#had gotten it set up for actual tests instead of cal

[pallases]

why am i abt to run this calibration a Third time

[kindahoping4forever]

Call Out My Name Like Lines From A Page // Calum Hood

I was blessed with this concept by an anon a couple weeks ago and almost immediately had to stop what I was doing to write it. Clownery in its purest form. Thank you for sharing, anon. And thanks to my fav Cal girl @cal-puddies​ for the advice (which for this piece was mainly yelling at me to finish it but still.)

Warnings: Boyfriend!Cal, shades of soft dom!Cal, manual and oral stimulation of a female, male masturbation, slight cumplay, this is basically PWP, ngl

Word Count: 2400

Masterlist // Taglist // Ko-Fi

Let  me  know  what  you  think!

————-

“Hey, pretty girl, I didn’t think you’d still be up.”

It’s late when Calum walks into the bedroom, after a long day in the studio led to a late night blowing off steam at a bar downtown. 

“Honestly didn’t mean to be, just got caught up reading,” you shrug, holding up your dog-eared paperback for him to see.

“Aw, well thanks for makin’ me feel special, love,” he jokes, leaning in to give you a kiss on his way to the bathroom.

You playfully bite his lip as he pulls away. “You know I didn’t mean it like that, needy,” you tease.

While Cal takes a quick shower, you get up, take your teacup to the sink and turn off the lights you’d left on in the living room for him. When you get back to the bedroom, he’s sprawled out on the bed in his black tank and grey sweatpants, reading the back of your book.

“Looks good,” he comments as you climb in next to him. “You know what’s also lookin’ good right about now…” He exaggeratedly raises his eyebrows in approval of the sight of you wearing only panties and one of his t-shirts; he reaches over and slides a hand up and down your bare thigh to test the waters.

You smirk at him. “Are you ever going to be able to go out and get tipsy without wanting to come home and eat me out?

“Oh, I come home wanting to get between your legs even when I’m stone cold sober, baby,” he replies, pecking at your neck, hand traveling higher to brush against your clothed center.

You giggle, basking in his attention for a minute and then wriggle away from him. “I was actually hoping to finish my chapter before bed, babe,” you admit.

“I’ll wait,” he declares, passing the book to you.

You grin at his persistence. “It’s late.”

“You’ll stay up,” he insists, laying back with a cheeky smile.

You chuckle and resume your reading while Calum pulls out his phone and starts mindlessly scrolling. One hand remains stroking your thigh and you feel his eyes on you every so often and you have to admit, you like it; when he’s like this it makes you feel an irresistible combination of loved, desired and powerful.

You’re surprised that you actually get close to three pages read before his hand starts wandering again. Your eyes flicker over to him but his gaze stays fixed on his phone, as if the hand currently rubbing you over your panties has a mind of its own. 

You are able to stay focused on the words in front of you for a few more paragraphs, until Cal’s hand slides beneath your panties and starts making contact with you; his fingers dip in and out of your wet folds, lightly tracing the geography of your pussy and you involuntarily rock your hips against them, looking for friction.

“Thought you said you could wait for me to finish my book, baby,” you complain playfully.

He brings his hand away from your thighs and turns to face you as he raises his fingers to his mouth and licks them clean. “I know a busy woman like you appreciates a good multi-task,” he shrugs. 

You bite your lip at his boldness and tentatively return to your reading. He keeps to himself for a minute or two and then suddenly his hand is nonchalantly inside your underwear again. “I have less than 10 pages left, Cal,” you laugh.

“Sounds great, baby, take your time,” he nods casually, as he presses on your clit, causing you to jump.

Your voice is shaky as you say, “Instead of stretching out my panties, you can take them off, you know.”

He looks at you, amused. “Thought you said you wanted to finish your book,” he teases, pulling the material down and off your legs.

“Who said I wasn’t going to?” You fire back, eyes glowing.

Calum laughs in a delighted, low tone that goes straight to your core and moves to lay between your legs. “Fair point, love.” He traces a finger from your knee down your thigh, to just over the lips of your pussy. “We’ll see what gets finished first, you or that chapter.”

You raise the book to your face once again and try your best to focus despite his light strokes up and down your center. He’s having fun messing with you and that’s turning you on almost as much as his touches. You decide to push his buttons right back and quickly rid yourself of your shirt. He looks up to see you with your book in one hand and your breast in the other, tugging at your nipples. He groans.

Your brain manages to process some more words on the page and just as you’re about to turn it, you feel Cal’s tongue on you, licking a long stripe up your center. You shudder but keep reading. Unsatisfied with your reaction, he does it again; only this time, when he reaches your clit, he sucks it between his lips and you cry out. You feel him smile against you as he pulls back and goes back to tracing your skin with his fingertips.

This dance continues for the next few minutes: you gain your composure and keep reading, he teases you by slowly grazing his digits across your folds and just when it feels like you’ve gotten used to that, his mouth suddenly makes its move.

You’ve been staring at the same sentence for what feels like forever now and Cal’s mouth is firmly attached to your clit, swirling and suckling. You notice the hand that had been bruisingly gripping your thigh isn’t there anymore and you peer over your book to see he’s shifted his body so that he can get a hand on his cock. You assumed he had been rutting up against the bed, he usually can’t help it when he goes down on you, but you still moan when you see the tell-tale wet spot on his sweatpants.

“Cal…” you breathe, setting your book down to thread your fingers through his hair. “I give up… fuck… just want you to make me cum.”

He pulls away from you. “I don’t know, baby, that chapter seemed really important to you, I wouldn’t want you to be left wondering,” he says with a slight edge to his voice. He gets up and looks directly at you as he strips off his clothes and wraps his hand around his cock. “Keep reading and I’ll let you cum.”

You whine in frustration and he scowls at you with disdain; Cal doesn’t get like this too often, usually after a stressful day, sometimes after a night out. It’s undeniably hot, especially when the memories flood your mind during the months you’re alone while he’s on tour, but in the moment it’s unbearable.

He gets back on the bed and gets next to you, on his knees; he purposefully strokes his cock in front of you and leans down to let the precum he’s just teased out fall onto your nipples. You suck your lip and start pawing at your breasts but he swats your hands away and reaches over to pick up your book and shove it in your hands before crawling back between your legs. 

Calum nips at your thighs, waiting for you to resume your task before he’ll resume his. You impatiently buck your hips and lament, “Baby, please, I shouldn’t have made you wait.” 

He shakes his head and shifts again so you can see him touching himself. “That doesn’t look like you reading, does it, pretty girl?” He groans as he teases over the head of his cock. “Told you I could wait for you then, I can still wait now.”

You grumble and hold your book up, hands shaking as you turn the pages to find your place. He purrs his approval and licks a long stripe up your pussy as a reward. You try to continue and do what he asks but he’s devoting all of his attention to you now, tongue alternating between dipping inside your entrance and dancing around your clit. Just when you’ve started to recover from one sensation, he switches it up and your entire body trembles. 

You realize you’ve been on this particular page for quite a long time and have absorbed none of it; your lust-addled brain tells you there’s no way Cal could possibly know that though and you turn the page anyways, hoping he’ll reward your progress and let you cum. 

A glimmer of hope shoots through you as he lifts his head up and coos, “Another page? Great job, baby.” A knowing look spreads across his face as he sinks back down to you and growls, “Now read to me.”

Dread and confusion washes over you. “Cal… no,” you whimper.

He shrugs at you. “Seems like such a good book, I’d like to hear some of it, please,” he says in an even tone, as if he isn’t currently squeezing his cock. “It’s had no problem holding your attention so far.”

You take a breath and start to read aloud. It takes a couple of tries for you to make any sound, your throat is so fucking dry. Every sentence comes out in a voice that’s not your own, every word is a struggle, every letter looks like an unknown alien symbol. You could be making this all up off the top of your head for all you know, it feels like you’re speaking in tongues.

Calum makes good on his word and continues to eat you out dutifully as you move swiftly through the book; a moan escapes you every now and again and whenever he applies suction to your clit, you let out a series of gasps that you fear will make him stop and reprimand you, but he never does. You can tell he’s getting desperate too, you can feel him grunting against you as he works.

Your voice is barely audible as you announce, “Cal… babe… laaa… last page…”

He looks up at you, fire in his eyes, your wetness on his face. “Doing so good for me, baby,” he praises, panting almost as much as you are. “Let me have it.”

You’ve never read faster in your life; your eyes fly over the page and you’re speaking at a lightning pace. You’re actively thrusting against Cal’s mouth now but he’s beyond the point of caring, he needs you to cum too. You see him rocking his hips against the bed, cock shiny, angry and longing for attention. He openly moans as he prepares to finally bring you over the edge, lips attaching to your clit and not intending to let go until you finish.

You choke out the final few words and fling the book across the bed, hands rushing to dig into Cal’s hair. Now that you’re able to be fully focused on his actions, you can feel your climax building with great intensity. One long whine is all you’re able to manage as your orgasm plows through you; your hips thrash wildly against his face, you tense up so hard your body seems to fold in on itself and you squeeze your eyes shut so tight you can see stars.

He licks you through it, murmuring in encouragement; he pulls away at the first sign of oversensitivity but he lingers around your thighs, pampering you with soft kisses and reassuring tones. As soon as your body starts to relax and your breathing slows, he’s sitting up and frantically tugging at his cock.

You’re absolutely spent from what you’ve just experienced but the sight of your boyfriend so desperate to get himself off just from pleasuring you has you immediately feeling needy again. You can’t seem to find your words yet so you just whimper and reach for him.

Cal gets next to you, hand working his shaft relentlessly; he’s breathing in that pronounced way that tells you it won’t be long before he’s finished. He starts to lean in and you sit up on your elbows to meet him halfway, kissing him hungrily. You don’t want to disrupt the rhythm he has going on his cock so you scratch your nails up and down his thigh, which makes him groan into your mouth. 

His hand speeds up as he starts panting your name and that needy feeling washes over you again. You get his attention by squeezing his thigh; he opens his eyes to see you sitting there with your mouth open, tongue out, waiting to be filled with his cum. 

“I fucking love you, baby,” he sighs as he scoots closer. He lays the head of his cock on your tongue and gives himself just a few more strokes before you feel warm cum shooting across your mouth. He moans as he slows his pace but maintains a firm grip, making sure he gives you every drop he has. You’ve earned it.

Once he’s finished, he drops his hand and his head and lets out a giant sigh. Before he can pull back, you make quick work of taking him into your mouth under the guise of cleaning him up; really, you just wanted to taste him for even a minute longer.

Calum murmurs in protest and pulls away, collapsing onto the pillow next to you; he pulls you into him and you rest your head on his chest. You lay there for a few minutes, listening to each other’s breathing, enjoying the comfortable silence you often find yourselves in after being intimate.

“Never been more proud to be such an avid reader,” you joke, pressing a kiss to his chest tattoo.

He lets out that surprised raspy laugh you love that always happens when he’s tired. “Lucky my girl’s such a nerd,” he teases, squeezing you close.

Cal sits up and reaches across the bed to retrieve your discarded book. You watch curiously as he pats around the sheets and glances at the floor before he hands it to you and says sheepishly, “Sorry, baby, dunno where your bookmark ended up. Looks like we lost your page.”

A wide grin spreads across your face as you take the book and pull him back down to you. “I don’t think I’ll mind starting back from the beginning.”

—-

My tag list is breaking my posts atm so apologies if you get tagged more than once/don’t get tagged at all while I figure out what the problem is!

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[mahalidael]

Those Familiar Spirits

(*sprints up to the podium* FIRST FLYNN FANFIC. sort of. if you don’t count the phantomrose96 one, but flynn doesn’t actually appear in that one so make of it what you will)

Danny was two years old when the police came to their house. He must have thought the flashing lights were fireworks; he ran outside alone to look.

He saw uniforms, a funny black and white car, and a great deal of shouting between the grown-ups. It was July, and very muggy. Flies buzzed around the police cars’ lights as Mom and Dad talked very quietly, and Aunt Alicia yelled, and the police said ma’am, please, we’re trying to help, could you just, ma’am. Ma’am.

Danny ran up to get a better look but was promptly swept up by a police officer and carried back inside as he craned his neck to hear what they were saying.

Mom went inside for a minute and made him and Jazz sit on the couch. She told them gravely, “We’re just going to talk to the nice policemen, okay? Don’t go out there.”

Danny huffed. Jazz noticed his irritation and spoke up. “Can we watch TV if we stay inside?”

“Mm-hm,” said Mom, looking out the window at the lights again, already standing up and gravitating towards them.

Jazz reached for the TV remote and hit the power button with an ease that a four year old will only exhibit when provided with sufficiently busy parents. Danny started chewing on his shirt sleeve as images flashed on the screen; they were big kid cartoons that he had no interest in.

“Mom?” said Jazz, peeking up over the back of the couch.

Mom paused in the doorway and addressed one of the policemen before turning back to Jazz. “Just a second — yeah?”

“Where’s Flynn? He likes this show.”

“Um,” said Mom.

She cleared her throat.

“That’s what the policemen are going to help us with. I’m sure he’ll be back before it’s over.”

Their cousin was not back before it was over. He wasn’t back at all, but this, like most everything else from when he was two years old, fell through Danny’s memory like it was water.

...

Jack had been wary of his sister-in-law coming over for a week. He’d also been wary when Maddie described her sister’s marriage as “getting better” and said that she was “calling off the divorce.”

Anyway, within two days of the visit Danny had gotten it into his head that his uncle’s name was Damn-It-Bob.

But the most disconcerting thing was that Jack couldn’t do much about the situation. Alicia was a notoriously private person, and considered the matter of her marriage between herself, Maddie, and Damn-It-Bob. Trying to get close enough to be allowed into that inner circle was an exercise in self-endangerment. He had tried exactly once in college, and the dislocated wrist he’d gotten out of that arm wrestling match nearly cost him his scholarship.

Getting through to Damn-It-Bob was even more frustrating. Alicia, at least, cared about Maddie’s studies. She didn’t understand them, but looked on with interest as Maddie expertly extracted a sample from the latest ghost specimen and held it up to the light for her sister to see.

Damn-It-Bob was worse than an outsider. He was a snob.

Damn-It-Bob looked like if Alicia didn’t already have a pickup truck, he’d drive a Prius, and if he ever tried tikka masala he’d brag about it. Jack had to assume that if Alicia married him, they had to have some kind of common ground, but damn if he couldn’t figure out what it was. And apparently neither could they.

He had a degree in aerospace engineering, which he constantly emphasized was a really useful science. Alicia didn’t even have to work at the logging company if she didn’t want to keep up the family business.

He tried to charm the kids with pictures of the rockets he’d designed. It worked on Danny, which, yeah, okay, he was two years old, but Jazz seemed to pick up his intentions and tried to steer Danny away. Jeez. If Jack left her alone for five minutes, she might be doing calculus when he came back.

And then there was the kid.

He didn’t even notice that he was there until the Walkers were standing in the living room. Jack had walked behind Alicia to hang up their coats and suddenly saw him standing right behind her.

The kid hadn’t said a word in the entire thirty-minute production of his family coming inside — or if he had, he hadn’t been listened to. He had this sort of rust-colored hair that stuck out in all directions, like they tied up a big ponytail on the top of his head and chopped it off instead of giving him a real haircut.

Getting closer,  Jack finally saw why the kid wasn’t talking. He had his nose buried in some book. Oh, so he was one of those, Jack thought. He hadn’t personally been a child who devoured books like a woodchipper, but Vlad had.

In any case, silent reading hour was over. “Hey, bucko!” said Jack. The kid nearly jumped out of his skin, one hand snapping the book shut like a cell phone at the end of a tense call. “Thirsty for knowledge, I see? We’ve got more down in the lab.”

He shrunk away. Alicia noticed and put a hand on his shoulder as she turned her attention away from Maddie. “—so that’s how the union settled. And you two remember Flynn, right?” she said, ruffling the kid’s hair. “We brought him to Danny’s baby shower. He was so shy back then you thought the table was set by a ghost for a solid thirty minutes.”

Maddie’s eyes landed on Flynn and lit up in recognition. “Oh, yeah! I remember. You were at least a head shorter last time we saw you.”

Flynn nodded, staring at his shoes. He hugged the book to his chest like it was a stuffed animal.

Alicia and her husband chuckled politely. “Well, you might have seen him earlier if you didn’t pull out your toys to try and find that ghost,” said her husband, less politely.

“Bob, could you please be civil?” Alicia said under her breath.

“The event was delayed by an hour and we missed our flight over a bunch of—”

“Damn it, Bob—”

“It was a poltergeist, technically,” Maddie laughed nervously, stepping between them, a note of oh lord not this again in her voice.

“Hey, kids, how about we go down to the basement and check out some cool gadgets?” Jack was itching to take Flynn and the children downstairs. He had to ditch the conversation before it went south. “Wanna see what ghost bones look like?”

Flynn actually looked like he was going to respond to that, but Damn-It-Bob cut in. “Flynn probably wouldn’t be interested in theoretical science. He likes studying useful things.”

Yeah, ectoscience was theoretical. You could tell it was bad because it was italicized.

Jack resisted the urge to get passive-aggressive right back. Not in front of the children. “There’s plenty of physical things in the lab that I’m sure Flynn’s gonna love. Every kid loves lasers. Right, Danny?” he queried his son, who was chewing on the leg of the coffee table.

Danny blew a raspberry, which he assumed was a yes. Jack managed to whisk them away before the Walkers started swearing at each other.

He put Jazz and Danny down in the little area of the lab that they’d sectioned off with a foldable plastic dog gate, where Jazz made herself busy putting all the crayons in a straight line before Danny picked them up and started scribbling on the rubber tiled floor.

“So, Flynn! We’ve got some whosits and whatsits to check out. That catches ghosts,” Jack said, pointing at the gadgets skewed across the counter like exploded, “this blasts ghosts, that catches and blasts ghosts, and this is a hot dog maker. What do you wanna see first?”

Flynn shrugged and shuffled an inch backwards.

Okay, this wasn’t going anywhere. Which was odd — they’d opened up the ops center to tourists in the past for alternate revenue, and kids always seemed to be the most excited about the gadgets.

Plan B, he guessed. “What’s that book about, anyway?” he said.

Flynn hesitantly held out the book. Jack took it. It was a big, heavy book, with a hard cover titled The Collected Jack London. Jack went to open it to a random page, but was interrupted when his leafing caused something to fall out from between the pages.

It was a flower. Flynn quickly snatched it off the floor and took his book back, scowling. “It’s sabatia geu — sabatia geutianoides,” he muttered. “It’s one of the rarest flowers in Arkansas, so I can’t pick another one.” He then very carefully flipped to another page in the book, counting the page numbers in whispers until he found the one he was looking for and slipped the flower back inside.

Ah. He could work with that. “Really? Is it the rarest one you’ve got?” he said, posing a challenge.

“Uh, I have Stern’s medlar, but just a leaf I got off the ground. They’re cruh — crit — crit-i-cal-ly endangered.”

“We’ve got some samples of a pretty rare plant ourselves.”

Flynn’s eyes lit up. “Can I see them?”

Jack took Flynn off into a side room. This room was mostly like the last, though being closed to visitors, it was far less organized. He picked Flynn up and lifted him over a heap of spare parts on the floor. “Watch your step.”

A cacophony of containers were heaped on a table in the center of the room. Only a few of them were planter pots that they’d already owned; the rest were old shoeboxes and burned-out pots and pans. They were all filled with soil. Their occupants stretched their purple-black stems towards the overhead sun lamp.

“Rosa sanguinea, also known as the Massachusetts blood blossom,” said Jack. “They were grown in the 1600s — apparently they release an anti-ghost vapor. Unfortunately, we can’t prove whether it works, since we don’t have any intact ghosts to test it on, but they’re delicious.”

“That’s so weird.” Flynn rubbed a black leaf between his fingers, as if he expected the color to come off. “Roses aren’t normally hardy enough to grow inside. And the leaves are naturally black?”

“Yep. Well, maybe. We think they were mutated by long-term exposure to ecto-energy. The biggest patch of them is around Salem, and that place is a hotspot for the natural portals to the dimension ghosts live in,” he said, pointing at the pictures of such that they’d pinned to the corkboard across the room. Jack himself couldn’t believe some of the places that they’d found natural portals in. One of the pictures on the corkboard was of a portal they’d found in a public toilet. “They’re stubborn little buggers, but only in ecto-energized soil — we had to cart the dirt in these pots all the way back from Massachusetts.”

Jack snapped his fingers.

“I’ve got an idea.” He picked up a blood blossom growing in a mason jar and handed it to Flynn. “That’s yours now. Take it back to Arkansas, and it’ll protect you from ghosts.”

“Really?” said Flynn, seemingly more awestruck by the plant itself than any properties it might’ve had. “I can have it?”

“All yours! After all, who knows when you might need it?”

...

Flynn hadn’t wanted to leave Arkansas. He hadn’t wanted to sit in Mom’s funny-smelling truck for ten-odd hours while listening to them argue about money, and ghosts, and damn it Bob, would it kill you to put the toilet paper in the holder the right way just once?

At some of the rest stops, Flynn had stood in the bathroom and stared in the mirror. The door was right behind him and Dad hadn’t left the stall yet. He could just turn around and run into the woods, so Mom and Dad would talk about something other than their horrible marriage.

Because Flynn was ten years old, and the problem that he saw was nothing as complex as an incompatibility of personality, or people growing apart. The problem he saw was that they needed to shut up about the divorce.

That was all he wanted. Something to come in and make them shut up, and make the divorce go away, and put things back where they were supposed to be.

But obviously that’s not how things work. Flynn went outside and picked dandelions that were growing at the edge of the parking lot, and he held them outside the window while they were driving so the seeds would scatter all along the road, and he still ended up visiting Uncle Jack and Aunt Maddie in New York, and Mom and Dad were still fighting over stupid stuff.

Flynn kept trying to put off the tour. He knew that Dad would hate the lab. He stuck with real things, metal and chalk numbers — never mind that one of the major points of contention was the slew of Young Living boxes sitting in their garage. A better statement was that Dad rejected any science he didn’t think he could exploit. Like, son, wildflowers are nice and all, but you know that the real money’s in saffron, right? It sells for twenty-five hundred a pop and it’s not getting any cheaper. Just think about it, son.

“ —converts ectoplasm into a power source.” Aunt Maddie was showing them something embedded in the lab wall. Flynn didn’t really like ectoscience either, but that was mostly because the topic freaked him out. He didn’t like when his friends played that pencil game that let you talk to ghosts, much less when his uncle talked about ripping them apart mmmolecule by mmmolecule.

It just felt kind of rude. They were people, at some point. Everyone knew a dead person.

“Quaint,” said Dad, turning over the hot dog maker he had found on the counter. “Very quaint.” It was his usual word of condemnation. “What’s that hole in the wall?”

It was barely a hole. Not so much because of size, but because it was so badly occupied by a tangle of wire that actually entering it would be impossible. Aunt Maddie said: “Our prototype for a stable portal into the ghost zone.” Dad scoffed, but she smiled tightly and ignored it. “With a reliable and stationary portal, we can collect data faster.”

“And it took you ten years to think of that?”

“Bob, if you don’t want to see it, you can just wait in the guest room,” said Mom, rubbing her temples.

“No, it’s fine, Alicia.” Aunt Maddie sighed. “We’ve been thinking of it. It just took this long to make sure building a portal large enough for a human to enter would be safe. A few years ago, a friend of ours was injured by one that wasn’t any bigger than a car tire — precautions needed to be taken—”

Dad put up his hand in a ‘halt’ gesture. “So, wait. You know that those things can hurt people, and yet you build a big one in your basement, and let your kids in here ?”

“They’re at a safe distance — they’re not even on the same side of the lab,” said Aunt Maddie, eyes narrow.

“Oh, thank goodness you let your toddlers play some paces away from a potential biohazard! ” Dad threw up his hands in fake relief. “I guess that makes it okay, then!”

Aunt Maddie looked like she was gearing up to shout. But she glanced at her kids in their little corner hutch, and seemed to think better of it. “Look, Bob, I — help me understand. Five minutes ago you were calling ghosts ‘fairy tales,’ and now you’re getting on about potentially endangering my children with something that, by your own logic, shouldn’t do anything. What’s your real problem?”

“My ‘real problem’ is that, ghosts or not — and there are certainly not — the fact that someone got hurt at all tells me that you’re tampering with something that you don’t understand—”

“Bob, that’s enough —”

Seed dispersion was one of the fundamental adaptations of the plant world. A seed that dropped straight down from its parent plant was a dead seed. It wouldn’t be able to access sufficient nutrition, water, or light so close.

Mom exiled him and Dad from the lab so she could have a good talk with Aunt Maddie. Uncle Jack awkwardly let them sit on the couch and watch NCIS with him.

“I just think that pseudoscience has no place in being the primary income for a family,” said Dad.

Uncle Jack nodded with a poorly disguised grimace.

“Anyway, have you heard that lavender has anti-autism properties?”

Uncle Jack suddenly excused himself to go to the bathroom. Luckily, Dad seemed to think that the distant laughter was coming from the TV.

Dandelions had a nasty taxonomy. They were wind-dispersed, able to fly up to sixty miles away from their parent plant, where they isolated and readily speciated. This was a large part of the reason why Flynn couldn’t appreciate them without every adult in an eighty-mile radius screaming it’s a weed!

By Sunday, Mom and Dad couldn’t be in the same room together without shouting.

By Wednesday, they wouldn’t speak to each other at all.

By Saturday, they started calling the divorce lawyer again.

That night before they went back to Arkansas, Flynn slept on his aunt and uncle’s couch. He could hear Mom and Dad talking in the guest room above. At indoor voice levels. He didn’t know whether that was good or bad.

The potted blood blossom sat on the end table atop Jack London.

He was woken up at two in the morning when something spritzed him in the face like he was a cat. Flynn squinted in the darkness for what it could be and was immediately spritzed again. He wiped the spray off his face and jolted at the sight of a red smear on his wrist.

A faint hiss was coming from the end table. Flynn watched as the blood blossom emitted a quiet red steam into the air.

He looked around the room nervously. Then he looked out the front window.

At the very end of the street, between the buildings, there was a faint green glow that looked very much like Uncle Jack’s pictures.

Well, of course dandelions were weeds. When something survived too well, humans inevitably got all up in their business, trying to trammel them in. It was a weed because it didn’t cooperate with that.

Flynn didn’t need to pack his bag; he had already loaded everything from the trip back in, but he added some more anyway. He got a knife, a frying pan, and a BIC lighter out of the kitchen. And of course, he took his book and the blood blossom.

Then he walked out the front door for the last time.

It was a muggy July night, and all the lights in the windows were out. The streetlamps pooled in the road. The green light creeped into the alleyway on tiptoe.

Flynn stood before a hole in the world and found himself alone. The hole didn’t appear to properly occupy the alley. It looked like a bad photoshop in person. Just standing a foot away from it, he could feel the static electricity. It felt like it was ruffling his hair in a gesture of approval.

There was a deep hum that might have been the portal, or the flies buzzing around it, or Flynn’s heart getting ready to tear itself from his chest in excitement or fear. He did not know which.

The blood blossom was beginning to overflow its mason jar with red condensation. Flynn poured it out onto the ground. It mixed with the dank puddles in the mundane depressions of the concrete that, absurdly, continued to exist in the presence of something so otherworldly.

Flynn reached through the portal. It felt like cold water — strange, but not icy enough to be unpleasant.

This was what he needed. Something he didn’t know, somewhere his parents couldn’t find him. He could find shelter with those familiar spirits for a little while, and his blood blossom would protect him as his parents looked for him, and then he would come back and they would be so happy and angry to see him that they wouldn’t talk about the divorce again for another year at least, and it would be nice, and it would just be so nice, it would just be so nice when he got back.

And then the light consumed his vision.

...

Twelve years later.

“Jazz? Did you just come through the portal?” Danny squinted at the readout on the specter speeder — the constant green light of the ghost zone made it hard to read at times.

“No?” she said over the speeder’s radio. “I’m still in the lab, why?”

“Because the radar’s picking up signs of life.”

[need-a-fugue]

We Grow Together (28)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Tessa Sullivan (OFC)

Chapter Summary: Tessa begins some light undercover work while Bucky pouts in the background... And Clint sheds some light on what happened years ago in Minsk.

Summary: Relationships can be tough, especially when one person is a recovering-from-being-brainwashed-and-tortured former assassin and the other is an overworked mutant scientist. But hey, every couple has their struggles. Right?

They all agreed – some more begrudgingly than others – that it would be a good idea for Tessa to see what she could find out from Cal before getting in any deeper with Lobe. The ingenious businessman, as he had referred to himself, had invited Tessa to come out to his temporary facility outside of Albany. But try as they might, none of them could find anything about this mysterious site. And – “You’re not going out to some off-the-radar science lab on your own. Not with the current lack of intel we have.” – Steve was the one giving the orders.

Well, if intel is what he wants...

“I’m telling you,” she says, as Natasha hooks up the not-even-remotely-noticeable bug in the hem of her sweater, “He’s not going to help.”

Steve looms in the foreground, arms folded across his chest. “He doesn’t have to help. Just get him talking and we can sift through all of it later.”

“It’s looking like this might be more than we thought,” Clint mumbles from his position at the conference table. He’s busy looking through all of the virtual files that he and Nat had spent the last few days compiling. Swiping through another page on the holoscreen in front of him, he says simply, “Since all of the Terrigenesis stuff started, people have been paying more and more attention to… super people.” He glances up to raise a single eyebrow at Tessa. “Depending on what his end game is, this Lobe guy could be the next big bad.”

“Then by all means, let’s go waste some time grabbing coffee with some crony instead of figuring out what the big bad is up to,” she snarks with a pout.

Natasha triggers the bug to make sure everything is set up and pats Tessa on the shoulder. “You’re good,” she tells her. “Just don’t conveniently spill a drink on it when you two start in about the past.” She shoots her a playful, crooked smile before turning to gather her things.

“Alright,” Steve starts, manner and voice all business. “I’ll be in the back of the café.” He moves over to Tessa and gently reaches out to grab her shoulders. “I know this should go without saying, but do not leave my sight.”

She rolls her eyes. “You really think I’d take off with him?”

“I might,” Nat mutters from across the room.

“That,” Steve intones, pointing at Natasha, “is why you three are all off comms.”

Clint rises and shuts down the computer in front of him. “See? Once again, your sexual appetite has us sidelined.”

Natasha cocks a brow in his direction. “My sexual appetite has gotten us out of more jams than it’s ever gotten us into.”

Steve visibly winces. “Enough. Come on, guys. Can we just… not?”

Natasha shrugs and shoves some equipment into Bucky’s hands. He almost drops it and has to regain his balance as she piles more crap into his arms. “Make yourself useful, Sargent,” she tells him. “You can’t just stand there brooding in silence all day.”

“I don’t know,” Clint says as he takes some of the load off Bucky. “If anybody can do it, he can.” He gives the silent, gloomy looking man a wink and heads for the door.

000

It makes perfect sense, of course, that the three of them would be sequestered in a van down the block. Well, maybe it doesn’t really makes sense why all three of them would be… Natasha was the only one actually needed in here working the recording equipment. But Clint wasn’t about to sit any part of this out. And Bucky was obviously not going to let Tessa go out there without being close by. Even if no one really believed that she was in any danger.

After all, this was just a simple, casual meetup with a potentially knowledgeable contact who might be able to supply some intel on what now seemed to be an ongoing op. Fine. No big deal. His lab rat girl was just now invariably working out in the field. He could handle that.

Well, he’d be able to handle it a lot better if he had her in his sights. And if he had a weapon, some sort of recourse, in case something did go wrong. But no sniper should be needed today – especially not one who admittedly kind of wants to blow off the head of the guy she’s meeting with.

“How you holding up, Barnes?” Clint asks as he bumps Bucky’s shoulder with his.

He sighs, long and loud. “I’m not used to being non-essential.”

“Yeah, well… Think of this,” he says, sweeping his hand across the tight space of the cargo van, “as a chance to play stakeout. It’s like we’re the FBI!”

“Hunting down mob bosses?” Natasha supplies as she hands each of them an earpiece. There won’t be any comms going, so they can’t talk to Tessa. And they’ll only be in contact with Steve if something goes wrong. But thanks to the high-tech bug in Tessa’s sweater, they’ll be able to hear everything going on at the café down the block.

“Exactly.” His smile fades a bit when he looks back over at Bucky and notices the concerned look on his face. “Did you two get a chance to talk?” he asks him in a low tone. Natasha would be able to hear, of course, there’s barely a foot of space between them. But his voice makes it clear that this talk is between just the two of them.

He nods. “Yeah. We’re good.”

“Cause, you know, the other day… we were just joking around. I mean… I was there at the tail end of their thing. It wasn’t anything like what you and Doc have.”

The sincerity in his voice, makes the corners of Bucky’s lips quirk up into a small smile. “I know,” he says. Then, his face transforming into a confused sort of pout. “I forgot you said that you met him. That was when you first met Tessa, right?”

Clint settles back into the cushioned bench that runs the length of the van. “Yep. Minsk.”

“Funny, isn’t it? How we mark moments in our lives by either the name of the op or the location of the mission,” Natasha utters, without turning around. She continues to busy herself with the recording equipment, doing one final test to make sure everything is working as it should.

Clint lets out just the shortest of chuckles. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

“So what happened there?” Bucky asks, genuine interest perking his voice.

Clint gives him a suspicious look. “She never told you?”

He shakes his head. “In case you haven’t noticed, Tessa’s not great about sharing things from her past.”

Natasha finally turns and joins the men in the rear of the van, all equipment up and running. “Did you know she graduated from med school when she was 23?” she asks incredulously. “I only found that out last year.”

“How’d she manage that?” Clint asks, taken aback.

She merely shrugs. “That, she did not share.”

He pulls in a deep breath and drops his raised brows. “Well… the thing in Minsk was kind of a shit show.”

“You were sent by Fury, right?”

He nods. “Genetech had a facility on Long Island that was shut down back in the 1980s. SHIELD found out about some nanocontagion they’d let loose, and they moved in and took out the whole operation. Or so they thought,” he says with a glint. “Fury heard rumblings about the company starting up again in Eastern Europe, so he sent a couple of us to go check it out.”

“Who’d you go with?” she asks.

He shrugs. “McAllen.”

“Ugh,” she responds, obviously sharing his less-then-enthused view of whoever Agent McAllen is.

“So Genetech was what?” Bucky inquires. “Some kind of medical lab?”

“Hardly,” Natasha answers. “They were a powerful med firm, specializing in genetic research. They were started by a guy who designed bio-weapons with Howard Stark.”

“Can’t say they were always exactly reputable,” Clint intones. “But they did manage to get a big following in the scientific community. No surprise, really, that some new facility popped up even after the company was supposedly shut down.”

“And no surprise that someone like Tessa would want to work there,” Natasha says simply.

“True,” Clint declares. “But, she knew something was up. And she was the only one there willing to help me figure out what it was.”

“What was it?” Bucky asks.

“Long story short? They were engineering a gene that would mutate when exposed to radioactive energy.” He frowns briefly. “I’m still not really sure about the science of it, but the theory was that, if they could introduce it into a human host, and then expose the host to radioactive material, they could create a… super person.”

Bucky grimaces. “A super soldier?”

He cocks his head as if to say, maybe. “The higherups didn’t really share their plans with Doc… and she was the only one who shared anything with me.”

“So wait,” Natasha interrupts, suddenly onto something. “The radioactive genes, or whatever they were… the samples that Tessa accused Calvin of stealing – ”

“One and the same.” He clears his throat before going on. “I shared some confidential intel with Doc about what Genetech had been up to all those years ago. And she agreed to hand over some files on the work they’d been doing. But before she could get them all copied, the facility went on lockdown – with us trapped in it – because samples of the nearly perfected genes had been stolen. She knew right away who did it. Went on a little tirade in the office while alarms were going off around us. I just wanted to get the hell out of there, and she’s mumbling and yelling about how that son of a bitch had sworn he was there for her and not some damn job.” He smiles and shakes his head. “Whew, she was pissed.”

“How did you get out?” Natasha asks. Her chin rests on her fist as she watches the man, clearly enthralled by his story.

“Right, well. First we got caught. Armed guards rushed the office, saw we were stealing files. Chaos ensues… yada yada yada,” he says, waving his hand in a glib gesture. “I got shot. Doc let loose.”

Bucky frowns. “She used her powers?”

“Yep. Smoked ‘em. All eight of them. They just… dropped.” He takes in a deep breath. “She got us out of there and we holed up in this old factory outside of town while she fixed me up.” He turns to Bucky and says, utter sincerity lacing his words, “That was about two weeks before my daughter was born. If not for Doc, I never would have gotten to know my little girl. Never would’ve even made Nathaniel.” With a small smile, he tells him, “I’m never gonna be able to repay her for that.”

Natasha scoffs. “Sounds like you never would’ve been in that position if it hadn’t been for that asshole Calvin.”

“Oh ho,” Clint says, raising a brow, “So now you agree he’s an asshole? Is your crush fading?”

She shrugs. “He’s still hot as hell. But it sounds like he almost got two of my best friends killed. So if I meet him, I might just have to end him.”

Bucky looks to Clint, curiosity lacing his features. “You said you met him?”

“Ah, yeah,” he breathes out. “During my first meeting with Doc… I showed up a little early at this bar and saw them together. He was laughing and whispering in her ear and shit. And she was looking not amused. I stopped him on his way out of the bar… asked if he was an American… you know, play the whole what a small world card. He told me he was in Minsk on business, but would only be in town a few more days. I asked about the woman he was with at the bar, if she was his girlfriend… small talk,” he says with a wink. “The guy just laughs and says when I want her to be. Prick. Then he lights up a cigarette, shakes my hand, and disappears into the night.”

“And no one ever caught him? After stealing the samples?” Natasha asks.

“Nah. Doc said he was sort of a mercenary… doing whatever needed to be done for whoever was the highest bidder. So it was no surprise he managed to disappear. That guy in Africa, the one that Ultron got the vibranium from? Saw Calvin with him in some photos taken about ten years back. That’s the kind of guy he is. Anyway, it was just a few months after Minsk that he got made by MI-6… doing some kind of dirty deal. But then he conveniently got blown up in a car bomb before they could nail him.”

Bucky lets out an irritated huff from his corner of the van. “Nice,” he says with a nod. “Good story. I feel much better about this guy now.”

Clint laughs and slaps him on the shoulder. “The takeaway from all of this is that Doc’s been done with that guy for years. And she knows who he really is. She’s not gonna get sucked into his lies or manipulation.”

“I never really expected her to,” he mumbles.

Clint takes in the thoughtful expression on Bucky’s face and adds, “She’s grown up a lot since then. I, for one, think she’s been making much better decisions.”

The corner of Natasha’s mouth quirks up. “Yeah, from asshole mercenary to brooding ex-assassin.”

Clint tosses a reproachful look over his shoulder at her. “Even I think that was crass.” He turns back to Bucky. “Sarge, after what she did for me, I’ll have Doc’s back for life. So if I thought she was wasting her time with someone who didn’t deserve her, I’d chase him off in a heartbeat.”

Bucky cocks his head at the man to his right. “You haven’t been trying to chase me off these last couple years?” he asks with a smirk. “You’re saying this is just how you are?”

Clint snorts. “Hilarious. See?” he says, turning to Natasha. “They’re made for each other.”

She throws up a silencing hand and presses the earpiece into her ear. “We’re on,” she says, tone suddenly all business. “The asshole is in the building.”

[calmlftv]

burlesque!sos - chapter 3

description: rory bumps into a handsome stranger while at the bar who seems to be having his own troubles. an explosion of sorts from crystal also sets you back a bit.

warnings: some yelling and one injury

word count: 3.6k

taglist: @spicycal​ @castaway-cashton​ @irwinkitten​ @n-ctarinenga​

chapter 1      chapter 2

****

You sat up straight at your vanity, your freshly painted red lips perfectly pouty as you took in the dramatic changes your makeup made to your face. Georgia sat right beside you, a dazzling grin on her face and a small pencil brush in her hand. 

“Well?” She asked, turning your head to look at her. 

You matched her grin. “I love it!” 

Georgia squealed, clapping her hands together before she collected herself. “Now, if you ever need help with makeup again, you know you can always count on Sister Georgia!” 

You couldn’t help but laugh, happy to have the curly red head in your corner. You both stood quickly after, adjusting your fishnets and mini skirt in the mirror as your heels snapped against the floor. It was your first night performing and your adrenaline was pumping, the music being tested through the speakers just outside of your backstage area. Chairs scraped the floor as they were adjusted, the crew's loud laughter drifting back to your ears between bits of music. 

You readjusted your top for the 10th time as Sierra strutted into view, another tight dress on her body with the heels to match. Beside her was a new boy, his curly blonde hair held back with a bit of product. 

“Ladies,” Sierra called, clapping her hands twice to get everyone’s attention. The chatter died down, all eyes trained on the new boy. Your eyes traveled down his body, taking in his silk black button up and tight ripped jeans. 

“Ladies,” Sisi said again, gaining everyone’s attention. “Now that you’ve all had a moment to devour our new toy with your eyes, please give a warm welcome to Luke. He’s our new waiter, and he’ll be popping back here to bring any drinks you heathens want. Be nice to him.” 

Luke smiled, lifting a hand to wave as a collection of voices said ‘hi Luke’. You could tell he wasn’t used to the attention but welcomed it, his stance getting more confident as eyes moved to him. 

“I’ll let you all get acquainted as time goes on,” Sisi continued, one hand resting on Luke’s shoulder. Even in her heels, he was taller than her. “But we have patrons coming in any minute, so let’s finish getting ourselves ready!” 

The girl all cheered at that, all of them returning to what they were doing before as Sierra turned on her heels to walk away. Luke remained where he was, obviously a bit nervous as he looked around, no doubt trying to get his bearings. 

Feeling bold in your new attire and look you sauntered over, a coy smile on your lips as you reached him. “Hi, Luke,” you greeted sweetly, holding out a hand. “I’m Rory. I’m new here, too.”

A look of relief washed over the man’s face, his hand taking yours as he gave it a squeeze. “Hi, Rory, it’s lovely to meet you. I’m glad I’m not the only fish out of water here.” 

You laughed lightly, lacing your own fingers together behind your back as you spoke. “Far from it. It’s actually my first night performing.” 

Luke looked impressed by your words. “Well, you look like a pro from where I’m standing,” he said kindly, a smile on his face. The two of you paused for a moment before Luke looked behind himself. “I should, uh, probably head back out there. Break a leg, Rory.” His hand reached up and rested on your arm, his smile still on his face as he turned and walked away. 

As he left you bit your bottom lip, releasing it when you remembered the lipstick Georgia had spent so long perfecting for you. So far, all the men that worked here were tall glasses of water, and you were a thirsty little thing. 

You quickly shook the thoughts from your head, returning to your vanity without incident as the band played a bit of jazz for the patrons already walking in. The digital clock on the back wall displayed the time in bright red letters, your heart racing as you decided to focus on what was before you: your first performance at your new job. 

** 

Calum carefully smacked down the shot glass, his face puckering as Michael, his new friend, laughed. 

“Bit too much, mate?” He joked, still laughing while sliding the glass back to himself. 

Calum quickly shook his head, his styled blonde hair making him resemble a golden retriever puppy. 

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Michael chuckled, turning around to wash the glass. 

Calum licked his lips, turning on his bar chair to face the stage. He had gotten to Express just as the doors opened, paying the admission fee and quickly parking himself at the bar. Within a few minutes Luke was appearing from a side door, his eyes scanning the crowd before landing on Calum and grinning. 

Calum smiled as his best friend walked over, giving him a hug as he reached him. 

“Thank you again for coming tonight, mate,” Luke said, sincerity in his voice as the bartender slid a tray over to the other blonde. Luke nodded to him and gestured to Calum. 

“Cal, this is Michael, the lead bartender,” he said, Calum smiling and shaking hands with the new blonde. “Michael, be nice to him, alright? He’s got a broken heart to heal.” 

Michael chuckled. “You got it, brother. He’s in good hands.”

Luke grinned and nodded, turning on his heel and tucking the tray under his arm as he moved into the crowd to help the seated tables. 

Now, after another round of shots, Calum was feeling better. All the weird exotic stuff Michael has given him to test were hitting hard, his liquid courage making him feel nearly invincible as he watched the girls dance on the stage. A pretty blonde and a girl with lavender hair were on the stage now, moving along to whatever jazz beat was being played by the band, and Cal turned back to his new friend. 

Michael was beaming proudly, his eyes locked on the stage before he finally turned back to Calum. “Sorry,” he said, grabbing a new glass and filling it with water. “The blonde one is my fiancée.”

Calum nodded with understanding, taking the water and sipping at it. “Congratulations,” he said kindly, smiling at Michael. “How long until the wedding?” 

Michael shrugged. “Haven’t set a date yet. We keep going back and forth on it.” 

Cal nodded, chuckling as he lifted his glass to his lips. “I know that feeling,” he stated, pausing to chug the rest of the glass before setting it down and standing. “I’m gonna go get some fresh air.” 

Michael nodded, gesturing towards a curtain hanging on the other side of the bar. “Through there is the staff entrance, you can chill out there and slip back in real quick. No re-admission fee.”

Calum smiled and nodded, thanking Michael before making his way to the curtain. While he wasn’t fully wasted he definitely had to focus on his footing, finding the door Michael was talking about and stepping outside in the cool air. The door shut behind him and he was enveloped in silence, leaning against the building and letting out a sigh. 

His fingers dipped into his pocket, pulling out a cigarette and lighter and lighting up. He was aware of what an awful habit this was, but the euphoria that came with the first drag was enough to relax his tense shoulders. He stared up at the sky as he blew the smoke, continuing his drags until his phone buzzed in his pocket. 

Expecting a text from Luke he was surprised at the name on the phone, the man freezing for a second before stomping out his cigarette. He cleared his throat before he answered. 

“Hey Nia.” 

“Hi Calum,” the woman on the other side of the phone greeted. An awkward silence fell for a moment before Calum spoke up. 

“Uh, what’s up?” 

Nia sighed on the other side of the line. “How are you?”

Calum chuckled darkly. Now he wishes he still had his cigarette. “I know you didn’t just call to check in on me. What do you want, Nia?” 

The woman sighed in annoyance. “Oh, now I have to want something from you whenever I try to call you? I thought we were going to try being friends.” 

“Yeah, well, it’s only been 2 months since I caught the love of my life cheating on me with some guy from her work, so, apologies if it’s taking awhile for me to forgive you.” 

Nia groaned. “Do you have to bring that up every time-“ 

“You never could handle me telling you the truth.”

The other side was quiet, the silence speaking volumes. “This was a mistake. Bye, Cal.” 

A click signaled the end of the call, Cal gripping his phone as he let out a breath. He pulled it down from his ear and shoved it back in his pocket, turning to face the wall and leaning his forehead against it. He closed his eyes and breathed, focusing on that instead of the anger boiling over inside of him. 

After a few minutes he was calmed down enough to go back inside, the effects of the alcohol he had downed so far already losing their edge as he stood up straight. As he pulled open the door the screech of tires sounded from the street, his eyes and head turning that way - causing him to bump into the poor soul on the other side of the door. 

A yelp mixed with the feeling of someone bouncing off his body snapped his attention back, the frame of a girl now laying on the floor as Calum froze. 

“Shit-“ he started, propping open the door with his foot as he leaned down to help the girl up. He noticed now that she was dressed in fishnets and heels, his eyes going wide as he took her hand. 

“Holy shit I just knocked over a burlesque dancer,” he said, helping the girl to her feet and meeting her eyes. “Holy shit. Uh, I’m so sorry, are you okay?” 

The sound of laughter bubbled up out of the girl, the sound bringing a small smile to Calum’s lips. 

“Thank you, but I’m okay,” she giggled, stepping outside as Calum let the door swing closed. Her red lips curled into a smile. “Admittedly a little stickier than I was a few seconds ago, but fine.” 

Calum smiled in return. “Stickiness is definitely better than an injury,” he chuckled, putting his hands in his pockets as he met this girl's eyes. After an awkward second he cleared his throat, holding out his hand. “I’m Calum, by the way. Calum Hood.”

The girl took his hand and smiled again. Her lips curling almost forced Calum to smile back, the look absolutely enchanting. “I’m Rory. It’s nice to bump into you, Calum.” 

Cal chuckled. “I’m sorry again, I should have been paying attention.” 

The girl waved off his apology. “Don’t worry about it, love, we all have those days.”

“You’re too kind,” he chuckled, still feeling guilty for almost injuring a dancer. Even while in her performance attire and makeup, Cal could tell this girl was just as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside. “Can I buy you a drink at least? To make up for it?” 

The girl - Rory - was about to answer when the door swung open again, Michael stepping out and stopping short at the sight before him. He stood aside, a hand lifting as his thumb pointed behind him. “Ro, they’re looking for you backstage.” 

Cal looked back at the woman and sighed, a smile still on his face as her eyes met his. 

“Raincheck?” She asked, Calum nodding as she started to slip inside. “Michael, can you take his number down for me?” 

The blonde nodded, masking a confused look on his face before he looked at Calum. Once Rory was gone he spoke. “What’d I miss?” 

Calum laughed, stepping inside and clapping Michael’s back as he did so. “Nothing, mate. Don’t you have a bar to manage?” 

** 

A few months pass and you and Calum become friends, the two of you growing rather close as you texted and talked. The conversations remained friendly, but as you started to hang out in person, the tension rose a bit. It was obvious to any passerby that you two wanted the same thing, but both of your oblivious nature’s won out. You convinced yourself that he only wanted friendship, solidifying that thought when he told you the story of his ex; his clearly broken heart was on the mend, and you decided to keep any feelings for him that venture outside of plantonic to your damn self. 

Rehearsals and performances came and went, patrons enjoying your company as you opt to sit in the audience at times to watch your friends take the stage. You did this so often that you knew many of their routines, sometimes mimicking the moves in the privacy of your own room just so you could prove to yourself you knew them. While you would never admit it to anyone, you sometimes practiced these extra routines so one day you could maybe perform them yourself. 

With the passing time seemed to come a growing resentment for you from Crystal, too; her obvious but hidden distaste for you has become quite public, her attitude towards you backstage always keeping you on edge. She would take over conversations you were in and exclude you in an effort to make you feel unwelcome; she would spill things on your vanity “accidentally” so it would take you longer to get ready; and sometimes she would go too far and hide your performance attire from you, burying them in the racks at the bottom of the spiral stairs. While this all made your blood boil, you kept your distance, taking the high road and doing your best to remain positive. She never seemed to really be out to hurt you anyway. 

At least, not until now. 

Rehearsal had started like it always does for you; you arrived early and stretched, Sierra and Ashton arriving a bit early as well and walking you through some helpful new stretches for some of the new routines you had learned. Slowly the other girls trickled in, most of them carrying whatever coffee or tea that needed to get through whatever hangovers they were still shaking off as they crossed the threshold of the building. Sisi pretended not to notice the large sunglasses on your friends faces, instead looking at a sheet of paper Ashton had in his hands as Crystal and Michael walked in. 

Since your first rehearsal with the group, you had filled in on all the gossip and relationship drama; specifically all the ideas about Crystal and Michael. Michael had respectfully asked for permission from Sierra and Ashton to marry Crystal before he proposed, knowing that their relationship could affect their business, and when he got permission he popped the question. Neither of them wear rings to work, claiming neither of them wanted to worry about losing it, but Georgia’s theory was probably closer to the truth; no rings means more tips for Michael, and no ring meant more fun for Crystal. 

The couple stepped inside and started going their separate ways, Crystal giving Michael a quick kiss on the cheek before she joined everybody on stage. Michael waved to you on his way to the back, a smile on his face as he disappeared. Your friendship with Michael had evolved a bit since you ran into that handsome stranger by the staff entrance; he enjoyed teasing and joking around with you, knowing you had thick enough skin to take it and dish it out at the same time. Genuinely, you thought of Michael as a friend, even though Crystal thought of it as more. 

You shook your head clear of your thoughts as Sierra started speaking, paying attention as she gave you the run-down for practice. You took a quick glance at the line, noticing one of the girls was missing before looking back to Sierra. 

“As you ladies may have noticed,” she started, meeting your eyes and gathering your confused expression. “We’re missing Daisy today. Yes, she is still working here, so don’t worry about that.” The girls all audibly sighed in unison, causing Sierra to chuckle a bit. “She is, however, pregnant and at an ultrasound appointment this morning.” A unified gasp and excited chatter exploded through the girls, all of them so excited for their friend. 

Sierra clapped her hands, gathering everybody’s attention again before continuing. “So, because of that, Rory will be taking over Daisy’s spots in routines. So places, ladies, let’s get this ball rolling.” 

Georgia caught your eye and grinned as you got into position, your lips curling into an identical expression as you took your new spot by Crystal. 

Most of practice was quiet, everybody helping you learn Daisy’s parts and assisting you in cleaning up your movements. The time eventually came for you to do the number Daisy had with Crystal, the two of you on stage together running through it for the first time. 

During a certain move you lost your balance, unfortunately crashing into Crystal while the music paused. Your head bounced off the wooden stage, a sharp stinging pain shooting your head. Your ankle throbbed, no doubt twisted while you were falling, the pain dragging a pained wince from you. Beside you came a frustrated groan, the sound of heels clicking towards you making you look up as you tried to stand. 

“Could you please learn how to fucking stand?” She asked, anger painting her face. “That move was easy, yet you still managed to fuck it up. How?”

“I didn’t mean-” 

“Of course you didn’t!” Crystal said, throwing her hands up in the air. The girls were silently staring, mouths dropped open as tears pricked your eyes. “You never mean to. Instead you just float through every number like it’s nothing to you. Do you think you can just coast through here like you’re some golden girl? If you’re not going to put in the effort then there’s the fucking door, you ugly tramp.” 

The air around you froze, the silence absolutely deafening as you sniffled. The pain in your ankle and head had reached a peak now, tears spilling from your cheeks as Crystal’s tirade continued. Your ears were ringing now, not entirely listening as she continued for a few more sentences. 

“Enough!” 

The loud, sharp command came from the back of the room, your eyes turning to see Sierra, Ashton and Michael standing in the back. Ashton and Michael wore identical looks of shock, Sierra’s covered in seething anger. She was the one who spoke, a storm approaching the stage as she moved forward. 

“Crystal, my office. Right now.” 

Crystal huffed and turned on her heel, stomping backstage towards Sierra’s office. Georgia immediately scrambled on to the stage to you, her petite figure kneeling beside you and taking you into her arms as you sobbed. You gripped her shoulders, your body shaking as she ran her fingers through your hair. 

Another pair of hands appeared on you, hooking themselves under your knees and across your back and lifting you up. You curled into the body carrying you, not even noticing it was Ashton as he and Georgia carried you off the stage. Sierra appointed a senior dancer in charge and stormed to the back, Ashton and Michael hovering over you as everybody was forced to continue on with practice. Georgia lingered until Ashton gently escorted her back to the group, the girls moving on with a different number while Michael kneeled next to you with a medical kit. 

“What’d you hit?” He asked kindly, reaching up to gently wipe at the tears. You had calmed down significantly, the pain still radiating through you while Ashton took your now swollen ankle and propped it up on his jacket. 

“M-My head,” you said thickly, sniffling. “And I-I think I twisted my ankle.” 

Michael nodded, his hands gently combing through your hair as his eyes looked your head over. “Okay, so the good news is I can’t feel or see blood anywhere,” he said, smiling at you. The smile didn’t reach his eyes, the clouds behind them worrying you until Ashton spoke. You looked over at him as he shoved a cell phone back into his pocket.

“Mike,” he said, Michael turning his attention towards the other man. “Kay is on her way. Go grab some ice packs from the back, please, let’s see how much of this swelling we can get down before she gets here.” 

Michael nodded, giving you one more smile before moving to the back. Ashton shifted to your side, taking your hand and giving it a squeeze. 

“Love,” he said gently, his hand finding its way under your chin and tilting it towards him. He gave you a gentle smile. “Don’t listen to her, okay?” 

Tears threatened to spill again. “But she’s right-” 

Ashton shook his head, squeezing your hand again. “No, she’s not. You’ve worked much harder than some of your sisters here, and you deserve to be here just as much as they do.” He glanced at the group of girls starting the opening number, his voice dropping in volume as he leaned a bit closer. “Honestly, you’re better than most of your sisters, too.”

His compliment made you smile, his lips reflecting it back to you. “There’s the winning smile.” 

“Thank you, Ash,” you said kindly, Michael appearing beside you again with two ice packs wrapped in cloth. HIs words helped you feel a bit better, but the sting of Crystal’s harsh words still lingered.

The three of you stuck together until a woman in scrubs walked in, Ashton immediately moving towards her and kissing her cheek. He guided her over to you, her kind smile immediately easing your worries as she knelt beside you.

“You’re in good hands, Ro. We’re gonna get you fixed up.” 

[niall-is-my-dream]

You & Me - Part One

2750 words

May 2017

Backstage was a hub of activity, sound check was done but you'd got a few things to organise before you could head for some food. People moving equipment around and finalising the details for the show today.

"I need some water." A very beautiful blonde bluntly said to you, an all access pass hanging around her neck.

"The food and drink area is down the hall, second on the left." You replied, more politely than you should have considering how rude she had been to you.

"Can't you get it for me?" She asked, looking you up and down like you were something she found on the bottom of her shoe. Apparently your skinny jeans and t-shirt were not to her standards.

"Um, no I have a job to do."

"Aren't you suppose to do whatever Niall asks of you? Isn't that what he pays you for?"

Oh good God, she was one of those.

"I'm a guitar technician, Niall pays me to maintain and set up his instruments for him. He certainly does not pay me to get people drinks." You replied slowly, making sure she got your point.

"Excuse me, who do you think you are?!"

"I'm Callie, Niall's guitar technician. And you are?!" You replied smirking.

"Don't you know who I am?!"

You couldn't help the massive eye roll that occurred.

The sound of someone coming down the steps from the stage had you both turning around. Niall came strolling towards you, dressed casually in dark jeans and a navy t-shirt. Ignoring the obvious atmosphere in the small back area that his guitars were set out in.

"This one sounds so much better since you put those new strings on." He said to you. "You alright?" He suddenly asked the stunning blonde.

"No, this girl won't get me any water."

Niall looked at you and you raised your eyebrows at him, a look of annoyance on your face as he handed you his guitar.

"She's my guitar tech love, and the canteen is down the hall."

"But she was rude to me, surely these people do whatever you want them to."

You shook your head in disgust, honestly what was wrong with her?

Niall looked over to you, he knew you weren't someone who would be rude without a valid reason. He also knew that Saskia was used to getting what she wanted and expected others to cater for her every need.

"Why don't we leave Cal to do her job and we can go get some water and some food?" He replied, placing his hand on the small of her back and guiding her away from you.

The blonde, whose name you didn't know and frankly didn't care to know walked off with Niall. He turned to look at you, giving you a sympathetic sorry look. You didn't return it, he needed to keep his pretty bits of skirt away from you.

Two Months Later

Lazing in the Portuguese sun with a cocktail in one hand and your phone in the other, you started to scroll through Instagram. You noticed that you'd gotten a notification, so opened up the page.

"Woah!" You said, the shock evident in your face.

"What?!!" Bex asked, clearly confused by your face.

"My phone has literally blown up with notifications, and I have like 6,500 more followers?!"

"Babe, seriously?! I mean our bikini shot was good but......" She laughed thinking you were joking with her.

"Oh for fuck sake Niall!" You mumbled. "He fucking liked the picture."

"Did he now?!"

You didn't reply but just rolled your eyes at her.

You scrolled through the comments and they were all from Niall fans. It had happened before when he had started following you. You'd been working with him since he went solo. His first single had been a surprise success, so his management had organised a team to support his performances. You were one of his personal guitar technicians.

When you had been celebrating the success of Slow Hands and toured around with him and his band in the early summer, you had instantly started following them all and in turn them you. Nialls fans were hot on stuff like this and you'd actually had to change your bio to say 'guitar technician, currently touring with Niall Horan' just to clarify who you were.

The fans had asked questions on your most recent post, wanting to know who you were. You had only got a few hundred followers and now your total stood at over 10,000.

You closed the app and started a new text.

"Ni, wtf, you liked my pic? My phone is blowing up with notifications!"

You opened up IG again and started reading the comments.

Oh God!

There were some weird comments.

You'd seen ones like this before. You started following each other and you were female, so everyone read way more into it than they should. You were just colleagues who were friends now, seeing as you clicked instantly when you met. He was humble, down to earth and you liked a lot of the same music. After he experienced problems with his guitar during a performance a few months ago when you'd had to help Jake with something and Phil, another colleague had taken over and messed up, he had insisted that only you helped him. You didn't mind, if you were honest. You preferred just working with him.

It was less than ten minutes later when a new message appeared.

"Sorry! But the picture was too good to not like. Fyi Willie thinks your friend is cute. 😉"

You smiled at his message. Lingering on the words of it being 'too good to not like'.

"Nialls cousin thinks you're cute." You said turning to Bex.

"He does? Is he cute? Have you met him?" She blurted out quickly.

"Bex......... you sound a bit desperate!"

"I've been single for a year and haven't even been on a date for 5 months!"

Now that made you laugh. Bex and yourself were not doing particularly well in that department. Having ended things with your boyfriend at the beginning of the year when you agreed to follow Niall and his team around the world. Having been with Jack for almost a year, you thought he'd understand your job by now. However working with someone as well known as Niall, who would be travelling a lot and heading as far as Australia, would be demanding your full attention. Jack wasn't keen on being left behind.

But at 24, scoring a job like touring and working personally with Niall Horan was as good as it got. You would see the world, get to do your dream job and get paid for it. The fact that Niall was gorgeous and great fun to be around was an added bonus. Being a realist you knew he was way out of your league, and instead a great friendship had been formed and he trusted you with your opinion musically.

"I've met his cousin a couple of times when he visited him when we were working. He's cute too and really nice." You answered, your fingers hovering over the keypad trying to decide how to answer Niall.

"Ask him to send a picture of them!"

"What?"

"I want to see what he looks like!"

"Ok."

Deciding to ignore the things he had said about your picture, you just told him that Bex was intrigued to see a picture of Willie to see if he was a cute to.

"You don't want to see a picture of me then?!" He asked.

You guys had some great banter when you all hung out when you were working but you'd never text him like this before.

"Meh, I mean if you want to send one?"

"Cheeky! 😉"

A few minutes later he replied with a picture of Willie, sitting by a swimming pool with a beer in his hand. He looked slightly pink from being in the sun but definitely cute and Bex agreed.

"She thinks he's cute too. Are you guys on holiday?" You quickly replied.

"Yeah, this is my view of Ibiza today."

He had added a picture of his legs and feet with an amazing view of the hills and countryside. He was clearly lying on a sunlounger by the same pool as Willie.

Deciding to test the waters with a bit of flirting, you took an almost identical picture of your legs and feet with your view of the sea from where you were lying on the beach.

"My view in Portugal today."

You looked over to see Bex eyeing you up. "Are you sending him a picture of your legs?!" She asked with a massive smirk on her face.

You blushed when you saw his reply come through seconds later.

"Nice view. Great tan."

"Thanks, I bet you're as sun burnt as Willie aren't you?"

"I'm a little bit pink. The boys aren't exactly enthusiastic with putting sun lotion on me!"

The boys?! Mmm...... Your need to know if it was a lads holiday or if she was with him was burning inside you. Once again you hovered over the keypad before deciding just to ask him outright.

"Saskia not with you to assist then?"

The bubbles came up instantly showing he was replying.

"No, I'm not seeing her anymore."

"That's a shame."

"Liar, I know you didn't like her! 😂😂😂"

"I'm sure she was a lovely person, just not to me! But I am sorry it didn't work out. "

"It was just casual anyway. She ended up not being who I thought she was."

"Oh, well we've got tour soon so we will be busy with that. I'm looking forward to it."

"Me too. X"

"Enjoy the rest of your holiday. Let me know when you're back in London and we can try and set these two up."

"You too. I'll see you when we get back."

"And Ni, please stop liking my pictures, your fans are going crazy!"

"Well stop posting bikini shots then!!!!!!!"

"Stalker!"

"You're the one who follows me around!"

"I get paid to do that you arsehole!"

You were laughing now and Bex was still watching you like a hawk.

"Stop with name calling, I'm off to cry into my beer!"

"Whatever!"

"Missed our banter. Can't wait to see you."

"Looking forward to seeing you too."

You locked your phone and looked over to Bex. "What?!"

"Were you flirting with him?!"

"No, it was just banter."

"Really?! Then why are you blushing?!

"I'm not, the temperature is like 35 degrees!"

"Mmmhmmm."

"I'm going to cool off in the sea." You said, avoiding her gaze.

Heading down to the shoreline you looked out across the sea, watching all the boats cruising around the bay.

You were blushing. His words had never had an effect on you before. It had been a few weeks since you'd seen him and the team and you were missing them all. Tour wasn't due to start for another month but rehearsals started in just over a week. You'd be back with them all soon and you couldn't wait.

The weather in London was beautiful, bright blue skies and blazing sun, not a match on Portugal though. It felt great to be home, for a couple of weeks at least. Rehearsals didn't start for a few days so you filled your time pretty much doing nothing. Bex had gone back to work the day after you got back from Portugal, so the flat you shared was empty. Lazing on the sofa browsing Netflix had been your daily activity.

Your phone bleeped from the coffee table.

"Fancy setting up Willie and Bex?" Niall asked. You hadn't heard from him since you were away.

"I do! What did you have in mind?"

"Start off with a trip to the pub later if you're both free?"

"Sounds good, I'll check with Bex and let you know."

"Ok cool, what are you up to now?"

"Don't judge me but....." You replied with a picture of your bare legs stretched out on your sofa, the tv on in the background showing Pretty Woman.

"Great choice. I'm watching golf highlights." He replied with a picture of his bare legs and his giant tv.

"Surprise surprise!"

"I know, I'm so predictable!"

You left the texting there and dropped Bex a message asking her if she fancied going to the pub to meet everyone. Her initial excitement shown on holiday had now diminished and she was unsure and incredibly nervous. An hour later and she had agreed.

A quick message to Niall and you'd finalised the plans.

The pub in Brixton that Niall had suggested wasn't too far from yours, you'd been in there once before. Bex ordered you both a beer as you looked around the pub and didn't spot them.

"Maybe they're in the garden?" Bex said as she paid for your drinks.

"Yeah, let's head out there."

Sure enough as you reach the door to the pub garden you heard his laugh.

Tara spotted you first and jumped out of her seat to run to you and engulf you in a hug. It had been ages since you'd seen her. As Niall's assistant she normally travelled most places with him, she would be joining him on tour to. Niall turned around at that point and smiled when he saw you.

Making your way over to the table with a very nervous Bex, you realised you knew almost everyone from when they had visited Niall at some point when he had been performing over the last few months. Niall introduced you to everyone and the only person you hadn't met before.

"This is Conor. His band WildYouth are performing with us the first night of tour. And this Conor, is Callie my guitar technician." Niall said proudly.

"Ah the famous Callie!" He said smiling.

"I hope that's a good thing!" You said, taking the empty seat next to Niall. Bex sat down next to you taking the last empty seat next to Willie. They looked at each other nervously and you caught Niall's smirk.

"He's been stalking her Instagram." He whispered to you.

"Has he really?!" You whispered back.

"Well I helped, there are some very interesting pictures of you on there."

"Yep there is! Just don't go liking them. My follower count is ridiculous and I've had to turn my notifications off."

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that. Just didn't think." He replied, you could hear the sadness in his voice. A simple like of a friends picture can cause so much trouble for him.

"Its ok, I haven't had too much hate."

"Just ignore it, ok?"

"I am." You replied finally meeting his eyes, and you saw sadness behind them.

A couple of hours later and with the drinks flowing, Willie and Bex had exchanged numbers. Niall had nudged your shoulder when he saw them get their phones out. Both of you smirked, enjoying your match making skills.

"They can keep each other company while we are away." You whispered, and Niall agreed with a nod.

Making your way back from the toilet a little while later, you stopped before you came around the corner to the bar when you heard your name.

"So Callie is exactly as you described her." Conor said.

"Yeah, she's pretty great." Niall agreed.

"So, is she single?!"

"Yeah she is, but she's off limits for you!"

"Off limits? You got yourself a crush there Nialler?!"

"No!" He's scoffed. "It's just, she works for me. She's bloody good at her job and I don't want my friends leeching all over her."

"Ok fair enough. Shame though, she's beautiful."

"She's stunning, but off limits. Ok?!"

"Fine!"

"Come on, let's get back out there with these drinks."

You left it a few seconds before rounding the corner and catching up with the lads as they exited the bar to the pub garden.

Laying in bed that night you couldn't stop thinking about what Niall had said. First that you were off limits to pretty much everyone you were likely to meet while working with him and second of all he said you were stunning.

Stunning.

Never in your life have you been called that. You couldn't read much into it. He's already said you were off limits and you assume that meant him to.

Part two

https://niall-is-my-dream.tumblr.com/post/182467949243/you-me-part-two

[bandblogging]

Make me (Calum Hood Imagine)

Pairing: Calum Hood x reader

Warning: Swearing and no proof reading

Words: 1.3k

Summary: You and Calum have been especially flirty the last few days and so he takes is flirt to another level

Requested: no

A/N: I know I am a day late but yeah a Calum one in honor of his birthday yesterday. Also this isn't proof read yet because I should just really sleep.

MASTERLIST

----

"Fuck you Calum Hood", you laughed and pressed the buttons on your controller even harder. He had just thrown a blue shell at you and now you had lost your first place in Mario Kart, the first time ever you even had a slight chance of winning against him. "Get fucked Y/N", he replied with a laugh and proceeded to overtake you. You kept quiet for a second while hoping with every fiber that you would get the rocket, giving you another chance of winning. "No fuck you Cal", you yelled louder than you had planned to, but with some luck you had actually gotten the rocket. Your character started to pass different player and soon you had passed Calum who was well on his way to first place again. "Oh you didn't", Calum muttered and tried to drift around the corner but bumped into the wall instead. "Fuck Y/N, what is this?", he shook his head. "Well fuck me then huh?", you smirked and before you had even realised what you had said Calum had given up. "Is that a suggestion?", he raised an eyebrow and a cheeky smile spread across his face. "Maybe if you win next time", you chuckled as you passed the finish line. "That was pure luck and sabotage you know that.", he grinned and "Next time no distracting me".

An hour later Calum turned the TV off and yawned. "Rematch tomorrow", you challenged him and grinned. "I'll win again anyway", Calum replied with a cocky tone. You laughed slightly and stood up. "We'll see tomorrow", you replied and left the back, wanting to get ready for bed.

The next morning you repeatedly pressed the snooze button on your phone. You knew you should have gotten up but your bunk was way too comfortable to get up and walk out into the cold. You heard the boys rummaging through their stuff but you still couldn't find the motivation to get up. After you had pressed the snooze button once more suddenly the curtain was pulled away and light flooded your bunk. "Nooo", you groaned and pulled your blanket up further. "Your alarm is really repetitive Y/N", Calum laughed and you felt him resting his elbows on your thighs. "Just ignore it", you muttered and rubbed your eyes slightly. "Like you have?", he chuckled and put even more weight on you. "Caaal", you whined and tried to push him off. He didn't move an inch so you tried to sit up slightly. "Will you get off me if I get up?", you ask. "Maybe, maybe not", he chuckled but finally shifted and took his weight off of you. "Thanks", you mumbled and sat up properly, pulling your knees up to your chest. "But if I get up you have to promise me we won't just sit in the back, I could just stay here then", you looked at him now leaning on the lower part of the bunk. "Well what do you want to do then?", he grins cheekily. "Have you guys eaten? Maybe brunch with everyone?", in just the right time your stomach growled at the thought of food. Calum chuckled and rested his head against your mattress for a second. "No we didn't eat yet", he lifted his head again and smiled.

The shared plates of food in front of you and the others were piled high full of delicious looking brunch. Your own plate was stacked with whatever looked the most appealing and your mouth was watering. Even though breakfast in the hotels were good, nothing could beat a really good brunch. "This is so fucking good", you heard Ashton mumble while taking another bite. Everyone mumbled something back in agreement but continued to eat. You sat at the back of the table with Calum on the other side of the corner. Throughout the brunch you somewhat couldn't keep yourself from one mostly annoying each another. You felt him kick against your leg again and again until you payed attention to him. "What do you want?", you laugh quietly and look at him. He grins cheekily and shoves another bite of food in his mouth, not responding. You rolled your eyes and sat back a little. When Calum had swallowed his bite he kicked your leg again. "Better than laying in bed all morning?", he asked and flashed another smile. "It's pretty close I have to say", you chuckled in response. "Yeah I would have preferred laying in your bed all morning too", you weren't quite sure if he had winked at you at the end of his sentence because you had choked in your coffee. You were coughing loudly, pulling everyone's attention on you. You felt your cheek heat up as embarrassment flashed through you. A hand slowly patted your back, Calum laughing at you when you turned to him. "Not funny", you grumbled when you finally stopped coughing. "Sorry it kinda is", he patted your back one last time before putting his hand back on his thigh.

The whole rest of the morning you had spend hanging around town with the others, surprisingly not getting spotted by too many fans. It wasn't often that you actually got to see the citys the guys were playing a show.

A couple of hours later you were sitting backstage with the boys getting ready for the show. The soundcheck had gone smoothly with you and some others listening to them while testing the set-up. Ashton was dancing to the music that was playing backstage making you all laugh. Out of the corner of your eye you saw Calum walking in, pulling his shirt over his head. Your immediate reaction was to look away, feeling weirdly embarrassed by the view. You could still not help yourself and so you peaked towards him a few times, Calum smirking at you whenever you met his eyes, making you feel even more embarrassed.

Calum took annoyingly long to change so you stared at your phone, trying to completely ignore him. On his way out towards the stage he walked past you leaning down and muttering in your ear, "You don't have to look away the next time". A shudder went down your back and you felt your hairs stand up.

During the concert you felt Calum throw looks toward you again and again, making your face heat up every time. The trend continued until the night came to an end and without even really realizing time had passed quickly and you were about to board the bus again. You threw your bag on your bed and placed your shoes in the right spot. In your head you were on your way to bed when a hand in your back made you turn around. "The others don't want to, so it's rematch time Y/N", Calum said and pushed you towards the back where the tv and gaming consoles were. "But only one game, I just wanna sleep", you mumble, feeling a yawn come over you. "Fine, bet I'll win", Calum cheers and turns on the TV as soon as you entered the room. You rolled your eyes at him, even though he was cocky he was also probably right. You sat down, grabbing the controller out of Calum's hand when he handed it to you. "Get ready to loose Y/N", he grinned at you and sat down next to you. "Oh shut up Cal", you chuckled and turned on the game. "No you shut up", his replies sometimes really seemed childish but for some reason you didn't mind. "Well make me then", you replied quietly and smirked to yourself. "You want me to shut you up huh?", within moments Calum had shifted and was hovering above you. "You heard me", you whispered and observed his expression. You watched his expression go from slight confusion to a clear smirk as he leaned closer. His lips landed on yours a little more forceful than you had expected and your breathing hitched for a moment. A few seconds later he moved back a few inches and grinned. "I like shutting you up", Calum smirked and pressed another short kiss to your lips. "I like you shutting me up", you whisper back.

[darkspellmaster]

Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi -Rewrite if it was in the old legacy EU

With the recent reactions to the whole of Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, I began to notice that there are many similarities to certain characters. For Example, Ben Solo has an almost beat for beat personality to Kyp Durron save some differences, and Rey is a decent duplication of Jania Solo down to the whole ability to hardwired and fix mechanics, along with her droid. I started to wonder what would happen if you put the whole of the movies into the Old EU of Star Wars, and figured, why not share it.

Do note that rather than dealing with the Vong and the Dark Nest and all that followed these Movies take place of that.

This one will have large changes due to the nature of the story and honestly trying to keep consistent with what Episode VII showed regarding characters and the comics have shown as well. Opening sequence, it’s been a few weeks since the First Order was defeated. Rather than sit around and wait, the Resistance forces have been evacuating to other areas of space and trying to keep things from getting too bad. Word has gotten out that a large dreadnaught was coming after them, and Poe pulled together a group of willing volunteers in the remaining fleet to attack it, disobeying Leia’s orders to not engage with the fleet. The idea actually stemmed from Kyp who came up with it and the act is a means of keeping the large class ship at bay. Paige Tico is killed in the ensuing battle, but most of the Resistance makes it away.

Leia gives a stern warning to Poe and demotes him for not going over plans and disobeying her orders. While Saba puts Kyp on leave ordering him to go with Jania and Jessia Pava to locate other resistance cells and find out what’s happening. The First Order has effectively gone around using their ‘friends” to kill some of the communication in the galaxy and no one is sure what’s going on. Meanwhile we learn that Hux was planning on having the dreadnaught wrecked to cover for a device to be planted on the escaping last ship. The tracking device is designed to get a reading in hyperspace that allows the First Order to keep tabs of where the main fleet ship is headed.

During this time Finn wakes up confused. Anakin get’s Poe who calms his friend down with Leia, and the two get Finn back to normal. Finn asks Leia about where Rey is, and she explains that she has her on a mission and that she has a tracker that allows Rey to know where they are. While things are going on Finn talks to Anakin who says his brother is still out there and that he’s going to make him pay for harming his father, they’re speaking through hologram as Anakin was sent by his mother to Corusant to keep an eye on his father and monitor him. Finn asks Anakin about the whole “force hug” thing with Rey and Anakin tries to explain what’s going on that that in some cases there can be a bond that can be formed between two powerful force users, either by choice or by accident. Finn mentions that Kylo managed to track Rey and him down, and Anakin says there could have been a chance that Kylo managed to create a link between her and himself.

Their discussion is cut short when the small group of ships are attacked. The ships scramble but the dock with the wings is blown up on the main ship. The Resistance manages to get other ships to scramble but the attack is over whelming, and then there’s an explosion on the bridge, set off by a tie fighter. Ben and Leia have a moment of knowing where each other is, and then the whole thing goes to hell. Leia is saved by Saba who uses her force to pull her student back to her, and a few other members of the higher ranking Resistance leaders are brought back in, but the cold of space has killed too many of them.

Cal Omars, General Ackbar’s friend and Rear Admiral, mourned his friend General Ackbar and insisted that they find out exactly what happened to allow them to be followed by the First Order. During this time Leia dropped her tracker, and it was found by Finn. Realizing that Rey could be in danger, and that if the FO were to stage another attack he figured that he would leave for Courasant and meet with Anakin there where they could find a way to get Rey back to them and protect her.

The tech heads discover, with Connix, that there’s a tracker that’s allowing them to be followed but they can’t disable it. Finn over hears this, and decides it’s time to go. However his plans are cut short when Rose discovers him trying to leave. She has been ordered to not allow any pods to leave due to the investigation and the possibility that the FO could capture the occupant. Finn tries to leave but finds that the pod has been set to paralyze anyone for a short amount of time if they try to enter the pods.

Meanwhile Cal and Darcy say that Holdo is now head of the group, here we meet Haydnat Treen, one of the remaining officers who puts thoughts into Poe’s head that Holdo may not be all that she claims to be. Poe goes to see her to find out what Holdo plans to do, and she refuses to tell him, explaining that it’s on a need to know basis and when she’s ready to tell him she will. This doesn’t make Poe feel any more sure about her and Treen indicates that she could be working for the First Order.

Finn in the meantime is finds himself interrogated by Mara who thinks he may have subconsciously put the tracker on the ship before he left originally with Han. He explains that he didn’t and that there could be a way to disable it as they would have to have the second tracker on a ship to allow them to follow. Rose surmises it has to be on the main ship, and Mara says she’ll get her network to look into it. In the meantime, he and Rose are to go check in with Holdo, and instead the duo go to see Poe who is with Leia in her room where she’s being monitored.

Finn and Rose describe their plan to Poe and they contact Maz who explains about the Code breaker. In the meantime, Mara goes to Saba and Holdo, whom she’d previously met and tells her she needs to start trusting the other members of the crew with her plans or else it could end badly. Holdo tells her that they’re suspecting a spy or saboteur among the ranks. Mara offers the idea of having a team go onto the ship and disable the device from within, but it’s voted down. Fearing for her son’s life, she decides to go against the word of Saba, heads off to find the group discussing plans on how to get on the ship and the Master Codebreaker, and tells them she wants in. Finn gives Poe the tracker from Leia and he and Connix set up a plan to get them off ship.

On Atch-too, Luke takes the saber but rejects the offer, telling Rey that she should go back to Leia. There is no way for him to help at this time and walks away from her. Rey follows trying to explain the situation, as Luke points out that the First Order just blew up the New Republic and that Han is in grave condition. Luke explains that he knows, because he felt both, and knows that he’s not sure how to fight Snoke. Rey seems disenchanted with Luke.

Rey decides to hang around and try to talk to him, but Luke goes about his business. During this time she finds his old X-wing submerged in water. He tells her he won’t leave until he finds an answer. Rey becomes frustrated and starts practicing with her saber, while Luke watches her. In the middle of this she meets a young man who informs her that forcing Luke to leave just yet is not the way to do it. The young man introduces himself as Jacen Solo, Jania’s twin brother. He was the one that Han was looking for.

The two eat lunch together and Jacen explains his view of Jedi Philosophy, and asks her about herself and her past. When she explains she doesn’t remember anything other than Jakku, he wonders if there is more to it that is being blocked. Jacen thinks there’s a way to unblock memories that she’s had but he doesn’t quite have the skills for that, yet. He also asks about his father and she explains her feelings for Han as a father figure to him. Jacen points out the tree to Rey on their walk and she goes to investigate. Here she finds the books and Luke finds her. He questions her reason for being there, and not Leia. Rey tells him that she was sent and that she’s not sure exactly what Leia wants her to do and she leaves him alone.

Jacen and Luke have a moment while Luke is meditating on things, and they talk. Jacen argues that his mother had to have sent Rey for a reason, and he sensed that she isn’t like other force users. There’s something raw in her and untapped and that she may be the key to understanding Snoke and maybe helping Ben. Luke points out that he tried to help Ben but it failed, just as Obi Wan couldn’t help his father. Jacen then points out that Luke wasn’t a failure to Obi wan and saved Vader. Maybe Rey could be the balance that Luke is seeking out.

Luke goes to Rey and says he’ll give her three lessons, but only three. If she can prove to him that she’s ready to train after those three, then he’ll consider coming back. If she fails then she goes back without him. This is really a test on her in a way, a lot like Yoda tested him. Rey agrees to this.

During their first training Rey winds up reaching out to the dark side, much to Luke’s shock. She also gains a meeting of the minds with Kylo Ren who is surprised to see he can talk to her. Previously the only one he could contact was Anakin, who had been invading his mind, but he’d since blocked him. Rey and Kylo talk, but it’s clear that she doesn’t trust him and hates him for what he’s done to Han and Finn and her friends. The link is cut off when Luke touches her during their training and he feels that pull of the dark side in her, trying to tempt her. He’s worried that she has too much anger in her and it’s clouding her judgement as it did his once.

While alone during a rainstorm, after contacting Jaina Solo, and informing her she found Luke but that he won’t come back and that Jacen is there with him, Kylo contacts Rey and the two talk again. Kylo mocks her for wanting Han and Luke to be her father, and Rey points out that she doesn’t need his attitude as she’s training and will become strong enough to stop the First Order. As she’s talking Jacen over hears her talking aloud and breaks the link when he calls out to her.

Jacen is starting to suspect something with Kylo and is worried about her, and offers to train her in a working with the saber that she brought and tells her to ask Luke about the history of it. Luke mentions that she, like his father, himself, and his sister, have a strong force sensitivity, but he refuses to tell her the whole story of the saber. Jacen watches this and worries that the more Luke pushes Rey away, the closer she’ll fall to the darkness and starts to meditate on ways to actually help her break off the temptation and use her anger in a more positive way.

Meanwhile Kylo senses Anakin again trying to invade his mind and there’s a brief moment where Anakin talks to Kylo, calling him Ben and trying to pull him back to the light. When Kylo tries to force him out Anakin says he hates him, and, to Kylo’s surprise he’s actually hurt by this, but tries to cover it.

Back with Finn, Rose and Mara, with BB8, as per request of Poe, head for Canto Bright. While Rose explains parts of the place, Mara goes into stronger details about it’s past and a job she had there in regard to the Empire. Finn asks her if she ever feels regret in leaving behind the Empire, and she says no, but she feels for those that she killed for them, and those with force powers that could have been jedi to help keep the peace.

She mentions she knows someone who is now helping run the business end of things there and feels they may need to seek out his help. When they land, Rose docks the ship in a location that Mara feels may be a bad spot, but the two younger members feel that it’s an in and out job. The trio, with BB8 head in to town, keeping a low profile. When they get to the Casino Mara splits from the group as she thinks they would be way too obvious. She goes to seek out “Lovely” a former informant of hers who is now working with the Master Codebreaker.

Finn and Rose in the meanwhile observe the Casino. Finn is surprised by the opulence of the place, noting that where he’s from the world is static and very militaristic. Rose points out that a lot of the glitter is built upon the exploitation of others in the city, and points out the fact that there are various people all around that are clearly slaves or exploited workers who are being used by the rich people in the city. Finn likens it to how Phasma and the upper rank of the FO abused the people of the planets they took over for various work, so that they could build more for their army. He wants to find a way to help the remaining troopers that are still under Hux and Rose seems impressed with that.

While they are talking, they see the Master Codebreaker and are about to go talk to him, when the police, due to the parking violation, attack them. Mara uses the distraction to get to “Lovey” and orders her to take her to the man that she’s working with to replace the Master Codebreaker for. The two end up at an office and inside is Lando Calrissian. He’s surprised to see her, but Mara cuts short the chit chat and explains why she’s here and that Han is in bad shape due to Kylo Ren.

On the ship with Poe, he and Holdo keep having bad run ins, and due to Treen, he’s starting to think she’s on the side of the First Order. Kyp reports in that they are finding cells and the other members of the resistance but there is a rumor going around about the possibility that the Resistance has a traitor in it’s midst. Poe starts working on a mutiny with Connix and others because he intends to smoke out the traitor and catch them in the act.

Mara contacts him and tells him that they have someone that could help but they need to get Finn and Rose out of trouble. The spy hears this and plans on reporting this to Holdo to cause more trouble and fracturing in the ranks of the Resistance.

Over on Atch-too, Rey has her second lesson about learning not to trust everything that she hears and not to believe everything that she sees. Again she gets frustrated with Luke who is trying to get her to break from her anger, but it’s not working. Jacen begins to worry that something may be influencing her and decides to keep an eye on her. While alone for a moment Kylo slips inside Rey’s mind again and they talk about what she’s learned from Luke and Rey calls him out for the near death of Han and the attack on Finn again. Kylo in turn mocks her about her not knowing her parents and then turns around and mentions that she could seek out answers if she allows herself to fall into darkness for a bit. Rey, recalls the cave that Luke mentioned, and Kylo figures out that it’s a Sith cave, and tells her that she can find answers there if she chooses.

That night, while she thinks the other two are sleeping, Rey goes out to where the cave is and goes inside, where she deals with a strange vision and a wall that is like a mirror, asking to see her parents, only for the images to blur and distort till she can only see herself reflected. Unknown to Rey, Jace had been sensing things, namely his brother Ben, and goes to try to find him, only to see Rey go into the cavern and is unable to stop her.

In the mean time Luke, who had been meditating on Rey where they first met, get’s some words of advice from Obi-wan who reminds him to have patience with Rey. During this time he opens himself up to the force, allowing it to come to him and finds Leia is unconscious and wakes her up as their minds meet.  Jacen finds his Uncle and tells him he saw Rey go into the cavern and the two discuss what to do about it. Jacen also explains that he suspects that Ben may be influencing her, and he think that there may be a bond there that got made at some point, but he’s not sure how. Luke and Jacen decide to go see if they can find Rey.

Back with Rose and Finn, the two have been put in a cell with BB8 and a man named DJ, a slicer who offers to help them escape and disable the tracker. Rose is suspicious of the man but Finn feels that this could be the break they need and that he could work better than the codebreaker. Finn, Rose, DJ and BB8 start to break out of the cells and are on their road to escape when members of the Black Sun show up to block them. DJ it seems has gotten on their radar, namely their leaders, who wants him. None of them are ready for the fight, only to watch in surprise as both men are disarmed and fall to the floor unconscious. To their surprise it’s Lando and Mara to the rescue.

Mara explains that the Codebreaker helped them get into the Jail, and we see “Lovely” holding the man with a Gun to the back. Turns out “Lovely” was part of the Empire back in the day and owes Mara, and works for Lando now. The group split up when the guards come, Lando, Lovely, Mara, BB8, and DJ heading one way while Finn and Rose head another.

The Trio make it to the stables where they meet a group of kids and Rose convinces them to help release the space horses. Rose gives one of them, a boy named Temiri, a resistance ring (formerly rebellion ring) to use for the kids to get out of there and get help from those in the resistance as they would recognize it. At the same time DJ ditches Mara,  Lando, and Lovely –who still has the Codebreaker at hand, (but BB8 follows him not trusting him) and Lando offers them his ship as a way of getting off, only to discover it’s stolen.

Lovely uses the Codebreaker as a distraction for the police to allow Lando and Mara to escape on a speeder and the duo run into Finn and Rose who are crashing about the town with the space horses. The five make it outside of town, and Mara informs them that their “Ally” has escaped. Fortunately Lovely gave her information on how to hack and disable the tracker. Lando suggests another ship, but they get stuck on the edge of a cliff with no way out.

Mara and Lando offers to stay behind and help the others escape. They are ready for a fight, when Lando’s Ship the Libertine appears out of nowhere, run by DJ and BB8 who took it not knowing it was Lando’s. Lovely soon joins Lando and the others, and informs them the police are on their way. Lando and Lovely stay behind, saying they will meet them soon enough where space is Unknown. Finn and Rose have no clue what he’s talking about but Mara thanks him and promises that they will meet again.

The group of four humans and one droid take off, just as the police come and Lando comes up with a plausible story about being kidnapped by some crazy red head whom he dated and owed money to.

Meanwhile back in the Resistance Poe and Connix are dealing with Holdo who is beginning to suspect something is up with them. Treen in the meanwhile catches a message from Finn to Poe about them having what they need and she warns Hux about what’s going on. Darcy sees her sending a message and alerts Holdo about it. Treen though goes to tell Poe about the message and urges him and Conniex to hurry up with their plans, as she suspects Holdo is up to something, and is getting them picked off one by one. Kyle and Sabra are keeping an eye on things and find out from Kyp that Maz’s place got attacked by some Black Sun Members and that one of their own was at Canto Bright. Jaina also informs them that they caught one of the spy’s associates and tells them who it is.

Over on Ach-too, Rey is now back in her hut and dealing with the fall out of what she saw. She and Kylo talk about the situation and Ben tells Rey about why he left his Uncle. In the vision Rey sees Ben Solo sleeping in his bed and a cloaked figure come over to him, eyes full of anger and hate. The figure draws his saber, and is ready to cut down Ben when he defends himself and flees in fear of his life. However the vision is cut short when Luke discovers them and sees Ben there in his mind.

He takes down the Hut to dispel the illusion but it only winds up hurting his cause with Rey. Rey is angry at her treatment by him, and his actions, and attacks him, which Luke easily fends off. She wants to know the truth of the matter, Luke yields to her after he disarms her and she pulls his old lightsaber on him. Rey demands the truth, and Luke tells her his side of the story.

As he tells it, he went to see Ben to talk but saw a horrible vision, that he won’t tell her about, and, for a moment thought of ending him, but then realized what he was doing and stopped. Only for Ben to wake up, see the saber lit and he attacked Luke, then destroyed the Jedi Temple. Rey doesn’t know what to believe, so she offers him his saber again, asking that he come with her to stop the First Order. Again Luke refuses so Rey is resigned to bring Ben back to their side and heads to depart from Ach-too.

Back with Rose, Finn and Mara, Mara senses Leia waking up and her husband and fears something is going wrong. Rose and Finn are talking with DJ about things, and DJ says he will help for Rose’s pendent. Finn tells her not to give it over, but she does as there’s something greater to deal with. Mara also mentions that material things can be given, but memories stay and Rose has Paige with her through the Force. She also questions DJ and his reasons for helping, bringing out that he “used” to work for the Black Sun. DJ mentions that the Black Sun has a prince on her head, and that he could get a pretty penny for it should he turn her over. Mara warns him that while she is a Jedi, it doesn’t mean that she can’t, and won’t, protect her crew and if that means ejecting him into space, well she will do it if she has to.

The Quartet head for the Supremacy with the intent of dealing with the tracker.

Around the same time Leia has gotten up and Poe and Conniex start their mutiny. Treen and the others turn on Holdo and have her and Darcy held captive as they go to commandeer the ship. While they are here Treen starts to upload a virus into the systems that would wreck it and make them sitting ducks, this unknown to Poe or Conniex. Holdo get’s out of her situation with the Jedi’s help and Kyle explains that Holdo was never a traitor and that the real one is Treen. Holdo and the others hurry to the bridge.

Meanwhile Leia and Sabra make it there before the others, and Sabra disarms Treen when she tries to fire on Leia. Poe is glad to see Leia awake but confused what’s going on, and in order to protect him, Sabra and Leia knock him out. Holdo and Kyle make it to the bridge but the virus is inside and is causing issues with the ship, they are able to slow it down but not stop it and the First Order is on their way. They decide to evacuate the ship, and send word to Kyp, Jania and Anakin to meet them on Crait.

On Ahch-too, Rey gets ready to depart when Jacen catches up with her after finding Luke and discovering what he told her. Jacen stops her and begs her to reconsider her plan, but she points out what Luke did and that he’s not the man she thought he was. Jacen tells her, that no he’s better than she knows, and that he was saying that to keep Ben from knowing the truth. Rey asks him what he means and Jacen explains what happened that night.

It was true that Luke had visited Ben. Ben had been Kyp’s student and Kyp had warned Luke about some things going on that he felt about Ben. Luke had gone down to see Ben and had found him sleeping, and seen visions in Ben’s mind. He had his saber, but it was never on at the time. Jacen, who couldn’t sleep, had gotten up, and saw his Uncle come from Ben’s hut and followed him back to the temple. He over heard Kyp and his Uncle Luke talking about Ben, and thinking that Ben may go to the dark side and become like their grandfather, Jacen foolishly took his Uncle’s robes and saber and went to see Ben, with his plans on talking to him and if not talking then fighting him to stop him from becoming another Vader. Luke, he surmised, discovered the missing items and when down to stop it, but it was too late, and Jacen had already threatened Ben at this point, causing Ben to lash out and destroy the temple and become Kylo Ren.

Rey is surprised by this, but then says that Kylo needs to know the truth of the matter, that his choice was built on a falsehood. Jacen offers to join her as back up, but he doesn’t think that this will go well. Jacen gets his own ship as Rey takes off on the Falcon. Luke discovers this and winds up meeting with Yoda who gives him words of wisdom. Failure is a harsh but important lesson and that you can fix your mistakes, but you must learn from them first in order to understand why you failed and that even in failure great knowledge can come. Luke decides to go after Rey and Jacen, and pulls his X-wing out of the water, and uses the force to basically get it ready to fly with R2 back behind him.

Mara, Finn, Rose and DJ, with BB8 make it on the Supremacy and Finn steals uniforms for them. They act as if they’ve captured Mara, since she would be too obvious given how well known she is by now being the Former Emperor’s hand and all that, and it gives them an excuse in case they get stopped. Here they make their way for the tracker and DJ does the hacking as promised. However, not everything seems to go to plan, as they are spotted by one of the other droids and reported. This leads to them being captured by Phasma, who gloats as not only do they have Finn, but a Jedi as well. Mara realizes that DJ sold them out, and she manages to slip BB-8 her saber so they can’t take it.

While this is going on Rey and Jacen arrive by the Supremacy, with Rey using an escape pod to land on the ship. Jacen followed her, using the camouflaging aspect built into his ship by his sister, to follow her into the ship. Being cautious Jacen waited for Rey and Ben, hoping that she’s right about bringing him back. Rey in the meanwhile is handcuffed by Kylo Ren and taken to see Snoke, but on their way she senses Finn and Mara, and Mara senses her on the ship, though she says nothing to the others, not knowing that Finn sort of feels Rey there too.

Rey and Kylo talk on a ride up to Snoke’s throne room, with Rey trying to convince Kylo to join the light again. While this is going on, Luke managed to catch up to the Falcon and dock with it, but has to watch and wait with Chewie as neither can get near the ship due to Snoke, as Luke can feel him starting to sense things around him. Rey tells Kylo he has it wrong with Luke but Kylo won’t hear it, and leads her to Snoke. Here Snoke welcomes her and sets her free, only to use the Force to pull away the light saber. Jacen realizes that Rey is in danger but stops when he sees his Aunt Mara, Finn and Rose being held captive.

At the same time the crew of the Resistance is evacuating the ship. Kyle learns from Holdo and Leia that they suspected that there was a spy for a while and that Leia thinks that Treen is the reason how the First Order was able to know about various plans that they had had in the past. Leia also informs Conniex and Kyle that she had already approved of Holdo’s plans, and both women realize that the virus has made the autopilot plan impossible. Sabra offers to stay with Holdo, but she points out that as the Jedi leader they will need her. The three women embrace, as they bid a sad fairwell to one another. Treen is locked up, and Kyle promises that they will figure out what to do with her once they get to Crait.

Meanwhile back on the Supremacy, Hux tells his captives about Treen and that she’s  implanted a virus that will make it hard for them to escape. Mara calls him a coward, and Hux points out that she’s a traitor to the empire, to which she replies that there is no Empire, it died when Luke killed Palpatine, and she was freed from his grip. Rose asks how they got found out, and Phasma points to DJ, who then admits that he’s a Black Sun agent who’s working for the Black Sun to help out Hux for money. Honestly he doesn’t care who wins because in the end the Black Sun’s will still be there to make deals. He leaves, with Finn calling him out.

Phasma says there going to execute then by taking off their heads, namely because the jedi would stop the bolts. They’ll kill Finn and Rose first and let Mara feel all the death from the Resistance as they start a bombardment of the ships that are fleeing the Resistance craft, thanks to DJ and Treen’s info. The action causes Mara to nearly go unconscious with the pain of the many losses. In the mean time BB -8 has managed to get to Jacen who helps him get into a Scout AT –ST and the two plan on saving the group.

Rey in the meantime is dealing with Snoke and basically what you see happen in the main movie is what goes on here. During the attack from Snoke, there’s a moment when she links up with Poe, who get’s woken up by feeling her pain and sees the destruction of the many ships and is in shock by it. However Holdo stops all that when she rams the Supremacy at light speed causing everything to go haywire. Snoke get’s killed, Kylo says that Rey has no family, the two fight over the saber after a truce, and Rey escapes the room after waking up.

Jacen in the meanwhile after the blast uses it as a means of de cloaking and shooting up various ships while BB-8 attacks the Stormtroopers. Luke connects to Mara and gets her to break from her feeling the pain of others to use the force to get her saber back from BB-8 and fight off the Stormtroopers, helping Rose fight off the officers coming after them. Finn defeats Phasma, knocking her down into a pit. Mara gets them to Snoke’s shuttle where they blast off, leaving the Supremacy to fall apart.

Kylo wakes up and sees Hux there, something has changed in him, but he’s not sure what, yet that vanishes soon after. Kylo says he’s in charge now, and Hux agrees, but seems reluctant as if he finds it almost funny.

Rey is found by Jacen who helps her to his ship and the two take off in the damaged craft to the Falcon. Chewie helps them dock for a moment, as Jacen carries in a unconscious Rey. They destroy Jacen’s ship and leave it behind. The two groups head for Crait, with Luke feeling Leia waiting for them.

Kyp and Jaina with Anakin arrive first to greet the survivors and reunite with their Mother. Han, is still in a coma, but alive. Anakin explains that he tried to connect to Ben but failed, and Kyp and Jaina inform her that there are others waiting in the Unknown region ready to help, but communications are down and the cells are going to have a hell of a time reaching them, even as they send out an SOS. Jania and Anakin both tell Leia that they felt something change in the force and that Luke is coming back.

Kyp meanwhile sees Poe and Kyle and his other friends and is glad they are alive. He also thinks they should get rid of Treen, but Sabra says that she could be useful as an informant. Finn, Mara, and Rose, with BB-8 make it back first and Mara is reunited with her son, Leia and the other Skywalkers, and Jedi. Poe and Finn embrace with Rose being hugged by the remains of the engineering core. When they landed the Resistance planed on attacking them but Finn coming out caused them to hold their fire.

Finn, Poe and Kyle come up with a plan for defenses, as the First Order comes to attack the base with heavy weapons. The Jedi form a wall around the base, casting back bolts and other things to keep the AT-ATs and Sixes off balance while the Resistance Pilots take them on with speeders. During the battle tie fighters are sent out to take out the Speeders as the Battering Ram sets up to destroy the door. Kyle realizes that there is no way for them to stop that from happening and orders all Jedi back to protect the resistance members inside should the battering Ram work.

Rey, Chewie, and Jacen come in with the save using the Falcon, with Luke helping on one of the guns to assist.  They pull away the Tie fighters but that still leaves the other weapons. Poe realizing that they were too late to stop the Battering Ram calls off the attack, but Finn tries to stop it any way, leading rose to nearly get killed stopping him. She goes unconscious saying that she couldn’t help her sister, but she wanted to help him.

Finn brings Rose inside as the FO pulls back for a bit after they blow open the bunker door. Things look bad as the resistance tries to see what the First Order is planning on doing. Inside the Falcon, Luke sense Kylo as does Jacen. Luke is going to try a force projection that he learned from a Fallanassi, but Jacen won’t let his Uncle do it alone, knowing that it could kill him and that’s the last thing he wants. He needs to confront his brother and atone for what he did to cause him to go on this path. Luke, reluctantly agrees, and the two go into a meditative state allowing them to project Luke into the Bunker.

Luke sees his Sister who feels that the galaxy has given up hope as no one is coming to their aid. He tells her not to give up and that there is always hope. Luke sees Mara for a moment and his son and winks at 3-P0 before heading out to deal with the First order. The other Jedi realize what he’s doing and while the stronger ones lend him their strength, the others help look for a way out. Finn and Poe realize that the foxes know a way out and follow them.

Meantime Luke confronts the First Order and gets shot at by them, emerging just fine and seems to shrug off their attack. Kylo decides to go down and confront Luke himself, saying that Snoke is dead and he’s the leader now. Luke says he knows and Kylo taunts him asking him if he’s come to save him. Luke tells him no, and then apologizes for the pain that Ben has been put through. Kylo attacks Luke and the two fight for a bit, with Luke mostly dodging the attacks. Kylo calls Luke a coward and Luke says that the Jedi will live on, that you can’t strike them all down. Again Kylo attacks and taunts Luke about what happened that night when a saber cuts between them and join in. Jacen comes in and says it was never Luke that attacked him, that it was him that Ben saw that night.

Jacen begs Ben to forgive him, that if he would just come back they would find a way to fix things. That he still loves his brother and he’s sorry for what he did to him. Yet Kylo doesn’t believe it because Jacen never acted afraid of him and was always there for him even when Jania and Anakin seemed scared of his power, Jacen never flinched and never turned away. Why would he do that? No, to him Jacen is lying and Luke was the reason for it all.

Jacen and Kylo engage in a fight with Luke, eventually Luke senses that the resistance is getting away and backs up with Jacen. Luke says that if he cuts them down it won’t fix things, and that it will only make them stronger. Jacen returns that he still loves his brother and will find a way to save him and bring him back to make up for all that happened to Ben.

Kylo rejects this and attacks them, slicing at them only to have them both vanish. At the same time Rey has made it out back and saw the foxes. She lands and uses her powers to lift the rocks, feeling Jacen waking up and then him pulling Luke back from becoming one with the force. Finn hugs Rey along with Jania and Anakin. The group heads on board with the wounded and dead, cramming into the Falcon.

Kylo finds his father’s dice and catches Rey closing the door on him as Chewie takes off for space with the Resistance. On board the ship Finn checks on Rose who is still out with Anakin. Luke and Mara reunite for the first time since he left and Luke gets to hold his son. Leia and Jacen hug and hold one another as he apologizes to his mother for causing his brother’s downfall. Rey thanks Poe for keeping the tracker of her to watch where she was, and the two smile with a more formal meeting this time and the “I know” line and she’s slightly embarrassed by this. Later she and Leia are talking about the broken Light saber and Leia reassures her that everything will be well as they can repair the saber and that they have all they need to start the Rebellion over.

Mara mentions to Luke that Rey reminds her of him, and he sees the future in her.

[peachymess]

Hey, just dropping by to ask how life has been lately -- how are you holding up? It seems like you've been kinda better nowadays but I wanna make sure. So how have you been? Is there anything special you wanna talk about, whether it's good or not?

You know... anon. This is probably one of the more heartwarming asks I’ve gotten in a while. Unprovoked, earnest want to hear how the person behind the blog - past SNK - is doing. Like a request to hear more of the “personal” tagged posts I make. That’s just so touching to me. I have the feeling that people who are interested in me, are so at least partially because I have a connection to SNK; that if I dropped out of the fandom, I’d be an instant unfollow (not that there’s anything wrong with that - but there’s something special about feeling like someone cares past their own interests - “forget about SNK, I just wanna hear how you’re doing” JPHA anyone?) So thank you. When I saw this yesterday, I had the instant thought that it was probably from my best friend, and the only reason I cast that idea aside, is because he could just ask me on messenger haha. Anyways! Anon, I will tell you how I’ve been doing! Someone asks me “how are you”, and I’m just jumping right in and replying honestly, haha! (Under the cut, because this will be long; life updates are usually long, ya know)↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓

You’re right, I’m really good! This time, last year, I had just made a suicide pact with myself; I was so exhausted I was done fighting for myself. I said “someone’s gotta help me. But if nobody does, or nothing has changed within the time SNK is over, I’m calling it quits and offing myself”. And I meant it. I’ve had so many hard periods like that, and I’m running out of lives. I thought “next time will be game over”. That pact does NOT still stand. But it did for the better part of 2017. I can’t remember when it changed. Oh, wait, I do: the moment I gave myself the out, I felt so much relief washing over me. Not having to worry about the pathetic failure future I had ahead of me, not having to worry about the education I was too sick to complete, having to acquire a house without the means somehow... All worries about the future were lifted off me. And I had an out. It probably sounds really strange, but as soon as I’d decided to die (unless life worked itself out, aka win-win/good life - escape from bad life), life felt more bearable. I was still having a bad depressive period, so I was still not good, but I guess the pact nullified all the stress and anxiety connected to the future. When I accepted having none at all, anything else started feeling like a pluss once I decided not to die after all. The problem with “someone else has to fight for me”, though, is that apart from my parents (who can’t really do much since this is internal and they aren’t professionals - although boy did they try, bless) nobody did. I mean, I have you guys to love me, but in my every day life, who could fix me? Coincidentally, in this very same time frame, I was suddenly rejected further help from the mental health organ and I just... had no choice but to fight harder than ever just to get the amount of help I’d gotten before. It’s a big messy ordeal that took almost a year to fix. Complaints to file, waiting, more waiting, more stops to visit, etc... Basically, my notion of “being too exhausted to lift another finger for myself” was tested, and thanks to pure outrage, I was able to fight to win my right to help back. I’ve talked about it before so I won’t repeat that stuff. But the fact is, once the heaviest darkness lifted (I have recurring depression, so it just comes and goes in waves) towards the end of 2017, I carried with me an exercised ability to fight that I didn’t have going into the year. And at some point,... I don’t know how, but I was just so strongly set on fighting, fighting, fighting. I think about Armin and how he never stopped moving. He had his moments of weakness, where he thought he had no more to give, but at the end of the day, he’d be further along than when the sun rose. And I was doing the same. Because my roomie was moving at the start of 2018, I had to start thinking of how to move forward as well. I’d grown complacent in the apartment we rented together, but with him, it was too comfortable just to stay in that place mentally and in life. Just in time, I had a rude awakening to the fact that I also depended too much on other people. They were my pillars, and if they crumbled, I didn’t hold on my own. *sigh* Basically, I learned a lot in 2017, and grew a lot. At the very end - thankfully after the depression was over - I had to do a sudden crash course in how to find my own legs to stand on again, and how to close off my heart so it wasn’t so vulnerable. I went through the ice king stage of thinking I’d never let myself care about anyone else again, but I’ve found a good middle ground where I’m able to care about others but also not needing them to care about me back. This is all a long story that I don’t care to tell because it’s trivial, but also still affects me actually. But I grew a lot on it, so I’m thankful for the experience.

The TL;DR of 2017 is that after deciding I was too exhausted to fight anymore, fate forced me to fight harder than ever, and I learned a lot thanks to perfectly timed challenges, ultimately allowing me to enter 2018 a stronger person. The turning point was still the 7th of December: my tattoo. It’s of Armin’s name, for those that didn’t know (I posted it here so just search “tattoo” on my blog if you wanna see). I’d wanted to tattoo his name on my arm for quite some time, but I was scared. Because I knew that if I had his name on my arm, I could never dishonor him by killing myself. Having the tattoo would thus be my official declaration of giving up suicide as an option (ever!). Now, that’s a scary thought to someone who lives off the relief that having an opt out gives... But as time went on, and the warrior spirit had found a home in my heart, I slowly turned from fearing it, to needing it. Eventually, I called my dad and basically said “I need an appointment asap”, and he hooked me up with his tattoo artist friend. The idea came to me when I realized that despite any kind of depression, whenever I thought about Armin, any other feeling would be forgotten for a moment, as I was reminded of the love I feel for him, the motivation he gives me, and so many more good feelings. Thinking about him basically causes an explosion of warm complex joy within my chest. It spreads through my body and I always smile. So my thesis was that if I tattooed his name on my arm, and I hold my phone in my hand 24/7, I’d see his name all throughout the day, every day, and thus my depression would be repelled by this overwrite happiness all! the! time! And, anon? Thesis turned law; it works! It’s gonna be 4 months since the tattoo now, and I’ve only felt suicidal 3 days since then - and although I cal tell my body is ready to head into another depressive period, I’e managed to fight it back 4 times (4 attacks that all lasted about a week, but in the end, I managed to fight it off). It’s like I’m a werewolf, and every once in a while, the full moon is back and I struggle to stay human - and I’m managing, much thanks to a new sigil on my skin, keeping the beast caged. 

Now, it would be a lie to say that the tattoo is the only reason, though: in wake of my change, and with this new intense fighting spirit, I also made a resolution to try something new: refuse to be sad. You know how people say smiling will trick the brain to think you’re happy? It sounds stupid as hell, but I finally decided that you know what?, it doesn't hurt to try. I’m gonna insist that I’m happy, even if my brain says otherwise. Fake it till you make it. And it’s working - a little wavering included, but who isn’t sad from time to time? Because my capacity to do things has been gravely weakened, though, I’m on semi-welfare now, though. It’s a kind of welfare where they haven’t accepted your application for welfare yet and you get like a tiny allowance every other week to live off of instead (not meant for a permanent basis, as it’s not nearly enough - usually given to people who are between jobs for a month or two, just to get by). I don’t have the money to buy a house, but I’ve been moving for so many consecutive years that it’s jeopardizing my mental health so I’m trying something new: I moved back with my parents, and I’m currently trying to figure out what the next step is. I want to get a house somehow, so I have a permanent base to grow off of. I know that will take a lot stress off me to focus my tiny quota of strength on something else (like figuring out what to do about education/work). But since I don’t have the means, I can’t get a regular type of loan. There is a special kind you can get if you’re on welfare, so I’m currently applying for welfare, but to apply, I need to do a lot of tests to show where my ability level lies, but I’m not able to do them so I need to get papers from doctors to confirm that. I had already “proven myself” but then I lost my psychologist, case worker and house doctor all at once, so I have to spend about a year extra to re-prove myself. And then I can apply if they say I can apply, and then I have to wait for a yes or a no, and then work from there... So you see, right now, my fate is in others’ hands. I’m basically in a limbo of waiting, then doing some sort of meeting, then waiting for it to process, so I can meet someone else and wait again. I’m currently waiting for my caseworker to answer to request to meet her so I can ask how my case is coming alone since i haven’t heard from them in over a month... It’s quite... frustrating. But I’m a professional when it comes to dealing with these things, since I’m over a decade deep in this sh-. 

In the meantime, though! I am working hard to keep my mental stability in check! And I’m doing that by setting monthly goals, and starting every day with breakfast and writing down daily goals! It helps me structure my days and I’ve gotten so much done this way! It’s helping me in all sorts of ways! And although I don’t have a lot of material things to boast with, I feel more successful now than I ever have, because I’ve done another huge leap in personal growth and I’m growing more and more apt to tackle life. Just wait. I might not have a lot now, but when we do tally in twenty years from now, I’ll have the earthly goods that my peers have, and a more developed psyche on top of that! I’m on the path to finding true happiness, and that’s so much more important than following the highway to wealth. 

Ah, sorry for how long this got... But yeah... I have a lot of small joys every day that I’d like to share. My journey is really making me happy. But I’m afraid I’m just boring or annoying people. I get the occasional “write what you want” ask, but I can’t shake the feeling anyways. I’m working on getting better at sharing, though. Thank you for giving me the push to write this. Take care, anon!

[lilyharvord]

Modern Au Part 8 (I think?)

Gather round children, it’s time for the finale (((((:

           Kicks and Pranks

I roll over, sighing as all my weight shifts with me. I get a hard kick in my diaphragm for my movement, and I hiss as I set my hand on my stomach, feeling the foot pushing there. With a huff, I roll again, and this time get another kick in my side. “If the two of you don’t stop moving in there, I’m pushing you out right now.” I growl, as I massage the spot. Cody snorts at the end of the bed before rolling over when I shift my leg a little more and accidentally almost shove him off.

           It’s early morning at this point, and I still can’t sleep. I feel like a balloon is expanding in my stomach, and technically it has been since day one of this stupid pregnancy. No one told me twins were an option though, and I certainly wouldn’t have agreed to try for a baby if I knew two were going to be coming out instead.

           Shoving the blankets back, I climb out of bed, feeling both of the babies shift drastically inside of me. I gasp softly at that, still not used to it even after all these months. Technically, I’m not supposed to be getting up anymore, per Doctor Wallace’s orders, but I can’t take this anymore, I need to walk around. I need some tea, and I need a walk, I tell myself as I get up.

           Cody lifts his head and then panting happily, he crawls off the bed and then follows me out of the bedroom. He trots along beside me in the hall, and I pat his head as I slowly enter the kitchen and open the fridge. To eat, or not to eat? I hum to myself as I look everything over. My hand instantly falls to my stomach like it had been doing for the past couple weeks, and I caress one of the heavy spots while I hum a soft tune that had been on the radio today.

           “Mare, what in God’s name are you doing up right now? It’s 3 in the morning.” Cal’s sleepy voice grumbles in the doorway. I glare at him over my shoulder, not the least bit surprised that he was awake still. Shifting aside a pack of frozen meat, I grab the carton of yogurt and reply simply, “I’m hungry.”

           He rubs his eye with the palm of his hand and then asks sleepily, “Do you want me to make you something? You shouldn’t be up walking around love.”

           I snort at that and then walking across the kitchen, I pull open the drawer and reach in for a spoon. One of the babies kicks lazily, as if to punctuate his point. I frown deeply at that and then close the drawer with my hip. “It’s good for me to walk around. Besides, they’re not that heavy.”

           “Mare, love, please.”

           I glare at him again as I pass and make my way into the living room. Cody follows dutifully, his eyes on me as I sink onto the couch and he comes to join me. He had been following me around for days lately, whining and crying when I left him alone in a room. Shade had joked that it was because he saw Cal being protective of me and had taken it upon himself to be that way too. There were one to many protective things in this apartment now though, and it was getting stifling. Cal follows me and stands in the doorway, running his fingers through his hair to try and tame it. I eat a spoonful of yogurt and then glance at him and tease, “Oh please, don’t be such a worrywart. I’ve got another three weeks before they’re even close to being due.”

           He draws his lips into a tight line and says, “Ada said that twins are unpredictable Mare, that they can come at any second…”

           “Cal, will you just,” I pause then, my mind going a hundred different directions at once. Oh I couldn’t pass up this opportunity, not after he had done this to me. Not that it was entirely his fault, it was mine too, I had been the one to start grumbling about wanting a baby after Farley had had one. My mother had immediate looked at me after she had held her first grandchild and had narrowed her eyes before teasing lightly that babies tended to come in groups. She couldn’t have been more wrong and right at the same time. It had taken Cal and me exactly a year after Nico’s birth to conceive. I had cried holding the pregnancy test, and had called him to tell him while he was at work. After that, things had been great until I’d popped weeks before Farley had. My mother had looked me over and asked if I was eating okay. I’d been furious at her insinuation that I wasn’t following the strict pregnancy diet that I had laid out after doing research. I’d dragged Cal to my doctor and she had confirmed with a laugh that I was pregnant with twins. I had made Cal sleep on the couch that night, and he was probably still confused why did that. In all honesty, I had been pissed that I wasn’t going to be pushing out just one baby, and I had thought it was his fault as much as my own.

           Now though, for all the coddling that he knew I hated, payback would be a bitch.

           “Oh my god,” I whispered as I set the yogurt carton down and set my hand on my stomach. He straightens in the doorway, his eyes widening to the size of moons as he asks, “What? What is it?”

           “I think, oh my god…I think my water just broke.”

           He stands stiff as a pole for a solid minute and then tears out of the room shouting, “I told you! I told you that you should have just stayed in bed! Just wait there, I’ll grab everything you need. WHAT THE HELL DO YOU NEED? I mean do you need-“

           I snorted and then grabbed my yogurt carton again and then sank back into the pillows on the couch before shifting and propping my feet up. Cody huffs in worry from his position by the door where he had sprinted to after Cal had taken off. I laugh at his confused reaction to Cal and then say, “Come here Cody, everything’s okay buddy.”

           He saunters back over to the couch and then turns in a few circles before sinking into the spot where I can still stroke his head and scratch him behind the ears. The babies kick and squirm and I wince as I set my hand on my stomach to massage it. Cal comes running by the doorway on his way out the door and I laugh as I called him back. He turns around and then says, “Don’t worry, I’m just going to go down and the start the car, and then I’ll come back up and-“

           “Cal I’m not in labor, calm down, it was a joke.” I laugh out loud at the confused look on his face, and then turn back to my yogut the bag he’s holding slams onto the floor and he hisses, “That was not funny, Mare.”

           “I thought it was, and that’s all the matters.” I say as I stick my tongue out at him. He crosses the room and then sinks onto the couch. He watched me with narrowed eyes for a few seconds before sighing and leaning back into the couch to look up at the ceiling. “It was pretty funny.”

           “Your reaction was priceless. I wish I’d gotten it on video.” I reply casually as lick the back of my spoon to get the excess yogurt off. Cal turns his head to look back at me, and with a smile, he slowly lays down to rest his head on my stomach. I groan at that and then try to push him away saying, “Get off! You’ll squish them!”

           He snorts and then intertwining his fingers with mine he says, “They’re hyper tonight.”

           Rolling my eyes, I run my other hand through his hair before saying, “They got your restless legs.”

           Cal purses his lips in annoyance and then grumbles, “They’re not restless…”

           I laugh at that and watch as he slips his fingers out of mine and traces patterns on the slit of skin that appeared after my shirt rode up slightly. The baby’s seem to still at their father’s touch, and I lay my head back as his touch lulls me to sleep too. I could fall asleep on this couch, and I was more than willing to as well. Outside, the summer morning is young, and the sky carries the bright lights of New York. In a few weeks, there would be two more lives to live, to prosper, to fall in love, and to grow old in it as well. Through heavy eyelids, I glance down at Cal who appears to have fallen asleep. With a smile I close my eyes as well, letting my hand drop from his hair. “I love you,” I whisper softly. To my surprise I feel his lips quirk into a smile on my skin as he presses a delicate kiss on my stomach and then whispers, “I love you all, so much more than you will ever know.”

           I believed every word of it too, I always have, and I always will.

 And that concludes the modern au. Sorry if ya’ll were expecting there to be actual babies but I’m too lazy. BUT!!!! YA’LL CAN CHECK OUT MY NEXT SET OF MODERN AU’s THAT IS CONVIENIENTLY TITLED NURSEY VERSE and may or may not feature the bebes dealing with a bebe ((((((((((((: The first chapter should be up soon. Once again it features a modern mare and cal, and mostly just the two of them with cameos from others in the series. (: Stays tuned for it!!! (:

[a-table-of-fics]

Cull to Adventure, Chapter 6, Draft 1

“What the SHELL were you thinking?!”

Cull shrunk a little, instinctively tugging an imaginary beanie, hands covering his short, cut tentacles. The Zapfish swam through the air over to the Outpost, humming to himself while settling down by the grate to Inkopolis.

“I-I was just…I had to…”

“I thought I told you to leave! Do you know how much danger you were in? I just… I…”

Marie took a moment to breathe. Looking at Cull was getting hard with him giving her that look. She couldn’t tell if he was going to cry, but it wasn’t worth the risk, really. He did get the Zapfish and make it back alive, after all.

Still, she knew it was only going to get harder from here. He was not going to be dying in enemy territory, no matter how much Marie wanted to find the Zapfish or Callie. Still, he showed potential; he wasn’t the best fighter, but everyone had to start somewhere, and he showed some promise with some workarounds he found.

“Well,” she sighed, “If you’re so insistent on being Agent 4, then you’re gonna have to work on your skills. A lot.”

Cull swallowed, but slowly nodded. He didn’t want something to happen to him either.

Marie thought for a moment, and then lifted the grate over the manhole so the Zapfish could come with them.

“Follow me,” she said, evenly. “I think I know where we can go for that.”

* * *

Ding!

“Coming! One moment!”

Yeah, there weren’t really any clients or anything, what with the energy crisis, but Marie knew that wouldn’t stop Sheldon from constantly tinkering with his wares, ensuring they were as amazingly high-tech as the adverts said.

Soon enough, however, the sparks, flickering lights, and loud buzzing stopped coming from the back room, and the goggled horseshoe crab walked over, climbing a stepladder to look over the desk.

“Hello, how can I help—oh, Marie! What can I do for you?”

“Sheldon, are you able to get the firing range up?”

Sheldon looked over at the door to the testing range, and how much light was not coming from it.

“I mean, I could, but I would need to redirect a lot of power… could take at least 45 minutes…”

The Zapfish wriggled out of Cull’s hands and swam towards the room. He looked at Sheldon expectantly.

“Okay,” Sheldon smiled, “I can work with this… Gimme ten minutes instead.”

Marie nodded while Sheldon and the Zapfish went through that door, then turned back to Cull.

“…Maybe I should’ve had you change back to your civilian clothes before we came here,” she remarked, noting how he was doing his best to hide in the corner, away from the windows.

With the light-up headphones, enormous snow boots, and the yellow Agent jacket, he wasn’t exactly doing a good job.

“Don’t worry, no one else’ll be seeing you in there. I don’t want your cover blown, anyway.”

Agent 4 nodded, relaxing ever so slightly.

There was a long, awkward pause. Marie tapped on the handle of her parasol, looking around at the kaleidoscope of weaponry on display around them, while Cull leaned against the wall, looking at the Spattershot he had been using, and noticing how far removed the yellow peashooter was from everything else.

“Sooo….” Marie finally asked, “Where are you from?”

“…I-I’m from Breakwater Flats,” he replied, flatly.

“Breakwater Flats…” Marie echoed, tapping her chin. “Hmm, I think I might have passed through there once or twice… Not sure though.”

“It’s okay,” Cull shrugged. “Y-you’re not missing much. Just open plains and barns…”

“No, I’m sure it’s a nice place,” Marie replied. “Reminds me of my gramma’s place back in Calamari County.”

She sighed, giving a small smile.

“I remember when Cal—my cousin and I were there. She helped me start singing, did you know that? We used to go through the wheat fields…”

She shook her head.

“…Er, anyway, don’t talk that way about your hometown, okay? Trust me, you’ll miss it someday.”

“Um, o-okay,” Cull said, blinking at that abrupt end. “I’ll keep that in m-mind… You know, I do kinda m-m-miss painting at everyone��s places with the l-leftover berries…”

“There you go!” Marie said. “Gotta remember what made it home, right?”

Cull nodded, then perked up as both he and Marie heard loud clicks from the firing range. The door opened, giving way to quite a bit of light, with only a small, helmeted shadow blocking it. Sheldon peeked out, waving.

“The targets aren’t ready yet, but if you wanna come in, you can get a feel for the layout!”

The two shrugged, walking in. The inside wasn’t much to look at, being more based on function than aesthetics. Some grated platforms here, a few ramps there, and range markers everywhere.

“S-so, should I get started?”

“Yeah, we can make small talk later. Go and ink some turf. Get a feel for the range, or whatever.”

With those words of encouragement, Cull started firing, noting how far he could shoot and how accurate his shots were. Even with his grip on the Splattershot, either his hands were pretty dang shaky or there was an abnormal amount of spread on this ink gun.

Marie was confused by this, too. This was just a modified Splattershot; it should be firing a lot more consistently than this. She stepped over to the side, using her parasol to block stray ink shots as she got a better look. She didn’t know about the mechanics of Inkling weaponry, but she sure recognized shoddy gun handling when she saw it. What was he hoping to accomplish with the Splattershot so far away from himself? Both hands were competing to have the trigger finger, and his arms were always too tense or too slack.

“Hey,” she said before having to duck behind her umbrella again. “HEY!”

That got the rain to stop.

“Right,” she said, trying to ignore his wide eyes looking at her. “You gotta learn how to hold a Splattershot.”

She shook her umbrella dry before setting it under her arm. She stepped in front of a stunned Cull and gently took his wrist.

“Now, see, you want to keep a good grip,” she said, moving his left hand from the trigger guard to under the barrel of the gun. “You only need one finger to pull the trigger, remember.”

“…Mhm.”

“Don’t be scared of it,” Marie continued, pushing the Splattershot closer to Cull’s chest. “You gotta keep it stable, you know?”

Cull nodded shakily.

“Your weapon is a part of you,” she said, stepping back, “So you need to treat it with respect. That’s a rule of the battlefield.”

She looked him up and down. Well, he was holding his gun properly now, but that didn’t do anything to fix his stance. With his legs so close together and his feet pointed slightly inward, it was obvious he would rather be anywhere else. More importantly, though, it would make him quite off-balance in a fight.

Well, one thing at a time. She didn’t want to overwhelm him, after all.

“All right, kid,” Marie said. “Try it again!”

Cull fired again, this time with a far firmer grip. There was a lot less spread, and the range benefitted from Marie’s tips, too.

Marie smiled. It reminded her of when she and Callie were learning how to turf from their Gramps. To think; back then she was spraying and praying, but now she used a Charger all the time!

Man, she remembered she had that same awkward stance back then. It was actually Callie who got her fighting stance down first; the first few sparring matches made that clear to Marie. She was splatted over and over, with only a couple of splats on Callie to show for it. She remembered learning how to grip a Splattershot the same way Cull just did, only with her Gramps showing her. It was Callie, however, who got her to watch her footwork.

And she did it all with her loud, bombastic, fun way of doing everything. When they weren’t practicing with inking or splatting, Callie took her to all kinds of places, from Old Skillet’s rickety abandoned barn to a dance club the kids had made in the woods.

Marie sighed. She couldn’t be like that at all, and she didn’t need the reminder of her missing cousin.

“…H-how’s that?” Cull asked.

“Hmm?” She asked, snapping out of the past. “Oh, yeah, that’s much better, wouldn’t you say? Your wrists’ll last longer, trust me.”

“I s-see…”

Just then, the vaguely squid-shaped dummies filled back up, making for targets Cull could fire at to actually practice. Marie knew that the other area, divided by a massive wall, had moving targets, but for now, she figured a nice, easy break with stationary dummies would be best.

“Well, have at it, kid!”

She walked back and leaned on the wall by the door they came in through. She was ready to give pointers, and hopefully see some results. If Cull was going to be Agent 4, he’d have to fight like an Agent 4!

The next half hour was a cacophony of Splattershot fire and Inkling shouts.

“Get closer first! They can’t attack you.”

“Aim up a little!”

“I-I can’t hit it from here!”

“Lead your shots; get a feel for the speed of ‘em!”

“O-outta ink again?”

“See if you can lob those Bombs!”

“I… I got ‘em!”

Marie had to admit, the firing range looked pretty good in green, but it was getting harder to see Cull’s shots. Besides, even if he was getting more accurate, she found his movement a bit lacking. If she couldn’t get that straightened out, all the basic tracking ability in the world wouldn’t stop him from being turned into grilled sesame squid.

Cull was starting to find a comfortable groove. At least half his shots were hitting the moving targets – he even popped a couple of them now and then! He was starting to feel good about using the Splattershot. If only he had gotten this kind of practice before…

“Hey, kid—”

Out of sheer reflex, he spun around, firing wildly into Marie’s umbrella. It only took a second for him to sheepishly release the trigger, but he still felt it was far too long. He wasn’t sure if Marie’s unfazed eyes made it better or worse, but he wasn’t ready to make eye contact.

“Okay, that’s enough inking,” she said, calmly shaking her umbrella dry. “What say we take a break for a few, huh?”

Cull looked back at the moving dummies he was aiming at. He felt like he only got started - shooting targets was surprisingly easy to pick up.

“I… could go a few more rounds…”

Marie shook her head, giving a small smile.

“C’mon, lunch’ll be on me! You want pineapple-free pizza, or a hot dog or something?”

Agent 4’s stomach answered for him. He didn’t even notice how much of an appetite this adventure was giving him.

“M-maybe a little break…”

He followed Marie to the door. Sheldon watched through the window, and pressed a button on his desk. From several panels in the ceiling came at least twenty small Squee-Gs, already making short work of Cull’s ink as the two of them shut the door behind themselves.

***

After a detour and quick change of clothes, Cull met up with Marie at Mako Mart. His beanie was once again covering his sloppy bowl cut comfortably, his shirt was a more muted color than the yellow hoodie, and his shorts weren’t so tight anymore. Marie noticed an ever-so-slight change in demeanor; instead of sheepishly creeping around, trying not to be seen, he was slowly walking around a bit more casually… trying not to be seen.

The two of them joined the throng of Inklings that were entering the food court; the air conditioning alone made this the coolest place in Inkopolis right now. The line was a little long, but it was moving quickly; they’d have to tip the folks here generously. Soon, they were at the front of the line, with a Jelly awaiting their order.

“Yeah, I’ll take a slice of seafood pizza…and a small Tanker Cola, thanks.”

Marie turned to Cull, gesturing for him to order next. He was silent for a bit, but finally spoke, rubbing his arm awkwardly.

“…a Veggie slice and a…a large Lamprede, please.”

“Sure, fruit punch, orange, or algae?”

Oh, Cod. Cull was not prepared to say much more.

“Um, o-orange?”

The Jelly nodded, ringing them up and getting them two trays. They were lucky to find a table at all, but it was one in the middle, surrounded by everyone else. Cull’s mouth felt dry. Meanwhile, as they sat down, Marie did a double take at something behind him. He turned around to see nothing weird; just an Inkling with that new hairstyle – one big tentacle on the head, with the others tightly packed behind.

“Oh, yeah, Pearl was… was t-talking about the new hairstyle trends…” he said, guessing that’s what she was referring to. “Getting p-pretty big, I hear…”

Marie slowly nodded, trying to ignore the way Cull pulled his hat further down. After a moment of seeing the newer, fresher hairstyles all around, from bulbous afros to slicked-down tentacles, she shrugged and continued eating.

“So… you think you’ll be up for one or two more today?” Marie asked.

Cull gagged on his drink.

“Um…w-what…?”

“You heard me,” Marie said. “There’s more of ‘em out there, and they’re not gonna save themselves, you know?”

“…S-should we really be talking about this here--?”

“Talking about what here?” Marie asked, innocently.

Cull sputtered, and then sat back and sighed.

“…You’re right,” he finally mumbled.

“Hmm?”

“I said you’re right,” he mumbled, a little more loudly.

Marie was kicking herself for not being able to lip-read, and just stared for a moment trying to process what he said in the crowded food court. This did not go unnoticed by Cull, as his eyebrows went from their perpetual worry to mild frustration.

“You’re right!” he said, a little louder than he had to. He could immediately feel several eyes pointed his way for a few seconds, and so he slumped into his chair again. Marie’s look of pity was not helping.

“Y-you wanna just---”

“Let’s j-just go…”

[michellelewis7162]

esports system podcast - esports information

esports system podcast - esports information

 Competitive pc gaming has actually been actually around a long period of time on the Personal Computer with specialist Starcraft leagues or even tournaments for video games like Quake and also Counter-Strike. The Xbox 360 has actually created very competitive games far more well-known lately with the pro-gaming console league Major League Gaming, or even MLG for quick, and has started to be actually categorized as a sport through a lot of players. Even esports network podcast coverage, like ESPN, have gotten into this brand new gimmick contacted esportz system (digital sporting activities) and also right now covers MLG activities on their website as well as even at times mentions it on Sportscenter. Is this focus warranted? Are E-Sports definitely sporting activities? The solution is actually no as well as below are main reason whies this is actually so. Esports News

 Shortage of large inherent skill void

When I utilized to play SOCOM II, a friend of mine had over 2,000 hours logged onto the activity online. On the other palm, there are lots of gamers such as myself that are merely normally excellent at video recording activities. I possess a 2.5 K/D ratio on Halo 3, yet I rarely participate in the game as well as carry out not take it very seriously.

 This is certainly not therefore with esports like hockey, baseball, baseball, also golf or even tennis. I made use of to play hockey as a youngster yet despite just how much I participated in, there is actually a 99.999% opportunity I would certainly never make it in to the NHL. I believe the exact same may be actually stated for thousands, maybe even millions of sportsmens in primary sports. Not games. You possess an excellent opportunity of having the capacity to contend in the business of video gaming merely through training and staying committed to it.

 Perhaps I could possibly certainly never defeat TSquared however given that pc gaming does not include physicality, the variation between us will be just dedication. He is actually a whole lot even more specialized than I am actually, and has been for a lengthy opportunity. The qualified pc gaming participates in video clip activities as his life. I decided on a various career road. Much like I definitely would not be as really good a forensic detective as a person that possesses twenty years knowledge, I would not be actually as excellent a player as TSquared if I completed versus him immediately.

 There is no hunting mix

In most major sports games like the NBA, NHL, NFL, and also MLB, there are minor circles or college amount play. I can not inform you the number of opportunities I have enjoyed a sports activity on TELEVISION to listen to an announcer mention something along the lines of 'You're in the Majors, you need to be actually able to make that play' or one thing comparable. There's a factor when primary rank gamers in MLB are sent out down to the minors on a rehab assignment or something that they dominate or that a gamer that may control at three-way An or the AHL for hockey could pull in the NHL or MLB, it's a completely different amount of stage show.

 E-Sports do not possess levels of play similar to this (sure there's the CAL as well as CPL however it doesn't function the very same means). Either you are actually contending or you're certainly not. I believe to be actually considered a sport, MLG ought to treat this by combining a small organization where gamers are cultivated coming from to competing in the majors. This would certainly be the only way to get involved in the majors is actually to be actually welcomed, not just sign up and also paying out a cost.

 An absence of unity or even organization

Sure there are different sports organizations, yet I do not think any person is going to say that in America there is a volleyball organization extra well-known or reputable than the NFL or even a hockey organization more legitimate and preferred than the NHL. If it was actually an accurate sport, it needs to have an unity of institution. That recognizes, they are various games with different games.

 This takes me to another point, the association of E-Sports is absolutely nothing like a sport. There is no normal time, there are actually only activities as well as ladders. Even the leagues that pretend to have seasons are actually simply operating ladders for a details time-frame and also phone it a time. Due to the fact that you can easily leave behind a step ladder or even join at any sort of time, Ladders don't function such as periods. If you go 0-5 on Gamebattles, erase your crew and also remake it as well as you remove your bad beginning. Staffs don't have the very same variety of activities participated in. You can test other teams at your desire so you never must participate in a group that you understand might beat you unless you reach out to the Playoffs. Actual sports aren't like this. There may not be merely a handful of tournament-style events throughout the time.

 Making it a lot more sports-like

Overall, E-Sports games appear to become trying out to create video gaming look to be a sporting activity without actually making it right into one. Like the enhancement of trains in MLG activities like Gears of War and Halo. That looks like an entirely ridiculous addition to expert gaming and also one that doesn't even produce it much more like a sport. Why carries out a gamer require an instructor?

 To help make games in to a sporting activity, they must help make organizational modifications. An enroller doesn't only spend for trips to Meadowlands and also offer you trendy gaming rigs. Staffs should not be merely a team of close friends that got with each other one day as well as have played all together ever before since.

 They ought to apply a normal season. Instead of visiting a handful of event contests or competing in some internet step ladder, the teams included in the period are prepared at the start of the season. No a lot more can easily groups participate in or even leave when the season is actually underway. Thus, routines are actually established for each team. If you are actually scheduled to participate in a team, you visit that location and also play all of them. Real sporting activities groups as well as players journey a lot. It appears players rest in your home training for the upcoming occasion. You qualify during the course of the off-season in a sport, and also participate in throughout the season. Why will competitive play be actually held online when you have system issues, potential cheating, and lag? It does not make feeling. Thus there is actually no main reason they shouldn't be actually taking a trip around the country to play their next set up opponent.

 Each team would possess the very same lot of games participated in. After the time ends, playoffs would certainly be actually seeded as well as played in the tournament-style contests like Meadowlands. That ought to be actually how playoffs are actually done. Today it seems they possess no importance whatsoever other than gaining you funds as well as providing you factors.

 There must additionally be a scouting incorporate. You can't simply up and sign up with an MLG competition 1 day. You will definitely need to become part of a separate game and also complete certainly there until you are welcomed through a staff owner to sign up with an MLG staff. That will provide authenticity to the league as well as additionally most likely extract a bunch of wish to-be's and posers because they may not be mosting likely to wish to travel a lot and also compete.

 One more suggestion I possessed for American professional pc gaming would certainly be actually to store condition tournaments which would recognize the absolute best players that reside in each state. I think something like this would certainly be much more feasible than a slight games for video gaming.

 Physicality doesn't matter

A great deal of folks claim games isn't a sport considering that it is actually not physical. Considering that it is open to question whether or not sports demand bodily task, I'm not stating this. NASCAR is considered a sport through some as well as the driver simply rests there. Bowling is actually also looked at a sporting activity as well as that includes very little physicality. It's also debatable regardless if video gaming has no physicality to begin with. Games demands response opportunity and also motor capabilities as properly as rational as well as vital thinking, similar to real sports. Considering that of the ones laid out over, I presume the true main reasons that individuals state video gaming is certainly not a sport is actually. It simply seems a lot more like an interest and does not conduct itself in a sports-like or even professional way.

 Normally, many games that are entailed in these competitions involve a multiplier factor as the entire point of eSports is actually to interact with various other gamers. There are actually numerous possibilities currently available that players can easily play in various tournaments as well as competitions. The trick is to participate in the video game kind that you appreciate very most or are actually well at.

 Mostly all video game types are accommodated in eSports and also our experts discovered that the best prominent kinds were actually 1st person shooter (FPS), sport and also MMORPGs. Our company anticipate so much more to be actually included to this listing in the future.

 Currently, eSports are actually typically taken in and also appreciated by men with 85% of men comprising engagement of events. Sector forerunners are definitely trying to encourage female engagement and also our experts experience our team will certainly view some progress on this as our experts progress in to 2017. Also, the eSports market generated ₤ 258 million in 2015 and also our experts anticipate this to become around ₤ 391 for 2016 which is actually pretty crazy!

 Where Can I View eSports?

It all audios quite stimulating, does not it? The business is predicted to proceed its own dramatic development in 2017 and involvement is actually at an everlasting high as a result of to the media systems available. You may look at eSports on numerous different systems and also sites. Twitch as well as YouTube are actually the absolute most noticeable ones with ESPN and Yahoo additionally possessing their personal specialized eSports sections. Added web sites that you may certainly not have actually heard of resemble Twitch and supply some wonderful information. These are Azubu and MLG therefore inspect them out for some high quality eSports streams.

 Such is the development of eSports that typical sporting activities web sites (our team use ESPN over as an example) are actually starting to cater their web content to eSports supporters. This is rather amazing and really stresses to our team how very seriously sports journalists are actually taking the eSports sector.

 Generally, buyers are going to consume the eSports item in such a way that they are actually comfy with. This may be practically spectating or even if you possess a video game that you are actually especially experienced at after that you might would like to engage in competitors! Have a look at the websites our company listed above as well as these are going to offer you a better concept of exactly how you may acquire entailed.

 Form 1958 Tennis for pair of to nowadays League of Legends and DOTA2, we must confess that Esports is actually expanding swiftly. It has influenced every components of our life instinctively and produced a group of Esports celebrities. But you may ponder: when did it enter concentration? Exactly how did it alter unexpectedly? Right here are the 3 causes for this inquiry.

 1. Technology

Esports is actually a sporting activities activity carried out through Internet and also regional location system, based upon computer system and computer game. The advancement of details and innovation and renovation of system facilities all risked the product foundation of Esports. Simple assurance provided to Esports by the growth of high-end personal computer application system. Increasingly more popular Internet creates it achievable for significant, constant and also challenging online games. Conditions for a great deal of gamers online simultaneously are actually mature enough to support such a big video game. Infotech, system base and also pc application platform have actually generated superb chances for the competitors as well as rebroadcast of the Esports.

 2. Commerce

Undoubtedly, taking off Esports has shut relationships along with its own business market values. Esports has magic power to entice public, specifically the younger. Besides, advertising and marketing is also a hidden service opportunity. As an example, in-game ad is actually popular amongst pc gaming sector for its upgrading velocity, unfamiliar format and higher pertinence. Esports is actually a fantasizing system for activity manufacturing plants to elevate appeal of their brand. Therefore, activity producers spare no initiatives to assist it. The association and function of this particular competition limited due to the revenues of the games market. This type of regulation seems to be possess adverse impact, but really it is good for the conduction of Esports coming from the principal city part.

 3. Esports on its own

In recent years, with the expansion of Internet insurance coverage location and also the variety of request platform, participating in on-line games possesses no regulation coming from the place or opportunity. At present, electronic activities usually tend to compensate much attention to the mixture of virtuality and also fact, which is actually in order to apply the communication of digital games. It attracts therefore numerous folks considering that players can easily address on their own as the roles in the game and also discover that online planet as well as journey on their very own.

[clearsandwicheagle-blog]

Rock Hall Maryland Cheap car insurance quotes zip 21661

"Rock Hall Maryland Cheap car insurance quotes zip 21661

Rock Hall Maryland Cheap car insurance quotes zip 21661

BEST ANSWER:  Try this site where you can compare quotes: : http://averageinsurancecosts.xyz/index.html?src=tumblr 

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Rock Hall Maryland Cheap car insurance quotes zip 21661

Rock Hall Maryland Cheap car insurance quotes zip 21661

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Rock Hall Maryland Cheap car insurance quotes zip 21661

Rock Hall Maryland Cheap car insurance quotes zip 21661

Is the auto-insurance claim information shared if I switch the insurance company?

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Car insurance ?

who knows the most cheapest it car insurance company plz ?

""Car insurance, help please?""

I'm 18 years old & looking into buying a used 2011 nissan Altima from a dealer soon. My mom will be a cosigner for it & I was wondering if I would be able to insure that car under her name as the primary & me as an additional driver? Insurance rates are just too outrageous & unaffordable for my age & for new cars with full coverage so I'm really hoping that it would be possible for her to insure it since she'll be a cosigner. Thanks for all the help & answers, greatly appreciated!""

Can someone convince me Car insurance isn't a complete waste of money.?

I'm only just turning 18 so I've never bought insurance myself my whole life. My stance on insurance is this: You might not have full coverage, they'll try to weasel out of paying you AND you might go for years without getting into an accident. In that time, if you pool up the money you'd have spent on car insurance you'd be able to pay for a car accident anyways. Now I'm just pulling this out of my butt, I don't have much of a basis on saying these things other than its just how i feel about it all, which is why I'm here. What creases me the most out of all this is that i hear car insurance for people my age is high, they treat us all the same and were not given a chance. Apparently no one sees age discrimination if it were slapped on to their face. They force you to have car insurance in Ontario which to me sounds a little ridiculous because i thought insurance was a service, an offer provided by companies, not an obligatory contract the government makes you pay for even if you don't want it. You can see my clear disposition against it at all, quite frankly i about don't wanna drive at all at this point. Though I want to be convinced because Canada's winters are cold, and modern life today kind of requires you to have your own mode of transportation.""

Car accident and switching insurance?

Hi, I was with insurance company A and was planning to move into company B in the next few days. I finalised the quote and premium amount and even received the new set of insurance documents from company B and informed the company A of cancellation. But today i met with a minor accident due to rain puddle leading to my car skidding and causing damage. I have filed a claim with company A but I want to understand how this will affect my premium rates with company B. Do I have to inform them beforehand? What will be the best course of action?""

Does raising your car insurance's deductible really save you money ?

* Does raising deductible on car insurance really save money ?? * Is it worth it and * How much money would you save if you raise your car's deductible from 500 to 1000 dollars Any information would greatly be appreciated....Thanks :)

""For an fha home mortgage what is a rough estimate of how much we can get, me and my wife combined make?""

69,000 a year, we have a car payment at 325, student loans total of 460 a month, a credit card payment of 15 a month with a balance of only 30 left, other than the normal cell phone bill and utilites car insurance etc that basically all we have , my credit score is a 688 , and my wifes will soon be around a 640 so we have the required score for an fha loan""

Where can I find information on low rate home owner's insurance?

I have a hmeowners insurance since I bought my home 10 years ago. The premium has gone up about 25%. Want to find out better rate from good companies - websites etc information

How Much Would Insurance Cost On A Mitsubishi Lancer Evo?

What would be an approximate range on insurance cost for me? I was considering buying a mitsubishi lancer evo and need to factor in the cost of insurance. It would most likely be a 2003. Model: Mitsubishi Lancer Evo Car: Year 2003 Age: I am 16 soon too be 17 State: Oklahoma Occupation: Student (3.5 gpa+) Other Info: I would most likely only drive to school and the gym 5 days a week, less than 10 iles a day round trip. I would be able to pay a higher deductable if need be. Live: with parents Background: Father is a Radiologist - Income: easily 300k+ Although I come from a very affluent family my parents are making me pay for most of my car If I am lucky they will give me a 10k allowance max.""

Cheap car insurance?

I've just decided to restart my lessons after 4 months of being away from them - last failed my test by one minor at the very end of the test was absolutely gutted. I am just about to turn 18 years old and am looking for insurance on my dads Suzuki Baleno. The cheapest I have found so far is 446.60 for fully comp per year with CIS Insurance which I know would be considered cheap, but is there any cheaper?""

Is geico a reliable car insurance in CA? Thanks?

Is geico a reliable car insurance in CA? Thanks?

Affordable insurance?

I want to start a new job They will offer me and my family a great insurance plan expense free The only catch is that it will not take affect for 6 months The present plan paid for by my employer will only last for 30 days once I leave this job Does anyone know of a basic affordable health insurance plan that i can purchase for 5 months Thank You

Auto insurance question?

I had full coverage on my auto policy. My car is at a point where I'm not going to fix it because it would cost more to repair then to replace. However, I'm not going to replace it at this time. My question is, since I will be renting cars at least twice before I get a new car, how do I handle my auto insurance? The policy currently covers rental cars, and is cheaper than the insurance the rental company offers, so I'd like to keep it. should i go ahead and cancel my auto policy, even though I will be driving other cars before i purchase another?""

Do (UK) car insurance companies need to know the car's registered address?

I am a student and thus spend most of my time away from home - I receive correspondence to my university address and my car is kept there most of the time. Essentially all the details ...show more

What is the cheapest online car insurance for an 18 yr old male?

My stepson needs to get some online insurance today............dont have alot of time to research. What would you say is the cheapest car insurance available on line........monthly payments?

Why is the insurance prices so high?

OK from what I have seen from my friends they have been getting car insurance for there cars for about 1000 a year, now when I check on gocompare.com the cheapest quote is around 7000, what is wrong I've only been searching a vauxhall corsa 1.2l. I don't see why it would be that much.""

""Cheap auto Insurance in miami, fl?""

I recently moved here and need to buy insurance for my car. Ive been searching on-line and i am overwhelmed on how expensive the rates are here in fl compared to California where i use to live. I have never had quotes in the 100's. so do u know a cheap auto insurance company here in miami, fl I have a 95 ford mustang cv""

Car insurance for family car?

My mum is learning to drive and my dad got her a small Vauxhall Corsa and the idea was to insure me on the car so I have access to it should I need it. The quote just come in at 1300 ish and well for a car I may or may not be driving that much I am not going to pay it. On my own if I owned the same car I have found insurance of around 700 which is more acceptable. The problem is I don't own the car and my dad is insured on it and my mum is insured on it as a learner, but could I then insure myself on that same car separately? Naturally I'd have to tell them who owns the car but other than that? The main problem is I'm 21, have not driven in three years since passing my test (due to insurance funnily enough) and a student, which is a potent mix for insurance companies ripping you off as much as possible.""

HOW MUCH can my insurance rate rise up after hitting another car? backing up i hit the front right bumper/ligh

I live in California and I have full coverage on my vehicle currently I am 26yrs old and have about 6 yrs with my Dirvers license and NO accidents or tickets on my record. BUT a lot of people mention that my insurance rates will go really high whn an accident happens. I hit the car behind me it donsnt seem to me a a major accident, but a small one. I need help just an advise to know what to expect, please!! maybe in an expert can advise.or other personal experience by someone?""

Can your health insurance drop you if you use marijuana?

Hi everyone, I want to start by saying that I am here looking for an answer to my question. Please keep your opinions of marijuana and and sermons on federal law to yourself. =] I have had stomach, bladder and pelvic problems for several years. I was recently diagnosed with interstitial cystitis and am positive I also have IBS (waiting to see dr). I live in california and have a medical marijuana license. If I didn't use it, I would be unable to work and probably addicted to vicodin and xanax. my bf thinks I should be open and tell my pcp that i use it to treat my chronic pain so that he could possibly offer other reasons for my symptoms (even though i know these symptoms have nothing to do with my use my bf ust wants to hear it for himself). the only thing i am worried about is insurance. do insurance companies kick you if they find out you use? i'm not worried about work finding out, just insurance. thanks!""

""For my first car, what engine size and car do you recommend I get?""

What engine size do you recommend I get? Is a 1.4 liter a lot for a first car? Also, I understand the fact the bigger the engine, the higher the insurance will cost, but since I know nothing about cars I do not really know about all this engine size stuff. Also, apart from insurance, I understand about road tax and MOT, can you tell me how often I need to have an MOT and how much it costs? Thanks.""

What to do when i want to get a car and how much is insurance for a 2000 jetta ? how does payments work?

What to do when i want to get a car and how much is insurance for a 2000 jetta ? how does payments work?

Health Insurance in California!?

Hi there, My girlfriend and I are getting married next year. I am British and she's American and I'm going to move to California to live her. I am just wondering how the whole health insurance matter works in California as there is no national health insurance as far as i know! Thanks guys!""

Classic car ownership in the UK; apparantly there's an advantage over other cars such as cheaper insurance or

tax, or MOT, but I can't remember what...anyone know?""

Is there a good site to compare the insurance rates of different cars?

I'm looking at cars for my son (who just turned 16) and would like to see which cars are best in terms of insurance rates without going through the process of getting a quote for each car.

Rock Hall Maryland Cheap car insurance quotes zip 21661

Rock Hall Maryland Cheap car insurance quotes zip 21661

Insurance Quotes?

So i just started driving and my parents put my name under the title of our van because the insurance was cheaper. Well i would like to save up and get my own car, but they keep bringing up that the insurance would sky rocket. The van is a '03 Honda odyssey and the car i'm looking at is a '91 Toyota 4runner. If anybody could give me a ballpark estimate of how much the insurance will cost for one verses the other. I'm 16 and live in the zip code 80127. Dont know if any other info is needed. Thanks.""

Cars for teens with good gas mileage and cheap on insureance?

im looking for a reliable car that gets good gas mileage but cheap on insurance. any ideas??

I have a question about car insurance?

Okay I get my license on Monday but i don't have insurance yet due to my grades but does that mean i cant not drive a car that has insurance like my parents cars??? Thanks I really need an answer

Why is health insurance important?

Why is health insurance important?

Why the heck does car insurance make you pay more...?

when you call to file a claim? Like, why do they raise your rates when you call them to use their services that you're already paying for? Someone pryed the emblem off my friends car and he said if he claimed it on insurance his rates would raise just because he claims it. What's up with that?""

What size engine should i get for cheap insurance?

It will be my first car, and i don't really want to be paying allot on insurance, but want a nice nippy little motor. So what size is cheap for insurance but not too small to be really really slow lol.""

Good insurance companies..I want to switch my car insurance..I need advice?

I have my auto insurance with Allstate and they're just ripping me off. They're always bringing up the prices yearly and I want to know where I can get a better offer. My car is a 2004 Elantra and they want to charge me 1 369 $ from March 4th to January 24th and that's just too much. I know there must be a better insurance company out there. Which ones and can I get a quote online ?

Do grades affect insurance on a car?

okay, so, I am learning to drive, and, my parents say that if I don't have at least all B's or a B GPA my insurance will be too expensive. me being a male in a 2 door sports car. do grades really have anything to do with it? I have a C average, right now. what if I pass the drivers ed classroom with flying colors? state of indiana, by the way.""

Where can I apply for free or low cost health insurance?

Im a poor student that works less than 20 hrs a week. I am a permanent resident (not a citizen). Please help. I think im going to die soon (see my other question). I also live in montgomery county maryland if that helps

How much do you pay for car insurance ? meow!?

tell me what type of car you drive its engine what type of fuel it burns size your age country male or female and what type of licence you have....full licence or provisional licence meow! thank you in advance for your time meow! meow!!

""Minor fender benders, insurance, and suspended license?""

if there is minor fender bender, both parties have insurance and exchange info. what could happen if no police report was made, and driver A reports to their insurance company. diver A insurance company then try to contact you, driver B avoids them (even though Driver B was not in the wrong) by avoiding the insurance company can driver B license be suspended, without proof of accident or proof of who was in the wrong. Its been a month since accident, what should Driver B do""

Insurance for 250 Ninja?

I will be buying a new 2011 Kawasaki Ninja 250. I'm 18 yrs old. We will pay the bike in full..... How much will be my insurance on this bike? thanks

How would you change your car insurance if your car was over ten yrs old?

idk what my stupid teacher means by that.. i know that car insurance would increase but im not sure thts what she is asking with this question.. thankyou =]

What type of Life Insurance Should I get?

I am 33 and I'm pretty sure that I want to get term life insurance. I have a wife and 2 kids. It's affordable. I'm in good health. My question is should I get a 15 yr plan or 20 yr plan? Money is a little tight so I'm thinking the 500K or 750K plan.

""Turning 17 in a few years time - group 20 car insurance, how much would that cost??""

as above, please answer, i know im being a tad bit ambitious lol (1995 aston martin db7 fh 2dr coupe) WOOP WOOP!""

Motorcycle insurance for a 17 year old in california?

hey im 17 years old, and got the money together for my first bike. i went down to the dealership and was about to buy the bike when i found out insurance cost like 4k for full coverage. i want full coverage but dont wanna pay through the nose for it. i have not owned a bike before and i really want one, but im not sure if i can aford to. so my question is does anyone know what i should do to resolve my problem? preferably recomendations of good insurance comannys. thanks so much""

Republicans whats the difference between being forced to buy health insurance and car insurance?

If it is unconstitutional to force some to buy to health insurance how is it constitutional to force people to buy car insurance??

Do you have to insure a road legal quad?

One with number plates, i want one. I'm 17 and don't have 5 grand to insure my own car, so what about a road legal quad? Are they loads to insure, or are they free to drive on a road? Thanks.""

How can I pay for my car's insurance?

I'm buying my first car tomorrow. I will be the Legal Owner and Registered Keeper but NOT the main driver (i'll be the 2nd driver of the car) Can I pay for the insurance using my card details (because i own the car and im getting insured on it, im just not the main driver because i will name someone else as main driver) ?? or does the MAIN DRIVER has to pay the insurance using their debit card?""

Why is it that insurance rates are so high in the state of New Jersey?

The insurance rates in New Jersey are higher than any rates in the entire United States. I demand an answer to this outrage! It makes no sense that in California you can pay like $140 for the whole -year- to insure a car, while in NJ you pay like $140 every month.""

Alamo insurance coverage?

i am going to renting a car through Alamo and i only have liability coverage through my insurance plan,how much will it cost for 10 days of coverage? what are my options?""

Why is my car insurance quote so high?

I have been to CompareTheMarket for a quote on car insurance, and the cheapest quote was around 5,000 for a car that costs 250. Why is my quote so high? I'm a first time driver living in an area with a fairly high crime rate. After changing the address to my girlfriends the quote came down to 2,000. This is still way too much considering the cost of the car! Is there any way to bring the insurance cost down? I wont be able to afford to drive at this rate.""

Cheap car insurance...?

If you buy a shitty car for like $500, can you get insurance that only covers the other person in a crash and not you?? I know they used to have this?""

Is california an affordable and nice place to live?

I live in ohio and I want to move to california to go to cal state in concord. I just need a little information from someone who lives there. Like is food and clothes expensive and is it expensive to buy furniture. I have already got the cost of a house and found some cheap ones. I just need to know how much money I will need. So can anyone help?

What does an insurance broker do?

I know it is something to do with insurance, but that's all I know. What schooling do you need for this job and what is the general pay? What does a typical day usually look like for a broker? Do they work for a company or on their own?""

Rock Hall Maryland Cheap car insurance quotes zip 21661

Rock Hall Maryland Cheap car insurance quotes zip 21661

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-car-insurance-9600-month-i-have-17-year-old-son-needs-lopez/"

[usnewsaggregator-blog]

The Brother-Sister Divide

New Post has been published on https://usnewsaggregator.com/the-brother-sister-divide/

The Brother-Sister Divide

MERCED, California—Nita Vue’s parents, refugees from Laos, wanted all nine of their children go to college. But Nita, now 20, is the only one of her brothers and sisters who is going to get a degree. A few of her sisters began college, and one nearly completed nursing school, she told me. Her brothers were less interested. “The way I grew up, the girls were more into schooling,” she said. “Women tended to have higher expectations than men did.”

This is not unusual. Across socioeconomic classes, women are increasingly enrolling and completing postsecondary education, while, even as opportunities for people without a college education shrink, men’s rates of graduation remain relatively stagnant. In 2015, the most recent year for which data is available, 72.5 percent of females who had recently graduated high school were enrolled in a two-year or four-year college, compared to 65.8 percent of men. That’s a big difference from 1967, when 57 percent of recent male high-school grads were in college, compared to 47.2 percent of women.

Women from low-income and minority families especially have made great strides in recent decades. Just 12.4 percent of men from low-income families who were high-school sophomores in 2002 had received a bachelor’s degree by 2013, compared to 17.6 percent of women. And in 2016, 22 percent of Hispanic women ages 25 to 29 had a bachelor’s degree, compared to 16 percent of Hispanic men.

(While poor women are outpacing poor men, it is important to note that in the big picture, poor women are nevertheless far behind their richer counterparts. About 70 percent of women from a high socioeconomic status who were high school sophomores in 2002 had gotten bachelor’s degrees by 2013, compared to 17.6 percent of women from low socioeconomic status.)

This gender gap in college completion has been a long time in the making. In the early 1900s, when some elite colleges started opening up to women, women quickly got better grades than men, according to Claudia Buchmann, a professor of sociology at Ohio State and the co-author of The Rise of Women: The Growing Gender Gap in Education and What it Means for American Schools. In the 1970s, as more women started attending college, they started graduating at higher and higher rates, while men’s enrollment and graduation rates remained relatively flat. But until recently, the women attending college were mostly from elite families. Now, women from lower-income families are increasingly attending college.

Percentage of American 25-to-29-Year-Olds With a Bachelor’s Degree or Higher

Steven Johnson / The Atlantic

This is a positive development for women, because a college education is increasingly important in today’s economy. Out of the 11.6 million jobs created after the recession, 8.4 million of those went to those with at least a bachelor’s degree, according to the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown. But while women across socioeconomic classes are embracing the idea that education is important and are pursuing postsecondary degrees, many men from lower-income households are not. “The puzzle is—why don’t boys get it? There’s all this talk that we hear constantly, about the benefits of a college degree,” said Buchmann.  

Some of the problem is that boys from low-income families appear to struggle more in school than girls do. They lag behind as early as kindergarten even though health tests show that, at the time of birth, they are just as healthy and cognitively able to learn as their sisters, a recent paper found. This is partly because they appear to be more affected by poverty and stress than girls are. “Boys are differentially sensitive to negative environments in general,” one of the paper’s authors, Northwestern professor David Figlio, told me. These findings dovetail with much-cited research out of the Equality of Opportunity Project that finds that childhood disadvantage is especially harmful for boys.

School quality is also more important for boys than for girls, Figlio said, and since many low-income families attend poor-quality schools, their sons, who are already lagging behind their daughters, fall even further behind. The paper found that lower-income boys often do worse in elementary and middle school than their sisters, and have more behavioral problems, which can lead them to disengage with school entirely or get kicked out.

Nita Vue told me she was always set on college, even when she was in grade school. Neither of her parents has a college education, and neither has worked recently, but they encouraged all of their children to focus on school. Nita, who is now a junior at the University of California-Merced, would come home from school and read while her siblings were listening to music. She always had good grades, and graduated from high school with a 4.0 grade point average. In general, her sisters did better academically than her brothers did, her mother, Mai Kao Vue, told me. “The girls were more into schooling, and the boys were more outgoing,” she said.

What is it about girls? The differences start young: Girls enter kindergarten more prepared than boys, and derive more satisfaction from pleasing parents and teachers than boys do, according to Buchmann. In one study, 62 percent of eighth-grade girls said that good grades were “very important,” compared to 50 percent of boys, according to Buchmann and her co-author Thomas DiPrete. Girls also have more of the social and behavioral skills that are important for succeeding in school from an early age, Buchmann said.

Boys often feel pressured to act “masculine,” which can lead them to eschew school —one study showed that boys put a lot of effort into school are often labeled as “gay” or “pussies.” Yet boys who don’t buy into those stereotypes and participate in music, dance, or art, do better than other boys academically in eighth grade, according to Buchmann and DiPrete. Those different levels of engagement can make a difference for college attendance: students who reported getting mostly As in middle school have a 70 percent chance of completing college by age 25, while those who get mostly Cs have only a 10 percent chance.

How parents raise children can exacerbate these dynamics. Pressures to be “masculine” are often stronger in lower-income or working-class families, Buchmann says. “The notion of what it means to be a boy and a man, especially among lower working-class boys, makes it such that they see doing well in school as something that girls and women do, and they don’t want any part of it,” Buchmann told me. This is especially true if boys see male role models like fathers or older family members working physical, blue-collar jobs that don’t require an education. They may assume that they’ll be able to work those jobs too, even if they’re disappearing, and think that doing anything else is too “girly.” By contrast, if boys have role models that are educated, they do better in school. Better-educated parents often teach their children a different concept of masculinity in which academic achievement is important. Moreover, they are more likely to know men in careers that require an education, and to have those men as their role models.

Percentage of Black and Hispanic American 25-to-29-Year-Olds With a Bachelor’s Degree or Higher, by Gender

Steven Johnson / The Atlantic

Nita’s brother, Por Vue, who is now 28, told me he thought he was deeply affected by his family’s lack of knowledge about the educational system. He actually applied to and was accepted into Cal State Monterey Bay, but his parents advised him to instead go to a junior college closer to home, he told me. But the junior college was overcrowded and he couldn’t get into many of the classes he wanted, so had to change his major. Then, while he was in college, he started a family, and later dropped out so he could support his wife and kids. He’s now a manager at PetSmart, where he makes around $13 an hour. “I think if I’d had a better family background, I would have had knowledge that other people had, and I would have been able to go further,” he told me.

Boys may also be more susceptible to short-term instant gratification than girls are, Buchmann told me. Boys may have a harder time slogging away at a college degree and paying for it when they know there are jobs available where they could get paid a decent wage, even if that job might not be a long-term proposition. I talked to a 31-year-old in Merced named Edward Vasquez who was one-and-a-half years into a two-year nursing program when he dropped out to take a job as a certified nursing assistant that paid $17.50 an hour. He’s since lost his job and is looking for work.

This is not to say that men can’t succeed if they don’t have a college education. I talked to a woman named Olga Jimenez who was raised by a single mother, and who went to college when her brothers didn’t. But her brother has still made a good career as a real-estate agent, and has a license and his own office, she told me. Meanwhile, Olga had to work three jobs at once while she attended Whittier College and is still paying off her college debt.

Yet Jimenez’s brother is the exception, not the rule. People with just a high-school diploma make, on average, $692 a week, compared to $1,156 for those with a bachelor’s degree. And the returns of a college education have grown over time. People with a bachelor’s degree or higher earn 14 percent more than they did in 1979, on average, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics; people with a high school degree earn 12 percent less.

As the gender gap grows, there are wider implications for society. People are more likely to pair with others who have a similar educational background; as more women get postsecondary degrees than men, women will increasingly find their marriage prospects dimming. This is already happening in some areas of the country—I wrote in May about a town in Ohio where the women complained that all the men were on drugs or unemployed, while the women held down steady jobs. Their daughters will face a similar future, unless they can get their sons to succeed at—and care about—school.

Original Article:

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[racingtoaredlight]

The Emeritus Report: Another CFB Playoff Ranking Hides A Grizzly Truth

As Blogger Emeritus of RTARL I reserve the right to my parking spot and posting space here as I see fit...at least until they get wise and revoke my sign-in credentials.

Today I’d like to beat a dead horse and repeat the same bit I’ve already done in 2014, 2015 and 2016 and determine if any team in the first College Football Playoff Rankings have played anybody. A couple quick refreshers to this exercise is wins against ranked teams reflect the ranking at the time of the game and in the event that a MAC team would appear in the top ten I would skip over them on principle. But thankfully that didn’t come up this season as America’s heartland rots with rancid midweek football.

#1 - Georgia Bulldogs

Somewhat surprising that in the fourth year of providing this content service to the world this is the first time Georgia has made an appearance. Guess it speaks to how often Mark Richt’s squads would not only underachieve but would get their underachievement out of the way before Halloween so as to not sneak into these top tens. But new coach Kirby Smart (pictured above) has created a dynamo in just his second season in Athens. The committee has credited their schedule for this top ranking but I’m not sure the reality bears this out.

Notable wins: at #23 Notre Dame, #17 Mississippi State

Sure Notre Dame sits at #3 in these rankings (more on them later), but that’s mostly because they barely lost to Georgia creating a hellscape of circular logic along with a couple wins over name programs. I know I speak for the nation when I say in these turbulent times of fake news and division breaking the country in two the last thing we need is people buying in to the idea that a win over Notre Dame is a worthy achievement like it’s 1988 or some shit.

I’m sure Mississippi State seemed like a deserving ranked team after pummeling LSU 37-7 but that Tiger team then went and lost a damn game to Troy.  Mississippi State then lost their next two games to Georgia and Auburn by a combined 400 points which of course meant that those teams were incredible instead of MSU and their rot cheese not being the scalp they were first considered to be. That LSU is somehow ranked again just shows the shameful results of SEC circle jerking when it comes to boosting their respective rankings. The whole thing makes me sick.

Verdict: Overrated, haven’t played anybody

#2 - Alabama Crimson Tide

Wow, don’t even need to ramp up this bit to point out that Bama’s schedule is putrid now that Florida State probably isn’t making a bowl game and if this were any team not named Alabama they’d be in the pool with Wisconsin and Miami.

Notable wins: #3 Florida State

The Seminoles currently sit at 2-5 which leaves Bama’s best to win either Texas A&M in College Station or a victory over Fresno State in Tuscaloosa. Oh but “eye test” the committee rolls out, apparently they didn’t best them giving the 35 against Arkansas which they couldn’t even cover.

Verdict: Overrated, haven’t played anybody

#3 - Notre Dame Fighting Irish

For all the moaning about how awful 2016 was I’ll still take it over 2017 since the Irish going 4-8 filled so many of us with light when so much else was dark. Now the country is still a festering boil but ND has a quality football team. Just how good is tough to say as their once mighty scheduling appears to have fallen to the wayside.

Notable wins: #11 USC, #14 North Carolina State

I’ll admit, on paper beating the piss out of Southern Cal looks like one of the best wins of the season but those are the very same Trojans that nearly lost to Texas (beaten themselves by Maryland of all people), Utah (losers of four straight) and actually did lose to Washington State which should stick to cheese and not football. Not to mention being tied with a MAC school in the fourth quarter at home, yikes. There have been a lot of paper tiger USC squads in recent memory but this is the fraudiest of them all.

I had to do a double take last Saturday when it said NC State was at #14 going into their game in South Bend. A quick perusal of their season shows a loss to South Carolina (vile) and wins over ranked foes Florida State and Louisville who are now a combined 6-9, most certainly not nice. The rest of ND’s schedule has pretty much been wins over the rest of the ACC dreck that NC State has gotten fat on, color this reporter unimpressed.

Verdict: Overrated, haven’t played anybody

#4 - Clemson Tigers

Wow, the defending national champions (who really should be ashamed about losing a game last season with DeShaun Watson after watching him eviscerate the Seahawks on Sunday) find themselves in the top four even with a loss to Syracuse on the books. The Orange may be 4-3 but one of those three was a loss to Middle Tennessee State, be better Dabos.

Notable wins: #13 Auburn, at #14 Louisville, at #12 Virginia Tech

Auburn’s best win is their close loss to Clemson since we refuse to recognize Mississippi State as any sort of slayed giant here. Those bums couldn’t even beat the aforementioned LSU and there are rumblings that their coach is getting fired this year.

Louisville remains the Forrest Gump of this exercise always appearing as a big win even though they’re clearly a broken team only good at quarterback who gave up 45 in a loss to Boston College. The dominant win in Blacksburg would be worth celebrating if I thought anything of West Virginia which to date is Va Tech’s biggest win until they knock off Miami this upcoming Saturday. Also worth mentioning that at once point in VT’s game against East Carolina they trailed 17-7 (that they won 64-17 is irrelevant). I don’t expect Clemson to lose again in the regular season so expect to see them in the playoff again despite my reservations.

Verdict: Overrated, haven’t played anybody

#5 - Oklahoma Sooners

They lost to Iowa State which didn’t turn out to be the massive shame it used to be (ISU debuted at #15 in these rankings even with two losses), but right now their whole life is set around a win in Columbus over Ohio State. There was a time when that alone should get a team in the top two but...

#6 - Ohio State Buckeyes

Just when they looked dead and buried the secrets of Penn State’s failings as a team all burst out of the chest at once and a 28-10 deficit turned into a thrilling 39-38 which signified Ohio State’s only win worth a damn (we’d need Nebraska and Army to stage a game to determine OSU’s second best win). One would expect a win over last year’s Big Ten champ and fellow playoff contender would be one of the season’s top cap feathers but...

#7 - Penn State Nittany Lions

We knew there was something amiss from this squad when they needed to score a TD on the last snap of the game to win in Iowa City (whether the Penn State coaching staff was distracted by all the sick and vulnerable children in the hospital next door as is the tradition is a matter of debate). One fateful quarter was all it took to knock a promising season out of their control.

Notable wins: #19 Michigan

There’s an Auburn situation going on here where their best win is the Ohio State loss in terms of performance against a supposed quality foe. Michigan came into the season seriously over ranked based on their talent level and they managed to loss the butt quarterback who had led them last season before that game in Happy Valley.  What we have here is a domino effect where reported great wins don’t stand up to the type of investigative journalism I can provide now that I’m blogging once a quarter.

Verdict: Clemson is overrated, hasn’t played anybody Verdict: Ohio State is overrated, hasn’t played anybody Verdict: Penn State is overrated, hasn’t played anybody

#8 - TCU Horned Frogs

I’m not about to sit here and give another Big XII team the time of day.

Notable wins: I dunno, probably some overrated Big XII teams that only got their rocks off by beating each other.

Verdict: Overrated, haven’t played anybody

#9 - Wisconsin Badgers

Wow, in a first for this column my first instinct here is that this team got hosed. Guess that’s to be expected when you’re not a household name and just a ragtag bunch of large kids who love the game and simply go out and win every week. Maybe if they win out the committee will show them some respect but I’m sure losing a game to the likes Syracuse will still be preferable so long as it gets a Dabo or two in the big money games.

Notable wins: Utah State, Florida Atlantic, at BYU, Northwestern, at Nebraska, Purdue, Maryland, at Illinois

You can see why many are worried that after this gauntlet Wisconsin could be worn out and not ready for a home stretch that includes such conference luminaries as Iowa and Michigan. FAU has one of the handsomest coaches going and is in the running to win their conference, BYU won a national championship in 1984 and Nebraska still sells out home games. And as mentioned before, Maryland beat Texas which as recently as like eight years ago was a big deal. I don’t see a Georgia win over any of these teams.

Verdict: Underrated, should be in the top four

Back under my rock now I shall go.