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Strawman (DC SI)

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Ronan O'Brien said:
As quite possibly a normal human being, I can attest to you I would've done the same thing as him, out of sheer panic.

These are questions the SI will eventually ask himself in retrospect, and will blame himself.

Remember that line early on with Telltale's the walking dead? Where you think you that could've done something else, but in the moment, in the actual moment, you really couldn't have done anything?

And the thing about justification is, you can still do it even if you're not in the right state of mind.
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You do know in your ill thought attempts to counter me you are actually literally agreeing with what I said. Case out of sheer panic. Gidcrow as written did off dude out of panic he struggled got the mask. Resolved to kill him calm as you please then searched for like an our for a method to kill him before bashing dudes brain for another hour all the while talking about all the ways this could not be necesary, all his other options. Etc.

There was no heat of the moment. Know desperate struggle in the gas the leads to grabbing a gun and squeezing. Or a kick to the head. There getting a mask. Calmy down. Then murdering a comatose man and walking it off easy as you please.
 
You know what? Fine. You all want to keep fucking arguing about one fucking detail? You win, I'll rewrite because you fuckwits can't seem to fucking let it go.
 
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Larekko12 said:
You do know in your ill thought attempts to counter me you are actually literally agreeing with what I said. Case out of sheer panic. Gidcrow as written did off dude out of panic he struggled got the mask. Resolved to kill him calm as you please then searched for like an our for a method to kill him before bashing dudes brain for another hour all the while talking about all the ways this could not be necesary, all his other options. Etc.

There was no heat of the moment. Know desperate struggle in the gas the leads to grabbing a gun and squeezing. Or a kick to the head. There getting a mask. Calmy down. Then murdering a comatose man and walking it off easy as you please.
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I wouldn't say ill-thought. There are times you don't think right- and at times it's a detail that you're wrong about, or go on a completely terrible line of thought. His was the latter, it looks like. He was in a panic, and couldn't calm down at all. He's being overloaded by that point. And when you get to said point that you're bashing another man's head in with a canister, you don't stop unless someone else is there to stop you.
 
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Chapter 2
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    • Chapter 2:

    Killing a man is not, like so many popular works of fiction portray, easy. Granted, most of those fictions involve people actually trained to kill, but killing someone? He wasn't finding that easy for a number for reasons.

    "Come on! Are you telling me that you're that much of a purist for your schtick that you don't keep a gun? In America?" Case in point, finding something to actually kill the comatose Jonathan Crane lying on the floor of the apartment, "For fuck's sake! A zip gun! A scalpel! I'll take an unusually sharp butter knife right now!"

    He had been searching the apartment for the better part of an hour, and so far he had turned up nothing, "Did I land on top of the only villain in Gotham who doesn't use a backup weapon?" Pulling out another set of drawers and throwing them away, he winced and straightened, "Fucking hell, I really shouldn't be doing this right now."

    He was right. He was in agony still from landing on top of Crane and his mad dash for the mask still on his face in case of lingering gas, despite opening a window, hadn't done him any favours. Nor was the frantic searching for something to kill Crane with.

    Grimacing at the fresh agonies running through him, "Fuck, fuck, fuck," and complaining with every step, he looked around the apartment, hoping to see something he had missed the first time, "What the hell am I missing? There has to be something here I can use." His gaze wandered over to the small pile of canisters, "Okay, those could work, but maybe there's something else here before I consider those."

    He paused at the doorway at another twinge of pain, "Shit, listen to yourself. Okay, let's take a moment to calm down and look at this logically." He looked around, "Okay, maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way, maybe I'm in a universe where-" He looked back at the possibly comatose body and then at the canisters of Fear Toxin, "Right, like this is a universe where this guy is a hero. Okay, we've established this is still an evil Scarecrow."

    Looking around, he sucked in a breath through his teeth, listening to the sound the gasmask made as he inhaled, "Nothing that looks like any sort of living space, not even a spare bedroll or sleeping bag. No supplies except a lot of chemicals and a lot of typical laboratory glassware. So it's clearly one of Crane's possibly many hidden labs. And he'll know where they are by memory so no need to have a map because that's what arrogant geniuses do."

    Rubbing the back of the mask, he cast another look at the body, "Could tie him up, call the cops, but there's no phone and nothing in here with a power cord long enough, hell nothing in here with a power cord it's all battery-powered, that I can tie Crane up with."

    Sighing, he walked back into the room, heading over to the table to give it another once-over, grabbing a trashbag on the way over, "Hell, might as well grab his notes. Maybe I can sell it to someone, get some money for it, help me find a way to get some ID since, surprise surprise, I came here without my wallet, my phone, and wouldn't you believe it? No passport or any other ID. Not that it's likely I exist here until today."

    Stuffing papers, notebooks and of course bundles of cash into the large trashbag, he grabbed a set of books and stopped. Before he stared at the loaded pistol glinting at him on the table, "Oh come on, really? Can't tell me you're that goddamn scatter-brained." Picking up the pistol, he pulled back the slide like he had seen in the movies as a bullet popped out and fell to the ground, "Can't be that fucking hard to shoot one of these things, right? Americans pop these things off like they were going out of style, and when in Rome, right?"

    He took aim and lined up the gunsight on Crane's head, "Insert pithy one-line and…" He pulled the trigger.

    And immediately collapsed to the ground clutching his head as his ear rang from the deafening *krak* of the pistol, "AH! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! GAAAAH, MY EARS! OH GOD IT HURTS! FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUUUUUUUUUCK!"

    He rolled on the floor as his ears rang in agony, "Why did I think that was a good idea? Oh god, this fucking hurts!" As the agonising ringing began to fade, he slowly and equally painfully got back to his feet and saw that the only result of his shot was one of the canisters sporting the silvered scar of a ricochet on its steel surface, "And to top it all off, the fucking sights are misaligned."

    With a wordless snarl he tossed the gun into the kitchen, uncaring as it went off upon landing and sending a bullet through the oven, "Okay, no knives, and I am not going to stare him in the face and strangle or suffocate him, mostly because that's fucking creepy and there's nothing here to do that with."

    He looked around again to confirm that yes, there wasn't even so much as a dirty rag to shove down his throat, which made his skin crawl. No goddamn way was he going to do something like that.

    That just left…

    With a sigh, wincing at his still-stinging eardrums, he walked over to the fairly large steel canisters, gripping on to test the weight, "Okay, that feels pretty damn heavy. Bet I can do some damage with this then." Shifting his grip and crouching, he carefully hefted the canister up in both arms, "Yeah, no way he's gonna get up from this."

    Walking over to Crane's still form and looking down, he grimaced at seeing some flicker of activity in Crane's empty gaze, "Still alive? Then that settles it. No way am I gonna risk you hunting me down because I walked away. That's what your kind does, you hunt down those who hurt you and use you for whatever sick games you have planned. Well not this time."

    He lifted the canister up over his head, "This? This is for everyone you've hurt; driven insane or to suicide by your gas." He slammed down the canister lengthways on Crane's head, smiling grimly at hearing a loud, sickening crunch as the heavy, toxin-loaded steel smashed into the madman's face.

    Crouching and slowly lifting the canister off Crane's ruined face, he raised it high again, "This? This is so that no-one else will suffer from your sick 'research', you fucking, goddamn monster." He slammed it down again, hearing the crunch rapidly become a wet, splurching, crunching sound as steel shattered bone and pulverised flesh.

    Lifting the canister one more time to find Crane's head rapidly looking like a messy meat pancake, he shrugged, "And this? This is just to make sure no-one can ever fucking identify you." Putting as much muscle as he could into the swing, he threw the canister down on the remains of Crane's head and under that final punishment, sections of the wooden floor shattered as the canister along with what remained of Crane's pulverised head fell into the darkness.

    Stepping back from the hole, he breathed a sigh of relief, "Okay, now I feel marginally safer. Better grab my loot and-

    *Boom!*

    The small explosion caught him by surprise, as did the flames spewing from the kitchen's ruined oven amidst a haze he was quite familiar with, "Oh fuck, it fired into the gas line didn't it?"

    Grabbing the trashbag and not wasting any time, he ran for the door, "Fuck fuck fuck, open the door, open the door, open the door open the open th-"

    *BOOM!*

    That explosion was powerful enough to send him, and the door, into the hallway and he looked back to see the apartment awash with flames a chemicals caught alight and thick smoke began to billow out, before he was on his feet and charging down the stairs.

    "Shitshitshitshitshitshitshi-"

    *BOOM!*

    "Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittt!" He stumbled as he reached the bottom floor, plaster and bricks raining down around him as he charged the front door, "PLEASE BE OP-"

    His words were lost as the gas line erupted like a chain of fireworks, rapidly engulfing the building in a cascade of flames and debris as he jumped and landed on the pavement, rolling partway before scrabbling to his feet and running into the night as the building collapsed in a roiling fireball that lift up the other abandoned buildings on the street.

    He didn't stop running until he saw the lights of the skyscrapers fill his vision.

    ***​

    Gotham, dark and foreboding, glared back at him with an array of flashing flashing lights under a starless, storm-clouded sky. He wasn't dreaming. He was really here.

    He felt the need to say something to commemorate this momentous occasion, to mark the passage of someone into what had once only been fiction.

    "I am so fucked."

    Wonderful job, his mind snarked, they'll have you down in the history books for that statement.

    He ignored the thought and started walking towards the city, trash-bag in his hand and slung over his shoulder, wondering just what his next move should be. A bus stop caught his attention and he began walking towards it, hoping to get into the city proper so he could find a hospital or a doctor that could check him over.

    Explaining his injuries was going to be amusing though, 'Why yes Doctor, i appeared from a magical portal after falling screaming through the gap between realities and landed on top of the Scarecrow! Yes, it's a miracle I'm still alive, I agree!'

    Probably would be best to go with a normal mugging, but first he needed to get rid of this bag somewhere safe. Somewhere he could reach after getting some treatment because right now he doubted that the adrenaline in his system was going to keep him going for much longer as he waited at the bus stop.

    The bus looked like something out of some 1950's vision of the future, or was it the 1960's? In any case, it was a lot prettier-looking than the buses he was used to and as he stepped on board and saw that he didn't need to pay (which was good because he didn't have any loose change), he noted that it was roomier too.

    The Wayne family, it had to be, probably Bruce making sure that whatever saintly acts his ancestors had accomplished didn't get drowned in filth. All well and good; too bad that Gotham generated more filth than was washed away.

    As he took a seat and felt the first stabbings of pain as the bus departed, he realised that he needed out of Gotham as quickly as possible. But at the same time? At the same time he needed the criminal element to get him an identity.

    No passport, no ID, a trashbag full of evidence that he had been around the Scarecrow, the only way the situation could get any more ridiculous was if he was sitting next to one of Batman's Rogue's Gallery.

    A quick sidelong glance told him he was alone on his seat and he breathed a sigh of relief, "Gotta stop being so paranoid."

    ***​

    It was the increasing pain that prompted him to get off about six stops later, and with enough impetus that he was lucky he didn't slip and fall getting off, but he was lucky for once. A pay phone was staring straight at him and with some luck he could hopefully call 911 on it.

    But first he had to stash the stuff. Placing it in an alleyway was just begging for the local homeless to investigate and once they saw the mask they'd pass it on to the Bat. Well, if his comic-book knowledge was correct; it had been literally over a decade since he last read any Batman comics. Any comics at all really…

    If it wasn't the homeless, then the trashmen would take it. He needed to get it off the ground where no-one who lived on the ground could grab it, that way he'd know if some snoopy Bat or Robin took it. He spared a glance at his hands and grimaced, "Shoulda taken the gloves-urrngh!"

    His ribs flared up in agony, "Okay, rooftop first, then 911 call. Just hope no-one is watching me." He turned slightly to check the street. Just ordinary passers-by, citizens trying to survive, and so they ignored him when he ducked into the nearest alleyway and looked for a fire-escape or back door he could use to reach a rooftop.

    Luckily, there was a fire-escape, "Oh, I guess its only in movies and TV, huh?" It wasn't a ladder attached to a set of stairs, but an actual flight of weather-proofed steel stairs heading up the building to an emergency door that he hoped linked to a stairwell with roof access.

    "Ugh, let's get this done." Trudging up the stairs, he hoped he could hold out long enough to get the stuff hidden, because the pain was getting worse. He could feel every twinge even as he progressed up the stairs.

    Fire safety protocols, and perhaps shoddy maintenance, was the only reason he was able to open the door and get to the roof. Clean stairs did not translate to a non-rusty door lock and even in his state he could muster up enough strength to kick it open.

    Hiding the bag was the easier part; just shove it underneath an air-conditioning/heating unit and get on with his life. And with no evidence to say he had just killed Jonathan Crane, getting some medical attention by playing the mugging card should work. As he walked back down the stairs, he looked up at the sky and blinked, surprised, as a dark, distinct, shape flew overhead.

    "Well...that's not ominous at all."
     
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    • Nice. I like how realistic it was, with the noise from the gun hurting our ears and whatnot. We also saw a lot more reasoning to explain the actions he was taking.

    I just hope we took the gun with us though, it has our fingerprints on it.
     
    both versions are good in my opinion
    one has the SI turning the head into smooth paste
    the other has him nearly bursting his eardrums with gunfire
    both versions are equally good.
    But gideon, there is just one thing to remember. write what you want to write. this is your story. plus this is SV, nitpicking and odd fixation is bound to happen in a story.
     
    I don't recall the building blowing up/burning down in the first version, so I count that as a plus. Guns don't usually go off when dropped/thrown, so that's a negative. I also preferred the slight insanity shown when bashing Crane's head in with the canister.

    I'm going to keep parts of both in my headcanon, and eagerly await more.
     
    Gideon020 said:
    You know what? Fine. You all want to keep fucking arguing about one fucking detail? You win, I'll rewrite because you fuckwits can't seem to fucking let it go.
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    Please don't tell me you actually rewrote it, it wasn't even that big of a deal, there was no gaping plothole.

    Larekko was just being an asshole, you shouldn't take your advice from someone who can't even articulate his criticisms.

    Certainly your second chapter was a bit clumsy but not to the degree that it would warrant a rewrite.
     
    Did... Did I miss something? Didn't you already post a chapter just like that, except you didn't find the gun in the paper work? It focused more on bashing Crane's head in till it was mush.

    Oh wait, that post has been deleted... weird.
     
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    Working on the next chapter, here's part of the opening:

    Seeing the Batman of all people going over his head helped it sink in but then the pain reminded him that he needed some medical attention at some point or another and he began making his way down the fire escape stairs to go and find medical attention. Luckily for him the pain had become a slow, burning ache so it wasn't too bad.

    It was still agony going down the stairs though. As he reached the bottom of the stairs and stumbled out in to the alleyway, he felt himself bump into someone and couldn't stop a hiss of fresh agony before he spoke, "Sorry about that, my bad."

    "Wait a moment young man, are you okay?" He turned slightly to meet the concerned eyes of an older woman with silvery-gray hair, "Please, I'm a doctor."

    He considered his options, before nodding slowly, "Yeah, sure."
     
    snthsnth said:
    I don't recall the building blowing up/burning down in the first version, so I count that as a plus. Guns don't usually go off when dropped/thrown, so that's a negative. I also preferred the slight insanity shown when bashing Crane's head in with the canister.

    I'm going to keep parts of both in my headcanon, and eagerly await more.
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    Well, he is in a comic book universe, and Scarecrow apparently didn't take great care of the pistol, so that may explain the gun firing.

    Gideon020 said:
    Working on the next chapter, here's part of the opening:

    Seeing the Batman of all people going over his head helped it sink in but then the pain reminded him that he needed some medical attention at some point or another and he began making his way down the fire escape stairs to go and find medical attention. Luckily for him the pain had become a slow, burning ache so it wasn't too bad.

    It was still agony going down the stairs though. As he reached the bottom of the stairs and stumbled out in to the alleyway, he felt himself bump into someone and couldn't stop a hiss of fresh agony before he spoke, "Sorry about that, my bad."

    "Wait a moment young man, are you okay?" He turned slightly to meet the concerned eyes of an older woman with silvery-gray hair, "Please, I'm a doctor."

    He considered his options, before nodding slowly, "Yeah, sure."
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    Hmm, Dr Leslie Thompkins(?), the Crime Alley lady whose clinic Bruce Wayne supports?
     
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