#stomps onto the bandwagon))

[spinningwebsandtales]

Lollipop

Nicholas D. Wolfwood X FemReader

Rating: T+

Warnings: Suggestive themes, arguing, and mild threats

Word Count: 3.1k

(A/N:) I am on the bandwagon y’all! I watched Trigun years ago and enjoyed the series thoroughly so I was skeptical about Trigun Stampede until I gave it a shot and now I am obsessed. Especially over this doofus right here although Vash holds a special place in my heart. So I had this idea and it’s mainly just a self indulgence thing that won’t leave me alone until I write it! So to all my fellow Nicholas fangirls this one is for y’all! Until next time happy reading! ~Countess

How you met Nicholas D. Wolfwood was a complete blur in your mind. While you no longer had a place to call home, you found yourself wondering the barren planet trying to find someplace you could live. Most towns didn’t like strangers, so it didn’t surprise you when you were ran out of several towns. People looked out for themselves and their own and you couldn’t blame them. If you had a home yourself, you knew you’d feel the same. But the next town seemed more welcoming as you were able to find a room and a place to grab a bite to eat. That’s when the trouble started, as a lone traveling female there was shady characters at every corner ready to take advantage of you. You could hold your own against them and even carried a weapon for protection you kept hidden in your boot underneath your pants leg. It was then while you were enjoying your dinner a few men jumped you, pinning you against the chair. Their lecherous gazes made you squirm and before you could even reach for the concealed weapon another man stepped in. He wasn’t the biggest man you’d seen, but he still had muscles hidden under the suit. His sunglasses pressed up on his nose hid his eyes from view while his black locks seemed like they hadn’t been trimmed in awhile. The five o’clock shadow dusting his chin gave him a handsome roguish air and despite your situation you swallowed at the attractiveness of the stranger.

“That’s no way to treat someone, especially a lady,” he spoke tossing the cigarette from his lips to the floor, stomping it out with his shoe.

“Mind you’re own business priest,” one snarled while nastily grinning at the newcomer.

The stranger seemed thoughtful for a moment before sighing, “I’m not really a priest. I’m more of an undertaker and I’ll show you just how good I am at my job if you continue to refuse to unhand your victim.”

“Teach him a lesson,” the leader of the men nodded towards the dark suited man.

You watched, speechless and a little curious. Not many people stood up for others, especially when it came to you. You had always had rotten luck, even as a child and here you were hitting the jackpot for once in your life. The leader of the men held onto you tightly while the other two surrounded your would be hero. You almost yelled for him to leave and save himself, but before you could utter a word the two thugs were on the ground, unconscious leaving the remaining one to gape in awe. The stranger dusted his hands, stepping over one of the fallen men.

“Now that I’ve proven myself a little, care to unhand her now?”

You were suddenly released while the last man standing fled, screaming like he’d been lit on fire. The stranger, that had put his neck on the line, fixed his ruffled suit coat, before he came towards you. You took a wary step from him, thankful for what he just did for you but you couldn’t help but feel a little uneasy as he was still a stranger to you. His lips quirked into a pleased smirk seeing your reaction before he held out a sheet of paper towards you.

“My fee,” he said waiting for you to take the offered paper.

“Fee,” you asked incredulously taking the paper from him. 30,000 double dollars smacked you right in the face, you suddenly felt faint. “What’s this for?!”

“Rescuing you of course,” he replied like it was the most obvious thing.

“I didn’t ask you to!”

“Think of it as a kindness out of my giving heart. I also gave you a big discount,” he reached into his suit pocket for a cigarette. He placed it between his lips before lighting it.

“Yeah giving heart. By giving if you mean giving out bills then I could definitely agree. I don’t have this kind of money! I barely had enough to get something to eat!”

He tsk’d, “Such a shame.”

You watched him walk away, trails of cigarette smoke the only thing lingering around. The other patrons watched the  exchange between you two cautiously. All you could do was shrug before sitting down and finishing the rest of your meal. 

You paid with what little money you had left before leaving the restaurant. You had to find where the next town is and how far as you knew you couldn’t stay now. Not with that so called undertaker causing a stir only to charge you and abandon you to whatever fate that those criminals were cooking up in vengeance. What you didn’t expect was to see the same man that had the gall to stand up towards your attackers and to say you owed him money leaning against the building you had rented a room in. He looked up at the sound of your footsteps, his dark eyes crinkling in delight.

“Well if it isn’t my favorite gal,” he greeted warmly like he hadn’t wiped his hands clean of you not twenty minutes ago.

“Since when,” you asked a ting of annoyance in your voice.

“Since I found out you rented out the last room,” he replied cheerfully. “Think you can help your hero out here?”

“I thought I owed you money, you creep,” you snarled.

“That’s water under the bridge,” he waved his hand. “I helped you, you help me. That’s what we’re put on this dust ball for isn’t it?”

“Not necessarily.”

He glared, “Look, if you share your room with me, I’ll forget about your debt to me.”

“I shouldn’t have a debt in the first place,” you argued.

“My lifestyle isn’t free y’know? I promise I won’t do anything untoward towards you,” he patted the tightly bound cross shape luggage as a vow.

You sighed not wanting this argument to continue any longer. Maybe if you helped him out this once you’d never have to see him again. “Fine. But if you do I’ll kill you in your sleep.”

“Fair enough.”

Night fell over the rough town quickly and you found yourself sitting stiffly on the bed as the night creatures yowled across the darkened desert. Your weird dark stranger seemed to be quite at ease as he leaned back on the tattered couch snoring up a storm. While you wanted to sleep, you worried about him doing something once your guard was down, also his snoring was making it impossible. The thought of smothering him with a dust covered pillow was becoming more tempting by the second. You had walked so far and in such harsh conditions, your body was screaming to get some much needed rest. His snoring seemed to be calming down some and your eyelids were winning the battle against staying awake. You finally succumbed falling into a deep slumber. 

A hand patted your cheek.

“C’mon wake up. It’s time for check out,” a chipper voice pulled you from the darkness.

“Wha?”

“Good morning beautiful!” Your stranger was in your face causing you to stumble backwards only to fall off the bed. “Do you know you drool in your sleep? It’s kinda cute.” 

“Oww,” you groaned. “What time is it? And why were you watching me sleep?!”

He chuckled, “Time to leave and you’re adorable. Less mean when you’re sleeping.”

“Like you’re such a saint.” You stretched, popping your spine. “You can go now, my debt is paid as ludicrous as it was.”

“Nah,” he replied. “I think we need to stick together a little longer. I heard you asking about the next town and I’m actually heading that way myself. Why not go together?”

“Because I am really beginning to hate your guts,” you rolled your eyes. But you couldn’t help but think how much safer it would be if you traveled with him. You began to ponder if it would be worth the headache. The want of companionship won out and you agreed. Now you were walking right behind the man watching the cross sway against his back.

“Nicholas,” he spoke out of the blue.

“What,” you asked.

“The name is Nicholas D. Wolfwood.”

“(Y/N). (L/N). I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you but it really wasn’t,” you grinned wickedly.

“So mean,” he turned away knowing you’d stay right with him.

A couple days passed and you found yourself warming up to the undertaker known as Nicholas. When he wasn’t teasing the daylights out of you, he was actually fun to be around. While you knew you would probably pay for it later he shared his water and what little food he had. He knew a lot about the desert and he shared information with you during the trek and around the campfire. It wasn’t every night you both got to share in the warmth of an open flame, it was only if Nicholas deemed it safe enough. He wanted to keep you both hidden from bandits or cut throats who would kill you both in your sleep and take everything from your corpses. You shivered violently at the thought of being snuck up on. The nights that you both couldn’t afford a fire he would curl up against you, sharing each other’s body heat to fight the cold of the night. One night you punched him in the nose when he got too touchy feely. Nicholas no longer tried groping you.

“Y’know for a priest you sure aren’t very angelic or pure,” you said one evening while watching him across the fire.

“Not a priest,” he spoke ripping at the meat in his hand. “Undertaker.”

“Whatever,” you rolled your eyes. “I just figured people of your kind would be pure.”

“Nah,” Nicholas shook his head. “This place steals purity as it steals moisture from the ground. I’m sure you’re not as pure as you’re trying to lead on.”

You scoffed, turning from the flames to hide your blush. “I’m as pure as they come, thank you.”

He chuckled hiding his movements by the crackling flames. You looked up, startling at the closeness of him. His face leaned into yours before taking your chin in his calloused fingers.

“Want me to sully you before the world does,” a mischievous glint sparkled in his eyes. You refused to answer, blushing beet red before decking him in the cheek. Laying sprawled out on the sand while holding his throbbing cheek, Nicholas laughed like a madman.

“I was joking,” he continued to laugh. “Ow.”

“Your demeanor said otherwise,” you argued. “I’m going to sleep. Don’t touch me or I’ll do worse than punch you.”

He set up still rubbing where you punched him. “I knew you were packing a weapon.”

You ignored him for a moment until curiosity won out. “How?”

“Your gait is different on your right leg. It was either blisters on your feet or a weapon tucked in your boot that catches on your pants leg.” He moved back to the other side of the fire so you would relax a little more. “You never complain about your feet hurting so it had to be a weapon.”

“You’re smarter than you look,” you snorted turning away from him again.

“Not just another pretty face,” he chuckled darkly. “Get some sleep. I’ll keep watch and I promise not to do anything to you.”

“Better not Nicholas or I’ll show you what I’m packing in this boot.”

“Knife,” he simply said and you stiffened.

“Shut up,” then you went to sleep.

Weeks later and you were beginning to wonder if the town you both were walking to even existed. The desert was becoming harder to bear, especially after you both ran out of water a couple days ago. Food wasn’t too hard to come by, as long as you didn’t mind eating bugs raw or the rare lizard every now and again. Sometimes you would come across a plant that carried a little water. Nicholas always let you have the most of it and it made you feel a little guilty. He would console you that he was used to living this way. It wasn’t until the next day you were beginning to go crazy from lack of water. Nicholas seemed unperturbed as he hummed to himself kicking at the sand every now and again, like a childish dance. Your mouth felt like sand and you prayed that you would arrive to your destination soon. Nicholas turned around to check on you, a lollipop clenched between his teeth instead of the ever present cigarette. He waved at you, crossing his eyes. You wanted to punch him again for enjoying himself while you were miserable. It made you wonder if he treated other people like he did you, cause he seemed to really enjoy getting under your skin. But you wanted a sucker too and you wouldn’t get candy with a salty attitude. His throat bobbed up and down as he swallowed. Your mouth moistened a little as you tried to drool in want. You shook your head refusing to beg him for one stupid lollipop. A little green monster kept it’s place in the back of your mind, when Nicholas popped the treat from his mouth licking his lips. You whimpered at the sight of saliva glistening in the sun. Desperation was making you weak at the thought of any kind of moisture. But you wouldn’t stoop so low as asking for the sucker his perverted mouth was lavishing.

“Nicholas,” you cringed at your voice.

“Hmmm,” he looked back trying to hide his look of pleasure. He had been teasing you on purpose just waiting for you to break.

“Would you happen to have another lollipop,” you tried to ask disinterested.

“Sorry sweetheart,” he smiled wickedly waving the treat back and forth. “This is my last one.”

“Oh,” you said in disappointment. “That’s okay, I didn’t want one that bad in the first place.”

He sat the cross shaped package down sliding down the dune that you were standing at the foot of. “Don’t be shy now. You can have mine.”

“No,” you shouted quickly before clearing your throat. “No thank you that’s yours. I can wait until we make it to the town.”

“That could be days,” he replied. “Think you can hold out?”

“I’m sure,” the unsurety in your voice made him crook an eyebrow.

“Want a lick? Say ah,” he shoved the pink lollipop in your face.

“I’m good,” you dodged.

“Don’t be shy now,” he cackled. “It’s just my saliva. Your mouth has to be soooo dry.”

“No it’s not,” you screeched when he poked you in the side. He slid the sugary treat into your mouth. You clamped your lips around it, cheeks blood red before moaning at the little bit of moisture seeping into your dry mouth. He watched you close your eyes in bliss while the sucker moved around in your mouth, the stick turning circles.

“Better,” he asked leaning closer causing you to shrink back a little.

Your flustered face betraying you, “A little.”

“Good,” he said reaching back into his suit pocket. You thought he was going for another cigarette to replace the sucker only for him to pull out another one. He unwrapped the blue treat sticking it in his mouth.

“You said you didn’t have another one!”

He smirked, “I thought you really wanted mine. That’s what you asked for.”

“I did not! I specifically asked if you had another one,” you grabbed his collar. 

“I heard you say you wanted mine by the look in your eyes not your voice,” he replied matter-of-factly.

“That doesn’t even make any sense!”

Nicholas grabbed your wrists pulling you closer into his firm body. Wrapping one arm around your waist as his one hand kept both of your wrists in a strong grip.

“Maybe I wanted to give you an excuse to stop dodging me,” he purred. “Now that we shared an indirect kiss maybe you’ll let me take a shot at a real one.”

“Not going to happen,” you trembled trying to yank from his grasp.

He leaned down, nose brushing against yours before removing both of the suckers from your mouths. The sun relentlessly beating down but completely forgotten as you drowned in his gaze. You couldn’t focus on the fact that your lips were chapped and your mouth still dry. All you could see was a man that had irked you but cared for you in his own way. You hadn’t known him long but he had been more genuine than anyone you had ever met. He brushed the hair from your eyes before slotting his lips against yours. While chapped, there was still a softness to his mouth and he tasted like strawberries and blueberries from the suckers he had indulged in. Nicholas moaned at the sugary taste still lingering on your tongue as he explored your mouth. You shivered as he petted your tongue searching out what little taste you had left. Seconds later he parted from you, panting from the lack of air in his lungs. Your lips already swelling a little from his diligent lips that left no part of your lips unexplored. You melted against him, leaning your head against the bare part of his chest, where he kept his shirt buttons unbuttoned.

“Lollipop,” he cooed.

“Hmm,” you grunted still unable to form words just yet.

“I think I’ll call you lollipop from now on,” he grinned. 

You opened your mouth to protest the ridiculous pet name, to which he silenced with another kiss. While he still got on your nerves you couldn’t deny there was something about Nicholas D. Wolfwood that was beginning to grow on you.

“Do you have any friends,” you asked when he let you go again.

“Yeah I have several.”

“How do they deal with you?”

“I can grow on a person,” he grinned.

“Like a fungus? Mold? Canker sores?”

“You can be really mean (Y/N),” Nicholas pouted. “See if I give you anymore treats.”

“How shall I go on,” you scoffed walking off. Nicholas scampered after you picking up his cross. He slid on the sand before getting back to your side. He took your hand kissing the back of it before you both started back on your journey not knowing what would happen next. You couldn’t help but look forward to the unknown as you walked hand in hand with your annoying undertaker, that destiny brought to you.

[benes-diction]

We'll begin with a spin Travelling in the world of my creation What we'll see will defy explanation

[ridiculously-over-obsessed]

number 3 for the drabble prompts please <3

Hello anon!! I know it’s taken me a while to get to this, I’m sorry, it’s just been a very busy and stressful time lately, my anxiety has been wackadoodle quite frankly. But I’m here, and I’m writing it!! 

I saw @wordsofmyreality has started a 31 Days Of Angst challenge and I really hope she doesn’t mind if I jump on the bandwagon because I do love angst 👀🥺 some of the prompts I have left fit the prompts, so those will be saved for those days, others don’t and I’m going to try and get as many of them written today as possible, I promise!!

So, without further ado...

(3) “Please, don’t leave.”

Beca perched on the edge of the bed, fingers playing with the edge of the little black dress she had worn for her date that night. She didn’t understand what was happening, why this had... what had happened to the night they’d been having?

They had met at a nice restaurant, not that far from Beca’s apartment, one that she knew did good food without being outrageously expensive or so fancy that Beca would be uncomfortable or out of place all night. She had swayed in a blue dress, hair cascading down her shoulders, eyes glittering with the nerves that Beca herself was feeling that had somehow soothed her own. They had awkwardly stumbled through hellos and fallen into an uncomfortable silence before Beca had laughed and shaken her head and they’d realised that yes, they had drifted apart after college, but that didn’t mean they were strangers now.

Once that realisation had been reached and the wine had arrived, the conversation had flowed easily, they had laughed and talked for hours, long after the dessert had been finished (much to the annoyance of the waiters who wanted to bus their table). They had left the restaurant hand in hand, Beca leaning into her as the light buzz of alcohol took away those annoying hang ups she had about PDA and let her just be with her. They were still laughing and joking as they walked back to Beca’s apartment, neither expecting their date to go past the front door but she had insisted on walking Beca home.

And then they had appeared, out of the dark of an alley not a block from Beca’s apartment building, with rough hands and glinting blades, and before Beca could comprehend what had happened she was on the ground and there was a foot colliding with her ribs as cold metal pressed against her throat. Beca couldn’t see her, where was she? Pain exploded through her again as something hard collided with her cheek and someone stomped on her ankle. But she couldn’t cry out, couldn’t scream, couldn’t ask about her because the knife at her throat was pressed so close that any movement would surely slice it wide open.

Beca could hear her, could hear muffled cries of pain and sounds of pleading. She needed her. Beca had to get up and help her. But they were strong and they were everywhere, and Beca couldn’t do anything with this knife at her throat, what use was she to her dead?

But then, as suddenly as they had appeared they were gone, along with Beca’s purse and her phone, but she didn’t care about that. She didn’t care about the pain she was in, or the fact that she couldn’t stand because her ankle was definitely broken. Beca dragged herself over rough concreate to where she lay, running her shaky fingers through her hair.

“Chloe? Chloe talk to me... please be okay...”

Beca wasn’t sure what had happened next, she remembered soft hands gently guiding her onto a stretcher, she remembered the doctor who had smiled softly and tried to reassure her that everything that would be okay, the nurse that had oh so carefully cleaned her wounds and splinted her fractured ankle (they had said she was lucky it wasn’t broken), everything had been a haze of pain and morphine, her one clear and crystal thought: Chloe.

Where was she? Was she okay? What had they done to her?

They had just found their way back to each other. Beca had finally been on the best date of her life with Chloe, she knew it would be this good, that it would always be this good, so why was this happening?

They had finally let her see her Chloe. She looked so small covered in all the tubes and wires, her flame red hair the only thing that reassured Beca that it was still her underneath all the medical equipment. It was a quiet grief that sat in her stomach, that swarmed inside her as she held Chloe’s hand, that made her whole body feel numb and this whole situation so surreal.

“Please, don’t leave.” Beca whispered against the back of Chloe’s hand, “I know it hurts, I know they messed you up bad, but please don’t leave... I already lost you once, my life sucks without you in it, please don’t leave me.”

Beca sat like that for hours, whispering against Chloe’s hand, watching the machines do everything for her, listened to the steady beeping, trying to understand what all the numbers meant so she would know how Chloe was doing, if she needed to call someone to come and help her. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, Beca wasn’t supposed to be grieving for a relationship that could have been, for a life that she could have had. She was supposed to hold Chloe’s hand as she held hers, to smile at her as Chloe told another story about the kids in  sixth grade class, to lose herself in the deep, intoxicatingly blue eyes that she had never been able to forget.

“I love you.” Beca’s voice cracked as she gently brushed Chloe’s hair from her eyes, “I love you so much that it hurts. It hurts more than all the cuts and bruises and my fucking ankle, it’s like this hole in my chest, this hole that I was carrying around with me for the last three years and then there you were again and I felt... I felt complete again just looking at your face. So please... please Chloe, please come back to me again, please don’t leave again, I just got you back...”

Beca sniffed as wiped furiously at her cheeks with the back of her hand, jaw clenched so tight she wouldn’t be surprised if it snapped.

“I have been grieving since the day I left for L.A. about what we could have had if I had just been less of a coward and told you how I feel. I have a great career and a nice apartment and a good life, but I swear I would give all of it up just for you to be okay. You are all I have ever needed Chloe, everything I have ever wanted... just- just open your eyes, or squeeze my hand, just do something, anything that tells me that you’re going to be okay, that I don’t have to spend the rest of my life grieving for what could have been.”

Beca’s head fell against Chloe’s shoulder, sobbing heavily as she felt hope starting to drain from her. She was going to lose her all over again, Beca had been such a fucking coward, why had she waited to tell her how she felt? They could have had a life by now, they could’ve been married, they could’ve had kids, they could... 

Beca felt a hand caress her hair, head lifting as her wide and surprised eyes met the impossibly blue ones she saw in her dreams.

“C-Chlo?”

A small smile, obscured by the tube in her throat but still distinguishable was all it took Beca to let out another loud sob, cupping her cheek in her hand as she rested her forehead against hers.

“Oh Chloe... I’m so sorry, I tried to get to you, the knife I-”

A hand, slow and sluggish, rested on her cheek, a finger gently pressing to her lips as Chloe shook her head a little. Beca squeezed her eyes shut as she ran her thumb over Chloe’s cheek, brushing the tear that slid down her cheek away. When her eyes opened she watched as Chloe pointed to herself, frowning a little.

“What, what is it? Are you in pain?”

Chloe’s finger moved to her heart, eyes fixed intently on Beca’s as she moved her once more to rest over Beca’s heart. Beca let out a shaky breath as she grinned at Chloe, sniffling as she pressed a soft kiss to her forehead.

“I love you too.”

[inkandpen22]

Permanent Chaos (5/?)

Pairing: MGK x Female!Reader

Word Count: 2.4k

Warnings: none

Part Summary: Colson and Y/N talk over coffee and Colson shows her a hint of what it’s like to be a part of his world. 

Masterlist

The Starbucks in the courtyard has since emptied out with everyone having to return to work after their breaks. Colson and I are two of the only remaining people inside. My hands are wrapped around cup, it’s nice and warm. I had to remove the lid to cool down the substance. We’ve been going back and forth, sharing facts about ourselves. 

"Have you always wanted to be an actress?” 

Studying the dark brown drink in my cup I recall memories from before I moved here.“No, in all honesty. I never saw myself as an actress.” 

He doesn’t try to hide his surprise. His stunned reaction makes me giggle. 

"If you don’t mind me asking, why do you do it then?” 

I sway my head from side to side. “It sorta just worked out. I was out shopping with my mom one day when I was in high school. Nicole approached us. She was in town on business and encouraged me to at least visit Los Angeles so we could set up a meeting. The next thing I knew I was in auditions and I got my part on The Seasons of Life a few months later.” 

“Wow,” his brows remain raised as he glances down at his drink. “If you weren’t acting what would you be doing?”

Sitting up straight, I remember what I once thought was my dream life. “First I would go to college and…” I wave my hand, dismissing the thought. 

Colson presses for me to say it. “you’d what? Come on!” He chuckles, grinning brightly. 

Rolling my eyes, I tell him. “I’d go to art school.” I bite my lip timidly. “Yeah... that would be nice.” I pick at the cardboard wrap on the cup. 

There’s a comfortable silence between us until I change the subject. “Enough about me! What about you? If you weren’t a singer, where would be right now?” 

He looks over in the distance, almost envisioning where his life would be. “I wouldn’t be anywhere else,” he shrugs but is pleased, “I’ve always loved music. Being in music allows me to do what I love.” 

I nod, almost impervious of him and his contentment. 

“However,” he adds pointing at me. “If it were up to my parents, I would have some office job probably.” 

"Eh, those jobs are so bland. I vote you stick to concerts," I giggle. 

He laughs and it’s contagious. 

My gaze lands on his arm as he reaches for his coffee. His entire arm is covered in ink. I was taught by my parents to despise tattoos. My mom would say, “why would anyone ever be willing to damage their body like that?” Finn jumped on that bandwagon. Whatever Mom says is considered fact to him. For the longest time, I agreed with them. That is until I met Colson. He was made to have tattoos. 

 I’ve seen many people in this city with tattoos but his aren’t just markings for the body, they’re art. 

“Which one are you interested in?” He questions, watching me as I admire them. 

“All of them,” I mumble, examining each one individually in awe. 

Back where I’m from tattoos are frowned upon quite frankly. When you grow up in a place no different than Pleasantville, that’s what you get. Especially, in South Carolina. 

“Do you have any?” He asks with amusement in his voice. 

I shake my head rapidly, “never in a million years!” Comprehending how he could take my response as an insult I’m quick to explain. “I mean, I would never be allowed.” 

His brows scrunch together. "Never been allowed? You’re an adult. Who’s stopping you?” 

I can’t help but snicker a little. If only it was as simple as he makes it sound. “My parents, brother, Nicole, Steph..." 

Colson narrows his eyes at me as he leans forward in his chair. “You’re your own person. You should be able to make your own decisions.” His argument is lacking and quite frankly too optimistic. 

“It’s complicated…” My eyes fall onto my fingers picking at the cardboard rim of my coffee cup. 

“If you say so… except all of them are keeping you from expressing yourself.” 

I roll my eyes as my lips form a smirk. It’s unbelievable, he makes everything sound so black and white. “You’ll never understand,” I conclude. 

“I understand more than you think.” 

Lifting my eyes up, he stares at me with a sincere expression. 

“Prove it,” I challenge him. 

Based on the change of his features, I have given him exactly what he wants.

"If you say so, Princess," he chuckles, rising from his chair. I stare at him in confusion and he offers me his hand. "You coming?" 

I smirk, slipping my hand into his. He grins and bites down on his lower lip. I'm going to regret this. 

_______________________________________________

Driving around with a guy I’m only acquainted to is completely unlike me. Everyone who knows me would be beyond freaked out at the current scene. It's kind of riveting. 

“We’ve been driving for almost an hour," I snicker. 

“It’ll be worth it, trust me!” 

“Where exactly are we going?” 

“The mystery is half the fun!” Colson enjoys the antics. 

I reach forward and change the radio station. Yungblud's "Parents" plays and I leave it. "Love this song," I mumble to myself. 

Colson glances over me, evidently surprised. "You know Dom's music?" 

"What? Just because you view me as a 'goody-two-shoes' doesn't mean I live under a rock." I giggle and hold my finger for him to wait a second. He chuckles. I begin to rap the lyrics from memory. "Yeah, the teacher fucked the preacher. But then he had to leave her. Had to wash away the sins of a male cheerleader. Hi, nice to meet ya, got nothing to believe in. So let me know when my breathing stops!" 

Colson turns up the volume to blasting and we then shout the chores together. I can’t remember the last time I had the chance to drive with the windows down, blasting music, and acting my age. I’ve forgotten what’s it like to just be a young girl, not working all the time. 

Once the song fades out, he turns down the volume. 

"So, she can rap too!" Colson looks at me, rather impressed. 

I dismiss his compliment with a wave of my hand. "Only if I've listened to a song a dozen times." 

"Not gonna lie, that was hot," he chuckles. 

Warmth rushes to my cheeks and I struggle not to smile. My head rests against the window as I watch the ocean become a blur as we drive down the PCH. 

_______________________________________

Colson drives down the road until there’s a dead end. To my surprise and then confusion, he parks the car. 

“We’re here!" He announces before jumping out of the car. 

There’s nothing here. Bushes, sad-looking trees, and dirt. I watch as he walks over to a clearing between some bushes. 

He peers over his shoulder. “You coming?” 

I take a deep breath and swing open the door. Following him to wherever we are, I spot a sign. 

                                   No Trespassing! 

“Hey Colson, that sign said no trespassing. We should go back.” 

He doesn’t even slow down as he walks down a weak path. “I’ve seen it, they never do anything.” 

With every passing moment, this road trip becomes more and more out of my comfort zone. Nicole and my entire team for that matter have guided me to prefer the indoors these past few years. I can’t remember the last time I spent an entire day outside in nature or not following a schedule. 

There’s a light at the end of the tunnel when the brush ends and the path opens up to a clearing. The sound of waves hitting the cliff before us echoes throughout the area. 

I cautiously step closer to the edge and look down to the bottom. “Wow!” I say to myself breathlessly. 

Colson peers down to the shoreline beside me. He then suddenly removes his jacket and moves on to his shirt. 

My jaw drops and I quickly direct my attention to the coastline far from him. I bring my hand to the side of my face shyly, blocking my sight of him undressing. “What the hell are you doing?” 

He chuckles behind me. I’m glad he can find so much amusement in my discomfort. “Cliff diving!” He says a matter of factly. 

“What! No you couldn’t! It’s illegal in these parts! You could get killed!” 

“Or, I’ll jump, have loads of fun and do it again!” He debates. 

I huff, crossing my arms over my chest. “Fine, you live out your death wish. I won’t be participating!” Whipping around and avoiding even sharing a short glance with him, I stomp toward the direction we came. 

He drops his shirt on top of his jacket in the grass and jogs to catch up to me. He squeezes my shoulder, using the other hand to plea with me. I whip my head around to face him. That's when I notice his tattoo-covered chest. 

“Oh let’s do it, Princess!" He encourages. "It’ll be thrilling! An adventure! Reckless! Something different!” 

Did he just call me Princess? No one has ever called me that and he has twice now. 

Colson takes my hand into both of his and I’m thrown off by the action.  “Be spontaneous with me,” he requests softly. 

Currently, I’m debating with myself. The youthful part of me is screaming ‘hell yes! Let’s do this!’ The businesswoman part of me is wiser than to take such a risk. I check over at the edge again. My willingness to do such a rebellious action is new to me. There’s no one here to see us. Paparazzi isn’t around to take pictures. Perhaps the cause of my newfound bravery is because of him. 

I take a deep breath and nod. “Okay, let’s do it.” 

As if he already knew I would eventually accept, his grin only grows. 

“Well then, I suggest you strip unless you prefer to sit around like a wet dog for the hour ride back.” He winks at me, biting his lower lip. 

In a normal case, I would be insulted by such a forward request but considering where we stand I find it humorous. After thoroughly checking the area for any cameras or strangers, I slip my dress over my head then kick off my wedges. An odd feeling stirs in my stomach and my heart is pounding. My comfort zone is shot to hell. 

Tossing my hair up in a ponytail, Colson scans my appearance. 

“Excuse me Mr. Baker, it’s not nice to stare,” I tease, yanking at my finished ponytail to tighten it. 

Unfazed, he snaps out of it and faces the shore. His hair wisps around in the breeze, falling over his face. The perfect strands are just as light as his eyes. His jawline could cut a diamond. His skin, as smooth as porcelain but covered in various tattoos. 

“Excuse me Miss Voss, it’s not nice to stare,” he repeats my words back to me. 

I snap out of my daze. “Wasn’t staring,” I argue, now turning towards the coast. 

“Nothing to be ashamed of, I know I'm hot.” His lips curve into a loose smirk. 

My time with him is often one big eye roll. I slowly approach the edge of the cliff, peering over. 

“Nervous?” He checks, looking down at the water for himself. 

“Nope." I lie. 

“Scared?” 

“No.” 

“Have you jumped from a cliff before?” 

I exhale deeply. “No.” 

He shifts his body to face me and I flicker my eyes to the side to meet his gaze. 

“And you’re not afraid?” He checks. 

“Not at all,” I admit without hesitation. 

He snickers, whether it be because he’s impressed or he doesn’t believe me. “How come?” 

I shrug, a brief hum for an answer escaping me. “The unknown doesn’t scare me, only challenges me… and I love a challenge,” I wink with a sly grin. 

His warm hand interlocks with mine and I nearly yank mine away yet because of the non-threatening look in his eyes, I stay. In fact, a part of me likes the feeling of his large hand in mine. It makes me feel safer than I have in quite some time. 

“On three” he exhales, staring off into the distance. 

I nod. 

“One," he counts. “Two...”

I exhale. I can't believe I'm doing this! 

"Three!" Colson shouts. 

I jump. Out of instinct, I squeeze Colson’s hand tighter. My voice travels in a scream as the two of us fall towards the crystal blue surface. He was right, this is such a rush! We torpedo into the water and the cold temperatures engulf me. Colson and I lose touch at some point then I kick to the surface. Wiping the excess water from my face, Colson pops up from under the water in front of me. Somehow even when wet and disheveled his hair still appears effortlessly pristine. 

“Wasn't that a rush!” His arm snakes around my waist. 

A part of me is begging for me to protest but I suppress that part of me. Instead, I rest my arms over his shoulders. He takes the opportunity to guide my legs around his waist. Shading my eyes from the sun with my hand I measure the height of where we jumped. 

Still struggling to catch my breath, I can’t help but smile widely. “It was a one-time opportunity!” 

“That’s up to you to decide!” he argues wittily. 

I lower my hand and his blue eyes see right through me. My eyes flicker down to his lips and impulsively, I slam my lips to his. I'm not sure what comes over me, but I needed to kiss him. Colson wastes no time, bringing a hand behind my head, deepening the kiss. We break apart only to catch our breath. 

“I believe you’ll prove to be a bad influence,” I say lightheartedly but between the lines with the utmost seriousness. 

“That depends on how you look at it,” he argues, his breathing inconstant.

Hungrily, he brings his lips back to mine and I melt into it. Colson is everything that’s bad for me. He’s an indulgence that’s disguising itself as a need. He’s toxic and I’m ignoring the warnings. The warmth of his palm radiates onto my face as he cups it. 

Against my lips, he grins. “You were spontaneous! Always be spontaneous!” His words, nearly sounding like a beg, settle in me. 

His crystal blues eyes stare into mine and I can’t help but be addicted. I'm falling for a fairytale.

________________________________________

Masterlist

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[waywardmoeyy]

4am Food Coma

Dean Winchester x Sister!Reader

Word Count: 1,784

Warnings: insomnia, just some familial fluff. 

A/N: This is as much of a feel-good story as I can write late at night. Haha. I hope you all like it! 

My Master List

You sighed as you stared at the drab bunker ceiling. Your body was practically aching from exhaustion, but you mind was racing. Random, deep-rooted memories flashed through you, some causing your heart to pound with regret. This lifestyle had really been taking a toll on you lately, and you knew it was only going to get worse.

You pulled the scratchy, plaid blanket up to your chin and sighed. You could go back to your room, but Dean was snoring to heavily on the other side of the wall. You typically fell asleep before him, but tonight, you just couldn’t get your mind to shut off.

Grabbing your phone beside you, you unlocked the screen and checked the time. 3:34am.

“Well, shit,” you muttered to yourself with another sigh. There was no way you were going to get any sleep at this point. You had promised Sam that, in the morning, you would go with him to some outdoor clothing store a few towns over, and he was always up at the ass crack of dawn. So, that meant you probably only had an hour or so of time to get any sort of shut eye.

The tip-tap of heavy feet approached you from behind the couch. You turned toward the noise, sitting up a little to peer over the back of the couch. In the scarce light, you found your oldest brother approaching you.

“Hey, what the hell are you doing up, sweetheart?” Dean asked, shooting you a concerned look. You sighed and leaned back onto your makeshift pillow.  

“My mind has decided that now is a great time to replay every horrible thing that’s happened in every hunt I can remember. It’s making me nuts. You know me, I’m the one who is always saying that what’s in the past can’t be changed, just let it go. I’m not usually one to dwell, but here I am.” You watched Dean as he plopped down on the edge of the couch, lightly leaning against your feet.

“Sounds like a helluva nightmare, Y/N. Anything I can do to help?” That was a great question, and usually the one you were asking your brothers. You pursed your lips, then gently shook your head.

“I dunno. I think I just need some sort of distraction. I’ve tried watching TV, but my mind just drifts off into another world.” You rolled your eyes. “And I promised Sam I’d go to that store he loves. He wants to leave early. I’m going to be a zombie.”

Dean chuckled as he watched you, probably laughing at the dark rings that were undoubtedly plaguing your eyes. He patted your ankles and smiled.

“I have an idea. Grab a sweatshirt and meet me at the car.” You furrowed your brow as you watched him launch to his feet.

“Wha-wait. What? No. I’m not going out like this. Dean, it’s almost four in the morning! Where are we going?” You slid out from under your blanket. You were clad in baggy pajama pants covered in cat silhouettes, and a tank top that absolutely did not match. Not to mention the quarter sized hole under your right armpit.

“Relax, Bitz, no one’s going to care where were going. Just grab a sweatshirt and some shoes. You have five minutes.” You rolled your eyes at your big brother. He was always up to some sort of shenanigans. But, the two of you were a lot alike, so you usually trusted his crazy schemes.

“Fine, but I’m not going to say I’m excited until I know where we’re going.”

“Calm down, Bitz. You’ll like it.” Bitz, short for Itsy Bitsy, was the nickname Dean gave you when you were too young to talk. Since you were the youngest, and quite obviously the smallest, he thought it was funny. But over three decades later, he still called you by that nickname more than he ever used your real one.

One more unsure sigh left your lungs before you turned towards your room, in search of a jacket.

“I remember there was a place just like this in Omaha. We always stopped when we drove through. I totally forgot this place was here.” You peered down at the menu of the dodgy diner. Dean sat across from you, studying the same menu.

The two of you sat in the corner of the small eatery, only joined by an older man at the bar, obviously a trucker, and a homeless man drifting off on the other side of the building, still half-clutching a cup of coffee.

Dean smiled and nodded, peering up from his menu. “Yeah, it hasn’t changed a bit. It’s like they are all exactly the same. Still better than Biggerson’s, though.” You laughed.

“Yeah, definitely. Their milkshakes are the best! I’m hoping they still are.”

Dean grinned. “Well, let’s find out. I’m not going to eat a big meal then go back to sleep. But, I’ll never deny an Oreo milkshake.” Dean slammed his menu shut and nodded. “What’s your poison? No, wait, lemme guess. Mint chocolate chip?”

Your eyes lit up. You hadn’t had a mint chocolate chip milkshake in years. Most places in the middle of nowhere didn’t have that flavor. Vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry, you cold almost hear a waiter say in their ‘I don’t want to freaking be here’ tone. But this small chain in the center of the country had them, and they were heavenly.

“It’s like you know me or something!” you teased him, before closing your own menu.

Dean chuckled as he eyed the server as they approached your table. “It’s like we’re related.” He winked, before turning to the exhausted young man. He couldn’t have been older that twenty.

“What can I get you?” he droned, his eyes half open. You glanced over at your brother, then back to the young man.

“A mint chocolate chip milkshake please,” you beamed. You smiled, realizing that you were already starting to feel better. You watched as Dean ordered, feeling like you didn’t have a care in the world for the first time in a while.

You all had been hunting for months without any sort of real break. No wonder your mind was on the verge of exploding. You definitely needed to have more breaks and distractions to counterbalance the violent, crazy crap you dealt with day in and day out. But, your brothers were work horses, so that always proved a little difficult.

“Hey, do you think drinking a giant, sugary milkshake is going to be the solution to get me to sleep?” you realized, leaning back in your heavily cracked booth.

Dean shrugged. “Sugar actually helps in a weird way. You eat or drink a bunch of it, fill yourself with sugar, then crash and sleep. Or, the shear amount of food will put you in some type of food-induced coma.” You nodded slowly. It did make sense, weirdly enough.

“Do you think that’s the healthiest thing to do?”

“No, Bitz. But it doesn’t hurt every once in a while. It’s healthier than pulling an all-nighter, then running all around town the next day.” That was true. Plus, there was no way you were going to say no to sugar, whether it was just before sunrise, or sunset. You hadn’t hopped onto Sam’s kale salad bandwagon quite yet.

Within minutes, the server returned with your glorious milkshakes, and a full refill container. The moment your treat was placed down in front of you, you smiled up at your brother in thanks.

The next twenty minutes were quiet, other than the ravenous slurps that came from your straws. Dean finished a few minutes before you, instantly leaning back in his seat.

“Holy shit, that hit the spot.” He smiled as he closed his eyes, instantly in a food coma. You giggled.

“How you didn’t get a single brain freeze baffles me,” you teased, scooting your cup a little closer. A thin line of red light beamed along the horizon, reminding you that you had basically pulled an all-nighter. But, you didn’t care nearly as much as you did before. A sense of peace had enveloped you, or maybe it was the beginning of your own food coma. Either way, you felt a heck of a lot better.

“Thanks, Dean,” you whispered, offering a frozen smile. Dean returned the gesture and nodded.

“Hey, it worked when we were kids. I was sure it was going to work now.” You furrowed your brow.

“What?”

“Yeah, when we came to one of these as kids, Dad would let us order milkshakes. I know you remember. But, what you probably don’t remember is that once you got back in the car, you were out like a light. I don’t even know if the sugar ever got a chance to get to you. I think it was just the comfort food or somethin’.” Dean laughed.

Now that you thought of it, you didn’t really remember the ride afterwards. You just remember waking up just after sunrise, either in the car or arriving home. And, well, that would explain why.

You closed your eyes for a minute, feeling the intense fullness in your stomach. Maybe you were skipping the sugar high yet again, and satiety was leading you straight to real exhaustion.

“Wow, you’re a lightweight,” Dean poked as he lifted from his seat, tossing some money onto the table. You huffed out a chuckle, a little too tired to come up with a witty comeback. “C’mon kid, let’s get you home. You’re going to need some sleep if Sam is going to drag you all over hell tomorrow—uh, today.”

You nodded as you slowly slid out from behind the table. Your brother was already five steps ahead of you, stomping his way towards the door. You slowly followed behind, smiling as you watched him toss a five-dollar bill onto the sleeping homeless man’s table. Then, he opened the door, and waited for you to exit with him.

The moment you settled into your seat, you leaned your head back, resting your head on the top of the back rest. Your eyes were heavy, and your body was practically deadweight. Dean peered over at you as the engine roared to life. He patted your shoulder before putting the car in gear and heading for home.

A long, shuddered sigh left you as you settled into your seat. It was going to be a good twenty minutes or so before you were home. But, your eyes weren’t going to stay open for that long. So, you closed them as you yawned. Within moments, sleep slowly enveloped you, and you weren’t going to fight.

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[elindae-writes]

Every cringe streamer or youtuber makes a music channel. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. Megs is no different. I bet he'd force all the decepticons to sing for him. Starscream is just shrieking at the top of his lungs and though Soundwave is tone-deaf, he can drop some sick beats. The vehicons have some pretty deep voices. I'm pretty sure they'd be supporting the main singers. Megatron waves around his sword randomly trying to fit in with music and look like he knows what he's doing.

This ask made me really ponder Megatron's streaming style. The reason why is because I think he would alternate between wanting other people in his stream and at other times just wanting to stream completely alone.

He would wave his sword around as if it's a conductor's baton. Then he'd accidentally get it stuck in the wall and blame Starscream.

Okay, I figured it out: He'd probably force everybody to live out this extremely painful and cringey sing-song nightmare--on Tuesdays.

But on Wednesdays? On today's Wednesday? Megatron would go into Survival Man Mode. He watched too many survival shows and decided to get onto the wilderness survival bandwagon.

Let's see how our planet's ruler is surviving in the woods!

"hello," Megatron rasps in the camera. He is near a highway. "today i shall prove how inferior your pathetic planet is by easily surviving upon it. look, look how weak it is. pah. i will prove myself the true lord of earth today."

The cars get into an accident due to their shock of seeing him. "yes. i am shocking, am i not?" Megatron nods and then sprints across the road and into the woods like a whitetail deer.

"i know the basics of survival. first, i shall gather a source of water!" Megatron sees one of those tree stumps with leftover rain water in it. It has leaves floating around. He reaches down and slaps it with his talon, splattering water and foliage everywhere. "h2o has been procured."

"shelter," Megatron says as he zooms in on a bird's nest. "i must create a woodland abode of my own, like the one that this flying rat has constructed here."

He snaps down several trees and creates a very terrible teepee in the middle of the woods. He then settles down in a crossed-leg pose underneath it. He's hunched down a bit because it's too small. Megatron ignores this. The camera is propped onto a rock.

"this is easy. why do you humans suck at surviving on your own planet? mhmm."

A metal purple shape flies through the sky. The stream notices but Megatron doesn't.

An actual bird lands near the camera! You can see its blurry feet.

"a new stream viewer! what a lovely chicken."

It's a bluejay but he doesn't know that.

It begins to peck the camera.

"DREAFUL CREATURE, FOOLISH FLIGHTED BEAST, DO YOU KNOW NOT WHOSE STREAM YOU PECK UPON?"

He fires his fusion cannon at the bird. It misses and the birds flits off unharmed.

There is now a giant fire.

"well. that fulfills the next basic need: warmth. i shall be warm. winter is coming soon." It's summer.

He fires his fusion cannon a few more times and there is now a very large fire. "fantastic. warmth! wait. it's coming towards my teepee."

The flames lick at the moss near the base of his "teepee" which is still just precariously stacked trees btw

He crouches in front of the flames and waves his arms around in front of the fire. "do not encroach upon your lord's dwelling. DO NOT BURN DOWN YOUR RULER'S HOUSE"

The teepee is lit on fire. Megatron's optics flicker. He decides to try and save his "house." He waves his arms around in the hopes of stoking out the flames. They just grow taller. He stares at it for a few moments and then turns and leaves as the forest burns.

"well. okay..."

He clears his throat and ignores the forest fire now behind him. "it was the tree's faults for being weakly susceptible to flame. they should've decided to grow as flame-proof trees. stupid wood. perhaps there is some non-flammable wood in this forest? mhmm? i shall gather my next basic survival need: food." He pulls out a cube, puts it to his mouth, but then pauses with his mouth still half-open. "no... i will prove my superiority over your planet by proving that i can survive on its resources alone!"

He then throws the cube into the sky. It hits a mid-flight bird. "in fact! i shall even make do without my spare emergency cube!"

The purple metal drone flies over the trees again. It screams. Megatron still does not notice.

Megatron puts the spare cube down in front of a rabbit. he leans down and whispers to it very gently. "eat. food. this is yours. you are set now. thank me later." The rabbit sits on it.

Megatron then shuffles off.

Megatron crouches down and eats an entire bundle of leaves off a bush as if he is some woodland creature.

"disgusting," he mutters, "but i shall make do and survive. far too green."

There are screaming noises. He moves the camera to record the source of them. We see several terrified people playing frisbee at a nearby park. Yes, Megatron was just in a park this entire time. The frisbee clonks into Megatron as the people scream.

"you dare throw a disc of plastic at your ruler?!" Megatron scoffs. He begins to stomp at the humans.

A groundbridge opens up. Optimus emerges, battlemask drawn and weapons already out and pointed. "MEGATRON."

"hello! oh, how interesting it is to see you here, Orion. how interesting. i see that you happened to start your own wilderness survival stream coincidentally shortly after i started my own. what a happenstance, right?"

He coughs up a salad's worth of leaves and then shakily points at a confused Optimus. "you're copying me," Megatron hisses. The bluejay from earlier lands on his outstretched talon tip. "copycat! get your own section of woodland area to livestream in!"

"...MEGATRON?"

Megatron's optics flicker and go dark. "uh," he coughs. "perhaps i should have held onto that spare cube. that stupid bitch rabbit stole it." He collapses due to hunger and lands faceplate down onto the fallen frisbee. It turns out that Megatron couldn't survive off of just leaves after all.

[hargreeveslftv]

The Occult: DOOMSDAY | an umbrella academy series

chapter tweleve (finale) | word count: 4,589

CHAPTER TWELVE | finale  ( song | song to say goodbye - placebo )

"God, why are so many streetlights out?" Klaus asks uncomfortably, as the trio finally slowed their pace once the sound of the helicopters faded away. 

"Vanya kinda just destroyed a whole block. Something probably happened to the power for this section of the grid." Ben rationalised, his hand still held tight by Melanie as they walked towards what glowed as a more well lit area, when a idea sparks in her mind. 

"Oh, hold up." Melanie says, stopping the two men as she jumps, pulling her knees up and stomping her feet down as she lands, the soles of her boots glowing purple and illuminating the darkness like glow sticks. 

It was a while ago, but she knew paying for the light up boots off aliexpress would be a good decision one day.

"I love you so much." Klaus smiles, the light now shining on their path and illuminating the small area around them. 

"Love you too, Kaykay." Melanie smiles, as they start walking again. 

It doesn't take them incredibly long to get to the bowling alley, the sound of pins falling and families cheering as they approached the building with colourful neon out front, the look of the place not changing at all in the last thirteen years since she'd been there last. 

Melanie cringed as she put on the bowling shoes, the cream, red and blue not matching her outfit at all, or supporting her aching feet as her siblings spoke around her. 

"Look, I hate to be the one to say this, but everyone needs to prepare." Luther says gravely, Diego responding defensively in an instant. 

"For what?" 

"To do whatever it takes to stop Vanya." 

Allison immediately hits him with her notepad, Melanie still eyeing him aggressively as she sat beside Five. 

"We may not have a choice, Allison!" 

"Bullshit. There's always options." Diego calls him out, Melanie quickly jumping on his bandwagon. 

"Exactly. Options we wouldn't have to think about if you'd just listened to all of us in the first place." She spits bitterly, enough time passing between the collapse and that moment for her anger to resurface. 

"What kind of options do we have anyway?" Five asks, earning a shrug from Diego as Luther stands. 

"Look, whatever we decide, we need to find Vanya. And fast, she could be anywhere." Luther says. 

"Or… here." Klaus interrupts, shaking the paper in his hands and pointing to an ad as they all gather around him. "Look at this." 

"That's right. Her concert is tonight." Diego remembers, his attention getting pulled away by one of the employees as they approach. 

"Hello," she smiles cheerfully, "I hate to intrude, but my manager says if you're not gonna bowl, you gotta leave." 

Melanie rolls her eyes, Diego turning to them and asking who's turn it is while Luther picks up a ball, sending it over his shoulder and into someone else's lane. 

"That doesn't… ugh, move." Melanie instructs him, him side stepping as she uses her powers to pick up a ball and throw it down their lane, looking to him with a smirk as Allison taps her notepad. 

She's our sister. 

"We're the only ones capable of stopping this. We have a responsibility to dad." Luther comments, earning a groan from Ben. 

"Would you shut up about him for five minutes?" He asks, both Klaus and Melanie raising their eyebrows at his instant reaction, while the others turn to Diego. 

"To Dad? No, I've heard enough about-" 

"He sacrificed everything to bring us back together." Luther cuts him off, Melanie standing and crossing her arms as she looks up to him. 

"Yeah? Well he sacrificed all of us without our permission for us to be together in the first place." 

"I'm with Luther on this one." Five agrees, Melanie throwing her hands up in frustration as she walks a few steps away towards Allison instead. "We can't give her a chance to fight back. There are billions of lives at stake. We're past trying to save just one." 

"Hey uh, you know, guys, maybe I could help." Klaus interjects, looking to Ben hopefully before Luther waves him off. 

"Now is not the time." 

"No, let him finish." Diego defends, before Melanie can even open her mouth to do so. "He saved my life today." 

"Really?" Ben asks, as Klaus stands up, not correcting him once again. 

"Is it true?" Luther asks. 

"Yeah, yeah. I did… take credit for it." He corrects, Melanie sending him a proud smile as he speaks, "In fact the real hero, was Ben." 

Luther looks at Klaus like he's grown two heads, while Diego looks a little less confused, but still not understanding. 

"Today, listen. Today, he punched me in the face. And earlier at the house, he was the one who saved Diego's life, not me. Melanie held on to both of us and dragged us here, too." He explains, but instead of acceptance or even joy, a look of disgust washes over Luther's face. 

"You're unbelievable, Klaus." He says with a shake of his head. 

"You want proof, is that it?" Klaus asks, picking up a bowling ball, "All right. I'll give you proof." 

"Alright, it's showtime, baby." Klaus sniffs, Melanie taking a step away from Ben who gets in position to catch it, and watching as Klaus throws the ball. 

It soars through the air, and keeps soaring through the air, until it lands on the floor, completely phasing through Ben and rolling off behind them. 

"Shit, okay look," Melanie says, turning to everyone, "it's true. I saw the whole thing myself. He's telling the truth." 

"Yeah, well, I don't exactly trust you either." Luther comments, her head snapping to him as his comment processes. 

"Excuse me?" 

"You've been in each others pockets for years. Of course you're going to defend him. And don't bring up the whole witches and energies thing again to try and back him up." 

"The hell are you doing?" Diego asks, his defenses going up in support of Melanie as he looks to Luther. 

Melanie takes a step forward at his words, eyes narrowed and fists clenched as the power within them starts to swirl.

"Until you went all planet of the apes on us, your powers could have been replicated by a quarterback with a bag of steroids and a chip on his shoulder. Don't question my credibility when the same could be asked of you." She replies, him simply scoffing as he looked between her and Klaus. 

"Is there anything that could ever stop you two from wanting to be the center of attention?" 

"You know," Klaus interrupts, "I liked you a lot better before you got laid. Which you were ridiculously high for, and the girl thought you were a furry-" 

"Stop!" Luther yells at him, Klaus rolling his eyes as he scratches his head and looks away. 

Allison, fed up with all of them, grabs her notepad, turning and walking away with Luther quickly chasing after her. 

"God," Five sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, "I miss Ben. At least he has some sense in this family." 

"I'm honoured." Ben shrugs, crossing his arms as a smile creeps onto his face. 

Melanie sits down where Luther and Allison once sat with a sigh, glancing up to Ben with a raised eyebrow before a woman and her son approached. 

"Excuse me!" She greets happily, "it's my son Kenny's birthday today, and uh, wouldn't your son be happier playing with kids his own age? Assuming it's okay with your two dads." She asks, looking at Klaus and Diego for an answer as Melanie's hand flies to her mouth to muffle her laughter. 

Five looks up at her like he's never been more insulted in his life, sitting forward slightly as he snarls. 

"I would rather chew off my own foot." 

The woman ushers her son away as a clinking noise pulls his attention away, Melanie sitting silently with tears running down her cheeks from muffled laughter, finally fully breaking as she and Diego lock eyes, the look of despair on his face making her burst out laughing. 

"That," Ben sighs, "was golden." 

"If I was going to date a man, you'd be the last man I would date." Diego says in disgust, more at the fact the woman thought his standards were so low than the relationship she was insinuating. 

"You'd be lucky to get me." Klaus replies, picking up a ball and throwing it down the lane. 

Melanie finally sat straight again, sleeves of her shirt wiping her tears away as she watched the ball roll away, noticing Five had walked off down the couple lanes. 

"You're both pretty bad options, let's be real." She comments, both men looking at her with insulted looks on their faces. 

"That's low, even for you." Diego replies, taking his turn and rolling his eyes at her as she shrugs. 

"She isn't wrong." Ben adds, Klaus groaning as he sat down next to Melanie, throwing his arms across the backs of the seats. 

"Enough from you, Squidward."

"How long has it been since we came out bowling?" Melanie asks, changing the subject as she got up, picking up a blue splatter design ball and standing at the top of the lane. 

"I think we were like, god, maybe seventeen?" Klaus wonders aloud, Diego filling in his gaps. 

"The seven of us snuck out under Dad's nose, god knows how we managed it." He smiles, looking to the ground as memories of the night flood back. "We bowled until closing then did everything we could to avoid going home so we didn't have to face the old man's fury." 

"Oh, I remember that night." Melanie says quietly, sparing a glance at Ben before making her shot, the ball knocking down most of the pins but leaving her with a spare. 

And then, only a couple minutes later, Luther and Allison made their return. 

"All right, where's Five?" Luther asks, looking between them. 

"He left." Diego replies simply as Klaus joins them again after his turn. 

"Oh for the love of… where did he go?" 

"Didn't tell us." 

Melanie nods her head towards Luther as Klaus stands in front of her, rolling her eyes as she hands him the popcorn they shared, a small smirk of a smile on his face as Luther starts up again. 

"Well, we're not waiting around for him. The concert starts in thirty minutes." 

"I tell ya, I hate not being at things early. I was three hours early to my Mindless Self Indulgence concert actually-" Melanie remembers fondly, before Diego cuts her off. 

"What's the plan?" 

"Well," Luther starts, "I think that, uh… We go to the Icarus Theater." 

"That's a location, not a plan." Diego deadpans, before a look of disbelief crosses his face, "What, is that all you got?" 

Luther looks around nervously, not confirming or denying it and making Melanie scoff as she walks around him, standing beside Diego who takes a step towards him. 

"Look, you wanna be Number One, fine. But you're gonna have to get us on the same page, because right now, we're all over the place." 

"You're right." Luther agrees, "we need a plan." 

But a plan doesn't get the chance to form, as the attention of the siblings turns to the people coming through the doors, guns raised and uniforms one of the weirdest things Melanie had ever seen. 

In an instant, bullets are flying. The six of them scrambling for cover as the gunfire comes from all directions, Melanie ducking behind a bench with Ben at her side. 

"Who the hell are these guys?!" Diego yells over the deafening noise. 

"Maybe they're here for Kenny's birthday!" Klaus yells back at him. 

"No," Luther yells, "I'm pretty sure they're here for us." 

"What are they, stormtroopers?" Melanie asks, watching as Diego peeks up over the bench, throwing one of his knives and sending one of the goons falling backwards into the sound system, the lights dimming as Bay City Rollers blasts through the bowling alley. 

With the bullets halting for a moment, Melanie spares a glance over the top of the bench, watching as Diego and Luther hurled objects at the dozens of attackers. 

Using her powers, Melanie pulls shoes from the shelf behind the counter, sending it into the heads of the attackers she could see from her position before ducking back into cover again. 

"They're blocking the exits!" Klaus yells, Diego turning to Luther. 

"What's the plan now, Luther?" 

But instead of looking to Luther, everyone else looks to Allison, who is pointing at the bowling lanes. 

"The lanes! Let's go!" Luther calls, before they all make a run for it. 

Melanie pushes up from behind the bench, grabbing Ben's hand and pulling him up as she runs for lane eight, breaking into a sprint as she ran down the slippery wood lane before using her powers to break her fall as she skids head first into the pins. 

Ben is the first to make it through, standing at the end of the lanes and yelling encouragements while watching each of them pass before following Melanie as they all ran out of the building. 

"We're going to the theater, now." Melanie commands, pacing out in front of them as Luther hesitates for a moment, not used to Number Eight being the one making the plans. 

Wordlessly, they all follow her, quick on their feet as they burst through the lobby of the theater, the sound of classical music already filling their ears as they run up the stairs, Allison stopping them before they can run into the concert hall. 

I need to go alone.

Allison writes, holding it up for them to see. 

"Allison, I can let you do that, she is… beyond reason." Luther argues, only for Diego to cut him off. 

"You hear the music? It's started." 

"Do you honestly think she's gonna listen? After everything that's happened?" Luther counters. 

"Why don't we give her the chance to try?" Melanie asks, as Allison stares him down. 

"We don't have time for this." Klaus says as he moves behind them anxiously, shaking his head at their antics. 

"Okay." Luther nods, Allison turning and walking in without them. 

The five of them watch her go, before Diego looks to Luther. 

"You're using her as a distraction, aren't you?" 

"Our best chance to incapacitate Vanya." 

"And what are we gonna do once she wakes up? Cause I don't know if I gotta remind you or not but our house is kinda gone." Melanie speaks, only to be instantly brushed off as Luther moves forward. 

Melanie shakes her head in disgust, the last straw coming and going as she separates herself from the group, hands up in innocence and frustration as she lets the three men follow Allison's path, Melanie's own leading in the opposite direction as she leaned up against the wall instead, sighing as she looked to Ben who sat beside her. 

"I don't think these idiots would have survived if we actually ran away when we were sixteen."

Ben laughs as he looks down, kicking his feet in the air with a shake of his head. 

"To be fair, I think you, me and Five were basically the impulse control of all of us, so once you left, they were pretty much screwed." He says, drawing a less sad sigh from her this time, as she leaned her head against his arm for a moment, before looking up to him. 

"How come I can see you right now?" She asks, him shrugging lightly. 

"I don't know. But I'm not questioning it." 

"Then neither am I." She smiles, before Klaus comes around the corner. 

"The lookout. They should have just said "hey Klaus, go stay out of the way of our macho contest, we'll be done with the ruler soon."" He says bitterly, looking up at Ben and Melanie before gesturing outside. 

"You guys up for burritos?" 

-

"I owe my life to whoever invented food trucks." Melanie sighs, leaning against the side of the truck as she, Ben and Klaus waited for their burritos to be made. 

"Remember when we lived off tacos for like a month cause we were broke and that guy with the truck had a crush on you?" Klaus asks with a laugh, looking to Melanie who let out a laugh herself. 

"That guy was a creep." Ben comments, both of them nodding in agreement. 

"True. He didn't actually have a crush on me, but he did make the eyes at you every time we were there." She smiles, bumping  Klaus who waved her off as the cook in the food truck called for them, Klaus accepting the food with a thank you before handing Melanie hers. 

"I didn't ask for cilantro." He says sadly, Melanie taking the burrito from his hands and replacing it with the one from hers. 

"Don't worry, just a mix up." She says, before taking a large bite and closing her eyes with happiness as she finally got to refuel after all the use of her powers through the day. 

"Do you hear gunfire?" Ben asks, making her eyes snap open as she follows him to stand in front of the truck, Klaus hot on her heels.

But before they can run across the street to the theatre, Klaus is pulling Melanie against the front of the truck, hiding from the person she barely got a glance at before being pulled out of the way. 

"Is that the lady we ran over?" She questions with a whisper yell, taking a bite of her burrito as she tried to peek around the corner. 

"This is it, mofos. Go time! Go time!" Klaus whisper yells back, running out into the street while Melanie and Ben follow him. 

"What about the gunfire?" Ben asks as they all run across the street, Melanie slacking behind a couple steps as she takes another bite of her burrito, running after them as Klaus shouts over his shoulder. 

"Come on man, we're the damn lookouts!" 

Throwing his burrito to the side, Melanie drops hers on the ticket booth counter, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand as she follows the two as they bust through the doors. 

"Guys, it's Cha-Cha!" Klaus calls out, jumping the stairs as they enter the concert hall, Melanie instantly ducking down between seats as the gunfire from the bowling alley echos around them once again. 

"Get down!" Melanie yells, yanking Klaus by the arm and pulling him down beside her. 

She ducks down, breath coming in ragged bursts as she tries to avoid the bullets flying towards them, before looking up in shock as she watches Klaus's hands start to glow a bright blue neon. 

Before her eyes, she starts to see Ben glowing too, in a different form than the one she saw him in the last couple hours, her hand flying to her mouth in shock as suddenly, The Horror lives again. 

Ben shouts in effort and pain as the tentacles erupt from his body, reaching out and throwing the attackers with ease. 

Blood rains down as they're ripped apart, Melanie barely avoiding the gore as it fell from the sky above her, arms held over her head for safety as the attackers finally realise, they are no match to Ben. 

As all of the attackers lay in various states around the theater, Klaus smiles proudly, Melanie running past him to Ben and wrapping her arms around him tightly. 

"Now who's the lookout?" Klaus says with a laugh. 

Hearing the violin still playing behind them, Ben takes Melanie's hand as she turns, looking up to Vanya on stage. 

As the six of them watch on, Vanya starts to transform, the intense blue glow of her powers so bright they're blinding, all of them barely able to see as the colour bleeds out of her suit, leaving pure bright white in its place. 

The earth shakes beneath them, and Melanie looks to the ceiling with a scared look instantly washing over her as cracks start to appear in the stonework. 

"Oh god, not again." She speaks quietly, her fear robbing her of her voice. 

Melanie, Ben and Klaus move closer to the other four as they huddle together, Diego speaking over the unrelenting music. 

"So, how do you wanna end this thing?" 

"Surround her. All right? We come at her from all angles." Luther yells. 

"So it's a suicide mission." Klaus says gravely, Luther nodding regretfully. 

"Yeah, but one of us could get through. It's the only chance we've got." Five explains, agreeing with Luther's plan. 

"Are we all in?" Luther asks, all of them agreeing, accept for one.

Melanie looks beside her, taking in the faces of the people she loved, for better or worse, before nodding in agreement, her attention pulled away as Allison shakes her head no. 

"Stage left, stage right. You guys take the front." Luther instructs the group, ignoring Allison's protests. 

The group burst into action, Five, Klaus, Melanie and Ben running through the seats and taking position at the end of each row, Diego running up the stairs leading to the backstage area. 

Fear and a sense of finality ran through Melanie's veins as she watched for Luther and Diego, tears burning her eyes as the horror of their situation finally dawned on her in full. 

Realising her voice wouldn't make it across the space that separated them, it escaping her anyway, Melanie looked up to Diego, who glanced at her from the stage. 

"Love you, brother." She signs, too far away to see the tears in his eyes that rise as he takes a ragged breath. 

"Now!" Luther calls, his voice cutting above all of the noise as they all charge ahead, throwing themselves towards Vanya and silently praying that at least one of them would make it. 

But they don't even get close, as Vanya swings her arm out, the blinding white light shocking them all as the air is knocked from their bodies, all of them flying backwards as the wave of massive power throws them back. 

But instead of landing, all of their bodies hover in the air, Melanie crying out in pain as a vein of light connects each of them back to Vanya, the energies within her depleting more and more by the second as Vanya holds them up, draining the life from all of them. 

None of them see Allison, standing behind Vanya with a gun pointed to the back of her head. 

With two swift pulls of the trigger, one each side of her head, Vanya is brought to her knees, the sound breaking her concentration and sending all of them  falling to the ground. 

Melanie lays on her back, gasping for breath as she watches the beam of pure energy leaving Vanya, and hurtling through the ceiling and into the sky above them. 

Allison catches Vanya as she falls backwards, completely knocked out and unconscious, the rest of the siblings scrambling to their feet and running to them. 

"Is she alive?" Luther asks first, as Melanie and the rest of the brothers fall to their knees beside her. 

"Yeah." Allison nods, her voice barely a whisper, but assuring all the same. 

"Oh thank god." Klaus breathes, Diego smiling as he and Melanie looked at each other, and for the first time in a long time, they both had hope. 

"We did it, we saved the world." Luther says in shock. 

But, the happiness isn't allowed to last, as Klaus looks up behind them all. 

"Uh, guys?" He says, getting their attention as he points to the sky. "You see that big moon rock coming towards us?" 

Melanie rises to her feet, standing behind Klaus as tears fall down her face. 

"So much for saving the world." He says grimly, taking the dog tags around his neck in his hands, gripping them tightly. 

"If only Sir Reginald could see us now." Diego mutters. "The umbrella academy. A total failure." 

"At least we're together in the end. As a family." Luther acknowledges. 

Melanie finally let's the sobs dying to escape her body take over, the feeling of Ben's hand on her shoulder and Diego's hand reaching for hers the only thing keeping her upright as she cries. 

"This doesn't have to be the end." Five says determinedly, all of them turning to him as he speaks. 

"What? What are you saying Five?" 

"I think I have a way outta here, but you gotta trust me on this." He says, Melanie instantly stepping forward. 

"Of course we do." She says as she wipes her tears away, but looks around with a angry frown on her face as the three men disagree. 

"Well then we might as well accept our fate, because in less than a minute, we're gonna be vaporized." He argues, Diego the first one to turn back around. 

"What's your idea, then?" 

"We use my ability to time travel. But this time, I'll take you with me." He explains. 

"You can do that?" Diego asks, hope starting to creep back into his voice. 

"I don't know. I've never tried it before." Five admits honestly, the rest of them looking between each other as they contemplated the possibility of making it out. 

"It's worth a shot." Melanie says quietly. 

"What's the worst that can happen?" Diego says, coming around to the idea while Klaus shrugged in a somewhat show of support. 

"You're lookin at it. A fifty-eight year old man inside a child's body, so there's that." 

"Oh, what the hell? I'm in." Diego agrees. 

"Yeah, whatever. I'm in." Klaus adds, Melanie nodding in front of him. 

"So am I." 

"Me too." Luther agrees, looking to the floor where Allison still sat with Vanya in her lap, "Allison?" 

She nods, Luther turning to Melanie and Klaus before speaking again. 

"What about Ben?" 

"Great, yeah, he's in." Klaus speaks for him, a smile working its way on to Melanie's face as she sees Ben smirking behind him. 

"Okay great. Luther, grab Vanya." Five instructs, Luther immediately bending down and picking her up in his arms. 

"Wait, should we be taking her?" He asks, and Melanie reaches out and slaps his arm as he speaks. "I mean, if she's the cause of the apocalypse. Isn't that like taking a bomb with us?" 

"The apocalypse will always happen and Vanya will always be the cause, unless we take her with us and fix her." Five insists. 

"That's good enough for me." Melanie nods, as explosions start ringing out. 

Standing together, the Hargreeves children link hands, Melanie taking a deep breath as she stands between Diego and Klaus, holding onto their hands with as strong a grip as she can. 

They all look up to the sky, watching the shattered pieces of the moon fall closer and closer as the sound of electricity sparks around them, Five straining as he wills all of the power he's ever had to come forward, a portal opening up above them. 

"It's working!" Luther yells, looking around in shock as Five does the same. 

"Hold on! It's gonna get messy!" He warns, yelling as loud as he can so they can hear him. 

With the electricity whirling at a fever pitch, the blue blinding light engulfs them all, lifting their feet off the ground with its power. 

And with one final look to each other in the moment, the Hargreeves siblings are gone. 

thank you for reading the first story of The Occult series, DOOMSDAY.

[artistcheez]

So, Apparently My Bandwagon Post was Popular, so Have a Full (ish) Story

“And who are you?”

Glork looked up from his papers at the very large human MP.

“Evansen. Officer Jim Evansen.” The MP stated.

Glork raised what would’ve been an eyebrow. “Says here you got a husband and a human Hyperactivity disorder.”

“Yeah, what about it.” Evansen tapped his foot impatiently, waiting for clearance onto the ship. “C’mon dude, there’s people behind me waiting to board this, and I don’t want to have to deal with rowdy space Marines for eighteen months. It’s been nearly an hour”

Glork sighed. He could say so much right now about this, and whoever came up with this arrangement waas crazy. Who would put someone with ADHD and a homo partner on a cruizer? His uppers would have to hear about this.

A woman with a spinning wheel strapped to her back stomped forward with a talons-on-cauker board voice and screeched at Glork. “Hey, we need on already, it’s getting hot out ‘ere!”

“Calm down ma’am.” Glork said, remembering his mother on the home planet who’d worked all day and came home to spin the finest singles of yarn to sell for extra money. “We’re just having a problem with his paperwork.”

Glork was quickly caught off by the fishwife in camo. “Complications, my foot! You’re a homophobic asswipe who can’t even keep a line to get onto a mixed military cruiser from gettin’ rowdy. If my husband was stationed with us, he’d send a real letter to your commanding officers!”

Glork gulped and blinked all three eyes. This lady was serious. Evansen picked up his bag from the dusty ground of red dirt and shouldered his bags. Glork looked down at the plastic table filled with files, and handed Evansen his meal ticket, realizing he was defeated. Evansen thanked him, and was on his way to the sleek giant that was the U.S.S. Marianne.

[beccarooni]

A helping hand

Whumptober 2019 submission! Pairing = Thor & Hulk, can be read as pre-slash. Not my best but I haven’t written anything in a while so I thought this would be a good excuse for me to get back on the bandwagon! 

Sakaar was a place Hulk had grown to like. A begrudging sort of like, really. There were some parts of it that were genuine - like angry girl. Angry girl was probably his favourite thing about Sakaar. He also liked the way the crowds smiled at him, in a strange sort of way. It wasn’t as good as when angry girl smiled at him - like she was genuinely happy to see him. No, these people, the crowds, they were just happy to see something get smashed. By Hulk or whoever. Still, it was better than earth. Better than anger and hate and fear. 

The parties on Sakaar he was forced to attend as champion, however…

Hulk would never admit it out loud, but he hated those parties. Everything was loud, everything was bright, and when angry girl wasn’t there it was just him, standing in the center of a room, letting people clamber over him and ask for his photograph. He didn’t like that. He liked naps, play fights, and this strange kind of Sakaarian soup that made his tongue burn. This had none of those. But, angry girl liked them, and so he tried his best to like them too.

Luckily for him, Thor seemed to hate this as much as he did. It was kind of funny, weirdly - seeing the God’s tiny features screw themselves up in a glare at whoever decided they wanted to look at the new ‘lord of thunder’. His lightning may have been capped by the device in his neck, but his stormy glare was decidedly not. 

People steered clear of him. And since the only person Thor knew there was Hulk, people steered clear of him, too. 

This was probably the best party he’d had in ages. 

“This is ridiculous.” Thor shook his head, leaning heavily against the brightly-patterned counter, almost having to yell over the volume of the music that pounded out from the speakers. 

“He’s not even that good.”

Hulk turned to glance at where Thor had decided to fix his death-glare, watching as the Grandmaster’s hands flew over a device that seemed to be causing the sounds he was currently being subjected to. 

“Thor not like music?”

“I like music. I just prefer it when it doesn’t make me want to cut off my own ears, that’s all.” Thor sighed, standing up from his stool to get closer to Hulk’s ear. 

“When can we go?”

“Soon.” Hulk was honestly glad that Thor was here. He’d never admit it, but being at these things alone...it was bad. Not scary, of course. Hulk didn’t get scared of anything. The people here knew he could crush them with his pinkie finger, if he so desired. That was why they liked him. 

But the loud noises, the bright lights - it all seemed eerily similar to a part of his life he’d rather forget. The part where flashes meant bullets and noises meant soldiers. The one part he and Banner could both agree was one of the worst things they’d lived through. 

Two drinks were abruptly shoved onto the table in front of them by a small robotic figure, as the Grandmaster’s voice echoed from seemingly every corner of the room. 

“A toast, for the grand champion!” 

The room erupted in cheers that hurt Hulk’s ears, the floor shaking with stomping and the air filled with the noise of hands, finds, and other assorted appendages clapping. Hulk bared his teeth in what he hoped was closer to a grin than a grimace, and tried his level best to sit through it all without breaking something. 

He met Thor’s eyes, and felt something stir in his chest when his face seemed to crease in sympathy. 

“Come on.” Thor’s hand tapped lightly against his arm, and he raised his own glass towards him. “Let’s just get this over with.” 

Hulk grunted his agreement, and roughly clanked his glass against Thor’s, throwing the foul-tasting liquid down his throat. 

Maybe in the 2 years he’d been here he’d gotten used to the drink. Or maybe Thor was just really that puny, because almost the second the tiny god had taken a drink he was doubled over with coughs, letting the glass drop from his hand to the floor below him. 

“By the Norns.” Thor managed between gasps, forcing himself upright and seeming to immediately regret it, judging by the way his hands immediately flew out to steady himself against Hulk’s arm. “What was that?” 

Hulk sniffed the glass, shrugging his shoulders. He didn’t really know what anything was, here. People had told him what he needed to know, and rarely did that coincide with what he wanted to know. He knew the names of the weapons that lined the walls of the training area. He knew how to greet the grandmaster. But outside of that, there really wasn’t much people had deemed him worthy to know. 

The lights shone bright again, as the music increased in it’s tempo. More people began to pour in from the doors, and by now, Hulk knew it was time to go. 

“Come on, Blondie.” 

Hulk brought one huge hand to Thor’s back, trying to both somehow guide him away from the bar and to ease the fit of coughing that somehow still hadn’t subsided. He’d expected Thor to flinch away, to bat at his hand and proclaim himself unneeding of help. So it came as kind of a shock when Thor actually leant into it, clumsy footsteps following where Hulk was directing with an ease that was quite honestly a little frightening. 

It was with a sudden surge of overprotectiveness when he steered Thor towards the doorway, clamping his hand over the demigods shoulders as he pushed his way through the crowd. 

“Home, now.” 

***

Thor couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, here. He’d always been the more unobservant one of the family, at least, that had been Odin’s proclamation. Loki was the clever one, the smart one, the one who read the books and studied the magic and figured out the problem. Thor was the warrior, and up until a few years ago he’d been fine with that. The likes of Stark and Banner were not the likes of him, and that was okay. 

He supposed Stark and Banner would’ve had the common sense not to take a drink from a stranger, on a planet he didn’t know, filled with people he didn’t trust. They wouldn’t have landed themselves into this mess, staggering down an empty hallway with an overly-concerned Hulk shadowing his every move. 

“M’fine, Hulk. I just need to…” Thor found himself slowing down before he even really noticed that it was happening, until he came to an abrupt stop, planting his hand on the wall. 

He didn’t know what exactly it was that he needed to do. It would’ve been a lot easier to identify if the walls just stopped moving. 

Stupid trash planet and it’s stupid moving walls. 

He hated Sakaar. God, he hated it. They’d even found a way to ruin corridors, lining it with lights that shone just a little too brightly and floors that seemed to shift under his feet. 

Thor ran a hand roughly down his face, screwing his eyes tightly shut against the blurring colours and the sudden intensity of the air around him. 

He felt awful. He felt tired. His legs began to falter beneath him until he was sliding down the wall, blood rushing past his ears in a roar that was louder than any dragon Muspellheim could throw at him. 

“Blondie?” 

Hulk’s voice was a low grumble against his ear, and he could feel the heat from his hand where it hovered above his shoulder, waiting and wanting to help but unsure if he should. 

Which was ridiculous. Why would Thor need help? He wasn’t some fragile princess who swooned at the tiniest sip of one drink. He was Thor, Lord of- wait, no, God of Thunder. He was the God of Thunder and he lived on Asgard and he was fine. 

He was fine, wasn’t he? 

Sure, maybe his head was pounding. Maybe his vision was starting to fail him, black spots darting across his vision that only seemed to be getting bigger. Maybe he could feel his body begin to ignore his brains sluggish messages that something was wrong, slouching further into the wall, chasing the coldness of the metal tiles against his skin that felt much too warm now. 

“Blondie!” Hulk wasn’t grumbling anymore. This was a shout, panicked, as Thor hit the ground with a dull thud. 

He could barely feel it as Hulk shook his shoulder, trying frantically to get some response out of him. He barely saw Hulk’s expression, wide eyed and wild when Thor didn’t reply to any of his rousing. He didn’t hear any of the pleas, or the questions. 

But, really. He was fine. 

***

Hulk paced the floors of his room, watching where Thor had slipped into a fitful sleep on the bed. 

He didn’t want to take his eyes off him. Not even for a moment. Not when he looked so fragile, small, and it suddenly wasn’t funny anymore that Thor had fallen over. It certainly hadn’t been funny when Thor had started convulsing, rivets of lightning flashing under his skin that left painful looking marks etched onto the demigods body. It wasn’t funny that Hulk had had to carry him back to the room himself, listening to every muffled sound of pain that was cried into his shoulder. It wasn’t funny seeing Thor claw at his throat, writhing with pain that Hulk didn’t know how to fix. 

Hulk trudged his way back over to the bed, resting the back of his hand against Thor’s forehead. It gave him a faint bite of static, blue light briefly glimmering over his palm before he drew it back with a frown. 

Thor was still too warm, too restless for Hulk to be able to sleep. He didn’t know much about medicine, but if puny Banner could do it? Well, it was almost a point of principle at this stage. Hulk could take care of Thor just as well as puny Banner could, maybe even better. It couldn’t be that hard. 

A small whimper reached his ears, and he turned to see Thor’s bright blue eyes gazing up at him. 

Wait, no, not at him. Thor was staring past him, with eyes that were too bright to be rid of fever, and too disfocused to be fully conscious. 

But it was something. 

“Hulk?” Thor croaked, eyes slipping back shut momentarily. “Where are we?”

“Bedroom. Thor safe, don’t worry.” 

Thor grunted, twisting onto his side, burrowing further under the blankets with a small sniffle that made Hulk’s heart clench. 

His fingers gripped the blankets tightly, as a low groan emerged from his throat.

“Hurts.”

“Thor sick.” Hulk moved to sit by the side of the bed, raising one finger to push a stray lock of hair out of Thor’s eyes. “But Hulk take care of it.”

Thor seemed happy with that answer, or at least too out of it to protest. When his eyes opened again, it was with a tad more clarity than last time, actually managing to find Hulk’s face and hold his gaze for a time. 

Hulk was getting a little uncomfortable with the way Thor was staring at him, so he cleared his throat and got to his feet with an excuse to break away from whatever that was. His hands wrapped around an oversized pitcher that rested next to the bed, and he gingerly sniffed at the liquid inside. 

“Thor want water?”

“Sure.” 

Thor made an attempt to sit up, but froze midway, and sank heavily back down onto the pillows. 

He sighed, looking more annoyed with himself than anything else, muttering something viciously in Asgardian before he seemed to realise he was forgetting something. 

“Thank you, Hulk. I’m...honestly I’m not sure what happened.”

“Blondie not worry about it.” Hulk didn’t really know how else to go about offering someone water. At least, not like this. He’d really hoped that by this point Thor would be able to handle it himself, but it didn’t seem like that was going to happen anytime soon. 

With a small grumble to let Thor know that Hulk wasn’t enjoying this very much either, he knelt down by the side of the bed. Carefully, he cradled Thor’s head in his hand, tilting the pitcher up to a point where he could drink safely. 

“I’m sorry.” Thor mumbled as Hulk laid him back down against the pillow, face flushing red with something that was decidedly not a fever. 

“S’fine.” Thor looked like he wanted to say something else, but the effort it had taken to maintain even that small amount of consciousness had clearly run its course, and within a few moments Hulk was left alone again. 

When the next day dawned, neither of them would speak of this. There was some awkward stumbling around it, but the two eventually resolved that it would be better if they just forgot about the entire thing. 

Hulk would’ve been comfortable never to mention it again. To bury it under a pile of memories and let it drift off into wherever memories went. But Thor wasn’t so eager to please. He kept thanking him for it, to an almost awkward degree. 

But, later, when Thor trusted Hulk to help save Asgard, he did so without hesitation. 

And Hulk quite liked the feeling of being trusted.

[fandomlife-confessions]

Nac. I just have to say thank you & stay strong because you are 100% fucking right. Your notes talking about racism/sexism swinging both ways is absolutely correct. The notes in those nac are fucking cancer & people need to stop listening to their mommies/daddies/gammies/fake news blaming an entire race/"hurrr durrr muh society" for their problems while simultaneously stomping their feet & clenching fists begging the same "society" to fix everything.Nothing uglier than inferiority complexes!

Aw thanks Anon!

I don’t suffer fools very well and it can be kind of draining when I get bombarded with irrationality.

When it comes to issues like this, I just wish that more people would use rational thought instead of just jumping onto society’s bandwagon and thinking what they’ve just been conditioned to think.

“Be the change you want to see in the world” and all that.

[coalandlili]

a baby drabble for the 2x21 post ep bandwagon. I love making my heart hurt. 

-

The rush of blood in her ears almost blocked out her own screams, but not completely.

No. It was all she screamed, her entire body turning weak, and she fumbled, but her voice rang loud and ear-splitting. No! She ran towards the figures in the dark, every pace making the vision clearer. FP’s stature stood still. Jughead’s maimed face remained motionless. Closer. Bring him to me. Her thoughts shrieked in her own head.

She fell after a few strides towards him, suddenly realizing that her vision was tilting as she dug her hands into the dirt. The pit in her stomach made her feel sick. She felt a hand on her shoulder as her knees tensed nauseatingly. Words swam in her ears as if they were full of water. She simply yelled out in defiance, pushing the hand away, and pulling herself to where FP was.

She gripped onto his arms where they supported Jug, her legs swaying. Then she looked into the face of her love- illuminated now visibly. Her breaths came short and fast as she darted her eyes across him. Blood glinted in abundance, skin bulged where it shouldn’t, and the inanimate features of Jughead Jones brought a pain to her so terrifying she cried out.

“We have to get him to the hospital,” FP’s voice wavered. It was built of panic. Betty looked up at him, eyes wild, grasping suddenly at the sea of leather. Some, Jug’s still warmly bruised arm, some the sleeve of his father’s cool jacket. Betty choked out, covering her mouth.

She screamed- repeating his words- and it was like a cue for chaos. Stomps and yells echoed across the moonlit path. It wasn’t normal conundrum. There was the occasional gasp or scream at the state of the boy, or the familiar voice yelling, terror seeping from every word.

“Get Jug. Get Jug!”

“Oh my God!”

“Hurry. We’ve got to hurry!”

Betty made it to the passenger seat. Many ran to her side, supporting her tilting weight, attempting to soothe her. Her words wouldn’t cease- she screamed a broken record. Arms grabbed at her own, familiar voices steady in her ear. She mumbled, panicked, her voice rising and falling.  

“My baby, Jug- he’s- I- we need to get Jug-” she stammered, fumbling for FP’s arm when he climbed into the driver’s seat.

“We’re getting there.”

Betty shook herself, looking around, swimming in depths of shock. Her gaze settled on Jughead laying across the backseat, his head in someone’s lap.

Her mouth shook open steadily. Her eyes slipped closed.

[classic-queeries]

Holden C*ace*field: Asexuality and Representation

Some background: At the end of my junior year of high school we read Catcher in the Rye in my American Lit class. A friend pointed out a quote to me and said “hey, Holden kinda seems asexual to me.” I hadn’t been particularly interested in the book before she pointed it out, but once I read the quote I saw what my friend saw. Further reading absolutely convinced me that Holden was demisexual.

My English teacher however, did not have the best history with queer coding. When we read The Great Gatsby many in my friend group were convinced that Nick Carraway was gay. When one friend brought it up in class, however, she got shot down almost immediately. The teacher only brought up queer coding once, in reference to The Scarlet Letter, saying that Chillingworth was gay because there was subtext that he sexually assaulted Dimmesdale. Which, if you’ve read the book? Not the conclusion I’d jump to. He kept using the words “homoerotic subtext” which also did not sit well with us. 

Needless to say, I did not bring up my demi-Holden theory in class. I did not want to deal with the teacher shutting me down like he had my friend. So instead, after AP tests and I’d handed in my last major paper for the year, I wrote an essay. Full semi-formal style, MLA formatting, definitions of everything, multiple sources and examples all correctly cited. Nothing he could fight me on.

And you know what he did? He fought me on it by throwing my argument back at me without the label. What followed was a few days of me stomping around, ranting to my friends that had helped me with this about how he wasn’t listening to me. I stopped the communication after a few back and forth exchanges. I was getting nowhere.

I’m still proud of the essay. I would classify it as one of the better things I’ve written, simply because it was an argument I actually cared about. So I’d like to share it, share why I relate to Holden even in a small way, because maybe it’ll help someone else.

–Mod Sherlock

When I first ran across the word asexual I didn’t think it applied to me. But it turns out whatever definition I had read was wrong. Asexual simply means that one does not experience sexual attraction. I’ve come to terms with that, and embrace my being asexual, or ace, proudly. You’ll see me down at Pride in June having fun with my friends, decked out in purple, black, and white. Problem is that not many people know about us. The last GLAAD survey had aces as about four percent of millennials (Accelerating Acceptance 2017). That is a bigger estimate than the last one we had at one percent back in 2004.

Of course, asexulaity is kinda an umbrella term. That GLAAD survey involves aces, demisexuals, and graces. I myself identify as asexual because I cannot conceive of what exactly sexual attraction is. People look at someone else and go, “I’d hit that,” or they appear in sexual fantasies? I literally cannot make sense of it. Many people have tried to help, none succeeded. I know a few people who identify as demisexual, which means that they only experience sexual attraction to someone once they form a deep emotional bond. They have to be dating the person, or close friends, or any other number of meaningful relationships, before they experience sexual attraction. There are others who identify as grey-asexual, grace, which means that they have only limited experience with sexual attraction. They may only experience it intermittently, maybe only once or twice in their life. This differs from demi in that they may experience it without the deep emotional bond. Asexuality is best thought of as a spectrum. The ace spectrum is from allosexuals, those who do feel sexual attraction, to aces, with demi and graces somewhere in the middle (AVEN).

The fact that we don’t experience sexual attraction doesn’t mean that we aces can’t have meaningful relationships. The split attraction model (SAM) is about the difference between sexual and romantic attraction. People can have two different orientations for different attractions. I have several panromantic asexual friends, who experience romantic attraction to all genders, yet no sexual attraction. There are homoromantics, biromantics, heteromantics, every sexuality has a romantic equivalent. This of course includes asexuality as well; those who don’t experience romantic attraction identify as aromantic. I identify as an aromantic asexual because romance is an enigma. Like, what the hell even is romance? Going out on a date with someone? Movies are more fun with more people, why not bring a couple friends? Ice cream or food? How is that a date? Romance is entirely dictated by societal norms and I, for one, am tired of it. Why should I be expected to date anyone if I don’t want to? And why is it that everytime I walk home with a male friend I get people asking me if we’re dating the next day and every time I think “oh my god no we’re neighbors he’s gay and I’m aroace what the flippity fuck people.” But I digress.

The SAM stems from the fact that there are many different types of attraction, some of which are easy to confuse with sexual attraction. Sexual and romantic attraction exist and are often conflated. A common attraction variation for aces to use is aesthetic attraction, which is simply thinking that someone looks nice. I can think that someone looks pretty in a military dress uniform without being sexually attracted to them. In addition there is sensual attraction, which means that someone experiencing it wants to interact in a tactile but non-sexual way. For instance, Carrie Fisher? Was very huggable. Both aesthetic and sensual attraction are extremely easy to confuse with sexual attraction and are often so intertwined that a person cannot tell them apart. Sensual has a sexual connotation for some people but i’ve never seen it used in a sexual way. In addition, I know that before I realized I was ace I would categorize who I considered ‘sexually attractive’ by who was aesthetically pleasing and just called that sexual attraction.

Enough with the SAM, though we’ll get back to it. A common misconception about asexuals is that we don’t have sex as a rule. That’s blatantly wrong, that’s the definition of celibacy. We have different levels of comfortability with sex. Some are sex-positive, which means that they enjoy or even want sex. Others are sex-ambivalent, meaning that they don’t particularly care either way. Still more are sex-repulsed, which means that they viscerally consider sex gross and do not want to participate in it or even talk about it depending on the extent of their repulsion. Like everything, this is a spectrum. Allos can also have these opinions on sex, they are not limited to aces.

The major problem that most asexuals face is ignorance. The estimated number of asexuals was so low in 2004 partly because there just isn’t wide enough knowledge about us. That number rose three percent in the past thirteen years in part because AVEN, the Asexual Visibility and Education Network, was formed and started to help spread word. Yet we are still ignored and pushed aside, even pathologized:

“….because sexuality is taken for granted as necessary to normalcy and normative bodies….asexuality is and has been historically diagnosed as a problem in need of medical reress and treatment….[the DSM has] “hypoactive sexual desire disorder” (DSM-III-R 1987)….”female sexual interest/arousal disorder” and “male hypoactive sexual desire disorder” (DSM-V 2013). Such labels indicate that low levels of sexual desire were seen by sexology and continue to be regarded by scientific medicine as ‘unhealthy’ and abnormal, reflecting more broadly on society’s negative attitiudes toward asexuality” (Przybylo 186).

Sexual attraction is so pervasive in our society that when someone doesn’t feel it they’re treated like they have a mental illness. I’m sure there are more examples of this, but I don’t have the stomach to go looking for more. I had to talk myself out of looking through the DSM for myself, I don’t need to find more examples of bigotry and prejudice.

Even so, I find unintentional (I hope) examples of aphobic attitudes in my own classroom. Calling sexual attraction “normal” hurts. That tends to imply that anything against the norm is bad, to be shunned and destroyed. I’m reminded of a song by my favorite band, called “We Are the Others,” which has the lyrics: “Normal is not the norm/ It’s just a uniform/ Forget about the norm/ Take off your uniform/ We are all beautiful”(Delain). “Normal” is not a thing. Everyone is weird to someone else, but that doesn’t give one reason to be a bigot.

On top of this ignorance is the fact that erasure is so common in what little media we have. There was a recent TV show based of a series of comic books from Archie called Riverdale. One character, Jughead Jones, was an aroace in the comics (Riseman). In the TV show they erased Jughead’s aromanticism by placing him in a clearly reciprocated relationship with Betty, and his asexuality is up in the air, but likely erased as well (Alexander). Riverdale is just one of a few that erase ace identities. Most a-spec characters are in obscure books that you would never hear of if you didn’t go looking for them, or in webcomics which are unlikely to gain a mainstream audience. There has not been a mainstream confirmed ace character. Ever. This erasure and ignorance is what makes headcanons so important. I headcanon many of my favorite characters as ace because I relate to them so well, so why shouldn’t they share my sexuality as well? That’s why when I find a character that has a wealth of canon evidence that they might be aspec, I find the bandwagon and start driving.

So when I realized that Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye might be asexual I hopped right onto that bandwagon and hit the gas. It was actually one of my friends that pointed out that Holden might be asexual. I read the quote they sent me, and immediately poured myself into the book. I kept notes on everything that Holden did, everything he said, that seemed like he might be aspec to me. As I read I related more and more to Holden, and I am convinced that Holden is aspec. I propose that Holden is a heteromantic demisexual who, having never seen the terms, confuses sensual and aesthetic attraction for sexual.

Before I get into the meat of it, let’s clear up one thing: asexuals can still get aroused. I mean, it’s a little hard to have sex without that and some of us do have sex no matter what some people seem to think. There is an important distinction for aces, however. In her article “Introducing Asexuality, Unthinking Sex,” Ela Przybylo writes that “Scholars who study the physiology around asexuality suggest that people who are asexual are capable of genital arousal but may experience difficulty with so-called subjective arousal. So when the body become aroused, subjectively-at the level of the mind and emotions-one does not experience arousal”(183). This is a very important distinction. Aces may have general arousal, but we have nothing to direct it at. Our mind is separate from our body in this case. There’s one line in Catcher about Holden feeling horny: “After a while I sat down in a chair and smoked a couple of cigarettes. I was feeling pretty horny. I have to admit it” (Salinger 63). This is after he walks into the hotel and sees several indiscrete people doing rather sexual acts on the balcony. What strikes me about this is that, despite feeling some general arousal, he just sits down and smokes a cigarette. This may be just me misunderstanding, but people do not just sit down and have a smoke when horny? That doesn’t seem like something an allosexual would do. In addition to that, Holden does not seem to be reacting to a particular instance and has nowhere to direct his attentions. His body may be reacting to the ‘perverts’ on the balcony, but his mind is completely clear. Holen is not experiencing subjective arousal. As stated above, this is generally an ace thing.

Another very ace thing Holden does is hire a prostitute then ask her to talk with him, not have sex. In general, when one hires a prostitute, one does so for sex. Holden goes into the fiasco with the thought: “I figured if she was a prostitute and all, I could get in some practice on her, in case I ever get married or anything. I worry about that stuff sometimes”(Salinger 92). This on the surface seems like a typical thing for a young adult to worry about, but, really? Who the hell worries about sex? Holden goes into this so objectively, thinking about getting married in the future and getting practice on her. This is a typical thing for a confused ace who has no idea that they are ace to worry about. After he thinks this the prostitute, Sunny, shows up. They talk for a bit and then Holden is very surprised when Sunny just up and pulls her dress off: “…she stood up and pulled her dress over her head. I certainly felt peculiar when she did that. I mean she did it so sudden and all. I know you’re supposed to feel pretty sexy when somebody gets up and pulls their dress over their head, but I didn’t. Sexy was about the last thing I was feeling….Boy, was I feeling peculiar….All she had on was this pink slip. It was really quite embarrassing” (Salinger 94-95). Yes, Holden, according to societal conventions one will supposedly feel horny when met with a mostly-naked person of the opposite gender. But people go against those societal conventions all the time. Asexuals, for instance, would not feel ‘sexy’ when met with a naked girl. Holden’s peculiar feeling may be the fact that he doesn’t know Sunny, and thus has no chance of feeling sexual attraction towards her. It may also be caused by possible sex repulsion of some degree when faced with someone he doesn’t know. This is, of course, ignoring the fact that he hired a prostitute then proceeded to ask her to just have a conversation with him. That is such an ace thing to do I mean, come on, who would do that.

Even more critical beyond Holden’s uncomfortableness when faced with sex, is the fact that he self-admittedly doesn’t get what sex is all about. Contemplating the people doing ‘crumby’ stuff on the balcony of the hotel he’s staying in, Holden thinks:

“Sex is something I really don’t understand too hot. You never know where the hell you are. I keep making up these sex rules for myself, and then I break them right away. Last year I made a rule that I was going to quit horsing around with girls that, deep down, gave me a pain in the ass. I broke it, though, the same week I made it - the same night, as a matter of fact. I spent the whole night necking with a terrible phony named Anne Louise Sherman. Sex is something I just don’t understand. I swear to god I don't”(Salinger 63).

Holden’s opinion on sex is that it’s confusing. He just simply doesn’t understand how to go about it. He makes himself rules for gods’ sake. He doesn’t understand why people do the do, why people go beyond ‘necking.’ Sex is so centralized in our culture that for an ace person, navigating the world is a problem. Centralization of sex in culture includes the beliefs that sex is needed for romance, the act of sexual intercource is key to adulthood and maturation, and sex is important for a healthy life (Przybylo 181). The key bit here is that Holden seems to believe that he should want sex with people, but he doesn’t understand sex. The centralization of sex confuses him and he ends up reaching for ways to make sex make sense to him, like a set of rules that he immediately tosses aside. He ends up doing the same thing that many aces do before they realize their sexuality: pretending just to fit in. He hires the prostitute because he thinks that might help him with his sex game. He feigns a desire for sex as real life aces often do: “As one participant from a study on asexual masculinity discusses, as an adolescent he had to “play along” with his male friend who “were all into porn mags” and checking out girls, feigning a desire for sex in order to fit in but ultimately “los[ing] out socially because…. A lot of social activities seem to be … centered around sex (Przybylo 2014:229)”” (Przybylo 188). Holden doubts that everyone has these desires and questions people that have sex just for the hell of it. He tells Carl Luce during their conversation:  “[i regard sex as] a physical and spiritual experience and all. I really do. But it depends on who the hell I’m doing it with. If I’m doing it with somebody I don’t even-….This is what I mean though. I know it’s supposed to be physical and spiritual, and artistic and all. But what I mean is, you can’t do it with everybody-every girl you neck with and all-and make it come out that way. Can you?”(Salinger 146-147). Holden sees people like Stradlater going and having sex with basically random girls just because they want to. He sees them doing it with girls they’ve only known for a couple hours, and questions, “you can’t do it with everybody?” He simply doesn’t see how people can just essentially randomly hook up and have a desire for the other person. This is a very common thing for aces to question. How do people just hook up if they don’t even like the other person? What underlying attraction is there? Don’t you have to know the person? The concept of a one-night-stand doesn’t exist to many aces.

This brings me to my crowning jewel: Holden basically explicitly states that he is demisexual. Just after the previous quote, while he’s talking to Luce, Holden says this: “You know what the trouble with me is? I can never get really sexy- I mean really sexy- with a girl I don’t like a lot. I mean I have to like her alot. If I don’t, I sort of lose my goddamn desire for her and all. Boy, it really screws up my sex life something awful. My sex life stinks”(Salinger 148). Holy. Fucking. Crap. That is the definition of demisexuality. Holden only has desire for a girl when he “likes her alot.” Demisexuality is only experiencing sexual attraction when a deep emotional connection is formed. Holden just almost explicitly said he’s demi. To back me up even further, I sent this quote to a few ace friends with the caption “if this isn’t aspec then idk what is.” Their responses: “HECK U RIGHT,” “Wow that’s practically explicit,” “If you can’t see the ace-ness inherent in this you need to get your eyes checked,” and “That’s one of the most canon ace things I’ve ever read and [I’m] willing to throw down with both teacher and author in the parking lot over this” (Fuck Yeah Asexual). If I have friends, demi friends who know the definition and use it all the time, willing to freaking fight Salinger and my teacher over this, you know it’s good.

Part of the reason that my friends may be so willing to fight people for Holden to be demi is that we have basically no representation in popular media. I found a total of five major canon ace characters in pop culture when I went looking. Every single other character I found was minor or from something that hasn’t inundated pop culture yet. Of those five, only two explicitly used the word asexual. Luffy from One Piece is commonly believed to be asexual, as is Maya from Borderlands 2 (SBS Volume 54, W.). One of these is a manga, the other a video game. While they do have very large audiences, neither character is confirmed ace in their media, purely by the creators word. Todd from Bojack Horseman is asexual as well(season four ep 3). Raphael from Shadowhunters is ace in the TV show, and aroace in the books, and I already mentioned the fiasco with Jughead (“By the Light of Dawn”, Alexander). Because we have so little representation, interpretations of famous literary characters like Holden as aspec really helps with overall awareness of the ace community. Awareness is coming around, slowly but surely, but every little bit counts.

So I will fight for ace Holden. I will drive this bandwagon right over anyone who objects, throwing my heaps of evidence and definitions out the windows. Maybe I’ll wrap the definition of demisexuality around my little crowning jewel and lob it at anyone who wants to fight me. Y’all are entitled to your opinions, but if you come say I’m wrong and ‘ruining books with my queer characters’ you’re gonna get a great big ball of demi-Holden evidence thrown at you. And I’m gonna wrap it all up nice and pretty in the demi flag.

[castlecrumbled-overnight-blog]

Buckle Up :

Okay so like I have a lot of feelings and I want to let them out so bear with me here? I'm really frustrated because on my twitter account I follow 950 or so people, and a large majority are educated writers who do pieces for reputable places such as NYT, Teen Vogue, Elle, EW, buzzfeed, and many other online media platforms where published journalists and writers write. I also follow many content creators like screenplay writers, children's animation writers and so on. Last night I mass muted or unfollowed them largely do to their continuous joining of bandwagon hate memes on Taylor. This went anywhere from jokes about how white she is (the ridiculous formation joke, which insults me because I had to deeply analyze Lemonade for a visual culture class, and it's the aesthetics and historical reasons behind Beyoncé's locations that made the formation she stood in powerful and Taylor isn't using any of those, she's in a mansion that's def not part of the history of the antebellum south here, so please knock it off.) to a more subtle dig that I found which was someone who said "you know what, thank god Kesha's released an album" and she replied to her own tweet with "things I can't relate to: I'm rich and got celebrity feuds. Things I can: taking down men who have wronged me, and loving Godzilla" First of all, many of these verified writers are forgetting the foundations of feminism and abandoning them for third wave culture shock outrage policing of others life's situations, and they're situationally feminist which means they care until it's some woman they hate getting screwed over and then it's funny. Outrage call out culture gets to a boiling point where ask yourself, do scathing critiques of someone's personality, or how they interact with the world actually change them? Or will it make someone hold onto their flaws and refuse to change? IMO we need to end outrage culture and directly change the issues such as patriarchy that create harmful cultures we feed into and mold ourselves to. Second, a big f you to the person who basically said that Kesha's album was better because it was relatable and Taylor's is privileged and can't be. Let's like break that down? First of all I enjoyed Kesha's album and I was very moved by it. She decided to fight her demons with spirituality and peace. Which to each their own, more power to her. She chose healing. However, THAT IS NOT HOW EVERY VICTIM MUST REACT TO THEIR SITUATION 🗣 Personally over like a year now I was in a very toxic social media situation where like Taylor I was being 'meme bullied' where people would mock me and use 'jokes' to get under my skin and make me feel weak. I also was sexually harassed during this time and had issues at college that led to me and my roommate going to title IX offices to remove another girl from our 4 person dorm. So listen here when I say that Look What You Made Me Do resonated with me. The bullied sometimes do become the bullied, they seek revenge, the do things they're not proud of, and they also fight to reclaim their voice. My image has been tarnished. My voice and my words twisted from me. Taylor is snapping back. Anger is a fundamental part in grief, in recovery- you must get mad before the healing begins. Just because Taylor didn't do a sad song full of I'm sorry and I'm content with everything and I've let it go, doesn't mean her feelings are bad. You can't tell someone to let something go it's undermining and rude as hell. She can take this to the grave if she wants to. She tried to apologize, to let it go and no one took Innocent and cared because it wasn't a single. Which demonstrates that her artistry is being solely criticized on her singles alone which isn't fair and is pretty much do to the fact that people expect pop women to pop out single after single instead of good albums as a whole. You can't just say that one persons reaction to what they've been through is the single one that must be correct here. So many of these writers are engaging in victim shaming, in bullying, in sexist acts (I've also seen a lot of them making fun of Taylor's hair and it doesn't take much to realize that's body shaming and the stigma/frustration surrounding all types of curly hair), and it's not fair. It's not fair at all. You treat Taylor as an equal. She's addressed her privilege at her recent trial, which many of these writers stayed mute on fyi, she's a woman trying to make a career after being stomped on repeatedly. You don't get to decide her feelings aren't valid thank you goodnight!

[jamieclawhorn]

These 2 double-your-money FTSE 100 stocks just keep on climbing

Are you willing to invest in shoot-the-lights out growth stocks, even if they are a little bit pricey? If I was going to do so, I would look at the following two FTSE 100 forgotten growth heroes that I think might be worth investigating.

Chemicals brothers

Croda International (LSE: CRDA) is not exactly a household name, but this speciality chemicals company deserves respect among investors as its share price has climbed 98% in the past five years, almost doubling investors’ money. That compares to growth of just 12.2% across the FTSE 100 as a whole. This is a real market-beater.

The momentum continues, with its share price up almost 10% year-to-date. There is one hitch. Success comes at a price, in this case a forecast valuation of 25.2 times earnings. A figure of 15 is usually seen as fair value here. Croda ain’t cheap.

Catch 2

There is another catch. It has a low yield, just 2%, covered twice by earnings. Basically, all that share price growth has driven up the valuation and driven down the yield. Management has still been generous with shareholders, making good use of the 57% rise in free cash flow last year to £155.4m. This helped fund a 7.4% hike the full-year ordinary dividend to 87p, announced in February, and a £150m special dividend of 115p per share.

My colleague Royston Wild has been impressed by Croda’s restructuring strategy and reckons this is the type of company that could sail through global economic storms. Earnings per share (EPS) are forecast to grow 5% this year and 7% next, making it one of the more solid propositions that I’ve cast my eyes over lately.

Micro magic

My other pricey pick is UK tech champion Micro Focus International (LSE: MCRO), whose share price is up a stomping 140%, measured over five years. It is up a whopping 55% over the last six months, which makes it one of the top momentum stocks on today’s FTSE 100, but there’s a reason for that.

Micro Focus issued a profit warning a year ago, which halved its share price from above 2,000p to around 950p. So most of the recent surge has been clawing back those shock losses. At today’s 1,975p, the recovery may now be complete.

Keep your Focus

It is always risky jumping late onto a bandwagon, especially with analysts ringing alarm bells about the global economy. The £8bn group trades at a dizzying valuation of 27.5 times earnings, but that is set to change. With the group’s EPS forecast to rise a barnstorming 138% this year, the forward valuation shrinks to a more reasonable 12.1 times earnings.

You get decent income as well, with a forward yield of 4.2% and cover of 2.1. Operating margins of 32% and a return on capital employed of 57.2% look tempting to me.

Out of the ordinary

As Rupert Hargreaves recently pointed out, Micro Focus has lavished investors with special and ordinary dividends and is dishing out a further $1.8bn following the $2.5bn sale of its SUSE business to Swedish buyout group EQT Partners. It knows how to show investors a good time.

I think Micro Focus merits further attention. Although maybe we have missed the best of the recent share price surge.

Capital Gains

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Harvey Jones has no position in any of the shares mentioned. The Motley Fool UK has recommended Micro Focus. Views expressed on the companies mentioned in this article are those of the writer and therefore may differ from the official recommendations we make in our subscription services such as Share Advisor, Hidden Winners and Pro. Here at The Motley Fool we believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors.

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Creepy, Out-Of-The-Box Sex Studies That Were Maybe Illegal

Ever since Edgar D. Scienceman invented science in 1957, a very specific subset of researchers have busied themselves by researching romance and sexual attraction. The problem is that with all the weird brain chemicals and general stickiness involved, the mechanics of mutually agreed-upon boning have proved extremely challenging to conclusively figure out. As such, some of our boner scientists have gotten creative in their research.

#5. People Started To Accept Gay Sex Meetings Because A Sociologist Creeped on Gay Guys for Three Years

What would you do if you wanted to study a sexual behavior that was so looked down upon by the general public that those who partake in it could only do so in secret, anonymously, and in constant fear of beatings (or worse)? Get to know the community and earn their trust? Or perv around them for years, presenting yourself as a voyeuristic fapsmith who’d sit quietly in the corner, watching their every thrust? Just watching and sweating.

And taking notes.

“And just a couple of pictures for sci– uh, masturbation! I meant masturbation!”

If your answer is the former, clearly you’re as sane as you are ill-equipped for 1960s sociological research. Well, at least the school Laud Humphreys, the author of the Tearoom Trade study, bought into. For three years in the late ’60s, Humphreys hung around an undisclosed American city’s “tearooms” — ie. public restrooms where men went for plow each others’ pumpkin patches. Humphreys took on the role of “watchqueen” — the voyeur/spotter who ensured the guys in the stall weren’t caught in the act. He collected all the information on the tearoomers and their sexuality that he could, occasionally by revealing his true identity, but generally just abusing the shit out of their trust. He’d even track down their addresses by their license plates and show up on their doors disguised as a census taker.

Were his methods ethical? Shit no! Very few fucks were given about his subjects’ consent — which is ironic, considering the many levels of fucking otherwise involved in the study. However, here’s the absolute craziest part about Humphreys’ study: It worked. Not in a “earned the dude scores of grants and accolades” way — although the Tearoom Trade study remains a scientific landmark, that’s mainly because it’s a textbook example of unethical social research. No, the study actually yielded positive results for the gay community.

Plot twist, motherfuckers!

Before Humphreys’ study, the public opinion about men participating in public gay shenanigans held that they were dangerous social and sexual deviants. The study revealed that they were mostly regular folks and upstanding citizens. In fact, the majority of them were regular family men who, due to the attitudes of the era, had no other outlet to this side of their sexuality. Though this presumably opened a whole new can of worms of the “Hold on, you told me you were working overtime” nature, the gay community by and large welcomed the study. Hell, even the 1960s police found itself putting one foot in the “gays are people, too” bandwagon (sort of), as many precincts realized the tearoom trade was a victimless “crime” and stopped actively stomping on the people practicing it, instead focusing on being the tolerant and fair organization we know the police as today.

#4. A Rogue CIA Operative Ran A Prostitutes-And-LSD Experiment For Years

If you’ve spent any time on the internet at all, you probably know what Project MKUltra is — a particularly turd-stained 1950s-60s chapter in CIA history wherein they forgot the “intelligence” part in their name and started armpit-farting about with mind control.

Operation Midnight Climax was a sex-themed side project of MKUltra that was deemed too silly to even fit under the main umbrella of their stupidest, most sinister programs. This is the guy who ran it:

At least, this is the only photo I could find of him on a somewhat reputable site. It was that kind of project.

His name was George White, and he was a noted federal narcotics agent and CIA “consultant” who somehow ended up with something of a no-nonsense reputation, despite being all nonsense. At some point in 1953, the CIA put White in charge of Midnight Climax, an illicit, barely-controlled operation that would run rampant until the Agency would relocate its bag of fucks to give in 1964. Over the intervening 11 years, White acted as a strange Opposite Batman. During the day, he was a hardass Federal Bureau of Narcotics agent. When the sun set, he put on his silk pajamas and started overseeing Midnight Climax, in which he and his cohorts spiked the drinks of thousands of unwitting San Francisco and New York men with LSD, luring them into agency-sponsored brothels just to see what would happen. Yes, the government created a Bill Cosby Division.

Spoiler: As much illicit sex as the Johns could see behind the pretty colors would happen.

Amidst the dirty posters, velvet curtains, and barrages of nudity, agents were watching behind two-way mirrors and recording everything with hidden cameras and microphones. In the middle of it all sat George White, a demigod drunk on power and boobs, and presumably also the pitcher of martini he had about him at most hours. Again, not the wisest move in CIA history.

Technically, the program was all about finding out if LSD had military and/or espionage applications. In practice, things soon devolved into “titty titty titty titty beer!” However, they were able to uncover many handy things re: surveillance techniques, along with the inevitable experience in sexual blackmail, because of course. Perhaps most interestingly, the old adage that the post-coital cigarette break is the optimal time for a man to spill his secrets is said to hail from this study. Because sometimes, a good trope is worth the mental torture of thousands.

#3. Researchers Proved Sex And Fear Are Linked By Stalking People Who Crossed A Perilous Bridge

Let’s say you’re ambling around in a forest, when suddenly you come across a deep, wide chasm. Crossing it is a scary, ancient suspension bridge that looks not unlike the one Indiana Jones was forced to hack up in the finale of Temple Of Doom. Beside the bridge there stands an old man. He gives you a quest: You must walk across this dangerous, scary bridge. Then, once you get to the other side, seek out a pretty lady nearby and have a sexually suggestive conversation with her.

What the fuck, right? Are you now a character in the world’s worst video game? Some strange, politically correct remake of Custer’s Revenge with pixelated nudity and racism replaced with awkwardness and plain old stupidity?

Nope! Not only was what I just described an actual 1974 scientific experiment known as the Capilano suspension bridge experiment, but they didn’t even play fair and recruit volunteers — they just hung around a scary-ass suspension bridge and latched onto whatever action hero outdoorsman / complete idiot dared to cross it.

“What about the 17 people we’ve seen falling down in the last hour?” “Eh, just chalk them up as a control group.”

The bridge, as seen above, was a goddamned nightmare: a five-foot-wide, 450-foot-long rickety wooden-boards-and-wire-cables thing that was known to “tilt, sway and wobble”, and was equipped with extremely low wire cable handrails which added to the “Fuck, I’m going to fall and die” effect seemingly custom-built into the design. During the experiment, the men who dared to cross the bridge were greeted on the other side by an attractive lady, who pounced on the adrenaline- and terror-addled guys. She said she was conducting a survey, and had them fill out a specifically designed questionnaire. After they were done, she’d engage in conversation, and cap things off by offering the subject her phone number “in case they wanted to discuss the results.” Then they repeated the experiment with a male interviewer, and brought in a control group who crossed a nearby bridge that was much sturdier and a lot closer to the ground.

While no one really gave a crap about the male interviewer, the female one received a lot more calls. Incidentally, the same group also peppered their questionnaire with far more sexual imagery than the others. And that, friends, is how researchers found that fear and sexual desire are linked through misattribution of arousal, using the most bullshit plot available to science.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/creepy-out-of-the-box-sex-studies-that-were-maybe-illegal/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/183343277572

[allofbeercom]

Creepy, Out-Of-The-Box Sex Studies That Were Maybe Illegal

Ever since Edgar D. Scienceman invented science in 1957, a very specific subset of researchers have busied themselves by researching romance and sexual attraction. The problem is that with all the weird brain chemicals and general stickiness involved, the mechanics of mutually agreed-upon boning have proved extremely challenging to conclusively figure out. As such, some of our boner scientists have gotten creative in their research.

#5. People Started To Accept Gay Sex Meetings Because A Sociologist Creeped on Gay Guys for Three Years

What would you do if you wanted to study a sexual behavior that was so looked down upon by the general public that those who partake in it could only do so in secret, anonymously, and in constant fear of beatings (or worse)? Get to know the community and earn their trust? Or perv around them for years, presenting yourself as a voyeuristic fapsmith who’d sit quietly in the corner, watching their every thrust? Just watching and sweating.

And taking notes.

“And just a couple of pictures for sci– uh, masturbation! I meant masturbation!”

If your answer is the former, clearly you’re as sane as you are ill-equipped for 1960s sociological research. Well, at least the school Laud Humphreys, the author of the Tearoom Trade study, bought into. For three years in the late ’60s, Humphreys hung around an undisclosed American city’s “tearooms” — ie. public restrooms where men went for plow each others’ pumpkin patches. Humphreys took on the role of “watchqueen” — the voyeur/spotter who ensured the guys in the stall weren’t caught in the act. He collected all the information on the tearoomers and their sexuality that he could, occasionally by revealing his true identity, but generally just abusing the shit out of their trust. He’d even track down their addresses by their license plates and show up on their doors disguised as a census taker.

Were his methods ethical? Shit no! Very few fucks were given about his subjects’ consent — which is ironic, considering the many levels of fucking otherwise involved in the study. However, here’s the absolute craziest part about Humphreys’ study: It worked. Not in a “earned the dude scores of grants and accolades” way — although the Tearoom Trade study remains a scientific landmark, that’s mainly because it’s a textbook example of unethical social research. No, the study actually yielded positive results for the gay community.

Plot twist, motherfuckers!

Before Humphreys’ study, the public opinion about men participating in public gay shenanigans held that they were dangerous social and sexual deviants. The study revealed that they were mostly regular folks and upstanding citizens. In fact, the majority of them were regular family men who, due to the attitudes of the era, had no other outlet to this side of their sexuality. Though this presumably opened a whole new can of worms of the “Hold on, you told me you were working overtime” nature, the gay community by and large welcomed the study. Hell, even the 1960s police found itself putting one foot in the “gays are people, too” bandwagon (sort of), as many precincts realized the tearoom trade was a victimless “crime” and stopped actively stomping on the people practicing it, instead focusing on being the tolerant and fair organization we know the police as today.

#4. A Rogue CIA Operative Ran A Prostitutes-And-LSD Experiment For Years

If you’ve spent any time on the internet at all, you probably know what Project MKUltra is — a particularly turd-stained 1950s-60s chapter in CIA history wherein they forgot the “intelligence” part in their name and started armpit-farting about with mind control.

Operation Midnight Climax was a sex-themed side project of MKUltra that was deemed too silly to even fit under the main umbrella of their stupidest, most sinister programs. This is the guy who ran it:

At least, this is the only photo I could find of him on a somewhat reputable site. It was that kind of project.

His name was George White, and he was a noted federal narcotics agent and CIA “consultant” who somehow ended up with something of a no-nonsense reputation, despite being all nonsense. At some point in 1953, the CIA put White in charge of Midnight Climax, an illicit, barely-controlled operation that would run rampant until the Agency would relocate its bag of fucks to give in 1964. Over the intervening 11 years, White acted as a strange Opposite Batman. During the day, he was a hardass Federal Bureau of Narcotics agent. When the sun set, he put on his silk pajamas and started overseeing Midnight Climax, in which he and his cohorts spiked the drinks of thousands of unwitting San Francisco and New York men with LSD, luring them into agency-sponsored brothels just to see what would happen. Yes, the government created a Bill Cosby Division.

Spoiler: As much illicit sex as the Johns could see behind the pretty colors would happen.

Amidst the dirty posters, velvet curtains, and barrages of nudity, agents were watching behind two-way mirrors and recording everything with hidden cameras and microphones. In the middle of it all sat George White, a demigod drunk on power and boobs, and presumably also the pitcher of martini he had about him at most hours. Again, not the wisest move in CIA history.

Technically, the program was all about finding out if LSD had military and/or espionage applications. In practice, things soon devolved into “titty titty titty titty beer!” However, they were able to uncover many handy things re: surveillance techniques, along with the inevitable experience in sexual blackmail, because of course. Perhaps most interestingly, the old adage that the post-coital cigarette break is the optimal time for a man to spill his secrets is said to hail from this study. Because sometimes, a good trope is worth the mental torture of thousands.

#3. Researchers Proved Sex And Fear Are Linked By Stalking People Who Crossed A Perilous Bridge

Let’s say you’re ambling around in a forest, when suddenly you come across a deep, wide chasm. Crossing it is a scary, ancient suspension bridge that looks not unlike the one Indiana Jones was forced to hack up in the finale of Temple Of Doom. Beside the bridge there stands an old man. He gives you a quest: You must walk across this dangerous, scary bridge. Then, once you get to the other side, seek out a pretty lady nearby and have a sexually suggestive conversation with her.

What the fuck, right? Are you now a character in the world’s worst video game? Some strange, politically correct remake of Custer’s Revenge with pixelated nudity and racism replaced with awkwardness and plain old stupidity?

Nope! Not only was what I just described an actual 1974 scientific experiment known as the Capilano suspension bridge experiment, but they didn’t even play fair and recruit volunteers — they just hung around a scary-ass suspension bridge and latched onto whatever action hero outdoorsman / complete idiot dared to cross it.

“What about the 17 people we’ve seen falling down in the last hour?” “Eh, just chalk them up as a control group.”

The bridge, as seen above, was a goddamned nightmare: a five-foot-wide, 450-foot-long rickety wooden-boards-and-wire-cables thing that was known to “tilt, sway and wobble”, and was equipped with extremely low wire cable handrails which added to the “Fuck, I’m going to fall and die” effect seemingly custom-built into the design. During the experiment, the men who dared to cross the bridge were greeted on the other side by an attractive lady, who pounced on the adrenaline- and terror-addled guys. She said she was conducting a survey, and had them fill out a specifically designed questionnaire. After they were done, she’d engage in conversation, and cap things off by offering the subject her phone number “in case they wanted to discuss the results.” Then they repeated the experiment with a male interviewer, and brought in a control group who crossed a nearby bridge that was much sturdier and a lot closer to the ground.

While no one really gave a crap about the male interviewer, the female one received a lot more calls. Incidentally, the same group also peppered their questionnaire with far more sexual imagery than the others. And that, friends, is how researchers found that fear and sexual desire are linked through misattribution of arousal, using the most bullshit plot available to science.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/creepy-out-of-the-box-sex-studies-that-were-maybe-illegal/