#i just hate how we got there

[anthony-kate]

Lucifer is pretty much my fave show.

Yes, I hate the end/last season.

We exist.

[clouvu]

Save me french yuri... Save me

[inkskinned]

it is totally okay to be hurt and tired and fed up with the american schooling system but i need you to understand that we need to be better about loudly and routinely defending public education.

yes, many teachers suck, many schools utterly suck. i also got bullied and was absolutely not given the right support for my needs. i am not defending public education because it was kind to me. i am defending it because it needs to exist.

right-wing republicans do not want an educated population. they want kids to be homeschooled or in private school. there is a huge religious undertone to this.

the most common argument is that despite high costs, the "result" is not "good" enough. they point to failing schools as proof that public education is just never going to work out. there will be arguments made here that you actually agree with: that teachers can be bullies, that we taught online for 2 years and still charged the same amount of tuition, that we have no recourse for students to actually have agency or a voice, and that schools are now unsafe for kids due to risk of illness and gun violence.

these are all placing the blame in a fraudulent way, one intended to get your parents to homeschool you. the less kids in a school, the less federally-awarded funding for that school, the less any school succeeds. they will not mention the fact it is their legislation that takes away important funding opportunities, that teachers are living at or below the poverty line, that buildings are not kept up to code, that administration is overpaid and forces specific curriculums, that corporations like (my personal enemy) Pearson Education control certain classroom goals because teachers can't afford other options. they pretend to be ignorant of the gun violence and say "oh just get a gun" - but these are the same people who will be sending their child to a private school with a bulletproof backpack. they don't care if your kid dies, though. they "don't believe" in covid, but they did get their kid vaccinated, because of course they did.

it is a closed loop. conservative parents hear the fearmongering and remove children from the system. frequently these parents are also deeply religious. the kids are raised without access to other media & learn to parrot their parents. you have now created a new generation of conservatives. additionally, one of the parents/caregivers must stay home and homeschool the children, usually for free. i will give you 1 guess which parent tends to stay home to homeschool the children. these parents are encouraged to have many, many children. those children are most likely not getting access to safe sex ed.

we might laugh at fox news suggesting teachers are forcing children to use kitty litter but: first of all, there is kitty litter in the classroom. it's part of an emergency kit in case children are locked in due to a shooter. so that's fucking dystopian, and the fact they've completely reimagined the scenario to somehow make the teachers look bad when it's instead a fucking huge symbol of our failure as a country to protect our children.... it feels a little intentional.

secondly: don't just dismiss the situation. because, yeah, obviously, no teacher is encouraging kids to be a catboy. but the actual undertone that fox news is trying to sew is an outright distrust of teachers and of public education. they rely on the dehumanization of trans people as a common touchstone to hide the fact they're pushing two agendas at once. (which is ironic. because the thing they accuse teachers of. is pushing. an agenda.)

whenever someone tells you they want you to read less, you should be suspicious of that. when someone tries to separate you and your education, you should be suspicious of that. i don't even like incel rhetoric nor would i want my kids exposed to it - but i would not take away my child's (age-appropriate) access to the internet. i would just provide more educational materials, not less. the difference here is that i believe we can resolve ignorance with knowledge; whereas conservatives believe that ignorance is bliss.

they misappropriate funding and demonize teachers. they pull the same trick each time - the same thing we are seeing with anti-trans rhetoric. they do not want you to have access to safe sex ed, so they act horrified, claim sex ed teaches you how to thrust deep, claim that we have no idea what "age-appropriate" means. since the mid-nineties, the united states has spent at least 2 billion dollars on abstinence-only education, even though to quote the above link: "a preponderance of studies has found no effect of abstinence education at reducing adolescent pregnancy". conservatives want you to think less of any person struggling with addiction so they can continue their racist "war on drugs", so they spend up to $750 million dollars a year on the DARE program which has absolutely no effect. acting like teachers "must" be "grooming" children is just the same thing - so they can demand that funding either goes to their causes or the funding doesn't "exist" ("i'm not paying for our kids to learn that thing!")

and they want you to feel uncaring about this. they are aware that you will hate some parts of your school experience. pretty much everyone does. they want to lean into the parts that you hate so that you don't put up a fight about it when they take it away for not being "good enough."

i know i maybe sound like a conspiracy theorist. but truly. truly. it is beneficial for conservatives to reduce your faith in the american public schooling system.

one of the explicitly stated campaign promises of the conservative party: to axe the Department of Education in 2024.

i know we are all tired and burnt out and there is so much else wrong with their entire platform. but maybe just - pay attention to this one.

[angryducktimemachine]

Aromanticism Zine but it's just my incoherent thoughts.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

Marvel Meow (2021), Nao Fuji | Professor X and Magneto

Bonus:

[egophiliac]

I have never been more concerned for a JP update from your art than I am seeing a Cheka knowing the context of Leona’s dream.

My bois ok right?????? My sweet nephews ok right??????

well

uhhhh

I'm sure the real one is fine :)

[starry-bi-sky]

(Part of this post with older brother danyal al ghul)

...Okay, look. Sam knows she's staring. She knows very well that she is staring. And that if she doesn't stop staring it's gonna draw her unwanted attention, and that will only have to make her explain why she's staring. Which she doesn't want to do.

She's trying not to stare, which she thinks she should get brownie points for. She tries to look away, to find a spot on the wall to stare lifelessly at, maybe she can burn holes into some of these annoying socialites' heads. But eventually her eyes drift, and suddenly she's back to staring again.

Can you blame her though? Damian Wayne looks like a very close mini-me of her fucking best friend. Seriously, it's like looking into a mirror to the past. If that mirror to the past had green eyes rather than blue and a distinctive lack of a facial scar.

The first time she sees him when her parents drag her over to Bruce Wayne to butter up to him she has to do a doubletake. Then a triple take. Then a quadruple take, just for good measure that she was seeing what she was actually seeing. She was sure she looked like one of those stress toys that when squeezed had their eyes pop out comically like a Saturday morning cartoon, that's what she certainly felt like anyways.

Look, Danny's come a decent way from being that scowl-y, jerkish little ten year old she first met when he arrived like the wind to Amity Park five years ago (even if he was still occasionally scowl-y and jerkish), but one thing that's stayed the same is how reserved he is about his home life prior to being taken in by the Fentons.

He doesn't talk about it much, and Sam's come to know that he's very good at changing the subject when it gets brought up. Even after being friends for nearly four years, the only thing she and Tuck know for certain is that he has a little brother that he refers to as 'starlight', whom he cares a lot about but left on really bad terms with. And that he's never met his father, but wants to and knows who he is.

He's never told her or Tucker who he was though, and glancing at Bruce Wayne, Sam is realizing why. She can begrudgingly acknowledge all the good he's done for Gotham, but... well, if Danny told her that Bruce Wayne was his dad, she wouldn't have believed him at all.

But she's starting to see the resemblance, as subtle as it is.

And she sees the resemblance to Damian Wayne, her eyes dropping back down to him as he wears a very Danny-like scowl on his face, arms crossed behind his back as his eyes swept around the ballroom. He was five years younger than Danny, and god it was so, so weird.

His eyes turned on to her, and they locked gazes for a moment.

Involuntarily, Sam makes a startled noise and looks away. Fingers tap against her purse, black and purple and unfortunately a clutch that only held her phone and her wallet in it. She would have kept a knife on her, but her parents put their foot down and there was a security detail at the door. Only in Gotham.

Silently, she was hoping that the little Danny-me didn't say anything. Or at least, he hadn't noticed her staring. Which was a tall order if she ever heard one -- and unfortunately, her silent prayers went unanswered as her mother's eyes dropped down onto her.

"Did you say something, Samantha?" She asks in a sickeningly sweet voice, a sound that makes Sam's skin crawl. Her dad and Bruce Wayne's attention also turns onto her, and she glowers at her mom from the corner of her eye.

"I didn't say anything." Sam says, barely keeping her tone polite as she turned her head away. Her mother clucks her tongue, disapproving, but from her peripherals doesn't pester her more

Bruce Wayne, the bastard, takes that time to turn to Sam and grace her with his dime-a-dozen billboard smiles. "I've been talking with your parents this whole time, Miss Manson, you must be terribly bored. How is your schooling going?"

Sam eyes him up and down. On one hand, she immediately wants to be snarky. It's none of his business what her school life is like, she doesn't care for his fucking small talk.

On the other hand, this was Danny's whole father. Someone who she knows that Danny has wanted to meet for, what she's assuming, his whole life. He's never brought it up much, but she remembers that very quiet, solemn conversation she and Tucker had with him where he admits to having never met his dad. But god does he want to.

And... wait. Sam's eyes narrow, and she meets Bruce Wayne's eyes. Does this man even know Danny exists? She drops her gaze down to Damian, who was staring at her suspiciously, and then back up to Bruce, and she alternates between them.

Why was Damian living with Bruce, but not Danny? Why hasn't Bruce done anything to reach out to him - what was going on with Danny's biological family that Danny had to be separated from them, but not Damian? Danny's always been kinda mysterious, but now things weren't adding up.

Was Danny given up? Does Bruce just not want Danny, but wanted Damian? Why the fuck does Bruce Wayne know about Damian but not her best friend -- or does he know and just not care? He's fought for custody for his adoptive kids before, does he just not want to fight for his other biological son? Does he think Danny's not worth it?

She's never cared much about the Wayne family before, other than to hear about the advancements on WE's eco-friendly tech, but Sam thinks she's gonna have to look into why Damian Wayne was living with the Waynes.

Slowly, with a protective anger beginning to burn in her gut and crawl up her throat, a scowl slowly curls at the corner of her lip as she redirects her glare from her mother onto Bruce. "It's going fine," She says curtly, jutting her chin out defiantly. "Me and my friend Danny started a petition to fix the leaky faucets in the girls and boys' bathrooms in order to conserve more water for the rest of the city."

She eyes his face, waiting to see if anything like recognition flashes through it. And- and nothing. Sam breathes in slowly through her nose, trying to quell the red that's blurring the edge of her vision -- does he just, not know where Danny is?

Her parents however, make vaguely displeased expressions. "Our Samantha is... quite passionate about her pet projects." Her dad says, laughing low and nervously, "she's very vocal about silly things like that."

"Her friend Daniel is perhaps even worse than she is sometimes." Her mother adds on, fanning her face with her perfectly manicured hands with a sigh. "I swear, he's the one that keeps dragging her into these things."

Sam's anger turns on its head, and she whirls on her heel like a fire-breathing dragon. "It's Danyal." It rolls out like instinct. Danny's told them both that he hates the Americanized pronunciation of his name, but in a rare moment of restraint, puts up with it for reasons unknown to her. "And Danny doesn't make me do anything, it was my idea."

The name, Danyal, seems to ring some kind of bell in Brucie Wayne's head, because she sees him and Damian quietly perk up like two cats pricking up their ears. Her eyes flick onto him immediately, something dangerous rearing its head. So Bruce Wayne knows about Danny. And he's not reaching out to him. Is he? She's not sure.

She does know that she's gonna rip his throat out if she finds out that he's known about Danny this entire time and has been ignoring him while favoring his little brother. She'll hunt down Aragon herself and steal his dragon-shifting amulet and wreck house on Bruce Wayne if that's the case. Batman and his league of vigilantes be damned. Her parents don't notice her slowly turning head towards Bruce.

But Bruce does, and she makes direct eye contact with him. His smile doesn't falter, he just tilts his head like a curious puppy and looks at Sam's parents. She hopes Bruce can read minds, she hopes he can hear her threatening him.

"Danyal?" He asks, and Sam doesn't know if she hates the fact that he said it correctly or not. She just continues burning holes into him and hoping he might spontaneously combust.

Her mother waves her hand dismissively, tilting her nose up poshly into the air. "Our dear Samantha's little... foster friend from school," she says, not even bothering to hide her disdain, "a creepy little boy with the most garish scar on his face. He's a rude little thing, not good for polite company."

Scratch that, Sam mentally alternates between ripping into her parents and Bruce. She whirls on them. "Do not talk about Danny that way." She all but snarls, and they all but ignore her.

(She's tearing up the upholstery when she gets home. She's going to paint over the fine china. She's going to do something to make them pay for this.)

"Oh yes, he was taken in by that freaky Fenton family a few years ago." Her dad continues in lieu of her mom, and they both shake their heads disapprovingly. "It's just what our city needs, another menace."

"Danny is not a menace." Sam continues, raising her voice while her hands shake with rage. Her parents finally look at her, but she can already tell that they're going to scold her for raising her voice. She bulldozes over them and jabs her black-painted finger at them. "He's got a bigger heart than the both of you combined."

"Samantha, please." her mom says, exasperated. They both give her disapproving looks, Sam thinks about grabbing champagne off the tray of a nearby waiter and throwing it in their faces. "You defend that boy far too much. What do you actually know about him and his family?"

Sam sets her jaw, puffing herself up like a dragon protecting its hoard. She steps into her mom's space. "I know that he loves the stars; you can ask him anything about astronomy and he could give you an entire lecture on the formation, class types, and various gasses that stars are made up of. He can tell you how the Earth was formed, he can tell you about the visible light spectrum and about light curves, and a whole ton of other stuff that I don't really understand. But Danny loves talking about it."

Her face twists and scowls, "I know he cares a ton about the environment and about fixing light pollution, and preserving the forests and natural habitats of animals." She nearly jabs her finger into her mom's chest, "I know he loves dogs, and that there's one he feeds every day on the way to school that he calls Cujo, its a St. Bernard puppy and Danny carries him around whenever he sees him after school, and is in the middle of training him."

It's not a total lie, but it's not the whole truth either. Cujo doesn't need food, but Danny gives him it anyways. "I know he likes spicy food and loves movies but specifically only sci-fi and horror, and he hates most martial arts movies. His favorite superhero is the Martian Manhunter, but Batman comes in at a close second." For reasons to her that were pretty unknown, but it didn't matter.

"I know he loves wordplay and making puns, which I would have never expected from him when we first met, but it's so unbelievably Danny-like that I can't imagine him not making puns." And she smiles a little to herself, she remembers the first time Danny intentionally made a pun once and it got startled laughs out of both her and Tucker.

Her smile suddenly falters, and she swallows. Her lips purse up, wobbling, and she very quickly glances over to Damian Wayne, of whom is watching her with a vaguely bewildered expression alongside Bruce.

She turns her eyes back onto her parents. "And I know that he worries a lot, even if he has a shit way of showing it. I know he had a little brother that he hasn't seen since he was adopted by the Fentons, and he doesn't talk about him often but when he does he he calls him 'starlight'." From the corner of her eye, she sees Damian jerk.

"So- so, so what if he's not 'good for polite company'." Sam's voice, embarrassingly, cracks down the middle. But she's so angry over Danny's behalf that she doesn't really care. "Or that he can be mean, and critical, and stubborn. He's learning, and he's becoming kinder by the day. That's more than I can say about you."

(She remembers when Danny finally admitted to her and Tucker being his 'closest friends'. It was sometime before the portal incident, and it felt like a milestone because beforehand he only really referred to them as his companions or allies.)

(At the time, he'd looked unsure of himself. Skittish like a stray in the back of an alleyway, almost shy in his own way. It had come out stilted, slow, like an infant taking its first steps, and it would have been endearing if it hadn't been heartbreaking.)

Her parents rear back like she'd struck them, and her mother holds a hand against her chest in aghast. Sam doesn't care, she blinks the sting out of her eyes. "Samantha." Her mother starts.

Sam cuts her off, "I don't care what you have to say, you-- you pricks." she snaps, around her, there are gasps. Belatedly, she realizes she's grown an audience, but again she doesn't care. "Danny might be an asshole, but he cares. And I'd rather be around someone whose mean but cares, than someone whose nice but doesn't."

With that, she whirls on her foot and turns on Bruce Wayne, who has been silent the entire time with a surprised expression on his face. He starts to shake out of it when Sam turns to him, but she doesn't give him the chance to speak. "Enjoy your party." She snarls, and then stalks away.

[missmolsa]

Truly the family of all time <3

[sweetmapple]

Mostly Hiring manager, but HR manager and PR manager too

[momomallowart]

He misses his dad.. 🥺

[gameringgungke]

edit 2: leak is FAKE everyone, go home

so of course i'm keeping up with the pokemon leaks and

I KNEW IT

I FUCKING KNEW IT

I SAID THE KANTO FAVORITISM STARTED BECAUSE OF BW'S BACKLASH AND WAS GOING TO MAJORLY STAGNANTETHE SERIES FOR YEARS AND NOBODY BELIEVED ME

update 113 notes later: might be fake, idk

[dykedvonte]

Its really interesting that Jimmy’s chair is the one tilted away from the screen in this shot:

It’s indicative of how his and Jimmy’s dynamic was. He’s not staring ahead at the screen, he’s not paying attention to what they are doing. Curly is the only one looking forward. Jimmy quite literally couldn’t see the responsibility Curly had or was doing. Jimmy likely slacked off and avoided most of his duties. I mean the one time we know he pilots the Tulpar he steers it wrong and loses the team 4000 credits. Even in the positions they held objectively, Curly was always taking responsibility for Jimmy. Not to mention the “We can fix this” and only one chair at attention. Jimmy never had intentions to fix anything, throughout the game, throughout his entire relationship with Curly. Curly always fixed it? Why would it be any different here?

If he even took the slightest bit of responsibility, he would’ve stayed in the cockpit to see his plan through. In the end Curly did what Jimmy always expected him to do for him and took responsibility. Did what he always did and took responsibility at the wrong time…

[iamespecter]

HOLY SHIT I FOUND YOU!! I SAW YOUR FNAF ART LIKE A YEAR AGO ON PINTREST AND I WAS LIKE DAMN THATS PRETTY FUCKING AWSOME BUT FOR THE LIFE OF ME I COULDN'T FIND THE ARTIST BUT I JUST DID, ITS YOU!!

I have no idea which art of mine you found from pinterest but based on what you're implying I lowkey think it's this screenshot redraw I made for the FNAF movie lmao (which I hope I'm right)

Unfortunately you won't get much FNAF art from me nowadays anon, ever since Ruin disappointed me immensely I've just lost most of the hope I've been clinging onto for the franchise, now I'm just here... reminiscing, watching from the sidelines, and making a once-in-a-blue-moon art for it if I'm feeling extra

[deoidesign]

I met the me who made different choices

[wikoymi]

freak of nature

[bucketsofmonsters]

Deep Water - Part 5

cw: the ocean, begrudging kissing done for practical reasons, discussions of drowning, blood, malnourishment, more tags to be added as the story continues

merman x fem reader

Word count: 3k

read on ao3

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

Simon wretched. He wretched in front of them and it burned his throat and stung his ego as he emptied his stomachs of human food in front of his human and your awful little friend.

Finn had brought him this. Maybe if you'd brought him food it wouldn't make him feel this awful.

Probably not, but maybe.

He didn't like being brought food by this man anyway. It felt too much like courting. 

He would preen at the idea of you bringing him food if he weren't currently emptying his stomachs in uncomfortably shallow water

Shallow water he bore for you. Not for him. Stupid little man.

He hated that he needed him. Needed him to bring him fish and these horrible toxins they’d decided to try. 

“Probably not bread then,” he heard you say and he shook his head

No. No more of this bread. Not if he had anything to say about it, thank you very much.

“Okay,” your stupid little human said, still looking nervous. As he should be. If you hadn’t stood between them, he’d be dead. Even in the state he was in, he could lure him right in past the rocky shore and into deeper waters. 

But he wouldn’t, for reasons he didn’t like to think about, his stomachs turning again as he did. 

The two of you exchanged words once more, ones he hadn’t been paying attention to, before the stupid human left again. 

You sat on the shore beside him and he pulled himself out of the water next to you. 

His gills ached a little as he shifted so frequently from water to air but he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to lay beside you. 

You stared out at the sea, eyes a little distant and yet still warm. Even when they weren’t looking at him.

He couldn’t bring himself to feel jealous, not when he got to look at you like this. Even if that look wasn't directed at him. 

You spoke softly and contemplatively when you did. “They were together. Finn and Isobel. She was my sister, I don’t know if I ever told you about her.”

He shook his head, wishing he knew more of you. Wishing you’d share more of yourself with him.

But he couldn’t really blame you, what had he told you of himself?

“She’s smart,” he said, contented at the fact that Finn had apparently already been rejected by one of your own. 

“Smart?”

“You said were. He is not a suitable mate.”

You shifted on the rocks, something he’d come to realize you did when you’d been made uncomfortable, usually by him. He could rarely understand why, despite how frequently it happened. This was one of those times and he waited, patiently, for you to make it clear to him what he had done. 

“She never left him. They were together until she died.”

“Oh.” A horrible sense of dread overwhelmed him. “How?”

“She drowned,” you said, picking up a rock and throwing it out into the water. 

He was glad you weren’t looking at him, eyes locked into the horizon as you spoke. He was certain the worry was written across every feature on his face. 

Did he do that? He didn't know. That felt worse almost, that someone so dear to you could have been so insignificant to him that he may have killed her without even knowing

“Simon?” you asked, words fading in past the intense, buzzing panic. 

He wasn't sure how he felt when you called him that. A foreign, half-remembered name. You'd seemed displeased the first time he’d told it to you but you continued to use it so it couldn’t have been that bad. 

He’d caught himself calling himself that in his own mind, of late. It was easy to when your voice was the only thing that filled his head. 

He wished he had a name like you did, one he’d been given at birth so that when you said it it felt as if you were speaking him, like you could pour his essence out of your mouth with the affection he often heard in your voice. 

As he focused once again he saw the horrible human, holding a fish this time. He looked worried too and Simon wanted to snap at him for the look. How dare he pity him, he wasn’t to be pitied. He could swallow him up, could fix this problem easily, all on his own. 

And then your panicked eyes under choppy water filled his vision. 

He lowered his head, violence seeping out of him, sufficiently cowed, and took the fish. 

They’d been dead a while and he took no satisfaction in sinking his teeth into the soft flesh. 

Eating above the water was messy. The blood clung to his jaw, dripping down his face as he tore a chunk out of the creature.

If he weren’t so hungry he might’ve cared. 

A ravenous force took him until all he was left with was stubborn meat stuck on bones. 

Only then did he look at you. You looked disgusted with him, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. He shied away from your gaze, tears welling up in his eyes. 

It felt like everything he did was wrong, displeased you and made you look at him like that. 

He slid wordlessly back into the water, not emerging onto the shore until all the blood had seeped into the water.

The concern was back on your face when he returned. 

“Was that okay?” you prompted him gently as he stared up at you. “You feel a little better now?”

He nodded, eyes locked on yours. 

A soft sigh escaped you, lips barely parting to let it leave you. He wanted to feel it, the gentle air passing over his skin, the soft lips he’d felt against his before. 

“Good,” you said, and your smile reached your eyes. 

It didn’t take long for you to depart, leaving to sleep far away from him. 

He did his best to rest and then he did what he’s begun doing most days, he milled about in the water, lonely and near the shore.

He felt an intense panic when he didn’t have eyes on you. If he could get his hands on you, cold and vulnerable in open waters, so could someone else. 

He wondered what he’d do if someone pulled Finn under. He liked to think he’d be noble and protect him, save someone so dear to you. Or at least that he’d turn and choose to let him go, allow him to be dragged under.

He knew that in all likelihood, he would freeze. He found himself doing that a lot lately. It seemed to come alongside the panic more often than not. 

Later, you came to the shore with your soft eyes and he did what he always did. He fought down overwhelming urges to pull you under, to drown you and feast, to protect you as his mate, to beg you to hunt for him as his body became more and more convinced he had lost the ability to do it himself, to do any number of things you’d despise him for wanting. 

He lay on the shore, frozen, until he felt his mind come back to him. 

The fish had helped, he thought. It didn’t take quite as long for the urges to leave him. 

You came bearing more of them. 

Well, you didn’t. Finn did. But he could pretend, think that maybe he was just carrying them to the shore, that really they were from you. 

He knew that they weren’t but he was no stranger to trying to read intention into the things you did. 

It was so easy to slip into, to pretend every action was a secret message of adoration, just like his were for you. 

But they weren’t and when he allowed himself to pretend all he’d done was hurt you, so he needed to be done with that now. 

If you wanted something from him, you’d tell him. 

If you felt something for him, you’d tell him. 

But you hadn’t, and that was fine. He wouldn’t push. 

But he couldn’t quite stop himself from pretending. Surely it was fine, so long as he didn’t act on it. 

Finn dropped the fish on the shore and Simon dove for them. 

It was unseemly but he couldn’t help it. The hunger had left a steady ache inside him and he would take any chance at relief. 

The basket held a few fish, five or six of them strewn inside. 

It was enough to be full. He could’ve cried at the sight. 

But he had more important things to be doing and so instead, he grabbed the basked firmly and slid back into the water, dragging them under. 

He flipped the basket as he immersed himself in the water so the fish wouldn’t escape him and rise to the surface, holding them protectively to his chest. 

He’d wanted to tear into them on the shore but he’d seen your face the last time. He could not see it again, the revulsion that had painted itself there. 

So instead, no longer dissuaded by your presence, he devoured them.

Blood clouded the water as he ate, swallowing mouthfuls of flesh one after the other.

It wasn’t the safest way to eat, could surely attract attention from other hungry creatures, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He’d done as much caring as he was capable of. 

When he was done, he returned to the two of you. 

Some of the foam lining the gentle waves ran red, stained by remnants of blood washing to shore. 

You both had the decency not to comment on it, though he watched your eyes flick down and then quickly back up. 

He wondered if you’d begrudge him this too. Your food wasn’t quite as messy as his was, was further from the creatures you ate, even when you ate meat just as he did. 

He’d seen it before, basically unrecognizable, no blood pooling or ripping out bones as you ate. A more seemly affair. 

Finn’s eyes lingered longer on the red, something quietly sad in his eyes, before they darted up to Simon. 

As you sat, fawning over Simon and ensuring he had enough to eat, he found it difficult to bask in your attention the way he wanted, that gaze remaining steadily on him. 

He tried not to notice Finn as often as he could. He brought about feelings that were better avoided, especially in front of you. 

Currently, that was difficult, due to the fact that he was staring Simon down, some horrible thought forming behind his eyes. 

“What’s it like?” he blurted out, cutting you off in a way that made Simon want to snarl at him. “Being under the water like that?” He sounded eager.

“Horrible,” you said with a little huff, your words turning bitter. 

He did not begrudge you for the harshness of your words. He would move to land if he could, to prove to you he held no loyalty for the ocean. 

“No,” Finn tried to clarify. “Not just swimming, actually being able to stay down there, to breathe it and live it.”

“I know,” you insisted. “I’ve been down there. It’s awful.”

Finn’s eyes flicked between the two of you like he was trying to decipher something. “How do you… please tell me you're human. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

You reeled back a little at his words, like the thought of you being like him had never occurred to you. He supposed maybe it hadn’t, maybe the possibility of what things would be like if you were the same hadn’t haunted you as it did him. 

“No,” you said with a swift, decisive shake of your head. “Nothing like that. He just does this strange thing where you can breathe underwater. It’s happened a few times now. It’s awful, I don’t recommend it.”

Your unfavorable words did nothing to snuff out the excitement blooming across his face. “Could you do that to me?”

Simon’s nose wrinkled at the thought. “I’d have to kiss you.”

“Oh. Well, it wouldn’t mean anything, it’s just practical.” 

A spike of panic shot through him at the thought that you believed the same about the kiss you had shared with him. That second one that changed his life.

It was practical, he supposed. At least the first one, underwater with panic in your eyes. The second couldn’t be. He couldn’t make sense of it, refused to accept it. 

But this one could be, he supposed.

He turned to you, unsure what he was looking for. 

You seemed just as uncertain as he felt. You spent a while searching for words, mulling them over, before settling on, “It hurts like hell.”

He was quick to reassure you both that it was fine and he didn’t mind. Simon didn’t much care what he minded. 

But then you sighed, slow and resigned, and gave him a look that if he was reading your expression right, which he’d discovered he often wasn’t, was saying ‘please.’

And he couldn’t disappoint you. 

With a huff and a frustrated look directed at you, he grabbed Finn’s hand and began yanking him back into the water. 

Of course, it would have been easier to simply lure him in, but he had a feeling you would not have approved of that.

So instead he yanked him, slowly but surely, into deeper waters. 

The brush of his lips, however brief, revealed rough lips, not like yours, not soft and sweet and so dear to him.

He did his best to lose the touch in the scramble of pulling him into the water. 

He watched the fight that went on in Finn’s eyes as he tried to convince his brain that he was allowed to breathe, saw the moment of panic when his breath could be held no longer and his body forced him to inhale a heavy breath. 

He knew it was wrong to feel a little swell of satisfaction now that he knew that it hurt to suck in water where air should be, and yet he couldn’t quite muster the shame that should follow such a feeling. 

Only as he saw the pain in his eyes did he realize how horrible of a decision this was for Finn. He’d put himself in so much danger, offered himself up to a siren, for what? To be able to see under the waves for a few more minutes? Surely the man could just go for a swim. 

He didn’t know the truth, that he was probably safer with Simon because at least this way, he’d be left alone by other creatures. He didn’t know that his devotion to you kept him from pulling him down and calling it a freak accident. 

All he knew was that he’d put himself in the water with a starving siren. 

Finn left him behind pretty quickly, moving to investigate the floor of the ocean, trying to look at fish before they swiftly swam away, leaving him behind in cloudy water. 

It felt like an uninteresting affair to Simon but Finn seemed to be getting something from it. 

Some amount of time passed, slipping away as Simon distractedly followed the irritating little human around. 

Eventually, after far too long, he appeared to be done. 

Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe Simon pulled him to shore without a signal. It was hard to read body language when one was irritated. 

With another burst of satisfaction, he pulled Finn onto the shore and watched him heave water from his lungs, some of the embarrassment from the human food incident sinking away. 

Strange. He’d never thought it embarrassing when you’d done it. Now, watching Finn deposit ocean water onto the sand with wet hacking noises, he thought that it was a shameful affair. 

“That was incredible,” Finn managed to gasp out after a few minutes of heaving. 

It didn’t feel right, that he’d taken him down there. That his lips had touched Finns.

He turned to look at you, sitting beside him on the shore, a sympathetic grimace on your face as you watched Finn. 

And then he leaned in and kissed you. 

Not a practical kiss, with no intent to put you anywhere near the water, but one born of only affection. 

It was a brief thing and when he pulled away, you looked almost panicked. 

His heart sank at the realization he’d messed it up again, done something strange and wrong and made you afraid of him. 

But then the tension began to fade from your body, panic shifting into confusion.

“Why did you do that? Am I going into the water?”

He shook his head, face still inches from yours. “I just needed to. I’m sorry if I was wrong.”

He heard something from Finn and refused to turn and look at him when you were so close. It sounded almost like a cough, but not the painful, wet coughs of breathing air once more. It was a short stunted thing. 

Simon, without turning, announced in response to this strange noise, “You can leave.”

A fit of laughter escaped you at his words, burying your head in your hands as you giggled.

He hadn’t been joking.

That was fine though. He liked it when you laughed, even if it was at him. It was never cruel, always soft and with nothing but shining amusement in your eyes.

He wished he was better at making jokes.

When he tried you just stood and stared and when he did not you laughed.

But then, he was never the best at knowing when to laugh either. There was a kinship in that, at least.

When he thought he might be laughing out of turn too much, he suppressed it. You didn't. He thought maybe your smile was too bright to keep down, that maybe it would hurt you like keeping in your air did.

His heart sank a little as he remembered.

Hurting you. The horrible realization that he'd hurt them all.

Maybe some of them laughed out of turn too. He'd never know.

Maybe your sister had.

He turned to leave. He couldn't stand to be here any longer.

He should tell you. He knew he should. But his jaw felt locked shut and his body felt like it was being pulled away, out of his control. 

And so, like a coward, he fled, the water drowning out the sounds of laughter that he left behind.