#like the Heroes subreddit

[nightswatchdisbandmentera]

ASOIAF discourse would be a lot more fun if we all realized that every single person who has been put in a position of leadership/rulership fails in one way or another. Jon and Dany failing is not an indictment on their abilities to lead or rule. They’re kids, they still have shit to figure out. Given “what was Aragorn’s tax policy”, I doubt GRRM will write a story that will feature the appearance of a most perfect ruler ever who will be a total success instead Jon and Dany who were tOtAl FlOpS. Especially if this person has no previous experience that has been detailed within the text itself. That’s not only antithetical to the series, but also not how you write a narrative.

#I don’t mean to be condescending but so many people missed the point of yg #he’s not here to be the perfect solution over jon and dany #he’s here to validate their arcs as heroes and leaders - sorry to say #they’re incredibly flawed individuals and they intimately failed in adwd but like literally so did everyone else #FAILURE IS A PROCESS OF LEARNING!!! #their stories aren’t over yet #grrm isn’t going to write yg being the most perfect king ever so we can be like ew jon and dany suck glad they died or whatever #he’s also not likely to be the third head of the dragon but I don’t want to get into that today #asoiaf #jon snow #daenerys targaryen #valyrianscrolls #anti reddit rant lmao #god I should stop visiting that subreddit it’s the worst snajbabsjan

[scionshtola]

ppl complain a lot about ARR being a slog but idk. i enjoyed it. i don’t think it was a slog but then again i actually like the characters. and also i don’t care that there’s only like 3 skills when you start bc in my experience that is how. most games work.

#i downloaded reddit app so i could be nosy and i deleted it yesterday bc the xiv and xiv discussion subreddits are so miserable lmao #they don’t like the game they think sprouts are entitled if they want ppl to wait for them to finish their cutscenes #they hate msq and call it a roadblock to the good stuff #someone said ‘my friend would like xiv if he got to the endgame but that’s so many hours of msq’ #and like idk. if that’s the case then he wouldn’t actually like xiv would he!!! #no!! #did i think the company of heroes stuff was a bit tiresome? sure #but overall. i enjoy it! #arr is fun truther just as i am a black sails season one is good truther #i need a text post tag #honestly i did not know how good i had it in tumblr xiv fandom til i went other places #reddit is miserable and twitter is just as bad AND people are mean lmao

[halfagone]

AITA for not wanting to clean my parents' lab?

Danny makes a post on the AITA subreddit asking if he's the one in the wrong for refusing to clean his parents' lab. He makes an offhand comment about his accident that never gets explained. He says the most concerning things about his parents and acts like it's normal behavior for them.

Clark likes to read AITA stories on occasion, just a little self-indulgent gossip. He finds this story and freaks out. He shares it with Ollie, who shares it with Hal and Barry, who shares it with their respective families, which means that Wally hears about it, which mean that Dick hears about it, which means that Bruce hears about it. The People have Concerns.

I originally posted this in the Haunting Heroes discord in September and finally brought it over lol I know more than one person there has taken a look at it and may be posting a fic one day (as am I, to be honest) and I know there's been multiple takes already and would love to hear more >:3

#dpxdc #dpxdc prompt #dpxdc au #i had way too much fun with this #XDD #migrating over from discord

[tsui-no-sora]

Nobody else understands Luke Castellan like I do

#the pjo subreddit has got the most idiot takes like idk it points out something very blatant and goes this is the thing but its presented #as some sort of revolutionary knowledge and then the comment section just dwells into whether he should be considered a hero or not #i dont even like luke that much but yall keep missing the point #beloved rambles

[sirfrogsworth]

I feel like my answer to this is kind of boring.

Fight Club and The Boys.

People who don't see these as cautionary tales but role models to emulate.

And not just the weirdos who idolize Homelander. Billy Butcher may be fighting on the righteous side of things most of the time but he is not a hero.

This was posted in The Last of Us subreddit and I guess my annoyance there would be that some people thought there was a definitive answer to the philosophical questions the ending elicited. (with regard to season 1 of the show)

The ending was very intentionally supposed to make different people feel a certain way depending on their relationships and circumstances. We are supposed to discuss and debate the morality rather than authoritatively say "this is the correct interpretation."

Also, it's easy to say you'd do the most objectively moral thing when things are hypothetical.

[teambyler]

My response to "Will became less interesting and likeable in S4"

VERY interesting recent posts at the subreddit. One has people rank their favorite characters and Will is near the bottom of most lists. The The other is screenshotted above.

A common complaint is that he had less to do. (That's for sure!) But another theme is that he is "boring" or "always crying" or "about to cry."

I left the following comment there:

Well, they've written him to be a closeted gay kid in a small town in the 80s. Struggling with his sexuality and coming out is going to be kind of... his everything. I went through it. (The 80s part at least.) And so no, he's not going to be as outgoing or "interesting and likeable" as a Steve Harrington or Dustin.

(Meanwhile, here is the current top post at the subreddit, with people going gaga in the comments:)

Instead, Will is incredibly awkward, reserved, closed-in, and does not project confidence and charisma that make people easily like him, because he hates and loathes and doubts himself. Every movement, every inflection, every look, every expression of himself, threatens his safety and well-being. He has been awkward and introverted and shy. But he has also been sensitive, caring, and empathetic. He was one of the more selfless characters this season. These qualities, at least the way he expresses them, don't win conventional popularity contests. Some people find that "bland." I find it to be admirable.

The Duffers have made clear that s5 will focus on Will:

“Will really takes center stage again in 5,” Ross Duffer told Variety. “This emotional arc for him is what we feel is going to hopefully tie the whole series together. Will is used to being the young one, the introverted one, the one that’s being protected. So part of his journey, it’s not just sexuality — it’s Will coming into his own as a young man.”

As he grows out of his shell and gets to assert himself more in s5, he probably becomes more "interesting and likeable" in the conventional sense.

==========

Anyway, just wanted to share. Will may not be the most "popular" character in the conventional sense, but he's won many hearts. Nor is he "bland" or just a "damsel in distress" (I saw those comments on the subreddit too ugh!) He's our original badass with a gun. Who cast fireball for his friends. He survived the frikkin Upside Down for one week by himself. He found the strength to communicate while being possessed that they needed to "CLOSE GATE" to defeat the monsters in s2, which would have killed him. He was willing to sacrifice his life. And in s3 and s4, he has been wanting to keep the party together and then put Mike and El's interest above his own.

Will is a hero. And heroes can be quiet gay boys, too.

#team will #byler #stranger things #reddit drama #bleh #will byers

[kellyvela]

The hate for Sansa is genuinely so depressing. I was browsing the HotD subreddit and the topic was favourite queens. Not only was Sansa barely mentioned by anyone, but the usual hateful comments like "fuck Sansa" and "better not catch anyone saying Sansa" finished it off. I find the hatred to be so vicious and vile. Why can't they just stop being so obsessed with her? It's a legit fandom ruiner for me.

The saddest thing is, that by hating Sansa, they are hating GRRM:

And more ; more ; more ; more ; more & more . . . .

#anon asks #sansa stark #asoiaf #grrm

[allforone-appreciation]

A Look Into All For One's Daily Routine (PRE-potato)

7:00 AM - Rise and shine, for the world trembles at the mere thought of my awakening. 7:10 AM - Morning cuddles and kisses with my precious wife, Inko and indirectly praising her for surviving another night beside the most feared villain-turned-family-man. 7:45 AM – Wake my baby son up, then have a villainous breakfast, consisting of coffee, eggs, waffles, and a side of intimidation. 8:15 AM - Conduct a nefarious board meeting to discuss evil plans for the day. Check on my ‘side businesses’ and make sure I’m ‘making’ money. 9:00 AM - Meet with underworld contacts. Expand my influence and power. Remind them who’s boss. 10:00 AM - Time for some "me" time. Attend an appointment with my personal tailor to ensure my villainous attire strikes fear into the hearts of heroes. A scheduled manicure is included every Wednesday. 10:45AM - Wreak minor havoc upon the city. A villain's work is never done and sometimes the blond idiot stops by. It's all about balance, you see. 12:00 PM - Lunch break: Consume the souls of those who dare oppose me. Wine and steak are the usual. Depends on my mood. 12:30 PM: While I’m having lunch, I usually log into my social media and contribute to All Might hate pages. The villain subreddit is my go-to. Update my Demon King fanfiction while I’m at it. (This entry is completely satire) 1:00 PM - Plotting session: Strategize with Tomura on how to conquer the world then make Kurogiri do all the work and babysit him. 2:30 PM - Business calls. Time to collect those debts and remind people why they shouldn't cross me. A few well-placed threats should do the trick. 3:00 PM - Pick up some "unfortunate souls" from the streets. Gotta keep the operation running smoothly. While I’m at it, I’ll supervise the training of Tomura and young villains-in-training. 4:30 PM - Time to head home. Can't wait to see Inko and my beloved son, Izu-baby. 6:00 PM - Dinner with the family. Nothing beats Inko's cooking, except maybe her smile. 7:00 PM - Quality time with Izuku: Help him with his homework, impart wisdom about the ways of the world, and play hero-villain with him. 9:00 PM - Bedtime routine and tuck my cute son into bed. Goodnight, little one. Daddy's gonna (hopefully) kill All Might tomorrow. 9:30 PM - Quality time with Inko. Sometimes the best evil plots are hatched ‘between the sheets’. 11:00 PM - Prepare for bed: Ensure all evil plans are in motion for the following day and that my reign of terror will continue unabated. Sometimes a book about totalitarianism and tyranny with a glass a wine is included. 11:30 PM – Time for a goodnight sleep. I need my beauty sleep to maintain this dashing appearance. Tomorrow, the world will tremble at my might once again.

Note: Schedule subject to change depending on hero interference, unforeseen villainous schemes, 'business trips' and holidays/weekends.

Please tell me what you think I had so much fun making this 😂😂😂😂😂 I might make a POST-potato schedule. I love this man so much can you tell.

😂 I'm laughing because honestly this very much seems like his schedule. Doing both evil stuff while also being dad for one at the same time is how he rolls. Like awww he loves his famil- Wait he picking up ORPHANS AND PLANNING PEOPLE DEMISE?

LOL, I need more of a Day in the Life of a Demon Lord. Because this is great also seems Inko gets quite a bit of attention at night. Though we can already see he definitely not going to see All Might coming when he comes with a Detroit smash.

But man I love how casual he is about his appearance and his affection for his family being quite wholesome. While also still doing evil things, you anon get it.

#afo fanfics #All for One MHA #All for One #All for One BNHA #Dad For One #It may not be conventional but it definitely a fan and fictional scenario I love~ #afo confessions #Founder: Yoly

[eddieisashifter]

Headcanons that are canon in my PJO dr!

While gods tend to look very human, the chthonic deities (Hades, Persephone, Charon, Hypnos, Thanatos, etc...) are the ones that actually look and dress like gods. Funnily enough, they also tend to be the most helpful and kind towards heroes

The gods have absolutely no idea how humans work and the fact the demigods are still kids doesn't compute in their heads

All the main cast (including me!) have subreddits dedicated to us (like buzzfeed unsolved type cases [think The Jackson Files on ao3])

After the events of HoO and the battle with Gaia, Camp Half-Blood takes a page from Camp Jupiter's book and builds a "New Athens" for adult Greek demigods like New Rome

The Athena Cabin as a pet owl mascot named Daedowlus

Clarisse is 80% responsible for Camp peace because she doesn't tolerate bullshit (she has no idea though and we've all made a pact not to tell her)

There is a Cabin 0 at Camp for Hestia and all the unclaimed demigods stay there :D

There's campfire singalongs led by the Apollo cabin (with help from the Dionysus theatre kids)

#I have more but this is just some of my favorites #reality shifting #shiftblr #pjo dr #pjo shifter #percy jackon and the olympians #percy jackson dr #eddie shifts #eddie's drs #pjo headcanon #shifting antis dni

[gingerylangylang1979]

Male identity: Carmy and Richie

I’m finding that a certain demographic of fans have a much harder time relating to Carmy but very much relate to Richie. Granted, a lot of this has to do with what fandom platform you observe. I actually kind of hate The Bear subreddit but continue to browse it periodically because it’s super interesting to hear what “the others” are talking about. I rarely engage anymore because it’s mostly nonsense and a totally different vibe than Tumblr. The contingent is definitely very anti-Carmy x Sydney and seems to hate Sydney. I’ve also noticed that while there is a lot of love for Carmy there is even more love for Richie. I’m very intrigued by this perspective. 

This season Richie was definitely a standout. I think Ebon is an amazing actor and am glad he is finally getting nominated for his role. I thought he got robbed with the non-Emmy nominations. But even before S2 I noticed that Richie was the most favored character among the Reddit demo and perhaps a big part of the general audience. That’s fine, people can favor who they like. I know that doesn’t represent everyone but I do think that speaks for what I consider general audience and makes sense considering how society still views manhood despite social progress. This season even a lot of the reviews were kind of meh about Carmy. I get it, I initially was writing him off too, was pissed, and thought he had the worst arc. Then once thoughts settled he went back to being my hero. Deeply flawed, but I just relate to him so much and he’s fascinating to watch. I’m a woman, so maybe that helps my empathy. I also don’t think The Bear would work with Richie as the lead as some have suggested. 

The thing is Carmy is a more difficult character because he has multiple layers of trauma, his work is so specialized and niche, he is a sensitive soul, he’s artistic, and he doesn’t fit the mold of the working class male models he was surrounded by. Your typical man can’t relate to him. And most likely your typical conservative leaning woman can’t either. At the Christmas party he was appalled at how the other guys were talking about Claire. And this is a woman he had a crush on and is present day attracted to. He could have easily been superficial and macho and laughed at the jokes as expected. He didn’t let Richie get away with calling Syd sweetheart. Richie says he’s “woke”. He employs a woman in a leadership role. He’s built different. 

He is struggling in many ways that are hidden and he also lashes out. The hidden ways and the lashing out are interpreted as whiny and annoying by people that can’t relate. He’s been cited as not growing but people can’t acknowledge that his healing won’t be linear. But how can it be when his trauma was collected in overlapping seasons for most of his life? The pain didn’t develop in a linear path. He had a stutter when he was young. There are hints that there is a learning issue of some sort (I’m not going to try and diagnose). He was always the “different” one in the family. The other guys call him “weird”. His father was absent. His mom has mental health issues and is an alcoholic. He witnessed the traumatic incident at Christmas and I’m sure it wasn’t the only such incident. His brother was an addict that pushed him away, then killed himself. He went into a chaotic, highly demanding field that required him to isolate to excel. He is shy and has trouble forming close bonds. He had a mentally abusive boss. He was always super competitive. He comes back to own The Beef and it’s problem after problem. How are people expecting him to be “fun” and have an easy comeback like Richie? 

Richie has issues, too. Stagnant in mid-life, spent years devoted to an addict, failed marriage, feeling disillusioned and displaced, also an absent father. But when we meet Richie he’s not as wounded as Carmy. Carmy is literally sleep cooking, almost starting fires, dissociating, having panic attacks. Richie is sad but it mostly manifests as him being kind of nasty and grumpy. He’s like a sour old man with dated and offensive jokes. His behavior is dismissed because he’s grieving. Which yes, he deserves a pass. But why does he deserve a bigger pass than Carmy who is dealing with so much more or Sydney who seemed to bear the biggest brunt of his outrage and was also struggling? Carmy is literally on the verge of a breakdown and has the weight of trying to keep the staff, the business, and himself afloat. Despite all this Richie gets a lot of indulgences for his bad behavior that Carmy isn’t. 

Richie is easier for a lot of people to digest because he’s funny, he’s the working class representative, he’s tall (yes people have height bias, especially with men). Carmy is viewed as the pompous prodigal son that’s trying to ruin Richie’s delicate ecosystem by gentrifying and kicking out “the working man”. There are people posting in disgust that he dare change The Beef despite it being a hell hole money pit. 

It’s just so interesting that in reality we are dealing with an unprecedented numbers of men who report extreme loneliness, depression, hopelessness. Richie and Carmy both fit that profile. Yet, a man like Richie is broadly understood and accepted and a man like Carmy isn’t. It goes back IMO to the continual coding of masculine/good vs feminine/bad. Richie is the stereotypical red blooded American male. He wants the stripper’s panties. He has a gun. He needs to be alpha. He views anything outside the norm as a threat. He wants to preserve tradition at all costs. Carmy is his foil. Carmy is viewed as feminine. 

I see it even on Tumblr with the persistent identification of Carmy as somehow feminine. Like he can’t be soft and traumatized and just be a man. So what does that say when even people who would probably consider themselves progressive still classify a man in feminine terms if he isn’t a MAN? We accept all types of gender identities but still struggle with a man not fitting the correct paradigm. Society still has issues accepting that men can be vulnerable and struggling without being feminized. People also make assumptions about Carmy’s gender identity and sexuality based on his trauma. Like, of course he has to be XYZ because well, look at him, he’s sad an pathetic. What does that say about men’s sexuality and identity? Are only queer men accepted as sad? Carmy could be a queer character, cool, representation matters. But I just find the semi-automatic equation of queerness with an atypical male to be odd and a bit regressive. 

Edited to add on above: I hope what I’m saying doesn’t get interpreted as dismissing queer people who identify with Carmy. I get it, I support it. What I’m speaking to is the insistence that canon Carmy is queer because of his interests, aesthetic, and mental health as if that is the only identity option. Granted, he could be bi. I also think some people are insistent on this, just as they are on Syd not being into men, as a way to negate the possibility of them being romantic. Again, I’m saying some people. Also, proximity and shared struggle doesn’t equal identity. This makes me think of once when a white gay male bestie claimed we are the same because I’m a black women. I had to kindly correct. We share the same haters, we are both marginalized, but he will never know my experience just like I will never know his. We can bond on the commonalities but we aren’t exactly the same. IMO, it would be a disservice to both of us to claim different.

I’m really rambling, but just thought I would share my thoughts and open a conversation about this. 

#the bear fx #carmy berzatto #richie jerimovich #men in cinema #men in tv #masculinity #male identity

[m3nt4llyr4v3d]

Gabriel vs Chloe/Lila

I used to frequent the Miraculous subreddit (biggest mistake of my life) to see others opinions on Seasons 4 and 5. One question I would see pop up usually is as follows:

Why do people think Chloe/Lila is worse than Gabriel?

The common answer I’ve seen is that bullying and isolation are issues that the audience can relate to, something that’s more down to earth and closer to a viewer’s potential issues. Gabriel, meanwhile, is a supervillain who makes other ridiculously costumed supervillains when they feel bad, his situation was farther out, less relatable, so hammed up at times (cartoon and all) that people would take it less seriously.

And honestly? I completely understood this answer: many viewers’ overwhelming hatred of Chloe and Lila, from what I’ve seen, stemmed from personal relation to their victims, and their own experiences with bullies. It’s completely understandable why people would feel this way.

But then I thought about it for a second, and while I still understand that reasoning, I don’t understand it in any other context.

I mean, I’ve seen people on there genuinely say that Gabriel had more redeeming qualities than them, which confuses me. Lila I kind of understand, I mean we know literally nothing about this character, and the fandom reason of “she lies for attention because her mother is barely home”, which would give her sympathy, was a little… muddled, when it’s revealed she has 3 moms that she’s somehow lying to about being their daughter (what on earth) and has multiple identities. But Chloe? Season 2-3 was showing that she did have redeeming qualities, that she cared about people (few but regardless), she was even able to suck up her own pride when being a hero! Gabriel… He’s an odd case in which the story goes back and forth on whether he’s an awful irredeemable monster, or flawed but sympathetic dad trying his best, while also flip flopping on when exactly they want you to believe as much. Right now? He’s horrible, but the narrative want you to believe he’s just “trying his best” and thinks that he somehow has the room to ask Marinette to “tell Adrien to remember all the times I was a good father” (Marinette should’ve spat on his statue ngl)

Also, Gabriel is a neglectful, dare I say abusive father! Literally mind controls his son and is trying to control him to have the “destiny” that HE wants, not caring about his son at all. He literally pretends to bond with him at one point in Season 5 just so he could give him an alliance ring and walk off smirking, planning on akumatizing him (never brought up again btw). Like, I get that Hawkmoth is more of a hammy cartoon villain, and a lot of those aspect spill into Gabriel (I mean he had a silly stupid number near the beginning of season 5 that I hate to love). But the Gabriel half is genuinely horrible, and those aspects spill into Hawkmoth. Akumatizing, physically abusing your son, and ruining his relationship to akumatize his girlfriend in Chat Blanc, emotionally manipulating him with his dead mother in both Chat Blanc and Ephemeral, literally any time he causes an akuma on purpose by ruining the life of someone he used to be close with or personally knows (the comedian, Andre, anyone working under him), emotionally manipulating his son AGAIN just so he could plan to akumatize him later, locking him up in a white room and emotionally depriving him of everything, literally everything he does in season 5 actually. I understand that some of his more atrocious actions are supervillain things, and that could be more difficult to relate to real life problems. But come on, “neglectful, abusive, controlling parent” is absolutely a real life issue that people have, and it’s a bit strange I haven’t seen that brought up more often

I’m not saying that Chloe and Lila are saints by any means at all! But I am just saying that’s it’s kind of funny that people will say, with their whole chest, that vindictive bullying is actually worse than terrorism and abusing your child, and the idea that the narrative could agree with this scares me

#ml salt #ml writing critical #ml writing salt #ml fandom salt #not much though it’s just crazy to me #gabriel salt #ml chloe #ml lila

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Determination

Fun fact: Last week, I saw this post on a RWBY subreddit discussing the recent love confession between Blake and Yang after ten years of speculation. I made a little joke referencing that Marinette and Adrien still haven't officially gotten together yet after almost seven and a half years of this show being on the air. A few people were surprised that the two still haven't officially gotten together yet, and that the show was still on on the first place. Just wanted to throw that out there to let you know that the uninitiated have no idea of how much this show is willing to drag out the Love Square.

Let's get into the fifth (chronologically the sixth) episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fifth season: Determination

We start off with Marinette dropping Kagami off at her fencing class where Adrien waves to her with a smile. The next scene has Adrien looking happily at a watercolor painting Kagami made of Marinette.

Okay, so not only is this show still trying to make “She's just a friend” into a thing, it's also trying to make Adrien caring more for Marinette now than he ever did Kagami a good thing. Surely, this means he'll be a great romantic partner, right? Kagami pretty much tells Adrien to grow a pair and call Marinette already, and because the writers have no other idea what comedy is, she fumbles with the phone and struggles to hide her feelings for him that she obviously still has. The two agree to meet at Musée Grévin, the same wax statue museum from last episode.

To give the writers credit, rather than just having him change lanes for no reason, Adrien himself is confused about his new feelings for Marinette, so he tries to why he feels his perception of Marinette has changed.

Yep, this is the explanation the show is going with. Rather than have Adrien's feelings for Marinette start when the two actually had a close moment together like when they played video games (Gamer), during their impromptu movie date (Gorizilla), when Marinette outright kissed him on the cheek (Heroes' Day), or even when he supposedly realized Marinette had helped him out a lot (Multiplication), the show is deciding the moment where Adrien officially developed feelings for Marinette was the statue scene from “The Puppeteer 2”, where she tried to kiss him without his consent.

If you've been following me for a while, you remember when I made a list of what I considered to be the ten worst episodes in the show, and “The Puppeteer 2” just barely missed the top 5 at #6. It's still not a good episode, and I hate that the writers decided to make that one plot relevant. I don't care if Marinette didn't know that she wasn't kissing a wax statue, or if Adrien was just trying to play a prank on Marinette, how can you take a moment like this:

And say “This was moment where Marinette violated Adrien's personal space was what caused him to develop feelings for her” with a straight face? You had multiple choices for which moment would spark Adrien officially falling for Marinette after all these years, and you chose this one? THIS ONE? SERIOUSLY!?

Also, if this was the moment where Adrien fell for Marinette, why the hell did it take an entire season for him to officially realize it? Why did he even pursue Ladybug or Kagami romantically if he supposedly had feelings for Marinette before the events of “Heart Hunter” and “Glaciator 2”? I can't believe I'm saying this, but go back to when Adrien developed feelings for Marinette in “Multiplication” after realizing all the times she “helped him”, even if that statement isn't accurate.

On the Liberty (that was where Marinette was when Adrien called), Marinette tells Luka about the mistake she made because of Adrien, and how she isn't even sure if she loves him anymore, but Luka believes some one-on-one time with Adrien will give her the chance she needs to process her feelings. Marinette then says that she's worried all her fantasies of being with Adrien have made it hard to realize if she even knows him, but Luka pretty much tells her to take a chance. Either way, Marinette asks Luka to come along with her to the museum. Because why have an episode where Marinette doubts her feelings for Adrien when you can just have everyone else she knows hold her hand and keep telling her to never give up like in every other episode with this plot, rather than seeing how Marinette and Adrien interact on their own?

Marinette and Luka go to the museum to meet up with Adrien, only to see she's with Kagami. Of course, this leads to a hilarious (citation needed) misunderstanding.

So yeah, now Marinette believes Adrien got back together with Kagami, and Adrien believes Marinette got back together with Luka. I'm pretty sure Toshiki Inoue is taking notes on how to write pointless misunderstandings from this show. The four go in and meet Veronique, the manager of the museum and obvious Akuma victim of the episode. Once they get to the statue of Adrien, the real Adrien decides to remind Marinette and the audience of what happened with a happy look on his face. Okay, I don't want to put any of the writers in bad faith, but what kind of relationships do they have if they think that somehow counts as a romantic moment?

While Marinette stutters around Adrien like any day that ends in a “Y”, Luka and Kagami decide to have the two sit down and talk about their feelings and come to some sort of understanding... at least, that's what I wish they would do. Instead they decide to, say it with me now, try to find ways to force the two to admit their feelings for each other. In this case, Luka pretends to be Marinette's boyfriend to make Adrien jealous, when he and Kagami should know he's terrible at standing up for himself.

We then cut to Mayor Bourgeois demanding that Veronique take down the statues of the heroes because somehow, that would cause people to remember Ladybug losing all the Miraculous and the other temp heroes never appearing again. The impact of the events of the last season is a decent idea to talk about, but it falls flat because A) The temp heroes never had as big of a presence in the media as Ladybug and Cat Noir did, and B) It's later revealed that he's only doing it because Chloe told him to, so his words lose a lot of their weight. Sure, the writers try to throw in some message about hope, but it's not as fleshed out as something like Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds or Kamen Rider Wizard. Veronique tries to stand up to the Mayor, but then he threatens to close the museum down for “hygiene problems”.

Bold words coming from a show that's more dependent on the status quo than Nick Nolte is on alcohol.

After some more pointless meandering around with Marinette and Adrien, Luka and Kagami decide to be even more forceful and lock them in the room with the hero statues together.

Wow, even Luka and Kagami want out of this episode. I can totally relate.

Meanwhile, Monarch senses Veronique's negative emotions and uses Voyage to send an Akuma towards her stack of pamphlets. While Veronique resists at first, she eventually gives in and becomes Manipula under the belief that once Ladybug and Cat Noir give up their Miraculous, Monarch will give up.

Manipula's design is honestly pretty dull. The outfit isn't that special, and while I get the wax motif, it just looks like she's covered in mustard. Even her powers are just the same ones as The Puppeteer had in the exact same episode this one is mentioning, to bring wax statues to life. The only difference is now she has the Ox Miraculous' power of Determination, making her immune to magical powers, but once again, it's never explained why Monarch can't just give her that power without the Ox Miraculous.

We almost get an interesting moment with Marinette and Adrien, but it's ruined by Manipula, who uses her pamphlets to bring the statues of the wax heroes to life. It's totally not an excuse for the animators to reuse all the temp hero models they were forced to shelve after Season 4 ended. Not at all. Marinette and Adrien split up and transform into Ladybug and Cat Noir respectively. The two heroes try to reason with Manipula, but Monarch easily coerces her into attacking them. After Ladybug easily disposes of the Rena Rouge and Vesperia statues, it's revealed all the statues Manipula assembles were illusions to trick Ladybug and Cat Noir with, with each pamphlet giving them life containing a fraction of the Akuma.

Meanwhile, Manipula sends some of her statues to find Ladybug and Cat Noir while she threatens to destroy city hall if Mayor Bourgeois doesn't give in. Of course, even though the idea of Ladybug and Cat Noir going up against clones of their former allies with superpowers sounds awesome, a majority of them are taken down in a matter of seconds. Ladybug and Cat Noir then take on their statue doppelgangers, and easily take them down. Well, Cat Noir does, but Ladybug...

Oh, for God's sake. Really? We're really repeating Cat Noir's screwup from “Ladybug”? It doesn't even make sense, as Ladybug clearly sees the real Cat Noir telling her that's a fake, where as you could at least argue Cat Noir was confused as to who the real one was and made the wrong choice in “Ladybug”. Why is she even hesitating when she's already taken out several statues that resemble her friends? I'll tell you why.

Yeah, I didn't mention this, but earlier, there were moments where Ladybug was softer than usual around Cat Noir, and this is pretty much why. Even though she never showed any feelings for him (at most, they were implied to be second to Adrien and Luka), now she's randomly falling for him, and we don't even get any flashback showing her struggling with these feelings. She just... loves Cat Noir now because he saved her from an evil doppelganger. I’m not mad that Ladybug did something this stupid, or that Cat Noir even saved her in the first place, it’s the reason for why this happened that gets to me.

I'm not saying it's unreasonable for Ladybug to gradually develop feelings for Cat Noir, as unlike Adrien and Marinette, the two spend a lot of time together, but the problem here is that nothing has really changed in their dynamic other than the loss of the temp heroes. What exactly makes this rescue any different from all of the other times Cat Noir saved Ladybug in the past? As much as I hated the final scene of “Strikeback”, it would have made sense show a flashback of that scene where Cat Noir comforts Ladybug, as there, you would have at least had some kind of an explanation for why she suddenly has feelings for him now, or why this rescue changed her perception of him.

Ladybug summons her Lucky Charm, a bowling ball, and breaks into the Mayor's office with it, where we learn that Chloe gave her the dad the idea, and Chloe chews out Ladybug for losing the Miraculous, but because this show refuses to let any of its antagonists actually make a decent point against the heroes, it's undermined by the same old “Queen Bee is better joke”. It's ironic how the whole point of this running gag is that Chloe refuses to learn from her mistakes and move on, yet the writers themselves refuse to let it die after all these years.

Ladybug draws a blank in her mind when thinking of how to use her Lucky Charm, so Cat Noir tries to use his Cataclysm to destroy Manipula's pamphlets, but Manipula uses Resistance to stop the Cataclysm entirely. Manipula seemingly gets the upper hand, but after some words of inspiration from Cat Noir, Ladybug figures out how to use the bowling ball, rolling it over to cause a chain of events that cause a chandelier to crash on her. So even though she's immune to superpowers, blunt force is how she's beaten. Makes sense.

Ladybug de-evilizes the Akuma, uses Miraculous Ladybug to heal the damage, hands out another useless Magical Charm, vows to stop Monarch and get the Miraculous back, and Mayor Bourgeois agrees to not close down the museum, because like a majority of politicians, he's only driven by whatever opinion is the most popular at the moment.

Ladybug and Cat Noir meet up where Ladybug confesses her new feelings to her partner, but of course...

And so the episode ends with Marinette tearfully realizing she's in love with Cat Noir, who in turn, loves Marinette.

Now a lot of you are probably wondering what my feelings on this are. You're probably expecting a lot of anger at something so contrived and only thrown in to pad out the runtime because God forbid a show about romance actually write its main pairing as a couple instead of a pointless game of telephone. What do I think about this?

Yeah, this is already an overused cliche in TV shows with romantic subplots, and frankly, I'm just impressed it took the writers until Season 5 to whip it out. It's dumb, but it's more or less a problem that TV shows have in general, so I can't get too mad at this show for doing it. If anything, I'm mad at the show to resorting to this just to pad out an already padded out subplot.

Anyway, this episode was pretty bad. The scenes with Marinette and Adrien were tedious and far from funny, the Akuma was lame, the message about hope was underdeveloped, and Chloe had no reason to be the one to call out Ladybug for losing the Miraculous when the show never gets the chance to actually let her be right, much less let her words impact Ladybug for more than a few seconds. Even the romance was poorly written. The reasons both Marinette and Adrien had to develop feelings for each other made no sense at all, and didn't even follow up on what “Strikeback” and “Multiplication” were setting up.

And again, I'm pretty sure the Love Square swap was only done because after almost seven and a half years, the writers are still afraid to bite the bullet and have Marinette and Adrien start a relationship because all TV writers know how to write is characters pining for each other instead of actual relationship dynamics. It's pretty funny how the Akuma of this episode was called Manipula, because it seems like the writers love trying to emotionally manipulate the audience into staying invested even after four seasons.

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE EPISODE IS... LUKA

This was the first episode where I really struggled to pick someone for the award, as there were a lot of candidates this time around. It was either him or Kagami for going along with the plan instead of just telling Adrien Marinette likes her back, but I chose Luka because he has more context, yet still makes the same decisions Marinette's friends have made in the past. He tries to put Marinette in a high-stress situation when he should know she doesn't do well with stress and tries to put Adrien in a situation to encourage him to stand up to him when he should know he doesn't do well with standing up for what he wants. The context that he knows who Marinette and Adrien are makes it even worse, as he doesn't try to find a way to help Marinette relax around Adrien like he sees Ladybug casually bantering around with Cat Noir. It's the equivalent to throwing someone in the deep end of a pool and hoping they learn to swim, only to be surprised when the start to drown. And of course, this only confirms my suspicions that the only reason he got to learn who Marinette and Adrien are was just so he could become yet another Adrienette shipper, just one with a different reason to do, because tHeY'rE mAdE fOr EaCh OtHeR.

#immaturity of thomas astruc #iota #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug salt #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #adrien agreste #cat noir #chat noir #gabriel agreste #hawkmoth #hawk moth #monarch #monarch miraculous #veronique miraculous #manipula #luka couffaine #kagami tsurugi #andre bourgeois #chloe bourgeois

[cinderswife]

currently rotating rose red around in my brain so here's some outfits i designed for her (this is pre-meeting cinders btw)! bonus design notes under the cut :3

nude

i knew immediately that i wanted rose to be short and built like a brick shithouse. she is dense and compact and impossible to knock over. also, she gets to be a bear girl because everyone in my ouatis au is an animal eared person. its a fun concept i saw trawling the tumblr tag and i have decided it is very canon.

absolutely covered in freckles

yes those are top surgery scars. very recent in fact! its a cross between unrealized gender things and the pain of breasts that are just. too big. always.

her tail is usually too small to be seen from this angle but i wanted to show off her tiny red puff

most of her scars are from military combat with the exception of the top surgery scars and the one on her left hand which came from when she punched a window at the age of 15 defending snow from one of their dads getting super duper upset b/c snow was starting to date

she is 4'10" and so proud of it. will kick your ass if you're a dick about it

pajamas

nothing much to say here, she just. doesn't care all that much. tank top and sweat pants are the perfect combo of temperatures for her.

also she wears heart patterned boxers and we love her for that

military work uniform

do you know how hard it is to design a military uniform when you don't usually give a shit about the military. i spend so many hours going down worldbuilding subreddits and forums before i figured out something i was happy with. anyways! this is a non-combative officer's work uniform (aka the uniform rose wore when she was commander of the prison cinders was in). i picked red because it's the color most strongly associated with cole's army, but i figure that soldiers in combat would have better camouflage built into their uniforms.

the patch on her left shoulder (the one with the deer) is the symbol for colonel. it's also mirrored on a smaller scale on her breast. cole's army uses animals to mark higher ranks

the other shoulder patch marks her current assignment

i liked white as an accent color because of its prevalence in the album. also it looks nice!

the sleeve stripes and the chevrons both indicate that she is a very important officer

the other patches on her breast are the simplified coat of arms for her noble house (the house of grimm) and all of the medals she has earned in her 11 years of service

military dress uniform

the fancy version of her uniform for Events and Public Appearances. it's a bit darker in tone for the sake of visual interest and has a lot more accessories. this one was a nightmare to color i stg but i'm super happy with the way it turned out.

you get to see all her medals! she has complicated feelings on them but they are shiny and look very nice so.

the stripes, chevrons, and deer are all the same as the work uniform for some easy visual shorthand of her rank

the only time rose will ever wear a tie or any other neck decoration because it's regulation.

i liked the way a black undershirt looked over a white one, no other reason lol

the bear medal is because the bear is a symbol of her noble family. most people have a cougar of some sort instead.

the sword and the lion are both special awards granted specifically by cole. the lion in particular came from her first deployment where she accidentally changed the tides on the invasion of the perrault (cinders' planet) and became a war hero/propaganda piece at 19

the boots have buckles. they are never quite tight enough and its annoying.

casual dress

off duty, rose wears crisp, well tailored masc outfits. she knows how to dress herself to look effortlessly important due to being raised noble but she doesn't think too hard about it.

she wears shorts instead of full pants whenever she can get away with it. snow hates this.

no she is not buttoning up all the way. why would you make her put this much effort into it. she's hotter with it undone

fun fact: i initially made her vest and shorts green but i decided that blue looked nicer

fancy dress

i've elected to go with a 1700s inspired look for the nobility. it's very fairytale-esque and also allows me to have fun with it! i wanted to do more embroidery, but i wound up not having the patience for such a thing. ah well, what i've got looks nice enough.

rose usually wears cool colors in her formal outfits. this purple is a particular favorite of hers because it goes really nicely with her hair and ears without being obnoxious

once again, rose out here avoiding any sort of neck accessory or hat. accessories that annoy her for $10,000

the lilac undershirt is not connected to the off-white trousers it's two separate pieces.

the gold accents cut a very striking figure and also look very pretty <3

the boots are supposed to be longer and pointier but idk how well i pulled that off aha

she's very handsome and i love her

#the mechanisms #ouatis #once upon a time (in space) #rose red ouatis #planet's doodles #im really proud of this btw outfit design is not a strong point of mine but i think i really pulled it together for rose #please love and appreciate my blorbo #verse: dog star in ursa major

[moonieratty]

Due to mlbs nature as a kid show, it doesnt really explore the things that wouldve happened if this was happening irl. Like? Imagine the reaction to a magical butterfly terrorist? Turning people into unwilling supervillains via mind control magic?? Two random ass magical teens who are trying to fight the terrorist and the minions in question ?? Imagine the publics reaction, the panic, the conspiracy people, the public protests and much much more. So much chaos. We are talking complete shift in beliefs, magic being confirmed real, people traveling to confirm with their own eyes (literal magic tourism being capitalised on) the crowd that believes this is all fabricated, a whole group of people who now believes this is the end of the world,,, ALSO all the other heroes that appear out of nowhere?? Somewhere out there on the internet someone is CONVINCED this must be wide scale marketing for all those superhero movies. Everyone is reconsidering myths and legends.

And on top of all that. People would literally try to stalk chat noir and ladybug REGULARLY. There would be anon groups dedicated to uncovering their identities. And imagine all the false leads, all the "billionaires did this" conspiracies. People making tiktoks about how some tech company built these heroes and villains via AI or sth to profit out of it somehow.... subreddits dedicated to every clue there is for their identities, fake backstories, allegations.

Also after sentimonsters are introduced, there would be a wide spread conspiracy about how all rich people magically built their kids and how theres a huge rich people cult going on. You know the ones like that on tiktok, with the god awful "proof" images and spooky music. A bunch of people constantly comments on people like Adrien and Chloe's curated social media posts with "fake" and "made up". Theres constant international media coverage about things happening in France. There would be senti activists (felix) , people that clown on senti activists, people that make video essays on everything, people that think Alya is FBI spy or sth. The possibilities are endless. People would've reacted insane to everything the ENTIRE time tho.

#miraculous lb #miraculous ladybug

[lingerasthesmokeoncedid]

pairing: pattinson!batman x reader

summary: When her thread on r/GothamUnsolved (claiming that Bruce Wayne is the Batman) goes viral, an amateur sleuth finds herself at odds with both the man - and the Dark Knight.

wc: 10k+

genre: a romantic comedy between two deeply strange weirdos

warnings: canon-typical violence, bruce wayne is bad at google

“After the events of the Gotham Flood, the Batman has become something of a folk hero around the streets of our “fair” city. But what if I told you that the Batman isn’t all he seems? What if I told you that the caped crusader, the man who solved the Riddler and the masked menace of Gotham’s evil-doers isn’t just some guy? What if I told you…he’s Bruce Wayne?” -Excerpt from “Bruce Wayne is The Batman (NOT CLICKBAIT),” a forty-six part reddit thread by TheRealGothamGirl

Three years ago, after devouring a True Crime podcast about the Wayne murders, a nobody barista found her way to the r/GothamUnsolved subreddit.

It wasn't much of a hobby, just a forum dedicated to amateur sleuths attempting to piece together the perpetrators of crimes the Gotham PD was unable – or unwilling – to solve themselves. Ever since, in the hours between the dead-end job she worked to one day (hopefully) put herself through law school, she poured over the subreddit and its various threads, picking apart evidence and seeking it out herself.

Six of her own investigations had led to arrests, she was proud to say. Not that anyone knew who she was. The forum was entirely anonymous, and she wanted to keep it that way. The last thing she needed was some of Gotham’s criminal element coming after her for exposing their identities or that of their accomplices – if they did, she figured they’d definitely kill her, and considering that the Gotham PD solved fewer homicides than her favorite subreddit, her killer would likely never be found. 

But every amateur sleuth like her had a white whale – that one unsolved mystery that would haunt them for the rest of her days. In her case, however, the while whale was more of a dark knight. A Kevlar bat. 

She wasn’t the first to drive themselves basically crazy over the identity of The Batman. Many on the forum had tried, only to run into dead ends or talk themselves in circles or point the finger at plainly ridiculous candidates. ( Harvey Dent? Really? ) However, she was - she believed, anyway - the first person to get it right. 

So, after months of meticulous research, a few illegal dumpster dives outside of Wayne Enterprises, a few less-than-accidental run-ins with muggers so she could lure the Batman for closer inspection, and some incredible luck, she published her findings: a forty-six part reddit thread detailing most of her evidence, enough evidence that a jury of Bruce Wayne’s peers would have no choice to convict him, enough evidence to prove that the crown prince of Gotham was really its caped crusader, enough evidence to prove to anyone with half a brain that Bruce Wayne was unbelievably, irrevocably, incontrovertibly –

“Not the Batman. No. Definitely not.” 

All day, behind the counter of the shitty print shop where she scanned other people’s theses and endlessly shuffled corporate reports into bracketed binders, she’d had to listen and smile and push highlights while customer after customer snickered at the ridiculous theory that had gone viral last night – the “insane” “conspiracy theory” that Bruce Wayne was The Batman. Each of them totally unaware that they were talking to the woman who’d spent months of her life crafting it.  

All of that, she could have taken. But when the crackling television on the wall played a newscast with brooding Bruce Wayne snickering at the idea – staring into the camera as he said it, as if he were taunting her, specifically…that was the last straw. 

“I don’t know, Mr. Wayne, this online poster seems to have really gotten people talking. Are you sure you’re not The Batman?”

“Miss Vale, how crazy would I have to be to run around Gotham City dressed as a bat?”

Vicki Vale, GCN's resident Bruce Wayne stalker, accepted this with a giggle, allowing Bruce Wayne to disappear into his city offices so she might sum up her ambush interview for the folks at home. But the woman behind the desk at the print shop bit the inside of her cheek. 

What Bruce Wayne had just said? It wasn’t a denial. And she did think he was crazy enough to run around the city as a bat. 

In fact, she knew he was. 

Pinned Comment from Mod_GothamUnsolved: “Hey, Front Page! Due to an increase in inflammatory comments and threats against OP for this post, we are locking down our comments - approved users only for now. Sorry! Don’t be dicks next time! Keep an eye on our subreddit for more Bats-related content, though. OP claims to have more information forthcoming.”

That night when her shift was over, she tucked her keys between her knuckles, carried her umbrella in her free hand, and returned by the better-lit streets – basic operating procedure for anyone who wanted to live to see another day in Gotham – to the crappy loft in the crappier side of town where she lived. Every step was agitated agony. She knew it wasn’t literally true, but it felt as if everyone who laughed, everyone who smiled, everyone who glanced down at their phone, was making fun of her theory. 

But it wasn’t a theory. Bruce Wayne was Batman. He was. She just had to prove it–

When she slammed the door of apartment 1319B open, her blood ran cold. 

Oh, she was going to prove it alright. 

Because there, rifling through one of her cabinets as if it were his own home, was the short, gruff, stocky, suited man she’d seen in more than a dozen photographs of Bruce Wayne and his associates. 

“Oh. Mr. Pennyworth. Fancy seeing you here…” She closed the door behind her, rolling her eyes around the room to highlight just how supremely fucked up it was for him to be here. “...in my apartment.” 

For his part, Mr. Pennyworth did not seem fazed by the strangeness of his presence there.

“Hello there,” he hummed, perfectly pleasant as he finally closed a cupboard and crossed to face her in the corner of the room that served as what could generously be called kitchenette.  “I’m afraid we haven’t been formally introduced.” 

“No,” she said, “but I bet you already know who I am. Don’t you?”

No denial. Instead, he slid a file across the grotty, coffee-stained countertop that served as her cook surface, her mail table, her desk, and her dining room. With one hesitant hand, she flicked it open to find exactly what she’d expected: pages and pages of print outs. Not just of her online post history, but of everything else.  She couldn’t help but smile. No, beam . This was confirmation. She had found The Batman. And The Batman had sent his little minion to take her off of their trail. Only a truly threatened man would uncover the identity behind her online handle, break into her home, and present her with what looked like a blackmail folder. It basically screamed, “I’m guilty. I'm the Batman.” 

“You’ve caused a bit of trouble for my boss,” Mr. Pennyworth informed her. 

“And he’s caused a lot of trouble for the city.” 

The man sniffed. “Unless you call causing a shortage of black clothing and Radiohead records trouble , we’ll have to agree to disagree on that point, Miss.” 

Her lip twitched. The butler had jokes. That delighted her in a way she hadn’t expected. Still, she played dumb. “I can’t imagine what Bruce Wayne’s personal fixer would want with little old me.” 

“This is all very embarrassing for Mr. Wayne, as I’m sure you can understand. Being associated with some kook–”

“Isn’t it more embarrassing to actually be that kook?” She mused. “Maybe if he didn’t want to be associated, he would, you know, stop being Batman?”

The slightest flash of annoyance crossed Mr. Pennyworth’s face. “–But he understands that you have a keen investigative mind and admires your tenacity. Even if it’s turned up the wrong result. He thinks he can help with that.”

And here it was. The only logical conclusion of Bruce Wayne discovering her identity. He was going to bribe her. Well, he could have her killed, but that would be so sloppy. These rich guys. Always the same. “Oh, yeah?”

“The Wayne Foundation would like to make a donation to your education,” Mr. Pennyworth said, passing another envelope across the desk, this time, sealed and check-sized. “A fully funded scholarship to Gotham University’s law program. You could train your mind. Put that tenacity to good use. Make the world a better place.”

“And stop pursuing this Bruce Wayne as Batman thing all together, I guess?”

“Well, I imagine you won’t have time,” he said, the implication clear. Her silence in exchange for this money, for her future. “What with all of that coursework you’ll be doing.” 

She picked up the check, toying with its weight in her hand. How strange that something so small could have such power to change her life. A deep breath, then: “I appreciate this. I hope you tell Mr. Wayne that.” 

“I will–”

With three easy gestures, she ripped the check into pieces and resigned them to the nearby trash can. “And you can also tell him that the next time he wants to intimidate me, he should put on his little costume and do it himself.” 

UPDATED TO ADD: Today, I had a visit from Alfred Pennyworth, Mr. Bruce Wayne’s personal fixer (mentioned in sections 1, 2, 4, 7-45 of my investigation). He very politely invited me to cease my investigation into Bruce Wayne. And told me that if I did, the Wayne Foundation would happily pay for me to finally go to law school, something I’ve wanted to do but never have been able to afford. For anyone who still doubts my theory, I think Mr. Pennyworth pretty much proved it. Why would Bruce Wayne need to buy me off if what I said wasn’t true?  Don’t believe me? See the security camera stills below - taken inside of my apartment. That’s Alfred Pennyworth, going through my cabinets. Thanks for stopping by, Mr. Pennyworth, but I’m here for the truth. Bruce Wayne’s money may be able to buy a lot of things in this town, but it’s not going to buy my silence."- Excerpt from “Bruce Wayne is The Batman (NOT CLICKBAIT),” a forty-seven part reddit thread by TheRealGothamGirl

Every Tuesday, on her only day off, she had a little ritual. First, she went to the Gotham Public Library to sort through the public records and pick up a new smutty romance book to read before bedtime over the next week. Then, she went to the courthouse and police station to pull any reports she might have needed for her research. And finally, she would go to the deli behind the police station, order the cheapest sandwich on the menu (usually given at a discount, as she requested day-old bread instead of fresh), and sit on her favorite park bench to enjoy her paperwork, her sandwich, and - on rare days like these - the sunshine. 

However, on her walk to the bench today, a long, black coat wearing a tall, imposing man knocked her off of her path when their bodies accidentally collided. As she stumbled back from the force of him, her papers flying everywhere and her sandwich bag tumbling into the nearby grass, a brittle, soft voice reached her ears: 

“Excuse me, miss–”

Familiar. She’d heard that voice before. 

Crouched down to grab her papers, she looked up to see that the voice belonged to just the man she’d suspected – or feared. 

It was Bruce Wayne. In the flesh. Without his armor or his mask. And when their eyes met, he smiled at her. Not a big smile, not anything he might have flashed in the papers, but something softer. Almost genuine. Almost good enough to awaken a whole sea of butterflies in the pit of her stomach. 

“Oh,” he said, wincing his greeting. A little shy. A little awkward. “Hello. I'm sorry about that. Here. Can I...?” 

He crouched down to help her. For a moment, she lost her breath and every word she’d ever learned. There was nothing but him. She’d been close to him before – once. But other than that fleeting exchange, one she was sure he didn’t remember, she only knew him from photographs and archival footage. In those videos, he’d always seemed…

Well, not to be rude, but a little bit like if the sickly orphan boy in a Charles Dickens novel had been cast in a 90’s grunge band’s music video. 

In person, though, so close, he was something completely different. Sure, the basics of him were still the same, but there was an intoxicating indirectness about him – as though he didn’t understand the basics of human interaction…but something about her made him want to try. 

She shook off the feeling almost as soon as it occurred to her. 

There wasn’t anything special about her. This wasn’t a chance meeting in the park. It was another attempt to con her into dropping her Batman posts. 

“That’s cute,” she muttered, attempting to pile her papers back into some semblance of order. 

Bruce Wayne offered up stray pages as though he weren’t a billionaire crouched down in the middle of a public park. “What is?”

“This isn’t some chance meeting, Bruce Wayne . You’re pretending to run into me just a few days after your bruiser broke into my apartment.”

She glanced up to check out his reaction. A muscle in his jaw tightened and he looked anywhere but her. 

“I didn’t ask him to do that. And–” 

He stopped himself short, as though he’d caught himself almost saying something he shouldn’t have. When he handed her the last of her papers, she prodded: 

“And?”

“And he didn’t break in,” Bruce mumbled. “He said the door wasn’t locked.” 

“I notice you’re not denying the fake run-in.” 

“This isn’t fake," he protested, at last. "I don’t even know you–”

Lie. How was a man with a whole-ass double life so bad at lying?

Maybe that was why he barely made it out of Wayne Manor or his offices. Maybe he was such a bad liar that if he showed his face in public too much, the whole world would see through him. She fought to fit her folders back into her bag, her sandwich quite forgotten nearby. 

“Bruce. I discovered your super-secret identity. You’re not fooling me with this whole innocent guy act.” 

Dropping the pretense of this meeting being an accident – thank God, she was glad he didn’t see fit to insult her intelligence any longer – he leaned forward, lowering his voice as though they were sharing a confidence. “I don’t have a secret identity.” 

He’d gotten closer to her than he’d probably meant, but she could tell he wasn’t going to back down until he had his answer. So, for a moment, they shared the same air, huffing out cold puffs of powdered breath onto the frigid afternoon wind. His lips – so easily identifiable by anyone with eyes as the Batman’s lips – were pink from the cold. She dragged her gaze from them, then met his. 

“Okay, then,” she said, squaring up to him. “Prove it.” 

“Prove what, that I’m not Batman?”

“Yes. And you can do that by taking me to dinner.”

404. Batman error. 

The man blinked, apparently not expecting her to ask him that question – or, more bafflingly to her, shocked that any woman would want to go on a date with him. 

“I…” A muscle twitched between his eyes. Confusion. “I’m sorry?”

She practically sang her answer, quite pleased with herself. How wonderful to play with him this way, to tease him with a challenge she knew he would never meet…to taunt herself with a date she knew she would never get. But it was fun to pretend, just for a second. “The Batman goes out every night between eleven forty-seven and and eleven fifty-two. He doesn’t disappear until sunrise. Take me to dinner. If he’s out tonight and you’re with me, that will prove that you’re not The Batman.”

It would have been so easy for Bruce Wayne to turn on his heel and abandon her. To call a full-court press assault on her character, to degrade her as a crazy conspiracy theorist and resign her silly little theory to the pages of one of those tabloids that had gotten rich off of smearing his dead parents with horrible theories of their own. 

But he didn’t. And she wondered…

She wondered if maybe he wanted to have dinner with her.  

“Eleven forty-seven is a late dinner, don’t you think?” He asked, a cooly conspiratorial glint in his eye.  

“We’ll go to a diner.” She shrugged. “I like waffles.”

“Dinner,” he repeated, confirming. His lips tipping up again in that nearly-smile of his. “I’ll pick you up at 11:45.” 

Going for her forgotten sandwich, she rolled her eyes. It was a fun game while it lasted. But she wouldn’t be falling prey to his promises. She wasn’t a fool. “Sure you will, Batman.” 

“I’m not–”

But before he could finish that protest, she disappeared around a nearby tree, biting her bottom lip to keep from laughing. 

COMMENT FROM @ BALLCHUGGER 69: Batman is the greatest hero. I don’t care who he is. Leave him alone, whore. 

That night, she didn’t even bother to get dressed for a date. Didn’t even pretend it was a possibility. No, if anyone had come to pick her up from her shitbox apartment on the wrong side of the city, they would have found her sprawled on her couch in a pair of sweats and a sports bra, stealing internet from her next door neighbor so she could scroll reddit’s latest Bruce Wayne as Batman megathread and listen closely to a livestream of the Gotham PD scanner. 

Sure enough, about ten minutes after Bruce was supposed to meet her for dinner, crackle-voice cops informed their comrades that the Bat had just strung up three low-level mob figures up by the ankles from a lamppost. 

Ten minutes after that, a knock on the door drew her to it. But when she opened, there was only a small, weighty eggshell envelope waiting for her, taped just beneath the peep hole. When she opened it, a handwritten letter under Wayne Enterprises letterhead informed her that Bruce regretted his absence, but had been called away on an urgent matter. 

She smirked as she tossed the letter carelessly into the trash. She’d always known he wasn’t going to show up. The Batman was never going to ignore the city when it was in danger – even if it meant protecting his identity. 

She had to admit: she admired him for that. 

REPLY TO @ BALLCHUGGER69: I never said he wasn’t a hero. I think he is. In fact, I know he is. So we agree there. But as to the whore comment…if Batman is so heroic, I don’t think he would like you talking to ladies like that.

Sometime around midnight, she decided - for no particular reason - to go for a little walk down to Bowery. The Batman’s main territory. She’d seen him here more than once - and she wanted to see for herself that Bruce Wayne wasn’t at some high society dinner or in his Wayne Enterprises high-rise, but out there, on the streets. Doing what he did best - hunting. 

She stuck to the shadows, one hand on the pepper spray in her pocket and the other on the heavy handle of the umbrella she always carried for protection. But soon enough, she found him. Guiding a frightened woman to the safety of a police car, while her three assailants scrambled away. 

When Batman turned, his glazed eyes caught hers in the shadow. She smirked. He could run after the bad guys, or he could confront her. 

Again, he chose the noble thing. He ran after the criminals. 

Admirable. And fortuitous, as the mud from last night's rain left perfect copies of his boot prints behind. Boot prints that she meticulously photographed for later examination. 

@ CKent_DailyPlanetNews: After independently verifying recent revelations regarding Wayne Enterprise Employee Alfred Pennyworth and the reddit user who asserts that Bruce Wayne is Batman, I have agreed to cover this story for The Daily Planet. More developments to follow. 

For the next few days, after Clark Kent reached out to her anonymous account on Reddit and they set up a time to discuss her Batman finds, she went about her normal routine and tried not to think about Bruce Wayne or his dark knight counterpart. She did her job, raced home, and dove into the other outstanding amateur sleuthing cases that had been piling up during the whole Batman thing. 

But she should have known that once the Clark Kent news broke and the internet exploded over it, Bruce Wayne would not be far behind. 

One afternoon, in the print shop, she was five paragraphs into a really good sex scene in her book when a hand appeared on the desk in front of her, opening and closing into a loose fist - uncomfortable, not threatening. She glanced up to find Bruce Wayne standing there. As unbearably awkward in real life as he was confident and dangerous as Batman. 

She waited for him to speak first. When he finally did, it just came out: 

“...Hi.” 

“Hi,” she said in her best customer service voice. Trying to ignore how his unbroken stare made her want to melt into his stupid, sexy arms and act out one of those romance novel scenes she’d just been reading. The only thing that stopped her from doing so was the knowledge that she’d gotten him right where she wanted him. He was panicked. And panicked men always made mistakes. Mistakes that could lead to him outright confirming his real identity. “Can I help you?”

“Could I…” He swallowed, trying to strengthen his weak voice. “Can we talk?”

“As opposed to what we’re doing right now?”

“Alone, I mean.”

With a flourish, she rose from behind the printing desk and breezed past him to straighten the already-straightened display of staplers and graphic calculators. 

“If you’re here to ask me out, I’m sorry, but my schedule is all full. I don’t go on second dates with guys who stand me up, Mr. Batman.” 

“ Don’t call me that .” 

It was a growl, the closest she’d yet seen to The Batman flashing past his Bruce Wayne exterior. A thrill shot up and down her spine. Keep him talking . She didn’t want to let him go. She loved this dance that they were doing, this go away closer they played. “You saw Clark Kent’s tweet, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know why you’re doing this–”

“Of course you don’t,” she mumbled. “You never even asked.” 

“--But please. Stop. The city needs Batman–” 

Clearly, he thought speaking faster and clearer and something approaching a big businessman voice was going to spook her. But she would not be deterred. She’d thought this through a million times. “And they need Bruce Wayne, too. I agree. I just wonder why they can’t have both at the same time.” 

“What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing.” He still hadn’t asked her why she was doing this. And every time their eyes met, she waited for some flash of recognition that she now knew would never come. Even if she told him now what she meant by that little comment, he wouldn’t listen. Why waste her breath? “Nothing you’d be interested in hearing, anyway.” 

Rounding one of the shelves she stocked, he came face-to-face with her. The rack was the only barrier between them. 

“I am asking you to stop this,” he pleaded, low and gentle.  

“Or what? You’ll make me stop?”

“What do you want? What can I give you?”

Her lips tugged. Smug. “I told you, Mister Wayne. I want to go to dinner.” 

“That’s not possible.” 

“Well, then. I think we’re done here. As it happens, I have a meeting with Clark Kent later this week to talk about my findings.”

“You’ll be making a mistake.” 

“Why?”

“Because one day, if you do this, maybe you’ll need Batman, and I won’t be there.” 

That felt like a threat. It felt like a slap. He instantly recoiled, as if ashamed that he’d said it. But when he opened his mouth to no doubt apologize, she beat him to it. 

She’d caught him. The harder he tried to deny the truth, the more he kept showing his hand. “... You won’t be there? Sounds like an admission to me.”

Bruce adjusted his coat, drawing the collar up around his neck. He ignored her question and took to convincing her – which sounded more and more like he was convincing himself.  “This conversation is over. I’m not your Batman. Your ridiculous post is only going to get people hurt. No one will believe you. And you don’t have any proof, just conjecture and speculation and probably some very flimsy ‘evidence.’ Nothing can link me to The Batman. Nothing .” 

She could have laughed. She almost did. But she managed to stop it. Laughing would have given away her whole play. Adopting a fake serious tone, she nodded solemnly. “Of course. Yeah. Silly of me. You . Batman. It’s ridiculous. I’ll just go ahead and cancel my meeting with Clark Kent.” 

Something flashed in his expression. Relief? Gratitude? A tint of regret? “I…Thank you.” 

With that, he went for the door, but only made it two steps before she called him back. 

No proof, he’d said. Please. As if she would accuse the most powerful man in Gotham of being The Batman without any actual evidence. 

“Just one more thing, Bruce.” 

“Yes?”

When he turned back around, he found himself face-to-face with her phone screen, which flashed a perfect picture of Batman’s boot print, which she’d snapped during their last encounter. 

The blood rushed from Bruce’s face. She smirked. 

“What size shoe do you wear?”

COMMENT BY DENT4PREZ: Yo, GothamGirl, any more Batman updates?

REPLY BY TheRealGothamGirl: I’m working on another case right now. The world does not revolve around Batman!  

She wasn’t sure what made her hold back the boot print picture. Considering Bruce Wayne’s shoe size was a matter of public record thanks to some particularly freaky BW TikTok stans, it would have been a significant piece of evidence to add to the pile currently being combed over by dozens of amateur sleuths like herself. 

Maybe it was the slight panic she’d caught in his expression when she showed it to him. Perhaps it was the fact that if he did fully prove him without a shadow of a doubt…he’d have no reason to find her again, ending their brief flirtations. 

Maybe she didn’t want to lose him, something she knew would happen if she pushed the truth any further. 

It was selfish, she knew. To want to keep him. He belonged to the people, and so did the truth. 

But another day or two couldn’t hurt. Especially now that he seemed to hate her. 

One day, maybe you’ll need Batman and he won’t be there . 

It was those words ringing in her ears when her latest cold case investigation took her to The Narrows, one of Gotham’s worst neighborhoods. The evidence had led her here, to an abandoned warehouse where she believed someone had stashed the trophies of the murders they’d committed, so a bit of light breaking and entering was on the menu tonight. But she wasn’t worried. She’d done this a dozen times. Narrows or no, it was an abandoned warehouse. What were the odds that anyone would –

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing in there?”

She was halfway out of the window when a man staring up at her from the street caught her. Damn. She was nearly homefree. 

Adrenaline kicking into action, she threw herself out of the window, careful not to jostle the bag slung across her body – the one containing the killer’s treasures. The man was on her in a second, lunging with everything he had. All of her self-defense training flooded back to her. She dodged him at first, then knocked him back with her umbrella. The next time he approached, though, he caught her on the back foot, and before she knew it, he had her pinned against the wall. 

Something sharp pierced her side. 

She screamed. 

The edges of her world went fuzzy. 

Fuck . Had he stabbed her?

The blood loss was swift. His rancid breath on her cheek turned her stomach. But with one last flurry of energy, she emptied her pepper spray into his eyes, and he scrambled out into the darkness. Probably convinced that she wasn’t a threat to him anymore anyway. After all, he’d stabbed her . 

When he abandoned their little drama, she crumbled down the wall, pinning her hands to her wound. She had to get out of there. Had to fix herself up. But she was…so tired. Down to her bones. The kind of exhaustion that made sleeping on the ground of a dark alleyway in The Narrows with a bag full of a serial killer’s treasures seem appealing. 

Shock, she realized vaguely. This was shock. She was in shock. That’s why the wound didn’t hurt. That’s why she wanted to sleep. That’s why she didn’t notice – not at first – when a cloaked figure stalked into her line of sight. 

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” she groaned, lolling onto her side at the sight of him. 

The Batman. Of all the dark alleyways in all the world, he had to walk into hers. 

“Were you following me?” He growled, eyes darting up to the warehouse, where he instantly spotted the window she’d broken to force entry not twenty minutes ago. 

“No,” she spit, tasting blood on her teeth now. 

“Then why were you–”

“I was on another case.” She followed his line of sight as it traveled from the window down to her bag, which had sprawled open during the scuffle. With those weird shades in his mask, his expression proved unreadable, but she spotted the slightest tensing of his jaw. Ah, so she hadn’t followed him and he hadn’t followed her. They’d just both been hunting the same criminal and gotten here at the same time. “It just happened to be yours, I guess.”

It was only then that he looked at her – really looked at her, not in panic, not in rage – and noticed the red blooming behind the hands clenched at her stomach. His jaw parted this time, but he made no move to approach. 

“Leave me alone. I can–I can–You already said what you would do if you found me in trouble. And I assume you’re a man with, like, a code or whatever. It’s what I deserve. Besides,” she wheezed, indicating the police sirens that had just gone off somewhere in the vicinity. “You have bad guys to catch.” 

God , she was going to die here. She was going to die here and Batman was going to leave her to do it because he had more heroic things to do and also because she’d been threatening to expose him and also he was angry with her and–

Suddenly, he was all she could see. Kneeling at her side, arms at the ready to collect her. 

“Can I touch you?”

“I bet you say that to all the criminals,” she snarked, the blood loss finally getting to her head. 

He remained still. Stoic. He would not be touching her unless she gave her consent. Slowly, very slowly, she nodded.  “Yeah. Fine. Go ahead.” 

No sooner were the words out than he scooped her into his arms, cradling her against his chest, and walking her out of the alley. 

She tried not to think about the firm warmth of his chest or how right it felt to curl up in his arms. Tried not to think about the easy way he picked her up – as if she was nothing, rather than the generously curved woman she’d always been. 

When he lodged her in the back seat of what appeared to be what she’d pejoratively termed in her reddit post, “the Batmobile,” they were silent. He worked quickly, positioning her so he could withdraw a first aid kit and set to stitching up the wound gushing onto his smooth leather seats. She watched him with hazy vision – cataloging the precision with which he sank a needle into her ribcage and filled her with morphine, the way he cooed quietly when she hissed as he began stitching her up, the delicate care he took with picking the fabric of her clothes out of the gash in her side. 

“I could blow up your life tomorrow,” she muttered. Though whether she was speaking to the bat or the man behind the mask, she didn’t know. 

“Yeah,” he agreed. “You could.” 

“But you’re still doing this. Why?”

“You have your reasons for doing what you’re doing.” His hands were gentle. So gentle for a vigilante. She was struck by the urge to rip those gloves off and see if those hands were as gentle as Bruce Wayne’s had been when he’d first touched her. “I have mine.” 

“I hope I get to hear them someday,” she mumbled, teasing. “Maybe at dinner.” 

“Batman doesn’t do dinner,” he said, apparently still trying to engage in his little game of pretend. As if he hadn’t just as good as admitted who he was. As if this night didn’t change anything. 

The last thing she remembered, before she passed out from the drugs he’d given her, was the chuckle he rewarded her with when she replied, “Maybe not. But Bruce Wayne might.” 

SIGNAL MESSAGE FROM CLARK KENT: Are we still on for our meeting tomorrow? I’m flying down tomorrow morning. 

SIGNAL MESSAGE FROM ANONYMOUS: Flying? It’s like an hour drive. Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of environmentalist fighting Lex Luthor, Mr. Daily Planet? 

SIGNAL MESSAGE FROM CLARK KENT: Typo. Damn autocorrect. Are we on? 

SIGNAL MESSAGE FROM ANONYMOUS: Yeah. 

SIGNAL MESSAGE FROM CLARK KENT: Make sure to bring the documents you mentioned in your posts. 

The next morning, she woke up in her apartment. The wounds were the only proof that the night before had even happened. The Batman had saved her life. And according to the police blotter, he hadn’t stopped there. He’d taken her evidence and caught that killer – and on his way out of The Narrows after that, he’d apparently had enough time to stop two muggings.

As someone without health insurance who lived in the most dangerous city in the country, she was pretty used to attending Youtube medical school. Because of that, she had no trouble cleaning out Batman’s tidy stitches and keeping the bandages clean and dry. What she did have trouble with?  Not thinking about him every time she moved. When the pain made her twitch, when the scabs begged to be scratched, with every bandage change, she couldn’t help but think about those warm, gentle hands against her skin. The easy, uncomplicated way he’d saved her. Those quiet words they’d shared in the dark. 

It made her interview with Clark Kent, conducted in a small coffee shop off the beaten path, one where neither of them would be recognized, a little awkward. Every time she breathed too deeply, she was reminded of Batman – and the potential consequences of being here with a powerful journalist, her arms full of proof that would link him to Bruce Wayne. 

“Miss–”

She shook her head as Clark fumbled with the recording app on his phone. “I think it’s better if I don’t use my name. You know it. You’ve confirmed my identity. That should be enough. Anonymous sources are still a thing, aren’t they?”

He flashed a grin. Friendly. Wholesome. Thoroughly un-Bruce-like. “Certainly. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Anonymous.” 

The Muzak in the coffee shop stretched between them as he flipped through his pages of notes. For her part, she stared blankly into the distance past the nearby window. Her hand drifted to her ribcage, pressing past her coat and her shirt and the bandage straight to her slow-healing wound. 

“What do you think will happen?” She asked, vaguely. 

Clark adjusted his glasses. “What’s that?”

“When the people know, for sure, I mean, not just my speculation or whatever, that Bruce Wayne is Batman? What do you think will happen?”

“I can't see the future or anything, but I guess he'll be arrested. He’ll have to be, if there’s ever going to be any faith in Gotham’s institutions again. If my article has anything to say about it, that’s where he’ll end up. Isn’t that what you want? For the Batman to stop terrorizing the streets?”

No. No, it wasn’t what she’d wanted at all. She’d never wanted that. Clark Kent seemed like a decent enough guy, but… no . 

Leaping to her feet, she grabbed at the briefcase of Wayne-related documents. 

“You know – I forgot – I have a work thing.” 

Nearly choking, Clark gawked at her. “But I came all the way from Metropolis.” 

“I’m sorry, I just –”

“Leave the documents, at least.” 

He bolted up from his chair, grabbing for her.  

Too fast. Inhumanly fast. 

She tried to wrench out of his grasp. “No–”

“Wait–”

With a twist, she stumbled back. Clark remained unmovable, but his head tipped suddenly, knocking his glasses clean off of his face. Giving her a perfect look at him. 

It was just a split second, but a split second was all it took for an idea to plant in the mossy soil of her mind and take immovable root. Then, when his eyes focused on her bag, it already began to sprout. 

“Sorry. You’re right,” he said, straightening, as if he’d already gotten everything he needed from her in that single look. 

Which, she suspected, he had. 

@ CKent_DailyPlanetNews: Confidential sources have withdrawn from the Bruce Wayne story. However, with the help of newly uncovered documents, I will diligently follow the truth wherever it takes me. 

After Clark tweeted about her withdrawing from the story, she went home and deleted all of her threads on the Gotham Unsolved subreddit. She’d kept the evidence in a sealed locker in her house, and the digital footprint would surely live on forever, but at least she’d done something . Once she’d closed the book on Batman, she turned her attention to other matters, other cases that needed solving, other unsolved mysteries she hoped she wouldn’t screw up as royally as she had this one. 

The Batman case was the first time she’d ever regretted solving one. She needed another win, anything to remind her that she was on the good side of this city, that she was contributing to its salvation rather than its decline. 

Which is how, on a particularly snowy Tuesday afternoon, she found herself hunched over a cup of coffee (bought in place of her usual sandwich, because it was too cold to sit out here without coffee and she couldn’t afford both) and her records on her park bench when a shadow passed over her.

Not just any shadow. Bruce Wayne’s shadow. 

“Oh. Mr. Wayne. I didn’t - I didn’t think I would -” the stammering continued a minute more before she finally slammed the folder in her lap closed and tried again: “How are you?”

“This is your spot, isn’t it?” He asked, not answering her question.

No wonder. He looked like shit. The bags under his eyes had gotten darker and more bruised. His coat engulfed him. She tried to tease some life back into him – anything to stop staring at the snowflakes currently settling on his eyelashes and melting into his lips. 

“Spying on me again?” 

He shrugged, but it worked. He smiled – just barely. Like most of his smiles. “My office is just up there." He pointed to the Wayne Enterprises building towering over the northern stretch of the park. "I see you down here sometimes. Just like I saw that the Batman threads have all been taken down. And that Clark Kent lost his source. And that someone solved the Kyminsky murder.” 

This time, it was her turn to shrug.

“I just figured it out. Batman brought the guy in. I don’t deserve any credit.”

“Maybe not,” he said. “But you might deserve dinner.” 

Against her better judgment, her heart fluttered. A traitorous hummingbird trying to get free and fly straight for him. “Really?”

“Really. But at eight. Not eleven-fifty. I have a lot to show you and I can’t do it in an all-night diner.” 

Intriguing. She probably should have said no. It was undoubtedly better to keep her distance from Bruce Wayne, especially after all that had transpired between them. But he had to know she couldn’t resist a good mystery. “Where, then?”

“Wayne Manor.”

APARTMENT 1319B RECENT SEARCH HISTORY:

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What to wear if a billionaire invites you to his house?

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How to escape bricked-over amontillado cellar

What do rich people serve at dinner?

How to eat lobster without looking like a poor person

Wayne Manor was everything she’d expected. A gothic mansion set out past the edges of the city, it filled in the picture of what she believed about Bruce Wayne. It was sort of a reflection of him. Locked up, crumbling, defiantly enduring, and impossibly beautiful. 

The place was so grand that the second she stepped up on the grand marble steps, she felt underdressed. A feeling that only intensified when Mr. Pennyworth opened the door and snarked at her. 

“Welcome to Wayne Manor, Miss. I see you’ve dressed for the occasion.” 

Behind Alfred’s tuxedo-ed back, she could hear the tinkling of fine music and the pop of a champagne bottle. They’d been originally supposed to go to a diner . How was she supposed to know that Bruce wanted her to dress formally ? She flushed. “He didn’t tell me what to wear, and wouldn't you know it? All of my gowns are at the cleaner’s.”

Alfred scoffed. “You’re–”

But the arrival of his master cut him off. Bruce Wayne stepped into view, looking like an evening star wrapped up in a ten-thousand dollar suit. He still hadn’t gotten the hang of styling his hair like a normal human being, she noticed, and there were several bruises beginning to surface just beneath his collar and at the skin near his shirt cuffs, but even so –

He was so handsome. Especially when he assessed her like he did now.  

“You’re perfect,” he said simply, finishing Alfred's sentence. 

Having handed her coat to Alfred when he waved for it, she gestured down to her jeans and flannel combination. He was in a goddamn tux and she was in jeans . “I don’t feel very perfect.” 

“You are exactly who I’ve been looking for.”

That sounds like something a murderer or Batman or a guy in love would say – dear God, please be the second one. 

“I hope you’re hungry,” Alfred said. “Master Wayne doesn’t eat much, but–”

The tops of Bruce’s cheeks flushed. “– Alfred –”

“But he insisted on only the best. I’ll just be in the kitchen, preparing.”

Without another word, the man was gone. She’d done so much research into Alfred and Bruce, but none of her documents ever could have taught her this: they cared about each other. Almost like father and son.  It was cute, the way Bruce ducked his head, embarrassed, and apologized for Alfred. Domestic in a way she hadn’t expected. 

There was a lot she hadn’t expected, it turned out. The living room of Wayne Manor was well-appointed, but clearly weathered from lack of use. The floorboards creaked beneath her feet and despite the obvious attempts to spruce the place up, she couldn’t help but notice that the entire room, while it glittered from golden candle light and smelled like the fresh, home-cooking wafting from the nearby kitchen, carried with it the oppressive weight of grief. 

Suddenly, so much of Bruce made sense. He was not some playboy who masqueraded as Batman to make meaning out of his useless life. He was not doing it for the attention. He was not a man with a death wish. 

He was just…so, so sad. And so very lonely. And trying to right a wrong for the universe that had never been righted for him. Saving other people so they’d never have to know what he’d been through. 

As she leaned against a nearby window and watched him pour champagne for them both, she blinked away tears at that revelation. She’d always been on Bruce’s side. But now? Now she actually understood him. And that broke her heart a little. 

“I really am sorry about my clothes,” she said, trying to keep the emotion out of her voice. “I thought this would be, like, a casual thing, not a–”

“A date?”

A date. Even after the tuxedos and champagne, it hadn’t even occurred to her that this was a date. 

She’d thought….

Well…

She’d thought…it was, like, a detente. A cessation of hostilities. A friendly armistice. 

But a date…?

Once more, she swept the room. Champagne. Music. Lights. A home-cooked meal. Bruce doing that almost-smile thing he did whenever she was around. Color and life back in his face, something that had been sorely missing the last time she’d seen him. 

Yeah. A date. That checked out. Heat flooded her cheeks. She stared down at her shoes. 

“Yeah.”

“I understand,” he said, handing her a champagne flute. 

“You do?”

“Yeah.” He clinked their glasses together. Sardonic and self-deprecating. “I wouldn’t want to go out with the Batman either.”

Her eyes widened. This was not a mistake. This was not a slip-up. It was purposeful. He’d invited her on a date, invited her to dinner, and was telling her the one secret he’d been trying so hard to keep. Retiring her glass to a nearby table, she repeated the word, “...Batman.” 

He nodded once. At last, a confirmation. “ Batman .”

Before she could think better of it, she charged towards him, to ask him more questions, to probe him for answers – only for the aggressive action to tug at her stitches, causing her to painfully twist and stumble…

“ Shit –”

“Careful there–”

…right into his arms. 

Suddenly, the pain in her side was the furthest thing from her mind. 

Even if he hadn’t just confessed the truth to her, she would have known it was him just from this embrace. It was the same one she’d experienced in the alley that night – the one where he saved her life. It was an awkward hold. Soft in some places and stiff in others. Close but not close enough for her liking. Unpracticed. As if he hadn’t known the non-violent touch of someone in too, too long. 

It washed her in peace from the flushed crown of her head all the way down to her untied shoelaces. 

For a breathless moment, neither of them moved. But the music from the old stereo played something soft and lovely…and before they knew that they were even doing it, as if twisted in some magical spell cast by the speakers, they were swaying. 

“Do you like to dance?” Bruce asked, his breath tickling her neck. 

“No.”

“Me either,” he agreed. 

And yet…there they were. Dancing. Each of them equally unwilling to let the other one go. 

She didn’t know what that meant. Only that it felt right, being there in his touch.

What a miracle – that her life would bring her to this place, this time, this man. All because she nearly died one night six months ago - not that he knew about that yet.   

“Why did you do it?” He asked, melting into her touch. 

“Do what?”

“Try to expose me. And then stop.”

She tilted her head until their eyes met, giving him full, silent permission to survey her. When nothing sparked in him, she asked: “You really don’t remember me, do you?” 

No answer. She tucked herself back into the crook of her body, enjoying his touch while she still could. 

“I had my suspicions about you before the flood. But it seemed so impossible. Bruce Wayne, the Batman? Of course not. But then…I was in that stadium. And those things you put in your eyes when you wear that mask, the things that keep people from seeing your eyes? They shorted in the water. After all that research I’d done about you…when you pulled me out of that water, I recognized them. You have very distinctive eyes, Mr. Wayne.” 

Did he notice that he’d tightened his grip around her waist? As though he were now the one drowning and she was the only thing holding him above the swells? 

“I know you think I wanted this city to destroy you. But I don’t. I think you’re a hero.” She was digging her fingers into the soft fabric of his suit jacket now. Hopefully, he thought she was just holding onto him for support because of her injury – not for the reason that being this close to him made her knees weak and her heartbeat at a rate she considered medically unsafe. “And for awhile, I believed that if the world knew that Bruce Wayne and Batman were the same guy…you could be even more of an inspiration. Someone with everything trying to do something for those who have nothing . The man everyone knows, fighting for the forgotten. The Crown Prince of Gotham saving us peasants down below.” 

She teased him with that last bit. But he was as serious as he had been the moment before. 

“And now?” He prompted, pulling away so she could no longer hide in the crook of his neck. Under his stare, she knew she couldn’t falter. 

“Now, I just want you to keep fighting - even if you have to do it in the shadows.”

Their breath intermingled. It felt like the start of something. His attention flickered down to her lips – 

“Master Wayne.”

The sound of Alfred’s voice made her twitch. She moved to step away, but Bruce held her fast, even as Alfred raised a judgmental eyebrow at their romantic clinch. 

“Dinner is served,” he said, lingering in the doorway. 

Through it all, she realized that Bruce had never looked away from her. And he didn’t when he spoke again. 

“I’m sorry, Alfred. I think we have something else to do first.”

BRUCE WAYNE RECENT SEARCH HISTORY, SCRUBBED at 7:58 PM: 

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How to reveal secret location without seeming like a kid showing a girl your treehouse?

There wasn’t much Bruce Wayne cared to examine in himself. He knew, in vague strokes, that he was obsessive and driven by pain, and desperate for justice in any form it could take. He knew he didn’t want to be the monster that stalked the shadows anymore, but a hero who actually helped people.

And he knew that from the moment he met this strange woman in the park, something within him shifted. She was a threat to him, an existential one he should have done everything in his power to destroy. He was a billionaire, after all. It should have been easy to tie her up in legal battles for the rest of her life, to pay for bots to drown out her posts, to keep upping the ante of Alfred’s bribery until she had no choice but to accept.

Still. He didn’t. She was brilliant and infuriating and matched him turn-for-turn. Every time he thought he had her figured out, she dodged in the exact opposite direction. Whether she was relentlessly taunting him about his secret identity or flirting or asking him to dinner or sneaking pictures of his boot prints or crumbling under his hands as he healed her or giving up the story with Clark Kent or doing that scrunching thing with her nose she did when she was thinking too hard or fiddling with the handle of her umbrella she uselessly kept nearby for protection or flashing those intelligent, sharp eyes of hers…

He was fascinated. He couldn’t remember the last time something other than the underworld of Gotham had fascinated him. Maybe it was this new change in him, the one that had been brewing ever since The Flood. Maybe, as he returned slowly from Vengeance back to his humanity, maybe his heart was slowly awakening, too. Maybe all of those feelings he’d chained away for so long were resurfacing.

In any case…something shot straight through his heart when she stepped down the stairs into The Cave and her lips parted in a wondrous smile. Only, for the first time in his life, a sudden bolt to his chest didn’t hurt. It blossomed into something warm and unfamiliar. 

“What is this?” She breathed, eyes wide and uncertain. “Why have you brought me here?”

“It’s my headquarters,” he said, leading her down the rickety steps until he reached the floor of the spotlight-illuminated tunnel. He suddenly found it impossible to look at her. As if he were afraid she would suddenly pass judgment and he would be found wanting. He steeled himself for what was to come.  From the start, she’d known the truth. He knew she knew the truth. And she knew that he knew the truth. But this was a final confirmation. An admission of guilt, undeniable, that could not be retracted once made. “And I’m showing you because… Because I’m Batman.”

Miracle of miracles, she didn’t run out of the door. She didn’t scream and throw things at him. She didn’t even feign surprise. Instead, she chuckled. Bruce felt his own lips twitch. When was the last time anyone had laughed in this house? “Yeah, no shit. I already knew that. I mean why are you showing this to me?”

That was the question Alfred had asked about a half-dozen times since Bruce had decided to bring her here – a decision he’d made the moment he found out she’d scuttled Clark Kent’s Batman story. And the answer he’d given Alfred was the same answer he’d give her now.

But it wasn’t the whole answer, not really. The whole truth would have been you’re a damn good detective and I want an excuse to get close to you – to stay close to you . Instead, he edited the truth, tailoring it for this moment: 

“Because you’re a damn good detective. And I don’t think I can do this alone anymore.” He paused. “Or maybe I don’t want to.”

Her skepticism was immediate and apparent. “You want me to help you?”

A wash of insecurity snuck up on him all at once. “It would be a good job. I’d pay for law school. You’d have a generous salary. Benefits. The hours aren’t great, but–”

She spun around, and suddenly they were very close. He had her pinned between his desk and his body, but she didn’t seem to notice–not in the way he did, anyway. Her eyes shone. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I’ll take the job.”

“You will?”

“But first –” A hint of exasperation and delight mingled in her tone. “I need you to tell me why the hell you thought it was a good idea to put your paramilitary headquarters under your own damn house , Bruce.”

Oh, she was so smug. She’d finally won, hadn’t she? She’d confirmed that Bruce Wayne was, indeed, Batman, and now she got to lord it over his head.

Bruce didn’t mind. Not if she kept smiling like that. 

“I see. So, you’re not going to stop bullying me now that we’re working together?”

“Stop? Oh, no. It’s going to get worse. So much worse.”

He liked the sound of that. 

“Are you ready to start, then?”

“I am,” she said, as confident and sure as she had been from the moment he met her. Despite the blistering lights he set up all around the cave, the work lights that broke through the oppressive darkness here, she outshone them all. “And I know exactly where I want to start.”

“And where is that?” he asked. 

She smirked mischievously, and he knew in that moment that this was the beginning of something new. Something exciting. Something like a sunrise over his long, lonely, dark night. 

“...I think I know Superman’s secret identity.” 

#battinson imagine #bruce wayne #bruce wayne fanfiction #bruce x reader #battinson/reader #bruce wayne/reader #batman/reader #batman x reader #battinson fic #bruce wayne x oc #not y/n but blank for projection self-insert purposes!

[ts1989fanatic]

Have We Reached Peak Taylor Swift? The Psychology Behind When Someone Becomes Overexposed.

Is Taylor Swift about to be in her 'overexposed' era?

Midway through the Eras Tour, Taylor Swift is everywhere.

The ongoing tour ― Swift is scheduled to resume the international leg in November ― and the subsequent concert film are certifiable cultural events that have actually boosted regional economies. (In Los Angeles, for instance, where Swift performed six shows, the California Center for Jobs and the Economy predicted a $320 million boost to the county. No wonder Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau practically begged the Grammy winner to visit up north.)

She’s even bolstering the NFL’s viewership: Since the “Cruel Summer”

singer started attending her boyfriend Travis Kelce’s Kansas City Chiefs games, the league has seen some Super Bowl-level numbers thanks to all the Swifties tuning in.

Meanwhile, the media coverage is breathless. While daytime talk show hosts ask Kelce’s mom about Swift, there’s play-by-play of the couple’s dates around the web: “They were in a rounded booth sitting super close to each other in deep convo the whole time,” a diner at the Waverly Inn in Greenwich, where Swift and Kelce dined on Sunday, told The Messenger. “It looked super romantic and was super intimate.”

But given Swift’s cultural dominance ― and NFL fans booing an ad for her concert doc early this month ― even her fans are a little worried that Taylor fatigue might soon set in. Is Swift due for another “overexposed” era?

“Kinda overwhelmed by how close Taylor is to overexposure,” one fan tweeted on X.

“You either die the hero or live long enough to admit that you have Taylor Swift fatigue,” another wrote on the site.

On the main Swift subreddit, fans debate if Swift will eventually go back into pop star hibernation like she did after her “1989” album.

Indeed, this isn’t Swift’s first go-around with overexposure. The success of “1989” in 2014 was followed by a heightened interest in Swift’s personal life: her famous friends (or her “squad”), her ill-fated romance with Tom Hiddleston, her drama with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian. In response, Swift made a “conscious choice to disappear” and opt for a more “lowkey” life, a source close to the singer told People at the time.

Her rollout of her next album, 2017’s “Reputation,” was relatively quiet. (“There will be no further explanation. There will just be reputation,” Swift remarked on Instagram.)

Swift seems to pay close attention to her fandom and cultivate those parasocial relationships, said Lynn Zubernis, a psychologist and professor at West Chester University who researches fan psychology.

“Who knows, she might consider withdrawing from the spotlight again at some point,” Zubernis told HuffPost.

The professor likened the “Anti-Hero” singer’s ubiquity right now to Barney in the ’90s. Parents loved the purple dinosaur initially (no one kept their kids as entertained), but that love soured by the 104th listen of the “I love you, you love me” theme song.

“Familiarity is part of what drives fandom — we’re wired to attach to familiar faces, whether they’re offline or on our screens — but there’s a limit to how much repetition we can tolerate,” Zubernis said. “Too many instances of someone popping up and behaving the same way or saying the same thing can start to grate.”

The overexposure is sometimes exacerbated by the celebrity being perceived as “trying too hard” or being inauthentic, Zubernis said: Miley Cyrus, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, even Lady Gaga come to mind, she said.

“At first their ‘antics’ were popular, but people soon grew tired and cynical about them,” she said. “Justin Bieber, James Franco, Shai LaBeouf and Kanye West fall into that category too, and all have been on lists of ‘celebrities we’re tired of’ as a result.”

There’s also a common trajectory that fandom tends to take: Fans love to root for their favorite celebrity ― or sports team or TV series ― because of that vicarious sense of success they gain, but there’s also a cost to that success and visibility, Zubernis said. Some fans jump ship.

“Fans also relish feeling ‘special’ and seeing their fandom as exclusive ― as in, we are the only ones who see how truly special this person is and appreciate her,” the professor said.

“Once someone like Swift becomes beloved by everyone, even ‘normies,’ the fandom doesn’t feel as exclusive anymore,” she added. (Think how in high school, you used to say, “Yeah, I liked that band when they were still underground.”)

Jaye L. Derrick, an associate professor of psychology who studies parasocial relationships at the University of Houston, has a different take: She thinks that most of the people complaining about Swift were never fans to begin with.

“She has a very large following, but no celebrity can make 100% of the population like them,” Derrick told HuffPost.

“As Taylor Swift is shown to new markets, she is meeting some pushback from people who may have been aware of her before but never sought her out,” she said. “I suspect that most of the negative exposure is from people who had maybe consciously avoided her before and are not able to avoid her anymore.”

Tracy Gleason, the chair and professor of psychology at Wellesley College and an author of a paper on parasocial relationships, agrees with Derrick. The fans at the Giants game who booed her ad, for instance, might have done so because she’s dating a player on a rival team.

“Another possible explanation for the football game is that people who are fans of football, some of whom are likely women, are not necessarily fans of Taylor Swift,” Gleason told HuffPost. “Seeing Taylor get more attention than the game itself might have felt distracting and annoying.”

“Who knows, though,” she added. “Maybe they are Swifties but just want to keep each of the things they enjoy in their own lane: Taylor belongs on the stage and football belongs in the arena.”

Is misogyny at play when we deem someone “overexposed”?

When it comes to conversations about fame, some have pointed out that it tends to be women that get the whiplash “love-hate” treatment: They’re celebrated at first, then they’re deemed overexposed, like Anne Hathaway or Jennifer Lawrence were after their respective Oscar campaigns.

For the most part, men have more room to navigate fame: There’s a double-standard for the type of behavior that is considered appropriate for men versus for women, Derrick said.

For starters, men are expected to express their agency, so they are allowed to promote their projects.

“For women, it is harder to engage in agentic behavior without people viewing them as too in-your-face,” Derrick said. “In American society, we traditionally expect women to be more communal and less agentic.” (Swift addresses this complicated bind for women in the song “The Man” from 2019 album “Lover.”)

The professor thinks these women would probably get a pass if they were “trying too hard” to promote something communal, like a charity, but over-promoting yourself is a cardinal sin in celebritydom if you’re a woman.

With male examples of overexposure, it usually results from some publicly frowned-upon behavior: Bieber was a notoriously bratty teen (which is hardly a crime, of course, but his reputation persists), West was accused of antisemitism, Franco and LaBeouf were both accused of sexual misconduct, and Elon Musk has been accused of not only damaging Twitter (or as he’s rebranded, X) but threatening democracy itself.

Women celebrities are shamed for bad behavior, too, of course, but also for deviating from social expectations, Zubernis said.

“The culture still isn’t all that comfortable with women being very visible or powerful or successful in some way; that idea is vaguely threatening to the status quo,” she said. “I think that would apply to Swift, Hathaway and Lawrence.”

If you were a fan of any of those women to begin with, though, you probably stuck by them through and through. Fandoms tend to be ride or die until something truly cancellable happens.

“There are times when fans will turn on a celebrity, but those are usually cases where the celebrity did something out-of-character that led people to become disillusioned with their brand,” Derrick said.

In other words, when it comes to these “overexposed” claims ― or criticism from non-fans who wish Swift would take a sabbatical ― Swifties worldwide are probably just going to “shake it off.”

ts1989fanatic:

So Michael Jackson in his prime was everywhere and until he went off the deep end was beloved by fans and none fans worldwide. But Taylor Swift who has in my opinion reached MJ status is over exposed, you know this was not really a thing until she started dating Travis Kelce.

So to answer the question posed above

Is misogyny at play when we deem someone “overexposed”?

In the case of Taylor Swift damn straight misogyny is at play, all these talking heads and college professors and the rest of the media jackals and TS haters need to just FUCK THE HELL OFF.