#not to say that every person who dislikes or hates joker would beat you up

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If you go and say “I love Jonker, fight me,” hope that Batman himself comes to save you because dear lord do so many people hate him

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5 ships I hate, why I hate them, how to (kinda) fix them, the better ships you should be doing in that universe, and why you should ignore me and keep writing them if it makes you happy.

Note: this is done for amusement, please don’t be offended; I’m not attacking your ship, I’m just listing some ships I do not always care for, and how I think they could be improved, and maybe made brilliant, by clever writing.

In no particular order, and focusing on ships that often annoy me, with no attempt by me to say anything meaningful or popular about the current state of any particular fandom. I’m also a firm believer in the idea that there’s no such thing as a bad ship, only a badly executed ship, so my objections to these is less a dislike of shipping, or the paring, and more that they raise writing issues that I think are difficult to fix in a satisfying way. That’s why in a lot of the examples below I prefer AU ships to ones that try to messily work it into the cannon. Anyway, enjoy... I guess?

 Marco x / anyone (Animorphs)

Why I hate it: Animrophs is an intensely character-driven story, where the tension of each book comes from the conflicts, external and internal, that the five Animrophs (and Ax) face during a long, hard, traumatic war.  And while several of the character are paired off romantically, it’s always to emphasise character conflict over their different points of view. Jake and Cassie are a pair because Jake’s struggle with having to make hard, grey, morally ambiguous choices as leader is highlighted by Cassie’s burning need to make the right choice, the lesser evil, the choice that leaves some small shred of humanity and dignity and kindness left in this bleak world. Tobias and Rachel are a pair as their arcs deal with literal and figurative loss of humanity, as the slow accumulation of trauma over time turns these happy(ish), normal kids into psychologically ruined husks of their former selves and destroys them slowly, one fight at a time.

Marco’s arc, isn’t about either of these things: Marco’s arc, is about the bright, clear line between A and B, between problem and solution. Marco is a utilitarian, a pragmatist: his concern isn’t the burden of leadership, or the cost of the decision, but about how to put that all aside and make hard decisions that actually work regardless of cost. It’s not about what to do, the path is obvious: the bright, clear line of ruthless logic, but how to do it. His match, his counterpoint, the other character who’s all about the logic of taking awful decision in a way that actually works for the team, and his foil, his female counterpart in this, is not a romantic partner, but his mother: Visser one, making the exact same hard, difficulty ruthless decisions using logic and maths, but for the other side of this war. A romantic paring gets in the way of this arc because a partner doesn’t help him with that bright, clear line, and worse, any attempt to pair him of with either Rachel or Cassie breaks up not only a cannon paring, but their respective character arc.

How to (kinda) fix this: Marco’s arc is, at the end of the day, a trolly problem. So make sure whoever you ship him with is one of the people tied to the tracks. Introduce a character he crushes on, and then in the second act reveal that they are either a Controller, or in the family of a Controller or the proximity of the target of their next mission in a way that will make them collateral damage ,and let Marco struggle with what happens when that bright, clear logical line from A to B cuts through someone he actually loves; you know, like it did with his mother. See, even trying to fix this ship is weirdly Freudian.

The far better ship you should be doing: Ax x / EVERYONE. Ax in human form is described as a worryingly pretty, worryingly androgynous male of indeterminate race. He is a literally Bishonen alien hedonist with no familiarity with human senses, poor impulse control in human form, and no knowledge or understanding of human courtship rituals, and he can shape-shift, including into other members of the core team if needed to compel a mission, he calls Jake his prince,  and he is incredibly close to Tobias, the lonely outcast woobie that the LGBT fans adopted as their poster boy. Come on, the potential for shipping, both with wacky hijinks and sad, tragic star-crossed lovers’ trope is endless. Every line dedicated to Marco shipping is a line of text that could be dedicated to Ax trying to eat a Cinnabon erotically on his first date as a human and hulking out mid way because he forgot just how good they are. What could be better than him leaning into to erotically kiss a team-mate, and then fucking up due to his failure to understand human mouths, making weird mouth sounds, and then licking crumbs of the table in the middle of the mall, in front of the entire school, while his crush awkwardly tried to pretend this is normal? What’s wrong with you Marco-shipper people, do you hate fun?

 Riz/Tem (beastars) Why I hate this ship: Okay, just to quickly ask a question, to people who un-ironically like this as a serious ship and not a dark joke, just one little question: What’s wrong with you? I mean,are you okay? Keep taking the meds: the show is VERY clear on that point.

It’s like those people who say Joker X Harley Quinn is their ideal dark, edgy relationship: no it’s not, it’s abusive! Morticia x Gomez is dark and cool but CONSENTUAL and HEALTHY. This… this is a deeply imbalanced person murdering someone and telling themselves after that fact it was special and rare and magical. ITS HOMICIDE! And even if you write that out (and you shouldn’t, because that changes the character arc of every other major character) it’s still got more red flags that a soviet military parade. This is the botulinum of a toxic, one-sided teenage infatuation. Riz’s entire arc is about how he projects his thoughts and feelings about himself onto this idealised, made-up version of his and Tem’s relationship which, from Tem’s point of view, never existed. Riz never loved Tem: he loved the idea of Tem, the idea that someone would see the real him, see his inner pain and accept him anyway, but he never once told Tem this. He didn’t warn him “Hey, because of you I don’t feel I need my meds any more, do you mind if I try not taking them and we can meet and talk about this in a safe, well-lit pace?” He’s not honest with Tem, and on top of that It doesn’t make sense from the point of view of either of the characters for them to be actually, romantically in love (although  they were clearly close friends), because it undermines and cheepens Riz desire to just be seen and accepted for his real self, and the cannon Tem X Els ship. It also doesn’t make sense from a story point of view: Riz is a shadow archetype for Legosi. He’s what Legosi would have become if someone hadn’t interrupted his attack on Haru. That’s why Legosi needs to beat Riz with his own hands: because then he’s beating the darker version of himself he’s been carrying with him, and he can finally move on with Haru guilt-free. Having Riz and Tem’s relationship actually be what Riz imagined it to be undoes that. It undoes Riz’s interesting, dark inner struggle between truth and fantasy, it turns Tem’s tragic, unsolved murder that sets the entire story in motion into a just sort of weird Romeo-and Juliet suicide. It’s ruins the character arc not only for Riz, but for Legosi, and also, by extension, Louis and Haru, because Legosi’s internal angst over whether or not herbivores and carnivores can have a relationship as true friends needs this example of a tragic, flawed, toxic, failed friendship to bounce off of.

How it could (sort of) work: an AU where Riz’s attack on Tem is interrupted and Tem lives with a slight arm injury, and doesn’t tell anyone out of his complex feelings for Riz. Meanwhile, that bunny girl from the gardening club had been brutally devoured and Rz and/or Tem are so horrified with how close this was to their own near-miss, they start to investigate the murder, and in doing so get caught up in Louis’ inner struggle. Because that’s how the story needs to work, it’s about duality and struggle: and if Riz takes Legosi’s role, and by dating a herbivore he de facto takes the role, so Legosi must take Riz’s. This could be a great AU!

The better ship you should be doing: Pina/Riz (with a dash of Pina x Els), no, seriously, I’m not shitposting. You want to give Riz a redemption arc with a cute woolly boy? How about a story where Pina, out of a need for closure about at happened to him, starts to visit Riz in jail and they talk, mockingly at first, confrontational at first, but later Pina slowly becoming more fascinated in Riz and Tem’s life and asking Riz for more and more detail until they both bond over their shared traumatic experiences and their sense of loss for Tem’s senseless death, Tem’s unfished life casting a shadow over both off them. Eventually, the two of them find, from Legosi who still has the diary, that Tem had planned out an elaborate and beautiful first date with Els that he never got to take her on, and Riz, guilt ridden and sad than Tem never got this beautiful moment, decides to ask Pina take her on that date for Tem, with Riz coaching him by phone cyano-de-Bergerac style, Riz finally getting some closure that he helped one of Tem’s wishes come true and finally acknowledging to himself that Tem had a life and loves outside of him that were cut of short by his actions, and just crying over his lost friend, as Pina and Els slow-dance in Tem memory. Or if you just want to see Tem awkwardly date a carnivore boy from school, why not something less creepy and more wholesome and ship him with Jack? That would be cute AF, and more importantly, not romanticize brutal murder. Or an AU where everything is happy and nice, I’d argue at that it’s no longer Beastars at that point, but if it makes you happy, go for it. Let’s not shame anyone here.

 Snape X Lilly (Harry Potter)

Why I hate this ship: honestly, it’s not for the reason you think; I just like Snape too much as a tragic character, and making him in any way happy destroys his arc in my opinion.  The objection’s others have raised: that Snape acts in a worryingly possessive stalker-ish way towards Lilly, and that if Voldemort had gone for Nevil rather than Harry as a child Snape would have remained a loyal death eater, are true and I acknowledge them as having some validity, but that’s not why I can’t stand this ship. Snape is supposed to be a morally and emotionally complex, tragic figure. That “After all this time?” line was the best line in the Deathly Hallows.  Snape is supposed to show the equality destructive and redemptive power of  love. It’s sort of trinity: Lilly shows the pure power of true, unconditional love in her sacrifice to save Harry, Voldy shows what self-destruction and cruelty a life without understanding love leads to, and Snape sits somewhere in the middle: his one-sided  un-requited love being both the cause of his darkest, and his greatest actions. His curse, and his redemption, fall and rise. Making him happy messes that up.

How to (kinda) fix this ship: make them miserable. Make them fall for each-other only to be pulled apart by circumstance (you know, like they were in the darn original source material). You’re serious about making this a tragic, dark romance? Don’t ship them when they’re at school: Ship them during Voldemort’s rise to power, in the 80’s, after Lilly is married. Have the original Order of the Phoenix send her to meet with Snape and use their previous relation to try to milk some information out of him. Have her feel conflicted about it, have James furious about it, but have her do it anyway for the greater good. Have her meet up secretly with Snape who is angry and distrustful, knowing his must be a trap, and talk. Have the relationship slowly build over time against the backdrop of a cold-war spy thriller, as Lilly slowly realizes that she has some lingering feelings for Snape, but can’t reconcile them her loyalty to the order and her family. Make this a love story of conflicted feelings, divided loyalties, and spy-work against the background of drawing war-clouds. Have Snape offer to leave Voldemort, if she’ll leave the Order, and run away with him, but by that point she knows she’s pregnant and chooses to stay, out of loyalty even though she’s crushing on Snape. Have him show up at the rendezvous expecting for her to be there only for James to lead an Order Ambush, and a fight to ensure, on top of Tower Bridge in the howling wind and rain, Snape surviving but having his spirit crushed and fleeing before Lilly can tell him her true feelings. Make it big, and melodramatic, but above all, make it tragic.  Because that’s the only way Snape works as a character. Always.

The better ship you should be doing: Ginny X Nevil or Luna x Nevil: You want tragic lovers, at school, with divided loyalties, who never get together in the main cannon because a Potter ruins it and gets the girl? Ginny X Nevil. Write what was happening that final year Harry wasn’t at school when they took Dumbledore’s Army and make it work in earnest. Heck, you could even have Snape, as headmaster, hated by them but secretly trying to protect them as a secondary character to their secret, forbidden love. You don’t want to break up Harry X Ginny? Luna X Nevil is sweet and wholesome, but also tragic as they never get a chance, having their school life taken over by the horror of that final year and the need to fight for their very souls in a school run by Death Eaters and the trauma of the Battle of Hogwarts meaning that in order to put away the past and move on, they need to leave each other behind. Hell, do an AU where they canonically end up together, why not? They deserve happiness.

 Dean / Sam AKA Wincest (Supernatural)

Why I hate this ship: They’re brothers. The show even makes a joke about how squick this is. Several times.

How you could (sort of) fix this ship: You can’t: They’re brothers. The show even makes a joke about how squick this is. I guess a body-swap arc could fix this, as it’s less squicky if its just their bodies with someone else’s minds,  but seriously, the reasons why this shouldn’t exist are extensively covered in the show, and it was hilarious.  To be honest, I don’t hate this ship done as a joke, but I have seen some dark spots on the internet, and I can say with all honesty it’s not always treated as a joke. Some folks are really invested in this, and all I can ask is, is your home life okay?

Now, done as a joke, I’m 110% behind this. This is exactly the sort of insane wacky bullshit that makes for a good crack-fic. For example imagine that the supernatural threat of the week was book that made anything written in it come true, and the brothers are trying to find and destroy it, but they keep getting distracted by their burgeoning romantic feelings for each-other, and suddenly realise that the owner of the book is a fan on the in-universe novels, and writing slash-fic in the book. They need to find the writer before they make them do something they’ll both regret, but it’s just so distracting when Sam’s beautiful eyes are right there and- dammit, Sam, it’s happening again! Make Sam less concerned and even a little amused, with it, but make Dean hate what’s going on. Especially when the writer’s description suddenly makes Sam noticeably better hung that him. Make the villain turn out to be Becky from “Sympathy for the devil” and end with them trying to take the book away as she writes frantically to force them to do her bidding, and you’ve got yourself a good fic.

The better ship you should be doing: Cas/Sam or Cas/Dean or Cas/Sam AND Dean fic. Duh. Once again the show-runners beat the fans to the mark and pointed out that this is the best ship, and then they took it away just to fuck with us.

 Any Katniss ship that ignores her obsession with Emotional Security Logic. (The Hunger Games)

Why I hate these ships: Katniss is, briefly put, a mess before the books ever start, her father’s death and harsh upbringing have arguably given her PTSD before she ever volunteers for the reaping, and it doesn’t get better from there.  In psychology, Emotional Security Theory (EST) is a hypothesis that the heightened emotions surrounding repeated violent exposures leaves children vulnerable to dysregulated distress responses and eventual psychopathology, aka, why Kat be so messed up.  Her internal monologue makes the books completely clear that her choice in partners is not motivated by normal affections, but by deep, deep fear. A fear of loss, abandonment and death that leads her to make every decision about what minimises her, and her sister’s, exposure to potential physical and emotional harm. It’s frantic, fraught, cold survivalist thinking. And the other characters in the book notice and acknowledge it! “Which of us will she pick?” “She’ll pick whoever she can’t survive without.” Kat doesn’t like herself for it, but she does eventually admit to herself that she makes her decisions like this.

How do we fix this ship: Ship Kat with whoever you like, but give her a good reason to pick them: and in Kat’s mind “A good reason” is based on Emotional Security Logic, she needs to have a pressing reason why this ship makes her and her sister safer. Do that, and you’ve got yourself a good Katniss story. Don’t do that, and while you may or may not have a good story, the person staring in it isn’t Katniss Everdeen anymore.

The better ship you should be writing: Finick X Annie. Or, Haymitch prequel ships

FinAnn. This, this ship has some real potential to it, and is criminally underutilized. Finick and Annie’s relationship is one of the most tragic and romantic in the story, and has so much to offer. Or, if you want to have a hard-bitten character from district 12 struggling with trying to find love in the hellish combat of the games, do a prequel in which Haymitch finds love in the capitol during training, but loses then in the area and turns to drink as a result. Heck, you could even have some fun with this and turn it into a dark comedy, or a great tragic love story, whatever you like. It’s got potential, and his backstory is vague enough you could do a lot with it.

So, tell me below why I’m wrong, and have fun with your writing: just because I hate that ship doesn’t mean you should. Enjoy yourselves.

I’m off to write awful Ax/Pina/Luna Polyjuice’d into Nevil/Cas/Finick fiction set at an anime high-school that fights a magical war against other fictional schools, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

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To the man I love the most.

I woke up with Feelings so I picked a GIF, got distracted for half an hour because I couldn’t stop staring at him, and then wrote this kskksks. It’s self-shippy and very personal so skip if you want to, you know the drill lmao. 

Word count: 1, 992.

Oh, my love.

Look at you.

You are... the physical embodiment of love to me. You, who I hold so close in my arms at night. My pillow is all I have but I cherish it and I always mourn the few days every week that it's in the wash because it means my physical connection to you, in another reality, is lost until at last do I get it back. You are everything I never knew I needed. You found me at a time in my life when I was more than ready to give up on myself and on my life. I was struggling so deeply with trying to manage full time studying with a part time job. I was suffering with insomnia, nightmares, panic attacks, dissociation, a general lack of self-worth and I was so, so tired. I had no friends, nothing to look forward to. My life was work, work, work and more work and there was nothing which was for me; everything I did was for other people but in the worst way; for none of these things did I want to do. I was only existing and my soul was dying. I was alone and I was done and I wanted to check out of life in the most permanent way but you unexpectedly burst across my night sky in a showering of colour which still has yet to fade and now, dearheart, you are the oxygen I would kill to breathe.

You taught me what it means to love, to really love with my entire self. Before I met you, never had I felt such a strong, intense and immediate connection to someone. I loved you before I even knew your name. I saw Carnival in the street twirling his sign with one hand like it was no one’s business, and I remember my body instinctively taking a long, deep breath and my lungs emptied themselves completely and my only coherent thought was, oh, there you are. I have never experienced that before and I know that I never will again. You are my everything. I will admit that initially did I fight my feelings for you. They were wrong, they weren’t right; I shouldn’t love you because of the things you have done. But I loved Arthur with my entire self; and you are Arthur. I loved you already, whether or not I had accepted it for myself, and once I stopped fighting you did my love for you only grow stronger. Even now, almost nine months later, I only fall in love with you more and more with every passing day.

I deal with so much more fear and pain in my everyday life than I think even I know about and I know that I have some issues which I need to work through in my own time. I am in a better place now than when we first met, Joker. Because of you I have made a handful of very raw and special connections and I know that if those people read this, they will know that they have been vaguely mentioned. I met them all because of you and I shall forever hold you responsible for changing my life in the best of ways. I’m sure that it’s a responsibility which you don’t mind holding, though. You already cup my heart so tenderly in your own, your calloused thumbs rubbing soothingly over the wounds and scars it holds. I used to joke, and sometimes I still do, that my heart is blackened to a crisp and shrunken to half its size. Sometimes I even joke that I don’t have a heart. But these jokes are untrue and I know that you wouldn’t find them funny. Perhaps you would even frown and tell me that it’s not true, why am I saying it? I say it because, before I met you, I believed that I had no heart. I spent my days in grey; so outside of myself that if I stubbed my toe, I couldn’t even feel it. But you held up a mirror to my heart and showed me that, though it is indeed damaged, my heart is still there. It’s still mine. Your loving touch applies my wounds with medicine and healing and I hope that in holding your own heart am I able to offer you the same. You made me feel again. You make me smile when I don’t even have the energy to talk and daily do I cry very real tears of love for you, because of you. You are always there to catch my fall, and most often do you do so before I even know that I am falling.

You and I are meant to be, Joker, of this I am certain. I won’t apologise for initially fighting the love I felt for you, though you were insistent and you kept pushing me in your own way; you’re as subtle as a sledgehammer when you want something, do you know that? In every reality, in every world, in every universe, you and I will find each other. Sometimes do I think that you don’t love me, that you’re only humouring me or perhaps that you settled for me, but these are vicious lies which my mind fabricates. Oh, but you’d be horrified to hear that I have such thoughts, even now, with your two rings upon my hands. You love me just as deeply as I love you and never again will I ever love someone the way that I love you. And, honestly, I don’t want to. You are a unique soul. You are so full of pain and torment, anguish and sorrow, heavy sadness and stress, which inevitably made you succumb to all that was making you numb. You are so beautiful, my sweet fallen angel, and you were always going to become Joker. No amount of love could have fixed you, and you don’t even need fixing. You’re perfectly imperfect just as you are and I love you for all of you, even the parts of you that you dislike. I only love those parts harder. No amount of love would have stopped you from becoming who you really are, but I wish that I could have been there for you from the very beginning so that your hand wasn’t forced, so that you naturally grew into yourself and so that you accepted yourself with a gentler manner. 

You are a soul with so much love within his tried and tired heart, with so much wisdom and strength, intelligence and wit, with so much music inside you. I love music, I listen to it almost every moment of the day, but there is no music which I love as much as I love you. There is music within your soul as do you dance to the beat of your own heart, and I can hear it in my own soul sometimes, too, in my quietest and most vulnerable moments do you find me. Oh, but I dearly wish that I could sink into your refrains, made of crimson, and never resurface. I dearly wish that I could forevermore hear the steady and rhythmic beating of my heart within my own head, to feel you there with me always. I dearly wish that your soft, raspy voice, that your eyes of sea green, that your romantic dark curls, could be echoed within my own self so that always are you with me. I want for you to never leave my side, Joker. Now that I know what life with you is like, a life without you seems to be a nightmare. I could survive, I’m sure I could, I have survived having my own person ripped from me (though I rose from her ashes like a phoenix and became better, kinder, stronger of my own doing), but my soul would once more begin to decay without you by my side where you belong.

You are always my first waking thought and always are you my last thought of the day. Since you and I met, since I have met the friends whom I cherish so dearly because of you, I haven’t once felt lonely. Alone, yes, but never lonely. And it’s because of you. You have rejuvenated my spirit, revitalised my soul, and you have shown me a new way of life, a new way to love. You are the very physical embodiment of light and love, of joy and of strength and I shall always love you. No matter who I become, no matter where I go or what I do, you will always be with me. My Joker. You make me want to do better, to be better and every day I wake up, I make myself get up. I make myself try, just try, for you and for the people I love so dearly. I spend my every day knowing what it truly means to love and to be loved and it’s all because of you. You have changed my life, you saved my soul and I love every single part of you so completely. Arthur is my hope, my comfort. Carnival is my smile, my laughter. And you, dear Joker, you are the rest of me. You are my joy and strength, my reason and purpose, my life and my love, and I shall carry you with me always.

Because of you, I am learning to accept myself. I have gone through so much more than I have ever deserved to, I still go through a lot every day and there’s so much of me that I have to deal with, that I have to fight every single day, but I try. Again and again and again. For you, the man who chose his name but not what came with it. For the man who tried so hard and got so far but still, inevitably, did he fall. You did your best, you were trying so hard and only when finally was it too much for you did you allow yourself to give in, to surrender to yourself as did your darker side take over. In fighting, in trying, and even in just existing as the man you are have you made me gentler, softer, kinder, more open and more vulnerable. You have made me believe in the power of love, in the power of friendship and in the power of myself. I am so much more than I know and slowly but surely are you and the friends I have made because of you showing me who I really am. I don’t like everything I see, but no longer do I wholly hate myself. Not as I used to, anyway.

I can only hope that the love I have for you reaches you, that all the times I fall asleep holding my pillow, that all the tears I shed, that all the pieces I write, that all the letters I put my heart into, that everything I am and everything I still want to be reaches you. I can only hope that you can see me the way I see you. I know and believe with my whole self that you love me as much as I love you, no matter what my mind whispers to me, and I know that you are proud of me. But I still hope that those feelings within you are permanent, as they are for me. Never have I loved anyone like you, and I know that I never will again. 

I hope that you can hear me, Joker, and I hope that you can feel the warmth of my love for you. It is unconditional, limitless, and every day do I only love you more.

With all my love and with the sweet and torturous feeling that I still haven’t adequately expressed my love for you,

Erika Fleck.

Our wedding ring; 26/3/2020.

The thumb ring which symbolises our love; 4/10/2019 - forever and a day.

[elk-ambrose-scott-writing]

Top Five Portrayals of Trauma

Trauma is portrayed really badly by popular media. It’s either resolved in one episode and everything goes back to normal, or the person with trauma is a violent person who hurts everyone around them. Neither of these things are accurate. Yeah, people with trauma can lash out and be violent, but that’s not everyone. That’s not even a minority of people living with trauma, it’s a minority of a minority. And let me tell you, it’s extremely difficult to try to get better after trauma when the people around you treats you like you’re weak for “still being sick” or like you’re a time bomb waiting to go off.

However, things are changing, and they’re changing for the better. Yeah, there are still portrayals of mental health and trauma that are troubling, but writers are starting to do their research to tell the stories of others, and starting to tell their own stories, and people are starting to listen. I wanted to highlight a few of my favourite portrayals of trauma in pop culture. While none of these are perfect, there’s still value in these depictions.

Also, massive, massive trigger warning. I’m not going to hold back, but I also want you to keep yourself safe, because I care about you. 

Without Further Ado...

Media form: First was a book, then a movie. I’m talking about the movie, because I haven’t read the book.

Release date: 2008 (book); 2012 (movie)

Synopsis: “After a stint in a mental institution, former teacher Pat Solitano moves back in with his parents and tries to reconcile with his ex-wife. Things get more challenging when Pat meets Tiffany, a mysterious girl with problems of her own.” (IMDB)

Conditions portrayed: Bipolar disorder, anxiety, depression (maybe?), borderline personality disorder, trauma

It’s not perfect: A person using drugs is diagnosed with a mental illness therapist blurring professional boundaries, love conquers all trope

However, these are observations from psychiatrists, not own voices

But it’s still pretty good: Matthew Quick, the author of the book, does have a mental illness himself. He has stated that “You’re never laughing at somebody that has a mental health illness, you’re laughing at the absurdity of what’s going on, for all the characters involved”. That’s the view I got from the film.

I remember the scene where Tiffany and Pat talk about the meds they were on, and I was like, “no way, I’ve been on literally all of these medications!”

The characters are very complex, and that’s what I appreciated.

Pat and Tiffany were both extremely traumatized, Pat from catching his wife cheating on him, and Tiffany from the death of her husband. These traumas, to everyone on the outside, seem to have broken Pat and Tiffany. But they haven’t. They’re still people, they have hopes and dreams, and they deal with their trauma one day at a time. So, while there are problems, this movie did a wonderful job of portraying people with trauma as people first, and what’s happened to them second

Media form: Video game fight

Release date: 2017

Synopsis:

Of the game: “Batman and his allies work to restore the pieces of society following Superman’s dictatorship, but a new threat to Earth may hinder their efforts.”(IMDB)

Of the fight: Harley is going after Scarecrow, and he uses his fear gas to induce a form of psychosis in order to escape. She hallucinates her ex-boyfriend and abuser, the Joker himself. In the hallucination, he forces her to wear her old classic costume and tries to get her to kill a hallucinated version of Batman. Harley decides against killing Batman, who she’s been working with in the world of the story, and the Joker tries to kill her because he wouldn’t do what he wanted. Harley fights back and engages in a fight with the Joker.

Conditions portrayed: Post Traumatic Stress disorder, drug induced psychosis (fear gas)

It’s not perfect: From my own observations it seems like a pretty good portrayal of PTSD and psychosis (coming from someone who’s experienced both). What’s not perfect is that the Joker Harley fights seems to be based on Jared Leto’s Joker, and I hate that version of the Joker. So much.

But it’s still pretty good: Harley Quinn’s fight is a short part of the game, but is one of the most impactful portrayals of PTSD in anything I’ve ever seen.

As Extra Credits has noted, it acknowledges that trauma doesn’t go away because the abuse has stopped, even if the person who perpetuated can’t hurt you ever again.  Trauma can’t be wrapped up in a single episode. Trauma stays with you. It might never leave.

The scene also shows that Harley is not a “perfect victim” and still has complicated emotions towards her abuser. 

It’s kind of expected, when you survive domestic violence, that you hate the person who did it and never want to see them again. 

But abusers make connections. They integrate themselves into your lives, and they make you feel like there is no you without them. Joker literally does this in this fight. He tries to break her down and make her think that she’s still the person he wanted her to be.

But the reason this is one of my favourite scenes is that Harley fights back. She does this all by herself, with only her own will power to break through the Joker’s control. Even when he gets violent, she isn’t afraid of him. Even though he’s tried so hard to break her, she refused to bend to his will and fights back successfully. This is a powerful portrayal of the power of triggers, but also of the power of the survivor to become stronger, and to fight back and become their own person. Again, as Extra Credits says in their excellent video on the fight, Harley is not okay, and she is allowed to not be okay. And that’s what people with PTSD want to be told.

Media form: Animated TV Show

Release date: 2012 (show first aired), 2014 (Book Four)

Synopsis:

Show: “Avatar Korra fights to keep Republic City safe from the evil forces of both the physical and spiritual worlds.” (IMDB)

Episode: “While Korra is struggling with PTSD by the metal poison Zaheer injected in her, she sets off on a journey to try to connect with Raava. Amidst all of this, Tenzin and the others realize that Korra has gone missing after 6 months.” (IMDB)

Conditions portrayed: Post traumatic stress disorder, depression

It’s not perfect: I’ve seen other fans point out that Korra has to deal with a lot more shit than Aang, the male hero of the previous series. I can't find the tumblr posts, but this article speaks to it. While I don’t know if I agree completely, it is a valid point. I personally don’t like that the person who hurt her is the person who helps her heal, but that is just from my admittedly biased perception of trauma. I don’t think most therapists would recommend bringing your abuser into session, in my defense.

But it’s still pretty good: If the short fight scene from Injustice 2 was a bite-sized look at recovering from trauma, Korra Alone is an expanded look at the recovery process in all it’s bitter glory.

After Korra is almost killed in the previous season, in a really messed up way that reminds me a lot of sexual assault, she has not bounced back. Korra has nightmares almost every night. She’s despondent and disconnected from everything around her, including her friends and family.

Then, she has to deal with a hallucination of herself, representing her trauma and self-loathing as a result of what she went through. Unlike Harley, she doesn’t beat it through force of will alone. And that’s okay.

You can deal with triggers by yourself, and some people deal with trauma well without outside help. But that’s not reality for everyone. A lot of people need help from others after their self-destructive coping mechanisms burn them out. I’ve been there. I know how that feels. I do the same things Korra does, and push everyone away because they don’t understand and I don’t want them to understand, so they can’t carry my burden. 

She eventually finds a mentor (hell yeah old Toph!) to help her bend the poison out, and she finds the man who tortured her and confronts him. He then volunteers to help her. While I don’t like this personally, I also see the real world parallels with restorative justice.

In short, restorative justice is where everyone affected by a crime or action sits in a room, talks, prays and comes to an understanding, and comes to an agreement on how the person who committed the action should make amends. It’s an Indigenous way of knowing, and where I live in Canada it happens quite a lot. 

The main point is that this is an excellent portrayal of mental health struggles. Korra, like Harley, isn’t a perfect victim. She’s angry, and self-destructive, and she fights with the people who try to help her. She’s not okay, and that’s okay. Even when she gets better, she’s changed by the experience. And that’s also totally okay. You’re not going to be the same person after. But the person you become is completely up to you.

Media form: Anime & Manga

Release date:

Manga: 1989

First anime: 1997

Movies: 2012

Second anime (the one we don’t talk about): 2016

Synopsis: Set in a medieval Europe-inspired dark fantasy world, the story centers on the characters of Guts, a lone mercenary, and Griffith, the leader of a mercenary band called the "Band of the Hawk". (Wikipedia)

And then Griffith *spoilers* betrays the band of the Hawk, rapes Guts’ lover Casca, kills all Guts’ friends and leaves him with only one eye, one arm, and a brand of sacrifice that makes sure he’ll be chased by demons for the rest of his life

Conditions portrayed: PTSD, depression, psychosis

It’s not perfect:Yes. I’m talking about Berserk again. Deal with it.Oh lord. Where to even start with Berserk. It’s not perfect. There’s occassional gratuitious rape, use of homophobic language from the main character, use of ableist language, graphic violence, violence against women, nudity....this shit could not get shown on TV here, is what I’m saying. I also dislike that it shows Casca’s mental health differently than Guts’, and she’s essentially fridged for most of the manga. And, while the show deals with mental health, it’s not the focus of the show, so it does not go into the same depth as other shows on my list. Don’t worry, I’m going to explain myself shortly.

But it’s still pretty good:

Guts is an imperfect victim. He is an angry asshole who beats people up, kills people and generally acts like a callous jackwad. But I absolutely love this portrayal of trauma, because you never get to see men who are this traumatized act like real trauma victims.

While the data isn’t in for non-binary people, people who identify as male and female experience trauma differently due to socialization. Women are a bit more sad, as women are encouraged to hide their anger and never show aggression. Men, on the other hand, are socialized to be angry. They’re also socialized not to show sadness, because that makes you weak. I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this

What I also appreciate is that we see why Guts acts like such an a-hole. We see him making grand statements about how weak everyone else is, and crying the whole time. It’s clear that he’s trying to explain away his sadness, and to hide it by covering it with bravado and trying to build himself up. He’s hurt. He’s deeply hurt. Sometimes he hurts others, like his girlfriend Casca. 

Sometimes he hurts himself by going into battle without thinking or without any self-preservation. He’s a man in pain, and he’s allowed to cry, be angry, and be self-destructive without any of his actions being portrayed as being right.

But Guts also gets better. That’s the important part.

He slowly learns to trust people again, through the people who decide to follow him due to his strength. They see something in him he doesn’t; that he is strong enough to survive everything life throws at him. And he’s still not okay. He’s still moody and depressed, but he’s allowing himself to learn to trust again. And he’s not doing the typical ‘male’ thing and going at it alone. He’s getting better through others helping him.

Men are told not to seek help. I think, in seeing this extremely manly man going through pain and learning to trust through forming bonds with the people around him, it can really help people.

Media form: Animated TV show

Release date: 2013

Synopsis: A team of intergalactic warriors fights to protect the universe, but the combination of three highly trained beings and one quirky young boy leaves the team struggling to overcome the dangerous scenarios that are put in front of them. (IMDB)

Conditions portrayed: PTSD, anxiety

It’s not perfect: 

While Steven has persistent mental health problems throughout the show, I feel like the plotline occasionally gets dropped. 

That’s the nature of episodic storytelling, but the reality is that this is a problem that is seen a lot in portrayal of trauma. 

Pearl dwells on her sadness about losing Rose and it makes her act in toxic ways. Lapis hurts the people around her. Shit happens. But...

But it’s still pretty good:

Let’s start with Pearl. Pearl’s big arc is working through her trauma and complex emotions around losing her love, Rose Quartz. Her path to healing isn’t linear, and sometimes she hurts people. She also is called out for it in a kind, gentle way that helps her see how her behaviour affects others—and she changes.

Lapis has extreme PTSD after being abandoned on Earth and lashes out at the people around her. Then, unfortunately, she gets in an abusive relationships. She, like Harley, chooses to stay away from her abuser, even though she still has complex emotions towards her. 

Also, female-on-female abusive relationships are so rarely portrayed, though they happen. A lot. However, Lapis makes friends. She gets better. She chooses her own path forward.

Finally, let’s talk about Steven. This poor boy has it rough. He has a lot of responsibility put on him, even though he is a young teen. And he cracks. Several times. He’s anxious. He isolates. He has trouble with nightmares and with connecting to people. But he learns how to deal with his trauma. He learns meditation. He leans on his friends. He goes to a medical professional – by choice! He learns that he has a medical illness that is normal, a powerful message for the young audience.

I just love this show. So much. To pack this much mental health and trauma education into a short show is just incredible. And while they drop that through line in some of the episodes, it doesn’t go away. It keeps coming back, and coming back, and the characters grow and learn and change.

That’s the big message I want to put out. That if trauma happens, you can still be a full person. You are a full person. You can grow, you can learn, and you can change.

Full post at https://elkascott.wordpress.com/2021/03/15/its-okay-to-not-be-okay-top-five-portrayals-of-trauma/

[bluboothalassophile]

kisscam? what kisscam? I need kisscam!

Hello,

Kisscam is apparently going to be a multific mini story for the HfaB stories, so I hope you enjoy Part 1! =)

Knights vs. Mets…

It was a muggy July morning for Gotham City, the Fourth ofJuly weekend was the first family outing, since the controlled, leaked feeds ofthe wedding. Somehow Jason had been dragged to this outing, which was anagitation that had him checking on the news every five minutes and an Arkhamsecurity check (which courtesy of Harley and Ivy, he had), monitoring the Joker’scell. Roy was even here, mostly to ensure he was here, Jason had managed tofinagle Roy out of the Starling Rocket colors for the game, wrangling Roy intothe Knights colors. Terry was perched on Jason’s shoulders as he stood in thecrowd feeling agitated as he scanned the crowd.

Naturally Jason was in the Knights colors, as only any trueGothamite would be, and he’d beat the shit out of anyone who talked down abouthis team.

“This is dull,” Kate huffed out.

“You didn’t have to come,” Selina pointed out sweetly as shewalked to the group, he smiled a bit at her. She had taken the role ofmothering him seriously, and he kind of liked it as she looped her arm aroundhim.

“My cousin is always welcomed,” Bruce said as he walked intothe group.

“Thanks B,” Kate said reluctantly. Jay kind of got why B wasso intent on inviting Kate into the family now, a year ago she had kind of gonerogue after being kicked out of West Point for Conduct Unbecoming of anOfficer. Something about her unsettled Jason, but what was infuriating was thedouble standard B had for her. Another reason to dislike Kate, but Jason wastrying desperately to be a bigger person. Failing.

“Hey, we’re here!” Dick appeared grinning as he ran to them,holding Kori’s hand. “Hey Roy!” Dick greeted as he held Mar'i tight to his hip.

“We’re just waiting for Drake and the girls now,” Damiansneered, Jason caught Helena with his foot before leaning over and hoisting herup.

“Kitten,” he mused holding the giggling kid face level.Helena’s curls were everywhere, and he chuckled as she securely grabbed hisGotham Knights jersey before she climbed up to his shoulder.

“My Jay!” Terry shrieked.

“No screaming Duck!” Jason warned the older toddler.

“We’re here!” Tim announced.

“Why am I here?” Raven demanded.

“Cause we said so, and we’re the Waffle Queens, incompletewithout our third Queen.” Stephanie announced.

“Traitor,” Jason stated seeing his best friend dressed in aNew York Met’s ballcap and jersey, mini shorts and boots. The demoness frownedat him and he glared in retaliation.

“I will remind you heathens I am a New Yorker.” Ravensnapped.

“What would your mothers say!” Selina gasped.

“Harley’s from Staten Island,” Raven remarked. “And Ivyasked who’d want to be from Gotham. Vic said it was only slightly better thanPhilly, but we’ll leave the semantics of that alone.”

“I can’t believe my best friend is a Mets fan! I’m gonna bemugged by the end of the day!” Jason grimaced.

“Your husband is a Rockets fan!” Roy chimed up.

“Rockets suck worse than the Meteors,” Jason snapped.

“I’d be insulted, but I can’t be,” Roy sighed.

“This is normal?” Duke sputtered.

“What about it kiddo?” Selina purred as they started movingthrough the lines.

“You’re all billionaires,” Duke said.

“Actually, B is, we just mooch off him,” Stephanie retorted.

“Only moocher here is you Steph,” Tim countered.

“What about Rae!?” Stephanie balked.

“The Queen of Hell is no moocher!” Jason stated.

“That’s right, besides, I mooch off Vic, so I’m not B’s,” Ravenresponded.

“Naturally, besides, the Queen of Hell is far too good forus mere mortals, especially the Drama Queen,” Jason said slinging his free armover her shoulders. Raven’s arm wrapped around his waist then.

“You’re one to talk,” Dick said.

“I’m not Drama Queen!” Jason snapped.

“Just a Damned Prince of Gotham,” Tim snickered.

“Prince and Queen!” Cass giggled.

“Hardy-Har-Har, No.” Jason snapped at the two idiots.

“You’re an imbecile Todd.”

“Only for getting caught,” Jason rolled his eyes as theywere now being directed into the stadium. Roy shoved his shoulder and Jasonrolled his eyes, he was very reluctant to go to this, but he was eternallygrateful to Roy for coming along. Though Roy did kind of owe him for all theArrow stuff Jason went to. But this was all besides the point. Raven and Roywere helping his agitation levels stay somewhat reasonable, he still wished he hadbrought Ace; the dog helped a lot for his agitation levels. The Pit was boilingbeneath his skin as a conscious itch he wanted to scratch but he was ignoringit and his craving for a cigarette since he was in the presence of the kids.

“At least you’re not a Yankees fan,” Jason resigned.

“I’m the Devil’s Spawn, not the Devil, Jay,” Raven remarked.

“You know, statistically speaking, the Yankees could beunder a Devil’s contract, their stats are just way too good for normalbaseball,” Tim piped up.

“The Devil has owned that team since the start,” Ravendismissed.

“What!?” Stephanie and Duke sputtered.

“You didn’t honestly think that Lucifer would go into thepro baseball business if he didn’t have a winning horse team did you?” Ravenasked.

“You’re joking right? She’s joking,” Duke demanded as helooked at Cass for answers.

Cass shrugged.

“That explains a lot, you don’t even know,” Roy sighed.

“Dick we must smile, the paparazzi are here,” Koriannounced, immediately Jason pulled his cap lower as Terry giggled.

“No, Kori, we’re here for a ballgame, and family time, screwthe paparazzi!” Dick snapped. For the first time in Jason’s memorable life hewas eternally grateful to Dick for that simple statement. But then again,paparazzi had screwed up his and Kori’s honeymoon. The trip to Madeira wascancelled entirely because of paparazzi and the million dollar photo bribe tosee the happy couple intimate. Dick had been furious. Especially when Kori hadbeen cornered in the private airport’s bathroom by a male photographer andreporter wanting answers about their marriage. They had now postponed to attendWally and Artemis’ wedding, then sneak out of San Diego for their Honeymoonwhich would be about October rather than the original June date now. Jay almostfelt bad for Dick and Kori, but he also knew they were reluctant to leave Mar'ialone for three weeks with B and the family as her powers were manifesting morerapidly now.

“Oh, Jay, chilidogs!” Selina gasped, and he looked at hismom’s pointing. His stomach growled a bit at the sight before him.

“Just like old time’s Jaylad,” Bruce said softly, andJason’s eyes flicked to B’s. B was trying, Jason didn’t know how to take thatthough, but today he’d give him the benefit of the doubt.

“Yeah,” he nodded.

“Those are disgusting, do you even know what they do tothose animals!?” Damian hissed.

“No, and we get you don’t like meat but respect that we doand don’t tell us,” Raven said.

“No waffles,” Cass pouted.

“We’re at a ball game, not a diner!” Tim stated.

“We’re going if the Knight’s lose.”

“Well in that case we’ll be there this evening, Dick’s paying!”Duke shouted.

“WHAT!?”

“So long as it’s not me paying I’m in!” Roy declared.

“You’re a traitor, the Knights are going to win, the Metssuck.”

“Jay, My Mets Might Suck, but Jay, your Knights are fuckingcursed.”

“Did you curse them? That would be cheating if you did.”

“Do I look like I have a goat on had to do cursing?”

“What’s a goat have to do with anything?”

“How do you think the Cubs got cursed?” she demanded. Jason scowledat that as he walked through the security, he was vastly relieved that they didn’tnotice his ceramic knives. Raven squeezed his arm as they walked into thestadium, he kind of felt relieved having Raven here, and he knew that wasn’ther empathy.

“You better not curse my Knights,” Selina snapped at Raven.

“Again, I don’t have a goat.”

“Still,” Selina warned.

“Why’s it always goats?”

“Goats are naturally magically endowed, dumber than a box ofrocks, but the amount of magic in them, it’s so dark, tasty too if cookedright.” Raven informed them with a smile.

“I Hate Magic,” Bruce muttered.

“I love Magic, the world needs more Magic.”

“Not in Gotham,” Bruce warned her.

“Please, Gotham is a cesspool of the dark powers of theuniverse.”

“Really!?” Dick demanded.

“You’re surprised?”

“No, not really,” Tim omitted, holding Tammy’s hand.

“I hate Gotham,” Jason muttered. Raven elbowed him and hehissed at the jostling of his ribs. A few hits from Artemis sparring hadcracked them, he felt the burn of the Lazarus Pit over them. “Little bird, you’relucky you’re cute, but touch my ribs again and I’ll make your life hell.”

“I can fix them,” she offered.

“Don’t,” he warned, he could feel the Pit too close to thesurface. Raven’s head snapped over and he saw her eyes pulse white before hefrowned.

“The Pit?” she asked softly.

“Let’s just enjoy the ballgame.” He gestured for her tocontinue forward.

“Oh look Mar'i cotton candy!” Kori announced.

“Come on let’s get cotton candy!” Kori announced, Ravenchuckled as she caught Terry, Lian and Helena ran after Kori with Roy shoutingfor them to wait up.

This wasn’t so bad, Jay decided. It was just a day, at aballfield with a couple of mooks, and nobody would care, and Gotham wasn’tgoing to hell. It wasn’t a bad day, not yet. Jay could do this.

“You’re an imbecile,” Damian announced.

Jason rolled his eyes at that.

“Dude, do you ever shut your mouth?” Duke demanded.

“Twerp, hit puberty and a growth spurt then maybe you cancall me an imbecile, and only if you can beat me in a fight.” Jason warned thekid.

“No killing!” Bruce snapped.

“B, settle down, it’s just brothers, being brothers,” Selinacaught B by the shoulders and Jason snickered. “Besides, my favorite son wouldnever harm his little brothers.”

“Yes, yes I would, I just wouldn’t get caught.” Jason said smugly.Many multiverse ventures had been this way, and when he had been cornered or caught,he’d beaten the shit out of them.

“See, we’re fine!”

“That’s not encouraging!” Tim balked.

“We can always beat up Drake.” Damian offered.

“We’re not beating up Tim!” Dick shouted.

“I could take him,” Tim decided.

“I side with Tim.” Jay decided.

“What?”

“Man if there’s going to be a war then Tim’s going to win,only way I lose is if all the coffee in the world disappears,” Jason decided.

“It’s scary how you decided that,” Tammy decided.

“Just saying, Him and the Little Bird together, worlddomination.” Jay shrugged.

“Nah man, Rae and Alfred,” Duke corrected.

“No, that’s universal domination,” Tim corrected.

“Don’t get them teaming up, evil will run then we’ll have nomore waffles!” Stephanie balked.

Cass nodded in agreement.

“I as the cook for the Queen of Hell can assure you that thewaffle supply will never cease to be,” Jason stated.

“So you admit you and Raven are an item!?” Tammy squealed.

“No, I’m the Adviser and the Cook.”

“What am I?” Dick demanded.

“The Fool?” Jason offered.

“Why do you get a say in the Queen’s court?” Stephanie pouted.

“Cause I was self-appointed. The Vice President positionwasn’t available to have also,” Jason shrugged.

“Well I want in,” Tammy decided.

“Me too,” Stephanie decided.

“Yes!” Cass grinned.

“You want in on Hell’s Court?” Tim sputtered.

“Why not.”

“Dibs on being the Fool!” Dick announced.

“Who’s a Fool?” Raven asked.

“Batty family wants in on the Court of Hell,” Tim smiled ather.

“Well, in that case I have a Prime Minster, a Queen’sConsort, Vice President, Advisor/Cook, and Captain of the Guard, and a WineBearer.”

“That’s not how a court is built,” Bruce said.

“I’m the Queen, I make the rules.”

“I’m aunt of the Queen.”

“NO!” Damian shouted.

“Why not!?” Selina sputtered.

“No incest,” Damian stated.

“Again with this, Damian, it’s not happening!” Ravensnapped.

“Seems like it already did,” Kori giggled.

“I will kick you.” Raven warned.

“I’m the sister to the Queen,” Kori purred.

“Familiar claims can be revoked at any time due to annoyances,”Raven warned.

“Doesn’t work that way sunshine,” Jason grinned.

“Hey, Rae, if everyone has a part in this Court, what am Iand what’s Donna?”

“Well, Donna’s an ambassador, obviously. And you can be aconsort if you want.”

“Oh! So I get to be sexy arm candy!?” Roy grinned.

“Yeah,” she shrugged.

“I like that, I’m the Queen of Hell’s Consort!” Roy grinned.

“You have no power, you nimrod.” Damian snapped.

“So? I just wanna be paid to look pretty!”

“I Princess!” Lian declared.

“Befitting,” Jason shrugged.

“I’m Kitten!”

“Can I be Duck Dodgers!?” Terry squealed delightfully.

“The Court can use a Duck Dodgers,” Raven decidedthoughtfully.

“This is getting seriously out of hand,” Bruce decided.

“No killjoys are permitted in the Court of Hell,” Ravendecided.

“Young lady,” he started.

“You will address the Queen as your highness or your grace,”Tim snickered.

“Oh, I like that! Your Grace! Makes me sound important!”

“I will sooner call you a slew of curses than your highness.”Jason warned.

“You are permitted to call me your grace, little bird,sunshine, but call me princess and I’ll break your nose; again.” Raven warned.

“Deal.”

“That’s not fair!” Tim whined. “The rest of us benevolentsubjects have to call you ‘your highness’ why not him?”

“Because he’s a bastard,” Raven decided. Jason chuckled ashe slung his arm around her shoulders, Raven smirked as she took a bite ofcotton candy.

“You two sure you ain’t a couple!?” Tammy chuckled.

“We are secretly dating and have a secret love child named Alicewho resides in the realm Wonderland for her safety and our sanity while we area diplomatic envoy for the Green Lantern Corps of fuck ups. Obviously we’re notdating,” Jason snapped as he held up a hand for the beer guy who was walkingtheir way.

“You two act awfully couple-ly.”

“Trust us, we’re not a couple,” Raven said.

“I don’t trust you two,” Stephanie and Cass announced.

“Too bad.”

“Jay!” Terry shouted.

“Duck.”

“Team!” Terry pointed.

“Good call little man.”

“Jay?”

“Hm?”

“Can I be Robin?”

“No!” Damian snapped.

“Well, maybe in the future but you’re too little little bro,”Dick chuckled ruffling Terry’s hair.

“I wanna be Robin!” Mar'i stated.

“Over My Dead Body,” Dick stated.

“She is not fragile Dick,” Kori protested.

“She’s my little girl!”

“So!?” Kori demanded.

“Girls… can’t be Robin!” Dick decided quickly.

“Excuse me!” Stephanie squawked.

“What about that blonde who was Robin!? I have clippings ofher!” Tammy stated.

“Robin is always a boy, Mar'i will not be Robin.” Dickstated.

“That’s sexist and we’ll be having none of that!” Jaydecided. “Mar'i can be whatever she wants to be when she is old enough to makeinformed decisions.”

B flinched a bit at this.

“Hey look, the game is about to start,” Selina cheered.

“Yes!” Raven grinned.

“Finally, beer is getting warm.”

“I miss beer.”

“You like being sober.”

“I like being sober.”

“If anyone is a couple it’s Roy and Jay,” Raven decided.

“You dare to call me and my husband out in public!” Roy gasped,grasping his heart.

“You two have a kid and a dog together with a business, I’msurprised the paparazzi hasn’t used this information to shatter young girlsheart’s everywhere!” Raven mocked.

“But you know you’re my only Queen right?” Roy asked.

“You’re a consort, I demand loyalty, not fidelity,” Ravenoffered.

“And this is why we bow to the Queen,” Roy and Jay decidedin unison.

“Oh little brother,” Cass giggled.

“The answer is no. And remains no.”

“Jay and Rae sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g!” Stephanie andCass started.

“I think you mean Roy.” Roy said.

“Buddy, I’m not into redheads,” Jason warned.

“So what darling!? I’m not into busted noses.”

“Are you insinuating there’s something wrong with my face?” Jasondemanded in mock outrage. He was kind of enjoying this.

“Yup.”

“That’s okay, you have a handsome face if I ever saw one,”Tammy promised.

“You’re stealing my girl now!? Get your own!” Tim shoutedhugging Tammy beside him. Jason snickered.

“He’s got Rae,” Damian, Tammy, and Stephanie shouted.

“NO!” He and Raven shouted.

“JayRae forever!” Cass and Stephanie swooned.

“And this is why I don’t come around home.”

“You should come around more often,” Duke said.

“I don’t even know you.”

“That’s the point, besides this isn’t so bad,” Dukeshrugged.

“I renounce all ties to this family and wish to resume beinga member of the dead,” Jason announced. Raven whacked him up the back side ofhis head.

“Rethink that you bastard.”

“Awe! They have pet names for each other, so adorable,” Dickcooed.

“I will shoot you asshole.”

“I’ve already shot him!” Kori giggled.

“Atta girl,” Jay cheered.

“You are the biggest feminist,” Roy observed.

“Women rule the world,” he shrugged.

“And that is why he’s my favorite child,” Selina decided.

“What about Helena?” B sputtered.

“The little ones are just developing personalities babe, we’llpick when they’re older,” Selina mused.

“What about me!?” Dick sputtered.

“Suck it up boy blunder.”

“You trip one time and you never let it go,” Dick muttered.

“You’re too perfect child,” Tim decided.

“I’m superior,” Damian decided.

“You know, your Napoléon complex is getting out of hand.” Jasonstated.

“Be nice,” Raven waved him off.

“He has time to grow into it.” Stephanie smiled.

“Well, there is a quarter chance he could be a dwarfforever,” Tim observed.

“He’s already taller than you, so lose that hope that you’llbe taller than someone.”

“I’m taller than Raven!” Tim shouted.

“I’m not family.”

“You’re Jay’s wife!” Tammy decided.

“And Now Stand For Our National Anthem!” the announcershouted, Jason caught Terry and dropped the kid on his shoulders as he pulledhis cap off while standing.

[diyunho]

The Joker x Reader - “10 Things The Joker Hates About You”

1. Your kisses

The Joker can’t stand it when you sit in his lap and cover his face in soft kisses:

“Muah…muah… muah…” then peck the corners of his mouth, then his lips, smiling because he seems super crabby.

“Go away!” he growls, frowning.

“You really want me to go baby?” a disappointed Y/N asks.

“Yes...”

You sigh and try to get up, when J pulls you back in his arms and mutters:

“…In 5 minutes.”

“Really?” you giggle, excited he didn’t actually reject you.

The Joker huffs, pointing towards his cheek. “You missed a spot.”

“Did I?... I’m so sorry,” you rectify the mistake, kissing the neglected soft skin several times to make up for your horrible error. “Is that better?”

“Maybe,” he debates, holding you tighter.

2.   The way you spoil him

You pamper him with breakfast in bed and The King of Gotham likes to watch TV while you feed yourself and him with the delicious food.

“I hate it when you do this! I’m not helpless, you know?! “ but doesn’t move a single muscle that would indicate he would start eating on his own.

You seem upset with his statement so he points out towards the last piece of bacon on the platter:

“I want that one,” and waits.

The Joker ignores his heart beating faster when you give him that sweet smile of yours, happy to oblige.

He truly can’t stand you.

3. The way you look at him

You always gaze at your boyfriend like he’s the most treasured possession in the world.

“Don’t look at me like that; I hate it!” J makes sure to admonish.

“Do you really?” a very discouraged Y/N sighs and her eyes get teary; bottom lip quivers too on top of everything.

“I do!” he snarls yet when he sees you’re almost crying, the rectification follows:

“But if you ever look at somebody else like that, I’m gonna kill you.”

“I swear I won’t! Never ever!” you are fast to underline and barely notice the entitled smirk on his face before it disappears.

Ugghhh, The Joker surely detests you.

4. Your clothes

“I hate that dress!” J grouchily hisses.

You actually sewed it yourself with the customized fabric that has Property of Joker imprinted all over; took you two weeks to put it together.

“Do you really?” the painful tone makes him cringe.

“Com’ere!” he signals and you stop in front of him while he unbuttons two more buttons, this way he can see your lacy bra and cleavage. “That’s better! Learn how to wear stuff like this! You should know by now,” The Clown Prince of Crime crosses his legs, pretending not to notice your delight.

5. The way you cured his insomnia

The Joker completely hates how you found the perfect remedy for his sleepless nights. You usually place a pillow on your tummy so he can rest in a way you can easily reach his hair to caress it, humming songs you make up just for him.

“This is ridiculous,” J complaints while your fingers twist and play with the green strands.”I’m not 4 years old, got it?”

You sigh and he hears it, correctly guessing your feelings are hurt since apparently you can’t get anything right.

“You can stop in 5 minutes,” The Joker mutters and in three more minutes he’s out cold, not waking up until morning comes.

He never disliked a girlfriend more.

6. Your jealousy

If a woman looks his way more than 20 seconds, you go crazy. So many fights started because you just can’t think straight, jealous that somebody else wants him.

“This is beyond stupid!” J grumbles, fed up with your behavior.

“But you’re mine, nobody else’s!” you pout, kicking his shin.

“I’m not yours, woman! Do you understand?” the difficult Joker yells.

You gasp, appalled at his affirmation. You seem so lost he bites on his lip, continuing:

“Maybe for 5 minutes I can be…” he negotiates, rolling his eyes when you squeal and jump in his arms, excited he cut you some slack.

The stuff he has to put up with!

7. The way you tend to his wounds

You are very gentle and careful when The Joker ends up with cuts and bruises.

You blow air on top of the wound, patching everything to perfection since you are a pro at this by now. You also kiss the bandage and all around it while he complaints:

“I’m not a child, Princess! I hate it when you treat me like one!”

Y/N is disheartened because her nursing capabilities are not appreciated.

“You missed a spot,” J gets worked up about it, showing his caregiver the space her lips didn’t touch.

“Did I?...I’m so sorry,” and you kiss the area at least 10 times, making up for your silly error.

How irritating to have a girlfriend that doesn’t pay attention!

8.   Your voice

The Joker thinks it’s the most annoying thing on the planet, that’s why when you are away for more than two hours J calls you so he can hear it.

“I called to tell you I hate you!” he sneers.

“Do you really?!” you whimper, saddened he has nothing nice to say.

“Yeah. I actually don’t want to talk to you!” he blurs out to your horror.

“OK baby…” you whisper, disappointed to he maximum and get ready to hang up when he mumbles.

“But maybe we can talk for 5 minutes…”

And the he keeps on yapping for another 30 minutes because he has plenty to share.

9.   Your compliments

He can’t stand how you always flatter him.

“You’re so handsome baby,” you trace his Damaged tattoo with your fingers, immersed in those blue eyes. “I’m lucky to have you.”

“I hate it when you talk like this! I don’t need your praise, I’m aware of my perfect looks,” he criticizes again.

Y/N takes a deep breath, holding in the tears.

And he can’t help it.

“What else you like about me?” The Joker puckers his lips, intrigued.

“Everything!!!! “ you almost scream. “Your butt, your abs, your soft skin, your eye lashes, your hands, your tattoos, your…” and you whisper the word in his ear, prompting a huge grin from his part.

“For reals?!” J gropes you, squeezing you closer to him on the couch.

You nod a yes, whispering more indecent things he actually finds irresistible.

“Are you hitting on me?” he purrs and you crawl on his knees, sulking.

“Yes, but too bad you hate me…I don’t like guys that hate me,” you kiss him and prepare to flee. He stops you.

“I don’t hate you that much,” he nibbles on your neck and you moan, his temper not allowing him to indulge more than necessary. “But only for an hour or two, then I’ll fully hate you again.”

“That’s fine,” that disarming smile makes him growl.

He never hated anybody more in his whole life!

10. The way you sleep

You cuddle to him every night, holding on to The Joker like it’s your last day on Earth.

“Go on your side of the bed, Pumpkin. I hate it when you suffocate me like this!” he elbows you and you sniffle, not wanting to let go but you have no choice.

J hears you sobbing and he can’t handle it more than a few seconds.

He scoots over on your side, takes your hands and places them around his neck.

“Only for 5 minutes. Alright?”

“U-hum,” you fastly agree to his terms while he holds you so tight you can barely breathe. Because he hates you, obviously.

Why does she have to be so clingy? J wonders, nuzzling to your neck.

He passes out in a few moments, protesting when you try to move away from him after your 5 minutes are up.

“No…” he mutters, yanking at your waist and shoving himself into you.

The Joker feels the kiss on his shoulder and pinches your thigh, mad he can’t chase you away.

“I hate you Princess.”

“I know,” you actually smile, your heart skipping a beat.

Why?

Because Y/N figured that when The King of Gotham says he hates her, he actually means he likes her, otherwise he wouldn’t bother bringing it up every day.

Who can understand The Joker’s complicate personality anyway?

Apparently the woman he hates the most.

 Also read: MASTERLIST

http://diyunho(dot)tumblr(dot)com/post/153664676321/joker-x-reader-masterlist

AO3 account - same blog name: DiYunho

[insomniiyac]

So thanks to this nerd, @illusionofretention; I decided to make my very own Game of Dice OC. I’m considering shipping him with either his partner (which I may draw later) or Dr. X. I wrote some stuffs on him, so uhh… any feedback is appreciated~

He’s also open to other OC interaction and such, so feel free to hit me up if you wanna talk headcanons~

General// Info

“Look, I’m not here to fool around. Either you move or I’ll make you move.”(Dr. Damon to Dr. X)

name : Christophe Damon nickname(s) : “Old Man” (Dr. X); “Mr. Grinch” (Tidus); “Emo” (Tidus) age // birthday : 46 ll March 11th gender : male height // weight : 6'8 [203.2 cm] // 225 lbs (102.1 kg) blood type : A- nationality : Iranian-American

Stats// Info (6* Max Lvl)

character type: Mini Battle/Toll Fee based

special: Increased payout on Mini Battle/Randomly increase toll fee upon rolling a double (35% chance)

joker: Black Portal (Draw any character within 2 spaces to your location )

dice: Smoky Dice

start money bonus (182)

cheaper jailbreak cost (204)

mini battle payout (211)

tax discount (163)

toll on vacation spots (117)

toll on cities (223)

Personal// Info

personality:

Christophe, as described by most, is a very introverted and anti-social individual. He is one that does not enjoy small talk, so if you can’t get him to engage- he doesn’t want to hear anything you have to say. He keeps a very small circle of friends in which he can relax and have in-depth conversations with. He is also very serious and rarely ever smiles which makes him an easy target for teasing.

likes:

Deep, stimulating conversations. Its the only way you would be able to make him talk.

Solitude. Too much social contact exhausts him.

Coffee. He loves, but hates to sleep when there’s so much to be done!

dislikes:

Being teased. He takes things very personal.

Children, teenagers, young adults… you name it. They annoy the shit out of him and he wants nothing to do with them.

Loud noises. He has sensory overload, so he tenses up very easily in large crowds.

history:

Christophe grew up in a working class family that pushed him into a huge prestigious school that specialized in science in technology. His upbringing was very modest compared to all of the other prep school kids, so he was teased very often. The fact that he was quiet and very serious made him a target, though he was able to make a name for himself in the group for beating up other kids. He was eventually kicked out of school during senior year and pushed to join the military instead to make up for his mistakes.

Although the science and technology field was mainly pushed by his family, he did have a genuine interest in that field and wished to pursue it after his contract with the military. Luckily for him, he kept in contact with his old friend and now entrepreneur, Tidus Albion, who offered to provide him with certifications and a good paying job after he leaves the military. After serving his time, he moved on to gaining his PhD in Biological and Medical Sciences and joining AlbiCorp.

As of late, AlbiCorp is fighting to prevent the Midas Group from bankrupting and buying them out. Christophe reluctantly joined the Genius League along with Tidus to gain back money for their company.

Relationships// Info

“Tidus, I’m gonna kill him. I swear to God, I’m gonna kill him.”

Tidus Albion: His closest friend since prep school. He offered Dr. Damon a job after leaving the military and eventually gave him 45% of his shares. He is one of the rare people that Christophe can tolerate on a regular basis despite Tidus’ playful and lighthearted demeanor.

Dr. X: His former bully in prep school and enemy of the Genius League. Dr. X, the head of the Midas Group, has turned his attention to his competitor, AlbiCorp. He has sent people to apply for AlbiCorp and find out their company secrets in regards to their die and such. Dr. Damon has threatened time and time again to beat his ass every time he comes around and taunts him.

Trivial// Info

“Aww, Chris. You look as old as ever~” (Dr. X to Dr. Damon)

fun facts + headcanons:

Christophe was initially kicked out of prep school for beating Casimir’s ass in senior year. It was rumored that Casimir arranged his expulsion out of spite.

Christophe has a sleeve tattoo and a tattoo on his neck. He was an edgy boy back in the day.

He was also known as one of the smartest soldiers in their platoon thanks to his book smarts and common sense.

Tidus often refers to Casimir as Christophe’s “boyfriend”… even right in front of them.

Christophe’s Lvl. 4 house is a penthouse.

[hellsbellssinclub]

Can You See Me Now? Chapter 1

This is my newest Batman fic.

Summary:

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

After some nudging from Spoiler and Batgirl, Tim seeks out the Red Hood to ask the older teen for permission into his territory to follow up a lead. It was a small, innocent action but it was the starting point for both Tim and Jason to get to know each other.

But things are never as they seem and things always get better before they get worst.

Read it here on AO3

(Sorry to mobile users, the read more I put on the post does not seem to be working on the app)

“Look, I’m just saying that there is probably more to everything than what Batman told you. Maybe the now not dead Robin isn’t as bad as you think.” The young woman in the eggplant purple suit said for the seventh time in the last fifteen minutes.

“And I am telling you he broke into Titan Tower and beat me with my own bow staff, Spoiler.” Tim sighed, looking over at his Ex, feeling the dull burn of his broken ribs as he breathed in deep. “I know that Batman isn’t telling me everything about what happened. Neither is Nightwing or Agent A. I am in the dark as much as you. But really, I think there might just be a chance that he holds a teeny tiny little grudge against me.”

Steph shook her head at him. “I know he beat you and I know something went down with the Joker but!” She held up her hand to stop him from saying anything over her. “I have looked into every kill and action he has made. From start to finish. While he has been incredibly violent, and well, bloody and stuff, he has not killed an innocent person. Everyone he killed were violent drug dealers and pimps who were hurting the working girls. Crime has gone down in his territory in the last month.”

Tim gave her a pained look. He knew that Jason Todd as the Red Hood was technically doing a lot of good for Crime Alley, a place that has not had a stable crime lord or hand controlling it since Bruce was still a kid. And with Bruce’s own personal dislike of the area because of what happened to his parents and the GCPD’s unwillingness to investigate anything that happens there, Crime Alley often went unchecked and unnoticed by everyone. The Red Hood had strict rules he was willing to enforce and from what Tim had managed to overhear so far, the people who lived in Crime Alley felt a lot safer with the Red Hood around.

But that still does not change the fact that Jason was completely unstable and willing to murder nearly everyone who got in his way. The former Robin was willing to take that extra step to make his point. There had already been at least fifteen cases of torture reported to the GCPD that they know about.

(Though most of those cases were of convicted paedophiles and child molesters and honestly, Tim could not really fault the former Robin for what he did there; he too occasionally got the urge to do horrible things to predators as well, though he himself never acted on it.)

Red Hood’s official death toll was almost at sixty with the possibility of the GCPD finding more bodies every day. Crime Alley might be safer for the people who live there, but that safety was brought with blood and death caused by Jason’s hands. It was not the kind of safety that would last long. Not in Gotham anyway.

At least Jason’s vendetta against the Bat’s had died down though after whatever happened with the Joker that night nearly a month and a half ago. Bruce was not willing to share what had happened and the older man deleted the Cowl Cam footage before anyone else had a chance to see it. The Joker still lived, which was unfortunate in his own personal opinion. Yes, Tim fully believed in Bruce’s ‘save everyone you can’ view of the world but if he was to be honest, Tim would not grieve if the Joker was to be violently murdered by someone. Because really, that cockroach needed to die and just be stopped permanently.

“While I do agree that the whole, you know, serial killer-antihero thing is working in Crime Alley, it still doesn’t change the fact that he beat me up and tried to kill B and N. I really don’t think he wants me to come into his territory and act like we are friends or something.” Tim kicked a stone off the ledge they were standing on. Yes, he was still holding a grudge. But who could blame him really? He got beaten up by his predecessor while said predecessor wore an absolutely horrid copy of the original, green panties, Robin suit.

“I’m not saying go out and act like his friend, Robin!” Steph waved her hands again. “I am saying maybe you could extend the olive branch to him? Because from what you have told me, the guy was murdered in a pretty traumatic way, woke up in his own grave, dug his way out and then was more or less prisoner of those crazy assassin dudes who are obsessed with immortality? Maybe if you and the other Bat’s give him a chance to talk and stuff without the Joker and explosives involved you could actually get through to him. Everything that he has done to you guys, have you considered perhaps it was a cry for help?”

Tim sighed. “When you put it like that you make us sound like a bunch of dicks you know.” He shook his head and slumped his shoulders. She was right. But only to a point. Jason’s actions at the Tower and his anger at the Bats could be seen as a cry for help, especially given what they did know about the trauma that Jason went through. “But it still doesn’t take away the point that he attacked me and the others and while he hasn’t made another attempt against me, he has fought B and Nightwing recently.”

“He probably fought them because they were the ones who entered his territory.” Steph pointed out. That was also true, if Jason had come into his territory he probably would have attacked the older teen without a second thought. He could see the former Robin doing the same if Bruce and Dick tried to enter Crime Alley. “I get it Tim, I really do. He hurt you and that sucks ass. I am not saying that you have to forgive him or anything. I am just saying maybe extend the olive branch to him. You were saying before that one the leads in one of your cases, the one with the underground alien tech, was in Crime Alley, right? Let him know that you are following up on a lead and that you will not cause any trouble for him.”

He gave a low hum of thought at that. Tim’s original plan for that case was to go out in the day, skipping his afternoon study hall at school and going to look for the tech without his gear. It would have been risky but there would have been a better chance that he would not run into the Red Hood. There also would have been a greater chance that he would have been mugged because he looks like a rich white boy with money (which you know, he is), but Tim was confident he could have taken on anyone who attacked him.

But going and asking for permission? Tim had not even considered that an option at all. And honestly, why would he? Jason Todd had made it clear that he hated his ‘Replacement’ and that he wanted nothing to do with the Bats and Birds of Gotham. How would the older teen react? He wondered. Would he attack Tim? Or would he let him pass?

“Hey, if you don’t feel that you can be near him with without him attacking you then you should just bring Batgirl with you.” Steph grinned at him behind her Spoiler mask. Smiling always looked so strange behind her mask but one can definitely see the outline of it. Tim could not help but roll his eyes at her words though.

“I am not bringing Batgirl with me like some kind of bodyguard. I am a grown ass vigilante, I don’t need a bodyguard.” He wasn’t pouting. He wasn’t. He was nearly fifteen, he could take care of himself without Batgirl babysitting him.

“Oh, come on! Batgirl wouldn’t mind! Would you, Batgirl?” Steph looked over his shoulder, causing him to spin around and glare at Cassandra, who was standing a few feet away. He had not noticed at all that she was there and there was a small shock of panic and fear that went through him at that thought. He hates it when people manage to get the drop on him. Cass was the second best in the Bat family at sneaking up on people, right after Bruce.

“We need to put a bell on you before you give me a heart attack.” Tim groaned out, covering his face for a moment. At least Cass never went out of her way to purposely scare him, unlike Nightwing had when Tim was first starting out as Robin. His situational awareness has improved since he was twelve, thank god, and Nightwing was now not able to jump out of the celling and scare him anymore.

Cass gave him a small snort. “Am not Catwoman. Don’t need a bell.” The smirk looked as strange behind Batgirl’s mask as it did Spoiler’s. “I would be happy to bodyguard for you.”

Tim rolled his eyes behind his domino mask. Steph and Cass becoming friends was a horrible idea. He never should have encouraged it. They were both terrible together. Steph always had something to say or do and Cass was always happy to follow her new friend around, enjoying being a teenager like she should. Steph encouraged Cass to step outside her comfort zone and explore being a teen and Cass was willing to do most of the things that Steph suggested.

They were good for each other. But not good for his sanity, seeing as they roped him into following whatever crazy stunt they had planned.

“I don’t need a bodyguard.” He whined at them both. He didn’t need Cass to hold his hand. He could talk to Jason. And if he gets his ass kicked then he could just blame Steph for the idea and spend a week with the Titans licking his wounds.

Not literally. That would be gross. Why is that phrase even a thing?

“Am bodyguard now. No take backs.” Cass nodded, sounding pleased with herself and he groaned in annoyance. He doesn’t need Cass babying him. He is Robin! Terror of the Night and Batman’s partner. He hated being babied by Cass and Dick. They always pulled the ‘I am the older sibling and you are the baby of the family’ card on him. He can’t wait until he could be the big brother. One day he will give the Robin suit up and then he can be the one babying someone else. “Why is a bodyguard needed?” Cass asked, moving to stand next to Steph.

Before Tim had a chance to say anything, his purple menace of an Ex-Girlfriend spoke. “Tim is going to go and ask the Red Hood if he could go into Crime Alley. We need you to bodyguard him because we don’t know if the Red Hood is going to beat Tim up again or not.”

Tim shook his head. “Names, Spoiler. No names on the field.” He reminded her, closing his eyes in annoyance. Steph was bad when it came to remembering the ‘no names on the field’ rule now that she knows his name. If he didn’t know better he would say that she is doing it out of spite because he didn’t tell her it himself.

And Cass was either going to be all for being Tim’s bodyguard or she is going to be against it and honestly, he wasn’t sure which one he preferred.

On one hand, there are a lot of advantages to having Cass actually guard him while he spoke to Jason. Mostly all of them were that she could kick Jason’s ass. It wouldn’t matter how skilled Jason now is, Cass would win.

On the other hand, if she is against it she could go and tell Bruce which would end up with him benched and on the receiving end of a cold shoulder and disappointed glare for the next month or so. And he would probably have several new trackers placed on his person without his consent. Because B can occasionally forget to use his words and just say ‘I am worried about you, please be safe’ out loud.

Mind you, Bruce is still a lot better at emotions than Jack Drake. Tim’s father only really did emotions in small, but over whelming bursts. Which means Tim usually gets a weekend or two of father-son like interactions and then it is several weeks of ‘we exist in the same house but are mostly strangers to each other’. Which is always fun.

Cass said nothing for a few moments, her head tilting to the side slightly as she no doubt read Tim’s body language and seeing his hesitance and his inner monologue. “What’s in Crime Alley?” She asked finally.

“A lead to one of my cases. The alien tech one that I have been working solo on.” Tim explained. Cass had not yet said yes or no and he was still very much undecided on which way he wanted her to choose.

“Come on! Big bad Batgirl can definitely take on the Red Hood if he tries to hurt our Baby Bird!” Steph wrapped an arm around Cass’s shoulders. “And you guys can extend an olive branch to the guy by being nice and you know, asking to be let into his territory.”

Cass hummed, which once again was not a yes or a no. She gently shook off Steph’s arm and looked at both Tim and Steph. “Why extend the olive branch?” She asked. “He is a murderer. He kills people and makes Batman sad, here.” She pointed to her chest, right above her heart.

Whelp, that’s an understatement. Anything to do with Jason Todd hurt Bruce. When Tim was first starting out as Robin he could barely mention Jason’s name without Bruce completely shutting down. It had gotten better over the years. Sometimes Bruce would mention Jason in passing or would say something about how the young boy used to be. But now that it was known that the Red Hood is Jason Todd, things have gone back to the way they were at the start and Tim did not know what to do other than avoid mentioning Jason or the Red Hood all together.

“Spoiler believes that there is more to the story than what B has said and that there we should hear Hood out and let him tell his side of the story.” Tim explained with another sigh. He wondered how many times he was going to end up sighing in this conversation and thought to himself that perhaps he should stop doing so already because ow, his ribs do not like it when he sighs at all. “She also believes there is a chance that his behaviour and actions could have been a cry for help and that we should perhaps try and talk to him instead of you know, fighting at any given chance.”

“Yep! That is some good summary skills there, Ex-Boyfriend of mine.” Steph nodded and looked at Cass expectedly. The mask made it impossible to tell what Cass was thinking. Not that it was easy for him to read Cassandra without the mask but it was slightly easier without the frankly unsettling mask staring at you in the eyes.

There is a good reason as to why he would never go for a full-face mask when he finally is ready to let go of being Robin. And that reason is that is that he is more than likely going to see his mask in the reflection of a window or something and then forget that it is his mask and then scream in fear. Which you know, would ruin the whole serious vigilante look he would be hoping for.

Thus, he will probably only stick to a domino. Or a cowl. But a cowl is slightly too Batman like and Tim did not want to be Batman. He would have to think on this more in-depth later.

“Cry for help?” Cass tilted her head again. “You believe that the killing is his way of crying for help?” If anyone else had said that, Tim would believe that they were being dismissive or sarcastic. But Cass just sounded curious.

“Well, yeah.” Steph waved her hands carelessly as she began to explain. “I met him a few times back when he was Robin. He was a great guy. He was kind. Sure, he was a little bit rougher than Nightwing was when dealing with scumbags and stuff but he always stuck around to make sure that the victims were okay. All of his interactions with you Bats so far look like lashing out and cries for help if you ask me. I mean, he dressed up in a frankly fucked up Robin costume and beat up Tim. He was apparently angry that there wasn’t a statue of him in the Tower like there was for all the other dead heroes and whatever the hell happened with the Joker and Batman was well…” She trailed off.

Tim shrugged. “No one knows what the hell happened with those three.” And it wasn’t from lack of trying to find out either. Bruce was tight lipped about the whole thing and the Joker apparently only laughed when he was asked what happened. Tim suspected that Alfred knew what went down because the older man had been very stiff and cold towards Bruce for several weeks and has only just started to warm back up to him again.

“You think that we should reach out to him?” Cass asked. “Show him we can offer help?”

Steph nodded enthusiastically at Cass’s attempt to clarify what they were telling her.

“I do think that! And I think that Wonder Boy here is the best person to do it.” She gently punched Tim’s shoulder as she said this, making him rock back a little close to the edge. Steph may not be a meta but her punches, gentle or not, were stronger than she realised.

“Why can’t you do it? He hates me.” Tim pointed out. He really did not understand why she wanted him to do this. Yes, getting permission from the Red Hood could open up a professional relationship between them where they could actively avoid each other unless they needed to do something in the other’s territory. And yes, he could definitely see Steph’s point about how Jason’s actions did seem like a huge cry for help.

But Tim has already been beaten once by Jason and he honestly did not want to have another round with the older teen. The fight between them showed Tim just how much he was lacking in his training and he could not help but feel a deep, festering bitterness that he would never be as good as Jason was. As good as Dick was. It was a bitterness he was trying to push away and forget about but it never seemed to go away.

Tim didn’t want to offer the older teen help and then accidentally drive him away because he could not get a hold of his own mental health issues. Issues that he needed to actually address sometime soon, least he turn into Bruce. Or a supervillain. Either one would be bad for his health in the long run.

Steph punched his shoulder again, this time harder; causing him to wince because ow, why, that hurts. “Because Boy Blunder, you don’t have any history at all with him. Except for, you know, him beating you. And you are more than likely a trigger for him because you are now Robin. But still, you at least don’t have a history like Batman and Nightwing do. And he knows nothing about you as a person! He probably only knows what he has read about you from the assassins he was with!”

“All the more reason why you should talk to him and not me! You are a stranger to him, not me! Spoiler is new and not actually connected to Batman and Robin. And if you haven’t noticed I am Robin and something tells me he does not like that I am Robin.” Tim waved his hands in what he could best describe as ‘I am emphasizing my point and you are not listening to me’. He learnt this gesture from Steph when they first became friends and has used it a lot over the years.

“Look Tim; think about it like this. You are brutally tortured and murdered. You wake up in your own grave, dig your way out and are taken in by evil assassins. You spend who knows how long with said assassins and find out you have been replaced by a younger, better model who comes from the complete opposite background as you do. Your attempt to kill your murderer doesn’t work and your father figure is a dick. How do you feel?” Steph put her head in her hands and sighed before continuing.

“You need to be the one who talks to him because you are a Bat and someone who probably makes him feel like he was replaced by a better, richer model and that you are everything that he isn’t. If you talk to him, show him you are an actual person and not some cardboard cut-out of someone who he wasn’t, then maybe you could actually get him to talk about what happened to him and help him! Yes, I am a stranger to him and while we could get along and stuff he is going to need someone who is a Bat to speak to him at some point and…” She groaned. “I messed up my point. Tim, you are someone who is actually a part of all of this mess. I am not. Just, go and ask him for permission to enter his territory. If he says no then he says no. I will go and follow up that lead for you if that is the case. But please, try at least.”

Tim groaned again and looked over at Cass to see what she had to say about all of this.

“You,” Cass pointed at Steph. “You want Robin to talk to Red Hood. Because Red Hood is hurting. And needs help. Robin means a lot to Red Hood. It was his name, who he was before the Joker killed him. If Robin shows that he is not…” She waved her hand in a very vague but Steph like manner. “If Robin shows that he is not who Red Hood thought he was then the Red Hood will feel less like he is replaced or… unworthy? Red Hood was a good Robin. Now he is not good as the Red Hood. Bad things happened to the Red Hood, made him hard and angry. Extending olive branch might help.”

“Yes! Thank you!” Steph let out a low breath. “Why are you guys so good at summarising everything?”

“Nightwing.” Both Tim and Cass said together. Dick had a habit of not only rambling but also talking fast and without breaks. A habit of both his ADHD and from being best friends with a Speedster. Anyone who works or is with Dick for long periods of time learns how to summarise what he says.

It is a handy trick for Tim to know, seeing as he is also best friends with a Speedster and Steph has a habit of rambling herself at times.

“So…?” Steph trailed off and Tim, though he said to himself that he wasn’t going to do it because ow, sighed and completely ignored the pain in his chest.

“If Batgirl is willing to bodyguard than I will go and ask Red Hood for permission into his territory.” Tim felt slightly defeated.  He wanted to keep arguing that he really wasn’t sure that this was a good idea for either Jason or himself but at the same time he knows he would feel crap if he said no because Steph’s points were more than likely all true and-

And he did not want to be a person who ignores someone else who could be in need of help because he was selfish.

Tim has been lucky. Since becoming Robin he has had a wonderful support network that he has used a lot over the years and would never trade for anything in the world. Jason does not have that. Or at least Tim was pretty sure that Jason does not have that.

“I will bodyguard. Will only interfere if you are attacked. I will stay in the shadows and away from sight.” Cass said. “We do this tonight, on next patrol. It is late now. Time for bed soon.”

Cass was right, it was getting close to four am and Tim was due back into the Cave in less than half an hour. He was thankful that he did not have any classes until nine am because he wanted to have more than an hour sleep when he finally got back to his home.

“Oh wow. Today went quicker than expected.” Steph rocked back on her heels. “I am stuck in class tomorrow night but I expect to have at least three texts telling me how it all went from you both. Got it?”

Tim rolled his eyes but nodded. “Yes, yes. Three texts. If I get beat up you are so making me waffles.” He pulled her into a quick hug.

“Whatever, Ex-Boyfriend.” Steph pulled Cass into a hug of her own and then was grappling away with a careless wave.

“Do you think this is a good idea?” He asked Cassandra quietly now that they were alone on the ledge. Cass looked at him, the eyes on her mask stared directly into his own white out lenses.

“I think… that there is a possibility that the Red Hood is falling without a net. And that his lines may have been cut by accident. By Batman. By Robin.” She paused and looked up at the dark sky. “We can offer him a new line. And a net. Falling without a net or line… It is not good. That mindset. You feel like you are flying, until you hit the ground.”

Tim flinched at that imagery. Jason had been hurt by the Joker and whatever the hell happened with his resurrection and the League of Assassins. The trauma alone from that would be enough to make enough the sanest man go a little wonky. But whatever happened with B that night with the Joker…

Whatever happened might have taken away his line, like Cass said. But Tim was not overly convinced that this is a good idea. Cass must have read his hesitance because she spoke once more.

“He needs to see you as a person, like Spoiler said. Not just as a costume. He needs to see not Robin but you.” She gestured to his body. “When he attacked you, he was looking for reason as to why you were supposed to be better than him. He wanted to see, prove himself and you, that he was the better one. Because if he was not the better one, than him being replaced would have been a good thing.”

Tim frowned at that. He had not thought of it that way. While he could see the attack against him in the Tower as being a cry for help like Steph kept saying, he did not think to look as to the reasons why it was a cry for help. Steph and Cass both were good at getting him to take a step back and look at the full details of the bigger picture. He would certainly be lost (and probably more emotionally stunted) without them.

Tim knows that he should not use them as a crutch for explaining emotions and details that he may have missed about basic human reactions, but Tim was not ashamed to say that he did not connect with other people well and often missed simple emotional matters that should have been obvious to him. According to the internet, this was probably because he missed out on many key interactions with his parents due to them constantly traveling around the world and leaving him home with a nanny who discouraged most emotional reactions he had. Because his nanny believed that ‘boys don’t do emotions like girls and he should man up already’.

Tim really, really needed to get his mental health checked out sooner rather than later.

“Okay. Yeah, I see your point.” Tim conceded. “What about you? Are you going to try as well?”

Cass hummed and nodded after a moment. “Yes. Will try with Spoiler and Oracle. Give some space between us and you. Keep him from feeling trapped.”

He hummed in agreement and gestured to the edge that they were standing on. “I am heading back to the Cave. I take it you are going back to the Clock Tower?” He asked, feeling drained. This whole conversation and everything about it made him feel like he had fought off an energy sucking monster. He wanted to go back to the Cave, get into his own clothes and head back to his own home. Or maybe just crash at the Manor. He will see what kind of mood B was in when he got to the Cave.

“Back to Clock Tower.” Cass nodded again. “Will Comm you tonight. Find where you and Hood are. Go to bed.” She reached up and ruffled his hair fondly and then flung herself of the ledge with grace that only Nightwing could copy. He watched her grapple her way towards the Clock Tower until she was gone from his sights.

His bike was down in the alleyway below him and it would take him only a short time to get to the Cave from his location. Tomorrow, well tonight really, was going to be interesting to say the least. He would like to say that the growing pit inside his stomach was just anticipation and not the low level of fear at the thought of speaking to Jason face to face.

The Red Hood was volatile, dangerous and had a grudge against the Bats. Tim had no idea how this was going to go and it frightened him. Jason Todd could simply say yes or no. Or he could just shoot Tim in the head and Batgirl or no Batgirl there would be no stopping him if he does.

Normally, being in that kind of situation was sort of exciting. Like a free fall off the top of the Wayne Enterprises tower. It was a rush that left a bubbling feeling in his chest that just screamed ‘I am alive!’ but he did not feel that right now. He just felt a low level of fear bubbling away in his stomach, making him feel nauseous.

Jason made it clear that he did not like Tim. Did not want to be near him or see him. The beating he had taken was not the worst one he had suffered through. But it had hurt him. Hurt him badly because this was Jason Todd. Robin. The boy who Tim used to follow around with a camera around his neck hoping to see in action.

What do you say to a person that had once been one of your heroes after they beat the living shit out of you?

Tim did not want to think about it at all right now. He needed to get back to the Cave and back home before B and his dad start to worry. He would think about it before he goes onto patrol. Not now while his head was clouded. But later when he was rested and ready for the night.

[batmanvillainswithcircularheads]

Hey do you wanna know what I thought of Batman: The Telltale Series? No? Well here it is.

Season 1

Not a huge fan of this Bat symbol. It’s not awful though. And Batman’s ears are a liiiiiiiiiiittle too short.

I’ve heard some people say they don’t like Troy Baker as Batman, but I think he does a perfectly fine job.

It’s neat that the game lets you choose the color of Batman’s equipment, though I think blue is really the only color that works for it. Also it seems a little weird that everything Batman owns glows. There’s a moment where he grapples up a stairwell and the levels of the building light up as he passes through them. Doesn’t seem very stealthy for what’s supposed to be a method of escape.

The visuals in this game are good. The animation can be a little stiff at times, but nothing too bad. The cell shading’s cool.

Batman calling Alfred “Al” is weird. Why does he do this? I do not like this.

Catwoman is really good in this. I like her involvement in the story. I like her and Batman. I like her voice. I like her costume, though the material seems kinda bland; I like it when Catwoman’s costume is a bit shinier. That gadget she has that lets her slide up walls is cool, I’ll be damned if I know how it works though.

Not a huge fan of Batman scrambling his voice. It’s not huge, and I get why it makes sense for him to do it, but I just don’t like it. There are a lot of times Batman has more personal conversations with people and having him talk through a machine in situations like that makes it feel kind of distant, like he’s hiding behind it. I prefer it when Batman just speaks in two different voices as Bruce and as Batman. Hell, Troy Baker’s surely got the vocal range for that; He’s Troy Baker.

It took me forever to realize what it was I didn’t like about Gordon’s design, and that’s that his mustache is too thin.

Harvey Dent is good in this. Would have preferred his hair be black though. And why is he so tall? Bruce looks like a dwarf standing next to him. I do really like how they build up Harvey and Bruce’s friendship in this. Seeing him try to fight his own transformation, and regret what he does as “Two-Face” immediately after he does it, is genuinely saddening.

Vicki Vale could have been a good character if they hadn’t wasted her on a twist. Having to choose between giving the evidence on Falcone to her or to Gordon was interesting. It would have been nice to see that carry out through the whole game. Also when are we gonna get redhead Vicki Vale?

The design for Oswald Cobblepot is... different. I guess it’s fine since he’s supposed to be him when he’s younger. Still, he’s pretty much gonna have to change every single thing about his appearance in order to actually end up looking like his old self. The bird-beak gas mask is clever. I kind of like that the “Penguin” persona starting off as a way for Oswald to commit crimes while keeping his own name clean. Personality-wise he’s good. By the end of the game he’s an absolute bastard and all you want to do is beat the shit out of him, which is about what the Penguin should be. Him being childhood friends with Bruce Wayne seemed a little weird and didn’t really add much to his character or the story. It’s a little Roman Sionis-y.

Actually hold on a second here the Penguin in this game is actually just Black Mask  - childhood friend of Bruce Wayne’s  - hates the Waynes because of what they stand for  - “legitimate businessman” who creates a masked alter-ego to commit crimes I’m not even complaining about that it’s just kind of weird.

Batman having white lenses in his cowl is interesting and it makes sense. I don’t really like it or dislike it.

The Waynes murder twist is what really kills this thing. It’s such a huge change to Batman’s origin just for the sake of a twist. The whole time through I was hoping they’d reveal that all of the evidence was fabricated, and when they introduced Falcone’s drugs I was holding out on the hope that they were somehow influencing Bruce’s memory, as contrived as that would be. Bruce revisiting his parents’ murder seems forced. I get that people block out memories sometimes, but apparently all Bruce had to do to remember the entire conversation that happened while his parents were being repeatedly shot was to think real hard about it. Has he never thought real hard about it before? Didn’t Bruce try to investigate his parents’ murder after it happened?

Bruce’s car turning into the Batmobile is dope. Wouldn’t work for most versions of the Batmobile, but since this is early in Batman’s career and the Batmobile is pretty close to a regular car, it works. The color-changing is great too. 10/10 Batmobile would like to see again.

I’m not really fond of Batman using such advanced technology like drones, a forensic scanner built into his glove, and lenses that let him plan out his moves in advance, so early on in his career. Like I get that Bruce is gonna have a lot of technology at his disposal, and it’d be stupid of him not to use it, but when it’s early in his career I prefer seeing him not have everything built up so much and having to rely more on what he can make on his own. Like it’d be one thing if he were just occasionally re-purposing some Waynetech inventions but these things look like they’ve been specifically made for Batman. The damned things are even shaped like bats.

I like the idea of Martha Wayne organizing special screenings of The Mark of Zorro whenever Bruce wanted to see it. That’s sweet.

The choice of whether or not to save Harvey is a pretty obvious one to include, but having it be a choice brings up some weird questions. If you save Harvey, he still ends up becoming “Two-Face,” so it’s not like you’re actually saving him from a life of crime. It seems like he was doomed from the start. Does Harvey’s face ever become disfigured in that timeline then? Does he just go on to have a lengthy criminal career as Two-Face, without actually having two faces?

Hey Blockbuster sure is a character who is in this and sure does look the way he does in this and that’s just about all that can be said about him

So if you save Selina, she’ll show up to the hospital with flowers, then change her mind, give you the flowers, and you walk into the hospital with flowers for Harvey. If you save Harvey, Selina doesn’t show up at the hospital at all, and you visit Harvey... with the flowers. Where did you get the flowers from, if not Selina? If Bruce bought the flowers himself, then why didn’t he also buy them in the timeline where he saved Selina? He didn’t know Selina was going to be there to give him flowers, so why did he show up without flowers? I feel like this would have been a good opportunity for the game to go, “hey look at that, your choices really do change things!” by having him not have the flowers if you save Harvey.

Where did Selina get that tank top from? She wasn’t wearing it when she took off her suit. It’s not like they’re opposed to showing partial nudity in this game; we saw Selina without a shirt earlier on, and we got a whole walking simulator of a half-naked Bruce. If they really wanted to have Selina be more covered up they could have had her put on the tank top after she woke up. Did she have sex with Bruce, put the tank top on when they were done, then fall asleep?

Meeting Joker in Arkham and seeing a glimpse of who he would become was cool.

I don’t really like Zsasz’s voice.

Batman comforting the Vale kid was a good moment.

Penguin’s monocle looks kind of silly. It’s a nice nod to his regular monocle, I guess.

Harvey’s arm catching on fire when you jam his gun is kind of overkill. The flames really burned through that much clothing and did that much damage to his arm and leg in that short an amount of time? Like give it a rest he already has two faces.

Why do grapple guns need to be connected to a computer?

The flashback to Bruce and Oz as kids is kind of weird. Didn’t really tell us anything we didn’t already know. Didn’t make me feel anything for Bruce and Oz’s friendship since I didn’t really care in the first place.

Oh no Commissioner Grogan doesn’t like me I wonder if this is gonna cause any tension going forward oh wait he’s dead now and we made up how sad

Y’know, Harvey’s “Two-Face” voice sounds real silly when his face isn’t disfigured.

“Cobblepot” slapped over the ”Wayne” in Wayne Enterprises in Comic Sans is golden.

heheh, Fal-Coney Island

I had forgotten Selina was in the game until that last part with her. It was a good sendoff though.

Using the reflection in Alfred’s glasses to find clues about the room he’s being kept in is clever. I like it.

The armored Batsuit is dope. The classic Batsuit is also dope.

“Blue... the same color as my tech. It can’t be a coincidence.” Yes Bruce it absolutely goddamn could.

Vicki already had a perfectly sound motivation for doing what she did, did we really have to learn her adoptive parents were abusive too?

I keep forgetting Vicki can levitate. Probably because she only does it twice in the whole game. You’d think she’d do it a little bit more given how useful it is. It’s kind of over-powered honestly. How does it work? Is it the same technology as her staff? Where did she get that from? What does it have to do with her character? Why doesn’t Batman start using stuff like this?

So if you choose the option that gets Alfred’s eye blown out of his head, he has an eyepatch. So throughout the rest of Batman’s career Alfred’s gonna be a guy with an eyepatch. Having an eyepatch is now Alfred’s thing in this world. Either that or Bruce gets a little bit of his ear blown off, which is less egregious but still kind of weird... still that shit’s gonna heal up the second he meets Ra’s al Ghul.

So if you go as Bruce Wayne, Bruce makes a speech, and if you go as Batman, Batman talks to Jim for a hot minute before the speech happens... so Bruce could have still made his speech. You didn’t have to choose between going as Bruce and going as Batman. Sure, Batman swoops in to save Jim once Random Attacker with No Motivation #389 drives a truck into Jim, but Batman had no idea that was going to happen, and he would have saved the day even if he went as Bruce.

“Oh boy, it’s gonna be tough to top that!” John he pushed someone out of the way of a truck it’s the least impressive thing that’s happened in this entire game.

The real shame about this game is that it didn’t need to have all of these twists to be “new” and “different.” There have been plenty of stories that focus on Batman’s early days, but this one was different in that it was a video game that had you go through his early days step-by-step, instead of just having it be the backdrop for a regular Batman adventure. Splitting things up pretty much 50/50 between your life as Batman and your life as Bruce Wayne is also pretty rare for a video game. Hell, the simple fact that this is a Batman game done in the Telltale style sets it apart from other Batman games in and of itself. They didn’t need to make Thomas Wayne a criminal, make Vicki Vale a terrorist who’s actually an Arkham, or even make Penguin Bruce’s childhood friend. This game was good enough without those, and would have been better off if they weren’t there.

Season 2 Episode 1

Haha what the fuck they made a sequel?

The Riddler in this looks baaaad. The hood just doesn’t work. I feel like it’s an attempt to make him look more “realistic,” but isn’t it more realistic for someone to wear a bowler hat with a suit than to have a suit where the jacket has a hood? When he first shows up at the casino he looks so out of place with his hood up. Bowler hats may be kind of flashy, but real people do wear them. It’s not like it’s to hide his identity, since he doesn’t seem concerned with hiding who he is, and the game goes out of its way to have his hood get knocked off in every encounter anyway. The hook on his cane is clever, but hacking and slashing at people doesn’t seem very Riddler. Him being a villain from back in Thomas Wayne’s days bothers me too. It means his career reached its peak before Batman was even around. He’s hardly a Batman villain then, just a Gotham City villain whose last fight happened to be against Batman. And then he dies.

New Batsuit looks good. I didn’t dislike the old one but I like this one a lot more.

Riddler tells Batman “you’re supposed to be the world’s greatest detective.” Would Batman really have already gained that reputation at this point?

Gordon’s mustache is bigger. I like it.

Seeing Bruce doing Batman work at rich people events is fun, though the “I’m looking for new thrills” excuse can only work so many times.

Hey, Amanda Waller’s in this.

Interested to see where Alfred’s condition is gonna go. I hope he’s okay. I hope they don’t kill him for shock value like everyone else in this series

Tiffany is annoying. She’s every “young genius” character.

Killing Lucius was stupid and needless.

“Please tell me you didn’t put him in danger.” “We didn’t know there was any danger.” “How dare you!” Well fine then Tiffany I’ll choose the Lie option then. The fact that you can do everything else right but telling Tiffany the truth will cause her to hate you is dumb.

So does no one else notices that Joke- John Doe’s skin is white and hair is green?

All of Riddler’s puzzles and the way Batman solves them are pretty clever.

Seems weird that the game gives you the option to let the other three agents die to save Avesta. Even if Avesta were to die, ti’d still be one death as opposed to three, and if you want to save Avesta it’d still be objectively better to let her take the first two sonic blasts, then choose her over the other agent for the third riddle since either way one person would die (not that the third riddle matters in the end, since Batman ends up breaking out before that). Yeah that causes Avesta to go deaf, but going deaf is still better than dying. It seems like an obvious choice given Batman’s morals.

So we get to fuck Agent Avesta, right?

Season 2 Episode 2

Bane’s tattoos look bad. And when his veins turn green they overlap with the tattoos, so it looks even worse. His goatee sticking out of his mask looks stupid too. The rest of him’s fine. I like his voice.

i’m getting tired of every introduction to Bane having him do the back-break pose, then not breaking Batman’s back. I get that you can’t do the whole Knightfall arc when you’ve got your own story to tell, but if Bane’s not gonna break Batman’s back then don’t bother teasing it.

That one purple button on John Doe’s vest is annoying and out of place. i hate it.

They’re kind of pushing this whole “John is obsessed with Bruce” thing a little too hard. It was fine having them interact in Arkham but now it seems like they’re using John’s fixation on Bruce as a stand-in for Joker’s fixation on Batman, instead of just having him be fixated on Batman in the first place. Really Bruce’s involvement with the villains in general is getting to be a little too much. Bruce interacting with white collar criminals in a sort of shady-business setting is one thing, but now he’s hanging around with full-on supervillains.

The “LOL WOULDN’T IT BE CRAZY IF BRUCE AND JOHN WERE GAAAAY” jokes are cringey please stop forever.

It seems like in this Joker is the one trying to impress Harley and Harley is the one who’s pushing Joker around. And instead of Joker turning Harley into what she is, she just decided to dress up like the biker version of a court jester and commit crimes using a sledgehammer because her dad died... as you do. So why then am I supposed to feel bad for Harley? Normally it’s because she was in an abusive relationship, but now she’s the abuser. If anything I should feel bad for Joker... who apparently is becoming the Joker... because of Harley? God this is like a fanfiction. And if Joker ever does end up being the one who manipulates Harley, why the hell should I care? If anything she deserves it since she was the one who started manipulating him. There are plenty of stories where Harley manages to pull one over on Joker, and they work because Harley’s getting payback for what Joker did to her. In this, she’s the one who started this whole thing. All of this is her fault. Honestly, fuck her.

Outside of that, Harley’s kind of annoying but she’s not awful. She’s got a few “Wouldn’t it be just QUIRKY if I did something really inconveniencing right now?” moments.

Bruce letting John and Harley into Wayne Enterprises is just reckless. It’s bad enough on its own, but when Harley starts physically threatening and putting her hands on his employees then good god he shouldn’t be letting this happen anymore. The whole thing is just irritating to watch.

Y’know, Bruce really oughta change up all of the secrets in his office if Penguin knows about them and is telling other criminals.

At this point Tiffany is just here to be an inconvenience.

I feel like they could have worked Matches Malone into this story, instead of having Bruce pretty much become a criminal.

Fries’ suit is pretty good. It’s missing the dome though, you can’t have Fries without his dome. His glove that can freeze things by touching them is neat, but I still prefer the gun. I also don’t really like his voice. His characterization’s good though.

Fries sounds like he’s voiced by the guy who voices Skullface. He isn’t.

I like Harley a lot more when she’s being more sincere instead of trying to be the most annoying person in the room.

Do... do we get to fuck Harley? I don’t know if I wanna fuck Harley. Or rather, I don’t know if I want Bruce to fuck Harley.

I don’t really like all the villains already being in full-on “villain mode” already. It seems like they just popped up out of nowhere, already established and organized. I wanna see how these people become supervillains, not just have them pop onto the scene in full costume, ready to start their life of crime. The only one who seems like he’s still in a sort of early stage is Joker, the one who would make the most sense to already be a full-on villain.

What’s the point in Bruce hiding his face during the heist if they’re going to call him by his name anyway?

Seeing Bruce try to reduce the deaths by beating up agents himself was cool.

Bruce seeing the Batsignal go up as he drives away with the villains, not able to do anything about it, is a good scene.

Interested to see what they do with Riddler’s dead body.

Hey look, Catwoman’s back.

Might add more when future episodes come out

[comic-movieheroesranked]

Cinematic Comic Characters Ranked! (Year 2008) Final Part

Wow, I just want to say that 2008 really stepped it up when it came to comic movies released. Granted, a couple weren’t the best but overall this year was one of the best out of the bunch. The Dark Knight and Hellboy II: The Golden Army are the only sequels this year, while The Punisher: War Zone and The Incredible Hulk serve as reboots. Star Wars: The Clone Wars serves as a prequel and we also see the debut of Iron Man, Speed Racer, The Spirit and Wanted! Lets start off our largest list yet! Here’s the Top 20 of 2008!

*SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE MOVIES HIGHLIGHTED ABOVE*

20. Emil Blanksy/Abomination (The Incredible Hulk)

"Give me a REAL fight!"

Like I said in 2007's list in regards to The Stranger in 30 Days of Night, if you want a character to be disliked by me, have them kill a dog. Emil does this right in the beginning as he and his team hunt Bruce down in Brazil so, naturally, my body was filled with glee when the Hulk trashed them all. This is apparently a turn-on for Emil because he gets obsessed with having the power Bruce has. It doesn't take much for him to convince Ross and then, later, Samuel Sterns to eventually help him become Abomination, a freak of immense power. Him and the Hulk enter an epic fight on the battlefield that is New York City that ends up with him getting his ass beat.

19. The Octopus (The Spirit)

"I don't like egg on my face."

The Octopus was such an outrageous character man! And unlike Jigsaw and his wack brother, The Octopus made it work for him! With help with the overall setting of the film, The Octopus showed that even though he's not all there, he's still a major threat to Central City. His thirst for immortality and world domination put him at odds with The Spirit, who also holds a grudge against him for killing him. He pulls all kinds of evil doings, including dissolving an innocent cat, which was the last straw for The Spirit. After he loses the vase of Heracles's blood, The Octoplus then blows up from a grenade shoved in his body.

18. Rachel Dawes (The Dark Knight)

"If you lose your faith in me, please keep your faith in people."

Rachel is still fighting crime in the courtroom but this time with her new boyfriend, Harvey Dent. I expected an obvious love triangle with Bruce to happen, but I don't think that's what we got. I don't think Rachel cared for Bruce like she did in the first film, but because of the promise she made she felt guilty and kept denying her feelings for Harvey to grow. Her fight for justice shows up several times as she takes down crime lords in the court and even face to face with the Joker when he goes after Harvey, but her relationship with Harvey and Bruce is what brings her demise. Her death was shocking but it would be the final tool for Harvey Dent's transformation into Two Face.

17. Ahsoka Tano (Star Wars: The Clone Wars)

"No, I'm the one with enthusiasm."

Ahsoka is a young Jedi in training that's been assigned to work under Anakin Skywalker's teachings. She falls quickly into the little sister role but she shows just as much determination as Anakin when he was a young Jedi, which is why I think he grows to like her. She proves her skill again and again and she even saves Anakin a few times when he's in a tight spot, though he won't admit it. She ends up taking care of Jabba's newborn and returns him safely so the tension between the Hutt's and the Republic can end.

16. Princess Nuala (Hellboy II: The Golden Army)

"I'm afraid it's the other way around."

Princess Nuala definitely has a strong sense on what is right and what is wrong. Even if she dislikes the way her people are living, she knows that attacking the humans with the Golden Army is wrong, and therefore hides the last piece of the crown from her brother after he kills their father. She seeks help from Abe and the two bond over the fact that they both have similar learning powers through their hands. Now. Once we found out that she feels everything Nuada feels, I knew she was going to die. I did not see her taking out herself though. I should've, because she was cool with her dad sentencing them to death but it still really shocked me when she went ahead and knifed herself, taking her destructive brother down with her.

15. James Gordon (The Dark Knight)

"He's a silent guardian. A Dark Knight."

With the Joker wrecking havoc on Gotham City, James Gordon had to step his game up big time. He honestly did the best he could, coming up with a great plan involving him faking his own death so he could capture the Joker that ended up promoting him to Commissioner, but the clown prince of crime was just always three steps ahead. He managed to beat Gordon at his own game several times and ended up giving him a deadly enemy, Two Face. Gordon and Harvey Dent's animosity towards each other come to end when Two Face tries to take out Gordon's family. When Batman saves them, they both agree that Batman must take the fall for Dent's death.

14. Anakin Skywalker (Star Wars: The Clone Wars)

"The desert is merciless. It will take everything from you."

Wow I actually liked Anakin in this movie. I think it was because he wasn't shown as this moody teenager who was just constantly filled with angst the whole damn time and instead showed him as a leader and now teacher of Ahsoka. They didn't focus too much on his relationship with Padme, which also wasn't his strongest point because again, he was just moody as hell even if he was in love. He really grew as an individual and was able to bond with Ahsoka through their travels despite him not liking her in the beginning. We got to see his angst a little bit when they returned to his home planet but I understand, even if I think it's silly, that you can't have a Skywalker on the screen and not have them go through angst.

13. Wesley Gibson (Wanted)

"What the fuck have you done lately?"

So part of me liked Wesley and the  part of me didn't. I liked how he decided he wasn't going to be treated like shit anymore and stood up to all the toxic people in his life. I do like how polite he was and his determination to really be something he could be proud of. And I liked his friendship with the Executioner and his relationship with Fox. I didn't like how he all of a sudden got this superiority complex as soon as he learned a little knife trick. Like he was constantly throwing mad shade at us, the viewers, and it was a little off-putting because no one should be able to talk as much shit as he did when they allow their best friend to bang their girl for years before finally doing something. Also, why did he hate Cross so much? I get he thought Cross killed his father but damn he was hunting him down as if he had known his father his entire life! But I was glad he was able to discover the truth and then use everything he learned to bring down Sloan and the Fraternity once and for all.

12. Harvey Dent/Two Face (The Dark Knight)

"You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

Harvey Dent is Gotham's White Knight. He's a lawyer that can't be bought and is determined to bring down every corrupt person in the city, which earns him a lot of enemies. When the opportunity to bring down all the crime lords shows up, he forces his way into Batman and Gordon's plans, causing tensions with the latter. But he ends up biting more than he can chew once the Joker shows up. Not only does he end up burning off half his face, but he loses Rachel as well. Her death is the final straw and Harvey Dent becomes Two Face after having a little chat with the Joker. He seeks out the cops that betrayed him, the crime lords that set it up, and even Gordon, who he blames for Rachel's death. His thirst for revenge gets him in a confrontation with Batman, ending with his death. Instead of revealing what actually happened, Gordon and Batman agree to keep Dent's White Knight reputation.

11. Abe Sapien (Hellboy II: The Golden Army)

"Despite the appearances, I bet Red will make an excellent father figure."

Abe is the most supportive friend a hellspawn can ask for. I mean, he works well with everyone. He helps support Liz after discovering she's pregnant and he even gets along well with Tom Manning. He ends up developing the biggest teenage-boy crush on Princess Nuala and starts wearing contacts, listening to love songs, and even gets drunk with Hellboy as they bond over their women. It was slightly annoying when he gave the last piece to Prince Nuada for Nuala's safety, but he was right when he pointed out Hellboy would do the same for Liz. Nuala's death definitely took a toll on him which is one of the reasons why I think he ended up quitting with the team.

10. Sand Saref (The Spirit)

"Do I look like a good girl?"

A femme fatale, Sand used to be Denny's young love as they grew up in Central City. She dreamed of diamonds, cars, and loved reading stories of Jason's Golden Fleece. When her uncle dies, she decides to break up with cop-loving Denny, and finally go after everything she wants in life. Now known for marrying rich and then killing her husbands, keeping all the money for herself. With everything she's asked for, she goes after the Golden Fleece, which brings her back to Central City. When her Fleece get's switched with Octopus's vase of blood, she becomes a major player in the war between him and the Spirit, who she learns is Denny back from the dead. Their feelings come back when he learns she still had the necklace he gave her but they aren't acted on until the final fight. With her hands on the Golden Fleece, Sand uses it's impenetrable coat to protect The Spirit and then the tow proceed to make out in front of everyone, including his current girlfriend. They break ways though, Sand choosing her diamonds and The Spirit choosing the city's protection.

9. Prince Nuada Silverlance (Hellboy II: The Golden Army)

"Let this remind you why you once feared the dark."

So I don't feel like Prince Nuada was a bad guy, he really thought he was bringing justice to his people by defeating the humans who raged war on them for years. He has a respect for nature and cares deeply about his kingdom, which is why he couldn't deal with how they were living under his father's rule while the humans destroyed all the green from their planet. So he did what he had to do to gain control of the crown pieces but then became at odds with Hellboy and his team. They end up fighting a lot, Nuada is crazy talented with the spear, but Nuada always got away because Hellboy couldn't hurt him without hurting Princess Nuala, Abe's crush. It isn't until Nuada has complete control of the Golden Army that he's defeated by Hellboy, but even then he won't stop his mission until Nuala kills herself, killing him as well.

8. Pepper Potts (Iron Man)

"I do anything and everything Mr. Stark requires. Including occasionally taking out the trash."

If there's one person who can put Tony Stark in his place, it's Pepper. In fact, I'm pretty sure Pepper can put anyone in their place, proof being when she handles the disrespectful reporter, Christine. She's Stark's personal assistant and handles literally everything in his life, since the millionaire genius is pretty much incapable of doing anything besides creating amazing technology (he really should know his social security number). It's Pepper who discovers that Obadiah was the one trying to kill him and it's Pepper who helps Iron Man take him down. There isn't a resolution to the chemistry between Pepper and Tony, but since she's still his assistant, there's still hope.

7. Denny Colt/The Spirit (The Spirit)

"She is my lover, and I am her Spirit."

I get why literally every girl in this movie fell for the Spirit, he's extremely charismatic. How he learned to do that after rising from the dead, I don't know, but it's a skill he mastered and it's got him out of several tough spots as he tries to protect the city (granted it's gotten him in tougher spots too). He has a hilarious rivalry with The Octopus which puts him in even more hilarious situations like fighting in the mud with toilets, jumping off buildings with his pants off, and fighting goons holding gun with nothing but snowballs. Despite all of this, he manages to save his city, kiss the girl (ends up with another girl), and finally takes The Octopus down with a grenade.

6. Hellboy (Hellboy II: The Golden Army)

"I'm not gonna kill him, Abe. But I am gonna kick his ass!"

Our favorite petty hellspawn is back! Nothing much has changed since we lost saw Hellboy. He's still in love with Liz and his kittens, still desperately wants to fit in with society, and still has a nasty temper. Despite all their arguing, Hellboy and Liz still find a way to make it work, especially now that Liz is pregnant with his babies. His relationship with Abe also expands, Hellboy taking on a big brother role as he helps Abe deal with his feelings with Princess Nuala, and by 'deal' I mean they get drunk and listen to sad love songs. Despite the annoyance of Krauss being added to the team, Hellboy manages to lead everyone against Prince Nuada and his powerful Golden Army. When he takes them all done, him and Liz quit the department and walk off to start their new family.

5. Bruce Banner/Hulk (The Incredible Hulk)

"HULK SMASH!"

The Hulk is the first superhero that's gotten a reboot in my list's history. Even though the film is technically a sequel, lots of things were rebooted and, in my opinion, for the better. Not only do we get to see the Hulk in his destructive glory but I feel like we were finally able to connect to Bruce as a human. He's someone with a problem that has the potential to cause serious harm for anyone near him so he isolates himself from everyone he cares about and tries to find a way to get rid of away. Of course he can't stay hidden too long and ends up reuniting with Betty, but with the army trying to selfishly use his contaminated blood as a weapon of their own, the journey just gets harder and harder for Bruce. In the end, when he's fighting Abomination on the streets of New York, Bruce nearly kills him as the Hulk but with the help off Betty he's able to manage his rage, if only briefly, and runs off to British Colombia. There we see him last, his glowing eyes hinting at his newfound control over the Hulk.

4. Fox (Wanted)

"We kill one and maybe save a thousand."

If anyone believes in the code and in the Fraternity of Assassins, it's Fox. This is someone who was actually a victim of what happens when an assassin doesn't kill their target. It's probably why she joins, herself, and quickly becomes one of the best they have. She's badass in every way, shape, and form. From curving bullets, driving in crazy speed chases, and climbing the side of a train as it gets ready to fall over a rocky cliff, she's someone who's capable of anything. When she finds out her name, along with everyone in the Fraternity's names, show up she disobeys Sloan and honors the code it the most epic way. With one final curve of her bullet, she manages to take down everyone in the room, including herself.

3. Bruce Wayne/Batman (The Dark Knight)

"Because sometimes the truth isn't good enough. Sometimes, people deserve more."

The Dark Knight is back and the streets of Gotham couldn't be any more safe, but it's not just him that c an take the credit. Gotham has a hero with a face taking down these crime lords and his name is Harvey Dent. This man gives Bruce hope that maybe he can step away from the suit and live a normal life with Rachel after all, but all that comes crashing down once the Joker steps to the plate. Bruce made a mistake in underestimating Joker, thinking of him as a common criminal, which ends up costing him the lives of several people including Rachel. Bruce has to really think outside the box when it comes to stopping him and when he finally does, he ends up with another threat in the form of Two Face. When Harvey Dent regrettably dies, Bruce understands that the general public will go into chaos if they find out about his corruption and so he decides to take the blame entirely, saving Harvey's reputation along with Gotham City's safety.

2. Tony Stark/Iron Man (Iron Man)

"The truth is...I am Iron Man."

The genius owner of a millionaire dollar business. Tony Stark is one of the most brilliant men the world has to offer, and he puts his brains into making weapons for the military to help keep the peace. It isn't until after he's kidnapped by terrorist with his own weapon technology that he realizes his mistakes. He turns a new leaf and decides to create a hero of sorts to help protect people from those who wish to harm them: Iron Man! Tony Stark's charisma and humor throughout the film was so fun to watch and his journey to becoming a hero was even better to see happen. At the end he does what no hero has done before, he reveals he's indeed Iron Man, not wanting to hide away from his responsibilities.

1. The Joker (The Dark Knight)

"Why so serious?"

Is anyone surprised? 2008 had the most bad ass characters by far with returning champions Batman, Hellboy, and Angelina Jolie (even though she won as Tomb Raider instead of Fox) and the debut of Iron Man. There's only one person who could steal the throne from them at that was Heath Ledger's Joker. The Joker ruled every scene he was in and was, in every sense of the word, a madman. From his multiple backstories on how he got his scars to his nurse outfits, Joker installed fear and uncertainty in everyone that crossed his path. An agent of chaos, Joker quickly flipped Gotham upside down and had the entire city scrambling to figure him out and put a stop to him. And even though he does eventually get stopped because Batman does have more strength in the end, no one figures him out. He's a puzzle piece that remains unsolved because every time you try he finds a way to create the biggest, most chaotic storm in your life. It's his wild plans that aids in the creation of Two Face, after all. The Joker is one of the greatest enemies Batman has ever faced and his reign as one of the greatest villains of all time in film is still evident almost ten years later.

[lawful-evil-novelist]

So a Few Rogue Kids and Their Family/Home Life

Since @freckledandspectacled asked and I figured I might as well, I’m gonna do a short explanation of...basically what home life is like for some of the Rogue kids.  This is essentially a summary of how a few the rogues do parenting in this verse so, as a disclaimer: the operative words are “this verse”.  I’m glad you think some rogues would be better parents than I do, but that, very frankly, is not something you need to harp on me about.

As a further note, certain homes will not be listed because there’s not much for me to say, but keep in mind there are some trigger warnings to keep in mind because these are children of Gotham Rogues.

Tobias Bloom

Tobi is adopted, Mr. Bloom wanted a child but figured it would be a lot better to adopt than to have his own.  When he was giving that thought, he actually asked to see children with a lower chance of being adopted.  Tobi was small, at the time sickly, already three, and a metahuman, foster care did not think it was likely that Tobi would be adopted anytime soon and he’d eventually just age out of the system.  Mr. Bloom took one look at Tobi and immediately knew he wanted to take care of him.

Bloom is a decent father. By the time he adopted Tobi he’d quit any overt criminal activity, but works as a partner for LexCorp, meaning he’s frequently busy.  To top things off he’s rather scatter-brained and will often forget small things. Tobi, as a result, tends to be the one who remembers important things, and their apartment is covered in sticky notes so if Bloom remembers something, he can write it down on a sticky note and put it on the fridge.  Their house is relatively clean and organized because if it isn’t, Bloom can’t find anything. It also has a lot of houseplants, Tobi likes his houseplants.

Dorothy and Pluto Crane

Dorothy and Pluto are generally occupying two worlds.  Being Diana’s children, they are technically royalty of Themiscyra and Diana is still part of the Justice League.  Dorothy is the same age as Damien Wayne and Pluto is between Damien and Jon Kent in age. They’ve grown up with those two about the same amount that they’ve grown up with Rogue kids.

As for Jon and Diana, they’re...good parents.  Jon is still a human trainwreck but he’s a lot better at making sure his kids get food and are taken care of than making sure he’s fed and healthy.  He also tends to forget to watch his language around the kids when they’re younger.  Diana is significantly better at balancing self-care and childcare, but still has some minor trouble with raising children because there weren’t any other children on Themiscyra.  The entire family spends at least a month every summer in Themiscyra, if not longer, and while there Jon and Diana get help from the rest of the Amazons.

Dorothy is painfully aware of the kind of space she occupies between hero’s daughter and rogue kid. She has been told by Damien that she is not one of the rogue kids, and while the rogue kids don’t feel the same way, there is a lingering insecurity in her that she doesn’t belong.

Pluto doesn’t feel this alienation, but instead feels alienated by the other Amazons.  Save for his father he is the only man considered part of Amazon society, and even then, Jon is still considered an outsider, Pluto is supposed to be at least half Amazon, but he doesn’t feel like he belongs, he feels like an outsider, and doesn’t like that feeling.

Ezekiel Dent

Here is where we get into very uncomfortable territory.  I do not know who Zeke’s mom is, but she is no longer in the picture.  Harvey is raising Zeke alone, which understandably has some problems.  Not that Harvey himself is an awful parent, he can be rather harsh with Zeke sometimes because he’s scared Zeke will turn out like him, but he does genuinely care about Zeke.

The problem is Harvey’s alter, who I’ll call Harv to distinguish.  Harv, needless to say, is fucking awful and should not be allowed near a child.  Harvey can’t control when Harv surfaces, so Zeke is constantly walking on eggshells around his dad, hoping he doesn’t switch while he’s still in the house/room/general area.  Harv beats Zeke regularly for minor slip ups, accidents, or just because.  Zeke regularly skips meals out of stress and is extremely thin and nervous as a result.  Harvey blames himself for Zeke’s poor mental and physical health, and is horrified if he sees bruises on Zeke after he dissociates (which can sometimes make him dissociate again it depends).  He doesn’t want to part with Zeke because he doesn’t want to lose the only family he has left, but at the same time regularly considers giving him up to either foster care or asking Bruce to take him just so his son isn’t in danger.

Evangeline Fries

Eva lives with Nora and her second husband, not Victor, but Victor is aware of her existence and has visitation rights.  He’s allowed to see her even if he doesn’t have custody.  Nora loves her daughter with all her heart but her second husband is a little wary of her, both because of her powers and because he knows she’s Victor’s daughter.  Given the chance he probably would kick Eva out but Nora would never allow it and he’d have to contend with Victor if she would.

Eva is aware of her stepfather’s wariness and dislike, but makes the most of her life with Nora. Nora herself is a great mom because come on it’s Nora, and Victor is...loving but distant.  He basically only sees her every once in a while.  It’s his choice but y’know, still.

Hunter and Ayah Jones

Hunter and Ayah were raised by their father, Waylon, their mother died soon after Ayah was born. Hunter and Ayah also have the same condition as Waylon, but to a lesser degree.  They have the reptilian eyes, the sharp teeth, but instead of full-body scales, Hunter and Ayah have slight scale growths on their bodies that didn’t show up until puberty.  Waylon feels extremely guilty about this and is very protective of his kids, perhaps a little overprotective.

Ayah and Hunter live in an apartment that Waylon pays rent for so they don’t have to live in the sewers, but he is still living in the sewers.  He takes care of them, but doesn’t feel like he deserves to live with them.

Aisling, Maxwell, and Niall Machin

So this is more uncomfortable town because Lonnie literally got Aisling, Max, and Niall removed from his custody.  Because he’s a shit parent and treated two of them like garbage.

Now Aisling, Max, and Niall all have different mothers, but all three were left with Lonnie as toddlers. Lonnie was kind of blasé about Aisling, he borderline neglected her and she ended up growing up way faster than she should have, something that became even worse when Max came into the picture.

Lonnie does not like Max. Right now. I’m not sure why but Lonnie hates Max and was determined to make him absolutely miserable.  Max had an extremely small room (think the broom cupboard from Harry Potter small, in fact he probably lived in a broom cupboard) that locked from the outside.  Max could not lock himself in his room for privacy, but Lonnie could lock Max in for however long he wanted and enter whenever he wanted.  Essentially Max was confined to a small space and had no privacy. To make things worse, Lonnie beat him if he disobeyed or did anything Lonnie deemed “disobedient”.  Max skipping meals out of stress was disobedient, for instance, which probably wasn’t helped by Max refusing to obey ridiculous demands and snapping at Lonnie.

And then there was Niall. Basically, Lonnie’s precious baby who can do no wrong.  He spoiled Niall rotten, never punished him for doing anything wrong, never told him no, but Niall wasn’t grateful.  He wasn’t ungrateful because he was a brat; he was ungrateful because he saw the huge disparity between Lonnie doting on him, neglecting Aisling, and abusing Max, and he knew it was wrong.  Niall was the one to tell the police what was happening and get the three of them away from Lonnie.  Max and Aisling have no idea that it was Niall that took them from Lonnie, Niall never told them, and he doesn’t plan to.  He doesn’t want either of them to know that he remembers vividly how Lonnie treated Max and Aisling.

Now they live with Abigail Curtis, her twin brother Jasper, and Jasper’s boyfriend Basir.  Aisling tends to still act as a mother to her younger brothers, and she and Niall are happy to see Max happier in the Curtis household.  I’m not sure how Lonnie responded to losing his kids, but considering he didn’t really care about Aisling or Max, he probably is only upset about losing Niall. Abigail, Jasper, and Basir do a much better job raising the Machin siblings.

Andrea Monroe

So Andrea’s home life is relatively happy and she and her mother are on very good terms, but there’s something that I want to bring up that is important: Andrea’s hair.

Andrea’s hair is not naturally blonde like, say, Sarah or Barbara’s.  Andrea’s hair is naturally brown like her mother’s.  Andrea dyed her hair blonde because she noticed that every time someone told her she looked like her mother, her mother would look upset, because Paige does not find herself beautiful but does think her daughter is beautiful.  So, Andrea dyed her hair blonde so people would stop telling her she looked like her mom. This is a running part of Andrea’s personality.  Because her mother is often melancholy or morose, Andrea forced a sunny disposition because she felt that if she was happy, her mother would be happy.

Barbara and Todd Quinzel

To make a very complex issue simple, Todd nearly died when he was born.  The birth went fine and everything but Todd was barely breathing when he was born and extremely frail.  He was rushed to NICU and one doctor, a poor soul who was nearly killed, had to go over to Joker and tell him his son might die and that he was weak.  Todd survived, but Joker was internally reliving losing Jeannie and his unborn child and nearly had a nervous breakdown.  He also nearly killed a man so, you know. Nevertheless, Joker, from that point on, was extremely protective of Todd.  He lets the reigns up slightly but will regularly get very upset if Todd does anything dangerous.  It doesn’t help that doctors attributed Todd’s albinism, asthma, and hypotonia to possibly being Joker’s fault (the theory goes that the chemical bath Joker underwent damaged his biology so it was very likely that the conditions Todd suffers from are a result).

Barbara is the princess of the family at times.  She’s pretty, can easily match her parent’s energy, and clever.  Not that Todd isn’t any of those things, but Barbara is louder so it’s a little more noticeable to other people.

Harley can tend towards being a bit distant with Todd and Barbara.  When she is around she takes care of them and loves them but if Joker and Harley have a fight, Harley will leave for a few days and either come back because she’s over the fight or because Joker ended up in Arkham and the kids need a parent.

Leon Sanchez

So considering Leo is the way he is I think it’s a given he does not have a great home life.  Bane’s still an active villain and for a good portion of Leo’s early childhood, he was being looked after by either Zsasz, which is the #1 worst choice for a godfather ever made GG Bane, or Bane’s men, most of which took decent care of Leo but were occasionally not exactly nice to him.  He was never hurt by any of them or at least, the ones that did didn’t live long afterwards, but generally Leo was a kid in a place kids didn’t belong and Bane’s men were sure to let Leo know. Bane didn’t call Leo anything besides Leo for a long time, and Leo picked up the habit from his men of calling Bane “jefe”.

This kind of mildly uncomfortable and strained relationship was not the kind of relationship Bane wanted to have with his son, and when Leo was twelve, he started calling Leo “mijo” in hopes that Leo would pick up on the action and return the gesture.  It took Leo time to transition from “jefe” to “papa”, as in two years, but of all the problems in Leo’s home life, his relationship with his father is a lot better than it was when Leo was small.  The other problems, like Bane’s men being a lot more aggressive toward Leo as he got older because they realized Bane may rise to defend an eight-year-old, but he isn’t going to defend a thirteen-year-old, and Leo literally living in a drug den, aren’t so easily solved.

Gwendolyn Tetch

So Gwen does not live with Jervis, she lives with Barbara Gordon, and this is because when she was born, her mother didn’t want to keep her and Jervis was to mentally unstable to care for a child.  Jervis is aware of Gwen and even got to name her, but Barbara Gordon has custody of Gwen, not Jervis.  Gwen is aware of why she cannot live with Jervis but is extremely upset about the fact that her mother didn’t want her.  Barbara does what she can, but doesn’t feel like she’s an adequate substitute for Gwen’s real mother.

Marcus Wesker

I’ve talked about Marcus a bit before but I want to go over it again.  So, when Marcus was about four or five, his parents left him with Arnold Wesker, his grandfather, effectively abandoning him.  Marcus was old enough to remember it, and still has abandonment issues as a result.  To make matters worse, while Arnold was, passable as a caretaker and Marcus liked him fine, Scarface is a different story.

Scarface verbally abused Marcus regularly, shouting, swearing, insulting, and threatening him. If that personality had the ability, he probably would’ve gotten physical too; he certainly threatened it a number of times.  As a small child, Marcus couldn’t make the distinction that Scarface was just an alter and was not actually alive.  He is now utterly terrified of all ventriloquist dummies.  He still lives with Arnold, and while he’s tried finding his parents or talking to them, he’s never been able to track where they went and has no idea why they left him.

[tumblunni]

Bunni continues to play monster rancher advance and get really fuckin attatched to this giant green rock friend and ITS JADE’S RETIREMENT IM SO FUCKIN SAD also the retirement of jade’s pupil also the retirement of bunni’s heart I JUST LOVE MY VIRTUAL BABIES SO MUCHHHH

* It seems the mystery item she gave me is something that adds a special ability to your monster! It was possibly a waste to give it to her when she’s about to retire, but at least now I know what these things do. MAybe she was trying to give to me so i could give it to the next monster? IM SORRY JADE MY DUMBNESS IS MAXIMUM But maybe item-added traits can pass down if you fuse a monster? I dunno, I’d rather make her a training coach so i dont have to say goodbye ever. ILU JADE ILU SO MUCH

* OH MAN IM SORRY JADE! this would have been really super useful to give to a baby monster, its basically a skill to pass down her best stat growths

* The code to get a Joker is FROMFREE (all in caps) Weird, i guess maybe these codes made more sense in japanese?

* AWW JADE I LOVE YOU TOO JADE THANK YOU JADE I’m so sory jade, you coulda won the whole game by yourself if i hadnt messed up your first year of training so badly... We were so close!! And you did so well even though you didnt like battling! I hope you enjoy retirement, oh god im getting so emotional She GAVE ME ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE ITEMS what are even THE ODDS of that happening immediately after she forgives my dumb mistaaaaaaaaake i love you jade please rest well i could never fuse you! stay forever, get lots of sleeps!

* Jade’s final rankings! She was rank S and just one away from beating the whole game, she just had to do the Big 4 tourney. I wonder if that was named the same as the Elite 4 in pokemon, in the japanese version? We had a lot of fun! I love her! Her favourite food was herbal medicine for some reason, and her stats were a ridiculous build of hyper defense and attack and not much else. She totally swept everyone! She had such critically bad accuracy that she barely ever hit, but when she did hit it was a one hit KO. And she had critically bad HP but so much defense that everyone only did 1 damage. She was the best at cheating the system, like the beautiful bab she is! I love her lots I kinda headcanon her having a very shy and kind personality, cos her randomized dislike was battling, and cos I messed up her training so badly that she lost so many times during that first year. I felt so bad thinking she’d probably blame herself, cos she’s such a sweetheart... I hope she enjoys retiring to be a teacher! She’s been so good at taking care of Aroma, Zest and me, I’m sure she’ll be good to the next baby monster!

* And here’s her stats as a trainer. There’s preset templates for what you can make them train, I picked attack and accuracy rather than attack and defense because there isnt a high stat accuracy trainer already and thats why it was so hard to train for Jade. I hope she can help the next generation have an easier start in life!

* A nice easter egg! If you enter the password Most, then you get... Most. The special white mocchi that was the bonus boss in monster rancher 2! It has pretty good starting stats too!

* Also, enter Tumblunn to get a Big Blue, which was my favourite villain from the anime. STILL CRYING FOR HIM

* PHEWWWWWW After like a hour of summoning and fusing everything, we finally have our next monster! You dont really pick up any stat boosts by fusing a bazillion base stat monsters, but it made her stats very equal in everything. And she’s got a huge pile of abilities resisting every element, lol!

Carole the Momo/Zan! I wanna maybe raise a Zan next time, they’re something that wasnt in MR2 as far as I know.

* Wow, I kinda got really absorbed in raising Carole and forgot to even write anything, oops... Things I can remember! She gave me a lot of items and asked questions a lot more often. And she seemed to perform really well in battles when it was set to auto, which is surprising cos usually the series sucks at auto battling. She trained with Jade like EVERY DAY, because I am a cheesy mushface massive heart person. So she became a fairly fragile superpowered fighter who absolutely excelled at accuracy, really following in Jade’s footsteps and doing what she dreamed of! And now already poor Carole is at retirement age too, and my wrist is FUCKING DYING from playing so much but I still cant stoppppp aaAAAAAA im gonna go eat some lunch and then get back to the next generation of cuddly mons i still feel really bereft that Carole’s time passed so fast, but knowing that monsters just retire instead of dying in this game makes it a lot less painful. I wanna try and fill up every single training course with a friend! I wanna keep raising them even after I beat the game! but probably it would be smarter to move on to playing Advance 2, cos it adds a bunch of new monsters including the Hares that I enjoy so much...

* ALSO! I have a lot of affection now for the Momo species! I hope they return in other games! They seem to be like the reincarnation of the old Kato species, just with all the Edgy stuff removed and replaced with regular cuteness. I mean, I should probably hate that, but tbh I like the design a lot better than the Katos. And its cool that they still keep the razor claws that extend out like eight metres from their fist! That was what clued me in to them being a Kato replacement, lol.

* ALSO i am really sad for Aroma and Zest and I WANT TO BE THEIR NEW PARENT NOW thier dad died :( and they mourn him on father’s day :( and then Carole helped them find their last heirloom to remember him by :( good carole, you always looking out for us! then carole retired literally RIGHT AFTER that :(

* An interesting random event happened where I was forced into a battle to stop a wild monster that stole the league secretary’s bag, and got rewarded with a password for it! KEEPSLY gives you a special black and gold Zuum!

* Carole is now a coach too... *sigh* too soon... The big 4 tourneys are so hard that I wasnt able to do them with her either, she just managed to reach the same rank as Jade with better stats. And now I’m gonna feel totally guilty every time I choose between which one I train with! I’m gonna just imagine they’re happy playing together in the retirement teacher place, ok. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH! I feel really bad that Carole retired a lot earlier and there wasnt much to talk about cos Jade already got all the first time clearance events for the ranks and stuff... AAAAAAA well i guess maybe I’ll just try a different stat build this time or something? I wonder if a speed heavy monster would be more effective againt those cheap final enemies... I mostly just care about having fun with beloved cuddlepets tho! And seeing more random plot events with the assistant charries ^_^