At A Drivers Ed Thing And They’re Playing A Video Full Of Horrific Real Dead Bodies And Then I Started

AU where Jason comes back to Gotham and begins his plan to confront Batman and all that. Except after only like a week the Joker gets hit by a bus and then shot by a little old lady with a shotgun and dies.

Jason’s plan is now in shambles because the dramatic climax of his plan is no longer possible. But that’s fine. He’ll think of some other suitable alternative. Granted, it’s not quite the same if he uses some other villain. Making Batman choose doesn’t mean nearly as much when it’s not about the person who killed him.

And really, is he going to try and get Batman to kill Black Mask or something? Scarecrow? Red Hood is competent; he could do it himself so why bother.

So Jason lays low continues to build his criminal empire with astounding speed and efficiency. If only he could think of a good way to announce his return. Nothing he can think of is dramatic enough.

Meanwhile, the Bats are freaking out because who is this guy that’s taken over half of the Gotham underworld in like a month? He’s obviously trained, but they just can’t seem to get any information on who he is or where he came from. It is beyond frustrating.

After a few months Jason is frustrated that he just can’t seem to find any dramatic good way of making Batman prove himself. It has to be something big! Something magnificent!

During his weekly chat with Talia he complains about his problems and she suggests he come back for a visit. He argues that he can’t just leave, but she says if he has competent enough lieutenants it’d be fine. He spends the next three weeks making sure that everything will be fine if he leaves for a week. He will not have all of his hard work falling apart and going to waste due to incompetence. Absolutely not.

So then once his lieutenants are sufficiently prepared (and the rest of Gotham’s criminal element sufficiently cowed), he heads to Nanda Parbat, only to find Ra’s on the phone with Bruce, who is demanding to know if the Red Hood has any affiliation with the league.

Oh. Oh. He can give them affiliation.

A new plan begins to form.

He’s going to be the most affiliated he can be. Jason immediately goes to Talia with his newest plan: Overthrow Ra’s and takeover the league. Talia whips out her forty step outline for overthrowing Ra’s and tells Jason she’s so proud of him.

Jason has a new goal now, so he gets to work. He checks on things in Gotham, but everything seems to be fine and there haven’t been any unplanned explosions so it should be fine if he stays here for a bit.

Taking over Gotham really was good practice, as it turns out. Thanks to Talia’s plans and previous foundational efforts the takeover happens in no time.

Meanwhile the bats are still freaking out. Red Hood hasn’t been seen in three weeks, he may or may not have league of assassins connections, and even in his absence his goons seem to be managing things competently.

Back in Nanda Parbat, Jason and Talia finish their takeover. And now, finally, he’s ready to confront Batman.

He arrives in Gotham as the new head of the league. His arrival is loud, elaborate, and dramatic enough to fulfill his inner theater kid’s dreams.

Batman is speechless. And not his usual grunts instead of words, but actual surprised speechless. Jason is alive?!?!?!?

Jason was not expecting all the tears. And hugs. And mother henning. Goodness gracious, this was not part of the plan.

Bruce is obviously struggling with Jason’s revelation that he took over the league, but the newest little birdie seems almost relieved at that(?) and Dick and Alfred both seem strangely proud. Whatever. Even Bruce seems to be at least mostly ignoring that for now.

Then someone asks him if he knows Red Hood. Jason blinks. Says that yeah, he knows Red Hood. Everyone seems to ease at that. One mystery solved. Jason quickly realizes that most of them have no idea he is Red Hood. Cass seems to be the only exception but also appears amused and willing enough to not mention it.

Dramatic appearance complete, Jason now has a new goal: see how long he can keep the bats (minus Cass and potentially Alfred) in the dark about his crime boss identity.

He will bribe Cass as much as it takes to keep her on board with the causing chaos plan, but she seems eager enough. Favorite sibling status definitely unlocked. (The whole killing thing is fought over at great length and a truce of sorts is eventually made)

David Cain is never heard from again.

Damian shows up at some point.

At least one league member has suddenly found themselves as an HR rep for Gotham criminals? They’re still not quite sure how that happened.

This may seem like an exaggeration, the idea that one can learn how to properly think like a criminal by learning how crime stories work. On a personal note, let me tell a story from the Leverage writer’s room.

Apollo Robbins (http://www.istealstuff.com/) runs a crew of professional thieves who consult for law enforcement. He was also our criminal consultant on Leverage. Every few weeks he would visit the writer’s room to advise on the scripts and keep us up to date about new cons and the latest in criminal technology.

One day during the third season he sat in with the writers while we broke a story. We posted the details of a real-life white collar criminal up on the room’s whiteboard, using him as the basis for our Mark. We looked at his weaknesses, how he moved his money, what his hobbies were. Once we were happy with that element of the story we added a Vault to the mix, one that used an interesting new alarm technology we’d researched. We then spent about an hour figuring out how to circumvent that alarm. We even sketched out a map of the imaginary building so we could keep track of our Crew’s movements during the Job.

“Well, I’m done here,” Apollo muttered. Noting our confusion, he pointed at the board and index cards cluttering the wall. “This is exactly how real Crews plan these things. This writer’s room is now a fully functioning criminal gang. You could be thieves.”

Of course writing television pays better than crime (usually), with far less chance of being arrested (usually), so we all managed to resist the temptation. But aside from the day a US Attorney asked us to change a plot because we’d created a scam that was a little too foolproof, or when a Homeland Security Agent admitted they were spooked by a security hole we’d exploited in our season finale, it was certainly one of the proudest moments I had on the show.

Source: "CrimeWorld" by John Rogers in Fate Worlds Volume Two: Worlds in Shadow. Evil Hat Productions, 2013: 20.

Okay I watched the first episode watch party and took notes which I will post tomorrow (cause I need to go to bed lmao) but I will leave you for now with an exact quote from John Rogers, regarding Parker and Hardison's relationship and where it's going from here:

JR: "they're in this complicated emotional relationship with them and Eliot - however you want to define it - and they are going to die together."

On a stakeout one summer night, the Justice League gets caught up in the middle of a swarm of super powered mosquitoes. Chewed up, they go back to the Watchtower to regroup.

Hal: Fuck. Who has the calamine lotion?

Diana, flustered: What were those?

Clark, never having experienced a mosquito bite before, on the verge of tears: :(

Bruce:

Hal: Hey Spooky, how come you’re not itching like the rest of us? They even managed to break through Clark’s skin.

Bruce: Bats can eat up to 1,200 mosquitoes in an hour.

Everyone: ????

Bruce: *swoops out the door*

—

Dick: Hey Dad how was the League mission??

Bruce: Better than expected.

Tim: Any idea why Green Lantern has left fifteen hysterical voicemails asking if you’re actually a bat cryptid?

Bruce: No idea whatsoever. Would you please refill my Bat Mosquito Repellant?

My friends: talk about how many books they read in a month

My friends (ask me): What about you, read any book recently?

Me (sweating profusely, looking at probably 30 tabs of AO3): Uhm…Do fanfics count?

.

.

I have been reading about four books for a month now and haven’t finished them, yet I read approximately 50-100k words of fanfics every day. Am I weird or am I weird?

hardison's so patient with parker and eliot and it's so sweet but also so funny. he's leaving a trail of breadcrumbs to a box propped up by a stick, except the breadcrumbs are things like "kindness" and "understanding", and the box he's luring them into is actually "unconditional love" and "secretly being as weird as both of them but they won't know until it's too late to back out". because of the box

@whirlpoolleaf asked: Can I request Murderbot for the sketch request thing? Thanks so much :)

-performance reliability at 60% and dropping-

(I'm a big fan of the idea that mb tends to be very expressive during fights, considering how accustomed it is to the privacy of the helmet)

I love the basic contrast set up in White Collar between Neal and Mozzie's style of conning.

Neal's the stereotypical, 'I'm going to get people to do what I want my being very likeable and charming and beautiful.'

Meanwhile Mozzie is, 'you know what's distracting and gets people to react without thinking? Being insane and super annoying.'

(Almost) Every Costume Per Episode + Phryne Fisher’s white dress and white cardigan in 3x07

Favorite part of The Fall Guy is he's been framed for murder and faked his own death to avoid the people trying to kill him and he shows up in her trailer like "here's how you can still finish your movie" because it's important to her. And she has to be the one who goes "are you insane? we're stopping the murderers and clearing your name first."