#then first day back she wakes up to burglars stolen a bunch of things from her garage (an ebike maybe or scooter i have no idea)

[fazcinatingblog]

so the receptionist at work was sick last week and then on monday, she went to hospital (so she must be really sick) and her housemate texted the boss to let her know but that's the only communication since and so the boss is all mad about it

but like imagine the poor girl, when she gets out of hospital after probably invasive/exhausting tests after a health scare, and loses her job????? what a horrible start to 2023 amirite

[caribooed]

[cha cha slide voice] reverse!

Freeze! Everybody clap your hands!

Ok so Catwoman Guardian of Gotham was a disaster so I'm taking it into my own hands. Only Bruce and Selina are swapped and Alfred still exists, not. The weird maid lady and Bruce is Not a bloodthirsty murderer

This got Very long so it's under a cut

Selina's parents were murdered by Joe Chill and she vowed to never let anyone feel the same pain she did, hence why she later became Catwoman

Bruce grew up on the streets with his big brother Thomas taking care of them both, but Thomas ended up killing a guy in a mugging and got sent to prison and left Bruce on his own

Catwoman hears about a number of high-profile thefts (museums, aristocrats) springing up and starts trying to track down the cat burglar and ends up interrupting a burglarly from a wealthy woman's penthouse

She chases the burglar down and they have a fight on the rooftops where they kick the everloving shit out of eachother but the burglar throws her off the roof and when she gets back up he's gone

Next night, she attends a charity event and meets an activist and fundraiser by the name of Bruce Wayne and they have a nice chat and hit it off

In the middle of it, a waiter bumps Selina in the side right over where her ribs got cracked from the other night and she doubles over so Bruce helps her out of sight and asks what happened

She tells him she tripped down the stairs of her house but he does Not believe it and ends up sticking by her the rest of the night, at the end of which Selina is like. "He's nice I think" and invites him out for lunch soon

Jump a day or two and Selina runs into the burglar again but this time he's got full body armor and a bat motif and she is Not Happy With This Development

Bruce stole a ton of armor and weaponry from the GCPD and made his own suit because Selina rly messed him up the last time they met

So they fight and Bruce hits her in the side and it floors her and he is like. Wait A Minute, but she recovers and he's forced to run

And then over a period of a month or two, Bruce starts hanging out with Selina in the day (lowkey stalking her to see if his wild theory is right) and while over at her manor he spots a bloodstain on her shirtsleeve from a wound that bled through the bandages she was wearing and when he questions her she says she cut her arm open on a nail accidentally and it's not a big deal but he's just. Hm

Also during this period, Catwoman keeps showing up to stop all of Batman's robberies and he's really getting sick of it because he's been using the money from his stolen goods both to like, feed himself but also to support a gang of homeless kids in the neighborhood he lives in and to help provide food for the local orphanage and it's getting Really Hard To Do That When He Can't Steal Stuff

So basically he knows she's Catwoman and Selina is his friend and he's just. I Have An Idea

Batman starts going out more often just to taunt Catwoman while she's on patrol and he starts going to other rogues like Two-Face and Cobblepit to egg them on and he actively breaks Bane out of prison and the Riddler out of Arkham just to set them loose

He's basically manufacturing a crime wave to try and wear Catwoman out and it's working

She's really exhausted because of all this and every time she has to make an appearance in public she's all tired and struggling to keep it together and Bruce makes a point to be there and to cover for her whenever she's too overwhelmed

Eventually Catwoman gets severely injured during a fight and she's too far from the Cave so, not really having another option, she shows up passed out in Bruce's apartment bleeding out and he's all surprised and helps her and gives her impromptu medical care but never pulls off her mask

Selina wakes up on his couch and he's asleep in a chair he pulled up next to her and she's like :] and leaves him a thank you note before going

So Batman has basically become priority one but he keeps causing so many new problems to spring up that she can't actually go after him while he commits a robbery spree, and every tine she deals with everything else he goes to ground for weeks on end

All the while Bruce is there being Supportive Friend Of The Year and they keep going out to eat and they spend events together and it's Grand

Eventually Bruce asks her out! And she's like. Oh No because while she likes him, she genuinely doesn't know if she can handle being in a relationship at the moment but she doesn't want to say no so she gives a tentative yes and so they're dating

Luckily he is a very understanding man and whenever she has to dip out to be Catwoman or when she's too tired to go out he's all "oh it's fine, I can reschedule" and it's a Very Big Relief

Batman goed to ground after another round of Mess With Catwoman and he stays that way for like three months and she puts all her rogues away so for the first time in a While she has proper free time to spend with Bruce and it's lovely! And shes like. "If this is how our relationship is, I don't want it to end" but because she's Catwoman and she doesn't know that she could hide it from Bruce if they were married and so one night she shows up in his apartment as Catwoman and shows him that she's Selina and he's just "!!!!! Oh that explains a lot, that's really awesome"

He swears he'd never tell anyone about her identity and makes a joke about how because Selina makes herself seem so ditzy at parties, nobody would believe him anyway and so Selina proposes to him the next night and they end up getting married and Bruce moves into the manor ❤️

Unfortunately Batman comes back and he pulls a pro gamer move which involves releasing every inmate from Arkham and Blackgate, including but not limited to her entire rogues gallery

So she's having a Time and literally just can't handle everything and every time she does well against a rogue Batman swoops in out of nowhere to divert her and really it's exhausting and she's working herself to the bone

Eventually she manages to wrangle most of them but the Joker is still on the loose and Batman keeps evading her and she Has Not Slept For Four Nights

While she's in the Cave, Alfred makes a comment about how at night it always gets so nerve wracking, especially since Bruce tends to leave after she does and Alfred is worried he might get caught up in something dangerous considering Batman and the crime wave and Selina is like

"He leaves the house at night??? [wh]" And Alfred gets confused tells her how he can never find Bruce in the manor from around eleven pm to two in the morning so he assumes Bruce goes out to visit friends or to deal with personal business and he tells her abt how he asked Bruce about it and he told Alfred that he and Selina had already talked about it

And Selina is just. "He was lying to you, I had no idea he was going out" which makes her Very Suspicious

She can't Do anything about it because she's trying to track down supercriminals but she checks the manor security feeds and she can't find any trace of Bruce leaving which is Concerning

Basically she ends up finding the Joker and stopping him from bombing the city and he gets sent back to Arkham, but before she can go home Batman shows up and they facedown on the roof

Batman goes all "I really didn't want to do this but you gave me no choice" and then starts trying to kill Selina

He gets a bunch of good stabs in but Selina seems to get the better of him and so he runs and she follows him into an apartment building but loses him in the hallways

She spots a bomb behind one of the doors and realizes the building is about to explode so she gets out of there just before it does and Batman corners her with a gun on a nearby roof

He tries to kill her again but Selina manages to get close and hits the gun away

Batman tries to run but she grabs him by the cape and yanks him back and manages to rip his cowl off before he gets away, at which point she sees that it's Bruce and she's Horrified

And it finally clicks that Batman has been trying to get every other criminal in Gotham to either kill her for him or wear her out so that he can do it himself, which would Also be killing Selina Kyle, and since she doesn't have any other heir, Bruce would get her fortune

And she's all "why would you do all this" and he gets really angry and starts telling her all about the people that aren't as privileged as her and he basically tells her that he wants her money so he can use it to help the people living in the East End and the Narrows, since Selina and the other aristocrats of her stature didn't know the problem like he did and refused to help

So Selina is just baffled that he'd go this far and he apologizes to her genuinely before he tries to kill her one last time because now that she Knows, this is his last chance to get away with the plan

It doesn't work, Selina fights him off and manages to get cuffs on him but he gets away and Selina goes home and Divorces That Man Immediately but also realizes that while he was living with her he'd been stealing things like jewelry she never wore or fancy paintings from rooms nobody ever went into and she is just Not Pleased

But she also allocates a ton of money towards charity projects focused in the more rundown areas of Gotham and actively starts funding all sorts of orphanages, soup kitchens, clinics, etc

She tries to track Bruce down but he's just Gone and so she lets it go even though she's very heartbroken and sad that he tried so hard to kill her

[ernmark]

Because I’ve been posting a whole lot of really sad stuff lately, here’s something a little bit more fun.

The prompt comes courtesy of Kya, who requested Juno undertake a very particular kind of case, with some details based on a conversation with @crownsnbirds​. 

Rita’s laid down the law: there will be no more dry spells in the Juno Steel Detective Agency. Juno has two weeks to recover, just long enough for the sunburn to finish peeling and the vertigo to fade into mild dizzy spells when he stands up too fast, and then he’s back on the job. 

He should probably thank her for that, at least when he’s done being annoyed at her about it. 

After everything that’s happened, the current case is a relief. There’s no conspiracy, no murder, no hostage situations, no rigged elections. Just a run-of-the-mill Uptown blue blood whining because their favorite tiara went missing.

“No, not a tiara,” insists Theophania Frost. “It’s a diadem. An antique from my dearest grandmama.” 

“Your... diadem.” Goddamn rich people. “Right. Now are you sure it’s actually stolen? Have you checked with your staff? Made sure it’s not out for cleaning or repairs or whatever?” Hell, maybe somebody left it in the refrigerator by mistake. God knows he’s done that with his eye patch once or twice after a long night.

“Detective Steel, I wouldn’t have called you here if I wasn’t absolutely certain it’s been stolen-- and I know who did it, too!”

Juno sighs. The tone of their voice tells him he’s going to be in for a long day. “Do you?”

Frost leans in conspiratorially and drops their voice to a whisper, as if they might be overheard. “Have you ever heard of the Bouquet Bandit?”

Oh god, not this again.

“Is this one of those crooks with a theme song trying to get into the Fortezza? Because this is a hell of a bad time to cash in on that deal.” 

“I don’t know, Detective, but I’m not the only one who’s been stolen from. Sam Spare, you know, the botanist? Xir diamond shears went missing a month ago. And Telemnachus Wake’s collection of antique horsehair necklaces was taken two months ago, and on the same day, they were sent flowers.”

“Flowers.” 

Frost takes Juno’s exasperation for enthusiasm. “That’s right! Every time he takes something, he always leaves behind a dozen roses.”

“Thus the name, I got it.” 

Why did Rita have to pick now to start doing her job?

Whoever this Bouquet Bandit is, he’s good. The crime scene is spotless, and there’s no signs of forced entry whatsoever. While Rita goes over Frost’s security system for footage and signs of tampering, Juno looks into the other alleged crimes of the serial burglar, looking for something they had in common. 

The best bet is in the delivery personnel-- people this rich get a lot of deliveries, and nobody thinks twice about a person in uniform with a box in hand walking right up to the front door. There are a few people on the security feeds that Juno pegs as suspicious, and not just because of the one thing they all seem to have in common: no matter where they are or what they’re doing, Juno can never get a good look at their faces. 

He scours the timestamps on the videos, looking for others that might give a better angle or reveal some kind of other identifying mark, but there’s no luck so far.

And honestly? He’s kind of loving it. After all the shit that went down, he’s been in need of a good, clean, straightforward case. It’s been too long since he’s done legitimate investigating that he could feel good about.

The thought barely has the chance to cross his mind before he hears Rita start talking to someone at her desk. A moment later, she’s poking her head inside his office.

“Hey, Boss? You got a delivery.” 

She looks about as concerned as he feels. Because in her hand is a bouquet of twelve red roses.

“What the hell?” He starts to his feet. “Rita, did you see who delivered these?” 

“Don’t worry, boss, I already asked. It was just a kid. She said some man stopped her on the sidewalk and gave her a whole bunch of money to deliver these to you.” 

“Did she see his face?” 

“I asked, but she wouldn’t say nothin’. She just gave me the flowers and ran.”

Juno grabs the card from among the roses and turns it over. “You have got to be kidding me.”

Juno’s still got the card in his pocket when he arrives at the meeting point. Rita insisted she come with him when she saw, but this time he was the one who put his foot down-- the last time she joined him on a job, she fell in love with a murderer, and this time he’s going to cut off the inevitable tragedy before he has to buy two pints of ice cream and sit through her forty favorite sad movies.

The card itself is infuriatingly unhelpful. The paper is high-class cardstock, but nothing so fancy that you couldn’t get it at any stationary store in town. The text is digitally printed in a fancy but publicly available font. The message is short:

Detective Juno Steel

Meet me at the Jacobi Convention Center at 3 PM on July 5.

Don’t be late.

It screams ambush-- which is another reason why Rita isn’t coming.

Even if the ambush is apparently going to happen at the local Y2K Faire.

It makes sense in its own ridiculous way: there are hundreds of people coming and going, half of them in costume, and everyone’s going to be carrying a shopping bag or a replica glock or sword or whatever, and there’ll be enough reenactors demonstrating fake duels that nobody’s going to notice if things get heated until it’s too late.

Old Americana-style signposts mark the different sections of the faire, their directions spelled out in big white letters against reflective green rectangles. One catches Juno’s eye: its metal pole is decorated with a dozen roses. It looks like a regular decoration, but he takes it as a sign and follows its lead. It’s not hard to find a second sign post covered in roses a little further, and another, until he’s on the far end of the convention center. By now the trail is easy to follow, laid out in a path of rose petals on the floor. They’re fresh, not quite dried out yet, not nearly as trampled as they should be, given how many people are here. The bandit can’t have been here more than half an hour ago, tops.

The trail leads to an exotic animal exhibit based on old-fashioned Earth petting zoos. Which... can’t be right. Juno checks all the way around the enclosure, just to make sure he got it right, but no. That’s where it ends. 

What the hell is he supposed to do with this?

He stares, perplexed, at children reaching through the bars to offer handfuls of pellets and sliced vegetables to cows and ponies and old Earth species of rabbits-- the kind that are fluffy and bright-eyed and small enough to hold in your arms.

The kind I’m used to eat carrots and wrinkle their little nosies.

The thought makes Juno’s heart ache a little bit. Reminders of Nureyev always do. 

He’s staring into the enclosure when he notices something that doesn’t belong: a bit of paper, fancy card stock the same stiffness and shade as the card in his hand, carefully pinned to the wool of a star-horned goat on the other end of the enclosure. He hurries over to the spot of fence closest to it, but as soon as he gets there, it’s on the move, meandering around to the other side.

“Goddammit,” he mutters under his breath, and sets his foot on the metal gate. He wasn’t planning to get cow dung on his shoes today, but whatever.

“Hey!” barks a man who smells like he’s been working with these things for a long, long time. “You can’t go in there.”

Juno would ignore him and make the leap anyway, but the guy grabs him, and hot damn does he have a strong grip. Apparently wrangling a bunch of four-legged antiques for a living builds muscles or something. 

“I said you can’t go in there,” the caretaker repeats slowly. It’s a warning. It won’t be repeated again.

There’s even odds that Juno would win any fight between them, but no matter how it goes, he’ll end the fight by being dragged out by security, which means he’ll lose his only lead on this case. The Bandit’s got a game to play, and Juno intends to win it.

And that means playing by the rules.

“Sorry about that,” he says as sweetly as he can get away with. “I’m just so excited. I’ve never seen a goat up close before.”

The caretaker gives him a weird look, but backs off. “Yeah, well, you’re going to have to do your watching from out here. It stresses the animals out too much to let people into the pen.”

“Do you think you could bring one over for me to get a closer look?” He points at the star-horned goat with the note on its wool. “How about that one over there?”

“Listen, buddy,” the caretaker says. “We can’t do that. If you want them to come closer, we sell food pellets for a cred a bag.”

Sometimes, being a Private Eye means asking the hard questions-- like whether he’s going to include “petting zoo food pellets” in his expense report at the end of a case.

He decides to swallow the cost along with his pride and he buys a bag.

And then he buys two more; the one goat he’s after looks hungry, but apparently not as much as the rest of the animals in the enclosure. In seconds he’s swarmed by livestock, and Juno runs his hands over all of them, just in case the goat wasn’t the only one with a note in its fur.

And... okay, so they are really soft. It’s not like this is his first time at a Y2K Faire, but he’s never bothered to pay money for a chance to pet the animals. It’s actually kind of nice. Especially the cow-- she keeps bumping his hand with her soft, velvety nose, and scrubs her long tongue over the palm of his hand in a way that should be a lot more gross than it is. It’s a shame there aren’t more of these on Mars.

Sure, a few people are complaining about the smell, but Juno spent half his childhood wading through the sewers with giant rabbits. If anything, the smell of hay and manure and animal fur feels a little bit nostalgic. 

It’s not until he trades a handful of pellets to a six-year-old in exchange for a bunch of carrot slices that the goat finally starts heading his way, nosing at one hand while he fumbles to unpin the note from its wool. 

Just like he guessed, it’s the a perfect match for the card that came with the flowers, with the same paper, the same font, and the same obnoxious lack of helpful information.

Hungry, Detective?

Meet me in the Foode Courte.

Even without the little heart at the bottom of the card, there’s something ridiculously flirtatious about the whole thing. But that’s this thief’s schtick, isn’t it? Some kind of hopeless romantic who goes around tossing roses all over the place. Just watch, when Juno finds him he’ll be wearing a top hat and cape. Maybe that’s why he picked this place to sneak around in, so his getup won’t cause any suspicion.

After he washes himself off, Juno follows the signs to the circle of kiosks selling “authentic” twentieth-century cuisine-- things with bizarre names like “deep fried twinkies” and “mashed potatoes” and “blooming onions”. Thankfully, the trail of rose petals on the floor leads him past the more exotic options to a plain-old popcorn stand that’s offering nothing more historic than cheddar-and-caramel among its flavors. The smell of the popcorn is subtle compared to the other foods lingering in the air, but when he’s this close, it’s enough to make his stomach grumble.

Just like before, there’s another note, tucked into one of the pre-portioned bags of popcorn, and he swipes the beg the second the cashier’s back is turned. All expenses paid or not, there’s something criminal about charging seven creds for a quarter’s worth of popcorn. 

Okay, so the popcorn isn’t half bad. Not good enough to justify that price tag, but still, not bad. And he was just thinking he could use a snack.

The note is spotted and translucent with cooking oil, but it’s still readable enough. 

Join me for a game.

“That’s funny, I thought we were already playing one,” Juno says aloud, just in case the Bandit is watching him... which he probably is, dammit.

There’s a section of kiosks dedicated to old Earth carnival games, and sure enough, there’s another trail of rose petals leading him to the right booth: a target shooting game backed up against a funnel cake stand.

He’s not even surprised when he finds the corner of another note sticking out of a cut in an oversized teddy bear.

“Joke’s on you,” he mutters. “I’m great at these things.” 

He used to do these all the time when he was in high school, winning the biggest prize he could carry just to show off for his dates. 

He pays a couple creds to the lady behind the counter and takes aim. All three shots go wide, barely hitting the target.

Anywhere else, that might disappoint him, but not here. Sure, his aim isn’t ever going to be as great as it was when he had the THEIA on and active, but these games are always rigged. The trick is that now he knows which way the laser is skewed, and he corrects his aim accordingly. 

Seven bulls-eyes later, and he’s walking away from the stand with a stuffed bear almost as big as he is. Rita’s going to love this thing-- maybe it’ll make up for not letting her come.

He slips the last note out of the little hole in the bear and unfolds it.

If you want to look into my face, you’ll have to look into your own.

I’ll be waiting in the hall of mirrors.

Finally something direct.

There’s no trail of rose petals this time-- just an “out for lunch” sign and an unlocked door on the old twentieth-century attraction. He never got the appeal of places like this, where everything is dim and warped and confusing. But then, he never really got the appeal of mirrors, either. 

He leaves the bag of popcorn and stuffed bear just inside the door, and he sets out. 

“Alright, I’m here,” he calls into the twisting halls. “Enough of this scavenger hunt. Come out and we’ll settle this.”

His only answer is in footsteps. He whirls to follow the source of the sound, but he only manages to catch reflections of a retreating figure. In the warped glass, he can’t make out a face or a body type, but there’s something about the pattern of the footsteps that feels familiar. 

The Bandit is running, so he gives chase. He keeps seeing flashes of the man, bits and pieces that should all fit together but don’t. All of it feels too familiar. 

And then he’s out of the hall of mirrors and into another corner of the funhouse, this one full of holograms and wax figurines, all of them of celebrities and historical figures and beautiful people through the ages. Some of them are moving, repeating cliched one-liners and overused quotations, and it’s all coming from everywhere, sending false signals from every corner. His senses are so confused that he’s even smelling things he shouldn’t, animals and food and cologne.

Cologne.

“No,” he whispers. “No, it can’t be.” But the more he looks at it, the more obvious it is.

Pet the fuzzy animals. Have a snack. Play a game. Hell, even the flowers--

It’s so obvious. It’s terrible. 

Jesus, why do people keep doing this to him? Sending him on cases that aren’t cases-- it wasn’t even a year ago that he got dragged all over Oldtown for Sasha’s performance review, and then Ramses staged a goddamn assassination for a job interview, and then apparently the stakeout that was a bad excuse to get him to rest up from a stab wound, and now this? 

“Goddammit, Nureyev,” he snaps. “Is this supposed to be a date?”

Nureyev is still out of sight, lost in the dim lights and mannequins, but his voice wafts over Juno. “Are you having fun? I certainly am.”

“You couldn’t just ask--” No, he couldn’t. Because that isn’t Nureyev’s style, and Juno’s never exactly been the type to openly accept that kind of invitation. So he changes tracks. “I gotta say, the location threw me. A Y2K Faire seems kind of low-brow for you.”

“That’s hardly my fault. It did take you some time to respond to my calling card, after all.”

His... oh, goddammit, the serial robberies. “You’ve been trying to get my attention.”

“For months now, thank you for noticing. And you’ve been playing hard to get.” 

Juno sighs. “I wasn’t playing. I was just...” How is he supposed to even put it into words? “My head’s been a real mess.” 

“I can imagine,” Nureyev hums, and his voice is soft and so close that Juno can feel his breath in his ear. “Would you like to talk about it over dinner?”

[satireknight]

TMNT S02E10 - New York’s Shiniest

Sigh, from the absolute best of the series to merely entertaining. Well, could be worse - it could go from best to bad.

Shredder announces that he’s definitely got a plan to kill the Turtles, no really, this one will totally work, double promise. Krang’s expression says it all.

His plan: the police are making a robot policeman, so Shredder will steal it, reprogram and duplicate it, then send the robots out to kill the Turtles. It’s simple yet doomed to failure.

Krang says fine, but if he screws up, then he has to spend the rest of his life with Bebop and Rocksteady. That is cruel and unusual punishment. 

And in case you’re wondering, Krang does not appear or get involved for the rest of the episode. It’s just more of Shredder calling him four times a day.

Meanwhile, Irma is moaning about her wasteland of a love life when she and April discover that someone is robbing April’s apartment. Pretty brazenly too,

And instead of calling the police right away, April fumes about how they wouldn’t do that if the Turtles were there.

The Turtles, meanwhile, are busy screwing in a very, very high-up lightbulb, and Donatello clearly drew the short straw.

Either that, or Splinter is mad at him for something. Unfortunately he loses his balance and they all come crashing down just as Michelangelo is about to finish, just in time for April to complain about the burglary. And before they leave, Michelangelo answers the question we’re all wondering: how many ninja turtles does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

The answer is: four, and they’ll break the lamp before running out.

April is fuming about the second loss of her everything in the space of a year, and Irma suggests April deal with this the way she deals with everything: do a Channel 6 story on it. 

Meanwhile, the Turtles happen to stumble across all April’s stolen stuff, which is being put up for sale on the sidewalk by the hoodlums. How much can you even get for used furniture? Not antiques, just ordinary used furniture and appliances.

The Turtles recognize the stuff as hers, and throw off their disguises to start a fight. The hoodlums.... aren’t exactly intimidated, since they respond with “Turtle costumes?” and laughter.

So the Turtles handle this situation by... lifting the hoodlums’ van over their heads. Which is a good demonstration of physical strength, but it also kind of makes it hard to fight back if they decide to attack you just then.

So instead of getting the go-ahead on some kind of crime wave news story, April has instead gotten an address from a police contact she knows. The Turtles bring back her stuff, albeit now rather broken (somehow), and Donatello promises to fix everything right before her TV explodes.

April then runs out in pursuit of a story, after quickly thanking them for getting back all her worldly possessions. I’d feel a bit taken for granted if I were them. She could at least buy them lunch.

So it turns out that April’s tip was the experimental robocop Shredder plans to steal. Not THE Robocop, but A robot cop. Yes, someone robbed her apartment and she didn’t even call the cops, and she turned that into a news story by focusing instead on an android. I don’t understand her thought processes, but I never liked journalism class.

She finds the robot REX-1 and starts diddling around with his control device instead of just taking some footage and getting the hell out. This of course wakes him right up and they have a little conversation, just before the security guards come in... probably wondering who is talking in there.

One of them tells April she’s under arrest, and her response is, “But I’m April O’Neil, Channel 6 news!” Someone needs to tell April that being a reporter doesn’t mean that you can break and enter into any facility you want in the name of news.

But of course, REX comes to her rescue (I’m going to call him REX because it’s easier than REX-1) because he’s effectively imprinted on April as his controller. He even follows her outside, and carries her off when she expresses a desire to go home.

Shredder is still doing a thing, if you forgot he was in this episode.

REX has just served April dinner when Irma shows up, and Irma is so sex-starved that she immediately swoons at the sight of a hulking robot. And Rex isn’t one of those robots like R. Daneel Olivaw who look human until you check their innards. He looks like a friggin’ robot. Of course, Irma is the same person who will later come close to sexually harassing Donatello and earlier tried to date one of April’s burglars, so... someone please set her up with someone.

Just then the security guards show up at April’s door, possibly because she told them her name and where she works. I’m just confused that THEY didn’t call the police, especially since the police will presumably want to know where their robot is.

Anyway, REX gets rid of ‘em.

Down in the lair, Donatello is showing off his twirling skills when Rex catches his bo and breaks it in half. Donatello takes umbrage to this, and Rex... gets a little mean about it.

This would get so many headlines today. The cops created a robot cop that hates people who aren’t white!

Leonardo tries to cut REX’s legs out from under him but only gives Donatello the shivers, and April defuses the whole situation by saying that these guys are her friends. Raphael gets a little revenge by suggesting that the robot has a crush on her, and Michelangelo seems... oddly enthusiastic about the idea.

Like, why is he so happy?

“I was only trying to get a story. Now the police think I stole him!” Well, you kinda broke into a secure facility, turned on an expensive and untested piece of equipment, and then left with it. One can see how they would get that impression.

Then the Turtles go to Channel 6 and start free-climbing up the wall.

If they can do that, why do they use suction cups and grapplers?

It turns out they’re here to kidnap Vernon, for probably the first time in his life, but amazingly not the last. April wants him to record her talking about REX to the camera, but the Turtles never bother to remove his blindfold, so he isn’t really sure how to aim the camera.

“I’ve never done this wearing a blindfold before.” “Hey man, come on, you gotta open yourself up to new experiences, okay?” And that’s why we all love Michelangelo.

And things get totally out of control after Leonardo tries to aim Vernon’s entire torso, resulting in Donatello taking over the camera and shooting his brothers doing goofy stuff.

But somehow Vernon can run a switchboard blindfolded. I guess maybe because the knobs are all in familiar places?

Unfortunately, Shredder sees her report... and seems weirdly okay with the fact that he can’t just steal the robot like he said. Then again, he apparently can hack (with only ten buttons!) into the police computers and take the plans, so I guess he doesn’t need REX.

Oh, and fun detail: apparently the Turtles dragged a blindfolded Vernon down the outside of the building. I’m amazed none of them has strangled him by now.

Shredder, meanwhile, has produced a bunch of REX doppelgangers, and is telling them that the Turtles are the most-wanted criminals they’re supposed to capture.

And for some reason, Shredder has a posted photograph of the Turtles staring awkwardly at a camera.

When did he manage to take that?

So on the way home, the Turtles are suddenly confronted by a row of REX clones, and when they try to turn and flee, they’re confronted by another row behind them. When told to drop their weapons, Leonardo yells back, “Forget it. We’d rather drop our bodies!” and drives right off the bridge. Well, that’s one way to handle the situation.

And even though they’ve survived worse, Shredder concludes that they are dead, absolutely dead, no way they could possibly not be dead now. So he sends the REX clones out on a spree of... stealing money. Is he a little short? And just to be petty, he sends them into Channel 6 to fire one shot and knock it off the air.

The Turtles are, of course, NOT dead. Leonardo comments that the robots didn’t know “we’re amphibians!” No, you’re not. You’re AMPHIBIOUS. Not the same thing.

They seem oddly uninterested in whatever’s happened to the Turtle Van, though...

Meanwhile, April and Splinter... the FUCK?

How does a royal fuckup like this happen? We saw the Turtle Van plunge into the river. The Turtles did not get it out of the river, nor did they go home. How the fuck did it get back to the lair so April could be driving it around?!

Okay, grievous continuity error aside, the van is stopped by the clone robots “in the name of Emperor Shredder,” which clearly pisses off Splinter. REX breaks out and engages the other robots, but ends up crushed under a giant gargoyle. Fortunately the Turtles show up before Splinter and April can be shot at, and they get rid of the bots.

REX ain’t doing so hot, though. And since Donatello’s whole schtick is that he’s really good with machines, he of course figures he can not only fix REX, but make him control the other robots.

I swear, this scene would have been even better if Donatello had had one of the others dabbing his brow while he worked.

So he took their TV apart for the pieces he needs to repair REX, and even uses some videocassettes to program him. Uh, that depends on what he’s planning to program him for. Are old reruns of Star Trek counting as computer programming?

REX revives but seems a little out of it, and April gives shippers joy.

This week, Splinter wants in on the action, so he has come up with an idea to lure in and entrap the other robots. It involves fireworks being set off at an old fairground. 

Fortunately for their plan, the robots apparently interpret a Turtle-shaped fireworks display as a sign that the Turtles are alive... and playing with fireworks. So Shredder orders every single robot to head there and kill the Turtles.

Unfortunately, REX starts talking like a Wild West gunslinger, Dorothy from Wizard of Oz, and... some reference I don’t get. The Turtles distract the robots by drawing their fire and hopping on a merry-go-round, while Donatello tries to get the stupid bot working.

No matter how dramatic a climax, a merry-go-round somehow makes it seem silly. And that is universal - ever seen Strangers on a Train? Serious ending gone silly because of that damn merry-go-round.

So what does REX do? He starts doing Donatello’s aerobics tape workout, which fortunately spreads to the other REXes. They get overloaded and explode.

Everyone rejoices, even Splinter.

April later watches her own news report about how the project has been abandoned, and thinks wistfully about REX. And then Irma comes in, with REX as her date. Please, someone set Irma up with their brother-in-law or something. This woman’s desperation is just sad.

VERDICT

It’s hard for me to give this a fair judgement, just because the episode before it was so incredibly good. But I’d have to give this episode a stamp of recommended; it has some flaws, primarily that giant continuity gaffe in the middle of the story, but it’s overall a well-told story that focuses a little more on April than usual. Of course, it shows that she’s willing to do criminal stuff in order to get a story, but whatever.

Other than April, it sort of focuses on Donatello the most - he’s the one at the bottom of the totem pole, he’s the one manhandled by REX, he’s the one who has to fix REX and then get him to stop the clones. By this point the resident nerd turtle hadn’t yet gotten an episode to focus on him even in a secondary role, so this was a nice touch.

The biggest problem is perhaps the ending, which goes full-on goofy with the aerobics video. But at least that doesn’t last for long.

GRADE: B

[hammerofthezods]

Movie Review: Point Break

Point Break is a movie about these guys who are surfers and FBI agents and burglars.  This movie has some way serious star power.  The main good guy is played by Keanu Reeves who was also in a bunch of other movies like the Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and The Matrix.  The main bad guy, and sexiest character of all, is played by none other than everyone's hero, Patrick Swayze.  Swayze is in a lot of movies where he plays a sexy guy like Roadhouse and Dirty Dancing and Red Dawn. In Roadhouse he beat up tons of people and had wall sex with this smoking hot blond chick.  Gary Busey is also in this movie and he plays this crazy FBI guy who loves the shit out of meatball sandwiches. So what happens is that this guy named Johnny Utah, played by Keanu Reeves, wants to be an FBI agent.  He goes to the FBI and they tell him that he can join them if he passes this test where he shoots things with a shotgun while it's raining.  So Johnny does this and the FBI lets him be an agent.  His first assignment is in California where he is supposed to investigate bank robberies with his new partner, Angelo Pappas.  Pappas is played by Gary Busey.  When Johnny gets to the FBI station in California, he eats a donut and then goes to meet his new partner who is swimming in a pool.  Pappas sees the handsome young Johnny and is all like "What the fuck, man?  This kid is going to totally suck at this because he's so handsome."  Anyway, Pappas and Johnny are now partners and they go looking for bank robbers. The main bank robbers that they are looking for is this group of guys who dress up like US presidents and go to banks where they yell at people while using their guns to steal money. They rob tons of banks and are pretty good at it.    No one has any clue who they are which pisses off the FBI greatly.  However, Pappas has this hare-brained idea that the robbers are a bunch of surfers trying to raise money to go surfing.  Everyone at FBI thinks he is dumb as shit and old so no one believes his theory about the surfing burglars.  Johnny, however, is just a rookie so he has to act like it's a good idea. Anyway, in order to infiltrate the surfer gang, Utah goes undercover as a surfer.  The first time he and Pappas go to the beach is just so damn funny.  They walk around and act like total narcs.  When Johnny goes into the water to learn how to surf, he makes this other surfer fall down.  This guy gets really pissed and punches Johnny right in his face.    The next day, Johnny goes back to surfing and almost drowns because he sucks so bad at it.  While he's drowning, this girl saves his life and pulls him to the beach.  She then yells at him for being such a n00b and makes fun of his big stupid surf board.  The girl's name is Tyler and is played by Lori Pety who was also in the movie Tank Girl where I guess she played a girl tank driver (like that'd ever happen).  Anyway, Johnny wants to have sex with Tyler so he watches her through binoculars when she comes off the beach. The she drives away and Johnny followers her to her job at a Dairy Queen. He also calls FBI and makes them look at her permanent record so he can know about her.  Turns out that she's an orphan which gives him an "in" with her because he can lie about being an orphan as well.  He walks into Tyler's work and orders shrimp and a Dilly Bar.  When she looks up, she sees that it's the lame-ass guy from surfing and she gets pissed because he stalked her there.  Then he tells her that his parents where run over by a train which, hahaha, what is this the 1800's?  So now she kind of likes him and says that she will teach him how to shred on waves with his big dumb surfboard. The next day Tyler teaches Johnny how to surf and he just looks so damn terrible doing it.  Everyone makes fun of him and he gets pissed.  Then one time he finally surfs like a normal person and is very happy about that.  When they are done surfing for the day, Tyler and Johnny walk back to the beach where they meet Patrick Swayze who's name is Bodie.  It's very obvious that Bodie is the coolest surfer of all time because of his nice body and long hair.  Then Bodie asks Johnny if he wants to play beach football with some other guys from a surfing club.  Johnny says yes.  Turns out that Johnny was a superstar QB at Ohio State, which LOL.  Now everyone is playing football and scoring touchdowns and having a super time.  This one time, Bodie keeps the ball on a sweep and runs down the beach.  Johnny is all like "Nope" and hauls ass after him.  After he slam tackles Bodie into the water, all the guys in the surfing club get really pissed because, hey man, we're just playing for fun here.  Bodie then tells everyone that this is Johnny Utah from Ohio State and then they all love him because of that.  Now they are all best friends. One day when Johnny is out undercover surfing, he runs into that one dude from earlier who punched him right in his face. This time, though, the guy brings a bunch of friends with him and they are so amped up to beat up Johnny real good.  They start to battle and Johnny is doing pretty good and beats up a couple of them.  Oh yeah, two of the surfer guys are from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers rock and roll band.  I guess they got tired of making the shittiest music of all time and wanted to be in a movie.  So after Johnny gets in a few good punches and kicks, the surfers start to win the fight.  Just as we think they are going to murder Johnny right there on the goddamned beach, Bodie shows up and starts taking the fucking wood to these guys.  This totally re-energizes Johnny who kicks more ass too. The funniest part is that while all this is happening, Pappas realizes that Johnny has been gone for too long so he yells into his walkie-talkie "WHERE ARE YOU JOHNNY? YOU BETTER NOT BE PICKING UP ANY BABES!" Hahaha.  I laughed so damn hard when he said that.  Then Bodie invites Johnny to a surfing party at his house. Johnny and Pappas totally think that the Red Hot Chili Peppers surfing gang are the bank robbers so they plan to go arrest them the next day.  But first, Johnny goes to the party at Bodies house.  At the party there are just so many babes and rock music. People are dancing and drinking alcohol and telling surfing stories.  Then Bodie and his gang invite Tyler, who is also there, and Johnny to go night surfing.  After they catch all of the waves for the night, Tyler and Johnny do it on the beach.  When they wake up the next morning, Utah has to run to the bad surfer gang's house to arrest them for robbing banks.  When the try to make the bust, everything just goes all to shit.  There are people shooting all over the place and naked chicks kicking ass and all kinds of other stuff.  Finally, the FBI guys get everything under control.  Then Pappas points his gun at one of the guys and says "Speak into the microphone" which is really funny because he always says these stupid lines.  It turns out that these guys are not the bank robbers because they are too busy selling meth.  Everybody totally makes so much fun of Johnny and Pappas because they suck so damn hard at being in the FBI. So now it's early as shit the next morning and Johnny is lying in bed with Tyler.  Then Johnny and his friends come over and say that they want to go surfing.  While they are surfing, Johnny suddenly figures out that the robbers are these guys and he runs away to do some investigating.  Then he goes and tells Pappas who doesn't believe him at first but finally comes around because he's a good partner and also because he kind of doesn't give a shit. The next day, Utah and Pappas go wait outside of the bank that is going to be robbed next.  This is when the best part of the whole movie (possibly of any movie ever) happens.  They're waiting outside the bank and Pappas says that he's hungry and tells Utah to go get him two meatball sandwiches because they are just so damn good.  He loves them so much that as Johnny is walking to get them Pappas leans out the window of the car and says "Utah! Get me Two!".  You have to watch this because it's just an awesome line.  The guy just loves those damn meatball sandwiches.  When Johnny gets back, Pappas starts to eat his lunch, but then they see that the bank is getting robbed.  When the robbers run out with sacks full of money, Johnny shoots at them giving absolute no fucks about all the nearby civilians.  Of course he misses, so now a car chase starts.  They chase the robbers to a gas station where the robber dressed like Ronald Reagan makes a flame thrower and flame throws a bunch of shit.  Then Johnny starts to chase Reagan and they run all over the city.  This one time, Reagan throws and damn pit bull at Utah which is hilarious.  Finally, they run down a hill where Johnny hurts his dainty little knee and has to stop running so Reagan gets away.  Also, the guy dressed up as Reagan is actually Bodie. Later that night, Johnny is sleeping when Tyler finds his FBI gear and gets mad so she shoots the pillow next to him with a gun then runs away.  Johnny is so sad and tries to call her a bunch but she doesn't answer the phone.  Then Bodie comes over with the other surfers and tells Utah to get his shit because they're all going skydiving.  At this point, Bodie and his gang know that Johnny is FBI and Johnny also knows that they know but nobody says anything and everyone just plays it all cool.  So then they go skydiving and Johnny has a super time doing it.  When they get back on the ground, Bodie tells Johnny that one of the other gang members has stolen Tyler and will only let her go if Johnny helps them rob a bank.  Utah is pretty pissed about this because he'll get in tons of trouble so he says "I. AM. AN. FBI. AGENT!"  which is just awesome.  Bodie laughs at him and says "Sorry, bro.  Today you're going to be a bank robber. And oh yeah, here's a shotgun to rob the bank with but it's not loaded because we don't like you anymore." Now they all go to rob a bank together.  When they are inside robbing, there is an undercover cop there cashing a check, maybe his paycheck, and he starts to shoot at the robbers.  He hits one and then somebody shoots the shit out of him.  The robber that got shot dies and then everyone goes to leave.  Before they run away, Bodie knocks Utah out by hitting him with a gun.  When Johnny wakes up, all the cops are there and they go to arrest Johnny.  Pappas shows up and punches the President FBI in the face and takes Johnny away.  Johnny says the robbers are at the airport getting ready to go sky diving again so Pappas drives them there.  When they get to the airport Pappas drops Johnny off and then goes to find a sniper spot to shoot people from.  Johnny goes up to Bodie and tells him to let Tyler go.  Bodie says "LoL. Nope!"  Just then one of Bodie's friends finds Pappas in the sniper position and kills him but not before Pappas shoots the guy in his torso.  So now, Bodie tells Utah that he has to go skydiving with them if he wants to get Tyler back. When they are up in the plane, Bodie give the guy that Pappas shot a bag of money and pushes him out the door and he dies.  Then Bodie jumps out with a parachute.  Johnny gets pissed because there are no more parachutes so he punches the plane.  Then he decides to jump after Bodie without a parachute.  So he jumps out and then catches Bodie in the air and gives him a big bear hug.  So now they are hugging and falling to the ground and right at the last minute Johnny pulls the parachute cord and then they hit the ground rolling around and crying.  Now the guy who stole Tyler drives up and lets her go.  She runs towards Johnny and she's only wearing this sexy lingerie so you can kind of see her boobs.  Then Bodie gets in the car and drives away with all the money from the bank. So now it's like a year later and Johnny is driving around Australia in a jeep.  He also has long hair and a jeans jacket.  He drives to the beach just as a big storm hits.  He sees Bodie on the beach and starts to walk over to him.  Then we see that there are a bunch of cops around and apparently Johnny is helping them capture Bodie once and for all.  So, Johnny walks over to Bodie and says "You're under arrest!"  Bodie is all like "Come on, bro.  Just let me go ride this gigantic storm wave that I'll end up dying in because I don't want to go to jail."  Because Johnny is now a surfer, he let's Bodie go die in the wave. After Bodie gets eaten by the big wave, Johnny throws his FBI badge away because he wants to be a full time surfer now. Then the movie is over. This movie is so damn good you guys.  It has all kinds of cool shit in it.  There's surfing and guns and chicks and fights and Pappas says awesome shit all the time.  I highly recommend you watch this many times.