shitposting rave 5: discount rejects from every genre

*He shrugs, looking uneasy.* I don't know. I thought I was finished. I wouldn't mind if I was, I just want to know why I'm alone there.

It's not as bad as I made it sound. It's...peaceful. Nothing ever happens there, which is nice, after- after everything that happened before.

*This person has probably about the nicest smile Haku's ever seen, strange white-eyed mask and all. His face feels warm, and he realizes he's leaning towards Batman maybe a little too much. He sits up straight again. He might be blushing just a little.*

*He takes a long moment to consider this - particularly how on earth she managed to say the word blood and make it sound red.* Water shouldn't be too hard to find...my natures are Water and Air. I hope...I hope that she'll show me the way. If I'm dreaming, I want to wake up. If I'm dead, I want to go on. *He feels very strange, considering this. Part of him wants to go back. But...to see his mother again...He puts these thoughts away to consider later, and bows his head gratefully.* Thank you for telling me all this. I hope that I can meet your sister, too.

 

Believe me, there's-... there's not much worse than being alone, no matter how peaceful things are.
[He won't look sad, he can't look sad, none of these people would understand anyways unless he explains and he can't do that without compromising identities and... he just cannot stomach the thought of being the only one left. He lost brothers, twice now, and both times they came back, but that just drove home even harder how much he cannot deal with being alone. Neither birds nor bats are commonly thought of as solitary animals. It's enough to give him nightmares sometimes.
Rather than dwell on that he does his best to consciously relax and lounge back, 'coincidentally' moving a bit closer to Haku as he gets comfortable. He's got sort-of-friendly people here and conversations and good food, what else does he need.]
Water and Air, huh. Gonna guess that's not just something about being a meta. Are you the next Avatar?
[He grins. if all else fails he can still joke.]

 

-he bats (:P) Dick's hand away, catching it in such a way that he can pass off the sympathetic squeeze as a hold instead-
Don't start fights you can't win, Bats - my arms are longer now.
-he starts trying to mess Dick's hair up with both hands-

 

*Haku looks down and his expression does something complicated.* You're...not wrong. I don't know. Being there makes it hard to think about. *He suddenly feels like a traitor.* I like being here better, because at least there's always someone...I don't like to be alone, either. I really don't.

*He barely notices Dick shifting nearer to him, seemingly lost in thought for a moment.*

Avatar of what? I'm talking about chakra natures - fire, earth, wind, water, or lightning. I guess that's not something you have.

*Haku smiles at the roughhousing, but something in his chest hurts sharply.*

 

[Dick fails his sputtered protests due to laughing helplessly. He still tries valiantly, because if he talks a big game no one will probably notice how pleased he looks about gettign his hair messed with.]
Using your superior range like that is cheating! I'm gonna tell Robin you messed my hair up when he asks and I will phrase it so you'll never be able to look the kid in the eye again, don't make me do that.

It's a joke about a show that was a big thing where I'm from a while ago, don't worry.
And I don't think so no, most metas aren't really bound to elements so much as to specific things they can do I guess? What's air and water do? Can you fly? I like flying the best even though I can't manage the real deal.

 

-he snorts, but he's grinning as he finishes making a huge mess out of Dick's hair-
Do your worst. I hooked up with his mom one time, I don't think it gets more awkward than that.

 

I'm not gonna be a stunning hypocrit for a second and say the obvious thing, but still, really? Guess I can't fault her for having good taste but wow.

 

-he grins-
She has excellent taste, Bats. Don't know if Robin knows about it, and I don't plan on asking. It's awkward enough.

 

Please don't ask, I don't think he needs to consider his mother's past affairs when she just disowned him. He only treatened people with serious bodily harm once in the past two weeks and normally i'd be proud of him but I think it's mostly because he's still chewing on whatever she said to him...

 

"Valiska would like you, I think. She's very kind."

Lissa gives him a soft look, concerned but not too openly so.

"I know about chakras and I know about elements, but not those particular combinations. Tell me more?"

Lissa giggles. "I would never disown any child of mine or my kin, and even without that, they don't want to know about my love affairs, unless they can tease me, of course!"

 

I don't think he would know how to tease her if he was held at gunpoint and told to do it. Robin isn't... his mother had an unusual approach to raising him. Starting with not raising him herself.
[He runs a hand through his hair, roughly.]
I'm doing my best to help him but I'd honestly be relieved if he would threaten to murder his brother again. And isn't that fucked up. Hell, maybe he can beat me up a little to let frustrations out. Think that'd help, Jaybird?
[He leans back a little to look at @Red Hood for help. He looks almost distressingly like a helpless abandoned puppy]

 

no digress away :)
thats all super interesting, im gonna have to play around to see for myself! it sounds kind of voidy, being able to summon things!

but its not that i dont think its safe
im a witch of space, i can take pretty much anything that isnt messing with my head!
its more that crowding makes me want to run somewhere open and bite anyone who gets in my way and thats not great for polite company! ):

[wag wag wag. jade is pretending not to notice the mis, but it's pretty hard not to giggle when she can feel them playing on her tail]

 

-he shrugs-
Maybe. You'd have to frame it right - make it a competition or something. He has ten minutes to beat you without any judo forms, or something. He might get suspicious if you offered straight out.

 

Good thinking. His escrima form needs work anyways, maybe that way. And I can excuse not fighting back with being careful with the stitches.
[He nods like this is completely obvious and not stupid at all.]

 

Ah! I see, I see-- not that way myself, but some of my brothers are. You can always magic yourself up a private sub-bubble if you need space, or teleport out if that's a thing you can focus on when you're like that!

...or run and bite, but that does tend to scare people.

 

Lissa gives him a look, because it's in fact completely obvious what this is, and that's stupid.

"I remember now. The kid who was raised by assassins. Like I was." She takes a deep breath. "What kind? Religious? Clan nobody else likes? It's usually not just money. I don't think it's healthy for you or for him to use violence as his only emotional outlet. He needs, more than anything else, to find something creative to do. To make things. Express things he can't say in words without hurting someone. I dance. I grow flowers." She shrugs. "It helps. They will have taught him either self-abnegation or channelled rage. Reinforcing either one of those won't help. Channelled rage is a useful skill, but if he's good at it already, he needs something where he can be free to feel and act on other emotions safely."

 

Sort of religious with a socio-political bend. There are prophecies and stuff, forced bloodline and inheritance things. And magic stuff. It's a bit of a mess honestly. Robin's grandfather and mother have an... interesting history with our entire family, let's leave it at that.
Look, you wanna help, or at least that's what you want me to think, but you don't know Robin. And you don't know me. When I say I've tried to help him then that includes most of the fun well behaved good kid coping mechanisms. Sometimes suppressing emotions is bullshit. Sometimes the rage needs out before it can fester and Robin has a lot of rage. We all have. If he needs a punching bag, I can take it better than most, and I'd rather he gets it out of his system this way than that he slides back while we're on a mission. Kid can deal even worse with guilt than with most other emotions.

 

"I understand this situation better than you think," Lissa says quietly. "I have a lot of rage, too. I'm admittedly far less bothered with guilt than most people are, but rage I know. You can and will do what you want, but I still think teaching someone with a lot of rage to work it out on people he loves is a bad idea, Batman."

She looks him squarely in the eyes. "I have not once suggested suppressing the kid's emotions. That's what assassin cults do, and they do it for a reason. I think he should be given things to break, not people, and encouraged to cover walls in black and red paint, and make messes, and build things and knock them down. I know he's not a fun well-behaved kid. I wasn't either. But making things is therapeutic. At first they will be ugly things, and he will want to knock them down. That's fine."

She swallows. "Also you might want to consider that it's better for him to take it out on those who deserve it, if he has to take it out on people. Right now, you are teaching him that people he loves are appropriate punching bags. I know you're all rule of law and all that, but the alternative you're providing is not one that will work out for him well when he's older and wants to have a relationship with someone who isn't the two of you."

She sighs. "I've said my piece. You are free to ignore my advice and treat it as worth what you paid for it. But please don't tell me I don't know what rage is. I've left my share of smoking ruins behind me, but I sleep quite well these days."

 

Spoiler: god dammit you self sacrificial moron

Didn't say you don't know rage. I said you don't know him. Or me. Making things is a thing we tried. He doesn't want to do it. And even a bratty ten year old gets tired of smashing vases at some point.
And... I think you are misunderstanding a key component here. Robin doesn't love either of us. He tolerates me, and barely at that. I'm Batman because I earned it and he can respect that no matter how reluctantly. He's Robin because that's what he needs to be as Batman's heir. He has more affection for the cause than for me. And Red Hood? Shit, we've been fighting him more than we haven't and the amount of whining, threats and complaining when we work together with him due to circumstances forcing us makes me think he isn't particularly fond of him.
I help Robin because he deserves better than what life has handed him so far and because I think he can be genuinely good, better than me, than any of us. I don't expect him to love me for it. That's not how family works and I'm not his father anyway. I couldn't fill those shoes if I tried.
The only thing I expect from him are following our rules: No killing, no guns. I don't care about laws, I care about justice.
And it wouldn't be just to burden Robin's conscience when I could give him an easy way to work the rage out when smashing objects, tinkering and working out stop working. I know he won't kill me, I know he won't even try to, not seriously. Because he's better than that, has proven he is. If it means he won't take stupid risks and has his wits about him when he needs them I will do anything for him, because I can take it and he shouldn't have to.

 

Lissa sighs and smiles. Smiling feels almost natural right now. The humans like it, and she gets to bare her teeth because for some reason they think that's not threatening. The guy is lying when he says he doesn't love this kid, and same for Red Hood, and who gives a shit about being genuinely good? Who even knows what that means? Try being constructive, productive and happy, brainiac. That's the best you can do sometimes when they get their hooks in your brain that young.

This guy has no fucking idea what family actually is. Family is love. Family is blood. Family is the ties that bind, and not giving up on someone, and he's got all that down, but he denies that. And he's still fucking it up, because he's not trying to turn this kid into something that's not an assassin. He's trying to turn this kid into an assassin who doesn't kill people, and it just doesn't work like that.

"You're right, of course, that I don't know him. I said I had said my piece, but you're still arguing with me. If you don't want to talk about this, you're free to tell me to fuck the hell off. It's not my business. I'm just expressing concern from the perspective of someone who's actually been a child assassin. Do you want to discuss it, or are you looking for me to tell you that what you're doing is a good idea? That's not going to happen, but I am capable of minding my own business if told to."

And she is, even if it's going to require finding the pile of old junk mail Carla saves for her so she can set it on fire in the back yard and watch it burn, because she likes watching things burn when people are this frustrating.