#it just wouldnt happen. he would not want to do that actually

[fipindustries]

could you share more details about your transfem riddler headcanon? 👀

oughhh but if i do that id be spoiling the fic i have in my head that i will never wrote because im too lazy!

Fine, you persuaded me.

(also, congrats, you made me write a whole ass wall of text. This git out of habd and ended uo being way way way bigger than i intended tl;dr estrogen would have saved her)

Basically my thought was eddie ends back in arkham, as usual, but this time there is a clerical error while he is being processed. For some reason he was assigned a cell on the female wing of the asylum. And because of institutional inertia and ridiculous draconian rules established by hugo strange he gets sent there

At first this is all horribly humilliating for someone with ed's ego. for a single solitary second he gets the impression that he might actually be fine and really why should hebe scared? "after all they are only women" but then he comes across sofia falcone who does not take kindly to a man being there and and he gets his shit kicked in day one.

as he licks his wounds back in his cell he gets a visit from two unexpected friends

echo and query

did you know riddler has two female henchpeople?

i always found this fascinating, in this story i would try to explore how this came to be, why would two musclebound bombshells waste their time working for a guy like nygma?

the main reason is thus (warning, giant fucking tangent here):

riddler, all things considered, is actually a pretty good guy to hench for. he pays well, he's organized and while he is a bit nutzo he is not a fucking maniac like joker or scarecrow, he is not as unstable as two face, he is not a fucking creep like mad hatter, scarface doesnt hire women, and he doesnt have rumours of sexually harrasing the women that work for him like the penguin does, and he actually pulls big spectacular attacks that actually dont involve that big a body count. in fact in my version the riddler generally doesnt kill people. oh he will endanger people, no doubt and there are probably one or two deaths that can be pinned on him, but overall he probably has the lowest bodycount of all the villains (which he sees as a point of pride, after all his challenges are meant to be intellectual, not stupid gorefests like whatever the joker does)

if you are a thrill seeker that wants to strike it big in gotham's crime world and you have a penchant for spectacle eddie is probably your safest bet.

but also, after they were hired by the guy and got to know him they actually grew fond of him. to him they are not goons, they are not mooks, they are not just bodies that you can just pile in front of batman, he treats them as proper Henchladies, his left and right hand. (the way he thinks about this is that while his mind is unrivaled you do have to fire the ocassional bullet to make people obey you and they are good at that so it makes sense to keep them close, deep down he knows he wouldnt get very far without their help). and also there is something about this pathetic incely dude that is kind of endearing. on some level they think his silly ego filled rants are kind of adorable/amusing. and he is fun to follow around. and again, he pays really good (for him is not about the money so he is happy to give most of it to them)

So anyway, back on topic, they see him there all beaten up and theybare like "aw what happened boss?" "Did that wop cunt did this to youse?" "Dont worry boss, we'll do as we always do, well take care of youse"

after that eddie more or less manages in the female wing.

maybe there is a little arc where echo and query start shit with falcone, which was probably a bad idea because she has some other girls from the falcone family with her, so it starts a bit of a gang war. eddie has to use his smarts plus echo and querys connections to figure this one out. lots of plotting and drama that im going to skip, eventually it gets resolved by eddie figuring out a clever way to get falcone out of arkham by playing some 4d chess with the paperwork.

after the fact, when he is gloating about how brilliant his plan was and how neatly it all got solved his henches ask him "yo boss, if you could doctor papers and whatnot, how come you didnt just release yourself?" "or, you know, at least put yourself back on the men's wing?"

to this eddie just stops and fumbles for an explination not quite knowing what to say or why he didnt think of that.

and that would be kind of the first arc of the story.

***

so, second arc. after this things more or less settle, eddie and his hench fall into a sort of routine. he starts to actually get used to being in the female wing, he even strikes conversation and makes friends with some of the inmates there. particularly baby doll, who is kind of an old broadway diva/opera prima donna trapped in the body of a little girl "i was rather fond of your show you know" "oh really? how very nostalgic of you"

and then echo and query notice something. the boss seems to be... chill? friendly even? what is going on. they know they guy. he is insufferable with other people, he is always playing stupid power games wth everyone, always trying to assert his intellect over others. he is the kind of guy that if you ask him to pass the salt he says "you mean the sodium chloride???"

but now he is relaxed, he is acting almost normal. they ask him why and he cant quite answer. at first he tries to play it off with a little misoginy routine "well what do i have to prove to these ladies? im not going to be intimidated by them, they're only girls" but then echo asks (after smacking him over the head) "so youre saying you do your mastermind number because you're intimidated by men?"

which cuts to the very heart of his insecurities so he starts trying to rationalize this, the problem is that he is genuenly a smart guy and he is someone who does genuenly care about understanding things so he cant keep himself from asking himself the right questions over and over. "well, of course im intimidated by them, they always kept bullying me and hitting me and treating me like shit those knuckle dragging meatheads, and why did they do that? well i guess i was never that manly in the first place, i didnt care about sports, i didnt care about big cars or guns or chicks, so they would keep picking on me. but who cares! i didnt need to be manly, it never mattered to me, all that mattered were my intellectual pursuits, dad kept saying 'be a man' but who cares about being a man!"

"uhhh... you dont?"

"that's right! i dont!"

and then he shuts up in stunned silence trying to process what the hell he just said.

soon after he gets a call to dr. hugo strange's office.

now, dr strange is a weirdo. he never rises to full supervillain status but he is always there doing creppy shit, carrying fucked up 70's psychology experiments on his inmates and generally obsessed with batman.

this is when hugo confesses he is the one that put eddie on the female ward. why? oh you know, the usual mad scientist reasons. but also because there is something he wants out of eddie. see, he gave eddie a taste of hell and humilliation and he can free him from it too if he wants. and all he needs in exchange is a little help "you see, mr nygma, a man of your vast intellect would be priceless on my little endeavor, and i know you are the only man (nygma flinches) who can help me do this"

"do what"

"figure out the true identity of the batman"

so that is the deal. eddie has access to the vast registers of the arkham archives regarding the batman that hugo hmself compiled through the years. using that eddie has to come up with some plan that forces batman to reveal his identity to hugo and noone but hugo.

eddie has no idea what to do. he just got the double whammy of having a minor gender crisis and also, this creep is asking him to unmask the batman. but like, that doesnt count, right? riddler always wanted to best batman, and maybe unmasking him was a form of that but it had to be his own plan that he carried on his own, not at hugo strange's command. and also the doctor said he was going to release him. does he even want to be released? he is not entirely unaware. he can tell he is doing better, his weird mental compulsion of always turing everything into a riddle or a debate or a contest has gone down, for once in his life he is making friends, he is getting along, he feels... comfortable? is that the word???

so eddie does as he always does. he hatches up a plan.

he pretends to play along with hugo while using his newfound access to the arkham archives to find shit on hugo himself. sadly many of the archives are redacted or downright missing. but there is one arkham doctor he can go to and ask about those missing files.

dr harleen quinzel PhD.

now the thing you have to understand about this verion of harley is that she is still a couple of years away from leaving the joker, so she is still in her full infatuated maniac phase. which means that everyone fucking hates her. because everyone, and i do mean everyone at arkham, fucking hates the joker.

so she is not very popular, she stays isolated, very rarely she is allowed to be near the general population and the only reason why she is still alive and hasnt been shanked a thousand times is because she is good at defending herself and also she had ivy's protection.

so eddie has to go talk to quinn.

"heya eddie!"

"hello dr quinzell, i, uh, i have a request"

"oh, of coise you have a request, eddie, i knew you would come to me soon or later"

"you... you did?"

"i saw your games with big miss gigante and your chats with dolly, you were always going to come, soon or later, the only question was how soon or how later, before or after?"

"whatever i dont have time for your games, i need access to some files and i suspect you might know about them"

"sure! ill help ya! strange is a bigg creep anyway, i always hated him, ever since he taughte me in college i did, but i need you to answer me something eddie"

" sigh, what is it quinn?"

"well, what i asked! is it going to be soon or later? are you faster or slower?"

"faster or slower than what?"

"come on eddie! is not that hard! i know youre brave, you are not a coward! so you need to let me know, are you faster... or slower than the coward?"

after this eddie just leaves confused, when he meets again with echo and query they ask "so boss? how did it went with the psycho bitch?"

"im not sure, she gave me the files and then she gave me a riddle"

"oh thats rich of her, what was it?"

"it wasnt hard at all really, she asked wether i am faster or slower than a coward, another words for coward is chicken, she was asking if i came after or before the chicken, what i cant wrap my head around is... why the hell would she call me an 'egg'?"

long story short, he subverts hugo's plan against him, turns out eddie discovered hugo was responsible for turning arkham into a revolving door. he kept deliberatly releasing villains at strategic times because he was running weird large scale psychological experiments in all of gotham, to stuy how the villains would act and how the populations would react to it.

so eddie made things such that instead of revealing batman's identity batman is in the right place and right time to discover this, hugo gets caught and disgraced and eddie gets the credit for doing that.

batman gives a single nod of acknledgement to the riddler "thank you mister nygma, i wouldnt have figured that out myself" ths leaves the riddler absolutely speechless.

riddler's sentence gets severely shortened for his services to the city, he is going to get out in a month. and before he can even finish processing this he gets hit by another revelation.

since hugo is no longer in charge of arkham the record ha been set straight. eddie is going back to the male ward.

here ends the second arc

***

third arc. eddie is locked in his new cell having non stop panic attacks.

what is happening, what is wrong with him? what is up, what is down? who even is he anymore?

he refused to escape arkham, he did a "good" thing, he helped the fucking batman and batman recognized him as an intellectual superior????

like what is next, what does he do now, what does he even have going on for him? what is his purpose in life anymore? and why does he want to desperatly go back to the women's ward, why did he feel so comfortable there? why the fuck did harley quinn called him a fucking egg?????

for once eddie is the one beleaguered by riddles he cannot answer.

thank god the joker is not here right now, he is at blackgate waiting for his quintuple death sentence, but everyone else is here pretty much. harvey, viktor, oswald, william, even fucking zsasz is here. and they all think its so fucking funny that he was in the women's ward.

we see a montage of him getting bullied or mocked by the other interns by the other interns, and eddie is just so confused and out of it and defeated that he doesnt even fight back.

we see eddie cry himself to sleep every night. he doesnt have anything, he is at his lowest point. so one day he makes a drastic choice.

he goes to one specific cell where one specific inmate is sitting, reading a book. dr jonathan crane.

and now with your permission im going to just write verbattim the dialog i had planned for this scene:

the riddler is like "look i know you are an expert chemist and what not, i need you to cook me something"

when crane asks what would that be eddie says that he wants something to kill himself.

dr crane takes off his glasses and walks around eddie. and he says

"you know something interesting? you were always my favourite mr edward, out of all the other patients in here, you were always the best"

"i dont care"

"let me finish, you wanna know why? because out of all other emotionally disregulated patients here, you are the only one who ever truly fears"

"you wanna know something interesting? i think its pretty funny that frank herbert said fear is the mind killer and you cloth yourself as the one character from frank l baum that is brainless, that is pretty apt, now give me what i want"

"see that is exactly what i mean mr edward! you could have said dune or the wizard of oz, but no, you had to make it a little harder to get, you needed to say the authors just to show how smart you are, that is what im talking about, your insecurity, the greatest fear of all, the fear of the self"

"here is another one, i find it weird that when freud engages with oedipus rex they dont focus on the riddle but in the incest, really says something about psychologist, give me the fucking drug"

"and why so insecure mr edward? could it be becase you never had muscles, or speed or charisma or good looks? could it be that you cling onto your mind because everything else about you failed you, betrayed by your genetics, betrayes by your peers, betrayed by your very own body?"

"what are you even insinuating?"

"see ive been talking with dr quinn, we doctors tend to be a cliqueish lot, and she had some very interesting observations about you, mr edward"

"what? the egg riddle?"

"yes! egg! what a great turn of phrase! let me tell you something about language, we have so many different words for so many different kinds of fear, talassophobia, fear of the depths, agoraphobia, fear of the outside, acrophobia, fear of heights. now there is a very interesting kind of phobia that people debate about, xenophobia, fear of the foreign, fear of the outsider, of the strange, of those who are different, now many argue that this is not a real fear, it is merely an expression of disgust, hatred. but let me tell you mr edward, as the foremost expert on fear in this world, all hatred stems from it. it is fear of the unknown, of the degenerate, fear of corruption, of contamination"

"ok im done here"

as riddler tries to walk out crane grabs him by the neck and slams him against a wall

"that little reference of yours at the beggining, the lethany of fear, you think i disagree with it? that is the whole point of my career. i am a man who believes that fear is a thing to be conquered, fear is a thing to be mastered, that is how we become our greater selves, but first it must be faced, head on, no masks, no defense mechanisms, and you mr edward, are due for a dosis"

crane lets go of eddie and pulls from his pocket a tiny green pill.

"i managed to smuggle this from my lab and ive been saving it for a rainy day, i think right now it would benefit you most of all"

"what is that?"

"oh, you know what i trade on, mr edward, this is my classic formula, it will make you face this thing you dare not confront, you say you want to get rid of yourself? this will help you get rid of your Self"

then crane walks off and as he walks off he adds "but i dont know what might come out in its place"

eddie is left with that tiny pill in his hand. not knowing what to do.

later that night, alone in his cell, he chooses to take it.

in here we would have a full on psychodelic break, lots of surreal imagery, lots of twin peaks tier stuff which would all ammount to eddie finally confronting their dysphoria and their gender identity. this is a great moment of powerful catharsis and revelation.

next morning eddie wakes up. but she is no longer eddie.

we smash cut to one month later, the riddler is being released. we see the whole process where she goes through the processing and the paperwork although we never see her face. her narration explains that she just had to endure one more month and that thank god harley was willing to talk to pamela to get her a special little brew to kickstart her transition in secret. she walks out of arkham as a free woman

a couple of months after that query and echo get a visit at arkham from some lady called "missy terry". When they are at the bullet proof window the hebch ladies look at the woman and ask her who the fuck is she.

And the saldy says "let me answer that query with an echo: what is the other animal that walks in four legs by morning, two legs by noon and three legs by night?"

And the hench ladies widen their eyes and ask in disbelief "boss...?"

"I go by The Sphinx now, lets get you out of here"

and that is my headcanon

[akechigoroactual]

i feel like a lotta zolu shippers i see have a fatal misunderstanding not in the part where zoro would do anything for luffy including suck his dick and whatever else he Would absolutely do that! of course he would. but luffy is just not possessive at all even if he fixated on zoro specifically he doesn't take to that tenet of romance. he's freedom boy he wants everyone to be free. he is not interested in ownership

[lgbtlunaverse]

So I've said multipe times now (here and here) that thinking nmj is just so blinded by privilege he doesn't undertand that acting out of line gets people killed is, in my opinion, a misunderstanding of his character that ignores the part where he's, you know, actively dying the whole time and thinks that's a good thing. But that doesn't mean I don't think privilege plays no role at all in how he views the world.

Specifically, his view that death (at least premature or violent death) means something.

Death isn't always a tragedy to NMJ, but it is always meaningful. If you kill an evil dangerous person for your righteous cause, that death had meaning. There was evil in the world and now there is less of it. Similarly, if you die in the pursuit of your righteous cause, that death has meaning, because the sheer dedication you gave to it that you were willing to die for it will further that cause, and your bretheren will be invigorated by your sacrifice to fight even harder.

If a death isn't meaningful, that's an injustice and it is up to the living to give it meaning. That's what cuts so deep about his father's murder. There were no consequences, no changes, no meaning. Wen Ruohan was just going to get away with it! He fights and wins an entire war to make it mean something, to make it so that the unjust murder of Nie Mingjue's father is part of Wen Ruohan's downfall.

But this is a view he can only hold because he's the kind of person who's death will be meaningful. Most ordinary people's deaths are meaningless. Not ontologically, not inherently, but they are made meaningless because no one cares. For death to be meaningful you either have to be so powerful that anything you risk your life for will be impacted in some way. (Like, say, if you sacrifice a long life for immense martial power in a faustian bargain with a blade) Or if people with that kind of power care enough about you to do so for you. For most people, this isn't true. A starving street kid has no power to change the unfair world that put them there, even if they risk their life trying, and no one will do it for them once they die.

Nie Mingjue knows this in abstract, and of course rightfully believes it's wrong. But all that does is make it yet another righteous cause people should be willing to die for. Everyone's deaths should mean something, we'll make it so or die trying!

This is what the conflict between nieyao is about at its core. Because Jin Guangyao, fundamentally, cannot conceive of his own death as meaningful. Nie Mingjue grew up around powerful men who could change the world but refuse to do so because god forbid they risk a single hair on their perfect heads. Meng Yao, on the other hand, grew up in an environment where no one of importance would blink twice if you died. He was surrounded by meaningless death. Indeed his entire early life is defined by that lack of care.

Meng Shi dies and no one cares. Meng Yao gets thrown off a flight off stairs and no one cares. He has to be the one to do the caring, and once he's gone no one else will do it for him.

So he has to live.

Jin Guangyao eventually gets far enough that he actually does aquire the power to change some things... as long as he's alive. If he changes too much, holds on too tightly to his ideals, he'll die and it'll all be for nothing. He can't sacrifice himself for his goals because doing so would immediately render those goals unobtainable. No one will care about what he tried to do. He won't be a heroic sacrifice, he'll just be trash that finally cleaned itself up.

And well... Nie Mingjue dies, and someone makes it mean something. Makes it mean so much that the entire story of mdzs would not exist without it. Jin Guangyao dies and it doesn't mean anything. Most people are glad to be rid of him, and the few that are not don't do anything to change that.

[demadogs]

im really upset ellie didnt have a heartfelt coming out with joel

[jackass-jones]

God every day I think about Akane’s breakdown in door 3 because there really is no correct way to interpret that and every possibility makes me crazy. Like she sees this fucked up corpse whom Junpei (and the player, depending on how they play) believes is their friend Snake, but she knows that it’s Guy X. It’s a man she very intentionally put in the game for this very purpose, so that he could die horrifically and be displayed for everyone to see. And she has a full mental breakdown over being trapped in this room with the corpse, being trapped by Junpei, to the point where she rips out her hair and starts bleeding from how much she bangs on the door screaming to get out. And fuck, there’s so many possibilities like

Akane could be feeling genuine terror over the sight of the body, and with that remorse. She made this happen, she wanted this to happen, and now she’s forced to quite literally watch the damage she’s caused unfold. She can detach herself from his murder easily in other timelines where she doesn’t have to look at it, and she can sleep easy knowing that her hands are technically clean because she didn’t do the literal killing. But she can’t do that here, and she has to face the fact that not only did she happily cause this death, she failed her mission. She isn’t going to survive, and now this man is dead for nothing and everything is her fault

On the other hand, her entire breakdown could be completely fabricated in order to keep playing the role of the damsel in distress who is so innocent that the very sight of blood drives her to insanity. The interesting part about this is that if she could fake such a horrific breakdown, just how much of her personality a facade? We know she wants revenge, for everyone from Cradle to feel even an ounce of the pain she and so many others went through, but we don’t get to see the extent of how much she feels this way. We never hear directly from Akane about her feelings on any of the original organizers, just her note about her desire to punish them. She hates them, but does she see their deaths as a necessary evil, or does she feel joy and satisfaction at watching them go? It’s absolutely horrifying not knowing, not being able to see her true feelings, not knowing just how real or fake she is, the extent of her madness. Perhaps she doesn’t even know that herself

IN OTHER WORDS, it’s fucked

[maliciousalice]

Hear me out (or don't... it's fine I'm just venting and mean) yeah um I don't believe Chakotay was saved in Prod*gy s2.

[5hrignold]

awful. beyond redemption. i will stare at it for days

[fadeoutstreet]

jared and jensen say stuff abt sam and dean that me in my most delusional day wouldnt think

[kuwupikaa]

Bro really got rid of the ear devil😭😭

[cutemeat]

Why do people not want Rob in the writers room this up coming season?

idk i just think rob needs to take a step back from the writing sunny for a little while Lol... in the same way Glenn needed a break from it for a bit yknow

[orcelito]

Did driving practice today. Actually did parallel parking practice this time, even tho I really didn't want to still. Finally got it into my head that I can maybe do this.

SO......

I have scheduled my driving test. For November 13th, 3 weeks from today.

[spaceandbones]

Reading a killugon slowburn and halfway through the author drops this bomb on me that killua isnt monogamous like fucking say sike RIGHT MEOW. RIGHT MEOW PLEASE 😭😭😭✋️✋️

[leori-the-unlearned]

the way digimon does conflict/drama between two characters who should be or are close: chef’s kiss <3

the way sonic idw handles creating conflict/drama between two characters who should be or are close: *wilting flower*

[autism-corner]

i dont want it to have a good end btw

[robingivesmemagic]

do you guys think cash tankinson liked men

[themyscirah]

This is technically a Diana's age poll but I framed it partially around Julia's rescue because that's the event I need to contextualize and whether or not Diana is a thing yet is p important for my purposes. I would keep the Pérez run and postcrisis continuity in mind when answering this bc that's when this is relevant but I'd keep in mind that even though Diana is very young there (like early 20s) we don't know I don't think if she ages differently as a child (esp as a themysciran AND being made from clay) and in some versions she is older than she looks and was made earlier

Edit: I accidentally logic-ed this out in the tags lol 🤦‍♀️but feel free to still vote however you want. Going to publish this anyway bc I think I made some good points later in my tags