#(If you meant more about the series/sources muses are from than I can list those too)

[lady-harrowhark]

So Luly and I were actually talking recently about how people seem to have varying definitions of what counts as a "spoiler." We were musing on what factors might impact what someone considers a spoiler or not - maybe there's a generational factor, perhaps it varies fandom to fandom, probably there's some degree of just personal preference, etc. No real conclusions here other than "it seems like not everyone has the same idea of what constitutes a spoiler.”

I do want to say, at least in regards to Luly's liveblogs, the times that anyone has said that approaches spoiler territory (that I've seen, at least), I don't think anyone has meant to be spoilery! I truly believe that all comments and tags have been meant with good intentions, with people meaning to be helpful by providing clarification or extra fun tidbits of information. I suspect that people say things with the perspective of what they would like in their own reading experience, which comes from a really generous place. One thing to remember though, is that not everyone has the same preferences with their experience, so it's worth taking a second to pause before saying anything.

Given that, I thought I'd talk a little more about what I personally consider a spoiler. To be clear, this isn't an official definition by any means, and nobody's beholden to this. However, it might give you a bit more to think about when making your own judgements of what's in the spoiler realm. Overall, I think a good rule of thumb is that if something hasn't come up or been explained in canon yet, don't mention it, even if it's context for something that person has gotten to. I'm pretty darn cautious in my approach, which is my default assumption for interacting with others - you can always give more information, but you can't unspoil something!

A non-exhaustive list of things that I consider spoilery includes anything that:

States that something does or does not happen

Implies that something does or does not happen

Provides context that isn't provided by the source material at the point that the viewer/reader is at

Hints at events or information that the viewer/reading hasn't gotten to yet, even in a joking manner

Nudges the viewer/reader to focus on certain information, particularly information of the foreshadowing or "Chekhov's gun" type

Comments that would lead someone to connect any dots that they haven't connected yet, or that they wouldn't based on what's been presented to them thus far in canon.

Some spoilers are pretty obvious.

"XYZ happens." "Don't worry, XYZ doesn't happen." "Later on, you'll find out that that's because of XYZ." These are all rather straight forward. One thing to keep in mind is that spoilers aren't ONLY saying what DOES happen; they can also be confirming that something DOESN'T happen. For example, I almost sent Luly some fanart the other day. She hasn't finished the series, but I thought to myself, "It's not canon, so it's fine." But my immediate second thought was that by telling her it's not canon, I've ruled that out as a possibility in canon, which is then a spoiler in my eyes (and hers lol).

Sometimes, though, even comments that don't contain any concrete spoiler content get into spoiler territory.

Examples of "vague" comments that have the potential to be spoilery:

Haha, yeah, your XYZ joke, wouldn't that be funny 👀

Hold onto that thought about XYZ, it'll come back later

You're gonna be sooo surprised when you find out what was ACTUALLY happening in that scene!

I'm so glad you picked up on XYZ!

You might want to brush up on what happens in XYZ previous scene, for no real reason 😏

Obviously, ymmv with some of those examples depending on context and who you're talking to. And you can't always predict what might be vaguely spoilery for a given person! Spoilers happen sometimes; that's the risk of engaging in fandom, and frankly, the risk of being online at all. I think there's a balance to be found with regard to being mindful of what you say and also not over-analyzing and nitpicking every word you say because it could potentially be spoilery to someone, somewhere.

The flip side of this is that if you're someone who is really adamant about avoiding spoilers of any kind, it's up to you to take steps to avoid them. That might be things like filtering tags and content, avoiding certain fandom spaces, and unfollowing or blocking people who don't tag thoroughly or who comment with spoilers. That last part isn't personal - you have the choice of whether to tag or not, and they have the choice to keep that in their online space or not.

Oh, and one last thing:

Your tags show up in OP's activity feed even if you don't reblog it directly from them. Spoilers in the tags are spoilers in OP's notes.

I know everyone's been loving Luly's liveblog posts, and she puts so much time and effort into making them so incredibly entertaining. I think doing our best to support her and avoid spoiling her is the least we can do to repay her 🥰

I am on my knees begging my mutuals to tag their Locked Tomb posts because if I see any more Locked Tomb stuff without tags I'm gonna have to start losing friends.

I am being tolerant with people's allergy to tag dungeon meshi because, for some reason, it seems to be highly common, but if I get spoiled of these intricate books I'm publicly going through with no small amount of attention, I'm gonna go absolutely feral.

[musedbyalli]

Question: What kind of muses do you write?

Honestly, all over the place in so many ways.  

If asking about where I choose muses from than movies, video games, anime/manga, tv series, books, and cartoons.  

I’m assuming this is more about personality-type muses though, which again is a bit all over the place but I’ve noticed a few patterns.  

Grumpy Detectives (Carlton Lassiter, Hank Anderson, etc) *The one that I’ve recently noticed and had to laugh about actually*

Between tired of the job or just not into social situations

Not corrupt or anything like that though

Parental Figure muses (Iroh, Kyoko Honda, etc)

Not necessarily parents, but like the mom friend/responsible advice giver

The one that will give a hug to anyone that needs it

Smart but Clueless in so Many Ways (Spencer Reid, Zack Addy, Vincent Nigel Murray, etc)

Basically a genius but lacks common sense and/or social skills

Good intentions, but not always portrayed in the best manner

Less specific patterns include:

Muses that tend to use sarcasm or have a teasing side

Unexplored backstories 

Sad backstories

I’ve noticed that I don’t write too many real bad guys.  

[cocastyle]

Robin — ONE

Pairing - Joel Dawson x reader

Word Count - 5,047

A/N - this chapter was so much fun getting to write! I wanted to introduce you guys to the dynamic of our two characters before they take off into the world. they are just a super close pair which is definitely going to cause some interesting scenes throughout this movie, especially with Joel being in love Aimee at the moment and Y/N being in love with Joel. but no matter what, it’s their friendship that makes them Y/N and Joel and it’s just the cutest thing.

also, I just want to say, take note of the little letters Joel writes to Aimee. they are definitely going to show growth in Joel’s character as the story goes on :))

if you would like to be added to the tag list, let me know!

R O B I N

Robin Series Masterlist

⭒❃.✮:▹ ONE ◃:✮.❃⭒

Dear Aimee,

I am wide awake. I've just gotten good at not really moving or breathing.

Being stuck in a survival bunker with a bunch of people who have all found their soul mate is less than ideal.

Karen and Ray got together a few months ago, so they're still kinda in their honeymoon phase. It is super physical. Good for them, you know. They're both very attractive and apparently quite flexible.

Hey, life's short. Especially down here.

After Tim's parents were eaten by a warm of termites, he and Ava became inseparable. In every way.

So pretty much everyone's coupled up down here besides me and Y/N. We're the singles of the bunker and I don't know how I would survive by myself without her. Having your best friend stuck down here with you helps a lot.

Our first baby was born last winter. It was super emotional. Welcome to the apocalypse, kid. The food sucks. At least you'll never know what you're missing.

Kala and Connor got together after Carol died. Carol was a cow who ate a box of laundry detergent and now we only have one cow. Her name's Gertie. Gertie is great. Y/N named her actually and every time someone uses the name she gets this goofy grin on her face that's hard for anyone to not smile back at.

Gertie's not our only food source. We actually have a hunting party that brings back whatever they can from the surface. It was easier in the beginning, you know, before we ran out of bullets. Facing down one of those things with a hanky handmade weapon is no walk in the park. Or that's what Robin tells me. I-I don't go on the hunting parties. They need me in the kitchen. I'm kinda the, uh. . .the chef of the bunker. Everyone likes my minestrone.

Me and Y/N being the only single people in the bunker has its perks too. We get to hang out with Mav1s. Of course, she's not much for conversation anymore. Her core battery's shot, just like every other Mav1s, I'd imagine. Actually never seen a working one.

Other than that, it's become our favorite pass time to mess with the other couples. Or at least that's what Robin does. I kind of just cheer her on.

Sure wish you were here, Aimee. I'd love for you to meet everyone and become closer with Y/N. Maybe we could do a little target practice together.

It's kinda my thing.

- - -

Y/N had been in the middle of dreaming about killing a monster when something began poking her face and pulled her from her slumber. Letting out a groan, the girl turned her head towards her pillow in an attempt to hide her face, but the person was persistent and instead began poking the back of her head instead.

"Joel," Y/N whined in annoyance earning a soft chuckle from the boy as he continued to poke her head. "Joel, I swear if you don't stop poking me right now I'm going to drag you out of this bunker and feed you to the nearest cold-blooded creature."

The poking stopped instantly and she slowly turned her face and let her eyes flutter open for a second to see Joel smiling at her in amusement. "Seven years underground and you still aren't a morning person," he mused.

Y/N groaned and fell further into her pillow as she closed her eyes once again. "I don't think I'll ever be," she muttered, her voice trailing off a bit at the end as sleep tried to take over once again.

"Hey, I just woke you up. Don't go back to sleep," Joel insisted as he reached out to poke her again. However, Y/N was quick to grab ahold of his finger and stop him without even having to open an eye.

"Don't poke me," she told him before letting go of the boy. "I'm tired, Joel. I don't have to see the sun to know it's still shining on the other side of the world. It's too early."

"Actually, it's not too far away from dawn," Joel said earning a groan from the girl because it was in fact too early. The boy frowned and gently nudged her as he rested his head on the edge of her bed. "Come on, Robin. I can't sleep and as my best friend it is your job to keep me from doing anything stupid while I'm awake. You can't exactly do that while sleeping, can you?"

"Joel," Y/N complained.

"Y/N," Joel mimicked. Y/N frowned slightly and Joel sighed before looking away as he got lost in thought. Finally he let out a small gasp and nudged the girl again, a smile appearing on his face, "I'll make you breakfast."

Y/N peeled open an eye at that, flickering her gaze over the boy's eager face before hesitantly saying, "Throw in a piggyback ride all the way to the kitchen and you've got yourself a deal.”

"Deal!" Joel exclaimed as he reached out to grab her hand and shake it. Y/N let out a soft sigh, knowing she was going to regret waking up, but pulled herself up out of bed and let out a yawn. Joel was practically bouncing from foot to foot due to his impatience and Y/N just ignored it as she sat up for a moment longer before looking to Joel.

"Okay, I'm ready," she said and the boy quickly turned around. Y/N lazily got out of bed before slowly getting onto Joel's back. He made sure she was on securely and waited until she had her arms wrapped around his neck and her head tucked into the crook of his neck before he was practically running out of the room.

"Woah! Slow down!" Y/N exclaimed as she almost went toppling off of his back from how bumpy the ride was. Joel slowed to a walk and looked back to her with an apologetic smile while she just rolled her eyes. "You're lucky you're my best friend," she muttered, propping her elbow against the boy's shoulder in order to keep herself up right.

"You know you love me," Joel retorted and Y/N let out a soft sigh for she knew the boy was right. He just didn't understand the kind of love she had for him.

The two were about halfway down the hallway when they suddenly passed a door that was wide open. "Hey, Joel! Hey, Y/N!" a fellow colony member of theirs named Ava greeted.

The best friends turned their heads and instantly looked away, their faces red while Y/N hid her face against Joel's neck once again. "Oh. Hey, Ava," Joel said, coughing awkwardly as he held onto Y/N a bit tighter and tried to ignore the fact that he just saw Ava and her boyfriend Tim being intimate.

"Ava," Y/N greeted.

"Joel. Y/N. How's it going?" Tim asked.

"It's going good, Tim," Joel responded, attempting to hide his small smile as Y/N just shook her head, obviously embarrassed. "How are you. . .How are you doing?"

"Yeah, good," Tim replied.

"Good," Y/N muttered as she sat up a little more and just leaned against Joel's shoulder. "Uh, we were just. . .um. . .heading to the kitchen. Joel here couldn't sleep, so now here we are." She let out an awkward laugh and Ava and Tim returned it.

"Yeah, we know the feeling," Ava told her and both Joel and Y/N made a face.

"Yeah. Probably not for the same reasons," Joel muttered. "Y-You guys's, uh, door's open. Is that. . .did you know that?"

"Yeah," Ava admitted at the same time Tim said, "Yeah, we know."

Both Y/N and Joel didn't move before Joel muttered awkwardly, "Okay." A silence fell among the group after that and Y/N could just feel herself growing more uncomfortable by the second and it was obvious Joel was too.

"Batman, away!" Y/N exclaimed, pointing towards the direction of the kitchens in hopes that they could get away from this situation as quick as possible. Joel chuckled softly and shook his head before bolting off down the hallway making the girl yell at him.

Joel didn't slow down until they were in the kitchen, setting the girl down in a chair before moving across the room. "This better be the best breakfast you have ever created after putting me in that sort of position," Y/N told him. "This is why you sleep at night, so you don't have to see or hear what the others are doing when the lights are out."

Joel just waved her off with his hand and Y/N craned her neck in an attempt to see just what he was doing, but the boy merely moved his body each time so that she couldn't see. "Joel!" Y/N complained, but the boy was already turning around, his hands behind his back as he grinned at her.

She fell silent almost instantly, the grin making her heart skip a beat while she watched him stop on the other side of the counter. "You ready?" he asked and Y/N nodded her head eagerly, her stomach growling at the thought of food. Joel's smile widened and he quickly took his hand out from around his back and slammed an apple onto the table in front of her.

Y/N stared at the apple with a blank look on her face before scowling up at her friend. Joel just smiled and leaned his arms on the counter before he shrugged, "I never said what I was making you for breakfast."

"You didn't make anything," she pointed out, grumbling softly to herself as she grabbed the apple and took a bite out of it. "You tricked me."

"Hey, but look on the bright side," Joel told her and the girl raised an eyebrow. "Now that you're up, we can spend more time together and I don't have to be alone!"

Y/N made a face before looking to her apple and chuckling as she took another bite. "Well, joke's on you because today's planning day," she said, her words making Joel frown because he knew that planning day meant she would be with the hunting crew all day and not him.

"But planning day was last week," Joel complained.

"It was actually last month, but nice try," she replied with a smug smile on her face.

"Can't you skip it? I was wanting you to help me with my aim. I'm using the tips that you said, but it would be different if you were actually there to help," Joel said.

"I'm sorry, Joel, but I have to go. I have to pull my weight somehow," Y/N reminded him.

"Then at least let me help out. I don't do anything around here except make shitty minestrone," Joel sighed, running a hand through his hair in frustration and not noticing the way Y/N’s eyes seemed to follow the action.

Y/N set the apple down, rolling her eyes slightly when Joel picked it up and angrily took a bite out of the other side. "First of all, your minestrone is heaven, so never refer to it as shitty ever again," she told him. Joel just looked away and Y/N sighed before reaching out and setting a hand on top of the boy's arm. He hesitantly looked her way and she offered him a small smile. "I know you may think you don't do anything to help out around here, but you do, Joel. You help out in more ways than you may think."

Joel looked away and bit into the apple again. "You're just trying to make me feel better and I appreciate it, but we both know I don't do anything," he muttered. "Not anything important anyways."

"Joel," Y/N began but the sound of someone yelling her name made her fall short. She glanced in the direction of the voice, putting together who was calling for her and why. It was planning day after all and those days always started at dawn so that they could get some training out of the way before mapping out their next hunting trip.

Sighing, Y/N looked back at Joel and gave his arm one more squeeze. "That's my cue to leave," she said, pulling herself up out of her chair. The girl began to make her way towards the door before pausing and looking back at Joel who was just staring at the table with the half eaten apple in hand.

Before Joel knew what was happening, Y/N was jumping on him from behind, her arms wrapping around his frame for a quick hug as she kissed his cheek and said, "Have a great day, Joel. I'll see you later for lunch, okay? Love you." She then slyly stole the apple from him and winked in his direction before running out of the room as her name was yelled out once again.

Joel couldn't help but smile as he watched the girl leave, ignoring the way his heart seemed to skip a beat which was unusual for him.

"Love you too," he whispered.

- - -

Y/N stared at the map in front of them with a contemplating look upon her face. She was resting her head on her hand and gently tapped her finger against her cheek while her eyes flickered over the marks they had already made.

"Why don't we try over here?" Y/N suggested, pointing towards the section that they had already marked off as 'Do Not Enter.'

All eyes turned to her almost immediately and Connor shook his head. "Y/N, you know why we don't go over there," he told her, referencing the incident where half of their hunting squad got killed, but the girl was persistent.

"That was back when we were just beginning our second year down here. We're more prepared now," Y/N told them. "Every time we go hunting, we stay close enough that we can run back to the bunker if needed. We can't keep living like this. I mean, aren't you guys a little bit curious as to what it's like out there?"

There was a unanimous, "No."

Y/N frowned and looked back down at the map, her fingers now brushing across the small area she had been pointing at while the others all watched her. “Y/N," Anna Lucia sighed, walking over to the girl's side and placing a hand on her shoulder. "There are so many unknowns out there and you know that. What if we go out there and our whole hunting party gets eaten by those monsters? What would the others do?"

"Live off Joel's minestrone," Y/N suggested before sighing and looking towards her friend. "But what if we don't die? What if this opens up a whole new world for us?"

Anna Lucia squeezed the girl's shoulder before whispering, "We can't risk it."

Y/N frowned and looked away while Anna Lucia let her hand fall back down to her side. "Anna Lucia's right except for the being able to live off Joel's minestrone thing. I'm pretty sure he'd be out there trying to avenge you before even thinking about making minestrone," Tim spoke up.

"He wouldn't be stupid enough to do that," Y/N assured them.

"He'd be reckless enough," Connor retorted. Y/N gave him a look and the man sighed, "Seriously, Y/N? When are you two just going to grow a pair and tell each other how you feel?"

Y/N blinked in surprise, a light blush taking over her features as she looked around at her friends who were all smirking. "W-What?" she whispered.

"Gosh, you're insufferable sometimes," Anna Lucia muttered jokingly. "It's obvious that you like him and he is your best friend who is also the only one that's still single down here."

"Joel and I—" Y/N hesitated, the thought of actually being with Joel like that making her heart flutter. "We're just friends," she insisted before giving them all a sad smile. "We won't be getting together."

"It's only a matter of time," Anderson smirked making the girl glare in his direction. However, she didn't get a chance to say or do anything because they all were frozen in place as the lights to the bunker flickered on and off before turning on once again.

"What was—" Anna Lucia began, but Y/N could already feel the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end and had a sneaking suspicion of what was happening.

"Breach," she muttered at the same time someone yelled out from another room, "There's been a breach!"

They all ran out of the room, a few of them scanning the perimeter before they made their way to the main room where everyone was waiting to help them get ready. They hurriedly put what armor they did have on their bodies and Y/N was pulling her hair back into a ponytail when she noticed Joel stumbling into the room with all the weapons in hand.

"Guys! Guys! I got the weapons," Joel announced before proceeding to hand them out to the hunters that walked by.

"Stay," Anderson told him as he took a crossbow.

Joel blinked in surprise, "What? What's happening? What's going on?"

"We've been breached," Y/N explained while she waited for Anna Lucia to grab her weapon so that she could finally reach Joel.

"Breached?" Joel asked. "What do you mean? Like, inside the bunker breached?"

"That's what 'breached' means, kiddo. Y/N, come on," Connor demanded causing the girl to sigh in frustration as him and all the hunters left the room. She turned to Joel who was still trying to process what was happening.

"Joel," she said and he quickly turned to her.

"Right. Right. Here," he muttered as he held out a back holster with two katanas strapped in. She had taken them off of a guy back when the apocalypse had first begun. He had been dead and it wasn't like he planned on using them anyways, so she had taken them in order to keep herself alive. They were her weapon of choice, but she was also one of the best shooters they had so she tended to use a crossbow when necessary. "And here's this," he told her before handing her a crossbow as well.

"Thanks," Y/N told him before nodding her head at him and running out of the room.

"Wait!" Joel yelled, but the girl was already gone. "Breached," he muttered to himself in shock before running after his best friend. By the time he made it to where everyone was, Y/N was already inspecting the gate to the sewers with a frown on her face and her crossbow at the ready while some others worked on getting it open.

"Anna Lucia, Y/N and I will engage," Connor directed. "Anderson and Tim, flank us."

"Flank 'em, yeah, okay. Where do you guys need me? The rear, or. . ." Joel trailed off causing them all to look his way, including Y/N.

"I thought we were past this, Joel," Tim told him as they all looked back to gate.

"Past what? You need help. I can help," Joel insisted. "In case you've forgotten, Robin and I are a duo and I know she goes on the hunting trips and I don't, but this I can help with. Let me help."

"You gonna make me say it?" Connor asked.

"Say what?" Joel questioned.

"You can't handle it, Joel," Connor told him.

"You're shook," Tim added.

"Okay, yeah. So, you guys don't get scared ever?" Joel asked them.

"We get scared."

"We all get scared, Joel, but you get really scared."

"We're not trying to make you feel bad."

"We love you, Joel."

"But you're unsafe."

"You're a liability."

"Even on supply runs."

"Guys!" Y/N exclaimed glaring at the men while Joel looked between them a bit confused.

"Okay, why did that speech feel so rehearsed?" Joel questioned.

"He's got a point," Y/N muttered, turning back around while she nervously fidgeted her hands against the crossbow. "If you're going to tell him something like that at least be sincere instead of rehearsing in your mirror beforehand."

"We did not—" Tim began, but the sound of a growl and something banging against metal made them all tense while Joel jumped back a good foot from where he originally was.

"Connor, Y/N," Karen said as she handed a device to the man. Y/N quickly stood up and hurried over, her eyes flickering over the screen where she could see a blue dot making its way through the sewers towards them.

"Shit," she muttered before standing up more and cracking her neck. She got an arrow ready in the crossbow and jumped in place for a moment to get her nerves out. "Let's do this."

"Okay, 30 meters out. Let's move," Connor directed.

The sewer door was pulled down before the hunters began making their way inside. Y/N was about to follow when someone grabbed ahold of her wrist. She looked back, her eyes locking with Joel's as he held on tightly and whispered, "I can help, Robin."

Y/N let her eyes flicker over his face while her mouth opened up to say something. However, she found herself unable to. All she could imagine was Joel getting attacked by whatever creature was in the sewers at that very moment. She couldn't let him go in there, no matter how badly he wanted to. This was the first time a breach like this had ever happened. Who knew what awaited them down there?

The girl rushed forward, hugging the boy tightly and making him stumble back a bit in surprise. She didn't give him time to react before she was pulling away. "I'm sorry," she whispered, quickly turning around and climbing into the sewers. However, she didn't disappear before she yelled out, "No one let Joel follow!"

Joel's eyes widened. "What?" he exclaimed before attempting to rush forward, but Tim was already there to stand in his way. "Tim, you got to let me go with her. I can't let her go alone. I-I can help."

"She'll be fine, Joel. Y/N’s a survivor. She won't let whatever creature this is take her down," Tim assured him before reaching out to grab the curtain. "You heard what she said. Now go with them." He then pulled the curtain between the two, effectively blocking Joel's view of the tunnel and leaving the boy standing there with a numb feeling coursing through his body.

"Robin," he muttered in frustration before turning on his heels and running to the room everyone was in. The door was locked behind him and Joel quickly shoved his way to the front so that he could watch the monitor with Karen and Kala.

They could all see five yellow dots moving through the tunnels near a bigger blue dot in the center of the screen. "They're getting close," Karen muttered, a silence falling upon them all as they noticed the five dots stop not too far away from the creature. Before anyone knew what was happening, the blue dot lunged out and grabbed ahold of one of the yellow dots.

"Shit."

"Oh, my God."

"It's got one of 'em."

"What about the others?"

The lights began to flicker while Joel felt his heart drop to his stomach. "Y/N," he whispered, his voice making everyone look his way. He was pale, his hands shakily holding onto the crossbow in his hands.

"We don't know if that's her, Joel," Karen tried to tell him. "She could be fine. She—"

"I'm going after her," he said before turning and running for the door. Everyone's eyes widened as people began to make a move towards him, by the boy was quick and already had the door open.

"Joel!" Kala yelled.

"They need help. My best friend needs help. I'm going," Joel insisted before running out the door and slamming in shut behind him.

Joel spun around quickly, crossbow in the air while he nervously looked around the bunker. It was like he was walking into a foreign place, the usual warm feeling of the bunker being replaced with nothing but an eerie feeling and a coldness that shook him to his very core.

His breathing was shaky as he began to walk forward, his eyes flickering around his surroundings while Joel tried to keep himself calm. The only thing keeping him from collapsing in fear was the knowledge that Y/N was out there possibly hurt. He had to get to her. He had to.

The lights flickered as he slowly made his way back towards the tunnels where he knew he had his best access to the others. It was a deafening silent as he walked into the room, so quiet in fact that his ears were ringing.

He nervously looked around and adjusted his hands on the crossbow. As he grew closer to the curtain Tim had pulled out earlier, a new sound filled his ears while his feet slowly stepped in the new puddles of water and blood that were on the ground. The sight made him feel sick to his stomach, so Joel did his best to keep his eyes staring straight ahead.

A lightbulb exploding behind him made the boy jump and spin around, his eyes wide in fear before he realized what had happened and turned back around. He could hear Tim and Connor's words replaying over and over in his head.

We all get scared, Joel, but you get really scared.

You're unsafe.

You're a liability.

Joel walked forward and took in a shaky breath as he attempted to push the voices from his head. His eyes continued to survey the area and he hesitated at the sight of a figure on the other side of the curtain. It almost looked like—

"Connor?" Joel questioned, his voice barely above a whisper. When there was no response, Joel furrowed his eyebrows in confusion and lowered his crossbow just a bit. "Connor?"

It was at that moment that a loud hissing sound came from the other side of the curtain and Connor's body limply flew across the room before being shoved into the mouth of whatever creature was over there with him. Lights from the other side shinned their shadows against the curtain and Joel's eyes widened in fear as he slowly took a step back.

Joel's whole body was shaking, his eyes tearing up a little as he feared for not only his life, but Y/N’s as well. If the creature had done what it did to Connor with Y/N. . .well, Joel didn't even want to think about what he would do.

It seemed he wouldn't have to because at that moment the monster finished up eating Connor and turned its attention towards the curtain. It made a noise that Joel swore was able to rattle his bones. The crossbow was back up in position once again, but his hands were shaking so badly that he knew if he didn't get his fear together he was going to be the monster's dessert to the meal it just ate.

The monster began to stand up on the other side of the curtain, its shadow growing bigger and making Joel gulp. He shakily got the crossbow ready to fire before freezing at the sight of the monster appearing over the top of the curtain.

There were tears in his eyes at this point and Joel couldn't even move as he watched the monster tear the curtain down before moving towards him. A few tears slid down his face and Joel felt the fear and panic coursing through his veins.

He closed his eyes as the monster grew nearer, his face confronting in pain and fear as he felt the monster's breath fanning his face and heard the growls rattling in his head.

Then before he knew what had happened, he heard the sound of something flying through the air and then the monster cried out in agony. He felt someone rush by him and opened his eyes to find Y/N standing above the monster's dead body, one katana dripping with blood in one hand while the other protruded from the center of the monster's face.

"D-Did I kill it, or did you?" Joel whispered, her eyes flickering between Y/N who still had yet to turn around and look at him, Tim, and Anna Lucia.

"What do you think?" Anna Lucia asked.

"Robin," he muttered for he knew she had been the one to save him, his eyes flickering back over to his best friend. It was then that she turned to look at him, her whole body shaking as she breathed heavily and attempted to calm herself down. Joel inhaled sharply at the sight of her, her face covered in dirt and blood while a scratch ran down the length of her arm from where the monster had no doubt tried to grab ahold of her.

Joel began to break at that, tears rolling down his face even more while Y/N pulled the other katana out of the monster's head before shoving them both into their sheaths. She moved forward in an instant, her hands grabbing ahold of Joel's arms while she looked to him with a worried gaze.

"Joel, are you okay? Are you hurt?" she asked earning a slow shake of his head in response. "What were you doing? What were you thinking? You could've gotten killed!"

Joel slowly lifted his gaze to her, his whole body still shaking as he whispered, "You-You were in trouble, Robin. I—"

Joel was unable to finish what he was saying, his words being cut off as he closed his eyes and more tears fell. It was obvious he was holding back a sob due to the fact they were in front of other people and Y/N felt herself soften almost immediately.

She was wrapping her arms around his neck without a second thought, pulling him in for a hug which Joel quickly accepted. His arms were around her waist and he held onto her tightly while he shook, his tear filled eyes flickering to the ground where the monster that had been seconds away from killing him laid dead on the ground.

- - -

Oh, and I have a pretty severe freezing problem.

But I am working on it.

- - -

Tag List

@simplybarnes

@spideysimpossiblegirl

@bookdorkfangirl

@katemusic

@eternallyvenus

@juliebean247

@trustfundparker

[suffering-and-happy-about-it]

Busy Earning (Pieces of the People We Love, Part 1.)

Description: Not many people had the chance to see a vault or to mean anything in the world of Pandora. Will a hardly built relationship in the loneliness of the desert would have the potential to change anything in the world of anarchy and chaos - or will the friends try to murder each other?

A/N: If you're not familiar with Borderlands, this series will most probably won't make any sense to you. But that's alright! I am thinking about releasing a small thing called Vault Hunters Vocabulary and I will try to explain the lore and everything used IN the story but not explained in there. Whaddaya say?

A/N 2: Also, I AM MAKING NEW-U STATIONS LEGAL AND YOU CAN'T STOP ME. So I guess this is an AU? ALSO: the Bandits, Psychos, and Fanatics will speak only in the ancient language of Vine!

Warnings: A lot of guns, violence, reader is a tough badass - not a vault hunter tho. They're badass and don't give a fuck. And Scooter is a dumb bitch, as always.

Word count: 4.5 K

Tagging: @notaliteraltoad​

Series master list:  H E R E

It was one of those days when you took a deep breath and it almost burns your whole mucous membrane. Most of the days were like that in this particular part of Pandora, yet some of these days were too much. The desert around you was dry, the rocks were so hot that you'd burn your whole palm if you'd touch it. No plants or water source insight; it was just you, the asphalt road, the heatwave, and the complete silence.

If you wouldn't be aware of sweating like a living fuck and of the fact that your trousers were pretty bloody then, you'd most likely have the suspicion that you most likely just pissed yourself. On the other hand, you also knew that you had to be dressed from your head to your toes - if you wouldn't have every inch of your body covered, the sun would burn your skin down in a matter of minutes; that was how strong the sunlight was. It wasn't the most practical choice to cross the desert in a long coat, long boots, and a huge cowboy hat; it was, in fact, very much impractical, but you really didn't have much of a choice. That big, cowboy-ish hat became your personal trade over time - you were easily recognizable. If someone would've asked you to describe your personality, the hat itself would be one of your personality traits. Ever since you started wearing it, almost everyone was calling you the Cowboy, even if you were pretty sure that you're a woman. Why would you or any of the people you've been living in this hellhole with being obeying any of society's rules if you were leaving at the edge of civilization itself? Something like grammar and other constructs didn't have any value in the world you knew and were living in.

Back to you. You were pissed at the moment; very pissed. For some random reason, the Catch-A-Ride station near your house was off for the last three weeks and anyone cared enough to repair it. You were hunting Skags for a living and believe it or not, having the chance to get a functioning car was making your job very much enjoyable. But because anything could work on Pandora, you had to hunt down two Skags and drag them to the man living in the nearest town, where you had your contract signed.

Every single morning, you had to get up super-early to track some pack down, hunt at least two of these animals, and then drag the dead bodies through the entirety of the desert. That was the pain in your ass. To drag two damn heavy animals in that goddamn weather. Not that you had a chance refuse to hunt for that day - the meat was rotting quickly in this part of the planet and also, Pintley had quite a lot of customers he had to feed - you being one of the said customers. Also, funny enough, there wasn't that much meat on Skags. It was a doubtful business, to say the least.

A sudden, quiet mechanical noise threw you out of the train of your thoughts. It was easy to tell what was the problem since you could feel your right shoulder tensing up. - "Please no, please no." - You mumbled as you felt your right arm getting stuck and letting the bag go. A hiss left your lips as you felt the metal limb giving you a slight electric shock, sending it down your body. You sighed and sat down on one of the dead Skag's body, carefully taking the coat off just enough to reach the small panel, so you wouldn't tear the arm of your body. It took you almost half an hour of sitting there with a small wrench in your hand as you re-organized the small cabled inside as the metal whole arm was made of got hotter and hotter. Just a small moment longer and you'd burn your damn fingers.

In the end, you somehow managed to connect all the cables on the upper arm and attached the small piece of metal back on its spot again, rolling the coat back on your shoulder so it would cool down a bit. You were good to go again, so you took the bags your Skags were put in and walked forward again, dragging the corpses on the road behind you. At least, the buildings of that God abandoned city could be seen in the distance.

Hell's Cauldron. That was the name the locals gave it. The barely-a-town was raided by the bandits so often that they became more of your neighbors and maybe even friends over time. You knew a mentally unstable bandit named Bernie, who sometimes gave you a drive home - a ride from a Psycho was never a good one, but do as they say and don't look on the teeth of a horse that was given to you. You also became friends with Blind Billy, who was a better driver than Bernie and his one-man crew. This psycho was the man who always tried to buy your Skags. But you were persistent against selling them for Eridium.

Just as you thought of your favorite boys, the roar of their car could be heard in the distance as the machine got closer and closer. You smiled when you heard the sounds of their cars; they were very specific sounds breaking the utter silence around. The cars themselves were... Something. It wasn't a model rentable in Catch-A-Ride stations, so their cars were working just right at the moment. Also, this meant that you wouldn't have to the last few miles on foot, which would be simply great.

"Y/N!" - It was Billy's voice that could behear through speakers placed on the back of their car. In the next moment, the machine stopped next to you. You gave him a smirk and a nod through one of the windows. - "Ya still huntin' down those bunnies, ha? Come in, Cowboy girl, we'll give you a ride, whatcha say?" - The man opened up the door and invited you in. You gladly accepted and gave him the first bag containing a dead animal so he'd help you with dragging it inside the back of the car. Blindy threw it on the ground next to two benches before giving you a hand to drag you in as well.

"I guess I do, yeah. You know, Blindy, everybody needs a way to survive. You rob and kill, and I hunt. Everyone's doing great." - With a sigh, you sat on one of the only clean spots on the bench, getting a hold of it as you felt the engine shaking with the entire car.

"TO HELL'S CAULDRON YOU FUCKING DEADBRAIN!" - Billy yelled into the microphone so it could be heard at least miles from you. The car started so abruptly that it almost knocked you to the ground. - "Ya still don't wanna gimme one of those delicious creatures? I'm sick of eating bugs and sometimes people, when necessary, of course." - Billy asked and dragged his hand along one of the Skag's body. You were disgusted to say at least, but you also were careful enough not to display it in your expression. In the end, there was nothing to wonder about - these men were classified psychopaths.

"We've talked about this more than once, Blindy. Pay me the cash and I will give you one. If you don't want to pay for the work... Well..." - You laughed and touched the Jacobs shotgun attached to your back, sending him a clear message. - "Let's say that we've talked about this, shall we?" - "Oh, yea, Cowboy! Do ya get good money from it? I told ya I can pay ya in Eridium." - The psycho smiled and leaned in closer to you. You leaned to him as well, putting your metal palm on his mask.

"Eridium is worth only if I am a siren or if I have someone who deals Eridium to someone else. So... Do I, a), look like an Eridium dealer or do I, b), look like a siren to you?" - Your metal wrist patted the mask, and right after, you leaned away. Billy chuckled at what you've said. Eridium was an extremely valuable material - for some sort of people. If you weren't that sort of person, Eridium were just violet glowy stones in your eyes. Why would you even need that shit in this hole? The most ridiculous thing in this matter was the fact that psychos of Ham's Creek had a ton of Eridium on them; piles, probably. Hyperion jerks excavated many shafts in the proximity of your homes before they left; and while Hyperion guys were gone, the Eridium was still there and ready to get mined. You've heard that the guys from Ham's Creek, the bandit colony, were trading the stones to doubtful people for less than half of its value... But who were you to judge them? You were all doubtful people, you were all doing shady things. Any of you could be considered innocent.

"You may not be a siren, but you're ma muse in everythin' I do, Cowboy." - Blindy chuckled as the car stopped right in front of Hell's Cauldron's pub. There were seven more buildings in the city if you counted the toilette cab...  The least pleasurable place in the proximity of fifty miles radius. - "Don't ever dare to repeat that, dear God. If you do, Imma shoot your ass off, okay?" - Your laughter filled the air as you watched Blindy and Rayray dragging Skags into the local.

"I SMELL LIKE BEEF!" - Rayray yelled and threw the Skag body next to the bar. It was a greeting, a very polite one if you might add. Rayray was still learning how to grasp the rules of being police and sometimes, he really hit the ballpark. With a small smile, you entered the pub as well and nodded at Pintley, the local pub keeper, who shrugged his shoulders. - "You've been making the boys busy again, Cowboy?" - Pintley, an old man with white hair and a missing eye, asked kindly and controlled the Skag. One day, Billy's crew accidentally took out a bag with a dead human body instead of the Skag one and when Pintley wanted to cook his famous Skag goulash, he almost threw up. This time, it was really the dead animal.

"Oh, yea. And I would get the bags to the freezer as soon as possible, it is probably already grilled at this point." - With a grunt, you finally took off the coat as you leaned into and took your enormous hat off to look at Pinty. The man was still looking at the animals, trying to set an amount of cash to pay for this catch. - "That's fifty dollars for each one of them... Maybe even sixty, they're huge. Good call today, Cowboy." - He hummed in the end, opening the cash register and handled you the money. It was not much... But it was something at least.

"Something must be happening out there again, huh?" - It was a quiet, suggestive mumble as you looked at the banknotes in your palm. Pintley asked a silent "What?" because he hadn't heard about anything going on. - "I mean... Marcus Munitions charges for bullets are off the charts since Jack had... You know." - You peeked behind the bar, pointing at a slice of bread. Without you having to pay for it, Pintley gave it to you to chew on it.

To your surprise, Blind Billy nodded at you as he too leaned into the countertop. Even the bandits of Ham Creek could see that something's going on when they were buying their bullets for another raid - it cost almost two hundred dollars more. All of the things you've mentioned happened over five years ago, maybe even more. Handsome Jack, the CEO of Hyperion, was allegedly murdered by Lilith and the Crimson Raiders of Sanctuary. Since then, Hyperion Corporation was filled with social climbers who tried to become the new CEO - but before everything ended, Elpis' lunar station Helios was blown up, meaning that the days of Hyperion ruling over Pandora were over. Not that any of you would particularly care about any of that.

After that, there were some rumors about a new vault key found and about the existence of many new vaults all around Pandora and its sister planets. And as you heard, it was usually a joke, the vault key ended up in a desert where two jackasses found it. That, in fact, led to the creation of a pain in the ass known as 'The Calypso twins' and their cult; the Children of the Vault. Now, allegedly, Crimson Raiders and their leader Lilith had left Pandora and created Sanctuary 3, a spaceship flying on the orbit of Pandora.

Honestly, as far as you cared, all of this could be just a bunch of made-up stories. How the hell were you supposed to know what happened in space or on the other side of the planet? Who were you supposed to be? A fortune-teller? A telepath to know all of these things for certain? There was one sort of people on Pandora about which everyone seemed to forget - normal people. Normal people like you. Yes, people who only tried to live their lives and who owned only one gun existed. People who pursued normal jobs, calm life without all of the vault hunting business.

You've personally never seen the infamous Handsome Jack (only his posters and billboards) or the alleged vault hunters scattering through Pandora, searching for new things to kill and new loot to find. You never have seen Lilith, Roland, or any of the Crimson Raiders with your eyes, nor you've visited Sanctuary, Haven, New Haven, or Helios - and you surely had not visited the Concordia spaceship. You never saw any of those rumors for yourself, thus, you didn't know what was real or fake.

"Look at it like this, Pintley... The Catch-A-Ride stations aren't working in this part of Pandora for God knows how long and now, Marcus is charging up for rounds again? The last time he did that when the last bunch of the vault hunters came to Pandora? I tell you, something's going on." - Now, you rose your eyebrows and stopped everything you were doing. A loud bang blasted through the Hell's Cauldron. There was silence for a moment, but then a loud song started to play. With a long sigh, each of you stood up and grabbed their gun to get ready for a fight. The Children of the Vault decided to pay you a late-afternoon visit.

This, unfortunately, meant a shootout in the middle of the sun-parched square of the Hell's Cauldron just for the laughs. Those guys were just fine most of the time, but on some days, they came to the town and all they wanted to do was fight with guns blazing. By now, you all knew the drill - a short shootout while letting them spawn back in their base and then, you could continue with your daily program.

No matter what you told those jackasses, no matter what you did, no matter anything - they just drove into the sun-parched square and started to shoot. They were idiots without a single functioning brain between them, to say at least. To your good luck, Blindy and Rayray were on your side. These two were pretty reasonable bandits. Billy was also unusually smart for living with psychos, midgets, and more for as long as he did, yet he still kept his brain working.

The shooting which happened in Hell's Cauldron that day was louder than usual. Maybe it was just the way you've been laughing or the COV's new summer playlist, but this one was unusually loud. People were throwing grenades just as they were yelling some nasty words at each other. Some of them dropped dead in a matter of seconds because they were just standing in plain open. A car blew up accidentally, the trunk almost hitting you in your face and the face. When everything was done, there was only you, Rayray, and Pintley standing in the settling dust. You and Pintley were usually a great team - since he had a slag sniper rifle and you had an orange tier Jacobs shotgun, you were good to go any time. The rest of the COVs slowly disappeared - they started spawning at the New-U stations back in their small cultist town fifty miles away from Hell's Cauldron.

But something wasn't right. Blindy was still laying on the ground, bleeding out with a blank stare. His body wasn't moving and there were even small droplets of blood as he coughed before he passed away. This wasn't supposed to happen. As you approached the body, you've been growing through how did you get into the town in the first place. You've driven in our of the eastern exist, which meant you've driven around a checkpoint. That led you to a conclusion that the Hyperion Checkpoint Station, those were all over Pandora, must've written his biometrical data down. Blindy was somewhere inside the database, hidden in the code; but New-U station wasn't, for a reason, reconstructing his physical body.

"What's going on? Why isn't he respawning, Pintley? Don't you tell me that he wasn't registered by the Checkpoint." - Without giving a single fuck about the blood and dust, you kneeled and took off Blindy's mask to look into his scarred, lifeless fave. He wasn't the most handsome lad you've seen, but he had a good heart and that was all you cared about. - "Billy, man, don't you play games with me now. Get the fuck up, man. Come on." - You begged silently. You couldn't lose him because of a routine shootout. You've survived hundreds of these - he was a good bandit, a good friend, and a significantly good gunman.

"I think the New-U is cut out of the electric network, Cowboy." - Pintley yelled at you, while Rayray was opening the database in the Checkpoint station next to the pub. - "We might as well put it back to use. Stop with the nonsense and get to work, come on!"

The New-U stations and Checkpoints were a special thing that Pandora needed to have any population surviving on it. It all started way back when Atlas, Dahl, Hyperion, and many more were supporting the golden era of vault hunting; those hunters got their own Echo devices to stay in touch all the time and in case they'd accidentally die or dismember, the New-U stations were meant to render a new body for them. As soon as you arrived or was born in this sector of the universe, the corporation implanted a chip to the nape of your neck; you wouldn't respawn only in the case someone would be using jammer or took the chip out of your body. There was a whole lot of things that could get you killed - psycho in a bad mood, hungry Skag, angry friend, bad food, accidental fall into a volcano... You could choose, really. Sometimes, it could take a while to respawn, it also cost you some money, and before the transaction was sent... It could be a whole lot at times.

Since there were no laws and anarchy and chaos ruled the planet hand by hand, this system came in handy at all times. The Checkpoint stations were the smaller ones, saving up your data like DNA and memories to have all of your personal information in the systems in case anything happened to you. New-U was able to resurrect a person after paying said charge - they constructed your body from the DNA and cells of your dead body, implanted the memories back into your brain, and even construed the clothes you had on. It was truly a miracle of modern age science - but also a necessity for Pandora and its moon Elpis.

Rayray nodded when he read Billy's name in the database. He was there; he was there, safe and sound. You only had to make the New-U work. Without giving any fuck, you just threw the dead and useless body on the ground, walking to the machine, next to Pintley, to look at the cables leading out of the back of the machine to the charger on the wall.

Luckily, you were quite handy with this sort of stuff. Really, you had to restore the electricity circuits inside your metallic arm; handily, you opened up the machine and started to work on it, searching for the problem. Pintley was kneeling next to you, so you were only telling him what you needed - like a wrench or a hammer - and he fetched it to you. New-U was mostly unused in Hell's Cauldron, so it was really no wonder that it wasn't working; it was out of order for quite some time now. If Blindy wouldn't have died, you wouldn't even notice the malfunctioning machine.

It probably was out of order for the last five years - since the last time Bandits provoked a gunfight was... You couldn't even remember. Maybe, Pintley himself pulled the cables out; you wouldn't let the electricity bill getting bigger if you hadn't need for letting the New-U running, right? The Calypso fanatics couldn't be considered a threat at all. Each of them was dumb and couldn't shoot for shit, so the only ones getting killed were them. Even more so, they usually started to talk about some of their damn fanatic nonsense in the middle of the fight. In the beginning, you listened to those jackshit rambles; then you just murdered them without blinking. It wasn't that easy. Rayray looked at you from the database's screen. Bandits, believe it or not, were sometimes pretty smart. Yes, they had their bright moments. The only thing they couldn't do was to speak like a normal human being.

"THAT HURTS LIKE A BUTTCHEEK ON A STICK!" - Rayray yelled at you and you furrowed - it was too late to stop the respawning process since the machine started barking loudly in front of you as it came back to life. What did he say? Someone else was written down in the system except the normies of Hell's Cauldron? You looked over to the bandit boy, but it was too late to pull the cable; the New-U already started to build a human being. And that person definitely wasn't Billy. You made Pintley step back since he hadn't any gun on him and took out your Jacobs shotgun again, pointing at the stranger. The man, it definitely was a man, was looking at his hands in wonder, opening his palms, closing them right after, playing with his fingers. He slowly pulled an Oz kid used in the vacuum off the back of his head, so he could take some normal, hot breath into his lungs. The breather was old as hell, probably six to seven years to your estimations (given it was an ultra-old Vladof Oz it). Who was that man, you didn't know at all; you just assumed he must've been dead for quite some time.

The Hyperion nice-ass lady was telling him something, but she couldn't quite finish her speech - Billy started rendering right next to the man. You exhaled and thanked God for Billy, but you didn't let the mysterious man go out of your sight - you didn't know who he was, what his intentions were, or if he was a bad guy or not. The only thing you could clearly tell was that the man was super-happy to be alive. "I'm alive! I'm alive! Would ya believe it, man, I'm alive, breathin' and stuff and I'm feelin' just fine!" - The stranger exclaimed and looked over to you. - "Wait... Wait. Man, man, ya not Lilith or Moxxi or one of their vault hunters. Who are ya?" - He tried to come closer to you, for some reason, so you only rose the barrel of the shotgun and watched the small laser light hovering on his forehead.

"Ya not any friendly folks, ha?" - The man asked and laughed your barrel off as if he barely noticed the danger he was in. There was... Something about him. You felt like you knew him from somewhere. That face was basically burned deep into your brain and it was so detailed, that it was freaking you out like shit. Those eyes, sharp lips... But his name was a remaining mystery to you; not for too long, unfortunately. - "Hey, name's Scooter. Ya know me. Most of the folks on Pandora do." - With that, he offered you a palm to shake, and because of that, you took the barrel of your shotgun down from his forehead. Scooter. Scooter. That face, that name... Jesus that man was reminding you of someone and you couldn't just remember who. Eyeing down his clothes covered in old, dry oil (which was clearly powering engines, or some other machinery), you straightened and watched Pintley approach Scooterboy. You exhaled slowly and put the shotgun on your back, shoving it back into the covering.

"Name's Pintley, young man. Come here, I'll give you a cold Dr. Bob and some food." - Pintley patted his shoulder and you carefully watched Scooterboy with a frown. You were inclined to believe him just after he looked like isn't about to kill you, yet it didn't mean you'd be particularly fond of the stranger just yet.

"Scooterboy?" - Your voice was firm and cold as you looked at him. - "Don't you do something with cars? I get the vibe you do, look at your clothes." - It was a short explanation, but it did work. Scooter looked down quickly, raising his eyebrows. Blindy was now standing next to you and he didn't have a clue about what was going on.

"Catch-A-Ride!" - Scooterboy exclaimed with a big smile. Oh dear, you got your mindset straight on who he was. It was like a blast inside your brain. You knew his face from all the commercials you've seen with his face - it was a big thing when he supposedly died on his way to Helios. Ellie, his big sister and the other big mechanic of Pandora, was paying him many respects and missed him dearly. She was mourning for a long time.

"How the fuck are you alive?" - With a frown, you stormed past him and Pintley, entering the pub first. - "This is one wild evening Pintley, I tell you. Give me, Billy and Scooter some cold Dr. Bob and some bread with cheese you have there because I'm about to faint." - You sat at the nearest chair, massaging your own face.

Scooter was alive.

[jamesbucksiclebarnes]

Rating: Mature

Chapter List: [1] | [2] | [3] | [4] | [5] | [6] | [7] | [8] | [9] | [10] | [11] | [12]

[AO3 Link] | [Fic Page]

Tag List: @crossbowking

SERIES SUMMARY:

"Not human. She was not human. They all knew it. Could almost feel it, but couldn't make sense of it. That was why they were afraid. Not because of what she used to be Before. But because of what she was now."

Having found herself serving as the right-hand to the Governor for too long, Synnove le Jacques does her best to make things right with the people of the Prison. Stuck beside her partner in crime, her irritatingly obnoxious and hideously problematic best friend, Merle, she does her best to fight back against the monster she has let the Governor become.

CHAPTER TITLE: To Love the Unlovable.

By the time I’d come back inside, Merle had destroyed the entire collection of mattresses on the first floor. He’d made it partway through the second floor, too, though someone had stopped him before he could ruin them all. I didn’t doubt Rick had likely found him, rummaging through the thin foam within the stained mattress cover for whatever source of substance he could use to take a brain-vacation. Whatever had transpired between them, Merle was no longer in the cellblock. Rick looked troubled, sitting upon one of the metal tables with Hershel, staring blankly out toward the upper window. I wondered if he were rethinking his decision.

Probably not.

When I walked past him, his gaze flicked to me and the creased in his forehead smoothed out. I met his gaze evenly as I passed, giving him a slight nod before walking past him into the corridor of cells. He could take whatever he wanted from that exchange. I didn’t care. It wasn’t as if I had accepted the likelihood I would be back with the Governor before nightfall. I didn’t. In fact, the thought of it made me almost physically ill. But I wouldn’t put these people at risk for my own sense of comfort. Not like I had for so many others beneath Philip’s reign.

Searching for Merle became more of a chore than I’d been prepared for. I passed Carol in the cellblock corridor. She gave me a pensive look, stopping mid-step and opening her mouth as if to say something before snapping it shut, having thought twice about whatever it was she’d been about to voice.

“You seen Merle?” I asked her. It was the first thing I’d ever said to her directly. She looked slightly troubled by the question.

“Yes,” Carol answered. “He’s down there.” She thrust a thumb in the direction she’d been walking from, thin lips pursed into a frown. “I don’t know how you put up with him.”

“I don’t,” I responded with a snorted chuckle. “He’s a lot easier to deal with when he knows you won’t take his shit.”

She gave a non-comital hum, watching me as I walked past her, toward where she had gestured.

“For the record,” I called over my shoulder. “Don’t hold back when it comes to him. He’ll see right through you, anyway.”

She didn’t respond, but I knew she’d understood what I’d meant. I didn’t need to look behind me to know she was watching me walk away.

The sound of Merle’s voice is what lead me to him, down the series of steps and into one of the machine rooms beneath the cellblock. He wasn’t alone when I arrived, standing silently enough that neither of the Dixon brothers within the room noticed me at first.

“He ain’t got the stomach for it,” Merle was saying plainly, seemingly amused. “He’s gonna buckle. You know that, right?”

Daryl nodded, slight though it was, to indicate his agreement. “If he does, he does.”

“You want him to?” Merle asked. He spotted me, then, standing at the bottom of the staircase, though made no mention of my presence to his little brother, who had his back to me.

I could see how tense his shoulders were and guessed he was likely quite uncomfortable with this conversation. As if he were toeing some kind of line even he was unsure of. As if he were still undecided upon whether his need for his brother’s approval outweighed the place he’d found and the man he had become without him.

After a moment, Daryl responded with a shrug. “Whatever he says goes.”

Merle coughed out a harsh, humourless laugh. “Man. Jacques, you wanna come in here and find out if my little brothers still got a set of balls? I mean, are they even attached anymore – and if they are, do they even belong to you?”

Daryl jerked his head to the side, looking at me over his shoulder. He barely kept his eyes on me for more than a millisecond before turning away, cheeks red.

Merle snorted again. “You used to call people like that sheep. What happened to you?”

“What happened with you and Glenn and Maggie?” Daryl snapped back.

I felt my own shoulders tense at that question, jaw clenching as the memory played itself back over and over again in my mind. Merle’s eyes turned to me as he chewed his lip.

Daryl stepped sideways, blocking off his older brother’s line of sight to me. “I ain’t askin’ her, I’m askin’ you.”

“I’ve done worse,” Merle answered.

I cringed.

“You need to grow up,” Daryl spat, his voice harsh and low. “Things are different now.”

At that, Merle snorted, taking a step to the side in order to gesture at me around his brother’s form. “Grabbing up those little love birds weren’t just me, little brother. She’s just as guilty as I am but ain’t none of you looking at her like she’s the damn devil.”

That was because they didn’t know better. Merle, they’d had a series of bad experiences with. Me? I was just some girl that had come to her senses and was trying to do right by them. They knew too little about me to look at me the way some back at Woodbury did. And I hoped it remained that way.

“What’s that about, huh? Do I gotta get myself a nice set of tits and a tight ass before I get any respect?”

I reached out to the open toolbox sitting atop the shelf in the wall to my left, grabbed a loose screw, and threw it at him over Daryl’s shoulder. The metal struck him in the forehead, and he stumbled back a step, lifting his hands to his face with a curse.

“God damn it, woman!” he yelled.

“Watch your mouth, asshole,” I growled.

He looked at me through the gaps in his fingers, glaring. I just looked evenly back at him, brow raised, daring him to say something else.

Daryl glanced over at me, silently watching, waiting to see which one of us broke first.

It was, unsurprisingly, Merle. He looked away, dropping his hands with a grumbled huff. “Ya’ll are just doin’ the same damn thing we did, anyway,” he stated, looking back to his brother. “Snatchin’ someone up and delivering them to the Governor.”

Ah. So, he didn’t know. Rick hadn’t told him the whole story. I wasn’t surprised, of course. Daryl had made the point quite obvious that Merle wouldn’t go along with the plan if he knew I was at risk, too. I could tell he was concerned that I was about to tell him. The way Daryl partially turned his head to look at me out of the corner of his eye, the hair hanging over his forehead obscuring the look from his brother’s view, told me as much.

I didn’t say anything. There was too much of a likelihood that Merle would lose his shit if he knew, and none of us here, in this room, needed that.

“It’s different,” I said softly after a moment of silence. “Rick thinks it’s the only way. That we can’t win this fight.”

“And he’d be damn right,” Merle answered. “If we didn’t have you.”

I gave him a pointed look, warning him to watch his wording. He knew I didn’t intend on informing these people that I used to literally murder people for a living. We both had the same inkling none of them would take that knowledge too well.

“Don’t give me that fucking look, woman,” Merle hissed. “I’m right and you know it. Why the hell am I going? What we should be doin’ is sending you. Get you nice and close to him so you can do your thing.”

Daryl turned to the side in order to look between me and his brother, one thin brow slightly raised.

“You tell Rick that strategy?” I asked tensely.

Merle scoffed and tossed his metal hand out in a wild gesture. “You think I’m stupid?”

“That a trick question?”

“Shut up,” he growled. “I’m just sayin’. Why bother sending him Michonne, like it’ll make some kind of difference? We all know he ain’t gonna stop just ‘cause we asked nicely.” Merle looked to his brother, pursing his lips and shaking his head. “Maybe you and your friends need people like me and Jacques around, huh?” he mused. “Do their dirty work for ‘em. Be the bad guys. How’s that hit you?”

Daryl just looked back at him, a miserable look in his eye as he watched the man he called brother standing before him, prepared to be the villain everyone already saw him as. After a moment, the younger Dixon let out a sigh and said, in a soft voice that almost tore my heart from my chest, “I just want my brother back.”

I felt my expression soften and my throat tighten a little. When my gaze slid across to Merle, I forced myself to take a deep breath. His expression was almost as miserable as Daryl’s, though I could see the moment he shut himself off, put up that wall between his mysterious inner workings and his outside persona.

“Damn it, man. Get out of here.”

He waved his brother off, turning away from him and continuing with his mission to rummage through the entire prison block, looking for crystal.

Daryl stood there for a moment, watching his brother’s back with a sad frown before he realised, I was watching him. Once his eyes locked onto mine, he straightened his slouched shoulders and took a deep breath, wiping the sorrowful expression from his face.

Without another word, he turned away and climbed back up those stairs, every step weighted by the world atop his shoulders.

I watched him go silently, my own mirrored sadness beginning to boil, simmering until it had morphed into anger. Once I was sure the younger Dixon was out of range, I whirled on Merle. He had straightened, having also watched his brother leave, and caught sight of my hardened expression. The way his eyes widened would have made me laugh under any other circumstance. He turned instantly, making a run to hide behind one of the machines in the centre of the room. I chased after him, just missing getting a grip on his shirt by a centimetre.

“Get back here!” I yelled, following him through the gap between the machines.

He ducked behind another one just before I could reach him. “No! You’re gonna hit me!”

“Damn right I’m gonna hit you!”

We continued this stupid dance for another minute, while Merle tried to multitask between running from me and trying to explain himself.

“It ain’t like I’m gonna change!” he called from behind the green mechanical monstrosity to my left. “No point givin’ him hope!”

“You can say that without being a dick about it!” I called. “And stop bringing me into it!”

He poked his head out from behind the machine. “I wouldn’t have to if you’d just do what you damn do!”

“I’m not going after him on my own,” I snapped, leaping forward and trying to get a hold onto the sparse hairs on his head.

He ducked back behind the machine before I could, running around to the other side of it as I chased behind him. “Why the hell not?”

“Because Rick –“ I paused mid-step. “Because Rick hasn’t asked me to.”

“You’re kiddin’ me,” Merle groaned, stepping out from the machines. “You’re just jumpin’ from one damn master to another.”  

“Fuck off,” I hissed. “It’s more than that and you know it.”

“You don’t want Officer Friendly finding out your dirty little secret, that it?” Merle asked patronizingly.

“Mostly, yeah,” I admitted, though my tone was harsh. “What the hell does it matter, anyway? You know Woodbury will suspect me if he’s killed like that. How would that help us, huh? Do you think Martinez would look the other way because it’s me? Or do you think that’ll spur him into taking vengeance into his own damn hands?”

Merle let out a long breath before turning and thrusting his fist into the green metal side of the machine by his left.

“Sending in Michonne won’t help, either.” I lifted a hand to rub my face, looking to the sky in exhaustion. “Doesn’t matter what Rick thinks. Phil only made the terms to deliver us to him to make things easier for himself when he finally decides to lay waste to this place.”

Merle went silent and still. I didn’t notice for a few moments, too busy trying to calm myself, to let my shoulders relax as I breathed in and out through my nose. This entire thing was starting to stress me out.

When he spoke next, his voice was different. Softer, almost unguarded. The tonal shift surprised me so much, my attention snapped directly to him so fast I almost broke my damn neck.

“Promise me somethin’,” he said.

My face went blank as I gave him an even stare. “You know I can’t do that.”

“The hell you can’t,” he responded, taking a step toward me. “You just won’t.”

“I’m not like you. I make a promise, I have to keep it,” I answered.

“You sayin’ I don’t?” he asked, shifting slightly back into that aggressive tone of his.

“No. You know what I’m saying.”

Merle had no idea what I was. I’d never told him, never planned on it for the obvious reason of possible immediate annihilation. But he knew something. Though he’d never outright asked, as if voicing the question would make it all-too real, I’d given him enough information to go off without actually saying anything that would enable him to put a decent picture together.

Enhanced senses, inability to lie, the way I was bound to my word…

He knew enough. Enough to know better than to ask me for a promise.

“Just one thing,” he pressed, pushing off the machinery he’d been leaning on to stand in front of me, closer than he usually dared. “Please?”

I blinked up at him, my entire body jerking in surprise. “Did you just say “please”?”

He looked down at me without answering.

I found myself stuck on repeat. “Did you just, completely unironically, say the word “please” to me?”

“Syn…”

And now he was calling me by my first name? What the hell was going on? I looked up at him, at the earnest expression on his otherwise harsh face, and felt something odd settle at the pit of my stomach. It was an unease, an instinctual feeling of wrongness, as if, somewhere deep down, I knew something about this interaction wasn’t… right.

After a moment, I licked my lips and swallowed back against the strange sharp sensation in my throat. “Okay,” I breathed. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

“Promise me you’ll look after my brother,” he said. There was no scorn beneath the words, no condescending smirk or smug little grin. It was a true, honest request.

This entire thing was too weird. “Merle…” I began, tilting my head to regard him, to really look at him. “What are you going to do?”

He sniffed and straightened, plastering on a grin that I don’t think even he believed as he opened his arms and made a face. “What make you think I’m gonna do anything? I’m offended you’d even ask.”

“Do not lie to me, Merle Dixon,” I hissed, reaching up to grab the neckline of his wifebeater and pulling him close to me.

The startled look in his eye faded quickly, replaced by that same odd look he’d had a moment earlier. Fear? No. Something else, something more. Resignation?

He was going to do something stupid. I just knew it. But what?

“You said you’d promise,” he said, his voice low, barely louder than a whisper.

I stiffened slightly. He was right. I had.

With my lip curled up over my teeth in a snarl, I said, “I promise to do my best to look after your brother.”

That irritatingly pleasant pang of magic shot through my body, signalling the solidification of that promise into my very core.

With a growl that was more animalistic than human, I shoved Merle backwards. He stumbled a step, slightly put off by the strength of it, reaching out to catch himself with his good hand on the corner of the machines.

“Thank you,” he said.

Every cell in my body felt as if it were on fire with the force of my anger in that moment. How dare he force me into that! Whatever the reality of his knowledge about me, he knew I wouldn’t be able to break that promise. Knew it just as well as he knew I could hear him calling out my name, even as I passed through the gate and back into the cellblock.

[izzyovercoffee]

Mandalorians and the Force

I had begun a series about this on my star wars blog some time ago, and never continued it. Because it’s only tangentially related, as it deals more with the Jedi Order and how the Jedi may view Mandalorians, I’ll include a link to the tag, and may refer to posts from time to time.

musings: mandalorians and the force tag on the old blog

Overview

This has been something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about, as ... early materials, particularly in Legends, dealt a lot and often with Mandalorians and their relations with Force Users of all kinds --- but most obviously with both the Jedi Order of the old republic, as with the Sith Empire. 

The starting off point of between 3000 to 4000 years before the Battle of Yavin only had one conflict after another, after another, after another, involving Mandalorians drawn into galactic-scale wars by the fault of one of the two major bastions of Force warriors.

That kind of history shapes opinions. It shapes culture, and beliefs, and attitudes --- both personal and cultural --- towards the Force, as a religion, as a spirituality, and as an affliction in the form of Force Sensitivity.

History matters when it comes to understanding what those underlying attitudes may or may not encompass --- not just in and through a history of war, but also an understanding of mando’a as a language, and the sheer reach of the Mandalorians at their height of power during the Mandalorian Wars.

It also serves to understand what and who the Ka’ra are, and why they matter --- especially in the terms of Mandalorians and their unique understanding and relationships with the Force by a different name, or no name at all.

These attitudes, that history --- and Mandalorians are very much steeped in as much of a bloody history as one intermittent with peace, and venerate a type of ancestor worship through armor, and legends, and art --- then informs how a Force tradition may or may not arise.

The Big List

So, for organization, I’m making a bunch of bullet points and we can consider this a masterpost until such a time as I make a page for it, if I do.

The Mandalorian Wars

Conquest, Conversion, Conscription

Integration vs Assimilation

Force Traditions are a complicated, complex thing --- and something that can and does exist outside of the schools of the Jedi, and the Sith. The Clone Wars showed us, at least, that force traditions absolutely can and do exist without interference, and helped set a precedence that an unknowable number of unique cultural traditions exist in universe.

But what does that mean for Mandalorians? Well ... at the height of the Mandalorian Wars, the Mandalorian people had conquered most of the galaxy outside of The Core. The Republic very nearly fell, if it weren’t for the interference of Revan, Alek (later Malak), and the Jedi Exile.

Mandalorians, on the whole, are huge on adoption --- and are a culture that can take others in with ease, without requiring a total assimilation. What I mean by that is that ... it’s easy to be both a Mandalorian and, say, a Mirialan, when the requirements of “be mandalorian” are, essentially: “Education and armor, self-defense, our tribe, our language, our leader—all help us survive.”

It meant that anyone, literally anyone, could be a Mandalorian.

Throughout The Mandalorian Wars, the Mandalorians conquered a great number of systems and people. Mirialans among them, for one example --- a people for whom the Force plays a large role even in the mundane parts of the culture. Thus, Force traditions could be shaped in that way --- through a trace of history, and shaped by Mandalorian influence from that point onward.

Modern Attitudes Towards Force Sensitivity

The Jedi Order throughout history

The Sith Empire over time

Discrimination against the Force

Throughout various Legends sources, from KotOR i & ii and expanded materials to Star Wars: Republic Commando and on, Mandalorians are written as holding a strong bias against Force Users --- from as quiet and benign as a general distrust to as extreme and threatening immediate violence.

This begs the question: Why?

Are they just hateful against the Force and “supernatural” beings, or is there an actual reason for it?

For the most part ... on the surface, it certainly looks like there’s no reason for it except for fantastic racism and xenophobia. But, if you dig deeper, there is a repeated theme throughout Mandalorian history: the abuse of Force Users (predominantly Jedi and Sith) that manipulate, use, and lead the Mandalorian people into galaxy-wide war and repeated, imminent total destruction.

In light of that history, it makes sense for Mandalorians to, generally, distrust and dismiss Force Users as dangerous and not to be interacted with.

But how, then, might that bigotry also extend to children born within the population who begin to exhibit Force Sensitivity? Would they be accepted, or shunned and thrown out, and is that something easily predicted?

And despite that history, can there be clans with long-standing Force Traditions extending back through several millennia?  And what might they look like?

Mandalorian Cultural Beliefs

The Creation Myth, and how that informs concepts of Alignment

Chaos vs. Stagnation; Change and Growth (above all things)

Alignment conflicts juxtaposed against Light vs Dark

In the meantime, I offer my short answer to a complex question: Do Mandalorians view a Light/Dark side interpretation of the Force?

Yes, and no.

It’s made complicated by a belief system and foundation of cultural values that don’t recognize Light and Dark as “good” or “evil,” nor do they view them as separate ends of a single spectrum. This is why, I’m guessing, Mandalorians are often viewed as “all dark siders” to the more pious Jedi, and only “pawns never to be given too much power” to the more extreme Sith --- Mandalorians cannot commit to an extreme because that way leads to stagnation.

Extremes are a suffocation of growth, and Mandalorians’ cultural foundations, down to their very creation story, venerate growth above all else --- and see stagnation often as a sickness, something to fight against. To then adhere to either extreme suffocates chances for change if change requires moving against an extreme.

Another thing to understand is this: Mandalorians do not demonize the dark, just as they do not worship the light.

As I’ve said before, to mandalorians: Black, the color of darkness, is the color of justice. The real, genuine, understanding of capital j for Justice. And at the other end of the spectrum, white is a deception --- white, as in a field of snow, or a fresh start, is not so much a purity as it is a mask to hide flaws, and traps. And if one cannot see one’s flaws (whether it be age upon the armor, or a truth in plain sight) then one must be wary of deception.

And, as spoken in a recent episode of Rebels, the dichotomy is not good vs evil, or light vs dark, but something far more simple, and far more important:

“Hope, or Fear?”

Growth, or Stagnation?

Do we pursue the promise of a future, or do we lose our way imitating the past?

Mandalorian Spirituality

The Stars, the Ka’ra, the Mand’alore

Destiny, Luck, and The Force

Symbolism, History, Blood and Armor --- From Mandalore’s Mask to The Darksaber

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that in the Star Wars Universe, “Destiny” is a real, palpable thing that exists through the Force. Mandalorians may or may not be agnostic as a people, but they are not remotely ignorant and willing to indulge in willful blindness to facts --- especially ones that have and continue to affect their history, their livelihoods, and their continued survival in as real and dramatic ways as The Force has time and time again.

The Mandalorians are also an incredibly sarcastic people, who crack ironic jokes and puns and indulge in gallows humor --- because that’s just how they are, and describes what they do and how they feel about “destiny.”

When talking about Destiny, and Luck, in Star Wars? You’re also talking about The Force --- whether you like it, or not.

So. What is "Destiny,” to Mandalorians? Destiny is synonymous with good luck. And good luck? Jate’kara. Luck, Destiny - literally: good stars, a course to steer by.

What are the stars? Ka’ra. Stars. From ancient Mandalorian myths, also known as the ruling council of fallen kings (not gender specific, gender doesn’t exist in mando’a).

Who are those fallen kings? The Mand’alore of history. Every. Single. Once-ruler of the Mandalorian people --- all dead, but were once alive, once mortal, once real. Made unreal in death, and each became a star in their passing. Each became a light for luck, for destiny, to steer by. Still alive, still living, through cultural values, in beliefs, in armor, in blood, in masks and sabers.

How Mandalorians view the Force, then, is shaped not by existing views (as the Jedi Order, or the Sith Empire), but very much steeped in a unique form of ancestor veneration and a complicated spirituality that avoids gods of worship in exchange for stars to favor, ancestors for guidance, and a never-ending need to strive, continuously, to “become better than we were.”

[louandhazaf]

Annual Writing Self Evaluation

1. List of works published this year:

Loudest Thing in my Head

How Many Licks

Aftercare

Swallow My Words

Always Holding on to Stars

Let’s Not Fight in Vegas

Darkest Night Hour

Got Me On My Tiptoes

Let’s Raise a Cup

Those Summer Nights

how long nothing lasts

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

I’ll Be Your Pride

Polish Rider

What I’ve Wanted to Tell You

So When the World is Cold

2. Work you are most proud of (and why):

I have two that stick out to me.

The first is Swallow My Words because it’s on the longer side (for me...) but I was still happy with the pacing which is normally where I trip myself up when writing long fics. And I just really love those characters so much. What I’ve Wanted to Tell You is the first part of the series and I have two other fics that will go into that universe that I just need time to write, but sometimes I’ll just think about what those two are up to these days.

The second is how long nothing lasts because I think I have a lot of emotion in there without it being soppy or overdone. And to me, it was fun coming up with a not-so-literal interpretation of the prompt (... um, even if at the end I had to sneak it in there because I don’t think it was entirely successful without it) and then it’s been absolutely fascinating to see the reaction it’s gotten after I posted it.

3. Work you are least proud of (and why):

Honestly, I’m actually really proud of all my fics this year, for a variety of reasons: pushing myself to write new pairings/plots I normally wouldn’t tackle/under-represented smut/shorter fics/unhappy endings. In 2016 I posted a fic that I wasn’t 100% proud of, and it still raises my hackles a bit thinking of it, so I promised myself I wouldn’t do that this year.

4. A favorite excerpt of your writing:

I chose a bit from Swallow My Words because they’re not great at communicating and I really like how dramatic they both are at this moment as they’re trying to navigate through their own priorities.

While Louis dug through the pantry for the popcorn, Harry idly shuffled some papers on the counter. The corner of one of the sheets near the bottom caught his eye. It had the state university logo. He tugged it a bit so he could sneak a peek. Harry hadn’t gotten his letter yet and Louis said he was still waiting to hear. Clearly he was lying, the word “congratulations” in the first sentence gave that away.

Louis pushed the food around on the shelves, a cacophony of packages rustling and knocking against each other. His voice was muffled from inside the pantry. “I just think it’s funny how you act like you’re so proud and strong, yet you won’t stand up to those assholes. And you’re supposed to be their captain.”

Right. Well, he was glad to hear what Louis really thought of him. It was almost like Louis went to a super liberal private school where they taught things like sex ed, gender studies, and women’s history, where they had a diverse staff who upheld their zero tolerance bullying policy, and where there were already a few out kids. It was almost like he and Louis were living through completely different school experiences. It was almost like Louis hadn’t listened to a fucking word he had been saying for years as he tried to navigate the minefield that was his own school.

And now the person who’d been his rock, his source of comfort through it all, thought he was a coward. He’d been lying to Harry about the acceptance letter from State because he didn’t want to go to college with him or play on a team with such a chicken shit. Louis was probably trying to figure out how to break up with him right now.

“Yeah, real fucking funny, Lou.” Harry turned and left the kitchen in silence. He was at the front door and shoving his feet into his shoes before Louis probably realized he was alone in the kitchen. He slammed the door and caught the tail end of Louis calling after him.

5. Share or describe a favorite review you received:

All of them? But also when ao3 emails me and I see that one reader has kudos multiple fics of mine in a short time. That always makes me overjoyed.  

6. A time when writing was really, really hard:

Every single fic that I posted in 2017 had a deadline, whether self-imposed because of a milestone/birthday that I wanted to hit, or was written as part of a bigger challenge/collection/exchange. Anytime I tried to write something without a deadline, it got swept to the side. (To be fair to me, this is also because of the amount of stuff I ended up modding & pinch hitting, which meant I had a lot of last minute stuff that ended up taking priority.) So, writing for *myself* I think was really really hard this year. I’m making that a priority in 2018.

7. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you:

I think the Coach character in Swallow My Words was a surprise. I always knew that in the end he’d be there for Harry, but how it all unraveled was all them.

8. How did you grow as a writer this year:

This year I’ve written more, and faster, than I ever have before. I volunteered to pinch hit a few fics and doing those really stretched me with both writing concise fics quickly and finding my voice in fics that I might never have written otherwise. They were a fun challenge. For the first time, I also did a canon fic, which is still super scary and which I’m not sure I’m going to do again, but I’m really glad I was able to follow through with it. 

9. How do you hope to grow next year:

This is an excellent question that I don’t have an answer to... maybe I’d like to do some more experimental fics? I know I need to work on dialogue, so maybe that too? 

10. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc):

Oh wow. Um, I have a lot. First and foremost, I’m going to say gettingaphdinlarry (@gettingaphdinlarry) for being the most thorough and wonderful beta. Anytime I scream-typed my histrionics and doubted myself “AH! I CAN’T DO THIS”/“THIS IS TERRIBLE”/“WHY AM I DOING THIS?” she was there with calm reassurance that I could, in fact, do it and it was never as terrible as I thought. She’s so much fun to work with because I learn new things every single time she betas for me and I always end up laughing at myself. Plus, her writing is incredible, so getting to work with someone like that is fabulous. Please go read her works. Please. 

I have really really really been into short fics at the moment and in particular myownspark (@myownsparknow) & jiksa (@jiksax) & softly have all written such concise, powerful fics where so much is left unsaid in a really satisfying way. I love when authors trust in themselves enough to let the reader fill in the white space surrounding the words and I hope to do more of that in the future. 

And last, but certainly not least, fullonlarrie (@fullonlarrie) for literally talking to me about fics and writing day and in and day out this year. I cherish your endless support, I’m in awe of your writing speed and how you’re able to spin up stories, and I want us to be friends forever.  

11. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year:

yes, of course, always.

12. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers:

I did what any self respecting person would do in this situation and I Googled what better writers than me had to say on this matter. 

I think the two main ideas I’d like to share are:

“I have a sort of idea that isn’t really an idea. .... I just show up in front of the computer. Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too. If she doesn’t show up invited, eventually she just shows up.” -- Isabel Allende

This is something that’s hard for me to remember sometimes as well, but honestly just sitting down and doing it is the very best advice I think there is. And I’ll follow that up with this, because I think they’re linked:

“You have to finish things — that’s what you learn from, you learn by finishing things.” -- Neil Gaiman

13. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year:

I have a boatload of WIPs that I need to finish in 2018. Like... 7. PLUS I’m doing the @1dshortficfest so I’m excited for that. 

14. Tag three writers whose answers you’d like to read.

I’m not tagging anyone, but I know a lot of you writers are out there and I would love to see your answers, so please consider doing this!

*All answers should be about works published in 2017. Also, you can skip any questions you hate or don’t want to answer, but please leave them on the list so that others can do them if they want. 

(also, here’re my responses from 2016)

[dylanowhy]

Only Human - Stiles Stilinski Imagine

Author: dylanowhy (me)

Summary: Stiles Stilinski. Surrounded by a world of supernatural and strange, it’s hard to keep a hold of things, especially ones mind and with something new terrorizing the streets of Beacon Hills the unexpected happens, causing Stiles to react in the only way possible. He is only human after all.

Warnings: Language. Dark. Talk of death. Death of main characters. AU!Stiles

Word Count: 5,004

A/N: Okay, this is deep and dark. I needed a little break form the fluff and got inspired to write this. It’s a little different than what I am use to posting and I hope you enjoy it! Feedback is always welcomed. 

They had made fun of him before. Knuckles turning white as he gripped the metal bat with such anger. How could Stiles carry around a bat as all his friends around him were filled with supernatural energy? What could a strong swing do compare to fangs and sharp nails of a werewolf, or the screeching scream of a banshee? Enough. It could do enough. Beads of sweat collected on his forehead, confused eyes were staring at him as if she didn’t know. “Stiles.” Her voice was breathless, shallow and he could hear the hope. Lydia Martin. The girl he had been so in love with since before the two understood what love was. He never thought he would be stalking towards her, only one idea in mind. He use to have happy thoughts, images on them kissing dancing in his head, ideas of holding her hand and telling her how much she really meant to him, how amazing she was and how she had such a beautiful mind even if she didn’t like to show it that often. But now, now he just wanted to see that beautiful mind painting one of the school walls. One by one, they were going to pay, and he was going to be okay with it.

“Scotty! Scott-o! Movie night, just us bros!” Stiles was excited. Although he enjoyed the idea of being needed around Beacon Hills, there hadn’t been any supernatural sightings for a while and he was liking the idea of having his normal life back. Him and Scott were spending a lot more time together like they did before, stuffing their faces with countless junk foods and lounging in their pajamas, just being comfortable with each other. However, when he looked at his best friend, his smile on his face immediately dropped. Scott was all uneven jaw and apologetic eyes, his lips pursed together. Stiles was starting to think he was gaining some weird wolf powers by association, like he could hear Scott’s heart beat through his chest. “Oh damn.” He sighed. “I’ll go put some real pants on.” Stiles hiked his way up his stairs so he could get ready for whatever was to come. He knew it was a little too good to be true. There was never a true break in this town. He was starting to wonder why he wasn’t being paid for this yet. Grabbing the keys to Roscoe before heading out, Scott patted him on the back as they exited the house and made their way to the clinic.

“Bless you.” Stiles said after Deaton, receiving narrowing eyes from nearly the whole group. He looked around at this moment, realizing how much their pack had minimized. Standing around a slab of steel was Scott, Malia, and Lydia. It caused a small tug at his heart and a falter in his smile, but he was Stiles so he did his best to hid that, like he always did. “I know it’s a little hard to pronounce, but it’s a very serious matter. These – creatures, they don’t care about common balance. They live off pain. And I’m not talking just a stub of the toe. Guilt, grief, loss, sorrow, you name it. They are admin on bringing one’s worse nightmare to a reality. And Beacon Hills is their new target.” Deaton went into detail, leading everyone in the room to share looks between terrified and lost. It felt like they had dealt with this before and yet it was entirely different. “How do we stop it?” Scott was always so quick to be a leader, he was the true alpha after all, but his voice was unsure and the sound of it drew Stiles eyebrows together. “It’s not as easy as it seems.” Deaton began, “I need a series of herbs. Some more valuable than others. Could take a week or more to gather it all, that’s why I brought you all here. Some of the ingredients wolves can’t get, but we know someone who can.” His eyes rose to meet Stiles and he practically choked on his own spit. “Me?!” He questioned, confusion all over his face.

“Yes, Stiles. We need a highly deadly wolfs bane by the name of Aconitum Lycoctonum. It is very rare, not too hard to find if you look in the right places. I’m not even sure if it’s okay for a Banshee to touch, which is why I need you to do it Stiles. Couldn’t complete this without you.” Deaton made it very hard to argue and Stiles couldn’t disagree that he liked the feeling of being needed for something that didn’t involve just driving his jeep. It got to the point where he was the arrival car and the getaway car, especially since no one ever listened to his plans or ideas. Or at least they didn’t until it was last resort or too late. Stiles had felt like he had been put on the back burner and it was now his time to shine, maybe bring some light that he most certainly deserved. “Got it.” He said with a nod and Scott gave him worried eyed, which he scoffed at. “What?! I can do it.” He protested, it brought a smile to Scott’s face. “I know you can.”

Scott said those words but Stiles felt like he didn’t exactly mean them, his smile mimicking fake hope, but Stiles didn’t save a word, just gave Deaton thumbs up and pretended like the strong feel of awkward was not lingering in the room around them. Deaton went on to explain what he needed and how the plan was going to go down. Horehound and Gentiana were on Malia and Lydia’s list, easier for them to handle due to their female qualities, warning the two boys not to go near the herbs. He didn’t give much detail than that, but the two have learned when Deaton heeds a warning, you listen. Scott had Devil’s Claw, which made Stiles eyes widen, the name allowing his ears to perk up, and Black Cohosh. Apparently the last one was easy because it was the root of the plant said, sometimes Stile wondered if Deaton remember that they were teenagers who had only been a part of the supernatural life for three years, also, they didn’t have the interest to look at plants all the time. He then realized that his task was left out. Everyone got details behind what they needed to get and more importantly where they could find the stuff but somehow Stiles stood there without any details of his own.

“What about me?” He asked, watching as everyone around he started to gather their things to leave, as if they had al forgotten. “Ah, yes, stiles. You’ll know it when you see it.” Deaton simply said with a nod. “Know it when I see it? Is that a joke? I don’t have magic vision, guys!” Stiles voice got louder with each word, watching as the people who once surrounded him left the room one by one. His hand he didn’t realize he lifted fell to his side, a sigh escaping him as he looked around the empty room. Something was off, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what. It looked like it was going to be another late night of googling, printing, and tying two together. Sometimes he smiled at the fact he was the sheriff’s son. He got all of his mischief ways from him, learning from the source how to solve a crime or go after the clues, even the smallest ones. He learned from his dad not to give up, not even if it seems like the ends, because there is always something. If you keep looking, maybe in a way you didn’t before, there is always something.

“Skausmas Ieškotojas.” Stiles said proudly, bright smile on his face as he joined the others at the all too familiar lunch table at school. “You must be very proud of yourself.” Lydia mused, holding back a laugh that was aching to be let out. Stiles rolled his eyes, he could feel the redness creep up on his face and turned quickly to deny the fact. “Find anything?” Scott asked, at least he cared. “It literally translates to ‘pain seeker’ which if you ask me is the most unoriginal thing I have ever heard in my entire life.” – “They cause disaster, now this can be in many forms. Were talking natural, unnatural, personal. Doesn’t matter, like the Nogitsune fed off strife, they do the same with pain and will do whatever that can to do it. It dates to the early 1800s. Apparently, it started with physical pain but they soon learned that emotional pain fueled them more. It was so much more powerful, last longer. However, they are smart about it, always causing their little disasters in the perfect timing. Most believe they were the cause of the Peshtigo Fire.” Stiles finished his rambling as the pack blinked at him. “What time did you go to sleep?” Malia had an underlying tone to her voice and Stiles couldn’t quite put his finger on it. “Don’t really know what that is at the moment.” So yes – Stiles had stayed up all night doing research about what they were dealing with. He didn’t see anything wrong with that. He did however see something wrong with how fascinating he had found the subject. Link after link, myth after myth. It was like finding out Scott was a werewolf for the first time all over again. He couldn’t stop himself.

“I say we start our hunt after school, try to find these things so whatever it is – We can stop it.” Scott was always the one with a plan. Well, that was not true. It was usually Stiles, but for him to be listened to, they had to go through Scotts failed plan first. It was a never-ending cycle, you’d think they would have learned by now. “Agreed.” Everyone said in unison. It was becoming kind of gimmicky, the way these things worked out. Stiles was stating to notice, starting to see a pattern that just didn’t add up like it used to. But he bit his lip, holding his comment back as he stuck a chicken finger in his mouth to keep him from saying anything.

It was that night the first disaster happened. The upsetting part was that Stiles could feel it. Like he knew it was going to happen, he just didn’t know when or where. “It’s just a feeling Scott.” For the first time in a while, Stiles not driving, and part of him was glad. He was shaking for some unknown reason and didn’t think he could drive straight. ”Like a Lydia feeling? An instinct? A what, Stiles? I don’t understand!” Scott was frustrated and Stile couldn’t blame him. They had been driving for thirty minutes, no idea where they were going, only Stiles knew and that was funny because he didn’t actually know. His nose scrunched up at the thought of being supernatural in some way. Of course, being the human of his friends he had imagined what it would be like if he had some superpower, something different though, maybe flying. He was knocked out of his thoughts when the jeep came to a roaring halt, his body jerking forward as his immediate reaction was to worry about his jeep. “Scott what the hell was—“ His words trailed and his eyes wondered, gleaming red before them. “That.” The rest of his words were a whisper as he heard the driver’s door open and slam.

In front of them was a fire, or maybe that was an understatement. It was nothing like the two boys have ever seen in their lives, and that was saying a lot knowing where they were coming from. It could have been just down the hill, or it could have been going for miles and the two wouldn’t have known, the flames being so unnaturally high that you wouldn’t be able to tell if you really tried. Scott neared the fire, causing Stiles to scream out. “I don’t think werewolves are fire resistant, Scott!” That got his attention, his body turning to face Stiles, a look of disbelief on his face. He couldn’t tell if it was at the fire, or at him, he did after all lead them there. Stiles face filled with confusion as he saw a flash of something on Scotts’, was it a bit of distrust? Stiles didn’t know how to react to that, didn’t know how to piece it all together. “I didn’t know.” He tried to reassure, because he didn’t know, he just knew that he felt a pang of guilt inside; a little bit of pain.

Deaton didn’t know what was going on either, and that’s what causes Scott to keep a close eye on Stiles. “I’m fine.” Stiles repeated for the seventh time today. “I am not saying you’re not fine, I am saying that something a little more Is going on here. You’re my best friend and I don’t want a repeat of last time.” The reminder brought flash backs to Stiles. He remembered it all, hell, it kept him up some nights. He remembered killing people, he remembered liking it. He remembered Allison and Aiden and all of the bad things and none of the good things. He nodded in response. “Nothing from Deaton?” Stiles pressed, closing his locker with a slightly louder bang than usual. “No. But I heard from Lydia earlier, they’ve got their things. Malia is going to come over to your place tonight and study so I can try to get the things I need.” Stiles sighed at Scott’s words. “Keeping an eye on me, you mean.” He corrected him about Malia, knowing good and well that she would not be there to study. Even when they did have study nights together they never really studied. “It’s only until we can really figure out what’s going on. Stiles, we just care.” Scott gave an award-winning smile, it only made Stiles frown even more.

It was two days later when Stiles came across it. He had escaped his grasp from his other three friends, he wasn’t sure on how he did it. It was like a mask had been put over them and he slipped away. He was walking in the park, it wasn’t his idea to come here, something just led him to it. Like a tiny voice in the back of his mind controlling him. He was passing a bench when he saw it out of the corner of his eye. There was a small bush with lily white hanging flowers, something too beautiful and precious to be growing at this time of the year. He felt like he was drawn to it, stalking towards the flower, scared it might fly away if he didn’t take it at once. It was enough to put him in a trance. The ever so small, delignate, sweet smell of it hit him like a truck, his mind becoming fuzzy. Only three flowers laid in his hand, and he yet he knew he had the answer to it all. It was time for another meeting, hopefully they will have all they need to do whatever they had to do to make this stop. To make things go back to normal.

“It’s done!” Deaton sat down a concoction of the most gross looking thing Stiles had ever seen. Don’t even get him started about the smell, something foul mixed with bitter, he had to stop himself from gagging. “What do we do with it?” Malia asked, hers and Scotts noses were turned up, their sense of smell being stronger then Stiles and Lydia’s. “You have to find them at work, use your eyes and you’ll be able to see them.” The last part of that sentence was directed towards the two wolves in the room. “Or possibly sound waves.” This time Deaton narrowed his eyes to Lydia and the whole group showed signs that they understood what he was saying. “The previous attack was not as successful as it seemed.” Deaton started to do that thing, were he paces around the pack, sharing stories. “What? 8 Killed. 12 Injured. Around 5 house lost in the fire. That’s not enough for them?” Lydia crossed her arms and Deaton and Stiles answered her at the same time. “No.” Everyone exchanged looks but Stiles kept his eyes on the steel slab, not wanting to make eye contact. Deaton continued, “The numbers are too small, the emotions not true to what they want. They will try again, with something bigger this time. But this time we have a plan.” – “We do?” Malia interrupted. “Yes. We do. We have a special insight, kind of like a weapon. We have someone who knows before they know.” His voice stopped behind Stiles and he could feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing up.

“I don’t know how to work it.” Stile felt like he had said that several times. Now he knew what Lydia felt like, whenever they were trying to figure out what she was. All of the questions, confusion, and probing. “You don’t have to know, Stiles. You just have to feel. It will come to you, and when it does we need to act, and fast.” Deaton’s voice was distance again and it made Stiles relax, his shoulder slumped, he hadn’t even realized that he was so tense. “But the fire had already started before we got there.” Scott chimed in. “Correct, Scott. But didn’t you say it was quite a drive? It is a risk. I am not saying it’s not, but it’s all we’ve got. We just have to wait for Stiles to get a feeling, then we’ll act.” Deaton finally finished, stopped at his usually spot at the head of the slab, hands placed firmly on the top. “So more of the waiting game? Fun.” Malia’s sarcasm was the last thing to rang through the room and just like every time, the pack grabbed their things and headed out.

Two weeks. It took two weeks for Stiles to feel anything at all, but when he did. It hit him very hard. He shot up in his bed, breathing ragged as he clutched at his chest. It was like a panic attack but three times worse. He could breath, his mind was numb, and he was pretty sure his eyes were open but he couldn’t see. “Dad!” He called out, or so he thought, he could hear himself, nothing but a strong ringing in his ears. He tried again, “Dad!” He knew his dad would be able to call Scott and get him there as soon as possible, but there was no response. A sting in his chest caused his vision to come back and he stood up so sudden he thought he was going to fall. He felt his way around, his feet were guiding him, like he had no control. He made it to him dads door and opened it. Untouched sheets were before him, and another sting brought his hearing back. He could hear his phone faintly in the distance, and he tripped over his feet as he ran to it. “Scott.” Stiles spoke as he answered, his voice didn’t sound the same, almost distorted. Could this be a dream? Night terror? He had already been through this before, and yet it felt so different. “Get downtown, get there now.” There was a growl in Scotts voice that sent chills down Stiles spine in all of the completely wrong places.

He drove fast, he was sure his foot was completely on the floor. The amount of pain he was feeling was excruciating, he couldn’t describe it. Every move, every breath was agonizing, but he couldn’t think about that, couldn’t worry about himself when something bigger was happening. When he arrived, things have already escalated. Something was off and he knew it, because he could see everything. They were slender and ghostly, like something you find on a horror dedicated internet forum. His eyes widened as he brought the jeep to a screeching halt, scrambling to get out. “Stiles!” He heard, but it wasn’t coming from one of his three friends. It was coming from his dad. “What the hell is going on?!” Noah was frantic, not really scared but so confused. He was now beside Stiles, gun in hand as the battle continued in front of them. Stiles licked his lips, blinking back the thoughts roaming in his mind. “Can you see them?” His voice was low, but he knew his dad could hear him. “See what Stiles?” His father pressed closer and there was that sting again. “Go. Dad, leave. Get home. Now.” Stiles was all too calm for a situation like this, and he found it odd himself. But he had learned for the best, and panic was not a way to handle this.

“Stiles!” This time he heard his name coming from Scott. His voice was angry, he was all claws and fangs as he fought something that couldn’t be fought. Stiles got the hit, his hands reaching for something in his pocket. For some reason, they trusted Stiles with the jar filled with deadly things for these creatures, he was just lucky he had remembered it, although he didn’t remember picking it up. Once he had a firm grip on the jar he yelled after Scott, his legs quickly moving to run towards him, trying to get to him before something bad happened. And he knew something bad was going to happen, he could feel it running through his veins like some sick drug. He had to stop it, but before he could get to Scott, he found himself on the ground in a pool of fear. Standing or should he say, hoovering, above him was one of the deathly looking creatures. He could practically feel what they were feeling, hear what they were thinking. Their eyes were red like an alpha, but they didn’t hold the same meaning. Stiles kept a strong face, because he was good at that, so good he almost didn’t hear his friends yelling at him.

“Stiles, throw the jar. Throw it towards the middle, it’s the only way.” Lydia’s voice was the first to breakthrough as Stiles eyes snapped away from the creature and to his group of friends. They were no longer fighting, no longer needing to. That’s when Stiles realized they were all surrounding him, drawn to him like a magnet. He knew what he had to do, but part of him couldn’t bring himself to do it. “Get out of here!” Stiles voice was strong, powerful, something he wasn’t use to. “It’s wolfs bane, remember? Pretty powerful. I’ve got this. Just go and make sure everyone is okay, keep everyone safe.” And Scott understood this was something Stiles had to do. Scott wasn’t the type to leave his pack, to leave his friends, but this has been Stiles battle from the beginning and he knew that.

Once his friends were out of sight, his eyes narrowed at what was in front of him, darkening from his light golden orbs to a dark brown, something close to black. “You think you can come here, create all of these disasters, start things between my friends and I and get away with it?” He had somehow managed to get up on his feet by now, hand gripping the jar a little too tight, torn between throwing it and egged them on. The only thing that was stopping him was that they haven’t killed him yet. Hadn’t made a single advance towards him in the slightest, maybe it was because of the hidden connection, their eyes boring into him as he held his arm up high. “I drop this? You’re gone.” It was then he notices the eyes changing, becoming more demanding with need. Something shiny caught Stiles eye and he realized what it was, knives or something like daggers. He didn’t fear for him life though, he feared for someone else, someone in the distance. “Do it Stiles!” He heard the voice of Scott and his heart stopped.

He threw the jar down, an array of smoke floating around him. He heard a scream, but part of him blocked that out. The pain had returned, falling to his knees as he clutched at his heart. This time the pain brought tears to his eyes, although the ghostly figured around him were fading, his feeling were not leaving. He knew something was wrong, but couldn’t piece it together. He was coughing, wheezing even at how thick the smoke filled his lungs. His vision went burry again as he listened to the people talking behind him.

“Stiles! Stiles!” Malia yelled repeatedly, louder each time. He could hear the tears in her voice, could practically feel her shaking from where he was. “Call an ambulance, we need an ambulance! Stiles!” That was Scott, his voice echoing into the now empty surrounding them. The smoke was clearing and Stile brought himself to his feet, his body turned, eyes widen, the sight before him causing whatever moisture hiding behind his eyes to fall. “Dad.” It was a whisper, a broken whisper. His feet were dragging, he couldn’t even bare to run, his whole body still covering in pain. “Dad!” It was louder this time, and even though it hurt, he began to run.

Stiles sat in the sheriff’s office, eyes on the ground, hands covered in blood. How did this happen? He couldn’t figure it out, couldn’t understand what was going on. Flashbacks filled his mind, causing the dull ache to turn into pure agony. He wanted them to stop, he was crying in hopes of drowning out all of the voices in his head, all of the repeating of things said to him within the last hour. They all acted like nothing happen, like everything was okay. As if Stiles world wasn’t crashing around him at the speed of light. They treated it just like any other time someone dies. Come up with a lie to tell the police, stick with it, make it believable. Don’t give a damn about the people it happened to. Let it all blow over in a couple of days, act like nothing happened. It was disgusting.

“What happened?! What. Happened?!” Stiles screamed to Scott, his hands pressing on his dad’s body. Sticking out of where his heart should be being the exact object he saw in the creature’s hand, his eyes were cold, lifeless and Stiles was not allowing that to be the answer to things. It couldn’t be. His dad was more than his life, he was all he had, he refused to believe he was gone. Refused to think he didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. His dad always warned him that his job wasn’t easy. That he could be put in situations with outcomes neither of them would like, but it wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was not supposed to be put in the hands of something supernatural. “I don’t know Stiles.” Those words that came from Scott were enough to light a fire inside of him, his eyes ripping away from his father and straight to the person who was supposed to be his best friend. “You don’t know?” Stiles voice was loud, there wasn’t a hint of anger in his voice just hatred, and that was scary. “I told you to leave. I told you to keep everyone safe! Is this your idea of keeping everyone safe?! You don’t listen Scott, you never, ever listen!” And he could tell those words hurt, everyone around them was crying but none of them understood the true pain. None of them understood what Stiles was really feeling.

Their fault. It was all their fault. If they would have listened, would have left like he said, his dad would still be here. He wouldn’t be covered in his blood, he wouldn’t have to go through this. But they didn’t listen and now here he was, sitting, hurting. He should be used to it, them not listening. They never listened to Stiles, whenever they did it was always too late, things just never changed. He guessed the Skausmas Ieškotojas got what they wanted after all. The ultimate emotion of pain, the feeling of loss and betrayal. “Werewolves.” It was something he never wanted to bring his dad into, something he never wanted him to know about. He remembers arguing with Scott about it, because he knew his dad wouldn’t grasp it right away, but he also knew of the danger it would put him in. “Banshees.” It helped with a few things, sure, but the risk was too great and now his body filled with regret, he should have went with his first instinct. “What else is there?” He felt himself laugh, but it wasn’t a normal laugh, it was much darker than that. “Doesn’t matter anymore.” He sighed. He thought about all of the things they have been through, all of the time someone could have died, all of the times someone did die. They had it easy, Scott could heal, Lydia was immune to most things. But from people like Stiles and his dad who put their lives on the line for this stuff didn’t have some special power to bring them back to life. “My dad is gone, and it’s all their fault.” It was then when he got the idea, the idea of revenge. What did he have to lose? He had no one anymore. Things with him and Scott will obviously never be the same, his mom was gone. His dad was gone. Who cared about the rules anymore? “He would still be alive if it weren’t for them.” And it was true. “They’re going to pay. All of them.”

A/N: I know this was pretty dark. I want to give credit to who made/posted the gifs for my inspiration for this story. Part of me would like to make this into a series, but of course it would be rather dark and I would like your guys feedback first! I hope you enjoyed.

[brajeshupadhyay]

The T List: Five Things We Recommend This Week

Welcome to the T List, a newsletter from the editors of T Magazine. Each week, we’re sharing things we’re eating, wearing, listening to or coveting now. Sign up here to find us in your inbox every Wednesday. You can always reach us at tlist@nytimes.com.

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A Grand Hotel Reopens in Texas

Reopening this month is Austin’s Commodore Perry Estate, an Italian Renaissance Revival mansion secluded within the city’s Hyde Park neighborhood. Both a 54-room hotel and private club by Auberge Resorts, the Commodore was originally built in 1928 by the architect Hal Thompson as the country residence of the Texan businessman Edgar Perry. The Italianate mansion’s original rooms, with picturesque accompanying Juliet balconies, have been transformed by the designer Ken Fulk into signature suites with walls in shades of pink, celadon and sunshine yellow and furnishings in velvet and faux fur. Hand-painted murals by the artist Deborah Phillips are offset by midcentury pieces sourced by Fulk from over two years’ worth of shopping trips to the state’s famous Round Top Antiques Fair. While Perry may have sold the estate in 1944 with the regret that it was “a great place to throw a party but too big to live in,” Fulk’s vision gives the mansion a second life as a place to gather — perhaps for dinner at the Commodore’s Lutie’s Garden Restaurant, with a menu filled with produce grown nearby — or merely spend a decadent afternoon strolling the estate, which spans 10 acres and includes a 50-foot swimming pool. Rates start at $525 per night, aubergeresorts.com.

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Robert Longo’s Cinematic Musings

I’ve looked at a lot of digital exhibitions from art institutions in the last few months, and my response has almost unanimously been: I wish I could see this in person. One of the more satisfying examples of this kind of presentation — for me, at least — is “Robert Longo: Quarantine Films,” on the website of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow. It functions as both a watch list and a kind of autobiography, interspersing examples of Longo’s work alongside his thoughts on various classics of cinema and how they’ve influenced him. (Longo made one deeply flawed but rather criminally underrated film himself in 1995: “Johnny Mnemonic,” with Keanu Reeves as the star and a screenplay by William Gibson.) Writing about Martin Scorsese’s 1976 film “Taxi Driver,” he reminisces about moving to New York and driving a cab to support himself. In a riff about Jean-Luc Godard’s “Contempt” (1963), which Longo describes as “a film about making a film,” he concludes that “sometimes beautiful is all art needs to be.” He even makes a fairly convincing case for 2019’s “Joker” — a film I walked out of — as a useful parable about the importance of gun control. Longo is an artist with a style you might call apocalyptic. He makes achingly beautiful paintings out of ugly things, whether a mushroom cloud, a businessman who appears to be falling through the air or a militarized police force, shrouded in tear gas and backlit by the golden arches of a McDonald’s sign. His work is scarily relevant in 2020. “Robert Longo: Quarantine Films” is live now on garagemca.org.

Sandals for summer are no more groundbreaking than florals for spring, and yet donning the right pair can still be an opportunity for self-expression, one that can dress up an ordinary denim skirt or a cotton voile dress. This summer, opt for sandals embellished with crystals to add a sense of decadence. René Caovilla has brightened an otherwise ordinary kitten-heeled thong, while By Far has reinvented the mule, laying the over-foot strap with a grid of thinly cut rhinestones. The French jewelry designer Justine Clenquet has joined in with her debut footwear line — launched this month, in step with her brand’s 10th anniversary — which features vintage-inspired silhouettes adorned with Swarovski rhinestones and disco-like glitter. For those looking for slightly more subtle options, both Gianvito Rossi and Roger Vivier offer styles that can easily transition from a long walk in the park to an intimate dinner, making stepping around just a little more sparkly and fun.

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Colorful Handblown Glassware for Gathering

In March, as New York City went into lockdown, the creative community working at UrbanGlass — a nonprofit organization that provides glassblowing studio space, exhibitions and classes for artists and designers in Downtown Brooklyn — faced an uncertain future. Glassblowing is impossible to do at home, and since glassblowers work in proximity to one another and often share tools, reopening the studio — even with social distancing protocols in place — is a tricky proposition. In a show of hope and resolve, three artists — Susan Spiranovich and Adam Holtzinger, the founders of the design company Keep, along with Anders Rydstedt — decided to team up on a project called Re:Gather, the results of which will be made and shipped as soon as the artists are able to return to a studio. Their first product, Cupples, is a series of simple and elegant glasses offered in five colors, including blush, aqua and amber, and features an interlocking design — a glass band wrapped around half the cups corresponds to an equivalent cutout in the other half — that illustrates the need for social connection. “We recognized a shared sense of loss for in-person collaboration that is essential to our work,” says Rydstedt. The name Re:Gather may seem self-explanatory, but it is also a reference to the glassblowing process itself, during which the material is gathered or collected on the end of a blowpipe. Finally, Cupples is meant to remind us of the comforts of sharing a meal with one another, with the hope that we will be able to do so in the near future. $200 for a set of two, keepbrooklyn.com.

This is a momentous year for the Irish-born, Scotland-based jeweler Grainne Morton: She’s celebrating her 50th birthday, as well as her 25th anniversary making her fastidiously eclectic jewelry that has found a fan-base of avid collectors around the world. Morton had originally planned to mark her double milestone with a large celebration in a castle just outside of Edinburgh. But the lockdown meant downshifting plans, and in the quiet of the last few months, she and her team have instead been hard at work, making unique pieces of jewelry that feel like the rarest of finds — 10 of which will be released this Friday. “My parents had an antique shop where they lived in Northern Ireland,” Morton explained to me. “They would come visit me in Scotland and spend all week trawling the antique shops here. In order to spend time with them, I would come with, and I started collecting.” Morton is fond of mixing mother-of-pearl, moonstones and other gems with found cameos, antique buttons and vintage glass. Everything is made by hand, sometimes taking weeks to complete, as the individual components are first set in silver and then soldered together into playful compositions, often set on a cross or dripping from an anchor piece. As we’re thinking more consciously about who and what we surround ourselves with right now, Morton is creating more than just a beautiful object but a sense of permanence amid the ephemeral world around her. Available July 10, grainnemorton.co.uk.

From T’s Instagram

The post The T List: Five Things We Recommend This Week appeared first on Shri Times.

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[theresawelchy]

One-stop Source: ML Resources

This is a not-particularly-systematic attempt to curate a handful of my favorite resources for learning statistics and machine learning. This isn’t meant to be comprehensive, and in fact is still missing the vast majority of my favorite explainers. Rather, it’s just a smattering of resources I’ve found myself turning to multiple times and thus would like to have in one place. The organizatiion is as follows:

Finally, I’ve added a section with links to a few miscellanous websites that often produce great content.

Of the above, the second section is both the most incomplete and the one that I am most excited about. I hope to use it to capture the best explanations of tricky topics that I have read online, to make it easier to re-learn them later when I inevitably forget. (In a perfect world, Chris Olah and/or distill.pub would just write an article on everything, but in the meantime I have to gather scraps from everywhere else.)

If you stumble upon this list and have suggestions for me to add (especially for the middle section!), please feel free to reach out! But I’m only trying to post things on here that I’ve read, so it may be caught in my to-read list for a while before it makes it on here. Of course, the source for this webpage is on github, so you can also just take it.

Open Courses and Textbooks

File Description Math for ML Book Math for machine learning book by Faisal and Ong, available on github. Boyd Applied Linear Algebra Freely available book from Boyd and Vandenberghe on Applied LA (website). Doug Sparks’ Stats 200 Nice course notes from Doug Sparks 2014 offering of stats 200 Statistical Rethinking Lecture Videos on youtube accompany this very well-reviewed introductory textbook. Hernan and Robbins Causal Inference Book Long-upcoming textbook on causal inference (from the epidemiology perspective), with drafts fairly frequently updated on the web page. CS 229 Lecture Notes Classic note set from Andrew Ng’s amazing grad-level intro to ML: CS229. ESL and ISL from Hastie et al Beginner (ISL) and Advanced (ESL) presentation to classic machine learning from world-class stats professors. Slides and video for a MOOC on ISL is available here. CS 228 PGM Notes Really great course notes on Probabilistic Graphical Models from at Stanford. PDF export wasn’t ideal so linking only to website. Blei Foundations of Graphical Models Course 2016 course notes on Foundations of Graphical Models from David Blei 2016 website Roger Grosse’s CSC231 Notes Notes from Roger Grosse’s CSC 231 full website here. Probably the single best intro to DL course I’ve found from any university. Notes and slides are gorgeous. Fast.Ai Wonderful set of intro lectures + notebooks from Jeremy Howard and Rachel Thomas. In addition, Hiromi Suenaga has released excellent and self-contained notes of the whole series with timestamp links back to videos: FastAI DL Part 1, FastAI DL Part 2, and FastAI ML. CS231N DL for Vision Amazing notes from Andrej Karapthy, with lectures on Youtube as well. CS224 Deep Learning for NLP 2017 Fantastic course notes on Deep Learning for NLP from Stanford’s CS224. Github repo here CMU CS 11-747 Fantastic course on Deep Learning for NLP from CMU’s Graham Neubig. Really great lecture videos on Youtube here Boyd Convex Optimization Book Famous and freely available textbook from Boyd and Vandenberghe, accompanied by slides and Youtube videos. More advanced follow-up class here NYU Optimization-based Data Analysis 2016 and 2017 Fantastic course notes on Optimization-based data analysis from NYU 2016 website and 2017 website. Berkeley Deep Reinforcement Learning RL class from Berkely taught by top dogs in the field, lectures posted to Youtube. Sutton and Barto Open RL Book De-facto standard intro to RL, even though the textbook is only now about to be published! MathematicalMonk This guy is amazing. Some 250 youtube tutorials on ML, Probability, and Information Theory. What’s great about these playlists is any individual video could go into section 2!

https://ee227c.github.io/

Tutorials, Overviews, and (Individual) Lecture Notes

This section is fledgling at best, but was my real motivation in making this page. Archetypes include basically anything on distill.pub, good blog or medium posts, etc. Depth-first learning looks like a great access point here, but I haven’t gotten to do more than skim any of those, yet.

Fundamentals

Probability and Statistics

Classic Machine Learning/Data Science NOS

Bayesian Machine Learning

Deep Learning

Natural Language Processing

Reinforcement Learning

Information Theory

Optimization

Cheatsheets

Math

Programming

Miscellaneous websites

File Description Chris Olah’s Blog Essentially everything on here is gold. I am so grateful for the hours he must put into these posts. distill.pub Distill navigates a really interesting gap between super-blog and research journal. I wish that we had more publications like this. Pytorch Tutorials The tutorials put out by the pytorch developers are really fantastic. Easy to see why the community is growing so fast. Sebastian Ruder’s blog Sebastian has produced a lot of really great explanations, like the one on gradient descent methods I linked to above. He also maintains a website tracking progress on NLP benchmarks Berkeley AI Research (BAIR) Blog BAIR produces a lot of great research, and uses this blog to release more accessible presentations of their papers. Off the Convex Path Nice blog on machine learning and optimization. Ferenc Huszár’s blog Pretty popular blog that has a lot of explorations/musings on ML from an author with a rigorous mathematical perspective Thibaut Lienart’s Blog This website has some notes on math and optimization that seem interesting.

DataTau published first on DataTau

[brajeshupadhyay]

Welcome to the T List, a newsletter from the editors of T Magazine. Each week, we’re sharing things we’re eating, wearing, listening to or coveting now. Sign up here to find us in your inbox every Wednesday. You can always reach us at tlist@nytimes.com. Book This A Grand Hotel Reopens in Texas Reopening this month is Austin’s Commodore Perry Estate, an Italian Renaissance Revival mansion secluded within the city’s Hyde Park neighborhood. Both a 54-room hotel and private club by Auberge Resorts, the Commodore was originally built in 1928 by the architect Hal Thompson as the country residence of the Texan businessman Edgar Perry. The Italianate mansion’s original rooms, with picturesque accompanying Juliet balconies, have been transformed by the designer Ken Fulk into signature suites with walls in shades of pink, celadon and sunshine yellow and furnishings in velvet and faux fur. Hand-painted murals by the artist Deborah Phillips are offset by midcentury pieces sourced by Fulk from over two years’ worth of shopping trips to the state’s famous Round Top Antiques Fair. While Perry may have sold the estate in 1944 with the regret that it was “a great place to throw a party but too big to live in,” Fulk’s vision gives the mansion a second life as a place to gather — perhaps for dinner at the Commodore’s Lutie’s Garden Restaurant, with a menu filled with produce grown nearby — or merely spend a decadent afternoon strolling the estate, which spans 10 acres and includes a 50-foot swimming pool. Rates start at $525 per night, aubergeresorts.com. See This Robert Longo’s Cinematic Musings I’ve looked at a lot of digital exhibitions from art institutions in the last few months, and my response has almost unanimously been: I wish I could see this in person. One of the more satisfying examples of this kind of presentation — for me, at least — is “Robert Longo: Quarantine Films,” on the website of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow. It functions as both a watch list and a kind of autobiography, interspersing examples of Longo’s work alongside his thoughts on various classics of cinema and how they’ve influenced him. (Longo made one deeply flawed but rather criminally underrated film himself in 1995: “Johnny Mnemonic,” with Keanu Reeves as the star and a screenplay by William Gibson.) Writing about Martin Scorsese’s 1976 film “Taxi Driver,” he reminisces about moving to New York and driving a cab to support himself. In a riff about Jean-Luc Godard’s “Contempt” (1963), which Longo describes as “a film about making a film,” he concludes that “sometimes beautiful is all art needs to be.” He even makes a fairly convincing case for 2019’s “Joker” — a film I walked out of — as a useful parable about the importance of gun control. Longo is an artist with a style you might call apocalyptic. He makes achingly beautiful paintings out of ugly things, whether a mushroom cloud, a businessman who appears to be falling through the air or a militarized police force, shrouded in tear gas and backlit by the golden arches of a McDonald’s sign. His work is scarily relevant in 2020. “Robert Longo: Quarantine Films” is live now on garagemca.org. Sandals for summer are no more groundbreaking than florals for spring, and yet donning the right pair can still be an opportunity for self-expression, one that can dress up an ordinary denim skirt or a cotton voile dress. This summer, opt for sandals embellished with crystals to add a sense of decadence. René Caovilla has brightened an otherwise ordinary kitten-heeled thong, while By Far has reinvented the mule, laying the over-foot strap with a grid of thinly cut rhinestones. The French jewelry designer Justine Clenquet has joined in with her debut footwear line — launched this month, in step with her brand’s 10th anniversary — which features vintage-inspired silhouettes adorned with Swarovski rhinestones and disco-like glitter. For those looking for slightly more subtle options, both Gianvito Rossi and Roger Vivier offer styles that can easily transition from a long walk in the park to an intimate dinner, making stepping around just a little more sparkly and fun. Buy This Colorful Handblown Glassware for Gathering In March, as New York City went into lockdown, the creative community working at UrbanGlass — a nonprofit organization that provides glassblowing studio space, exhibitions and classes for artists and designers in Downtown Brooklyn — faced an uncertain future. Glassblowing is impossible to do at home, and since glassblowers work in proximity to one another and often share tools, reopening the studio — even with social distancing protocols in place — is a tricky proposition. In a show of hope and resolve, three artists — Susan Spiranovich and Adam Holtzinger, the founders of the design company Keep, along with Anders Rydstedt — decided to team up on a project called Re:Gather, the results of which will be made and shipped as soon as the artists are able to return to a studio. Their first product, Cupples, is a series of simple and elegant glasses offered in five colors, including blush, aqua and amber, and features an interlocking design — a glass band wrapped around half the cups corresponds to an equivalent cutout in the other half — that illustrates the need for social connection. “We recognized a shared sense of loss for in-person collaboration that is essential to our work,” says Rydstedt. The name Re:Gather may seem self-explanatory, but it is also a reference to the glassblowing process itself, during which the material is gathered or collected on the end of a blowpipe. Finally, Cupples is meant to remind us of the comforts of sharing a meal with one another, with the hope that we will be able to do so in the near future. $200 for a set of two, keepbrooklyn.com. This is a momentous year for the Irish-born, Scotland-based jeweler Grainne Morton: She’s celebrating her 50th birthday, as well as her 25th anniversary making her fastidiously eclectic jewelry that has found a fan-base of avid collectors around the world. Morton had originally planned to mark her double milestone with a large celebration in a castle just outside of Edinburgh. But the lockdown meant downshifting plans, and in the quiet of the last few months, she and her team have instead been hard at work, making unique pieces of jewelry that feel like the rarest of finds — 10 of which will be released this Friday. “My parents had an antique shop where they lived in Northern Ireland,” Morton explained to me. “They would come visit me in Scotland and spend all week trawling the antique shops here. In order to spend time with them, I would come with, and I started collecting.” Morton is fond of mixing mother-of-pearl, moonstones and other gems with found cameos, antique buttons and vintage glass. Everything is made by hand, sometimes taking weeks to complete, as the individual components are first set in silver and then soldered together into playful compositions, often set on a cross or dripping from an anchor piece. As we’re thinking more consciously about who and what we surround ourselves with right now, Morton is creating more than just a beautiful object but a sense of permanence amid the ephemeral world around her. Available July 10, grainnemorton.co.uk. From T’s Instagram The post The T List: Five Things We Recommend This Week appeared first on Shri Times.

http://sansaartimes.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-t-list-five-things-we-recommend.html