#the mean reds

[memoriesofthingspast]

🌹💎💠🔥🎻✨☠️

[v-as-in-victor]

The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?

Paul Varjak: Sure.

Holly Golightly: Well, when I get it the only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany's. Calms me down right away. The quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there. If I could find a real-life place that'd make me feel like Tiffany's, then - then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name!

[mimimar]

maybe that's what i was like for you

(art prints)

[tiger-grace]

Jason: I have a bone to pick with you

Bruce, just happy to talk to his estranged son: sure, what’s going on?

Jason, pulling out an entire femur: I stole this evidence from a crime scene. I need help with a case

Duke: hey B I have a bone to pick with you really quick

Bruce, on the verge of tears: please don’t.

Duke: I? just have a question?

[ditzybat]

Dick, sighing: it’s hard being the only emotionally adjusted one in this family

Tim: LOUDDDD incorrect buzzer

Jason: you’re the most like Bruce out of all of us, and that man isnt exactly the poster child for emotional stability

Damian: I concur, while Timothy and Jason see their feelings as afterthoughts, and fear mine underminded - you, Richard, brood and suppress until the miscommunication blows up in your face, just like father.

Tim: exactly, the most expressive and normal one of our colony are the Batgirls… and that’s saying something

[secretidentie]

Tim for literally no reason: Hey Jason do yk where I can get some cocaine

Jason: Why tf do you need cocaine

Tim: I'm a teenage CEO why tf do you think I need cocaine

Jason: Fair enough. But I'm still not selling you cocaine

Tim: Why not? I just want to hang out with the other young finance bros

Jason: Hey dick head, tell your brother I'm not giving him cocaine

Dick: Tim are you okay? do you want to talk about this??

Tim: Uhg I'm fine. You're the one ones who said I should stop drinking coffee

Jason: and you thought this was a good alternative???

Tim: Come on I'll only do a little

Dick: Is this coz we spoiled the ending of wolf of Wallstreet

Tim: Why can't I just have some? You do!

Jason: No I don't

Tim: You're a crime lord

Dick: Yeah isn't it like part of the job

Jason: WHAT NO Stereotype much. I've never even seen cocaine up close

Tim: YOU'RE A CRIME LORD

Jason: Yeah not a drug dealer THERE'S A DIFFERENCE

Tim: I should have known your not cool enough to have drug dealer connections

Jason: OKAY YOU KNOW WHAT I'M GONNA BUY A FUCK TON OF COCAINE AND DO IT RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU JUST TO RUB IT IN

Dick: Woah woah that's enough both of you. No one in this house is doing drugs. If anyone talks about cocaine again I'll tell Bruce you said you want to start a new crack epidemic. He'll make you sit in at strangers AA meetings and read through old case files of ex dealers and their autopsies. Don't. TEST. me.

Tim: ............

Jason: ............

Tim: Can you sell me meth?

[demonicsuffrage]

It's so wild when you think about how much of a shift the batkids had after they were adopted by Bruce, because NONE had a sibling and were like-

Dick, who accidentally walked into Tim's room, spotting the robin shrine he has there:

Tim: ...I can explain

Dick, walking out: Nevermind! It's my fault for wishing for siblings when I was a kid

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jason: Who the hell tweeted 'skibidi toilet rizz' 56 times from my twitter?!

Tim, salty about the titans tower incident, laptop in hand still open to Jason's twitter account:

Jason:

Jason: I wish Bruce had adopted a puppy instead of you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Damian, fuming after Bruce got them a shared hotel room on a vacation: I miss the days when I was an only child

Tim: Didn't your mom make like two thousand clones of you?

Damian: I would've preferred sharing my inheritances with all 2000 of them instead of you

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dick, entering his room at the manor after a patrol and spotting Duke on his bed and immediately shrieking: BRUCE, THERE'S A RANDOM KID IN MY ROOM

Bruce: Dick, this is your newest brother, Duke

Dick: And you gave him my room?!

Duke: Wow, the colour scheme in here is so 80s

Dick: Consider me and you estranged from now on

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bruce: Jason, unblock your brother, he is currently crying in the living room because of it.

Jason, had blocked Dick after the thirst trap Dick posted got over 100k views on tiktok and now everyone and their sibling was asking for Dick's number: What brother? I identify as an only child.

[violet-catsarelife]

Dick: Dami. Damian no. Do not add a garrote to your costume—

[heyyallitssatan]

I like to think that Batman’s suit is really heavy

Like, the thing obviously Kevlar weave, with lots of armour reinforced bits, not to mention all of the gear and gadgets and tools he has on his person, I mean, anything he’s ever thought he may need, anything he’s been mid fight thinking that a particular tool would be useful, he has it somewhere, probably a few of them

And all the kids too, they’re equally equipped even if they don’t necessarily look it

So I like to imagine that some of the heroes decided they should do a costume switch for fun

The bats agreed, and the best part wasn’t them being weirded out like they thought they’d be, unmasked and all that, no, they couldn’t care less, instead everyone else is freaking out about how heavy the bats costumes are

How the hell do they do impossible feats of acrobatics wearing shit like this

Even the supers think it’s excessive, and they have super strength

The bats all take the opportunity to try some of their moves without the weight, given that they work out wearing even more weight

Turns out they can flip and jump and move in even more insane ways than anyone thought possible and everyone is more terrified than they were a few minutes ago

Everyone decides the bats are better with their gadgets

[meziniart]

Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves

[tossawary]

This is petty fandom salt, BUT... I've been chewing on this phenomenon that I've been calling "Fandom's Darling". It is related to things like "Author's Darling" and "Mary Sue / Gary Stu" and "Protagonist Halo" and all that jazz, where one character gains a peculiar narrative weight in a story.

"Author's Darling" is when a writer has a favorite character, and the world and all other characters sort of get... warped to put the Darling in the spotlight. It's most noticeable in TV shows with multiple writers, when a character you personally like suddenly has their previous characterization destroyed to make another character look good somehow. Every other character might become weirdly incompetent. The Darling's feelings are treated as The Most Important Feelings in any given situation. The logic of the fictional world seems broken past suspension of disbelief in order to validate this one character's beliefs or skillset or some other fantasy. And so on.

"Fandom's Darling" is what I've been calling the pattern where a fandom essentially crowns a New Protagonist for their fanfiction stories (it's often a side character rather than the original protagonist, but it can also happen to protagonists). This character becomes the self-insert for all sorts of indulgent fantasies, gaining special powers or backstories, and/or becoming the focus of extreme whump, and/or hooking up with all the various hotties, starring in all sorts of tropey AUs, and so on. They're not always an obvious Mary Sue version of themselves, but the character's original personality and interpersonal relationships tend to get warped or dropped completely, and other characters tend to become a little flat around them. I call it "Fandom's Darling" because it's not just one self-indulgent fantasy fic (you do you! Have fun!) with characterization choices that I don't vibe with (I have neither the time nor the desire nor the authority to police anything, I am just venting), but rather a prolific mini-fandom of sorts revolving around this empty doll / fanon version of the chosen vessel character, so it becomes a little unavoidable.

I am salty about this (mildly frustrated) (imagine a soft sigh of disappointment before I just go do something else) because you are FUCKED if you actually liked the canonical version of this character and their interpersonal relationships. It's almost worse than liking an obscure character that no one cares about. There's about a thousand fics starring your fave, but maybe only about a dozen of them are actually rooted in any kind of recognisable canon.

[fairsweetlonging]

truth serum / system reveal au where shen qingqiu gets hit with an uncloaking spell that reveals the system in the reflection of his eyes every time it pops up.

during one of his missions, in the treasure hoard of some dragon-like creature, he finds a golden, oval shaped hand mirror, its gaudy style more victorian based than anything (airplane you hack!), that doesn't seem to do anything when he looks into it. but when he does, it reveals the system's screen in his eyes.

he doesn't notice this, of course, because he can't see it, and the system, surprisingly, stays quiet.

the peak lords think he's cursed.

maybe mu qingfang is the first to notice, during the mandatory post mission check-up, when shen qingqiu is scrolling through his most recently accumulated points and mu qingfang can see the strange vividly-blue lines reflected in his pupils. it's gone when shen qingqiu blinks, like it was nothing but a trick of the light.

it comes out when yue qingyuan is visiting and, just as he's done laying out the plans for a new mission, shen qingqiu's eyes glaze over and a bright blue box takes over the whole of his iris. shen qingqiu goes quiet; the thing in his eyes moves, shifts, pulses for a second, like static worms crawling all over his pupils. then he blinks, and it's gone, and shen qingqiu accepts the mission that yue qingyuan was almost sure he would decline.

maybe there is an intervention, when the peak lords corner shen qingqiu at qian cao peak and try to figure out what's wrong, subjecting him to all kinds of treatments and curse-finding spells that turn up empty, they can't find anything.

of course, the silencing threat is still very much up and running. at first shen qingqiu was kind of confused by the whole ordeal, but when the peak lords start describing a "strange blue box", he realizes, with sickening suddenty, that they're describing the system. and he can't say anything.

this only makes everything worse, because their fellow peak lord now keeps evading every question and acts like he doesn't understand. liu qingge points right at his face and asks, "that blue box, what is it?" and shen qingqiu laughs nervously and starts talking about how bright the weather is and surely it's the sky and nothing to worry about!

even worse, during the intervention the system thought it was a good idea to start talking to him, so now even the peak lords who hadn't seen it and who might have been persuaded by light tricks and reflections, get a first row view that no, that definitely isn't a trick of the light.

they try to do the whole thing of "are you in danger, blink twice" but shen qingqiu can't even do that because it's still a direct admittance!

maybe eventually he starts saying vague confirmations that don't actually confirm anything, like "this master hears what you're saying", or maybe he goes with a classic "this master can neither confirm nor deny that." but the system starts warning him for that too and eventually he stops saying anything, which worries the others more.

luckily mu qingfang catches on that every time they ask a direct question about the box or shen qingqiu says anything vaguely confirming, it appears. it doesn't appear when they ask about curses or demons, so it must not see that as a threat.

for a little extra angst: maybe the peak lords keep pressuring him for answers, and at some point shen qingqiu gets fed up and snaps out something like, "why don't you understand that i'm not allowed to answer that!" the system counts this as a direct admittance, threatening it's existence. so it punishes. shen qingqiu has a qi deviation so bad it lasts two weeks and takes two people every day to cleanse his meridians. the system doesn't appear in that time. it doesn't appear for a long while after that, either. the peak lords stop asking, mainly because shen qingqiu will instantly leave the room if they do. they don't stop searching for a cure, though.

shang qinghua returns from a business trip and catches on the second someone mentions a blue box and forced silencing.

[fanaticalthings]

important family group chat discussions

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[ghost-bxrd]

Prompt:

Brucie Wayne gets into a mild accident in public (read-got hit by a car). And Batman would just walk it off (“it’s barely a bruise”), but Brucie obviously… can’t.

So he has to suffer the ordeal of having civilians call paramedics, getting fussed over, and having-

Having his dead son get into the back of the ambulance with him.

Oh- oh no. He must have hit his head worse than he thought. He thought he was past this…

[ditzybat]

any super showing basic human decency: ope, lemme squeeze right past ya there pal!

the bats finding their mannerisms unsettling: i don’t think i can handle much more is this midwestern kindness, please call me a slur or something…

[communistkenobi]

reading blackshirts and reds. 1) having a great time 2) I remember Toscano in Late Fascism gives a bunch of definitions of fascism and one of them was that fascism is bourgeois class consciousness. applying that label to fascism seems to be pretty productive while reading Parenti