#let's be real here the penguins will overpower them all

[littlefoxwithbighat]

Other excellent candidates.

SEAGULL. Must act LIKE a seagull- ie. stealing all food from NPCs and PCs whereever possible. Unbelievably loud cawing at 6am

SWAN AND/ OR GOOSE. Must act LIKE seagull and/ or goose I.e terrorising everyone and everything. Hisses.

GIANT ISOPOD. Can be summoned on land or water, but for limited time on land. Every NPC is fucking terrified of it and suspects that your player is the antichrist. Most DnD games take place in functionally medieval towns. Can you imagine your just chilling and this stranger puts a giant hellspawn on your table. He's just chilling though and hes good at exploring underwater enviroments. Your best friend :))

ROADRUNNER have you SEEN these things. Have you seen how they run. Their little head crests. Its so funny to me to imagine a grand wizard in a fancy cape and one of these fuckers running behind him

In fact, LITERALLY ANY SNAKE HUNTING BIRDS. With their silly long little legs. SECRETARY BIRDS are a prime example. BLACK NECKED SILTS are marsh birds, not snake hunters but they have silly legs so im putting them here anyway. AVOCETS also. HERONS and especially PELICANS. I imagine so many creative on game uses for their big big mouths.

GIANT AUSTRALIAN BAT/ FLYING SILVER FOX. Enough cute little fruit bat familiars (sorry fruit bats ily). More bats the size of a five year old child. Can you imagine how unhinged it would be.

NAKED MOLE RAT

PLATYPUS. Now i know what your thinking. This is a lot more tame than some on this list. And they're so cute and a bit wish fufillmenty right? And you're correct. But the platypus has two redeeming elements. 1. You are playing in fantasy medieval times. NOBODY on gods green earth has any idea what this creauture is possibly including your character. WAIT HAS FUR AND LAYS EGGS? All the party are worried its possesed or smth but its literally just a platypus. Also 2. Venemous. Need i say more.

FLY. Only for the brave of heart. Incapable of affection. Terrible vision. You could use it for stealth but the BZZZZ gives you away everytime and it has 1 hp. Everyone is convinced your player is a stinky boy because he constantly has a fly on him. No upsides. But it IS funny.

MORE WEIRD BIRDS. SPOONBILL. HOOPOE. WESTERN PAROTIA (with their silly mate dances!) VOGELKOP SUPER BIRD OF PARADISE (with /their/ silly mate dances!!!!) GREAT CRESTED GREBES. GREATER SAGED GROUSES. PHEASANTS. ROCKHOPPER PENGUINS. A MOTHERFUCKING FLAMINGO!!!

...op really likes birds you guys.

NEWT

MANED WOLF (player insists it is a malformed fox. Nobody sure whether to believe them.)

ELEPHANT SEAL

DIKDIK

TAPIR

ECHIDNA (can deal piercing damage in battle!)

PORCUPINE (can deal piercing damage in battle! Also to the player. Porcupines are really big in person you guys.)

TARSIER (would you get persuasion advntage or intimidation advantage???? I feel like you should get one but which i have no clue. Take psychic damage if you look ag its eyes for over 3 minutes. Theyre hypnotising.)

JUST LITERALLY A REGULAR MOLE. Vision is bad, but advantage on all dogging related checks.

ARMADILLO

ANTEATER

WOMBAT

POISON FROG (To prevent it from being overpowered, the DM only let's you use it once, but whoever you use it on is insta killed. If the player handles it for more than 5 minutes consecutively they also insta die.)

AYE AYE

CAPYBARA

OKAPI (bonus points if DM let's you ride them)

Literally a regular HORSE but the player sticks an ice cream cone on his head everytime they summon him and everyone has to roll an insight check to see if they are convinced

MARKHOR (bonus points if DM let's you ride him :])

FAINTING GOAT (has to roll a con save everytime they are mildy frightened. If failrd they are down for the next round).

DODO (Extinction isnt real and you can help)

PTERODACTYL (Extinction isnt real. The dramatic sequel. (If anyone says "arent they Extinct?" they instantly go to 0hp and cannot be resummoned.))

SAIGA ANTELOPE (bonus points if DM let's you ride it)

FOSSA (can be used in battle to unleash hell, if pursuaded to listen.)

QUOLL

TENREC (its just so so funny to me look at it can you imagine a grand high wizard or warrior pulling one of these bois out their cloak can you)

JAPANESE SPIDER CRAB (NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE. ADVANTAGE ON ALL INTIMIDATION AND PERSUASION CHECKS.)

SUNDA COLUGO (Advantage on all persusation checks look at its sad wet little eyes).

RAT- hey this one is pretty tame? I thought you said rats were boring. Yes but. If you put them on your head you get advantage for all and any cooking checks :P

AARDWOLF

AARDVARK

BILBY

RACCOON DOG (ADVANTAGE ON PERSUASION THEYRE SOOO CUTEEEEE)

WORM/ SNAIL (1hp. 1 move speed. Why???)

Strongly believe that people should be getting sillier with their dnd familiars

[barnesbabee]

[Don't Starve/DST tips for beginner players]

1. CHARACTER CHOOSING

The character you play plays a big role in the game, as they're not just for aesthetic, each character has ups and downs and as a beginner you should choose the most neutral characters before you get a handle of the game. In singleplayer Don't Starve you can only unlock new characters with XP, but in DST you have all of them available to you, so choose wisely. Here's a small guide on each character:

Wilson: he's the starting character, so naturally he's the most neutral one. He doesn't really have pros or cons, he just grows a pretty cool beard.

Willow: the firestarter. She's my main so I have a lot to say. Willow is a good character, although her sanity is low she's very useful. In regular Don't Starve she spawns with a lighter, but in Don't Starve together she spawns with a lighter and Bernie, her bear. Willow's sanity goes up if she picks flowers, like normal players, but she also gets more sanity when she's around fire or when she burns things, so when her sanity is low you might want to leave base or not walk around forests because she can start a fire. The sanity gain with fire improves during the day. She's also really useful because in DST when she's insane she can put Bernie on the floor and he'll become a huge bear and fight monsters for her. This is all amazing but as I said she loves fire, so she hates cold, and winter is especially hard for her. She can freeze quicker and it's really annoying and it's hard to do anything that involves not being around warm fire, so if you're a new player I don't really recommend playing Willow at first because winter is already hard as it is. This being said, during summer she's also more resistant to heat strokes than other characters, and she also doesn't take fire damage unlike other characters.

Wolfgang: Wolfgang has great stats and he's really strong, but you have to be constantly feeding him or else he'll get weak. Also he's 'afraid of monsters', which means his sanity drains quicker than other characters when he's around hostile mobs.

Wendy: Wendy is someone I recommend to new players, because although her stats aren't the best, and although she doesn't hit very hard, she comes with Abigail. Abigail is her dead sister that you can spawn from the flower Wendy carries, and Abigail is useful because she can fight for you. Most mobs in Don't Starve use close range and with Abigail you can use long range which is very useful. Just make sure you don't get hit because Wendy's HP isn't the best.

WX78: it's a bit of a shit character if you ask me. Definitely don't play this one. When he gets hit by lighting he gets charged up and can be a light source + walk faster, but he only eats gears (which are hard to get on their own) and he gets rusty if it rains, I honestly don't like him.

Wickerbottom: I don't have much experience on her, she's really smart and she comes with an extra crafting tab that allows her to craft books which she can use to spawn stuff. It's useful but I don't have much insight on her.

Woodie: I play him a lot in DST, and he's really great overall. He comes with an axe (Lucy) that is infinite (it doesn't wear out like other axes) and he can chop trees down really quickly. However during full moon he can turn into a Goose (runs fast), into a Moose (attacks with force) or into a Beaver (can chop trees faster and without an axe), but when he comes back to being Woodie he will be hungry (hunger will be at 0) so you have to make sure you have food around.

Wes: garbage.

Maxwell: He can create shadows to fight for him, chop for him, etc... But for every shadow he permanently looses HP (which means that, for example, if his HP sits at 150 max, when he makes a shadow the max will be 120HP). It's useful but you have to be careful not to take any damage, and as a new player that might be hard.

Wigfrid: She's a great fighter, and she's able to craft a helmet (best protection in the game I believe, at least from the regular ones) and a spear which are exclusive to her. However she only eats meat and it can be a little hard for new players as carrots and berries are the easiest food to get.

Webber: he's recently had a rework so he has a couple new things. Webber is a spider, and he can now make them passive, wake them up, and put them to sleep, which is great to farm/harvest stuff. Webber isn't attacked by spiders like other players, but since pigmen are afraid of spiders they will hit Webber as well. Not a terrible character to start with either!

Warly: Warly comes with his own special crockpot and he is a great cook, which means that your hunger heals better when you eat something he made. The downside is that he can't eat anything he didn't make in his crockpot, which can make it a little hard.

Wormwood: I recently bought Hamlet (which is how you get this playable character or DST) and man, my thoughts are divided. He's a good character as he can plant seeds without needing to make crops, however he's extremely flammable (he can't stand too close to a fire), he looses sanity every time he chops a tree or picks a flower ('cause he's a plant and he doesn't like hurting his friends). Something really annoying about him is that he doesn't heal by eating food like other characters, he only heals with the spider glands or with manure (shit). So he's not an ideal character to start with. He does grow a cool flower on his head during spring though.

Winona: She's a really badass character and I really like her. She's a builder, so she can build things other characters can't (like catapults) so she's really effective when it comes to defending the base and helping out against mobs like hounds. However she does lose sanity any time she crafts anything, so it can be a little hard to deal with her.

Wortox: I don't know much about him, but he can teleport and he can also heal players with his magic. If you ask me he's a little overpowered for the game.

Wurt: I don't know much about him and I've never had anyone play him, all I know is that he doesn't get attacked by merman since he's one of them.

Walter: he's a little scout boy that comes with a slingshot and a dog. The dog can grow big and Walter can ride him which is good for fleeing, but after riding for a while the dog will throw him off.

Sorry for not having much on the last 3 but they're fairly recent compared to others and I haven't seen much of them or played them.

Most times during DST people choose characters that help others, so you can help each other and get the most out of the game.

2. SANITY

Sanity plays a big part in this game. You lose sanity by being in the dark, or by fighting mobs. Some characters have special ways of losing sanity, for example, Wormwood loses sanity by picking flowers or chopping trees. How do you fix your sanity? For all characters (except Wormwood) you can get sanity by picking flowers. With 12 flowers you can make a garland in the hat tab and it will slowly restore your sanity. You can also pick green mushrooms and cook them for more sanity. Just like some characters lose sanity in a 'special' way, some characters gain sanity in a special way as well, such as Woodie when he chops trees and Willow when she's near fire or when she sets anything on fire.

If you let your sanity go down you will start seeing shadows, those shadows become real if it goes down enough, and said shadows will start attacking you, which isn't great because they're a lot, so watch out for that.

3. SURVIVING WINTER

Winter is hands down my least favourite season because Im a Willow main :)

What happens during winter? It starts to snow, so players can freeze, deerclops might appear, crops stop growing. The biggest issue with the winter is that food is hard to find. Crops and berries don't grow anymore so what do you do? First of all you will need to find a clockwork before winter. What are clockworks? They're metal mobs that drop gears when you kill them. You need gears to make a fridge, so you can store a lot of food for winter. If you store food in a normal chest it will rot quickly, but in a fridge they last a long time. You should also build a crockpot which is fairly easy, and in a crockpot you can make better food, you can also take nearly rotten food and make it good by cooking it, and you can use 1 stick or 1 monster meat to make good food, as you can't normally eat monster meat 'cause it drains sanity and HP.

What can you do for the cold? You need to find beefalo, and with the shears (which you can craft in the tools) you shave the beefalo, so you can make a winter hat. That hat will help with the cold. You can also make earmuffs, by catching 2 live bunnies and sticks, but the hat isn't hard to make and it's better. MAKE SURE YOU CARRY ENOUGH TO MAKE A FIRE AT ALL TIMES. In case of emergency if you get cold and start dying you need to have something to warm you up. You should also make a thermal stone. It doesn't take a lot and it keeps you warm. (You use the thermal stone by setting it down near the fire and letting it geete warm)

You should also make bird and rabbit traps to get meat during the winter.

Beware of the deerclops, if it appears try to lure it away from your base because it can destroy everything you built. If you want to fight it, make sure you fight it away from your base, but if you don't you can also lure him somewhere else and then run away. The Deerclops will de-spawn after winter is over.

Try not to make your base near the sea 'cause penguins will spawn and they're very fucking annoying + they can destroy your shit.

4. SURVIVING SUMMER

Summer is also very fucking annoying but much less than winter.

What do you need?

Some crops survive, but some of them die, so getting food isn't as annoying to get, but it's still scarce, so you should also try to get as much food as you can during spring time.

You should get ice during winter from the glaciers, and also more gears. Some crops/trees/grass might start to burn during summer, and with gears and ice you can make an ice-fligomatic. The ice flingomatic will throw ice to things when they start burning and will extinguish the fire, so when you come back to your base it's not all in flames.

During the summer you can't stand near fire or you'll die of heatsroke. Remember Nitre? That yellow shit you leave behind after mining rocks because you need inventory space? Yeah you'll need those to build an endothermic fire. It lights up your nights and keeps you cold, however you can't cook in it.

The thermal stone from winter also works during the summer.

Keeping a bunch of ice from winter in your fridge also works. If you eat the ice it will make you colder.

RANDOM TIPS

1. Don't hit pigmen/beefalo when there's many around you. They will gather up and kill you.

2. DO NOT try to kill penguins. They might be easy to kill but not so much when they all gather around and kill you.

3. Always keep armor+spear on you in case hounds start to come and you're not at base.

4. Don't steal tall birds' eggs (blue with white dots). The tall bird is very strong and aggressive and it will follow you for the egg and try to kill you.

5. Don't eat the mushrooms unless 100% necessary. Mushrooms always have a side effect, like they might give you sanity but take HP.

6. You can use mushrooms and monster meat (which you shouldn't eat by themselves) and cook something in a crockpot, thus turning something inedible into something edible.

7. When it rains, more during the Spring than anything else, it might start raining frogs, it's not a bug, that happens. Try to get away from base so they don't swarm there, as they're very annoying.

8. ALWAYS build a lightning rod, during a storm the lightning can hit something and set it on fire, and you don't want your stuff being burned. The lightning rod collects the lightning and protects your base.

----

This is all I can remember, I am more than happy to answer any questions anyone might have! @atinystray here it is!!

[adrenalinesaint]

When one departs from under the sheltering wing of one’s benefactor, one must reckon with a sudden and profound lack of money. And while poverty had been a running theme in Jonathan’s life, having to clear out his old laboratory and find a new one, with all of three hundred dollars in his checking account, was more than difficult. Penguin’s people lock the door behind him, and all he’s got are his costume and a few barrels of toxin.

Three years ago, he would have been utterly defeated.

Gotham City, 3:24 AM, on the interstate-405, an armored car bearing the Waynetech logo is maintaining a steady 60 miles per hour. The woman in the driver’s seat and the man in the passenger’s seat are armed with bulletproof vests, stun batons, mace spray, and pistols -- all of which are hidden behind tinted glass. Their destination: Wayne Tower, where their payload would sit under guard for another two days before the weapons and defense exhibition the following week. Developers in the field of defense would be arriving from the world over to see what Waynetech had created for their militaries -- and, with a little finesse, they won’t find what they came for.

On an overpass overlooking the interstate, a tall, thin silhouette stands out against the streetlamps behind it, standing on the edge as though it may jump to its demise. With careful calculation, it’s possible to gauge whether or not human bones will break upon impact -- although there are a few other factors to consider: traction, for one. So, the figure on the overpass, getting a clear view of the armored car incoming, reaches down to tighten the cramp-ons its secured to its feet.

When the armored car comes fully into view, the driver gestures to the passenger. A figure standing on an overpass in Gotham can mean only a few things: suicide, or a heist. The passenger brandishes his pistol first, checking the chamber for a bullet and nodding to his driver when the confirmation comes in the form of a solid click. When they pass under the overpass, the sound of something heavy hitting the roof of their car is followed by a long, shrill scraping sound. From up top, the black-clad figure’s cramp-ons leave long, silvery streaks where they’d gripped into the metal roof.

Footsteps echo overhead. The passenger holds their finger over their lips to the driver, and the driver, now starting to sweat, keeps a trembling grip steady on the wheel. They don’t speak, but there’s a mutual understanding that if they crash this car, this entire section of the interstate is blowing up along with them. The dangers of driving delivery in Gotham. And the driver had just quit their pizza delivery gig.

For a few moments, it seems as though nothing will happen. In hopeful confusion, the driver wonders if whatever had happened was all a bad daydream.

And then the blade of a scythe comes crashing through the windscreen, the point of which stops mere inches in front of the tip of the driver’s nose. Letting out a shriek of sudden fear, she swerves, forcing the passenger to drop his firearm to reach over and grab the wheel to stabilize. They cannot run off the road. They cannot crash. With a heavy foot on the break pedal, the armored car comes to a skidding stop in a tunnel, fishtailing out in the middle of the lane.

The passenger gets out first. The driver is too frightened by the near-death experience to stir for a few moments, frozen in terror, but does only after her comrade is outside the car and appears relatively safe. When she too comes stumbling out of the driver’s seat and into the tungsten-lit tunnel, she finds her comrade aiming a shaky firearm just above the exterior roof of the car. But, when she looks, there’s nothing there.

“Mark, what’s going on?” She asks, out of breath from the adrenaline.

“There’s -- there’s something there -- something on the truck, Esther...” Mark’s pistol is wavering in his trembling grip. Esther can’t see from the distance at which she stands from him, but his pupils are dilated and the veins in his neck are throbbing. His sympathetic nervous system is on fire.

“Let’s get out of here -- “

“There’s a fucking scythe stuck in the windshield!”

From the angle of the handle of the scythe, it appears as though someone was standing on the roof of the truck and impaled it downward. As she approaches, she can see the silvery streaks from where the cramp-ons gripped the roof. Someone was here. But not anymore.

With Mark aiming his firearm at the truck, Esther swallows a mouthful of hot, dry air and resolves to move in. He can cover her. They aren’t going anywhere until this truck is secured. An explosion in a tunnel would cause significantly more damage than above-ground -- damage to not just the tunnel itself but the surrounding infrastructure. For a moment, she debates the virtues of calling GCPD so they can get the bat-signal up.

When she rounds the other side of the truck, she finds nothing but a strange discoloration on the ground. In the orange tungsten lighting though, it’s hard to tell what exactly it is -- probably just some oil leaked out of a passing car. Her feet splash quietly as she walks through it.

“I’m starting to think we may be in over our heads...” Mark is on the other side of the truck, voice starting to quiver with fear. Esther has never seen him like this before -- usually he makes a concerted effort to seem unflappable, but something is under his skin.

“Hey, come on. Robin’s like, what, twelve? If he can do this, so can we.”

“Doesn’t he say he trained all his life with elite assassins?”

“And what are we? Chopped liver?”

“I don’t know about you, but I used to be a schoolteacher before this job. Gotham’s one hell of a town.”

“No shit?”

“No --- “

Esther, while checking the undercarriage of the truck, promptly straightens, kneeling in that puddle, knees wet, ears open and alert like a feline in danger.

“...Mark?”

Nothing.

“Mark, this isn’t funny. We get scythed through the windshield, you can’t play games with me, man. M-Mark?”

When she stands, she finds that the scythe is no longer in the windscreen. For a moment, she stands in the still silence that’s fractured only by the humming of overhead lighting and the distant whooshing of far-away cars on far-away roads. In that moment of stillness, everything around Esther becomes saturated in color and texture. The cracks in the floor are darker. The lines painted on the road seem to wave and breathe in her peripheral vision.

“Mark?” As she utters her partner’s name one final time, the sound of her own voice seems to warp in pitch and tone, like dropping her own voice down a chute. “Somethings --- wrong --- “

“H̸͕͆̍i̴̻͈͂̀c̷̖̾͝k̵̖̖̂o̷̝̅̀ṛ̴͑y̸̺̏̆ ̶̲̋̊d̶͕̑í̵̢̀ċ̴͈͙k̴̭̊ó̵̜͗r̷͉̀̾y̵͖̑͠ ̴̣̊̚d̶̹̎̓͜o̶̥͌č̴͇͠k̷̙̯̈́͋.̶͉̎͠ͅ ̸̡̀T̴̻̥̂̕ḩ̶̡̐ẻ̸̛̟ ̶̐͝ͅḿ̸͙̯̎ô̷͇̯̕u̷̘̹̾s̷͓̖͝e̷̝̕͝ ̴̥́̈́ŗ̷̘͌a̷͙̟͐̚n̷̼̣̒̀ ̸̢̄̆u̸͓͊p̸̩̋ ̶̧͎͗͠t̶̢̆̎ĥ̷̲͕e̵̬͙͗ ̴̠̏͝c̴͉͗̓l̷͇̍͗ȯ̶̬c̴͓̥̔̑k̸̹̳͐.̷̡̃“

As though she were in a movie, she feels the world come into focus centered around her. In a radial blur all around her, all she can see clearly are her hands, so she reaches for her pistol. But what she finds there instead is a cold, wet slab of meat in her holster, forcing her to drop the thing in disgust. When it clatters to the ground with a metallic sound, she watches in horror as it sprouts several non-uniform spider legs and scurries away.

“Mark -- ?“

The world is spinning. Esther stumbles backward and trips, landing in that strange-smelling puddle. It’s all over her hands clothes now. The smell is overpowering -- her nose is burning -- where’s Mark?

Several gunshots echo through the tunnel, and in a whizzing ricochet, several overhead lights explode, showering Esther with sparks and shards of glass that, as they fall, transform into ash and blood and salt water. In a warp of psychadelic colors, her stomach turns and she vomits. When she comes back up from it, the tunnel is full of crows. So many that she can no longer see the pavement under her feet. The writhing mass of black feathers moves and sways like an ocean, and she’s deafened by the sound of them all screaming in unison.

Her mace. She has mace spray.

As the mass of feathers overtakes her, forcing her to the ground and pressing her face into the puddle where she sputters for air, she manages to barely pull her can of mace out of her belt and -- there! The birds wail in agony as she sprays them back. Several more gunshots go off -- and this time, when the last one echoes through the tunnel, she feels something.

Something in her side -- right in the weak point of the vest.

She looks down: her flank is black in the tungsten lighting. Maybe it would be red under white light. Is this real? Or is this part of the dream? Stunned and already in shock, she can’t feel it yet. She puts one hand over the bullet hole and pulls back, fingers stained. So it is real.

As she rapidly loses blood, the hallucinations begin to wane. There are no feathers, there was no chunk of spidery meat. Her gun sits useless on the ground beside her, and her comrade Mark stands over her, huffing lungfuls of air desperately as his shaking hands clutch his gun. Even as she watches him in her final moments alive, she struggles to understand what’s happened to her. He doesn’t seem to see her at all. Already, he’s shooting at random it seems, screaming about “They’re everywhere! My god! Everywhere!”

In an hour or two, Esther will finish bleeding out and die. For now, she loses consciousness as Mark descends further into madness.

“Ì̵͈̈́t̶̼͔̿'̵͔̤͆s̶̖̰̀͐ ̸̯̄͂ș̷̎͘o̷̮̚ ̸͖̈̊ͅh̴̲̮͊̔a̶̹̪̓̾r̵̻͚̍̓d̴̩́ ̸̣̰̂t̶̲̋ơ̶̥ ̴͖͆̚f̶̣̄̄i̴̫̻̾̂n̸̟͒̌d̶̬̃̆ ̸̘̣̐g̸͍̯̀͠o̸͘͜͝o̷̭͒́d̷͇̙͒͛ ̷̨̒͝h̴̞͔͊̿ę̴̱̆ḻ̶̬͌̈p̵̡͎̆ ̶̄͜t̸̜͝h̸̙̆̆ê̸̫͌s̵̪̦͆̈é̵̡̳ ̷̣̭͌̚d̴͓̋̑a̵͇͑̇y̵̼̬̽̑s̵̹̿ͅ.̵̩́”

The fluid on the ground was fear toxin, of course. The tungsten lighting is orange and masks the orange-colored gas that fills the tunnel. Standing perfectly within view, and yet perfectly masked by the effects of the toxin, the Scarecrow watches as the guards tear each other apart. The male shoots the female in the stomach, mistaking her for a schoolchild, as he’d developed quite the phobia of children since working as a teacher in the lower grades. She maces him in the face, mistaking him for a flock of birds from Alfred Hitchcock’s titular film that scarred her for life as a child.

In the end, Mark is left standing, but not for long. Scythe back in hand, the Scarecrow makes one fluid motion powered by whatever slight muscle he may possess and failed to behead the fellow, but does more than enough damage to his neck to ensure a swift exsanguination.

Already, though, the gunfire has drawn some attention. And the idle nature of the truck had triggered a safety protocol that alerted HQ. When the guards failed to respond to their radio pings, the bat signal went up. There are only so many things an armored Waynetech truck can run into, after all. A rogue is bound to be one of them.

Pressing the filter of his mask against his mouth, Scarecrow laughs from the sheer thrill of it all. He feels quite young again.

Hopping into the front seat of the truck, he leaves his scythe embedded in the neck of the dead guard. Let it be a love-note to Batman when he comes to clean up the crime scene.

As the truck peels out of the tunnel, leaving behind two corpses and a trail of exhaust, Crane leaves a handful of sweet Georgia straw in the wind, where it scatters through the crime scene to leave his mark.

And what’s next? Well. Someone just came into quite a bit of money.

[m00nslippers]

It’s All About the All-Caste in RH:O Issue #34!

This issue was kind of filler and recap to be honest, but I’m always down for finding out more ways that Jason is awesome and we did get a little bit of that here, so let’s jump in to the review!

Right off the bat (hur hur) we flashback to Jason’s time with the All-Caste. He quotes Neitzsche, “Whoever battles monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster himself. And when you look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.” This is juxtaposed by Jason literally fighting a bigass monster as a teen in the All-Caste.

Now this is actually a pretty awesome thing because 1) It’s Jason being a literature nerd, which is what sustains my life. 2) It’s actually pretty damn relevant to what is happening in the plot right now, with Jason fighting monsters (Gotham’s rogues) and Jason dipping into that pool of being a monster himself. There is just so much foreshadowing that Jason is setting himself up for a fall, I’m just not sure how it’s going to shake out yet. Honestly unless he does something a lot worse than what he’s been doing, I don’t personally actually fault Jason or think he’s a monster? Like let’s be real here, the guy gets results.

There is some really awesome stuff here. Internally Jason says “When you’ve died once already--stared at the actual gates of hell--and clawed your way back through six feet of dirt? When you stare at a monster? Nine times out of ten...they’ll blink first.” Damn.

And then the monster, who calls himself “The Devourer of Young Souls”, asks Jason why the heck Ducra chose to send some kid after him, to which Jason says, “She didn’t choose me, she didn’t send me, but she knew better than to try to stop me!” Damn.

Apparently Jason is literally a child of prophesy among the All-Caste. I don’t remember if that was something we knew already or something we learn here, but I think it’s interesting that he basically completed the prophecy and moved on. Because Jason did what he was there for, he slew the monster, fought the Untitled, and now everyone expects him to just stop fighting--and he’s just like, “Uh yeah, no.” Jason’s life is an endless war. It always has been, he doesn’t know how to live another life.

One thing I’ll give Lobdell. I think he’s pretty good at dialogue. He has his moments. He’s not as bad as people make him out to be, but I feel like this guy really needs a writing partner. His dialogue is generally good, his ideas are usually pretty interesting, but his plots just need work and his characterization is inconsistent sometimes. It’s the story execution that needs help, also I think he avoids or brushes over emotional stuff a little too much sometimes and that’s a real detriment to his arcs.

After this Jason summons a crap ton of All-Blades and goes MCU Hela on the monster’s ass and I need current Jason to do this, why doesn’t current Jason fight more actual magical monsters, clearly that’s what he’s good at? I need more of this, it’s too cool. It’s super unique among the bat-family, he’s the only one of them with an inherent answer to magic, why is this so underutilized? *Sigh*

The story picks back up in the present with Jason at a restaurant in France, on a date with Isabel. I’m a little annoyed that these two are back together but I think their interaction here actually kind of puts a perspective on it that I approve of. Jason has an extra champagne glass there and is thinking about his adventures in France with Roy when they fought evil mimes back in Red Hood/Arsenal (Yeah, unpack that one). The champagne glass is also a reference to events in RHATO New 52, when Roy orders a glass of alcohol and uses it to test his resolve for sobriety, which happened on the very same plane ride where Jason meets Isabel. Jason is clearly still mourning Roy, not to mention Artemis and Bizarro. I think this kind of shows that while he probably does still like Isabel as a person, he’s not necessarily in this relationship because he loves her and wants to get back together--he’s vulnerable and needs somebody, anybody to lean on and she’s made herself available.

People give Isabel a lot of flak and I don’t really get it? She’s never been mean or lied. She’s never judged Jason for any of the things he does, and she supports him emotionally, she just doesn’t want to be involved in vigilante craziness which is a perfectly sane thing to want. I think she’s really underdeveloped as a character--What’s her past? What does she like? Who is her family? She’s kind of generic--but as a person there isn’t anything to complain about. I still prefer Artemis, but I think Isabel gets too much hate.

Back at the Iceburg Lounge, Miguel is in charge of fixing the place up after the attack by the assassins in the previous issue. Miguel talks a little about this other reality he says he sees or senses, which is maybe a hint to some future event that is hopefully gonna fix every character inconsistency we all hate but probably not (hey I can dream). We get a tease about Miguel possibly figuring out Jason is keeping Cobblepot prisoner, which I think we all know is coming, but it doesn’t actually happen in this scene.

We see Jason walking Isabel to her hotel and it’s pretty cute to see Jason holding a girl’s hand, okay? I do like it. I almost feel like her quip about proving she doens’t love him for his money is Lobdell jabbing at everyone who is saying she’s a gold-digger. He’s just like, “Dude, she’s not, lay off” I never thought she was but the idea definitely floated around, which I think was a bit uncharitable to her character, as I’ve said. She also says the “L-word” that Jason is so allergic to but she manages to keep him from freaking out about it. I think she does actually love him or she wouldn’t be here and I also think the fact that she comes out and says it is A SERIOUS DEATH FLAG. Ya’ll heard it here first, I think Isabel is going to die at the end of this arc.

Also, Jason speaks exactly one word of French but in my mind this is proof that my language-boy speaks French.

Jason leaves her at her hotel to do some Red Hood stuff and calls Suzie Su on the way to check in. She’s fishing for what Jason is doing, she’s suspicious, but he doesn’t give her anything. Jason, you aren’t doing a great job of convincing anyone you aren’t up to no good. Unrelated to the plot, but let me just say, I like the outfit the artist gave Suzie. Artists always seem to give her really hangy dresses and depict her as gross, but she looks cute here! Those leggings are cool!

Then the scene goes to Essence doing some pretty awesome All-Caste magic to contact the guy Jason dusted, and he goes on to say some BS about Jason’s eyes being empty and how he’s not the same person who was their champion as a teen. I think narratively this is supposed to mean something, but it seemed like few of the All-Caste actually approved of Jason to begin with, and this guy didn’t give the impression he was one of them, so why we are trusting his opinion is a question to. The dude is biased, he never approved of Jason.

Essense talks to S’aru, the dude who took Jason’s most cherished memory all the way back in RHATO New 52, and Essence seems to suspect this has something to do with the ‘emptiness’ in his eyes and his actions in the presence. His most cherished memory was a time when he was sick and had to stay home from patrol and Bruce stayed with him. I mean, sure, you can argue this maybe changed how Jason sees Bruce now and is less willing to believe the guy loves him but Bruce’s actions in the presence don’t exactly even jive with that memory so...eh. I don’t know, maybe there is just some magic awfulness that happens when you lose that memory, no matter what it is.

At the end of the scene Ducra floats in to probably tell Essence she can go attack Jason or whatever but we don’t know what she decided for sure because it ends on a cliff-hanger.

Back in France, Jason barges into a perfume shop that is fronting a Kill-Bill style meeting of some criminals calling themselves "The Euro Bloc” who have ties to Cobblepot. They finance the guy in exchange for him laundering their money through his Casino, and I would just like to point out that this is Jason doing exactly what he said he was planning to do--dismantle all of Penguin’s criminal activities. I don’t see anything wrong with what he’s doing, why is Jason ‘empty’ or a ‘bad guy’? He points out later that he didn’t even kill anyone while in Europe, so what is everyone’s beef? I don’t get it.

So Jason basically says, stop your activities in Gotham, also, leave me alone. They do the typical, “OR, why don’t we just kill you now?” but it turns out that Wingman is waiting in a kickass plane ready to murder everyone if they make a move and so they reluctantly back off. The plane seems to belong to Wingman, who we find out is named ‘James’. I still have absolutely no idea who Wingman is supposed to be or what his relationship with Jason is, though. I really hope we get some more of this information soon.

One thing of note though, is that Wingman is THE ONLY ally of Jason’s right now that knows that he is operating as Red Hood still. Suzie doesn’t, Isabel doesn’t, Miguel doesn’t. Wingman holds some kind of significance, and seems to need/want Jason to be operating as Red hood in Gotham for some reason, which was why he was following Jason, to convince him to return to Gotham, but we just don’t know why yet.

And then in the end, Miguel finally finds out Penguin is behind the glass and the title seems to imply Miguel is going to turn on Jason. penguin must convince him he’s the one wronged (I mean he IS the one wronged but he’s not actually a good guy so we know this is bad even if Miguel doesn’t) because i can’t see Penguin overpowering Miguel who has all this Psionic power.

So this issue was interesting. I loved seeing all the All-Caste stuff though on the whole, it’s mostly set up. Next issue, stuff is going down! I can’t wait!

[op-law]

One Piece x Reader {Join My Club} Ch 13

Cinder's Pov

'Knock' 'Knock'

I may have been the person who told Kato to come up to the apartment but now I didn't even want to leave the couch. "Cinder, are you going to open the door?" He was the stubborn type so carefully I got up though my hand hovered over the deadbolt while I tried to calm myself. Before I could rush back to the safety of the couch my hand unlocked the door and pulled it open. "There's my girl. I picked you up some pancakes on the way over here since I figured you be hungry. Is something wrong Cinder? Your eyes are puffy"

He noticed every detail when it came to me but right now, I really wished he hadn't picked up on my bloodshot eyes. Kato was sweet and kind, this news would devastate him. "That wasn't necessary Kato but thank you. Please come in" I couldn't prolong the news forever so as I took the takeaway box within my grip, I lead him inside the apartment. "What exactly are we discussing Cinder? You're not breaking up with me, right?"

I'd never break up with Kato he was my everything but as I stared up at him from the couch, I said the one thing I was terrified that could happen today. "It might be you who is breaking up with me" We hadn't discussed the topic of children before but we were only teens ourselves so that shouldn't have been on either of our minds. "Hm!? What do you mean?" Kato's tone was filled with shock and for whatever reason, it had caused my tears to finally start falling. "I-I'm pregnant and I don't know what to do! What is my mother going to say? She'll disown me! Hawkins will be pissed as well!"

My relationship with my mom was already strained enough but oh god if Hawkins found out about this, he'd murder Kato. "Cinder calm down its alright. A-Are you going to keep it?" That wasn't even something I had been able to consider and in my current state, it was best not to make any final decisions. "I don't know. This isn't how it was supposed to happen!" Kato's arms had wrapped around my now shaking form although just as I was about to push him away, he said something that caused me to freeze. "I'll still love you regardless of your choice but just so you know I think you should keep it"

"W-What do you mean Kato? We can't raise a child" I knew Kato came from money but he was talking crazy if he thought this was a good idea. "Just think about it Cinder. I know it's not the most practical thing but we still created this life. Are you going to class today or should we go back to my house? My family is gone for the day~ Heheheheh" I couldn't believe he was trying to laugh at a time like this and how dare he suggest such a thing, being alone with him was never a good idea. "Bad Kato! This is exactly the behavior that got us into this mess in the first place"

"There's your smile~ I love you Cinder. Come on before traffic picks up" Kato's body had moved but as he gripped my wrist, I stopped him. "Who said I'm going with you?" I would have gladly gone with him although I couldn't let this man think I was easy. "Oh, I'm kidnapping you for the day. We have much to discuss and school will only be a detraction" Kato would make a terrible kidnapper however today just wasn't a good day to play games. "There's a test today in math class. I can't just miss it" My grades were already failing and if I ever wanted to make something of myself, I needed to at least pass. "I'll take care of it don't worry. Are you coming or not?"

Little rich boy Kato was many things but was he really prepared to bribe the school? Probably although I still didn't see why the man was acting like his world wasn't falling apart. "Why are you acting so calm about this?" He might have been in shock but when I heard his answer, I realized it was the complete opposite. "Because it doesn't matter. You're pregnant with my baby so now I need to step up and make sure you're comfortable"

"If you're kidnapping me then start carrying me. Oh, and you can tell Hawkins what you did to me" Since I had just found out I didn't bother with informing my older brother although I'd leave it to Kato to figure out telling him. No time would be right but I'm sure he could handle it. "... Will you plan my funeral?"

"With pleasure~"

~~~~~~~~~~

Zoey's Pov

I had gotten my pastries but now that we had returned to Penguin's apartment the man was completely ignoring me and it was growing annoying. "What are you doing Penguin?" He looked rather invested in his laptop but I didn't bother trying to peek as I continued to scan his cool collectibles. "Working on something Zoey. Stop touching that you'll break it" For someone who loved women as much as Penguin did, he was being a little jackass right now. "I thought the plan was to have some fun before school. You're boring Penguin. Oh, what's this?"

"Zoey that isn't a toy put it down. Are you even listening to me?" This ship is definitely well crafted but damn was I jealous it belonged to Penguin. "Awesome~ I've never seen such a well-done Exco Spacefighter. Where did you get it?" It must have cost him a fortune but as I placed the ship back on its display, I turned to see the man was blushing. "You're a fan?" Not many people even knew the show existed although I was one of the few that really enjoyed it. "Oh, yeah it's one of the best series ever to be made. Sucks they canceled it after the second season"

"I know right! Cough. I mean I really should finish this task for the boss" Real smooth Penguin. Hmm, maybe I could get some alone time with him by driving him to class. "We'll talk later. How about I drive you to school?" He had a car in the parking lot but let's get say some troublemaker decided to mess around with it. "Why? I have my own car Zoey"

"I know but I noticed this morning someone had put a nail in your tire"

"Someone what!?"

~~~~~~~~~~~

(Y/n)'s Pov

I would have thought that medication was supposed to keep him asleep for at least six hours but from the look on the man's face he was up to stay. He looked healthy than before however, that occasional cough was the only sign of his illness. That and those dark circles around his eyes but those would be there for a while since he refused to get the appropriate amount of sleep. "Law you're not allowed to leave the bed. Lay back down" That glare within his eyes was not that most pleasant thing although I didn't feel intimidated so I remained in place.

My body was pressed against his which was thankfully trapped under the covers and it was probably the reason why he was having trouble sitting up. "Move (Y/n)-ya" He could have easily overpowered me but from what I could tell he wasn't even making an attempt. "I already told you that's not going to happen. Where are you even trying to go?" He looked a little resilient to tell me his plans but within a couple of seconds, his glare softened, and a reply was heard. "I need to go check on Doflamingo-ya. After that man od's, I'm supposed to give him a special medicine but with everything that happened, it slipped my mind. You may come with me if you want"

"Oh, why didn't you just lead with that? Alright, let's go" I was quick to remove myself from the man but I had to question why he was tilting his head at me. "Are you sure? Doflamingo-ya's house isn't exactly that most pleasant place to visit" Having already witnessed that older male's 'episode' I was a little wary of going to his house but with Law there, I'm sure everything would work out. "It's fine now hurry up before I decide you can't leave the house"

I had moved to stand just beside the bed although as Law threw the covers to the side I couldn't help when a giggle exited my mouth at the man's childish act. "You're brave I'll give you that (Y/n)-ya. Just let me change your bandages before we go" Of course he'd be in doctor mode but as I thought back to how rough he was when changing them last time I was a little reluctant to let him near my wounds. "Alright, but can you be gentle this time?"

"When was I ever rough with you?" His face showed confusion but I didn't believe the act for a second. "Real funny Law" When that smirk appeared on his lips, I knew exactly what he was playing at but chose to ignore it as I took a seat at the end of the bed. "I still need to disinfect it (Y/n)-ya so it may sting a bit" That was totally doctor code for prepare to bite something and try not to kick me. "Or hurt like hell" I was thankful Law was even taking time out of his day to deal with me but I wasn't going to make things easy for him. "You're a difficult patient (Y/n)-ya"

"And you're a weird med student"

"Sleeves up"

~~~~~~~~~~

Doflamingo's Pov

"Young Master?" I was done dealing with people today but as my family entered the room, I only scanned the members before reaching for my drink. They wouldn't be receiving a response from me however as they began to speak amongst themselves, I felt my grip tighten around the glass. "Maybe we shouldn't bother him. Just look at his eyes" My sunglasses were somewhere in the room but I didn't care enough to shield my eyes from them. "I'm worried about him. Can't we do something to help him?"

They had nothing to worry about I was perfectly fine. My heart was still pounding away and in my book that was all that mattered. "Tsk. Start by finding that bastard who left him in this state" Could they be referring to my sweet Crocodile? I hope not since killing a family member was not something I wanted to do so early in the morning. "I agree that man needs to be taking care of sooner than later. Should we put out the green light?" My mind might have been fading in and out during their conversation but that one sentence immediately brought me back to reality. "None of you are to touch a single hair on my Croco-chan's head! Get the hell out and shut up!"

"Y-Yes, Young Master!"

'Ring' 'Ring' 'Ri-'

I hadn't expected to receive a call so early but I didn't bother to check the number before I answered it. "What!?" My mood was unpleasant, to say the least, although when a familiar voice filled through the line my heartbeat picked up. "Doflamingo can you not answer the phone like a normal person for once?" I had that man's voice memorized to the point where even in a crowded room I could pick it out but it didn't make sense for him to be calling. "Croco-chan? Why the hell are you calling?"

"Don't take that tone with me. I'm just calling to check up on you since this business trip has been extended by another day. How are you holding up?" He had broken up with me a few days ago but why was he checking up on me? That made no sense although I decided to reply as my drink was placed back down so I couldn't throw it against the wall. "What business trip?" I would have remembered if the man was leaving on a business trip but as I listened to his voice, I really started to question what happened Sunday night and Monday morning. "Moron. The business trip I left for on Monday. Don't tell me you forgot"

"So, that's where you disappeared to? You know a note would have been nice" I had no reason to question where Crocodile currently was but even as I thought back to Sunday night the events were blurry. "I left you one on the nightstand" My thoughts wandered to the bedroom but right now I was too lazy to leave the living room. "No, you didn't"

"Yes, it's underneath that stupid lamp you keep there. I'm not going to fight with you about it. How has your week been going?" Now I loved Crocodile more than anything but I really tried to keep my drug use a secret when he was involved. Sure, he knew I was a user although I doubted the man knew how bad it had gotten. "Fine. How was yours?" Crocodile wasn't a stupid man so as he replied I tried to remain calm. "If it's going so 'fine' then why did Bonez inform me that you overdosed again?"

"It's not a big deal Croco-chan"

"You're going to kill yourself Doflamingo and you can't keep relying on others to fix your mistakes. It'll come to the point where your past saving. Look I have to go back into the meeting but I'll call you later tonight. Goodbye Doflamingo" I didn't bother to reply since the line had already gone silent although his words really stung. "Young Master? Your brother is here" I only had two but neither of them came to the house very often. "Which one?"

"Law and he brought a young lady with him. Should I send them in?"

"Oh, he brought little (Y/n)? Fufufu. Sure, send them in"

~~~~~~~~~~~

To Be Continued...

[mikenips]

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy

I got back into bed after having my morning cigarette at three in the afternoon.  Still half a cup of coffee.  Just the right amount of Kahlua.  Enough to catch the notes of rum through the vanilla hazelnut cream.  But not overpowering to the point where you feel like shit for spiking your first drink of the day.  It’s not even five o’clock here yet.  A cigarette always tastes better when you smoke it in bed.  But you gotta get your fresh air somehow.  Probably won’t leave the house today.  Lots of editing to do on the documentary.

Crawl back under the fleece pineapple blanket.  Spoon a lump of sludge into my mouth.  Oatmeal.  Spent a lotta time avoiding the junk.  A coworker turned me onto it during a morning shift when I drank too much coffee on two hours of sleep and couldn’t see cause I hadn’t eaten at all.  I was always under the impression it would fill me up more.  But it’s fuckin’ oatmeal.  Just sits there.  Clumps up in your stomach.  Doesn’t do shit for ya.

Flip open the laptop.  White rocks stuck in the holes over the speaker.  Kief covered keyboard.  I really should finance for a better grinder than that shitty plastic thing I’ve used since high school.  Old reliable.  Works wonders on grinding.  But everytime you shove the top piece back in, clouds of kief mushroom around it.  Settling in puddles of sweat.  Every now and then the fingertips come back stained after a long editing session.

Camera lays next to the bed.  Sitting directly in front of the trash can.  A wall of VHS tapes stacked up next to the black cylinder.  Can only distinguish the different objects by the masking tape.  Chicken scratch Sharpied onto the cream backdrop.  I really should’ve dated all of them.  Not just the subject.  Can better timeline the filmmaker’s journey by knowing when each segment of the film was shot.  And now I won’t be able to track the dates.  Who the fuck saves emails and texts anyways?  Might be able to find a few from Instagram DMs.  But that’s all up to how the artist wants to portray the story.  Should the viewer discover chronologically?  Or should they piece it together and learn with the filmmaker?

Check the Hamtown Rats Facebook group.  It sounds like some gentrifier bullshit.  Young white people moving into a two square mile city.  Starting a Facebook group with all their friends that live there.  Very elitist.  Especially for a town where the majority of the population is below the poverty line and speak English as a second language.  But after all this shit.  More and more people come begging to live in the city that once had a dumpster running for mayor.

That’s literal too.

At least it’s a good way for neighbors to share shit they can’t afford to get on their own.  Posting which alleys have the best furniture to trash pick.  Or what bars have a pop-up kitchen each day.  Or other general bullshit.  Closest thing you can get to commune living here.  Never know what you’re gonna see walking through this town.  Which makes it so much more interesting what the citizens find to be newsworthy.  That’s what you gotta love about this city.  It’s a community of people that didn’t know where else to go.  From the Polish immigrants that founded it.  To the now growing middle Eastern population.  To all the artists and drunks that can’t afford anywhere else.  Everybody is a part of this community.

Last week people were tracking the journey of a wild turkey roaming the streets.

Today.  The first image that pops up through drops of Stroh’s dried up on the screen, the image of a local legend.  Sporting a fur coat.  Mardi gras beads slouching his back.  Bugler and beer in hand.  Only eye contact with the camera was the eyeball earring a friend had made.  Weird how it always looked to the side like that.  Sparkles shimmering in the purple skin around his eyes smeared by a finger with blue eyeshadow.  You never really were sure if he had gotten into a fight or just hadn’t slept in weeks.  Come to think of it.  Nobody ever had heard stories of him getting into fights.  He had a collection of handguns.  But no bullets.  Anything was possible with Bart though.

Barf.  That’s what his friends called him.  The nickname dated back to high school.  The burnouts he was friends with mocking him for puking when they introduced him to grass his freshman year.  Boys will be boys.  A good vomit joke always gets the laughs.  And of course when you tell any guy to stop, they never do.  So the name stuck.  I can still hear him in the interview.  “Fuck the name your family gave you.  Blood don’t mean shit.  I can get a transfusion whenever I want.  A nickname reflects the person others see you as.  And isn’t someone else’s perception of you better than your own?”

He had moved to the city after getting busted with a script full of Vicodin his first year at Wayne State.  Grandma bailed him out.  Mom said he could keep living with her after the bust.  He was an adult now.  Had to make his own decisions.  But he couldn’t bring any junk into her house.  So he got his own place in Hamtown.  Moved in with a girl he was seeing.  The split would happen not much longer after that.  But she didn’t wanna keep the shitty apartment split front and back.  So he took it over.

Sad to see the image.  It was taken at one of his house parties.  Nobody could pinpoint which one.  Not surprising though.  Anything was possible with Barf.

Skim over the stack of tapes.  Find the one labeled “Barf.”  Pop it in the VHS player.  Something about capturing all that stuff on tape.  Seems more real.  Seeing the actual tape move from reel to reel broke down the illusion to me more than watching the Instagram story highlights or YouTube videos that circulated the internet.  With all the fake news out there, you can never be sure where reality and illusion separate.  But wasn’t that kinda the point of art?  Or at least Barf’s body of work.  Pushing the boundaries of reality and illusion.

He was a magician.  Hard way to crack through the art world.  But somehow Bart managed to slip through the cracks.  To the bewilderment of some of the old heads that still were active in the DIY scene.  The urban legends that inspire locals to pick up the axe and start shredding away the stump that still remains.  Bart was slingshot to their status by his peers.  Many of them leaving a much bigger dent on the stump of culture than Bart.  Still, they cited him as a major help to their careers.  As he kept standing in front of the stump.  Curtain held over it.  Hoping one day he’d pull away and it would all be gone.  Some of us, kids my age that were sneaking into his shithole bar underage, believe the stump was never really there in the first place.  These notions were all just in our head.

The snow gives way to the glimmer of a bottom lip grill.  No top.  Mouth hanging open.  Gasping to the tune of “Zig Zag Wanderer” by Captain Beefheart.  Black octagon sunglasses still on in the room dimly lit by rock god prayer candles and ritual candles melted straight to the glass table top.  Greasy hair falling over his face.  Hiding the chain stretching from the industrial piercing in his left ear to the diamond at the lobe.  A knot of baby hair tangled in his right eyebrow piercing.

His head sinks into the penguin pillow.  A gift his grandma gave him when he was a kid.  The white face now gray.  Almost as black as the outer color.  Color chipping off his cracked fingernails.  Purple kimono barely covers his sunken stomach.  Skin detailing the texture of bone.  One floating rib on his right side.  Never was sure how that happened.  “Can’t hold onto everything that hurts you.”  It’s eerie thinking in other people’s voices.

“You ever do quads brooooooo…”  His now baritone voice trails off as the nitrous canister falls outta the cradle of his arms onto the dirty carpet.  The fiend in me wants to Hoover his carpets with my nose.  Someone like him probably doesn’t give a shit how much he spills.  Less getting in his bloodstream.  But part of me says he does regular cleaning on his own.

From the TV you can hear Scooby-Doo scratching his ears.  Doesn’t mute the PS2 game.  Just turns the record player up over it.  Gotta have that full sensory overload to really get in the head space.  “You wanna know the real story of how I lost this tooth?”

“Sure.”  It’s always a shock hearing your own voice on recording.

“So I woke up one day with the worst tooth pain I have ever experienced.”  He rips a line of blow without even lowering his shades.  Looks up and smiles.  “Like ‘em?  My buddy left them after a house show at my place.  His going away party on Devil’s Night when he joined the navy.  Used to run this really cool cassette label.  Always did my part by providing him a venue for releases.”

His palms thunderstrike together.  Shakes his hair violently.  “Anyways.  I shoved my whole phone in my mouth.  Capture a nice pic of the inside of my tooth.  Solid black.  So I get it yanked out.  Smoked three packs of Camel Blues through my nose while I waited out the dry socket.  That was when they did that Camel through the decades promo.  Still got some of the packs on my display of empties in the kitchen.

“Anyways.  Fuckin’ sidetracked.  What most people don’t know is I chipped the tooth at Jenkem.  Managed to get this insane Aussie garage band to play while they were touring the US.  Sold out show.  And this one fuckin’ asshole I knew.  Ian.  He fronted some shitty indie band.  Mac DeMarcore type sound.  Until I opened the bar he only knew me as the bowling bartender.  Even though I met him several times before working there.  And the asshole had been to my house for parties!

“All these shitty indie bands lived in the burbs.  But they loved coming to Hamtown and seeing the garage bands.  Made them feel like they were doing something they shouldn’t be.  And they’d smoke cigs at the bar.  Play pinball and pool.  Stand at the front of the pit.  But stand completely still.  Just kinda romanticizing our filth and flaws without having to see it at home.  Ya know.  Where daddy could pay to get them on Spotify playlists for publicity.

“So he begs me to let his band open.  And they didn’t fit the bill.  But they wanted a fuckin’ shit show.  So we gave ‘em a fucking shit show!  Sparked a joint during their set.  Tried passing it to him while he played.  But he refused.  All the homies booed.  Just dumb shit to make them uncomfortable.

“So the headliners go on.  I’m tanked by this point.  I mean.  I was tanked when I unlocked the bar that day.  But now I was just obliterated.  And somebody hit me from behind in the pit.  I fell forward.  Bust my tooth on this asshole Ian’s leather jacket.  That is standing completely fucking still front and center.

“Lost a third of the tooth.  But left a pretty nice scratch on the leather jacket daddy got him that afternoon for his ‘big gig.’”  I’m gonna miss that beautiful smile.  The kind of innocent smile of a child unsure what’s going on.  But knows he’s enjoying it.

[lionthenovel]

“everybody wants to rule the world” part 1 fanfiction (red hood x oc)

DISCLAIMER: I am not an expert on Gotham and/or Jason Todd. I merely like the character of Red Hood and know a little about the city and Batman through several different movies.

BACKGROUND MUSIC SUGGESTION: You’ll Find A Way Switch & Sinden Remix - Santigold

________________________

“Lonnie, … this is literally your job.”

The woman taps her empty glass on the bar top, staring at the barkeeper who’s patiently polishing shot glasses. He stares at her, silently, and they engage in a long staring contest while the woman’s tapping gets louder. Tap.

Tap tap.

Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap ta-

The barkeeper groans and takes the glass away from her, annoyed.

“Good boy,” she grins and winks at the middle aged, begruntled Lonnie refilling her glass. He pushes it back to her, grimly, and walks to another part of the bar attempting to avoid her triumphant glare. She watches him lean over the counter to a young boy sweeping the floors. His son, Danny. 13 years old, working at his father’s bar after school to help keep the costs down. They talk for a short second and Danny nods, obligingly sweeping the area his father pointed towards. Some drunk left a ton of peanut shells on the floor.

The bar is filling up. Getting to be that time where normal people start to go drinking. She had been there early, after a long 36 hours of staking out one of the Penguin’s right-hand men with Gordon. It was a dead-end, as usual. She was Gordon’s “new partner”, involuntarily though. She worked forensics, but had been in the field for some time before that. Gordon noticed her detective- and shooting skills and promoted her. She hated leg-work. That’s why she had switched to forensics in the first place. But she liked Gordon, so she did it as a favor. The rest of the police academy was full of scum-bags anyway. He was better off with her.

She didn’t look it, but she was one of the best in the academy. She was intelligent, a straight shooter and an ok fighter. But because she was female and not as beautifully toned as Wonder Woman (the AMAZON (!!!!)), men thought she was easy to push around. They were often mistaken. She didn’t hold back, mostly because she loved kicking misogynists’ in the balls.

“Girl, there you are!”

The woman looks up from her glass. Ziva enters with a bunch of other girls who were hanging up their coats. Ziva runs over to the woman at the bar and gives her a big side-hug, pressing cheek on cheek. The woman smiles warmly, closing her eyes as her face is smushed against her friend’s. She smells like cheap hair-spray.  

“Hey Ziva.” The brown-haired woman escapes the seemingly never-ending hug to look at her friend’s face. “New crew?” She nods in the direction of the girl group. They’re all very pretty.

“Oh yeah, work friends. Some of the newcomers need to relax a little after their first day.”

Ah, first day stripping. Can’t be a fun experience. Ziva runs her hand through her long, black curls and smiles. It’s nice of her to take care of the new girls. She’s been a stripper for over 5 years, seen some shit too. Nevertheless, she’s still the sweet girl the woman knew from High School. Deserves better.

“So, what are you drinking about tonight?” Ziva asks, flicking the side of the woman’s whiskey glass. It makes a slight ping sound.

“Gotham’s low crime rate.” The woman answers monotonal. The black-haired girl snickers, looking around the bar. She waves at the other girls to order something already.

“You still with Derek?” The woman grunts out taking a sip of her drink and staring at her friend. Her words muffle in the glass. Derek was a meathead, fucking disaster of a person. Didn’t treat her well.

Ziva chews her gum loudly and shakes her head. Off again, good. She’s typing on her phone as she answers. Probably the owner of the strip club, as always. The woman bites her lip, angrily. She had tried to get Ziva out of that scene, but she was in way too deep. The police wasn’t able to pull her out, the Mob was too heavily resourced. Fuck Falcone. To the thought of the Mob boss choking on a gold ice cube, the woman takes another sip from her glass.

“I met this new guy, though.” Ziva confesses and smiles coquettishly, still staring down at her phone. The woman raises her eyebrows. Can’t be worse than Derek. She looks at Ziva, interested, who returns her gaze with a big smile on her face.

“He’s meeting me here. Real hottie. You’ll know when you see him.” She clicks her tongue and leans against the bar. Come to think of it, she does look nicer than usual today. She put effort into her make-up. Must really wanna impress this guy. “You should join us!”

“Nah, I’m good here. Just take care of yourself, ok?” The woman returns her attention to her drink, swirling the liquid in her glass. “Your girls look nervous, go.” She gestures towards the clump of girls in the booth who are sheepishly sipping on their beverages. Non-alcoholic.

Ziva chuckles warmly and fist-bumps the brown-haired patron before walking over to her group. The woman continues to drink, alone.

Some time passes and a handsome guy joins Ziva’s table and kisses her on the cheek. She was right, he is good-looking. But fuck-boy type, for sure. Wears a leather jacket inside, black hair with a white strand in it. Probably dyed it on a dare or some bullshit. He’s all over Ziva, putting his arm around the back of the seat behind her. Laughing a little too much at what she says. He’s drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon. Definite fuck-boy. The other girls are swooning over him. The woman rolls her eyes. Predictable disaster. They’ll sleep together and then he won’t contact her again. Classy.

THUMP.

Some asshole pushes Danny to the side as he walks through the bar. The young boy hits the side of the bar and the dickhead’s entourage is cackling. Lonnie, the barkeeper looks petrified. It’s clear this troupe belongs to some Mob group, otherwise Lonnie would’ve said something already. The woman glares at the group. Their tattoos look familiar. Maroni maybe? Fuck-head. The whole bar is silent and watching. Even fuck-boy is glaring at them. Ziva’s whispering something in his ear.

“Yo grandpa, I want some of your finest tequila!” Dickhead, a skinny white guy with a bunch of face-tattoos, is yelling across the bar to Lonnie, who instantly obeys and hastily grabs a big bottle to bring it to them.

“No no. Not you. Let dipshit over there bring it!” He’s pointing at Danny, who’s rubbing the side of his arm. The entourage laughs again. The boy looks at his father and there’s a slight pause between the two. Lonnie looks worried, but paradoxically nods reassuringly at his son as he’s handing him the bottle. Danny walks over to the morons and Dickhead smirks as the young boy pours their drinks snakingly. Danny finishes and starts walking away, when Dickhead trips him. The boy falls and the whole bottle crashes onto the ground. The noise of the glass breaking is overpowered by the assholes’ loud and disgusting laughter. They return to their drinking as Danny tries to pick up the pieces of glass on the floor, humiliated. His father rushes over to help him.

The people in the bar resume their conversation as if nothing happened. The noise level rises again. Only the woman and the fuck-boy are still staring at the group. No one asks the boy if he’s ok. Lonnie and Danny have finished cleaning up and the barkeeper leads his frightened son back to his broom, gently rubbing his back.

The woman downs her drink. Fuck that noise. Mob group, Schmob group. They look like three skinny albino roosters who lost most of their feathers.

She gets up from her bar stool and pushes her tits up, giving herself more cleavage. She walks over to the group and focuses on the asshole who pushed and tripped Danny.

“… you look important…” she says, sultry. The guy looks her up and down and smiles, showing her his yellow teeth.

“I am important, toots.” He grins wider.

Ugh.

She leans over the table, making her cleavage more visible. She notices the eye of the fuck-boy, pretending to look at Ziva, stare at her a few tables over. The rest of the bar has moved on. She focuses her attention back on the skinheads.

“Oh of course you are.” She grins. She takes the shot glass in her hand and he watches her, lustfully. She holds the glass near her chest. His eyes follow her hand. “Big boy like you…-” Skinny ass motherfucker. He readjusts the way he is sitting, hanging a leg over the side of the booth and pointing at his lap. Evidently, he wants her to sit there. He keeps smiling with his mustard teeth.

She laughs quietly, swirling the tequila in the glass and she leans closer to him. Her face is near to his and he’s staring down her shirt, licking his lips.

“Big boy like you who gets a hard-on bullying children.” As the words leave her mouth, she tilts the glass over his crotch and it splashes onto it.

He lets out a loud yelp and flails his arms attempting to punch her, yelling some derogatory term. Anticipating, she grabs his head and slams it into the table, knocking him out cold. The other two bozos try to grab her, but she elbows one of them in the nose, breaking it, and kicks the other in between his legs. Both run out of the bar without looking back. The woman grabs the knocked-out, skinny miscreant’s collar and drags his body on the floor. She sees the whole bar stare at her, including Ziva’s entire table. The fuck-boy had gotten up.

With effort, she flings the skinhead out of the bar, wipes her wet, tequila-hands on her pants and walks back in. Lonnie and Danny run to her and ask if she’s alright. They thank her and some of the bar patrons clap for her. It’s a very sparing applause. She holds up her hand in gratitude, awkwardly, and resumes her conversation with the young boy. Ziva runs over to her and talks to her as well.

Time passes. The bar is nearly empty. Ziva’s group had left hours ago. A few stragglers here and there, with the woman still comforting Lonnie. Apparently, Maroni had been forcing Lonnie to launder money in exchange for Danny’s life. That allowed his dipshit men to do whatever they wanted in the bar. Danny had been the target of their bullying for the past two weeks. But at least he was alive, which is what was most important to Lonnie. Still, he was grateful to the woman’s actions.

The woman finally leaves the bar at around 3 a.m. She walks confidently with her purse flung around her shoulder, loosely. Her heels echo in the alley ways. It’s dark and the street lights flicker, with orange color gleaming up above. She’s used to walking at night in Gotham, a city crippled by the intense crime rate. There’s always noise, even this late at night. Ambulances, sirens, people yelling at each other, helicopters looking for some insane escapees from Arkham. And, somewhere in this city, a caped crusader watches. Gordon had taken her with him to meet the infamous Batman, just a few weeks ago. That’s where they got the lead to follow Penguin’s men. The Batman didn’t speak much, he grunted occasionally and nodded. Handed her an electronic gadget to track the guy with. It was pretty amazing technology. Who could that man be, under that weird mask? Bit kinky, for her taste.

She turns into a darker alley. It’s a short-cut to her apartment, and she’d rather spend less time on these streets. Unbeknownst to her, there was someone watching her from the top of the building beside her. Quietly and completely hidden, there was an eye on her. And it didn’t belong to a Bat.

A group of three turned into the alley ahead of her. They stop and seem to be looking in her direction. The woman raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t stop walking. The threesome starts to walk towards her again. It’s hard to see with the flickering lights. She walks slower, sensing that the group is not aiming to walk past her.

Oh man, it’s Dickhead and the Assholes. The skinny white guy has a big red bulge on his forehead, probably where she hammered his face into the table. The one to his right has a bloody nose with tissues stuffed in his nostrils and the one of his left is limping a little. They look mad.

“You fucking cunt!” The “leader” blurts out, standing right in front of her. He points a skinny finger at her and she stops in her tracks. Not great. They have her surrounded.

“Hey babe,” she retorts and looks down at his wet pants. She won’t be able to flirt her way out of his, that’s for sure.

“Shut your fucking mouth.” The bloody nose says, nasal-y. All three of them are glaring at her.

“You’re gonna pay for that little stunt you pulled.” Skinny Dickhead flashes his yellow teeth at her again. Did he just … hiss at her, what the hell was that? The woman raises her eyebrow again, obviously not very impressed by his threat.

“I wouldn’t flash those, they’re not very threatening. Disgusting, yes. Threatening, nah.”  Her hands are on her sides as she makes a disgusted facial expression. “I know a good dentist.”

Quickly, Skinny Dickhead pulls out a handgun and points it right at her face. She looks past the barrel at his face. She doesn’t flinch.

“You little bitch.” He growls and takes a step closer to her. The gun is still pointing right at her nose. “I work for Maroni. You know what we do to people who disrespect us?” He starts unbuckling his belt and she looks down at the open belt buckle, then back at him. “You’re gonna suck my dick before I blow your brains out.”

She laughs in derision, looking to the side slightly as if in disbelief. Without hesitation, she clamps her hands around the gun simultaneously turning it away from her and disarming him. Now she’s holding the gun and pointing it at his crane-like nose. He stares and starts the sweat. The other two start to back away with a few “HOLY SHIT”’s in there.

“You should cock your gun before pointing it.” She says as she uncocks it. The click echoes through the alley. “It’s a more serious threat.”

He puts his hands up and they limply hang over his head. She can tell he’s shaking. The other two have already run off. She walks towards him, holding the gun with both hands.

“Now. Put that little thing away.” She gestures with the gun at his open fly and he hectically tries to close his pants. While he’s fiddling around, she takes a step towards him and hits him over the head with the barrel. Again, he falls to the ground. Out. Hit the same spot as before.

“Moron,” she mumbles and handcuffs him to a nearby pipe.

The woman starts walking through the alley again. As she’s walking, she’s disassembling the gun and leaving the pieces spread around the alley. Her heels clack confidentially, until she hears another gun cock behind her.

“You should check your surroundings before getting rid of a weapon like that.” A voice says from behind her.

The woman lets out a deep sigh and turns around. What an awful night. Mugged twice in under three minutes. She turns to find notorious Red Hood holding a rifle at her. It’s cocked.

She glares at him, annoyed.

“That was pretty cool just now. That little stunt. Where’d you learn to do that?” he asks, leaning against the wall of the building. Completely non-chalant, as if he’s not just mugging her.

“Math Camp.” She shrugs her shoulders and crosses her arms. If he wants to mug/kill her, he might as well get it over with. No way she can disarm a rifle.

“Cool! Purse please!” He speaks in a sing-song voice, holding out a free hand.

Rolling her eyes, she throws her purse to him and taps her foot. The police had been looking for this guy, too. But Batman had asked Gordon to let the case go. Now he was here, robbing a cop.

Red Hood was rummaging through her tiny purse, balancing it on his leg while his right hand still held the rifle pointed at her. He pulls out her Police ID.

“Oooh.” He exclaims, triumphantly. He opens the ID and reads it. “Cerys Edison, weird name.”

“Red Hood, dumb name.” The brown-haired woman named Cerys retorts, sarcastically. The vigilante chuckles under his mask.

“Buuuuurn.” He turns the ID a couple times. “Cool, Detective.”

After he reads all of her information and takes a couple of cough drops out of her purse, he throws it back to her. He didn’t take any money. She catches the purse, confused, and stares at him. Huh?

“You could be useful. Have a good night!” He leans the rifle behind his neck, waves kindly and starts to jump up the fire escapes back up to the rooftop. What the hell was that all about? Did he really just fake-mug her for some cough drops?

Cerys stood in the alleyway for a couple more minutes, befuddled. She had seen a lot of things in Gotham, but never did a mugging turn out so well. He had disappeared over the rooftops and left her with a feeling of uneasiness.

Useful. What did he mean by that?

Gathering herself back together, Cerys Edison finally walked out of the alley and towards her apartment.

_______

[davidmann95]

What is the 'Two-Face problem' regarding his stories? What can be done about it?

That he’s locked into a setup that forces him to tell one of, appropriately, two stories. This has been covered in better detail before by others, but in short: the only stories to really tell about him are his origin, because it’s so full of dramatic potential, or an attempt to cure him, because he’s Batman’s noble former ally in the war on crime laid low by a demon within, so any story of those two clashing that isn’t about Batman trying to save him is going to seem trivial. Even the recent My Own Worst Enemy, which went as far afield of traditional stories for either of them as having him on shotgun to Batman wrecking his way across the American South with a chainsaw while being pursued by KGBeast - and I definitely liked the idea it introduced of Two-Face intentionally bringing out the worst in others, something I’d like to see be a sticking element for his character - it’s still ultimately a story about whether he can be cured, and whether one side of him can overpower the other. And the answer to both is of course “no”, because then you can’t use Two-Face anymore.

Here’s a dirty little secret about Batman’s villains, at least from my perspective. Yes, he unquestionably has the best rogues gallery in comics, but they’re not THAT much better than most other major characters’ rank-and-file. Not that they’re bad by any means, but they’re absolutely artificially inflated by circumstane. By Batman’s nature as a weird solver of elaborate puzzles who’s easily put in physical danger, it’s easier for them to provide a serious and distinctive threat to him even in a ‘serious’ context than it is for a guy with a flamethrower or boomerangs to reasonably challenge a nerdy cop who can outpace light. And since Batman’s more concretely and popularly defined psychologically and symbolically than probably any other superhero, it’s tremendously easier for creators to at least nominally parallel him in some meaningful fashion than it is for Superman’s guys - if most writers can’t think of anything to show Kal-El as other than Nice and Good, they’ll have a hard time coming up with a contrast for him other than Mean and Bad. It’s a triumph largely by contrast that lets even simple Bad Guy V Good Guy stories by average talent coast by on atmosphere and basic observations. Hence why the likes of Penguin struggle after all these years, since his ability to parallel Batman isn’t nearly so immediately obvious and simple (it’s absolutely possible, but it’d require more thought and effort than most are willing to put in), while even the usually pretty flat Scarecrow can easily carry a comic because hey, he relies on fear too, there’s probably something in that.

Harvey has been able to coast in largely the same way most of the time. Harvey’s good, Two-Face is bad, and he reflects the most obvious, banal aspect of Batman possible, that he has a dark side represented visually. And truth be told, I think that vein has well and truly been bled dry. Even aside from whether or not it’s a good idea for a villain in the first place - sensitivity towards mentally ill people has never been Batman stories’ strongest suit, and the modern Harvey Dent is the most stereotypical example possible in that regard, an abused child who grows up to be a gruesome freak with a dangerous, violent alternate personality that emerged or even developed in a single moment of highest drama - there’s not that much to it. You get Harvey and Two-Face arguing and never winning, he feels bad but sometimes doesn’t, Batman feels bad, everyone feels bad, we get to ponder about the darkness hidden inside the human heart and that, sit down for this one, Batman kind of has two faces too, you guys. Like I said, it’s banal, the most facile of observations on Batman as a character that ultimately tracks back to the idea of him as ultimately mad himself and driven above all by vengeance and violence, an interpretation pretty much every Batman story worth its salt moved on from over a decade ago.

It is absolutely fixable though, largely because there is of course a second Two-Face out there, the original, and he’s always worked better. People just tend to forget about him because the aesthetic leans more easily towards the guy I talked about above. And it’s a GREAT aesthetic, from the face to the suits to any bisected hideouts or getaway cars he might bring into play. But that’s all that stuff is, same as Riddler’s question marks or Joker’s playing cards; all that, even his face, is an expression of his pathology, not the core of it.

That’s the coin.

The coin’s turned into a pretty insignificant part of his character over the years, a simple compromise between the two identities over who gets to drive that’s often forgotten, but really think about that thing if you take away the identity divide. Harvey Dent is a man so at odds with the world around him and alienated from any recognizable principles, so unable to make decisions or make a distinction between the value of good or evil under his own power, that he’s surrendered his very decision-making capabilities to this thing. The coin decides his soul, the coin decides who lives or dies, the coin is horrifying on a level the split-personality take can’t even begin to compete with. A million arguments between the DA and the Mob Boss could never so brutally and simply capture the sheer brokenness of Harvey Dent’s soul as him showing the part of him that can understand or care about consequence is just gone, and that he’s replaced it in the most chaotic, meaningless way possible.

I tend to think Batman’s villains work better when they oppose his philosophy or aspects of his overall narrative rather than his psychology, especially since the bedrock observations about his psychology in play there are like I said generally pretty simple. Riddler’s not interesting because He’s Obsessed Too!, but because he threatens to tear down the idea of Batman as unstoppable and always one step ahead of crime. Maybe Joker also Had A Bad Day, but he’s endured because at his best he threatens the basic logistical and moral assumptions Batman’s world is built on. My terrible (but surprisingly popular, thanks guys!) take on Mr. Freeze is rooted in the idea that he’d be more workable long-term as someone who finds security and power in becoming something bigger than an ordinary man after a tremendous loss, rather than him ‘just’ also being sad about losing his family. And while I don’t really care that much about Which Face Is The Real One, the idea of Two-Face as a man who in spite of devoting his life to fighting chaos and forcing the world to make sense just like our hero ultimately completely succumbs to that chaos on the most fundamental philosophical level imaginable, whether in defiance of the justice he once served or as a theoretically purer version of it (which the coin can stand for either way), really does it for me. 

He can still have the face and accompanying visuals and gimmicks as Gotham-level realizations of said philosophy and representations of the defilement of the good man he once was. Rather than locking him into a rigidly defined paradigm of which side is stronger (though you can still do that too, directly over good and evil!), he becomes inherently unpredictable and therefore infinitely more dangerous and dynamic. He becomes a threat to Batman’s entire approach to life rather than a walking problem to be fixed, putting them on a much more even footing for a back-and-forth rivalry and letting more standard confrontations between them be as charged with drama as whether or not Harvey can overcome the worst in himself, opening up far more possibilities for him as a supervillain. The alternative may have gotten more play as of late, but exhibit A for my preference: it’s the take The Dark Knight went with, the objectively most critically acclaimed story that guy has ever been in. I Believe Harvey Dent and Two Face Hate Each Other has had its day and run its course. Harvey Dent Believes In Chaos.