Let’s talk about quadrants.

You are a well-adjusted member of Alternian society with a healthy sex drive that makes the Empress proud. Or to put it another way, you are Batman. All the other trolls in the galaxy are also Batman. Including the girls, obviously. Probably also the children who have pupated? I don’t really know what the age of consent is on Alternia but it seems to be less than six solar sweeps.

Anyway. As Batman, you have filled all your quadrants. Not doing this would disqualify you from being Batman, and also from living. The Empire is harsh like that. I don’t know or care who your matesprit is but it doesn’t matter because you have a pretty good grasp of the flushed quadrant already. We’re just concerned with the other stuff right now.

Your moirail is your butler Alfred. He’s not your best friend. Somebody else can be your best friend, but nobody else can be Alfred. He’s the one person in the whole world you can trust with your secret identity. He trusts you in much the same way.

The two of you are family. Remember: As a troll (and as Batman) you don’t have siblings, much less parents. Is there an emotional problem you need to talk to your dad about? Tough shit! You don’t have a dad. But you do have Alfred.

Your kismesis is the Joker. Or more importantly, his kismesis is you. There is something about you that he’ll never understand. Something that drives him apeshit on a daily basis. Something he can’t put into words. Instead he expresses it with his fists. And by blowing stuff up. He would never kill you personally, of course. To do that would be to completely miss the point; his burning question can’t be answered if you are dead. But he might kill a lot of other people just to piss you off, because he loves it when you make that angry face. Especially in bed. (Please recall that this is a thought experiment and the two of you are trolls.)

Now comes the hard part.

Go easy on me because I haven’t seen the new movie yet, and besides, most of my familiarity with the rogues’ gallery comes from watching the animated series as a kid. There are probably way better choices for the character I could pick next, but I’ll go with the Penguin, because as goofy as he is, Batman could drop dead for all he cares. They are enemies but it isn’t personal. Which is to say, they don’t really respect each other.

So look at it this way. You get in a fight with the Penguin and you both get mad enough to kill each other, and there’s real danger of this actually happening because neither of you needs the other. Batman completes the Joker as a person, and vice versa. Theirs is a special kind of hate. A sexy kind. But Batman and the Penguin? Each is an insect in the other’s eyes. Or a bird or a mammal. Whatever.

So that conflict gets resolved somehow and then the next week you pass each other in the street and you just can’t be bothered to argue or anything. It’s just like… You don’t even have anything to disagree over. The Joker would never pass up an opportunity like this, but between you and the Penguin there has to be a conflict of actual material interest before you’ll give each other the time of day. And then when that does happen there’s no telling what either of you will do. He might put a knife in your back with zero warning. Not cool.

Therefore, you sit down and arrange a deal. The two of you will meet at a regularly scheduled place and time and you will play basketball. Commissioner Gordon will be the referree; he is your auspistice. And from now on, any dispute you have with the Penguin will be settled with a game of basketball, but even if you’re not fighting you’ll play anyway. And you can make a big show of it if you like and everyone can say “HEY! BATMAN IS FIGHTING THE PENGUIN! IN BASKETBALL!” The point of it all being, of course, that having a chaperone will ensure that your mutual, unpredictable, platonic hatred does not get out of hand.

If you didn’t follow any of that then I can’t fucking help you but maybe from now on you will imagine trolls as Batman.