#tossawary dc

[tossawary]

There's a really quick joke in BTAS that genuinely got me. It's in the episode "Eternal Youth", where Alfred and his girlfriend(?) Maggie Page go to a health spa being run by a mysterious woman named Demeter. Of course, this turns out to be Poison Ivy.

And when Batman has to go to this spa to save Alfred and Maggie, and he's confronted by Poison Ivy as she reveals herself, he says (I'm paraphrasing because I can't remember exactly) something like, "Only you, Poison Ivy, would name yourself after the Greek goddess of plants."

Poison Ivy has two henchwomen in this episode (who unfortunately never show up again) calling themselves Lily and Violet, also present. And either Lily or Violet responds, with something like, "Ooh, someone graduated high school literature."

And then the confrontation continues, but that joke fucking got me, because that IS a common level of mystery-crafting in comics and also this show specifically. Superheroes apparently have to know their Greek and Roman mythology (not just because of Wonder Woman's rogues) because there's a high chance a villain is going to pretentiously name some project by looking up mythology in an encyclopedia.

It also makes me think that it must be REAL easy for the Gotham rogues to frame each other for anything, which is sure to cause grudges and fights between them if it gets found out. Everyone has conveniently themed themselves! Maybe it fools Batman sometimes and maybe it doesn't!

"Aha, a green envelope with a purple question mark! It must be the Riddler again," says Robin. "When did he get out?"

But Batman just inspects the card and says, "Wrong type of paper. Wrong shade of green. Nygma is picky about the quality of his printing. Someone picked this card up from the greeting card section of the local pharmacy."

"Oh, huh, you're right," Robin replies. "Holy marketing mistake, Batman, why do they even sell these?"

"I wish they wouldn't."

#tossawary dc #bruce wayne #dick grayson #the riddler #poison ivy #alfred pennyworth #maggie page #fic ideas

[tossawary]

There is something so funny to me about "Monster of the Week" format sci-fi and fantasy shows that are stuck in one location, especially when the supernatural is hidden from general society for whatever reason and that location is just not big enough to even have a hope of properly covering any of this stuff up. Like, if weird shit is regularly going down in one corner of New York City, then some people in that neighborhood are still going to notice that something is up, but you can handwave some of the usual "why does anyone with any ability to move still live here?!" due to the fact that it's a big, anonymous city where a lot of people don't really know any of their neighbors very well.

But with smaller towns? Whatever this town may have been originally crafted to be gets transformed and/or retconned by the wild stuff that happens over the course of the show. Sometimes this is purposefully done by the writers and sometimes not! The plot changes the location as much as it does the characters, whether you like it or not!

(I don't mean to say that big cities in sci-fi and fantasy cannot be similarly transformed. The NYC of comic book universes very much becomes a different place with teenage mutant ninja turtles running around fighting demons and people from space. And it's hard to beat what Gotham City has going on! And weird shit does absolutely happen in small towns too! I just think this genre effect is even more pronounced and maybe funnier in smaller towns where these things are supposedly "a secret".)

Sunnydale, California, in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" becomes this place where half of the town have to know about the supernatural or are supernatural themselves. The Hellmouth has changed this place into something that is now in many ways just pretending to be "A Normal Town". And it gets so ridiculous that the show partially acknowledges it by making jokes and going with this flow.

People in Metropolis in "Smallville" must think that Smallville, Kansas, is Secret Meth Lab Central or something with the way that buildings are blowing up and people get killed every few months. The quaint name of this town is doing SO MUCH heavy lifting for its reputation here. Clark Kent says that he's from Smallville in this universe and some people go, "Ha, a real farm boy, huh? Hope you're not finding the big city too tough for you!" and other people must immediately go, "Oh, shit. You've definitely seen a murder victim before." And Clark can only be like, "...Yeah... :("

#tossawary watching #btvs #smallville #tossawary dc #character death #clark kent

[tossawary]

I've been rewatching "Batman: The Animated Series" and I'm finding it pretty entertaining, because I barely remember anything from it and so, though some of it has aged quite poorly, I keep being pleasantly surprised by many elements. I'd recommend it as a casual / background watch to anyone who is already a fan of Batman and his gallery of rogues. The show is very episodic, so it has a lot of one shot storylines, and it can be both quite silly and shockingly dark and serious.

The production design and overall vibe is really fun and funny, because Gotham City is apparently simultaneously experiencing the 1990s and the 1940s, and also every decade in between. Art deco is everywhere. I like the moody backgrounds painted on black paper. The tech is so chunky. This city is stuffed full of futurists, industrialists, socialites, gangsters, mad scientists, and supervillains. Nearly every classic Gotham rogue becomes a supervillain here because some greedy businessman screwed them over and they decided to take revenge into their own hands.

Because the episodes are focused on their own little stories, you meet a lot of the ordinary people of Gotham, and you get the vibe that there's a lot going on in this city. (It's just Bruce on his own most of the time in the beginning, with Alfred, because while Dick Grayson is Robin, he's already off at college and only occasionally comes back to visit.) The stakes can get high, but they can also be personal. One episode is about a thief who's made himself an invisibility suit, but the climax of the episode is him attempting to kidnap his daughter away from his ex-wife.

One of the most recent episodes I watched opened with the Joker being escorted into the rec room at Arkham and sitting down to watch the news. (He changes the channel away from the gardening show that Poison Ivy was watching and they nearly get into a fight about it.) The news promptly reveals that someone has just opened a brand new $300 million casino that they've themed after the Joker. His face is everywhere. The blackjack dealers are dressed like him. It's all in incredibly poor taste. The Joker is furious and immediately escapes to destroy this new luxury casino.

Of course, Bruce Wayne is there because it's a big social event. And upon the theme reveal, he immediately has Alfred drive over to bring him his Batman gear, because he's like, "Joker is definitely going to try to destroy this ugly casino." And I was like, "Sheesh, I know this is Gotham and it's obviously filled with a rich person social scene that is weird beyond my comprehension, but this is weird even for them! Building a Joker-themed casino is just asking for trouble!"

And then Batman investigates and finds out that the casino's construction bankrupted the owner, so the owner hastily themed it after the Joker so that the Joker would come and destroy it. The whole thing is someone attempting to commit insurance fraud via the Joker. Incredible.

#tossawary dc #bruce wayne #the joker #spoilers #long post

[tossawary]

I've been having thoughts about Soulmate AU worldbuilding for a long time, both the mechanics of the magic system and how that magic system came to exist (hence that post), but my thoughts only organized themselves recently because I was scrolling along (I was not looking for soulmate fics) and came across a Soulmate AU fic for the DCU. It was some Batman fic, I think.

I've been rewatching the "Justice League" animated series and the "Batman: The Animated Series" cartoon recently, and in the former, magic is very explicitly a part of the DCU. There are gods and demons and wizards and sorcerers and other people who know magic all over this universe. This is where my mind went immediately upon being reminded of Soulmate AUs.

I think it would be funny if Dr. Fate knew exactly how soulmates worked and exactly who is responsible for this magic system. Like, "Oh, yes, soulmates were the work of the Inverse Dimension Immortal Being Asdfghjkl in the year 10,000 BC, and no one's managed to undo the spell yet, though the world has frequently nearly been cast into several apocalypses by people trying. People are not open to hearing this particular explanation, however."

Someone asks Zatanna to get rid of their soulmate mark and she's like, "Uhhhhh, sorry, but I like not having my head exploded by matchmaking demon gods, thanks. It's a personal preference."

(Is just this an Earth thing? Do aliens wake up with writing on their arm one day and go, "What the fuck is this?! Am I sick?!" And eventually they meet a (non-human) Green Lantern or someone who sees it, and that Green Lantern is like, "My condolences, but there's a human out there who has decided you're its mate." And the alien is incredibly pissed off about this, which eventually leads to a screaming fight upon the first meeting, where the unwitting human in question is like, "I didn't choose shit about this, you jackass! Stop destroying my fucking house!!!")

And if you want to do a world where soulmate marks are a brand new problem that everyone is being forced to deal with due to a worldwide spell, then you can just explain why this is all happening by saying, "It's John Constantine's fault." And I'll be like, "Ohhhhh, that makes sense. Please continue."

#tossawary dc #fic ideas #soulmate au

[tossawary]

Aw, I wasn't expecting Zatanna to show up in "Batman: The Animated Series". She's not explicitly magical here, unlike her counterpart in "Justice League", but rather a very good stage magician. She and Bruce (calling himself "John Smith") met as teenagers(?) when he came to train under her father Zatara as an escape artist. There's a flashback to teenage Bruce and Zatanna and it's pretty cute.

"How does Batman escape handcuffs and death traps all the time?" He went to go train with a world-class stage magician. It absolutely tracks with Bruce Wayne later going to the circus where the Flying Graysons were performing. Like, I don't really think that Bruce Wayne can fully separate anything he does for fun from "How can I use this as Batman?" but it's fun to think that he and Dick Grayson may share a genuine professional and personal interest in these types of performances. Circus nerds. Magician geeks.

#tossawary dc #bruce wayne #dick grayson #zatanna #zatara

[tossawary]

I've been thinking a lot about DCU stuff and Ace Attorney thoughts got mixed in by accident, because it's got a lot of the same themed, colorful character designs and silly pun names. So, of course, I started immediately daydreaming about a DCU-style Superhero AU for Ace Attorney. (I often do not fully control what I think about.)

And then I was like, "I think I just finally have to play Ace Attorney at this point, before I get stuck in a weird daydream loop because I don't know enough about the plot to worldbuild properly. I will let this be the final push to just start these games."

Based on my extremely limited knowledge (I have only actually played 2 episodes of the first game), here are my Superhero AU thoughts so far. I don't like 1-1 character role match-ups in general when I fuse worlds, so none of these AA characters are fully aligned with any particular DCU character.

Phoenix Wright would make a good speedster, I think. This is partially because of the spiky hair, but also because there's a terrible irony to being the fastest man in the world who keeps being too late to stop certain tragedies. It also suits the way he's apparently never properly prepared for anything but also quickly manages to pull through. He's probably still a defense attorney in his civilian identity. (In accordance with later games, he has to stop being a superhero for several years when he's framed for a crime.)

Besides Phoenix's mentor Mia, who is also both a superhero and a lawyer, ordinary civilian Larry Butz is the only person who initially knows that Phoenix has superpowers. He honestly hasn't told anyone Phoenix's secret identity! But Larry also somehow gets into more scrapes and "damsel in distress" situations than Lois Lane and he's not even an investigative reporter.

Mia Fey, Maya Fey, and Pearl Fey have a Shazam situation, I think, in which they transform into a "Mystic Champion" magically empowered by the ghosts of their ancestors. Like a Shazam & Danny Phantom fusion. Mia Fey was the first in her family to become a publicly known superhero. A lot of people don't know that it's not the original Mystic Champion (same face and same superpowered form as Mia, which breaks Phoenix's heart a little every time) until Maya or Pearl transforms back into a regular girl after the fight is over.

I think Miles Edgeworth is a Batman type hero, but one still partially ensnared by Manfred von Karma, who is his Ra's al Ghul. (This makes Franziska into Talia, but there is definitely nothing romantic there.) Maybe he does have superpowers of some kind, maybe not, and he could still potentially be a prosecutor. He doesn't have a Brucie persona, though. Phoenix is not impressed by Edgeworth's harsh and even cruel approach to vigilante work. (Steel Samurai was Miles' Gray Ghost or Zorro hero inspiration, I'm guessing.)

Gumshoe is Miles' Commissioner Gordon figure and doesn't know his secret identity yet. He's either going to learn in the middle of a really bad situation or he's just going to straight-up figure it out himself one day and scare the hell out of Miles.

I'm still thinking about characters like Kristoph and Klavier Gavin, Apollo Justice, and Trucy Wright, but I don't know enough about them to fully flesh these thoughts out yet. I think the Gavins would make good Kryptonian equivalents (a cold and calculating Superman and a rockstar Supergirl), Apollo might make a good Wonder Girl equivalent (his bracelet becomes a Lasso of Truth) as the lost son of an Amazon, and Trucy would obviously be fun as a Zatanna type of hero.

#tossawary ace attorney #aa superhero au #long post #spoilers #phoenix wright #mia fey #maya fey #pearl fey #miles edgeworth #manfred von karma #franziska von karma #dick gumshoe #larry butz #kristoph gavin #klavier gavin #apollo justice #trucy wright #tossawary dc

[tossawary]

Watching "Batman: The Animated Series" (90s) is a lot like watching G1 "Transformers" (80s) in that they are both very much products of their times. I would say that the writing for BTAS is generally solid, decent more often than not, but rarely spectacular, especially watching it as an adult. It has its standout moments. G1 was generally very bad in a mildly entertaining way, with some rare exceptions on the better side of okay and some very cool concepts. They both have a lot of Potential, with key elements that went on to be explored in future iterations.

But both of them will occasionally take hard turns into "aged quite poorly" material, which is the nicer way of saying, "This was bad then too and they should have known it was bad." The degree of the offenses will vary wildly. Sometimes, female characters are kind of cool, but then female characters might suddenly be framed as strange, irrational, delicate creatures whose behavior simply cannot be fully understood. Sometimes, it's time for "The Orientalist Episode", which usually ranges from a fetishtic fascination with ninjas to an extremely racist depiction of the Middle East. BTAS definitely falls on the side of copaganda (yes, despite acknowledging that Some Bad Police Exist) and there's a lot of casual ableism in general, even though the show generally endeavors to be sympathetic towards people who are mentally ill. And so on.

Which is why I can only recommend the show with certainty to people who already like Batman to some degree. I'm pleasantly surprised by how often the show casts greedy businessmen as the villains or the inciting incident for the villains, as they engage in very recognizable cost-cutting measures or illegal activities to screw over the little guy (for example: terrorizing poor people out of their neighborhood to get their hands on the real estate). It contains a wealth of minor characters and one shot storylines. It's a major influence on basically all Batman media that has followed it.

But, holy shit, that episode I just watched with Ra's al Ghul and Talia was SO BAD. "Oh, fuck, they're going to Asia again, how weird are the writers going to be about it this time? How unintentionally extremely racist / xenophobic are they going to be about this? Because they're ALWAYS at least a little weird about it. Wait, what happened to Talia's previous characterization? OH, FOR THE LOVE OF-"

#tossawary dc #tossawary watching #talia al ghul #ra's al ghul #tossawary transformers #tf g1

[tossawary]

heh that's a tpough one since I really enjoy you being in SVSS fandom.

Hmmmm, the only other fandom I'm really active in right now besides the MXTX ones would be the DPXDC where Danny Phantom meets/collides with Batman and family.

Thanks! I'm not planning on leaving the SVSSS fandom or anything. I was just bored at work and thinking about some of my older WIPs for other stuff, and wondering if my writing made anyone think about anything in particular.

The Batman community on AO3 does seem to enjoy its crossover AUs! The entirety of Danny Phantom taking place within Gotham would be hilarious, honestly.

Most takes on Gotham that I've personally seem have the most supernatural/magical people involved be the League of Assassins, which makes me assume that any magic user worth their salt doesn't want to go near Gotham and the dozen things that are Wrong with this city (organized crime, curses, pollution, cults, conspiracies, science experiments gone wrong, etc.). In which case there would HAVE to be some in-universe joke among the magical community that Gotham is too haunted even for ghosts.

And then the Fentons open a ghost portal in Gotham. The Bats do not actually want to play Ghostbusters. They're not happy.

#anonymous #ask tossawary #wishful thinking fandoms ask game #fic ideas #tossawary dc

[tossawary]

im bored at work too! 🤝 im a basic bitch, my vote is batman. that guy has emotional issues shooting straight up his ass and all the way out his mouth. i also just really like found family. i'd really enjoy your interpretation of his character, i think, or at the very least im interested in what you'd come up with.

I was in one of those "hurry up and wait" situations when I originally asked this question. You know when there's nothing to do but you can't just leave for some arbitrary reason? Ugh.

I enjoy Batman stuff! I was a big fan of the Batman: The Animated Series and Justice League and Justice League Unlimited and Batman Beyond. I like Bruce best when he gets to be dryly funny and and the biggest bleeding heart, as well as a deeply angry weirdo. I recently watched my way through walkthroughs of the Arkham video game series after I watched my way through a walkthrough of Gotham Knights, none of which were particularly my thing but had some interesting bits. I've been thinking about flipping through some of the older comics at some point. And, hm, I never did get around to seeing the Battinson movie.

I like doing canon divergence stuff. Even if I'm doing a lot of universe alteration, I like at least having a solid jumping point before I go off the rails into alternate character interpretation, so I don't even know where I'd start with a Batman story. Maybe an AU in which Dick Grayson really does get to permanently straight-up kill the Joker after what happened to Jason and Barbara, and the fallout.

#anonymous #ask tossawary #tossawary dc #fic ideas #wishful thinking fandoms ask game