it’s really wild to see how batman has evolved over time as a consequence of writers wanting to change everything while also changing nothing because any comic that lives that long is a shambling stitched-together corpse
early batman is a swashbuckler and he’s having a good-ass time beating up these bad guys, because he existed in the context of organized crime being a big fucking problem. they were coming out of the 1930s. that’s the era of al capone, you know? john dillinger only died five years ago and he was a fucking celebrity. and batman shows up to be like YOU KNOW WHAT’S COOLER THAN SHOOTING PEOPLE AND BRIBING GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS? BEING BATMAN.
early batman could not have been more clearly edutainment, pulpy enough to make kids feel like they were reading That Good Shit but always with a really obvious message (the message was DON’T DO A CRIME). he fights a lot of giants because having to protect yourself from people twice your size is very #relatable to children.
when he adopts robin it’s very clearly to give kids a character to relate to more strongly than they can bruce wayne–FIGHTING CRIMES ISN’T JUST FOR RICH MEN, IT’S ALSO FOR COOL KIDS LIKE YOU. see how cool robin is, kicking the shit out of these dudes? don’t you wanna be cool, like robin? he’s from the circus, that thing you wanted to run away to because that’s a viable life choice in this era!
bruce wayne was rich but his whole cover was that rich people are fucking useless. a man who inherited money? a fucking useless, lazy shit, no question. this was just accepted by everyone, that obviously an heir would never be suspected of doing anything that might take effort. the difference in attitude on a fundamental level toward the idle rich is staggering.
his wealth is also MONUMENTALLY downplayed, in the same way you see in old movies. they deliberately did not film the philadelphia story in an actual mansion because they didn’t think anyone would believe that the rich got to live like that. so bruce wayne ends up looking like he lives in a tract home in a suburb. “is this how rich people live? yeah, sure, probably. who cares, let’s fight crimes.”
they only introduce a backstory after the comic has been going for a while, because at first it’s like? why would he need a reason to fight crime? it’s fun? but i guess they figured they had to create SOME reason for bruce wayne to not be completely useless, as all rich men are. why is bruce wayne the only rich man capable of doing cool shit? because his parents died, that’s why. check out robin kicking this dude in the head. fucking sweet, right?
there’s a whole storyline where batman fights a whole fucking town because it’s corrupt and the cops are corrupt and THE WHOLE DAMN SYSTEM IS CORRUPT so he’s gonna FIGHT THE WHOLE DAMN SYSTEM IF HE HAS TO, FUCK YOU AND FUCK YOUR COCAINE.
then the comics code happens and fucks everything. batman can’t fight, like, systemic corruption and dudes with tommy guns anymore. all the crimes get CARTOONY AS SHIT. the joker isn’t just a murderous jewel thief with a weird face, he’s a fucking clown. he’s a weird clown man committing clown crimes. puns everywhere. suddenly batman is fighting Supervillains, and they’re all insane. but they aren’t, really? they are a cartoon’s idea of insanity, like a wolf in a straitjacket getting hit on the head with a mallet. when a character is insane what that actually means is they’re wacky, they do weird shit, they have no meaningful motivation and do crimes for no reason because the alternative is having them commit real crimes for good reasons and that’s not good for the kiddos. the fact that batman changed so much after the code is fucking WILD because, remember, it was ALWAYS for the kids. it was BLATANTLY for the kids. the code still managed to fuck it just through the culture shift it created.
then later there’s this shift, again, away from the code and away from kids entirely. late seventies, i think? fuck if i know, i don’t know shit about damn. suddenly they want to be more GRITTY and REAL and DARK. they want REAL CRIME. batman is PUNCHING RAPISTS IN ALLEYS. but this isn’t the era of dillinger anymore. as a society, collectively, we understand more about crime and the societal forces that drive people to crime and so on. there are a lot of alley rapists in this era of comics tbh and this is probably why. rapists always deserve to get punched regardless of class struggle. also at this point we understand more about violence, and people who are violent, who commit acts of violence and solve problems with violence and enjoy being violent. a rich guy having a blast kicking a guy in the head for robbing a bank is no longer great optics.
so batman stops having fun. this is now his dark mission, his grim assignment. he doesn’t like this job, but someone’s gotta do it. he will not smile as he punches a rapist in the head. this is serious business. i don’t necessarily have a problem with this decision, because i think it’s a legitimate course of action to say “in a modern context, these behaviors become unacceptable, and so we will change his behaviors so that he can continue to be a heroic figure”. that’s valid as a motherfucker and i wish more people would remember that the whole point of making batman a grump was so that he could continue to be a good guy, as opposed to the alternative of gleeful violence.
(getting rid of most of the violence is also good–he’s a detective–but these are comics we’re talking about here so lol)
and then there’s the villains. you’d think this would be the point where they say “hey, maybe let’s go back to the way some of our villains were before the code”. you’d think that if they hated the goofy villains so much they’d just move on. but it’s comics so nothing ever goes in the trash for good. and that’s when you have writers who look at a cartoon wolf in a straitjacket and they say “that’s not what insanity looks like! we should make him a sociopath.”
i mean you could have just said “let’s stop calling him crazy and try to find a better motivation for these crimes, like being an asshole” but instead now batman has all these villains with sociopathy and OCD and DID and schizophrenia, because that makes it REAL, because now instead of being cartoon crazy people committing cartoon crimes they are real crazy people committing real crimes!! OH BOY
and at some point someone looks at this and goes “you know i feel like this might be ableist as shit” and writers could have said “yeah in retrospect the only evil clown i’m aware of was legally deemed sane and didn’t actually commit thematically appropriate crimes, so maybe mental health isn’t the issue here” but instead they said “yes, batman is kind of an asshole to be punching these sick people, but he’s a necessary asshole because without him there would be Crazy Crimes and we all just have to come to terms with that i guess”
now we’re at this place where we’re trying to reconcile about eighty years of nonsensical horseshit and all of these decisions that were made because of shifting cultural attitudes or to sell comics or because one writer in particular assumed everyone would love his cool OC as much as he did, and there are writers going “you know, bruce wayne probably has pretty severe ptsd” and there are writers going “what if batman was the REAL villain all along” and there are writers going “lol rich man wears bat costume to punch the mentally ill and poors, did u ever think about that” and there are writers going “hey have you heard of this ayn rand chick because boy howdy i just did and now i’ve got ideas”
but the reality is that heroism and goodness are not static concepts that look the same to all people even within the same era and trying to reconcile every different version of what the popular conception of heroism has looked like for almost a century is dumb as hell and batman should have entered the public domain in 2014
In Gotham Adventures #35, Bruce is made part of a jury for the court case of a man that was apprehended by Batman.
And he just fuckin. He Does That
What seems to keep his cover isn’t secrecy (though there’s plenty of it), but instead just how absolutely outrageous the idea is. Bruce Wayne??Batman??? Puh-lease. I mean, have you seen the guy? Sure he’s a nice guy, but he’s far too busy having people run WE for him and going on pleasure cruises to be Batman. I mean, really.
(Good thing nobody notices the cool symbolic silhouette deal he’s got going on there.) It’s likely become something akin to the ‘Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer’ joke, (check out this post) and Bruce often just feeds it, making it even easier to get away with. It’s fucking hilarious.
Those people are gonna feel silly since anyone with eyes could see that the butts match…. I mean, the facts don’t lie
Tags:
#Batman #comic #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog
#Superman #Batman #comic #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #injury cw #I feel like this probably deserves some additional warning tag but I’m not sure what
Flash sidled up to Superman on one of the Watchtower’s mezzanines, leaning against a rail. They looked at each other sidelong, then away.
“Wanna hear my new time?” Flash asked sideways, swaying as he alternated which foot held his weight, hands on his hips.
“There’s no way you beat my time,” Superman muttered, his arms crossed over his chest. His eyes were in the other direction, and both men went silent as the Lanterns walked too close. Superman and Flash gave them a nod of acknowledgment, then waited for them to be at a safe distance.
“Nine seconds.”
“What!” Superman dropped his arms, whipped his head around to where Flash was grinning and bouncing on his heels. “No way.”
“Flat,” Flash said.
“There’s no way.”
“Check my heartbeat if you don’t believe me,” Flash said, tapping his insignia with his thumb. Then he frowned. “Actually, don’t, I’m pretty excited about this so my pulse is probably crazy.”
His heart always sounded like an angry hummingbird trapped between his lungs, but Barry was also a notoriously terrible liar, so it wasn’t as relevant as it could have been.
“Dangit,” Superman said, crossing his arms again. He leaned back to scope out the area around them. No one seemed to be paying them much mind. “What time?”
“Eleven on a Saturday,” Flash said, looking even more smug. “You know I don’t mess around.”
“Tch!” Superman made an irritated sound, licking his canines. Then he snapped his fingers. “You forgot about–”
“Nnnope,” Flash interrupted. “I’m including the new ones in that, that’s the whole reason we had to reset our times, otherwise I’d still be at seven-point-four.”
“Tch.” Superman drummed his fingers against his bicep. “Nine seconds,” he repeated, torn between irritation and awe.
“You know what that means,” Flash said, waggling his eyebrows.
Superman sighed. “Alright, where are we going?”
“I want soup.”
“Uh-huh.” Superman waited. Flash was waiting for him to ask. Superman was not going to give him the satisfaction.
“… in Saigon.”
“You’ve been watching Bourdain again,” Superman accused.
“It looked like really good soup!” Flash said, defensive.
“Fine,” Superman said, “but I am going to beat your time, and when I do–”
“Beat what, now?” Wonder Woman asked, having managed to approach them while they were distracted by negotiations.
“Nothing!” Flash and Superman said at once.
“We were just talking,” Superman said.
“About stuff,” Flash added unnecessarily. “Private, personal, man stuff.”
Wonder Woman’s eyebrows shot up. She was close enough for her lariat to hum on her hip. She looked Flash over. Flash started to turn red.
“Okay bye!” Flash said, and he was gone in a streak of red.
“Superman?” Wonder Woman asked.
“I should, uh. Hal…”
He wasn’t actually making any definitive statements, just stringing words together, and yet somehow it still managed to ring false. She watched him go, putting her hands on her hips.
She could practically sense it when Batman came up beside her, even quiet as he was.
“Do you want to know what they were talking about.”
“Do you know?” she wondered. He said nothing, so she turned to look at his face. It was as expressionless as ever, but she got the impression that he did not consider the question worthy of dignifying with a response.
He was Batman. He would never be so rude as to say ‘of course’ – but of course he knew.
“I wouldn’t want to invade his privacy,” Wonder Woman said cautiously.
“He’d tell you if you really asked,” Batman said. “They just like feeling like they have a special thing.”
“Oh.”
“Flash, especially.”
“I see.” She tapped on her lower lip as she watched Superman talk to one of the Green Lanterns. “So what’s the special thing?”
“Pick me up in the plane on Saturday and I can show you.”
She froze. Slowly, she turned to look at him. As always, being able to see him helped not at all. “Like a date?” she asked.
The corner of his mouth twitched. “More like a stakeout.”
“That could be like a date.” She was mostly saying it to tease him. Sometimes if she did it right, he turned pink and had to find a shadow to hide in.
“It’s usually not.”
“Why not?”
“I’m usually with the kids.”
“Oh!” Her eyes widened. “I didn’t mean–”
“It’s fine.”
She put her hand out to rest on his shoulder. “I would never imply–”
“I know.”
She took her hand back. “I’ll behave,” she assured him.
“You don’t have to,” he said, and she grinned.
“I’ll pick you up at ten,” she said, and she gave him an exaggerated wink as she walked away.
“It’s a date,” he murmured.
“Why,” Wonder Woman asked, “are we in Florida?”
Batman was sitting beside her, and the plane was in a low hover. “Because as far as anyone can tell, this is the single biggest and busiest Walmart in the world.”
“I don’t think that explains as much as you think it does,” she said.
Batman held up a phone. A clock took up most of the screen. 10:59. “Watch,” he said, and he pointed out to the parking lot, vast and terrifying and teeming with people. She watched, and she had no idea how she was supposed to see anything in the crowd.
Finally, she spotted it. The motion too quick to be anything mortal. Would anyone on the ground notice anything more than a strong breeze?
“Oh! It’s the–” She snapped her fingers, couldn’t remember the word.
“Carts,” Batman supplied.
“Yes!”
In almost no time at all, every cart in the parking lot had been returned to one of the designated corrals. Batman pointed to something that he must have been using technology in his mask to see, because otherwise his eyes should not have been good enough. Wonder Woman was much better equipped to see Superman, standing beneath a tree and checking a stopwatch and scowling. He did some kind of motion with his arms and one leg that suggested he’d have thrown his hat to the ground, if he’d been wearing one.
“They introduced new carts,” Batman explained. “They don’t fit with the other ones, so it slows them down. Ruined their whole system.”
“They had a system?” she asked, giggling.
“No, here,” he said, tapping her arm to point again. “This is the best part. He’s frustrated.”
“That’s the best part?”
“Watch what he does.”
She watched. Superman was gone again, more impossible-to-follow motion through the crowd. Things were moving. Large things.
“He’s fixing the cars!” she said, clapping her hands together.
“He’s fixing bad parking jobs,” Batman confirmed. “Because he’s mad.” There was a brief crooked curve to his mouth.
“He moved that one to a different space!”
“Illegally parked in a handicapped spot.”
“How fun.” Wonder Woman watched the people wandering through the lot, wondered how many of them had noticed what was happening and how many had disregarded it as nothing worth noticing. “Flash is the winner of this contest, then?”
“Consistently.”
“Is there a prize?”
“Clark buys him lunch. Usually somewhere he saw on a food show, since he can’t normally do that.”
“Why not?”
“Hm?”
“Barry can run anywhere, can’t he?” she asked. “I see no reason he couldn’t run to these places on his own.”
“He doesn’t like being alone in foreign countries,” Batman explained. “It makes him anxious.”
“Oh.” She returned her gaze to the parking lot. “How nice, then, that it all works out.” She frowned. “Is this weird?” she asked. “Spying on our friends like this.”
“I don’t think I’m the right person to ask.”
“Do you do this often?” she wondered. “Watch people have fun without you?”
“Define ‘often’.”
Wonder Woman held up a finger in warning. “Zatanna taught me a trick.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“She says that if you ask me to define the parameters, it means the answer is bad.”
Before he could respond, there was a thump.
Superman was standing on the nose of the invisible jet.
He tapped a knuckle on the glass, until Diana opened the hatch. “Hello!” she said cheerfully.
“What are you two doing here?” Clark asked.
“We’re on a date!” Diana said.
“We’re not on a date,” Batman said.
“If you’re not on a date, can you give me a ride?”
“You’re out of our way,” Batman said.
“Nah, just drop me off in Gotham,” Clark said, slipping inside the plane, awkwardly floating between the two front seats into the back.
“You don’t even need a ride,” Bruce said, having to fit himself as far as possible into the edge of his seat so that Clark would have room to get by. “You can fly.”
“Yeah, and you can walk, but I don’t see you giving up the Batmobile.” Clark made himself comfortable in the back seat as Diana closed up the plane. “I’m craving Dimitri’s.”
“You’re too sober for Dimitri’s,” Bruce said.
“I’m always sober. You’re lucky I can tell this wasn’t a real date, or I would be really creeped out by the whole spying on me thing.”
“Don’t tell Barry we know about your special thing,” Diana said, pulling the plane out of its hover to ascend. “I don’t want to ruin it for him.”
“I won’t,” Clark assured her. “Hey, you know where we should go while we’re here?”
“No,” said Bruce.
“Where?” asked Diana.
“No,” said Bruce.
“Disney World!”
“No.”
Diana gasped.
“No.”
Clark put a hand on Bruce’s shoulder. “You can’t have come all the way to Florida just to see me,” he coaxed.
“I’m banned from Walmart, strongly discouraged from visiting Disney parks, and my parents are dead. I have no other reason to visit Florida.”
Tags:
#anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #(I cracked up at ”banned from Walmart”) #(I recognised the reference to one of unpretty’s previous fics) #(also in my #Batman #tag) #fanfic #superman
when i started wayne manor i did not intend for this to happen but quite frankly it’s all thomas’ fault. WELCOME TO HELL.
i don’t know if there’s a name for a ship that is so obscure it might as well not exist, but then if you voice the idea out loud people go “WAIT BUT THAT MAKES SENSE??” but anyway that is the level of hell we are at with this and it’s just the worst.
The alarm went off, and Thomas grumbled, rolling over until he could reach far enough to hit it. Then he rolled back, throwing out an arm as he took his designated position as Biggest Possible Spoon. Martha sighed, comfortably nestled into her place as Rather Tall But Currently Littlest Spoon.
Alfred was of course in the position of Middlest Spoon, or possibly Actually Taller And Handsomer Than Average Spoon Even If You Wouldn’t Know It To Look At These Other Spoons, or to use an entirely different metaphor, The Blonde Center Of A Raven-haired Sandwich. He objected to being the cream filling, because that had connotations.
“Alfred,” Thomas mumbled, nuzzling at the back of his head. “Go make sure Bruce is dressing appropriately for the museum.” Despite this, he had made no move to allow Alfred to escape.
“He’s your son,” Alfred said. “You do it.”
“I’m doing it by making you do it,” Thomas said.
“You can’t make me,” Alfred said.
“The hell I can’t,” Thomas said, indignant.
“Tommy-love, you haven’t rehired him yet,” Martha reminded him.
Thomas had rules about fraternizing with staff. Thomas did not break rules. Particularly not rules about ethics. He had the kind of ironclad and unbreakable sense of right and wrong that consistently and without fail inconvenienced and annoyed the shit out of everyone around him.
Which is why Martha had fired Alfred.
Martha was very good at finding workarounds for her husband’s sense of ethics.
“Alfred,” Thomas said, his voice adopting the particular baritone of Professionalism, as if he were not still in mid-cuddle with the man. “I hear tell my wife fired you last night.”
“Yes, Mr. Wayne,” Alfred said, interrupted by a yawn. “I’m sorry to leave, of course, but I’m not a man to overstay my welcome.” His hand wandered over Martha while he could still get away with it, and she giggled.
“Between you and me,” Thomas said, “I’m afraid my wife may be suffering from her monthlies.”
Martha gasped. They could hear the fire lighting in her eyes. Immediately Alfred clamped his arms around hers.
“It may even be hysteria,” Thomas added, and he had to wrap his arms around both Alfred and Martha to keep his wife from sitting up and hitting him. Thomas could feel the subtle shaking of Alfred trying not to laugh as Martha tried to get her arms free. He was trusting Alfred enormously not to let her go, since Martha had a mean right hook and a manicure that could kill. “I’m a doctor,” he added, in case anyone had forgotten. “This is my professional doctor-man opinion.”
“I see,” Alfred said as seriously as he could, having to lean his head back toward Thomas so Martha couldn’t headbutt him.
“How about you just come on back to work,” Thomas said, “and we forget this whole thing ever happened?”
“While I can think of nothing I’d like better,” Alfred said, “if I’m going to be returning to such an unstable work environment, I will require greater compensation.”
Martha’s angry struggling was forgotten as she started to laugh.
“God damn it,” Thomas said, clearly outmaneuvered.
“Oh, Alfie, you’re marvelous,” Martha said.
“Thank you, Mrs. Wayne,” he said. “One does one’s best.”
“I don’t suppose you take payment in dick?” Thomas asked, and Martha laughed again.
“I thought that was the benefits package,” Alfred said.
There was a familiar sound in the bedroom walls, a faint thump.
“Shit,” Martha said, all three of them bolting upright. “We took too long.”
Immediately and without preamble, both Waynes shoved Alfred downward and covered him with the comforter. He did not protest.
“How much do you wanna bet he’s wearing the pith helmet?” Thomas asked.
“That’s not even gambling,” Martha said with disdain.
Bruce appeared outside their bedroom window, because they’d made it too difficult for him to get in directly through the vents. He’d gotten in the habit, instead, of going through the walls and then out a decorative window, clambering across sills to get to theirs.
Martha was beginning to consider re-opening some of the secret passages into the bedroom, if only so he didn’t fall while climbing on all the architecture.
Bruce was, surprising no one, wearing his pith helmet. He was the sort of ten-year-old that believed very strongly in dressing for the occasion.
He had the window unlocked from the outside in no time at all, bending halfway through it so that he could retreat if he was seriously yelled at.
“The museum opens in an hour,” he said before they could say anything, clearly upset with their lollygagging. He was also the sort of ten-year-old that believed very strongly that ‘on time’ meant ‘a minimum of ten minutes early, but preferably more’.
“Brucie,” Martha said, her voice stern. Since she didn’t sound the kind of upset that Bruce considered dangerous, he slid inside, having the approximate weight and compressibility of a Hoberman sphere made of balsa wood. “What have I told you about breaking into our room?” The comforter was wrapped around her chest and tucked under her armpits, and she managed to make it look dignified.
“I might as well just pick the lock on the hall door,” Bruce said, as dismissive as any child repeating something he’d been told a thousand times. “This route was more efficient. And if we’re not one of the first two-hundred people in the exhibit, we don’t get the collector’s coin!” His change of subject was a flawless pivot, holding up the brochure that the museum had sent them in the mail, which of course he’d brought with him as a visual aid. He pointed at the embossed picture of the coin.
“Brucie, we’re their biggest donors,” Thomas reminded his son. “If you want a coin, all we have to do is ask.” They were technically included free at the ‘recurring five-hundred dollar donation’ level, which the Waynes far exceeded.
“That’s cheating,” Bruce said, not for the first time. “We have to get it right or else it doesn’t count.”
Bruce also had a particular sense of right and wrong, and it made his love of collecting things much more difficult than it had any right to be when his parents were billionaires.
“How,” Martha asked, “is crawling in the window a more efficient route than just taking the hall?”
Bruce huffed impatiently, lowered the brochure. “Because I went to Alfred’s room first, which is the other reason I’m here, because Alfred is missing and we need to find him because I’m not leaving without Alfred.” He stomped his foot to emphasize this point.
Thomas pressed his lips together into a thin line of not-grinning.
Martha pointed at the door. “Back to your room,” she ordered. “Dress properly, this time.”
“Mooom,” Bruce protested, putting his hands protectively on his hat. “I’m wearing in the old-timey paleontologist way! Not the old-timey archaeologist way!”
“No one can tell that to look at you, darling, you look like a grave-robber with a mild case of syphilis.”
“Mother!”
“Go put something on that suggests you know we’re living in a society, so that your father and I can get dressed. Then we’ll all go find Mr. Pennyworth so we can go to the museum together – and we will arrive on time, when it opens and not a moment sooner. Won’t that be lovely?” She smiled, dazzling white, and Bruce knew there was no point arguing.
“Fine,” he said, dragging his feet as he headed for their bedroom door. “But if we get there, and there’s a long line and I don’t get my coin, I’m going to put on a brave face and try not to let it ruin my day because there’s so much cool stuff to see, but it’s still going to ruin my whole day, and you’re going to be able to tell because I’m bad at lying about my feelings, and then you’re going to feel bad and it’s going to ruin everyone’s day.”
“It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” Martha said, because she had a much better sense than her son of exactly how many people were clamoring to get in to the obscure new exhibit on trace fossils.
“You hear that?” Thomas said when Bruce had left, lifting the comforter. “You’ve gone missing.”
“How distressing,” Alfred said, wiggling back out from underneath it. “Do you think you’ll be able to find me in time?”
“Bruce won’t rest until we have,” Martha said, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek.
“No Alfred left behind,” Thomas agreed, kissing the other.
“I suppose I should – I don’t actually need a raise,” Alfred said suddenly. “To be clear, I’m… more than happy.”
“Too late!” Thomas said, ruffling Alfred hair in the way he knew annoyed him, leaning over Alfred to rub noses with his wife. “You’re in a new tax bracket now and nothing can stop me.”
my husband is Distraught
(in this canon the waynes die when bruce is 12 no one @ me about his age pls)
Tags:
#Batman #fanfic #nsfw? #long post #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #(”and you’re going to be able to tell because I’m bad at lying about my feelings”) #death mention
as a kid i always thought gotham was in michigan because i thought it was a midwestern city like chicago, and there was always shit going down at the pier or in abandoned factories and if michigan has anything it’s a lot of piers and abandoned factories. anyway turns out it’s probably in jersey.
one of the most heavily forested states in the country with 20 million acres of forests oh my god poison ivy would be so powerful the second she got outside city limits fuck
there’s 20 million acres of this and she’s got plant powers no wonder they want her on lockdown
there are more than 6,000 shipwrecks in the great lakes how many supervillain origin stories is that good for
“63 commercial ports handled 173 million tons of cargo in 2006″ aka holy shit that is a lot of opportunities for boatcrimes
mr freeze has a pretty tragic origin story but if you had to put up with michigan winters and then some motherfucker showed up freezing the town outside of freezing season you would have no mercy
MOTHERFUCKER I JUST PUT MY SNOWBLOWER IN STORAGE DO I LOOK LIKE I NEED THIS SHIT RIGHT NOW
imagine batman giving someone directions by pointing to his hand
“we believe killer croc is somewhere around here” he says pointing to the tip of his thumb
good fucking luck finding stats on abandoned buildings in michigan but holy shit are there a lot of them, no wonder they’re always having fights in abandoned factories and empty warehouses
“kitty why are you including that map of the railroads like it’s relevant” because when you’re trying to sleep and you hear a train in the distance it’s fucking spooky okay
i have no evidence that traincrime is an issue for batman i’m just saying the ambiance is there
that’s what i thought but apparently metropolis is new york during the day and gotham is new york at night which means the dc universe has three new yorks which i think even new yorkers can agree is too many
when i was a kid i used to slide down the slopes made by snowplows on my stomach which i feel is relevant to the penguin
there’s always a ton of cars from the 30s driving around gotham which makes perfect sense if it’s in michigan because that’s when we made cars and we’re not over it
rick snyder and his emergency managers are basically supervillains and i want batman to punch them
michigan is closer to kansas which means bruce can visit clark’s parents and then they’re emailing clark about what a nice young man he is and there’s nothing clark can do about it
if someone said that a city in michigan had been hijacked by an evil clown that was only stopped when a man in an animal costume kicked him in the face would you even blink
this is meadow brook hall in rochester mi
this is the charles t fisher house
here’s the james scott residence
welcome to michigan hope u like houses with turrets and fucked up clowns and evil men poisoning the water
Headcanon accepted, Gotham is definitely in Michigan. (Doesn’t Gotham have docks in at least one canon- one of the cartoons, I think? So it must be somewhere on the lake…)
tim drake’s snapchat is 90% him making bruce wayne do normal middle-class american things and filming the results. popular youtube compilations include the one where they’re at denny’s at two in the morning and tim keeps trying to get bruce to order a moon over my hammy just so he’ll have to say it, the one where they’re at disneyworld and bruce gets increasingly frazzled culminating in him actually physically picking up gaston for reasons no one can entirely recall, and everyone’s favorite series “bruce wayne doesn’t understand walmart”
having thought about it the best part is probably when a pranking fails because bruce has such a bizarre patchwork of knowledge/skills and it does not occur to him to hide most of it. tim puts a ghost pepper in bruce’s food but bruce just eats it like nothing is wrong. the same thing happens with the chocolate-covered crickets. it turns out bruce can lick his own elbow. bruce can lasso a runaway robot lawnmower like it’s a calf at a rodeo. whenever tim expresses shock that bruce knows how to do something he says “i did go to college, tim” as if that explains anything and it becomes a meme. whenever anyone does something fucking absurd it just gets tagged “i did go to college, tim”.
The camera came uncomfortably close to the face of a man ignoring it. He was very good at it. He was reading a book about, of all things, the history of denim. It was not the sort of book that made it easy to ignore cameras, but he remained stoic.
The caption said helpfully: [been doing this for 30 mins]
“Bruce. Bruce. Bruce. We need to go Walmart. Bruce. I need it.”
“Ask Alfred.”
→→→
“It’s a surprise for Alfred.”
“You can’t surprise Alfred.”
“Bruce, please.”
→→→
“It’s not a matter of permission, I’m saying you literally can’t surprise Alfred.”
→→→
[he hates when i say that]
“Bruuuuce.”
“No.”
“This is bullroar.”
Bruce finally set down his book with an expression of the most profound disgust.
→→→
[oh no now we’ll be here all day]
“—either curse or don’t, just commit one way or the other instead of—”
→→→
The camera took its time panning over a black BMW.
“Can I drive?”
“No.”
→→→
[after this he took away my music privileges]
Bruce was driving, looking stoic again. His face lent itself well to stoicism. The radio played, at high volume, “Sandstorm” by Darude.
→→→
“I’ll play something different this time.”
“You had your chance and you blew it on a meme.”
→→→
[SJGJDH;FUKC 😂😂😂]
“I’m boooored.”
“Hi, bored,” Bruce said, eyes still on the road, and Tim groaned loudly. “I don’t give a shit.”
The view shifted and audio clattered as Tim dropped the phone, barking a laugh.
→→→
The phone was wobbly as Tim followed Bruce into the store. “Can I get a trampoline?” he asked, camera pointed to one outside the store.
“We have three trampolines.”
“But I want that one.”
→→→
They were in the chip aisle. “Have you ever had a Dorito? One Dorito? In your whole life?”
“I am a person. I eat food for people.”
→→→
The camera followed a bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos into the cart.
“We’re not getting those.”
“We need to get sour cream, too.”
“No.”
“You’ll love it.”
“No.”
→→→
Tim had put the seatbelt of the cart’s seat, intended for toddlers, around a giant plastic jar of orange cheese puffs.
“I thought you were getting something for Alfred.”
“I’m getting groceries while we’re here.”
“None of this is food.”
→→→
[$3 pickles blowing his mind rn]
Bruce was holding a gallon jar of pickles with an expression of incredulity.
“—costs extra to not waste food?”
“It’s Walmart.”
“Even taking into account the economies of scale—”
→→→
[putting his degree to use in the pickle aisle]
“—it just makes no sense even as a loss leader, unless the goal is to drive the competition out of business and hope they don’t go bankrupt in the—”
→→→
[i think he’s buying a pickle company??]
Bruce had every appearance of furiously texting on his phone, or possibly composing emails.
→→→
[lmao he did]
Bruce was now on his phone, looking impassive as ever as he contemplated the giant jar of pickles.
“—the business itself is perfectly sound. Yes. Obviously. Dead serious. Look, if you—”
→→→
Tim put a gallon jug of ranch dressing into the cart.
“Absolutely not.”
→→→
Tim was in the frozen section, his reflection visible in the glass.
“I bet Alfred would love some pizza rolls.”
“Your lies demean us both, Tim.”
→→→
Bruce was standing in the toy aisle, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I understand the concept of blind boxes perfectly well, thank you.”
“Then why are you acting confused?”
“Why does Thomas the Tank Engine—”
→→→
[🌈🌈🌈]
Bruce was making a face of disgruntled bafflement at a display of baby clothes.
“—disturbed by the amount of aggressive heterosexuality being foisted on these babies.”
“Yeah,” Tim agreed. “What about the gay babies?”
“I can’t tell if you’re joking but I’m unironically concerned.”
→→→
[gotham pride]
The camera panned over a display of hero-themed hats. Most of the Batman hats had sold out, while the Superman display was nearly full. It panned back to Bruce, who was taking a picture with his own phone.
“Who you texting it to?”
“Friend in Metropolis.”
“Metropolis sucks.”
“Yes. Yes it does.”
→→→
[no escape]
The camera peered out slowly from behind a clothing display. Bruce was surrounded by enthusiastic and friendly women. It was impossible to tell what they were talking about.
→→→
[???]
Bruce was holding a dress up against himself. The women around him seemed delighted and were nodding their approval.
→→→
[i’ll strike while he’s distracted]
Tim dropped another two four-movie collections of Shrek on top of the considerable pile he’d already amassed. He panned up to check that Bruce had not caught him before grabbing another.
→→→
[busted]
While Bruce put DVDs back on the shelf, Tim surreptitiously grabbed a Shrek coloring book.
→→→
[he’s gonna get a fish]
Bruce was frowning at the wall of fishtanks in silence. Finally he said, “These fish are very unhealthy.”
→→→
[HE’S BUYING ALL THE FISH]
The man attempting to help Bruce looked baffled. Bruce gestured to the entire display of fish with a nod. The man shook his head. Tim brought his phone close to a betta, blue and red with a tattered and graying tail.
“We’re here to save you,” Tim stage-whispered to it.
→→→
Bruce was now engrossed in conversation with multiple employees.
“—if I bought some tanks — they’re much too small but as a temporary measure — we could transfer them directly and it might be less distressing for the fish.”
“Maybe I could get one of the big dolly carts from the back?” one young man suggested.
→→→
The low camera angle suggested Tim was trying to be surreptitious.
“—for trying to unionize is completely against the law,” Bruce was saying, his voice low. He was helping three other employees transfer fish into large plastic tanks.
“At-will employment,” one woman said.
“We’d have to prove that was why they fired us,” someone clarified. “Otherwise they can say it was for no reason.”
“You’re shitting me.”
→→→
“—fucking with my hours hoping I’ll quit.”
“What? Why?”
“If they fired me, they’d have to pay unemployment.”
“That’s why they won’t let me work full-time.”
“What the fuck.”
→→→
[omg he’s stealing the employees now]
“—in Gotham, but there’s more opportunities outside of manufacturing if you’re willing to move.”
“Wait, so do you mean like for management?”
“No, no, that’s the starting wage for someone working assembly, quality control, that kind of thing. We’re all unionized, none of this at-will bullshit.”
“So if I—”
→→→
The woman from earlier was showing Bruce her phone while the others continued moving fish.
“You painted this?” Bruce asked. She nodded. “That’s fantastic. Are you showing it anywhere? I know a guy with a gallery — actually I know pretty much everyone with an art gallery in Gotham. I think I have a friend who’d really love this, if you don’t mind me making some calls for you.”
→→→
Four more employees had joined the menagerie.
“—almost always hiring in Gotham. People are always moving to cities with fewer evil clowns.” Everyone laughed. Tim snorted. “Employee insurance totally covers acts of supervillainy, though.”
→→→
[trying to crush the revolution]
The employees had not dispersed. In the distance, someone managerial was talking to Bruce. He looked much less amused than Bruce did.
→→→
[THEY CALLED THE COPS]
Tim had switched to the selfie camera, his face pure glee. He turned bodily to show the employees wheeling out tanks of fish out of the store, police lights in the parking lot.
“The manager tried to make Bruce leave but he insisted on paying for his fish and he wouldn’t stop giving people better jobs so the guy said it was corporate espionage and threatened to call the cops and Bruce called his bluff so he did it.”
→→→
[WE’RE BANNED FROM WALMART FOREVER]
Bruce was laughing with the police officers about something. The manager from earlier had been joined by men in suits. None of them looked happy. Some of the employees from earlier were yelling and flipping them off. One man pulled off the shirt of his uniform and started setting it on fire.
→→→
Bruce was on the phone in the parking lot.
“They’re small, most of them are tropical. You can figure out what they are when you get here. How is that racist? I’m not suggesting you already know them, I’m well aware you don’t personally know every single fish—”
→→→
“Either you take these fish or I toss them in the sewer and Killer Croc can eat them. It will be a merciful death compared to what they were getting. It doesn’t matter where I found them.”
→→→
[i’m not allowed near toxic waste]
Tim held the betta from earlier in front of his phone, bringing it dangerously close to Bruce’s face. Bruce had hung up, but seemed to be dialing another number.
“I’m keeping this one,” Tim said.
“Fine.”
“If I drop him in toxic waste do you think he’ll get powers?”
“We’ve already had this discussion.”
→→→
[the pettiest man in gotham]
Bruce was on the phone again, looking out at the empty field beside the Walmart parking lot.
“Yeah, just buy the whole thing. Yeah. Absolutely sure. Green Market’s doing good, we’ll build another one of those. Can we put up a billboard while it’s under construction? A really big billboard.”
→→→
“First of all, if it’s in writing, it’s libel. Second, figures taken directly from their report to shareholders aren’t defamatory. What’s the most they could even sue me for? See, that’s nothing. Bad PR for them, good for us, it’s—”
→→→
Tim had switched to the selfie camera again, and was using a sparkling purple filter that made his eyes look huge. He backed into Bruce so that Bruce’s face would be in the shot. “Bruce, look! You’re a pretty pretty princess!”
Bruce raised an eyebrow as he looked at his face on the screen. “I’m always a pretty princess,” he said seriously.
→→→
[he picked the music this time]
Bruce was driving again. He was listening to 100 Little Curses without any apparent irony. This did not mean there wasn’t any irony.
→→→
[i named him wally]
The Walmart betta was now in a tank that held at least a hundred gallons. His underwater castle was resplendent. His tail had grown in, a shimmering gradient of red and blue. Bruce could be seen in the background through the tank, sitting on the couch and reading a book.
Tags:
#Batman #fanfic #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #(…I think my internal dossier system needs some work) #(Me: ”so this is a Batman fic.”) #(Brain: ”hmm?”) #(Me: ”you know. Batman? that rich dude who’s secretly a superhero?”) #(Me: ”well not a *super*hero exactly. just lots of combat training and gadgets financed with said richness.”) #(Brain: ”oh you mean the Red Panda.”) #(Me: ”…no.”) #((although honestly it kind of works as timeshifted Red Panda)) #((Bruce is clearly a better driver though))
Brinens and Things 