision to adopt any of the kids. Either because they’ve all already been adopted, or the fic is set in a window where whichever kids are present have already been present in Bruce’s life when she officially begins a relationship with him, and the fic ends before any of the later kids come into his life.

And same thing with Bruce’s other partners I refer to in this post. Like, there’s plenty of fics where you can certainly assume that after the conclusion of the fic, any later kids to come into their lives, Bruce and his partner/spouse decide to take in together, are equally invested in giving them a home and a family, etc....I literally just mean, this isn’t something you usually SEE in any of these fics, which is part of what I find interesting and have been kinda musing on.

Anyway. Then there are a good number of Superbat fics, that usually diverge from canon before Clark ever starts forming a family with Lois, but retaining all the Batkids. My assumption is this is because the Batkids as a family unit are more established and still the ‘preferred’ family overall, and if you feel you have to pick and choose because say, you have trouble picturing or don’t want to write Tim and Kon and Jon and Damian as stepbrothers, etc, then I can understand why a writer would go that route.

But what’s interesting to me here is the way most of these are set timewise....there’s a number I can think of that have Bruce and Clark get together early on, when Dick is still Bruce’s only kid...but by and large, these ones almost always end when Bruce and Clark officially get together. Like, there may be plenty of Clark and Dick bonding scenes, but the fics themselves don’t normally progress past that ‘finally getting together’ resolution, so there’s no real delving into Bruce and Clark as actual co-parents for Dick and then the later kids.

And then on the other side of things, there’s a lot of Superbat fics I know of where Bruce and Clark only get together at a point comparable to ‘current’ canon. Where basically all Bruce’s kids are already present, Dick, Jason and Cass at least are all adults and living on their own, usually Tim as well, and so of course, they’re all very much Bruce’s kids by the time Clark even comes into the picture. Their child-rearing officially done and over with, so even when Clark eventually becomes the cool approachable stepdad or whatever, again, its that angle where he’s involved, but it wouldn’t really be accurate to describe him as a full co-parent with Bruce.

(As far as Bruce/Clark goes, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Superbat fic that has them get together at some point in the middle of Bruce’s.....umm...child acquisition period, let’s call it. LOL. I just mean, there’s not really any fics I can think of where Bruce’s kids only include Dick and Jason so far, etc. Again, it tends to either be early on, when Dick is really young, or ‘contemporary’, where all the kids are around.)

Similar to the Superbat take is the BatLantern. I’ve seen a few of these, and again, you tend to see Hal and Bruce get together when Bruce has all his kids already and most of them are fully grown, or early on when its still just Dick. Actually, as opposed to Superbat, I think I have come across one Batlantern fic that was set when Dick was Nightwing and Jason was Robin, but that was it. However, there’s possibly a bunch of Batlanterns I haven’t even looked at, as I’m uh....not a Hal fan, so who knows what I’ve skipped over there. *Shrugs*

And then we’ve got Bruce and Talia fics, which.....I confess aren’t my favorite, as my general impression of fics that have them officially get together, live together, the whole nine yards, is that pretty much all the ones I’ve come across tend to heavily prioritize Jason and Damian as ‘their’ kids, and Dick and Tim are usually just kinda...there, or more often than not, the antagonistic foils/sources of family drama. Which. Umm. Not my thing, obviously.

And interestingly, a lot of Bruce/Talia fics I can think of, where they live and raise the kids together, like....there’s a lot of them that are full AUs, even No Capes/No Powers AUs, at least relative to how often Bruce’s other big ships go the No Capes route. My personal assumption there is because its the easiest way to separate Talia from being heavily associated with the League, even just in the fic’s past, whereas with Selina, Clark, etc, there’s less of a narrative concern how their comic-book pasts/origins might affect a relationship with Bruce and his kids. Who knows if I’m in the right direction there or not, its honestly just my gut theory, and doesn’t really matter, its just something I find interesting and worth noting.

But even in the full AUs here, even ones where Bruce and Talia are married, she’s largely written as the stepmother to his kids rather than someone who was already there and present as a co-parent throughout various kids’ adoptions or fosterings. Often she’ll be written as particularly close to Jason, or with a soft spot for him, but it tends to be kinda a ‘he’s her favorite of Bruce’s kids, aside from Damian, who is of course as much her kid as he is Bruce’s.’

Granted, there are some Bruce/Talia fics I’ve seen that come the closest to what I’d describe as them being full co-parents to several of the kids from the start of whenever they meet those kids in the fic. But lol, again, I’m not really a good source for delving into the specifics of those fics, as the ones I’ve come across IMO tend to prioritize getting Talia more involved early enough that Jason’s ‘hers’ as much as Bruce’s, and uh, most I’m familiar with aren’t too complimentary to Dick, who takes the role of the rude, resentful holdout who dislikes his wicked stepmother from the word go...which is when I usually go too, lol, so I can’t really claim to know how those fics handle later arrivals like Tim and Cass. But with maybe only one exception, I definitely don’t think I’ve ever seen a fic that tried to tackle Bruce and Talia co-parenting Dick as much as any of the others. Even the full AU fics where Dick doesn’t have his canon reasons for disliking/distrusting Talia, lol.

Anyway, that’s it, basically. That’s the post, the train of thought I’ve been pondering, though to what end...eh, I’ve got no clue. I rarely do, though. So, just putting it out there in case this is of interest to anyone else for any reason, lol. Hell, its not even that I particularly would like to see more fics of this vein myself - I’m honestly just not a huge Bruce shipper....I don’t honestly think I have a preference for any of his bigger ships, beyond just....disliking Hal, and refusing to give Morrison’s take on Talia (or on Damian’s conception) the time of day. Ugh. Morrison. Eww. Why is he. Just. Anyway.

Actually! One last interesting (to me) thought, lol....now that I’ve written this whole post and processed it, I can think of literally one and only one fic that I would describe as the Batkids being taken in and raised equally by Bruce and a co-parent....and the bizarre thing is its a Nolan-verse fic. The bizarre part is I hate the Nolan trilogy, like, with an intensity that burns like no other (look I know I say that a lot, and about a lot of things, but I swear its almost always true).

Anyway, literally the only thing I like about the Nolan trilogy is I have a soft spot for Hathaway’s portrayal of Selina. Which is pretty much the only reason I ever read this one fic where after the third movie, Bruce and Selina ‘start over’ in Europe and end up taking in and raising Nolan-verse versions of Dick, then Jason and then Tim together. Its actually a pretty damn compelling Selina, and I found the boys and their dynamic completely adorable, so I mean, not like that was the point of this post but its worth a read IMO. I know I have it on my bookmarks page and shouldn’t be too hard to find as its literally the only Nolan-verse fic on there, lol.

(Also, it was written over ten years ago, I’m pretty sure, which is why its just those three kids.....Damian hadn’t even been created yet at the time, and the author’s non-movie Batfam knowledge was mostly cartoon based, which is why Cass wasn’t present, which was pretty much my only complaint about the fic from what I recall).

Anyway, that’s it, that’s the post. These are my thoughts, I’m all done with them so here, you can have them.

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arkhamcitysirens · 7 years ago

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now you have seen justice league what is your opinion on all of the dceu character interpretations so far?

oh all of them? alrighty i’ll just go over the main characters of each film because i know there are a LOT- possible VERY MINOR spoilers ahead for justice league but i’ll try to avoid that as much as i can

superman- i have said this time and time again and i’ll say it now, i absolutely love henry cavill as superman. i love his interpretation in mos and bvs and in justice league he just gets better and better. all the love.

batman- i’m still not completely sold on batfleck, but i don’t dislike him, i just feel like something’s off. he doesn’t feel as powerful as he should either.

wonder woman- dceu wonder woman is my one and only, honestly, diana on film has given me so much more love and adoration for the character... best wonder woman ever by a long shot.

lois lane- i really love dceu lois! i think amy adams plays a fantastic adaptation of the character, still very much true to her other stories but managing to be something fresh, new and interesting as well. bless.

lex luthor- i’m aware a lot of people dislike jesse eisenberg’s lex but really, he’s the only iteration of lex i can stomach. i would sell my soul to dceu lex tbh but any other lex can choke. so yeah, i feel that dceu pretty much saved this character for me. now he’s my man.

joker- honestly FUCK dceu joker. that isn’t joker, that’s jared leto self-projecting his damaged emo self onto a hot topic character and i fucking! hate! him! i feel the need to point out that it isn’t me thinking jared’s bad at acting either, because considering the direction the movie wanted him to go in, i genuinely think he did great even though i hate his guts. but this is a shit interpretation of some teenage gangster, not the one and only joker.

harley quinn- i really like dceu harley, she maintains a lot of the original characteristics of harley whilst translating to the big screen successfully. i could do with a little less sexualisation and ‘crazy!!! xD’ quotes but aside from that i feel like dceu harley is pretty decent. also margot robbie is the PERFECT harley quinn.

deadshot- boy am i a fan! i love will smith’s deadshot. he’s a smartass, funny, and skilled as hell, probably the only deadshot characterisation i really, truly love aside from maybe the new suicide squad comics.

the flash- having just seen justice league i willingly confess i love this interpretation of barry very much. could have done with less of the ‘awkward-teenage-boy’ shtick, but i blame that on joss whedon, not ezra miller, who plays a wonderful flash. also his backstory with his father was handled incredibly well and it’s canon that he’s jewish, listens to blackpink and watches rick and morty so

cyborg- honestly??? i was expecting to like cyborg more. but again something felt off. i don’t blame ray fisher for that, i blame the screenplay. he was a cool character but i’d like some more development, especially since cyborg was portrayed as a very edgy, emo character when i feel that’s not true to his character in pretty much anything else.

aquaman- listen. i HATE aquaman in pretty much everything else. but dceu aquaman saved my goddamn life. jason momoa is the best aquaman of all time and making him a real tough-guy, quippy bro-type was the greatest decision wb could have made. thank god for dceu arthur curry.

steve trevor- bitch i would DIE for steve trevor, best steve of all time, nothing wrong with this guy at all, i’m still crying over him

the amazons- oh boy howdy??? every time i watch a scene featuring the amazons i get 3235235% gayer??? and shoutout to their scene in justice league because it’s fucking incredible, i think the amazons as an entity are portrayed FLAWLESSLY

#long post #thanks! <3 #answered #anon #justice league spoilers #spoilers #justice league #i promise the spoilers are very very minor if they even count as spoilers at all #Anonymous

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seriouslycromulent · 7 years ago

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Justice League Review & Recap (Warning: Get comfortable)

Soooo, if you’ve ever visited my blog in the past, you know I’m a DC comics fan. I’m not anti-Marvel, mind you. But I love me some DC. With that in mind, it’s important to note that I’m not your average DC fan or DCEU fan or DCtv fan. I tend to like a lot of things others dislike, and dislike a lot of things others like. That’s not me being contrary. I’m pretty much that way about most issues in life – politics, music, travel, etc.

I’m telling you this to prepare you for my fangirl rantings. You might agree with some of them. You might think I’m loony about others. But understand, I’m not trying to convince you to agree with me. I’m simply expressing my opinion. I say nothing out of malice or a desire to run down someone or something any person loves. That’s not my style. I’d rather spend my time gushing over the things that bring my life joy than dedicate a lot of time and energy to tearing down things that don’t. (Case in point: I started typing a review of Thor: Ragnarok 2 weeks ago after I saw it, but decided not to continue and didn’t post it.)

With that said, let’s jump right in:

Warning: Spoilers be below, so I’m using a cut tag out of courtesy. And seriously, you might want to grab a snack because I’m going all in. 😊

If you’re looking for a mild or hate-filled review of the Justice League, you might want to stop now. I loved the film, and I already plan to buy it when it comes out on digital release. I currently own 2 DCEU films: Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. I’m attending the ACE Comic Con on Long Island in December, and I plan to see JL multiple times before then. I’ve already seen it twice. I’m a fan. So if you were hoping for an all-negative review or you’re not interested in the details of what I liked and didn’t like about the film, stop now.

Also, these points are not in chronological order of the film. Let’s do this:

What I Liked

Sassy Alfred is back! That dig about Bruce not dating was not missed, sir. Not missed at all. Alfred, never change.

Barry not knowing which direction was East = Me as a superhero! 🙄😏

When we came back from the theater, BvS: Dawn of Justice was on HBO. Both my mother and I said we didn’t even notice they put a photo of Pa Kent in the coffin with Clark at the end. So kudos to the continuity team for remembering to include it in Justice League. And shame on me for not noticing that before. Also, when the photo fell into the amniotic fluid during the resurrection scene, I can’t help but think that was meant to symbolize Clark losing a valuable part of himself in the process of coming back to life. (But hey! I was an English major. I see symbolism everywhere.)

I respect the fact that the DCEU acknowledges all the advancements in the digital world we live in today, but Commissioner Gordon is still sticking with the tried-and-true analog Bat Signal with the lever and the thick wires and the sparks every time he needs to beckon Batman to a rooftop. Jim, never change.

The line: “Yeah, something’s definitely bleeding.” - Batman (This was both funny and in character.)

I liked the subtle and not-so-subtle references to a world in a continual state of despair and upheaval littered throughout the film. We hear Alfred say, “I do not recognize this world.” And Ma Kent talks about having trouble even listening to the news anymore. I think someone else references the anger and bitterness that’s around us everywhere we go these days. I know most of these scenes were filmed before 2 years ago, but I swear that dialogue could easily fit in with many of the statements I hear every day in conversations with my family, friends and people online. Once again, Snyder dials into that realism that makes the DCEU feel rooted in the world we live in today. Plus, Arthur’s recognition of “people who don’t have anywhere else to go” is a much appreciated acknowledgment of the current refugee crisis, but its done in such a way that it won’t feel dated in the future.

Billy Crudup delivers more in his two short scenes than most actors do in entire films. He’s now one of the reasons I’m really looking forward to the Flash solo film.

While I’m handing out kudos for acting, I want to say I’m proud of Ray Fisher and the job he’s done on bringing gravitas to Victor/Cyborg. I saw some DCEU-hater videos a few months ago imply that he might tank the film because audiences didn’t know his work before JL, which is absurd. Most of us didn’t know Hugh Jackman’s work before X-Men, but we gave him a chance and now y’all crying over him leaving the role after Logan. Ray did a wonderful job conveying the struggle Victor’s going through without making us feel like we missed so much backstory we couldn’t follow his emotional journey. He was the right casting choice.

I appreciated the Amazon fight with Steppenwolf to keep him away from the Motherbox so much more on the second viewing. The details, the logistics, the combat strategy were so much easier to take in once I knew how the battle was going to end. If you were like me and didn’t quite grasp how well that was shot, please watch the movie again.

I really liked the end credit scene and the appearance of [REDACTED]! It was not the end credit scene I was expecting (the Trailer-bait scene with Alfred talking to someone off-screen was the one I wanted), but I’m not mad. [REDACTED] is no man’s poor substitute.

Me learning new things: I never knew Supes was as fast as Barry. I knew they would race each other all the time, but I never knew he could literally see him moving inside the speedforce. That’s news to me, and it made that scene feel even more awesome!

Commissioner Gordon’s comment about the amount of structural damage Batman caused at the Gotham Harbor made me chuckle. I appreciate them hanging a light on that constant complaint.

Now, I, too, kind of want to know if Superman has ever fought a hippo. I’m kind of mad Supes never answered that.

So glad I saw the film a second time because I completely missed the confirmation that the Lanterns helped defeat Steppenwolf the first time he attacked Earth. Diana said that nearby visitors from other planets helped them drive Steppenwolf into retreat, but I was too busy trying to take in all the details and I missed the oh-so-important green ring that falls off the guy’s finger. Lantern Corps confirmed!

I appreciated that Barry recognized that his attempt to get a fist bump from Victor could be considered racial charged. That’s why it’s nice when we see Victor finally giving Barry a fist bump at the end while the team looked out on the safe® nuclear power plant area.

I liked how they showed that Bruce does have bruises and gets hurt in his battles against the others. I know we didn’t get to see much of it, but those bruises were important to his story and his journey, just as his comments about knowing he can’t do this forever.

What I Loved!

Lois Lane is “the Big Guns.” You damn right she is!!

Aquaman/Aquamomoa really was wielding that quindent like it was an extension of himself. He flipped that thing around like it was nothing. And knowing Jason like I “do,” he put a lot of work into making it look fluid as possible. It’s kind of hard to miss with all the action on the first viewing, but when he’s fighting Steppenwolf alongside Diana, you can really appreciate how well he works the weapon to give himself a fighting chance with an enemy twice his size.

Diana calling Resurrected!Clark Kal-El. Bruce calling Resurrected!Clark Clark. This was me each time:

Absolute favorite scene: Everyone fighting Resurrected!Superman. Not only because it’s well done, but because of this: It did a great job of showing how much of a threat Supes is going to be in the future. He had just woken up from a dirt nap, so he was in no way running on all cylinders and they still couldn’t really take him. Imagine how much of a threat Superman will be to the others when he’s at actual full power? Granted, Diana was holding back and Arthur was out of practice/rusty in the ass-kicking business, but even at their best, I think it’s clear they’re not going to be a true match for Supes when he is at his best. That was a clever “sneak peak” of a story to come.

Also, Superman catching Diana’s arms before she can clash her bracelets together, then headbutting her. Then her headbutting him. Then him holding her wrists, raising in the air, and headbutting her into the pavement. That was so awesome! It made me suddenly want to buy the video game and pit Wonder Woman against Superman over and over again.

Loved the head-nod to canon about Batman already thinking of contingency plans should they not be able to control Clark once he’s resurrected.

I’m extremely happy with the inclusion of Victor as the linchpin to defeating Steppenwolf. I know a lot of people questioned his inclusion as a member of the Justice League, but he’s honestly a great addition. Not only because of the Motherbox technology, but because of his understanding and access to digital technology. In 2017, the Justice League needs to have someone on the team who can handle the digital aspects of a fight. Maybe it wasn’t as big of a component to fighting the good fight back in the 1980s, but it definitely is now. Cyborg is a perfect addition/update to the Justice League concept. It just works. Anyone still pushing back on this after seeing JL doesn’t really have a solid argument.

Favorite Aquaman moment: When Arthur finally joins the fight and helps the team under Gotham Harbor. When he came in and used his quindent to hold the water back long enough for the others to escape… I damn near jumped out of my seat with applause. You go boy! Talks to fish, my ass!

I love a good argument. That is, when writers create an argument between characters where it’s difficult to choose a side, I love that! That’s why I love how Bruce shuts Diana down about her trying to tell him to move on after Clark’s death. I understood her trepidation about using the Motherbox to resurrect Clark, but Bruce was 100% on the money when he said she’s the last person to tell anybody they need to move on after suffering a loss considering how she shut herself off for almost a century after losing Steve Trevor. Sure, Victor calls Bruce an asshole, and Barry said that they’d cover for Diana if she killed Bruce, but Bruce was still right.

This moment: Superman: “I knew you didn’t bring me back because you liked me.” Batman, awkwardly stammering: “I don’t … not …”

Everyone has a small character arc that doesn’t get ignored at the expense of the action or storyline. I love it when storytellers do that! By the time the credits roll, 1) Diana learns to come out of the shadows and own her role as a hero. 2) Barry learns confidence in battle, even if he isn’t as strong or as sure-footed as the others. It’s clear by the end, he understands that his skills will come in time. Plus, friends. 3) Victor begins to see his condition/situation as something other than a curse, and we can see his relationship with his father start to mend. 4) Arthur starts to find his way back to interacting with the world as someone up other than an outcast from both sides of his family. 5) And, well, Clark comes back from the dead, and after letting off some steam, decides to forgive … eventually. 6) Maybe Bruce doesn’t have much of an arc since he spends most of the film trying to right a wrong he made, but I think that’s enough on his plate for now.

The scene that tugs at my heartstrings the most: Bruce acknowledging to Alfred that the team needs Clark. And that it’s Clark’s humanity that makes him remarkable. Not his powers. Not his abilities. The fact that he was willing to only use those abilities to help others, but also try to live a normal life with a job, a girlfriend and a desire to make the world a better place even without those powers is what made him special. I swear that whole speech just made me want to hug the writers.

One word: Booyah!

What I Didn’t Like

No Perry. Not even a cameo. 😣

Where’s my Clark accepting Lois’s “Yes” for his proposal in absentia scene from the trailer?! Trailer-bait is mean, Snyder. Just mean. I don’t know if this is Whedon’s doing, but … yeah. Not happy.

Poor Barry tripping over his feet. 😟 I understand why it’s necessary to show him as a greenhorn, but it still makes me feel sad.

I did feel as if the pacing in the beginning was a bit rushed. It was as if they were really quick to jump into introducing the team/convincing them to join. But I chocked that up to the studio over-editing Snyder’s work again. And I quickly put it out of my mind about 15 minutes into the film. Like any good DCEU fan, I figure the director’s cut will fix it, so I’m not too bothered.

I know the Russian family of four was just supposed to represent the host of families that have sought out the nuclear power plant area for refuge, but are now in danger of getting killed in Steppenwolf’s wake, but constantly going back to that one family made me feel like they were the only family in danger. I think it would’ve been more effective to include shots of a couple of other families bordering up their homes in fear of the parademons. It’s not like they didn’t have the budget.

When BvS came out, I said I think I would’ve preferred a clean-shaven Bruce Wayne/Batman. I was wrong. He looks better with the stubble. Much better.

Barry was at the beginning of his journey, so I understand the use of humor to cope with his new situation, but sometimes I felt like he was a little too much comic relief. Not that it was out of character for him. He was/is a guy desperate to make friends, so keeping it light even in serious moments does kind of fit him at this stage. But it did sometimes feel a bit much. I mean he is still struggling to get his father out of jail, and trying to get his life on track. His joviality felt a little too much at times. I love his geekiness, but I don’t want to see him not be taken seriously by the audience going forward. Hopefully, they will avoid that in future films.

The CGI for Victor looks brilliant, just like I said it would. I saw nothing wrong with it at all. It had weight and density. It appeared cutting edge without appearing unreasonably implausible. The complaints about it when the trailers came out were completely unfounded, just like I said. But … the CGI on Cavill’s face sometimes looked … no. Just no. That definitely could’ve been better. At times, he looked like his face was uneven in terms of depth. And others, he looked like his skin was too perfect. For a film with this budget and with their schedule, I expected better.

Unpopular opinion: I’m still unsure about Amber Heard’s casting. I’m trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, but based on the few films I’ve seen of hers in the past + the one scene she has in Justice League … I do not feel hopeful. I mean when I compare Billy Crudup’s big scene with Amber’s scene, I’m like, “How did she get cast in this franchise?” I’m on board with all the casting choices so far except hers. I’m going to try to give her more rope, but I’m not going to pretend to be a fan because other people are.

I still feel like people are going to walk out the cinema and go: “So what can Aquaman do?” It’s clear he’s strong, agile and fearless. And after bodysurfing a parademon through a building, it’s obvious he doesn’t bruise easily. But I still think people are going to go, “But what can he do?” We literally saw him use a quindent to hold back umpteen gallons of water, but folks are still going to talk trash. SMH. I wish the film did more to alleviate that prospect.

This, That & The Other

There was a lot more swearing than I expected. No judgment. It was just more realistic given the situations they were in, and since the general public seems to be bothered about the DCEU feeling realistic, it was more than I expected. I figured with all the clamoring to make things all light and bubbly as possible, swearing wouldn’t be as much of an option for the franchise anymore.

That joke Clark made about wishing he were dead after helping rip apart the Motherboxes: Too soon! It honestly made me feel uncomfortable. I’m still trying to unpack why, so I didn’t include it with the things I didn’t like in the list above. But honestly, it kind of deserves to be there.

Unpopular opinion: If they do bring in Green Lantern, I hope they choose John Stewart over Hal. If they go with Hal Jordan, everyone is going to compare him to Ryan Reynolds. Save us all from that unnecessary fandom war, and just go with John Stewart! Plus, you get to add another DC hero of color, and frankly, John was a better Green Lantern than Hal. Yeah, I said it!

I walked in to Justice League excited to see the upcoming origin films in this order: Aquaman, Flash, Cyborg. I walked out excited to see the origin films in this order: Flash, Cyborg, Aquaman. I still love Momoa, but I’m actually more interested in seeing Barry’s origin story more now than Arthur’s.

Why couldn’t Bruce just buy the farm back from the bank? Why did he have to buy the entire bank? Bruce is so extra.

To Sum Up/Overall:

I don’t want my overall review of the film to be a reactionary one. By that I mean, I’m not interested in arguing or refuting others’ rumors, reactions or feedback. I feel like it taints the genuine impression I walked out of the theater with after seeing the film (both times). So I’ll say this:

I thoroughly enjoyed Justice League. I’m not upset, aggravated or disappointed in any way more than I was after watching Batman v Superman. I don’t think the film was as strong as Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, but it was a good solid film about a team coming together for the first time who were in very different headspaces to fight an enemy who is the precursor to the ultimate Big Bad we’ll see in Justice League 2. I thought the film did fine mixing heart, humor and story without sacrificing character development and purpose. It is not set up to deliver the same emotional impact as BvS, so I can’t genuinely complain if it does not do that.

I’m aware they had to, for lack of better phrasing, “dumb it down” because so many people felt lost while watching BvS. I didn’t feel lost watching BvS, but I respect the fact that not everyone is me, and I actually prefer films that don’t insult my intelligence. BvS was the first – and frankly, only – comic book movie that hasn’t insulted my intelligence. Justice League had to play to an audience that consists of more than just me so it’s structure is overly simple and easy to follow. Literally no one should feel like they didn’t understand what is happening in this film.

There’s more humor, which is fine by me, but at times, it did feel out of place. That is not to say they aren’t allowed to be making jokes, but it felt out of place because you can tell when it’s not Snyder’s “voice.” And subsequently, it doesn’t feel like Superman’s “voice.” But again, I’m willing to overlook those moments because they were minor beats that didn’t detract from the film’s impression. It’s like having a few scratches or dings in the bumper of a vintage Shelby Mustang cobra. You wish the scratches weren’t there, but the car is still a work of art.

Thankfully, I saw this film with my mother. My mother is a lifelong comic book fan. (My stepfather is also, but he had to work and couldn’t see it with us.) And I’m very lucky to have her perspective on these films because as a hardcore comic book nerd who has a ton of knowledge of the DC/Marvel universes, but doesn’t partake in any of the internet fandom infighting and overly dramatic social media scream fests, she allows me to see the film from the perspective of someone who just wants comic books to come to life on the big screen in an amazing way. She doesn’t dig for slights. She’s not interested in one-up-manship. She wants all the films to do well, whether they’re Blade, HellBoy, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Avengers or Justice League. And I think some of us you who spend a lot of time on the internet supporting your fandoms need to have someone in your lives who can do the same thing for you. Seriously, some of the reactions I’m seeing online are so tainted by this arbitrary competition and need to have everything “just so,” I really think you’re missing out on the joy these films are meant to bring you.

Yes, I’m excited to see the director’s cut of Justice League. Yes, I prefer my Superman having a more time-realistic coping process after having been dead for so long. But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy watching a freshly resurrected Kal-El take down a not-quite-gelled team of superheroes without expending too much effort. Seriously, that entire sequence was fantastic and I will probably re-watch it multiple times. (Do I really just want to see other superheroes fight Superman? What does that say about me? Hmmm.)

Anyway, if I had to make a major gripe about the film is that it’s missing that “something.” That soul that Zack Snyder brings to this franchise. And by that I mean, Man of Steel feels like Zack’s movie. BvS feels like Zack’s movie. But Justice League, although primarily directed by Zack, doesn’t quite feel like Zack’s movie. And I miss that. It works fine since this is the first time the team has come together and their still finding their rhythm, especially Arthur, Victor and Barry. But my hope is that by the time JL2 comes around, the studio will let Zack do what he does and give the film its soul.

The DCEU films work for me because they feel much more grounded in reality, which is the hallmark of DC comics (yes, even the Atom). And although there is some element of that in Justice League, it doesn’t come across as well as it did in Zack’s other films. I can only assume it’s because the studio had him change certain details and the editing job Whedon did kind of imbued the film with a style that didn’t quite gel with Zack’s. Don’t get me wrong. Whedon can do realism, but his realism isn’t the same as Zack’s, and I feel like Justice League should have Zack’s realism from start to finish (at least within the same film). He’s the one who got us here, and he’s the one who will make it feel like its ours. Not the studio’s, if that makes sense.

No, the film wasn’t perfect. But literally none of the comic book movies have been perfect, even the good Marvel ones. They all have flaws. But I don’t need a film to be perfect to be a delight that I want to see over and over again. This film didn’t need a lot of twist and turns. The most important takeaways are 1) bringing the team together, 2) resurrecting Superman, and 3) testing their mettle against an agent of Darkseid. And that’s exactly what it accomplished. Was Steppenwolf on the same level as Lex Luthor? Hell no! But he’s not supposed to be. Steppenwolf is a club. Lex Luthor is a scalpel. Each film should have a villain that suits the desired outcome for the film itself.

No civilians were killed, which apparently is a thing people only care about in DC films, but conveniently forget about in Marvel films. The fight scenes were epic. There was no room for ambiguity. And we got to see a team go on their first full mission together and begin to recognize why they’re better together than apart. Superman might’ve been able to defeat Steppenwolf on his own, but he didn’t have the tech skills to do what they needed Cyborg to do with the Unified Motherboxes. We saw Batman save the Flash. We saw Wonder Woman save Aquaman. The Flash helped save civilians. Superman helped save civilians. We saw all of them handle themselves well, but not perfectly. And that to me is exactly what we were meant to see this time around.

I give the film a solid B+, but only because I suspect the director’s cut will be an A-.

That’s it. The end.

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