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lilithmymind · 6 months ago

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I had a very interesting Marmaid/Middle ages AU idea for Batman but thought I wasn't so into it I want to share because I think this is very good.

Let's start with underwater and up world. I decided what it's all takes place in England somewhere at times when witches and demons were actively haunted. It was some small territory where was the main ruler who kinda rules everything(Put any Mayor of Gotham on his place) and here's not much to talk about.

Though underwater world I thought more about. There is a very strict rules to Mermaids, Sirens and I don't have a translate to word Полудницы[Poludnitsy], it was kind of mermaids who just wanted people to have fun so they tickled them to death. Mermaids can't kill even bad people, Sirens can't sing when someone is near so they won't make havock and stay under the watch, Полудницы can't have fun with others and stays under strict watch too (Only when no one is near because that's literally part of a nature of this creatures and without that it would be hard for them to exist since there are already majority of problems with all that stuff in the underwater world). Though all those rules work different for each in the each side of the ocean, but that's the main rules. Under water there was somewhere some main king/queen(Random Mayor of Gotham№2) but each territory has their own little ruler as well. At the territory where I putten this Waynes, as the wealthiest and with the deep connection with king/queen family, are the rulers. Now about the Waynes themselves.

Alfred Pennyworth is a kind and helpful merman but, like many mermaids and mermen, can kill a bad person, thought mostly mermaids kill only ones who treat women badly.

Batman at night is a mysterious knight who, when light from the outside world is down, fightes with everyone who's too cruel and murderous and underwater forces of evil. Due to his armor nobody can tell what specie is it but decided what it's a merman. Though on reality it was Bruce Wayne and he is a Siren.

Waynes always has been Sirens, and a cruel ones, but Thomas and Martha proved what Sirens can be good too and raised Bruce to be a good and lawful too. Once little Bruce and his parents went to watch jellyfishes and when they were already returning they went through short way when pirates was fishing. Thomas and Martha tried to went quite but some Полудниц[Poludnits] Joe Chill decided to play a little perfectly well knowing what this will make pirates react to the sounds of the laughter under water and catch Thomas and Martha while Bruce was standing on the side instead of playing. Joe quickly left once he noticed knights passing by in the further away, leaving kid alone with hatred towards pirates and ones who don't follow underwater law and trauma.

How topic with Bats appeared? Bruce once playing with mermens find some cave where was still water but just a little, while his friends refused to go there with him he did it himself and accidentally got catched in a trap by moving some bricks. His friends quickly went to call adults while Bruce was left with a little amount of water, some dirt and awakened bats flying around and one if them bit him. Later in adulthood he returned there to think how he can name his vigilante persona and a bat sat on his shoulder.

Now I'd want to move to other characters, please:

Mad Hatter is something like Ursula in My little Mermaid, has magic, turns a main character into a human. During one fight with Batman he took his ability to speak and left him only singing, knowing what Batman would never use it, and gave him legs wich made Bat got up and try to survive somehow. Without Batman does havock in an underwater world.

Selina Kyle is an orphan and a thief know as Catwoman for her cat-like outfit and behaviour. She is counted as 'Wanted dead or alive'. She breaks social norms by wearing pants and treating women like equal to men. A good fighter and a good woman though she often uses flirt to make people stop paying attention while she steals their money and jewelries. Also can kill without even blinking. She was the first one who saw some pretty muted man sitting on a rock near water in some random dirty sheet and decided to help him thinking what it is some rich boy with amnesia and no tongue. Kinda interested in him but she don't think this will be big of a deal.

Edward Nashton was Selina's good friend but when he become a priest under the name Edward Nygma they became rivals, If not enemies. Ed became a priest because he wanted to 'Understand God's Riddles' because he always foung bible confusing, people who goes by that religion otherwise of what Bible teaches, and God a man with many questions. That's how appeared his Alter Ego, The Riddler, and he leads a cult of 'The ones who can understand God truly!!!' and hides himself behind clothes what he thinks represent God, always asking not understanding God people riddles about him.

Pamela Isley was a very smart woman who even got an education under the fake man's name and was an alchemist who tried to raise new types of plants, but once she got catched for 'Not following god' and her science was called a Witchcraft, truth about her gender were find which ended bad for Pamela. When Pamela ran out of the gate she tried to escape so she went to the sea, stealing a boat and trying to escape to the ocean, but guards find her and threw a torch in it so Pamela had to jump off. When she hoped to swim away a algae catched her leg, making her drown. Cause technically she was drowned by humans she turned into a Siren and later, after she used her alchemist knowings to raise murderous plans who will listen and follow her orders and few brutal murderers of ships full of people, other underwater creatures called her Poison Ivy.

The Joker was some French guy Jack Napier who met a love of his life and moved to England with her. To get money he wanted to become a jester but failed wich led him to having a deal with pirates. During their heist of very rich and welthy ship he got distracted by a small part of Siren song which made him fall in the waters. Once Batman noticed what, his supposingly lonely practice, has been noticed and what it've done he quickly tried to save the guy, but he lost him, while Jack saw the mysterious Siren(Aka Batsy) and got obsessed with him and, in hopes to catch him later, swam out, losing his mind and totally forgetting about his previous life, including pregnant wife who, without Jack's knowing, already died. He makes himself look totally different and gives himself a name Joker, becoming a captain for pirates and making his group of them. His main goal right now is to find that armored Siren and either take revenge, either marry on him.

Harleen Quinzel was a self-educated but smart woman thought neither her family, neither society appreciated what, which led to a tonns of curses what others said to her and attempts to make her marry rich and shut the fuck up. Once she got caught in the middle of heist of the street by The Joker's pirates and got interested in him. Trying to reach out for him and understand how his mind works she slowly fell into his manipulations and got obsessed with him, but noticing his obsession with a Sirens she left a house at night and made a ritual to become a Mermaid for him. Joker wasn't really happy what she is a mermaid and not a Siren, but he decided to keep her close and called her Harley Quinn.

Jim Gordon was one of the knights which was exhausting for him. He never liked the whole inquisition thing and how othher knights acted, also didn't like church very much and always tried to change the system, getting shutten up immediately and staying alive only because he's the only knight who can lead other morons.

Barbara Gordon has always gotten all smart books from her father, which made her very well educated too, but being a low-class woman made her mostly stay silent about this. Don't like the attention priest Edward gives her and wishes she could born a man to be as cool as her dad, helping people. In secret she actually runs away from home at night to help others but she can't do much. Later when Joker shoots her she loses ability to walk, but after a ritual what Bruce helped her to do she becomes a mermaid, which makes her and Jim's interactions difficult, but they still try to stay one family.

Harvey Dent was a rich kid and the one who always came to court many times, telling about other people's crimes and witchcraft, but often didn't support church and openly called an absurd the whole situation with Pamela or others like that, which led him to a very unpleasant situation. Some church-loving lunatics attacked him, trying to fire him down so 'hell fire will erase his sins' but missed a little bit which made only one half of his body burned. After that Harvey got multiple personality disorder, one of which was Executioner and other were The Judge, but due the fact what people mostly saw only Executioner they called Harvey two-face. Executioner chooses his victims' fate by the flip of the coin which's one side got burned altogether with him.

Dick Grayson was a guy playing with his family in moving circus but during one of the tricks his parents tragically died. Bruce quickly took a kid in and later Dick became a hero of up world, helping Bruce watch it when he returnes under water and becomes a Siren again.

At the start it was supposed to be one-sided Batjokes au where Joker was haunting Batman and once he hears Bruce sing a little bit somewhere he recognizes him and tries to catch him now there and Bruce kinda charms him trying to make him stop being pirate and yada yada yada, but I think it can work with literally any ship and it doesn't matter that much since this setting can have more to itself If someone with imagination will take it and make something out of it.

If someone is interested you can do literally anything with all of this, I'd be glad to watch or read something about it and the way other people view this. You can change it or play with it whatever you want.

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ice-cream-writes-stuff · 2 years ago

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It's Not Over, Is It?

{Where a silly game of blooming romance, becomes tangled in a spiders web of jealously and rivalery.}

Cast: (Y/N) (L/N), Bruce Wayne, Talia Al Ghul [Rule 63], Catwoman [Rule 63].

Au Synopsis:

(Y/N), having been chosen as Bruce Wayne's manager/secretary for his "playboy act". Controlling over the media and press that had anything to do with Bruce Wayne or Batman.

(Y/N) is in love with Bruce and is a mother figure to Dick. But Bruce has never once tried to express his love for the reader. Afraid to ruin the little peace and normality he had in his life with you, Dick and Alfred.

So, he finds "comfort", in other's embraces unknowingly.

(Y/N) knows everything about Bruce, to his coffee, to the names that he slept with or fancied when in his "playboy persona".

Has helped create every file and notes or each vilian or other in his rouge gallery.

Talia Al Ghul, the son of the Demon Head: Ra's Al Ghul.

Knows of the little game of "hopeless lovers" when he sees a pair. Instead of waiting for the other to fall, he instead makes his move. Finding (Y/N) under the guise of friendship and a random civilian that happened be at the right place and right time.

Yet. He toys with the Detective, that he and his father had found quite intriguing.

Though he is not seen as a worthy enough successor in his father's eyes. He doesn't mind, finding Batman much more of a worthy advisory and leader.

Ra's sees you as the perfect bride for his son. Along with carrier for the perfect successor.

Catwoman: Selina Kyle

Selina adores poking fun at the Bat when knowing somewhere you could be listening. Often stealing Batmans communicator to converse with you.

He too plays the civilian card with you, wanting to charm you with his real self instead of the sleek cat burglar he dressed as.

He found you gorgeous, more precious than any jewelry he could've stole.

But you know his true intentions (?) and identity.

So often leading him astray with words of formality and obliviousnsss.

"You know, I think it's weird.." The young Grayson started, watching you clean up Bruce's wounds carefully as he stares at you. Doing his best not to flinch or show any signs of pain. Failing terribly, but you didn't seem focused on it. More wrapped up with placing bandages over his ribs.

"What is odd to you, young master Richard?" Alfred questions the little Robin.

Dick looks away from the two, giving Alfred a stern look.

"Mom's been busy as of late..." The sidekick kicks his legs back and fourth on the small chair.

"In what way?" Alfred rose a eyebrow.

"I've noticed she's been getting flowers or little notes. I think, she thinks, there from Bruce." Dick sighs, "but I know there not. But also, I saw this guy follow me and her to the nice bakery she takes me too when I get a good grade on my tests."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, the desserts are good. But not as good as your's Alfred."

"Why thank you, Master Dick." Alfred smiled at the young lad. "But I must say, a strange fellow following the two of you around sounds concerning."

"Don't worry, I kept glaring at him and told mom about it. So we left in a hurry. I made sure they didn't track us!" Dick said pridefully.

[Just a small idea I had at 3am, hope you like it!]

#bruce wayne x reader #batman x batmom #batman x reader #bruce wayne #selina kyle x reader #catwoman x reader #talia al ghul #talia al ghul x reader #dc x you #dc x y/n #dc x reader #yandere dc x reader #dc batman #dc batman x reader #dc au #y/n #genderbend x reader

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thealtoduck · 3 years ago

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Random BatCat!Bro Short Stories

Batfam x BatCat!Bro Reader

Warnings: none just random fluff…

Summary: A collection of small stories featuring BatCat!Bro…

(A/n: I might do a part 2 since you guys sent me several other plots i could use.)

——

Cooking with Alfred: Plot by me

(Takes place a few weeks after BatCat!Bro moved in to the manor)

Alfred was suprised when he walked into the kitchen and saw someone other than him actually cooking in there.

”Oh hey Alfred” you said casually while cutting up vegetables. ”Master Y/n… you’re cooking…” Alfred said in a slightly confused voice. ”Shouldn’t i be?” you said with a hint of sarcasm.

”Yes of course, sorry didn’t mean to sound so suprised it’s just that most of the others can’t cook” Alfred stated and then asked ”What are you making?”. ”Soup” you answered. ”What kind?” he asked. ”I don’t know, mom taught me to make it. Can you show me where you keep your spices?” you asked.

Alfred showed you were they were and let you pick out the ones you wanted. ”Anything else i could do?” Alfred questioned.

”Sure, could you chop up that onion?” you asked. ”Of course Master Y/n” Alfred confirmed and then the two got to work making food together.

Once they finished they sat themselves around a table and ejoyed their soup. ”Delicious, who would’ve thought Catwoman could teach someone to cook” Alfred stated. ”Well you know, she works late so sometimes you gotta be able to cook for yourself” you said a bit melancholic.

”I’m sure the others would love to taste your cooking sometime, sir” Alfred said comfortingly making you smile.

”How about you help me with dinner and i’ll show you some tips and tricks?” Alfred suggested. ”Sure” you answered happily.

Bodyguard Brothers: Plot by @d4nnybo1

You loved your brothers dearly but they keep a way to close eye on you sometimes. Jason and Damian feel like it’s their personal responsebility to make sure you are safe at all times during the day.

Jason has started picking you up regularly from school, which was not really a big deal.

But things has started getting out of hand whenever you’re at a party in the East End and you notice you have three shadows, only one of which is yours.

And whenever you’re at a friends house, particularly a guys house if you look close enough through the window you’ll be able to see them looking at you with binoculars.

At which point you usually just bring out your phone and call Jason or Damian like…

”Hey Jason, what’s up?” and he’d answer innocently ”Not much, at the manor hanging out with Alfred”. You’d then say ”Really cause i’m pretty sure i saw you outside” and you’d hear Damian whisper ”He’s onto us”.

”Shut up Damian, i’m on speaker” Jason whisper yells at him. ”Why’d you put him on speaker?!” Damian snaps back and while the two are fighting you hang up because you know your work is done.

In & Out: Plot by Anon

”Y/n, we need help” Tim said while storming in to your room, as you were currently laying in your bed sleeping.

”Just give him food and he’ll leave you alone” you said sleepily and rolled over to go back to sleep. ”We weren’t talking about the cat” Stephanie said. ”Neither was i, i was talking about Jason” you clarrified.

”No, not him either, we need help breaking in somewhere” Tim explained. ”Okay… i’ll help you in the morning” you said trying to go back to sleep. ”Y/n, it’s mid-day” Stephanie stated.

”Fine, get out and let me freshen up and i’ll be down in ten and there better be a cup of hot chocolate waiting for me when i come down or i ain’t helping you with shit” you told them and sat up in your bed.

When you came downstairs Steph and Tim were waiting at the dinner table, there was a fresh cup of hot chocolate waiting at a seat across from them, so you sat down and asked ”So how may i help you?”.

*Time skip*

”You got me, the second best cat burgular in town basically, to break in to a simple warehouse. Is this a set up or something?” you questioned over the communication earpiece.

”It’s not” Tim answered. ”Then why am i doing it? Both of you have been trained by THE Batman” you questioned. ”We just needed a simple untraceable ”In and Out” and like you said ”Second best cat burgular”” Tim explained. ”Good answer Timothy” you told him and heard Stephanie laugh over the comms.

You walked over to the window on top of the roof and looked down in to the warehouse. ”Is there people inside warehouse?” Tim questioned. ”Yes, there are about five” you answered.

”Lure them outside” Tim commanded. ”Are you insane? You can’t lure them out if you want it to be untraceable cause then they will know around what time they were hit” you explained. ”Then what are you going to do?” Tim asked.

”Watch and learn Timothy” you said and opened the rooftop window and climbed inside using the claws attached to your suit. You jumped down and landed quietly on the ground.

You snuck around managing to avoid all the guards until you found a small office where you assumed the safe must be. So you snuck in and started looking around, once you found the safe you got to work on it.

You investigated the safe, it was old which was going to make it easier to get open. You put your ear against the safe door and started listening for clicks for the combination.

Once you cracked it you opened the safe and realised something. ”Tim, what am i even supposed to steal?” you asked. ”They sell stolen artifacts and we need evidence just grab as much you can” Tim told you and you grabbed stuff from the safe and packed them into a backpack.

You then snuck out the same way you came in and said over the comms ”So easy peasy, what do i get for helping you?”. ”You get to have helped bring down a criminal gang” Stephanie said clearly annoyed.

”I’d rather get like money or something” you said. ”Knock knock” Stephanie then said quickly. ”Oh my god, who’s there?” you questioned but got no answer. ”Hello?” ”Hello?!” ”Who’s there?” ”Hello?!!!”

”You bald headed bitches, this is the last time i help you two for free” you said madly to yourself.

Favorite: Plot by @alyisheaven1438

You were getting your first tour of the watchtower by your dad but so far it was a was a total bore. Nothing intresting AT ALL… But then you saw her…

It was THE BLACK CANARY… and green arrow. You excitedly walked over to the blonde woman leaving your dad behind. ”Y/n, where are you going?” He asked behind you.

”Hey, sorry to bother you, Miss Black Canary, just needed to tell you i’m a huge-” you started but was interrupted by you dad saying ”Y/n, don’t bother them”. To your suprise Black Canary then spoke up ”Oh Bruce, this is one of yours, nice to meet you kid”.

She then continued ”I’m Dinah, you’re Selina’s son, right? Just assuming by the suit”. You nodded and she continued ”Oh me and Selina go way back, this one time she was forced to work with me and Huntress after Bats hit his head and thought he was a crime boss”.

”Really?” you questioned. ”Oh yeah and then while trying to break in to the club to save him we got caught on stage and we had to do an improvised musical number to get out of it”.

”Wait does it go something like ”Good evening all you gentlemen, mobsters, creeps and crooks…”, right?” You questioned. ”Yeah, that’s it, how do you know it?” Dinah asked. ”Mom would sing it sometimes” you answered fondly.

”Aww that’s sweet. Me and Arrow have to get back to work now but it was really nice meeting you Y/n” she said. ”It was nice meeting you too” you said waving goodbye to her and turning around only to be met with a grumpy Batman.

”I told you not to bother her” he said. ”Chill, she’s my favorite league member i just wanted to say ”hi”” you defended.

”Favorite?” your dad then questioned.

(A/n: Hope you guys liked these :).)

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amingethia · 3 years ago

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what does your url mean?

Buckle up, babe, its time for a story!

(TLDR, a character name I made)

(Actual Translation at the bottom)

When I was a wee lass, about middle school, a show some of you may know called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles came out in 2012.

Now I was already sort of acquainted with the ninja turtles, but when I actually watched the show, my little mind blew like Mikey trying pizza for the first time.

I was also a gifted writer. I’m actually pretty talented at writing and letting words flow on a page, and I already had a VASTLY rich imagination. So naturally, I made a self-insert OC.

Now I decided I wanted to be close to the turtles so I made the OC their little sister. I was 11 at this time and they were 15, so she was 4 years younger than them.

Then I had to name this OC. I went through a variety of ideas, from Italian to a female renaissance painter to the French word for turtle (Tortue Marin) but eventually I decided since Yoshi is Japanese, he’ll have chosen a Japanese name. So I settled with Ming.

So I had an 11-year-old, blonde, blue-eyed, white OC named Ming.

Yeahhhhhh… I wasn’t great at names back then but moving along.

I think originally she WAS Asian, because I wanted her to be Splinter’s daughter. Then it was revealed KARAI was Splinter’s daughter, so I settled with adopted self-insert.

Buuuuut then I got bored.

It wasn’t enough for Ming to be just a ninja who was raised by mutants, no no no! I gave her powers. At first, just water powers. Then shapeshifting, then ALL the elements, then mainly fire and rock.

I also bounced around the idea for her “alter-ego” because, yknow, she was a superhero!

So, lame as it sounds, I basically took Cat Noir and Catwoman, without actually knowing either of them, and made CatGirl. Lame. But she dressed all in black and had a tail and claws. That was cool. She also had fangs.

THENNNNNNN I got bored again. This was about the time the 2016 Out Of The Shadows movie came out. By this time, I was head over heels in the franchise. I’d even made a best friend because of it, and shared my OC and fanfictions with her.

So I figured, since the turtles were 15 in the first movie, and the second came out only a year later, making them 16, Ming’s age was 11 in the first and 12 in the second. And I had made a special plan for when she turned 12.

(Spoilers, btw, for anybody following me on fanfiction.net (Starblood666) and hasn’t finished reading Little Sister, Secret Weapon)

I decided Ming would meet her true family. I was already playing with the idea of my father being the Devil which is a WHOLE other can of worms for a different day. So why shouldn’t Ming’s father be the Devil, too?

At first Ming was an only child with black hair and cat eyes in her demon form. Then it changed. I decided if the Devil had kids, his wife would, logically, be an angel. They would have to be permanently separated and of course, duh, they’d have twins!

At first it was, one twin would be an angel and the other a demon, but then it changed to both being demons. Ming’s twin brother was named Damien. (Of course. I’m so lame at names)

But that meant Ming couldn’t be her REAL name if she had a REAL family. So I started trying to think up a long pretty sounding name for a demon princess. I wanted Ming to be sorta in the middle so it was a nickname option. Damien still called her Ming.

At first it was Almingthea, but the L felt awful on the tongue and tbh, I sorta forgot that name for a couple months until it was fanfiction time again.

So I reinvented it to Amingethia. Long, random, pretty sounding, Ming in the middle, and the best part? If you googled those letters exactly that way, and turned off the “Did you mean…” nothing came up. It was an identity that felt like it was really and truly MINE.

But a long name isn’t enough without a translation. So I made one.

TRANSLATION

What does my name mean?

Ami means weak. Ingethia means powerless.

Amingethia means Weak and Powerless.

#Then a bunch of other drama happened #anyway #shitpost #asks #I knew it was a matter of time #finally I got asked this

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inksandpensblog · 3 years ago

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Random scattered thoughts and observations on the Battinson movie, spoilers under the cut

The camera lingered on the actor’s faces a lot. More than I’m used to seeing in film. There’s so many moments where the character in question isn’t saying anything, just staring either at the camera or at something off-screen and emoting. And there’s so much physical acting in this movie. The entire cast really brought out their best in microexpressions. It really contributed to the movie’s unique atmosphere.

I appreciate how noticeably uncomfortable Selena was during the club infiltration scene, and just as much I appreciate how oblivious Bruce was to her discomfort. Not out of any harmful intent on his end, but just because he’s focused on a different element of the scene, and given his life up to that point he probably hasn’t moved in the kind of circles where it’d be common knowledge to look for that sort of thing. Also a brilliant way of hinting that Bruce is part of The Problem before Riddler ever has to spell it out for him.

My brother proclaimed his happiness at finally getting to watch a Batman film that didn’t deliberately sexualize Catwoman. I don’t think that’s an entirely accurate take; I know plenty of people found this Selena sexy. But in terms of the “male gaze” in film as it is commonly understood, I think my brother was absolutely correct. There’s nowhere in this film where Selena’s sensuality is glorified, nowhere where she is objectified as a desirable woman to the eyes of the audience. Even the scenes where she is “dressed for work” at what is basically a strip club, the movie is far more interested in showing us what she’s thinking and how she’s feeling in those moments than on trying to make us think she looks hot. Heck, she is depicted changing clothes on-screen and not once did it seem voyeuristic; the action is given the same degree of attention as the preceding actions of Selena arriving at home and consoling her roomate, and the goal of the scene is very obviously to show us what’s going on in Bruce’s head as he tries to figure out who this person is, what her motivations are, and why she is doing what she does. Bruce is observing her to gather clues, his attention is on whatever he thinks might help him solve the mystery, and to him, the fact that she changes into DIY cat-burglar getup and runs off to do crime is way more intriguing than the fact that she had to get almost naked first. Sometimes, when people get home from work, they change out of their work clothes, and sometimes, those people are women. It’s normal, which makes it irrelevant to Bruce. I just…wanna commend the movie for handling its adult themes so tastefully while simultaneously being by far the most adult-in-theme of all the Batman films to date (that I can recall, I haven’t actually seen many. Just “The Dark Knight,” really.)

I love that the bat and the cat didn’t part with a kiss. I don’t think I would’ve seen anything amiss if they had, but there’s something so much more melancholy and longing about the two of them riding out of the cemetery side-by-side on their motorcycles in quiet companionship until they reach the inevitable fork in the road.

We get no explanation for how Gordon and Batman came to trust each other so much and I love that everyone else in the movie is just as clueless about it as we are. It’s not just that they work together, they seem to know each other more confidently than I’d expect for a 2-year-old Batman who’s still figuring out who Batman should be.

My brother pointed out the frequent use of perspective shots, which serve to give the audience a more intimate view of the scene and to make them deliberately focus on a specific part of it, but can prevent them from seeing the bigger picture, which we both agreed fit the themes of the movie well.

Some very intriguing sound design choices in this movie. I’m not just talking about Riddler’s breathing or the frequent use of minor-key Ave Maria. It’s interesting when this movie decides to mute all diegetic sound and let the background music control the mood.

I didn’t know it was possible to be so campy and so thrilling at the same time.

I think the only time my immersion really broke was during the gliding scene, because I thought the effect was a little clunky. That didn’t matter though because I was catapulted back into the deep end of immersion as soon as he wiped out. Like, I was both-hands-over-mouth, jump-in-chair startled.

The rat thing was squick. No thanks.

I had no trouble seeing what was happening in scenes that took place at night or indoors, and I’m so happy the movie had a lighting crew that knew what they were doing.

Bruce is Batman for nearly the entirety of the movie. He spends far more time in the batsuit than out of it, and even in most of those scenes he’s still doing Batman things, or doing Bruce things for Batman reasons. Possibly the only scene where the bat rests and he is completely Bruce Wayne is the scene in the hospital when Alfred wakes up.

Cathedral imagery is evoked everywhere. The supports holding up the bridge outside the club are shaped like gothic arches, material aside. Bruce’s house put me in the mind of an abandoned and possibly haunted church. The stairwell in the police station may as well lead up to a belfry. The interrogation room at the station and the visitation room at Arkham are close-quarters, boxy, and restricting, almost like a confessional booth.

Riddler addressing his audience like a Twitch streamer or YouTube vlogger was both hilarious and unnerving.

The car chase was amazing.

I’m surprised Bruce can move so quickly in that suit, that thing looks and sounds so heavy.

…was…there a reason for the shirtless scenes?? If the dude didn’t wanna get spraypaint on his good clothes it’d make more sense to put on an outfit better suited to the job than to go bare skin.

I wasn’t sure about this movie but when a spry old lady with a pearl necklace I crossed paths with at work couldn’t stop going on about how amazing it was I figured I was at least in for something memorable.

#Batman 2022 #the batman 2022 #the batman #the batman spoilers #decent bat tho

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scribe-of-maat · 3 years ago

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My personal rankings for the DC Festival of Heroes stories

11. The Monkey Prince Hates Superheroes (Marcus/The Monkey Prince)

I originally thought we were going to get Eugene doing something but we get an entirely new character. Honestly, I just don’t have a connection to this dude. Maybe he’ll grow on me for now but at the moment, this makes me feel nothing. Maybe if the Monkey Prince and Pigsy designs were more personally appealing I’d like it more, but I’m sure people familiar with the mythos were hyped.

10. What’s in the Box? (Cassandra Cain/Batgirl, And I genuinely do not remember who the white kid is. Hurt or Pain or something)

Cassandra serves up Bao to the white kid, which is cool. But this story feels a little too minimalist to me. Damian calling Cass a monster after killing people and bragging about his compassion earlier in the anthology was rich, though. That hilarity saved this from last place for me.

9. Special Delivery (Damian Wayne/Robin, Bruce Wayne/Batman)

I don’t like Damian so I was already uninvested in this. But then he just hops around and fights the League of Assassins. Again. And talks about how much better he is than everyone else he knows. This kid has literally one story. This feels so off-theme, but of course they can’t have a bat character acknowledge their non-whiteness explicitly in any real way.

8. Sounds (Cassandra Cain/Batgirl, Barbara Gordon/Oracle)

Cass can’t speak all that well. Again. She’s Batgirl for this, which is always cool, but I think if the dude she saved was a named character and more was done other than retread her history I’d have enjoyed it more. As it is now it feels like random bits and pieces were picked from her mythos and displayed rathen than a focus on her racial identity.

7. Masks (Lian “Shoes” Harper/Cheshire Cat, Selina Kyle/Catwoman)

This would originally have been MUCH lower had I written this about 40 minutes ago, but it’s not like Lian’s been doing anything in the comics until now. If it takes being attached to the cat to get some play, then so be it. I’m mainly looking forward to what being Catwoman’s protege can do for Lian’s personal storyline.

6. Kawaii Kalamity! (Emiko Queen/Red Arrow)

A story I enjoyed because it addressed, albeit rather more indirectly than the higher-ranked stories, the fetishization that East Asian women go through. Her allowing herself to actually enjoy things she enjoys in the end regardless was a cute touch.

5. Perceptible (Ryan Choi/Atom)

I liked Ryan’s look in his Atom getup. Standing next to Bruce at the end, his skin tone was... kinda sus to me, but I’m sure the artist knew what they were doing. I also enjoyed that it addressed that there are a ton more working-class Asians in America that don’t get nearly enough talk. It feels like to be an Asian character you can’t be a regular person, you’ve gotta be super smart or in super talented to get in the door.

4. Family Dinner (Grace Choi, Anissa Pierce/Thunder, Jefferson Pierce/Black Lightning, Jennifer Pierce/Lightning)

Grace basically showed up here to be tossed back into comics limbo but it was nice to see her healthy relationship with Anissa. I also enjoyed Jefferson giving her the third degree as an overprotective dad. This one by far felt the most comic book-y with Mammoth and Shimmer literally attacking out of nowhere (no racial commentary here which makes it more standard comic fare than Festival of Heroes) but hey, this is a comic. ALSO also I love that Jennifer looks exactly like China Anne McClain.

3. Dress Code (Tai Pham/Green Lantern)

Not going to lie, Tai Pham just showing up in the main DC universe out of nowhere is what puts this so high for me. I liked his graphic novel and I want to see way more of him, specifically with Keli and Sojourner. I will say I enjoyed learning what an ao dai and ao gam were. They look so slick.

2. Festival of Heroes (Tatsu Yamashiro/Katana, Victor Stone/Cyborg, Jaime Reyes/Blue Beetle)

What elevated this to me was it explicitly addressing racism. We don’t get nearly enough of this in comics. When we do, yeah, it’s ONLY characters of color talking about it and it’s basically relegated to Very Special Episodes which are two pitfalls apparent here, but I still loved it. Random Nubia love also gives it that *chef’s kiss* je ne se quoi as well. My only critique is that the racism feels cartoonish - I know people like that exist, but comic book fandom’s MANY racist readers are not going to see themselves being commented on in it.

1. Hawke & Kong (Connor Hawke/Hawke, Kenan Kong/New Superman)

Taking the #1 spot is Connor and Kenan. I loved their interaction, it gave me those sweet MLMOC vibes that I live and die for. Outside of stuff like this we’d never ever get to see characters who absolutely would be best buds ever interact. More of this, DC, please. And I saw someone put Connor’s name forward to be the Green Arrow of China. I would LOVE to see that happen.

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mxtantrights · 4 years ago

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past lives | 7

a/n: we’re coming to the end. I wanna preface this, since this is a reader insert, I'm not gonna kill you off. I save that for my OCs (tee-hee) but then also you kinda did die didn’t you?, eh it’s kinda tricky but hey here’s the next part! enjoy!!

You looked at the new phone on your sleek white desk. It had been dropped off by someone this morning before you got into work. Someone who knew you needed a phone, someone who needed to be in contact with you.

You knew exactly who it was.

And if your intuition wasn’t enough, a text can through.

Gotham Academy. 1pm. Pick up the package.

It was close to twelve thirty according to the clock on your new phone. Which meant you had about twenty minutes to get to Gotham Academy, almost seven avenues away.

You grab your coat, bag and your phone and walk out of your office. In the hallway you run into Fallon. You tell them that you’re handling something for your Aunt and you should be back before three.

Even though Ra's al Ghul gave you orders, you had built a life for yourself. You couldn’t let it crumble.

Into the elevator and down twenty levels, you jog out of the building. Outside you reach the sidewalk and wave your hand to hail a cab. It would be much easier than ordering a ride share and you could tip greatly for increased speed.

Sure enough a black bag pulls up.

You open the backdoor quickly and get in.

“I need to get to Gotham Academy. Quickly! I’ll pay you a weeks worth”

The driver wasted no time- not even to hassle you into putting on a seatbelt. You reach into your bag and take out your special debit card. It was only used in case of emergencies, and this was.

You swiped it through the machine in front of you. You paid for the ride first.

“I make about 540, I don’t think-” the driver begins.

You then made out your tip to be 540, which should have been invalidated, but it went through. And the driver was the amount come up on his fare dial. He laughs a bit but he also increases the speed.

He doesn’t talk much on account of the fact that he’s speeding and trying to get you to Gotham Academy in the least legal ways. And he gets you there with five minutes to spare.

When the cab comes to a stop you thank him repeatedly. You get out of the cab and see the academy at the end of the block. Making quick work you walk there, as to not appear suspicious and text back on your phone.

arrived

you get a response seconds later.

you’re ahead of schedule. good.

Someone calls out your name and you look around. You eyes look over the people walking past you until you land on a very short person in the middle of the block. Not a short person, a child.

Damian.

You stalk over to him. He’s wearing a uniform for the school, but he’s outside of the building during school hours? Did he say that he as home schooled during the interview?

“What are you doing here? Aren’t you homeschooled?” you ask.

“I am, I am working undercover and needed something from Gotham Academy.” he answers.

“Undercover for who?”

“I can’t talk about it here. We should-”

Before he can finish his sentence there’s a loud boom. Out of instinct from being close to Damian, you pull him closer and tuck him underneath you. It happens really fast. Up in a window of the academy, there’s a fire. The sound of glass breaking and shattering. And something tells you that this wasn’t random. You being here, and Damian being here.

You drag him with you away from the building and to the end of the next block. There are swarms of people chattering and looking up at the fire from above. You pull Damian away from you and look at him.

“No cuts right? You’re okay?” you ask.

He nods his head and swats your hands that are checking over him. “I’m fine. What are you doing here?”

“I was in the area. Did you have anything to do with that?”

“No, I was on a recon mission not- we really shouldn’t talk about this here.” he says.

Before you can say anything more, he pulls out a phone from his jacket pocket and makes a call. He calls out Alfred’s name and shares his location. You take out your phone and look at it.

package acquired?

It was Damian. Of course Ra's lured you into this by using him but that was noe thing. It’s a completely other thing to refer to his grandson as the package you were acquiring.

You put your phone away, “When was the last time you talked to your grandfather.”

At that Damian’s eyes widen.

“I will not go back.”

And at his words your eyes widen. He won’t go back. Meaning he left Ra's al Ghul and he’s not happy. On top of that he’s run away to his biological father. Yeah Ghul is not happy at all.

“How long until Alfred comes to pick you up?”

“He went to pick up some things. So about ten minutes- give or take.”

“We need to talk about a lot. But not here- here,” you take out one of your business cards and a pen, scribbling your address on the back of it, “make sure you come undetected.”

“Why?”

You cleared your throat. How do you tell him that his grandfather is angry and most certainly on the war path to get him back to the island, and he enlisted your help without telling you much of anything.

You did this.

“You’re built a life for yourself Damian, and I think someone is trying to ruin that.”

“Grandfather.”

You nod once, “I’ll see you later.”

Back at your desk you let out a breath. You had just sit down again after running to get a cab back to work. You were lucky that there was no one above you or you wouldn’t have been able to get away with it.

You have your phone in your hands, text messages open.

negative.

You had texted that exactly ten minutes ago with no response. It couldn’t be good, but it’s not exactly bad. There was a reason he called on you to get Damian back. It meant that you weren’t low hanging fruit like you had thought.

Now you were thinking about that comment he made about Nyssa. Why did he throw that in your face? It was no secret that you and Nyssa were as thick as thieves. But she hadn’t reached out since you left. There was no real way for you to reciprocate if she didn’t want to be contacted. So how could she miss you?

The phone buzzed.

you will get another opportunity. do not miss it.

A knock came from the other side of your door. It was probably Fallon asking if you were okay. You didn't see them when you came back.

“Come in!”

In walks, not Fallon. Instead you see Tim Drake. Your step brother? You wondered how that worked out.

“I thought you were someone else. Sorry, come in Mr.Drake-”

“Just Tim.” he says.

He closes the door behind him and takes a seat across from you. Within the time he does that you shut your phone and shove it into your desk drawer.

“So what can I do for you?”

“I just wanted to pay you a visit and ask how the article is coming along.” he says.

“You came all the way over here to ask about the article? I left my phone number with your father, you know?”

which now that you thought about could be ringing off the hook. You haven't gotten around to getting a new phone yet with the same phone number as the last few days have been a bit hectic.

You had to get on that soon.

“Okay you caught me...” his pause makes you stare.

Was he about admit to the whole paternity thing? Why would he do that right now? And why him and not Bruce? You watch as he straightens himself out in the chair, even his tie.

“I’m here to poach some writers from you. Sorry. I read some of their pieces online and some of them are really talented.” he answers truthfully.

You let out a bit of a laugh. Oh wow you really thought that he was about to let the cat out of the bag. Speaking of which you were gonna ask Fallon about the Catwoman piece that was coming up.

“Oh you can try. But then I'd have to steal your pretty male receptionist.”

“Derek?” he asks.

“Oh yeah, I think he really liked my receptionist Kacey. You don’t watch out I’ll be taking him off your hands and Kacey will pull him in real quick.”

Tim laughs at that. Full on laughs. And you join him. It felt good to joke about things that didn’t concern the league or Ra's, or your paternity. Even though you two weren’t ever going to talk about that.

“I haven’t laughed like that in a while.”

You can see the bags under his eyes. The way his hair looks kept but if you were to run your fingers through it it’d probably give away a lot of grease. At least he doesn’t spray himself with axe body spray to get away with his lack of self-care.

“Yeah. It’s kinda hard being a twenty something with such a demanding job,” you say and he looks at you, “I would know being deputy writer is truly the most grueling work of all time.”

“I bet.” he says in-between snicker.

His phone buzzes and you can see him tense again. You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself if you were Tim. To be so young and have so much on his shoulders.

“If you ever need to talk, I’m here. Or- my phone kinda got dropped into a sewer outside the office but I’m getting a new one soon.” you say.

He gets up from his spot in the chair.

“That’s great. I’ll take you up on that offer.”

With that he waves you goodbye and leaves your office. You want to forget for a moment that you have a text waiting for you in your desk drawer. That you’ll have another chance at picking up a package for the league. Picking up Damian for Ra’s.

You thought to yourself about what normal could look like.

#dc x reader #batman x reader #Tim Drake x reader #Dick Grayson x reader #Jason Todd x reader #Damian Wayne x reader #PAST LIVES

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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 4 years ago

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Satisfied, Part 49

First

~~~

Marinette chewed on the inside of her cheek anxiously as her watch beeped to indicate that the Gala was starting. She gave Chloe about thirty minutes to enjoy herself and then sent the text behind her back. It didn’t matter if anything she said was legible, Chloe would understand.

The alleyway was completely silent as she waited for the familiar sound of a text tone. She looked up at the sky. The stars overhead twinkled. It was a perfect, cloudless Christmas night... and she was going to be spending it in an alley, then in a warehouse, then attempting to prevent a massacre. How fun. She should be enjoying her time with her boyfriend, dancing at a Gala, but apparently it wasn’t meant to be.

She drummed her fingers across the brick behind her, her irritation spiking. All that work on an outfit for herself and Chloe only for them to get about thirty minutes of use total. Man, if only she could have gotten the bunny miraculous from future Alix. That would have been a good thing to know ahead of time.

Ding!

She was pulled from her stupor and sighed, mouthing the words. Kaalki sprang to her glasses and she felt the familiar rush of energy as she transformed.

And, with that, she was off into the night. Her hand dipped down into her pocket to brush the miraculi she’d brought along. She had a plan, she reminded herself, it just all needed to work out. All she needed was a bit of luck --.

Ah. She was screwed.

Her boots clicked on the rooftops as she made her way through town.

The receiver in her ear beeped and she touched her hand to it.

“Ready, Mari?” Said Jason.

“Not really.” A grin broke across her face despite the circumstances. “If we’re all dying tonight I’m gonna be honest.”

“Don’t say that! You need to be more optimistic!” Said Dick.

She snickered. “Mmmm, fine. Either way, I’ve kinda known you guys’ identities for a while. You Waynes really aren’t as slick as you think you are.”

She used the stunned silence as a chance to turn down the volume on her comm. She’d need it.

There was a chorus of people yelling some form of ‘wait what?!’ and ‘how?!’ and, even with her volume on the lowest setting, she still winced and brought a hand up to her ear.

“I’ll explain later.”

If she could.

But, hey, Dick said to be more optimistic and she could at least keep morale up by pretending like she thought everything would work out.

She hummed lightly as the henchmen came into view. She leaned over the side of the rooftop, watching them wander around aimlessly in search of her. She pressed a hand to her comm. “Right, I’m gonna deafen.”

Everyone mumbled their ‘goodbye’s and ‘good luck’s. She smiled and changed her setting.

Her feet hit the ground and waved to the henchmen. “Right, right, I’m here.”

She doubted they would tranquilize her this time, considering they’d want her in her best shape to keep her portals. So, she beamed as they walked towards her.

She let them force the bag over her head and raised her eyebrow as they led her through the streets on foot. Maybe they were just tired, but that didn’t mean that the tiny difference in routine didn’t give her an extra little dose of anxiety about the whole situation.

But then they pulled the bag off her head and she was in a warehouse. And Harley tackled her in a hug as usual. Everything was fine. She barely even wheezed when she hit the floor, used to this by now. She grinned and hugged back.

“So, is there anything we need to do before we head out?” She asked, resting her head back against the cold stone. Harley had moved off of her by that point but, hey, she was tired and she didn’t want to get up.

“Nothing in particular,” said Riddler, scrolling through his phone idly like always.

She smiled at him. “Cool, I got you something.”

He raised his eyebrows. “What?”

“Guess.”

He broke into a grin and turned around in his chair to face her. “Do I get any hints?”

“Only that you wouldn’t need any to solve this kind of puzzle.”

He seemed to think for a while, then rested his head on the top of his chair. “It has to fit in your pockets even with your hands in there, so… a rubix cube?”

She tossed him a Megaminx magic cube. “Close enough.”

He caught it and started fidgeting with it, a smile on his face.

Harley pouted. “I can’t believe he got a gift. I’m your favorite!”

Marinette rolled her eyes. “Well, he always looks bored. If you were bored all the time I’d give you something, too.”

“Ha! You didn’t say I wasn’t your favorite!” Said Harley, grinning as she pumped her fist in the air.

She rolled her eyes and rested her head on an arm. Her eyes flickered around calmly and she came to realize that everyone was still in the middle of the room. “Where’s Joker?”

“He’ll be here soon,” said Penguin, a hint of distaste in his tone. “He’s busy with his hair.”

Her shoulders relaxed and she allowed herself to close her eyes. “I’ve always wondered if he just woke up like that or not. Y’know, with the chemicals and all.”

She felt someone come over and lay their head on her stomach and she peeked an eye open to see who it was and then closed her eyes again. Catwoman. Cool.

She rested an arm over her lazily. “You really are like a cat, huh?” She teased.

“Hey, sweetheart, promise me something?” She heard the woman mumble.

“Sure,” she said, sobering a little at the serious tone.

“We all agreed that, if things don’t go well, you aren’t allowed to come save us.”

She frowned. “Um… what?”

“You’re a kid. You need to promise that, if we start getting captured, you have to run. Or portal, whatever. Don’t try and save us. Get out. Okay?”

Tears threatened to come to Marinette’s eyes. Man, couldn’t they all just be terrible people to their cores? She wanted to just put them in jail like she did any other random criminal she stumbled across with Damian, but they just had to be nice to her.

“Okay,” she whispered, her voice tight. “I promise.”

She felt her nod. Or, maybe, she was just burying her face further in her stomach. Either way, Catwoman must have heard because she didn’t press the issue further.

She didn’t even realize she had fallen asleep until she was nudged awake. And by ‘nudged awake’ I mean she was kicked in the shoulder so hard it probably would have broken if she wasn’t in costume. Nonetheless, she still cursed and brought a hand over to cradle it. “Ow? What the hell was...?”

She opened her eyes to see Joker standing over her and her voice faltered. She fought the urge to scramble away in fear, her eyes flickering over his mask. “Uh… Joker, sir, your… face is upside down…”

“It’ll be a great punchline, trust me.”

She nodded slowly and pushed herself up. “Portal time, I’m guessing?”

“If you wouldn’t mind,” said Penguin.

Everyone lined up so she wouldn’t have to make a super wide portal so early on. She was second to last, between Harley and Joker, and she could feel him staring at the back of her head. Her skin crawled.

She took a deep breath. Right. This was going to work out. She just had to… be optimistic.

Damn. If only it was as easy as Dick made it seem. She steeled her nerves.

“Right, good luck, everyone!” She chirped.

She opened a portal at the front and everyone filed through.

She closed the portal behind herself and they made their way through the house. The heels of their shoes clicked against the stone floors as they slipped through the halls. But this was quickly drowned out by the sound of people chattering.

She chewed on the inside of her cheek anxiously as they stepped out into the courtyard. It was always weird when a silence came over a room, because it was never all at once. Silence rippled through the courtyard until the only sound she could hear was her own heartbeat.

And then the screaming started.

Marinette closed her eyes and opened the portals on either side of the manor, blocking the gates. People stopped running to watch the blue portals stretch over the wrought iron. A few brave souls tested the portals to see what would happen and then came back out the other side.

The Rogues went to work, darting through the crowd in search of children. She saw Catwoman climb up a wall with inhuman speed and begin to use a lasso to pull kids out of danger.

Hey! Wait a minute! Marinette’s hands found their way to her waist and she cursed. Fine. She didn’t need a weapon, not as NightMare.

Unable to do much else, she settled for running around and grabbing kids like everyone else. She would grab as many as she could carry, vault over the wall, set them down and apologize profusely, then jump back over for more. She didn’t want to go quickly, she needed the bats to have a bit of time to give plausible deniability, but she was kinda on a time crunch...

Her eyes wandered over people, searching wildly for a familiar red suit. Honestly, why were there so many people in bright red? It’s really not a flattering color and -- there!

She found Chloe hiding out in a corner, probably waiting for the bats, and rushed over. Her gaze flicked over her hairline. She’d smashed her bug. Good.

Marinette grinned and dug into her pockets and held up the bee miraculous. “Tradesies?”

Chloe’s eyes widened and Marinette fastened the pin to the girl’s hair, then pulled the earrings off of her.

“This matches your outfit way better, anyways,” she chirped, giving a tiny wink before putting on her earrings. It felt great to have them again. She grinned. “Tikki, Kaalki, unify!”

“Good luck, right?”

She grinned. “Of course, Queenie.”

They pressed a kiss to each other’s cheeks and darted off in different directions.

Marinette couldn’t show up as a mix of Ladybug and NightMare, and she needed to keep the portals up, but that didn’t mean that she could just sit around doing nothing at all. She settled for jumping onto the roof and yoyo-ing a few people to safety when no one was paying attention.

She felt someone behind her and whipped around, her hand coming up to punch them, only for them to dodge.

She relaxed when she saw it was only Tim. “Sorry.”

“No, no, it’s my fault for just standing there! That was creepy.”

She giggled. “It’s fine, sweetie.”

She felt his fingers interlock with hers and a tiny smile made its way across her face, only to fall as they looked out over the sea of people.

The Rogues were nearly out of kids to take to safety, it seemed. Chloe was on the outer edges, shuffling along and attempting to get as many people out as possible without being spotted.

Their grips tightened on each other’s hands. It was starting to hurt but neither of them were eager to let go just yet.

She swallowed thickly. “How much longer?”

“We’re waiting until they get the kids out, since they’re already doing it for us.”

She nodded slightly.

And then they heard gunfire. Their eyes flicked back down to see Penguin shooting people with an umbrella. It might have been a comical sight if he wasn’t mowing down people at an alarming rate.

She felt Tim’s grip slacken on her hand and held tighter. He paused and she reached out, taking his face in her hands and pressing a short kiss to his lips.

“Good luck,” she murmured.

“One of us has to have it,” he whispered jokingly.

She gave a quiet laugh and let go. He gave her a tiny wink before hopping down.

She surveyed the battlefield, trying to ignore the pools of red and concentrate solely on the vigilantes and Rogues. It was about one-on-one, but the bats did slightly outnumber the Rogues.

Didn’t mean much when they were refusing to kill anyone, though.

She bit down on the inside of her cheek.

Just a few more minutes, she only had to wait a few more minutes…

~~~

Me: oh the Gala stuff will probably be like 3-4k words max so i’ll just have it all in one chapter

Also me: takes 2k words to get through the first part alone

Taglist

@comet-kun @thatonecroc @trippingovermyfeet @swiftie-miraculer13 @nickristus-dreamer @moongoddesskiana @i-am-ironic @indecisive-mess-named-me @thebooki3h @insane-fangirl-of-everything @deepestobservationwombat @theymakeupfairies @fatimaabbasrizvi @clumsy-owl-4178 @fanofalittletoomuch @iamablinkmarvelarmy @nathleigh @lilkymilky @silvergold-swirl @dino-lovingreen-angel @thestressmademedoit @kissa-chan @ladybug-182 @alysrose-starchild @t1dwarrior-of-earth @spyofthenightcourt @rowanrouge @nik-nak-3 @momothefemur @aestheticnpoetic @labschaos @our-preciousss @mochinek0 @eliza-bich @mythogaychic @severelyenchantedwonderland @sashakoi @smolplantmum @bluesimani @tropestropestropes @kitsunebell @keepingupwiththemalfoys @sassakitty @2confused-2doanything @too0bsessedformyowngood @all-mights-asscheeks @demonicbusiness @meg-an-ace @fantasiame @qualitypeacepainter @multplelifes @kokotaru @spicybelladonna @ultimatetornshipper

#timinette #timari #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #red robin #tim drake #maribat #satisfied

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longitudinalwaveme · 4 years ago

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Longitudinalwaveme Reviews More Old Comics (and One New One), Part 1

I’m going to be doing these reviews in chronological order, starting with the oldest of the bunch.

Batman #292: “The Testimony of the Riddler”

This issue is actually the second part of a four-part story, “Where Were You On the Night Batman Was Killed?” Basically, everyone thinks Batman is dead, and a bunch of his villains are coming forward to claim the honor of being his killer. Catwoman’s claim was dismissed last issue; now it’s Riddler’s turn.

The mock trial that the villains have set up to determine the identity of the killer is amazing. Ra’s al Ghul is the judge, Two-Face is the prosecutor, and the jury is composed of the Mad Hatter, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze before B:TAS gave him a good costume, Scarecrow, the Signalman (*snicker*) and the Spook, who I only know as the D-Lister beheaded by Damian Wayne.

The Riddler begins his testimony, regaling everyone with riddles (some of which seem more like jokes, but whatever), and telling them about a crazy criminal caper he launched, during which time he posed as Bruce Wayne in order to steal a ridiculous jeweled typewriter ( “made of gold, platinum, and ivory...its keys studded with diamonds and rubies...its ribbon made from a Ming Dynasty robe....and its case encrusted with emeralds!”).

Amusingly, since Riddler doesn’t know Bruce Wayne is Batman, his Batman is not at all surprised to come across “Bruce Wayne” at the party. Batman ends up following the Riddler’s clues to find the Riddler and the ridiculously fancy typewriter in a quarry, whereupon the Riddler uses a knife he has to cut a rope that was holding some rock slabs. According to Riddler, the slabs fell on Batman, pinning him. Riddler then blew him up with dynamite (which he set off using a latern’s flames).

As soon as he finishes his testimony, Two-Face calls him a liar; gets permission to take the entire court outside, sets up a deathtrap using the dynamite Riddler claims he used to kill the Batman, and orders the bailiffs to tie Riddler to the trap and light it all on fire.

They do, and the Riddler promptly passes out. Two-Face then walks onto the trap himself, and nothing happens. As Two-Face explains, “dynamite does not explode in fire! It can be lighted only by electric spark or percussion!”

Riddler is eliminated as a potential candidate and escorted from the courtroom (with an apparent $25,000 fine for the dynamite display).

Several other claimants retract their claims, and Ra’s adjourns the court for the day.

Also, Bronze Age Riddler makes a surprisingly convincing Bruce Wayne, all things considered (this was back when he still had black hair; rather than red).

Batman #293, “Luthor’s Testimony”

This issue takes up immediately where the last one left off, with Lex Luthor of all people taking the stand in the costume you can see in the picture above. It’s...certainly something, all right.

Cluemaster, Killer Moth, the Cavalier, and some random gangsters are also at the trial. Most are impressed by Luthor’s amazing(ly hilarious) new outfit, which I’m pretty sure he only ever wore once (for this trial).

Luthor does his usual grandstanding before launching into the story of his latest plot to kill Superman.

Said plot involved a fake robbery to lure Batman into a trap that would allow Luthor to put Superman’s mind into Batman’s body.

Luthor then punched Superman-in-Batman’s-body to death and launched the body into space. Luthor says that now he’s leaving to go back to Metropolis, where he’ll put his own mind into Superman’s body so that he may become Super-Luthor.

Two-Face proceeds to demolish Luthor’s story, first by calling in one of Luthor’s goons to reveal that Batman had infiltrated Luthor’s gang by posing as a henchman, and then calling in Superman himself to prove that, in fact, Superman’s mind is still in its body. Superman just dressed up as Batman and pretended to be Superman-in-Batman’s-body to fool Luthor.

Exposed as a liar, Luthor storms out of the room, but not before yelling at Two-Face for “colluding with Superman” and insulting the criminal pretensions of everyone in the room.

Also, Two-Face somehow managed to convince Superman to grant every villain in the courtroom amnesty. (Although if I’m remembering the fourth part of the story properly, I think “Two-Face” is really Batman in disguise, explaining why he was so easily able to get into contact with Superman and probably making the amnesty fake.)

The comic ends with the Joker’s signature laughter; he’ll be the last villain to give testimony in front of the kangaroo court. Sadly, I don’t have that issue, so I won’t be reviewing it here.

Batman #296, “The Sinister Straws of the Scarecrow”

Scarecrow has henchmen he calls “Strawmen”. They have weird costumes and exist to give him someone to deliver all his lectures to and test his fear gas on. As usual, his speeches to his underlings sound...well...like simplified college psychology lectures.

Otto the burly henchman’s deepest fear is Batman. What a surprise.

Phobias namedropped by the Scarecrow (and narration boxes): phobophobia (the fear of fear), pyrophobia (fear of fire), algophobia (fear of pain), pathophobia (fear of illness), taphephobia (the fear of being buried alive), inutilophobia (the fear of not being able to carry on one’s work) and “chiropterhomopobia”. The last is especially interesting since it’s not actually a real word; it’s a fictional one that manages to effectively follow the formula used for naming phobias. “Chiropterophobia” is the fear of bats. “Homophobia”, in this case, is the fear of men (homo referring to our species name, homo sapiens); therefore chiropterhomophobia would be the fear of bat-men. Good work with conjugation there, writer!

Anyway, the Scarecrow uses a crook named Skibo’s taphephobia to convince him to give them the location of the turnpike bond money he stole from Gotham City’s National Bank several months ago.

The next day at the bank, the money is returned, puzzling Bruce Wayne. Wayne goes to interrogate a crook who talks in confusing criminal slang, who tells him that Skibo was the one who fenced the stolen bonds.

Batman tracks Skibo down...and finds him being assaulted by the Scarecrow, who believes that the bonds he returned to the bank were counterfeit. This is problematic for the Scarecrow because it suggests that Skibo was able to withstand his fear of the Scarecrow and disobey his orders, which would interefere with his ability to intercept criminals who are obeying his orders to return stolent money and take the money for himself.

Batman, Skibo, Scarecrow, and his goons get into a free-for-all that ends up causing an explosion. In the chaos, Scarecrow and the goons escape and Batman gets information out of Skibo about the Scarecrow’s plans.

Scarecrow and his goons then go after a thief who stole a valuable Gutenberg Bible, but before they can use the fear toxin on him, Batman shows up and they use it on him instead. It affects Batman, but he shakes it off and manages to defeat the Scarecrow and his goons as well as capture the thief who stole the Guetenberg Bible.

The story ends with Batman telling Commissioner Gordon that he found the case exhilarating.

All-in-all, a pretty standard Scarecrow story.

Batman #308, “There’ll Be a Cold Time in the Old Town Tonight”

Some guy named Jacob Riker has betrayed Mr. Freeze. The man in question is promptly murdered by Freeze and his henchmen.

In this issue, Mr. Freeze is wearing an outfit that’s reminiscent of Captain Cold’s, but with a bubble-helmet and pink shades.

Catwoman shows up in Bruce Wayne’s office to tell him that she’s reformed and wants to invest money in Wayne Enterprises. Bruce agrees, and also agrees to meet her for dinner at some point next week. She also brings a cat with her to this meeting, because of course she does.

Lucius Fox introduces Bruce Wayne to his daughter, Tiffany, who works in a drug rehabilitation program sponsored by the Wayne Foundation. After exchanging pleasantries, Bruce tells Lucius to give him a complete rundown on what Selina’s been up to, presumably so that he can know if she’s on the level.

He moons over Catwoman for a bit before getting called into action by the Batsignal, and he subsequently arrives at the scene of Riker’s murder. The guy is frozen solid and very dead.

Some rich guy name Mr. McVee comes to Mr. Freeze; he’s exchanging all his wealth in exchange for the promise of immortality.

Unfortunately, the process turns the man into a Popsicle zombie. His body is alive, but his brain is dead.

Also, Mr. Freeze has a girlfriend named Hildy, whom he loves and is planning to make immortal (as he himself effectively is). Unfortunately for him, she does not reciprocate his feelings and is using him solely as a means of staying young forever. Interestingly, she’s blonde, just like Nora usually is (Nora, of course, didn’t exist at the time this was written).

Meanwhile, at STAR labs, a medical treatment goes wrong and kills somebody.

Batman finds and breaks into Mr. Freeze’s hideout...and is promptly attacked by Mr. Freeze and his Popsicle zombies. Mr. Freeze dubs them his “Ice Pack”.

Mr. Freeze manages to take Batman out of the fight by freezing his legs, which causes him to fall to the floor. This allows him to be captured by the Popsicle Zombies and put inside Mr. Freeze’s immortality machine.

Batman is apparently turned into another mindless Popsicle zombie as Mr. Freeze exposits about how lonely his life is and how much he loves Hindy.

Mr. Freeze leaves Hildy in the room with the Popsicle zombies, at which point Hildy starts to talk to Batman about how she thinks he’s cute and she’d rather be immortal with him rather than with Freeze (who she’s planning to kill in any case).

Unfortunately for her, Mr. Freeze overhears her and is predictably furious, pointing his Freeze Ray directly at her face.

Batman saves her from an icy fate by attacking Mr. Freeze, revealing as he does so that he had only pretended to be frozen by the machine (having disconnected several of the building’s extra power lines). Cue another fight with Freeze and the Popsicle Zombies.

Batman uses a piece of ice to break Freeze’s bubble helmet; preventing him from giving any more orders to the Popsicle Zombies. He then fights Freeze some more. The Freeze Ray goes flying and gets grabbed by Hildy, who plans to kill both of them. Unfortunately, the gun backfires on her and she’s killed instead. Mr. Freeze is arrested.

Meanwhile, we learn that the dead guy was the Blockbuster, Mark Desmond, and that he isn’t quite as dead as the people at STAR Labs think.

Justice League of America #167, “The League That Defeated Itself!”

The splash page is of Superman punching Hal Jordan Green Lantern in the face.

The explanation is pretty quickly forthcoming: the Secret Society of Super-Villains has swapped bodies with the Justice League. The Wizard from Earth-2 is in Superman’s body, Professor Zoom the Reverse-Flash is in Green Lantern’s body, Plant-Master is in Wonder Woman’s body (ew), Star Sapphire is in Zatanna’s body, and Blockbuster is in Batman’s body.

The real Justice League are trapped in the bodies of the villains and locked in a cube-shaped cell. Superman guides Hal into using his new super-speed to help them break free of the cube.

The Joker stars in a Hostess Fruit pie ad!

The villains have left for Earth, leaving the heroes (who are trapped in their bodies) alone on the JLA Satellite, along with an unconscious Red Tornado, whom they promptly wake up.

Naturally unaware of the switch, the Tornado attacks them and they fight. Zatanna manages to bring the tornado down using Star Sapphire’s powers, and the JLA go off to find their bodies on Earth, with Batman telling Zatanna that she’ll have to reverse the spell as their only magician.

Green Lantern gets some information out of Hijack (who I think is a member of the Royal Flush Gang) by pretending to be Reverse-Flash. The information helps them locate the Society’s HQ.

As soon as they break into the building, however...they’re promptly incapacitated by Green Arrow (except for Zatanna, who remained outside). Green Arrow is suspicious of the way Superman is behaving and decides to keep an eye on him and the others who “located” the HQ of the Secret Society.

Justice League of America #168, “The Last Great Switcheroo”

This issue picks up where the last issue left off. Ollie and Hawkman are supsicous about the behavior of their allies, while Black Canary ad the Elongated Man don’t think anything unusual is going on.

Eobard traps the “villains” in a diamond cell, and then the Wizard chucks the diamond into another dimension!

The Wizard covers for himself by claiming that the “villains” have been put into “time-stasis” by “Green Lantern”’s ring. “I just tossed the diamond into an orbit around the solar system! They’ll remain there until science perfects criminal rehabilitation.” For some reason, everyone except Green Arrow immediately accepts this excuse.

Red Tornado breaks free of the trap Zatanna-in-Star-Sapphire’s-Body had to put him in last issue and criticizes the decisions he made in the fight with them.

Zatanna then arrives on the satellite and convinces Red Tornado of the swap that’s taken place.

Meanwhile, in Mexico, the Secret Society and the remaining members of the Justice League are, at least allegedly, guarding some jewels for the Mexican government. Elongated Man, Hawkman, and the Flash are also becoming suspicious of their supposed allies.

And then Eobard ruins everything in the most Eobard way possible: forcing a kiss onto Black Canary!

The real Justice Leaguers fight and defeat the impostors (except for the Wizard, who left to “patrol the city”)...but before he can step in to salvage his plan, Superman uses the Wizard’s own magic to take his body down.

Zatanna reverses the mind-swap, and the day is saved.

Was it this story that later got retconned to include more mindwiping thanks Identity Crisis, or am I thinking of a different storyline?

Flash #275, “The Last Dance”

In this issue, Iris Allen dies!

The story starts with Barry in the grip of a teenaged girl with ESP powers (no, really. Cary Bates, the issue’s writer, really liked the paranormal). His marriage with his wife Iris has been struggling, and she fears that he might be cheating on her.

She’s also spying on him by bugging his costume rings with “micro-mini homing signal devices”, which just goes to show that literally anyone in the DCU can invent amazing technology at the drop of a hat.

Stalking the stalker is Clive Yorkin, a character from the plot thread that’s been building up to this issue. He’s kind of based off of the brainwashing scene in A Clockwork Orange and hates the Flash and Barry Allen.

The teenager uses her mental powers to force the Flash to meet her at a motel and take off his mask, which he does. She’s apparently disappointed by the results, complaining that there’s nothing remarkable about him, and promptly storms out.

Iris arrives in her car just as the girl storms out, and discovers that she’s coming from the room that her tracker has Barry in. She storms inside and accuses Barry of cheating on her, then runs out in tears.

Also, right before she storms out, Barry looks at himself in the mirror and thinks “ “Ordinary”? What in blazes is that supposed to mean? I may not be Robert Redford...but I always thought I was sort of sexy...at least, that’s what Iris told me.” It’s mildly hilarious.

Iris promptly gets into a car wreck with a tanker truck. Barry manages to save both her and the two truck drivers from the massive explosion that this causes.

Barry convinces Iris that he wasn’t cheating and the two promptly make up.

Meanwhile, Mysterious Shadowy Man on the Phone tells someone to kill Barry Allen at a philanthropist’s upcoming costume party for all of the employees of Central City’s government (e.g., police officers, firefighters, etc.) The Mysterious Shadowy Man on the Phone will eventually be revealed to be the corrupt police chief of Central City, Chief Paulson.

Iris and Barry decide they want to have kids, then kiss. D’awww!

Iris’ costume for the party arrives; she’s going as Batgirl. Barry was planning to rent a Batman outfit, but it was already rented, so Barry ends up going to the costume ball dressed as himself (that is, the Flash).

Clyde Yorkin is still stalking both of them.

Barry’s friend from work, Frank Curtis, arrives to pick the couple up. Hilariously, he’s also dressed as the Flash.

The theme of the party is “Dress as Your Favorite Super-Character”. Iris comments “it’ll be interesting to see whether we get more heroes or villains!”...which raises a question: Namely, why is everyone totally okay with people dressing up as people who are, in their world, real costumed criminals? That’s always seemed odd to me.

Clive Yorkin sneaks into the trunk of Curtis’ car and slips out as the other three head for the party.

Inside the mansion, we see a huge number of people dressed up as famous DC characters, including Hawkgirl, the Calculator, Heat Wave, two Green Lanterns, Zatanna, Aquaman, Green Arrow, two Black Canaries, Abra Kadabra, Batman, Wonder Woman, Professor Zoom the Reverse-Flash, Star Sapphire, Supergirl, Pied Piper, Poison Ivy, Captain Cold, the Golden Glider, the Top, mustachioed Superman, some guy in a purple costume I can’t ID, Mirror Master, the Golden Age Sandman, and Captain Boomerang.

The Golden Age Sandman is actually an assassin in disguise; he was hired by Chief Paulson to get rid of Barry Allen before he discovered his corruption; he drugs Barry by “shooting” him with his Sandman gun. One of the Green Lanterns is actually Hal Jordan, who pops up to say hi to Barry and Iris. A later story will reveal that the Captain Boomerang in this issue was the real Captain Boomerang, and that some of the other Rogues were also actually at the party so they could, quote, “party and pick pockets”. Yet another subsequent issue will reveal that the Reverse-Flash at the party was in fact the real Eobard. So...which of the other Rogues do we think were at the party? We know that the Captain Cold isn’t real; he’s “Phil from Vice”. That means that the Golden Glider alongside him is probably not the real one either, and it seems unlikely that the Top here is the real one, since he was dead at this point. So that leaves the Pied Piper, Mirror Master, and Heat Wave as possible candidates.

Chief Paulson calls Barry to meet him in his office at 9 AM the next day; Barry agrees but notes that the man seems oddly tense.

Curtis, still dressed as the Flash, goes outside for a smoke break and gets jumped by Yorkin, who mistakenly believes him to be Barry (until he rips his mask off, at which point he just throws him off the balcony.)

Barry sees a Green Lantern making the moves on Iris and gets upset until Hal reveals that he’s the real Green Lantern and congratulates them on their plan to become parents. He then flies out the window, and somehow all the party goers are fully convinced that it’s just a really elaborate costume. Huh?

Iris tempts fate by saying that “this might be the happiest moment of my life!” The two go off together to get some privacy...but then Barry begins to feel dizzy, as though he’s been drugged. Iris goes into the bathroom to get him some water...and then Barry hears her screaming! He bursts into the bathroom to see Iris on the floor, with Yorkin standing over her. Yorkin then jumps out a window as Barry runs to his wife.

A bunch of the guests, including Mustachioed Superman, burst into the room to see what the commotion is, and Barry passes out. Curtis bursts in a few seconds later to learn that one of his friends needs a hospital....and that the other is dead! It’s a very effective cliffhanger.

#flash comics #batman comics #justice league #flash rogues #dc comics

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xwaywardhuntress · 6 years ago

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The Batman to my Catwoman

Summary: Imagine Y/N gets Comic-Con badges for herself and the Winchesters.

Pairings: Dean Winchester x reader

Warnings: Curse words.

Word Count: 2500+

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural. This is fanfiction only. Please do not redistribute my writings on other sites, horrible or not. Thanks!

Author’s note: Another slow day at work, so here’s a quick fic.

“Y/N, come on! What’s taking so long?” Dean banged on the bathroom door of the motel.

Sam snickered while sitting at the table with a laptop in front of him. “Relax, man. She’s excited as you are, if not more with what she bought to wear to it.”

The older Winchester shot his brother a glare. “If she was so excited, we’d be at the convention waiting in line already. Also, I’m not excited. I’m only going with her so she’s not alone with a bunch of nerds.”

“Right.” Sam just shook his head at his brother’s denial. Every year, he’d hear both his brother and Y/N talk about comic con. This year, Y/N was able to get badges for all of them.

“Are you almost done yet? The line to that panel you wanted to go too is only getting longer.” Dean commented frustratingly.

Y/N threw the door open as she came walking out of the bathroom. “Who put a stick up your ass today? I’m done. Geez.” You stalked over to your duffel bag, placing in the clothes you had worn earlier when you went to go grab yourself and the boys’ coffee from the motel lobby. You were oblivious to Dean’s astonished look. When you turned around, you saw Dean eyeing you from top to bottom. “What? I’m cosplaying?” You stated.

Sam couldn’t help but chuckle at his brother’s speechless reaction. He stood up, closing his laptop. “It looks good, Y/N.” He complimented.

“Thanks, Sam.” You smiled as Sam started to talk about the panels that he actually wanted to check out.

Meanwhile, Dean was truly speechless. You were dressed as one of his favorite superhero’s love interest. Catwoman. And it was a very tight costume as he was able to see all the curves of your body from top to bottom. The cosplay was making him feel things he fought almost daily to keep hidden away. As much as he wouldn’t mind staring at you all day in the costume and fantasize about you, Dean finally found the will to clear his throat. “If you’re both ready, let’s get going then.” He stated as he walked past Y/N and his brother, grabbing the lanyard with the badge and throwing it over his neck. He had missed the disappointed look on your face since he hadn’t commented about your cosplay.

At the convention, Dean found himself grumbling to himself almost the whole time. Every Batman they passed by wanted to take a photo with you. What made him more frustrated was that you would never say no.

“This is pretty fun.” You commented as you made it back to Dean.

“Oh yeah, posing with a bunch of random strangers is fun.” The older Winchester complained.

And that was the last straw. All morning long, Dean just complained or said snarky remarks and you had enough. “Says the guy who sleeps with random strangers all the time!” You replied back as you stalked off into the crowd annoyed at Dean’s words.

Dean ran after you, unaware of where exactly he was going. He hadn’t paid much attention to the layout as his eyes were glued to you basically all morning. Eventually, he lost you in the crowd as he came up to another Catwoman cosplayer, mistaking her for you. “Shit…” He mumbled as he pulled out his phone to try to call you.

You had made your way outside of the convention, needing some air to cool yourself down. You sat down on one of the outside steps. Feeling your phone vibrate in the secret pocket compartment you had added to suit, you saw Dean’s name flashing on the screen. You rejected his call, sending him straight to voicemail. You didn’t want to fight with him while you all were supposed to be enjoying this hunt-free day as well as nerding it out. However, Dean’s complaints and smart remarks, which you had caught onto every single one of them throughout the morning whenever you’d talk or pose with other cosplayers had been getting to you. You had no idea what his problem was, especially since he didn’t exactly compliment you on your own costume either.

While mumbling about how Dean was being ridiculous to yourself, another voice spoke behind you as it cast a shadow that covered your own. “Why do we fall?” The gruff voice asked.

You turned your head to look at who was behind you. It was a rather slender Batman. You stood up to find yourself almost the same height. The stranger was a much shorter Batman than the usual ones you had run into so far.

The slender Batman continued, this time in a feminine voice, “So we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

The feminine voice sounded definitely familiar as you looked questioningly at the Batman. “Do I know you?” You couldn’t help but ask.

A grin came across Batman’s mouth. “I’m Batman. And you shouldn’t let a jealous jerk ruin the comic con experience, especially a green-eyed one who doesn’t have the balls to say how he really feels.” The Batman spoke in their regular female voice.

You caught on to the words green-eyed one, forgetting that the voice was familiar, as your hands slid to the whip that came with the costume. The whip might’ve been just a prop, but you were sure you could figure out how to use it to defend yourself if needed. There was only one green-eyed jerk that you could think of at the moment, Dean Winchester. If this Batman knew who you were, could the stranger be a demon?

While cautious and in thought, the Batman cosplayer decided they would remove their mask as red flocks of hair came undone. You instantly relaxed at the sight of a friend.

“Charlie?” You asked, surprised.

“Duh! Who else would it be?” Charlie asked chuckling as she went in for the hug. “I can’t believe you’re here! I ran into Sam at the Game Of Thrones panel and he said you had dressed up as the feisty Catwoman.” The redhead pulled away from the hug as she couldn’t help but check out your Catwoman costume. “Damn are you hot as Catwoman! Are you sure you don’t swing the other way?” She joked. “I was told Dean was with you too, but I’m guessing he was being a jerk which is why you’re out here by the stairs by yourself.”

You narrowed your eyes away, confirming Charlie’s suspicions, but also not wanting to continue thinking about it. “You can say that, but let’s not talk about him. I’m so glad you found me! I don’t know why I didn’t think of you when coming here. I feel so stupid.” You chuckled.

“I know! This is my guilty pleasure once a year.” Charlie stated proudly.

“And you’re batman!” You added.

“Dude, he’s a chick magnet, and not just for one way…if you know what I mean. “ She winked at you. “I’ve gotten some numbers that I definitely plan on calling later. But, I could always use a Catwoman by my side if you’re up for it.”

“Oh definitely, yes!” You exclaimed when you felt your phone vibrating again. It was probably Dean.

As you took your phone out and saw the name that flashed on your screen, confirming it was Dean, Charlie grabbed your phone and answered for you. She turned on a device attached to her batman suit that changed her voice to make it deep. “Sorry, but the Cat is with the Bat. She’ll maybe call ya later when we’re done together.” And then Charlie hung up on Dean without giving him a chance to talk.

You couldn’t help but laugh at what Charlie said.

“And now he’ll definitely be looking for you. But he won’t find you if I can help it! Let’s go back to the convention?” Charlie asked as she placed her mask back on and then held her arm out.

“I suppose just for some time the Cat can follow the Bat.” You commented chuckling as you intertwined your arm with hers and then walked back into the convention.

- - -

Meanwhile, after Dean got hung up on after who he thought was a man answered your phone, he met up with Sam again as he explained to his brother what happened.

“I can’t blame her, honestly. You’ve been acting like a jerk since we left the motel. If she found someone else to have fun with, then let her. She’s a big girl.” Sam explained as he shrugged. “There’s still some other panels I want to check out. I’ll see you later back at the motel.” The younger Winchester shared as he began walking away, leaving his brother speechless as Dean had no rebuttal to what Sam had said.

Instead, Dean was set on finding you, so any Catwoman and Batman pair that he saw, he went up to all of them.

- - -

You had spent about three hours with Charlie without Dean finding you. Luckily, Batman and Catwoman were popular cosplayer pairs. You and Charlie had also checked out one of the panels you had shared with the Winchesters as wanting to go too that probably helped in hiding you two as well. As you and Charlie were leaving the finished panel, that’s when you spotted Dean sitting at the back of the panel room. Had he actually listened to you before when you listed all the panels you had wanted to go too? He looked tired and defeated. As much as your brain kept telling you to leave him, your heart felt a bit guilty for leaving him alone the past three hours. After all, you had fallen for the jerk.

You pulled Charlie off to the side to let others pass you two. “Dean’s here.”

Charlie looked around till she spotted him sitting down still. “Do you want me to go all Batman on him?” She asked, half-serious, half-joking. The redhead knew she had no chance against Dean, who fought off real monsters practically every day.

“No. I’m kind of over it. I should probably spend the last part of the convention day with him.”

“Alright, if you say so. I think he should apologize to you, at least.” Charlie suggested as she looked over at Dean. “He does look kind of lame and lonely.”

“You’re welcome to join in, of course.”

Charlie bit her lip. “I’ll think about it. Go get’em, tiger!” She said as she pushed you in his direction.

As the room cleared and you made it over to the lonely Winchester, the moment you came into view, Dean stood up and embraced you.

“H-How do you know it’s me?” You asked confused but enjoyed the embrace, nonetheless.

“I just know.” He mumbled as he continued. “I’m sorry I was a jerk.” He said as he pulled away from the embrace. “I just wanted to spend time with you and nerd out on all the things that you and I share an interest in. I know I messed it up with my complaining all morning, and I’m sorry for that. I was…” He paused for a moment.

You couldn’t help as your eyes stared back into his green ones, listening to his not-so-bad apology.

He closed his eyes, letting out a breath of air as he reopened them to stare back at you. “I was jealous.” He finally admitted. “You’re hot as Catwoman. I get what all those Batmans saw. And honestly, when you first walked out in your Catwoman suit, I didn’t want anyone else to see you in it. I wanted you all to myself.” The Older Winchester chuckled as he shook his head. “Geez, what am I saying? I sound selfish. You’re too good for me.”

“Stop.” You finally spoke. “Don’t say stuff like that. Maybe I want you to be selfish. I’m too good for you? Don’t make me laugh.” You smiled at him as you placed your hands on his face to make him look at you. “You know you’re a stubborn asshole sometimes.”

Dean’s eyes widened at your comment. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but he wasn’t expecting you to call him names.

You continued as you felt the frustration and anger from earlier being released. So much for being kind of over it. “You’re also an overprotective jerk. You always think your plan is the way to go. You’re always getting mad at others when they get hurt, but when you get hurt, we’re not allowed to get mad at you.”

Dean scrunched one eye, feeling each blow of a sentence you spoke. “Okay, I get it. You’re still upset.”

“Oh no, I’m not done yet. You always have to be the right one. You act without thinking. You complain about strangers giving me attention when I don’t complain at all about you hitting on chicks at the bar. You get mad at me for stupid reasons. You’re a downright jerk!” You paused to catch your breath. “But…” You lowered your voice to speak softly. “…somehow, despite all of that, you still made me fall for you.” As you were about to lean in to kiss him, a familiar Batman interrupted which caused both you and Dean to look away from each other.

“I’ve found you kitty cat.” Charlie spoke in her Batman voice.

“You!” Dean recognized the voice from the phone. “Listen, you stay away from my girl! She doesn’t need you anymore, she has me! And…” He yelled walking up to the Batman as he lost his train of thought, noticing that this was a very short and slender Batman. “…wait a minute.”

“About time.” Charlie spoke in her usual voice as she took the mask off.

You had started laughing behind Dean, who was confused to see Charlie dressed as Batman.

“Charlie? W-what…? Wait, were you the one that hung up on me on the phone?” Dean asked still processing the reveal.

“Guilty. Had to put you in your place, Winchester. If you weren’t going to make a move on Y/N, then I was ready to try to convert her.” She laughed.

Dean looked down, “God, I’m so stupid.”

“You are, but you deserved it.” Sam spoke out of the blue, joining the group. “I knew Y/N was with Charlie this whole time, by the way. I figured letting you think she was with some guy would push you to tell her your feelings finally. Looks like I was right.”

Charlie greeted Sam as the younger Winchester also complimented Charlie in her costume.

While Dean was processing that he had been an idiot thinking Y/N had chosen some random guy to hang out with this whole time and had literally hunted down every Batman and Catwoman cosplayer he saw for about an hour, you walked up behind him.

You tapped him on his shoulder. “So….will you be the Batman to my Catwoman?” You asked with a smile.

Dean pulled you to him with a mischievous grin. “We’re endgame, baby.” He said as he pressed his lips to yours.

“Wrong superhero verse!” Charlie shouted from the sidelines, as she and Sam watched the hunting world’s very own Batman and Catwoman finally get together.

#dean winchester x reader #dean x reader #supernatural imagine #spn fanfic

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chronicbatfictioner · 5 years ago

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Exchanges and Compromises - Chapter 7

Gotham City, Today

He is the Gray Son of Gotham, and he did not like having all these intruders coming into his city and steal from his people. The Court had made it clear that it would be his duty to clean up Gotham from those outsiders.

Over the years, Dick Grayson realized that the rogues coming to Gotham were getting progressively worse. If five years ago, it was the mafia trying to control Gotham; small, petty thugs trying to appear bigger than they are at the advent of machine guns and diminishing morale of the general Gothamites; today, there were costumed people. People wearing costumes and gimmicks, ready to hurt random people just to make a name for themselves. They'd feared nothing because there was nothing in Gotham that could hurt them back. Not like the Super-powered metahuman guy in Metropolis.

It all started with the shooting of Barbara Gordon, the daughter of a Police Captain. He had met her in person at the Circus and thought she was the most beautiful person ever. The only way he could keep his mind sane through the year was the hope that one day, he would be able to meet Barbara again. Cheesy, he knew. But it worked. Remembering Barbara meant remembering himself as Dick Grayson - the last of the Flying Graysons.

Dick was yet to get the taste of death at the time. But he was so furious, oh-so-furious that he had kicked the red-helmeted guy out of his fast-running motorbike after he saw what the guy had done to Barbara Gordon. To her body and soul as he desecrated her and took photos. Dick caught him and the camera - thankfully it was an old camera with films and not a digital one that could send its photos to the cloud - and has kept the film since.

Evidently, someone had beheaded the Red-Helmet guy after Dick left him dangled - suspended in the air on a lamppost with the gun he'd used to shoot Barbara Gordon for the cops to arrest him or whatever. Dick couldn't say he was sorry to hear that, though. It was much like that first time when he hung Tony Zucco upside down, and some enterprising soul had loosened the tie and sent Zucco flying to the pavement, some seven-storeys below.

He thought it odd that his masters have not allowed him to take a life - his other compatriots have taken lives after lives as ordered. But he, the one they actually named The Talon, had not. Sure, there might have been a number of targets whom he had taken to the edge of life at one point or the other. But they lived. The masters would promptly send out the cleaners - paramedics and other rescue people - to make sure his battered targets would survive.

Terror tactics, he was told. He had learned so much and so far to get the full understanding of how to work someone up to within an inch of their lives, leaving scars that would make them remember him always, but not take the life itself.

Nowadays, though, the policy might just need to change, if it hasn't already. His compatriots have eliminated a lot of people already, most were a costume- and gimmick-toting newcomers. They claimed to be 'inspired' by the legend of the Talon, yet they came in with the sole purpose of benefiting themselves on the blood of the common, insignificant people. They were not to be scared off, the masters decided. They were to be eliminated thoroughly.

He was getting antsy. There has been practically radio silence from the masters in the past week. He has tried to make himself useful - logging in the locations of the rogues the best that he could, so that... so that he was doing something, anything, during the radio silence. But it was getting... lonely.

He idly dropped by the Gordon lady's place again. She lived there, but she had made a plethora of security devices that he would have to carefully avoid to get to see her.

Her red hair looked like the sunrise in his eyes; warm, inviting, long. She had cut them short a few times, but they were always wavy and red and Dick wished he could run his fingers through them. He was happy that not only she had survived the shooting, she had also built something - a small business empire - for herself. She has friends coming and going, of all ages and genders. She would go out, sometimes with those friends, for a night out in the town, and Dick would follow them surreptitiously - keeping her safe if anything else.

Tonight, she seemed to be working intently. He couldn't see what she was working on, on the monitors before her. But she seemed preoccupied and rather angry; her face flushed a little, strands of hair escaping from her messy bun, her arms waving every now and then from whatever remarks she was making against whoever was on the other side of her headset.

Dick sat there quietly, literally enjoying the view. He deliberately trained himself to just watch her at work, not overstep the boundaries, no matter how his body wanted him to. Just a peek, it would say, into her bedroom, watch her change, sleep, get out of the showers...

He shook his head, snapping his thoughts. No matter what, Barbara has been violated before. He was not going to do that again, whether or not she knew it.

He touched one of his belt's pockets. The film was still there. No one shall take it from him, and maybe one day he could give it to Barbara herself and watch her burn it. Destroy the nightmare once and for all.

For now, though, Dick turned as a spark somewhere midtown caught his interest. With the costumed newcomers, there has been an increase of explodey-thingy each night. Scratch that, there has been an increase of explodey-thingy every night.

He went to the nest, where his band of talons should be standing-by, awaiting orders. There should be the masters, too, sitting around a roundtable, assessing the severity of the situation before they decide on the course of action.

He barely made it past the last of the buildings when he smelled it. The scent of blood - fresh blood - and burnt flesh. He stopped, settling down the shudder that overtook his body. He was not scared, not by a long shot. There have been numerous times where Dick witnessed bloody and/or burnt people - even before he was let out of his training pod. But this one... this one seemed... more foreboding. All of his survival instinct has kicked in all at once and told him to not meddle.

So he peeked around the corner of the building a few blocks away from the nest.

It was luck that he'd peeked instead of barging in, too. There was a very big man standing on the ledge of the next building - the one right in front of the nest. He was laughing - Dick could hear his laughter from where he was standing.

"That is all? That is all of the Court of Owls??" the man crowed. "I am Bane! And from this day onward, Gotham is mine!"

Dick sank back to his hiding place, after realizing that the round object in each of the man's hands were heads. One head of a Talon, the other the head of the Grand Master. He knew that the other Talons would have headed underground, which explained the complete radio silence.

Through the night, he went through the residences of the other members of the Court, only to find them dead. The ones he didn't find in their respective homes, he located at Dock 9C, the drop zone. They were all still sitting around the roundtable - lacking their heads. And Dick was pretty sure that the Court's revival pods would not be able to resurrect a person lacking a head.

He sighed dejectedly, realizing that - once again - he was alone. He would need to figure out how to take down the big man, 'Bane', and restore order. There were several issues with the intention: one - He didn't even know what this guy 'Bane' really wanted; two - his weakness; and three - how to exploit it.

And four- what is this shadow that has been following him from the Nest and is it dangerous.

He instinctively threw a knife toward the sound, a little confused when the shadow yelped indignantly and exclaimed, "dude! Settle down! I'm here to help!"

The moon took that moment to came out from behind the clouds, and Dick could see the small, black-leather-clad boy. With cat's ears.

"Oh, great... Catwoman's apprentice. There's nothing to steal here, boy; unless you're up to collect headless corpses." Dick snarled.

The boy tilted his head, looked behind Dick to the corpses, and looked like he was going to throw up. "Oh, god... would you... ew... would you mind if we go outside? Like, that -- ick. No-- Just..." he right out scowled. "Ugh, okay. Stray, where're your manners." the boy continued. "I'm... sorry for your losses, I guess? But can we please go outside? The cops are coming in a bit. I'm sure you don't want to be caught with like, twelve dead bodies around you."

Indeed, Dick could hear vehicles coming closer. The cops must have been alerted and kept their sirens quiet to catch the perpetrator. It would have worked, too, given the alcove location of the warehouse that would have trapped him - at the very least, he would have been seen.

He contemplated the boy's offer for a few seconds and then nodded. "This way," he said, leading the way to the least-used exits, the one that went to the sewers. "I hope you don't mind a little stink."

The boy whined, "man... the sewers? Don't you know there's a big-bad crocodile that eats humans in there? Not to mention how my dry cleaners' bills when they need to wash off the stink..."

"Really," Dick deadpanned dryly, glaring at the boy.

"No, I'm just trying to break the ice." he shrugged. "I'm Stray, by the way."

"They called me Talon," Dick replied, leading the way to the sewers, keeping a good fighting distance with the boy. He might be small and young, but Dick was certain that he would have some sort of weaponry on him that could hurt Dick.

The boy was quiet for a good six-second and then said. "That's alright, Dick Grayson, you're not a Talon, anymore."

For the first time in his life, Dick slipped and splashed to the floor of the sewer.

#Dick Grayson #Tim Drake #Talon #Stray!Tim #Talon!Dick #Barbara Gordon #Batless!AU

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wordswithkittywitch · 5 years ago

Text

Donner, Blizten, and Pooka

The traditional host for Billy and Zoë, DeviantArt, is being recalcitrant, so I’m posting it directly to my tumblr this year. If AO3 had a spot for original work, I’d use that just because I love how straightforward their system is. I should look for a better platform, I guess. But for now, this year’s is hosted on tumblr. (I don’t know why I never say Zoë and Billy. I guess it’s just that I’ve been saying their names in alphabetical order since 2002, and I’m not likely to start now.) This is actually an idea I've had since the first year I starting writing these, and I'm so glad I've finally done something with it.

This year’s story has a few instances of gruesome imagery, but no major triggers behind the obvious “character death”, as you know at least one character, be it recurring or otherwise, is going to be a dead one.

With no further ado, enjoy 2019′s addition to the Billy and Zoë universe.

(4940 words, 9 pages, several horror elements. Because it’s a freaken horror story.) Recomended audio accompaniment.

Donner, Blitzen and Pooka

No, this isn’t the same story as last year, just the same exposition

Billy and Zoë were always said to be good kids, not getting in fights, making the sports teams, honor roll, debate team, cheer squad, chorus and band. Both moderately popular jacks-of-all-trades, they managed to make prom king and queen even though they were just friends, and got scholarships to the same college. Billy played sports year round, but managed to talk about other things, mainly debating, singing or playing clarinet. Well, not when he was doing those things, as they involved his mouth. He had a tall, muscular build, his features seemingly mismatched. He had soccer legs and basketball feet, baseball arms on a football torso, which his head was thankfully not too small for, his white blond hair contrasting with his cheeks, which were always red for some reason, be it anger, embarrassment, or chill. Zoë’s body, however, seemed more perfectly constructed. Her complexion was warm and comforting like a cup of cocoa and she had shiny black hair, large brown eyes, long willowy arms and legs rippling with muscles and small, athletic breasts that did not get in the way when she cheered, played the flute, lacrosse, tennis or cricket. Both frequently smiled, especially when the life-long friends found out they were going to college together.

It was a bright, cold day, one of those days in mid-December when there’s finally what to Billy’s mind counted as an “adequate” amount of snow. It was just so hard for him to really get into the spirit of things when the weather looked less like a Christmas card and more like a whole lot of dead plants stuck together with asphalt. Why someone who went for a jog through the woods every morning before class was so excited about five inches of snow was beyond even Zoë’s understanding and also Billy’s ability to explain. The cold air just felt so… crunchy on his lungs. It sounded bizarre, even to Billy, but once he’d been going long enough that he didn’t feel too cold, running in the snow was so refreshing.

So, despite the fact that his cheeks looked like the entire cheer squad had slapped the shit out of him and there wasn’t exactly what one might call feeling in his fingers, Billy was in a very good mood. He turned away from the main road and jogged into what was charitably called the cross-country trail by the college track team. It kept the name mainly because very few people were wiling to reassess it. There was nothing quite like going over broken ground to get the blood pumping, Billy thought. He was immediately greeted by the smell of pine and the crunch of unbroken snow under his feet. He took it from the fact he couldn’t hear water trickling that the river had finally frozen over. He couldn’t see it from the trail, but from his previous morning jogs he knew that it ran parallel to the trail for about half a mile.

Some people asked him, and quite rightly, when exactly a first-year college student had found them time for a morning jog, but it was early in Billy’s athletic career when he learned how to have the “Why am I doing this? It’s way too cold out. It’s way too early. I hate every choice that led me to jogging in the snow.” during the first ten minutes of the jog itself instead of for a twenty minute block beforehand, so that saved a lot of time. It was all a matter of dedication and mind over matter. Also, he had dropped his 8:00 AM ethics lecture within the first month, so that gave him plenty of time. He could drop one course if it gave him enough energy for his other classes, this college had a notoriously high freshman drop-out rate, and Billy refused to be just another fresher who dropped off the face of the earth.

It was nice to have a jog into the thin strip of forest that the college seemed have bought to be a pleasant stripe of green forty feet in the background of the models in their early thirties wearing backpacks that came around about once a year to pose for photos that would make the college look more fun-loving and ethnically diverse on the website. It was one of the few places on campus that was far enough away from the Laundromat basement to not smell heavily of dollar-store Febreze knockoffs. Even on days when he had to substitute his morning job for an afternoon jog, because after all, no amount of Red Bull can hide the fact an all-nighter was all that stood between Billy and a “incomplete” assignment, especially not if you were the teacher’s aide who had to read the damn thing; Billy almost never saw any other students or faculty on his jogs. Unless, of course, you counted the caretaker’s distressingly fat Maine Coon a part of the faculty, but Billy had only encountered one student who was willing to argue Timmers worked for the college, and that person was a third-year law student who had just smoked a bag of marijuana so large Billy honestly wondered if it was now available at Costco.

The fact of the matter was that Billy had never seen another human walking the cross-country trail at eight in the morning, so when a slender figure stepped out from between the trees Billy let out a manly exclamation of surprise that he would insist did not sound remotely like a three-year-old girl stepping on the tail of a cat of the same age. Fortunately, that slim figure was Zoë, and she’d been friends with him long enough that there was no point in trying to fake having dignity in that moment.

“Zoë!” Billy exclaimed, deeper than his previous scream but still high enough that he took a moment to cough and compose himself before he continued, “What are you trying to do, give me a heart attack?”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Zoë said urgently, which is never a good way to start a conversation. She held out her hands in that position people usually only take if they’re trying to calm down someone who is on the verge of throwing a fit or if they’re pretending to tame a flock of velociraptors.

“You look like hell,” said Billy, which was true. She was still wearing the outfit she had been the night before, but appeared to have taken her morning shower anyway. Water dripped miserably out of her sweatshirt and dribbled down her leggings, her long black hair plastered to her face in a single black, tattered sheet. Her makeup ran down her face in long black streams that made her eyes look large and hollow, and heavy brown stripes that showed thin strips of bluish-pale skin between them.

Despite knowing as little about makeup as he could manage, Billy was aware that Zoë was not exactly a beauty vlogger and her usual approach to makeup involved pulling random tubes of liquid out of her coat pockets and saying things like, “Oh shit. I’ll just blend it out I guess.” or “Or don’t look at me! Don’t look at my eyes, I hate this, I guess I’m just catwoman now!” or “I guess that’s what blotting is for.” Somehow seeing it running off her face made it look more dramatic and distorting to her features, rather than “I’m a woman performing a musical recital and if I do not rub something on my face it will appear from where the audience is sitting that I have rubbed something on my face, but in a way I do not want.” That was definitely not the effect it was creating now; now it looked like something had tried to rub her face off her head.

Billy thought that he could see faint white etching of frost forming on her hands and up her neck, but he was fairly sure that was an optical illusion caused by the thin light through the branches and the part of his sock that melted snow had now soaked through sending a “it’s too cold out here to be alive” message every few seconds.

“Billy.” Zoë said urgently. She stumbled forward, her legs seemingly unwilling to bend properly. Her hand grasped his shoulder, so cold he inhaled sharply with pain. It was like the mere touch of her skin on the fabric of his sweatshirt was actively stabbing him through to the bone with knives so cold his flesh stuck to the blade like lips on cold metal. She looked into his eyes and he shuddered again. There was something wrong with her eyes, they looked concave, like the eyes on fish that has no business being still sold as edible at that age.

With apparent effort, Zoë forced out another four words. Though the phrase was short, each word was spoken with the slow intensity of someone fighting both the urge to scream in someone’s face and the urge to collapse with exhaustion. Billy was far too distressed by the state of his friend to notice that, as thin and breathy as her voice was, she didn’t inhale before speaking.

“Leave the reindeer alone.”

Startled and not yet getting a concept out of what Zoë had just said, Billy pulled away from her instinctively. He tried to parse out a meaning from her statement, but with only half of a mind on the subject, as the rest of his mind was taken up by worrying about what Zoë had done to get in that condition, it seemed meaningless.

“What happened to you?” Billy asked, trying to fight his urge to recoil and losing. Zoë simply shook her head and began to back away. Okay, she was clearly not in a state to discuss it, maybe once she had warmed up and was in a safe place and dry clothes he, or maybe a therapist, could get her to talk about what had happened. Billy didn’t like the idea of that, he was bad at giving emotional support and would much rather hurt whoever hurt his friend. To be honest, he didn’t have any experience fighting someone physically, but he was very big and muscular and thought he had pretty good odds beating up someone if he had to. After all, he was motivated, and more importantly, he was eighteen, and eighteen year olds have an inflated concept of their ability to come out on top in a fight.

Someone had hurt his best friend and he needed her well enough to tell him who it was before he beat the tar out of them. That meant getting her inside immediately. She probably already had hypothermia, based on the fact it was late December and she was dripping wet.

“Let’s get you inside.” said Billy, taking a cautious step towards Zoë. She drew further back, stepping over a fallen branch without taking her eyes off of Billy. He put up his hands as unthreateningly as possible.

“You’re going to be okay.” he insisted, moving closer. Zoë shook her head, she looked like she might burst into tears at any moment, but god what was wrong with her eyes? Every time Billy tried to make eye contact with her, he felt something deep inside himself forcing him to look away before he figured out what he was looking away from.

“Leave the reindeer alone.” Zoë repeated, her voice low and urgent. Billy lifted his hand, and much quicker than he would have expected, she spun around and walked briskly back into the woods. He broke off into a run after her. Cross-country it was. While it seemed that every branch in the forest was trying to high-five his face, Zoë moved forward quickly without appearing to be impeded by the woods at in the least. Branches cracked loudly as he pushed by them, snow crunched beneath his soaking wet sneakers, his breath came in long ragged gasps as he ran. Strangely, it seemed like the only noises in the forest were the ones Billy was making himself.

“Zoë!” Billy cried out, not expecting her to react but desperately wanting a noise to blot out the awful silence around him. She didn’t appear to hear him at all, and she certainly didn’t call back. Zoë made no sound. Not even the woods made a sound, no birds chirping or squirrels chittering threats to animals fifty times their size, no distant sounds of other students waking up in the campus just beyond the trees.

Billy had no idea how she managed to walk that fast, but at least it meant she was doing better than she looked like, he wouldn’t have expected someone who looked as bad as she did to be able to walk at all. He should have caught up to her by now, Billy thought, pressing on with a fresh gust of effort, but she seemed to only get further away the more he ran. He ignored the pain and the wet and the branches lashing out at him, not daring to take his eyes off of Zoë least he lose sight of her. She was getting harder to follow, her wet gray sweatshirt blending into the shadows between the trees. She moved silently behind a tree and failed to emerge from the other side. Billy blinked furiously and forced himself forward a few more yards, as his mind argued between the two ideas that if she stopped behind that tree, he could catch up, and the fact that tree was too young and thin to hide a toaster behind it, much less a teenage girl. He grabbed onto the tree when he reached it, more to stop himself from falling facelong into the snow than anything else.

Bent over double, face red as plastic holly, Billy gave up on catching Zoë and tried to catch his breath instead. He was fast enough on the sports field, but he knew that in a footrace Zoë could overtake him nine times out of ten. The tenth time Billy wasn’t sure if Zoë was just sick of being asked to a rematch and let him win one. She was shorter, but had much longer strides than he did. Billy pressed his eyes closed and cursed himself internally for not thinking of this sooner. No one went off the trail in these woods, she could run as fast as she could, but her footprints would still lead Billy to wherever she stopped.

He opened his eyes but didn’t straighten up. He looked at the snow. Billy wasn’t much of a tracker, but he could tell the difference between four inches of untouched snow and snow someone had just walked through. He was so sure she had been standing just here when he lost sight of her, that this was the tree she had darted behind. He glared at the tree accusingly, as if it were the tree’s fault that he lost track of her. Taking a deep breath, Billy drew up to his full height and looked around. Behind him, there was a distinct path he had been crashing along as he chased her, but aside from that Billy had no indication of where he was. He inhaled deeply, and the cold air was like daggers on his heaving lungs. How could he had been enjoying the weather less than half an hour ago? It was less than half an hour, wasn’t it? How long had he been running through the woods? He might not have been used to running between trees but he was still exhausted. He even didn’t feel this tired at the end of a football match, so how long had he been in the woods? He looked around, trying to remember which way the shadows were falling when he started his run, less to guess at how long he’d been out there and more to see if he’d gotten turned around. He must have done, Billy reasoned, as the woods weren’t that deep. It was just a strip of young trees between the quad and the river, wasn’t it? He should have been able to see at least one of them from any point in the woods.

Finally, Billy’s eyes fell on something other than glittering white snow and twisted branches. In the snow, not far from him, the trees thinned enough that there was what should have been another stretch of unbroken snow. But this snow had fresh tracks left in it. Sadly, he could tell in a moment that these were the tracks of an animal, not Zoë, but they were so odd that for a moment, Zoë flew from his mind. They were large, but delicate and round, cleft in the middle like a deer but with two dots behind them. Part of Billy thought that they looked a little like rabbit ears with little round eyes under them, but he had as little experience with rabbits as with deer.

The strange thing about the prints is that they started in the very center of the clearing and moved out into the deeper woods, like some giant hand had placed the animal delicately in the center of the clearing and let it wander away. Billy put that thought out of his mind, because it was ridiculous, it was creeping him out, and if the animal had held still while the snow started to fall that could have covered its tracks. Probably. Not that it had snowed in the past week, but Billy put this out of his mind and moved closer to the tracks.

These tracks were broad and easy to follow, even with him churning up the snow beside them as he traced their path. He asked himself why he was following these tracks when Zoë was clearly in danger of something, but he found himself reluctant to give up on them and look for signs of someone who hadn’t left any tracks he could follow until this point. There was a movement at the edge of his vision, and Billy began moving towards it before he fully looked up. Maybe these tracks had lead him to Zoë after all. There was something grey moving between the trees, and his heart shot up in his chest with hope, failing to quiet down appropriately when he saw whatever it was it was far too large to be Zoë. And whatever it was, it was moving towards him.

Billy held still for a moment, not daring to move lest whatever it was spook as easily as Zoë did. Maybe it was her, after all, and she was just much closer than he thought she was. No. It was coming out of the trees now, it was looking at him, and it was clearly what left the hoofmarks.

As he had been conscious the past few years, Billy was aware of the movie Frozen and was able to think “Yeah, I guess that looks like the reindeer owned by dude who people keep saying I look like, so I guess that’s what reindeer look like.” despite the fact a small part of him had until this point always pictured reindeer as looking more like Bambi than Sven. Whatever it was, it was wearing a bright red bridle so it was clearly tame. Also, he rationalized, a wild animal wouldn’t be happily trotting up to a human it had never seen before.

“Hey.” said Billy weakly, holding up his hand and immediately feeling stupid for doing so. The reindeer cocked its head and trotted forward a few more steps.

“I, uh, don’t have anything…” Billy said quickly, patting down his pockets. A reindeer with a bridle walking up to a random human was definitely something that had broken out of a petting zoo. That would account for why the red bridle covered in round brass bells.

“I know.”

Billy blinked hard and cocked his head. The reindeer looked down at him. Billy had really not expected reindeers to be this big, but that didn’t account for where the voice came from.

“Who’s there?” asked Billy, looking around.

“I am.” said the reindeer. Billy hadn’t caught its mouth moving but that was definitely where the sound was coming from. He took in the bizarre appearance of the enormous creature. It’s antlers seemed to branch up forever into the trees, its thick creamy-white mane shook gently with every breath. Thick white and brown fur covered powerful muscles and the smell coming off of it was like nothing Billy had ever experienced. Because he was watching it so closely, he could see the dark, furry lips form the words, “You’ve lost your friend.”

It wasn’t a question.

Mind racing, Billy desperately tried to figure out what the appropriate thing to do in this situation was. Either he was losing his mind, in which case what he did next didn’t really matter, or a reindeer was talking to him.

“Do you know where Zoë is?” Billy asked carefully. The animal smiled. It’s mouth wasn’t suited for it, and there was something very odd about the teeth.

“I can take you to her.” the reindeer replied.

This was weird. There was no getting around that. He had just found a talking reindeer in woods that were much, much bigger than they were on the outside, but the important thing was that Zoë was still missing.

“I promise,” the reindeer said slowly, with a warm and husky voice. Billy couldn’t quite understand how the animal’s lips were forming English sentences, but they were definitely moving in time with the speech. Tentatively, Billy reached forward and touched the animal’s head. Warmth immediately flooded into his hand, and the reindeer rubbed against it affectionately. It reminded Billy how cold he was, and suddenly all he wanted was to bury himself in the animal’s fur and start feeling his fingers again.

“I promise to bring you to Zoë.” the reindeer repeated. Billy flexed his cold fingers. If he was this cold, then Zoë, soaking wet and turning blue, needed help now. The last doubt out of his mind, Billy moved to the reindeer’s side and tried to figure out the fastest way to get up it. Steeling himself, he took a firm hold of the red bridle and swung his weight up on the animal’s back with all his might. He got a leg over and pulled himself into a balance, and it seemed to him that the reindeer flexed its muscles to settle him more firmly astride itself. Warmth flooded up into Billy from the thick, shaggy fur.

For a moment, there was nothing but the stillness of the woods and the ragged warm fur beneath Billy’s hands. Neither of them moved. Then, he heard the animal’s voice again.

“Dear god, you are stupid.” said the reindeer.

Before Billy had fully registered what the reindeer had said, the thick, warm fur wriggled around his hands like maggots eating a corpse and tightened onto every part of him it could grab. Like thick cords, the fur wrapped itself around his fingers, his wrists, and up his arms. A sickening thought crushed the air out Billy’s lungs: This was not a reindeer. Billy knew almost nothing about reindeer but this was not a reindeer and it never had been one.

The reindeer arched this neck back and laughed, its mouth opening at entirely the wrong angle and showing entirely the wrong set of teeth. It was as if someone had transplanted a wolf’s mouth into a reindeer’s head, but did it wrong so that the mouth could open up to an obtuse angle. A long, horrible tongue rolled past the fangs and writhed in the air like a dying snake as the creature snarled out a sickening noise that was slightly an agonised screech but mostly a cruel laugh.

Billy became aware of the fact he was screaming and probably had been since the fur moved. The creature’s laughter rang through the icy woods, echoing and shattering icicles off the trees. The animal reared, and Billy hoped for a moment it would throw him off but the fur moved like snakes, rooting him firmly to the spot.

Then it ran.

Ice-encased branches whipped across his face, but could not dislodge him even when he pulled with the force. The forest was still morning-bright, the sunlight cracking through the branches and casting a thousand periwinkle-blue shadows dancing around the snow like dying spiders. The not-a-deer’s hooves passed over the landscape, sending a flurry of snow in its wake.

Before them, the woods appeared to finally thin. They were reaching the edge of the woods, and a last gasp of hope awoke in Billy’s chest. If they got out of the woods, would the not-a-deer let him go? Was that it’s plan all along? Sunlight danced on the ice, and Billy’s breath caught in his throat. He knew what the thing’s destination was. He threw himself as hard to the left as he could, but something… momentum? The twisting fur? The sheer will of the creature? Righted him again. There was nothing Billy could do.

They were heading right for the river.

With a leap, the not-a-deer broke out of the woods, hanging in the air for a moment, the icy surface of the river sparkling beneath them like a delicate spun glass sheet.

“The ice!” Billy screamed. “It won’t hold us!” But even as he wailed these words, Billy knew that was exactly the idea. The crash of hooves meeting ice was enormous, but even that was drowned out by the sickly crack of the ice’s surface giving way. Billy’s last scream was cut off as the water hit him; he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t move, all he felt was the water shredding icy cold through his whole body, it felt like even his heart forgot to beat.

Billy knew he was going to die. He would probably drown before he froze to death, and all that was left to do was decide if he was going to die with his eyes closed or not. It was the only choice he had left in this world. Billy forced his eyes open against the icy water. At what he saw, he almost wished he hadn’t.

Zoë’s body floated unfettered mere yards away from him. Her eyes were closed, her skin was discolored, and her hair floated around her face like smoke. Blood cut red streamers in the water from where something with a large mouth and sharp teeth had removed a chunk of her leg. But still, he could see it was just a taste missing. This was where the thing took it’s meals. This was not a dinner table, this was a larder. This was were the thing brought it’s meat to eat slowly over the long, cold winter.

There was something else in the water, something small and moving towards him. It didn’t swim, it didn’t float, it merely stood upright in the water, pulled ever closer to Billy by some unseen force. It was also Zoë. But it was Zoë as he saw her in the woods before this all started. She was underwater with him, but water dripped off her heavily, tears rolled down her cheeks from her sunken, lifeless eyes. Billy knew no sound could carry through water, so when he heard Zoë speak, he knew she wasn’t using her mouth to do it.

“I told you.” said Zoë’s ghost, her voice trembling. “I told you.”

Billy couldn’t respond, his lungs full of water, but his last thought as the cold and the water and the shock drained what little life was left in him, was this:

I found Zoë after all. I found her.

Above the surface, the ice rocked gently and slowed in its movements. The world was quiet, but after a few moments, one finch let out a tentative twitter. The silence of the wood was broken. The thing had fed once again. A few more animals dared to start moving. What appeared to be a small clump of leaves stood up and stretched its back. Timmers shook snow out of his fluffy mane and trotted delicately to the edge of the river. Humans were so horribly predictable: they see an animal and automatically assume it’s there for their benefit. Timmers had long since stopped trying to warn the students about the pooka himself, no amount of purring around their ankles or hissing and charging from the woods or growling ominously at the river seemed to do any good. Every human who had gone to the river had met the pooka and every human who met the pooka were drowned by it.

Timmers thought that this time, leading a real human with a real voice, even if they were a ghost at the moment, to the next victim would have some effect. The plan had almost worked perfectly: the ghost had spoken to her friend, the human was warned, and he still jumped on the reindeer the first chance he got. Timmers stretched out his body in the feline equivalent of a sigh of resignation and turned back to the caretaker’s cottage, where a tin of good wet food and an army blanket twisted into a turban-like affair waited for him in front of the electric heater, Timmers’ salary for his important work on campus, even if no one bothered to listen to him.

There was just no helping humans.

#Billy and Zoë #stuff Kittywitch wrote #holidays #horror

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kindabraveandlittlestupid · 6 years ago

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Couples Costumes

So Halloween snuck up on me this year because it’s fucking tomorrow and I kinda forgot about it with all the things on the news. I had a handful of Halloween related posts that I wanted to post and while I managed to get a few done, the ones that require some photoshop work are still on my ‘To Do List’. Clearly, I went a little overboard with my post here posting 45 Halloween Costumes above (I am counting the classic Batman Costumes and the Wayne/Garth pics as just two costumes, so yes my math is sound).

I WAS planning to do a Velma/Shaggy or Salt/Snail costume with my S.O. but I am remarkably alone yet again, woe is me and my pity party. ^_^ Not being a downer, I promise. *Slaps Cheeks* Back on topic, Michael! You're rambling again. Yeah so here is a list of costumes. I might make another list next year but let's be honest the best couples costumes will be on this post. If you have your ideas/suggests I love to hear/see them in the notes.

Cartoons

Ash & Misty (Pokemon) - Kind of a classic costume these days as they are both iconic. Who wouldn't want to see their girlfriend in some jean shorts tiny yellow tank top? Misty can be switched out for sexy Pikachu.

Bob & Louise (Bob’s Burgers) - Lots of great characters in the show but none better than Bob and Louise (sorry Tina fans). This would be a fun outfit to host a party and cook burgers. Just a thought.

Birdman & Birdgirl (Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law) - Fun costume for Adult Swim lovers. I love for my girlfriend to do that inner monologue out in the open the way Birdgirl does. I could also switch Harvey out for Phil because “Ha Ha Naughty”.

Max & Roxanne (Goofy Movie) - Simple costume with some paint on the nose and select clothes. I suspect only the 80′s thru 90′s kids would make the connection but the Z Generation has proved me wrong before.

Wanda & Cosmo (Fairly Oddparents) - Not my favorite costume set but one that would be fun if we had a kid who we were fairy godparents too.

Curious Georgia & Man in the Yellow Hat (Curious George) - This is all the excuse you need to jump on my back or my front or my bed.

Alice & The White Rabbit (Alice in Wonderland) - Alice in Wonderland has lots of males to dress up as between the March Hare, White Rabbit, Mad Hatter and more. I am sure you girls like options.

Lilo & Stitch (Lilo & Stitch) - If I had four arms the sexy stuff we would do in bed but I don't sadly. However, I can make a great stitch voice not that a cartoon voice does much for you.

Jack Skellington & Sally (Nightmare Before Christmas) - I might be too broad shouldered for this sort of couples costume but if my partner is willing I am game.

Mavis & Jonathan (Hotel Transylvania) - Mavis is perhaps a little to cute. I mean kind of a strange crush on a little vampire girl, so yeah I am not against someone cosplaying her for me.

Nick Wilde & Judy Hopps (Zootopia) - A little bit anthropomorphizing of Nick and Judy but they got good chemistry and so do we.

Spinelli & T.J. (Recess) - Not to take an innocent toon in a wrong direction but you know they probably smoked weed in high school together and T.J. convinces her to wear a dress for prom but no doubt still has her boots on. They make a cute couple to say the least.

Finn & Fionna (Adventure Time) - Heroes of Adventure Time! Sadly (not really sad about that) I am not blonde but we can always up on some

Velma & Shaggy (Scooby Doo) - Yet another cartoon crush. I like a nerd and a little thick Velma.

Fred & Wilma (The Flintstones) - Costumes are epic enough being basically caveman tunics. I can get behind this costume more if we had a Pebbles or Bam Bam to take out trick or treating.

Movies

Black Widow & Captain America (Avengers) - If I could afford it I would be Stark. If my hair was longer I would be Thor. Perhaps Hawkeye would be a better pairing. Regardless Black Widow is a woman among many men. This means you get your pick of which hero I dress up as.

Sam & Suzy (Sunrise Kingdom) - Kind of a hipster approach towards Halloween but sometimes being a nitch audience is ok.

Max & Furiosa (Mad Max) - If my girlfriend had a buzzed head, (for whatever reason that was) Mad Max would be an awesome costume to do together.

Mask & Tina Carlyle (The Mask) - I am a big Jim Carry fan so any excuse to dress up as his characters is a win. Camren Diaz was also smoking hot in this film.

Ash & Sheila (Army of Darkness) - Ash is pretty badass and the number 1 reason to dress as him is to have a chainsaw on your hand and double barrel shotgun on your back.

Dorthy & Scarecrow (Wizard of Oz) - I can also be a Tinman or Lion for your pleasure. That and you can be a green witch... no, I think prefer Dorthy.

Mary Poppins & Bert (Mary Poppins) - This costume would be so much better if I could sing or dance but I can't so I won't.

Aragorn & Arwen (Lord of the Rings) - If I find a woman into the Lord of the Rings (and Game of Thrones) she might be a keeper.

Harry Potter & Hermione Granger (Harry Potter) - Am I the only one who is upset Harry didn't hook up with Hermione? Am I the only one upset Emma Watson didn't hook up with me? Am I rambling? Should I shut up now?

Peter & Gamora (Guardians of the Galaxy) - Might easily be my favorite couple in the MCU. Gonna be a long night painting my girlfriend green.

Beetlejuice & Miss Argentina (Beetlejuice) - Again painting the girlfriend green and myself white! I suppose you could be Lydia and I can actually do a great impression of Michael Keaton's Beetlejuice.

Morticia & Gomez Addams (The Addams Family) - I would pay Thing if I could but sadly I can not disembody may hand and have it run around. I will have to settle for Gomez but your free to pick between Morticia or Wednesday.

Wayne & Garth (Waynes World) - Playing to males? Meh sure. I loved this movie and I don't mind some cross-dressing for my partner. Just gonna be weird when Wayne makes out with Garth.

Shows

Burt Macklin & Janet Snakehole (Parks and Rec) - I am a special agent on a mission and your a wealthy widow with a secret. Only Parks and Recs fans will get this and that's just fucking great. Two rules though we don't break character and if I find a Johnny Karate, I must fight him.

Dexter Morgan & Hannah McKay (Dexter) - Might have been one of the hottest love scenes in a TV show ever. This costume works well with the plastic wrap and doubly fun to take it off you later.

Eleven & Mike (Stranger Things) - Pretty adorable couple on screen. Not sure about Season 2′s ‘rebel’ storyline in the city but still awesome all the same. I can't wait for season 3.

Batgirl/Catwoman & Batman (Batman Show) - I’m Batman. *Coughs* I mean I am dressed as Batman. The 1960′s Batman costume were simple but fun. Woman didnt look bad at all in their costumes either.

Daredevil & Electra (Daredevil) - I may keep it simple with the black mask and black shirt combo over the body armor. The good thing about those Marvel shows is the outfits are basic as hell.

William Riker & Deanna Troi (Star Trek) - Loved the TNG. Loved Star Trek. Can't go wrong with simple clothes and the Starfleet badge.

Comics/Video Games

Wonder Woman & Superman (DC Comics) - Open to interpretation about which Superman or Wonderwoman we are dressing up as. I have to admit the Wonder Woman movie costume was awesome.

Batman & Catwoman (DC Comics) - Few romances have ever been so ‘Cat and Mouse’ or rather ‘Bat and Cat’ than that of Batman and Catwoman. The skin-tight body suit and whip make Catwoman all that much alluring. You can decide if you want to go TV show, Cartoon, Comics, Video Game or Movie versions of Selena Kyle.

Rogue & Gambit (Marvel Comics) - A man with deep love and a woman who can never be touched by him (at least skin to skin). This is some Shakespeare level tragedy for this lovely duo.

Spiderman & Black Cat (Marvel Comics) - What can I say its the costume on Black Cat...

Link & Zelda (Legend of Zelda) - I am totally open to also as playing as Ganon if you want me to capture you and tie you down to the bed.

Misc

Mimes - A whole day of not talking to one another and miming shit out?! Sounds horrible lets just talk in private when no one is looking.

Fireman & Dalmation Girl - Who’s a good girl? Who’s a good girl? You are! Yes you are!

Little Red & Big Bad Wolf - I won't lie 90% of the reason this costume works is that it leads to sexy time in the bedroom.

Waldo & Wanda - We go to Good Will, buy a bunch of random junk. Write Property of Waldo on it and leave it around the neighborhood all night long. We can set up a Waldo themed house so people can bring items back to us.

Snail & Salt Shaker - Oh ho ho am I clever? Probably not someone has been bound to make a costume like this before. I think it be fun for you to avoid me the whole part as I walk around as a Salt Shaker.

Frankenstein & Bride of Frankenstein - Classic movie costume and its really all about the hair for the bride. I can imagine this being a big hit with the kids and fun for a monster movie night.

Regards Michael California

#Halloween #Happy Halloween #All Hallows Eve #Couples Costumes #Relationships #Couples #Costumes

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amorremanet · 8 years ago

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holy excited opinion-sharing!

Okay, so, for anyone who needs a laugh and likes anything related to Batman, I seriously recommend last year’s, “Return of the Caped Crusaders” from DC animated

It’s a 50th anniversary tribute to the campy 60’s Batman TV show (complete with Adam West as Bruce, Burt Ward as Dick, Julie Newmar as Catwoman, and a moment where Batman sees triple while looking at Catwoman, and the other two Catwomen are Eartha Kitt and Lee Meriweather). The plot and the hijinks are suitably ridiculous for a tribute to 60’s campy Batman, there is all of the outrageous wordplay (and of course, a ton of weird, “Holy [insert something here]!” catchphrases from Robin), it’s colorful and wacky and just really, really fun

Personally, my favorite part of it is that the flick is self-aware but without being obnoxiously meta or a gritty deconstruction or anything. Like, it takes a couple of shots at contemporary, grimdarker takes on Batman — though, relative to the source material, “contemporary” means, “anything from Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman movie forward (except for the Joel Schumacher Bat-flicks, since they’re not grimdark),” so there are myriad shout-outs to and, “ha ha GOTCHA” moments aimed at the Burtonverse, the Nolanverse, the 90’s animated series, and a handful of other Bat-nonsense

—but unlike all the times when a grimdark and gritty Bat-something has pointlessly kicked the 60’s TV show in the stomach for no reason beyond, “ew, it’s SILLY, and CAMPY, and FUN, how very dare it be silly and campy and fun, this is BATMAN, show a little gravitas (and for our purposes, ‘gravitas’ means ANGST AND MISERY AND UNRELENTING GRIMDARK BC THAT IS HOW YOU MAKE ~*TRUE ART*~” or whatever? “Return of the Caped Crusaders” isn’t here to deconstruct anything or really bash any other Bat-stories.

Seriously, this movie just wants to be weird and silly and have a good time, and it does all of those things. The self-awareness also helps enhance the campiness, for me, like? “Return of the Caped Crusaders” doesn’t mock the 60’s TV show, but celebrates and revels in it

All that the self-awareness ends up meaning here is that, now, the text is in on the joke of how silly and campy it is. And, being in on the joke now, it invites everyone to have a good time while: the Riddler geeks out about stealing the world’s first puzzle; Penguin and Catwoman shoehorn weird references to birds and cats respectively into random bits of conversation for no particular reasons; the Joker tells jokes that the movie admits are not funny and laughs at his own schtick anyway; the Chief of Police and Commissioner Gordon are totally inept but endearing; Batman and Robin make bigger reaches and leaps of logic than Jeff Goldblum in Independence Day but it works;

Robin regularly says shit like, “Holy crumbling infrastructure!” (that was in response to a ton of potholes); he and Batman escape an over-the-top death trap that defies all logic and fly a Bat-Rocket into space because of reasons; there is an abandoned frozen food factory that has a sign outside that says, “abandoned frozen food factory” and inside of it is a giant oven with a sign above it that says, “GIANT OVEN”; and Bruce appears to flirt with Robin and Catwoman in more or less equal amounts while Dick’s Aunt Harriet thinks that the big secret at Wayne Manor is that Bruce and Dick are constantly sneaking off to have dates and/or sex — and we all know that it’s ridiculous, but it’s fun, and that’s kind of the point

(—as far as that goes with Dick… eh? Since it’s based on the campy TV show version of Batman and company, Dick is still officially Bruce’s ward, and there’s one moment where Catwoman asks if Robin is even old enough to drive the freaking Catmobile and he quips about having a learner’s permit… but the movie overall still treats him as if he is in his mid-twenties, and there is basically nothing paternal or even vaguely familial about his and Bruce’s relationship.

Because it’s based on the 60’s camp TV show, where Batman and Robin sure do act like boyfriends and regularly say and do things that sound like sexual innuendos, all while maintaining that they are only the most hetero of upstanding super-chums, much like the insistence that anyone aboard the USS Enterprise is straight when they are clearly not)

Basically, it’s ridiculous, colorful, silly, so far over-the-top that it can no longer see the top and may have just left this plane of existence entirely, beautifully and indulgently campy, and blah blah blah with all the emotional realism and the serious business, because I love that stuff with my superheroic shenanigans, too — but “Return of the Caped Crusaders” is just good, exuberant, campy fun and that’s all that it needs to be. I haven’t laughed that hard in a while, and I cannot recommend this flick enough

Also, Batman and Catwoman dance the Batusi over the end credits, because of course they do, because why the heck not

#mine: dc #opinions for ts #kassie hush #batman for ts #na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na BATMAN!!!#return of the caped crusaders #look i'm not kidding about my love of Serious Business superhero junk (*gestures at my novel & jason todd tag*)#………but it's okay for them to be fun too. and let's face it: sometimes there's not a lot of fun to go around #like damn i'm not a hero & never will be but i'm pretty sure torture isnt on the list of shit that people who ARE heroes should be condoning #and sometimes it's just not enjoyable to be seriously serious all the time #and sometimes superheroes are just not adaptable to the kinds of serious business that people try to make them do for grimdark's sake #(—i say while very fucking pointedly arching an eyebrow at 'identity crisis' & a lot of post-killing joke joker stories.#you know… the ones where they took 'the killing joke' as a license to make the joker do even more horrible shit than he already did #because clearly that was totally necessary. & not that some of them haven't been good or i haven't enjoyed any of them -i mean. 'a serious #house on serious earth' is one of my favorite batman stories ever & you can't have it without joker- but they've also gotten increasingly #gratuitous since 'the killing joke' and most of the time? it's not saying anything new or interesting or compelling; it's just having the #joker be as over the top cruel and gratuitously sadistic and awful as possible just because they can)#(…despite how this tirade sounds i'm not actually trying to aim it at leto!joker & frankly if i were then i would have to make a similar #indictment of ledger!joker bc while he's an example of this trend being done WELL… uh. he's still an example of the trend & his view of the #world & how it works is very blatantly based on 'the killing joke'!joker but magnified by a power of ten soooo yeah)#(anyway cesar romero was an infinitely better joker than jared leto or jack nicholson could ever hope to be. rest in peace cesar. ❤)#but seriously though: 'return of the caped crusaders' is such a good okay #long ish post probably/

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