#i've not done a poll in forever - and i wanted to do a silly one so :]

[twisting-in-wonderland]

imagine they're forced to attend classes, clubs, staying at the dormitory, etc, all at RSA - no NRC at all lol

(none of them are lasting more than two months btw)

[underratedmhapoll]

So About the Brackets... (Important Update)

I've been thinking about where the logical end point of this blog should be recently. I have a lot of other projects and personal things in my life I want to have more time to get back to. Because that free time was spent monitoring poll posts and photoshopping screenshots together for the last few months.

It's been fun, it really has, but I can't be committed to this sort of thing forever. At that realization, I've decided to do three things.

I'm going to take a break. I'm going to finish the crafts that have been lingering half finished on my desk. I'm going to redouble my efforts into the AUs I have. I'm going to finally try and finish the writing challenge I took on last year. Point being, making content for this blog isn't going to be a priority for me anymore. We had our fun but it needs to end at some point, right?

However! We're going out with a bang with a 64 character bracket (and possibly another secret special bracket). Suggestions will be held as normal for the next two weeks. These will be the final brackets this blog takes part in hosting.

I still want to drop content on this blog on occasion but it won't be planned out projects like the brackets anymore. Maintaining the brackets, updating them daily, making sure I use different images for every individual poll, making extra visuals like the blog headers and final results page; it was a lot of work that required constant monitoring and maintenance. To put it simply, any polls I do post from this point forward will be much less work, and I won't be keeping track of results. Most likely, I'll just drop random MHA related polls whenever my brain comes up with one. I still have some bonus poll ideas that never got posted so I'll throw those out first and foremost but I'll also take suggestions for polls as well. Little one offs basically. They'll be sparse and silly but it's something to justify keeping this blog around. More details for those will come at a later date.

If someone else wants to run a similarly themed bracket you are more than welcome to! I may even post my assets if people are interested. I am honored you'd want to keep the idea alive but it's about time I put down the tournament template and call it a night. If you do make one, or any kind of MHA bracket, feel free to tag me and I'll happily reblog and boost as I've done before.

See you in the mega bracket.

Plus Ultra!

[fractualized]

what's your favorite form of batman? meaning, do you prefer the comics, the movies, etc? i'm really curious to know if you like any of the cheesy stuff, like batman and robin... famous nipple costumes... or if you like more of the serious stuff, like the original source material... i know you really like comics but when it comes to the ideal flavor of batman, what kind of story do you most enjoy?

For my favorite, I always go with Batman: the Animated Series, which feels inevitable for anyone who grew up watching it as appointment TV with obligatory commercials, but I've never done a poll. lol Even watching it now and noting its imperfections, it's the gold standard for me. The art deco aesthetic, the storytelling, the characterizations, you can really see how much care went into it and the respect for the lore. Not that I knew much more than the lore basics at that age— but I didn't need to, because it was a well-done show that drew me in on its own. And in terms of serious vs cheesy, it had a good balance.

And really that's my preference! I don't need Batman to be dark and dour all the time, but I also don't want it to be nothing but goofs. I like a story that has stakes and knows when to be serious and also knows when to lighten up. Bruce's costume shouldn't be the only signal of how he was affected by his trauma, but when his behavior turns shitty, it shouldn't amount to him just being a rageaholic. Joker should be a dangerous villain but he should perform and make jokes because he's a friggin' clown, like come on.

Not that I'm against takes that lean harder on comedy. Er, nowadays. Back in the day, I thought going too funny with Batman just didn't fit, and it should be avoided unless it was parody or fanfic. So I enjoyed Batman Forever, but Batman & Robin veered too campy for me, and I wasn't interested in the '66 series. I guess eventually I got a better sense of humor, or maybe it was batmedia as a whole seeming to get too gritty after the Nolan movies, but now I'm all for being silly with it. You can't ignore that you're watching a bat fight a clown forever.

Though I still want a comedic version to be, like, good. I've seen many episodes of Batman '66 now and I think they're great. Hopefully one day I can get around to watching the whole thing. I saw Lego Batman in the theater and was thrilled.

Batman & Robin… I still think is bad. Less because of the camp and more because of the plot and the takes on the characters. Another example is the Harley Quinn animated series. I enjoyed much of it for the first three seasons, but ultimately I had to stop watching because the serious/comedy balance was off for me. Too often it had these serious moments that would affect character growth, and then it would throw them away for a sake of a joke later on rather than… just making a different joke that fits with your plot, I dunno.

It feels hard to say that I "like comics" since they're such a mixed bag by the nature of an 80-year-old franchise. I am certainly not having much of a good time right now. 😂 And as a consequence of Batman being represented so many ways over the decades, if I said I prefer the comics over other iterations, would that really mean anything? … Well, I guess by saying that, it could mean appreciating the fact that there's been so many takes over the years and that the medium allows that flexibility, that it is like fanfic (or exactly fanfic) and lets someone new come in and say, "But what if it happened like this?" That is a conflict I've felt when enjoying and not enjoying comics. It allows for change… but that can lead to a frustrating lack of continuity, change that comes not from where you understood the character to be from previous runs but almost from wholecloth. Which is all to say, my appreciation for comic Batman is in constant flux.

I can't close out without mentioning Telltale Batman, of course. Enemy Within is the game that brought me back into fandom and writing. A fresh new universe with a lot of room for reinterpretation, not as weighed down by the source material as the comics. (And a heartbreaking batjokes relationship that I still haven't gotten over.) Obviously with the choice system, the tenor depends on how you play, but once again it's a story with stakes that takes the time to add some silliness, so it works for me! (And I let BTAS Bruce guide my primary playthroughs. Except for my first go at the end of Enemy Within. I know Bruce would let Alfred leave but I couldn't do it gaaaahhhhhhh)