#this is a joke don be so serious batman

[anonymouscheeses]

Omg guys im on the part where Jecka goes to save her dad cuz hes goin in cardiac arrest after seeing a group of men want to see her feet, can't wait to see whats behind the door!!! 😁😁

[igotanidea]

Rom-com, doubts and older brother complex : Dick Grayson x sister!reader

„Hey you, how was the movie?” Dick grinned with the brightest smile upon seeing his sister back from the cinema. Said sister however was far from being happy. “Y/N?”

“Yes? I mean, yes, sure, hi Dickie. It was fine, I guess.”

“Oh no.” he muttered

“What?”

“You got that face.”

“What face?!” involuntarily she glanced at the mirror just to check whether her older brother was serious or just trying to prank her.

“Please tell me you are not psychoanalyzing the movie.”

“Psycho…..? What? Me? Pfff, never.” She scoffed

“Mhm. Sure.”

“I’m sorry, what is your problem here, Grayson?” Y/N crossed her arms over her chest in annoyance. “Honestly I came home hoping for some peace and quiet and I feel so attacked right now.”

“Are you doing this… what was it called….?” Dick scratched his head searching for the right word “watcher insert!”

“IT’S READER INSERT!”

“Well, it was a movie, so definitely watcher insert. And you practically admitted you do.”

“I DID NOT SAY A THING LIKE THAT!”

“You didn’t have to. Like I said, you got that face.” He shrugged, absolutely not convinced and unimpressed by her yelling.

“Ugh! You are insufferable!”

“Part of my charm, you know that. Now come on, come sit here and tell me what got you spinning, huh? As a big brother…..”

“Please, spare me the talk about oldest sibling and all the duties that come with it. I can handle my own shit.” She hesitantly perched on the armrest of the sofa, but Dick was not satisfied with that and grabbed her by the waist pulling next to him.

“Come on, sis, don’t be stubborn” he pinched her stomach getting a slap on the hand in exchange “that hurt.”

“Serves you well!”

“Ok, I’ll stop. Jokes aside. Get out of that head of yours and walk me through it ‘cause I don’t get it. You went to the movie theatre to have some fun ….unlike someone we know….. and came back stuck in thinking and, let me put it simply, melancholic. Not really a normal reaction after a young adult movie. It’s young adult, right?” he frowned

“You got that one right.” She sighed “I … I don’t really know. I mean, this movie was as cliché as possible and only confirm my belief that it’s not for me.”

“How come?”

“You know… nice girl, A-grade student, not knowing the bad side of life changes the surrounding, most likely moves out of the small town.  And in the city, she meets a guy, a well-known trouble-maker and more often than not, a womanizer. Of course, she swears she wants nothing to do with him but after an hour or so, couple of fights and few misunderstanding they end up together, most likely in a X-rated scene. And after another half hour, some family drama or demons from the past emerges, but all ends well and you get those fucking singing birds, shining sun, doves and all that shit. I’m so too old for that. And I think I’m starting to get bored with such films.”

“Are you?” he looked at her carefully, voice turning soft not to startle her.

“Yes.” She made a face at him

“Y/n. You say you hate it, but …”

“Don’t you dare say it!” she jumped on the couch and jabbed his chest “Don’t. You. Dare.”

“I won’t. I’ll leave that to you. Come on, say it out loud so we can process that. No one else is here.”

“I’m sorry, since when are you my therapist?”

“Since Bruce provided all his kids with trauma and forgot to equip them with the specialist to fix it. Say it.”

“I wish I have a cliché love story.” She looked down and hid face in hands because of the embarrassment. “But I’m not exactly a material for it.”

“Why not?” Dick asked, grabbing her hands and making him look at her ‘is it because you have four vigilante brothers? That can go well in a movie.” He grinned “I bet Bruce would love a cinematic work of art about himself. Can you imagine the movie “Batman?” Two and a half hours of him brooding on the screen and saving Gotham, all while looking like a sad, tormented cat” he laughed and waved his hands around

“I got this at the manor whenever I want. And when I don’t want as well. So hard pass on that movie, thanks. Jason would love it though. It would give him an opportunity to point out everything wrong with Bruce. And Tim…”

“Nice try, but stop getting off the track. Why do you think you can’t have a love story?”

“Cause I can’t define myself.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Dick’s eyes widened in disbelief “you think you need to put a tag on yourself? My lovely, crazy, irrational, foolish sister…”

“Look Dick, I’m a mess, all right? I can do hundred different things, but cannot excel in one. I start so many projects I don’t finish. I am disorganized, got plenty ideas per minute and it’s extremely hard to keep up with me. I'm stubborn, hot-headed and always need to do things my own way. ”

“So?” he shrugged

“What do you mean by so?" Y/N frowned "I don’t have routine, and apparently I’m supposed to. I’m not the best version of myself, I hate motivational quotes and I’m not sophisticated or elegant or even close to it. Shit, I hate dresses and skirts, my make-up is limited to the most basic one and I don't feel like I'm woman enough.”

“Ok, stop right there.” He cut her off “that last one is bullshit and as for the rest, why in the world would you think that eliminates you?”

“I… It just does.”

“Why?” he insisted

“will you stop this interrogation! Let me remind you, you are not a cop anymore!”

“Old habits die hard.” He blew a raspberry.

“Be a brother Dick. Sock me for wasting your time or hug me, just don’t do this….”

“Do you need a hug?” he asked opening his arms

“Yes, please” she mumbled, diving into his arms and hiding face in his shirt, smelling that familar scent. “This feels nice.”

“Told ya! Oldest brother. Now, since we are taking the comforting approach to the problem… all the things you mentioned are those what makes you, you. All right, pumpkin?” he bopped her nose “you could adopt someone else’s lifestyle, but would you feel better then? Doing all those things that does not seem like they are yours?”

“No…” she muttered

“See? You just keep doing your thing, ok? Cause when you do something that makes you happy, even if it seems like you’re a mess, you’re just glowing and that is what makes you special, you know.”

“Example?”

“You were writing, last night, and you had that focus and spark in your eyes. Nothing but you and your ideas, put in words on the sheet. You were just beaming. That was you. You don’t need to put  a tag on yourself, believe me. It's not a competition or anything.“

"Really?" she pulled back and eyed him, raising one eyebrow "'cause you are absolutely not the one who would join The Bachelor, right?"

"That's irrelevant..." as much as he did not like it, her words made him blush a bit. (did she find that application form he hid under the bed?!)

"Let's agree to disagree" she grinned "I'll importune you for explanation on that matter later. And since we're on the subject, what about....?"

“Do you think me the role model on relationship advice?” he smirked, but a bit of sadness crept in “I made a lot of mistakes and speaking from experience, I can tell you just can’t hurry that. Just keep your mind open?”

"Did you just admit defeat in the romance matter, Dickie?" she mocked.

"Romance? Hell no! Just long-term relation..."

"Don't worry, big brother" she his his shoulder playfully "you keep my secret safe, I keep yours. But still, that’s the worst advice I ever got.”

“Maybe…” he tickled her tummy making poor girl squeal “think Damian would have better one?”

“He’s younger than me, sure as hell I’m not gonna ask him!”

“I’m serious, sis. Once you figure out who you are inside, even if it’s a bit complicated and come to terms with it, everything will fall in place.”

“Still the worst advice ever, but thank you for trying, Dickhead.”

“Doing my best for my little princess.”

“Ugh! Stop calling me that name!”

“You used to like it.”

“I was 7 years old!!”

“All right, fine, hold the fire” Dick raised his hands in surrender “Gosh, for someone who got so much fire inside, you suffer from too little self-value.”

“Four vigilante brothers can do that to a girl.”

“Y/N? I need you to promise me one thing.”

“Shoot.”

“When you get in a relationship you will let me act like big protective brother.”

“You may have to wait a while, but sure, it that’s your dream…”

“How about I play that role in a Nightiwng suit?”

“OVER MY DEAD BODY GRAYSON!”

[sporkberries]

Tim Drake and Red robin

 Aka the whole identity problem.

So there’s a lot of discussion over Tim and what identity he is going to take up- this is by no means recent, it's been going on for over a decade. So for a lot of people who are newer to comics I want to explain why Red Robin isn’t really an option as a permanent identity for Tim, and what Red Robin means to Tim personally

So first off, for expositions sake, Tim didn’t create Red Robin. The costume nor the identity.  It originated in the Kingdom Come Storyline and belonged to Dick Grayson

(Dick Grayson, Earth-22) Honestly i don’t want to get into the can of worms of Kingdom Come and it’s not that important to my point so just know this is where Red Robin comes from.

Okay now the first appearance of Red Robin in Main Continuity was in Countdown to Final Crisis where the mantle was taken by * drum roll*

Countdown #14 Jason Todd!! This is also not very important because Jason mainly does multiverse shenanigans that isnt important to my overall point. I just find it very funny that Jason was Red Robin before Tim. Also he kills an alternate universe version of the joker- Good for him!

Now into the stuff that actually affects Tim and why he chooses to don the Red Robin Mantle in the first place-towards the end of Tim’s robin run. Where we see Red Robin stalking Tim around Gotham.

Red Robin in Robin(1993) #177 This Red Robin ends up being Ulysses Armstrong( a gang leader and recurring baddie from Tim’s Robin run) and to say the least he does some not very nice things!! Said things including luring Tim into a warehouse and blowing him up(what is up with robins and warehouses seriously?) anyways looking good tim!

Robin(1993) #181

After this injury Tim wears the Red Robin cowl to hide/protect his identity while he takes care of Ulysses. And in the ensuing fight a bunch of children get blow up- it’s great and definitely good for our protagonists declining mental health, Now for a bit more exposition after this incident Tim helps break Jason out of prison who then dons a cringe batman suit and kills a shit ton of people- the infamous Battle For The Cowl storylines ensues. With Dick Grayson taking the mantle of Batman and Damian Wayne being gifted the Robin mantle. Though Dick wasn’t wrong to do this(which is a whole other thing to argue about) it upset Tim and he needed a new costume to wear on his quest to bring Bruce back. He chooses Red Robin, as it’s an identity he considers dirty and disconnected from both his previous titles and the rest of his family.

Red Robin(2009) #1

Tim is at a VERY dark place in his life during the Red Robin run. A lot of fanon characterizes Tim as pretty depressed and sad and almost all of that stems from this period of time exclusively- and it makes sense. Tim underwent a series of very serious and brutal losses under a pretty short period of time( Steph[briefly],his dad, Conner, Bart, and Bruce all dying). And though pretty much everyone was right to doubt him about the whole Bruce being alive thing that rejection definitely didn’t help things. For Tim Red Robin offers a sort of outlet he doesn’t have to be Tim he doesn’t have to necessarily be a good person he just needs to do what needs to be done( I’d argue for the beginning of Red Robin that’s his main philosophy)

Red Robin(2009) #2

Red Robin(2009) #4

In Adventure Comics(2009) #3 Tim reunites with Conner while he’s in Paris, where in Conner says this

Conner knows Tim better than anyone, keep that word Punishment in mind. As it comes back up again in** Red Robin(2009) #9**

And okay this being brought up again is a joke but i still think its true. Tim IS punishing himself. He hates he situation he’s in he hates that he can’t save anyone he hates that he keeps making the wrong decisions(having the children be near the bombs, helping Jason get out of prison, and basically everything that’s happened in Red Robin as well) Tim IS a good person and he has a very strong moral compass- so betraying any aspect of his conscience- pretending to be someone he’s not HURTS him.

At the end of Red Robin(2009) Tim tries to kill Captain Boomerang, the man who killed his father( see: identity crisis) , or he very nearly tries to anyways. He wants to kill him, HE IS ABOUT TO KILL HIM. but he doesn’t.

Red Robin(2009) #26

Tim is at a crossroads. He’s hurting but he still WANTS to be good. He ends up doing the right thing but is that what Tim wants? Tim is changing he’s not Robin anymore he’s becoming his own person his own individual.

So you may ask, what happens after this? Does Tim figure out who he wants to be? Does he make a decision? HAHA silly you!! NO!! Dc resets the whole universe, retcons Tim’s backstory erases all his character development then un-retcons his backstory etc etc leaving Tim Drake in character limbo for essentially a DECADE.

So all this backstory withstanding why do I think Red Robin is a bad choice for Tim as an identity(discounting the fact he’s not even RR anymore but just robin which is stupid and also dumb) ? Well Red Robin was never MEANT to be permanent- Red Robin was a temporary means to end, a tool to get to his destination. I see Red Robin as a chrysalis of sorts. Tim as Robin was the caterpillar, red robin was the chrysalis and his next identity would be who he becomes, or rather who he DECIDES to be. Having Red Robin as Tim’s main identity is a disservice to his character but also doesn’t allow him to complete his arc. Tim doesn’t have an identity he chose and wanted for himself; he hasn't even moved on from ROBIN. In order to develop as a character Tim NEEDS to discover an identity for himself, abandoning the robin mantle entirely.

I think there is hope, a lot of Tim’s content since and including Urban Legends have been largely about him discovering himself and searching for his identity. Let’s just hope DC actually follows through.

[nellienellnell]

Finally Getting the Joke

Fandom: Batman, DC Comics

Characters: Harley Quinn, The Joker, Jeremiah Arkham, Poison Ivy

Warnings: None

Series Summary: Fresh out of her residency, Harleen Quinzel begins her career in psychology at Arkham Asylum, a place of terrifying rumors and even worse truths. Armed with her wits and some determination, she sets out to make a difference and help Arkham's inmates. Will she be strong enough to face what's waiting for her, or will she succumb to the insanity surrounding her?

Chapter Summary: Harleen starts her first day at Arkham.

Words: 3,866

A/N - Welcome to my first fic! I'm very new to this, so there's bound to be some errors. All criticisms and critiques are welcome (and encouraged)!

Chapter One - Entering the Mouth of the Beast

It was morning, she was sure, but the clouds that encircled the building blocked out the sun entirely, holding it in constant night. The state of the building only added to the unease one felt as soon as they met its steps. There was also the impression that it was frowning, almost crying. Standing before the brick behemoth was a young blonde woman, who flattened her sweaty palms against her skirt. After taking a deep breath, she climbed the steps and pulled the front doors, entering the mouth of the beast.

The daunting nature of the situation made her mind buzz with worries, like if her makeup looked quite right or if her hair was still under the strict hold of her hairspray. She toiled over the look of her smile, if it was too toothy. Frustrated, she gripped at her blazer, buttoning it and unbuttoning it, only to button it again. Her short black heels clacked loudly against the tile flooring, which only embarrassed her further. At one point, she even tried to tiptoe, but that only looked weirder. Only a few steps more , she reminded herself. Only a few steps more to Dr. Arkham’s office.

The door creaked softly, and a worn-looking man in a white coat looked up from his desk. He smiled faintly at the woman who then entered. 

“Excuse me, Dr. Arkham?” She mutters. He stands from his seat, offering his hand out to her.

“Yes, that’s me. And you are…” 

“Quinzel,” The woman yipped. “Harleen Quinzel. Doctor Quinzel.” Tacking on a title to her name was still foreign, tumbling clumsily off her tongue. 

“Right, quite right. Your first day,” Arkham remembered. “Please, take a seat,” Harleen looks behind her, finding a chair. At first, she finds she doesn’t know how to sit; legs crossed or uncrossed, hands folded or at her sides. Finally, she decides on locking her ankles and placing her hands on her knees. 

“I was reviewing your information again, Doctor Quinzel. I must say your qualifications, your references, they’re quite astounding,” Dr. Arkham said, pleased. He fished a paper from a jumbled stack on his desk.

“I mean really!” He beams, leaning back in his chair. “Top of your class at Gotham State,” 

“Valedictorian,” Harleen chimed. She then noticed her intrusion and sank into herself. Dr. Arkham didn’t seem to notice.

“Valedictorian! Excelled during your residency with only good things to say about you. Kid, I think you’re going to do great things.”

“Really?” Harleen grinned. The look of her smile didn’t bother her much, she couldn’t hide it anyway. 

“Really,” He answered her. Then, leaning towards the desk, he donned a much more serious look. “With all these shiny accomplishments, I really have to wonder. What made you choose a place like Arkham? You could have had your pick of any major institution in the country.” 

“I know the reputation Arkham has. . I don’t live under a rock. Over ten years I’ve spent in Gotham, I’ve heard the horror stories. That’s exactly why I applied,” Dr. Arkham furrowed his brow. “Those ten years, I fought tooth and nail to get where I am. I want to help people, Doctor. Even these people. I think they might need help most of all, quite frankly.” For just that moment, her confidence bloomed, and the continuous buzzing in her head began to settle.

“Well,” Arkham started.. “I think you’re a perfect fit. Welcome to the team, Doctor Quinzel.”

“Thank you, Doctor Arkham.” Harleen bowed her head respectfully.

“Has anyone shown you around the facility yet? If not, allow me to give you the full tour,” Arkham said before standing and gesturing for her to follow him out the door.

They started down a corridor, where Arkham would go to explain each office, with its use and who usually works inside. The two passed the filing room, where all inflows of mail and documents end up to be sorted, though, by the looks of the room, its purpose had long been neglected. Every few steps, one of the lights just above would flicker, and the scent of cheap coffee wafted by their noses. Harleen was introduced to many of her coworkers, who looked through her glumly, muttering hellos and other basic introductions.

The hall would then make its way to the wards, sealed away behind a locked door that Dr. Arkham opened with a keycard.The lights were significantly darker after they trekked into the inmate section of the facility. Harleen recounted her residency and the places she’d been, but what she saw around her was nothing like her memories. She remembered common rooms, people constantly around to offer help and company to the patients. Instead of that she only saw emptiness, with each patient awaiting silently in their rooms. Cells, more like , Harleen thought with a shudder. Only a thin sliver of glass made the world outside their doors visible. Some of the windows revealed eyes behind them, watching the doctors walk. It was almost instinctual for Harleen to look away, avoid their gaze, refusing to look back into their eyes.

This issue didn’t bother the man she walked with, however. He continued to talk and explain the history of his asylum, not even noticing the eyes that glared as he passed. At several doors, he would pause and begin a speech about the criminal who lived inside, what they had done, and how Arkham had finally gotten their hands on them. Like it was a field trip through a museum. Or a zoo. He brought up news headlines and police reports. When asked about psychiatric records or case files, the information was much more sparse, and the doctor became much less enthusiastic.

A light sparked in his eyes when he remembered the asylum’s fascinating newest addition. Arkham excitedly led the way, guiding Harleen through a series of doors until they arrived at one plastered in warning posters. “EXTREME TEMPERATURE WARNING” they read. “PROCEED ONLY WITH PROPER PROTECTION”. 

Dr. Arkham went up to the door, slid open the slot, and turned back to Harleen, grinning ear to ear. “About a year ago, his wife was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Doctors said they couldn’t help. So, get this, he tries to freeze her . I guess to preserve her. But his experiments backfired on him. Now, his body has to be kept at sub-zero temperatures in order to survive.” He backed away from the slot, making way for Harleen. Slowly, she stepped forward. As she got closer, her breath became visible, escaping in white plumes. The frigid air met her nose, spreading its chill across her cheeks. It was colder than any winter she had ever experienced.

She peered through the slot, almost expecting to see hanging meats and to be told he had actually led her to the walk-in freezer as a joke. She thought she’d see nothing. But instead of either, she did in fact see a man. His skin discoloured, lacking any human warmth. He shared more resemblance to an ice sculpture of a man than to one of flesh and blood. Though his history had been explained to her, and for what she knew he was safe and sound, the sight of him caused her to jerk back.

“We must be sure not to leave his slot open too long,” Arkham explained as he slid it closed, clicking the lock. “Even a slight raise in temperature could potentially be fatal.” 

“How awful,” She lamented.

“Don’t feel too bad. This man is up there with the likes of Riddler or Bane. He caused a lot of casualties in his crusades. Almost put Batman in the hospital.”

Harleen grimaced. “I almost think he should have.”

The tour continued on as usual, only now Harleen couldn’t resist wondering how many of the inmates had been victims of the Batman. How many had never been given a proper chance at all, from the likes of masked vigilantes and police and even the asylum they’re all doomed to fall into. She was of the opinion that even he deserved a room in Arkham. He was one of them, just as crazy and psychotic, but he was a flavour of crazy that society could stomach.

“Oh, and another ‘special case’,” Arkham once again prepared to show off another door. “A metahuman with the ability to control plants. Unlike most of the others, she’s not allowed time in the courtyard, as she could use even a single blade of grass to bring the whole building down.” Like the previous door, he pulled open the slot for Harleen to look into.

Inside, a figure within sat atop a bed, her knees held tightly to her chest. Crimson red hair trickled over her shoulders and down her back. Her head turned slowly to face the intrusion. Harleen found herself making eye contact with the figure, looking into her green eyes. The emerald depths contained only contempt for the doctor’s presence. Harleen identified something in that glare, a feeling that travelled the distance between them and gathered heavy in the pit of her stomach. 

Dr. Arkham slammed the slot shut. “Don’t let the calm fool you. She’s as crazy- maybe even crazier than most in here.” 

“Who’s assigned to her case?” Harleen asked, her eyes still fixated on the slot. 

“Ehm,” The man rubbed his chin. “I don’t think anyone is at the moment. No one’s ever gotten much from her, she’s not really a talker. What, do you want her case?”

“I would like to try. Maybe I’ll be the one to get her to open up.” She said hopefully.

The older doctor laughed. “Hey, I like the enthusiasm. I don’t think that would be a bad idea.” 

“She’s the craziest, you said?” Harleen asked. Arkham knitted his brows, shifting his eyes around the room. 

“Well, not the craziest, I suppose. But we do have a man who takes that title. Come on, I’ll bring you to his room. When we get there, just stay calm. If he says or does anything, try not to react, it only gets him riled up,” The doctor warned. Harleen gulped down the lump in her throat. 

The elder doctor’s pace sped up significantly as they neared the room. His fists repeatedly clenched and unclenched, with his knuckles turning stark white each time they closed. A close inspection would even reveal tiny beads of sweat clinging to his temples.

They passed through multiple clearance checkpoints, and after several keycard slides and passcodes punched in, they arrived at a giant, looming metal door. Unlike the other cells, there wasn’t a slot for Dr. Arkham to pull open. There wasn’t a window to connect the room within with the outside world. The door was smooth, strong metal. Harleen would have guessed it was a bank vault if she didn’t know any better.

“So… is he like the other two? Does he have special abilities, or special requirements to keep him alive?” Harleen asked, gesturing vaguely towards the large door. 

“Worse,” Arkham croaked. “He’s completely human.” Harleen looked back at the door, and the lock that kept it in place.

“That’s all for a human man?”

“Doctor Quinzel, behind this door, is arguably the most dangerous man in Gotham, if not the country.” He stressed. A moment of realization washed over her.

“He’s the Joker .” She breathed.

“We’ve held him up to five times now,” Arkham began. “Blackgate has had him four times before us. He even served an extensive stay in Belle Reve in Louisiana. It seems prisons are more of a hotel to him, given that he never stays very long. The only thing we can do is adapt, strengthen our security, basically “Joker proof” the asylum. That has all amounted to this, a vault of reinforced steel; materials donated to us by Gotham city bank. It needs a passcode as well as a key for the door to open.” The doctor continued to explain. 

“His meals are given to him through this compartment, which connects to another door on the other side.” He pointed to the small square hatch beside the door. “The tray goes in, the door is then locked again on our side, while his door is unlocked remotely; this way he doesn’t have to leave or make any physical contact that would put anyone’s safety at risk.”

The precautions they took made sense to Harleen. She had certainly lived in Gotham long enough to know about this inmate. She knew he was dangerous. She knew that he had escaped many prisons, tricking and killing his way out of each one. Above all, she knew of all the blood he spilled, and the risk he imposed on society. Still, there was a question she couldn’t fight out of her mind.

“So, he’s always completely alone? No company? No counsel? Isn’t he here to get treatment?” 

“He’s here because we need somewhere to keep him. Your heart is in the right place, Harleen, but he’s not capable of being helped.” 

“Everyone can be helped. It just depends if someone is actually willing to put in the work. Respectfully, I know it isn’t always easy, but it can be possible.” She argued.

“Respectfully, ” The doctor echoed. “Some people can’t be helped. And when it comes to people like him, they shouldn’t be helped. They’re not worth the effort.” 

Harleen felt heat rising in her face, fueled by a familiar anger. She wanted to argue. This was a debate she knew well, having encountered it all throughout her schooling. Where was the line? What did it take before someone was too far gone? It was on this topic that she often disagreed with her classmates and professors. After so many fruitless efforts, she learned to just keep her mouth shut. But, for some reason, this time was different. This time, it made her ask something stupid.

“Could I be put on his case?” 

“It’s only your first day and you want me to put you on the case of the most prolific murdering maniac that we have in here?” Doctor Arkham raised his eyebrows. 

“What can I say, I’m ambitious.” Her tone implied she was joking, but inside she knew she was serious.

“I can tell that about you, Harleen,” Arkham laughed. “You’re going to do great things, but let’s work ourselves up to it. Baby steps, Doctor Quinzel. Baby steps.” 

“Baby steps,” She repeated in agreement. 

Dr. Arkham escorted Harleen out of Joker’s section of the facility, but just before they were out of earshot, Harleen heard faint laughter in the distance. A primal kind of sound, like that of a hyena. A sound born of impulse instead of joy. Something inspired by convulsions, with the same amount of control as a cough, or a sneeze, or hiccup. A necessity that clawed its way from deep inside the chest and up one’s throat. It echoed down the hall following them, chasing them, as they left. She felt it gnashing at her heels, running a chill up her spine. She couldn’t escape it soon enough.

With the tour concluded, Harleen was led back to Dr. Arkham’s office. He pulled open a drawer from his filing cabinet and leafed through manila folders. Making his selection, he plucked some files and settled them into a pile, which he then turned and handed to Harleen.

“I would like you to look at some of the cases we have, Dr. Quinzel. See what sticks out to you, what might interest you. From there, we can try to get you started with a patient.” Arkham instructed. His eyes darted anxiously to his watch. 

Harleen quirked her head, “Well, what about the one from earlier? Could I start off with her?”

“I would rather you start out smaller. Preferably with a patient who doesn’t have powers. It’s just the precaution of your safety, really.” He answered, before once again lifting up his sleeve to inspect the clockface on his wrist. 

“It has been a pleasure meeting you and welcoming you on board, but I really must be going. They’ve scheduled me into another meeting to discuss the efficacy of Arkham,” The aged doctor shook his head. “We’d be a hell of a lot more efficient if they would stop voting to cut our funding.” His weary eyes sealed themselves to the floor as he stood frozen; apparently drifting into deep thought. After a beat, his eyes returned to him, and they locked with Harleen’s. 

“Good luck. I will try to check back with you in your office later.” Arkham exited through the door, beginning a quick pace down the corridor. 

“Doctor Arkham, wait!” The doctor did so, spinning around. 

“My office,” Harleen spoke. “You never showed me which was mine.”

Arkham blinked absently. “Oh, yes, right. I got quite carried away. So confused anymore. Your office is in the west wing, down that hall, and to the left. I would take you to it, but I really haven’t got the time.  It should have your name, so hopefully not too hard to find.” With the information delivered, Dr. Arkham scurried back and out of the corridor. 

Following the directions she was given, the psychologist came upon the door that, according to the Sharpied paper taped beside it, belonged to her. She took the doorknob in her hand, but it resisted as she tried to turn it.

Rosy embarrassment painted her cheeks. Reluctantly, Harleen approached the office door adjacent to her own and knocked. Heavy footsteps preceded the jostling of the doorknob and the door swung open, revealing a short, pudgy man. The few remaining wisps of grey hair laid messily across his balding head. He looked Harleen up and down and cocked an eyebrow.

“Whuddya want?” He grumbled.

“Quinzel. Doctor Quinzel. Harleen Quinzel. Psychologist,” She reddened further and she closed her eyes tight, organizing her thoughts. “Sorry, my office is the one across the hall. It’s locked.” The man looked at her, then to her office door, then back to her. He scratched at the stubble on his chin.

“So you got that office, huh?” The tone was mostly rhetorical, but held traces of genuine surprise. 

Harleen nodded. “Yes, but it’s locked and Dr. Arkham left before he gave me the key.”

“I’ll call up security for ya,” He said, turning and receding back into his office. Under his breath, he continued to mutter. “Thought we should have kept that shut up.”

She had gotten tired of staring at her watch. The second hand ran countless laps around, each completed circle marked by a lunge from the minute hand, who had gotten many good jumps in before someone finally turned the corner.

“Heard you got a locked door,” said a young, and oddly chipper, security officer who punctuated his statement by jingling his ring of keys. The energy he carried was visibly and immediately different. For the first time since she entered Arkham, Harleen’s shoulders untensed.

He stepped forward, taking note of the office, then went to his collection of keys, picking at each one until he concluded on the correct one. He inserted the key, hesitating briefly before turning and opening the door. His head whipped around, assessing the entire room. Finding the switch, he flicked on the lights, before backing up and holding the door open for Harleen to enter.

“Thank you so much. How embarrassing to get locked out on my first day,” She forced a laugh.

“Hey, don’t sweat it. And you’re very welcome, Doctor…” He leaned back to look at the paper on the wall. “Quinzel. Did I get that right?” The officer’s eyes gleamed.

“Yes, that was perfect.” She giggled, though this time was genuine.

“Well, I’m Aaron. If you need anything else, just ask for me. I’ll see you around, Dr. Quinzel.” Aaron waved before leaving.

“Yes! I’ll see you around!” She bit her lip. “I hope.”

The swivel chair squeaked under her weight as she settled into it. She inspected the nicks, scratches, and scuffs that adorned the dark wooden desk. They mingled alongside white rings; the ghosts of hot coffee mugs that had been placed there before. Hiding these imperfections from view, Harleen laid out each of the files that Dr. Arkham had handed to her. 

Which would be the perfect choice to start out her career at Arkham? As she read through the files, she found that there would be a spark of remembrance when their criminal alias was mentioned, and suddenly Harleen would envision the morning that she had read that name in the newspaper, or heard about their crimes on TV. 

It intrigued her to learn about the person behind the mask, so to speak. These criminal masterminds were once children. They were people with families and jobs and hardships who one day decided to throw it all away and create a whole new identity. One that would solely exist for their spiraling life of crime, theft, and violence. They traded blazers and suits for masks and capes, items and colors that would show everyone who they were. Who they’ve become. Who the world has shaped them into.

Harleen carefully read over each file multiple times until her brain became foggy and her eyes blurred. After a few hard blinks, she looked at her watch to find that nearly three hours had passed. Each minute was felt in the stiffness of her neck and the soreness that stretched down her back. 

A knock at the door broke the silence of the room and caused her to jump slightly. 

“Come in,” she chimed. 

As commanded, the door slid open and Dr. Arkham stepped inside. The way he studied her face made Harleen worry if it outwardly showed how tired she felt. But, looking back at the aging doctor, it seemed like he was just as tired as her.

“Long meeting?” She asked. Arkham looked at the floor and placed his hands on his hips, sighing. 

“Very. It shouldn’t be a fight to keep our funding stable but,” The doctor waved his arms up and let them fall loudly to his sides in defeat. “That’s just how it goes now.”

There was a beat before he shook away the stress and remet Harleen’s face, now with more enthusiasm. “Did you get to look through those files?”

“Oh, yeah,” she responded. “I just got done rereading each one like, five times.” Dr. Arkham laughed.

“And? Do we have any winners?”

Harleen looked at the spread of manilla folders once again, recounting the contents of each one. Her eyes fixed on one sitting in the middle. It was slightly slimmer than the others, but she had found the contents interesting. She picked at it and handed it to Arkham, who had now taken a seat in front of her.

“This one, I think. #181. Mortimer Drake.” she told him. Dr. Arkham flipped through the papers in the folder, then held up a photo. A grin spread on his face as he let out a chuckle.

“Oh, yes, I remember him,” he said, still smiling. “The Cavalier. Yes, I think this will be a great choice for you, Dr. Quinzel. I’ll go ahead and set up your first session.” 

[sleepless-strawberry]

[WP] You're a super hero. But you don't have any powers, your jokes and puns are just so bad that villains hand themselves in.

After Tim Drake stopped being Batman's sidekick as the Robin. Choosing to strike out and find his own style of superhero-ing. As per tradition Batman adopted another orphan by the name of Raphael O'Frederick Larson or as he would call himself, ROFL. You see this particular Robin had a bit of a personality issue. He wasn't violent or traumatised or cold just well... a bit... *sigh* nevermind it would be easier to just show rather than tell.

The sound of the wailing sirens echoed through the halls of the bank as the hostages covered their heads with their arms on the floor. To scared to move and end up provoking the bank robber, the clown prince of crime himself, the Joker!

Conveniently enough Raphael was amongst the hostages in his civilian attire. As one of Joker's cronies patrolled by him he called out in a whisper only the armed clown could hear "Why did the henchman cross the road? So he could get to the park and sit on a bench, man!"

"Ugh!" The guard dropped to his knees "holy shit that's so chees-" and with that he had passed out from the shear shock that a joke could be that bad. Raphael took his chance quickly donning the clown uniform as a disguise.

Making his way around behind another guard he leaned in to whisper making the man's hair stand at the back of the neck at the stupidity of the pun "What did the bank robber see after he was attacked by a hero dressed as his teammate? De-skies!" (disguise) With that Raphael snapped the man's neck up to face the glass ceiling and the blue sky past that. "Cringe." That was all the man could mange to mutter out before entering a comatose state. More from the damage done by the terrible attempt at a joke rather than the snapping of his neck.

One by one Raphael creeped masquerading as one of the henchmen, disarming them quickly and efficiently with lines such as "why was the villain passed out? I went by him.", "How did the hero save the day? He used dis arm (this arm) on them.", "How did the detective manage to catch the thief named Robert? He spilled the tea about his name and was left with robber."

Finally all the henchmen have been taken out and Raphael in his full Robin persona was escorting the civilians out of the building. Unfortunately for him, the Joker had just realised what was going on and stepped out to confront Robin, holding a silly toy pistol that was more than capable of doing very real and serious damage.

"HA HA HA HA! We meet again! Boy Wonder!"

"Boy I wonder if that bit of your's will ever get old."

"Ugh!" The Joker bent a knee as blood spurted out of his mouth, his face twisting in pain. "Wh-what the fuck did you do?"

"Wanna hear a joke-r?"

"Ah! Please no! They're so fucking bad!"

"Guess what's my least favourite type of bird is? Robin a bank!"

"Augh!" The Joker dropped to the ground, using his hands to support his upper body as his face almost crashed into the pavement. "G-go fuck yourself you failed stand-up comedian!"

"Robin there, done that."

"AAAAAAAAGH!!!" The Joker clenched his hands around his ears and he let out a primal shriek "LA LA LA LA LA LA! I CAN'T HEAR YOUUUUUUU!"

Raphael walked closer to the insane man he was driving further insane "Heh, seems like you can't handle my raw-bin power!"

"YYAAAGH! SHUT THE FUCK UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

"It's over Joker. Get in the Ro-bin!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!! YFGL3INQTWFCYQLXDTYFW4REFTUWYCEGHENRSUCFEK7HVYCGIKXW7TERGSYJUVHBIESRUBTFEGBKTUFJYCHGIEUKDUYWBET4GD"

And with those final words the Joker had a stroke just in time for Batman to arrive and call for Arkham Asylum so that Joker would be escorted back to his cell whilst frothing at the mouth and spasming.

Batman turned to look at his newest apprentice with a slight look of disapproval "You went to far Raphael."

"You may be right. He looked rather rough-ael."

"..."

KAH-POW! With that Batman punched Raphael right in his jaw knocking out his lights and saving the day from more acts of terrorism and psychological torture.

[flashflashhundredyarddash]

*cracks knuckles* i even opened up my laptop to reply to these lets goooo

below is a list of headcanons for a birdflash baby

- so my placeholder name is mary for her first name to honor dicks parents, though she probably tends to go by either her middle name or a nickname. i’m not super firm on mary yet, so im open to other names lol

- has superspeed. this stressed out dick and wally to no end when she was a child. lots of playdates with don and dawn with barry and iris offering advice

- got dick’s dark hair that she keeps cropped short (because RUNNING) and dark skin and wally’s green eyes and freckles.

- is the oldest of the bat grandchildren by several years so there is video footage of her first christmas where she’s just. SURROUNDED by presents and ALL OF HER AUNTS AND UNCLES gleefully watching her open presents while she has no idea what’s going on.

- decides in her teen years she wants to be a lawyer so majors in something related to criminology before going to law school. she likes to annoy her entire family by arguing about the law with them. very into Semantics so gets along nicely with tim

- is Friends with tim’s kid (who is like 2 years younger than her) and helena wayne (batcat kid who’s like 3 or 4 years younger than her)

- is the oldest of the bat grandchildren but is younger than don and dawn

- because of the super speed, her vigilante persona is more closely associated with the flashes, but her training is still supplemented with bat techniques. she doesn’t become a vigilante until she turns 18, and even then she isn’t as Into It as the rest of her family because she’s seen the Trauma that her parents got as a result, but because she didn’t have a choice with her superspeed she still feels she has to do Something with it.

- has electric wrist?? weapons?? a la black widow. has a fun time shocking criminals.

- has big ass goggles to cover her eyes while in costume and a face mask. future security cameras are no joke

- anyways i also headcanon that lisa snart has a daughter who takes over the captain cold persona but is more of an antihero than a straight up villain. grayson-west baby has a thing for new captain cold that Robin!Helena judges her HARSHLY for.

- loves her dads SO MUCH but also wishes they could go to therapy instead of vigilante-ing all the time. it’s a Thing. she doesn’t want to talk about.

- birdflash + baby either settle in gotham, keystone city, or san francisco i’m not sure yet.

- birdflash baby is very different from both her parents but they get along super well. her temperament is a lot more serious than either of her parents but she inherited the Wittiness so the grayson-west household is FILLED with snark

- by the time she gets around to vigilante-ing, cassandra has taken over as batman so she’s so used to Cassandra as Batman she has a hard time picturing Grandpa Bruce beating up criminals. wally laughs at her when she tells him this.

- constantly argues with Bart over who’s the oldest flash grandchild. birdflash baby insists it’s her because she was born earlier in time, bart insists it’s him because he’s been alive longer. this argument has been going on for over a decade.

@novaviis​ @bakufly​

[rachelbethhines]

Vintage Shows to Watch While You Wait for the Next Episode of WandaVision - The 60s

So the 60s is the era that Wandavision pulls most heavily from for it’s inspiration. So much so that one could make the argument that each of the first three episodes are all set in the 1960s. Episode one pulls from the early 60s with multiple Dick Van Dyke refences, episode two is very Bewitched inspired, and episode three is aesthetically very similar to The Brady Bunch which started in ‘69. As such it was hard to narrow down the list for this decade and I had to get creative in some ways. 

1. The Andy Griffith Show (1960 - 1968)

The Andy Griffith Show gets kind of a bad rap now a days for being, supposedly, a conservative’s wet dream. People claiming it as such have apparently never actually seen the series. Oh yes, it’s very much set in white rural 60s America and will occasionally present the obliviously outdated joke, but the story of a widowed sheriff being the only sane man in a small town full of lovable lunatics, who prefers to solve his and others problems with negotiation and hair brained schemes as opposed to violence has far more in common with modern day Steven Universe than whatever genocidal fantasy fake rednecks have in their heads.  

As the gif above shows Andy Griffith was very subtlety progressive for its time. Andy was a stanch pacifist, pro-gun control, treated drug addicts and prisoners with respect, and all the women he would date had careers, ect. and so on. It’s not a satire making any sort of grand political statements but the series had a moral center that was far more left than many realize. 

But if it’s not a satire, then what type of comedy is it? 

The Andy Griffith Show excels in what I like to call, ‘awkward comedy’. See everyone in Mayberry is far too nice to just come out and tell a character they’re making an ass of themselves, so therefore whoever is the idiot punching bag of the episode’s focus must slowly unravel as everyone looks on in helpless pity until said character realizes the folly of their ways and the townsfolk come together to make them feel happy and accepted once more. Wandavision takes this polite idyllic awkwardness and plays it up for horror instead of laughs.  

2. The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961 - 1966)

The creators of Wandavision actually met with Dick Van Dyke himself to pick his brain and learn how sitcoms were made back then. Paul Bentley also took inspiration from Van Dyke in his performance of the sitcom version of Vision, while Olsen stated Mary Tylor Moore had a heavy influence on her character of Wanda. But more than just being a point of homage, The Dick Van Dyke Show was hugely influential in modernizing the family sitcom and breaking a lot of the unspoken traditions and ‘rules’ of the 50s television era. It’s also just really, really funny.  

3.The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962 - 1965) 

Bit of a cheat here. Alfred Hitchcock Presents actually started in 1955 as a half hour anthology show, but in ‘62 the show got a revamp and was extended into a full hour tv series. I knew I wanted The Twilight Zone to be covered in my episode one recap, but ‘The Master of Suspense’ couldn’t be forgotten. While The Twilight Zone reveled in the surreal and supernatural, Alfred Hitchcock pioneered the thriller genre and made real life seem dangerous, horrifying, and other worldly.   

4. Doctor Who (1963 - present day) vs Star Trek (1966 - present day) 

Just like how westerns dominated the air waves during the 50s, science fiction was the center of the cultural zeitgeist of the 60s. From Lost in Space to My Favorite Martian, space aliens and robots were everywhere. So naturally I had to name drop the two sci-fi juggernauts that still air to this today. If you thought that the rivalry between Star Wars and Star Trek was bad then you’ve never seen a chat full of Whovians and Trekkies duking it out over who is the better monster, the Borg or the Cyberman. But which one has the more influence over Wandavision?

Well Star Trek owes it’s existence to sitcoms. As with The Twilight Zone before it, Star Trek was produced by Desilu Productions and it’s co-founder and CEO, Lucille Ball, was the series biggest supporter behind the scenes, lobbying for it when it faced early cancelation. As with all things sitcomy, everything ties back to I Love Lucy in the end. However despite that little backstory, it would seem that the series has very little to do with Wandavision itself beyond being quintessentially American. 

I would argue that Wandavision owes much to Doctor Who though. Arguably more so than any show mentioned in this retrospective. Time travel, alternate realities, trouble in quite suburbia, brainwashing, people coming back from the dead, ect... just about every trope you can find in Wandavision has also appeared in Doctor Who at some point. As a series that can go anywhere and do anything, Doctor Who was a pioneer of marrying genres in new and interesting ways. 

5. Bewitched (1964 - 1972) and I Dream of Jeannie (1965 - 1970)

It’s hard to pick one series over another because they’re essentially the same show. A mortal man falls in love with a magical girl who upends their lives with magic filled hijinks as they try their best not to have their secret discovered by the rest of the world. And both have their fingerprints all over the DNA of Wandavision. 

There’s only two core differences; Samantha and Jeannie have completely different personalities, with Sam being confident and knowledgeable and Jeannie being naïve and oblivious, along with their relationships with their respective men, Sam and Darrin being married and in love at the start of the series and Jeannie chasing after Tony in the beginning in a will they/won’t they affair, finally only getting together in the last season. 

6. The Munsters (1964 - 1966) vs The Adams Family (1964 - 1966)

Fans of these two shows are forever sadden that there never was a crossover between them. Because they’d fit perfectly together. Both shows are about a surreal and macabre family living in American suburbia and disrupting the lives of their neighbors with their otherworldly hijinks. Sound familiar?     

The main difference between the two shows is the way the characters viewed their placement in the world they inhabit. 

The Munsters were always oblivious to the fact that didn’t fit in. They just automatically assumed everyone had the same personal tastes as them. Whenever they encountered anyone who behaved strangely around them they would write that person off as being the odd one rather than questioning themselves. As such the main cast was structured like a stereotypical sitcom family who just happened to be classic movie monsters. 

The Addams were well aware that they were abnormal and they loved it! They lived life with in their own little world and didn’t care what anyone thought of them. As such the characters were far more colorful and quirky as individuals but there was little in the way of refences to other horror franchises beyond just a general love of the twisted and strange. 

7. Green Acres (1965 - 1971) and the Rual-verse (1962 - 1971)

So the MCU is not the first franchise to bring viewers an interconnected universe to the small screen. Far from it, as sitcoms had been doing this for decades, starting with the ‘rualverse’. Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, and Green Acres were all produced by the same company and were treated as spinoffs of each other, complete with crossovers and shared characters and sets. 

Of the three, the last show, Green Acres, has the most in common with Wandavision. A well to do businessman and his lovely socialite wife settle down in small town America on a farm in order to get away from the stresses of city life, only to find new stresses in the country. Eva Gabor, herself a natural Hungarian, plays the character of Lisa as Hungarian making her one of the few non-native born Americans on tv screens during the cold war. Despite her posh nature and original protests to the move, Lisa assimilates to the rural life far easier than her husband, Oliver. Who, as the main comedic thread, can’t comprehend his new quirky neighbors’ odd and often illogical behavior.  

8. Hogan’s Heroes (1965 - 1971) and Get Smart (1965 - 1969)

So as comic fans have been quick to point out, it’s looking like both A.I.M. (Hydra) and Sword (Shield) will be players in the story of Wandavision. To commemorate that here’s two shows to represent those opposing sides. Although in truth, neither series has anything else in common with each other but I need to condense things down someway. 

In Hydra’s corner we got Hogan’s Heroes. A show all about taking down Nazis from within. 

I love, love, love, ‘robin hood’ comedies where a group of con artists try week after to week to pull one over the establishment. The Phil Silvers Show, Mchale's Navy, and Top Cat, just to name a few examples are all childhood favorites of mine. However while those shows had a lot of morally ambiguous characters, Hogan’s Heroes has very clear cut good guys and bad guys, cause the bad guys are Nazis and the show relentless makes fun of the third reich as should we all. In fact I was watching Hogan’s Heroes while waiting for the GA run off election results. Fortunately my home state decided to kick out our own brand of Nazis this year. 

For Shield, we got the ultimate spy spoof, Get Smart. Starring, Inspector Gadget himself, Don Adams, as the bumbling Maxwell Smart. Get Smart, is a hilarious send up of Cold War espionage but the real selling point of the show, imho, is Max and his co-worker 99′s relationship. You can cut the sexual tension in the air with a knife all while laughing your ass off. 

9. Batman (1966 - 1968)

First was Superman and then came Batman. Yet while Superman was a serious action show, Batman was a straight up comedy. Showcasing that superheroes could indeed be funny. 

Also shout out for Batman being the only show on this list to have an actual crossover with it’s competitor, The Green Hornet. 

10. Julia (1968 - 1971)

Since episode two features the first appearances of Herb and Monica, let’s highlight the first black led sitcom since the cancelation of Amos ‘n Andy over a decade earlier. The show focuses on single mother and military nurse, Julia, as she tries to live her life without her recently decease husband, who was killed in Vietnam, as she tries to raise their six year old son on her own.  

The series is cute. It’s more of a throw back to earlier family sitcoms where there’s no fantasy and life lessons are the name of the game. It’s the fact that the main character is a single black woman is what made the show so subversive and important at the time. 

Runner Ups

There’s much good stuff in the 60s, so here’s some others that didn’t make the cut but I would recommend anyways. 

Car 54, Where Are You? (1961 - 1963)

I call this the Brooklynn 99 of the 1960s. Bumbling but well meaning Officer Toody longs to do good in the world and help anyone in need, but often screws things up with his ill thought out schemes. He often drags his best friend and partner, the competent but anxiety riddled, Muldoon into his escapades. 

Mr. Ed (1961 - 1966)

The grandfather of the sarcastic talking pet trope. 

The Jetsons (1962 - 1963 and 1985 - 1987)

Hanna-Barbera often took popular sitcoms and just repackaged them as cartoons with a fantasy theme to them. The Jetsons has no singular show that it rips-off but is rather more a grab bag of sitcom tropes that feature, robots, computers, and flying cars. 

The Outer Limits (1963 - 1965) 

The Outer Limits was The Twilight Zone’s biggest competitor in terms of being a sic-fi/horror anthology series. 

Gillian’s Island (1964 - 1967) 

The only comparison to WandaVision I could think of was that this is a sitcom about people being trapped in one place. But by that point I was running out of room on the list. Still it’s one of the funniest shows on here. 

So yeah, this took longer than expected cause there’s a lot, here. Hopefully the 70s will be easier. Which I’ll post on Friday. 

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Is It Really THAT Bad?

How many fucking times must I talk about this movie?

I feel like this movie doesn’t need an introduction. Everyone knows this film. Its reputation precedes it. It didn’t bomb and it’s not generally considered one of the worst films ever made (at least on the level of films like Robot Monster or The Cat in the Hat), but this movie is easily one of the most divisive films ever made. This film has generated enough arguments that, if we harnessed the energy of all the flame wars it has caused, we could probably power the entire world until the heat death of the universe.

With the impending release of Zach Snyder’s bloated redo of Justice League, I’ve decided to go back and ask myself of this film here… is it really that bad?

THE GOOD

Here comes the most uncontroversial opinion: the action scenes in this movie rock (or at least two of them do). The standouts are the titular showdown, which almost makes sitting through the rest of the movie worth it, and the epic warehouse fight Batman gets into, which is like something straight out of the Arkham games. It’s so good. And aside from that, a lot of the cinematography in the film is good. The film knows how to look good, though unfortunately it does end up being a lot of style with little substance.

On the subject of Batman, I think Ben Affleck is a great and inspired choice. I certainly think he’s worthy of standing alongside Batmans like Clooney and Keaton, easily embodying both the Dark Knight and Billionaire Playboy aspects fairly well, though the writing does not always handle him quite as well as it should (we’ll get to that soon enough). Henry Cavill, while still a rather dour Superman, is as good as ever as Superman, and Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman was a great choice here, especially since she didn’t have control so that she could insert anti-Arab racism, like some DCEU movies.

Perhaps one of the movies most impressive feats is how, in an uncharacteristic moment of brevity, it manages to condense the backstory of Batman into the prologue, getting it out of the way and not making us sit through yet another Batman origin film. This is literally the only thing the movie has over the MCU; where that franchise just has the character Spider-Man inexplicably in existence without even a hint of his origins, they just get Batman’s tragic backstory out of the way so we can see him beating the crap out of people. If more superhero movies want to take this route and just condense the backstory into an opening montage like this, I’d be down for it.

THE BAD

I really could just say “most of the movie” but that’s such a cop out. Let’s actually look at the problems. Let’s work our way up through the things from least problematic to most, shall we?

The best place to start is what Zach Snyder did to Jimmy Olsen.

Jimmy Olsen is made into a CIA spook who is brutally killed early on, and yes, that was Jimmy Olsen. Snyder put him in to shock audiences with his senseless murder, and also because he felt the character had no place in his series. Does making Watchmen just turn people into joyless husks who like to horribly bastardize iconic characters? Jimmy Olsen is ultimately a small microcosm of the film, but he is the sum total of everything wring with the early DCEU. He is bleak, soulless, and shows a critical lack of understanding about the comics and why people enjoy them.

Now let’s move on to the more exciting problem to discuss: the villains. I don’t even think it’s worth wasting much time discussing what’s wrong with KGBeast. While it is kind of interesting they’d think to use the guy at all, the fact he never dons the costume and dies by the end of the film is unfathomably lame for a character named KGBeast.

Now, onto the main antagonist, and the most infamous part of the movie: Lex Luthor.

Lex Luthor is horribly, horribly miscast. Jesse Eisenberg is a great actor for sure, and he’s effective in movies like Now You See Me, The Social Network, and the Zombieland films. But here he is being asked to play one of the most diabolical cunning geniuses in comic book history, and rather than play him as such, he plays him like a cartoonish twit. This Lex is utterly unrecognizable as Superman’s greatest foe. Does anyone think Lex Luthor would send a jar of piss to someone as a joke before he blows them up? That’s more something the Joker would do on an off day. Lex is not cunning, not intimidating, and not diabolical in the slightest, and yet there are moments where Eisenberg’s acting chops shine through and Lex, for a moment, is almost engaging. Luthor really suffers the way Doctor Doom tends to in film adaptations: the filmmaker clearly doesn’t get why people like the villain, and decide to do some weird, unique take that will only cause to alienate fans.

But perhaps the worst of them all is Doomsday. Doomsday has exactly one claim to fame, and that’s killing Superman, so as soon as he shows up if you have even a passing awareness of the character you know how the movie is going to end, which robs the film of tension for its last battle. The fact he also appears with little buildup and doesn’t have any characterization doesn’t help; Doomsday is just the Big Gray CGI Blob that superhero movies try and pass off as a final boss for the heroes to fight. This has worked precisely once, in Iron Man. The Incredible Hulk and Venom did not make it work, and this film is nowhere close to being in the same ballpark as Venom.

By and far the biggest problem, though, is the movie’s incredible length and its very existence in the franchise at this point in time. This is an epic superhero crossover in which two of the biggest comic book characters of all time fight and then team up… And it is the second movie in a franchise. While they do a good job of establishing Batman rather quickly, Wonder Woman comes out of nowhere. And then at the end, Superman ‘dies.’ We have had one single movie prior to this to make a connection to the guy, and yet here he is getting a temporary comic book death with no buildup whatsoever that we know is going to be reversed sooner than later because the movie telegraphs this to us.

Imagine if, instead of building up the character over the course of a decade and putting him in all sorts of different stories, the MCU went right from Iron Man to Endgame. You go from a simpler, character-driven piece to a massive crossover where a hero dies right away, and it doesn’t give anyone time to care. Tony Stark had multiple films worth of characterization under his belt before they threw him in a crossover, let alone killed him, but Snyder expects you to give a damn about a Superman who just started his career in the previous movie of a franchise.

And the ass-numbing length of the movie is no justification. Even before the director’s cut came out this film was a slog, and the director’s cut really does nothing to earn its existence. All it does is add more runtime to an already tedious and bloated film, leading to the same exact ending and fixing none of the overarching narrative problems of the thing. The problem with any director’s cut is that ultimately the movie is still going to be Dawn of Justice, it’s still going to lead to extremely rushed character decisions, and it’s still going to be a mess. You’d have to redo half of the film to make this into a worthwhile and coherent narrative that’s actually worthy of being an entry in a superhero franchise.

And to top it all off, the movie spends far too much time foreshadowing for its own good. People criticized The Mummy for shoehorning in way too many shared universe elements right off the bat, and if that movie was bad for it, so is this one. The cameos from all the members of the Justice League, while striking, could be excised from the plot with little to no impact, and the Knightmare sequence is just excessive and weird.

Is It Really THAT Bad?

The answer to this question has never been harder.

On the one hand, this film does have some merit. There is some good casting choices, good cinematography, good action… But then, on the other hand, the film is overly long, pretentious, has poor writing and dialogue, mishandles everyone aside from Superman, and is just incredibly unpleasant.

This film is in many ways the exact problem Christopher Nolan created with his Dark Knight trilogy. Nolan, by grounding the fanciful characters of comic books into a realistic setting, created a climate in which someone could suck any sort of joy or meaning out of comics. The success of his films meant that people would see dark, gritty realism as preferable to joyous, colorful escapism, and the negative effects of his films, however good you find them, are still felt today even as filmmakers are finally shaking off the grit. Dawn of Justice is the zenith of Nolan’s style of superhero film. There is nothing fun, joyful, or engaging to be found here; it is simply the characters you know and love forced into dark, miserable scenarios that ends in death and misery. Where’s the fun? Where’s the color? Where’s the wonder, the excitement, where is any of it? This film paints a bleak and miserable and hopeless picture of a world of superheroes. It really makes me think of this rather famous comic panel:

I absolutely hate this movie, but not because I think it’s bad. I hate it because it has enough good ideas where it should be the best thing ever, but it really isn’t. It’s a miserable slog of a film that does nothing to justify or earn its massive runtime whatsoever. It really does belong somewhere between 5 and 6 on IMDB, because I can almost see why people like it, but it just isn’t even remotely close to being how good its fan say it is. This is not a good superhero movie, and this is not how we should want superhero movies to be. There is a market for serious superhero fare of course, and there’s no reason that these films can’t engage with mature themes or anything, don’t get me wrong. But this is absolutely not the way to do it.

[adultswim2021]

Robot Chicken #1: “The Deep End” | April 10, 2005 – 11:30PM | S01E08

Mmm Mmm Mmm... nasty episode. I think I watched this because at one point I owned a DVD-R copy of Robot Chicken season one (among other seasons) and I think I did watch the first episode (which was this one, in production order) just to give it a slightly fairer shake. I hated it! I’ve hated this show every time I’ve tried it!

There’s a Real World sketch with the Justice League that doesn’t have any funny jokes. Then there’s a Kill Bill parody with Jesus fighting people like the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause and I guess just a bunch of rabbis and at one point George Burns as Oh God! is in there and none of it is funny or good or worthwhile. Then there’s a short thing called Two Kirks, a Kahn and a Pizza Place and it’s not even like, fun to say that title so why did they do this. Then there’s Zombie Idol which is really pathetic; it’s like American Idol but they get zombies of dead musicians to perform.

Every single sketch is like, high-school caliber writing. Like being a ~TwIsTeD~ teen with a lotta zippers on your pants and writing sketches for drama class and having the teacher be like “these are too, um, cerebral for parents night. Maybe try writing a parody of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire” so you do and it’s a sketch about Regis accidentally killing a contestant and it goes over pretty good actually even though it’s post-Columbine, and even the principal compliments it. Wow. Anyway, congratulations to these plucky teens!

CONTACTING GHOST PLANET...

Space Ghost Coast to Coast #8: “Batmantis” | September 30, 1994 | S01E08

This is a straight-up classic and one of the most elaborately plotted episodes of Space Ghost they’ve ever attempted, and it’s only season one! George Lowe’s voice acting is noticeably evolving. Space Ghost interviews Adam West, Lee Meriwether, and Ertha Kitt, all from the old 1960s Batman TV Show. Moltar gets kidnapped, so Space Ghost spends the episode trying to get Adam West to be Batman so he can help out. Meanwhile, Zorak is on the case as Batmantis, exhibiting a notable amount of new animation from Clay Croker. Space Ghost is all business, not really interviewing his guests as much as he’s trying to wrangle them all into his very real and serious kidnapping plot. You can tell that the interviewees aren’t aware that they’re in wacky comic book adventure.

There are some real good jokes in this, and some good weird absurdist touches, like faintly hearing Zorak yell “Don Messick!” while transforming into Batmantis. I like the surreal use of stock footage to depict treacherous villain “Your Mother”, who repeatedly shows up on Space Ghost’s monitor to taunt him (her line “your lollygagging KILLS your friend!” is especially hilarious). This one is a masterclass in how to use awkward celebrity interviews to your advantage and make something beautiful and hilarious.

DVD Commentary on this one is good, and reminded me of stuff I may not have mentioned for other episodes, most notably the story of trying to use scenes from “Gone With the Wind” for Moltar to watch and laugh at, including the scene where Scarlett O’Hara falls down the stairs and miscarries or the scene where the little boy falls off the horse and dies. That is one of my all-time favorite “writing Space Ghost” stories, ever.

And who can forget the Muffin Man?

MAIL BAG

are we on or?

the famous woman! I love it!

[ritchieblackless]

Blackmore and Powell's friendship. Pt 1.

Well, I finished the book and there are some interesting things about their friendship, musicianship in Rainbow days and years later when they remind friends again.

Yes, you thought that they would have had a difficult relationship because they were hard people (Ritchie is difficult and Cozy was not a patient person) hard to believe but no, they were good friends. Almost goal friends.

Nobody asked for it but I don't care.

(And I'm doing this because is very funny and very surprising. And because there are people who are still thinking that Cozy and Ritchie were enemies lol)

Love for pranks and practical jokes.

First of all I will remark their equal love for pranks and practical jokes and that is one of the reasons why they became friends almost instantly. It was Team Blackmore/Powell vs Everyone

×They would locked up Tony Carey (Rainbow keyboard player in Rising days) in his room. (He was the most bullied member by those two but that's another thing)

×They would scared Ronnie James Dio to death.

×They would (Cozy would) climb up to the other's rooms and and mess up everything and steal the furniture.

"One night, Cozy climbed onto the roof. It was quite high there, the roof was about 100 feet high, he climbed out of the window to Colin Hart's room and pulled out all the furniture. It was an incredible sight. I thought it was Spider-Man or Batman. I went "Who's there on the roof? What? Cozy? What are you doing there?" He said. "Stealing furniture"! -Ritchie.

Etc.

Of course at the beginning they played practical jokes to each other.

×Cozy would climb with a stair up to Ritchie's room and manipulate a knight armour with strings to scare Ritchie (Sometimes it worked) and Ritchie would just push the stair back. (Tom and Jerry vibes here)

×Cozy loved to climb (as you can read) He would climb to Ritchie's room and lock the door from inside.

×Ritchie would... well...

Is a fact that Ritchie played practical jokes to everyone. Everyone excepts Cozy.

"Cozy and I arranged practical jokes together, but we made a mutual agreement, that we won't play tricks on each other. Because, when I did something to Cozy, he took revenge for me twice as bad (laughs). So I said to him: "Cozy, let's promise right now that won't do anything to each other, otherwise we'll have serious problems one day" -Ritchie.

Is fair enough to say Ritchie was a little afraid of Cozy heh...

×The thing that Ritchie did to Cozy was that Ritchie put more powder on Cozy's pyro making him fly away from the drums.

He never told us about that revenge.

They of course played jokes on Graham, Roger but Don no... If you touched Don you were dead.

Later Cozy and Ritchie fought very badly and Cozy left. But no because of Ritchie...(that's another thing).

In the early 90s, by casuality, Ritchie and Cozy were in the same hotel and this is what happened.

"You'll be pleased to know that Ritchie and I had a very interesting evening's chat yesterday. Very positive. He's probably mellowed a little bit since twenty years ago when we worked together. I haven't seen Ritchie for ten years, maybe more. Ritchie's Ritchie, you take him as he is. I suppose he's just like me, he's a boy who's never grown up and he likes to do stupid things, but I can get along with that, that's fine." -Cozy.

They remind friends again that evening in the hotel teaming up together for more pranks (but not to each other... the agreement was still).

×Throwing water from the hotel's balconies.

×Putting things (like garbage, wrong clothes or stolen drinks etc) in the rooms of their own band members (Ritchie was with Deep Purple and Cozy with Sabbath I believe) to cause annoying.

Sactifactory ending I dare to say.

They had a lot of confidence and complicity in music too.

I mean, look at this...

(Ritchie is just resting his elbow on Cozy's back.)

That's why I'm saying that Cozy was one of those few people that Ritchie called genuinely "Friend".

[hyunnielix]

Drive

After leaving Gotham after a freak accident, settling down in Detriot seemed like the best option for you except all you can think about is him and what you left behind.

Pairing: Dick Grayson x Y/N (Titans)

Warnings: Angst, Maybe fluff if you like squint (and at the end), It’s sad

Word Count: 1.9k

Your laugh, echoes down the hallway

Carves into my hollow chest, spreads over the emptiness 

The call you had received from Dawn just yesterday prompted you to leave Detroit on an eight-hour mission to get to Washington DC, you knew how much of a disadvantage they had especially with Hank being near-fatally injured on their last rendezvous.

You tried convincing them to leave the crime-fighting to Batman and the other vigilantes, but yet again they refused to listen.

So here you were, standing outside of their rundown apartment contemplating whether you should knock or leave, you made a promise not to fight any more, since the last time it got out of hand you lost one of your best friends.

Deciding against either of those options, you wrapped your hand around the metallic silver handle of the door entering without any warning whatsoever.

A rough kick to your shin sent you into fight or flight mode, a flash of platinum hair was all you could see once you fell to your knee waiting for the next move.

Flipping your body weight backward, you let out a wheeze as Dawn placed the heel of her stiletto dangerously close to your throat.

“Y/N?” She tilted her head, eyebrows furrowed as she realised who the intruder was taking her heel off you to allow you to breathe.

Letting out a strangled laugh, you nodded reaching for her outstretched hand for you to grab pulling you up easily and dusting off the remnants of the dust that covered your clothes.

“That’s my name don’t wear it out,” You jokingly sighed, awkwardly gripping the handle of your duffle bag in front of your body as you stood up.

“You should’ve knocked,” She exclaimed, wrapping her arms around your torso and embracing you in a welcoming hug, friendliness radiated off of her which was something you hadn’t felt in a while.

“I was going to,” You sheepishly smiled, scrunching your nose up in the process, your inability to be logical even took you by surprise as you expected yourself to be dead by this age to be completely honest. The amount of enemies you made in Gotham was more than frightening especially for a teenager.

“What’s she doing here,” the hostility of the voice wiped the smile off your face as you came face to face with Hank, his overpowering figure eyeing you with what you could only recognize as disgust.

“Hank, I can explain,” the words fell from her mouth calmly, she always knew how to handle worded situations better than you which you were beyond thankful for. She managed to save your ass on multiple occasions all you could try to do was repay the favour.

“Did you call her?” He asked almost accusingly, the guilty silence that followed after the sentence made you feel more than uneasy.

“I’m going out for a while don’t expect me to be back soon,” He grumbled, brushing past the both of you rather aggressively and reaching for the keys off the table stand. The door slammed shut and you caught Dawn's noticeable flinch as she let out an exasperated sigh.

“If I knew it would’ve caused this much trouble I wouldn’t have come,” You mumbled sending an apologetic look towards her which made the corner of her lips upturn slightly.

“It’s fine,” She replied, throwing the whole situation under the mat figuratively. You stopped pressing the issue and nodded solemnly, placing your duffle bag on the floor underneath the side table.

“You look famished, I’ve got food in the fridge help yourself,” She offered, placing her hand on your lower back and guiding you towards the tiny but humble kitchen with incredibly paint-chipped walls.

A repetitive knock at the door caught both of your attention, eyebrow raising at Dawn she mouthed an ‘I’ll take care of it’ reassuring you whilst doing so. Leaning down to open a cupboard, you reached for the blue aquamarine coloured plates while overhearing the chattering of multiple people in the hallway.

Striding through the kitchen and into the living room that connected to the hall you paused, staring only at the scratched plate as your fingers ran over the ruined ceramic.

“Are these the right plates Dawn?” You asked a small smile on your face until you moved your gaze up, staring at the familiar people who stood there mouth open in shock. Gasping, the plate slid out of your hand colliding with the hardwood floor in a sickening smash.

“Dick?” Your voice was shaky, almost questioning if he was really right there in front of you. The look on his face was a mix of awe-struck and complete utter confusion.

Kneeling on the ground, you managed to rip your gaze from his, beginning to pick up the broken pieces of plate that now decorated the floor nicely. He also moved forward and knelt on the floor, helping you clean up the mess but not daring to speak a word to you.

His hand brushed against yours softly causing your reflexes to pull back almost violently reeling from the thought of him, you couldn’t read the expression on his face but you could tell he was hurting it wasn’t that hard to piece together.

“I’m sorry D-Dawn,” You stuttered, standing up whilst placing the broken pieces of plate onto the dining table as she hastily replied with ‘doesn’t matter’.

“I’m Rachel by the way,” the smaller girl who had stood next to him donned in all black with vibrant purple dyed hair said, smiling softly as she held out her hand for you to shake.

“I guess you three are staying for the night?” Dawn asked, the ghost of a smile on her flawless face as she tapped on the wall. You all nodded in unison which made Rachel let out a small laugh.

“I’ll show you to the spare room,” You prompted her, eager to get away from Dick’s menacing gaze as you began to show her around. Entering the room, you slid the glass door behind you letting out a shaky sigh while doing it.

“So what was that about?” Rachel asked, her ocean blue eyes filled with curiosity as she plummeted onto the bed smiling at the comfortableness of it.

“Hmm?” You hummed, too lost in your own train of thought to hear what the girl had stated.

“You and Dick, it seemed pretty serious,” She reiterated, sitting on the edge of the bed as if she was waiting for a story to be told.

“We just have a history that’s all.” You explained, the nostalgia getting the better of you as memories began to flicker past replaying like a movie in your head.

“You’re cute kid,” You mumbled, patting her arm before standing up abruptly and sliding the glass door open leaving her to rest.

Before you could walk away, a hand wrapped around your upper arm jerking your body back slightly. You knew it was him.

It almost pained you how you couldn’t run your fingers through his fluffy brunette hair and crack stupid jokes that both of you would laugh at, it wasn’t as simple as that anymore.

“We need to talk,” His voice was deeper than you remembered it taking you slightly off guard as you shakily removed his hand from your arm.

“Yeah, we do,” You stated coldly, refusing to look at him in the eye.

Wandering up the many steps of the stairs leading to the rooftop of the apartment complex, you hung loosely behind him, the silence almost comforting yet the thoughts in your head were racing at an incomprehensible speed per minute. The outcomes of this confrontation scared you, you already lost him once you didn’t want to do it again however you feared this was how it was going to end between the both of you.

“Who’s starting first?” You asked, crossing your arms across your chest to keep yourself warm.

“I did it for your own good,” He muttered as if it was like a promise to himself in some sick and twisted way, making you feel even more disheartened. 

“You made me believe that you were dead!” You exclaimed letting your emotions overtake your rational thinking as you took a step forward as if to taunt him.

“I’m not good at the staying part, you should know that more than anyone,” He hesitated as if he could use it as an excuse.

“Yeah well I’m not good at coping without you, okay is that what you want to hear? because there I said it,” You confessed, blinking rapidly to prevent the oncoming tears from spilling you knew once they started they couldn’t stop.

“How hard is it for you to swallow your pride for a second and just apologize?” You almost begged, needing to feel some kind of resolve. Rendering him speechless, you continued on.

“Nevermind, I shouldn’t have expected any different from you,” You let out a choked laugh, using the sweater you wore to wipe away the tears that were running down your cheeks pathetically so. Turning around, you strode towards the door ready to go back inside.

The rest of the afternoon was pretty uneventful, You eventually found yourself accidentally eavesdropping on a conversation between Rachel and Dick as you leant against the paint-chipped wall staring up at the ceiling. 

“So You and Y/N?” She asked, yet again unable to stop her nosiness. 

“No,” He faltered slightly at the word, sounding unsure of himself for the first time you’d heard since you had met him.

“You realise its impossible to lie to me right?” Rachel sighed boredly, an unamused expression plastered on her face as she waited for him to answer.

“When we were younger,” He shut down quickly, pacing around the bed and towards the entrance of the room trying to leave.

“Why did you hurt her?” She questioned, tilting her head ever so slightly to the side like a lost puppy.

“I didn’t mean to,” He turned his head around, eyebrows furrowing as the words left his mouth. 

“That’s not an excuse,” She scolded him, knowing how it felt to be hurt by someone you love, she could feel your pain when she had touched hands with you and what you were feeling was worse than heartbreak. 

“Yeah, well it’s all in the past,” He snapped, losing his patience with the young girl you knew he wasn’t good at looking after kids especially teenagers, Bruce has definitely rubbed off on him in the bad way that's for sure.

“Not for her,” Rachel exhaled, looking yet again disappointed in Dick as he nodded lips upturning into an almost sad smile before leaving the room.

A curse fell from his lips as your glossy eyes met his, he knew in an instant what you had heard and felt beyond guilty as you stood frozen in the hallway.

At least you knew how he truly felt, collecting your duffle bag in your hand you began to make your way to the door tears threatening to spill yet again.

“Y/N, Y/N wait!” He exclaimed, striding over to the door to stop your hand from opening it almost desperately.

“I’m sorry,” He sounded sincere as he stood in front of you, face just inches away from his as you dropped your hand from the silver metallic handle.

“It’s a couple of years too late for that,” You mumbled, biting your lip to stop your chin from trembling

“No, it’s not,” He reassured you, lifting your chin up ever so slightly giving you no choice but to look at him.

His gaze noticeably lingered on your lips as yours did his, leaning forward he placed his hand around the back of your neck pulling you into him. 

“I don’t want to lose you again,” You exhaled, your foreheads touching as you tried to prevent a smile from adorning your lips.

“You won’t.” He reassured you, brushing a piece of hair behind your ear gently and pressing a kiss to the crown of your head.

[fyeahwonderbat]

In the Middle of a Broken Constellation - PT. 16

Pairing: WonderBat (Wonder Woman x Batman) Rating: T / 14A Universe: N/A - Reader’s Choice Previous Chapter: <- Chapter 15

“Diana, meet Magdalena Marques,” Bruce sounded comfortable, cheerful even as he introduced Diana to his personal shopper. Everything in the department store looked high class and opulent, and the middle-aged woman approaching them presented herself like everything contained within the mall’s walls was hers. “Maggie, this is a new employee of mine, Diana Prince.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Prince. Welcome to Evident.” Magdalena spoke slowly while her big brown eyes roamed over the two of them. She didn’t even bother to try and hide her obvious intrigue about their relationship, despite the fact that Bruce just told her who they were to one another: colleagues.  

Diana, unbothered, offered out her hand to the woman and waited for her to accept the gesture before speaking. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Oh, you as well. I take it he bullied my staff to get this appointment for you, miss?” she asked the two of them, but didn’t wait for their answer. Her hand slipped out of the handshake with the utmost poise before she spun on her heels and began to walk towards the women’s section of the store. On Bruce’s signal, Diana skipped forward to follow Magdalena’s dedicated pace towards their destination.

Shouting so she could hear him, Bruce explained, “The Wayne Corporation owes her for her hard work, and I thought this would be the best place to spoil her.”

“Of course it is. After all, you’re a loyal customer, you have garnered a lot of business for my store,” Magdalena sounded as if she was listing off the positive qualities to having the wealthy Bruce Wayne on her roster of regulars, then she stopped talking at the exact same moment that she stopped walking. Reaching to her left and grabbing for a blazer off of a nearby rack that was meant to be tied at the waist rather than buttoned, she unbuttoned her lips and added the last trait of his that she adored so much. “And all of your credit cards are on file.”

“Every single one of them.” Bruce chuckled, confirming her words to be true with a boyish shrug. Watching him respond to this woman as he did gave Diana pause when she least expected it.

“But we are only here to buy a handful of things, so you’ll only really need one of them.” She enunciated the ending of her remark to make sure that the keywords reached his determined mind.

He turned his head to face her but the rest of his body didn’t even flinch. With a crooked grin he decided at that moment to inform her of his secret plan, “But I have to take into account the emotional, physical and mental toll the entire situation took on you. So I think we can look into a few spring jackets and some sun hats too.”

“Mr. Wayne.” The way she said his name was meant to act as a warning.

The way he tilted his head to show her the warning he carried in his gaze, “Miss Prince, let Magdalena do her job, and let me do mine.”

“Your job isn’t to dress me like a doll.”

“My job is to make sure that you are properly compensated for the efforts you made yesterday. If I deem that you earned one of everything in this store, as your boss’ boss, should that not be a testament to you rather than a detriment to me?”

Diana pursed her lips to stop herself from saying the first thing that came to mind, as it wasn’t the kindest nor the most intelligible thing she could utter in that moment. If he hadn’t been missing parts of his memory, she could have responded so cleverly with a remark regarding some of the designs he’d made regarding the BatClan’s first set of suits. She could have brought up that his stylistic tastes involved donning a cowl that sometimes made it impossible to turn his neck from side to side.

However, if she had the luxury of mentioning those moments, it would have meant that he wasn’t suffering from severe memory loss, and they wouldn’t even be together at the mall in the first place.

Thinking of their situation as a happy accident calmed Diana greatly. If nothing else, she knew she could keep the tags on everything and hand the entire wardrobe she expected him to buy her back over to him once he was well again. For now, as selfish as it was, she imagined what it would be like to spend time with Bruce without the fear of sludge monsters or villains for the first time in a long time. Then, she turned her thoughts into reality. “Some employers just offer their employees a raise or a plague when they want to reward their good behavior.”

Bruce grinned from ear to ear the moment he picked up on her submitting to his request. “I think you’ve been in Gotham long enough to know that nothing that happens here is normal, by any means.” He said coolly.

Diana turned away from that smile of his for a reason she couldn’t place, taking that wry remark as her cue to catch up to Magdalena and look over a handful of items that the woman had already selected for her. Giving into Bruce wasn’t something she did easily, whether he wore the cowl or not. Maybe it was because she was playing the role of a civilian and he had been turned into the fully realized version of his mortal self, but she had to admit that the levity of the moment made her think that the walls of the mall were somewhat of a safe place.

That Evident might be the one place where Bruce could get what he wanted from her, and she could perhaps sneak a peek into the version of Bruce Wayne that he hid from her whenever he donned his superhero clothes.

When she exited the dressing room for the very first time, it was somewhat of a shock to see Bruce sitting on the peach-toned leather couch, awaiting her return. He was hunched over his knees and typing furiously on his phone, so Diana honestly hoped that she could walk out of her room and model her simple slacks and blouse combination without him noticing. After all, she’d learned rather early on in her clothes-shopping days that the lights in the changing room weren’t always the most flattering. It was because of a habit that she reemerged before him, nothing else.

There was no ulterior motive, truly.

But when Bruce lifted his head and switched over from excitement to shock to obvious disappointment, Diana couldn’t help but laugh at his inability to control himself. “Were you expecting me to come out here like Julia Roberts?” She questioned, coy.

“Huh?” Was his dumbfounded reply.

Adjusting her buttons and the tuck of her shirt, Diana explained, “I’d been in a luxurious red dress and your generosity would have saved the homely woman from her unfortunate fashion circumstances.”

“Ah, no. No, I was just…expecting you to try on that green lace dress first.”

“Lace?” She repeated him while looking at him in the mirror.

His eyes found hers and she’d never seen such panic in them before, not even on the battlefield. “Isn’t that fabric? Maybe it was tulle.” He grumbled, trying to recover. The way he took to his phone in order to avoid her scrutiny was so dramatic, she couldn’t determine if it was all an act or if he was genuinely embarrassed. However, he understood what she was implying by focusing on the sheer material and that alone tickled her fancy.

“Bruce,” she called to him as she returned her attention to her look. “I think I’m good with just this.”

“Really?” His head shot up so quickly, she had blinked and missed the sight of him sitting up straight in response to her comment.

“I rather like this material, and the cut of both the blouse and the pants suit me really well. There are no loose threads, and I don’t need to get the pants hemmed. It’s actually perfect for me.” Her admiration of the outfit was so authentic because it proved to her that Evident was a quality store.

So caught up in her analysis of the fit of her slacks, she hadn’t heard Bruce’s shoes against the tiles. He had snuck up on her in a matter of seconds, standing directly behind her when his voice drifted towards her in a hushed tone, “At least try on the blazer Maggie picked out. It’d go with this.”

Aware of the shivers that were ready to bowl her over, Diana pivoted her upper body to face him as best as she could. That tense edge in his jaw confused her, since she could typically deduce what it was that was causing him stress. Nevertheless, he stared her down with something undecided in his eyes, in his energy. He either wanted to pin her to the spot or he wanted to say something else to her that was on the very tip of his tongue. But his mouth was forced shut as he stood within mere inches of her, asking her to add one more piece to her new outfit. “I don’t need to,” she admitted gently. “That’s one item I wouldn’t leave without.”

“Good.” Bruce sounded relieved when the corner of his lips jumped up into a smile for no more than a second. Then, it sunk back down and he looked like his serious old self once again.

Nervous about the silence coupled with his seriousness, Diana wondered aloud, “Is there something else…?”

“What do you mean?” He inquired, as if he couldn’t tell why she was slightly perturbed by him.

Turning around to face him properly, Diana explained, “You left your seat to look me over.”

“Well” - he sighed as he began his response, but he carried out his sentiment without an ounce of shame by the time it was done - “I didn’t think there was a woman in the world who could make a mere suit look so attractive.”

Diana gave him a moment to take it back or pretend he was joking, but when he didn’t offer her any kind of humor to base his comment on, she implored him to continue. “And?”

Bruce scanned her face with those burning, searing eyes of his while he had his moment to think. After a few seconds ticked by, he finally concocted an answer for her. “And... there are paparazzi outside.”

“What?” Diana asked, gawking.

“I just got a text from mall security that someone tipped them off that we are in here, meaning we are going to have to make this a shorter trip. I’m sorry, Miss Prince.” Bruce explained with honest to goodness regret seeping into the lines of his face.

Diana realized then and there that what Bruce was doing wasn’t harassment - he was shielding her from being photographed with him. If someone tipped off the press that Bruce Wayne was out and about with a female friend, they would create a very unsavory narrative about her and frame her in all sorts of horrible ways. Not only would the public shaming be unfair, but the attention could prove to be a major detriment to her undercover mission.

If the person who was after Bruce could pinpoint who she was to him and where they were, they could both be in danger.

No matter how disappointed she was, Diana nodded her head ever so softly to indicate to him that she was ready to move. Seemingly impressed by her resolve in such an awkward situation, Bruce swore to her in such a deep whisper, it made his voice sound gravelly and unintentionally sexy, “We’ll go for lunch at a more secure location. For now, when I count down from three, we run like a pair of bats out of hell, okay? Just follow my lead.”

Oddly enough, the circumstances being what they were, she didn’t find them to be so stressful anymore. Escaping something sinister with Bruce when he referred to them as bats was oddly cathartic to Diana. If only for her own enjoyment, unknowingly at his expense, she answered him the only way she knew how to, “Ready when you are, Batman.”

((Something cute for this chapter, since the next one will involve a more intimate setting. Will the paparazzi prove to be just as dangerous of an enemy as the sludge monsters!? …Well, obviously not, but they are now interested in Bruce and his mystery date, so I wonder where that could take them? Hope you enjoyed this month’s installment! Be sure to check out my other fics while you bide your time! ~ Maiden))

[noisemakerreviews]

‘Joker’ Paints An Uncomfortable Picture of Today’s World

Never did I think I’d see the day where I could parallel even the darkest of Batman themes to the world we live in. 

Todd Phillips’ latest blockbuster Joker stars Joaquin Phoenix as the clown prince of crime we all know and love. Phillips’ other films include the Hangover trilogy, but this new film doesn’t have a happy go-lucky trio trying to remember their drunken stupors and find their fourth mate. 

Joker makes the audience laugh, but in a nervous, sort of uncomfortable way. 

At the Venice Film Festival, Joker received an eight-minute standing ovation. 

Reviews poured in following the Italian premiere and they backed up the hype. Mark Hughes of Forbes said, “The fact is, everyone is going to be stunned by what Phoenix accomplishes, because it’s what many thought impossible — a portrayal that matches and potentially exceeds that of The Dark Knight’s Clown Prince of Crime.”

The film opens with Phoenix touching up his makeup in front of a vanity. He hooks his fingers in the corners of his mouth and pulls them upward in a smile, downwards in a frown, then back up again; a single, mascara-stained tears roll down his cheek, and laughter ensues. 

Phoenix plays Arthur Fleck, an eccentric man with a funny laugh and a horrifying past, searching for his identity. The film encapsulates Arthur’s journey with himself and his downward spiral into becoming the Joker.   

There are some prevalent themes within Joker that are worth talking about; the most prevalent being mental health and its effect on people in today’s society. There are several scenes in which Phoenix is sitting in front of his therapist, and she eventually jerks the needle off the record and informs him that the city has cut the clinic’s funding and their meetings must come to an end. The therapist goes on to claim that the higher-ups, “don’t give a shit,” about people like him or her. 

According to the National Survey of Drug Use and Health, in 2016, 9.8 million adults aged 18 or older in the U.S. had a serious mental illness; 2.8 million of those adults were below the poverty line. Insurance companies have also been known to skimp when it comes to mental health cases, which makes it that much harder for people relating to Arthur to seek help. According to a study published by Milliman, in 2015, behavioral care was four to six times more likely to be provided out-of-network than medical or surgical care. In President Trump’s proposed 2020 budget, his administration aims to cut $241 billion from Medicaid, an assistance program that provides healthcare to low-income Americans.

Dancing is a symbol that is heavy in Joker. According to a Harvard study, “dance helps reduce stress, increases levels of the feel-good hormone serotonin, and helps develop new neural connections, especially in regions involved in executive function, long-term memory, and spatial recognition.” After especially tense scenes, Arthur begins a slow, emphasized dance routine that is hauntingly beautiful.

 With mental health being such a prevalent theme, Arthur clinging onto dancing as a coping mechanism or escape from the world backs up the analysis that he’s doing it to improve his mental health — or at least attempt to. 

In any Batman rendition — comics, movies, TV shows, video games — Gotham is always on fire… literally. In Joker, we see a bright Gotham in the beginning, with normal big-city crimes happening: teenagers stealing things, muggings, etc. By the end of the film, Arthur has bred chaos in the streets, and we see the imagery of Gotham that has become so prevalent within the Batman universe. In both Arthur and Gotham’s descent into madness, there’s an arc that’s ever present: protesting the elite. 

All around the country, protests have emerged to combat the elite. Most recently, climate change has brought criticism on the world’s elite members and their inability to make a change. In the past, police brutality has created protests in riots from victim’s families and their supporters, calling for change in law enforcement procedures. Countless marches have been held in response to several pieces of legislations passed (abortion laws, Planned Parenthood budget cuts, LGBTQ+ rights). 

“Kill The Rich” is a headline that pops up time and time again throughout the film, feeding into this “protest the elite” arc. Arthur guns down three rich men in the subway following their harassment of a woman and a physical altercation between himself and the men. This sparks a movement within Gotham that empowers Arthur and makes him feel noticed, something he’d never experienced in his life before. Citizens of Gotham supporting this movement don clown masks to imitate the suspect, aka, Arthur. 

Joker has faced its fair share of backlash. Stephanie Zacharek of Time Magazine took no prisoners in her review, stating that Joker, “lionizes and glamorizes Arthur even as it shakes its head, faux-sorrowfully, over his violent behavior.” Other reviews have had similar opinions. In 2012, a mass shooting broke out at a Colorado movie theatre during The Dark Knight Rises premiere. The assailant fatally shot 12 people. Family members of the slain victims wrote a letter to Warner Bros. expressing their concerns. 

Sandy Phillips, mother to 24-year-old victim Jessica Ghawi, told The Hollywood Reporter, “I don't need to see a picture of [the gunman]; I just need to see a Joker promo and I see a picture of the killer … My worry is that one person who may be out there — and who knows if it is just one — who is on the edge, who is wanting to be a mass shooter, may be encouraged by this movie. And that terrifies me.”

In what is perhaps its most iconic scene, Arthur eccentrically dances down the stairs that we see him trudge up throughout the film. This is also the first time we see him in that iconic purple suit, green hair, and a full face of makeup. He is dancing to Gary Glitter’s “Rock and Roll Part Two,” which has earned the film more backlash. Gary Glitter is a convicted pedophile currently serving a 16-year prison sentence. According to CNBC, Glitter is allegedly slated to receive royalties from the use of his song in the movie. 

People took to Twitter to post their opinions about the film. One user tweeted, “#JokerMovie was the most brutal, uncomfortable and tense movie experience I’ve had in a long time. Joaquin Phoenix is chilling. The film was spot on and did everything it should have for a character like the Joker.”

Another user tweeted, “Outstandingly Disturbing. Prolific. Necessary Blessing to Modern Cinema.”

As much as I enjoyed the film’s premise, production, and Phoenix’s performance, I do think there are some troubling themes that need to be brought up. Arthur often justifies his heinous actions by stating “they deserved it” and using the defense that society treats “people like him” like “trash” so, they should all die. He feeds into the “Kill The Rich” movement that he involuntarily created in the subway when he committed what we presume to be his first murder(s). 

Though I know the concept behind the Joker character, I can see how this can be construed as glorifying gun violence. However, we can’t have the Gotham supervillain without violence and guns. It’s an accurate representation of the character, and it’s unfortunate that it parallels a lot of what’s going on in the world today. 

The Joker is also painted to incite pity within viewers, which a lot of times, it does --- or at least attempts to. This is classic Joker behavior. In Paul Dini and Bruce Timm’s comic Mad Love, readers meet Dr. Harleen Quinzel, a psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum. She gets assigned to none other than --- you guessed it --- the Joker. Though this woman is highly educated (we won’t talk about the things she did to get that education), the Joker still manipulates her and convinces her to not only help him escape Arkham, but become his partner-in-crime as well; Harleen Quinzel is no more and Harley Quinn is born.

She pities him and his situation, and he spins his tale of woe so expertly that she has the wool pulled over her eyes. Throughout the comic --- and the general timeline for Joker and Harley --- Joker mercilessly abuses Harley, from pushing her out a window to not noticing she was gone for six months. He is a cruel, manipulative psychopath that nobody should follow in the footsteps of; however, he’s good at his job, and Joker showcases that, however controversial and uncomfortable it may be.

Joker is rated R for a reason; not only are there a few F-bombs, the violence is staggering. However, when dealing with a character that is known for inciting violence and not caring about the consequences, tough scenes are necessary. Phillips didn’t shy away from blood and intensity in his murder scenes, and Phoenix went all in when it came to brutality. Personally, (spoiler!) I never really wanted to see Robert De Niro’s brains blown out the back of his skull, but you can’t have the Joker without some blood. 

And finally, while the troubled citizens looking for a leader are terrorizing Gotham following Arthur’s murder of Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro) on live television, our hero’s story starts. Thomas and Martha Wayne are gunned down in an alley outside a theatre by a rogue thug and Joker fan, and young Bruce Wayne begins his famous story. 

Joker was original in concept and plot, but had just enough callbacks to the comics to make it permissible. The atmosphere in the full theatre I was in was palpable. There were chuckles and titters here and there when Arthur would make a funny joke, or everyone was just laughing off the tension of the moment. There were also audible gasps and groans when things got especially rough (such as the aforementioned Robert De Niro scene). Joker did exactly what the real Joker would have wanted: it incited a reaction out of people.

I had low expectations going into the movie because, as someone who grew up reading Batman and loving to hate the Joker, I was afraid my favorite complex villain was going to get ruined (looking at you, Jared Leto). I was pleasantly surprised by Phoenix’s performance and Phillips’ take on Mista J, and it was a refreshing performance that was a polar opposite from the late Heath Ledger’s, but equally as convincing and chilling.

An Oscar seems to be on the horizon for both Phillips and Phoenix for Joker. The film is raunchy and tense, and I didn’t know I could hold my breath for two hours. It’s exactly what a Joker movie should be, and I’d encourage anyone to go watch it.

[soul-heart-and-beyond]

Dewey Headcanons!

Man, I’ve been holding out on these for a good while since iconing and going through replies in my drafts, but I also wanted to clarify or touch up on some things since I’ve been so quiet about other things related to these guys. Dewey’s first up because he’s the most prominent in my head as I write this right now.

In his free time, whenever he’s not doing the Dew-Night Show, playing video games, practicing with his weapons and martial arts, and just spending time with his family and friends, he does indeed make his own music/dance hybrid videos and uploads them to DuckTube (Is that what the DT equivalent of YouTube is called?), that way he feel like his dances are appreciated on there.

While those dances don’t get that many views or likes, he does continue to try until he blows up big on there.

Dew is more conscious and considerate of others even though sometimes he may put himself first, but that’s only when the situation is one that isn’t really serious.

His attention span isn’t as short as it is in the shows’ current state. For some reason it’s more around how he was back in early season one, where he could actually figure out puzzles and what to do and stuff. (If you’ve noticed, they’ve been tossing some things around for the boys to see which one works the best.)

Now that his mom is back, he’s really hyped and curious about what he will get to do with her. It’s what he’s been wanting for the longest time at this point, but even with all of his affection and respect for her, deep down he does feel a little agitated with her choice of going into outer space before raising him and his brother first.

Pop Rock cake may have almost turned him inside out, but all he needs is a smaller dosage and he should be fine! Hey, can’t knock those things when they’re so good!

My version of Dewey is more around Launchpad, Gyro, and Fenton than he is normally in the show just around Launchpad. (I believe this was to give the triplets one to associate themselves with an older friend, [i.e. Dewey/Launchpad, Louie/Gyro, and Huey/Fenton] but they feel more like small groups than a family like everyone would want it to feel like so....)

Now these headcanons will be more recent, as they involve the last two episodes that revolve around Gizmoduck and Darkwing Duck:

He was alarmed by his notification system on his phone on Duckblr about how a massive Mark Beaks was holding what appeared to be Huey and Webby, and now even though that situation’s over, he teases Huey for playing the “Damsel in Distress” role for Fenton. (Something that he’s usually placed into but those incidents were out of his control.)

Getting the information from Launchpad, he’ll joke around with Fenton about how Gandra is really going to be his girlfriend and how they’ll “live together until they’re old folk.” Of course he’s just being or trying to be the cool guy out of his family. Though Louie does give him competition for that.

This one’s a bit of a game changer and a slight retcon, but I do have reasons behind why this one’s getting put out there. So during the Darkwing Duck episode, Dewey eventually gets to become the director of the movie that could possibly bring Darkwing Duck to being a household name again. Of course, he accepts it with the wacky ideas he believes should be inserted into the movie, even giving himself the role of playing the cool young sidekick that skateboards and wisecracks. So because he was reading that one comic with Launchpad about the alternate universes, he remembered there was a version named Quivering Quack, and he was going to don the costume to bring the character to life on screen.

In doing so, Darkwing would have gotten a new ally to battle the forces of evil with in the final battle with Megavolt, if Jim didn’t take out Drake for this. With this in mind, he did take the final shoot with Launchpad in his mind because this was a movie more for his friend than him, and placing himself above the legacy of a character that definitely had more of a reputation than him felt too rude. With this, he never filmed himself dancing on the footage when it was found at the end, but the data was corrupted, thus making it useless anyway.  

(So my reasoning for why Dewey, at least my incarnation, would do this over what he did in the show is because this movie meant something, no, a lot to his pal Launchpad, even if it was some dark and edgy reboot. Loved all of the Batman Begins trilogy references by the way. Though recording himself with the camera and then editing the footage for it to be at the end not only seemed really flanderized, but out of character too. Yeah, Dewey’s in the tween age, but even someone that young wouldn’t ruin something like that for their friend, unless they were five or four. He basically ruined a chance for Drake to be Darkwing Duck both in shows/movies and Launchpad’s hope for a revival in the franchise the easy way. Not only that, but it kinda seems like he didn’t learn his lesson with Don Karnage’s appearance, and how making things all about him isn’t good for anyone, including himself. Yes, this was Launchpad’s episode more than anyone else’s, but Dewey’s attention span shouldn’t be that bad or far gone. 

The other reason is that there is literally no way Dewey could have taken the camera and flash drive into a green screen room in another studio, make the dance and record it, then edit the footage to include the music and place it at the end, and then lose the flash drive by the time the fight ended and they recovered it from the wreckage. That fight wasn’t really that long and Dewey was there to watch it all. Not only that but Alistair had to find the footage that Dewey should have had on him all along if he did do this, so logically it can’t work outside of it being a joke/excuse for Drake to become a real superhero/vigilante)

Just to be clear, that moment with the footage thing at the end didn’t happen the way it did in the show. The data got corrupted, Dewey felt bad that he tried the best he could to bring Alistair and Launchpad’s hope out of the shadows, but unfortunately those shadows were too strong.

[joyofcrime-elinorhigh]

Teen Titans Go To The Movies REVIEW:

 Ahem

 "I DON'T KNOW WHO CREATED...TEEN TITANS GO!....BUT I'D TRIED TO FIGURE OUT HOW WE GET THEM TO HAVE TEEN TITANS _GO. TO. THE. POLLS." _  *Beat*

 "I'm with her!"

**  **Hello everybody, my name is JoyofCrimeArt, and it's time to finally put this to rest. I've already gave my very...very...very extensive thoughts on Teen Titans Go! in my last two reviews.

 Oh my gosh, why didn't I call those reviews "Teen Titans Go! is Garbage and Here's Why?!" It was probably long enough and would of gotten way more views!

 But back on topic. To summarize my thoughts though I think Teen Titans Go!, while I do think that there are some good elements and even good episodes of the series, I didn't end up finding it to be a very good series on the whole. However, it is a series that I do enjoy watching in a weird, ironic kinda way. It's a very love hate relationship. It's a bad show, but I will be sad when it ends, cause it has impacted my life that much. So when word of a movie came to be, it immediately grabbed my interest as well as my curiosity. What could a show like Teen Titans Go! possibly do with a movie? Teen Titans Go's! whole "thing" is that it DOESN'T do big superhero stories. Wouldn't making a film kinda go against what the whole show was about? And the show typically had trouble stretching there plots out for eleven minutes, let alone ninety. But as more trailers came out, I started seeing a lot of people genuinely getting excited for the film. Even I had to admit I was kinda getting a little bit hyped by the trailers. And when the film finally did get released it actually succeeded in getting over a ninety percent on rotten tomatoes! Yes, you heard right, CRITICS WERE LIKING TEEN TITANS GO! Could this movie actually be....good? Or would it end up being as obnoxious as the series that it was based on? Well, it's time to find out. Consider this your  **SPOILER WARNING, **as we dive right to Teen Titans Go To The Movies.

 I both love and hate that title.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9WhJyyTtqo

 The film begins with a giant balloon monster attack Jump City. And right off the back, I wanna praise the animation of this film. I admit, compared to other tv to film adaptations, it's nothing that _fantastic. However, there is a definite improvement from the series. The backgrounds are very fleshed out and detailed, chock full of little references and Easter eggs here and there. And the animation on the actions scenes (Yes, this film has those) is actually really good and surprisingly fluid. I admit though, this may just be slight bias because I'd pretty much praise any form of theatrical 2D animation now of days because COME ON, HOLLYWOOD! WHY WON'T YOU MAKE MORE 2D FILMS ALREADY!!!

_  We get a scene that manages to, in a very quick and effective manor, establish the films tone as well as show off all five of our main characters and establish there powers. Really impressive stuff. Is what I would say, If it didn't also includes an overly long fart joke, and a rap. Wow, six minutes. Is that a record for "kids film?" Guinness..can we verify?

 When the Titans, in typical Titans fashion, fail to stop the villain. This results in the Justice League to show up and stop the villain for them. And NICHOLAS CAGE plays Superman! YES! Okay movie, you get points for that. I'm fair here. That's also another thing this movie has over the series. Not all the side characters are played by Scott Menville or Tara Strong! They have like, MORE than five voice actors to pull from. Amazing, I know. The Justice League chastise the Titans for there general incompetents at everything, and bring up the fact that if they were real heroes they would have there on movie by now.

 As I mentioned in my previous reviews, Teen Titans Go! is at it's best when it's meta. And with so many superhero movies now of days, the Teen Titans Go! movie not only acknowledging this trend, and incorporating it in it's plot feels like a natural progression from the type of plots featured in the show. So I think this was a good direction for the film to take. There are a ton of jokes bashing not just DC films, but Marvel and Fox movies as well. And these jokes tend to be the highlights. When I first saw the trailer I was worried that these jokes would quickly get old, seeing how many of them are in the trailer. But in the film proper, they mix it up and spread them out enough to keep them enjoyable. So kudos on that.

 The Justice League fly off to go to the world premiere of Batman's newest film and the Titans decide to sneak into the red carpet premiere themselves. As they show up the films director, Jade Wilson (played by Kristen Bell), get's up on stage and starts revealing the slate for the next several DC movies. And just like in real life, there all Batman spin-off properties! Robin sits there in anticipation, hoping that a movie will be announced. But we get this, instead.

See, the thing about this that is funny is that THERE ACTUALLY DOING THIS. I doubt the people making this movie knew that at the time. But neither the less, it's happening, and I have proof.

 After a few more trailers Robin ends up jumping on stage thinking that his movie is going to be next only to discover that there is no plans for a Robin movie. All the other heroes laugh him off stage until all the Titans run out of the theater. The other Titans try to consul Robin, but Robin is adamant that if he doesn't get his own superhero movie he'll never be seen as a real hero. Raven suggest that if he wants a movie, first he'll need an arch nemesis. And just as she says that a crime occurs and the Titans go to investigate.

 The crime is being committed by none other than Slade, now voiced by Will Arrnet instead of Ron Perlman. And he is there to steal some kind of "mind gem." I like Slade in this movie. Sure, he's absolutely NOTHING like Slade from the original series, but that's okay cause he is his own unique take that fits the tone that the movie is going for. Also Will Arrnet is great casting for a more comedic take on Slade. I mean the creators of the original Teen Titans show said in interviews that they wrote Slade to be an evil Batman. So who'd be better to voice him than Lego Batman himself. My only gripe, and it is a minor one, is that while the film makes a big deal about Slade being a "serious villain" that only a "serious superhero" would have as an arch enemy. But he's only _slightly _less silly than the Titans. And while this isn't that big of a deal since Slade is funny here, it does seem to kinda go against the narrative that Slade is suppose to representing.

 Also, when Slade and the Titans meet, and neither seem to know who each other are, with the Titans believing that he is Deadpool. Even though in the series the Titans have acknowledged Slade in the series before, and even battled him before. (off screen, but still.) How does this all fit-

 Slade easily defeats the Titans, and mocks them for there incompetence. The Titans go back to there tower where Robin begins to feel sorry for himself, believing that he will never be a real hero. What? _Character conflict?! _The next morning the Titans get Robin and bring him to a "world premiere" of a Robin movie they made for him, complete with a cardboard limo and everything. _What? Something touching...no, that's not right. WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH THE REAL TITANS!?

_  I do wanna touch on this. In this movie the Titans act very out of character from how they do in the show. But that is actually a good thing, cause the Titans in the series...are awful. In my previous Teen Titans Go! review I talk about how the original series Titans felt like a family, while it felt like the Go! versions just hated each other. But in this movie all the characters are way more likable. (Mostly, we'll get to that later.) And there feels like a real sense of connection between the characters. Sure there still goofy, and they make fun of each other, but they really do feel like a family. And this goes a LONG way with making me feel invested and actually rooting for our heroes to succeed in there goals.

 Robin watches the film, but turns it off when the movie makes fun of his "baby hands" (A running "joke" from the series.) The other Titans try to get him to finish the film but he's uninterested. _Man, I'm sure that won't be brought up again. In the films climax when the characters are at their lowest point! _Robin is hard set on believing that he'll never be seen seriously as a hero, but the other Titans encourage him to buck up and head down to Warner Bros. and DEMAND that they make a movie about him. And they do so in song.

 This seems like a good of a time as any to bring up that this movie is a musical. Possibly the first superhero musical? The song themselves, while nothing THAT amazing, are a step up from most of the songs in the series. i.e) They actually seem like they were written. (And that's not me being hyperbolic. A lot of the songs in Teen Titans Go! are made up on the spot! Look it up!) But what I really appreciate is how for several of the songs there is an art style shift, and that's really neat to see. Especially with a theatrical budget.

 The Titans go down to Warner Bros and go up to Jade Wilson and demand for a film. But she turns them down, saying that she would only make a movie about them if they were the last heroes on Earth. And that's exactly what the Titans decide to do! They decide to use time travel to go back in time and undo all the other superheroes origin stories so they'll be the only superheros.

 Yeah, this is the direction we're going. It's Spongebob: Sponge Out of Water all over again.

 And they can't use there time machine from the series cause it's "broken." So Raven just magic ups some time tricycles. WHATS THE POINT OF THE TIME MACHINE EVEN BEING BROKEN THEN IF RAVEN CAN GET MAKE NEW ONES NO PROBLEM? They could of made some joke where they like, steal Booster Gold's time machine at least. You just wanted a dumb "Back to the Future" reference didn't you? DIDN'T YOU! And while playing "Take on Me" makes me forgive you A LITTLE BIT, this whole situation is still stupid.

 In fact this whole "bit" is still stupid. And I say "bit" cause this whole time traveling section contributes nothing to the plot, and is only like, ten minutes long. The Titans go back in time to undo all the superhero's origins. (And end up murdering Aquaman as a child.) They come back to the present to see that villains have taken over the world. And then they go back and undo everything they already undid. (Including blowing up Krypton and frickin shoving Bruce Wayne's parents into Crime Alley as young Bruce watches!)

_That's his adoptive grandma he's watching get shot down... _  And I know you can say "Oh, it's comedy" or whatever, but this movie was actually doing a good job making me like the Titans. And maybe it's just because I've always had issues with the "main characters nonchalantly murder people" trope. But considering that this whole time travel thing literally adds nothing outside of stretching the film up _just _enough to reach ninety minuets, I can say it does nothing but hurt the film.

 Also, Baby Superman gyrate his infant crotch while pointing at it, in this film aimed at children.

 As someone who's defended the Powerpuff Girl reboot's twerking scene numerous time I suppose it be hypocritical to complain. So instead, I'm just going to list movies that have a lower rotten tomato score than Teen Titans Go to the Movies. For...unrelated reasons. Ahem

 _Lilo and Stitch. The Kung-Fu Panda Trilogy. Princess and the Frog. Tangled. Frozen. Coraline. The Lego Batman Movie.... _

 Anyway after all that, the Titans go off to try to stop Slade from committing another robbery. And this time the Titans are sure they'll beat him. We get an actually good fight scene and some Raven-Beast Boy ship tease that comes out of nowhere and contributes nothing. I know it's a thing from the show, but nothing in this movie setting it up. And it doesn't lead to anything. The Titans are able to get the "Mind Gem" that Slade stole earlier away from him and they put it in the Titans tower vault, but Slade still escapes.

 But the next day, the Titans are suddenly seen as real heroes for stopping Slade's plan. They head back to the film set and are greeted with a much warmer welcome. Jade decides that she does want to make a Teen Titans movie after all, and Robin is ecstatic. However, the other Titans don't take the gig as seriously and all go goof off, getting Robin into hot water with Jade.

 It all comes to a head when the other Titans see the Justice League building some kind of doomsday device, and assume that Jade is up to no good. Which is dumb because they have no reason to assume that it isn't just a prop for the film. But whatever. However, Jade reveals that this doomsday device is actually just a machine to launch there new streaming service. The device would broadcast DC films across all screens all over the word, with the Teen Titans movie being the first film they would release for the service.

 You're telling me that Jades launching a DC superhero based streaming service, and the only thing it will have at launch is Teen Titans? Pfft! _That's totally ridiculous, and completely unrealistic..._DC Universe didn't have Titans at launch!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJF7k5cFQEQ

 Jade gets angry and decides to fire the Titans. But says that she would be willing to make a solo Robin movie, since he didn't do anything wrong. Robin chooses to go with Jade and leave his friends behind. I admit, this is where the movie does start to become a bit predictable. You've seen this story arc before, the friends vs fame thing, and it goes exactly where you think it's gonna go. But I do like how there isn't a huge fight like you'd see in other movies. Both sides are upset that it's come to this, but clearly don't wanna hurt the other. Again, outside the earlier genocide of an entire planet, the Titans are pretty likable in this film.

 Robin and Jade begin working on the film, and it ends up being everything Robin wanted. But he's still beginning to feel some regret. However, Jade convinces him to buckle through it and film the last scene. A reenactment of Robin putting Slade's mind gem in the Titans vault. But right as he's about to enter the code a stage light knocks him out. He awakens and decides to finish the scene anyway. Jade telling him to make the scene look authentic. And again, it's pretty obvious where this is going.

 Robin puts in the code and the safe opens. Jade took Robin to the real tower while he was knocked out and reveals herself to be Slade in a Lupin III style latex mask! Okay, maybe that last part wasn't too predictable. But even ignoring the name JADE WILSON, It was telegraphed pretty obviously that Jade was evil since the scene where she made Robin chose fame over his friends.

 But hey, it's still a better twist villain than Frozen.

 Slade steals the mind gem and plans on using it in tandem with Robins film and the streaming service to mind control the entire planet to do his bidding. He handcuffs Robin to the tower walls and activates a series of bombs, leaves him to die. But Robin escapes thanks to his baby hands. A twist that is just as unexpected as it is stupid. The tower is destroyed but Robin survives, and realizes the error of his ways. He calls the other Titans and all is forgiven because they are a team.

 The Titans now head to the film studio to stops Slade's plan, but they are unable to stop him before he uses Robin's movie to mind control the entire Justice League. Robin goes after Slade while the rest of the Titans have to face down the Justice League. There's a short action scene that could of been longer in my personal opinion. Then Raven just uses her OP magic powers to trap the entire Justice League in a portal.

 **NOW YOUR THINKING WITH PORTALS! **That's..that's the meme, right? I-I haven't ever played_ Portal._

 Robin confronts Slade, but Slade surrounds Robin with monitors all playing his movie. Robin becomes tempted to view his movie and gets mind controlled. In a nice (though juries still out of if it was intentional) callback to the original series, Slade commands Robin to attack his friends and he complies. But wait, remember that obvious Chekhov's gun from earlier in the film? It's time to pull the trigger! The Titans play the movie they made for Robin, but this time they get to the end where they all talk about how much Robin means to them as a leader. The power of friendship frees Robin from Slade's mind control.

 But Slade has a mech now! This was not set up at all, but who cares at this point. _Mechs are cool damn it! _Slade once again mocks the Titans, asking how a team as goofy as them could possibly stop him now. But Robin and the rest of the team realize that they don't need to be "legitimized" or seen as "real heroes." They just need to stop the bad guy in there own way. We get a reprise of the rap song from the beginning as the Titans defeat Slade in their own silly way. They destroy the mind control device and the Justice League go back to normal. The movie ends with the Titans realizing that they truly are heroes and...wait a minute...something is off here. It's 2018...and this movie doesn't end with a dance party! Teen Titans Go!, the show that is known for random dance sequences, is actually one of the few modern films not to end with a dance party ending?! What the hell?

 But we do get our post credits scene!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F06HJTyB17c

 Is this it? Is this the preview for Teen Titans Season 6?!

 Not quite! Rather it's just setting up an upcoming "Teen Titans Go! vs Teen Titans" crossover, that's rumored to be heading direct to DVD with a new crew working behind it. You what that means right? It isn't over. My job isn't done yet. There's still more to talk about! THE RIDE NEVER ENDS, BABY! I'M GONNA KEEP TALKING ABOUT TEEN TITANS GO! UNTIL THE DAY I DIE! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwDIZT3XbjQ

 While Teen Titans Go To The Movies didn't do that great at the box office, the film had a low enough budget to end up making a pretty substantial profit. Which is more than most DCEU films can say. I doubt we'll see the Titans on the big screen anytime soon, but it wasn't a bomb critically or financial. But what is my final verdict here?

 The film in a lot of ways solves a lot of problems I had with the series. For one, the Titans are all a lot more likable, which goes a long way in helping me get invested. And while the show seems to conflate "conflict" with "serious" this film manages to have a plot and story while still keeping it's comedic tone the entire way through. More technical issues the show had like animation and reusing voice actors are near non-existent here. And the film manages to do what I think episodes like "The Return of Slade" tried and failed to do. It celebrates it's own silliness and imperfections, but does it in a way that isn't just "attacking the haters." Like I said, Teen Titans Go! is best when it's meta.    But the film has it's problems too. The plot points at times can be kinda predictable. There are a lot of scenes that really don't add anything to the story beyond stalling for time. And there are a lot of points where the humor falls back into the same loud, juvenile, mean spirited jokes that the series is known for. Also, while Robin is my favorite of the Titans, I would of liked the other characters to have a larger role. For a film that's whole climax is hinged on the idea of a Robin solo film being a bad idea, but that's what the film can kinda feel like at time.

 Overall, the film is about what I thought it would be. It's okay. It's up there with the best of the episodes of the show, but not really going that far beyond it. (In fact, I'd say their are a few episodes from the main series that are better than this film.) It's good, but I wouldn't call it 91% on rotten tomatoes good. If you like Teen Titans Go! you'll like this movie if you're willing to put up with a little more drama. If you hate Teen Titans Go! you'll like the movie if you are able to just turn your brain off and put up with some more childish jokes here and there. And if you can't do either of those things...watch Lego Batman. It's better than this film anyway, regardless of what rotten tomato says, and has a similar vibe about it.

 And with that, I can finally put Teen Titans Go! to rest**. For now! **What did you think of the movie? Was it "You're new favorite film?" or was it just as bad as the many people said it would be? I'd love to hear your thought in the comments down bellow. Fav, follow, or comment if you liked my review or have a suggestion on what I should talk about next. And tune in next week as deviantcember continues! Have a great day.

(I do not own any of the images or videos in this review all credit goes to there original owners.) 

  https://www.deviantart.com/joyofcrimeart/journal/Teen-Titans-Go-To-The-Movies-REVIEW-774742614 DA Link

[themissingmarvel]

Hardly Starstruck [Part 2]

A/N: Holy shamoly, batman! You guys liked it! Well, I’m really hoping I don’t disappoint for part 2. Things are certainly going to start heating up as we get into 3 and 4, too! As usual, message/comment/reblog to be tagged. Just let me know!

Pairing: Tom Hiddleston x Reader

Word Count: 2.3k

Warnings: Ridiculous humor. Fluff.

[Part1]

It had felt beyond weird to be sitting where you were right now. Tom Hiddleston was next to you in the back of the smaller limousine. He’d insisted it was tacky to take an extravagant one just to the hall, and it left the two of you sitting next to each other in the car. What was even more incredible was just how at ease Tom appeared. He had a smile on his face as he looked out the window, his white shirt ironed perfectly with a black suit coat over it. You imagined Evans and Hemsworth were donning jeans and t-shirts, often teased by the public for so accurately portraying their alter-egos in real life. But here was Tom, dressed as though he was heading to a dinner.

You had busied yourself browsing through the itinerary, trying to ensure nothing changed. You’d get there in time for the glance at Hall H, where he’d make his entrance with the Avengers crew on Saturday. He had a few other panels and signings, but those were easy. For you, at least. That was just making sure this man got where he needed to go.

“Y/N, you’re quite involved in that phone of yours. More interesting than me?” He gave you a large grin, one that caused a flush on your features which you were getting annoyed at. Blushing was the worst.

Raising an eyebrow you showed him the phone, “Planning how much time you’ll need to change between the signings and ‘interrupting’ the Avengers’ panel. Does it take a while to get into the Loki costume?”

There was a soft chuckle from Tom as he shook his head, “I’m really going to have to try at this, aren’t I? You’re not making this easy on me.”

Confusion washed over your features, the car already beginning to pull towards the celebrity entrance of the convention center, fans lined up for even just a glimpse at the men and women they adored. Everyone was clambering at the chance to be seen, and for a moment you understood how that felt. It was easy to feel invisible at events like this, but as the car pulled up and Tom immediately moved over you to get out (oh, did he smell nice… wait, that’s creepy) something felt different.

Fans were screaming, cameras flashing and hands extended. These people had been lined up for hours, that much you knew, excitement in their voices that you remembered once feeling and still occasionally piped up for you. There was adrenaline as you exited the car, but that wasn’t what caught you. What caught you was that Tom was taking his time. There wasn’t the usual smile and wave as he made his way inside, he was going up to multiple individuals, posing for selfies, smiling the whole time. And his smile was sincere, his eyes crinkling lightly and flashing brightly as he flashed his pearly whites.

As you stood and stared, not realizing you were staring, you felt yourself smile. He cared that these people had come out to see him, more than some of the others did. You’d listened once when a celebrity (who shall remain nameless) had discussed the idea of fatigue. They’d wanted to be excited but seeing so many fans so often was draining. It was exhausting. But not to Tom. Even as he knelt down to kiss a young woman’s hand, your smile grew.

He cares. He cares about all of them.

Suddenly a beep on your wrist went off, the watch attuned to your smart devices alerting you that you had limited time to get inside and that other celebrities were arriving. Casually waltzing up to Tom you pulled at his arm gently and leaned in, “C’mon, handsome. Give everyone else a chance,” you motioned to the cars lining up.

Tom followed your lead, smiling as he kept waving and leaned in, “So you admit, I’m handsome.” He was grinning and you couldn’t help but smile. A soft laugh left your lips as the two of you walked inside, realizing you were holding his arm still and quickly letting go.

Pushing back your hair as the chaos outside died down once indoors you shook your head, “I’m just going off of what People Magazine called you,”

He leaned in again, purposefully leaning against you slightly, “Does that mean you follow me on Twitter? Shall I send you a Tweet? Perhaps something teasing?”

You swatted at his arm as the two of you followed the security detail down the hall, still fairly sparse, “Don’t you dare, Hiddleston. I don’t need any more followers than I have. Besides, I already let down 347 people with stupid memes and gifs on a daily basis. I don’t need you adding that number.” You grinned at him.

He couldn’t help but laugh, surprised that you had no idea your own charm. Of course he’d been told he was a charming man, he expected that. It was his role, so to speak. But your own charm had been so disarming that seeing you again had caused him to stumble a bit.  A woman of few words but ones powerful enough to topple over a building. Did you even know? He was struggling to use all of his ‘charm’ and then some just to get you to see him. More than just the celebrity you were escorting.

The tour of the hall left Tom to wander with a few other staff, your own form standing in the back as you checked off a couple mental boxes as you looked around the room. It was average enough, and there wasn’t much trouble to be gotten into, though you suspected the trouble was for the security team to look out for.

Glancing to your left you noticed a young woman, similar in age, walking towards you. She was attractive, though nothing that told you she was going out of her way to tell it to the world. Her blue eyes were wide and excited as she watched the stage, Tom laughing as he hugged Robert hard, the two almost colliding on stage as friends might.

She was grinning widely, this woman who was approaching you for no real reason. She’d tagged along in with Robert’s crew and you wondered if she was part of the general PR group, as she was certainly not someone you’d vetted to be at his disposal. Her words confirmed it, “Can you believe we’re seriously getting to hang out with Tony Stark and Loki?”

You raised an eyebrow, looking confused, “Tom Hiddleston and Robert Downey Jr.? I mean, sure. It’s definitely not what I expected to be doing on a Thursday,” you laughed lightly, trying to ease some of the tension.

A hard laugh left her lips and she shoved you softly, “Oh my god, you’re too much! I’m serious, though! I never thought someone like me would ever get a chance to hang out with someone like RDJ, you know? Definitely not people like us.” The comment had been tossed out, perhaps with no intention of being hurtful, though stung just the same. You had always kind of felt it in a weird way. Knowing that you were there as a faithful servant. You were beloved in the way a golden retriever might be. The thought made you frown.

The woman had pranced off by now, joining those she’d come in with, leaving you unaware as Tom came over, frowning slightly, “Darling, the world couldn’t possibly have gotten that dark so quickly without me.”

A soft smile left your lips at his words, knowing this your problem didn’t need to be his, instead throwing on more of a fake smile as you tried not to let that idea bother you, “You talk some big game, Tom. Seems like you’re already getting started with the meet and greet. We can head over to the main hall where everyone is. Sure there are some folks you’d be happy to catch up with.” Of course, you’d successfully thwarted his attempt at finding out what was wrong. Why should he care? He’s being nice. He’s always sweet.

As the two of you walked, you having successfully put away all electronics and now just lugging the large bag, you winced a bit. The room you were headed into was large and beyond intimidating. You knew your role in a place like this, which was to play into the backdrop and simply keep an eye on Tom. It surprised you, then, when you felt his hand gently on your lower back, leaning in, “If I told you these things made me nervous, would you believe me?”

You looked up at him, a bit shocked and mostly surprised, trying not to act dumbfounded, “Not as nervous as they make me,” you couldn’t help but chuckle.

Tom grinned and laughed, pulling you gently forward with him, “Then stay with me through this, hm? I know you’re used to being in the background but… It helps to have a familiar face. Plus, you can tell your 347 Twitter followers you got to talk to all of the Chrises and Toms,” he smirked, poking fun at himself and those he worked with.

It was hard not to be drawn to this man, allowing yourself to get escorted into the room where stars and celebrities filled the place, greeting and getting to know folks, discussing the previews that would be screened tonight and the parties going on after. It was hard not to notice the hand that lingered on your lower back, that brushed against your arm occasionally as he tossed in a laugh while chatting it up with actors, writers, and creative types alike.

The next few hours felt as though they were flying by and you even found yourself engaging in the conversations. People you never thought you’d laugh with were chuckling at your jokes, and more than a few times you’d taken group shots for the celebrities hugging together. So when the time came to get Tom back to his hotel where he’d be getting ready for the evening, you were surprised it had happened so fast.

He grinned as the two of you made the walk back out again, “Our Captain told me there’d be a party happening a few blocks down after the Avengers sneak premiere. Now, I know your work is done for the evening once I head back here for the screening but… how would you feel about accompanying me?”

There was a smile on his face, and a wide one at that, but you couldn’t help but feel so out of place again. Those woman’s words from before had lingered and you frowned momentarily, though shook your head, “That’s sweet of you, Tom, but I need to get rest. I’ve gotta be up early for prep work for Friday. Now head back to the hotel, I’ve gotta stick around here for some set-up stuff for your autographs and photo ops tomorrow. Think you can manage from here?”

He paused briefly, taking a breath as he eyed the door before turning back to you, leaning in to press his lips gently against your cheek, a quick and chaste kiss, “I’ll convince you to have fun another night. Don’t work too hard. I certainly won’t,” he tossed you a wink, following the ‘underlings’ that would take care of the rest of the work for the evening.

You laughed softly to yourself, this wasn’t going to be easy.

It was three hours later when your personal phone buzzed, you were in the midst of dealing with a fiasco in the autograph station, trying to figure out who had approved, “TIM HUDDLESTON” as the name banner, They’re showing re-runs.

Re-runs? Who was- wait. Oh, god. He had your personal number.

-Tom, they’re showing Avengers. You were in it. That doesn’t count as a rerun.

-Does to me. Think I can leave?

-Hiddles!!! >: (

-I’m teasing, beautiful. Changed your mind about tonight?

Now you were fighting with the man who had approved the banner, taking a break to text once more, I’m dealing with your name change, Tim Huddleston.

-Hm. Never saw myself as a Tim. Eric, maybe.

You smirked, Quit texting during the movie. It’s rude. Enjoy your night out.

The rest of the evening went on that way, your night spent glancing down at amusing texts, though the later it got the better it got.

-Which Chris butt do you think is best? I’m sending pictures. I’ve insisted you be the judge. I won’t tell you which Chris is which.

Quickly after you received three pictures of clothed rear ends, though you had a general idea who was Evans, who was Hemsworth, and who was Pratt.

-You’re asking me to weigh in on a butt competition? Who’d you vote for?

-I’m not telling you. Besides, I’m secure enough in my masculinity that I feel confident taking part. I’ll not involve you in the best ass for Toms competition. You’re already biased in my favor ;)

You laughed, Fine. Tell Evans his butt is the best. And get some rest.

More texts came after, but you were already too tired to check again. Tired from laughter. From smiling. From actually letting yourself enjoy this. Maybe you were a little starstruck. But you could manage it. It was only three more days right? What could happen in three days?

Too much, you’d soon find out.

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