#matt replies

[kevinsdsy]

bonus (it is the kevin day effect CONFIRMED by jean moreau)

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all for the game social media au — summer olympics edition (pt. 5): CAN WE ALL SAY THANK YOU @kevindavidday BC SHE CAME UP WITH THE KEVIN COMING OUT TWEET AND IM QUITE LITERALLY SO OBSESSED OMGGG

canon kevin would put a gun against my head for making him come out as a boy kisser but all i have to say about that is i’m just a girl and can’t a girl be silly on the internet about her hyperfixtation??? exactly!! 🙂‍↕️

[mattscoquette]

me pretending to not gaf if matt responds to my questions so it actually happens

[strnilolover]

Idk if you are wanting to do smut some people are waaay into it others arent so much but like maybe if you are down for smut...

Could you do like a girl humping a stuffed animal matt got her and he catches her and finishes the job???

-🧸

the room was dimly lit, the only light provided coming from the soft glow of your bedside lamp. the giant stuffed bear matt had given you sat propped up against your pillows, its fur soft beneath your fingers. you’d been tossing and turning all night, your mind restless and your body tense with unreleased sexual frustration. without thinking much of it, you rolled over — pulling yourself onto its lap, your legs straddling it as you absentmindedly shifted your weight.

the small movement sent a shiver down your spine, and before you realized it, you were rocking gently, your breaths coming a little quicker. the plush softness pressing against your clothed clit, coupled with the thought that matt had picked it out just for you, made your cheeks heat up — a small whimper escaping past your lips.

your eyes closed, hips picking up the pace, grinding down a little harder against the plush bear. soft moans sounded through the room, growing louder each passing second — thoughts of matt flashed through your head, wishing it was him under you instead of the bear.

you were so lost in your head that you didn’t hear the creak of the bedroom door or the soft sound of matt’s footsteps. it wasn’t until his voice broke through the haze that your eyes snapped open. your hips stopped, head turning toward him.

“enjoying yourself, sweetheart?” he teased, the sound rough — like he was enjoying the little show you were putting on. he leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest, watching you with a raised brow, a smirk plastered on his lips.

your face went hot instantly, and you scrambled to try and sit back — but he tusked, leaning off the frame and striding over to the bed where you were. “ah - you stay put baby.” he said, crawling to sit on the bed behind you, reaching out to place his hands on your hips, keeping you in place on top of the bear. “matt! i — i didn’t know you were here,” you stammered.

he hummed, “mhm, i can tell sweetheart-“ he said softly, fingers digging into your flesh. “-keep going, c’mon.” he urged, his hands starting to push and pull on your hips.

you gasped, hands gripping the stuffed animal in front of you as the friction against your clit started again. matt chuckled, leaning his head onto your shoulder as he continued to move your hips. “were you thinkin’ of me baby? wishin’ it was me instead?” he asked, his breath hot against your neck as he leaned down to press light kisses to the skin.

you moaned, nodding your head. “hm - i want words sweetheart.” he groaned, squeezing the flesh of your hips tighter as he sped up the movements. “y-yeah was.. mm - thinking of you..how you got t-this f’me.” you say breathlessly, head tipping back slightly as the pressure started to grow in your lower abdomen.

“y’like that i got it for you baby?” he teased, his kisses turning into nips against your flesh. “l-love it!” you squeaked, another moan slipping from you.

the combination of matt speaking to you and how he was moving you against something he got for you, made your stomach tighten more.

“matt.. gonna-“ your words cut of by a whine as he moved your hips more sharply against the soft fur. “mhm, i know. gonna cum for me baby? finish allll over the plush i got f’you?” he rasped, pulling away from your neck to rest his head on your shoulder once more.

you nodded, now moving your hips on your own accord with his hands still guiding you. the pleasure became too much as you ground down more, the knot snapping like a rubber band. you shuttered, moaning matt’s name loudly as you came all over the stuffed bear under you.

matt’s eyes never tore away from you, watching you come undone in front of him. “fuuck - good job baby, so good.” he praised, slowing your hips to a slow rhythm as he helped you ride out your high. once you were done, he let your hips go — your body leaning back against his chest as he slithered his arms around your middle.

your body went slack, melting into his embrace as you started to grow tired — the earlier relentless fading into exhaustion. you let out a long sigh, a small smile tugging at your lips at how content you felt.

matt smiled down at you, leaning forward to press a kiss to your temple. “maybe i’ll have to get you more at some point..” he mumbled out. and that was the last thing your heard before drifting off to sleep.

[pagerunner-j]

Sometimes Twitter is still good, etc. (source)

[timbarts]

@fire-fira ah! I didn’t know that the writers had confirmed anything I thought it was just the fans catching onto those behaviors

that makes me so happy as an autistic person myself though💕

Is Bart really autistic or is it a fanon theory

as far as i'm aware it's fanon

[maxwell-grant]

I think it’s interesting, considering how most live-action superhero adaptations kill off the villains after their debut, that both The Batman and The Penguin end with the villains not just living, but set up to return and somehow cause Even Bigger Problems down the line. Is this just because it’s the first Batman film adaptation that’s a capital-F Franchise, so the writers need the villains to stick around long-term, or is something else going on?

Almost entirely comes down to the fact that The Batman was not meant to be Batman's origin story - by Reeves' own admission, it was the origin story of the Rogues Gallery. They got the Cloverfield and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes guy and he did a story about the boots-on-the-ground gritty perspective on larger-than-life terrors emerging from the ruins and failings of human civilization, taking the struggles and wars and laborious processes that others shy away from and putting them front in center. It's just this time, instead of kaijus and parasites attacking and destroying the city, instead of apes emerging as the Mad Max warlords rising from the ashes to fight over the world, we have Batman villains in that role instead.

To me, that was actually the conception - if we weren't going to do a Batman origin story, but we were going to do it in the early years, I thought well, in the comics, the rogues gallery characters often are creating their alter egos in response to the fact that a masked vigilante shows up in Gotham called the Batman.

And so I thought, oh well, what we could do is see all of the rogue's gallery characters in their origins, like Selina Kyle before she's Catwoman, and that we could go into, as we're looking for a suspect, we could go to a nightclub, a nightclub could be the Iceberg Lounge and we could see a pre-kingpin Oz, and we could see, you know, a Riddler who is declaring himself the Riddler sort of because there's a Batman. And so all of that was sort of built into the conception. - Matt Reeves

It's far from the first Batman film adaptation to be a capital-F Franchise, even if that aspect was there - Reeves initially pitched the movie as an HBO series, and throughout production pitched additional show ideas such as an Arkham show or a Gotham PD show, The Penguin being the only one that survived as far as we know. This pulls off an origin from the Rogues Gallery better than every other Batman media ever made, and there's a couple of reasons why it does so and why the villains get to take center stage here:

Part of the difference between the way Nolan tackled realistic Batman, and the way Reeves tackles realistic Batman, is that Nolan needs realism to explain Batman, and Reeves needs realism entirely in the service of making Batman weirder. Pattison Batman is the weirdest Bruce ever put on film almost entirely because he lives in our world while still being Batman in every way that counts - Keaton Bats slept upside down in a cave, but he lived in a Tim Burton world. Adam West Bats is weird, but everybody is like that or even weirder than he is, he is the comedic straightman to everyone else. And where as Nolan needs Batman to be the thing that makes sense, Reeves needs Batman to be the thing that doesn’t make sense.

Nolan wanted weird difficult irreducible villains opposite a logical pragmatically sensible Batman, and Reeves wants exactly the opposite. For Nolan, even besides the Joker who was defined entirely around the lack of a real explanation for him, you have his take on Two-Face, Bane, the Al Ghuls, characters that don't demand that much reasoning or explanation because they can act and exist in ways that defy logic, while Batman's the guy who has to hold the center of logic and reason. Where as here, Pattison Batman is the most interesting and complicated and larger-than-life figure this world is dealing with in much the same way that Ledger Joker was for his movie, and everyone else is in the position of starting out and having to deal with Batman and the paradigm shift he brings - nobody else in the movie is quite the character they were supposed to be, that's something they're all growing into in response to their nightmare city and what this titanic freak in armor represents to them.

Even The Riddler is ultimately explainable, human, reducible to his tantrums and vulnerabilities, even without you knowing in-depth his character and backstory that would be elaborated for Dano's Year One. Even The Penguin - he may be larger-than-life, he may be unexplainable on some level, but we know all too well all of his failings and feelings and life story and all the cracks in his persona that he killed Victor to try and bury. But Batman? Next to everyone else, he is still an anomaly, he is just Like That, even to his own detriment and that of the city, and he learns that he must apply being Like That to something better.

Reeves is not interested in doing "Batman vs [X]" movies, the movies are going to be focused on Batman's arc first and foremost, which means the villains will never really take them over the way they've usually done - this is a world where it's the villains who react to Batman, not the other way around. This frees them from the burden of having to exist in direct relation to how much they can directly menace Batman, and it makes it so that these are characters that can carry their own spin-offs, which is probably a lot easier for WB to work with because these are spin-offs that they don't really have to get Pattison to show up for, but they can construct in ways that don't even need Batman to be physically there. Even after The Penguin, they might not have to do that Smallville/Gotham song-and-dance of teasing a main character who'll never get to be here, there are a lot of other things happening in Reeves' Gotham besides the existence of Batman, even if the existence of Batman has changed all of them. So structurally speaking this series has a ton of room for reocurring villains, and building it has been one of their top priorities. In fact, this ONLY gets to do so because the movie already laid out the entire groundwork for them and how it all ties together.

See, the way Batman stories do the rise of a Rogues Gallery and how it affects the city and therefore Batman always follows a sort of a 7-step program:

Gotham City is ruled by crime, crime that takes away the Waynes (Falcone / Carl Grissom (89) / Falcone backed by the League (Nolan) / the Falcone-Hill-Wayne triumvirate (Telltale) / Gotham S1 and first-half of S2)

Crime begats Batman, who beats Crime

Crime + Batman = Weird Crime (Jack Napier becomes Joker after an encounter with Batman (89) / "we still haven't picked up Crane and those other Arkham inmates btw check out this weird card" (Nolan) / Black Mask and the international assassins + Joker's rise (Arkham) / Children of Arkham (Telltale) / the Indian Hill experiments and patients (Gotham)

Weird Crime Replaces Crime (The Long Halloween / Joker takes over the mob (89) / the mob is so impressed by the pencil trick they give Joker all the money (Nolan) / Joker literally replaces Black Mask in the process of becoming Batman's main enemy (Arkham) / Penguin assassinates Mayor Hill and the Children enter a war with Mayor Dent (Telltale) / Indian Hill breakout and Maniax cult and etc (Gotham)

Weird Crime is a Rogues Gallery now (Penguin and Catwoman and Max Shreck in the sequel (Burton) / Joker and Two-Face become separate problems, Bane + Talia + Crane + Catwoman in the sequel (Nolan) / after Origins a whole asylum full of them (Arkham) / Riddler + The Pact and John becoming Joker proper (Telltale) / Gotham S3 with Tetch and Riddler and the Legion of Horribles

The city is changed by the new paradigm

Batman responds / expands or retracts in response to this change

(4 and 5 don't necessarily always happen one before the other, mind you, frequently you do have a Weird Crime Rogues Gallery before Weird Crime replaces Crime at the head of the table)

And you can apply this to most other Batman stories that don't automatically start and stay at level 5. But where as all of these have to stretch the process across sequels and continuations, The Batman is the first Batman work that gets to do all 7 of them in one row. It gets 1 and 2 done offscreen before the opening act and shown to us how they happened throughout the movie's reveals, 3-4-5-6 comprise the Riddler's plot + the other United Underworld members roped into it, and it ends with 7. Even the Batmanless spin-offs follow the process: The Riddler: Year One covers Eddie's perspective on 1-2 as he enters stage 3 and prepares it for the movie, and The Penguin covers 4-5-6, leaving us waiting for Bruce's response back to stage 7 where The Batman ended.

And up until The Batman, the process behind the creation of a Rogues Gallery had never really been much of a process - comics that go into the transition like Long Halloween/Dark Victory just show the fall of Carmine Falcone -> the freaks waiting in the wings causing it or happening immediately after. Gotham tries to work that escalation gradually and it starts relatively "normal", but it's always dancing around the premise and the central black hole and the building blocks don't have anything to do with each other - the gang wars and Penguin have nothing to do with Bruce investigating a conspiracy, which has little to do with Gordon and Bullock investigating weird serial killers who keep escalating, and then eventually we get that Hugo Strange was building freaks in his basement at the orders of the Court/Ra's the whole time until they all just escape. You can piece together how Batman works that aren't about this transition ultimately touch on most of those 7 stages and have their own version of it as soon as they introduce Gotham City in a pre-Batman/pre-villain state, but the connections are always rather tenuous and not necessarily connected to each other (and it's fine, y'know, not everything in a story always has to come from the same source).

But everything in The Batman follows a long chain of dominos that had to happen for this system to become the way it needs to be for Batman villains to emerge. Everything started in that one night Thomas Waynes saved Carmine Falcone, everything started from that ensuing connection and Thomas' failures leading to a city ruled by mobsters for 20 years and the sheer level of rot and corruption and human misery that creates and justifies the existence of Batman, and thus The Riddler in his example. Everything we get in The Penguin is the result of this paradigm shift and total civic collapse, showing the destruction of Carmine's empire as well as his legacies torched and mutated by Sofia and Oz respectively. Everything is still connected. The United Underworld guys featured in the movie live and dwell in entirely separate spaces and represent entirely different things, and they're still all connected in the same chain of dominoes, which allows them to expand and cover entirely separate narrative real estate while still giving it all cohesion.

The movie never has to specifically establish a system full of supervillains or made for them, it has to establish a system so utterly fucked and dominated by Falcone, so utterly failed by every institution and body of government and system imaginable, that it creates Batman, and the minute Batman arrives and survives long enough to be a third power / a fifth state, people in his wake trying to respond to him or do the same things he does, as a response to the same afflictions he faced and to his example or influence, are the only logical thing. Without needing to literally show the other rogues waiting in the wings, The Batman established an entire world of possibility just by very smartly using the 4 big ones + Carmine and showing why and how this regular American city becomes a place where supervillains bombing city blocks and running for political office can become a facet of daily life. Joker, Penguin, Catwoman and Riddler - positioned as separate from each other as possible to show the ways in which this is, and maybe always has been, spreading fast out of Batman's control.

And now with The Penguin, reinforcing the chokehold of crime in the city in it's old ways as well as the corrupt mutated new ones brought on by our boy, as well as a new Batman Villain (possibly two, if Eve Karlo ever gets her hands on suspicious make-up) arriving from Penguin's side of things so that it's not just Batman who has a Rogues Gallery to deal with, not just Batman who has terrific enemies waiting in the wings for a chance to enact their own forms of justice and revenge, no, that's just what life is like in Gotham now, forever.

[55sturn]

protective matt hc !!

matt and chris are 100% prison for life by olivia rodrigo (unreleased) coded

he's not outwardly overprotective, it shows through subtle behaviours and body language

if you guys are walking on the sidewalk, he's on the outside (the side closest to the road)

if you ever try to walk on the outside of the sidewalk, he's quite literally grabbing your shoulders and moving you to the inside

sleeps on the side of his bed closest to the door

if you're at a party, he's passing any drinks that are made for you by other friends (it's rare that chris, nick, or matt can't make them) to chris or nick to test before you drink it.

he always carries a hoodie or stores one in the car for you, especially if you're wearing something more revealing, and it's not because he wants you to cover up, it's because he knows you get cold easily.

he's always got a hand in your back pocket if you're wearing jeans/pants with pockets, he just wants people to know he's your boyfriend without being overly affectionate

the second any guy lays a hand on you, he's in between the two of you with him behind him, he's not scared to get physical if a guy is too touchy or persistent

he made a rule one night that if he gets in a fight, nick has to shield you from the sight of him physically fighting someone, he doesn't care how but he made nick promise to not let you see that

there was one time where he was about to punch a guy but he saw you out of the corner of his eye so he picked you up, threw you over his shoulder, carried you over to nick and made nick hold you to his chest when he went back to punch the guy

he refuses to let you do any sort of heavy lifting because he doesn't want you getting hurt

if you're walking around in public, he's holding your hand and is walking slightly in front of you with one his brothers or friends walking behind you.

will literally pull your seatbelt across you if you don't put it on quick enough.

he is aware that you're capable of holding your own, he never doubts that for a second, but he always wants you to be safe and he would never be able to live with himself if something happened to you while he was around.

[ariadne-mouse]

"Ja this is Caleb Widogast. I don't know what has changed. These sorts of communications have not worked for some time. I do know where-"

Caleb "Keen Mind" Widogast spent a word on his last name and ran out later

[thejugheadjones]

[PM] I'm so sorry you have to go through this ridiculous themed month, Sir. -Matt

PM: No need to apologize, sweet boy. It's a requirement, and as much as I'll admit I'm not a fan, I'll bite my tongue and make do with it.

@matt-fabray

[bunabi]

I dunno if you're on Reddit but someone posted a gif of before and afters with the veilguard's original proportions and edited proportions where their heads are smaller, limbs are a little longer and shoulders wider. I always knew their proportions were more 'stout' to fit the new style but seeing og Lucanis in direct comparison to him with more realistic proportions was shocking 💀

I don't visit a lot because I love peace and being calm lol. Do you mean this?

Yeah the models are a head shorter. Though to Lucanis's credit he's meant to be short, so the squish looks a little more extreme on him. 🫠

Can't believe someone in the thread is blaming Matt Rhodes for the change though, like hes the Stylization Czar of the studio. I don't even know where to start. Let me begin by picking up this huge rock.

[ask-t0m-eddsworld]

Okay, how about this

Cute artstyle.

...I'll show it to Matt later..

[strnilolover]

maid!reader making a stuffed toy for prince!matt (pink bunny with a ribbon on its ear)

Darling had learned sewing at a young age — both with a machine and from hand using a needle and tread.

When she had noticed how Matt cherished the little trinkets and things she’d give him — it instantly had an idea pop into her mind. She didn’t know how much he liked stuffed animals, let alone such…girly colors, but she had a feeling he’d like it anyways.

She was going to make him a soft pink bunny — one that had floppy ears and that was soft to the touch. Though…she’d just have to get the right fabric to it and the stuffing for the inside.

Slowly, she started to gather materials..that being if they came from the tailors room that had many fabric choices or if she had to spend her own money to get such. She also picked out a silk fabric to put on the underside of the bunny’s ears, along with little pink bows to go around each one.

After a few weeks of sewing and poking her fingers — and a lot of close calls with matt almost catching her — she finally got it done.

Looking at it one more time, she checked for any defects — if she messed up on any parts or if she needed to add anything. But, it looked absolutely adorable..nothing needed to be fixed.

Carefully, she slipped out of her room in the maid quarters — clutching the bunny close to her as she quickly strode through the halls of the palace. It was the middle of the night, she doesn’t even know if he would be awake. It didn’t take long to reach Matt’s bedroom — trying her best to stay quiet as the halls echoed every sound.

When she reached his door, her hand reached up — grabbing the door handle and twisting it open. Sure she didn’t knock..i’m sure he wouldn’t mind.

Opening the door, she peeked her head in, still clutching the bunny in her free one. The room wasn’t dark, in fact — Matt was sitting at his desk, nose buried in paperwork like he always was. He’s always so busy, but she knew he had obligations and duties to do.

Darling smiled, stepping in and softly closing the door behind her. The sound seemed to snap Matt from his thoughts, his head lifting and body swiveling around in his chair. Before his eyes could see her, she put the bunny behind her back.

Matt’s brows furrowed when his gaze finally landed on her, “Darling? what’re you doing here this late at night?” he asked, slowly standing up and walking toward her.

A grin spread across her face, her own feet moving to meet Matt halfway. “I uhm..i have a surprise for you.” she said, stopping in front of him as she rocked on the heels of her feet. Her blue pajamas hung loosely on her — it wasn’t a sight Matt saw much of, but he appreciated every second of it.

He quirked a brow, “A surprise? what’d you bring me this time?” his curiosity peeking through. A nervous giggle escaped her lips — her stomach felt like it was twisting inside out. What if he didn’t like it? what if he thought it was too girly? what if he didn’t like bunny things at all? whatifwhatifwhatif.

“Darling?” Matt’s voice cut through her thoughts, concerned. Her eyes quickly snapped back into focus, looking at him. “Oh — uhm… I-“ her words getting lost, she looked down at the ground, pulling the stuffed pink bunny out from behind her back. “-I made you this.” she whispered, holding it out to him as her gaze kept avoiding his.

For a moment, he didn’t move, simply staring at the plush toy in her hands. Then his eyes softened, and his smile grew. “A bunny,” he said as he reached out to take it. His fingers brushed hers as he held it gently, as if it were something precious. “You made this? For me?” he asked, reaching a free hand out to grip her chin — tilting her head up to look at him.

She nodded. “I know it’s not — much, but… I- I thought you might like it.” her voice was soft, almost inaudible as her nerves gnawed at her.

Matt’s gaze flicked down, lingering on the toy, his thumb brushing over the soft fabric and the ribbons tied around its ears. When he looked back up at her, his blue eyes were filled with something she couldn’t quite place—affection, gratitude, something deeper.

“It’s perfect,” he said softly. “Thank you darling. This means more to me than you know. I absolutely love it-“ he paused for a moment, smiling as he pressed a kiss to the bunny’s head — which made her flush even more. “-how long did this take you to make?”

She shrugged her shoulders, stepping a little closer to him — which he gladly accepted. Wrapping his arms around her into a tight embrace. “A few weeks..” she muttered against his chest.

His mouth fell open, stunned. “A few weeks? — Darling-“ he pulled back, looking down at her. And that’s when his eyes caught notice of the little bandages that decorated her hands. Surely he hadn’t missed them? “-did you do this to your hands?” he asked, holding her hands up in front of them.

She nodded slowly, “It just happened a few times — it’s hard to know where the needle is going to go when using my hands.” she admitted. He frowned, pulling her hands up to his face and pressing light kisses to each of her fingers that were wrapped in the bandages.

When he pulled away, he tugged her close again by one of her hands — pressing a kiss to her lips now. “I’ll make sure to treasure it even more now — seeing as you put your blood and sweat into this…literally.” he chuckled.

[tonysdumplings]

I love how the bored and bitchless ttrpg bros think that the only two possible stances on Critical Role is you either hate their guts and pray on their downfall or you worhsip them and take their word as gospell

Some of us are... normal people and we enjoy things cause they are fun. I found out about CR after I'd started playing DnD, they are not my fav show, Matt Mercer is far from being my favourite Dungeon Master, he is strict and rules so many things incorrectly

However, some of us just choose to have fun watching 9 grown idiots play a game. But nuance? On THIS website? Impossible.

[bandzhoe9194]

^ Matt had an interesting conversation today

^ So of course I had to post it

^ But they both didn't have to reply 😭😭😭

[maxwell-grant]

Didn't realize you've read Riddler: Year One, any thoughts on it ? Also, in a more general way, what are your thoughts on the Riddler ?

Someone sent me an ask the past week or so saying that The Penguin is everything that the Joker movies should have been, and I don't think I agree on that in regards to The Penguin specifically. But if we're talking about a "Batman-less Batman villain origin story about a lonely suicidal man struggling with poverty and mental illness exacerbated by child abuse, who is pushed down through the cracks of society deep into the pits of his own mind until he can only save himself by becoming a horrible force of social upheaval and political terrorism, finally discovering joy and a reason to live at the expense of everyone around him, and now he will be Batman's problem someday", well this just completely embarasses Joker (2019) on every level. Impressively drawn, impressively written, impressive on it's own and as a prequel to the movie, WAY better than a movie actor's comic book tie-in has any right to be, and one of the greatest Batman comics ever made. Issue #5 in particular is one of the best and most harrowing comic issues and format breaks I've ever seen in the medium, and even if it's entirely self-contained, it very much belongs in the exact same conversation and should be considered inseparable from The Batman and The Penguin.

We spens 4 issues boiling the frog over every painful corner of Edward's childhood and humanity and misery, taking us through painfully intimate views and perspectives inside his headspace, seeing how and why he justifies his worldview and how easy it even is to do so, feeling truly sorry for this hopeless wretch even though we know he's losing it bad bad baddy bad bad and is going to step off the deep end forever. And then Issue 5 happens and suddenly you are one of the people in Gotham City tasked with sifting through this serial killer's personal diary and you can hear that creep shouting with that distorted voice, you can feel the final death rattle of Edward Nashton's soul ending where The Riddler begins to scream in your head 'I NEVER KNEW I HAD A REASON TO BREATHE", and by Issue 6 you fully understand why and how nobody was prepared for him, and why what he is and does and embodies is going to drag the city into an abyss it may never recover from, and why this was never going to stop even after his arrest, even after his defeat and humiliation in the movie. Everything here adds layers of sympathy and tragedy and heartbreak to the character, while simultaneously making everything he is and does in the movie so much more harrowing and disturbing, holy shit he really staked EVERYTHING, everyone's lives included, on being noticed by his savior.

I was already very much on board with Dano Riddler in the movie, whose execution absolutely sold what should have been, on paper, a storm of unadvisable fandom pitches and uninspired trends and straight-up bad ideas ("What if The Ridder was the Zodiac Killer", "What if The Riddler was a 4chan mass-shooter type", "What if The Riddler was a political terrorist with legitimate grievances but whose final goal was to kill off scores of people for little reason", "What if The Riddler was a creepy fascist responsible for a QAnon cult that ends the movie by metaphorically storming the capitol", "What if The Riddler was really, really, really obsessed with Batman", "What if The Riddler was another Dark Opposite Batman", fucking "What if The Riddler was Hush" even) worked into just this miracle magic bullet of a new take on the guy, fully capturing a lot of the essential bullet points of what makes The Riddler tick as a character while spinning them into new and significant ways befitting this increased role he has in the movie. Rereading the story now, so much of the movie even feels like it's specifically referencing the first Riddler story - The Mayor of Gotham City as a target, Riddler misdirecting Batman with a big target while his real plan involved a flood, Edward putting on a costume and naming himself The Riddler specifically because he wants to get Batman's attention, the glass maze, the written letters to police headquarters, The Eagle's Nest that is a nightclub and also the home of a millionaire with a bird last name (Falcone), a driverless vehicle careening wildly into a public place, even how the very first thing we learn about this fucker is that he cheats to win.

The guy in the movie is a version that fully works on it's own, but it clicks SO much more strongly and cohesively when you read this comic and what it establishes for him. It's the scene in the movie where the section of his diary reads "I must become something more" while Bruce finds the panicked desperate bat rattling against a cage, the thematic parallel between them that is the scariest thing he finds in the entire movie, but developed across six issues. This even begins with Eddie living through his version of the Wayne murders, with the first time he's felt anything other than crushing despair and misery, in part because he's seen the first hint of the puzzle he needs to solve, and where he needs to go. The moment the world stopped making sense for Bruce is the moment that the world started to make sense for Edward.

We understand, around the same time he understands, the childish nightmare that must become the pattern of his entire life from that moment onwards, how Edward Nashton would have killed himself, and no one would have cared, had he not become The Riddler, and how the only alternative to "Hey Edward why don't you crawl into the black hole inside yourself" is to, in fact, find this black hole inside of you and shaped like you and push other people into it instead. Become the creature of the night who can punch crime forever, become the avenging force too great for the Falcones to handle, become the kingpin whose name alone will live forever, become someone that the entire city will never again ignore or forget.

We see how it's less that he's been planning for this for so long, and more that his entire life has been broken and hammered into a Riddler shaped hole, and then when Batman dropped into it, he could start to understand what it is and put a name in it, in the fact that he's been training his entire life for this without knowing. Getting comfortable with flushing rats and making bombs at the orphanage, getting intimately and painfully familiar with self-loathing and alienation and misanthropic contempt for this city and it's people who sit by and allow all of this to happen, surviving his suicide attempts without being able to explain why, searching for answers as to why it hurts so much to live broken and unfulfilled and miserable and why he even bothers to keep on doing so, having nothing to love in his life but numbers and puzzles, spending his entire life invisible while trying to get Thomas Wayne and then his boss to notice and praise him, and then being the wrong man at the right place to begin his campaign, a little nobody accountant who noticed an inconsistency in the numbers, put the pieces together, and then decided he was gonna do something about it because he knew it could be done, because there was someone out there who showed it could be done, and if Eddie joined in, maybe this someone would notice him, let him be his friend.

Batman and R, forever.

(People don't talk nearly enough about how this Riddler's entire life ambition was to recreate Tim Drake's origin story, and they should, it's pretty funny)

And to be honest, I think this is the first Riddler origin story I've ever really liked. Some of the others, particularly the first, have their charms, and this one certainly wouldn't fit most takes on the character, even most of the ones I like, but I've never really been fully sold on the idea of a Riddler origin story until this one, he's always been a very backstory-proof guy to me. This doesn't have any particularly obvious shorthand moment as to why Edward became The Riddler, so much as an entire life twisted and torn and abandoned and rotten in ways big and small until this is what came out of him. No immediately abusive fathers or test cheating scandals or major company backstabbings as defining tragedies, just life for a poor orphan in Gotham City who can't figure out the answer to what's missing from his life until he does.

Still a horrible nerd hopelessly trapped in a life of trying to intellectually one-up everyone as the only thing he lives for and, like every horrible nerd, knowing that one day he will be recognized for what he is and then they'll all see how wrong and stupid and savage these stupid savage idiots all were to look down on him. Still a man driven to impose order on the world the way he believes it has to be. Still a cheater who loves puzzles and answers and the thrill of intellectual stimulation and victory more than anything else (and in this case, having had absolutely nothing else to even love about his life), and still very much this guy at the end:

I do have a lot of thoughts on The Riddler, and I think part of why I might not talk about him as much is because he's not a character I tend to have really exclusive or particular preferences for. There are a LOT of Riddlers out there, maybe more so than there are Jokers out there, and there's not really with him the definitive must-be-like-this that the other Batman rogues have. Everybody approaches the puzzle differently if they do so at all, and I like a lot of these Riddlers! They connect with each other surprisingly well even, in spite of being incompatible as the same person.

He's gone through some real ups and downs over the decades: given stardom in the Adam West show that made him a definitive Batman villain and spread his modus operandi across all the others, sacrificed in the altar of camp insecurity along with fellow snooty oddball Penguin, defanged and turned into a parody of himself, refitted for joke status, re-refitted for surprise baddie status, given a whole new lease on life and his own gimmicks with the arrival of computer puzzles and the internet and given his fangs back and then amplified, pushed back to the big leagues more horrible and topical than ever before and exponentially increasing as such until his next big movie showing, torn in multitudes across multiverses of takes and ideas, almost too many to even consolidate them all.

I like the first Riddler of Bill Finger's original story in Tec #140, this curious satisfaction-seeking master cheater growing exponentially more dangerous and more varied and more assured the more he fades into his endless barrage of traps and toys and puzzles,. I love Frank Gorshin's Riddler, and everybody loves Frank Gorshin's Riddler, he is the reason The Riddler became an iconic Batman villain overnight. I like John Glover in TAS, and I like Robert Englund's cold ghostly showman in The Batman (2002) much more. I love the Arkham games version of Riddler, probably because I never actually played the games and had to collect his dumb trophies. I love Paul Dini's Detective Riddler, and I especially love Brent Spiner's take on the guy for Justice League Action. I LOVE the more classic take on Riddler as played by John Leguizamo in The Batman Audio Adventures, and I LOVE Paul Dano's Riddler in The Batman, and they couldn't be more incompatible with each other.

I love the Riddlers who continuously undermine themselves in the name of criminal artistry and who look down on the profit-seeking rubes who think any of this is about money, and I love the Riddlers who are ultimately con-men doing money heists because they want to be the only crooks in town smart enough to have something to show for all their work at the end of the day. I like Riddlers who are widely despised and regarded with annoyance and disdain by the city and their fellow rogues, and I like the Riddlers who have good professional relationships with the other rogues, and the Riddlers who managed to become darkly inspiring figures in their own right. I love the Riddlers who've subsumed themselves into the mysteries and horror they embody, and I love the pathological pattern-finders trying to find a way out of this weird pathetic life, even if their efforts will be doomed to failure - The Riddler couldn't out-think his way out of Batman's toybox no matter how much he tried, and he has no desire to - where would it leave him? Down there with all the troglodytes? Please.

I can get on board with very human, conversational Eddies, the Eddies that did stints as sideshow carnies, that can tell on some level that they should be doing better things than this, who'll do bored stick-em-ups to fund the attention-seeking tantrums they're actually passionate about, and I can get on board with Eddies who are truly uniquely vile and scary even compared to the other Rogues in the room, who uphold this terrifyingly cold perversion of fairness, imposing a stark and utilitarian worldview on the city by which the penalty for falling short of his games is murder, that sheer calculated murderous menace that Frank Gorshin brought when he ended his first episode leering on a helpless Robin strapped to an operating table. And if I ever thought I couldn't get on board with the Riddler as a major serious scary existential threat to life on Gotham, well, The Batman sure proved me wrong. I may not love him as passionately as I do The Penguin or Hugo Strange, but I love too many versions of this guy to ever be able to narrow them all down, and there are even more still to be discovered.

Endlessly adaptable, able to change and mutate with the times on the same kinds of grand orchestral shifts and minute beats that Batman does, a greater variety of personalities than the Joker if not quite the same versatility (and where would we be without these two always pissing each other off or making out or both, living in each other's respective negative spaces), always an enduring and entertaining opponent regardless of whether he's the most pathetic man alive or a malevolent genius beyond understanding who routinely puppeteers an entire city and it's greatest hero into putting on their greatest performances for him. Always an adapting puzzle box, always leading into the next version of himself, always beguiling, and always becoming the most frustrating thing that Batman has to deal with, whether he's systematically destroying Batman's rationale and will and ability to be Batman or just being naturally the worst guy to deal with at the most unfortunate possible moment, in itself another key to his endurance. The Joker can murder sidekicks and torch the city and routinely try and drive Batman to breaking points of rage and indignity and despair - but sometimes The Riddler can get Batman there just by being himself, as anyone who's had to deal with this asshole in the Arkham games can attest.

It is imperative to believe in and understand Batman's worldview that his villains can be saved because everyone can and must be saved, just as it is to understand that, out of everyone in his Rogues Gallery, if The Riddler was drowning, Bruce would be inclined to throw him a cinderblock, and The Riddler would be glad to receive it, so long as his last gasps of breath could be spent laughing at Batman's inability to match wits with him.

For a villain who is meant to be fixated on knowing the one correct answer to every riddle, he’s uniquely able to be reinterpreted in endless new ways. He’s gone from being a camp and colorful performance artist to one of the most sadistic and sinister villains Batman can ever go up against. There is no one way to write a Riddler. There’s no single solution! And writers will always like the challenge that presents.

Just when readers think they’ve seen everything the Riddler has left to offer us, and the character is finally exhausted… a new lime-green envelope pops through the door of Wayne Manor to challenge us all once again. It seems we’ll never get tired of trying to unravel the Riddler, and writers will never give up on unraveling the character’s fullest potential. It unites readers, writers, and caped crusaders alike: this time, surely, we’ll crack him. - Batman's Greatest Enemy is...The Riddler, by Steve Morris

[55sturn]

Hey!!!! Do you think you could do a husband/dad Matt headcanons???

✮ HUSBAND + DAD!MATT WHO…/ HEADCANONS

BF!MATT who was so nervous to propose, he takes you back to the place you had your first date in boston, it was not your first official date overall, but it was the first one you had in his honetown after you met his parents a year prior, the same night his mom gave him her engagement ring.

the two of you were sitting on a bench at some park late at night, just talking about everything and cuddling, and he just blurts it out because he can’t wait any longer, he’s not on one or anything, just sitting there beside you.

“marry me.” “w-what?” “i’ve got a ring in my pocket right now and i’ve had it for a year, i’ve carried it around for a year straight because i’ve been wanting to ask you since the second my mom gave me the ring the night you met her. you are the person i want to spend my life with, my family adores you, i adore you, there’s no better match for me, so marry me?” “you’d be an idiot if you think i’m saying no.”

and the second you two get back to his parents house, he’s waking up his brothers and telling them you said yes.

FIANCÉ!MATT who doesn’t want a big wedding, but he is willing to give you whatever you want because he has already and will forever dedicate his life to making you happy.

FIANCÉ!MATT who settles for a small-ish wedding with close friends and family in the backyard of his parent’s cape cod house.

FIANCÉ!MATT who decides chris and nate are going to be his best men and he asks nick to get ordained so he can play an equally as important part in the wedding.

HUSBAND!MATT who the second you two are officially husband and wife and in your way for your honeymoon, he’s doing the cheesy movie scene and carrying you through the door way.

HUSBAND!MATT who is such an acts of service husband, like he’s doing everything you want and ask for.

HUSBAND!MATT who 100% gets cheesy mr and mrs. monogrammed mugs and dishes for you both.

HUSBAND!MATT who cries when he finds out your wedding gift to him, which, with the help of his family, is his own vacation home in vermont.

HUSBAND!MATT who gifts you your own house to raise a family with him in.

DAD!MATT HEADCANONS

DAD!MATT who knows you’re pregnant before you even tell him, he tracks your periods and everything and has your cycle memorized so when he sees that your box of tampons/pads is unopened underneath the sink two weeks after your period was due, alarms are going off in his bed because he’s sure you should’ve used majority of them by now.

DAD!MATT who and picks up a couple tests for you, and places them on the table in front of you and you’re shocked that he’s aware because you had only just started suspecting that you were pregnant.

DAD!MATT, who the second you see the positive test, is pulling you into such an intense kiss, one so full of love and passion that you have to pull away to breathe and then you’re joking “be careful a kiss like that is what got us here.”

DAD!MATT who when you guys find out the gender, you also find out that you’re having two twin girls and is so unbelievably happy.

DAD!MATT who wanted to do a big surprise when you guys’ visit his family back in boston but matt being matt, he accidentally tells them so casually in the middle of dinner that his mom chokes on her water and is like “wait what?”

DAD!MATT who is buying every tiny pink thing he sees, you’ll tell him that the babies don’t need another pink pacifier because you’ve already got a drawer full and he’s like “i don’t care i’m buying it for them.”

DAD!MATT who, just like chris, had his brothers help put all the furniture together while you’re out because matt doesn’t want you do anything heavy lifting.

DAD!MATT who is extremely overprotective of you.

DAD!MATT who will not hesitate to bitch someone out in public if they stare at you funny.

DAD!MATT who had to-go bags in the car before you found you were pregnant, they were packed and ready the moment you agreed to try for a family.

DAD!MATT who, the girls are born, is an emotional wreck, he’s just so in awe and love of what you did, of the fact that you carried and made life. he doesn’t acknowledge his part in it because he’s like “you did all the hard work.”

DAD!MATT who is wrapped around his daughter’s fingers.

DAD!MATT who struggles to say no to them all the time.

DAD!MATT who is so protective of all his girls.

DAD!MATT who raises them to not take any disrespect because he girls deserve the best.

DAD!MATT who also sets the standard for what kind of partner the girls should be with.

DAD!MATT who is so supportive everything they choose to do.