#convention theft

[onesaltyerik]

Friend's Art and Cash Box Stolen

Hey yall, my friend and DND buddy TheArtMoose, has had her car broken into and her cash box and all her remaining stock from selling at Palmerston Armageddon stolen. The thieves have not been found and she's pretty distraught and worried about selling her art at AuckGeddon now. If you can, could you drop a tip on her PayPal account? Or give her a follow on Instagram and share her work? She says pls don't tip if you can't afford it.

And this is her Instagram, she does very whimsical and storybook styled art and has been drawing the characters from our dnd campaign.

https://www.instagram.com/theartmoose/

[agentfascinateur]

Israeli attacks have damaged or destroyed:

• 380,000 housing units

• 412 schools and universities

• 556 mosques

• three churches

• 206 archeological and heritage sites

• knocked 32 hospitals and 53 health centres out of service

• 126 ambulances also targeted

All violations of the Geneva Convention

#NoOneAboveTheLaw

[cryptablog]

Just a reminder art fight is HAND DRAWN ART? ONLY. (or uh mouth if your cool/cool and disabled)

Ai "art" is NOT WELCOME AT ARTFIGHT.

-It can't be credited

-It isnt your own unique design

-and you cant draw other peoples characters with it without stealing their designs and putting them through an ai generator and making them worse!

ai "artists" are not and never will be welcome at artfight. Same as every other artist run convention thus far.

[magichats]

The Copyright Trolling that Nintendo was doing on Palworld makes so much more sense now, knowing some of the things that were just leaked with regards to upcoming Pokemon games.

Not to defend Palworld, Palworld is scummy, but it makes more sense if they were planning to release an online multiplayer game to try to kneecap the competition now if Palworld supposedly runs too close to that game (coincidentally or not).

[thirddagger]

Like I don't remember where I saw that video of many of the CR cast at a drag show and the drag queen took off Liam's shirt, but my lingering thought about the video has has honestly been that my social anxiety hadn't even Imagined that before. I don't even know what I'm missing out on, I could be in a loud, raucous party with flashing lights and a drag queen could take the shirt off my body. Do I necessarily want that, no not really at all thanks anyway, but gee, I Do live under a rock governed by my anxieties and sensitivities

[glauxgardenofchaos]

It's like people have forgotten that anything written, was once written by somebody. And that somebody may have opinions on what their writing is used for.

AI do not write. They cleverly copy-paste stuff based on an algorithm, from enourmous datasets scraped off the internet and other places. So anything produced by them is automatically plagiarised. There is no originality in AI. Everything is stolen.

Do not feed the plagiarism machines.

(for the record, do NOT feed by fics to any kind of AI. DO NOT)

oh I wasn’t aware it was feeding the ai. I’ve inserted hundreds of fics into chatgpt for their continuation or for a different plot within the same context just for fun and out of curiosity… but I’ve never posted any of them…

Indeed, anything that is given to AI it can use later to draw from. That's why it doesn't matter if you post them or not as it has now access to those writers' texts without their permission.

~Mod L

[kramerblogrealgood]

Comic about going to the anime convention dressed as a nonspecific unlicensed anime girl

[immaculatasknight]

They just can't help themselves

[movingtothefarm]

"Billy Petherick, originally from Greenwich, and his French wife Gwendoline were found guilty on Monday at the criminal court of Rennes over the 2014 thefts in Brittany and Anjou, according to French newspaper Le Parisien.

The court found that Billy Petherick would enter churches and swipe objects such as chalices, ciboriums, patens or tabernacle keys and sell them back in the UK via Ebay, or to an old friend of the family who was a second-hand dealer in Retiers.

Mr Petherick and Gwendoline Mouchel are two of the hosts of a popular YouTube channel, 'The Pethericks', where the couple chronicle their adventures renovating properties in France to their 360,000 subscribers.

But Mr Petherick also hit the headlines in 2021 when it was revealed that he deserted the Household Calvary a decade earlier, and was only caught after he appeared on Channel 4 renovating the couple's £890,000 French chateau

According to Le Parisien, the court heard that she told investigators that when she heard about Petherick's actions, she was 'not shocked' because he 'did not have a high opinion of the Church'."

The Irony.... the couple bought an abandoned 18th Century French Convent to "renovate" on their YouTube channel. The Convent Sisters supported the community and hospital in Ernee from 1819 - 2010.

The channel's comment section is interesting. Many followers are highly invested in the daily videos and the cultivated personas. Followers partly live vicariously thru Petherick's wealthy lifestyle and talking about them as if they are real life friends. Participants on the vlog have spinoff individual YouTube channels - brother, sister, cameraman, British workmen/friends. Patreon and merchandise are promoted.

The channel is actively deleting any comments referencing the theft charges of Feb 5, 2024.

British YouTube property renovator is convicted in France

[sevenhundred721]

I need to read Herbert West: Re-Animator bc I have a few assumptions I've made about the cast, especially Herbert, that I'd like to see either confirmed or denied, or ideally, still ambiguous enough that I can keep believing without impediment of or confirmation from the source material.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Conspiratorialism as a material phenomenon

I'll be in TUCSON, AZ from November 8-10: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.

I think it behooves us to be a little skeptical of stories about AI driving people to believe wrong things and commit ugly actions. Not that I like the AI slop that is filling up our social media, but when we look at the ways that AI is harming us, slop is pretty low on the list.

The real AI harms come from the actual things that AI companies sell AI to do. There's the AI gun-detector gadgets that the credulous Mayor Eric Adams put in NYC subways, which led to 2,749 invasive searches and turned up zero guns:

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nycs-subway-weapons-detector-pilot-program-ends/

Any time AI is used to predict crime – predictive policing, bail determinations, Child Protective Services red flags – they magnify the biases already present in these systems, and, even worse, they give this bias the veneer of scientific neutrality. This process is called "empiricism-washing," and you know you're experiencing it when you hear some variation on "it's just math, math can't be racist":

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/23/cryptocidal-maniacs/#phrenology

When AI is used to replace customer service representatives, it systematically defrauds customers, while providing an "accountability sink" that allows the company to disclaim responsibility for the thefts:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/23/maximal-plausibility/#reverse-centaurs

When AI is used to perform high-velocity "decision support" that is supposed to inform a "human in the loop," it quickly overwhelms its human overseer, who takes on the role of "moral crumple zone," pressing the "OK" button as fast as they can. This is bad enough when the sacrificial victim is a human overseeing, say, proctoring software that accuses remote students of cheating on their tests:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/16/unauthorized-paper/#cheating-anticheat

But it's potentially lethal when the AI is a transcription engine that doctors have to use to feed notes to a data-hungry electronic health record system that is optimized to commit health insurance fraud by seeking out pretenses to "upcode" a patient's treatment. Those AIs are prone to inventing things the doctor never said, inserting them into the record that the doctor is supposed to review, but remember, the only reason the AI is there at all is that the doctor is being asked to do so much paperwork that they don't have time to treat their patients:

https://apnews.com/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-health-business-90020cdf5fa16c79ca2e5b6c4c9bbb14

My point is that "worrying about AI" is a zero-sum game. When we train our fire on the stuff that isn't important to the AI stock swindlers' business-plans (like creating AI slop), we should remember that the AI companies could halt all of that activity and not lose a dime in revenue. By contrast, when we focus on AI applications that do the most direct harm – policing, health, security, customer service – we also focus on the AI applications that make the most money and drive the most investment.

AI hasn't attracted hundreds of billions in investment capital because investors love AI slop. All the money pouring into the system – from investors, from customers, from easily gulled big-city mayors – is chasing things that AI is objectively very bad at and those things also cause much more harm than AI slop. If you want to be a good AI critic, you should devote the majority of your focus to these applications. Sure, they're not as visually arresting, but discrediting them is financially arresting, and that's what really matters.

All that said: AI slop is real, there is a lot of it, and just because it doesn't warrant priority over the stuff AI companies actually sell, it still has cultural significance and is worth considering.

AI slop has turned Facebook into an anaerobic lagoon of botshit, just the laziest, grossest engagement bait, much of it the product of rise-and-grind spammers who avidly consume get rich quick "courses" and then churn out a torrent of "shrimp Jesus" and fake chainsaw sculptures:

https://www.404media.co/email/1cdf7620-2e2f-4450-9cd9-e041f4f0c27f/

For poor engagement farmers in the global south chasing the fractional pennies that Facebook shells out for successful clickbait, the actual content of the slop is beside the point. These spammers aren't necessarily tuned into the psyche of the wealthy-world Facebook users who represent Meta's top monetization subjects. They're just trying everything and doubling down on anything that moves the needle, A/B splitting their way into weird, hyper-optimized, grotesque crap:

https://www.404media.co/facebook-is-being-overrun-with-stolen-ai-generated-images-that-people-think-are-real/

In other words, Facebook's AI spammers are laying out a banquet of arbitrary possibilities, like the letters on a Ouija board, and the Facebook users' clicks and engagement are a collective ideomotor response, moving the algorithm's planchette to the options that tug hardest at our collective delights (or, more often, disgusts).

So, rather than thinking of AI spammers as creating the ideological and aesthetic trends that drive millions of confused Facebook users into condemning, praising, and arguing about surreal botshit, it's more true to say that spammers are discovering these trends within their subjects' collective yearnings and terrors, and then refining them by exploring endlessly ramified variations in search of unsuspected niches.

(If you know anything about AI, this may remind you of something: a Generative Adversarial Network, in which one bot creates variations on a theme, and another bot ranks how closely the variations approach some ideal. In this case, the spammers are the generators and the Facebook users they evince reactions from are the discriminators)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_adversarial_network

I got to thinking about this today while reading User Mag, Taylor Lorenz's superb newsletter, and her reporting on a new AI slop trend, "My neighbor’s ridiculous reason for egging my car":

https://www.usermag.co/p/my-neighbors-ridiculous-reason-for

The "egging my car" slop consists of endless variations on a story in which the poster (generally a figure of sympathy, canonically a single mother of newborn twins) complains that her awful neighbor threw dozens of eggs at her car to punish her for parking in a way that blocked his elaborate Hallowe'en display. The text is accompanied by an AI-generated image showing a modest family car that has been absolutely plastered with broken eggs, dozens upon dozens of them.

According to Lorenz, variations on this slop are topping very large Facebook discussion forums totalling millions of users, like "Movie Character…,USA Story, Volleyball Women, Top Trends, Love Style, and God Bless." These posts link to SEO sites laden with programmatic advertising.

The funnel goes:

i. Create outrage and hence broad reach;

ii, A small percentage of those who see the post will click through to the SEO site;

iii. A small fraction of those users will click a low-quality ad;

iv. The ad will pay homeopathic sub-pennies to the spammer.

The revenue per user on this kind of scam is next to nothing, so it only works if it can get very broad reach, which is why the spam is so designed for engagement maximization. The more discussion a post generates, the more users Facebook recommends it to.

These are very effective engagement bait. Almost all AI slop gets some free engagement in the form of arguments between users who don't know they're commenting an AI scam and people hectoring them for falling for the scam. This is like the free square in the middle of a bingo card.

Beyond that, there's multivalent outrage: some users are furious about food wastage; others about the poor, victimized "mother" (some users are furious about both). Not only do users get to voice their fury at both of these imaginary sins, they can also argue with one another about whether, say, food wastage even matters when compared to the petty-minded aggression of the "perpetrator." These discussions also offer lots of opportunity for violent fantasies about the bad guy getting a comeuppance, offers to travel to the imaginary AI-generated suburb to dole out a beating, etc. All in all, the spammers behind this tedious fiction have really figured out how to rope in all kinds of users' attention.

Of course, the spammers don't get much from this. There isn't such a thing as an "attention economy." You can't use attention as a unit of account, a medium of exchange or a store of value. Attention – like everything else that you can't build an economy upon, such as cryptocurrency – must be converted to money before it has economic significance. Hence that tooth-achingly trite high-tech neologism, "monetization."

The monetization of attention is very poor, but AI is heavily subsidized or even free (for now), so the largest venture capital and private equity funds in the world are spending billions in public pension money and rich peoples' savings into CO2 plumes, GPUs, and botshit so that a bunch of hustle-culture weirdos in the Pacific Rim can make a few dollars by tricking people into clicking through engagement bait slop – twice.

The slop isn't the point of this, but the slop does have the useful function of making the collective ideomotor response visible and thus providing a peek into our hopes and fears. What does the "egging my car" slop say about the things that we're thinking about?

Lorenz cites Jamie Cohen, a media scholar at CUNY Queens, who points out that subtext of this slop is "fear and distrust in people about their neighbors." Cohen predicts that "the next trend, is going to be stranger and more violent.”

This feels right to me. The corollary of mistrusting your neighbors, of course, is trusting only yourself and your family. Or, as Margaret Thatcher liked to say, "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families."

We are living in the tail end of a 40 year experiment in structuring our world as though "there is no such thing as society." We've gutted our welfare net, shut down or privatized public services, all but abolished solidaristic institutions like unions.

This isn't mere aesthetics: an atomized society is far more hospitable to extreme wealth inequality than one in which we are all in it together. When your power comes from being a "wise consumer" who "votes with your wallet," then all you can do about the climate emergency is buy a different kind of car – you can't build the public transit system that will make cars obsolete.

When you "vote with your wallet" all you can do about animal cruelty and habitat loss is eat less meat. When you "vote with your wallet" all you can do about high drug prices is "shop around for a bargain." When you vote with your wallet, all you can do when your bank forecloses on your home is "choose your next lender more carefully."

Most importantly, when you vote with your wallet, you cast a ballot in an election that the people with the thickest wallets always win. No wonder those people have spent so long teaching us that we can't trust our neighbors, that there is no such thing as society, that we can't have nice things. That there is no alternative.

The commercial surveillance industry really wants you to believe that they're good at convincing people of things, because that's a good way to sell advertising. But claims of mind-control are pretty goddamned improbable – everyone who ever claimed to have managed the trick was lying, from Rasputin to MK-ULTRA:

https://pluralistic.net/HowToDestroySurveillanceCapitalism

Rather than seeing these platforms as convincing people of things, we should understand them as discovering and reinforcing the ideology that people have been driven to by material conditions. Platforms like Facebook show us to one another, let us form groups that can imperfectly fill in for the solidarity we're desperate for after 40 years of "no such thing as society."

The most interesting thing about "egging my car" slop is that it reveals that so many of us are convinced of two contradictory things: first, that everyone else is a monster who will turn on you for the pettiest of reasons; and second, that we're all the kind of people who would stick up for the victims of those monsters.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/29/hobbesian-slop/#cui-bono

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[heritageposts]

By Haidar Eid, associate Professor at Al-Aqsa University in Gaza.

Now that we have heard the interim judgement the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, we can confidently say a new world order is in the making. The World Court confirmed today that South Africa’s charge under the Genocide Convention that “Israel has engaged in, is engaging in and risks further engaging in genocidal acts against the Palestinian people in Gaza” is “plausible”. It has further ruled that Israel must “take all measures” to avoid acts of genocide in Gaza. The court has stopped short of calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, which has already been demanded by an absolute majority of world nations. Still, most of the “provisional measures” called for by the Republic of South Africa have been endorsed by the court. It is difficult to see how Israel can implement these measures and fulfil its obligations under the Genocide Convention, without agreeing to a ceasefire. There is no indication, of course, that Israel has any intention of heeding the Court’s provisions. In fact, since the ICJ heard South Africa’s case two weeks ago, Israel has doubled down on its genocidal acts in Gaza. In the past 24 hours alone, it carried out 21 mass killings, murdering 200 and injuring 370 civilians. So Israel’s message to the Court, and the world at large, is clear: It does not care for the opinion, demands or “measures” of any international institution – legal or political. It will do as it pleases. [...] Israel may not heed the court’s rulings and provisions, but South Africa’s historic stance will still have consequences. As stated by the Department of International Relations and Cooperation of South Africa after the ICJ’s interim decision: “Third States are now on notice of the existence of a serious risk of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. They must, therefore, also act independently and immediately to prevent genocide by Israel and to ensure that they are not themselves in violation of the Genocide Convention, including by aiding or assisting in the commission of genocide. This necessarily imposes an obligation on all States to cease funding and facilitating Israel’s military actions, which are plausibly genocidal.” With this case, South Africa has put not only Israel, but the entirety of the global justice system on trial. This case is a major turning point for humanity, because it marks the first time in history when a Global South country bravely crossed a red line drawn by the colonial West and demanded its favourite settler colony, Israel, be held to account for the crimes it has long been committing against an Indigenous people. Today, thanks to South Africa, the entire colonial West, and its centuries-long history of theft, dispossession, and injustice is on trial at the World Court. Future generations will remember January 26, 2024, as the day on which the world has finally decided to hold a genocide state, and its powerful backers, accountable for repeated, longstanding violations of international law. Yes, a new world order is in the making.

. . . full article on al jazeera (26 Jan 2024)

[wajjs]

Can we talk about how Gail Simone has (allegedly) ripped off a latine comic writer and artist with her latest addition to the X-Men?

A couple of days ago, a friend sent me this video:

Translation:

Yesterday I found out through Instagram that there’s an Argentinean X-Men. When I check out the news, I notice that the character is identical to one of my characters. The same hair, face, look, color. I keep looking into it and I can tell that the hand details, they have the same gloves, same accessories.

I also find out that the author (Gail Simone) has been to Argentina and that she was in the same convention I was part of. And after reading a bit more, I realize that the [character] origin is similar. So I tried to reach out to the authors, but I did not get any reply.

You can check out my social media, @/nncomics on Instagram or nncomics.com, where you’ll find my character Luc from my comic PETS that I’ve been working on for over ten years. You can download it for free to check this out [what he’s saying], and, if you want, to check out the story and read it.

Let’s hope that, well, with everyone’s help we can add pressure so that our creations being stolen without any kind of repercussions does not happen again to us Argentinean authors. So that this doesn’t happen again, and so that Argentinean culture remains where it should be, at the very top, but in the hands of its creators.

Martín Gimenez (the artist/writer for PETS) also shared this on Instagram.

To me, the side by side comparison really shows how similar the designs are. The fact that Gail was part of the same convention as Martin only makes this situation even more suspicious. I've been looking around a bit, and not only are the origin stories of both characters similar, but their powers are so similar, too. The only thing that is not identical is the hairstyle.

Latin american creators either get painfully overlooked, or they have to endure blatant theft. I hope one day both Marvel and DC start treating us better.

[yougavemeyourheartyouknow]

It wasn’t over, it still isn’t over. (Bandit cowboy! Miguel O’Hara x Fem! Reader) Part 2

Wake up babe, new cowboy Miguel fic just dropped! This part was heavily inspired by the notebook. Period pieces are not my strong suit so apologizes if it’s not good. Not proofread, enjoy!

(Y/N)-Your name.

Cursing, mentions/usage of alcohol, attempted robbery/theft, mentions of guns, Miguel jokes about manhandling you but nothing actually happens, mentions of sexual acts, but nothing happens.

Word Count: 2.3k

Part 1

Masterlist

—

Five years.

Five years since you had last seen the cowboy who had stolen your heart.

You had graduated college and moved out of your parents home, moving a few towns over, nowhere near a big city like you lived in during your youth in the East but a lot larger than the one you had lived during the whole Miguel incident. You lived in a nice home, gotten a job as a teacher for the younger kids in town and… you were recently engaged.

Your fiancé was a nice man, sweet, understanding, kind, easy on the eyes, you liked him a lot, the only problem is, you didn’t love him. You should feel bad about getting married to a wealthy man who you didn’t even see as more than of a friend, but at the same time, your mother thought it would be best to marry you off to her friend’s son that just so happened to be inheriting his father’s liquor business when he settled down. It was a marriage of convenience if anything, at least he was polite with you despite neither you or him having any romantic feelings, if anything it made the whole thing a bit easier for you. Growing content with the fact that this would turn into your future children’s definition of love.

Five years to grow from a silly lovestruck teenager into a young woman with responsibilities and a bright future ahead of her, and you still thought about him. You can't help but frantically Miguel’s name under the obituary section of the town’s paper, unknowingly breathing a sigh of relief when his name wouldn’t appear. Although it was foolish, and despite no longer living in the same small town as your parents, you couldn’t help but feel a bit bitter at the fact he hasn’t found you yet. Was he even attempting to look for you? With a reputation like his, you’re certain you weren’t the first girl he’s charmed to get under his sheets… or in your case, jail cell. So, eventually, you stopped hoping, if he hadn’t found you during the last five years, he surely wasn’t looking. Why should you?

—

“Darling.” Your fiancé, Austin, called out for you before rounding the corner that connected the living room into the kitchen. You hummed in response as you kept your eyes on the stack of papers you were currently grading for your students, a pen in your dominant hand as your free one tapped a mindless tone to help keep you concentrated. “Put the papers down and take a break will you? You’ve got all week to grade those tests.” You let out a huff and a whine as you put the pen down, he was right. Your eyes keep unfocusing and your wrist was being to grow sore, making your fiancé tsk. “I don’t understand why you don’t just quit, I make enough to support us both.”

“I should,shouldn't I…” You contimplacted with a weary chuckle, and although your tone was joking, you were seriously considering it. You adored your students with all your heart, you really did. But the school was putting so much pressure on you because they refused to hire another teacher to help lessen your workload. So you and two other teachers were juggling a handful of 300 seven year olds, it was a lot… to say the least. You picked yourself up from your seat to stretch your body out, before turning to Austin. “Now was that all you came to tell me?” You asked in a playful tone.

“No, actually… I came to ask for a favor.” He admitted, smoothing out the wrinkles in his shirt. “Ya know I’ve got that… liquor convention event out of town this weekend, right?” You nodded in confirmation, “well, I was wondering if you could do me the favor of just checking in on my office while I’m gone. I’ve heard a lot about break ins and whatnot during these times, just drop by for a few minutes for the 4 days that I’ll be gone.”

You tapped the nonsensical rhythm again as you thought about it, it wasn’t too much of an ask, you’d just drop by for a few minutes a day, you shrugged. “Sure. What’s the worst that could happen?”

—

Saturday afternoon, your first day off and your third alone. Grateful for the ability to sleep in and being about to eat a well rounded breakfast. After doing your usual morning routine, and having changed into one of your simpler dresses to go out and run some errands for the day.

Gone out to get groceries, send out a letter to your parents, went to the tailors to drop off some Austin’s shirts to be hemmed since you didn’t feel like sitting down all to do it yourself, even finished grading the last of the test all before noon ended. After tidying up your work from its usual spot from the kitchen table, you made yourself a quick lunch and went to read a few chapters of your book on the couch. Only to end up falling asleep, and once you woke up, you glanced at the clock-shit.

“It’s half past five?! I was supposed to go to his office an hour ago!” You yelled to no one but yourself as you quickly got up from your spot on the couch, fixing your hair quickly as you threw on your coat, and made your way back out the door.

—

“I told ya boys this heist would be easy… if we leave by dusk we could hit up that train that passes by el dorado tomorrow evening…” Miguel chuckled as he tossed his now full bag of valuables to his brother, who then passed it over Peter would load it to one of their horses that they had waiting for them around the back of the building.

After that night he had escaped, it took him about a month to find his partners in crime, following their trail through stolen newspapers from random porches and the knowledge of how their usual trail was, luckily they had kept his horse safe and well taken care of too.

“One more bag then we’re as good as gone.” Miguel said with a smirk, making Gabriel Let out a laugh and a clap. Right when Miguel was going to prep the last bag, the faint noise of rushing made all three men stop in their tracks. Before he sent his younger brother a glare and he hissed in a low tone through his teeth. “Pinche cabrón- I thought you said this place would be empty all weekend.” (Fucking dumbass)

“I thought it would!” He whispered-shouted back, before they heard the door creak open.

“Fuck-okay… um, go check if it’s the sheriff.” He quietly ordered Gabriel, before turning to Peter, “Get the horses ready incase we needa’ book It.” With a nob both males did as told, as Miguel quickly went to pack the last bag.

When his younger brother entered the front room, he swore he heard him mutter the words “hello pretty lady” before the muffle sound of rustling and some high-pitched yelping, but never was a shot fired, so clearly it couldn’t have been someone to play an immediate threat. Just as he was finishing tying up the bag, Gabriel came back into the room, but not alone.

“Look at what I found, it must be his little wife.” He said almost mockingly as he hazardly pulled you into the room and pushed you into the room in front of Miguel’s feet, but with your face being tilted down as you caught yourself from falling face first onto the wooden floor.

“Careful!” You yelled as you try to collect yourself, once you get yourself to look up at the bandit you were dropped in front of, your scowl immediately turned into once of disbelief, and it seems his expression matched yours.

You both seem to have froze up in time as you both did nothing but stare at each other, Gabriel just crossed his arms and raised a brow, Peter came jogging in to inform his friends the horses are ready when he saw the odd scene, opting to keep his mouth shut.

Finally, you came back to life as you blinked, as if expecting his to disappear right before your very eyes again, and when he didn’t, you finally whispered a faint. “…Miguel?”

“…(Y/N)…” You nodded your head, despite it not being a question, and he cleared his throat, not breaking eye contact with you as he spoke his next orders to Peter and Gabriel. “Unload all that shit and put it back.”

—

He had told Gabriel and Peter to go on to do the train heist without him, and that he'd meet up with them afterwards. Saying he had “unattended business to take care of”. So now here he was, in your kitchen, only being lightened up by a few candles as darkness overtook the sky. Both of you sharing drunken giggles over dinner. Miguel’s black cowboy hat that was certainly too big for you sitting on top of your head as you sip on your beer.

“That hat looks adorable on you.” Miguel chuckled, making you shake your head with a giggle, your free hand going to rest on top of the hat to help keep it stabilized.

“It’s so big!” You countered as you take the hat off and went to hand it back to Miguel, who grabs it and sets it back on his head.

“You know you shouldn’t be wearing just anyone’s hat. Ya know what they say about wearing a man’s cowboy hat.” He joked as he put down his now empty bottle, chuckling when he saw your face contour in confusion.

“What do they say?” You asked curiously, making Miguel’s smirk widen.

“Wear the hat…” he tapped the brim on the hat for emphasis, “Ride the cowboy.” He finished, making you gasp dramatically.

“Miguel! That’s inappropriate!” You pretended to be offended, but you couldn’t help but crack a smile near the end of you reprimanding him.

“Oh please, you act like you haven’t before, why not again? Unless you want me to come over then and manhandle you.” He was only joking of course, he may have been a thief and a murderer but he’d never hurt a woman, especially not you. You let out a faux gasp, playing along as your right hand goes to your chest for emphasis.

“You wouldn’t dare. I’m a married woman.” You said in a softer tone, going to sip your bottle to finish it off. You haven’t really told him you were going to be getting married soon, even though he knew you were in a relationship, he didn’t quite know how serious it was.

“Not yet.” He replied almost immediately, shaking his head as his playful tone dropped to a more serious yet still gentle tone. The soft smile stays on his lips but it didn’t meet his eyes anymore when you raised your hand to show off the silver band that decorates your ring finger, the diamond shining even only in the candlelight. It took you a moment too long to realize this.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” You asked, the start of a giggle comes out with your words but they quickly die down in your throat as the once playful atmosphere starts to turn more serious.Miguel just shakes his head as a hand goes to rub at his chin.

“Nothing nothing… just didn’t think you’d ever get married… thought what we had was something real.” He admitted, eyes casted downwards as he goes to fidget with a bent half beer bottle cap. You let out a scoff, offended by his words.

“Don’t try and think I just forgot about you the moment my father dragged me out of that door,” your brows furrowed and your arms crossed on the wooden table as you started to chastise him, “I was stuck on you for five years Miguel. Five. Years.” You emphasized the two words with taps on the table. “Don’t get me wrong, Austin is a great guy, but it was my parents' idea for me to marry him. They thought it was a good way to get me to stop thinking about you-“ You shouldn’t be admitting that outloud but the buzz made your mind hazy.

“Do you love him?” He interrupted you, eyes burning into yours, those same intense eyes you had dreamed about as you slept, you had to look away.

“It’s not that simple Miguel-“

“But it is.” He insisted, standing up from his seat, the chair screeching as it tried not to topple over. “You either love him or you don’t.”

“I’m not doing this with you Miguel.” You shook your head as you stood as well, going to clean up the mess you two had made, trying to erase any evidence you two were there.

“Too bad, I’m not just gonna drop this and let you disappear from my life, I’m not losing you again.” He declared, you weren’t going to justify his admission with a response, but as you go to pick up a few empty bottles, they slip from your hands, cracking into hundreds of small shreds as Miguel’s hands turn you around to face him. A shocked gasp begins to leave your lips before it is quickly swallowed up by his. You know you should push him off, but you couldn’t help but melt underneath his touch.

Miguel O’Hara was a criminal, a thief of many things and no matter how much you try to stop him, he’ll always find a way to steal your heart all over again.

—

Taglist: @famouscattale @strawberryjuice9 @loser-alert @maomaimao @franceseca-the-1st @xevita @marshhbs @inlovewithpandora @vera4luv @mcmiracles @eddieslooneymoonie @to-the-endoftheline

[now-you-sound-like-a-jedi]

Worst Crimes a Female Character Can Commit (By Order of Severity)

10. Theft

9. Tax Fraud

8. Murder

7. Terrorism

6. Violating the Geneva Convention

5. Being impolite (esp. to male characters)

4. Being feminine but in a way that is neither childlike nor sexy

3. Being even slightly "like other girls"

2. Being mildly annoying

1. Being the canon romantic interest of a male character who is more popularly shipped with other men

[lullabyes22-blog]

Snippet - Enforcers - Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

Dirty compromises and dead dreams...

Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

Snippet:

"What about the Firelights?" Sevika asks. "Old Giz was their nexus. Now he's dead. But there's still a double-agent somewhere in our network. They've stolen from our warehouses before. Now that we're on the ropes, they'll try again."

"It won't happen."

"Sir—"

"Every single warehouse, silo, and strongroom will be under heavy guard. Not the conventional blackguards, either. Enforcers."

In the glass, Sevika's reflection falls still. The way a corpse would, in the final moments of rigor mortis.

"Enforcers?"

Silco nods. "The Council are pacified by our projected profit margins on medicinal Shimmer. With the Safeguard Act signed, they're content to believe Zaun will play nice. But with a disaster of this scale—and their investments so close to the ground—they'll need reassurance." He keeps breathing: in and out. The pressure in his lungs intensifies. The Monster gnashing at the bars of its cage. "For Topside, the only surety more sacred than a contract is an officer of the law."

Sevika says nothing. He'd expected a hot surge of rage, and refutations that would ricochet off the walls, before she cut a sweeping retreat. But she isn't angry; she seems unable to muster the willpower.

As if, after everything last night, her well of anger is dry.

"Enforcers," she says again. "On our turf?"

"The crisis-management troops. Not the standard-issue."

"It doesn't matter. We can't trust them."

"Which is why we won't give them free rein. They'll be housed in barracks aboveground. They'll be assigned to patrol specific locations. They'll be answerable directly to the Captain of the blackguards, and the Captain will report to you. Any infractions will be handled internally. They will be supervised at every step."

Sevika shakes her head. "We can't trust them," she repeats, with sharper emphasis. "You know that."

"Trust isn't a concern."

"Isn't it?"

Silco's stare cuts crooked as a guillotine's blade. "They will not be given leeway. They will be treated as guests: welcome, and cordially, but only for a set period of time. We'll not give them reason to linger. But while they are here, we will make use of them. They'll be assigned to territories where the Firelights are known to frequent. Their presence will sow panic. The Firelights will think twice before risking a full-frontal attack." He keeps breathing: the pressure is a bolus in his throat. The Monster's ire, a slush-pit of acid. "Until the Shimmer is harvested, and the fresh crop is ready for export, we'll need our goods protected at every stage of the process. No break-ins, losses, or theft. The Council needs to see Zaun as stable. Otherwise they'll reconsider their investment. Others will follow. We cannot let their cowardice be our downfall."

"But—"

"This is not a luxury, Sevika. It's a last resort." The bolus grows bigger, and the Monster is frothing in the darkness. Gods, how he loathes himself for pleading impotence when he'd like nothing more than to throttle every single one of them. It's a prostitution of principle, and his pride cannot sanction it. But his city's backed into a corner, and the only way out is through. "I know that Enforcers are the enemy. I know they've been the enemy, and they always will be. But we are on the verge of collapse, and there's no other recourse. If the Firelights take advantage of the instability, or if the Council's doubts turn into full-fledged panic... then everything will have been for nothing." He exhales: hard and slow. "We must make the best of the cards dealt."

"Sir—"

"I want you to personally oversee the Enforcers' deployment. Establish their routes, and ensure their discipline. I will not abide a reprise of the past." 

"And if there is?"

"Then we'll see the bastards gutted like fish."

The way they should've been on Bloody Sunday.

He hadn't kickstarted the slaughter that night. But it was still his fault. It was his wiles, his weapons, and his callow wargames that had tipped Topside off. They'd gotten a whiff of blood and descended into a feeding frenzy. And the bodies had piled up until there were none left to bury.

Nandi among them.

He'd sworn, that if Enforcers ever set foot again on Fissure soil, he'd tear them apart, bit by bit. That if Zaun was free, it would be free in every sense. Free from Topside's predations, free from their meddling and their murdering. Free to choose a better path, one unstained by the sins of the past.

Now here he is. Making his bed with the bastards that butchered his folk.

What a fucking joke.

In the glass, Sevika's reflected visage is grave. She can sense the unshackled darkness in him now. Sense, more keenly, that unlike last night, it won't be as easy to mitigate. But she doesn't shy away. Doesn't balk at his callousness, or the price he's demanding—from her and the city.

Her bedrock pragmatism is too well-entrenched for that.

She's always known that Silco is not a good man. But it's strange to see her look so cored-out by the knowledge.

I'm sorry, he could say.

Except the sheer inadequacy of the phrase is laughable. Sorry doesn't begin to touch the carnage of past and present. She'd never accept it, either. And, deep down, neither would he. He's not a man who apologizes: not for his ambitions, or the means that drive him to see them through. He's never owned a white horse, or waved a white flag, and he never will. Because there's no such thing as a fair fight; no justice in letting the enemy draw the first blow. Speed and necessity are his only edge: an edge that'll kill, and keep killing until he's the last man standing.

That's the only way to make amends to the dead. To make sure that the living don't join them.

"It will be a nightmare," he says. "But not the end."

Sevika meets his eyes in the glass, and nods.

"Understood, sir."

It's not an endorsement. It's not even a concession. But it's the acknowledgment he needs.