#james bond dc imagine

[foxsoulcourt]

[hollowwhisperings]

most security guards/cops/crims are more dangerous to themselves than to any actual threat. in the Early Years of Batman, he was a Cryptid who only appeared at night & had the Power Of Money to support said "Cryptid" status via having MUCH better tech (armour, spyware, [nightvision], training with said tech, non-lethal weapons, niche tools, etc) than everyone else. At night, with a previously scouted out map of an area & a local's familiarity with it, Batman wouldn't need to "ninja" that hard because... unless a guard's boss was SCARIER than a Bat Cryptid, they're not going to be overly invested in risking their lives (though Batman's Technical Pacifism wasn't realised until Later: I assume Gotham's medical insurance runs by North American Rules, making a "non-lethal" beatdown probs scarier to the Average Mook).

The Penguin is a Threat because out of ALL the early crime bosses of the Era where Batman Began... HIS GANG SURVIVED (as in, it didn't get disbanded or turn on itself after losing multiple arms deals/smuggling shipments/sundry criminal activities via way of Bat Cryptid). Somehow, the Penguin keeps landing back on his feet: it Varies from writer to writer but the "Modern" Penguin is one of Gotham's more "civilised" crimebosses. As opposed to the Chaotic Crime pre-Batman or the Chaotic Evil of Certain Supervillains, the Penguin is an "Organized" Crimeboss. He's dangerous because he outsurvived all his contemporaries, he has Connections & Political Influence: treating the Penguin as a threat is Only Polite, in a setting like Gotham.

...except when the Penguin is named less for his Penguin Suit and just Penguins: those penguins BLOW UP & get sent into civilian areas. The umbrella ALSO blows up. It also tends to be a machine gun &/or a Detonation Device. This is the Penguin who Danny Devito played. The Batman of that setting was also one without decades of experience & familiarity with [being a vigilante], less Paranoid and Detective-y. Just Very Camp. And, in a Camp Setting, the Penguin can AND WILL "outcamp" the guy not commiting to being a Spooky Bat Cryptid.

The problem with Batman in his present incarnation is that we need simultaneously to believe that this is a man who can effortlessly ninja his way through dozens of gun-toting mercenaries, and that this is a man to whom Danny DeVito with an umbrella is a credible threat.

[unnamedmedicalprofessional]

Marvel and DC comic book characters, and other long running characters like The Doctor from Doctor Who, James Bond, or The Simpsons, being stuck in a specific unending status quo eternally can be frustrating as a fan, but I think if you look at it from an in-universe perspective there's a certain compelling tragedy to it. It's just another form of being doomed by the narrative.

Long running franchise characters are essentially cursed to a sisyphean existence where they can never permanently win against the evils they fight against, they can never really change the world, and they can hardly ever fully overcome their own personal flaws. In a sense, this can be relatable. We in the real world can change, individually or societally, and we should work to do so, but it can often feel like we're stuck in a cycle repeating the same things over and over again, individually and societally. The only happiness long running franchise characters can have is that they must find peace with their stunted corporate mandated existence. One must imagine sisyphus happy. I really like when franchise media leans into this tragedy, Ram V's run on detective comics is a good example. You can also read that subtext into the Doctor Who episode Heaven Sent.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

To be confronted with a blank page is not very nice. But Hemingway, a great American writer, taught me the finest trick when you are doing a long book, which is, he simply said in his own words, “When you are going good, stop writing.” And that means that if everything’s going well and you know exactly where the end of the chapter’s going to go and you know just what the people are going to do, you don’t go on writing and writing until you come to the end of it, because when you do, then you say, well, where am I going to go next? And you get up and you walk away and you don’t want to come back because you don’t know where you want to go. But if you stop when you are going good, as Hemingway said…then you know what you are going to say next. You make yourself stop, put your pencil down and everything, and you walk away. And you can’t wait to get back because you know what you want to say next and that’s lovely and you have to try and do that. Every time, every day all the way through the year. If you stop when you are stuck, then you are in trouble!”

- Roald Dahl

No one can uncover the circumstances behind why this picture of Roald Dahl and Ernest Hemingway was taken, other than it was in London during the Second World War. Hemingway found himself in Europe from June-December 1944 in his capacity as a war journalist.

Roald Dahl was commissioned into the Royal Air Force and was a frontline fighter pilot showing tremendous courage and bravery and who eventually rose to the rank of wing commander. His flying days came to a premature end after a crash landing that nearly cost him his life. Between 1939-1941 Dahl was the assistant air attache in Washington DC and moved around in those diplomatic and political circles hoping to get some inside information and intelligence on America’s intentions and plans with regarding the war in Europe. Bored by his work he fell into the murky world of intelligence and became part of a Brirish spy ring called ‘The Irregulars’ which included the future James Bond author Ian Fleming. His spy work chiefly consisted of mobilising American opinion. This was at a time when Britain stood alone against the expected Nazi invasion and Britain was hoping to the USA would enter the conflict and thus tilt the balance.

When this photo was taken Dahl was a mere 28 years old and Hemingway was 45 years old. The picture doesn’t really do justice to how tall both men were with Hemingway being 6 feet tall but towered over by Dahl’s 6’6” wiry frame. Clearly Hemingway was already a celebrated author with The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and For Whom the Bell Tolls already published. Dahl, by contrast, hadn’t written anything significant yet - like his friend and colleague Ian Fleming - other than his children’s book, The Gremlins, in 1943.

It’s speculative to imagine that Dahl, the inventive intelligence officer and aspiring author, somehow contrived a meeting with the old lion, hoping to get some writing tips.

Photo: Roald Dahl and Ernest Hemingway in London during 1944.

[greenandsorrow]

Not a request, but can you make a list of the fandoms and characters you write for? Not to be rude! <333

Disclaimer -> There are fandoms I've already written stuff for, or I will in the future, but they're not in the following list because I don't take requests for them (star wars, wizarding world, the matrix, prometheus, DC, marvel, etc.)

x reader for the most part unless I say otherwise

FANDOMS & CHARACTERS I WRITE FOR 🍂☕

FNAF:

William Afton (either from the game or the book trilogy, not movie Willy still love him tho)

Springtrap

The Puppet

Comfortingly scary stuff with the animatronics of the first six games.

OMORI:

I'M NOT AGING ANYONE UP FOR SMUT/ I WON'T PUT ANYONE IN SEXUAL SITUATIONS (aging up for character development is acceptable ig)

Omori (can be shipped with Aubrey)

Sunny (can be shipped with Aubrey/Basil)

Stranger

Basil

The group x reader

The reader just experiencing or being part of Headspace, Black Space, White Space and the characters there.

RYAN GOSLING:

Ken

Officer K

Sierra Six/ Court Gentry

maybe Colt Seavers

PEDRO PASCAL:

Joel Miller

Din Djarin

HAZBIN HOTEL:

Alastor (human, giant demon, cursed cat, something from your imagination)

Lucifer Morningstar

Angel Dust

Vox

maybe Sir Pentious (can be shipped with Cherri)

The Hazbins x reader

LOTR/ THE HOBBIT:

Bilbo Baggins

Thorin Oakenshield

Fili Durin

Kili Durin

Thranduil

Gandalf x reader (platonic!!)

Thorin & company x reader

The fellowship x reader

Sauron in any form

The Witch King of Angmar (🤭)

GAME OF THRONES:

Petyr Baelish

Varys (don't ask me why)

Jorah Mormont

Sandor Clegane

Arya Stark

Brienne of Tarth

maybe Eddard Stark

maybe Tormund Giantsbane

maybe Theon Greyjoy

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON:

Rhaenyra Targaryen

Daemon Targaryen

Aemond Targaryen

Aegon Targaryen

maybe Larys Strong (I'm sorry)

Scenarios that include multiple characters

?Dragon bonding¿

SHERLOCK BBC:

Sherlock Holmes (platonic mostly)

John Watson

maybe James Moriarty

maybe Molly Hooper

DEAD POETS SOCIETY:

Neil Perry

Todd Anderson

Charlie Dalton

The poets x reader

Mr. Keating (platonic!!!)

THE SECRET HISTORY:

Anything.

Absolutely anything and anyone.

I mean it.

(no incest, no orgies)

STRANGER THINGS:

Billy Hargrove

Eddie Munson

Jim Hopper (don't ask why)

Vecna/ Henry Creel

IT:

Pennywise

Not sure about any other ships but shoot your shot ig.

Reader just living in Derry???

SWEET HOME:

Pyeon Sang-Wook

THE DA VINCI CODE:

Silas

masterlist of all work

requesting rules/ info

*my paypal link can be found on my masterlist & fics

[justsomerandomfanfic]

I Just Want To Say...

THANK YOU to the fellow writers, creators, authors, and artists that are listed below! You guys have inspired me on so many levels! Your work, art, and fanfics always bring a smile to my face, I love reading them so much. I hope you guys keep creating more amazing works and continue to inspire and make others smile too! I'm rooting for all! And I can't wait to see what you all do next! - Chloe <3

I implore those who see this post, to check out these fabulous creators, give them love!

@maxineswritingcenter - Works; Supernatural, Teen Wolf, The Vampire Diaries, The Witcher, X-Files, Marvel, TrueBlood, and ClusterFluff

@minaturefics - Works; Lord Of The Rings

@cauliflowertree - Works; Harry Potter, Lord Of The Rings, The Hobbit, Little Women, Twilight, Dead Poets Society, Gilmore Girls, Bridgerton, Criminal Minds, Vampire Diaries, and Teen Wolf

@x-files-imagines - Works; X-Files

@space-helen - Works; Marvel, Star Trek, SCI, Twilight, X-Files, Harry Potter, and Midnight Mass

@okay-j-hannah - Works; The Last Of Us, Narcos, The Mandalorian, Broadchurch, Doctor Who, Downton Abbey, Dune, Games Of Thrones, Good Omens, Grey's Anatomy, Harry Potter, Marauders Era, Marvel, Pirates Of The Caribbean, Sherlock Holmes (BBC), Stranger Things, The Hobbit, and The Lord Of The Rings

@justauthoring - Works; Naruto, Haikyuu, Attack On Titan, Jujutsu Kaisen, My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer, Death Note, Tokyo Ghoul, Tokyo Revengers, Blue Lock, Chainsaw Man, Stranger Things, The Quarry, Cobra Kai, and more!

@french-vanilla-in-the-clouds - Works; Sherlock (BBC), Supernatural, Marvel, and X-Files

@hellcomestohawkins - Works; Stranger Things, Arctic Monkeys, White Lines, X-Files

@theawfuledges - Works; Daybreakers, The Magnificent Seven, Breath Of The Wild, Digimon, Moon Knight, Demon Slayer, Silent Hill, The Quarry, CCS, TMNT, Inuyasha, Yu Yu Hakusho, Pokemon, Resident Evil, Godzilla, Deadpool 2, Bright (2017), The Evil Within, Hellboy, The Hobbit, IT (2017), and more!

@ficsnroses - Works; John Wick, Better Call Saul, Keanu Reeves, and Johnny Silverhand (CP 2077)

@immawriteyouthings - Works; The Hobbit, and more!

@author-morgan - Works; Game Of Thrones, Vikings, The Hobbit, Lord Of The Rings, and more!

@masterofmunson - Works; Stranger Things, Moon Knight, The Amazing Spider-Man, Harry Styles, Marvel, and Criminal Minds

@aniqua - Works; Marvel, The Sandman, Shadow And Bone, Spider-Man, Stranger Things, and The Punisher

@whirlybirbs - Works; Star Wars, Marvel, Red Dead, Kingsman, Transformers, Peaky Blinders, Pirates Of The Caribbean, and more!

@luna-xial - Works; The Hobbit

@lilxberry - Works; Marvel, DC, Harry Potter, Euphoria, Lord Of The Rings, The Hobbit, Riverdale, The Walking Dead, The Karate Kid, Cobra Kai, and 13 Reasons Why

@guardianofrivendell - Works; The Hobbit

@strawwritesfic - Works; Harry Potter, Marvel, Big Bang Theory, Doctor Who, The Hunger Games, James Bond, Kingdom Hearts, The Hobbit, Lord Of The Rings, The Amazing Spider-Man, Star Trek, Star Wars, and more!

@delicatenightfury - Works, Marvel, DC, Supernatural, Lord Of The Rings, The Hobbit, Vampire Diaries, Hunger Games, Narnia, Maze Runner, and more!

@reddie-fancomic-by-slashpalooza - Works; Loose Ends (The best freaking fan-comic I've ever read <;3)

@micheleamidalajedi - Works; Mass Effect, Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, Criminal Minds, Harry Potter, Marvel, CSI, Gears Of War, DC, Yellowstone, Star Wars, The Hobbit, Lord Of The Rings, X-Men, and more!

@imagine--if - Works; DC

@witchthatwrites - Works; Uncharted, DC, Teen Wolf, Stranger Things, and more!

@buckymcbuttfacebarnes - Works; Marvel and more!

@inej-twilight-ghafa - Works; Marvel, Harry Potter, Stranger Things, Star Wars, Grishaverse, Top Gun, The Last Of Us, Pirates Of The Caribbean, and more!

@a-reader-and-a-writer - Works; Top Gun, DC, Marvel, Star Wars, Joel Kinnaman, Lewis Pullman, and more!

@bisexual-thoughtss - Works; Criminal Minds, Law And Order, Spider-Man, Scream, Ghostbusters, Harry Potter, Friends, Star Trek, and more!

@warrenwrites - Works; Stranger Things, The Amazing Spider-Man, Marvel, The Sandman, and Criminal Minds

@helloheyhihowdyheya - Works; Spider-Man, Stranger Things, and Top Gun

@waitimcomingtoo - Works; Tom Holland, Spider-Man, The Devil All The Time, Brad Simpson, Stranger Things, Marvel, and Sebastian Stan (I am so impressed with all their work)

@tiffdawg - Works; The Mandalorian, Narcos, Triple Frontier, Kingsman, and more!

@queridopascal - Works; Narcos, Triple Frontier, Kingsman, The Mandalorian, The Equalizer, We Can Be Heroes, House Comes With A Bird, The Bubble, and more!

@oonajaeadira - Works; The Bubble, The Mandalorian, Prospect, Triple Frontier, Kingsman, Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent, Narcos, The Last Of Us, Bloodsucking Bastards, House Comes With A Bird, Game Of Thrones, and more!

@fuckyeahdindjarin - Works; The Mandalorian, Narcos, Kingsman, Triple Frontier, The Bubble, and more!

@huffle-pissed - Works; Marvel, Pedro Pascal, Star Wars, Stranger Things, Supernatural, Harry Potter, and Dragon Age Inquisition

@brandyllyn - Works; Bloodsucking Bastards, Den Of Thieves, Ex Machina, The Great Wall, Hannibal, Horizon, Kingsman, Law And Order SVU, The Letter Room, Narcos, Mayans, Prospect, Star Wars, Suburbicon, and more!

@sgt-morgan - Works; The Mandalorian, Marvel, Hozier, Keanu Reeves, and more!

@tegerton - Taron Egerton, Eggsy Unwin, and Eddie The Eagle

@make-me-imagine - Works; Briderton, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Criminal Minds, Doctor Who, The Mandalorian, The Originals, Merlin (BBC), Star Trek, Supernatural, Sherlock (BBC), Teen Wolf, Marvel, The Hobbit, Lord Of The Rings, Harry Potter, and more!

@iamnotoriginalphil - Works; Once Upon A Time, Ineffable Husbands, Merlin, and more!

@forever-rogue - Works; Stranger Things, Spider-Man, Star Wars, Pedro Pascal, The Mandalorian, The Last Of Us, Marvel, and more!

@companionjones - Works; DC, Criminal Minds, Doctor Who, Hamilton, High School Musical, Les Miserables, Marvel, Once Upon A Time, Star Trek, Star Wars, Twilight, Teen Wolf, Stranger Things, Starkid, Sherlock (BBC), Shameless (US), Victorious, and more!

@dainty-fingertips - Works; Marvel and Spider-Man

@zafirosreverie - Works; Encanto, Jurassic Park, Jurassic World, The Hobbit, Lord Of The Rings, MCu, Rise Of The Guardians, and more!

@jonathan--majors - Works; Better Call Saul, Bullet Train, DC, Marvel, Stranger Things, Top Gun, and more!

@ardentmuse - Works; Harry Potter, Kingsman, Marvel, Game Of Thrones, and more

@classic80sand90smovieloves2 - Works; Pretty In Pink, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Buellers Day Off, Heathers, Back To The Future, Say Anything, Can't Buy Me Love, Some Kind Of Wonderful, Dead Poets Society, School Ties, Grease, and more!

@livinglifelowkeyloki - Works; Marvel

[dynamoe]

still dicking around with my Triple Threat design

Bruce Timm-ish/Batman: The Animated Series-style character rendering. Some Tuxedo Mask inspiration snuck in with all the roses... maybe she throws them to initiate battling evil doers?

I actually really don't like superhero shit (tough considering the direction VBros took in later seasons), but even with my distaste I wanted to do justice to the references.

🌹 more 🌹 →

🌹 Triple Threat in the 1980s

🌹 Rose Whalen (old)

🌹 Billy's prom date

Triple Threat's costume is meant to represent a Broadway chorine, but also it's a bit like a majorette... antiquated military uniform but pantsless. Very gendered. The old-fashioned/family friendly version of sexy... but not TOO sexy.

Visual reference to both the pants-less white tie tails of Zatanna the magician of DC Comics and the stage costumes from the "burlesque" Broadway musical revue Sugar Babies

The revue starred Mickey Rooney in his Broadway debut, Ann Miller... The revue subsequently had a short-lived National tour which starred Carol Channing and Robert Morse, from August through November 1980. (Carol Channing is the model for Rose's speaking voice, obvs.)

Billy's mom as a character sucks— she's introduced as [out-of-touch old person] who becomes [smothering mother] archetype— but in just a few appearances implies potential depths not explored. She's the only canon character I've written aside from Billy & White, in a series of flashbacks to Billy's childhood with her in Boy Genius (← read it on AO3)

Based on the hair, this flashback is mid-1960s. Maybe a bit later. OG Team Venture have been painted as Jonny Quest, Doc Savage and the Fabulous Five and James Bond, but this scene has a real TV Batman '66 feel to it. Best arena for a campy Broadway-musical-themed crime-fighter.

Triple Threat would be interesting to explore in the trajectory of comic book superheroes going from Golden Age goofy to the '80s X-treme en-darkening/en-seriousning (imagine Triple Threat reimagined as a Punisher type). At the same time, her Pollyanna American Exceptionalism/Moral Purity message (that Action Man wants to soil with his filth) would get dragged through the mud as she makes "hard choices" aka being a hypocrite in service of her all-American values.

She buys into moral panics. She warns against rock and roll and drugs, despite being a Baby Boomer. She is defiantly "a square" (as well as gullible to propaganda).

Female Conservatives are fascinating as they are gross. The Anti-Feminist Feminist. She's never shown to be motivated by religious fundamentalism (she seems fine with the possibility of her son being gay), it's more insidious than that. Is she machiavellian like a super-powered Phyllis Schlafly or, like the moral panic stuff, she's really gullible to conservative messaging? I see her more as a Kissinger Neo-Con than a MAGA conspiracy rube. She's not angry or hateful in her conservativeness, just reactionary and myopic.

Another ill-defined aspect... does Triple Threat have superpowers? She can still do flying leap kicks at age 60ish which suggests she's more than just "really good at fighting." What if she had been part of some Captain America super-serum ultimate-soldier program that screws her up medically, later causing Billy's genetic birth defects? Is she filled with guilt? Angry at the government for not telling her about the side effects?

→ → More on Rose Whalen's history

all my Billy & White stuff at → FAILURES of SCIENCE index

[zorilleerrant]

BANG BANG BANG

10 13 & 16

You said specifics last time so DC pwease

10. worst part of fanon

Don't get me wrong, I like a butch lady, but I don't know why everyone wants to make Cass so gender non-conforming. (I mean. I do know why.) In canon she leans heavily into high fashion aesthetic. Some of that reads a little more masculine these days than when they were drawn, but, like, not that much more masculine? And even when they are, they're paired with things that, if anything, read even more feminine now than at the time.

She loves her girly clothes! She loves cutesy fun soft things! She loves bright colors! Her casual clothes are the opposite of her costume, and that's by design! Her attraction to ballet as an artform is a visual struggle between her desire to look feminine and the fact that she never got a chance to do that in her childhood, while she was forcibly degendered by a white man, and then infantilized by everyone else around her. People cite that one picture of her in a tux, and it's like, that's because she's imagining herself as James Bond, and also, femme tuxes are a recent fashion trend.

If you want butch/femme StephCass, which, like, you also don't actually need one of each, why don't you butch up Steph? She wears a lot of androgynous or masculine clothing, and not that much super feminine clothing, and she doesn't like dressing up which you can easily read as a gender presentation thing. Steph can be butch and Cass can be femme and I never see it.

Cass isn't gender non-conforming! She's definitely not gender non-conforming enough to call herself a man! She'd be Batwoman if she took on the role, not Batman!

13. worst blorboficiation

Damian. I get projecting on him and using him to deal with all your personal issues, and that's fine, since he's basically a self-insert in the first place (with all love to Grant; they did a wonderful job). I expect a fair amount of variability in characterization and even think it's kind of fun, because as a kid/teen, he should be trying out lots of different looks and attitudes and interests. So, you know, the people who lean hard into Stabby Baby Loves Stabbing or Tortured Assassin Renounces Assassinry don't bother me.

...but you don't have to make it so flat. I swear, so many of them just avoid ever having any conflict in his personality. And he's a conflicted character! That's the joy of him! Whatever his conflicts are about can change, but he's the kind of character who thinks a lot about things and then can't decide exactly how he feels. He's done things he's not proud of, he wants to do things but he's not sure how, he does things the best way he can but he makes mistakes. People make him 100% right or 100% wrong and that's not how people are, not even when they're kids. Or they make all the conflicts romantic.

I feel this is especially true of him as a background character where people feel like they need to include him just because he's a Robin or whatever. So they go, oh, hey, his fans used this keyword, and then put him in doing that thing in the background. And people who like him eat it up! And I just feel like, if you don't like a character, don't include them, that's fine. But I also feel like, if you do like a character... have some standards, idk.

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

Character bashing. People just caricature that character's traits to make them more evil and hateful and like, why? I either already hated them, so you don't need to do that, or I didn't hate them, and now I'm wondering if you're alright there, buddy. And then they go and torture the character a whole bunch.

And it's just... if bad things happen to a character, maybe I do want to see that. I'm not immune to hating characters! I want Steve Trevor dumped in a ditch! But the joy of it would be that they're characterized well, but all the other characters hate them for the same reason I hate them. And then bad things happen, but they make sense in the context of the plot and the world.

Also when you have other characters be like 'haha let's torture this person' I'm sort of like. Okay but that's not very nice and now you're making the characters I like seem like, at best, assholes, and at worst... sometimes adult characters will torture a kid character that the author doesn't like, and, I mean, I get it, catharsis, but I'm still going to be like 'Batman why are you a bad person now' if I see that happening. I make actual faces at the words.

[randomestfandoms-ocs]

Red White And Royal Blue OC Masterlist

Name: Abigail Claremont-Diaz

Story: Miss Americana

Face Claim: Zion Moreno

Love Interest: Bea Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor

For all that Abigail Claremont-Diaz wanted to build a name for herself outside of being First Daughter Of The United States, she also couldn’t imagine her life without the past four years.  Without her daily commute from the White House to the GWU campus, without the secret service always a step behind her, without the beautiful, bustling streets of DC to call her own.  She missed Texas, it would always hold a special place in her heart, but she couldn’t imagine life if she’d never left.  She certainly couldn’t imagine her life if she’d never started dating the Prince of Wales — although did it count as dating if her eyes always strayed to his sister?  Abi had spent four years building her perfect life under the microscope of Capitol Hill but, much like a £75,000 wedding cake, her twin brother’s lack of impulse control and obsession with her boyfriend had to send it crashing down around her. 

Name: Caroline Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor

Story: Sweet Caroline

Face Claim: Sabrina Carpenter

Love Interest: Oliver Cochrane

Caroline Henrietta Alexandria Theresa Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor.  Princess of Wales.  Britain’s sweetheart, the tragic princess.  If her life were her own, maybe Caroline could have followed her dreams, could have followed her father’s footsteps and become an actress, the first female James Bond.  But her life belonged to crown and country, and Caroline’s free will only extended far enough to choose which media smile to use on any given day.  Caroline Fox had dreams, hopes, ambitions, secrets.  Princess Caroline was just a doll, a piece in her grandmother’s never ending game of chess.  This time, Caroline’s job was simple: to clean up the mess caused by her older brother and her dearest friend, to make the so-called Cakegate look like a silly misstep between best friends and not like an international incident that could determine the fate of American politics for the next four years and beyond.  In theory, it shouldn’t have been too hard, after all, Henry and Alex were quite possibly her two favourite people in the world, and Caroline had never not been able to charm her way out of trouble.  The only problem is that her grandmother’s plan involves a staging a relationship and eventually an engagement, possibly even another royal wedding.  The only problem is that this relationship would be between Caroline herself and Alex Claremont-Diaz.  The only problem is that Caroline knows that Henry has been in love with Alex for the past four years.

Name: Cate Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor

Story: Diamond Eyes

Face Claim: Liz Gillies

Love Interest: June Claremont-Diaz & Nora Holleran

Name: Christian Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor

Story: History Has Its Eyes On You

Face Claim: Kit Connor

Name: Eileen Eisner

Story: Come On Eileen

Face Claim: Lily Collins

Name: Genevieve Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor

Story: Rise And Fall Of A British Princess

Face Claim: Hannah Dodd

Name: Emilia Harper Claremont-Diaz

Story: History Has Its Eyes On You

Face Claim: Rachel Zegler

Name: Isabel Luna

Story: We Built This City

Face Claim: Ana De Armas

Frankly, the entire goddamn country should feel grateful that Isabel Luna loves Alex Claremont-Diaz as much as she does.  She wouldn’t be stepping back from her beloved — and well earned, no nepotism required — job as her older brother’s chief of staff to babysit just any First Child for the entire year leading up to Ellen’s reelection.  But it was Alex.  Alex, who she’d known for pretty much ever.  Alex, who she’d comforted through his first heartbreak.  Who she’d given his very first shot of tequila, who she’d mentored when they worked together on Raf’s campaign.  Alex, who was her brother just as much as Rafael.  And it was for Ellen — and maybe Isa wasn’t as close to her as she was to Oscar, but Ellen had always been an inspiration to her and she would do whatever it took to ensure that she beat Richards in the election.  Besides, she’d been babysitting Alex since he was a pubescent little shit, she was probably the most qualified person to wrangle him around for the next year.  Honestly, preventing another Cakegate level international incident should have been easy; if only Alex hadn’t decided to fall in love - and bed - with the Prince of Wales.

Name: Kennedy Quinlan

Story: Winding Roads

Face Claim: Ashley Benson

Kennedy Quinlan couldn’t remember a time before Alex Claremont-Diaz.  The three musketeers, along with their other best friend Liam, they’d been inseparable since pre-school.  For well over a decade, they had done everything together.  And yes, Kennedy had known that graduation would change everything, but she hadn’t expected this.  With Ellen winning her election, Alex no longer had a reason to return to Austin.  With Kennedy on the road, following wherever the rodeo circuit led, she never had time to visit either boy.  And Liam, well, she wasn’t sure what had happened, but he had completely ghosted.  Without her best friends to ground her, Kennedy lost herself in her horses.  No other life, no other interests, being “Rodeo Barbie” had become her life, not just her job.  That was all that she was.  Until the fall.Injured, untethered, with no idea who or what she wanted to be if she wasn’t a rodeo star, Kennedy had no idea what was supposed to come next.  Until Mama Ellen offered her an internship under Zahra Bankston, a home within the White House, and some semblance of direction in her life.  But Kennedy is no longer the girl she’d once been, and Alex is no longer the boy she once knew, and one way or another, the impending election was going to force Kennedy to figure out who exactly she is.

Name: London Carter

Story: Closer To Fine

Face Claim: Emily Alyn Lind

London Carter had plans.  She had plans for graduating Magna Cum Laude with a double major in political science and international relations.  She had plans to work on Ellen Claremont’s reelection campaign, to help make another four years of Claremont-Holleran a reality.  She had plans for winning her senate seat, and for becoming Secretary of State.  She had plans to be Vice President in the Claremont-Diaz Carter administration of 2032-2040 alongside her best friend, FSOTUS Alex Claremont-Diaz.  Her plans did not include Alex causing an international incident with the Prince Of England.  Her plans also did not include having to use every bit of her upcoming international relations degree to clean up his mess.  And her plans definitely did not include Alex falling in love with said Prince Of England, especially in the middle of Ellen’s reelection.

Name: Lucy Kent

Story: Lucy In The Sky

Face Claim: Maude Apatow

Name: Madison Richards

Story: All-American Bitch

Face Claim: Madelaine Petsch

Aside from her general and entirely justified dislike for her father, Madison Richards had several other issues with his plan for her to – in his words – seduce the youngest British prince and steal the trade deal out from President Claremont.  To start, judging by the fact that he had never once attempted to sneak a glance down her dresses, Madison suspected that she was far from Prince Henry’s type.  Furthermore, his plan failed to consider the fact that she had spent the whole campaign trail so far sneaking around for clandestine hookups with Alex Claremont-Diaz, the First Son himself.   And, last but certainly not least, her father still had no idea that she had spent her entire time in rehab sleeping with the Prince’s older sister.  But then again, getting herself in close quarters with the Prince and Princess of Wales and the First Son could only help in her own plan: to do whatever it takes to stop her father from getting elected.

Name: Margaret Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor

Story: Heartbreak Princess

Face Claim: Florence Pugh

Love Interest: Pez Ojonjo

Where Henry was the Prince Of England’s Hearts, Margaret had always been the Heartbreak Princess.  Filling the void left by her father’s death with a string of meaningless flings, Margaret had never been anything but completely transparent about what she was looking for: a distraction.  Not love, never love, but a way to pass the time in between Bea’s breakdowns, Mary’s lectures, and trying to draw Henry out of his shell.  But when Henry falls into a cake, and a torrid romance, with the American First Son, Margaret finds herself swept up in an international whirlwind as she tries desperately to protect her twin brother’s heart — only to realize that in doing so, she may have left her own heart far more open than she’d ever intended.

Name: Oliver Cochrane

Story: Sweet Caroline

Face Claim: Thomas Doherty

Love Interest: Caroline Fox

[adultswim2021]

Robot Chicken #64: “They Took My Thumbs” | December 14, 2008 - 11:30PM | S04E02

I forget if I discussed the gimmick of this season's episode titles, so I'll do it here, possibly redundantly. They titled each episode so that if you were to sequence them in production order (like how they usually appear on DVD), the resulting list of episode names will spell out a cohesive message. That way, when you buy the DVD, the episodes will be listed in production order, resulting in the pay-off.

This episode felt like it had fewer sketches than most, meaning there was an emphasis on longer sketches with only a handful of channel-change gags or shorties. The first one is about the contractor building the dungeon trap from the opening sequence of Raiders of the Lost Ark. The joke being that it’s silly and doesn’t make a whole lotta sense. Also the contractor sorta got a little too creative vs. what was actually asked of him. This one is decent, basically on par with an average SNL sketch. Actually now I’m recalling sketch where Christopher Walken plays Blofield, and James Bond shows up to his liar unexpectedly ahead of schedule and he has to apologize for the construction going on. This is different enough for me not to be pissed at it. Also the Walken sketch sucks. 

Next is Train Man, about a guy who gets squished by the Subway and must live the rest of his life being squished, for if they move the train it will cause his organs to fall out of his body and he’ll die. He spends his lifetime being a businessman and ignoring his wife and kids. There’s a guitar song that goes along with it. I guess this one alludes to an old urban legend. I don’t know man, I didn’t get much out of this one. 

The next sketch is about Jason Vorhees leading a boring life of quiet domesticity, but he eagerly awaits Friday the 13th so he can go out on have a killing spree. This one is fine, I guess, but the premise is faulty. I am pretty sure Jason doesn’t care about the actual day he kills people. This MF would kill on Talk Like A Pirate Day if he felt like it. And he should! 

You see, I wrote the joke “this MF would kill on ____ if he felt like it” and that’s what I came up with. Sorta low-hanging fruit. I could’ve gone with something edgier, like my birthday. Can you imagine bad stuff happening on my birthday? People wouldn’t be able to say “happy birthday” to me. This is the saddest thing I can think of right now!

Wildman is a sketch where kids are persuaded by one of their mothers to go swimming instead of cooping themselves up playing video games. She’s helped along by Wildman, a kid-friendly “outrageous” rocker whose advice gets preachier and lamer. The kids become disillusioned with Wildman, who doesn’t seem all that wild to them any more. The final gag is Wildman departing with a message against gay marriage. This one’s decent, too. Not mad at it! Wildman is voiced by Sebastian Bach, and he gives an great performance.

The final sketch is Bring A Sidekick to Work day, which is a bunch of lame riffs on DC Comics heroes being lads with each other. Sebastian Bach voices Martian Manhunter in this one, which was a little surprising to learn. The Robot Chicken crew have said in one of the few audio commentary tracks I listened to that when they get a guest star, they typically have them voice three different voices. Usually it’s obvious, like when you have somebody like Keith Crawford voicing a doctor. According to the wiki, this sketch was co-written by Geoff Johns, a guy whose name I’ve seen on DC comics before.

I’d call this one slightly stronger than most Robot Chickens, but I am very tired of sketches where Superheroes are horny. Just knock that shit off. All of them retain their semen, or have been chemically castrated as ordered by a judge. Sorry, I’m a stickler for this sort of thing.

[tutuandscoot]

DREAM VIRTUEMOIR PROGRAMS

1. I Want You / Paint It Black

Music:

Paint It Black (The Rolling Stones) as the main song, but because it is so fast paced and quite lyric heavy, I feel it needs an instrumental section to add some contrast. I Want You (She’s So Heavy) (The Beatles) is the song I can think of that fits the vibe- if I were to find something else less well known that fits better I would of course use that. Ideally, I would prefer to use just Paint It Black because single-song programs are so rare now but I do think it needs some kind of transition- going gang busters to Paint It Black for 3 or 4 mins would kill them. If I Want You were to be used I would definitely use the end piece… the kinda discord guitar part.. since this is of course not a real scenario I’m just going to imagine there is some ideal way to piece the songs together.

Inspiration:

I already made an IG real using Paint It Black that I set to Farrucas because it has a very similar energy and the chore and the music fit kinda well. Even though Farrucas is Spanish guitar and Paint It Black is sitar (Indian guitar) it has that similar pace. That was really just a fun little video I’m not basing any of my dream program off of that. Where I’m really taking my inspiration from for this is my favourite TV show ‘The Americas’. I’m not going to go into detail of the story because it isn’t important, just the theme, character inspiration etc.. So this show is about two KGB spies undercover in DC in the 80’s (touchy subject rn I know but let’s not worry about that). The characters are a man and woman ‘fake’ married so there is a lot of complicated love and feelings so there is that underlying theme complementing VM but really the character inspiration for this dance is just the visual of these two badasses. This is essentially a spy thriller program but finally not using James Bond music. I guess also, and you’ll see in the costumes I’ve imagined there’s also a bit visual of inspiration from the Matrix. Lastly, the styling for Sweet Dreams from TTYCT- them, like that.. I need more of that (even if it’s just in my imagination).

Chore/dance style:

This is the one part of this dream program that I can’t give a lot visual reference for- like I’m not actually gonna go choreograph it and even then, I couldn’t do it on ice or actually have VM to choreograph it on, so I’m just gonna have to give vague descriptions. This would be a modern jazz program- think similar to their 08/09 Pink Floyd program. I imagine some super epic midline/non-touch chore, some butterflies some insane foot work (esp from S) lots of sharp, fosse-ess arms, voguing type upper body work. As for lifts some of their fast-rotational lifts with T in some kind of contorted position around S head. I imagine a traveling rotational version of their first stat. lift from Latch. Probably the Prince lift. I also remembered this group dance on SYTYCD S9 by Mia Michaels (who T really wanted to work with during their career) and this is both visually, stylistically close to what I’m going for.

Costuming:

The idea of VM skating in these costumes is so exciting to me and I try not to dwell on the fact that I’ll never get to see it but oh well.

- A couple of variations on this: I’ll describe the version I’ve settled on then some other options (also please bare with me I’m not a great drawer when it comes to people and I’m still learning to use procreate).

So: Matching, slick black cat suits. Long sleeves and turtle necks. Tessa’s with a diamond-shaped back cut out with red sparkles flaring out in a gradient from the edge (similar to MR dress). Both of them will have the same red rhinestone design around the wrists (similar to her SFTD dress). T will wear black skates (not boot covers coz I hate them). T with a slick black low bun and Scott with his MR hair but slicked down a bit more (sorry I’m not gonna try draw the hair).

- Now some other alternatives I toyed with- just in my head because it took about 2 hours just to draw these ones. I originally really wanted both their costumes to be identical- S with the diamond back cut out as well but when I drew it on the model it just didn’t look good- it would probably look better on S but I’ve settled on his being solid black- essentially what he wore for LTR just jazzed up. For both of them I toyed with sparkles in the same gradient pattern around the turtle neck- but I felt it would be too much.. maybe on Scott’s since he doesn’t have the back cut out.

- Another option they could go with- because I’m not totally sold on the cat suits once they are actual costumes. In my head it looks great and I want it to be as slick as possible, but for S I’m just not sure- not for any superficial reasons… just as a costume then adding movement it would depend. An alternate to the exact same look but tight black jeans/trousers with a black belt cause I still want that streamline look and with the top part being a leotard- yes for both of them. Scott’s costumes in the past- anything tight ie: MR is a leotard that undoes underneath, much like fashion leotards.

-Now here’s the fun part that I don’t know whether (if I was choreographing/styling.. in charge of everything).. somehow I want them to wear sunglasses.. either aviators (as in Sweet Dreams) but I would have to see it styled first to see if aviators would work and if not I would go with kinda, Matrix style glasses- like that more 80’s style. I can’t imagine these being used for the whole program, or at least down over their eyes for the whole program, I don’t really know it would have to be experimented with but I definitely like that as a visual and would make for some cool chore and partner work.

Short/Free/Exhibition:

So, in order to get some truly epic step sequences it would have to be a comp program. I feel I’m leaning towards a SD rather FD, just with the pace of Paint It Black that’s a lot for a 4 min program- imagining the split would be probably 2-3 mins PIB and the remaining IWY (or alternate instrumental) so with a SD having the split 2-1 (minutes) seems more manageable- not just for VM but choreographically filling 2-3 mins of chore to Paint In Black matching the pace is… a lot.. having said that, it feels wrong to only cut a 1 min section of the I Want You outro so I’m not sure, but I’m leaning towards SD. In this imaginary scenario of course, we are ignoring set rhythms and compulsory patterns (even though that’s not a thing anymore). I said in my IG reel using PIB (for the FS history buffs) that the 10/11 season OD theme was set to be 50/60/70 music- and of course there was no set pattern in the OD format so no need to worry about fitting time signatures/BPM. That of course did not happen and the CD + OD were scraped and they brought in the SD. I don’t feel or more I couldn’t see them skating this dream program I’ve imagined when they were just 21/23 anyway- I feel like it would require more maturity in movement-more sensuality, and just more exploration of dance styles since they hadn’t done a lot of ‘jazz’ at that point. I can just imagine it being a better program if performed in their comeback era. So I think it would be shame not to see a program this epic in competition, however it also really excites me the prospect of seeing it under lights and from a set design perspective we could do some really interesting things with spotlights/strobes/lighting design in general. This is all theoretical anyway so we don’t need to choose… maybe there can be a comp version and a show version.

Let me know your thoughts on this dream program. I have a whole list of others ready to dream up as well!

[trailerparty]

FEARLESS FRANK (1965/1968), DIR. P. KAUFMAN

"Imagine how perplexing 1967's Casino Royale would be in a world where James Bond never sipped a martini. Imagine watching 1995's The Brady Bunch Movie without ever seeing Mike, Carol, and the kids on television. Consider for a moment how strange The Monkees would look if The Beatles never made it out of Liverpool. Finally, imagine Fearless Frank without the iconic comic of the same name. What's that, you're not familiar with Fearless Frank? Don't worry -- nobody else is, either. Fearless Frank is that strangest of beasts, a camp parody of a character that never existed. This is Adam West's Batman in a world without DC. " -- David Eschatfische

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #570

Top Ten Couples in Comics

Ah, love is in the air. Sort of. Soon-ish. Yes, it’s not technically anywhere near Valentine’s Day yet, but a confluence of other stuff in my life has made me dedicate this weekend to good old Cupid and his ruddy bloody arrows.

So a couple of years ago, around about now-ish, I was banging on something rotten about superhero romantic couples, but focusing solely on adaptations thereof. It was movie (and TV I guess) versions of superhero romances that flew backwards round my particular world. Now I’m returning to that well with a vengeance, as I discuss actual comic book incarnations of superheroes, and their respective squeezes.

I think it’s obvious what’s going to come highly here, as there’s at least one superhero romantic pairing that’s so iconic it transcends the very medium; there have been at least two live-action TV series with the characters names together in the title. The first “modern” superhero movie literally hung the story around the romance – including the world-spinning finale. And, yeah, quite a few more are fairly obvious I guess. But there are some that might be less iconic, less all-encompassing (although I imagine if we give James Gunn a couple of years these could all be household names); it’s an idiosyncratic list that, once again, reflects my particular tastes and thirty-odd years of reading history.

I’ve gone, here, for couples that I think work well together for one reason or another. And they��re couples that I’ve actually, y’know, read; not just those that exist in the atmosphere. I’ve tried to cast my net as broadly as possible but at the same time, if you’re aiming for superheroes, chances are you’re going to catch a lot of DC and Marvel characters. Which is fine! Those guys are totally iconic.

Anyway, with no further ado, let’s kick off the season of love by celebrating fictional super-people and their significant others.

Superman and Lois Lane: who else? They’re perfect together: a man with all the power in the world who only uses it to protect and inspire others; and a woman dedicated to finding and protecting the truth at all costs. She’s tough, he’s gentle, despite him being the strong one. Whether it’s the initial dynamic of Lois wanting Superman and ignoring Clark, or more modern stories where it’s Clark she falls in love with, or any variation in between, they’ve been doing this dance for eighty years. So strong is their bond, so well do they fit together, so iconic is their pairing, that nowadays it’d be weird if they weren’t presented as a couple; it didn’t take too long after the New 52 reboot undid their marriage for them to wind up not only back together again but with a child, to boot.

Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson: pretty much the whole time I ever read comics, Peter and MJ were a couple, if not married; as such, I find it really, really weird that they got magically un-married. Because they’re so great together, the teenage melodrama of their love playing out in tragi-adventurous fashion. MJ, groovy party girl, wannabe model, shows her strength and compassion when she comforts Peter after Gwen’s death; and, as they become close and fall in love, quiet nerd Peter comes out of his shell. They’re there for each other from their teenage years and you really get the feeling no one knows either of them so well. And the future-set stories, where they’re married with a superpowered daughter, are terrific too.

Batman and Catwoman: whilst nowadays this seems equally as inevitable as Lois and Clark, it’s actually a relationship that’s evolved over time. Catwoman started out as more of a femme fatale; sure, there was an attraction, but Bruce was given “proper” love interests for years, from Silver St. Cloud to Vikki Vale. But there’s just something about Selina. And really it makes sense; Bruce definitely has a dark side, so him being drawn to a Bad Girl, seeing the good inside her, and how he helps bring that to the surface without totally switching her to the straight and narrow… whether they actually end up together or are doomed to forever be apart, they’re perfect. And let’s face it, they’re just both super, super sexy.

Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon: no codenames here because it’s a love that transcends secret identities; Robin and Batgirl? Nightwing and Oracle? Bats and Babs? Like Peter and MJ, they’re a couple of kids, best friends who played out together at night, and then grew up and fell in love. I like that they had lives away from each other – Dick went off with the Titans and had another relationship; Babs pursued a career and overcame disability – but they come back together. There’s something so true and honest about the pair of them, and their relationship together, that makes them a perfect couple, even though part of that knowledge is that they probably can’t really make a go of it, not now, not at the moment.

Cyclops and Jean Grey: so much of their relationship is based around how it ended, but I still like them as a couple. It’s a bit weird, looking back decades later, how quickly some of the Sixties characters accelerated into middle-age, but I always think of Scott and Jean as like the X-Men’s mum and dad. They were a seemingly happy married couple, with just a touch of the usual Marvel angst; until she died, of course, in massively iconic fashion. In fact, it’s partly this tragedy – and how it effected both of them, with Jean’s weird resurrections and Scott’s batshit reactions – that partly defines their relationship.

The Elongated Man and Sue Dibny: I first came across this couple, and their adorable rock-solid relationship, when Sue was horribly murdered in the controversial Identity Crisis (a book which, weirdly, was basically my gateway to the wider DC Universe). Having read more about them, they’ve got serious couple goals: solid, dependable, best friends. I like how Sue totally supports Ralph’s super-heroing, but is more than just a hanger-on, becoming an integral part of the various books the Elongated Man was involved in. Even their deaths didn’t slow them down, as they popped up as ghosts – still together, of course.

Superboy and Wonder Girl: I was never a fan of attempts to match up Superman and Wonder Woman, but their Teen Titans analogues were a different kettle of Thanagarian Snare Beasts. Their slow-burning romance was the stuff of teen drama serials, as they bottle battled personal demons that got in the way of their feelings. They finally consummated things in the series Infinite Crisis, just before Superboy heroically died saving the multiverse; but this added extra wrinkles, as we saw the effect his death had not just on Wonder Girl but also Robin, and how it played into his (inevitable, this is comics) resurrection.

Green Arrow and Black Canary: some couples are soulmates; some are doomed, tragic romances; some are booty calls. And then there’s Oliver Queen and Dinah Lance. For decades now, they’ve bounced off and around one another, an all-time perfect romantic couple, a bickering, back-and-forth Eighties action movie pairing. They’ve fought and argued and – well – done other stuff, and it’s like a Shane Black exploding into When Harry Met Sally. They’re star-crossed lovers who are also often very cross. And, I’ve gotta say, there’s something just really sexy about the pair of them. I blame his beard. And her fishnets.

Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman: some of the characters in this list are married couples, but they’ve also spent a lot of time, well, not married – or even not together at all. Not so Reed and Sue: yes, of course, they weren’t married when they debuted at the very dawn of the MCU in 1962, but for the bulk of their history they’ve been married. And despite the likes of Doom and Namor trying to muscle in, they’ve been happily married for the most part – having a couple of super-powered kids. But they compliment each other so well: he’s an absent-minded genius, she’s phenomenally capable and arguably even more powerful, and there’s no sense that they don’t love and trust each other completely, even though they’re different in many ways. God, I can’t wait to see them on screen. Er, again.

Rocket Raccoon and Lylla Otter: maybe this one is entirely me; and unlike some of the other longer-running couples, really these two were only together in one mini-series forty years ago. But I like them! He’s a dashing adventurer; she’s the heir to a toy-making dynasty. Together, they battle nefarious, corrupt toymakers, try to avoid Lylla getting married, and cure a bunch of humans of insanity, all the while making weird refences to the Beatles’ song Rocky Raccoon. It’s incredibly strange and I adore it. And they do make a cute couple; there’s a bit of Han and Leia about them, and they go for nice picnics and cavort about in streams and suchlike. The Rocket presented here is very different from the one who became famous in the movies – and, indeed, quite a bit different from when the character became a member of the comic book Guardians too. Speaking of which, Lylla makes her big-screen debut this year in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and as a long-time fan, I cannot wait.

Feel a bit bad that I didn’t find room for any of the cool same-sex couples in comics, like Apollo and Midnighter or Hulkling and Wiccan. This is because, basically, I just haven’t really read enough comics about them I guess. But the latter two guys are an incredibly cute couple who very, very nearly made the list!

Anyway, Happy Valentine’s Day. Er, a week from now. Yay!

[the-imaginative-hobbyist]

Was a little bored and edited a promo image of Michelle Yeoh  in Tomorrow Never Dies(007) into something Bat and Cat related just for the heck of it. 

[fantasyimagines]

gif credit: x x

[psychoblush]

one of my favorite things in The Batman’s depiction of Bruce is how human they make him in the style of how he’s shown. His hair is greasy and disgusting - he has to smudge on eyeliner. Even with the body armor you imagine that every single one of those hits and bullet impacts causes a scar and a bruise on his body - it really is just his own belief in his ability to endure that keeps him going. You see the fear in his eyes when he runs up to the roof and you see the utter pain and anguish he’s in in that final scene.

My favorite one of these details is that Bruce wraps his hands inside of his gloves - and they get all sweaty and tattered and dirty. Like of *course* batman would wrap his hands - it’s basic boxing / fighting etiquette, it protects his wrists, joints, and fingers and keeps his gauntlets tightly wound. And yet these are the details - like the mascara, like the dirty hair - that are never emphasized in prior batman media. Batman is always shown as cool, almost godlike, like a suave put-together James Bond figure. What they don’t show as much is that if Batman has these characteristics, it’s because he’s putting on a mask - a more real mask than the one he wears all the time.

“We both know this is your true face.”

Snyder fans love to say that Marvel is about humans learning to be gods while DC is about gods learning to be humans. I call utter bullshit on that weird christ-like interpretation of Superman and the other justice league members Snyder popularized. I think that’s not accurate at all. Batman is incredibly human - he’s extremely human. He’s horrifically traumatized and operates with such a specificity of action and intention because it’s the only way he knows how to contend with his feelings. He’s deeply broken, and he is striving to heal. And it isn’t being vengeance that allows him to heal. It is providing hope and protection to the innocent - and providing a sense of safety and family to his future bat family.