#i hope you don't mind discussing with me

[linkspooky]

Hey, I loveyour post and I 100% agree with everything you said, and you are so smart for saying it. I've been thinking about this duel for a long time too, and was considering making a post about it so I hope you don't mind if I jump onto your post and share my own thoughts on the duel and these four characters.

If I'm being annoying feel free to ignore me, otherwise more thoughts on Judai / Yubel and Amon / Echo underneath the cut.

Thank you for this post. There are so few people in this fandom who are willing to discuss Amon beyond a level of "I hate that guy" even though he's one of my favorite characters to think about.

You're right in that trying to draw a diagram in how these four characters overlap creates a very weird shape even though the narrative is setting up both duos (Judai/Yubel and Amon/Echo) as intentional parallels.

The angle I like to take when thinking about it (because 149 / 150 is in my top five duels of all time in Yu-Gi-Oh) is why exactly is Yubel so interested in tearing down Amon?

Yubel's entire motivations are Judai-centric. Other people are either stepping stones to advance their plan to get to Judai, used and then disposed of (Professor Cobra, Marcel Bonaparte) or tools to use to make Judai suffer (Manjoume, Asuka, Kenzan, Fubuki, Ryo, etc...).

For the former Yubel doesn't even care about who they are, just how they can use them to either restore themselves or move towards their objective. As for the latter Yubel only cares about them because they're connected to Judai, they're a way to make Judai suffer. I doubt Yubel even knows their names, they probably mentally refer to them as (Ojama Guy, Girl, Hawaiin Shirt, Sheer Heart Attack). Yubel doesn't even know Sho's name, and only mentions them once in the last duel as a way to dig at Judai (If you lose I'm gonna send uh, what's his name, that guy over there to another dimmension).

The only one Yubel even acknowledges as a personal rival is Johan. Even then it's just because Johan is a rival for Judai's affections. They even personally ask if Judai gave all the love they once promisedto them to Johan now. Arguably, Yubel and Johan are character foils so Yubel might have projection reasons for disliking Johan as well but for the most part it's still all about Judai. For example as much as Yubel toys with Johan and stole their body, it all happens offscreen we never see any personal confrontation between Yubel and Johan. It's about what Johan represents, not about who he is personally.

Amon is the only character that Yubel feels a need to tear down personally. You could say part of what Yubel said in their final duel was just mindgames to shake his confidence, but Yubel spends a long amount of time onscreen personally dedicated to building up and tearing down someone who they only considered to be "emergency rations" to snack on in between their fight with Ryo and Judai.

The answer for me is well as you stated above for meta reasons they're deliberate character foils, but for in-story reasons it's a case of psychological projection.

As you so well put it, Yubel is well-defined enough that even just watching the duel with Ryo you can understand their views on love whereas Amon remains an inscrutable mystery.

However, I think 149/150 is absolutely necessary for understanding Yubel's character because while they are trying to tear down Amon they also spend the entire time explaining their motivations and worldviews. Amon has been established since his first duel to be inscrutable like the clouds themselves

Manjoume: So why is he so calm? Manjoume: He's almost like a cloud. I can't see his duel. What is he hiding in that cloud? -Episode 111

Whereas Amon himself describes clouds as something that can take any form or shape ad is constantly changing.

Amon: Manjome, have you ever gazed at the clouds in the sky? Manjoume: What? Amon: Have you ever watched them, in their constantly changing, infinite variety? -Episode 112

What are clouds but things you stare at and try to imagine the shape of? Everyone sees the clouds to be a different shape, because you're projecting your own views onto the clouds. Two different people can look at the clouds and one will say "I see a kitty cat" and one will say "I see a bunny rabbit" and neither is correct but you could surmise one likes cats and the other likes bunny rabbits.

Yubel is staring into Amon like a cloud-gazer seeing whatever shape they wish, at times they see Judai, at times they see themselves. Both of which invite an interesting comparison. The most common definition of projection is the freudian one, it's a psychological defense mechanism in which a person consciously, or unconsciously attributes their own thoughts and feelings which they can't accept onto another person or group. Simply put, it's a form of denial. As you put so wonderfully above in the fandom perception of Yubel.

Still, from what I've seen most people agree that Yubel comes across as more "honest" one way or another [...] Upon their return to Earth, they planned to return the "favor" [...] Everything they do is in the name of this motive*, whether Judai really likes it or not.

What makes Yubel so compelling is that they are open and upfront about what they want, and it's love not revenge. Understanding Yubel means bending yourself to think on their definition of love, and accepting they honest-to-god believe that what they're doing is an expression of love - or at least it's what they've convinced themselves of to cope.

Yubel to further convince themselves that what they've received from Judai, and what they're doing to Judai is love (and further sink into denial) needs to then project their relationship with Judai onto Amon and Echo's relationship.

I think all the ways in which these four characters align make Yubel deeply uncomfortable, because they need to believe certain things in order to keep going. This is in part why they so ruthlessly tear apart Amon because they are in fact projecting their own insecurities and doubts about their stated beliefs / coping mechanisms onto Amon.

Judai: Real love is wide enough, large enough, and deep enough to fill the universe. Your so-called love is only a conceited delusion! Yubel: A delusion? [...] Yubel: Was I not supposed to be deluded? I couldn't have lived with the heartache unless I felt that I was being loved... and yet, they stole my love away from you, Judai.

Yubel's stated delusion is a delusion but one they must believe deep down to their bones in order to cope otherwise they can't go on. Which is why they can't stand to look at Amon because he embodies many of the same contradictions they do.

You Can't Kill Your Own God- [Yubel / Amon]

I'm going to pull from something Matt Mercer voice actor of Vincent Valentine in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth used in describing Sephiroth, because while it is an entirely different character it applies in the way Yubel sees Adrian.

"He was made into a monster not of his own choice, and it was the realization that he essentially had no path but to become a monster that broke him and forced him to embrace that. You can't wait to see how much of that thread he pulls from cloud, how much he attempts to unravel and kind of lead him down a similar path."

Which describes Yubel wonderfully because they are subjected to torture they had no control over, and then try to lead both Judai and Amon down similiar paths. Yubel wants to pull the string to unravel Amon from their first interaction. Everything that Yubel says in those interactions can be applied to Yubel in a way.

Yubel: After leaving the facility you were taken in, as heir to the world-renowned Garam Conglomerate. You worked your fingers to the bone, to meet the expectations of the parents who gave you your chance. To become someone worthy to lead the Garam corporation. However... Your parent's hearts moved away from you. They took you in, to carry on the Garam Conglomerate. But what are you to them now?

Yubel is also someone who number one gave everything of themselves for the sake of someone else, Amon gives everything to the Garam corporation and by extension Sid his brother. Yubel gives everything to the Judai including their very own body. They are both people who would be nothing without the ones they selflessly devote themselves to, because who would Yubel be without Judai, and who by extension would Amon be if the Garams never took him in?

Amon: That day I made up my mind. I would give everything I had, to live for the Garam Conglomerate and my little brother. Yubel: But is that really true? Is that how you really feel?

At this point both Amon and Yubel define themselves as basically servants who live to protect a chosen prince, in Amon's case the natural born heir of the Garam Corporation, in Yubel's case Prince Judai past and present. Amon is disgusted by the desire that rose up within himself to kill his brother to gain his parent's affection back for himself and swears to ignore all his own feelings to devote himself to protect his brother.

Both Amon and Yubel define themselves from this role, and cannot deviate from the role. Amon's entire reason for wanting to escape into another world is because in this world he won't go back on his word in this world he'll always be a servant to his brother.

That's also exactly the string that Yubel chooses to pull at in their second confrontation.

Yubel: I know that your true desires are churning behind that perfect will of yours. That godlike iron will. Your true self is within it, awaiting all this time. I can see it all this time. [...] Yubel: In order to fulfill your true desires,you must kill your god your very own will. However, you cannot cause the death of a god, because that is the role of a devil.

These words also apply to Yubel. Yubel possesses an iron-will to match Adrian's and then some. Consider everything Yubel's been through, years of torutre all alone into space, burning up entirely upon re-entry to the point they were just an arm, enacting a scheme to restore their entire body, and when Johan temporarily defeats them enacting yet another scheme to lure Judai into their dimmension. One of Yubel's main defining qualities is their sheer persistance it's how they define themselves, they can endure any pain and cause just as much damage back. Even in a duel if you kill Yubel, it just comes back in a stronger form. The light doesn't corrupt people, it straight up possesses them but unlike Saiou Yubel remains Yubel.

It's also their insane willpower that traps them in a way. Judai asks why Yubel didn't just take revenge against him and the answer is simply they can't. The same way they Amon who's capable of a lot of twisted things and even admits to his murderous desires cannot bring himself to kill his brother. Yubel cannot kill Judai, because they cannot kill their own god.

This is however, where you brilliantly point out their paths diverge.

Amon dedicated himself to the Garam conglomerate with Echo by his side before being replaced by his younger brother Sid, the sole blood Garam sibling. He nearly murdered Sid before changing his mind and dedicating himself wholly to his brother instead, a decision Echo and Yubel both describe as willingly chaining himself to their service. Even when given an opportunity to become the heir (all it'd take is watching his brother die to illness, not even murder) he rejects it, and begs for a way to save him. And yet, when when given the opportunity he made a deal with the devil to break the chains he put on himself and abandon that same family. Then when he gets the chance to obtain power by sacrificing someone he loves, he does exactly that.

Yubel stays true to their appointed role as defender of Judai at least in their own headspace, whereas Amon betrays not only the Garam Corporation but Echo in the end for the chance to be king.

Yubel cannot kill their own god.

Yubel: To reduce the damage you take to 0, you plan to sacrifice your monster? To sacrifice even Rainbow Neos? That is the supreme king for you. Judai: How many times does this make? That you've missed a clear and decisive change to beat me, Yubel?

This is said in E155, when Yubel has abandoned the "I'll make fuse all twelve dimmensions and fill them with my love" strategy in favor of the "I'll just destroy everything strategy" but even then, Judai calls it out as an empty threat Yubel can't bring themselves to follow through on.

So, why did Yubel push Amon down a path they themselves would never go down?

I think it's because Amon represents a fear / insecurity that Yubel does not want to admit to. Namely that, it's not just their love that prevents them from killing Judai, it's the fact that they are nothing without Judai.

Yubel not only parallels Amon in selfless devotion, but also in their circumstances. The first backstory piece we learn about Amon is this:

Amon: You faced setbacks from the crowd, acquired your complex, and felt your face on the ground, right? Setabacks that made you crawl on the ground, and this complex that you feel... That's the prattle of a spoiled rich kid. Humans who have truly plummeted to the depths, abandoned by their parents and ignored by society. Those who are destined to die shortly after birth... All they can do is stare at the clouds in the sky, and wait for death. That day all I could do was sit on a hill, and wait for the moment of my death. Back then, if the Garam Conglomerate's leader, now my adoptive father had not been passing by I would have died.

Yubel similarly faced a situation where they were abandoned by all the world, completely helpless to do anything about it, and the only thing that saved them was sheer luck. If Amon's adoptive father had not found him, and if Professor Cobra had not found Yubel, they both would have just died.

Yubel: It's hot... It hurts. I am in pain. Why? You know how much I love you. Why did you do this to me, Judai? In that moment I realized, that was how you showed love. Because you loved me, you hurt me and made me suffer. Because you see, the entire time I suffered. I never once forgot you.

This narration plays over a monologue of Yubel nearly burning up on re-entry, reduced to just an arm crawling on the ground, and being saved by the pure chance of Professor Cobra stumbling upon them.

The reality of that Yubel doesn't want to admit is that there was a chance Yubel could have just died there all alone and forgotten.

Amon could have just starved to death in the desert and no one would have mourned them. After his brother is born, the years which Amon devoted to his family meant nothing and Amon could have died because his replacement was already there.

It's a bitter reality, and also existentially terrifying for Amon and Yubel. Judai can go on living without Yubel, but Yubel cannot live without them.

This is where both Amon and Yubel's image as a perfectly selfless servant breaks. Where it was always going to break, because that level of selfless devotion just can't exist in reality. It almost seems inevitable, the way they switch from someone selflessly devoting themselves to others, to someone selfishly hurting the ones they love to impose their own selfish desires on them. For Amon it's a selfish desire for power that's more important than Echo's own feelings of love for him.

However, for Yubel it's an equally selfish desire to be loved for Judai. They want to claim all of Judai's love for themselves and feel entitled to it like it's a payment for their services rendered (though Judai did promise it to them). Even in the flashback, Yubel originally states they don't mind giving up their body as long as they can protect Judai, and yet far, far into the future they clearly expect their love and selfless devotion to be paid with love in return.

If they don't feel they're being given that love, they'll get angry and try to take that love, and even attack people who they perceive as threats to that love. They demand that the love they showed Judai be equally paid back in return.

Equals in Pain [Amon / Judai]

Again as you brilliantly pointed out, Yubel's all about sharing pain.

Yubel, the harm is the goal - or at least, the metric by which they will have achieved their goal (showing their love for Judai). Yubel, of course, claims that Amon is more selfish in his use of harm. Pain is love in their philosophy, but it's mutual pain - dishing out the pain without taking any back would only be mere cruelty.

Yubel and Amon may both subject the person they love to pain, but Yubel desires their suffering to be equal, whereas Amon is content to sacrifice Echo to become king, with the caveat that he'll always remember her. As you smartly pointed out again.

Then when he gets the chance to obtain power by sacrificing someone he loves, he does exactly that. Then he plans to become king of a utopia free of suffering, and always remember Echo.

This is where they diverge. However, it is where Amon aligns with what Yubel's perception of Judai is. Yubel's desire is for them and Judai to be equals, but in reality they are much like Amon and Echo, servant and King. In fact the way Yubel entices and lures Amon into the world where he can be king, and to take the power of Exodia to be king mirrors the way that Yubel pushes Judai down the path of becoming Supreme King. Including a scenario where both Amon and Judai sacrifice others for power (pointed out by you again)., Amon sacrificing Echo for Exodia, and Judai sacrificing random civilians in order to complete Super Polyermization. While the sacrifice of Judai's friends was Yubel's plan and something they were forced to do, in the aftermath the decision to complete Super Polyermization was all Judai and something Judai takes responsibility for - because he decides to take responsibility for all the Supreme King's actions.

Yubel when speaking of Judai frames them as someone different to the Judai that we all know. Judai must be someone who enjoys causing harm to the people they love, who shows their love by abandoning Yubel in space and forcing them to endure torture. Judai must be someone who enjoys hurting their friends, who takes pleasure when dueling Yubel in Johan's body because it gives him the opportunity to hurt Johan as well.

They attempt to then paint Amon's actions in the same light, because they see a lot of Judai in Amon, someone who is more transparently cruel and ruthless in his objectives.

Yubel: Hurting the precious friend that you're risking your life to try and take back. That s what makes you my beloved, Yuki Judai.

EPISODE 151

Yubel: Say, my king, tell me this. Are you able to just forget that you've killed the one you love like an insect? The darkness in your heart... The darkness of a king. I want to know what lies in that darkness, you have in your heart.

EPISODE 150.

Not only does Yubel draw this direct comparison between Judai and Amon, people who are capable of hurting and then forgetting about the people they love - Yubel is frustrated to find when looking deep inside Amon's heart that he's not a tyrannical king that Yubel has framed him as but rather someone who wants to build a utopia. The contradiction that Amon can heartlessly sacrifice Echo, but also want to build a world that's good isn't something Yubel can comprehend.

The same way that Yubel can't comprehend the way that Judai never lifted a finger to save them when they were out in space, and when they returned still don't make any real efforts to reach out - but at the same time Judai will cross dimensions to save Johan.

Yubel frames both Amon and Judai as ruthless kings, because it speaks of a fundamental inequality in the relationship between Yubel / Judai and between Echo / Amon. The fact that Amon can claim to return Echo's love, but at the same time he's allowed to move on and say "I'll always remember her" while Echo is dead. Amon is the king, and Echo is the servant, and ultimately even if Amon does acknowledge his love for her she will always be second to him.

The inequality in their relationship is what Yubel picks at like a scab over the course of their entire duel.

Yubel: I get it now... You weren't in love with Echo. NO... You may have loved her just enough to clear the conditions in place for you control Exodia.... but then, you didn't truly love each other. Yubel: You were unfairly hurting her, while you would stay unharmed... You wouldn't suffer... You wouldn't be in pain... Amon: Stop beating around the bush. What are you getting at? Yubel: I've been hurt! I've suffered! I've been in pain! And that's why I'm having Judai go through the same things I did! Don't you think that's what it means for two people to love each other?

While Judai isn't as blatantly cruel to Yubel as Amon is to Echo, he is arguably as cold, especially towards their suffering.

As stated above Yubel can't cope with the reality that they might have died alone and forgotten after having been abandoned. They frame things that it must all have been a secret test from Judai, to show make them stronger with the end goal that eventually Yubel would crawl their way back to them.

They can't live with the reality that Judai was living their life perfectly content without them, and that if Yubel had died there they would have just continued living on having forgotten them.

A fear that is reinforced by the way Judai treats Yubel the entire time, not as a friend lost to the dark side they want to get back, but just a mess they need to clean up. For the longest time Judai's behavior even seems to indicate that he would have preferred if Yubel had simply died there, rather than survive and come back to the twisted way they are now.

Yubel's survival sure is an inconveneience to Judai.

Judai isn't entirely unempathic towards Yubel, but Amon isn't entirely selfish and cold to Echo, he does acknowledge that he loves her, that he'll carry the memory of her sacrifice with her forever. How nice for him.

It's still a case of Amon's feelings coming first. Judai's guilt and self-pity towards what happened to Yubel, and also their feelings of responsibility for the harm that Yubel went to cause all of their friends takes precedence over Yubel's feelings of being horribly tortured.

Judai's claims that he feels sorry for Yubel and doesn't want to fight them seem to be mere lipservice, considering their actions seem to passive aggressively imply that it sure is a gosh darned inconvenience that Yubel survived and went on to cause trouble for Judai and all of his friends.

That is still cold to Yubel and the pain they went through, and yeah Judai's not obligated to save Yubel, he's not obligated to empathize with someone who's torturing all their friends, and suffering doesn't give permission for Yubel to do whatever they want.

Yet, the entire point of Judai's arc in season 3 is how his self-centeredness, his disregard for other's feelings can be extremely harmful even if it's not his intent - launching Yubel into space got them tortured, refusing to listen to his friends in the other dimmension and abandoning them to look for Johan gets them turned into human sacrifices.

There's also the symbolism to Echo's name. The word Narcissism comes from the story of Echo and Narcissus, from Ovid's metamorphosis. A story where Echo falls in love with Narcissus only to be spurned by him. Her love for him only grows with his rejection, so she prays to Nemesis to punish Narcissus with a love that was equally not reciprocated, causing Narcissus to fall in love with his own reflection in a pool of water.

Yubel points out the selfishness of Amon's love, does he love Echo or does he love the fact that Echo is completely devoted to him and what she can do for him? He loves her just enough that Exodia considered a sacrfiice, but he doesn't love her enough to share in her suffering.

Yet she's similiarly frustrated by Judai's inability to regard their feelings, that Judai thinks of themself first.

Yubel frames this coldness towards their suffering as something they love about Judai, but it's clearly just them high on COPE.

Yubel: You are overjoyed, aren't you? To truly hurt the one you love. But if that's what you wanted, why couldn't you get this serious before even against me? Why won't you say anything? Don't you have anything to say to me? Hey, Judai... How cold. How cold your eyes are... In that case I'll have to make you understand!

Judai is cold to Yubel's suffering, and yes Yubel hurt all of their friends, but it's not just about that. There's a very deliberate parallel between season 2's climax and Season 3's, because Season 3 is really good at incorporating callbacks and building off the first two seasons.

The way Edo treats Saiou after he's taken by the light is completely opposite from the way that Judai treats Yubel. In both cases they are childhood friends (Echo is Amon's childhood friend too) where one childhood friend has lost their way and been corrupted by the light.

Edo also spends a season unsure of what to do about Saiou and lost and hurt because they can't understand the change that's taken place within Saiou, but their attitude towards the final duel is completely opposite.

Edo: At dad's funeral, the first time I met you, I felt warmth. The same warmth I felt from my cards. I would be happy to be one fo your cards. I'll believe in you to the very end. You told me I was the one who could change your destiny of destruction. If so I will save you from destruction.

In a completely opposite scenario where Saio is even insisting that he doesn't deserve Edo's friendship, and Edo should just give up on him Edo is unwavering in his desire to save Saiou. Something which he puts above both the safety of the world, and the past harm he has caused others.

Edo uses the metaphor of the umbrella, that Saiou is someone who appeared to him on the day of his father's funeral and offered him companionship and shelter from the rain when he was all alone in the world and Edo now wants to be the one to hold the umbrella over his head, stand underneath it together and rescue it from the rain.

Compare this to Judai, who throws it in Yubel's face that while Yubel was suffering all alone, Judai was making friends and allies and that Yubel is still all alone in the world.

Judai: While you took in the wave Wave of Light, sunk into Evil and burned with your thoughts of revenge alone... I made a lot of friends. [...] Judai: We can't protect what matters to us just by being kind. I'm prepared to fight for the friends I love until the end... even if it means becoming a demon a deivl. I realized just now that willingness itself is power, and someone like you with no bonds or allies cannot possibly win.

Again Judai's not obligated to save Yubel, but Jim and O'brien werent obligated to die saving Judai either, and they sure did do that.

Yet, Judai's very quick to consider putting down Yubel like a mad dog after all they've suffered if it means they can have their friends back and they can go back to their normal life. If it means getting what they want.

Sure what they want is a good thing, but Amon also ultimately considered Echo expendable for what in their mind was noble-hearted goal. Which means they share they same contradiction, Judai will do anything and become a demon to protect their friends, will cross dimmensions to save Johan, but then give up on Yubel all too easily.

Yubel pretends they can accept that's just how Judai shows his love, but then they go out of their way to miserably tear apart Amon for doing the exact same thing to Echo - because Yubel can't kill Judai but they can use Amon as a punching bag and substitute for the things they're angry about Judai for.

They consider it their personal mission to set things square between Amon and Echo and take personal delight in balancing the scales.

The Loving Defender Forever- Yubel / Echo

As you state above Echo and Yubel never interact, and Yubel mainly uses Echo as a way of toying with Amon. However, I thnk Echo and the way she was treated by Amon represents another subconscious fear of Yubel's that causes them to project themselves all over Amon and Echo's relationship.

To show what I mean - a lot of people compare Yubel to Ai especially in the way they both undergo an arc where they kill half of the protagonist's friends. However, I'd argue that Yubel and Ai are different in one critical aspect.

Ai's final reveal about his motivation shows that he did what he did after running a simulation that convinced him with absolute certainty that in the future, Yusaku would sacrifice himself trying to protect Ai. Rather than let that future come to pass Ai would rather die by Ysuaku's own hands.

This is something Yubel would never ever do.

Like yes, they'd probably take a bullet for Judai and jump right in front of them if Judai were about to die. However, they wouldn't willingly sacrifice themselves for a future where Judai keeps living happily without them. In fact it's the fact that Judai was living just fine having forgotten them and made new friends while Yubel was alone suffering in space that was their breaking point.

They wouldn't accept a future where Judai and them couldn't be together, they'd literally rather have both of them die together so Yubel could claim all of Judai's love for themselves rather than having Judai be able to keep on living without them.

Yubel even attempts to do so when pushed to their limit. The double suicide option is better than Judai happily living on without them.

Yubel: Hahahahaaha! [Evil laughter] It's over! And by ending everything, I claim all your love for myself, for eternity.

Yubel would never let Judai kill them, if it meant Judai living safe and happily without them laying down their life in the way Ai did. SImiliarly, Yubel would sacrifice themselves and endure horrible surgery to become a dragon to protect Judai, they may even take a bullet for Judai in different circumtances, but they would never sacrifice themselves in the manner that Echo did in order to give Amon power - because Yubel wants to be together with Judai that takes precendence over everything else.

That, and Yubel can't cope with any reality where they might be considered expendable to Judai, or their sacrifices and love might not be appreciated or returned. They have to believe their sacrifice meant something, that the love they returned will be shown in full.

Again, this is the thread they pull during the final duel with Amon. What's the point of Echo's sacrifice or Amon becoming king, if it means Amon now has to live in a world without Echo, or Echo can't be by the side of the person she loves to watch him be king.

Yubel: I'm so glad. You'll get your wish... But who will be happy for you? Who would have been the happiest to see you live how you were meant to. WOuldn't that be the woman you loved, Echo? Yubel: But you kiled her. You will never be able to see her happy. Isn't that strange? Yubel: I wouldn't be able to take it. A world without the one I love... it is because I have judai, that I can feel pain, anguish, and even Joy!

Yubel can't fathom that Echo is selfless enough to sacrifice themselves in an unequal way - that she can be content knowing Amon will live on happy in a world without her. The way Yubel sees love, you cannot be happy in a world without the person you love.

As you so smartly and sexily stated Yubel and Echo are similiar in that they give up everything for the person they love - that they are the followers and servant in their relationship.

But I think there's another parallel between the two that's a lot more interesting. Or...most of a parallel. Namely, their relationship with their other halves and the responsibility of a loyal follower who would give up anything for you, be it their life or their humanity.

Yet, even if Yubel is willing to give up a lot for Judai, and sees themselves as someone selflessly sacrificing themselves in the name of Judai they can't take it as far as Echo did. Even when offering to get dragon surgery, Yubel was still staying by Judai's side as their protector.

Yubel can't really fathom the level of selflessness Echo displays, because their own desires to be Judai's side eventually cross over into selfish entitlement and making demands of Judai. So, they paint Echo as someone who was used and thrown away, stomped on like a bug, instead of someone who consented to making that sacrifice for Amon.

It's what they harp on again and again in order to get to Amon, but I also think it reflects a subconscious fear in Yubel themselves that their sacrifices might have meant nothing to Judai.

Yubel: You prepared another strategy, just in case Exodia were to be sealed. You don't miss a tick. Yes, yes.. That is why you are king. That's how a king conducts himself. [...] But then, why did Echo have to die? Wasn't it a pointless death?

Yubel doesn't state so directly, but you could infer they might even pity Echo as someone who made a sacrifice for someone unworthy of their loved, someone who in the end was only using them as they do their best to tear down everything about Amon and Echo's relationship and make Amon into a heartless king.

And, again when they find out Amon can be pure of heart and also at the same time sacrifice Echo, they throw a tantrum about it because it doesn't align with their reality. Amon can't have cared about Echo if he was willing to sacrifice her, if he can live without her. Echo's sacrifice must have been pointless if she can't be alongside the man she loves.

Yubel: I'm disappointed. What kind of world is that? I wouldn't want to live in such a world. The world is a place that you make alongside the one you love. What Judai and I make together... That will be the world. You should have made it with the one you loved too. A world with just the two of you. You could have made a world far more wonderful than the pie-in-the-sky promises of an empty king. [...] This is such a pointless duel.

Yubel's looking for darkness in Amon and Echo's relationship, because they are repressing hard their own resentments towards Judai, especially for how unequal things are between the two of them and all the sacrifice is on their part.

Echo also presents an image of what selfless sacrifice looks like and it's not pleasant, taking all the suffering on yourself for the one you love is just that - it's suffering no matter how noble minded.

Yubel actually can't suffer all alone, and they can't be the perfect selfless protector they frame themselves as and no one can. Which is why they're also searching so hard for darkness in Amon and Echo's relationship and they find it in Echo.

How can Echo accept Amon's willingness to sacrifice her and use her as a dispoable pawn for a greater goal without getting angry, and the answer is she doesn't. She just points her anger at someone else.

Yubel: Is this... darkness? The woman... even in death, the darkness of the woman trying to protect the man she loves. The desire to kill me. This is the darkness I've been waiting for!

Isn't Yubel just tickled to discover the darkness in Echo's heart, because it confirms what they thought -that the kind of selfless sacrifice Echo performed for Amon doesn't exist.

That Echo does feel anger, hurt, and darkness, she just doesn't point it at Amon, rather it manifests in a violent overprotectiveness towards anyone who gets near him. Which still seems selfless, but doesn't that mirror the way Yubel claims a lot of their actions, violent, murderous rage pointed at all of Judai's friends are done for Judai's sake, for protecting them as well?

Yubel and Echo both unable to bring themselves to hate the man they love, take it out on everybody else instead, and in doing so cling onto their image of the selfless, loving protector.

Yubel: Why the forbidding expression? Judai: If you hated my treatment of you so much, you could have focused your revenge on me. Yubel: Hatred, revenge? what are you talking about? I told you this is something I've worked very hard for in the hopes it would make you happy. Judai: Make me happy?But all my friends were hurt, suffered and disappeared? Yubel: But isn't hat not the nature of love? I wanted to hurt you, to demostrate the depths of my love.

Yubel can go on loving Judai, because one they have made convenient punching bags of all of Judai's friends, and they've lied to themselves that this lashing out is still done in Judai's name.

Echo can go on loving Amon even in death, by lingering as a curse that will kill anyone who dares to harm him.

Finally seeing Echo that way, not as a meaningless sacrifice, not a woman taken advantage of. Echo is an evil woman protecting the man she loves after death, which just so happens to allign with the way Yubel sees themselves.

Now Yubel feels temporarily satisfied, reassured that the things they were worrying about don't exist, that their twisted viewpoint is in fact right and ends the duel.

Of course their viewpoint is deconstructed two duels later. However, when it comes to understanding the way Yubel thinks I think this single duel is the best example, because you can learn a lot about how Yubel thinks, just from analyzing the way they identify with, perceive, and project all over Amon and Echo.

A Trapezoid of Foils: Judai/Yubel and Amon/Echo

I'm back on my bullshit, and my bullshit is yelling about the trashfire that is Judai Yuki and Yubel. This post is a collection of thoughts on how Amon and Echo were clearly meant to reflect Judai and Yubel in some way or other, and how it feels like it should be neater than it is. The parallels are there, but it's not fully symmetrical and some of the angles are kind of weird...so yeah, kind of like a (non-isosceles) trapezoid!

(Geometry Tumblr do not @ me, I'm doing my best with this metaphor)

Spoilers for GX season 3, naturally. I haven't said it before, but for this post as well as previous ones I'm basing all information and characterization on the sub version of GX rather than the dub (which drastically changes Yubel's backstory and motives).

Yubel and Amon

This is the most obvious one, because Yubel spends two whole episodes and honestly some of their most iconic monologues trying to tear Amon down after building him up the whole season.

They're both antagonists willing to cause harm to the one they love for their goals. For Amon, that goal is the power to build a utopia. For Yubel, the harm is the goal - or at least, the metric by which they will have achieved their goal (showing their love for Judai).

Yubel, of course, claims that Amon is more selfish in his use of harm. Pain is love in their philosophy, but it's mutual pain - dishing out the pain without taking any back would only be mere cruelty. This of course misses the nuance that Echo wanted Amon to use her as a sacrifice, while Judai didn't welcome any of Yubel's twisted affections.

Still, from what I've seen most people agree that Yubel comes across as more "honest" one way or another. And to understand why things feel that way, it's important to look at their backstory and motivations, as well as how their motivations change.

Yubel dedicated themself to Judai's past life, tying themself to him through lifetimes, and in the present remained true to that devotion in unwanted ways. When Judai sent them to space and it ended up being Oops! All Torture, Yubel developed their sadomasochistic philosophy as a coping mechanism and an attempt to reconcile Judai's past promises and present actions.

Upon their return to Earth, they planned to return the "favor": by sending Yubel to the pain and isolation of outer space Judai made them stronger (i.e., infected by the Light of Destruction, with all that entails), so they'll give him his own painful experience (all of season 3) to make him stronger (awaken his power as Supreme King). Then they'll reunite, having both demonstrated their love for each other, and [this part is where the Light of Destruction really twists up their thinking]. Everything they do is in the name of this motive*, whether Judai really likes it or not.

Amon dedicated himself to the Garam conglomerate with Echo by his side before being replaced by his younger brother Sid, the sole blood Garam sibling. He nearly murdered Sid before changing his mind and dedicating himself wholly to his brother instead, a decision Echo and Yubel both describe as willingly chaining himself to their service. Even when given an opportunity to become the heir (all it'd take is watching his brother die to illness, not even murder) he rejects it, and begs for a way to save him.

And yet, when when given the opportunity he made a deal with the devil to break the chains he put on himself and abandon that same family. Then when he gets the chance to obtain power by sacrificing someone he loves, he does exactly that. Then he plans to become king of a utopia free of suffering, and always remember Echo.

So then, what are Amon's motives? Is he somebody who got tired of being abandoned or unappreciated? An ends-justify-the-means idealist? Just a power-hungry hypocrite? It's hard to tease out a consistent character and ideology from him. And in a show where people wear their hearts in their decks, I think this part of why people hate him - and so does Yubel.

Yubel hates Johan because he's terrifyingly like Yubel in some ways, focused and protective and dear to Judai.** Yubel hates Amon because he can't be like Yubel at all, resenting the brother he dedicated himself to and sacrificing the person he loved for power in an empty world forever devoid of that same person.

No way Yubel can be that kind of person, right? Otherwise, what was it all for?

* To be fair, you don't know all of Yubel's backstory by the time of their final duel with Amon. However, even removing the context of their past life that duel together with Yubel!Johan vs. Hell Kaiser establishes Yubel's central motivations more coherently than they do Amon's.

** Help, I know there's been other essay segments on this topic, text and video alike. But I saw a lot of them back in early 2023 when I was mindlessly going through GX material in a haze of hyperfixation and now I've forgotten all the other good sources.

Yubel and Echo

If Yubel's parallels with Amon are about their dedication, Yubel's parallels with Echo are about who they're dedicated to. Both believe in their loved one's destiny to become a king, and take actions to make them that king.

Yubel has historical basis in that Judai is quite literally the Supreme King, bearer of the gentle darkness. To help him achieve that role, Yubel enacts a plot to break Judai until he awakens his Supreme King side. It fits neatly into their schema of things: this is how they make the person they love stronger, so that they will thrive and survive. Make Judai stronger and awaken his old power, and all will be as it was meant to be.

Echo just believes that Amon is amazing enough that he would make a better king than anyone. When the chances arises to help break his chains and give him a world to rule, Echo takes it.

...And boy does she.

Both Yubel and Echo believe their loved ones are meant to be a king. Both give their lives in support of their loved one, and become weapons wielded in their service.

No wonder Yubel was shaken by Echo's devotion remaining within Exodia for just a moment - it's not all that far from their own.

Unfortunately Yubel's only direct interaction with Echo is goading her attack on field-Yubel during the final Amon duel. Otherwise they only speak of Echo as someone used and abandoned by Amon - which in itself has potential, given Yubel's own feelings about Judai sending them away.

I think GX could definitely have explored this connection a bit more. There's space to fill here.

Judai and Amon

As noted above, Judai and Amon both have roles as kings - at least, in the eyes of their single most loyal people. Judai holds the title of Supreme King as the wielder of gentle darkness, and while not confirmed his past life sure looked like a prince. Amon simply has ambition, talent, and an ideal world in his mind.

And in operating with the ambition of kings, they both do terrible things to achieve power. Judai lays this out explicitly in the Edo vs. Amon duel:

Amon lets his need for power get in the way of his other relationships and priorities, and sacrifices the ones he loves to obtain Exodia similarly to how Judai sacrificed his friends and eventually uncountable innocents for his own goals - finding Johan, and then ruling as Supreme King. Straightforward, right?

But I think there's another parallel between the two that's a lot more interesting. Or...most of a parallel. Namely, their relationship with their other halves and the responsibility of a loyal follower who would give up anything for you, be it their life or their humanity.

What do you do when the person you love most dedicates their existence to you - to the point of throwing everything else away, even their very life?

Of course, the Judai-Yubel and Amon-Echo situations aren't exactly the same even putting aside the issue of reincarnation. (For the purposes of this essay I'm not making huge distinctions between Judai and his past life, but if you want to get into the details I've written about that previously.)

Yubel went ahead and made their sacrifice without Judai's input, and all he could do was decide how to respond. He chose to dedicate himself back to them so hard it crossed lifetimes, so hard he chose to risk his own existence for them as well in his next life.

Amon, on the other hand, is the one who proposed Echo sacrifice herself for him. Echo agreed to it, and even by the end she stood by her decision. But Amon loaded the gun and pulled the trigger.

He tries to honor her sacrifice, of course. He's always mindful of Echo's sacrifice and what it means. But in the end, he did choose to sacrifice her, ultimately using her as a pawn. Their love never trumped his own objectives.

And I think the example of Amon and Echo leads to the question: if Judai had the choice of letting Yubel become a dragon or stopping them, what would he do? When it was explicitly their will?

This is another missed opportunity, one that could have solidified the parallels neatly. But GX never asks that question, so the answer is unclear. What could have been a parallel is just kind of...askew.

Judai and Echo

Okay, I admit there isn't a lot here off the top of my head. Probably the best parallels between them are in relation to their other halves, as the people "harmed" by their villainous partners, and how they respond to that harm.

Judai rejects Yubel's torments as unwanted attention, until he remembers the past and flips to understanding why Yubel did they did and makes moves to unite the two of them forever. Echo, meanwhile, understands Amon's motives from start to end and...lets herself be sacrificed, the end.

I don't know about this one. Really, ultimately Echo is supposed to be a willing participant in her own sacrifice but in the end I still don't feel like the narrative gave her a strong sense of agency in the matter and it really weakens my attempt to write this section.

In Conclusion

Some of these connections are stronger than others for sure, but I argue that they're all there in some way or another. They're very uneven and overall I'm not entirely sure what you're meant to take from the parallels, and I wish I could give something neat and concise for this section. Instead, it's a bit messy and misshapen - hence, the trapezoid metaphor.

Still, I think there's interesting room for thought in this awkward space. I was certainly thinking about these parallels while working on the latest chapter of Need (accidental last-minute plug?) and trying to figure out exactly what the prince felt while Yubel was in the middle of dragon surgery. What must it be like, to be in these relationships of sacrificial devotion?

[cuteniarose]

A conversation I had with my sister this evening, transcribed from memory:

Vi: So Giovanni doesn't feel too strongly about gay people either way EXCEPT when it comes to either Jessie, James and Meowth, or his son, then he quickly becomes homophobic

Me: ...His son?

Vi: Silver?

Me: Who?

Vi: Silver? The Gen 2 rival?

Me: First time I'm hearing of him. All I know about Giovanni's family is that silly theory that he's Ash's father

Vi: HOW do you NOT KNOW Silver??

Me: Do you really think I'm so well versed in Pokemon lore that I'm aware of ANYTHING going on in Gen 2???

Vi: I infodump about Pokemon all the time to you!!

Me: Yeah, but NEVER about Gen 2!!! And come on, cut me some slack, it's not like you know anything about stuff I'm obsessed with

Vi: You mean the mess you made of LoK canon? I know enough about that!!

Me: Like what?

Vi: ......Is Ming-Hua still a swampbender in your AU or did that get retconned?

Me: She is

Vi: Okay good, so that, and uhhhhhhh..... Suiren and Midori are sisters and Mingzan's kids, Suiren has a thing with Kuvira, and......

Me, after some silence: Is that it?

Vi: Well it's not like there's a wiki detailing all the intricacies of your multiverse!!

Me: I did make a masterpost on tumblr about it

Vi: Seriously?

Me: Yeah, because Sydney was interested

Vi: ...Who's Sydney? I know that's not the name of your doctor friend

Me: And what's the name of my doctor friend?

Vi: Kat

Me: Oh, you actually remember

Vi: So she didn't have some kind of realization and decide to change her name?

Me: No, Sydney and I met not too long ago, she's obsessed with Wan, Raava and Vaatu–

Vi: Why do you always find friends with the nichest interests imaginable??

Me: It's a gift. Anyway, she was interested in my multiverse and I got invested in the modern AU she returned to recently after like, ten years. She even let me insert a few OCs into it!

Vi: .....Are Raava and Vaatu still giant spirit kites in the modern AU, or are they human?

Me: They're human

Vi: OH THANK GOD I was scared there'd be some kind of Lovecraftian eldritch horror thing involved. I'm struggling to imagine them as humans though

Me: Well, Raava is a perfect student and piano prodigy who started rebelling in her teens, and Vaatu is her childhood frenemy who's an overdramatic theatre kid Light Yagami kinnie. And all of them smoke weed

Vi, with a half confused, half outraged stare: ....what?

Me: An american thing, apparently? Sydney's from Ohio, they told me that pretty much everyone they know has smoked weed and done at least one other kind of drug before. They even offered to help out if I ever need to write characters using drugs or whatever

Vi, looking absolutely flabbergasted at this point: Ooooo...kayyyy, then..... and here I thought the spirit kites smoke weed because then you can make a pun that they're high as a kite

Me: ...That's dumb

Vi: And everyone smoking weed isn't?

Me: Not everyone! Suiren doesn't smoke weed!!

Vi: Whatever. And now I'm picturing them smoking in their kite forms. They can stick the blunt into that rhombic shape with the dot they have on their fronts

Me: THOSE ARE THEIR EYES

Vi: WELL HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT? And I'm pretty sure that's something you lot made up and not canon. Besides, I just finished reading The Kite Runner for school, I definitely know more about kites than you do

Me: Can we drop the high kites topic now?

Vi: K, sure. So, you have a new friend who used an unspecified number of drugs in the past. Great company you're keeping

Me: ....She also showed me her tits once

Vi, going all red in the face: SHE WHAT?????

Me: NOT LIKE THAT. SHE'S A PHOTOGRAPHER AND IT WAS ARTISTIC NUDITY

Vi: You know what? None of my business. Go indulge in your weird modern AU where the spirit kites are human and everyone smokes weed except for Suiren– hey, how does Suiren fit into this?

Me: You know how I said Vaatu is a Light Yagami kinnie? He's convinced that Wan is the L to his Light, his arch nemesis, all that. He quotes Light's monologues all the time and Suiren is his Ryuk. She watches him behaving like a freak, munches on some snack in the corner and enables him because it's fun

Vi: Ah, so she's the kind of friend who's only a friend on the surface and will bail as soon as shit starts going down? I mean, Light asked Ryuk for help exactly once and Ryuk straight up killed him

Me: No, she's actually a pretty good friend, at least when it came to letting Vaatu borrow a skirt and lipstick when he realises he's transfem

Vi: ...YOU MADE THE EVIL CHAOS SPIRIT KITE TRANSFEM???

Me: IT WASN'T MY IDEA I'm just going along with it. Turns out he never wanted to date Raava, he wanted to BE Raava. Why, is that a problem?

Vi: No, just... do you realise how nuts that sounds out of context? LoK's Book 2 antagonist has a gender crisis and realises she's transfem and the one who helps her feel gender euphoria is the daughter of LoK's Book 3 antagonists. Does that not sound INSANE to you?

Me: No?

Vi, after a long suffering sigh: And here I thought what you did to LoK couldn't get any worse... [in reference to the modern AU in general, NOT transfem Vaatu]

TL;DR: @rokurookajima somehow became the topic of conversation between my sister and me for a good 10 minutes :P

[babacontainsmultitudes]

[just venting a bit into the void you understand you understand 😌] Lately I've been feeling very caught between "I have a lot of thoughts on Sparrow and Normal and all that with the ending and teen talk and feel like I need to get them out and voice them for my own piece of mind and resolution" and "I am lacking the strength and energy to actually sit down and write it all out and kind of really just want to fully move on to other things (AUs, fics, anything else)" but my brain can't seem to commit to either and that's quite frustrating cause it's just left me very restless. *Sigh*. Idk! Just needed to complain about that a bit ig, it's silly but this is what has been ailing me as of late.

[thatswhatsushesaid]

seeing some of the tag commentary on one of my posts atm and like. .../exhale, I acknowledge I could have been clearer re: jyl's presence at the nightless city massacre. no, she doesn't just run dramatically through armed conflict like she does in cql, u got me. mea culpa. however:

1) jyl was not the focus of that post--jgy was;

2) yes, I realize it wasn't supposed to be a battlefield (like most fields where battles take place). but it becomes one because wwx shows up and turns it into one;

3) after scattering wq's ashes, jgs makes it pretty clear that the rest of the wen remnants are going to be wiped out imminently--like, tomorrow, if we take him at his word. and when wwx hears jyl calling out for him after the fighting breaks out, even he's shocked that she's at the pledge conference. from ch 78 of the EXR translation:

Suddenly, amid the battle noises, Wei WuXian heard a faint voice.

The voice was shouting, “A-Xian!”

Like a bucket of ice-cold water, the voice doused the vile flames raging within his heart.

Jiang YanLi?

When did she come to the pledge conference?!

Wei WuXian was immediately half dead with fright. He couldn’t care about the fight with Lan WangJi any longer and put down Chenqing, “Shijie?!”

anyway /waves arms, I guess this is what I get for making one (1) tongue-in-cheek comment about jyl in a post that is otherwise not at all about jyl.

[crabussy]

sorry you feel that way!! I think you can be kind AND firm. there's no need to let people walk all over you while you're being kind. I just don't really want to be the type of person who is mean first thing before even trying to understand the other person. often times people are rude because others aren't kind to them. I've had people apologise for how they treated me after I responded with kindness instead of spitting insults back at them. people aren't used to it!! sometimes kindness is about being the bigger person. sometimes being unkind is the best choice. but I'd be lying to your face if I said it wasn't the best choice most of the time

I'm so serious about being kind above all else. it has genuinely changed the way I interact with the world on a fundamental level and has made me so so much happier.

[alienfailboy]

confession:

my "cousins" i have known their whole lives, twins, never been able to tell the mfs apart

[secondpersonpoetry]

hi! heard the released “Merry Christmas, Please Don’t Call” (which i’ve seen you’ve heard live, if i’m not mistaken!!) this morning and i don’t know if there’s really a particular vibe/dynamic/ship hrpf-wise (personally haven’t yet been able to put my finger on it) that quite relates but the lyrics have been rotating in my head all day and i was wondering if you had any thoughts? hope you have a good one! <3

OH ANON HAVE I EVER SEEN IT LIVE!!! and the second that song came out i zoomed it straight into my fic playlist and unfortunately there are so many guys this could be. right now the one that's resonating is, of course, the golden boy and his haunted ghost themselves: mcstrome.

i am thinking about connor, specifically, after the stanley cup final. that game seven. how angry he was, how loud the silence when they told him he won the conn smythe. how close he's come before and again and again lost. there's nobody else to blame but himself. he's in the empty room and he knows why (1)

at!! your best!!! you were magic!!! oh, golden boy. connor the anointed, of course. at the very beginning of his career we always knew he was something special and who wouldn't have fallen in love with him? weren't all of us a little bit dylan strome in awe of the generational talent? we were all bathed in radiant light just by being in the vicinity (2)

don't even tell 'em that you know me breaks my heart (3). in terms of building a narrative i think i've said before there is a universe where connor/dylan were together before the draft and to protect both of them, dylan breaks up with him. connor says i love you and dylan says i don't. because he doesn't, you know? he loved connor. he loved davo. he can't be in love with connor mcdavid, first overall pick of the edmonton oilers. i'd rather be hurt forever than have to watch us try to make this work and destroy us.

and after connor mcdavid left the otters, dylan strome captained them to a memorial cup win. what a haunted home, eh? to be captain of the team you and your best friend were on, only now he's left you? don't call me to tell me about your rookie season with the oilers--we both know about your broken collarbone. don't call me to tell about becoming the youngest captain in franchise history when i stepped into the shoes of your captaincy here. don't call me. (4)

narratively: dylan's the one who broke connor's heart and his own but by god it wasn't easy. we both know what happened, you went first overall. please don't make this harder on me. please don't call.

this verse can be about the weight of dylan having to live up to connor's standards and always being measured by him. i would just like to bring up the connor stepping stone chart for absolutely no reason as well (5)

we are, at long last, at the potential future of now: dylan strome, happy, smiling, thriving on the washington capitals. connor, on the oilers. i'm not yours, dylan can say. haven't been for a long time. it took some time but i made this. please don't call and ruin this for me, stay out of my life. i don't want you or need you (6)

[p.s. this took a while because when i received this ask i was a) immediately possessed to write this verse by verse breakdown i had never thought of before and then b) immediately plagued by the idea of making you a little graphic (above the read more) and finally got to do it after banging out all the actual lyric thoughts two (?) weeks ago. emerging two and a half hours later from the fugue state of GIMP with 37 layers in this bad boy hope you enjoy!!!]

[doodlemancy]

Hey, so, Patreon is lying to you about Apple forcing their hand.

Patreon is getting rid of 1st-of-the-month/per-creation billing, claiming a new decision by Apple has forced their hand. This will hurt a lot of creatives, and their excuse is bullshit. Allow me to explain.

In 2018, Patreon tried to impose a new ill-considered fee structure on everyone that would have cost creators a lot of smaller pledges. They ended up apologizing for this profusely; they have now deleted this apology from their website and unfortunately I was unable to find it on the Internet Archive. This was shameful, but to their credit they backed off quickly when things got ugly.

Back in 2021, Patreon discussed plans to force all creators into a rolling bill structure and get rid of first-of-the-month/pay-up-front billing. The community once again very decisively shouted them down, and they had to walk it back again. This whole fiasco damaged the already shaky trust between Patreon creators and staff.

This week, Patreon announced that, along with extra fees, Apple's policies were supposedly forcing them to move everyone over to the rolling fee structure that they first tried to get us to agree to in 2021. Patreon will tell you they are not happy about this. As a person who spent a long time watching Patreon make terrible decisions, I can tell you-- they are probably very happy about this, because it's exactly the smokescreen they needed to do what they've been trying to do for years, which is pull ALL Patreon creators away from 1st-of-the-month and per-creation billing.

The spin in the news I've seen so far is "Apple bullies Patreon, boo hoo hoo poor Patreon". This is very obviously not what's happening. Mind you: Apple does suck, and they are doing something bad here. Fuck apple. But Patreon and Apple are BOTH the asshole in this situation; Everyone Sucks Here. Patreon has options: they can make the iOS app a reader app and do billing through the browser to avoid the restrictions and the extra fees (Netflix and Amazon, notably, both do this), or they can allow creators to opt-out of iOS billing if they want to use billing models that don't work with it.

It seems most likely to me that the Apple situation is a real fire that Patreon has chosen to use as a convenient smokescreen to do what they've been wanting to do since at least 2021, and maybe since 2018.

What do we do?:

They have a feedback form specifically about this.

They also have a creator discord.

And they have lots of social media pages where they probably really, really hope that this doesn't blow up again, because they never learn. The incidents I've described here aren't the only two other times Patreon has pissed off their creators. They know if they don't contain the noise it'll be harder to get away with it, so make some noise. They've done a lot of work to spin this cleverly so you'll have sympathy for them and they won't get the kind of backlash they know they deserve.

Please don't misuse these links and make threats or spam or something. All you have to do is give well-reasoned feedback. Patreon hates feedback. Make sure they get a nice heaping helping of their least favorite vegetable.

[wazzuppy]

tags from @empty-blog-for-lurking

another voltron meme for you. i love allura, she deserved so much better than the ending she got

[peachpitfics]

Don't Blame Me

Fandom: Bridgerton

Summary: Daphne Bridgerton is your closest childhood friend, her eldest brother, Anthony, is the love of your life. After avoiding each other for years, you both finally lose control.

Length: 3.2k

Pairing: Anthony Bridgerton x fem!reader

Content Warnings: Unprotected sex, sex in public, penetrative vaginal sex, orgasm, 'caught in the act' vibes, best friends brother.

Bridgerton master list (tag list)

Like many other close family friends of the Bridgerton’s, their home was always a beacon of safety and comfort, especially for you. You were Daphne Bridgerton’s first friend, and you had remained close well into adulthood, she wrote to you still from her new life with the Duke. Unfortunately, Daphne would not be able to meet you in Mayfair this season, the Bridgerton’s playing host while your mother and father were out of the country. It was your third year out; you had a few hopeful matches in mind, not realizing how difficult the season might be with unobtainable love staring you in the face.

“We are so glad to have you this year, y/n. It has been so long since we have seen you around the Ton” Violet Bridgerton was as much your mother as your own.

“Father’s responsibilities have been consuming these past few years. Mother and I hardly made it to the season last year. I am glad to be here, spending some time in familiar places” You smiled, linking arms with her as she escorted you to the ballroom. Your parents had entrusted your match to you, however, had requested the viscountess to keep a watchful eye.

Waltzing into the drawing room, just like old times, Benedict and Colin, discarding their playing cards, exclaimed with joy, rushing to greet you as if a long-lost sibling had returned. There was nothing as lonely as being an only child, deep in the countryside. Eloise was fretting in the corner, fingers agitated, tapping the outside of a book. This was to be her coming out year.

Anthony entered from the far side door, his feet skidding to a halt at the sight of you.

“You arrived” Anthony said flatly, turning on the ball of his foot, and exiting as quickly as he had come in. Embarrassed, you frowned, smiling chastely praying no one would notice his strange behaviour. It had been a year since you had last seen each other.

“I apologise, he is so bizarre in the mornings lately” Violet squeezed your shoulders, leading you over to a table laden with treats. Sitting on the settee with Hyacinth and Eloise, eating small cakes and discussing the books being read amongst you were some of the precious things you missed about living in the city.

In an unsuspicious amount of time, you excused yourself from company to find the washroom. Anthony stood outside the drawing room, leaning against the wall, unblinking and mind drifting elsewhere. You ignored each other walking past, which felt a lot like tiny shards of glass embedding into your heart. Locking yourself in the washroom, trying desperately to keep tears at bay, you looked into the mirror and told yourself it did not matter. You were going to find love this year, somewhere else. 

When you opened the door, Anthony had moved, he was nearly pressed against the door, waiting for you to come out. He stuffed himself into the washroom with you, closing the door as silently as he could.

“Why are you here?” He asked. He looked different from a year ago, he had changed quite a lot more than you were expecting. He had shortened his hair and filled out into his body. His hands looked the same, the same ring on that damned finger, flexing in distress and awkward guilt.

“It is the beginning of the social season. I am here to find a husband.” You stated plainly.

“A husband?” He scoffed, charming disdain painted across his face.

“Yes, it is what young ladies do in polite society. Was that unclear?” You asked. Your lack of facial expression and tone seemed to startle him, he had no idea what you were thinking.

“Why are you acting this way?” Anthony stuttered forward, getting uncomfortably close.

With the melancholic drop of your shoulders, and a heavy exhale, you pushed past Anthony and made your way back to the drawing room. It was so like him to put the narrative back on you. Anthony should have asked himself why he was acting this way – after all, it was he who decided not to court you. It was he who decided to kiss you beside the carriage that night. It was he who decided the two of you should not speak any longer. It was he who broke your heart.

The remainder of the evening was free of Anthony, filled with laughter at the dining room table over a delectable dinner. The Bridgerton’s sense of family was everything to you – even if Gregory and Hyacinth were bickering for most of the meal, it still felt as it was meant to. Violet showed you to the guest room, it had not changed much over the years, it smelled the very same.

“I am sorry Anthony could not join us for dinner” Violet’s voice echoed with somber searching. Perhaps she had heard the two of you in the washroom?

“Do not be,” You said quickly, “His time is his own, he does not owe me anything” Violet bowed her head, words fighting against her lips. She instead pursed them into a smile and closed the door behind her. Those shards of glass moved again, every second in this house, nausea held you hostage, terrified of running into him in the halls.

Daphne was the only other person alive who knew what had happened between Anthony and yourself. She had been disappointed in him, angry with the way he had handled everything. While she promised there would never be a change to your friendship, it had never really been the same. You tossed and turned far longer than normal; your mind flooded with images of the past. Thrusting yourself out of bed, it was clear you were not going to be sleeping tonight, you decided that a distraction may be best. In your nightgown, candle in hand, you remembered your way to the study.

The study was clear of any inhabitants, it was tidy, and the few cases of books loomed high over you, reaching the ceiling. Nothing in the Bridgerton house seemed to change, except Anthony, and it was perpetually for the worse in your opinion. You selected a book randomly from the nearest shelf and perched yourself on the seat closest to the window, looking out over the square. Lounging sleepily, you read in the low candlelight, only disturbed by the creaking of the door, an unexpected sound, making you jolt.

“I knew you’d be in here” Anthony said softly, entering the room with caution as your emotionless face watched him. “You were always in here when we were children. No one could ever find you” His smile was humorless.

“You did” You waited before responding, wondering why he was here, speaking with you, “Why are you here, right now, Anthony?” You demanded.

Anthony moved to the seat across from yours, sitting gingerly, holding eye contact in the hopes you would not tell him to leave. You allowed him to sit, his hands folded in front of him.

“I don’t know” Anthony rubbed desperately at his forehead, “I just got up, and felt myself pulled here, some unknown force, dragging me to you” Anthony admitted. You had always been attracted to each other, always gravitating towards one another.

“I did not choose to come here; my mother asked a favor of yours. I would never have chosen to be this close to you. You destroyed me, Anthony” Tears welled to your eyes, “We cannot be near each other – you made that it very clear, you took what you wanted of me, and cast me aside” Hands pressed down on your knees, you pushed off, making for the closest exit. Anthony dashed around in front of you, placing his body between you and the door for the second time today.

“Goodnight, Viscount Bridgerton” You curtsied formally, hoping the rules of social engagement were enough for this man to understand the dangerous position he was putting both of you in, yet again.

Anthony’s hand trembled, reaching out, taking yours into his. His fingers tangled between yours, his grip strengthening when he realized you were not pulling away. His thumb affectionately circling the skin on wrist, the sound of his swallowing resounding across the empty room, his anxious tongue flicking over his lips. If anything was clear, it was the internal battle that seemed to be always happening inside Anthony’s mind.

His touch, the supreme legacy of your existence. His unsteady breath, captivating your common sense. The thrilling space between you slowly closing, heads bobbing forward as if intoxicated and unable to control oneself, meeting together in the middle in an exhilarating kiss, just like you had remembered it.

His lips were shamelessly enthusiastic, as if made for this very purpose, just for you. His forceful hands weaved into your loose hair, pulling you deeper into every kiss. You were overcome, that old bold, need for him to find its way out of the labyrinth you had designed for it. Anthony’s fingers pressed to your hips, his teeth nipped eagerly at the skin on your neck, softs sighs of delight followed.

It was when his hand moved sensually to your breast that you broke free of the enchanting dance you had found yourself in so many times before with him. Your body did not reflect the same pleasures, you took his hands from your body and laid them at his sides, and stood tall and stepped back.

“I am here to secure a husband, for my future” Tears found their way back to you.

“Y/n…” Anthony shook his head, stepping forward, trying to hold onto you again.

“If you cannot give me what I seek, please, stop hunting me down. I want a life with you, Anthony. I will love you until my dying breath… But you, you will never grow up” You said finitely, again, pushing your way past him and fleeing back to your room.

~

Most of the next day was spent in tired indifference, you remained in your room, preparing for the first ball of the season. Tears had stained your pillow the remainder of the night, each knock at the door struck a chord of hope in your heart, wishing for Anthony.

Eloise and Violet helped you into your gown, the ladies’ maids fixing your hair and face. Violet ran a motherly thumb under your puffy eye, her compassionate heart shining through her eyes and tender smile. You gave a little nod, knowing there was never anything you could hide from her – she knew everyone in the Bridgerton house better than she let on.

The Viscounts escorted Eloise into Lady Danbury’s estate, greeting the Queen and Lady Danbury ahead of you. Violet linked arms with you in solidarity, following Anthonys actions and proceeding into the ball.

“Who will you be accepting dances from this evening?” The Viscountess asked quietly.

“I am not restricting myself to names, I will dance with any eligible man who asks” You answered politely.

Violet gave your forearm a squeeze, “That is very sensible” She nodded, releasing you, sending you off into the lion’s den. You met up with Eloise, taking a short turn about the room to appear social, greeting the other young ladies who you’d met years previous. There were several older men who seemed to take an interest in you as you moved about the room with your friend. No one really stood out to you, no true love at first sight, much to your dismay.

Retiring to the wall with a glass of lemonade in hand, you watched the gorgeous young women excited to dance with suitors and recalled how that was never an experience you had.

Soon enough, one of the suitors who had shown interest in a season previous approached, positioning himself next to you. Lord Harlan Grahame was intelligent, considerate, and not entirely horrible to look at.

“Lord Grahame” You curtsied, a familiar smile finding its way back onto your face.

“Miss y/n, I do hope your mother and father are quite well” He remarked, having known them for many years now, he had noticed their absence.

“They are in abroad, my father has business to conduct in Greece and my mother only saw fit to tend to him during this time” You explained, “I am being hosted by the Bridgerton family. How is your family?” You asked in politeness.

“Fantastic, Mother has moved herself to the country and hopes to get yet another dog soon” He laughed, clearly happy to be free of her in his home. Laughing along with him, you spied Anthony, discreetly looking on from across the ballroom. The conversation between yourself and Lord Grahame was easy and hardly uncomfortable. He was charismatic enough that you could see yourself becoming quite fond of each other in no time at all. He made small jokes at no one’s expense, he offered refreshments frequently and complimented you in kindness. You could see and accept a perfectly happy future with the Lord.

Across the ballroom, sheer asperity brewed live in Anthonys eyes for all to see. He was known to have a temper amongst society. With a final twitch of his left eye, Anthony’s feet picked up under him, carrying him in your direction. Violet watched on, fear and embarrassment ready and willing in her chest.

“I apologise” You mumbled preemptively to Lord Grahame as Anthony arrived to interrupt your conversation.

“Miss y/n, may I have this dance?” Anthonys eyes were terrifying, filled with rage and jealousy. You paused, contemplating antagonizing him, forcing his hand, backing him into a corner. But relinquished, excusing yourself from Lord Grahames company, taking Anthony’s hand as he swept you off to the dancefloor.

You did not meet his eye, your nails dug into the skin on his hand in resentment. You said nothing to each other for the first several minutes of the dance.

“You cannot marry him” Anthony muttered in quiet, helpless indignation.

Giving him a great look of disbelief, “Who are you to tell me who I can marry? I do not answer to you, Viscount” You growled into his ear as he pulled you in tighter.

Anthony finished the dance, bowing to you, holding onto one of your hands with unbelievable force. He walked swiftly from the dance floor, conspicuously pulling you along behind him, and into a room down the hall.

“You cannot blame me for acting this way!” He yelled, “If I have to see you speak to another man this season, if I have to witness another man watch as you walk by – You have driven me to the brink of insanity” He heaved, frantic energy filling his body.

“What would you have me do? Spend my life in loneliness, a Spinster? Would that be convenient to you, Anthony?” You parried.

His hands ran through his hair stressfully, at a loss for words, unable to express himself in the way he wanted. His intention had not been to yell when he sequestered you away to this side room.

“I was fine! You left Mayfair, and I was well. Now, here you are – and God help me, I am intoxicated every second we are in the same room. Your presence is the most decadent drug, forcibly hypnotizing me. I am powerless to you” Anthonys words were like honey, carried on the end of a bee sting.

“You made your choice!” You yelled back at him, hoping the music was loud enough outside.

“I was young, y/n! I made the wrong choice!” He retorted, his words shaking, and unfiltered for the first time in a long time.

There was a second of unblinking silence between you before magnetic energy pulled you into each other, deranged nipping at each other’s lips ensued. Hands grabbed and grasped at skin and hair, trying to force your beings into one person. There was a white-hot craze that seemed to come over the both of you, and you had felt it before, a few times.

Anthony sucked your bottom lip into his mouth, biting and kissing in a spontaneous fire.

“Someone will hear” You moaned into his ear, as his teeth moved their way down your neck. Anthony did not seem to care, his mouth on your chest, fondling and sucking on your breasts, still sitting pertly in your dress. He was simply uncontrollable, his behaviour now inherently superior compared to when he had been speaking.

Anthony maneuvered your body across the room, hands comfortably held in places of control, his left on your lower back, his right splayed across your throat like the prettiest necklace. You reached the door, his hands twisting your hips to face it. Your palms met the wood, bracing as Anthony bent you slightly, kicking your feet apart with his. Anthony hiked up your gown, undoing his pants in the same instant and buried himself inside of you.

You mouth gaped silently, aghast at the entire situation, but thanking God above for the opportunity.

“Oh my god,” Anthony gnarled into your ear from behind, “Just like I remember it” He moaned, sinking deeper and deeper it felt like. Every thrust led with intense and vicious primality, his hands wrapped around each of your upper arms, for leverage. He was right, it was just how you remembered – overwhelming, devastating, unforgettable. You had thought about your secret affair with Anthony every day since you had moved away. The pleasure Anthony elicited from you sent you into a familiar haze, deep and indefensible. Every movement, every sound from him made you feel greedy, always wanting just a little more.

The way he pounded into your smaller frame rattled the wooden door you were leaning on. “Anthony! They are going to hear!” You squealed in a whisper back to him.

“Let them” He panted, “If anyone asks, I’ll tell them I’m fucking my future wife” Anthony’s hand found its way into your hair, pulling your back sharply for a profound, wet kiss. Anthonys fingers sunk into the flesh of your hip, painfully pleasant as his nails clambered for an anchor. Your body arched back involuntarily, Anthony powering through fast, harsh thrusts as he found his inevitable end, placing sloppy kisses on your shoulder as he slowly finished moving inside of you.

You both leaned on the door in exhaustion, bodies heaving in unison. Anthony placed a gentle hand on your shoulder, stepping backwards and rebuttoning his breeches, fixing your dress behind you. You turned to face him slowly, knowing he could very well go back on every word he had said not moments before.

The softest smile enriched his face, his eyes lit in such a way that you had never seen them. His arm dashed out, pulling you into a grinning embrace, smooching dear kisses upon your lips.

“Loving you causes me delirium, y/n” He nipped at your nose, your foreheads planted together, eyes closed in tranquility.

As you stood, the doorknob gently turned and Violet Bridgerton slid her head through the gap, assumingly checking on the both of you; you had been in here for a little while longer than societally acceptable for two young single people.

Her hand flew over her heart, “Oh thank God!” She exclaimed, smiling ear to ear, a sense of pride glistened in her eyes.

“I cannot wait to write Daphne” The viscountess cheered quietly, finding it hard to contain her excitement. “I knew that you would find each other” She chuffed, slipping out, closing the door. Your foreheads knocked together again, never having a minutes peace in such a large family – you stood there a moment longer, relishing such a long awaited and monumental confession of your love.

-------------------------------

tag list: @cringycat24 // @blckbarbiedoll // @freyagallileaevans // @junkie05 // @rosabeetroot // @flamewriterr //

If you would like to be tagged in Bridgerton fics, please let me know!

[dirkxcaliborn]

Reddit is absolutely insane sometimes. "my boyfriend gets sad when I don't want to watch him play video games and doesn't feel like playing anymore."

"Your boyfriend is a childish control freak" < not even paraphrased. That's literally how the comment started word for word.

[muntitled]

Poor thing ♡

Jake Sim x Fem!Reader

Summary: sleepy gf ♡ horny bf

♡ Warnings: Language, Established Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Smut +18 (Minors DNI) dumbification dollification, Slight ddlg, Brief Daddy Kink, Somnophilia, which means dub/con, Breeding Kink, Domestic Kink, Corruption Kink, Unedited, Mentions of Bondage

This might be tmi but I got turned on writing this and that's probably because I didn't realise how much I love this man. It's so bad girl, pray for me

You'd spoken about kink since the peroration of your relationship. It had been something you'd both decided was very important.

Although Jake admits he only thought kink was a few whips and rope, you assured him it was indeed a whole other world.

“What about somno?,” you'd asked him, while you both sat lazily on the comfort of your living room floor, soaking in the idle 808 beats of some Metro Boomin track while you both had a notebook out in front of you.

Although Jake craved for nothing more than to close the large distance between the two of you while you jotted down your sexual boundaries, even if it was just a hand placed on your thigh, he stopped himself.

He knew that distance was necessary when discussing sexual do’s and don'ts.

There couldn't be any sort of touching involved while you both fleshed out and divulged what would and would not be allowed within the sexual confines of your relationship.

All this talk about sex, however, had regressed his adult brain back into adolescence and he nursed an annoying boner the more you spoke.

“What's that?” He asked with his head tilted unconsciously. All you could do was chuckle softly as you eyed your boyfriend sitting on the floor adjacent to you. Your legs were splayed out and running parallel to his but still evaded the possibility of touch. You did not only find it adorable to witness just how much your boyfriend was trying to behave for you, you also found it so incredibly attractive.

“C'mon,” you had said as you shyly spun your finger on the rim of your glass containing a mild coke zero (no intoxication when discussing boundaries. Another infuriating rule, Jake found). “I do not have to explain to you what somno is,”

Jake only shrugged as he eyed you from across the small room. His back leaning against the couch was tense as he said, “afraid you do, babe,”

It was the way he was looking at you, with his eyes carelessly conveying just how turned on he'd managed to get during this short time of abstinence.

Your eyes never leave him when you talk. Hoping to convey your own need as you said “You can google it, Jake.”

“I can,” he nodded almost immediately, “Course I can, but I don't want to.”

What he didn't say is that he much rather preferred it when you used your words to divulge your knowledge on every filthy little detail about a particular kink. It turned him on to know what slept inside your mind and it made him uncharacteristically unhinged with lust when such dirty words left an unusually dignified mouth.

Corruption Kink. You had given him that diagnosis sometime throughout the evening.

“Jake,” you shake your head again, feeling the heat seep into the worn fabric of Jake's old Tupac shirt. It was probably unwise to be dressed in nothing but his oversized graphic tee and you're only made aware of this dire mistake right now. “You know.”

“No, actually, I don't.” He breaches the rules. Fuck the rules. And he lets his hand reach to tentatively rub at your cute little toe before returning his hand to his notebook.

“Tell me what somno is-”

“Sleep play.” You eventually shoved the words out of your mouth like unwanted visitors.

The second they registered in Jake's head he was sitting just a little straighter.

“Jesus…” Is all he said as he downed the rest of the 100% orange juice which he had really wished was 60% straight fucking vodka.

“Y-Yeah, but we don't really have to go into this one. I could just write it down in the ‘not interested’ list and we can just move on-” at the sight of you bending your head to furiously scribble inside the notebook containing the safety guidelines of your sex life, Jake reached out once again until his hand was perfectly encapsulating your entire foot.

“Nah, hold on.” He said, with a hint of a smile and nothing but sheer intrigue swimming in his eyes, “don't get rid of it yet.” He said. “Let's talk about it.” The devil shrugged. “Give it a fair chance.”

And although the evening had ended with Jake ravishing you on the living room floor -you were folded in half as he ate you out with the fervour of a starved man- Jake Sim did not incorporate any of the kink you two had just spoken about into the act.

In fact, all of your sexual escapades have been fairly vanilla with added hints of praise and degradation here and there before this very night.

Let it be clear that Jake Sim did not expect sex on this particular Thursday evening.

He had been having a particularly cursed day with nothing at all going right for him except the prospect of seeing you after dance practice. The possibility of you cradling him against the plushness of your breasts while you sang to him with your fingers running through his hair kept him afloat until he let himself into your apartment by the end of the day.

“Yo? ‘anyone home?”

Instead of finding you tapping away at your laptop or consuming a starkly provocative HBO original, Jake found you asleep, in your room. Fairy lights on while the sound of crashing waves bled through your phone speaker.

Before he got horny, let the record reflect that Jake was perfectly content with climbing into bed with you and dozing off himself. But he couldn't help how his body responded to the softness of your curves pressing into his side the moment he lowered himself onto your bed and into your warm pink quilts. He should be closing his eyes, dozing off alongside you but the longer he stares at the miniscule details of your face, the more his stomach tightens and warms.

Perhaps, venturing into more sinister territory, Jake's eyes skate down to your slightly open mouth and then- down to your frame nestled under his armpit, where you lay in a foetal position with your stuffed animal held in an almost primal grip.

It is then that the first beginning of guilt seeps into his lower stomach, feeling that he doesn't really wish to dissect, especially given your very persuasive reassurances that “kink should never feel icky if it's consensual.”

And you gave him your consent.

Jake still remembers your slightly laboured breathing when you admitted to being turned on by the idea of somnophilia.

The smile on Jake's face as he bends down to nestle his face in your headwrap is placid, like calm still waters on a Sunday afternoon. Doing a very good job at hiding the tempest within.

You stir in your sleep and Jake swallows thickly. With his lips still pressed against your head, he stares into space with a vague look of worry and discontent. He knows, logically, that he should not feel bad for what he's about to do. It was only human, after all, to feel sexual desire for your partner. What did not feel normal, however, is how he managed to grow impossibly hard in his sweatpants, and all you've done was sleep, you poor thing.

This time when you shift again, it's to hike your leg up further along his torso, and unbeknownst to you, a broken moan seeps out of Jake's mouth because your leg is now brushing right up against his tense and hardened cock. Jake attempts to regulate his breathing through his nose (in and out, in and out) but his brain loses sight of how unethical this all is under the realisation of just how warm you are underneath him. The arm he had wrapped around your frame flexes as he brings his hand up to the curve of your voluptuous hips. It's then when he thinks about them… you having his kids, and suddenly, he's manoeuvring you even closer into his arms.

“Jakey? Baby, you home?”

Home.

It felt so domestic and it didn't help the heat seeping out of Jake's tense body.

Your groans perpetuate through the confines of the bedroom. You're slowly waking from one of those ghastly kinds of naps. The kind of nap that existed outside space and time and everything else in the known universe. The kind of nap that had you groggily opening your eyes crowded with crust as you try to make sense of your surroundings.

His voice is raspy as he whispers back, “I’m home, Bunny,” Everything in the universe begins to right itself when Jake presses a warm, slightly sloppy kiss to the top of your head and you can feel yourself coming to grips with your surroundings. A warm sigh leaves your mouth and you melt into the sensuality of Jake's second kiss which he displays across the side of your face, moving lower and lower and hiking up your leg still splayed over his lap.

Jake's eyes are closed, brows furrowed and his kiss is lingering. His lips never stray from your skin and you can feel your limp, half asleep body being pressed in further against his warmth. You're suddenly becoming all too aware of your core pressed against Jake's hips at this angle; you and your boyfriend's limbs are practically intertwined.

His warmth is all encompassing.

“Ja-What…” a sleepy little yawn squeaks out of your throat and you unconsciously bring a limp hand up to wipe away all the sleep.

Jake watches you with grave, grave admiration. The kind of feeling that squeezes at his heart and, perhaps more shamefully, his cock. “What time is it?”

“Not important, Bunny,” he kisses you again. Heaven's he was brimming with kisses for you. They felt like a lullaby, coaxing you back to bed. “Just go back to bed,”

Those particular words have you blinking up at your boyfriend who begins to come into focus under the hazy orange glow of the fairy lights. Your body stretches ever so slightly as you crane your head up to meet his half lidded eyes.

“What time is it-” you begin to answer again, but Jake stops you once again.

“You don't need to worry your pretty brain about stuff like that,” he nudges his chin towards you as if beckoning to play along with this scene he's orchestrated for the two of you. Despite feeling your heart strings tugging at the idea of playing along, you're still very much plagued by rationality.

“Jake- Baby, you have practice tomorrow. I don't think you can sleep over-”

“But pretty girls don't think,” he nestles his head into the crook of your shoulders and he squeezes. Once again, begging you to play along, “You never have to think when you have me.”

You could feel the better part of you being dragged into the safe, plush wonderland of your subspace, just from his words alone. When Jake doesn't get a response he pulls back to make eye contact with you once more, Sickeningly satisfied to see the fog beginning to fill your pupils.

“But, Jakey-” he has you. He knows he has you.

“You still sound so sleepy, Baby,” he whispers, and you're quite shocked to find yourself being lifted off the bed, “You want Jakey to help take the sleepiness away, don't you?”

Another kink you two had discussed ad nauseum but had failed to ever orchestrate in real time. It happened flawlessly between you both. A torrid yet natural dance. Ddlg, you called it.

Jake is still lying supine on the bed as he manoeuvres you to straddle his legs. Your hands anchor yourself by the rough skin of his torso through his pitch black shirt while his hands find home on your thigh, “I need you to help me out and then you won't be sleepy anymore, yeah?” The smile he gives you is enough to get any person to bend to his every will and so you find yourself nodding dumbly, with your eyes still half lidded, and a part of your brain experiencing a sleeplike calmness. “Jakey needs you to be good for him, okay?” You swallow thickly and yelp when Jake lifts his hips, subsequently lifting you as if you weighed nothing at all. His eyes are pained when he uncovers his hard, leaking dick from his sweatpants. You're not sure if it's the sleepiness still raining heavily on you but you're suddenly plagued by the need to enclose his cock in your hand.

So that's what you do

With your limbs operating on autopilot, your hand falls lazily over his cock while you tiredly rub your left eye with your other hand.

“F-Fuck, Bunny- What're you doing?” Jake looks up at you with wild, pained eyes and you peer down at him with a tilted head. Ever so clueless. Ever so beautiful, “I wanna help,” You whisper and his cock immediately twitches in your hand, “I wanna help,” You mumble as you lower your front against his, nuzzling into his neck while you sleepily begin to pump his cock.

Your chin hangs over his shoulder as your eyes flutter shut, all the while, Jake bites his bottom lip until he's on the verge of breaking skin.

“You're trying to off me, you know that?” Jake whispers into your ear as the warmth of your palm struggles to keep him thinking rationally. Unable to stop himself from lifting his hips slightly to grind against your hand, Jake hopes for more friction, more fucking pressure, but it never comes. Not when you've basically passed out on top of him.

“F-Fuck me,” Jake whispers as he lift his hands to lightlyoaw at your hips. “You're making me fucking insane, you know that?” Jake's voice is coated with singsong need as he shuffles you lower on his torso until your hips meet his. “You said this is okay, didn't you baby?” The only answer he gets in return is a few lightly snores as he lifts you up, having you hover djrectly over his aching cock, twitching to be inside you.

For a while Jake is perfectly content with humping lazily against your pyjama pants as you shuffle intermittently.

His hands rub over your back, feeling your chest pressed against his before drifting his hand down to the curve of your ass and the thin pyjama shorts hugging your hips.

He immediately decides he can't do it.

“Daddy needs to be inside you, Bunny.” Your breasts push against him as he reaches down to swipe your pyjama pants and your oantjes to the side, “Your hands and mouth…They just won't do, baby. I need to fuck you, d'you understand?” he asks with so much concern and so much consideration it would have your heart clenching in its cage if you were conscious.

Jake's breath is caught in his throat as the head of his cock prods at your tight opening. As he tries to guide his cock in, you shift a little over him, causing him to pat lovingly at your back, coaxing you to sleep as he forced his cock into your cunt. Instead of swallowing him like you usually did, your cunt is vehemently trying to push out the intrusion, which only succeeds in turning him on more.

Jake buries his head into the crook of your neck, sniffing in your scent as he pushes himself in despite the tight fit.

“You're gonna make me cum so quick, Princess,” he whispers into your hair.

You barely made it 10 pumps before your shuffling above him with your cunt was split into two.

He wanted to use you, he needed to make you his dumb, unresponsive toy and Jake shivers as a bead of precum streams down the side of his cock.

“You're doing so good for me,” his hips lift as his hand on your ass presses down, forcing you to meet his steadily growing thrusts“You don't wanna disappoint me, do you?” he asks your cute, sleeping form. As if in response to his words, your body subconsciously reacts and your cunt tightens around his cock, immediately sending Jake into a bitter delirium.

Soon, his head is thrown back into the pillows and both his hands are firmly on your ass as he begins to fuck up into you with less care. “F-Fuck Princess, I think I could cum like this,”

You're shuffling again. Threatening to wake up. It only has Jake fucking you harder, bringing him closer to the edge.

“F-Fuck-this fucking pussy-” You were being split in two. You on top of him somehow felt like he was going deeper than how he usually went. “Oh God, you're so warm, Bunny,” He exclaims, looking up at the ceiling with his own pained expression, completely and utterly trapped in his dom space as he begins to move you up and down on his cock.

Your limp body followed, unable to conjure up the strength of your own movements. He had all the control over all your movements, kinda like-

“Y-You're my toy, aren't you, Bunny?” Jake is so completely fargone as he watches your ass bounce with each of his rabid thrusts, completely uncaring over whether you're awake or not. “Fuck, you’re my fucking toy,” Jake's a blubbering mess and it only makes you wetter as you slowly blink open your eyes, in the very middle of one of your most prized fantasy’s. Your cunt squeezes around his cock. Your heart hammering in your chest. Your orgasm crests along with his.

You had never thought you'd ever know what a sleepy orgasm would feel like but somehow you knew it would ram through you with way too much intensity.

“You like me deep inside, yeah? You like being split open while you sleep, Bunny? Hm? You're so fucking perfect you know that? So fucking pretty- J need you to have my babies, yeah?” The more he talks, the more it's difficult to pretend to stay asleep. A groggy and tired moan slips out of your mouth while your arousal slips out of your leaking cunt. “You'd like that, wouldn't you? Us having babies.”

Jake's hips stutter against yours. His jaw is locked tight as you clench around him, “F-Fuck you would like that-” It is then that you're starkly aware of the hidden narcissism that this kink bred. Here he was, using you to get off with only himself as the audience. Jake was guiding himself to orgasm with his own dirty words as if he were God and somehow that thought succeeds in bringing you to orgasm.

“Oh God, Jake-”

“You need me to get you pregnant, don't you?” Your head nods almost unconsciously, without the permission of your rational brain and Jake speeds up his fucking into you, as orchestrating a new form of movement. He was always leading you, even when it came to his pleasure.

“Just like that, Bunny,” he always praised you without a second thought…

Jake is working himself to orgasm with short, shallow breaths. His hips lift to thrust into your dripping cunt and in his mind he's about to come to the fact that you really are his toy.

“Fuck, you're gonna make me cum,” he whispers into the side of your head, “Your leaky fucking pussy's going to make me cum, Bunny-”

His orgasm triggers another one of your own and both your legs spasm, locking around him as Jake releases his cum deep inside you. His hand clenched down on your hips, forcing you to take in every single drop until it's forcing itself out of your dripping cunt, trailing down your thigh. After riding the high of his orgasm, Jake looks bright eyed again, like he's gotten rid of something very dark and very oppressive until the sunny Jake Sim was back.

“So good,” he smiles down at you, “You always do so well for me”

[aishabellasbigblogofeverything]

Let me put your ass on blast you fucking dumbass monster.

"I pick the slow one" you fucking idiot how about don't pick ANY ONE. Acting like it's your place as a NON-Palestinian to decide which type of genocide is "okay". It sounds like you've just accepted that this genocide is going to happen, and would rather it take its time than end as soon as possible, and you think that's "caring" for the Palestinians.

You and every other "always vote blue" monster are disgusting sick in the head little weirdos and I hope you all catch pneumonia and die alone crying and terrified with no one around to soothe or console you. The fact that you could even CONSIDER saying this shit much less typing it for the world to see, much less POST it, you are truly horrendous and sick and have no soul, and I hope that every time you look in the mirror you are plagued with so much guilt and shame and disgust that you puke all over your clothes.

honestly even if biden got down on his knees and apologized (with tears) and devoted the rest of his life and his wealth to humanitarian causes, what hes done to palestine is beyond forgiveness. hes crossed the point of no return for me. you paid for children to die, for their deaths to be cruel and undignified, you paid to starve them and bomb them and you spread lies to justify that. youre not coming back from that! youre done!

[yuuchama]

Sometime during the VDC training camp, when everyone on team Night Raven is sleeping over at Ramshackle Dorm:

Ramshackle Dorm has no shortage of spare rooms, but their condition is another story. You've managed to get enough of them decently clean. They're not as nice as your room, which has had far more time invested in it and is well lived in, but your groupmates should be able to spend a few days at the dorm without issue and are more than free to tidy up rooms as they please.

Yet on one of the first nights, you hear the door of your room creak open. It's dark and you can't see the intruder, though you know it's not one of the ghosts. The approaching footsteps aren't as heavy as Grim's, even after he's cleared out the entire fridge in one sitting. You're also pretty confident Grim is fast asleep beside you.

"Hello?" You groggily lift your head and call out to the intruder. If it's anything malicious, you hope the ensuing scuffle will cause enough noise to wake everyone else up.

A weight pushes the edge of your mattress down and there's a gentle touch at your shoulder. "Prefect, do you mind if I spend the rest of the night here?"

"Jamil?"

You almost don't recognize him in the dark with his hair down. You feel around for a bedside light. Grim groans in his sleep when it clicks on and turns over, shielding his eyes with tiny arms.

Jamil looks exhausted. "Please, I'd really appreciate if you could let me sleep here tonight."

"Yeah, sure. Of course." Maybe it's the sleep addling your brain or your trust in Jamil. You see no reason to turn down his request and didn't question why he was coming to you instead of Kalim. You nudge Grim over to make room for one more on the bed.

The vice housewarden does his best to fit in the cramped sleeping conditions, assuring "I'll pay you back for this. Thank you."

He's turned towards the wall, back touching your side so that he doesn't fall. You wait to make sure he's fully secure in bed before turning off the light. In the calm that follows, you notice he's almost imperceptibly shaking. Sure, the dorm is cold, but not that cold. Especially with three in one bed.

"Jamil, are you okay?" The longer you spend awake, the more concerning this whole situation feels.

"I'm fine. Goodnight, Prefect." Jamil already has his eyes shut and seems adamant about not discussing things further.

"Okay... Goodnight."

You lay down and silence settles over the room once more. It's really warm between your two friends. Sleep is quick to catch up to you, you find yourself nodding off within minutes of your head touching the pillow.

Before you fully drift off, Jamil turns to face you. His hair drapes over the side of the bed and he places a hand on your pillow, lightly grazing your cheek.

"Thanks again," he whispers. "I feel a lot better with you here. Your room doesn't have bugs on the wall."

[earthtooz]

x : NOT JEALOUS ! :*+ﾟ

in which: alhaitham isn't jealous, he doesn't get jealous, so what is this suffocating feeling in his chest that only happens when you're talking to another man that isn't him?

warnings: 5.4k words, jealous!alhaitham x gn!reader who has loads of rizz, university!au, fluff with angst but happy ending, pining!alhaitham who doesn't realise that he loves you, kaveh is there, mention of cyno, ooc at some bits?, swearing, alhaitham is a little bit of an asshole at some parts sawry. he's bad with feelings.

a/n: inspired by @danijaci's jealous jealous boy comic with alhaitham! hi dani if you're reading this pls don't perceive me... hides... but i hope you all like it :,)

Alhaitham isn’t jealous. 

The uncomfortable feeling obstructing itself in his throat is just because he’s beginning to develop a sore throat- that’s all. It is flu season after all, who knows what kind of bacteria are in the air? Ones capable of lathing an uncomfortable oil that burns inside his chest, the smog crowding its way into his heart, sickening him to his core as Alhaitham can’t help but eavesdrop on the conversation happening beside him.

“I’m free friday,” a voice besides you confirms.

“Okay!” you cheer, sounding a little too happy for Alhaitham’s liking. After all, it’s 9 am, who has this much energy in the morning? “lets do Friday then!”

“Sounds good, I’ll see you then. Bye Y/n.”

“Bye, see you!” Alhaitham watches from the corner of his eye as you wave to the random stranger you’ve decided to associate yourself with before finally taking the seat beside him with a sigh. 

He doesn’t say anything to you, feeling your eyes glance at him expectantly as he stares stubbornly at the lecture board instead of acknowledging you or the jumble of feelings clogging up his diaphragm. 

“Hello, you,” You lean over slightly, careful to not invade his personal space whilst waving at him, hoping to catch his attention. He glances at you, nodding in greeting before returning to his book, the pages and rows of words only fuelling his unease he suddenly felt. He doesn’t even know where he left off, the book’s events a blur in Alhaitham’s mind.

How bothersome. What’s happening to him?

“Talkative today, aren’t you?” Your tone is playful despite his cold attitude and Alhaitham sneaks another look in your direction, noting the way your lips curve upwards. “So, how are you?” 

“I’m fine,” he murmurs, inserting a bookmark between the pages before slamming it shut, an indicator that you could keep conversing with him.

“Cool.” You tap your nails on the desks of the lecture hall. “Oh, I finished my essay the other day.”

“The one for your elective?”

You hum in agreement, “I hope I never get it back. Submitted it ten minutes before the due date.”

“You know you wouldn’t have been stressed over it if you just started it earlier-”

“I know, I know,” you huff, “spare your productivity lectures for another time, I’ll be needing them later in the semester.” The grey-haired shakes his head as you laugh, but his gaze returns to the front cover of his book as he solemnly thinks about the interaction you had with another man, right in front of him. 

(What right did he have to see you smiling so earnestly like that?)

“Who was that?” Alhaitham coughs out, barely choking down his pride in time to make space for the question.

You murmur some guy’s name that he doesn’t bother to remember. “He’s a friend of mine in the same discussion group for this course and we decided to do the assignment together. He bumped into me on the way in so we were just planning when to meet to do the research.”

“Oh.” Your answer doesn’t calm the churning in Alhaitham’s gut. Not even one bit, in fact, it makes it worse. 

But it’s not jealousy, Alhaitham doesn’t get jealous because he’s above petty feelings of inadequacy. He’s merely concerned for you, worried for your brainpower by the end of the project because your partner seems less-than-incompetent. If you’d picked someone like Alhaitham (or better yet, just picked Alhaitham), you would’ve aced the class without even blinking an eye. 

(The two of you are friends, so why didn’t you pick him? It’s literally been proven that the two of you are compatible working together since you were both executives of Sumeru’s Cultural Society, and amidst all of the activities the club has run, you’ve collaborated many times to make each event run flawlessly. So why not him? Why would you pick another man over him?)

“You know you could have picked me, I wouldn’t mind working on the assignment with you,” he grumbles, words soft but very clear.

Alhaitham misses the way your eyes widen in shock as apologies scramble out of your mouth. “I’m sorry! I automatically assumed that you wanted to work on it by yourself. Next time I’ll ask you.” 

The lecture begins before he could say anything in return and like a robot, he sets his thoughts aside and begins listening, notes document up and cursor blinking at the ready.

A mundane two hours pass by, one powerpoint slide after powerpoint slide before the lecture is finally over, much to your pleasure. Alhaitham notices the way you eagerly jump out of your seat to stretch, grabbing your bag. On the other hand, your grey-haired accomplice takes his time in packing up, forcing you to wait for him.

“Would you like to get some coffee before the meeting?” You ask.

“Sure, we can find a seat there and join it together,” he adds and you beam at him, expression bright and so enchanting that it makes him forget about all the perplexities he felt before the lecture. 

The two of you make your way to one of the many campus cafés where you practically wrestled Alhaitham to stop him from paying for both your orders (losing in the end) before sitting at a booth, your laptop set up with a pair of Alhaitham’s earphones shared between you. The meeting begins to fill up with almost all committee members, even Kaveh, who resides in his room of his and Alhaitham’s shared flat. Upon noticing him, you go to text him, with the grey-haired peeking over your shoulder from time to time to see your conversation- not that he cares that much.

(Perhaps if Kaveh glanced up from his phone, then he’d see how close Alhaitham had gotten with you, breaching the distance that he prefers to keep around others. He’d also notice the headphone sharing despite how he generally tends to keep them out of anyone else’s hands.)

You’re tasked with the role of taking notes for the meeting since Alhaitham, in your opinion, is not at all a reliable scribe. His notes tend to just include vital information and never what everyone else needs to know, yet each time you scold him for it, his unbothered expression never falters, waving your complaints off with a shrug. 

“Hey, Kaveh and I are going to go for lunch tomorrow after our classes. Care to join?” You ask, smiling at him hopefully as your messages with Kaveh sit open on your screen. Alhaitham doesn’t think twice before agreeing. 

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

“It looks like it’s about to rain,” you murmur, pulling out a chair as Alhaitham and Kaveh take their seats opposite you. 

“So it does,” Alhaitham notes, not caring to look too long out the window before returning his gaze to you. “You have an umbrella, right?”

“I, uh, didn’t think I needed one today.”

“Do you not check the weather before you leave?”

“Not everyone’s like you, Alhaitham.” Kaveh teases. “It’s no problem, Y/n, if it rains I can walk you back to your dorm.”

“Only if you are okay with it,” you insist, “I have no problem walking home in the rain. I love the rain.”

Alhaitham intervenes with a raise of his hand. “Nonsense, you’ll catch a cold. We’ll walk you home.”

A soft but genuine ‘thank you’ slips from your lips, neither of you wiser to the way Kaveh eyes his roommate suspiciously, not missing the use of ‘we’ in his sentence and the implications the collective pronoun has. For it meant that Alhaitham is willing to take precious time out of his day to perform an act for someone that he is not indebted to do. Not that Alhaitham is inherently selfish, per se, but he is a man of routine. He wakes up every morning and takes five minutes to scribble on his stupid whiteboard in the kitchen what he has to do for the day and strictly abides by it, not even straying two minutes off schedule.

Willingly volunteering his minutes? Kaveh finds that suspicious. 

“So, how’s your architecture assignment, Kaveh?” You ask, breaking the blond from his daze whilst Alhaitham pours glasses of water for the table, starting with your cup. 

“A nightmare,” he sighs, sinking into his chair. “I still have so much to do, you know my professor didn’t like my blueprint? How ridiculous! I hope that man steps in a puddle and wets his sock.”

The grey-haired pipes up with a remark. “I can’t wait for it to be done, our living room is a mess right now.” 

“Hey, I am the one that cleans that living room, thank you very much. Your bookshelf is still a mess even though I’ve asked you to clean it five times.”

“If it bothers you so much then why don’t you do it yourself?”

“I’m the only one who-”

“-I’m going to go to the bathroom,” you murmur, cutting the conversation before shuffling out of your chair, seemingly eager to do so.

Kaveh turns to the grey-haired again, “and you just scared away Y/n.”

“Sorry no one wants to hear about your architecture project.”

“Y/n literally asked, asshole.”

A rebuttal sits on the tip of Alhaitham’s tongue- as it always does when it comes to bickering with his roommate, but it dies out when an intruder comes to the table. “Excuse me, I hate to interrupt,” he begins, “but the person who just got up, is that your friend?”

“Yeah, why do you ask?”

“Oh, I just wanted to drop this off, mind passing it over for me?” The piece of paper he was holding lands in Kaveh’s hand. “Thanks, bro.” Is all he says before strolling away, out of sight but definitely not out of mind.

The blond does not hesitate to open it up, chuckling in amusement when reading the content. “’Hey you’re cute, here’s my number’ it says. What a bitch! You didn’t like his vibes either, right, Alhaitham?”

“Hold on, what does the note say?”

Grabbing (snatching) it from Kaveh, the grey-haired has half a mind to rip the note apart, a certain sense of distaste washing over him that intensifies the long he stares at the guy’s handwriting. His eye is twitching. Why is his eye twitching?

“Hey!” He hears Kaveh call. “Don’t scrunch it, that’s Y/n’s-“

Alhaitham stuffs the ball of paper into his bag where he’ll recycle it later even though something irrational within him tells him to burn it. “Y/n won’t miss it. You said it yourself, he’s a bitch.”

“Sure, but why are you doing-“

“Hey!” You interrupt, sliding back into your chair with a grin on your face. “So, what did I miss?”

“Nothing,” the grey-haired murmurs, assuming his crossed-arm position. Kaveh side eyes his roommate before agreeing with a hum. “Let’s order something now. We want to beat the rain, right?”

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

This meeting for the Sumeru Society might have been one of the most important ones of the year thus far, with almost every committee member expected to attend. After all, the annual ball was a big event that always had the largest turnout, and the amount of planning that goes into it to ensure its success is almost triple that of its other events.

So why weren’t you here?

“Why did you leave the meeting early on Friday?” Alhaitham asks as soon as he sees you.

You pause briefly, eyes widening and eyebrows raising. It must have been the way that Alhaitham’s voice raised a pitch towards the end of the question, demonstrating a nervous break in character that was not at all typical. Cool and collected would be the defining words to describe Alhaitham, as well as someone who does not care for the menial activities of others, so what is he doing asking you? And why does he care so much?

“I, uh, had dinner with someone,” you confess, continuing to grab your books and laptop, missing the way his features contort into something un-cool, and very un-Alhaitham.

“Whom?”

You murmur the name of some other guy, who he vaguely recalls to be your project partner.

“What?” Alhaitham snaps.

“I didn’t think missing out on some of the meeting would be a big deal! I got another committee member to explain what I missed,” you justified. “Besides, there’s no big events going on right now, so I thought-”

“-That you could abandon your tasks and go have fun with someone else?”

Alhaitham’s not really sure why he said that. He’s not angry that you skipped a meeting; there are larger things in the world to worry about, he’s angry because you spent time with another guy that wasn’t him.Why not go to dinner with him instead? He spends it every night with Kaveh, and you are far more favourable than Kaveh.  

“Is it really something to get mad over? I already told you, I got the meeting notes and everything-”

“-You’re an executive of the society, Y/n, more is expected from you.”

“Seriously?” you ask, “how come you didn’t bat an eye when the vice president wasn’t there the other day?”

“Because she was sick.” 

“Okay, fine! what about the subcommittee? they’re not always there either!” 

“They’re subcom. Whether they miss a meeting or not is not crucial.”

“So, it’s just my business that you care about?” You ask, eyebrows furrowed, disbelief clouding over your expression like a mask.

Again, Alhaitham doesn’t know where these punches are coming from and why he’s throwing them against you so viciously, but his heart is tightening defensively with a burning emotion that he’s been feeling more and more recently, and his first instinct is to lash out, to protect himself from it.

Perhaps it’s because foreign things that he can’t understand terrify him and you, all you ever do is make him feel things that he’s never felt before and he can’t understand why. 

“You’re not that special.”

A flash of hurt gleams in your eyes and Alhaitham knows now that he’s royally fucked up. “You’re an ass,” you grumble, about to walk away when he intercepts.

“Listen to me!”

“Fuck off!” 

“Y/n-”

You’re gone before he can get another word out, retreating figure stomping away whilst his chest weaves into knots; something that no amount of deep breathing can calm. It doesn’t help that the minute he returns home, Kaveh is onto him like some sort of parasite, curious over the tense air surrounding his normally-composed roommate. 

“Hey, welcome home- whoa, what’s gotten into you?” The blond asks.

“None of your business,” Alhaitham grumbles through gritted teeth, taking his shoes off and throwing them aside haphazardly. Kaveh doesn’t miss the way Alhaitham’s jaw is clenched, or the strain in his hand when he brings up a hand to run through his hair, or the very subtle and minute twitch in his cheek.

The blond ignores all signs that he wants to be left alone, and instead, follows the grey-haired to his room after he swung the door open. 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, let’s talk about this-”

“Talk about what?” Alhaitham growls.

“Who pissed in your black coffee today?” 

“No one. Now get lost.” 

“Aw, come on, you know what they say. Getting things off your chest is always beneficial.”

“There’s nothing on my chest, go away.”

“You sure? no stress, no deadlines, no love interest making you tear your hair out-”

“-No, no, none of those!”

“Then what?”

Alhaitham steadies himself by resting his elbows on his thighs, hands clasped together as he exhales loudly. “I got pissed and took it out on Y/n, who’s mad at me now.”

“Huh? Why so annoyed?”

“Because Y/n went to dinner with another man.”

It’s silent for a while. The sassy quip that he expects from Kaveh does not happen. Instead, the blond merely smiles, a satisfied, knowing grin that slightly irks him. “You know, I’ve been waiting for the day you realise you have feelings for Y/n.” 

“What? Where did you get that conclusion from?” Alhaitham sits up straighter. There are a lot of things he knows, and he knows for sure that he does not like you in any way beyond platonic. He doesn’t have any time to spare for love. There are scholarships he still needs to apply for, internships to be interviewed for, research projects to submit- nowhere amongst the minute hand of the clock is there space for love. 

“Oh come on,” Kaveh sits down on the bed beside his roommate, leaning back on his hands. “You’re not as smooth as you hope to be sometimes.”

“I’m serious, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Y’know the sooner you accept you have feelings for Y/n, the easier life will be.”

“Life is already easy and there is no sooner because I don’t like Y/n like that. Now get lost. I have stuff I need to finish.”

Kaveh shrugs, standing up with a soft ‘suit yourself’, taking seven steps before he’s out of the room. Alhaitham lets out a sigh that has lodged itself in his throat for too long, and the feeling of reprieve he gets is short-lived before he’s flooded with a certain tightness again. Maybe he did have a weight on his chest after all, not that he’d ever admit it to himself or Kaveh.

He gets up from his made bed with a grunt and decides to push aside all distractions. Time is unforgiving, and if doesn’t finish his assignment by this Friday then he’ll be a little less than pleased.

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

Alhaitham feels like he can’t breathe. 

You’re sitting alone at a library desk, all focused and concentrated on your laptop screen with your headphones on, blocking out any outside voice as you type away. He wonders if he should say hi, maybe try apologising for the way he acted last Monday- who is this guy that’s approaching you and why does he look so familiar? 

And why are you smiling so happily?

You beckon to the seat beside you and the guy readily complies, taking the chair beside you like he belonged there, like there weren’t other candidates that should be there instead (he’s not talking about himself. definitely not).

He hands you one of two coffee cups he’s holding. What kind of right does this guy have to give you a coffee? Does he even know your order?

He feels like a bit of creep keenly watching you interact with someone else from a balcony of the library, but the book and laptop in front of him lies forgotten, and in a rare moment of weakness, Alhaitham can’t find it in himself to return to his tasks, pursuit of knowledge momentarily forgotten. He can’t push aside the bile that threatens to rise, he can’t loosen his grip on the couch’s armrest, and he can’t blink for a second in fear of losing you from his sight.

(You’re laughing. Why are you laughing? How can you look so pretty laughing and why doesn’t he ever get to make you laugh like this?)

Alhaitham is losing his damn mind. So much so that the first thing he does when he sees you again is corner you. 

“You shouldn’t talk to that guy anymore.”

You’re backed against the brick walls of the time-worn building that your shared lecture always takes place in, and Alhaitham, spotting you like a hawk, put you in this precarious position as soon as the two hours were over. 

He can’t breathe. It’s been almost three weeks since you last spoke to him and you’re staring up at him like you’ve done nothing wrong, blinking once and twice at his uncharacteristic display of subtle aggression. 

“Who?” you mutter, shaking your head to try and grasp reality once again. you hug your laptop closer to your body. “What’s this about?”

“I said you shouldn’t talk to that guy anymore.” 

“What guy?” 

“Your project partner.”

“Really?” you mutter in disbelief.

He nods, teal eyes shining at you firmly. “Really. The project’s over, you don’t need to talk to him anymore.” 

“I don’t recall ever giving you the right to dictate who gets to be in my life or not, just like how you can’t tell me what to do with my time.” 

“I’m looking out for you, so stop trying to make me sound tyrannical.” 

Your mouth hangs open as you furrow your eyebrows, growing more and more frustrated with each second. So much for thinking that he wanted to resolve the awkwardness between the two of you. “I’m not even going to argue with you,” you murmur a quick ‘jerk’ under your breath before brushing past him. 

Alhaitham, however, is not willing to let you go as easily as you wish, quick to chase after you. Not that you go far anyways, turning around to face him again in the spaciousness of the vacant hallway. “Why do you care?” You ask, exasperated. “You’re Alhaitham, you don’t let trivial things like who I hangout with bother you, you’re cool and collected and rational, and I just don’t understand why you’re acting like this.”

He doesn’t understand either, not the erratic beating of his heart, the stubbornness of his mind, nor this undisputable urge to keep you all to himself. Is it normal to want to hide someone for selfish reasons?

Trailing off, Alhaitham is slightly humiliated that for the first time in his life, someone has witnessed him coming short of an answer. No logical conclusion, no explanation, not even a satisfying quip, just plain, suffocating silence.

“Right. When you do have an answer, let me know.” You walk away.

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

Your last rebuttal still weighs heavily on Alhaitham’s mind, even two days later as he and Kaveh are seated for a lecture in a shared course. His thoughts are scrambled like never before, the messiness of it all making him feel uneasy because for once, he doesn’t have an appropriate answer to a question.

Why was he acting like a temperamental teenager? What you did with your life was up to you, and indeed he has no right trying to change that. More importantly, why was it so hard to apologise for the stuff he said-

“So, how’s everything between you and Y/n?” 

Kaveh turns to him with widened eyes whilst Alhaitham’s poker face doesn’t move an inch, deceivingly apathetic.

“Good, we’ve been hanging out a lot more recently,” the other guy says, who Alhaitham quickly recognises to be your project partner and distaste rises in his stomach like bile. 

“Aye, good for you, man! So when are you going to ask Y/n out?”

“No way, bro, not yet. I’m such a wimp, but I hope I grow the balls to ask soon because I really like-”

“-looks like you got some competition!” The blond nudges Alhaitham, and if it were anyone else, they would not have glanced twice at the grey-haired who seemed unmoving and uninterested. However, Kaveh is not anyone else because he noticed the darkened look in Alhaitham’s eyes instantly, anger seeping into his composed gaze as his nose scrunches in disgust. 

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

“So, you and Alhaitham still aren’t talking?” Kaveh asks, leaning on the table of the restaurant with curious ears, hoping that he can grab some answers out of you as to why there was a stalemate between you and his roommate.

“Nope,” you sigh. 

“Why not?”

“I’m just-” you pinch the bridge of your nose, “I’m just waiting on an apology from him.”

“An apology? Why? What did he say?”

“He didn’t tell you?”

“You know how he is. Always insufferably secretive, so no, I don’t know anything that happened.” 

“Alhaitham just said some hurtful things to me, and he was being weird when I told him I was going to dinner with a friend of mine. Just kept being in my business.”

“Really?” The architecture student quirks a brow, confusion plastered on his face. “That’s not like Alhaitham at all.”

“I know, right? He kept trying to be like ‘don’t hang out with him’ and ridiculed me for not playing my part as an executive of the Sumeru society,” you complained, “like sorry I have other things I want to do.”

Kaveh nods in understanding as the conversation briefly stops when the waiter comes to drop off utensils at your table. As soon as they were gone, however, you begin again.

“And even though he was all up in my business, trying to tell me what not to do, he then said that I wasn’t special, which is so confusing because like-”

“-hold on. Alhaitham said that you weren’t special?” You nod at his parroted claim. “To him?” 

“Yeah. Stung like shit when he said that, especially since I thought we were friends but guess not,” you murmur sadly, fiddling with the fork.

Later that night, almost immediately after meeting you over dinner, Kaveh barges into his roommate’s room, not even changing out of his outside clothes. The sudden intrusion shocks Alhaitham who was busy typing on a document, textbook splayed open beneath him but momentarily forgotten as the blond takes a seat on the bed.

“What the- not even a hello?” The grey-haired asks, confused by this uncharacteristic silence of Kaveh’s. It’s pretty normal for the blond to barge into his room without notice, but it was not normal for him to be so quiet, practically brooding on the mattress. “Whatever. Where have you been? Have you eaten yet, because I made-”

“When will you just confess to Y/n?”

The mention of your name causes a spike in Alhaitham’s heartbeat and he swivels around instantly, attention fully directed towards his roommate. “Where is this coming from?”

“Y/n told me everything that happened between you two by the way-”

“-what, when?”

“Tonight, we just met for dinner.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“What would you have done if you knew? Showed up and made things worse?” He doesn’t say anything in retaliation, merely shutting his mouth and furrowing his eyebrows. “Why did you say that Y/n wasn’t special to you?” 

“I didn’t,” Alhaitham sighs, very loud and very perplexed. “I didn’t mean for it to come out the way it did.”

“Don’t you miss Y/n? You two used to hangout so often.”

“I do, of course I do!” He exclaims, burrowing his face in his hands. 

“So why aren’t you apologising?” 

“Because whenever I’m around Y/n, I’m not who I normally am,” he mutters, “especially everything whenever that project partner is around-”

“Jealous, much?”

“I’m not jealous.”

“Oh come on, you’re ridiculous. Stop pushing away your feelings and just be honest with yourself, Alhaitham! Y/n is not just a friend to you and you know it.”

“But, we are just friends-”

“So you mean to tell me that if I hung out with someone else- like if I hung out with Cyno, you would be pissed?”

“What? No, of course not.”

“Then why is it different with Y/n?” Once again, Alhaitham doesn’t have an answer to the question, sitting as still as a statue hunched over his desk. “Fine, I’ll spell it out to you. You like Y/n, more than just a friend!”

The silence leftover from Kaveh’s outburst is tense and full as the grey-haired lets the words sink in. 

“I’ll let you think about it,” the blond murmurs, voice softening dramatically as he stalks out of the room. Before he closes the door, however, he leaves a few final words. “Just- be honest with yourself, Alhaitham, and I wouldn’t delay trying to talk to Y/n.”

A sharp click rings through the room.

Alhaitham is no stranger to being alone, for who needs the company of others when you are happiest by yourself? Yet, in the weeks that you have not been speaking to him, a cardinal urge as been growing each and each day, wanting him to do something so atypical of him: to reach out and make the first move. Every passing day doesn’t lessen the thoughts that plague his mind, rather, they make him more and more impatient, because what if you get swept away by your project partner? 

(What if he’ll be too late? What if you won’t know of these powerful emotions that are steering through the storm in his heart? What if you won’t know just how badly he was been wanting you- wanting to see you, wanting to apologise, wanting to see you beam at him like you always would.

What if you won’t know that he adores you, especially now that he’s figured it out?).

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

A rain droplet falls and lands on your nose, another lands on your forehead, then another lands on your lip then more and more keep falling from the cloudy sky, falling through the leaves and landing on the bench you were currently sitting on. Goodness, you should have checked the weather before leaving your dorm. Why was it now out of all times that it had to rain, what would Alhaitham think after he finally decided to reach out to talk?

Taking your phone out to message the grey-haired about relocating, an umbrella is suddenly held over you, stopping the gentle drizzle from falling onto you. Looking up, you’re greeted by a familiar face that you have been missing too much recently.

“Hello, you,” you breathe, voice gentle and quiet and Alhaitham feels like he can finally breathe after so long, the scent of rain washing away all perplexion.

He nods at you in greeting before offering you the bouquet of flowers he was holding. A gorgeous arrangement of pink of white stare prettily at you and a man even more gorgeous expects you to accept it.

“For me?” You ask.

“For you.”

“Thank you, they’re so beautiful,” you take his gift with gentle hands, holding it close to your chest. 

“I want to apologise,” he firmly states, getting straight to the point; very Alhaitham of him. “For treating you the way I have been recently.”

You beam at him, so bright and so gorgeous that it renders him speechless, a feat pretty difficult when it comes to someone like Alhaitham who has a whole dictionary of words, in multiple languages too. Somehow, they all flock out of his mind the second you smile at him.  

“I accept your apology, thank you for reaching out, must have been hard for someone like you, huh?” You tease, standing up from the bench.

“Well, I had do for someone as special as you.” The grey-haired’s voice is deceivingly confident and assured, but you know better, especially when he looks away to hide his expression with his neatly styled bangs. 

“No need for the flattery, you know, I’ve already forgiven you.” There’s a moment of silence that occupies the air, caused by Alhaitham’s hesitation as he fishes his brain for the courage to ask you out. You speak before he can get a word out, however. “I got asked out the other day.”

“By your groupmate?”

“He has a name, you know, but, yeah. I rejected him, though,” you laugh awkwardly, almost like you were trying to cope with it by playing it off. “Did you know that he would do that?” 

“Yes. I did.”

“Is that why you were so adamant on me not hanging out with him?”

“I guess you could say that. We can talk more about it another time,” he tells you, voice gentle and caring to mask the subtle hit of jealousy he feels in his chest, scolding himself for letting someone else confess to you before him. However, it’s a minute sensation in comparison to the triumph Alhaitham feels knowing that you rejected the other party. 

“We have a lot to talk about, don’t we?”

“We do, but I want to ask you something first.” 

You nod, hugging the bouquet closer to your chest, anticipation heavy in the air as you spur him to continue. 

“If I asked you out, would you reject me too?”

A mere second passes by where you don’t respond, yet the second stretches out to what feels like eternity as Alhaitham’s stomach churns. Patience is something he doesn’t lack, but how can he be patient when his heart wants you so bad? 

Then, you take his hand, and the heavens sing at the feeling of your hand in his. “I wouldn’t, but are you asking me out?”

“Are you free right now?”

“I am. Why?”

“Let’s go out then. On a date.”

“I'd love to.” You rise up to place a lingering kiss on his cheek, one that has his heart racing with joy rather than frustration.

The smile you earn is gentle, shy, but says more than Alhaitham's words ever can.

© EARTHTOOZ 2023, do not steal, translate, repost my fics and do not recommend my fics onto any other site.

[solelifauna]

So this NOT to imply the writing is bad

But so far the Batfam fic as me genuinely shaking in anger , the fact that dick is convinced that y/n as to prove herself to be "worthy" genuinely got to me to the point I need a pallete cleanser

Could we please get a small drabble of reader growing close with one of the "outside" batfam members?

Like maybe Kate(batwoman) and Luke (batwing) because they are under used

Or hell, maybe to really grind the family gears, reader gets close to azrael

(you know Bruce would've able to do shit if reader got close with Kate, she would fucking eat him alive)

Hey, You're all good bro! I also just want to put out that my fic is based on an au! The portrayals of any characters in my fic are based off of their canon and fanon counterparts, just with my own twist. Since this is a darker universe/au, the Bats along with other heroes are going to be a lot more brutal and jaded.

Also love your idea bro. But, I'll do you one better. Constantine. Bruce absolutely can't stand him and the reader being friends with/getting along with him? Oh, that's bound to grind Bruce's gears. It would also be easier to meet Constantine too.

Let's just say one day the reader gets caught up in some Justice League Dark stuff that Constantine is trying to solve. She gets kidnapped by a cult that wants to use her as a sacrifice. I mean, she is a pretty huge target, being the daughter of a Billionaire after all. Anyways, shes kidnapped, nobody is coming to get her, not from her family at least. Long story short, Constantine arrives too late to stop the ritual, but things don't go according to plan for the cultists anyway. Turns out that the person sacrificed wouldn't be killed, but would instead become a vessel.

Great, now you have some old, eldrich being living rent-free in your mind. The being is old, donning the title "Keeper of Hell", but you'll just call it (they? him? her?), Adam. Yeah, Adam wasn't too happy with the name. When Constantine arrives, however, hes pleasantly surprised to find you alive. When he realizes that you, a 15-year-old, now carry the presence and power of an eldritch being older than Gotham itself, he groans while lighting up a cigarette. Looks like he'd have to deal with you now.

He checks over you making sure you have no internal and external injuries before explaining your situation. He feels a little sorry for you, but he is in no condition to train you. He asks around to other JL dark members, hoping to see if anyone is willing to help you control your new powers. He sighs again when nobody steps up to the plate, too busy with their own sidekicks and quests.

Reluctantly, he tells you he'd help you figure stuff out. And there begins the blossoming of the amazing "Grumpy old man and kid they didn't ask for" troupe. When you tell Constantine your name, he blanks, because of course he gets stuck with one of the bat's kids. However, based on your tone of voice when discussing your family (and the way you begged him not to let Bruce/Batman know of your predicament), he's guessing things aren't all too great between you all. Well, thats not his problem, his only job was to train you and make sure you don't end up accidentally killing someone.

Yeah...like that thought process is going to last. Training sessions start out bleak and professional, he's only doing a job. Then as time continues, he finds himself enjoying your company, your enthusiasm to learn and your rambunctious/sarcastic comebacks always have him fighting off a smile. It's been a while since he's had company like this. Soon, you're both going out on missions, and then ice cream breaks afterward. He lets you fall asleep on his shoulder, drooling all over his trench coat after particularly difficult missions and he can't bring himself to mind.

He's fond of you, although he never admits it out loud. It's okay though, because even though he's never said it out loud, his actions speak louder than words. You could feel his love and pride for you. Although he wasn't exactly your dad per se, he was still something to you, maybe the wine uncle? You don't know, and you don't particularly care to put a label on what Constantine was to you, you're just glad that he's there.

Shit hits the fan, however, when one day you decide to go on a solo mission. It's nothing crazy, just getting rid of some poltergeists and low-level demons and shades. Now, were you given permission to go on this mission alone? No, but in a normal teenage manner, you decide to go anyway. Everything was fine, you got rid of all the poltergeists in the area and even some of the shades too! It's all going well until you realize that the demon mentioned before was not as weak as you were told. You gulped when its blood red eyes turned to you.

"Well shit." Constantine was going to kill you.

It immediately lunges at you, you barely rolling out of its sharp claws. You hit it with a couple of spells, causing the demon to roar out in pain, burn marks now littering its side. Its tail whips at you, colliding with your stomach as you fly into a wall with a loud thud. You groan as you pick yourself up, clutching your ribs, each breath a jagged pain that ripples through your chest. Your arm is slick with blood, the gashes from the demon's claws burning as if its very essence were trying to sear your flesh. You grit your teeth and weave another spell, calling on Adam’s power to knock the demon back. This time, a burst of raw energy slams into it, shattering its leg with a sickening crack.

For a brief moment, you think it's over, ready to strike the final blow. But the demon’s leg snaps back into place, bone and flesh knitting together as if the injury had never happened.

“Of course,” you mutter under your breath. “Why would this be easy?”

The demon lunges again, and you’re just a split second too slow. Burning pain flares through your right arm as its claws tear into you, ripping through your flesh like paper. You scream, the sound involuntary, but you push through the pain, refusing to go down without a fight.

Drawing back, you unleash another spell, a sharp projectile of energy aimed at its neck. The demon flinches, letting out a low growl. That reaction—panic—gives you the first glimmer of hope. Its neck. That's its weak spot.

With renewed determination, you gather every ounce of strength you have left. The cuts across your body throb, and your arm feels like it’s on fire, but you push it all aside. You can do this. You have to do this.

You unleash a volley of cutting spells, each one aimed at the demon’s throat. It fights back viciously, throwing you around the room with a strength that makes your vision blur. Every hit you take feels like your bones are splintering, but you keep going. You keep attacking.

Finally, one of your spells strikes true.

The demon lets out a gurgling screech as your spell cuts deep into its neck. Blood—thick and dark—pours from the wound, and it claws at its own throat, choking. Its body spasms violently, and then, as if collapsing in on itself, it begins to disintegrate. In a few seconds, all that’s left is dust.

You stand there, panting, barely able to process the fact that you did it. You won. A grin spreads across your face, and despite the pain radiating from every part of your body, you let out a weak cheer.

But the celebration is short-lived.

Pain cuts through you like a knife, sharp and sudden, reminding you of just how battered you are. Blood is still oozing from the various gashes across your body, and your arm feels like it’s hanging by a thread. You stumble, nearly falling, but catch yourself at the last second.

“Crap… I’m bleeding out,” you mumble, wincing. “Whoops.”

With what little energy you have left, you remember the spell Constantine taught you, the one that would tether you to him no matter where you were. He warned you not to use it unless it was an emergency—and bleeding out from demon-inflicted wounds definitely qualifies.

You lift your shaking hand and cast the spell, a sluggish flick of your wrist sending out a ripple of energy. A portal forms, shimmering and unstable, but functional enough. Without much grace, you stumble through it, disappearing from the demon’s lair.

What you didn’t know, however, was that Constantine was currently in a Justice League meeting.

The first thing you feel is a sudden drop, like the ground beneath you has vanished. You barely register the sensation of falling before you crash, hard, onto something solid. Groaning, you blink through the haze of pain and find yourself sprawled across a massive table.

You can hear voices—muffled, alarmed—but the world is spinning too much for you to focus. All you know is that you're lying on something cold and hard, and you’re absolutely drenched in blood.

Forcing your eyes open, you see several figures standing around you, staring in shock. Your vision is blurry, but you can make out Superman’s cape and Wonder Woman’s armor. You try to process what's happening, but the pain in your arm and ribs keeps pulling you under.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow. Fuckkkk." You cry out.

Suddenly, the scent of smoke fills the air. You don't even have to look to know who it is. Constantine’s familiar trench coat brushes against your arm as he crouches beside you, cigarette dangling loosely from his lips. His eyes flicker with a dangerous mix of exasperation and barely concealed anger.

“What in the bloody fuck, kid?” he snaps, his tone harsher than usual, but the concern underlies his words.

You wince, the situation hitting you all at once. Crap. Now I've got to deal with this.

You muster a weak, sheepish grin, wincing as you turn your head to face him. “Heyyy Constantine, how are ya?”

His brow furrows deeper, and he’s clearly not amused. “What did you do?”

You swallow hard, trying to think of how to explain yourself without getting ripped to shreds—verbally or otherwise. “I—well, promise you won’t get mad?”

“Too late for that, kid. I’m already halfway there,” he growls, his eyes narrowing as he looks over your wounds. “Now get to it.”

You bite your lip, trying to find the least disastrous way to explain. “So… I sorta… mighta… gone on a solo demon-hunting mission,” you blurt out quickly, hoping he’d just move past it.

The way Constantine’s eyes widen, and the immediate twitch in his jaw tell you that he’s definitely not going to move past it.

“You did what?!” His voice rises as he stands up, rubbing a hand over his face. “Oh bloody— I thought I specifically told you not to go by yourself! And this is what happens!”

“Hey, well, I’m alive, aren’t I?” you say, grinning nervously, trying to play it off.

“That’s besides the point!” He throws his arms up, pacing as he takes a long drag from his cigarette. “Bloody hell, I should’ve known better with you kids. I swear, this is why I never—”

Just then, a dark, grim voice cuts through the chaos, and your heart nearly stops.

“Constantine,” Batman’s tone is low, authoritative. “Why is my daughter bleeding on our table?”

Oh no. No, no, no. Not now.

You freeze, your mind going blank as you feel the weight of Batman’s presence at the end of the table. You slowly, painfully turn your head to see him standing there, cape draped over his shoulders, his gaze icy and locked onto you. His usual stoic expression somehow looks even more intense.

“Ah… shit,” you mutter under your breath, groaning inwardly as you realize you’ve just landed yourself in the absolute worst situation imaginable. “I completely forgot he was still here.” Wait, did you say that out loud?

Constantine gives you a sidelong glance, raising an eyebrow. “Yes, kid, you did. And now we’ve got more than just your wounds to worry about, don’t we?” He sighs deeply, rubbing his temples, already anticipating the fallout.

Batman’s eyes narrow, arms crossed as he takes a step closer to you, his voice low and dangerous. “Care to explain yourself?”

You’re still bleeding, your head is pounding, and you’re pretty sure at least a few bones are broken, but none of that compares to the fear creeping up your spine as you look up at your father. Your mind races for an answer, but every excuse you can think of feels flimsy at best.

Constantine clears his throat, sensing the rising tension in the room. “Right. Let’s get her fixed up before this turns into an interrogation, yeah? Kid’s bleeding all over the place, and she’s already taken a beating. We’ll save the lecture for later.” He waves his hand, muttering something under his breath as he kneels beside you again.

The tension between Constantine and Batman lingers in the air, thick and heavy, but Batman finally relents. His eyes soften—slightly—as he watches Constantine work to stabilize your injuries with magic.

You can feel yourself growing weaker, the adrenaline finally wearing off as the pain becomes unbearable. Constantine mutters a healing spell, one that slows the bleeding and knits some of the less serious cuts together. It's not perfect, but it’s enough for now.

“I think it’s time to get you all fixed up, huh?” Constantine says softly, his earlier anger tempered by concern as he helps you sit up, his hand firm on your back to support you.

You nod weakly, not daring to meet Batman’s eyes again. You’re in deep trouble, but for now, at least, you’re still breathing. As Constantine gets ready to teleport you to a safer place to heal, you hear Batman’s voice, calm but steely.

“We’re not done here.”

And with that ominous promise hanging in the air, Constantine picks you up, and the world around you shifts once again.

Constantine gently carries you through the halls toward the Justice League’s med bay, muttering curses under his breath with every step. You could feel his frustration radiating off him, and now, in the quiet aftermath of the fight, guilt begins to settle in your chest. The adrenaline from the battle has worn off, and now you're left with the consequences of your reckless actions.

“Hey, Constantine… I—I’m sorry for not listening to you. I really am,” you say, your voice soft and heavy with regret.

He sighs, not looking at you, but his tone is stern. “I’m not going to lie and say I’m not mad at you, kid. You didn’t just ignore my warnings—you put yourself in danger. There are rules for a reason. What if you got seriously hurt and couldn’t cast a spell back to me? Even worse, what if you died or got possessed?”

His words hit you hard, and you wither under the weight of them. You know he’s right. All those rules and restrictions aren’t just him being overprotective or controlling, they’re because he cares. He’s seen the kind of darkness that can swallow people whole, and the thought of that happening to you terrifies him, even if he’ll never say it out loud.

By the time you reach the med bay, the guilt feels like it’s pressing down on you as much as the pain in your ribs. Constantine lowers you onto a cot, tucking you in with a gruff gentleness that only he could pull off. He sits down on the side of the bed, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it with a quick flick of his fingers, his eyes never leaving yours.

“What I’m trying to say, kid,” he starts, exhaling a cloud of smoke, “is that I care. I care about you, I care about what happens to you. I don’t want—” He pauses, his voice softening. “I don’t want to ever have to find your body one day. So please, from now on, let me know before you do something stupid like this.”

His words hang in the air, raw and unfiltered. You nod, trying to process it all, and then something clicks in your mind. Wait… did he just say let him know?

“Let you know? Does this mean—” Your eyes widen as realization hits you. “Does this mean I can go on solo missions?”

Constantine lets out a resigned sigh. “Yes, yes, you can start going on solo missions—”

“Hell yeah!” you exclaim, sitting up a little too quickly. Pain shoots through your ribs, but you can’t help the excitement bubbling inside you.

“—but, only the ones I sanction and authorize,” Constantine finishes, cutting through your excitement with a stern look. You deflate a little at his words, but it’s still a victory in your book.

Without thinking, you throw your arms around him, ignoring the sharp pain it causes in your ribs. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! I promise I won’t let you down!”

He chuckles, patting your back awkwardly before pulling away. “Yeah, yeah, I know you won’t. Now, lay back down and get some rest. You still have dark and brooding to deal with.” He gestures toward the direction of the meeting room, clearly dreading the inevitable confrontation with Batman. “And by extension, I do too,” he adds with a heavy sigh.

You groan, sinking back into the cot, the exhaustion finally catching up with you. “I don’t know why he even cares. If he did, he would’ve figured this out ages ago.”

Constantine glances at you, his expression softening for a moment. He takes a long drag of his cigarette before speaking. “He cares, kid. He just… doesn’t always show it the way you want him to. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel it.”

You scoff, though part of you knows he’s right. “Yeah, well, doesn’t feel like it.”

Constantine stands, taking one last drag of his cigarette before flicking it into a nearby ashtray. “Doesn’t matter how it feels right now. The Bat’s going to want answers, and if I know him, he’s going to want to have a very long talk with you. You’re not out of the woods yet.”

You wince at the thought of the upcoming conversation, knowing that Batman’s interrogation will be thorough and far less forgiving than Constantine’s.

“Great,” you mutter, closing your eyes and sinking deeper into the cot. “Just what I need.”

Constantine gives you a small, almost affectionate smile before turning to leave. “Get some rest, kid. You’ve earned it. I’ll deal with the big bad Bat for now.”

And with that, he walks out, leaving you alone in the med bay. As much as you’re dreading what’s to come, you can’t help but feel a sense of relief. Despite the pain and the mistakes you made, you know that Constantine’s got your back. And, maybe, just maybe, Batman does too, even if it’s buried under a mountain of brooding and silence.

For now, though, you let the exhaustion pull you under, trusting that everything else can wait until tomorrow.

-

As you rest, your body finally succumbing to the exhaustion, your breathing evens out and your mind drifts into sleep. The med bay is quiet, sterile, but the tension in the air lingers, waiting for the inevitable. Eventually, a dark, caped figure glides into the room silently, his form casting long shadows across the walls.

Batman—no, Bruce—stands over you, his sharp eyes tracing every bruise, every cut that mars your face. His jaw clenches as a million thoughts swirl in his head, none of them offering any comfort.

What the hell happened to you? Why are you and Constantine so close? How did you even know Constantine? How much had he missed—how little attention had he been paying—to not notice any of this?

Bruce sighs, a deep and frustrated sound. He removes his cowl, setting it on the side table with a weary hand. Without it, he seems less intimidating, less imposing. He stares down at you, seeing the cuts and bruises marking your skin, but what hits him harder is the way your face, in sleep, is still so achingly young. You're his daughter, and yet it feels like you're a stranger to him now.

How did you get so far away?

He knows the answer. The fault lies with him, with the choices he made, the excuses he repeated to himself—telling himself he was too busy, telling himself he would check in later. Later never came, though, and the space between you widened, until it wasn't just him you were drifting away from, but your brothers too.

Bruce noticed the way your brothers treated you, the harsh words, the cold shoulders. He saw the distance, but he justified it, telling himself it was sibling rivalry or something that would pass. He didn't step in. And now, as he looks at you lying there, bruised and battered from a fight he wasn’t even aware of, the reality sinks in: he has no excuse.

With a heavy sigh, Bruce reaches out, his rough but careful hand carding gently through your hair. The gesture is tender, hesitant, as if he's not sure whether he has the right to touch you like this anymore. But as his fingers comb through your hair, you stir in your sleep, a quiet murmur escaping your lips as you unconsciously lean into his touch. It's such a sweet, innocent moment, and for a brief second, Bruce allows himself to feel the warmth of it.

But the moment is fleeting.

He feels the presence before he sees it, the unmistakable smell of cigarette smoke filling the room. His jaw tightens as his hand stills. He doesn’t turn right away, but his voice cuts through the silence.

“Constantine,” Bruce says, his tone gruff even without the cowl to disguise it.

Constantine steps into the room more fully, leaning against the wall, a half-smoked cigarette between his lips. He regards Bruce with that same nonchalance he carries everywhere, though there's a flicker of something else in his eyes—something more cautious.

"Thought you’d still be brooding over in the corner," Constantine says, taking a drag of his cigarette. His eyes drift to you, lying peacefully on the cot. “Didn’t expect to see this version of you.”

Bruce doesn’t respond right away. He pulls his hand back from your hair, his gaze hardening. "What happened?" The question is direct, but underneath it, Constantine can hear the concern, the frustration Bruce doesn't voice aloud.

"She went off on her own," Constantine mutters, taking another drag before blowing out a cloud of smoke. "Went after a demon. Got roughed up pretty bad, but she handled it in the end. Strong kid. Stubborn too. Wonder where she gets that from, eh?"

Bruce's eyes narrow. "And you let her?"

"Let her?" Constantine laughs, a short, sharp sound. "Mate, I didn’t let her. She went behind my back, just like she’s gone behind yours for who knows how long. Difference is, I’m the one she actually came back to.”

That lands like a punch to Bruce's gut. He doesn’t react visibly, but Constantine can see the tension in his posture.

"I didn't know she was…" Bruce starts, then stops, shaking his head. The words feel inadequate. "I didn't know she was involved with this stuff, i didn't even know she was a meta. Or that she knew you."

"Yeah, well, she found her way to me," Constantine says with a shrug, stubbing out his cigarette on the wall. “And she's not a meta by the way, she's a vessel for some eldritch being"

A vague expression of surprise appears on Bruce's face.

"I don't blame you, mate. I was surprised to find her alive afterwards. Not just anyone survives that kind of transformation, she's strong.”

Bruce crosses his arms, his gaze flickering between you and Constantine. “I know she’s strong.”

“Do you?” Constantine raises an eyebrow, the challenge clear in his tone. “Because she’s been running herself ragged trying to prove it. To you. To herself. And, hell, maybe to me too, but at least I see it.”

There’s silence for a moment. Bruce clenches his jaw, turning to look at you again, sleeping soundly despite the tension in the room. He knew Constantine was right. You'd been pushing yourself, fighting to show that you didn’t need them—that you were strong enough on your own. And he had let you. He'd let you because he didn't even care to notice.

Constantine sighs, sensing the weight of the silence. “Look, I didn’t come here to throw stones. But you’ve got to get your shit together with her. She’s tough, but she’s still a kid, and she’s your kid. She needs you.”

Bruce doesn’t answer, but his silence speaks volumes. He watches you, the soft rise and fall of your chest, and feels the regret gnawing at him.

“I’ll handle it,” Bruce finally says, though the words feel hollow.

Constantine gives him a long look, then nods. “You better. Because if you don’t, she’ll be right back with me..”

With that, Constantine pushes off the wall, flicking away the last of his cigarette. “I’ll check in on her later. Try not to fuck this up, mate.” And with one last glance at you, Constantine leaves, the tension in the room ebbing with him.

Bruce remains, standing over you, his mind a whirlwind of regret, guilt, and the desire to fix what’s been broken for far too long. He leans down, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead—something he hasn’t done in what feels like years—before stepping back, pulling the chair beside your bed to sit vigil over you.

He’s still not sure how to bridge the gap, but for now, he stays. It’s a start.

Well, thats all folks! I really enjoyed writing this au, so thanks for the idea! Maybe ill even make a pt. 2 to this? Who knows? Anyways, I hope you enjoyed it.