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Gotham | 4.10

I’ll slit your damn throat.

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When you’re smiling… ♪

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GOTHAM NOIR - playmoss (partial) + spotify (complete)

“Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.”

a very early christmas present for @sure-as-eggs

Keep reading

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I took a panoramic photo at a concert and lights changed in the middle of it. This is the result

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@deadteddybear requested: Ed + 54. The moment when reality starts to make sense again  (From this list) a.k.a. Ed behind the scenes near the end of Season 3

The Riddler.

He says it to himself in the mirror over and over again until his tongue trips over it, until the sounds lose their meaning.

It won’t stick.

“I am the Riddler,” he says, and it should be true. It is. Or, at least it has been. Hasn’t it? He looks the same as he did before, but then he looked largely the same in Arkham too, and at the GCPD. How is he supposed to tell?

He rests his forehead against the cool glass of the mirror, wishing he was still taking the pills. Wishing there were some excuse for the way his head is spinning.

Damn Oswald for this. Damn him for not having the decency to die. It doesn’t make sense, nothing ever does with him. He plucks needles from haystacks like fruit from a tree, then breaks down sobbing over spilled milk. There is no pattern to him, nothing to predict, and Ed doesn’t know why he ever thought he understood.

…The Riddler, rather. The Riddler doesn’t know.

Barbara Kean is drumming her nails against the bathroom door, complaining that it’s time to get going already, and does he want his boyfriend dead or not?

She can snap her pretty manicure right off for all he cares.

Oswald is alive, and that is antithetical to his existence. He became the Riddler with Oswald’s death. Nature abhors a vacuum, and logic a contradiction: there is a gaping tear in the fabric of reality that Oswald is intent upon unraveling. The only way to resolve it is to set things right.

Dead, he’s meant to be dead.

Oswald with his sharp-eyed smiles. The Penguin and his irresistible triumphs. Gentle hands and mocking secrets and pathetic inglorious tears.

The man is a walking contradiction, an unpredictable inconsistency undermining the very laws of nature itself, spreading his volatile sorcery like ripples through a world of otherwise familiar patterns.

It’s right that Oswald should die. There is no other choice. There is nobody but the Riddler to do it, because there is nobody but the Riddler who so acutely understands the paradox.

He throws up in the toilet.

He rinses his mouth out in the sink and shoves the bowler hat back on.

“I am the Riddler,” he tells his reflection, and if it isn’t true, he’ll set things right soon enough.

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When people talk about traveling to the past, they worry about radically changing the present by doing something small, but barely anyone in the present really thinks that they can radically change the future by doing something small.

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54 + ed, 51 + oswald, 18 + them together

Nygmobblepot: 18. Red wine stained lips (from this list)

(a.k.a. if Ed had bothered to SHOW UP FOR DINNER)

Ed’s knowledge of Oswald’s dining habits had proven accurate; the quite excellent bottle of Syrah he’d brought was a perfect complement to the veritable feast laid out between them. It was a dusky, complex pairing, offset by delightful twists in flavor and an enticing peppery tingle that made the dark meats and sweet syrups sing.

Perhaps it wouldn’t have been what Oswald would have thought to choose, but nonetheless, he was on his second large glass. Ed was swirling what remained of his first.

The silence was full-bodied. It weighed heavy in the home they shared, in the comfort of their decadence. It would have felt ungrateful to disturb the thick, velvet blanket of safety draped around them, but Ed could feel the wine’s magic pricking at his fingertips, warm at the base of his neck, soft and bright in his face, and the silence wasn’t enough.

Ed raised his glass to his lips and tried to chase away the restlessness. Oswald’s eyes followed him. The attention went straight to his cheeks before the wine had its chance.

“Did you remember?”

Oswald frowned slightly, the firelight playing across his face. “Remember what?”

“What you wanted to tell me this morning. I assume that’s why you asked me here.”

As though they didn’t take every meal together. As though Oswald couldn’t tell him anything, at any time. As though Ed hadn’t paid for the wine they were sharing with his own savings instead of with the funds Oswald provided for him, in some absurd attempt at a gesture.

Oswald drank too much too quickly, eyes shut tight as he swallowed from his glass without the chance to taste or enjoy. He shivered in the aftermath. He breathed out, bright eyes opening. Red lips parted.

Ed breathed in sharply and stood, fumbling with the wine bottle and slightly unsteady on his feet. “Here,” he offered, bridging the distance, “let me-“

Oswald caught his arm before he could refill the glass. “Ed,” he said.

Ed focused on breathing. He set the wine bottle down and lowered his eyes. When Oswald made to stand, he caught his hands without thinking, kept still and steady and helped him to his feet.

“I have something to tell you,” Oswald said, smoothing his thumbs across the backs of Ed’s fingers. “I can’t wait any longer.”

Ed swallowed, nodded. “Tell me.”

“I’ve been planning this all day. I wanted to make it perfect. But…” Oswald squeezed his hands. “I love you.”

Ed hadn’t had nearly enough to be drunk, but he would happily lean on it as an excuse. The giddy disorientation, the dizzy way he clung to Oswald’s hands, afraid Oswald might pull away or take it back.

“Oh.”

Nothing happened. Not a breath, not a sound.

Ed finally came back to himself. The only thing he could see was Oswald’s perfect mouth, open and anxious and tinged with the blood red of Ed’s offering.

He disentangled their hands, moving his palms to cup Oswald’s face in slow motion, tracing his thumbs over the corners of his dark lips.

“Ed?” Oswald whispered.

“Yes,” Ed answered, intoxicated, instinctive.

The kiss was smooth and heady, strange and familiar, a front-heavy punch of emotion tapering off into a lingering shiver, a breathy desire not to be apart. Ed could taste the wine on Oswald’s tongue. He clutched him closer.

It all depended, that had been what Ed had always believed. A million variables to account for, just like matching region and vintage to course and setting. Somehow, with Oswald, it was all so easy.

When they finally steadied themselves, taking up more of each other’s space than their own, Oswald was beaming with tears in his eyes. Ed touched at his cheeks with his fingertips, careful not to ruin his eyeliner. Oswald laughed and straightened Ed’s glasses, brushing his hair fondly back into place.

Maybe it wasn’t all about forcing things into alignment.

Maybe there were some pairings that were truly perfect.

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—

(Source: The Lego Batman Movie)

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Leaving Holes

Your story is 50% reader. It’s that mixture of reader and writer that makes the magic.

Which means your story needs to have holes for the reader to fill in. You need that negative space for the puzzle pieces to fit.

I’m not talking about plot holes, I’m talking about giving one sentence the power of two. A book that means what it says is a mediocre book. A book that means more than what it says is a great book.

Don’t over-develop your characters, having them analyze every feeling, or spelling out what every character in a scene is thinking. Don’t follow up a powerful line with an explanation with what makes that line powerful.

Let your words imply as much as they state.

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Sorry, feel free to disagree, but that Robin's interview is a mess. He's not gay because he is a sociopath? His age? Lol at people quoting " He’s not gay... He’s somewhere on the queer spectrum " making it about Sofia when it is about Robin not wanting to associate the gay label with a negative stereotype.

Ahhh was kind of hoping to stay out of this discussion but since you asked …

I knew not to put much stock in the quote without seeing something more detailed. When you watch the video, Robin doesn’t just straight up say that Oswald isn’t gay. Instead he talks about not wanting to conflate Oswald being gay with him being a villain.

There’s a long history of comics (and other media) mainly portraying gay characters as villains. In the 1950s, a homophobic psychologist published a book about how Batman comics were corrupting young boys and turning them gay. Then for a long time, DC & Marvel would only have LGBT characters in their comics if they were very clearly shown as being the bad guys. 

So you can kind of understand why Robin, an out and proud gay man, would be hesitant to label his character as gay. Not because Oswald isn’t attracted to men, but because he doesn’t want to play into those stereotypes. That being said, it’s also important to point out that a lot of LGBT viewers are allowed to see it in a slightly different way. We know that Oswald is a complex character, defined by more than the attributes that make him a villain. We can interpret Oswald as being gay without thinking that his sexuality is linked to the fact that he’s a villain. Oswald has done some horrible things but that doesn’t invalidate his love for Ed or his parents.

But even if Robin doesn’t want to use the word gay to describe Oswald, that’s a different thing than saying Oswald is attracted to women. in the history of the show, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a scene where Oswald was shown as being attracted to a woman. 

Like remember his reaction when Sasha tried to seduce him in season 2:

He got the hell out of there like NOPE. 

Then compare that to the way he is when he’s around male characters that he likes such as Jim and Ed.

And even when it comes to this storyline with Sofia, I think at this point it’s really clear that it was never meant to be romantic. We’re two episodes away from the winter finale and Oswald has already discovered that she betrayed him. From the promo pics we got, it’s pretty obvious that this is when they’ll go from being friends (or pretending) to being enemies. Even when they were friends, neither of them made a romantic move on the other. It was always just Oswald thinking he’d made a new friend. So don’t let yourself get stressed over this interview or the current plot.

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babs & lee; bones bad bones

another shitty babs x lee edit from yours truly lmao

@witchunters 

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Can we romanticize video games the way we do books?

Like you hear all these things about how you can curl up with a book on a rainy day and drink tea and smother yourself in blankets but anytime you hear things about video games it’s always about how you’re wasting your life away yelling into a headset as you play Call of Duty in a basement?

Imagine bundling yourself up on the couch, the sound of rain hitting the roof, and putting on Fable for a few hours. Or getting home after a long day of work. You make yourself a cup of cocoa, put on fuzzy pjs, and play Viva Piñata for hours not giving a second thought to the outside world. Semester just got out? Throw on some Fallout and just take a night to breathe and enjoy.

You aren’t wasting your life away, you’re enjoying it. Games can be just as much an escape as books, except you get to be part of the story.

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Reading Like a Writer

One of the most common pieces of writing advice is to read. Important, but vague. An easy way to analyze novels to become a better writer is to sort what you read into what you don’t like and what you do like. Spend some time thinking–whether alone, in writing, or through conversation–about what makes you like or dislike the writing, and brainstorm ways that the writing could have been improved or changed.

Here are some possible dislikes and likes that you might notice when reading:

What You Don’t Like: 

Boring spots that you skim through

Unnecessary scenes that don’t advance the plot

Confusing sub-plots

Chunky dialogue 

Characters acting outside their character

Poorly done tropes 

Too much telling, not enough showing

Too much showing, not enough telling

Overly flowery prose

Big words for the sake of big words

One-dimensional villains

Lack of distinctive voices

What You Do Like: 

Twists on tropes 

Scenes where you felt like you were a part of that world

Characters you think about after the book ends

Clever plot twists

Good information reveal

Villains and antagonists that keep you on your toes

Characters that know what they want

Characters forced to make sacrifices 

Side-characters that have personalities of their own

Scenes so intense that you find yourself peeking at the next page

Protagonists with flaws that hold them back

Scenes where you felt the emotions conveyed

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Just trying to get your attention, Ed. Hasn’t been so easy lately. I’ve been busy. You see, I would say we’ve been busy.