#leading without a title

[beskarfrog]

Maybe dinluke-it The Kiss, 1859 by Francesco Hayez ?

big heart eyes for how your brain works @cutoutthepoetrywatson

[milkbreadtoast]

Here's a v quick vague rushed half assed TWSB propaganda post

TWSB is a romance novel isekai subversion story. You know, the escapist genre that there r 2353533535 kr webtoons/novels for... i got reincarnated in my fav romance novel as the villainess yadayada THAT genre. but a twist on it!!!

TWSB is for fujoshi/fudanshi/fujin who would rather ship the 2 male love interests in a romance than have a love triangle with the female lead... TWSB is also for poly/throuple/trio enjoyers (whether platonic or not ur choice). And old women yuri enjoyers. And people who enjoy novel isekai subversions like orv and surviving romance (and SVSS? i havent read but ive heard comparisons)... /ppl who think novel isekai premises Could be interesting but find so many of them boring cliche or wasted potential... and people who like fun worldbuilding... or ppl who r interested in the premise "typical shoujo romance novel plot gets derailed and ends up accidentally becoming a non-romance action fantasy which is also highkey extremely gay"..... *dangling a chocolate croissant in front of u* ooooh u want to read twsb so bad wooooo is it worki

(EDIT: oh to be clear im recommending the novel btw!! webtoon is cute but the novel is where u get the full experience 🛐 idc which one u start w but pls read the novel... hehe)

[zahri-melitor]

Okay to be super boring about this, because the Tom King post is annoying me and people can't count:

We don't have a confirmed publication date for the Trinity series yet. We only have solicits out to November 2024.

In November 2024, the DC publication stats for women look like this:

Mariko Tamaki (Action Comics backup)

Kelly Thompson (Birds of Prey, Absolute Wonder Woman)

Josie Campbell (Shazam!, My Adventures with Superman)

G. Willow Wilson (Poison Ivy)

Torunn Grønbekk (Catwoman)

Leah Williams (Power Girl)

LaToya Morgan (DC Horror Presents #2)

5 of the 7 women on this list have an ongoing title. Thompson has TWO. I also have suspicions that Tamaki might be about to get another Supergirl title, given she is solicited for at least an 8-issue backup run on Action with Kara.

In November, Tom King has:

Wonder Woman (ongoing)

Jenny Sparks (issue 4/6)

Black Canary (issue 1/6)

I wouldn't be shocked if the Trinity series does not start until Jenny Sparks finishes. I also would be less than surprised if it's about as successful as Sinister Sons was.

Do I think there should be more women and gender diverse people writing comics? Of course! I also think that more of them should be writing comics that aren't exclusively about women. But there's no need to pretend the situation is worse than it actually is.

[batsplat]

number of sunday race wins per title winner this century (wins/number of races)

2001: 11/16

2002: 11/16

2003: 9/16

2004: 9/16

2005: 11/17

2006: 2/17

2007: 10/18

2008: 9/18

2009: 6/17

2010: 9/18

2011: 10/17

2012: 6/18

2013: 6/18

2014: 13/18

2015: 7/18

2016: 5/18

2017: 6/18

2018: 9/18

2019: 12/19

2020: 1/14

2021: 5/18

2022: 7/20

2023: 7/20

current wins of title contenders this season (out of 9 races, another 10-11 to go): bagnaia - 6; martin - 2

[robertsbarbie]

i really am not a bills hater, i'm actually quite fond of them, however they have GOT to stop riding kc's coattails and distinguish themselves devoid of kc otherwise it is what they will be known for

[call-me-oracle]

my biggest hot take is that, while it has aged poorly and has certainly heavily misrepresented characters like babs down the stretch, IN THE CONTEXT OF CURRENT CONTINUITY AND AT THE TIME OF ITS RELEASE, tt’s nightwing had the vibes needed for the series

[synaspensprungvomdorf]

Thank you Olivia Dade and Julie Murphy for writing fat lead characters who don't need to lose weight to be loved.

[xerospaced]

Final thoughts

Yesterday, once again, gave confirmation that the man who is vocal, happy to profess his love and claim you, snaps you up without appreciating the value of waiting, is loud and proud, eager to talk you up and show you off

Is not necessarily the man you ought to depend on nor trust

And once again, the day taught me that the man who moves mindfully, who is cautious when he speaks, avoids inflating your ego, resists luring you into a false sense of comfortability, and moderates his expression of affection

Is often one who possesses the greatest consideration of your feelings

This time, I got a third-person perspective. Unfortunately, impacting someone I love who is deserving of far better

From the mouth of a man so sure in his conviction when he came to his conclusion about my situation despite knowing little to nothing about it as he proudly proclaimed how they manage their relationship

I'm not one for convincing, and, far from being convinced myself, I let him spout his rhetoric

To bear witness, not two months later, the realities of the vapid and changeable intention of man so quick to talk and act without pause

And immediately following that heinous transgression, be rewarded with the reassurance and satisfaction of a man quite his opposite, slow to move and resistant in falling into connection simply based on affection

I would rather the slow. The sure. The patient. The reason.

I would rather the one consistent in distance who is vocal more often when it comes to maintaining our heads and keeping clear vision. Than the man who possesses a tongue quicker than wisdom and opts into the format of loving and commitment before taking time to sit and just listen to what he truly wants, who he's really with, where the desire is rooted and what it is seeking.

I am done trusting men who talk quick and jump quicker.

Half of them don't even know they don't mean it.

This weekend has brought a lot of realities about relationships to the surface. And has reaffirmed my contentment of the space I'm in, giving confirmation to validity of the pace that has been taken.

Pause. Know yourself. Consider the nuance and depths of your feelings. And stop filling peoples heads with dreams and well wishes and fantasies of the wonderful lives y'all could be living. If you just took the time, you might avoid all this nonsense and notice the difference between fun for the moment and potential of significance.

[ekingston]

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

I am on my knees begging you to reblog this post and to stop reblogging the original ones I sent out yesterday. This is the complete account with all the most recent info; the other one is just sending people down senselessly panicked avenues that no longer lead anywhere.

IN SHORT

Cliff Weitzman, CEO of Speechify and (aspiring?) voice actor, used AI to scrape thousands of popular, finished works off AO3 to list them on his own for-profit website and in his attached app. He did this without getting any kind of permission from the authors of said work or informing AO3. Obviously.

When fandom at large was made aware of his theft and started pushing back, Weitzman issued a non-apology on the original social media posts—using 

his dyslexia; 

his intent to implement a tip-system for the plagiarized authors; and 

a sudden willingness to take down the work of every author who saw my original social media posts and emailed him individually with a ‘valid’ claim,

as reasons we should allow him to continue monetizing fanwork for his own financial gain.

When we less-than-kindly refused, he took down his ‘apologies’ as well as his website (allegedly—it’s possible that our complaints to his web host, the deluge of emails he received or the unanticipated traffic brought it down, since there wasn’t any sort of official statement made about it), and when it came back up several hours later, all of the work formerly listed in the fan fiction category was no longer there. 

THE TAKEAWAYS

1. Cliff Weitzman (aka Ofek Weitzman) is a scumbag with no qualms about taking fanwork without permission, feeding it to AI and monetizing it for his own financial gain; 

2. Fandom can really get things done when it wants to, and 

3. Our fanworks appear to be hidden, but they’re NOT DELETED from Weitzman’s servers, and independently published, original works are still listed without the authors' permission. We need to hold this man responsible for his theft, keep an eye on both his current and future endeavors, and take action immediately when he crosses the line again. 

THE TIMELINE, THE DETAILS, THE SCREENSHOTS (behind the cut)

Sunday night, December 22nd 2024, I noticed an influx in visitors to my fic You & Me & Holiday Wine. When I searched the title online, hoping to find out where they came from, a new listing popped up (third one down, no less):

This listing is still up today, by the way, though now when you follow the link to word-stream, it just brings you to the main site. (Also, to be clear, this was not the cause for the influx of traffic to my fic; word-stream did not link back to the original work anywhere.)

I followed the link to word-stream, where to my horror Y&M&HW was listed in its entirety—though, beyond the first half of the first chapter, behind a paywall—along with a link promising to take me—through an app downloadable on the Apple Store—to an AI-narrated audiobook version. When I searched word-stream itself for my ao3 handle I found both of my multi-chapter fics were listed this way:

Because the tags on my fics (which included genres* and characters, but never the original IPs**) weren’t working, I put ‘Kara Danvers’ into the search bar and discovered that many more supercorp fics (Supergirl TV fandom, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor pairing) were listed.

I went looking online for any mention of word-stream and AI plagiarism (the covers—as well as the ridiculously inflated number of reviews and ratings—made it immediately obvious that AI fuckery was involved), but found almost nothing: only one single Reddit post had been made, and it received (at that time) only a handful of upvotes and no advice. 

I decided to make a tumblr post to bring the supercorp fandom up to speed about the theft. I draw as well as write for fandom and I’ve only ever had to deal with art theft—which has a clear set of steps to take depending on where said art was reposted—and I was at a loss regarding where to start in this situation.

After my post went up I remembered Project Copy Knight, which is worth commending for the work they’ve done to get fic stolen from AO3 taken down from monetized AI 'audiobook’ YouTube accounts. I reached out to @echoekhi, asking if they’d heard of this site and whether they could advise me on how to get our works taken down.

While waiting for a reply I looked into Copy Knight’s methods and decided to contact OTW’s legal department:

And then I went to bed.

By morning, tumblr friends @makicarn and @fazedlight as well as a very helpful tumblr anon had seen my post and done some very productive sleuthing:

@echoekhi had also gotten back to me, advising me, as expected, to contact the OTW. So I decided to sit tight until I got a response from them.

That response came only an hour or so later: 

Which was 100% understandable, but still disappointing—I doubted a handful of individual takedown requests would accomplish much, and I wasn’t eager to share my given name and personal information with Cliff Weitzman himself, which is unavoidable if you want to file a DMCA.

I decided to take it to Reddit, hoping it would gain traction in the wider fanfic community, considering so many fandoms were affected. My Reddit posts (with the updates at the bottom as they were emerging) can be found here and here.

A helpful Reddit user posted a guide on how users could go about filing a DMCA against word-stream here (to wobbly-at-best results)

A different helpful Reddit user signed up to access insight into word-streams pricing. Comment is here.

Smells unbelievably scammy, right? In addition to those audacious prices—though in all fairness any amount of money would be audacious considering every work listed is accessible elsewhere for free—my dyscalculia is screaming silently at the sight of that completely unnecessary amount of intentionally obscured numbers.

Speaking of which! As soon as the post on r/AO3—and, as a result, my original tumblr post—began taking off properly, sometime around 1 pm, jumpscare! A notification that a tumblr account named @cliffweitzman had commented on my post, and I got a bit mad about the gist of his message :

Fortunately he caught plenty of flack in the comments from other users (truly you should check out the comment section, it is extremely gratifying and people are making tremendously good points), in response to which, of course, he first tried to both reiterate and renegotiate his point in a second, longer comment (which I didn’t screenshot in time so I’m sorry for the crappy notification email formatting):

which he then proceeded to also post to Reddit (this is another Reddit user’s screenshot, I didn’t see it at all, the notifications were moving too fast for me to follow by then)

... where he got a roughly equal amount of righteously furious replies. (Check downthread, they're still there, all the way at the bottom.)

After which Cliff went ahead & deleted his messages altogether. 

It’s not entirely clear whether his account was suspended by Reddit soon after or whether he deleted it himself, but considering his tumblr account is still intact, I assume it’s the former. He made a handful of sock puppet accounts to play around with for a while, both on Reddit and Tumblr, only one of which I have a screenshot of, but since they all say roughly the same thing, you’re not missing much:

And then word-stream started throwing a DNS error.

That lasted for a good number of hours, which was unfortunately right around the time that a lot of authors first heard about the situation and started asking me individually how to find out whether their work was stolen too. I do not have that information and I am unclear on the perimeters Weitzman set for his AI scraper, so this is all conjecture: it LOOKS like the fics that were lifted had three things in common:

They were completed works;

They had over several thousand kudos on AO3; and

They were written by authors who had actively posted or updated work over the past year.

If anyone knows more about these perimeters or has info that counters my observation, please let me know!

I finally thought to check/alert evil Twitter during this time, and found out that the news was doing the rounds there already. I made a quick thread summarizing everything that had happened just in case. You can find it here.

I went to Bluesky too, where fandom was doing all the heavy lifting for me already, so I just reskeeted, as you do, and carried on.

Sometime in the very early evening, word-stream went back up—but the fan fiction category was nowhere to be seen. Tentative joy and celebration!***

That’s when several users—the ones who had signed up for accounts to gain intel and had accessed their own fics that way—reported that their work could still be accessed through their history. Relevant Reddit post here.

Sooo—

We’re obviously not done. The fanwork that was stolen by Weitzman may be inaccessible through his website right now, but they aren’t actually gone. And the fact that Weitzman wasn’t willing to get rid of them altogether means he still has plans for them. 

This was my final edit on my Reddit post before turning off notifications, and it's pretty much where my head will be at for at least the foreseeable future:

Please feel free to add info in the comments, make your own posts, take whatever action you want to take to protect your work. I only beg you—seriously, I’m on my knees here—to not give up like I saw a handful of people express the urge to do. Keep sharing your creative work and remain vigilant and stay active to make sure we can continue to do so freely. Visit your favorite fics, and the ones you’ve kept in your ‘marked for later’ lists but never made time to read, and leave kudos, leave comments, support your fandom creatives, celebrate podficcers and support AO3. We created this place and it’s our responsibility to keep it alive and thriving for as long as we possibly can.

Also FUCK generative AI. It has NO place in fandom spaces.

THE 'SMALL' PRINT (some of it in all caps):

*Weitzman knew what he was doing and can NOT claim ignorance. One, it’s pretty basic kindergarten stuff that you don’t steal some other kid’s art project and present it as your own only to act surprised when they protest and then tell the victim that they should have told you sooner that they didn’t want their project stolen. And two, he was very careful never to list the IPs these fanworks were based on, so it’s clear he was at least familiar enough with the legalities to not get himself in hot water with corporate lawyers. Fucking over fans, though, he figured he could get away with that. 

**A note about the AI that Weitzman used to steal our work: it’s even greasier than it looks at first glance. It’s not just the method he used to lift works off AO3 and then regurgitate onto his own website and app. Looking beyond the untold horrors of his AI-generated cover ‘art’, in many cases these covers attempt to depict something from the fics in question that can’t be gleaned from their summaries alone. In addition, my fics (and I assume the others, as well) were listed with generated genres; tags that did not appear anywhere in or on my fic on AO3 and were sometimes scarily accurate and sometimes way off the mark. I remember You & Me & Holiday Wine had ‘found family’ (100% correct, but not tagged by me as such) and I believe The Shape of Soup was listed as, among others, ‘enemies to friends to lovers’ and ‘love triangle’ (both wildly inaccurate). Even worse, not all the fic listed (as authors on Reddit pointed out) came with their original summaries at all. Often the entire summary was AI-generated. All of these things make it very clear that it was an all-encompassing scrape—not only were our fics stolen, they were also fed word-for-word into the AI Weitzman used and then analyzed to suit Weitzman’s needs. This means our work was literally fed to this AI to basically do with whatever its other users want, including (one assumes) text generation. 

***Fan fiction appears to have been made (largely) inaccessible on word-stream at this time, but I’m hearing from several authors that their original, independently published work, which is listed at places like Kindle Unlimited, DOES still appear in word-stream’s search engine. This obviously hurts writers, especially independent ones, who depend on these works for income and, as a rule, don’t have a huge budget or a legal team with oceans of time to fight these battles for them. If you consider yourself an author in the broader sense, beyond merely existing online as a fandom author, beyond concerns that your own work is immediately at risk, DO NOT STOP MAKING NOISE ABOUT THIS.

PLEASE check my later versions of this post via my main page to make sure you have the latest version of this post before you reblog. All the information I’ve been able to gather is in my reblogs below, and it's frustrating to see the old version getting passed around, sending people on wild goose chases.

Thank you all so much!

[sunsetovertheocean]

Adults are so stupid

[theresilientphilosopher]

Leadership is not a title. It’s not a paycheck. It’s not a seat in a corner office. True leadership begins in the quiet, unglamorous places—within our homes, our relationships, and most importantly, within ourselves.

[dleondantes]

Leadership is not a title. It’s not a paycheck. It’s not a seat in a corner office. True leadership begins in the quiet, unglamorous places—within our homes, our relationships, and most importantly, within ourselves.

[pharawee]

Marriage Equality Achieved!

Today, January 23, the marriage equality law officially takes effect. Thailand now recognizes the right of all couples, regardless of gender, to legally register their marriage.

At 6.15am, the first couple, 33 year old Ploynapas Jirasukon and 32 year old Kwanporn Kongphet arrived, hand in hand, to register their marriage. Together for 17 years since high school, the Bangkok-based couple radiated joy as they became Thailand’s first officially recognised LGBTQ+ married couple.

Ploynapas shared her excitement, “We’re thrilled to be the first couple to register our marriage. It’s a proud moment, but there’s still more to achieve, like equality in child custody and legal titles.”

Sumalee, 64, and Thanaporn, 59, became the first same-sex couple to register their marriage at Bang Rak today.

Traveling all the way from Phetchabun, they chose Bangkok's "district of love" for this special occasion.

Permsap and Puangphet, the second couple to register their marriage in Pathumwan District, shared that they had waited 17 years for this moment, calling it a meaningful achievement.

Although they could have registered in Pai, they chose Pathumwan to express pride in exercising the same legal rights as other Thais. They wore traditional Tai Yai attire from Mae Hong Son, reflecting one partner's heritage, to make the occasion special.

They described the milestone as a collective success for the LGBTQ+ community, achieved through shared efforts.

They hoped future legal changes would address honorific titles for transgender individuals, ensuring fairness for all. The couple encouraged others to stay determined in the fight for equality, believing that persistence leads to success. They also urged countries without equal marriage laws to continue advocating for change.

Reflecting on a past accident, they shared the difficulties caused by the lack of legal recognition. Despite being together for eight years at the time, one was unable to sign medical consent due to the law, underscoring the need for equal marriage rights.

Source: Thai Enquirer, Thairath & The Thaiger

[mariacallous]

Democrats in the U.S. Senate on Monday evening blocked a Republican-led attempt to enshrine discrimination against transgender athletes in federal law. The lawmakers rejected the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act. The bill, part of a more considerable conservative effort to roll back LGBTQ+ rights, failed to garner enough votes needed to advance.

After senators voted to confirm President Donald Trump's pick for education secretary, professional wrestling magnate Linda McMahon, the upper chamber considered moving forward with the anti-trans legislation. The bill was stopped by a cloture vote, which is a procedural motion that requires 60 votes to end debate and move forward. The vote was 51 to 45.

The legislation, introduced in the House of Representatives by Florida GOP Rep. Greg Steube and passed by Republicans earlier this year with the support of two Democrats, sought to rewrite Title IX protections by defining sex in athletics solely based on “reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” If enacted, the bill would have effectively barred transgender women and girls from participating in federally funded school and college sports.

The bill also called for federal studies on the impact of transgender inclusion in women’s sports and potential “adverse psychological and developmental effects” on cisgender athletes. There is no evidence that transgender athletes are a danger to cisgender peers. While it did not mandate physical examinations to determine an athlete’s sex, critics warned that its enforcement could lead to intrusive scrutiny of all female athletes.

The bill’s failure comes amid a broader, coordinated effort by Republicans to legislate transgender people out of public life. Just last month, Trump signed an executive order titled “No Men in Women’s Sports." Trump used the signing ceremony as an opportunity to spew inflammatory rhetoric, falsely claiming that men have “invaded” women’s sports and that male athletes are “beating up and injuring” women—a claim that has been debunked time and time again.

Human Rights Campaign president Kelley Robinson applauded the Senate’s rejection of the bill, emphasizing the damaging impact of such policies. “Every child should have the opportunity to experience the simple joys of being young and making memories with their friends. But bills like these send the message that transgender kids don’t deserve the same opportunities to thrive as their peers simply because of who they are. And they are impossible to enforce without putting all kids at risk of invasive questions or physical examinations just because someone doesn’t look or dress like everyone else,” Robinson said in a statement to The Advocate.

Trump’s executive order, which threatened to strip federal funding from schools and colleges that failed to comply with his ban on transgender athletes, has already triggered legal challenges. Civil rights advocates and legal experts have pointed out that executive orders cannot override federal civil rights protections, including those under Title IX, and the order is expected to be tied up in court for months.

“We should want all of our kids to have the chance to be on a team, problem solve with others, learn valuable skills, and find places to belong,” Robinson said. “Thank you to the leaders who stood up today, pushed back against those playing politics with young people’s lives, and declared that ours should be a nation where every child feels valued.”

[batshit-auspol]

As is tradition we held our annual "Batshit Aussie Moment of The Year" poll on twitter this month, and as is also tradition it was a complete dumpster fire and we ended up having to delete our account again. Such is life, as the French don't say.

Nevertheless we had a lot of great nominations from what was truly a year full of the utmost topshelf batshittery which we shan't be letting go to waste. So we preset:

Batshit Aussie Moments of The Year, The Now Undemocratic Countdown

Leading the nominations there was of course Raygun, the little Aussie PHD breakdancer that couldn't. Recently she has trademarked her name and there was a whole lawsuit around using it so no further comment on that.

Dr Ray was followed close in second place by Australia's former Deputy Prime Minister being filmed drunkenly making phonecalls while sprawled across a sidewalk.

This glorious video saw the good people of Australia rise to the occasion with all the pisstaking the moment deserved, complete with chalk crime scene markings, a plaque being installed, and a candlelight vigil held by locals.

Also making a strong showing in the polls was Australia's richest woman Gina Rinehart pulling a Barb Streisand by demanding her unflattering portrait be removed from Australia's National Art Gallery, which of course made it immediately go viral.

Lol. Also noteworthy in the nominations was the horse that escaped its enclosure and tried to flee by catching a train, making national news headlines in the process.

But for all those big names/horses who we're sure would love the limelight, the crown title of this year's Batshit Aussie Moment of The Year is being awarded to a regular everyday Aussie (and tumblr user) who fought the system and (almost) won:

After 23 year old Aussie racecar driver Oscar Piastri won the Hungarian Grand Prix, our very own @the-prophesied-mouse "jokingly submitted an e‒petition" to Australia's parliament asking that the day become a public holiday, "assuming it would get thrown out".

Instead their request for a yearly national "Oscar Piastri Day" crossed the threshold of signatures required for a response, being then escalated all the way to the Prime Minister's desk after the responding minister decided it was of utmost importance.

After being sternly considered by no less than three government ministers, sadly in November it was declared that the petition would not be ratified, due to the small issue of the federal government not having the power to create holidays (it's apparently a state thing).

The government did however point out that many national days are celebrated without official proclamation from the Australian government, and so it is, with the powers vested in us by all you loveable weirdos, that we do solemnly declare from this day forth that the 21st July shall be forever known as Oscar Piastri Day, and may all non-believers fear our wrath.

Anyway, happy new year to you all from us here in Aus. Farewell to a truly Batshit year, and here's to no doubt more of the same in 2025. We will leave you with this heartfelt reminder of a true national treasure we lost this year, the progenor of perhaps the most iconic Aussie batshit moment of all time, The Right Hon. Mr Democracy Manifest:

Happy new years to youze all!

[thebibliosphere]

Do you think Bruce Wayne would flirt with Benoit Blanc?

I think if Bruce ever found himself in a situation to meet Benoit Blanc, to his great chagrin, it’d be as Brucie Wayne. He’d be on some rich fuck’s island under cover when a murder happens and it’d be killing him that he can’t break cover to get a closer look at the body. And then along comes Benoit Blanc and Bruce decides, well he’s Brucie right now, it’d be weird if he didn’t flirt a little.

And hey, who knows, if Blanc likes him maybe he’ll let Bruce tag along and get into places Brucie wouldn’t normally be if he wasn’t trying to seduce this weirdly accented, tall glass of deductive skills. (And maybe he’s enjoying it a little more than he should, but technically he’s on vacation so…)

Blanc, of course, catches on and thinks Bruce has something to hide and is keeping him close because he thinks he’s either the killer or in on it.

Except that’s not what the evidence or instincts are actually telling him. Not really.

But he also can’t ignore the fact that Bruce managed to trip and fall directly into the filing cabinet in the office, causing the drawer to fly open and reveal the evidence Blanc’s looking for. Or that the billionaire has a slightly delayed reaction to seeing blood. Not much, but enough for Blanc to notice.

There’s also the way he keeps making suggestions that on the surface seem benign, but are nevertheless intended to lead Blanc toward where his own instincts are telling him to look. So either Brucie is one of those killers who likes to be involved in the investigation because they want to make sure you’re noticing their ‘genius’ or because they think they can control the narrative by being helpful, or…

“Y’know something, Mister Wayne…”

“Benoit, please,” Bruce says with a slow, seductive smile that unfurls like silk over rich velvet. “How many times do I have to ask? Call me Bruce.”

“… Bruce. You’ve been so remarkably helpful.”

“Oh, you know me. I always aim to please.”

Bruce’s smile takes on an electric edge that makes Benoit’s thumb slide to the gold wedding band on his ring finger. He’s a married man, he’s a married man…

“I can’t help but wonder, though,” Benoit says, matching Bruce’s smile for a knowing one of his own. “Don’t you get tired?”

His tone is off, he knows it is because Bruce’s expression doesn’t flicker, not even a jot. It’s just unnatural enough to be telling.

“Tired of what?” the younger man asks, just the right amount of cheerful confusion in his voice and an adorable title of his head like a puppy to make you miss the sharpness behind his eyes. The way his body is coiling tight. Ready for a fight.

“Of pretending,” Benoit says, lifting a cigar to his mouth, making a show of patting down his pockets for the lighter. “I know I surely do. It grates on a man, always being underestimated. Everyone thinking you’re not as sharp as you are. Not as clever, not as quick. It must be a relief, I think, to finally be seen…”

The hand that had been rummaging in his pocket shoots out, aiming for Bruce’s perfect face. Bruce deflects it, twisting Benoit’s hand in a viper-like move Benoit hasn’t seen since…

“Ra’s doesn’t train just anyone,” he says, acutely aware of how much Bruce’s expression has changed without so much of a flicker of muscle. How sharp and hard the angles of his face have become. How deadly. “I confess, I didn’t see it at first. You’re very good, Bruce. I never would have put two and two together if you hadn’t twisted Haggart’s elbow the way you did when he tried to grab Maxine.” He smiles self-deprecatingly. “Take that as a compliment from one detective to another… Batman.”