New Looney Tunes Crew Done Did It Again

i like the idea that bruce just shows up to league meetings with his birds with absolutely no explanation offered

i mean this man frequently stalks his coworkers and knows everything that's happening in their personal lives and i think he'd forget that HE is the weird one for doing it and not everybody automatically knows when he's acquired a new child

so he just shows up at the watchtower with a new bird and literally says nothing about it . just sits at his chair with the latest robin standing next to him and literally doesn't acknowledge that anything is different and it gets even more confusing when they change their costumes and names 😭

like

20-something bruce: and containing this may be a matter of-flash did you have a question

barry: uh. yeah. sorry, what is that?

20-something bruce: (glancing at 9 yr old dick who has been next to him for 45 minutes) that's robin. obviously. as i was saying,

-

early 30s bruce, who hasn't shown up with a robin for a few years, entering with a nightwing and a jason todd robin:

barry:

diana:

hal:

j'onn:

bruce: what.

hal:

hal: do you like clone them or

-

mid 30s bruce, quietly talking with a clearly-not-sixteen-years-old robin in the corner after being without one for two years:

hal:

diana:

barry:

j'onn:

clark:

bruce:

tim:

bruce: this one followed me

-

late 30s bruce zeta-beaming in with a nightwing, a slightly older robin, and an absolutely BUILT man in a red hood:

barry: did you hire a bodyguard

bruce: no.

barry: whos mr red over there

bruce: you don't remember my second one???

barry:

hal:

diana:

j'onn:

clark:

barry: did. did that one not die

jason: got better

-

later 30s bruce, quietly showing around a blonde robin:

hal:

bruce: don't ask.

hal: i didn't say anything

-

40 yr old bruce, making intense, unbroken eye contact with a black shadow:

clark, leaning over to talk to tim: what are they doing

tim, not looking up from his fancy ipad: do i look like i know that

-

red robin popping in unnanounced in the middle of a league meeting: batman is alive.

barry: who the FUCK are you???

-

batman, some minutes later, trailed by what is CLEARLY a new robin: did red robin happen to pass through here????

barry: i have several questions

-

no-longer-lost-in-the-time-stream bruce, talking to batgirl, black bat, and the signal:

hal: did you get three more.

bruce: no. just one.

hal: i shouldn't have asked, my bad

-

mid 40s bruce wayne, stepping out of the zeta tube: sorry i'm late

diana: not to worry. let's get start-

bruce: i have a few more coming behind me

zeta tube: 🌀🌀🌀

jason: hi

cass: 👋

diana:

diana: ok should we st-

zeta tube: 🌀🌀🌀

dick, holding damian like a scowling, sopping wet cat: bruce he's not feeling polite today

damian: HISSS

bruce: okay does he need to go back?

dick: he said he's fine but hes just not feeling polite

diana:

diana: is that the las-

zeta tube: 🌀🌀🌀

steph: b i need a hair tie

diana:

diana: so can-

zeta tube: 🌀🌀🌀

duke: b did i miss rolecall

diana: no, signal, you did not. let's-

zeta tube: 🌀🌀🌀

tim: b alf is mad at you

bruce: why

hal: it's like a fucking clown car

steph: you didn't eat breakfast

tim: you didn't eat breakfast either

steph: shut.

damian: HISSSS

jason: wing. if you do not keep that brat quiet-

dick: hes a BABY!!!!!

duke: you didn't eat breakfast either, timothy

jason: hes a BITCH!!!!!

tim: who the fuck told you????

cass: :)

hal: (storming off, in tears), YOU HAVE TOO MANY CHILDREN.

ok, i have to say this before i say anything else about the rwrb movie:

when the book came out, it was groundbreaking. it was one of the first true queer rom coms. this movie is now even more groundbreaking.

yes, some depth and detail was lost from the book, but that’s bound to happen in any adaptation. but before we complain about that, let’s ask ourselves:

exactly how many fluffy, fairy tale, sexy, funny, sugary, queer romance movies are there? you could probably count them all on one hand, and most of them probably aren’t major studio releases.

queer people deserve silly romcom movies too. queer people deserve to see themselves in tender, uncensored intimate moments on screen too. and, correct me if i’m wrong, but i’m pretty sure this is the first time a major motion picture has explicitly mentioned truvada/PrEP and included a conversation between a parent and child about safe queer sex. like…queer people don’t get shit like this, and now we do. and that’s a big deal.

In honour of today's events let's bring this gem back

fuck off 😭

i literally miss daniil kvyat so much. tall long russian man with a weird penchant for boxing. so strangely intelligent for a race car driver who once referred to the barriers next to the swimming pool in monaco as a trampoline. he reads classical literature in his free time and loves metallica. he does a perfect imitation of pierre’s laugh and helmut marko being a dick and romain grosjean shouting on the radio. he torpedoes his way into seb’s car and into our hearts. the best commentator to ever grace f1tv. i miss him so dearly.

Fabio and his collection of F1 drivers

Plot armor but it’s Bruce Wayne’s wealth.

Bruce is one of the richest men in the world. Bruce does not want to be one of the richest men in world.

He starts by implementing high starting salaries and full health care coverages for all levels at Wayne Enterprises. This in vastly improves retention and worker productivity, and WE profits soar. He increases PTO, grants generous parental and family leave, funds diversity initiatives, boosts salaries again. WE is ranked “#1 worker-friendly corporation”, and productively and profits soar again.

Ok, so clearly investing his workers isn’t the profit-destroying doomed strategy his peers claim it is. Bruce is going to keep doing it obviously (his next initiative is to ensure all part-time and contractors get the same benefits and pay as full time employees), but he is going to have to find a different way to dump his money.

But you know what else is supposed to be prohibitively expensive? Green and ethical initiatives. Yes, Bruce can do that. He creates and fund a 10 year plan to covert all Wayne facilities to renewable energy. He overhauls all factories to employ the best environmentally friendly practices and technologies. He cuts contracts with all suppliers that engage in unethical employment practices and pays for other to upgrade their equipment and facilities to meet WE’s new environmental and safety requirements. He spares no expense.

Yeah, Wayne Enterprises is so successful that they spin off an entire new business arm focused on helping other companies convert to environmentally friendly and safe practices like they did in an efficient, cost effective, successful way.

Admittedly, investing in his own company was probably never going to be the best way to get rid of his wealth. He slashes his own salary to a pittance (god knows he has more money than he could possibly know what to do with already) and keeps investing the profits back into the workers, and WE keeps responding with nearly terrifying success.

So WE is a no-go, and Bruce now has numerous angry billionaires on his back because they’ve been claiming all these measures he’s implementing are too expensive to justify for decades and they’re finding it a little hard to keep the wool over everyone’s eyes when Idiot Softheart Bruice Wayne has money spilling out his ears. BUT Bruce can invest in Gotham. That’ll go well, right?

Gotham’s infrastructure is the OSHA anti-Christ and even what little is up to code is constantly getting destroyed by Rogue attacks. Surely THAT will be a money sink.

Except the only non-corrupt employer in Gotham city is….Wayne Enterprises. Or contractors or companies or businesses that somehow, in some way or other, feed back to WE. Paying wholesale for improvement to Gotham’s infrastructure somehow increases WE’s profits.

Bruce funds a full system overhaul of Gotham hospital (it’s not his fault the best administrative system software is WE—he looked), he sets up foundations and trusts for shelters, free clinics, schools, meal plans, day care, literally anything he can think of.

Gotham continues to be a shithole. Bruce Wayne continues to be richer than god against his Batman-ingrained will.

Oh, and Bruice Wayne is no longer viewed as solely a spoiled idiot nepo baby. The public responds by investing in WE and anything else he owns, and stop doing this, please.

Bruce sets up a foundation to pay the college tuition of every Gotham citizen who applies. It’s so successful that within 10 years, donations from previous recipients more than cover incoming need, and Bruce can’t even donate to his own charity.

But by this time, Bruce has children. If he can’t get rid of his wealth, he can at least distribute it, right?

Except Dick Grayson absolutely refuses to receive any of his money, won’t touch his trust fund, and in fact has never been so successful and creative with his hacking skills as he is in dumping the money BACK on Bruce. Jason died and won’t legally resurrect to take his trust fund. Tim has his own inherited wealth, refuses to inherit more, and in fact happily joins forces with Dick to hack accounts and return whatever money he tries to give them. Cass has no concept of monetary wealth and gives him panicked, overwhelmed eyes whenever he so much as implies offering more than $100 at once. Damian is showing worrying signs of following in his precious Richard’s footsteps, and Babs barely allows him to fund tech for the Clocktower. At least Steph lets him pay for her tuition and uses his credit card to buy unholy amounts of Batburger. But that is hardly a drop in the ocean of Bruce’s wealth. And she won’t even accept a trust fund of only one million.

Jason wins for best-worst child though because he currently runs a very lucrative crime empire. And although he pours the vast, vast majority of his profits back into Crime Alley, whenever he gets a little too rich for his tastes, he dumps the money on Bruce. At this point, Bruce almost wishes he was being used for money laundering because then he’s at least not have the money.

So children—generous, kindhearted, stubborn till the day they die the little shits, children—are also out.

Bruce was funding the Justice League. But then finances were leaked, and the public had an outcry over one man holding so much sway over the world’s superheroes (nevermind Bruce is one of those superheroes—but the public can’t know that). So Bruce had to do some fancy PR trickery, concede to a policy of not receiving a majority of funds from one individual, and significantly decrease his contributions because no one could match his donations.

At his wits end, Bruce hires a team of accounts to search through every crinkle and crevice of tax law to find what loopholes or shortcuts can be avoided in order to pay his damn taxes to the MAX.

The results are horrifying. According to the strictest definition of the law, the government owes him money.

Bruce burns the report, buries any evidence as deeply as he can, and organizes a foundation to lobby for FAR higher taxation of the upper class.

All this, and Wayne Enterprises is happily chugging along, churning profit, expanding into new markets, growing in the stock market, and trying to force the credit and proportionate compensation on their increasingly horrified CEO.

Bruce Wayne is one of the richest men in the world. Bruce Wayne will never not be one of the richest men in the world.

But by GOD is he trying.

Ao3 is actually massively culturally important and very very good at being what it is. I’m so serious when I say that ao3 needs to be protected as the anti censorship, by fans for fans, nonprofit, volunteer run, expertly designed archival site that it is. You don’t have to read or like fanfiction to understand that on principle, ao3 is a site that should be defended.