#Then the questions/interrogation would start

[xenosagaepisodeone]

"ask people more about themselves" is solid entry level advice you tend to hear about how to make conversation with others (and it is true that people love talking about themselves), but it presumes far too much normalcy in the speaker than what you would expect from someone who looks for advice on maintaining basic human conversation. there's only so many times you can ask someone about X or Y experience in a conversation before it starts getting tedious for them. the secondary purpose of asking people questions is that it gives you a variety of opportunities to interject with opinions, observations, or similar experiences, but if you're someone who has little life experience (or a lot of life experience that just makes for very awkward or depressing conversation), continuing to throw questions out there (with the periodic "neat" or "that's really cool") is your only lifeline. you're relegated to a hanger on in the conversation. you haven't opened yourself up to them at all, and they are starting to feel interrogated and a bit vulnerable as a result. it's awkward and uncomfortable. the gulf between yourself and others is practically tangible.

the Actual advice that nobody ever seems to want to give is how much you can fill the vacancies in your personality with affect. if you aren't sure what to do, you can just start larping as someone else. garnish your personality with sounds and gestures. it's literally fine, and playing pretend in this way is a good method to start feeling more comfortable in your skin. I like to smile and clasp my hands together or lace my fingers between one another when I respond to people, and whatever visual information that conveys to the other person seems to help keep the conversation moving. I've done this for like 10 years. my worksona is a like a stealth yamato nadeshiko anime girl and it has been described as cute and wholesome by people unaware of my evil & villainous nature. what im saying is that kinnies are actually in the middle phase of developing advanced social skills.

[ribread03]

Our Song IIII

M.sturniolo

Summery: when you start to fall asleep on the triplet couch and Matt takes notice

THIS IS MY WORK AND MY IDEA! PLEASE DONT USE THIS AS “INSPIRATION” OR TAKE IT WITHOUT GETTING MY PERMISSION FIRST! thank you :)

MATTS POV

As me and Y/N walk down the stairs to the main floor of the hotel I can't help but feel small butterflies in my stomach. The way she looked around the hotel room that I paid for, made my heart swell as I realized that she truly was just as great of a person in real life as she was online.

“Should’ve just made you take the stairs,” I can hear Y/N huff from beside me. “My legs hurt already,” She says with a small pout as we reach the last flight of stairs.

“We’re almost there,” A small chuckle escapes with my words as we round the last corner in the stairwell.

Once we are on the road and back to my house I feel Y/N taking small glances in my direction, making me flush a little as we turn off of the main road. The drive from the hotel back to our house was short and didn’t take more than fifteen minutes to get from one place to another.

As I pulled into the garage I noticed how tired Y/N looked and the small yawn that escaped her lips as she unbuckled the seatbelt from her body.

Y/N POV

Once we are all in the triplets house we are talking, a soda in Chris’s hands, getting to know each other better. On a more personal level one would say. Matt sat next to you on the couch, while Nick and Chris sat down at the other end.

As the conversation flows through the group, small yawns fall from your lips, the travel getting to you. You can feel your eyes growing heavy, your body feeling like it can’t move. You slowly stop talking, yawn after yawn leaving your lips as your eyes start to shut.

“Y/N, wanna go lay down in my room?” You hear Matt’s voice, it’s soft and warm. “My beds’ more comfortable than the couch.”

You can practically feel your eyes light up at his suggestion, a warm comfy bed after a long day of travel, sign me up. You nod your head tiredly, scooting to the end of the couch. Matt stands from the couch, holding his hand out for you. You take his hand with a small smile and follow him down the hallway and into the first door on the left.

You look around his room finding small items that match his personality. Some stuffed animals, a gravity falls poster hanging on the wall, and the famous Mr.wrinleton sitting perfectly in the middle of his bed. You let out a soft hum before taking a few more steps in behind him.

“Just make yourself at home, I just washed the sheets a few days ago..” Matt speaks softly. Watching as you kick your shoes off and climb into his bed, his side of the bed. A small smile forms on his lips as you sleepily grab a hold of Mr.wrinleton and mumble out a quiet ‘thank you’ before nodding back off to sleep.

MATTS POV

I shut the door quietly after I watch y/n drift to sleep, making my way down the hallway and back into the living room.

When I enter the living room I'm met with a grinning Nick and a giggling Chris. “What?” I ask.

“My beds’ more comfortable…” Nick repeats what I said about five minutes ago. “What, is that your way of flirting with her or something?”

“Yeah, I mean dude you’ve been making ‘fuck me eyes’ at her the whole time she’s been here… I'm surprised you even came back out of your room.” Chris adds on to Nick's question.

I scoff lightly at their interrogations, even though they are completely right. I did just want you to be comfortable, but I wanted you to be sleeping in my bed just a little more.

“How is that flirting? I was just being nice to our guest.” My voice squeaks as I try to lie to my brothers. I let out a sigh, knowing my voice cracking gave me away.

“You are trying to flirt!” Chris says rather loudly. I start to shush him, not only to not give me away, but to not wake you up. Chris lets out a few quiet giggles as he sits back on the couch, leaving me standing in front of him and nick.

“Listen, I don’t wanna make her uncomfortable if she doesn’t like me back.. so please don’t say anything and let me handle it.” I tell them, not wanting them to tell you before I can even get a chance to see if you could potentially feel the same way.

An: so sorry I’ve been MIA recently😬 hopefully getting back into it very soon, im finally in a good place in life and have been working on finding a good schedule and all that good stuff… anyways i hope you enjoyed this short but sweet chapter!!

[spiderb00]

Woah, I'm lowkey obsessed with Eve and Yoonchae 🤭

I can imagine Sophia's gf demanding that they keep the bedroom door open when Eve is over at their place while Sophia tells her to chill out 😹. Just Y/n being a protective mama bear and not ready for Yoonchae to grow up... but not in a toxic way, yk. Yn would def interrogate her and ask her what her intentions with her "daughter" are 😹

Famout! Yn tells Yoonchae she's fine, but she's NOT fine at all

The Kats agreed to meet Eve all together, and it was a complete disaster, but that's okay, Yn thought that would be it.

Think about the surprise she had when she got home and saw Evie and Yoonchae cuddling watching a movie on HER couch.

honestly, it was a bit of a funny scene (for Evie)

"BABIES, I'M HERE" Yn said, closing the door behind her with a satisfying click.

Yn's joy drained from her body when she saw the two bodies on her couch. The only thing she thought about was Evie's arm resting comfortably on Yoonchae's shoulder.

"Yn, you're back already, I thought you would stay late." Yoonchae said, not even leaving her spot on the couch to give Yn her daily hug.

"Yeah, I wanted to come and spend more time with you guys, but I didn't know Eve would be here..."

"Hi Yn, what's up?" Evie said, her arm is still around Yoonchae, couldn't she take it off for just a second?

"Oh, I almost forgot. Can Evie sleep here?" Yoonchae asks, finally getting up from the couch, making Evie's arm fall onto the couch.

Yn smiled discreetly, and then he remembered the question.

"Ah..." Yoonchae's eyes shone with hope, silently asking Yn a thousand times to say yes. "Yes, she can."

Yoonchae jumped into Yn's arms, the girl's happiness was priceless to the older woman.

"Come on Eve, I'll show you my room." Yoonchae said, taking Eve's hand and running towards the stairs.

"Hey, where's Sophia?" Yn asked

"She went to the market." Yoonchae said, starting to climb the stairs.

"WERE YOU TWO HERE ALONE?" Yn raised her hands, watching the girls disappear without leaving a response.

"LEAVE THE DOOR OPEN!"

[butterfly-ribbon]

i was thinking about mizuki's gender being listed as unknown again and how everyone else has an explicit mention. people tried to point at that to say she's either not trans OR that she isn't a tgirl (instead a different kind of trans) at some point, but i think that… actively misunderstands the internal intent of the game. like this was done so people wouldn't assume she's a cis girl and i also think there's an active intent in noting that, but not wanting to say "gender = male" bc this would be misgendering (duh) and for a character who's burying so much of her gender struggles bc of how others deny it, i think it makes sense. there's a struggle, i think, in writing and exploring trans narratives that engage with that… question? idk. maybe it would be better if she was just noted as female from the start and i think she's overdue for that especially after ena5, but i also think there's so much nuance in how she's portrayed that i see saying her gender is "?" isn't meant to actually be a declaration of her gender or meant for the reader to question what her gender is.

in many cases, trans girls are already automatically shunted into that expectation of either a fetish or wish fulfillment (which in many ways are the same thing at a certain point) and that's the conceit of her introduction in the main story in terms of how everyone treats her as an exhibition at school - she's fetishistically mythologized and vilified as an Other type of girl, which is something she tries to reclaim by hiding behind the facade of the Mysterious Manic Pixie Dream (Cis) Girl when she's around niigo bc it's the only way she feels like she can be with them without imposing on them or getting close enough to them to the point of having to reveal her secret due to her desire to avoid being hurt. it's wild to me that the consensus in the past about her was that she's anything but a trans girl when the treatment she's subjected to at the school is textbook transmisogyny and this is something we see immediately in the main story.

people are constantly fetishizing her and treating her like an object to be ogled at. she's constantly under the threat of violence. even when she puts so much work into pushing back just through being full of energy and looking "past" it all, they never stop. there's nothing she can do about a society that refuses to recognize her as a person, much like mafuyu can't do anything to change her own mother.

at most she gets told by others that this person is "just not used to her yet". terrible implications all around bc she's made to feel as though people are just putting up with her existence instead of making the effort to understand something that should be simple about who she is, which makes her feel terrible after she's put so much effort into both explaining herself and making herself as palatable as possible?

i think there are some valid criticism to be raised about how marking mizuki as "unknown" and how it might've contributed to people writing her off as "neither a girl nor boy" and the unfortunate parallels with degendering/third sexing therein. if i were to engage in good faith, i'd say the intent is draw attention to mizuki's gender struggles and make the reader interrogate that (and then ideally arriving at the answer being that she's a trans girl), but i still stand by my take that ena5 should've had her refer to herself as a girl explicitly to reclaim the way she was outed previously. it also always felt like the equivalent of mafumom being 'hidden' due to mafuyu's perception of her as a figure of authority rather than a person until kanade saw her for the awful person she is. in this case mizuki's "unknown" is also meant to tie into her own internalized transmisogyny (e.g. referring to herself as an artificial flower in many songs). mizuki herself plays into the degendering she's been subjected to for her entire life in many ways … we know that in the beginning of high school she actually made effort to explain herself to others and they didn't get it? she presumably said that she's a trans girl but she wasn't taken seriously. now she just finds it exhausting to explain anything and she doesn't want to feel like she constantly has to prove that a trans girl is just a type of girl so she's just like "that's me. i do this bc i wanna be me. this is the person i am, why the hell do you think i would do this, why would i dress this way, why would I put up with people like you if it wasn't obvious." i think there's also a lot we can engage with in terms of the presentation of mizuki which is wholly under her own control vs that which is outside of her control... mizuki finds comfort in niigo and connecting with girls over discord bc she can rewrite her life in such a way to as to obscure her own transness like when she narrates her backstory. the fact that the details of her trauma are so carefully hidden carries a strong intent bc it reads as mizuki's renarrativization due to not wanting to get too much into detail about her own trauma? it feels very meta considering mizuki's genre saviness and the fact that most transfeminine narratives tend to indulge in transmisogynistic violence in really voyeuristic ways... we know mizuki had numerous traumatic coming out moments and i think there's so much to read into the ambiguity around this... she's frankly constantly under the treat of SA as well as a trans girl, but i just appreciate that this is something the writing treats respectfully and affords her so much dignity. to be trans in many contexts is to be expected to give over so much of yourself to people who frequently won't care, won't actually understand how much of yourself you're giving over, and will actively rewrite your narrative to define who you are for you based on their own prejudices… and mizuki communicates that well bc she's allowed to be almost wholly in control of her presentation and her narrative.

[somerandomcockroach]

Honestly decepticon prowl

I see his brain going 'if you can be ten steps ahead, why not be at LEAST twenty steps ahead?' to himself. In a mirror.

Barricade however seems rather clueless, not listening to certain things, communications officer with soundwave, barricade is the one to send in if someone HAS to be captured, he can endure a lot of mind games and trickery and has been known to come out with information instead of whatever falsities that he gave the autobots.

Prowl is smart, rarely seen, immoral, a walking grey line that somehow got on the decepticons side (?) however they aren't sure if he is, don't know where he is to get the upper hand of it to make sure he is.

Prowl knows enough about both sides he could stall the entire war, one side gets an advantage then the other gets lucky, and if a side pisses prowl off? They start losing for a little while, not enough to make a difference, but it happens.

The autobots... kind of know barricade, all of them know the tricky decepticon, except Red Alert, who knows barricade as a traitor. Why red alert? Because it's hard for anyone how knows him to question if he's serious or not. (Kill me I love idw version of red alert)

Anyway prowl being powerful yes... but in the mind way, Shockwave hates him.. only because Prowl throws a wrench in shockwaves backup plans, somehow, someway 'barricade' is curious and is known as a bad shot, he wanders, he is known to be an olay conversation, a little boring, but barricade is okay in everyone's book but shockwave..

Okay i gotta stop there, sorry to ramble... Imma go to my snacc collection now, hope you liked the ideas! 🍬

OH OH OH okay ahah okay I, I might really like to hear any rambles about people's ideas and looks on decepticon Prowl so feel free to ramble ahah Mmm, I think in Prowl's case it isn't an exaggeration to say that he needs to count 100+ moves ahead You just made he realise that he might end up being a good liar in such sircumstances? Like I always think of him as a bad liar because his face acts unproportionally to what he says. But his face movements are so barely noticable that maybe only Jazz and Red Alert could notice them (I didn't see enough of Red Alert in idw, I need more info on him I see people loving him pfehge) Barricade being clueless because he is busy coming up with the new tactical strategies while still doing him job so he loses some things he is said to. Oh god yes you made me realise that he is also sent on interrogations to get out information, autobots could learn about Barricade from here, a chance of someone running away. OH, Prowl is some kind of mistery just like Jazz. Prowl death bringer and Jazz life bringer to neutrals. One works undercover with decepticons, other undercover with autobots to help the ones who mustn't be involved in their war. (There would have been so many facts and details that shouldn't be on the front page but ahah let it be) OH Prowl was working with Primes. He was leading operations. He was responsible for Megatron's case when he was a gladiator. He knows enough of autobots' inner info. There is just one misconception. He was a Prowl back then. I wonder how he can trick everyone to believe Prowl is dead (seems easy but he wasn't a low figure to cover it was easily) unless he just made sure everyone who was working with him fell down under Prime's fire. I wonder if he changes his painting

OH mmm yes his plans could always be on the way of Soundwave's backup plans. So far in idw I saw that 1) Shockwave sometimes acts on his own too without Megatron knowing because he looks at possibilities of the world changing from the war 2) Soundwave ending up randomly anywhere ahah Pffffffht, "What do you mean you pissed off Prowl and we lost 3 squadrons a joor ago?!?""

[red-takami]

HII NORTH ( ˶ˆᗜˆ˵ ) do you know a lot about manifestation/how to practice it? if so what has ur experience been with it? i have a follow up question but i dont want to sound like im interrogating you 😭 ill probably ask it after this question/in the comments of this question

Honestly I'm not good at it all that much 😭 besides shifting and actively experiencing a change, I almost never try any other methods of it because of how weird/complicated I make it on accident while trying.

In my personal experience, manifesting is like boomerang, you throw out your intention and you receive it back physically. It's sort of unpredictable, like sometimes you experience results immediately, or not for a long time. Sometimes it's not exactly what you envisioned, or maybe it's EXACTLY what you envisioned - but it's not what you needed in that instance yk?

I don't do it a lot, because unfortunately I get demotivated extremely easily. If I don't see results immediately then the doubts make it almost impossible to keep faith in my own intentions. Which is why whenever I shift, I make sure to have whatever I desire in mind so that way I don't need to go through all of this trouble for it.

When I was a younger kid, I would listen to subliminal messaging RELIGIOUSLY. Like every single day for at least a few hours at a time. I did this for probably around 3 years, starting when I first found out about subliminals and not stopping until I experienced something that had kinda made me realize the gravity of doing so like I did.

Nothing bad, at least not this first experience anyway. I remember back then, I was obsessed with werewolves specifically from twilight. It crossed my mind every single day so of course I was willing to jump into anything that could promise my own experience in such a life as a twilight werewolf 😭. I looked and explored all over the internet for different subliminals made by different sources and different affirmations, and no results at all. Eventually though, I just found I grew extremely patient with the results I was waiting for, I found that I genuinely just enjoyed the couple 3 or 4 main subliminals I had found enough to listen to them without the anticipation in my belly making it hard to be in the moment. Of course, back then I didn't realize this, nor did I realize what happened because of this newfound relaxation until one morning I woke up and the teeth in my mouth had all changed shape entirely. I looked in the mirror getting ready for school and vividly remember just standing there with my mouth open and frozen in my spot. My teeth were absolutely a different shape before this morning. I had fallen asleep that night to a subliminal and coincidentally, one of the affirmations were fangs and sharp k9's. This took the relaxation and turned it into slight intimidation. Made me realize that whatever I was doing, was working somehow. It was intimidating.

Second experience, years later in 2020 I had picked up subliminals once again after a year or two break from it, and instead of wolf subliminals - it was shifting subliminals. I won't name the account because honestly I can't remember but they're extremely problematic. I'm not the only bad experience with this account and their subliminals. I had fallen into the same routine, falling asleep to the subliminals daily, everything was fine enough at first that I didn't realize anything was wrong. Just chalked it up to my brain being an asshole.

Over time, and continuing to listen to those affirmations religiously, I started to experience some scary shit back to back, more than normal. Nightmares that weren't lucid but felt more vivid than reality, where the contents were nothing but darkness and pure malicious invasion of my mind and dream state. It was disgusting. I stopped after I realized what the reasoning for these things was, and eventually even heard the same exact stories from other shifters who used that accounts subliminals.

I don't use subliminals at all anymore, but only because I know I don't need them. However, if I did, I now know for a fact that this shit is serious, manifestation is real and you need to take caution with what you're trying to make your reality. This was my second time being shown this, and now my main form of manifesting is just shifting, so I'm sorry if that's not helpful. Feel free to ask anything else!!!

[rei-ismyname]

Nightcrawler on Krakoa - The Spark is not a religion.

During Dawn of X Nightcrawler felt uncomfortable with certain aspects of Krakoa, especially the cavalier attitude towards death. On the day of the first Crucible, Cyclops sought him out to talk through his own feelings on the matter and they discussed it at length. Kurt had no answers, only questions, though he did end the conversation with something definitive. 'I think I need to start a mutant religion.' Contrary to what I've seen many people say, he didn't actually start a religion. This is an exploration of The Spark, Kurt's very secular answer to the personal and societal questions he had.

Melody Guthrie chose to die and be reborn

Since I'm looking to prove a negative - 'The Spark is not a religion' - it would be helpful to have a definition of the term. Scholars, philosophers and theologians have been trying to agree on one for centuries with the mainstream having given up. I'll come back to this, but Kurt's own religious framework is Catholicism. Plenty to work with there.

Florilegium translates as 'book of flowers,' but its usage is the equivalent of 'zine' or 'scrapbook'

Kurt accepted that his feelings of discomfort were in part rooted in his faith, so that's where he began his examination. As shown above, he 'set aside metaphysics' quite quickly - he gave up on 'starting a mutant religion' for many reasons, not least because 'it's not for me to contest matters of faith.' His feelings, that something was missing from Krakoa, remained. An obvious religious marker is the 'The Book of Spark' and the biblic stylisation. As we'll see, it's just Kurt's diary and not a holy text. I speculate that some of Catholic trappings Kurt used during his quest tripped some people up, in the same way the call and response ritual after The Five resurrects someone felt 'culty' to some. I think Hickman was being deliberately provocative, but at the end of the day it's an affirmation of identity before the community and celebration of rebirth - an ad hoc element of Krakoa's nascent culture.

After some soul searching and 'self-distraction,' Kurt was about to give up on the project altogether. There were bigger problems on Krakoa, such as 'The Patchwork Man' (who ended up being Onslaught) and the aforementioned cavalier attitude towards dying. Chuck asked Kurt to investigate because he's better with people, starting with David Haller - Legion - son of Charles Xavier and Gabrielle Haller. After rescuing him from ORCHIS the two formed a friendship based on, among other things, a mutual concern about the sustainability of Krakoan culture.

Importantly, Legion was not a disciple of his father and his didn't take his promises at face value. His loyalty was to Kurt and to mutants in general. An outsider and an agitator, but with only good intentions. He advised Kurt to begin by interrogating the 3 laws, and along the way they met Krakoans who were similarly concerned that they were a nation but not yet a people. Having rejected the whole 'starting a religion' thing, the mission shifted to finding or establishing 'something that makes folks feel like they're all in the same story' - as Stacy X put it. Obviously the presence of Onslaught was a factor in the unrest, but he was feeding off what was already there.

'Murder no man' and 'make more mutants' certainly gave Kurt food for thought, but interrogating them didn't help much with his primary mission. 'Respect this sacred land' did, specifically reinterpreting it to include the people on it. He acknowledged that all the laws were flawed, but this one in particular set him on the path to the Spark. It seems simple in retrospect, obviously Krakoa needs to protect its citizens, but the Quiet Council kinda missed that. It's especially egregious when you consider the scope of the project - all mutants living side by side, including those that have hurt a lot of people and would continue to. Problems like that just don't go away, and with some of those mutants on the Quiet Council (cough* Sinister) people are going to feel unsafe and isolated.

That first line is important - 'this is not a mutant religion'

Needless to say, Onslaught was defeated. Defeated by the lesser known mutants as a large group, creating a mutant circuit inside Legion's head. Legion had the space and Kurt had the idea but the people chose to fight and love and live. They didn't listen to Kurt because of religious or political authority, they listened because they liked the idea.

The Spark is a philosophy, a way of living. It encourages choice, risk, individuality, and seeking happiness as a community and as a people. There's no worship, no reverence of a higher power, 'no prayer or veneration.' Zero exploration of eschatology. It's compatible with existing faith because there's no overlap, except for the community aspect. It's definitely not a bloody religion.

There is one alternate future where The Spark is turned into a religion/faith - the Sins of Sinister timeline. Mother Righteous hijacked it as a tool to control uneducated enslaved clones and drew on their faith and sacrifice to perform deeply harmful magic. Considering SoS was an exercise in perversion and abomination, in corrupting good things into their twisted dark opposites, The Spark as religion/tool of evil should tell us that the real thing is nothing of the sort.

Kurt does love the aesthetic of religion, as you'd expect, which explains why the communal holodeck in Legion's head is called The Altar. Altar is not a strictly religious term, though, and the altar is nothing like a church. Lost and Cortez (of all people) are telling people about it because it helped them with their own pain, given without reservation. You could ungenerously view it as evangelism, but if you do that then you've broadened the term to the point of meaninglessness.

Kurt didn't start a mutant religion, The Spark isn't a religion. Pass it on :)

[leafyeyes417]

So Danny had tried, he really had. He had moved to Gotham because he knew his parents wouldn’t look for him there. They had never found out he was Phantom but things had reached the point where both he and Jazz decided to go no contact.

But back to his problem. He had worked out with Frostbite that he actually only had one obsession, Space. He had been happy to know that, he had been getting tired of the constant struggle to keep both ghosts and humans safe while also dealing with ghost hunters.

So his move to Gotham was both to avoid his parents but also the reassurance that there were multiple heroes taking care of things. He had enjoyed the peace for the first three months but then he had started to get twitchy. He had tried getting some hobbies but by month six he knew he was out of options. He had especially clued in when he noticed a few classmates avoiding him thinking he was about to snap. Jazz had been resigned when he let her know the news.

So that’s why he was now sitting on a conspicuous roof, wearing a mask made in the Infinite Realms, waiting for a Bat or Bird to show up. He was coming out of retirement after all. Hopefully he would be able to work with the Bats instead of working around them. He really didn’t want to end up on the Rogue list.

[cuteniarose]

Me: *creates an OC*

Me: *heavily implies OC will meet a bad fate*

OC: *meets bad fate*

Me:

(Alternatively, I may have started it, but @katkastrofa enabled me and now I’m losing my mind)

[tackrusso]

show tempe gang crossover with the morris islanders would actually have been the best episode of bones ever. btw

[brehaaorgana]

I sometimes wonder if other common traits that make people vulnerable to cults are:

a desire to please others/make them happy

a willingness to try new things, and to potentially compromise your usual comfort zone in the pursuit of trying something new

I've never felt I was too smart or savvy to be drawn into a cult. I *have* often felt I was too argumentative/questioning and perhaps stubborn to join a cult, though. Like I am otherwise a GREAT TARGET for cults — I am lonely, would like community, am passionate, & sometimes feel aimless. I should be the perfect target.

Neither of those things are necessarily bad character qualities to have! They can, in fact, be very positive. But indoctrination into a cult usually involves some kind of peer pressure and/or desensitization to certain experiences over time. And that's probably more effective with people who are eager to people please or gain more positive feedback from peers even if they're uncomfortable in the meantime?

Idk I've only ever had really obvious cult recruitment tactics happen to me and those ppl usually fall very flat within a minute or less. A lot of the opening salvo the VERY obvious recruiters use is just them relying on forcing someone to feel like they must be nice in order to be polite. Basically you get trapped into a conversation because you don't want to seem rude, so you let them keep talking. Or you engage because they're so friendly and nice! and if you cut them off/say something, it makes you look like the rude person. So they prey on that freeze moment where you're going along with it so you don't seem rude. The leverage is your desire to please others/seem polite.

But the trick is, if you aren't afraid of seeming a little bit rude or making things a little bit awkward— you can get them to stop talking very quickly by just directly shutting the conversation down. So I've never had anyone get past that point because I will just be socially awkward/perhaps appear rude (but not nasty!) in order to end the conversation.

Similar but not necessarily a cult— I've done this shut down thing with annoying xtian missionaries both for my own friends/myself before but also for complete stranger retail employees being harassed by other customers trying to evangelize. Like I saw someone trying to recruit a Trader Joe's employee or whatever and because I don't care about pleasing people and didn't mind seeming "rude" so I just barged in, started talking over them, and asked the trader Joe's employee if they had any rutabagas, and if so, where could I find them? Just blithely ignored the missionary and acted like I was a self-absorbed karen. Made me look really rude, but their whole evangelizing thing relied on the social rules of "appearing polite." The employee couldn't be rude to a customer so I stepped in to be rude and then it collapsed because the expectation that everyone would politely abide by social norms fell apart. The employee took my out, told me they'd look it up in the system, and so I immediately followed them away from the missionary and then whispered "I don't actually care about rutabagas, I just figured you needed a way to get out of that."

Anyways I say that mostly to be like...being unwilling to be "forced into discomfort so you don't appear rude, even though they're the ones being rude" is basically the only way I can see how I have avoided being recruited into...like, anything.

My hypothesis is that in like 10 years gen z is gonna have a big cult boom the way the boomers did in the 70s

[eulaties]

general thoughts about the 2025 小红书 boom

i feel like we're at a really interesting point in time right now, particularly in regards to the shift in american consciousness + changing world order, so i thought it would be fitting to document my thoughts about the xhs situation as a chinese american. however, please note this post is NOT speaking on behalf of any community, and i am only speaking to my own personal opinions.

the good

american propaganda is getting dismantled in real time. there's so much cross-cultural communication right now in relation to america's political issues, everyday life, and what china is really like

im already seeing people starting to learn the language, becoming interested in visiting china, etc. and i truly haven't seen this kind of mass interest in chinese culture in a long time

to be precise, the last time there was really "chinese soft power" in america was during the mid-to-late 2000s. notably this time period included the 2008 beijing olympics which was monumental for china on the global stage, as it showcased their prosperity, openness ("北京欢迎你"), and equal footing in the modern world. ive seen people compare the xhs phenomenon to this event and while both are drastically different, i do think this is an apt comparison (though obviously this xhs thing is on a muchhh smaller scale...)

so many new friendships and connections are being made!

the bad

to add on to what op said, theres definitely a difference between just generally understanding that as diaspora, most people around you will hold sinophobic views about china and chinese people VERSUS actually having empirical evidence that most normal people didn't see chinese people as human before. its jarring to say the least. like everyone is praising chinese people on xhs now, but just last week everyone was fearmongering about us?? really reminds you that in the eyes of the public, favor for any asian culture (and by extension, its people) is fleeting and will often change easily with the season

and yes, its definitely weird to see people talk about chinese people as if they've never seen a chinese person in america before. like obviously there's a HUGE difference between mainlanders and diaspora, but there's also international students that come to america to study so... ??

the memes are funny, and i like how the people on xhs are playing along with them, but something about the "chinese spy" memes rubs me the wrong way. tbh, most mainlanders actually have a positive view of westerners and america, and if they don't study abroad themselves or know anyone that went abroad, they will never truly understand what it's like to be discriminated against simply for being chinese (there's a difference between knowing and understanding ofc; not saying that they're ignorant & don't know anything lol). this is just the honest truth, just like how i'll never understand what it's like to live and grow up in mainland china since im diaspora. anyways, i kind of question if mainlanders are actually aware of the loaded context behind those words. while americans are using the "chinese spy" memes as jokes now in reference to why tiktok is getting banned, it doesn't change the fact that many other americans truly do believe that there is mass chinese surveilliance/planted chinese spies in america (i.e., see modern-day mccarthyism, like how chinese researchers are often stripped of their titles/reputations, interrogated, and then silently deported). like language and framing does matter, and it has actually affected chinese people in america, but now you guys are treating it like a joke?

anyways, even with all of the bad there's still overwhelming good that has come out of this, and i do feel like its better to be more positive than negative about these things in the long run! who knows where tomorrow will take us but at the very least i hope everyone actively continues pissing off the american government 💖 amen

[blackkatdraws2]

[Toon x Mobster] Chapter 3: A Toon's Aid

Previously // Next - (chapter list) / (AO3 ver)

[contains: BLOOD / INJURY]

The small bathroom was quiet except for the occasional droplets of water from the leaky faucet. The Grim man sat on the closed toilet lid, tense, yet worn down from his nasty injuries.

Jack sat on a stool in front with a needle and thread in hand, his face taut with stress and concentration as beads of sweat slid down his forehead, trying his best to sew the wound as cleanly as he could.

He interrogates the Toon with a list of short, yet straightforward questions. They've been at it for a while now, the scarred man's cold eyes staying locked on Jack for any suspicious movements as he spoke.

“Who are you?”

"Jack Desmond, sir." He winces as the needle pierces through the edge of the wound. "I'm an office worker at-"

"Where am I?"

"C-Cel City. It's one of the- ow." Jack tugs on the strings and closes a part of the wound, cringing in sympathy at how painful it looked. "Sorry…" He habitually apologizes, feeling bad for any discomfort he might've caused the other, before continuing his sentence. "It's one of the biggest cities here, only second to Doodleheart Center."

As Jack continues to trail off giving the man some background information, the Grim man's stare slowly starts to gravitate towards the Toon’s hands. His eyes followed the way they would pause mid-air, trying to steady them from shaking, before going back to sewing carefully.

His brows furrow at this. It was unclear whether it was out of displeasure or something else, his expression as unreadable as ever, even during this painful procedure.

"What do you hope to gain from this?"

Jack blinked, looking up at the man's eyes with a startled look on his face. Then he furrows his brows, tilting his head slightly to the side. "Nothing..?" He answers, sounding just as questioning about his own decision as the other was. Then he sighs, pausing his task to think of a proper answer.

"To be honest, I… didn't want to bring you here at first." He angled his gaze downwards, feeling heavy with guilt at admitting to his true feelings and scared of how the other man might react. "I mean, you were scary and obviously not from around here," he fidgets with the needle in his fingers as he recounts his terrifying first encounter with the man, "so I meant to just call the authorities on you or something' n' leave…"

"But." Jack lifts his head up to look back at the other. Mixed within the nervousness in his eyes was genuine care. "You just looked like you needed help, so…"

The Grim man's gaze narrowed. Cold sweat continued to creep down the side of Jack's face as he swallowed his saliva, but he didn't look away, fearful that his true intentions may get deemed disingenuous by the other as he stared at him.

…

….

After a while, the Grim man heaves a deep sigh and looks away, seemingly done with his interrogation. Jack's tense frame relaxed the moment the man's eyes were off of him, inhaling in relief before quickly huffing the air back out in disgust as the smell of blood assaulted his nose. Right: the wound.

He went back into stitching, and the room was quiet after that.

Trying not to pay any mind to the silence, Jack's attention eventually began to zone in on the task at hand.

While working on the nasty wound, Jack internally thanked the stars for still being able to remember the important stuff that got taught to him years ago in school.

For a Genre with healing properties as ridiculous as theirs, all Toon citizens must have knowledge on basic medical care. Or at the very least, they must be able to aid wounded individuals in case of emergencies. It's mandatory to be taught in schools, some teaching them as early as Elementary.

Jack's memory on this is vague by this point since it's been such a long time ago. Apparently, a lot of the practices being tested and mastered back then were cultivated mostly to care for the people outside of their own Genre.

Aside from a few mixed-Genres here and there, Jack had grown up in a largely Toon-populated area with little to no contact to the other Genres outside his own. He briefly learned about non-Toon people being far more vulnerable to injuries than they were. Not having met one his entire life, he hadn’t quite grasped the severity of it all until he saw this man dying in that alleyway. It horrified him to see how much a person can be hurt to such an extreme degree.

He didn’t know what happened to the other man in order for him to end up in such a situation, and he didn’t have enough courage to ask him to be honest. But the thought that he may have gotten injured in a city of Toons of all places - and in an area near where he lived at that - made his heart brew with fear.

What happened?

There was an unending waterfall of concerned questions, and the uncertainty of it all made him feel a tad bit too afraid. He didn’t want to think about it. Not for now at least.

Honestly, if Jack had been any less reassured in his ability to at least be able to stop the heavy bleeding, he wouldn't have even thought of taking the wounded man into his apartment.

Jack did his best to finish it up as quickly as he could, though not hastily as his nerves might do more unneeded damage, imagining how much in pain the man was probably in right now.

Snip.

The thread gets cut off with a small scissor. And with that, they were done!

"Phew." Jack stretches, popping a few joints that had become tense from having to keep them steady in the air for so long. He gives the newly stitched wound a hard look, examining it.

…Still red and angry, but no more bleeding. He knows he's largely inexperienced, but he hopes this is good enough.

With that out of the way, he now had to deal with the man himself who had returned to staring at him again a while ago. The side of Jack's mouth curved up into a smile without his control, looking more like a grimace at being observed so intently by such a scary individual.

"So, uh…" His voice wobbled. He clears his throat and stands up, walking to the sink and turning on the faulty faucet to wash off the stain on his hands, struggling to appear more casual. "May I ask for your name, sir?" Jack tries to start a conversation to lessen the tension that's been building between them since the man woke up.

The other's expression doesn't shift. After a beat of silence that stretched on for a bit too long, he spoke.

“No.”

'Yep, I figured as much.' He thought to himself. "Right," Jack chuckles, drained of the usual humor he carried.

To be honest, he felt a bit tired after all of that. He'd been up all night caring for the Grim's wounds, he could really use a quick nap right now… Jack could only hope that this (probably a criminal) guy was at least nice enough to not murder him before he falls asleep.

Turning off the stream of water, he flicks the water off his hands and turns to leave. "Well,” he notes, “feel free to help yourself here. I'll go and get you something clean to wear." He then exits the bathroom, now done with the conversation he was attempting to have.

Pushing aside how he probably hadn't been following some medical rules and regulations taught to (and forgotten by) him years ago. With all the scars on that guy, he's assuming that it's probably fine to just leave him be for now, right? Surely a violence-prone-looking man like that would already know how to take care of himself when he's hurt, right? He sure hopes so. He doesn’t wanna come back to a dead body.

With that thought, Jack goes off to retrieve the clothes he had left for him by the nightstand.

"…"

Gavriel sat in silence in the bathroom, the soft hum of the distant city and the ambience of the Toon’s neighbors filtering through the walls. He was now left on his own, leaving him to reflect on the situation.

Shifting slightly, he grimaced as pain flared through his side and throughout the rest of his body. The stitches pulled, a stark reminder that he wasn’t in any shape to defend himself if something went wrong. Not that it mattered. If the Toon wanted him dead, he’d already had the chance to let him bleed out.

So why hadn’t he?

That thought didn’t bring comfort to him, only deepening his unease. The Toon’s actions were naively kind, something which he understood yet hesitated to accept.

So far, the other hadn’t given him any suspicious answers. Every question Gavriel had asked were met with genuine - albeit bumbling - honesty. The nervous man stuttered more often than not, but he hadn’t hesitated, nor had he tried to deflect or go off topic. The only weird thing happening right now was the fact that the Toon was helping him.

This behavior didn’t seem to come from a place of deception and ulterior motives. Or perhaps it did, and Gavriel just couldn’t see it yet.

In the bathroom, Gavriel could hear the other’s voice phasing through the thin apartment walls. Though his words were muffled, he sounded mournful with phrases like, "I spent money on that…" and "Tsk, tsk. What a waste." followed by a heavy sigh.

Gavriel pressed his lips into a thin line. Despite himself, the lament struck a chord. Money and food. Those were two of the main things a person must never waste in life.

Before he could fall deeper on this thought, Gavriel hears the gentle pitter patter of the Toon’s feet. He appears a moment after, quietly stepping into the bathroom with the clothes in hand. He glanced at Gavriel, who was still seated on the toilet, and carefully placed the clothes on the dry part of the sink’s edge, not having much space to put them anywhere else. His movements were quick but not rushed, clearly trying to avoid intruding too much on the other man’s space.

"Here," the Toon said softly. "The clothes I left for you. I can get you something else if these aren’t… comfortable,” he offers, looking at how much smaller the size of his own t-shirt was compared to Gavriel’s body.

He glances at Gavriel briefly before looking down at the floor, the tension in the room thick, but Jack manages a kind, almost awkward smile.

"I’ll… leave you to it then." Without waiting for a response, the Toon does a polite little head bow before turning on his heel and leaving the bathroom. He even made sure to gently close the door behind him, leaving Gavriel to change in peace.

Gavriel turned his attention to the clothes Jack had left neatly folded on the edge of the sink. Standing up, he walks over to inspect the clothes given to him. They looked cheap and would probably be a bit too tight for him to wear but it was better than staying cold and bare.

He glanced back toward the door, his brows furrowing. The Toon hadn’t lingered, hadn’t said anything besides the brief statement that the clothes were for him, nor were there any lectures, insistence, or attempts to force a conversation. Just a quiet exit. Probably to clean up the mess Gavriel had left in the other room, he guessed.

Gavriel shifted uncomfortably. He wasn’t used to people like that Toon. People who gave generously without any strings attached or wanting something back, people who respected him, not like the wariness of his enemies or the reverence of his underlings, but simply out of basic human decency - albeit with reasonable fear. The Toon… Jack Desmond was painfully normal, perhaps a touch too kind for his own good.

His mind wandered to Desmond’s face earlier. The nervous and awkward glances, the apologetic grimaces when the needle went through his flesh, and the reluctance to meet his eyes, yet his determination to keep helping despite the tension. It had been… odd. Gavriel couldn’t pinpoint what irritated him more. Desmond’s clumsy kindness or the fact that it seemed genuine.

Gavriel sighed, his breath heavy with the weight of his thoughts. His fingers tightened around the clothes.

For now, staying here and recuperating wasn’t the worst plan.

[This chapter has been edited.] _

Previously // Next - (chapter list)

Special thanks to @demonicrhythms for proofreading this chapter.

[linagram]

sometimes i kinda wanna rb ask games like i do for my other ocs, but then i remember that interrogations exist and they are. basically ask games.

[just-some-little-lads]

A Late Night

Summary: You come back home after a long day only to find Sylus waiting for you, acting a bit differently than normal. Word Count: 1.1k SFW, Second Person POV, GN MC.

Being a Hunter was good work; you knew that. However, heroism or not, long days could still have you cursing under your breath, dreaming of living in isolated peace by some lakeside. Dragging your feet, you contemplated calling in sick tomorrow. The key to your apartment flailed clumsily on it’s ring before finally turning in the slot. Shoes kicked to the shadows, work bag abandoned on the floor, you didn’t even bother turning on your lights before flopping on your couch. With your eyes closed, you were two alluring seconds away from drifting off… Till the hairs on the back of your head prickled. A sixth sense blared warnings of danger throughout your body, urging you to fly up in enough time to grab a figure approaching the back of the couch. Tact and grace were not your close friends tonight. Amidst the self-defense, you threw yourself off the couch to tackle your intruder to the ground. If you could call it a tackle, anyway. More like keeping them pinned with your collapsed body.

Before you could fully enter “interrogation mode”, a low chuckle stopped you in your tracks. Which emotion would your tone land on today? Surprise, confusion, irritation? “Sylus?” All three, apparently.

“Do you know how long I waited for you?” Despite the words, he didn’t sound irritated, just amused. He wasn’t even pushing you off of him.

After a moment of consideration, you graciously removed your knee from the middle of his back. A subtle groan suggested that your frantic maneuver had affected him more than he would ever like to admit. Step, flick, and a mellow light illuminated your living room. Sylus had pushed himself up enough to sit on the floor, his back leaning against the sofa.

“How many times do I have to tell you to not break into my apartment? Not only is it an extreme breach of my privacy, but it is also illegal!” You found yourself hissing quietly as you scolded him, worried that shouting too loud would reach the ears of curious neighbors. Neighbors who also happened to be Hunters. Hunters who would not treat the company of the most infamous N109 Zone boss so casually. “If you’re so determined to treat this place like your own, maybe I could consider making you a spare key but—“ You cut your own lecture off, noticing the distinct lack of attention of this particular criminal. “Are you listening to me? Sylus.”

A humph left his chest as he lifted himself up to his feet, needing to use the furniture for leverage. Not a detail left unnoticed. Suddenly you were worried; after all, this wouldn’t be the first time he had come to you to wounded. “Are you—“

“I can listen to you and ignore you at the same time, sweetie. And as for the moment, I don’t have a key. How else was I supposed to welcome you home after work, hmmm?” His hum dragged out longer than usual.

“—okay.” You finished your question from earlier. “I was going to ask ‘are you okay’.” Without waiting for a proper answer, you approached him, taking his wrist in your hand and observing his body for any clear wounds. He smiled down at you while you did so. Nothing…obvious, but a gut feeling was still telling you that something was off. Wrist in hand, you dragged him to the other side of the couch and shoved him into a seating position.

Another stern line of questioning was about to leave your mouth, but it never came. A soft kiss pressed itself against the back of your hand, Sylus’ head slightly lowered. A move straight out of some knightly romance. Your heart fluttered, your face flushed, yet you wouldn’t let yourself melt so easily. Yes…affection amongst other things had started to blossom between you two; however, Sylus’ demeanor always had you thinking that this was another game of his. But this… He had never been so open like this before.

The man in question raised his head, looking up at you with another grin on his face. Only, this one didn’t have that edge of haughty aloofness that typically painted his expression. He was…genuinely pleased. Should you be worried? Something else to note was the subtle tint of pink in his cheeks and the tips of his ears. “No…” you ended up stating aloud. “You? Drunk?”

Sylus’ hand waved in the air, like he had to physically bat away that accusation before it stuck. “I don’t get drunk, sweetie.”

“But you have been drinking?”

Keeping your hand still in his grasp, he idly brushed a finger up and down your wrist. The motion sent a shudder down your spine. “Maybe that…exchange I told you about went very well today.” His words went hush, a deep purr in his throat as his face came close to your hand again. His breath warmed your skin. “And maybe I celebrated another resounding success with a bottle of wine I’ve been saving for a lovely rainy day.” The anticipation for him to kiss you again ended with him pressing a cheek to the back of your hand. Sylus’ face was heated. He glanced up at you through the fringe of his grey hair. Apparently, he caught that little glimpse of eagerness in your eyes.

Slowly, he guided you down onto the couch. You swallowed something building up in your throat as he began to lean over you till your back was against the armrest. “So, you came all the way out here while tipsy?” The pounding in your chest now was obvious.

Once more, he raised one of your hands. “I wanted to see you, is that such a crime?” Voice soft and low, he pressed the back of your hand to his forehead, dragging it down to his cheek, and then finally right before his mouth. If you closed your eyes and drowned out the slight condescending hum in your ears, you'd have a hard time believing that this was the leader of Onychinus. The touch was that of an entirely different man. At least one you were not well acquainted with. Maybe Sylus was the evil one in a set of twins and you got sent the benevolent one by mistake. The gestures were gentle, tender, pleading. Pinkies intertwined while his wine-tinted lips pecked different promises on the backs of your knuckles. “Can I stay tonight?”

The word ‘yes’ kept echoing in your mind at a disturbing pace, but you wouldn’t let him win with just sweetened words and some sudden puppy-dog eyes. You weren’t even aware his face could do that. “Say please.”

Sylus practically giggled, propped up by an arm next to your head. His posture lowered till his forehead pressed against yours. The tip of his nose rubbed against your own as his whisper was as quiet and needy as you were wishing it would be. “Please?”

[messenger-of-babel]

The Call

Summary: One little call to each of them. One big consequence. (Batfamily x sibling!reader)

Word Count: 2.9K

Notes: IM LATE AGAIN. I hope you all know that I do stay up wildly late when this happens cause I want to edit before I submit, even if some of these were pre-written (its 1:30AM RAHH). ANWAYS. Batfamily, I tried to get as many as I could but I haven't collected runs for about half the family cause I am biased towards my boys, but I am trying to be as accurate as possible when I can be and that includes those dynamics! So rest assured I am doing my research and hopefully that'll reflect soon. As usual, enjoy your daily feed and I'll enjoy my nap. Warnings just for general description of violence.

Much Love~! xx

━━━━━━━━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

When Dick got the call, he was in his civilian clothes.

Dick Grayson was suit shopping, needing something for an upcoming gala. He had put it off for so long, since he wore the Nightwing suit more than any other in his closet. He had let it ring out once while he got his measurements taken, but when they called back a second time, his lips dipped into a frown. Excusing himself, he clicked the answer call button, stating his name. He hears the voice of Bruce, but in the stern tone of Batman. He doesn’t think that he's ever left a store as fast as he had that day, feet thudding on the pavement and breath cold in his chest as he hurries to his car. He unlocks it and all but throws himself into the passenger seat, lines on his face hardening. Throwing it quickly into drive he pulls out and heads in the direction of the manor.

He tries to keep himself composed, his emotional training kicking in. His fingers are tense on the steering wheel, passing over the bridge at a speed a cop would most certainly pull him over for. Even though he tries to take a deep breath, there's a burning in his sternum. It builds until it creeps into his neck, making him click his tongue uncomfortably.

The sensation is a rage he hadn't felt in a while, a fire that hadn’t burnt that intensely since he was just a boy grieving his parents’ death. It had flickered when he had heard Bruce had adopted a boy called Jason after him, sputtering to life upon hearing about his death. Yet he had grown, he had risen above it and had become a shelter for his younger, extended family. He was dependable, uncrackable, and upbeat, that was Nightwing. Yet as he drives back with that painful fire in his chest, he felt nothing more than Dick Grayson, the boy stricken with fear at the idea of losing his family.

When Jason got the call, he had been on patrol.

Helm securely on his face, it kept the drizzly night rain of Gotham out of his eyes. It had been a rather quiet night, stopping a few minor robberies and assaults that were common down by Dixon Docks. He was eager to return home, wanting to swing by the manor quickly to take full advantage of the hot water system before heading back to his apartment in Old Gotham for a well-deserved rest. He had just finished interrogating some of Penguins' men, about to call the cave to let whoever was on tonight know that they finally had the location of the new drug den they had been chasing the past month. However, the communication device he had set on his bike was lit, screen full of notifications.

Calls, one after another filled the small holographic display and he pressed the button to call back, leg swinging over the side of the bike as he did so. He had only started the bike but already he screeched to a stop, making sure he heard the words properly. A curse and gruffly shouted questions were his only response and when he got the information he wanted, he cut the call and the bike roared to life. He leant forward as if that was going to help him get to his destination quicker, blood boiling underneath his skin. His chest ached with the urge to sputter out pants, desperate to start the sign of panic racing through his veins. Yet he was stronger than that, keeping his cool like a tightly wound coil, muscles tensed beneath the suit.

His mind buzzes with worry, anxiety gnawing at his ribcage like a feral rat.

Jason doesn't often allow himself to be emotional on the job, despite his tendency for rage.

But rage was different. Rage burned and warmed him up from the inside, was the force that he put behind every punch or kick. It was his kindling, and it served to guide him as well as any star. Of course, Bruce had tempered it somewhat, but he had just guided Jason into turning it into something else, not getting rid of entirely. He used rage to protect the people of the city, the outrage he felt when he saw them get treated badly. He used rage when coming to his family's defence, the sight of hands being laid on people he had come to care for sparking it too. Those were the rages he was used to using, although there was always a third.

The pit.

The rage that bubbled away in the back of his mind, hidden behind a tall wall and shoved into the deepest part of him. That was the rage that crept forth, green and poisonous in his veins and clouding his judgement in a fog of pain and despair and anger. When it would appear, he would often take a moment to himself to pack it back away, contain it once more in the bulletproof casing of his heart. Yet right now, he didn't want to put it back. It made him rev the bike harder, made him feel like he was getting there quicker. The bike kicked up water as he zig zagged through the back streets, his mental map of Gotham rerouting anytime the traffic was longer than five cars deep. He couldn't afford to lost time, to not be fast enough. Not now, not this time, and if he had to use the rage the pit cursed him with, he would.

Tim was at the manor, holed up in his room when he got the call.

It had been a long night the night before, tossing restlessly. Not that he would have told anyone, but the last fight with Bane had left him with a few more bruises than he had let on, cleverly hidden from the keen eyes of Alfred. He wanted to nurse them himself, carry his own weight. In fact, he had been sulking in his room going over the things that had been troubling him, knees pulled to his chest.

Dick was capable and dependable, and the first Robin, the biggest shoes to fill. Jason was tenacious but loved deeply, and he fought for what was right. His methods might be unconventional to the Bat sometimes, but he knew what he wanted to fight for. Steph had flown the nest to become Spoiler, Cass already had such a firm grasp of who she wanted to become now that she was Orphan. Barbara had even been able to turn her life around after being put into her wheelchair, her desire to help leading her to become Oracle when she had to hang up Batgirl. Even Damian, the true son of Bruce Wayne, was so confident, growing at a rate he knew Bruce was quietly proud of.

But then there was Tim, who stayed up on weekends trying to redesign his suit, to carve his own vigilante life, only to look on it and see the traces of his time as Robin printed clearly on it. The role of Robin had outgrown him, but there was the shred of doubt that whispered in his ear that just maybe, he hadn't outgrown it. The ringing of his phone snapped him out of his daze, and he let it go to voicemail. When it came again, he grabbed his phone with the desire to turn it off, but seeing the emergency signal had him picking up right away.

"Hello?" he called, sitting right up in bed. His eyes widened and he shelved his pity party, running out of his room.

He winds through the halls of the manor until he finds the door he's looking for. Tim's knuckles rap against the wood loudly, repeating until a disgruntled Damian comes to the door, swinging it open violently. "This better be good, Drake." he deadpans, scanning the flustered state of the older boy. Tim just turns his phone screen, showing the emergency call signal before gesturing to the direction of the grandfather clock with his head. "We've got to go." he says curtly, the young boy hot on his heels after he recovers from his shock.

Both of them head to the cave and prepare to depart immediately. Tim slips the suit over his skin like an outgrown shedding, domino mask sliding onto his face. He couldn’t recognise his own face when he caught sight of it in the glass reflection, but a mask and suit would never be enough to hide the panic that clung to him tighter than the Red Robin suit.

When Bruce got the call, he was at Wayne Enterprises.

He was making a rare appearance at the office, knowing that Lucius had something that he wanted to talk to him about. His office felt foreign and sterile, empty and unreal. The glass surfaces everywhere let him glimpse the face of Bruce Wayne, a face that he was beginning to see less and less. It felt uncanny seeing himself without the cowl, and sometimes when he was working, he could swear he saw a reflection of the bat ears in the window beside him. The night had dragged on, and he was only an hour into the meeting with Lucius when the phone in his suit pocket rang.

He and Lucius shared a sceptical look as he turned the phone screen. The call location wasn't displaying as the Batcave, the only place that could contact this phone directly outside of his children, Lucius and Alfred's personal mobile. Yet he knew Red Hood was taking the brunt of patrol tonight, and Bruce was intended to join him after the meeting. Dick was carrying out some errands downtown and everyone else had either stayed home or didn't contact him like this often. The girls preferred to call his phone as Bruce Wayne or spoke through Alfred, so who could it be?

Lucius gives a nod, silent as he sits down. Bruce's face hardens as he presses the speaker button, accepting the call.

"Who is this?" he says, lowering his voice to the gravelly timbre of Batman.

"Da...B-Batman?" comes a broken, shaky voice on the other end. Lucius's eyes widen and flick to Bruce's immediately, mouth parting. Bruce's jaw ticks, eyes widening as well when he hears your voice.

"This is the Batman. How did you get this number?" He asks, having to focus on keeping his voice low, even though the tone of Bruce threatens to creep back in.

"He-he just had it. I don't know. He just told me to speak, I-I'm not even holding the phone I can't see anything; I’m tied, my eyes are-" you begin to ramble, struggling to get through your words before you're cut off.

"Hello, Batsy." calls a voice close to the receiver, and Bruce swore that his heart fell through the floor in that moment. His fingers tighten around the phone the same way that his lungs are constricting in his chest.

"Joker."

The man on the other end cackles, if Bruce could even call him that. "Miss me?" he snickers, Bruce's mind filling with the image of a red stretched grin. "You see, this is more of a... courtesy call. You know Bruce Wayne, billionaire extraordinaire?"

Bruce's head snaps up to Lucius, who's rubbing at his face nervously.

He didn't know, did he?

"You see, I didn't make a lot of impact going after the commissioner last time, so I had to think to myself, If I wanted to really shake things up in Gotham, who else is there? Then I thought of it, who better than the playboy of the century?" he laughs, punctuated with a sharp snap of his fingers.

"Get to the point." Bruce all but growls.

"Yeah yeah, you always love to rush me, don't you?" The Joker snarks back with fake hurt, before continuing. "Regardless, I have one of his little orphan projects, thinking I might have a bit more success with this one."

He hears a thwack over the phone and a scream, making his nails dig into his palm. He steadies his breathing.

"What have you done?" he asks, low and dangerous.

Another thwack.

"Exactly what I said. But there was a rumour going around that you know Mr. Money, so I thought I'd give you a call, you know, a little gift. If you do know the richest orphan in Gotham, then I want to give you the honour of telling him I've got one of his. Better yet, I want to give you the honour of delivering their body to his doorstep. Maybe that way, you might be able to bond over losing your fake kids."

Bruce feels sick, closing his eyes to try and stop himself from making a mistake right now.

Your life was on the line. He had to play smart.

"Where are you?"

The joker tuts on the other end. "This was a courtesy call, nothing more. I don't want anyone interrupting my playtime. Tata for now~"

"Joker-" he starts but then he's cut off, line going dead. Lucius doesn't say anything, his own personal phone pulled out as he calls Alfred, studying the frozen figure of Bruce. It's almost like there's dark tendrils to the shadows on his broad body, deepening the lines on his face.

Bruce doesn't remember too much, but Batman did.

Immediately he had left the room, suit en route to him and arriving within the minute. As soon as the comfort of his cowl touched his skin, Bruce was gone, and it was Batman calling everyone at the same time. It was Dick who picked up first, a couple of rings earlier than Jason before Tim joined, the sound of Damian in the background. Oracle and Spoiler joined together, while the others were still pending. He didn’t have the time to temper his voice as he relayed the situation, immediately getting as many people on recon as possible.

There were shouts and yelling and cursing before all of their lines became inactive, replaced with trackers signalling that their suits were live. When he enters the batmobile he grips the wheel tensely. The lump in his throat doesn't seem to disappear, only growing larger with each second. His mind is filled with pictures of Jason. Pictures of Barbara. The smiling photos of you.

He might never admit it, but he had your photos front and centre in his wallet (something you did in fact know and used to your advantage frequently in 'dad loves me more' battles). He remembers the first day he ever saw you, cold and scared apart from the other kids in the orphanage. He had been investigating a potential human trafficking ring operating out of the centre, but when he saw you, the fatherly pang hit him. The way your eyes stared forward dully as he greeted children as Bruce Wayne, cameras flashing around him. He had enough wealth to buy the children anything they asked for, the other kids excitedly asking for new toys or clothes or art supplies. However, when he kneeled down in front of you and asked you want you wanted, you said only a few words, 'a family'.

And god be damned if Bruce didn't have money enough for that too.

So, he took you in, hid batman from you like he had tried to with everyone else as well. Yet he failed again, but unlike his children in the past, you never asked to join. Never asked for a suit or to stay up or to train in the cave. Never showed any interest in joining your siblings or throwing yourself in front of danger for the sake of the city. When he asked you why you had simply shrugged, giving him a soft smile.

"All I've ever wanted was to be part of a family. I don't need to be a superhero to be loved."

And then you beamed at him with a smile that could have lit up his world and chased the clouds away from Gotham, so pure and genuinely content. That made Bruce feel like he had finally succeeded as a father, and for once Bruce felt like a father. No Batman, no mask and cape. He didn't train with you; he went out with you to the theatre on weekends. You didn't jump from rooftop to rooftop, you liked to come study with him in his office when he had to take care of Wayne affairs. Batman may have been created to save Gotham city, but he was convinced that you were sent to save Bruce Wayne.

Now, he felt that he had failed you as both Bruce and Batman.

"Hold on sweetheart," he whispers to himself, letting his eyes close for a brief moment during his exhale. "I'll get you home. I promise."

He pressed the accelerator further, Batmobile display signaling that everyone else was suited up and across the city waiting further instruction. He just hoped, he prayed that when he brought you back, it wouldn't be in a body bag.