#Titans "Asylum"

[brucewaynehater101]

In my evil era. I've come to spread the misery

So I read a wingfic a while ago and I recall there being a titans tower scene where Tim tried to fly away but Jason grabbed him by the wing and his wing got fucked but don't quote me on that

So here's my idea

=======

Author decision on if anybody other than Tim has wings or other bird features and instincts, but Tim has bird traits like wings, talons, bird noises and maybe a tail if you pick

And for whatever reason, Tim hides his bird features

Who cares if binding his wings and other means of hiding it has proven time and time again to have horrific effects on one's health in studies older than him?

It's annoying how during the night—typically when he's Robin—he needs to take off the bindings and whatnot to keep himself from deteriorating too fast but it is what it is

Besides, his cape covers it up and he's trained in passing for human

It isn't until his wings are used against him in battle—like say a goon or a rogue (maybe even Jason at Titans Tower) being lucky enough to grab them and beat him black and blue due to it—does he reconsider how he views his wings

Tim Drake became Robin with a mission. A mission to restore Batman to the symbol of Justice he was withering from, one that expanded to putting everything into supporting all heroes

But more importantly his generation of Teen Titans and the Bats

His wings were just used against him, and in such a serious way that he's lucky he could nurse himself back to health

It was one time too many

He has a mission

The deadline is Death

=======

The next morning, Luthor Corp down hundreds of millions and they'll never notice until months later. Too late to recover the assets

=======

"Mind letting me in on what it is I'm guarding or even assisting you for?"

"We covered this in the contract Deathstroke; You guard this safehouse and in the future me while I take care of a very time-sensitive case. Benifits are just as negotiated.

"I will be locking myself in the room I will do my work. You are under no circumstances to enter unless told to. Rest assure, it can fufill my physical needs.

"If I open the door and I say 'Asylum,' it means I will be out of the safehouse for a time where you are to protect my room in addition to the rest of the safehouse until I return.

"If I open the door and say 'visitors' or shout it through the walls, it means we're being invaded through my room, and you have all the permission you need to kick down the door to come and assist me.

"If I open the door and say 'mission half-finished,' do so through the walls, or by passing a paper with that text, it means I've finished my mission with no loose ends, but am injured and require your assistance in my recovery.

"And if anybody ever asks; you had to take care of personal matters during your haitus, the Bats will never even come to mind when inquired on this period you're off the grid"

=======

Weeks or Months later (authors pick)

A paper slowly shifts under the door, he picks it up

Mission Half-Finished

he forced the door open to his client shivering on the floor

=======

the timeline is as goes;

Tim tells the bats he's going to be off the grid for a few months for a mission

Tim hacks LexCorp for Lex's future paychecks and assets to-be used for villanous plots

Tim contacts Deathstroke to be a glorified bodyguard + maybe physical therapist/doctor for an indefinite time

gg

25% upfront pay. Deathstroke will only recieve the remaining pay if he fufills his duties as followed and doesn't bail or rat Tim out

Half the reason Deathstroke is being paid six figures is to stay hush

Tim isolates himself in a room that can fufill his needs for a time

Tim isn't working on a case at all. He is preforming surgery on himself to get rid of his wings, tail, and maybe other bird traits, everything short of instincts (or not, your pick lol)

After Tim is finished, he does end up needing Deathstroke's help recovering from the aftermath, but he does everything to make the mercenery believe that it was a mission that fucked him up

Tim recovers and gives Deathstroke the rest of the 75% pay

Deathstroke leaves the safehouse while Tim stays a bit longer to tie up loose ends

Loose ends tied

LexCorp learns of the stolen money and assets, tries, and fails to find where they went

extra notes

That 'Asylum' code word was meant to throw Deathstroke a false trail to follow if he ever gets curious about what Tim was getting up to during their contract

The 'visitors' was in case the safehouse did get broken into, and 'Mission Half-Finished' in the likely case Tim legit needed treating the aftermath or physical therapy after what he did

SO yeah. This could go a lot of ways

(assume when I say wings, I use it as an umbella term for all his removed bird traits)

In Tim's ideal world, he's either bury his wings where they would rapidly rot into nothing, or keep them in his house or safest, secure, and isolated place where he preserves them and looks at them to remind himself to never let anything, anything bring him down again

But he doesn't live there

Maybe the Bats find out that Tim lost his wings, and later on, that Tim did it to himself, and are promptly horrified but Tim is all like "they were pulling me back, I had to for the mission!"

Cue more horror

Esp if Jason was the one to yank Tim by the wings

Maybe whoever yanked Tim by the wings assumes it's common knowledge that Tim is birdy^2 and is confused when everyone says the Robin is human or at least has no wings

Imagine if it's not even a rogue but a goon who even has photo evidence of the Robin's wings but recent photos, he doesn't have them at all?

And word spreads a Robin literally had his wings torn from him literally and it reaches rogues and even the Bats?

All hell breaks loose

Deathstroke thinks he's safe because he was 'busy with his personal life' until he realizes the Robin they're talking about is the one that hired him and needed his help recovering from something

He is screaming, he didn't wanna be caught up in this!

Or perhaps Deathstroke gets suspicious about the possibility he's been lied to on the contract despite how squeaky clean everything seems, and gives up that 75% to confront Tim

Only to find the kid just starting or in the middle of surgically removing his wings

Or maybe Deathstroke sniffs around after Tim needs his help recovering from his mission and find's the stash of wings he's planning to dispose of or preserve

either way he's going "What the Capital F Fuck is this?"

=======

I think any conversation between people and Tim could be dumbed down to this

"Why did you remove your'e wings??!"

"They were a burden, besides, it's not like I'm becoming disabled am I? I'm just becoming more passing for human then ever"

"That's not how it works!!"

Ooh. Okay. I think, in this AU, most of the Bats don't have wings. The exception would be Duke and Babs (Cass used to as well, but they were taken from her). For Barbara, the bullet that injured her spine also went through one of her wings.

I think Cass, who would bond with Tim using their bird instincts and who's wings were forcibly taken, would be especially devastated.

You're absolutely correct that Tim would do such a fucked up thing, but gods does it hurt.

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

Kaiju Week in Review (December 11-17, 2022)

After the success of last year's Pacific Rim Ultimate Omnibus, Legendary Comics has launched a Kickstarter for a MonsterVerse Omnibus collecting Godzilla: Awakening, Skull Island: The Birth of Kong, Godzilla: Aftershock, Godzilla Dominion, and Kingdom Kong. It blasted past its funding goal on the first day. The Omnibus will eventually make it to retail, but naturally the Kickstarter rewards include some exclusives, like a slipcase and a different cover, as well as higher-tier bonuses like enamel pins and the ability to get drawn into the comics.

The biggest draw if you've already bought the five comics above is the debut of "Call to Action", written by Brian Buccellato and illustrated by Zid. Logline: "[S]et during the events of Godzilla vs. Kong, a Naval fighter pilot with a personal attachment to Godzilla is put to the test when his squadron is called upon to intercept the King of the Monsters." Well, I'm a sucker for mining drama out of incredibly minor characters, and Zid's the best artist these MonsterVerse comics have seen. If access to that story's all you care about, consider the $15 tier, which nets you a PDF of the Omnibus. K-D-M, who's proven to be a reliable source, is also saying that a number of the minor Titans (Na Kika, Amhuluk, Tiamat, and perhaps others) will receive Monarch bios as well. Those have been delightful sources of lore in the past.

Speaking of comics, @mekagojira3k published the first issue of his self-adaptation of All Your Ruins on WebToon. Read it immediately, it's gnarly as shit! There's a kaiju with crosses on its back taunting a mysterious masked figure and what I'm choosing to interpret as a nod to the Age of Giant Condor!

I couldn't wait for the Week in Review to post about this, but it merits repeating: The Asylum is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a Destroy All Monsters-style epic called 2025 Armageddon. (Insert scare quotes around "epic" if you wish.) Most exciting to me is the return of Mega Shark, whose series inexplicably ended in 2015 just as it and the Kaiju Renaissance were finding their stride. It's also playing in five fairly random theaters across the country until the 22nd (sorry, should've gotten this post out faster). The rest of us will have to hold off until the VOD release on the 23rd.

After it placed second in the last two Movie Monster Series fan polls, Bandai has thrown up its hands and given Super Mechagodzilla a vinyl, just in time for the 30th anniversary of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II next year. January 31st is the release date for that one. They also announced a third poll, this time allowing fan submissions to determine the 10 nominees instead of making the shortlist in a smoke-filled room themselves. Yes, that means Zilla, Bagan, and the Giant Condor are theoretically on the table (but no Godzilla incarnations allowed). All's you need is a Godzilla Store account to nominate a kaiju and eventually vote.

Finally, for you Dagahra fans out there, his first figure in ages is coming soon from the Kaiju Out of the Laws line. Shame those are so expensive.

Here's the teaser for the Kaiju No. 8 anime—and yes, it's going to be part of the Toho kaiju canon. I got caught up with the manga earlier this year and found it pretty enjoyable. An older protagonist is unusual for this type of story, and I like how he's constantly drawing on his experience cleaning up kajiu corpses after taking on the more glamorous work of fighting them. You also gotta admire the boldness of calling a metamorphosing character Kafka.

SciFi Japan has a first look at a film due next year called Kaiju: Island of Fire. The production company is based in Japan, but there's a lot of Hollywood talent in this one, including writer/director Andrew L. Phillips, who has a background in stunt acting. Inspired by 3Y Films, they've also brought back some veteran kaiju actors: Kent Gilbert (the swishy ship commander in Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah), Chuck Wilson (the Futurian Wilson in same), Inge Murata (every Japanese kaiju movie that's needed a German since Monster X Strikes Back), and Tomoko Ai (Katsura Mafune in Terror of Mechagodzilla). No story details yet, although you can probably guess the setting. I like the suit design of what is presumably the anti-kaiju team too, at least from the back.

[kaypeace21]

Analyzing the 5 plays in this drama club poster .From the bts pics of stranger things 4.

So... some of ya’ll know I'm going through the st s4 films given to us by the official st twitter + the films reffed in the show itself or mentioned by the Duffers in interviews .

So I decided to look at the plays mentioned here. Because even if we don't see the monologues in the show directly - the Duffers wouldn't name drop anything unless it inspired them in some way. Similar to films name dropped in the show. Tw : for some dark themes .

This is just a quick little analysis I decided to do since we probably won't get any new st content today (3/22). Nothing too deep. Just mentioning things that caught my interest especially cause these plays have a lot of narrative connections to the st s4 movies I've been watching.

Invitation to a march (Authur laurents)

Reminds me of the stancy/jancy love triangle. "A young woman is having second thoughts about doing the right thing and marrying a respectable , rich, kind, young man with good prospects.By way of a prewedding diversion, this woman becomes interested in the passionate but poor and entirely unsuitable son of a local landlord.Basically, the plot concerns the efforts of Norma Brown to choose between a conventional fiance who "puts her to sleep" but is wealthy (like what her own mother did) or go for this new-poor guy. The play is principally interested in how this youthful love triangle affects the three mothers involved (whether the kids like it or not)

12th night (Shakespeare)

 - viola (el) wrongly assumes a family member (hopper) is dead. She dresses up as a man named 'cesario'. A girl named Olivia falls for 'cesario' (violet dressed as a man). "Finally, when 'Cesario' and Sebastian (violet's twin brother: assumed to have drowned - Will) appear in the presence of Olivia there is more wonder and confusion at their physical similarity. Taking Sebastian for 'Cesario', Olivia asks him to marry her, and they are secretly married in a church. Cough if Olivia is 'straight' cause she fell for Viola (as a doppleganger dressed like her twin brother).Mike being into el who multiple characters in s1 said looked like a boy and specifically like Will is...suspish and a hint he's not straight lol. just like Olivia they're both into guys . plus, this play just has a butt load of love triangles (ugh i hated that aspect). There was also romantically coded letters (which was in the s4 films) . One character is also thrown into an insane asylum and framed as 'insane'.'Pretending that Malvolio is insane, they lock him up in a dark chamber. Feste visits him to mock his insanity'. We all know the psych hospital will be narratively important- talked about it more here.

The seagull (Anton Chekhov-russian)

similar to how I believed s4 will show m*#even already broken up since the months between s3-4 : act 3 (s3) ends with Nina begging for one last chance to be with Trigorin before he leaves/moves away. They kiss and make plans to meet again in Moscow.And in act 4 there's a timeskip where it shows they've been broken up for a long time between acts- and its established they never actually loved eachother. Do i even have to spell out why this parallels the m*#even ending in s3? There is also a play within the play (this is common in a lot of the st films- they have plays- or a story within a story- which illustrate certain themes or emotions of the characters within said film : blackswan, children of paradise, highschool musical, Rushmore, book of Henry, welcome to marwen, never ending story, romancing the stone, wet hot American summer, etc).The play is Konstantin's latest attempt at creating a dense symbolist work. There is also alot of love triangles in the seagull. TW!: for se#ual ab*se/su*cidal thoughts/ inc*st (here and in other play segments). The seagull motif reminds me a lot of Jonathan's rabbit story.Konstantin romantically into Nina shows up to give her a gull that he has shot. Nina is confused and horrified . Trigorin sees the gull that Konstantin has shot and muses to Nina on how he could use it as a subject for a short story: "The plot for the short story: a young girl lives all her life on the shore of a lake. She loves the lake, like a gull, and she's happy and free, like a gull. But a man arrives by chance, and when he sees her, he destroys her, out of sheer boredom. Like this gull."  This immediately reminded me of jon's rabbit story and some of the movies on the s4 list . Like in forrest gump- Jenny (who is poor) was se*ually ab*sed as a very young girl by her father. As a child she runs away into a field-away from her alcoholic father yelling at her -there she prays that she can "be a bird so I can fly far far away" .

Jenny as an adult struggles with this unresolved trauma- being with ab*sive partners, doing dr*gs, and having su*cidal thoughts . She as an adult when contemplating su*icide, jokes 'you think i can fly like a bird ?' while looking down at a bridge.God-i'm worried about jonathan (Jenny was also a musician sort of like jon). In another s4 movie example ' mystic river ' :(in the 80s) a preteen baseball playing boy is r*ped by men in the woods. He later says he wishes he could become an undead monster to not feel the pain of that experience - cause quote " if I'm not human anymore maybe the pain will stop" (Will) . slightly off topic but he also has another personality, imagines a alternate word that dissappears when he turns his head. And as a less direct animal parallel to the play - the boy from the film also imagined his perpetrators as monsters and wolves to cope.In 'getout' the photographer character sees a dead deer in the woods and it represents a parent/his own childhood tra*ma relating to his past. similarly in 'prince of tides' the 2 siblings as kids were ra*ed by men. The older brother remembered it and the younger sibling developed DID (so didn't remember but she would draw wolves- as the perpetrators/villains in her picture stories she created . In the film they also had an ab*sive dad and were very poor. She also tried k*ling herself multiple times-but started to get better after remembering the source of her pain and trauma.  There is also the theme of multiple attempted su*cides in the play- and the play ends with yet another attempt- and the audience is left unaware of the artist's fate at the end of the play.

The tempest (Shakespeare)

Prospereo - (the perceived antagonist) is a wizard with monstrous looks, storm powers , and ability to create monster-dogs

He wants revenge on a man who tried ra*ing his family member & revenge on his other family member who wronged him years ago. I mean... pretty much my did theory.But in the end.Prospero decides to show his enemies the mercy that they did not show him twelve years earlier. He tells Ariel to bring the men to him, he will restore their sanity and then renounce magic forever.Prospero breaks the spell that the men are under .

Diary of a scoundrel (Alexander Ostrovsky-Russian)

-  I suppose this could loosely relate to Jonathan? Glumov, is a young man from an impoverished family lacking status seeking entrance into society's pampered class. A 19th-century Russian scoundrel must scheme his way out of his meager life in a small apartment -whatever it takes.He has a quick mind and some talent for seeing through the hypocrisies of people around him ( Jonathan does make a lot of social critiques about society). That gives him some advantages. A tale of one man's mission to finagle his way into upper-class society and find a cushy job. Set in 1874, this social comedy follows Glumov, a Russian youth who begins his ambitious ascent to social esteem. He progresses by wit, guile and rhetoric. Pitting one stupid person against another, he soon gains his ends. To reach these goals, Glumov will lie, flatter, and cater to the vanities of the wealthy. Unable to contain his disgust with his victims, Glumov decides to relieve his unvoiced satirical comments by recording his schemes in a diary. But he is tripped up by his uncle's wife, to whom he has made passionate love on his way to success. At the end of the play, his diary is stolen and his duplicity exposed, but he can nevertheless suceeds. The author is much more critical about the high society itself than about the main character, so the play keeps attracting generations of directors by opening possibilities for political criticism while also avoiding naming names of the current rulers.The play's aim was to overthrow bourgeois tradition and establish a class-conscious art called eccentricism giving a deliberately comic portrayal of reality.

I suppose I notice some possible commonalities-  besides s3 critiquing the wealthy/capitalism in comedic ways . jonathan since s1 has worried about his family's finances / had some resentment toward the rich . In some of the s4 movies ‘orphan’ & ‘ girl interrupted’ someone reads their diary out loud to get at them (in girl interrupted the winona character’s diary even had critiques of her new friends).  Alot of movies also have someone (usually a teen/young adult) making a documentary about their life -which could narratively replace said diary? A few movies have a poor guy adjusting to snobby rich social circles (or being poor and then getting money)- titanic, kingsmen, karate kid, the craft , godfather,  wardogs,into the spiderverse,flashdance, and many others . And movies like wardogs has a poor-young-character do shady things to finacially support his family . There’s also that whole uncle’s wife thing- which makes me uncomfortable for obvious reasons (but I’m just thinking of Lonnie’s creepy gf who was into him). A few movies had the guy’s step mom innappropriately hit on him- orange county & you got mail. And him trying to avoid her advances. Or...not to mention ... it may be a problematic coincidence /trope. But in enter the void -the guy who needs to finacially support his sibling/ does dr*gs -hooks up with his dr*g dealing friend’s married mom (who would give him money).  Or in gilbert grape- the poor teen-who has to finacially support his siblings/single mom-has his endgame relationship be a girl his own age. But before that he h*oked up with a married woman -who would give him money. Don’s plum -young film guy-propositioned by older female film director (for dream job). Not even mentioning the other films that have the guy hooking up with toxic older women (like ‘the graduate’). Or analyze this-where the therapist accuses him of having an Oedipus complex (not touching that one... but the guy in ‘enter the void’ a 100% had one). It’s possible those movies were just- inspo for s3?  A coincidence? Or s3 was foreshadowing for this in s4- but unlike s3 it will accurately be played as wrong  and a sign of Jonathan recreating past tra*ma caused by Lonnie (cough like the photos) /being desperate for money. And not played ‘comedically’ like how it mostly was in s3. But shown as self destructive  (for Jon) and immoral on the Woman’s end. Like... Billy and Jon are character foils. Both are older siblings into rock music, with ab*sive dads who shoved them into walls. Both lose it (and beat steve to a pulp when Steve accidentally triggers their daddy issues). In s3 it’s established womanizer Billy has mommy issues, than he tries ho*king up with someone his mom’s age, and the characters ref ‘back to the future ‘ and Steve incorrectly says it’s about “alex p keaton trying to bang his mom.” This could illustrate his subconscious issues with parental figures/adults cause of Lonnie’s  possible past se*ual ab*se . One film the friend even says to the guy “you don’t have friends!” guy b: i have friends! him:  no you have acquaintances! ADMIT IT! YOU’RE AFRAID OF MEN!I mean-Jonathan liked Nancy- but he initially hooked up with her cause he wanted to prove he didn’t have ‘trust issues’ from his dad. Also it’s prob a bit of a reach (and maybe a coincidence)- but the fact Murray in the same breath compares Steve (Nancy’s then bf) and Lonnie  ... uh... if you think too long about it ... it’s very sinister .  Especially because in s3: muray tells Joyce  that despite her wanting to be with a nice guy, she’s curious about “the brute” Hopper despite him reminding her of a past “bad relationship”(aka Lonnie). Like- yeah connect some dots.  Quite a few films (other than forrest gump) also have the character who (as a kid) was  r*ped by their dad/parent-  begin to do dr*gs/be pr*miscuous as adults since they never learned to properly cope with their trauma (’girl with the dragon tattoo’,  ‘black swan’, and ‘magnolia’). Unfortunately the whole relative doing such things to kid-relatives is in at least 30+ movies. 

Personally, i would be MUCH happier if Jon had a age appropriate romance- and had not a single creepy adult near him. A few movies actually imply Lonnie gets yet another ‘new model’  replacing his gf in her 20s with a new gf- who is ‘barely l*gal” and just turned 18. so there’s that possibility as well- that she’s jonathan’s age.I just want Jonathan-happy &safe. GOD. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?

[psychicdoll]

trigger warning: religious trauma and abuse!

alice grew up in biloxi, mississippi in 1901. while canonically, her father was a jeweler and pearl trader - my headcanon is that he was also very religious - and came from a line religious family members. her mother started out not very religious, but over the years of living with her husband and enduring his abuse, she herself turned towards his religion as an act of attempting to please him and stop the abuse.

alice’s visions enraged him. she endured such heavy beatings due to her visions that she soon kept them quiet, though the townsfolk was already abuzz. during this time, alice’s last beating involved her tumbling down the stairs and breaking her leg.

it was two and a half years later that alice spoke up again, to warn a friend about a terrible premonition she had had - a premonition that her friend was going to be in a great train accident. her friend hadn’t listened, and when the accident game true, alice was branded as witch and changeling by the townspeople. her punishment for this: a black eye, broken nose, slit lip, and four months spent locked in a windowless room with a small, pathetic bed, a desk with a chair, and a bible to keep her company. twice a day, her mother would bring her meals.

by this time, alice had retreated so far into herself that her eyes were dark, a smile never graced her face, and she rarely spoke - when she was rarely did, there was no lightness or happiness to be found in her voice.

a year later, alice tried to warn her cousin not to board the rms titanic, for she had a strong vision that it was going to sink and result in many deaths. he didn’t listen to her, and he died. the townsfolk, and her family, placed the blame solely on alice, all under the impression that she had cursed him.

for three years, alice was kept in that solitary room again. her father would visit her every night, demanding her to quote verbatim from the bible - if she failed or made even a small mistake, he would whip her. he also frequently brought in priests to perform painful exorcisms on her, with the mistaken belief that he could cure her of her “evilness” and bring her to the light.

after her three years spent in solitary, alice rarely left her house, preferring to spend much of her time in the gardens surrounding their property. at least once a week, alice’s father would once again demand bible passages from her, and he would occasionally bring priests for more experiments.

alice kept quiet for nearly 2 years after she escaped solitary confinement. she only spoke up when she started having visions of her mother’s death, and for months her mother was cautious, but her father didn’t believe any of it. after months of precautions with nothing serious happening, her mother put her guard down, and was eventually killed. while alice saw it happen and tried to explain that it was murder, her mother's death was declared accidental, and her father silenced her. 

her father remarried within 6 months, the whole thing having been planned for over a year before her mother passed. alice has another vision, this time revealing the face of her father behind her mother’s murder. this vision shows that alice is next, and she flees to her aunt and uncle’s house, though they do not welcome her in, still under the belief that she cursed their son.

alice’s father and step-mother quietly pay to have alice taken to the insane asylum, and tell all the townsfolk that she had died. this put an end to her religious trauma from her father, but is far from the end of her story.

[theclownprnc-arch]

♣ THE JOKER’S PHYSIQUE AND COMBAT TECHNIQUES.

PART ONE: BUILD

In his earlier years, the Joker was lanky and scrawny and I still think that one of the most accurate descriptions that frame this image just perfectly is the one from The Joker vol. 1 #2: “Notice his stance… Like a cross between Groucho Marx and a stork!”

When he started facing Batman and their run-ins started becoming more and more physically demanding, he did build some muscle but remained pretty lean nonetheless. Now, his build keeps on changing and there are two main reasons for that:

His eating habits are all over the place. Very often he just forgets to eat or doesn’t feel the hunger ( after all, he runs on adrenaline for most of the time ). And once he does make the effort to have a meal… it’s junk food and anything that doesn’t require preparation. Candy’s a big part of his questionable diet. It’s just impossible for him to maintain the same weight. His metabolism already makes it difficult for him to put on weight no matter how much he eats, so usually, he’s losing the kilos.

Like actors prepare their bodies for their roles, he does it for upcoming face-offs or whatever else he’s planning. If he’s scheming a confrontation that might take a lot out of him, that’s when he starts working out to bring himself to his opponent’s level, more or less ( in Batman: Arkham Asylum he took a shortcut by shooting TITAN up his veins, but that’s a different story ). He can get quite buff then. Eventually, he will end up going back to his lean, slightly athletic build.

Overall, the Joker doesn’t care about his body too much, yet he tries to somewhat stay in shape. But if sometimes it’s, to quote a classic, too much flab and not enough ab, he’s not that bothered. As long as he stays agile enough not to get caught / killed, he’s not at all that concerned.

[tired-pidge]

Titans OC Introduction: Ellie

Intro to my main Titans girl, only information that you’d’ve been given if they were actually on the show in case I ever decide to write something for her.

Name: Ellie

has been shown to go by the alias Letisha Rodriguez and has fake credentials under other unrevealed fake identities

It is left in the air as to whether Ellie is her real name or not

Has been given the nickname ‘Emergency Room’ or E.R for short by Jason Todd as she often looks as though she needs to go to an emergency room

Age: Unspecified

Claims that she is only a couple of years younger than Jason, placing her at around 16-17 years old

It’s a running joke that, because of her short stature, she is younger than she claims

She has successfully gotten into bars and age restricted locations with ease according to Jason, even when his fake IDs wouldn’t work, meaning that she can better pass for an adult than he can

Height: 4’11”

Claims to be 5 foot

Is the shortest of the gang

shorter than Rachel even though Rachel’s younger than her

Jason is the most likely to poke fun at her height

Race: Mixed race

Mexican-asian

Bilingual

Often mixes spanish into conversation

Appearance:

Short

Lean with toned muscles

Freckles

Golden brown eyes

Undercut

Earlobe length curly black hair

Widows peak

Brown leather jacket

White woolen turtleneck

Leather gloves

Black high waisted skinny jeans

Scars everywhere

Combat boots with hidden pockets

Character Introduction:

In between episodes 4 and 5 of season 1

Helps the gang out of a predicament involving the Rachel killing cult from earlier episodes at a gas station

Can be seen looting the bodies of the people she just knocked out for cash and whatnot

She then offers her skills as backup until they find a safe place to stay

Just sort of ends up along for the ride after that

Character Info:

Was on her way to a doctor in Ohio when she came across the Titans

This was later elaborated on when Jason tells Dick that she suffered a pretty serious head injury about a year ago

During the aftermath of Asylum it is insinuated that Ellie is a metahuman and that she was heading to Doom Manor but this isn’t confirmed

In Asylum it is revealed that Ellie’s body is covered in scars

It is also revealed that when she comes into skin to skin contact with someone she experiences extreme pain

Dick is shown not to trust Ellie after the events of Asylum, suspecting her to have training from the League of Assassins after seeing her in a proper fight

He also contemplates the idea that the personality she has presented herself with might be fake, believing the way she acted during Asylum to be a more truthful representation of herself.

Has stated her attraction to Kory at least twice, because she’s basically a goddess

Calls Rachel Chica

Has called Jason anything from Jaybrid to Esé

Calls Gar Paw Patrol, has also referred to him as handsome

Tends to call Dick Detective

Is shown to have a dislike for Batman but won’t say why

Is from Gotham and has known Jay for a couple of years

Knows things that she shouldn’t know; for example she was already aware of Hank and Dawn’s vigilante lifestyle before she met them in episode 1 of season 2 and that Gar was a shoplifter among other things

Has at least three knives on her at all times, one on either ankle and another in the inside of her jacket

Has the most interaction time with Gar and Jason

Was suspicious of Angela from the get go, claiming that she was too okay for someone who had been locked up like that for so long

Was told to leave by Dick before he left, she did so

Ended up on the same train as Kory and co though and quickly got wrapped up in the Trigon stuff.

When Dick asked Jason if he thought Ellie to be dangerous, he replied with “Only if she thinks you’re dangerous, or an asshole.”

Wears a golden cross necklace, this seems to hold great sentimental value to her despite her saying that she isn’t religious.

Has been shown to have an interest in classic movies, stating that Rita Farr was her favourite actress growing up.

Has been shown to be highly skilled in hand to hand combat and gymnastics

The room in which she was held in during the events of Asylum was littered with the bodies of at least 15 people, a mix of scientists and enforcers, with a trail of bodies left behind her after she breaks out, it is left ambiguous as to whether she killed them all or if they were still alive when the building was blown up.

Quotes:

“Geez, does everyone outside of Gotham have such colourful hair? It’s like a goddamn rainbow up in here.”

“Honestly, the last person I met with green hair has tried to kill me on at least three times so, y’know…”

“He’s lucky you’ve got such a cute face.”

“There are two types of people when it comes to killing a person, either you never want to do it again or you find yourself having to stop yourself from doing it again because it’s too easy. You’ve just got to decide which you are.”

“I don’t want your sugar daddy spying on me”

Faceclaim: Tashi Rodriguez 

[siphen0]

Titans — Ep. 107 — Photo Credit: Brooke Palmer / 2018 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Titans last week was a great reflection piece for Dick Grayson who was able to look at this new Robin and truly come to realize why it is that he parted ways with Batman/Bruce Wayne. It was another memorable episode to have like the Doom Patrol episode for the sake of comic accurate introductions. Now that this is passed, of we got to more pressing matters. Namely involving the search for Rachel’s birth mother. Just from the looks of the promo, this was an episode to anticipate if you were truly looking for dark and twisted. .

How we got to the reveal of Rachel’s birth mother alive was quite the way to open this episode. The Messenger is a creepy guy, but this interrogation they put him through showed you that it could only get worse when he was able to speak a little more freely without eyes over his shoulder. When he said that he wanted to speak to Rachel, that could have gone any number of ways. How they actually decided to execute this scene was terrifying since the guy went to some extremes just to make sure that she was listening to what he had to say. How this ended up leading to the prison break for Rachel’s mother was equally interesting. There was this build-up in suspense because we already know that something had to go wrong in order for them all to get captured. The only issue I could take was how they landed in this position. It was the most bone-headed decision made, but you also couldn’t argue with the tendency of the two who got them into that trouble.

To say that this team gets a whole lot more than they bargained for felt like an understatement. When you know what this organization does with their brand of experimentation, and the kind of individuals who landed into their laps, it is terrifying to think of what we are in store for when they’re forced to face their deepest fears and vulnerabilities. Being held captive by The Organization in a mysterious psychiatric facility. This was like something out of a horror movie. The evil doctor looming over each of their prisons, the way they held each one of them, and lets not forget the general atmosphere that simply felt devoid of hope.

Titans — Ep. 107 — Photo Credit: John Medland / 2018 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

While Gar and Dick were in their own sort of trouble, I was more terrified by the thought of what Kory was about to go through. The only scene we were actually able to brace for was what happened once they put her on the table to experiment on. That was a clip we saw before the first episode even came out. I didn’t know when that point would come, but I knew I was not going to be ready for it. As this episode came, I still wasn’t. It doesn’t get any worse than seeing someone cut open, and alive. For Dick, it was intriguing to see what would happen once waking up with his suit on. Everything from the table he was strapped to, the drugs they pumped him with, and how he was the only one outside of his cell was something to get your heart racing. If anyone was going to be hardest to crack, it would have been Dick. To show that even he could be broke to some degree made a big difference. Of course, with that said it isn’t entirely too hard when he is riddled with nightmares about who he is. The reality of the situation was the biggest shocker. You get so hung up on one thing that you overlook the concept of what’s possible and what is not. Not too much time was spent on Gar during that period, but I loved what came of the aftermath. These doctors pretty much got what they asked for for better or for worse.

The escape from this facility was all the darkness and grittiness you thought you couldn’t get any more of. At this point it is something that you would have gotten used to. I for the most part found it exciting to see what could come of these heroes taking the gloves off. Especially what would happen once a certain someone finally let go of who they used to be. With that said, some will argue that the escape was a little too convenient or easy. It did feel that way for the hand in it that Rachel had, but that still didn’t change the obstacles they each had to face in able to walk out of this in one piece.

Titans “Asylum” challenged this team in a way that they were far from prepared for. My only fear after this episode is the bold move to break your toys so soon in the first season, but I’m still open to what the rest of these episodes have in store when they’ve decided it is time to put them back together.

Titans — Ep. 107 — Photo Credit: Brooke Palmer / 2018 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Titans — Ep. 107 — Photo Credit: Brooke Palmer / 2018 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Titans — Ep. 107 — Photo Credit: Brooke Palmer / 2018 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Titans “Asylum” Review Titans last week was a great reflection piece for Dick Grayson who was able to look at this new Robin and truly come to realize why it is that he parted ways with Batman/Bruce Wayne.

[amethyst-noir]

(I found this prompt on ironstrangeprompts, and it broke my heart so I decided to share that pain) Tony refuses to let Stephen into the Compound unless he wears a magic suppression collar. Stephen agrees and suffers for it, but refuses to say anything after everything he put Tony through when he gave up the Time Stone.

Oh, Anon. You can’t imagine how hard this was. I saw that prompt when it was posted and was horrified. I just couldn’t write Tony being that callous and insensitive concerning Stephen. I tried. Two times in fact. But the scene always went into another direction within a couple of words. Poor Stephen already suffers so much, I can’t let him suffer even more because of Tony. So here we have two scenarios where Tony puts a magic suppression collar around Stephen’s neck - and both times he’s forced to do it against his will. I hope you still like these two little vignettes, despite them not being what you wanted. 🙄

Lost Magic

Scenario #1: Stephen, for the greater good, insists. Tony’s disgusted and heartbroken and will make it up to Stephen ASAP.

“If you don’t do it, you won’t get into the compound, period.” Tony crossed his arms and looked at Stephen. The challenge was clear and after a moment of consideration Stephen decided to be the bigger man and yield.

He took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay.” The thought of surrendering his magic to some technical… plaything made him sick to his stomach but he’d lived the bigger part of his life without it, he could do so again for a few hours, if necessary. It is necessary, he assured himself as he tried to fight the building panic down.

Tony looked at him as if he couldn’t believe his answer. “Okay?” he repeated. “You’re sure?”

No, he wasn’t. Yes, he was. “Just do it, Tony.” He gave in with a resigned sigh.

Tony held out the collar but Stephen refused to touch that thing with more of his body than necessary. Instead he held up his hands - trembling more than usual because of his nervousness - and cocked an eyebrow. “And you really think that I can put this on by myself?”

Tony looked down at his hands and then up again. “Stephen,” he said incredible gentle. “Don’t do that to yourself. We can meet somewhere else - at my home, at yours. Fuck, I’ll set up a video feed and we can meet at the nearest Starbucks or on the moon for all I care.”

“You told me that they need a sorcerer at the compound to assess the threat Loki brings to earth. To speak about the things he might be capable of doing if he’s allowed asylum here. The rules, under which the compound operates, state clearly that no magical users are allowed inside - except those whose magic is dampened by technological means.” He could have quoted the relevant paragraphs verbatim but kept himself to the essential truth behind them. He needed to get into the Avengers compound to get to the damn meeting. Thanks to the UN he couldn’t get in there with his magic working. Tony had the means to suppress it. Ergo…

“Just put the collar on me, Tony. I’ll survive.” He’d left the Cloak at home since he couldn’t bring it either so his throat was bare anyway. He took a step closer, his head held up high, the invitation clear.

“I don’t want to put this on you.” Tony reached out with his free hand and touched Stephen’s throat, directly beneath his Adam’s apple. “Don’t you have anyone else to send instead?” The touch was light as a feather but Stephen shivered nonetheless. His throat had always been one of the more sensitive areas of his body and since he lost most of the feeling in his hands it had only become more so.

“Would it be easier to put it on anyone else? To suppress a big part of their identity?”

The question was meant to be rhetorical but Tony looked at him as if he was the biggest idiot in the world. “Of course,” he answered after a moment. “I would rather put it on anyone else, including myself. I would drag them all out here to meet you if I could.” He caressed Stephen’s skin for a moment before he seemed to realize that he was touching him and stopped. Stephen mourned the loss of contact immediately.

“Why?”

Another look and was that a faint blush on Tony’s cheeks? Stephen was charmed, intrigued and confused in equal measures.

“You don’t deserve this.”

Stephen shrugged. “Debatable. But it’s my choice and I made it.” He had to admit that Tony’s reluctance was welcome. Plus, it helped him to overcome his own unwillingness - something that was always easier when he had something to push against. “Put the damn thing on me and let’s get this over with.”

Tony held the collar up again. “Only if you promise me something.”

“What?”

“That I’m allowed to get this off you as soon as possible. And then I want to treat you to a nice dinner.”

“Just dinner?” Stephen couldn’t resist, despite feeling his own blush creeping up his face. Damn, this was turning out different than anticipated. Not that he was complaining…

This time it was Tony who took a deep breath before he closed the last step between them. “If you play your cards right I might invite you up for the night afterwards.” He slowly and carefully put the thing around Stephen’s neck.

Stephen closed his eyes and savored that mental image as the metal-nanite-monstrosity clicked shut. The feeling of losing the better part of himself was immediate and awful. He started to shake immediately and his breath stopped.

“Stephen?” Tony’s concerned voice pulled him back from the abyss. “Breathe, please. I’ll take it off right now if you don’t.” Tony was holding on to his elbows again, just like so many months ago on Titan. It was comforting. Then one of those hands moved up and slipped between the collar and his skin. Tony’s voice and the gentle hold grounded him and he forced himself to open his eyes. The world looked somehow duller and emptier and he felt lightheaded, as if he hadn’t eaten for days. “I’ll take it off again, okay?”

He took a deep breath and concentrated on himself, not the things no longer there. “No. Let’s get this over with. You can make it up to me later.”

Tony looked at him and stroked him once again before withdrawing his hand. Stephen shivered again, but for a different reason. “Gladly.” He didn’t take his other hand of Stephen’s elbow as he led him into the compound and didn’t stray from his side for the whole time they were in there.

🦋

Scenario #2: Tony has to suppress Stephen’s magic to save his life and is afraid of Stephen hating him afterwards.

He was so tired, too tired to try to move or open his eyes and his right hip was on fire. There was a hand in his hair, stroking him gently. Whispered voices, words that made no sense. Instead he chose to drift and enjoy the soothing touch. Then, suddenly: “He’s going to hate me for this.”

Tony. He sounded worried and afraid but Stephen didn’t know why. He wanted to protest, to reassure Tony that no, he could never hate him, but the words wouldn’t come. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t move but was too tired to panic.

“Then he can hate me too, because it was my idea in the first place. You’re saving his life, he’ll forgive you.” Wong didn’t sound any better than Tony.

“I’m sorry, Stephen. I hope you’ll understand when you wake up.” Tony was crying, Stephen could hear it and did he feel tears on his face? “I love you.”

His head was carefully lifted up and there were hands on his throat, followed by cold metal. Something clicked shut around his neck but the faint sound was almost drowned out by Tony’s sobs.

He should be afraid by now, Stephen knew. But the strange lethargy that had him in its grip choose that moment to overwhelm him completely and he drifted away again.

*

When he woke up the world was different.

He felt it the moment he regained consciousness - a glaring emptiness where the better part of himself should be. Automatically he tried to raise a defensive shield, only to discover that the void inside him was where his magic should be.

His thoughts stopped, his breathing too. There was nothing except a feeling of wrongness and despair.

He was in the middle of a panic attack before he’d even tried to open his eyes.

“Stephen? Stephen! Come back, please, calm down. Shh, I’ve got you, you’re safe. You’re okay, calm down. I’ll explain everything, but you have to listen to me, please. Stephen, darling, listen to me.”

It was the unusual pet-name that finally broke through the haze of confusion and fear. He managed to focus enough to force his eyes open. “Tony?” he asked quietly, surprised at how weak he sounded. The man was leaning over him, watching him like a hawk.

“Hey, welcome back.” Tony attempted a smile but it became a grimace. “How are you feeling?”

Not like himself. Empty. Dead. “What happened?” he asked instead. Instinctively he wanted to reach up to his throat to feel the strange thing locked around him but Tony gently caught his right hand and shook his head. There were still tears in his eyes.

“Don’t,” he begged but Stephen didn’t listen. He had another hand and this time Tony didn’t stop him. His searching fingers encountered… something around his throat. They weren’t sensitive enough to really get a feel for the contraption but it seemed to be something like a collar. A collar. Metall. His magic gone. The connection was easy to make - the research Tony had done in the aftermath of Ultron, when he’d been so afraid of magic and having his mind played with again, that lead to a device that could suppress magical abilities in humans. And, hopefully, Asgardians. For Stephen - and any other sorcerer, really - it was a monstrosity of barely comprehensible proportions.

Stephen closed his eyes again, unable to look at Tony. “Why?” he asked in a broken whisper.

“What do you remember?” Tony grabbed his hand and gently tugged it away from the collar. By now both of his hands were held immobile in a tight grip but he was too weak to protest or even try to struggle. Instead he forced himself to think.

Tony would never take his magic away without reason. Despite his justified hate and a lot of problems at the beginning of their relationship he’d learned to not only tolerate but actually accept that magic was an integral part of Stephen. So, there had to be a reason, a very good one.

“There… there was a fight. Wasn’t there?” Finally some pieces of the puzzle fell into place. “Something with a… a…” The memories wouldn’t come but the panic tried to come back. He couldn’t remember, there was a big part missing…

“Shh, baby. It’s okay. Calm down again.” Baby, that was a term of endearment he was used to. One he’d hated in his old life but that by now awoke a feeling of safety and memories of being in Tony’s arms and being cared for. Stephen relaxed instinctively. His mind still wasn’t working on full speed so it was even easier to just let himself be lulled into an almost-sleep by Tony’s soothing words and gentle touches. But he was still trying to work things out.

“Something was feeding of my magic, wasn’t it?” he finally asked after the put the fragments of memory together. Some pieces were still missing but he could remember the thing that had attacked him, got through his robes easily and had attached itself to his hip. And then… pain, blackness and the feeling of losing himself.

“Yeah. According to Wong it would have killed you in hours if we… I… hadn’t done anything.”

“So you took my magic away.” Stephen tried really hard to keep the anguish out of his voice but he knew that he’d done a terrible job when he saw Tony flinch as if he’d been hit.

Tony took a deep breath and let go of one of his hands to brush his hair out of his face, an incredible tender gesture. “It was the only way,” he threw Stephen’s own words back at him. “The alternative was watching you die in agony. As long as there is a chance I will do anything to save you. Anything.”

Even taking away a big part of my identity, it seems, Stephen thought. But Tony’s echo of his own words had helped in calming his anger down. Quid pro quo.

“It let go of you not long after”, Tony continued, oblivious to Stephen’s thoughts and still desperate to explain himself. “Wong is still trying to find out what it was. But in the meantime…”

“You can’t be sure if it’s safe to get this thing off me.” Stephen tried to grab the collar again but his fingers failed him. “Try it. We’ll see what happens then.”

“Stephen!”

But he was determined now and Tony, seeing that Stephen really meant it, gave in with an eye roll and a resigned sigh. “It goes back on the moment I see that you’re hurting again,” he threatened.

“We’ll see about that,” Stephen answered absently, still trying to get it off himself, despite knowing that it wasn’t designed that way. Finally, his patience was gone for good. “Get it off me now!”

“Not, if you don’t relax.”

“Tony.”

“Alright, alright. Just let me…” Another click and the feeling of oppression vanished immediately. Stephen took a deep breath and did a quick internal check.

“I think everything’s okay,” he finally said. “I’m feeling good. Normal.”

Tony snorted. “Says the man with the big, bloody hole in his hip. No, no, don’t get up. We only just managed to stop the bleeding before you woke up. A little bit longer and you’d have needed a transfusion. I’m not letting you up until you’ve been checked out by a doctor.”

Ah, yes. Tony’s words explained the dull ache in his right leg. “I am a doctor, if you remember,” he said after a moment. He longed to see the damage for himself but one look at Tony’s determined face kept him still.

“Yes, and that’s exactly why I don’t trust your judgement.” He held up a hand before Stephen could start with his protest. “I know, I know. FRIDAY’s called Christine after we brought you here. She’s on her way. The compound’s a little bit out of the way for her, after all. We really need to think about a nice thank you gift for her. She’s done so much for us. Then I’ll get you home to rest and heal. If you’re pathetic enough you might even get me to fetch and carry for you.”

Tony hat gotten him the only doctor he trusted besides himself. Stephen felt tears well up but decided to blame them on the pain. “Thank you,” he whispered. He would come back to the rest of Tony’s words later. “For saving me.”

Tony bent down and kissed him softly. “Thank you for forgiving me.”

💫

[ty-talks-comics]

Best of DC: Week of May 1st, 2019

Best of this Week: Deathstroke #43: The Terminus Agenda pt. 4 - Christopher Priest, Carlo Pagulayan, Sergio Davila, Pop Mhan, Jeromy Cox and Willie Schubert

And thus Damian Wayne follows the rest of his family into the pit of despair

The saga between Deathstroke and Damian’s Titans is still a fairly recent one. Starting back when Damian was kidnapped by Deathstroke to lure out Batman, to the Lazarus Agenda when he took Kid Flash’s speed to save his first child, to stealing Kid Flash away from Damian to form his Defiance to team and who can forget the ridiculous gambit that took place in Deathstroke vs. Batman, which called Damian’s blood into question. Damian has many a reason to hate Deathstroke, but his plan to have final confrontation with the assassin might have left him in ruins.

The villains in Damian’s secret prison have escaped, thanks to Deathstroke breaking their restraints, and Damian is caught in the crossfire. Damian manages to make his escape underneath the floorboards and gets away WITH Deathstroke’s help, suffering some shrapnel damage in the escape and possibly injuring his eye. Deathstroke confronts him and asks why things are so personal with the kid, before Damian tells him to go to hell. Kid Flash, Crush and Red Arrow are left to deal with the escapees.

Atomic Skull, Black Mask, Gizmo, Onomatopoeia and Brother Blood stood no chance and allowed Kid Flash to go look for Damian and confront him about everything. We learn that despite everything, it really boils down to whatever the issue is between Damian and Batman and how Deathstroke ruffling Damian’s hair at the end of Deathstroke vs. Batman acted as the trigger for it. This Teen Titans relaunch came as a result of Damian, Red Arrow and Kid Flash no longer wanting to do things the way that their mentors did and Damian’s reasoning is never explicitly given, though it appears he wanted to bring back some of the more darker aspects of himself.

Damian is known for being a petulant, petty and ridiculous child, but the amount of fury such a small act causes him is insane. Earlier in the book, we had a flashback of Damian being called worthless during a training session with his mother because he was weak or had too much of his father's heart. As he takes his leave of Kid Flash to find Swerve, another escaped villain, we get another reveal in the form of Swerve realizing that Damian had poisoned all of the villains with a toxin that would kill them after prolonged exposure to outside oxygen, but lacked the will to go through with it. He was trying to stop Deathstroke from killing them because of what he did.

Damian finally confronts Deathstroke on the roof of the team’s base and Deathstroke thinks he has Damian all figured out. Damian, above anything, just wants to feel loved and accepted. He tried Batman’s way and all it left him with was rage and the never ending feeling of weakness and abandonment because Batman’s mission never stops. Deathstroke ruffling his hair was probably the closest thing to affection that Damian’s had in a little while with Batman currently dealing with Bane’s machinations in his series. Damian wanted that feeling again and subconsciously rationalized that if he could become his stronger, more brutal self again, then he might be accepted.

He then levels a gun at Deathstroke, but is unable to pull the trigger. Deathstroke comments that he only tried to fix Damian, but Batman ruined him before taking an arrow to the head and falling into a heap on the ground.

While the above explanation given is only my interpretation, I think it’s a very strong one. Rebirth has not been exactly kind to Damian, not to anyone in the Batfamily for that matter. Damian turned thirteen and was targeted to either die or lead the League of Assassins. He found out that he would be killed in the future by his best friend, Jon Kent. He finds himself at odds with anyone he finds himself on a team with because of his brutal and secretive nature. Hell, he even almost dies again in the pages of Nightwing.

As much as Damian pushes his friends and family away, he still has feelings. He wants friends, he wants his dad to acknowledge him more than just a stern hug every now and again, he wants something that he can hold on to, which is why I think he’s trying his best for Djinn. She too has a horrible history of pain and death, same with Deathstroke, but his path is just getting ever more dark.

---------------------------------------------------

Tom King has a penchant for doing the most with very little.

Runner Up: Batman #70 - Tom King, Mikel Janin, Jorge Fornes, Jordie Bellaire and Clayton Cowles

Several issues of his Batman story have taken place in one location or even in one single room in some cases, this is one of the former and somehow also mirrors issue #19 of the I Am Bane arc, which saw the titular villain breaking into Arkham in an attempt to get Psycho Pirate back from Batman after he had broken into Santa Prisca to kidnap him.

Batman, waking up from his series of horrible and almost mind breaking nightmares, is furious. Finding the Riddler in front of him, mid-riddle, he knees the idiot in the face and gives him the answer in a sort of punny manner. He passes Calendar Man who offers no resistance, but notes that neither he nor Bane will stop trying to destroy each other and just lays down on the ground.

Batman makes his way through the asylum, having a monologue directed at Bane while taking down Hush, Blight, Mad Hatter, Zsasz and who I hope is a copycat Man-Bat (or his wife). He mocks Bane for thinking that he could take down Batman with nightmares when HE IS THE NIGHTMARE. It’s very edgy and hokey, but I love it.

One thing of note is just how much fun Janin seems to be having with drawing Batman just beating the asses of the villains. He draws Batman with a cold, calculated fury, but still makes him look amazingly cool. He has a penchant for making Batman seem so much larger and more imposing than his foes, even when he’s placed in the background of shots. I also love that he seems to portray Batman as being left-handed, not really a big deal, but Batman throws most of his punches in this issue with his left hand.

Speaking of him being imposing and striking fear into the hearts of the guilty - at some point he confronts Mr. Freeze and makes him think about all of the other times that Freeze has had him at the business end of his Freeze gun. He makes him think about how, no matter what, Batman found a way out. Freeze, likely still traumatized from the events of Cold Days, just allows himself to get punched in the face.

We get a cutaway to Bane talking to Arnold Wesker, The Ventriloquist, and laughing about how Batman is playing right into his schemes and Batman faces off against Scarecrow. Doctor Crane is easily defeated in an amazing few pages tinted with the green of his Fear Gas as Batman appears behind him.

Batman appears to be reaching something of a breaking point as, after defeating Solomon Grundy and Amygdala, he laughs heartily, more than you’d expect or hope. Jorge Fornes takes over the art for the rest of the issue  as Batman threatens Bane through Two Face, telling him that he’ll be back with a crew to take down Bane just like Bane tried to take him down and Maxie Zeus quotes Dante’s Inferno and says “All hope abandon, ye who enter here.” Signaling that Batman has entered his own personal hell in his confrontation with Bane.

This book was stunning and continues to build toward this amazing, one hundred issue story about Bane. Not only is it pushing Batman to the limit even farther than he ever has, it’s driving Bane to be even more calculating, brutal. It’s like nothing we’ve ever seen before or will again and with City of Bane coming in five issues and Thomas Wayne trying to convince Bruce to give up being Batman in the intervening issues, we’re in for a good few months of awesome Batman storytelling.

[poonyo]

titans & friends? 💖

thanks for sending and so sorry for the late reply, i had to go to sleep and then finish some stuff.

Titans.

Favorite Male Character: Dick 

Favorite Female Character: Koriand’r

Least Favorite Character: Rachel’s mom because wtf lady, who does that to their own child.

Favorite Ship: Kory and Dick

Favorite Friendship: Rach and Gar

Favorite Quote: “Life isn’t fair. Why not? Why can’t we make it fair?”

Worst Character Death (if any): au!kory in 1x11 and honourary mention to the nuclear family cause i loved those brainwashed freaks.

This made me so happy you have no idea Moment: when the titans all fought together against the nuclear family in 1x05

Saddest Moment: the whole of 1x11

Favorite Location: i guess the apartment where they all stayed after the asylum, that was a rad place.

Friends.

Favorite Male Character: Chandler.

Favorite Female Character: Monica.

Least Favorite Character: i don’t have a specific one, maybe Monica’s mom for her abysmal treatment.

Favorite Ship: monica and chandler, MONICA AND CHANDLER.

Favorite Friendship: the three girls, specifically rachel and pheobe.

Favorite Quote: “you can’t just give up, is that what a dinosaur would do?”

Worst Character Death (if any): i don’t recall.

This made me so happy you have no idea Moment: when monica and chandler proposed to each other.

Saddest Moment: the last end cedits,

Favorite Location: monica’s apartment

Give me a fandom and I’ll tell you.

[diopsanna]

Titans 💕

Thanks dear!

Favorite Male Character: Garfield, he’s an underrated cutie!

Favorite Female Character: Kory of course! That alien princess has my heart!!

Least Favorite Character: Angela’s raggedy ass 

Favorite Ship: Dickkory 

Favorite Quote: “I don’t think I loved you too- yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s a no.” sksksks queen

Worst Character Death: It was a dream but Kory’s death had me fucked up for weeks. But if we’re talking in real-time, Don’s death was pretty sad, not to mention anti-climactic

This made me so happy you have no idea Moment: When Dickkory had sex ahhhh

Saddest Moment: When Gar realized he killed that guard in the asylum :(

Favorite Location: I loved the Doom Patrol mansion sm 

send me a fandom!

[thesecretlxfeofme]

My Top 10 Jacksepticeye series

Since Sean reacted to the “Top 10 Jacksepticeye series” WatchMojo & Sean asked to share what our favorite series on the channel were, so here’s my top 10 favorite series that are in no particular order (plus honorable mentions cause I just love a lot of series that he has done)

Fran Bow After watching Sean’s series, it became one of my favorite games and I just love the psychological horror to it. Also, not to mention, that it starts off in an asylum and I have a huge fascination on learning about asylums. Plus, Sean’s voice acting was superb and the voices he gave to the characters is still one of my favorites cause he brings the Fran Bow characters to live

Until Dawn I just absolutely love the mo-cap and the details of this game. After I first watched Sean’s series, it got me instantly hooked and I needed to buy this game so I can play it for myself, which I eventually did last year. I don’t know this is still one of the series that I can go back to and rewatch again.

The Last Guardian This whole game was absolutely beautiful and breathtaking. Seeing Sean gush over Trico, throughout the series, will always be one of my favorite moments because it was too precious and adorable. I remembered back when this series was ongoing back at the end of 2016, I got so excited whenever Sean uploaded a new episode because I was so giddy and curious to see what happened next... Also, I was excited to see more of Sean get soft over Trico. This game is on my list of PS4 games I wanna play if I ever get a PS4 because I need to experience it myself. PS, let Sean have his own Trico.

Bendy and the Ink Machine When Sean uploaded the first part, I got instantly hooked and wanted to know more about this game, and I can’t wait for the final chapter to be released because I am curious to see how it all ends. I love the cartoon aesthetic style that it has going on, and I love this game that I had to buy a Bendy pin, thanks to Sean for playing this game on the channel. Also, I can’t forget the cute moment in Chapter 3 where Sean heard himself and his reaction hearing his voice was too adorable & precious.

A Normal Lost Phone This might’ve only been a two-part series, but this brought so many emotions and feelings while I was watching it. I’m still figuring myself out, but hearing Sean be so open just made me cry because he’s open-minded and doesn’t judge on being yourself. Off tangent here, but I’m so hecking glad that someone like Sean exists and he’s my hero because he’s the angel that we deserve. Also, his smile when he saw Samira’s picture at the pride parade where she was truly herself made me soft.

Jacksepticeye Power Hour Okay, I know this isn’t a game series, but I always find myself going back and rewatching the videos (especially the Chase Brody one *cough* *cough*). I just love watching Sean act as a different character and be all goofy & silly because the power hour videos bring a smile to my face, and I always look forward to whenever he uploads one. I can’t wait for the next power hour episode.

Human Fall Flat w/ Robin One of the series that I can go to and get a good chuckle because it makes me laugh every damn time. Sean’s collabs with Robin is probably one of my favorites, if not, my all time favorite collabs because they just get along so well & their overall chemistry is freaking top notch. Like when they’re together, it’s comedy gold. I can always count on them to make me laugh.

Life is Strange Okay, hear me out: I know this game gets shitted on the dialogue but it was the first game that introduced me to the channel and led me to binge watching Sean’s videos. This game holds sentimental value to me. I just find the atmosphere calming and relaxing, and it’s one of those series that I go to if I need to relax and the soundtrack is phenomenal. Anyways, I could write a book on why Sean’s LiS series means the world to me, but I’ll stop before it gets too wordy and I can’t wait to watch him Life is Strange 2 next month.

Night in the Woods  I absolutely love this game and there were some parts that spoke to me. Sean’s voices for the main characters is just perfect, and sometimes, I’ll quote Gregg and speak into the voice that Sean gave him. Also, it was another chilled calming atmosphere and the graphics were super pretty. The dialogue was outstanding, and just, Sean’s commentary in that series is one of my favorites because I find myself quoting some of it.

 What Remains of Edith Finch This game is fucking amazing and I am so glad that it’s finally getting the recognition it deserves. The message behind it was truly special and hearing Sean’s thoughts on it at the end is something that I go back to. The graphics were beyond gorgeous, and it’s another one of those chilled series where it’s calming & relaxing to watch.

Honorable Mentions: Simulacra Last Day of June Cuphead Uncharted 4 Detroit: Become Human Emily is Away Bloopers & Outtakes Emily is Away Too Shadows of the Colossus  Kindergarten Bully Little Nightmares Would You Rather Hidden Agenda Prop Hunt Sea of Thieves Dream Daddy The BOSS Batman: Telltale The Walking Dead Stories Untold Happy Wheels Reading Your Comments A Day with Jack vlogs Raft A Way Out Don’t Starve Together w/ Robin House Flipper VR series That Dragon, Cancer Presentable Liberty The Beginner’s Guide Google Feud Jacksepticeye’s Funniest Home Videos SuperHOT Doki Doki Literature Club Slime Rancher Drum Covers Player’s Unknown Battleground Paradigm Duck Life Opening Your Gifts Undertale Valiant Hearts Passpartout Uncharted: Lost Legacy Sally Face The Escapists Outlast The Sims 4 Resident Evil 7 Peace, Death Manuel Samuel Portal 2 w/ Bob Detention Layers of Fear Party Hard Raft Oxenfree Japan World Cup Hitman The Final Station Little Inferno Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Planet Coaster We Happy Few World of Goo Rocket League Attack on Titan: Wings of Freedom

Anyways, I should stop right now, but moral of this post? I love all of Sean’s videos and as I may have some series that sticks out to me for personal reasons, I don’t think I can just pick out “top 10″ or “top 5″ because most of those series in the honorable mentions are higher than that because I love watching those series and hearing Sean gush, or comment, on the games and hear his opinions afterwards. Long story short: Sean makes me smile with his videos because the channel is my safe haven, and I can’t wait to see what cool videos he’ll make cause he’s such a cool, creative, motivating dude with ideas that I can’t wait to see become a reality because your acting is gonna blow me away.

[meleyys]

For the fandom asks: Marvel and/or DC!

DID SOMEONE SAY ‘NO EVENTS’ BECAUSE I’M SURE THAT WASN’T US

Favorite Male Character - This is a hard one I’m gonna be honest; probably gonna go for Peter Parker though

Favorite Female Character - Hello welcome to my blog this is an ‘appreciate Jennifer Walters or get out’ zone (not really, but I love her)

Least Favorite Character - In all of Marvel? Jesus, that’s tough. Right now at this very second the only person coming to mind is Stilt-Man and I don’t know why

Favorite Ship - To all the people out there that ship Shulkie/Daredevil, I salute you

Favorite Friendship - The Champions as a team, yesssssssssss.

Favorite Quote - No.

Worst Character Death (if any) - Hello welcome to my blog we don’t care that Bruce Banner is coming back because his death still broke us. Also when they killed Jen in Age of Ultron. 

This made me so happy you have no idea Moment - I can’t remember the last time I was happy reading a comic my dudes; maybe when Quicksilver punched his dad in the jaw at Mach 5 and Wanda just kinda watched it on TV.

Saddest Moment - “And. And? AND?!”

Favorite Location - Asgard’s pretty cool.

DETECTIVE COMICS COMICS SO COMICAL THEY NAMED IT TWICE

Favorite Male Character - Go scroll down my blog and then come back and tell me if you can figure that one out

Favorite Female Character - Black Canary. No, Harley Quinn. No, Poison Ivy. No, Catwoman. No, Cassie Cain. No, Oracle. No, Steph. No, Wonder Woman. No, Starfire. No, Raven. No… I’ll get back to you on that one.

Least Favorite Character - I don’t like Superman all that much, come get me. I wouldn’t say he’s my least favourite, but it’s 3am and I can’t think

Favorite Ship - Ollie/Dinah, I like seeing married couples who actually get along.

Favorite Friendship - The former Teen Titans as a team.

Favorite Quote - Again, no.

Worst Character Death (if any) - Hey, remember that time Jason got beat to death with a crowbar? And Zod killed Tim? And Damian killed Dick? And Damian died too? And people keep fucking murdering the Batkids?  ACTUALLY FUCK THE ROBINS, REMEMBER TOWER OF BABEL?! THEY TURNED MM’S SKIN INTO MAGNESIUM AND HE CAUGHT FIRE AND DIED. BRUTAL.

This made me so happy you have no idea Moment - I can’t remember the last time I was happy reading a comic they just keep making my faves suffer. 

Saddest Moment - Honestly in Serious House on Serious Earth when they were like ‘we’re making Dent better by giving him more choices!’ and Batman (that shining example of mental health) had to be like ‘look cunts, Arkham Asylum is fucking shocking what are you doing’.

Favorite Location - I like a classic.

[ramajmedia]

10 Other MCU Characters Who Might Be Worthy Of Wielding Thor's Hammer

Surprising moments were ten a penny in Avengers: Endgame – from the reveal of Smart Hulk to Thor’s weight gain to old Cap – but a strong contender for the most gleefully shocking of them all is when Steve Rogers summons Thor’s hammer Mjolnir and bashes Thanos with it.

RELATED: Avengers: Endgame - 10 Most Surprising Changes After The Time Jump

Age of Ultron had already hinted that someone other than Thor could be worthy of wielding the hammer, and even showed Vision holding it, but Endgame confirmed that it can be held by anyone who’s worthy. There are plenty of brave heroes in the MCU, so here are 10 Other MCU Characters Who Might Be Worthy Of Wielding Thor’s Hammer.

10 Groot

This is the original version from the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, who sacrificed himself to keep his friends safe on Ronan’s crashing ship. James Gunn has confirmed that this Groot definitively died in that film and the replanted one was a completely different incarnation of the character.

That Groot would do anything for the people he loved, particularly Rocket, whose life he saved multiple times. The new Groot is a little bit of aging and character development away from being truly worthy, since he’s currently a bratty teenager who puts his own needs above everyone else’s, although he did wield an albeit unenchanted Stormbreaker when he sacrificed his arm to give it a handle.

9 Valkyrie

Some fans were confused when it was announced that Jane Foster would be taking on the mantle of Thor in Taika Waititi’s upcoming fourth solo movie, Thor: Love and Thunder, because it seemed as though Valkyrie was being primed to become the new Thor.

She spent years fighting for Asgard, she’s proven her nobility as a hero time and time again, she strides into battle atop a Pegasus, and she’s definitely worthy of wielding Thor’s hammer. Perhaps the reason for not making Valkyrie the new Thor is that she’s her own thing. She doesn’t need to be Thor, because she’s Valkyrie!

8 Spider-Man

Peter Parker is easily one of the most caring and considerate members of the Avengers. When he kept pestering Happy Hogan about his next mission with Earth’s mightiest heroes in Spider-Man: Homecoming, it seemed like he enjoyed the glory of fighting alongside those guys, but now, it seems like he just wants to help anyone he can.

RELATED: 10 Questions About Spider-Man's Iron Spider Costume, Answered

He may have used “Instant Kill” mode to get rid of some of Thanos’ mindless Outriders, but on the whole, he doesn’t kill his enemies – even the ones who have threatened to murder him themselves. Spidey is noble, brave, and although he unwittingly makes a few mistakes here and there, he always does the right thing.

7 Black Panther

Someone who is worthy of wielding Mjolnir has to be courageous and heroic, has to always strive to do the right thing, and has to be willing to charge into battle if it’s necessary for the greater good.

T’Challa embodies all of these qualities: he’s a noble king who has finally opened his doors to the outside world, he doesn’t let anything (even death – twice!) stop him from doing the right thing (including providing political asylum for Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes), and he doesn’t just march into battle when he’s needed to – he brings his whole army with him, and they have an infectious war cry (“Yibambe!”).

6 Odin

This one is a little complicated, since Odin is the one who decides whether or not someone is worthy of wielding Thor’s hammer, so it’s unclear if he is worthy himself. However, there’s a good chance that he can wield it.

In Thor: Ragnarok, Thor caught out Loki for disguising himself as Odin by summoning Mjolnir towards him and telling him that if he didn’t admit who he really was, the hammer would go clean through him. The reason he used this test was because he knew that if it really was Odin, he’d be able to catch the hammer, whereas Loki wouldn’t. Ergo, Odin is worthy.

5 Phil Coulson

Not everybody who is worthy of wielding Mjolnir has to be a powerful superhero. Phil Coulson might be a bureaucrat on the surface, but his career with S.H.I.E.L.D. has never been about imposing order on people or controlling the world – he’s always simply strived to keep people safe and prevent cosmic threats from taking any innocent lives.

He’s not capable of doing this on his own, so he helped Nick Fury to assemble the Avengers to do it for them. Coulson believes that no lives are expendable, because everybody is special to somebody. He summed this up perfectly when he said, “Nobody’s nobody, Ward.”

4 Captain Marvel

It’s said that Captain Marvel is the most powerful character the MCU has ever seen, but is she worthy? There’s a case to be made that she is, because she was a hero long before she had superpowers. She was in the Air Force, she was fighting people’s battles for them, and she protected Dr. Wendy Lawson from alien invaders without thinking twice.

A big part of being worthy of wielding Mjolnir is living the warrior’s lifestyle. Well, Carol Danvers was in the U.S. military, then she was in the Kree Starforce, and then when she realized they were basically a radical terrorist organization bent on wiping out a peaceful people, she switched sides and took the Skrulls’ fight for them.

3 Peter Quill

The whole principle behind being worthy – particularly what Odin would deem worthy, since he was the guy in charge of those decisions before he died – revolves around being willing to put the greater good above your own self-interests. Peter Quill has always put the people he cares about before himself.

RELATED: 10 Star-Lord Quotes That Prove He's All Of Us

When he flew out into space to give his mask to Gamora, he might have died. When he grabbed the Power Stone from Ronan, he expected to die. When he killed Ego to save the world, he lost the godlike powers that he had just realized he had. Quill has never put his own self-interests in front of anyone’s (except for his major screw-up on Titan, but we all let our emotions get the better of us sometimes).

2 Heimdall

The clearest definition of someone who is worthy of wielding Mjolnir is someone who is willing to put the safety of Asgard above their own. As the protector of the Bifrost, this is Heimdall’s whole job.

He’s also heroic: he singlehandedly took down one of the Dark Elves’ ships without a second thought when they came to invade, he helped the Asgardians to survive Hela’s reign, and he sacrificed his life by resurrecting the Hulk and sending him to Sanctum Sanctorum, eventually leading to the Avengers’ victory over Thanos. There’s a good chance that Heimdall has been worthy this whole time; he just didn’t grab for the hammer out of respect for his best friend Thor.

1 Iron Man

In Avengers: Age of Ultron, it was confirmed that Tony Stark could not lift Thor’s hammer – even with his armor on and with War Machine’s help – but in his final moments in Endgame, as his flashy facade and selfish intentions faded away and he gave his life to save the universe, he may have become worthy of wielding Mjolnir.

We’ll never find out, because he’s one of the few MCU characters that we’ve lost forever, but that’s exactly what makes him worthy. Tony’s biggest fear was all of his friends dying while he was left alive with the guilt of being unable to save them, and the legacy he will leave behind is the exact opposite of that.

NEXT: Avengers: Endgame: 5 Ways It's Better Than Infinity War (& 5 Ways It's Worse)

source https://screenrant.com/mcu-characters-worthy-wielding-thors-hammer/

[ageeksnerdyworld]

Reasons To Have 30+ Jason In The DCEU:

First off in most comic canon, comic adaptations, and even fan fiction Jason is usually depicted as being eighteen years old. At the most he’s twenty. Now that’s all fine and dandy, but, it just simply does not work for the films.

The only way it would is if they made Jason the first Robin, and thus screw up the timeline, but since they’re making a Nightwing movie this doesn’t seem like a possibility. That being said, if you really think about it, having Jason be in his early twenties doesn’t work for quite a number of reasons. (All under the cut because this gets pretty long.)

DC Rebirth

Older Batman

Overdone

Jensen Ackles

Time to tackle these points…

DC Rebirth:

Jason’s already been aged in Rebirth. We don’t know exactly how old he is now but we can make a pretty good guess given what information we have available. For starters in many panels of Rebirth RHATO when it shows Jason’s past it clearly states YEARS AGO. Even when it shows his death it says YEARS AGO. So we know that a chunk of time has passed between the day he died and right now. We don’t know how much but it’s implied to be quite some time.

In the very first issue Jason tells us, via internal monologue, that he was sixteen when he first met Batman: I’d like to think that I’ve changed since he came across that punk kid in the alley. … But I’ve got something I never had when I was sixteen years old.

Sixteen when he met Bats. Remember that.

But that doesn’t tell us how long Jason was around before Joker killed him. And we’ve never gotten a clear-cut answer on that. We all know that Bruce trained each and every Robin for quite awhile before he deemed them combat ready. U.S. Army Basic Combat Training (BCT) is nine weeks, Air Force is six weeks with one week of processing, while U.S. Marine Corp training is 12 weeks and four days of processing. I feel like Bruce developed his own time frame based on U.S. military branch times it had to be at least a couple years.

One year to settle into everything that the life of a being the son of Gotham’s most prominent billionaire entailed. Maybe a year of actual training because let’s face it two and a half months isn’t going to be enough. (12 weeks = 2 ½ months.) And then a probationary year of actual Robin work.

Three years. Remember that.

There’s a lot of speculation around Jason’s tenure as Robin. We all know that his tenure didn’t last as long as it was supposed to since he died but we need to know how long that time frame was. Some people say two years; citing age difference in relation to other characters. In N52 RHATO Jason said he was Robin for at least a year. We have nothing on this from Rebirth so far. It makes more sense for his tenure as Robin to be two years rather than one.

Why two? Well, that’s easier than you might think. The Dynamic Duo needs the time to adjust to working with one another. They need the time to learn from each other as well as with each other. To grow better as a pair, as a team, and all that because Bruce isn’t working with Dick anymore. A year is a long time but not as long as you might think in the grand scheme of things.

Two years. Remember that.

Back in 1988 when DC killed Jason for the first time (which started the chain reaction of killing him over and over again with each new revamping) we actually see Jason’s death certificate. And how old was he when he died on April 27th, 1988?

Fifteen.

Rebirth Jason has already surpassed the age of his previous incarnation’s death. So why would he be the same age after coming back? Why would be that same eighteen/nineteen/twenty-year-old? Yes, I know that one year isn’t that much of a difference. But I’m not done with Rebirth Jason yet.

We know, from Lobdell’s previous RHATO run, that the dip in the Lazarus Pit aged Jason. He was fifteen when he went in and around eighteen when he came out. Or he could be nineteen. Possibly twenty. So that’s a three-five year age difference.

Three to five years. Remember that.

Ok. Back to Rebirth Jason. We have seen Jason in a bar a couple of times. Once with the helmet on and once with the helmet off. The scene where he’s in a bar with his helmet off is from issue #8 and is far more important. He’s not just in a bar. He’s drinking in a bar.

Legal drinking age in the U.S. is 21. Remember that.

Most bars, if not all, card the patrons when they order. Even if they appear to be of legal drinking age. Why? Because that’s the law. And I know some of you would say If someone walks into your bar with guns and a mask on wouldn’t you serve them a drink no matter how old they were? And he’s in Gotham after all so they’re used to that kinda thing. Well, first of all, we don’t know if Jason wore his mask as he walked into the bar. All we see that Jason is sitting at the counter and his mask is laying on it.

But there is no clear distinction on whether or not he wore it as he entered the bar and ordered. He most likely would’ve been carded.

And remember this little quote from Issue #4: Have to remember every trick I learned in every therapy session I had in Arkham. What did Dr. Quinzel say? “If you can’t talk to me, talk to the wall, a pillow, anything…”

Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane. Jason not only went there but spent time with Harley when she was a doctor instead of an inmate. (This could be a reference to The Arkham Knight but I highly doubt that.) I think that the above quote is saying exactly what its saying. Jason spent time in Arkham with Dr. Harleen Quinzel. Which he did before in N52. But since Rebirth is a whole new timeline it can’t be just a N52 reference either. Jason spent time in Arkham in this current timeline as well.

That also adds something to what his age is at the start of Rebirth doesn’t it?

The question that remains is: How much time? I’m going to say at least a year. Maybe more. The way the first line reads makes me think it was more than just a few weeks. More than a couple months. He’s spent enough time with Harleen to learn what methods she was using on him. To not only learn those methods but well enough to be able to properly apply them to other people. That being said I think Jason was in Arkham for two or three years. Let’s say three just to be safe because things take time.

Three years. Remember that.

(Side note: Jason’s time at Arkham would fall right before the start of Rebirth. As Rebirth starts Jason’s already been Red Hood for some time. He lost Bruce’s trust through his violent methods and then I’m thinking that Bruce confronted Jason early on and sent him to Arkham to get the help he needed. That patched things up between the two enough for Bruce to work with Jason again.)

Do you remember everything I asked you to?

Sixteen when he met Batman. Three years of training. Two years as Robin. Aged three to five years from The Lazarus Pit. Three years in Arkham. And he has to be at least twenty-one.

Add all that up and Jason’s at least twenty-seven in Rebirth. Possibly twenty-nine.

That’s a pretty big jump from eighteen. So what’s wrong with aging him a little bit more? Especially when we have an…

Older Batman:

We all know that the Bruce Wayne/Batman of the DCEU is 50.

Most of the time, in the comics, Bruce looks to be about in his early thirties. This would make the older Batkids somewhere in their early twenties but we’ve already said that Jason is usually depicted as being eighteen in the comics. Sometimes he makes it up to twenty, but, never really any older than that.

Now with a thirty-year-old Bruce Wayne this makes sense. Does it make sense for a fifty-year-old Bruce? No. It does not.

Thirty to fifty is a twenty year difference that you would have to then also apply to the rest of the Batfam if you’re applying it to Bruce. Which would make Jason how old exactly if he was just eighteen?

Thirty-eight years old.

But if we go off his 27/29 Rebirth age then making him almost 40 is way too old. Thirty-five, though, would be perfect. Making Jason 35 in his first DCEU appearance makes quite a lot of sense. It makes sense with an older Bruce. Thirty-five is old enough to give him plenty of enough time to actually do the things he does to become the Red Hood. Gives him the time he needs to establish the fact that he’s a vigilante. The time he needs to make his way back to Gotham. Time he needs to decide to carry out his revenge.

He doesn’t get enough time if he’s only eighteen or twenty. And having an older Jason Todd is great especially when young superheroes are...

Overdone:

I don’t about all y’all but I’m extremely tired of superheroes always being in the early-mid twenties age range. For comics that age range makes more sense because these characters are meant to appeal to people of that age. And teen superheroes are made to appeal to younger audiences.

All these twenty-something-year-olds feels overdone. (And not just in the superhero genre but that’s not what we’re here to talk about.)

Everyone acts like these characters can stay the same age forever and that it’s okay. It is. For the comics. Its fine for these characters to stay around the same age for revamps in comic canon since comics, and their characters, are supposed to be timeless and appeal to all ages. But since superhero movie are trying to have a more realistic feel to them the twenty-year-old superhero takes away from that added realism.

A thirty-five year old Jason Todd would add more.

Everyone also acts like young superheroes don’t get enough time in the limelight. But just because we don’t see a lot of live-action youngins doesn’t mean they don’t get their fair share of exposure.

X-Men is all about teen superheroes. May I also direct your attention to Young Justice (which currently getting a third season) which is all about teen superheroes doing their own thing? Or what about DC Super Hero Girls which takes every single adult female character and de-ages them into high school teens? Teen Titans and Teen Titans Go? Power Puff Girls? Every single cartoon or movie centered on Spider-Man because for some unknown reason Marvel can never age Peter past teen years. And Ultimate Spider-Man de-aged many adult superheroes into teens as well.

Kick-Ass’s main character, Dave Lizewski, is a teenager who sets out to become a real-life superhero. Chris D’Amico, one of the villains is also a teenager. Hit-Girl, the other main hero, is only eleven. And in the sequel Kick-Ass 2 the MCs from the first movie form a team with other teen heroes and the main villain is the still Chris D’Amico from the first Kick-Ass. (FYI Kick-Ass is based off the comic series of the same name.)

That’s quite enough exposure of teen/kid heroes, right? But that’s not all. Even non-comic book super powered people are more often kids or teens.

Chronicle is a movie all about ordinary kids who develop superpowers and set out to become heroes. Sky High, also a movie, surrounded a flying school for super-powered kids. Three out of five of the MCs in The Incredibles were children. (And, yes, I counted Jack-Jack.) Eleven from Stranger Things. Almost every character in The Darkest Minds book series, which is being turned into a movie, is a teenager with some sort of superpower. The movie reboot of Power Rangers still centers on teenagers in high school. (I don’t remember if the Power Rangers comics existed first or the TV show but I’m pretty sure the movie is based off the TV show so I put it here.)

The sidekick is always a kid. On many occasions the superheroes are kids. The grown-up sidekick turned hero is always a young adult. And all the above mentioned shows and movies don’t challenge this trend in any way shape or form.

Making Jason Todd somewhere in his thirties would turn that trend on its head by making the sidekick-turned-hero character an actual adult. (And since we will be getting a Nightwing movie Dick will have to also be an adult. It wouldn’t really make much sense if Dick’s an adult and Jason’s not. Jason’s only been Red Hood when Dick is Nightwing, after all.) And who would be the best choice to play an older Jason?

Jensen Ackles:

Jensen has already played Jason in UTRH so he has experience playing him. Given the fact that he has this experience he would bring all that to a live-action portrayal. And bringing that experience would just make the portrayal all that much better. (It’s just like how movie franchise/TV actors just keep getting better as their character, you know?)

I know y’all are going to be like But they should give someone else a chance but do you really want to risk it? Do you really want to risk having such a beloved character getting a horrible portrayal? Do you really want a repeat of Leto’s Joker?

Let’s just say we take away his UTRH portrayal for a quick second here.

That still leaves us with an actor who has experience in portraying the kind of person Jason is. Experience which can only help his portrayal after all. Time and time again Jensen has played characters with deep-seated emotional and psychological issues. Most of which were never treated, or even addressed, and if they were treatment didn’t help. Characters like: Tom Hanniger, CJ, and Ben from My Bloody Valentine, Dawson’s Creek and Dark Angel respectively.

Jensen has loads of experience playing characters with an overwhelming need for parental, most of the time fatherly, approval as well. Characters like: Dean Winchester and Jason Teague from Supernatural and Smallville respectively. And almost all of these mentioned characters use more a violent approach to doing what needs to be done. (Including Alex McDowell, also from Dark Angel, whom I forgot to mention.)

Also he’s the right age. But, even if they don’t make Jason exactly thirty-five, Jensen could still be believable as someone in their late-twenties or early-thirties.

I’m not saying they need to cast Jensen I’m just saying it only makes sense to have Jason be in his 30s.

[ciathyzareposts]

Missed Classic 77: The Institute (1981) – Introduction

by Will Moczarski

The Institute is the first game in my Med Systems marathon that I will actually replay as I’ve played (and solved) it before. It has been decades, however, and my memories of the game are pretty unreliable. Also, I only know the later port for the Commodore 64 which features nice graphics – I have never played the original TRS-80 version. What I remember most distinctly about this game is that it feels like a compilation because you have to solve puzzles in four or five different dreams in order to bring the background story to a close (i.e., escape from a mental health facility). I also remember that I really liked this game, maybe I even finished it two or three times just for the sake of it.

Because The Institute used to be very renowned, much has been written about it. I will thus unusually start with an introduction of contemporary and retrospective quotes as a framework to set the stage for this unusual game.

Introduction: Press Review

The Institute was apparently such a long-standing mainstay of Med Systems Software that they – after having changed their company name to Screenplay in 1983 – released some new ports for the two-year old game in 1983, boasting completely new graphics but otherwise promoting the same game. This was not uncommon in the 1980s as you can see in Joe Pranevich’s posts about Infocom’s company history; the Zork trilogy, for example, stuck around for even longer – one could even argue that the Infocom games even have the distinction to be the only classic text adventures to make the transition to the touchscreen age (as reflected by the iOS compilation The Lost Treasures of Infocom).

The renewed ports of The Institute were reviewed and advertised in some of the contemporary magazines, such as Softalk vol. 4 no. 10, an issue that was published in June 1984: “The Institute, by veteran writer Jyym Pearson, is a psychological drama with clues to help you escape from dangerous situations. Available from Screenplay […], the adventure game puts the player in a prehistoric jungle or aboard the doomed Titanic. Dreams provide clues on how to escape. $29.95.” Young and wild Jyym Pearson had already turned into a “veteran writer” four years after starting his career. The 1980s were a dangerous time! By the way, $29.95 in 1984 dollars roughly equals $73.95 in 2019 dollars – for a repackaged 1981 game!

The website Ye Olde Infocomme Shoppe which has been dedicated to interactive fiction games since 1996 also has a lot to say about The Institute. Namely, they regard Jyym Pearson as “probably the most recognized adventure game author to come out of Adventure International”, second only to Scott Adams, of course. The Institute was “Pearson’s first game released outside of Adventure International, though it uses the Other-Ventures game file format and interpreter. Jyym was still writing games for AI at the time, and after, so I’m going to speculate that AI directed him to MedSys[tems] / Screenplay whenever his work ventured into the territory of questionable taste.” This may well be possible considering the topics of his later work (notably Lucifer’s Realm), however, I tend to disagree as all of Jyym’s post-OtherVentures work appears to have been published by Med Systems – he probably just changed horses there, although the chronology of Saigon: The Final Days is far from clear. It’s definitely a 1981 game but may have remained unreleased well into 1983. The plot summary in Ye Olde Infocomme Shoppe is short and concise: “The plot of [The] Institute casts you as a mental patient who escapes his cell, raids the medicine stores, and takes drug-induced trips to various remote locales.”

Taking a look at the game’s own 1981 manual, there are two descriptions – one inside and one on the back. The first one goes like this: “The Institute is an extremely complex adventure. The scenario of the same is a psychological nightmare. Trapped in a mysterious ‘Institute’, you know that you are not mad, and yet many of your fellow inmates are. The Freudian solution to your entrapment becomes a series of vivid dreams, induced by a strange powder. Each of the dreams takes place in a different location, making the adventure actually five adventures in one. Each location contains objects and information that you must use in other places in order to escape. You may actually have to let yourself be killed in order to escape one dream and proceed to another.” The “five adventures in one” phrase was heavily used for the marketing of the game. It’s not completely untrue, either, and makes the game feel strangely modern when held against more recent IF efforts. The other description is more of an ad blurb: “Med Systems Software is proud to present The Institute, a rousing adventure game by Jyym Pearson. You begin in an institution populated by a dwarf, counselor, guards, and other inmates. You can enter whole sentences as well as one and two word commands, as you strive to retain your sanity. You must escape, but the key to escape is not in the building itself. Your dreams, brought on by a mysterious powder, hold the key to escape, as well as four whole worlds of bizarre characters and locations. It’s like playing five adventures in one!” The parser is, of course, not nearly as potent as would be suggested here. It’s interesting that the first description already refers to the “Freudian solution”, leaving the player with a means of interpretation for the (potentially?) confusing game.

There is also one review by Mark E. Denne for the September 1982 issue of 80 Microcomputing Magazine which is rather interesting. I’ve abridged some sections of it but I feel that it’s too valuable to exclude here. It’s also a very good summary of Jyym Pearson’s specific adventure game style: “The Institute is a very unique entry into the game market from the company that brought us 3-D adventures. It is not 3-D nor does it have any similarity with Asylum, Labyrinth or Deathmaze. Graphics are used in the game only for decoration or to signify dramatic changes in the plot. However, it’s one of the finest adventure games I’ve ever played. […] The game features a hybrid screen, a cross between the now famous split-screen and a new concept. At the top are visible items, if any, a description of the room or its contents is next. Your input is entered at the next level followed by an area which displays the result of ‘talks,’ ‘listens’ or special happenings. This last area is where the most important information is shown. ‘Talk’ and ‘listen’ are commands that most adventures do not use; in this adventure they are probably the most important. That’s right, you talk to characters (dwarves, counselors, midgets) and they talk back. If you don’t keep your ears open, you’ll never get anywhere. […] There are many exits that are not indicated in any manner at all. These are found by trying all directions from each room. Nobody said this game was easy. The input routine is very critical, descriptions must match exactly or no action occurs. For example, ‘get bottle’ may not pick up the red bottle. However ‘get red bottle’ works fine. […] The game has five different levels. The first one is your starting point at The Institute. By use of a strange powder you physically enter your dreams to complete your escape. Dreams include a giant forest on another planet, a voyage on the Titanic, an ancient temple, and a prehistoric forest. It’s much like five adventures in one. Sometimes you must be killed to wake up or pass into the next dream. Also, if you’re killed you keep whatever inventory you had and you start over— nice feature!”

It’s interesting that even the reviewer mentions the “five games in one” tagline. Another short ad from the same issue stresses that feature as well: “Five games in one! You begin in an institution, and must successfully negotiate not just the Institute itself, but tour other dream adventures as well. Objects in each dream help solve problems in the next. Concentrate, or you may never escape the nightmare of the Institute!”

It’s likely that all of this was meant to make what’s essentially an experimental adventure game more comprehensible, even to experienced players. All of these descriptions sound like their authors were convinced that this was something special, something new and unique – but still they were afraid that players might not get that.

Finally, “Mill Burray”, the blogger responsible for I Play All The Games gave The Institute a 8 out of 10 in his 2016 review. “Written by Jyym Pearson in 1981, this text adventure is so close to being a masterpiece, it’s not even funny”, he writes, and that “the game is very dark and the dialogue is poetic and sinister and obviously geared towards a mature audience. The puzzles are obscure and sometimes cryptic, but it works in the whole dream/hallucination context. It’s truly unique.” The final verdict is no less euphoric: “In its best moments, this is the greatest game for the TRS-80 and in its weakest moments, it’s still better than any Scott Adams game.”

One more remark before we jump straight into the game: all of the reviews as well as the credit of the TRS-80 version attribute The Institute to Jyym Pearson, and Jyym Pearson only. However, the 1983 ports tell a different story: the Apple ][ version was “written and produced by Jyym and Robyn Pearson”, programmed (I guess: ported) by Norm Sailer, and illustrated by Rick Incrocci. The same set of credits can be found in the Atari 800 and the Commodore 64 versions. Either Jyym “forgot” to credit his wife for helping write the TRS-80 version, or there’s some other story behind it we might never be able to uncover anymore. As the game is apparently, potentially a joint effort, I will attribute it to the Pearsons from this point on.

But now enough with the fluff. Let’s see how The Institute plays from a 2019 perspective, shall we?

First hour of gameplay: The drugs do work, and I know I’ll see your face again.

Before I jump into the next Pearson game I make a list of actions I need to try out on every screen in order to thoroughly explore the gameworld:

I’ll look, listen and smell in each room several times.

I’ll look at, listen to and smell each object mentioned in the room description.

I’ll talk to every NPC repeatedly and several times.

In the dark I’ll feel for objects.

I’ll try every exit including N,S,E,W but also OPEN and CLIMB.

I’ll look UNDER items, too.

I’ve made a list of unusual verbs they’re usually fond of – like unfasten, lift or chop.

When I feel like I’m stuck I’ll wait around in each room for a minimum of five turns.

I expect this to be particularly necessary for The Institute as I remember it to be a rather complex game. The dreams are discrete structures, and although you can carry items from one dream to another there are some items you will need on your person all the time and the game still has the usual six-item inventory limit. For today’s post I will be exploring in detail the first dream which is by far the largest. Before even thinking of dreaming, however, you start your journey inside the titular institute.

A beginner is me.

I begin the game in a stark, white room with a hospital bed. My most thorough examination comes up with nothing but as I try to look under the bed, the game comes back with a suspicious “not now.” This is just like in Asylum! I wonder if that’s a coincidence or if Jyym Pearson actually played (and liked) that game and if that may be the real reason behind the change of publishers? After a few turns of looking, listening and smelling, a “disfigured dwarf” enters and delivers sort of an opening monologue when I talk to him: “Welcome to the institute, John! May you see more mercy than has been shown me. They will tell you that you are insane, but you are not. You may suffer tortures but don’t give up. Escape!” Then he leaves. And I have a hunch but it’s probably from a previous playthrough: what if I looked under the bed again? Success! The dwarf apparently dropped an old and dirty coffee cup which I can pick up.

I proceed to explore the long hall which is made up of three rooms. To the north there’s a mirror, and looking at it feels like another William Denman moment, since Jyym Pearson never resorted to this kind of humour at the expense of the player before: “Boy, are you ugly!”, the game exclaims. Trying all sorts of things with the mirror results in nothing before I try to break it. It may be bad luck but at least I now have a jagged mirror in my inventory. If the slots keep filling up at this rate, I’ll hit the inventory limit in no time!

Breaking the mirror did not reveal a new exit, so I continue south and explore the other parts of the hall. To the east there is a closed door leading to a dispensary with white shelves. Looking at the shelves repeatedly first reveals a red bottle and next a scalpel. I pocket both and find that the bottle contains magic powder. There is a label on it saying “Eat me”, so I assume this is what will eventually take me to wonderland. When I attempt to eat the powder right away, however, a guard kills me (!) for stealing. That’s abrupt! Luckily the game is just as lenient as its predecessors and I start over at the beginning with my inventory intact. Or is it? The red bottle is gone but the guard did not take offense at my stealing the scalpel. I’ll probably need to find some other place to eat the powder in secrecy. When I explore the dispensary some more I stumble over the solution right away. Going south makes me enter a small, dark closet which seems like the perfect place to develop a little drug habit. I attempt to steal the red bottle, enter the closet and eat the powder but see that I can’t because the powder sticks in my throat and I cough it up before it goes down. Better go ask Alice for some liquid then.

I find out that I can drop the red bottle inside the closet instead of carrying it around with me which would only result in me getting killed by a guard once more. With no more leads to explore and my list of actions exhausted I proceed to walk to the southernmost part of the hall. I find a door to the south but check the other exits first. To the west, there is a large ward room full of patients. This is where I find two potentially necessary messages. Firstly, looking at the room reveals a sign that reads “peace = death”. Not quite Orwellian but still interesting. I take a note and listen to the patients who “wander about moaning and crying.” This prompts the game to single out a voice crying “Shafla is the word.” Hmm, Shafla. Might be a magic word for all I know. Better take another note, then.

The final room lies south of the hall and consists of a small green office. There is an evil looking man sitting at a desk and a locked door to the south. When I try to interact with either of the objects, I am sprayed with mace and thrown out immediately. My only option is to talk to the man which reveals him to be my counselor. The conversation is rather one-sided: “Hello John, I’m your counselor. How are you dealing with your insanity?” The only answer that makes sense is “fine” to which he replies “Good, someday you may leave here.” He then prattles on: “Society must be protected from you, John, and you must be protected from yourself.” Then he decides that our conversation is over and I get thrown out again. I attempt to lead the conversation a number of different ways but it always ends with the same result. If I try to insult the counselor, the parser doesn’t understand me – if I try to kill him, I get thrown out regardless. Having exhausted all of my other options I stay in each room for some turns before coming to the conclusion that the solution must lie within the small green office. This is correct, and “attack counselor” finally works. I am locked up in a softly padded cell but the disfigured inmate who came to visit me in my room suggested that would probably be a good thing.

Looking at the cell reveals nothing special but when I listen, I can hear water dripping from the ceiling. If I drop the coffee cup the game tells me that water drips slowly into the cup. This is just what I need for my first drug trip, I assume! After a few turns I am released from lockup. I haven’t finished my investigation properly and missed my chance to pick up the coffee cup. Hence I return to the small green office straight away and attack my counselor yet again. Am I not somehow proving him right by doing this? In terms of role-playing, it surely is a strange situation.

I am glad I didn’t pick up the coffee cup earlier because only now it’s described as a “cup of water”. I investigate the cell some more and, possibly due to an earlier memory, also try to cut the padding with my scalpel, and fortunately so, as there happens to be a long rope behind it, and you never know what ropes will be good for in an adventure game!

But for now it’s back to the closet – I eagerly eat my powder and this time the screen is wiped and I pass into my first dream. I am now in a lovely, green forest full of huge willow trees. As my examination comes up with nothing interesting, I continue east where I find myself in a small, peaceful meadow. What a lovely dream! There is a sheer cliff to the south and wait, I had this kind of puzzle before. The solution is a little bit different than in Escape from Traam, though, because I can’t find anything to tie the rope to but rather have to “throw rope” – for the same result: the rope catches (where, I don’t know) and I am now able to scale the cliff.

On the narrow cliff I find a telescope. I can’t pick it up and looking through it reveals that it’s blurry. I try to clean it but that doesn’t work. Maybe it’s a question of focus? I try to come up with a verb to describe what I want to do but simply typing “focus telescope” helps me out here. That’s quite an unusual verb for a text adventure but nothing too bad. I add it to my list of “Pearson verbs” regardless, to help me with my next game. The next “puzzle” is essentially the same as discovering the diamond in Earthquake – San Francisco 1906. I need to look at each newly discovered object – first planet Earth, then its continents, then a metropolis, a tall building, a billboard and, finally, some numbers are on it. They read “5 6 6 2 1” and I write them down right away.

Looking at the forest I can see a huge statue to the southwest but as I can only move to the south or the west (and can’t do either from this room) there is no way for me to reach it (yet). With nothing left to do, I check out the other locations again and remain in the meadow for a few turns in case I miss some event before I return to the starting location in order to do the same there. Just one look reveals that there’s a corpse now, however. It turns out to be my father! This got Freudian pretty quickly! Also, when I listen again there is a “mumbling noise” coming from a tree. I talk to the tree (my mental health deteriorated rather quickly, I’m afraid! Am I sure I don’t belong in the institute after all?) and a willow responds, moaning “Where are you from?” That’s a good question. Do I know anything about John’s background yet? I first assume that the metropolis I was able to see through the telescope might have a name, or that it may be recognizable somehow if I managed to turn it. Or is the answer simply “Earth”? I try that, and also “planet Earth”, but the parser doesn’t understand me which is never a good sign. So I fiddle with the telescope some more but that won’t help me either. I talk to the willow one more time and notice that the title of the game is positioned very close to the question onscreen. Hmm, could it be that easy? It’s worth a try! “The Institute”, I say, and with a crack the willow opens and exposes some stairs leading downward. As there seems to be nothing else to do, I move on.

I find myself in a circular clearing in front of a large oak door. Quite strangely, I’m not alone: the counselor is here, and he holds a gun to his head. Better than mine, I think, and proceed to talk to him. He simply taunts me and decides to be unhelpful: “Face it, John – this dream won’t help you escape. The key to your insanity is your father.” My father, the corpse? Should I have searched him some more? He then changes his tune a bit: “I’ll do anything, John. I’m here to help!” But then it’s back to the same old song: “Society must be protected from you, John, and you must be protected from yourself.” Then the conversation loops. Since violence helped me before with the counselor, I try to shoot the gun. It’s actually the solution, and the counselor disappears in a flash. This is my dream, you better deal with it! With nothing more to explore, I open the door and find myself in another serene location: a beautiful valley with a tiny stream. The huge statue is now to the south but I still can’t interact with it. I proceed to investigate the tiny stream but nothing I do (even tasting) reveals anything helpful. I decide to jump right in and drink from the stream. To my surprise, my skin turns blue. If I drink some more, my skin turns red, and after that the pattern seemingly repeats. I don’t know what this may be good for but I make a mental note for later.

To the south there is a forest, and now I am immediately north of the large statue. The game helpfully informs me that “the iron base of the statue stands 30 feet tall.” However, the statue itself is “bronze, and very tall.” Looking at the forest reveals a tube of glue which I pick up. There are two exits, one to the west and one to the east. Going west lets me investigate the statue some more. I find that it has my father’s face which is peculiar – I still get the feeling that the counselor has been right about me all along. Maybe I’m in for a twist ending! Also, I discover a huge door in the base but there appears to be no keyhole. My first thought is that this may require a magic word, like “open, sesame.” Did I learn any magic words? Yes, I did! Saying “Shafla” makes a keyhole appear but sadly I don’t have any keys yet. I’ll postpone this for now.

It’s not easy being green

On the other side of the statue there’s a rocky ravine. A tiny midget in a diving suit (what is it with this game and insults aimed at little people?) is here. He resembles Harry Truman. Oh well, I already discovered a statue of Dick Nixon on the alien planet Traam, this won’t shock me. When I try talking to the midget, the solution to this puzzle becomes a lot clearer: “What does death mean?”, he shouts, “answer right and I’ll fight!” Err..fight? Do I want to fight? Do you mean it? Or do you just say it for the sake of the rhyme? Let’s find out! As I’ve already learned, death equals peace, so that is obviously the correct answer. It also prompts the midget to punch and kick my legs while screaming. Hm, can I return the favour? Punching doesn’t work but kicking does: The midget sails over a tree and I can proceed.

I emerge on a grassy knoll, and this time it’s a recycled setting from Saigon: The Final Days: A log bridges a stream. This time it’s a different puzzle, though, and if I try to climb the log I find that my shoes slip on it. I investigate the environment first and then decide to go with the most obvious solution. Unfortunately, “put glue on shoes” does not work, and I wrestle with the parser for a bit before I remember that Pearson games often require the whole description. “Put tube of glue” prompts the parser to ask “on what?”, and if I answer “on shoes”, it seals the deal. I can now climb the log and cross over to the north side of the stream. Naturally, I also drink from this stream but the game simply tells me that I drink too much – another bit of Denman influence?

I am really thankful for my thoroughness here because I definitely would have overlooked the next part. From this side of the stream it’s possible to discover that there’s a hole in the log. Because I can’t find any way to interact with said hole, I try to enter it before I remember that Pearson’s synonym for “enter” is always “climb”. “Climb hole” works and I find myself inside an old hollow log. There’s a shovel and a bronze key there, and I know just what the latter might be for.

First I check out the other exits. At the side of a large log wall which is just north of the stream I encounter a huge green man. He tells me to “leave here or die, stranger”. I can’t attack him or kill him, and he won’t say anything else. But I immediately think back of that strange stream that turned my skin blue and red when I drank from it.

I decide to backtrack to the stream. First I think I need to mix the water from the stream with something else but then I discover that it requires only persistence to solve this one. Drinking from the stream six or seven times in a row makes your skin turn green at some point. After that, the same game begins again – you turn blue, then red, then…wait a minute! My skin is glowing? I don’t know what this means and I’ve just discovered this because I wanted to see what happens when I keep drinking after turning green. When I saw that the pattern repeated, I wanted to get back to green. But glowing? Huh.

I go back to the huge green man to see what he thinks of my new look but I fear and suspect that he won’t let me pass because I’m no longer green. Or am I? I’m honestly not sure. As I talk to him he’s much friendlier now: “Welcome, go on in”, says he. I can open the crude door and find myself in the center of a small village, surrounded by green skinned natives. Looking at them reveals an umbrella which one of them just dropped. To the east, there is a large grass hut. Inside there’s a huge fat man sitting on a throne made of skulls. Great, more body shaming! The man is rather friendly although he can see that I’m an outsider. He even knows my name! “Hello John, welcome to my village, my name is Rudy Bega”, he begins. Does anybody know who he’s supposed to be? I know Lou Bega, sure, and wish I didn’t, but who’s Rudy Bega? He adds some more detail: “I’m from Chicago but the labor unions drove me out back in 1937.” After that he sneezes violently and it blows me out of the hut. Another bit that feels like William Denman’s humour to me – isn’t that pretty close to farting across pits in the continuum games?

I find another hut to the north, this one described as a small grass shack. In order to enter it, I need to cut some bamboo strips but that’s not a problem for my scalpel. Inside I find out what my glowing body is for: It reveals an Acme tool box! Would I have been unable to see it without lucking out? I start from the beginning once more (later) to try it out: yes, the shack is too dark to see anything if I don’t drink from the stream eleven times instead of seven times or something like that. Would I ever have come up with that? I’m not even sure how I solved this puzzle way back when. I must have been just as lucky!

The box is locked and I don’t have the right key. Thus I continue to a smooth stone wall where I discover a glowing face. It turns out to be “the oracle” and demands that I show it “beauty equal to [its own] and [it] will reveal [its] power.” This one is easy as well. I just show it the mirror and it is so enthralled with itself that the surrounding wall cracks. When I climb the crack, I drift out of the first dream and find myself back in the closet. Stay tuned to see what the other three dreams look like in my next post – and don’t forget to guess the score for this one!

Wake up, little Nemo!

Session time: 1.5 hrs Total time: 1.5 hrs Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no CAPs will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. As this is an introduction post, it’s an opportunity for readers to bet 10 CAPs (only if they already have them) that I won’t be able to solve a puzzle without putting in an official Request for Assistance: remember to use ROT13 for betting. If you get it right, you will be rewarded with 20 CAPs in return. It’s also your chance to predict what the final rating will be for the game. Voters can predict whatever score they want, regardless of whether someone else has already chosen it. All correct (or nearest) votes will go into a draw.

Med Systems Marathon Overview:

(a) 1980 Summary (b) Reality Ends (1980) (c) Rat’s Revenge / Deathmaze 5000 (1980) (d) Labyrinth (1980) (e) Asylum (1981) (f) Microworld (1981)

Jyym & Robyn Pearson Mini-Marathon Overview: (a) Curse of Crowley Manor (1981) (b) Escape from Traam (1981) (c) Earthquake – San Francisco (1981)

(d) Saigon: The Final Days (1981)

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/missed-classic-77-the-institute-1981-introduction/