(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]

Jack nods. "When you think about it, that's what happened to Brucie, too... they offed his parents just to give him a reason to run around at night dressed up as a bat."

"We're homeschooling right now... but then we don't have separate houses yet, much less a school. All things considered, we're in no big hurry to add one, though having a teacher or two might not be a bad idea. Eventually. We're dividing some of it up, but... hehehe, well, you can probably imagine how that goes."

[museicalmarty]

". . .point," Marty nods, grimacing. "Nobody got off light in your comics."

He grins at that. "Heh, yeah. Bet you Ed Nigma would make a good teacher, though. I probably would have paid more attention in school if my teachers taught in riddles."

[no_sanity_clause]

"Maybe if he could stick to Advanced Placement classes," Jokester says. "Stupid people tend to... irritate him after a while, though he does seem to be a little better in tolerating that with kids. Funny you should mention that, though, because Tad... that's Ed's little boy... seems to think it's a fun game to try to teach toddlers to read, among other things."

[museicalmarty]

"Eh -- he probably wouldn't have liked most of my freshman class then," Marty admits, rubbing the back of his head with a sad, nostalgic smile. "Some guy in math class seriously didn't seem to know how to multiply, and a girl in English couldn't figure out what an adjective was. Maybe if you kept him to the elementary school kids. . ." He chuckles as Jokester tells him about Tad. "Awww. Maybe he'll be the teacher in the family."

[no_sanity_clause]

Jokester just shakes his head at that. "I have a feeling the educational system is going to be a whole delvery truck of canned worms... And maybe he will. For now, we're mostly just making sure the kids won't be too far behind whenever we figure out what we're doing with that mess."

There's a bit of a circus music chime then and he pulls out his cellphone-type PINpoint to check an incoming text message. "Huh. There was another passing mention of Ozzy's lovebird after all. Some short-lived non-Bat title three years later had ol' Pengy mention her when he got caught and sent back to jail.... after stealing a necklace for her." Jokester briefly frowns. "Ok, ol' Pengy might be a bit birdbrained, but I never took him for stupid... sounds like they stuck that in an obscure title so they could cover their asses without any regular readers calling them out on the bad characterization!"

[museicalmarty]

"Yeah, I can believe it, what with so many kids from so many different worlds. . ." Marty shrugs. "Seems like the best plan. Keep 'em up on the ABCs and 123s and worry about the rest later."

He huffs as Jokester gives him the update on Penguin's fiancee. "Figures. Could point to it and say 'hey, look, we didn't forget her' while never having to bother with her in anything 'official.' You guys really are well rid of 'em."

[no_sanity_clause]

"You're not kidding, kiddo. Really, what did they have to hit ol' Pengy over the head with to make him stupid enough to steal jewelry as a present for the girl who'd leave him if he went back to stealing things?"

"Hopefully there won't be too many ruffled feathers over the whole mess..." He figures Jeannie will be able to take care of that. Especially as it looks like a pretty blatant set-up once you could look at it with the fourth wall down.

[museicalmarty]

"The out-of-character bat," Marty deadpans. "You should be pretty familiar with it yourself, honestly."

"Yeah, I hope not either. They've been through enough. You guys all have."

[no_sanity_clause]

Jokester makes a face and rubs his head with a nod, "I can think of a few memorable lumps... Though... Jeannie in her 'Harley Quinn' phase shouldn't have been written by anyone who didn't know who Gracie Allen was. I'll admit I let myself fall for the act a few times... but never to the point where I thought she really was that stupid."

"All things considered, I think ol' Ozzy deserves a second second chance... without authorial interferance to throw a stolen necklace in the works. Miss Partridge gave the Bat a scolding for trying to mess things up for them before, it shouldn't be too hard to convince her put at least some of the blame on the writers. Which just leaves things back to finding out how to get those lovebirds hitched. ... Not to mention the rest of us who are a little uncertain in the vows department at the moment. I gotta admit the 'till death do you part' line is a problem when no one's stayed dead."

[museicalmarty]

"I bet you can." Marty frowns, scanning his memory. "I, uh, guess I wouldn't have been allowed to write her -- that name's not ringing a bell. Guessing she was somebody who pretended to be stupid to get people to underestimate her?"

"Yeah, I'd say so too," he agrees with a little smile. "He shouldn't have something forced on him in a one-off held against him. Too bad she can't go give the writers a scolding too. . ." He can't help a chuckle as Jokester details the issues with the current marriage situation. "Yeaaaah, that's a bit tricky. . .but hey, most of the people who were married want to stay together, right? No matter if anybody died at one point or not?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eO4VcqiYiY

[no_sanity_clause]

And Jack just stares at Marty for a moment like he's grown a second head. "As in George and Gracie? George Burns? Ringing any bells? Geeze, what do they teach kids in school these days... You don't know what you're missing."

He'll start checking a pocket, half-nodding. "Well, if we count it, a lot of us need to get re-married. If we don't," he snerks, "then some later people might have some bigamy issues to work out. Though they might anyway, with all the timeline tangles. Ah! There it is!" He pulls out a tablet computer and quickly searches for a Gracie Allen clip to show Marty... because not knowing who that was is nearly criminal (and not in the way he used to indulge in)!

*giggles*

[museicalmarty]

"George Burns sounds kinda familiar. . .look, back in Hill Valley, I was all about the cartoons as a kid, and I was getting into Westerns and Clint Eastwood when that asshole convinced me to come with him to Arcadia," Marty says, holding up his hands. "And these days I'm still catching up with what's popular in the 2000s! I've got it both coming and going!"

"Oh -- yeah, I guess some people would have gotten remarried, wouldn't they?" Marty shrugs. "Dunno what to tell you there. . .unless some people want to try out, uh, nontraditional relationships." Which -- hell, new universe. Could be a new tradition if they want.

He leans over for a look at the clip, curious now. It's not long before he's snorting with laughter. "Oh jeez. . .yeah, I think I get what you mean now," he says.

[no_sanity_clause]

"Heh, maybe that's one of the reasons Jeannie's bosses didn't mind getting ex-villians out ahead of heroes. We do tend to be less judgemental about that kind of thing, if it happens. Writers tended to save most of the uptight moral standards for the 'good' guys, after all." I mean, really, when you've done worse, who really cares if someone's having a completely consensual orgy somewhere.

Jokester's grinning after the clip, too. Gracie Allen even sounds something like Harley Quinn - or, rather, it was the other way around. "And most people didn't even catch on until Harls would have em cornered somewhere with a gun to their head... laughing and telling them, 'You thought I was just a dumb blonde, didn't ya. Well, the joke's on you... I'm not even a real blonde!'"

[museicalmarty]

"Yeah -- some of the heroes had real sticks up their butts about some stuff, didn't they?" Marty muses. "Wonder what it says about people that the more uptight somebody is, the more 'good' we think they are."

Marty laughs. "You'd think more people would remember she was a shrink before the villain stuff. I mean, you gotta go through med school for that, right?" He's pretty sure, anyway.

[no_sanity_clause]

"Well, y'know, downside of the whole Comics Code and all that. Can't have their good guys doing anything scandalous! Might affect the ratings!"

Jokester shakes his head. "Pretty sure some just thought she cheated, or slept her way through school. Stupid of them to think that would work on every teacher every time, though. I mean, even if you're flexible about it, sooner or later you run into someone who doesn't swing that way."

"Besides, the way Arkham was... if she'd been a fraud, she wouldn't have lasted long enough to get to me. Or for me to get to her, depending on how you look at it."

[museicalmarty]

"Right, that thing." Marty had forgotten about it for a bit. "'Course, that brings up the whole 'it's okay for the villains to kill people, but God forbid anybody have sex' thing. People are weird."

"Ah. Yeah, I bet, even if she took advantage of it a lot, that must have really pissed her off sometimes. I know I'd be ticked if I were in her shoes."

Marty grimaces and nods. "Yeah. . .Arkham probably went through a lot of staff, didn't it? I never really paid attention in the comics. . ."

[no_sanity_clause]

"Don't I know it! Maybe there'd have been a little less killing if some of us got laid a little more often."

"It's honestly hard to remember all the names and faces when it comes to everyday Arkham staff..," Jack admits. "Not sure if that's was because of the meds or because the writers didn't bother to give most of 'em any. Usually anyone important... well, more than half the time they'd eventually end up joining us in the cells."

[museicalmarty]

"Uh -- no offense, but it's hard thinking of the 'old' you as having sex," Marty admits, rubbing the back of his head. "I mean, I assume Joker and Harley. . .but I never. . ." He shrugs, unsure where he was even going with that.

"Probably both," he says. "And yeah, I noticed. Everybody likes to give Harley shit for going loopy, but she wasn't the first or the last, was she?"

[no_sanity_clause]

"S'ok, kid, I get it. Nobody really needs to know if we were making ha-ha between the pages... It wasn't that kind of magazine!" Sure, there were a couple kids' worth of evidence around, but those had both happened during saner times... at least in most timelines.

Moving along to the other topic, since that one just got awkward... "Hah, nowhere near. The founder of the place, Amadeus Arkham, went bonkers and ended up one of the first patients, And I'm pretty sure the last director was part of a cult and killed her whole family. Scarecrow, the later Black Mask, and Hugo Strange all used to be on the staff at some point or other. Heck, even one of the groundskeepers turned into a serial killer! And then there was that Shark guy... He was from out of town, so thought he was pulling a smart one when he managed to dodge jail with a bogus insanity defense that got swallowed like so much cheap bait. Didn't take too long before it wasn't a lie. Arkham just wasn't a place for sane people."

[museicalmarty]

Marty raises an eyebrow. "Making 'ha-ha?' Seriously?" He knows you're dedicated to the clown thing for good or bad, Jokester, but sheesh.

He's happy enough to continue on with the other topic of conversation. Or, well, maybe "happy" is the wrong word, given what they're talking about. . . "Christ. . .so Arkham's basically been fucked up since day one. Greaaaat." Marty rubs his face. "The last thing that place needs is cults coming in to help mess everything up further. . .you gotta wonder why no one tried closing the place down. Or did I miss that storyline? I'm nowhere near caught up." And probably never will be, given how many comics DC has put out.

[no_sanity_clause]

"I think it's been blown up, or something, at least a couple times... but someone keeps rebuilding it." Jokester shrugs. "The place could almost be a mascot for our old timeline, if locations can be mascots. We're a whole lot better off now with it's gone."

He laughs at the rest. "Don't worry about that too much. I don't know if I'll ever be caught up either, and I have all the bits I was there for scrambled up in my head! Granted, I'm not really trying too hard to sort them out... past is past, I say, and it can stay there. But it's easy enough to spot that my baby girl's right when she mentions there being way more Christmases than birthdays."

[museicalmarty]

"Or it just gets retconned back into existence, yeah." Marty shrugs back. "I think they can -- I mean, it's like one of the best-known places in DC comics, so. . .but yeah, you're way better without it."

"Heh, yeah, true. I guess if the people who lived there aren't too worried about it. . ." He frowns a little. "How are things with Duela? I haven't seen her in a bit."

[no_sanity_clause]

"Hey, it's going to make eventually setting up history classes fun. Imagine being handed a stack of comic books to read for school!"

"I think she's been checking out some of the portals for fun..." This worries him a bit, in a vague sort of way... but popping into other timelines was just something Duela did, and at least she's usually leaving notes now.

[museicalmarty]

"Now that would have been awesome," Marty agrees, grinning. "Probably would have paid more attention in that class then."

"Ah -- yeah, that's kind of her thing, isn't it? Hey, as long as she's having fun. . ." Marty shrugs. "If she ever wants to pop over our way, she's welcome. Not a lot of people to talk to, but we can show her some of the sights. She might like the giant mirror bean."

[no_sanity_clause]

"Giant mirror bean..?" Jokester seems distracted from everything else in favor of puzzling that one out. "Waitasec... the Cloud Gate 'Mirror Bean'? You're in Chicago?" He wonders if that's already been mentioned and slipped his mind or not. It's not like his mind is a very organized place, after all.