#manic pixie pop tart

[sparkle-fiend]

Okay I rewatched Marmalade today, and this movie just… it has filled me with so many thoughts.

Like… I think one of my favorite things about this movie is the way that the initial premise makes us think it’s a typical Bonnie and Clyde love story, about a boy falling for this manic pixie dream girl - but it’s not! It’s not at all. The real Marmalade is actually Mama Eda!!! (Marmalade = Eda Lamram in reverse. Also - the marmalade jar tattoo with “Mama” on it)

This is actually a story about found family and familial love, and a boy who will do anything to save the woman who was very likely the first person to ever really love and care for him. And that makes me so fuckin happy 💖🥹

Also, rewatching the movie to look for clues as to what’s real in Baron’s fictional story is my new hobby lol. Some personal headcanons:

- Baron delivering mail at the beginning seems to be a reflection of his real job (?) - delivering medicine at the nursing home

- He talks about the ice cream parlor so much I feel like it has significance - maybe Mama Eda started taking him out for ice cream to bring him out of his shell when he came to live with her (or it could just be connected to the planned location for swapping cars- but I like my first idea better lol)

- The scene where Baron and Marmalade have sex in the dressing room is symbolic of the first time Baron tried on his babydoll bandit clothes and felt some type of way about it

- The fictional “Baron” persona is based off the way his previous foster father treated him - like he was slow and stupid and helpless. The fictional “Marmalade” is representative of his actual intelligence, daring, and ambition

- I feel like Baron really did like his hair being long - he seemed to hesitate before cutting it

- The scene where “Marmalade” gets ready for the robbery and eats pop tarts is so specific- I feel like that must be Baron’s real pre-robbery prep lol

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

it wasn’t power i coveted; it was acceptance.

Titans 3.06

y’know, i was just thinking the other day that 1.06/1.07 and 2.06/2.07 were the best episodes of their respective seasons, so i have great hopes going in to this one. fingers crossed!

as always, typing this up as i see the episode.

SPOILERS AHEAD

1. oh! um... that was a Cold Open, all right. *nudges* get it? cold? because it’s snowing? and two people got murdered in cold blood? eh?

... oh, i’ve just started.

1.5. i wonder if “i want to be sipping pina coladas on a beach with you” is the new “i’m just one day away from retiring.” i was so on edge after that--i kept expecting that car to explode. even so, the way they died wasn’t an anticlimax: brutal, and quick. 

1.75. so i’m assuming that’s the titular lady vic! this show better bring up why this doll was important or why these two cops needed to be killed, and not leave it to the ether like jericho’s little mindscape jaunt in 2.08 (i’m still dying to know what that was about???)

2.

i love how deliberately unappealing wayne manor is. 

(sorry for the pic quality. i don’t have hbo max! ssshhh.)

2.3. i love the many references to “home” and “our house” when they’ve been here for less than a week and saw one of their friends get blown into pieces. i mean, i unironically love it: home is where family is, after all!

2.5. i’d like to say that kom is playing some sort of long game here, especially given the build-up we had last season and some of the more niggling details this season: why did kom choose now to use her bond to lure kory when she’s been on earth for months? why did justin call kory now, just around the time that she started getting kom’s visions? and what about kom’s ability to exactly imitate other people? hmmm.

2.75. the reason i wrote i’d like to say is that i’ve made the mistake of assuming plot complexity where there is none; i was so invested in the jason todd orchestrated his own death theory for instance, when it turns out that oops! ra’s al ghul just happened to leave a little lazarus puddle in gotham, and oh yeah! scarecrow just happens to have a network of henchmen working for him on the outside and a fully functional laboratory and a weapons cache fit for a new supervillain in the basement of the high security psychiatric unit/prison that he’s in! 

(no i’m not bitter, why do you ask)

2.8. iiiii don’t know what to say about the implications of sex slavery being a thing on tamaran, so i’m not going to say anything at all. for now.

3. gotham, six years ago... wasn’t it five years before s2 that jericho died and the titans disbanded? and when was the flashback from 1.06 where dick let zucco die? i think it was after the events of 2.08: jericho? i can’t seem to find any transcripts or reliable information online, so i’m going to have to rewatch 1.06 at some point. 

(i love the old-fashioned batman music in this heist scene)

3.5. “security is a joke... it’s my way of keeping my dad on his toes”. what you’re an ethical thief now, like an ethical hacker? i don’t think that excuse is going to sell, barbara, on the day you do encounter a decent security system and your father is forced to arrest you.

(then again, gotham’s security is piss-poor. did you know that you could just walk into arkham asylum without any official clearance, ply one of its most dangerous inhabitants with contraband, and said inmate could get away with having an entire laboratory and weapons cache--NO I’M NOT GOING TO LET THIS GO)

3.8 so that flashback between dick and barbara was really cute! and also illuminating:

a) dick sounds so light, so... um. look. i have some apologies to tender to mr thwaites, because while i’ve always thought he does a fine job as dick grayson, i’ve never been terribly fond of his cadence as he delivers dialogue. it’s often monotonous, i thought, but then again, he’s usually delivering exposition or dealing with one soul-crushing crisis or the other. so i was pleasantly surprised to hear dick sound so carefree and alive in his conversation with barbara, laughing frequently, his emotions so bare and bubbling to the surface. it’s really a fantastic contrast to the traumatised and world-weary dick grayson that we see now, even more so than the costume department just bunging a backwards-baseball cap on mr thwaites’ head and hoping that will convince us of his relative youth. 

b) and god, when he wakes up from that memory, all alone in his bed, bleeding from bullet holes in his shoulder (bullet holes that are--in a somewhat convoluted way--barbara’s fault)? yikes. it’s great. you have my apologies, mr thwaites!

c) can you imagine dick just... crawling back to wayne manor, trying not to be seen by anybody, shedding his suit and just... collapsing onto his bed without even tending to his wound? the sheer emotional and physical exhaustion of it? 

d) it’s so interesting to see how barbara and dick approach the idea of legacy--a big theme on the show!--in this flashback. barbara is the one bucking the idea that she should follow in her father’s footsteps, while dick seems pretty content with the batman-and-robin setup, and even tries to get barbara to join their team (robin-girl. pfffft). obviously after this several traumatic things happen wherein dick ends up questioning and then resenting his role as robin, his relationship with batman or even returning as a vigilante at all. and barbara... ends up replacing her father as commissioner. it’s tragic, really. 

e) the dynamic between dick and barbara in the flashback reminds me of how it was between dick and donna in 1.08 and even between kory and dick in early s1. it’s like having an older, strong-willed woman by his side means he gives over the steering wheel for a while and lets himself... unspool, a little bit. it’s kinda endearing.

also:

*pinches his cheeks*

3. you know, we talk about dick and Eldest Daughter Syndrome, and that’s definitely valid, but here gar seems to me the embodiment of it, with all the emotional gardening and firefighting that he’s expected to do. he’s kind of the guy expected to keep his shit together and take care of everyone else while they are falling completely to pieces, unable to carve out time to process his own trauma. he’s also picked up dick’s and kory’s tendencies to bottle up their struggles and shun appearing vulnerable, and he’s struggling in the shadow of both dick and kory undergoing acute crises, his best friend (and frequent confidante) on the other side of the world, and seeing hank die, utterly helpless to stop it. 

i’m glad that he got a chance to tell dick even a smidgeon of what he really feels, and i hope this is at least a semblance of a wake up call for dick to actually sit down and work with the people he repeatedly calls family.

3.5. it’s heartening to see that dick immediately makes it his priority to go talk to gar. but don’t blow off kory in the process, man!

4. i’m really loving this dynamic between kom and conner--i get the idea that both of them consider each other as Unknowns, alien two times over. but conner’s only ever known the titans, who embrace being different, and kom’s only ever known... well. 

anyway, kory is Really Stressed, and honestly? #relatable. 

when you’re forced to bring an estranged family member to hang out with your friends...

4.5. i love that the titans are spending so much time in the kitchen. a real family!

5. jonathan crane is a creep and i absolutely cannot stand him.

5.25. how did he get a whole lab setup (in the basement of a hospital...?) with a bunch of whitecoats to work for him? how did he just waltz into the viewing room of an operation theatre when he’s one of the most wanted men in gotham right now? why is jason wandering around maskless when--presumably--as the adopted son of the most famous person in gotham he’d be a tad more recognisable than your average joe?

why do i expect this show to answer anything anymore?

5.5. that’s not necessarily a criticism, mind; i’ve said since season 1 that titans is very comics-like in this aspect, all about the Aesthetic and the splash-page splendour rather than the niggling unimportant details of how or when the characters got to said location. like. the camera gliding over the operation being set-up, lady vic bursting in and doing her murder dance (imagine the luck of the poor intern who chose this day and this surgery to assist) and jason, shocked and slack-jawed, framed by blood.

5.75. it’s a sobering reminder for jason that, though he chose this path in order to gain control over a world that seemed like it was rapidly spinning out of his grip, he’s only succeeded in handing over even more control to a man with an agenda that is very clearly not aligned with his own. he’s in too far to stop now, though.

5.9. i have a lot more thoughts about jason! saving it up for the end of this recap, though.

6. more kitchen time! i better see dick do some cooking soon...

(”our kitchen”! it still delights me! kitchens are So Important)

6.25. so much of dick’s issues have revolved around his relationship with bruce, so it’s completely understandable that in the wake of a huge crisis where bruce literally asks dick to replace him and be a “better” him, dick would default to all the worst things he learned from the man. and i’m glad kory’s having none of it, but come on, guys. the woman’s literally fetched her fratricidal sister out of a hole in the ground with no idea what said sister is going to do next and experiencing a burgeoning sense of guilt far, far beyond her history with the titans, and dick’s too far into his autocolonoscopy that he can’t see that she needs help.

6.5. “he services your urges”--well, as far as we know, kory is the last person he had sex with...

7. “i hope [gar] isn’t angry with me...” SIR! i thought you’d already spoken to him! smh, as the kids say. kory wouldn’t be needing to reassure you if you just took the effort to build two way emotional relationships with the rest of the team. @superohclair​ was taking about dick’s relatively low emotional intelligence? i agree.

7.5. “i got my own problems [...] you and barbara? fix it.” YOU TELL HIM, KORY

8. man i really like this weird, sad tension between dick and barbara--this sense that both of them are approaching the other based on how they remember them and are ultimately disappointed by the truth. barbara thought she could trust dick to... well, be a better batman, but dick has not only failed at that in her eyes, but repeatedly undermined her while exploiting the authority that she gave him. in dick’s eyes, this is nothing like the barbara that he knew, rebellious and ready to do whatever it takes to find something. 

like. this show sometimes really hits me in the chest about the ways it shows kids grow into adults and into caretakers, and the way it’s stop-start, the ways nothing can happen at all for a long time and then it’s Crisis Central all at once and there’s no space to breathe. the weird sort of sadness that comes with nostalgia. 

8.5. oracle name drop! i agree with barbara, any system that can just randomly tap into gotham phonelines is a monster.

8.7. (i don’t know if it’s my imagination, but is dick holding himself... differently in this episode? like that wound is definitely bothering him, and he’s running on fumes)

9. man, that was a really sweet scene between kom and conner. “feeling alien in your own world”... “not quite here nor there”

honestly this team runs on conner and gar’s faith in their value as a family, and it’s a sign of conner’s generous heart that he extends that opportunity to blackfire. this arc of maturation for him, where he’s now able to consciously choose which parts of himself he can use to do the thing he wants to so--save people--has been so fulfilling to recognise. this baby’s grown with the titans! and what he’s learnt is that people can get fucked up, but the titans is a place where they can be fucked up, and grow.

MY MAN CONNER

10. oh man i’m drinking in the gar-dick interaction in this episode like i’m three days into the desert and it’s the only source of water for miles around!

a) gar is absolutely not dealing with dick’s bullshit this episode and I LOVE IT. it’s such a far cry from the man who was idolising dick/robin back in s1 and expecting him to solve all their problems. dick is fallible, dick is fucked up, but he Tries His Best and that’s ok.

b) dick, huffing and puffing through that vent, unable to put any pressure on his left shoulder, trying to have a heart to heart with gar... fuck i love this asshole. 

c) bruce took in a kid who was suffering... “and made him into a weapon”. well. i absolutely agree with dick that it was bruce who put these kids into these horrible situations with him and they came away with a bucketload of trauma to add to the one that they already had. but we know that bruce was really trying with jason, and at the end of s2, dick was coming to acknowledge that bruce had offered him something that wasn’t just darkness. jason’s death and bruce’s reaction to that shattered that fragile progress.

d) “gotham got to me too.” i feel more sympathetic towards dick running off on his own than most, and it’s not just because i’m an unapologetic stan.  we’ve seen before that dick... devolves when overwhelmed, and he lashes out and makes ill thought out decisions and just Does Not Deal. it happened after hearing the news that deathstroke had returned in s2, and it didn’t help that everyone around him was reeling at the news, either. this time, however, he has his salvation in his family, and despite some stupid decisions like running off and kidnapping supervillains without telling his team, he’s been really on the ball this season. thinking clearly and logically, holding it together and working on a plan, thinking two steps ahead of the villains... yes.

e) gar needing to believe that jason isn’t beyond redemption... there’s a lot of blood on his hands, too, from when he was manipulated by cadmus last season. it makes sense why he’d relate to jason’s predicament, and i hope dick picked up on that.

f) my head just added a plaintive ow after dick jumped feet first into the storage room

i need, crave gifs of this scene!

11. *sits on hands* i’m going to talk more about red hood, i promise!

12. more gar and dick! is it my birthday??!!

(actually, according to the tamil calendar, it is my birthday! my “star” birthday)

12.5. excellent. dick using some implausible training that bruce taught him to solve a mystery? passing some of that knowledge onto gar? that proud smile when he sees gar perfectly execute moves that he taught him? MY HEART IS EXPLODING

13. aw, i love flashback!dick and barbara, they’re so cute <3

13.25. why does it not surprise me that the way he proposes a relationship to barbara is by saying “we make sense”? this guy can deduce exactly who was present where and what weapon they were holding from a garbled audio recording but other times he’s utterly clueless, and that’s a consistent character beat right from s1

13.5. so.... that’s why lady vic has it out for... barbara....? i don’t get it. it’s flimsy. but hey! the fun thing about titans is that i don’t have to get it. the payoff has nothing to do with the plot.

14. i can’t believe that barbara fell for that, but at least that wheelchair fight looked awesome, so.

15. oh yeah, i forgot that red hood bullied the mob into helping him and scarecrow... at least that explains the whitecoats and the elaborate set-up.

15.5. honestly i love how this dynamic between kory and kom is developing, though i wish more of the team would pay attention to it. time to call justin, i think!

16. i wonder what happened after that second flashback where barbara got hurt during that heist. did she give up on doing any more (maybe jim caught her)? was it because dick was called away by bruce and then the titans and got caught up in his own issues? maybe barbara froze him out because she wasn’t looking for the relationship that he was looking for? maybe the idea of doing that with someone turning into batman-lite was just... unappealing? scary?

whatever it is, it doesn’t look like dick ever processed the end of that relationship. it’s very intriguing to see where their dynamic goes next.

17. so.... what, did vic deliver some fear toxin to barbara? i... what?

17.5. and i TOLD YOU that they would never explain that doll or why vic attacked those two cops at the beginning! oh, titans. never change. 

18. did jason just randomly have tim’s restaurant burgled? god, i’m feeling a bit nauseous... are they going to kill tim’s father?

18.25. i feel like the rest of the season is going to wrestle with jason’s culpability in the horrible stuff he’s doing and i’m already seeing that prospect divide fans. on one hand, his story is taking a lot of oxygen away from other equally interesting story arcs, and he’s done some truly awful things, like indiscriminate murder, threatening to kill children, blowing up hank, and potentially killing tim’s parents. 

there’s something to be said for the kind of hold that crane has over him, and the so-called ‘anti-fear’ drug that he keeps plying jason with--he’s alone, drugged almost constantly (to the level of dependence), fresh from the trauma of being bludgeoned to death. he hasn’t conquered fear; he’s ruled by it. on the other hand, given that he’s the one character on the show given an obvious and identifiable ‘mental illness’ arc (maaaaybe dick too), one can argue that it’s irresponsible to show this progress into such violence: jason was vulnerable because he was struggling, and that left him vulnerable, but it took only a push before he became a fucking serial killer.

but that could mean we underestimate the degree of that vulnerability, and the mechanics of this universe where he fell into the clutches of the one supervillain perfectly designed to exploit that vulnerability. that helpless spiral into further and further self-destruction is all too real. it’s valuable to know that someone who has sunk that low can still seek help--actual help--and get it. 

18.5. i don’t know. it’s not a question i’m going to resolve at the end of an overlong recap at 1 in the morning. i don’t believe it’s even a question that titans can resolve. but i am interested in where they’re going next with jason.

19. this episode was genuinely great! i’m pumped for the rest of the season!

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

the wolf should’ve been afraid of me.

Titans 3.04

just under the wire! ... i hope.

like with the previous review, i’m typing this up as i see the episode. here we go!

spoilers ahead.

1. ... well. that was an interesting cold open.

1.25. i don’t know whether to admire this show’s restraint when it comes to gotham and its excesses, particularly arkham asylum. it’d be easy to go hammer and tongs, like suicide squad (2016) did, or any number of bat media did, at a tropey, colourful~~insanity~~ that can be quite damaging, casting mental illness in strangeness and criminality. it definitely shows gotham as... separate from the rest of the country, its own ecosystem of heroes and villains, a sort of rogue state. 

but that ecosystem is still human, with its heroes needing to clip parts of themselves away just to survive, growing old and needing to be recycled, its villains languishing in the same kinds of systems that fail everybody else who needs to be helped. it’s a quieter, tenser sort of wrongness: not strange enough that you can dissociate, but not close enough that you can completely empathise. gotham is its own creature.

1.5. i know that the reasoning behind this is more doylist than anything, but i’m so glad that joker was killed off with little fanfare right at the start of the season. he is the one man in the batverse that’s transcended its confines as this sort of ethereal boogeyman/eternal edgelord and to justify his presence in the series would mean giving him this tired, overblown importance and too much of a stab at colourful, tropey “madness” in this otherwise-subdued series. i wish all batmedia would follow suit and get rid of this fucker.

1.75. so jason is bucking scarecrow’s control! or reminding him of who exactly holds all the cards right now. circling back to what i talked about in the last review, it’s remarkable just how little time it’s been since jason’s “death” and he’s already got ‘minions’ and elaborately set up plans to track, break and kill the titans. just how long has he been planning this? when did he first look at WE weapons prototypes and think that’s something i can use to blow somebody up? and the most unsettling question: did he plan his own death at the hands of the joker just so that he could break batman?

at this point it’s obvious that the scarecrow at least started jason down this path, but it’s frightening just how far he’s travelled already.

1.8. aaagh, less than one minute in! i’ll shut up. 

2. conner washing his hands at the sink reminds me that he was directly in the line of explosion when hank got blown up and he’s probably got atomised hank-bits all over his skin that he’s desperately trying to wash off.

... you’re welcome.

2.25. conner, don’t you speak to gar fucking logan like that, sir, no!

2.3. if anything it’s the lex part of him that gave him the knowhow to recognise the weapon and build a de-activator for it. 

anyway, for that ‘half-breed’ and ‘talking tiger’ comment?

(i wish, tho, that we actually see conner more interested in the superman part of his legacy, like maybe listening to stories from gar, or even better, dick, so we get a better idea of the pressure he’s feeling to live up to that part of him and not the part that’s lex.)

((i talked about conner’s stages of moral development in his introductory episode last season, but i wonder if the next stage of his self-actualisation would be to further integrate the parts of himself and realise that they are only parts and he, conner, is an entirely different person unto himself that can make decisions on how to use what he has and what he knows. his superman abilities can be used to destroy. his lex knowledge can be used to save.))

3. oh dawn :((

3.25. is this the last we see of dawn and hank? i mean, we know donna is coming back; would it be a stretch to think they’ll try to have a go at resurrecting hank as well?

3.5. “deathstroke didn’t make us into killers.” good, because deathstroke didn’t make jason a killer either. there’s a missing step there you need to be looking for, dick. 

3.75. dick did try to break the cycle, step away from gotham, run from the possibility that he could turn into batman. it didn’t help; he couldn’t fully withdraw from his vigilante persona the same time he loathed it, and batman literally haunted him both asleep and awake. but maybe gotham doesn’t have to turn anybody into anything. maybe gotham has nothing to do with it at all. it’s about taking responsibility, realising some sacrifices are pure bullshit, and building an actual family instead of merely a team.

anyway: hugs!

(oh, also? mr “i hate flying”? i mean, there’s perfectly valid reasons to hate flying that’s not related to childhood trauma, but then again, this guy was literally a ‘flying grayson’ once. also also, remember that he also gets sea-sick. must’ve a lot of fun stories to tell.)

4. ooh that gar/kory confrontation was brief but cool!

listen, i have never seen a psychiatrist with that extravagant an office and SIR I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW HOW--

4.5. kory’s so unused to reaching out for help and it’s breaking my heart that HPG likely is some kind of impostor that’s maybe causing her symptoms in the first place. 

kory and dick have mostly been apart this season but it’s remarkable how their journeys have paralleled each other; kory processes her grief, isolation and existential dread into a determination to take care of this new family she has, no matter what it takes; dick does much the same, forging ahead with plans and solutions until he has no fuel left in him and spirals into a massive breakdown.

4.25. listen titans this really is a TERRIBLE continuity error. we aren’t goldfish; we can clearly remember that two minutes ago it was gar’s upper arm that was burned, not his forearm. COME ON.

“sensory deprivation tank” *SNORT*

anyway, gar is the BEST

4.5. i wonder where these visions of experimentation took place. was it on tamaran, or on earth, after she came to hunt down rachel/trigon and before she lost all her memories? is HPG a part of the scientist group that experimented on her? ... god, i hope not. i mean, i think he is, but it would be cool to have some positive therapist representation in media. 

5. you’d think the van transporting a dangerous supervillain that only batman could catch would be more secure but... i’m also not entirely surprised. 

5.15. i love dick gives ZERO shits about hiding himself or even ensuring scarecrow is adequately contained. just turns away after kidnapping him in BROAD DAYLIGHT and says ‘let’s go’. I LOVE THIS DUMBASS

6. lmao gar is having a really really shitty day SOMEONE GIVE THIS MAN A BREAK or just a goddamn story arc of his own

6.5. i’m really confused about the timeline here. so... sometime ago, kory came down to earth to hunt down trigon, yeah? at some further point down the line she and her sister were kidnapped and experimented on. THEN she somehow escapes but... loses her memory? a few months pass and then we see blackfire alive and well and free; she kills faddei, can impersonate other people, and is clearly seeking out kory. but now she’s still in the experiment facility...? what’s going on?

i’m not entirely surprised about the facility being mostly deserted. either the biggest investors in this project gave up on it and it was left to the most fanatic to carry on, or they were deliberately trying to lure kory and get her to free blackfire--expand the environs of the experiment, so to speak.

7. hopefully barbara is going to get something to do other than listen to various men give her Attitude

8. how do you terrorise a terrorist? well:

i love when dick is a scary-competent motherfucker.

8.25. ooooh, the attack on crane at arkham a ploy to get crane to blackgate? nice one dick, i didn’t even think of that. but why though? to protect crane from the titans? to intercept the van to blackgate and “rescue” him? seems likely--red hood was there, except dick got to crane quicker.

9. still reeeallly unclear about the komand’r situation. was komand’r captured after s2? is this all A TRAP?? if so, why are you stepping into the only thing that can contain you, kory????

9.25. so... definite parallels between dick/jason and kory/kom here. i’m just. i’m still. really confused. i’ll shut up now.

10. this may be my favourite dick look yet:

woodsman!dick in a beanie.

10.5. i unironically love how titans has made this bizarrely-devoted-to-his-moniker, toxin-spewing supervillain into a tamer version of hannibal, psychoanalysing his victims into submission. it’s of a piece with how inward looking titans is, the way all of its villains are obsessed with how our protagonists’ minds work, to the point where they would actually spend time inside of them. 

there are no big plots to end the world. no apocalypses or endgames here. these villains collect the titans’ insecurities like infinity stones. the way the titans defeat them is by achieving character growth--literally winning by the power of love. literally “the real superpower is the friends we made along the way”!

10.7. anyway, i’m betting dick is used to this bullshit from crane and is humouring him in the service of getting more information. the story about the wolf? an implicit threat, not to mention dick getting to control what crane knows about him and what methods he would use to manipulate him.

am i giving dick too much credit here? i don’t think so. he’s really impressed me so far this season.

10.75. like. there’s a real unreliable narrator vibe coming off with every person that talks about bruce (much like how the various members of the titans talked about jason’s motivations) and to buy into crane’s talk about bruce being a psychopath is to fall for the same manipulation that jason fell for. dick is the only person who hasn’t really psychoanalysed bruce this season, and i think some part of his detective brain is piecing things together into a bigger picture.

11. i’m glad kory rescued kom but did she have to kill the scientist?

(i mean, yeah, probably - the less people know that kom escaped the less likely they’re going to have the fucking govt on their doorstep, but still.)

11.5. dick’s gonna come back to wayne manor, stare straight at komand’r and go, well which room would you like? because the team might as well adopt ANOTHER person, yeah?

12. oh MAN that red hood/nightwing fight was AMAZING! and he did the thing! the boomerang escrima thing! i’m so delighted!

12.5. the anger and disbelief in dick’s voice when he says you told crane EVERYTHING?! tells me that he knew exactly what he was telling crane himself.

12.75. “everything you are is because of him” - oh that reminds me of halluci!bruce from last season. i hope we see halluci!bruce again--he is so vicious but so entertaining... so much more effective at tearing dick down than crane or jason combined. goes to show that dick’s biggest enemy is own fucking head.

12.8. oh no! dick’s shot! crane is in the wind with red hood! blackfire is now with the titans! i love it!

honestly this season’s pacing is such a big step up from the last couple. gold star, show.

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

gotham’s on its own, now.

Titans 3.10

moving onwards! we’re back to the core team (hopefully) in this episode, at a delicious cliffhanger at the end of 3.08, so i have High Hopes

as always, typing this up as i watch the episode.

SPOILERS AHEAD

1. this opening scene is so deliciously bizarre. is that dick in his old hospital room brooding at the snellen chart that he hallucinated about? is dick astral projecting? is that a future dick? a dead dick? 

i just know we’re not going to get answers and i love it and i hate it and i love it.

2. not sure why barbara’s being put on the spot over the situation since as a police commissioner she wouldn’t really have the power to fix the issues with the pipes and the toxin? maybe gotham is a city so overrun by police that they’re looked to for every issue that comes up. it’s bizarre though.

2.25. also not a fan of how barbara’s authority is repeatedly undercut--especially by other nameless men--and how she defers to dick when she was (rightfully) furious at him just a few episodes ago for making rash plans and, well, undermining her authority! 

what’s dick grayson to the gcpd anyway? he’s bruce wayne’s son and an ex-cop from detroit who hasn’t been in one in nearly a year. why in the world are they ok with him consulting in this case and dragging the commissioner’s attention away from a crucial matter? ronnie from schitt’s creek, why???

2.45. dick complains of “brain fog from the accident”. AHA! not to mention unspecified chest/back trauma from being slammed into a car at high speed, and a gunshot wound from before that. take a nap, grayson. i see shitty decision-making in your future.

3. oh gawd, it’s the scarecrow again. do we have to listen to him talk? i hate his character so much.

3.25. “you fucked it up--they were about to take me back!” at first blush this seems like jason genuinely regrets that he couldn’t reconcile with the titans, but his demeanour makes me think that he wanted to plant himself among them. i don’t know. i think he’s playing a balancing game with the options he does have: he’s not ready or secure enough to strike out on his own, and the door to the titans seems closed for now. all he’s got is scarecrow and he can’t risk completely alienating the guy.

3.5. all that big talk about Edward Bernays and the power of an Idea and he releases a... Boomer Facebook ad?

it seems utterly over-the-top and ridiculous, but i guess in a charged situation like now, and in a city like gotham... with the right suggestions wrapped in the right kind of context, well. 

3.75. maaaaan i have a feeling i’m going to be in the minority here, but i feel for dick and barbara so much here. especially when barbara says “even when things were at their worst, gotham trusted batman and my dad.” neither of them really wanted this legacy though on paper they’re the ones best suited for it. and now that they’ve taken charge, things have shattered so beyond their control that now the legacy is a source of guilt. you have to fix it--it’s hard to think of anything else, be it friends or family or yourself.

at the end there’s just... burnout. giving up.

3.8. (who’s projecting? shut up, you’re projecting.)

4. “one river, many wells”... oh i see what you’re doing, Show. :/ there just happened to be a lazarus well in gotham, sure. 

5. i have loved every single gotham taxi driver on this show and i demand a spinoff based on them.

6. i thought this anti-fear toxin was only supposed to remove your inhibitions, not turn you into a stereotypical zombie. it’s perfectly possible that some people are going to do terrible and reckless things that don’t involve fighting, like make ruinous financial decisions or bake bare-handed or try parkour on a multi-storey building. honestly, that would’ve made for a much more interesting aftermath.

6.5. “the worst of it is over”??? are we going to do something for the tens of thousands of people poisoned by this toxin, even the ones you brutally beat down? withdrawal facilities, medical support, anything?

7. i love how titans loves to give everybody mind-bending powers at a whim. so now lydia can just teleport whomever she wants to some ethereal “training ground”? what’s next?

the way this show’s building up the rules of its universe, time and space and the mind and soul are interlinked and constantly bleeding into each other; it’s providing a framework for every deus ex machina to come.

8. so they meet in a bar. while there’s a city wide zombie crisis going on and the literal water from their taps is poison. taking away police resources when they’re stretched thin. taking a shot of absinthe after admitting that you’re still experiencing post headinjury “brain fog”. i know, i know.

the bad decisions are just beginning.

8.5. hmmmm. you know, i can just about see where dick is coming from with the idea to have nightwing surrender to the gcpd--this is now a PR battle, after all, and making a big, public gesture is a good move. but dick, it’s not the police that gotham has lost trust in (any more than usual anyway) but in you and your team. you were in a precarious position anyway even before scarecrow’s video as a brand new team in a city that’s used to its larger-than-life heroes and villains; now is the time to go big, to show that you care for the city. maybe by working hard on an antidote to the toxin. maybe by using WE resources to medically treat the poisoned. maybe by providing clean drinking water from outside the city. honestly there are so many options.

but dick’s not thinking straight, is he? he’s thinking about saving barbara’s image. he wants her employees to trust her again because he just can’t let go of his guilt and his tendency to throw himself on the cross at the slightest shift of the wind. he’s still obsessed with the idea of penance, not realising how much it would affect the people around him. 

8.9 and honestly we complain about dick making dumbass decisions but that’s the point? the show is not justifying these decisions by making them work out; they keep backfiring on him until he learns the lesson he really needs to learn. victory is in self-actualisation; not strategy or training or fancy weapons or martial arts moves. 

9. fuck off, crane.

9.5. it’s obvious he doesn’t quite have jason in his thrall now, and it’s quite possible he’s begun to misread and underestimate him as well. jason wants purpose, true, but not for power or legacy; it’s for safety and guidance.

10. i’m disappointed, but not surprised, to see the rest of the team agree with dick to surrender themselves. nobody had other suggestions or even opposition--not even gar, who has so far been the most sensible of the bunch. 

i can believe kory’s own guilt over being the one manipulated into blowing up the pipes that led to this whole crisis pushing her to agree with dick’s decision, but we’ve spent zero time lingering over her feelings on the matter, so that’s a huge opportunity wasted isn’t it?

(oh, i just remembered! what happened to Hot Psychiatrist Guy? has she spoken to him again? Show, if you tell me you’re just going to drop that thread i swear--)

10.5. “as a team, as a family.” well, this is one dysfunctional fucking family. 

there’s still a weird level of deference to dick that i both understand and don’t understand at all. he’s the one with the most training, the most experience under his belt as a hero after all; he’s the one who stepped up to lead and so he’s the leader. but he’s also clearly unwell and has been for a while. his leadership last year was a fucking disaster and though he’s been much better this year, he’s still closeted and self-sacrificial and under stress, utterly reckless and self-absorbed. the team’s continued reliance on him as a leader despite all of this is bad not just for them, but for dick too.

11. “you were born not just to protect people, donna, but to lead them.” huh. just as i was talking about dick taking a break from being the leader...

12. wait, is that the police guy...?

“say it. say my name.”

“uh... red mask? scarface? motor voice? oh, oh, oh! toothless! because of the, uh, no, uh, mouth line on the mask? ... hey, hey, hey, now put the gun down--”

13. why do they keep repeating “this is just for show” and “optics” in front of all the police officers? remember, they’re trying not just to rehabilitate barbara’s image in the eyes of gotham, but also in the rest of her force, who think she’s been too chummy/lenient towards the titans.

13.5. *siiiigh* well. that went downhill fast. and predictably so. again, barbara has frustratingly little power... (though that could just mean she’s in the wrong profession). a stunningly bad decision all around. 

a bad decision going demonstrably sideways i think says more about where the characters are than the quality of the writing at that stage, imo. not to say that titans is well-written (even i can’t compel myself to say that).

13.8. wait whaaaaaat. kom has kory’s powers now????

13.9. oh, kory. she looks exhausted... defeated. the guilt around being a possible catalyst for this crisis, the shock of losing her powers, her growing horror that her sister might’ve deceived her in order to steal her powers, the utter despair that is their carefully crafted plan utterly falling apart...

i wish we had just as enough time in kory’s head as we do in dick’s to really explore these feelings and pick them apart.

14. sooooooooooo barbara’s in jail. holy fuck. 

15. i guess i was hoping for a more emotional reunion between rachel and the rest of the titans, but eh. there’s a crisis on. i guess i can excuse a bit of an anti-climax... for now. (though i’m sure they’d want me to call it understated.)

16. dick’s reached the burnout stage, i see.

and i’m sorry, the police know that the titans are based out of wayne manor? then from there it’s a very, very small leap--infinitesimal, really--to figuring out that dick grayson is nightwing and bruce wayne is batman. and speaking of batman, do we know what this guy is doing after a fucking suicide attempt????

and there are only three episodes left?????

good god.

17. also: fuck off, crane.

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

Fic: move on

i’ve been meaning to write this for a while and finished it during a much needed spurt of inspiration - yay!

summary: missing scene from titans 3.08. dick returns from the hospital to the manor, battered physically and mentally. gar finds him.

warnings: big honking SPOILERS for titans 3.08. deals heavily with dick’s canonical mental health issues, including hallucinations.

move on

The manor is quiet when Dick comes back from the hospital; he’s not sure where the others are gone, but he thinks that Gar is still in the batcave. He’s noticed that Gar spends almost all of his time down there these days, from having his meals there to taking catnaps in between obsessively researching on the batcomputer. Dick knows that it’s not a terribly healthy situation, but he’s not sure how Gar would react to that opinion coming from him. It occurs to him that he can’t be a leader and a Bat at the same time, but that level of self-awareness is too much for him to process right now, so he lets the thought go.

For now, he relishes this rare moment of peace. Late afternoon sunlight slants in through the floor-to-ceiling windows and the silence is like a blanket over the sharp edges of the near-constant state of crisis that Dick and his team have been in the last week or two. Dick doesn’t have any immediate lead to follow as far as Jason or the Scarecrow is concerned, and… it’s okay. He’ll get back on that after a minute.

Just… a minute.

He’s got a headache to worry about, for starters: the doctor who discharged him told him it was a ‘mild concussion’ but that seems to be underselling the way his head throbs insistently like there’s someone in there jabbing his brain with a pickaxe, or the way his vision blurs without warning, or how the mere thought of food is enough to make his gorge rise. His chest twinges with every inhale and exhale, both from cracked ribs and the just-starting-to-heal bullet wound. Exhaustion seeps into every pore of his body in the wake of too much adrenaline and too much stress in too short a time, and it makes his joints ache and his skin burn.

And, oh. He’s hallucinating. Again. He thinks about the script for antipsychotics he has tucked somewhere in his bathroom cabinet, but choosing between taking them or just powering through with no treatment is a bit like a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea: not being completely in touch with reality could turn out to be a liability on the field, but he knows from experience that meds take a long time to get used to, and he can’t afford to be drowsy or stiff while jumping off buildings and leading a team of superheroes. 

So… the hallucinations are just there, and he manages. He thinks about talking about them with Leslie, but again… too much to process. He’s not sure he has the vocabulary to talk about them or the feelings they engender. Alexithymia, Leslie might say. Who knows.

He’s sunk enough into the plush leather sofa in the living room that he feels enveloped by it, warm for the first time since scarfing down a burger last night while talking to Barbara and Kory. He even imagines that he can smell Bruce’s cologne, and the thought creates a pang in his chest. He misses Bruce. Even when he ran away, even when he thought he hated and resented Bruce with every fibre of his being, there was something reassuring about searching for Gotham news on his phone and seeing amateur clips of Batman foiling some nefarious thing or the other scattered across his social media feed. Hell, he’d even settle for hallucinating Bruce now, as caustic and knife-tongued as he can be. The complete radio silence is unnerving.

(The prospect of him never leaving Gotham again is much worse.)

“Dick?”

Gar’s voice startles Dick, and he snaps his eyes open (when did he close them/?). A fresh bolt of pain ricochets in his chest at the sudden motion, and Dick leans forward and hisses. 

“Sorry!” Gar says quickly. He’s standing in front of Dick, a little closer than before, his hands up like he wanted to touch Dick but stopped himself from doing so at the last minute. “You okay?”

Dick nods. If the movement makes his vision wobble for a second, well, it’s not like he or Gar can do anything about it right now, can they? “I took a bit of a spill but I’m okay.”

“Yeah, Commissioner Gordon called,” Gar says, “and she said you nearly died.”

Dick spreads his arms. “A little banged up but in one piece and ready to go. The accident wasn’t as bad as it looked.”

He watches Gar chew his lip and look at him sceptically. Dick misses when Gar would act like Dick hung the moon, hanging onto his every word and following him without question. He’s done so much to shatter that trust and innocence that he’s lucky that Gar’s sticking with him at all; it’s so similar to what he thought Bruce did to him that--

No. No. Still can’t process thoughts like that. His brain is fried until this crisis is done and dusted.

(that’s when you usually throw yourself into the next crisis)

Gar sighs. “You know, Dick, we’ve got all hands on deck here. It’s ok to take a break to give yourself time to heal.”

He looks tired, Dick thinks. He doesn’t remember the last time his team had to unwind, to relax and be themselves without racing against the clock to prevent some catastrophe or the other. He’d tried to schedule weekly movie nights back in San Francisco and tried to take Gar and Conner out as much as he could, but he was always… aware of this barrier between them, the way he couldn’t get their wires to align enough to connect, no matter how hard he tried. He loves them, and knows that they love him too, but no matter how hard he works to deserve that love, he’s afraid that he’ll never succeed, and so terribly, terribly afraid that they’ll realise this and leave him for good.

(The only barrier is that stick up your ass, Hank would say to all of this, and the thought, unbidden, is so much more painful than his cracked ribs or his concussed brain that Dick takes the thought and the ocean of grief it’s floating on and crams it into its dedicated box inside his head before he can break down.)

Dick sets his jaw and gets up from the (warm, warm) couch and shrugs his jacket on. “I’m healing,” he says, “and we’ll all have time to sleep once we can stop whatever Crane’s doing and get a hold of Jason.” He turns to get his phone just as he’s putting his arm in the jacket sleeve, and it’s a mistake: the pain is like a vise around his ribcage, stealing his breath, and he stumbles. Gar is quick to catch him, and they both stand like that for a long moment while Dick catches his breath.

“Dick,” Gar says, and Dick can hardly stand the softness in that word, the familiarity, the sorrow. It’s too much. He can’t deal with this right now. He needs to focus.

He gently shrugs off Gar’s hold. Behind Gar, Dick-as-a-little-boy cocks his head at him, wide eyes blinking like an owl.

“You got any updates on Jason?”

Gar steps back, takes a deep breath. He looks resigned for a moment, then determined. “As a matter of fact,” he says, “I do.”

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

we are our family, even if we don’t want to be.

Titans 3.07

a bit over halfway through the season, and we still don’t have all of our main characters on the board! i love this show.

as always, typing this up as i watch. live reaction, baby! *shadowboxes*

SPOILERS AHEAD

1. i don’t think i’ve mentioned this before, but i kinda miss the old ‘dc universe’ intro. it was cool! the whole idea of it was wild and waaaaay over-ambitious, but also very very on-brand because of it.

2. this is... the third time we’ve seen dick sleeping this season? that’s a record! checking another thing off my s3 wishlist...

2.5. i guess i rag on titans all the time for its wafer-thin plotting and bad pacing, but i have to admit that this season has been a step-up from the last one in this regard. titans has very reactive rather than proactive protagonists, and a lot of the last season seemed to be: x happened, the team reacted badly, then y happened, they reacted badly, etc. this time around, it’s not a huge leap up by any means, but at least they’re doing something about it. 

i do appreciate the focus on character arcs over everything else. and when i say everything else, i mean it: arcs that started two seasons ago with no big cathartic moments, intermittent payoff and multiple relapses. big bads have ranged from interdimensional demons to superpowered assassins to whatever in the world scarecrow is, but trigon’s big weapon against the titans was to... use their worst fears against them. slade’s was to... use their fears to break them up. crane’s is to... use red hood to use their fears to break them up. even the threat of gotham’s citizens being in danger doesn’t feel real: gotham is mythologised into an entity of its own, infecting our heroes like a parasite. like. this is not to say that most other superhero media aren’t big character arcs intertwined with the main plot, but titans doesn’t even make pretend that it’s anything but.

anyway. that’s my entry #2345 to ‘give a grand unifying theory for titans’. thanks. i’ll be back with more.

3. “anger is just fear in a little black dress.” god I HATE HIM

(what’s he doing with barbara’s likeness? oh... oh god. a terrible thought just occurred to me. what if they introduce hush at the very last minute for plastic surgery shenanigans? would you put it past this show?)

3.5. jason, nooooooooo

3.75. i mean, they’re making it very clear here that scarecrow is the one in control--the one who’s always been in control--and is manipulating jason and literally poisoning him, but i hope it doesn’t end up erasing nuance or jason’s autonomy. if jason’s to reckon with the issues that brought him here, then the lines of responsibility will need to be set somewhere. 

(this applies to dick as well but more on that later, i guess.)

4. just--the phrase “40% loss of income” is so funny to me. like, gotham is full of these larger-than-life characters who are idiosyncratic beyond belief, colourful and dramatic and creating chaos just for the sake of chaos, and then there’s the regular criminals and their henchmen who just want to make a quick buck sitting down with pie charts and graphs, griping about the joker reducing their returns or debating high risk investments in, i don’t know, two-face’s next scheme.

“yyyyeeeeeaaah, my financial advisor is telling me that going all-in with a guy who literally makes decisions on the flip of a coin is probably not the greatest idea.”

4.5. god i hate smug!smarmy!scarecrow so much

4.85. as big plans to “control” gotham go, it’s pretty bog-standard. clearly scarecrow has some bigger plan in mind but it really feels like we’ve got no clear insight into him and he’s this generic creepy mystery-man who knows more than he lets on and springs a twist/cliffhanger every now and then. i liked the scenes with him and dick in 3.04 where it seemed like he was genuinely on the backfoot and things weren’t going as he predicted. for all of his faults, dick is at least familiar with scarecrow’s bullshit and knows not to give what he wants.

5. i mean... i see where dick is coming from with the “he’s not jason anymore; he’s red hood” because his immediate glaring concern is scarecrow’s drug and the damage it could potentially cause gotham? i do not doubt that it’s something batman drilled into him, too, but when you’re expected to take point on a situation where the lives of an entire city weigh down on your shoulders, it’s better to simplify things and prioritise. i’m not saying it’s great or healthy! gar is absolutely right to consider this facet of the situation. it’s just dick can’t.

6. hmmmmmmm. HMMMMMMMMMMM. 

i don’t know that i’m super fond of this iteration of oracle???? it looks like a cross between cerebro from x-men and jarvis from iron man. it’s giving me second-hand embarrassment. somebody help me.

(at least they remembered dick’s middle name is actually “john”. i like to think bruce printed D in that contract because for a while he genuinely thought richard “dick” grayson was his full name. duck duck goose, dick dick grayson, i don’t know alfred, the kid was in a circus, maybe they thought it was funny. or maybe it was a test in anger control, who knows.)

6.5 “maybe you two would like some time alone?” even AI can’t help hitting on dick grayson in this universe.

“oh mr grayson, if i only had another eye to see you better...”

6.8. on one hand, it’s a bit disconcerting that the title of ‘oracle’ has gone from barbara herself to this gigantic machine; from my impression of the comics-verse, barbara had an extensive computing and surveillance system, true, but she was very clearly the brains behind the operation. on the other hand, i’m kind of glad that the ethical boundaries that this kind of surveillance violates is a sticking point for barbara. (tho let’s be real, the nsa would kill to have this in their arsenal).

6.9. also it’s now obvious that scarecrow’s big plan is to take control of oracle itself. it’s why he had lady vic take that picture of her eyes, or why he’s meddling around with it on his computer.

6.95. if only i could ‘command sleep’ anybody overstepping their boundaries re: personal information...

7. “you can just sit back and watch as the titans destroy themselves.” i mean... he’s not wrong

8. “dick’s parents were killed by a criminal mob; he won’t work with them.” it’s wonderful that you have this insight into dick, kory, i just wish we could’ve watched some of these conversations actually happen on-screen.

8.5. i’m glad that kom’s being treated with such nuance and understanding, though it’s obvious that she definitely has a Plan of her own. (and did i entirely imagine her ability to mimic other people flawlessly at the end of s2? or is that going to come into play at some point?) i think her story has the potential to be genuinely poignant, and in a universe where being Different, either because of mental health or physical differences or whatever else, leads a straight line to Evil, it’s important to acknowledge and then emphasise that the mere fact of your existence as a Different Person doesn’t predispose you to evil. maybe your act of destroying a system that has destroyed you and not scrambling to “fit in” is only evil as defined by that system. 

8.8. “you’re trespassing, i should call the authorities, i feel unsafe.” now this is a villain lady who’s definitely aware of her privilege.

8.85. kom smirking knowingly at her sister is everything.

“oooh that’s the kory i remember”

9. conner and dick working together woo!

9.25. god i hate a villain who’s always just a step ahead, no matter what. so crane anticipated dick using oracle to track his personal communications and set him up? how did he know when exactly dick would get to do this? how long did he have that poor man tied up in that van?

(the “save me, grayson” is a nice touch, tho. send dick spiralling even further! because if there’s one thing dick will do, it’s take responsibility for every goddamn thing that goes wrong.)

9.5. ahem. i’m going to need a million gifs of conner yeeting dick across that yard, fandom, thankyouverymuch.

(i understand conner is invulnerable to explosions, but how do his clothes survive??)

9.8. oooh crane is already in oracle! i’m just sitting here laughing helplessly because they’re overpowering this goddamned guy so much. he can build a lab in arkham’s basement! he has access to lazarus puddles! he has minions working across gotham, including a fully functional chemical laboratory staffed by chemists who only answer to him! he has the crime families of gotham quailing in his very presence! he has assassins at his beck and call! he’s enough of a manipulative bastard to have red hood under his thumb! and now he has enough of a tech know-how to not only be aware of oracle, but know how to hack into it! i’m sick of exclamation marks! i’ll shut up now!

9.95. dick leaving behind that smouldering grave for a person he failed to save without taking a second to process how he feels about it and running towards his next plan to corner scarecrow: a microcosm of where his head’s at right now.

10. really hammering in the themes of this season, aren’t we. 

10.25. the interesting thing is the titans repeatedly call themselves a family this season (none more so than dick) and while that found family has helped encapsulate and put away their traumatic experiences with their ‘original�� families, it’s meant that they’ve not really dealt with those issues. and dick and gar and jason come from ‘found families’ of their own: they are twice removed, traumatised two times over. they still cling to this identity however, and because of it they’re losing each other. a family isn’t static. it’s an ever-evolving dynamic and you have to put in work constantly to keep it healthy.

10.5. anyway, that’s entry #2346. i’m here aaaalll night.

11. lookit gar the detective! half-transforming and using his powers to deduce things! what a hero! i’ve said this for a long time, but gar is the bedrock of this team, and an unsung one at that.

11.25. i’m confused about him calling this room jason’s though. it seems to me that this is dick’s room that jason later used, and one that dick’s using now. so the unmade bed isn’t really jason’s fault; dick was woken by barbara that morning, and in his hurry, he left without making his bed.

(it still confounds me that bruce didn’t find jason another bedroom in that gigantic mansion of his. you really didn’t give this kid a chance, did you?)

12. oh well. so much for the oracle.

13. ... sorry, wait. you didn’t think i wasn’t going to address the bit with dick right now, did you?

12.5. i honestly don’t think it’s very complicated: dick’s been reeling from one traumatic thing to the next, and just when it seemed like at the beginning of the season, he felt happy and secure with his team and his place in the world, bruce ups and leaves gotham to him, specifically naming him a successor and calling him a ‘better batman’. he’s lost garth and jericho and donna and jason and now hank and dawn. he’s not even sure where rachel is or what she’s doing. after being told that batman was a psychopath for moulding him into a weapon, he’s also been told that his failure to be a ‘better batman’ lead to further disaster. of course he’s going to get batman-goggles. of course he’s going to be a prick. 

12.8. i don’t know what to say. i feel his frustration acutely. i don’t think he should’ve said what he said to barbara (can people stop pushing her around this season????) but that pressure to step in where your parent fails? to clean up their messes and try to think like them? to fall into habits drilled into you when you developed them as coping mechanisms growing up? I FEEL THAT. 

every step he’s taking he’s putting 110% of himself in it and scarecrow’s still playing mindgames with all of them: i absolutely feel his desperation to take control of that game and turn it on scarecrow, no matter what it takes.

and he did apologise almost immediately, and finally--finally--actually works with barbara. 

12.9. again, not excusing him! but i get it. and i think that’s a sign of great character writing.

“did you know i just reminded emmram of all of her daddy issues? what the fuck????”

12.95. i love that dick&barbara, kory&kom, and gar are all approaching solving this mystery from different angles, each as valid as the other. also, conner is there as... emergency bomb defuser man?

13. it’s like all fancy rich people in fancy rich houses do is pour fancy rich alcohol into fancy rich glasses on pristine, untouched tabletops. i wonder what it’s like to live like that.

13.25. I KNEW IT! poor michael. it was nice knowing you.

13.5. man, kory is contending with a lot of issues that she’s successfully bottled up and compartmentalised until now. the cold reality that a child can seek out their parents as refuge and they can view the child as a piece to be moved in a greater game (never out of cruelty, though, never, and somehow that makes it worse), that truth of blackfire’s treatment on tamaran because she’s different, and her own culpability in what happened. she exchanged one family for another, after all, and left that family to die and her sister to suffer. like dick, like gar, kory’s being forced to reckon with what the titans are meant to be, the larger implications of creating their found family in their own space.

14. it’s probably because it’s one in the morning and i’ve had two glasses of wine but i did not follow that bit of exposition at all and victor freeze??? what? 

anyway. look at them solving things! together! go team!

“you made a deal with the mob?” oh the sense of betrayal on his face! fuck off, dick, your issues aren’t kory’s. 

15. conner is really sweet and a bit of an awestruck crush on kom is to be expected. especially after that power rangers-esque transformation (i say this as a former huge power rangers fangirl. i’ve seen every series until 2007 including the original japanese versions and written fanfic for all of them. so i love a cool costume transformation, is what i’m saying.)

also?

FUCK YEAH

16. i love the gotham crime families just chillin’ around eating ice cream. I LOVE THEM

16.5. that was a fun fight sequence, if marred slightly by that bit of awkward flirting between conner and kom. i wonder if she’s really planning to use him in a larger scheme to get kory back to tamaran, or maybe something else. 

16.75. so i’m assuming that scarecrow has jason either so paralysed by fear that he can barely move, or jason’s withdrawing from the drug that he’s been sucking in every few minutes. 

17. it’s nice to see them chill after a successful mission! and it can be awkward, but conner’s crush on kom and him striving to impress her is also, well, uh... cute.

17.5. i guess the dick/barbara scene was inevitable, especially given the... unresolved nature of their relationship in the flashbacks? and they’ve been through a rollercoaster together this episode, discovering and then destroying an incredible tool within a matter of hours, re-discovering just how well they work together as a team. dick’s swimming in the nostalgia. i don’t expect it to last as a long-term relationship, but i totally get why this is happening now. and hey, they’re cute!

i have a weeeirrrrd feeling that kory is going to leave to tamaran at the end of the season and that dick and kory will rekindle--or rather realise--their relationship just before that. it’s going to be devastating and beautiful and painful and i will be writing essays about it which would be me just wailing into the screen.

18. gar found molly!!!!!!! MOLLY’S BACK! \o/ gar is the BEST

19. that was a fun episode! i love this silly show, even if it does destroy me sometimes <3

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

chin fucking up, amigo.

Titans 3.02

... eh?

SPOILERS ahead.

1. you know that music video for billie jean where michael jackson would dance along the pavement and the tiles would light up under his feet in different colours? yeah? me too.

titans hasn’t met a table top or a support arch that it doesn’t want to light up in a headache-inducing blue like the world’s most boring nightlight. i mean, i’m not an expert on lighting or cinematography or just... colour by any means, and the quality of the video i’m watching is poor given that i can’t access hbo max, but all the orange and teal and neon is making it very difficult to really differentiate between say, the batcave and the gotham police department and hell, the titans tower. i feel like there’s oftentimes a gap between idea and execution with titans, with gotham being this almost otherwordly hellscape with an aesthetic pulled from a gothic horror novel, but the colours and design just... leave it flat and dark and dull.

1.5. like what really frustrates me is that titans has a delightful mix of tones--the fights often remind me of schumacher-era batman camp, with the contrived quips and the start-stop rhythm and krypto just sallying in and ending the fight with a fucking SuperBark (tm) but in the same episode you have red hood just casually pulling out severed heads out of a duffle bag and desperate people blackmailed into killing themselves out of drug overdoses. I MEAN. it’s wonderful! but it looks all the same. it sounds Absolutely Bonkers on paper but on screen both Quip and Murder happen in the same washed-out blue and i wanted to be excited about the batcave, dammit!

2. things re: red hood have happened at such a breakneck speed that it feels like there’s so much that’s happened off-screen that we’re not privy to. a real proper mystery! 

things that are intriguing about the red hood arc so far:

a) what was that chemical he huffed just before going to fight the joker? is it a regular old performance/adrenaline booster or is it something more lazarus-juice adjacent? if it’s the latter, i can’t imagine he got that much information from a lone chemistry textbook. and where is he getting the resources to set up his little chemistry lab? is somebody else orchestrating things behind the scenes?

b) the red hood persona, costume and mask, plus the elaborate plan he’s putting in place to both string along gotham’s rogues and enact his revenge against the titans seems too... fully-formed and elaborate to have been concocted in just a few days. how long do you think jason’s been planning this? just... stewing in resentment and building rage, dismissed and passed around and underestimated and realising that the power he thought he would get by being robin is no power, no protection at all, but something that’s left him even more vulnerable than before? 

c) do we think that the scarecrow is at least partly behind this transformation? because yes, it was batman that set up this whole hannibal lecter-esque situation with him, and he would be irresponsible enough to have jason-as-robin go talk to him regularly regarding “~profiling~” criminals. it’s not too far of a leap to assume that scarecrow could’ve been manipulating jason at a very vulnerable time, and that he could’ve passed along some of his chemistry know-how, too.

d) ... or fuck, i wouldn’t put it past titans to introduce ra’s al ghul in a fucking ten second aside

e) anyway, the thing that won’t leave me alone is jason seeking out the joker not necessarily to fight him, but to orchestrate his own death. the whole thing has to have been part of a bigger plan. he broke batman with it, after all. and he’s starting to break the titans, too.

f) i love it! i mean, it does re-tread some of the storybeats we had with deathstroke last season (turning the titans against each other as revenge, etc) but it’s... tighter, this time, and at least for now seems better-executed. and as a red hood story it’s different enough to be really interesting, and i appreciate the ways in which its reframed the revenge story to focus on the titans rather than just the batman. like fuck everything up, i say! turn it on its head! slash the innards out of that sacred cow and strew it like garlands in the path of the Story You Want To Tell!

(and yes i am fully aware that by the time i post this review, there will be a whole lot more information out but if i come across like a fool then goddammit i will be a fool!)

2. i love how every season of titans starts off with, ‘oh dick, you thought you were settling into a role and a life and a pattern of relationships? well fuck you, here’s a terrible and traumatic thing, tons more responsibility, and circumstances that will lead you to uproot your entire life and move somewhere else.’ and dick’s just like, ‘well, ok. fuck you, but all right’.

can you imagine? the man was just settling into leading a team in sf and smiling for the first time in years, and now he has to deal with jason’s death, bruce experiencing a full fledged breakdown, coming back to a city that represents more bad memories than good, red hood, and a frightening new case that seems to be targeting him and his team. it’s a testament to dick’s growth that he’s not reacting to this stress like he did last year, shutting everybody out, making irrational decisions and experiencing sharp, short bursts of anger. (not to mention a full fledged psychotic episode.)

2.5. but i’ve also talked about dick performing a fair amount of unwarranted emotional labour for his team(s) in that he just lets them take out their frustrations on him and... does nothing. be it his team exploding at him for jericho (both in flashback and present-day) or donna and hank needling him for handling deathstroke poorly or barbara berating him for not handling the bank situation as well as she thought batman would though just the previous episode she had talked about how fucked up it was that bruce just expected dick to step up and replace him in gotham without any real notice. i mean it’s all perfectly understandable and sympathetic from their end--and i’m not trying to bash them here!--but hank, my man, the same chin you’re asking your amigo to keep up is the one that you punched last year and never apologised for. just sayin’.

2.75. @superohclair did a wonderful breakdown of what the ‘fear’ contract could imply here and there’s not too much i could add to that. it’s just really interesting that fear ended up being such a defining feature of their lives, albeit it’s the fear of seeming less than invincible in the face of bigger, more tangible fears. am i making sense?  dick feared loss, and abandonment, and the more existential concept of turning into something that he didn’t want to. bruce so feared being alone that he’s scouting kids to replace robin within days of jason dying. 

it also goes some way in explaining the tense sort of... restraint that bruce and dick show in the wake of loss and tragedy, like anything less than complete control of your emotions can lead to tragedy. it’s conditioning that dick couldn’t shake off when he was at his lowest in detroit, hating his legacy but unable to let it go either.

2.775. but i definitely appreciate the softness that dick displays with his team now, checking on them after a mission-gone-bad, welcoming back old members with no caveats or resentments (and kory’s delight in seeing hank back! hank and dick hanging out together and hank trying to prop dick up!), and appreciating their teamwork in solving cases. that’s always been the essence of dick as a person, and the beating heart of this show: flawed and traumatised people coming together to a place that will always be open to them, where they can be their worst and be supported still, allowed to make mistakes and grow from them. that’s family.

2.8. coming back to bruce for just a sec, it’s interesting how that gotham rogue was so certain when he said that ‘batman doesn’t kill’ but it’s not a rule that either jason or dick put much store by when they were robins. the ‘no-killing’ rule clearly didn’t mitigate dick’s fears about turning into batman and jason’s never been seeing giving two shits about it. it seems to me of a piece with bruce’s distant, second-hand sort of parenting that we see in dick’s flashbacks from s1 where the fear was never about personally disappointing batman, but taking lessons from him on finding a place in gotham’s hellish ecosystem and surviving.

3. kory having waking flashbacks! i don’t buy the bullshit parasomnia episode explanation from fake!HPG (because c’mon, justin has to be some sort of tamaranean ruse) because for one, you have to be actually asleep for that diagnosis. 

(and here i was, hoping against hope that HPG would actually end up as the team’s therapist)

curiouser and curiouser! i wonder if these flashbacks are from the time between kory landing on earth and the beginning of season 1, when she was completely amnesiac? it’d be cool if the show was considering repercussions from that time, and if kory hasn’t gained all her memories back. 

4. i just love the vibes between gar and conner and kory. gar Having Things To Do is only one part of my wishlist for him, however: other parts include having an actual story arc, and actually bonding with members who are not conner and kory. (dick! dick! hank! dick!)

anyway. time to move on to watching ep3 and seeing this family bond and nothing terrible and tragic happening at all, nope, nosiree. 

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

given gar’s (terrible) history with ‘otherness’ and authority figures who threatened ostracisation if he ever disobeyed anything they told him to do, his story arc over the last season and a half (or what little there is of it) is particularly disturbing

he joined the titans not just to find family and purpose but freedom to be what he wanted to be and to choose his destiny. instead he got confirmation that he can turn into something that he wholeheartedly abhors when provoked enough, that the people he trusted can hurt him, and that leaving caulder’s mansion for titans tower meant exchanging one cage for another

the more i think about it, the more gar’s wide-eyed belief in the titans and their (supposed) purpose--despite not having been “allowed” to go on missions for the three months that he trained as a titan--disturbs me; his absolute deference to dick’s authority and refusal to confront dick or rachel or anybody else when they’ve hurt him whether intentionally or unintentionally is honestly alarming. in retrospect, his desperate, shuddering calls to dick where he apologises for not being enough is downright sickening

so, like. i can see why the show might not want to reunite him with the titans without him realising how they’ve failed him, and how everybody has to re-earn their place on the team by actually being a family and being there for one another instead of just paying lip service to the idea--though i could do without quite so much horrible, viscious, visceral, violating trauma being piled on poor, sweet gar

(i realise that dick is caught up in his own head and his own issues and has been for sometime, but while i sympathise, it doesn’t excuse the fact that he failed his charges when they needed him the most. becoming nightwing isn’t going to solve these problems overnight, but it is going to give dick a base to grow into the firm, compassionate leader that we know from the comics/other media)

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

"So how did you and Donna become friends anyway?" Any character asking Dick.

(post s2 AU where Donna is alive)

-

Gar startles as Dick flops down next to him on the sofa, stretches languidly, throwing an arm around his shoulders. He gets that Dick... is trying after the shitshow that was the past year, but sometimes these shows of physical affection make Gar’s stomach churn uneasily.

“The Justice League got infected by a virus that turned them evil when we were, oh, thirteen,” Dick says easily, “and it’s kinda hard not to become friends after you’re done trying to fight Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman at the same time.”

Gar’s jaw drops. “No way,” he breathes.

Donna snorts from across the room. “Oh please,” she says, “the first time I knew I was going to be friends with this dork was when he asked me, with utmost sincerity, what my skincare routine was because his bare legs and Gotham weather did not mix well,” and squeaks when a pillow that Dick throws hits her square on the face.

-

-

(  Leave the first sentence of a fic in my askbox and i will write the next five! ) 

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

Fic: dragged away

Fill for the Whumptober 2019 day 6 prompt: dragged away!

Summary: Set after 2.01. Gar finally gets to talk to Dick. Unfortunately, this happens when Dick’s bleeding out and they’re being stalked by an otherworldly monster.

Warnings: Plentiful swearing. Graphic violence and moderately graphic descriptions of severe injury. 

-

“This is the part where, and I cannot emphasise this enough,” Gar says, “it would be really cool if Batman or Superman showed up.”

Dick laughs. He’s been laughing a lot over the last few hours—more than he’s ever done for the entire time that Gar’s known him—and while normally Gar would’ve been delighted to have proof that Dick had emotions beyond ‘angry’, ‘brooding’ and ‘worried’, Dick’s rusty, wheezing chuckles only twist his gut with anxiety.

“Off-world,” Dick says, grinning to reveal teeth coated in blood. “League business.”

Gar’s eyes widen. “Off-world like… off-planet?”

“You know Kory and yet—” Dick shifts then grunts, eyes squeezing shut, “—yet, you still act like—hnn—it’s news that alien civilisations exist.”

“Yeah, well,” Gar shrugs, “Kory’s… Kory.”

“Fair enough.” There’s that awful laugh again, the sound like air is trying to whistle past razor blades in his chest. Their lone remaining torch flickers dangerously, throwing shadows over Dick’s face, his blood black in the half-light. Gar thinks he sees something running up the cave wall just above Dick’s head, skittering into the shadows, and he shudders.

This wouldn’t have happened if Kory were here, Gar wants to say, but he doesn’t know how Dick would take that (doesn’t know if Dick would grab at his neck or leave him or both). Instead he says, “do you think that… thing’s coming back?”

“Gotta be prepared in any case.” He reaches over and flicks the switch on the flashlight, plunging them into total darkness. That in itself wouldn’t have been so scary, except Gar swears he can see the darkness moving, glinting and shifting like water at midnight. He can hear the skittering sound of creatures so close to him that he’s sure they’re going to land on his shoulders at any moment; he tenses, his jaw grinding.

“I shoulda done more,” he whispers, to distract himself more than anything.

He hears Dick shifting, the hitch in his breathing. “You did what you could,” he says.

“That’s not true, and you know it.” Gar squeezes his eyes shut, thinks of the black mess of hair and claws and teeth and glowing red eyes that charged at him from the darkness, the way he froze, unable to think beyond a white-out of panic.

Thinks of Dick pushing him out of the way, his blood-curdling scream as he was clawed open—

“I didn’t, is the thing,” Gar says, hating the way his voice wavers. “I could’ve—could’ve become literally anything, and I just. Just. It was like I couldn’t even think.”

Dick sighs. “Happens, Gar. Not your fault.”

“I should be doing something now.” Gar bites his lip. “You know? But I can’t, and there’s no excuse for that.”

“Gar—”

“I’m scared, Dick. There’s something weird about this place, and I keep thinking –what if this is the time that I turn and don’t come back? Like—I lose control for good? Where would that leave you—”

“Gar, it’s okay. I get it.”

Gar’s pretty sure that he doesn’t—he’s motherfucking Robin, the first sidekick, the most capable person that Gar knows—but he does feel better for having told Dick. He tries not to think about how much easier it was to tell him in the dark; how much the intensity of Dick’s gaze makes his nerves feel like overstressed wire, brittle and jangling.

Suddenly, Dick’s hand shoots out, squeezes Gar’s own. He startles badly, says, “Dick, what—” before Dick’s hand squeezes harder and he shuts up.

The skittering sounds have stopped, and a rancid smell fills the cave they’re hiding in. A distant huffing sound starts, gets closer and closer.

No. Gar’s heart starts pounding in his ears, so loud that he’s sure the cave’s echoing with it. So loud that he’s sure the creature can hear it—

“Gar,” Dick says suddenly, loudly, “Run.”

It happens before Gar can so much as think about what Dick just said. The entrance to the cave smashes open, and the moonlight that spills through shows Dick standing in front of him, blood flaking off his clothes and listing to one side. In spite of everything, he stands tall between Gar and the monster, and for a long moment, it’s more than Gar can really comprehend: he gapes, barely daring to breathe.

Then the monster lunges, swats away Dick’s attempt at defence, and closes its teeth around his leg.

Dick shrieks in agony, and that finally snaps Gar out of it. He grabs Dick’s hand even as the monster drags him away, and the unspeakably wet sound of flesh tearing is barely masked by Dick making sounds of pain that Gar has never heard from any human before.

“Run,” Dick gasps. “Gar, please—”

There’s a loud snap of breaking bone; Dick lets out one last blood-curdling scream, then finally, mercifully loses consciousness. He’s limp as the monster pulls him into the foliage, trailing blood that looks black in the moonlight.

Gar knows that this is it. He has no hope of getting help in time. He has no time to feel scared; if it means saving Dick, he has no time for Gar.

He snarls.

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

hey, i love all your metas and thoughts about titans. i'm not sure if you've talked about this before so i'm asking - what are your thoughts about a potential romantic relationship between gar and rachel in the show? on one hand, they have great chemistry and clearly care for each other, but on the other hand teagan is only 14. if the show were to eventually have bbrae, how do you think it should go? should it become romantic at all?

hi, anon! thanks for dropping a line, and i’m glad you like my thoughts about the show!

gar and rachel do share a great relationship on the show; as the two kids of the group, they bring much-needed sun and joy to the otherwise drab proceedings. it makes sense that they might have crushes on each other, but their dynamic is far more valuable in that they are points of support and connection for each other. 

i’m sure there are several rules protecting underage actresses like teagan croft, and i’m sure there are people looking out for her so that she isn’t forced to do what she doesn’t want to do. from a watsonian perspective, i’m just waiting for the relationship to unfurl in its own time. the relationships on this show are not exactly conventional–i wouldn’t class dick/kory as ‘romantic’ yet, but there’s a tenderness and maturity to their relationship that’s so much better than the usual ‘romantic-leads-hook-up’ kind of story. i trust the show to hit something similar with rachel and gar–not quite physical or romantic intimacy, but something that helps them grow as people.