#I moved into my own flat (which is a big deal because I feel very strongly about having my own space. I just wasn't physically able)

[ebullientheart]

roomies. spencer reid x reader

content — fem!bau!reader. injured!reader. fluff. anonymous request. brief injury description. reader uses conditioner. making out.

when you no longer need your live-in doctor, you find you desperately want him to stay.

you were absolutely fuming when the unsub shot you. just one, clean through the shoulder, that caused you to fall in a twist down the stairs, spraining your ankle. the chances of both of those events occurring had to be low, and spencer assured you of the statistics to back that theory up. just bad luck. fuming.

unfortunately, it also meant your life was substantially difficult to navigate while healing. you could barely shower, cook food, unlock doors, get changed. in fact it wasn’t ‘barely’, you just couldn’t. so the natural solution was to have your best friend move in with you while you were out of action entirely.

“it’s no big deal.” he shrugged. your best friend that you harboured secret feelings for, shrugged. no big deal.

there were some challenges.

“spencer,” you huffed for the tenth time that morning, “i am not swallowing those gross fish vitamins.”

he tutted at you, “they’re cod, and they’re going to help your sprain recover. valid studies have shown-”

awkwardly, you stood and used your uninjured arm to jab him in the chest, “i don’t care if they would grow me a whole new bone, they’re gross.”

it was weeks like that, when he wasn’t on cases. harmless bickering as he fussed over you like a newborn. but despite your teasing, you were not looking forward to the day he’d be moving back into his own apartment. it was nice, having someone to come home to. it took the sting out of the loneliness you felt, and you weren’t delusional for thinking he felt that way too. as your casts and slings were eased off, the both of you looked rather dejected, confusing the nurse tending to you greatly.

spencer nudged your good shoulder, “now you can help me box up my things.”

you’d gotten used to his things, though. his aftershave in the bathroom, his chess set by the couch. even his supposedly mobile library he’d moved into your apartment. you knew how empty it was going to feel.

in fear of that emptiness, you blurted it out on the car ride home from the hospital, “maybe you should stay a bit longer.”

“yeah?” he briefly took his eyes off the road to raise a brow at you, “you think you still need help?”

“i don’t need it.” you mumbled, picking the skin around your cuticles nervously. spencer noticed, and flicked your hands apart as a silent way of telling you not to do that. still taking care of you.

he didn’t push your declaration, just nodding, “okay. how long were you thinking?”

somewhere between a bated breath and a rush of words, you pushed out, “like, forever?”

this time, both his brows jumped and he had to clear his throat to stop his voice from cracking, “really? like roommates?”

no, like lovers, “yes, like roomies. nevermind, it was a stupid idea.”

“i don’t think so. i’d love to be… roomies.” the word sounded strange, too informal, coming from him, and it made you laugh. which made him smile.

after that very spencer-esque conversation, he moved the rest of his material belongings in, and put his flat up on listings. it sold fast, and you had to wonder why he’d agreed so rapidly, considering his place was notably nicer than yours. you had to wonder why he agreed at all, though it didn’t come as a surprise to anyone else that you hadn’t been able to separate. and the rest unfolded like one of the rom-coms you forced him to watch.

you no longer needed him to wash your hair over the side of the bath, which had at first been annoying because he did not wash the conditioner out properly. but now you missed it; it had become almost a bonding experience. that became true of a lot of things you’d adjusted to in the past months. him helping you into bed, you playing the wounded card to make him watch your shows on tv.

one thing that hadn’t changed was the sheer amount of card games you two played. you knew spencer was always going to win, but you tortured yourself with it anyway. one night, you were splitting the deck as you announced, “i’ve got a new game. it’s called rummy version two.”

before he could explain all the deviations rummy had from its origin over the years, making your game not a second version but at least an eighth, you rushed on to outline the rules. you were completely making it up as you went along, and continued adding to it as you played. it was impossible for you to lose, and spencer quickly figured out that you were bullshitting. for a profiler, you had a terrible poker face.

“you’re making this up.” he stated, putting his cards down.

you leant over the table, now able to rest pressure on your arm, and challenged, “prove it.”

there was a thick tension that had arisen suddenly between the pair of you, though the more you thought, the less sudden it seemed. maybe it had been building for a while. like the blush steadily rising to his cheeks as you got slightly closer to his face.

he smirked, “you’re winning.”

“rude. that doesn’t mean i’m-”

what it didn’t mean, spencer never got to hear, because it was at that moment he surged forward to close the remaining distance between your lips. you almost fell when you two collided, but his grip had attached to your upper arm to steady you. his kiss did not relent, demanding and speaking of all the impatience he’d felt recently. you responded likewise, threading your hands into his curls as soon as you got your balance, barely breaking for breath.

spencer’s skin on yours was something you had thought about more than you cared to admit, and with the fervour he was kissing you with, you thought he might’ve experienced the same. he was almost desperate against you, hands trailing to smooth over any section of exposure he could find, before one rested on the side of your face, and the other on your thigh.

“spencer,” you gasped, pulling away to catch air in your lungs, “need to breathe.”

he nodded as though he’d forgotten that, mimicking your heavy breaths, but not taking his hands off you. you rested your forehead against his and blinked. it was starting to sink in, the line you’d just crossed together.

“do we have to tell hotch about this?” you suddenly asked.

spencer frowned, “why are you thinking about hotch right now?”

you laughed and kissed him again, quickly this time, “you’re right, let’s just…”

“yeah.”

thank god he agreed to be roomies.

[pablitogavii]

Friendly

Summary: You're Gavi's best childhood friend and you go tot he club with him and some of his friends. He made it clear that you are just his friend, but when he sees the attention you start receiving from everyone..his mind changes ;)

Pairing: Pablo Gavi x Reader

Warnings: smutty ;))

"Ready, pecas?" Pablo was always using that nickname, since we were little niños, because he was always so intrigued by the freckles decorating the bridge of my nose to my cheeks. Anyways, he came to pick me up with his car and we were going out to a newly opened bar in town with a group of his friends.

"Mhm! Vale!" I got in and he certainly checked out my quite short black shorts and a crop top that showed my flat stomach. I always wondered weather he found me attractive but I gave up when I heard him say to his friends when they asked if I was his girl "Imposible! She is like mi hermanita tíos!" which always ruined my mood when I thought about it!

When we arrived, the loud group in front of the door greeted us and all of Pablo's friends (including the taken ones) complimented on my look tonight. I thought Pablo was too busy joking around with Pedri to notice, but little did I know, he heard every word that made him very much angry!

"Damn Gavi! Your amiga is quite a bombon!" Araujo whispered to him and Pablo looked towards you chatting with some girls at the bar shaking his head although secretly thinking the same thing.

Your ass looked so delicious in that tight shorts..and not to mention the braless crop top that was driving him absolutely crazy!

"Bombon? Tu eres loco tío! Ella es tan joven" Pablo said always acting 'tough' cause he was two years older that you..big deal! That didn't mean he could order you about which he always tried to do!

As hours passed, and you had more drinks with your girlfriends, music started to take over your body and you were dancing like there was no tomorrow.

"Es caliente!!" Rafa smirked whispering into Pablo's ear knowing that would annoy him especially when you were dancing with your ass glued to another guy who hand his arms around your waist.

"Joder!" Pablo groaned putting his drink down and walking towards you angrily. He grabbed your wrist pulling you away from the guy and he crowd all the way outside where was freezing btw.

"Ow! Que haces gilipollas!?" you were angry but still so cute when you tried to yell at him especially being so short and adorable regardless of your mood.

"You're drinking anything people give you! And you are grinding your ass against some fucking stranger!? What are you doing pecas!?" he was angry as well as he let go off your arm but still not letting you go back inside.

"Que es un problema!? You're not mi novio Gavi! I can drink what I want and I can dance with whoever I want!" you spat and now he was even angrier clenching his jaw repeatedly. He wishes he was your novio and could teach you a lesson right now..

"But I brought you here which means I am responsible to make sure you're safe pecas!" he said and to that you smirked feeling quite confident tonight (probably from the alcohol) as you moved closer to him rubbing up and down his strong biceps.

"Are you sure that's the problem here Pablito?" you said teasingly and he was fighting back an urge to throw you in the backset of his Maserati and show you just what his problem was at the moment. But then he reminded himself that you were his best friend, that he doesn't want to lose you and therefore couldn't mess up your life.

"Vamos, I'm taking you home.." he said but you were definitely not about to do that especially when you were having such a blast tonight. You pulled away from his grasp and he groaned in annoyance.

"If you don't want to honestly tell me what the problem is then I won't do what you say! Capullo!" you winked walked back inside while he groaned running his hand through his hair before getting inside himself re-joining his friends while you continued to dance on your own this time.

"Why don't you just admit you want her tío? Es obvio!" Pedri bugged him but when Pablo saw that you were kissing someone and walking outside with him the heat in his veins intensified from anger.

"Es demasiado tarde.." Pablo sighed walking out this time determined to take you home even if he was to carry you into the car himself. He was done with this party and he was especially done watching you with other people!

As he looked around for you, he found the same guy from the inside sitting on the hood of his car while you stood in between his legs kissing his lips.

"Gilipollas! Tienes tu culo en mi coche!" he said and the guy looked at him with big eyes of course recognizing him from the Camp Nou pitch while ungluing his hands from your waist.

"Pablo Gavi..I'm so sorry tío" he said walking away from you which made you angry as you looked at Pablo who watched as he left before finally looking back down at you.

"Stop scaring away everyone who comes near me!" you said and he walked closer until your thighs his his car and you sat on the hood looking up into his dark eyes once more. He was no longer your sweet and protective friend Pablo..no..he was angry..and lustful in this moment.

"Que haces?" you say when he slowly touched your thighs opening them up and standing in between them while tucking a strand of your hair behind your ear.

"You said you wanted to know what my problem is..honestly?" he said moving even closer as his hands rested on my thighs and his nose was touching mine.

"S..si" your voice was shaking and your cheeks were bright red while looking into his dark eyes longingly.

"I don't mind you wearing something that makes your ass be the sole focus of the night..but I do mind that I can't grab it and make todos los gilipollas see that it's mine.." he started and you felt goosebumps appear on your skin while his cold fingers traced your thigh and his nose moved against yours.

"I don't mind your dirty dance but as long as it's against me.." he whispered into your ear licking it after wards and you couldn't help the moan that left your lips in response.

"And I don't mind that you want to make-out on top of my car..but I want you to do it only with me!" he whispered into your other ear licking it again before his large hand grabbed your neck and pulled you close kissing your lips feverishly which made you moan into his mouth as you kissed passionately.

"Pecas.." he whispered against your lips after pulling away and you smiled opening your eyes and snaking your arms around his neck while playing with the end of his hair.

"Take me home amor.." you smiled snaking your legs around his waist with a shy smile and he smirked kissing your lips again knowing that he finally got what he craved for such a long time...;))

I like this story :)

[possum-quesadilla]

Chapter 9 of Time’s Arrow, “I am selfish, I am broken, I am cruel, I am all the things they might have said to you” is here! Woof. Sorry everyone. Happy Beetlejuice 2 premiere! :,)

THIS CHAPTER IS PARTICULARLY ROUGH. PLEASE READ THE WARNINGS CAREFULLY BEFORE PROCEEDING.

Extras below!

- The lyrics for this chapter’s title is from “Never Love An Anchor” by The Crane Wives.

- “The next ten months moved at the speed of a dream.” - A call back to a line from Time is a Flat Circle, which itself is a reference to “Asteroid City”! Gotcha again!

- “They read ‘Flowers for Algernon’, ‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’, and… some sort of Jane Austen novels.” - I wonder if those stories are thematically relevant to this chapter?

- “He had no idea what to do about his fur anyhow. It had never grown in that long and thick before, how was he supposed to know it would do that?” - It was growing properly because he was finally happy and healthy enough for it to do so!

- “She was tall. Well, at least taller than him. Damnit.” - Bela is 5’9”! She is on the shorter side for demons. Beej is just especially small, since he was malnourished.

- “Her roots were black, the rest of her hair cascaded down to her shoulders in similar curls to his own, colored with a gentle lavender hue.” - Bela’s resting hair color is purple instead of green like Beej!

- “She had an orange-jeweled nose ring.” - Bela and Deb have matching nose rings, since exchanging jewelry is how demons court each other!

- “Shades of a gentle maroon red flickered through Bela’s hair.” - Bela has different colors for her emotions than Beej does!

- “Most were “whales”, stolen away in malevolent Deals to forever be a supply for the demon they were tied to. Slowly withering away to nothing.” - this is inspired by “Doctor Sleep”, because I’m a huge Mike Flanagan fiend.

- “They were all strange, all lacked the innate ability to socially adapt that the other demons thrived off of.” - Autism can run in a family, and it sure does run in the Shoggoth family!

- “He didn’t know why she was upset, but he knew it was up to him to make it better. (Why else was he here?)” - Still partially believes his only purpose is to make others happy, or they wouldn’t want him around.

- “… she hesitated, still firmly grasping the bright green fleece blanket he’d summoned from his room around her shoulders.” - The same blanket Charles got Beej for his room!

- “ “I watched this movie last night, since I couldn’t fall asleep. It was..” their voice caught in their throat, and their breath hitched. Beetlejuice slowly rose from his chair, setting the ice pack on the counter. “… lotta.. big feelings about it, huh?” They rapidly nodded, wrapping their arms around themself. “I don’t… I can’t keep living the way I do.” ” - Ash watched “I Saw The TV Glow”, which is a horror movie about being trans. It gutted me the first time I saw it. Ash had a similar visceral reaction, and it made her rethink how she is living. It also informs a lot of this chapter’s theming, but it is not required viewing for this fic. It is very, very difficult to watch for neurodivergent queers.

- “The living need attention too, Ash. It’s okay.” - This line is partially taken from “Dead Girls” by Penelope Scott, which is a very important song on Ash’s playlist.

- “You feel like you’ll die if you stay there. Or… worse.” - An “I Saw The TV Glow” reference. There’s quite a few in here.

- “Thank you, Beetlejuice.” - the first time they’ve called him by his actual name!

- Anyone spot more Time is a Flat Circle parallels?

- “It was then that Beetlejuice got hit by his first car.” - This is mostly a joke about how I, the author, have been hit by 4 cars. I feel like Beej would be similarly unlucky.

- “… it’s like being a wolf dog.” - This is based on how I’ve explained what it was like to grow up in my household.

- “Memories washed away like chalk on the sidewalk.” - Another “I Saw The TV Glow” reference.

- “Adam and Barbara celebrated their birthdays, which landed a couple days apart from each other, by smelling wine and watching ‘Lord of the Rings’ together. Beetlejuice was invited to join them.” - Based on something Adam made Beej he would promise to do in an earlier chapter!

- “June was full of beautiful sunsets he watched with his family.” - This was, like the previous thing, also listed among the reasons Beej should keep “living” in a previous chapter.

- “At the end of the month, walking to school and the store with Lydia, Beetlejuice realized with horror that Lydia was taller than him. Like, at least half a foot taller.” - Lydia is 5’7” now, he’s just being dramatic.

- “(How could no one see it? He felt so happy, but still he felt pieces of him slowly dying and rotting away. How could no one see that he was rotten? That he was dying?)” - This is partially another “I Saw The TV Glow” reference, and a reference to the ending of the song “you smell of dead flowers” by vslush and cliesel

- “August came like a thief in the night.” - A callback to Time is a Flat Circle! Which is itself an Edgar Allen Poe reference.

- “… they say old man Hirsch signed up for it right before he went missing.” - Yes he is named after Alex Hirsch, creator of “Gravity Falls”. Love ya Alex!

- “ “I managed to talk him down from another viewing of ‘Pride and Prejudice’!” (Another? What was that? They’d seen it before?)” - This is meant to alert the reader that something is very wrong, as “Pride and Prejudice” was brought up before by Beetlejuice himself.

- “Beetlejuice scratched at their left arm. The scars had started to fade.” - He was resorting to self-regulating self harm less enough that his arm was healing before this point.

- “I… I couldn’t.. I didn’t have enough energy to resist the Seal w-.. without a cult.” - Beetlejuice was tricking people to sign up for his cult under the guise of a “Loyalty Program”.

- “Why have they been going missing, then?” … “They swore they were choking on the taste of blood, bile rising in their throat as they felt their flesh between their teeth.” - Beetlejuice ate a few members of his cult. That’s why there’s missing persons in the town.

- “Someone’s hand gripped the back of their shirt, trying to pull them out of the kitchen. Panic spiked within them. Beetlejuice felt the blow to the back of their head, the horrible stabbing agony in their chest. That familiar, terrifying sensation they’d felt over and over and over and- ”- Beetlejuice had flashbacks to being killed during the loop over and over because Charles touched his old wound and it scared him, hence why he lashed out.

- “There’s still time. There has to be.” - Yet another “I Saw The TV Glow” reference.

- “ “Hello, pet.” Time’s up.” - Meant to envoke a terrifying line in “Yo, Girl” from Heathers the musical.

- “I’ll make you wish you could die!” - This line was originally going to be a more blatant reference to a line that Circus Baby from the FNAF series says often, “You won’t die, but you’ll wish you could.”

- “You always bounce ba- ” - Meant to be a reference to this scene from “Adventure Time” which I’ve… never seen…

- “Beetlejuice was distantly aware that Cyrus brought his claws up to his mouth to lick some of the blood off of them. “Choke on it,” they sputtered, although they weren’t sure if Cyrus could understand them through all of the blood that bubbled out of their mouth.” - Meant to be a reference to the horrific death of Captain Rhodes from “Day of the Dead”!

- “Beetlejuice wheezed out a last croak as Cyrus once again gripped their hoof and continued dragging them towards the portal.” - This is meant to evoke the gut-wrenching opening scene of “Scream”. Specifically, the part where Ghostface is dragging Casey away, and she is wheezing out her last breaths, which her parents can hear over the phone. The music in that scene never fails to make me cry. (I cried my eyes out rewatching that scene and imagining it playing when the Maitlands see the basement, but that’s not how things will happen…)

- “I’m sorry I was the one you loved.” - From “I’m Your Man” by Mitski.

[bow-of-aros]

Self-Defence 101

And we are back!! This was actually only intended to be a ticklish!charles fic but Edwin has a chokehold on me so of course he ended up being included. These two are my specialest little guys and I hope that y'all enjoy this one!!

-

“Edwin, mate, you cannot keep relying on me to fight everything for you! What if I’m not there?”

Charles hears a sigh from the sofa as Edwin lifts his gaze from his newest read: The Discoverie of Witchcraft. A flat stare has him halting mid-step on his mission to wear a hole through the floor of their office as someone without a corporeal form.

When he stops, Edwin lowers his book just a fraction of an inch, which Charles counts as a win. He glances towards the ceiling for a brief moment before saying, “But you’re always there, Charles. Why on Earth should I learn to fight when you’re already top-notch?”

Charles has to push down the warm feeling trying to flood through him and wipe the smile from his face because he knows what Edwin’s doing and it’s not going to work. Edwin is not going to distract him with flattery and weasel his way out of this.

Not again, at least.

“Okay, yes, obviously I’ll defend you when I’m there,” He walks up to Edwin and places his hands on his shoulders, lowering himself down to look him in the eye, “But something could happen, and I could get hurt, or we could get split up and I would feel much better if I knew that you could hold your own, yeah?”

Something in Edwin’s posture shifts: his shoulders unscrunch slightly and he dips his chin just so, and Charles knows that he’s almost got him.

Time to pull out the big guns.

Charles gently pries the book out of Edwin’s hands before taking them in his own, squeezing them together as he asks, “Please? For me?”

A long exhale escapes Edwin, his eyes close as his head thumps against the back of the sofa and Charles waits with bated breath. When his eyes open, they’re filled with a sort of exasperated fondness that is only ever directed at Charles, and he knows that he’s won.

“Fine.”

Bullseye.

“But!” He quickly adds as Charles’ face lights up, “I will not be putting on those ridiculous gloves again. Do we have a deal?”

Charles pulls back just to stick his hand out, yanking Edwin up when he grabs it and catching him when he stumbles with delighted laughter at Edwin’s unseemly yelp.

“That was your first lesson: Always be prepared. But yeah, mate. Deal.”

Edwin slides off his jacket, rolling up his sleeves in precise movements that betray a subtle grace. Charles just knows that he would pick up fighting as easily as any dead language if he had just a little more confidence in his abilities. Edwin is incredibly intelligent and he’s quick on his feet, where Charles has spent years figuring out how to properly defend them, Edwin would surely be a natural.

He just needs to get Edwin to realize that.

Already in his tank top, Charles does a few quick stretches to warm himself up out of habit, feeling a thrill of something up his spine when he catches Edwin tracing his movements with an appreciative gaze.

There’s also some mental calculations going on in that big brain of his, Charles just knows it. At the very least, there’s a subconscious attempt at cataloging the way he moves, cataloging potential openings that could lead to potential weaknesses.

“Alright mate. We’re gonna start with some basic self-defence, yeah?” Edwin nods, and Charles leads him through some strikes and somebody throws. His main focus is showing Edwin how to use his opponents’ momentum and strength against them, considering that most of the things attacking them care more about brute force than strategic attacks.

The problem is, that Edwin refuses to put any sort of real power behind what Charles is teaching him, because, “This is wholly unnecessary, Charles. I simply do not wish to hurt you. Is it not enough for you that I know the actions I must take to defend myself?”

“No, Edwin,” Charles drags his hands across his face before he lets them drop to his sides, “Knowing what to do is very different from knowing how to do it, yeah?”

Edwin offers a noncommittal hum in return, his eyes drifting back to the book that he’d left on the sofa when he thinks Charles isn’t watching him.

“Oi, mate, can you at least pretend to pay attention?” Charles pokes his friend in the side as he asks this, and the very poorly concealed flinch gives him an idea.

Edwin’s eyes narrow at the growing grin on Charles’ face, “I do not like that look. That’s your I have an idea that’s going to get one or both of us into a lot of trouble look.”

“That one’s a bit of a mouthful there,” Charles says without bothering to tamp down whatever was going on with his face, “But I do have an idea that I think we should dry, and if it doesn’t work, you can go back to your book. Sound good?”

A loud sigh escaped Edwin as he said, “I suppose. Let us get this over with.”

“Great! We’re going to practice getting out of the bear hug again,” Charles situated himself behind Edwin, wrapping his arms tight around his torso, “but this time, I’m going to give you some incentive to actually escape.”

“What are you—ah Charles! Nohohoho!” Edwin’s knees begin to buckle as Charles gently claws into his sides, his attack made much easier by the fact that Edwin had shed his most protective layer.

Something he was likely regretting right about now.

“That’s it mate! Dropping your weight is the first step. Do you remember what comes next?” Charles leaned close, lightly brushing his nose against the shell of Edwin’s ear in a way that made him draw his shoulders up with a squeal.

“This isn’t fahahair!” Charles’ arms remained firmly where they were, poking and prodding despite Edwin’s much more genuine attempts to wrench them away.

He lamented the fact that he couldn’t change targets much, but he contented himself with lightening his touch, tracing barely-there patterns against Edwin’s sides knowing that the light touch was much more unbearable than a firm one.

As was demonstrated by the significant rise in pitch of Edwin’s frantic giggles.

And, well, Charles couldn’t not comment on it, “Well aren’t you just precious? You know, you could make alllllll this stop by just breaking the hold the way I told you to,” He can’t help but grin at the desperate edge Edwin’s laughter gains at the teasing, “I mean, it can’t be that difficult, since you already know the actions you must take to defend myself, right?”

At this, Edwin seems to rally himself. Despite the wail that was elicited by Charles kneading up and down his torso like a particularly enthusiastic cat, Edwin managed to fully drop his body weight, bring his heel down on Charles’ foot, and send an elbow flying into his ribs.

This sent Charles stumbling back just enough that Edwin managed to twist himself out of his grasp, rubbing furiously at his sides as his giggles slowly began to taper off.

“That wahas—ahem,” Edwin pauses to clear his throat, taking on a rather serious tone that was completely ruined by the bright grin still plastered across his face, “That was cruel, and unusual, and completely unnecessary.”

“Oh please,” Charles scoffs, “That was totally necessary! And it worked! You listened to what I said, you actually did it, and now you live to fight another day.”

Charles was feeling rather proud of himself if he was being honest. Who knew that all it would take to get the immovable Edwin Payne to actually learn how to defend himself was a few well-placed pokes?

Well, actually, Charles did.

That’s why he did it.

Edwin speaks as he calmly straightens out his shirt and smooths his hair back into place, “Well, Charles, if you want me to practice fighting so badly, who am I to not oblige you?”

And before Charles could even think to react, Edwin launched himself at him, sending them both to the floor and quickly sitting on Charles’ back, effectively pinning him on the floor.

Well, fuck, maybe he should’ve seen this coming.

“Edwin. Edwin, wait! We can talk about this! We can—Edwihihihin shihihit!” The rest of whatever he was going to say was cut off by Edwin immediately going for one of his worst spots and rubbing his knuckles into Charles’ ribs.

“Charles, really,” Edwin has to raise his voice to be heard over the shrieking laughter, but he doesn’t seem to mind, “It can’t be that difficult. All you need to do, is break out of my hold.”

A healthy dose of choice expletives are hurled at Edwin because Charles does not appreciate his own words being used against him like this.

The fingers stop, and Charles sags onto the floor even as a disappointed sigh above him raises goosebumps along his arms and up the back of his neck, “Now that was not very gentlemanly of you, Charles. What do you have to say for yourself and your poor sportsmanship?”

Time seems to slow as Charles feels five fingers come to rest in the hollow of his knee, not yet moving, but taunting him with the inevitable.

But Charles Rowland will never concede, so he says, “You can take your poor sportsmanship, and you can shove it right up your—wait! WAHAHAHAIT EDWIN NO! PLEHEHEHEASE!!!”

It turns out that Charles could use some practice in self-defence as well, and Edwin is more than willing to lend a hand.

Or two.

[somuchbetterthanthat]

A little Gwen&Alice with heaavy alice/sam, because I needed to write something after that last ep and tumblr ficlets are less intimidating than full fics.

In hindsight, hiding in the loo is dumb. Sam's making her dumb, which is aggravating and bothersome and does not horribly ache like it used to, before, in those last few weeks they'd stayed together in the same flat while Sam prepared his trip abroad. Alice's a Cool Girl. Cool girls don't hide in bathrooms because their best friend who just so happen to be their ex arrived to the office at the arm of another woman with the sparkly bubbly smile that screams I had such a good time this weekend Celia is awesome at sex.

Then again, Alice's pretty sure her Cool Girl's crown's been stolen the moment Celia walked in with those stupid donuts for the first time (and it is painful, in a way, that Celia is cool to hang around with; pretty and fun and chill and blessed with the same ability Sam has to be friendly with everyone she meets immediately).

Whatever; Alice's excellent at building new narratives and looking away to survive. She'll withstand having Sam back in her life and then feeling like she's loosing him all over again like a fucking champ -- but she has to admit, hiding in the loo was just not a good move, 'cause now she's got to not only deny her sad moody depressing feelings, but also the fact that Gwendolyn Bouchard is clearly weeping on the stall next to hers.

"Hey," she whispers, after three long minutes of wondering whether she wants to deal with this, then deciding it's the sort of night where she'd definitely rather think of someone else's problems than her own.

There's mouvement on her left, then a sharp exhale. "What?" hisses Gwen.

"Want to tell me what this is all about?" Alice asks, staring at the door.

"No," Gwen snaps. Then: "We're in a bathroom, Alice, for god's sake, do you have any sort of decorum--"

"Exactly!" Alice cuts her off. "We're in a bathroom. That's basically being in a confessional for us ladies, innit? Sure we're not drunk out of our heads at the club or whatever, but I think this qualifies all the same. Everything you'll say is sacred in here my dear. Any sin is between you, me, and those awful scratchy paper roll that we're always out of. Hope you've got an handkerchief ready, by the way."

It must strike a nerve, because Gwen stays silent for a good thirty seconds before she mutters: "Anyone could come in."

"Oh, please," Alice snorts. "We both know Lena's not human enough to have to use the loo and Celia's too busy getting lost into Sam's eyes, we're fine."

"Why do you say that?" Gwen asks, her tone suddenly more alert.

"...'Cause Celia is getting lost in Sam's eyes? I mean, I know you have your whole thing going on and you're wayy better than us now that you got that shiny promotion you wanted so much, but they've literally been building this whole sickening little office romance just in front of our noses for like, two months, surely you haven't missed that. Kinda surprised you haven't actually told them this was against regulations or whatever."

"No not Celia, I don't care about her, or whatever's going on with Sam (Lucky you, Alice thinks meanly, and has to bite her tongue very hard). I mean about Lena. Do you think she's --" Gwen stops, exhales shakily. "Now, that'd be ridiculous. Obviously. She's nothing like --"

Oh, Alice thinks. Oh, Gwendolyn. She wishes people would listen to her, when she says to look away. Sam and Gwen are similar that way, she notes. All too ready to dig themselves into messes that are much too big for them to take on.

"I was making a joke," she tells Gwen. "I do that, sometimes. Oh, not very often of course, you know me, all too serious for this sort of nonsense, but I have heard before that it can lighten the mood here and there--"

"God, you are unsufferable."

"Is that how you talk to your priest, Gwendolyn? Shame on you."

"I'm leaving now. This is all pointless, and we've got work to do anyway."

"Do we ever," Alice sighs.

"You've been here for like, twenty five minutes, by the way," Gwen adds. "If you want to keep pretending you're not the one mooning over Sam, you might want to come out soon."

[rubykgrant]

Simmons would rather talk about ANYTHING ELSE besides his own gender/sexuality... but I have some thoughts~

(mostly connected to stuff that comes up in my big RVB story-line)

First of all, his parents are just sucky people. In general. They only wanted to have kids in the hope of impressing a relative, get some of that inheritance money... however, the baby was a little over-due, the relative passed away before the birth even happened, so no extra kid added to the will. Poor baby was a "disappointment" from the start.

By the time the kiddo turned 7, the question- "What if I was a boy?" had become- "Can I BE a boy?". Mr and Mrs Simmons had actually hoped for a son anyway, so they were "accepting" of this (but make no mistake, if this wasn't something they wanted for themselves, they would have been more UNPLEASANT). Because they already moved a couple of times and changed schools, Richard was able to start over where nobody knew who he was previously. A relief in some ways, however... mom and dad were very insistent that the "past" never be discussed. Again, it was encouraging to begin transitioning (first socially, then later medically), but Richard was taught not to acknowledge he was trans at ALL, which began a lot of internalized self-resentment from the get-go.

His dad was the one who would keep on "testing" him as he grew up, purposefully putting Richard into situations where he would have to prove himself, in the most backwards, nonsensical, and frankly- sexist ways; "A REAL MAN is better at sports than girls, so prove you can win against all the girls in your PE class!" and so-on. Obviously that's BS for SEVERAL reasons, and it just sets Richard up to have a weird ego-failure complex, and also think there is such a thing as "running girly laps".

Richard was always pretty scrawny, and during highschool, he had a growth-spurt that made him extra tall and lanky. More awkward, basically. He had a flat chest all on his own, but thanks to teasing from other kids, he was extremely nervous about EVER taking his shirt off. Thanks to the weird background-sexist-radiation from his dad, he thought it was just a given that he should be interested in girls... but he's a little afraid of girls (especially all the competitive jock girls who hate his guts for making them lose during team competitions). He almost tries to force himself into having crushes, but nothing ever clicks.

Once he's out of highschool, he gets surgery (no need for top, because- flat), and is hoping that he'll be able to start having A Real Life now... but he doesn't get into college, he can't get a job anywhere, he doesn't have any friends to live with, and his parents are threatening to just kick him out if he doesn't prove himself yet again. The last option is to join the Red Army, so that's where he goes... and then ALL THAT happens.

Simmons didn't exactly "come out" to anybody while in Blood Gulch, but after the whole surgery incident with Grif, Sarge knows about Simmons' medical history, and he doesn't call attention to it. In many ways, it is similar to what his own parents did (and partially why Simmons imprints on Sarge as a father figure). However, even through all the weird insults and ramblings, Sarge ironically gives Simmons more "attention" than his actual dad. It isn't always GOOD attention, but this is also the first time somebody has known this aspect of who Simmons is, and didn't treat him differently after the fact. So. That's almost kinda-sorta good? (it is still not great, because Sarge is an a-hole, but you take what you can get).

Simmons the proceeds to spend the next decade+ bickering with Grif, and not noticing MORE is going on, because they're both stupid (affectionate) (also FRUSTRATED). Simmons is still dealing with a lot of issues that are basically set in stone within his brain. When he starts to finally have genuine friendship feelings toward Grif, that alone is weird, because he barely likes anybody, and almost nobody ever likes him. When a whole CRUSH starts to happen, Simmons does not even get it. WTF is with all these weird gay thoughts in his head? Where'd that come from? For somebody who claims to be SMART, it takes him a while to do the math on this.

Eventually, waaaaay down the road, there would be some event, maybe around the younger generation on Chorus, where people are sharing things they've learned about gender/sexuality. A few of the Reds and Blues are kinda casually like- "Oh, I didn't know there was a word for that, I guess that's me!" or even- "I don't share this often but, yeah. I'm transgender," and- "I guess some of you already know, but I still want to say it. I'm gay"... and Simmons. He is just petty enough to FINALLY say- "I'm GAYER". It also takes him a full minute to remember, and add- "Oh, uh. I'm trans, too. More trans than you. I named myself Dick. I WIN"

He also works on un-packing internalized sexism and what-not, and when he reconnects with the girls on his team, he's much less nervous and better at treating them as individual people. He's aware of how much he used to suck, and it took a long time, but he's finally doing the whole "personal growth" thing. His parents still suck, but after the extended family of friends in his life have gone through changes as well, Simmons can see where he actually belongs

[weekend-whip]

What's your opinion on the "love at first sight" thing from ninjago? And do you have any headcanon With Pixal an Skylor?

Short Answer: Very 50/50 with it. Love what we did get from it, but by god the executions could have been handled better. 

You sly dog, you got me monologuing. Going slightly off-topic cuz i have THOUGHTS

Long Answer: On one hand, it was already a bold enough move to include even a little romance in a toy commercial aimed a young boys, especially when it was so far from the premise of the show to begin with, so I’m not all that torn up about these things happening “too quick”. From one perspective, it’s just another little facet about the characters that helps drive them in the future, and doesn’t necessarily have to be explored deeper, because that’s not the overall point of the story (unless it’s tied with the plot of the season itself, and at least then it does get well-deserved focus). 

On the other hand, I can absolutely understand why people would find it forced, rushed, or unnecessary (or in Kailor’s case, not doing enough), and that’s valid too. If they really were going to go this route, especially with Zane, then they should’ve at least dedicated an episode of them finding the foundation for a bond rather than swan diving into infatuation. Like I’ve said in my fic, it’s hard to be invested in something that happens offscreen lmao. And there’s also the whole thing of these girls juts being brought into the picture to be love interests, rather than having a full dedicated character of their own. Nya’s obviously somewhat of an exception, and Pixal and Skylor do get their moments (eventually), but generally they’re left very flat if they’re not with the object of their affections. 

Jay, while instantly falling for Nya, gets several seasons worth of ups and down that have impact on their characters until it accumulates which, while that might drive people to believe their relationship is “bad” just because it wasn’t consistently perfect, I found them much more interesting because they had to go through the growing pains to get where they are now. They did get together too quick, especially when Nya wasn’t really giving off any “I have a crush” vibes but liked Jay’s attention. And while they did have several communication bumps and disagreements, they were still able to take a step back, reexamine themselves, and readjust enough to the point that they’re practically married now! And they’re happy! I love it! I really, genuinely do! And I know that Jaya tends to cannibalize Jay’s character as an individual too, but she’s just that big of a part of his life. It’s not that he doesn’t have things he likes to do on his own; he just prefers to do them with her. But, it’s just gotta be in a way that respects Nya’s boundaries and her own preference of doing things on her own. Which is something they come to an agreement about!! And it’s good!! 

But then, you’ve got Zane and Pixal just looking at each other and becoming a thing within like three episodes. Not even a “Zane takes Pixal out in the city and shows her how to be more human” kind of episode, no “Pixal helps him get in better touch with his technological side”, nah! Things you’d think you’d get in a Zane season! She just dies, Zane literally breaks his heart for her, and then suddenly they’re the most adorable thing to happen on the whole show sdfghjkhgf. It’s tragic, honestly! That they have this much great chemistry together but next to nothing to show for it besides life or death circumstances!! I literally wrote a fic on that too! Because as much as I love them and their ship and the strength of their give and take, how they started I just cannot get over! Even if Zane fell immediately, there could have been some interesting tension between him dealing with his new feelings and Pixal realizing that she has feelings to begin with! Just some missed opportunities there, really. 

And then—oooh, and then! Kai and Skylor! If anyone I could believe would fall at first sight, it would be Kai! And it’s hilarious, because he’s flirted with other people in the past and now here he is, suddenly and genuinely interested in this intriguing and probably very attractive individual and his usual flirty tricks aren’t always working!! Which would then make him reexamine himself and also actually talk to Skylor to see if they could even work to begin with!!  Or Kai manages to show Skylor some of what’s she’s missed out on while presumably living her whole life on the island and oop there she goes catching some feelings and then we get to see her QUESTION some of her morally dubious actions!! But that’s not what we got lmfao!!!!! That being said, watching them play off of each other is SO much fun, ESPECIALLY when they’re working together running from Chen in the jungle AND THEY HUG but ummmmm...we still know next to nothing about Skylor. I love Skylor, and I ADORE Kailor, but both of them deserve more than a orange piece of cardboard that’s sassy and clever sometimes *lies down* I’m so sorry sweetie it’s NOT your FAULT

aND ON ONE HAND, I’m insane and actually do kind of like that they’re keeping their relationship out of the light, and it gets to develop on their own terms at their own pace without having to be put on a pedestal for others. That avoids the problems Jaya went through. Maybe they are kinda together, maybe they don’t have a label for it, maybe they’re nervous about making the first move, maybe they’ve been a thing the whole time, but it’s no one else’s business! We get glimpses every now and then that show they still have eyes for one another, or that they’re important to one another, and that’s okay!! It can be enough!!! They’re spicy but they’re also subtle and that’s lovely in it’s own way!!

.....But of course, that only works if it was intentional, and by Crystalized we sure know it wasn’t!!! And the true horrid irony of it all was that how they handled it in Crystalized could’ve been something we’d gotten the whole time, yet the blows would have been cushioned by the fact we would’ve have time to absorb this over the seasons, rather than smacked over the head with it in the clutch. And yet, as much as I wanna be sad that we didn’t get more, or at least sooner, what we did get was just so THEM that i can’t be fully mad!! Kai’s still fumbling but he knows what he wants and can voice it; Skylor’s uncertain but willing to hear him out and wants to hear him out, but they still have silent moments of understanding and can and will take the time to talk things out when they’re able an hnnnnng i love them so muuuuuuuch aaaaaaugh why did i write three paragraphs about kailoooooor kill meeeee

So anyway love at first sight isn’t inherently bad, but it’s how you handle the follow up of it afterward that makes it either something to loathe or something to at least come to appreciate *shrug* 

And I know you also asked for headcanons but aaaaah everything that’s a hc of mine is probably going to wind up in Legacyverse, and I don’t wanna spoil too many small surprises x3 

[argentumcor]

Arkhamverse Timeline Notes for My Writing

The Arkhamverse timeline is too tight as presented in the comics.

The canon timeline goes:

Jason gets captured -> six months later Tim becomes Robin -> within a year, A Matter of Family happens where Tim is very settled as being Robin, Barbara is paralyzed within months of that, then gets to a place where she can act as Oracle and the whole crew is settled into that, all within a year -> Arkham Asylum happens

This doesn't work for me. It's not that it's impossible, it's that everyone's attitudes are all wrong. Barb is tough, but it's a hard road to get to fully functional, mentally and physical, from the trauma of being shot and paralyzed. Tim is a very competent Robin, if not to the level we see in Harley's Revenge, is familiar to Joker and his goons, and has had time to develop an easy relationship with Barbara to the point where he almost asks her out during A Matter of Family (that was the 'never mind' conversation- not the best time to ask, buddy, and he realized it). That doesn't just happen in a handful of months with people doing this intense thing and the whole trauma of losing Jason.

I actually think Bruce's hand was forced with every Robin except Dick. It's a big city with lots of problems, he just has to deal with needing help, however he feels about it. I actually think he didn't mean to recruit Jason as Robin, he just meant to help him because that's the kind of guy he is, but after several months of Jason pulling his shit together and Batman needing help but not having it after Dick left, he caved. With Tim, I think the thing where Tim figured out his identity and still needing help forced his hand, too. Arkham's versions of the villains are no joke and Batman takes this whole endeavor very seriously. You can tell that he tries to keep Tim at arm's length through the games, while also trusting him to handle things on his own a bit more- all of which is probably easier because of Tim's temperament and, it seems, not having been a teenage ward of Bruce Wayne.

This whole thing works better if, say, Jason escaped alongside some other Joker breakout earlier. In Asylum, we can see that the titular asylum has recently upped its security and a whole deal is made of it. Joker and others have busted out before.

Also, someone somewhere pointed out there was no way Jason could be so built (grrr oh the men in AK, let me tell ya) if he'd only gotten out of Arkham when Asylum happened. I'd say give it about five years between Jason's escape and Arkham Knight, not around two- Asylum and City happen six months apart canonically, also way too fast; a year between fits better, even Ra's can't get the logistics and politics of the Arkham City experiment moving that quickly. Arkham Knight happens a year after that, which I do think works because the Arkham City fiasco meant the villains are openly all out and about as Stange's BS was definitely a federal violation on levels not seen since Woodrow Wilson and the courts acknowledged that.

Other things:

Weirdly, Penguin is one of the people who beat Jason, but he isn't an asylum prisoner in the Arkhamverse, he's a Blackgate one. Arkham Penguin is just a mobster and short.

Jason as Robin looking similar enough to Dick that Bruce thinks they can get villains to think nothing has changed amuses me and probably explains why they both have longish black hair and blue eyes in the Arkhamverse. Guess he gave that one up with Tim, who has blue eyes but has brown hair that he wears totally different. While the wiki lists the boys as all 6 foot flat, with Dick weighing less than Tim and Tim weighing less than Jason, I think Dick being shorter fits better- easier to be acrobatic when there's not quite so much you to throw around.

[geeksauruse]

Hello! My names Violet and I’d like a matchup for the 2012 tmnt brothers please! If not just ignore this lol

I’m 5’2 ½, I’m hourglass shaped with a lil chub so I wear baggier clothes and really prefur being covered up. I have shoulder length brown curly/wavy hair and Hazel eyes that appear brown but in the sun look gold and green (I really like my eyes lol) I typically war sneakers of some sort or work boots because I’m a busy person and even on my down time I’m moving so I don’t have time to let my feet hurt from heels n such even though I love dressing up.

I’m intelligent and usually always reading something, I can be very quiet but can make good conversation. I’m an INFJ so I’m very in tune to others around me. I’m extremely loyal to a fault and would do absolutely anything to the person I give my loyalty to. I love to bake and cook and even like to clean when I’m able to listen to music, cleaning is calming for me and lets me unwind with out feeling like I should be doing something. I’m the eldest daughter of six siblings so I have my fair share of responsibility and I take it in stride. I’m always helping and taking care of someone, I love that part of my responsibility because I’m a very motherly person. I have strong maternal instincts which leads me to befriend people who could be considered outcasts.

I can also be very stubborn and I struggle with depression, and anxiety. I have trust and abandonment issues which leads me to follow people around and be a bit clingy. I have a strong imagination which pulls me inside my own head a lot. I tend to be more involved with whats going on inside then whats happening in real life.

I really look for someone who has a sense of loyalty like my own, someone who would be ok with me being around a lot and being a bit clingy. I also want someone who has a sense of humor to: 1, help me out of depressive episodes, and 2, banter with me, I can be slightly sarcastic and love some good banter. I also want someone kind and empathetic, to match my own motherly instincts

I dislike people who are rude and mean for no reason and who are constantly looking for a fight. A big deal breaker for me is someone telling me what to do and not letting me make my own choices. I need someone to support me, not control me.

My hobbies are: Reading, Writing, listening to music, watching game plays (Mainly horror like fnaf), watching some tv mainly historical fiction or horror, art, like drawing, watercolors, that stuff, I also adore the forest and space so I’m always researching some plant or planet. I’m taking forensic science and psychology in school right now so whoever I get better be ready to listen to me rant about not only all of this but also new things I’ve learned lol

Bro I am so sorry this took so long and you were so patiently waiting for me to stop procrastinating( or you forget than I am sorry any way.)

Any way I would match you up with…

The lovable nerd Donnie!

Donnie would be you lover for several reasons, but let’s start off on how y’all met.

You were walking back to your house from the library with a fresh stack of books that looked interesting.

It was getting darker out as the sun began to set and night  began and an unsettling quite set in for the usually noisy city of New York 

As you walked though a quite steer you heard something, it was muffled but sounded like voices.

Against your better judgment you crept closer to the voices only to see what you thought was green, three fingered, turtle aliens.

They were talking about a recent robbery by the local gang “ the purple dragons”

You had crept a little to close and you slipped on a peice of loose paper falling flat in front of the massive creatures.

In an attempt to get up quickly to hit your head on the back of a pole that was sticking out of the dumpster.

Que Donnie hurriedly walking over to you to see what damage had been done, lucky for you not much you were just kinda out of it. The fists thing you noticed aside from him being not human were his beautiful eyes, the ones that looked almost identical to yours.

You are so out of it that you just said “ you have beautiful eyes” as he checked your pulse.

You were fine but had to promise that you would keep them a secret. 

You had no problem with this as the turtles began to come around more often to see you, and after a few weeks of gaining trust,you were introduced to spinster and the lair.

After your eye comment, you and Donnie became almost instant friends and you bonded over your shared thirst for knowledge and your intellects.

He loves seeing what you read so he can get new books for you and suggest books that he thinks you would like.

Wants you to cook for him since you have an interest in it, he also likes to listen to you about your many skills.

Thinks your amazing for being able to have so many skills and he fully loves that you like horrer games( he waters a lot of game play through.

Loves listing to you rant about what you passionate about, staters learning more about phycology even though he is also pretty in tune with people as well.

When he developed feeelings, it’s going to be an entire thing.

He starts giving more information on plants, space and he even started to save cool documentaries he thinks your going to like

When he confessed to you it’s going to be so sweet and messy, he expressed that he really only liked you and he would remain loyal till the end. 

When you started dating he started rotting to work up your confidence and wanted to help on your anxiety and depression episodes.

Knows how to help and did a bit of extra research just in case.

He wanted to help you I all the ways!

Insecure in the new outfit? He’s there to tell you how beautiful your curvy body is!

Are you upset an overwhelmed with sad and anxiety fill thoughts? He’s there with a new movie and blankets.

No matter what, he is there to support you

And make sure that you know you are loved for who you are no matter how big you are. 

He’s a snarky little boy so get ready for the sarcasm that comes with this relationship.

Does not mind you being clingy at all, to be honest it brings him out of his work Brain and into his loved ones Brain that can rest.

What’s to make all your inner world dreams come true and spends time making you personalised gifts to fit your wonderful imagination.

Donnie loves you lots and is ready to be there and stay there for however long you will have him.

“ I’m not going anywhere dove, I love you with every fiber and bone in my body.”

                                 💜💜💜💜

Hope you like it, have a good day!

[crystalelemental]

“books-are-my-life-stuff: Your stance is very similar to mine. I think the problem is because she just flat out refuses to explain. She barely explains any of her motives, she only just said to do this and not, jumps straight into the action without elaborating much. And that's very consistent in Masters too. Conversations with her are deliberately left vague, people find her hard to understand. So, I can see why she can be frustrating to some people.”

I don’t necessarily mind vague, but I feel like certain aspects just aren’t clear in a way that hinders understanding rather than builds something to engage in.  Like the Aster thing.  With all this talk of multiverse stuff, my gut reaction was wondering if this was an AU thing too, because we’re not really handed any other form of explanation.  But if it’s just an old Pokemon she had that died, was its death related to some kind of mistake similar to what happened in the past?  And if yes, is that why she’s so on about it?  I dunno.

“Though, yeah, as what you said, maybe it's because Hoenn's lore is very much a mess in the remake. They tried to implement Rayquaza's significance in the plot of Emerald without creating a third game, but as a result Hoenn's lore felt...disorganized, and felt very underexplored too (especially regarding Draconic people beyond what Zinnia had explained). I'm on the same boat with you for preferring the old one more, and I wish Zinnia didn't just appear in postgame.”

I think it’s just the attempt to over-complicate.  Rayquaza was already a big deal.  Groudon and Kyogre were already kinda assholes.  We did not need to go so in depth with how there are multiple universes and the Primals happened from meteor strikes that are recurring, and mega Rayquaza got its significant namesake from AZ who is in this a lot, and whatever the fuck project Azoth is.  Like it’s trying to connect things, but in a way where I have lost the thread.  Zinnia’s appearance, I think, is supposed to be the final pieces to answer the puzzle.  But the puzzle still doesn’t feel complete, and worse feels overly complicated.

“But yeah, she's a great character, just trapped in a very messy lore. Once she could stand as her own character, she's pretty great. Which is why I like Zinnia's Legendary Event, because it resolved her internal conflicts she still had, managed to move on to the better future, and can stand as her own character without being too dependent on Hoenn's lore.”

Entirely fair, because yeah, I think there’s a lot of neat stuff going on with Zinnia.  It would be nice to get a bit more of her throughout the game, but it’s also hard to say where she should’ve appeared or what she should be doing.

[popculturebuffet]

Big City Greens: The Chip Whistler Saga (A 13 Episode Retrospective) (Comissioned by WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy people! We got a long one today but one i'm glad to finally cover as it's been a long overdue review blindspot. Despite this blog being built on Disney Channel's original animation, what with my Ducktales Season 3 reviews both starting my animation reviews and netting me Kev as a frequent comissioner, self proclaimed editor and basically producer of this blog and providing me with a lot of my fanbase, with my reviews of Owl House and Amphibia following it only growing from there. Disney is a vital foundation to this blog being the subject of a good chunk of my output, both paid and on my own time.

Despite this though there's been a bit of a blind spot. A show that just didn't fit regular coverage that well, so I haven't covered it week to week but that's defintely deserved SOME kind of review all this time, I just never realized I hadn't covered it at all till Kev came up with the idea of doing this arc. It's finally time for me to cover Big City Greens. Big City Greens is the brainchild of The Houghton Brothers, Chris and Shane, who previously worked on the criminally underated Harvey Beaks, a slice of life show with mild chaos and a charming large supporting cast from Chowder and Jellystone god among men CH Greenblat.

Big City Greens takes a lot of it's DNA from Harvey, being a somewhat chill slice of life show that still revels in slapstick and over the top worldbuilding, has a mostly feral child as one of the leads (as well as a good safe boy who tries to color between the lines). But while some of where the brothers Houghton came from is evident, and welcome given how much I love and still miss Harvey Beaks, and fear for it's little sister Jellystone for obvious reasons, Big City Greens is still very much it's own work with a unique identity: The Houghtons having grown up in a rural area and moved to the city for college, used the memories of this culture clash and their own childhoods to craft the tale of a charming country family forced to move to the city and getting into shenanigans after their forced to sell the family farm. It's like the Beverly Hillibillies if they hadn't become the 1%.

The show is nice mix of grounded yet zany, reminding me a lot of the simpsons (Which the Houghtons admit was a major inspiration): The world can get as goofy as needed for a joke, from mad scientiests using the family as Guinea pigs, to the family arch enemy using a mad max style coffee cart and just shooting it at people (more on that later), or the entire family deciding the best way to get rid of Cricket's annoying singing Barracuda toy behind his back is to flat out murder it with an axe, a stove and the lawnmower but the main cast themselves are grounded: Still hilarious but utterly relatable and realistic. Our heroes deal with class inequality, homesickness, not feeling like you fit in somewhere you moved, influencers abusing children, predatory businesses, and more things without loosing it's charm or a step. It's a throughly engaging show that never once stops charming the pants off you.

It's also the only one of the few animated shows Disney hasn't in some way treated like crap: The show is up to it's fourth season, a rarity for the network, hasn't been shuffled around time wise, is well promoted and is even getting a movie for Disney+ I can't help but be excited about. It's likely because unlike Disney's other greats like Ducktales, Amphibia or Owl House i'ts not seralized outside of one or two arcs, so it's easy to just throw episodes on. Plus Disney Logic dictates that kids don't like ongoing storylines or engaging characters even when it's transparently obvious they do and one of your biggest all agest franchies is built on that foundation, just like this blog is built on a foundation of praising the work creators put out for Disney while sighing heavily at the company that actually puts it out for near constantly fucking up.

So while apparently there are some who don't like the show for this, feeling it dosen't deserve it's sucess or it's somehow responsible for Owl House or Ducktales getting the shaft…

i've never been one of them. Sure it's a show I can fall behind on, tends to happen with me and slice of life as the lack of impetus to watch every week means I can let it pile up like the dumb dumb I am, but it's a show I highly respect and stands proudly next to the other standouts of the era. It's good at what it does, it's charming and it's hilarious.

So I was happy to cover it's biggest arc to date and one of the few running through it, which also happily runs into some other major plot points and episodes along the way. It tis the saga of the series only Big Bad to date, the only real true villian in a series full of minor jerks and a guy Vasquez knew once. A guy who seemed like he'd just be a jerk but went full on supervillian as the show went on. It's time to talk about Chip Whistler: If you don't know him your about to and if you don't know the greens thi sis a nice crash course as we weave both through his appearances and the episodes that enrich said appearances. So sit right back as I spin a yarn I like to call the Chip Whistler Saga

Welcome Home We start at the very top of the series and before we even get to the episode i've already run head first into a very familiar problem: The airing order. For the longest time Disney had a bad habit of just airing whatever episodes it felt like for a series instead of you know what the creators actually meant to make chronlogical sense. Ducktales 2017's first season is the most famous victim of this, with Disney's often arbtirary shuffling of the episodes meaning the intended, delicate ballance the creators had for the season was thrown off badly and for years many, including me, blamed the creative team till it got cleared up this wasn't their fault.

So it's not a huge shock Big City Greens, which came out a year after, got the same treatment, and thus the Disney+ order is different from the airing order. In most cases it's not a huge deal as while BCG has a strong continuity, something that only intensifies from season 2 onward, the plot important episodes are still mostly in about the same place: some come up earlier, some come up slightly later, but their all where they should be and unlike Ducktales where the episode pacing was a very tight balancing act, most of Big City Greens episodes are breezy slice of life numbers that can be put anywhere and those that NEED to be at the right place in a season are where they belong regardless of the list.

As such this seems to be, feel free to point out in the comments if i'm wrong, one of the few very noticable exceptions. THe series still works perfectly with Space Chicken as the start, it's what got me into the series and while I ocasionally forget to watch it it's never left my heart since that episode, but it's still weird to have an episode about the Greens moving in that was clearly produced to go first and explains some important things (Why the Greens are in the city and how Bill lost his finger) from the get go moved a ways down instead of just paired with space chicken as intended.

The episode itself is decent, getting Cricket, Tilly, Bill and Alice's characters across really well: Cricket is good hearted but incredibly egotistical, impulsive and has a bad habit of not listening to his dad, Tilly is soft, good natured, loves animals, but is also spacey and naive and Bill is well meaning but often too passive. (Or prideful but that comes later and his mom is well.. she's the kind of woman who takes lateness from her Son and grandchildren not as a sign their lost but as a sign she needs to fake her death to teach them a lesson. That really is Alice green in one sentence.

It's just a fairly standard plot of a bunch of characters unfamiliar with the city getting lost in it. Plenty of good jokes and a decent start, but not much else to say. It might be WHY it got delayed (even if again it comes off very weird to just plop it mid season) as Space Chicken , only having to introduce Remy and Gloria and only being off in that Tilly isn't a main character yet and thus Remy gets way more focus than her, just flows a mite better. Still worth watching and I still recommend the + order as it flows SLIGHTLY better.

Critterball Crisis:

So next up we get to the eps we need proper with Critterball Crisis, which gives us a proper introduction to Gloria. While she first debuted in Space Chicken with the rest of the non-nancy main cast (We'll get to her in a moment), this is the episode that startings fleshing her out into the depressed, insecure, grumpy mess we all know and relate to.

This also is where I started to notice a pattern, a type of episode the show really likes to go back to and showed up a lot during this marathon: "Cricket Screws Everything Up" Cricket does something impulsive, selfish or misguided, and his actions result in consequences for someone else and sometimes also himself he has to work to make up for, learning a lesson from the experince. Wethere the lesson sticks is a coin flip, but it still works since he's well 10. It took a long time for me , a 30 year old man to learn some lessons that seem obvious in hindsight. It does explain why some fans dislike the character though, as while he is endearing to me and does grow as the series progresses, I get when your watching every episode as opposed to a few every so often that having a character be the sole cause of conflict every other week can be tiring.

In this case Critter invents Critterball, basically Calvinball but with Livestock, and naturally pitches a ball into the cafe, angering Gloria who understandably is just trying to do her job. She tells him to not pitch any more balls over the fence.. and he ignores it and he , Tilly and Remy just pitch balls over anyway. Shockingly Gloria does not want to give the ball back, making her the first cranky person to not return a ball accidently pitched over a fence to be justifably mad as this is a place of buisness, it's wrecked the outside of the cafe, and could cost her a job as Food Service Bosses geninely don't give a shit whose fault it was and expect you to magically fix it.

I do like that the episode is clearly built to grow with the audience and fit both kids and adults: kids watching would likely side with Cricket, while any teen or adult whose worked a thankless job like Gloria's for too little money will likely understand WHY she's so pissed off at a child for wrecking her work place, giving her EXTRA work and then wanting his balls back to do it all again without a hint of regret. To a kid she's just the mean lady not giving Cricket his balls back.

I also love the scene after this where Cricket tries schmoozing her by asking about her effiel tower. I'm also glad I first saw this episode for this review as with the hindsight of later episodes, it provides both a great window into the character and some foreshadowing: For the former it shows she dreams of going to Paris, to explore the city of lights and finally get everything she wanted: her own cafe, a boyfriend (if one who CLEARLY is horrified a stranger just proposed to him. Even in her fantasies she can't win. I mean i'd do it, but i'm also an orangutan with nothing better to do with my time. I'm not a stubbly fantasy frenchman and i'm okay with that), a life. It shows right from the start one of her bigger flaws: the assumption she needs to do something big and grandoise with her life to be a success. It also hints at her starting the Cafe at the end of season 3, and solidfies she LIKES working in a cafe, something I genuinely didn't realize about her till she opened up the Gloria + Green cafe. She always seemed miserable but turns out it's just working minimum wage. Can. Relate.

Naturally Cricket's big idea for getting his balls back

Is to steal Gloria's Effiel tower and hold it hostage.

Naturally he ends up breaking it and while he is sorry, it's too late. Gloria is gone now. There is only vengeance in a gloria shaped shell destroying their balls leading to a brawl in the cafe Gloria nearly gets fired over because her day apparently cannot get worse. Thankfully both for Gloria and the Audience's Tolerance of Cricket, Cricket comes clean and offers to work off the debt and thus a brother sister relationship is forged by an act of true integrity and repentance. And also a dodgeball themed war involving the effiel tower and far animals. Just like all sibling bonds.

Supermarket Scandal

So now we get to the actual Chip Whistler portion of this Chip Whistler retrospective. And once again this episode is Cricket's Fault, this time somehow topping himself with harassing an innocent employee for making his actions have consequences by going behind his dad's back to try and fill an order to Wholesome Foods, which is unsubtle as heck but also a really nice parody name glad this show got to it first, that bill turned down, then trying to stick in a bunch of dangerous fake vegtables to fill said order.

As you can tell this episode dosen't quite work: The lesson Bill is trying to teach cricket, letting quality go over profit and letting the quality of the work speak for itself, something I try my best to do, it's a good one as is Tilly's lesson to combine Cricket's showmanship with Bills ethics. But the episode isn't all that funny apart from a mime breaking his ten year vow of silence.

Thankfully what salvages it is Chip himself whose just.. hilariously slimy. He instantly makes the audience recoil at his presence, from calling the greens hillbillies outright, to wiping his hand after finding out Bill is missing a finger. It does make Cricket's not all that likeable actions and getting away with them (only having to give up the money which bill likely would've made him give up anyway for pulling all this, so no actual consequence), work as you don't care that he ripped off this guy in paticular, and thanks to bill and tilly he gets all the fake food sans one piece back before anyone innocent bites it. He also actively warns chip against chewing an apple later after the greens start selling the fake food outright as fake food, so his first chipped tooth is ENTIRELY his fault for not listening. He vows revenge anyway.

I also have to give it to Chip's VA Paul Scheer. Scheer is an actor i've always loved, from his sadly short lived and underated Sketch Show human giant, to his various other voice acting roles to his amazing podcast with his wife June Diane Rapheael and my surrogate creepy uncle Jason Mantzokus, How Did This Get Made?. He's a top not comedian and having played smug before easily slips into Chip's entitled, condesnding hipster rich boy shoes and beaded braclet he wears around his ankle because apparently he needs extra douche points. Maybe he wins a free sundae. But Scheer handles chip both at this point and for the next few eps as a bumbling man baby.. and his slow transition into a slowly decaying manbaby whose become unhinged as he attempts to get revenge.

Family Legacy

This is one I already loved when I first saw it, but ended up being a textbook episode of an Innocuously Important Episode: An episode that, to quote Wayne Campbell "Seemed Extraneous at the time" but ends up being vital to a future story. In this case we learn the Green Family Farm has a habit of nearly being sold once a generation, usually requiring the child of the family to find some way to save it despite their parent having already given up. While it seems the episode, a treasure hunt for the lost family treasure that nearly gets grandma to sell when it turns out to be heirlooms, only to realize the whole point of those was to not sell and that a family's legacy is important and all that, as we'll see and most of you likely know the actual trial is to come and that indeed Bill will have pretty much given up already and be more than willing to leave.

The episode itself is really fun: not only is the treasure hunt aspect engaging, but the various flashbacks are neat, from a Cricket-Esque ancestor going on horesback to sell the Green's goods after the train stop they were counting on ends up being moved down a few miles, to Amelia Eirhart Tilly saving the farm with a cropdusting, to finally the most badass which naturally goes to Alice, whose response to finding water and her dad being...

Which is somehow genetic in this universe. So she STEALS THE NEARBYE BULLDOZER THING, WHATEVER IT IS AND USES IT TO DIG UP THE WATER AND SAVE THE FARM.

Don and Dawn, the realtor couple trying to get her to sell are also hilarous, just being way too chipper and apparently having just been. .waiting on the other side of the greens fence till Alice decided to sell. Either way a very good episode with suprising implications for later. Next!

Feud Fight

This one is solid. It's also the first Chip Episode I saw, but does a good job catching you up if you didn't see Supermarket Scandal and is easily the better of the two, as while Cricket once again causes some of the plots problem, he's coming from a good place: It's Farmers Market Time again and Bill puts Cricket and Tilly in charge of the stand after Alice drags him off to go find a hot pepper. We end up getting a fun , utterly hilarious sideplot about a weird pepper man out of it and Griffin McElroy utterly nails it as said weird pepper man while Bill is just . .baffled by all of it and Alice is ambivlant if happy to finally find a pepper spicy enough.

The reason we're here though is Chip is back and naturally has opened up a stand for Wholesome Foods directly across from our heroes. It's also hilariously sad that a rich manchild picking a fight with an actual child with a lower social standing for entirely stupid and petty reasons is something that not only feels like it's already happened but i'm shocked dosen't happen more.

This is also what makes Cricket actually justified in wanting to do an antic for once: While Bill did simply tell him to protect the stand in his mind chip is a threat to that. He has reason to do this for revenge, to do this to try and stay true, to do it for the ones who had to go on an extended pepper sidequest and doing it for you. Chip is trying to run down a small buisness that badly needs the money simply because of something stupid he did and was warned not to.

What makes the episode work though is while Cricket going after chip feels justfied.. it's still the wrong move. Revenge can feel good in the moment.. but it often sprials, not ending till something truly awful has already occurred. Thankfully this is a fairly light show so we haven't worked up to murder YET but going after chip in the most hilarous way possible (Tilly pretending to be a bedsheet ghost.. without having even cut out eyeholes and claming the foods haunted while everyone just believes her and Chip is somehow the voice of reason for once pointing out how obvious a con this is), only causes things to sprial. Sure it starts with him making japanese mascot Tomato San "dance tomato san dance" which is easily my faviorite line reed of Scheers across this arc, and one I BADLY hope somehow got quoted on how did this get made.

It gets actually damaging though when Chip starts blasting coupons out of a van which threatens not just the heroes stand but every other stand and before you know it

With Cricket and the other farmers marketers on one side, Chip and his employees who aren't getting paid near enough for this on the other. Tilly thankfully snaps her brother out of his blood rage before he kills a man.. I mean it's a justifable homicide but still he's too young to kill a man. Let him hit puberty first. Then the blood harvest can begin.

It's a fantastic character moment as Cricket sees the damage he's caused both the other farmers and the stand and that in giving into his anger, letting his rightful anger at chip ballon into vengeful rage, that he's become only marginally better than the enemy. And to the kids credit and showing just WHY he's still likeable despite screwing up: he always tries to make up for it. Some efforts ring truer than more, but this one defintely does as he drops his tomatoes, and generally tries to make peace with chip.

Chip, as his his nature as we'll see, screws himself over: Chip is so petty and vindictive that he GENUINELY can't fathom someone doing something for any reason other than spite, and assumes Cricket is planning to attack or something and thus pelts a child with tomatoes. And not just like one or two as one of his employees puts out he DESTROYS Cricket. This turns EVERYONE against him with a bunch of employees walking out (some come back as everyone needs a job and all), and Chip blaming Cricket for his own self made prison, going into a mad rant once Bill returns and trying to eat all their food.

It does not as he eats the peppers, melts his new teeth and once again blames the Greens for his problems. While the previous episode set up important parts of Chip, his arrogance, lack of empathy and complete inablaity to take any responsiblty for his own action, this episode really cements it.. and their only going to intensifiy from here.

Coffee Quest

We're back to Chip already

And thankfully also Gloria as we get one of my faviorite episodes. The setup is simple: There's a coffee bean shortage just as Cricket and Gloria are really getting on each others nerves, Cricket having been working the Coffee job for a few episodes now, and like any good siblings are just about to throw down when Mrs. Cho, the owner of the cafe who only speaks in grunts that Gloria can only understand because they share a voice actress, comes in and has a proposition: There's a shipment of coffee beans coming in, vital to keep the cafe going during this. If our heroes can get there and back again, Cricket's debt is solved and I assume Gloria gets a crown like the queen she is or something. I don't know what she gets out of this other than being free of Cricket, which is nice and all but given this is a woman often living paycheck to paycheck, you MIGHT want to give her a cut of the loot. Could pay off an iota of her student loans, just saying forgivness hadn't kicked in yet. She needs this.

The twos conflict dosen't really SETTLE, but Cricket does prove invulable at the bean site, where every coffee joint in town is waiting and the suplier is more than willing to have them fight it out and let whoever emerges bloody and triumphant from the wreckage get it. Thankfully Cricket just super mario jumps on their heads, acrobats his way past his competttion and various other feats, so getting the bag is easy.

Keeping it.. .is while sadly not a warriors style ordeal about a bunch of diffrent coffee groups, maybe someday , maybe someday, it's still an ordeal since ya know Chip is back. Made it pretty obvious. It's the ONLY time in this arc and in general his main goal isn't fucking with Cricket. I mean he still makes time for it, as a good arch should, but he's here more because Wholesome Foods is also after the bag. Getting to fuck over Cricket is just an executive bonus. He also entirely misreads the room and hits on Gloria, who properly responds to his skeezy come ons by sweeping the leg. Sensei Kreese would be proud. Turns out Gloria knows Tae Kwan, Tae Kwan, Tae Kwan Doe!, and while she hasn't had to use it against the ninja yet the series is young.

Gloria and Cricket are on good terms again, having bonded but needing to escape. Cricket quickly screws up the good vibes by taking Gloria's car and trashing it, but doing so at least gets Chip's van out of the way and gives them time to hide.

This is where the episode really shines: While the frantic chase between our heroes and chip is fun and all and the actoin is at it's peak here, especailly for a series that only has action sequences every so often is awesometastic, what really makes the episode is this scene as our heroes end up hiding in Gloria's apartment and while we got a hint at who she was with "Critterball Crisis" and "Paint Misbehavin" (which we'll get to in a future BCG retrospective... yes folks if you want it there's even more planned), this one finsihes fleshing her out with a twist that genuinely suprised me when I watched the ep: Gloria ISN'T from the city. While it's easy to tell in this episode as she talks up being a city girl so much that it's clear she isn't, it's not something you'd guess but its something that adds depth to her: like yours truly, Gloria grew up in the suburbs, with two loving parents and left for Big City to try make SOMETHING of her life after college. I deeply relate to feeling like your wasting your life and badly wanting something anything to make you feel special. Just some sort of purpose. Instead of giving her that going to big city has just exausted her. It's also why she lashes out at Cricket so much: while part of it's antic, a lot of it's simply him being her mirror: he's also a fish out of water in a city that seems to actively reject him at time.. and yet he's also settled incredibly well, tackling everything with far more confidence than her, getting rewarded for it far more often, and easily attracting friends. He's happy in his own skin and she simply isn't and wonders if she'll ever fit.

It's what makes Gloria such a perfect mirror to the greens: Most of the Greens are optimists (With Alice, whose once bad day from trying to murder everything and everyone who isn't related to her, being the obvious exception). They try to belive the best in people, work hard, and make the most of each day. Even Bill who tends to be the most anxious and the most likely one to crash things to reality, still tries his best and tries to be a good person despite life having repeadtly wacked him upside the head having seen his dad die at a young age, loosing most of the family farm because his mom had to refocus on taking care of him, a divorce with someone he clearly still carries somewhat of a torch for and vice versa, said ex-wife going to jail for a while for trying to HELP him, and loosing the farm despite her sacrifice. Despite ALL of that bill still keeps going.

Gloria is TRYING to keep going... but unlike our heroes dosen't have a support system: Her parents love her but as the show will bear out also put a LOT of pressure on her without realizing it. Her friends don't seem all that close and her one roomate is a parrot who repeats the things she says in her lowest moments, talking about her being so lonely and missing home or having eaten a whole carton of ice cream in one go. It's no wonder she's barely holding on by this ep, and as we'll see while Cricket's sweet earnestness that he's there for her helps, it can't fix a problem this deep. Our heroes only get this far because they have each other and it's by them gladly letting Gloria in that she starts to heal and grow as a person.

The climax is also spectacular as Cricket (or rather Gloria with Cricket telling her the number), calls Tilly for an assit and we get our heroes racing chip in a chariot and winning.. and the bittersweet realization that Cricket and Gloria's time working together is over. Naturally since the Houghtons aren't done with this setup JUST yet, it dosen't last and heartwarmingly Gloria breaks stuff, pins it on cricket iwth his approval and our heroes are reunited.. and one of them is massively in debt again!

Phoenix Rises

We now get to one of the biggest twists in the series history, done early so you all know and love it but when I first saw a clip of this eps ending my jaw dropped.

The episode itself is a heartwrenching story as Phoenix, the green's lovable red rug of a dog whose as old as cricket and thus getting on in years, suddenly darts off, with Cricket blaming it on him half assing a brushing job for the old gal. WE can see that Phoenix just smelled SOMETHING and took off, but to a kid whose dog may be gone for good it's just eating the poor kid alive. For once Cricket didn't do anything terrible, just slacked off slightly on a chore. Phoenix dosen't seem to care if she gets brushed or not. So it's almost 11 minutes of the poor boy beating himself up and looking for the dog and coming oh so close only to keep failing again and again, eventually coming home defeated. I mean it's not over, as Bill puts it they will keep looking they just can't all night and it's not his fault. It's really excellent stuff and easily some of Chris' best acting as he really sells that feeling when a pet gets lost and your not sure they'll make it home. Top notch stuff

Thankfully Phoenix DOES come back... and he brought a guest. A mystery biker who Bill makes a playful coomment about getting out of jail and lifts her helmet. And this is where my jaw, and Remy's represnting us dropped originally as the kids say one thing that instantly turns this on it's head and explains everything "Mom!"

See for those newer to the series who might of met Nancy BEFORE this, as after this she's main cast, you have to understand that for the first 2/3 of season 2 the kids mom was an enigma. She dosen't come up much, but the kids also don't see mournful of her either, yet refrence her recently enough ti's clear she HAS been in their lives. It's not clear if she and Bill are divorced, seperated or what. With this it becomes clear both where she's been AND sends her back into their lives. And that this episode was just the cliffhangery warmup that after a few important episodes leads into the real reason I covered this one, Nancy's proper debut..

Uncaged

This is an episode I already liked on first watch but got better. It's not every cartoon that would say "Ex-Con Rights" but i'm glad one did and this one does it exellently

Nancy did mess up: While she tried freeing some dairy cows from a corporate farm for the right reasons (said farm not treating them well and as we'll learn threatning her familes livelyhood), she admits it cost her time with her kids, dosen't plan to do crime again, and is by all accounts a vibrant woman who her kids love. She's got the "cool parent" vibes, but she's shown to be a very good mom, to the point that when Cricket wants to follow in her footsteps and break out an orangutan she calls him a good kid and tells him not to.

The problem dosen't come from Nancy herself, but from everyone else. For the kids Cricket worries he's not cool enough and thus stupidly tries to break out the orangutan, worrying her calling hi ma "good kid' means sh'es not impressed by him. She is she just dosen't want to land him in prison which given this retrospective so far is a valid concern. This leads to our heroes having to get all the animals back, which has a ton of fun bits, the standouts to me personally being the turtle who gets stuck in a club and our heroes have to crowdsurf out and the Giraffe who eats Greg's Nicose salad.. which quickly escalates to him blasting his boyfriend for not liking his cooking then begging they just let him have this and let the giraffe finish eating. God bless you man, god bless you.

The issue.. is everyone else. Alice is just awful.. and not in her usual loveable curmudgeon sort of way. She hates nancy which as the show will prove she always has but uses her being an ex-con as an excuse to be cruel to her and wants her not around the kids despite having done her time and served her sentence. Bill at least TRIES to be a mature adult, letting her take the kids overnight as he should and fighting his worse instincts: while alice gets in his head about the prison thing, he tries fighting it for the longest time before eventually surrendering to worry. In the end when he sees Nancy apparently helpping the police and hugging the kids, having clearly not been behind the nights animal antics or at least trying to stop it, he realizes he was right and basks in it. He shoudln't too hard, as again he crumbled fairly easily, but it shows how these ingrained society prejudices against former convicts can affect even GOOD people

Then there's Officer Keys who never really recovered from this episode with me. The houghtons acurratly portray how the system, represented by Keys who at least is played amazingly by Andy Daly. Keys is normally a kind officer.. but with Nancy he automatically assumes she's behind the Zoo breakout, chases her around town and generally ignores the actual problem or her clearly trying to fix it in favor of locking her back up. He only relents when the kids confess they aren't and let's everyone go. Granted it's hilarious as his partner points out it probably shoudln't work that way but gavel gavel, case dismissed. The system dosen't WANT Nancy to do better, they just wait for her to possibly mess up. Thankfully she survives it and the episode ends in the most heartwarming way imaginable: a mother hugging her children and assuring them she coudln't love them any less if she tried.. and not to tell their dad who already knows about any of this. Awwww

Reckoning Ball

So yeah you know how I kept saying during "Feud Fight" that we hadn't gotten to attempted murder YET? Well this is why.

We jump ahead to Season 2 and Wholesome Foods is a ghost town. And not the fun kind with bedsheet ghosts in lil spooky sheriffs hats. Turns out pelting a child with produce and bragging about it is a terrible idea in the social media age and has got the store boycotted. Chip naturally blames the greens for this and takes the rational, adult step of renting a wrecking ball and heading to their house to murder them

The sad part is while it's an extreme escalation, I do wish there was a step between corprate hyjinks and straight up attempted murder, it still fits the character enough to work: We've seen Chip takes no responsiblty, assumes consquences don't apply to him (and being rich he'd be right if this was the real world), and picked a fight with a 10 year old for incredibly stupid and petty reasons. It's a stretch sure but not a massive one that he was one series of bad days from just outright trying to murder them.

Shockingly trying to murder a family with a wrecking ball dosen't go unoticed, as Officer Keys, doing his job right for once, bravely stands between the greens and death and the most chip gets is part of the roof destroyed and his chip toothed again.

We meet Chip's kind, thoughtful dad whose ready to just fire his son, truly saddened his son turned into well...

And only dosen't because Chip Whines enough. So his dad draws up the standard company forgivness contract which makes me giggle as a company having someone sign a document saying "we forgive you" is something i'm shocked dosen't exist.

Naturally Chip showing up to the people he just tried to murder dosen't go well Cricket and Alice rightfully attacking him and Tilly getting ready to call the police and showing we share a brain "I hope they call the dogs this time"

Chip gets them to stop as he did come just to say sorry.. but Cricket and Alice rightfully don't buy it. Bill does show his character: he also dosen't buy it nor is he just going to sign it when Chip is VERY clearly not trying to be a better person.. but he will give him a chance to make things square as this feud going on can only end badly and it's the right thing. He could be a LITTLE more suspcious of the guy, but he's at least trying to set a good example for his kids and I can respect that.

Bill isn't SOFT though. When Chip's half assed roof repair only causes more damage by having Chip land in a garden, all the while Cricket rightfully laughs at chips commupance, Bill adds that to his tab to. While Chip assumes it's a power move and being unfair, Bill is simply asking him to fix what he broke and had Chip actually listend to bill and done the roof right, he wouldn't of fallen off it.

It is so satisfying seeing chip have to do gardening, and showing Cricket gladly choring, and only dig himself further, having a hallucination after only 10 minutes from exaustiona nd burying the kids bikes. He then has a crybaby tantrum and destroys everything... only creating more work for himself because he can't really do anything right.

It's then we get a moment of truth. While BIll WANTS chip to be better and finds out about the contract, he also wants to know why chip's like this. Chip points out he wants to take over for his dad and be good at it.. and here he could've turned aorund. He makes a speech claming he'll fix everything and try to be better..a nd he could've. He could've stopped being an enemy, become a friend and heck we may even of had him hire the greens.

But.. ultimately Chip's worst enemy. .is himself. He becomes CEO.. but he's so stuck on his pety grudge, a grudge that no longer makes sense as the greens think he's reformed and he now owns his own company, he plans to use it against them. Had chip just walked away, at ANY point not just now, he might of actaully had a good life and got to enjoy things.. instead.. it's only going to get worse for him.

Elevator Action

Cards on the table, this is my favorite episode of the show. It's something I didn't even realize till I sat down to type about it. It's emotionally rich, deeply hilarious and gives every character something hilarious to do and really gets to what the heart of the show is about: Family. And while most of the shows family is indeed related, sometimes Family is not who your born into but who you find along the way.

SHOCKINGLY it's also a Gloria episode. Cards still on the table: She's my faviorite of the main cast, and a lot of it is that she's deeply relatable: deeply insecure about where she is in life, often depressed, and working minimum wage. The only diffrence I haven't moved out of my Mom's house.

So the opening where Gloria after a day of work not only vegges out with some funny videos, though I personally prefer this guy to people falling down...

But to each their own. I also relate to seeing everyone else seemingly doing better than you are on social media and feeling you've done nothing with your life. I mean I at least have this as a career, but there was a time I didn't. I've been in a state of constantly feeling like i've done nothing with my life and will go nowhere and even now I struggled with that sort of anxiety.

Gloria plans to deal with it in her own way, which involves going up a big glass elevator to see her landlord and turn in her key, her finances being so strained she can only afford 10 minutes on the meter and has to make this quick and hopefully not run into anyone.

Naturally given this series needs her and I needs her, fate and the creative team ain't going to let it be that easy and the Greens happen to show up with Cricket naturally locking on her and not getting the hint that maybe she dosen't have time for this, says Gloria a lot and tries T-1000 his way through the door. Gloria gives up and lets him and his family in. I also love Gloria's statment "I can't deal with people I know today". We've all been there.

Why our heroes are there is always something i've really loved: City Exporation Day: Each saturday one of the family picks a place in the city to go visit they've always wanted to. It's a really cute way to both get them familiar and have some fun and I really give Bill credit for it. May tell my brother to try that with the nieces.

Tilly picked a museum and Cricket naturally picked a big glass elevator, which frustrates bill but does make SOME sense once he has Gloria look outside it. Cricket also unsuprisingly is that kid who pushes all the buttons and Gloria's understandable attempt to undo it and less understandable button fighting with her sibling gets the elevator stuck.

What follows is just... pure comedy gold as everyone is grappling with something; Alice naturally freaks out, having a fear of elevators, and in doing so breaks the emergency phone, Tilly adorably decides they just live here now and makes a fashion statment out of the rubble of said phone, and Cricket and Bill grapple over Cricket having bought a child sized drink.. specifically the size of a child liquified. As such Cricket needs to go and Gloria gets caught in the middle of bil trying to teach him a lesson instead of giving her the phone. It's a golden moment for each green that really sells who they are. Said phone also having a REALLY bad plan is hilarious. Seems like Bill upgraded after this or it dosen't matter as the joke is funny enough. We also get a cute moment of tilly tucking gloria in with part of the carpet she tore up. It's really sweet.

Eventually though Gloria breaks down and admits why she's here to the Greens, with Cricket naturally taking it the hardest and her reasons are heartbreaking: Like I said she's alone here and that combined with her feelings of inadcuacy finally broke her. She hasn't done what she set out to do, her friends are all succeding somehow, and she has no one to help hold her up when she's down.. or so she thinks. That feeling of lonliness is powerful and Anna does a REALLY fantastic job showing off Gloria's pain.

Thankfully the firefighters arrive and Gloria dashes to go save her car and Cricket, after failing to give an inspiring speech thanks to his bladder, instead heads for the bathroom. Chris' noises as Cricket takes a whiz are both hilarious and deeply uncomfortable

Turns out though Gloria only THOUGHT she was alone. She gets to the car as it's being towed.. only to find the Greens gladly standing up to stop it and annoying the Tow Truck driver into leaving. As Cricket puts it "You're never alone when you have us! I can't belivie I had to explain that to ya". It's a good show of how depression works: you often do feel alone.. but more than not your not alone and you never were. Cricket always cared about her and while he can be obnoxious about it, he's there for her and as for Bill, as he puts it he also lost a car with everything he owns in it. He gets how she feels.

With that.. Gloria invites the greens over and Bill buys pizza.. and Cricket buys 4 more giant sodas having learned nothing. Or maybe he has and just realizes it's easier on the bladder when you can just go to the bathroom again and again at will. Either way the ending of them all together unpacking gloria's stuff is adorable, as is Cricket telling her grouchy neighbor no you shut up. She's not alone. And with that we've left the episodes without Chip... and enter the thunderdome.

Friend Con

This one is just pure fun. The Greens head to Farm Con, the usual farmers convention where Bill is a keynote speaker and is in heaven with things like a booth on dirt and new crop rotation techniques. It's weird how a character named Bill reminds me so much of Hank Hill i'll tell ya what.

Bill admits missing his friend joe, who he hasn't seen since he moved out of the city years ago, and Tilly being a gentle soul wants to find him a friend. Gramma meanwhile goes about stealing all the swag for the episode and ends up having to run as she takes ALL of it. Like not one per booth EVERYTHING. Usopp bless this woman.

So after shooting down most contestants in eyesight they find Chip and since they don't know he's evil again yet, try to make them friends. Naturally Chip turns this into an evil scheme, planning to replace Bill at his speech to ruin his good name which is both simplier and suprisingly well thought out than most of his plans.

The kids find out , have to stop it, and end up getting Grammas help as she tries breaking out with her semi-ill gotten gains. As you can tell this is a very simple episode but the concept works out: WE know Chip isn't a good person anymore but not what his plan is since he's here for a farmer meet and greet (which he naturally skips), so it's a matter of figuring out what his angle is with bill. Will he do somethign NOW or will he use this later? I mean it's obviously now, Chip tried murdering a family because he pelted a child with tomatoes, impulse control isn't something he has. But you aren't sure going in.

Of course our heroes get to the real bill, and the actual Joe turns out to have been there the whole time and reconnects with Bill. Chip also gets all but his front teeth chipped , having gone platinum last time. So there's that. The main takeaway is that Chip is becoming more and more unhinged since becoming CEO .. and it's about to reach it's peak.

Chipwrecked

As you can see from the image

Like look I didn't know I needed Paul Scheer on top of a starbucks themed mad max tank in post apocalypse gear over a suit having barristas literally shoot coffee at people from a hose to try and cost a little boy his job, all while some woman walks her husband on a leash because that's just their thing. You didn't know you needed Paul Scheer on top of a starbucks themed mad max tank in post apocalypse gear over a suit having barristas literally shoot coffee at people from a hose to try and cost a little boy his job, all while some woman walks her husband on a leash because that's just their thing. We all didn't know we needed Paul Scheer on top of a starbucks themed mad max tank in post apocalypse gear over a suit having barristas literally shoot coffee at people from a hose to try and cost a little boy his job, all while some woman walks her husband on a leash because that's just their thing. But it's glorious we have it.

Somehow this is Chip's rock bottom: Cricket isn't remotely taking him seriously, fully confident, and correctly so, Chip will somehow screw up and ruin his own plan despite Gloria and Mrs. Cho's hestiancy, and the rest of the Greens also agree. It's easy to see why: He's only won ONCE out of his appearances, and that was because they were being nice and trying to be the bigger people. He's only remotely won or gotten close when he's used his brain.. which he shockingly has.

That is nice setup for today though when he finally DOES win. While a chunk of the episode is about Cricket tricking his family with a "bring your family to work day"" scam that ends how you'd expect, that's the subplot: The main plot is Chip having hit his lowest: his board is fed up with him never doing actual work, he's deshevled, none of his plans are working, and his obession with beating the greens has left him somehow MORE of a shell of a man than he already was.

It's once again his father who in his attempts to do right by his son instead ends up giving his son the matches to burn everything down: He points out Chip isn't a manager anymore, he's a CEO. He has the whole empire at his proposal. He needs to start acting like it.

So he does..... and Chip does indeed level up. See something i've noticed while writing this is every time Chip uses his head instead of acting on his impulses, he does well: like I said he has a brain and as we've seen it can be dangerous: he got the greens to sign simply by faking sincerty and nearly won last time not with an over the top villanous scheme but simply manipulating bill and the greens and only lost because Bill happened to have a friend there.

So when he combines that with remembering "Oh yeah I have the endless money code unlocked now I have a company", he comes up with a sinsiter over the top scheme.. that's also terrifyingly well thought out and clever. Chip's win here is as cool as it is horrifying: he decides to start up his "Wholesome Foods Expansion Plan", buying up part of big city to launch a giant, modern as hell new Wholesome Foods. And naturally it just so happens to start with buying out big coffee and just so happens to involve taking out the greens entire street.

How he takes over Big Coffee is also great, he comes in having hired bouncers to replace his former minions, aka hired goons, and has them start tearing it all down. It seems like one of his usual half assed schemes and the one that finally ends in him getting arrested.. till he pulls out this gem of a line after.

"Truth is I don't own the place yet but I will in about five seconds"

Cue him writing Mrs. Cho a check, getting big coffee and throwing our heroes out, leaving everyone panicing as Chip ACTUALLY won and Chip rubbing it in cricket's face about the contract, the episode ending on everything being terrible and our heroes being backed into a corner. And so we come to our finale, one of the series best episodes and the reason we're all here.

Chipocalypse Now

So we end the saga with Chipocalypse Now, the game changing half hour special. Chip is naturally bathing in having basically won, quickly acquiring the apartments next door and then building his new mega store directly over the greens home, blocking their crops.

Naturally the family wants to fight back... sans Bill who took the previous loss of the farm to mean you can't fight the rich and he should give up

I was livid with Bill when I first watched this.. but with some time to reflect I realized I was a bit hard on the guy. He's still WRONG, our heroes shoudln't give up and even if there's a risk some fights are worth it, which ends up being the point of the episode. But not only is he meant to be in the wrong, you get why with his backstory. His whole life big buisness has won over him: Nancy went to jail failing to fight them, they eventually wore out his farm to the point the bank forclosed, and even as a kid his needing attention meant his mom had to sell more land. None of this is his fault: Nancy was an adult who knew the risks and only regrets not seeing her kids for so long, Bill tried his best and sometimes even when you do that you fail, and his mom did what she did for his sake and is fine with what she had left. I can't blame him for being so jaded he assumes they'll loose, but I do blame him for not seeing that his family dosen't want to give up and shouldn't while they CAN still fight. It's frustrating to see Bill constantly telling them not to do anything, but I get it enough to accept it.

So our heroes naturally ignore that and Cricket, Tilly and Alice all go raid the grocery store.. only to run into Gloria. This.. isn't handled the best in my eyes. I get her viewpoint: "I don't need a family I need a job" and I get her TAKING the job, chip likely offered it to her immidently just to fuck with cricket more and while it sucks, it feels like she could be just a pinch more conflicted. She blames cricket for all of this but.. like he's 10 and was trying to do the right thing and forgive and Chip is 30 something and doing all of this to bully a child. Prioritse glorious gloria, priorities. Still it's a minor writing hickup.

Bill is naturally annoyed at this but Nancy still wants to fight back and DOES show some growth from last time by taking Bill's words to heart... not giving up, but trying to do this the legal way first. Since Chip Showed them a piece of paper saying imminent domain, well more gloated about getting the mayor to do it, then they need to confront the mayor on it. They go to the mayor, a hilariously spineless people pleaser played by Andy Richter who dosen't like people being upset at him and is fine to help them till Chip shows them a pettition for the greens to leave. Rightfully smelling a rat or the clear bodyspray shower Chip takes every morning Nancy takes his tablet.. and gets arrested again. It's truly devistating, not only for this to happen to the kids again, but that Officer Keys AGAIN does it. YOu can see why maybe I don't like a cop who dosen't seem the LITTLEST bit sorry to arrest a woman in front of her children.

Bill is mad, which I get but also maybe don't lecture your kids when they just saw their mom get arrested, and being told no one wants them here really rattles cricket. Thankfully Nancy wasn't stupid and while she coudlnt' keep the tablet did send the pettition to Bill's phone.. revealing that Remy was one of the signees

The next scene is objectively funny as Cricket shouts betrayal and tackles remy from offscreen, Vasquez naturally steps in and Remy tells them both to stop and affirms he never betrayed cricket. They cut that episode. Naturally Chip faked it, and if they can get to his computer they can prove it. We also get a nice scene of Cricket and Tilly going to their mom and letting thier worries loose btu Nancy reassures them: Yes this fight cost her but it was worth fighting for. And if Chip is going to take everything anyway, they might as well go down swinging.

So while Bill still refuses to fight, Cricket, Remy, Tilly and Alice make a plan: Team Spidercat, the fellas, will go try and get the evidence while Team Thunderbandit, the gals, guard the farm and prepare for war.

Team Spidercat tries going through the front door but fails since it's closed. Thankfully Gloria dumping them out a chute earlier means they have a way in and using an opening sequence refrence Team Spidercat gets inside. They end up running into Gloria, but Cricket finally gets through to her, pointing out their family has always been there for her (accurate), and their on the cusp of loosing their home. Gloria changes sides, gives Cricket her key card and takes care of the goons that come for them. I mean she looses but at least she takes the goon with her.

Team Thunderbandit has to get to work early as chip plans to start construction earlier than the planned midnight because of course and it's up to our heroines to hold the line. They do well, but eventually needs helps. We get a truly Johnny Lawrence level badass moment as they radio Cricket.. nad Remy reveals he was ready for this, calling in a code red... and Vasquez swings in , beats up a ton of mooks and declares "The greens are master remy's closest friends. I won't let anything happen to them". Bad. Ass.

He and Alice quickly go back to back for life, and I kinda ship them? Is that weird? I mean Vasquez is clearly younger but like he seems older than Bill? I dunno man, either way i'm for it I just want to know. At any rate they do well for most of it, and Bill comes out to once again bill things up despite Chip you know having shown up to wreck the place early. That's when Tilly gets her moment in the sun giving one hell of a speech pointing out why their doing this.

"Mama knew the risks, but she couldn't stand by while our family was under attack. And now, the Green family is under attack again! Maybe we are just the little guys... but if we stand together as a family... we have a real chance to turn things around. And I won't give up on our home while there's still a chance. Isn't our family worth fightin' for?"

Bill runs back inside.. but comes back with Chicken Feed fully convinced.. as is most of big city as the news came to record this and thus everyone now knows what Chip is doing.. just as Chip heads to go confront cricket.

We get the gag of the episode as Remy sarcastically says "Gee cricket ya think this might be chip's office", given it has a giant portrait of him ,and naturally the results are all from one IP adress. They print it out and Remy once again shows he's awesome by faking being a lost child to distract the goons while Chip plans to finish this.

Outside Bill awesomely stops some jackhammers with a swarm of chickens, but our heroes are soon cornered when Cricket arrives with the evidence, and Nancy, having been freed by officer became a decent human being, has just brought the mayor. Said evidence goes up in helicopter as Chip naturally is a step ahead.. but he's still two steps behind as the various friends, associates and one off pepper weirdos of the greens have shown up to protest their being kicked out. The Mayor is upset people are mad at him, sad that I can relate, and Nancy get shim to do the right thing: he saves the Greens house and bans chip from town. With nothing left to loose Chip goes back to his old plan a for the season: MURDER THE SHIT OUT OF THEM.. and for once last time.. .his impulsivness dooms him, with cricket getting him caught on a banner and launching him out of town.. and just for added irony his tooth chips. Chip has been defeated, probably not for good sadly as I just realized the Greens just moved OUT of big city this season... and Chip isn't banned from smalton. I mean he has no more resources but that hasn't stopped him before now has it? Btu for now the big bad is defeated, the farm is safe and the other properties go back up as was. IT's a truly heartwarming ending, our heroes having truly won.

It does get a hilarious and awesome button though as Gloria just.. moves on in. She did the right thing but she can't really afford her aprtment so she's moving in. THey don't get a say in this. Though honestly I don't think Bill would've turned her down from just asking and it's not like she's wrong. So Bill has a third kid now as we roll credits.

The Chip Whistler arc. .is excellent and it, and the episodes I showed adding some depth to things, show just how strong this show is. It's not heavy on an arc, nor does it need to be but it has heart, a very strong continuity and courage to shake things up: the status quo soen't stay too samy for long: Nancy joins mid season 1, Chip is foiled here close to the end of this season leading to Gloria joining the house, and next season they move back to the country. The Houghtons made a point of shaking things up around the middle each season and it gives the show new life every time. I can't wait for what comes next and if you want to see me come back, then like or reblog this. let me know. Because me and Kev.. we already have ideas for the sequel. This was a fun, exausting project and I can't wait to do it all again. Thanks for reading .

[bisluthq]

I think the new/old lyrics from My Boy makes it about Joe, but the widows (and the maylors that think it's for matty) are interpreting the "I'd play again" wrong.

She doesn't want him back like that, to me at least, it reads entirely like she misses his friendship? And nothing else

Imgonnagetyouback sounds like a completely different type of back together, which makes sense bc that one is definitely 100% for matty

I’m gonna complicate this further tbh. When I first heard the song I heard more Joe/really LTR on it tbh so I do lean towards that in spirit/vibe/atmosphere but I also think her saying this is just about her being really sad makes it more about like both men rather than one of them.

To me, the whole “play pretend / I’d play again” has a very specific and personal meaning and idk that Taylor shares this but here’s my thing: I knew my first ex and I needed to break up when I felt like I was playing pretend with him. It was a very specific moment too. He had moved into his first flat, right, and I didn’t help him move like it took a few days for me to even go visit him and even though he now had his own place (I’d had my own place since we finished school but we used to spend more time at his mum’s than at my place because I always had housemates and his mum’s place had free food and free booze so like big brain energy right why would we hang out with like 2-3 other people and eat pasta and drink shitty booze when we could be at his mum’s place eating nice food and drinking nice booze and watching stuff on the nice big tv like BFFR there was a clear winner there and it wasn’t wherever the fuck I happened to be staying at the time) we actually hung out less? I think because now his living sitch was comparable to mine right and I’d rather deal with my own housemates than his ones and have all my stuff and like there were idk just no benefits to going to his place. But then he hosted this party and everyone got really wasted (surprisingly or, given where this story is going, maybe not so much) I did not. I brought out drinks and like poured out snacks and then everyone, including him, went to bed and I stayed up tidying shit. And I just had this very unreal feeling all around me. Like I’d spent an evening playing pretend girlfriend/wife. Like I didn’t want to do any of this shit right - I didn’t want to be standing there at 1 am washing fucking glasses right and I hadn’t wanted to be pouring crisps into bowls and I hadn’t wanted to be the one to tell him like booze is running low and someone must run down to the store (he went) like… I hadn’t wanted to do any of that shit. I don’t think I even especially wanted to be there that night, let alone like helping to host. I’d rather have been doing other stuff. So anyway, there I was at 1 am washing dishes and I realized full on, in that exact moment, that I’d just been playing house. I’d spent the whole evening playing pretend. And that’s when I knew we were over.

Granted, the whole thing went on for a couple more months but that playing pretend realization hit me before I suspected he was talking to his upstairs neighbor (he was) and before he broke up with me because he thought I’m a lesbian (I’m not).

I also will say that there was a time that he absolutely was my best friend. A long time even. But at the end, I was playing pretend.

and a part of me, to this day, would absolutely play again. Not because I want him back like that in any way - I think if he showed up at my house and said it’s been me all along I’d be absolutely mortified - but because there was a point at which we really were a great couple. We had a lot of fun together. We had a lot of inside jokes. We had a lot of firsts. We learned a lot about ourselves and what we want in relationships from each other. We - almost definitely - messed each other up in a bunch of different ways. And yes, a part of me would play again because it was a special and wonderful time in many respects.

I’ve had that feeling of unrealness/playing pretend since btw and I always know either this thing is about to end or I’m about to have some kind of major life change if it’s not about a relationship (I used to get that feeling towards the end of the school year at uni like not as strongly but once exams started and the weather started getting warmer, everything would start to feel less real).

and again, I would play again because I have a lot of fond memories of my uni summers.

so idk I have specific personal associations with that line and I agree it doesn’t mean you want that person back nor do I even think you necessarily want the friendship back as it was. You want that moment back from before you realized you were just playing iykwim? At least that’s what it means for me and it might well mean something different for Taylor but that’s how I hear it in the song.

[blog-reflection]

ONE / Twelve- For a Brighter Future

Being in Brighton is so unreal, especially for that long.

Today is friday. I’ve been in Brighton with Jeo for almost a week now and let me tell you, finding a nice apartment you like sucks. We’ve been visiting places non stop and to be honest, I don’t think I ever make it. I, again, got disappointed this morning. I was visiting that nice place with Jeo but someone really flexed hard with their photoshop skills. Meaning, there are only four visits left for today and another three tomorrow. I mean, I still like the time here. The more I am in Brighton the more I want to live here. I got a bit sad but also nervous I wouldn’t be able to find an apartment. Luckily I got Joe with me. He really knows what’s important to look at when making the move and he’s able to cheer me up most of the time with his positive “can do” attitude. We saw some apartments, some good, some really bad, but not what I imagined. I’m really hyped for one particular apartment though. Two room apartment, awesome view, perfect location…it’s near the coast, so that’s pretty cool. I don’t have a long walk to the park or the beach if I want to. In times like these I’m happy to work in a job that does not force me to any specific location.

Josepphe: You’re ready James? I know you really quite like this apartment, you’ve been dreaming about it none-stop since you’ve seen it. James: Oh yes. It's just, still reminding me of home somehow while being my own realm. Also, the flooring looked just amazing and didn't let me start on the sealing. I do think I will miss the big window next to my bed. That’s always a highlight of mine. Josepphe: you are the only one who liked the window in that house not gonna lie. Well, let me know if you like this apartment. If it is what they have said online then we have made a really good deal.

Josepphe is right, this apartment is quite cheap compared to the others we reviewed. I still can’t believe that this might be the first step to get independent.

We stood in front of this old big house. So far so good, it looks exactly like it did in the photos. I walked towards the door and knocked on it. An old black woman opened. She had black middle-long hair in a bun, wearing a white shirt and a pair of light blue jeans. She looked, unlike my grandparents, relatively young. If I didn't know any better I’d say it would be her daughter opening the door. She gave us a heart-warming hug and invited us inside, starting to introduce herself and getting right into it.

Sarah: So, this is it. My name is Sarah, I have lived here since something between the 60’s and 80’s. I don’t want to shock you but I’m better off if I say that now. Even if you rent the flat, I’ll be still living in this house till the end. The other candidates thought I would leave but no. I wanted to make this clear front up. Are you still interested? Because the other people left after they heard that they would have to share? James: Well it’s not like we see each other that often despite the fact that we use the same front door. Plus, you seem like a really nice person, so of course pls. I want to see my room now. Sarah: Very well.

With that said she walked around towards the staircase. At the end of the staircase was a really spacious room, the main room to say that. It has white walls and logs connecting the roof. Next thing she shows me in the kitchen, which is quite small but has all it needs. Same for the bath which is kind of big.

Sarah: Well basically that’s it. Feel free to walk around and ask any questions you have. You got all the time you need, you’re the last one for today. James: I do have a question. Are there any rules I’d have to follow since, well, you live here? Sarah: Oh, there is not much I ask for. It’s mainly to keep the music at a decent level, maybe a tad quieter in the later eve. Parties are okay if they are only in your part of the house, but please inform me before, friends however can walk in and out. If you give me my space, I give you yours. When you go to the store it would be nice if you at least could ask me. I don’t want you to do a whole shopping for me but maybe I run low on something. Oh, and if you want to chat a bit or play some chess or so that would be really lovely. But other than that it’s all yours. No rules about wall colour or something be free, as long as it is upstairs.

This sounds like a dream. I stayed in the room a bit longer and looked in every corner, every place. This is just amazing. It’s such a good apartment. I really love it. Lets just hope the price is still the same. If so, then I’m going to live here in less than three weeks. I would move everything over from my mum’s place in Dover to this apartment in Brighton. This will cost me a fortune but it’s worth all of that if I can live here in peace and quiet. I took view photos with my phone for later references and for Jesse and Lucia before heading towards the staircase. Sarah placed herself in her Living Room, watching the news. I awkwardly knocked against the door to make her aware of me.

Sarah: Oh, you got more questions I see? Or do you want to leave? James: I just wanted to ask about the pricing, if anything has changed or so ever?” Sarah: Well the price is still the same, 850£/month. The rent for the entire house is just really high, that’s why I can’t go any lower. It's less than what others pay to live here but Brighton is quite expensive. I hope you can understand this to at least some point. I’m really sorry that I can’t get lower on the pricing though.

She seemed mad about having to charge me so much even though it's not her fault at all.

James: Listen Sarah, I’m going to talk with my grandad about this for a second outside if that’s okay? We will be right back.

She nodded and Josepphe and I left the house, the door slightly open.

Josepphe: Soo? What do you say? Is it what you wanted it to be?” James: Are you kidding? This is beyond what I imagined it to be. Despite the fact that Sarah is just so lovely. It's really like a dream come true. But the pricing…. It’s a lot. I don’t want you to have a burden for so much money. Josepphe: Jam, listen…you really love this apartment and I’m sure we will not find something better. I promise you, don’t worry so much about the payment. Your grandma and I have saved a fortune just for you. I see how happy this place makes you. And to be honest, you really need to live on your own. You mum is sometimes a bit intimidating, even for me. Last time, at the family breakfast, she really said some awful things to her own mother. I haven’t seen you this happy in a while James. I like your smile, it’s cute. So, what do you say? Want to go inside and ask Sarah for the keys huh?

All these things Josepphe just said were way too much to deal with. I stayed strong but I busted out in tears inside of me. He put his arm around my shoulder and we both went to Sarah. I told her that I would take the apartment as soon as possible. We all sat down at the kitchen table to go through the final contract. Everything I asked her was now down written, proven with her and my signature. She copied the papers, grabbed the keys and said

Sarah: For a brighter future

With this sentence I was officially having my own space to live. To my surprise she agreed on moving in as soon as possible. I hugged her goodbye and left the house together with Josepphe. We were walking around the corner when I just started screaming. My granddad was excited as well and hugged me really tight before I jumped around in circles like a kid on their first sugar rush. Finally, after all that time I’ve been through lately, a shine has arrived. I feel that, from now on, things will get along easier for me than it used to be. Not only will I live in my own apartment but also be able to stay away from my mom for good. Ever since the verbal fight between her and Gérard, things changed. They are still married but life apart. Gérard lives in Deal now. I don’t know what he is doing there, nor if he has a new lover or so ever. I only know that my mom’s mental health started to slowly scatter. So slow that actually no one really notices it, who isn’t struggling with mental health as well. I can see that she is damaged, a lot. In stressed situations she tends to snap out of nowhere due to an overflow of either emotions or surrounding impacts, just like a view weeks ago at home.

After we came back to the hotel we decided to call it a shot. I cancelled all the leftover visits and started backing up. On Saturday morning Josepphe and I were walking towards the train station of Queens Road, Brighton to make our way to Kings Cross, London only to get on another train back home to Dover. This is a ride for sure and we have been up all week to visit the apartments but I’d say it's worth it. Brighton is far away from all that Bullshit I had to deal with. And the best of it, the train to Windsor only takes around 2 hours which is one hour less then from Dover. It's not like I visit Jesse that often, but it's great to know that even the opportunity is given.

I finally made it.

[phantomrose96]

Chrissy this is my prompt for u to write an essay about your grievances here. I love having my parade rained on, jokes on u

Haha, okay okay okay, so I guess it is list of grievances time.

I’m gonna put most of this under a Read More because like I said before, I’m not trying to make a spectacle out of complaining about people’s good time. So if you’re not looking for BNHA-salt this is easily skip-over-able.

I will start with one thing above the Read More—and I mean this with full compassion and sincerity—I think Horikoshi is burnt out. It feels like he doesn’t love the characters or the world anymore and he’s going through the motions to get this over with and I’m SURE the break-neck pace of the shonen manga industry holds a lot of blame. I’ve burnt out on my own stories over less. So I don’t fault Horikoshi for that part.

Okay, so salt time. It got pretty long.

I’m gonna start by elaborating on the first point, because its impact is extremely easy to feel on the story:

The love for the characters isn’t there anymore.

BNHA has always been a big-cast kinda show, and they managed this well in the early seasons. Even with 20 characters in Class 1-A, I can tell you specifics about pretty much everyone’s role during the Tournament Arc. They all felt distinct. They all had different motivations, tactics, attitudes hopes dreams everything. Iida’s “I’m actually going to go against you, Deku, because I can’t keep being the friend in your shadow” was so very distinct from Uraraka’s “I used my wit to concoct a plan against a brute-force blaster and nearly won, but the frustration is so hard to deal with” from Todoroki’s “I’m moving forward with cold and blind rage to defy my father” from Bakugou’s “I need an absolute first-place win or this is nothing” from Midoriya’s “I can’t use my quirk so I need to win with my tact” from Yaoyorozu’s “I buckled under pressure and the frustration is devastating” from even—fucking—Ojiro’s “I resign because I was possessed during this team win and I don’t honorably think I can continue.”

I could probably keep going for every student in Class 1-A but my point is how potently interesting and distinct each of them felt during this arc. Even ones who ended up with little screentime left their mark.

…And then I compare it to, say, the recent “Rescue Deku” arc and… it was just 20 people essentially in a line, one-by-one sounding off about what surface-deep reason they had for liking Deku and wanting him to come home while they all just trade off generic blows and… that’s that. Deku comes home and there’s no talk of it. No fanfare. No fallout. It happened and it’s done. We don’t care what the characters think. Onto the next.

And this was all following a LONG stint where the main characters hardly even appeared. Uraraka and Iida hardly exist anymore. Only Todoroki and Bakugou have managed to cling to relevance alongside Deku, and that’s probably a popularity poll thing. But EVEN then, Deku himself hardly appeared for a long time. And it felt painfully obvious how much Horikoshi was just tired of his cast, and desperately hopping to a new Favorite Character in a bid to keep his own interest alive.

For a while it was Hawks. Everything was Hawks. Then Endeavor for a while. Endeavor was Horikoshi’s new main character. Then Mirko. All things Mirko. Just hopping to brand new characters and tossing them aside when the flame died, all the while leaving the main cast to stagnate.

Now in the final arc we’ve got an ensemble of several-dozen characters haphazardly thrown around, here to say a few Epic Shonen Words and do an Epic Shonen Attack for 3 pages, fail, and then get tossed into the background again. They’re less characters and more just plot-moving-pieces. The lack of heart is palpable and an arc like Rogue Deku, which my angst-endeared ass should have been super easy to win over with, was extremely flat. Nothing more than a surface-deep exploration of what this means for Deku’s character, and I need to stress it was NOT like that at the beginning of the series! The beginning, up through at least the Kamino arc, had a LOT of love for all these characters. It made you root for them. It made you care. And those characters are all just shells of themselves now.

Which rolls into my next point: What character development?

Horikoshi was REALLY good at setting up both plot and character. The character introductions were strong. The early arcs were strong. You see Deku develop a lot in the very early chapters, going from easily cowed to holding his ground, going from quirkless, to a state of having a quirk but having to be smart and use it sparingly, to slowly getting control of it. And alongside the awe of larger-than-life All Might, it’s a development you really root for.

…And Horikoshi kind of flubs development after that.

I cannot tell you how current-arc Deku is that distinct from chapter-50 Deku. Same for most characters except maybe Bakugou, who’s had a decent character arc. But that should not be a stand-alone phenomenon.

If I think about something like Fullmetal Alchemist, the development Ed undergoes throughout the series is amazing. It happens slowly, but steadily. The lasting impacts of experiences change him. He matures. He learns. And Ed in the final episode is hardly recognizable as the pompous little shit from the beginning.

Deku has been… Deku. For a very long time now. All Might’s been shuffled off stage. Todoroki’s development I personally dislike for a reason I’ll get into later. The rest of Class 1-A has been tossed into the dumpster as previously stated.

And as for the PLOT…

God I’m so sorry, what plot? (And how you can’t have your cake and eat it too)

This one DEEPLY impacts my opinion of the series.

BNHA doesn’t know what its plot is.

BNHA had really good set up! A lot of opportunities of ways to push the plot along and explore a big and open world. There seemed to be a really good thread to focus on up through the Kamino arc, combining school concerns with real life threats, and then….. and then…….

It’s almost comical how BNHA sniffed at some fearsome, fascinating villains at the beginning of the series (Stain, particularly, comes to mind) only to settle on… a whiny brat with no goal, Shigaraki, as the main antagonist.

And this COULD have been done in a way I would have loved! If the framing of the story was just that—"hey yeah Shiggy is a whiny brat whose trauma made him violent, and he’s too dumb to realize he is PURELY being groomed by AFO to turn him into AFO’s new body.” If the framing had said “yes, Shigaraki is in fact stupid and has no point—(and that makes him sympathetic as a groomed victim of AFO’s who never knew any better!)”

But instead Horikoshi is trying SO hard to make it seem like the League of Villains has a point.

What is their point?

I shouldn’t ask that rhetorically, because that’s inviting fans to message me with their 18-paragraph, 95% fanon, “fixing canon while thinking they’re explaining canon” explanations about why all the LoV characters’ goals make perfect sense. And, look, I’m sorry, it’s not there. It’s just not.

Toga’s whole point is “I wish it was easier for me to kill people.” Shigaraki’s whole point is “I’m angry, I think killing All Might will make everything better.” Twice’s point is “I’m lonely.” Dabi’s the only one with a real point (but I’m ALSO quite angry about that, more on that later.)

And again! I feel like this was so CLOSE to being good—these are all random riffraff who came together as followers of Stain’s ideology. It makes a LOT of sense to end up with ragtag misfits, all with their own wildly different interpretations of a high-profile criminal’s ideaology, and if the LoV were JUST unsuspecting pawns in AFO’s game, I would have sympathy for them! Them and Shigaraki!

But instead, Horikoshi tries over and over again to be like “no the LoV TOTALLY have a point. They say Hero Society is corrupt and it totally is!”

…Except Horikoshi forgot the part where he was supposed to make Hero Society corrupt…

And look, if Horikoshi wanted a Bright and Shiny, All Heroes Are Good And Shining happy little comic world, I’d respect that. If he wanted to do a The Boys-style “Heroes are the corrupt underbelly of a society that worships them”, I’d respect that. But he tried to do both at the same time, in a floundering bid to grasp onto a plot, and it does not work.

You end up with this completely incoherent narrative where, when you look around, all the heroes are good and shiny. And then Horikoshi just says “oh um, no it’s corrupt.” And then throws in like, one random side character who goes “oh yeah I was a hero controlled by the Bad Hero Agency to do like, murders!” and then she goes away forever and we don’t talk about it anymore. And then Hawks kills a member of the LoV—a criminal organization with a massive body count—and they try the whole “SEE. Heroes are JUST AS BAD as the villains!” (Dabi is in the background incinerating people to death.)

Which speaking of, if Horikoshi wanted to show Hero Society is corrupt, heY YOU DO REMEMBER YOUR NUMBER 1 HERO IS A CHILD-ABUSER AND WIFE-BEATER. HORIKOSHI DO YOU REMEMBER? DO YOU? “Ah gee how will I show Hero Society is corrupt?” Endeavor is right there! “Guess I’ll invent a new character who shows up for one arc who was a corrupted hero or something” ENDEAVOR IS RIGHT THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m normal again.

Alright on to my next point.

FUCKING ENDEAVOR.

This part is going to be more on the subjective side because it’s just an arc and character handling I deeply hate. You can disagree with me or whatever but Endeavor stans I do not care why you like him.

HEY REMEMBER HOW THE (at the time) NUMBER 2 HERO BEAT HIS SON BLOODY SINCE THE TIME HE WAS 5 YEARS OLD IN ORDER TO TRAIN HIM TO BE STRONG ENOUGH TO SURPASS ALL MIGHT.

REMEMBER WHEN ENDEAVOR BEAT HIS WIFE SO MUCH SHE HAD A MENTAL BREAKDOWN AND POURED BOILING WATER ON HER SON’S FACE AND WAS SENT AWAY LEAVING HER CHILDREN SOLELY IN THE CARE OF THE MAN WHO RAMPANTLY ABUSED THEM.

REMEMBER WHEN HORIKOSHI MADE A CHARACTER SO *CARTOONISHLY* EVIL I WOULD TAKE MOVING ENTIRE MOUNTAINS TO REDEEM HIM?

Well he went through a wittle man-pain and he’s so sowwy :3. Do you fowgive him?

He got to become the Number 1 Hero but (gasp) it wasn’t everything he thought it would be so `(*>﹏<*)′ could you maybe be a wittle bit nicer to him?

Oh yeah and Endeavor’s big redemption moment? It’s when he almost dies fighting a high-powered Nomu terrorizing the city, or, as it’s known in the hero industry, FUCKING TUESDAY.

THAT WAS ALWAYS THE POINT. ENDEAVOR’S DAY JOB HAS ALWAYS BEEN RISKING LIFE AND LIMB TO PROTECT CIVILIANS. FIGHTING A HIGH POWERED BAD GUY IS *NOTHING NEW*. THAT WAS ALWAYS THE POINT. THAT SUCH A HEINOUS MONSTER WAS ALSO SOCIETY’S PROTECTOR.

But he got a wittle banged up in the fight so now his family has to be a wittle nicer to him. He has a scar now (*/ω＼*)

And at that point, Endeavor was Horikoshi’s new favorite character so he just had to feel a little guilty and then it was all good. He’s good. We’re all good with him.

And it would be one thing if Shouto was joining his father’s agency JUST for the stepping stone opportunity. I liked that during the Tournament Arc! When he tells Endeavor he just, in the moment, completely forgot about him. I loved that!! Disown your father and just USE him for your own career escalation, YES, use him and give him none of your love attention or honor I liked that a lot!

But instead it’s turned into actual forgiveness. And this is lauded as good.

Now, THE DABI REVEAL ARC.

The start of this arc was great. I loved the dramatc reveal. I loved Dabi blasting Endeavor’s dirty domestic-abuse laundry over the airwaves to the entire public.

SURE WOULD HAVE LIKED FOR ANY OF THAT TO MATTER. AT ALL. EVEN A LITTLE.

NOPE. The ONLY thing this does is spur the entire Todoroki family to rally around Endeavor and tell him how much it’s all their own faults too that this happened.

Natsuo, who would have been fucking FIVE YEARS OLD, when the stuff with Touya went down, tells Endeavor that this is partially his own fault too because if only he (Natsuo) had fought back against his dad’s rages and made his dad talk things out with Touya, maybe none of this would have happened.

FUCKING WHAT.

(And again, the narrative is endorsing this. This is supposed to be a HEART-WARMING scene of a family coming together.)

Fuyumi and Rei go on to explain why they were also responsible for Endeavor’s abuse (I could a little bit understand Rei taking some responsibility, as their mother) but also Rei was married off to Endeavor in a quirk-wedding girl was basically trafficked. And this arc also decides to show “oh um actually their courship was good :3 Endeavor was good and caring, actually :3 he just got a wittle evil later on (are you mad at him?) <:3?”

Okay, okay okay I should stop I just canNOT be charitable about this arc.

At this point in the series, the Dabi=Touya confirmation and the resolution of the Todoroki family stuff was the only main thing I was still hanging around for. And the Endeavor redemption shattered my faith in the series so soundly I have only been idly following along since then without any of my heart in it.

In Conclusion

It’s a series that had so much heart and so much untapped potential at the beginning. And then Horikoshi reached the end of his thread of planning, and discovered he did not know how to actually follow through on character arcs or plot, and has pittered around aimlessly letting characters decay, plot threads unravel, and his best bet at this point has been to cling to a throughline which just does not make any sense.

Now we’re near the end and the characters are shells of their former selves and we’re going through the motions of every Big Shonen Wow tropey ending and, really, Deku can land the final ending punch on TomurAFO (or whatever we’re calling AFO!Shiggy) and I will feel just. Nothing about it. Because it won’t feel like any kind of conclusion for the characters I actually cared about at the beginning.

[ptergwen]

hi I saw your requests were open if there not anymore you can completely ignore this :). but could you do a boyfriend!peter x reader where he loves it when reader gives him those little kisses on his nose and freckles with head scratches please. feel free to change or completely ignore this <3

thousands of tiny stars

pretend i haven’t used this

warnings: a couple suggestive jokes but the rest is just floofy fluff

a/n: i got carried away as per usual and i did end up changing it a tiny bit :/ emphasis on tiny tho lmfhsjfh you’ll see ! either way i hope you enjoy mwah

-

one thing about peter is that he absolutely can’t sit still under any given circumstances. he’s restless, like a burning ball of energy that’s brightness never dims.

because of this, he tries to and needs to keep himself occupied and be kept occupied every second of every day.

it’s sometimes playing with his fingers or your own, which peter prefers because he gets to hold your hand. other times, it’s tapping his favorite pink glitter pen relentlessly against the kitchen table while he conjures up homework answers.

aunt may isn’t very fond of that one.

this time, it’s constantly shuffling about the couch in the name of finding comfort.

peter starts off with an arm around your shoulders and a content grin on his face. you two agreed on mean girls for the first movie of your marathon, your head resting against peter’s chest as the tv steals your attention.

a few minutes in, peter decides he feels like being held rather than holding you. he sneaks his way down your body, lets himself nudge your thighs to wordlessly communicate what he wants. you of course oblige and switch positions accordingly.

peter lays his head in your lap, taking the opportunity to stare up at you instead of at the screen.

he finds himself shifting around again not too much later. now laying on the couch’s armrest on his side, he kicks his feet into your lap where his head just was.

you’re becoming slightly annoyed with his fidgeting. his explanations of sorry, just trying to get comfortable and innocent smiles are what stop you from complaining.

“that’s strike three, parker,” you joke, eyes leaving the movie to fix on him. peter crosses his arms over his chest. “i dunno what you’re talking about, y/l/n,” he insists. “i haven’t done anything remotely strike-worthy so far this evening.”

flicking his sock clad foot, you mutter your response. “debatable.” peter dismisses you with a huff. “whatever. c’mere… i miss you.” he makes grabby hands for you, like the big baby he is.

it’s quite endearing, though.

“i’m right here, pete,” you laugh out and return your gaze to mean girls. “and yet, you’re so far,” peter counters. “come gimme cuddles.”

you sigh lightheartedly, your ever so clingy boyfriend still reaching out for you. a smirk pulls at your lips.

“well, there’s an offer i can’t refuse.”

peter adjusts so he’s sitting criss cross, bouncing excitedly in his spot. his chocolate brown curls fall in all directions, form being swallowed by an oversized stark industries hoodie that he keeps having to roll up the sleeves of.

he looks so soft and snuggly in anticipation of your cuddle session. you can’t believe you were ever annoyed at him.

slightly annoyed.

he’s so eager that when you scoot the tiniest bit towards him, he literally pulls you into his lap. peter’s arms hug you around your lower back, you laughing quietly as he peppers a trail of kisses from your cheek to the side of your neck.

the movie long forgotten about, you wind your arms around his neck and tilt your chin up.

“pete?” you breathe out. peter pecks your cheek once more, then your other, beaming. “yeah, babe?” he wonders. with a half serious half teasing glare, you wonder, “are you comfy now?”

peter ponders your question, and from the skeptical furrowing of his eyebrows and biting of his lip, you have your answer. he’s about to make you regret asking.

it seems that as soon as you settle, peter gets antsy.

“uh, actually…” he strokes his thumb along the underside of your chin, smiling apologetically. “you mind if we lie down? ‘m kinda tired.” there it is. you roll your eyes. “how could you not be? you’ve been playing musical chairs all night.”

your words earn a chuckle from peter, though they’re at his expense. “this’ll be the last round, promise,” peter swears and seals the deal with a kiss to your chin, which is currently grasped between his fingers.

you know it won’t be. the game goes on forever with peter, unless you end it yourself.

“damn right, bug boy. move another inch after this and you can consider your cuddle privileges revoked,” you grumble, getting off of peter’s lap. he stares at you in pure horror, gasping. “you wouldn’t…” “i would,” you correct him.

not aiming to test that theory, peter quickly fumbles around and lays flat against the cushions. he wills himself to be stiff as a board. you seem satisfied with that, climbing on top of him with your face hovering above his.

peter sets his hands on your hips, grip strong. he closes the space between you both with a short kiss. you reciprocate and deepen it, turning short to long as your parted lips slot with his. his tongue darts out, already skimming over your bottom lip for more access.

you hum into his mouth and allow his tongue to slide in. peter kisses you so tenderly as he rubs circles on your hips, your fingers tangling in his locks simultaneously. you weave them up to his roots, using your nails to gently scratch at his scalp just the way he likes. he breaks the kiss to let out a noise close to a moan.

“that- that… oh, god yeah,” peter praises, his eyes fluttering closed. you’re amused at how easily pleased he is. “don’t cream your pants yet, pete. i’m just getting started,” you purr. peter squeezes your hips in response. “feels better than an orgasm, babe. i’m serious, too,” he murmurs.

you continue your handiwork in his hair and lean in for another kiss. peter merely pecks your lips before jerking away.

“wait, hold that thought,” he exhales a breathy laugh. “i gotta pee.”

he has to be kidding. again with this?

“oh no, you don’t,” you deadpan, pushing against his shoulders to hold him down. “oh yes, i do,” peter retorts. “let me go, y/n/n.”

peter could definitely slither out from underneath you if he truly wanted to. he has super strength, so the might of his teenage girlfriend doesn’t quite compare.

pinning him in place, you straddle his waist. “nope, you’re gonna stay. i’m not giving you a choice in the matter.” peter attempts to pry you off of him, but you won’t budge. “y/n, my bladder is gonna explode-“

he cuts himself off with a giggle when your lips begin to attack him. you kiss down the bridge of his nose lightly, peck each freckle dotting his skin, and the amount of them is infinite. peter’s fit of giggles continues as you smooch that pretty face of his, his cheeks dusted pink and hands coming up to support you by your sides.

he’s always been a little insecure about his freckles. they don’t suit him, there are too many of them, blah blah blah. you obviously couldn’t disagree more. you think they’re sick.

you’d once even told him they look like thousands of tiny stars, and peter does love stars. he also loves the kisses you tend to randomly surprise him with to remind him to appreciate his freckles the same way you do.

“okay, okay! i’ll stay!” peter concedes, you ruffling his hair and pressing a final kiss to the tip of his nose. he grins despite himself, and secretly wishes you wouldn’t stop. “but, if my kidneys fail… it’s on you.”

you pat his chest definitively.

“good thing you’re a fast healer.”

[jackrrabbit]

Adversary /// Overhaul x f!Reader (18+)

Summary: You make a deal with the devil to save your life, but it turns out Overhaul’s not interested in your soul.

A/N: Remember when I said I was going to do a fantasy collab and then dipped for like 9 months? Hahaha…anyway…

@pleasantanathema @ present-mel @shadowworks—if it’s not too late, here’s my part for the Pleasant & Strider Fantasy AU Writing Collab from a million years ago. Go check out the masterlist and gorge yourself on these amazing pieces!!

Tags/Warnings: dubcon, demon fuckery & occult things, big heresy/sacrilege/perversion of religion, sex in a church ft. Catholic sex guilt, other than that it’s not that bad lol, inexperienced reader, mild degradation, shameless camp and demon-fucking clichés, Overhaul calls you “little girl” 👉👈

He doesn’t look like a demon.

Not that you really know what demons are supposed to look like. But…red skin, right? Fangs and claws and swirling masses of bad energy. Maybe cloven hooves for feet. Yes, that’s the Disney version—but even if you didn’t expect a cartoon personification of evil, you didn’t expect this.

He looks like a doctor, you think. Lab coat hanging open, surgery mask pushed down under his jaw, stethoscope draped over his shoulders. No, he’s a little young to really look like a doctor…an intern, you amend, shifting back in your hospital bed. He looks like he fits right in here, not a hair out of place. Except for, you know, the polished black horns curling out of the sides of his skull.

Overhaul. It was written in the book. That’s the only thing you have to call him in your head.

He’s standing in the center of the sigil you drew at the foot of your bed before midnight, surveying the room critically without meeting your gaze. He looks annoyed—that’s not a good sign, is it?—but then again, of course he’s annoyed. You’d be annoyed too if you got summoned out of your cozy hell dimension in the middle of the night. According to the book, you’re lucky he even showed up…although ‘lucky’ isn’t really how you’d describe yourself most days.

“So,” Overhaul says after a long moment of silence in which you question every choice you’ve made in your relatively short life. “You’re dying.”

You nod.

“And you don’t want to be.”

You nod again, wondering if you’re supposed to be contributing more to this conversation. It’s a bit difficult when your mouth is so dry it feels like you’ve been eating dirt, but you suppose being in the presence of an unholy servant of Satan will do that to a person.

“Fine.” He sighs, frowns, and then finally lowers his gaze onto yours—and you shiver.

Those eyes. No human has eyes like that.

“Make me an offer,” Overhaul tells you, and through his open mouth you catch a flash of sharp white teeth.

Okay. Okay. The chirping of the heart monitor speeds up (as if it weren’t obvious enough that you’re terrified) and you fold your knees up to your chest and fidget with your ring and think. He’s giving you a chance to establish parameters. You’re supposed to start with his end of the deal, the thing you want from him. That’s what it said to do in the grimoire, aka the 19th century demonology volume your creepy cousin brought back from her pagan anthropology research trip in rural France. The one you keep hidden under your bed because your mother would burn it if she knew you were reading about summoning demons.

Offer nothing to a hell creature without first telling him your price. You know the words by heart, both the winding calligraphy of the original French from the grimoire and the rushed scrawl of the English translation your cousin left for you in sheets of lined paper layered between the pages of the book for you to read. Really, this is her fault. She was the one who slipped you the book, who told you that it worked, who snuck you the ingredients for the summoning. She was the one who left a bookmark at the chapter on this particular demon, one that specializes in ‘Contrat pour Remédier au Déséquilibre des Quatre Humeurs’, which she said meant a contract to cure any illness. Even his ‘name’ is translated in her hand, practically an afterthought in the margins of the page.

‘Le Malin qui Ravage et Rebâtit’— Overhaul?

You looked up the literal meaning of this phrase on your own. It did not reassure you.

“Girl.” His voice is cold, irate. Your eyes snap back up to his and it feels like that burning gaze is laser-beaming into your skull. “Do not test me. My time is limited…as is yours.”

You swallow. “How long do I have left?”

“Less than a single human year,” he tells you without a trace of sympathy. “Seven months, twelve days, three hours. Or so. You’ll be too exhausted to leave this bed in four months, and the pain will become intolerable in six… By the end, you’ll wish—“

“Stop,” you breathe out. The heart monitor is beeping wildly and you squeeze your knees into your chest, trying to calm down your breathing. “Stop, I—I want to live.”

“Of course you do.” Overhaul’s lip curls. “How very predictable.”

Be specific, you remind yourself, doing your best to ignore the stifling disapproval from the man—the demon—in front of you. Something about him (maybe how clean-cut he looks, maybe the indisputable authority in his demeanor) makes you want to impress him. But you didn’t turn your back on your religion—you didn’t draw pagan symbols on the floor in chalk, fill silver cups with various questionable substances (including your own virgin blood), and turn the crucifix your mother hung over your bed upside-down so you could let a demon make you feel guilty for wanting to survive. “I want to be cured. I’m okay with whatever natural death I have instead when I’m older, I just don’t want to die of this illness. I want you to make me healthy.”

“Simple enough. What else?”

‘Simple’? Your heart surges with something you’ve felt very little of since your initial diagnosis—hope. “T-That’s it. Just the cure.”

Overhaul glares at you. “Humans… Every vice in the world available to you, and you limit yourselves to the basest priority of survival.”

“But you can do it? You can cure me?” you persist.

Overhaul steps forward (quiet, so quiet you wonder if he really moved) and holds a hand out to you past the foot of your bed—you hesitate, and a second later you can see the muscles in his hand flex, stretching the latex of his plastic gloves tight over his knuckles.

Just do it. You give him your hand. Carefully. Like you’re scared the contact will burn you. It doesn’t (although his skin feels warmer than yours), but after a moment his grip tightens, sliding down past your hand to circle the fragile bones of your wrist and squeeze.

“Ow?” You wince.

The demon’s eyes flicker closed for a second, lips moving silently like he’s talking to himself—and then he drops your hand unceremoniously back onto your lap. “You could be cured before the sun rises this morning. I doubt your stay in the hospital will extend past the end of the week.”

He sounds bored, voice as flat and passionless as it was earlier, but your heart is soaring. Cured. You’ve lived with this illness for so many years, you can’t remember the last time someone told you you could be cured. And getting out of the hospital that soon? You can just imagine taking down all the decorations from the walls of your room here and setting them up in your old bedroom at home. You could see friends on the weekend and not take an oxygen bag, you could get a job or—or apply to college, you could have a life—

“That is…assuming you have something to offer me in exchange for the cure.”

Your stomach drops. You’d almost forgotten about the other half of the deal.

“Don’t tell me I came all this way for nothing.” Overhaul steps back, and the orange light of the candles you set sends strange shadows over his arrogant face. The fires look brighter now, and you find yourself tracing the lines of those shining black horns. In an odd way, they look natural—so organically framing his temples that you can’t imagine him without them.

“N-No, of course not. I have some money—I mean, my mom has some, and I can get it for you…” Which is half the truth. If you know anything, it’s that your mother’s spent most of her savings on your treatment and care. You probably have more debt than you have money in the bank right now—you’d try to get rid of that, too, if you hadn’t read in the book how important it is to keep your request as simple and straightforward as possible.

…Although it’s apparently not enough. Overhaul’s eyes narrow, molten gold irises carved into slits. “Even if I had a use for human money, do you really believe your life is worth so little?”

“No—no,” you say quickly. “I just thought—in case you were interested—”

The air crackles with energy, the candle flames spark bright blood-red, and the hair on your arms stands straight up. “I am not.”

“Okay! I get it.” You wave your hands back and forth, pulling your IV line from side to side with the motion. The book was very clear about staying calm and rational while you work out the terms of the deal, but that’s easier said than done when you have a real live (live?) hell creature in front of you. You always knew this was going to be the hard part—all the stories say there’s only one thing that a demon would be interested in, and no matter how inviting the prospect of living past this illness is, you know you’d rather die than sell your immortal soul to the devil. “I’ll give you anything except my soul! And—and don’t hurt anyone I care about, or— just don’t hurt anyone, okay? Other than that, if there’s anything I can give you, I will.”

Overhaul’s lip curls, baring a thin strip of those unnaturally sharp canines. “And is your soul really so valuable?”

This throws you for a loop. Isn’t that the standard deal? A soul for a wish? That’s how it’s supposed to work—at least in this twisted version of reality where you can summon a demon to perform unholy miracles for you. But if you think about it, it doesn’t really make sense, does it? Why would your soul be valuable to him? You can’t form an argument, especially since you’re not willing to barter it away in the first place.

Your mouth is pursed open as you search for a response, but Overhaul doesn’t seem willing to wait. A gloved hand wraps its way around the railing at the side of your bed, and he leans in closer. “Little girl…what makes you think you possess anything I desire?”

Little girl. You’re not a little girl, you’re a grown woman—and yet there’s no untruth in the statement. In front of him you feel insignificant, immature, weak. You have nothing real to offer, and something tells you that you’re not going to get rid of the demon you summoned without a sacrifice you’re not willing to make.

You twist your ring around your finger—the nervous habit you haven’t bothered to break because you’ve always had more important things to worry about—and the glint of silver in the candlelight must catch Overhaul’s eye because before you even notice him moving, your delicate hand is trapped in his larger one to give him a better view of the tiny piece of jewelry. “What is this?”

“It’s—um, a ring. A purity ring.” Has he never seen one before? Well…actually, that makes sense.

Overhaul turns your hand over in his without touching the band of silver. He’s looking at it closely, inspecting the lovingly engraved cross in the design and the inscription on the other side. “Matthew 5:8,” he reads out.

“…Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,” you recite cautiously. It feels wrong to speak the words in front of him, but somehow you can’t help yourself.

Overhaul’s hand doesn’t leave yours. “This ring is important to you.”

“It’s a symbol of a—a promise I made to God. To save myself for my future husband.”

“To ‘save yourself’? To save what?”

You can’t believe you’re explaining this to a literal demon. You close your eyes and inhale slowly and taste smoke. “My…virginity. It’s a promise that I won’t have sex until I enter into a biblical marriage.”

At this, Overhaul is quiet. You give him a moment to answer, half expecting him to question why you think God cares about your sexual status (honestly, you’d be lying if you said you haven’t wondered this yourself), but he stays quiet until you peek up at him to try and gauge the look on his coldly handsome face.

He’s still staring at the ring. He hasn’t touched it—maybe he can’t, because of the cross?—and through the latex, his skin feels hotter than a human’s is supposed to be.

“Is there…” you start, but you trail off when you realize you have nothing to ask. You give a little tug to try and take your hand away and you’re surprised when your wrist actually slides out of his grip to fall back on the nest of sheets in your lap. You didn’t think he’d let you go so easily.

Overhaul turns his head to the side, eyes drilling into you so you feel like you should lower your gaze. The candlelight flickers in strange shadows over his horns. “This will do,” he says quietly.

“What?”

“In exchange for your cure.” The demon taps his own left ring finger, the place where the purity ring sits on your hand, and your heart soars. He actually wants that? It’s just a simple silver band, not worth much, but you’re not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe it has some special significance because of the religious connotation. Your mother will be angry you’ve lost it, but you’re happy to cope with that if it means living to actually get married!

“Yes!” you blurt out before he has a chance to rethink his offer. Sure, you’ll miss the purity ring—you’ve had it since you were a kid, after all—but there’s no question you’re getting the better end of this deal. At least in your opinion.

Something flashes through his yellow eyes, something you don’t even want to try and identify. “The contract, then.”

You barely have time to notice that his voice has gentled, that it’s practically silken in comparison to before, when the candlelight flickers again and suddenly the contract is everywhere. Everywhere. Writing appears on every surface in the room, covering the walls, stretching over the ceiling, coiling around the sides of the hospital equipment and decorating your bedsheets until you and Overhaul are the only untouched surfaces in sight. The characters are inscribed in red, dark red like—don’t think about that, you tell yourself squeamishly. You can make out some of the letters, even a word here or there—French, you recognize, mixed with what looks like Latin and interspersed with what you can only guess are runes.

“I can’t read this,” you tell him, fidgeting with your ring for what you now realize will be the last time.

“I only need your name,” he purrs, and then you feel a fragile weight in your hand: a feather, pearl-black and glossy and too large to belong to any bird you can think of, its angled tip glistening with wet ink. There’s an empty space in the writing before you, and Overhaul’s gloved hand comes to yours again to guide you into place.

This feels wrong…then again, of course it does. Even if you’re getting off relatively easy and just losing your ring rather than your soul, you’re still making a deal with a demon. You sign your name, forcing yourself to think about the future you have ahead of you rather than a disapproving white-bearded caricature of The Man Upstairs wagging his finger at you for haggling with a literal servant of Satan. People have done worse things to survive, haven’t they? It’s just a ring.

You set the feather down and Overhaul sighs, thick black eyelashes obscuring his intense gaze for a moment—and then the contract is gone, leaving your hospital room as blank and sterile as it’s supposed to be (well, aside from the candles and all the other ritual stuff you threw together to summon a demon in the first place).

“Are you going to cure—heal me now?” you ask.

“…Patience, little girl.” He’s pulling his glove off, peeling it down his fingers to bare the pale skin of his hand. You catch your breath and wonder what this is going to feel like, and then the tips of his fingers meet your cheek and—

you stop breathing.

It doesn’t hurt.

Or if it does, you don’t remember the pain a second later when breath floods back into your lungs. What you do feel is energy. Strength in your muscles, blood pumping through your veins, every inhale and exhale as light as a bird and freer. You feel healthy. You’re surprised you even remember what health feels like but you do: it’s like you’ve only been half alive, and now life is surging into you and through you and around you, bubbling up in your core like a spring overflowing. You blink rapidly, thinking you might cry from the sheer pleasure of it, but when you open your mouth it’s laughter that comes out. You’re healthy. You’re alive. You barely notice the IV line literally falling off of your skin because the hole where it entered your vein is sealed shut and healed perfectly.

No more needles. No more hospitals. Even without all the monitors beeping out your heart rate and measuring your vitals, there’s not a shred of doubt in your mind that you’re cured.

“Thank you!” you laugh, looking up at Overhaul and for the first time, not caring that he’s evil incarnate. “I feel—I’m okay! It worked!”

“Of course it did.” His expression is inscrutable, but he lets you have a few moments to enjoy your newfound health.

You roll your shoulders back, flex each muscle you can isolate one by one to test, make fists with your fingers and then run them over your hair, which is already thicker and shinier than it was a moment ago. Your body thrums with energy—you want to run, to feel the ground against your bare feet and the cold night air on your face, and you think you could do it! Your legs are already swinging over the side of your cot, ready to run barefoot out of the hospital if that’s what it takes, but before you can stand up Overhaul’s pushing you back down onto the bed.

“Have you forgotten your end of the bargain already?”

Honestly you did forget, but only for a second, only because you were so excited to just be outside again. “Oh, yeah. Of course.” Your hand goes to your left ring finger, ready to slip the ring off and hand it over, but Overhaul shakes his head.

“Not here.”

“What—?”

You’re falling. Your hospital room is disappearing, the image of your walls and your window and your bed disintegrating into yawning black, and you’re falling through it into nothing, into emptiness, and Overhaul’s still-bare hand in yours is the only anchor you have so you clutch onto it and squeeze your eyes shut. You want to scream—that’s the sane thing to do when you’re falling through miles and miles of empty space, right?—but when you open your throat the sound is swallowed up just like the light was…

Overhaul’s hand burns into yours, an improbable lifeline that you pull closer more out of terror than conscious thought. The slick, empty air rushes around you and you think I am going to die like this and then, incredibly, as soon as you’ve accepted your imminent demise, you feel your back mold onto a chilled, flat surface, vertebra by vertebra up to the back of your head, as if you’ve been lain down onto it.

Your heart thuds in your ears and you brace for an impact because your body hasn’t quite accepted yet that it’s not falling anymore—but at the same time, you know you’re lying down on something. You pry your fingers away from their vice-grip on Overhaul’s arm and feel around blindly for what’s underneath you, and when it seems reasonably tangible you let yourself open your eyes.

Way above, vaulted dozens of feet over your head, is a ceiling studded with gilt-edged frescoes and stained glass. It’s raining (even though it wasn’t in the hospital, you think) but through the massive panes of colored glass there’s enough oily blue light to make out that you’re in a church.

You’re in a church, with a demon. Isn’t that against the rules?

You sit up stiffly and look over at Overhaul, who’s standing at your side and looking down at you…which is how you realize the soft, cold surface you’ve been deposited onto is the blanket on top of the altar in the sanctuary. “Where...did you take me?”

“You should know this place.”

And you do, when you look around. It’s empty now and you’ve never been here at night, but this is a church your mother would bring you to when you were little, back before the disease got so bad you couldn’t risk traveling to it anymore. This is where you took your purity vow…the ring feels heavy on your hand. “Why—why—“

“I can’t stand human hospitals. Filthy places… How that reek of illness and death doesn’t bother your kind, I’ll never understand.” Overhaul pulls his latex glove back on. He’s dressed differently now, no longer impersonating a doctor—black shirt, black pants, and a…bird mask in red leather and gold. So are you, as a matter of fact. Instead of your hospital gown, you’re in a gauzy white dress that’s already been pushed up to pool around the tops of your thighs.

The slip is too thin for the cold, and you can feel your nipples standing up under the cloth so you fold your arms over your chest and hug yourself. “Why did you take me here?” The sound of your voice echoes off the walls eerily and you wish you hadn’t spoken so loudly. The reflection of your words sounds girlish, nervous.

“I told you. Your side of our contract.” Even in this dark, the angular features of his face are clearly concentrating—on you. “Are you already having second thoughts? Such a fickle little thing…”

“You mean the ring?” You reach for it again, ready to tear it off and throw it at him if that’s what it takes to see your deal through, but Overhaul snatches your hand away, pinning it above you.

“Not the ring,” he says. “The promise.”

The…promise?

A chill makes its way down your spine despite the heat radiating off the demon’s body and onto yours. “I don’t understand.”

“The promise,” Overhaul repeats—and you hear a sound almost like wings flapping and then he’s on the altar with you, knees straddling your hips as a single hand holds both your wrists above your head. “To remain a virgin until marriage. Your promise to God.”

A streak of lightning cracks down on the other side of the stained glass window behind the altar, illuminating the room briefly in spectacular pits of red and orange and yellow…and then it’s dark again, and the only color you can make out is the gold in Overhaul’s eyes.

“I’m going to break it,” he murmurs, lowering his head toward your ear right as the answering thunder rolls through the sanctuary, up through the altar, up into you.

///

Méfiez-vous de son piège, the grimoire said. Beware of the catch.

Of course it wasn’t just a ring.

Overhaul’s fingers are in—inside you, his middle and ring finger pumping through the length of your cunt like they belong there, like you were made to be touched this way. A mixture of your juices and your own spit cling to the latex because he made you suck his fingers before he put them in you and he hasn’t bothered to take his gloves off—not that you asked. You’ve been too busy biting your lip to try and muffle the moans that he keeps forcing out of you. He’s bracing himself on top of you with one hand and fingering you with the other, so your own hands are free to push into your eyes and hide your face…until he yanks your arm back and stops.

“Look at me.”

Your eyes are screwed shut and you shake your head back and forth, the movement shuddering your whole body right down to your pussy wrapped around Overhaul’s fingers. He slows the movement and kneels back, pushing one of your thighs up into your chest as he does it.

“Look at me.”

And you’re not sure whether it’s some unearthly power he has over you or the plain old deterioration of your willpower, but you can’t refuse him. You crack your eyes open and he’s glaring down at you, skin pale as ice in the blue light. Once he’s satisfied that you’re watching, the demon leans back in to fuck your cunt with his fingers, slowly at first and then quicker when he hits something inside of you—a spot, a place on the inner wall of your pussy that makes you feel like you’ve been shocked— heat blooms through you like blood in water and you gasp and he curls his fingers up to pet over that spot again.

“Wait—wait, that’s—it feels—weird!” You’ve never felt like this before. You’re not supposed to feel like this, it’s wrong.

“I understand you’ve never touched yourself, but don’t pretend you don’t like it.” Overhaul says, voice as indifferent and calm as ever even though your cunt is dripping clear sticky liquid over the plastic of his glove.

He pushes back in and grinds his palm over the little button on the top of your pussy—your clit?—and you want to scream. “No, I—I don’t—nnhh...”

Do you like it? The demon’s body is so hot next to yours, like he’s running a fever except you’re the one going out of your mind… You’ve heard metaphors for sexual pleasure before (that it’s like having something to drink when you’re dying of thirst; or that it’s the ultimate act of intimacy, love in physical form) but all of that’s a fucking lie. There’s nothing to compare it to, no reference that makes sense, because it doesn’t make sense—you don’t even want him to keep going, do you? You’re only doing this because you signed your name on a devil’s contract, because you don’t want to die and there’s no alternative…but that doesn’t explain why you feel so warm from the inside out, why you’re squirming and your hips are rocking involuntarily no matter how much you try to keep still. This isn’t right. You feel like you’ve been lied to.

A good girl wouldn’t like this.

Overhaul isn’t going to let you close your eyes, so you don’t—but the sounds coming out of your mouth are so…indecent (and how can you think these things about yourself? the word feels like someone else is saying it when you hear it in your head) that your hand is drifting up to your mouth before you can stop yourself, trying to stifle all of it…

“Let your voice out. I want you to hear yourself moan.”

Long fingers slide their way out of your pussy and then move up to rub quick little circles around your clit and you moan, like a whore, like a girl getting her cunt rubbed by a demon— “Oh, uhhhn—something, it’s—coming—“ There’s something building up in your core—a peak, a climax, something that makes you fist your hands in the nightgown he put you in (so tight you’re surprised the thin fabric hasn’t torn) and tilt your hips up into him, begging without words because you don’t have any to express what your body is asking for…

But he doesn’t give it to you. Overhaul takes his hand away from your pussy and the shock of the cool air after his too-hot touch is almost enough to send you over that edge—almost. Not quite. And without it, you’re left shivering and quaking, thighs twitching as your baser instincts beg you to just put your hand between your legs for once and hump your fingers to completion if the demon won’t do it.

You’re not going to risk that, though. Not when Overhaul’s dragging your body closer, bunching up the blanket on the altar under your spine, so your pelvis is angled to his… He’s already shirtless and you hear him unzipping his pants but you can’t bring yourself to actually look at him, even when you feel something hard and hot nudging up against your inner thigh and then aligning to your sticky wet slit.

“This will hurt a bit, but I want you to look,” he says, and you don’t even understand at first until you make yourself feel it—his cock, pushing up against your tight cunt to finish this, this perversion of what your first time was supposed to be…

And what was it supposed to be? Roses and candles and soft kisses? A nameless, faceless husband unzipping your wedding dress and making love to you with the lights off? The way the demon touches you should be cruel in comparison but it isn’t, it’s lighting fires under your skin and turning your brains to mush, so how is your body supposed to tell the difference?

It’ll hurt, you know that, you’ve heard enough about sex to know that it always hurts the first time for girls…women. It was already a stretch to fit his fingers in your virgin pussy, so of course his cock is going to hurt. You turn your head toward the window at your side and try on look out at the rain drawing rivulets like veins over the glass, something to focus on instead of him.

“I said look,” the demon hisses, and his hips push forward a bit and you bite off a whimper of pain. “Watch me take your virginity…look at your tight little cunt swallowing me up just like it was made to.”

“N-No—“ you whine, even though it’s not like you can ignore it. “Don’t make me, don’t make me look, I can’t—“

“Then look at me.”

It’s what he wants, some kind of wicked satisfaction he gets off on, but you’re lucky enough to even get an option so you choose that one, shifting your gaze up into his face instead of the place where his cock is pressing deeper and deeper inside you. Overhaul’s eyes are half-lidded and it’s hard to tell from behind the mask but the look on his face is…pleasure? No, that would be too human. Restraint, at least. He could just thrust up into your body in one stroke, but he wants you to feel it for some reason.

Maybe because it’s a worse betrayal of your chastity if you want to get fucked.

Lucky for you, though, you can barely feel anything aside from the pain. The heat you felt building earlier is draining out of you even as Overhaul tilts deeper, layering his chest over yours. You’re almost grateful for the modest barrier the dress provides between your torso and the solid muscle of his abdomen. His cock in your pussy feels like it’s too big too deep too much and it’s the first time you’ve felt like your body wasn’t created specifically for this purpose so you hold it tight.

“Does it hurt?”

A second of clarity makes you want to snarl (of course it fucking hurts, I’m losing my virginity to a demon I summoned from hell) and you dig your fingernails into your palms to stop yourself from saying it out loud. Overhaul pulls out a fraction of an inch and then pushes back in and you feel like the breath’s being pushed out of your lungs. “Yes! Yes, it—it hurts—“

“I can make you enjoy it…for a price,” he sighs, settling into a slow rocking motion of his hips pushing into yours.

And you want to, every sore muscle in your cunt is telling you to give in and give up, give him what he wants so you can enjoy it like he says—but you’d rather hate every second of this than make another deal. You shake your head quickly and because you’re still too afraid to look away from him, you don’t miss the look of surprise that flits across his face before he tamps it down. “I don’t—I don’t want to—like it,” you gasp out between thrusts. “It’s better if—if it h-hurts…”

This time it’s obvious—his eyes really do widen, and you feel some petty triumph at having caught him off guard like this. Who’s predictable now? you think—and then he’s lifting one hand off the altar at the side of your head and tugging his glove off with his teeth, and you don’t even have time to be afraid of what he’s going to do to you because it’s too late, his bare fingers are already stroking over your mound and onto your core, massaging into the flesh of your stomach so he can feel his own cock sliding in and out of you—

and it doesn’t hurt anymore?

You only have a second to try and understand—he cured you, he healed the pain from your first time just like he healed your illness?—before he hooks his grip under your thigh and folds your legs into your chest so he can fuck into you harder than before. His cock slaps into your pussy and you can hear it, hear how wet your filthy little cunt is, smeared through with your juices. It’s sick—the sound of skin against skin, and the moaning you can’t hold back, you sound like a woman in a porno and you wish the pain would come back just so you could keep hating what he’s doing to you. “What—what did you do—“

The demon ignores you. “It feels good, doesn’t it.”

“Nn—“ It’s deeper like this…deeper and rougher and you can feel it. Now that the pain’s been reduced to the dull ache of a stretched muscle, you can feel everything—his cock sliding against that same spot in your cunt that makes you want to squeal, the friction of his body moving against your clit, all of it, everything you wanted to block out— he pumps into you and you hear your breath sobbing out a moan a second out of rhythm, the sounds of you bouncing on demon cock echoing over the walls. “Please—ah, ahhh…”

“‘Please?’ Are you begging—me, little girl?” Overhaul pushes your thigh up and drags his cock through you, excruciatingly slow, forcing you to feel the thick head slide over every gummy wall in your slick pussy.

You shake your head, mewl, try to force your hips to stop rocking back into his and grinding your clit against him. But you can’t. You’re a—you were a virgin, for fuck’s sake! Overhaul’s immortal. Probably thousands of years of experience on how to make you feel like you want this, like you’re only alive in the places he touches you… You’re at his mercy, if he has any. You never stood a chance.

“Then are you begging your god?” His body lowers directly onto yours and like you’re being controlled by puppet strings your arms fold around him and rake your fingernails uselessly into the smooth skin of his back. You can feel the vibration of his mirthless laughter through his chest. “It must hurt terribly…to know he isn’t listening.”

“Don’t—stop, please,” you sob. “Don’t say—don’t stop—please!”

“Listen to yourself, girl—“ Overhaul’s breath is faster now, but you don’t have time to question it because you feel your peak coming again, the tension rising up through your cunt and your abdomen, harsher and crueler than when his fingers were in you but you want it just as much. More. “Has he ever answered your prayers? Has he...ahh, fuck—who’s the one giving you what you need?”

“No— please, please just let me let me, please—“ You’re talking nonsense now, begging for the release—at least then it’ll be over, and you need it, you need it so badly you feel your muscles locking up, cramping, your ankles crossing each other behind Overhaul’s back.

“Good girl,” the demon breathes, and then he lifts off you so he’s kneeling upright with the two of you still connected, his thick, heavy cock still speared in your pussy, and his fingers come down again to rub at your clit. Everything’s so wet you can hear the motion of his fingers slicking themselves through your juices, sliding up and down the little button over and over and it feels so good that a tiny part of you almost wants to drag it out, to savor it, but the rest of your body is going to die, is going to go crazy if the demon doesn’t let you cum right now, right now, right now!

And he does. Praise the Lord. The pads of Overhaul’s fingers pass over your clit one last time and your head rolls back, your throat moves but you can’t even make a sound, your legs shake and you cum.

You didn’t know it was like this.

Your cunt squeezes down on his cock, throbbing and pulsing and your toes literally curl (you didn’t think that was a real thing!) and your vision goes black for a moment and—oh fuck oh fuck i want this i want more how is it possible that i’ve never felt like this—you understand, more intimately than ever, why sex is wrong:

because nothing that makes you feel this good could possibly come without a cost, could it?

///

It must take longer than you thought for you to come back to your senses, because when you regain awareness of your body you’re in your hospital bed. You’re clean, too, and you wonder for a second if Overhaul bothered to clean you up? Or no…he probably just snapped his fingers and transported you back to your room. You’re not really sure how it works.

What you are sure of, however, is that you just got fucked by a demon. You’re sore in places that you didn’t know it was possible to be sore, and there are already bruises forming on the flesh of your thighs from how tight he was holding you. You don’t really have time to inspect these, though, because apparently your…ordeal (if you can call it that) isn’t over.

Overhaul’s still here.

He’s facing the hints of sunrise through the east window, dressed again in the immaculate lab coat and surgeon’s mask. “You’re awake,” he says without looking at you.

You nod hesitantly. You’re not really sure what the protocol is in this situation, but at least you’ve finally held up your side of the contract, right? And so has he. Despite having been up all night doing sinful things, you’re still itching to get out of this bed and test the limits of your healthy body. “You’re…going to leave, right?”

“Yes—”

At that, you sigh in relief and settle back into your starched bedsheets.

“But there’s one more thing you owe me.”

“Goddamnit,” you swear for the very first time in your life. After what you just did, taking the Lord’s name in vain seems like a relatively minor sin.

Overhaul’s mildly irritated expression doesn’t change, but he holds his hand out to you, palm up, the way you imagine someone would if they were helping you out of a car or requesting a dance at an old-fashioned ball. And really, you want all of this to be over—you want to get out of this hospital, you want to taste what the air outside is like, you want to distract yourself from what you just gave up in exchange for a future. At this point you’re just going to have to hope God isn’t as picky about the whole premarital sex thing as you grew up believing.

So you put your hand in Overhaul’s.

Slowly, carefully, like he’s afraid it’ll burn him, he slides your purity ring down your finger and balances it in the palm of his bare hand. It sizzles when he touches it, glowing orange until it eventually burns down into a ash-black circle in the center of his palm. Once he’s satisfied that your pretty little ring has been reduced to nothing more than a scorch mark, he closes his hand around yours and you feel something sharp, painfully hot, etching onto your finger.

It’s over in a second, but you still yelp and yank your hand away from him as soon as he lets you. “Ah—ow, what was that?”

He burned you, he literally burned you! He’s already healed it, but there’s still a thin, pale scar, an intentional one left wrapping around the skin at the base of your left ring finger. Like a wedding ring.

When you look close, you can make out a symbol on the back of your finger where the cross used to sit—and even though your conscious mind doesn’t recognize it, the sight of it rings out something inside your ribcage, deeper and truer than flesh and blood. It’s the devil’s mark, you think. It’s his.

“…A promise,” Overhaul says softly, and even though it’s a chilly morning, you can feel the heat of his hands on yours a long time after he vanishes back into the dark.