(no subject)

[no_sanity_clause]

"Ever have someone really surprise you?" This brightly dressed person just grins as they lean against the Sign and look around to see if anyone's here today.

Comments

[no_sanity_clause]

"Heh, yeah, Kite Man... speaking of surprises, that was one. He was a definite D-lister, but apparently a lot more famous on the other side of the fourth wall as a kid. The name Charles Brown ring any bells? Kind of makes me feel bad for shoving him off a building, but I'm pretty sure he landed in a tree. He usually did." Jokester grins and shrugs. "Hey, for all I know I did at some point... I'm still kind of fuzzy on what my name was before, well, things happened. I know all the aliases were pretty heavy on the punny. Joseph Kerr, Joe K. Stir, Jack Napier... though, funny enough, I stole that last one off one of the Red Hood gang when I caught up to them. ... Huh, maybe that's why Batsy kept thinking I was ex-Mafia."

"The mermaid would be Lori Lemaris. Supes' thing for double-L-initials is just asking for jokes about him and Lex. And I'm pretty sure he and Wonder Woman had kids in at least one timeline. And he had a few kids with Lois in different timelines. I didn't really keep count." And a grin as he continues. "Now, Batsy only had a couple kids with Selina and Talia al Ghul... Helena and Damian, respectively. But his list of girlfriends from doing that whole 'playboy billionare' thing? Oh boy... Other than those two, let me see..." He starts counting off on fingers. "Julie Madison, Vicki Vale, Linda Page, Lorna Shore, Kathy Kane... pretty sure he married her at least once, so they couldn't have been too closely related... she still had the same last name as his mother. Had a fling with Zatanna. Silver St. Cloud. Got engaged to a girl named Rachel Caspian once but broke it off. There was a thing with Nocturna - Natalia Knight - but that was mostly manipulation on her part and a custody fight over Jason Todd. Not sure about Julia Pennyworth."

He realizes he's run out of fingers and gives up counting with a shrug. Oblivious to any strangeness in having memorized Batman's romantic entanglements when he can't remember what his own name was, he continues. Vesper Fairchild ended up dead... just for the record, I didn't do it. Shondra Kinsolving ended up with some kind of psychic regression to childhood. Sasha Bordeaux got turned into a cyborg. Jillian Maxwell turned out to be a con artist that targeted rich men. Jezebel Jet... Talia killed that one, and she might have been a set-up from the start... Pretty sure he and Wonder Woman dated for a while... and, heck, that's not even counting the really obscure ones and one-night-stands. Or the whole Ultraman-Owlman-Superwoman threesome the Crime Syndicate had going on. Batsy gets around."

((Who turns Charlie Brown into a Batman villain?!))

[museicalmarty]

". . .They seriously made Charlie Brown a Batman villain?!" Okay, now Marty DEFINITELY has to look this guy up. "The hell. . .yeah, when you do that, you lose the right to say your comics are all serious stuff."

Jokester admitting he can't recall what his actual name was gets a sympathetic look -- reminds him of how Doc was going by "Professor" back when they first met in Arcadia, because he couldn't remember his name and of course Andrew didn't give a shit. Jokester doesn't seem too bothered, though. . .maybe he figures a new universe deserves a new start. Or maybe he cares more about having Jeannie and Duela around as opposed to his name. Marty won't judge. "Maybe. Kinda sucks you just got a bunch of aliases, but. . .I guess in a pinch you could always go by J.K. Those seemed to be the most popular letters."

Marty snorts at the bit about Lex Luthor and Superman, though the revelation Supes had kids with Wonder Woman in one timeline is a bit of a surprise. He didn't think there was anything going on between them. And then Jokester starts going on about Batman's various romantic entanglements, and WOW. Marty seriously was not expecting a list that long. "Holy. . .okay, yeah, that is definitely getting around," he has to agree. "Though I guess I should have thought of the gals he'd be dating as Bruce. . .still, that's a lot." He grimaces. "Feel bad for Shondra and Sasha, though. I mean, being a cyborg might not be so bad, but getting stuck as a kid inside your own head? Pretty shitty."

(Bill Finger and Dick Sprang, apparently. http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Charles_Brown_(New_Earth) )

[no_sanity_clause]

"Hey, I'm as surprised as you are, only the other way around. Until this side of the fourth wall I'd never heard of that comic strip. He was just some guy with a kite obsession I'd shoved off a building a couple of times. Then Deathstroke did it when ol' Chuck didn't have his glider on, and I figured that was the end of him. Might not have been, 'cause I heard rumors of him getting beat to death later... I'll have to ask him to fill in the blanks someday, if he can."

The way he sees it, he's honestly not sure he ever had one. And if he did, well, maybe there's a good reason it's staying forgotten. Best not to risk upsetting things, especially now that he has something to lose.

"The OMAC cyborgs were nasty business, from what little I've heard of them... and another mess Batsy caused that it'll take the End Of The World to clean up. But hey, at least now there's a chance it'll all work out."

((Those right there are DC villain names too, seriously))

[museicalmarty]

"Really? The DC universe doesn't have -- well, I guess if Charlie Brown was a real person there," Marty says, cutting himself off. "Funny that he'd be Kite-Man, though -- every strip I remember with him and kites involved them being eaten by a tree." He winces as Jokester talks about how Charlie might have met his end. "Oh jeez. . .neither way sounds fun. Wonder if the writers secretly hated Peanuts."

Fair enough -- as stated before, Marty won't judge. He and his just tend to be a little more sensitive to stuff involving memory loss thanks to Doc's experiences. But if Jokester's dealing. . .

"How did Batman cause a bunch of cyborgs?" Marty asks, before coming up with a possibility himself. "Was he bankrolling them as Bruce Wayne? I can't remember what exactly Wayne Industries was supposed to do. You know, besides provide him an easy flow of cash for all his toys."

Re: ((Those right there are DC villain names too, seriously))

[no_sanity_clause]

"The Chuck Brown I remember used to crash his glider into trees, say 'rats', and get hauled off by the cops." A shrug at the rest. "Maybe someone did. Really, I should have figured he'd survive the fall somehow. We had a word for people who died falling off rooftops in Gotham. The word was tourist."

"His damned paranoia, that's how." Jokester shakes his head. "Miller's got a lot to answer for. Hell, before the worst of his 'goddamned Batman', you could actually get ol' Brucie to crack a smile now and then. And the JLA weren't into secretly messing with the memories of their own members." He shakes his head and gets back to the point. "Batsy got his tights in a twist after finding out Zatanna wiped a few of his memories on a pass from some of the rest of the JLA. He designed a satellite that was made to spy on anyone with powers, and it went and tried to pull a Skynet. OMAC Cyborgs were basically the result of some kind of virus that turned people into robot drones for the thing." He shakes his head again, and adds, "I think some of the writers either needed to lay off the drugs, or needed to be on stronger meds than they used to have me on at Arkham. I'm not sure which."

((Nobody tell Marty there's an ongoing BTTF comic now))

[museicalmarty]

"Okay, yeah, that sounds like Charlie," Marty nods. "Though now you've got me wondering what happened to the rest of the gang. I mean, Linus could get up to some damn near magical things with that blanket." He figures, if you're gonna make the reference, might as well go whole-hog, right? And -- damn it, that is some dark humor, but Marty can't help a snicker at the joke. I mean, when a guy's right, he's right.

"They were doing what?!" Oh boy -- Marty's suddenly glad Doc isn't with him. That's the kind of news that might cause his friend to start a thunderstorm. "Cripes, weren't they the good guys? Usually, anyway? And oh jeez. . ." He shakes his head. "I don't know what to tell you. Other than I'm glad my universe was never a comic book."

(Linus's blanket may have been a symbiotic entity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_van_Pelt )

[no_sanity_clause]

"I don't remember him ever mentioning them, not even the dog. And while I can hope it was for legal reasons on the other side of the fourth wall, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to like finding out whatever that implies." If they're lucky it just means the writers decided to blank out any memory of anyone else, like they had to Penguin after Dovina became inconvenient to plot. If not... something worse might have happened.

"Really doesn't seem like Hero behavior, does it." Jokester shakes his head. "I'm kind of hoping Batsy will at least be a little sorry about almost turning us into a bad Terminator crossover."

((Heh maybe -- never really realized just how fantasical the Peanuts verse was until now))

[museicalmarty]

Marty winces. "Yeah, me -- me either." He can buy Snoopy simply dying of natural causes -- while he was a very unique dog, he was still a dog. The rest of the gang, however. . .yeah, Marty's not sure he really wants to know what the writers of Batman might have done to them off-screen.

"Hell no," he says, scowling. "And he'd better. Cripes. . .have you gotten any of the other Justice Leagues members out? Do they feel bad about screwing with his memories and kinda helping to kick-start that whole thing?"

[no_sanity_clause]

"Nah, so far the world population is still a bat-free list of Gotham residents, outnumbered by ex-Pokemon, and I think around three-fourths underage at that." Though it's a little hard to be sure with the non-human sapients. "Though I have the feeling, if they're not sorry, we're not going to be seeing them any time soon. There's even a system set up for that." It's one of the things that honestly sometimes perplexes him about the new timeline - the way it's actually working out so far.

[museicalmarty]

"So -- a bunch of ex-supervillains, and Pokemon." Marty shrugs with a playful smile. "Worse ways to start a new world, I guess. Though, what is the system for people who are, um -- okay, I'm just gonna say it -- total dicks? I mean, does wherever you're staying have a jail?" Funny to think of the heroes behind bars while the villains run free. . .but then again, he's not feeling very charitable toward the Justice League after the bombshell Jokester just dropped.

[no_sanity_clause]

"Depends on where they are. Or if they aren't, in a sense. Anyone still..." he waves a hand vaguely, "nowhere isn't going to be doing anything. And between there and actually out... there are some other places. I mean, when you really get down to it, technically quite a lot of us were dead at some point, and the end of the world would have done it for the rest. Let's just say there's a place for people that aren't willing or able to at least try to play nice."

"As for people already around... that's the part I still find surreal. There needs to be a word for the diametric opposite of a clusterfuck, because I'm pretty sure the current situation is it. But, when it starts to fall apart... we're living in a big stone building, and it wouldn't be hard to turn some of the interior rooms into cells in a pinch."

[museicalmarty]

"Ah -- right. Heck, I bet a bunch of you were dead multiple times," Marty says, rubbing the back of his head. "Guess it only makes sense you'd come with a built-in afterlife. . .so long as there's a system." Being trapped in some sort of limbo sounds pretty creepy to him, but -- on the other hand, it's specifically for the people who would try to make people's lives worse, so. . .

Jokester's comment on the need for the opposite of "clusterfuck" gets a smile. "Got me, buddy. I'm guessing a lot of people are still in shock. Or too busy meeting up with love interests the writers wrote out. Or just want a few minutes' peace and quiet for a change." Marty knows he'd want a few seconds to just sit down and relax if he'd woken up to discover his old world had ended and he'd been thrown into an entirely new universe made of the scraps.

[no_sanity_clause]

Jack just thinks it's weird to actually know about that stuff instead of all the wild mass guessing. Either that would put an end to religious wars... or possibly make them worse. He didn't know which yet.

He nods. "It's when the shock wears off that we'll actually get to see what we're dealing with. But, hey, at least we're getting a good vacation out of the deal."

[museicalmarty]

Marty wouldn't know either -- though, given just how shocked Jokester is about things going so well so far. . . Well, hopefully with everybody already knowing about it as they're pulled out of the "soup," they won't have any of those problems in the new world.

"Heh, yeah -- good way of looking at it," he agrees. "And hopefully you guys can find your minister, or justice of the peace, or whoever can take care of weddings soon."

[no_sanity_clause]

"Heheh, yeah, we have some lovebirds that need to get hitched. Oh! And speaking of vacations, turns out the first bit of reality that we've been hanging around on is an island in the Azores. Ed managed to figure out where we were because of - get this - an endemic species of bat!" He finds that absolutely hilarious.

[museicalmarty]

"Including you and Jeannie?" Marty asks, before snickering. "Really? Well, hey, what the Riddler's best at. . .though the Azores?" He racks his brain for whatever old geography knowledge might still be rattling around in there. "Isn't that off the coast of -- Spain? Or was it Portugal?"

[no_sanity_clause]

"Wish I could say I remembered the first time that happened," he admits, though at least he's pretty sure they were married once. It's definitely good enough reason to go through that again.

"Might as well say it's off the coast of Newfoundland," he says with a grin. "Since it's right in the middle of the ocean and there's only a couple hundred miles difference either way. ... That is, if there is a Newfoundland or a Portugal yet. All we can see is ocean, and no one's got a boat!"

[museicalmarty]

Marty shrugs sympathetically. "Yeah. . .but hey, now you get to make brand-new nice memories, at least. And you don't have to worry about the writers screwing it all up."

"Really? Didn't know that. . ." Marty shrugs again. "One of you guys could build one. I mean, you're gonna need to find out sooner or later what's out there. I don't know much about the Azores, but I'm betting things are gonna get cramped once more people start gettin' out. And hey, keeps at least one guy busy and out of trouble."

[no_sanity_clause]

"True. now we only have to worry about screwing it up ourselves!"

"Oh, we'll get around to something like that eventually. I mean, the island's nice and all, but it's not home. If there's a Gotham out there or going to be, we'll find our way back there... but for now, where we are's not such a bad place for a vacation."

[museicalmarty]

"Yeah, well -- you're in a better place for not screwing it up, too." Keeping positive!

Marty nods. "I get that. My family -- we've got a whole country open to us to live in, but Chicago. . .it's where we feel we belong. Probably Doc and Victor most out of any of us, but still. I don't even miss Hill Valley that much anymore." Still a little -- always a little -- but the sting of escaping from Arcadia only to find another Marty already in his place has faded. "But we still like to go on little road trips, see the sights."

[no_sanity_clause]

"I've got no plans to be the one upsetting the apple cart this time. So far I actually like things just as they are... well, except for the not being home yet, but we'll either get there or we won't." Why worry about it. They could all spontaneously drop dead tomorrow and he wouldn't be surprised. It's all been too surreal. But so far it's been good, and, hey, he'll take what he can get!

"Might be interesting to see what other places pop up besides Gotham, if there are some from other universes in the 'Timesoup'. Could be some interesting sights to see out there."

[museicalmarty]

"That's the way to look at it," Marty agrees. "You've got a good thing going -- might as well enjoy it."

"I can bet. Do you know what else might have gotten added, or is that all Jeannie's domain? I mean, I'd say you've got wherever the Pokemon come from, but -- I dunno if it counts if they're all from the vending machine."

[no_sanity_clause]

"Hey, we do actually talk to each other," Jokester points out with a grin. "Can't spend all our time doing... other things." Yes, that was innuendo. But to the actual topic, "I know there was some kind of unexpected chain reaction with the first two universes involved, neither of which was ours. Some of the ones that are 'connected' somehow haven't gotten unstable enough to 'fall' into the 'timesoup' yet. They've gotta fall apart to fall in, you see. If they're stable enough on their own, nothing's gonna happen. And some others, they're kind of 'hanging' on the last events before they take a tumble. But of the ones that are already in? Well, Jeannie's already had some troublesome patients tucked away on the 'other side' from some horror movie timeline where they spent decades possessed by demons or something. Something with puzzle boxes in it that drag you to hell, which doesn't sound fair to me. I don't know too much about them because of the whole doctor-patient confidentiality thing, but one of them's a little kid. And several of the ex-Pokemon seem to have been turned into Moogles... I think those are from the Final Fantasy games, so there's at least some version of that in there somewhere. Pretty sure one of those was one of the first two, and the other was some kind of swords and sorcery thing too..."

[museicalmarty]

"Yeah, I know -- guy's gotta eat and hit the toilet every so often," Marty jokes back. He listens with interest as Jokester explains how the whole business works. "I get it -- if a universe isn't in trouble, it's not gonna fall in. And if it is in trouble -- well, it's gotta finish whatever it started first, it sounds like. Guess we'll see what happens, then. . ."

He grimaces as Jokester tells him about some of the people already in the soup. "Demons? For decades? Shit. That must have sucked -- and one of them was a kid?! Jeez. . ." He shakes his head. "Tell Jeannie to tell 'em I'm rooting for 'em. That sounds like the worst." He shrugs at the next bit. "I don't know anything about Final Fantasy. Swords and sorcery, though -- that sounds like Dungeons and Dragons. Maybe you got one of their settings? Probably one of them's imploded from rewrites or something by now."

[no_sanity_clause]

"She, heh... wanted to make sure her skills weren't too rusty before she had to deal with me again. So she asked for someone who'd really been through hell, and apparently got taken literally. And then the four of them were kind of a set."

"Whatever we've got, it's a safe bet it's going to get interesting. I can hardly wait to meet some of the new people."