#i mean its probs something else and completely unrelated to him but im still gonna keep an eye out

[cryptidofthekeys]

ooh i do be vibin with the extreme rules music this time

time to see if somethin spooky happens bc uh,, that whole l o r e shit they been doing...

y’all im just gonna warn y’all n o w before anything happens if it does-

...if this whole thing was about Bray which I still doubt it was/is ...but if so,, I WILL 100% not shut the fuck up or be normal tonight

[astrologista]

jason stop dying

ooooook i just watched ditf. it was PRETTY GOOD.... i only wish there was MOOORE! watching this REALLY brought me back to 2011 times to see it and i think they did a good job with most of the character design and animations insofar as matching it to the original. (maybe i’m totally wrong but i thought it looked good for the most part... also i just really love these character designs in particular). obviously the budget is not what it would be on a feature, so there are a LOT of places where animation gets recycled and many still frames. some parts are basically a slideshow lol. but i only sort of came to that realization awhile after watching, so i think they did a fairly good job of masking this... ymmv

so let’s get into it!!! 

SPOILERS a-head! do not read until you’ve watched it because i’ll spoil everything

now obviously the thing to be aware of if you are not is the fact that this adaptation is not a panel-by-panel adaptation of the original death in the family comic. all references to jason’s mother (save one mention of her dying of illness) are completely removed, they go to bosnia instead of africa, and the circumstances around jason leaving are also heavily altered to fit the new narrative. this adaptation does slot perfectly into the universe established by the under the red hood animated movie from 2011 though, without which one would be pretty confused when watching this. it’s kind of a mystery as to why they didn’t just package this with utrh and release the entire thing as a collectors edition. instead they package it with like 4 or 5 unrelated dc showcase shorts which makes absolutely 0 sense but go off i guess. anyway

i liked that they took the time to adapt the scene from the original ditf where bruce is talking to alfred about jason! (i do not like that alfred didn’t get any lines. bad choice). tbh i can’t understand why they bothered showing us alfred, barbara and dick if they weren’t gonna give them any lines..... like come on........??

HOW INTENSE BRUCE LOOKS WHEN HE FINDS JASON IN SARAJEVO and just. grabs him lol. hes smad :)

ok so one two skip a few and we get to the first branch. instead of calling 1-900 we now get to choose whether jason lives or dies. there are 7 possible endings i think i got em all so let’s see what we got here.

“Hush” Route - Robin cheats death

hgrgdggr. i definitely think this is one of the more interesting endings, if not the most interesting one. this is also the only ending in which both bruce and jason survive the bombing. bruce is still too late, but this time jason barely clings to life and survives. as a hurt/comfort fan i was 100% on this shit from the word go but then jason? runs away from home lmao lmao i thought that was SO funny because 1) hes super messed up, how is he able to just literally run out the house that is SO funny to me and 2) implying that bruce would ever not be keeping an eye on him after that is just, lmao. it’s so zany. i call this the “hush” route because of the bandages but there are no other references to hush so ok. that’s fair. so anyway jason is now angsty for loosely explained reasons but the most fun part is yet to come.

when talia showed up, i really thought / was terrified for a second that they were gonna bring up certain “events” regarding damian’s parentage / who damian’s father is but then she mentioned bruce and i was like OH THANK GOD WE CAN STILL GO TO HEAVEN. i am so so grateful to the writers for NOT going there. cuz it was damn close ok. im not sure what the implication of this route is in terms of talia, jason and damian being a family unit but i want to believe talia sees jason as a son and damian’s brother (which is how she refers to him, damian’s brother) and not... yknow. i mean. jason raising a baby is kind of like a baby raising a baby...

no actually the reality of this scene is really dfuckin interesting like. they actually go with the “birth of the demon” (forget if it was birth of the demon or bride of the demon. one of those.) explanation for damian and that is something i’ve NEVER seen adapted so whoever wrote this can have a cookie and i kNOW this is something a certain someone will appreciate :)

not only that but the implications? are interesting? so talia’s claim is she miscarried so bruce won’t have to “choose” between damian and jason and idk if she’s supposed to be all on the-up-and-up in this universe but. i’m sitting here like GIRL YOU DON’T GOTTA DO THIS HE HAS A PRIVATE JET HAVEN’T YOU HEARD OF SHARED CUSTODY and BETTER YET HE HAS A MANSION JUST GO ON MAURY AND GET THIS SORTED OUT RIGHT NOWwwww

i’m also LAUGHING at the implications of jason thinking theres anywhere on earth that he’s going to go and hide damian’s existence from bruce. because you already know he’s just going to be tearing the planet apart looking for jason so this is actually hilarious. imagine he finds jason in one piece and also a baby. his baby. he’d be like (@ talia) “OMG WHY WOULD YOU THINK I WOULDN’T WANT THEM BOTH u are tearing me apart talia......” BUT THEN HE WOULD BE SO FREAKING HAPPY BECAUSE HE HAS TWO ALIVE SONS AND HE THOUGHT THEY WERE BOTH DEAD / (lost to crime)!!!

please lord imagine all of jason’s angst probably just originating from the fact that he has a brain injury that hasn’t fully healed and the trauma of going through all those surgeries probably gave him a lot of fear / paranoia about bruce and associating him with the joker because his neural pathways are all messed up but after he leaves he starts slowly healing back and regaining some of his lost sanity and thats when he realizes he misses bruce so much... but hes also raising his child... and every day it gets more difficult for him not to just take damian and bring him home and i ;v;

anyway i thought this route, while it had a few inconsistencies in it, was really freaking interesting and it gave me feels and plot bunnies and is probably the one i want to write about the MOST despite the fact that baby damian looks like a character from one of those web flash games in this lol

“True” End - Jason Dies

now if you select that jason dies the route basically defaults to the canon of under the red hood and the fact that utrh does not come packaged with this movie is a rather mystifying choice to me as i don’t think this adaptation would stand on its own very well. like you need quite a bit of background to really get anything out of watching this on its own, which is probably why it’s classified as a “short” and not as its own movie.

instead of showing all of utrh, it seems they took the opportunity to give a ~30 minute recap of utrh with basically entirely reused animation but they allow bruce to sort of. give his dvd commentary over it.

the biggest feeling i have on this is that it’s sad that they had to waste 30 minutes like this that could’ve been used to do something new and much more interesting, but honestly i’m not mad. it seems kind of obvious that this choice was probably made for budget and/or runtime reasons because a short does not get the same budget set aside as a full length feature film does. so they basically took the option of recycling 30 minutes of animation from the movie and dubbing new audio over it.

in evangelion they ran out of budget and that’s why the last two episodes consist of nothing more than still pencil drawings and frames while the characters engage in philosophical debates concerning the nature of reality and human connection. and i really enjoyed that. and for the same reasons, i also really enjoyed this.

i enjoyed seeing the clark kent of this universe. i enjoyed that he was basically out on a date with bruce. i enjoyed that bruce was willing to open up for once and tell clark all of what happened with jason. but what really makes this segment shine bright are bruce greenwood’s line reads. there are SO MANY good line reads in here. and i LOVED how many times he said the word “son”. very wholesome. the way he describes how he felt during the final fight with jason? probs my favorite FUCKING part.

and then him and clark joking together about contingency plans and then they’re going to work together to find jason and i ;_; this is probably the closest thing to a “good” ending but as a continuation of utrh i thought it worked really well. i really want to believe that bruce and clark did find jason in this route and that there was some closure in the end even though we didn’t get to see it.

including clark in this was DEFINITELY the right move as well, considering that he played a rather large role in the original ditf so it’s a welcome nod.

The rest of the branches exist under a separate option where Bruce makes it in time to save Jason from the warehouse... but Bruce dies......... :O

let me tell you bout it... bruce’s fucking DEATH SCENE i don’t know WHAT my man bruce greenwood is on, but the freaking LINE READS in this dialogue had me making INHUMAN NOISES. LIKE NOT ONLY WAS THE DIALOGUE GOOD, NOT ONLY DID HE SAY “I LOVE YOU, SON”, but this man is just an amazing actor. not just voice actor, but actor. he really really really really gave it the most i don’t know how else to say it....... it was very very well done and punched me sideways in the heart and i haven’t recovered and i’m not going to recover. and

ok so once we get past that.... scene.... u have to choose whether you’re going to catch the joker or kill the joker. bruce asks jason to promise not to kill the joker but technically jason doesn’t promise so........

Let’s start by choosing to kill the Joker. Jason attends Bruce’s funeral and various members of the Justice League show up to talk with him and just generally hang out. He has Alfred, Dick and Barbara as his support system, but Jason has some other plans.

This leads to a scene in a cafe where Jason meets with a man who... something something Killing Joke, flashlight, more Barbara being used as a plot device when she deserves better, Jason kills the Joker with a butter knife.

Once you do this you can choose to surrender to the police, or retaliate and escape.

Jailbird Ending

basically if you surrender to the police jason ends up in prison where he can actually attack even more criminals so.... ya

If you retaliate and escape instead you go to the Red Robin route where Jason becomes a vigilante who kills people much like the Red Hood and you get a further choice in a fight with Two Face where you can control how Harvey’s coin lands. 

Tim Ending!

If you choose the coin to land clean face up, the thing rewards you by having Tim show up and I forgot what happened (wasn’t really paying attention lol) because i was so focused on TIM!

Prolly they felt sorry for him what with Jason stealing what is essentially his outfit (ok I know it was Jason’s first, but Tim made it cool) so they let a little baby tim have an appearance :) he’s very smol

I guess in this ending Jason gets reintegrated with the family somehow and Tim becomes “Bat-kid” which is hilarious to me but you know what it’s cute. CUTE.

The one ending where the coin lands scarred side up

i honestly forget what happens if you choose to have the coin land scarred side up but let me just say this is a FUCKED route to take, not only have you had jason survive and bruce die, you’ve now chosen to kill the joker against bruce’s dying wish, you’ve chosen to attack the police, and at the end of that you really are gonna choose harvey’s coin to be scarred face up???? choosing this made me feel like a DICK because here i am supporting jason’s whole fall to madness and villainy thing the way it wants me to and now he’s gonna die HERE? i hate it here.

interestingly enough he doesn’t actually die in this route. he ends up at home with barbara and dick while dealing with the fact that he killed the joker but the route ends with jason saying “i promise” so i guess this is supposed to be kinda sad. im so confused lol ok

So that is all the options if you choose to kill the joker, I believe. You can also make the choice to just catch him instead of killing him but amazingly enough, those routes are even more FUCKED up. 

If you do this option Jason goes home, mourns Bruce with Dick, Barbara and Alfred, and becomes Red Hood BUT with a twist, he’s entirely on a bloodless operation in line with Bruce’s wishes. OR.... IS HE?

Things then follow the events of UTRH until the scene on the bridge with the van and the guys. Jason finally confronts Joker, who reveals the truth. 

Apparently in this route Jason has actually been killing and decapitating his victims just like in the original movie, but he’s repressed it so as to not even realize to himself that he’s doing it.

that is FUCKED. also. i wanna cry because jason doing all of that stuff but not even realizing it ;------; jason blocking it out, because he wanted to honor bruce’s wishes for him not to kill anyone ;______; but he’s doing it anyway ;_____; he’s actually hearing voices telling him to kill ;____; like it’s a very cheap twist in a sense and also really quite cruel but.... damn, son.

There is a branch here where you can choose to spare or kill the Joker at this point (UNDERTALE???) but from what I can tell it seems to be totally meaningless what choice you pick because you end up at the exact same point either way, I think there’s a small variation in what happens after you make the choice but after that they just coalesce back together into the following two endings. Which seems incredibly cheap to me, I mean making a choice like that should alter Jason’s path completely but, it doesn’t! So... ooook....

Either way Jason ends up on the Wayne building and Talia shows up with a re-animated Bruce from the pit. Here’s another fun blast from the 2011 past with more gratuitous Grant Morrison dreck, remember that shit? Well, they’re gonna jam it down your throat here, too.

The reanimated Bruce is the Zur En Arrh Bruce and he’s already dead so this is all meaningless but basically Jason fights him and you get to choose whether everybody lives or dies.

Zur En Arrh - Everyone Lives!

if you pick this, jason actually gets the re-animated bruce back to the batcave and they lock him up down there because he’s still pit-mad and the prognosis is not great. but i’m not sure what they expected, he is the zur-en-arrh guy so I don’t think he’s getting better. 

Zur En Arrh - Everyone Dies!

pretty much there’s an explosion and all three of them die and that’s it

I think that should be all the possible endings there are.

By the way the different ways in which black mask dies in this was actually a fairly clever running gag lollll. let that mf burn we don’t need no water.

overall there are a couple of things i would have done to SIGNIFICANTLY improve this adaptation beyond some of the obvious ones.

- the fact that all of the branching options are branched exclusively under the “jason lives and bruce dies” branch is a huge wasted opportunity. imo this is the most egregious problem with this, i was really looking for a more balanced tree / explanation of different things. i am probably super biased though being a fic writer and used to fic, we’re the ones making huge ass trees every day lol.

- the fact that there is no “good” ending here is something i kind of expected but given the context of this is lackluster. i sort of get it though because granted, the original ditf ends in an unresolved manner but it’s distinctly unsatisfying here. i secretly wanted an ending where bruce, like, figures out about the different endings and hacks reality to try to find a good ending where jason lives and everything is fine lmao. like a bat mite ending.

- i was disappointed in a sense that the narrative given in here is so basically simplistic? maybe i’ve been spoiled by games like 999 and undertale where shit gets messy and that’s not what this is supposed to be but when i play something with multiple endings in this day and age, at least play with the concept a little bit and connect some of the branches together narratively. use different devices. i was also hoping some of the choices would be a little bit meatier like you could choose to “forgive bruce” or something cool like that lol. but it looks like the majority of choices have to do with who lives or dies. and i felt like they couldve been a bit more creative with that ya know? being able to control harvey’s coin was a GREAT example of having some more fun with this.

- it is a huge missed opportunity not to have a “secret ending” on something like this. like where. the fuck. is my secret ending for completing everything. come on. and in a similar vein there should’ve been at least something in terms of bruce and jason interacting in a “true ending”. even if very brief. the closest thing to an ending this has is the “jason died” route and then the ending where he’s talking to clark which i feel like was a REALLY nice good optimistic ending as far as this goes, but it comes off as kind of disappointing i guess

there were SO many interesting nuggets locked into this thing though. i can’t deny it bugs me how many wasted opportunities there were with how they chose to structure things but i guess it’s the best you can do with limited runtime. i thought it was really well done though, makes an interesting companion piece to the original utrh, and is definitely something that i will be re-watching again soon!! overall i give it a 7/10 and some parts an 8/10+!

[teddyaltman]

all the even numbers yo

2: do you like the feeling of cold air on your cheeks on a wintery day? yeeees omg it is snowing here rn and we just went outside and i love it i love it i looooove feeling cold but only on a lil bit of my body i hate it when im all over cold4: how do you take your coffee/tea? black and strong, no tea thanks6: do you keep plants? yes, i have one money plant and it’s now named sophie courtesy of delani8: what artistic medium do you use to express your feelings? screaming into the void (cross stitch)10: do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach? stomach unless i’m with someone else and then probs side12: what's your favorite planet? uranus duh jk mars is bright tonight14: if you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like? so my best friend has a flat in london and it’s gorgeous and i would like to live there tbh, its just full of things that make us happy like harry potter wands and two tvs so you can play xbox together on two screens and things from travels around the world and a piano and i just love it16: what's your favorite pasta dish? a no pasta dish 18: tell us about something dumb/funny you did that has since gone down in history between you and your friends and is always brought up. the time i fainted at may’s nephews graduation and got an ambulance called they’re never gonna let me live that shit down20: what's your favorite eye color? idon’t rly have a favourite but i like when you’re looking at someones eyes and they’re smiling back at u22: are you a morning person? yes! i like to get up early and curl up with a coffee and a book on a day off or when i have work i get up early to walk buddy or meg and then watch neighbours while i eat my breakfast 24: is there someone out there you would trust with every single one of your secrets? i literally talk to my dad about eveyrthing, also dan, my mum and my sisters i never keep secrets from26: what are the shoes you've had for forever and wear with every single outfit? my flowery docs!28: sunrise or sunset? oOOoOOh both?? okay gun to my head sunrise over a lake is the most beautiful thing 30: think of it: have you ever been truly scared? yes32: tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3AM when you were with friends. when we were at uni dan and i used to call each other in the middle of the night if we were walking home drunk and we just used to talk and talk about anything and everything until the drunk one was sober enough to sleep34: tell us about the stuffed animal you kept as a kid. what is it called? what does it look like? do you still keep it? a bunny called bunny that i got when i was born (okay well actually its a replacement cos i lost the original in a service station in france on the way to disney when i was 2) but i still have it and it’s gross because i used to fall asleep by chewing on her ears and holding her tight around the neck so she looks awful but she’s still my bunny 36: which band's sound would fit your mood right now? sugarland38: tell us about your pet peeves! idk i don’t like it when people ignore me40: think of a piece of jewelry you own: what's it's story? does it have any meaning to you? i have a wolf necklace that mg bought me for secret santa one year its gorgeous and i love necklaces and most of mine are anchors or giraffes but the wolf one is so amazing and so me and i love it42: do you have a favorite coffee shop? describe it! starbs dude im easy44: when was the last time you remember feeling completely serene and at peace with everything? laying on the sofa in my snug on dec 27th 46: tell us the worst pun you can think of. i cannot think of a single pun i suck48: what was your biggest fear as a kid? is it the same today? being abandoned and yep probs50: what's an odd thing you collect? HAHAH i collect SO MANY THINGS i have a collection pROBLEM okay i collect hurricane hard rock glasses, and i collect US quarters and i collect those special cups you can buy at the cinema sometimes and mugs from places i love and i have a p good pop funko collection and a hELLUVA lot of DVDS just idk if you can buy a ~collectors thing i probably will im a sucker for advertisement52: what are your favorite memes of the year so far? its been like a week but omg the hollywood sign one

54: who's the last person you saw with a true look of sadness on their face? my sister when she just watched derek die on grey’s56: what are some things you find endearing in people? when they ramble on about something thye love, when people are so passionate you can feel it radiating off them, when someone tries their best to make you smile when you’re upset, when people pat dogs 58: who's the wine mom and who's the vodka aunt in your group of friends? why? marygrace is the vodka aunt im probs the wine mom 60: do you like poetry? what are some of your faves? yeah but i don’t read a whole lot of it, idk i like simple stuff 62: do you drink juice in the morning? which kind? eh not rly sometimes apple or cranberry but not often i just drink coffee64: what color is the sky where you are right now? WHITE cos SNOW66: what would your ideal flower crown look like? any flower crown is an ideal flower crown68: what's winter like where you live? coldish, and grey v grey but i like the feeling of the cold mist snaking around you and seeing your breath when you’re walking and wearing a hat to keep ur lil ears warm!! sometimes it snows and ilove that70: have you ever used a ouija board? lmao no but i would LOVE to72: are you a person who needs to note everything down or else you'll forget it? at work i keep so many notes about eveyrthing but i have a p photographic memory so i don’t rly need to its just so i can make sure stuff is organised and so i can show that i’ve listened to what people want74: describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns. loud and passionate and so caring, finds an unrelenting joy in the most unexpected of things and is so strong and honest and proud. hates zombie culture. 76: is there anything you should be doing right now but aren't? nope! 78: are you in the minion hateclub or fanclub? love a good minion80: what color are your bedroom walls? did you choose that color? if so, why? they’re cream bc my sisters and i used to switch around a lot so we all got them painted the same so it didn’t matter and we could stick up whatever we wanted to make it our own space. i did have a jungle room at one point and the walls were orange that was cool and in my hp room i had one RED wall for gryffindor that was awesome82: are/were you good in school? english, particularly lit, history, food tech, film, maths but i Hated that uuuh i was a good student - not a great one bc i was lazy and dumb in school and didn’t study like i  should have done but i did p well 84: are you planning on getting tattoos? which ones? yessss i want an anchor on my ankle and expecto patronum on my wrist and delta lyrics on my ribs and also ‘faith, trust & pixie dust’86: do you like concept albums? which ones? what88: are there any artistic movements you particularly enjoy? impressionists90: talk about your one of you favorite cities. chicago is one of the best cities i have ever been too and i’m so lucky to have lived so close for a year it’s just so vibrant and full of life but not ~super busy so you feel crushed and rushed all the time and i rly loved it bUT also shoutout to brisbane which was a huge surprise how much i loved it and i explored it on a segway which was incredible and obvs sydney owns my lil heart and i wanna stare at the opera house forever92: are you a person who drowns their pasta in cheese or a person who barely sprinkles a pinch? i hate pasta94: who was the last person you know to have a birthday? jesus96: do you install your computer updates really quickly or do you procrastinate on them a lot? ha remind me tomorrow pls98: when's the last time you went hiking? did you enjoy it? in the blue mountains in aus! yeah i love to hike except im not a fan of hills, whenever i hike with dan he gets me to explain the plots of tv shows to him to distract me he’s the best100: if you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go 5 years into the past, the other 5 years into the future, which one would you press? why? def the future bc i have some great memories of the past 5 years and i wouldn’t be who i am today without them but i do not want to go back and relive them thanks