#how can i find value in myself outside of work

[daddy-long-legssss]

had my personal assessment for work and it went well but i still felt like i could burst into tears at any given moment.

[555rare]

ASTROLOGY OBSERVATIONS PT.14

(Continued from my old account @777rare 🥂)

Teeny tiny 18+ themes here and there kids so scroll past it please, even though I know damn well you won't.

THESE NOTES ARE ONLY A STUDY OF MINE AND HAS/HAS NOT BEEN PROVEN YET, SO IF IT DOES NOT RESONATE WITH YOU, FORGIVE ME AS IT WAS ONLY A STUDY/OBSERVATION OF MINE.

I DO NOT PLAGIARIZE, COPY OR REWORD ANY OF MY FELLOW ASTROLOGY OBSERVERS POSTS AND I DEMAND THE SAME IN RETURN.

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• There are two kinds of voices for a Pisces Mercury native. Actually no, Pisces Mercury natives have many voices for different occasions like they are good at mimicry or changing their voice. But out of them all, we have 2 original voices. The Siren and the Siren. Yes, I know same word but different connotation.

જ⁀➴ The Siren🧜voice is the way they speak when they are calm and even happy. They have a sweet and soft voice that people often are drawn to as If they are Sirens but on land lol.

જ⁀➴ Then comes the Siren 🚨 voice when they are pissed off as hell hahahah. When they scream or shout while angry, believe me, they sound like sirens. You know the ones in an ambulance and buildings 😭😂.

• Capricorn Moon natives' moms are the type of moms who value finance or money very much. They are very hard to please and these natives find it so hard to impress them or make them proud of them. These natives just wanna hear their mom say 'I'm proud of you' for once at least in their life 😮‍💨🥲.

• I have never met a Capricorn big 3 who wasn't reserved and distant when it came to sharing their feelings with just anyone and crying in front of others. These people go through so much in private and they make it seem like being them is so easy on the outside to others but deep down, nobody can actually be them or take on their problems the way they do 🫣🫡.

• Leo big 3 are so so good at entertaining people. This is FACT. They are literal moods who can grab literally anyone's attention without trying and just like their sign ruler, The Sun, life often seems like it's revolving around them 🥂💃.

I have also never met a single Leo Big 3 who has never been treated like royalty, be it by literally anyone. They often get things their way and people just treat them like an expensive souvenir lol 🤌😂.

They are that one person (esp. Leo rising) who's always spoken about and praised even if all they did was lift up a piece of trash and throw it in the bin 😭🤣.

• My advice to Pisces or 12th house Sun's are just go and chill in a graveyard for a while. Trust me, this is the best medicine for you all because the energies there are actually the purest form possible.

Why? There are only souls there and everything negatively attached to the souls detach in a Graveyard because the body is returning back to its soul mother, making the soul leave the negativity of this world so there are no negative energies in a graveyard. There is only pure energy, the kind of energy that is untouched or unaffected by human presence.

Being a Pisces or 12th house Sun makes you highly sensitive to the energies around you so being in a Graveyard for a while can be very healing for you. You can meditate for a while here because you will truly connect with the divine without blockages here.

As a 12th house Sun (VEDIC CHART), I once visited a Graveyard in 2023 (That was the first time I ever visited one😅) and I felt so at peace and ease lol. I didn't wanna leave the place at all and I felt like I was myself detached from the energies of the world 🙂‍↕️.

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• Taurus or 2nd house Saturn natives have a problem with feeling valued by others in their life🫠. There's always this doubt that creeps in or this underlying insecurity where they think they aren't good enough or they have to try harder to keep others in their life.

There is this insecurity that people can replace them easily with someone else. These natives fear being looked down upon and they just want someone to appreciate how much effort they put into their work 😮‍💨🥺.

These natives love being appreciated and recognized when it comes to their talents and how much value they add to others' lives. They are truly a gift to have in ones life because once they have you, they will always invest energy in your connection without a doubt unless you degrade them or insult their hard work and talents.

They are very talented indeed with an ability to never give up no matter how hard situations get for them. They just wanna be told now and then that they are valuable and appreciated 🫂🫤.

• Mars in the 12th house or Pisces go through so many hidden battles 🫡😭. They are very private about their problems and they usually choose to suffer in silence and handle it all alone because they don't find it helpful to share their problems with others as others just give them advices.

One of my friend has this and she is very very private about her pain and her problems, but since I'm someone who she trusts, she shares her problem with me as I don't give her advice, I give her comfort without words.

The same goes for all Mars in 12th house and/or Pisces because they want comfort, not words coming out of someone's mouth and since they do not get it, they choose to deal with it on their own 😶😕.

• I have noticed fixed Mars signs (Taurus, Scorpio, Leo, Aquarius) are actually possessive and so protective of the ones they loveee ayee💃🌹. They won't just stand there and see their loved ones going through shit or being treated like shit by someone, they will literally stand up for them or become their protective shield 😤🛡️.

They also find it hard to digest the fact that there are people out there who share their romantic partner with someone else, like these natives just cannot do that 🙂‍↔️. They love a committed partner who is only theirs to love and who loves only them in the relationship. They absolutely HATE 3rd party involvement🫸.

Although, Aquarius Mars natives are very kinky in bed and are open-minded and experimentative, they choose a partner who is loyal in love 💪💖. That's the difference, they like being playful in bed but they are serious in love and prioritize loyalty.

Not to forget fixed sign Mars natives are very much fixed in their approach to sex and intimacy as well. They find it hard to be flexible or to allow absolutely anything in the bedroom, that is if you don't have heavy Pisces or Virgo placements 🥂👍.

Thankyou for reading through this today! 😊✨ I hope my sweet cherries, all had as much as fun reading this as I had making it! Love you all so much and I can't wait to see you in the next one!! 🌝

A Tarot Pac reading is coming soon by the way my cherries! Stay tuned! 💃💝

[thebibliosphere]

Calling you out for excellent self-talk strategies.

I’ve noticed in your posts about ongoing health that you often finish up with something along the lines of “I am experiencing Situations and Limitations, and this is ok. It is unpleasant, but still ok”

(Ok as in morally neutral, not as in everything is fine and normal and should be ignored)

And like… I can’t articulate how much I appreciate seeing that. It’s helpful as an outsider to see things put into context like that, and it’s also excellent modeling. Because I try so hard to talk to myself the same way, but sometimes it’s… just… really hard. And seeing other people using the same words makes it feel a tiny bit easier, for me, like it’s a little more real. And maybe it is actually ok.

Thank you for noticing, and I’m glad it’s something you find validating.

It’s actually something I’ve learned from radical acceptance therapy.

Too many people think that acceptance means either giving up or that you’ve found a way to be positive about something, when in reality it is a neutral stance.

I work daily to accept the curve balls my complex health needs throw at me. I am not happy about them, and nor do I need to be.

I refuse to embrace toxic positivity and say I am thankful for the challenges I overcome because I am not. No one needs to be thankful for surviving suffering. You are not obligated to find meaning in your pain.

It can just be something that is.

But nor should I view myself as negative.

I can acknowledge that I have negative feelings toward it, but I refuse to assign moral value to my situation because health is morally neutral. I will not berate myself with shoulda, coulda, woulda. That’s the path to madness and one I’ve been down many times before.

It’s far more healthful for me to say, “wow, this sucks. What can I do in this moment to care for myself that is realistic and mindful of my limitations?” and move on from there.

Sometimes the answer is “nothing” in which case I accept that all I can do is rest and be kind to myself over it.

It’s hard. But it’s a skill worth learning.

[rainydetectiveglitter]

Where You’ll Bore People Based on Your Taurus Placements 🐂💤

In my opinion, Taurus is the most boring sign. I’ve got the stories to back it up. One time, a Taurus Sun coworker spent what felt like hours telling the office about how she came up with the name for her son. She went on and on, and after all that drama, the name she picked? Michael. Yep. Michael. Everyone in the office was so disappointed. You could feel the collective "meh" from the room. 😐 I dated a Taurus once, and I swear—he was freaky and boring. He’d try to bring in spontaneity, but it was so forced. I can’t even explain how he managed to make the freaky stuff feel dull. 🤷🏽‍♀️ I’m a Taurus Moon myself, and I definitely bore people with my emotions. I’ll start diving deep into my feelings and everyone’s just kinda like… can we not? I feel it, but I can’t help it. 😅 A Taurus 11th House friend stuck to their toxic friends, no matter how bad things get, because it's familiar to them. You still talk to these people? 10 years later? Boring. Your circles stay the same. People and friendships that drain you, but at least you know what you’re getting? 🥴 So, let’s talk about where you might bore people based on your Taurus placements:

Taurus in the 1st House: You’re all about your routines and comfort zones. You take things slow and steady, which sounds good on paper, but it can come off as predictable and a little uninspired. People might find your vibe calming, but it’s not exactly something that sparks excitement. Your ability to stay grounded is admirable, but when you’re too comfortable, it feels like you’re stuck in place. 🤐

Taurus in the 2nd House: You’re focused on your material world, whether it’s your money, your possessions, or your values. Conversations with you might revolve around what you own or how you’re securing your future. While stability is great, people might start zoning out when all you can talk about is your latest purchase or your routine financial goals. It’s comfortable, but not thrilling. 😴

Taurus in the 3rd House: Your communication is reliable, but it’s also a bit repetitive. You’ll stick to familiar topics and tend to circle back to the same ideas. It’s easy for you to fall into a pattern, but that doesn’t always keep things fresh for your audience. You’re not really into shocking people with new thoughts or taking conversations into unpredictable directions. Instead, you’re happy with what you know, even if it doesn’t get anyone excited. 🗣️

Taurus in the 4th House: Home is your sanctuary, and you thrive in stable, familiar environments. You love routine and sticking to what you know best. While this is comforting, it can also make you come off as someone who’s unwilling to step outside of their bubble. You prefer the predictable comforts of home over spontaneous adventures, and while that works for you, it might bore others who crave excitement and change. 🏡

Taurus in the 5th House: Romance and creativity are important to you, but your approach is a little too safe and steady for some. You don’t take many risks in love, and while you’re loyal, you’re not the most exciting partner. Your creative endeavors tend to stick to what you know, and there’s not much room for surprises or risk-taking. That comfort zone might keep you from exploring new ideas or experiencing the thrill that others look for in love or art. 🎨

Taurus in the 6th House: Routines, routines, routines. Work, work, work. You thrive when you’re able to stick to a structured plan, and your focus on productivity can be admirable. But people around you may get bored when all you talk about is how you’re getting things done or what’s next on your to-do list or work. There’s not much room for spontaneity or risk in your day-to-day life, and when you’re stuck in your groove, others might find it hard to break out of the monotony with you. 📝

Taurus in the 7th House: Relationships are important to you, but your need for stability and predictability can make you a little too comfortable in them. You value loyalty, but sometimes that leads you to stick around in relationships that no longer bring you joy or growth. You’re not one to rock the boat, and while that’s great for consistency, it can make things feel stale and stagnant. People may get bored with how little you change in your partnerships. ❤️

Taurus in the 8th House: You’ve got deep, intense emotions, but your need to control them can sometimes make those feelings feel a little... heavy. You’re not the type to share things easily, so when you do, it can come off as too much. Instead of letting go and allowing for emotional depth to flow freely, you try to keep it grounded, which can drain the energy from what should be transformative moments. People might find your emotional world hard to tap into. 🔒

Taurus in the 9th House: You’re someone who likes to stay in familiar territories, even when it comes to your belief system or philosophy. While others are exploring new ideas, you might cling to your tried-and-true mindset. You’re not one to shake up your worldview, and while that can be a source of comfort, it doesn’t exactly make for exciting conversations or experiences. You may bore others by resisting new ideas or avoiding risks when it comes to personal growth. 🌍

Taurus in the 10th House: You’re practical, reliable, and focused on achieving your long-term goals. But your need for stability and control can make your career or public image feel a little too predictable. While consistency is key to your success, it can make you come off as unexciting, especially to those who crave something more dynamic. People might get the feeling that you’re too focused on safety and not enough on taking risks or embracing new opportunities. 🏆

Taurus in the 11th House: You’re loyal to your circle, but your need for familiarity can keep you stuck in relationships that no longer serve you. You might find it hard to let go of old friends or groups, even when they’ve become toxic or stagnant. This tendency to cling to the past can bore others, as it’s hard to spark new energy when you're constantly returning to what's comfortable and familiar, even if it no longer brings growth or joy. 👯‍♀️

Taurus in the 12th House: You’re a little secretive and tend to retreat inward, keeping things to yourself. Your need for privacy makes it hard for others to really know you, and when they try, you may push them away. While you're introspective and deep, people might find it hard to keep up with your mysterious energy. Your tendency to withdraw when things get heavy can make you seem distant, and as much as you value your inner world, others might find it hard to stay engaged with you. 🕊️

So yeah, Taurus placements can make you steady, reliable, and comfortable but sometimes, that comes off as boring. Embrace the stability, but maybe try adding a little unpredictability for fun. 😉

[sirxaibs]

Bruce Wayne | Batman X Reader

ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ Gotham Socialite ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ

masterlist

I want to make some batman themed oneshots where it explores a relationship between you and him.

EDITED- changed a bit of dialogue and description because I want the reader to be super cool and amazing

High society, meet the reporter reader. Reporter reader, meet Bruce Wayne

⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺ Gotham’s elite are as gaudy as the chandeliers hanging above them. expensive, bright, and utterly useless. The grand ballroom of the Gotham City Opera House is filled with them, men and women draped in designer gowns and tailored suits, sipping champagne as if their wealth isn’t built on the backs of the people suffering outside these marble walls.

You move through the crowd like a ghost, unseen despite being one of the few people here actually worth listening to. They invited you because of your work because your name is attached to articles Gotham’s wealthy pretend not to read but secretly obsess over. You don’t write puff pieces about Gotham’s heroes; you write about its monsters. You dig into their minds, their motivations. Why does Edward Nygma need to prove he’s the smartest man in the room? Why does the Joker turn his suffering into a performance? What makes a villain tick? That’s what you care about.

Not this.

Not the empty smiles. Not the soulless small talk. Not the way these people clutch their designer purses like they contain anything of real value.

You exhale sharply through your nose, taking another sip of your drink just to give yourself something to do. It tastes expensive but meaningless, like everything else here.

As you turn to leave, you accidentally bump into someone a woman in a tight, sequined dress that probably costs more than you’ve made in the last six months.

“Oh, my God,” she snaps, stepping back as if you just assaulted her. “Are you serious?”

Your brows lift. “Oh, relax. You’ll live.”

Her expression twists in outrage, but before she can respond, a man approaches tall, broad shouldered, with a perfectly practiced smile. And just like that, she flips a switch.

“Oh my God, Bruce!” she gasps, laughing like she wasn’t just seconds away from throwing a fit. She rests a hand on his arm the same arm she previously flung up in disgust when you bumped into her. “I didn’t think you’d actually show up tonight! You never come to these things anymore.” You watch with mild disgust as she transforms in real time. It’s like watching an AI desperately try to mimic human emotion.

“Yeah,” you mutter, just loud enough to be heard. “hmmm I might see myself out”

Bruce Wayne glances at you then, his interest piqued. You don’t fawn over him. Don’t preen or attempt to charm your way into his good graces. No, you just look at him like you’re wholly unimpressed. Its not that he wasn’t appealing. Of course you found him attractive. Though finding him attractive felt a little like betraying the people you grew up around. Just because you escaped the extremely poor doesn’t mean you want to abide by it.

“You know,” you say, tilting your head, “for a guy whose while company is built on working with the community , you don’t seem to have much of a grip on reality.”

The woman beside him gasps in horror, clutching Bruce’s arm even tighter, but you’re not done.

“This whole act,” you gesture vaguely at him, “isn’t cute. I mean no disrespect though, go party and go crazy.” Your eyes lock onto his with something sharper than hatred indifference. “I don’t know how you stomach it. It’s honestly an insult to humans.” Silence settles over you like a fog. The woman looks scandalized, staring at you as if you just spit in her drink.

Bruce, on the other hand, just looks intrigued. His usual mask of carefree billionaire playboy falters just for a second. His blue eyes search yours, something thoughtful flickering behind them. Then, just as quickly as it had cracked, the mask slides back into place. He lets out a chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck in feigned sheepishness. “Well,” he says, flashing that same easygoing smile he always wears in public, “can’t please everyone, I guess.”

The woman beside him giggles like an idiot, but you just roll your eyes. Bruce Wayne is a good actor, you’ll give him that and judging by the look in his eye, he looks a little off put.

You don’t give Bruce another glance as you turn on your heel, moving toward the exit with the same single minded determination as a prisoner inching toward an open cell door. You’ve had enough of this place enough of the fake smiles, the rehearsed laughter, the suffocating air of money and ego pressing in on you from all sides.

Bruce watches you go.

He should just let you leave. He should turn his attention back to whatever mindless conversation he was meant to be entertaining tonight. But he doesn’t. Instead, his gaze follows you, his interest snaring on something he hadn’t expected.

You very evidently don’t belong here. Not in the way these people do, with their polished exteriors and empty souls. He mentally jokes that press training might be on a to do list for your manager.

No, you move like someone who doesn’t care to belong. Which from his relationship woth selina, Its definitely evident that women from the narrows dont care. You weave through the room with an awkwardness that’s both endearing and painfully obvious dodging trays of champagne like they’re landmines, sidestepping small talk with barely concealed irritation. Your distaste is written all over you, from the way your fingers tighten around your glass to the way your shoulders hunch slightly, as if trying to make yourself smaller, less noticeable.

But that’s the thing. You are noticeable. More than anyone here. Bruce takes in the way you tuck a loose strand of hair behind your ear, the way you mutter something under your breath when a socialite nearly clips you with a careless turn. He watches as you catch your footing after bumping into a server, your apology quick and sincere so different from the sneering entitlement of the rest of the room.

A quiet chuckle leaves his mouth as he watches you finally get to a corner. Bruce’s lips press together, something flickering in his chest that he doesn’t have time to name.

He should let you go. Instead, he steps forward, slipping through the crowd with the kind of practiced ease that only someone used to wearing masks can manage. You don’t notice him until he’s beside you, his voice cutting through the noise of the room like a knife.

“You’re not very good at this,” he says, amusement lacing his words.

You glance up at him, eyes narrowing slightly. “At what?”

Bruce gestures vaguely to the room. “Blending in.”

A scoff leaves your lips as you finally reach the exit, one hand already pushing against the heavy door. “Yeah, well,” you say, sparing him one last glance, “I’m used to this kind of thing.” And then you’re gone.

Bruce watches the door swing shut behind you, his reflection staring back at him in the glass. For the first time all night, he finds himself smiling.

⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺ Bruce barely makes it through the front doors of Wayne Manor before he’s pulling at his bow tie, loosening the suffocating knot that had been pressing against his throat all evening. The moment the silk slides free, he exhales, rolling his shoulders as if shedding the weight of the night along with it.

The grand doors swing shut behind him, the quiet of the manor swallowing the distant hum of Gotham’s high society. The transition is immediate, like stepping out of a suffocatingly bright stage and into the cool embrace of shadow. The mask the one made of careless grins and charmingly vague conversation falls away as effortlessly as the jacket he shrugs off, tossing it onto the nearest chair without care.

From the hall, Alfred watches the display with an arched brow, ever the picture of poised amusement. “Welcome home, Master Wayne. I see the evening was as eventful as anticipated.”

Bruce sighs, running a hand down his face. “That might be an understatement.”

Alfred steps forward, hands clasped neatly behind his back. “I assume you spent the night ok though master wayne?”

“Something like that.” Bruce rolls his neck, loosening the last remnants of his socialite persona. “A lot of people talking without actually saying anything. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.”

“The inevitable I hear,” Alfred muses, “you always seem equally miserable every time you return.”

Bruce lets out a humorless chuckle, unbuttoning the top of his dress shirt. “That’s because it never gets any less exhausting.”

Alfred gives him a knowing look before stepping toward the chair where Bruce had carelessly discarded his jacket. He picks it up with practiced ease, shaking his head. “One of these days, you might consider hanging these properly.”

“I consider it every time,” Bruce remarks, already making his way toward the hidden entrance to the Batcave. “Just never quite get around to it.”

Alfred merely sighs, following him with a well worn patience. “Shall I prepare something for you to eat? Or will you be brooding on an empty stomach this evening?”

“Not brooding,” Bruce corrects as he reaches the hidden panel in the wall. The mechanism clicks, revealing the passage leading down into the cave. “Just… following a curiosity.”

Alfred hums, ever perceptive. “Would this curiosity have anything to do with the young woman who managed to offend half the room tonight?”

Bruce pauses mid step, glancing back at him. “You heard about that?”

Alfred gives him a pointed look. “Master Wayne, the moment someone dares to tell off a socialite at an event like that, it becomes the only thing worth discussing. I’d be surprised if her picture isn’t already pinned on some poor soul’s dartboard.”

Bruce huffs out a short laugh before shaking his head. “I’ll be in the cave.”

Alfred merely nods, already knowing there will be no convincing him otherwise.

⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺ The Batcave hums softly with the sounds of running water and flickering monitors, a stark contrast to the suffocating luxury of the ballroom he had left behind. Here, Bruce is no longer Gotham’s golden boy. No longer the playboy billionaire.

Here, he is himself.

He settles into the chair before the Batcomputer, fingers swiftly typing as he pulls up a search. He hadn’t planned on looking you up. At least, that’s what he tells himself. But there was something about you something about the way you moved through that room, awkward yet unyielding. You didn’t belong there, and you didn’t care to. The way you had looked at him, unimpressed and disinterested, had been a rarity in a world where everyone was either too enamored by his wealth or too busy trying to figure out what game he was playing.

His fingers move with purpose, bringing up your name, your records. The first thing he finds is that, unlike many of the people who had surrounded you that night, your life had been anything but privileged.

You were born and raised in the Narrows Gotham’s forgotten underbelly. A place where opportunities were scarce, and survival was a skill honed from childhood. Your record is clean remarkably so, for someone who grew up in the part of Gotham where crime wasn’t a choice but a necessity. No arrests, no notable scandals. You had gone to school, worked through college, and carved out a place for yourself in a city that did everything it could to swallow people whole.

But what catches his attention the most are your writings. Articles. Interviews. Pieces dissecting the minds of Gotham’s most notorious criminals. Not in the sensationalized way tabloids did, but with an analytical depth that spoke of genuine understanding. You weren’t interested in painting them as mere villains or glorifying their crimes you wanted to understand them.

Your work focused not on the spectacle of their actions, but on the why. The motivations. The cracks in Gotham’s system that had allowed them to exist in the first place. You had interviewed ex gang members, street level criminals, and even those who had managed to escape Gotham’s cycle of violence. You wrote about the lives that high society ignored the people who lived in the shadows cast by the city’s towering skyscrapers.

You gave them voices.

Bruce leans back in his chair, studying the screen. You had lived a normal life at least, as normal as someone from the Narrows could. You had no connections to the criminal underworld beyond your work. No secret vendettas, no affiliations.

And yet, your writing showed a perspective that very few people in Gotham ever took the time to understand. You weren’t just observing Gotham’s worst. You were showing that they had stories worth telling.

Bruce’s eyes flicker over the last article on the screen, the words settling in his mind.

“Society has already decided who deserves redemption and who doesn’t. But if you never listen to someone’s story, how do you know they weren’t doomed from the start?”

His fingers hover over the keyboard for a moment before he finally leans forward again, exiting the search.

Curiosity, he tells himself. That’s all this is and yet, as the screen fades back to black, he can’t shake the feeling that you might be someone worth paying attention to.

⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺ If you wanted your stories to be heard, you had to be seen. That’s what your publicist told you. That’s what you repeated to yourself as you stepped through the towering entrance of yet another Gotham high society event, where old money mingled with new power, and influence dripped from every word spoken between sips of champagne.

You didn’t belong here. You never did. But belonging wasn’t the point.

This was the price of being heard. If you wanted your work to matter if you wanted people to actually read what you wrote, to listen to the stories Gotham’s forgotten had to tell you had to stand in rooms like this. Not because you cared about these people or their whispered scandals, but because they had the power to shape the city’s narrative, whether they deserved that power or not.

And so, despite the suffocating air of wealth and self importance, you showed up.

The ballroom was an exhibition of excess. A long, lavish table stretched the length of the room, set with gold rimmed plates, crystal glasses, and floral centerpieces so elaborate they could have easily funded an entire year’s worth of rent for a struggling Gotham family. Conversations bubbled up around you hollow laughter, polite murmurs, the occasional hushed gossip passed between sculpted lips.

You found your seat. And nearly laughed. Right beside Bruce Wayne. Of course.

You weren’t sure if this was some kind of twisted joke or if the hosts had simply thrown darts at a seating chart, but there it was your name card placed neatly next to Gotham’s most beloved. Maybe they thought you were more important than you actually were. Maybe they thought Bruce had the patience of a saint. Though you have a feeling after your last stunt, they were trying to see if another PR disaster would come from this. Maybe more publicity for them. Any publicity is good publicity you guess.

Either way, it was too late to change it now. Sighing, you pulled out your chair and sat down, reveling in the last few moments of solitude before the night officially began.

And then, the atmosphere shifted. Even before you turned your head, you knew. Gothams golden boy had arrived.

The energy in the room changed, as if the very air had been pulled toward him. Conversations faltered just slightly, eyes flickered in his direction, and there was a quiet ripple of interest that passed through the gathering like an unspoken current. It was always like this.

The city’s most eligible bachelor. The name that sent tabloids into a frenzy and made socialites tilt their heads just so, hoping to catch his attention. He was power wrapped in effortless charm, an untouchable figure who played the role of the careless heir so well that even the most cynical couldn’t help but watch him.

You risked a glance. Of course, he looked perfect. Dressed in a dark, tailored suit that cost more than your entire apartment’s worth of furniture, he moved through the crowd with the kind of casual grace that made it seem like he belonged everywhere. A relaxed smile curved his lips, and the people surrounding him whether they were whispering behind their glasses or outright gushing were captivated.

It was almost infuriating, how easy it was for him. Why can’t beautiful people feel more im reach?

When then he reached his seat and saw you. For the briefest moment, the mask slipped. Not much just a flicker of something sharp in his eyes before it smoothed over, replaced with something unreadable.

He barely acknowledged the lingering hands on his arm, the voices vying for just another second of his time. His attention had already shifted. To you. You on the other hand are practically clutching your pearls to remain calm. Your publicist told you to absolutely DO NOT fuck up again.

Bruce had been willing to chalk that first encounter up to chance. A passing curiosity. Now he was beginning to think fate had a sense of humor.

“Fancy seeing you here,” he murmured as he sank into his chair, his voice carrying the warmth of amusement.

You exhaled through your nose, already bracing yourself. “Yeah, well. maybe i won the lottery to be seated next to Gotham’s golden boy.”

His lips twitched. “I doubt im anything that special”

You gave him a dry look. “Didn’t take you for a masochist, Wayne.”

He chuckled, low and quiet. “Only selectively.”

You sighed, picking up your menu just to give yourself something to do. “I do want to apologize for last time, I swear im more civilized. I guess that I kinda got thrown off a bit?” Bruce leaned in slightly, his voice dipping just enough that only you could hear.

“Acting all fancy? Where’s the fun in that?”

⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺ If you had to endure one more second of this sanctimonious drivel, you were going to jam your fork into the back of your hand just to feel something.

The dinner had been dragging on for what felt like an eternity, and the conversation at the table was as unbearable as expected. The hosts, a couple who clearly thought themselves Gotham’s greatest benefactors, were speaking at length about their so called “generosity” and the many ways they had given back to the community. It was all so painfully rehearsed.

“We simply couldn’t sit idly by while Gotham suffered,” the woman declared, holding her glass delicately between her fingers. “Which is why we’ve dedicated ourselves to philanthropy.”

Her husband gave a solemn nod. “Yes. Our foundation has put millions into rehabilitating Gotham’s most… unfortunate areas.”

Unfortunate areas. You took a slow sip of your wine, pressing your lips together to stop yourself from blurting something you’d regret. They were talking about the Narrows. Where you had grown up. Where people still fought to survive every single day, no thanks to the people in this very room.

They spoke as if their generosity was some grand solution to the city’s suffering. As if they had single handedly saved Gotham. You exhaled through your nose, already feeling your patience fraying. It was then that you felt someone shift beside you.

“Did you hear that?”

The words were spoken so casually, so smoothly, that at first, you weren’t sure you had heard them at all. You turned your head slightly, finding Bruce Wayne sitting beside you, his face the perfect picture of polite interest. His voice was quiet, just low enough that only you could hear him.

“Hear what?” you muttered, confused.

He took a sip of his drink, his expression unreadable. “The sound of Gotham being saved.”

You blinked. “what?”

Bruce gestured subtly toward the hosts. “Between the Restoration Project and last week’s fundraiser, I think we can safely say Gotham’s problems have been solved.”

For a moment, you just stared at him. Then, before you could stop yourself, you let out a sharp, amused breath. “Oh, absolutely,” you whispered back. “Crime? Poverty? Completely eradicated. I bet even the Joker is rethinking his entire life’s work.”

Bruce tilted his head, considering it. “Maybe he’ll go into finance. Become a hedge fund manager.”

You snorted. “I’d pay to see that.”

Bruce hummed, pretending to ponder it. “Or accounting. Something low risk. Maybe he’d be great at tax fraud.”

You bit your lip, forcing yourself not to laugh.

“Honestly?” you whispered, leaning slightly closer. “A few more dinner parties and we might even get Two Face to start a nonprofit.”

Bruce’s mouth twitched. “And I hear Penguin’s investing in an animal conservation project.”

You covered your mouth with your hand, shaking your head. How had this happened?You had been so close to losing your mind just minutes ago, and now here you were, whispering snide remarks with Bruce Wayne of all people. The absurdity of it hit you all at once.

You scoffed, shaking your head. “This is ridiculous.”

Bruce arched a brow. “What is?”

You glanced at him, lips twitching. “Didn’t think you were so much of a hater.”

Bruce leaned slightly closer, his voice amused. “Isnt that your job? you haven’t stopped being one.”

You rolled your eyes but couldn’t hide your smirk. “I think it’s a little more nuanced than that. Guess I’m a glutton for punishment.”

He chuckled, his blue eyes sharp with something unreadable. “Funny. Me too.”

Bruce wasn’t sure when it happened. When the night had gone from something exhausting to something… bearable. Enjoyable, even.

He had sat down at this table expecting the usual the same empty conversations, the same mindless flattery, the same performance he had perfected over the years.

You, who had spent the first half of the evening looking like you wanted to crawl out of your skin. You, who had made no attempt to charm him, who had barely acknowledged his presence at all until he had decided to push you just a little. when you had responded, it had been effortless. Natural.

He wasn’t sure how long it had been since he had felt that. Since he had been able to talk to someone like this without posturing, without pretending. It reminded him of something. Something old. Something familiar. A woman in a black catsuit, teasing him from the edge of a rooftop. Bruce’s fingers curled slightly against his knee.

Selina had been one of the first people to remind him what it felt like to be real. To be alive and now, somehow, you were doing the exact same thing and you didn’t even realize it.

Bruce glanced at you from the corner of his eye. You were still trying to suppress a smile, still glancing around the table like you couldn’t believe you were actually enjoying yourself. He found himself studying you really studying you. You didn’t belong here, that much was obvious. The way you sat stiffly in your chair, the way your fingers tapped lightly against your wine glass when you were irritated, the way you watched the room rather than participated in it.

You were observing. Just like him. Just like he had been doing since he was a boy, since he had first learned how to read a room, how to pick apart every detail, every lie. for all your sharp observations, you had completely missed the fact that you had captivated him.

Bruce Wayne was staring at you like you were a puzzle he needed to solve.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Your voice cut through the air softly, and Bruce blinked, pulled from his thoughts. You had caught him looking. For a brief moment, he considered deflecting, playing it off with a practiced joke. But he didn’t want to.

So instead, he simply shrugged. “I was just thinking,” he said, voice low, “that this might be the first time I’ve actually enjoyed one of these things.”

You frowned, clearly skeptical. “Bullshit. You go to these all the time.”

Bruce smirked. “Doesn’t mean I like them.”

You narrowed your eyes at him, still not quite believing him. “And I’m supposed to believe this dinner is different?”

His smirk deepened. “Well, you’re here, aren’t you?”

You blinked, and Bruce almost laughed at the way you processed his words, as if you weren’t quite sure what to do with them. But then, slowly, you shook your head, exhaling a quiet laugh.

“You’re so full of shit, Wayne.”

Bruce grinned. “Took you long enough to figure that out.”

For the first time that night, he didn’t feel like the billionaire playboy. Didn’t feel like Batman. He just felt like Bruce. Which wouldn’t that feel weird? He always believed that Batman was the real him. Right now feeling like a teenage boy meeting a girl.

&&&&

The second the speeches ended, you were on your feet. Not rudely just quickly. The second round of self congratulation had begun, and if you had to listen to one more person pat themselves on the back for “saving” Gotham, you were going to lose your mind.

You made your way toward one of the grand patios, slipping past gilded columns and chandeliers that cost more than your entire apartment complex. The doors were open, the cool night air seeping in just enough to make you crave the quiet outside. The moment you stepped onto the patio, you exhaled.

It was massive of course it was. Probably bigger than some of the city blocks you had grown up on. A perfect marble terrace with pristine railings, overlooking the twinkling skyline of Gotham. You leaned against the stone railing, closing your eyes for a moment. Peace. Finally. But, of course, peace never lasted long in Gotham.

“You know, for someone who doesn’t like high society events, you sure end up at a lot of them.”

You opened your eyes, lips already twitching into a smirk before you even turned around. Bruce Wayne stood in the doorway, hands in his pockets, looking at you with that same insufferably amused expression. A short, incredulous laugh escaped you. “stalking me now rich boy?”

Bruce stepped further onto the patio, shaking his head. “Just wanted the air, cant blame me”

You rolled your eyes, turning back to the skyline. “Mhm. Right. Sure. Just a coincidence you keep popping up wherever I am.”

Bruce leaned against the railing beside you, his voice casual. “Well, if it makes you feel better, I’ll be sure to keep a three foot distance from now on.”

You smirked. “Six, just to be safe.”

“Ten, and I might start getting offended.”

You shook your head, biting back a grin. There was something so easy about talking to him. Too easy. The thought was unsettling. “I have to admit,” Bruce mused, tilting his head slightly. “I didn’t expect you to show up tonight.”

You sighed, toying with the rim of your glass. “Believe me, if I could have avoided it, I would have.”

“you can say that again”

You exhaled through your nose, staring out over the city. “Yeah, well. If I want my stories to actually matter, I have to be seen.”

Bruce was silent for a moment, watching you. Then, his voice softened. “Is that why you do it?”

You turned to him, brow furrowing. “Do what?”

“Write the stories you do.” His blue eyes searched yours, something unreadable flickering behind them. “Why villains? Why not the heroes? You’d probably get a lot more recognition if you did.”

You huffed a small laugh, shaking your head. “Because the heroes don’t need me.”

Bruce’s gaze didn’t waver. “And the villains do?”

Your fingers tightened slightly around your glass. “The people who get thrown into Arkham, who are labeled as ‘monsters’ and ‘freaks’ and just written off most of them have stories no one ever hears.” You exhaled. “I want people to understand them. Or at least see them. Even if they don’t deserve sympathy, they at least deserve to be known.”

Bruce didn’t say anything right away. He just stared at you. Not in an uncomfortable way, not in the way men at these events usually did. No, Bruce was really looking at you. And for some reason, it made you shift under his gaze.

“…What?” you muttered.

Bruce just smiled slightly, shaking his head. “Nothing. I just didn’t expect that answer.”

You rolled your eyes. “Yeah, well. Sorry to disappoint. I know the usual arm candy around here doesn’t have thoughts.”

Bruce snorted. “You really think that’s all I see you as?”

You arched a brow. “What else would I be?”

His expression turned thoughtful. “I dont really know”

You scoffed, shaking your head. “Well, if you’re looking for something interesting, you should probably set your sights somewhere else. I have no interest in being one of the people you “help” from the sidelines”

Bruce’s lips quirked. “help from the sidelines?”

You gestured vaguely. “I want to respect the people in there. the ones who have influence. Though when you’re on the other side of the spectrum its a little rough. The rich like to be seen and not heard.” You turned to him, meeting his gaze directly. “I have no intention of being a footnote in the pretend of gotham.”

Bruce watched you for a long moment, his smirk slowly fading into something softer. Then, finally, he spoke. “I have no intention of making you just a fling or to discard your work.”

The words were said so smoothly, so matter of factly, that they took a second to register. You blinked. Your mind blanked. Your entire brain shut down for a solid five seconds. Because what…what did he mean by that? You weren’t sure what part of the sentence flustered you more.

The fact that he wasn’t denying wanting you, or the fact that he had just so casually implied that you are going to be something more than a just a thought. Your lips parted slightly, but no words came out.

Bruce just smirked, watching you flounder. Then, slowly, he leaned in just a fraction.

“Speechless?” he murmured, voice low.

You snapped out of it, your pride kicking back in. “Please.” You scoffed, turning away. “You wish.”

Bruce chuckled, looking entirely too pleased with himself.

And as much as you hated to admit it… You kind of loved that he had caught you off guard.

The soft breeze ruffled your hair as you leaned back against the stone railing, trying to gather your thoughts. You couldn’t remember the last time someone had left you this disoriented. Bruce’s smirk only deepened as he studied your reaction, clearly enjoying the fact that he had thrown you off balance. You could feel the heat creeping up your neck, and no amount of cool air could wipe the warmth from your face.

“So…” he began, his voice far too smooth for your liking. “I take it that wasn’t exactly the response you were expecting?”

You forced yourself to look at him, swallowing back the knot in your throat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really?” His gaze darkened just a little, and for a moment, there was no teasing, just something more genuine. “I think you do.”

The way he said it made your stomach flutter uncomfortably. You couldn’t decide if you wanted to laugh or slap him so you did neither. Instead, you stepped back from the railing, trying to put some distance between you and the overwhelming presence that was Bruce Wayne.

“fucking rich people,” you muttered, crossing your arms over your chest as if to shield yourself from him.

Bruce didn’t move, his eyes still locked on yours, his lips slightly curled. “Is that a no?”

Your heart skipped a beat. You blinked at him, dumbfounded. “A no?” you echoed, unsure if you had heard him right.

Bruce gave you that damnable, knowing look again. “You know, you don’t have to act all tough. You’re not fooling anyone.”

“I’m not acting tough,” you shot back, despite your nerves. “I just I don’t even know what you’re asking me.”

Bruce tilted his head slightly. “I’m asking you if you’d like to go out with me.”

Your jaw dropped. “Wait. What?”

He chuckled, clearly amused by your reaction. “Yes. That.”

You stared at him, utterly baffled, before glancing at the ground as if it might have the answers to everything you had just heard. You couldn’t tell if you were about to burst out laughing, slap him, or just walk away and pretend none of this happened.

“…You’re serious?” you managed to croak out after what felt like an eternity.

Bruce simply gave you a shrug, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Dead serious.”

For a long, torturous moment, all you could do was blink at him, trying to make sense of the situation. Bruce Wayne Gotham’s richest, most infamous playboy was asking you, the rebellious daughter of the shadows, on a date and you couldn’t even think of a single coherent response.

Finally, you let out a frustrated breath and turned your head away. “You’re insane.”

Bruce’s smirk softened into a more genuine smile. “I try.”

You shook your head, not knowing whether to feel mortified or weirdly elated. “I don’t even know what to say.”

“Well, you could say yes,” Bruce offered casually, his voice now a little more sincere.

You looked back at him, your heart still racing from the unexpected turn of events. “…I’m going to need a lot more time to process this.”

Bruce raised his hands in mock surrender. “Fair enough. I’ll give you time. But just so you know… I’m not going anywhere.”

The tension between you two was still there, thick in the air. But for some reason, it didn’t feel uncomfortable anymore. More like the beginning of something unexpected. Something that might change everything. And just like that, you were thrown back into the whirlwind that was Bruce Wayne.

⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺ It was a quiet night as you walked home, the cool breeze against your face, your mind lost in thought. It had been a long day at work reporting, editing, and finalizing a piece about Gotham’s growing underbelly, a story that seemed to sink deeper with every layer you uncovered. You were used to it. You thrived on it. The truth was your domain, and you’d learned how to swim in the darkness long ago. It was something that made you feel connected to your roots, to the people you came from.

The streets of Gotham felt familiar, in a way. No matter how much money flowed into this city or how many pretty buildings sprang up in the skyline, you couldn’t forget the parts of it you grew up in. The darker corners, the alleys, the people who had nothing but each other to survive. They were your people, the ones you understood more than you ever could the high society types you’d been forced to mingle with.

You rounded the corner onto a familiar street, just a few more blocks before you were home. Then, without warning, the atmosphere shifted. The hairs on the back of your neck stood on end, and you slowed your pace. Gotham had a way of making you hyper aware, and tonight was no exception.

You felt it before you saw them. The footfalls behind you, too quiet, too steady. Your pulse quickened.

Before you could even react, two men emerged from the shadows, blocking your path. The dark shapes loomed over you, the threat in their eyes clear. One was holding a sharp looking knife, the other a crowbar. The older, taller man grinned, a twisted, unsettling look that made your stomach churn.

“Give us your bag, sweetheart,” he sneered, a rough, gravelly voice edging the threat. “We don’t want any trouble, but we will make it happen if you don’t cooperate.”

You didn’t flinch. You didn’t back down.

“Sorry, I don’t have time for this,” you muttered, trying to side step the bigger man, but he was quick, grabbing your arm with a vice like grip.

“Not so fast,” he growled. “You’re not going anywhere until we get what we want.”

You spun around quickly, your elbow connecting with his ribs in a sharp strike. He grunted, but it didn’t stop him from tightening his grip. The other man stepped forward, the crowbar raised as if to swing.

That was when you knew you were in trouble. But only for a second. You kicked back, slamming your foot into the first man’s knee, hearing the sickening crack as he stumbled backward. He swore, holding his leg in pain. You used the opening to break free, turning to face both men. The one with the crowbar swung at you wildly, but you ducked under his reach and used his momentum against him, redirecting his strike into the side of the nearby wall. Your movements were quick, practiced clean, precise. You didn’t need to fight dirty. You didn’t need to be anything other than efficient. All you needed was enough of an excuse to escape. Within seconds, the two men were on the ground, groaning in pain, incapacitated by your calculated strikes.

Breathing hard, you exhaled slowly, dusting yourself off. That was easy. But when you looked up to check for any more threats, the air around you grew heavy.

Batman was standing at the edge of the alley, his towering form almost blending with the shadows. His cape fluttered slightly in the wind, the symbol of the bat glaring on his chest, and those piercing eyes those damn eyes locked onto yours.

You froze. For a moment, it felt like time slowed down. It was him. Batman. The dark vigilante, the city’s protector, who had always hovered over Gotham’s criminal world like a myth, now staring at you with an unreadable expression.

His eyes narrowed. Recognition flashed across his face, though his expression remained carefully controlled.

You stared at him, blinking rapidly, confusion clouding your mind. You knew him. But how? But you hadn’t had you really? You were too caught up in your own world to truly pay attention to the rumors and gossip. He was, after all, just the Batman to you. That was all you cared about. But in that moment, you realized with an unsettling clarity: He knew who you were.

You laughed awkwardly, feeling a rush of heat to your face. “Oh great, just what I needed tonight,” you muttered under your breath. You quickly brushed a hand through your hair, trying to act like this wasn’t the most bizarre encounter you’d had in a while. “Listen, don’t worry about me. I appreciate what you do for the community though.”

Batman didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. His posture remained rigid, intimidating, but his eyes… his eyes seemed to soften for a split second. There was something in them something that spoke volumes. You couldn’t place it, but it felt like something more than just the bat.

“No,” he said, his voice low, gravelly. “You shouldn’t be out here alone.” His words were firm, but there was a thread of concern beneath it. “Gotham isn’t safe.”

“Yeah, well, Gotham doesn’t care about safe,” you shot back, your frustration bubbling to the surface. “It’s just me out here. If I want to get home, I’ll get home.” You didn’t want to admit it, but there was something about the way he said that it made you feel smaller. But you didn’t let it show. You lifted your chin, defiant. “I can take care of myself. Just like I did with them.”

You gestured to the two men still groaning on the ground, the earlier tension dissipating into the night air. But Batman didn’t reply. His eyes swept over you in a way that sent a chill down your spine. His body language shifted just slightly, enough for you to notice, but before you could say anything more, he was moving.

“Get inside,” he said abruptly, his voice unwavering. “I’m not letting you walk home like this.”

There it was again. The command in his voice. You narrowed your eyes, a little defiant but feeling a strange pull toward the urgency in his tone. “It’s very courteous of you but please. I told you, I’ve got it. I’m fine.”

Batman didn’t even blink, his tone now sharpened. “Get inside, now.”

His words left no room for argument. You were tempted to push back tempted to keep up your independence. But there was something about the way he said it, the way his gaze hardened, that made you swallow your pride. With a small, frustrated sigh, you turned and started walking towards the street, heading home. You could feel his presence lingering behind you, watching, making sure you weren’t followed.

For a split second, you almost wanted to ask him more. But you stopped yourself. You didn’t need him. Not really. He was just Batman, after all. You shook your head. No need to think about it. Sometimes you want to find and interview him for why he punches first and asks later. Though the bias for your work might be interfering with those thoughts.

But somehow, you couldn’t ignore the tight knot in your chest. The tension in the air between you and him felt like more than just a confrontation. It felt like something else. And that something else… well, it lingered.

⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺ Bruce Wayne stood in the Batcave, his back pressed against the cool stone wall, his fingers lightly grazing the edge of the Batcomputer. His cape hung loosely behind him, still damp from the rain soaked night. The adrenaline of his patrol had long since faded, but an odd unease lingered in the pit of his stomach, something he couldn’t quite shake.

He’d spent countless hours in this cave, fighting Gotham’s worst and dealing with the city’s many challenges. His mission had always been clear: protect the innocent, bring justice, and make Gotham a better place. But tonight, something was different. Something about the encounter with you had stayed with him in a way he hadn’t expected. He couldn’t stop thinking about how you had handled yourself, standing tall despite the danger.

He had seen countless people fight back, but there was something unique about the way you did it. You weren’t just trying to survive you were alive in the moment, every move deliberate, confident, and unapologetic. You weren’t waiting for someone to come save you; you were saving yourself. It was rare in Gotham, a city where people often needed help just to make it through the day.

And yet, there was a sadness to it all.

Bruce knew that the city had a way of wearing people down, turning them into something else something bitter or broken. People like you, who had grown up in the shadows, had learned to fend for themselves because Gotham didn’t make it easy. He couldn’t help but wish that you hadn’t had to be so strong. You shouldn’t have had to fight alone.

His thoughts wandered back to the moment he’d seen you in the slums. Despite your strength, despite the control you’d taken of the situation, Bruce felt a pang of sympathy. The city had failed you, just as it had failed so many others. Gotham had a way of demanding too much from its people, and it had never been kind to those who were already struggling.

It was clear you weren’t someone who needed saving. You had made your own way, fought for your own space in a world that hadn’t always welcomed you. Bruce couldn’t help but admire that. It was something he understood well carving out a place for yourself in a city that tried to break you. But it still frustrated him that Gotham had forced you into a corner like that.

He pushed away from the computer, rubbing his eyes as he tried to clear his thoughts. He had a duty to the city, a duty that didn’t leave room for distractions or feelings. Yet, something about the way you carried yourself, how you didn’t let Gotham’s grime get the best of you, lingered in his mind. You were a reminder of the resilience he’d always admired in this city, but also a stark reminder of how much still needed to be done.

Bruce had always seen Gotham as a city to fix, a place in desperate need of change. He’d dedicated himself to that cause, but seeing you, standing strong in the face of everything this city threw at you, made him think what if there were more people like you?

But you shouldn’t have to be like that. You shouldn’t have to fight for your survival in a city that was supposed to be your home. And yet, you had.

Bruce exhaled deeply, leaning back against the stone wall again. It was moments like these that reminded him of how complex Gotham truly was. People like you weren’t just victims or criminals. They were the heart of the city, the ones who kept going even when the world seemed determined to make them quit.

He didn’t have the answers, but seeing you hold your own, standing up to those men like it was just another day, reminded him why he kept doing this. Gotham wasn’t just about fighting crime it was about protecting the people who refused to be broken. People like you.

Bruce let out a slow breath, turning back toward the Batcomputer, but his thoughts were still on you. He wasn’t sure where this would lead, or if it would lead anywhere at all. But for the first time in a long while, he found himself hoping that, somehow, Gotham would be a little less lonely for you.

For all of them.

Alfred: So, how did the gala go, Master Wayne?

Bruce: I think it went well. There was a very pretty woman. She didn’t say no when I asked her out

Alfred: Fascinating. Like watching a car crash in slow motion and calling it a graceful landing.

Bruce: …I’m sensing sarcasm.

Alfred: No, no. I’m very impressed. You managed to express interest without brooding in a corner or vanishing mid conversation. Progress.

Bruce: I hate it when you bully me.

Alfred: And yet, I persist.

[daretoassume]

77 quotes to change your perspective

carl jung

"if the path before you is clear, you are probably on someone else's."

"until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate."

"the world will ask who you are, and if you do not know, the world will tell you."

"it all depends on how we look at things and not how they are in themselves."

"there is no coming to consciousness without pain."

joe dispenza

"can you accept the notion that once you change your internal state, you do not need the external world to provide you with a reason to feel joy, gratitude, appreciation, or any other elevated emotion?"

"if you want a new outcome, you will have to break the habit of being yourself and reinvent a new self."

"if you were to start investing your attention and energy into the unknown, your body would then be able to follow your mind into the unknown—a new experience in your future."

"if you cannot get beyond your stresses, your problems, and your pain, you cannot create a new future where those things do not exist."

"if you focus on the known, you get the known. if you focus on the unknown, you create a possibility."

eckhart tolle

"the primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it."

"life is not as serious as the mind makes it out to be."

"you find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life but by realizing who you are at the deepest level."

"pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within."

"most of the so-called bad things that happen in people's lives are due to unconsciousness. they are self-created, or rather ego-created."

wayne dyer

"when you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself."

"you are not stuck where you are unless you decide to be."

"begin to see yourself as a soul with a body rather than a body with a soul."

"be miserable. or motivate yourself. whatever has to be done, it is always your choice."

"you are what you choose to be today. not what you have chosen to be before."

louise hay

"every thought we think is creating our future."

"i do not fix problems. i fix my thinking. then problems fix themselves."

"you have been criticizing yourself for years, and it has not worked. try approving of yourself and see what happens."

"there is no written law that says that because you once believed something, you have to continue to believe it forever."

"the more we love ourselves, the less we project our pain onto the world."

jen sincero

"if you are serious about changing your life, you will find a way. if you are not, you will find an excuse."

"your life is your party. you get to choose how you invite people and experiences and things into it."

"you need to go from wanting to change your life to deciding to change your life."

"what you tell yourself on a daily basis is more powerful than you know."

"comparison is the fastest way to take all the fun out of life."

tony robbins

"it is your decisions and not your conditions that determine your destiny."

"you cannot have a plan for your day until you have a plan for your life."

"belief in limits creates limited people."

"the only thing that is keeping you from getting what you want is the story you keep telling yourself."

"if i could uncover what beliefs and values control me, i could literally redesign myself."

marcus aurelius

"the happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts."

"our life is what our thoughts make it."

"the best revenge is not to be like your enemy."

"every living organism is fulfilled when it follows the right path for its own nature."

"today i escaped anxiety. or no, i discarded it because it was within me, in my own perceptions—not outside."

jay shetty

"the more we define ourselves in relation to the people around us, the more lost we are."

"actually, the greatest detachment is being close to everything and not letting it consume and own you."

"it is impossible to build one's own happiness on the unhappiness of others."

"if you are satisfied with who you are, you do not need to prove your worth to anyone else."

"the grass is greener where you water it."

mel robbins

"if you only ever did the things you do not want to do, you would have everything you have ever wanted."

"you are one decision away from a completely different life."

"when it comes to change, goals, and dreams, you have to bet on yourself."

"change your decisions, and you will change your life. and what will change your decisions more than anything? courage."

"if you have the courage to start, you have the courage to succeed."

alan watts

"man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun."

"never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command."

"you are under no obligation to be the same person you were 5 minutes ago."

"a person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts. so, he loses touch with reality and lives in a world of illusions."

"hurrying and delaying are alike ways of trying to resist the present."

ram dass

"the quieter you become, the more you can hear."

"your problem is you are too busy holding on to your unworthiness."

"i can do nothing for you but work on myself…you can do nothing for me but work on yourself."

"free yourself from the illusion of good and bad days. labeling time makes us nostalgic for the past and demanding the future. there is only here and now. let it be."

"no matter what someone else does to you, never put anyone out of your heart."

lao tzu

"care about what other people think, and you will always be their prisoner."

"the best fighter is never angry."

"respond intelligently even to unintelligent treatment."

"if you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading."

"nature never hurries, yet everything is accomplished."

muhammad ali

"if my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it—then i can achieve it."

"do not quit. suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion."

"he who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life."

"i have never let anyone talk me into not believing in myself."

"i am the greatest. i said that even before i knew i was."

steve harvey

"you cannot leave what is important to you up to someone else."

"stop wasting time looking at someone else's reality while doing nothing about yours."

"the dream is free, but the hustle is sold separately."

"your dream has to be bigger than your fear."

"you cannot tell big dreams to small-minded people."

albert einstein

"i am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. imagination is more important than knowledge. knowledge is limited. imagination encircles the world."

"anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."

𓍯 entryfromsane004 (extracted from the old blog two years ago)

[ratioaven]

spoilers for 2.1 !!!!!!!

aventurine rant, please keep in my mind that these are my own thoughts and interpretations. im extremely sleep deprived lol so im sorry if i got anything wrong

something thats been on my mind since yesterday are these lines.

from the start to me, it was very clear aventurine had self esteem/worth issues because of how he treats his own life, but the line that says “the other hand is below the table, clutching your chips for dear life” stuck out to me.

i always assumed aventurine was so incredibly confident in his luck but in reality he is afraid. he’s terrified that he’ll lose. it’s an act. he convinces himself, he fools himself, he forces himself to act like he’s confident he’ll win, when in reality even if he does win, he’s still clutching his chips under the table for dear life because of how terrified he is of losing.

that really messed with me to be honest. i feel tricked and what’s ironic is that he tricks his opponents into thinking he’s confident, and he also tricked ME the player but really, this made my heart break in two because i had absolutely no clue up until now.

so why does he act this way

all throughout his life, aventurine has had his pride stripped away. just try to imagine being in his shoes. i myself do not think i could deal with the situations he was put in. i cannot stress this enough, aventurine has a mark on his neck that screams to him that he has once belonged to someone. he has had his pride stripped away from him countless times. but it’s ironic because aventurine is introduced as a very prideful and flashy man. you start to realize the front aventurine puts on is his own way of protecting himself. it’s how he’s able to live basically. i wanna go into more detail but i will later.

as it was said before, aventurine is an uptight person who worries. he is extremely afraid of losing and he has a massive inferiority complex. aventurine may seem like a go lucky person on the outside, but in actuality he is not. he is not happy. he has no self worth, he believes he has nothing to live for, and he has no problem with throwing his life away. aventurine believes the only good thing he brings to the table is his luck.

but this brings me to my next point.

aventurine may not realize it, but he is so much more than his luck. he has so many good qualities and he doesn’t seem to realize it. even if some of it may be an act, he’s still able to pull it off. he’s still an intelligent business man who is both charming and cunning EVEN if it may be an act, those are still amazing qualities to have in his line of work.

but more importantly, aventurine chose to live. despite witnessing his family die, being a slave, and tortured, he chose to live. he chooses to. i cannot stress this enough. this man has gone through hell and back. he truly has had an incredibly difficult life to the point where my heart hurts so so badly for him. he made the decision to stay alive.

that says more than enough about his character.

and last but not least, aventurine wants one thing, and that is to be with his family. he’s witnessed horrible things in his life that no one should ever go through. he lost everyone close to him, he lost his people. he has nothing to live for and he values his life so little to the point where he has no problem with dying. the only real thing that he wants is just to see his family.

and he will one day, but in the meantime, i genuinely hope this man can find a reason to live, and ratio already gave him one just by that note. i just truly wish aventurine happiness while he lives the rest of his life.

i guess this is a topic that really hits me hard because i know all too well that choosing to live life isn’t easy sometimes and i just love aventurine.

let’s all appreciate how truly amazing his character is.

[yanderestarangel]

HEADKANONS BI HAN | SUB ZERO MK1 WITH S/O

A/N: I'm going to write headcanons about all the men in MK, I'm going to write one shots, fanfic, I'm going crazy and more horny for each one of them... I'm gay as f*ck. Do you want to make a request? Read my blog rules in the pinned post.

TW: sfw, headcanons in general, afab reader, smut.

He is an aggressive lover. I mean, he's not going to hit you or anything, but he's extremely cold (I laughed after remembering that he's fucking sub zero lol), he's the type to talk the basics, even to you, so don't do it "silly" questions for him, if he's okay or if he ate, he'll answer: "-I'm here in front of you so obviously I'm fine." "-Don't worry, I know how to take care of myself, I'm not a child."

He likes to show his love for you through actions, like buying you something you've been wanting for a while, like giving you a bouquet of flowers, small but meaningful, Bi-Han doesn't know how to express love for anyone, I'm sorry, But it's the truth, but he tries for you, even if it's not the best.

Bi-Han cares about you even if he doesn't express it, he knows that he is a frustrated and wrong man in several actions, even if he wants to lie to himself that he doesn't, you both know that, but if you haven't given up on him, and You're still on his side, it means you love him, and he values that.

Bi Han won't let you work outside of his sight, that is, he will want you at home, you can beg or try to argue, he will say: "-Your job is to be my husband/wife, take care of our house, me and yourself, I can't allow you to go around." -He spoke calmly, but seriously, and that was really his thought, he just wants you to be close to him, he is afraid, terrified, of losing you one day. -

Bi Han is insecure, even if he never admits it, he gets jealous very quickly, he knows that you are a beautiful person, so he knows that many ninjas lust after you, even though you are married to him, so please don't flirt with other men or women, this man is capable of crazy things and the silent treatment he will give you after that will be for an indefinite period of time.

You are always on his mind in every mission, Kuai Liang and Tomas sometimes notice their grandmaster looking into space and perhaps, a transparent smile appears quickly, while Bi-Han looks at the landscape on the horizon, thinking about you. "-I hope (Y/N) is okay" -He said to himself, shaking his head soon after and returning to the mission.

When he notices that you are sad he becomes worried, but he just crosses his arms under his chest, and looks at you waiting for an explanation for such behavior, if you are upset about something that someone from the Lin Kuei clan did to you, consider that person dead, your grand master husband will immediately leave the house forming a deadly ice dagger in his hand, returning some time later, with a determined and blood-stained look. "-Okay, wipe your tears, the problem has already been solved, let's have dinner." -He spoke seriously and calmly, as he wiped the blood from his hands on a cloth, heading to the kitchen with heavy steps and giving you a look, so you could follow him.

Bi-Han lies down on the bed next to you, but he can't sleep for several nights, he finds himself watching you, your face so peaceful next to him, the ninja monster of the lin kuei, you look so good and comfortable next to him, he really wonders why you married him, you deserve someone better.

He covers you more with the sheet, caressing your cheek lightly with his thumb, while whispering on rare occasions, that he loved you.

"-I really love you, you know that? I'm sorry I'm not the best man for you (Y/N), I really want you forever by my side, and I'll protect you from this world, whatever the cost, what do I do and for me and for you." -Bi Han told you while you slept, he placed a chaste kiss on your forehead, while looking at the moon soon after, it would be another night that he would be haunted by his own demons.

Bi-Han's favorite couple's activity with you is strolling to a lake on the Lin Kuei clan's estate, sitting with you on the cool grass as the two of you watch nature, the swans on the lake, the cloudy sky announcing an upcoming rain. would soon come, the trees swaying to the rhythm of the wind, as Bi Han talked about his mother, he really loved her, and he is happy to see that you were really interested in listening, as he talked about childhood memories, making little sculptures of ice with his fingertips to represent the story he told, it's these moments with you that make everything he did, even the cruelest things, worth it.

He may not be loyal to the clan, but he is to you. He's the type that if someone comes at him, he has to be held back so he doesn't punch them for such audacity. Ex:

"-Bi Han, are you going to come with us-"

"-I'm a married man"

"-Bi Han, we just asked-"

"-I'm a married man, I told you." -He says pointing to the wedding ring and leaving. They were just going to ask him to drink a little, but as Bi Han said, he is a married man to you.

He doesn't like nicknames, only during sex, other than that he will call you by your name, or "my husband/my wife", he likes the idea of being called "husband" by you too, so if you If you refer to him like that, in public, he will melt inside, and smile slightly sideways behind the mask.

He is a wild man in bed, taking out his frustrations and anger on your beautiful pussy, mouth and body in general.

Bi Han loves blowjobs, if he could, you would be kneeling between his legs 24 hours a day, with your pretty face taking his entire cock in your mouth - I feel sorry for you dear, this man's cock is big and thick, he's literally going to hit it down your throat easily, leaving you breathless while your husband enjoys watching you choke on his dick like that -

He likes to degrade you in sex, it's a way for him to mark you as his and release his frustrations too, he will fuck you roughly, especially fucking you with his dick stuck in your pussy, with him lifting you easily while his hips they aggressively pound against your tight hole.

"-You're a great slut, you know? Taking my cock like a desperate bitch."

"-Oh fuck, you feel so good, don't you? Your pussy was made for me, the grand master lin kuei, and only mine, only I deserve you, do you hear? I'm just going to fuck that beautiful pussy until you can only think about how You want my dick inside you."

"-Do I really have a little whore as my husband/wife? How lucky for me then."

"-I'm going to fill you up... I'm going to fill that tight pussy of yours, and you want that, don't you? You want every drop of my cum, you're a hungry slut."

He loves to call you: "slut", "dirty bitch", "private whore", "nymph", "good boy/girl with a tight pussy". Most of the sex sessions you have with Bi Han end with him cumming on your face, pussy or belly, painting everything with his cum and leaving you panting with your legs shaking - for him, sex really is only good when you are weak from cumming on his dick, and overstimulated, with a swollen clitoris - He loves many sexual positions, but he prefers:

Cowgirl’s Helper: He likes to see you on top of him, your hands on his chest, while one of his hands squeezes your ass, and the other is behind his head. Bi Han watches you get impaled on his dick, stretching your pussy slowly, as your pussy drools on his pulsing dick, he looks at you, smiling smugly when he sees the rise of his dick in your womb. He would just groan in response to your desperate moans, watching your body move as you whimpered to cum - he wasn't going to let you cum yet, and if you did, he was going to punish the hell out of you, giving you at least five painful orgasms and pleasant that night -

Stand and Deliver: He loves seeing you bent over, your waist is sore from being bent over for him, but he loves seeing your ass and waist on top, thrusting into your pussy while pulling your hands behind your back, he would go so hard on your hole that your feet would leave the ground, you could feel the burn of the speed of Bi Han's dick in your pussy, but he wouldn't stop, he wouldn't stop until he left you a trembling mess full of cum - while calling you a desperate slut his cock -

©YANDERESTARANGEL 2023

[h-sleepingirl]

Essay: Hypnosis is Irrational

For PSYCHOSPIRITUAL: A Spirituality/Hypnokink Essay Jam

This is an essay about bonfires, Quaker meetings, Judaism, and the entirely transcendent nature of hypnosis. I'm sorry in advance to philosophers and scientists. Don't come for me until you've seen God in the ceiling through your fluttering lashes!

--

Rationality is a core value of modern western society. Materialism and objective, evidence-based science are seen as the gold standard for how to view the world around us. It’s easy to see why -- this approach has catapulted humanity forward over a relatively short period of time, technologically and philosophically. Finding the truths of the universe through hard evidence and math is extremely compelling and much more logical than basing our views off of conjecture or old religious texts.

Hypnosis entered public western consciousness in tumult. Franz Mesmer’s animal magnetism clearly worked, and he had theories of why, but they didn’t hold up to scientific rigor. Really from its inception, hypnosis has been fighting to be seen as legitimate as a medical practice, and as compatible with evidence-based science.

It’s not that it doesn’t make sense that hypnotherapy fights so hard to be accepted as a “real” discipline, or that it needs to go through studies to be practiced on patients. We value medicine that is objectively safe and effective -- for good reason.

That being said…

I am not anti-science. But I do think if we don’t acknowledge the methodology’s limitations, we are being dishonest and misleading -- with ourselves and with those we teach.

Here’s the thing: We are not doing therapy with our partners. We don’t need to be beholden to these limitations. Not in our theory, and especially not in our practice.

We are free -- more free than any other practitioners of hypnosis -- to accept and celebrate its irrationality.

And when we stop trying to shoehorn our experiences into being understandable, we are free to explore and experience unbelievable things.

--

In terms of spiritual beliefs, I would describe myself as a skeptic-leaning agnostic. I think that how you are raised is a major religious influence on you, and I happened to be raised in an atheist household. Despite branching off from my family and taking spiritual exploration seriously, I would never confidently say “I believe in God” or “I believe in magic,” nor that I am even particularly convinced by my handful of difficult-to-explain experiences.

While my spirituality intersects with hypnosis, I am not here to tell you that hypnosis is the result of God or magical forces -- and I’m not here to define how hypnosis fits into “magic” or vice versa. I think that too is a kind of rationalization -- it’s trying to explain something nebulous in a concrete way, trying to fit it into a box.

I don’t think that calling hypnosis irrational should cause us to seek alternative, definitive answers outside of science. I think that we as humans need to be comfortable not knowing, not labeling -- a space that can be very uncomfortable for us, but one that ultimately allows us to have less-filtered subjective experiences.

Subjective experiences are the core of hypnosis. No matter what method is purported to be “objectively” best, the one that you should actually use is the one that makes your partner feel trance most intensely. Science simply cannot anticipate, direct, or account for the subtlety of the subjective experience of hypnosis.

Scientific tests cannot accurately measure anything about hypnosis, because hypnosis relies almost entirely on the softest variables: the interpersonal relationship and biases we have, the way a person is feeling or primed on a given day, the slightest changes in tone or delivery or nonverbal language. We might say that standardized hypnosis is a completely different activity from the hypnosis that we practice with real partners.

A brainwave-measuring machine cannot communicate the intricacies and depth of a trance. I would not be surprised, if I was hooked up to an EEG, that many of my “trance states” would not produce expected effects on the device. Even physically observable signs of trance do not tell the whole story -- I can be having an intensely hypnotic internal experience while appearing completely awake. There is simply not an objective way to tell when I am hypnotized -- it is completely based on my own feelings.

And yet, with shocking accuracy, my partner can tell the exact moment that I slip into trance, even if I give no discernable outward response. When pressed, he often can’t identify what the signal is -- it is very, very subtle, if anything.

It is a moment where his focus on me melds into my experience, into my mind.

Really, there have been countless times in hypnosis that I feel with total certainty that my mind is being read or that I am reading my partner’s mind. It’s shocking, and sort of maddening, and I have heard from many others that they’ve experienced the same thing. Our urge is to say, “Well, that’s a result of unconsciously reading microexpressions, of knowing a person’s nonverbal language intimately, of having a robust internal map of a person, being good at anticipating hypnotic responses, linguistic cold reading tricks.” That’s rationalizing, and it’s all very logical and certainly has some element of truth to it -- but it causes us to say “OK, case closed,” and sigh in relief that we can dismiss the question and no longer be faced with it.

The reality is this: Those are guesses. They are probably pretty good guesses, but I believe we fall into this trap of assuming the logical-sounding guesses we make are objectively correct, even in the absence of evidence.

Ostensibly, the vast majority of “answers” we have about why hypnosis works are just that -- theories, models, best guesses. Science doesn’t even have a singular accepted answer on whether hypnosis is an altered state. Often, working within a given theory (or two) gives us structure and allows us to perform more effectively. But when we really think about the nature of hypnosis, the truth is that we really don’t have much of a solid idea why and how it works.

That’s uncomfortable. I’m not pushing that because it’s the cold, hard truth, or because accepting it is some form of mental asceticism (nor spiritual gateway). I’m saying it because living in that liminal space of irrationality will actually change the way you do and experience hypnosis -- because it frees you from the limitations of feeling like everything we do has to make sense.

--

I have my own theory about why we want to make those logical guesses: Because it feels embarrassing to say we are hypnotists and yet there are things we don’t understand. Because we are afraid of judgment if we say we are actually mind-reading or doing magic, even as a shorthand for a complex invisible process. I think these are unconscious biases -- a result of seeing ourselves as rational people in a rational world. Spirituality is seen as lesser and fake -- entertaining the idea of magic gets you labeled as immature or crazy.

But when you try to remove your biases and think about it, it is crazy that we use just our words to make people forget things, hallucinate things, have orgasms, experience dissolution of the ego. And we don’t really know why.

True curiosity and wonder are hypnosis’s best friends. New subjects who struggle to experience trance or suggestions often are stuck because of their expectations -- they feel like they know what is supposed to happen, so when their experience doesn’t line up, they perceive it as failure. It’s why one of the best ways you can set a person up for “success” in hypnosis is to really cultivate a sense of curiosity, of not being judgmental of their experience, of not assuming they know what is happening.

Even still, this model of trance often has the subject experiencing wide-eyed wonder while the hypnotist actually holds the esoteric knowledge of what’s going on behind the curtain. But in my opinion, the real magic happens when both parties are prepared to question everything they know, to be surprised, to not take for granted, and to observe without rationality.

My most treasured memory is one that I keep close to my chest. Briefly: it was at a hypnosis-friendly bonfire on the autumnal equinox. My partner and I embraced and for an hour had a completely shared experience, wordless and hypnotic and bizarrely spiritual. Neither of us were “driving” -- we were both passengers, almost like being possessed. No drugs were involved, just the two of us in the right place at the right time, able to let go of the feeling that we were “crazy” or being illogical, or that we knew what was going to happen. We were both really shaken by it.

That ultimately led us to being able to have trances, occasionally, where we mutually let our guard down and play without the usual “rules.” We can’t do it intentionally, but sometimes we hit on little pockets of magic, and then the trance becomes like spellcasting, and spellcasting isn’t bound by the laws that supposedly govern hypnosis.

We know that hypnosis is influenced largely by how we expect it to work. We give pretalks to set expectations that often function as suggestions, boundaries, and definitions: “All you need to do to be hypnotized is pay attention -- it’s OK if your thoughts drift.” “Hypnosis might feel different from what you expect, like floating or sinking.” Even: “You can always come out of trance if you need to.”

I believe my partner and I are on similar pages about whether magic is “real.” The word “maybe” does a lot of heavy lifting in my worldview. It’s really more about being open to different perspectives, and playing in different models. So if we can dip into a perspective where hypnosis behaves a bit more like magic -- or otherwise irrationally -- then that actually, literally changes the way hypnosis works.

This is the true nature of hypnosis -- it is a shapeshifter. If you define hypnosis as a science or as a spiritual practice, it works either way. So if you can change the beliefs you inhabit, you will experience wildly different trances. And it may be irrational to assign spirituality and magic to it, but it is not absurd.

--

In this way, belief and perspective is actually where a lot of the nature of hypnosis sits.

After the “bonfire incident,” I was motivated to do some spiritual seeking, and I started going to Quaker meetings. Quaker meetings are simple but intense: People get together in a room and sit silently, opening themselves up to “messages” from within their own hearts or outside themselves, and if they feel moved to share a message, they stand up and speak it. There is no discussion, just completely passive listening and speaking.

I found this to be an extremely potent spiritual environment. We weren’t meditating, per se, just going quiet. Sitting silently for an hour with no other stimulation was luxurious, and felt quite a bit to me like a kind of trance.

I went regularly for a few months. I never spoke, but I did listen. There was one meeting I remember vividly where I was sitting and thinking about something, and at that moment, a woman stood up, and shared a message that was very close to what I was pondering over.

Then another woman stood:

“I know sometimes in this room,” she said, “we feel like we are all thinking the same thing when someone shares a message. This is one of those times for me.”

There was no fear of judgment, nor proclamation of metaphysical experience. It was just a statement of fact.

Quaker meetings taught me to be curious. If the bonfire opened the door, Quaker meetings honed my ability to be irrational. There was a period while I was going regularly where I was seeing wonder in the world at every turn -- a leaf falling on my back felt like a tap on the shoulder, the wind felt like a whisper.

And when my partner and I were doing hypnosis, my rigid belief system became so flexible that I was utterly open to suggestions about my experiences. He would tell me things and I believed them completely, almost like being on a drug, or completely enchanted. We were doing serious magic back then, tempting reality to peel back and reveal the “truth” underneath. It was intoxicating, and it certainly had an element of danger.

As intense as it was, I found this magic to be frustrating too, because I wanted to understand the nature of it -- I wanted to understand hypnosis so badly, and I wanted so badly for magic to be real. I thought that maybe there was a facet of hypnosis that I’d been missing -- some spiritual facet -- that would take me one step closer to an objective, unified, overarching hypnosis model.

I was right that I had been neglecting to think about spirituality with regard to hypnosis. But of course the idea that was leading to some overarching truth was a red herring. The real truth is that there is no overarching truth -- hypnosis can be seen from many models and perspectives, but there isn’t a singular “correct” one.

-- 

I have written extensively about how I feel this is core to hypnosis -- both in educational articles, an upcoming book, and in a personal essay about Judaism. My Jewishness is critically important to me, and has taught me a lot about the value of diverse perspectives, including on the spectrum of rationalism versus spirituality or mysticism.

By some, religion is often seen as incompatible with science (or rationality) -- unprovable mystical forces, an unseeable omnipotent creator. But there have been a number of important rationalist thinkers throughout history, across world religions.

Judaism’s most famous is probably Maimonides -- Moses ben Maimon. He lived in Spain in the 1100s, a time and place where Jewish mysticism was thriving. Maimonides was both a scientist and a deeply religious, learned Jew. One of his greatest contributions to the culture was in codifying Jewish law and practice in the common tongue to make it accessible to the average Jew at the time. In doing so, his rationalism made a great impact in Judaism as a whole.

Maimonides brought Aristotalian philosophy into Judaism, which came with a full rejection of the supernatural -- with the exception of God as transcendent creator. (The creation exists, so it must have been created.) One of his major theological tenets was that there was no conflict between the scientific and the teachings of Torah -- that the revelations of God were completely compatible with science. To Maimonides, for example, angels were not supernatural beings, but a metaphorical personification of the natural forces of the world. There are “angels” for why the wind blows, and “angels” for why we are held stuck to the earth.

If something appeared to be at odds with the natural order of the world -- whether it was from Torah or a perceived miracle -- Maimonides said that was our own lack of understanding, both of science and of the “secrets” of Torah. Essentially: everything that seems irrational has a rational explanation.

There are pros and cons to this, in my opinion. First, it’s neat, elegant, and sensible -- and I think it’s compatible with a measured view of hypnosis. Hypnosis is real -- no one is disputing that -- and while it has unknowable parts to us at our current point in history, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it behaves counter to the natural order of the world.

But I think Maimonides contradicts himself. If you claim to be humbled by the secrets of the world and revelation, why would you so vehemently reject that the world might behave differently than you understand or expect?

How can we claim to “know” the natural order of the world in any capacity beyond what we can observe? How can we claim that our observations are universal or objective?

If we can’t know, we can only experience, explore, experiment. It is brutally human -- reaching out to the world with our limited five senses and our remarkable consciousness. By the nature of us being humans, our explorations will all produce different perspectives and models, all of which have an element of truth to them because all of our experiences are “real,” true experiences.

Hypnosis operates necessarily with/on the human brain -- two unique human brains -- so we each see a unique, limited facet of it. By talking, playing, and connecting with each other, we learn about other facets and perspectives which influence our internal models of it. On a larger scale, as a community, we create, bend, and break rules about it as our community experience evolves. We actually change what hypnosis is, how it works, and how to do it.

Even in just 15 years, I have seen firsthand how hypnosis changes as the community changes. If you look back at historical sources about hypnosis, you can see that we do something radically different nowadays -- which we think of as more sophisticated, but then again, historical hypnotists were doing amazing things too.

Hypnosis as a thing evolves as we explore it more -- as we explore each other more -- and push its boundaries.

We can’t pin down what it is. We can’t model it. But we can participate in it.

It is transcendent -- as Maimonides and Aristotle say God is transcendent; utterly beyond us.

--

Part of my experience of being hypnotized really intensely is a deeper acceptance of what I am feeling or thinking, moment to moment. It is a kind of radical acceptance that what my brain is doing is important and real. It’s not that I don’t understand that I’m hypnotized, or that I don’t make any critical judgments about what is happening. It’s just partially that if I feel something “weird,” I don’t dismiss it out of hand.

When I am in deep trances, weird stuff often happens. I get spontaneous sensory hallucinations, I get stray thoughts that can blindside me.

Occasionally, I have this unmistakable feeling that I am “seeing God.” That felt like a crazy thought to me the first time I had it -- like a person of capital-F “Faith” would have. It didn’t suddenly make me believe in a higher power, but I was left with that feeling that I had touched something divine while my partner murmured into my ear and took control of me.

Hypnosis is not just transcendent by nature or in a vacuum -- it feels transcendent. It feels like nothing else in this world; it completely transcends language and the realm of usual experience.

It makes sense that when faced with this kind of experience, it makes a skeptical person like me feel for a moment that there might be something more, something ineffable. It makes sense that when I have spiritual experiences with hypnosis, it feels innately spiritual to me.

But also it is true that hypnosis is simply very weird.

Why do I feel like I am connecting with divinity in deep trance? Why do I feel certain that my partner and I are reading each other’s minds? Why have I felt a quality of presence or possession?

I can believe it or disbelieve it all I want. I can rationalize it in any way I want. You can relate to me, or think less of me and judge me. But none of that takes away from what my experiential truth is.

What hypnosis feels like is not just more important than what it “is,” that is what it is. The subjective experience that we inhabit is hypnosis. 

Humans are moved by weird, irrational, transcendent experiences. Those are the times our worldview is affirmed or shaken. For those of us who are spiritually open to the idea that the materialistic world might be more than it seems, these moments are bright sparks of light, motivating, inspirational.

Hypnosis does this to me all the time. I am constantly amazed by it. I truly believe the only reason we look at it as a mundane phenomenon is because we assume our world is mundane -- we take it for granted.

But it is not mundane. It is two people communicating in such an intimate way that it behaves like a psychoactive drug. It is striving to know another person so deeply that you innately understand what they are thinking and feeling and you don’t know why. It makes the impossible seem possible; it makes magic feel 100% real.

That’s not some perspective that is out of touch with reality. That is the grounded view of hypnosis.

We are allowed to have crazy experiences with this art. Our main job is not trying to sell people on the idea that it is real. We work so hard to portray ourselves as sane and grounded -- we imitate therapists who need to have an answer to skeptics walking into their office. I think that at a certain point when we are doing intimate hypnosis we are allowed to say, “OK, I know this is real, and you know this is real, so let’s drop the bullshit and acknowledge that what we are doing is actually completely crazy.”

Hypnosis is amazing. It is just amazing. I am not saying that it is completely impossible to understand -- I think it is fair to say at this point that my life’s work is trying to understand it and communicate that understanding. I am saying that we need to not cut ourselves off from amazement, from confusion, from wonder, from not-knowing -- those are crucial to understanding, even crucial to science.

It is a form of respect to the art and to our partners to inhabit a space where we don’t know, to relax our egos and say that hypnosis is more than we can comprehend. To listen -- to ourselves or our partners -- when weird stuff happens.

Hypnosis will grow with us as humans if we let it. We have the opportunity to open ourselves to it, to greet it curiously, and to truly surrender to our exploration.

--

Sleepingirl (they/she) is a hypnokink educator with over a decade of experience on both sides of the pocket watch. They’re the author of several books, many articles (patreon.com/sleepingirl), and LearnHypnokink.com (a guide through the foundations of improvised hypnosis).

Their body of work in hypnokink is extremely extensive and spans many mediums -- see everything at https://sleepingirl.info/.

[theambitiouswoman]

I got what I wanted and I’m still not happy — why?

You finally found someone that checks off your list, the dream apartment, the designer bags, the business success, or the lifestyle you worked so hard for. And yet… something still feels off. You thought happiness would come once you checked all the boxes, but instead, there’s this emptiness, a feeling that something is missing

So, why does this happen? Why do we chase what we think will make us happy, only to feel unfulfilled once we have it?

Most of us are wired to believe that happiness is a destination. “Once I have X, I’ll finally feel good.” But happiness isn’t in the getting—it’s in the growing, the process. When you’re striving for something, you have purpose, momentum & excitement. But once you have it, what’s next? If you don’t have something deeper driving you, fulfillment can fade quickly

Shift your focus from external achievements to internal growth. Instead of asking, “What do I want next?” ask, “Who do I want to become?”

Society, social media & marketing have programmed us to believe that happiness comes from relationships, luxury, or financial success. While these things can enhance your life, they aren’t the foundation of happiness. “Oh money would make me so happy!” Wrong, peace of mind that comes with paying bills or being able to treat yourself would make you happy

A relationship won’t heal deep insecurity

Luxury won’t fill emotional emptiness

Success won’t erase loneliness

We see influencers flaunting their seemingly perfect lives, but what we don’t see is their private struggles. If happiness truly came from material things or relationships, wealthy & successful people wouldn’t battle depression or anxiety—but many do

Redefine what happiness means for you, outside of what society has told you. What actually makes you feel alive? What moments make you feel at peace?

A lot of people think finding the right person will complete them. But no relationship can fill the void of self abandonment. If you don’t feel worthy, secure, or whole on your own, even the best relationship will eventually trigger your insecurities

Maybe you’ve finally landed the relationship you always wanted, but instead of feeling safe, you find yourself anxious, overanalyzing everything, or feeling disconnected. That’s because relationships reflect what’s already inside of you—not what we want them to fix

Focus on becoming someone you love being with. If you had everything stripped away—no relationship, no luxury, no validation—who would you be? Would you still feel at peace?

Happiness addiction is real. We get a dopamine rush from achieving something new, but once the high fades, we need another “hit.” This is why people who seem to have it all keep striving for more—bigger houses, more money, more success. But if you’re constantly chasing, you never arrive

Learn to sit with stillness. If you never had another major success, could you still be content? Happiness isn’t about how much you have, but how much you appreciate what you have

You can have all the material success & relationships in the world, but if you’re disconnected from your deeper self—your purpose, your passions, your values—you’ll always feel a little lost. Sometimes, we chase what we think we want, only to realize it wasn’t truly aligned with our soul

Start asking yourself these questions:

What truly excites me outside of achievement?

Am I living for myself or for external validation?

If I lost everything tomorrow, what would still matter to me?

Getting everything you want and still feeling unfulfilled isn’t a sign that something is wrong with you—it’s a sign that happiness was never about the things you thought it was. Actual fulfillment comes from within, from living a life aligned with your values, nurturing deep connections & finding joy in the present, not just in the next goal

The real question isn’t why you’re not happy—it’s what truly makes you feel alive? And that’s the journey worth taking 🤍

[starmosaics]

With 10H Moons, they’re driven towards becoming seen and acknowledged by the collective. They don’t necessarily need outside validation, but it definitely can push them towards their goals faster. They like to be known and appreciated for whatever it is they do (a lot of 10H Moons I know want to be famous or are well known in their communities). These people are usually born to stand out in some way (especially with what they do) so when they follow the pack they can feel somewhat lost.

A 10H Moon has to have their heart in whatever it is they’re doing or going after. They can easily become bored or unhappy when going down an unfulfilling path. When the 10H Moon enjoys what they do, it becomes an outlet for them to feel content. They can also job hop quite a bit. They want to try new things so it may be hard for them to settle into something if they aren’t 100% certain about it; 10H Moons are generalists and if they could, they would do multiple things at once. These people love working when they find something they’re passionate about and feel comfortable in a space where they can tend to something. Having a sense of responsibility inside and outside of their jobs can make them feel very secure— they like to be needed and feel important and valued at their jobs. Productivity generally makes these people feel accomplished, but the balance between work and home and everything else in between can be a struggle for them and they may begin to feel burnt out, stuck, or stressed if they dedicate all their energy on one aspect of life.

In a workplace or when collaborating with others, these are the type of people to ask everybody how they’re doing and feeling. Working in a place with discord or working with others they don’t get along with will cause them to retract from their jobs super quick. I’ve noticed that most of the time at their workplaces they can make good long-term friends and people will tend to nurture/take them under their wing. I’ve also seen the opposite where people in the workplace might overly baby these individuals and think they’re less capable than their peers.

It is said that the 10H Moon native’s mother somehow influences their direction/motivation in life whether it be positive or negative. Ex. 10H Moon’s relationship with mother was not great so it motivated the 10H Moon to not become like the mother, driving them towards greater opportunities OR some aspect of the mother is influenced by the 10H Moon’s drive towards whatever they want to pursue. As 10H Moon myself, a personal example is my Mother was really into astrology, tarot, tattoos, and the occult and I was heavily influenced by her. All her interests are things I would be okay going towards in terms of career paths. After my mom passed it inspired me to want to become a certified death doula.

It’s so hard for a 10H Moon to not wear their hearts on their sleeves and moods on their faces. 10H Moons will almost always carry their emotions on their face and people seem to easily read their body language. They can unconsciously adjust their emotions to however the other person reacts to them as well; to feel seen by others, their feelings need other people’s response and reactions. They can also be painfully transparent especially when letting others know how they feel.

Although it may be difficult for these natives due to their concern about their image, being authentic is important because by being themselves and feeling their feelings unapologetically, they can help make others feel like they’re not alone. Their words are incredibly impactful, especially when it’s emotionally charged. This makes for a great motivator and advacate.

[coochiekrab]

Share with us your moral dilemma... perhaps we can help?

This is going to sound stupid

but i keep finding myself saying (in my head) “that’s really childish, you are a grown adult grow up” to people i see online who have made their entire online persona an ode to “healing their inner child”; a 39 year old Pokémon fan with a room full of Pokémon toys and cards and games talking about how they went to 20 stores in one day and couldn’t find any Pokémon cards, a married woman giving a tour of her bedroom sized squishmallow collection, someone with a masters degree pulling hundreds of Labubu blind boxes on TikTok live etc etc. i know this is me trying to compensate for being a very Ungrown Grown adult myself. In like 3 weeks I’ll be 24, “””” unemployed “ (formally), with no drivers license, no car, no real financial responsibilities outside of my own subscriptions and credit card bills, no desire to date or have sex, no desire to Work a Formal Job, no desire to smoke or drink, and Medium Desires to buy stupid plastic trinkets and games on eBay all day. All i do is hobby and do fake job. Im Extremely Childish in every sense but i feel like I’m above these people because its just not my whole online persona? The moment it clicked for me that this might be conservative propaganda working on me was when i said “ew grow up” to a woman advertising her Very Cutesy Frog Overall Dress that she designed and manufactured while using silly doggo heccin booper language and i was like oh wait. Im mad at non conformity. I like non conformity. My brain says I need to grow up but all the things that Facilitate growing up in my head are conformist and i don’t want to look like i just gave up on my values. Especially around driving sex and alcohol lol

[midnightshindig]

Heya! Would be curious what relationship hcs for the mauler twins would be like? Kind of imagine even if a new one is made the same feelings carry over type thing. Maybe the reader is very morally grey too? Also gn! Reader if possible! Ty!

Mauler Twins X Reader: General Relationship HCs

borf.... happy pride guys

hcs below the cut!

They're a package deal in every other way, why not dating?

I wouldn't say these two value monogamy in any way, moreso that it would be wildly inconvenient for you to be seeing (and possibly leaking their secrets to) other people

So you're a tightnit throuple at best

but you make it work.

If you're a supervillain, too, you're most likely the one calling the shots. A manager, if you will

The Mauler Twins are brilliant and massive, but they lack... focus.

Afternoons with them will often involved you sitting atop the large weapons of destruction being constructed, giving instructions throughout

And then taking a break for some lunch

Pot pie, of course.

If you aren't a supervillain- or if you prefer to keep work and life separate, you play more of a doting assistant in their lives.

"Guyyys! Helloooo! I brought dinner!"

They're pretty domestic when they want to be

Competetive, too

"Good afternoon, Y/n, how do you like the laser? We'll use it to blow up the Whitehouse later this month." and then, with a cocky grin "I designed it all by myself."

Followed by the other twin-- previously working on a smaller project across the warehouse-- peeping up "NOT true!! You lie, brother. He LIES." with all the outrage and sincerity of a heart attack.

Your friends and family don't know about your relationship for a plethora of reasons, not in the least bit being because they are giant blue clone supervillains.

If you're being honest its mostly because they're such assholes, you can't imagine introducing them to your parents

It's not like they've introduced you to theirs

You're not even sure they have parents.

Your lives together are pretty mundane, the occasional heist, the occasional date night, all very streamlined

The Mauler Twins are brutally efficient people, after all

They do their best to take turns with you, since they have such a hard time getting along.

You, for whatever reason, find it relatively easy to discern which of them is the most recent clone

But of course, you'd never divulge that information.

They ask repeatedly, however

"You mean, you can tell? but you're never allowed in the room when we clone ourselves! You've never seen it!!"

Smiling to yourself, you allowed your eyes to pass between the two 'identical' men in front of you

"Yeah, not so much. It's more of an experience thing? I guess? The mind is old but the body is fresh, if you will."

Refusing to elaborate, the twins spent the rest of the day debating over who was "the clone"

Morons, you couldn't help but find their naivete endearing

they were both clones, and had been for some time now.

buuuuut they were your clones, so it didn't bother you too much.

You couldn't go outside for dates, so you mostly stayed in

It wasn't an uncommon occurrence for the three of you to pimp out the warehouse you stayed in with pillows and blankets and stolen furniture-- in order to make a quite comfortable pillow fort

movie nights and themed dinners were common

Say what you will, those fuckers can knead some bread dough, and you put them to the task without mercy

One time you tried having a pizza delivered but the guy hit on you in a really creepy way and got murked.

It was a sad day for everyone

Y'know, no more pizza delivery and all.

They let you paint their nails. It's one of your favorite activities because they enjoy it a lot, no matter how much they whine and protest.

"Aaaaaand, done! Perfect, what do you think?"

"Y/n- I demand you paint my nails next."

and so on and so forth

[thejewitches]

How can you be Jewish and a "witch"? That's contradiction in its core lol

It would appear some of you have forgotten the art of holding multiple truths at once. Judaism is far more vast than many of you imagine.

Like any good English 101 course teaches you, when engaging in discussion, you must first define your terms.

What is a witch? Jewish history provides many answers, but almost all of them apply to non-Jews and their worship of deities outside of Judaism. If it is Avodah Zarah (idolatry) that makes a witch, such definitions do not apply to me as I worship none other than HaShem.

But is that what witchcraft truly is? I do not see value in such a narrow definition. Witchcraft is cross-cultural: it spans the globe and is defined by communities for their own; and ultimately, witchcraft has many faces. One face, however, represents some of our most beloved traditions, should we choose to apply the term. Whether you like the term or not, it is here to stay.

The term Jewitch is one that I am (obviously) extraordinarily fond of -- not just because it is adorable, but because using it is an act of reclamation. The first time I came across it, the term was being hurled as a slur. Go on Twitter or Reddit and see it used to degrade Jewish women; to continue the centuries old libel that we poison wells, drink the blood of babies, practice magic of the Devil.

The label of witch is controversial: that's part of why I use the term Jewitches. People seek magic and so often feel that they have to search outside of Judaism to find it. My work is to show that you do not have to leave your home to find a place in the magical world.

I ask no one to use the term -- and quite honestly, very rarely use the term myself (outside of hashtags & my brand name) because I do not need it. I am a Jew. My traditions are Jewish. My practice is Jewish.

"Regardless of what one's views are about magic, all agree that it is no way a contradiction to the Unity of G-d, and it itself (if it exists) is a creation of G-d." - Rabbi Yehuda Shurpin

After all, Pirkei Avot says, "The more wives, the more witchcraft".

[thedwarrowscholar]

Hello, Scholar! I'm not very familiar with dwarven customs, something I'm trying to fix, and I find myself needing some guidance. I've looked through your articles and asks already but I haven't found this topic answered yet (my bad if you already talked about it!). I was wondering if there are any particular custom dwarves follow when they have children. Do they celebrate the birth like humans do? Is there any rite they follow? Thanks for you hard work!

Well met!

Thank you for your kind words, and for taking the time to delve deeper into Dwarven culture — a journey well worth undertaking, if I may say so.

And worry not — the mountain holds many hidden halls, and even I sometimes lose track of what’s buried where. This question, while touched on here and there, deserves a dedicated response. So let’s set our lanterns to the wall and explore it together.

👶 Birth Among the Dwarves To understand Dwarven birth customs, one must first appreciate just how rare and treasured Dwarven children truly are.

As noted in earlier writings, only about a third of Dwarves are female, and even fewer of those choose to marry or have children. It is not uncommon for entire generations to pass with only a handful of births (hence the decline in Dwarven numbers by the end of the Third Age). When a child is born, it is seen as a monumental blessing — a gift from Mahal (Aulë) himself, and a cause for deep reverence and guarded joy.

🔒 Private, Not Public Unlike the boisterous and public birth celebrations of Men, Dwarven customs tend toward privacy and solemnity. A child’s birth is not shouted from the mountaintops — rather, it is whispered through the stone. The family, close kin, and members of their House or Hall may gather in quiet observance, but even then, such gatherings are likely modest, reverent, and very much closed to outsiders.

Dwarves do not take life lightly, and the birth of a new Dwarrow is treated with a sense of sacred duty.

🛠️ Rituals and Rites While Tolkien didn’t describe specific Dwarven birth rituals, we can make educated assumptions based on the two major cultural inspirations behind Dwarves: Hebrew tradition and Old Norse custom.

From the Hebrew side, one might imagine something akin to:

A naming rite, possibly held on the seventh day after birth

A blessing spoken over the child, invoking Mahal’s protection and wisdom

The presentation of the inner-name, known only to the parents and the child's name guardians — a name never spoken aloud beyond these very closest of kin.

From the Old Norse side, we might envision:

The child being presented to the ancestral forge

The forging or gifting of a symbolic item: a small pendant, a rune-stone, or even the first tool to be used in training

Possibly a ritual touch of stone, linking the child to the enduring strength of the earth

Dwarvish child (with beard, naturally) being presented to the ancestral forge

🧱 The Role of Clan and Hall While the birth remains a private family affair, the clan and hall often take a formal interest, particularly if the child is of noble blood, or if the population of the hold is modest. In such cases, the elders may offer formal recognition, or record the birth in the family scrolls — the genealogical ledgers kept within each Hold. Note as well that females were often omitted from ledgers (unless they gave birth to Lords, Kings or Princes) - Dís being a prime example of the only female noted in Dwarvish genealogical information given to us by Tolkien. Reason for this is not a form of discrimination toward female Dwarves, but rather the added secrecy and protection of females. They were so valued that even their names would be hidden (both in spoken and written form).

🍼 Gender and Names As with other aspects of Dwarven life, discretion reigns supreme. The child’s gender is not usually discussed beyond kin, and their inner-name is kept secret. Only the outer-name is eventually revealed — sometimes not until years later — especially if the child will be trained in another Hold or away from their clan.

Names are not chosen lightly. Often they are inherited, or carefully crafted using ancestral root sounds to honour forebears. (For instance, Óin and Glóin being the sons of Gróin, is a deliberate echo of ancestry, not mere coincidence.)

🧡 In Summary:

Births are rare and deeply cherished among the Dwarves

Celebrations are private, solemn, and reverent — not public festivals

Inspired by Hebrew and Norse traditions, rites may involve blessings, naming ceremonies, symbolic objects, and ancestral rituals

The inner-name is sacred and rarely spoken

Clan records may preserve the birth, though much remains unspoken to outsiders

So yes — Dwarves do celebrate births, though perhaps not as Men do. In their own quiet, stone-bound way, they honour the miracle of new life with all the weight and reverence their culture demands. And to them, that is enough.

Ever at your service, The Dwarrow Scholar

[quasarwake]

Inspired by @radioactiverats' latest Cadet chapter (it's not wholly connected but it's definitely what lit the spark)

Man sometimes thinking about jealousy as a concept- it's greed, it's genuine want, and GODS can you just imagine how territorial Seekers are? I love the idea of Seekers being a bit like territorial birds (or dragons, if I allow myself to be particularly indulgent). Birds and even certain reptiles like to show off for their mates- and if you've ever watched parrots for long enough, you KNOW they have best friends and gossip and beef between each other. They form lasting social bonds out of genuine friendship and necessity.

And it's made me think about Cybertronian cultures and different cultural nuances between frames. Emotions aren't negative inherently- jealousy comes from being territorial, which has a biological precedent (or cybernetic, as it were). The issue with jealousy comes with finding healthy outlets for that emotion. I imagine the reason Seekers would value this emotion would be due to how Trining or Flocking works.

I've seen a lot about how the fandom regards Trines and honestly wow love that, but it's already hard to get one partner let alone two, so I imagine there's a lot of showing off involved. Peacocking. 'I'm very much better than what you're looking at, so look at me. And if you DON'T look at me, then why am I wasting my time?' Pretty insufferable guys at the bar ngl, depending on personality. Like on the light end you get Thundercracker doing a 'check in' because wow maybe you could be having a better time with him- and on the extreme end you literally get Skywarp going 'I will kill this guy for your attention if I have to'. Some iterations of TC I see wholly being as that guy that's actually off-putting because he's genuinely trying every time to get attention from somebody that's Not Feeling It. Maybe being in a Trine with two hardcore Decepticons dulls his emotional maturity, idk war.

But that also comes with the potential of fending off others that may want that flier to themselves, or finding a coupled pair that needs to be convinced of your worth in different ways, speed and flight maneuverability obviously being the major factors in traditional Trine 'courtship'- there's probably more to it than JUST those things, since it's not just animal courtship (or even mating displays, depending on the desired relationship OF the Trine). Jealousy could even arise in the Trine itself until a pecking order from speed contests (or combat) sorts things out- or, again, it could be down to personality. And there's something in the thrill of that, of proving yourself and others finding you worthy- if you're Trined or even just paired, you have found some way to 'prove' yourselves to one another, and there's no extra baggage after the fact outside of whatever each personality brings to the table.

The feeling that perhaps, your partner or Trinemate is feeling jealousy over you- how that could be regarded as reaffirmation of emotional connection, an opportunity to strengthen that bond. 'Even if I did have them it would be to share'/'their wings could never match your style and grace'/'I don't need them when I have you'.

And sometimes, there is another mech trying to steal your partner or Trinemate. Sometimes, that's what you do to get a new Trinemate- rejection can occur but loyalties depend on the actual bond, and if the bond isn't strong, one Seeker might just allow themselves to be swayed more easily- 'nothing personal, but they do fly better with me than we ever have' kind of energy. And hey if somebody steals your partner or Trinemate, they probably weren't a good Trinemate for you anyways, so frag them time to move on and find somebody that can either catch you or is fun to pin.

But especially, imagine being a Seeker cut off from that culture of finding this all acceptable. That these emotions are ugly, mean, negative, even, instead of the natural territoriality that comes with being connected to your core self. It's not a crime to want, or want something that others have- perhaps even, this is why so many Seekers joined the Decepticons, because at least Decepticons understand that kind of want and need, healthily sourced or not.

Especially when you're alone. Facing trying times. There's a reason why Trines work- three fliers stabilizing each other not only in flight but emotionally, either fluffing each other up or grounding themselves in reality (or at the very least, reasonable expectations). Even unhealthy or impractical Trinemates seem better off- because at least there's still that connection, that socialising aspect. You may be in the Pits with assholes, but at least they're your assholes, and every attempt at them being taken from you (or you being taken from them) gets met with defense and reaffirmation of desire/affection/want/need. A recurring thing in the fandom I've seen is the idea that the Elite Trine of Starscream/Thundercracker/Skywarp is a Trine made out of necessity- how much bad blood flows between restructured Trines in the Decepticon fliers? War makes brutes of any of us. How many Seekers still go out of their way to Trine properly? Are there issues with generational gaps- pre-war bots trying to get war-born bots to understand the difference between warring and peaceful times, socialising activities gone long neglected- it feels like an echo of Seeker culture, to take and take and own and to have, but do they taste how bastardised it has become?

You see other groups and connections, perhaps vehicons dealing with this emotional distance much better than a Seeker, social bonds and needs far different than your own.

It is a gift to fly. It is a curse to fly alone.