#the joker considering everything

[david-watts]

becoming a little bit evil because my room's in a mess and I can't really do anything about it until other things happen and I am so so so tempted to be a complete and utter arsehole until it happens because. honestly if I don't it won't happen. but if I do that I open myself up to getting into even more shit than I already am by just existing

[chiricat]

more shuake

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

oh i just felt my stomach drop. no...

[dovahbee]

[yeonbam]

beauvoir's point about the future relying on the past choices called to me on the context of joker so much. one is essentially trapped into their 'original choice', unknowingly acting it out over and over again the same way joker was trapped in his choice to steal as a solution to problems from a young age. He apparently 'gave up' on being a thief, he was apparently not 'thief-like' yet, like sisyphus he is pushing the same boulder, we see him happy for a brief moment, before fate is inevitably reversed. his temporal choices to steal constantly presented consequences that he could not escape and they became deeply rooted in the motion of his life itself. it was a game move on it's on— choices he made led to the ultimate climax... a choice that linked his life to jack's and a choice that drove him away from jack in ep 11 because crime is inherently alienating if not in relationships then emotionally. that is why in ep11, despite getting back his family, despite having ama, he was all alone. stealing alienated him as an 'alternative' person 5 years ago, making him find a place of gratification away from family. 5 years later it continues to alienate him.

[jasontoddenthusiastt]

I just ordered $100 worth of comics online

[rmbunnie]

I know Morrison's Batman tends to be considered one of the greats, and I am definitely warming up to it more than I did on my initial read, but there are still some elements of it I found really didn't mesh with me. I feel like I can say this a lot more concisely than I did during my initial readthrough of Batman and Robin 2009, plus I've had more time to reflect and actually form a coherent opinion that wasn't a gut reaction, and keep in mind that I've read Batman and Robin in a vacuum Morrison-wise and can't speak on it in the larger context of their Batman run, but aside from just. very odd writing of certain characters, I feel like one of the more significant things that rubbed me the wrong way with this storyline was that a lot of the "weirdness" I'd seen hyped up felt either inconsistent enough that it didn't have a significant presence for me, especially towards the end of the run, or very surface-level.

One of the runs I see hyped up as some of Morrison's greatest work is Animal Man, especially for its metafictional ending. I haven't gotten around to reading it yet, but I expect that I'll enjoy it, or find it very interesting at the least (although author-inserts can come across a bit arrogant sometimes imo.) The point is I've heard good things, that it comes down to a very interesting and one-of-a-kind conflict in the end, which made me in some part hopeful for similar with Batman and Robin, (although I do have to admit I was reading it in part to see how off his Jason really could be.) I didn't really find that, tbh. There definitely were genuinely weird plot points with impact on the story which I feel were really successful, unfortunately it seems like a lot of them were at the cost of any prior characterization for the characters involved. Damian has steel implanted into his spine which allowed Deathstroke to control his movements and set off his emotional connection with Dick, Talia just had to be written horribly for it to happen. Sasha is a really interesting parallel to Damian/Robin-in-general. The conflict around her grotesque mask permanently fused onto her face and the fear that it'll kill her completely to take it off, the scene in which she gets said mask in the first place/the dollotrons, and the concept of a villain getting their own Robin in someone completely unrelated to Batman and the impact their legacy has had is all really original and cool, it's just that it's all dependent on a bewildering version of Jason that directly contradicts all previous characterization save BftC. To me the tradeoff doesn't feel necessary, but the events are inventive and have weight in the larger story.

In other areas though, especially as the run wrapped up, the zaniness that I see hyped up a lot, while providing a unique atmosphere, felt a lot like set dressing more than anything. In retrospect, the first time I really noticed this was the Professor Pyg dance page back in issue 2 or 3, I believe? But it became much more frequent towards the end of the series. The entire city becomes infected with a viral drug by Professor Pyg which isn't a major threat and doesn't serve anything in the story much besides being wacky, letting Professor Pyg say odd things about his mother sometimes and putting Commissioner Gordon... in a dress! Zany! (Professor Pyg is eventually... presumably?... torn apart by a parade of dollotrons and his narrative importance dies with him.) Alongside the Morrison-original villains like Dr. Hurt and Professor Pyg, there's a mysterious new player in town who's been orchestrating everything, and after a dozen issues of mystery it's the Joker, but wearing a mask and making edgy "differently-abled" jokes!

Dr. Hurt is interesting, and I liked his part of the story if I ignored the panels of auxiliary weirdness thrown on to add to the vibe, and I think there's something fun and interesting there about the legacy of Batman vs. artistic interpretations with his motive of ruining the Wayne's legacy (made more apparent with his talk about the Batcave being "the way it was meant to be in his head," the manor and Batcave "his to ruin," but Dr. Hurt kind of fades out of the story as Batman returns and is defeated by Joker, laying a banana peel on the ground. In the context of the theme of artistic interpretation and Morrison's commentary that they never cared to pretend the story was going to end with anything but a return to the classic Batman, I actually find this really interesting. A character heavily defined and reinvented by Morrison's writing being defeated by one of the most iconic Batman characters with a classic comedy trick from the 19th century feels like the conclusion to the contrast between Batman's legacy and the artistic license of the authors writing the comics: you can have your personalized elements, but the legacy of Batman is elastic and unlikely to be molded by them: certainly it won't be destroyed. Despite this, it didn't change the exhaustion of seeing the Gravedigger's mask come off and settling in for another comic where the Joker is gonna be doing classic zany Joker stuff.

As much as I'm frustrated with the way Talia and Jason are written during this run, I didn't entirely hate it, and the more I think about it, the more I find things I like. Some of my frustrations come down to taste, and are an unavoidable product of my personal taste differing from a pro comic author who had an established writing career while I was going to elementary school. I feel like some previous Batman comics were referenced in really exciting ways, for example the combination of Bruce's absence, a drug being used to gain control over citizens, an odd demonic presence, an imposter cult leader (If you can call Dr. Hurt that) prolonging his life through magical rituals, the background detail of complete chaos in the city, and one of the main villains being torn apart by a crowd of his followers, from the limited number of straight-up-Batman storylines I've read, felt pretty strongly like a nod to The Cult. But even considering the commentary on creative license vs. the consistency of Batman as a pop culture icon, the feeling of reading the comic was frequently that I was being convinced of a weirdness that didn't extend through the story down to the actual structure or plot points of the issue I was reading (with exceptions, such as the Sasha + Professor Pyg thing,) and although I appreciate the message of the return to status quo in the ending, with the hype of the story's inventiveness and uniqueness on my mind, it was kinda disappointing to realize halfway through that for all the weird window dressing, the story would be commiting to a much more traditional turn than what I was expecting.

[moe-broey]

When it comes to horny art esp in FEH like. I'm always split between "I don't wanna be sex negative and prudish that's stupid" and "Okay but there IS a misogyny problem (specifically about how female characters are portrayed/treated)" and "I'm Sorry Women (I do like huge titties and stupid slutty outfits)" and "I'm a huge anatomy nerd and what's pissing me off the most are the shit proportions here actually"

^ This user is on the asexuality spectrum.

[clownprince]

Hoooooly shit I finally read the 2021 Joker series and my God. He's really been through it jfc

- his bf broke up with him and he got his eye shot out

- got framed for A-day

- found out that some shady global organization took his DNA and was trying to clone him so they could control the clones but they just made horrific monstrosities because his DNA is fucked

- had THREE separate parties taking turns trying to kill him for several weeks

- nearly got eaten by cannibal socialites, got BOILING WATER thrown in his face and promptly got his ass beat by Vengeance

- had Gordon come very close to killing him

And NOW...

- got shot 3x in the abdomen and once in the fucking HEAD...

- nearly buried alive

- stabbed by some guy in a bathroom

- possibly poisoned by Harley (???)

- nearly killed by Jason and shot AGAIN in the leg

- nearly fucking drowns

- gets brain surgery sans anesthesia in a storage closet performed by someone who is definitively not a brain surgeon

- nearly burns to death / nearly gets killed by his double who turns out to be a triple I suppose

Like... he has been absolutely going THROUGH it fr. Someone please get this guy a warm blanket maybe some hot chocolate

[mx-paint]

.

[skybristle]

i really don't know how to feel abt the new update's storyline

[koipalm]

Idk you are into fanfiction but theres a lot of fics based on Maruki's reality actualization ending and Akira's choice in it. Often they explore the horror of having another person's will forced upon you. Even if its well intentioned a lot of them capture the horror of witnessing fundamental changes made in the people you love in the pursuit of their happiness by another person. Also the guilt of knowing the role you yourself played in allowing everything play out the way they do.

I LOVE IT I LOVE IT I LOVE IT augh i know that i have read a few that do explore the impact of marukis reality on akira but im ngl i wish there was 10000 of them

[water-mellie-seeds]

There’s crossdressing in the persona 5 rhythm game joker wears a sexy police woman outfit and I don’t remember if there’s more or if there’s any in other games but. Yea

I REMEMBER THIS YEAH I SWEAR I MAFE A POST ABOUT IT A FEW YRS AGO ATLUS YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE. TRANS MODE RIGHT NOW.

[goldieclaws]

How I look knowing I have to fight Fatalis at least 60 times to reach the 1 million zenny achievement in Monster Hunter Stories

[hauntingblue]

After all this I wonder how relieved zoro is of fucking up doflamingo's shit

[starlight-storytime]

reading this made me think that, if anything, Tim would be a variant of Oracle

Reverse robins is an interesting concept that's being do underutilised it hurts. Just because the order of them being adopted and their ages are reversed doesn't mean that major events are set in stone; just because Tim was adopted second doesn't mean he would've died, or that he would become the red hood. Jason died because he felt like being bruce's son hinged on him being robin, and so went to find his mother that sold him to the joker. Tim doesn't come from Jason's background, he doesn't NEED to be told he's loved to get it, and he was still bruce's robin when his parents were still alive so it doesn't make sense giving him the secret bio mom thing.

Also Tim wouldn't become the red hood and set up shop in crime alley because why the fuck would he? what connection does he have to that place? He's the most practical robin, so if he was to have a red hood esque character, he would never even reveal himself to the public, just operate behind the scenes. Jason's dramatics are a call for attention from bruce. That's his whole thing, wanting bruce to confirm his love and validation. Giving all of that to Tim is a disservice to both characters.