#i need something akin to a batsignal

[five-questionmarks]

highlight of my day was when my friend was trying to fix something with a screw today, couldn't fix it, then looked at me and said, "hey you're a dyke. fix this."

and then I got to take off my suit jacket and of course, fix it, because that's what I'm built for babey

[amoretheiwa]

The Dark Knight and the Boy Scout

First off, I would like to sincerely apologize. This was supposed to go up on Monday--it is now Friday, in case you haven’t noticed. It has been a busy and tiring week for me and I spent all of Monday in either airports or on planes. So, without further ado, the first part of Chapter Two.

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Chapter 2: Enter Last Son of Krypton A

Breanna Wayne is turning 23 years old. It has been 4 months since Batman fought the Joker. While getting to know someone new at her birthday party, the contraption the media has taken to calling the Batsignal (thanks a lot, Gordon) lights up the sky. In the name of safety, Breanna sends her guests home and dons the cowl—only to run into the Man of Steel himself just a few hours after taking care of the situation. It turns out they’re both looking for the same thing, and Breanna reluctantly agrees to work with him for just this case. This chapter and the next 2 (split up into 6 different postings) will be one story arc.

It was only four months since the Joker had appeared, but Gotham society had already bounced back from their member’s deaths; it wasn’t entirely uncommon for people to go missing or die every once in a while. For Breanna’s 23rd birthday party, she hosted a calm celebration in the form of a gala at Wayne Manor. She and Alfred pored over the guest list for over a week, making sure no one was slighted and the proper amount of media was invited as not reporting press but actual guests. It was with a grimace she acquiesced to having the recently returned Oliver Queen and the not-currently-on-parole Lex Luthor.

“If I didn’t have to keep up appearances…” she muttered under her breath. Walking in a handstand behind her butler, Breanna felt sweat slowly dripping down her back and pooling in her bra strap. Whenever he stopped to dust something she started doing a series of push-ups as quickly as possible.

“But I’m afraid you do, Mistress. Unless you’d like the police and FBI and others still after the identity of Batman to make some obscure connections.”

Breanna grunted and started moving after him as moved from one hallway table to another.

“I still don’t understand the point of Batman versus Batwoman,” she gasped.

Less than gracefully she let herself fall back into a standing position, putting a hand on her hip.

“Why does there need to be a gender? Why can’t I just be the Bat?”

Alfred spared her a wry look before continuing his chore.

“I don’t have an answer to that, but I will say that the need to assign labels that have caused this misgendering your nighttime persona has given you an inkling more safety.”

Breanna clicked her tongue and turned around.

“I’m going to hit the shower, Alfred. When I’m done if you wouldn’t mind helping me get everything laid out for tonight that would be fantastic.”

As she walked back down the hallway—this time on her feet—Alfred called after her.

“Are you wearing the blue dress or the red dress tonight?”

Breanna paused and shrugged, glancing back at him.

“The blue one, I guess.”

He nodded in reply.

The Wayne family had employed only one servant since Martha and Thomas made the decision to stop hosting society events at their family home, and that same servant still continued to be the sole long-term employee. For the sake of the upcoming gala, however, Breanna and Alfred had hired a few chefs and waiters with catering experience and an event planner—Rachael Iverson—who took care of the details Breanna didn’t care about. She did care about security, the food, and the color scheme. As cliché as it was, the heiress' favorite color was blue, the same color as her eyes, without a preference for shade.

She was lucky to have no allergies but knew some of the guests had some food allergies and after contacting each of the invitees she had compiled a list of possible refreshments and the planner took care of the rest. The party itself was relegated to the ballroom and gardens only, and the individuals hired to take care of the decorating showed up just three hours before it was to begin. By then, Breanna and Alfred had made sure that any artifacts associated with her nightlife were carefully hidden or stowed away if not already. Her hair was in a simple bun, still wet from her shower, and she ignored the water slowly dripping down onto the neckline of her t-shirt as she spoke with the dark-skinned woman in charge of the whole party when one of her few true friends attending appeared.

Ever since their first interview, Breanna had corresponded with Lois Lane regularly, exchanging information and the occasional meme as it came across their respective attention. More pen pals than the traditional friend, the two women had arranged to get ready together. Breanna politely excused herself from her conversation and turned to hug the shorter woman. For once she wasn’t in a suit, rather Lois had chosen to wear a pair of worn sweatpants and a t-shirt that had obviously seen better days. Her hair was up in a messy ponytail and her own blue eyes were hidden by a pair of aviator sunglasses that Breanna commented on.

“Clark got them for me for my last birthday,” she explained.

Breanna smiled—she had heard much about Clark Kent and was excited to meet him that night—and gave Lois a quick hug.

“Come on in,” she said, gesturing up the steps of the Manor. Lois followed quickly, pulling a small suitcase behind her. Despite the risks that Alfred had repeated more than once, Breanna had impulsively invited the older woman to spend the night.

“Sorry it’s a bit of a mess, they’re about halfway done getting everything ready.”

Lois pushed her sunglass on top of her head, taking her time to look around the foyer.

“What you call a mess is still impeccable to me, Bre.”

Breanna rolled her eyes.

“Whatever, Lo, come on.”

They went up the main stairs quickly and passed Alfred, who moved out of their way with a slight bow of his head.

“Breanna, Miss Lane.”

“Hi Alfred,” Lois said with a grin.

“I have your things laid out on your bed, Miss Wayne,” he said with a soft smile at his ward. Breanna grinned at him; there was something akin to happiness in her eyes that he had not seen for some time.

“Thank you, Alfred. You’re free to go whenever you like.”

He scoffed and the two women paused to stare at him.

“I am not spending my night off anywhere but my room, as there are frankly too many episodes of Downtown Abbey to catch up on.”

Breanna and Lois turned towards each and began to giggle, watching as Alfred shook his head and walked off as regally as ever.

“He’s certainly a character,” Lois quipped.

Breanna nodded and began leading the way again.

“You would not believe the snark. Sometimes I wish I could just turn him loose on the reporters instead of saying anything: no offense.”

“None taken,” Lois waved her hand.

When they reached Breanna’s spacious room Lois put her suitcase on top of the bed. She began pulling her stuff out as Breanna disappeared into the bathroom. She came out with a small hand towel pressed again the back of her neck, mouth opened as if to say something. She froze when she saw what Lois was holding. Not a dress, though she could see some dark red fabric peeking out. No, it was a large glossy picture of Batman, Gotham’s defender. Lois had an eyebrow raised and her other hand resting on her hip.

“What’s that for?” Breanna asked, recovering quickly.

“I’m not dumb, Bre, you know that. When were you going to tell me?”

Breanna’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion, but she forced a smile.

“Tell you what? That I’m dating the Bat?” She laughed but the seriousness on Lois’ face did not go away.

“A little hard to date yourself but if that’s how you want to play it the fine.” She laid the picture down on top of Breanna’s dress and proceeded to pull out her phone from her pocket. She flicked it open and tapped the screen a few times before walking around the bed.

“You return to Gotham after a having disappeared for two years, and less than 12 months later the Bat is first seen. You never advertised this, it’s not on your Wikipedia page, but you not only have a complete bachelor’s in business management but also history, forensics, and criminal psychology of all things. It took some digging but apparently, you have received instruction from some of the top martial artists in the world, and must be proficient in at least nine different languages with the friends you have in 20 different countries.”

Lois paused, raising her eyebrow again.

“Your pictures in the tabloids and the most-used stock photos all have you looking the same, but in person it’s obvious that they’ve been touched up to take away some of your muscular definitions, and it’s a well-known secret in the makeup artist world that you wearing padding on your chest to give the illusion of having bigger boobs than you really do and you have a few scars on your shoulders that require concealer most of the time.”

Lois looked back down at her phone, scrolling a little, and Breanna collapsed in one of her armchairs that faced the room while still providing a view of her balcony.

“You have always voiced your support of the current Commissioner, James Gordon, and the Bat seems to be an ally if not a friend of his. Also, when you were targeted by the Joker a few months ago, Batman did not show up like he did at some of the other victim’s residences.”

Breanna stared at her friend with wide eyes, frozen in the silence before letting her head fall into her empty hand. She rubbed her face while the hand holding the now-wet towel clenched into a fist.

“Is it really that obvious?” she mumbled.

Lois laughed a sharp honking noise, and curled up in the other arm chair.

“Obvious? That took me close to a year to put together, and I never would have thought to except for some of the things you said in our first interview that sounded eerily similar to what others were saying when talking about Batman.”

Breanna glanced at Lois, narrowing her eyes.

Lois gave her a look that screamed ���What?” and raised her shoulders.

“I’m an investigative journalist. It’s what I do.”

Breanna fell back into the chair and closed her eyes.

“I know.”

They were both silent, both thinking before Lois shifted her feet to underneath her body.

“I’m not going to tell anyone if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Breanna’s eyes snapped open and Lois felt that something had shifted from the Breanna Wayne she knew to whoever this was in front of her.

“Oh? Why not? It would be the article of the century, better than anything you have ever written.”

Lois pursed her lips and crossed her arms.

“I’d never be able to write anything better, afterward, either. Besides, I think what you’re doing is important and it’s not my place.”

Breanna starred at her for a little bit longer before shoving herself out of the chair. She began to pace, half of her steps in the light from the balcony window-doors, the other half in the shadowed contrast of the wall. It was while she was in the shadow that she stopped, turning to face Lois better.

“I believe you,” she said at last, her voice serious.

Lois rolled her eyes and stood up, putting her hands on her hips again.

“I’m so glad,” she said sarcastically and walked back over to her suitcase. She carefully moved the picture of Batman—of Breanna—to the other side and continued to take out her things for the gala.

“I’m sorry, it’s just…I’m not used to having friends and with this secret I—”

Lois interrupted her.

“It hasn’t been easy making any, I imagine. Not without feeling like you’re lying to them the entire time.”

Breanna nodded and Lois stopped, her hands full of red material.

“The world needs its heroes, and some cities more than most. Gotham wouldn’t know what to do with Superman just like you wouldn’t know what to do with Metropolis. I hope this crusade of yours works out in the end. Gotham could use a little more light.”

Breanna swallowed and nodded. Lois closed her eyes and looked up at the ceiling, taking a deep breath.

“For heaven’s sake, Breanna, look at us. You’re a vigilante, a superhero, at the age of 23 and I’m just a journalist for a newspaper at 26.”

Breanna moved to lean against the edge of her bed, smiling again.

“I wouldn’t say just a journalist. You do have a Pulitzer to your name after all.”

Lois grinned, her blue eyes sparkling and the tension that had been present gone from the room.

“I do, don’t I?”

Bre nodded.

“That’s more than Clark can say.”

Lois laughed and they began to get ready.

[cwdcshows]

Batwoman - S1 E11 - An Un-Birthday Present

So I'll admit, the cliff-hanger with Not-Alice-Beth is intriguing; not sure they'll actually pay it off decently, but they have my interest to see how this is going to play out. That said, if this is really supposed to be a version of Beth who didn't become Alice, would she really not know who Sophie is?  I mean, admittedly, most of the time watching this show I can't remember what Sophie's name is; and it was really only through inference of the context of whose custody Alice would be in that I understood her name was Sophie.  But this is supposed to be Kate's twin sister, one who has allegedly had a close relationship with Kate over the last 15 years; so are we to believe that Kate would never have confided in her about her past relationship with the woman who went on to work for their dad?  Even Kate's step-sister Mary knows who Sophie is.

Okay, random question for everyone out there - has the volume for the CW shows seemed unusually low lately, particularly for any Dish users out there?  I'm fairly certain it's neither my hearing nor my tv itself, because when I switch it over to Roku, I've always had to turn it way down from where I normally have the volume set when watching stuff from my DVR.  But lately, pretty much since the CW shows came back from break, I've had to crank the volume up even more than usual to properly hear it; even more so than other programs.... Yeah, I just bet that cat didn't try to get out from the bag or wherever lil' Beth stuffed it; or made any sound. Sure, Beth wrote a 300 page dissertation on astrophysics or whatever, but the only password she could remember was "waffles".  And mind you this from Kate's perspective from when they were kids 15 years ago, when you didn't need nearly as many passwords as you do today, let alone the absolute necessity for those passwords to actually be fucking strong.  They might as well have said her password was Password. Gee, I wonder if Kate mentioning survival training and saying "Let Alice go.  Let Alice go." is a code....? Not going to lie, there hasn't been a lot of complain about with this episode.  The plot device of an alternate Beth landing on New Earth is more than a little convenient, but I've seen worse.  It's basically the Iolas treatment from back in the days of Hercules. I'm just hoping this isn't a contrived one-off where Beth is around just long enough to fulfill the necessities of this plot, only to bugger off back to her Earth. I would kind of prefer they just embrace there being two Beths, one good, one batshit crazy - or just kill off Alice. Okay, I guess I really shouldn't be surprised that they would create a scenario where Kate could literally save Beth from a car....  It's a convenient parallel, but effective. I have mixed feelings about whether Batwoman's earned the city's trust to such a degree as to have protester storm the GCPD demanding to turn on the batsignal.  On the one hand, she managed to bring in Alice where others failed, but on the other she's still fairly new on the scene and not that long ago the city was making a big to do about decommissioning the batsignal.   I think a more effective way to have gone about it might have been something akin to something I know they did in a Green Lantern comic and they may have done it in a Batman comic too - where in lieu of the police shining the batsignal, individuals just start shining their own homemade ones from their windows.  I'm not sure that it would have the same impact; and arguably that scenario or the case of what they did here, should probably be reserved as the climax for a bigger moment where the city throwing its support behind Batwoman has greater meaning. Jesus, it took all of five minutes of torment and hard time for Jacob to crack. Wait, Mary is just now working out that Beth is from a parallel universe?  I get that they can't tell her about Kate's role in Crisis, but what did they her in the first place to explain who she is? And how much did Kate tell Beth about everything? Of course they're going to have the two Beths causing some sort of problem....