#im love poison ivy and i feel like i captured her face the way i wanted

[kassarts]

Poison Ivy 🌿💚🖤

[blind-band-geek]

Witch Barbara! Au fic

(IM- THIS IS SO LONG. But please enjoy this fic au because I love it sm. Also mermaid Barbara au fan art 🤔🤔🤔 dam we really do like making Barbara like a magical goddess or sm because she IS)

In a world full of witches and worlocks you’d assume a boy like Adam would have run into one by now? Well you’d be quite wrong.

Adam Maitland was the third son of a very well respected witch hunting family, though he had never hunted nor in counted a witch before. His two older brothers had captured their first witches at 18 and 20, wile his parents had captured countless. Morbid? Sure but, that was just the way things had always been. Adam was just around 25 and, he was always looking for ways to impress his family. Grades, a degree, a stable job, and they were very proud but Adam always knew he could do more. He knew capturing his first witch would finally be the key to helping secure his family’s name and really make them proud. It would also give him maybe the lightest bit of accomplishment. The only thing standing in his way was, where DOSE one locate a witch? Surely they were hard to find and only lived in deep creepy woods where you’d have to hunt them. Right?

Adam let out a sigh of defeat as he leaned back in his work chair. At this rate it be almost impossible to locate one, since well his parents had ticks on EVERY witch in their area they probably had-. It hit him.

“I’ll just check the map! God why didn’t I think of that before!” He grabbed the glasses that sat neatly on the desk and put them on. He quickly walked across the dusty attic where he worked on most of his projects to a desk parallel to his own. The desk was perfectly spotless as his parents checked the map almost every day. Turning the map around he scanned over the town with his finger. Most names had an X crossed through them, seeing that they were dead or captured. Though one remained in marked. A little name at the top of a hill just a little ways out of town. Adams eyes scanned over the name;

“Barbara Miller. 25, no recent activity.”

“Barbara?” Adam questioned to himself, after all he didn’t expect a witch to be named something as ‘tame’ as Barbara. His parents always brought home weird names witches, like Jadis or Locasta. Not Barbara.

Though it didn’t matter to him this old hag would be dead by morning, and he’d make sure of it. She also didn’t seem like the type to put up to much of a fight as ‘no recent activity’ was printed next to her name. Adam set back the map where it was and went to a near by window, outside the sun was just going down but on the far skyline he could see the faint outline of a house, his destination.

Just as the sun left the sky it very quickly retuned. Before sunrise Adam was already packing for his trip. What did one need for a trip like this? Is packing necessary? Will I be staying there for more than one night?! Adam shook his head and put many things in his bag in a blur. Food weapons things like that.

Once the bag was finished he slung it across his shoulder and took one last look out the window to the house. His hands shook a bit as he looked, maybe regretting how cocky he was last night at the map.

Adam stepped out onto the porch just outside his front door and waved goodbye to his parents, who were in the living room. Once the door was completely shut he let out a sigh then regrouped and was ready to go. Or, as ready as you can be. He started his journey to the house and by logic thought it be best to sneak around the back through the woods. So that’s what he did. The woods went from in town just by the department store all the way to god knows where. Though he did remember seeing the woods go just behind the witches home.

As he came into town it was quite bare, for good reason seeing how early it was. So he had no trouble slipping silently into the wood. The woods were nothing special, lots of grass and fern, lots of trees, and maybe the occasional fairy. Adam found himself stumbling however over the steep hills and fallen debris. He struggled mostly on having his feet correctly placed of the steep hills as to not fall. He held trees with his left hand trying to keep himself stable as the other gripped anything infront of him as to pull himself up.

Through the woods he went, and before long he could see the exit just as the sun started to peak over the sky line. Adam smiled as he watched the sun, still concealed by the trees and shrubs. His eyes however were drawn to something else, a house just infront of him.

He came up on the left side of the house. The house is what you’d expect from a witch, it was mostly surrounded by shrubbery and a large garden of multicolor flowers. There were also many fruit trees and berry bushes along with vines of fruit. Though there were lots of things Adam didn’t expect from the house. There were lots of candles Incased in beautifully bent metals, and pretty chairs placed side by side on the porch. The house’s exterior also caught him by surprise, it was pearly white and had a more country feel. The house seemed sturdy and was decorated with brick and lots of arch windows. Adam was fully expecting an old rickety house with a poison ivy path that lead to a front door where he was sure to be risking his life. But, this really wasn’t it.

Adam waited a bit, his mind a little unleaded by the normality of it all. But, he was here to slay an ugly old witch and that’s what he was here to do. He gripped the strap of his bag and got up on one knee, then onto his feet. He went to step out of the brush when he heard the sound of windchimes and a door opening.

He immediately stepped back into the woods and took cover, who knew what could come out of that door. He squinted a bit trying to see the figure clearly. Sure enough off the porch came Barbara, the witch.

She wore a black sundress with roses and a large black hat with flowers decorating the top. Though because of the hat Adam couldn’t see her face clearly. He watched as she went to tend her garden and to Adam surprise, without magic. She walked about her garden with a silver watering can sprinkling the plants with water. Adam turned away from the house and sighed softly in defeat. Surely his parents must have just targeted some weird lady in a house. Though just when he was about to give up and go home he heard the soft “wosh” of magic behind him. He sat in petrified fear, had she heard him? What’s she going to do to him? He surely didn’t have enough time to-. His throughts were cut off by a soft voice.

“Hello? Are you alright.”

Adam slowly turned to face the voice and when he did he finally saw the face of the witch. Adam was unable to speak, she didn’t look like a witch at all! In fact she was, beautiful.

“Are you Alright? Why are you in the woods. Are you lost?” Barbara spoke again. Adam shook his head.

“No I’m alright I uh.” Adam looked around, telling her he was up here to kill her was probably not the best explanation at the moment. “Was hiking and I got lost.” Barbara’s eyes lit up.

“Oh! Well then please come in you look very tired. Can I offer you some tea or cake.” She gave him a warm smile.

Adams Brain was running with so many thoughts but, eventually he smiled back, “Yeah. I’d like that a lot!”

Inside her house was absolutely breathtaking. It was a mix of rustic country and a mystical otherworldly style. Adam was surprised at all the color and again normality of it all. Barbara was maybe, just maybe changing his mind about witches. Maybe what his parents told him, wasn’t true? Barbara brought him into a rather large kitchen with a nice little table in the corner, the tea and cake already set. Adams mind raced, was this a trap? Was it enchanted was he going to DIE! Barbara laughed a little as she went and hung up her hat by many others of different styles.

“It’s ok relax. You look like someone’s trying to hurt you. I assure you, no evil spirits can enter my home.” For some reason Barbara’s voice made him a little less petrified.

He politely found his way to the table as Barbara did too. Barbara poured the tea into two cups infront of her and face one to Adam. He started down at the slightly tinted water his mind racing on what to do.

“Oh dear. You’re not allergic to lavender right? I heard it helps with stress.” Adam looked up to see Barbara’s once calm and friendly exterior fade into a worried one. Adam was very yuck to respond,

“No no! I just spaced out that’s all.” He took the cup in his hands and drank some, it was possibly one of the best teas he had ever had.

“So whats you’re name?” Barbara asked from across the table cutting into a cake that was also on the table.

“My names Adam Maitland, and you?”

“Barbara Miller.” She smiled oblivious of his last name. And for the first time someone saw Adam for him, and not just his family.

“You know I really love that name, Adam. It really suits you.” Adam adjusted his glasses a bit, “Well your name is very pretty too.”

After a little wile of small talk became hours of long chats and conversations. Weird conversation that almost included no magic what so ever. Soon Barbara had peered our the window and the sun had already started to set. She turned back to Adam who had just started on a story about his first dog.

“Adam,” he stopped, “look!” She pointed to the window where the orange and pink hues filled the dimly lit room. “Would you like to go watch?” Adam nodded and she smiled taking his hand and leading him outside. They stood on the porch Barbara still holding Adams hand as they watched the sun set below the horizon.

Adam looked over at the witch who’s head was now rested on his shoulder, and though he shouldn’t he felt some sort of feeling toward her. A strong and ever present one. As the sun set Adam felt as if his hatred for witch dissipate, perhaps they weren’t all they were talked about. Barbara surly wasn’t. He tried not to think about it to hard and to stay in the moment. Taking this moment with only him, the beautiful sun and the wi- wonderful Barbara by his side as if it were to last forever.

[radramblog]

we live in a society (that has progressed)

There’s always an interminable shift, a flux, in culture that can be hard to spot if you don’t quite know what you’re looking for. As times change, people grow, and media is released, causing perspectives and opinions in the general psyche to sway over the course of human cultural history.

Basically, the Joker is allowed to be funny again, and that’s a good thing.

I’m not going to bother explaining who the Joker is to you, like I often do when I’m introducing a post like this. It’s the fucking Joker, I’d be shocked if you didn’t know what the character is. You have to be online to see this post, after all, and if you’re on the obscure rabbit-hole known as My Tumblr, you’re online enough to see Joker memes and such.

The Joker is an inherently ridiculous character. He’s literally a clown man, a foil to the deadpan Batman, humour literally written into his name. And while I cannot possibly capture the full breadth of his various iterations and interpretations over the course of DC Comics’s long history, a lot less people are going to have read the comics than seen the adaptations of such, and those are what has stuck out in the public consciousness. There’s a few versions in particular I’d like to highlight before I get into the meat of this.

In particular, the early visual interpretations of the character are, well, monumentally silly. It’s impossible to talk about the 1966 Adam West Batman series without an understanding of just how camp the whole thing was, and the Joker is no exception to this. Even Jack Nicholson’s performance in the 1989 film is inherently silly despite it’s overall serious tone, a villain who kills people with a chemical called, I shit you not, Smylex. Considering the actor, and especially considering what came just a year before that film, such a portrayal is actually kind of a confusing cultural milestone.

And that thing that came a year beforehand is The Killing Joke, potentially the most iconic Batman comic, nay, DC comic there is. And with it, potentially the most sympathetic portrayal of the Joker that there had been so far. A man driven mad by exposure, a situation he was only in to afford his family’s bills. It presents the most clear image of him as Batman’s mirror- literally, at times, and yet shows some of his most shocking brutality at the same time. The idea of the comic, if I may be so bold, is to imply that the line between Batman and the Joker isn’t quite so thick as it appears at first glance.

We don’t talk about the animated version of the Killing Joke.

I’m going to move right past the Animated Series in general, not because it’s bad or anything, but because I’m relatively unfamiliar with it (this may be a reoccurring theme) I’ve only seen a handful of episodes, the ones my family had on VHS, and they sure didn’t have the Joker in them. (The Gray Ghost and….I think a Scarecrow episode? Which was a hell of a thing to see as a kid). It does have his portrayal with Mark Hamill as the voice actor, though, which is frankly such a choice decision.

The thing that made the Joker, and the Batman franchise as a whole, come back into the limelight was obviously the Nolan movies, specifically The Dark Knight. Being the face of such a critically acclaimed movie with such an incredible performance by Heath Ledger (I am obliged to stan, he’s from Perth, I’ve met his stepdad) is obviously going to get the name back in the books, even if it’s such a different version from what had previously been seen.

Ledger’s Joker has a humour, sure, but it’s a significantly more morbid one than previous incarnations. Previous Jokers killed people, sure, but The Dark Knight added a level of brutality to the whole thing that made the character so much more serious, pun not intended. One can largely attribute this to the darker tone of the film he appears in compared to previous Batmans (especially the 90s films), because in those versions the Joker was, well, not a serious character. He doesn’t interact with the world in the same way other people do, his values are completely alien. Ledger’s Joker has a very specific ideology, one people can understand, and more relevantly, one people can misunderstand.

The actual post begins here.

Ledger’s Joker has been the icon of the edgy teenager since The Dark Knight came out and was watched by millions of them. Something about the character speaks to them, something about being an outsider, not like the other people, and also both smart and violent, which are attributes that 13-year-olds idolise.

A Joker profile picture has long been one of the biggest red flags on the internet. A sure sign that someone is going to say the dumbest fucking thing imaginable, or something hideously offensive apropos of absolutely nothing. This isn’t even getting into how the character became an icon for the Gamers Rise Up movement, which I will remind you that a fair few people actually took seriously. A legion of the worst of nerd culture- misogynistic, racist, and toxic folks who have nothing better to do than yell at people on Reddit.

Where as I, the cultured individual, explain things to people on Tumblr. Very different. But the point is, this specific version of the character is an anarchist, out to prove that, at the end of the day, every single person has the potential to become a monster, that chaos is the nature of humanity, somewhat akin to his portrayal and point in The Killing Joke- all it takes is the right thing to set you off. This twisting of the message into “im better and smarter than u also I will kill u” is frankly kind of disgusting.

The point I’m trying to get to is that for the last decade-ish, The Joker, a character built around humour and gratuity, has become incredibly unfunny. From the internet fuckwits to the grim Ledger portrayal, the character with Joke in their name has been impossible to laugh at.

Another factor contributing to this is the growing awareness and increased sympathy for mentally ill people, which is where Joker (the film) comes in. Now, obviously, the understanding of mental issues is not a bad thing, and I’d love to see this trend continue. But my understanding is that Joker and its titular character are not a particularly humourous time, despite the character literally being a comedian this time.

To be clear, I have not seen the movie, and I have no intention to, so feel free to completely ignore my opinion on this. But the fact that the film seemed to have made all the GRU stuff worse is not a good sign for it.

However, as in life and in media, all things shall pass, and that does include the Joker. Ignoring Suicide Squad (because I know like nothing about the Joker’s place in that film and don’t want to research it), late 2010-s on portrayals of the Joker appear to be returning to the characters roots somewhat, though to be fair, both of the things I’m basing my judgement are comedy features.

The first is, oddly enough, the Lego Batman movie. I can understand not having seen this film, because from the outside, it didn’t look or sound good, but the whole thing is basically a love letter to Batman/DC as a franchise, complete with possibly the silliest incarnation of the character so far. This Joker is utterly obsessed with proving himself as Batman’s equal, as the greatest villain to rival the greatest hero. He’s probably the most potentially homoerotic interpretation, which is kind of silly considering he’s literally a Lego dude. But the movie is funny, and so is he, which is the key point.

The other recent addition to this list is the Harley Quinn animated series, where the Joker obviously plays a significant role. Now, I’m not really familiar at all with this interpretation, having not seen the show, but considering the memes going around about Batman apparently not doing oral, and that having stemmed from this show, it’s not hard to imagine the Joker’s portrayal being similarly silly- even if his canonical abusee is the protagonist. Like, I’m pretty sure he’s a bastard in this one, but he’s also the butt of the joke, considering the series is in large part about Harley getting over him and moving past that part of her life (and ideally hooking up with Poison Ivy, because, come on)

I guess my point is that the Joker is an inherently comic character, in all that entails. You cannot have the Joker not be in some way silly without making massive changes to his design, his characterisation, and his ideals- which is pretty much what has happened in the past few years. I mean, the guy’s got bright green hair, he wears purple suits, he kills people with laughing gas.

This comic, by artist FruitEater, is kind of what inspired this whole post. It’s such a silly little thing from a silly little trend, but it really stuck in my head, and not just because it reminded me of my past self- a child who was super into Crazy Frog when I was, like, 10. It’s a comic that couldn’t exist were it not for the passage of time beyond the era of edgy Joker. Time has moved on- Gamers Rise Up is dying (the subreddit got banned, where else are they supposed to go?), cringe culture is dying, and the Joker is a character that’s allowed to be funny again.

We can laugh with the Joker again.