#also these are all very surface level things but don't say i didn't warn you

[hychlorions]

I for one would like to hear your telltale thoughts 👀👀

ok!!! i am going to try my hardest to explain what i think. but be warned that a lot of this is going to be speculative. but then again. it's aa4 🥴

putting this under the cut bc it's long. i think. idk i'm typing this on mobile

so! to start us off, aside from the obvious (murder lol /j), there's one really big thing the protagonist and kristoph have in common, which is that no one really knows what their motives are. The story’s protagonist says they loved the old man. The line “I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this!” (lol) uses hedging as well, so they’re not even sure of it themselves. Kristoph’s black psychelocks appear when you ask him why he killed zak gramarye, implying he’s buried the reason so deep in his subconscious he doesn’t even know it’s there in the first place. So that’s another thing they have in common: they’re not sure what their motives are for murder.

They do have something more (and this is where we get into speculative territory). There’s this underlying paranoia in both of the characters, that I like to think is part of their ~mysterious~ motive. More specifically, it’s a fear of being watched. Again, tell-tale’s protagonist with the eye, referenced after the line where they'd speculated it might had been the eye: "One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture — a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees — very gradually — I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever." Then Kristoph’s suspicions that someone had watched him right back all those years after the Gramarye trial. Maybe kristoph killed zak gramarye because he was the most obvious connection to the case that would drag kristoph’s name through the mud. I mean, who knows what trucy’s told zak. She could easily connect kristoph and the diary page she’d given to her dad’s lawyer.

(unrelated but I also think phoenix’s trial could possibly be a step into getting rid of trucy as well. befriend her dad who is conveniently the lawyer you’d gotten disbarred via fake evidence, kill a man (most likely unplanned), pin it on him (most likely planned right after the unplanned thing), get a greenhorn attorney to do the dirty work for you and blame the guilty verdict on incompetence (happened by convenience), then you know. a girl is left vulnerable without a guardian. there’s some mvk-edgeworth shit that could go on here if this worked out. probably)

if we were to assume that it really was the eye that had caused the protagonist to kill the old man in the first place, then another key similarity about them and kristoph is that eyes were their undoing, what caused them to take a life, or in poe's words: rid themselves of the eye forever. In Kristoph's case, this 'eye' was two things. The first is phoenix keeping him close all these years, watching him, knowing all along that kristoph had been behind his disbarment all those years ago (in the drawing, this is represented by the camera, aka the pin on phoenix's beanie, which is why it's pulled over his eye, just to make it more like the old man, with his one big, creepy eye). The second is apollo, his powers that he'd discovered at the advent of kristoph's drawn-out fall, because his bracelet is primarily tied to SEEING those lies (seeing the tension, if we want to be fussy about it. and i will be. because we all know how i am about the bracelet)

sort of unrelated tangent, but my school had this "living museum" held by the theater club every year and let me tell you it was a Hit 😎 (our theater club was popular yeah) anyway. they had a different author every year, and the year they did poe they chose to show telltale heart through the pov of the eye and the heart. and idk. the heart just stuck with me. i'm p sure that the beating heart in the story was the protag's own anxious beating heart that they imagine to be the old man's instead. it's not an exact parallel, but the magatama was used in the investigation into phoenix's disbarment, and the magatama is connected to the heart, blah blah blah, so i used it in the drawing because the heart. because it looked cool B) now that i think about it, it's kind of ironic—it's a tell-tale heart, revealing information, betraying the protagonist's guilt, and ultimately the beating of it caused them to reveal their crimes in the finale. Kristoph's heart held secrets so close he'd buried it even from himself. that's saurrrrr funnay 🥴

the last thing i'd like to point out was that the reveal was done to three officers. and i just thought it was so fitting kristoph was before three people as well when his crimes were implicated. which is why trucy, apollo, and klavier were there in the background. originally, there was a second piece with their reactions to phoenix's dead body but i chose to scrap it because of kristoph's unfortunate angle. i still have the thumbnail, though! you can see it here!

anyway. look at this venn diagram feat the spongebob ep mermaidman and barnacleboy iv. you get it. probably

[agapi-kalyptei]

crowdstrike: hot take 1

It's too early in the news cycle to say anything truly smart, but to sum things up, what I know so far:

there was no "hack" or cyberattack or data breach*

a private IT security company called CrowdStrike released a faulty update which practically disabled all its desktop (?) Windows workstations (laptops too, but maybe not servers? not sure)

the cause has been found and a fix is on the way

as it stands now, the fix will have to be manually applied (in person) to each affected workstation (this could mean in practice maybe 5, maybe 30 minutes of work for each affected computer - the number is also unknown, but it very well could be tens (or hundreds) of thousands of computers across thousands of large, multinational enterprises.

(The fix can be applied manually if you have a-bit-more-than-basic knowledge of computers)

Things that are currently safe to assume:

this wasn't a fault of any single individual, but of a process (workflow on the side of CrowdStrike) that didn't detect the fault ahead of time

[most likely] it's not that someone was incompetent or stupid - but we don't have the root cause analysis available yet

deploying bugfixes on Fridays is a bad idea

*The obligatory warning part:

Just because this wasn't a cyberattack, doesn't mean there won't be related security breaches of all kinds in all industries. The chaos, panic, uncertainty, and very soon also exhaustion of people dealing with the fallout of the issue will create a perfect storm for actually malicious actors that will try to exploit any possible vulnerability in companies' vulnerable state.

The analysis / speculation part:

globalization bad lol

OK, more seriously: I have not even heard about CrowdStrike until today, and I'm not a security engineer. I'm a developer with mild to moderate (outsider) understanding of vulnerabilities.

OK some background / basics first

It's very common for companies of any size to have more to protect their digital assets than just an antivirus and a firewall. Large companies (Delta Airlines) can afford to pay other large companies to provide security solutions for them (CrowdStrike). These days, to avoid bad software of any kind - malware - you need a complex suite of software that protects you from all sides:

desktop/laptop: antivirus, firewall, secure DNS, avoiding insecure WiFi, browser exploits, system patches, email scanner, phishing on web, phishing via email, physical access, USB thumb drive, motherboard/BIOS/UEFI vulnerabilities or built-in exploits made by the manufacturers of the Chinese government,

person/phone: phishing via SMS, phishing via calls, iOS/Android OS vulnerabilities, mobile app vulnerabilities, mobile apps that masquerade as useful while harvesting your data, vulnerabilities in things like WhatsApp where a glitched JPG pictures sent to you can expose your data, ...

servers: mostly same as above except they servers have to often deal with millions of requests per day, most of them valid, and at least some of the servers need to be connected to the internet 24/7

CDN and cloud services: fundamentally, an average big company today relies on dozens or hundreds of other big internet companies (AWS / Azure / GCP / Apple / Google) which in turn rely on hundreds of other companies to outsource a lot of tasks (like harvesting your data and sending you marketing emails)

infrastructure - routers... modems... your Alexa is spying on you... i'm tired... etc.

Anyway if you drifted to sleep in the previous paragraph I don't blame you. I'm genuinely just scratching the surface. Cybersecurity is insanely important today, and it's insanely complex too.

The reason why the incident blue-screened the machines is that to avoid malware, a lot of the anti-malware has to run in a more "privileged" mode, meaning they exist very close to the "heart" of Windows (or any other OS - the heart is called kernel). However, on this level, a bug can crash the system a lot more easily. And it did.

OK OK the actual hot lukewarm take finally

I didn't expect to get hit by y2k bug in the middle of 2024, but here we are.

As bad as it was, this only affected a small portion of all computers - in the ballpark of ~0.001% or even 0.0001% - but already caused disruptions to flights and hospitals in a big chunk of the world.

maybe-FAQ:

"Oh but this would be avoided if they weren't using the Crowdwhatever software" - true. However, this kind of mistake is not exclusive to them.

"Haha windows sucks, Linux 4eva" - I mean. Yeah? But no. Conceptually there is nothing that would prevent this from happening on Linux, if only there was anyone actually using it (on desktop).

"But really, Windows should have a better protection" - yes? no? This is a very difficult, technical question, because for kernel drivers the whole point is that 1. you trust them, and 2. they need the super-powerful-unrestrained access to work as intended, and 3. you _need_ them to be blazing fast, so babysitting them from the Windows perspective is counterproductive. It's a technical issue with no easy answers on this level.

"But there was some issue with Microsoft stuff too." - yes, but it's unknown if they are related, and at this point I have not seen any solid info about it.

The point is, in a deeply interconnected world, it's sort of a miracle that this isn't happening more often, and on a wider scale. Both bugfixes and new bugs are deployed every minute to some software somewhere in the world, because we're all in a rush to make money and pay rent and meet deadlines.

Increased monoculture in IT is bad for everyone. Whichever OS, whichever brand, whichever security solution provider - the more popular they are, the better visible their mistakes will be.

As much as it would be fun to make jokes like "CrowdStroke", I'm not even particularly mad at the company (at this point - that might change when I hear about their QA process). And no, I'm not even mad at Windows, as explained in the pseudo-FAQ.

The ultimate hot take? If at all possible, don't rely on anything related to computers. Technical problems are caused by technical solutions.

[ryanthel0ser]

Matchablossom fic but it's a braindump cause I can't write a full fic right now

Joe is the first one to realize his feelings. He almost feels his heart stop as it hits him. He's in love with Cherry. He's been in love with Cherry for a long time. It doesn't take long for him to wish he hadn't realized, everything changes. If he acted on it, he risks losing Cherry because Cherry probably doesn't feel the same...right?

No, nope. Can't get caught up in that thought. Besides, they never really talk about each others feelings like that so how'd he even say it? He couldn't even get one word out before Cherry raced Adam. It's best to just leave things as is, he's been in love with Cherry this whole time so he just keeps doing the usual. It'll be fine...yeah.

Time goes on, things are for the most part normal, but it's starting to show that something is eating away at Joe. Cherry isn't sure how to bring it up, they never really talk about this stuff after all. The others haven't noticed but they don't really know Kojiro like he does.

"So, I've seen you're losing your touch." "What?" "You haven't had as many women hanging off your arms. Are they finally realizing you're a gorilla?" "HEY I've just been busy that's all, and why the hell do you care." "Because maybe with your focus off getting some action every weekend you'll make better food." "Are you saying the food I make now isn't good?" "Your words not mine." "Then, why do you keep coming here asshole if you think my cooking is that bad!" "You're the closest Italian restaurant and I know at the very least you'll get my order right." "Whatever."

He puts Cherry's order in front of him and walks back to the kitchen, throwing his hands up. Cherry wouldn't admit it, but Joe's cooking had gotten better. He was a great chef before, but something must've changed in his technique. The ingredients were all the same, the presentation was identical to what it'd always been, but recently every order Cherry got tasted better than before.

Joe had also begun to say Cherry's order before he could, even if it was different that day. Out of annoyance, Cherry ordered something completely out of his usual tastes. Joe raised an eyebrow and scoffed,

"You're gonna hate it, just get the carbonara like you always do." "Just make my order already, I want to try something else." "Alright, don't say I didn't warn you."

It arrives and...Cherry hates it. He tries to eat it and put on his best poker face but it's just not what he wants. It's well made, but he hates the taste and texture. Suddenly, a plate of carbonara is placed in next to him. It had only been a minute.

"Even I can't watch your suffering like that." "I've only taken a few bites you buffoon." "Yeah and it's written all over your face that you hate it. I had your carbonara made at the same time. Enjoy princess."

Joe takes the other plate and walks off again. Cherry watches him leave. There's a strange flutter in his chest.

Eventually something happens with Joe, something related to his restaurant that does get resolved but Cherry is worried for Joe the whole time. It's similar to how Joe was before his race against Adam so Cherry doesn't quite know how to express his worry to Joe. Paired with how weird Joe is starting to get around him it's creating tension.

Their bickering starts to become full on arguments, the others are trying to figure out what's wrong between Joe and Cherry because this isn't their surface level bickering. One night in Joe's restaurant after closing they get into another heated argument but it reaches a point where someone says something that snaps them both back to reality. They realize their arguing isn't about the topic, but something else.

Joe goes to the back, Cherry is left sitting at the bar scared Joe isn't coming back. Joe walks back and goes to where Cherry is sat, skateboard in hand.

"Lets go for a ride, you and me."

Cherry follows him out with Carla. They skate together around the island in the moonlight. After a bit, Joe begins apologizing to Cherry. He doesn't confess to Cherry, but he does detail how important Cherry is to him and how stressed and worried he's been over what's been happening at the restaurant. This heartfelt admission from Joe is said the same way he spoke to Cherry when he was asleep, only this time Cherry can hear every word.

"Right, Kaoru?"

Kojiro smiles at him softly, the moonlight perfectly framing him. Kaoru is in love with him. He's deeply in love with him. His chest begins to hurt as his heart starts to fill looking at Kojiro. He's been there for him since they were kids, he's cared for him despite the bickering and Kaoru's picky attitude. He was there when Adam was still a fresh wound and when Adam hospitalized him. He could almost feel the blanket Kojiro put on him that night he escaped the hospital and slept in the restaurant. It felt like his heart was about to burst out of his chest as he remembered Kojiro staying with him the whole night.

Kaoru was in love with Kojiro.

Things changed after that. Joe and Cherry weren't arguing anymore, but their bickering did have a new air to it. Joe would smile at Cherry in a not-cocky way and Cherry's ears kept turning red. Shadow teased him about it once. He quickly regretted it. No one else brought up Cherry's ears if Cherry was near after that.

Small actions begin to build up between them that start to make things more awkward. Little things that push the boundaries of their friendship. Joe wiping Cherry's face off, Cherry fixing Joe's shirt, getting close enough to where both move away with pink cheeks, and Cherry keeps calling Joe Kojiro.

One night at S, Cherry wins his race and Joe picks him up and swings him around in a hug. Cherry gets flustered and doesn't react normally. They stare at each other awkwardly for what feels like ages. Joe thinks he's done something wrong, that he's finally gone too far. He leaves S not long after, quickly. Cherry gets stopped by his fans, searching around for Joe. The others tell him Joe left already. He gets out and takes off on Carla looking for Joe.

Finally, he catches up to Joe (thank you Carla) and does a move that forces him to stop.

"The hell Kaoru! That could've crashed us!" "Talk. What's going on?"

The look on Cherry's face makes it very clear Joe can't avoid it. Joe sighs, he didn't know how he was going to say this, especially with his heart in his throat. Both of their hearts are pounding.

He begins talking about things just like he did on the night ride, but adds more. The words he's using and the way he's saying it changes the meaning they had on the night ride. His cheeks are red, he's stumbling over some words, dancing around what he really wants to say.

Kaoru can barely hear over the pounding in his chest, but he catches everything he needs to. And he's starting to get frustrated.

Just say it. Tell me Kojiro.

…Fuck it.

"Do I have to do everything myself?"

He pulls down his mask and then pulls Kojiro into a kiss. He's shocked for a moment before melting into the kiss a bit. Kaoru pulls away, flustered and avoiding Kojiro's gaze.

"There, now we kn-"

Before he can get another word out, Kojiro pulls him by the waist into another kiss. A longer one, both of them melting into it as they pull the other closer. Kaoru then feels a smile form on Kojiro's lips, before Kojiro begins to laugh a bit.

"What?" "You're a terrible kisser." "THEN WHY DID YOU KISS ME AGAIN IDIOT?!" "Cause how else are you supposed to learn pinky?"

They decide for now to keep their relationship under wraps, not because they're worried about possible homophobia but because it would attract so much unwanted attention. The top skaters at S in a romantic relationship would get a lot of eyes and questions neither want to deal with. This also means they don't tell the others immediately because SOME people cannot keep their mouths shut (shenanigans will ensue because of this).

To everyone else, it seems like they're back to normal, except they keep giving each other bedroom eyes on occasion now. For them though, their lives have just a bit more late night skating, kissing, and morning cuddles.

[stormz369]

The King of Hell and Me: Ch 4 - The Contract

Chapter Guide Ch 1 Ch 2 Ch 3 Ch 4

Summary: A witch summons Lucifer to earth to make a deal. Warnings: none I can think of? This is a generally sweet, fluffy chapter Word Count: 2.3k

Summoning the devil wasn't part of the plan. A demonic creature, yes, but the actual devil? The book didn't say anything about him. I was expecting to be dealing with an imp or some other kind of lower level Hellion. Someone with the power to do what I wanted, but not to completely fuck me over. Someone who'd take something I could spare. Not my soul.

The devil was also far less intimidating than I expected. He was a little on the short side, and far more human than I might have thought. Aside from the six glorious wings at his back, the least human things about him were his teeth and eyes; red and yellow, swirling with confusion and housing an ancient sorrow that seemed buried just below the surface. An unamused, but surprised look finally landed on me, knelt by the edge of the summoning circle. He made to move toward me, but was held in place by the ring of black salt. With a huff, he leaned back against the barrier, crossing his arms and observing me.

“... No one's summoned me to the mortal world in a long time. … You must be desperate.”

“I … I'll be honest, that wasn't supposed to happen, Sir … the book doesn't say anything about …” I fumbled through the book, rereading the spell. There was nothing to indicate who it called upon.

“Sir?” He chuckled, “well, that’s refreshing. Last time I was pulled into a summoning circle, the wretch had the nerve to call me ‘Dark Prince’ the whole time.”

I chuckled a bit awkwardly. “... Well, that's kind of a mouthful. If you don't mind, I think I'll stick with Mr. Morningstar?”

“Lucifer, please … but how did you know?”

“Aside from the snake and apple motifs you've got going on? You have six, very large, feathered wings. I might not be Christian, but I do know what angels are supposed to look like. … Sir.”

After a moment he let out a bark of a laugh, holding his sides. “Oh golly, you're entertaining! Alright, little witch. Whoever you were trying to summon, you've got me. So what deal were you trying to make?”

I took a deep breath to steady my nerves. Now or never, I guess. “My best friend is ill, and the doctors have given up hope. …”

“You want to trade your soul for your friend's life?” He smiled gently.

“... Does it have to be my soul?”

A strange look passed over his beautiful face, and he considered me for a moment. “... Maybe we can come to another arrangement. … There is something I can't get in Hell, and you did bring me here.”

I nodded slowly, curious what Lucifer himself could possibly want from earth. “Yes?”

“... Only sinners end up in hell. I … I gave Eve that apple for her own benefit. To help her, and her children. So they could be better, be more … more. Not just animals, consumed by their instincts. But I’ve never seen any good come of it …”

“Oh … well that's not at all fair …” I frowned, looking up at him. “Especially considering how much good there is …’’

He cleared his throat, nodding a bit. “Right, so … if you show me some of that good, I'll heal your friend. Do we have a deal?”

“Huh? N- no, I don't just want my friend healed. I want a cure.”

“... Same thing?”

“No, Sir,-”

“Lucifer.”

“... Lucifer, … the doctors don't know how to help her. Which means they don't know how to help anyone else with this illness either. I want my friend healed, but I also want there to be a cure for everyone else.”

A small smile slid across his lips. “... That amount of power will cost quite a bit more … but something tells me you're more than capable of paying the price.”

A crisp white scroll unfurled from his hand, gold ink scrawling across it before my eyes. I carefully took the paper in my hands, reading it carefully.

“... This says you decide when I've held up my side of the deal. How do I know you'll ever decide to pay up?”

He smirked a bit, sharp teeth glinting in the light. “You're a clever one. … Alright, as a show of good faith, I will heal your friend up front. … You earned that much at least.”

With a wave of his hand, the text changed. I reread the document and nodded. “... Thank you. Ok, where do I sign?”

A white feather quill appeared, and Lucifer took it. He tapped the end to his finger, and pulled away a trail of … liquid gold? He signed the bottom with a flourish, then offered me the quill.

“Touch it to the ring finger of your non-dominant hand, it will draw up a small amount of your blood to sign with.” He tapped the paper where I was to sign. 

I nodded, taking the quill, and placed it against my finger like he said. There was a brief, sharp, pain and when I pulled the quill away a trail of red followed. My finger appeared uninjured, but hurt like I had pricked it with a sewing needle. I signed where he indicated, and the summoning circle went up in flames, leaving no trace.

Lucifer smiled brightly, rolling up the scroll before he handed it to me. “Your contract, my lady.”

I took it, standing slowly. “... Thank you …”

He snapped his fingers, creating a crackle of energy throughout the room, and grinned. “There’s my side done, for now. So, how shall we start?”

///////////////

It took me all afternoon to think on what to start with. While I made tea and thought about it, he entertained himself by looking through my books and movies. His wings disappeared as he sat on my couch, reading the back cover of a book.

“... Is this for entertainment, or documentation?” He held the book up to show me the cover.

“That’s historical fiction, so entertainment based loosely on fact. It's about the wives of Henry the Eighth. … Do you know about them? How much do you know about human history?”

He chuckled. “I do keep apprised of the major headlines up here, but I don't typically bother with anything more. … You derive entertainment out of the suffering of those women?”

I chuckled a bit, setting a teacup in front of him, and sitting on the other side of the couch. “I think most people who read stories about horrible events do so because they don't understand how such things happen. We have a certain … morbid fascination with cruelty. … But I think it's usually also about honoring the dead. … They suffered so horribly, but we remember them. We don't let the bad things that happened to them get swept under the rug.”

He took the tea, watching me. “... I see …. Well, what good is there in that?”

“Ever heard the phrase ‘those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it'?”

“You think remembering their pain will keep it at bay?”

“Something like that … can't avoid pain if you don't know what you're looking out for. Can't protect your loved ones unless you know what you're defending them against.”

He chuckled, sipping his tea. “I see…” He watched me, a curious look on his face. “So, any ideas yet?”

“Well, I was thinking we could start around town. You said it's been a while since you've been on earth?” He nodded, giving me a curious expression. “Then I think we ought to start with a little tour around town, so you can get acclimated. Maybe something will strike your fancy, yeah?”

“... You don't have to do that, you know.” A small frown slid across his face.

“Do what?”

“The tea, taking me on a tour … it's cute, but unnecessary.”

I set my teacup down, raising an eyebrow. “... Cute?”

“Trying to curry favor.” He frowned more.

A sharp laugh ripped out of me, and I covered my mouth. “... I'm sorry. … I'm not trying to ‘curry favor' with you, Lucifer. You're a guest in my home, you should be able to expect some basic hospitality. My grandma always said we should be hospitable to others, cause you never know when it'll make all the difference in their lives.”

He watched me for a moment and chuckled softly. “I don't think your grandmother meant you to be hospitable to the devil, little witch.”

“If my grandma were here right now, she would ask why I haven't set out any cookies. Sadly, I have none to offer you. But I was thinking we could stop for ice cream on our tour. There's a really cute local ice cream parlor, I'd say it definitely counts as something good people have done with free will.”

He blinked slowly. “... You are … not at all what I expected.”

“I could say the same thing about you.”

After a brief moment he smirked, standing up. “Where's this ice cream parlor?”

//////////////

So I showed Lucifer around my little town. I took him to a playground where he could see happy families together. To a riverbank where my coven picked up litter and people went tubing and swimming. The ice cream parlor, and some other local businesses I liked. I bought him an ice cream cone, and a duck plushie he seemed particularly drawn to. He was hesitant to accept it, but once it was in his hands he held it to his chest, periodically stroking the tuft of fur on its head.

We walked in the sunshine, past schools and libraries. We watched a guitar player in a park, and got tacos from a food truck. And all day, I told him stories of kindness and generosity, big and small. Everything I could think of, from the Christmas truce in World War 1 to my brother's boss giving me free coffees when I pick him up from work. Any act of kindness I had experienced, seen, or heard of became an example of good things that happen because people have free will. 

When it started to get late I took him to my favorite place to watch the sunset. He sat beside me, still hugging the duck plushie, and watched the sun dip lower and lower, the sky turning brilliant shades of purple and red.

“So? Any thoughts?” I watched him think for a minute.

“... They're good stories. But there's one problem.”

“What's that?”

“... Most of it wouldn't be necessary if evil weren't so prevalent in the world.”

“... Well, … you can't have good without bad.”

“What?” He frowned, turning to me.

“Without knowing about bad, you wouldn't know about good either. You'd just have … middle. In order to know you like something you have to be able to compare it to something you don't like. Otherwise it would all just be. … Plus, when everything’s going worst is when we notice good things the most. Smaller kindnesses mean more when we're hurting.”

Lucifer looked back at the sunset, thinking. “... Why did you give me the duck?”

I chuckled softly. “You seemed to like it, and I could afford to get it for you. Everyone should get a souvenir when they take a trip.”

“So you weren't trying to get in good with the boss of Hell?”

“Nope.”

“... Even though, by making a deal with me, you have condemned your soul to my realm when you die?”

“Anyone who thinks a duck plushie is going to buy them preferential treatment in hell is an idiot.” He gave me a skeptical look at that. “Lucifer, I swear, I only bought it for you because you seemed to like it.”

He thought for a minute, petting it absentmindedly again. “... You've held up your end of the bargain…”

“... But?”

“... When I finish my end, I go home. I can only be on earth for the time it takes to complete a deal. … I … I really enjoyed today.” As it got dark, his body started to glow with faint gold light. He looked up at the silver stars, and in that moment he seemed so sad, so delicate.

“... You know, I am asking for quite a lot … a cure for everyone with this disease, and all you get in return is some examples of kindness and an afternoon running around my town? … Maybe we could rework the contract.”

His eyes went wide as he turned to look at me. “... What did you have in mind?”

“... Well, you're not bad company. And I had a good day today too. We could do it again, if you wanted.”

Lucifer slowly grinned, and the contract was suddenly floating in front of me. An addendum was added to the bottom. Lucifer would send the necessary information to a doctor for the cure tonight, and once a month for the rest of my life, Lucifer would visit me wherever I was on earth. I would tell him more stories that showed what good has come of free will, and show him the good parts of life on earth.

I grinned, taking the quill that floated next to the scroll, and held it to my ring finger. A sharp pain later, I was signing at the bottom. Lucifer signed next to my name, his hand slightly shaking. “Alright … I'll see you again in one month then.”

I nodded. “I'm free on the third, if that works for you?”

He nodded. “The third. It's a date.”

With a snap of his fingers he was gone, and I knew some medical researcher somewhere was having the epiphany that would lead to the cure. In the meantime, I had a date with the devil to plan.

[bookshelf-dust]

you wanna talk about it?

billy hargrove x gn!reader

word count: 1,874

warnings: swearing, anxiety, anxious habits (lip picking), mentions of blood, reader has family struggles to work through, insecurities (brief mention of weight/looks), vulnerability, mentions of alcohol drinking, fluff

a/n: hi! this is meant to be some holiday season comfort. i know that spending time with family can be hard, or stressful, or annoying, and i'm struggling with it, so i wanted to *hopefully* provide you with some support if you're feeling any of this!! this was very self-indulgent, but i hope that maybe you'll like it. i love you all. <333 (also please come back to this gif when you're done. i imagine this is how he's looking at you.)

���———

"What's the matter?"

Billy's hand slid into yours, palm warm and audibly rough. He was sat on the couch next to you, where you hadn't realized he was paying you any attention.

Your leg was bouncing up a storm, a constant shake. On top of that, your middle finger and thumb were picking at the skin of your bottom lip.

He was sure you'd drawn blood by now, considering the way your eyes fluttered shut when you ran your tongue along the fragile skin.

You were no stranger to these feelings, shit, they'd become all you knew. And Billy wasn't either. He'd been anxious his whole life, so he knew when you were feeling that way too, no matter how much you tried to keep it to yourself.

You looked down at his hand in yours before pulling your fingers away from your lips and sitting on them. Busted.

"Just really don't wanna see them today."

"I know, baby."

He squeezed your hand.

Your home life hadn't been anything like Billy's, and while you were grateful that it hadn't been that hard, that's not to say it wasn't at all. Not to say your parents hadn't made you feel less than sometimes, hadn't listened to you, or hadn't made you feel like a burden.

Billy understood what that felt like. "Shared trauma" and all that.

Outside a few visits with Susan, mainly because he loved Max, and Max did have a present mother (even if she wasn't the best), unlike himself, that was it for Billy's "family" interactions. He didn't see Neil anymore at all. You and Max were the extent of his real family, and he liked it that way.

So when you had to see your family, your parents and aunts and uncles and all that extended bullshit, the few times you couldn't get away with—like during the holidays—he tried to be there for you. He wanted to be there for you.

Billy let go of your hand, moved away from you. You watched as he settled against the arm of the couch, stretching his legs out and spreading them wide. He held his arms aloft. "C'mere."

You did, wiggling into the space he'd left for you, back to his chest, arms resting on his thick thighs. He closed his legs a little, trapping you in his space, keeping you safe. That's how it felt when you sat like this. Like nothing bad could happen since he was right there.

Billy's chin came to rest on the top of your head, hands rubbing at your shoulders, gently messing with your hair. "You wanna talk about it? What exactly it is that's buggin' you about seeing them?"

You slid down further in his lap, and Billy wrapped his arms around your waist to keep you from completely escaping him.

"It's just that...they've always got something to say. About my weight, or my hair, or what I'm wearing, or i-if i talk too loud."

That one struck a nerve for Billy. He knew that when you got excited about something, you tended to get a little louder. It was a side effect of you being happy. He loved it and it had never bothered him. Knowing that you'd been shutting those things off because of your family hurt him.

"If I don't talk enough, if I'm too quiet," you continued.

Billy hummed in acknowledgment, signaling to you to keep going. His hands rubbed at the soft skin of your tummy, kneading at the fat there, comforting you.

"And they ask me these surface level questions, you know? Like fucking small talk, like we aren't family and they don't know me. It'd just be nice to have them ask about my real life, especially when I have to listen to them blab about their endeavors all the time."

"What are you studying? How are you feeling? What are you into? Anything would be nice. I just feel like a stranger when I'm there. And half the time it's like they forget I'm even there. Sometimes I think that genuinely no one would notice if I was there or not. I really don't think it makes a difference whether or not I show."

After that, you took a deep breath, and quieted. Billy didn't say anything for a moment, processing.

"Would it be okay if I talked shit about your family for a moment?"

Billy had been around them a good bit after having been with you for so long, enough to know when they said things that upset you, to see how they interacted with each other and then with you.

Your family hadn't always been like that. So standoffish.

It was as you got older, and got to know them as people, grew into your own, that you realized they were kind of assholes sometimes.

And it felt like you didn't fit in anymore. Like maybe you hadn't turned out like they'd wanted. And even if that wasn't the case, that's how they made you feel because you were different.

Quiet. Hardworking. You had dreams and ambitions and didn't want to live in the same place forever like they had, send your kids to the same schools they'd gone to. Hell, you didn't even want children.

And you had Billy. It was the two of you against the world. This boy with long hair and an earring and a growing collection of leather accoutrements.

Billy was determined to make you feel seen as you'd done for him. And recently you were trying to open up about these feelings to your family, slowly, but surely. It was a process.

"Yeah, go ahead," you laughed a little, "I really don't mind."

You snuggled further into Billy's chest, and he squeezed you. He smelled like his woody cologne, of his shampoo, and of cinnamon from the apple pie he'd made earlier. He smelled like home.

"I really fuckin' hate that they've made you feel this way. Like you're an outcast in your own family just because you're not an asshole who likes to talk about everyone else's bullshit. I mean, last time we were there, your cousins talked out of their asses about their friends. What the hell is that about? If they don't like 'em, I really don't know why they're friends at all."

"And I hate that they talk over you, and make jokes when you're loud like the whole neighborhood can't hear them blabbing anyways."

"I just want you to know that I'm here and I see you and I love all the little things about you that they might not." He planted a kiss on your forehead, lips warm and a little chapped because of the weather.

"It kills me that you think no one would notice if you were gone. I know you mean them, obviously, but I can't do this without you, you know."

You could feel his nose rubbing across your scalp, breathing you in.

"And I'll play spoons with you tonight even if no one else wants to and it's not technically supposed to be a two person game. Though I can't promise it won't get violent."

You sat up, and he let you move until you were straddling his legs, both hands firmly settled on his cheeks. You didn't say anything for a little while, squishing his face up with your hands, making him grumpier by the minute.

Though he didn't push you off, because he secretly liked it. You stared at Billy, running the pad of your thumb over the tips of his eyelashes, through the slit in his eyebrow, over the freckles at the tops of his cheeks.

"You are very aggressive at spoons. But it's worth it to see you wrestle over one with my sister. And better when you win."

Billy's cheeks flushed pink and you giggled. He always said you were the only person who'd ever been able to fluster him so easily.

You thought about his other words for a second. "So that means you like it when I squish up your pretty face like this?" He grinned and pried a hand away from his temple to kiss your palm.

"No. I fucking hate it."

You smiled at him, admiring the way he was looking at you. "Thank you for saying all that. Also I'm going to be sincere with you if you need to take a deep breath."

You watched as he dramatically inhaled, and then you dropped your hands to his lap, playing with the buttons on his shirt.

"I really appreciate that you notice all of the little things and that you support me and everything. I can't do this without you either. I love you, Billy."

He lifted your chin up to make you meet his eyes. "I love you too, Y/N."

When Billy kissed you, it wasn't urgent or rough. It was sweet, and he took his time, pressing all of his feelings and admiration for you directly against your mouth. And it took your breath away.

————

That night, your family asked questions about what you wanted to do after college, what you hoped to do. They asked the same of Billy. You blushed at the idea of him being a mechanic, of having his own shop.

You were thinking about Billy written in little red letters on a gray uniform, him having his hair tied up, when the very same boy set apple pie down in front of you. He'd been simultaneously fixing pie and talking, ever the charmer.

He clocked your flustered look, leaning down to whisper in your ear as he sat next to you.

"Proud of you. Being so strong."

You could've melted. Become one with the wooden chair beneath your ass.

Your grandmother, who you'd talked to about your feelings, and you thought maybe Billy had too, noticed when you hadn't said much and would ask you something or just talk to you.

After dessert, a cousin asked if you wanted to play spoons. It ended up being a whole group game, and unnecessarily aggressive.

At the end, it was down to you and Billy. You watched him shuffle the cards, silver rings glinting under the overhead light. He smirked at you while separating out your cards.

"Good luck, baby."

"Fuck you, Hargrove."

Billy laughed loudly, tossing his head back in glee at your competitive streak.

Table strewn with reds and blues, kings and queens, you had three sevens. Your heart was pounding as you watch not only Billy's hands, but the cards he was practically launching across the wooden surface at you. Your family watched from either side of the two of you, biting their nails or taking shots.

Queen, three, three, five, seven.

You almost screamed. You tucked the card in your hand and reached, snatching the metal spoon off of the table and slamming your cards down as you did.

You laughed maniacally. "Suck my dick, Hargrove!"

You'd never won against him before. This was groundbreaking.

Billy stood up. "You fucker. You little shit." There was no venom in his words though, as he was smiling the whole time.

He pulled you into him, smacking a kiss on your lips. "Congratulations, baby. We're going again though."

————

please let me know if you liked this! feedback is always appreciated!! comments and reblogs mean more than you know. <33

[castlebyersafterdark]

hello! I love your blog and the way you have fun here while also speaking eloquently about the dynamics and mechanics of the show. bravo for such a great space!

what do you think of people who don't see will as a main character? i've found my first on tumblr:

'i get he has importance. but also like, he is very much a plot device of Bad Stuff in at least the first 3 seasons, if not the 4th as well. (kidnapped, possessed, ominous Warnings that dont really matter except for building up tension) - we very much do only care about him because other characters do.'

this is less a comment on how they wrote will than his overall meaning in the narrative. even without the whole noah confirmation that will is BACK and BIG in s5, why do you think so many people, including GA, couldnt pick up on will's importance?

i recall first watching the show in s1 2016. even before ship wars existed, even before i knew about 'byeler' as it was called, i felt in my soul that will was important. there was a magic about him! he felt so intriguing and special. i even wrote in my journal that 'will byers is an iconic figure'. i have that old journal somewhere, and there's no elaboration! just that one sentence! haha

will was so mystical and powerful to me. i am not queer and did not pick up on this part of him, at least consciously, until s3. but something about him i adored and he mattered to me. these viewers who don't see will as important... do you think they truly missed the point of the show? if so, its a shame, but theyre very adamant that it's others who are missing the point and that we're not supposed to care for will, and i just can't see how that would ever be something the creators would want for any of their original characters. + will isn't an extra, or even a secondary character despite his lack of screentime because the heart of the story and narrative hinges around him. he is subtextually, implicitly important - this is storytelling 101!

(many of these will-indifferents also want fics of mike where will is only background/not important, even though they see mike as gay. they want a s5 gay mike arc, but where will doesnt figure in it, and i dont understand how that can make sense in this show when mike and will have always been part of each other's lives, even as friends???)

what are your thoughts my friend?

Hello!!! Glad you're here!

I honestly cannot understand Stranger Things fans who don't like Will. Or view him as non-important. Yeah, even though he was in so little season one, he is sooooooo so vital and if you don't care about that little boy, what are you doing here? The show failed you and its purpose. I cared so much from the moment he ran from that monster and disappeared, hooked for life on this silly little show. Will did that! Plot device? Sure, of course. All characters are plot devices to an extent. But to say that's all he is? We learn so much about who he is from little snippets in s1, he's a real character. Sure, we care about the story of finding him, but why do we care? Defined haunting the narrative. That's so sad if people only see him as this afterthought to move the story along.

Did people not watch season 2? I can kiiiiiind of get what people meant if we were thrown back in time to pre-s2 times and we only know what we know and as a casual watcher, maybe you just saw the show and didn't think too deep. (Not me, I loved Will and was looking forward to what else was in store with him after that s1 cliffhanger with the slug, are you kidding??? How interesting!) How can you still view Will this way after season2?

I think these people missed the point of the show. Truly. Surface level watching, I honestly don't know. I can excuse the fandom colloquial and snarky read of the "GA" because these are just people who like the show but with everything they like, it's not deeper thinking. Still goofy how they miss so many points I feel are blatant in the show, but a lot of people barely absorb what they're watching ("omg I love ST, Dustin and Steve are so funny haha I hope they bring Eddie back haha the show is so scary haha") <- like that's honestly how randos sound.

The fandom fandom people who are actively on sites like tumblr and into actual fan shit??? How do you hate Will if you're not a milkvan stan? Why?? What is the reason to care about a Mike sexuality storyline and think it has nothing to do with Will?????? Whose arc thus far has that play a huge role in his character? They are so entwined. Just say you're a FW stan and stop pretending to be anything deeper, that's totally fine, but just admit that. The rest of us aren't crazy for analyzing deeper and understanding the point of the show - that Will has always been and will always be the heart of the storyline. Season 5 gonna be a huge wake up call for a lot of people. But I try not to think about or indulge those people too often. Stay positive, ignore dumbass interpretations and takes. We know what and who are important.

[theerurishipper]

I hate how im not even angry at how Kwamis choice ruined the Ladynoir ending from Hack-San. That little conversation was already bothering me in s4 bc Hack-San was brutally open with how little Marinette ever conciders Cat Noir in anything.

Beats me why she thought he wouldn't have the logical reaction of fcking RED ALERT when he suddenly sees Ladybug's earrings in possession of somebody else, but hey, Marinette told Alya to play with her pet so that makes up for it I guess? And "pet" I find extremely fitting in that episode's context. She literally send in another Ladybug miraculous holder who's lead Cat also had to follow with no saying in the matter. Marinette literally send him a new owner since the Ladybug can do with the Cat whatever she wants as Marinette herself perfectly demonstrates in her leadership and Adrien therefore had to learn in season 4. I don't know what kind of dignity Marinette was supposedly treating Cat Noir with because it definitely wasn't on screen.

Marinette not thinking a single second about Cat was so bad in Hack-San that in the end she was genuinely surprised that she had to talk to him. There had been no intention on her part to have a conversation, she truly thought she had taken care of everything that matters. And from her perspective that meant telling Alya to laugh at his jokes being the only thing she conciders of any importance (something Marinette herself barely does). Honestly, there is not more personhood to him than "Pet".

So no, her words in the Ladynoir end scene have always meant as little as it turned out in Kwamis choice where she immediately left after he rejected her one time in "Elation" and the she didn't even care if it was at least Scarabella again who Cat Noir would met next to find out the awful news.

I always felt so unbelievably bad for Adrien in the Hack-San ending because the episode went out of its way to show that it isn't Marinette who gets the "Their crush barely realizes they exist" treatment, it has always been Cat Noir.

It had to be ALYA to make Marinette even talk to Cat when she comes back and then the only thing Marinette acknowledges as a mistake is that he must have been (negatively) surprised by having met a different Ladybug holder and that she's sorry, if she were to have found out that way that he had revealed himself to someone else she would have been upset too.

Which... man, Ladybug's dialog in that scene is so surface level. Comparing the emotional depth of how Cat talks about what all this meant to him, with how much care he talks and that it was so bad that the thought of her not being there anymore one day hurt the most and that he doesn't think he could bare that...

And Ladybug is besides him and says "she would have sulked too".

The difference between what she means to him and what little he seemingly means to her is so bad that when Marinette says "I will never abandon you, Kitty" and Adrien immediately forgives her for everything as per usual, I look at Marinette and honestly want to ask if she even knows what the words she just said mean. Because the entire rest of the episode characterized her in a way where her line feels almost shallow.

What is Ladybug apologizing for not having warned him and saying "I will never abandon you Kitty" even worth when she was shocked that she had to talk to him at all?

Already back in season 4 I looked at Adrien's heart eyes after that and felt so bad for him bc very clearly this IS a bond be should be able to live without because she's spearing him barely any thoughts of actual significance in season 4.

So yeah, I can't say I'm angry about season 5 then having made that reality and destroyed the Hack-San ending with Kwamis choice. Marinette in part 1 once again proofs why it's even IMPORTANT that Ladybug isn't someone Cat should hold onto in his life and definitely needs to be able to bare possibly not seeing again. He rejected her ONE TIME and next morning she already tells Tikki to give her earrings to literally ANYONE before Plagg goes about his plan.

Already at that point the line "I will never abandon you Kitty" became worthless and she also would have caused yet ANOTHER Ladybug miraculous holder to met Cat Noir instead of Scarabella, when this time around the new Ladybug would have no information or connection to Marinette and was meant to stay for good.

I almost feel bad for saying it but also honestly not, Kwamis choice really reinforced how little Marinette actually learned in season 4. What little Ladybug "learned" in Hack-San was ripped to shreds in the same intensity as it already felt shallow in s4.

It's only thanks to Tikki that the same "new Ladybug" fiasko wouldnt have repeated itself for Cat just this time he would have been faced with every fear he had coming true, right after Elation where Cat admits that he isn't in love with her anymore and asks if she's okay with him only loving her as a friend.

She said yes. And then she left.

As much as I want to be harsh on Adrien's side of Kwamis choice too, I cannot hold it against him that he left to just finally be able to find happiness (and that being Plagg's motivation too for starting all this), especially not when him having stayed would have only resulted in him having to go through Hack-San 2.0 only in WORSE because once again Marinette barely spared Cat any thoughts besides this time him not wanting to date her anymore making her sad.

Hack-san is one of those other episodes in Season 4 in which I was rather defensive of Marinette in the beginning. Like yeah, she is in the wrong and she should apologize, but I understand that it's an honest mistake, you know? She isn't the best at considering how others might feel about situations, and it's understandable that it didn't cross her mind to talk to Chat Noir. She did do it after Alya mentioned it and she took responsibility for her screw-up, and I was fine with it. That scene from Hack-san on its own is still one of my personal favorite Ladynoir scenes.

But that's just it. The scene itself when seen individually is so soft and sweet, but putting it into the context of the whole season, it's not a good look. Marinette says she'll never abandon Chat Noir, and spends the rest of the season pretty much replacing him with Rena Furtive and overall just pushing him away. It just makes her come off as hypocritical and dishonest. She continues to never consider him and his feelings and things just continue to get worse. The way the Ladynoir conflict was handled retroactively makes the scene in Hack-san worse.

And honestly, I don't feel like defending Marinette for what she did anymore, because she didn't really fix her mistake. She just doubled down and continued to do the same thing, and her assurances that she never really backed up really seem shallow in hindsight. She never learns anything, he takes all the blame for it in the end, and they just carry on without her having to fix her mistake. It's just so bad.

Thank you for your ask!

[ihazyourkitty]

Why John Hargrove is full of it p.1

Multiple people have expressed interest in the detailed Blackfish rebuttal I am working on. The plan is to put it in video essay format on Youtube. This not only has the potential to reach a larger audience, but it also gives me more creative/expressive flexibility that would otherwise be difficult to get across in just written text.

This project will not be completed for quite some time, as there are a lot of things to cover. However, I did want to provide a short glimpse into some things I've uncovered thus far.

You see, I plan on not only refuting the movie itself, but also covering the consequences of Blackfish, and major figures like Naomi Rose, Ingrid Visser, etc. So as part of this project, I am listening to the eBook version of John Hargrove's Beneath the Surface for the second time. It's..... so.... much..... fun.....

*sigh* Warning, there's a long rant ahead. TL;DR John Hargrove comes off as very full of himself in this book, and it's annoying.

______

Now, on a purely emotional, literary level I guess, the book is certainly very gripping. It's difficult to put down, even when you know that much of what is alleged therein is utter bullcrap. However, I don't think this is just because the whole "little-guy turns against evil corporation" trope makes for good storytelling across the board. I think it's also because, unlike Mark Simmons' Killing Keiko, or Hazel McBride's I Still Believe, John Hargrove's Beneath the Surface has the luxury of both professional editing, and a co-author (Howard Chia-Eoan).

To be clear, I'm not saying this as dig against Hazel McBride or Mark Simmons. I bring this up merely to illustrate the stark contrast here. As far as I know, their works were self published, or at least lacking the same polish and publicity from big name publishers, or sensationalist documentaries.

However, this contrast wouldn't be so noteworthy to me were it not for these two things I'm increasingly noticing in this reread of Beneath the Surface:

It is never clearly stated which parts were written by Hargrove, and which were ghost written by Chia-Eoan... but the amount of contradictions and shoehorned information in here gives me some serious suspicions.

John Hargrove... seems incredibly full of himself!

I don't have the time to elaborate on #1 right now, so we'll just talk about #2 today. John Hargrove is almost never in the wrong. He is always painted as the hero, the true advocate for these animals. You don't hear much about the other trainers he worked with or learned from. Mostly, it's just about him. He bemoans the allegedly poor conditions SeaWorld's animals are kept in, while simultaneously boasting about all his accomplishments with them. He speaks of differing perspectives between him and some of the other trainers, but seldom elaborates on what exactly those differences were. Instead, he usually just frames it in a sanctimonious "me vs. them" way.

The closest he gets to admitting any mistakes he had to learn from is when he recounted an aggressive incident with Freya at Marineland Antibes, and even then.... the whole reason why that incident (allegedly) happened was because Hargrove overestimated his training/waterworks abilities with a whale he didn't have a relationship with. His admission of that mistake is then overshadowed by the rather self-righteous tone he frames the resolution with. All the success was about him. You don't hear anything about how he worked with the other trainers there, what they brought to the table, and certainly not the stronger, lasting relationships they had with Freya. It's not that he had to mention them by name, but he didn't even mention them at all!

To be fair, this interpretation is partly subjective on my part. Still, as someone who is personally working in animal husbandry right now (albeit not with marine mammals), the gaping holes in this narrative raises some red flags.

Here's some free advice to anyone interested in working in the zoo/aquarium industry: I have been told by multiple hiring managers that they don't want someone who "just wants to work with the animals, and not deal with people." That's not how this works. You still have to work with people in some form or another.

It doesn't matter which animals you are working with. When you're on an animal husbandry/training team, you gotta ask for/provide help, seek/give feedback, communicate with other departments, etc. Complaints, conflict and disagreements will inevitably happen, but you gotta be mature about it.

And yes, in that process... you are going to make mistakes, and you're going to have to own up to them! It's part of how you learn. You're also going to inevitably work with people who don't see things the same way.

The people who can't do this tend to not only get stuck in their own way, but are more likely to start resenting coworkers and/or management whenever disagreements happen. They'll constantly complain about how other people do things, but then can't/won't take constructive feedback themselves. It's worse when it's someone with more experience under their belt because of the massive ego. Let me be clear: this kind of mindset does not help your animals! It only creates a toxic work environment that's resistant to change!

DO. NOT. BE. THIS. PERSON!!!!

No, this does not mean you can't vent frustrations. No this does not mean that you can't take pride in your work. It means that you gotta be able to swallow your pride, and not alienate other people.

So, what does all that have to do with the contrast mentioned earlier?

Like Hargrove, McBride details her career journey, but doesn't just paint it all in glamour. She talks about her setbacks, how she grew, things she learned from other people, the internships she did, the grunt work she was willing to do, etc.

Killing Keiko has less to do with the details of Mark Simmons' career path, but he does give credit to other people where it is due, even at times towards those he fundamentally disagreed with. I can remember one part where he explicitly admitted that he made a mistake too, and tellingly, it was in an instance where he played the "I've been doing this for years" card. In the very next sentence he admitted it was the wrong thing to say in that situation, and highlighted the perspective he was missing in that moment.

These things are conspicuously absent in Beneath the Surface. I don't remember anything of the sort that stood out when I first read the book, and thus far it's certainly not there in my second time around. The first third of the book is dedicated to how he dreamed of becoming a trainer as a kid, and the path he took to get there. Most of this path, though, is painted in glamor, when the reality is.... the path to getting into animal husbandry isn't particularly glamorous. Not only do you have go to college, but you also have to settle for various unpaid internships or volunteer gigs, and then apply for multiple jobs only to get several no's before it works out (to say nothing of how underpaid zookeepers/aquarists/trainers are).

Hargrove, on the other hand, kept pestering lead marine mammal trainers at SeaWorld since he was a kid, practiced his swimming/diving abilities, and started his degree in psychology. Then, as luck would have it, an apprentice trainer position opened up at SW San Antonio, and when he got the job, he jubilantly quit college. Not much is said about what kind of volunteer work he did before that. I think he did some stuff with marine mammal rescue in Texas, but I'll have to go back and reread to be sure... in any event, I wish I'd heard more about the experience he got besides swimming and pestering the SW animal training department.

And like.... great, he got the job, but it seemed more by luck than by the sweat of his brow. Then he balked that he was put in the SeaLion Stadium, and/or that he had to spend a lot of time washing dishes and spotting before even being allowed to work directly with a whale, which like..... yeah? I don't know what you were expecting dude.

(Btw, this part isn't just me being nit-picky, Duncan Versteegh from ML Antibes corroborates Hargrove's resistance to doing grunt work like cleaning)

Whenever mentioning people at SW who didn't want to work at Shamu Stadium, Hargrove couldn't understand how anyone wouldn't want that.... because heaven forbid other people have different preferences? To be fair, from what I've heard of SW work culture in general, Shamu Stadium is kind of painted as the glamorous A-team, but DANG does Hargrove really lean into that attitude!

Later on, he detailed some of the conflicts he had with SW's entertainment department. At one point his manager explicitly told him he needed learn to get along better with other departments. And like... yeah... yeah you do!

Look, I'm not interested in doing blanket apologia for SeaWorld. I'm sure Hargrove was in the right more than once when he'd argue with people, but I'm also not convinced that the whole of the entertainment department, management, et al., were just a bunch of unfeeling jerks who didn't care about the animals.

This part actually ground my gears quite a bit. Before I became an aquarist, I was an educator, and sometimes I would overhear certain husbandry staff gossip about us in a really patronizing way whenever there were miscommunications. Not that they never had valid reasons to complain, they did, but to be treated like you're just a dumb educator/guest services person is not pleasant, and certainly not professional. I don't know how common this is at other places, but I bring this up to illustrate the importance of being able to work with other departments, especially in the face of disagreements or miscommunication.

That Beneath the Surface paints Hargrove's inability to do this as a virtue rather than as the character flaw that it is... well.... it's um... it's a choice. And it's telling.

Again, some of this interpretation is subjective on my part. Ultimately, none of us can know for sure what is in someone else's heart. Hargrove does seem to sincerely care about the animals, despite the narcissism. However, the vast majority of people who are going to be reading his book are not people who have spent much if any time working in the zoo industry, and thus may not pick up on some of these things. I'm not the only one to point these things out either.

So even if one is against keeping orcas in captivity, I think being aware of the egos behind figures like Hargrove is important. When you get to the end of his book, you would think that all his former colleagues are, at best, just timid little clogs in a corporate machine, brainwashed to do as SW says. This is just not true. These people are dedicated to their animals, and have worked very hard to get where they are at. Some have gone on to get their masters, or PhD's, provide expertise to other facilities, or take part in rescues, etc., and they did it without chasing clout.

SW Corporate should absolutely treat their employees better, but their treatment of them pales in comparison to how people like Hargrove basically erase their accomplishments altogether. In this way, he tries to have it both ways... his time at SW proves how much of an expert he is, you know, because he was a senior trainer with two decades of experience after all! Oh, but when someone else from the field speaks up to refute what he says, nope.... their accomplishments don't matter, they're just brainwashed. If that doesn't scream "massive ego", then I don't know what does.

I'm only halfway through the book on this second round, so there is a chance I'll come back to correct some things here. I do encourage people to try to read this book themselves and come to their own conclusions. You don't have to buy it either, check your local library (it's how I got a hold of this eBook).

[underoospeterparker]

Hi! I read you're looking for some Peter Sutherland comfort requests and I really liked your last one 🤩 how about this: you're both working as night agents, maybe met already at your FBI training, didn't stay in contact since then, met again when Peter started working as a night agent (you're already doing this since a couple of years), and meanwhile you're working and living together as a couple. In some kind of mission you get shot at (maybe your shoulder is hurt and you're bleeding like hell) and Peter gets all anxious and comforting because he's really scared of losing you 🥹 maybe as an extra finding out you're pregnant when getting stitched up at the hospital?

hi lovely! thank you for your request- i'm not too sure about the pregnancy part but i'll definitely do the rest! (warnings: swearing, guns, bleeding, crying, etc)

this isn't proofread!

being a night agent was definitely a lot of work. it meant late hours, bruises, injuries, putting yourself into crazy situations, and potentially dying. the best thing about your job was you knew that you were saving a lot of people, and that was good enough to keep you motivated.

but on nights like this, where you were out in the field, doing action work, you were scared. it was tiring as hell, and you didn't know what could happen at any moment.

as a night agent, you were briefed very lightly on what the program was about. it went deeper than you could ever imagine, and your job was just skimming the surface to that. although all of your operations were top secret, you could share the burden with peter, and that was okay to you. as long as you had him, you were sure you'd be okay.

at the moment, you had no clue where you were or who you were supposed to be looking for. where were those two criminals, anyway? there were rumours that they worked for gordon wick, carrying out his dirty work.

and the thing was, you weren't sure you trusted diane farr. yes, her and peter had a past, but that didn't mean she was trustworthy. you had warned peter to stay away from her, and he had complied, also saying that he felt something was off.

a quiet "oh, fuck!" interrupted your thoughts and you swung towards the noise.

gun pointed in front of your chest, you said, "who's there?" there was no response, and you sighed. "if you don't come out, i'm going to shoot."

the parking lot was quiet, and you glimpsed a bit of white hair before you heard a loud bang, and it wasn't from your gun. your expression morphed from confusion to shock, and then pain as you registered that you had just been shot.

you kneeled on the floor, hand reaching to cup your shoulder, realising how much blood was coming out of your wound. you had no idea who had shot at you, but you knew they were running. there was no way you could catch up to them, not in your state.

you managed to make it to the wall, collapsing against it and breathing heavily as pain settled around your body. you heard footsteps grow louder and louder, and you shrunk away from the noise, thinking it was your attackers again.

"sweetheart?" a voice called out. peter. it was peter's voice. you sighed in relief at hearing your boyfriend's voice, then winced as the movement caused pain to rush back up to your shoulder.

"here! 'm here," you called back weakly. "hurry, please."

peter rounded the corner, then spotted you against the wall. seeing your state, he came up to you as fast as he could. crouching down to your level, he said, "oh, baby. you're hurt?"

you nodded, gesturing to your shoulder. his eyes were a mixture concern and anger, not to you, but to the person that had done this to you. "it really hurts, pete," you whimpered quietly, trying not to cry.

his hand cupped your cheek, and his eyes grew sympathetic. "i know, sweetie." tearing off a piece of fabric of his shirt, he said, "try to put some pressure on it for me, okay?"

you nodded, pressing your hand down hard on your shoulder. you couldn't help but sob quietly at the overwhelming pain.

"it's okay," your boyfriend cooed. "let me take over." he pressed lightly, then wrapped the makeshift bandage out of fabric tightly over the wound, knotting it with ease. "there we go. good girl," he praised. "you okay?"

nodding, you stood up, leaning your uninjured arm on peter's side. he lightly wrapped an arm around your waist, a soft reminder that he was there for you to lean on.

"gonna get you somewhere safe, and then i'm gonna make sure you're okay." he murmured, so only you could hear.

"'m scared, baby," you mumbled under your breath. "what if they come back again?"

peter sighed lightly, heart breaking at your frightened tone. "it's okay, i promise, there's no need to be scared. 'm gonna protect you." he pressed a kiss to your forehead. "you're safe with me, sweetheart. always will be."

[raeygina-george]

@knightzp finished reading senpai is an otokonoko!!! here are my thoughts (warning: this has spoilers i guess also i yap a lot so the post is long)

-makoto gives me so much gender envy.... he looks so pretty as both a boy and a girl and he passes as both too 😭😭😭

-i love ryuji so much... i find his character so compelling. from the tough-guy act to the "am i gay quiz" arc to the unrequited love to the internalized homophobia... idk there's something about him that speaks to me

-i didn't ship aoi/makoto very much in the beginning because of her attitude towards makoto (like always saying "i love him" and like getting nosebleeds & such when he's said he's not interested)... i know some people who act kind of like that towards me and while it's not uncomfortable or inherently negative it's just hard for me to root for a romantic relationship that stems from that dynamic

-also i REALLY want aoi to be aromantic. bc the stuff that she says is just So Aromantic Coded. even her saying "i love him" in casual conversation is aro coded to me... if you get it you get it

-HOWEVER i love aoi & i love makoto and i want them both to be happy so as long as they're having fun it's cute

-wait the aoi/makoto confession scene??????? i don't even know what to say about it

-i will admit that i wasn't a huge fan of aoi at the very beginning of the series but. she's proved me wrong many times. i love you aoi

-i like how Resonant the main 3 characters are... i understand their feelings so well even if i haven't experienced them myself. idk how to say exactly what im thinking but like. when makoto stopped crossdressing bc of his mom & then when he finally told her and refused to back down anymore & when aoi was like "i just want someone to love me unconditionally for the person i am and not the People Pleaser i pretend to be" & when ryuji said "you find me disgusting, right? you don't have to pretend to like me anymore" & etc etc 😭😭😭😭 i was expecting this to be a pretty surface-level romance manga with how the beginning was going but im very pleasantly surprised with how deep the characters have turned out to be

-i agree that the ending was kind of sudden, also i still wish aoi was aromantic, but overall i enjoyed this manga! the queer experiences depicted were really realistic imo & the manga had a lot of the things i like about romance media without all of the things that i dislike about it. so yeah i had fun ty for the recommendation :)

[rainibao]

Re-reading Devils' Line: Chapter 1 thoughts/analysis/things I noticed

Warning for mentions of sexual assault. And minor-ish spoilers

--explanatory/intro stuff--

This will be my second time reading through the manga. Very excited to go through the story again, especially for the characters! The last time I read this manga was probably a year ago and I binged through everything, before I went on to devour every other Ryo Hanada work I could find.

I'll be noting down things I didn't pick up on during my initial read and sharing them. Let me know if anyone wants me to do the same for Blackguard! (btw if you know of anyone currently posting for any Hanada Ryo mangas, be it thoughts or fancontent, pls direct me to their accounts even if they're on other platforms)

----

#1 Easter egg(?)

Devils' Line (Pg 4-5)

Good-bye Geist (Pg 13-14)

Good-bye Geist (2011-2012) is an earlier manga by Hanada Ryo. Just like in Devils' Line, the way the male protagonist is introduced paints him to be a creepy stalker on the train. And in both cases, we find out they don't really have ill-intent. (Anzai is following Tsukasa to protect her, the guy in good-bye geist is recording because...he's a not very well-adjusted guy with a crush who does learn his lesson, and gets to know the mc like a normal person)

I'm thinking Devils' Line starting so similarly might be a reference for long-time fans/a trope the author enjoys/just a subconscious thing. Either way, pretty interesting!

#2 Biblical references

*based on very superficial knowledge, if anything specific from the Bible comes to mind let me know! + mostly speculation towards the end

Upright cross on title page, also present in volume 2, 3 and I presume all other volumes? In volume 14 however (I happen to own vols 1, 2, 14) the cross is upside down so I'm not sure if other volumes would have it too. Though it might just be that vol 14 is a volume of extras to tie up loose ends, hence the subversion

Horizontal cross on the back cover and Anzai's ring. Might be to represent equilibrium/themes of equality/how things aren't just black or white(holy or unholy), especially since the shorter line intersects in the middle. Which could also be a statement that there's no saintly/unsaintly side (regarding humans and devils) in the story despite the name. I forgot if the ring has any significance later on in the story, but if my stated assumption is right, it fits because Anzai is half devil and half human(and he wears the ring on his middle finger), so in theory he SHOULD represent the middle ground that can be found. (However, pg 33: "my bloodlust is supposed to be weak, but apparently not." so not really, which makes sense because genetics isn't that straightforward. Just like how coming to a consensus isn't so straightforward either. Going to go on a limb here and say that it could symbolise Anzai having no choice but to face and accept all that comes with being a devil, thus also accepting pure devils instead of believing them to be separate from him and more violent. And on a larger scale, society having to accept devils and actually address the issues between them, instead of brushing them under the rug and letting them fester.)

This one seems like a no-brainer, what with the title and all, but I remember taking all the cross imagery at surface level on my first read, even when Hans appeared in a later chapter (his cross necklace iirc). And somehow I also didn't link the choice to name this series's version of vampires “devils” to, you know, hell, beyond the subconscious understanding of how they're treated as monsters in society. It just felt natural as an in-universe term at the time, unlike if they were named “demons” which are universally understood to be FROM hell what with their use in various media. Don't know if I'm making sense here.

So…how are the devils of Devils' Line associated with the unholy? Based on what we learn about Akimura and Anzai in this chapter alone, I would say the fact that it's in their very nature to ‘sin’, even if they don't want to.

Anzai instinctually leaps to lick Tsukasa's blood, but then ALSO goes in for the kiss(with tongue)

I remember being confused by this since the cut was beside her mouth, and not on it. I was also confused by why Akimura had raped the women he killed, since he was in love with Tsukasa. Turns out Anzai's lines in this page explains it:

Pg. 35 (last-minute edit: ooh his eyes transformed although he was normal right after he tranqed himself. Looking at previous pages the eyebags also slowly return in each panel)

"This urge makes me sick. I wanted to do it while drinking her blood." which explains that he went for the kiss because the literal thirst for blood triggers lust as well, against his will. The "urge [making him] sick" is sort of reminiscent of catholic guilt I think, especially since accepting this lust is a plotline in the story.

To relate this back to 'sinning', it's like this:

Sight of blood(temptation)> automatically acting on desire to drink blood (Innate inability to resist temptation)> lust arises (the sin) >Anzai immediately acts upon it (kissing)

It's not that devils have an innate desire to maim for blood in day-to-day life, they just can't resist it when it's in their sight. I recall finding the choice to intertwine bloodlust with sexual lust kind of weird, but it makes sense if the sight and taste of blood sort of takes away some self-control, making the devils more animalistic(which maybe makes bloodlust and lust indistinguishable from each other as forms of desire). To stop himself from going too far with Tsukasa, Anzai had to inject himself with a tranquiliser (pg. 30), and because of this experience he, for the first time, can understand why devils "that rape and murder end up trapped in that pleasure"(pg. 20), although he still condemns their actions and continues to separate himself from them("that's why these devils have always-").

In Akimura's case, it's the same thing(except he goes much further with his bloodlust and lust), just with one thing extra: Tsukasa as the trigger.

pg. 22/Akimura's trolley problem(strangers vs one person he cares about, or everyone else vs himself)

Here, Akimura talks as if him resorting to killing was inevitable. Looking at what's been gathered so far, this was probably the chain of events:

Akimura falls for Tsukasa> [lust/desire(strong emotion)> bloodlust automatically triggered (temptation) >to protect Tsukasa, he directs it at an innocent(does not resist temptation) >drinking blood triggers lust > the lust is immediately acted upon (the bloodlust and lust probably cause a feedback loop, causing him to drain the victim of all her blood. Maybe unintentional the first time, likely indulgent the following times)]x3 (falling deeper into sin by committing actual atrocities)

However, it's not that devils can't help themselves at all. When Akimura leans in towards Tsukasa (pg. 13), he manages to stop himself from doing anything. Same with when Anzai makes himself bleed to reveal Akimura's identity (via eye colour change), and when he spots Tsukasa bleeding (fangs grow out), he doesn't attack instantaneously(in Anzai's case, might be because it was his first time) . Could be attributed to the fact that he was "taking medicine" and "gave [himself] a tranquiliser", but my personal interpretation is that he realised those couldn't help him anymore and was in denial.

If he could resist to this extent, why attack those innocent women? I think, without the sight of blood, bloodlust that is triggered by strong emotions (other than desire, in future chapters we see anger do this iirc) feels more like an irritating itch that can't be scratched. (I'll probably need to correct this once I read further in). Basically, being a devil is like having to deal with temptation from The Devil(their nature) whenever something gets a rise out of you. (Akimura definitely deserved that life in prison though.)

#3 Equality, Prejudice

"Don't curse your lot, Anzai. Whether someone turns into a monster or not depends entirely on them. That's true for both humans and devils." -Sawazaki

After everything I've written so far, what first comes to mind is that the sentiment is true, but flawed. Devils have to actively restrain themselves in situations that would not faze most humans at all, in the sense of getting an urge that would cause harm if acted upon (pg. 27: "out of humanity and instinct, vampires constantly grapple with the terror of losing themselves the instant they see human blood"), and they might even feel cornered into a 'trolley problem' situation, seeing themselves dying as the only way harm could've been prevented(see above pg. 22 image). They literally have to medicate themselves, and if that doesn't speak to how disadvantaged they are then I don't know what does. Anzai even asks for stronger doses of tranquiliser for his restock(pg. 34), implying that using them is the reason why Tsukasa was the first time he drank blood. Sawazaki then says, "Take anything too strong and you'll get addicted. Tranqs aren't the best thing for you to begin with." which means these drugs pose additional dangers. I forgot if the story tackles this plot point of over-reliance on tranquilisers, but now I'll definitely be paying more attention to the use of them. Additionally, drinking blood makes the devils' perpetual eyebags disappear(pg. 30), so I imagine drinking even a little bit of blood (like Anzai) is actually good for them, but due to their situation they can't openly ask for blood. All that to say that devils are definitely disadvantaged, but as with real life, that only means more attention should be dedicated to helping them live their lives, rather than shunning them.

The statement also warns against stereotyping, or categorising people and seeing them as completely "other" and labelling them all as "monsters". "Don't curse your lot, Anzai."- if even a half-devil has internalised this prejudice (Anzai at this point thinks that devils and people shouldn't be with each other (pg. 27)), just wait till you see what conclusion some humans(who know of the existence of devils) have jumped to. If even Akimura considered the fact that he should've died to protect everyone else, what kind of thoughts will humans who feel threatened have? Will they see Akimura's trolley problem as a problem at all, once they've from their prejudices and human and devil lives are not seen as equal?

Despite me dwelling too much into the specifics of Sawazaki's statement, the theme of "turning into a monster" being based on individual choice is definitely prevalent throughout the series for both devil and human characters. When devils do not have their vampiric tendencies provoked, they are just like normal humans (pg. 26: "vampires are very close to humans, biologically. And if they don't transform, even other vampires can hardly tell them apart.") and should be treated how anyone else should: which means holding an individual accountable for their actions rather than an entire group, while also acknowledging the shared internal battle the devils share and catering to help them lead the normal lives they want.

#4 Tsukasa

how her experience in this chapter sets up her role as a mediator, and reflects the ongoing conflict of the story

She finds out her friend is a vampire, and not just any vampire, THE vampire she hears has killed three people at the start of the chapter, though at the time she didn't know that vampires did actually exist (as the devils in the series. Other than bloodsucking they don't share traits with the vampires that are allergic to sun etc.). Speaking of which, THIS is how she finds out about the existence of devils, by finding out someone close to her is one, and has harmed others. Then, the guy who apprehends him ends up leaping at her to lick her cut just at the sight of it.

However, it is mentioned that she had been "friends with Akimura for a long time". Furthermore, he was also a potential love interest, and although she did not accept his confession, I see it as her not wanting to compromise their friendship (the wording of "We spend too much time together. And I couldn't..."). And because he wasn't just a random devil, she is more inclined to try to see things from his perspective and acknowledge his struggles, rather than holding ill will(despite feelings of shock and maybe betrayal I would presume) since she knows him as a person outside of him being a devil. This is supported by how the very last panel of the chapter was her wishing Akimura well, even after everything that happened. Anzai even further elaborates on the struggles devils face to explain that he was "sure [Akimura] really did like [her]", allowing her to further understand devils from a sympathetic viewpoint and thus be more receptive towards them. Since Anzai immediately tranquilised himself after he leapt at her, she can understand that he was no doubt just trying to keep her safe the entire time. She also noticed how being a devil was a sensitive subject for Anzai (pg.32), adding to what she has learnt about devils: that being one isn't easy.

She essentially had encounters with a 'bad' devil (one who has committed atrocities because of his bloodlust) and a 'good' devil (one who tries his best to restrain himself), both ends of the spectrum, but with the added privileges of knowing one personally, and getting to know the other. This establishes a pretty unique perspective, and sets up how she probably will be pretty open-minded towards devils from this point on. However, these encounters also showcase how difficult it is for devils to resist their bloodlust, since even Anzai, who had never drunk blood prior to Tsukasa, ended up succumbing to bloodlust as well. It seems almost unavoidable. Which then begs to question of, how can devils live alongside humans peacefully?

#5 Conclusion

Now to link all of these to the chapter title, "Dark Side":

Tsukasa finds out about Akimura's 'dark side' he had been hiding from her: the fact that he is a devil, and his crimes. By extension:

The 'dark side' that has been hidden from society by presumably the government and the related institutions(the news, the police) (pg. 6: "you only ever see stuff like that on TV specials or tabloids. It's never reported in the news."): that devils/vampires actually exist. What else are they hiding?

Both Tsukasa and Anzai are faced with the 'dark side' of being a devil: the daily struggles, the looming threat of bloodlust. Anzai is also confronted by the 'dark side' of himself he has been hiding from, his bloodlust and the fact that it is stronger than he thought.

If you read all of that, sorry and thank you lots. I didn't expect it to get this long. Hopefully it was just due to the first chapter setting up overarching themes that I just had to make connections to what I already know about the story, and let it all out of my system.

I'm off to finally read chapter 2 and pray I don't have as much to say about it!!

[sueske]

Please talk about what other issues you have with Kakashi! the Naruto fandom loves him so much but personally I think he was a terrible leader of team 7. also he was a walking hypocrite when it came to lecturing Sasuke (plus he pretty much ignored Naruto and Sakura as they went off like Sasuke to be trained by the Sannin instead to get stronger and was pretty AWOL in their training days) Plus there was that whole guilt trip of him thinking Sasuke was obligated to return Sakura’s selfish confession to him…..ick

well idk if I wanna do a whole proper analysis on kakashi, those take time to write, and I'd rather devote that time elsewhere.

I said that and I wrote quite a bit anw but it's very rambly and disorganised so you've been warned:

he did some things all right and other things not so good. personally I just don't get what the hype with him is beyond the surface level stuff. kakashi failed all of his previous teams from becoming genin so he didn't have much experience when it came to teaching 12 year olds. anyways, kakashi taught team 7 how to walk up trees/chakra stuff and taught sasuke the chidori because his battle was coming up. from my pov it's fine he prioritised sasuke, especially to also keep an eye on him at all times considering what with orochimaru and all. he did find ebisu to train naruto and the whole jiraiya thing happened etc. did sakura express any interest in training like naruto did? no lol. once they all went off to their respective sanin though I don't see why he would've butted in. all in all he kept his team alive and taught them some stuff. he later on came up with the shadow clone jutsu training method for naruto which was successful. so he did some things all right. he was flakey as a teacher overall but not everyone can be gai sensei 😔

but more about the emotional aspect of kakashi's 'teaching'. kakashi is a hypocrite about the 'comrades/trash' thing like I talked about in that previous ask. when tobi told them the truth about the massacre kakashi ordered naruto to keep it secret. his rationale was trying to figure out if what he said was the truth or not. and when confronted with sasuke, who said he'd killed danzo and his plans for killing the rest, kakashi just said that he'd stooped so low and that sasuke's just a product of the times they live in. but. comrades. trash. kettle. black? forget trying to talk to sasuke and finding a way around it (like naruto did LOL), his first actions were to kill him. kakashi himself acknowledged it was the times they live in that created sasuke, but why try and fix that when it's easier to just kill Sasuke? If Kakashi's ninja way is to never leave his comrades behind then what does that make him? Non-recyclable trash? As I said before, Kakashi should've clarified:

'leaving ppl behind means u r worse than trash (so you shouldn't) but only if it ultimately still suits konoha's (or my) agenda.'

well, kakashi doesn't really try to understand his students (like with sasuke). sakura is another prime example of that. kakashi also told sakura in part 1 that things between sasuke and naruto were fine to comfort her, and later lamented the fact he told her those words because they actually weren't. because he couldn't see sasuke's intentions. guess playing orphan olympics didn't work out for him too well. and then at the end of vote2, kakashi says things are finally back to how it was. I'm not sure about the Japanese translation, if he means 'they' or 'things', but WHAT? no. things can't go back to the way they were. ever. if by going back he means the trio not actively killing each other than sure lol, but so much has changed, namely naruto and sasuke have changed. there's no going back to the way it was. and of course the way kakashi tries to butter sakura up to sasuke. no one is falling for that but nice try. he did more defending sakura's feelings towards sasuke than validating any of sasuke's own feelings lol.

I also don't particularly like the way he parted with sasuke at the end either. 'NoRmAlLy U ShOuLD bE iN pRiSoN' like BOY. SHUT UP. SHUT UP SHUT UP U PROBS SELF-INSERT INTO JIRAIYA'S INCEL PROTAG PORN BOOKS. BYE.

[gretavanfunk]

Fighting Fire (Series)

Chapter Thirteen

Word Count: 7,380

Summary: Stevie and Sam never seemed to be what people refer to as "two peas in a pod" growing up. He got under her skin more times than she could count and Sam was desperate to be on a level playing field as his older brother and Stevie's best friend, Jake. One summer, Sam is forced to face his demons and in turn, Stevie is too.

Warnings: sexual content 18+, minors DNI, arguing, physical violence, themes of grief, themes of anxiety/depression/heartbreak

This story is written and edited by me and it is my baby so I hope some people out there can enjoy it as much as I enjoy creating it! If there are typos, bear with me lol also sorry for not updating in over a month :/ We are getting close to the end, you guys!

Chapter Thirteen Playlist for the vibes!

Stevie spent the first few days at home laying around and wallowing in her hurt. Her emotions had been flashing from anger to sadness rapidly and she really didn't know how to comprehend what had gone wrong.

When she ended things with Ryan, it didn't take her very long to stop having a physical reaction to the breakup. Especially because during that time, all she could do was see red. This was different. While her anger hung over her like a dark cloud, she was also overwhelmed with sadness. She had been so lost in her daydream-like state with Sam and suddenly he took all of that away from her.

It was troubling for Stevie to even try and reflect on it. Everything with Sam had been so wonderful and so horrible all at once. Stevie felt winded like she couldn't keep up.

During the last week, she filled a lot of her free time with hours of phone calls between Josh and Jake.

"Stevie," Josh sighed, "Are you sure I don't need to come out there?"

"I'm sure," Stevie chuckled sadly, "I promise I'm leaving the house today. I need to go to work and try and get my shifts back."

"Have you had any contact with Sam?"

"No," Stevie said sharply, "I told him to go home. I don't know if he did and I'm not wasting any time caring about whatever he's doing."

"Fair," Josh bit his lip, "I won't bother you about him anymore. But, if you change your mind, I can be there relatively quickly."

"Thank you, Josh," Stevie responded, "I love you."

"Love you too."

The call ended and Stevie laid back on her pillows and took a deep breath, studying the popcorn texture on her ceiling. She had taken a shower and was fully dressed, ready to face the outside world again but she was stalling.

Stevie had never been this angry at Sam before and that was saying something given the events of their relationship of over twenty years. This was an anger she was not very familiar with. Her chest was consistently tight, her skin ran hot, and she was so full of rage that within a matter of seconds, tears could fall from her eyes anytime.

Then the sadness would creep up to the surface. It was more debilitating than anything else. After she got back to her house that first night, Stevie felt like a hollow shell of herself. The way that she had fallen for Sam was so reckless and everything that she felt for him manifested rapidly. Maybe it was always meant to be short-lived.

When she first crossed the line with Sam, she had no time to fully enjoy it. She was immediately riddled with anxiety surrounding the secrets she was keeping from Jake. It wasn't until after all of it was over, until she left the lake house behind, that she began to think about it all.

She thought about everything Sam confessed to her: being jealous of Jake, having feelings for her, and his close relationship with her dad. It made her reflect on what Sam's behavior was like around her before any of this happened.

Stevie thought about when he came over here with food for her and encouraged her to pack. She thought about the muffins and the way her stomach twisted into knots when he said they were his favorite. She thought about the day on the lake when they held each other in the water after he pushed her out of her canoe. It scared her how electrified she felt by the small physical interaction.

When she had finally been out in the open with him after fighting with Jake, she always regretted how previously she would run from that feeling.

Soon enough, Stevie had been going down a rabbit hole in her reflection. She remembered the photo of them in her dad's photo album when they were at that soccer game. There was more context to that photo than Stevie realized while talking about it with Sam.

The background story to that photograph, the events that took place before the game, and how they ended up there in the first place came flooding back to her. That particular soccer game was a night game. It was on a Saturday which wasn't typical for night games, but if Stevie remembered correctly, it was a makeup for a game that had been postponed. Stevie never missed any of Jake's soccer games, even before they were in high school.

That Saturday she had been hanging out at the Kiszka house, working on filming something with Josh. It was just her and the twins that were filming that morning. Sam was preparing for his very first date, something the three of them were teasing him endlessly about.

She laughed as the memory came back clearer for her. Sam had braces then. His hair was an awkward length, trying to catch up with Jake in that department. He had been stressing about it all morning, spending a good chunk of time just deciding what to wear.

They were going to an art exhibit that his date apparently wanted to see and having lunch afterward. Sam was even more stressed over the fact that his dad had to drive them. At the time, it was classic teasing material for her and the twins. Ronnie was a lot more gracious about it, helping Sam get ready and psyching him up.

However, when Sam returned from his date, Stevie was the only one who was in the living room when he walked in. Jake had gone to a team dinner; Josh was in his room editing and Ronnie was on a date of her own. Stevie planned to chill out with Josh until they both headed over to the high school stadium, but things slightly changed after Sam came back, looking completely horrified.

"Jeez," Stevie scoffed when she saw him, red liquid splattered on his t-shirt, "What happened to you?"

"I'd rather not talk about it," Sam huffed and headed towards his room. Kelly looked at Stevie with wide eyes and shook his head.

She sighed, feeling a little sorry for him. She decided to bother him about it anyway, putting her best-friend-of-the-older-brother hat on. She knocked on his door and it swung open rapidly. His eyes were wide, probably expecting one of his parents but his expression dropped when he saw her.

"What?" Sam groaned, "I already said I didn't want to talk about it!"

Stevie rolled her eyes and pushed past him, only needing to shove him lightly for him to move. She plopped on his bed and gave him a knowing look, "What happened, Sam?"

"Like you even care," Sam frowned, sitting beside her.

"I do care," Stevie assured him, "We make fun of you because that's what we do, Sammy. You're just the youngest so it's the worst for you."

Sam narrowed his eyes at her, but slumped his shoulders and sighed, "Fine! The date was horrible. She hated me! I completely screwed all of it up!"

"You're twelve, Sam," Stevie laughed, "It couldn't have been that bad!"

"It was!" Sam sighed, "I didn't even want to go on this stupid date anyway!"

"So, why'd you ask her out, you weirdo?"

Sam shrugged, "I was being teased at school for never kissing a girl before."

"Oh," Stevie sang, "I see. So, you tried to kiss her then?"

"I guess?" Sam questioned, "I thought it was a good time to try, but she freaked out! Now there's Powerade all over my shirt and I made a fool of myself."

Stevie laughed harder than Sam would've liked her to, but she wrapped her arm around his shoulders, "It's okay, Sam. Kissing is gross anyway!"

Sam rolled his eyes, "Well, I wouldn't know! I still haven't done it!"

"You don't have to be like all of the guys who tease you," Stevie said, "I bet most of them just lie about it anyway and are all in the same boat you are!"

Sam chuckled and shook his head, "Well, not all of them. Some of them kiss girls in the halls."

"Ugh," Stevie made a face, "Gross!"

"Is kissing really that gross?" Sam asked and Stevie shrugged, "I've only been kissed once, and it was weird. Besides, girls want it to be romantic, Sammy. They don't want it to be pressured and forced."

"So, what should I do?"

"First of all, you shouldn't just take a girl out because your friends are teasing you," Stevie laughed, "You should ask a girl out because you really like her and want to hang out with her. Did you even like this girl?"

Sam shook his head, "No, she just sits next to me in English."

"God, Sam," Stevie laughed even more, "You have got to get some better dating advice."

He laughed too but sighed again, falling back onto his bed, "Everyone is gonna ask me about it on Monday."

Stevie rolled her eyes and hit her hand on the bed beside him, "So what if you didn't kiss her? You went out for the wrong reasons anyway! It's not a race, Sam! Plus, when it happens, it'll be way better than it would've been today."

Sam didn't say anything, he just looked gloomily up at his ceiling and Stevie smiled down at him, "Come to the soccer game with me and Josh tonight! It'll be fun!"

"No way," Sam groaned, "I can't show my face in public!"

"Oh my god," Stevie argued, "Sit up!"

He was frightened by her demand, so he did as she said and she turned, sitting cross-legged in front of him.

"Now, turn and look at me," Stevie instructed, and Sam followed suit, sitting across from her, giving her a worried expression.

"When you kiss a girl," Stevie began, "You have to make sure that she's into it. Getting to know her better helps a lot in this sense."

"Okay," Sam said, hesitantly.

"That's kind of what dates are for anyway," Stevie explained, "You'll have to pay attention to body language too. Girls are just as nervous as guys are, we're just a lot better about hiding it."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Stevie."

"I know. So, pay attention!" Stevie smiled, "She'll drop a few hints when she wants you to make a move; bat her eyelashes at you, lean in closer, touch your arm or something."

Stevie acted out what she was saying, giving Sam a few visual tips on what to look for.

"She'll be nervous too and won't ever bring it up or ask you to," Stevie explained, "But, she might even look at your lips for a weird amount of time and that's usually the green light."

Sam was looking at her closely, scared to even breathe.

"You don't want to just plant it on her though," Stevie shook her head, "You want to match what she's doing too. Lean in closer a little bit, maybe reach out and touch her hair, or the classic arm over her shoulder move. Then you just close your eyes and go for it! Closed and puckered lips to start though!"

"Should I be taking notes?" Sam asked and Stevie laughed, "You'll remember! Just don't come at her with your mouth open and immediately try to tongue her down. That's just sloppy and weird!"

"Is that what happened to you?" Sam asked and she shrugged, "Pretty much! It was disgusting and not at all what I had pictured."

Sam nodded slowly, still looking confused and Stevie leaned back and away from him, grabbing his shoulders, "Just don't think about it so much! It's not a big deal, Sam. With time, you'll be fine!"

Sam nodded, "Okay. Should I just lie then? I'm sure she's already told her friends about it."

Stevie shrugged, "Who cares! Just come to the soccer game and forget about it!"

Sam shook his head, "I can't go to the game! Derek's older brother is on Jake's team! He'll probably be there and make me look pathetic!"

"You're not about to let some lame wanna-be ruin your weekend, Sam!" Stevie widened her eyes at him, "None of you are even going to remember this next week!"

"I really don't want to go to the game and be humiliated, Stevie."

Sam's eyes lit up for a brief second and he smiled, "What if I kiss you? Just to get it over with."

"Me?" Stevie laughed and shook her head, "That's not the most romantic thing in the world, Sam."

"Yeah, but you're in high school! Nobody could clown me if I kissed a girl in high school," Sam begged, "Please?"

She looked at him with sympathetic eyes and bit her lip, "Are you sure you want your first kiss to be completely meaningless?"

"Well, it wouldn't be with a girl I don't even know if it's with you," Sam said, "Just a practice."

Stevie crossed her arms over her chest and sighed, "Okay, fine! Only to get you to stop sulking in your room! And Jake and Josh can never know about this, got it?"

Sam sat up straighter and nodded, "Oh my god, thank you! I promise!"

"If you tell them, I will deny it until I die, Sam."

Sam nodded and scooted himself closer to her until their knees were touching. Stevie remembered feeling amused by him thinking very hard about the tips she gave him. His shaky hand reached for her hair, and she smiled, grabbing the back of his hand and leading it to hold her cheek. They both leaned closer to each other, slowly and Stevie was the one who closed the gap, giving him the smallest, quickest peck on the lips that ever existed.

Sam's eyes had widened triple their normal size and his cheeks immediately turned a deep shade of pink when she pulled away from him and clapped her hands together, "There! Now you can tell Derek that you kissed a high school girl."

Stevie got up off of his bed and headed to the door, stopping in his doorway and turning back to look at him with a small smile, "Now get changed! You're going to the soccer game whether you want to or not."

When she left him there, Sam was still sitting cross-legged on his bed, in shock, holding his fingers up to his lips. Stevie laughed at the memory but realized she was also crying at this point. She sat up in her bed and wiped her eyes. Sam and Stevie had successfully kept that a secret from Josh and Jake this entire time and honestly, she forgot it even happened.

That's why that picture of them in the photo album is so rare. It was one special occasion where Stevie was simply trying to make him feel better. Their history was a lot deeper and more complicated than Stevie could ever admit. Sure, it may have been one-sided for most of their friendship, but she knew what Josh told her a few weeks ago was true. She had a soft spot for him. But now, none of that even mattered.

Stevie thought about "Pearly Queen", and the sight of the destruction that Sam had created. That boat was irreplaceable, and she wasn't sure if she could forgive him for being so careless with something that meant so much to her father. Her dad would've been devastated, but she knew he would be quick to forgive Sam.

It was different for Stevie though. The emotion she felt was so heavy and all she really wanted was to hide in her bed covers and never come out again. However, she knew she needed to do something to keep busy. She got up and went downstairs, putting her shoes on and getting into her car before she could convince herself not to.

Things for Sam were only slightly different compared to Stevie after their fight. He had been riddled with guilt and although Stevie wanted him to leave, he couldn't. He began to panic as soon as he watched her get into her car and leave. He couldn't sleep, he couldn't even eat. He had to at least try to fix what he had ruined.

His brothers kept calling him and he kept ignoring them, directing more of his attention to finding someone who could help him repair the boat. Thankfully, he found someone locally who would be able to do it. It cost more than a new boat, but he knew he couldn't replace the Pearly Queen. Besides, he wasn't sure if Stevie would ever forgive him, but he had to do something. So, he paid extra for the guy to get it done as soon as possible and while the boat was getting work done, Sam was in the house, finishing what Stevie and he hadn't gotten to.

She had talked endlessly with him about her plans for making the lake house her own. She didn't want everything her dad had here to be erased, but if it was going to stay her place, she wanted to make it her own. Stevie still wasn't sure if she wanted to sell it or not, but if she was going to sell it to Sam, she thought it would be good to plan the decor changes with him so he wouldn't change it too much if she went in that direction.

He remembered she wanted the music memorabilia to stay, but her dad's old study was her dream study to work on her writing. She wanted the other bedrooms to be cute and comfortable for when any of them would be staying there. She wanted the decor to be light and comforting, opting for vintage rather than modern.

"The house already has such beautiful fixtures," Stevie said one afternoon when they were cleaning after the twins visited, "but I want more silly little wall hangings and throw pillows and rugs. Very 70's chic, ya know?"

"So, burnt oranges and mustard yellows?" Sam laughed.

"I mean not necessarily. The kitchen has that funky avocado color," Stevie pointed to Sam with a smirk, "I'd like it to be more colorful, honestly."

He nodded and smiled, "Of course, that's much more you."

Sam fluffed a blue and orange bohemian-style throw pillow on the couch and sighed as he thought back to the memory. This was a pillow he picked out and he was a little nervous about whether she'd like it or not. But he wouldn't know until he fixed things.

Sam didn't let himself feel his heartbreak unless he took breaks from working, so he barely did. He moved her dad's music memorabilia to the den and worked on painting the study, making it Stevie's writing space. He got a desk, lined the walls with bookshelves and storage space, and even put the bean bag chair in there for a nice spot to read.

The boat mechanic, Mike was his name, had finished the boat yesterday and Sam was impressed at how it almost looked like the accident never even happened. Sam worked endlessly on getting the lake house put together the way that Stevie wanted it. He wasn't sure if she'd come back to do this herself, but if he knew her the way he thought he did, he wasn't betting on it.

However, this morning he heard tires on the gravel outside and he kicked himself for getting excited that it might be her. When he looked out the kitchen window, he was less than thrilled to find Josh's Jeep there. The twins got out of the car and Sam rounded the corner, throwing the front door open.

"What the hell are you two doing here?" Sam asked and Jake glared at him, "This is what happens when you don't answer our calls, Sam."

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Josh asked, "Stevie told you to go home."

"I know," Sam sighed, "But I can't. I had to do something other than hating myself."

Josh crossed his arms over his chest and raised his eyebrows at his little brother, "And what exactly have you been doing?"

Sam looked out to the dock and gestured his head to it, "Fixing the boat."

The twins both looked over at the boat and Josh nodded, "Looks completely normal."

"What happened, Sam?" Jake asked, "What did you do?"

Sam took in a sharp breath and sat on the steps of the house abruptly, "I think it's more helpful to ask what I didn't do."

Tears welled in his eyes and Josh frowned, going and sitting beside him, "Sam, Stevie told me what happened. I think you just need to give her some space."

"I fucked it all up," Sam cried, "Just like I knew I would."

"I don't get it," Josh said, "Things were going in the right direction, Sam. Why'd you run away?"

"I was angry," Sam admitted, "And instead of just talking to her about it, I got drunk."

"Why were you mad?"

"Stevie told Ronnie about the lake house plan," Jake chimed in, "he took it out of context."

"Well, I don't know if it was completely out of context," Sam looked at Jake, "You guys still conspired against me."

"None of this was against you, Sam," Josh sighed, "When are you going to understand that? Stevie just wanted to help you."

"And we know you," Jake crossed his arms too, "We knew you wouldn't come down here if it felt like we were making you."

"Jake's right," Josh said, "It was a dire miscommunication and to tell you the truth, you wanted to help Stevie too."

Sam looked at Josh and thought about that day Stevie brought him the pizza. He thought about the night at Electrick and cringed at how much he acted like a douche, trying to kiss her. But then he focused on everything Stevie did for him. She attacked a stranger trying to hit him, she held his hair back while he repeatedly got sick, and she defended him when he didn't think anyone else would.

Sam smiled softly, realizing that she loved him for a lot longer than they were aware of.

"I don't know why," Jake sighed, "But you and Stevie have always been closer than any of us realized."

Sam held his head in his hands and cried and Josh rubbed his back, "Just give her some time, Sam. She'll come around."

Jake sighed dramatically and walked over to them, sitting on the other side of Sam, grabbing his shoulder, "You can't let her get away. Not again. Not ever."

Sam sniffled, wiping his face and looking questioningly at Jake, "What?"

"I'm serious," Jake said, "You have to make this right. You have to fix things with her. Neither of you will ever get over it otherwise."

"What am I supposed to do?" Sam asked, running his hands through his hair.

"Well, first things first," Josh chuckled, "You have to take a shower. Good lord, Sam, you smell awful."

Jake laughed and reached behind Sam to hit Josh on the back of the head, "Yeah, take a shower. But then, you need to talk to her, man. Stevie's in love with you. All she wants is to be with you. So, go and talk to her about it."

"She doesn't want to talk to me," Sam shook his head, "She never wants to see me again."

"Not true," Josh laughed, "She might have said that but that's so not true. She's angry, rightfully so. But you've gotta do more than fix her dad's boat to make this right, Sam."

Sam looked at Josh and nodded, "Okay."

"Don't worry about us," Jake said, "We'll be out of your hair."

"You just came out here to talk to me?" Sam laughed and Josh punched him lightly, "This could have easily been a phone call, Sam. But we're going home and spending time with Mom and Dad."

"Next time we call you," Jake muttered, "pick up your fucking phone."

Jake shoved him and the three of them laughed together. Sam stood up after pulling both his brothers into a hug and headed inside to shower.

Stevie was nervously tapping her fingers against the service counter at the restaurant, "What do you mean you don't have any shifts? There are always shifts!"

"We're fully staffed this summer, Stevie," her boss sighed, "I'd love to give you those shifts back but we hired college kids to cover for you on your time out."

Stevie sighed deeply and nodded, "No, I understand. Sorry, I'm just stressed out."

"If you want," her boss continued, "You could pick up any shifts that are posted until you come back in August."

Stevie nodded, "Okay, yeah. Thank you."

Stevie left the restaurant and hit her hands against her steering wheel when she was in the privacy of her car. She felt her phone buzz in her pocket, and fished it out, grunting in frustration. When she read the name on her screen attached to a new text message, her stress only skyrocketed. It was Ryan.

"Hey, I have some of your stuff I'd like to return to you. Can we meet?"

Stevie tightened her jaw and let out a deep groan before she unlocked her phone and typed back.

"Drop it off at my house. 8 o'clock."

She threw her phone onto the passenger seat and pulled out of the parking lot, speeding on her way home. The last thing she needed right now was to see Ryan, of all people. But she supposed it was as good a time as any. Might as well add salt to her wounds, right?

When she got back to the house, Stevie couldn't help but let her emotions take over. She sat on the floor of the entryway and let her bag fall off of her shoulder, crying hard. She cracked under the weight of her stress. While she and Sam were never labeled or exclusive, she had wished that he was the ex that she would be seeing tonight. It's not that she couldn't handle seeing Ryan, she just didn't think the stuff that had been missing for months was really important enough for him to return to her. Her heart was shattered, and Ryan did not need to be part of this chapter of her life for any reason at all.

She wanted to talk to Sam. She didn't have words to say to him just yet, but she wanted more than anything for this crippling pain to leave. Had she overreacted? Should she have stayed and tried to work through it with him? She wiped her eyes, grunting loudly with frustration. Of course, she didn't overreact. She reacted just the way anyone would. She knew deep down that she did need space from him. But the longer she waited in the silence and utter loneliness of her house, it became increasingly more difficult to rationalize the space she had wedged between them.

Stevie sniffled, wiping her face with the bottom of her shirt and she stood up slowly, setting her bag on the ground and tossing her keys on the entryway table. She walked into her living room and kneeled in front of her record player, pulling out her copy of Rumors. She put it on and laughed at the irony of the lyrics as "Second Hand News" played softly through her living room.

Stevie then went to her kitchen and poured herself a glass of red wine, taking a deep breath before the liquid met her lips, and sipping it lightly. She set the glass down and decided the best thing to do besides cry was to dance around and try to forget about Sam for the time being. She still had a few hours before Ryan was expected to show up at her house so she danced over to her fridge, swaying her lips to the music as she studied what she could possibly make for dinner.

There wasn't much in the fridge, considering she had been gone for a while and the vegetables she left behind looked so sad, wilted in the crisper drawer. She tossed them in the trash and decided to stick to a tried-and-true sadness staple, paying very little mind to the fact that it was one of the only things available to eat in her pantry.

She made a large pot of instant ramen and sang along to Fleetwood Mac between bites. It paired horribly with her merlot, but she didn't have enough energy to care. She continued to dance and sing while she ate her dinner. She continued to dance and sing when she washed the dishes. And she continued to drink her wine. When she reached up to grab the merlot from the top of the fridge where she kept it, she saw a sticky note hung up on the side of her fridge.

"Sammy was here! :)"

Stevie coughed out of surprise, reaching out to touch the note and she felt her lip quiver, tears immediately welling in her eyes. This was getting ridiculous. She couldn't even keep it together just seeing some stupid note he left her. Many thoughts raced in her mind at that moment. She wanted to rip it down, crumble it, and throw it out. But she didn't. She just pressed her hand against it and left it alone, deciding not to reach for the wine anymore.

The doorbell rang before she could have another crying meltdown, and she jumped at the sound. She glanced at the clock and cursed to herself when she saw that it was already a quarter past eight. Stevie wiped her eyes and walked to the door, taking a deep breath before she opened it to Ryan standing before her.

He had never been to her current house before, as this was the place she got when she moved out of the apartment they shared. It was such a shell shock to see him standing in front of her, clutching a box close to his torso. Stevie slipped out of the house and stood on the doorstep with him, shutting the front door behind her and wrapping her arms around herself.

"Ryan," she said, "You're late."

"I got lost," Ryan said, "It's good to see you."

"Is it?" Stevie asked, rolling her eyes, "Just get this over with."

"Seriously, it is," Ryan said, "Are you okay? You look like you've been crying."

"I'm fine."

"Stevie, come on," Ryan frowned, "You can't seriously hate me forever, can you?"

Stevie laughed, "Actually I can, and I intend to."

Ryan scoffed and jutted the box to her, "Here."

Stevie took the box from him and just as she opened her mouth to tell Ryan to go, she heard a car door slam. She looked out past Ryan and saw the Jeep parked on the street. Sam was storming up to the porch and Stevie could tell he was mad, just by the way his hands were balled into fists by his sides and his jaw was clenched.

Part of her was relieved to see him, but the other part was terrified. He had no idea that Ryan would be here and given what Stevie had shared about Ryan, Sam had every intention to do something irrational right now. But he still was here at her house, with intentions that did not involve Ryan in the slightest. "Sam, please," Stevie started, but before she could say anything else, Ryan turned around and Sam reached him quickly, grabbing him by the shirt and punching him square in the nose.

"Sam!" Stevie shouted, dropping her box and pulling Ryan out of Sam's grasp, "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"What the hell is this, Stevie?" Sam spat, "You're already crawling back to this piece of shit?"

Stevie scoffed and shook her head as Ryan was groaning in pain and holding his nose with his hands, "He just came by to give me some stuff that he still had, Sam. Jesus fucking Christ!"

Ryan hissed in pain, turning to Stevie, "I should get going."

"I'm sorry," Stevie sighed, "But you kind of deserve it, prick."

Sam stepped out of Ryan's way as he headed out towards his car and Sam bit his lip, shoving his hands in his pockets as he stood before Stevie, who had shifted her weight to one of her hips and wrapped her arms around herself again.

She tried her best to keep a straight face, not wanting to laugh at the fact that Sam just decked her ex-boyfriend in the nose, reminding herself that even though she was glad she was looking at him again, she was still angry with him.

"What are you doing here, Sam?" she sighed, "I thought I made things pretty clear."

"Okay," Sam frowned, "But I didn't."

"What are you talking about? Why are you driving Josh's car?" Stevie questioned, scoffing at the thought and Sam shook his head, reaching a hand out to her. She dodged his touch, and he took a step back, inhaling deeply.

"Stevie, I know I messed up," Sam said, and she laughed, "Messed up? That's one way to put it."

"I know I royally fucked up and destroyed your dad's boat and broke your heart, Stevie," Sam continued, "But we can't leave it the way we left it."

"We can," Stevie nodded, "And we should."

"No," Sam said sharply, "We shouldn't. We can't. I can't."

"Sam, I can't trust you," Stevie sighed, "I can't just pretend that you didn't do something that is borderline unforgivable."

"I panicked, Steve," Sam whined, and Stevie met his eyes as she heard the break in his voice, "I should have talked to you instead of just taking off and I'm so sorry."

"What did you expect? That I was just going to forgive you, and everything would be okay?" Stevie laughed lightly, "I am pissed as hell, Sam. Do you think I wanted to leave? Of course, I didn't want to leave but my dad's boat is something I can't get back, Sam. What am I supposed to think when you can't have a mature conversation with me before you go off the deep end?"

"You can have a mature conversation with me," Sam counter-argued and Stevie shook her head, "No I can't! You always jump to conclusions! Like you literally just did by assaulting someone!"

"That's not fair, Stevie," Sam shook his head, "I reacted because of what he put you through."

"Yes, and that's the thing," Stevie groaned, "You always react! You never think before you do! You seriously thought I'd go back to Ryan less than two weeks after I was with you? You don't know me at all, Sam!"

"I do know you," Sam grits his teeth, "I know you better than I know anyone."

She rolled her eyes and sighed but before she could rebuttal, Sam continued, "I know that you probably tried to go back to work to not think about it. I know you'd rather find anything to do to take your mind off of your hurt, Stevie. I know that you've been thinking about me just as much as I've been thinking about you."

Stevie bit the inside of her cheek, trying to find an argument but sighing because he was right.

"I know that you've always put me above yourself, even though I've never deserved it," Sam said, "Even when you tried not to. You've always loved me, without even realizing it, you have always loved me. And I've always loved you. That's not something that will change."

"This will never work, Sam," Stevie shook her head, tears pricking her eyes, "I knew it would never work."

"It won't if you give up," Sam's voice was quiet then. He stepped closer to her and she looked away from him, "I can't keep being the only thing that keeps you grounded, Sam. It's too much pressure."

"I know," Sam sighed, grabbing her arm, "You're not."

"I am," Stevie cried, "Whether you have a good or bad day is completely dependent on me. You can't only want to get better for me, you have to do it for yourself."

"I do want to get better for me," Sam argued, "I want to go back on tour. I want to get that passion back. But I want you back just as much."

"Sam," Stevie sniffled, "It's way too complicated for me. It shouldn't be this hard."

"It's not hard!" Sam exclaimed, "I'm the one making it hard, Stevie! But I can't let it go. I won't let you go."

Stevie's tears fell faster, and she shook her head, "You have to let go, Sam. Don't make this harder than it already is."

"Stevie, I'm not walking away," Sam pulled her closer to him and she felt so defeated that she didn't even try to stop him, "I know you can't walk away either."

Stevie finally met his eyes and a shaky breath left her lips. Sam took her face in his hands and moved in fast to kiss her softly. Stevie could sense the nerves radiating from Sam, not entirely sure if he should be kissing her. However, it was exactly what Stevie wanted him to do even if she had been telling him the exact opposite.

Sam went to pull away, trying to gauge her reaction. Stevie stood on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him back in and kissing him harder. Sam hummed against her and held onto her hips. He kicked the box to the side and pressed Stevie up against the door. She whimpered into his mouth and Sam moved his lips to the crook of her neck as one of Stevie's hands flew behind them, trying to get the front door open.

Sam chuckled and reached past her to open the door for her, pushing her inside. Stevie held onto his shirt, desperately needing them to have more contact. Sam smiled and kicked the door closed behind them. His hands found their way to the back of her thighs, lifting her up and guiding her to wrap her legs around his torso.

Maybe it was the anger building up for over a week, or the intense longing, but Stevie was consumed by the moment when their lips met again. She didn't think about their fight, she didn't think about Ryan, she didn't think about anything other than the feeling of their skin touching, their lips moving against each other roughly, the way his hair was twisted in her fingers.

Sam stumbled through the house, tossing Stevie down on her sofa and she yelped, smiling up at him. Stevie knew they still had plenty of things to figure out, but she didn't want to think about anything other than how badly she wanted him.

Her record had stopped playing and her empty glass was still on the table so there wasn't any other sound in the room. Sam crawled over her and he didn't waste any time nuzzling his hands underneath her t-shirt. Stevie worked just as fast, not letting herself hesitate and change her mind about what she was doing. Within seconds, they were both topless and making out again.

Stevie was very much taking her frustration out on Sam, fighting him with her mouth. They were both just as desperate and eager as they were the first time they had sex, which helped Stevie escape the current reality they were living in. They were racing each other to get one another out of their clothes and thankfully, Sam was wearing athletic shorts and Stevie was wearing jeans, so in this race, she was winning.

Even as Sam was tugging her jeans off of her, Stevie couldn't keep her hands off of him, licking her palm and stroking his dick slowly. Sam hissed at the feeling and shook his head as he tossed her jeans on the floor.

"You're such trouble," Sam smirked and parted her legs with his hands, bringing her ankles up to his shoulders.

Stevie gasped in surprise, "Oh fuck."

Sam bit his lip and stopped wasting time, lifting her hips with his hands and settling on his knees. He lined himself up with her and dragged the tip of his dick through her folds, teasing her clit a few times making her sigh in pleasure. He twitched a little at the way Stevie was watching what he was doing, the way she was admiring the sight and the way her lip was caught between her teeth, anticipating him.

Sam's free hand reached up to Stevie's chest, grabbing a handful of her breasts before driving himself into her. Stevie's eyes fluttered shut, uncontrollably letting herself be louder with him than she had been before. He hugged her legs against his chest and moved his hand from her chest to her neck, squeezing around it a little tighter than he ever had.

They both were buzzing with anticipation, feeling the effects of their time apart. Compared to any other times they had been intimate with each other, Sam was hardly as careful, fucking himself into her much harder and quicker than before. Stevie didn't care much about this as her mind was completely clouded by how euphoric it felt and how much she wanted it to continue.

It was surprisingly hot how little he seemed to care about her finishing before him, chasing his own peak at a rapid pace. Stevie just needed the contact, already feeling herself climb to her climax as she listened to Sam groan with each thrust. She reached out to him, holding his legs and digging her fingers into him.

Usually, Stevie never waivered from talking him through sex and sporting a smug tone, but she was so overwhelmed by him that she could only moan pathetically in response to what he was doing. She was gawking at Sam who was covered in a light sheen of sweat due to his efforts. She hadn't seen him so lustful before and the view made her stomach tie in knots.

"Holy shit, Sam," Stevie sighed, "Keep going."

"Fuck," Sam grunted, "I missed you, baby."

"Use me like you need me, honey," Stevie spoke softly and Sam's grip on her legs tightened, thrusting into her faster.

He bit his lip, groaning deeply, and after a moment of this new pace, he pulled himself away from her, letting his grip on her go and standing up, pumping himself in his hand. He walked over to the edge of the sofa where her face was.

"Open your mouth," Sam instructed, and she smiled, following suit.

A hot stream of Sam's come shot into her mouth and she sucked on his tip playfully, licking him clean and swallowing with a smile. Sam's mouth was parted and his eyes were hooded as she watched her in awe, hissing lightly as she pulled her mouth away from him.

"God," Sam smiled, "You're the most amazing woman I've ever known."

Stevie laughed and sat up, grabbing his shorts and throwing them at him, "Get dressed!"

Sam rolled his eyes, catching his shorts and Stevie stood up too, working on putting her own clothes on. The gloomy and serious feelings of their harsh reality came back to her, but she was shoving it down and still holding onto the joy she felt being in his presence.

"If we're going to do this, Sam," Stevie finally broke their silence as she pulled her shirt on, "Things are going to have to change."

"But we're doing this?" Sam asked with eager eyes and Stevie lifted her head to look at him, "If things change."

He smiled and nodded, "They will, I'll make sure of it." "I'm serious," Stevie sighed, shimmying her way back into her jeans, "I love you but I can't fix you."

"I know, Stevie," Sam tugged his shirt on, "I know I need to make changes, and anything is worth keeping you."

"What changes exactly?" Stevie questioned, raising a brow and sporting a small smile.

Sam pursed his lips together and hummed, "Well, I need to work on communicating with you and being honest about my feelings."

Stevie buttoned her jeans together and nodded, "Go on."

"I also think it's important that I stop drinking," Sam admitted with a shrug and Stevie looked at him hesitantly, "Like quit drinking completely?"

He nodded without another word and Stevie nodded too, "Well, if you seriously want to do that, I'll do it with you."

Sam gave her a knowing look, "You know you don't have to do that."

"I know," Stevie smiled, "But we could do it together."

Sam smiled and came closer to her, taking her hand and intertwining his fingers with hers, "I'll do anything to be with you."

"I think those things are a good start," Stevie said, leaning into him.

"I love you," Sam whispered, kissing the top of her head.

"I love you too," Stevie looked up at him with a smile.

"Does this make us official?"

She bit her lip and smirked, "I mean, I only want to be with you, Sam."

Sam tilted her chin farther up with his hand and sealed their deal with another kiss.

Tag list:

@fleetingjake

[dazedpuppydairies]

Content Warning// For Discussion of Transphobia

An aspect of transness I don't see people talking about a lot is when you've really queered your understanding of gender and things that previously made you dysphoric, or roles that are traditionally associated with your assigned gender now make you euphoric. Especially when there's this aspect of reclamation involved. For example when growing up your told you have to do XYZ because of your assigned gender, but then you do proceed to do XYZ, but in a very queer way that would make the people who told you, you have to do XYZ cringe. I think this is like a really interesting conversation, but I don't see a lot of trans people talking about it. Sure I do see conversations about how trans men are allowed to be feminine and trans women are allowed to be masculine, but I feel like that's really surface level. Also even those surface level concepts aren't very mainstream yet. For example I was staying in this shelter for LGBTQIA+ between late 2021 and early 2022. One of the people I was living with there was a cis femme gay guy and he had such a problem with me being a femme trans guy. He constantly misgendered me along with all the nonbinary staff. He also expressed that being trans is when someone medically transitions from one binary gender to the other essentially. He didn't really view it as an identity based thing or even a mental thing at all. He essentially viewed transness as a cosmetic thing. I caught him having a conversation one time with one of the nonbinary staff explaining that the difference between him a drag queen and a trans woman is that a trans woman gets surgeries and if she doesn't get the surgeries she's still technically a man. Overhearing that conversation had me fuming. Anyway despite being a feminine cis guy he couldn't comprehend the validity of a feminine trans guy. That still seems to be a lot of people's understanding of transness unfortunately, even within the LGBTQIA+, even within the trans community. Don't get me wrong things have gotten much better since 2016 when I first came out as nonbinary and I think the online trans community has also done a lot of healing the last couple years. Anyway for me a big part of being queer is about subverting expectations and honestly not making sense. I don't want to make sense within the cisnormative,heteronormative, amatonormative standards which are still very prominent within our community today. Back to the point of this though I think the concept of reclaiming the roles that were forced upon you based off of your assigned gender, but in a way that makes cishet people cringe is very fun.

Also quite off topic, but my grandmother says I should start a podcast. What do you think about that?

[saturnskyline]

"vegasporsche brainrot hours" YES PLEASE

porsche was blind to vegas betraying him (well, it wasn't about vegas betraying porsche but vegas going against his family that porsche didn't expect), but porsche also saw something in vegas that kinn and others didn't. he knew what vegas had done to him and main family, but when pete came back, and porsche did the math of what happened to pete, he didn't freak out or said: "vegas is doing to you what he did to tawan, ken and me". when vegas made the deal in ep13, porsche didn't question why would vegas want to see pete, and he trusted that vegas would do his part of the deal (which he did). when vegas warned him about the coup and said he will take care of pete, porsche knew it was not a lie and sort of gave his blessing. and vegas called him the second time about the coup, even though he didn't have to. ANYWAY, I AM RAMBLING, but what i wanted to say is that porsche saw something in vegas, and i can totally imagine another universe in which porsche would chip away some of vegas's armor, like, look, there is real flesh and blood underneath, you're a human, vegas, how does it feel to have someone see through your tough mafia guy bullshit? (also, unrelated to my ramblings, au where vegas and porsche have hot sex in that alley of hum bar, it's a bit rough, and porsche can feel all the places where he will have bruises and hickeys, so when vegas leaves, porsche texts his bestie pete with 'i think i just fucked your future husband, his name is vegas and here is his number')

*jason mendoza voice* oh nonnie. we're really in it now 🥺🥺

there really is so much to unpack with these two. i definitely agree with you; i think porsche sees vegas in a way that's pretty uncomfortable for both of them. the brainrot for their little meeting in ep 13 is especially strong, since there are so many possible interpretations. is porsche using pete as a bargaining chip, signaling how he's adjusting to mafia life? does he leave the ball in vegas' court, truly believing that vegas won't harm pete? i'm dizzy just thinking about it 🥲

one thing that does strike me as interesting is the "i don't trust you" bit. i believe porsche's statement on a surface level – i don't think what they have could be properly described as trust – but there is a unique kind of camaraderie that they share nonetheless. their dynamic in the last few episodes REALLY gets me... porsche needing to ask vegas for help (working around kinn 🤨), vegas calling porsche about the coup (bc yes! he really did not have to!), vegas threatening porsche to get to kinn!!! (probably wasn't personal, just. the cousin rivalry lol) like. there's LAYERS here and they make me crazyyy

and then there's another question: what next? post-canon, there are even more possibilities. i can't imagine that vegas wouldn't feel any resentment at his birthright being snatched up by his cousin's boyfriend of all people, but i like to imagine they develop a tentative bond again eventually. (personal headcanon: as much as porsche being the minor family head has rocked vegas' world, he can't help but be strangely relieved. it's the life he was trained for, but he doesn't feel the loss as keenly as he expected.) could them getting along just be wishful thinking on my part?? yes, very likely. but hey, i loved that motorcycle scene, what can i say 😭

oh. oh! and the idea of porsche telling vegas that he sees him, the "i know about all the walls you put up, and you're not as heartless as you pretend to be". yeah THAT'S the good stuff right there. i love it when vegas gets Perceived, and aside from pete, the only person that i think could truly pull that off would be porsche. sure, he hasn't seen everything, and the manipulation was no joke. but in order to sell all the lies, vegas has to add truth to an excruciating degree, probably more than he realizes. again, wishful thinking? possibly. but there are so many moments along the way where his concern and affection for porsche seem genuine. and hey, maybe all that means is that the manipulation is working on me. In that case, i will gladly be brainwashed :)

anyway i'm not sure that any of this makes sense, but thanks for fueling my unhinged ted talk! (OUR unhinged ted talk? 👀) and i love the au concept hehe, any scenario that even remotely involves vegas/pete/porsche has me bouncing off the walls 🙏🙏

[thecynicalcinephile]

So, About Avatar: The Way of Water,

Marvel take notes, this is what CGI can do when you actually give your artists time. However, that may be one of the only good things you can say about this film.

Honestly, I don't feel like there's very much to say about this film at all. It is, at the end of the day, exactly what it says on the tin: just another Avatar film, and everything that implies.

Of course, it's an absolute visual spectacle. The CGI is absolutely impeccable, the creatures are beautiful, and the vast vistas of Pandora remain as stunning as ever. You can almost feel the brutality of the human settlements and actions.

That itself, however, is a large part of the issue. There's absolutely no subtlety whatsoever. No nuances, no deeper meanings, just a black-and-white "uwu colonialism bad" story. Now don't get me wrong, I hate colonialism, but the problem is there's just no substance to this. It's the equivalent of looking at a pretty picture while a politician gives a double-talk riddled speech about how sad it was that we were mean to Native Americans.

Now remember when I said that this was "just another Avatar film, and everything that implies"? This is what I meant by that. The first Avatar film was also ultimately hollow, hence its near lack of impact on popular culture. This is very much what I like to call a "Sins of the Father" situation, in that all the problems of the first film carried over in full force. And Avatar 1 had more than a few problems. Just as both films are hollow, both films are also ultimately exploitative when it comes to their treatment of actual Native American culture.

This is, fundamentally, a film where we go in and look at how beautiful and amazing the essentially gentrified version of the Native American lifestyle would be, make ourselves feel bad about the aforementioned colonialism, and then, through our textbook White Savior Jake Sulley, we let ourselves vicariously feel like heroes for defending the poor pretty blue people. It's turning colonialism and Native American culture into cheap feel-good candy for Americans who want to pretend they're good people without actually doing anything.

Now I'm not saying audiences went in with those intentions consciously, I know I certainly didn't, but that's definitely the itch it scratches and is almost certainly on some level what James Cameron was going for.

Oh, and on a slightly lighter note, as long as we're on the topic of White Saviors and whatnot, Jake Sulley's adopted daughter is clearly being set up as a Jesus allegory. She was a virgin birth and her connection to Eywa is stronger for some mysterious & mystical reason. Now, the issue here is that her birth mother is Sigourney Weaver's Avatar, making her arguably yet another White Savior. I can excuse one White Savior every now and then, but two in the same franchise at the same time is where I draw the line.

Ultimately, if you want some cheap fun visual spectacle, go ahead and watch this movie, I can't stop you. Just don't expect any thrilling social commentary beyond the shallowest of surface levels, and try not to get so distracted by the pretty colors that you forget how hollow the whole thing actually is.

Actually, scratch that, don't watch this movie. Just go watch Avatar 1 somewhere on streaming. It'll probably be cheaper. The above warnings still apply, but at least you won't be rewarding James Cameron quite as much.