The Riddler hijacks the local TV airwaves and appears onscreen holding a comically long roll of paper. After dramatically clearing his throat, he proceeds to read from it.
“The following is a list of people who can suck it. Number One: The Joker. I don’t think I need to explain that one. Number Two: Cluemaster. Fuck you, you stole my bit, and I will be like a plague unto your house. Number Three: King Tut. You also stole my bit, but did it while killing people and got me arrested for murder. Also, I’m, like, 93% sure you’re a white guy and your costume is racist.
“Number Four: The Scarecrow. I know you ate my leftover Chinese, Jon, even though I wrote my name on it. I was saving that for lunch. I had to eat a goddamn peanut butter and jelly sandwich like a five-year-old. It was all you had in the hideout. For fuck’s sake, go shopping, not all of us can live like a bridge troll.
“Number Five: The Penguin. You- No, no, wait, wait… That one should be crossed out. He replaced that and apologized. Never mind, Oswald, you’re fine. Drinks at 7:00 tomorrow, right?
“Anyway, where was…? Ah, yes. Number Six: The Mad Hatter. You carded me and left me like that for six hours because I, and I quote, ‘would not stop talking about Mythbusters.’ Well, excuse me for trying to make intellectually stimulating conversation on a level you could understand. I suppose every time you prattle on about mome raths and borogoves it’s goddamn Shakespeare? Well… Well, it’s Carroll, but… Oh, you know what I mean!
“Number Seven: Catwoman. You left me hanging by one hand from a ledge five stories up and holding a twenty-pound bag of jewels and very pointy
objets d’art while you ‘distracted’ the Dark Knight. I know you were making out with him, Selina. You were gone for fifteen minutes. My shoulder almost dislocated. Very unprofessional.
“Number Eight: Kite Man.”
Here the Riddler pauses, lifting his narrowed gaze to glare at the camera, voice dropping to an ominous tone.
“You know what you did…”
His demeanor shifts quickly, and he’s back to reading from his list almost cheerfully.
“Number Nine! Th-”
He’s interrupted by a crashing noise in the background and looks over his shoulder just an instant before a deep voice angrily growls, “Riddler!”
“Oh, for the love of-” He turns to glare at the camera, speaking quickly. “Number Nine: Batman! Interrupting me while I’m on television making very important- Hm-mmph!”
He’s reduced to muffled curses as a black gloved hand covers his mouth and pulls him out of frame. The camera tilts, a cracking noise is heard, and the broadcast turns to static.
KITE MAN’S CRIMES WERE NUMEROUS AND TERRIBLE
If I were batman I’d give him like a five minute warning, because this actually sounds theraputic.
Batman: Riddler, you’ve hijacked the TV airwaves and you know that’s wrong but I think this is actually theraputic. So I’m giving you five minutes, and then I’m taking you to Arkham
Robin: Geez get a facebook account for this crap, hell if you wanna vent to millions of strangers just get youtube.
“RIDDLER YOU CAN’T JUST GO ON TV AND SCREAM AT PEOPLE
THAT’S WHAT YOUTUBE IS FOR”
Riddler takes this advice. He gets his own youtube channel called RiddleMe_Th15. It starts out as being purely therapeutic, a platform for publically calling out those who have annoyed him. Then someone leaves him a pathetically easy riddle to solve in the comments, and he spends his next segment ranting about it, and then posing a better one.
This starts a dialogue with a number of other youtube users who both attempt to answer his riddles and pose their own riddles in return.
Riddler has found his people, and his hit count is climbing.
YouTube star Riddler would be a good direction for the character. But also:
Joker has a Twitter and it’s like dril and no one knows it’s him. Not even Batman. He’s going to find a way to use it for villainy soon and when he does, look out. But even he can’t figure out how to make Twitter useful.
Everyone has a Tumblr. They’re all super-specific and have no actual criminal purpose. Some are obvious: Cat pics; Alice aesthetic; plants and ecoactivism; curated jumpscares (huge following, actual horror directors crow about getting featured); beefcake shots with clown makeup photoshopped on. Some are not: Bane’s Tumblr is just seasonal moodboards.
They LOVE Pinterest. All manner of ridiculous deathtraps started as home improvement pins.
my favorite thing about au fanfiction the sheer range of it. how like sometimes the tag is like “alternate universe- they’re werewolf space pirates in charge of stopping their planet from being blown up by ancient immortal aliens from another realm” and sometimes it’s “alternate universe- chefs”
I know discourse is the word of choice in fandom nowadays but I kind of wish we would have stuck with “fandom wank” because it carries the implication that the anger involved culminated into effectively nothing and that the act was wholeheartedly masturbatory in nature rather than for any greater cause.
I saw this post about an hour after I saw a post that said, essentially, “There should be a word for that thing where [exactly describes ‘squeeing’].”
I feel like the time has come to produce something like this:
Squee: The noise you make when something is so good that all you can really do is squeak or squeal. A high pitched sound of delight, often accomanied by hugging yourself or others.
Squick: A fic/art/concept/topic that is repellent to you, so you reject association with it and instead retreat to your personal comfortable spaces- all the while remembering that someone else’s comfort is not your own.
YKINMKATO: Also called “kink tomato.” Abbreviation meaning “your kink is not my kink, and that’s okay.” Used to explain why you are rejecting art or fic brought to you by someone else. A solid mantra to recall instead of sending flames in people’s comments
Flames: The comment equivalent of anon hate.
AMV: “animated music video” or “anime music video.” Often, this is stylized to fit a specific fandom, such as a “PMV” (pony music video) in my little pony. May also be referred to as a lyricstuck.
Filk: Combination of the words “film” and “folk,” this is a music genre, to which “fan songs” and “fan parody covers” belong. If you don’t really understand what this means, take a quick listen to American Pie, then compare Weird Al Yankovic’s Saga Begins
BNF: Big name fan. You know that one person who is just so fuckign popular in your fandom? Their art is always on your dash, everyone knows their fics? Being spoken to directly by them is basically being noticed by everyone ever’s senpai? That’s what these people are called.
DL:DR; Not unliked the teal deer (tl;dr, or “too long, didn’t read”), DLDR means “don’t like? Don’t read!” It’s a reminder that you are under no obligation, ever, to expose yourself to uncomfortable (or, squicky), or potentially harmful (or, triggering), material. Not ever. If you don’t actively like something? It’s not worth your time. Skip it.
Gen: or “genfic” “genart” etc. Fan works which contain no or very little romantic content. Often these are styled after the canon material, and may be called “episodic” ro “slice of life” in addition.
Lemon: Work containing strong pornographic elements
Lime, or Citrus: Work containing mild or implicit pornographic elements
Sockpuppeting: The surprisingly common scenario of someone making a bunch of fake accounts/sideblogs to send themselves reviews or hate, to try to increase views or drama surrounding a work. The accounts they make are called Sockpuppets.
WAFF: Warm and fluffy feelings. A genre of fic that exists just to be therapeutically sweet. Nowadays, usually just called “fluffy.”
Schmoop: Take WAFF and somehow make it even more syrupy. You’ll know it when you see it.
Whump: Imagine if you will, a hurt-comfort fic. The comfort might be considered WAFF. The hurt? That’s the whump.
Wapanese: When white autors pepper their anime fanfic with random, tonally inappropriate japanese words.
Anthropomorfic: Nowadays we just call these “humanstuck” or “humanized AU.”
Wank: Wildly disproportionate drama that crops up because someone wrote/drew/did something that someone else didn’t like. Seriously, I cannot begin to express the fiascos that have come about from all this. Just… Just go look at this.
Plot bunny: Story ideas that you probably won’t ever actually deal with, but that multiply entirely out of control, creating huge worlds in your head that you’re probably not going to write. But hey! You might! And until then they make great sideblogs/askblogs/tumblr posts.
Casefic: Fanfics that try to create an episode-like feel for procedural and crime dramas, moster of the week shows, etc.
Jossed: When popular fan theories and fanon are addressed in the canon of a series, and whoops, turns out we were all very, very wrong.
Kripked: When popular fan theories and fanon are addressed in the canon of a show and, hot damn, we fucking called it.
Secret Masters: The people who run the websites/ communities/etc that we all do our fanning on. Less relevant now that we have things like tumblr, but when everyone had to run their own archival and social sites for each fandom, it was more important to pay our respects to the strange and powerful beings that brought us all together and gave us our fannish homes. Think the staff of AO3, for example.
Bashing: When a writer purposefully writes a specific character as a horrible, horrible person so that they can throw them out of the storyline, usually to allow their OTP to get together without trouble. Distinct from fridging in that it doesn’t require the character to die, but rather to be such a screaming harpy that they get rightfully removed from the main characters’ lives for being an abusive hell beast. Generally, a type of character hate. Be wary of people who bash women, queer people, and POC with consistency: they are not safe to be around.
‘Squick’ also has an alternate horrible meaning for Harry Potter fans who were in fandom a while back. Dear god.
Also:
Purple prose: Fic that is excessively flowery and complicated. Basically the “me, an intellectual” meme. If it has the phrase “cerulean orbs” you know it’s purple prose.
Beige prose: The opposite of purple prose. Basically, the plainest (and, if done wrongly, the most boring) type of prose.
R&R: Read & review. Back from when fic comments were called “reviews” and there was no such fucking thing as the kudos button.
*wipes a tear away* I feel so vintage.
Know your history children.
important history lesson
*stares out. breaks fourth wall*
Lemons.
For all you young’uns out there.
Also, I’ve seen people tag a ship-focused fic both M/M and Gen on AO3. Just because it also features friendships doesn’t make it Gen! If the main focus is a romantic relationship, do the Gen readers (which is not me, but they do exist) a favor and don’t tag it Gen.
^^^^^^^ THIS. filters are only useful if things are tagged correctly and i can’t search for non-ship fic when everything is tagged for both ship AND gen 😦
please for the love of god tag responsibly and don’t make people who are looking for non-romance fic suffer
I miss proper gen, and the expectation of it in specific places. I wish that was still a tag that followed specific conventions
I actually had a look at that fandom wank link, and it reminded me of another term that’s gone a bit by the wayside:
TOSsed: when an online community was kicked off a platform for (real or alleged) violations of the Terms of Service. This was not infrequently the result of complaints about queer content specifically.
Never forget why we needed an archive of our own, folks.
In corollary to the “If the drive is romantic don’t tag it gen” thing, if there are romantic relationships but they exist as total background nonsense (example: Character A asks her parents to put together a Princess AND Pirate theme birthday and wacky hi-jinks ensue trying to book a fairy princess actress and a schooner shaped bouncy house on the same day, both parents love each other but wish they’d share details like who ordered the cake) THAT’s gen, not het or slash. Don’t tag it as het or slash, you’ll drive away the pure-gen readers who actually want confetti-canon crisis fics.
Location: Another in an endless array of shitty alternate earths.
Lying in the choking smog of cement dust in ash, Rictor has just about fucking had enough. When they get back to their earth, he’s going to shove Mephisto- and Guido’s – heads so far up their asses they’re gonna look like a Möbius strip.
On the plus side, the sentinels following them had been swallowed when Rictor collapsed a section of bedrock and the earth had opened up and taken them and an abandoned strip mall along for the ride.
But he thinks he can hear the sound of this world’s HYDRA forces through the ringing in his ears so he drags himself up, and looks for Shatterstar. The big redhead was next to him when it all went down, and Ric remembers white and black and red in his vision as ‘Star shielded him and…
“I’m here,” ‘Star grunts, one leg pinned under some rubble. “They’re coming, Julio, you have to think, so I can open a gate for you.”
“Lemme just get this thing off you first,” Ric starts, already seeing the faults in the cement block, where to split the fragmenting earth in it.
‘Star’s hand closes over his and he shakes his head. “I can’t walk. I think something sharp in there has severed my femoral artery. I can feel the edge,” He says with an eerie calm. “The moment you take the pressure off, I’m going to bleed out. My healing factor isn’t as fast as Wolverine’s, Julio. It won’t be able to keep up before shock sets in.”
“I’m not just leaving you here to be taken or killed by a bunch of mutant-hunting fascists, baby.” Ric kneels beside him. “I passed all my first aid courses that Scott made us take back in the day.”
“Julio,”
“I’m serious, ‘Star. I’m never gonna abandon you again.”
I was going to colour this but I’m terribly lazy. Just imagine Ric’s tacky 90′s green and blue outfit.
If you had had asked Shatterstar the first week they’d made a home of sorts in the ruins of Camp Verde if he’d thought the desert had any redeeming qualities, he would have given an emphatic no.
The heat doesn’t bother him- he’s got an acceptable temperature range that baffles the others – but it’s so DRY. Cover is sparse and the dust and sand get everywhere.
He only thinks of this last part until it’s too late and Rictor pushes him down on the red-tinged hardpack, the only shade from a nearby cactus heavy with buds. “Of all the stupid…” Ric mutters in between kisses, straddling ‘Star like it would actually keep him down. “Dangerous…”
“Julio, I needed to stop the..” ‘Star tries to explain how getting himself run through was a tactical decision and he’s quite fine now, but Rictor’s heat is so much better than the desert’s and he doesn’t even care that his hair is full of sand. “… I did not mean to worry you.” He adds softly, sliding his hand along Ric’s ribcage. He imagines he can feel the frantic pulse of his heart, even through all that meat and bone and power.
When he opens his eyes again, and looks up at Ric, silhouetted in front of the empty blue sky, the cactus starting to bloom in broad strokes of yellow and white, he realises there’s no place he’d rather be.
(So, I’ve been craving post-Logan RicStar. Here’s an excuse to write some :D)
By the time they reach the sanctuary in Canada, Ric is running on autopilot. All of them are numb, exhausted, heartbroken by degrees, but he’s their leader of sorts. He has to keep them moving, keep them together. Keep them *alive*
When they’re finally safe, food and beds and a roof – there will be time for introductions later, the other mutants tell them, time to meet and greet – he makes sure everyone eats, gets a bath (even Laura, who just pops her toe claw over and over, dragging patterns in the floor until he shoos her off. He can’t imagine how much more she’s hurting then he is right now, and he doesn’t have the reserves left to deal with it) until he’s the only one left, and all he can do is fall facedown on the bed they’ve given him and try to rest.
He wakes up, a voice in his ear whispering nonsense, much later. His heart hammers in the long dark, moonlight slitting through the window and laying a lacy pattern of leafy shadow across the bed. And beside him, a dark shape, one eye catching the light like a dog’s, a glint of steel in that wan light.
The room lurches with the panic-tremor and he scrambles back against the wall, blindly slapping at it until he finds a light switch.
The boy isn’t much older than he is – skinny and wiry with a mass of tangled red hair, and a star like a bruise, like a brand, cut into his face. He’s weird looking in that sort of way that implies he’s going to grow up unreasonably hot, and Ric realizes after a moment, it’s not steel in his hand at all, and panic burns into shame.
A candy bar, the silvery wrapper crumpled in the other boy’s grip. “I just said you should eat,” he mutters irritably, making an attempt to pick himself out of the wreckage of the desk he’s entangled in.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Ric babbles, still pressed against the wall.
The other boy looks at him, then throws the mangled chocolate in Ric’s direction. “Don’t worry, if I wanted you dead, you’d be dead,” he says, finally getting free. “Heard you had a bad time gettin’ here. It’s cool. We all do.”
Ric carefully peels open the wrapper, picking smashed nougat out of the corners of the foil. “Did you have a bad time?” He asks, wary. The other boy has an accent he can’t place, a funny way english lilts and stumbles and he can appreciate the fact that they’re both doing so well in a language that’s clearly not either of their firsts.
“Yeah,” the redhead nods and taps his damaged, weird-pretty face. “Madripoor. Me an’ some others, they made us fight for people. You know, like… gladiators. I’m Shatterstar.”
Ric pauses, the bar halfway devoured before he’d even known he was eating. “What the hell kind of name is that?”
“The only one I got. Yours?” Shatterstar shrugs. This is obviously not the first time he’s had that reaction.
“Rictor,” Ric says, pocketing the rest of the chocolate in his cheek. “You know like earthquakes. I make earthquakes. You know,” He looks around at the smashed furniture. The fact that no one’s come running means that the occasional power incontinence isn’t a big deal around here, either that or this Shatterstar guy makes a habit of scaring the shit out of people in their sleep. “Earthquakes,” he says again, wiggling his fingers for emphasis, hoping to impress upon his new friend that he could have liquefied him.
“I don’t break easy,” is all the boy says. “G’nite, Earthquake Boy,” He adds after a moment with an expression so serious that Ric can’t tell if he’s being teased or not as he clicks off the light. “Sleep good.”
In the moonlight, Ric smooths out the wrapper, and while he doesn’t sleep good at all, it’s better than he expected.
For a long moment, the inside of the car was silent except for the sound of a burger wrapper.
Nightwing started to take a bite, then stopped with a sigh.
Even he could not pretend that this was normal.
“What is she doing here?” he asked finally.
“I’m helpin’,” Harley said, somehow managing to say it quite clearly even though her lips never touched. Her lipstick was a dark matte, and getting a dark matte just right required surgical precision that she could somehow still manage in the back of a moving vehicle without any lights.
“Why, though.”
“In case he needs backup!”
“That’s why I’m here,” Nightwing pointed out.
“Sure,” she said, somehow making the word sound entirely composed of vowels, snapping her compact shut. “Now.”
Nightwing sighed. “I was ten minutes late.” He looked to Batman, who said nothing. “Ten minutes.”
“A lot can happen in ten minutes,” Harley said, primly putting her things back into her bag.
Batman still said nothing, but tilted his head just enough and just long enough that Nightwing knew he was looking pointedly at his fries.
“I’m not apologizing for the fact that I wanted real food,” Nightwing said. He turned around in his seat to look back at Harley. “Have you seen his little protein shake things?
“They’re his robo-fuel!”
“You know he’s not a robot.”
“Yeah, I know that.”
Harley and Nightwing both looked at Batman. Nightwing turned back around in his seat. “I had a busy day, I didn’t have time to eat, so I got some food. It was a totally reasonable thing to do.”
“What’s even your day job?” Harley wondered. “Y’ain’t gettin’ paid for this.” Then she gasped. “Are ya in college now?” she asked, delighted.
“He dropped out,” Batman said before Nightwing could respond.
Harley gasped even louder.
“Now, wait a minute,” Nightwing began, before Harley interrupted by cuffing his ear. “Ow! Harley!”
“That’s Dr. Harley to you, young man.” She looked to Batman. “Tell him he has to go back to school.”
“He’s an adult now,” Batman said. “He can do what he wants.”
Harley narrowed her eyes at Nightwing. “Is that why ya had that mullet?”
“It was not a mullet–”
“Is this what youthful rebellion looks like when a dork tries to do it?”
“You’d know better than I would,” Batman said.
“Hey!” She backhanded his shoulder, then sighed. “I guess I did go to med school.” She reached over Nightwing’s shoulder to grab a fry. “But I also did a lot of coke.”
Nightwing, mid-sip, choked on his iced tea.
“A looooot of coke,” she added, chewing. “In retrospect I was prolly self-medicatin’.” She put a hand on Nightwing’s shoulder. “Not that that makes it okay,” she said. “Listen to your Aunt Harley. Don’t do coke.”
“Yes, Dr. Aunt Harley.”
“If ya needed money for school, ya coulda called me,” she said.
“You don’t have any money.”
“I can get money.” She paused. “An’ I’m real good at gettin’ scholarships.”
“You’re a genius,” Batman reminded her, managing to make the statement of fact sound not at all complimentary.
“That did help,” she agreed.
“Why is she actually here?” Nightwing asked.
“She has some leads on Crane.”
“I’ve been tryin’ to find him so we can have a nice talk about medical ethics,” she said with a grin.
“She wants to cave his skull in with a giant hammer,” Batman corrected.
“An’ you’re gonna try an’ stop me!” she agreed, still just as cheerful. She leaned forward to drape her arms over the headrest of both front seats. “We’re gonna have so much fun.”
A Beautiful Monster 