#like i have one for professional purposes and staking only

[selfeffacing-jokes]

i never left tumblr but i certainly was in here less often but now everyone’s back and it’s like a party

[newtkive]

practice - carmen berzatto

pairing: carmen berzatto x fem!reader, mentioned platonic marcus x reader

summary: The sudden changes at your work prove to be a lot to keep up with, but Carmy notices your efforts where you think he’s just a tough boss. He proves to be more than that when he finds you pulling an all-nighter at the restaurant.

wordcount: 3.8k

warnings: none really, anxious reader, ooc!carmen (he would never let mistakes fly like this lmao), kinda fluff at the end

a/n: this is basically how i would react working there bc i almost have an anxiety attack every ep watching carmy yell at everyone. sorry for any typos!

The fast moving pace that Carmen Berzatto brought to The Beef was something extraordinary. The skill of his professional chef background was carried over into the small hole in the wall that otherwise would have never changed if it wasn’t for him.

His drive was contagious, even infecting the staff you knew like the back of your hand. You never would have thought your coworkers, ever comfortable with a stagnant pace, would become accustomed to such change around their second home.

It was great to see your favorite people quickly see their own potential thanks to Carmy’s vision. The only problem was you.

You were falling behind, and quickly.

You tried to convince yourself you could keep up as things changed. But your mind was faster than your barely skilled hands and you were terrible at cutting ingredients evenly during a rush and you always somehow got sliced or burnt and your eyes always stung from the onions you were stuck prepping because that was the one job you couldn’t fuck up but hated— to put it simply, you sucked.

The faces of your coworkers reflected what you feared every time you turned around to take a breath, heels of your hands rubbing tears from your eyes as Carmy screamed profanities at the crew. Tina’s eyes would linger on you, brows raised and silently asking if you were okay. You would nod and blink the tears away before jumping back in. By the end of every shift Ebraheim would pat you on the back before leaving, and Sydney would send you a small, sympathetic smile and wave while you tied your shoes on the bench near the locker.

Each time you could see the sympathy in their eyes and it made you hate yourself even more.

You were used to sandwiches; assembling simple ingredients between a hoagie bun on a slow Sunday surrounded by the people you called family. Cracking jokes here and there, no pressure to make things completely perfect, which ended up making things perfect. So much so that regulars even seemed disappointed to see you up at the register some days instead of in the kitchen assembling their lunch.

Carmy wasn’t blind, he could see exactly what was going on, which was why he didn’t pick on you as much as he did when he first arrived.

The first couples of weeks that Carmy was there he noticed the difference in your station compared to everyone else’s. Organized, cohesive, clean—save for the multiple drinks you always had. You worked at your own pace, not slow but definitely not up to par with Carmen’s standards. You made it work though, cutting ingredients almost perfectly and whipping up sandwiches and other specialties not a second too late.

The change happened when Carmy upped the stakes and encouraged—or yelled at—everyone to be as quick as they possibly could. His yelling was off putting, and you didn’t respond well to much other than positive reinforcement.

The chef didn’t notice until the uneven bread and too-thin tomato slices lead back to you. He was quick, marching over to you with a purpose; if it was a cartoon, his hair would be alight with fire. “Chef!” His voice was hard and urgent, because he didn’t have time to deal with this.

As he approached, he noticed your hands shaking as you held the dull shitty knife, head whipping up and cheeks red, all but heaving from the pressure. So much pressure.

“Yes Chef?” You asked attentively, waiting for him to explode.

Carmen had all intentions to do just that, tear you a new one, tell you that you’ve been here long enough to know how to cut a fuckin’ tomato the right way but he paused. The look in your eye was wild and scared. His face fell, obvious turmoil behind his blue eyes causing a change in his decision. You waited with bated breath, but what you were expecting never came.

Instead, Carmen did his best to be calm and set his hand on the counter, leaning a bit. “I want you to show me how to slice that tomato.” He said.

“What?” You were confused and it was clearly written on your face. So were your nosy coworkers who exchanged looks and shrugged, expecting the young man to wail on you with his words.

Looking over your shoulder at the others, you tried to exchange weary looks with anyone but Carmy pulled you back in with his words. “Don’t worry about their shit. C’mon, show me.” He said again, motioning to the tomato sitting on the cutting board, looking at you expectantly.

After a beat of weariness you did what he asked. With an exhale your knife pierced the red skin and cut it, your wrist dragging it back and forth to cut all the way through. You gave a few more slices, doing your best to ignore his scrutinizing gaze.

Reviewing your slices, you mentally pat yourself on the back at the sight of them perfectly even and a fairly thin. You turned to look at Carmy, and he seemed to have an epiphany as he stood there holding his chin. Eyes flickering up to you, he nodded. “You know what that showed me?” He asked, and before you could answer he continued. “You’re competent, you did that shit with a dull knife. Don’t cut ‘em too thick or too thin, you have no excuses.”

He should feel ridiculous, like he was coaching a baby how to do the easiest job in the world, but for some reason Carmen was able to swallow his irritation and try to guide you.

You nodded, back straightening and hands sweaty. “Yes, Chef.”

Carmy was about to walk off but stopped himself, turning back around, eyes boring into yours as he grew more serious. “You hear me yelling, you listen, but I need you to focus, Chef. You can do this shit, I’ve seen you pull through before. Don’t let my mouth get to your fuckin’ head.” He said low enough just for the both of you to hear.

He was close, blue eyes staring right at you, the smell of the kitchen clinging onto his apron. It should’ve been intimidating, and it was a little, but you knew this was his version of offering comfort and maybe even some sort of apology.

“Heard, Chef.” You said just as quietly back.

There was a second of him staring, before he simply walked away without another word, leaving you to your own devices. Whatever he said seemed to put some perspective into your work, because you didn’t have anys setbacks for the rest of the day.

On the way home, sitting on the train with headphones in your ears and a jacket wrapping you up tight, Carmy’s words swirled in your head. You knew you could do this, and you could somewhat see in Carmy’s eyes that he had faith in you too. It was just a new world you were all suddenly thrown into and it was hard finding your place. On days where you felt like a baby fawn standing on shaky legs, wobbling and failing to find your footing, you had to keep going.

A single word rang in your mind.

Practice.

Your apartment was pretty small and shared with a roommate, so you lacked the accommodations and tools to really do all you wanted. Aside from that, you didn’t want to be the rude roomie who clashed pans in the kitchen all night long. So, as you made your way off the train you didn’t leave the station. Instead, you waited for the next ride to the city and headed straight for The Beef.

The sun set as you approached the back door, humming a tune as you pulled out a spare key—one that definitley would be confiscated once Carmy found out about it, probably clambering about it not being safe in the foreseeable future—from under the fuse box outside and unlocked the door.

You entered the kitchen, brows immediately raising as you saw all of the kitchen lights on. Slowly moving forward, a sense of anxiety grew as you knew no one would usually be here except for Carmy, and you really did not want to get a talking to from him right now.

Turning the corner, you sighed in relief when you saw the familiar stature that belong to Marcus. He had his phone out, recipe pulled up in front of him and a song playing softly from the speakers that he sang along to. You chuckled softly, alerting him of your presence. Head snapping up at the sound, he almost looked like a deer in the headlights as he met your eyes.

Similarly to you, he let out a relieved sigh and sent you a smile. “Scared me, Y/N.” He laughed softly, hands whisking again.

“Sorry.” You apologized, tugging your coat off. “What’re you doing here, man?” You asked as you headed over to the lockers and shoved your stuff away.

Marcus shrugged. “Could ask you the same thing.”

“Practice.” You said simply, shrugging and tying your apron around your waist. Approaching the kitchen, you started gathering a few clean pots to start your work.

Humming and nodding, Marcus gave you a knowing grin. “Same here.” There was a beat of comfortable silence as you gathered a knife, cutting board, and an onion before washing your hands. “I actually stay here sometimes overnight. It’s easier, that way I won’t waste time going back and forth from home.” Marcus explained.

Surprise filled your features and you sent him an impressed look. “Wow, no wonder you’re getting better fast.”

He chuckles bashfully, filling another mixing bowl with flour and whatever else he desired. “Eh, I guess.” The shrug of his shoulders made you laugh before you turned back to your own work.

With one last question of Marcus asking if you minded his music, and you affirming that you didn’t mind at all, he turned the dial on his bluetooth radio up and you both fell into a comfortable rhythm; Marcus in his corner and you on the stovetop.

By the end of the evening you prepared a vibrant beef braciole dish that a few of the others had been practicing since Carmy introduced it. You brought it to one of the stainless steel counters with two forks, setting it next to the two pieces of cake Marcus had sliced up from his recipe of the evening.

You both dug in, humming in satisfaction as you tasted each other’s creations, sharing impressed and ‘holy shit’ expressions that made the other laugh.

“This is fantastic.” Marcus said, another mouthful of beef being added to his mouth.

You laughed and shook your head, muttering a thank you, trying to swallow down your surprise. Marcus could tell, because he doubled down. “No, really, Y/N. This is the best one I’ve tasted yet, aside from the big Chef.” He said with a grin.

Shaking your head, you gave him your appreciation. “Thank you, Chef. I can say the same thing from you.” You motioned with your fork to the cake. In truth, his words pushed you and affected you more than you lead on.

The both of you fell into a rhythm, whipping up treats and savory meals almost every day after work. Marcus playing music at his own station, you timing yourself relentlessly to try and replicate the fast pace of the open hours of the restaurant. You sometimes even found yourself staying overnight, taking turns with Marcus to use his sleeping bag—he insisted where you didn't want to overstep, but sleep called you and his pillow was comfy.

Relentless practice proved to keep you on track and up to pace with everyone else, slowly but surely. The impressed glances shared between Tina and Sydney every time you had them taste a dish or were quicker than usual were enough, but Carmen was ever the critic. A new menu soon graced The Beef alongside their regular sandwiches, and it was a tough menu to master. You almost had them all down pat, practicing relentlessly for almost four weeks now after work.

However, every time you presented a steaming spoonful of stew, or a perfect bite of chicken piccata that everyone else in the kitchen seemed to love, Carmen would bite into it, hum, and shake his head. "Good." He said every time.

"Good like.. good good? Or good but start over, it's trash, throw it away?" You would ask, clearly waiting with baited breath on a slow day.

Carmy shook his head again. "It's not ready yet, Chef." And then he would be off to collect more expo receipts and leave you there disappointed, shoulders deflating in defeat.

"I think it's great, Chef." Marcus would smile, hands busy working on dough for his unmastered donuts. You would offer a sad smile in return, marching off to assemble another hoagie and handing your failed dish to a waiting Richie in exchange for an appreciative rub of his hands together. The negative feedback only spurred you to improve your craft as much as you could.

It was a rare occasion that Marcus didn't stay at the restaurant overnight. He left early in a frenzy after a phone call, muttering something about his mom's nurse needing him. Offering comfort wasn't your strongest suit, so you bid him luck and made a mental note to bring him his favorite coffee during work later in hopes to cheer him up.

At the same time you were plating what felt like your dozenth chicken piccata of the week, soft footsteps approached the kitchen. As soon as the timer went off behind you, you whipped around and hit the top, a harsh exhale and wipe of your forehead following the silence. You felt proud, plating and finishing your dish in record time without any hiccups.

A soft chuckle brought you out of your stupor, head snapping up to meet bright blue eyes from across the kitchen. There stood Carmy with his unruly curls, white tee and brown jacket he was beginning to pull off. In place of his usual stoic face was an amused expression, clearly not expecting to see someone in the kitchen at this hour.

You froze at the sight of him, but his soft smile eased your shoulders a bit. “Smells good.” Carmy said as if it was the most casual thing, hanging his jacket by the lapels on a hook. He sat on the bench, beginning to change his shoes into nonslip ones.

Stuttering, your cheeks turned pink. “O-oh, uhhh, thanks.”

“You’re here early.” He said back, standing now and readying to tug on his apron.

Brows furrowed, you looked above him to glance at the kitchen clock. Big red numbers read 6:15 AM and your brows raised in shock. Before you had a chance to respond, he walked closer, beginning to talk again. “I’ve noticed you and Marcus are always here before anyone else.”

You shrugged, nervous smile gracing your lips as they upturned slightly. “Ah, yeah. We both wanted to practice. Y’know, catch up with everyone else.” You explained. Conveniently, you decided to not mention the instances of spending the night, figuring it would be a little to embarrassing or earn you a talking to.

Carmy was now approaching the other side of the counter where you stood, hands tapping the steel. His little smug smile didn’t leave his lips as he nodded. “I also noticed a few things missing from our inventory.” His words were clearly teasing, but they made your face run pale.

“Fuck, I'm sorry, Chef. Take it from my paycheck, please—I didn’t even consider—“ The rambling was embarrassing, and his head shake cut you off.

“No, stop, Y/N. I'm teasing you.” Carmy laughed softly with a small smile, clearly endeared. The use of your name made you bashful.

A beat of silence followed, your mouth opening and closing like a fish. Carmy glanced behind you at the dish that laid perfectly plated, motioning to it with his hands. “Let’s see if your hard work is paying off.”

Blinking in surprise, you obediently nodded and turned to grab the dish. Sliding it in front of him, you gathered a fork and knife. Carmy grasped the utensils with a ‘thank you’, fingers brushing yours. It didn’t take long for the chef to dig in, eyes immediately closing once the first bite hit his taste buds.

“So.. what do you think?” You plucked up the courage to ask after he swallowed.

Carmy looked up at you, lips curling upwards and a proud look dawning his features. “Great, as usual.”

Usually those words would make you excited, but Carmy had a habit of complimenting your dishes before declaring how they weren’t good enough just yet. You simply nodded, swallowing thickly as he took another bite and savored the taste. “What should I change?” You asked, straightening your back in preparation for the inevitable criticism.

Humming, Carmy shook his head, the same amused look as before coming back. “Nothing, Chef. It’s perfect.” He said firmly. Those words made your breath leave your lungs, hands becoming clammy, and before you knew it you were grinning.

“Really?” You asked, not able to keep your excitement together.

Carmy let out a full laugh at that. “Really.” He confirmed.

You clapped your hands together before covering your face, hiding the grin as best you could. It had been awhile since you felt so elated due to cooking, and you weren’t quite sure what to do with yourself. You felt like the whole month of dedicating your time to cooking was culminating to this moment. Carmen watched you with soft eyes, taking in how happy his words made you. You turned back to him, giving up hiding how ecstatic you were. “I braised it differently this time, could you tell? Well, obviously you could if it’s good this time.” You rambled on, a bit of a giggle in your voice.

“It’s always this good, Y/N.” Carmy suddenly said. His words had you pausing, tilting your head playfully. Hand trailing along the counter, he rounded it to stand next to you.

"What do you mean?" You asked, smile falling a bit. The man's words echoed in your head and you looked around the room as if to try and find meaning from his statement. Surely he didn't have you remake the dish for no reason, right? But Carmy's strong posture and raised brows, waiting for you to figure it out yourself, made you think that's exactly what he did. Sobering up, you scoffed and crossed your arms as you sent him a look. "Are you serious? This whole time..." You trailed off.

"Yes, this whole time." He said, leaning on the counter with one hand, eyes not leaving you. "I needed you to bust your ass, Chef. I knew you needed the practice, so I gave you the motive." Carmy explained. The scrunch of your nose made his chest hum with something warm, akin to looking at a kicked puppy that he wanted to scoop up and reassure. Guilt washed over him a little bit as he feared he was acting more and more like his old Chef, but he pushed those feelings down as best he could. He did this for the right reasons, unlike that dickhead in New York did to him. There was no berating and preying on insecurities, just some tough love.

Sighing, you were torn between being angry and feeling grateful that Carmy saw this potential in you. You didn't know what to say, so you blurted out exactly how you felt. "I'm embarrassed."

Carmy frowned, ducking his head to catch your eyes where you looked down a bit. "Why are you embarrassed?" His voice was soft, tiptoeing as to not make you more upset.

Allowing him to meet your eyes, you curled into yourself at the attention. "Because I've made a fool of myself these past few months." You murmured, spilling your guts to your new boss for some reason that you didn't know. Maybe it was the quiet kitchen, or the sudden defeat you felt, but your mouth was faster than your mind.

A small 'no, no, no' left Carmy and he shook his head, reaching a hand out to place on your shoulder. "Don't be. I came in and turned shit upside down, it just took you a bit more practice to get the hang of things." His hand started to rub your arm comfortingly, leaving heat where he touched. You knew this must have been a form of an apology in his own way. The words didn't come easy to Carmen, but he tried to convey it the best he could.

Leaning forward, Carmy mustered his best stern expression, wanting to keep your gaze so you couldn't look away and distract yourself from his next words. Your breath caught in your throat, not used to this proximity. "I'm proud of you. You should be proud of yourself too."

Heat encapsulated your cheeks and you nodded, spurring him to nod as well. "Okay."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

As soon as Carmy saw your shy smile he gave one right back to you. Still close, he radiated heat that made it all the more difficult to calm the butterflies growing in your stomach. Eyes never leaving each other's, the air grew tense as the dust settled. Unlike the usual sandwich smell, an aroma of a clean linen scent came off of him as you realized he must have showered before coming here. Carmy never would admit it, but your perfume filled the air for him, making him linger longer than he should have. The blink of your stare looking up at him made Carmy's chest tighten, and he immediately pulled himself out of whatever trance he was in.

Clearing his throat, Carmy let go of your shoulder and backed up a bit. "No more all-nighter's here. Okay, Chef?" He tried to seem playful to rid himself of awkwardness and whatever that just was.

Mouth falling open, you gaped at him. "How did you know?!"

Hands up in surrender, Carmy just shrugged. "A Chef never tells his secrets," He began, heading over to the drying rack to busy himself, playfully adding, "And someone kept leaving the spare key out, so I figured." The smirk he sent you made you grin and roll your eyes.

Carmy would never tell you he knew because that's what he used to do. Before he got the hang of things in his earlier days as a chef, late nights in the restaurant kitchen and a half hour of sleep was the norm for him. As you began cleaning up your work the chef's gaze lingered on you, blue eyes studying your form with a thoughtful look. Carmy shook his head, smiling to himself and starting his work. He reckoned he saw himself in you more than ever.

[spdrvyn]

miguel and his sunshine human gf that loves to annoy the shit out of him and sometimes in order to stop her/calm her down he has to put her in an air jail 🤭

ardor and annoyance

miguel and reader who's a bundle of energy and joy. having to tame your late night rituals is no easy task, but it's one that he's always willing to take. what's more important than having your dear lover in bed with you?

pure fluff. reader can be seen as either civilian/spider. is it really one of my fics if i don't write about how much miguel hates himself even by just a little bit

dividers by @cafekitsune

What Miguel learned from being a leader, setting an example, being his mother's son, and serving as a hero was patience. 

It was a value that he had slipped up on from time to time, more often with himself. If he ever found himself at wit's end with someone else, he would mope until it passed or wait to get some precious alone time and healthily expresses his emotions by making a mess of his quarters and breaking down until he'd get tired and just sleep it off, restarting this precious cycle. 

Eventually though, he had begun to no longer exhaust himself by getting angry. Unless the entire multiverse was at stake (ahem), then he'd have to spring into action. But his main priority now is to fix the problem, get it over with, rinse, and repeat. 

When you entered his life, he realized that there was more to his ridiculous routines, more than his self-destructive attitudes, and that true patience came with love and caring as well. Obviously, he's light years away from being content with himself, but you redirect him, navigating through when that dastardly cycle repeats, so that you can wash it away and make him anew. 

Miguel isn't the only one that has his layers peeled back though, there's so much that he notices about you. That composed and mature persona that you set up for yourself, that has built good albeit only professional connections with the other spiders eases its way into a bubbly and joyful demeanor whenever you're around him. 

It almost didn't make sense, Miguel just seemed like the kind of guy to not want to do that with, to not want to relax around. He couldn't even relax on his own, the thought that anyone could feel comfortable in their own skin around him was shoved into the back of his mind. That connection that he so painfully needs is put aside for prioritizing the safety of everyone everywhere else. 

Your true nature is infectious, to his dismay. It's too difficult to avoid the care that you're so insistant on giving him, it started with working overtime, to enjoying working overtime, to going over to Miguel's place for work purposes, to going over to Miguel's place for non-work purposes to kissing him for the first time, and now you're dating. 

The catch with Miguel having let loose around him was that all that conserved energy circulated around his apartment, whenever he got home from another long day at the Society, he'd climb into you doing five different things all at once. Reading, watching a show, watching a baking show, baking a cake, and texting. 

It was hectic, nothing that he couldn't handle, but how you're not on the verge of collapsing probably deep into the trenches of the night concerned him. For slightly more selfish reasons, Miguel doesn't like not having you in bed with him. This wasn't as extreme as the missions he took up at work, but it was a mission nonetheless.

You're... Busy, Miguel doesn't know what with. He sees yarn, he sees cookie dough, he sees a laptop, tablet, phone, and headphones, and so many other trinkets that are buried under the pile that you've built on the kitchen counter. Your focus shifts between each individual station, and Miguel shifts closer and closer to you quietly. 

You're occupied on the laptop, occasionally looking at the stove while you're doing so. Then returning to your yarn and now knitting needles? Before mixing the cookie dough even more and even liking the mixture off of the spoon, humming to yourself contently. 

You don't even notice that Miguel is right behind you, until he secures you against his front and lifts you up with a squeal. 

"Miguel!" You whine, squirming against his solid arms. Your feet swing in the air and you try to push his hands away from your midsection, but there's no use in trying to free yourself when it's with him anyway. 

"Go to sleep. No más tonterías, cariño." His voice is fogged by sleep, as his grasp on you tightens. You turn slightly with what little space that you have and you can see his slumber muddled stature. Tousled hair, relaxed expression, eyes half-lidded, and he raises a brow at your staring. "What?"

"Nothing," you sigh, "I'll go to sleep, you just have to let me go."

Miguel shakes his head, rocking your swinging body from side to sidet to go along with it as well. "No, I don't trust you." There's a humorous fry to it, you accentuate the pout on your lips, and he laughs. 

It takes a little while for you to convince him to put you down, you can't say this is the most uncomfortable position for you. Whenever you're around Miguel, you always wind up in his arms one way or another, but this time that principle is just being used against you. The conversation shifts, less about your captivity, more about Miguel's day, your day, anything new outside, anything new in Spider Society. The position you're in, the silky nature in his voice, it gets you groggy and Miguel can sense it. 

He wins. 

He handles you to the bed properly now, laying your once tireless form onto the comforter as he tucks you in. You don't even try objecting anymore, the stove is still on, the video on your laptop was probably still playing, and that knitting project will have to remain unfinished until tomorrow, but it was fine. You know that everything is fine when Miguel gets into bed with you, pressing his lips to the top of your head in one long kiss. 

He wins this little dispute of yours, but you know that you've won at life knowing that your nights end like this, engulfed in his embrace, the sound of his breathing bringing you to a deep sleep as well. 

[luulapants]

What a safe space for concrit looks like and why the comments section will never be that

I'm in an IRL group for songwriters who want help developing and polishing their work. It's an incredible space, very effective, and no one ever leaves feeling bad about their songs. I'm going to share a few of the things that work really well about this group and compare those to online environments, particularly comment sections:

Group settings create accountability. If someone is a dick, it has real social consequences, not just from the person being critiqued but from everyone in the room who saw it happen. Online spaces, while very public, are paradoxically intimate. It's unlikely that third parties will scour comments on someone else's work, and if they do - what are the consequences? The critic probably doesn't know them.

We know our critics. We know the critic's level of expertise in different areas, if they have different styles and preferences from ours, and can weight their opinions accordingly. The opinion of a random stranger online cannot be weighed or evaluated and is therefore worthless.

We know our performers. We know the proficiency of the person we're critiquing, if they're new or shy or young, if they're branching into a type of music they're not familiar with. We adjust the type of feedback we give based on who's receiving it. Typically, commenters online have no idea if they're critiquing a professional artist or a literal child just starting out.

Everyone needs to bring something to group. If you don't have a song (or even part of a song) to share, you can't come this week. This puts everyone on equal footing: we're all being vulnerable, we're all going through critique today. It's easy to hand out judgments when you have nothing at stake, but you're a lot more careful handling someone's work when you know they'll be handling yours, too. Commenters online have nothing at stake, no reciprocal vulnerability, which creates an unfair power dynamic.

"What kind of feedback do you want?" We ask this question before every performance. People are able to draw specific boundaries, point out areas where they're confused or conflicted ("This chord sounds wrong to me but I'm not sure what to use.") and areas that are too sensitive for critique ("This is a personal story, so I don't want to change the narrative.") Going in blind online, you have no idea if you're addressing a personal landmine or a deliberate creative choice.

Only bring things that are unfinished and open to change. The purpose of bringing a song to group is to get edits and suggestions. The purpose of posting your work online is to share it and have it be enjoyed by others. You should assume that, by the time someone is posting something on their Tumblr or AO3 etc., that it is a finished product no longer open for changes.

[chronically-ghosted]

there ain't enough room in this Pontiac for the two of us

rating: E for Explicit! 18+

word count: 8K

pairing: javier peña x f!reader

summary:  1. No sex. 2. No touching yourself. 3. No orgasms. 4. No murdering your annoying DEA partner. (A Javier Peña-shaped rift on this iconic fic)

tags/warnings: smut, dubcon/noncon elements, hand jobs (f receiving), no use y/n, javi being sexually frustrating as hell, time period compliant sexism (not from Javi)

a/n: please go read the original fic. Her’s is far superior to mine and this is but a shameful hollow echo.

🤍 AO3 Link

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🤍Masterlist

Bogota

11:23PM

Back before you willingly and eagerly joined the special task force between several unruly government organizations created with sole and express purpose to hunt down and catch the cartel king Pablo Escobar – before you applied to the DEA on the highest recommendation of your law professor, your criminal psychology professor, and the dean of admission, all whom believed your talents, (despite the unfortunate accident that you were a woman) would have a deep and profound impact on catching those responsible for the deaths of thousands worldwide –  hell, even before you applied to Stanford and you spent your free time oscillating between color guard, JROTC, and retaking your practice SATs and ACTs until you got nearly a perfect score so that the realization that you didn’t have one single friend in the world to distract you from your single-minded almost obsessive focus to prove yourself, despite all your faults – 

Before all of that –

If someone had discreetly taken you by the arm, gently sat you down, and told you what a perfect and deluded idiot you would make of yourself on a seven hour stake out on a dark, rainy night in the capital of Colombia, well, you probably would have laughed them out the door.

You aren’t one really predisposed to bouts of uncontrollable, side-splitting, “I’m laughing so hard I’m afraid to take a breath out of fear of the noise that’s going to come out of my nose” laughter, but if someone allowed you to take a good, long, healthy look at one of your more unhealthy habits – that, of course, being your almost toxic levels of competitive behavior – you might have been prone to at least one giggle.

The thing was, you really didn’t lose. Ever. You didn’t back then and you don’t now and your tenacious, unbreakable will made you not only a formidable and dogged DEA agent, but it also (and perhaps more importantly) made you a social, professional, and absolutely mental equal to men like Javier fucking Peña. 

Javier Peña, whom women would literally melt into a puddle around, whom men would clamor over themselves just to get a drink with. He’s just so fucking cool, you overheard one of the office interns mutter to another, just look at him. That was also the day you spilled coffee down your entire blouse because you squeezed your styrofoam coffee cup too hard, but that was an entirely unrelated matter. 

Whatever sway Peña seemed to inflict over the panties of every woman in the building, you resolutely stayed immune. When you first joined, it had been easy to avoid him. So much so, you were completely flummoxed when the man with the name you’d heard whispered in the hallways, finally made his way over to your side of the building for a meeting with your boss. He walked in with a badly-fitted suit, bags under his eyes, the reeking stench of day-old cigarettes, but by the reactions of the phone girls, you’d thought Elvis himself had just emerged from his coffin and began performing “Hound Dog” topless in bedazzled pants. 

This? This is “The Guy”? The guy that women on your floor would spend their entire lunch breaks in the bathroom comparing stories over – “yes, Kathy, I heard his dick really is that huge!” “Yes, Shannon swears he made come for hours just with his tongue!”

Him? 

Really?

Was it just slim pickings between married men and wheezing senators? 

Never meet your heroes, I guess.

That was back in the late 80s. Back before the bombings and the kidnappings and the mutilated bodies of journalists.

Things had changed. Significantly. 

Once things had gotten – let’s just say, dire – the agency started moving around teams, prioritizing certain missions over others. Which meant not only were you taken off a case you had just spent the better part of a year and a half building, but you were reassigned to a new team. Co-led by the one and only Javier. Fucking. Peña. 

Now, Javier didn’t like the rain, especially not after a seven hour stake out. You knew this because every time it rained, he stormed into the pen, snorting like an enraged bull, his hair wet and his shoulders damp. Why the man couldn’t just simply go out and pick up an umbrella, you didn’t feel the need to ask. But it set your teeth on edge that a grown adult would be so annoyed by something that had such a simple solution. More than once you thought about hurling your own umbrella like a javelin at him, but your fighting matches had become legendary around the office and you refused to be provoked again by Javier’s own arrogance. 

But that’s what started all of this, right? 

You, with your white-hot competitive streak, and him, with his over-inflated ego, clashed again and again – until finally about the one thing both brought you a sense of pride: your sex lives. 

Annoyingly, this was proving more difficult than you anticipated. 

Thumbing the rim of your third lukewarm coffee of the night, you sigh, long and loud, not entirely regretful of the choices that led you here, but simply rather irked that someone had come along and finally proved to be a real challenge.

“Shut it.” 

“Excuse me?” 

Javier, who had been sitting next to you for the better part of the past seven hours, his long legs tucked up around the bulky wheel of the black Pontiac Firefly the agency had rented for this mission, continues to scowl through the dark and the rain at the spot where you had tracked one of Pablo’s higher ranking enforcers. A gambling den on the first floor, and a brothel in the basement, most men you tailed here spent only a few hours betting and fucking, before wandering back home, probably a little drunk and significantly less horny. But this guy – fuck – did he have the stamina of an Olympic athlete?

What had begun as a quick follow up to some intel your team received earlier in the week had turned into one of the longest and most unbearable nights of your life. 

“I said, shut it.” 

Your mouth drops open. “I am literally just breathing, Javier.” 

“Yeah and you’re doing it too loud.” He takes a sip from the coffee between his legs then resumes his hunched, crossed arm position. “It’s annoying.”

Huffing, you sink lower in your seat, as much as the surveillance equipment and evidence boxes around your legs would allow. 

“This is so stupid,” you grumble. 

“This is basic DEA work, sweetheart. If you can’t cut it, I’m sure I can find someone – literally anyone – else to take your spot. Sarah’s always been eager to spend some extra time alone with me. Or what about Mac? You two get along right? Who am I kidding? You get along with e-e-everyone–,” 

It is infuriating he knows exactly where to poke and prod to supercharge your competitiveness as well as your jealousy.

“I’m not talking about the sting, Javier! I’m talking about your need to always be in control. I’m talking about how, just because you can’t get your fucking rocks off, you’ve been sniping at everyone in the building.” You scowl and lean as far away from him as you can in the cramped hatchback. “Making everyone’s lives hell because you haven’t gotten your dick wet in a month.” 

“Oh, sure, I’m the only one being a fucking nuisance in the office,” he sneers, scratching at his forehead with his thumbnail. “After your little meltdown at the copier machine, I think Mark from accounting would rather fist-fight God than have to ask you for a stapler again.” 

You snatch up the used napkins in the cupholder between you and shred it to pieces. You chuck the little bits at him as you snap back,

“The. Stapler. Was. Right. There! He. Was. Being. Stupid!” 

“Stop it! You’re going to get it in my coffee!” 

With a snarl, you hurl the mangled rest of the napkin at him and he swats it out of the air. It rolls over the dashboard, fluttering in the AC that was doing absolutely nothing to combat the sticky humidity. 

He did this to you. He always did this to you. Made you feel like a silly child, an overly emotional brat, for pointing out things he did time and time again. Why was he allowed to get away with it and you weren’t?

In the temporary silence, the rain patters loudly on the roof of the car. Headlights emerge from the gloom and disappear as the few unlucky caught out in this deluge run from awning to awning with magazines, newspapers, or umbrellas tucked over their heads. It had been raining for hours and it seemed to have no intention of stopping anytime soon. 

You aren’t sure which irritates you more: the humidity or the stickiness gathering on the crotch of your panties.

It had been there for days, constant, a reminder, no matter how often you changed them out for some temporary escape. Your thighs tightened as close as they could, but a large storage box split your legs apart. 

“You know,” Javier begins softly, almost contrite, gentle in a way you’d never heard before. He's pinching the edge of his coffee cup with his fingers, resolutely not looking at you. “If this bothers you so much, you can just quit. Call it off. No hard feelings.” 

You snort. He really is the most ridiculous man alive. 

“Yeah? You’d get the satisfaction of finally coming, after being hard for at least – what, a month, month and a half? – and half my next paycheck? I don’t think so.” You adjust in your seat, your left hip starting to ache from the position you’ve been maintaining for seven hours. “Well, the money’s one thing. But I think I’d rather be physically shot than have to listen to you parade around the office, gleefully spilling secrets about me as your latest conquest, bragging to all your little buddies around the water cooler how you finally bested that bitch in the bullpen. At that point, I’d rather we just actually fuck. At least that way I can finally understand what the fuck has the secretaries all in a goddamn hissy fit over.” 

After nearly a third of the day spent next to you, he finally tears his gaze away from the target and looks at you. His dark eyebrows drawn down, plush lips frowning, he’s unnervingly serious. You wonder if you actually managed to make him genuinely angry.

“I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t brag about you to anyone, even if you lost. And I especially would never if you let me fuck you.” Let me? Now that’s a turn of phrase you definitely won’t spend hours thinking about. His frown deepens as he glances down to his coffee cup. “People – women – like to talk, but I never say anything, to anyone. I don’t encourage it, but it feels like I’m the one being checked off a list. Like I’m a space on a fucking bingo card. It’s rude.”

Gobsmacked into silence, you watch as he cranks down the window for just enough space to chuck his (and yours) empty coffee cups out onto the wet road beside the car. You let him tug it out of from between your legs without a single line of snark.

Your brain finally comes back online when the window squeaks back into place. 

Hang on a second – did you really just feel bad for the office casanova? That little shit manipulated you into actually feeling sorry for the dozens of women he willingly brings home then turns out like used toilet paper. You can feel that decades old hate and disgust crack open and boil in your stomach.

“Well, hey, Javi, here’s an idea. Just stop fucking the women you work with. If it bothers you so much, then stop fucking women entirely!”

“I did! I have done that and I am!” He gestures wildly with his hands, palms out as if in supplication. “Everyone in the office – including Noonan, I’m pretty sure – knows about this stupid fucking bet and for once, it’s been great to have an excuse to not have to hold up my expectation of being a great lay!” 

You will not allow yourself the time to fully process the idea that not only is Javier Peña grateful to not have to fuck a skirt, but it’s you he’s doing it for, so you snarl back, as you always do.

“Then what? What’s got you so fucking wound up, if your poor dick needs a break from getting sucked?”

With a groan that starts somewhere in his lower ribcage, he falls forward into the steering wheel, his forehead on the rim. 

“I’m not saying that, alright? It’s actually been nice to have my bed to myself for a bit. But Jesus Christ, I miss pussy.” 

Don’t. 

Don’t think about it. Don’t think about the way he says it. Like it’s holy.

The warmth of the humidity in the car ratchets up as your heart starts to race, your palms sweat. You wonder vaguely if there’s condensation on the inside of the windows. He shouldn’t be allowed to get you so wet by just saying the word. You swallow, clawing back that familiar anger until you feel in control again. 

“So then go get it.” You wave your hand around the dark streets of Bogota. “Just go out there and end this thing once and for all. God knows I’m sick and tired of having to listen to you roll around, grunting and huffing, with a hard-on so big I can almost hear it.”

“What are you so mad at me for?” He snaps up, a much more palatable rage in his eyes. “All of this – the bet, the rules, the fact that you actually included wet dreams – you decided on!”

“You’re the one who demanded you move into my apartment for the entire duration of this hell! You’re the one who went out and bought two twin beds like a fucking maniac and made me take out my bed to put in your little torture devices to make sure neither of us cheated off the clock!” 

“And you agreed to it! I’m not the only insane one here! Sometimes I think you do it on purpose – kicking and fighting with the sheets, moaning in your sleep, rubbing yourself up on the mattress. Twice now I’m pretty sure I’ve gone blind in one eye, listening to all that and not being able to do a goddamn thing about it.” 

You scoff, but now slightly uneasy. You’ve been moaning in your sleep? Fuck. Taking down your overbearing and egotistical coworker a few pegs was one thing. Becoming roommates with him was something else entirely. About two weeks in, he had come out of the bedroom without his shirt on – he’s been doing that more and more lately – and you had to sit in the bathroom with your hands clamped around the toilet seat for ten minutes straight to keep from finger-fucking yourself on the living room coffee table. 

“I’m honestly surprised you didn’t want to install cameras in the shower just to make sure I’m not jacking off in secret. You better not be doing what I think you’re doing in there, Javi. You touch yourself once and I win, Javi. Stop looking at my ass when I’m wearing less clothes than a Victoria Secret model, Javi.” 

“It’s summer in Bogota, you jackass,” you snipe, particularly ruffled by his high-pitched affectation of you. It stings more than it should because it sounds exactly like the shrill harpy all your male coworkers make you out to be. “What do you want me to wear?”

He glances at you out of the corner of his eye, something terrifying like a smirk crawling across his perfect mouth and you feel the safety of annoyance crumble out from under you. He really is so fucking pretty.

“A puffy snowsuit would be lovely, actually. Arms, legs, all wrapped up. Cover your gorgeous hair in a hat too, if we’re at it. But if I knew you’d wear what I bought you, all you had to do was say so. Women always say I have excellent taste.”

You sigh, again, irritated and desperate to relieve that fist of tension in your shoulders, that gently knotting warmth between your legs. You wonder how much rubbing your crotch with the seam of your jeans you could get away with before he’d say something. 

No, fuck, shit – focus. You’ve got to get a grip. This is just like those long night study sessions at the academy. All you had to do was buckle down and get serious about this. Sleep deprivation and curtailing your basic instincts didn’t scare you. You had been outlasting men like Javier your entire life and you weren’t about to get weak-kneed now. 

And then something occurs to you that you hadn’t really considered before.

You had been so caught up in your own denial, in fighting your own need to hump your pillow even for a bit of relief – you hadn’t stopped to think what this might be doing to him.

Jesus Christ, I miss pussy. 

Here's a crack in his resolve and you had seen it. Just for a minute. But it's there. You didn’t have to win so much as to make him lose.

Javier Peña. Nowhere to go and having nothing to fuck made him a very dangerous man. One you could easily exploit. However, and as much as it physically pained you to admit, Javier was smart. Blind-sided by his own horniness, or not, if he caught wind of you purposefully stacking the odds against him, there was no telling what he’d do in retaliation. 

For a moment, your sex-deprived brain lounges in the idea of the many forms his retaliation might take. 

No – Focus. You lick your lips, wrenching your gaze to the ceiling of the car. You had to be very careful about this. 

“Look, I’m sorry, alright?” Go at it from the side. Around back while his attention is focused elsewhere. This was fucking guerilla warfare tactics. Placate him with submission. “I didn’t realize my outfits were bothering you. It’s just . . . it’s been so hot lately. I feel like I wake up, drenched wet in sweat, and it’s just too much still. And then, with this bet, sometimes I wake up and between my legs, I’m so –,”

A fist slams against the inside of the window so hard and so loud it makes you jump. His shoulders hunched, the fist in his lap tight and white-knuckled, he doesn’t even fully open his mouth when he snarls, “Do not . . . under any circumstances . . . finish that fucking sentence.” 

He’s breathing heavily, breath skipping between his ribs, and you know you’ve got your opening. Your bottom lip drawn in between your teeth, you’re as much transfixed by his control visibly slipping as you are secretly, darkly thrilled to hear him make those noises. He breathes for a few more times, eyes closed. The sound of rain makes another appearance.

His hands come up to wrap around the steering wheel, as if he were picturing something else flexing beneath his palms. 

“I know what you’re doing, or what you think you’re doing. But it’s not going to work. It’s just going to make me mad and I am not above hauling you over my lap and spanking you for being such a tease.” 

You aren’t sure what shorts out your brain first: the fact he caught on so quickly, or the mental image he’s painting – and how much you fucking love it. God, when did it get so hot in here? You can feel sweat pooling along the ridge of your spine, under the cups of your bra. As though reading your mind, he shucks off his notorious brown jacket and hurls it into the back seat. Your toes curl in your boots. He’s wearing that white linen shirt that expertly shows off the cut of his biceps, his forearms and is more appropriate for a beach trip in Hawaii than the mean streets of Bogota. In his movement, his infamous sunglasses clatter against his stomach – if he just buttoned his collar all the way up like any man with an ounce of decency, they wouldn’t get in the way as much. You want to tell him that, correct him yet again, but now you can see the sweat shine in his clavicle, skin slightly pink and feverish over the hollow of his throat. You had no idea you affected him this much.

“You’re right. This is ridiculous.” He huffs, tossing back his glasses too before flopping back against the seat. “This can’t be healthy, at least. Edging ourselves for weeks at a time. I keep seeing tits in the clouds.”

“So then end it already.” You don’t mean to sound breathless – it’s the opposite of what you want – but your heart rate still hasn’t settled over the idea of Javier spanking you till your ass is red. He’s so much bigger than you, broader. He’d do it rough, if you asked, you know he would. You really hate to sound like you’re begging, but maybe you are. His eyes snap open wide at your near whimper. “Javi, please. We’re not going anywhere. He’s been in there for hours and he’s not coming out any time soon. Just unbutton your pants – I can just watch you – drop your hand in your underwear and –,”

A hand that can cup you nearly from ear to ear flies across the console and claps over your mouth. Something’s changed about him. You can see it in his eyes. At this point in your partnership, you had become fairly good at identifying his emotions, given there were only a handful he ever cycled through: tired, irritated, bored, furious, frustrated, disappointed. But this . . . this is different. His shoulders still face forward, arm reached out over the console, but his thick eyebrows arch down, as if he’s considering something. His head is cocked slightly to the side. You have to stop yourself from breathing in a sigh when his tongue wets his bottom lip.

“I’ll willingly lose this godforsaken bet on one condition,” he rasps out. His hand is warm, all consuming, you can barely breathe under it. You train your entire focus into the way his hair flops over his forehead to keep from whining at what his deep voice does to your lower half. Your muscles clench and your neglected pussy drools. Fuckin’ traitor. “And the condition is, that after this is done, after this fucking doomed stakeout is finally over, I drive us home and you let me rail you against our couch. How does that sound?”

You squeak, once. That’s it, but you can already feel that tell-tale hum, that warmth that almost itches, taking root below your stomach. His eyebrows arch in surprise, in victory, that smirk threatening to make an appearance. Your nails dig into the pleather seat – you want to thrash back, to get out from under the weight of his hand, to snark back a litany of responses that are not only mean but belittling – but you don’t. 

You know he can feel you swallow and his eyelids hover halfway as he licks his bottom lip. He shifts, elbow now pressing against the back of the seat, his weight leaning forward, almost pressing down on you. His other hand is dangerously close to your knee. 

“I’d make it good. I’d make it so fucking good, I swear. I’ll get down on my hands and knees and eat that wet little pussy for as long as you want. Lick and suck that attitude right out of your cunt.”

The car is too small, too cramped. Heat is washing over you in waves and the ache between your thighs is burning. With him this close, you can smell his cologne, the cologne that you rib him endlessly for because you’ve watched women inhale it like a pheromone as he passes down the hall. The scent now floods your senses, choking out everything that isn’t him, and your fingers dig up around his wrist, to pry him off you. You can feel sweat trickle down your temple onto his pinkie over your cheek. He watches it with his eyes, hungry and ready to devour. You have to wrestle back some semblance of control, or else your heart is going to beat out of your chest. 

With all the strength left over from keeping yourself from bucking your hips up into the center console, you shove him back across the car. 

“You fucking . . . stay over there,” you croak, gulping down air as if you had been deprived. He sprawls back, arms outstretched across the window ledge and the back of his seat. “Don’t ever fucking t-touch me again. Those things y-you said. I should report you–,” 

“Why?” he chuckles. “You liked it. Thought you were going to eat me there for a minute . . . and I would’ve let you.”

It’s remarkably easy how your white-knuckled, lightning-sparked anticipation for him to do exactly what he said he’d do quickly morphs into a near-blinding rage. He doesn’t get it – he still doesn’t get it – he thinks this all a fucking game, when every minute of every day, your entire self-worth was put on the line.

But this is how you danced with him – right up to the edge, barking, screaming, yelling, then when it got real, or even almost real, you backed down. And he knew it.

“You really deserve someone who knows what they’re doing,” he continues. He folds his arms across his chest, grinning wildly. “Maybe that would teach you to be nice. Is that why you’re so nasty all the time? Someone who cares about you to properly stuff up that sweet little pussy in the way you need it?”

You feel fire crackle up and down your spine, plunging low to lick your insides every time he muses about the state of your cunt, then sky-rocketing back into this rage you’ve built out like walls.

It’s your turn to twist in the seat, to push against the windows as if you could expand and break out from this twisted scrap of metal that kept you chained to him.

“This is not about sex, Javier.” Your teeth ache from grounding out the words. “This is about proving to every single man out there that I deserve to be here. That I’m not just some cock-struck idiot who falls to her knees just because you snap your fingers. I don’t care what you think I need or what you want to do to me. I don’t care because until I come out of this bet the winner, all they’ll ever see is a pair of tits who negs them to do their fucking jobs.”

That wipes the smirk instantly off his face.

His eyes go soft and that might be worse than when he threatened your cunt. 

“You think I don’t respect you.” It wasn’t a question but a surprised, almost hurt, statement. He sits up as best he can while still facing you. You were both irate and appreciative that you didn’t have to put it all into words. Words that would make you, again, feel like an overly emotional wimp. Someone with feelings. “You think I’m doing this – that I’m still doing this – because I want to humiliate you.”

You wait in silence for the pricking in your throat to subside before continuing on. “Is that not why? To bend that bitch as far as she’ll go before she breaks so everyone can see how much of a child she really is?”

His nostrils flare. “That’s the second time you’ve called yourself that tonight and I won’t stand for a third. Do you understand?”

His protectiveness flares so fast you aren’t quite sure what to do with it, so you nod.

“Good.”

Javier turns back around, his knees spread outright around the edge of the steering wheel, and picks the packet of cigarettes from underneath the radio. He wheels down the window again, rain spitting inside the inner ledge, and he lights up for the first time all night. His breath is shaky as he exhales through the crack he made. You can’t stop staring at the shine against his throat. What was rain and what was sweat? The golden lights from the store fronts and shops make the curls around his neck glow. 

“I’m sorry that by fighting with you, I made you feel inferior. If you can believe it, I actually respect the living shit out of you and I . . .” He taps out ash before dropping his gaze to his lap. “That was never my intention, but Christ alive, you drive me crazy.” 

If anyone ever asked, with a gun to your head, what was the one thing that immediately turned you on, you would without question answer with: Javier’s voice. How deep it got when he barked orders. How stern and serious it was when he directed raids and stationed soldiers. How playful it could be when you stopped trying to claw his eyes out. 

He inhales slowly, thoughtfully, before blowing out again, fully turning his shoulders away from you as if something he is ashamed to admit is crawling up his chest into his mouth. He presses back against the seat, his unoccupied fingers tapping on his thigh. 

“I think you’re one of the best agents I’ve ever met,” he confesses quietly. “Which should be the only opinion that matters, actually. I don’t say that to be egotistical – this bet isn’t about them. It’s between you and me, so fuck them. They’re all idiots and you know that. They know you know that and that’s why they want to take you down. Some men can’t stand it when a woman is smarter than them.”

Your tongue unsticks from the roof of your mouth. There is a heady mixture of pride, relief, and lust swirling lower and lower. He thought you were one of the best agents he’s ever met. Your lower half tightens at the praise, especially coming from him. “And you? What do you think?”

Javier grins. He flicks the butt end of the cigarette out the window and rolls it all the way up as he says,

“It’s a fucking turn on, is what I think.” His hips adjust towards you, that obnoxious belt buckle gleaming in the low light. Do not look at his crotch. He presses the backs of his two fingers against his mouth as he watches you. “But I’m not going to let you win this bet because you flutter your pretty eyes at me.” 

He knocks his temple against the headrest, gaze shamelessly sweeping up your thighs, your wrists – of course, your tits – your neck and then your lips. You had caught glimpses of this look from him before – when you were reporting to a room full of slobbering men with precision and direction, or when you kneed a suspect into the ground, pinning him down and cuffing him with the other hand or that one time you joined the game of volleyball at the agency picnic in nothing but a sports bra and swim trunks. But now, that unique Javi look that seemed reserved only for you, it barrels down on you in full force – not another agent or superior around the corner to drag his attention away. Without restraint, he let those dirty, nasty little thoughts spring into his mind and you can almost hear the moans you're making in his head. 

The desire that had been reduced to a simmer suddenly flares up in a fever pitch. Between your legs, your cunt aches at the mere hint of attention.

“Javier, don’t,” you warn. You try to back away, try to cut the argument in half like you do in the office by storming away down a hallway or into the bathroom or your car. But you can’t. You’re pinned by proximity under the weight of his stare. You’re not even fighting with him and he’s making you angry. 

Angry? God, leave it to fucking Javier Peña to prove to you that the line between rage and being outrageously turned on was a razor-thin edge. 

“I’m not even doing anything, baby,” he croons. He rounds his shoulders as if trying to lean forward, cover himself with his body. If you couldn’t see the whites of his knuckles around his clasped hands, you would have feared you would have been making this all up. “I’m not touching you, just like you asked.” 

“Thank you, Javi,” you squeak out. “Now, please let's just get back to–,”

“I could, though, if you change your mind.” His eyes follow a very predictable path up the curve of your throat. “I could touch you. Are you going to change your mind?” 

Even now, on the knife edge, even when he has been extraordinarily honest with you, you can’t make yourself say it. Can’t ask for it.

“It’s against the rules.” Because she's a traitor to you, your cunt leaks when you meet his jet black gaze. You feel the sweat on your neck return so fast you shiver. “I will kick you if you come over here again.” 

“You’re so mean to me but, fuck, I love it so much.” He smirks. With mounting horror, you watch as he lifts his hand, the same one that flew over your mouth, up to the lip of the center console. “Here I am pouring my goddamn heart out, and you want to resort to violence.” 

Not so much cautious, but more with the slow, syrupy flow of direct and deliberate intention, he brushes the backs of his fingers against your thigh. You jolt back, a muffed gasp caught between your teeth, but you don’t move to snatch his hand away. 

He watches your face for any hint of resistance. When he doesn’t find any, he continues, casually flowing the pads of his fingers from the top of your knee, all the way up to your hip.

“Do you wanna know what I think, baby?” He purrs. “I think, somewhere along the way, someone came along and really fucked you up. Hurt you beyond comprehension.” His touch is more insistent now, more of his fingers, his palm occasionally. His thumbs sweeps your inner thigh and your cunt clenches down onto nothing and your teeth ache in your head. 

“Javier–,” 

His eyes flutter for a minute at the sound of his name tearing through your mouth. “Fuck, you’re getting me distracted . . . what was I saying? Oh, yeah . . . I think someone fucked you up and like the fucking warrior you are, you built up safeguards to never let that happen again.” His eyebrow arches lazily as he palms your waist. By the sheer grace of God, you had tucked your shirt into your pants today, never wanting to give the men in the bullpen the satisfaction of an accidental flash of skin. But Javier just tuts at the intrusion. His knuckles digging into your skin, he pinches out the edge of your shirt, bit by bit. “Problem is, you kept building until you locked yourself in and now you don’t know how to get out. You don’t know how to ask nicely at all.” 

His broad palm slides uninterrupted under your shirt, smoothing the rough pads of his fingers across your stomach, and then up to the underwire of your bra. That’s enough to jerk you out of this dizzying haze. 

“Javi, you can’t–,” you squeeze your eyes shut, as tight as your cunt, as he threatens to brush his thumb over your teased nipple. “I–I don’t wanna – I don’t wanna lose –,”

“Fuck the bet, sweetheart. You can tell them I lost for all I care. Right now, I just wanna feel you gush between my fingers.” 

He doesn’t even need to touch your tit to yank that first moan out of you, but the breeze of his thumb only elongates the noise. Your own hand claps over your mouth this time, to muffle half of that stifled sound. 

“None of that now,” he purrs, switching the direction of his hand and going lower on your body. “It’s fine when we’re in public, but here, I want you hoarse from screaming my name as loud as you can.” 

“Javi, please–,” 

His hips twitch. Twitch so hard they jerk off the seat, the side of his crotch rubbing the steering wheel. His eyes roll back in his head.

“Juuust like that, baby. Keep saying my name just like that.” 

His fingers don’t slow down as they breach the waistband of your pants. He didn’t even unzip you so his entire warm hand is shoved right up against your coarse, damp hairs. 

“Fuck, is this sweat, baby, or is it from me? Please fucking lie if it's not and tell me it’s for me.” 

The pad of his middle finger skims the top of your lips, terrifyingly close to your clit and you finally react. Your clit throbbing, your fingers clamp down on his wrist and he freezes. But he’s panting, breathing harshly across the seat. 

“Don’t ask me to stop. Not right now. Please don’t –,”

Your hips buck into his palm and your head drops back against the window. You end up pressing him harder against you and you moan. 

“It’s you, Javier, I’m dripping for you.”

“Shit,” he snarls and rubs himself against the steering wheel again, anything to relieve the pressure. His fingers slide around the edges of your puffy, swollen lips, skitters across your pulsating clit, and you nearly orgasm from the direct touch. You jerk back, the denial of your orgasm almost painful, but because your waistband binds him to you, his fingers come with you and you bump into them again. You almost cry out at the intrusion, but his hand is still. 

“Can I touch you– c-can I put them inside you, baby – please?” 

Tight-lipped, you shake your head furiously, muffling nuh uh between your teeth. He hisses darkly.

“This can’t possibly still be about this stupid fucking bet –,”

“I don’t – w-w-wanna lose – I-I-I don’t wanna lose –,” you swallow, voice breaking, and you yank his hand out from your soaking underwear. You can’t bear to look at his fingertips, assuming from the ocean between your thighs, they’ll come out pruny. But the ache doesn’t go away. It lingers, waiting and lurking for the next touch. It’s been denied too many times tonight. Your head spinning, you gasp for breath for the split second he’ll allow. 

“You know, for such a smart woman, you really don’t get what’s best for you.” His other hand finally comes around and grabs your knee, pinning you apart with his broad hand and his other elbow as his fingers dive for the buttons of your pants. You try to shut your legs, but the box at your feet is immovable. “Just fucking relax and let me take you apart.”

“W-w-wait, Javier, that’s not–,”

His gaze pinning you down as much as his weight is, his fingers deftly unzipping your pants, sliding through the opening, and pressing up against your sodden panties. You gasp. It’s relief, painful, throbbing relief, but it comes at the cost of fire licking your spine. 

“But that’s not what you need, is it, pretty baby? That’s only part of it. Touching is one thing, but you need someone inside of you, don't you? Need someone to fuck up into that pretty cunt.” Your pussy swollen, you fight to breathe as much as it to fight off your impending orgasm. “Just say thank you, Javi when we’re done, alright?” 

Unrelenting and deaf to your cries, his fingers strip back your underwear and finally, finally, finally, he sinks two fingers into your hot, pulsating core. His shoulders shudder as you arch back, letting out a wail. Your thighs quake around the box in front of you. 

“‘Is so good. So warm.” He slurs. His hand releases your knee and slides up your hip to palm as much of your ass as he can reach. “Can’t tell you how long I’ve wanted to do this.” He inhales like he wants to haul you over the console into his lap, but that you resolutely cannot allow, because there would be no coming back from that. You can still see the other side of your orgasm, enough to stifle it back down, sequester it. He strokes your inner muscles, in and out, the wet sound obscene – you must be gushing – and he hums. “Listen to that, sweetheart. God, the things I could do with that. Put you over my fucking shoulder, for one.” 

Your release is roaring at you, the razor-edge of pain and pleasure digging into the meat of your pussy, as you fight again to deny what you actually really want. You plant your heels, rolling your hips against his fingers because if you were going to fucking lose, you were going to be the one to make you do it. Not him.

And then unprompted, he retreats his fingers and all but shoves them into his mouth. His hips buck up again and he’s not breathing properly. You shudder at the loss of contact but at least the edges of your vision return. God, you’re not sure how much more you can take. But there is some respite, even for a moment. Javi seems to have momentarily forgotten how close he had come to winning.

Saliva and your thready cum dripping from between his lip, Javier sucks on his fingers as if someone were threatening to cut off his hand. His hips bump lazily, distractedly, against the steering wheel as his other hand white-knuckles his knee. He licks his wrist up to the meaty side of his palm, never one to waste excess. 

“Fuck, fuck, f-f-fuck,” he murmurs, eyes closed. The sight has you flushing again. “I’m gonna eat that cunt whole if it’s the last thing I do. Gonna put you in my lap and bounce you on my cock until you beg me to let you –,”

“Come.” You command, sanity finally snapping as you use the same voice to scold rowdy students at the academy or talkative agents in a presentation. It’s forceful, direct, and you are hoping that it throws him off enough to do exactly that. Come, so you win fair and square. Because that means you can finally come too. 

It works.

Or it nearly does. 

Javier’s spine goes rigid, hips still, his soaked fingertips hovering inches from his wet lips. His eyes snap open and oh, shit, you’ve done it now, you’ve really done it now. His once blissed out face contorts into that scowl of primal determination that only comes down for raids. For meetings with sketchy CIs. Moments when lives are at stake. 

“What did you just say to me?” The growl is more gnarled wolf than human. You immediately back up as far as the car will allow, the front of your pants still undone. 

“Javi, I didn’t mean it, I’m sorry –,” By his expression, you half-expect him to throw open the door, storm around to your side, yank you to your feet and start fucking you against the car window. Your cunt is throwing a fucking riot at this point. She’s so pissed at you, she’s squeezing so tightly, you think she’ll suck the air right out of you. “I wasn’t thinking – i-i-it just slipped out –,” 

He unbuttons two more of his buttons on his shirt and you think, deliriously, he’s going to take his shirt off, but no, he’s just letting more heat escape. More steam rise from his sweaty back. He seems to grow, fill out, until he takes up the entire front seat of the car. 

“Please, please, don’t make me come, Javi.” You cry, shrinking back as far as you can. You might actually die from this. From him or a lack thereof. Either way, Javier Peña is going to destroy you. 

“I should leave you alone, you know.” He growls. “I should just leave you there to fucking drool into your jeans, smart little cunt knotted up so tight, I could breath on you and make you come. The kind of shit you pulled tonight, you fucking deserve to suffer. But I’m not going to do that and you know why?”

Without warning, his hand snatches around your wrist, yanking you up against the center console. He’s right, you’re so fucking close, the movement rubs you wrong and you squeak again.

Slowly, with superhuman restraint, his nose delicately strokes the underside of your jaw by your ear, then down your neck, as if inhaling the goosebumps that burst out across your skin. You shudder. “J-J-Javi, p-p-please –,” 

His other hand slides back up under your shirt, his fingers slotting in between your ribs, your back as arched as it can go. He feels you breath shakily and he closes his eyes. His next words are so soft, spoken so close to your cheek, you can feel the hairs there vibrate with the frequency of his voice.

“I’m not going to do that because I want you to know exactly what the fuck has the secretaries in a goddamn hissy fit over. I want you to think of me and me only every time you try to open your legs for anyone else. I want you to cry in frustration every time you can’t make yourself come with just your fingers because they’re not mine – they’re nowhere close to mine – and I want you to scream in frustration when I don’t pick up the phone. After tonight, I’m going to ruin you for everyone else.” 

He pauses, as if expecting an answer, but he couldn’t possibly think you are capable of responding, of dredging actual human thought up out of the murk he held you under. His lips drag gently over the arc of your cheek as he leans into your ear. His voice rumbles and you whine, embarrassed, at the sound alone.

“Because that’s what you’ve done to me.” 

No, no, that can’t possibly be right – it’s a trick. It’s a trap. It’s a lie. Javier Peña can’t actually be –

And then, in that same, slow timbre of voice, Javi says,

“I’m gonna finger-fuck you now, okay?”

Any chance of fighting back, of arguing still, is obliterated when his hand shoots back down between your thighs, surges past your underwear, and hooks his fingers up inside you again. This time it’s fast, he’s not waiting for you to gather your sense, he’s going to split you open, here in this fucking Pontiac. 

The force of his thrusts make your spine turn to ooze and you drop forward onto his shoulder. 

Fine. It’s fine. You’ll fucking lose. Who cares about your precious pride?

You don’t realize you’re whimpering in time with his fingers until you try to say his name. He cups the back of your head, reverently, as he spews more filth into your ear. As if the lewd noises he’s evoking from your pussy isn’t enough. 

“I’m going to take care of you, you little sweet cunt. I’m going to take care of you the way no one else has. That’s right, that’s a good little pussy, squealing for me. Hmm, tell me, does she like this?”

His thumb merely brushes your clit, the lone survivor in all of this, and your hips jolt in his hand. He holds you steady against his shoulder. Your fingernails dig into his bicep. 

“Oh, yeah, she does. Of course, she does. I can do that for as long as you like, alright?”

That white heat curls your body inwards, tearing your mouth open, and sending your eyes to the back of your head. “JaviJaviJaviJavi – please –,”

He tsks into your ear. “You keep saying that but you never tell me what you’re begging for.” 

It’s coming. It’s staggering. It eclipses everything and it’s just out of reach. You feel it start to expand and after all this time, it’s actually a fucking relief to give yourself over. To let yourself be rent asunder by something this huge and overwhelming. 

His fingers, the ones not rocketing you towards the biggest orgasm of your life, gently wind up into your hair, sweetly caressing the soft skin behind your earlobe. His voice is quiet, coaxing, kind. His lips almost kiss the ridges of your ear. 

“It’s okay, baby. I’ll tell you what to say. Say, Javi, I want you to make me come.” 

“Javi, I–,”

There’s an explosion.

No, not like that. He’s not that good.

It’s a literal explosion in the street, with flashes of flames and heat that rattle the car. Alarms go off, your vision goes white – because of a pipe bomb stationed out underneath a car parked outside the part-time gambling den, part-time brothel. Javi’s arm flings out in front of you as the car is rocked from the impact. Flames lick the charred out husk of the front of the building. Only when your ears stop ringing, do you finally hear the screaming. 

And then patter of bullets. 

“Baby, get your gun and stay low!” He roars, as the windshield of the car behind you shatters, the popping of gunfire echoing the distance. He lunges back and grabs his jacket, fumbling for his gun. The panic in his voice shakes you awake and you dig into the glove box for your own handheld. 

It’s a firefight for your lives, in the middle of the rain, in the middle of chaos and smoke. 

It’s time to go to work. 

🤍Part 2

[alexanderwales]

Pitchposting: Bad Detectives

content warning: bdsm, sexual violence, suicide, murder, police

Pitchposting is when you write about a thing that you're not going to write to exorcise the demons.

I was a big fan of the Hannibal TV show, partly because it was a bit silly. I'm worried that the thing I'm going to describe here will feel like a riff on that, but hopefully it's just an influence. The actual core of the idea came while watching Presumed Innocent.

The book follows two detectives who hunt serial killers. I'm not sure I care all that much about actual serial killers or the actual people who hunt them, though I have read a few nonfiction books from former FBI people, mostly to make sure I understand the perspective of government employees and how their process of self-mythologizing goes (for a different book). This book takes place in one of those worlds where there are a ton of serial killers, they're clever and artistic and tortured, and they're caught by looking at their signatures and through careful psychoanalysis rather than security cameras, fingerprints, and other features of the national security panopticon.

Our male lead is scruffy and tightly clenched. He's a loner. He doesn't talk much, but when he does, it's insightful and poignant. He's weird, but not in a way that maps well to any actual diagnosis. He's extremely good at getting inside the head of serial killers, understanding their patterns, knowing the things that will give them away, how they'll inevitably slip up or be caught. To the extent we get his inner thoughts, he is absolutely fucked in the head: the only reason you wouldn't call him a serial killer is that he's never actually killed anyone, and the only reason he hasn't done it is because it's wrong. He instead satisfies his urges through his job with the FBI, which allows him access to tons and tons of photographs and the chance to visit crime scenes, to talk to serial killers, to confront his darkness over and over, flirting with it. Maybe there's actually some question whether he has killed someone, and in what circumstances, if he's an Ethical Serial Killer of some kind. You can smell the frustrated impulses on him.

Our female lead is carefully put together and very cold. She's a loner. She doesn't talk much, but when she does, she's sad and distant. She's weird in a way that doesn't map to any diagnosis. She's fastidious. She has eight of the exact same suit and three pairs of the same shoes. She's extremely good at getting in the heads of serial killers, which again, is the main way that serial killers are caught in this world rather than, I don't know, loads of interviews, tip lines, etc. She is absolutely fucked in the head: she's drawn to killers like a moth to flame. She is, essentially, prey incarnate, a lamb who would willingly lie down to be brutalized by the lion. The only reason she hasn't been killed is that she has a sense of self-preservation and thinks that killing and hurting people is wrong. She satisfies her urges through her work, which gets her access to serial killers, lets her interview them, lets her see the crime scenes and imagine herself in them, etc.

I think for the purposes of pitchposting, we could stop there. Obviously we have two completely insane people in a very high-stress high-stakes job who happen to match each other in a way that no human ever actually does. They have these private inner lives that they cannot, under any circumstances, share with other people, but the central tension is that if they did share with each other, they would find that they're a perfect fit.

The scene that's been kicking around in my head is the two of them trying to recreate a crime scene together, with her in the role of victim and him in the role of perpetrator. They're in their work clothes, conservatively dressed, both playing the part of professional, and each actually thinking while they're playing it cool "wow, this is so hot, god I wish this were real".

It's basically this, as a fucked up psycosexual erotic thriller/romance:

I think as far as this core relationship goes, it's pretty solid. Both have a dark secret, their dark secrets complement each other, there's plenty of reason for both of them to misunderstand the other (because both would naturally assume that the other is repulsed rather than attracted).

But at the end of the line, I'm not sure what an ending would look like for the two of them. He's not just a sadist, he has a hunger for murder, and his whole character orientation has been around trying to satisfy those urges in other ways that don't quite work. And she's not just a masochist, she has erotic suicidality, which I might have just coined (but probably did not). The ending that their internal drives are pointing at is with him as a killer and her dead. That would be a very daring ending, and I'm not sure what it would mean ... but I also don't know what ending would work better, or even what the themes of this book would be, other than just "look at these two freaks". (And of course the audience for the book is people who see themselves in one or the other of these two freaks. I'm using "freaks" affectionately here.)

The main problem is that this is all sort of gross. Hannibal steered away from sexual violence, one major notable exception aside, vaguely implying it sometimes but often using murder as a stand-in for sex. I thought the show worked best when it was the most divorced from reality, when it was being serious about its camp. The serial murders are works of art, things of beauty, dark and horrible but also aesthetic and neatly planned.

Maybe you can do that here. Maybe serial killers in this world have absolutely no interest in sexual violence of any kind. Maybe our protagonists are vaguely sexless themselves, and when they're acting out murders together the sex stuff exists only in the mind of the reader. And then when they do have sex, if they do, then that's a stand-in for murder. This is less gross than, e.g. having sexually violent crimes that sexually excite our protagonist, at least in my opinion, maybe because that would be less divorced from reality.

A woman with an interest in getting raped is ... I mean, there are real women like that out there, ones who have that fantasy and ones who actually would want to make that fantasy a reality in some way. But a woman who thinks it's hot to be ritually stabbed fifty-two times in the stomach is less real, and her dark desire is more clearly a stand-in for other dark desires, whatever repressed urge our audience feels, or sees in others, or how we understand ourselves and our thoughts. Easier to do the mapping when it's clear that we're not mapping to anything substantially real. (Knowing humans, I am sure that there probably is someone out there with vivid fantasies about basically anything, but if I wrote the story it would be with "this is not literally about dismemberment, decapitation, vivisection, bondage, stabbing, etc." in mind.)

I think having the serial killers be over the top also helps to take you out some of what tends to be a icky about true crime. It becomes clear that this is a fantasy, that it's exploring something in our brains, rather than doing the typical procedural thing of "ripped from the headlines". These would be killers with their own weird fucked up demons they let free, artists, rather than the serial killers we get in the real world, who are mostly impulse idiots. I think it's easy to not be exploitative if you're completely divorcing yourself from reality.

I think I'm the wrong person to write this, which makes it perfect for a pitchpost. I enjoyed Hannibal, but it seems like an exhausting thing to write, and trying to strike the right balance for both main characters seems tough and like an ongoing battle I'd be fighting with every word. There'd be a risk of teetering over into grimderp shock value at every turn.

I'm trying, right now, to think about a way to have that same dynamic I like without it being some sex-murder thing, and I'm coming up blank. Two people who are serious professionals with a dark secret whose careers are ostensibly about stopping that thing ... you know, maybe just set the story in a repressive society where the things they think are horrible and would offend the other are things we maybe find a little boring or everyday, though this loses you the aspect of "our desires would literally destroy us". So I don't think it would be quite the same, but I'd be more likely to write it, rather than wallowing in the sexy murdersphere.

[theflyindutchwoman]

Wait, is she touching you? She's touching you, isn't she? Hey, you know what? If she offers you money for sex, I'm gonna win this bet. Look, I am down to do whatever you want. Yeah, you are.

| ANATOMY OF A SCENE - CHENFORD EDITION 4.07 - Fire Fight

What I love about this scene is how unassuming it appears to be : for all intents and purposes, this moment is meant to offset the more serious and dramatic part of the episode. Nothing else. And yet, it hides so many layers… One of them is how it actually gives us an aperçu of Tim and Lucy going undercover together at the end of the season. With the way they flirt here, it makes their practice kiss and all their display even more inevitable. And this is the perfect continuation of Lucy's last UC op, where she flirted with him to pass him the informations she had (and save his life). That their default mode while undercover is to flirt says everything… Those mission really gives them the cover and freedom they need to explore their feelings without revealing their hand. Having Tim go undercover, with Lucy as his handler, is also a perfect role reversal, where the student has become the master. He doesn't once question her expertise : he might protest but it's more out of habit than anything else. It's certainly never out of malice. Now add Tim's baggage when it comes to that line of work… And it brings out another layer. Interestingly though, this side is not explored. The aim here is to ease him into this, without triggering any bad memories the way Lucy's very first op did. This is a short stint, with no high stakes. And this explains why he doesn't protest much when Lucy suggests he goes undercover as Jake in the first place : the fun they have here might have played a part.

Lucy is definitely enjoying this way too much, instantly ragging on Tim's choice of clothes when he shows up at the rendezvous. They haven't even started yet and he looks done already. This is such a good reminder of their first dynamic : grumpy/sunshine. He just can't hide his smile, even in front of her, anymore - like when she recites the UC rules. The walls are down. Also, the fact that she had a jacket ready for him, clearly having expected this to happen, just shows how well she knows him.

But aside from all this fun, there's this undercurrent of tension that rises to the surface when Tim puts the jacket on… or when he lifts his shirt off, showing off his abs… The atmosphere here is so different than when she caught him wearing only a towel at Rachel's place. There is an awareness now that wasn't there yet. And it's even more intense with their close proximity. Or with Lucy having to touch him. It's just so intimate. The looks they exchange… It's electric. It's close to how it felt for a moment at Tim's place… Until he realises that she's placing the mic too high on his chest… Is it distraction? Is it on purpose? Either way, the way she rips off the tape, looking so smug, and his high-pitched scream are hilarious. Her sorry doesn't even sound sorry at all. #sorrynotsorry

And from there, it goes completely unhinged. Only these two would openly flirt and riling the other up while one of them is undercover. Now, to be fair, it started normally, with Lucy coaching Tim. But the second Aston began flirting with him, professionalism went out of the window. Then again, these are the same idiots who were making out 'for work', so maybe it is their definition of professionalism. Tim is trying to remain in-character but Lucy is having the time of her life, listening to their conversation. His smirk when Aston caresses his hand and Lucy comments on it, reminding him of their bet and how he might unwittingly help her win it if their mark keeps this up… They are so flirty here, openly, taking advantage of the situation… And that really lays the groundwork for Vegas. The fact that Lucy is basically whispering in his ear, that he can't see her, brings a certain level of intimacy… And while he is talking to Aston, his reactions are for Lucy. Like his big smile : sure, he is amused by their suspect's behavior, but I have a hard time believing that this isn't Lucy's comments that provoked it. There's such a double meaning to their dialogue… Like when he tells their suspect he is 'down to do whatever [she wants]', with Lucy instantly answering him with her iconic 'yeah you are'… She couldn't have said it in a more lusty tone.

This is all ambiguous, giving them plausible deniability. It allows them to act in a less than professional way, but without any repercussion. Almost as if they're testing the water. And it makes sense that Tim tries to take a step back after this mission, to reclaim some boundaries… Well, for a short while. All of this just comes back in full force when they have to go undercover as a couple… with no going back.

[hexagonalhavoc]

Hi! This is my first ever request and I hope I'm doing it correctly (Sorry if I'm not). I really like your Inscryption works and was wondering if you could do one with the reader and P03 where the reader doesn't take injuries seriously and makes P03 worried and confused. (Again sorry if I'm not doing this right! Love your works!! <3)

Bolts and Bruises 

P03 x Reader

[Author’s Note: Hi and thanks for requesting! You did everything perfectly and I’m glad to know you like my work, I hope you like this one too! :D

⚠️ Mentions of blood, stitches, P03 is scared of reader dying in the future but this story has a good ending]

     P03 has gazed upon your being times, felt your hands on his exterior, and heard the imperfections of your voice. And yet it’s so easy for him to forget that you aren’t like him. You are a being who bruises and bleeds. 

     In the beginning of your relationship you would be berated every time you came back with the even the tiniest scratches on your arms. It would take him a while to cease his angry ramblings about how “reckless” and “stupid” you were for getting yourself hurt. 

     Of course your partner was always going to have a temper but he’s getting better at not directing it towards you. You can tell it’s a struggle for him but he’s trying to open up. To him, it feels wrong to be emotional but he doesn’t want to lose you because of his own pride. 

     You knew very well that your partner wasn’t fond of seeing your wounds. It unnerves him to see cuts in your flesh. Regardless, he insists on stitching up your deep cuts because: “your hands are too shaky to do anything so how can I trust you with a needle?” You admit that he does have a point about that. Somehow he’s able to hold the needle perfectly still within his claws and stitch up your arm cleaner than any professional surgeon can. 

     “You can stop if you want, I can wrap it up myself.” You offer as you slowly pull your arm away. 

     He’s trying his hardest not to look bothered at tending to your wound but you can tell that it’s not something he wants to be doing. His monitor is too expressive for him to be able to lie to you. It’s endearing how he tries to help despite how uncomfortable it makes him. You don’t have to tell him twice as his claw moves away from your arm. 

     You begin to wrap the thick bandage securely over your wound. You’re not one to wrap up your wounds but you know if you don’t your lover will throw a fit. His factory was not inhabited by a single germ within its metal confines and yet he was so worried over your wound getting infected. It’s always funny to you that people mistake him to be uncaring because you know that’s far from the truth. You don’t even think you’ve seen humans feel as deeply as he does and that’s why you deal with his overbearing nature. 

     “See? Good as new.” You lightly pat on the bandages surrounding your arm as you attempt to reassure him. 

     “Until you do something stupid again.” P03 retorts. It’s really not as malicious as it sounds. In fact, his issue is never about a scratch or bruise. It’s about a fear that it planted itself within his systems the moment he realized his feelings for you. 

    You were not made to last forever. Someday there’s going to be a wound that will leave its eternal damage. Your body will turn on you and the only thing he’ll be able to do is watch as time takes you away. When you put your hand on his screen and promise that you’ll always be by his side he knows it’s a lie. From the moment you were born, death had staked its claim on you.

     But it would be cruel to try and hide you away from the dangers of the world. It would be like never letting a machine fulfill its purpose. Even if it breaks down and becomes inoperable at least it did what it was created to do. He knows that you were created to experience the world. To enjoy the sun on your skin, to laugh, to cry, to feel pain. 

     But that doesn’t make knowing that your time is fleeting any easier. 

     “Well at least whenever I get hurt I can come to you.” You attempt to comfort him. You lean over the table to hold his claw with your hand, thumb gliding over the small ridges and dents within the metal. “I know you’ll always be there for me and that’s makes any sort of pain hurt less.” 

     The claw tightens around your hand but not to an uncomfortable degree. You make it so hard to feel anything negative when you speak like that. It’s so easy to forget about what cruelties the future has in store. 

     It’s near impossible to see but there’s a tiny camera on his exterior. P03 wonders how much pictures and videos he can take of all your sweet moments together until his memory card is full. He’s never been a sentimental person but you’re worth being forever preserved within his systems. 

     Deep down he knows that he’ll never really lose you. Everyone leaves some sort of mark on the world and you’ve left one on him. He’ll carry the memories and the things you have given him until he withers away to time as well. 

     “Now that my arm is wrapped up I wanna try playing with my new card.” You pull something out of your pocket and set it down on the table. 

     “At last! Stimulation!”

[batsplat]

I’m gonna sound like a boomer but we’re never gonna get any rivalries on par with vale’s feuds or actually any pre late 2010s feuds anymore. and I think social media is definitely one of the major reasons why. now you have to watch what you say bc it’s gonna be immediately broadcasted and some your 253655665 followers or insta or twitter are gonna overreact and go hurl abuse in another guy’s comments. and this is so lame.

right there with you anon. I've been wondering about the 'why are athletes these days so boring' question for years (not in motogp specifically) and one theory I've seen touted is just the increased professionalisation of sports, how much more all-consuming it is from childhood onwards - essentially suggesting athletes today don't have the time to develop a personality or cook up feuds lol. and I think there's probably something to that theory - the current demands of professional sports are inevitably producing some singularly single-minded athletes, far more pr-friendly and moulded into being acceptable to the average consumer... but the other part of the equation just has to be the incredible levels of scrutiny they're subjected to. social media and the rabid fanbases it helps cultivate have to be a part of that

I'm always wary of speaking too definitively about the vibes of an era I wasn't around to experience - obviously controversies back then were also, in fact, controversial, sometimes athletes had to walk back their comments, fanbases certainly were rabid... but it's all a question of degree, isn't it - and how relentless the content consumption is, the ferocity of the news cycle, how inescapable everyone's opinions on everything end up being. if you look at the general tone of the alien era, I just don't think that kind of thing would be possible nowadays. it really wasn't just valentino either, and it's always worth remembering the context of the time in which valentino rose through the ranks. his first major feud, after all, was with a notoriously abrasive rider who was hardly beloved by his non-valentino opponents - and let's not forget how he was physically threatened by two riders after his very first grand prix (to be clear, I am not endorsing threatening seventeen year olds and think it's probably quite good they don't do that anymore). god, if casey said some of the stuff he used to come out with nowadays, and not just about valentino either... the discourse, it would be bad. the jorge/dani feud too would surely have reached cataclysmic levels of toxicity

and there's a lot of people who say, 'well, why don't you think competitors can just be respectful to each other, why can't athletes just be tough in competition and friendly outside of it, why do you need everyone to hate each other' - look, I think it's fun! sports is supposed to be about extreme emotions, heightened emotions about these artificial contests that feel larger than life. in one sense, it really isn't that serious, but on the other hand it obviously couldn't be more serious. more important than life or death, as the cliché goes, or that orwell 'war minus the shooting' quote mat oxley is ever so fond of - but that's only because we ascribe it meaning. which allows it to exist in this fun zone where we can live out these bizarrely dramatic stories that are high on emotional stakes, but for all intents and purposes are rather less high on material stakes (certainly for the fan). it's a release of a kind, sometimes an escape. now, personally, I enjoy my drama with a little bit of edge, of nastiness, which I understand is a personal preference but don't think (as is sometimes suggested) means I am any less invested in the sporting side of the equation. it is the substance of the sport that provides the scaffolding for the human interest stories it generates, but fundamentally nobody would give a shit about sports without the human interest element - and to me, a feud is simply an extension of that principle

another probably controversial critique of the 'why can't everyone like each other' stance is that I just fundamentally believe it to be dishonest. or, look, maybe there are some competitors out there who can feel nothing but warmth and love in their hearts for the opponent who has just beaten them - which is very lovely for them, they're clearly far better people than I am. but I don't buy everyone feels that way and I also don't buy this is something that has changed with a generation or two. obviously, the norms within any given sport end up shaping how the athlete approaches competition, what they believe is acceptable to say or do, or even to think or feel. the emotions might be visceral, they may even resemble hate, but the question is to what extent we allow them to be expressed. if these people don't like each other, if they think uncharitable thoughts towards each other, then, y'know, let them have at it as far as I'm concerned. respect is overrated. and even when it's not just earnestly felt emotions, even when they really are just playing games, attempting to fuck with their rivals... well, that's the other question, is it. is it acceptable to deliberately attempt use 'psychological' tactics, perhaps even intimidation, to win a contest or not? to me, the answer is 'obviously yes' and 'that's how sports works', but I accept not everyone agrees lol

I have particularly little patience with this stance in motogp, I think, because the belief that 'riding in a manner that could physically hurt another human being' is an acceptable element of competition but 'not conforming to social niceties afterwards' is not feels viscerally absurd to me. now, the former just has to be countenanced to some degree or other as part of the moral calculus you are performing in even engaging with the sport, because fundamentally you cannot 'objectively' determine how much risk riders can acceptably put each other in before it crosses a moral line. as far as I'm concerned, then, you might as well have at least some patience for the latter too - we're already morally firmly in the grey here. and intimidation still happens, after all, mind games are still all the flavour... but there's this constant need for subtlety, to keep the nastier side of competing hush hush, that I find deeply tedious. sure, sometimes subtlety can be nice, but at this point it feels less like a personal preference and more an ironclad requirement. and this is the thing, right. sometimes, people are arseholes. professional athletes certainly are. sometimes, just like their fans, they feel violently extreme emotions. especially if they've just been competing. but of course, if every single controversy attracts such out-sized vitriol from fans, a moral referendum on everyone involved, a boiling pot of feverish partisanship... well, it's unsurprising if athletes try to steer clear from all that, isn't it

I also don't think we're going to get another feud that can get mentioned in the same breath as valentino's offerings any time soon, though perhaps next year we can have a good go at it. (ironically, of course, this is still an extension of one of his feuds - you have this built-in vitriol which I reckon at times allows it to worm its way past the filters all of these people have developed.) which, you know, I don't need them to artificially cook up feuds just for the sake of it. beyond broader trends between generations, obviously this is also a question of individual personalities and how they happen to interact with each other. if valentino's feuds are as good as it gets, I can live with that - I do still enjoy the sport plenty, am grateful to valentino for providing me so much good archival material to pour over and dissect, and don't want to ask for too much here. god knows, the current version of motogp is still highly dramatic by the standards of my main sport, and unfortunately I still watch that shit all the time. but it's still a bit of a shame that competitors don't seem to get a lot of choice in the matter these days. and it's a bit of a shame that fans seemingly prefer it this way, going by the vitriol they heap on athletes over any and every offence. it's also a bit of a shame that it feels like there's no real escaping the relentless partisanship of online fan spaces. personally I'm not all that into discoursing about whether things are 'good' or 'bad' and more into establishing whether something's 'interesting' and then thinking about it some more, which doesn't feel like much of an option if you for some reason ever get struck by the desire to interact with other fans online. but it is what it is, y'know. at least we'll always have that time valentino put a curse on a guy

[thebibutterflyao3]

Day Fifteen - Candles @sapphicmicrofics

April Daily Series - 659 words

<<<Previous Parts OR Start Here

The curry shop they decided on was a little eatery tucked between a dry cleaners and a pharmacy. From the outside, it looked quaint and comfortable with a curved red awning over the entrance and hand-painted white flowers on the door. Inside, there was a stunning burgundy and gold colour scheme with a modern, glass chandelier that resembled a hundred little pieces of paper hanging from black stakes. Every table held lit candles and each place setting was elegantly set with a wine glass, water glass, folded cloth napkin, and silverware.

Marlene whistled low, so only Lily could hear it. “Wow, this place is posh.”

Lily nodded, eyes wide with surprise as she approached the host stand. As she requested a table for the group, Marlene slipped past Pandora to elbow James. His smirk told her everything that she needed to know.

“You picked this place on purpose, didn’t you?” she said, narrowing her eyes.

Regulus leaned past James and whispered, “He asked which of the curry places nearby was the most expensive. This one is deceptively simple from the outside, but it’s the best one I’ve found in SoHo.”

“Modest on the outside, lush on the inside. Just like me,” James said, biting the inside of his cheek hard to hold back laughter.

His boyfriend looked him over from top to bottom and scoffed, “Modest is the last word I would use to describe you. If anything, you’re overconfident.”

As the couple continued their weird flirting, Marlene checked her mobile again. She had three texts from Sirius and two from Pete. After Pandora sent Dorcas that last photo, she was hoping to receive a text herself. If Dorcas was that concerned about her, Marlene was happy to assuage her worries directly.

I know better. Dorcas doesn’t crawl for anyone, even me.

There was a time when Marlene held enough value for Dorcas to be worth her effort. She left London hoping that Dorcas would miss her. That one day, she’d find a text or voicemail on her phone from the woman that she pedestalled like the Venus she was for an entire year. It never happened.

“This way, please,” the host said. The older, West Asian man led the way to a large booth along the front windows. As they settled into their seats, he handed out menus and collected drink orders. When he finally reached Marlene, his eyes bugged wide. “Oh! Are you well, my dear?”

Marlene winced. She’d almost forgotten how bruised her face was after the “incident” this morning. “Yes, just a small mishap with a door.”

“May I bring you anything?” he asked, quickly returning to his professional demeanour.

“Beer? Vodka? Whatever you have with alcohol in it.”

The man nodded, then rushed away from the table. Marlene hoped that she hadn’t spooked the bloke. Peter told her often enough that she could be “off-putting” and “abrasive” when she was in pain.

“It’s not that bad,” Pandora said. “Your bruising is a lovely shade of purple now. It suits your skin tone beautifully.”

Marlene huffed a laugh. “Yeah, that’s why I always have them. Bruises are my favourite accessory.”

“I thought you preferred to hide your bruises.” Dorcas’s voice raised goosebumps on her skin as she walked toward their table. She was stunning in a deep purple pantsuit with a matching rosette tie at her throat. Overdressed as usual, Dorcas was a vision of loveliness.

“Depends how good the story is behind the bruise, and if I’m willing to tell it,” Marlene replied smoothly. Never was she more grateful for her mouth running faster than her mind.

Dorcas quirked an eyebrow at her as she slid into the only open seat left, directly across from Marlene. That had to be intentional too. These twats were clearly determined to see a row before she left. The host reappeared and handed Dorcas a menu.

“What about scars?” Dorcas asked quietly, thumbing through the menu. “Still hiding those too?”

“Only the internal ones.”

Next Part>>>

[pinkykats-place]

BakuDeku ft. No Quirks AU

AO3 Fanfic Recommendations

Disclaimers!

None of the stories linked below are mine.

All are SFW / no smut … still check tags.

Art not mine … from “Puppies Puppies” story.

Note: If you read any of these works and like them please let the author know with a kudos and/or comment!

Puppies Puppies by Esselle

Summary: Katsuki thinks he has everything he needs in life: a successful pet shop, an occasionally reliable assistant, and the unconditional love of the twenty puppies he’s raising for adoption. But when the tattoo parlor next door hires Midoriya Izuku, a hot sailor with an affinity for dogs, it makes Katsuki wonder if he might need something more.

Like… a piece of that ass. Maybe. He’s figuring it the hell out as he goes.

Complete | 2 Chapters

Can I Have Your Number? by Astranger015

Summary: Bakugou tries to get Izuku's phone number. (Cafe AU)

Complete | 7 Chapters

Working On The Weekend by CallMeCharles (dinkelbeerrgg)

Summary: The wonder duo has been working together for years to expose the worst the world has to offer. One villain has always remained out of reach by keeping his hands out of the pie, but now that an entire civilization is at stake, the wonder duo and their team have the opportunity to save lives and win a decades-long battle. As long as they don't get distracted.

— — —

Or the team has to work an undercover mission and Katuski is too emotionally constipated to understand why he's so pissed about Izuku getting tons of attention from a handsome extra. But with a bunch of spy cliches and action movie drama.

Complete | 24 Chapters

Cuddle Buddy by category6

Summary: Katsuki Bakugo wasn't expecting his friends to send him a 'Cuddle Buddy' for his birthday, but quite despite himself, he suprisingly liked the service when the man who knocked on his door was cute, freckly, and good at his job.

After he ended up calling this 'Deku' guy back for more cuddling services, he found himself hoping that at least some of Izuku's kind words and gestures were real.

He also hoped that the fact that he couldn't stop thinking about the cute freckled man wouldn't become a problem.

[Professional Cuddler au]

{One Shot}

I’m not looking for somebody with some superhuman gifts by PassingShadow

Summary: Izuku is a professional cuddler and Katsuki is his new client that’s just a little rough around the edges, and needs a natural healing touch.

[Professional Cuddler au]

{One Shot}

The New Assistant by dracofides

Summary: “My name is Izuku. I am a prototype created by CyberLife Japan. My main purpose is modeling, but I can also do any sort of assistance.”

“What the fuck?”

...

His mother brought home a new android, only the new android was unlike any android Katsuki has ever seen.

[Fashion au]

{One Shot}

Case Closed by spicymacaron

Summary: The squad finally meets Bakugou’s mysterious long-distance boyfriend, Deku, but he’s not what they expect.

{One Shot}

Empty by Mikacrispy

Summary: When bored billionaire Bakugou sees his old childhood friend down on his luck, living on a park bench, he can't help dragging him home and taking care of him.

He can't help falling in love either.

[unintentional sugar daddy au]

{One Shot}

The Dive Bar by huliganships

Summary: Katsuki gets dragged out by his friends. He plans to indulge them for an hour before ditching them and going home again. His plans are being overthrown though when his eyes meet a pair of eyes that threaten to pull him under and into the green depths of the sea.

{One Shot}

Are you into science? Because I LAB you! by huliganships

Summary: “Are you checking out the florist?” Kirishima whispered to him.“And what if I am?” Katsuki shot back, his eyes not leaving the figure of the green-haired man in front of them.

“Please don’t use one of your stupid pick-up lines on him. He knows what he’s doing and maybe I want to come back here sometime.”

“I will absolutely use one of those,” Katsuki answered. “I’m not willing to invest time in someone too stupid to get chemistry jokes.”

{One Shot}

Trophy by Mikacrispy

Summary: After winning the State Championship with his football team, Izuku promises himself he'll tackle an even greater challenge - asking his crush out on a date.

It's way easier to throw balls on the field than it is to face Katsuki, the feisty top student in their school.

[High School AU]

{One Shot}

Shoto, The Siamese Cat, Gives His Statement by GinaDeSpell

Summary: We observe the vicissitudes of Shoto, the Siamese cat, as he observes the growing love life of his owner Izuku Midoriya with Katsuki Bakugo, and how the feline makes them come to their senses when they are being stupid.

{One Shot}

Love (Won't) Tear Us Apart by Golden_Writes

Summary: After stumbling upon "Nitro Records", a vintage record store, Izuku can't help himself from going back almost every day to see the explosive blond behind the counter and maybe buy a vinyl or two. The catch? Izuku doesn't actually own a record player! [Music Store AU]

{One Shot}

Watching You by Mikacrispy

Summary: Katsuki uses his position as Head of Security to watch Deku, the CEO's secretary, through the CCTV every day. He knows he's bordering on stalking, but it's worth putting up with the teasing of his friends just to see Deku's crazy antics when he thinks he's all alone.

— — —

Or: Good-hearted stalker Bakugou

{One Shot}

Cheese Nachos and Pretty Boys by Chumpy

Summary: This whole day was very quickly crashing and burning, and Izuku realized he'd probably never recover. For one, the Triple Cheese Extreme Nachos he had for lunch were definitely negatively affecting his digestive system as they spoke, and two, he'd gotten the attractive Claire's employee's attention in the worst possible way.

Never again would Izuku Midoriya show his face in this Claire's, nor in the food court, nor to the outside world, probably; never again would Izuku Midoriya let himself feel confident.

— — —

(Or, Izuku goes to Claire's.) [Mall AU]

{One Shot}

Momentum by meteormind

Summary: "You be the girl," Katsuki tells him.

"But... we're both boys," the dummy says like Katsuki doesn't have eyes.

"So? There has to be a girl. And I'm taller." Katsuki skates his hand over the shrubby mess of Twig's hair to his own cheek. "See?"

"Why do you get to be the boy just because you're tall? There are tall girls too." Twig looks around the room at all the poofy-skirted girls. "I don't want to be the girl."

"Someone has to be the girl, and you already look like one so it might as well be you, ya girly twig-boy."

Twig gasps. "I am not a girly twig-boy!"

— — —

Martial Artist Katsuki x Violinist Izuku

RIP Kacchan's Toes

Complete | 3 Chapters

Rated - Teen & Up

Sugar Stardust by milkcandie

Summary: Between baking pretty macarons and sculpting wedding cakes, Katsuki slowly falls in love with a certain green-haired coworker who has effervescent stars in his eyes. Maybe working as a pastry chef in Nowhere, Japan isn't so bad after all, especially when he’s in such close proximity to a boy who manages to beautify every little thing in his presence.

☆ A pâtisserie AU where Katsuki and Izuku are really the perfect ingredient for each other.

Complete | 14 Chapters

[acertainmoshke]

I’m looking for beta readers!

I mentioned this before, but I’m going to make a separate post to see if I get any interest. If you aren’t interested I totally get it and that’s fine but please reblog this if you can so more people see it!

I usually write and talk about adult SFF, but this is not that. This is a low stakes realistic middle grade book about a disabled autistic girl making a new friend and learning to accept her needs. It’s only about 21k words and since I have a free account on betabooks, I’m looking for 3 people to read it and give feedback on plot coherency and interest level, mostly. It’s already been professionally edited and shouldn’t need much grammar work. I would also appreciate title suggestions—the working title is “Fae and Brownie,” but I’d like something more memorable.

Disclaimers: (1) it is in first person present tense (I know some people don’t like that) and (2) it is purposely exposition heavy to emphasize how she has to manually process concepts that are automatic for others. The only possible tw is “polite,” child-understandable levels of transphobia against her parent as part of the b-plot. Also, this is a story about disability pride—the point has nothing to do with her learning to behave or “be good.” (A disclaimer I now include after a shocking comment I got one time from a previous reader).

I’m happy to swap beta reading if anyone likes, but I’d prefer if whoever wants to read mine has at least some interest in and experience with children’s books.

I’m going to include a snippet from chapter 2 below the cut so you can decide if it sounds interesting. If you’re interested please DM me or reply/reblog this post. Thank you in advance!

Now Ms. Luna is on the floor in front of me, bent down like adults do to when they talk to little kids. Not 10-year-old kids, except they still do it to me. Mama says that if I stand up tall and smile and talk to people using the big words I do at home, they won’t think I’m like a little kid. I think she doesn’t understand school.

“Fae, we’re going to work on spelling worksheets. Can you come back to your desk, please?”

Ms. Luna doesn’t look angry. She doesn’t look sad. She doesn’t look anything. But I’m still scared to say no, because that can get me in trouble sometimes.

“Fae, come on. I know you like spelling, and I need you to participate, ok?”

I wonder if teachers ever get annoyed when they’re stuck with the really weird kids.

She won’t go away until I use words, so I say, slowly and carefully, “I want to stay here.”

“I know, but you’ve been here for over fifteen minutes and you can’t miss a whole lesson or you won’t know the words for Friday’s quiz.”

I’m tired. It’s been a long day. I peek over her shoulder and all the other kids are looking at me. Their eyes feel like lasers. I want to go home. And suddenly I’m angry, because it’s not fair. It’s not fair that I’m supposed to do as well as everyone else even though the world hurts me and not them. It’s not fair that people still talk to me like I’m in kindergarten. And it’s not fair that they always look at me like I’m a puzzle or a slug and not a person.

I hate being angry. My anger is red and liquid and fills me up until it overflows. I scream without meaning to. I want to scream “I hate you” but the words are stuck in my throat, and that makes me even more angry. I know better than to throw things, but all I want is to do what I’m not supposed to. I want Ms. Luna to hurt like I do.

[lesser-mook]

GARO: The Animation (anime recommendation) - Action, Dark Fantasy (Shonen Elements done right)

(light spoilers)

I saw this once a few years ago, didn't leave much impression at the time.

After a re-watch (Autumn 2023); Surprisingly character driven, character development was well paced (so well paced for some, It left room for a lot of remaining exploration for others)

The show technically has more than one mc, and it works because instead of NPC's hijacking the story from the mains, the mc's are given focus, thus time isn't wasted or robbed from the characters that should have priority. And the extras serve to world-build, & some filler I found myself enjoying.

Well executed action. (Not a fan of some of the CGI)

Music production is from Monaca, Keiichi Okabe's studio (NIER Game series).

Story isn't deep, it's simple.

The setting fits the tone well. (Dark fantasy, Medieval)

Sub is better, Dub is satisfactory. Both good.

Likable core cast, Ema is the Goat. Alfonso the Legend, Leon the beast. Germán the OG Playa.

Again, the side characters fit appropriately to give some world building, everyone isn't contrived to have the same level of importance despite being NPC's.

No, when it's the extras time to shine, they shine, then they bow down as they should. And the main characters are the main characters.

The fanservice didn't overstay it's welcome, didn't annoy me:

(Translation: Not a lot of stock jailbait/schoolgirls getting bent over, ya know, for the "kids"*), majorly it's played casual, it's just women that look sexy for the most part.

Not like a *Camera ZOOMS in on cleavage with bounce animation, sparkle filter, with Anime "WOW" sfx** (holds shot for 5 seconds+)

[Look look! Breasts! You like those right?! Give us a 10/10 please!] Shonen schtick.

As for GARO:

It has gags, comedy, but overall it's executed where it works, and when it's go time, it's go time. I was waiting for Ema's turn for the obligatory lingering, 5-8sec crotch shot while she's talking mid-sentence, followed by goofy sfx.

Just a 2 frame closeup you could miss if you blinked, Fanservice that flows with what's going on organically... Imagine my disappointment.

The situation doesn’t STOP________ To make sure you fully absorb the artistic significance of her crotch in the camera.

There was an occasion where the crew would've been stuck in an illusionary world if it weren't for Ema and her skills, so how she played into the events was unexpectedly not typical.

I didn't expect her to pop off the way she did at times. Heavy Femme Fatale energy. A professional. The only one in the show that can do what she does.

(I prefer her over Gina *Garo: Vanishing Line*)

Her (Spider-Woman) wire swinging scenes is some of the best content in the series.

So this anime is one of those weird series that for the most part treats their characters seriously while having sexy, but not oversexualized characters. (Again: Imagine my disappointment)

The characters read like characters with a stake & purpose, a story; Not caricatures with lines and a weekly scheduled cliche.

The movie, is decent, the plot wasn't the best but it was also well paced, doesn't drag or waste time, served as nice sendoff.

Recommended, I didn't get to see it the first time around, so watching it after the series served the anime to be more of a full package story.

Similar to (Kamen Rider x Kamen Rider Drive & Gaim: Movie Wars Full Throttle) technically being the sequel, true ending to Gaim.

My gripes would be the CGI look of the Knights themselves, that aesthetic is almost exclusive to them, almost. Clunky at first but they actually look surreal with how flexible and masterful they fight.

A lot of the monsters are 2D, but the Knights themselves are almost if not always CGI, this is my headcanon but I see it as an artistic choice to maintain the illusion of them being an interdimensional force. So they stand out the most in a sense.

It grows on you, eventually.

The villain, for me, was not interesting at all. I did like his stake in everything, the man was a menace, he just wasn't interesting (to me).

German's decision to not save Anna, when he had to power to do so? (In one scene it's shown she's alive when he retrieves the baby, so unless she was technically dead & her looking at him was just an aesthetic decision, I don't see why he doesn't try to take her too). Never understood that. Not a lore breaking gripe, obviously she was as good as dead but still, smells off to me.

Grandpa and those goddamn seeds (If you know, you know), the needless outcome of that situation drove me nuts the most.

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

Overall, well produced, decent writing, no masterpiece, naturally; Better than I remember. Underrated.

Medieval Kamen Rider-esque but with Wolf Armor, my favorite of the GARO series trilogy.

The other 2 were OK (Vanishing Line could've been so much more if they focused on the better characters instead of Sophie) but the first, "The Animation" had a better execution about it.

[rosiesramblings]

hear me out I had a Thought that I felt needed to be shared

So dani and Jamie have their super fun crossbar penalty challenge contest whatever right? Which on its own is great and perfect and a lovely lil tradition that started when Jamie had all those walls and defenses but has continued to the times of ✨friendship✨

anywayyyyyy I would like to propose the idea that Dani, once aware of his amigo’s need for affection and fondness for tickling, absolutely 100% proposes to Jamie actual stakes/rewards for their little game. Winner gets to tickle the other! (And after a good few where it’s like Jamie that was a miss on purpose, it’s like okay how bout I tickle you if you win?)

But fun silly bonding with our two aces and some fluffy flustered fun

I literally keep dropping in just with random Jamie hc if I’m annoying please lemme know I’ll chill the fuck out

Also since I keep dropping in I feel like I oughta actually identify myself and since I’m clearly obsessed with Jamie imma just call myself baby shark anon 🦈

BABY SHARK ANON!!!! HELLO!!!! You are never annoying, and I love your Jamie headcannons. Sorry it has taken literal ages for me to respond :( I transferred grad programs from an in person one to an online one since my new job has me traveling a lot, but somehow the online program is like 10x more work??? Like I'm happy im learning stuff and not wasting my money but also chill?? Lol. ANYWAY, thank you for your patience, and please enjoy these headcannons.

Dani feels major cuteness aggression when it comes to Jamie. He just wants to SQUEEZE HIS FACE and make him smile!!!

Dani loves to teach people things, and Jamie loves to learn. When Dani feels homesick, Jamie will ask him for facts about Guadalajara (did i spell that right? who's to say)

Dani grew up in a warm, loving home, and he hates that Jamie didn't. He goes out of his way to be sweet to his amigo

He is also competitive as hell. So he figures out a way to combine his love for competition and Jamie's love for physical affection

Jamie's spanish vocabulary consists of hello, where is the bathroom, several swear words, and the word 'tickles' purely because Dani coos it at him so often to tease him

If anyone was wondering I'm like 80% sure tickles in spanish is cosquillas which is just such a cute word

Dani's first attempt to combine tickles and the crossbar game is a failure only because Jamie's skill level plummets from 'professional footballer' to 'toddler' as soon as he hears what happens to the loser

After three rounds of Jamie acting like he had never kicked a football in his life, with one hand in Jamie's underarm and the other squeezing Jamie's thigh, Dani play growls and says, "New rule. Winner gets the cosquillas, not the loser."

Jamie blushes all the way down to his chest but nods

And just like that, professional footballer Jamie is back!

One thing Dani didn't account for is that sometimes he will win, and Jamie seems to enjoy taking him to pieces as much as he likes being tickled to death himself

Dani grew up with four sisters and three brothers, and he dreads the day when Jamie will find the spot behind his left ribs that his siblings use against him constantly because it gets him to go boneless and shriek-y with laughter

After a while, Sam will come and watch their games. If Dani wants to get Jamie really bad, he'll ask Sam to help pin him down, which Sam does happily

That's how Jamie accidentally found out that tickling under Sam's arms will get him to collapse immediately with these adorable golden giggles

[I saw this in a fic once but i can't remember which one] collectively, Sam, Jamie, and Dani are known as 'The Babies' by the rest of the team. They aren't the youngest physically, but they act like it

Sorry, couldn't resist adding Sam at the end. Thank you for this amazing ask, Baby Shark Anon! Te quiero!

[kritischetheologie]

sensei can you please also do the very beginning of s&g 🙏

woof, this one is a lot. trigger warning, I do explicitly unpack the ferrari-abuse that the fic mostly only gestures towards.

Charles is stuck behind Carlos at Silverstone. [Structurally, the fic with the opening most similar to this one is The Numbering at Bethlehem, which opens with Lewis on his knees sucking Nico off. I like to open in media res for fics like this, showing (rather than telling) how fucked things are for the protagonist. Charles is literally behind Carlos, but he's also figuratively stuck, and his task will be getting himself unstuck.] He has been for fifteen laps, as Carlos tries and fails to overtake Hamilton. Carlos is never going to be able to get past him, but Charles could. He could, he really could, [we're meant to hear his desperation here] if they’d only— [He can't even let himself think the words swap the cars around. It's a sign of the headspace he's in: afraid to even want anything.]

“How is our pace?” he asks Xavi. He’s learned not to ask so bluntly. [Questions we're meant to ask: how did he learn? What used to happen, back when he asked explicitly? He's so used to it, at this point, that the thought doesn't even get articulated before he's clamping down on it in his own head.] Everything goes more smoothly if they think it was their idea. [Listen: I am not a trained professional, and obviously, everyone can draw their own boundaries, but to be blunt, I absolutely intended this to be a depiction of an abusive relationship, one that Charles has been in for long enough that he's internalized the euphemisms and the habits of thought he needs to in order to survive within it. What's the opposite of things going smoothly? Easier not to think about it. Easier to try to play the game as well as he can.]

“Two-tenths quicker than Carlos on the last lap,” Xavi answers. “Do you want to swap?”

Of course he wants to swap, but he can’t just, if it’s a trap— [He's afraid enough of them, all the time, that he can't even finish thoughts, always ping-ponging back to the things he's afraid of. In this case, he's afraid of being berated for having asked to switch, or of them letting him do it and then holding it against him afterwards. So even though they've offered the thing he wants, he's still afraid to say yes.] “Do you think that is the right strategy?” he asks. He hears his voice get higher [If you know about fight and flight, and you know about freeze, you might still not know about fawn. I only learned about that one this year], uncertain, as his heartrate speeds up. [The image that led me to write this fic was the thought of Charles's frightened rabbit heartrate finally slowing at Bono's hands.]

You never make your own strategy calls, do you know how frustrating that is, having you completely dependent on us? Mattia has told him. [Breaking down his self-esteem and making him question his own ability to make judgment calls, of all sorts.] You think you know everything, you need to learn how to listen, he has also said [Another way to undermine his trust in his own judgment. What do these two things have in common?]. Charles has been wondering for years now how those statements can both be true. [They can't be. He's being gaslit.] No matter what he does, it’s always wrong, somehow. [That's the point that's on purpose that's how they keep control of you... but also, being able to articulate that to himself is the first step towards breaking free, because once you realize that you can't win the game, you can let yourself stop playing.]

At 200 kilometers per hour, he tries to figure out what answer they want today. [He is both literally under a lot of pressure because he's driving a race car, but also, he feels a lot of urgency because of how high he feels like the stakes are for navigating this minefield.] “I think I can pass Hamilton,” he says. “Would it be ok if I tried?”

“Carlos will let you through at Turn One,” Xavi confirms.

Charles surges past him, then sets his sights on Lewis’s silver Mercedes. He needs to find a way to overtake him, now that they’ve given him this, or the debrief will be a nightmare. [Everything comes with strings. Every decision he makes is about avoiding punishment, rather than chasing success.]

He can already hear Mattia’s voice in his head. [When you hear something enough times, you internalize it.] After everything we’ve done for you [guilt tripping him for them doing their literal jobs], with the whole team working all night to repair your car after that shunt in qualifying [a dynamic that will get hearkened back to both in Austin and in Vegas], and your teammate giving up his position for you [again: we get the mirror-image positive version of this in his relationship with George], and then you can’t do anything with it, you completely waste every opportunity, you always have, anyone else would have been a champion by now with the car we’ve built you [the pressure they put on him the way they make him feel worthless the way they constantly cause him to question his own abilities... this shit is awful. Again, I'm just some chick on the internet, but: this is abuse.]

He forces himself to focus on the task at hand. If he can just get past Lewis, this will all be worth it.

He almost thinks he sees a gap on the next right-hander, but Lewis slams the door shut, costing Charles the three tenths he has to take going around the outside of the turn. It’s enough to send him just out of DRS range going into the next straight. Fuck. He needed that advantage to make up for the Merc’s straightline speed. He’s fucked. He’s so fucked. He’s absolutely— [Another aborted thought in the midst of a near panic attack.]

“Carlos can have the position back,” he says. Mattia doesn’t like it when the team has to ask him for it. [Again: how did he learn this?]

“You shouldn’t give up so easily,” Xavi tells him.

Charles could scream. There’s no way to win. [The only winning move is not to play, Charles.]

“If I haven’t pulled it off by the last lap, I’ll give it back,” he says, trying to keep his voice from shaking.

He goes ahead and lets Carlos pass him on the penultimate lap [giving up early: a sign that his spirit's been almost entirely broken.], when it’s clear there’s no catching Lewis. He finishes P3, parks his car in parc fermé, and forces himself to smile as he climbs to the podium. He needed those three extra points to have any chance at staying in the title fight.

You’re useless, Mattia’s voice in his head says. You’re a spoiled child. You’ve wasted all your potential. I thought you were going to be great.

Lewis’s race engineer, Bono, has been called up to accept the Constructor’s trophy today. [Enter: the Romantic Lead. I wanted Bono to show up in the first section, as a promise to the reader of where we're heading, and having him accept the trophy was a great way to put him in there.] They’ve always been close, and if Bono handles Lewis any differently now that the latter is off the market [this is a bit of exposition, meant to clear up any possibility that there's an ongoing Bono and Lewis relationship, but also the type of thing that Charles, whose ex Lewis just married, would be attuned to], it’s not apparent to Charles, who pours a perfunctory [one of my favorite words, tbh] splash of champagne over Carlos’s head as he watches Lewis giggle and bound over to pour his entire bottle over Bono. [Insert several gifsets here. Lewis can be so babygirl with Bono, and before Charles wants him, he wants that: the safety, the joy, the laughter, the trust.]

Bono laughs, triumphant, his head thrown back and his arms spread wide. The liquid drips down over the plane of his glasses and turns the white fabric of his team button-down translucent. [Helloooooo, nurse. Again, there is plenty of photographic inspiration for this particular visual.] Charles hadn’t noticed the way he’s bulked up in the past few years, but now it’s unavoidable, with the way the wet material clings to the breadth of his shoulders, molding itself to the swell of his chest and arm muscles. [This is the "nico rosberg's feet" moment of this fic, tbh. In the film version of this, we've got a long, lingering camera shot panning aaaaaaaall the way over his body. We're objectifying him to filth. Again, a promise to the reader: Charles may be absolutely in the shit right now, but this is going to be a love story, and it's going to have an E rating.] Charles has to blink away from the sight of his nipples, dark against the pale pink of exposed flesh.

Charles takes a heavy swig of his champagne and tries to refocus his thoughts on the race. He has a debrief to steel himself for. [But we're still in the shit. I chose to end the section here because I wanted to bring it back to Ferrari. We got our Bonofucking moment, the promise of what's to come, but Charles needs to get out, first, before he can have that.]

[ask-the-reaper-conspiracy]

To OP: what do you think we can expect for the next AA (if we get one)? :3 and what are your thoughts on Spirit of Justice?

~~also for some reason, Tumblr is burying your posts so I can't see them on my homepage :(~~

:O Hard to say when we're not even sure who'll be writing the next AA game.

I think the only thing I can expect for certain is that Athena will be the one undergoing character development, since that was a hanging plot point in SoJ. That doesn't necessarily mean she'll be the player character for the entirety of it (Apollo finished his character arc in a game where Phoenix was the main character for a large portion of it) but she will probably be the central focus by the end.

Considering how long we've had without an AA game, I also fully expect a gimmick to draw in new players. Potentially this will be a new setting, a new main character, or a new mechanic--I'm leaning on the side of there being a heavier supernatural focus (or at least superhuman, like Athena's hearing and Apollo's eyesight) but I don't really know :o

I'm sure there will be returning characters too, as well. Hopefully Gumshoe this time > >

Whatever they do, I'll probably be there for it.

As for my feelings on SoJ, that ended up being wayyyyy too long so it's under the cut.

I really enjoyed it! and idk what the tumblr opinion is on that, all I know is that they really hate it over on reddit, so, sorry fdgkfdkgfk

It is the best looking Ace Attorney game outside of the spinoffs, and in particular I think the character models and in-game animations are at their best, so that's one huge point for me. I also loved pretty much everything surrounding the seance mechanic.

I thought each case was consistently exciting. Phoenix traveling to a different country with a radically different culture high-key appealed to me, and I thought the higher stakes of his trials fit that feeling that he was far from home; on the other hand, I liked that the filler cases that were literally closer to home employed themes from the previous games that are more personal to the characters (expanding on the legacy of the Gramarye family in 6-2, developing Athena and Simon's relationship in 6-4.) I also just liked a majority of the supporting characters---I found most of them pretty memorable and fun to watch, especially the culprits (aside from.... ehh, Paul. Ga'ran wasn't my favorite either post-outfit change, but I was going nuts over Inga at the time so I didn't mind as much.)

I liked how the returning characters were handled. Maya got to finally make it as a spirit medium and was acknowledged for all her hard work, after the first game in the franchise ended with her powers only working as a deus ex machina. Ema's crabby attitude was believably dialed back to RftA levels now that she had her dream job (with Apollo justifiably being nervous seeing her again,) and she struggled with themes of being professional and sticking to her duties vs. not wanting to see the justice system screw over her friends again, which I saw as a believable character arc for her.

And I liked Nahyuta! I know a looot of people did not, and while intellectually I can see why, sometimes I feel like I must have been playing different games than them with how much hate he gets compared to other prosecutors in the series. I found his ultimate theme of controllable helplessness, masking itself as restraint and enlightenment, to be very fascinating. And tbh I liked how chill he is in the courtroom, which makes it more notable (especially for comedic purposes) when he slips up and shows how passionate he actually is as a person.

His biggest flaw as a character to me was that his arc was underbaked. There needed to be more time to unpack everything he'd done by the end, and the things that were at stake for him just, weren't quite impressive enough when put against the things he'd been an accomplice to. But I feel like he was so close in that regard, as I can imagine a million little ways they could have fixed it.

-

Now this is my big rant dfgkdfks

Something I liked the most about this game, probably the biggest point that left me emotionally compromised towards it, was that it brought back some of the themes introduced in Apollo Justice that got dropped in Dual Destinies.

I left AJ frustrated by the fact that Apollo's first forays into being a lawyer featured him being manipulated, ridiculed and led along, mostly by his own mentor (Phoenix Wright, no less,) alongside being an orphan whose mother just... didn't want him to know she was still alive dgfkfkhdkgf and none of this actually got addressed by the end of the game. and then Dual Destinies completely ignored it, meaning I was never going to get closure on it.

But SoJ touched on those feelings again and actually gave me some closure. Looking broadly at what happens in the game--Phoenix finally does show that by this point, he trusts Apollo with even his own daughter's safety. Apollo finally does vent to SOMEONE about how hard it was starting out as a lawyer, and confronts a parental figure for abandoning him. He confronts Phoenix in court, and his relationship with Phoenix even seems to be characterized as "different" from that of his other allies. This is mainly because Phoenix is a mentor to Apollo more than a friend, but I like to think their bad first impression of each other was a contributing factor, too.

Yes, many of these are not exact follow-ups to Apollo Justice. A lot of them either touch on the story vaguely, or invent new scenarios to make these themes relevant to this specific game (like Apollo's backstory in Khurain was obviously not envisioned during AA4.) But considering how old Apollo Justice as a game was by this point, and that the writer evidently did not expect everyone to have even played it, I at least understand the decision to tie these themes to new plot points.

Also, I really like Dhurke, so I don't reaaally mind that he's a new addition to Apollo's backstory. Also like the idea that Apollo might have followed Kristoph as a mentor for so long because he bears a superficial resemblance to Nahyuta---cool-headed, confident, hair over his shoulder...

Like it's a bit weird to wrap my head around that Apollo spent his formative years in a different country/culture and this wasn't touched on in previous games, but I'm just not too stressed about it cause I got the core feelings I wanted dfkgsfdkk and Apollo just, has good chemistry with the new characters,

I could go on and on about all the little things I liked, but those are my big points. I think the game gets a lot of backlash nowadays, some of it fair and some of it I feel is unfair. But me personally, I liked it from start to finish, and the things it did wrong didn't bother me enough to take me out of my enjoyment of it.