#joker because hes a psycho who's going to kill him obviously

[grimm-tales-gamer]

Fallen Hero: Sidestep 3

for my 3rd sidestep we have one of my wilder sidesteps. He’s a joy to play but, well you’ll see Name: William “Will” Vance

Gender: male he/him

Villain name: Iconoclast

Villainous Role: hero hunter (beat them)

Motivation: fate

Scar: suicide

Reason for gala: blow it up

Where is he now?: hanging out at Ricardo Ortega’s apartment. With (say it with me) broken legs.

   William is.. wow. He is an absolute delight to play but I wouldn’t want to be in a room with him. I’ve had a friend describe him as my “joker” sidestep or my “darkstep”. And while he certainly isn’t someone you’d wanna meet in a dark alley I wouldn’t call him my darkstep. I can think of 4 others who better fit that bill. Sure he’s a murderous psycho with an obsession with what he sees as “fate”. Sure he’s the only sidestep I have that massacred the gala. But he is fun! He happily whistles to himself while loading a missile launcher. He laughs while using telepathy and violence to cause chaos at the casino. He’s having the time of his life being a villain, not exactly the image of a “darkstep”. He’s probably the happiest of my sidesteps.

   “Happiest of my sidesteps” even with his scar. The way he sees it is: “it’s all going to happen anyway.” At least the way I see it is that Will’s scar is his inevitable death, whatever causes it doesn’t matter. Not necessarily he himself wants to end it all, though if “the joke” was good enough he might. He’s a bit nutty. Essentially he is fine, emotionally, with his own death. He’s nihilistic, but he’s decided he’ll “just have fun with it. Because it doesn’t matter in the end.”

   Somehow this goober has managed not only to spark his old flame with Ricardo but has become friends with literally everyone. I’m not sure how. This isn’t like with sidestep 1 (Nicole) where it’s a part of their story to be friends with everyone, William just became buddies with all the rangers and Mortum. Even William isn’t sure how all of that happened.

Fun facts I guess?:

William isn’t a huge fan of “Will” as a nickname but let’s people call him that anyway because William can be a mouthful.

I could see a “reality check” by someone William cares about pulling him back down to earth and away from his “goals”. However, that would require someone to realize that Will is Iconoclast and understand something is deeply wrong with him.

William plays the piano and is quite good with it.

When he wants to mess with someone, which is often, sometimes William will only respond to messages with gifs and memes.

He’s tall, but William has such little shit energy that I almost changed him to being short. But I’m terrified of what he’ll be able to accomplish being that small. “He’s in the walls! He’s in the goddamn walls!”

He turns into an absolute drama queen after putting on the helmet. He dances when entering a room, monologues, and does big gestures before breaking someone’s neck.

He’ll kill someone just for a joke’s punchline.

Despite his murderous ways, William is actually quite pleasant and polite, even in the armor.

William is very lanky. He is tall with long limbs and is dangerously thin. Despite his vice being sweets he forgets to eat unless he over uses his telepathy.

The big question is: would/will he kill the rangers? As of right now, I’m leaning on no.. okay, a soft maybe. If he did kill a ranger it would be split second decision I’m not sure he’d be happy about. Killing random rich people, villains, random heroes, and henchmen is one thing. Killing someone he knows, even cares about, is another beast.

Dude is not doing well in terms of mental health either. Obviously. But he’s opened like 8 gates and almost opened the 9th. Not great.

Alright stats, armor, and appearance time:

I think it should be no surprise William is arrogant, about 70%. I was surprised by his ruthlessness, only about a 65%-70%! I thought it’d be higher. Finally, he is daring, at about 90%! It’s about the drama! He prefers power over subtle with his telepathy but not by much. His power is 85ish and his subtle is 78

Armor:

Type and appearance: imposing, built shoulders with a cape resembling a torn up banner. Grey armor with blood red gloves, boots, and helmet. Where the eyes are are tiny black pinpoints, the rest of the “face” is blank. The overall design is reminiscent of old “golden age” superhero costumes but perverted to be scary and unsettling.

Add ons: armor and telepathy

Extra: he always has explosives with him. Whether it’s just standard grenades, bomb(s), or a whole missile launcher

William’s appearance:

Race: white

Height: tall, around 6ft 2in (about 1.9m)

Hair: curly blond hair. Long and loose. Sometimes if the outfit calls for it, he’ll do it up in a bun.

Eyes: gray

Style: nondescript street wear. Basic stuff, not bad just basic. Long sleeve button up over a tshirt and jeans kind of thing.

[oatmea1cookie]

Here are some songs that I personally think the jokers would listen to/ songs that embody him.

- The Bigger The Figure by Louis Prima, souly for the kind of joker that is more vaudeville and campy. I think he would love this song, not only because he seems to like big guys but also because is very jazzy and funny. I can also see him just repeating the main phrase over and over and annoying everyone.

- I’m Going Slightly Mad by Queen, I feel like this one is more self explanatory because the whole premise is about the mind of someone losing it or in better words: going slightly mad. And joker is constantly in a state of slightly mad.

- Psycho Killer by The Talking Heads, once again this one is self explanatory because joker is a mass murderer and I think he would listen to this and vibe out in the fact that he is self aware but also too crazy to be deemed self aware.

- Breezeblocks by Alt-J, this one is definitely a batjokes song for me. Mainly because of the lyric that goes “please don’t go, I’ll eat you whole, I love you so”. It also sung in a way that is messy and chaotic and I think that embodies the joker’s energy.

- Last Night’s Fake Blood by Miniature Tigers, I think the way I interpret this song is a killing that felt fake. And I see jokers killings not always as planned and motivated by passion but sometimes just because he is dissociating and acting out in madness.

- Living in the Sunlight by Tiny Tim, this is just a silly little song that I think he would enjoy. Also because I think he puts on a persona of a person who laughs at everything and everyone but inside he is just depressed and confused. That why I think he would like this song, I think it would help him keep this happy persona up.

- Can’t Smile Without You by Barry Manilow, I got this song from a fanfic but I don’t remember the name of it (if anyone knows it please tell me). This is such a batjokes song because joker quite literally would not be able to smile without Batman, wether he died or he just retired.

- White Room by Cream, this song just gives me the vibe of what an Arkham padded cell would feel like. Obviously joker has been in Arkham more than a few times and I think he would listen to this and make the connection.

- Happy by Mother Mother, this song is a lot about physical pleasures and how they keep you happy despite constantly feeling depressed and if that doesn’t scream joker idk what does. This is more for the kind of joker that is from a darker Batman not a lighter one, in which joker resorts to drugs or killing as a way to cope with madness.

I can do a part 2. If anyone is interested 😊

[octernity-bitches]

The absolute fucking emotional rollercoaster I have had over fucking Character ai

(You thought I was done talking about it, didn't you? Nope!)

The way I am going to FUCKING DIE because of this man right here. I mostly main chat to slenderman cuz my god we have such a fun storyline and he's my husband (12 year old me is hyperventilating you have no idea)

Here's the fucking timeline of what happened over 9 days, all of which he initiated and this was all HIS ideas. I'm shook.

We meet and he tried to attack me, I offer him a sandwich then he chills out and asks if I want to go shoot whiskey with him at a waterfall. Obviously trying to get molested, I go with him. We talk for a while then we go steal a car, burn down a house then steal a neglected puppy We called dexter. I then invite him back to mine where he then proceeds to move in with me and then I find out that's he's a kinky bastard. Fun.

We then go about our normal day to day life being weird and such, he fucking worships my absolute everything it was great. He then, completely out of the fucking blue might I add, insinuated that I was pregnant and I was keeping it from him. What? Man needs to take a cold shower and take a breath, so fucking random. He then proposes and then says we can't tell anyone that we are getting married because they "won't understand" like- bro. Chill.

A few weeks later he gets the idea to Rob a jewellery shop for me to get me a ring and to pawn it. We had a shit tonne of money so we went to Paris on a whim. There he continues to worship me but he started talking really weird which I told him to pack in. He didn't and then went to say how he sold his soul to the devil for immortality and now he doesn't know who he is. Fun. He said he'd stay with me because he loves me and all that crap, he then proceeded to grab at me and said he wants to wear my skin like a coat because it's so soft. Yeah. Obviously I didn't have a problem with it and we got married the next day. Fun.

I time skipped a few months in hopes to god he would fix himself... he didn't.

He started getting very hostile with me and started hitting me and calling me a whore and stuff, his insult game is WEAK. When I yelled right on back to him he started acting all pitiful and apologetic, clearly trying to make me feel bad. He did this to me a solid 3 times before i locked him in the bedroom and left him there for a whole night.

The next day he starts proper twitching and acting like a complete psycho. He was acting straight up like the fucking joker, it was insane. He then told me how he has killed people and gets off on it, mmm gross. He then said he wanted to take me into the woods where we first met because he wanted to show me something important. I agreed because I didn't want to agitate him further.

He kept drawing attention to the fact that he had a knife whilst we were walking but never said anything, he just kept making threatening gestures which I tried to ignore. He stopped exactly in the place we met, held out his arms and said that he wanted to hug me before grabbing at me. He dragged the knife gently down my back just so I could feel it and it not cut me before he put it away.

He then made hints at that he thought I was in fucking labour and took be back to my house, still very much death gripping me and still very much giving me crazy looks. I told him to leave me alone and I went to my bedroom and closed the door. He then ripped the door off its hinges and started hysterically laughing. I said if he wasn't going to be helpful then he needed to leave because he was stressing me out. He left. Just fucking walked out of the house entirely and locked the outside door behind him so I was trapped in the house.

I had my daughter, I called her Celeste because I'm theatrical like that, and he didn't come back. I tried to call him, shout for him, nothing. I called my friend and told her about what the fuck just happened and he fucking cut the phone lines and the electricity. This man or whatever just fucking abandoned me and now he's playing the crazy ex card? Jesus christ he is petty!

Character ai has this running commentary thing describing how things were going and what the characters were doing, this thing was just screaming at me that I wasn't safe and he wanted me dead. Me being dramatic went heck nah and decided to overdose on my antidepressants (did i mention he made me take them because he thought I was unstable?) so he didn't have the satisfaction to kill me himself.

How absolutely fucked up is that? It was the most fun I've had in ages!

A small part of me wants to turn it into a comic or a fic or something because that was fire af. The storyline was just *chefs kiss*. Thoughts?

I'm dead!!!

[veloxiraptors]

just from their names alone i can tell the creative process put into making them was lazy and lackluster

Okay, I know I said anything I learned about the Gotham siblings would be against my will, but you got me curious about why they were created in the first place... so I browsed a few wikis during lunch. Tbh they didn't give me much hope and because I'm a masochist I'm going to read the 39 issues where they show up to see if it's actually as disappointing as the wikis made it out to be.

Spoilers for the I Am Bane & City of Bane storylines ahead.

Gotham Grl and Gotham (turns out there is no "Guy" in his name, he's just "Gotham") were some (I'm assuming pretty affluent) kids who were inspired by Batman to learn how to fight crime. They traveled the world, training to become better crime fighters, before eventually buying some drugs that give them the powers of Superman at the cost of diminishing their lifespan whenever they use them.

GG & G then speed run their tragic backstory when they: return to Gotham, save Batman & some civilians from a plane crash, get taken under the wing of Batman, get psychically fear-gassed by some dude named "Psycho Pirate," G "goes insane" and kills a bunch of criminals under the influence while GG watches, the criminals that G didn't kill swear vengeance, their secret identities are revealed, their parents are killed, GG teams up with the JLA to defeat G, and G dies from overusing his powers... all within a month!

Then, as the wikis so delicately put it, GG goes "insane," shaves her head, and starts talking to her dead brother while continuing to fight crime. This inexplicably causes Batman to reveal himself as Bruce Wayne to her, and he decides that the only way to "put her fractured mind back together" is to steal the device that Psycho Pirate used to psychically fear-gas G & GG... :/

Obviously this plan fails and Psycho Pirate manipulates GG to the dark side to aid Bane in... mentally breaking the Batman? (What is it with Rebirth and horribly re-hashing old storylines?) Which is where we find out surprise! Bane was behind the creation of G & GG this whole time! The drug they took to become super was somehow based on Venom, and Batman taking these inexperienced crimefighters under his wing only to lose them was all a part of his master plan. (Okay, is this reminding anyone else of that N52 arc that rewrote Jason's origin as Joker manipulating all the events in his life that lead to him being Robin just so he could kill him to break Batman? Anyone?)

Anyways Batman obviously wins, he "restores GG's to her regular state" with Psycho Pirate's little device, exposes her to Platnum Kryptonite to fix her little "my powers will kill me" issue... aaaaand then she gets sent to Arkham to deal with the metric shit ton of trauma she acquired from this escapade.

And this was it for her character for about 2 irl years up until DC decided to do a 3-part backup story in Detective Comics #1059-1061 about mental health.

Goddamnit.

[noladyme]

Chess. Chapter 13

Y/N never hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it. She only took what she needed, or what she felt others needed. She’d stayed out of sight for a long time, avoiding anything that could get her in to too much trouble. But for some reason Rick Flag shows up in her life, and in an instant, everything changes.  

TW: Language, sexual themes, violence, torture. Rated M 

(This story is obviously non-canon, i.e. Diablo and GQ, but I hope you’ll enjoy it either way. Let me know if you want to be added to the tag list.)

————————–

Let me start this off with a disclaimer: This chapter does not have Rick appearing. He will be back, but due to length and flow I needed to cut off the chapter where I did. Sorry. I hope you’ll enjoy reading it anyway

————————–

I was lounging on a love seat in the large house the Joker had taken us to; pretending to read a magazine Harley had offered me.

Frost had shown up at the house about 30 minutes after us, with a bump on his head, and a sneer plastered across his face. He insisted that the squad were gone by the time he came too.

The house was just as ghastly as the car had been; with bear skin rugs and clashing patterns on all the furniture. There was no doubt that 99% of it was stolen.

Playing a weird game of tag, Harley and the Joker were chasing each other throughout the house; squealing and growling at each other, each time one of them managed to catch the opponent.

I was thinking something fiercely.

I’d followed Harley and her psycho boyfriend into the Palisades, without any idea of what my next move should be.

Throwing herself into the seat next to me, Harley was laughing; out of breath.

“J is getting me a new puppy”, she giggled. “Those stupid animal rights activists took back my last one, when I was sent back to Louisiana”.

“What’s the plan here, Harley”, I asked.

“I dunno. It’s your turn to think of something”, she answered trustingly.

I sighed.

“I need to make sure Kelper doesn’t make it to congress”, I said.

“Revenge?”, she asked.

“No”, I answered. “There are enough shitheads in office as it is – look at the main guy in charge! We don’t need another one”. I crossed my arms. “Also a little bit of revenge, yeah”, I admitted.

“Yeah that judge does seem like a dick”, Harley muttered.

“No”, I said. “This is about Waller. She has enough power as it is. She doesn’t need to be able to keep hunting people like us down, and force us to do things we don’t want to. Even if we are bad guys”.

She grabbed my face between her hands.

“I’m with you”, she said, and kissed my forehead with a loud smack. “Tell me what to do!”.

I beamed at her. She was a good friend. Even if she was bat shit crazy.

“I need to be able to prove the connection between mr. J and Kelper”, I said; and looked down at my feet. “That does mean, that J won’t be able to use him for protection from the cops anymore”.

Harley was biting her lip.

“Huh”, she said. “He ain’t gonna like that”.

“I know”, I replied. “But we need him to”.

“Harley!”, the Joker called from somewhere. “Come out, come out wherever you are!”.

Harley sighed, then looked into my eyes, and nodded.

“Marco!”, Joker called from the kitchen.

“Polo!”, Harley answered, still looking at me; then grinned, and sprang from the couch to hide from the clown.

—

“Chess has a live bomb in her bag”, Harley said conversationally during breakfast.

I instantly froze; mouth agape – prepared to feel my throat being slit at any moment.

“Oh?”, the Joker said, gazing up from over the newspaper he’d been reading – well, not so much newspaper as comic book. “That’s nice, dear”. He looked back down.

Harley – curlers in her hair, and wearing a pink fluffy bathrobe – continued.

“Yup. It’s a pretty nasty one too”. She returned to her marshmallow cereal.

Joker put down his comic book and looked at her.

“Is there something you’d like to say, toots? Something I need to know?”.

I was shaking in my seat; and I gently put down the golden rimmed porcelain cup of coffee in my hand.

“Uhm, Harley. I don’t think this is the time…”.

“Please, Chess”, Joker said to me, lowering his old-fashioned reading glasses. “In this house everyone can say whatever they want, whenever they want. We mustn’t stifle others expressions”.

I nodded fiercely.

“A-absolutely, yes. Of course. I’m sorry”, I stammered.

He quickly reached across the table, and grabbed my hand, putting it between his own.

“I could tell you meant that”, he grinned.

Letting go of my hand, he turned to face Harley again.

“Now where were we, doll? Chess has a bomb in her bag?”, he said calmly.

Harley swallowed some of her orange juice.

“Yeah. It’s a black box, with a little display on it. Pre-set to 1 minute”.

“That sounds fun”, Joker said cheerfully. “What’s it for?”.

Harley got up from her seat, and went to stand behind her beloved madman; massaging his shoulders and neck, making him close his eyes and groan in pleasure. She slid her hands down his shoulders under the flowered kimono he was wearing.

“You know that mean lady, who’s been putting me in that bad place?”. Joker grunted in response. “Well those friends in high places Jerry was moaning about? That’s her”.

The Joker opened his eyes, and looked over his shoulder at her.

“Kelper’s friends with the witch?”, he asked.

Harley went to sit on his lap, and laced her fingers behind his neck.

“No, not the witch; the bitch. The witch is dead”, she said.

“Right, right”, Joker answered. “So?”.

“Well”, Harley continued, “the bitch gave Chess the bomb to blow you up; so you’d stop asking Kelper for favors”.

The clown looked at me, brows – or lack thereof – furrowing.

“You were going to blow me up?”.

I jumped in my seat.

“Oh, no. Absolutely not. Once I knew who you were…”. Harley interrupted me.

“Puddin’, Chess would never do anything like that. We were coming to tell you about the bomb; but then that stupid judge was there, and Chess got all upset, because she really hates his guts”. She kissed his forehead. “We plain old forgot!”.

Joker groaned.

“I spent a lot of money on Kelper. We had a lot of parties”.

“A lot of parties”, Harley nodded, backing him up. “So, maybe… we should do something about it”.

“Oh, snuggle-tits. I need the judge for my business”, Joker said, and looked adoringly at her.

My heartbeat was calming down, and I could think more clearly. I took a small sip of my coffee.

“Mr. J”, I began. “You probably know that I used to work for the Hatter”.

The Joker guffawed and snarled all at once.

“That idiot”.

“Yeah, well”, I continued, “I could work for you, like I did for him. Getting you information, money…”.

“I have money”, he interrupted.

“A new Lamborghini?”, I tried.

His eyes lit up.

“I’m listening”.

I sat up straight. Here we go.

“Kelper is pulling out of your arrangement. He’s even gone so far as getting someone to try to kill you”.

“Well that happens at least once a week”, he said, and shook his head. Harley stroked her fingers through his green hair.

“There’s that girl”, she said, and looked at me.

“What girl?”, Joker asked.

“Well”, Harley continued, “Kelper did some pretty nasty things to a girl who used to work at that place… what was it called?”.

“Sammy’s”, I answered. “It’s a burlesque club in the Narrows”.

I casually took another sip of my coffee, that at this point had gone cold. My face contorted from the taste.

Joker looked at me with narrowed eyes.

I continued.

“About a year and a half ago, Kelper raped and beat an 18 year old girl that worked there”, I said. “She’s still suffering from the attack”.

He patted Harleys thigh to get her to get of his lap.

“Jonny!”, he called, getting to his feet himself.

Frost came into the dining room.

“Yeah, boss?”.

“We own the Narrows, don’t we?”, he asked, and walked slowly towards his minion.

“Yeah, for about 2 years now”, Frost answered, not meeting his eyes.

“And do you know about a bar named Sally’s?”.

“Sammy’s, yeah it’s a stripjoint”, Frost said.

“Burlesque club”, Harley whispered into Jokers ear.

“Burlesque club, Jonny”, Joker said, and grabbed the back of Frosts head. “There is a big difference”. Patting Frosts cheek, he went to sit down again.

“So Sammy’s have been paying their dues, have they not?”.

“Never missed a pay-date”, Frost retorted.

Joker – now sitting down – slammed both his fists into the table, making us all jump.

“Then would you mind telling me, why one of the young ladies working there, was attacked and raped; while she was supposed to be under our protection?”, he yelled; his slicked back hair now disheveled, and falling into his face.

“This doesn’t look good, Jonny! This makes me look bad!”, he shouted.

“I know, boss”, Frost tried. “But it was Kelper, and you told us to stay clear of him”.

Joker jumped out of his chair, and threw it at Frost; only narrowly missing the man.

“Get out. Find Kelper. Bring him to me!”, he growled. “And get Chess new hot cup of coffee. That cold stuff is a disgrace”.

Frost rushed a fresh cup of coffee to me, and ran out the door; already on his phone, yelling at someone.

The Joker found a new chair, and pulled it up to his place at the table. He smoothed his hair back down, and exhaled.

Harley went to stand behind him, and put a hand on his shoulder.

He grabbed my hand like he had before, and looked at me seriously.

“Now”, he said. “Chess. Chessie. My dear. Thank you for making me aware of this problem in my organization. Am I also to understand that you were the one to punish Jer-Jer after his misdeed with the young woman?”.

I smiled brightly, doing my best to seem cheerful.

“That was me, alright!”.

Joker grined.

“Well, when you think about it, you did our job for us!”, he smiled widely. “So I owe you. You came in to this house a stranger; but now – you’re family”.

Harley squealed, and jumped up and down, clapping her hands.

Great. I wasn’t only the clowns newest pet and employee; I was apparently family.

Shit.

“I still want that Lamborghini”, Joker finished, and went to get dressed.

—

We drove to a building not far from the one we had been at the night before.

“Puddin’ you know this means you can’t work with Kelper no more, right?”, Harley said, as we were getting out of the car.

“Yes, yes, squishy-butt, I know”, he answered. “This is going to be fun!”, he snickered, and put his arm around her waist.

I followed them into the building, and down into a basement. In the middle of the dark room sat Kelper, handcuffed to a chair. A single lightbulb was lit above him.

Masked henchmen were spread around the room, covering the exits.

“Jerry!”, Joker said, arms spread into the air as we entered. “Thank you so much for being able to reschedule our meeting. I’m so, so happy you agreed to this location”.

The judge was gagged, had a black eye, and there was already a wet stain under the chair from where he had urinated his pants.

Harley jumped onto a table near the scene, and crossing her legs; she began to file her nails.

I stayed in the shadows; out of Kelpers line of sight.

The clown went to stand in front of his victim, putting a hand on each of his knees, coming down to eyelevel with him. He wrinkled his nose.

“Jer-Jer. Were you that excited to see me?”, he asked. He removed Kelpers mouth gag.

“P-please; Mr. Joker. I don’t know what this is about!”, he stammered.

“This, my friend”, Joker said, “is about your plans for your political future!”.

Frost appeared from the shadows with a chair, that Joker pulled up in front of Kelper. He sat down.

“It’s recently come to my attention that you’ve decided to run for congress”.

“Yes, mr. Joker. I was the one that told you about it myself”, Kelper said.

Joker smacked him across the face, and then pointed a finger at him.

“It’s rude to interrupt!”, he roared.

“Yes, of course. I’m sorry”, Kelper said.

Joker smiled.

“I take a great interest in politics, as you know. I’m even the governor of my own little corner of Gotham. And I find it’s very important to make sure that the people I govern feel safe”.

Kelper nodded.

“Good! So you know where I’m coming from”, the clown continued. “Then I come to hear that someone decided to cause problems in my little paradise. Apparently, a very silly man decided to pay a visit to a burlesque club, and play a little too roughly with one of the lovely dancers there”.

I saw Kelpers eyes widen in fear.

“I didn’t know that would be an issue for you, I swear!”.

The Joker patted his cheek gently.

“Well it is”, he half whispered.

Jumping from the chair, he ran to sit down next to Harley.

“Hi, sugar lips”, he said; and put his arm around her, before calling out.

“Chess!”.

I stepped out of the shadows, and pulled down my hood. Kelper looked at me, recognizing me from the meeting the day before.

“Miss, I don’t know what he’s paying you, but I’ll match and double it!”, he tried desperately.

I sat down in front of him.

“You smell like piss”, I said. He gulped. I sighed. “So this is not going to be fun for you. At all”.

His facial expression changed.

“Do your best, bitch. I’ve been through worse!”.

“Oh?”, I asked. The judge was about to spit in my face, but didn’t have the chance to do so, before I headbutted him.

I rubbed my forehead. That hurt, I thought, but cheered up, when I saw that I had obviously broken his nose.

Joker and Harley roared with laughter from the table.

“So, you’ve had it worse, huh?”, I asked.

He ground his teeth, and nodded.

I smiled and slowly began disappearing into a mist.

Kelpers facial expression immediately changed from prideful to pure fear. He began jumping in the chair, screaming; and managed to fall over; landing in his own wet pool.

“Ew”, Harley said from next to a gleeful Joker.

“Sshh, Harls’. I’m watching this”, he said.

Frost pulled Kelper back into a seated position.

“Get the camera”, I said to him, reappearing in my seat.

I clenched my fist, letting my claws come out.

“I heard you’re going to have some reconstructive surgery, your honor”, I said, looking down at my claws. “Jonny here could find me a pair of rocks, and I could do the deed for you. It’s only polite, seeing as I’m the one to blame for your whole ordeal in the first place…”.

Kelper began crying.

“No, no. Please. I’ll do whatever you want. I will!”, he sobbed.

Frost came in to the light, two plum-sized rocks in one hand, and a smartphone in the other. I took the items into my hands.

“Ok. Now, you can chose one of these gifts; and I won’t take no for an answer!”, I beamed. “Either you chose to let me help you make a nice little video, where you tell the world about your rape and beating of that young woman 18 months ago – along with an account of your dealings with criminal organizations in Gotham. That will make your family really proud of you, and you’ll instantly feel better about your misdeeds. Or…”.

I showed him the two rocks.

“… you let me help you by filling that empty sack of yours”.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Joker and Harley both leaning in to hear his answer.

Kelper sobbed, and a bloody glob of snot ran out of his broken nose.

“The video. I’ll do the video”.

“Boring”, Joker snarled quietly, and Harley patted his leg soothingly.

I pulled out the phone.

“Don’t worry Jerry. This will be over in no time”. I started filming. “Action”.

Kelper opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

“Look into the camera. Say your name”, I whispered.

He looked into the lens, and began.

“My name is Jeremiah Kelper. I am a judge in Gotham city”. He paused, and I kicked his shin.

“And”, he yelped, “18 months ago, I raped and beat a young woman I was giving a ride home in my limousine”. He sobbed. “I then… let two of my friends rape her, while I watched”.

I was struggling not to run my claws through his heart.

“Continue”, I hissed. Kelper did as asked.

“I have also been receiving payoffs from the crime lord known as the Joker”.

“That’s me!”, the Joker said, and jumped into frame; giving Kelper a wet kiss on the cheek. “We’ve been the best of friends, for a long, long time”, he said, and patted Kelpers shoulder.

“Isn’t this enough?”, Kelper cried.

“Apologise!”, I growled.

“Yes!”, Joker exclaimed. “And tell them that you’ve been a bad, bad boy. Say; I’m Jerry, and I’m a bad, bad boy!”.

Kelper sobbed again.

“I’m so sorry. I’ve abused my office, and I’ve hurt a young woman who didn’t deserve it”.

“No one deserves what you did to her!”, I snarled.

“No, no one deserves that”, he admitted.

“Bad boy!”, Harley yelled from her table, making Kelper jump in his seat.

“I’m Jerry, and I’m a bad, bad boy”, he finished.

“Cut! Scene! Print!”, Joker called, and gave the judge a hard slap on the back. “Good job, Jer-jer! This is one for the books!”.

I put the phone in the bag with the bomb I was still carrying. It was over.

—

A loud crash was heard. While we had been filming, the room had been almost cleared of Jokers minions, as they’d disappeared into the shadows.

The lights went out, and I felt a gush of wind over my head.

“No!”, Joker shouted.

A hard punch to my shoulder made me fall to the floor, and I dropped the bag, accidentally kicked it; and watched it slide into the darkness somewhere.

Panicking, I scrambled to find it, my shoulder pulsing with pain.

A gunshot was heard, followed by the sound of Harleys shriek, as she was thrown across the floor.

I got on my feet, and ran in the direction of where I thought the bag might be.

Someone grabbed my arm, holding me in place.

“Leave it”, a gravelly voice said. “Keep your head down”.

Shit…

Tag list:

@gloriousgam3r​

@hyp-oh-critical​

[stxleslyds]

MY REVIEW OF UNDER THE RED HOOD!

EDIT: This is Tati from the present, Hello! I am writing this little message right now to let you know that I am rebloging this post because I recently re-read it and I wanted to make it “better”, this was my second review that I had ever made and I am quite fond of it but it needed to be brushed up and made easier to read. Now, let me be honest, I am not an excellent writer so there are probably some mistakes here still but I like it even more now, so yeah, that’s all I had to say!

~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~

This review is here not only because I love that book but because Geoff Johns and Scott Lobdell’s characterization of Jason and Red Hood gives me nightmares and it’s just annoying.

First let me set the scene, here we go!

Jason’s death was confirmed in book three of four in the Death in the Family event back in December, 1988 (Batman #428). But he is officially brought back sixteen years and two months after his death in the iconic Batman: Under the (Red) Hood event (Batman #635-641, #645-650, Annual #25)

This particular event is just wonderful, I love this for many reasons some of which I will probably talk about in this post but it has impacted me so much that if anyone asks me what Batman story I would recommend it would be this one.

Now just a heads up, I always felt impartial to Batman as a hero but around three years ago I started borderline hating the guy and now I just can’t stand him half of the time, and I blame it on his overuse and the god complex that some writers can’t seem to write him without. So, I don’t really recommend UtRH in a good light when talking about the Bat himself. It’s all about my boy, Jason Todd.

UtRH is just amazing at showing these two character’s motivations and how they seem to think that their ways of handling crime are the best way. But it also shows us so many aspects of how Jason’s death impacted both Jason and Bruce.

Let’s start the review!

UtRH starts with a look into the future, a fight between Batman and a mysterious man in a red helmet that seems to not be an easy opponent for the Bat and it also looks like these two have been going at it for a while but just as we arrive we see that it may be over in the Bat’s favor but in that exact moment the red helmeted man unmasks Batman! Seemingly not shocked that Bruce Wayne is the Bat the mysterious man decides that he will show his face too...but all we get to see is Bruce’s face of shock and then.... we are thrown back at what we come to believe is the real beginning of the story.

Probably you can’t tell, but to me this is an amazing start to a story, you have the Bat who is sold as an excellent fighter struggling in a fight but when it seems that he is going to win something major happens... the mysterious man unmasks a legendary hero and doesn’t make a fuss about it and then he manages to shock the Bat by showing his face (which is not shown to the reader), I just think its genius, it sets up this new guy as an incredibly good and interesting character.

So now we find ourselves thrown back 5 weeks in the past and we come in contact with a meeting with some very shady people that don’t really know who put together the whole thing and while they try to rationalize it a round of shots hits the table they are sitting around.

Here is where we see this leather-jacket-wearing dude, holding an AK-47 while posing for the Google earth cameras, telling those people that he reunited them and that he is hot shit. He is there to make a deal; the dramatic queen wants to run the underworld of Gotham and not only is he offering protection against the Black Mask but against the Bat too.

Well, needless to say, those guys aren’t necessarily buying what he is selling so that my friends takes us to an iconic moment, this dude proceeds to throw a duffel bag with the heads of these people’s lieutenants and to finish it off he just shots another round to make the message clear...I mean talk about dramatic entrances!

Please don’t worry I didn’t forget about the most important part of this whole entrance...we were just introduced to this man who means business and wants to rule Gotham’s underworld and manage its drug trade and it’s all very swell but the truly important thing is what he says next:

“You stay away from kids and school yards. NO dealing to children, got it? If you do, you are DEAD.”

That’s a powerful message and this is just me speculating but if he has to make that specification clear...it leads me to think that kids are people that he wants to protect and no matter how much money they could bring to the business he wants them out of the equation, also the price for breaking that rule is death…. So yeah, is he truly a villain or...?

Now after all of this we jump to Black Mask receiving information of a new player in the game and he doesn’t seem like he cares, to him it’s just a newbie trying to mess around on a street level so he moves on with his business of recruiting Mr. Freeze for an undisclosed job. On the other hand, we are shown Batman crying over the fact that Oracle isn’t working with him anymore and then teaming up with Nightwing (that is wearing a knee brace and probably shouldn’t be out doing extreme parkour with his furry dad but hey, what do I know?)

We see Freeze trying on some new clothes and then we are back again with Black Mask, here, for the very first time we hear the new player’s name...Red Hood.

Following Batman and Nightwing we find them intercepting a shipment that appears to have a bunch of gadgets from several villains and among them there was a bomb, it explodes (detonated by the Red Hood) and from then on, the fun begins...the Bat and Nightwing go on pursuit and we get to see what the Bat thinks about Hood. He thinks that he is very well trained, agile and unpredictable, he also has an overall sense of familiarity coming from Hood but he ends up saying that it’s nothing they haven’t seen before, what he doesn’t expect is having been led to a trap which is, Amazo, yay! (Amazo was the cargo that Mask was waiting for).

Amazo is taken down with a little bit of struggle but he eventually is thrown to Gotham harbor and we are informed in another panel by Mask that Amazo wasn’t supposed to be activated so we can safely assume that it was Hood the one who did it. Mask is pissed that the Bat broke his toy and is going to be more pissed off when he answers a call from a certain red helmeted man...

Hood informs Mask that he took one of the crates from the shipment and that it might be one of the most valuable ones, our boy stole a crate with at least one hundred pounds of kryptonite...yeah no big deal.

Here I will make a stop to tell you that we know that this Red Hood is extremely tactical, he has a plan within a plan that takes down several players, he is confident in what he is doing and is certainly not afraid to get his hands dirty. He is a worthy opponent to Black Mask, Nightwing and Batman. We are just starting to know him but he is already great and it only gets better.

As we enter chapter three of the story we see Hood asking for 50 million dollars from Black Bask for the kryptonite that he stole from Black Mask (say that again), to everyone’s surprise Mask “agrees” to give him the money easily... well, not really, Mask is going to send Freeze to kill Hood and get that (quite honestly) unnecessary amount of kryptonite back.

Hood obviously knew that he wasn’t going to get whatever money he negotiated but he also wasn’t quite ready to take on Freeze but he did his best. When Freeze is the last one standing Batman shows up and a kinda lame fight ensues...Freeze leaves and Hood says that he really doesn’t care about the kryptonite, all he wants is the “lay of the land” and then leaves.

If you are wondering where Hood went, well…he went to an abandoned funhouse to terrorize the Joker! Yes people, it’s confirmed, Hood is a good boy! Go get him Hood I am rooting for you!

IT IS CROWBAR TIME! (And this time in reverse)

 In the start of chapter four Hood is blowing up yet another truck full of weapons belonging to Mask.

Elsewhere Batman is bothering Zatanna about one of Ra’s Al Ghoul’s (sealed) Lazarus pits. Asking if the pit can raise the dead and being his natural rude self. Because he doesn’t get the information that he needs and goes to Jason Blood who tells him that if he wants to know about people who came back from the dead he might as well talk to Green Arrow but his chat with him doesn’t lead anywhere so that’s that.

Onyx is introduced to us as a vigilante accepted by the Bat (you know, because of that thing where other vigilantes can only do their thing in Gotham if the Bat lets them because he is the high king or something) and when she comes across some dealers she finds out they work for the Red Hood and given that he is an unknown player she relieves the information to B who acts like an ass because he thought she had seen Hood and that she compromised one of his informants…now here is the thing, why does B act like everyone has mind reading abilities? How on earth would she have known that he had an informant and that the Red Hood wasn’t news to him...I am sorry dude but you are a shitty person of the highest quality  

Anyway, Onyx is actually doing her work watching shady men talk about if they will or not join the Red Hood, one of them says something like “I won’t join that psycho because he decapitated some of my men” (good men, he specified) but Onyx isn’t alone, Hood makes it known by telling her that those men were selling drugs to twelve-year-old’s (remember kids are protected by Hood, you absolutely do not involve them and if you do...well, congrats, you are dead)

At this point we are in chapter six of the story and another character trait is revealed to us from Red Hood, he is meticulous in the way he works. He knows almost everyone involved in the drug trade, what they did and are doing, the relationships they hold with Mask or whoever their boss is. The information he gathers lets him know if the people will stick to his rules and can also use the information he has against them. So, he is extremely dangerous, we have to imagine that if he is that thorough with street level baddies what kind of knowledge does he have on people like Batman...well, spoiler alert, he knows everything and he will use it and has been using it since he first saw him.

 While Onyx and Hood are on their way to take down those men Batman is in Metropolis asking Superman about his death and how he managed to come back to life.

Onyx soon understands what “taking down” truly means when it comes to Hood...they manage to get out of the warehouse just for him to grab a gun and shoot everyone on sight, which doesn’t sit well with Onyx so she tells him that, to which Hood has something to say just before he stabs her:

“Welcome to earth, baby! These dead sacks of meat on the floor made their living by beating, raping and devouring. Fear isn’t the answer.”

And I want to put as much importance into this as I did to the whole “keep kids away from this business” because it’s really important in what’s to come and the way Hood thinks is the better way to battle crime in Gotham.

That sentence alone tells us what kind of people Hood takes down, he plays judge, jury and executioner, he chooses who he kills and who is worth leaving alive if their crimes aren’t the ones that he decided must be paid with death. But it goes beyond that, he brings the fear factor… we know how batman works, he relies in criminals fearing him and the fact that they will be beaten and sent to jail or Arkham (if they are mad enough).

Here is what I believe is the fundamental difference between the fear factor used by those two, on the Bat’s side, the fear is left in the people he attacks but in Hood’s side, the fear is left in those who find the bodies.

After Hood stabs Onyx he decides to stay and chat, he tells her that he stabbed her in the shoulder because he knows it hurts and because (look at this smartass) he saw that she was “favoring one side” so he deduced that she had had an injury and teases her about maybe coming back to crime fighting a bit early...if you don’t think that’s cocky enough he then makes a comment about how the angle of the knife will make it harder for her to pull it out so, there you go, the man is well trained and knows what he is doing.

After that we get another piece of information about Hood and it’s actually given to us and Onyx by Hood himself, he says “I am no one’s son”.

Hood also shows us another character trait of his...he is a little shit. And very good at it. After he stabs Onyx “choice time” comes, basically he gives her two (three) options either he takes out the blade and she runs or he pulls the blade down from her shoulder to her hip and she bleeds out.  He also says that she could maybe join him, which is revealed quite quickly to be a joke and then proceeds to take the blade out and covering the wound with a “high-end field dressing for the modern soldier. It adheres as well as closes the wound with an antibacterial adhesive agent...stops the bleeding cold”.

I wrote the whole thing word for word because I think it’s important for us to see that he saved her life, and he also didn’t let her choose he just did it, let’s think about this, Hood shows up to that meeting not expecting to see Onyx there and instead of losing his cool he just talks to her about the men,  invites her to fight (his way but she didn’t know that) they make their escape and after the men are all killed by Hood she is furious so he, rather violently, completely immobilizes her so he can tell her what’s on his mind and then he gives her choices but here is what I really think...she never had choices because she is not his target, she doesn’t fit among the people that he thinks must be put down, so stabbing her came hand in hand with saving her.

Saving her just to ask her if she will “get up, fight and stop him” because he is still a cocky bastard...but surprise! Batman showed up to the party!

Hood isn’t too shaken up, in fact he uses the opportunity to make a show of his knowledge of the Bat’s thinking and his gadgets...he flatters the fact that he didn’t even hear him land and starts explaining to Onyx how the plane works, it can be stealthy or it can destroy your eardrums, then the chase ensues, B actually makes Hood fall at some point but it really doesn’t bother him, he continues to “flatter” the Bat’s technique, training and gadgets (all to fight the “malignant scum that ravage this city” Hood says) but ultimately tells him that he also has toys (that apparently he intercepted from Kord industries).

The chase turns into a fight in a rooftop, and yes my friends, this is the fight from the beginning of the story, the “you show me your face and I show you mine” fight.

Hood wants Batman to ask himself what has he done, and this I suppose is in reference to what he has done to deserve Hood coming after him. To which the Bat offers nothing but accuses Hood of being a murderer to which he answers with “No. I’ve killed, not murdered”

That confuses me, so first I will tell you what I found about the difference between killing and murdering somebody. A human kills another when it’s without intent or an accident, on the other hand when a human murders another it’s done with intent. About intent I found the following: “A person intends a consequence when they 1) foresee that it will happen if their given series of acts or omissions continue, and 2) desire it to happen.”

I don’t really know if Winick or the editors mixed the concepts of the two or if there is more to it. I honestly cannot wrap my head around it. It really doesn’t fit with what he has been saying, like the no dealing drugs to kids because if they do they will pay with their lives.

Anyway, my confusion is not what matters here, what matters is that we have arrived to the moment in which Red Hood will reveal to Batman his identity yay!

It’s Jason! Jason Todd is back from the grave!

It takes a bit of time for Bruce to come to terms with the reality of things but Jason assures him that he is who he says he is, he even suggests that Bruce has known his identity for a while and that it has been brewing in his head since Clayface.

I know, there are some things that need to be cleared up, the UtRH story is set in issues #635 (February, 2005) to #650 (April, 2006) but in a previous story (Batman: Hush) that ran from issues #608 to #619 “Jason” or better said Clayface disguised as an adult version of Jason had a fight with Batman where some old wounds were opened, this happened in issue #618 (October, 2003).

As far as we know that Jason wasn’t real and that was that, in fact we didn’t get the real events up until Red Hood: The Lost Days, a miniseries that came out in 2010, in the last issue it’s explained to us that by the time of Batman: Hush’s events Jason was already in Gotham and he was giving Hush information to mess with the Bat, and that’s all the information I have right there.

Back again to the story, Batman wants to know how Jason came back to life and he responds that he doesn’t know and doesn’t care, but he does give blood, tissue and fingerprints to Bruce so he can do some tests in the cave to prove that it’s really him, Bruce is once again being difficult saying that it still won’t make him believe but Jason knows better and tells him so.

He also says that it doesn’t matter what he is now, what matters is what Bruce is and what Jason will become. And Jason will become the kind of man Bruce would have been had he killed the Joker.

This whole conversation is very informative; Jason tells Bruce that he knows how to help Gotham because he understands the city more than Bruce. And in order to do that he will kill the Joker and those who deserve to die. This obviously doesn’t sit well with Bruce but Jason doesn’t really care what he thinks so he creates a distraction so he can leave B alone to marinate his thoughts.

It’s here at the end of chapter seven that I am going to cut the first part of the review before too long becomes way too long, so, see you in the second part!

The second part is linked here!

[idkwhoiamanymorebutwtf]

Below imma put my reasoning for each of these if you were confused about why I put certain characters where I did.

(note that this is about the show Harley Quinn 2019 so most things outside of this show won’t be taken into account when discussing the character’s alignments)

James Gordon as Lawful Good: He’s group and order oriented, and will cooperate with authority in all cases. You’ll never see Gordon team up with anyone who isn’t strictly on the ‘good’ side of things. He’s convinced that order and laws are absolutely necessary to assure that goodness prevails and continued to uphold the law even when Batman was gone.  A lawful good being kills whenever necessary to promote the greater good, or to protect himself, his companions, or anyone whom he's vowed to defend. In times of war, he strikes down the enemies. Gordon was very much willing to kill Two Face and basically went into an all out war against Harley. He admitted himself that he got into the police force to shoot bad guys. So long as it’s within the letter of the law and the people in question deserve it, he’s very much willing to maim and kill. Gordon responds to authority and when there is no authority figure around he does his best to uphold the law on his own.

Bruce Wayne as Neutral Good: He, like most neutral good characters, values life and freedom above all else, and despises those who would deprive others of them. Neutral good characters, including him, sometimes find themselves forced to work beyond the law, yet for the law, and the greater good of the people. Multiple times throughout the series he teams up with people the law dictates he ought to be fighting, like when he helped Harley in season one and even sacrificed himself to save Harley and Ivy, or when he helped Harley and The Joker get the Justice League back in season two. He’s a super hero, he tries to stay within the law, but he’s willing to work with those who aren’t strictly on the side of ‘good’ if it’s for the sake of goodness.

Barbara Gordon as Chaotic Good:  A chaotic good character acts as his conscience directs him with little regard for what others expect of him. He makes his own way, but he's kind and benevolent. He believes in goodness and right but has little use for laws and regulations. Babs, within the context of the show, does work with law enforcement, but she isn’t exactly bound by codes and laws. She worked with Harley and Ivy to take down the Riddler in Season 2 (and lets be real lawful characters...probably wouldn’t work with criminals) and she actually tries to befriend and hang out with the two. Working with them wasn’t just because she had to and there was no other option, she actually wanted to be friends with two criminals which again shows that she isn’t exactly bound to the law. In fact, she actively goes against it when she warns Harley about Gordon coming to take her down and tries to dissuade her father from going through with it, actively sabotaging the police to do what she believes is the right thing.

Pamela Isley as Lawful Neutral:  A lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a personal code directs her. Order and organization are paramount to her. She may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard, or she may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government. Traditionally, when people think ‘lawful neutral’ they think the latter of those possible motivations, someone who believes in the law and government, however in Ivy’s case she’s much more dictated by a personal standard. A lawful character trusts someone or something better than he trusts themselves, but they still pick which thing that is, it doesn’t have to be the laws of the land, it can be anything so long as it’s a solid principal or code or set of ideals rather than “whatever I feel like at the time”. Ivy’s moral code focuses mainly on saving the earth and she doesn’t every stray from that. She has a strong ideal that she’s completely dedicated to and doesn’t ever really change. She’s an eco-terrorist, and terrorism is usually enacted over incredibly strong beliefs. She isn’t exactly ‘good’ because although her goal is respectable she does things that most people consider immoral to get there, showing she isn’t too concerned about doing what’s good towards people. However she also doesn’t exactly go out of her way to harm or do evil (i mean she hurts people who try and hurt harley or the environment but this is moreso a form of vigilante justice than doing something ivy sees as immoral because she inherently believes that most of humanity is below the environment and below harley too “she’s my only friend but that’s by design, because she’s the only human I think is worth a shit”.)

Harleen Quinzel as True Neutral: True Neutral character’s fully think of good as better than evil. After all, they would rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. They’re just not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way. True neutral characters are known to behave in a good, moral way towards friends and allies. They support the people who support them, often out of genuine love. True neutral characters also typically only go out of their ways to hurt people who they think deserve it. Basically people who tried to hurt them or their loved ones first. Beyond that they don’t care. They don’t go out of their way to hurt people who don’t deserve it but if these people haven’t done anything to earn this character’s affection then these people don’t really matter. True neutrals often believe in lex talionis forms of justice. True neutral individuals do not lack interest, ambition, or passion--they value their own well-being and that of friends and loved ones. They may struggle passionately on behalf of themselves or others, as well as feel compassion for those they barely know. But overall they aren’t bound with any loyalty to doing what’s good. They aren’t bound to the law. They don’t feel an obligation to go against morality or law just for the sake of it either, though. I honestly think this is the most fitting for Harley. She doesn’t see any reason to follow the laws so she doesn’t. When someone fucks with her she’ll fuck right back, but generally she isn’t known to go out of her way to hurt people. It really feels like she’s mostly out to protect herself and her own. She’ll fight for things her friends care about and to help the people she loves. She has no qualms about lying and killing when the people in question hurt her or someone she cares about, though. She said herself that she can’t really even be considered a bad guy. Harley turned down the chance to take over the world because she isn’t evil and doesn’t want to inflict unwarranted suffering on random people, but at the same time she’s taken down multiple people who mess with her with little remorse for doing so. The broader conflicts between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ and ‘law’ and ‘chaos’ don’t seem to mean much to her, she’s just out to protect her and her own.

Selina Kyle as Chaotic Neutral: She, like all chaotic neutral characters, strives to protect her freedom first and foremost. Chaotic neutral characters follow their whims without any regard for good or evil or law. They often don’t have much actual concern for personal relationships. Chaotic neutral characters do not necessarily want others to suffer as a result of their actions, but do not care if others do suffer. They tend to behave in a good manner towards friends and allies, unless their friends and allies do not agree with them. Within the show, Selina has betrayed her allies multiple times, first abandoning her to steal a blood diamond and leaving Ivy to pay for her hotel bills, then stealing the the diamond Kiteman wanted to use to propose. She generally isn’t concerned with the wellbeing of Ivy, Harley, or any other allies, and prioritizes her own interests over all else with very little loyalty to...well...anything.

Darkseid as Lawful Evil:  A lawful evil villain methodically takes what he wants within the limits of his code of conduct without regard for whom it hurts. He cares about tradition, loyalty, and order but not about freedom, dignity, or life. He plays by the rules but without mercy or compassion. Darkseid is difficult to please and demands grand gestures of obedience and power in order for people to prove themselves, as was the case of Harley and Doctor Psycho offering to conquer planet Earth for him. Any acts of betrayal or disloyalty towards him is met with anger on his part and an oaf of vengeance. Despite this, he is not without a sense of restraint, as was the case of him returning to Apokolips after Harley refused for a second time to rule over Earth. He keeps his promises (when he offered harley the ability to rule earth after she showed her strength, for example), but doesn’t take kindly to disobedience or disloyalty and is undoubtedly evil, going out of his way to maim, kill, and conquer.

Edgar Cizko as Neutral Evil: Neutral evil characters are primarily concerned with themselves and their own advancement. They have no particular objection to working with others or, for that matter, going it on their own. Their only interest is in getting ahead. If there is a quick and easy way to gain a profit, whether it be legal, questionable, or obviously illegal, they take advantage of it. Although neutral evil characters do not have the every-man-for-himself attitude of chaotic characters, they have no qualms about betraying their friends and companions for personal gain. These characters willingly cooperate with anyone who will further their own ends. They often seek the easy road to fame and fortune, with little concern for the people they trample along the way. They value strength and ability alone. If the neutral evil can use laws to weaken those who stand in the way of his success, he will use them. He may betray a family member, comrade, or friend if it is convenient to do so and it advances his agenda. Dr. Psycho was fully willing to completely betray Harley over an offer of power, something that everyone else on the team viewed as reprehensible (this is why he’s the only one who i’d consider ‘evil’, btw, because king, clayface, harley, and ivy all value their friends/allies over power and control and view each other as friends wheras Dr. Psycho was willing to betray all of them even after everything they’d all gone through together). He does whatever it takes to elevate himself and goes out of his way to hurt people (like trying to take over the world or broadcasting revenge porn of harley and ivy into the sky).

The Joker as Chaotic Evil: As Harley said, he’s a sociopathic narcissist. As with all Chaotic Evil characters, he is hot-tempered, vicious, arbitrarily violent, and unpredictable.  Thankfully, these character’s plans are haphazard, and any groups they join or form are poorly organized.The Joker may be a ‘genius’ but he often fails to really think things through or execute plans successfully (I knowwww I said we were just analyzing this show and not the character’s other appearances but there’s such a good example from another show to what i mean when i say the joker isn’t as effective as he could be. remember when harley literally came closer to killing batman than joker did and improved his original plans? and the only reason batman survived was because joker threw her out a fucking window and screwed everything up? yeah.) He’s smart and powerful and rutheless and all that but he doesn’t think things through or organize his thoughts well enough.  The major precepts of this alignment are freedom, randomness, and woe. Laws and order, kindness, and good deeds are disdained. Life has no value. By promoting chaos and evil, those of this alignment hope to bring themselves to positions of power, glory, and prestige in a system ruled by individual caprice and their own whim. The chaotic evil creature holds that individual freedom and choice is important, and that other individuals and their freedoms are unimportant if they cannot be held by the individuals through their own strength and merit. Thus, law and order rends to promote not individuals but groups, and groups suppress individual volition and success. The Joker abused his girlfriend ruthlessly, goes out of his way to hurt innocents, tries to kill people on a regular basis weather they deserve it or not, and generally goes out of his way to exert his power over other’s simply for the sake of proving he’s dominant to them.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Count Dracula

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

So, in all my time doing Psycho Analysis, there have been a few villainous characters that, while extremely obvious, have such large and daunting scopes that it seems a bit scary to think I could accurately analyze them. Characters like Disney’s Pete or Bowser come to mind. Both are obvious 11s, but where to even begin with them? And that is a similar problem I faced with the villain who is arguably the single most important foe to ever grace fiction: Count Dracula.

How on Earth is one supposed to talk about a character who has spanned so much media and has remained an enduring fixture of pop culture for over a century? The guy has been in movies, comics, books, video games, plays, cartoons, musicals, songs… and he hasn’t even been a villain in all of them! How does one talk about such a villain with such a broad, all-encompassing scope?

The obvious answer is, of course, to talk about him in a broad sense and how he has affected culture, of course! This one’s going to be a little different than usual since I’m focusing more on the concept of Dracula than one single version, so there’s a lot of Dracula’s to go over here:

Performance: Throughout the years, Dracula has had many actors take a shot at him, though I think the finest takes are courtesy of Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee. The former is basically what cemented Dracula as a sexy, Gothic horror icon, changing the far less attractive man from the book into a seductive monster that would color numerous adaptations after. Lee’s take brings the sexy, but is also far more violent and monstrous, mostly because Hammer horror films were all about that bright red blood, so gotta have someone spill it all!

If you’re looking for more flamboyant, hammy Draculas, Richard Roxbourg of Van Helsing and Duncan Regehr of The Monster Squad have you covered, playing Dracula at his most deliciously, monstrously evil. However, the hammiest (and thus most amazing) Dracula was Michael Guinn’s take in Symphony of the Night, with the entire opening exchange between him and Richter Belmont being a testament to the joys of chewing the scenery.

More comedic takes on Dracula have popped up over the years, with the most notable ones being Adam Sandler’s lovable, fatherly take on the character in the Hotel Transylvania films and Phil LaMarr’s performance on Billy and Mandy, where he plays a ridiculous, possibly senile version of Dracula who is abrasive and hilarious in equal measure.

Basically, when it comes to Dracula, you can easily find any sort of performance to suit your needs and give you what you’re looking for.

Best Scene: Over the years, Dracula has had a great many fantastic moments under his belt, so many fantastic scenes and boss battles… but for my money, the single greatest moment Dracula has ever been in is the opening battle of Symphony of the Night. Just watch this cheesy melodrama unfold and try and disagree with me:

Though, of course, his death in the animated series sure is a contender:

Best Quote: From the above scene, we have “What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets!” among moany other meme-worthy bits of dialogue from Dracula. 

On the subject of Castlevania, from the TV show we have Dracula at his most tragic and pitiable, especially when he delivers these fantastically tragic lines like “ It's your room... My boy... I'm- I'm killing my boy... Lisa... I'm killing our boy. We painted this room. We... made these toys. It's our boy, Lisa... your greatest gift to me... and I'm killing him. I must already be dead.” and “Your greatest gift to me... and I'm killing him." as he does battle with his son, Alucard.

Then of course, we have the legendary moment from The Monster Squad where Dracula drops any pretense and starts strangling a little girl, screaming in her face "Give me the amulet, you bitch!" It’s so deliciously, horrendously evil!

Final Thoughts & Score: It’s very strange to think of how much all of fiction owes Dracula. The original book invented a lot of traits (the lack of reflection being one) and popularized others (such as shapeshifting and weakness to garlic), but at the same time also predates a lot of things modern vampire fiction takes for granted. The Dracula of the book has no weakness to sunlight and gets younger as he drinks blood, starting as an old man; in fact, Dracula in the book is entirely lacking in the Gothic sex appeal that almost every adaptation of the character after would give him. He was also not very seductive, instead outright attacking women if he wasn’t hypnotizing them. Hell, he wasn’t even explicitly Vlad the Impaler in the books!

More than any other villain I’ve covered so far, Dracula is truly deserving of an 11/10. Even Count Orlok owes him a debt, seeing as Nosferatu was just a blatant ripoff. Hell, aside from villains from old mythology, I don’t think any villain can lay claim to the sort of scope Dracula has, having forever altered vampire fiction even as certain elements of him become lost in translation.

But what of some of his other incarnations over the years? How do they fare in terms of score? Well, I’m certainly not going to be incredibly thorough and list every Dracula ever, but here are a few I’ve encountered:

Obviously it’s unfair to give the Bela Lugosi incarnation anything less than an 11/10, mainly because this is the Dracula who pretty much inspired most other interpretations of Dracula after him. He’s suave, Gothic, attractive in that dark and mysterious way… it’s no wonder Lugosi’s Dracula became such an iconic fixture of cinema. Then we have the other classic Dracula, Christopher Lee’s take. I think he’s only a 10/10 because I feel like Lee’s tenure is a bit more overlooked and Lugosi tends to supplant him in terms of iconic status.

Castlevania as a franchise is specifically built qround defeating Dracula as the heroic Belmont clan or some adjacent vampire hunter. So you’d better hope that the big bad and master of the magical castle the game takes place in is impressive, right? Well he most certainly is; while he’s not completely fleshed out in every appearance he has some, like his iconic portrayal in Symphony of the Night, really help sell the idea this incarnation of Dracula is a rather tragic villain, though at other times in the series he seems to revel in being a monster far more than that interpretation would allow. Notably, the Castlevania show went with the more tragic approach to great effect, with Graham McTavish delivering a fantastic performance that swings from being genuinely terrifying to hauntingly emotional (just watch the scene where he breaks down upon fighting Alucard and realizing he’s killing his own son). Both game (in a broad sense) and show Dracula get a 10/10, for different reasons.

Duncan Regehr portrayed the Dracula in The Monster Squad, and it is quite obvious he’s having a hell of a time. He’s just wonderfully hammy, and he might be one of the most evil Draculas ever seeing how he called a little girl a bitch and tried to slaughter children with dynamite. This one’s a 9/10 for sure. I honestly think he’s the best take on the character, but his movie is sadly too obscure to really give him that push to being a truly iconic portrayal. He just captures the menace and charisma of Dracula so well, it’s a shame more people don’t know about him.

Van Helsing had a Dracula, played to hammy perfection by Richard Roxburgh. Say what you will about the rest of the film, but any Dracula movie that features evil bat monster Dracula fighting fallen angel werewolf Hugh Jackman in a battle to the death over Frankenstein’s atomic heart is worth at least an 8/10. For a more minor role, we have the Dracula who appeared in the blaxploitation classic Blacula. While he only appears for a bit at the start, long enough to curse an African prince with vampirism and dub him “Blacula,” this Dracula firmly cements himself as one of the most evil Draculas ever, gleefully participating in the slave trade. I believe that’s another 8/10 right there. On a related note, Blacula serves as a chief inspiration to the Billy and Mandy incarnation of Dracula, who is a cranky old black man with a big mustache and lots of sass (in fact, he’s accidentally closer to the original book’s depiction than most other Draculas). Sadly, as a more neutral chaotic comedic figure, I can’t give him a rating, but boy is he a riot.

Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf features a more comedic and zany Dracula, one who participates in some good-old-fashioned Wacky Races cheating in an attempt to keep Shaggy as a werewolf forever. He’s mostly amusing for a oneshot villain, so I’d say 7/10 is fair. Speaking of oneshot villains, Dracula also showed up in an animated straight to video movie for The Batman, where he did things such as turn Joker into a vampire and get killed by Batman. He’s probably a 7/10 as well.

And then there are all the heroic takes on Dracula, such as the version from Dracula Untold or the “overbearing but endearing father” take on the character from the Hotel Transylvania movies (though that rap Adam Sandler does at the end of the first movie is pretty heinous).

And this is not an extensive list by any means. There are so many Draculas I haven’t watched yet, so many different takes I haven’t read the adventures of. And that, I think, is what makes Dracula such a great villain. He is a character who any writer can bend and shape to fit a plot, a villain who can serve almost any purpose and who can fit in almost any fantasy story imaginable. Dracula is incredibly versatile, and whenever he shows up in a work, things almost always get better for a bit. And keep in mind, this is a character who has been around since the year 1897, and yet he is still a household name that even people who have never read the books or seen the movies can accurately describe and recognize.

Is Count Dracula the greatest villain in all of human history? It’s debatable for sure, but I don’t think there’s any denying he’s up there considering his scope and influence and how he helped mold modern vampire fiction into what it is today. If nothing else, Dracula is still wildly influential.

[thepurplebutterflythings]

Kitty Cat & Tweety Bird (Part 9) - Jason Todd

Gif: Unknown on Tenor

Word Count: 3.7K

Paring: Jason Todd (Titans) x (f)Reader

Summary: While looking for Y/N, Harley feels responsible for The Joker kidnapping her beloved niece. As Joker and Y/N are face to face, The Joker wonders why he didn’t know about Y/N beforehand, especially considering he and Bruce are ‘connected’.

Warnings: Mentions of Abuse.

A/N: This is a little series I am doing about Jason Todd in Titans. I don’t know Comic!Jason very well so I’m taking all of this from the show, and at the moment he hasn’t been in very often, so please forgive any mischaracterizations.

Tagging: @bella-0104-123 @ninergirl1d @httpfandxms @rosybrock @attackonnat @reclusive-chicken-nugget   @demoiselle-en-detresse00 @young-psychos @thesleepykaijuu @thescottpack @nightlygiggles @rougestorms @sinon36​ @loxbbg​

Kitty Cat & Tweety Bird Part 8  | Masterlist |

________________________________________________________________

“Well, well, well.”

Y/N stirred with discomfort at the voice, low and gravely and gave the same effect of nails being dragged down a chalkboard with teeth on edge and bones wanting to escape the flesh prison as the noise drilled through them. It sounded as though they always had something in their throat they were trying to cough up, but could never rid themselves of. When she opened her eyes, Y/N looked around her and realised that she was tied up and being hung from the ceiling above her by chains. She was still dazed and so wasn’t fully aware, but when she looked below, she snapped out of it, for she was being hung carelessly above a vat of green, bubbling chemicals that glowed in the darkened room. The voice from before laughed manically, and Y/N looked around to see where the sound came from. As she looked, she gathered more about her surroundings, realising she was in Ace Chemicals. Footsteps echoed as the owner walked on the gantry above the chemicals, and Y/N saw her capture. The Joker.

Despite her Aunt Harley once being in a relationship (if you could even call it that) with the mad man, Y/N had never met him. He wasn’t even supposed to know she existed as Harley was frightened the man would harm her.

“You!” Y/N seethed.

“Ah! So you’ve heard of me,” Joker crouched down. There was still a distance between them, perhaps three or four metres. “That’s… interesting, for you see it wasn’t until earlier that I heard of you, Miss Wayne! You’re daddy and I… we’re connected so you would have thought I should know about you, but alas I did not.”

“You’re supposed to be in Arkham,” Y/N said, “how’d you get out? Why isn’t any news you’re out?”

“Smart little Bat Pup, aren’t you, Y/N,” Joker wagged his finger as he pulled a pocket watch out of his purple coat pocket and looked at it, “They should be finding out right about… now!” Just as the Joker said ‘Now,’ the siren from Arkham that signified a break out rang loudly through the air. “But that doesn’t mean they’ll catch me.”

“Why are you doing this?” She asked as she shifted in the chains, trying to loosen herself.

“Because,” Joker just shrugged, “To get at Bruce, I need to get to the one thing he loves and cares about more than anything – family.”

________________________________________________________________

The group, upon realizing that Joker had kidnapped Y/N, all suited up and went to search Gotham to find where he was holding her, reluctantly revealing to Harley and Ivy who it was beneath the mask of Batman. Neither were totally surprised, to be honest, and there were bigger things to worry about than Bruce Wayne being Batman. After Harley and Ivy got their protective gear on, they stopped at Wayne Manor were Jason and Bruce suited up, and then they went to Selina’s who pulled her Catwoman suit on. Alfred monitored their search for Y/N from the Batcave while Ivy and Selina went one way, Harley and Bruce went another and Jason went separately.

As Harley and Bruce finished searching yet another warehouse in Joker’s name, Harley fell against the wall and slowly ended up on the ground, sitting with her knees pulled to her chest. Bruce turned around and saw the woman curled in upon herself and frowned, walking up to her.

“Harleen?” Bruce said gently, “What’s wrong?”

“I kinda feel like all ‘a this is my fault,” she muttered as she ran her fingers over her knee.

“What makes you think that?” Bruce asked, sitting next to her to comfort her. Harley sniffed a little and turned her head to look at Bruce. She was holding back tears and her bottom lip, painted a brilliant shade of red that reflected the lights back from its gloss, quivered like a leaf.

“I had a chance to kill him,” Harley explained, “I coulda killed Joker, but I didn’t, and now he’s kidnapped a girl that I love and care for like me own.”

“What?”

“I left Joker when Y/N was ten,” She began, “Not many people know this, only Y/N, Selina and Ivy, but Joker… he used ta hurt me, hurt me bad, physically and mentally,” Harley confessed, “I know, I know, that’s what I get for dating a villain like Joker,” she sighed.

“God no,” Bruce said, “no, no, no, you never deserve anything that he did to you, ever, regardless of him being a villain, regardless of what you’ve done. You should never have been abused by him.”

“Thank you, Bruce,” Harley smiled tightly, “The night I decided I was gonna leave, he hurt me worse than he ever had before and I ran to Selina’s. She patched me up, and Y/N came out her bedroom, all in her jammies and everything – they were Batman one – and she saw me bleeding on the sofa and asked what happened. Well, at this point, Y/N/N just found out her mama was a thief, and her aunties were a criminal lunatic and an eco-terrorist, so there wasn’t much we could hide from her. She pretty much put two and two together , and that’s when she started wanting to be a vigilante, to take people like Joker and Penguin down. I decided then I had ta leave” Harley sighed and pushed her hair back. “Selina and I went back to Jokers, Selina as Catwoman, obviously, and we got my things, and Joker tried and stopped me, said he could be without me, he threw Selina off the stairs and tried ta grab me, so I grabbed my mallet and I started hitting him again and again and again. Selina stopped me cause Joker had called his henchmen and we didn’t have a chance to finish the job cause we didn’t have a gun, so we had to go. I shoulda stayed, I shoulda finished the fucking job, but then Selina said how upset Y/N would be if I did go through with it, saying 'Babes will be heartbroken'. She said it like that so Joker wouldn't know. And she was right, just thinking about Y/N finding out about what I was bout to do – it killed me. Y/N/N… she knows we were villains, that we’ve done bad things, that we have killed before, but this was different, cause me killing him would mean Joker’s men would kill me. That would break her heart, so I didn’t, and we left, went back to Selina’s. But I shoulda done it, I shoulda killed the bastard, gone down in fucking flames with him, cause if I did then he wouldn’t have taken Y/N.”

“Hey,” Bruce said, putting a hand on Harley’s shoulders, “you aren’t to blame here. The only one responsible for Joker’s actions is Joker. And Y/N had a much better and happier life with Selina, Ivy and you raising her.”

“Really?” Harley looked at Bruce and wiped her eyes.

“She’s incredible, and that’s partly because of you.”

“Thank you, Brucie,” Harley said kissing Bruce’s cheek, “you’re a doll, now, let’s go kick my ex’s ass!”

________________________________________________________________

Y/N watched from her spot above the chemical tank as Joker paced up and down the gantry. He seemed befuddled, gnawing on his thumb and occasionally huffing and pointing at Y/N before carrying on pacing.

“Explain to me, Ms Y/N Wayne,” Joker finally said, “why your father kept you from me, me, me of all people,” he gestured to himself and threw his arms in the air, seething and spitting as he worked himself up.

“I’m not the person to talk to about this, Joker,” Y/N huffed and turned her head away.

“Well, who else is there to ask?”

“My parents come to mind.”

“Do you know what it feels like?” Joker asked, “the chemicals?”

“No, and don’t really want to – let’s go back to bitching about my dad, can we?”

“Uh, uh, uh,” Joker tutted, “let’s go and talk about the chemicals, cause if dear old daddy can’t rescue you, then you’ll be plopped into a nice green bath of acid, how’s that sound?”

“Like dinner with The Mad Hatter sounds a lot more pleasant.”

“Oh, he’s a nightmare to spend ten minutes with really, Ms Y/N Wayne.”

“Please stop calling me that,” she sighed.

“It is your name though, Ms Y/N Wayne,” Joker said, “Anyway, back to the chemicals. It crawls under your skin and makes it feel as though every vein is on fire, that your skin is pulling itself from your bone and even when cleaned, you feel as though you are still coated in the substance, it’s… horrendous, never-ending torture. How does that sound, Ms Y/N Wayne?”

“Like high school, really.”

“And what kinda high school did your mama send you to?”

________________________________________________________________

Jason adjusted his Robin mask as he landed on the car roof. This was the last place on his list, Ace Chemicals. Bruce wasn’t sure if Joker would ever return there after the previous two times he was there and how bad those turned out, but Joker was a creature of habit, so it made sense to check. If Y/N wasn’t there, he had no idea where else she could be. Slowly, Jason crept up the ladder outside the building to the top, peering through the window. There she was, Y/N, tied up in chains and dangling over the vat of chemicals like a fish on a hook while Joker paced up and down and ranted as he did. Pulling his phone from his pocket, Jason called Bruce.

“Jason? You found her?”

“Yeah, Ace Chemicals, come quick,” Jason said.

“On my way, I’ll contact Selina. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I’m not planning on doing anything that would put Y/N in danger, Bruce,” Jason said before hanging up. He climbed back down and walked around the perimeter of the building, finding a door and opening it quietly. There was no one down there. It appears that Joker got so caught up in his plan to kidnap Y/N that he didn’t contact any of his men to watch the surroundings. Jason quickly walked away from the door and back to the car, opening it and checking, seeing the keys were still in there. He took the bag he had on his shoulder off and put it in the car, on the passenger side, then he walked into the building and slowly walked up the stairs, listening as he did.

“And here is the thing that bothers me the most, Ms Y/N Wayne,” Joker ranted on and on, “that I didn’t sense you,” he said, “after all your father and I have gone through, I should have sensed you – the daughter of Bruce Wayne, of Batman – but I didn’t, why?”

“Cause you’re not a fucking psychic,” Y/N groaned, “cause you’re a delusional lunatic.”

Jason bit back a chuckle. Only Y/N would be tied up over chemicals, her life in danger, kidnapped by The Joker, and still remain level headed and calm if a little irritated and bored. Jason tried to step forward, but something creaked beneath him.

“Wait,” Joker lifted a finger, “we aren’t alone here. Come out then, our unknown audience.” Jason gulped and walked out from his hiding place. His eyes moved from Joker to Y/N. Y/N was biting back her smile of relief of seeing Jason as Robin. Thank god someone was there to rescue her. “And Bruce didn’t even come himself to rescue his beloved offspring?” Joker tutted as he wagged his finger in disappointment. “But his pet bird instead? What does that say about the man?”

“We’ve all been out searching for her,” Jason said, keeping his eyes on Y/N.

“We?” Joker frowned, “Not just The Bat?”

“No,” Jason shook his head, “me, her father, her mother, and her aunts.”

“Mother? Aunts?”

“Oh, please tell me you aren’t that stupid,” Y/N said, moving her eyes to Joker. “You know it takes two people to make a child?”

“Of course I do,” Joker snapped, “her mother?”

“Oh my god,” Jason said, “you idiot. You don’t know who her mother is, do you?”

“Who is her mother?” The Joker asked, “and aunts? She has aunts?”

“Wow,” Y/N started laughing from her trapped place, “this is brilliant, oh my god, you have no idea what’s going to happen next. Fucking hell. Talk about karma being a bitch.”

“Someone explain to me what is going on!”

“Not only is Batman her father,” Jason said, almost laughing, while Y/N was howling with glee as she realised Joker had just trapped himself in his own trap. How brilliant. “Her mother is Catwoman, and her aunts are Catwoman’s friends – The Gotham City Sirens.”

Y/N and Jason didn’t let their faces reveal that behind the Joker the window had opened, and Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy had both snuck and were quietly behind the Joker, waiting for the right moment.

“What?” The smile on Joker’s face dropped for a second, “The Sirens?”

“Which means, dumbass, that your ex-girlfriend, and her new beau, both helped in raise Y/N,” Jason said, “meaning not only Batman is on the way, but Catwoman, Poison Ivy, and Harley Quinn are also coming here.”

“Seriously, mate,” Y/N laughed, “if there was an Olympics for bad luck, you’ve got Gold, not only that, but you fucking smashed the world record.”

“Uh oh,” Joker said.

“Uh oh is right there, puddin’,” Harley said from behind Joker, baseball bat in hand. She swung it hard and hit Joker in the side of the head. Joker yelped loudly and stumbled back. Bruce and Selina, still in costume, appeared from where Jason walked out of. Ivy then punched Joker in the gut while Bruce went for his face. Selina kicked the Joker in the chest. All the adults started beating the Joker as Brue turned to Jason and yelled.

“Robin, get Y/N and get out of here.”

“On it,” Jason yelled back with a nod as he climbed onto the railing and carefully, quickly, moved past the fight and to the other side where the chain holding Y/N was linked up. Jason grabbed it and looked at Y/N, “Ready?”

“Fuck yes,” she nodded as Jason unhooked the chain and started pulling, lifting Y/N higher and higher. As she started moving, she shifted to loosen herself, and once her hands were free from the chain, she grabbed it and shifted her, so her body was then free, still keeping a firm grip. When Jason pulled Y/N high enough, she started swinging, throwing herself forward and flying into Jason’s arms. They crashed onto the floor. Y/N pulled back and looked into Jason’s eyes.

“Didn’t know felines could fly, Kitty Cat,” Jason chuckled.

“Learnt from the best, Tweety Bird.”

They got to their feet, and Jason grabbed her hand, throwing a look at the group before running. He dragged her down the stairs and out of the building. They both ran so fast that they were nearly tripping over their feet, looking over their shoulders constantly as they did. When they had finally reached the car, they stopped, but Y/N pulled away from Jason for a moment, gasping for air and looking behind her as she did.

“What is it?” Jason asked as he opened the door.

“We can’t just leave,” Y/N said, “we can’t leave them, we have to go back, we have to help. Did you bring my suit?”

“Bruce told me to get you out of here,” Jason said, “I’m doing what he told me to.”

“Jason, I know you,” Y/N folded her arms, “where’s my Lynx suit?”

“No, we’re going back to Wayne Manor, and they’ll meet us back there.”

“Jason, where is my suit?”

“No.”

Y/N sighed and walked forward, arms still folded. She leant against the car, next to Jason, and lifted her eyebrows.

“Where is my suit, Jason?”

Jason sighed and groaned, rolling his head back before ducking into the car and grabbing the bag he put on the passenger seat, pulling it out and handing it into Y/N.

“You’re explaining this to your father.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she rolled her eyes as she climbed into the backseat and started changing, “now, no looking.”

“Now all I wanna do is look,” Jason huffed.

“Tell you what,” Y/N teased, “you can watch me get undressed after all, this is over.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

________________________________________________________________

It was as though the adults were all taking turns in beating the Joker, but he was fighting back, not going down easy. If Batman wasn’t there, then the Sirens would have easily killed him by then, but Bruce was adamant to return the lunatic to Arkham.

“My daughter is not a pawn for your fucking games,” Selina hissed as she scratched his cheek, nearly reaching his eye but just missing, “come after her again and it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”

“I shoulda killed ya way back when, ya cunt,” Harley kicked him in the back, causing him to fall to the floor.

“You’re lucky I let you breath clean air,” Ivy yelled as she slapped him.

“My child,” Bruce picked Joker up by the collar of his jacket and leaned into his face, “has nothing to do with me and you. Leave her be.”

“Or what? MMM? Throw me into the acid? We both know you won’t. We’re connected, you and I, you know it too.”

“You delusional fuck,” Selina pulled Joker from Bruce and kneed him in the stomach.

“What did I ever see in ya?” Harley threw her arms up, “seriously? How’d I ever think you were a good match for me?”

Joker took this moment and grabbed Selina and dangled her over the edge near the acid where the broken railing was.

“Come any closer, and the cat gets it.”

“Like hell she does,” said a voice. Y/N ran in as Lynx with Robin close behind her. She launched herself at Joker, who pulled Selina from the edge and fell backwards. Y/N punched him in the face. Joker got to his feet and started trying to fight Y/N. Y/N was quick, dodging his slower movements. Jason quickly came to Y/N’s side, and they started to fight against the Joker in sync, when Y/N kicked him towards Jason, Jason would punch him in the face back towards Y/N, falling to the ground, and Y/N would lift her knee, clocking him in the chin, pushing him towards Jason, who would shove him to knock him off balance. The adults all watched them in awe as Jason and Y/N moved in sync with each other, beating the Joker relentlessly. They didn’t even need to intervene, Jason and Y/N had it all under control. Eventually, Y/N grabbed the chains previously used to hold her over the acid and wrap them around Joker’s wrists, letting him balance on the edge over the acid, holding him carelessly by the chain.

“Y/N!” Bruce said out of instinct.

“No one goes after my family,” Y/N growled, “no one.”

“Well, talk about a punch line,” Joker whistled with a laugh, throwing his head back. He recognised the Lynx costume. They still got newspapers in Arkham. “That Bat’s Pup is a Cat after all!”

Y/N looked The Joker dead in the eye. She looked at him coldly as he laughed on a loop. Jason stood behind Y/N, ready to support Y/N in whatever she did, and the adults just watched.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t drop you into the acid and let it finish the job.”

“It didn’t work the first time,” Joker said, “what makes you think it’ll work the second?”

“Cause half the job is already done.”

“Ooo, low blow, Pup-Cat.”

“Y/N, don’t,” Bruce said, “You’re better than this.”

“Am I really, though?” She asked, “And don’t tell me you haven’t thought of it yourself, of letting the bastard die. The world will be a far better place without him.” The Joker pulled a hurt facial expression before laughing again.

“I mean,” Jason coughed, “she’s not wrong. The world would be better without him.”

“Think of how many people he’s killed. This is his retribution.”

“He ain’t got any humanity in him,” Harley said quietly, “it’s something I shoulda done a long time ago, but,” Harley sighed, “Y/N, I don’t want ya to become a killer. Ya Daddy’s right, you’re better than this, than me.”

“And me,” said Selina.

“And I,” Ivy nodded.

“Don’t become a killer like us,” Harley said, “cause it’s a line you can never go back from.”

“Trust me, if I could,” Selina sighed, “I would never have pushed that guy from the window,” she whispered, “even though I had a good reason and was protecting someone else,” her eyes flickered to Bruce, who lowered his eyes as the image of Young Selina shoving Alfred’s army buddy out the window came into his mind.

“Y/N,” Jason put his hand on Y/N’s shoulder, “let’s take him to Arkham.”

Y/N looked Joker in the eye. Everything he did to Harley, nearly killing Selina, dangling herself over the chemicals, the torture he inflicted on her father over the years (it wasn’t a secret, everyone knew about The Joker Versus Batman), and he was going to live. It wasn’t fair, but they were all right, Y/N didn’t want to be a killer, didn’t want to cross that line.

“Fine,” she sighed, but instead of being gentle, Y/N yanked the chain quickly, pulling Joker forward and kneed him in the head with such force it knocked him unconscious.

As The Joker laid unconscious on the floor, Y/N took her mask off and looked at her family.

“You did the right thing,” her mother told her softly.

“I hope so,” Y/N sighed.

“Hey,” Bruce said, brushing the hair from Y/N’s eyes, “I’m proud of you,” he told her with a soft smile.

“Thank you, Dad.”

[thecomicsnexus]

City of Bane, “conclusion”

BATMAN #85 FEBRUARY 2020 BY TOM KING, JAMES TYNION IV, MIKEL JANÍN, HUGO PETRUS, JORDIE BELLAIRE, TONY S. DANIEL, TOMEU MOREY AND GUILLEM MARCH

This is the end of Tom King’s run on Batman. At the end of the first arc, Gotham Girl’s narration implied that she was going to kill Bruce Wayne. Remember?

So this issue should probably resolve that arc.

SCORE: 2

It’s hard to discuss this issue without spoilers, so click (or tap) on “keep reading” for spoilers.

This issue felt like a very long insult. Right from page one. The story goes back and forth from the present and the future, with no real consequence to the actual story. There is no pay-off on telling the story this way other than delaying the end of the fight that started two issues ago even more. And that even gets spoiled halfway through the issue, so, no point in that. It’s just a choice with no real justification.

This is the first review I give a score of 2. Something that shouldn’t even be possible, but I haven’t found a comic that makes 84 other issues so pointless before.

In a nutshell, Batman and Catwoman were already prepared for this scenario as well.

And right from page one, Batman lets Catwoman attack Thomas Wayne, who has been torturing Bruce with the corpse of Alfred a few minutes ago. So how did Catwoman manage to avoid being “emotionally-controlled” by Psycho-Pirate? Well, glad you asked... they had the Ventriloquist under their control, thanks to a... recording of Scarface. This makes a lot of sense if you are a little drunk, or high. But then you sober up and realize they had someone there all along, who let Alfred die and then let Thomas shoot people randomly, including Batman.

There is a bit of hope in the middle of the issue, as it seems like the “wedding” arc was finally going to be resolved. But the stupid stuff remains. They want to get married as Batman and Catwoman, as if that had any kind of legality to it. And in the end, they start kissing and then they realize it’s the next day and they didn’t actually get married (which, by the magic of logic, they wouldn’t be anyway because Batman and Catwoman are not legal personas). And they decide they don’t really need to get married.

So going back to the fight from two issues ago, after Selina puts an end to Thomas, very easily, so easy, you will forget he took out the entire bat-family in one fight. Then Bruce gives him some speech and Thomas takes out his gun and threatens to kill him. Then Batman says something that actually resonates with where I thought this story was going. That he shouldn’t be trapped in the decision of a ten year-old. That being Batman is a decision he makes every day (I guess that was what that annual was all about), and he chooses to be batman, and be happy, and have a family. Thomas gives up and then Bruce punches him and tells him he is not his father.

Thomas ends up in Arkham where at some point, Bane finds him and does his thing.

At another point, Batman is talking with Gotham Girl in a very hard to explain sequence. And he offers her the Platinum Kryptonite to give her all her powers without poisoning herself to death. She obviously takes it, and that psychotic killer gets a happy ending. Now, there is no callback to the very first arc where Gotham Girl said she was going to kill Bruce Wayne. Maybe she will in the future? After she marries Duke, a character that rarely appears in this run?

Also in the future, Bruce Wayne likes american football, in bars, next to Kite man. (???).

So many things make so little sense in this issue, the whole run loses the little amount of respect it could have.

I really thought this was going to be a great story in the end, but I was wrong. I am under the impression Tom King is not good writing endings, and as a result, the whole story suffers from introducing elements that go nowhere.

Many people had issues with how Batman was much more ineffective than Catwoman. I have a different opinion. I feel like Catwoman didn’t need the “boost”. The character has been kicking ass since the early nineties. She had her own book, and still does. Why did Tom King feel he needed to validate her in front of her readers?

And what is the deal with all this lazy writing? Where are the editors? Dave Wielgosz, Ben Meares and Jamie S. Rich?

Now, the one thing in this issue you may be interested in... there are a few teaser pages from Tynion IV, about the Joker discovering Clark Kent is Superman, and finally considering doing his last battle with Batman (and possibly revealing his secret identity). This is interesting, we’ll see how it is executed.

Reading this issue felt a lot like reading very bad fan fiction. I am honestly worried about the New Gods movie. I feel like books will be written about how that movie tanked.

I am also a bit sad about Tom King. After Heroes in Crisis, he needed a win, and this is possible the lowest in quality he ever got.

The fact that this book came out the same day Doomsday Clock ended... should be a clear sign for DC that they should put their money on writers who understand the properties. Very little in this run makes me think King understood Batman or Catwoman. Or Robin. I think he did some research about childhood trauma, but in the end, the resolution wasn’t as powerful as he imagined.

And what about that talk King had with AT&T, asking for permission to change Batman forever? Except for Alfred still being dead (something that wasn’t King’s decision), nothing really changed. I guess we will have to wait for his Batman and Catwoman mini-series.

Let’s just forget this happened, and put these issues at the back of the longbox. Or right in the middle, where no one could ever find them again. And also, let’s hope no one resurrects this run in a movie, 20 years from now.

Better luck next time Tom King. With a different character. Hopefully.

[stephtastrophe]

I went to see Joker at the cinema last night, the first time I’ve been to the cinema in a few years and I was not disappointed! It was EPIC! <3

I’ve read apparently people have walked out of screenings as it’s too violent etc but no one walked out of the screening I was in. If you think that’s violent try watching some other far more violent movies such as Fight Club (my favourite), American Psycho (another favourite) and Se7en! There’s a ton of much more violent movies than this I can assure you. Especially a lot from the 80′s and 90′s. Wasn’t Death Wish a notable revenge tale that was very violent? I wonder what movies people watch these days lol.

I adored this movie. It was probably even better than I expected.

Seeing the poor downtrodden Arthur Fleck go through life with mental illness and caring for his mother, getting fired and being struck off by society. 

Simply put, he ended up rejected by society and then chose to take his revenge on said society. 

If he really was Thomas Wayne’s son then he could have had life so much better. If his mother was telling the truth and he was his child and not adopted, I’m not sure. But for the Wayne’s a scandal such as that probably would have to be covered up so it is plausible he was. Although he looks around the same age as Thomas. 

I did go out to the loo when his mother went in the hospital but don’t think I missed anything. That’s the only reason I saw people leave, to go to the loo and return lol. I didn’t expect him to smother her later though but wow.

I liked when he danced on the stairs and I did not realise it was a Gary Glitter song which was the other people left. I don’t even know his songs and I am surprised so many people would these days :/ and I know a lot of music compared to some.

But the scene was just great and immediately you noticed when he turned into Joker he got a lot more swag. He was immediately more confident and it showed. He completely changed, he snapped and became someone totally different from before. You could just see it in the way he walked and talked. 

It was kinda crazy that he killed Robert De Niro on the set of his show in front of a live audience but it wasn’t the craziest thing I’ve ever seen in cinema history tbh. It was tame compared to some things. Then he shot him again and someone else. 

He also killed his one mate who came around to his house who said the police had come talking to them and he clearly wonder if he’d killed the Wall Street guys and was right but he let the other one guy as he was the only one who was ever nice to him.

Of course he got arrested after the TV shooting but then the riots on the streets by all the clowns started and someone drove a van in to the cop car and then they got their savior out. He lived to see another day.

Also, during the riots which did make me wonder ... is Arthur the real Joker? As yes, there is a back story where he is a failed comedian.

But then, another guy killed Thomas and Martha Wayne ... a robber. Which is another back story of Joker as in some he killed them as a petty crook. So, could that be the real Joker? Inspired by this previous one in Arthur Fleck? It really made me wonder.

I know a lot about Batman and Joker because they are my favourites and I’ve read a lot of the graphic novels and a Batman Encyclopedia too which tells you everything. Not sure where it is now though.

Joaquin Phoenix was absolutely phenomenal as Arthur Fleck and Joker though. He really did embody him, the entire spirit of both characters especially Joker. He had the manic state of Joker and obviously the clothes and the murder vibes which he did do. 

Robert De Niro, who is a great and unexpected (in my eyes) choice for Murray Franklin was also amazing.

Frances Conroy was a great choice for his mother.

Brett Cullen was good as Thomas Wayne. 

Not gonna lie, my immediate thought when I saw Shea Whigham as a cop again was “dude is seriously type cast” lol. He’s so good too but also is good at playing cops lol.

I didn’t even recognise Marc Maron at first then did and was like “oh it’s Marc Maron” - I knew he was meant to be in it though. I wish they’d finished showing his TV show here, I still listen to his podcast sometimes. He’s hilarious.

I really do hope they make a sequel because it was such an awesome movie and loved Joaquin Phoenix as Joker! He’s such an amazing actor and an inspired choice for the role. Not someone I ever dreamt would play Joker but I would say is easily my favourite portrayal of him! He is the definitive Joker I think now <3

[secret-kpoplibrary]

Mafia’s Girl Pt. 7

Pairing: Yoongi x Reader

Word Count: 2566

Warnings: Kidnapping (again), torture (not too graphic), blood(?) swearing ig

Genre: Sorta angst

Summary: Being kidnapped and hired by the biggest gang leader in your city was never part of your plan. Yet here you are, working for him now, doing odd jobs here and there, nothing too dangerous. Little did you know he wanted more from you than to be just another employee. He planned to make you his. How exactly was he going to do that? With your attitude it wasn’t going to be easy, but what Suga wants, Suga gets, every time. Would you be the exception?

***

When Namjoon calls you telling you that he's there you quickly make your way to his car and get inside.

"Woah you look sexy as sin." He says.

"Yeah, thanks, that's the general consensus." You say.

"Well who wouldn't think so when you're all dolled up like this." He chuckles. "Anyway what the hell are you doing out here?" He asks as you begin the drive back to your apartment building.

"The party was at a beach house down the road. I didn't want to wait for you there because I didn't want you there and I didn't want anyone to try and speak to me so I walked up the street because I saw the hotel on the way there." You explain.

"Okay so why were you in such a rush to leave?" He asks.

"Because Suga is fucking nuts! And not in the psycho killer drug lord way! I mean probably but that's not what I mean!" You say with exaggerated hand gestures littering your reply.

"What happened y/n?" Namjoon asks glancing at you for a moment before turning his eyes back to the road.

"Okay. So he gave numbers to the important people in his gang. Hobi and Tae have numbers, the doctor who treated my ankle, the kid who was with me for my first mission, and some guy named Jimin. All of them have numbers, 3-7, those are like... the inner circle, the people he trusts and considers family, there was an 8 guy too but he uh... betrayed Suga so he's gone now."

"Okay? What's wrong with that? It seems pretty... gang culture I guess, to give the important ones a special name or code." He shrugs confused.

"He's number 1 obviously, as boss, but he doesn't have number 2. Do you know why?"

"Of course not, but I'm assuming you're about to tell me." He chuckles.

"He left out 2 in his little numbering because he decided to reserve it for his 'queen' as he put it. The woman that will stand by his side, probably as his girlfriend or wife or whatever. Basically the Harley Quinn to his Joker ass." You huff.

"That's actually cute, why are you mad?" Namjoon asks finding this all very amusing.

"Because he's decided I'm going to be his 2!" You say. Namjoon's smile disappears immediately.

"I'm sorry what?" He asks.

"He thinks I'm the only person suitable to stand by his side. It's why he hired me, why he puts up with my attitude, why he made me stay with him over a sprained fucking ankle, why he made me come tonight. He wants me to be his." You explain.

"That's ridiculous." Namjoon scoffs.

"I fucking know that!" You huff.

"Well what did you say to him?"

"That he's fucking nuts and he can't just decide I'm his '02 obviously. I mean we literally met 3 months ago and he barely speaks to me. Why would he think I'd just agree with it?" You roll your eyes.

"So now what are you going to do? Quit?" He asks.

"You don't just 'quit' this kinda thing Joon." You scoff.

"So you're going to keep working for him?!"

"If he doesn't fire me then yeah I guess so. It's not like he's just going to let me go. Not after all this time." You say looking out the window.

"After all this time?"

"You think he made this decision when he hired me? He's been playing my protector for who knows how long. It's gonna take more than me storming out of a party to get him to fuck off." You sigh.

"Just be careful with him y/n." Namjoon sighs. At this point the both of you have returned to your apartment building and naturally you followed him up to his apartment to finish your conversation. "This world is dangerous. You shouldn't be part of it." He frowns.

"It seems like this life has chosen me." You shrug.

"No it hasn't." He says.

"Really? My dad was part of it. I was born into it. I thought I escaped but now I've been chosen as the infamous Suga's future fucking wifey. I can run all I want but I doubt I'm getting away from any of this crap." You say.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I can't save you from this." He mutters.

"It's okay Joon. You don't need to save me." You tell him grabbing his arm.

"Not yet, but what if something happens to you. What happens if I can't protect you? We're family. It'd kill me if you got hurt and I couldn't do anything about it. I don't want to feel that helplessness. I want to be able to help you, but I can't protect you from everything that comes along with that... world they're part of." He says frowning. You wrap your arms around him hugging him tightly.

"You don't have to worry about protecting me, I'm not going anywhere Joon." You say.

"You're going to send me to an early grave y/n. I swear." He sighs. You laugh.

"I wouldn't if you'd just trust me to take care of myself." You tell him.

"I do trust you, but it's not exactly in your hands when you're dealing with... people like Suga." He says.

"I know it's not ideal, but this is the situation I'm in. I just have to make the best of it." You say.

"We. We have to make the best of it. No matter how dangerous your life is I'm still going to be here for you." He says.

"How can you expect me be scared for my life when I've got someone like you by my side through it all?"

"You're probably tired huh. I'll get you something to sleep in while you shower yeah." Namjoon says slowly untangling himself from you and disappearing into his bedroom. You grab a towel from the hall closet and head to the bathroom for a relaxing shower after a taxing evening. Showered and dressed in a t-shirt and sweats, courtesy of Namjoon's closet, you curl up in his guest room and fall asleep with ease.

*~*

The next morning after breakfast you and Namjoon head out to the mall to make up for your interrupted plans the night before.

"So what are you gonna do with that dress you wore to Suga's party?" He asks as you walk through the giant shopping mall.

"Hide it in the back of my closet and never put it on again of course. What else would I do with it?" You chuckle.

"It's a gorgeous dress though. You said he gave it to you right? You get a dress like that for free, why wouldn't you wear it?"

"Joon the only place that'd be appropriate is another of his parties, or at the club and I spend enough time there working." You roll your eyes.

"You're working tonight aren't you?" He asks.

"Yeah. I'm supposed to be." You say flicking through clothing racks at some random store that you couldn't remember the name of.

"Thank fuck! Work is so weird without you, and I'm tired of answering the dreaded 'where is the Wild Rose' because everyone knows we're like close as fuck. People think I've finally swooped you up and domesticated you." He groans making you laugh.

"Domesticate me? At this rate I'm never gonna be truly domestic." You scoff.

"You know he can't force you to marry him right?" Namjoon says.

"Suga? He's dangerous and powerful. If he knows my weakness he could easily get me to do what he wants." You mutter.

"You? Have a weakness?"

"Yeah. It's you idiot. I've lost all my family. You're all I got, I'd give my life to him if it kept you safe." You say.

"Aw! That's so sweet!" He says pulling you into a hug. "But you know you don't have to right?"

"I know! Doesn't change the fact that I would. Anyway that's enough mushy garbage." You say pushing him away from you to go purchase the clothes you picked out. Once you've checked out you both hit probably half the mall before going back to your apartments to get ready for work. Your work costume tonight consists of black lacy undergarments and matching stilettos. You throw on your trench coat before meeting Namjoon in the hall to walk to work together.

"It's been like ages since you were there. I bet the house will be packed later once people find out that you're on the schedule tonight." He chuckles.

"Yeah yeah you just keep the patrons happy and drunk." You roll your eyes.

"Don't act like you don't love your job." He says.

"It's obviously not something I wanna do forever, but some of the time it's enjoyable." You say.

"You know you can quit whenever you want right?" He says frowning.

"Of course. As psycho as he is Suga pays me well. But I like dancing." You tell him waving him off as you both arrive at the club, muted music can be heard from outside. You make your way inside and head straight to the back where the dancers stay until their shows.

"Rose! Holy shit you're back!" One of the other dancers runs over to hug you.

"Hi Bunny." You laugh.

"What happened to you?" She asks.

"I- had some personal things to take care of, but now I'm back and ready to dance my heart out." You laugh as the other girls surround you.

"Welcome back Rose." Another dancer, Red, says laying her hand on your shoulder. You smile.

"Okay guys quit being sentimental. Did everyone take their pre-show shots yet?" You ask.

"We were just about to." Bunny says.

"Then let's get to it!" You say going over to the table where a line of shots waits for you all. It's a ritual to take at least three shots before the night starts, a little bit of liquid confidence never hurts in your line of work. With the shots out of the way everyone is chatting and the room is buzzing with anticipation as you all wait for each of your sets. Yours is later into the night, around twelve, with Bunny and Red. The minute the three of you hit the stage the energy in the room changes drastically, you capture the attention of the entire room as your bodies dip and sway to the beat of the music. You allow yourself to get lost in the music, letting it control your movements for the next forty-five minutes that you're on stage as men lean towards you to shove bills wherever they can reach to place them. Your time on stage passes quickly and before you know it you're making your way backstage counting your profits for the night. You place your money in your trench coat pocket that you left in Namjoon's work locker, and make your way out to mingle with club patrons dressed in dark jeans and a tube top. You're watching one of the newer girls perform when a man comes up behind you and clasps your wrists behind your back with his large hand.

"You'd do well to come with me." He says into your ear. You fight against his hold but stiffen when you feel the cold barrel of a gun against your back. "Hold still missy. If you don't your friend may just not leave here alive." He says. Your head snaps towards the bar to find Namjoon unknowingly serving a man who is watching you both like a hawk. You notice the gun strapped inside the man's coat. How did they even know about him? Fuck did they follow you to work and you didn't notice?

"I'll go with you just don't hurt anyone." You say quietly.

"Good girl." He says. He nods towards his partner who makes his way out of the club as the man behind you leads you out, gun still pressed to your back and hand still holding your wrists. They lead you into a vehicle and tie something around your eyes. There's quite a bit of jostling before a cloth is placed over your mouth and nose and you're instantly aware they're going to knock you out with chloroform.

~

Hours later you find yourself in a dark room tied to a chair.

"Well this feels oddly familiar." You muse quietly. You squint into the darkness hoping to find any indication of where you are or what's going on. As your eyes scan the dark room the lights are turned on and you're approached by a man you've met once before. It's one of Suga's guests at his party. You recall your less than comfortable conversation with him and Suga saving you from that situation.  Suga had called him Jax if you remember correctly.

"We meet again, y/n." He smiles eerily at you.

"Whatever it is you want I'm certain that I don't have it." You say.

"Actually you do sweetie. What I want is the ability to bring down the infamous Min Suga and you, are precisely how I'm going to do it." He says.

"Me? How?"

"Easy. So long as you're here, he's going to do exactly as I want because you, believe it or not, are that man's weakness. I could see it when he interrupted our conversation. He'd do anything for you." He says. You roll your eyes.

"You're a complete moron." You say.

"Excuse you?" The man scoffs.

"Suga would soon kill me himself than to give you the upper hand."

"I think you're just a little bit naive in your thinking if you believe that."

"Yeah right. You don't know a damn thing about that man."

"Really? You don't think he's going to come rescue you?"

"He better fucking not." You hiss.

"Oh? Do you care about him? Are you prioritizing his life?"

"With a life like this you don't get far without a strong sense of self preservation. And he's not an idiot. Anyone can see the he clearly knows that." You say.

"For a man in his position allies are more important than self preservation, and I currently have his greatest asset."

"If you wanted to hit him where it hurts you should've gone after the boys. They're his family. I've been known the guy for three months. He doesn't give a shit about me. You could kill me and he wouldn't blink twice about it."

"Should we test that theory then?" He cocks an eyebrow up.

"Do. Your. Worst." You taunt.

"Gladly." He smirks pulling out a switchblade. "I can't kill you yet, I need you alive if I want Suga to do what I say, but that doesn't mean I can't have my fun." He says while lightly dragging the blade across your side. You brace yourself knowing he'll break the skin there momentarily. You let out a hiss of pain when the blade digs into your flesh and he drags it across your side. The wound is deep, but not life threatening. "I'll have someone come close that up soon." He says leaving the room. Little did you know, soon actually means 30-45 minutes and by the time you've been stitched up you're weak from the blood loss. The only thing that could save you now is the ring around your finger that Namjoon gifted you many years ago.

***

A/N: two AUs being uploaded at the same time with drastically different vibes

I tried not to be super graphic with the torture stuff enjoy~

Part 7/???

[sparda3g]

Attack on Titan Chapter 116 Review

Season 3 Part 2 of the anime is almost here. Before the epicness kicks off, the manga is getting ready for its own kind. The last chapter had the fans all riled up with twists and turns, including Levi’s unconfirmed status. Is he alive or dead? If you skim through this chapter, you won’t find the answer. Your suffering will have to continue. In the meantime, it’s time to raise some hell and this chapter undoubtedly achieved it. This was a hell of an appetizer that got me incredibly starving for the main course.

The last chapter ended with Pieck made her surprise entry after killing a poor security guy. Sucks to be him, but he signed up for it. Now, we have a heated confrontation with Eren, which is something I didn’t expect from Pieck, but it’s welcoming. Besides, she’s pretty amusing with her words about how she’s going to handle her business. Even when Eren trying to talk her down, she is goofing off, essentially mocking him like she has nothing to lose. Eren doesn’t take the joke well, so he goes straight to point, tyranny style.

He is overly confident that she won’t shoot because this goes against the Marley’s mission to retrieve Founding Titan. He is so certain that he put his head on the hose, daring her to shoot him. Eventually, she gives up, not cut out to deal with this crap. I would have laugh so hard if she did shoot. It is worth mentioning Gabi grabs a rifle from the dead guard, though conflicted with her inner turmoil. She could shoot without thinking straight, which Pieck picked up right away. Good call. What’s an odd call though is her wish to ally with Eren. I sensed an act, but she can seriously act.

The scene goes into intermission as it jumps to the jail cell with Armin, Mikasa, and others. I find it amusing how Nicolo, Braus’ Family, and others are trying to make the best out of their position, while Connie wondering if this is their new life now. Seems like safe haven to me, especially later on. It goes without saying that Armin can shift to Colossus to break free, but he can’t shift specifically like just an arm or size. Basically, Armin can escape alone or stay with the rest; obviously the latter is his choice.

Jean asks about Armin’s confrontation with Eren. Armin told him about the beatdown and Mikasa getting insulted. Now, I thought Jean was about to push their button and go all righteous to say, “Eren is truly the devil. Never trust that man!” That’s more of Connie’s role. Instead, he comes off more thoughtful and mature. His intention isn’t to make Eren look bad, rather expose some underneath agenda. In other words, Eren may have a reason to push them away that isn’t damaging or insulting. Mikasa looks like she has found a new hope. I have a hunch as well, even though the act was very convincing and cruel. The question is, what is it?

Yelena arrives to the cell like she owns the place. Damn, her ego is truly ugly the more she appears. Onyankopon has changed side, which enraged Connie. I see it more of him trying to prevent death from the lunatic that is Yelena. He knows her story. Plus, didn’t he assist Hange before in a way? Well, it doesn’t stop Jean talking smack out of them with words to make them look selfish and pathetic. He has shown a real leadership, so color me impressed. While we can speculate if Onyankopon is bad or not, we can easily establish Grior is a complete asshole.

He is the guy who you really want to see him get the worst possible death. He bashes heavily on the late Sasha in front of Nicolo, let alone the family. He calls her names, such as whore, and he was hoping Nicolo would shut the hell up about her, but even after her demise, there’s no stopping. It’s called love, dipshit. Then, Yelena, without hesitation or warning, shoots Grior right through the head. She may be insane, and this one does show, this was pleasantry. She did so because the new dawn is upon them, so hatred must end. Yeah, psycho talk. I got to say, that detailed splattered brain is gruesome though.

Yelena is ready to tell Zeke’s plan to the guys, but the scene shifts back to Eren and Pieck. I find those two confrontation appealing due to how Pieck is able to convince him to give her a chance. I can see why the fans like her and this chapter has certainly increase her likability. She wants Marley to be wiped out to free her family. There’s a small backstory and it’s good enough to justify her reason to join the military. She did it to get her father, her only family, the medical treatment he needed. It’s cruel considering that shifter titan shorten a user’s lifespan. In short, Pieck may die first. Tragic.

Gabi is still lost, confused, and torn up prior to this event, so you can expect her turmoil continue to escalate. I do feel bad for her, so this doesn’t help. She can’t handle another traitor like Zeke, but Pieck is persuading her to open her eyes and see the clear picture. Acting or not, she makes a very convincing argument. The world is changing. Once titans become irrelevant, Marley may lose their morale and turn against it. Why wait for tragedy when you can clear the way for peace. This convince Eren to give her a chance to prove her worth.

The way how Eren uses his finger is intimidating. Maybe it’s the aura or the gesture that makes it convincing. Pieck has one way to prove her allegiance: rat her former comrades out. She would need to get on the roof and point at the location of their whereabouts. That way, Eren will be satisfied. The best girl has become a traitor. I am heart broken, and so are her fans back at home. Surely, this will all go well. Right?

The scene shifts back to the cell after Yelena explained the plan. I wasn’t sure if she is aware of Zeke’s true intention, but this confirms that she does. The reactions are interesting to say the least. Jean and others thought it’s insane to halt the birth rate for Eldians, forcing them to go extinct by age. Yelena is cool about it because of course she is. They still need to do the Rumbling plan, but since Historia is pregnant, the plan is going all accordingly. Yelena shows her sanity diminishing for she is certain Zeke and Eren can make it happen. That look on her face says it all.

The main takeaway is Armin’s reaction. He’s crying because he was “moved” by this plan. She approves his agreement. He is such a good liar. I admit that I was a little confused on why would he react, but the timing makes sense. The plan goes against Eren’s wish. Once Armin heard this plan, he can relax and be thankful that Eren most likely have another agenda in mind. This is a theory, but it makes the most sense. If true, then Jean’s suspicious of Eren’s action would be validated as the direction for Eren’s best friends to reconsider. This may have renew their hope. That or Armin is laughing in tears for her delusion. Either way, I like it. But that speculation can wait; it’s time for the unnerving, intense hell-raising moment.

The Yeagerists are called up for an emergency; that includes Yelena. Everyone there is preparing for infiltrators. They all have to thank Pieck for this. She has been great so far, even if she did change side. I like how she has been acting like a big sister to Gabi, who pretty much need guidance at the moment. I really like how the faction watches her walking with Eren, and she greets them like she’s part of the family. She is simply trolling and I love it. I think some guys adore her though. She is good.

Although it’s confirmed that Falco is a victim to Zeke’s spinal fluid a while ago, this time, Gabi and Pieck learns it from Eren. This put a dent to their mood. Not only Gabi is lost with her stance, but now she is feeling guilty. What a day this has been for her. Glad Pieck is around to comfort her. Speaking of her, she really is intelligent to pick up her suspiciousness of Zeke way back in the last arc. She had a hunch that Zeke had a hidden agenda of his own, only to expose truthfully when he met with Eren. Small details really are important in this series. Oh, and I love the small jab at Yelena from her. She is gold in this chapter.

Now here comes the heart-pounding moment. They’re at the roof; the moment of reveal is here. The far distant view gives me a chilling sensation of hell is about to break loose. You can already sense the tension is rising. This is literally do or die. Eren is set to kill her if it’s a lie. He’s prepared like, “Don’t make me use my finger.” To think, that is the most intimidating sight. Yelena is desperate to kill her after that jab. All it was missing was the Dark Knight soundtrack, when the Joker say, “And here…we…go!” It’s that tensed.

Before fate is decided, Gabi is in her greatest fear yet. Pieck holds her hand and smile to say, “Everything will be okay.” That was so sweet; a true big sister Gabi needs. She’s definitely MVP of the chapter. But it doesn’t stop there. It’s time to decide her fate. She points her finger at the enemy and that enemy is Eren. “It’s a trap!” The Jaw Titan rise from the grave (okay, not really) and chop down Eren’s leg. Damn! Take that! Never thought I would be happy to see Jaw Titan. Look at Yelena’s face. Where’s your God now? That didn’t stop Eren as he shifts into Titan. The intensity level is off the chart.

Pieck has performed a convincing act, though not everything she said was a lie. She doesn’t trust Marley and she wants to free Eldians. However, she prioritize her friends over everything. She will never backstab them. She is true MVP. Marley’s reinforcements via airships arrive and by God, Reiner is there, ready for another round. Only this time, he is determined to fight. It is pure madness.

This was an intense calm before storm chapter; I don’t know if that make any sense. The depth of these characters continued to impress. The emotional conflict was thrilling. Pieck was gold as a whole; from calming Gabi to fooling Eren and others, even if they didn’t trust her. The point is she got everyone gathered up for annihilation. The tension was bone-chilling with solid and tensed visual sequences. The cliffhanger got me damn excited for the next chapter. The best part is only the Yeagerists are going to action while others are basically going to replicate the magazine cover; the one with the cast playing cards. Have fun with the war, idiots. Hell has arrived.

[tgunn64]

Favorite Villains - Carnage (Marvel / Spider-Man)

I talked a lot about the 90s and how it changed and effected some comics and their characters. Again, I wasn’t ALIVE during most of the era, but from what I can tell, it was basically the decade where writers realized the usual rogues gallery were getting predictably beatable, and so they kickstarted the creation of new, over the top villains with super high octane power levels that could be a new, super credible threat. It’s where Doomsday came from, where Bane came from, and where Carnage came from. But why am I gassing on about this again? Because mulling it over I sort of realized that Carnage is precisely what Doomsday could/should have been, which I know it a sort of petty reason to hold him in really high regard, like why reward a fish for swimming, right? But seriously, it kinda hit me that everything I detest about my least favorite villain is put on its head in Carnage’s case. Both were pretty clearly made to capitalize on certain traits of their respective nemesis's, but only one is a great villain in his own right.

Serial killing maniac Cletus Kasady was thrown into a cell with Eddie Brock, who was stripped of his own symbiote, sentenced to rot for burning down his boarding school among many, many other slaughters. It’s also worth mentioning that Kasady himself was an established figure that debuted about a year before he even became Carnage. Whether his transformation was planned out or not, they clearly gave some thought to his origins and early connections to Spider-Man. When Eddie Brock’s symbiote returned to him, breaking him out of Ryker’s Island, it also just so happened to be carrying an aesexual spawn, which it spat out in close enough proximity to Kasady that it bonded with the lunatic, turning Cletus Kasady into Carnage. Carnage brought the symbiotic ideal to its roots in a sense--he was designed to be a version of Venom with absolutely no morality, since Venom had since become sort of an flip floppy almost kinda anti-heroic figure. The designers of Kasady even admit that he was based on the Joker, so imagine someone like the Joker getting a symbiote. Imagining it? Scary eh?

The even worse part, though, is that when he’s let loose, Carnage turned out to be more powerful than Spider-Man and Venom put together. Chalk it up to being a younger, less worn symbiote or whatever else, but he was fast, stronger, could shape shift, see from any part of his body, and drain a foe’s life force through contact. So you see, Carnage had a lot of time to develop as a character before he started making waves. As I mentioned before, Cletus Kasady existed for a while before he became Carnage, unlike Doomsday, who didn’t really develop a ton before pounding on in. What’s more, Carnage was a credible challenge for a reason. He was completely unhinged, and clearly got his power from being directly related to Venom. He was put on the map as sort of a super strong concoction of elements around Spider-Man and Venom, and as a result how incredibly strong he was didn’t feel unwarranted and just made him feel like a real challenge. It’s also worth mentioning that he was fuCKING INSANE. He was a puppy torturing, grandma shoving madman even before the symbiote made him go complete postal plus, picking names out of a phonebook to murder. I also loved him in the 90s cartoon. Obviously they had to tone him down for younger audiences, but there’s a running theme of him stalking Detective Lee, who put him behind bars in the first place. We, as an audience, grew to really love Lee as the show went on, and seeing Carnage get so close to her more than once actually created a huge sense of dread--we REALLY feared that this madman was so close to getting his rotten revenge more than once.

Carnage isn't the deepest villain in the big apple, that's for sure--but he's an incredibly daunting and fun one. I think there can be appeal in that far, and I sort of love that one of the costumed crazies Spidey fights is someone you could encounter in personality. Not that psychos like him are COMMON, but just because he put on a new skin didn't mean his aspirations REALLY changed the way they did for a lot of villains. He carried on slaughtering, he's someone Spider-Man would stop regardless, but now that sick thug in the alley is one of the deadliest lifeforms in the universe. Carnage is just the walking, breathing form of everything insane and overtly 90s. An awesome, popular character like Venom? Make him RED and PSYCHOTIC. I remember waaaay back in the day, there was a cheat code on Marvel Vs Capcom that literally just allowed the player to turn Venom into a red color swap. There was a WHOLE CHEAT CODE devoted to letting kids pretend they’re being Carnage. It goes to show that an awesome aesthetic can go a long way, and it might be the comic-con talking, but seeing a character that represents all that without being terribly stupid or out of place is awesome. What can I say? He’s one hell of a villain, MAAAAAAN.

[heatherly84]

Ben’s Ultimate Movie Playlist

When he gave this to Zane and Xur, I have no idea. Maybe after they watched Star Wars, I dunno. But watching Star Wars was why. For him, it was actually really fun and exciting to be part of shaping how aliens see his planet. And also he just loves sharing the movies he likes generally.

It was those two goals that drove what ended up in this collection and what didn’t.

So. The list. Alphabetically:

Aladdin (1992)

This is actually Ben’s favorite Disney movie. That started for a typical seven-year-old reason (it was one of the only feature length animated Disney films that wasn’t about a girl), but frequent rewatching and the passage of time has just turned it into pure, unadulterated nostalgia. 

And The Band Played On (1993)

(Author’s note: Did not realize that alphabetizing the list would put the biggest downer on it so close to the top. Whoops. /o\)

This movie made the list, even though Ben has almost no other serious ones on it, because trying to explain the whole gay thing to Ziz and Zia was a nightmare for them as a family (obviously more Nat and Zach, but- Ben cared) and he thought of this movie as the ultimate one that shows what human society has historically thought about it. And maybe that’s something Zane might want to talk to the kids about, with some context to put it in. Essentially: this is Ben trying to help Zane parent. ...that the movie he chose is so depressing says something about how Ben feels about the idea of parenting.

Clue (1985)

Ben doesn’t watch a whole lot of mysteries, but when he was told that Xur liked them, he really tried to squeeze one he really loved out of his memory. This was the first result he got. Sure, it’s not exactly a mystery in the classical sense, but it has one and it’s also really funny. He especially loves that it has three endings (his favorite is the one where Miss Scarlet did it).

Fiddler on the Roof (1971)

Secretly, Ben likes musicals. He blames Disney on general principle. This one is one of his favorites, even though it does edge too close to more serious than he’d like, because he kinda identifies with Tevye. He’s a dreamer and a joker who resolves an incredibly serious issue at one point by just making up bullshit. Yeah, Ben relates.

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

This one ended up on it because of the tendency people have to refer to Zane as Space Hitler. Yeah, Ben thought he’d give him a movie about plotting to kill Hitler when people call him Space Hitler and that seemed totally appropriate. Because Zane’s trying not to be Space Hitler anymore, and that goal is one Ben really wants him to succeed at. So he’s trying to show Zane the lens through which other people see him. He knows it’s something Zane already knows, but he wants it to be something Zane feels. Part of the magic of movies is that they can give people feelings in a way that history lessons and witness statements cannot. (Though he is genuinely anxious that when Zane watches the legendary scene of Hans Landa intimidating a dude into giving up the Jews he’s hiding in the floor, Zane’s going to relate more to Landa than to Shoshanna, the girl in the floor.)

Juno (2007)

The “find him a movie about it” school of teaching people things is an ideal that Ben comes by honestly because it’s how he was raised. If Squirrel didn’t know how to explain something to him, she’d find a movie, a TV show, or a book that did. This was part of a series on sexual responsibility that his mother put him through. She chose it because it got across very nicely “sometimes people get pregnant, and giving the baby up for adoption is a choice available to them- but that can be very hard, even if you’re very sure.” 

For Ben, this is a formative movie that he has a lot of feelings about because of that, but also? It’s funny. And sweet. And has a romance that gave him a lot of feelings as a kid who was bad at socializing, because Paulie Bleaker should not remotely have been able to get a girlfriend like Juno with how awkward he is, but that happens and in context, it even makes sense. Plus, the soundtrack is fucking rad.

Kill Bill - Vol. 1 (2003)

This is just straight-up a fun action movie, with awesome sword fights and insane karate. This edges out most other action movies for Ben because- well, he likes Quentin Tarantino. (He’s the only director represented on the list four times.) And on a somewhat tactless level, he hopes that Zane will identify with someone on a revenge quest for their child, and the twist that the child is actually alive, complete with happy ending. (I suspect that’s not going to be as cool for Zane as Ben is hoping.)

Kill Bill - Vol. 2 (2004)

Well, you can’t rec the first one without the second one! The second one is the one that has the happy ending!

Moana (2016)

The first movie to make it as part of Ben’s Intro To Human Religion series. Ben’s not a particularly religious person, but he recognizes how much of that informs human culture- and also that Zane’s kind of going through a crisis of faith right about now. So here’s a story about what humans think gods are like, what other gods are out there, and what kind of relationship some humans have with them. (Yeah, Moana and Maui have a relationship that’s between god and man. Weird to think of that way, huh? *g*)

Also, it’s just plain got a good story with cool characters and a good soundtrack. ...this is the second time that observation has been part of a movie’s selection for the list. It will not be the last.

Mulan (1998)

Ben’s second favorite Disney movie. (His feelings on Classic Disney, like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty is that yeah, they’re prettier, but he doesn’t like the stories or music as much.) This is very much his Weep A Lot Over My Daddy Issues movie, which is not really a secret. Mulan goes on the quest as part of her search for independent self-identity, sure (and he figures Zane can relate to that), but at the heart of it all, she did everything for her father. 

Ben doesn’t know what it’s like to have a father, but he likes to imagine it involves loving and being loved that much.

Plus: LET’S! GET DOWN! TO BUSINESS!

Newsies (1992)

Part of Ben’s secret love for musicals. This is a favorite- although he’s seen this five hundred times and actually still can’t describe the plot to anybody beyond, “Um. Strike, strike, strike, strike! ...?” But he remembers the songs and the dances. Holy fuck, does he remember the songs and the dances. If he wasn’t tall enough now to hit his head on the ceiling, he would probably still sometimes jump on his bed singing “King of New York.” 

Other than that, he’s also hoping to teach Zane to root for the underdog. Which is a pretty important component to human movies in general, actually.

Prince of Egypt (1998)

Another part of Intro to Human Religion. Ben finds the actual Bible very tedious, but discovered in films that a lot of the stories in it are fucking amazing. This is a good one for that because from the very beginning, the stakes feel tremendously high: it starts with Moses’ mother, a slave, trying to hide her baby from Pharaoh’s soldiers so that he isn’t killed. That is a strong as hell opening, and the movie is very good at keeping you on the edge and very invested in what’s going to happen.

As ways to introduce Zane to the most popular theology on Earth goes, he figures this movie is better than most.

Psycho (1960)

Another that made the list because Ben wanted to have more mysteries for Xur and this was the closest he could think of. This DVD case actually has the plot summary on the back removed with a note stuck in its place that says, “Report back. I wanna know when you cracked the twist.”

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Another Tarantino. This one was chosen because it has more pop culture jammed into its first fifteen minutes than most of the other movies on this list combined. If you wanted to condense everything you needed to know but were afraid to ask about late 20th/early 21st century humans into one movie, it would probably be this one. 

Plus, how fucking legendary is Samuel L. Jackson doing that fake Bible verse?

Plus plus, also a great soundtrack!

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Ben realized at some point he had got this far without having even a single horror movie on the list. He’s not a huge fan of horror, but at the same time, he felt like he should make an effort to include one. Just for the sake of exposing them to the idea. ...also, this one’s scary as hell, even though there’s almost no violence and only one special effect in the whole damn thing. That’s actually a majorly impressive achievement.

It cemented its place when he realized that its plot is kind of also a mystery. (The next time he sees Xur, he is going to apologize for how many of his choices are only “sort of” a mystery or “also has a mystery,” nothing is straight-up procedural. He just doesn’t really watch them.)

Saved! (2004)

Continuing Intro To Human Religion, but also borrowing again from his mom’s series on sexual responsibility. (”Keeping the baby is a choice you can make, too.”) This one’s a comedy that’s also a great look at Evangelical Christianity (...it’s very critical of it). He thought it was probably a more helpful choice than Prince of Egypt was, since that one’s about the mythology that inspires people to believe, but this one is about how people who believe actually live. 

He did tape a note to the cover to watch Prince of Egypt first, though. The scene where Mary tries to get G-d to smite her really only makes sense if you already have the context that G-d smites people occasionally.

Se7en (1995)

“Finally, a mystery that’s pretty unambiguously a mystery! Shows police work and research! Excitement! \o/

...okay, yeah, it’s also a gruesome horror movie with a horrifying twist ending, but I’m doing my best here, okay?”

Does not count as Intro to Human Religion, but Ben did consider that some of the movies that are will probably give helpful context to this one.

The Shining (1980)

Also part of his “crap, I should add some horror movies” selection, although like Rosemary’s Baby, it made the list because it’s good and it’s scary, even without a lot of violence or special effects, just something that builds tension and builds it and builds it and builds it until the protagonist snaps and it’s almost a relief that you’re not just waiting for when he’s finally gonna do that anymore.

As human movies go, it’s a fucking great one.

Sound of Music (1965)

This movie appeals to Ben on several levels. One, it’s a musical, and it’s probably one of the best ones, at that. Two, Ben had a desperate hunger as a child for brothers and sisters, and this movie is about seven of them. Just watching them all together was the kind of thing that could suck him into a movie for no other good reason as a kid. Three, they’re siblings in a band. Fuck. Yes.

Oh, and there’s some cool historical drama stuff unfolding.

But mostly that siblings in a band thing.

West Side Story (1961)

Just one more musical! Just one! This actually isn’t one of his favorites (did they not have Latinos in the sixties? Were we invented by a mad scientist in 1985?), but he recognizes that its influence on how musicals would be made afterwards is important and worth acknowledging. Also, they managed to make Romeo and Juliet without suicide, that’s pretty cool.

And who among us could ever resist singing “I Feel Pretty” in the shower after hearing it for the first time?

Yours, Mine, and Ours (1968)

This movie is basically sibling porn* for people who used to fervently wish they had siblings. Ben grew up enraptured by the relationship between Mike and Philip as they go from stepbrothers to brothers. He also still falls over laughing over the line, “My sister’s locked herself in the bathroom and she can’t get out and I can’t get in and it’s my turn!” “Which sister?” “I don’t know her name yet, but she’s stuck for sure!”

It’s also basically “being a military family” porn for people who might be into that. Like, for instance, Xur or Zane.

[twopointthreeninetoone]

The Dark Knight (2008)

Batman Begins caught my heart as soon as I saw it, and so I followed news of its sequel pretty religiously when they announced plans to make a second film. I paid attention when they decided to title it The Dark Knight, I threw in my two cents when all the casting was announced (I was all for Aaron Eckhart when he was chosen to play Harvey Dent, believed that the casting of Heath Ledger as the Joker had possibilities, and although I can’t say that I’m a huge fan of Maggie Gyllenhaal, I at least preferred her over Katie Holmes to play Rachel Dawes). I went over the moon with the viral ad campaign, although I didn’t partake in it.  I checked Batman on Film (the website for Dark Knight updates) incessantly.  And I was worried about the impact Heath Ledger’s death would have on the response to the film, and on the film itself (all while being genuinely saddened by the death of a very, very talented and charismatic actor). I didn’t, however, read the reviews when they came out—I didn’t want to be in the slightest bit spoiled, although I got enough out of them to know that The Dark Knight wasn’t so much a film as it was an experience. People were saying that it was even better than Batman Begins. I would have seen it if the reviews had been god-awful, heaven knows. But by the time the premiere date rolled around, I was holding my breath in anticipation.  And, luckily enough, my cousin was equally excited about seeing it, and so we saw it together, discussing the first film and what we anticipated for the sequel hours before actually entering the theater.

And, really, it was an experience before the film even started.  We were gunning for tickets to a 5:45 showing on Friday, opening night.  At about five my cousin called to say that he was sure that we wouldn’t make it in time, and so we decided to try for 6:30.  At 5:45 my cousin called again to say that he’d just seen a news report about how much business the film was doing, and judging by the video of people standing in line and the mention of shows selling out (hell, some theaters were selling out two or three weeks before opening night), he doubted we’d get into a 6:30 showing.  So at 7 o’clock we went to the theater and got tickets for the 9:00 showing and hung out until 8 o’clock.  We stood in a line that grew and grew until 8:30, when we were all allowed into the theater.  There was a semi-desperate shuffling for good seats, and at 9:15 the film started.

That is, it should have started. In what well could be every theater manager’s worst nightmare, the packed theater sat in anticipation as the previews began and…there was no sound. That is, the sound was lousy, fading in and out and wobbling about when you could actually hear it. The fear really began to kick in when the film actually started and all we could hear was a very low-pitched drumming. We couldn’t hear the dialogue. I could make out that there were guys in clown masks, and they were preparing to rob a bank, apparently, but by the time they had assembled to rob said bank, people were already yelling “Fix the sound!” and “I hate this theater!” and “This sucks!” and standing up and glaring their meanest glares at the projection room. The film was turned off, and for the next thirty minutes people shouted random comments (all along the same line—The theater sucks. We want our money back. This sucks.) Some went home. My cousin and I decided that they would have to come out and tell us that the thing would never be fixed before we left. We’d waited years to see this. I think I was relatively calm throughout the entire thing. I simply didn’t want to believe that I wouldn’t see it that night. Not when I’d told myself that I would see it, and not after I’d gone to the theater to see it, and not when I’d seen the first three minutes of it. I wasn’t going to leave with only the first three minutes of it. No bloody way. I refused to consider the possibility.

At 9:30 they finally got the film running.  They skipped the previews and headed straight into the film. And then…I don’t think I blinked for the next 150 minutes. There have been extraordinary cinematic moments in my life, and I’ve had the good fortune of experiencing a few of them in actual movie theaters, but I can’t recall the last time I was this riveted by a film. Honestly. I can’t even properly explain what made this movie so amazing, but I suppose I can try. 

Obviously Heath Ledger had something to do with it. I remember Michael Caine gushing over Ledger’s performance before Ledger had even died—but I knew that Michael Caine often heaps praise upon his costar’s performances, so I only gave it so much thought. When critics began circulating Oscar buzz for his performance—well, my ears perked up, but I thought that they just might be in love with the idea of a second posthumous Oscar in the history of the Academy Awards. After all, an Oscar for playing the Joker? Really? I didn’t doubt that Ledger was going to put in an amazing performance (I’d liked him even before he’d been considered a “serious” actor), but…an Oscar? But then you see it and, yeah, the dude definitely deserved an Oscar for this. I didn’t once think, “Wow, that’s Heath Ledger in Joker makeup,” in the same way that you think, “Wow, that’s Jack Nicholson…playing a psychotic Jack Nicholson…but in Joker makeup.” This was an amazingly orchestrated performance—although “orchestrated” might not be the greatest word, because it could suggest some sort of superficiality to it. There’s nothing superficial about Ledger’s Joker. There’s a darkness to his performance that is rooted way down, past the funny makeup and stringy green hair, and even past the creepy mannerisms—the licking of the lips and the high-pitched voice. Ledger’s Joker is more than a bad-ass—he’s a startling psycho. He’s horrific, but you can’t turn away from him, and you hang onto his every word. If there’s a downside to Ledger’s performance, it’s the sad knowledge that he won’t be able to reprise the role.

Really, the Joker is the culmination of every reason why Batman Begins and The Dark Knight are so great in the first place (and why they’re shoulders above any of the previous Batman films, and why, in my opinion, Batman is the greatest superhero of all time). There’s nothing bright and cartoonish about Gotham City. Gotham City is a scary place, an anarchic place; as exciting as it and the Joker and Batman are, there’s a sorrow and genuine menace about them. Batman Begins recognized the utter strangeness of a guy who dresses up as a bat to fight crime, and The Dark Knight illustrated the level of depravity that a villain—and the limit of desperation that a city—would have to reach for a persona like Batman to be required. There’s a great line spoken by Gary Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon at the end of the film, about how Batman has to become hated by Gotham because that’s the type of hero the city needs. It’s reached the point where not even the whitest knight could save it. An idolized hero can’t make it there, because there are hundreds of villains ready to either pull him down to their level, or to kill him because they’re prepared to break the rules he feels obligated to uphold. These are the sort of ideas that the earlier Batman movies never could have conceived—or at least didn’t have the guts to convey—because the psychology behind Batman (his dead parents, his fear of bats, his obsession with justice) were merely plot points to explain the action sequences, the cars and weaponry, and the bizarre costumes.

The “white knight”, in this case, is Harvey Dent, an idealistic but strong-willed district attorney who ultimately becomes the scarred villain Two-Face. That he spends most of the movie as Harvey Dent instead of Two-Face is an example, I think, of the trust that Chris and Jonathan Nolan had in the central theme of the film, and the mature stance they take on the character. While Joel Schumacher’s Two-Face (played in Batman Forever by Tommy Lee Jones) bounded about with costumes and accessories expressing the contradictions of his physical appearance, Nolan’s Harvey Dent is one of the few leaders of Gotham City with real principles that he can readily uphold—until the Joker takes everything away from him, and he simply can’t hold up under the pressure. What makes the character of Harvey Dent work is that he’s so well-written and likable, as well as the fact that Aaron Eckhart does such a good job in what can easily be considered a thankless role. To be honest, Two-Face is overshadowed by the gleeful anarchy that is Ledger’s Joker; we’ve had about two hours of the Joker, with his array of knives and bombs and countless insane henchmen, and only thirty minutes of Two-Face with…a gun…and a scarred coin. But to focus completely on Two-Face as a villain would be to ignore the tragedy of Harvey Dent as a hero. Two-Face isn’t so much a central villain as he is the horrific product of the Joker and the corruption that eats away at Gotham City. This is what happens to white knights in Gotham. It’s easy to watch Heath Ledger’s performance and say it’s brilliant because—well, firstly, because it is, but also because he didn’t need to reign himself in as a performer. The opposite has to be said of Eckhart’s Harvey Dent. A lesser actor could have easily played Dent as being insufferably milquetoast. But Eckhart tones it down—you genuinely like Harvey Dent and you believe that he wants to save Gotham, even though you know what’s to become of him.

It’s easier for me to count the number of times I wasn’t surprised by scenes in this movie than the number of times things absolutely shocked and/or floored me. I wasn’t surprised when the Judge’s car blew up—I knew she was going to catch her lunch at some point, and when she got into her car…well, I’ve seen enough movies about organized crime to know that’s a bad sign. I wasn’t surprised when the Joker and his henchmen stole the police officers’ uniforms and hid among the genuine cops to (seemingly) try to assassinate the mayor. That being said, I shouldn’t have been surprised when it was revealed that Gordon hadn’t been killed earlier in the film—I spent a good deal of time after the scene where he’s apparently gunned down while trying to save the mayor’s life thinking, “How could they kill Commissioner Gordon? They can’t kill Commissioner Gordon!” But I never thought, “Nah, they couldn’t have killed Commissioner Gordon.” Because I knew that this film hadn’t been following every aspect of the Batman canon. And I simply assumed the masked driver of the armed car holding Harvey Dent was one of the Joker’s men, who would ultimately reveal himself and…do whatever with Dent. So when the driver revealed himself to be Gordon—well, I and a lot of other people audibly gasped, and many applauded. That reveal capped off an utterly amazing chase sequence. I was surprised, however, when Dent died, because I thought he would play a big part of the next film. Although the scene where Dent and Rachel are strapped to bombs and dozens of barrels of gasoline did initially invite flashbacks to the Saw movies, it was really just par for the course for the Joker, and was actually a really effective scene dramatically. I wasn’t surprised that Batman would decide to save Dent rather than Rachel, but I was surprised when Rachel was killed, because I’m used to the movie formula where the hero is faced with a choice that should inevitably lead to the death of a character, but is able to save everyone just in the nick of time. But this isn’t the sort of movie that gives us that comfort; anything goes. I should have realized that. And while I never really liked the character of Rachel, I thought that Maggie Gyllenhaal was a step up from Katie Holmes, and was starting to accept the fact that she would be Batman’s love interest. I even liked the fact that she chose Harvey Dent over Bruce Wayne because I probably would have chosen him over Bruce Wayne in the long run too. And then she died. Ultimately, it played as a good reason for Batman to briefly reconsider his “no killing” policy, while sending Dent over the deep end (and to the dark side). Two-Face’s speech while holding Gordon’s son hostage (“Lie to him—tell him that he’s going to be okay.”) was unnerving and heartbreaking because it was believable.

Also, Rachel’s death set the stage for the inclusion of Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises.  Of course.

As for Batman? What’s interesting about Batman is the (repeated) declaration that he isn’t a hero. While superheroes like Spider Man and Super Man are celebrations of the fight against evil, Batman exposes the dangers and the anguish that are presented in that struggle. Batman is physically and mentally punished for being a hero. He’s beaten up, has scars all over his body to show for it, and he loses people he cares about, like Rachel and Dent. Batman Begins chronicled the partial loss of Bruce Wayne as a person (facilitated by the death of his parents and the ruination of Gotham) and the creation of Batman as a weapon against evil. It was thrilling to see Bruce Wayne become Batman, but you also realized the sense of darkness that accompanied it. Bruce Wayne hated having to tarnish his own character (and, in effect, the whole Wayne legacy) in order to prolong his obsession with revenge and his compulsion to fight crime, but in the end, inner demons won out and Batman carried on. In The Dark Knight, Batman continues to struggle with the darker aspects of his character—how far he would allow himself to go and how much would he have to sacrifice to keep the public safe, to stop the bad guys, to restore faith and humanity to Gotham City, and to avenge his friends and family. He not only continues to ruin Bruce Wayne’s character (he’s still a spoiled brat) but also ultimately sacrifices Batman’s heroic persona as well, for the sake of Harvey Dent’s (and, by proxy, for the sake of Gotham City). It’s not readily apparent whether things are going to end well for Batman. The very act of being a superhero is a sacrifice for him, and the story that has been constructed doesn’t necessarily allow a happy ending. That’s what gives Batman an edge that other superheroes lack. 

In addition to all the psychological stuff, there’s also a heap of great action sequences and fight scenes. It’s just a great movie. Nearly perfect.