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girlfriendsofthegalaxy · 2 years

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tuesday again 8/16/22

currently unemployed so i am real goddamn fuckin chatty in this one

listening CTRL^^^ by MONOWHALES bc jack read me for filth with this rec several weeks ago and it's been in heavy rotation since then, so into the tuesday playlist it goes.

youtube

reading Falling Sky by Rajan Khanna (published 2014, author says the concept began in 2008).

premise: this is an interesting little bridge between the steampunk and zombie trends. the comps on the back of the book (thriller/noir/hemingway/miyazaki) are not very accurate. it's set in california, a generation after fast and smart zombies that reproduce have made the ground is too dangerous, so most people roam about in airships and zeppelins (good on the author for distinguishing them, knowing his terminology, also giving some of them vertical takeoff and landing capability). posits a world where the airship was ubiquitous before the apocalypse, which is fascinating, bc the airship our hero owns is one stolen by his grandfather as shit went down. our hero is a jaded bodyguard is trying to keep a pack of scientists researching an infection detection method safe in a secret ground-based lab. wait up go back hold up a minute where do they get the hydrogen and helium? don't worry about the hydrogen, mr khanna says, let's talk about helium, which is marketed through a floating city with a secret ground-based mining facility (???). airships meet at covert docking points on tall buildings, there's a chicago outpost of sky vikings that's taken over the local floating sky city, you know, the usual. i can only imagine the airships look something like the aeroscraft??

worldbuilding stuff: props for the mention of salted pigeon meat, an established gunpowder manufacturing chain, general thoughtfulness about what salvage components are most valuable, what kinds of food keep and how to safely preserve them, boiled water (i don't think i've ever seen boiled water as a matter of everyday course in a postapoc novel), several different types of biofuels. i never found myself asking "well how DO they get [BASIC RESOURCE]"? this is mostly well-handled without a lot of infodumping, with little throwaways like "hey i tested your new biofuel blend, it was good in x ways and bad in y ways, do you have any more of z blend?"

character stuff: congrats to the protag for being sad about a dead dad instead of being sad about a dead wife. there is a sex scene that's pretty tasteful, mostly vague concepts, and did not make me cringe. the protagonist has a terrible crush on the female lead but is pretty respectful about it, is on good terms with his ex, and the other female merc they team up with is an extremely capable person even if she is mostly used as a battering ram. this was a welcome surprise! the most interesting character work that happens to our hero is a synagogue in the floating city, where our hero ends up after a particularly bad day and sort of makes a stab at reconnecting with his faith. i don't know that i've ever seen an atheist jewish protagonist in a postapoc novel before, or much discussion of religion aside from cults?

stylistic stuff: there is a very fine line between hemingway-style terseness and choppiness, and this tends to veer choppy (as i often do with my own writing). i didn't quite jive with the style, nor do i particularly care about our hero. he's fine. he's just kind of bland? the book is mostly about the protagonist telling you what he's doing, bc it's first person present tense. this doesn't bother me a ton, bc that seems to be the current trend in english fic in the handful of fandoms i pay attention to.

the backstory and infrastructure of the world is there but not necessarily the people that live there. good bones, not enough meat, the style and focus on and-this-is-what-happened-next was somewhat irritating. h owever this was a perfectly adequate first novel, and my hope is that the second and third novels improve. they are remarkably hard to track down, i found this one on a whim in a little free library. from reading a preview of the second book it already seems more noir-ish so i am cautiously optimistic.

watching i was adding stuff to letterboxd (really fucking hate that letterboxd has got me watching more movies. what the fuck are they doing with all my data. what are they using my movie watching habits to sell) anyway i was adding stuff to letterboxd and was reminded of the film Pitch Black (2000, dir. Twohy), which is an extremely competent little scifi/horror thing i enjoy a lot.

this zoom in to escaped convict riddick watching people frantically look for him after a spaceship crash is, as one letterboxd reviewer put it "like some sort of deranged bugs bunny", is the funniest zoom in the trilogy. this film works very well with its budgetary limitations and is mostly filmed in the desert under the blazing sunlight or in near-pitch darkness, freeing up a lot of money for creatures that have aged in an endearingly (imo) early 2000s way. like the mad max movies, it asks the question "what if an extremely unpleasant man is unchained and treated like a person? what happens to his personality and decisions after that?" this one's quite solid and i don't have much to say to it other than give it a little "pretty good movie!" trophy. it also sticks its ending, a thing i cannot say for the other two riddick movies. which i also rewatched.

beautiful fuckin aurorae look at that shit. The Chronicles of Riddick (2004, dir. Twohy) is not very good but we must give it points for sheer visual style. they truly do not make em like this any more, and they made the plot too big and galaxy-encompassing. this movie was at its was most successful when riddick is trying to find a specific person. it was also at its most successful when it's a movie about how riddick and also a planet are trying to kill you. i do not like the attempted sexual assault in this one. the ending made me go "ohhhhh" in sudden understanding but it did not pay off the "guy loses everything he cares about but gets enormous power/riches/etc he's been striving for" bc the movie establishes that what he wants is to be left alone with the two people he sort of cares about safe. the ending would have hurt more if the movie had spent like three more beats really hammering in that he just wants to be left alone.

i like the first half of Riddick (2013, dir. Twohy), when it's just a guy and his weird dog figuring out how to survive the planet. the last half is an early stab at what the john wick movies would become, combined with the last half of pitch black. there are some very fun, very tense shots in the last half, even if it completely forgets some stuff it set up in the first half of the movie.

i don't care about this one as much bc riddick experiences no interesting character changes. the most overarching thematic element, if we can very loosely call it that, is at the beginning, when he says "time to get back in touch with my animal side" and then...doesn't do that. he talks to his dog. he teaches it tricks. he shows himself to have a better understanding of the human psyche and how to really freak people the fuck out better than any of the posturing mercs after him.

i mostly dislike this one a great deal bc i do not like how the out lesbian in this one, with big guns and a sniper rifle longer than she is tall, is there for the men to constantly make passes at. there is an attempted sexual assault in this one too, and she..sleeps with riddick at the end??? i don't fully understand what was happening there. this riddick does not feel like the same riddick as the one from the previous movies. like the daniel craig bond movies, he is at his best when he reluctantly cares about someone and is reluctantly going "uggggHHHHHH FINE I GUESS I'LL BE A GOOD GUY BUT I'M GOING TO BE MAD THE WHOLE TIME AND EXTRA SCARY >:( " like yes yes big muscle man do flip and be very smart and punch hard and look nice. what does the big muscle man FEEL. that's when these movies get interesting, when they remind you riddick is a real actual guy and these aren't just stunt movies, and this last movie had too much bleh for me to enjoy the back half. so we progress in this trilogy from "really fucking fun and interesting, extremely tight and self-contained thesis" to "bizarre but going for something, thesis unknown" to "this is two different movies and not very much fun. cool dog tho". we must hand it to these movies as a whole for going "man vs nature on other planets lets us get REAL insane with it".

playing honestly probably a hiatus from Gaming (TM) for a while

making roundup of several small things.

a list of the westerns i would let other people watch, made for my siblings who will be visiting for christmas. they get to pick which ones but i do get to inflict three westerns upon them.

a rashomon-trope fallout fic for yeehawgust, where everyone has a different story about What Actually Happened: "There was a rumored pre-War banquet hall full of uranium glass place settings, ripe for selling to the Courier for her wedding. Now there’s a giant crater and four different stories about whose fault it is."

finally rigged up plant lights two and a half months after moving in. had to heavily prune and discard some plants, which makes me feel bad, and discovered i am still battling scale, which also makes me feel bad. however, now i know it's there and i can start dealing with it again. still need to rig up something better for my poor pencil plant, which also needs to be pruned and repotted bc it got Very leggy. do not worry about the snake plants they live in my office they didn't actually go anywhere

stopped at a yard sale, met a baby, pet a very friendly and well behaved chihuahua, got a 2-foot 10 through 60 parts to the inch architect’s scale and a pair of Wiss shears for a dollar. the shears are very dull, need a new nut, significant enamel wear on the handles which is annoying, but cannot beat the price for new kitchen shears. u kids know the drill into the vinegar bath it goes. will have to have a think about how to stop the handles from rusting again. maybe a dip in the can of white enamel paint i used for the kitchen table, maybe a funky new kind of spray paint is in my future.

#tuesday again #tuesday again no problem #Youtube

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cosplayproblemsposts · 2 years

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Santino D'antino x M! reader

Title: The phoenix

Warning: None so far

Fandom: John wick

Summary: A young spy from the unknown phoenix circle is tasked to keep an eye on the youngest son of Giovanni but what happens when things go south.

In March 2014 you were given a mission to keep an eye on the youngest child of Giovanni D'antino children. Young but a veteran you took the task given to you "Just remember number four you are known as Victor Calaway okay" you nod whilst number three hands you a fake passport. "You are disguised as an art student and you'll build your story from there" once again you nod. "Good luck number four," he says while you walk out of the phenomenal building itself.

Rome aesthetically pleasing place: anyone could get lost in its beauty and its art of tears makes it even better. You stare down at your phone whilst the train came to a halt. The twenty-three-year-old male steps out of the translation while taking in his surroundings "Knots school of the arts" you say to the taxi driver.

Knots school of the arts specializes in the performing arts such as music, dance, and theatre including hand-to-hand artwork. One of Italy's highest-ranked art schools "transfers over here" you hand over your luggage to the willing helper but you kept your backpack to yourself.

Following behind the guide "These are the dorms, it'll be your new home from now on" she gestures. The more you followed you came to see ballet studio "1, 2,3. Higher ladies" the instructor sings. A string of awes and amazement followed but you listen to the piano over anything else.

"This way" you're snapped out of your daze when the guide calls "And over is our own personal art gallery, it's open to the public too" she adds. You almost froze at the sight before you: Santino himself along with his female bodyguard.

I watch as she signs to him how it's just a little crowded but he didn't seem to mind. I snaked deeper into my little group to keep out of sight "Hello I'm Vince" I turn to meet the eyes of a man who seems to be the same age as me. "Oh uh...hi I'm Victor". The fluffy-haired male smiles "Hey we both start with the letter V" I nod but I tried to keep an eye on the mobster himself. "What are you looking at?" Vince turns his attention to the same man I had been watching.

"Santino D'antino" I shift my attention to the man in front of me "You know who he is?". The other male looked offended "You don't who he is" of I know him I'm tasked to keep an eye on him "No" I shook my head. "Maybe you shouldn't know him fella" I squint at him "Why?" the man just widens his eyes at me.

"So what form of art are you taking up?" Vince hobbles a little but he seems relieved I changed the topic "Music and maybe dance, You?" Oh shit, I don't even know myself. "I might take up dance" Vince crocks a brow at me "You might?. You don't believe in investing in just one do you?". How are you supposed to answer a question like that "I just think you should explore all your options that's all". Vince shrugs "I think I'll reconsider my options" he gestures for me to follow the rest of the group.

I lick my lips and flick my eyes at Santino who is admiring one of the many sculptures. I lightly jog after Vince: the tour wasn't so bad I guess but the dorms are on a total different level. "Oh, shit is that a skylight" Vince exclaims as I whistle "they weren't kidding when they said the price was worth it" Vince adds. "And it's for two people" Vince's grin widens "A fucking Minifigure" I hear him open the little figure.

I chuckle whilst climbing the steps with my luggage in tow "They weren't kidding at all" I say to myself when I saw my room. I slump in a nearby chair " Balcony, one hell of a bed, and endless amount of books" Vince pops his head. "Yeah, I guess that's cool too" I squint at him: potato chips of all the snacks he snags chips. "What?" he eyes me while I shook my head "Really, what is it. Do I've something on my face?" he questions.

I check my cellphone when I stepped out of the shower "Nothing from three" I mutter. I scroll through all of my contacts "Nothing from Vince either" the dude leaps straight to exchanging phone numbers. My attention is drawn to the knocking on the dorm's main door: I pull on a shirt while making my way to the door. The thumping of the knocks continues "I'm C'mon" I call- the door opens- no one. What the fuck, ding dong ditch "I should have seen it coming" I mutter.

I look up and down the corridor, I didn't hear anyone running. I step out a little but my bare feet meet a little cupboard box. I title my head, I sat with this said box 'you can't help but be a little cautious' I thought as I glide my fingers over the navy blue box. Open and exposed the box that held two invitations to an art gala along with a side dish of expensive chocolate. I squint "quite the presentation" I mutter.

I text Vince about the invitation situation and this dude blows up my phone with "Oh, what kind of chocolate is it?" and "No, I'll just see find out for myself". It seems like he could care less about the invitation but at least I know he also likes chocolate. I frown a little "Why the hell do we have to be invited to our own damn art gallery" I mutter.

#santino d'antonio #Santino d'antino x male reader #john wick fanfic #john wick 2

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80s4life · 3 years

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Until We Meet Again”

Word Count: 1,353

Status: Not Requested!

A/N: This is completely off from the movie, like, it has nothing to do with the story line. It was just a little something when I got in my feels. I might make a part 2 depending on the hype and whether or not this was actually like lol.

Fandom: The Expendables 2010-2014

Relationship: Tool x Reader

Summary: When the reader has an unexpected turn of events, they realize all the things they’ve never done, and some of the things they should’ve done. Will they make it out or will they never get the chance?

Warnings: angst, regrets, blood, assumed death, Reader is shot, blood loss, violence mentioned, language, VERY SAD (I warned you)

Taglist: @snapessecretdiary ( @one-boring-person cuz u love expendables)

Masterlist Expendables Masterlist

{gif is not mine, credits to @hellofagirl}

People say that, when death happens, your life flashes before your eyes, giving you a slideshow of all the good, the bad, and the downright dirty. Usually, when this happens, regrets and prideful moments occur, making you either want to keep time the way it is or change it in some way, making you burn inside. It is also common for you to die peacefully, surrounded by the ones you love, whether it be of old age or other natural causes. All the people you want, there and supporting you throughout your final hurrah.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case for you, you were not one of those people to die of natural causes or simply old age. You weren’t even surrounded by any of the people you loved. You were just a nobody, someone that was used at other people’s expense, used to kill and terminate any threats and rescue what’s stolen or held unlawfully.

Hence your group’s name, The Expendables. Highly trained mercenaries, veterans, and weapons experts used to do as you do best.

You were on a mission with them when your worst nightmare occurred, it being thoughtfully planned and kinks worked out days prior, giving you preparation as multiple other missions had time and time again. Just like any of the jobs you took with the team.

The objective was to take down a newly popular mafia, not unusual to you, the mafia not being too strong or big of a family just yet. However, when finally on the battlefield, you, along with the rest of the team; Barney Ross, Lee Christmas, Hale Caesar, Gunnar Jensen, Toll Road, and Yin Yang, had noticed just how wrong the mission truly was.

It was a set-up, one put in place by your highly unidentified employers, sent to tear your one-of-a-kind, intelligent family apart from what it was. You weren’t very fond to your past enemies, taking them out, ruining their plans, and destroying what could’ve been years of work to put together. This had led to many menacing opponents.

Barney, your leader, had sprung to action quickly, splitting us off and protecting us, being the amazing leader he was. Something you never got to fully acknowledge at times, sometimes being so pissed, you didn’t care if you had threatened his superiority or level of expertise. Hurting his feelings immensely.

The mission had gone fairly well for a while, working hand-in-hand with one another, tag-teaming with your brothers at separate times, given your unexpected predicament and disadvantage.

This was until you had managed to unknowingly cut yourself far from the group of mercenaries, having to run from a silent assailant wielding knives. Running underneath an archway, scared and exhausted, you felt your legs, abdomen, and lungs burn as the only missions in mind now were to get to safety and come home to the one you love undeterred.

Only time would tell if these were going to be successfully accomplished.

You duck and weave through crates and buildings, running through a small town, but quickly run out of options as you draw yourself into a massive clearing. You scream over the comms, turning your mic on, asking for help, anyone, anything.

But they were too far away, rushing as fast as they could, wanting none other than to be at your side, fighting off anything that were to threaten you. You were their sister, whether it be blood or in arms, you were family and connected as one.

You spin on your heels, looking for a way out, but find nothing. Nothing to protect you or hide away in. Nothing to just get you out. Accepting your fate, you decide this is it, facing your pursuer now, hands above your head in an attempt of surrender. The surrender goes unanswered though, unaccepted, your attacker pulling a gun from his waist band, shooting you square in the chest, not giving you a chance.

Walking now, the killer comes to your side, body encased in a pool of blood, seeping into your clothing. Deciding his job is done, he lowers his gun, looking you in the eyes before disappearing into the distance, concluding that a slow death was the best revenge.

All you do is lay there, unmoving, your mic still on and blaring with the voices of your team, concern and anger lacing their tones. You do not answer however, motivating Yin Yang to track your location from his keypad, Caesar and Toll deciding that bullets weren’t enough anymore, throwing grenades and bombs instead, killing the multiples. Barney, Lee, and Gunnar finishing the last of the survivors off, the full team hurrying to get to you from all different directions.

Gunnar is the first to find you, pumping his long legs harder now as he fears the worst, knowing this situation is a close two-end street, your chances slimming by the minute. Lee and Barney file in a moment later, followed by Toll, Yin Yang, and soon, Caesar.

All you can do is stare, lovingly, regrettably, and solemnly all at once, knowing there is so much to say but not enough time to do so. So you told them, as quickly as physically possible, the blood now rushing into your lungs and mouth. You told them what you loved most, what you had regretted saying or doing, knowing the full effect of the past now.

And, when the pain gets to its worst factor, you turn to face Barney, him knowing you the most. “The pink book,” you choke out, Barney knowing exactly what you were referring to, “Give it to Tool for me, will ya’? There’s so much I haven’t told him, and just about everything should be in there.”

“Yeah,” Barney answers, his voice fading now, tears in his eyes, “Yeah, I’ll give it to him. I know what ya’ want, and I’ll send the message. You’ve always had a better way of speakin’ than me, and I think he’d like if you came back home in one piece, Kid. Just focus on stayin’ awake for me for now though, okay?” The last of his sentence comes out choked, tears now pouring from his eyes. Tears pooling from all of the men now, knowing that your fate is nearing its end.

“I love you guys...Always know that okay? Keep it with ya’,” I say, my body now feeling immensely lighter than any high could’ve.

“Yer not dyin’ on us Y/N...Ya’ can’t!” Gunnar yells, his emotional defense kicking in as his way of coping. “Yer supposed to be here always-”

All you can do is watch, tears of your own flowing in waves down the corners of yours eyes, rounding my eye cheek bones, slipping down towards my ears, and falling in delicate puddles. They’re all falling apart, and there’s nothing anyone can do to help it. Instead, you weakly motion your hands, grabbing one of Barney’s and Gunnar’s, the rest motioning to either hold onto one another or a limb of your body, such as your knees or legs.

As your vision starts to fade, and the familiar faces of your family dim and disappear, the last face you see is one that wasn’t there. One who will never know what would’ve happened until the group returns home, your body being held within their own arms. Tool. The most talented, artistic, and loving man of my dreams, will never know the full extent of your passion for him. And now, as darkness overcomes you, your last final regret lies on him, your last tears shedding from your eyes. Closing them, seeing the darkness, and feeling the last bit of your being being lifted, no longer seeing or feeling anything. Just black.

Whoever said death was a pleasant goodbye never really understood all of what leaves with the hollow body of a once joyful, full of life person. The regrets, stories, love, and connections staying remnant within them and never truly leaving even when they are no longer visible. For even as they part, the people who knew them now are haunted and reminded of a person no one will ever see again. Never have the beauty of knowing just like they had.

That is, until they part ways as well.

Until then, it is just a bittersweet goodbye.

#mickey rourke #mickey rourke x reader #tool #tool x reader #the expendables #expendables #mickey rourke imagine #the expendables imagine #expendables imagine #tool imagine #tool expendables

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pulaasul · 3 years

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It’s 2021 and the Tadashi’s death discourse is still going strong.

I did not expect that the movie released on November 2014 still had strong discourse material, and of course, wouldn’t you know it, its about Tadashi’s death.

I cannot believe that after more than six years since Big Hero 6 has been released, we are still arguing about Tadashi’s death. Which might I remind everyone, caused some other tumblr user it to suicide bait a ‘Tadashi lives’ member.

Huh, I guess Tadashi being alive is an unpopular opinion.

But back from that tangential note, it is quite, as Tadashi would say, unbelievable, that this discourse topic has been going around for more than half a decade.

I will address the elephant in the room first, calling the members of that group as “thirsty on main for an older brother character” makes your argument almost invalid immediately, as you started off with a fallacy.

You then make a separate post by saying “of course, I did not mean all, but I mean if the shoe fits” that’s like saying “sorry, but not really” and wow, that’s some serious shade.

Another thing worthy to note is the fact that you’re making it as if there’s only one way of coping with grief. People finds solace in fictional depictions of grief, while others want to escape reality and find solace in fictional worlds.and both are healthy coping mechanisms for grief as opposed to lashing out at everyone every time you see a differing opinion than yours.

What grinds my gears regarding this topic was how people would say “You just don’t care about the narrative, or Hiro’s development.” Like please, I care so much about the narrative that I find that Tadashi’s entire character writing was inconsistent.

I am not denying that he probably had a life outside of Hiro and Aunt Cass, I am not denying that he has a group of friends that Hiro isn’t privy to, but you cannot deny that in the very first few minutes of the movie, we are literally introduced to Tadashi prioritizing Hiro over his school projects and assignments, then suddenly blurts out “Callaghan’s in there, someone has to help.”. You want me to believe that he’s okay with leaving Hiro near the burning building just to get inside, without making sure that his brother cannot follow him?

There’s no question about Tadashi’s hero complex. Tadashi’s like Harry Potter in that way, he has a thing with saving people, but the one key difference between Potter and Tadashi is that, the older Hamada has one person he prioritizes over other people, and that’s his brother.

That’s why I subscribe to the idea that Tadashi’s death was just there for shock value, tragedy for tragedy’s sake, because of how inauthentic and forced the entire death scene was

I am not demeaning how the movie dealt with grief, I think its one of the movies that has depicted grief well.

Having said that, it does not mean that people, the Tadashi lives crowd, are wholly unaware of what that represents for Hiro’s character writing and his arc but it feels disingenuous to assume that we do not care for Hiro and the narrative.It feels rude and condescending to say that “you entirely missed the point” or even “because you think he died wrong” please don’t put words in our mouths, we were calling out how it was out of character for Tadashi to act that way for that scene, no one was saying “he should have died against the villain” because you missed the entire point of the post.

I’ve seen a lot of really bad “Tadashi is dead and should stay dead” takes within the Big Hero 6 fandom space, from comparing him to the Waynes and Ben Parker, because frankly Tadashi’s circumstance and death really differs to what Ben and the Waynes represent for both Bruce and Peter,to “it’s simply isn’t realistic”, because frankly, the mere fact that Callaghan survived that fire was wholly unrealistic in and of itself [as the microbots should have baked Callaghan alive when he formed a dome to save himself from the flames] but you’re ignoring that fact.

Let’s then address another elephant, It also grinds my gears that wanting Tadashi back somehow means not caring for Hiro’s arc. Yes, Tadashi is back, but that doesn’t mean that everything Hiro went through is somehow gone, things will not return as they are, its bad writing to simply let Hiro continue living as if his brother did not die.

Tadashi being back does not cancel out Hiro’s grief.

#tadashi hamada #big hero 6 #aaaand wouldn't you know it #another tadashi post #to answer a lot of posts about the topic #frankly getting tire of this #theres no convincing you #and theres no convincing me #just stop assuming things about us #also if the shoe fits is condescending and rude

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wits-writing · 4 years

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What’s so Funny About Vengeance, the Night, and Batman? – Two Superhero Parodies in Conversation

Back in 2016, the first trailers for Director Chris McKay’s The Lego Batman Movie hit. A spinoff of the take on the iconic hero, voiced by Will Arnett, from 2014’s The Lego Movie. Those trailers spelled out a plot covering how Batman’s life of crimefighting is turned upside down when Robin unexpectedly enters the picture. It was a funny trailer, promising another insightful comedy from the crew behind The Lego Movie. A promise it handily delivered on when it came out in February 2017 with an animated feature steeped wall-to-wall jokes for the sake of mocking Bruce Wayne’s angst filled crusade that can only come from understanding what’s made the character withstand the test of time.

But there was a thought I and others had from seeing that trailer up to watching the actual movie:

“This seems… familiar.”

Holy Musical B@man! is a 2012 fan-made stage production parody of DC Comics’ biggest cash cow. It was produced as the fifth musical from YouTube-based cult phenomenon Starkid Productions, from a book by Matt and Nick Lang, music by Nick Gage and Scott Lamp with lyrics by Gage. The story of the musical details how Robin’s unexpected entrance ends up turning Batman’s (Joe Walker) life of crimefighting upside down. Among Starkids’ fandom derived projects in their early existence, as they’ve mainly moved on to well-received original material in recent years, Holy Musical B@man! is my personal favorite. I go back to it frequently, appreciating it as a fan of both superheroes and musicals. (Especially since good material that touches on both of those isn’t exactly easy to come by. Right, Spider-Man?)

While I glibly summarized the similarities between them by oversimplifying their plots, there’s a lot in the details, both major and minor, that separates how they explore themes like solitude, friendship, love, and what superhero stories mean. It’s something I’ve wanted to dig into for a while and I found a lot in both of them I hadn’t considered before by putting them in conversation. I definitely recommend watching both of them, because of how in-depth this piece goes including discussing their endings. However, nothing I can say will replace the experience of watching them and if I had included everything I could’ve commented on in both of them, this already massive piece would easily be twice as long minimum.

Up front, I want to say this isn’t about comparing The Lego Batman Movie and Holy Musical B@man in terms of quality. Not only are they shaped for vastly different mediums with different needs/expectations, animation versus stagecraft, but they also had different resources at their disposal. Even if both are in some ways riffing on the aesthetic of the 1990s Batman movies and the Adam West TV show, Lego Batman does it with the ability to make gorgeously animated frames packed to the brim with detail while Holy Musical often leans into its low-fi aesthetic of characters miming props and sets to add extra humor. They’re also for different audiences, Lego Batman clearly for all-ages while Holy Musical has the characters cursing for emphasis on a regular basis. On top of those factors, after picking through each of these for everything worth commenting on that I could find, I can’t say which I wholly prefer thanks in part to these fundamental differences.

This piece is more about digging through the details to explore the commonalities, differences, and what makes them effective mocking love letters to one of the biggest superheroes in existence.

(Also, since I’m going to be using the word “Batman” a lot, I’ll be calling Lego Batman just “Batman” and referring to the version from Holy Musical as “B@man”, with the exception of quoted dialogue.)

[Full Piece Under the Cut]

Setting the Tone

The beginning is, in fact, a very good place to start when discussing how these parodies frame their versions of the caped crusader. Each one uses a song about lavishing their respective Batmen with praise about how they are the best superheroes ever and play over sequences of the title hero kicking wholesale ass. A key distinction comes in who’s singing each song. Holy Musical B@man’s self-titled opening number is sung from the perspective of an omniscient narrator recounting B@man’s origin and later a chorus made up of the Gotham citizenry. Meanwhile, “Who’s the (Bat) Man” from Lego Batman is a brag-tacular song written by Batman about himself, even playing diegetically for all his villains to hear as he beats them up.

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Holy Musical opens on a quick recap of Batman’s origin:

“One shot, Two shots in the night and they’re gone And he’s all left alone He’s just one boy Two dead at his feet and their blood stains the street And there’s nothing, no there’s nothing he can do!”

We then get a Bat-dance break as the music goes from slow and moody to energetic to reflect Batman turning that tragedy into the driving force behind his one-man war on crime. Assured by the narrator that he’s “the baddest man that there’s ever been!” and “Now there’s nothing, no there’s nothing he can’t do!” flipping the last lyric of the first verse. For the rest of the opening scene the lyrics matter less than what’s happening to establish both this fan-parody’s version of Batman and how the people of Gotham (“he’ll never refuse ‘em”) view him.

Lego Batman skips the origin recap, and in general talks around the death of the Waynes to keep the light tone going since it’s still a kids movie about a popular toy even if there are deeper themes at play. Instead, it continues a trend The Lego Movie began for this version of the character writing music about how he’s an edgy, dark, awesome, cool guy. While that movie kept it to Batman angry-whiteboy-rapping about “Darkness! NO PARENTS!”, this one expands to more elaborate boasts in the song “Who’s the (Bat) Man” by Patrick Stump:

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“In the darkest night I make the bad guys fall There’s a million heroes But I’m the best of them all!”

Batman singing this song about himself, as opposed to having it sung by others aims the crosshairs of parody squarely on the hero’s ego. His abilities make fighting his villains effortless, like this opening battle is more an opportunity to perform the song than a life-or-death struggle. Even Joker’s aware of that as he shouts, “Stop him before he starts singing!” This Batman doesn’t see himself as missing out on anything in life, even if he still feels that deep down. Being Batman is the coolest thing in the world that anyone would envy. He’s Batman, therefore everyone should envy him.

The songs aren’t only part of the equation for how these two works’ opening scenes establish their leading hero. While both songs are about Batman being cool, they’re separated by the accompanying scenes. Lego Batman keep the opening within the Joker’s perspective until Batman shows up and the action kicks in. Once it does, we’re shown a Batman at the top of his solo-hero game. Meanwhile, Holy Musical’s opening is about B@man building his reputation and by the end of the song he has all the citizens of Gotham singing his praises with the titular lyrics. Both are about being in awe of the title hero, one framed by Joker’s frustration at Batman’s ease in foiling his schemes yet again and the other about the people of Gotham growing to love their city’s hero (probably against their better judgement.)

That’s woven into the fabric of what kind of schemes Batman is foiling in each of these. Joker’s plan to bomb Gotham with the help of every supervillain in Batman’s Rogues Gallery is hilariously high stakes and the type of plan most Batman stories, even parodies, would save for the climax. Neatly exemplified by how that’s almost the exact structure of Holy Musical’s final showdown. Starting with these stakes works as an extension of this Batman’s nature as a living children’s toy and therefore the embodiment of a child’s idea of what makes Batman cool, his ability to wipe the floor with anyone that gets in his way “because he’s Batman.” It also emphasizes Joker as the only member of the Rogues Gallery that matters to Lego Batman’s story, every other Bat-villain is either a purely visual cameo or only gets a couple lines maximum.

The crime’s being stopped by B@man are more in the “Year One” gangster/organized crime category rather than anything spectacle heavy. Though said crimes are comically exaggerated:

Gangster 1: Take these here drugs, put ‘em into them there guns, and then hand ‘em out to those gamblin’ prostitutes! Gangster 2: Should we really be doing these illegal activities? In a children’s hospital for orphans?

These fit into that model of crime the Dark Knight fights in his early days and add tiny humanizing moments between the crooks (“Oh, Matches! You make me laugh like nobody else!”) in turn making the arrival of B@man and the violence he deals out a stronger punchline. Further emphasized by the hero calling out the exact physical damage he does with each hit before warning them to never do crime again saying, “Support your families like the rest of us! Be born billionaires!” Later in the song his techniques get more extreme and violence more indiscriminate, as he uses his Bat-plane to patrol and gun down whoever he sees as a criminal, including a storeowner accidentally taking a single dollar from his own register. (“God’s not up here! Only Batman!”)

A commonality between these two openings is how Commissioner Jim Gordon gets portrayed. Both are hapless goofs at their core, playing more on the portrayal of the character in the 60s TV show and 90s Burton/Schumacher movies than the serious-minded character present in comics, Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, and other adaptations. Lauren Lopez’s portrayal in Holy Musical gets overwhelmed by everything thrown at him, eventually giving up and getting out of B@man’s way (“I’m not gonna tell Batman what to do! He’s Batman!”) Hector Elizondo’s Gordon in Lego Batman clearly reached the “stay out of Batman’s way” point a long time ago, happy to have “the guy who flips on the Bat-signal” be his sole defining trait. While the characterizations are close, their roles do end up differing. Lopez’s Gordon sticks around to have a few more comedic scenes as the play goes on, where Elizondo’s exist to set up a contrast with his daughter Barbara and her way of approaching Batman when she becomes Police Commissioner.

These opening sequences both end in similar manners as well; the citizens of Gotham lavishing praise on their respective Batmen and a confrontation between Batman and the Joker. Praise from the citizenry in Holy Musical comes on the heels of a letter from B@man read out on the news about how much they and the city of Gotham suck. They praise B@man for his angsty nature as a “dark hero” and how they “wouldn’t want him any other way!”, establishing the motif of Gotham’s citizens in Holy Musical as stand-ins for the Batman fandom. Lego Batman uses the praise of the Gotham citizens after Batman’s victory in the opening scene as a lead in to contrast their certainty that Batman must have an exciting private life with the reality we’re shown. Which makes sense since Lego-Batman’s relationship to the people of Gotham is never presented as something at stake.

Greater contrast comes in how the confrontations with the Joker are handled, Lego Batman has an argument between the hero and villain that’s intentionally coded as relationship drama, Batman saying “There is no ‘us’” when Joker declares himself Batman’s greatest enemy. The confrontation in Holy Musical gets purposefully underplayed as an offstage encounter narrated to the audience as a Vicki Vale news report. This takes Joker off the board for the rest of the play in contrast to the Batman/Joker relationship drama that forms one of Lego Batman’s key pillars. While they take different forms, the respective citizenry praise and villain confrontation parts of these openings lead directly into the number one common thematic element between these Bat-parodies: Batman’s loneliness.

One is the Darkest, Saddest, Loneliest Number

Batman as an isolated hero forms one of the core tenants of the most popular understanding of the character. Each of these parodies picks at that beyond the broody posturing. There’s no dedicated segment in this piece about how these works’ versions of the title character function bleeds into every other aspect of them, but each starts from the idea of Batman as a man-child with trouble communicating his emotions. Time’s taken to give the audience a view of where their attitudes have left them early in the story.

Both heroes show their loneliness through interactions with their respective Alfreds. Holy Musical has the stalwart butler, played by Chris Allen, try to comfort B@man by asking if he has any friends he enjoys being around. When B@man cites Lucius Fox as a friend he calls him right away, only to discover Lucius Fox is Alfred’s true identity and Alfred Pennyworth was an elaborate ruse he came up with to protect Bruce on his father’s wishes. Ironically, finding out his closest friend was living a double life causes Bruce to push Alfred away (the play keeps referring to him as Alfred after this, so that’s what I’m going to do as well.) After he’s fired he immediately comes back in a new disguise as “O’Malley the Irish Butler” (same outfit he wore before but with a Party City Leprechaun hat.) That’s unfortunately the start of a running gag in Holy Musical that ends up at the worst joke in the play, when Alfred disguises himself as “Quon Li the Chinese Butler” doing an incredibly cringeworthy “substituting L’s for R’s” bit with his voice. It’s been my least favorite bit in the play since I first saw it in 2012 and legitimately makes me hesitate at times to recommend it. Even if it’s relatively small bit and the rest holds ups.

That disclaimer out of the way, that conversation between B@man and Alfred leads into the title hero reflecting on his sadness through the musical’s I Want Song, “Dark, Sad, Lonely Knight.” The song’s split into two halves, the first Alfred reflecting on whether he played a part in Bruce’s current condition and the second B@man longing for a connection. The song does a good job balancing between the sincerity over the hero’s sadness and getting good laughs out of it:

“Think of the children Next time you gun down the mama and papa Their only mama and papa Because they probably don’t have another mama and papa!”

The “I Want” portion of the song coming in the end with the repetition of the lryics “I want to be somebody’s buddy.”

Rather than another song number, Lego Batman covers Batman’s sadness through a pair of montages and visual humor. The first comes after the opening battle, where we see Batman taking off all his costume except for the mask hanging out alone in Wayne Manor, showing how little separation he puts between identities. Compared to Holy Musical where the equivalent scene is the first we see of Bruce without the mask on, which may come down to practicality since anyone who’s worn a mask like that knows they get hot and sweaty fast. Batman is constantly made to appear small among the giant empty rooms of his estate as he eats dinner, jams on his guitar, and watches romantic movies alone.

Ralph Fienne’s Alfred coming in at the end of this sequence witnessing Batman looking at a photo of himself as a boy with his parents for the last time. Alfred outlines Batman’s fear of being part of a family again only to be met with Batman denying he has any feelings ever. Pennyworth’s role as a surrogate father gets put into greater focus here than in Holy Musical, as we get glimpses of Alfred reading a book titled “How to Deal with Your Out-of-Control Child.” Also shown in smaller scenes of Alfred dealing with Batman’s insistent terminology for his crime fighting equipment, like calling his cowl an “armored face disguise.”

Batman’s denial of his pain contrasts how B@man wallows in it. Though he’s forced to confront it a little as the Joker’s plan ends up leaving him with no crimefighting to fall back on to ignore his issues. This montage gets set to the song “One” by Harry Nilsson and details Batman, unable to express his true feelings, eventually letting them out in the form of tempter tantrums. There’s also some humor through juxtaposition as Batman walks solemnly through the streets of Gotham City, rendered black and white, as the citizens chant “No more crime!” in celebration, while flipping over cars and firing guns into the air.

A disruption to their loneliness eventually comes in the form of a sensational character find.

Robin – The Son/BFF Wonder

Between both Bat-parodies, the two Robins’ characterizations are as close as anyone’s between them. Each is nominally Dick Grayson but are ultimately more representative of the idea of Robin as the original superhero sidekick and his influence on Batman’s life. The play and movie also both make the obvious jokes about Dick’s name and the classic Robin costume’s lack of pants at different points. Dick’s origin also gets sidestepped in each version to skip ahead to the part where he starts being an influence in Batman’s life.

Robin’s introduction to the comics in Detective Comics #38 in 1940, marking the start of Batman’s literal “Year Two” as a character, predating the introduction of Joker, Catwoman, and Alfred, among others. Making him Batman’s longest lasting ally in the character’s history. His presence and acrobatics shift the tone by adding a dash of swashbuckling to Batman’s adventures, inspired by the character’s namesake Robin Hood, though both parodies take a page out of Batman Forever and associate the name with the bird for the sake of a joke. Robin is as core to Batman as his origin, but more self-serious adaptations (i.e., the mainstream cinematic ones that were happening around the times both Holy Musical and Lego Batman came out) tend to avoid the character’s inclusion. These two works being parody, therefore anything but self-serious, give themselves permission to examine why Robin matters and how different characters react to his presence. Rejection of Robin as a character and concept comes out in some form in each of these works, from Batman himself in Lego Batman and the Gotham citizens in Holy Musical.

The chain of events that lead to Dick becoming Robin in Lego Batman are a string of consequences for Batman’s self-absorption. A scene of Bruce barely listening as Dick asks for advice on getting adopted escalating to absentmindedly signing the adoption paperwork. Batman doesn’t realize he has a son until after his sadness montage. Alfred forces Batman to start interacting with Dick against his will. The broody loner wanting nothing to do with the cheery kid, played to “golly gee gosh” perfection by Michael Cera, until he sees the utility of him. Batman doesn’t even have the idea to give Robin a costume or codename because he clearly views the sidekick’s presence as a temporary measure for breaking into Superman’s fortress, made clear by how he lists “expendable” as a quality Dick needs if he wants to go on a mission.

This makes Robin the catalyst for Batman’s shifting perspective throughout Lego Batman. When Robin succeeds in his first mission, the Dark Knight is hesitant to truly compliment him and chalks up his ward’s feats to “unbelievable obeying.” Other moments have Robin’s presence poke holes in Batman’s tough guy demeanor, like the first time Batman and Robin ride in the Bat-mobile together, Robin asks where the seatbelts are and Batman growls “Life doesn’t give you seatbelts!”, only for Batman to make a sudden stop causing Robin to hit his head on the windshield and Batman genuinely apologizes. They share more genuine moments together as the film goes, like Batman suggesting they beatbox together to keeps their spirits up after they’ve been imprisoned for breaking into Arkham Asylum. Robin’s representative of Batman gradually letting people in throughout these moments.

On the exact opposite end of the spectrum, B@man needs zero extra prompting to let Robin into his life. Nick Lang’s Robin (henceforth called “Rob!n” to keep with this arbitrary naming scheme I’ve concocted) does get brought into his life by Alfred thanks to a personal ad (“‘Dog for sale’? No… ‘Orphan for sale’! Even better!”) but it’s a short path to B@man deciding to let Dick fight alongside him. The briefest hesitance on the hero’s part, “To be Batman… is to be alone”, is quelled by Rob!n saying “We could be alone… together.” Their first scene together quickly establishing the absurd sincerity exemplified by this incarnation of the Dynamic Duo. An energy carried directly into the Act 1 closing number, “The Dynamic Duet”, a joyful ode between the heroes about how they’re “Long lost brothers who found each other” sung as they beat up supervillains (and the occasional random civilian.)

That song also ties into the contrast between the Batman/Robin dynamic and the B@man/Rob!n one. While Holy Musical is portraying a brotherly/BFF bond between the two heroes, Lego Batman leans into the surrogate son angle. While both are mainly about their stories’ Batman being able to connect with others, the son angle of Lego Batman adds an additional layer of “Batman needs to take responsibility for himself and others” and a parallel to Alfred as Batman’s own surrogate father. It also adds to the queer-coding of Batman in Lego Batman as Batman’s excuse to Robin for why he can go on missions is that Bruce and he are sharing custody, Robin even calling Batman’s dual identities “dads” before he knows the truth.

In the absence of the accepting personal responsibility through fatherhood element, the conflict Rob!n brings out in Holy Musical forms between B@man and the citizens of Gotham. “Citizens as stand-ins for fandom” is at it’s clearest here as the Act 2 opener is called “Robin Sucks!” featuring the citizens singing about how… well, you read the title. Their objections to Rob!n’s existence has nothing to do with what the young hero has done or failed to do, but come from arguments purely about the aesthetic of Rob!n fighting alongside B@man. Most blatantly shown by one of the citizens wearing a Heath Ledger Joker t-shirt saying Rob!n’s presence “ruins the gritty realism of a man who fights crime dressed as a bat.” It works as the Act 2 opener by establishing that B@man and the citizens conflicting opinions on his sidekick end up driving that half of the story, exemplified in B@man’s complete confusion about why people hate Rob!n (“Robin ruined Batman? But that’s not true… Robin make Batman happy.”)

Both Robins play into the internal conflict their respective mentors are going through, but what would a superhero story, even a parody, be without some colorful characters to provide that sweet external conflict.

Going Rogue

Both works have the threat comes from an army of villains assembled under a ringleader, Zach Galifianakis’s Joker in Lego Batman and Jeff Blim as Sweet Tooth in Holy Musical. Both lead the full ensemble of Batman’s classic (and not so classic) Rogues at different points. As mentioned before Joker starts Lego Batman with “assemble the Rogues, blow up Gotham” as his plan, while Sweet Tooth with his candy prop comedy becoming the ringleader of Gotham’s villains is a key turning point in Act 1 of the play. Part of this comes down to how their connections to their respective heroes and environments are framed, Sweet Tooth as a new player on the scene and Joker as Batman’s romantic foil.

Lego Batman demonstrates Batman and Joker are on “finishing each other’s sentences” levels of intimate that Batman refuses to acknowledge. Shown best in how Joker’s plan only works because he can predict exactly how Batman will act once he starts playing hard to get. When he surrenders the entire Rogues Gallery (without telling them) and himself to police custody, he describes it as him being “off the market.” He knows Batman won’t settle for things ending on these terms and tricks the hero into stealing Superman’s Phantom Zone projector so he can recruit a new, better team of villains for a take two of his masterplan from the start. Going through all this trouble to get Batman to say those three magic words; “I love hate you.” Joker as the significant other wanting his partner to finally reciprocate his feelings and commit works both as a play on how the Batman/Joker relationship often gets approached and an extension of the central theme. Batman is so closed off to interpersonal connections he can’t even properly hate his villains.

Sweet Tooth, while clearly being a riff Heath Ledger and Caesar Romero’s Jokers fused with a dash of Willy Wonka, doesn’t have that kind of connection with B@man. Though there are hints that B@man and his recently deceased Joker may have had one on that level. He laments “[Joker]’s in heaven with mom and dad. Making them laugh, I know it!” when recalling how the Clown Prince of Crime was the one person he enjoyed being around. This makes Joker’s death one of the key triggers to B@man reflecting on his solitude at the start of the play.

What Sweet Tooth provides the story is a threat to B@man’s new bond with Rob!n. Disrupting that connection forms the delicious center of the Candy King of Crime’s plan in Act 2. He holds Rob!n and Gotham’s people hostage and asks the citizens to decide via Facebook poll if the sidekick lives or dies (in reference to the infamous phone hotline vote from the comic book story A Death in the Family where readers could decide the Jason Todd Robin’s fate.)

With the rest of the villains under the leadership of the respective works’ main antagonists, there’s commentary on their perceived quality as threats. When Holy Musical has Superman talking to Green Lantern about how much B@man’s popularity frustrates him, he comes down especially hard on the Caped Crusader’s villains. Talking about how they all coast by on simple gimmicks with especially harsh attention given to Two Face’s being “the number two.” Saying they’re only famous because B@man screws up and they get to do more damage. Which he compares to his own relationship with his villains:

Superman: You ever heard of Mr. Mxyzptlk? Green Lantern: No. Superman: No, that’s right! That’s because I do my job!

Lego Batman has commentary on the other villains come from Joker, recognizing that even all together they can never beat Batman, because that’s how a Batman story goes. The other villains get portrayed as generally buffoonish, struggling to even build a couch together and described by Joker as “losers dressed in cosplay.” Tricking Batman into sending him to the Phantom Zone provides him the opportunity to gather villains from outside Batman’s mythos and outside DC Comics in general. Recruiting the likes of Sauron, King Kong, Daleks, Agent Smith from The Matrix, and the Wicked Witch of the West, among others. When I first saw and reviewed The Lego Batman Movie, this bugged me because it felt like a missed opportunity to feature lesser-known villains from other DC heroes’ Rogues Galleries. Now, considering the whole movie as meta-commentary on the status of this Batman as a children’s toy, it makes perfect sense that Joker would need to go outside of comics to break the rules of a typical Batman story and have a shot at winning.

The Rogues of Holy Musical get slightly more of a chance to shine, if only because their song “Rogues are We” is one of the catchier tracks from the play. They’re all still more cameo than character when all’s said and done, but Sweet Tooth entering the picture is about him recognizing their potential to operate as a unit, takeover Gotham, and kill B@man. The candy-pun flinging villain wants all of them together, no matter their perceived quality.

Sweet Tooth: “We need every villain in Gotham. Cool themes, lame themes, themes that don’t match their powers, even the villains that take their names from public domain stories.” (Two Face’s “broke ass” still being the exception.)

Both Joker and Sweet Tooth provide extensions of the shared theme of Batman dealing with the new connections in his life, especially with regards to Robin. However, Robin isn’t the only other ally (or potential ally) these Dark Knights have on their side.

Super Friends(?)

The internal crisis of these Caped Crusaders come as much from how they react to other heroic figures as it does from supervillainous machinations. In both cases how Batman views and is viewed by fellow heroes gets centered on a specific figure, Superman in Holy Musical and Commissioner Barbara Gordon (later Batgirl) in Lego Batman. Each serves a vastly different purpose in the larger picture of their stories and relationship to their respective Batmen. Superman reflecting B@man’s loneliness and Barbara symbolizing a new path forward for Batman’s hero work.

Superman’s role in Holy Musical runs more parallel to Lego Batman’s Joker than Barbara. Brian Holden’s performance as the Man of Tomorrow plays into a projected confidence covering anxiety that nobody likes him. Besting the Bat-plane in a race during B@man’s Key to the City ceremony establishes a one upmanship between the two heroes, like Joker’s description of his relationship with Batman at the end of Lego Batman’s opening battle. Though instead of that romantically coded relationship from Lego Batman, this relationship is more connected to childish jealousy. (But if you do want to read the former into Holy Musical B@man, neither hero has an onstage relationship with any woman and part of their eventual fight consist of spanking each other.)

B@man and Superman’s first real interaction is arguing over who’s the cooler hero until it degrades into yelling “Fuck you!” at each other. B@man storming off in the aftermath of that gets topped off by Superman suggesting he should get the Key to the City instead, citing his strength and longer tenure as a hero (“The first hero, by the way”) as justifications. This only results in the Gotham citizens turning on him for suggesting their city’s hero is anything less than the best, which serves both as a Sam Raimi Spider-Man reference (“You mess with one of us! You mess with all of us!”) and another example of the citizens as stand-ins for fandom. Superman’s veil of cocksureness comes off quickly after that and stays off for the rest of the play. Starting with his conversation with Green Lantern where a civilian comes across them, but barely acts like Superman’s there.

One of the play’s running gags is Superman calling B@man’s number and leaving messages, showing a desperation to reach out and connect with his fellow hero despite initial smugness. Even before the first phone call scene, we see Superman joining B@man to sing “I want to be somebody’s buddy” during “Dark, Sad, Lonely Knight” hinting at what’s to come. The note it consistently comes back to is that Superman’s jealousy stems from Batman’s popularity over him. This is a complete flip of what Lego Batman does with the glimpse at a Batman/Superman dynamic we see when Batman goes to the Superman’s fortress to steal the Phantom Zone projector. The rivalry dynamic there exists solely in Batman’s head, Lego-Superman quickly saying “I would crush you” when Batman suggests the idea of them fighting. Superman’s status among the other DC heroes is also night and day between these works. Where Lego-Superman’s only scene in the movie shows him hosting the Justice League Anniversary Party and explaining he “forgot” to invite Batman, Superman in Holy Musical consistently lies about having friends over (“All night long I’m busy partying with my friends at the Fortress… of Solitude.”)

Superman’s relationship to B@man in Holy Musical develops into larger antagonism thanks to lack of communication with B@man brushing off Supes’ invitations to hang out and fight bad guys (“Where were you for the Solomon Grundy thing? Ended up smaller than I thought, just a couple of cool guys. Me and… Solomon Grundy.”) His own loneliness gets put into stronger focus when he sees the news of Rob!n’s debut as a crimefighter, which makes him reflect on how he misses having Krypto the Super-Dog around. (The explanation for why he doesn’t have his dog anymore is one of my favorite jokes in the play and I won’t ruin it here.)

Where Superman’s a reflection of B@man’s loneliness, Rosario Dawson as Barbara in Lego Batman is a confrontation of Batman’s go it alone attitude. Her job in the story is to be the one poking holes in the foundation of Batman as an idea, starting with her speech at Jim Gordon’s retirement banquet and her instatement as commissioner. She has a by-the-book outlook on crimefighting with the omnicompetence to back it up, thanks to her training at “Harvard for Police.” Babs sees Batman’s current way of operating as ineffectual and wants him to be an official agent of the law. An idea that dumps a bucket of cold water on Batman’s crush he developed immediately upon seeing her, though that never fully goes away.

Her main point is that Batman “karate chopping poor people” hasn’t made Gotham better in his 80 years of operating. A contrast to Holy Musical’s Jim Gordon announcing that B@man has brought Gotham’s crime rates to an all-time low (“Still the highest in the world, but we’re working on it.”) She wants to see a Batman willing to work with other people. A hope dashed constantly dealing with his childish stubbornness as he tries to foil Joker’s schemes on his own, culminating in her arresting Batman and Robin for breaking into Arkham to send Joker to the Phantom Zone.

Barbara’s role as the one bringing grown-up attitudes and reality into Batman’s world does leave her in the role of comedic straight woman. Humor in her scenes comes from how she reacts to everyone else’s absurdity rather than anything she does to be funny. This works for the role she plays in Lego Batman, since she’s not there to have an arc the way Superman does in Holy Musical. She’s another catalyst for Batman’s to start letting people in as another character he grows to care about. Which starts after she lets the Dynamic Duo out of prison to fight Joker’s new army of Phantom Zone villains on the condition that he plays it by her rules. Leading to a stronger bond between Batman, Robin, Alfred, and her as they start working together.

The two Batmen’s relationships to other heroes, their villains, Robin, and their own solitude each culminate in their own way as their stories reach their conclusions.

Dark Knights & Dawning Realizations

As everything comes down to the final showdowns in these Bat-parodies, the two Caped Crusaders each confront their failures to be there for others and allow themselves to be vulnerable to someone they’ve been antagonizing throughout the story. Each climax has all of Gotham threatened by a bomb and the main villains’ plans coming to fruition only to come undone.

Holy Musical has Sweet Tooth’s kidnapping of Rob!n and forcing Gotham to choose themselves or the sidekick they hate sends B@man into his most exaggerated state in the entire play. It’s the classic superhero movie climax conundrum, duty as a hero versus personal attachment. Alfred, having revealed himself as the “other butlers”, even lampshades how these stories usually go only for that possibility to get shot down by Bruce:

Alfred: A true hero, Master Wayne, finds a way to choose both. B@man: You’re right, Alfred. I know what I have to do… Fuck Gotham, I’m saving Robin!

B@man’s selfishness effectively makes him the real villain of Holy Musical’s second act. Lego Batman has shades of that aspect as well, where Batman gets sent to the Phantom Zone by Joker for his repeated refusal to acknowledge their relationship. Where the AI running the interdimensional prison, Phyllis voiced by Ellie Kemper, confronts him with the way he’s treated Robin, Alfred, Barbara, and even Joker:

Phyllis: You’re not a traditional bad guy, but you’re not exactly a good guy either. You even abandoned your friends. Batman: No! I was trying to protect them! Phyllis: By pushing them away? Batman: Well… yeah. Phyllis: Are they really the ones you’re protecting?

Batman watches what’s happening back in Gotham and sees Robin emulate his grim and gritty tendencies to save the day in his absence makes him desperately scream, “Don’t do what I would do!” It’s the universe rubbing what a jerk he’s been in his face. He’s forced to take a look at himself and make a change. B@man’s not made to do that kind of self-reflection until after he’s defeated Sweet Tooth but failed to stop the villain’s bomb. He’s ready to give up on Gotham forever and leave with Rob!n, until his sidekick pulls up Sweet Tooth’s poll and it shows the unanimous result in favor of saving the Boy Wonder. Despite everything they said at the start of Act 2, the people want to help their hero in return for all the times he helped them. All of them calling back to the Raimi Spider-Man reference from Act 1, “You mess with one of us. You mess with all of us.”

Both heroes’ chance at redemption and self-improvement comes from opening themselves up to the people they pushed out and dismissed earlier in their stories. Batman takes on the role he reduced the Commissioner down to at the beginning of the movie and flips on signals for Barbara, Alfred, and Robin to show how he’s truly prepared to work as a team, not just with his friends and family but with the villains of Gotham the Joker pushed aside as well. Teamwork makes the dream work and they’re all able to work together to get Joker’s army back into the Phantom Zone but like in Holy Musical they fail to stop the bomb threatening Gotham. Which he can only prevent from destroying the city by confessing his true feeling to Joker

Batman: If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have learned how connected I am with all of these people and you. So, if you help me save Gotham, you’ll help me save us. Joker: You just said “us?” Batman: Yeah, Batman and the Joker. So, what do you say? Joker: You had me at “shut up!”

The equivalent moment from Holy Musical comes from B@man needing to put aside his pride and encourage a disheartened Superman to save Gotham for him. This happens in the aftermath of a fight the two heroes had where Superman tried to stop B@man before he faced Sweet Tooth, B@man winning out through use of kryptonite. That fight doesn’t fit into any direct parallel with Lego Batman, but it is important context for how Superman’s feeling about B@man before Superman finally gets his long-awaited phone call from the Dark Knight. Also, the song accompanying the fight, “To Be a Man”, is one of the funniest scenes in the play. What this speech from B@man does is bring the idea of Holy Musical B@man as a commentary on fandom full circle:

B@man: I forgot what it means to be a superhero. But we’re really not that different, you and me, at our heart. I mean really all superheroes are pretty much the same… Something bad happened to us once when we were young, so we dedicated our whole lives to doing a little bit of good. That’s why we got into this crazy superhero business. Not to be the most popular, or even the most powerful. Because if that were the case, hell, you’d have the rest of us put out of a job!

This speech extends into an exchange between the heroes about how superheroes are cool, not despite anything superficially silly but because of it. Bringing it back to the “Robin Sucks!” theme that started Act 2, saying “Some people think Robin is stupid. But those people are pretentious douchebags. Because, literally, the only difference between Robin and me is our costumes.” The speech culminates in what I genuinely think is one of the best Batman lines ever written, as B@man’s final plea to Superman is “Where’s that man who’s faster than a gun?” calling back to the trauma that created Batman across all versions and what he can see in someone like Superman. So, B@man sacrificing his pride and fully trusting in another hero saves Gotham, the way Batman letting Joker know what their relationship means to him did in Lego Batman.

Each of these parodies ends by delivering a Batman willing to open himself up to a new team of heroes fighting at his side, the newly minted Bat-Family in Lego Batman and the league for justice known as the Super Friends in Holy Musical. Putting them side by side like this shows how creators don’t need the resources of a Hollywood studio to make something exactly as meaningful and how the best parodies come from love of the material no matter who’s behind them.

If you like what you’ve read here, please like/reblog or share elsewhere online, follow me on Twitter (@WC_WIT), and consider throwing some support my way at either Ko-Fi.com or Patreon.com at the extension “/witswriting”

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iam93percentstardust · 4 years

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hi! i really like your writing and was wondering if you’d recommend other authors that you enjoy or even specific fanfics you like? i’ve only just started getting into the steve/tony fandom and want to follow more people! thank you!

Hi there and welcome! We’re glad to have you here!! 💙

I’m more of an MCU kind of gal myself but if you’re interested in the comics, I highly recommend checking out the below authors and fics:

Living in the Future by Closer: Eighteen-year-old Tony Stark is the boy genius who woke Captain America, and now he's stuck with him. That's not a bad thing, but between Steve's wide-eyed wonder at the new world and Tony's little fanboy crush, the awkwardness just keeps happening.

@blossomsinthemist: seriously one of the best smut authors I’ve ever read with lots of feelings, trust me, you won’t regret getting into their works

@sineala: been writing Marvel since approximately 2014 (though if you like their works, it’s worth reading their other stuff as well even if you’re not familiar with the fandom, it’s all that good) and has written a lot of the classics including Like a Comet Streaming On and Slipping off the Page into Your Hands

Stars Fading, but I Linger On, Dear by Chibisquirt: A Soulmate AU where people meet their soulmate in their dreams. Of course, not even that solves all the world's problems, especially if one or more of the soulmates has a secret identity...

MCU and Ambiguous Fandom:

@festiveferret: has written so much and I can pretty much guarantee that you’ve stumbled across something that they’ve written at least once, writes both on tumblr and on ao3 but everything they post on tumblr is also cross-posted to ao3 so you don’t have to go digging through their blog to find ficlets

@no-gorms: has literally the most interesting AUs, I always read whatever is new pretty much the moment it comes out, can promise lots of feelings and happy endings

A Series of Learning Experiences by @riotfalling: In which Tony finds out that his tiny artist boyfriend is not a nice boy. In the best possible way. (Riot doesn’t write much Stevetony but what she does write is amazing)

Heart in Hand by janonny: Or the story where Tony, an Omega, holds a much belated Courting Ceremony. Steve joins up and loses his mind a little.

@maguna-stxrk: writes lots of fluff here on tumblr

@omg-just-peachy: widely acknowledged as the inventor of fluff

@itsallavengers: no longer as active but writes the most heartbreaking angst with a happy ending, you will feel so many things, has written classics like Versions of Reality and Nobody Panic, Everything’s Fine

@aurumacadicus: I’ve said before (I think on the stuckony reclist) that her version of Tony is my favorite but I’m going to say it again: seriously, fantastic Tony

Finding Pack by @naferty: In a world where pack means everything from status to fame to survival and to family, newly pack-less Tony Stark is trying to survive after those he once trusted betrayed him, and starting over by searching for a new pack to take him in, but with his age and status weighing heavily on his shoulders finding someone to take a chance on him might be easier said than done.What pack wanted an old infertile omega in their ranks? Certainly not the famous Avengers pack led by the equally famous Captain. (one day this fic will be finished and when that happens, I will scream for three days straight)

@sabrecmc: hmmm yes, especially check out Celestial Navigation and The Prize (also has an incredibly comprehensive rec blog, @sabrecmcstonyficrecs)

Sunrise by NotEvenCloseToStraight: Nomad is a soldier forced to do Hydra's bidding. When his mission takes him to the castle and to the bed chambers of Prince Antony Stark, Nomad is faced with a choice-- to finish his mission and finally earn his freedom or to save the last piece of his scarred soul and let the beautiful Prince live.Antony is trapped in the Palace, his life controlled by his Uncle, the Sovereign Stane. He yearns for a life beyond the palace walls but when the Nomad breaks into his rooms with blade held at the ready, Antony thinks all is lost--and then the assassin hesitates.Steven and Antony are two souls together in the moonlight, two lives on the cusp of ruin and as the sun rises over the palace, perhaps they will be two kindred spirits, finding freedom in each other's arms.

take my heart clean apart by mistymountainking: Tony comes home exhausted after an SI event. Steve acts as welcoming committee. It's an old, careworn routine they've perfected over the years, but tonight ends up going in a very different direction.

Dear Mr. Fantasy by @pineapplebread: Tony writes letters to his past loves to get over them. They’re all but meaningless by this point, but he keeps them hidden anyways, never to be seen or read by anyone else. Until one day they all mysteriously get sent out.His deepest secrets are revealed and he scrambles to do damage control, striking a deal to enter a fake relationship with Steve Rogers who just wants his ex back. Tony conveniently forgets to mention that the only love letter he still means is the one he wrote to his fake boyfriend.

slipping through the years by often_adamanta: The plane crash and subsequent ice might have killed him, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t still around, haunting those he cares about. And since the only person who can see him is Tony Stark, death sure isn’t going to be boring.

Insomnia by Scavenge4Dreams: Its 3am. Do you know where your Genius Billionaire Playboy Philanthropist is?

rough enough for love by silkspectred: The first time they had sex was right after their first kiss. Steve dropped to his knees and then Tony reciprocated after making Steve lie down on the bed. The second time it was Steve that initiated it, slow handjobs under the hot spray of the shower, and Tony looked surprised by it. Like it was weird that Steve wanted it. Wanted him.

I’m a Grown-Ass Man by not_applicable: or, 5 Times Steve Carried Tony and 1 Time Tony Didn't Mind. At all.

Containment by D: After Tony ends up severely injured from a surprise attack, triggering a flashback and putting him in the hospital for emergency surgery, the Avengers come together in worry for their friend and teammate and are disquieted by the intensity of Tony’s reaction. Between the flashback and the sedatives, Tony’s mind revisits key moments in his life while the team bands together in support of each other and their injured friend, letting SHIELD handle Tony’s attacker, they remain where they are needed, even if Tony isn’t awake to truly realize this. And through it all, Steve makes a decision that will change things with Tony.

His Fate Will Be Unlearned by scifigrl47: Tony Stark spent his childhood making weapons, filling the hole his father left in the world when he succumbed to alcohol, grief, and his own demons. At the age of fifteen, he ran away from home, and made it as far as MIT before all of his responsibilities caught up to him. Now seventeen, he just wants to finish his degree and escape from everything connected to the Stark name. Steve Rogers crashed into the icy North Atlantic in the 1940's, sacrificing himself to save the world. He never expected to wake up, and now that he has, he's not sure he's glad. The US Army has other plans for him, but for now, Steve is slowly learning to live life in the 21st century, and taking classes at Boston College. He's beginning to suspect that there is no escape. Boston College is on the T's Green Line. MIT is on the Red. The two lines meet at the Park Street Station, and so will Steve and Tony.

The Twice-Told Tale by arysteia: For someone he'd hero-worshipped for so long, Steve Rogers in the flesh is a pretty big disappointment. For one thing, he keeps looking at Tony as though he reminds him of someone else, and even if he never says anything, Tony's pretty sure it's his father. A lifetime of not measuring up to Howard's expectations is more than enough, thank you very much, and he's certainly not going to make an effort to live up to any of Steve's. Steve's pretty clearly failed to live up to his expectations, in any case, and that's not hypocritical at all.

Like Gene Kelly in the Movies by lyra_wing: Everything Tony Stark does is a dance. And it's super confusing for Steve.

bedrock and brick by lyra_wing: Immediate sequel to the movie, wherein Tony builds Avengers Tower. Or plays interior designer, take your pick.

#stevetony #fic recs #long post #alle answers #Anonymous

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wrestlingisfake · 3 years

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The CM Punk Saga

It's almost time for AEW's "The First Dance" show, and everybody's still prefacing their hype with "if CM Punk isn't there it'll be a huge disaster, but..."

I'll be in the building. They could've booked CP Munk and I'd still be there. But obviously the Punk tease makes this special. If he's there, it'll be historic to witness the reaction in person. And hell, if he's not there, it'll be historic to witness the fiasco in person. I find that kind of funny--after all these years, it's not the man that sold me a ticket, it's the drama surrounding the man.

Punk had wrestling fans in the palm of his hand after the 2011 "pipebomb" promo, in which WWE allowed him to air his real grievances with the company to build tension for a world title match with John Cena. I get the impression WWE expected it to cast him as a whiny heel. But Punk tapped into the fans' frustrations with WWE, and they embraced him as someone who would fight to change what they resented about the company. He was "the voice of the voiceless."

The problem with that kind of role in WWE is that you can only "fight the power" as far as Vince McMahon lets you on his TV show, and then he'll book his side to win the argument. Within a couple of months a lot of the edge was taken off the storyline. Fans still wanted to believe in him as a rising force for change, but the product didn't reflect that. That dissonance came to a head at the 2014 Royal Rumble, which happened to be the day before Punk quit WWE.

In hindsight, Punk's departure had nothing to do with the fans' frustration with the Daniel Bryan vs. The Authority storyline. But at the time nobody knew what Punk's problem was, and neither side was talking. So the two issues sort of got blended together--Bryan's crusade against kayfabe management and Punk's beef with the real thing. I'm sure a lot of fans figured, if Bryan wasn't going to defeat the Authority at Wrestlemania, then Punk was the logical alternative, and WWE must've screwed that up too. Unless...maybe it was all a work, a storyline to make things seem hopless for Punk and Bryan before slamming them into key Wrestlemania matches.

The buildup to the March 3, 2014, episode of Raw was surreal. Stop me if you've heard this one: The show was booked in Chicago, weeks away from a big pay-per-view, and CM Punk wasn't advertised, but it felt like the perfect opportunity for him to make a surprise return, so the live crowd was ready to go apeshit if he didn't appear. When he didn't appear, I think fandom truly started to accept that he was gone for good. But the saga shambled on.

When it was clear Punk wouldn't be fighting for their cause in WWE, fans nevertheless clung to him as a symbol of resistance. The "CM Punk" chant became a potent and controversial tool for disruption. If you just boo at the show, WWE can play that off like you're mad at the bad guys, but if you chant the name of the guy that walked out on their bullshit, there's no good way for the company to spin that.

A lot of people came to hate the Punk chants, but here's the thing: They mainly happen during an absolute dogshit Raw segment. If you listen to your audience and keep them entertained, then they're easier to control, and it's less of an issue. WWE instead prefers to control the audience by telling the them how to be entertained and refusing to listen if they dissent; the Punk chant puts the lie to that approach.

Punk's next move outside of WWE was a huge topic in 2014. Again, fans wanted to believe he'd continue to fight for them somehow. Remember, this was back when Global Force and Lucha Underground had just been announced, and before Impact had gotten thrown off Spike TV. It felt like it wouldn't take much for a serious alternative to WWE to emerge, and give Punk a way to quit WWE without quitting wrestling.

Months of silence led to increasingly wild speculation. A friend of Punk's wrote an editorial about how fans were hanging around outside his home waiting for him to throw out the trash. I'm pretty sure I know what they wanted to ask when they met him. His appearance on Colt Cabana's podcast and his UFC run helped clear the air, but not enough. Fans never gave up trying to find out when he'd come back to save pro wrestling. Punk's comments on the matter were rare, and never seemed to be enough to get people to leave him alone about it. He'd gone from wrestling's Che Guevara to wrestling's JD Salinger.

The rise of NXT and the ROH/New Japan alliance in the mid-2010s seemed to almost be enough to distract fans from their CM Punk fantasies. But then in 2018 Cody Rhodes and the Young Bucks decided to run their own indie supercard, and picked Chicago as the location. You could almost hear the Punk in fans' heads saying, "At last, a non-WWE US show big enough to be worthy of my star power. This is what I have been waiting for!" Punk denied that he would be there; of course, to wrestling fans that just means he's swerving us and he will be there. And he wasn't there.

But this is the turning point in the story. I was at All In. I heard like one guy try to get a Punk chant going, more out of ironic self-awareness than anything. Nobody was into it. They'd have been glad to see Punk on the show, but they were there to see the Young Bucks, Kenny Omega, Cody Rhodes, Kazuchika Okada, Kota Ibushi, etc. That's probably when it hit me: Everyone had been waiting for Punk to lead the revolution, because they thought no one else could, but these guys had gone ahead and done it without him.

As All In led into AEW, speculation about Punk remained high. But then another funny thing happened, when Jon Moxley dramatically exited WWE in 2019. Moxley didn't immediately announce his future plans, and lots of people figured Moxley must be done with wrestling. The Punk saga had clearly taught fans to manage their expectations. Rumors about both Punk and Mox appearing at Double or Nothing were all over the place, but were generally dismissed as wishful thinking. Then, out of nowhere, Moxley ran in at the end of the show. Then he was announced for a run in New Japan. Fuck, I thought, who needs CM Punk?

And so, I've spent the past few years being over this whole thing. I'd given up trying to figure out CM Punk, or what it would take to bring him back to wrestling. I had a whole array of big names trying to play the part everyone wanted him to play, in a promotion that I thought would never exist without him. Let him enjoy his retirement, and I'll enjoy AEW. So of course he'd decide now is the time to come back. Allegedly.

I'm excited about the possibility of seeing Punk blow the roof off the United Center. It'd be fascinating to see some satisfying closure to this whole thing. And yet, I have no idea what CM Punk means to pro wrestling in 2021. What does "the voice of the voiceless" do in a company full of people listening to their audience? Will fans be into him when they realize he can't/won't be exactly like they remember him from seven years ago? At 42 years old, will he need to play a bitter old heel to stay relevant? How will fans respond when they realize this isn't the big comeback they always dreamed of?

It's those questions that are the real draw for me, regardless of whether The First Dance lives up to expectations. And it's strange to think that's the main attraction to Punk, as if we're talking about an Ultimate Warrior comeback or something. Seven years ago I just wanted him to return to wrestling so I could see him wrestle. Now I kinda just want to see if he looks totally different from the last time I saw his picture.

#aew #cm punk #the first dance

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coldflasher · 3 years

Text

Title: don’t threaten me with a good time Chapters: 1/1 Length: 7.7k Fandom: The Flash (TV 2014) Rating: Gen Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Minor/Background Relationships: Cisco Ramon/Kamilla Hwang, Barry Allen/Iris West Characters: Barry Allen, Cisco Ramon, Kamilla Hwang, Caitlin Snow, Killer Frost, Iris West, Leonard Snart, Original Male Characters Additional Tags: Alcohol, Drunken Shenanigans, Bisexual Barry Allen, The Flash 7x12 Good-bye Vibrations.

Kamilla leaned forwards to read the front page. “The Barry Allen Drunkenness Scale.” Bemused, she looked up. “What’s this? “This,” said Cisco, “is the result of a great deal of research and a number of hard-earned lessons.” He pulled up a chair and sat beside her, pulling the folder towards them. “There are eight stages of Drunk Barry, each one with a varying level of severity. It begins with stage one.”

Inspired by the Santiago Drunkenness Scale from Brooklyn-99. Team Flash are throwing a party to celebrate Kamilla and Cisco’s departure from Central City, and Kamilla wants to make sure they go out with a bang. But with great power comes great responsibility, and sometimes responsibility means making sure your friend doesn’t break the sound barrier by doing the worm at Mach 2.

Read on AO3

@dctvgen (i hope this is okay!! didn’t really use any prompts but i had this one saved up and seemed like a good time to post it, lmk it’s not suitable!!)

Life came at you fast. After seven years being besties with a speedster, working to save the world, Cisco knew that to be true in more ways than one. But apparently despite everything he’d seen, it still had the capacity to surprise on him.

One minute the thought of leaving Central City had been a vague, abstract thought – a ‘what-if’ or a ‘maybe’ he dwelled upon whenever yet another crisis announced itself with a shower of broken glass raining into his Vibeuccino, or when he’d compared the news in Central City, which was all doom and gloom and murderous metas, to somewhere nice and peaceful like Keystone, where the biggest news story of the day was some kid winning the national Spelling Bee Championship. Then the job offer came in, and Kamilla had tested the waters with wanting to leave – and now their stuff was all packed and in boxes, he had a start date at ARGUS, and what had been a daydream was now a very clear reality. He’d hung up the gloves, said a final goodbye to Vibe.

It was the other goodbyes that were going to be the hard part.

“It just feels weird, you know?” he said, pausing in the middle of hanging bunting from the corner of the cortex. “We’re saying goodbye to everyone we know. This has been my life for almost eight years now. Team Flash are my family. It feels weird to celebrate leaving all that behind.”

“Don’t think of it as a celebration of what we’re leaving behind,” said Kamilla, who was sat at the desk, partway through ordering pizza. “Think of it as a celebration of everything we’ve accomplished. Making friends and building inventions and saving the world! I know it’s difficult and change can be scary, but it doesn’t have to be. We’ve done amazing things, and I think it’s important to honour that.”

Cisco sighed as he successfully stuck the flags to the wall. He climbed down from the table he was stood on and joined her at the desk in his usual chair, pushing himself back and forth with his foot. “You’re right,” he said. “You’re always right. I’m not getting cold feet, I promise. I’m excited. We’re going to make this work. We’ve done amazing things, and we’re going to do even more. Together.”

Kamilla beamed. “That’s the spirit.” She held out her hand for a fist-bump.

Grinning, Cisco returned it. “You’re such a dork.”

“Which is exactly why you love me,” Kamilla countered, with a few final clicks and a flourish as she placed the pizza order. She consulted the list on her phone. “Okay, so we’ve got the cake, the decorations, the drinks, and the pizza is in transit. There’s just one more thing we need.”

She slid past him and made her way towards the small metallic fridge tucked away in the corner. Kamilla typed in the passcode 05-20-80 – the release date of The Empire Strikes Back – and the fridge unlocked with a clunk, revealing two test tube holders – one containing a single emergency vial of Velocity IX, and another that held eight tubes of liquid a few shades lighter than blood.

Cisco glanced over, bemused. “Babe, did you stash your Kraft beers in my security fridge? Because that seems a little excessive.”

Kamilla eased the second rack of tubes off the shelf like a tray of freshly baked cookies out of the oven. “No, I’m just getting a couple of vials of 500 proof for Barry. I didn’t want him to feel left out of the festivities.”

Cisco had met a lot of speedsters in his time, but in that moment he was pretty sure he moved faster than any of them as he sprinted across the room to intercept. Startled, Kamilla jerked back and the test tubes clinked together like champagne glasses mid-toast.

“Sorry, can we just back up a little bit – you’re what now?” said Cisco.

“I’m grabbing some drinks for Barry,” Kamilla repeated slowly. “This is his special speedster booze, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Cisco said nervously. “It is, but…”

“But…?” Kamilla prompted.

“Listen,” he said, hands up in a pacifying gesture. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, but that is a highly controlled substance and it’s really in everyone’s best interests if you put it back.”

Kamilla grew wide-eyed. “Why? Is it dangerous?”

“I mean, if any normal person drank it, it’d pretty much liquidize their insides, but that’s not the problem.”

As he spoke, Cisco headed over to the shelf on the wall, ran his fingers along the various binders tucked onto the shelf, and pulled one off. Cisco carried it over to the table, pushed aside the keyboard and laid the folder flat in front of her.

“The problem,” he said, flipping it open, “is this.”

Kamilla leaned forwards to read the front page. “The Barry Allen Drunkenness Scale.” Bemused, she looked up. “What’s this?”

“This,” said Cisco, “is the result of a great deal of research and a number of hard-earned lessons.” He picked up the metal test tube rack and returned it to the fridge, his fingers flying across the buttons to input the code before he slid the vials back into place. “It’s also the reason why this stuff doesn’t leave the lab except in dire emergencies, including but not limited to break-ups, deaths and severe metahuman disasters.” Decisively, he closed the fridge and it locked again with a clunk and a beep.

“I don’t understand.”

“That’s because you are fortunate enough to have never before encountered an inebriated Barry Allen,” said Cisco. “Let me walk you through it.” He pulled up a chair and sat beside her, pulling the folder towards them. “There are nine stages of Drunk Barry, each one with a varying level of severity. It starts with stage one.”

1 DRINK BARRY: A LITTLE CLINGY

One of Barry’s many wonderful qualities is his propensity for affection. Unimpeded by the bounds of modern-day toxic masculinity, 1 Drink Barry generously bestows physical affection on everyone he encounters. To put it plainly: he’s a hugger.

Standing outside Barry and Iris’ front door, Cisco checked his watch.

Usually at this time of night, he’d be hanging out in the cortex watching the red dot darting around on the monitor as Barry did a lap of the city, or in his lab tinkering with some new invention. Tonight, though, was different. They’d all agreed work was off-limits – time to take a hard-earned break. Cisco had been looking forward to it all week, but he guessed the rest of Team Flash didn’t share his enthusiasm, because they were late. That wasn’t like Caitlin at all. Shrugging, he lifted his hand to knock.

The click of heels made him turn just in time to see Caitlin bouncing up the stairs in her heels. “Hi, I’m here! Sorry I’m late; Frost and I couldn’t agree on an outfit.” She leaned in. “Did you bring the, uh…”

Cisco slid a silver flask out of his pocket slightly. “Sure did.”

“Then I guess we’re ready to go!”

“Damn right. …Ladies first?”

Caitlin knocked. They waited, listening to the rattle of six locks being unfastened one at a time, until the door opened to reveal Iris standing on the threshold wearing a tight red dress and a leather jacket.

Cisco whistled. “Damn. You look good.”

“You’re not so bad yourself,” said Iris as she stepped back from the door to allow them entry. “Barry will be down in a second, he got held up at work, so he’s a little behind –”

There was a whoosh and a crackle of lightning, and Barry skidded to a stop beside her with windswept hair and a grin. “Here! Hey, guys.”

“Oh. Famous last words.” Iris reached for her purse and swung it onto her shoulder. “Well I’m also running late, so I’d better get going. You guys have fun! And try to stay out of trouble, okay?”

“I’m afraid we can’t make any promises, cos everybody knows there ain’t no party like a Team Flash party!” said Cisco. “You sure you don’t wanna come with us? It’s gonna be one hell of a night.”

“Thank you, but I’m going out with a couple of the girls from CCPN tonight, so… rain check?”

“I’ll hold you to it,” Cisco warned.

“You’d better.” She rested her hand on Barry’s arm. “I’ll see you later, okay? I love you.”

“I love you too,” said Barry, and he leaned in for a kiss.

“Boo! Get a room!” Cisco hollered.

Iris rolled her eyes fondly. “Goodbye, Cisco,” she said, and headed out.

Cisco sighed. “And then there were three.” He looked from Barry to Caitlin and back again, stretching out on the sofa. “Okay, drinks!” He headed into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of wine in one hand and three glasses in the other.

“Uh, isn’t the drinking supposed to start after you leave the house?” asked Caitlin.

“Only if you’re an amateur! You always have a drink or two before going out on the town. It’s financially savvy.”

“Thanks, but I’ll pass,” said Barry when Cisco offered him a glass. “No use wasting perfectly good alcohol when it doesn’t even touch the sides.”

“That,” said Cisco, “is why you’ll be drinking this.” He pulled out a silver flask from inside the breast pocket of his blazer. “I call it 500 Proof 2,” he said, and held it dramatically aloft like Frodo holding the one ring.

Caitlin wrinkled her nose. “Really?” she said.

“The name’s a work in progress,” he admitted. “But the drink itself…” He kissed the flask. “She’s ready to go.”

Barry eyed the flask warily. “I don’t know…”

“Oh, come on, you’ve earned it. The city can manage without the Flash for one night. Go on, live a little.” When Barry continued to look skeptical, Cisco started to chant. “Barry, Barry, Barry–”

Grinning, Caitlin joined in. Barry endured it for all of thirty seconds before he rolled his eyes and snatched the flask. Caitlin and Cisco both cheered.

“That’s what I’m talking about!” said Cisco.

He splashed wine into his and Caitlin’s glasses, and passed one to her. She took it with a twinkle in her eye.

“All right, Team Flash!” Cisco whooped, and they clinked their glasses against Barry’s flask before they all drank.

Barry pulled a face. “Jesus! That’s – that’s potent.” He coughed, eyes watering.

“You’re welcome,” said Cisco. “We made a couple of tweaks to the formula. It should stay in your system longer instead of just burning off in thirty seconds flat like the first batch.”

“It tastes like rocket fuel!”

“Don’t worry about it. It’ll put some hairs on your chest,” Cisco said dismissively.

“You can say that again,” muttered Barry, massaging his chest.

“Speaking of hairs on your chest,” said Caitlin, curling up comfortably in her seat. “Did they grow back yet?”

“Not entirely,” admitted Barry. “It’s sort of a peach fuzz.”

“That’ll teach you not to get so close to my experiments,” said Cisco.

“Maybe it’ll teach you to label them better,” said Caitlin.

“Really? Don’t do me like that!”

“Sorry, it’s true.”

This triggered a bout of good-natured bickering as they debated the results of some of Cisco’s more disastrous experiments. Before long they were all laughing, loosened up by the drinks. Barry, who was perched on the arm of Caitlin’s chair, leaned against her.

“I love you guys, you know that?”

“We love you too, Barr – ooof! Oh. Okay,” said Caitlin, bewildered. Barry had slid off the arm of the chair and squeezed up next to her, taking up half the chair like a Great Dane still trying to sit in its owner’s lap.

“Look at him, he’s getting tipsy already,” Cisco teased.

“Shhh.” Barry rested his head contentedly on Caitlin’s shoulder. Amused, she patted his knee.

Cisco downed the rest of his drink. “All right, let’s get this show on the road.”

He offered Caitlin his hand – only to have Barry grab it instead. Then he grabbed Caitlin’s hand too.

“Oh, we’re holding hands?” said Cisco. “Is that a thing we do now?”

“It is when we’re running,” Barry said, grinning.

Caitlin’s eyes widened. “Oh. No, no, no runni–”

The rest of her sentence was lost to the wind.

2 DRINK BARRY: KINDA CLUMSY

When Barry became a speedster, he gained a massive boost in motor functions, including enhanced reflexes that have massively improved his coordination. Prior to this transformation, his ability to walk unhindered across a flat surface was roughly equal to that of Bella Swan from Twilight. Two-Drink Barry is harmless, but he must be kept at a safe distance from breakable objects.

Okay, so travelling at super speed sucked – Cisco would stick to breaches from now on, than you very much – but he had to admit it had its advantages. They’d beaten the evening rush by minutes and found themselves a table, where they had been comfortably situated for the past half hour. Since then the bar had filled rapidly, and now they were surrounded by people. Glasses clinked, bodies gyrated. All around them was laughter and the throb of music; he could feel the buzz of the bass against his elbows where they rested on the table.

“This is nice, isn’t it?” asked Caitlin. “No monsters, no metahumans… just the three of us having a few quiet drinks.”

“Don’t jinx it,” Cisco said darkly. “Also, I don’t know that the ‘drinks’ part is entirely accurate. The fastest man alive is about to lose his title. Where the hell is he?” Barry had offered to get the next round, but that was ten minutes ago and they hadn’t seen him since. Frowning, Cisco and scanned the room.

Just as he had started to get concerned, the crowd parted and Barry appeared with three glasses in his hands.

“It’s about time! What took you?”

“I’m so sorry,” said Barry. “I got held up at the bar, there was a huge li–”

Whatever he’d been about to say next was cut off as he abruptly tripped over his own feet.

All three drinks spilled everywhere. Lightning flickered as he lurched forwards to try and intercept, and he managed to right the glasses, but not before the majority of their contents had ended up all over the table.

Cisco’s plastic cup floated across the tabletop in a puddle of dismally fizzing coke, which dripped steadily into his lap. Caitlin looked down at her soaked sweater, hands held up in shock. Her eyes flared white.

“This,” snarled Frost, “is a cashmere sweater.”

Barry’s eyes were wide. “Oh my God, guys, I am so sorry.”

With a jerk of her head, Caitlin regained control. “It’s fine,” she said, then winced, presumably in response to whatever Frost snarled in the back of her head. “Really. It happens to the best of us.” She pulled the sopping wet fabric away from her with a grimace. “Um… does anyone have a tissue?”

“Let me get some paper towels!” said Barry.

Cisco reached out to stop him. “Actually, Barr, maybe you should –”

But it was too late: Barry had already turned around and crashed into a guy going in the opposite direction, who slopped beer all over himself. Cisco winced sympathetically.

“I’m sorry!” Barry said, while the guy glared and shook his wet hands.

“Maybe you should take a seat,” said Cisco.

Still apologising profusely, Barry sank onto his stool and shrank in on himself, nursing what was left of his drink while Caitlin went to get something to clear up the mess.

“So I guess those adjustments we made to the 500 proof are working, huh?” Cisco said with a smirk.

“Oh, they’re working,” said Barry. “Speaking of which, can I get a top-up?”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Caitlin asked, returning with a wad of paper towels. She started to mop up the table.

“What? Oh, yeah, I’m fine. I’m not even buzzed, seriously. Tipsy at best. Come on, hit me.” He waved at his drink.

Cisco and Caitlin exchanged looks. There was a slight flush to Barry’s cheeks, and his eyes were a little brighter than usual, but other than that he seemed stable.

“I have wanted to study how the speedforce interacts with alcohol,” Caitlin admitted. “Metabolic processes aside, I am interested to measure the effects.”

“What the hell,” Cisco said. He unscrewed the cap of the flask and tipped it in to Barry’s glass, pouring a generous measure. “Knock yourself out.”

Barry beamed and picked up his drink. “Cheers,” he said, and they all clinked their half empty glasses.

Three Drink Barry: Barry Dance-Pants

This Barry is able to flawlessly replicate the choreography for every single Britney Spears music video unprompted. So far we have been unable to determine where he acquired this information.

They all agreed that it was best if Cisco got the next round. He didn’t retrieve the next lot of drinks any faster than Barry had – if anything, he was slower; people kept shoving in front of him every time he got close to the bar – but at least the glasses stayed upright this time. When he returned to the table, though, Caitlin was alone.

“Where’d Barry go?”

Caitlin frowned. “I thought he was with you.”

“Nope.” He passed her drink over to her.

Caitlin worried at her lower lip.

“Hey, don’t stress,” said Cisco. “Barry’s a big boy, he can take care of himself.”

“I don’t know. He’s been gone a while, and he wasn’t exactly steady on his feet. He might hurt himself.”

“Good thing we have a doctor on call,” said Cisco, sipping his drink.

“That’s not funny. Seriously, I’m worried about him. I’m not sure he should be left unsupervised.”

She had a point. Speed and immense clumsiness wasn’t a great combination – they’d learned that the hard way. Cisco downed the rest of his drink with a grimace. “All right, let’s go look for him.”

They got up and headed out onto the dancefloor. The music was so loud that the entire room vibrated, Britney Spears’ Womanizer throbbing through the room. Caitlin pulled back and made a face as she almost inhaled a mouthful of some stranger’s coarse blonde hair. She batted it away like cobwebs.

“Ugh. Remind me why we decided to come out on the busiest night of the week?”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” muttered Cisco, craning his neck. “Man, I can’t see him anywhere. It’s like playing Where’s Wally? Hey – hey, excuse me! Can I just squeeze – guys?” He attempted to slide past a knot of people, only to give up with a frustrated sigh. “Jesus, it’s like talking to a brick wall. What the hell are they looking at?”

Caitlin stood on her toes. “It looks like...” She stopped. “Oh, no.”

“What?”

She grabbed his arm and steered him through the crowd, using him as a battering ram to force her way through. Eventually, breathless and sweaty, they made it to the outskirts of the dancefloor, where Cisco finally got a good look at exactly what had captivated everyone’s attention.

Barry was in the middle of the dancefloor, tearing it up. He strutted up and down, squatted and slut-dropped before he arched his back and pumped his hips forward in several lewd thrusts. The crowd cheered.

“Oh my God,” said Caitlin.

“He is killing it!” Cisco cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Yes, Barry!”

Barry winked and blew a kiss, rolling over to air-hump the ground with an alarming level of enthusiasm.

“Should we maybe go over there?” asked Caitlin.

“In a second,” said Cisco. He held his phone up, pressed record and zoomed in on Barry’s gyrating body, careful to keep his face in shot. “I wanna get this for posterity’s sake.”

“Cisco!” Caitlin scolded, and reached out to cover the camera.

Cisco jerked the phone out of reach. “You are aware that his ringtone for you is still thirty seconds of you butchering Summer Lovin’?”

Caitlin pursed her lips. “On second thoughts,” she said. “I hope you’re getting this in HD.”

Cisco grinned and went back to recording.

“Okay, that’s a little embarrassing,” Kamilla conceded.

“That? That was iconic,” corrected Cisco. “The man has moves. I swear he was a professional dancer in another life. I still have that video; I’ll show you later if you ask me nicely…”

“I’ll hold you to it. But none of this explains why this stuff has to be so rigorously controlled. I mean, being clumsy, affectionate, kinda sloppy, tearing it up on the dancefloor… that sounds like pretty standard drunk behaviour.”

“The first three drinks aren’t the problem,” Cisco said darkly. “It’s what comes after that you have to worry about. See, drunk Barry is insatiable. One drink is never enough. Once he’s had a taste of that sweet, sweet 500 proof concentrated speedster juice, he won’t rest until he’s had more. And while he may be an icon, three-drink Barry soon gives way to…”

FOUR-DRINK BARRY: LOUD BARRY.

Barry Allen is a hero in every sense of the word. Time and time again he has sacrificed everything for the noble goal of making the world a better place. Barry doesn't save lives for the glory or the recognition; he does it because it's the right thing to do. But four-drink Barry… he thinks a little recognition might be nice.

The final chords of Womanizer faded out into a sea of applause. Beaming from ear to ear, Barry took a series of bows, flapping his hand as if to say, ‘oh, stop it!’ After a few more moments of thoroughly enjoying the spotlight, he disengaged from his loving admirers and headed back towards Cisco and Caitlin and slid breathlessly back into the booth. His sweaty hair stuck to his forehead.

“Where did that come from?” Cisco asked, impressed.

Barry shrugged. “I’m full of surprises.”

“Clearly. I think you just earned yourself another drink!”

Cisco handed him the flask, and Barry clinked it cheerfully against Cisco’s beer bottle before he tipped it back and swallowed with a grimace. His eyes watered.

“Damn. That never goes down any easier.”

“Well it is just concentrated alcohol,” Caitlin reminded him. “Speaking of which…” She pulled her testing kit out of her purse. “Four drinks should be more than enough to start showing some side-effects. Let me take a quick blood sample.” Before Barry could object, she stabbed a lancet into his finger.

“Ow!” Barry put his finger in his mouth and sucked on it.

“Everything okay there?”

They all turned. A blond man in a grey t-shirt stood a short distance away, looking at them in concern.

“What? Oh, yeah, I’m good. Just hurt my finger.” He held it up ruefully.

Blondie moved closer. “Well it’s your lucky night: I’m a nurse. Why don’t you let me take a look?”

Cisco plastered on a smile. “That’s real nice of you, but our friend here is actually a doctor, so –”

Barry held out his hand, overriding Cisco’s objections. Blondie took it and examined it, tracing his palm with the tip of his finger. Cisco rolled his eyes hard and took another swallow of his drink.

“I was just watching you out on the dancefloor,” Blondie said. “Those were some impressive moves.”

“Oh, it was nothing,” Barry said modestly.

“No, it was definitely something. If I busted out a routine like that I’d be laid up for a week. What’s your secret?”

“Funny you should say that, cos…” Barry leaned in and said impishly, “I’m actually the Flash.”

Cisco choked on his drink. It went straight up his nose; his sinuses were on fire. He coughed hard, eyes watering.

“Are you okay, man?” the stranger asked concernedly.

“Great,” Cisco managed.

Satisfied, Blondie’s attention returned to Barry. “Well, I think your finger’s okay.” His thumb pressed against the inside of Barry’s wrist and his forehead creased slightly. “Your pulse is pretty fast, though.”

“Is it?” Barry said, resting his chin on his hand. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Caitlin rolled her eyes.

Blondie released him, but he showed no signs of leaving. He looked Barry appraisingly up and down. “So you’re the Flash, huh?”

“Yep,” Barry said. His eyes twinkled. “Fastest man alive.”

“Mm. Maybe we’ll have to test that.”

At this point, Cisco decided, enough was enough. He slapped Barry on the back hard enough to make him stagger and complain, “Ow!”

“Ha!” he said. “This guy. He’s a kidder, right? A real riot. Hey, uh, Barry, can I talk to you for a second?”

Before Barry could object, Cisco had grabbed him by the back of the shirt and pulled him out of the main bar area into the corridor, where there was a line of people waiting for the bathroom. Out here it was cooler and while he could still feel the throb of the music through the sticky soles of his sneakers, at least he could hear himself think.

“Dude,” he said. “Seriously? What the hell?”

“Oh, come on. It’s just a little harmless flirting. Iris and I, we have an agreement–”

“I’m not talking about the flirting! You can’t just –” Cisco stopped and made himself take a very deep breath before he lowered his voice. “You can’t just tell people you’re the freaking Flash!”

Barry gave a slow, confused blink. “But I am the Flash.”

He didn’t say it quietly. Several heads turned their way.

Cisco gave an uncomfortable laugh and rolled his eyes, before darting them at Barry like, ‘this guy, am I right?’ After a moment, the bystanders lost interest and went back to their conversation, and Cisco lowered his voice. “I know that, Barry, but it’s a secret, remember?”

“A secret?” Barry’s eyes widened and he clapped his hands over his mouth. “Oh! Right, I forgot. I’m sorry.”

“You know what? It’s all good. Just a little misunderstanding. But uh, let’s keep that one under wraps from now on, okay? Lips…” He mimed zipping up his mouth.

Barry nodded dutifully. “Got it.”

“Okay.” Cisco exhaled heavily. Jesus. Babysitting a drunken speedster was hard work.

Barry patted him on the shoulder. “M’gonna go to the bathroom. I’ll be back in…” He held up two fingers. “Two seconds.”

“You’d better be. And remember –” He made the zipping motion again.

Barry imitated it, pretending to lock his mouth up and tossed away the imaginary key. Then he went to join the queue.

Feeling like he’d just aged a decade, Cisco made his way back to their booth. Mercifully, Blondie had gone to chat up some twink at the bar. Cisco sank back onto his stool and buried his head in his hands.

Caitlin, who was squeezing a few droplets of Barry’s blood onto a testing strip, made a sympathetic sound. “Not having a good time, huh?”

“I’d be having a great time if Black Canary over there could quit singing about his secret identity for five freaking minutes.” Cisco snatched the silver flask off the table and screwed the cap back on with a sharp twist. “We’re cutting him off right now, before we get into any more trouble.”

“Oh, come on, cut him a little slack. He doesn’t exactly get to let loose very often.”

“There’s letting loose and then there’s whatever the hell this is.” Cisco shook his head. “It’s like –”

A high-pitched shriek cut him off, and Cisco grimaced as it rang throughout the room. Everyone turned to the source of the commotion – and Cisco’s heart sank. Barry stood on the stage, fumbling with the microphone stand.

“Is this thing on?”

“Oh God,” said Caitlin.

Cisco launched himself at the stage, fighting through the crowd. As he did, Barry continued to ramble into the mic.

“Hi. My name’s Barry, Barry Allen, and I just wanted to say something real quick. Because I love this city. It’s like… my favourite city. And I love all of you. Especially you.” He pointed unsteadily at someone in the crowd and gave a clumsy wink. “Anyway, I’m gonna tell you a secret while I’m here. You guys can keep a secret, right? Shhh!” He put his fingers on his lips. “See, I’m not supposed to tell you this, but…” He leaned in so close that his lips brushed against the mic. “I’m the Fla –”

Just in time, Cisco jerked the mic away from him. “Flaaa–ha! Okay, that’s quite enough of that. I think my buddy here needs some air. Come on, Barry, let’s go.”

Luckily, Barry didn’t resist. He whooshed cheerfully as Cisco shunted him back to their booth and into his seat, then lolled sideways against Caitlin, who – with reflexes well-honed from constantly grabbing flying paperwork – managed to save her testing kit from being swept off the table.

Barry giggled. “I’m fast,” he said.

“Okay,” Cisco said resignedly. He turned to Caitlin. “Got any better ideas?”

She shrugged. “Pray that six-drink Barry is a little more tight-lipped?”

It sounded like a terrible idea. But when had that ever stopped them? With a shake of his head, Cisco withdrew the flask from his pocket.

“Hold on.” Caitlin’s voice had dropped an octave, and silver began to creep down from the roots of her hair. “I wanna see this,” said Frost. “It’s gonna be a total shitshow.”

Unfortunately, Cisco suspected she was right. He splashed more alcohol into Barry’s glass. “Here you go, big guy. Drink up.”

Barry looked down at his drink and frowned. “Can I get ice in this?”

Frost passed her hand over the glass and a chunk of ice dropped to the bottom with a clink.

“Awesome,” Barry said, and downed it.

“Oh God,” said Cisco. “We are so gonna regret this.”

“Okay,” said Kamilla, looking up from the binder. “I think I’m kinda starting to see the problem. But we won’t have that issue tonight. Everyone at this party knows Barry’s the Flash.”

“Listen,” said Cisco. “Four-drink Flash is a cake-walk. The worst is yet to come.” He flipped the page. “Let me introduce you to five-drink Flash.”

5 DRINK BARRY: THERAPIST BARRY

Five-drink Barry got a little too invested in Iris’ Intro to Psychology textbook in college. He’s all heart, zero clinical training.

Leonard Snart lay back on his bunk in Iron Heights, one leg resting lazily over the other, flipping through a nudie magazine. At least, that was how it appeared from outside the cell. Tucked between the pages was a blueprint of the prison, which his sister had smuggled in during her last visit. The bed creaked as he shifted his weight.

One of the guards struck the bars with his baton. Len glanced up.

“Snart. Get your ass out here. We’ve got a phone call for you.”

“Who from?” Lisa didn’t usually call so soon after a visit, and Mick never called at all; the signal on the Waverider was terrible.

“What do you think I am, your PA? Just get your ass out here.”

Interest well and truly piqued, Len tossed his magazine aside, careful to make sure the blueprint stayed safely tucked between his pages as he crossed the cell and waited for the door to be unlocked. Given his status as a high security prisoner, the guard cuffed him before leading him to the payphone booth in the reception area, the walls marked with grease stains and graffiti. With some difficulty, Len picked up the phone.

“Hello, this is Leonard Snart speaking. How may I be of service?”

The quality of the call wasn’t great. He could hear the throb of music, people talking and shrieking and laughing in the background.

Then a familiar voice said, “Snart? Is that you?”

Len’s forehead creased. “Barry?”

“Shmart. Snart.” Barry cleared his throat. “Hi. Are you okay?”

“…Peachy.” Len flicked a glance over his shoulder. The two prison guards stood watching him with folded arms and distinctly unimpressed expressions. “Can I ask if this is a business or a personal call? Because this isn’t exactly a secure line.”

“I just –” A loud, deep burp echoed down the line. “Wanted to check in n’ make sure you’re doin’ okay.”

“What?”

“Because I wanted you to know,” Barry said, his voice thick and indistinct, “that it’s okay not to be okay, you know? You shouldn’t bottle up your emotions. You gotta let ‘em out, you know? After everything you’ve been through with Lewis, I just wanted you to know that if you ever needed to talk…” He choked up, before recovering. “I’ll be here.”

“Barry, are you drunk?” Len said incredulously.

“See, there you go again, changing the subject. Have you ever noticed that you often use de… def… deflection as a way to avoid talking about difficult subjects?”

“I’m hanging up now,” said Len.

“No, no, no, no, wait! Wait!” Barry said urgently. “You need to talk about what bothers you. Don’t just bottle it up. Your emotions are a beautiful thing. Emotions are what make us–”

“Barry?” came another muffled voice on the other end of the line. “Who are you talking to?”

“No one,” Barry said immediately.

“Barry, give me the phone.”

“No.”

“Just give me the god damn –”

The sound of static and scuffles crackled down the line, and Len grimaced, lifting his head as far away from the speaker as he could to keep from being deafened. Over the commotion and the continued music blasting in the background, he could hear Barry shouting.

“You can be anything you want to be! Your past does not define you!”

“Okay,” said Len, and went to put the phone down.

“Wait!” said Barry. “Before you go, do you have a number for King Shark? Because I wanted to check in and make sure he’s doing okay. I know he looks scary, but underneath that slimy exterior he has the heart of a –”

Len rolled his eyes and hung up.

Sober Barry was a seasoned fighter, with speed, agility and hard-won experience on his side. Fortunately for Cisco, however, Drunk Barry’s combat skills comprised of slapping and some half-hearted attempts to bite, which meant that he was able to wrestle the phone away from him fairly easily. As he hung up, he glanced at the caller ID and blanched.

“Seriously? You’re making phone calls to Iron Heights? Are you gonna tell all the bad guys your secret identity too?” He held Barry’s phone up. “You know what? I’m keeping this; you clearly can’t be trusted.”

“My phone!” Barry said, and made a pathetic grab for it.

“Nope. Not happening, pal.” Cisco tucked it into his back pocket.

Barry pouted.

“Hey, don’t give me that look. I’m going to give it back later, I promise. I just need you to sober up first.”

“Okay,” Barry said sorrowfully. His bottom lip started to tremble.

“Oh, no,” Cisco said. “Not the lip – oh God, Barr, you’re breaking my heart here.”

“What’s happening?” asked Frost, returning to the table with two more beers, frost creeping down the side of the bottles. She gave a disinterested look at Barry, who was staring at the table with tears brimming in his eyes. He sniffed hard.

“Uh-oh,” said Cisco. “Six-drink Barry must be…”

SIX-DRINK BARRY: SAD BARRY

Shortly after his fifth drink, Barry loses his well-honed ability to repress and crumbles under the weight of well over a decade of trauma. In times of crisis, he can be medicated with chicken wings or, in a pinch, large servings of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.

Cisco turned to Frost for help, but she inched away, rapidly shaking her head. Great, thought Cisco. Super helpful. He rubbed Barry’s back tentatively.

“Hey, Barry. You doing okay there, bud?”

Barry looked up. “I just got off the phone with Snart. He’s having a really hard time, you know? I mean, some people just can’t catch a break. He had a crappy abusive drunk for a father; he practically raised his sister. In and out of juvie, never graduated high school – and in spite of all of that, he comes up with these brilliant heists – like seriously impressive – and then the Flash comes in and totally ruins every single one of them. I mean, come on. The guy’s gotta make a living somehow, am I right?”

“Uh,” said Cisco.

“I always said to him, you can do better.” He poked Cisco clumsily in the chest to emphasize each word. “You have what it takes to be a hero. So the guy joins the Legends, becomes a hero, and then he freaking dies in an explosion. Kaboom! And then he comes back, returns to Central City to start over, robs one lousy bank and gets thrown straight back in prison. How is that fair?”

“Jail time seems like a fairly reasonable consequence for grand larceny,” said Frost.

“It’s just a bad habit,” Barry said forlornly. “He deserves help and compassion, not a prison cell. Do you know what it’s like in Iron Heights? The food is terrible. My Dad spend a decade in there and he always said…”

He trailed off. For a moment Cisco thought he’d gone into a trance, as he stared down at the table, forehead slightly creased. Then he saw the haunted look in Barry’s eyes. The face of a man who had seen terrible things.

They needed a distraction. Luckily, Cisco had just the thing. “You know what?” he said. “Maybe the food in prison isn’t great, but you know what’s awesome? The food you can get delivered right here. Nice, starchy, alcohol-absorbing food. Let’s look at a take-out menu and see what we’ve got.” He pulled up JustEat on his phone. “We could get you a pizza… maybe some fries… a couple of burgers; that sounds–”

“Chicken wings,” Barry said distantly.

They both turned to look at him.

“Chicken wings?” said Frost sceptically.

“Chicken wings,” Barry insisted.

“Okay!” said Cisco. “We’ll get chicken wings.” He added one portion to the basket. Then took another look at Barry’s face and hit the plus button several times. “Lots… and lots… of chicken wings.” He locked the phone. “Okay, food should be with us in a couple of minutes. So what now?”

“More drinks!” Barry said.

“No! No more –”

It was too late; there was a crackle of lightning and then the flask slammed back down onto the tabletop.

Cisco closed his eyes in defeat.

8 Drink Barry is a Michelin-star chef

Sober Barry’s cooking is average at best, but 8 drink Barry reveals a deep inner passion for the culinary arts.

It was a little past two am when a breach opened at the top of the stairwell, pulsing and flickering with pale blue light. Frost and Cisco staggered out of it, each holding one of Barry’s arms to keep him from escaping.

“Okay, almost there,” said Cisco. “You’re doing a great job. Can you let us in?”

Barry patted himself clumsily down until he found his keys and tried to open the first lock. He kept missing the keyhole. After his third attempt, Barry sighed and collapsed forwards, head resting against the wood panelling. Then he started vibrating.

Cisco suddenly realised what he was trying to do. “No, no wait, don’t–”

There was a buzzing sensation, a sickening lurch, and then all three of them fell straight through the front door.

Frost gave a full-body shudder and released her hold on Barry’s shirt to rub her arms.

“Never do that again! It makes my skin crawl.”

“I feel like we should have a rule about phasing under the influence,” Cisco muttered.

Together, they managed to get Barry onto the couch, where he lay blinking up at them, floppy as a rag doll, barbecue sauce smeared down his chin. More of the wings had ended up on his face than in his mouth, but Cisco hoped the restorative properties would kick in soon.

“Hey, Sad Flash. How’re you holding up?”

“I’m hungry,” Barry said. He clawed his way to a standing position. “Gonna make food.” Yellow light blazed as he sprinted into the kitchen.

Frost turned to Cisco. “He’s still hungry? He had like, eight servings of chicken wings!”

“Just go with it,” Cisco muttered, and then the alarming sounds of crashes and bangs came from the kitchen. “Barry? Do you need some help in there?”

Lightning crackled erratically as Barry sped around the room. Within seconds, every available surface was strewn with culinary equipment: a chopping board; a stained knife; various ingredients. A knife flashed as he rapidly diced an onion and swept it into the pan too fast for the eye to follow, and then the burner came on with a click and a whoosh. Oil sizzled as Barry dropped a steak into the pan. He grabbed a wine bottle off the side, yanked the cork out with his teeth and spat it across the room; it missed Frost by inches, and she recoiled in disgust. Barry sniffed the wine, and after a moment of consideration, he sloshed a generous amount into the pan. Flames leapt skyward, and Barry expertly tamped them down.

“Uh… what are you doing?” said Cisco.

Barry flipped the steak with a flick of his wrist. “Cooking.”

“Yeah, I can see that, but I thought you were going to make pasta, or fries, you know – normal drunk people food, not –” Cisco inhaled. “What even is that?”

“Braised steak in a red wine sauce, with asparagus on the side,” Barry said.

“…Right,” said Cisco. “Sorry I asked.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” said Kamilla.

“It isn’t,” said Cisco. “It’s goddamn awesome. The problem with 8-Drink Barry is that hot on his heels is –”

9 DRINK BARRY – SLEEPY BARRY.

On the night the particle accelerator exploded, Barry went into a coma and remained unconscious for nine months. During that time, his score on the Glasgow Coma Scale was a 5. Rumour has it that nine-drink Barry scored even lower than that.

“This is the worst night out I’ve ever been on in my life, and I share a body with Caitlin. Her idea of fun is wearing hideous pyjamas and watching documentaries on Hulu,” Frost hissed.

They stood on the doorstep laden with plastic bags while Cisco searched through the assortment of keys Barry had given him, trying to find the one for the first lock. “Look,” he said, inserting one into the lock with a crunch, “I know it hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing, but hopefully he’ll have got the rest of it out of his system while we were out breaching to every grocery store in the city.”

“Right, because Gordon Ramsay in there had to have…” Frost slid the bottle of wine out of the grocery bag. “Whatever the hell this is. Chateau Belair Mona–whatever. As if a hundred-and-fifty-dollar bottle is going to taste any different than the fifteen-dollar fifty bottle from the liquor store.” She rolled her eyes. “What the hell is he even going to do with it?”

“To be honest, as long as he doesn’t drink it I could care less what he does with it. Just keep him distracted for long enough to get some more food inside of him and make sure any breakable objects are out of reach before he gets down to the two-drink level.” He shook the keys in frustration. “Jesus, how many keys do they have?”

“I still don’t see why we had to–” Frost paused and narrowed her eyes. She sniffed sharply. “Is something burning?”

They looked down. Thick grey smoke billowed out from underneath the kitchen door.

Seconds later, the door burst off its hinges in a cloud of icy fog.

Inside the loft was total chaos. Barry slumped at the kitchen table, dead to the world, his hand still loosely clasped around the flask of speedster booze. A small puddle of drool on the table shone in the firelight. Behind him, his frying pan lay abandoned on the range, smoking violently while flames leapt towards the ceiling.

The piercing shriek of the smoke alarm tore through the room. Frost blasted the frying pan with a thick stream of ice and cold energy crackled from her palms, barely making a difference in the temperature of the room. Cisco grabbed a damp tea towel off the side and beat at the flames, trying frantically to extinguish the blaze. Behind them, Barry didn’t so much as twitch, his snores drowned out by the alarm.

“Okay, I think I get the gist,” said Kamilla, looking up from the folder. “No-booze Barry is the way to go.” She hesitated. “But just out of morbid curiosity, what about nine-drink Barry?”

“Unchartered territory,” Cisco said darkly. “We figured eight drinks was enough.” He closed the folder conclusively. “So yeah, it sucks that Barry can’t drink with us, but with great power comes great responsibility. And sometimes responsibility means making sure your friend doesn’t accidentally break the sound barrier by doing the worm at Mach 2.”

Cisco went to slide the folder back onto the shelf. As he did so, his gaze caught a framed photo on the countertop. He paused and picked it up, smiling sadly. It was a picture of himself, Caitlin, Barry and Thawne – or Wells, as they’d believed back then – from the early days. They all looked so young, grinning at the camera, hair tousled where Barry had sped out from behind the phone before the shutter clicked. His chest ached.

Kamilla put a hand on his arm. “You’re going to miss them, aren’t you?”

“Always.” He put the photo down. “But we gotta keep moving forward. Speaking of which, it is beyond uncool to be late to your own party, so we’d better get shaking.” He held out his arm. “Ready?”

“You go,” said Kamilla. “I just have a few last-minute things to take care of. I’ll catch up.”

“Okay.” Cisco kissed her on the cheek and slipped out of the room.

Kamilla glanced over her shoulder, bit her lower lip. Then her gaze slid over to the fridge.

Tiptoeing across the room, she approached the container and input the code again. Her hair tossed as she glanced over her shoulder to make sure that no one was watching. Then she slid out a single blood red vial and tucked it into her purse.

Just in case.

#DCTVGenPrideMonth #the flash fanfiction #my fics

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mittensmorgul · 3 years

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Can’t everyone use tumblr how they want?

YES!

This site is exactly what people make of it for themselves. That was the exact point of that post. The fact that people reacted negatively to it at all proves my point. Seriously.

I have a number of other anons that are clearly from people who don't actually follow me, and are only here in a reactionary fashion having seen it on someone else's reblog, or else heard about it in passing and decided the best reaction to an ultimately harmless and rather bumbling post was to take personal offense and bring anonymous hate to a stranger on the internet. (and at least one not-anonymous "go kill yourself" type comment on the post itself)

THAT was the point of making that post.

For people who might be new to this fandom or new to tumblr in general (or even for people who have been here for years), your experience here is exactly what you make of it. I haven't seen that sort of vitriolic kneejerk reaction to anything I've written or posted in years. That post touched nerves. So it was a bit of an experiment, and I'm sorry to everyone who experienced any of that negativity second-hand. NOBODY should be made to feel like shit when engaging with something that is supposed to be fun. But I've learned over the years that that's exactly what some people consider fun.

There are new people to this fandom since the absolute free for all of the weeks after November 5th. We all reveled in those weeks before the show collapsed in on itself two weeks later. It was like 15 years worth of Hiatus Blogging followed by... well... some of the worst genuine hurt and disillusionment I've ever experienced or witnessed inflicted on a fandom by a piece of media.

There have to be at least a few people who floated into this fandom during that emotional roller coaster who want to make sense of it all, who were at least curious enough about how a show could've brought the characters to that emotional moment in 15.18 before effectively ignoring it all and burning the entire 15 year narrative to nothing just two episodes later.

Some folks stuck around to dig through the ashes of fandom in search of carrion, and that's fine. Some have zero desire to ever engage with the show or the fandom beyond mocking it for ever having existed at all, and that is also fine! But some folks? They might be wondering why anyone ever saw anything in this narrative to begin with, and they might be interested in knowing that there is this vast collection of information available to them (funny that none of my self-righteous anons even mentioned those, outside of one pointing out that my phrasing introducing that section of links was easily interpreted as condescending... which... yeah... again that was the point, and no I will not edit that language. none of us are free from sin).

Tumblr hasn't "changed." It was always this way. This site is not a monolith. Fandom is not a monolith. Even smaller groups within fandom aren't monoliths. Things that are considered "tumblr standard etiquette" do not exist across this entire website. And even within the supernatural fandom, and even within the tumblr-destiel-portion of the fandom there aren't "rules" dictating how you interact with anyone. Well, the one specific rule we should all be able to agree on is that you don't bring hate to real actual human beings, and yet...

There has ALWAYS been the option to engage with fandom here on whatever level an individual chooses. And that hasn't really changed since the finale aired. Anyone who thinks that Tumblr or the fandom has "evolved" or "changed" has likely just fallen in with a different fandom bubble then they'd existed within before. None of the bubbles have actually popped or disappeared. But which one you experience is entirely your own choice. You curate your experience here.

That was the point, illustrated by the vast array of comments I actually got on that post, structured with a little bit of everything including "tumblr mom from 2014." Everything pisses some people off, you know? Even the perception that some stranger on the internet might dare to lay down an arbitrary "rule" that zero people actually have to follow. See what I mean?

Because if any of the people who kneejerked at it actually followed me, or knew me at all, they wouldn't have kneejerked. They would've seen the point.

So your experience is what you make of it here. There are resources for people actually interested in engaging with the narrative or the fandom or the history of it. People mock "tumblr moms" or "fandom moms" all the time, but there wouldn't ~be~ a fandom without the people who actually build those resources. I.e. adults with the time, money, and personal investment in actually sustaining the fandom, instead of running around with torches trying to burn it down at every new whiff of perceived ~drama~ to latch on to.

For example, all of the scripts we've been acquiring and sharing with the entire fandom free of charge. I know that the fandom bubbles who seize on those scripts like hungry vultures to cough back up out of context "gotcha" posts postulating whatever theory of the differences between script and screen will dredge up the most drama or outrage in their fandom bubble... they haven't even considered how those scripts were acquired and made available to them. To them, they are "leaks." They are gifts that fell out of the sky and landed in their laps. There isn't even the barest curiosity about their origins or relevance beyond whatever social nourishment they derive by making up stuff and spouting it out with unearned authority. It's sad. But if that's how they enjoy the fandom, it's nice to remind them that none of the fandom they cannibalize would exist without the rest of us, too.

Yes, even the people you disagree with. Even the people who ship the things you find disgusting or repulsive. Even people who have an entirely different experience to your own. Even the people who are only here for those gotcha posts.

Fandom is not by nature a nihilistic shitshow, or no fandom would survive the amount of drama the 1% try to bring to it. Here have a fanlore article about this phenomenon. Right now, in Supernatural fandom, it feels like more than 1%, but I promise it really is only 1%. They're just really loud. There's actually other avenues to participatory fandom available to anyone who chooses to find them. Parts of this vast fandom that aren't focused on that 1% of reactionary leg-chewing at every turn. None of them are (as the linked article confirms) truly 100% free of unnecessary drama or bad behavior (including ME, I mean I MADE THAT POST!), but on tumblr you can curate your own experience. Fandom actually can be fun without burning down the thing you claim to be a fan of, or attacking other real human people for having the audacity to exist on the internet in a way you might believe is out of touch or pathetic. Seriously, nobody deserves to experience that from anyone over a fucking television show. Like seriously, take a step back and examine your life and your choices at that point.

Tumblr was exactly the same as a fandom community when I joined as it is now. Throughout my entire time here, I've curated my own personal experience to exactly what I derive the most personal satisfaction from. During that time I have had numerous friends and mutuals lament that their personal experience had become so toxic, but they were afraid to trim those blogs from their dash for fear of having no content left to engage with at all. For years there have been follow lists and blog recs and people desperate to find a more "peaceful and fun" fandom experience. People grow exhausted and embittered when their entire experience of fandom is an emotionally draining drama train. It's like pandemic doom scrolling, but for the thing that should be a respite from that sort of mindset, something that's supposed to be entertainment. The show did enough to us all, we don't have to turn around and re-inflict it on each other day in and day out on tumblr dot com.

So if even one person saw my post and thought well shit maybe I actually want to engage with a wider swath of fandom and see what's there, after seven months of post-finale drama, this whole other region of fandom is still here, still being the curators of the archives, the creators of stories and art and meta and gifs and videos and actually caring about it all that will keep this fandom going long after the current round of exhausting drama inevitably plays itself out.

The amount of in-group language in the negative replies I got was unsurprising. It's like folks are living in an alternate universe that doesn't mesh at all with what I experience on this exact same hellsite. Almost like we exist in entirely different bubbles of fandom, with entirely different purposes for existing at all. Everyone on this hellsite gets to pick which bubble (or bubbles) to take up residence in. Some people simply forget that their personal bubble isn't the universal defining experience of this site. Unfortunately, I doubt my little disruption to their bubbles will actually make any of them see that, but you anon... I think you did.

You are highly encouraged to engage with fandom EXACTLY THE WAY YOU CHOOSE. You have the ultimate power in controlling your entire experience here. Tumblr and Supernatural Fandom on tumblr is not Just One Thing that everyone who wants to participate in must conform to one specific code of ethics or behavior to be part of. And that NOBODY has the right to tell anyone else they're doing it wrong (including ME! I am 100% including myself in this!).

It's not MY job to dictate how anyone else experiences this fandom, as much as it was not the job of the people who reblogged my post (which I did not personally shove into their eyeballs with a demand for compliance... how did any of those people even *find* my post?) solely to tell me how *I* need to change how I experience the fandom, you see? Don'tcha love hypocrisy!

But the point was made for those who care, and a lot of people got to update their block lists (I still don't block anyone, as I said I curated my fandom space here and generally don't follow folks that don't personally make me happy and enrich my life by engaging with their content. However other people choose to engage with *my* content (any of it, going back nearly 50k posts over the last decade) is their business entirely. Sometimes I just feel the need to draw out people who are all too eager to expose their own whole asses in public. Mission accomplished.

#fandom problems #and again i'm sorry that anyone i know was exposed to ugliness because of this #but everyone i know also knows that i'm probably the least easily upset person in this corner of the fandom #if even one person achieved a modicum of self-awareness that their experience is not universal #that there IS no universal experience even #then i guess the point was made

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