Merry Christmas Everyone!

I'm writing this for you from the confinement of my basement at home, finally, after my final grades were posted earlier today, my transfer credit came through, and my very sick cousin came to stay until he can move into hospice. I needed a bit of a reprieve, and celebration, since I passed my Research Methodology class. So here I am, watching The Princess Bride, and writing up a storm for you. I have more chapters of CPC planned, as well as New Year's stuff. Hope you enjoy! Have fun spotting all the references!

I don't own anything, believe me when I say that I would like to, however I do not. They in fact belong to DC Comics, Warner Brothers Studios, Christopher Nolan, Cillian Murphy, Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, and the late Heath Ledger. All elements of Gotham City are based off of Chicago, IL and are designed around blue prints and street maps I have of that area. Other elements are named for their original comic counterparts, as the back stories and basic personality traits are also based off of the comic counterparts. Read, enjoy, and review! Thank you!

It is widely known throughout Gotham City that Halloween was the absolute tip-top peak of the Scarecrow and The Joker's villainous escapades. (For different reasons, of course, but something about costume festivities seemed to drive both parties up the proverbial wall.) It was also widely known that although they were most active at that time of the year, it was by far not their most violent time of the year. Yes they produced more schemes, carried out more ill-advised heists, and kidnapped more test subjects than normal –in Jonathan's case anyways-, but it wasn't their most violent time. If anything, this time was their most predictable…if either of them could ever really be called predictable.

But their most violent of times, those came at Christmas.

For some reason, Crane seemed to go further off the deep end than normal around this time, which was something to be said. It all started about Thanksgiving time, the issues he seemed to spontaneously pick up, and it wasn't until the second few attempts at public arson (and poisoning, and anything else he thought he could get away with) that anyone put anything together at all. Because on the Friday following Thanksgiving, all the Christmas decorations started to go up, and not just in public either.

Apparently the Joker decorated to the extreme.

But the decorations didn't stop there. The trees and tinsel went up into every available spot in the windows and streets of Gotham –including the Narrows- and the music was starting to play full blast on a never ending loop, and regardless of what people seemed to think about the mystic healing powers of Holiday Cheer, it only seemed to fuel them on even more. It just started with public shouting, which soon escalated into public displays of anger, then physically trying to remove the unnaturally bright tinsel from every orifice in the immediate vicinity, then trying to just send up the dry trees, which soon progressed to trying to just light the entire building on fire and all those trapped inside. It was like Crane had gone off his rocker even more so than normal, and the Joker was just around to laugh, the Batman was sure.

Indeed, Christmas Time (or whatever holiday time you wanted to stash there) was the most violent time of the year for them. And if had anything to say about it, it was the time of the year that he'd most like to see Crane and the Joker stashed away in Arkham. (Not that he didn't want to see that all year round, of course, but most of all at Christmas time. It was a sore subject for him, it seemed. One too many butt ends of a bad carol rendition at the Joker's hands.) Regardless, it was also his busiest time of the year.

Something about sparkly lights and the laughter of children seemed to draw in the crazies.

That and Murphy's Law.

And Bruce's parties…

Or flames, as the Joker was so easily entertained by plasma and the colors it produced when introduced to artificially created substances and wacky colored pine trees. He knew from experience, as he'd just recently defused three ticking time bombs attached to what could only be described as Pepto-Bismol-pink. Batman…Bruce, was really getting tired of this holiday and all of the "cheer" that the Joker seemed to want to bring with it. Not that he disliked Christmas or anything, but really, why did a time of year seem to have so much influence on the behavior of those inhabiting his city?

And their choice in music parodies?

Though, in the end, come the end of December and Christmas passing the torch off to New Years, the two men went back to some semblance of "normal" and Bruce went back to his "normal" patrolling.

But it was getting to the end of December in one, non-flammable piece that worried him.

At least he'd already proven that his Kevlar based suit was flame resistant.

Can you spot all the little points of references?