#on the other hand he is leagues better to them than joker so they tend to at least not dislike him

[just-an-enby-lemon]

*One of Riddler 's and Joker's first team ups (and likely one of the last)*

Joker's Henchman: Would you tell me another riddle? An easier one this time?

Riddler: *the biggest attention whore to ever whore for attention* But of course, I will even give you a classic one instead of one of my own creation. So tell me my dear *swinging his hands dramatically* riddle me this (another henchmen in the back mutters he did the thing in awe, for Eddie's absolute delight) what gets wetter as it dries?

Henchmen: Uh... no idea... Wait! I got it!

Riddler: *with a happy expectant smile if a bit patronizing* Hmn?

Henchmen: Is it a songbird?

Riddler: *impressed by the stupidity of the answer* Nope. I'm prettty sure a songbird just gets dry normally. Also why exclusivaly a song bird?

Henchmen: No idea.

Harley: What are you boys doing?

Henchmen: Riddles here asked me a riddle.

Harley: *very excited*Oh! I wanna play as well.*jumping* Can I? *puppy eyes don't wait for confirmation* Is the answer Eddie?

Riddler:*confused* You didn't even heard the riddle?

Harley: But am I wrong?

Riddler: Yes.

Harley: Bummer : ( *muttering* The moment he doesn't talk about himself.

Riddler: *annoyed* Any more guesses?

Joker: *coming from a dark corner like a sleep paralisys demon* I have one! What gets wetter as it dries you say? My hands wet with blood as the life dries out of someone else's eyes. Hahahahaha

Riddler: Jesus fucking Christ!? IT WAS A FUCKING TOWEL! It's an easy well known CHILDREM'S riddle! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?? *looks at who he is talking to* Nevermind.

[an-android-child]

Hello! I am procrastinating and autistic, so I'm gonna refute the rebuttal, if you don't mind. Please, don't take anything personal. I do not know you and I'm not judging you as a person. With that out of the way, let's begin:

"However, 2 is where most of the discourse seems to be happening. Your argument is that Jason doesn't have the right to ask that that of Bruce. I do actually disagree on that point, both more generally because I think children are allowed to ask things of their parents that a peer shouldn't ask of another peer, and more specifically I think a close reading of Jason's original '80s Robin run shows a Bruce that would've been more willing to grant his request." Parents are still human beings who deserve to have boundaries respected. Just because someone is a parent doesn't mean the child deserves to take away their one boundary to force them to do something against their will. We're not talking about Jason wanting a hug and Bruce having touch aversion, we're talking about Jason telling him to kill a man or watch him kill a man. Also, about that other point, I have no words to explain how much him granting that request would have ended him as a person. In every universe he gives in and kills the Joker he's unable to rationalize himself from stopping, because once he has already crossed the line, he can cross it again, and again, and now everyone is safe and no one will die and who cares if he's alone or if he's an enemy to the Justice League, or who cares if he'll kill without thinking if the person deserves a second chance. Once committed the crime there's no going back. Everytime he starts killing, he stops trying to rehabilitate the crooks. He becomes disillusioned, he decides this is the way Jason would have wanted this. So, no, I do not believe 80's "even rapists deserve to face a fair trial, and if that doesn't work it's a societal problem we have to fix instead of just simply killing off the guy" Batman would have given in. He would have wanted to, he may have even almost given in because he tended to be quite emotional and impulsive, like it happened in canon, but I'm completely sure that if he actually did it, it would have killed him. Jason would have come back to a ghost or to a grave.

"2 (If Bruce won't kill the Joker, then Jason will.) is hardly more kind, but I do think it is an important element people don't actually address when they talk about this moment. Jason isn't necessarily asking Bruce to kill; he's asking for him to bear witness. It's a halfway point. It's still unacceptable to Bruce, which is allowed. But it is a significantly more complex moment." Bruce has raised that boy so he would be better than him, so he could experience the happiness he never truly could. The only reason he didn't kill the Joker was because Clark convinced him Jason wouldn't have wanted that. He didn't even care about starting WWIII. Hell, child!Jason wouldn't have wanted that: He didn't mind Two-Face as a child (or even as an adult) after he killed his bio dad (maybe that has been retconned actually, comics are weird). Watching people kill has been exactly what created Batman. His disgust for guns and killing has been a core trait of the character for decades, and the fact that Jason would make him watch him, the son he grieved and failed, kill someone he has always wanted dead, would be incredibly traumatizing, to say the least. It's not as complex of a situation, because Bruce would never live with himself knowing he could have prevented Jason from becoming a killer. Because when Dick killed the Joker and started struggling with guilt, the one that made everything in his power to bring the man he hates most in the world back was Bruce. And it was out of love.

"Bruce violently imposes his own boundaries on Jason. They're both pretty awful to each other in this moment. I love it." With a hand over my heart, I think someone is a little bit more awful here, and the other is a little bit more justified. We're using comic context here, right? Jason has almost killed Tim, Bludhaven has blown up and is swimming in radioactive waste with Dick still in it, and Jason is purposefully taunting Bruce about the fact that he won't be able to save another son again, because he's forcing him to stay right there, with him and the kidnapped Joker. He's the one forcing him to stay here and every minute that passes is a minute Dick can die, which I would say it's a bit more unethical. Also, I'm pretty sure Bruce was trying to get away as fast as possible. I'm not even sure he wasn't expecting Jason to dodge, like he had already done before, but I digress. He needed to find his first son quick, he needed to save him and as many people as he could, but instead he was in a warehouse full of bombs with his dead child telling him to watch him kill or to kill somebody. With a gun. That's like, one of Scarecrow's hallucinations levels of fucked up.

"I think I generally agree, but I disagree that Batman can or should be considered a single person." Batman is a man. I know, I know he tries to create an idea, a symbol. The symbol literally means there will always be second chances, no matter what. But underneath that, Batman will always be Bruce Wayne, will always have seen his parents gunned down in an alley, and will always try to stop bullets from hitting anyone else, no matter what. That's Batman, too.

"Batman is a self-appointed vigilante. He is not beholden to literally anyone. He regularly transgresses upon other people's rights. He is functionally a public figure free of any oversight. People are allowed (and ought to) demand better of him. No one owes Batman the benefit of the doubt or personal consideration because he rarely grants those things to others." One word: GCPD. Another word: Justice League. These two powerful organizations have held him accountable plenty of times. Hell, he has a team full of people who will hold him accountable, as shown numerous times, even in the infamous Gotham War. He's not a figure free of oversight, he's basically a cop, but if a cop actually got the job done and didn't kill (a fantasy indeed, at least at the time this was written). And, if I may agree he doesn't grant the benefit of the doubt to a lot of people, he did grant it to Jason Todd, the man we're talking about, when he may or may-have-not killed Felipe. So, this is definitely not a fair argument in this context.

"Now, whether "demanding better" encompasses "demanding that he kill" is a different question. I think, within the world of the comics, Batman as self-appointed arbiter of justice being permitted to do everything he does, but having his no-killing rule respected because "he's just a man" is sort of not tenable, because Batman isn't a man, he's an idea, and I don't think he can be both." It's in the name. If he's an idea, the idea is redemption, vengeance for the innocent, but he will always be a man first. There are countless stories of Bruce having to come to terms with this simple fact: that he's just a man. And this man wants to do good, and he wants to save as many as he can, and he wants to give second chances, because if he can reform just one person, if he can help just one civilian, then it doesn't matter all the pain that he has to go through. It's not only tenable, it's the only thing that doesn't make him an actual cop, or a tyrannical murderer.

"I think Bruce Wayne not killing because he personally doesn't want to is compelling and interesting; I just don't think it's really ethically justified?*" In a world where the Joker has seen himself rehabilitated countless times (even if he relapses) is it fair to just kill him without lawyer or judge? In a world where Bruce decides if someone will take a life, it will be with an electric chair, after a fair trial, because he won't be judge, jury and executioner, in what world is that not an ethical position? Yes, yes, the Joker always escapes because the Joker needs to sell, but Bruce has given money to the asylum countless of times, has made it as humane and high-tech as his billionaire's money allows him to. And that's the thing, the Joker is always sent to a mental facility because he's incredibly dangerous, but also because he's mentally unwell (how unwell, depends on the writer or reader), and so people can try to get him the help he needs. How is this an unethical position for Batman to take? Hell, Commissioner Gordon only trusts him because he never kills, because he knows he tries to give everyone a fair chance. Batman at his core is compassion, and many writers forget that.

"All that said, I mainly replied because I think you're working from an ethical framework that's highly individualistic. I think that makes sense for discussing Bruce & Jason in UtRH, but I don't think it works for Batman, The Vigilante or for Bruce Wayne, The Public Persona or for Bruce Wayne, The Parent.**" At the end of the day almost all moral is individualistic because all moral concepts come from the minds of individuals, if that's what you meant. But also English is like, my third language, so I might be jumping the gun here. Also, all of those masks make the man that is Bruce Wayne, the man who has watched his son die because he was too late, his other son get beat up almost to death, and is now seeing his first son get blown up in a radioactive explosion while the son who died is taunting him and telling him to traumatize himself even more by letting someone die where he could have prevented it, or letting his son become what he fears most. So.... yeah.

"I'm sort of troubled by the insinuation that billionaires don't owe their communities anything. I mean, I know that's basically libertarianism, and if you're a libertarian then we're just going to have to disagree but: Bruce Wayne, billionaire, is not legally obligated to do any of what you mentioned (and canon is very inconsistent on if he actually does) but the idea that someone with a literally unfathomable level of wealth isn't ethically responsible for giving back to his community is weird to me. Even ignoring real life logic, which states there's no way Bruce could have that wealth in an ethical way, having that kind of money creates, imo, a moral imperative to help people." Bruce Wayne canonically gives to charity a ton of money, tries to create as much change as a billionare as he can, and the only reason Batman exists is because he realized he can't really help the middle man as a philanthropist as much as he could by being there in person. But Bruce, very consistently, gives back to Gotham constantly. I don't understand what is your point here. Bruce The Persona, as you called it, very much is a billionare playboy who only makes public apparances when charities are involved, and who gives and gives without second thought, whose whole company is full to the brim with ex-convicts and street people because he tries to hire as many as he can so they can afford an honest living. Hell, he even pays college tuitions and has pretty good healthcare plans, but that, of course, will depend on what continuity you consider canon. But, even with that, the constant is always the same: He donates, at least, large quantities without second thought.

"Additionally, I'm extra troubled by your saying "he didn't have to agree to cars for several angry, reckless, and bitter kids with death in their hearts" because like. That's a really weird way to frame his adoption of ... most of the kids." I'm pretty sure OP didn't mean it literally, but more like he could have not helped any of his kids and just let the authorities or assorted Wayne-paid subsidiaries deal with them. But, as we know, he's a bleeding heart to the core, so of course he decided to help the only way he knew how to. I don't see your point about it being a weird statement, so I'll assume it's simply a personal opinion phrased as fact.

"I think Bruce wanted to help his kids. I also think he wanted to help himself, (NOTE: while I do see what you mean, he has explicitly said multiple times he wanted his children to turn out better than he did, which is exactly why he took them. It's not as clear-cut as you make it seem) and it's weird to frame his taking in of Jason (post-crisis) as a selfless desire when he admits in Batman #416 that it's at least in part because he misses Dick." I wouldn't say all his motivations are selfish, because he states multiple times post-crisis he wouldn't leave Jason's side if he ever decided to stop being Robin, and that he'd always be there for him. He was more closed-off, less talkative (because we started with the arguments in this universe), but Bruce was very much against taking Jason in at the beginning (the whole Ma Gunn incident) and also him being Robin at first (he spent half a year training).

"It's even a weirder argument to make for Tim, who explicitly offers himself up to a grown man in A Lonely Place of Dying as a replacement goldfish since Bruce can't cope with Jason's loss." I think that's an incredibly oversimplification of what Bruce was going through, and of what Tim was truly offering. Bruce was not in a good place, and Tim decided to help by asking for Dick. Dick set a boundary, and Alfred decided to entrust way too much responsability in a very young person. I don't appreciate the dismissive tone of what is one of the more interesting takes on grief in the DC, at least in my opinion. Bruce is struggling, Bruce is passively suicidal. His enabler, Alfred, basically hires Tim to keep him afloat, something Bruce was so against at first that it took Tim saving his life for him to consider it, and even then he wasn't that ok with it. Hell, Tim didn't even do any field work 'till his Mother's funeral passed. That's a lot of months with nothing but training and comms duty (and it would have been longer if not for Scarecrow and Tim proving himself once again, against Bruce's wishes, but I digress). They formed a relationship with time: from boss and employer, to lifeboat and drowning man, to colleagues, to friends, to father and son, with all the tumultuous things that come with that rollercoaster of a relationship. They have a very complex one, and an incredibly interesting one.

"For Bruce's other canonical kids, Cass is mostly cared for by Barbara, explicitly does not have death in her heart, and is pretty poorly treated by Bruce." Once again, depends on the run. I've read Batgirl 2000, and I can see what you mean, even though I'm one of the few people who's very against the idea of Barbara as a mother figure (no, not all women who are caregivers or who try to help someone young need to be a mother, sometimes things can be messy and still be ok, but that's more of a personal opinion on the idea of maternity as something all women should aspire to or end up in) but for what I've read, I'm not exactly sure what you mean when you say "treated poorly". He has troubles comunicating, yes, but he never did truly go out of his way to treat her bad, even tried to give her the choice of reconnecting with Cain without as much as a second thought, and has had her best interest at heart multiple times, if not a bit overprotective. He was closed off and wasn't good at talking, but they had an understanding of each other thanks to Cass' unique abilities, and they're arguably the most similar of the bunch. I truly don't know what you mean. Maybe you meant when they sparred because he didn't know how to talk to her and knew this was the only way she knew how to talk, and when she told him that was what his abusive father also did he stopped? He's a very decent father to her, I can't think of many instances, at the moment, but I could do more research later.

"I can't speak to Duke because I haven't read his run, and Damian is his biological kid so yeah, he actually did have to be responsible for him." I would say he's pretty good with Duke, and as someone who's seen some friend's families... I can tell you blood can only do so much. If he hadn't wanted, he would have been in his "right", be it as morally questionable as you may think it is, specially because the child was hidden from him for ten whole years (if we go by Morrison canon, then there's an even bigger and valid reason). It would have been a complicated situation, but I think I get what OP truly meant.

"If you're counting Steph, who can go either way since she's not officially adopted, Bruce is super weird and awful to her." I have this whole meta in the drafts that's a three part long text BUT I haven't finished it, so meanwhile I'll link two of my favourite metas: the first and the second.

"Like I'm sort of not sure why you even brought the kids up (NOTE: probably because we're talking about one of them), or brought them up in that way,(NOTE: probably as a way to mention offhandedly one of Bruce's defining character traits: a strong, sometimes misplaced, sense of responsibility) because while Bruce does want to help his kids, his relationship with all of them is constantly motivated by a mixed desire to help, control, project, and mold. His impulses towards most of them are often rather selfish because he had trouble getting out of his own head and he is canonically a sub-par parent at best." I actually agree with this point, but i don't believe he's a sub-par parent... then again, it depends heavily on the writer and continuity. He has done very horrible things in different canons, and it is confusing to keep track, but I do find it more interesting when good intentions simply backfire, than just sheer selfishness... which I guess it could be debated isn't always the main motivator. I would actually say his paranoid nature and need to protect are much bigger setbacks as a parent, more than the sheer need to mold and project. But then again, i'll assume this is an opinion stated as fact, again.

"1. Public figures, especially vigilantes, do not get to set interpersonal boundaries the same way regular people do." A person does not stop being a person just because they're famous or a law enforcer, specially if that boundary is: I won't kill people and I will let criminals be judged by the justice system.

"2. Wealthy people have, in my own ethical formulation, a moral imperative to use their wealth for good." This is a moot point. Bruce Wayne already does that in all main continuities, as far as I'm aware.

"3. Parents absolutely owe their children more than the bare minimum. I do not think that extends to committing murder for them, but I do think Bruce taking in kids when he doesn't have to doesn't prove much about his moral character." The only thing it proves is that he wants to help, and that he cares for them somewhat, be it for better or for worse. And, again, this is a moot point. You say it yourself, the bare minimum does not extend to crossing your one and only boundary.

"4. I think I understand your point about boundaries and I think they're reasonable on an interpersonal level, but fail to take into account hegemonic power structures and social expectations." Talking about crossing boundaries, Jason has already done that a few times, and that is barely discussed in your argument. If I may add, from a moral standpoint, I believe Bruce has an ethical reason not to kill the Joker, just because Jason has stomped on so many lines with him over and over again since he came back (antagonizing, beating and almost killing his loved ones, using a friend's daughter's rape against her, stealing his company, killing people and showing him the bodies, forcing him to choose between killer or spectator, forcing him not to go save his son from dying, and I think I'm missing a few). I think you fail to see that if someone had power over the situation, it was the one with the trigger.

TL;DR: Your whole argument seems to need to depersonalize the man behind the mask, to make him just a symbol so that his one and only boundary, that comes from very deep trauma, can be torned off and used against him. I don't think there's a good resolution for a conflict like this, and that's exactly why I love it. But there are wrong choices. Bruce killing and Bruce doing nothing would be devastating for him. And that deserves to be taken into consideration.

If someone has burned all the bridges, it wasn't Bruce this time.

Jason Todd is my favourite character in all of DC but:

If someone doesn't want to kill, you can't ask, tell, or expect them to kill for you

Or, you can, but you'd be a complete asshole. The only time those expectations are valid is when a person signed up for a job where killing is expected (e.g. the military).

But as we all know, Batman is not the military nor the police. He only has one rule—or only one rule he truly cares about—and that's to not kill.

And frankly, I don't care what his reasons are for that; the bottom line is that he doesn't want to kill and we should respect it. Because at the end of the day, when you take a life, you're the one who's fully responsible for it. You're the one who has to live with it. And because of that, nobody should force you to do it.

Look, like I said, Jason Todd is my favourite character too. But that doesn't mean I don't find it disturbing or unfair when he expects Bruce, and only Bruce, to kill the Joker for him.

Do I find it understandable and human? Of course! Jason died horribly and gruesomely to a madman who'd do the same to anyone else so long as he finds it funny enough. It's only natural for him to want and expect someone—especially his father, the one he loved the most and the one he'd been searching through the thin crack of the door for even as the countdown struck zero—to put an end to the clown permanently, but. Does that mean he should? Absolutely not, and I think it's straight-up awful that so many people in this fandom encourage this take.

And the kicker is, if Catherine was still alive, if Catherine was the sort to become a vigilante and this happened to the both of them, do you think Jason would have the same expectations for her? I bet not. Not because he's sexist, but because Bruce is Batman and we take Batman for granted.

Yeah, you heard me. We take him for granted. We expect too much out of him.

This has been a slow-coming realisation, but it comes after a particularly harrowing conversation with my sister during which she told me that I was taking her for granted and I surprised myself by agreeing with her. I won't go into the nitty gritty details but what I took away from the conversation was that just because someone can do something, and you yourself would do that something for them, that does not mean you should automatically expect them to do the same for you—especially if it goes against their character and what they stand for.

This goes the same for Bruce. Just because he's capable of murder and is justified in doing it, that does not mean that he should do it if he doesn't want to. And just because Jason would do it for him if the reverse happened, that still does not mean he should do it if he doesn't want to (which Bruce would have never asked for anyway because that's just not part of his character). No matter their similarities, Jason and Bruce are two completely different people and they can't be expected to do and choose the same things.

Batman, of course, chooses to take responsibility for many, many things, most of which are completely optional. He's a billionaire, he doesn't have to help his city by spending his nights saving people, facing the worst the city has to offer, and risk his life and sanity on the daily. He's the CEO of one of the most wealthy companies in the world, he doesn't have to uplift his city by donating to orphanages, hospitals, and charities, creating programmes to help the youth, the poor, the disabled, ex-convicts, and other minorities, as well as funnel any struggling person he encounters to his company so that they can be assured of a job. He was a single and free man, he didn't have to agree to care for several angry, reckless, and bitter kids with death in their hearts.

All of the shit he does is completely optional! Yet, the one thing he explicitly chooses not to do, the one thing he absolutely refuses to take responsibility for and takes great pains to avoid, is killing.

And I get it, this is murder we're talking about here. You can't just expect people to be just okay with doing that, even if that person is a demented dude in a bat costume.

Actually, why are we expecting so much out of such a person? Cause Batman can do anything? Cause Jason is his son and Gotham is his city? Cause if given half a chance, we wouldn't let Jason down? Cause if something happened to us, we hope that we mattered enough to someone for them to avenge us, no matter if doing so would completely destroy them? Tear them apart from the inside-out? No matter that we're already dead and they'd have to live the rest of their lives like that?

Just something to think about.

At any rate, I think it's wrong to look at someone and expect them to kill for you. If Gotham wants Joker gone, they're just gonna have to do it themselves cause expecting a volunteer to do this extra shit they never asked for and explicitly does not want to do is more than just appalling.

It's cruel.

[shepherds-of-haven]

I'm obsessed with this dark!Shepherds AU?? Could you tell us more about it? Or in a head-to-head fight, which Shepherds would win against their evil counterparts or vice versa?

Hi there, good question! I haven’t really given that much thought to the dark!Shepherds AU, but I imagine (if we’re making it very similar to the Justice League scenario) something happens to make the majority of the Shepherds snap, and they turn against the Autarchy and instate a form of governance based solely on power and domination. They think they’re doing what’s right by preventing conflict and protecting the world from demons, just like the Justice Lords felt when they took over the world. That being said...

Dark!Blade: Dark!Blade isn’t all that different from teenage/young adult Blade, who was perfectly comfortable with the idea of assassinating and killing people for his cause, and because he firmly believed it would lead to the greater good. Dark!Blade would be like that, but even colder and more ruthless than his past self. He would rid himself of all personal attachments, such as friends, family, and romance, believing that such feelings made him weak and hesitant, and made himself vulnerable to his enemies in the way that the Autarch was made vulnerable through her sons. 

In a toe-to-toe combat situation, it’s hard to say who would win. Both have razor-sharp killing instincts and battle tactics, but I’m probably going to give it to Dark!Blade, because he would be willing to fight dirty (taking loved ones hostage, threatening kids or bystanders) and Blade would sacrifice himself willingly for others while Dark!Blade wouldn’t. So I’ll give it to him 90% of the time!

Dark!Trouble: I really can’t imagine a dark version of Trouble, not in the whole “bad Justice League” sense. I suppose he already walks a fine line between light and dark as it is; his relentless good, altruism, courage, and compassion make him a hero, but there’s that edge of temper, rage, and darkness (especially in his past--he was a criminal and killer-for-hire too, after all) that colors it as well. Like, now it’s fine for him to beat the everloving shit out of an asshole like Lazu Reen, but that could tip over to someone who’s not so black-and-white bad, too--he could turn that hatred towards an enemy who is more nuanced, like a politician who ultimately serves the people and does good, but who happened to make Trouble an enemy by personally slighting or hurting a friend, something like that. Trouble’s sense of loyalty tends to override his desire for justice in some ways, and I could see him supporting someone like Blade or MC to the end if they framed their endeavors in a way that could still be read as “good”. Like, yeah I had to kill this group of people, but it was for the greater good! And he’d be like “alright, I trust you!” He’s got your back even when the whole world turns against you, until there comes a point when he just can’t stand it anymore--but by then, he probably already did a lot of bad out of love of his friends.

If it were a death match between Dark!Trouble and our Trouble, I’m betting our Trouble would win, purely because Dark!Trouble’s desire to live would be just slightly lessened by the weight of all the deeds he committed. I don’t think he’s truly cut out to be bad, so our Trouble would probably win... 

Truthfully, though, if we’re following the Justice League formula, I could see Trouble being the one dying to trigger the domino effect that leads to the Shepherds turning bad. Like the Flash (I’m pretty sure it was Wally West in JL), in a way, he’s one of the hearts of the Order that bridges them to the civilian population and vice-versa. If he were killed, I could see them falling into the path of darkness (with a lot of other factors involved, too).

Dark!Shery: we already know that Dark!Shery and Shery are one in the same, lol. I don’t think Dark!Shery would be so much like the bad Justice League; I think what would be dark about her would be her indifference, her total passive indifference to their quest for domination “for the greater good” and their thirst for revenge. Dark!Shery is more just personally angry, aggressive, loud, forceful, and selfish, but I don’t see any world where she sets out for power or world domination. If anything, I see Dark!Shery (in that AU) being petty and mean, ripping lollipops out of kids’ hands because she feels like it and not batting an eye at seeing a beggar collapse in the street. 

That’s not to say drunk Dark!Shery is like that, I’m just taking her badness to an extreme in an AU where all of the Shepherds are bad!

In a fight, Dark!Shery would absolutely win, lol. She doesn’t have any better combat abilities than our Shery, but her sheer rage would be terrifying and would lend her crazy strength, lol.

Dark!Tallys: Tallys, too, already walks the edge of the path to darkness a little bit, I think. Obviously she’s chosen the good side, but in a different world where a demon promised her revenge for her fallen family and an opportunity to burn the Autarchy down, I think the younger her would have taken it. In a dark!AU where Trouble was killed or something, I think she would be like, “okay, fuck it” and give in to that doubtful, vengeful side of herself and just go apeshit on the world. She would be one of the people spearheading the plan to take over the world. She’d give lip service and say she was doing it for the greater good, but another part of her would revel in the blood and chaos. It wouldn’t heal the wound in her heart, though, and would only make her even more twisted and angry. 

In a head-to-head first, I’m going to give it to our Tallys 60% of the time. Part of the thing that makes Tallys so effective in battle is her ability to sever herself from her emotions and maintain a cool head; she can detach herself from personal feelings and analyze combat with cold clarity. I feel like dark!Tallys would be easy to taunt into a rage, or she would let her hatred and thirst for blood cloud her mind, so I feel like our Tallys would have the advantage most of the time!

Dark!Riel: I say this in complete seriousness: in a world where Riel decided to turn evil or fall to the dark side, everybody is already fucked. He would absolutely be the most effective and terrifying villain out of the entire cast. He will rip, slash, and burn entire countries with the easy ruthlessness of an accountant making budget cuts. He knows a dozen ways to starve, lay siege to, and lead public campaigns against the enemy. He would be the scariest Autarch the world has ever seen. If you think he’s mean to his enemies like Ebert now, wait until he has no moral code holding him back...

It’s difficult to imagine a battle between Dark!Riel and our Riel, but I’m going to guess the utter dispassionate cruelty and lack of compassion in Dark!Riel would win 90% of the time. Our Riel has a little less edge than Dark!Riel, so for that reason, I think he would lose. And so would the world...

Dark!Chase: I feel like Dark!Chase is very similar to our Chase, just colder, more ruthless, and bloodthirstier. He’d take genuine pleasure in torturing and killing his enemies, and I think he would cut out the flirtatious aspect of his personality in favor of a crueler and more sadistic sense of humor. He would also probably be batshit insane, like, somewhere on the Joker’s level but not obnoxious; in fact, quieter and calmer and deadlier, like you could never really know what he was thinking. People would be afraid to look into his eyes. I think it would take a lot more to push him to that point than the others, though; but once he tipped over that cliff into darkness, there’d be no going back or remorse for him. He’d love to kill his enemies with a kiss and a smile.

In a fight between our Chase and Dark!Chase, I feel like it would be 50/50. Dark!Chase would be more reckless, unpredictable, and have even less of a fear of death than our Chase does; our Chase would have the edge in terms of strategy. So yeah, I think it would be 50/50!

Dark!Red: I can’t even imagine what Dark!Red would be like, lol. I just can’t imagine him being truly evil or ruthless without feeling guilty about it. I guess I could only imagine it if, like, he messed around with some spell and it robbed him of the ability to feel love or empathy?? But even then, I feel like he doesn’t have any inclination to go around conquering the world or hurting people. He mostly just wants to chill and read his books. I feel like he’d be the only one out of the group (besides probably Trouble if he’s not already dead) to be like uhhh guys what’s going on here, this isn’t like us?? He’d probably defect and lead a small underground rebel force with Pan and Neon. OMG and he’d be the one to figure out worldwalking and travel to our Blest to get our Shepherds to fight his because they’d be the only ones to stand a chance at taking down the evil versions of themselves!!! OMG!!! IT ALL FITS WTF. 

Dark!Ayla: I could see Ayla Hulking out and becoming full of rage, but it���s difficult for me to imagine her doing something like supporting the death of innocents or using dirty-handed maneuvers to conquer the land. She’s also among the most independent of the Shepherds, so I feel like she’d be the most vocal of their opposition... it’s realllly hard for me to imagine her casually killing anybody except for scumbags who hurt other people, like murderers and kidnappers. In a war between different political factions or a bid to conquer the world, I just don’t think she has it in her--no matter how angry and aggrieved she was at whatever turned the rest of the others bad.

I think she would either be on the good side, such as supporting Red’s rebels, or vocal enough among the bad guys to have been killed as a dissenter; she might not be around by the time our Shepherds made it to the dark dimension. But if she was, I’m pretty sure our Ayla would win against her 80% of the time. Our Ayla still has the courage of her convictions and the scrappy desire to survive no matter what; dark!Ayla probably wouldn’t. 

Dark!Halek: Also hard for me to imagine Halek turning truly evil; I feel like, if something bad were to happen to turn the rest of the Order bad, Halek would give himself more to grief instead of rage and revenge. He most likely would remove himself from the situation rather than try to take over the world; they would probably have to go hunting for him in the wilderness, kind of like when Luke was a hermit on that blue milk island in Star Wars (spoilers I guess?). I guess dark!Halek would be sort of tired and indifferent Halek, not able to go up against his old allies; our Shepherds might regard him as a coward, but he wouldn’t be evil like the others. 

Our Halek would definitely beat that Halek in a fight, but they’d probably have no reason to fight in the first place!

Dark!Briony: did any of you ever watch the Flashpoint Paradox (another DC movie about the Justice League--well, the Flash--finding out about a really evil parallel universe)? There’s a scene in it where Dark!Wonder Woman--Queen of the Amazonians and waging a war against Aquaman and the Atlanteans--like, beheads Aquaman’s wife Queen Mera and holds her head up to Aquaman like “fuck you”. I won’t link the gif because all of the violence in that movie is pretty gruesome, but that’s how I feel Dark!Briony would initially be. Super strong, running through the enemy army like a knife through paper, annihilating whole forces and landscapes with just her fists, and not giving a shit just how many people she’s killing. I feel like there’s already a tenuous grasp on her emotions in our Briony; beneath the happy-go-lucky, sweet exterior, she feels so much and loves so much that there’s also the ability for her to snap. It wouldn’t take that much (a few more Nathes) to unhinge her and decide to hurt the world as much as it has hurt her. I think she would sort of black out into an all-consuming, heartbroken suicide run where she just decided to do everything in her power to create as much destruction as possible, to somehow soothe the destruction in her heart. 

When that wouldn’t work, I think she would come back to her senses a little and start to slowly realize how fucked up and evil the things she’s doing (and the people around her) have become. It would be slower than someone like Ayla or Red, but gradually I think she would start to nurse a secret doubt in her heart, and if someone like Red was still around, he’d be able to convince her to start working for the good guys in secret, as their mole within the dark!Shepherds. However, I feel like cleverer minds like Blade, Lavinet, Chase and Riel would find her out, and she’d probably be executed for her treason.

In a fight against Dark!Briony and our Briony, I feel like it would depend on what stage of her development she’s at. If it’s still full rage mode, Dark!Briony probably wins like 80-90% of the time!

Dark!Lavinet: I could see Lavinet turning evil, but it’s sort of hard to imagine because she takes her duty to serve the people so seriously--it’s difficult to imagine what would need to happen to make her forget that, or to make her think she knows what’s best for them, even if that means doing bad things. It would already be so easy for her to do that in our world that she’s very conscious of it, so it would take a lot for her to fall into darkness. However, it’s still possible, and I could totally see her agreeing to be installed as a figurehead Autarch in order to maintain order and peace, slowly becoming more callous and ruthless over time. She would totally execute the old guard loyal to the previous Autarch and make their heads roll publicly to instill fear and respect for her reign. She does have that streak of ruthlessness in her; in our world, it’s reserved only for her enemies, but in that world, she’d slowly start to view everyone as her enemy--even past friends!

In a fight between Dark!Lavinet and our Lavinet, I would guess that our Lavinet would win 90% of the time. In that AU, I feel like Dark!Lavinet would let others do the fighting for her, and she would get used to ruling and being behind the front lines; in a way, she’d lose her fighting edge, something our Lavinet still has in spades. So in a direct combat situation, I think our Lavinet would win! In a game of wits and politics, I’m not sure--I would give that one 60-40 in favor of Dark!Lavinet!

[gainaxvel3o]

Clark x Bruce for the imaginary love lives please! If you do this, thanks and I’m excited to read it :)

He heard the alarm and went as fast as he could.

Superman moved at the speed of sound. Bruce made it a general rule to the League that they stay out of Gotham. If he used the JLA Communicator for this that meant things were bad. Clark tried not to think of the various worst case scenarios as he reached the Acme Warehouse.

Upon his ears picked up a cough, Clark flew faster.

Smashing the wall with his bare hands, Superman surveyed the situation. Bruce, still in the Batman costume, was coughing while lying on the bed, an infusion pump dumping a yellow liquid into him. The Joker was on another bed next to his, smiling his ever sickly evil grin while he was tended to by Harley. She panicked. “Big blue’s in town! Shit!” Harley cheered. “Mistah J we need to run! I was expectin’ the birds or the kajillion Batgirls but not this!” “Oh quiet Harley,” Joker responded. “We already threw the gag out there, we might as well go all the way with it! Come on, welcome to the party!”

Superman didn’t waste any time. “What did you do to him?!? “Now settle down Boy Scout you shouldn’t be so angry until I explain everything.” Joker smiled. “Which I will! See, I was taking a stroll around town, borrowing the usual materials I use to bring all the laughs to the dour city when I happened to come across something interesting.”

The Joker pointed at the pump.

“A unique chemical compound that slowly drain the life out of the people. I’m not one to kill my favorite people, but I thought it would be funny if I shared it with your old pal Batman and see if anyone wants to try saving him.” “You diseased maniac!” Superman shouted. “Where’s the cure?” “The cure? Well…” Joker laughed, the same infuriating laugh that made Superman’s skin crawl. “There’s only one way to cure him. Catch!” He tossed a syringe to Superman, who looked at him confused.

“See, in addition to be a clever comedian I’m a brilliant scientist! I pumped the stuff inside of me to check how it works. Turns out my unique chemistry turned the chemical into antibodies. Only drawback is that if you take my blood, I die.”

“Don’t…” Bruce, trying desperately to remain conscious, begged. “Don’t do what he says… it’s a trick…” “You can’t be too sure of that Batsy!” Joker grinned harder. “So what will it be Supes? You want to save him, you’re gonna need kill me! Not save him and he dies while I live. Your code or your friend! Ohohohohoho what a lovely decision!”

Harley glanced back and forth between Superman and her Mistah J. Being his disciple (and girlfriend even if he won’t admit it) she was familiar with this kind of trap. Batsy’s only in a severe degree of pain but not actually dying. She wasn’t sure if Superman could detect it given the X-Ray vision and the hearing and the other powers in his arsenal. Harley was actually curious. What would Superman do? “Tick tock Superman,” Joker said. “Made a choice yet?” A laugh. It didn’t come the Joker, like one would expect. No… it came from Superman. He held the syringe steady. “Okay. You win.” He said. “I’ll draw your blood.” Harley had to check her ears for that. One she made sure there wasn’t any left over ear wax from this morning, she allowed her jaw to fall. “What…” Joker was also pretty gobsmacked. “I mean- what?” “Yeah. Raise your arm.” Superman smiled. It wasn’t out of joy, more a sneer. “I don’t like the situation, but if it means saving Batman I’ll do it.” For a second, Batman struggled against the bed, trying to say something, break out, but his body was too weak. Whatever he said, Superman didn’t register it. He didn’t need to. He knew what he was doing. “Whoah let’s not get crazy here!” Joker took a step back. “No objections or anything? No third option no nothing?!? You’re just giving up?!” “Why not?” Superman said. "Someone���s going to die either way. Better the mass murdering lunatic from Gotham than it’s favorite son.”

And his husband, though Superman left it unsaid. He didn’t want this monster to know anything. “Wow, the great Superman just gives up!” Joker laughed. “I wish I had a camera so I could record it! I won, you lose and snooze and-“ “Yeah yeah yeah, you’re playing five dimensional chess against me and this is somehow going all according to your master plan even though when the dust settles you’ll be dead, I won’t go crazy murdering everyone for no reason and you won’t get your ultimate final battle with Batman.” Harley had never seen the Joker’s eyes twitch so violently. His hands were shaking in bitter spiteful rage.

“Come on Joker,” Superman said. “You wouldn’t want to leave this Earth without pulling a great gag. This? Just pathetic really.” “Oh you want funny! I’ll give you fucking funny!”

The Joker punched Superman in the chest. He clutched his hand in pain, now realizing he had broken it.

“Okay thanks for that.” Superman grabbed Joker’s hand, readying the syringe. “Be ready!” “No… no wait I was kidding!” Joker’s eyes widened and his voice broke. “The chemicals won’t actually kill Batman! It’s temporary! Please don’t kill me!” 

“Mistah J!” Harley cried out. “I thought we were supposed to go all the way with a gag!” “Nuh uh, not me! I quit! Not going to lose to the big blue boy who can’t wear his undies in the right direction.” Superman smirked. “All edge, no bite… you really are a bad comedian Joker.” _____________________________________________________________________________________

After locking up Joker and Harley in Arkham, Superman took Bruce to the Bat Cave.

Alfred tended to his master, wiping the blood drawn from disconnecting the pump. Bruce looked over to Clark.

“Thanks Clark.” Bruce said. “It was an impressive bluff you made there.”

“Learned it from the best,” Clark smiled, kissing Bruce’s cheek. “Didn’t think you’d call me to be honest.” “The children were out on a mission. You were the only one that could get here fast enough.” “Love you too Bruce.” “Brrrrr. Using that word. Don’t repeat it.” “What? I love you?”

“There you again.” Clark laughed. Alfred rolled his eyes. “Well you’re clearly content in your lover’s quarrel,” Alfred walked up the stairs, “See you both in the morning.” They were left alone. Bruce searched his husband’s face and body, while Clark stood there and smiled.

“About that what happened Clark…” “Hm?"

“If the Joker hadn’t been lying…” Bruce said. “Would you really have let him die?” Clark sighed. “Bruce…” “Really Clark?!?” “If it was between you and him, I would have.” Clark decided to stand his ground. “You know I despise killing anyone as much as you do.” “Then why contemplate it at all?!” Bruce was shouting now. “No one deserves to die!” “No one does. But Bruce, it was between him or you. If it turned out killing him would save you… I’d feel horrible for the rest of my life, I would be ashamed, I would take anything you say afterwards… but I’d do it. What kind of hero would I be if I let a single innocent life die just so I could feel better about having unstained hands?” Clark looked away. “I only hope when the time comes you’d do the same.” Neither said a word. Bruce was no doubt furious, whether himself or Clark it didn’t matter. Superman sighed.

“I’m going to head to bed. Care to join me?” Bruce got out of the table. “In an hour. There’s things I need to check on the Bat-Computer.” Clark nodded. He didn’t want to admit it, not now, but he knew a rift had formed between them just now. He just hoped it would resolve itself sooner rather than later.

Author’s Notes:

I had a surprisingly good time writing this. It’s a bit of a fix fic for Action Comics #719 where Joker similarly infects Lois with a poison and Superman IS ABOUT TO LET HER DIE instead of killing him. It was such a bad display of Superman’s no kill rule that I decided to call a do over. No I don't want Superman to be going around snapping necks constantly but there’s ways to portray the no kill code that don’t involve making your heroes look like self righteous assholes and that comic ain’t it!

As for Batman… well, I don’t have a lot of positive feelings about him these days but writing his interactions with Clark felt natural and the idea of them having a conflict over the no kill code was an interesting idea. I liked doing it. That’s all I’ll say. 

[mad-hunts]

one part of barton was tempted to bristle at the other's reaction to his question, but instead, he merely gazed down upon jervis with his eyes slightly widened and unblinking — showing that he was physically more engaged in the conversation than he was before. ❝ no. i don't want to blackmail you, jervis. i'm just curious as to what that was all about, ❞ for what arguably might've been one of the first times, if not the first time, in a conversation between them... barton seemed to be completely genuine. he could tell that the other had reached the end of his rope as jervis was standing up to him even more than before. the quiet, but still all the present venom laced in his tone, did go rather hand-in-hand with that idea as the other man seemed to get rid of all of the niceties he'd employed in it before to come off as tolerant after all.

jervis was right about a few things. he was callous, and he didn't care much for other people, but he was also wrong in assuming those things applied to him all of the time. barton cared about his family and those very few people he'd consider his ' true friends. ' or, he liked to think so, anyway. barton also held an undeniable fondness for children in general; not just his own children. but of course, it was the bare minimum to keep them out of your agenda whenever you were committing crimes, there were people like the joker in gotham who would massacre them. but jervis seemed to think he had him all figured out. i guess that couldn't be helped though, for if he was going to dislike him, then he was going to dislike him.

barton held a weird sort of respect for those who stood up to him, so rather than interrupt him and yell like he might've normally would, he waited until jervis was done speaking to tell him everything that he thought about what he just said. barton sat back down behind the counter and rested his head in his palm, scooting his seat forward to get even closer to jervis as he leaned towards him subtly. there was this distinctly blank look in his eyes now as he spoke to jervis, but it was combined with the narrowing of them as if barton was evaluating him where he sat. ❝ well, it's been made quite clear to me just now that we still are on totally different wavelengths, as you put it. haven't you ever heard that it's dangerous to make generalizations about other people? i mean, don't get me wrong, i know what i am. ❞

he stifled a wry chuckle as he picked at the food on his plate for a moment before raising an eyebrow at jervis, ❝ i don't think like other people do. and like i said the first time we met, i'm not saying this because i want you to feel sorry for me, because i hate it when people do that. but things were not going well for me the day you came to my workshop. and when thing's don't go well for me, i tend to get really angry. everything pisses me off and it's like i can't think properly, so whenever you said those things, it was easy for me to ' misinterpret ' them as you said i did. that doesn't make it right or anything but i can't take it back now. so, you're just going to have to find a way to move on from it, jervis — though i know i probably scared you shitless by the way you ran out of there. ❞

barton cleared his throat loudly then, ❝ so, if it makes you feel any better, it wasn't exactly personal. but just like i fail to understand why you'd be using poetry to ground yourself, you've also failed to understand that i only did what i had to do to escape back in that truck to avoid getting stuck with the most poor excuse for a doctor that they have in arkham. this one liked to torment me, and when i showed him that i wasn't going to tolerate that, he decided to stick me in a hole in the ground for weeks. and i'm sure you've had your own experience with terrible doctors there yourself, although this guy is in a league of his own. some people really do deserve to die, you know, and he's one of them. ❞

he sighed at the mere thought that he hadn't managed to kill doctor orion yet. before long, barton forced the man to the back of his mind once more however in order to at least semi-focus on what jervis was telling him. he didn't have to worry about that for long all things considered, for as soon as he said synesthete, it was like all of his attention was suddenly grappling onto jervis. then his explanation of it made him feel very hot all of a sudden. it had compelled him to think about how mercilessly he killed marty in that van. and the implications behind what that would mean with jervis feeling the tactile sensations of those around him through his own body. the hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he covered his face with both hands.

' oh, my god. what in the actual... ? ' that was the only thing that barton could think at first as he groaned into his hands and suddenly, felt nauseous all over again. ❝ ugh, okay. so whenever i was killing the guard, you could feel the sensations as if it were happening to you? i'm too sober for this, ❞ barton uncovered his face, only to take a long swig out of the bottle of vodka ravi had given him. he coughed as some of it felt like it'd gone down the wrong pipe.

❝ why the hell did you not say anything whenever i was strangling that jerk back in the van then? ❞

“Why would you care? Just so I can provide you with future blackmail material?” Jervis’ smile vanished, and he gave a small, wry, and completely humorless chuckle. As he had the same night he was in Barton’s workshop, he raised his gloved hands, turned them in the other man’s direction, only this time, the gesture was deliberate. An intentional parry, rather than a desperate attempt to stave off an imaginary or anticipated blow. His voice may have been soft, but the undercurrent of deadly calm woven into his words could not be mistaken.

“You may have already long surmised it by now, but everything about you repels me. And it’s not even the fact you’re a criminal. Your affect, your mannerisms, your callousness and blatant disregard for others. On the one hand — please, be quiet. Keep your mouth shut, I’m not finished — I understand you were obviously agitated that night. I may very well have added fuel to those flames with my own tongue, the observations I made. But your reaction, in some ways, was totally unwarranted in that you didn’t give me a chance to explain myself completely. We were on two totally different wavelengths... and yet, here we are once again.” His voice dropped a smidge, a whisper. “And if it hadn’t been for you, we may very well be forced to endure cavity searches in Arkham right about now.”

Barton had gone completely silent. Perhaps a bit stunned. Jervis was far past the point of caring, however. Color stole up his ears and neck, betraying the depths of the anger and frustration and self-loathing stewing inside him, despite his own physical composure and the evenness of his voice, as it returned to its previous register. “Using poetry the way I did or the questions I asked was not an attempt to antagonize you or to make undue assumptions about your past, nor to actively insult you when you had all the power in the space. It was all to try and ground myself.”

Inhale for seven seconds, hold for four, release for eight. Rinse and repeat.

‘How fine you look when dressed in rage. And you're lucky too: red eyes suit so few.’

The gloves were too tight. Jervis worked at the black leather, kneading and stretching it so it ceased sticking to his skin. He could feel the calluses and old contusions beneath tensing. To take the gloves off now would expose him to even further corruption. It was a wonder he wasn’t already seeping filth from his own pores, when he’d scoured himself in the shower to the point where his skin was crimson, that night after he fled from Barton’s rage.

Why was he doing this? He was playing right into that same trap he was actively trying to avoid. But maybe, some small, underfed, selfish part of Jervis wanted Barton to see, to understand, just what exactly drove him to this point. Barton thought him weak, squeamish, pathetic? Far from it.

Ohh, he didn’t expect him to fully appreciate the depths of Jervis’ own level of loneliness and self-hatred and despair, all those negative emotions he tried so hard to keep buried; to practice kindness and compassion in a world that was so, so very cold and indifferent, and preyed on the weak, who shunned those who were different, broken, struggling to hang onto reality and try to find some meaning, some purpose in life. Not when Barton seemed content in his own solitude… but Jervis couldn’t know that for certain, had no idea how the man truly felt. For all he knew, Barton was tuning him out, yet again.

I wasn’t dangerous, not before, my mind didn’t make me a bad person. I’ve tried so hard to toe the line, to do everything right. To be the father Alice deserved. But my mind kept torturing me, and everything’s rotten to the core, pollution and corruption and pain and all of your judgments seeping into my skin, and it’s made me sick.

Slow, measured, even breaths. Mellowed cadence, calm. Not once had he raised his voice.“But to answer your question - for what it’s worth, and God knows why I’m even entertaining the notion - I’m a synesthete. In my particular case, any tactile sensations that I witness on another person are reflected back on my own body. Every time you touch your hair, tap your nails on the counter… every physical blow… it echoes. And I can’t control it. It’s automatic, involuntary. Invasive. Unwanted, in a majority of cases. All I can do is try to ride it out, to desensitize, as best as I can. Focus on other things… withdraw.”

[bigskydreaming]

Ive been reading some debates on whether or not Dick has LoA training because of the Vengeance Academy stuff and was wondering what you thought about that. Do you think this counts?

Yes and no? I mean, lol, it depends on your purposes for exploring this train of thought.

Thing is, I personally think it would be a mistake to view “League of Assassin training” as some complete singular thing that you either have or you don’t have, like a specific training regimen or course work for lack of a better analogy, that you either make it to the end of and have in its entirety, or else it doesn’t matter.

And I also think that part of the reason for viewing it this way is fandom’s tendency to try and rank the Batkids, according to a lot of various arbitrary variables like skillsets they do or don’t have.....which, if you’ve followed me long enough, you know is something I heavily disagree with, the trying to rank them in skills or competency in general.....as I tend to be more interested in ways this found family that I do ultimately gravitate towards for their ability or potential to be actual FAMILY, can like.....work together and come together rather than so constantly be pitted against each other. Like yeah, I’ll rant to Kingdom Come about times they’ve been pitted against each other in terms of my feelings on those specific instances or how the dynamics played out in them, but that’s in terms of scenes or stories that already exist....for the most part my thing is not really looking to INCREASE the divide between the characters, but rather the opposite.

So like......my point here is I’ve mentioned the League of Assassin training Dick likely has from his time at Vengeance Academy myself, but not in the interest of like......adding to his ‘rankings’ within the Batfam or being like anything the others can do he can do better, as frankly, I don’t think the time Dick spent at VA puts the training he got there as directly comparable to the time Damian or Jason or Cass spent with the League or League trained tutors....but that’s not really my aim in exploring that line of thought. Rather, I look at what League training Dick might have as being more a possible source of insight into experiences his siblings have.

After all, the thing about the League of Assassins is they’re very good at what they do, but what they do isn’t inherently all that different from any of the other hand-to-hand combatants throughout the DC Earth. I mean, depending on what continuity you go with, in most of them Bruce himself trained with the League or various League affiliated teachers before he came back to Gotham to be Batman, and he just sorta took what worked for him and put aside all the more lethal applications of their training and knowledge. But his own training methods when teaching Dick and the other Robins and Batgirls no doubt included more than a little overlap with League skills and training, because not all of their knowledge and expertise is STRICTLY lethal....as Bruce himself has shown, and later on Jason and Cass and Damian....most of what they can do can just as easily be repurposed for non-lethal combat. So in a lot of ways, depending on your interpretation of things and what angle you’re going with, all the Batkids can be said to have some degree of League training.....the same training Bruce himself had.

So when I talk about Dick having League training from his time at VA, Ilike I said, I’m talking more about insight, things he could glean from having firsthand knowledge not just to various League techniques or skills, but also League training methodologies and mindsets. Dick was only there a few weeks, at most maybe a couple months, and the thing is....you can pack a LOT into fairly short term experiences. That’s what boot camps are, essentially, and that’s how I viewed VA....a short term but extremely rigorous and intensive boot camp for prospective League recruits, as Shrike used it to put potential League candidates through their paces with little regard for their health or longterm prospects if they couldn’t make the cut. I called them prospective League recruits but its important that the kids weren’t recruited into VA itself first....they were literally kidnapped off the streets like Dick himself, and forced to prove themselves daily in their training and the missions Shrike set up to advance that. And all of that can be extremely motivating and act as a pressure cooker that packs a ton of training and skill acquisition into very short periods of time......BUT.....that’s not ever going to measure up to all of that being equally in place and acting as a pressure cooker when training Jason, Cass, Damian, etc over even LONGER periods of time, y’know?

BUT. Equally true is all of that is never going to measure up directly to the still extremely intensive and longterm training Dick himself received OUTSIDE of VA....just one on one with Bruce, training with the other Titans, hell, this is a guy who was an acrobat on the world stage before his parents died. Every day of his life he’s been training intensely. VA isn’t just a footnote compared to the lengthier League training some of Dick’s siblings underwent, its a footnote in the overall tapestry of Dick’s own training. And I have extreme reservations about the way League training is referred to as something various Batfam members have in addition to or on top of their other training as reasons for why they’re an even better fighter, etc....same as when Talon training comes up for Dick in AUs....when like......Bruce, Dick and the Batfam overall have never NOT ultimately defeated the League and the Court of Owls every time they come up against them.....so why does assassin training so often get regarded as this ‘leg up’ over the Batfam’s primarily non-lethal approach to combat, as though its a superior skillset? If its inherently superior, why do the assassins keep losing to the Batfam, I’m just saying. So on that front, the idea that “was trained by assassins” is innately translatable to higher elevations in the eternal quest to rank the Batkids, like.....just does not work for me and that specifically tends to be where people lose me here, not whether or not Dick has this training at all in the first place.

Another way to look at things here is like....let’s take one specific skillset: Dick’s use of escrima sticks in his fighting. Now, this DIRECTLY hails back to his time at Vengeance Academy. It was a literal plot point, that VA is where Dick first trained with escrima sticks and discovered an affinity for them. Once he was back with Bruce though, he didn’t do much further with this while Robin, but upon becoming Nightwing, he picked them up again and RENEWED his training with escrima sticks, becoming extremely proficient with them and making them his signature weapon. 

Now, is Dick’s status as one of the best fighters with this particular weapon because of his several weeks boot camp when he was ten? Again - it just depends on what you mean by that specifically. If you’re asking did he gain the proficiency he’s known for with that weapon AS a ten year old during that short span of weeks - hell no. His proficiency comes from the intensive, regular training he does with them here and now, as an adult, over a course of years, still constantly growing and improving day by day. BUT at the same time, you can ask the same question and examine it through the lens of “would he have ever discovered and explored and FURTHERED his affinity with this particular weapon if not for his time training at VA”.....the answer could still very well be no. Thus his training there matters, its just its not the only thing that matters, and the context and qualifiers that go not just with this question but the reasons for asking that question and the purposes you intend for the answer.....all of that matters too.

So to circle back.......do I consider Dick’s time at Vengeance Academy to be him having League of Assassin training?

Yes, but I must specify that my reasoning for that, and for exploring that line of thought, have absolutely nothing to do with my view of Dick’s overall status as a fighter, and everything to do with my view of him as a brother.

I think Vengeance Academy was tough and brutal, and did a lot to increase and hone Dick’s skills in various areas over an extremely short period of time. I think that it absolutely left an impression that shaped his training and fighting in later years whether in terms of preferred weapon choices or even choices he makes in the heat of the moment, like Last Laugh (which I think absolutely built upon Dick’s feelings about having once stood over a similarly unrepentant and mocking Two-Face years earlier, gun in hand, poised to make a choice.....as well as Dick’s awareness of how many times Two-Face, like the Joker, has busted out of jail and hurt and killed more people since that time).

But I also think that Dick would still be one of the foremost fighters in the DCU even without his time at VA, and that his short time there is not anywhere close to being the reason he’s at the heights of skill and aptitude that he’s reached over the course of years and years of rigorous, intensive training.

So while my answer remains yes, he has League training and it matters and counts, my reasons for bringing that up will never be because I think it adds to his status or reputation as a fighter, or is necessary for him to be as highly regarded there as he is.....but more for what his time at VA, his firsthand experiences with their approaches to training, the methodologies and ideologies they train kids with, what all of that gives Dick in terms of insight to members of the League, and to those people League members have trained, like his siblings.

One thing I’ve long wanted to see fandom explore more in the context of Jason’s views on killing is the fact that so much of that was shaped while he was in the pressure cooker of being freshly resurrected, traumatized, still an impressionable teenager, with feelings of obligation towards the League for the Pit’s rejuvenation of his mental faculties, taking him in and training him, and like......feeling isolated and abandoned by everyone else who’d previously known and loved him, thinking that he had no one who really cared about him, and that not only was he dependent on the League for his survival at that time, but like, he owed them and he was that much more open to being persuaded of their way of looking at things. 

And thing is, in terms of like, scale and shit, Dick’s experiences in Robin: Year One and his own mindset at the time and how vulnerable he was mentally and emotionally, they’re not the equivalent of what Jason was going through but like I’m always saying, when you stop looking at trauma in terms of arbitrary rankings and stop pitting what the various Batkids have been through against each other’s experiences and just like......look for potential common ground, this opens up SO MUCH potential bonding, insight and understanding between the brothers and positions Dick to be so much more capable of intuiting even a sense of what Jason went through at the time and why he was clinging so desperately to things he may or may not have actually believed in (at least so strongly) if circumstances had been different, etc....but you get what I mean, I think. There’s so much that can be done with this angle, that’s opened up entirely just by virtue of Dick having SOME shared experiences here.

Because while like I said, in terms of actual training, Bruce has a lot of the same skillsets and knowledge the League does, and his own history with them, its the MINDSET that’s so key here. The one thing that sets Bruce and his experiences when he was a young man with the League and League affiliates apart from Jason, Damian, Cass, etc.....is that Bruce went looking for training, and never was without resources or options. The League-trained Batkids though were either approached (or ‘approached’) by the League at key low points of extreme vulnerability in their formative years, when they HAD no other options (or felt they didn’t) or else were just outright raised by them like Damian or Cass, with no knowledge of anything else until they left or escaped. And that puts everything through an entirely different filter, because its that specific element of vulnerability, of having no one else to turn to or anything else to cling to or put your faith in, that renders you particularly vulnerable to being influenced or exploited by those who seem to hold all the cards there.....and its a shared insight that Dick can have into various of his siblings BECAUSE of his League of Assassins training, as short as that might have been, because of the specifics of why it was so intense and influential despite how short a time it was.

So. In conclusion: 

Does Dick have League training because of his time at VA? My answer is yes, but not if the follow up is anything in the vein of “and how does this factor into which of his siblings he can or can’t beat while sparring.” In that case my answer is yes but YAWN. If however the follow up is along the lines of “and can this open up tons of doors for potential conversations, bonding, trauma-unpacking or camaraderie with siblings due to their own histories with the League and its training methods and teachings and mindsets” then my answer is YES GOOD NOW LET’S HAVE SOME MORE OF THAT PLZ.

[enigmainvestigations]

Character list

This is going to be a brief breakdown of Ed’s relationships with the other characters in Gotham mostly from his Riddler days. This is from his perspective, theirs are mostly still open (besides the ones that I explain here). Also, these relations can change over time which many of them will. Please note- This list is for those who are curious, and for writers who might need some inspiration in the case a character comes up in their writing and they get stuck. You don’t have to reference this, these are just my current ideas on these character relations.   

Heroes: 

Batman- HATE. I’ve gone over this already in his bio, but I’ll use this to explain some things from Batman’s perspective. At first Batman saw Ed as someone unable to control their compulsive behavior, and thought Eddie just needed some intervention. However, as the years went by and he began to be the focus of Ed’s schemes he started to see him as a cunning, intelligent, and very dangerous criminal. Especially when it became clear to him that Ed had no regard for others, and Ed’s plans regularly put other’s lives and well being at risk. He knows that Ed’s intelligence and his ability to process and retain knowledge is extremely high, and he worries that Ed’s intellect might surpass his at some point. Ed’s motives were always rather simplistic even if his methods weren’t, but Batman saw his potential and believed if Ed truly applied himself he could become much too dangerous. Because of this he handled Eddie very specifically. He would normally take on the Riddler on his own in hopes of controlling their interactions, and keep himself as the main focus of Ed’s ire. Nightwing- Greatly dislikes. From his time as Robin being a bratty teen with a smart mouth, Ed sees him as an annoyance despite only having brief encounters with him through the years. Oracle- Ed has no idea Oracle is the previous Batgirl, but he REALLY dislikes her. Since Batman doesn’t really control Batgirl he’s had more interactions with her than the Robins. He’s been on the receiving end of too many of her beastmode attacks to have anything but negative feelings toward her. Jason Todd- **I haven’t decided if this is post, pre, or if the Red Hood arc is going to play out like the canon* Robin (Tim)- Ed doesn’t like any of the Robins, but he does have a very slight respect for Tim. He’s had much more interactions with him than the previous two, and he knows that he’s smart and capable. He certainly keeps his guard up around him, and chooses his words wisely so not to divulge too information. Batgirl (Steph)- Dislikes, but doesn’t take her too seriously. 

Batgirl (Cass)- Dislikes. Only in his brief interactions with her, he really doesn’t like her. The reasons should be obvious.

Alfred Pennyworth- None

Jim Gordon- This one is a bit complicated. When Ed worked for the GCPD he had very few interactions with Jim, but the two were cordial. When Ed became The Riddler Jim felt betrayed since he used a lot of information he’d complied while working at the department. Over the years though Jim began to see Ed as someone who couldn’t control himself and was suffering with mental issues. He took the stance of treating Ed the way he treated him, but tries not to get him too riled up. He figured out that if he treated Ed with respect then Ed tended to behave and not get too excitable. On the other hand, Eddie actually likes interacting with Jim. He finds him quite entertaining, and likes watching Jim try to hold his tongue in his presence. 

Renee Montoya- Complicated as well. When Ed worked for the GCPD Renee found him to be very odd, and he gave her the creeps though she couldn’t quite put her finger on why. When Ed became The Riddler she also felt betrayed, but she was much more confrontational with her anger toward him than Jim. Through time she also began to see Eddie the same way as Gordon, but she finds it hard to control her distaste toward him. The fact that he can escape handcuffs, and any cell they put him in makes her very nervous around him whenever he’s in custody. Eddie tends to find her outbursts rather funny, and usually would try to get on her nerves whenever he was bored when around her. Renee was rarely the main focus of his attention, but when she was he would be quite rude to her in hopes of getting her riled up. Harvey Bullock- Also complicated. Same situation as the other two, but Harvey actually liked Ed a bit when he worked at the department. He found his snide comments to be very humorous, as long as they were directed toward someone else. He also felt betrayed, but Harvey personally suffered more from Ed’s betrayal. Since then he has a deep disdain toward Ed, and feels zero sympathy or understanding for him. He’s very open about his anger with Eddie, and would often berate him whenever he was in custody. Eddie however loves interacting with Bullock. He finds Harvey’s anger very entertaining, and typically focuses on baiting him into an outburst. He’s used these situations multiple times as a distraction to escape custody.

Villains:

Bane- They haven’t had much interaction, but anyone who breaks the Bat Ed is going to like at least a little bit. Black Mask- Good. Ignoring Roman’s trigger happy temper, Ed tends to find him easy to work with since Roman’s motives are relatively simple. Clayface- Good. He’s hired Basil on a few occasions and found him pretty easy to work with. Catwoman- Dislikes, despite the two not having any real confrontations. The two are respectful to each other, but Selina thinks outside the box too much for Ed’s liking. She’s also better at certain skills than he is, which really messes with his ego since he doesn’t trust her. Long and short of it is- Selina makes Ed feel inadequate so he avoids her, but he’s not stupid so he doesn’t piss her off. Harley Quinn- As The Riddler Ed found Harley to be an annoyance, and couldn’t understand why Joker wouldn’t just kill her. He viewed her as unintelligent, and a waste of time. He generally treated her like he would a child, which sometimes worked and other times Harley found patronizing. *By the time Ed quits his criminal career however, him and Harley have an odd relationship. They’ve survived some very close calls, and even though he still finds her annoying he seems to accept her presence around him even though he tends to ignore most of what she says. Their chumminess is odd, and quite suspicious to everyone else in the city.  Hush-**I haven’t decided if this is post Hush, pre Hush, or if Hush plays out like the canon or not**

The Joker- Ed is one of the few people who can be around Joker repeatedly without getting killed. He made the mistake of teaming up with Joker once, and quickly learned his lesson never to do it again. After that he figured out how to deal with Joker, and kept him at arms length. He has The Joker mostly figured out, and doesn’t find interactions with him to be as unpredictable as others do. He also likes that whenever Joker comes to him needing something silly for one of his plans, he can charge him ridiculously high prices and Joker will pay without a second thought. His reputation of dealing with Joker is a bit of an ego boost for him, thinking he’s learned how to manipulate him. The reality is though, Joker doesn’t kill him simply because he finds Ed’s sensitive ego and his self destructive behavior hilarious. Killer Croc- Eddie thinks they’re alright, but they’re really not. 

Mad Hatter- They’re alright. Ed can’t be around Jervis for too long because his fantastical ramblings get on his nerves, but he tends to play along with Jervis’ delusions enough that Jervis thinks he understands. Because of this Ed finds him easy to influence. He has little interest in Jervis, but his mind control tech is something Ed’s always been trying to get his hands on. Unfortunately for him, currently Jervis is unwilling to fully share it.

Mr. Freeze- Its really 50/50 with these two. Even though Ed sees Victor as an easy way to make some money, or someone to have do some dirty work for him if need be, he also finds Victor’s anger to be exhausting to deal with. He knows Victor doesn’t like him and only really uses him for his own objectives, but Victor also makes their interactions quiet rocky. Ed will work with him if the opportunity arises, but he’ll keep their business brief. The Penguin- Good. The two of them have very similar skills at persuasion, manipulation, and deception. They practically do a constant dance of give and take with each other, to the point that now they both see the other as a valuable resource. Since they both dabble in similar assets the two have found its easier to work together than to be competition, which has really made them both more successful in the long run. From Ed’s perspective this is a battle of intelligence, but he has recognized that Os is aware of it and surprisingly isn’t put off by it like others are. He respects Os’s boundaries, and finds business with him to be smooth sailing. Os has a good level of respect for Ed. Not only because of his intelligence, and reliability, but also that Ed is smart enough to never fully trust Os. He’s used to being underestimated by people, and Ed’s unwillingness to divulge too much is a level of cunning he admires. *Os is not happy about Ed’s “career” change. He doesn’t believe Ed has turned over a new leaf, but his sudden switch makes him very uneasy. He has people watching Eddie very closely.  Poison Ivy- Not at all good. Ed made the mistake of underestimating Ivy early on, giving her the opportunity to see him as the manipulative jerk he really was. She hasn’t trusted him since, and he usually has to avoid her in order to not get crushed by her plants.  Ra’s al Ghul- None. **I currently really want to keep the Gotham criminals in the dark about the League** Scarecrow- Dislike. Considering that Crane is an actual intellectual and a genius, Ed does not like interacting with him. He isn’t outwardly hostile toward Crane, but he definitely avoids him whenever he can. Crane’s intelligence really messes with Ed’s ego. Mix that with Crane’s creepy nature, and his constant psychological analyzing, he usually makes Ed feel like an inferior child. He’s also a bit scared of him and that fear toxin. Two-Face- Also 50/50 with them (I didn’t do that on purpose). Having to interact with two people in one body with two separate motivations can be quite stressful for Ed, but at the same time he enjoys the game. Harvey isn’t as easy for him to manipulate as he can with others, and he’s had a few close calls with Harvey where he pushed things too far. This seems to have fueled his interest in the game more, rather than deter him.

[danwhobrowses]

Justice League Snyder Cut - Review

Fan Power has willed the Justice League back to life

The much-awaited Snyder Cut came out earlier this week and at last I have found time to watch it, so now it’s time to review it

Did it live to the hype or did it fall and flounder like Whedon’s?

Spoilers for the Snyder Cut underneath, find 4 hours to watch it and come back. You can watch via HBO Max, NowTV (who do a 7-day free trial) and Sky Cinema

I will also preface that these are my opinions, everyone has them and they are not all the same, these are my thoughts about the film

And I did like the movie, I think it was much better than the Whedon one but not as much a flawless masterpiece it could’ve been

What wasn’t Great Every movie has flaws, and longer movies tend to have more flaws. While these are gonna be things I didn’t think were great about the movie this does not mean they entirely ruin the film for me.

4 Hours is Probably Too Long The 4-Hour runtime was manageable in terms of pacing, however, there were several scenes that kinda felt like padding - which for a 4-hour movie isn’t really necessary. Scenes like the two where it’s just a character walking to a song wasn’t needed and felt more like it was there for the sake of it being in trailers, and while I am a heavy advocate of trailers not showing us scenes not in the movie. As much as it was nice to see Iris West, because it didn’t really do anything for the film it didn’t need to be in the film, Quality over Quantity. The Epilogue’s Knightmare and Martian Manhunter sequence for the most part felt like it was lumped on too, like we had 2 other Knightmare Sequences of Superman breaking bad, the third one didn’t really give us anything new except for Joker, Mera and Deathstroke being a part of the Knightmare Squad.

Some Still Sour Casting While not entirely Snyder’s fault you do get a bit of a pit having to see some actors reprising their role, Amber Heard as Mera particularly. Eisenberg’s Luthor also didn’t feel like it was much better (though these were old scenes, I am aware of that). Leto’s Joker also was a mixed bag, ups and downs.

Keeping Some Bad Scenes from Whedon, and Cutting the Few Good Whedon Scenes So while it was rumored that the film would be completely different from the Whedon JL film it was of course not the case. While many, many scenes were altered, some scenes that weren’t too great still made it to the Snyder Cut, small scenes with crappy dialogue for sure but you notice them. I think the one that annoyed me though was the omission of the good scene in the Whedon version and it’s when Bats gives Flash the ‘Save One Person’ pep talk, I thought that scene went a long way in imbuing Flash with the confidence to embrace his heroics more, I also liked when he sharpied the guy’s face before visiting his dad in prison, sold his more playful personality.

Flash needs to Pick a Lane As much as Flash was the comic relief character at times, it did feel like he would flit between Competent and Incompetent throughout the film. This is where the Whedon JL pep talk scene could’ve forgave this, because Flash will either be invaluable in a fight, or a detriment to himself and others, sometimes at the same time. Boy trips over a lot! And his Iris scene was kinda creepy...

...And So Does Diana’s Romance Angle Frankly, Diana doesn’t need a romantic subplot, it doesn’t really progress her character at all for the situation at hand. But across the film there seemed to be bits here and there that looked like the movie wanted to nudge potential romances with her and other League members, and that’s members plural. The main romance seems to be the Bruce/Diana bit, they have had a tiny flirt in BVS so the one scene makes sense, but then there was this weird energy with her and Cyborg and then also her and Aquaman. I can understand the sentiment that every dude there finds her attractive but it’s not exactly necessary to try and push any of the three to be more than platonic, and Diana isn’t quite the mother hen trope that Alfred is.

Some CGI and Dialogue doesn’t quite fit TV CGI of course gets a hit and miss, but Cyborg many times does suffer a bit of uncanny valley, as does Steppenwolf’s armor. The dialogue also suffers sometimes, some things that look good on paper don’t come across the same way because of the tone and inflection used in the speaker. A prime example is when Diana, for some reason, only seems to call Clark by his Kryptonian name, another being Silas’ recording to Victor. The ‘Mrs’ ‘Doctor’ is always a cringey cliché, the headmaster wasn’t undermining you by gender, if he called Silas Mr. Stone there wouldn’t be such offence, it’s just an eyeroll. Cyborg’s ‘Didn’t think you were real’ is also dumb in context, he is a cyborg made from a Mother Box who recently talked to an Amazon goddess and fought Parademons, he knows about Superman but the Dude dressed in a Bat Suit for 20 years can’t possibly be real.

“This Place, it’s Toxic” This is a small one, but Steppenwolf’s base of operations isn’t much better than Whedon’s. Though it’s not populated, it’s supposed to be toxic, something Steppenwolf makes not of when he arrives. But all that kinda goes out the window when the Justice League lot come in and raid it. At the least when Whedon’s had a family living in it we could see that the environment wasn’t too hostile for humans to breathe in let alone fight in.

Cyborg’s ‘heart’ doesn’t fully land Upon promoting the Snyder Cut, a lot of focus came down to Ray Fisher’s Cyborg. The promotion suggested that he would be the ‘heart’ of the story, and the league, but upon watching the story unfold it didn’t quite land. When I hear that someone’s the ‘heart’, it’s more than just that they are core to it, it means that they carry the emotional story as well, and Cyborg’s emotional story wasn’t really something to be moved by. He rightfully has resent for his father and his father tries to make up for it, mutually having care for each other but not being great at showing it. While Cyborg was a good character showing good development, I wouldn’t say he kept the promotion of him being the heart of the movie. Also his ‘helping’ breaks the financial system, I mean you could’ve helped a different way.

There’s not Six, there’s Seven! But J’onn sits this one out The reveal of Martian Manhunter was great, J’onn has been one of my favourite DC heroes since the animated Justice League Unlimited where Carl Lumbly gave us a uniquely compassionate, intuitive and someone ethereal kind of hero. But in Justice League his reveal as the army guy in Man of Steel left me lacking a little bit, why has J’onn sat out of this? If he’s been around since MoS he would’ve had some idea of all the stuff going on from BVS and JL, and it’s not like he’s simply not caring because his human form is a military person sworn to protect people. It just would’ve been nicer if J’onn’s contribution was more than just getting Lois out of the house you know? Like if he was saving other hostages from Parademons or gifting the League intel it would have been nice. Also, ditch the glowing eyes, I know he has red eyes but the glow makes it more menacing, at first I thought Martha had been Parademon’d or had the Omega imprint.

Apokalips Technology kinda sucks For a planet that has razed several tens of thousand of planets, mind controlling their lives into Parademons, being able to open Boom Tubes and capable of space flight, the technology the League face doesn’t seem that great. Consider Steppenwolf’s 'Stronghold’; it is easily undone by breaking the ‘tower’ which the Batplane crushed through like a Kit Kat bar - after penetrating a weak outer shell - after that the Parademons have cannons that can barely even harm the Flash and stormtrooper aim. It does really feel like the only valid technology Apokalips brings to Earth is on Steppenwolf’s person, but even that suffers. Clark freezes the axe and shatters it with his breath, his armor is eye lasered off - more on those later - even though Bruce’s gauntlets were able to stave off the lasers for a bit. Consider that: Alfred built gauntlets that fared just as well as Steppenwolf’s armor...it just feels off. And it wouldn’t be as bad if the technology was praised, but Steppenwolf made note of how primitive the technology was, then lost. Even with the Mother Boxes that brought Clark back to life and were said to be able to rearrange matter however it is willed, but Steppenwolf’s fortress couldn’t make it out of a sturdier material.

Amazons take the L The Amazons are a warrior race, with superhuman power, no fear and enhanced skills in combat - but they barely ever win. Granted, the Amazons had to lose to Steppenwolf, but they were for the most part wasted as they were with Whedon. This would’ve been much easier to stomach if the Amazons were showing contributing better to the Darkseid flashback, but you don’t really see any of them fight Darkseid like the Atlantean King, the Greek Gods and the Green Lantern. You could make a call for Artemis being the Amazon pile since her arrow warns Diana but it’s not exactly enough, I don’t think it helps that the Amazons are consistently bringing swords to a gun fight. They only lasted longer than the Atlanteans in protecting the Mother Box because they kept throwing it out of Steppenwolf’s reach, only earning credit for failure and stubbornness.

Also I have to add, the Female Chanting that becomes the Amazon and Wonder Woman’s theme was heavily overused to the point where I got sick of it, needed more of Diana’s actual theme.

Too Much Slowmo! Snyder has his style, but he needs to have some restraint. Some slow-motion scenes did hurt the pacing. Slow Motion needs to fit a purpose of showing something we’d want to see that at normal speed would be hard to track, Bryan Singer knew this, but Snyder uses Slowmo as much as JJ Abrams uses lens flares.

Look at these Cars, MERCEDES CARS! Product placement happens, it needs to, but Mercedes needed to be a little less blatant with it. The cars looked ugly as balls as well.

The Over-Deifying of Clark Kent *sigh* So this is gonna probably be a me issue more than anything. I understand the crux of the plot is that Superman kept the Mother Boxes from calling Steppenwolf before, but I have to make this clear: Superman is NOT a God.

I have to make this clear because Diana is a God, daughter of Zeus, and she frequently struggled against Steppenwolf alone. While the resurrected Clark going unchained against the League led to the cool scene of Flash noticing that Clark can track him, it still left the sour realisation that in this universe, Superman is above all the other 5 league members combined, as well as being almost as fast as the Flash...who can turn back time. And that always hurts, Diana and Aquaman have at certain times of the comics slapped around Superman and have more than been enough to be his physical equal - the same is for J’onn and Shazam btw, Supes is weak to magic. It annoys me because making Superman the alpha defeats what makes Superman the leader, he’s considered one of the best heroes not because he’s the strongest but because he is humble, kind and reasonable, regardless of his genetic strength from an extinct race of aliens what makes Clark Superman is the Kansas Boy Scout attitude and what made the Mother Boxes fear him should’ve been his ability to bring people together.

His flexing on Steppenwolf did not nearly give me the catharsis others might have had, Diana’s sword and gauntlets are godly relics but a Kryptonian eye laser can fare better against Steppenwolf’s armor, Kryptonians aren’t gods.

Also they don’t really explain how Clark can resume normal life, people think he’s dead.

What was Great Okay that did look like a lot of complaints...but remember, 4 hours! There was still a lot more enjoyable moments and improvements upon the Whedon version, which we can delve into now.

Improved Character and Motivation Of the characters in the Snyder Cut there is definitely a greater improvement in fleshing out the main League Members think and feel, where they come from becomes key to how they act. This also is true for Steppenwolf, while a fully disappointing villain in Whedon, Snyder kills the ‘mommy issues’ dialogue and paints a much more desperate, outcasted and slightly pitiful antagonist, even in his defeat it’s shown just how little Darkseid cared. The inclusion of Darkseid also adds to Steppenwolf, because we see the head of the table we know that if Steppenwolf is overwhelmed there is still Darkseid, who was so tough that it took 2 of the strongest gods to wound him. While his emotional story didn’t land so well, Cyborg getting the backstory and the mental turmoil really helped with his character and made his declaration of ‘I’m not broken’ earned and emotive, through Vulko - and Dafoe’s glorious mane - we get to explore Aquaman’s reluctance to meet expectations of him a bit further. Affleck’s Batman also gets good development, attempting to assemble the League out of honoring his promise to Clark and trying to bring himself out of the darkness and anger. Barry’s dad happily rejoicing that Barry has his ‘foot in the door’ was also a sweet moment.

In the Knightmare sequence we see improvement in Leto’s Joker, a lot more like the Joker we are fond of and his underhanded taunting of Batman. Remove the orange gloves though...

R for Red, Blood Red I read somewhere in criticism of the Snyder Cut that it did not earn its R Rating, and I think that was dumb. You got blood, violence and cursing, Steppenwolf freaking bisects a dude and the rating allows Diana to behead Steppenwolf at the end. There’s believable brutality that never comes off as overcompensating or gratuitous.

The Fakeout That caught us off-guard didn’t it? A great way to use Flash’s time travelling powers by having the Unity actually be achieved. Seeing the Unity atomize Superman as well as Arthur and Diana was also a good display of the dangerous power of the Mother Boxes. For a film where we already know what’s going to happen because we’ve seen it before, the fakeout of the League failing was a great shock value moment.

Good Exposition The story had a lot of background  and backstory to cover, so it had to make sure that the exposition they used wouldn’t be dumps of preachy dialogue. This was done really well thanks to the way the story showed Cyborg’s abilities, producing simulations that Vic would then walk through such as when he explained the Mother Boxes, the Murals in the tomb forewarning Darkseid’s first invasion - which later became the flashback story - and the Mother Box visions were able to tell valuable information without overwhelming the audience with it.

Knightmare Warnings Although the final Knightmare warning was kinda lumped on the wrong place, it continued to give us teases of a different scenario, the fear of what will happen when Darkseid comes to Earth. Seeing the deaths of Aquaman and Wonder Woman paired with what seems to be the incineration of Lois and then Clark breaking bad forewarned Cyborg in a similar manner to how Bruce was warned in BVS and the epilogue. The scenes also teased their importance to the Knightmare resistance, since Cyborg and Bruce look to be a part of a bigger role which can be key to preventing such a thing. 

The Knightmare scenario did also make me want to see more of this apocalyptic scenario, as well as all the dynamics had with Bruce, Joker, Cyborg, Deathstroke and Flash (but not Mera, unless they change her actress because Fuck Amber Heard) as they try to face off with evil Superman.

Some Nice Easter Eggs As well as the awesome Martian Manhunter reveal and the Age of Heroes Green Lantern, we got cameos from Zeus, King Atla, King Arthur, Ares, Artemis, Iris West, Deathstroke, Joker, Commissioner Gordon - who looks really similar to his BTAS design, the voices of Jor-El and Johnathon Kent, Darkseid and Granny Goodness, we also got Ryan Choi - the third Atom - as Silas’ assistant and a cool nod with the policeman Lois gives coffee to every day. That guy is Mark McClure, who played Jimmy Olsen in the Reeve Superman and Dax-Ur in Smallville. There’s of course the Black Suit, which looks amazing, the code for the Mother Box is the issue which Cyborg’s origin story is introduced, one of the cops Crispus Allen would later become the Spectre and we finally see Arkham Asylum. You can also see Kilowog dead at the foot of the Hall of Justice in Cyborg’s Knightmare vision. You can also still see the open pod on the Kryptonian’s ship, implying Supergirl.

Two Fathers / Using Zimmer’s Flight Perfectly Zimmer’s ‘Flight’ is perhaps one of my favourite themes in Superhero movies, definitely the best in the DCEU next to Diana’s theme, so to hear it be used at the very mention of Superman was great. To hear it more than once was even better, especially in the Black Suit scene. With Superman about to return to the fight, hearing encouragement from his birth father and his Earth father was a wonderful touch, getting to finally embrace himself in the way Jor-El hoped and with the blessing of Johnathon. While the Amazon chanting was overused the film definitely made good on the rest of its music hitting at the right time.

Stronger Visuals While the visuals of Whedon’s version were never god awful, there was a lot of great visual moments in the Snyder Cut, Flash’s super speed scenes of course being one of the main highlights. Snyder is one for showing artistic frames and it does shine a lot here, the Comic Spread scene when attacking the Stronghold, the lineup after the battle, the view of Apokolips, the mural and even the Anti-Life Equation looked amazing. I particularly liked the ‘Melted Iron Zoom Call’ Steppenwolf did to contact Desaad and Darkseid.

Legitimate and Varying Dynamics Between Characters If every hero got along the same way then you’re not really doing much with your characters. Snyder made sure that each character had a varying level of dynamic with them, for instance: Barry is the same personality by default but he’s intimidated by Bruce, crushes on Diana, scared of Arthur and tries to pal with Vic and that affects his approach, Arthur doesn’t treat Vic the same way he treats Barry or Diana and so on. The dynamic is also sold by stuff like Bruce’s desire to atone with Clark, or Diana and Arthur’s people having been at war with one another causing distrust. There’s also the relationship between Vic and his Father which tragically only starts on the path of making amends, Alfred’s micro-managing of Diana’s tea making, Barry’s less-enthusiastic demeanor when around his dad, Bruce’s ‘hate you but need you’ dynamic with Joker and Steppenwolf’s estrangement with the rest of the New Gods are properly expressed.

Setting Up a Bunch More If the DCEU decides against picking up from the plot points of the Snyder Cut it’d be a huge mistake. As well as uniting the Justice League we’ve set up a future villain in Darkseid and Deathstroke, future members in Atom and Martian Manhunter (not to mention Shazam and the potential for Green Lantern), a potential AU film of Knightmare, and future normal developments with characters such as the potential Lois pregnancy and Barry getting a forensics job. With the Mother Boxes still on Earth as well there is potential to use them in a similar way that Infinity Stones were used in the MCU, Atom gaining abilities from the alien technology for instance such as introducing Nth Metal and then Hawkman and Hawkgirl, or just making more and the introduction of the New Gods allows other characters such as Mister Miracle, this can easily be a stepping stone for a lot more DC content to varying degrees.

Conclusion This film was very good, not the best superhero film ever but definitely a labor of love that succeeded in its expectations and bettered its previous version in nearly every way. Despite seeing the Whedon version and it having a similar plot it still had moments that surprised and excited me and the characters all felt better, whether every cut will have the same acclaim will be up for debate but the fan-charged attempt to salvage DC’s Justice League is definitely a success.

[eggoreviews]

Top 10 Coolest Game Protagonists

There’s a lot of games out there, and with them, a lot of people you gotta play as. And I know the word ‘cool’ is kind of relative, but here’s the 10 I reckon get the T-shirts for the kickarse club. Oh, and one character per franchise. Hope u agree with my picks!

Spoilers ahead!

10. Ren Amamiya (Persona 5)

The general rule of life that I’ve learned is, no one is as cool as this guy is when they’re like 17. Joker, or Ren Amamiya as he’s known in the P5 anime, gets himself arrested and put on probation for basically nothing at the beginning of the game and spends the rest of it slowly building a lovable group of friends, dating someone way out of his league (or, you know, age range if you went with the teacher) and becoming the leader of an internationally recognised group of thieves who change the hearts of the wicked. Ren pretty much has his shit together from day 1, and I think we were all a bit jealous. Plus, look how cool he looks in that persona costume.

9. Asher Forrester (Game of Thrones)

This may seem like an extremely odd choice, but those who’ve played the Telltale Game of Thrones will know exactly what I’m talking about. In a game that revolves entirely around the disgraced Forrester family, Asher is arguably the most disgraced of the lot. Asher is exiled from his hometown of Ironrath after his dad catches him trying to have a cheeky affair with Gwyn Whitehill, the daughter of a rival house, and instead now spends his days wandering about Westeros being a mercenary with his equally awesome also mercenary friend Beskha at his side. During his stint in Game of Thrones, Asher kicks the arses of a group of bandits, negotiates with Daenerys and rides back to his besieged hometown with a bloodthirsty band of freed slaves in tow. He’s funny, he’s a bit reckless, but he definitely stands out as the coolest member of the Forrester family.

8. Kratos (God of War series)

Kratos is pretty much iconic at this point. He’s stoic, strong, has a much more in depth character since the reboot came out and then managed to run away with Game of the Year against the likes of Red Dead 2. Kratos, the bald angry axe guy turned quiet, collected father figure (but he still has an axe), Kratos doesn’t tend to be too subtle about how cool he is, but that’s because he doesn’t need to be.

7. Emily Kaldwin (Dishonored series)

I debated giving this spot to Corvo, but I think Emily just about beats him out mostly because of the huge development you see in her throughout the games. After witnessing her mother’s death and being kidnapped by aristocrats for their own personal gain in the first game, she’s rescued by Corvo (oh, and then she’s kidnapped again. And rescued again) and eventually becomes empress. Then she gets dethroned anyway, and immediately jumps into kicking the behinds of everyone involved with the coup in excellent fashion, with the aid of her flashy new Outsider powers. So yeah, Corvo is undeniably brilliant, but I thought Emily wielded that folding sword just a little better.

6. Leon Kennedy / Claire Redfield (Resident Evil 2)

And here they are, the first day cop and the college student who really aren’t having a good day, but still tackle the apocalypse head on with the aid of lots of guns and a motorbike. I couldn’t decide which of these guys to give the spot tom, so they get to share. Considering the sheer amount of zombies, horrible mutants and crazed scientists they have to sift through during their unwanted journey, I’d say it would be a little insulting to leave them out after everything they go through. Plus, I think it’s pretty much bi culture at this point to want both of them to step on you, so Leon and Claire were mandatory picks.

5. Lara Croft (Tomb Raider series)

The mother of all adventure game protagonists has come a long way since polygonal temples and triangular boobs, and nowhere is this more clear than in the reboot trilogy, which has given as a brilliantly gritty rendition of Lara Croft that makes her much more badass than she ever was beforehand. Now that her character has been much more fleshed out, the iconic status really feels like it has some important character depth to back it up, and no list like this would be the same without her.

4. Joel / Ellie (The Last of Us)

Oh, look I’ve broken the rules again! But I really couldn’t pick one or the other, so both of the trauma bonded duo that made us all cry back in 2013 get a spot on my list. They both went through pure, bleak hell and maintained most of themselves throughout it all. Joel, who lost his daughter within the first hour of the spore outbreak, has been living in Understandable Man Pain mode ever since, but then Ellie comes along, and the two basically becoming an unstoppable, bandit killing team. And nowhere does both of their pure cool factor come out better than during the stint of the game’s only proper antagonist, David, where both Joel and Ellie get some shining character moments that make you truly see how awesome they are for making it through. Looking forward to seeing them both again in the sequel!

3. Samus Aran (Metroid series)

More than anything, I feel just a bit sorry for Samus. I can’t imagine fighting the same purple dragon pirate who killed your parents for over 30 years is doing much good for her mental health at this point. But it’s fairly clear that she can handle it. Samus has been shooting the hell out of anything that opposes her since 1984, whether that be a huge brain in a tank or literally the Wii Fit Trainer, she’ll gun it down without a thought. And as one of the very first female protagonists in gaming, along with having a sick ass power suit, she has to be here.

2. Bayonetta (Bayonetta series)

She can summon demon limbs basically at will. She has guns on her feet. She can slow time and kick your arse, and then speed it up again and continue to kick your arse. She’s one of the last surviving umbra witches and still somehow pulls off librarian glasses with the witch motif. When Bayonetta graced our screens, I think Morrigan from Dragon Age knew when to relinquish her Best Witch crown.

Before I unveil my pick for objectively the coolest game protagonist since Pac Man, here’s a few that didn’t quite make the cut:

Cloud Strife (Final Fantasy VII)

Solid Snake (Metal Gear Solid series)

Booker DeWitt (Bioshock Infinite)

Aloy (Horizon Zero Dawn)

Link (The Legend of Zelda series)

Clementine (Telltale’s The Walking Dead series)

Sam (Until Dawn)

Commander Shepard (Mass Effect series)

Arthur Morgan (Red Dead Redemption II)

1. Geralt of Rivia (The Witcher series)

My number one pick is the only game character I’ve seen who pulls off the ‘gruff, stoic dude’ so extremely well that he doesn’t lose any of his complex, interesting character in the process. Geralt earns most of his kickarse points from being a no-nonsense monster hunter, who always keeps his head and know he has the upper hand in pretty much every encounter without flaunting it. But on top of that, he’s light, funny, sarcastic and has a great level of emotional depth. Oh, and he’s pretty much immortal. This guy defines cool.

So there’s my picks! Drop in at some point in the near future for a countdown of my personal top 10 LAMEST game protagonists, so we can see the flipside and take a look at the considerably less badass side of playable characters. See you then!

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Mojo Jojo

A superhero is only as impressive as their archenemy. Batman is great, but with the Joker fighting him he’s even more awesome; Superman without Lex Luthor just doesn’t feel right; and would Danny Phantom be quite as entertaining to watch if Vlad wasn’t always outmaneuvering him? The point is, no matter how good your superheroes are, they really do need an impressive archenemy to stand out. And the Powerpuff Girls have perhaps one of the coolest archenemies in all of western animation: Mojo Jojo.

Mojo Jojo is one of the more personal foes in the rogues gallery of the Powerpuffs, seeing as he indirectly had a hand in creating them and, as the movie showed, an incredibly direct role in getting them to the position they are in now as the saviors of the city of Townsville. And on top of that, he is just filled to the brim with insane schemes, colorful personality, and enjoyable and memorable moments that help make him a true villain for the ages.

Also, he’s a monkey. And everything’s better with monkeys!

...Okay, he’s technically a chimpanzee, but don’t tell that to Devo.

Actor: Mojo Jojo is voiced by Roger L. Jackson, a voice actor who aside from this iconic role has also played the voice of of Ghostface in every single Scream film to date. Interestingly, Jackson also voiced none other than Hol Horse in the Stardust Crusaders OVA from the early 90s, meaning that Mojo Jojo and Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure are closer than anyone could have guessed. Jackson, of course, does a fantastic job, delivering Mojo’s ridiculously redundant speech patterns, in which he tends to repeat what he says, reiterating his points over and over, with great gusto. He’s also able to, in-character, sing an amazing rendition of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” so there’s that too.

Motivation/Goals: Mojo Jojo has a very simple goal: he wants to take over the world. Now, simple goals in the wrong hands lead to boring villains; look at Malekith for proof of that. But the thing with Mojo is that he never has the same evil scheme twice (except for the one time he did have the same evil scheme twice, which ended about as well for him as you’d expect seeing as he failed the first time). He’s always at it again with some crazy new scheme, whether it be forming a bad guy group that spoofs the Beatles or turning everyone into dogs or just building some cray evil machine. And sometimes when he shows up, he’s not doing anything particularly bad; he’s just out shopping, or enjoying a day off. What he lacks in brilliant motivation he more than makes up for in variety.

Personality: Mojo Jojo is well known for his amusing speech patterns and his extreme levels of ham, but beyond the typical trappings of his Saturday morning cartoon villain exterior is something a little bit more. Mojo is perfectly friendly and affable when he wants to be, on occasion even helping out the girls (though it’s almost always with ulterior motives). It can also be inferred that much of Mojo’s hammy, villainous personality is little more than a mask to hide an incredible inferiority complex, which is definitely hinted at in episodes such as the one where an alien conqueror steals all of his ideas, and even a bit in the movie. Such a complex likely stems from his origin as the Professor’s lab monkey; Mojo definitely feels rejected, underappreciated, and in the shadow of the Powerpuff Girls. Of course, considering who he is, he’d never admit it.

Final Fate: Mojo is never defeated, but once he actually did achieve his goal of world domination… and he then proceeded to make the world into a utopia rid of disease, war, and global warming. It’s just a shame that he eventually got bored with his victory and went back to committing crimes; it’s likely he’s just going to be fighting the girls forever, or at least until he finds a better hobby.

Best Scene: In the episode “Forced Kin,” Mojo sees an alien conqueror use every single idea he wanted to use to conquer Townsville and so he, if you’ll pardon the pun, goes apeshit and beats the towering galactic conqueror into submission with nothing but his fists and a baguette. And so the day is saved… by Mojo Jojo!

Best Quote: “I do not talk like that! The way I communicate is much different. I do not reiterate, repeat, reinstate the same thing over and over again. I am clear, concise, to the point!” Sure Mojo, keep telling yourself that.

Final Thoughts & Score: Mojo Jojo is easily the best villain in one of the best non-comic book superhero rogues galleries ever conceived. I think a lot of the reason really does boil down to his ham-tastic personality and the fact he is a cackling chimpanzee mad scientist; over-the-top mad scientists always do well in animation it seems (just ask Jack Spicer and Dr. Doofenshmirtz). Add on top of that a speech pattern that was inspired by the The Super Dictionary (which you likely know as the book that showcased  Lex Luthor committing the crime of stealing forty cakes. That’s as many as four tens! And that’s terrible) and you have one of the most unique and charming supervillains out there despite him being a mashup of all sorts of classic villain tropes.

If you thought Mojo Jojo would be getting anything less than a perfect 10/10, you’d be wrong. Mojo may not be the deepest villain out there, but he serves his function as a fun and funny bad guy for a cool superhero cartoon. And even saying he’s not that deep is selling him a bit short; he actually has a pretty interesting background and the fact he continuously ties himself into the existence of the Powerpuff Girls in every aspect, from his time-traveling escapades inspiring the young Professor to take up science to literally causing the accident that created the girls, Mojo is a villain so utterly doomed to failure that on some level you can’t help but root for him, even though you know he can’t possibly succeed. It certainly helps that for all the times he’s shown to be ruthless and cunning, he’s also shown to be pleasant, charming, and even a loving father to the Rowdyruff Boys.

Mojo Jojo is really what any great superhero cartoon villain should aspire to be, especially ones not based on preexisting works. Mojo Jojo, an original supervillain creation, easily deserves to be held up alongside Joker, Green Goblin, and Lex Luthor. I’m not joking. When you’ve gotten your own theme song performed by Devo, you know you’re in the big leagues and worthy of respect.

[tvdversefanfiction]

Canary Carnage

Chapter Four: Brotherhood of The Vampire

Warnings: I don’t own any of the rights, content or characters belonging to any of the DC content I use within the story along with not owning any rights, content or characters within The Vampire Diaries, Originals or Legacies.

18 Rating: Moderate/Graphic displays of violence, sexual innuendos, sexually charged scenes, SMUT, strong language and potentially triggering scenes.

Pairings: M/M, F/F, M/F.

Laurel Lance hadn’t been having the best time since coming to this new world she and her brother called Earth Blood.

She had went from having a strained alliance with the Mikaelson family to almost being murdered by Rebekah and Kol which led to a surprising rescue from her clearly not entirely evil after all brother and now she had to deal with the fallout of her supposedly dead sister Sara Lance and her first love Oliver Queen showing up on Earth Blood very much alive.

It was fair to say Laurel was spiraling ever so slightly so when her brother Lucas Lance took the prerogative to cover up their sister’s recent murder and reform their alliance with the Mikaelson family she was pleased he had managed to lift some weight off her and despite never quite fully trusting her brother she was more than happy for him to leave New Orleans with Klaus for France to help the original hybrid get his older brother Elijah Mikaelson back.

Laurel’s plan was to sort things out with Sara and learn more about her life after her death and attempt to give Oliver time to explain himself but their betrayal still stung her hard and despite desperately wanting to reconnect with her sister she couldn’t help how she felt so instead of operation sisterhood she decided to hang out in Rousseau's in an attempt to escape her mind not realizing things were never quiet in New Orleans.

“So, considering we’re going out on a limb here by trusting your brother being innocent of my sister’s murder it really bothers a girl when her spies reveal there’s two more occupants staying in the hotel your brother seized.” Rebekah complained to the Black Canary after vamp speeding into the bar to find Laurel sat at the counter drinking from a bottle of beer. “This little partnership of ours is holding on by a thread as it is so I demand you tell me who exactly checked in.”

“If you must know one’s my sister the other’s my first love and yes their sharing a room.” Laurel replied as she took another drink. “Hence my need to be anywhere but there and my lack of caring to your attempts to threaten me.”

“I thought you told me they died on some boat when they were having some dirty weekend away together?” Rebekah questioned as she sat down next to Laurel.

“Nope turns out their very much alive and clearly still seeing each other after all this time.” Laurel admitted as she finished her beer. “I’m supposed to be the dutiful sister and try to forgive and forget but with one sibling being a backstabbing bitch and the other being a psychopath I’m getting real sick of being the oldest sibling.”

“My brother Niklaus used to dagger each one of us anytime we did something that didn’t amuse him,” Rebekah revealed as she ushered the bartender for a drink. “My siblings never stole any of my men, but my bastard brother did kill a bunch of them.”

“Suddenly I don’t feel too bad about my family.” Laurel joked with Rebekah as the bartender walked over to the Black Canary and the female original and passed Laurel another bottle of beer and Rebekah a glass of red wine.

“Don’t get me wrong your brother is a bloody bastard but he clearly has your back just like mine this sister of yours however seems like she should’ve stayed dumped at the bottom of the ocean.” Rebekah replied as she took a drink from her wine. “As for this man I don’t understand how he’s even still breathing I’d have killed him the second I saw him again if I were you but I guess that’s why being a good girl is never fun for anyone.”

Klaus Mikaelson never like partnerships in general least of all ones with people he believed responsible for his sister’s demise but he had to think about his brother Elijah knowing his alliance with the canaries only had to last just a little longer until his brother was back in the family fold and then he’d kill the Red Canary and everyone associated with him.

Klaus had compelled his way onto a private plane having compelled the pilot to fly him and his canary alliance to France on their search for Elijah and as Klaus was sat waiting for the Black Canary to show up he quickly found himself with an unpleasant surprise as the Red Canary walked onto the private plane and sat down opposite the original hybrid with an annoying smile on his face.

“I don’t think we’ve officially met I’m Lucas Lance your brother Kol knows me very well and I’ve met both of your sister’s condolences on the deceased sister by the way.” Lucas greeted him, clearly trying to torment the original.

“What the hell are you doing here and please talk quickly if you want me not to kill you right here and now.” Klaus snapped at the Red Canary.

“Firstly, that’s just rude considering my family’s doing your family such a big favour and secondly my sister Laurel is having a few days off to recover from my other sister Sara and Laurel’s ex’s return from the dead.” Lucas informed Klaus all too happily. “Now get a guy a glass of champagne already I tend to like a glass when flying to France.”

“The only thing I’ll ever get you is a coffin!” Klaus made himself clear.

“I like you!” Lucas replied with a flirtatious smile before standing up from his seat and beginning to search the private plane for some champagne leaving Klaus looking completely and utterly miserable at the idea of sharing a flight with him.

Lucas Lance had a thing for psychopathic men with a murder tendency it was why he found himself playing minion to Slade Wilson, it is why he aligned himself with The Joker and it was also why he became number one on Harley Quinn’s hit-list.

His recent dalliance with Kol Mikaelson had wet his appetite for more men who shared his tendency for mixing pleasure with pain but considering Kol hadn’t returned for round two he quickly began checking for other options and while on a private plane with Klaus Mikaelson he began to consider swapping brothers.

In the short time he had lived on this Earth he had heard a lot of rumors about Klaus like how he plotted to murder an orphan only to later use her as a human blood bag, how he daggered his siblings every time he disagreed with him, the villages he massacred to teach enemies, a girl who ran from him for five centuries and he hoped all rumors were true.

However Lucas was no fool and he knew the Mikaelson’s never bought his lie about who killed their sister and so he played his cards close to hand but that didn’t stop the Red Canary from having a little fun until murder was next on the agenda.

“Oh my god is this plane ride going to be completely and utterly silent because I’m seriously considering jumping out right now just to add some excitement into this journey.” Lucas complained to Klaus as he sat opposite the original hybrid on the private plane with a glass of champagne on hand as he watched Klaus roll his eyes at him. “I’ve heard a lot about you and so far, you’re truly disappointing me!”

“If you’ve heard anything about me then you should know what happens to the idiots like you who annoy me!” Klaus warned the Red Canary. “Of course, I rarely leave people alive to tell any stories.”

“See when you talk like that, I can see us being good friends and then you start moaning about that bloody family of yours and those chances just sliver away.” Lucas told the original hybrid as he took a drink from his champagne. “I do hate it when a monster is domesticated into a man.”

“Says the man who talks more about his sisters than himself!” Klaus snapped back as he sat forward to furiously face Lucas. “I get life got a little bit tough for you and this whole path is one long tantrum but you’re nothing more than a child throwing hissy fit after hissy fit whose too stupid to ever realize when you’re playing with beasts who could destroy you with one bite.”

“If you must know my life was never tough it was just boring until I did something about it.” Lucas replied as he finished his glass of champagne and moved forward from his seat to get even closer to the original. “I chose the path I chose to make something of myself sure some people tend to go more for corporate then killer but I am not most people and as for not talking about myself I can’t stop talking about myself you just seem to only listen to what you want to hear because you’d rather see me as an enemy than the man who could be your match.”

“Please,” Klaus scoffed. “You run around screaming heads of people while being chased by your sister when my sister even thought about betraying me, I had her daggered until she seen her wrongs. You are nowhere near a match for me little canary you’re out of your league!”

“Go ahead and underestimate me I’ve dealt with that my entire life but remember this every single member in your family who has squared up against me has been taken down. Laurel is only alive because I allow it because your family couldn’t take me just like you can’t take me!” Lucas reminded the original hybrid. “I’m a rare breed with powers you can’t even begin to understand and all you want me to do is scream for your siblings maybe your right about not being my match because Niklaus it is you who is beneath me.”

“I really can’t figure out if your completely and utterly insane or if you genuinely believe your own hype your sister only formed an alliance with my family because she knew you’d wind up dead otherwise because she clearly knows you better than you know yourself.” Klaus replied as the two continued to fight for dominance. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the only reason your even alive to this day is because your big sisters have been pampering and protecting their kid sibling their entire lives.”

“I would argue that it is me who protects them I could throw my dick out right here and start comparing it to you but I don’t have to prove I’m better than you in some toxic masculinity match to the death.” Lucas continued to argue while Klaus began to realize something he hadn’t considered until now. “I like this world it’s bloodier, brutal and far less plagued with morality and humanity so you can play the power card all you want because I’m staying put whether you get in my way or not.”

“When did you say the other canary show up in my city you know the one who slept with her sister’s man before and after faking her death just to get away from you both?” Klaus questioned the Red Canary while beginning to suspect the White Canary of murdering his older sister.

“I didn’t.” Lucas quickly bluffed, realizing Klaus’ suspicions were raised.

“You really didn’t murder my sister Freya.” Klaus said with a knowing smile on his face, concluding Sara Lance was Freya Mikaelson and Keelin Malraux’s killer. “But your sister sure as hell did.”

Sara Lance’s life was turned upside down the day the Gambit went down and her and Oliver Queen were presumed dead although in some ways those versions of them really did die birthing the White Canary and the Green Arrow in the process.

Sara and Oliver’s path to heroism didn’t start out that way as they washed up in a deserted island known as Lian Yu which proved to be anything but deserted as they were found by a top-secret organisation known as the league of assassins.

The two were trained as assassins by the group’s leader Ra’s al Ghul after the leader of the league of assassins was convinced by his daughters Nyssa and Talia took a liking to each of them Nyssa al Ghul falling for Sara Lance and Talia al Ghul becoming one of Oliver Queen’s many conquests.

However, neither Sara or Oliver quite took to the countless murders they committed due to being members of the league of assassins plotting together to flee the association knowing if they were ever caught they would be murdered by them but the want of freedom being too strong to not chance it.

Sara Lance and Oliver Queen knew returning to Star City as themselves would pose too many problems for those they cared for and alert the league to where they were but they wanted to see their loved ones once more leading to the births of the White Canary and the Green Arrow as they vowed to help the Black Canary protect their city only to return home to find no Black or Red Canary and no Laurel or Lucas leading them to Earth Blood.

Sara Lance wanted nothing more than to reconnect with her sister Laurel and fix their fractured relationship following her brief fling with Oliver as Oliver wanted nothing more than to seek forgiveness from his first love Laurel, reclaim her heart and make her understand that Sara and Oliver were nothing more than friends that his heart belonged to Laurel Lance and Laurel Lance only.

Their only problem was Laurel was keen to avoid them both at all costs even if it meant drinking with enemies who had once tried to kill her believing Rebekah Mikaelson to be better company than her sister or her first love.

“I’ve got to ask where the bloody hell this whole canary alter ego of yours came from? I understand the supposed need of masks in your world but why the hell choose to call yourself the Black Canary?”  Rebekah wondered as her and Laurel remained in Rousseau's, Rebekah on yet another glass of red wine while Laurel was working on finishing yet another bottle of beer.

“I discovered my power after my sister died but it was my father’s death that made me try and save my city. Before he lost himself to the booze and the grief over Sara, he believed my home Star City could be saved and therefore in his memory I decided to take on that task.” Laurel admitted to Rebekah, touching the original female vampire by her honest words. “I was always closer to my father than my mother in fact that’s why I called myself the Black Canary mainly because of the connections between the obvious voice specialties and because my father once bought me the most beautiful Canary for my birthday.”

“Wow it’s refreshing to hear of a father who actually gave a damn about his children instead of chasing them and trying to murder them for a thousand years.” Rebekah replied to Laurel, sharing some of her past with the Black Canary.

“Your father really hunted his own children?” Laurel rhetorically asked her drinking companion with a genuine look of disgust on her face. “I hope you murdered the bastard!”

“No,” Rebekah laughed as she finished her glass of wine and placed the empty glass on the bar counter. “Although my brother Niklaus had the privilege of killing him twice.”

“It’s always the brothers that get to have all the fun while us sisters are always busy cleaning up their messes!” Laurel moaned after finishing her bottle of beer.

Rebekah Mikaelson liked Laurel Lance not so much from the first moment considering that consisted of her head literally exploding but she had liked Laurel since their first deal was made.

She felt a bond with her over being the put upon sister looking after her devious siblings and she began to feel sorry for what her family had in store for her brother that was until she received a text from her brother Klaus which so simply said Sara killed Freya, time to repay the favour dear sister and then she realized friendships will never get in the way of revenge.

Lucas Lance loved his siblings more than he ever fully realized until the moment Klaus Mikaelson learned Lucas’ sister Sara was responsible for Freya Mikaelson’s death and after Klaus’ private plane landed in a field within a small town in France he knew that he was too far away to stop any carnage the other members of the Mikaelson family may inflict on his sisters meaning he had to do something he hated doing more than anything which was showing emotion and hoping a brother to brother talk would convince the original hybrid to protect his sister.

“Let me make myself clear I’m not going ahead with reuniting you with your brother until I get your word that you won’t harm a hair on any of my sister’s heads.” Lucas demanded as Klaus and him reach the bottom of the private plane’s stairs and began walking through the field located within a small town in France.

“Your bloody sister murdered mine and you really think you can make demands of me!” Klaus shouted furiously at the Red Canary. “You will do what you need to do here, or I’ll kill you right where you stand!”

“She believed she was protecting me she’s not a bad person Klaus, not like me! I may not have killed Freya but if I didn’t attack her that day then my clueless sister never would have harmed the witch or her wolf girlfriend.” Lucas pleaded with the original hybrid. “Please don’t take her from us when we’ve only just taken her back!”

“My sister Freya put nothing above family, and I’ll put nothing above getting revenge for her now you can either come with me now or die by me now!” Klaus warned Lucas, making it clear he wouldn’t back down.

“She took a sibling from you so take one from her.” Lucas suggested in a desperate bid to spare the White Canary. “I’ll come with you scream the hollow out of your brother and then I’ll stay by your side as you kill me without putting up a fight.”

“You’d really die for your sister?” Klaus asked the Red Canary, shocked by his rare act of selflessness. “What makes you think we won’t kill you all?”

“Because unless you give me your word right here right now then you’ll never get Elijah back and I’ll personally take everyone else from you!” Lucas threatened the original hybrid.

“I do tend to torture my enemies instead of just killing them straight away, but your sisters would seek revenge and I’d have no choice but to kill them both anyway.” Klaus responded to him.

“Laurel would do anything to protect her family no matter how unworthy we are you keep Sara alive and she’ll be forced to stay the hell away from you both knowing it’s the only way to keep her safe.” Lucas explained to Klaus. “Besides think of how much joy you’d get from finally silencing the loudest canary.”

“Sibling for sibling?” Klaus said while beginning to consider Lucas’ proposal. “I suppose I am a reasonable immortal…very well we have a deal you for your sister but only after we both deal with Elijah.”

“Thank you!” Lucas responded with a sincere smile, believing in that moment he had just saved his sister. “You’ve just proven to me you really are above me!”

Kol Mikaelson’s relationships with his siblings were often strained he often though they’d all kill each other in the end but instead he lost his youngest sibling Henrik to werewolves a thousand years ago, then Finn twice at the hands of others and now Freya was the latest sibling to meet her demise.

Kol never got revenge for Henrik or Finn and he would’ve regretted it if his father didn’t kill most of the werewolves on Henrik’s behalf and if Finn didn’t already kill him once before. However, Freya was different despite their strains he knew Freya didn’t deserve to meet her end and it instantly turned him against Lucas as he believed the Red Canary was the one to blame only to recently find out from a text from Rebekah that it was Lucas’ sister Sara Lance who killed Freya.

As he sat on the edge of his bed in his bedroom at the compound he considered how things may have escalated instead of fumbled with him and Lucas for a second thinking of the carnage the two of them could’ve found themselves causing knowing he was about to get revenge and kill Sara Lance.

For a moment he considered leaving Rebekah or Klaus to exact the revenge but he knew Elijah would be home soon and figured it would help his brother to know revenge had been taken for their fallen sister and realized he had to act now and he had to be wise knowing the White Canary wouldn’t be an easy kill and knowing he didn’t know what to expect from Oliver Queen.

He knew Rebekah was keeping Laurel busy with drinks at Rousseau's and Lucas was in France with Klaus so there was no better time than now to kill the canary responsible for Freya Mikaelson and Keelin Malraux’s death as the original family of vampires would once again restart their war against the Black Canary and Red Canary by killing their sister.

Kol walked into the reception area of the hotel Lucas Lance had claimed, the same hotel he and Lucas had their first meeting as he vamp sped upstairs to where him and Lucas had their second meeting as he searched room after room in search of Sara Lance or even Oliver Queen as he prepared to kill the White Canary the only problem being she was already dead which he discovered after finally finding their room.

“Well this is definitely new.” A shocked Kol mumbled to himself as he looked around the blood-soaked hotel room to find Sara Lance laid lifeless on the floor with several arrows launched into her chest, realizing Rebekah couldn’t possibly be the culprit or Hayley considering she had taken Hope back to school leaving him with only one question. “Who the bloody hell killed the White Canary?”

Elijah Mikaelson’s life had taken a drastic change from the life he had lived for a thousand years thanks to the compulsion of upgraded original Marcel Gerard and the magic of New Orleans witch Vincent Griffiths.

He had always put family above all else which had cost him countless pain over the centuries but he no longer remembered that family or his sense of obligation towards them as he lived a quiet and blissful life in a small town in France as a bartender and pianist within a local bar and apart from his blood lust it was a rather simple life but after a few years he had managed to get all that under control.

He had learned who he was from a series of whispers all across the world about the original family as he discovered he was different to other vampires and upon discovery he headed to a quaint small town where he was fooled into believing he’d never be found as he longed to live out all of eternity as normal as any immortal could the need from that more than likely coming from Marcel’s compulsion.

However his time of being free from all the chaos and carnage of his family was nearing an end as his brother Klaus Mikaelson walked into the quaint and quiet pub with Lucas Lance by his side to find Elijah sat by the piano playing a beautiful and simplistic song with no words just music.

“You have an exquisite touch when it comes to playing the piano however I prefer my songs with some vocals and a little more drama.” Lucas complimented Elijah after walking over to him and causing him to move so he could sit down in front of the piano before he began playing an acoustic version of Nick Jonas’ hit single Jealous before beginning to sing the song as well, surprising the entire bar especially Klaus and Elijah with his deep husky like beautiful voice proving he really was a songbird.

Everyone continued to watch and listen to the Red Canary’s performance as both Elijah and Klaus found themselves surprised by Lucas Lance especially Klaus who couldn’t help but smile at the all singing canary realizing in that moment, he really was full of surprises.

“You’re very talented!” Elijah compliment Lucas after the Red Canary finished his performance.

“You have no idea Elijah.” Lucas whispered in the noble original’s ear before releasing a deafening canary cry straight through his ears causing the Mikaelson’s brother to instantly explode in a gust of blood spreading all over the piano as the customers and staff within the pub screamed in horror and shock.

“Was that really necessary?” Klaus asked while guarding the doorway before breaking a female’s neck after she tried to run past him to escape the terror only for him to then through her lifeless body to the ground.

“I figured at least we’d have a few people to kill while we wait for his head to regrow.” Lucas replied as he dropped Elijah’s body to the bar floor and stood up from his seat to look Klaus face to face while covered in the blood of the original noble.

“Actually, I was talking more about the performance.” Klaus teased the Red Canary with his signature devilish smirk spread across his face before he vamp sped around the pub again and again, each time stopping at a different human to snap their neck even biting into a few for some blood until the entire bar floor was filled with lifeless corpses as only he and Lucas remained standing.

“I guess this is a part where you kill me to spare my sister,” Lucas mentioned as he walked towards the original hybrid with a sense of sadness on his face. “It’s a shame we didn’t meet under different circumstances because I truly believe we could’ve had a lot of fun.”

“Maybe a few decades ago for sure but now I’m firmly family first.” Klaus stated as he placed both hands on Lucas’ neck. “If it makes you feel any better you may just be one of the rare kills I actually regret.”

“Just get it over with already.” Lucas pleaded as Klaus tightened his grip on the Red Canary’s neck to the point he was now strangling his enemy before he pulled him in towards him so their bodies were clashing against each other as Klaus passionately kissed Lucas much to Lucas surprise before Klaus let go of the canary. “What was that?”

“I’m not going to kill you Lucas Lance and I promised I wouldn’t kill your sister however I never said anything about my siblings doing the deed.” Klaus revealed with a wicked smile on his face. “Consider us both now even!”

Laurel Lance had spent most of her night in Rousseau’s trading sibling horror stories with Rebekah Mikaelson while continuing to drink away into the late hours before leaving her to head back to the hotel having avoiding her sister long enough but after walking up to the hotel’s front doors she was suddenly stopped by Kol Mikaelson who sped his way to the front door with a look of dread on his face a look which Laurel instantly realized didn’t mean anything good.

“Laurel you may not believe me here but someone else bet us to it.” Kol tried to convince the Black Canary of his innocence before breaking the news of her sister’s second death but before he could her phone rang which Laurel was all to eager to answer in avoidance of whatever tragedy Kol was about to inform her about.

“Hello.” Laurel eagerly answered the phone.

“Laurel it’s Sara…” Lucas said through the phone in between his own canary cries which both Kol and Laurel overheard. “She’s not dead!

“I just found her body she is dead.” Kol informed Laurel reluctantly. “But our family is innocent I promise.”

“No, she’s not dead.” Lucas shouted through the phone. “I tricked her into taking vampire blood! Laurel the alliance is off protect Sara.”

Laurel quickly hung up on Lucas before releasing a canary cry of her own towards Kol forcing him to be sent flying across the streets by the force of her powerful sonic screamed which made the entire street shake before Laurel vamp sped into the hotel eager to find her little sister and ensure her safety.

[literaryspinster]

No Thanks. No Party Lights, A Titans Christmas fanfic

Click here for Part 1:  https://blackloislane.tumblr.com/post/180528931287/no-thanks-no-party-lights-a-titans-christmas

Part 2

Dick doesn’t tend to feel embarrassment. He’s never been wired that way. It’s part of the necessary confidence of being a costumed vigilante. But ever since coming back here it seems to be his primary emotion. To top it off, he found a way to make it worse on himself like the masochist he so often is. Standing in the hallway right now, with those three sets of eyes looking his way, he realizes that fucking his girlfriend within the first fifteen minutes of his long delayed visit was less than a wise decision, and also that he’d probably make the same one if he could go back.

Gar looks ready to explode with laughter, Rachel looks like she wants to disappear into the floor, Babs crosses her arms and taps her short fingernails against her bicep.

“Dick, a moment?” Babs says. She doesn’t wait for his response before she walks up to take him by the sleeve. “There’s Cocoa downstairs,” she announces behind her to the rest of them. Dick gives Kory a silent apology before Babs takes him further down the hallway and out of earshot.

“Wow,” Babs says.

“This doesn’t have to be a big deal,” He says, he can hear the defensive edge in his own voice. But he can’t explain himself any other way.

“I mean, it’s not a big deal, it’s just, you really wasted no time.”

What must she thinking right now? It can be any number of things. He hasn’t been normal since he stepped into the door, he’s barely been normal for 2 years, not to mention the 14 before that. Babs has always had her own way of navigating his sometimes elusive personality, she was usually the quickest of anyone to take it in stride, but it’s been too long, things have stacked up that need to be dealt with, and what more appropriate time to start was there?

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I know what I’m supposed to be here for.”

“You don’t have to apologize, not for that anyway.”

“I’m sorry for all of it, for disappearing.”

The corners of her lips turn up a bit, “I don’t blame you for disappearing, I get why you left this life behind, or at least I thought I did.”

“What does that mean?”

She looks down quickly at her feet, then again at him, and combs a tuft of red hair behind her ear. He was telling the truth when he said she wasn’t an ex, but there had been times over the years that they’d sort of danced around each other, before he left Gotham without a trace. Babs wasn’t the type to hold onto things like that, romance was always pretty low on her priorities list, still, it was naïve to think she’d be 100 percent cool with him now, especially after this.

“I thought you left because you wanted something more normal. And now you show up with two adopted teens with superpowers and a girlfriend from space, what exactly is normal about any of this?”

He looks at her frantically, grasping for her meaning. To know that Rachel and Gar had powers was one thing. It was a difference they carried that most people aware of the reality of powers could figure out. They may have told Babs themselves during the tour. But nobody knew where Kory came from but them and Donna, nobody was meant to know. The easiest way to keep her safe was to keep it to as few people as possible.

“What do you know about Kory?” he says.

She lets go of a breath, already a mini confession, and gives him an apologetic look. “Bruce did some digging after Jason told him about the people you had in his safe house.”

“What?” he says, the anger starting to flame again. Of course the crazy bastard would start a file on them. Batman hated not knowing as much as he could about everything and everyone. He’d even worked out a way to beat every member of the Justice League should any of them go rogue, and while Dick had always thought that was smart, it also highlighted just how little Bruce trusted anyone. Did he find a way to “beat” Kory too? Or Rachel and Gar?

“I’m sorry I have somewhere to be,” Dick says through clenched teeth before launching himself down the hall.

Getting to the Bat Cave was always sort of a convoluted process, involving lots of secret doors and special codes, and Dick wasn’t certain that the same method to it existed after two years, but he had to try. As mad as he was, he could have damn near clawed his way in. Luckily, the security measures had gone unchanged, all the way down to the old statue with the keypad beneath it. Or maybe luckily was the wrong word, maybe Bruce had some twisted reason for wanting him down there after all.

“Bruce!” He yells, creating a formidable echo in his old mentor’s base of operations. “I know you’re down here!”

Dick starts down the catwalk that hovers above the expanse of the cave, until he gets to the wall of screens on the other side. There Bruce sits, thankfully not in the Batsuit.

“Bruce?” Dick repeats before looking where the older man is looking. On all of the screens is the same picture, Jason, the kid who replaced him only to meet his far too early death at the hands of the Joker. The clown must have been the one to have taken the picture. In the shot, the boy’s mouth is gagged, he’s tied up, there are tears in his eyes and bruises on his face, and he’s looking at the camera like he’s pleading for help. 

Dick barely knew Jason, but he knew that he deserved better than the end of the Joker’s crowbar. And the sight of the kid’s bruised and helpless face multiplied over dozens of screens is enough to form a lump in his throat. Why does Bruce do this? Why does he drown himself in his own pain every chance he gets? Dick came down to confront him about Kory and the others, and he plans to when his anger returns, but for now, he only feels pity.

“Come upstairs Bruce,” Dick says, almost demands. “I came here to see you, the least you can do is come upstairs.”

Bruce turns his head to look at him. It’s the first time they’ve looked at each other in so long, and Dick feels like he has nothing to say and everything to say at once.

“I didn’t think you’d show,” Bruce says.

“I didn’t think I would either.”

Bruce stands up, and Dick hopes for a fleeting moment that he’ll turn the screens off, but he leaves them on as he goes to meet Dick.

“You’re taller than I remember,” Bruce says.

Dick nearly groans in frustration, but bites it back. “No I’m not. You don’t forget things Bruce.”

“Just making conversation.”

“Does that mean you’re coming?”

Bruce glances for a moment at the crisp Armani blazer draped over the back of his chair and goes to pick it up, a yes. Finally a yes.

Dinner is mostly quiet, but not the awkward sort of quiet Dick was expecting. It’s more the deep, thoughtful kind, as if they’re all just taking each other in again. But he notices the way Bruce looks at Kory, and it makes it hard to stay in the headspace of wanting to catch up. Rachel and Gar are at least partially human, but Kory is something else, and with that comes inherent suspicion. Dick wants to fight about it, to defend her, but he also wants Bruce to stay upstairs, in the moment with all of them. He wants him to heal.

After dinner, everyone gathers in the living room around the tree. Gar immediately goes to talk to Bruce, presumably to ask him about the Ferraris, and Rachel sits with Alfred and Babs, enjoying another hot chocolate with extra chili powder, her favorite.

He watches them all while Kory sits in his lap. He wants her there in spite of the commotion earlier, things are better when she’s close, and it’s not like there are any secrets between them all now.

“You’re so quiet,” she says. “You’re not hiding something are you? Because I thought we were past that.”

He smiles up at her before preparing to stand, trusting that she’ll follow. He takes her hand then to lead her out to the balcony. If he’d taken her anywhere within the house they’d automatically assume the worst, but also, out there is the best place to look at the snow coming down, pure white against the night sky.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he says when they get outside. “And there’s something I should probably tell you—

“Bruce knows I’m an alien,” she says, cutting him off.

“How did you know that?”

“Rachel got it off of Babs, you know, the half demon way.”

He pulls her closer, a reassurance. She’s so warm against him on the freezing cold balcony, he wants to sink all the way into her. “I’m going to talk to him.”

“Leave it,” she says. “You already told me all about your hyper paranoid adoptive father who’s also the world’s greatest detective. Do you think a part of me didn’t see this coming?”

“He invaded your privacy.”

“No, actually he invaded yours, I'm just a part of it. Besides, maybe it’s a good thing it’s all on the table, maybe this is a first step to getting to know each other again. That’s what you wanted right?”

“Yes but…”

“If you want to tell him off you know I’m in your corner. But if it were up to me I’d rather just have a nice Holiday now and deal with all of the family drama later. I have actual superpowers. I don’t need you to protect me from Batman.”

“I feel a little roasted by that statement.”

“You were meant to,” She giggles and goes to kiss him. His lips, nearly numb from the cold, start to melt under hers and he twists his fingers into her sweater, wanting desperately to take it off again but knowing that he can’t. Tonight, when it’s time for everyone to go to sleep, he’s going to do it again, slower this time, as slow as they can possibly stand. He wants to have her forever and he’ll start with all night long.

“What, still trying to get me out of my ridiculous sweater?” she says, pulling away. “Have you learned nothing?”

He laughs, a little louder and longer than usual, then he fixes his eyes on her as hard as he can, taking her in. He remembers the first time he ever saw her, how much brighter she seemed than anything else in his world. He knew from the beginning that he wanted to take her against the closest available surface, but he didn’t know the rest, that he’d end up needing her and wanting her at the same time, in a way that only got stronger the more time passed.  

“You look fucking adorable,” he says. He kisses her again, even harder this time, hard enough to hurt in that good way.  And he pulls away, not knowing what he’s going to say until he does.

“And I love you.”

As soon as the words come, he forgets why it was ever so hard in the first place. It feels like the most normal, natural thing in the world, and yet she lights up brighter than the crown on her candy colored hair. She takes his face in her hands and kisses his breath away.

“Thank you,” she says with a smile.

He deserves that.

They go back inside before Dick freezes to death, and for the first time since he arrived here, it feels the way Christmas is supposed to feel. Gar and Rachel come up to them, both brimming with something to say.

“Bruce says I can drive his Ferrari tomorrow morning if I keep it in the driveway and stay under 30 miles an hour, please don’t ruin this for me Dick, just say yes and I promise I’ll never ask for another thing.”

“We both know that isn’t true, but sure,” Dick says.

“Awesome!” Gar says, pumping his fist once.

“And Alfred gave me his cocoa recipe,” Rachel says. “We’re so stopping to buy some muscovado sugar and Aleppo pepper on the way home, just a head’s up, this could get expensive.”

“Not to worry, I’ll send you home with some of both,” Alfred says from his position in front of the tree.

“You’re the real hero Alfred, never forget it,” Rachel says with a casual wink.

They talk between themselves for a while longer, until Commisioner Gordon calls Babs up to tell her he’s done with the holiday shift and she takes her leave to spend the rest of Christmas Eve with her dad. Dick hugs her goodbye and promises not to be a stranger this time. 

Throughout the night Dick repeatedly looks at Bruce, at the sadness in the man’s eyes until at some point he can’t help going up to him. Kory doesn’t want to make this into a thing, and he won’t let it come to that, but something needs to be said, if only so Bruce can know exactly where they all stand.

“I know what you know, about Kory, that she came from somewhere else. And I know how you know it.”

“Dick it wasn’t personal, I’ve always gone after intel on those with significant abilities.”

“It’s personal to me Bruce. She forgives you, which means I forgive you, but if you want me to be a part of your life again, you can’t just do whatever you want when it comes to me and the people I love. I don’t belong to you anymore, not like that.”

The light from the fireplace flickers over Bruce’s handsome, weary face, and the older man sips his brandy before opening his mouth to speak again. “I can’t make any promises, but you’re here, and I want to do what I can to make us good again Dick, as good as we can be.”

“I want that too, and for that to happen you have to know how I feel about her,” Dick looks over the room at Kory, standing by the tree, looking as beautifully wrapped as the rest of the gifts. “She’s my family now too.”

“Well that can only be a positive. If I know one thing it’s the value of family, I respect it.”

“I know you do, after what happened with Jason…”

He doesn’t finish the sentence, he can tell by the look on Bruce’s face that there is nothing good or helpful to attach to the end of it. Jason is dead, and it will never be okay. Dick reaches out a hand to Bruce’s shoulder.

“Merry Christmas Bruce.”

“Merry Christmas Dick.”

 When the night is over, Rachel and Gar go to their guest rooms to sleep, Alfred heads to his quarters, and Bruce goes back to his cave like Dick feared he would. But it means something that he came up for a while, had a brandy, promised Gar some time behind the wheel, and spent Christmas with them the best he could. He’ll never be as good at being Bruce Wayne as he is at being Batman, it’s something Dick has always accepted. If Bruce forgives himself for Jason one day, it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that they’ll fight side by side again, just once or twice for old time sake.

Right now though, it’s time for Dick to keep the silent promise he made to himself, to undress Kory again the second they shut themselves into his room. And he takes his time now. He uses his mouth and his fingers in whatever places she needs to make those sounds that he loves, and he rejoices in her touching him back, she’s just so good at it, always knowing where to linger, for how hard and for how long.

She was right about his room, there was never any of him in it, but right now, with her on his bed, open and loving and willing as ever, it feels like he belongs here. She climbs onto his lap and takes him all the way in, and he wraps his arms tight around her as they start to move together. She always tells him how good he feels inside of her, but he knows he can make it even better. Without warning, he attaches his mouth to her nipple, making her shiver and cry out softly.

“Say it again,” she says, her voice bouncing along with the rest of her.

He removes his mouth from her breast, and stares up at her face, his beautiful Koriand’r, his Tamaranean princess, “I love you Kory,” he says, even easier than the first time.

“I love you, too,” and she kisses him deep, and they continue into the night as the snow drifts past the windows.

The next morning, or at least what Dick thinks is the next morning considering it’s still dark out, he wakes up to her straddling his lap and staring down at him. She’s still naked aside from her panties, her thigh high socks, and that blinking light crown in her hair. He checks the bedside clock, it’s five in the morning.

“Merry Christmas,” she says.

“Baby, it’s five AM.”

“I know, I wanted to wake you up sooner but you just looked so peaceful,” she combs his bangs out of his eyes with her fingers. “But Bruce is loaded and Alfred seems like he has impeccable taste in gifts, so needless to say I’m highkey excited about opening some of those big ass boxes down there.”

He chuckles and scratches his forehead before putting both hands on her hips.

“Come here,” he says.

And she bends at the waist to collide her full, soft lips against his, to let him run his hands up and down her smooth back and tangle his fingers in her long hair.

“We should get down there,” she says, sitting back up.

“I’m sure everyone’s still asleep.”

And with perfect timing, there’s a knock on the heavy door, and not a gentle one.

“Dick!” Rachel says from the hallway, her voice even louder than their too loud for 5 am knocking.

“Dick, wake up” Gar chimes in. “Get up, time for rich guy presents, and Kory I know you’re in there too, come on guys.”

“Well, that answers that question,” Dick says. “I guess now’s as good a time as any.”

They climb out of bed then, one more reluctantly than the other, and prepare to start their day. Maybe they can stay for a while after presents, Gar has to take his test drive after all, and whatever Alfred’s making for breakfast has to be worth it. Besides, the snow is perfect around Wayne Manor, and the best revenge on Kory, Rachel and Gar for waking him up at the ass crack of dawn is the most brutal snowball assault they’ve ever known. He can hardly wait.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays folks!

[musicprincess655]

“Nightwing, respond.”

“Nice to hear from you,” Ryou said, pressing his fingers to the comm. in his ear to respond to his mother. “I have some updates on the situation in Gotham, and there’s a few things for the company that you should really take a look at, and…”

“Ryou.”

That shut Ryou up fast. His mother never called them by their real names over comm. link, not even the hyper-secure link just for the family.

“I’ve called a meeting at Mount Justice,” his mother continued. “Bring your whole team. This will involve you too.”

“What happened?” Ryou asked. He was already running through scenarios in his head. A new villain plot? Something with terrorism, probably, something that would affect the whole country. It had to be something big enough to justify calling in both YJ and the Titans. They might decide on their own to work together, but they were rarely called together. The Titans weren’t League sanctioned, and using them too often could send the wrong message.

“I’m not repeating myself,” his mother told him. “Be there in an hour.”

That was ominous. But at the same time, Ryou felt like grinning. It had been a while since they’d had something big. Much as he didn’t miss being his mother’s sidekick for...many reasons, he’d been a little jealous when she’d taken off for Europe with Sanada. The al Ghuls were more fun than Gotham’s standard villain fare. At least they had style.

“Team, gather in the kitchen,” Ryou said into the comm. He heard various sound offs that he mostly ignored.

Tetsu and Sawamura were already there when Ryou walked in. Kuramochi zoomed by to sit on the counter.

“Late again,” Ryou teased, because he knew it would make Kuramochi pout at him. He was in such a good mood from the promise of a big mission that he gave Kuramochi a gentle, affectionate karate chop to the forehead.

“What’s the emergency?” Miyuki asked, hip checking Sawamura out of the way so he could steal one of the seats.

“Hang on, where’s...oh, Jun’s here.” Jun leaned back against the counter next to Tetsu and nodded at him. “Good. Everyone get in gear. We’re going to Mount Justice. Batman called a joint meeting.”

“We’re working with Young Justice? Officially?” Kuramochi asked.

“Is there something big coming?” Sawamura asked. “Oh, I bet it’s aliens this time! No offense, Tetsu-san!”

“Aliens would be a nice break from our normal villains,” Tetsu agreed.

“I just hope these ones fight on the ground,” Jun said, though he looked just as pleased as Sawamura and Tetsu. “I haven’t had a good elephant fight in forever.”

Only Kuramochi and Miyuki looked a little more reserved. They both gave Ryou searching looks that saw too much.

“Is this about Batman not checking in with you?” Kuramochi asked quietly. Ryou hadn’t deliberately kept that from his whole team. It was just that Kuramochi and Miyuki were the only ones who’d known him long enough to notice he was worried. If he didn’t trust them implicitly, he’d already be planning their deaths for getting too close.

“She didn’t say,” Ryou said. “She doesn’t want to repeat herself.”

Kuramochi and Miyuki both looked concerned, but Miyuki hid it better.

“Let’s go!” Sawamura demanded. “I want to hang out with Young Justice before Batman gets there. I have to challenge Wolf Boy again!”

“For the last time, his name is Raven,” Jun said. “He can’t even turn into a wolf.”

“But he’s like a wolf,” Sawamura insisted, stupidly stubborn.

“If we’re going, let’s go,” Ryou said. “If you insist on challenging Raven again, make it fast. I don’t want to waste everyone’s time.”

“I’ll beat him quickly, Onii-san!” Sawamura promised. Ryou calmly ignored the nickname. It tended to confuse their enemies, and besides, it wasn’t like he could get Sawamura to stop.

At least he never called anyone by their real name in the field.

One quick zeta tube trip later, and Ryou could watch with amusement as Sawamura got in Okumura’s face. They were both heavy hitters, but in almost completely opposite ways, so it was always a toss up for how matches between them went.

“Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in.” Ryou turned away from his youngest teammate and focused on the speaker.

“Hello, Batgirl.” Wakana grinned at him. “Still openly defying your father to be here?”

“He’s accepted it,” Wakana said. “Well, he’s accepted that there’s nothing he can do about it. Oh shit!”

She ducked behind Ryou, which was a little hilarious because she was taller than him.

“Why are you hiding?” Ryou asked innocently. “It couldn’t possibly be because you see someone you’d rather not talk to?”

“Shut up, shut up, he’s gonna look,” Wakana hissed.

“You’re going to have to get over this thing with Kid Flash someday,” Ryou said, following her eyes to where Kuramochi was yelling at Sawamura to quiet down. “Just because you feel guilty for breaking his heart…”

“Shut up, I was a bitch, I’m allowed to not want to see him now,” Wakana said. “I just feel like apologizing until he goes away.”

“That couldn’t possibly be because you only dated him because I said my best friend was off limits to other Bats because it would be awkward.” Ryou was enjoying himself now, and he was mature enough to admit it wasn’t for mature reasons.

“Yes, I was an idiot and a bitch, let it go.” Wakana dodged into the shadows, just as skilled as anyone else in the Bat family, reappearing next to Haruno, startling the Martian.

Ryou turned to watch Tetsu and Jun strike up a conversation with Takako, Miyuki and Katsuko cackling as Sawamura sent Okumura flying, Seto taking over from Kuramochi to yell at the two to settle down while Kuramochi chatted with his cousin Bart. It seemed almost strange, how well the Titans mixed with YJ.

Under Sanada’s leadership, though, the two teams had worked more closely together than anyone had expected. Since the Justice League had almost completely removed oversight in response to the first generation of sidekicks getting sick of the restrictions and leaving, there was a lot more freedom for both teams to work together when they weren’t scalping missions from each other.

“If I could have your attention.” Despite how quietly she’d spoken, Batman immediately commanded the room. Within minutes, everyone was circled around her, waiting quietly for her to speak.

Ryou looked behind her for Sanada. If they’d found something in Europe, surely he’d be standing behind their mother, ready to jump in with extra details she’d leave out because they weren’t relevant to the mission, shit-eating grin on his face.

Ryou couldn’t see him.

“I have bad news,” his mother continued. Ryou was probably the only one in the room who could tell there was strain in her voice. Was it really that bad? “Robin has died on a mission.”

The way she said it, so quietly, so devoid of emotion, froze the room. For a moment that balanced on a knife’s edge, no one moved.

And then chaos broke loose.

The Titans all stood as a rock in the storm of movement that was YJ at the news. Seto sat down hard, Okumura moved with him, Bart zipped around in frantic panic, and Jaime tried to grab him. Wakana started shouting, Takako raised her hands to her mouth, Haruno started crying. Katsuko sank to her knees.

Aqualad, Raven, Impulse, Blue Beetle. Batgirl, Zatanna, Miss Martian. Artemis.

“What happened?” Ryou asked. It felt like his voice was breaking something that couldn’t be fixed.

“Joker,” his mother said. It was all she had to say.

Ryou set his jaw. Joker had been a thorn in his family’s side for too long, but even Ryou had never actually believed he’d kill one of them. If nothing else, Joker seemed to have some obsession with playing with their family.

“Young Justice is on standby for now,” Batman said. “If you’re not staying in Mount Justice, you’re going with your mentors. Do I make myself clear?”

Ryou didn’t bother to listen to anyone’s response. He just followed his mother out of Mount Justice. She ignored him until they got away from everyone else. They’d easily escaped everyone’s notice.

“What really happened?” he asked.

“We can discuss this-”

“We can discuss it now.” Ryou almost expected to be scolded for his tone. Instead, his mother just sighed. Somehow, that was worse.

“He fell for a red herring,” she said. “And so did I. We got separated, I didn’t find him until it was too late.”

“Too late how?” Ryou was familiar with Joker’s sense of style.

“We’ll have an autopsy report soon,” his mother said. “I wanted to know if he was dead before or after the explosion.”

“Explosion?” Ryou shook his head. “Have Alfred send me a copy when it’s ready.”

His mother grabbed his arm as he turned to leave.

“Don’t read that report,” she said.

“Is that an order or a request?” For once, Ryou couldn’t even guess what her expression was under her cowl.

“A request,” she said finally. “I can’t really give you orders anymore, at least not that you’ll listen to. But it won’t make you happy. And you won’t be able to change anything.”

“That’s not the point,” Ryou said. “You know that’s not the point.”

“I know,” she agreed. “At least let us have a funeral before you do anything about it.”

“Is that permission?”

“It’s me acknowledging that while I could stop you, I don’t particularly want to. I just need you to know something.” To Ryou’s shock, after a quick look over his shoulder, she pushed her cowl up. Her eyes were worse than anything he could’ve imagined. “Revenge isn’t a substitute for grief.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what I said. You can’t take revenge and skip out on grieving. Mourn your brother with me before you go off avenging him.”

She pulled her cowl back down and disappeared. Ryou could have followed her, but she’d told him everything he needed to know.

Now all he needed was that autopsy report, to see how dead Joker was about to be.

[ayankun]

GOTHAM

insanely rambley HUGE spoiler-ridden seasons 1-4 thoughts under cut

FIRST OFF LET ME TELL YOU I GOT CHILLS

Secondly, let’s think back to how I felt about season one.  A little loose in the narrative, not so much weaving threads as having threads, ones that you keep expecting to pull tight but more often than not just get dropped for other, shinier threads.  All leading to a surprisingly effective character-driven season finale that hopes to prove to you that a few meandering plot points can still add to a sum greater than the parts.

(Oswald goes from umbrella boy to King of Gotham, Bruce Wayne starts at the site of his parents’ murder and ends up taking his first steps into the Batcave, Jim enters as this black-and-white idealist and winds learning from a mob boss that even good men sometimes get their hands dirty to get the job done.  A socially awkward unrecognized genius has a psychic break, leading ultimately to the fall of Edward Nygma and the rise of the Riddler.)

Season two is a blur.  A period of transition from Jim “Good Cop” Gordon Fistfighting Corruption into... Gotham City: Arkham Asylum’s Backyard.  Think how much season one was about only Fish Mooney vs Falcone vs the GCPD and Cobblepot doublecrossing everyone he meets, and how much seasons two and three and four were about the Riddler and Valeska and Tetch and Ra’s al Ghul (and Valeska).  We have the bring-everyone-back-to-life at Indian Hill period to thank for the sudden left turn into the Strange.

WHICH IS NOT A COMPLAINT.

There are so many types of Batman stories, and there’s a time and a place for both Joe Chill and Killer Croc.  Gotham started in one and always knew it was headed for the other.

And B.D. Wong as Strange is a DELIGHT and I really appreciated his dynamic with Miss Peabody.  Speaking of, the bomb defusing scene was a real gem omg lololol give the woman some damn water already.

At the same time, the Fish storyline was like WHOA what EVEN is haPPENINg at any given moment.  And it ultimately didn’t amount to much?  There’s so much waffling between the surviving gang camps where everyone’s either got a kill-on-sight order or a owed-life-debt to each other and the pendulum swings back and forth so quickly it’s not really worth holding onto how anyone feels about anyone else.  That dead/MIA character will come back or the rivalry will be revived or the long-held grudge will be recalled if and when that plot point is going to be drafted, but other than that everyone’s friends and that’s ok.

And like.  Ivy??? Ivy Pepper???????  Why is that ride so wild???  There is no cause and effect, only next next next.  It’s insane.  Maybe watching this all at once rather than over the course of four years lends a different perspective, but holy cow.  Such a ballsy way to do whatever with a character you never had a plan for.

Which brings us to Barbara Kean?!  Season one she was there because they knew she was a Mythos Character but then they were like, wait, whateven is she for though?  Which is a fair question, since having her be the Little Lady Trophy Fiance meant she was a boring and needless character wasting space, not standing on her own and hardly informing Jim’s character either.  So what to do, what to do.  How about we kidnap her, put her through some insanely cruel physical and psychological abuse, make her a psycho-revenge-bride, put her in a coma, have her come back as a 100% Arkham Villain, give her a hench(wo)man, have the henchman KILL HER, have Ra’s al Ghul waltz up out of literally nowhere and say “lol, borrow this arcane mojo for a minute, I’ll want it back later or will I” and now she’s a kingpin of Gotham’s underworld with her own mini League of Assassin?!!!!!!!   !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!    !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like.  Even if they never had a plan going into it, I’m pretty okay with most of what they came up with.  Better than the lil wifey hanging out at home and having one passing remark about curating a gallery that we never saw and was never mentioned again.

Better off a once-crazy, once-dead mafiosa than the less inspired handling of Miss Kringle.  I won’t even get into that trainwreck I-only-exist-to-validate-manpain-of-my-murderer wait I said I wasn’t going to get into it.

So Nygma!  Like I said when I got started with the show, the season one Edward Nygma was crafted as this painfully unsympathetic offbeat loser and I think they fully succeeded with that characterization.  The emergence of the Riddler persona was a welcome change, an upgrade, a spit-shine into something clean cut and confident and stylish.  But I like that, compared to the Penguin, the posterchild for evil-psychotic-villain!Protaganist, for example, they held on to a lot of Nygma’s unlikeablilty in that he’s still an ass, even more of an insufferable egoist, and SO CRAZY he can’t even read himself (which was a big thing about the character before he split in half, so in itself that’s pretty great).

I don’t know.  Maybe you like him and I’m supposed to like him.  I think he’s exactly what he ought to be, and while I'd never want to see him marched off a peer with a bullet in his back, I’m more than happy to see his fellow villain-Protagonists knock him around once in a while.  Penguin and Mooney and now Lee (?!) and Zsasz even are the kind of villan!Protagonist you really root for.  But if it’s any one of them vs. the Riddler, they’re definitely not going to lose.  Nygma’s like in his own category of villain!Protagonist Antagonist.

Of course, the post-Arkham-proto-Riddler who was running Oswald’s mayoral campaign, now HOT DAMN that was a storyline I could get behind.  I almost actually believed they were going to do something great in the Nygmobblepot arena and that was a magical moment.  I think the resulting blood feud, as painful of a 360 as they come, was a sounder storytelling decision and more in line with the show’s Schroedinger’s Frenemies mentality.

And his season four storyline with the Ed Nygma persona challenging the Riddler was a nice full circle.  Sort of closing the gap between this raging banana nutball and the razor-sharp criminal mastermind he could be if tried.  Not SUPER THRILLED with his creeping on Lee but, with all due respect, that’s par for the character so again I say I don’t think I’m meant to like him??

I just spent half this rant on the Riddler so I guess they’re doing something right.

Ok so Cameron Monaghan’s VALESKA TWINS.  Let’s get right into it, shall we.

Holy smokes they did everything right on this one.  Loved the Primal Fear treatment of his introduction, and the way this random circus kid just so happens to start displaying jokey traits that astute viewers will start to suspect that this could be the big bad we’ve all been waiting for --

and then they kill him.

WOW

I was so ready for this kid to grow up to be the Joker, and they rip that dream away and replace it with an idea that anyone can grow up to be the Joker, and damn if that isn’t the nicest treatment of the character’s fractured and obfuscated origin story.  But.  THEN!

THEY BRING HIM BACK and it’s everything you wanted him to be.  He’s just so good.  There’s just the right amount of (IMO, anyway) Hamill-homage in what is otherwise a fully imagined Character who is instantly recognizable as one of many iterations but at the same time outclasses them all.  The high-level narrative and dialogue stuff, the stuff they create for him to do, I mean, is all great.  And then Monaghan brings this manic A++ game to the table and blows it out of the water.  Best Joker performance?  Arguably so, especially when you consider

JEREMIAH VELASKA because this kid can’t stop having stellar Joker performances.  He’s like, two and a half, three of the best Joker performances on the books.  Jeremiah’s distinct visual style, the characterization, AGAIN with the obfuscated we-are-legion origin story hocow.  NO COMPLAINTS HERE.

Anyway so if that’s what we get in return for sending Fish Mooney through a narrative meat grinder, then I guess it’s an even trade.

Pengiun.  What to say about Penguin.  I loved what they gave him in season two, a ton of character stuff because his plot stuff of rags to riches had played itself out.  I felt real bad for his mom, but I really liked that he went and made himself mayor, and even while his story arcs tend to go riches to rags and back again, it’s never not a pleasure watching him claw his way up to where he thinks he ought to be.

For the most part they do a good job stringing together these different Protagonist story-groups, keeping in mind that most of these groups serve mainly as antagonists amongst themselves (when they’re not being buddy-buddy to serve some winding end).  So when you get the villain!Antagonists you can really tell the difference.  I got a little yawny while we were setting up Fries, and by the time we finally locked Tetch up for good I was very grateful.  These will never be main characters and the show knows it and wants you to know it, too.  So while they’re the main on-screen villain, it can get a little stale because the same effort isn’t being put into their lasting appeal.

Um.  Jim Gordon.  Another thing I liked about season four was a strong return to GCPD bidniss.  Season two there was a lot of GCPD, but with Captain Barnes and the strike force and Galavan, so it was a completely different narrative animal than what Gordon was throwing down with in season one.  Then Gordon goes to prison and after that he doesn’t go back to GCPD until well into season three, and by then the story’s about Mario and Tetch and Lee and omg I forgot about Valerie Vale until this very moment whoops.

As was hinted in the season one finale, Jim Gordon went on a very twisty path through the mud before he figured himself out again.  Killing Galavan was like WHAT JIMBOY and that wasn’t even the worst of it.  What I liked most about his stint as a PI was the character’s eventual acceptance that the law isn’t the be all and end all of righteousness, and that there are other means available when enforcing peace and justice.  Not necessarily by killing every evil mayor you come across with your own two hands, but the eye-opening to the virtues of vigilantism is super important when you realize he’s going to be Batman’s main ally down the line and this time in his life is going to be what ultimately allows the future police commissioner to legitimize this kind of shadowy ninja behavior.

Anyway, in season four, Jim kind of comes back to roost at the GCPD, and finally ousting Bullock as Captain was rough but obviously warranted, and with only one season left that was a good time to do it.  Harper was a nice addition and I’d like to see more of her as a standalone character.  (Similarly, Fox has fit in nicely with the cops, but I’m not overly hankering to see more of his day to day antics.) 

What was my real point?  I really liked the Gordon vs the GCPD dynamics of season one, and while obviously that’s not a story you can tell forever, it did inform the sense that the police force is a living entity that can serve you very well if it trusts you, but before that can happen you really have to jump on its back and break its will LOL.

Also, remember Renee Montoya and Harvey Dent?  Yeah, I don’t either.

SO BRUCE WAYNE, MY FRIENDS.

Gotham is my very most favorite Bruce Wayne story, and much as Batman: TAS is my forever-reference for most Batmany things, Gotham is going to be my heart-canon for Bruce Wayne origins.

It’s one thing to say, “ok so this rich kid watches his parents get murdered in an alley, and from this moment on he vows to do something about it and makes himself a master detective/martial artist who puts on a mask and a cape and runs around at night smashing thugs’ heads in for justice” like it’s a foregone conclusion, a straight-forward A-to-B process, and a wholly other thing to show us, step by step, how he learns to become the thing we all know he’s going to become.

In season one he was this quiet, morose but driven child who didn’t know what to do with this crisis he’d been handed.  He’s a kid who sits in a pool with his whole clothes on, trying to hold his breath for as long as possible because he has no idea how else to become better prepared for handling his issues.  But he has Selina and he has Alfred and he has Fox and he has Jim Gordon, and he will have the Court of Owls and the Valeskas and Ra’s al Ghul who will all play a part in handing him pieces of himself until he has a full set.

He started with this strong sense of right and wrong, a deeply seated desire to put his talents and his money to some sort of use, an earnest diligence towards bettering himself in all ways, and little by little he gets shown just how much of a fragile and defenseless baby he is.  That time Alfred accidentally-on-purpose clobbered him in the eye -- that was the moment Bruce found out they’d all been pulling their punches with him and that he still had so so so far to go.

Of course, at the particular moment, he was going through a well-earned rebel without a cause phase (which will do him well when he calls on those behaviors for the benefit of a wider audience), so I don’t think that realization hit him at the time.  BUT I NOTICED.  Sure he’s got a bulletproof suit and he can look Jim Gordon straight in the eye now and he can fling himself off rooftops like a champ (and when Alfred gave him the keys to the Batmobile I cried a little), but he’s no Batman.  Not yet.  Not quite yet.

But you can see without a shadow of a doubt that he’s gonna be!  Instead of this “Bruce Wayne woke up as Batman” story, we get a look at all the day by day choices and experiences that inform, shape, and depend on Bruce Wayne’s core identity and the way that they will collectively create Batman.

Now, David Mazouz may not have the character acting chops of a Pinkett-Smith or a Taylor or a Monaghan, and he may not be as comfortable living in a everyday character like Pertwee and Logue do so effortlessly, but there’s a steeliness a Bruce Wayne should have, a hauntedness, an idealistness, that Mazouz emotes in spades.  Sometimes his Bruce Wayne does a stunt or pulls a pose that Mazouz KNOWS is Batman territory, and while his awareness of “I’m doing a cool thing look at me doing it” is a little distracting--it’s also SUPER EFFECTIVE and I fall for it hook, line, and sinker.

I’ve always been one of those fans who’s way more interested in the lives and characters of the secret identities (compared to the heroics of the super identities) so hot diggity dog is this the show for me.  All Bruce Wayne all the time.  When we he does put on the mask, it’s all the more powerful for knowing who exactly is wearing it and what’s driving him to do these borderline insane things.

Not 100% sold on Ra’s’ “I saw this in a dream” strong-arm prophecy, feeling like it steps on four years of Bruce Wayne’s self-determination.  Not 100% on how they introduced him and his aims and his baffling reincarnation(s).  But I am 100% on the pronunciation of “Ra’s” because I’m aware that Kevin Conroy et al figured it out somewhere between TAS and Arkham Asylum, but it’s something that they never quite got in Arrow.  (Oliver consistently uses “raysh” but everyone else is a grab bag between that and “rawz”.)

For that matter, David Mazouz consistently pronounces Ra’s with two syllables, so there’s also that.  Wait, hold on.  In Gotham they also draw a hard line between Ra’s al Ghul, the man, and “the demon’s head,” some sort of mystical power of time travel and flashlightiness.  Give one point to Arrow for not being that bizarre.

Long story short, the shot at the finale where Gordon’s waiting on the GCPD rooftop with the spot light and Bruce Wayne stalks up behind him was BEAUTIFUL.  (They also did the thing some episodes earlier where Bruce peaces out on Gordon when Gordon’s mid-sentence with his back turned and I laughed a lot)

Looking forward to their take on No Man’s Land.  Here’s a short story for you at the end of this long story:

One time I was reading No Man’s Land volume by volume from the library.  It was tough because I checked the first time and they had the full set, but then you never knew that the next one was going to be available when you went in for it.

So I get out of the car one day and look there’s a quarter on the ground.  Neat.  It’s mine now!

Going into the library, there was a cart of used books for sale by the door.  25 cents each.  Hell, I’ve got a quarter now, let’s see what they got.

What they got is the No Man’s Land novelization.  For 25 cents, or, in my case, free.

So I read that instead, and turned out I liked it way better than the source comics.  I have a hard time reading comics?  I tend to not look at the pictures, and certain art styles aren’t my jam.  Also when it comes to narrative capabilities, there are different tools and effects inherent to each form, and I appreciated the literary treatment and the internal voice it brought to the table that the comics couldn’t.

Also the author said in the note that his method was to sit down and jam out minimum 2000 words a day and that’s still a feat I admire.

Anyway, that’s my long winded take on Gotham.  Not perfection, but certainly a respectable and authoritative representation of a subject matter we all know and love.  I give it my second favorite Batman portrayal (behind Kevin Conroy and above Adam West) and my absolute favorite live-action Bruce Wayne, hands down.

[goprandall]

DC MASTERPOST >3

It’s no secret the DC universe is something of a DCpointment. There’s no cohesion in sotrylines, films are released at odd and illogical times and I decided to rewatch and give proper reviews.

MAN OF STEEL 2013 7/10

This film is something of an outlier on the DCEU, because it is not terrible.

The strengths of this film are defiantly the first act, I feel it was a clear and concise way to create backstory without the stereotypes of following him through childhood into adulthood, they did a great job of creating krypton and establishing an antagonist with a clear motive. I liked the jump straight into adult with flashbacks when confronted with items from his past, it allowed us to understand his past without saturating his journey all at once. Arguably the first arc of this film is completed here with Clark/kal discovering who he is and why he is here. The second arc of General Zod trying to bring back his people is still very well done, providing us more relevant backstory and shows logical actions from both sides of the fight nearing the end of the film. The biggest weakness of the film in my opinion is that it is 20 minutes too long. When superman destroys Zods ship killing the artificial children of krypton, I feel this arc was complete, although the after fight solely fought between SM and Zod does show us the struggle superman goes through becoming the last kryptonite in exaistance, this does not outweigh the pointless mass destruction this causes, on top of a already destroyed city. In my cut this would be disregarded.

Final thoughts of the film; my favourite part was the shot of ‘ALERT’ that slowly turns to ‘Toner empty’, a good transition and piece of direction. I’m giving this film 7/10, in my classification would make it a good Netflix film, one I’d be happy to watch but not pay money to solely see. It was a hard choice to not make it a 6 however, I rank wonder women as a 7, and this is more than equally as good, the only things preventing me from giving it a higher rank is it’s rewatchability. Personally I rarely would due to its lack of joy and humour, and overall darkness, not just in plot but also in cinematography and colour grading.

BATMAN V SUPERMAN 2016 6/10

Batman v superman had all the the ingredients to be the summer blockbuster, but as predicted it followed every DC film and tanked.

Their are some aspects of this film that are genuinely good, giving it a 6, one of those things is the first act of the film where we are introduced to Batman, although I didn’t personally feel the need for another origin story, the way this scene is directed especially with the earl sequence is fantastic, adding depth and differing from older versions of the same story. The other good thing about this film is the Batman fight scene, it is so well articulated and choreographed, i struggle to see how it fits within the wider film which is strangely badly directed, edited and in-cohesive.

Continuing from this idea, I feel the dream sequences are one of the leading problems for the in-cohesion of the film, the issue with these sequences is, if they are not well done it stops the audience trusting more daring scenes, ultimately taking you out of the story. Next, I feel another reason this doesn’t live up to its hype is, again, DCs continuous frenzy of oversaturating it’s film with characters. Here I argue Wonder women is not needed in the end fight, the fight could just have easily gone on sitbout her, or, if they had released wonder women before this film so we felt more engrossed in the character it wouldn’t been fine. However her and all the other justice league promo clips, should not have been in the film in the context they were as they’re a corporate shoehorn, promoting further projects. The other character I feel is unneeded is ‘Doomsday’, he’s quickly thrown in at the end of the film, and honesty an antigunist shown to us at the end of the film will never give the depth and fear of a hero fight, as a villain shown throughout the movie.

To me, Batman V Superman is a movie. Not a film, crafted and worked on to create a narrative for the audience, but a summer movie to get the kids out the house. The idea of having two meta humans as important as Batman and superman battling each other should boggle the mind, as the first avengers did for me or civil war for a closer comparison. But the difference with the MCU spectaculars is, they earned their right to blow people’s minds, DC is playing catch up and trying to get praise and awe without the hard work.

SUICIDE SQUAD 2016 3/10

Wow. This review has been hard to create and will most likely feature ideas from other reviews via podcasts and YouTube due to the fact this movie boggled my head in the sheer awfullness that ensued.

As always, I begin with the strengths of the film. In this instance it’s slight. I loved the aesthetics of the branding for the film, the colours, the neon animations, I loved it all. The mini descriptions in the film were funny and added to the VeRy little personalities of the characters. It is important to point out this clearly wasn’t present in the first edits of the film, but due to good feedback of later trailers that were released they were added, which is why this element of humour is the only of its kind that lands in the film.

Next I normally look into the storyline and the character arcs of the film, arguably my second favourite aspect to look for in a film. In suicide squad there is none, and there aren’t any. That sounds harsh, but the reality is there is no cohesive storyline, it follows no one character individually and the film darts back and fourth between every character, no matter the timeframe. Dean Dobbs (from adventures with dean and Bertie’s podcast) best describes this as ‘like playing a video game where someone is skipping every cutscene’ and this is absolutly true, especially when looking at the relationship of the joker and Harley Quinn. This film is so badly edited, As jack Howard describes, this film contains no scenes, it is obvious the whole film was rehashed and re-edited after the release of BVS (which crashed at the box office) and the final trailer was released, which was very different from the first few as it showed humour and action, and it is evident they cut out almost everything apart from these things. I would best describe it as many GoPrandall videos I have scrapped as I tend to forget to film opening sequencers and filler clips to show the progression of the story told apart from the action, and this is exactly how I felt about the editing of this film, they did the best with what they got but it wasn’t enough.

Although there was a lack of character arcs, this film had an ABUNDANT amount of characters to fill its shoes. This film crams as many famous faces in as many characters

As it can, because for some reason DC refuses to create stand alone films due to the catch up to the MCU that’s going on. We’ll start with the joker, or more exactly the 10 minuets of joker we got. Many scenes with the joker were so heavily edited, and deleted, it is hard to judge Jared Letos performance, because he didn’t have chance to give one. But, as a side note the hand on the mouth laugh is one of the WORST cinema moments I’ve experienced only closely beaten by ‘were bad guys it’s what we do’. Yuck. But we’ll finally look at the ‘suicide squad’, although looking at them it’s hard to identify why they are in this squad. We’ll start with reason no one on the team seems to have a reason to be there, aprt from deadshot, who had his daughters arc to think about. All the others just seem to around and don’t want to die and get out of prison. VERY good motives DC, you’ve outdone yourself this time. Next we can look at the abilities of this so called ‘meta human’ squad and how under utilised they really are, which could show why this film failed so badly. Firstly deadshot- ‘never misses a bullet- amazing at trick shots.’ Who in the film performs close quarter headshots, the same as the Seal team next to him, and in the film performs 1 trick shot. 1. That was in establishing scene right at the beginning, but he isn’t the only victim, we can look at Boomerang, my favourite character by far, with one the coolest abilities, who throws a total of:5 boomerangs and catches: 2. Let’s be honest Harely is there as the jokers Love Interest and to keep him in the film. We can also look at el deablo, the man that can shoot fire but refuses until he’s bullied for a whole minute. The worlds worst archaeologist who starts the entire battle, after BREAKING AN ANTIQUE immediatly after finding it (bravo) who if wasn’t attempted to be weaponised, would’ve skipped this whole mess. Slipknot, a man who could climb any wall or anything, who immediatly dies after climbing a wall, but don’t worry because they don’t even want you to worry about this due to the fact they don’t even intro him before he magically appears on the squad, hoping the audience will react ‘oh he’s going to be important!!! What a mystery man!!’. This is almost as bad as Katana, who adds nothing the story apart from a short intro and when she cries to her dead husband, at which point I began to cut my toenails, something I gave more of a shit about.

But, it is obvious I’m a teenage marvel fanboy just shitting on DC,and I hate when people complain without offering another viewpoint, therefore, to fix this, I would dedicate this film to the viewpoint of deadshot, giving him the character arc of changing with the goal of seeing his daughter- eliminate the extra characters- slipknot/katana and either dedicate more time to the joker and harley sub plot or eliminate entirely, NOT BOTH. With this, better editing around these eliminated plot points could make a more coherent story with more empathetic story arcs. I have a full idea for a plot but this is too long as it is.

WONDER WOMEN 2017 7/10

Wonder women is a refreshing instalment into the DCEU, showing they seem to e learning, but are still falling behind on some of the most basic hurdles.

Firstly, as always we’ll start off with the strengths of his film, firstly it is vividly important to recognise that this is the first major Superhero film to be directed, and sustain a heavy female cast. It does so fantastically and leaves me more excited for the next instalment now knowing female directors and stars now have evidence for an accomplished superhero movie, which arguably has outdone the past 2 major films. With this we see a brilliantly refreshing opening act with a subtle and bright, vibrant origin story.

However, this film slowly returns to madness throughout the film when major plot holes appear, and the film making quality slowly deteriorates. Firstly, the iggest plot hole that has been so easily overlooked is the WW1 aspect. Given a World War Two film, having the Germans be the sole enemy is obvious and logical, however WW1 is not as simple as this and the use of Germans as the enemies is vaguely lazy. Also, as DC loves to do, it adds in extra characters and neglects to give them logical and coherent backstory and arcs. We only need to look at the ‘best marksman in the war’ who doesn’t fire a single shot, and continues not too all the way to the end of the film, showing no growth. The final plot hole is what draws it into the wider EU. The entirety of this film is showing Diana that the human race is bad and should be left alone, although when she defeats arias, this is meant to break this curse and peace seems to be restored. But, in BVS she claims to have stopped helping mankind because of their evils, neglecting Stalin, WW2 and the Vietnam war to name a few, but making a reappearance for- lex Luther. Wow.

Although in almost most of its entirety this was a pleasant watch, my personal issue stopped this at the third act when the final fight begins. To me the film returns to DCs favourite colour scheme of dark and clouded, and uses quite frankly some of the worst CGI I’ve seen recently, making me wonder why they didn’t at least try to incorporate real elements, such as Marvel, but this is still the best DC film after man of steel and I’m excited to see more female led and directed films come to screen.

JUSTICE LEAUGE 2016 5/10

This will be the shortest of the DC reviews, this is the film I’ve seen least of the lot and I feel I’ll need at least another viewing to get a full understanding. To premise this I fully understand Zack Snyder had personal issues leading him to leave and Joss take over, and this is in no way mocking him.

But I’ll dive in, maybe the fact I’m struggling to write this review tells me a lot about the movie. Wonder women was one of the only saving graces of this move, she was well understood and I feel her likeness as a character was well transferred from WW to JL. Contrary to this, I’m struggling to write about cyborg and flash, we were given next to no backstorys, although the flash’s was hinted at at least twice that I recall and what we were given were quite chaotic. Batman was a major letdown for me, coming down from BVS where he was a certified badass taking on superman, he turns into a wimp and hides for a majority of the film, quite evidently showing Ben affleck Clearly does not want to be there. I feel the overall plot of the film was almost underatsnvle, but had the taken the time to set up this storyline in previous films it would’ve been much better, this movie lacked the right to have all these characters on screen together. The characters had adequate screen time each, but contrary to its biggest rival ‘the avengers’ this really wasn’t that special, most of the characters had the same abilities, barring the flash, and the way the avengers films have shown all the characters working together simultaneously in cinematic mastery, you can see hints of Joss attempting this, but with a bad set up it’s an impossible task.

I conclude, not going into the issue with the CGi because I don’t have that much time.

[talking-head-productions]

If I Go Back In Time Part 2

I realized that were I to actually pitch the movie, the executives and producers would probably ask about more movies going forward. After all, this is supposed to be a cinematic universe to compete with Marvel. I've given it some thought- firstly, the casting of the heroes will be the same, because as far as I'm concerned they all did okay. Secondly, here's a list of possible films in my version of the DCEU:

Man of Steel 2

Plot: See the old post.

To Be Released: Given I said I'd go back to 2012, earliest release would probably be mid 2014

Marketing Notes: Keep it to a minimum. Maybe 2 trailers and a handful of tv spots. Around 4 minutes of footage total, all of it from the first half of the movie. Lower people's expectations a little so they can be surprised if it's any good.

Wonder Woman

Plot: Mostly the same as the one we got for real, but a few significant changes...

Lois Lane is the one conversing with Diana about the photograph, not Batman.

Ares did not kill all of the gods, they simply withdrew from the world of man once humans got too violent. They're in some pocket dimension version of Mount Olympus, waiting for future movies.

Diana does not think that Danny Houston's character is Ares. But she does think he knows where Ares is, because she has a very black-and-white view of the world right now, and Steve told her that Britain and their allies were the good guys. So obviously Ares is on the side of the 'bad' guys, the Germans.

Towards the middle of the movie, when Charlie the sniper is having his breakdown, Diana takes him aside and tells him that the older Amazons still have nightmares about battles from thousands of years ago. It's nothing to be ashamed of. It tends to help them when their friends are nearby. Now, they're not going to force him to fight, but they do want him to come with them. After all, if he stays, who will sing for them? I just think that having that conversation beforehand would be a bit more respectful of his condition. Also it comes back in the climax, Diana at one point has a gun to the back of her head in the middle of a fight, and Charlie shoots the guy first.

When Ares shows up towards the climax, he's actually a good guy who's been trying to end the war peacefully. Turns out, the mythology Diana was taught was wrong. The gods withdrew towards the end of the reign of the first Amazon queen, Otrera. Otrera according to the real world myths had a fling with Ares, which probably ended badly. Here, she would have lied about the reason for the gods' leaving just because she doesn't like Ares. And turns out, mankind really are just a bunch of warmongering assholes. Sometimes.

The real big bad is Doctor Poison. She uses Diana's discarded sword to stab Ares in the back, poisons Diana to weaken her, then huffs some of her own super-serum gas to make the boss battle a fair(-ish) fight.

When Steve comes up to Diana to tell her about his plan to destroy the plane, she can hear him and actually gives him her blessing. So no more 'hung up on her ex' version! It's just not possible if she told him to do it.

There are a couple bits of set up for the next film. First, at some point underwater ruins are mentioned, and Diana asks if Atlantis has fallen in the war. Steve asks if it actually exists, to which Diana replies, “Last time I knew...” The second part is a mid-credits scene where Lois sends Diana another message, asking her to look at a video. The video is exactly the same as the one we got in BvS, of Aquaman underwater stabbing the camera with his trident. During the clip, we hear a part of what will be Aquaman's theme, same as how WW's theme played in her pre-credits scene.

To Be Released: Probably late 2015, early 2016

Marketing Notes: Nothing is released or announced regarding this film until after MoS 2 has been in theaters for a week. I want people to go absolutely fucking apeshit in theaters when they realize that Wonder Woman of all characters will be the next film. Considering how she'd been regarded by Warner Bros. in the past.

The Aquaman

Plot: It's like a crazy Star Wars/Black Panther/Moana fusion. An Operatic Superhero Political-and-Family Drama based out of a futuristic Polynesian magitek version of Atlantis, with only a few scenes above the water.

To Be Released: Mid to late 2017.

Marketing Notes: Don't have a lot of action in the trailers. There will be action in the movie, including a badass final fight, but it'll be less than most superhero films. Focus on the drama in the trailers to accurately represent the movie.

Knight of Gotham

Plot: This movie will be the smallest scale movie in the franchise. It'll focus in on Batman's detective skills more than anything (though he'll still kick major ass).When the movie begins, all of Batman's more famous foes are locked up in Arkham Asylum. He hasn't been seen much lately. So smaller criminals are starting to think it's safe to operate in Gotham again. Mob boss Don Carmine Falcone wants in on it. So he puts out a hit on Commissioner Gordon, the only non-corrupt official in the city. The first taker is Deadshot (setting him up for you-know-what, but a better version). After that a couple of small-time killers. Then Ra's Al-Ghul shows up and tells Batman that every assassin not a part of the League will likely be heading to Gotham to try and kill James Gordon. However, there's only one to really be concerned about: a man named Victor Zsasz. The rest of the film is a cat-and-mouse game between Batman (plus Jim and Batgirl) and Zsasz, culminating in a boss fight that would rival both John Wick movies put together. At the end, Zsasz is a sore loser and blows up Arkham, releasing the villains for future films. At some point, Batman talked to Deadshot in prison and got him to give up Falcone as the one who put out the hit, so Falcone goes to jail and Deadshot is placed in lesser security, with his name marked under the Task Force X label.

To Be Released: Early to mid 2018.

Marketing Notes: Give a significant amount of focus to Batgirl's involvement. People will love that, so long as there's no hint of anything between her and Bruce (there won't be).

Justice League

Plot: We introduce The Flash and Cyborg as a comedic duo of superheroes from STAR Labs, with a dynamic not too dissimilar from Deadpool and Cable, or maybe Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch. The villain of the film is Abra Kadabra, a Flash villain from the distant future who uses nanomachines to do... a lot of different things. He styles himself after a stage magician. As a character in the film, he wants to shunt the Earth into a pocket dimension (make the whole world... disappear!) in order to save it from future disasters. However, the process would kill most of humanity, which is why the League have to stop him. It takes all five powered heroes to hold him down, while Batman delivers the disabling blow using one of his gadgets.

To Be Released: Day after New Year's, 2019.

Marketing Notes: In the film, Abra Kadabra will use his powers to shape shift into the heroes at multiple points. We can use this to run a “Who can you trust?” tagline, with emphasis on the fights, because this movie is spectacle incarnate. With a simple plot.

Man of Steel 3

Plot: This is the one where Lex Luthor reveals his true nature. The big fight will be Warsuit Lex vs Superman. Kryptonite will be introduced here. Other than that, I'm not sure.

To Be Released: Fall 2019.

Marketing Notes: Fake anti-Superman propaganda clips put out by Lex Corp.

Wonder Woman 2

Plot: Villain will probably be Cheetah, since she's the one of the most popular. Might be good to have Diana team up with Flash, just to bring that fun element in, and maybe some time travel stuff. Possibly bringing Steve Trevor back.

To Be Released: Late spring 2020.

Marketing Notes: If Flash is involved, focus on his and Diana's dynamic.

Gotham Sirens

Plot: Catwoman and Lady Shiva have been partners in thievery for a while now. They're hired by Silver St Cloud to steal a sacred amulet (it's actually magic), and they decide to team up with Arkham escapees Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn for the extra muscle. Ivy has her own plans, however, and it involves using the amulet to turn the whole city into a jungle.The reason they needed the extra muscle to steal the amulet is because it was guarded by a private security firm named Grayson and Sons. One guess to who the survivor of the Siren's attack is. Yeah, this movie introduces Nightwing (he skips the Robin identity). He teams up with Batman, Batgirl, and most likely our two thieves to stop Poison Ivy.

To Be Released: Mid fall 2020. Hitting a rhythm now.

Marketing Notes: One half of the material is about the all-girl villain team, the other half is about the growing Bat Family.

Fall of Justice: Tower of Babel

Plot: After Abra Kadabra's tricks, Batman realized how dangerous the rest of the League were and created weapons to stop them if they ever went bad. Unfortunately, someone (maybe Joker? Who would not be played by Jared Leto- I'm thinking Nicholas Hoult, considering his performance as Nux in Mad Max Fury Road) has stolen those weapons and the League is in genuine danger. If not the Joker, perhaps The Rogues came over from Central City and this is Leonard Snart's origin as Captain Cold (the cold gun is in the weapon cache).

To Be Released: Spring 2021.

Marketing Notes: This'll be the darkest entry in the canon so far. Someone will probably die, though who I don't know. Probably a supporting character, but an important one.

There will of course be more movies, but I'm not sure of the order or most of the details. Here's a really quick list:

Constantine (introduce the weird mythos of Dream and the Endless)

Dark Justice (aka, Justice League Dark- the villain will be Enchantress)

Titans (a second superhero team is started by Nightwing and includes Beast Boy, Starfire, and a couple others, and Deathstroke is the villain)

Crisis on Infinite Earths (eventually)

Fall of Justice: The Crime Syndicate (evil versions of our heroes from another Earth)

Flashpoint (without the major reboot aspect)

An Untitled Green Lantern Film (used to introduce planets like Thanagar and Tamaran, as well as the Manhunters)

Identity Crisis (without the “Doctor Light is a serial rapist” part)

Final Crisis (not the last movie)

Suicide Squad (alternately titled “Task Force X”, with a different villain)

Untitled Justice League Sequel (with the Legion of Doom as the bad guys)

Untitled Titans Sequel (with Brother Blood as the villain)

New Gods (I don't know enough about them to even speculate, but this oughta be cool)

Untitled Man of Steel Sequel (uses “Death of Superman” plot)

The Dark Knight Lives (at some point, probably in a League film, Bruce Wayne retired and Batman was believed to be dead. Now he comes back, because Gotham City truly does need him)

Batman Beyond (so it turns out Bruce needs to retire, too, so he finds a protege to take his place)

Justice League Kingdom Come

Man of Steel: Rising Son (deals with the “multiple heroes trying to be Superman” scenario from the comics, before bringing Kal-El himself back)

Shazam

Green Arrow

Untitled Flash Movie

Untitled Green Lantern Sequel

Untitled Justice League Dark Sequel

Blue and Gold (Blue Beetle and Booster Gold buddy comedy film)

All Female Justice League Film

The final film in the entire universe would be titled Fall of Justice: Blackest Night (the “FoJ” title is applied to all the truly dark entries). This is the finale because it would include every character ever introduced in all the films, at least as a cameo; even the dead ones would return as Black Lanterns.