#Arkham is the worst

[just-an-enby-lemon]

My complex and dark headcannon of why Harley ended up with the Joker:

▫️One of the questions that I always find in the Batman fandom is how exactally was Harleen placed as the Joker therapist.

▫️The Animated Series answers it with the very unfortunate explanation that Harley's destiny was her fault.

Now don't get me wrong I love TAS implication that Harley would became a villan with or without the Joker, she needs this type of authonomy, to be the one who jumped in the acid and not the one who was pushed into it. My problem is with the implication that Harley only got to her position (best student in the course, a high paying job in Arkham and a famous pacient of her choice) by sex favors. It undermines my girl capacity and inteligence and honestly she could've sleept around and being great.

▫️This problem seems to be acknowledged in modern depictions of Harley. Now days instead of portraying her as a bad professional who got everything by favoritism, the more common portray of Dr. Quinzel is as someone competent but inexperienced. She just got out med school and while she is super smart she does not have the experience to see through Joker.

▫️While I personally like this second incarnation of Dr. Quinzel it oppens the question: why was she dealong with Joker to begin with?

▫️For some reason both this portrays seem working with Joker as some kind of merit, disputed by all doctors in Arkham, - instead of the most likely outcome of the dificult patient no one really wants - the ambitions of being the one to correctly diagnose and cure the Joker surpassing any self-preservation (or medical knowledge as they all talk about a cure and not the most likely outcome in a normal situation of long term treatment). In this sense portray one seems more realistic Harley had to do something drastic to earn such a important patient. Being the better in class just isn't enough anymore.

▫️Here I ofter my headcanon in option C:

- Harley was the best on her class and that plus some recomendation letters from former professors and from Gotham General - where she did her intership/residence - got her the dream job in Arkham.

- She wanted to work with the patients of the Asylum not specifically with Joker. And on the first days she got easier cases like Condiment King, quickly reciving more dangerous patients but who weren't difficult in therapy like Poison Ivvy (who just didn't talked to people), Riddler (who talked too much but never about the topic in question) and Mr.Freeze (who loved to talk about Nora).

- The problem was: Arkham is based on Bedlam. Not only that but Gotham is notably corrupt. So it didn't took long to Harleen to start to notice the misdtreatment of patients and how the funds they recieve didn't add up. She opposed it.

- Afraid she would denounce them to the media (the cops already knew and didn't care and she knew it) and cause them to lose their jobs or worse discover about the humam experimentation (yeah Arkhan sucks this much, no news here) the director of Arkham at the time decided to give her a case that would purposifuly mess her up. Way more experienced doctors had to leave Joker's case because it was inducing violent or suicidal comportaments in them. To an inexperienced doctor with an already secret violent dark side that would be devastating.

- Of course the director just wanted to make Harley quit. He was not expecting what came next.

- Harleen Quinzel became Harley Quinn and the rest is history.

- The worst of it all: Arkham stayed the same. All the progress she did with patients and all the notes and evidence she had to denunce the place were lost. The true villans of Gotham won. One more to the looney bin.

[a-noodle-doodle]

Hear me out....

Redraw of this panel from Robin (1993) #64

(I'm sorry if this sounds too demanding, it's only supposed to be a suggestion)

I HAD NO IDEA THERE WAS A CROSSOVER COMIC WITH THEM??? HELLO?? THEY'RE SO SILLY??? 😭😭

[wesavegotham]

"Talia can never be redeemed and her romance with Bruce can never come back because *falls for Grant Morrison's/DC's extreme racism towards asian and arab characters in the 2000s/2010s"

Yeah, sorry, but shut the hell up. It never fails to astound me when DC actually tries to fix the mistakes they made with Talia/the al Ghuls in general these last two decades and the fans manage to be even worse than DC by clinging to the blatant racist/sexist writing of the past instead of embracing the turn for the better.

"But she did this and that!"

She's a fictional character in a fictional universe that is aware that it goes through continuity changes/retcons. What Grant Morrison did to her character was a a complete retcon of her 30 year history and characterization with zero respect for her. Why am I supposed to take Morrison's bullshit as gospel and reject any attempts to fix her from writers who know better?

[nelkcats]

Laugh until the end

Penelope Spectra was an excellent school psychologist, she loved her charges and they loved her back, there was only one problem: her age.

Spectra had trouble coming to terms with the fact that she was getting older, she covered every wrinkle with makeup, every sign that she was over 25 disappeared, but always the same kid found a way to point out a mistake, which made her miserable.

She started using experimental products, which led to her death, luckily or badly she appeared in the Realms with a very human appearance, and shortly after learning what she had become a natural portal appeared.

It turns out that no one had properly reported her death so she disposed of her own corpse and went back to school trying to help the kids.

One specific boy who loved to play pranks started to get depressed during their sessions, Spectra couldn't understand the reason so she continued to try to help: she gave him comfort items, advice, even gave him a stuffed bat knowing they were his favorite animal, but nothing helped.

Strangely the more the boy got depressed she seemed to feel better, satisfied, and young, although it made her feel horrible at first, she began to get used to the feeling, want it, search for it, and her empathy faded.

Contradictory signals from her ended up driving the boy crazy, a small vein of madness that had barely been present before expanded while the constant sessions worsened his condition, until one day he stopped crying and started laughing out loud.

Then their innocent therapy sessions became a very dangerous game, their relationship changed until it became the reverse of the original and almost seemed like a rivalry, Spectra was trying to push him into submission and the boy was laughing, talking about jokes, and starting to show psychotic behaviors.

Unfortunately they had to stop their game when the school began to suspect that something was wrong with the psychologist, Spectra was forced to run away, but the boy never forgot, he suppressed his behavior until he seemed normal and waited for a new rival while hugging his stuffed bat.

He was sure that one day, someone would enjoy his jokes, even the deadly ones.

[saltyverse]

Break time outside Arkham.

Always nice to have a moment to yourself.

[fallout-lou-begas]

turns out batman: arkham asylum (2009) is the absolute perfect 7/10 metroidvania with a really cool and distinctly exaggerated creepy asylum environment to explore, and a genuinely endearing overload of late-2000s video game design cliches (audio tapes, walk-and-talk cutscenes integrated into the gameplay, characters bark repetitive voice lines if you do things other than the objective, following glowing trails of stuff). it holds up!

and then there's the goons. the endless horde of large and stupid and large meatheaded goons who say shit like "i ain't afraid a da bat..." and "da jokah's gonna rule dis city!". they have yet to be surpassed, they without a doubt remain the high water mark for bad guys to beat up in video games and a landmark achievement for goons in general

[marshmallow---pillow]

Slade deftly works the OTC shampoo into the knots, "-Kid, believe me", he rubs the boy's scalp vigorously, making sure that hair doesn't have any more pesky tangles, "I know you want to kill Batman-"

The boy doesn't protest at the amount of force, leaning bonelessly into it instead, so his head moves jerkily, "-you need to be able to", he gives a particularly tough knot a hard tug, it becomes undone, and the boy almost topples backward, very much like a rag doll,"-kid?-"

Jason nods, or tries to, movement aborted by the handful of hair still in Slade's grasp,"-Kid, are ya listening to me?-"

"H-huh" Jason jolts, "-kid, did you hear a word of what I said?"

"Hmm", Jason's eyes are glazed over from sleep, he blinks owlishly. And then nods off.

Slade bites back the jabs that roll restlessly on his tongue, and resumes attacking the rat's nest of hair, it reaches far past the boy's ears and needs a trim, but the boy had tried to bite him the last time he tried to wrestle him into giving a hair cut, and then cried when he'd finally managed to trap him. He was a grade-A asshole, but he wasn't a sadist, so he'd let the kid go.

So now here they were, Jason sitting between his knees and Slade trying to give his hair some semblance of order, because the boy's shoulders are too fucked up to— Wait a damn minute

He pauses his ministrations and slowly leans over to see the boy's face. Which is devoid of all frown lines and the trademark scowl the boy wore. The kid is asleep, deep asleep, breaths even, his misshapen ribcage rising and falling. Something in his gut twists uncomfortably when he realizes it's the first time he's witnessing it at ease, the kid's eyebrows are still drawn in a subtle frown, but the hard edges have melted into something softer, an echo of innocence.

Innocence wrenched away too early.  It makes the boy look vulnerable in a way that feels wrong, voyeuristic. Despite the fact that the kid's sitting between his legs in nothing but his boxers.

Suddenly, he wants to avert his eyes, to cover the boy with a blanket to shield what's left of his ruined body.

He wordlessly resumes scrubbing the boy's hair, movements faltering, uneasy, and then steadier, as he blocks out everything else and attacks the hair with a single-minded focus, making sure each section receives equal attention. The boy's scalp is a ragged mess in places, from burns and head injuries. The lather makes a greyish crown over the boy's head, a bit trails down over his scarred forehead, and Slade wipes it away before it can reach the boy's eye.

The boy stirs, and mumbles something, but doesn't wake.He hums contentedly, preening under the attention in his state of semi-awareness.

The air is filled with the slight chemical tinge of the scent-free shampoo. An object of abhorrence for both his and the boy's hyper-sensitive biology. 

After what seems like an eternity, (and still not long enough), the hair's free of knots, and Slade tips the boy's head up to rinse the hair, the boy's muscles tense at the sudden onslaught of water. He whimpers, a sound that itches at his chafed heart, and he's shushing the boy before he realizes it.

The boy quiets, the tension keeping his muscles locked gradually releases until the boy's a rag-doll, snoring-snoring softly against Slade's leg. He doesn't think he's ever heard the sound before.

(Another tally nicked on his pericardium. Deeper than the scar tissue from Grant's, and the perpetual bleeding wounds that are Rose and Joey.)

The greyish-white water trails over the boy's back, over the hill of his vertebrae, that just have started filling out, and the space between his ribs. The kid's looking better than the mewling pile of skin and bones Slade had pulled out of the Asylum. But it'll take ages to recover from such a severe degree of muscular atrophy, the reason he hasn't given into the boy's insistent pleas to start training. To kill his own father, and that's a completely different can of worms, left by the Joker on the boy's still-building psyche, parasitizing his very being.

The grief and months' worth of detritus roll over his back and into the drain, leaving soft, jet-black locks—not wholly kempt, but at least his fingers can card through it without getting interrupted, the hair's streaked with grey from head injuries and vitamin deficiencies.

Without the matt, the boy's hair is slightly curly. He allows himself a moment of indulgence and tucks a few stray strands behind the kid's ear.

The task done, Slade flicks the boy's nose. He blinks. 

"Wake up, Brat, deal with the rest of your mess"

"Yes, Sir", the boy doesn't flinch this time, or throw a jab either. He's cross-eyed with sleep.

He sighs, "I told you not to call me that"

"Sorry, Sir", he mumbles. 

Slade resists the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose and leaves. Letting the boy be. 

Based off this art of Slade washing Jason's hair

Originally posted on AO3

[chiyana]

I've been trying to get through Batman: Arkham Knight and am getting pretty far, but I almost died last night falling out of the sky into a drone because I overheard some militia talking about dating as mercenaries and one of them said "yeah my partner is a human rights lawyer. He uh, thinks I'm on a business trip" and I fucking LOST IT

Arkham Knight supports gay wrongs and I appreciate it

[sergeant-angels-trashcan]

but why does Arkham Knight Jason have the sexiest voice of all the Jasons

[just-an-enby-lemon]

Someone should get BTAS Ferris Boyle, BTAS Lock Up, The Batman 2004 Julie, fucking Tarantula, Unburied Arnold Flass and Quincy Sharp from the Arkham games, put them all in the same room and them BOMB the room.

[arkhamartist]

did not understand the hype behind Law at first until he was on screen for literally like 5 seconds.. my new scrumblo <3

[mr-e-nigma]

Throwback to that time last year when I made my dad guess about Riddler making those robot henchmen in Arkham Knight and one of his guesses was that Riddler had a kid and was raising them to be his henchman. That’s such an idea. The implication and clarification after I stuck on that guess for a while was that the kid was in fact biologically Edward’s which just makes it even funnier.

[the-phobiaist]

He has no redeeming qualities and is a diagnosed narcissist with daddy issues I love him sm

[natpetersoncore]

i’m actually so normal about this

[martyrbat]

okie finished the lets play of arkham city while knitting and. hm..