#he's such a cool character in the comic

[meraki-yao]

Watching Agatha All Along again after giving up on Marvel for three years made me think about why I gave it up in the first place.

I was so deep in the MCU. I cried so much during Infinity War that I struggled to walk out of the cinema. I watched Endgame on the first day that it was released. My diary was a CACW notebook. Part of the reason I took up STEM subjects was because of Marvel.

And then after watching MoM in theatres, I stopped.

I'm trying to phrase and figure out what made me give up something I was so invested in, something I loved so much. I think I know why.

The MCU period I was active in gave me characters that I ended up loving, and the later period took them away.

My two favourite characters were ruined. Their character arcs and core characters undone. I'm worried about my favourite too.

I hate it when the sequel undermines the previous works.

When I think of Steve Rogers, I don't think of the guy who chose to either fuck up the entire timeline of the MCU or sat quietly and watch the world in turmoil, his allies die tragically, and his best friend left to a fate worst than dead to get with a girl he wasn't even dating, a woman who had a life of her own and moved on.

I think of Steve from CATWS, the guy from Brooklyn who still does the right thing in a time when morals are blurred. The Steve who is kind, compassionate and brave. The Steve who inspired the base-level employees of SHEILD to follow his example and not bow down in the face of tyranny. The Steve who just had one mission, and that was standing up to bullies.

When I think of Wanda, I don't think of the insane, manic witch/evil goddess who killed thousands mercilessly even though there was a harmless solution, who after all she lost, somehow only wanted her children who she had for three days instead of also her love and her twin.

I think of Wanda, the girl who lost it all, who's family was all killed, who was denied a burial for Vision, who was left alone and abandoned in the world, with so much love in her heart that no longer had a place, a person to go to. The girl who feels so much so deeply that it bended reality. The girl who had to learn, who had to give up her dream, but did so, because at the end of the day, she is a kind person, who doesn't want to hurt people. She was wrong, she takes time to understand and accept the harm she's caused (as we all do), and then makes it right. She tries to be good. Despite everything, she tries.

The later stages of MCU took these two characters that mean so much to me personally, and ruined them.

And I'm fucking mad at them, because it disrespected all the work that made me love them in the first place, and it was preventable. (The original script for MoM where Wanda helps Strange but repeatedly gets tempted by the Darkhold is a much more convincing narrative.)

And I'd say the same applies to others: Natasha, Thor, Bruce, even Strange (although I feel like they never really figured out what they wanted to do with Strange's character)

I miss my characters, I miss my MCU.

[noodles-and-tea]

Continuation of this

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF Pizza sim’s plot is just the Afton’s fighting

[professorcalculusstanaccount]

How would you describe Chang's relationship with his adoptive parents in your wonderful au?

Chang is adopted pretty quickly, so it's likely they didn't get much time to get to know each other as well as most adopted families nowadays. My thoughts on Chang and his adopted family are below!

Chang's heroism in The Blue Lotus was impressive, which leads to lofty expectations Chang himself feels incapable of meeting. He struggles to adapt to life in Shanghai, the Wangs' upper middle class culture and has problems at school, having missed out on a few years of education and a lot of unresolved trauma.

He's frustrated at his own inability to fit in, and guilty about flubbing this opportunity at life they gave him. Part of him feels like he's tearing their family apart. The Wangs are desperately trying to give Chang a good life, but feel completely out of their depth.

He also can't help but compare himself to Didi, his much older adopted brother and their biological son, who is scarily competent and a clear favourite of their mother.

Didi is aware that his father may have expectations for Chang to join the Sons of the Dragon. Having experienced the pressure and danger first-hand he takes it upon himself to foster a sense of agency in Chang so he will be capable of choosing for himself when the time comes. Didi trains Chang in martial arts and is tough on him in general, but encourages Chang to travel when he expresses an interest in it. Chang on the other hand encourages Didi to have fun and let loose!

Mr Wang has high expectations for Chang because he believes in him. He and Mrs Wang genuinely care for him and only want the best possible life for him, but this sometimes comes across as them expecting Chang to be somebody else. They first thought Chang was much like Didi, disciplined and quiet, but Chang's rebellious streak catches them off guard. Mrs Wang is particularly shaken.

It struck me how gentle the Wangs were with Didi while he was under the influence of madness poison, and as they are good friends with a mental health specialist, they would absolutely take Chang's mental health seriously. Whether or not they fully understand each other is another thing. As Chang slips into a deep depression they decide to send him off to London to meet his uncle, hoping a change in scenery will help him. On his way through Tibet however, his plane crashes into the mountains...

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Lap Pillow

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[mischieviem]

Indulged myself for a homework assignment

[yasmeensh]

Zelda 2 Link my beloved

[gamebunny-advance]

Some skrunkly Oatchis from the official Pikmin comic.

Bonus mamuta bugging out their eyes 'cus i think it's funny but I don't feel like posting it by itself.

[zu-is-here]

<– • –>

[necrotic-nephilim]

what's fun about shipping Tim with Dick, Jason, or Damian is he has, at some point, hallucinated all of them to comfort himself. even when he doesn't like them or particularly get along with them, he has to imagine/hallucinate them just so he has the power to go on. Tim's concepts of the Robin mantle and what it should be is so fun, because he respects the others through the Robin mantle. Tim worships Dick because he was the first Robin. he wouldn't be Robin if Jason hadn't died in the mantle. and a lot of his frustration with Damian is he feels Damian isn't honoring the mantle correctly. when you ship Tim with the other Robins you can't divorce their identities as Robin from it because Tim will always see them as a Robin first and that's so fun and fucked up. like.

batman (1940) #456

Tim perceiving Dick as *Robin* cheering him on, not Nightwing, which is the version of Dick that Tim actually knows? that's just. wild of him. he will always view Dick as Robin first, his personal hero but also the original of the legacy. his love for Dick is shaped by that.

and then of course, even when he's hallucinating/imagining Jason cheering him on, it's *still* through the lense of being reminded how Jason failed? subconsciously believing that Jason got himself killed because of his actions, and that being a lesson for Tim to learn from? Jason isn't a person to Tim, he's a moral lesson about how to be Robin. any potential idolization he could have of Jason isn't because he loves Jason, it's because of the lessons Jason's death taught him.

and then, even though him hallucinating TIm is from the New-52, which makes characterization all kinds of questionable, i do think it makes sense for TIm to hallucinate/imagine Damian after Damian's death in an attempt to cope with it.

teen titans (2011) #18

to an extend, he sees Damian's death as in part his own fault. and even hating Damian, Tim needs the comfort from this to cope with Damian being gone. he's angry that Damian even was Robin, and has to learn something from Damian's death and how it impacts the Robin mantle, and teenage heroes as a whole. like, Tim can pretend he hates Damian all he wants, even getting taunted by the image of Damian, but there's still an underlying love to their relationship.

i think that's just the fun of shipping Tim with any of them. you will never divorce Tim's views of them from the Robin mantle and how fucking Unwell he is about anyone else who's been Robin before or after him, to the point he has to hallucinate them comforting him when he's at his lowest. it's always going to be a little unhealthy, a little toxic, and driven by Tim's relationship with being Robin as well. i need more Tim being weird about Robin in these ships.

[2004hitalbumsevenswans]

I really enjoyed Batman: Caped Crusader. I was worried (like everyone else) that Bruce Timm would push his Bruce/Barbara obsession, but they barely interact when Bruce is out of costume, and he’s all business as Batman. Barbara is (presumably) about the same age as Bruce in this adaptation, she’s a young public defender, who still lives at home with her dad. Commissioner Gordon is mentioned to have 30 years on the Gotham police force at one point. And the series is loosely based on Batman: Year One by Frank Miller, and has Matt Reeves as a producer. It’s definitely an interpretation of the early years of Batman.

The setting is vaguely and aesthetically set in the 1940s, mirroring the original Batman and riffing on DC comic stories and character interpretations from that time. Clayface’s story and appearance is based on the original interpretation of the character, which I really enjoyed - especially as someone’s who’s read the first couple years of the original Detective Comics/Batman stories. (There’s also a lot of great references to the Adam West show, and a couple of its themes are reimagined for this more noir story.)

I could see the series setting up something between Bruce and Barbara potentially, but their interactions are really blink-and-you’ll-miss-it. There’s a moment where Bruce’s is climbing back onto the Iceberg Lounge yacht and he uses a pick up line on her, which she scoffs at, then he proceeds to use the line on two other young women. There’s another moment that you could say is pre-flirting, or is at least setting up a foundation to further a relationship between the two. Where Barbara makes a comment about Batman letting himself into her office unannounced whenever he feels like it, and she tells him she needs a way to contact him, and he gives her the Batphone number. At this point I think you could make more of an argument for a Harleen/Barbara pairing than her and Bruce.

I think the characters would both individually need a lot more development to be in a romantic relationship. I’ll say this even though I know it will be an unpopular opinion: in this interpretation I wouldn’t mind putting Bruce and Barbara together. I know that’s practically sacrilege coming from someone who’s favourite character is Oracle but hear me out.

My main issues with Bruce and Barbara together (especially when it comes to Timm’s work) is the age difference. It’s often debated but Barbara in most iterations (including current comic canon) is around the same age as Dick, usually a couple of years older, 2-3 at most. Bruce is depicted as having at least 15 years on her, if not more. And most stories that have Bruce and Barbara together also fixate on her being batgirl. Then there’s the tendency to make a Nightwing-Batgirl-Batman love triangle which I don’t want to get into but I hate completely.

None of that is happening here. Barbara has her own storylines that are just as prominent as Bruce and Harvey’s. She’s an adult with agency and flaws and is just as fleshed out as any of the other characters are. I wouldn’t be surprised if the show takes a season or two to develop a romantic relationship between the two of them. Bruce is completely focused on being Batman and sees Bruce Wayne as a persona. He’s callous with peoples feelings (Harvey, notably) and is shown to struggle with smaller acts of empathy, opening himself up to people, and honestly, social skills. The last of which doesnt doesn’t affect him too negatively because he’s a rich and well known man in Gotham.

Compared to the Bruce Wayne of BTAS it was a smart choice to show a Bruce/Batman who struggles with people and emotions. It reminded me a lot of Reeves’ the Batman. In wider Batman media you usually see two types of depictions: a compassionate Batman (which is where I would place BTAS) or a more emotionless, be-stoic-and-punch-the-bad-guys-and-look-badass version that is usually just a male power fantasy.

This version of Batman sets up the foundation for a storyline that is relatively unexplored, and I’m sure they’re going to explore it more in the next season (which has already been greenlit).

I was surprised at the lack of adult themes in the show, it was marketed for an adult audience but could easily fit into a PG13 rating, but that was probably on purpose. I was impressed they managed to have so many strong, fleshed out storylines in only 10, 30 minute episodes. But I wouldn’t expect anything less of Bruce Timm, or some of the other names I recognized attached to the project in various ways (Greg Rucka, JJ Abrams, Matt Reeves, and Ed Brubaker).

While there are a lot of critiques of Timm I agree with, I generally enjoy his work and the care he puts into it. I love Greg Rucka and was really excited to see that he wrote the episode that was more Renee Montoya centric. And while I have my issues with Ed Brubaker, I do enjoy his work.

While the series is visually and technologically based around the 1940s, the politics are more modern. Harleen asks Renee out on a date and she talks about it with Barbara openly. I saw one review call the show “race blind” which I would not agree with. Most of the racism is implied through euphemism (the scene with Lucius Fox and Gentleman ghost), but it’s still felt as a point of friction for multiple characters, it affects how they interact with the world around them. There’s also a line spoken by either detective Flass or Bullock that implies no one in the GCPD wants to follow Renee because she’s gay. It’s cut off before the last word, but again, the meaning is implied.

An issue I always had with the Timmverse is its depictions of female characters. They always feel less real than their male counterparts, less important and less visually stylized. All the important (read: desirable) women have the same body shape. They’re thin and extremely, unnaturally curvy. I’m aware that these characters are supposed to evoke that 50s comic pinup imagery but I always thought it was a bit much. Male characters - even before the animation downgrade in BTAS season 4 - were always way more unique from each other than the female characters. That wasn’t something I felt with Caped Crusader. The three most prominent female characters (Barbara, Renee and Harleen) were all different from each other, with different heights, body shapes, hair and clothing styles. They also all had 3 distinct personalities that were built up through the series. I would argue that the show was as much about the “supporting cast” (characters like Harvey, Commissioner Gordon, Renee and Barbara) as it was about Batman.

Overall I was really impressed by the show. I was disappointed with how short it was. I hope that Renee’s personal life gets a focus with the next season, and I hope they bring back Greg Rucka to write it. I love how he wrote her in Gotham Central. I was a little annoyed that they introduced the Joker at the end of the series (as a peak into the next season). I think he’s too over saturated as a character, and sometimes his introduction into a Batman story takes over everything else, and he’s depicted as Batman’s Moriarty. I do have hope that this won’t happen in Caped Crusader, because it seems that villains will be reoccurring, but there’ll be a large cast, just like in BTAS. That aspect did remind me of the way characters were introduced in those early Batman comics, it really has the same vibe. I also really really do not want Harley to be involved with the Joker in any way. Please keep her as a separate character, this new interpretation of her is great as is, he doesn’t need to be involved.

I would also be interested to see if the show develops Barbara’s character into Oracle. I could see that happening with the introduction of the Joker at the end of season one. Maybe they’re going to rework the Killing Joke? I couldn’t see them having her as batgirl, but I would be interested to see how they worked Oracle into a world with 1940s technology. I’m thinking back to her as Oracle in the Doom that Came to Gotham, and how clever that was. I’m sure they could do something just as interesting with her here. Something more supernatural feels like a long shot, because Timm usually sticks to the more “realistic”, street-level versions of Batman, but they did introduce Gentleman Ghost. So it’s a possibility.

One thing I did think could have been better was some of the voice work. Not the voice acting itself, but the design. It felt too polished alongside the score and the animation. I wish the voice acting had been more atmospheric, had more depth. It felt too clean. Hamish Linklater was great as Bruce/Batman. Following Kevin Conroy is no small feat, and Linklater’s performance felt reminiscent of Conroy without sounding like an impression. It was quiet and unassuming, yet strong.

I’m not usually someone who watches things more than once, but I’m definitely going to be rewatching Caped Crusader soon.

[slymanner]

Look all I'm saying is if that a shadow game can work THAT well and be so well designed story wise and gameplay wise

HE can work

[babygirlhaljordan]

one of my biggest complaints for dc is the lack of indian ppl in gotham. like if ur setting a city in new jersey, a state thats literally dubbed as “little india” from how many indians are there yet not a single 1 in gotham?! how am i supposed to take you seriously

[hoofpeet]

I'd probably have to read the printed version and web version back to back at some point to note all the differences but... ough

[velvetwyrme]

( ❌ ) Sorry! That name is taken :(

Figuring out a username is tough. So... why not outsource it ;)?

The upcoming chapters of Flipping Fate require Edge to have a username, so we figured we should open that up to y'all to decide! This is all for fun, so go buck wild! Do you want to give him the coolest, most badass username? Or perhaps you want him to be embarrassed to even type it? (Maybe his brother got into his account and changed it?)

We'll hold another poll with your submissions once this poll ends so that you guys can decide what username he gets stuck with >;3c

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Gaslighter? I hardly know her!

[First] Prev <–-> Next