#several spidermans and batmans | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

starculler · 2 months

Text

strap in for this week's fic flavor: the failsafe episode of season one of the young justice cartoon except the simulation just won't. fuckin. end.

(fics that inspired this at the end)

If I ever did sit down to make my own fic, I'd split it in 3 parts:

The Simulation: bits and pieces of the 40 years Dick lives after most everyone he knows has died

The Return: the immediate aftermath and healing from the trauma of having not-quite-actually lived a whole life only to wake up and find out it was all fake. nothing traumatizing about that whatsoever.

The Unintended Consequence: aka the twist I'd love to add and would hint to in the second part - finding out the simulation, through martian mind fuckery, pulled from the real world (and in many cases, from real minds). Dick meets a bunch of people he didn't think were real outside the confines of his simulated life. A bunch of rowdy, heroism-inclined teens across the years get to meet the sibling/friend/mentor figure they all dreamed up one night.

(actual idea snippets under the cut)

Dick Grayson is 14 and most of the world's heroes have died. He planned a suicide mission that left him the sole survivor of a doomed team he helped found. The invasion may have been stopped, but is this really the price he wanted to pay?

The first face he sees in the infirmary is Roy's, and he has to close his eyes and just breathe for a few minutes because for one painful moment he'd thought it was Wally. But this isn't the world where his best friend miraculously survived alongside him. This is the one where he got his best friend killed and didn't even give him the courtesy of following behind him. Behind them.

Dick Grayson is 27 and has lived longer without Bruce than with him. The invasion's anniversary is always a tough day for him, but that morning seems especially harrowing. He'll get shit for it later, but can't resist stepping out onto the balcony of the manor's master bedroom (Bruce's old bedroom) for a smoke -- his first since he'd promised to quit if Jason, just 15 then, did too.

"Bad habits tend to pile up," he'd said, a rueful quirk to his tired grin. He'd tapped the cigarette twice on the railing and added, lower, "and this one's especially nasty, huh."

He inhales, watches the sun creep across the horizon, and lets acrid smoke burn through his lungs for a long moment before blowing it out in a small cloud. His eyes water, but he doesn't cough. It tastes just as bad as it did the first time he smoked one, not even a year after the invasion and treading water as Robin proved insufficient.

There hadn't been enough heroes to go around then, and Dick had been trained by one of the best. It hadn't been fair, but it had been his plan that had ultimately stopped the invasion. His shoulders everyone's expectations fell on.

He takes another drag, then smudges the lit end against the rail he's leaned on when he hears a boot scuff purposefully against the roofing above him.

"Todd and Pennyworth will be upset with you."

He doesn't turn around. Damian doesn't jump down to join him.

Dick Grayson is 54 and wakes up in a room full of ghosts. He hears his long-dead father-figure tell his long-dead team about a simulation they weren't meant to win. A training exercise gone wrong and only half a day spent under their mentors' careful, if slightly panicked, supervision.

He looks at his hands, watching the way his gloves crease when he flexes them in and out of tight fists. He looks at his team, their eyes a little haunted but shoulders slumped with relief even as they grumble. Batman's heavy, gloved hand settles on his shoulder and the weight of it is a nauseating mix of foreign-familiar.

He opens his mouth. Closes it.

Tears prick his eyes behind his domino mask, and he tells himself the suffocating, acidic void building in his chest is just some leftover side effect of the ordeal and not the grief-guilt of outliving yet another family (no matter that they hadn't been real in the end).

Dick Grayson is 16-going-on-56 and well used to the coincidences piling up between his simulated life and the real thing. Some of it -- missions and villains he remembers cropping up -- he's marked for Bruce to review and sort as he pleases. Some -- security for the cave, team building anecdotes, and training regimens -- he's shared with the team. And some he keeps only for himself.

Tim is one of those. He knows it's not fair to the kid (so much smaller now than he ever was when Dick lived his simulated life), but he can't help being selfish just for this. Tim is the one kid he's sure he didn't make up, and if Dick's taken to babysitting the kid just to be near at least one member of the family he built for himself in the wake of the worst days of his life .... Well, anyone who says shit about it can happily stand in line to have their teeth kicked in.

Despite this, it still catches him off-guard when he sees a familiar face pop up in one of Bruce's reports.

Jason Todd, caught boosting tires off the batmobile, is nearly the same age now as he was when Dick met him. He stares at the words, but none of them really sink in beyond the kid's name and address. He's moving before he's even made the decision.

He's used to the world kicking him when he's down - lived it for 40 frustrating years. But he has Bruce again. And things with Tim have been so good. And he's always been selfish when it comes to family. If he could just see Jason. If he could just meet him. If he could talk to him.

If if if if if--

Inspirations:

Circles in Shattered Mirrors by InfinityIllusion

Fine (But Not Okay) by CharlotteDaBookworm

Verisimilitude by mutemelody

#young justice #young justice cartoon #batfam #batman #dick grayson #thoughts and headcanons #the heart wrenching inability to cope with the fact that you've lived a fully realized life #you've loved and lost and loved again in the face of every unending tragedy #until you've forcefully carved out this one little safe haven for yourself #only to be thrust back to the beginning of one of your greatest traumas - esp one you're partly responsible for!#gotta love it #anyway i am and always have been obsessed with dick grayson and no one can stop me #the simulation was fake but some psychic bs means real world elements filtered in #cue several children with weird dream-memories of half-lived experiences and a massive sense of deja-vu #when they wade into the superhero world #all i can picture is the spiderman pointing meme but it's the batkids at dick lol #my favorite idea is that once Dick gets his grubby hands on Jason and Tim it's all over from there #he's pulling late nights and researching and scouring facial recognition databases until he finds his kids #(he blurs the lines a lot when it comes to considering them his siblings vs kids #on the one hand they're not super far apart in age bar Damian #on the other he hasn't been a kid in any meaningful way since he was 14 and he very nearly raised half of them in some way #(plus side to an au is that i can space the ages out more as needed compared to the show haha)#jason and cass are firmly siblings close as they are to his age #steph tim and duke fluctuate depending on how in trouble or injured they are #i will die by dick being damian's dad tho lmao #babs is more platonic life partner than sibling but very firmly family regardless #this is the dick grabs on to any shred of family he can with both hands and drags them in kicking and screaming if he has to au

25 notes · View notes

deeplyhuman · 5 months

Text

☆ introduction ☆

hello! i’m kay!! i figured i should make an introduction post so i can find more mutuals!

☆ my favorite tv shows: barry, hannibal, succession, the bear, severance, fleabag, the walking dead, and daredevil

☆ my favorite movies: swiss army man, whiplash, the batman, sing street, little miss sunshine, all of us strangers, and all of the spiderman movies!

☆ music i like: phoebe bridgers, hozier, noah kahan, boygenius, and fall out boy

☆ other: i draw occasionally, but i don’t post about it much. i also collect dvds and daredevil comics (i only have a few right now)

if you share any of these interests i would love to be mutuals!!

#looking for mutuals #mutuals #barry #succession #the bear #severance #daredevil #spiderman #movies #tv shows #the batman #phoebe bridgers #noah kahan #fall out boy

16 notes · View notes

hana-no-seiiki · 2 months

Text

Good news. Did some decent progress on What’s Up Danger so you guys will finally get fed this Wednesday! Bad news, the quality might not be the best since I’m fasting while writing it oTL

Anyways, here are some Batfam w/ Cat Villain! Reader moments/snippets.

TW YANDERE AND MENTION OF NONCON/SOMNO

Both Jason and Reader’s first words to each other were, “What the fuck.”

Reader referring to Jason being a giant, and violent asf esp in comparison to Dick. While Jason was confused at his heart beating so fast and mildly crushing on you while you were fighting.

Bonus points: You guys did the spiderman point meme.

You have the biggest age gap with Dick. I headcannon the boys to be close in age so there wouldn’t be any not so good implications when it comes to relationships, but it’s almost unavoidable unless Batman switches sidekicks every year or so. (You are younger than Jason but older than Tim)

But that is also another reason why you two didn’t click as well as you did with Jason

You’d often make jokes or use slang and Dick would just be “???” He tried his best though.

On the reverse side of things, and like I mention before Tim and you got along too well as friends. He’s one of the few people you could gush to about literally any fandom and he somehow (through stalking your searches and literally every gadget/appliance you owned) knew everything about it already.

You two have written several theses on fellow vigilantes and villains (mostly ‘dumb’ ones like who has the best cake based on so and so criteria)

Damian is the best when it comes to bantering with you mid-fight. It’s the combined years of sass and assassin training. Went from plain insults to whole ass (not so) subtly being horny when you beat each other down.

He’s also the worst (best?) when it comes to your nicknames. He insists that you two use it on each other. Some exclusive while others he’s usually fine hearing from other mouths.

There was one point in time where you were called Kitten while the boys forced/bribed you to call them Daddy

Tim and Jason have tattoos of you/related to you.

For Jason it’s your name with a few paw prints, and for Tim it’s when he first fought you (and got his ass whooped)

After Jason came back and revealed himself to you, he tattooed the scratch marks you left him on his back after doing the deed.

Damian secretly practices doing henna so he can draw on you during your “wedding” since he doesn’t want anyone touching you. Sort of defeats the purpose, but go off king.

Being the thorough guy he is, he uses lab equipment to make his own blends.

Bruce? Bruce hates your ass. Sometimes it’s in a hatefuckey way but most of the time he blames you for corrupting his kids.

So he corrupted you in turn.

I feel like he gets off to cucking them honestly (blame that one comic) but if Reader is AFAB I wouldn’t be surprised if he impregnated them.

He’s a softie at heart when it comes to you though, courtesy of your similarities with Selina.

Speaking of, Talia adores you.

Like if there was anyone she would want with her son it was you.

She thinks the fact that you haven’t been put behind bars is a testament to your skill, and after getting over your similarity to her “rival in love” she would actively get you to be with her son.

Eventually she realizes she loves you more than Bruce and well, that’s a story for another fic.

You have at least a dozen trackers on you at all times.

Most of them you’ve ingested and pooped out.

It’s mostly Tim of course. But the duty of actually feeding you that stuff usually goes to Dick.

Dick has uh- somnophillia’ed you a fair bit after the break up.

He really, and I mean really likes to watch you sleep.

It reminds him of those ‘catnaps’ you’d take while watching over the Titans.

There would be times where he’d just be in a daze/in autopilot for hours reminiscing about your past together

His favorite memories to go back to were your first fight together, first kiss, and times under the sheets, and a date you guys had before in a festival/circus.

He never takes the antidote for Poison Ivy’s sex pollen and always comes to you for it, regardless of his or your relationship status.

Tim has at least a million typewritten chats with AI you, and around a few hundred hours of voice chats.

You did eventually take his virginity.

He came as soon as he was inside you/you were inside him.

You have been offered to be a part of the bat crew or a vigilante. But,

you massacred many after Jason’s supposed death and feel too guilty to call yourself anything other than a villain.

Chokers with bells. It’s a popular gift to give you. Especially ones that are custom made with expensive ass materials and engraving.

Sometimes Tim just gives you weapons.

Alfred is your best source of blackmail material.

You’ve actively tried cursing him (with immortality). You love the man.

He’s secretly the president of your official fanclub/fansite but you didn’t hear that from me.

You fight a lot with Damian’s pets. Like in a way that you turn into a literal cat and hiss at them.

And last but not least, you’re vv close with every member of the Teen Titans (besties with Rachel and Garfield)

NOT PROOFREAD!!!

@sophiethewitch1

448 notes · View notes

goinggoingghone · 1 year

Text

dp x dc au but danny is bruce's biological kid and he knows it. his parents straight up told him as soon as he was old enough to know, and he loves his adopted parents all the same.

of course, it was a bit rocky with all that ghost business, but eventually Jack and Maddie came around to their halfa son and liminal daughter. Danny just thought it was funny they took longer to accept he was alive and dead than accepting he was in a relationship with Sam and Tucker.

So there's some ghost conference in Gotham being held by the GIW in order to get more occultists/people interested in ghosts to work for them. The Fentons go there, as published ghost scientists, to expose the GIW and prevent people from buying into their beliefs.

But while they're out, one of the Bats mistakes Danny for a younger Bruce. Of course there are some differences, but the Bat (I'm thinking Tim, who's running on like -16 hours of sleep and several cups of coffee) is convinced he's a clone or something. So he takes a DNA sample and the results come out: he's Bruce's kid.

Bruce is devastated that he couldn't be there for one of his kids, and so he tries to get more info in order to possibly get custody back. Tucker, who accidentally found the network the Batcomputer used three weeks ago while looking for the GIW's, is immediately aware they're looking into Danny.

The Fentons have a collective moment of "oh for fuck's sake" and try to come up with a plan to get Bruce Wayne, who definitely is Batman at this point, to get off their case.

While on a walk to get his thoughts in order, Danny runs into Red Hood in Crime Alley. Both of them are immediately aware of the other for vastly different reasons. Jason, for "Batman wants to adopt this kid who already has a family" and Danny, for "oh shit this guy has a fucked up core what the hell is wrong with this guy" they have a Spiderman meme moment and Red Hood, always on the lookout for an opportunity to spite Bruce, offers his help. Danny accepts, with the caveat that he takes Jason to the Realms to figure out what the fuck is up with him.

Jason is extraordinarily confused but for some reason the Pit is really quiet around this guy and he feels safe around some dumb teenager so he's like "okay?? Sure??"

Danny takes him back to the hotel the Fentons are staying in and explains the situation a bit. Jack and Maddie hook up their temporary portal (blowing the electricity of the hotel in the meantime) and get Jason to the ghost doctor, Frostbite.

He gets diagnosed with "bro your ectoplasm is fucked up" disease and his ectoplasm is cleaned. He's like a diet halfa, with a few ghost powers but no ghost form. A liminal on steroids.

Anyway, Bruce sends a Batkid to the Fentons hotel (because of course he found it) in civilian garb to explain the situation. The Fentons Are Not Having It.

So, of course, with parents Bruce believes are mad scientists, he takes it upon himself to get that child out of a home of mad ghost hunters. By kidnapping him.

Danny's just pissed off because he finally got Vlad off his case and now he's here dealing with ANOTHER billionaire with a bat-themed super persona wanting to forcefully adopt him. The irony would be funny if it weren't so infuriating.

The Batkids are so happy to have a "new brother" in the house, even if said brother really doesn't want to be there. Jason just has no fucks left to give anymore and re-kidnaps Danny.

This of course sparks a game of Who Can Kidnap Danny and it's getting to the point where Danny just hates the BatFamily more and more because he was SUPPOSED to have a date with Sam and Tucker today and now he's holed up in the Batcave getting fitted for a vigilante costume by Nightwing. Alfred and Jason are the only sane people in the mansion.

So Danny "Bad Decisions" Fenton just says "fuck it" and goes ghost in private, leaving the manor and flying back to Amity. The convention has ended by this point, so they're all back home.

Cue BatFamily freaking out.

Eventually Bruce serves the Fentons legal papers (once he finds their address). The Fentons show up to court and verbally and respectfully ream Bruce for trying to re-adopt their son who they love so much. As the evidence of Bruce being wrong adds up, he realizes what he's done and feels like shit. Jason gives him a hearty "I told you so" for his efforts.

The Fentons live happily ever after, and Danny gets a cool secondary family that he doesn't really like until they all apologize.

Heheh. Just wait until they meet Dani, he thinks.

#danny phantom #dp x dc #tucker foley #sam manson #everlasting trio #jazz fenton #dp x dc prompt #maddie fenton #jack fenton #batfam

2K notes · View notes

wolfjackle-creates · 3 months

Note

broski I beg of u to tell me about your Danny is Clark’s nephew wip im so intrigued

@hailsatanacab also asked about this one! I shared two snippets for them so check out Part 1 and Part 2. (about 900 words total between the two asks.)

This was inspired by the discussion on a prompt you made ages ago, actually! Here's the post. The main prompt isn't the inspiration, however. It was the comment about Danny joining the JL and [insert spiderman meme here].

Let's see if I have anything I can add. (I changed things enough when posting the first bits that everything else I have doesn't fit anymore.)

Eh, fine. Just went through and wrote another 600 words.

-----

Danny winced. “Yes, Uncle Cl— Kal. Uncle Kal.” Danny glanced next to him and realized Constantine had moved several feet away and was deliberately trying to not attract attention. He bit back a smile and pulled on the Prince Phantom persona Queen Dora had forced him to learn. “Thank you for your assistance, Laughing Magician. I now declare our deal complete and will make no further claims on you.” He waved his hand producing a piece of parchment which he handed over. “As promised, your payment.”

Constantine grabbed the paper and backed away quickly. “Great. Glad to do business with you, your highness. Hope your family reunion goes well. I’ll just—” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder, then changed something and disappeared through a portal even as several of the League members present tried to yell at him to stop.

Danny rolled his eyes as he fell back into his more relaxed demeanor. “Oh, please. What more did you want from him? I’ll talk to Uncle Kal and he can decide what is important to pass on. Magician Constantine already told you most of what he knows.”

“Just… come on, Danny,” said Uncle Clark. “We need to talk.”

---

Finding a place to talk to Danny wasn’t the problem, Clark quickly realized. Shaking off his coworkers, however… Bruce in particular did not want to be left out. And Wally was too curious to be put off.

“Danny?” called Clark when he realized the kid wasn’t with him.

“By the viewing window,” said Bruce. “He seems to enjoy the view.”

“Right. Should’ve guessed.” Clark cursed himself silently for forgetting how much the kid loved space. “Batman, please. I know you like to know everything. But can I just talk to my nephew alone? I’ll explain everything I can after, but I need to know how this situation could’ve happened in my own family without my knowledge first without you being there inserting Opinions.”

“Very well. I’ll collect Flash and we’ll leave the two of you alone. But I expect a full report after.”

“I’ll make a peach cobbler, Ma’s recipe, and head to the Manor tomorrow to tell you everything.”

“I’ll let Nightwing know.”

Clark sighed. “I’ll make two cobblers.”

Bruce’s lips twitched upward, but he turned without saying anything more. “Flash! Since this matter is going to be delayed, I believe you still have to file your report on the incident last week.”

Clark chuckled as Flash protested. But he didn’t listen to their discussion, instead joining Danny by the viewing window. He settled an arm around his nephew’s shoulders. “Beautiful, aren’t they?”

“I can’t believe you get to come up here and look out at the stars any time you want.”

“I don’t get up here as much as I’d like, I’m afraid. And when I am up here, it’s because something somewhere is going wrong so I don’t get to appreciate it as much as I’d like to.”

“So, if you’re an alien, does that mean Dad’s an alien, too? Is that why he is the way he is? Am I part alien?”

Clark laughed and ruffled Danny’s hair. Like this, it felt almost insubstantial, like passing his hand through mist. “Fraid not, kid. No one knows why your dad is the way he is. I can’t remember how often he was tested for the meta gene.”

“Once a year every year from the time he was six until he was twenty-two and graduated undergrad and started living on his own. Then he stopped for a few years. Until he started dating Mom. He accidentally broke her apartment door once and she insisted he get tested again.”

Clark wanted to laugh, but all he could remember was Danny’s earlier statement. “Danny… Are you…safe with your parents?”

-----

Again, anyone is free to continue this! If anyone wants, I can combine everything into one post to make it easier to do so.

#dpxdc #danny fenton #clark kent #danny is clark's nephew #clark is danny's uncle #first time writing clark pov #hope there's no glaring errors

266 notes · View notes

snapscube · 7 months

Note

my bad if this has been asked before but, who's your favorite DC hero? Or superhero other than spiderman? and for that matter, do you have any investment or knowledge in DC or are you a Marvel-only individual?

I don’t have nearly AS MUCH investment in DC but i do still like it a lot! Picking a favorite from DC is much harder as in the case of Spider-Man he’s not just my favorite Marvel hero but he’s also like…. my favorite fictional character of all time. So it kinda comes standard with that territory LOL.

HOWEVER, I can definitely say that Batman has some extremely compelling stories and though I wouldn’t consider myself a super fan or anything I definitely lovvvveeee some good Batman media. He also arguably has the best superhero rogue’s gallery apart from Spidey, so that helps. I know I meme about The Jokester™️ a lot but he truly is one of the greats and an undeniably striking presence at his best. I also love Green Lantern simply cause I think his power set fucks severely, but I know next to nothing about his actual lore unfortunately.

I would be remiss to not mention as well how much Young Justice has introduced me to some new favorites. Artemis/Tigress, Zatanna, Miss Martian, Blue Beetle, Dick Grayson/Nightwing. All fantastic, and that’s not even all the ones I love haha. It’s good stuff!

238 notes · View notes

spatialwave · 7 months

Note

jordan teaching marie how to play their favorite video games cuz "im just a kid addicted to their playstation <\3"

oh lord, you’ve definitely asked this question to the right person. i’ve been dying to write something like this! 🩵 word count: 959

jordan was always the same kid that was addicted to their playstation. even as an adult, it held true. it was a comfort to them. a way to decompress after the heaviness of their hectic life took its toll. the sound of the playstation turning on, the feel of the controller in their hands - they could play for hours on end. it was their happy place.

they often played their games alone, single-player games they could get lost in. they never played any of the bullshit vought superhero games, preferring spiderman or batman. the other ones felt too real.

though, their favourite was the last of us. they'd played it too many times to count on both hands. they fell in love with the richness of the story and the characters, most of all, the soundtrack that pulled at their heartstrings.

late one evening jordan had finally finished up their coursework with a few hours to spare before they would settle into bed. their eyes lingered on the playstation hooked up to their tv; they couldn't resist.

soon they were sitting on an armchair just a few feet from the tv, dressed down in a pair of loose boxers and a white sleeveless top. they had only gone as far as to hover over a 'new save file' when there was a knock on the door. a heavy sigh came from them as they begrudgingly set the controller on the armrest and walked to the door with heavy feet.

"what do you want?" their voice was sharp, pointed and filled with annoyance, as they pulled open the door. their expression softened when they saw marie, "oh."

"bad time?" she asked, hands clasping in front of her.

"no, no. i mean... yeah, no." jordan replied, wondering how honest they should be. this was the first time in weeks they managed to free up some time to play.

"it's cool, jordan. it can be a bad time." marie insisted, the last thing she wanted was to impose on their time. though, it was one of those nights where she was hoping to curl up beside them and 'accidentally' fall asleep in their room.

jordan let out a chuckle through their nose, opening the door wider, "it doesn't have to be a bad time if you don't mind me... playing a game." they motioned towards their television set-up, looking sheepish.

"oh, you're a gamer?" marie teased as she stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. not once did her eyes leave the tv screen, jordan took notice of it.

"you haven't played before?" they asked, walking back to their armchair, grabbing onto the controller and waving it slightly.

marie shook her head, "no. we didn't really have the luxury of having that kind of stuff," she admitted, "i can watch."

jordan's eyes widened slightly as an idea formed in their head, a smile spreading on their lips, "do you want to play?"

marie shook her head, "i've never played before, jordan. i, uh, i wouldn't even know where to start. it's okay," she laughed softly.

jordan tilted their head slightly, still giving that small smile as they settled back into the armchair and gestured for marie to follow. she was hesitant, but how could she say no to that smile?

not even minutes later, marie was fully settled in jordan's lap with the playstation controller in her hand. it was a funny ordeal, being told by jordan several times 'not that one' when she tried to interact with something onscreen, but pressed the wrong button and instead made the character jump. this was the happiest that she'd ever seen jordan, looking at them for a brief second to see the biggest smile on their face.

"okay, jordan, this is getting a little freaky," marie murmured after she played a bit more, no longer needing to ask jordan what to do every few seconds, but still taking her sweet time, "like... really freaky."

"are you scared?" they smirked, their arms snaking around marie's waist as they leaned against her and watched intently.

"no, not scared. i just didn't realize you were into horror stuff," she murmured, her voice trailing off a little as she fixated on the television. she understood why jordan liked this so much, it was almost like controlling a movie. it was beautiful.

more time passed, filled with jordan directing her on where to go or marie asking questions to which they would reply with 'just play and you'll find out'. it was fun. so much fucking fun.

but then, as all the last of us fans know, the ending of the intro scene came. marie was playing, then suddenly she was completely absorbed into the cutscene. she sat forward on jordan's lap and just stared with her jaw hanging open.

the title card hit the screen and jordan moved to pause the game, eyes looking up at marie.

"are you- oh my god, marie."

she turned back to look at them, tears welling up in her eyes, "you didn't tell me it was sad," she whimpered, a few of the tears rolling down her cheeks, "why would you make me play it?"

"i'm sorry," jordan couldn't help but let out a laugh at the situation that was unfolding, reminiscing about the first time they played and sobbed into their pillow for an hour before continuing, "i didn't think you'd cry." they stifled their laughter as much as they could, their hands running along marie's sides and lips peppering kisses against her bare shoulder to help soothe her.

the rest of the night was spent laying in their bed consoling marie, who would be fine... then she would remember the game and start crying again. jordan loved marie, and her compassionate heart, so damn much.

#limoreau #jordan li x marie moreau #jordan li #marie moreau #gen v #this one is for tlou fans hehe #wordsbyspatial #spatialanswers

166 notes · View notes

wittyworm · 1 year

Note

Ohoho you wanna hear about MY favorite naruto character?

Be me, just discovering manga for the first time as a extremely sheltered baptist 14 year old. I was obsessed. Naruto scratched an itch in me as a young repressed gay that veggie tales and 321 Penguins just couldn't reach. I would check out my highschool's book limit in naruto volumes, tear through them in one night, bring them back the next day, check out the next 6 volumes, rinse and repeat. Nothing would come in between me reading through these books as fast as humanly possible.

So when I was dragged out of my room to go to my new stepdad's company sponsored picnic, i was less than thrilled. But, oh well, a ninja should always be adaptable, so i grabbed my current volume and we headed off to the park.

Now I don't know if you've ever had the displeasure of experiencing the Corporate Sponsored Family Picnic, but let me tell you, even as a child it was a sorry affair. Small groups of pale middle aged men in khaki shorts and polos stood in circles clutching their solo cups full of sprite while their equally haggard looking wives wrestled wood chips out of the mouths of their redfaced toddlers.

I was more concerned about finding a quiet corner of the pavilion to read out of the reach of sticky fingered middleschoolers and curious siblings alike.

Staying quiet and undetected was the way of the ninja.

Well, wouldn't you know it, the company hired a clown to come and paint the faces of their employee's children. I loved facepaint but unfortunately being 14 meant that i was far too mature for the butterfly masks and spiderman faces of yore, so I kept reading.

That is... until i saw him.

The first time i saw Orochimaru I had two thoughts. One was gay panic, the other was complete and total assurance that this was the coolest looking character that had ever been made in the history of man. Looking back now I could probably have sited this as being the moment my egg cracked for me but u can't tell therapists that so moving on.

Right then I knew that I had to be him. Embody every bit of intimidation and power that came with his killer eyeliner. Smugly, I strode past all the unicorns and batman faces, knowing that I was about to become the ultimate ninja.

I slapped the open book onto this poor 40 something year old woman's table and just pointed.

"Are you sure?" she asked me, pleaded me, eyes squinting at the picture of a man vomiting a smaller version of himself up.

I nodded solemnly.

I stood completely still for the whole process, brimming with excitement and undiagnosed autism. When she was finished and showed me the result, I was so blinded with euphoria it didn't matter that several dads had begun to stare or that my very christian mother was already wetting paper towels as I hopped down off the stool.

For those brief few moments I was the most powerful sannin at that picnic

thank u

nattou, this is the best fucjing thing ive ever read.

i have nothing to add. its perfection.

612 notes · View notes

baronessblixen · 7 months

Text

For the last time...

Prompt: 1. "It's not too late, let's go."

IVF arc, angsty fluff: They're supposed to go to the Gunmen's Halloween party, but there's something they need to make sure of first. (wc: 1,320)

Tagging @today-in-fic @xffictober2023

Fictober Day 31: Trick or Treat

When she asks Mulder what she can bring to the Gunmen’s annual Halloween party, she doesn’t expect him to say paper towels. But he does. She repeats the word, and he laughs, saying yes, paper towels and he’ll explain later. That is why she’s at the drugstore at 5 p.m., looking for said paper towels. Except she’s in the wrong aisle. In front of her are pictures of smiling women, chubby-cheeked babies, and blue skies.

Pregnancy tests.

At first, she just stares at them. She just took a wrong turn and now she’s confused as to why there are pregnancy tests. Then, she takes one from the shelf. Just to see what it says. This isn’t the first time she’s buying a test. If she’s buying one, anyway. She bought one once, when she was in college where she prayed every night that she wasn’t pregnant. Another one a few weeks ago, and this time praying that she was. In the end, she’d been pregnant neither time. Third time’s the charm, she thinks.

“Paper towels,” she mumbles, reminding herself why she's really here, but she’s unable to leave the aisle. Her period is late. Has been for a few days. She didn’t think much of it – still doesn’t. It’s been late before. With their job, it seems a given. And yet.

She stares at the boxes and she thinks of Mulder. They only just started being intimate. She can still count their sexual encounters on one hand. That’s how new it is. Just thinking of him makes her feel warm all over. Somewhere across town, he’s getting ready for the Halloween party at the Gunmen's, unaware of what she’s going through. ‘We don’t need condoms’, she’d said that first time. Maybe, she thinks, glaring at the boxes, she was wrong.

She decides to buy a test. An emergency pregnancy test, so to speak. She quickly makes her way through the store, picking up the paper towels, and a bag of candy corn, suddenly craving the overly sugary treat. She pays for everything and hides the pregnancy test at the bottom of her bag. It’s in there just in case, after all.

At home, she puts the pregnancy test and its implications out of her mind. But every once in a while, she glances at her bag, where the test remains hidden. She snacks on the candy corn while she gets ready and waits for Mulder.

“Trick or treat.” A voice that’s distinctively Mulder’s follows after a series of knocks. Scully smiles, opening the door to him. He’s surrounded by several small kids, all grinning up at her, some of them with missing teeth. There’s a little Batman, a Spiderman, and a witch. Luckily, she prepared a bowl with candy and she hands each child some of it, and every single one thanks her. Watching them, she tears up, her hormones overwhelming her.

“Have a spooky night,” Mulder says to them and they giggle as they make their way to the next apartment.

“Hey you,” he says, but his smile quickly fades. “Scully? Are you okay?” She nods, turning away from him because she’s convinced she will start crying any second. She hears the door click close and Mulder follows her inside. He’s gentle as he puts his arms around her from behind.

“What is it?” he whispers into her ear. “Did something happen?”

“No,” she replies truthfully. “I think I’m just tired.” She doesn’t want to burden Mulder with possibilities. Or pipe dreams. She isn’t pregnant. She can’t be pregnant. Buying that test was the worst idea she’s had in a long time.

“We can just stay in,” he says. “Hand out candy to the kids, go to bed early.”

“We’re not 80, Mulder,” she says, finding herself chuckling. She hopes they’re still doing this in 10 years, in 20. Maybe even when they’re 80.

“I know we aren’t.” He waggles his eyebrows at her. “I can think of lots of things we can do staying home.” He’s nuzzling her neck, his nose tickling her skin. She playfully pushes him away and he just grins at her with a dreamy look. What if their child smiles that exact same way? Her expression falters. There is no what if. There’s no child.

“Hey, what did I say? I know it’s Halloween, but you’re scaring the shit out of me.” Instead of answering him, she picks up her bag and hands it to him.

“Look inside,” she says quietly. He takes out the paper towels and then gasps. His eyes shoot up and meet hers.

“Is that- did you take it? Are you? Is it? Are you all right, Scully?”

“I didn’t take it. I don’t know why I bought it. I’m late, and I- I just stood there and I got it just in case. It was a dumb idea.”

“Since when do you eat candy corn?” Mulder asks and for a moment she’s perplexed. He points at the small bowl on the table. “You hate that stuff.” Unlike him, who stuffs one of the colorful treats into his mouth.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I felt like eating it.”

“Take the test, Scully,” he says, pressing the box into her hand. “I think… I think maybe today is a good day to test fate.”

“The Gunmen are expecting us.”

“They can wait. This can’t.”

“It’s not too late,” she says, trying to tug at his sleeve. “Let’s go.” He slowly shakes his head at her. It’s now or never.

“I’ll even hold your hand.”

“While I pee?”

“If that’s what you want,” he says solemnly.

“You can hold my hand after.”

And that’s what he does. His hand is sweaty, and she feels the restlessness inside him. If he weren't holding her hand, he'd be pacing. But she needs his strength, and he gives it to her willingly.

“Do you want me to talk?” he asks. “Or be quiet? I can do either.”

“You can talk, Mulder,” she says softly, smiling.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“That’s a first.”

“This is too important,” he says. “I don’t want to jinx it. Which one do you think did it?” She turns to look at him. “I think it was the second time. Not the first. We didn’t know what we were doing. The second time. I think that’s when it took.”

“Mulder, we don’t know what the test is gonna say.”

“When have I ever been wrong? About anything that’s important?” She wants him to be right. She’s never wanted anything as much as this. “Your hand is ice-cold, Scully.”

“I’m nervous.”

“So am I, but I have a good feeling. A very good feeling. How much longer?” A moment later, the alarm dings. Scully’s heart races in her chest. The next second will change everything. The greatest joy or the biggest disappointment.

“I don’t think I can do this,” she says, her voice breaking. “Can you look?”

“You want me to do it? Are you sure?” She nods, tears in her eyes. She watches Mulder reach for the test with trembling hands. Her eyes are on his face, trying to read it. He blinks at the small plastic stick before he turns to her. “Trick or treat, Scully?”

“What?” she asks.

“Trick or treat,” he repeats, trying to keep his face neutral. But there’s something. A glimmer. Her heart is still racing, but she’s going to take a chance.

“Treat,” she says.

He shows the test to her, his hand shaking. “We’re gonna have a child,” he says with a laugh.

“We’re,” she begins, breaking off. She takes the test from him and there it is. Clear as day. She’s pregnant.

“I knew it when I saw the candy corn,” he says, taking her into his arms. “You’re pregnant, Scully. We did it. We got our miracle.”

“We did,” she says, still in awe. “We really did it.”

#fictober23 #we did it #*I* did it #thank you everyone #i had no idea what to write today #so this thing happened #i hope that's okay <3

102 notes · View notes

fictional-orphan-smackdown · 16 days

Text

SUPERHERO BATTLE, GO!

All propaganda and what each competitor is from under the cut

Bruce Wayne/Batman (From a lot of things)

Without being an orphan, Bruce Wayne never would've become Batman. Its so integral to his entire character. It's also, I think, where his whole "no killing" rule stems from. He's also iconic for adopting several other orphans after becoming Batman - orphan helping orphans.

He lost his parents, and swore he'd take revenge, fully willing to die in the process. Then he did something he couldn't have expected…he built a new family, raising dozens of other orphans or just other kids willing to help him.

Being an orphan fucked him up so bad he started dressing like a bat and jumping through windows looking for crime.

He's Batman.

Bruce Wayne / Batman is the orphan of all times. Everyone knows about him and the tragedy turning him into an aloof justicier with poor social skills determined to put an end to crime in the rotten city of Gotham while offering an amiable and brainheaded facade of idle billionaire with too much time on his hands to the public

There are a lot of different versions of Batman so this is based off the ones I have watched and liked. Bruce Wayne is Batman because of his parents death, if he wasn't an orphan he would not be Batman. Lots stories have characters that are orphans, but with many of them their parents could just be on holiday and the story would be the same, for Batman/Bruce Wayne, his parents death is the event he has built his entire life around. If the Wayne's are not murdered, leaving Bruce an orphan, a fundamental building block, possibly the fundamental building block, of Batman is gone and the rest of the story would probably not happen.

I am the darkness. I am the night. Alfred please I don't want your cup of tea and leave me alone so I can brood in peace

Literally one of the most iconic orphans in pop culture. His parents were shot to death in front of him, ruining any attempt at good mental health. I won't get into a tangent on comics continuity so in the version that's generally accepted as Canon nowadays (or as canon as it gets for comics), his butler raised him, which makes them have a weird power dynamic as a parent/child but also master/servant relationship. Later in life, he goes on to adopt several kids, one of which is also an orphan that he keeps at arms length and not actually formally adopted until adulthood, and whose parents died at the same age his did. He's a character perpetually stuck in his own cycles while trying to break it so that no more eight year olds are left alone in alleyways (Also, in current comics, the butler is dead! We'll see how long that lasts).

DARKNESS! NO PARENTS!

This is where I watched my parents die, Fictional-Orphan-Smackdown.

Look I assume he's already on the list. He's the poster child for orphans. It's just funny to add yet another vote for him. Being an orphan affected him so bad it became a core part of his identity as an adult with a father figure (Alfred).

Peter Parker/Spiderman (He's also from a lot of things)

Orphaned twice over

Both of Peter's parents are dead so he's raised by his aunt and uncle, his uncle dies as part of his origin story. His aunt often dies eventually too, but she may come back depending on continuity (ex. Peter in the comics made a deal with the devil to sacrifice his marriage and child to bring Aunt May back)

It’s Spider-Man guys. Coolest guy ever.

#poll #batman #bruce wayne #spiderman #peter parker #marvel #dc comics

35 notes · View notes

linkspooky · 1 year

Note

Do you think that Batman could empathize with Tomura and successfully reach out? They are both orphans with a dark side. The difference being is that Bruce was able to work through his darkness to be healthy(er) while Tomura had all his pain cultivated for 15-16 years.

Yes. 100% yes. That’s not even a question for me. I’ve been dying for someone to send me a question like this, because it’s something I’ve noticed in the general fandom response to the pro-heroes and the hero kids. The thing is, the heroes in My Hero Academia don’t really act like good wholesome heroes. They certainly act like marvel movie heroes... in the fact that they have strong superheroes and fight a bad guy and have such a clear delineation between good and evil that many viewers take them to have propagandistic qualities. Like, there’s a reason that marvel movies have degraded to what they are today currently, and besides all the other factors it’s because these comic book heroes are really getting sanded down into a set of superpowers, a costume and a bad guy to beat with no ideals or themes behind their characters. My Hero Academia heroes aren’t really that heroic, they don’t really have any ideals they stand for except the extremely vague notion of defeat the bad guy. Yeah, Deku has “Save people” but Deku is noted several times to be an oddity among heroes.

The Pro-Heroes and the Hero Kids in My Hero Academia have this weird paradox to them where the story itself, and also in world hero propaganda sells the idea that heroes are incredibly wholesome, always selfless, people who go above and beyond to save and protect. Yet, the heroes in MHA are actually extremely cynical, and pragmatic, and they also really have no guiding principals beyond “Might makes Right.”

You can put all heroes on the scale of Spiderman <---------> Punisher.

To define them by whether they are a superhero focused on saving innocents, or a violent vigilante who is focused on punishing the guilty, the heroes in MHA are far more on the punisher scale of things than anyone either in setting or the fandom would like to admit. This is a universe where heroes like Hawks and Lady Nagant regularly commit state sponsored executions. This is a setting where Enji Todoroki is revealed to be a heinous abuser of his family and everyone in the superhero community is like... fine with it for the most part. They either don’t bring it up, or they think Enji does such a good job it justifies his position.

I mean, here to justify my accusation that heroes in MHA are far more on the punisher side of the scale. To compare to another manga, Jujutsu Kaisen and My Hero Academia have a similiar circumstance where a villain, Mahito and Dr. Garaki respectively are able to transform unwilling victims into mindless attack dogs by twisting their bodies into unseemly and horrifying shapes. Mahito’s altered humans, and Dr. Garaki’s nomus respectively seem to retain some sense of humanity and are in a state of pain. Nanami Kento, Shoko and Yuji all come to the harsh reality that there is nothing they can really do for the humans that Mahito has twisted, except for a swift mercy killing, and yet a lot of time is still given to the fact that killing something that is a human being is wrong and a heavy task even though it’s their only option, and two that the decision to kill someone is an extremely heavy burden to bear not made lightly. Nanami straight up loses all focus in a fight, and stops to wipe the tear of a former human when he realizes what they are fighting against.

Compare this to the way every hero responds to the Nomus in My Hero Academia. Enji without knowing whether or not they are truly sentient or even capable of being turned back into what they were, roasts one alive right away it’s his first action with them. Enji then later on meets a Nomu who is capable of intelligence and communication, and roasts it alive even harder specifically because the way the Nomu Acts, reminds Enji of a darker part of himself, and killing that enemy is perfectly satisfying to Enji because it allowed him to take out those personal frustrations. When Mirko learns that the Nomu are former human bsings she has no hesitation at all at bashing their brains in, in fact she’s almost delighted because she doesn’t have to hold back and that makes it easier than fighting regular villains. If the enemy is sufficiently dehumanized than heroes in my Hero Academia very easily resort to murderous methods, and it’s not just heroes like Enji, Mirko does it, heck Present Mic expresses the sentiment that Oboro would be better off dead then continuing his existence as Kurogiri.

The heroes in My Hero Academia are dark, almost myopic. I’m not saying you can’t enjoy them, but they are very different from the way heroes act in western comic books and I think a lot of people don’t know this because a lot of manga fans don’t really pick up comic books, and their biggest experience with western heroes therefore comes from movies.

So when I say BATMAN WOULD NEVER dehumanize a villain to the extent the My Hero Academia heroes do on a regular basis, I’m not saying that as a batman fan, I am saying that because Batman is probably THE MOST IDEALISTIC DC HERO. Yes, even moreso than superman. Batman is Clark’s hero. His inspiration. His good time boy.

Bruce would have noticed there was something off about Tomura right away in the early stages, if not the very first attack he waged on UA. I’m going to use two examples to prove my argument, one the fact that heroes also noticed that Shigaraki was extremely mentally unwell and just decided not to really care about it, and two Batman was actually faced with an extremely similiar situation in BTAS and his reaction is pretty much the opposite of All Might’s.

1. There’s Something Wrong with That Kid

To those who were paying attention to Shigaraki’s character from the beginning, even before we got to dig further into his backstory in My Villain Academia arc, or even be shown a more sympathetic and human side to his personality in the Overhaul arc, from his introduction Shigaraki shows signs of extreme mental distress. He is constantly exocriating himself, which is a form of self-harm that manifests under circustmances of extreme psychological stress. Shigaraki has a full on skin disorder that many people have because he is so poor at managing his stress he relentlessly picks and scratches at himself.

When he starts to lose in the middle of the fight, he essentially throws a tantrum, and not only does he immediately want to give up and go home, but he also lashes out at his own ally to try to vent that anger.

When All Might removes the hand from his face he has a momentary break from reality, and talks to the hand a physical object like it’s a person calling it “father” and apologizing to it.

Shigaraki also shows a clear grudge against both heroes, the failure of heroes, and the violence that heroes show (no kidding he’s a victim of violent abuse and the cycle of abuse in his family has an origin in his grandmother’s complete and total failure as a mother) that he clearly states in front of All Might once, and then Deku later the idea that heroes do not save people with their violence, and the implication that there are people that All Might have not saved and both times he is essentially brushed off by both of them.

Shigaraki’s mental distress is so obvious that even the heroes of My Hero Academia, who’s general response to villains is lock them up and throw away the key, noticed it. The heroes notice several of the symptoms I listed above about Shigaraki, but then decide to dismiss him as a man-child and then go on to say that he represents a kind of “pure evil” that villains may find attractive. The enertain the idea for like half a second that there might be more to Shigaraki that makes him different from the regular street villains heroes usually fight, and then they just dismiss the thought. Once again a common theme, the second All Might realizes he is Nana’s grandson he wants to go after Shigaraki to attempt to find him and reason with him only for once again Gran Torino to dismiss him as the kind of villain who’s beyond redemption and All Might to immediately give up on trying any other tactic than beating him down.

Now why do I say Batman would have immediately gone after Shigaraki and tried to reason with him and get him the help he needs? Do I have proof of him acting similarly? Batman in fact, comes across a similiar enough situation in one of the most famous episodes of Batman the Animated Series.

2. Man-Child meet Woman Child

Baby-Doll Batman the Animated Series season 3, episode 4 is one of the most popular episodes, and it shows most clearly the way Bruce’s brand of heroics is ultimately based on saving and empathy for his villains rather than just putting them down for the greater good. I could have gone with a lot of batman villains with much more clear and tragic origins, Mr. Freeze isn’t even trying to achieve anything villainous he wants to save his wife. Two-Face started out as not only Batman’s best friend, but a good guy and an ally of justice who was driven to insanity by a horrifying and sudden tragedy. Harley Quinn is a victim of grooming and abuse similiar to Shigaraki who has her entire sense of self warped and controlled by an abusive narcissist who quite literally turns her into a crude relfection of himself, to act as a pawn in his own evil schemes. I could use a lot of batman villains, but no Baby Doll, we’re going with Baby-Doll.

Mary Dahl is a washed up child actress with a physical condition that prevents her from growing up past a child, she’s sort of like Claudia from Interview with a Vampire, an adult mind inside a child’s body. Not only will she always be treated and regarded as a child for her physical appearance, due to her child as a former child star who’s show was cancelled and had no success in acting when she tried to do anything outside of playing the cutsey and innocent “baby-doll” on the sitcom “Love that Baby” she has ended up emotionally stunted and stuck in the past.

Mary Dahl’s fall to villainry is a bit less tragic than Shigaraki’s, she wasn’t like kidnapped and groomed since childhood by a villainous mastermind and turned into his own pet “make your own supervillain” project. She’s not getting work, but she’s not poor or destitute, there are former child stars who lose out on their childhoods and have no money to show for it, but she seems to have enough money to at least have an extremely competent agent and money to blow on her elaborate schemes. Her backstory is not nearly as tragic as Shigaraki’s, yet she shows several symptoms in common with Shigaraki, being a former child star like many child stars she shows severe dysfunction as an adult because it ate up her entire childhood. Child labor is bad people. Children who are not given room to grow up and develop as kids, have problems late into their adulthood.

She is also someone who feels rejected and left behind by society as a whole, it’s clear her only way of connecting to other people was the attention she received as a child star and the connections she had with cast members. She also experiences severe body dysmorphia I would say on level with Shigaraki’s, Shigaraki’s body dysmporphia is so bad he constantly picks at his own skin, his quirk soemtimes even causes physical damage to him and he feels extreme nausea at a near constant basis b/c of his emotional unrest. Baby-Doll literally experiences a same incompatability with her body, she has an adult mind, she craves to be a fully grown normal body, and a lot of her mental breaks from reality seem to come from how easily people mistake her for and treat her like a child.

Mary Dahl also shows severe dysfunction when it comes to regulating her own emotions. As tragic as Mary Dahl’s fall from fame is, and as much as it mirrors what happens to a lot of child stars in reality, Mary Dahl kind of also dug her own grave by her actions. Everyone on the cast thought she was notoriously difficult to work with, her show wasn’t cancelled on her, she left because the directors added in a new character she didn’t like and took attention away from her because of plummeting ratings. She left the show to try to take a more serious turn as an actor, once again to get attention and because she was on an ego-trip, then tried to get the show running again when it didn’t work for her but by that point it was too late. She’s also someone who just does not treat people well, she’s manipulative, she never engages people as her true self Baby-Doll is a role she is essentially playing, to both allow herself to violently lash out, but also to evade any responsibility for her own actions. It’s also ambiguous how much of the Baby-Doll persona is a genuine psychotic break (I don’t use the word psychotic lightly, I’m also not saying LOL look at her she’s so crazy, but there are genuine moments where Mary seems to mistake what happened on her TV show for reality which indicates that she’s not just trying to reclaim her former glory, that she is full on having delusions) there are also moments where “Baby-Doll” is a deliberate act she’s putting on, and Mary seems aware of what she is doing.

Mary Dahl is at the same time, delusional enough to believe she can kidnap everyone on her former show, and force them to just pretend to be the characters they were on her show, and playing dollhouse with this pretend family will somehow fix her problems. She is also, lucid enough to carefully plot and execute the kidnapping of several people, control a minion in her agent, and then evade capture from Batman several times. She is both a victim (she’s genuinely mentally unwell) and a villain (but not unwell enough she’s not aware her actions are wrong, she’s deliberately hurting people she just thinks her tragedy makes her entitled to that revenge). Mary Dahl thinks the world has wronged her and left her behind, that her show being cancelled was some great injustice done to her, and something she deserves the chance to rectify, even though as I just explained in detail that Mary was equally as responsible for the cancellation of her show. She is a person not willing to take any responsibility for her actions or see fault in herself.

You could even argue because of these quality Mary is way less sympathetic than Shigaraki, Shigaraki at least seems to have genuine critques about his society, and feels that he and the people around him have been rejected in an unjust fashion. Mary Dahl is upset her TV Show got cancelled and decided to make it everyone else’s problem. Mary Dahl’s problems are a lot more selfish, and smaller in comparison to Shigaraki’s, and yet the story itself does not downplay Mary’s distress because it is genuine to her.

In one extent, Mary is a danger to others, but she’s also a danger to heserlf. Like I said, it’s ambiguous how much but she’s clearly a mentally unwell woman. When someone is experiencing delusions on that level it’s a brain chemistry problem, and it’s also not something where it’s fair to go “Well, she has no reason to be mentally ill, it’s not like she was beaten, she’s just having an emotional breakdown because she’s not famous anymore.” I mean, what does it matter the reason whether she’s having a breakdown is a good enough reason or not, she’s clearly in extreme distress.

Number two, I think society as a whole tends to downplay the suffering of celebrities or child stars and make them seem like they are just entitled or spoiled for acting out, because they’re rich and famous and living a life most people would die for so who cares. But, HollyWood, the spotlight, and public scrutiny has a really bad psychological effect on people. Most people would not do well under such harsh public scrutiny all the time, and also when you make your entire personality around being a star and having the spotlight, also because in Baby Doll’s case there’s really no other career avaiable for her because of her condition then losing that is a pretty huge loss. Like, child stars who cannot either adapt to adulthood, cannot get work as adult actors, or just cannot even function as adults is a pretty common societal problem.

On top of kidnapping people, holding them hostage, she’s also someone who clearly needs help, like Baby-Doll is not just doing these things because she’s a selfish, entitled brat throwing a tantrum because she’s not famous anymore, she’s experiencing clear mental breaks from reality where she confuses her tv show for reality, she’s mentally sick and in need of treatment.

Baby-Doll is presented to us as a manipulative child star desperate for the spot light, endangering her cast because she herself cannot let go of the past for most of the episode, people around Bruce are pretty unsymapthetic to her, her attempts to get a more serious career is played off as a joke, the cast members do not like Baby-Doll and found her to be extremely high maintennance and difficult to work with even when she was on the show, Baby-Doll’s clearly not after the cast because of nostlagia, friendship or happy memories she has with her former cast members, but rather because she wants to pretend to be the the sitcom character who was surrounded by family who loved her. People constantly remark how crazy she is for thinking a tv show is reality. Even Robin says that he absolutely despised the “Baby-Doll” show, and it’s dismissed as kind of a cheesy sitcom with no real merit.

However, the last five minutes turn all of that on its head. Bruce Wayne, my darling, is presented to us as a man of few words. We don’t actually see Bruce’s reaction to what Baby-Doll is doing for most of the episode, we see Dick’s who clearly thinks she’s just crazy, Bruce the whole time is focused on just resolving the incident first, finding the kidnapped people, rescuing them from Baby-Doll’s grip. So Bruce’s absolute first priority is just to stop the villain from doing the bad thing, he stops the bad behavior and makes Baby-Doll unable to hurt others.

Bruce, the living embodiment of the term “Gap Moe”, because he is so closed off and not reacting to Baby Doll in any way, does not seem to be going out of his way to sympathize with her. That however, changes once the the threat Baby-Doll represents to others is neutralized. Baby-Doll then flees from Bruce with a Tommy Gun out into the middle of the night. The tables have turned and Baby-Doll has gone from a cackling villain, pretending often to be a scared little girl in order to manipulate people, to a genuinely scared and desperate person. Even the image Baby-Doll evokes fleeing from Bruce, is a sympathetic one, Baby-Doll despite being an adult woman still looks like a child, and acts several times like a woman-Child and she is fleeing from an adult man who picked his costume to terrify crimminals into submission.

Baby-Doll flees into a carnival ground filled with children, she has a Tommy-Gun on her, she’s still pretty much a direct threat to others, but the way Bruce approaches her does a complete 180. Bruce is calling out after her to stop fleeing, when she disappears into a tunnel, he’s telling her to stop not because he wants to arrest her, but because she’s going to hurt herself at this point. Baby-Doll is no longer a danger to others, she’s a danger to herself because she’s scared desperate, and fleeing, and instead of pursuing her to put her down Bruce is trying to stop her from getting hurt as she flees. This is also behavior he has shown to repeat, in Harley’s Holiday he pursues Harley the whole episode not to stop her because she’s on a crime spree, but because she’s freaking out and he doesn’t want her to be sent to Arkham and lose all the progress she made in her recovery.

Bruce pursues her into a mirror maze and this is where we get the most famous scene in the episode, Baby-Doll is still dead set on killing Bruce (this is also where Bruce shines, Baby-Doll is actively firing a gun at him and he is still calling out at her to stop because she might get hurt).

Baby Doll fires at the mirrors over and over again, until one of the funhouse mirrors shows her what she might look like as an adult, at which point not only does Baby-Doll come to a complete stop, but she talks not in her Baby Doll voice, but as Mary-Dahl.

Mary Dahl: Look. That’s me in there. The real me. Mary Dahl: There I am... BUt it’s not really real, is it? Mary Dahl: Just made up and pretend like my family, and my life and everything else. Mary Dahl: Why couldn’t you just let me Make believe?

She then grows angry at realizing that she is trapped on the other side of the mirror and will never exist in that adult body, she starts firing at every mirror around her trying to get batman who stalks her once again as an unspeaking shadow, until she gets impatient enough to destroy even the idealized image of herself represented in the funhouse mirror. At which point the gun itself runs out of ammo, and Mary breaks downc rying. At that point Batman could say that Mary is just throwing a tantrum, that being a washed up child star doesn’t entitle her to hurt others, he could say that her tears aren’t even real because Mary Dahl has pretended to be a child in order to manipulate other people and merit sympathy literally this whole episode. Bruce does not do any of that. Bruce’s only action after following her this whole time, is to remove the gun from her hands so she’s no longer capable of hurting someone, and then when she hugs him, to return her hug and comfort her.

Mary Dahl: I didn’t mean to...

Because, utlimately she’s a human being who needs help. It’s not Bruce’s job to pick and choose who deserves that help, it’s his job to help people who need it.

So yes, Bruce would have noticed right away that Shigarki wasn’t just a violent child, but a child who is clearly suffering from distress and lashing out. He wouldn’t just dismiss Shigaraki as an entitled man-child because as I’ve just demosntrated, Bruce had a situation where he frankly could have just dismissed Baby-Doll as a selfish an entitled vain womanchild and yet he didn’t do that. He saw a crying person in front of him, and he helped them, and he was even trying to help her before she started crying and asking for comfort like a more standard victim TM. Letting a child who shows clear signs of abuse like Shigaraki has go unhelped is not only out of character for Bruce, it basically is against everything he stands for as a hero.

And if you still don’t believe me on that, here’s a quote from the director of the final installment of the popular Arkham Series, “Arkham Knight”, a game that features a character Jason Todd who was similiarly groomed over a long period of time by batman’s arch enemy into an enemy for batman to fight.

#askspookies #batman #dc meta #dc comics #dc comics meta #batman meta #bruce wayne #btas #batman the animated series #shigaraki tomura #mha meta #metasks #ironically this long post is not bashing MHA for having dark heroes #as much as i love idealistic heroes my second favorite marvel hero after spiderman is daredevil #my third favorite is the punisher #though versions of the punisher that are aware #that he's not doing the right thing #the line between heroics as essentially volunteer work #and heroics as vigilanteism #is a fascinating concept to explore #jason todd is much more interesting as a violent drug lord who is still soft on victims #then he is as a much more sympathetic and palatable edgy anti hero with daddy issues #its just the extreme dissonance in mha in how the heroes are written #and how they are framed #my biggest example is hawks of course #hawks goes to extremely dark territory that makes for a fascinating character #only for hori to completely back off on that plot #and go back to framing hawks as an idealistic hero obsessed with saving people #that's just a clear example of having your cake and eating it too

259 notes · View notes

fictionadventurer · 1 year

Text

Maybe the most iconic superhero movies (and superheroes) are the ones that address one of two core questions:

Type 1: What do you do when given great power? Help others or seek your own gain? Serve others or dominate them?

Type 2: How do you respond to tragedy/loss/being wronged? Let it make you bitter or compassionate? Seek justice (for the good of society) or revenge (to satisfy your own emotions)?

Superman is the prime example of Type 1. Batman is Type 2. Spiderman fits both types, which might explain why he has risen to a special level of popularity.

These questions are ideal for a hero's origin story, but they can also create satisfying sequel stories when the villain addresses one or both of these questions.

Raimi's first Spiderman movie has both the hero and the villain choosing opposite answers to the first question. Spiderman 2 involves a villain who turns to crime when faced with loss. Into the Spiderverse features several Spidermen whose loss drove them to heroism facing a villain whose loss motivates him to tear worlds apart.

Good Superman movies grapple with the choice of what one does with godlike power. Batman movies feature villains with tragic backstories that drove them to crime. The first MCU Captain America movie, like the first Spiderman movie, features a hero and villain given the same powers that they use for exact opposite ends.

Other types of stories can be told involving superpowered people, but I think answering one of these two questions is what makes it a superhero story.

#random thought of the day #superheroes #superman #batman #spiderman #mcu #sparked by seeing the 'drink with erskine' scene in the first avenger

97 notes · View notes

choaticgypsyvicking · 1 month

Text

Dc marvel crossover headcanons

1) Matt murdock and Harvy dent used to be friends but often treated each other as rivals in the court room as they'd often be on opisite sides of cases,Because of this batman and daredevil both agree that two-face is a villan for both of them

2) The second thing is jason dosentt know who his biological father, because it isn't willis todd that was his step father, Jason's real father....is sergent James beyucannon barnes

3) Steve Trevor wasn't wonderwomans boyfriend during the war it was Steve rogers

4) bane and doom are friends, sorta. They enjoy chess with each other and spareing.

5) spiderman (both of them) robbie reyes, ms marvel, and nova have all been on the teen titans

6) thunder and lighting, all of the doom patrol, black lighting, and several other meta humans where xmen at some piont

7) deadpool regularly adds himself to the suicide sqaud, waller dosent know how or why but understands that wolrvine fears him and this she also fears him. He's actully just doing it to see his on agian off agian gf harly qiunn

#dc marvel crossover #marvel dc crossover

11 notes · View notes

blankerthought · 6 months

Text

Planning vs Reacting: A Yuri-Yaoi Take On Two Superhero Relationships

By blank

[a/n: putting this essay on here too for convenience and for @aelyris who wanted to see it, you're a gem. also partially going under a cut because i did write like 1.2k on this]

Though many people are aware of western superhero comics- Spiderman, Batman, Superman, to name a few- generally it’s the characters alone who are known. Their relationships to one another are understood through reading the source material, despite them changing from many different interpretations across the decades and writers that have taken it upon themselves to put their own flavor on the text. Of these relationships, this essay shall focus on two specific ones, both of which share the same character of Bruce Wayne (also known as Batman). The oldest relationship has been known for decades since their first meeting in 1939, as it is with another juggernaut of the genre, Superman. The youngest, however, has only been around since 2020, with Ghostmaker’s appearance in Batman #100. This essay looks to expand on these relationships through the lense of yuri and yaoi.

According to what tama (2023) writes in Yaoi is for people who bit their peers in childhood, Yaoi Magazine, Volume 2, our average view of what makes something yuri has been misconstrued and made anew into something more palatable to the general public through online jokes. "And this too is yuri" is a common phrase, repeated many times throughout several online spaces, and most often referring to a simple definition of yuri in which any relationship, as long as it didn't involve two women, could be yuri.

In their essay, tama states that this concept is held primarily by non-yuri fans, because this belief invalidates the basic idea of yuri; that is, passion. Yuri is characterized by intense emotion, thought out, scrutinized and sometimes, though not always, acted upon, between two women. Yuri is, however, not limited to women; yuri is an overwhelming presence of what could be called obsession in a relationship. This is a contrast to yaoi, which is not defined by a lack of passion, but by a lack of thought. Yaoi contrasts so sharply with yuri, the yang to its ying, because it most often presents itself through action. Rushing to, as tama elegantly states, "gripping a cute boy by the back of his neck and shaking him until he whimpers", and not thinking of the consequences of the action.

In the context of superbat (the relationship name for Superman and Batman) and ghostbat (relationship name for Ghostmaker and Batman), it’s clear to see where these characteristics shine through the most. Superman is a smart man, sure, but what matters most is that he is first and foremost kind. Superman is a man of action and reaction, the man who swoops in front of a train to avoid letting it hit a child, not thinking of alternate paths. He’s the light to Batman’s darkness, the action to his planning, the charming country boy to the local orphan billionaire. There are few writers out in the world who have avoided the alluring call of opposite and complementary aesthetics, and superbat as a whole are not among those few examples.

From Action Comics #1000 (Early June 2018) with art by Jim Lee (pencils), Scott Williams (inks), and Hi-Fi Design (colors)

On the other hand, Ghostmaker is a master planner on par with Batman; his rival, his parallel. Many aspects of his life as a vigilante are a direct callback to Batman’s, including The Haunt, a.k.a Batcave 2.0, in which he even stores a Spinosaurus to compare to Batman’s T-Rex (and his is bigger). Every aspect of him is in one way or another intertwined with Batman’s. As is revealed in Batman #100 and elaborated upon in the Batman: The Knight, Ghostmaker and Batman have known each other since they were teenagers, and spent much time learning side-by-side from the greatest masters known from several disciplines. Despite their select differences- namely Ghostmaker’s lack of a moral code and many emotions, in contrast with Batman’s famed rules and his endless emotionality, be that grief, rage, or love- the two are evenly matched and consider each other their equal and rival.

Batman is, himself, an almost immutable center of yuri. He is passion, grief, love, and a thirst for justice that is only fueled more and more by those same emotions. His crusade is born out of an avoidable tragedy that he refuses to let others suffer through, if he can, and his way of accomplishing that relies primarily on his skill and intellect. Batman is known for his million contingencies. He plans ahead, for everything that he possibly can, and that razor-sharp focus lives at the core of who he is, as well as making him a great example of everything yuri is.

An understanding of yaoi is essential to superbat, as is an understanding of yuri to ghostbat. There is little space for rationality in superbat’s actions together, despite Batman’s attempts to direct them; Superman’s emotions and recklessness are rewarded in kind with Batman showing himself in a more vulnerable way towards him, allowing them to circle closer to one another and stand together in the same ground. Despite the many differences between them, their shared emotion, the need to reach out and touch, connecting themselves to one another, is what defines their relationship and marks them as unequivocally yaoi.

Contrastingly, ghostbat is a relationship that balances on a razor wire edge between passion and logic. They’re similar and knowledgeable about each other enough to calculate almost every action and reaction that the other would take, but that almost is what gives them enough space to challenge one another. They’re both planners, people who constantly contemplate what the next step should be. Despite that, many of their interactions are bursting with passion, with their need to have each other’s acknowledgement, the desire to touch but the refusal to do so unless it’s all carefully thought out beforehand. They are obsessed with one another in a way that yuri portrays perfectly.

The use of a primarily eastern concept such as the dichotomy of yuri and yaoi may seem odd in explaining two non-canonical gay relationships in a western comic, but it is ever more prevalent in our present times. Yaoi and yuri are everywhere, after all- even when there is nothing. Perhaps especially where there is nothing. This essay hopes to help explain why this concept is helpful towards the analysis of any relationship, but especially in this, where we are present with drastically different foils that both oppose the same character in different ways. And despite their differences, both pairs reach a state of equilibrium just the same.

Sources:

tama, (2023) Yaoi is for people who bit their peers in childhood, Yaoi Magazine, Vol.2 (tshirt et. al).

Comic Volumes Batman: The Knight (1-10), Batman #100, Batman #109, Superman Action Comics #1000.

A special thanks to the people I spent about twenty minutes explaining yaoi-yuri to, the discord server that got a no context snippet and helped me figure out What Am I Even Saying, and the people I was definitely supposed to be paying attention to today instead of spending that time writing this. I have no regrets.

#lo's stuff #this is both the funniest thing i've written and not funny at all #i HAVE to write more yaoi essays tshirt et al you're all my heroes #anyway #ghostbat #minhkhoa khan #superbat #superman #batman #yaoi academics #i'm making that one a tag i need it for organization purposes #i see too many good yaoi academia not to want to find them again #ghostmaker #dc #yeah i'm maintagging it. look at my yaoi-yuri academic boy

18 notes · View notes