#personally i think he would use Schatz as well (but maybe not as often as liebling)

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Whenever i read yugioh fanfic and it used all this random clunky japanese I found that pretty cringe and sometimes I would think to myself "i bet native japanese speakers who read these think its cringe and sounds really bad too" and while i obviously cant speak for them, as a native german speaker whos now read english tanz fanfics where they insert random clunky german sometimes, I actually find it delightful please keep doing it

[fuckyeahscienceparty]

Scars (Medic/Engineer)

Healing isn't easy but maybe, sometimes, possibly, it's worth it.

...Yeah. Definitely worth it.

-

thanks to @l-i-n-u-s-k-a for betaing for me! 💕 enjoy some gay science lads 'v'

-

Engie cringed at the sudden blaring of his alarm clock, squinting as he blindly reached for the snooze button. When he finally found it, he let out a small sigh as the beeping switched off, taking a moment to sit himself up and let out a yawn.

After reaching over again for his glasses, he let out a soft, "G'morning, sweetheart," a bit confused when he didn't hear any sleepy, annoyed grumbles in response.

He turned to his left, surprised to see that Medic's side of the bed was empty. Odd. He was pretty sure they went to bed together last night....

He shrugged. No matter. He probably just woke up before him this one time. After all, both their sleep schedules were absolute garbage, it really wasn't a surprise that Medic just happened to be up earlier.

He took a few more moments to just sit there and wake himself up before kicking the blanket off, stretching a bit once he'd gotten out of bed and cringing at the chorus of popping joints that followed.

After picking out some clean clothes, his work overalls, belt, and boots, he treaded out of his room and towards the bathrooms, his soft whistling echoing slightly in the empty halls. The silence was pretty uncharacteristic for RED but considering it was only about 5 am, nobody else would be waking up for at least the next hour.

Which meant he and Medic would have to be the ones making breakfast for everyone. Again. And while yeah, it was kind of annoying being the one making food for everyone all the time, it did mean spending some more quality time with his personal mad scientist...

Hey, you win some, you lose some.

Engie stopped whistling when he got to his destination, spying Medic at the sink as he made his way in.

Medic himself was already full dressed and looking in the mirror, leaning on the sink with one hand while the other rested on his back. His expression was a little hard to read in the reflection but he seemed to be thinking about something.

"Mornin' sunshine," Engie hummed, shifting his belongings into one hand so he could pat Medic on the shoulder a couple times.

When he did so, Medic's face immediately lit up, turning towards his boyfriend with a smile on his face.

"Good morning, my love!" He beamed, leaning over slightly to give Engie a kiss. He couldn't help but chuckle fondly at Medic's enthusiasm.

"You're up early. Somethin' goin' on?" Engie asked. Medic seemed to hesitate.

"Nope. Just woke up about an hour ago and couldn't go back to sleep," Medic shrugged.

"You sure? You didn't even notice me walk in," Engie teased. Medic smiled sheepishly.

"Ahaha, sorry, just got a little... lost in my thoughts, I suppose. You know me."

"That I do. You let me know if you need anything though, yeah?"

"Mhm, sure. Are we making breakfast again?"

"Seems like it."

"I'll let you get ready, then. Meet in the kitchen?"

"Read my mind, starry eyes."

Medic smiled again at the nickname, giving Engie another kiss as a goodbye before heading out of the bathrooms.

-

Engie let out a satisfied sigh as his Sentry went to work on BLU's unwitting team members, chuckling at the sound of a nearby Scout cursing his mouth off as he tried to run in the opposite direction of where he originally intended to go to avoid the hail of bullets aimed directly at him. Pyro giggled in amusement from beside him, holding their fist out for him to gladly bump.

Not much for them to do now, really. His sentry combined with the offense the rest of his team was currently providing meant BLU would most likely run out of time before they could get their cart to the next checkpoint and Pyro had been vigilant in looking out for any wandering baguettes on legs. Not than any had come around lately; they'd made sure of that.

The both of them were currently leaning against Engie's dispenser and watching his sentry carefully, letting out greetings to the occasional person who passed by for heals and ammo refills.

At one point, Pyro let out a mumble as they heard the teleporter whirring up, the both of them turning their heads to see a... rather frazzled Medic appear before them.

"Hey, Doc! You ok?" Engie called out, Medic panicking and immediately raising his crossbow at them.

"WOAH woah woah, it's ok, it's just us, I promise," Engie yelped, Pyro letting out a muffled yell as both they and Engie held both their hands in the air. Medic hesitated before lowering out his weapon and strapping it back to his belt.

"Sorry my love, sorry Pyro, just being... cautious," He sighed, running a hand through his already tousled hair.

"It's ok, starry eyes, I get you. Be careful out there though, yeah? BLU Spy hasn't been around here lately but the little bugger is probably still out there, somewhere.

Medic relaxed a bit at Engie's nickname for him but tensed up again at the mention of BLU Spy, the anxious look coming back to his face.

"Yes, uhm, I'll keep it in mind," He said distractedly, hand traveling to his back to the same spot he'd been touching that morning. He then shook his head before taking his medigun and flipping it on, turning to see if he could find anyone from their team to follow after.

"Hrm, Mmdm!"

"Ah- yes, Pyro?"

"Hhm mm hh m mrr hmm hrr mm??" They asked, Medic looking to Engie for his opinion.

"Fine by me! I reckon I can fend for myself for a while. Y'all have fun now, hey?" Engie grinned, Pyro clapping their hands happily before picking up their flamethrower.

"Danke, mein Schatz. I'll try and have them back before 12," Medic joked, aiming his heal beam at his new patient.

Engie chuckled, waving them off as Pyro gleefully went headfirst into the fray, Medic following closely after. That being said, he still seemed pretty wary as he quickly looked around, occasionally shifting one of his hands to his crossbow.

It wasn't necessarily weird for him to being doing so? Seeing as danger and also explosives could be lurking around literally any corner, but it wasn't very often Medic acted this spooked.

He'd ask him about it later. For now, both of them had a job to do, and that meant neither of them letting their guard down for any reason.

...Even if he was a little worried about this reason.

-

After battle, the two of them went their separate ways for a few hours. After all, Medic still had a hoard of birds to look after and Engie was really intent on finishing a new rocket launcher prototype for Soldier since his current one was starting to fall apart.

The next time they saw each other was around 11:30 pm, the both of them having retreated to Engie's bedroom to get some rest.

Well, not without Medic prodding at him to put down his tools and go brush his teeth, but still.

Currently, they were both ridding themselves of their uniforms, Medic humming softly as tossed his vest into his basket of dirty laundry.

'Well, better late then never,' Engie noted to himself, turning to Medic as he placed his hardhat on top of their dresser.

"Hey, honey?"

"Yes, my love?"

"Are you doin' alright?"

Medic took an involuntary pause and let out a sort of... nervous chuckle.

"Of- of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?"

"I dunno, you've just seemed real skittish today, which isn't really like you. And you keep touchin' that lil spot in between your shoulder blades."

Medic's face fell a bit. He shook his head.

"It's. It's fine. Don't worry about it."

"Honey, just from the look on your face when you say that, I'm worryin' about it," Engie frowned as he slid off his goggles.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?"

"It's nothing, I'll get over it."

"But you don't have to get over it by yourself, Doc. I care about you. A lot. And I wanna help you feel better, even if it's just by a little bit," Engie insisted. Medic's expression softened.

"Well..."

"Yeah?"

"...It's just. BLU's Spy has been going after me a lot more often and... it's gotten to the point that even with respawn, there's a pretty deep scar where the knife always gets plunged into my back," He admitted quietly, hand involuntary moving to the affected area. Once he realized what he was doing, it look a lot of willpower to stop.

"Funny thing is, every time I touch it I'm always reminded of the numerous times I've felt cold steel sink into my spinal cord. Which you know, I should be used to by now considering I've dealt with it for however many years, but it. Still hurts sometimes. And I just... can't stop touching it. It's almost like I want to make myself miserable," He said, letting out a wry chuckle.

"...Can I see it?" Engie asked. Medic raised an eyebrow.

"Why? I mean you probably have a similar scar, considering you're also a favored target."

"Yeah but Pyro's been takin' care of him for me lately so I haven't really seen his smug lil face around in a couple days. Besides, I'm just... curious," Engie explained with a shrug.

Medic looked like he was going to protest again but decided against it. He sighed.

"...Ok," He said softly, turning his back to Engie and sitting on their bed as he started to undo his tie and the buttons on his shirt. Engie came a little closer as he did so, putting his goggles on his nightstand and trading them for his glasses.

"Ohhh sweetheart..." He mumbled involuntarily as Medic pulled his shirt down, revealing lightly tanned skin that was littered in various scars in varying shades and sizes. Most notable was the deep, discolored sort of 'x' shaped one near the base of Medic's neck, a painful reminder of all the times he'd been both figuratively and literally stabbed in the back.

Engie knew he was scarred. They all were. Kind of a given in their line of work, really, he especially had his fair share. But he'd never really looked at the one's on Medic's back that closely before, and boy were there a lot of them...

Medic shuddered slightly as Engie softly grazed his thumb over The Scar, though didn't really make an effort to stop him. Around it were several other scars that looked just knife wounds, some old and faded but others taunting and red. Numerous grievances too plentiful to count.

It was almost painful to look at.

"Honey, why didn't you tell me he was botherin' you?" He asked softly, sitting on the bed behind him with his legs crossed. Medic hesitated again.

"I didn't want to distract you. You're always so busy trying to keep all your machines alive, you shouldn't need to keep me alive too. That's my job."

"But that's what they are, baby, machines. I love them like my own children, you of all people know that, but at the end of the day I can just piece 'em back together again. It's not as easy for you, even with respawn available," Engie sighed.

"...I know," Medic mumbled, hands gripping his own arms tightly as he sort of caved in on himself. Engie felt a pain in his chest. Medic wasn't really the... Emotional type. So seeing him so vulnerable, so... hurt? It was never a sight he felt easy about.

"It's ok sweetheart, I know emotions and stuff ain't your strong suit," Engie assured, leaning over to press a soft kiss on Medic's back where his main scar was.

Medic flinched when he did so, freezing in place.

"You alright, darlin'?" Engie frowned, moving over so he could look at Medic's face.

"I'm- it's- uh. Fine. It's fine," Medic stammered, turning his head away from him. He didn't, however, resist when Engie gently cupped his jaw and turned it back, giving him a kiss on the forehead.

Medic couldn't help but relax a little, leaning over to softly head bump Engie's shoulder.

After that, the two of them wordlessly got up to finish changing, Engie opting for an old t-shirt from one of his colleges and pajama pants while Medic just slapped a pair of pajama shorts with little birds on them.

Once the two of them had gotten into bed, Engie put his arms around Medic's torso, Medic himself putting one of his hands on top of his. However, as he reached over to turn off the lamp on his side of the bed, Engie pressed a kiss on another one of his knife wound scars.

And another. And another. And now he was just trying to give a smooch to every one he saw, Medic's heart feeling as though it was going to swell out of his chest.

"I'm just going to get even more of them, you know," He breathed softly.

"And I unfortunately can't stop that. But I will do whatever it takes to help you heal, even if it means I'm kissin' every scar on your body," Engie murmured gently into his skin, pressing a final kiss on his neck.

"...God, what the fuck did I do to be so lucky?"

"Nothin' but be yourself, sweetheart. That's all I could ever ask of you."

[huckleberrysaywhen-blog]

“Pick Your Poison”

Featuring Lucy, Gabe, and Quinn

“What are we gonna do with him?” Muttered a typically excited, happy voice that was now low and rumbly with confusion. American, male, and definitely rather young.

“I do not know. Perhaps we may send him to Lucille.” Said the second voice, softer and much more dainty. It was also male, although donning a much more British-English type of speaking, watered down as if he had spent too much time with the Americans.

The partners were both standing above a man’s unconscious body, splayed out ungracefully by their feet. He seemed to be stretched out like a trapeze artist reaching for his next checkpoint. He was fair-skinned, with a head of long, messy blonde hair, and eyes that were half-closed and glazed over in his unwanted slumber. His clothing was very ripped and it was now difficult to tell what he had been wearing.

The American accent rose up again, more panicked and stressed. “I don’t know, Gabe, maybe this was a mistake. Maybe we should’ve stayed in the underworld. This dude didn’t haf’ta die.”

Presumably, the Englishman named Gabe turned his head in the shadows to see the American. “Since when have you doubted me, my love? Since when have you become so feeble?” His voice was low and soft, purring the words that rolled off his tongue as smooth as velvet.

The American nervously shifted to face him. They were both drowned out in darkness, but it could hardly be made out that they were in the shadows of an alleyway. The disturbing drips of an unknown liquid rapped quietly on the asphalt below them. The stench of the dumpsters floated around them like a thick woman’s perfume, and the bustle of the city life outside them seemed to fade away when he stared up at Gabe.

“Oh, Gabe, I don’t know, maybe since this guy’s friends tried hunting us. The humans have always been stupid! They’ve never really believed in us, and the ones that did, we killed! But this guy, he-- he had an army, Gabe, he could kill us, he could kill you...” His voice faded toward the end of his sentence, strained and thick with worry. He reached out and set his hand on top of Gabe’s, gripping his fingers tightly.

Their fingers intertwined like vines, knuckles turning white from the heavy hold they had on each other. Gabe’s voice was low and soft, as he took a step closer. “Please, my love, do not fret. They’re nothing different from the other stupid mortals. We can kill them as easily as we did the others. And, before you protest...” He leaned down, nose to nose with the American boy who was much shorter than him. “Although you dislike Lucille, he disposes of bodies quite well.”

Gabe’s partner’s breath caught in his throat at the closeness of his warm companion. In the dim light, he stared up at Gabe’s bright amber eyes, glittering a fierce yellow. He admired the pupils that were slit vertically like a cat’s. He couldn’t resist letting his eyes wander across his partner’s face; perfectly shaped, angular yet soft with curves...

“Quinn, I am flattered, but focus on the matter at hand. Help me tie up this man and get him to Lucille.” Gabe muttered, nose brushing Quinn’s cheek as his head turned away. Although it was a soft touch, hardly there, Quinn’s body was racked with a shudder.

“O-oh, okay.” He stammered out, helplessly turning after Gabe, who had stepped closer to the unconscious body once more. He dumbly stared at Gabe, his mind foggy with matters that would have to be tended to much later.

Gabe arched over, the lights from the nearby market illuminating him for a split second. He was pale-skinned, a muscular form that was rather broad-shouldered and overall large, even as a silhouette. He had a head full of dark, thick hair; presumably a dark brown or black. He had a dainty nose, upturned slightly, and pouty pink lips. Quinn often commented he looked “handcrafted with love.”

“I do suppose we can take him back to the castle--” Gabe began, crouching down over the body and rolling him onto his side, beginning to draw his limbs together to bind them. However, he was cut off by a very heavy German accent, still throaty and hissing as if it were born in the heart of the Fatherland.

“Well, Gabriel! Quinn! How nice to see you! Oh, and I see you have our friend here, the little ​besserwisser​.” The words seemed to uncomfortably shove and rattle against each other as they tumbled past the thin, faint lips of the German that was now standing at the entrance of the alleyway.

Quinn exhaled sharply, swinging his head downward and covering his face. “Oh, kill me now.”

Light from the market street dappled Quinn in such a position, revealing the beauty of the boy. He had skin that was sun-kissed and mottled with freckles absolutely everywhere, and a large beauty mark beside his left eye on his upper cheekbone. His hair was thin and wispy, but silky soft. It, strangely, was black at the roots and faded into shades of gray and silver until it was snow white at the tips. It was long and untamed, slightly curly at the tips.

Amongst his beauty, were the set of peculiar objects amongst his spine. They weren’t completely visible until he turned to aggressively face the German, in an attack stance. He looked like a gray wolf alpha, baring his teeth and bristling his spine to protect his young. A look of sheer vengeance and natural-born hate searing in his breast.

He had wings. A beautiful, large set of wings upon his back. They were extremely large, a wingspan that could easily wrap two average-sized humans comfortably. The light dappled them a mangy, dirty yellow, swamping their beauty, yet it was clear that they were silver on the undersides and solid black on the topsides. The beauties had the traditional upside down “V” at the bone’s bend, and the typical shine of a vulture’s wings.

“Ahh, ah, calm your mutt, why don’t you, Gabriel?” The German laughed, high and maniacal at the sight of Quinn’s glare that was shooting daggers. His fists flexed at his sides, lips peeled back in a disgusted expression. His gray eyes were turned silver, burning hatred, pupils dilated completely.

Gabriel cocked his head upward from where he crouched over the collapsed body. “Well, hallo,​ Lucille.Lendmeahandwiththisbody,andwecansettleyourdifferencesatthecastle, yes?” He offered, as he slid his hands underneath the body’s armpits. Gabe heaved upward as if carrying a toddler, holding it over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

Lucille was well-hidden in the shadows of the alleyway entrance, about twenty paces away from the boys. However, it was undeniably him, due to the revealing accent and schoolgirl giggle that Quinn despised.

“Slut bastard.” Quinn spat, hissing like a feline. If he were, his spine would be bristling, tail puffed completely. Instead, his wings kept twitching and rustling, fingers flexing. He was visibly itching to attack Lucille.

“Oh, relax, ​der Schatz,​ you just go back to being Gabriel’s lapdog. Do not be jealous of what you will never be.” Lucille cackled, head tipping back slightly. His eyes flashed a glint in the darkness, a wisp of scarlet red.

Quinn stepped forward, aggressively. “Oh, you take that back, Lucy, you bastard--” He fully intended to bash the German’s perfect face into a pulp.

But something stopped him. He hesitated, looking down to see Gabe’s free arm pressed against his chest.

“No.” Was all Gabriel said, his eyes slowly settling on Quinn’s face. They were burning with the authoritative power of a king. Well, Gabriel was a king. And although lovers, Quinn was his immortal servant nonetheless.

Quinn’s head ducked. He backed away a few paces, stumbling over his own feet. His silver gaze was averted away, hands coming to touch his throat and chest, nervously. He acted like that of a submissive dog, or wolf; even licking his lips to silently beg for forgiveness. He cringed at the sound of Gabriel’s boots hitting the asphalt in rhythm, beginning to walk away.

Lucille thought this was extremely funny. Quinn, however, did not, but could not come to his senses to beat some sense into the German for disrespecting him with laughter.

“Let’s go, boys.” Gabe purred, low and commanding. He began to walk out of the alley with the body limply swinging over his shoulder, one heavy arm wrapped around it’s hips to secure it to his person.

Quinn and Lucille exchanged a glance before following after. They both seemed to be thinking the same thing.

After a struggle of getting back to the hell castle in the underworld with an added body, the boys were sitting in the second tea room, sharing a kettle of mint tea. The castle was extravagant; three whole stories. It belonged entirely to Gabriel and Quinn, and rarely Lucille spent an evening.

The second tea room was small; hosting a red velvet sofa with golden embroideries and a golden frame, very Victorian. It had a matching armchair that Lucille lazed across, and a small Italian coffee table that was solid glass, including the legs. The walls were littered with old photos of people; some including Gabriel, some including a white-haired man, some including a large creature with terrifying red eyes and large goat horns protruding from his forehead. Mysterious folk.

Amongst the photographs, there was red-and-gold wallpaper, as well as many bookshelves pressed against the walls. Instead of containing books, they seemed to contain handmade ledgers, leatherback mostly, with scribbled, messy labels on the spines. A large glass and marble chandelier hung from the ceiling, lighting the room with gold.

Gabriel delicately handled the china, that was white with navy blue patterns and trim, pouring more steaming mint tea into Quinn’s teacup. Quinn wasn’t big on tea at all, he’d rather down a bottle of Kentucky bourbon, but Gabe forced his lover to learn tea manners.

“Thank you, again, Lucille, for all the help.” Gabe said, sincerely. His amber gaze flicked up to the German, briefly. He set down the china teapot beside the larger hot water kettle in case they wanted more. His palms set on his trousers, smoothing the wrinkles in the thighs.

Gabriel dressed quite handsomely; typically in three-piece suits, but at the least, velvet black trousers and a white French dress shirt, tucked in. On this particular occasion, he donned a black three-piece with a white undershirt and a dark red bowtie nestled under his chin. It had been difficult to see, in the dark alleyway, but was now beautifully illuminated.

Lucille flashed a grin. He, like Gabriel, dressed handsomely, and was just as beautiful. He had a head full of raven-black hair, long and untamed in his face. It framed his eyes that were a bright scarlet, with flecks of remaining brown in the centre near his dilated pupil. He had a constellation of freckles draping his nose and high, protruding cheekbones; pale, soft skin clinging to dainty bones and the curves of his feminine body. His height to weight ratio was off; he was very slender and thin, narrow-bodied and the smallest of the trio, as well as the shortest.

Typically, Lucy was found wearing the same outfit every day. It was a priest’s jacket that had been modified to drape floor-length, similar to a trench coat, but it was split in the front and back up to the waist like a riding duster. It was solid black, and buttoned up completely. Underneath his modified coat, he had a pair of black shorts that were shaped like women’s underwear. He also had fishnet stockings that gartered to the shorts. His boots were black and leather, settling just above his knee, and showing off a four-inch heel.

As well as his promiscuous outfit, Lucy had a range of jewelry. Black earrings draping across his cartilage and two black studs in his earlobes, as well as a silver chain around his neck that had a sterling silver charm of an upside down cross. Usually, he wore a scarlet neckerchief, as well as a white knit scarf around his neck.

Not to mention, the German painted his long, claw-like nails black, and often wore a cat-eye liner above his slitted, lazy red eyes.

Gabriel called him his “little incubus.” It wasn’t far off from what Lucille was.

In hilarious contrast, Quinn usually wore hoodies and jeans. Casual, and human-like. Although, he did have to cut holes in the shoulders of the hoodies and t-shirts so he could fit his wings through.

“Well, I believe we should go check on our friend, ​ja?​ ” Lucille said, standing up from where he’d been prowling on his armchair like a male lion. He dusted his coat off, re-wrapping his scarf around his neck.

Quinn eagerly set down his teacup. Despite hating Lucille and his ideas, he’d do about anything to avoid having tea time. “Yeah, I think so. Who is this bastard, again?” Quinn asked, slowly standing up and raising his arms above his head to stretch. His wings twitched in response to the muscles flexing.

Gabriel nudged all the china closer together for easy cleanup later. He rose to his feet as well, staring down at his subjects.

“He is a half breed like you, my dear. However, he is a mix between demon and human. Access to the underworld, yes, but still suffers a few side-effects. Worse than you, though.” Gabe said, as he snaked his left arm around Quinn’s waist. His warm palm settled on his hip, their sides flush together.

Quinn sheepishly nosed into his lover’s shoulder, willingly pressing against him.

Lucille snorted a high-pitched giggle. “Ah, thank god we don’t have another fallen angel on our hands. I think ​der unser Freund hier​ is enough.”

Quinn’s eyes narrowed. His eyes always narrowed before he was about to speak something vile, or eat someone alive. “Shut up with the foreign language, Lucy. You know I can understand German, right? And your stupid Latin, and French, and Greek... The list goes on. You’re just a slutty little asshole who thinks he’s great, just ‘cause he managed to get in cahoots with the king of hell. Now, in my opinion--”

Quinn would have kept going, but Gabriel squeezed his hip and dug his nails into his side, causing the wretch to yelp in pain and grip his wrist.

Lucille didn’t seem all that hurt, just snickering his amusement at Quinn’s punishment. “Let’s go see the half breed then, ​Liebling​.” He purred, in that same low, spine-quivering tone of voice Gabriel used. His harsh, throaty accent made it much less attractive, but nonetheless caught the fallen angel’s attention.

Lucy waved his arm, starting to stalk out of the second tea room toward a staircase leading to the basement. They were on the first floor, with one above them; and the holding cells below them.

Lucy trotted down the concrete steps, heels clicking loudly. Gabriel and Quinn followed after, still glued to each other’s hips, padding much more quietly downward.

The underground holding cells contained three metal bar cells on each side of the hallway, with a total of six open slots. There was a large metal door at the end of the hallway, with a variety of locks on it, for dangerous animals that needed to be held. The walls were a mix of concrete, diorite, and a solid form of mercury. Very difficult to escape from. The metal bars were, of course, a mix of various metals and silver, to ward off creatures that were weak to it. It was dim and musky, and smelled strongly of sweat and blood.

Each cell contained a small bed. And that was about it. Only one of the cells was occupied; by the half breed they had captured earlier. And boy, was he pissed. He was awake, and raging.

His claws had dug into the walls, trying to rip holes in them; adding to pre-existing claw marks. His head swung around, staring with sheer hatred at the trio that stepped down the stairs. His voice rose in a high-pitched screech, like that of a hawk or eagle. It was deafening, and made Quinn flinch and cover his much more sensitive ears.

Lucille and Gabriel stared back, unfazed. Gabriel snickered quietly, looking downward and shaking his head. “My, oh my, you poor creature.” He said, softly. Gabe stepped closer to the cell, peering through the bars with his hands in his pockets. His shadow enveloped the half breed completely. What a size difference.

“I’d love to cut you into a fillet and feed you to the hellhounds.” He said, lips twitching up slightly at the corner. His eyes bore into the half breed with malicious thoughts, staring right through him.

The creature in the cell quivered slightly, jerking his blue gaze away. Instead, he glared at Lucille, baring his teeth like a dog.

Lucy giggled, high and insane. He stepped beside Gabriel, meeting the fearless blue gaze with authority. “Oh, Gabriel, I’d like to shove objects down his throat until he suffocates!”

He cried out a little with joy at the thought, flashing his insane grin. His white teeth glinted in the dim light, sharp canines whispering “we want your flesh” to the half breed.

Quinn crept closer to Gabe, shaking his head to rid himself of the ringing in his ears. “I’d like to beat the shit outta him, ‘till he’s begging for mercy, and then I wanna cut out that stupid tongue’a his.” The American accent and slang really came flowing out of Quinn during that sentence, with a faint drawl to his tongue-tip.

Gabriel laughed slightly, quietly. A rare sound. He peered down at the now intimidated prisoner, flashing a smile with rows of shark-like teeth, all triangular and pointed. With promise in his voice, he murmured, “Pick your poison.”

[mangled-dreams]

Hey Mangled! I’m actually coming back again with another Dr. Schneeplestein X Dermitillomania reader if that’s alright. Things have been tough for me in that area a bit more lately. Maybe some constant pressure from the reader’s parents about clearing up their skin leads them into a relapse. Schneep finds them in a picking trance, snaps them out and coaxes them into a warm shower where he helps them wash up and clean up. With cuddles and positive encouragement near the end please. Thank you.

Here you are my friend.

 Scarring Words

“Sweetheart,it’s good to see you.” Your mother always says this whenever it’sbeen longer than a few days since your last visit. You honestly trynot to visit often. Not because you don’t love your parents, it’sjust your mother likes to make… comments.

“HeyMom, is Dad home?” You ask stepping into the house.

“Ibelieve I saw him in his study.” You mother responds looking overyour exposed skin with eagle like accuracy. Her careful sweep of yourskin causes a shiver to run across your spine and gooseflesh to rise.Rubbing your arm to ease the gooseflesh you make your way to yourdad’s study, or rather his “man cave”. You need to ask hisopinion on a car you want to purchase from a dealership in town, butknowing very little about vehicles makes you apprehensive about doingit on your own.

“Heypops.” You greet entering the study. You dad is reclined back in aLazy-Boy with a bowl of popcorn on his lap.

He tips his head back, spots you, and smilelargely. As he rights himself he greets, “Kiddo! Hey, what bringsyou by? Your mother didn’t say you were coming over.” You smileat him walking down the quick little three steps.

“Icame by unannounced.” You tell him sitting down next to him to keephim from getting up. He had a bad accident about three months ago andtore his knee up something real bad, and since then you do everythingpossible to keep him comfortable. “I found a car I wanted to buy,and I kind of need your input.” You tell him pulling out yourlaptop and boot it up. “I thought I’d better come to my personalcar guru and get your opinion on how best to get the car.”

Your father’s eyes light up at your request.It’s not often you need to come to him for advice anymore, butunfortunately Henrik knows next to nothing about cars other than putthe petrol in a petrol powered car and diesel in the diesel poweredcar.  Happily your father dives head first into reading theinformation you provided him as well as asking you serious questionsabout what you want out of your car.

Nearly an hour and a half passes before youfeel confident in your new choice in car. It’s an older model thanwhat you wanted but with your dad’s boost of confidence you feel itwould better suite your needs considering you and Henrik are thinkingabout adopting a dog and would need a decent sized space in the backto accommodate whatever breed you pick out. Looking at the picturesof the car you’re now sure you’ll purchase you is blissfullyignorant to the shark circling outside the shallows.

Your father, however, has noticed your mother’sconsistent rounds carrying a small bag in her hand. He knows thatlook on her face each time she peeks into gauge when would be best topounce on you. Your dad sighs, shaking his head at his wife.

He already knows what your mother is doing andhe’s been very vocal about it to her. Sighing loudly your dad restshis hand over yours saying, “Your mother loves you very much,kiddo. You know that right?”

Your heart stills for a moment and you knowwhat’s about to happen. You don’t say anything and try to quicklybuild up your walls. If you could you’d run right out of the houseand dive into your car, but from this area of the house you have tocross through the living room and you know your mother would bewaiting for you. “I can’t.” You whisper looking up at your dadwith pleading eyes.

“Shemeans well.”

Biting your tongue you force your response downdeep. It hurts to have to hold your tongue and hide that you are souncomfortable with your mother’s “kind” gestures.  Hergestures usually mean some kind of “miracle” skin healing lotion,or some “magical” oil to help you “control” yourcompulsion.  “Dad please, I can’t keep doing this. Iknow she means well.” It’s the first time you’ve ever let himknow how much it hurts you to keep getting these well meaning gifts.

“I’lltalk to her again, I promise. For today just take the gift. You don’thave to use it kid, but it’ll break her heart if you don’t atleast accept it.” It’s totally your dad to be the negotiator, buttaking your mother’s gift may very well break you down.

Closing your eye you tight against your ownemotions, shoving them deep down into the bowels of hell where theycame from and pack up your stuff. Whatever enjoyment you just had andwhatever sense of normalcy with is now gone. Right now you’re doingeverything not to just cry.

Steeling yourself against the next few minutesyou give your dad a huge fake smile and stand up. “I’ll see youlater.” You manage to say without hint of your struggle. Your daddoesn’t get up, nodding his head to you. You lean down and brush akiss to his temple and leave the room.

Your mom doesn’t ambush you right away,waiting until you’ve nearly have the door within reach beforepopping out with a bight florescent bag showcasing lipsticks andpowder cover up. Letting your mask slip into place you put on thesame show you always do.

“What’sthat?” You already know. “Mom, I don’t need…” And she’snot listening to you again.

“Karenhad this amazing little party the other night for skin care and sheshowed me this and I just had to buy it for you, to… um help withall the—the scarring.” It’s difficult for her to reference yourscars directly which gives you some amount of satisfaction but itdoesn’t last.  “This is an exfoliating scrub to takeaway the dead skin, and this is to put on after you’ve bathed; ithelps rejuvenate the skin and help it heal. Oh, and this! This is themost amazing moisturizer! It will help lighten the—the, um, scarsso they’re not so… so noticeable.”

She really does mean well, but for all her wellmeaning she doesn’t take your feelings into account. She loves youbut each time she does this it feels like she doesn’t love all ofyou. Since being with Henrik, having him find out about youraffliction, you’ve learned to be comfortable with your scars, withthe fact you can’t always control yourself.

Feeling the familiar sensation of youaffliction you take the bag, needing to just leave the house beforethings get even more overwhelming. “Bye Mom, see you late.” Youtell her, quickly kissing her cheek and hastily make your exit.

Slipping behind the wheel of your car you turnthe ignition on and drive home as quickly and as safely as you can.You don’t notice until you’ve closed the front door of yourapartment but you’ve managed to pick open a mostly healed cut onyour forearm. Shrieking you rush into the bathroom to find theantiseptic and bandages.

 “Y/n,I have found a dog zat you vould love to zee.” Henrik callsentering the house. Instantly he knows something is wrong. “Schatz?”Carefully he makes his way to your bathroom and pushes the door open.His heart sinks at the sight of you rocking back and forth on theedge of the bathtub holding your arm to your chest, blood stainingyour skin.

“Y/n,oh scheiβe,” he whispers. It’s very rare and memorable if Henrikis brought to the point of swearing. He’s used to seeing blood butnot when it’s yours and in such a large volume. As he makes his wayto you he does note there are no large puddles and in fact it is verylittle in comparison to what he expected.

“Goodkids don’t pick. Good kids don’t pick. Good kids don’t pick.”You chant under your breath. You heard this so much growing up whenyour anxiety got too much in public settling. Your mother would handyou a cloth napkin or some kind of object to twist or snap to keepyou from picking at your skin.

Grabbing a towel from the floor Henrik cleansthe rim of the tub and sits down next to you. It concerns him morethat you don’t acknowledge him than the pink water sloshing aroundyour calves. No matter how bad it is, you always acknowledge him.

“Y/n?I am home.” Henrik says softly running his ringers along the sideof your head seeing the far away gaze you have. Your eyes neverwaiver from a spot in the water as Henrik calls your name again. .Henrik turns from you closing his eyes and takes a steady breath.This is new and more concerning. He wonders what could have happenedto throw everything you’d been working so hard to accomplish to thefloor.

Whatever happened he can’t let your pick atyourself anymore. He knew there was a scratch on your arm, but it didnot cross his mind you would pick at it to this extent. That is notwhere all the blood is solely coming from. You’ve picked at yournail beds your lips and small spots on your legs. Whatever happenedwas devastating.

Carefully Henrik lays his hands over yours andpushes it into your lap. “Y/n, vill you not look at me?” He askssoftly waiting for you to turn your head.

His voice is a welcomed sound, but it’s notenough to break the trance. You want to turn to him and cry into hisarms, but you just can’t. You’d tried to reach out to him beforethings got worse, but no one would find him for you, or were overlyrude.

Sighing quietly Henrik stands up to fetch atowel. The bath water is too dirty now to be used for any kind ofgood cleaning, but he can at lease get the dried blood off. Shruggingoff his jacket and button up shirt, Henrik tosses them into thehallway along with his shoes and socks.

He roll up his pant legs and sits down againfeet into the water and slowly cleans away the blood and bits ofskin. He knows this should disturb him since it’s you, but he is adoctor, and caring for people regardless of their relation to him iswhat he does. It’s easier on him to look at your wounds from aclinical stand point because then it makes it less of an ego blowwhen you have a relapse or when he needs to help you heal.

“Dove,vat happened?” Henrik tires to get you to talk glancing up at yourface. You’re staring right at him; still you do not see him. Ithits him then; you were supposed to see your father about a car you’dbeen looking into purchasing. “Did you see your dad?” He asks andthe response is not what he wanted.

Your whole upper torso bobs with each sob asyou’re pulled from your trance. Dropping the towel in the pinkwater Henrik takes your hands afraid for a moment that you’ll goback to picking when he’s just got you to stop.

No, instead you look directly at Henrik andsob, “Why can’t she see she’s hurting me?”

Clarity has been given. Confusion and worrygives way to anger within Henrik. Your mother, as well-meaning as shecan be is slowly killing you. Taking a few calming breaths Henrik hasto center himself before speaking. “Dove, I am here now. Come letus clean you.” It’s not what he wants to say, but for you, andyour love for your mother, he holds his tongue. To often do childrencome in to the hospital because of the ignorance of their parents.

If he needs to take you away to Germany or toIreland, he will—if it means you will be happier. Standing upHenrik helps you to your feet. Keeping on hand connected to one ofyours he leans over and drains the bath. Twisting the head of theshower away from him he opens the taps and spends a about a minutetesting the water before switching places with you.

This is not the shower he had hoped to behaving, but he will do what is needed to keep you healthy and—witha little prayer, sane. Using his antibacterial hand soap from thesink, Henrik washes your newest wounds with care, pausing for briefmoments when it’s too much pain for you

The shower takes the better half of a halfhour, but once done he helps you wash your hair before turning offthe water and disrobe you and him completely. Grabbing towels hewraps his around his waist then gently dries you off. Through out theprocess you’ve cried silently upset and ashamed you’re puttingHenrik through this again.

Walking with you into the bed room he helps youget into your favorite shirt and bottoms before taking you to thedinning room table and sits you down. Some of your wounds have openedand he has to clean them off before dressing them with cotton gauzewrap.

“Villyou tell me now?” Henrik asks setting his supplies aside. Sittingon his knees he holds your hands, waiting in silence for you to openup to him. He won’t lie this is a set back, but it does not meanall your accomplishments is meaningless.

One long silent minute stretches into twobefore you lift your gaze to his. “She means well.” You repeatyour father knowing Henrik will know exactly who you refer to.

“Doesnot mean she knows vell.”Henrik responds in a neutral tone. Hedoesn’t want you to feel attack or that you are attacking yourbother, but as your partner and if he’s honest your husband, hewill do what is best for your health. “Many of my patients zink zeyare doing best, but it only hurt zose around zem.”

“Shedoesn’t listen to me, I tell her no and she just… I can’t stopher.” You whisper with a defeated look in your eyes. You can seethe anger at your mother’s meddling brewing in Henrik’s eye.Giving him a small smile it touches you how upset he gets on yourbehalf.

“Mylove, I vill help you vith her if you vill let me.” Henrik offersagain in the neutral tone.

Your chest tightens. No one’s offered to helpyou talk with your mother. Dad says he talks to her, but nothing eversinks in to her mind that you don’t like her “gifts” and thatshe’s hurting you more than she’s helping no matter how much shewants to help. “Please.” It’s a whisper of a sound, but Henrikhears you as if you’d just screamed with everything in you.

Henrik nods squeezing your hands. Standing uphe helps you to your feet and leads you to the living room and putson a comedy movie. For the next few days he’ll keep you home andrelaxed before taking you over to your parent’s house for a sitdown.

 Dressing in semi casual clothing it feels likeyou’re getting ready for an interview you don’t want to be apartof. Unfortunately this has to be done and thankfully Henrik will bethere for you. Sitting down on the bed you settle your hands in yourlap and take a few deep breaths.

Henrik stands in the door way watching youcarefully. He’s so proud of the progress you’ve made in just thepast three days. He knows this will be a hard step in your life, buthe’s quite sure it’s something you need. “Are you ready?”

Noddingyour head you stand and follow Henrik to the car. The car ride islong and filled with an awkward silence. You don't know how yourmother—or father for that matter will react, but you, you have todo this.

Pullinginto the driveway Henrik turns the car off but doesn't get out rightaway. “Good or bad, I vill support you.” He tells you earning atimid smile in response.

Youboth exit the car and walk hand in hand to the door of your parent'shouse. They've met Henrik before and seemed to like him, but youwonder if they'll like him after this. It's not that you'll throwHenrik under the bus, but without him you'd never have the courage todo this. Knocking twice your mother answers the door, surprised tosee you but ushers you in quickly.

Yousmile shyly at her and follow her into the living room. Hesitatingfor a moment when you see your siblings and aunt in the room youstick closer to  Henrik. “Hey, d-didn't realize anyone was going tobe over tonight.” You say waving to your family.

“Spurof the moment kind of thing. Looks like you two had the same idea.”Aj says smiling at you. You can't return it with the same happiness.

“Well,ah, I needed to... to talk with mom and dad about something.” Youbeing wanting to hide behind Henrik. He squeezes your hand to comfortyou and solidify his support.

“Oh?What about dear? Did that stuff I bought you work?” You mother asksgiving you an easy opening.

“Ah,”Your voice stalls for a second and Henrik releases your hand andplaces both his hands on your shoulder to comfort you still. “No,its not helping, Mom.” You say softly.

“Haveyou even been using it?” Your mom asks taking a bit of a defensivetone.

“Mrs.Y/n,” Henrik begins but you hold your hand up. It's not Henrik'sresponsibility to do this for you. He's done so much already.

“Thankyou, Hen, but I can do it.” You tell him raising a hand to squeezehis. He nods and allows you to take lead again. How did you get solucky to have Henrik as your lover and supporter? “Mom, I love you,I love that you want to help me, but please, no more. I can't—Ican't do it. I know my skin is horrible, that I have scarseverywhere, but all those products you buy, it kills me.” You sayhonestly, it's the most honest you've been in years.

“Whatare you talking about? They're to help you with your... problem.”She says glancing at your aunt.

“Ihave dermatillomania, mom. It's not a dirty secret and it's notsomething I have control over. I would understand better if I askedfor things to help soften my scaring or help smooth out my skin, butI'm still coming to terms with managing my condition. In stead ofseeing the progress I've made you focus on the physical aspect of theafter math. I can't,” Tears drip down your cheek. You don't mean tocry you just are. “I can't keep repeating this cycle. I'm askingyou to stop forcing me to move faster than I am comfortable with.”

Youcould have shot your mother in the leg and she'd look less in painthat she does now. “Y/n! I—I have just been look out for you!Your physical feathers is how the world sees you. What do you thinkpeople think of you with all those scars?” Your mother asksnoticing the bandages under your long sleeves. “Have you beenpicking again?” She shrieks.

Forthe first time something snaps at her words. Shoving your sleeves upyou rip off your carefully placed wrappings. “Yes, because youcan't see your child that is in pain and needing really moral andmental support more than to worry about the physical appearance!”You shout hot angry tears replacing the sad ones. “I can't do thisanymore, mom.” You plead.

“Y/n!Watch your tone!” Your father shouts out of habit despite his harshtone. Your mother sits speechless, as does your siblings and aunt.

Henrikwraps his arms around you, pinning your hands to your sides to keepyou from picking at your skin again. He knows you, he knows youremotions, the warning signs. Twisting you away from your family heturns you in his arms and frames your face with his hands. “Look atme.” He orders sternly. Your eyes bounce to and from his face a fewtimes before settling on him. “Tell me.” He whispers.

“It'sbad, Hen. I... I'm fighting so hard.” You tell him pleading for himto help you. He nods and reaches into his pocket.

“Ihad hoped to vait until ve returned home, but zis vill help.” Hepromises stepping away from you and kneels. Your heart thunders.

“H-Henrik,what are...”

“Youare beauty in physical form, Y/n. Be my vife and complete me.” Hesays displaying a small box with the most beautiful ring you've everseen.

“Henny...”you whisper. He hates the nickname, but allows you to say it becauseit makes you giggle and he loves your giggle. Voices gasp behind you,your father stands up as if to interfere but remains still.

“Sayyes.” He coaxes watching your smile slowly come into existence.

“Yes,”You agree with all your heart. Henrik smiles taking your uncoveredleft arm and slips the ring on. “I had planned on asking you closerto our anniversary, but now seemed good. I have read zat havingsomezing to twist or fidget vith can help. Zis vill be a symbol of mylove for you, and provide a small coping technique ven I cannot bezere for you.” Henrik says ever being the doctor you love.

“Whoa,I did not expect that.” Aj remarks.

“Ilove you Henrik.”

“AndI you, Y/n”

“Well,I... I didn't realize that you two were so serious.” Your motherremarks not know what else to say. This is not where the conversationwas going. “But that still doesn't explain why I'm being attacked.”

Youlook at your mom. “I'm not attacking you, Mom. For once I'm beingcompletely honest with you. I love you, I know you mean well, but Ican't and I won't take anymore skin care products from you.” Youtell her as straight forward as you can.

Yourmother scoffs at your words. As you open your mouth your father says,“She's right Lidia. Leave the girl alone, I've told you before, Y/nis grown now. She is able to buy what she needs when she needs it.”You smile gratefully at your father.

“Ah!Well I'm sorry for caring about you!” Your mother cries throwingher hands in the air and walks out of the room.

Apainful silence takes over before AJ says, “Anyways, congrats ongetting engaged!”

Ploppingdown on your bed you're over come with giggles. Despite your mother'sreaction and feelings you're happy. Looking at your ring you rollonto your back and flail about with excitement. You're going to marrythe most wonderful man on the face of the earth!!

Henriksmirks from the door way before rushing the bed and jumps on. Youshriek when his body lands almost atop you. “Henrik! You scaredme!” You tell him laughing.

Hetakes your lips, kissing you until you're dizzy. “I love you, and Ivanted to discuss a matter vith you.”

“Whatis it?” You ask with a raised brow.

“Ihave received an offer to go to Ireland to practice. It has been manyyears since I have been home. I vonder if you vould come vith me?”Henrik asks. He knows it's not the best of time considering where youjust came from, but he had received the offer while his phone was offat your parent's.

Bugeyed you stare up at Henrik. “Really? Wow. I mean..” Pausing youreally think about that. The more you do the more it become obviousit's important to Henrik. He gets a slight crease in his foreheadwhen he's worried you'll reject something. You're not big on moving,especially that far, btu you will be starting your life as a marriedcouple, new adventures await you.

“Yes.”You tell him. “Let's do it!” You cheer pulling Henrik down foranother kiss. “Wherever you lead, I will follow.”

“Youamaze me, Y/n.” Henrik responds caressing your cheek bone with histhumb. “How did I get so lucky?” Smiling your gladly accept hiskiss.

“Luckain't got nothing to do with it. You brought me home and I refuse tolet you go.” You tease giggling at the feeling of Henrik's fingertips against your sides. He knows you all to well, and you love himthe more for it.

[assortedara]

Winter Talks (Pyro/Medic)

Art/Fic trade with @axis-intercept​  :) Her part can be found here. They wished for some sweet, domestic Pyro/Medic fluff after their time with RED. Disclaimer: English isn’t my first language, German is. Hope you guys still enjoy it.

--- Pyro slowly opened his eyes. He was still in the living room, covered with a blanket up to his chin while lying on the sofa. A fire was burning in the nearby chimney, engulfing the whole room with its soft glow. Pyro quietly watched the fire dance for a while, watched how little sparks rose up in the air only to disappear again and be replaced by new ones.

Pyro stretched his legs a little and nestled his head deeper into the warm curve of Medic’s lap. After a walk through the snow, one Pyro hadn’t done entirely voluntarily but Medic had insisted on, the two of them had cuddled up together in their living room.

Medic loved the winter.He loved the clean air, the peacefulness, how everything for once seemed to come to a halt in this always so restless world. It was also the time Medic would become a little melancholic, would play violin for hours or bury himself in his books. It never had snowed in the Badlands, or even rained, but as soon as they had experienced their first winter together it became evident that it was a difficult time for Medic. Pyro assumed it was because he missed Germany.

Medic never had talked about his past and Pyro never had asked either. Someone who worked for RED usually did so because they wanted to leave behind whatever they had done, whoever they had been before. What Medic had done before they had met didn’t matter to Pyro anyway, all that mattered to him was the man he was now. The man who had shown no fear towards him, had always approached him with kindness and shown a great amount of patience for him. Who was gentle, caring, even if at times their differences had made it difficult for them.

Once though Medic had told Pyro stories about German Christmas traditions, had described a “Weihnachtsmarkt” to him with all its details while they had decorated their first tree together. Pyro still vividly remembered Medic’s expression, the glint in his eyes – a kind of youthfulness Pyro never before had seen in Medic’s face. For a moment Medic had returned back to the days of his childhood. Soon his excitement had vanished again though, had been replaced by thoughtfulness and crushing silence. Pyro still felt a painful sting in his heart whenever he thought back to this day.

Pyro rolled onto his back and looked up to Medic now. While he had warmed himself up and taken a nap Medic had been busy reading. Pyro mustered the book above him, only the words “Venedig” and “Mann” were somewhat familiar to him, when Medic suddenly lifted it up a little and looked down to him.

“Back from the dead?”, Medic said with a smile and Pyro nodded. Pyro slowly sat up, the blanket still wrapped around his shoulders, and let out a hearty yawn. His hair was a mess, even more than usual, and Medic reached out to him to tame it a little. His fingers ran through the long strands on top, followed the curve of Pyro’s head down to his neck and rested there for a moment. Medic pulled him close and lightly placed a kiss on the always so unruly mane.

“I hope you aren’t freezing anymore?”, Medic said while he leaned back again. The book was now lying on his lap and he folded his hands on top of it. “I’m fine…what are you reading?”, Pyro replied. He pointed at the book and Medic looked down at its faded cover. “It’s a book by Thomas Mann, called “Der Tod in Venedig”. Death in Venice. It’s about an old author who suffers from writer’s block and decides to travel a bit to get back into it. In Venice he sees a young boy and he falls in love with him, down to a point he gets absolutely obsessed. He dies at the end, without ever having spoken to the boy.” He looked up again and couldn’t resist laughing a little when he saw Pyro’s raised eyebrows. “I know, the plot sounds a bit odd, but it’s very well written.”

Medic usually read in German, it was the only way for him to still interact with his mother tongue. Everything else in their household was in English and except for some odd words here and there he avoided speaking it in front of Pyro too. Pyro was most of the time grateful for it but he knew that Medic missed someone to talk with in a language that was so much more familiar and intimate to him than English could ever be.

Pyro rubbed the back of his neck before he scooted a little closer to Medic. “There’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while now, you know…”, he said while he watched Medic’s thumb trace along the worn down edges of his book. “Maybe you could teach me a little German? I mean, just a few phrases and words, doubt I could actually speak it someday but…”, Pyro went on. He got more nervous the longer he talked, the longer Medic quietly looked back at him with his blue eyes. “It’s just…I think…I think it would make you happy. I want to make you happy.”

“Ach, mein Schatz…”, Medic muttered before he wrapped an arm around Pyro’s shoulders and pressed him against his chest. He placed a kiss on Pyro’s forehead and hugged him for a moment. “That’s a yes?”, Pyro’s muffled voice came from below. Medic let go of him again and nodded. He put down his book on a nearby table and now completely turned to Pyro.

“I’m afraid German isn’t easy to learn, but let’s just start with something fun. Is there any phrase or word you want me to translate for you or you want to learn?” Pyro crossed his arms for a moment and leaned his head to the side. He tried to dig up some of the things Medic often muttered to himself, tried to remember whatever Medic had said to him he hadn’t understood in the past. He decided to go with something Medic regularly said but Pyro never had bothered to question. “You call me something all the time, you just did it again too. Sch…sch-something. And the other one, with L? What does that mean? I always thought it’s a kind of nickname for me.” He was surprised when Medic’s expression suddenly got soft, his eyes tender. Medic cleared his throat and smiled a little. “It’s not a nickname, it’s a term of endearment. ‘Mein Schatz’ literally translates to 'my treasure’. 'Liebling’, hmm, I think 'dearest’ works best. Both are common terms you would use like 'darling’ in English.”

Pyro felt how blood rushed into his cheeks and utterly ashamed he pulled the blanket over his face. Of course the first thing he would ask would turn out to be something like this. Instead of some silly nickname, like he had always thought Medic was using for him in lieu of his real name, Medic had actually called him by sweet pet names this whole time. Meanwhile he had just called him Medic, maybe Doc once in a while.

He heard Medic chuckle and felt how he moved a little closer to him on the sofa. Medic shortly tugged at the blanket and only reluctantly Pyro exposed his face again. “I really didn’t know…”, Pyro muttered but Medic just chuckled once more. “In the same vein”, Medic picked up their conversation again,”you are my 'Geliebter’. It’s a bit old-fashioned if you use it like that, but it means something like 'my love’ or 'beloved’.” Pyro wanted to hide his face again but Medic already slipped his hands underneath the blanket and wrapped his arms around Pyro.

“Anything else you would like to know?” Pyro looked around the room, looked down to his shoulders that ever so slightly poked out on one side from his oversized pullover. “What’s the word for freckles?”, he finally asked. Pyro wanted to steer the whole thing towards something less embarrassing, at least for him, even if Medic seemed extremely delighted by his reaction. Before he got an answer though Medic planted soft kisses on his freckled cheeks and nose. “It’s 'Sommersprossen'”, Medic whispered against his skin. “'Sommer’ means summer, 'sprossen’ comes from 'sprießen’ and means 'to sprout’. Because lots of people appear to get freckles throughout the summer.”

Medic’s thumb gently traced along the scar on the side of his face now and their eyes met for a moment. Pyro still remembered the times he had flinched away from Medic’s touch. Even if he didn’t feel much, the scarred skin had lost most of its sensibility after it had suffered from heavy burns in his youth, he still for a long time had felt uncomfortable about someone getting close to it. It was something incredibly personal. A silent testament of his stupidity and something Pyro for a long time had accepted as a punishment for his carelessness. Medic however, as part of his profession, more than once had been forced to overstep Pyro’s personal boundaries for the sake of his health. It had been a constant struggle between the two. Slowly Pyro had gotten used to it though to a point he actually looked forward to it during his trips to the infirmary. The thought of Medic’s hands touching his bare body, of his gentle fingers tracing along parts of him no one else had been allowed to touch before had excited him. Now, years later, it was a soothing gesture. One of many that proved that, no matter how Pyro felt about himself, Medic didn’t mind nor care about his perceived imperfections.

Even if Pyro didn’t ask Medic knew very well what his next word would be. “It’s 'Narben’. In your specific case it’s 'Brandnarben’ because they were caused by a 'Brand’, a 'fire’.” Pyro nodded. “What would my name be? Do you have a special term for that too?” Medic rubbed his chin and furrowed his brows for a moment. “Well, Pyro is short for 'pyromaniac’. There is the German 'Pyromant’ or 'Pyromane’. However, I think in your case the word 'Feuerteufel’ should be more up your alley.” “What does it mean?” “Literally? 'Fire Devil’. It’s colloquial, but I think it sounds a lot more, hm, dramatic than just 'Pyromant’.” Pyro started to grin. “Yeah, I like that. Pretty badass.”

They went on like this for a while. Pyro would look around the room and pick up a thing that interested him and Medic would translate it for him. Sometimes Medic would add an explanation, sometimes he’d just tell him the German term. In some cases Pyro even tried to repeat what Medic told him. Even if Pyro wasn’t very successful he could see how thankful Medic was for his attempts, how excited he was to bring something so important to him closer to Pyro.

At one point, the fire in the chimney was by now barely a warm glimmer anymore, they had stopped talking. Instead they had cuddled up on the sofa again and watched how thick snowflakes fluttered down in front of their window. Pyro’s head was resting on Medic’s chest now. He listened to the steady beat of Medic’s heart, felt how Medic’s breast ever so slightly rose and fell with every breath he took. Meanwhile Medic’s hand had slipped underneath Pyro’s pullover and gently wandered up and down his back. It was a faint sensation, barely there, but still very pleasant. Medic was warm and the dim light made it difficult for Pyro to stay awake but there was a question that still lingered on his mind.

“There’s something I still want to ask.” He looked up from Medic’s chest and sat up again. “How do you tell someone that you like them?” Medic blinked a few times before he started to smile. He fixed his glasses and propped himself up on his arms. “Well, you could simply say 'Ich mag dich’, it’s the same as 'I like you’. Or you could say 'Ich hab dich gern’.” Pyro lowered his head and once more started nervously rubbing his neck. “And what if I want to tell them that I love them?”, he added, a little quieter than before.

Medic didn’t answer at first, something that worried Pyro a little. They quietly sat next to each other for a moment before Medic finally reached for Pyro’s chin and gently made him look up again. His hands cupped Pyro’s face, caressed Pyro’s cheeks with his thumbs while he looked at Pyro with a tender expression. Pyro returned his affectionate gaze with a smile and wrapped his arms around Medic’s waist. When Medic leaned down to him Pyro slowly closed his eyes.

Their lips nearly touched when Medic finally spoke again. “Ich liebe dich”, he whispered against Pyro’s lips before he sealed them with a kiss.

[songofwizardry]

teamwork

part 1 of a motley crew, a series of nine (nein!) ficlets to celebrate the end of critical role campaign 2

(set around episode 18, whispers of war) Nott and Caleb steal from a pawn shop (just like old times), and Nott considers the new things she's learnt about her boy.

i'm doing a series because i'm full of emotions about this campaign ending, and of course I have to start with Caleb and Nott! you can find the fic on ao3, or under the cut.

It was a simple enough job. Get to this pawn shop and see if there was a potentially-enchanted ring in there, maybe steal the shop’s ledger and see if the ring had already been bought. Between the need to Detect Magic and the chance to swipe something shiny, it was a job made for the two of them.

Jester, of course, had offered to come with, talking about distracting the shopkeep with her duplicate. Nott had declined.

She still wasn’t sure why. There was something in her chest every time she’d looked at Caleb since that night, prickling, hurt and angry and sad and fond all at once, and she wanted the chance for it to be just the two of them (Just like old times, ja? Caleb had said as they walked out of the inn, a half-smile on his face) for a little bit.

Now, as they walked through the streets, Nott kept her hood low over her face, her mask on, and her hand in Caleb’s. They were playing the father-and-daughter part again, and Nott allowed herself a smile, because she still found the roles ridiculous.

“Here we are,” Caleb said, squeezing her hand, as they arrived outside the shop.

Nott peered up at the building, careful not to let the hood fall off. The facade may have had a coat of paint once, but it was hard to tell what colour it had been. The windows were boarded up. The door was slightly ajar, but there was no light coming from the inside. “Looks like shit,” she said.

Caleb laughed, a short, quiet chuckle that ended almost as soon as it started. He always laughed like that, Nott was realising. “You are not wrong.” He squeezed her hand again, and Nott squeezed back, feeling the knot of feelings twist tighter in her chest. “Come on.”

Inside, the shop wasn’t much better—a poorly-lit maze of shelves, stocked with a mess of trinkets; a desk where a human woman with a shawl dozed; a large sign reading “NO RETURNS! NO CREDIT!” in barely-legible handwriting.

Nott left the conversation to Caleb and played the part of the curious child, hanging on to his hand and peering around the shelves. It was mostly crap—cheap knickknacks, rusting jewellery. She craned her neck, trying to see the end of the shelf, and there—something that caught the light, glittering.

She turned her attention back to Caleb, who was spinning some story to the shopkeep about how the brooch he held (an illusion) was the last memento of his dead wife. She could feel his hand trembling slightly in her grasp.

“Papa,” she said, pitching her voice even higher than it normally went, “Can we go look over there?”

“Ah—sorry, ma’am, I will be right back, if you do not mind us looking around?” The shopkeep grumbled some sort of agreement, and then Caleb was bending down next to her, saying, “Now, schatz, we can look, but you remember what I said about how we are not buying anything, ja?”

Caleb’s voice was soft, and even though she knew it was just a con, just pretending, Nott wondered if – when – Caleb had been on the other side of this conversation, if this was something his parents had said to him, in a small shop in a small town, and she had to force down a sudden burst of emotion. “Ye-es, papa, I remember,” she said, dragging out the vowels.

She hadn’t ever heard Luc whine, or complain, but she had imagined it plenty of times.

“Okay, good,” Caleb said, smiling, and let her pull him further into the shelves.

The moment they were a little more hidden from the shopkeep, Nott shut her eyes, took a breath, and focused on the job, and not on the complicated mess of emotions lodged in her throat. Her fingers twitched towards her flask, but she was pretending to be a child, and that wouldn’t do. She opened her eyes, and Caleb was watching her, but he didn’t say anything.

“There,” Nott said, softly, pointing towards what had caught her attention—a polished silver ring, missing a few stones, but with a white gem still in the centre. “Is that it, Caleb?”

“Give me a moment,” Caleb said, letting go of her hand. His hands and lips moved in the familiar motions of Detect Magic, and Nott tried not to stare (tried not to think of when, and how, he had learnt to cast this spell, and who had taught him, and if it had hurt—) and scanned the shelves instead, searching for something shiny to distract her.

Just as she’d settled on a strange pocket mirror with an etching of green leaves around the edge, and slipped it into her sleeve, Caleb said, “Ja, I think that is it.”

“Got it,” Nott said, and without her asking, Caleb slipped in front of her, examining a shitty necklace intently and blocking her from view as she dropped the ring into a pocket. She tugged on his hand, and picked up the necklace in his free hand, and led her back towards the counter.

Nott tuned out most of the conversation Caleb had with the shopkeep – selling off the illusionary brooch, complimenting the shitty necklace and paying for it – focusing instead on the weight of the two stolen items in her pockets, and the light, freeing rush of an easy, simple, job.

Within a few minutes, they were back out on the street, still hand-in-hand, and Nott looked up at Caleb, grinning, almost forgetting that she shouldn’t be showing her teeth. “That was easy.”

Caleb gave another one of his half-smiles. “Well, we are a good team.”

“Obviously.”

Caleb was silent for a few more minutes then, as they wound through the streets back towards the inn, and Nott was ready to start distracting herself with pickpocketing a grumpy man who was walking alongside them, when Caleb said, “You have been staring at me a lot recently, my friend.” Nott looked up, but Caleb wasn’t looking at her—he was very intently looking forward. “Is there, ah, something on my face?” he added.

Nott considered all the answers before her. She could lie, and make something ridiculous up, but Caleb would see through that, and that felt rude. But I want to look at you, really look, and make sure you’re here and you’re okay didn’t seem like it would go down well either. She chewed on her lip, opened her mouth, closed it again. Caleb’s hand was shaking in her grasp—not just trembling, but proper tremors, the kind she saw in him more often than she’d like.

“Are you scared?” she asked, before she could stop herself.

At that, Caleb turned to look at her, just for a moment. He shrugged, and turned back to the road. “Always, my friend.” There was something tight in his voice, something that Nott wanted to reach out and soothe, but she didn’t know how.

“You don’t have to be,” she said, and then, realising how stupid that must sound to a person like Caleb, added, “I mean, not with me, you know? I wouldn’t—I mean, I wouldn’t do anything, but, you know that.” She paused a moment to swear in her head at how ridiculous that must have sounded, and then pushed on. “And—I’m only staring because… it’s nice to know you’re here. You know. Still here.” It was only half the truth, but she supposed it was better than none of it.

They were round the corner from the inn now. Caleb, still not looking at her, said, “I, ah, wouldn’t leave you. Not now. Not without—” He shook his head, seemed to give up, and shrugged.

Nott resisted the urge to smile softly, to reach up and ruffle his hair, to roll her eyes in fondness—all things this goblin body didn’t do very well. Instead, she squeezed his hand. “I know,” she said.

Caleb met her eyes, briefly, and smiled, small and fleeting. “Okay, ja. Good.”

[suzanneshannon]

Interviewing for a Technical Position Doesn’t Have to Be Scary

Jacob Schatz (@jakecodes) is a staff engineer over at GitLab and was kind enough to share how he conducts job interviews for technical positions and his thinking process for them. Technical interviews are talked about often and can be a touchy subject for some, so it’s worth noting that this article expresses Jacob’s own opinions and are not necessarily shared by his employer.

Are you an interviewee who is terrified, exhausted, sad, or disappointed? I'd love to change that stigma.

I believe that people can have a great interview experience, and that I can simultaneously find the right candidate. Both things can happen at the same time! After your interview process is over, in a perfect world, regardless of outcome, you should feel good about yourself and the process. You might feel sad that you didn't get the job or excited to start your new job, but you should understand why in either situation.

At GitLab, I was put in charge of hiring very early on, and as such, I've seen thousands of resumes. When I first joined, I was asked to hire and form a team of front-end developers. I was employee #29 (we now have 500+), and I was the first front-end developer, so there was no hiring process for our team. We gradually created a process.

This article is aimed at both the interviewee, and interviewer. For the interviewee, I want you to know what a perfect interview can be like. Interviewing should not be scary or intimidating. This is a guide you can follow to do your part in creating the perfect interview. If you are an interviewer, maybe you have perfected your process. This is my view on how interviews can go in a perfect world. There are all different types of interviews, and this article focuses on interviewing developers of all experience levels. Over the years, I’ve latched on to some great processes, and this article is a behind-the-scenes look at that process for both sides of the candidacy.

Before I begin, it's important to remember that everyone is human and humans are not perfect. There are no perfect developers. Treat everyone like a regular human being. It's OK to be amazed at what some people are doing, but not OK to worship others. Talent is both congenital and acquired and you can acquire it too. Your interviewer and you are both imperfect. Interviews should not be focused around perfection. Here's what interviews should be.

Five things I look for in a candidate

The GitLab Values cover a lot of great points and you should read it. This is loosely based on those.

As an interviewer, I can only focus on so many things at once while being a productive, active listener. But I do have five specific things I am try to focus on:

Does this person have a "good head on their shoulders"?

Is this person technically where they need to be for this role?

Is this person going to be self sufficient in this role?

Does this person communicate well and will they communicate well with the team?

Does this person handle positive and negative feedback well?

There are other things I'm looking for, of course, but these five things are enough to get you the job you want if you’re interviewing with me.

Forget nervousness. I won't ever hold it against you. I know you may be nervous, and that's totally fine. There is the rare occasion that nervousness becomes a debilitating factor, and in those cases, I just ask that you reschedule. Just don't hang up on me!

Recognize there's going to be bias

We have training on bias at GitLab. One thing I learned from the training is that everyone is biased, whether or not you think you are. At one point, I had the idea of doing blind interviews like they do for some orchestras. We never implemented it (and it would be tough) but that's why I keep a list of questions and a summary of what I want to cover in each interview. Each interview has a script I can follow. Everything is as repeatable and similar as possible. As the interview progresses, I'll be able to tell if I can hit the harder questions. Harder questions are not there to disqualify people, but to qualify people. If you get to my hard questions it means you have a ton of experience and knowledge under your belt. It's really important to know that I must ask trivia questions in some form but I don't qualify candidates based on trivia questions. It's about figuring the depth of your JavaScript knowledge and programming in general.

That being said, there is still one trivia question no one has ever gotten right. I'll just keep asking it, and I am sure some day, someone will get it. Trivia questions are fun, because I am a major JavaScript dork. I just love talking about all the ins and outs of JavaScript. I am looking for people that can be my coding buddy. Hiring people is about finding other people you can work with, not people that will work for you.

Inexperienced interviewers tend to test you on what THEY know (so they can feel a little more secure when they can ding you on an "wrong" answer).

In contrast, great interviewers focus on what YOU know, and facilitating a two-way conversation to explore a mutual fit.

— Jennifer Kim (@jenistyping) April 8, 2019

I want to know you're technically sound

This may be people's worst fear. The part of the interview where we ask questions like, "Why are manholes round?" The truth is that some companies may ask the medium-to-hard questions from LeetCode, and some may never ask any technical questions.

What I'm looking for in your skillset

Experience speaks louder than any technical interview question I can ask. For example, if I'm hiring for a front-end engineering role and someone tells me they built their own cool things that we can talk about, then that's awesome. I still may need to throw some more questions their way after that, or maybe the demo answers all my questions (though unlikely, but possible). But if we can walk through the code of something that you are super proud of, that’s great.

It’s helpful if you can tell me about something that you built for another company where I can see your code, or you can explain it sufficiently enough. What were the challenges? How did you deal with 10,000 comments? How did you deal with mobile? What were some challenges? I'll give you an example: You built the comment system for GitLab. For the comment system, an interesting challenge was dealing with loading users for the @ drop-down to mentioning other users. It turns out that the JSON payload for that drop-down can get quite large and loading it on page load makes the page load significantly slower. But loading that data on the first @ keypress is also slow because the payload can be more than 10 MB. We want the user to have a seamless experience and not realize the data needs time to load. So, a good way to talk about that experience would be to describe some of the approaches you considered, like:

Load the data when the comment box first appears in the viewport.

Load the data on the user's first mouseover of the textarea.

Load the data once the user starts scrolling with enough momentum.

That last one isn't a boring solution, but is something I've heard someone say in an interview.

I might ask about algorithms and data structures

Hey interviewers, are you hiring someone for your marketing site? Don't ask them the hardest algorithms and data structure questions. Yes, algorithms and data structures play a huge part in everything, but it's more important that the candidate knows about responsive design, and maybe animations, and performance. Since we are talking about performance, they should know about Big O notation. They should know what causes re-paints. Look at Firefox Monitor and compare it to Salesforce. Everything about the Firefox site is much more snappy. Why is it more snappy? Why is the Salesforce site so chunky and slow? Resize them... oy vey! Big O would probably help you explain some parts, but being able to explain the whole picture is important.

Quick aside on Big O notation since I brought it up.

Big O is a way of describing the time your code will run in and/or the memory space your code will take up in a worst case scenario. I think it's really great to learn, and helps out in every day programming. You can and should learn it, which might take about an hour. After one hour, done or not, you’ll more than likely be prepared for any legitimate Big O question that interviewers would ask.

Big O is not something you need to take a course on. Here are some articles that can explain it to you in under an hour:

I like this Interview Cake article.

For a more formal but eventually understandable article, check out Brillant.

For a cheatsheet once you feel comfortable, check out the big o cheat sheet.

For some great examples (in a different language but very grok-able), check out this Developer Inside article.

OK, back to algorithms and data structures in interviews.

Since there's a chance these types of questions will come up, it's worth doing a little homework in advance. There are two typical gold standards when studying for interviews that ask about algorithms and data structures.

There is a book called Cracking The Coding Interview by Gayle Laakmann McDowell.

There is a website called LeetCode with lots of resources.

There are many other things that are recommended for algorithm and data structure, heavy coding interviews, but rather than memorizing every example in the world (which won't solve any problems for you), it's better to learn how to solve these problems.

As I said above, front-end engineers should learn Big O for their health, because it's good for you, like eating your Wheaties. Interviewers should not ask extensive algorithms and data structure questions unless the job requires extensive knowledge of them. If I was designing a front-end framework, say like Vue, it would be important to optimize a DOM diffing algorithm or at least understand the implementation of the algorithm you are using. But does that mean I would ask seven extra hard questions from a CTCI? No. You are testing for understanding, not for memorization. When people work through these questions (when I ask them), I want to see that they thought through the problem and we worked it out together more than I want to see that they got the right answer. It's all about figuring out what you will be able to do, as an engineer, when you get the job — not what you memorized yesterday. A person who has knowledge of algorithms is going to be better at implementing them than someone who has to learn them on the job.

Are you hiring someone to build a dependency management system? This person needs to know a lot about algorithms and data structures.

These are two extreme ends of the spectrum, but in my opinion, not everyone needs to know how to write a red-black tree from scratch — but everyone should understand Big O. However, it will dramatically improve your skills as a software developer to learn typical algorithms and data structures.

When I do ask algorithm and data structure questions here are a few I do ask:

What is a linked list and can you show me how to implement one with and without an array in JavaScript?

What is the difference between BFS and DFS and can you implement one of them?

Getting these wrong will not disqualify anyone. Remember, I don't use trivia to qualify people.

Do you have a good head on your shoulders?

There are a lot of soft skills I'm looking for as well during the interview. It's my way of determining whether you have a "good head on your shoulders."

Pedantically speaking, that means you make good decisions, but it's much more than that to me. People who have a good head on their shoulders make sound decisions. It's good to have different opinions than me, but there is a standard of knowledge we should agree on. For example, we should all agree that laying out an entire blog with only absolute positioning is a bad idea. That is not a sound decision.

But I might create a scenario like this to check on those skills:

Let's go into CodePen and create a static blog homepage. We'll need a navigation menu, and we'll need a place for the title and article, and then at the bottom let's have some comments and a footer.

I'd then talk you through different ways you could create the navigation and the pros and cons to each. For a lot of the front-end developers I hire, I'd like to know that they know some core JavaScript so I might ask them add some small functionality using only vanilla JavaScript.

When a framework does everything for you, you don't need to do things yourself. I want to know that you get the whole picture.

A “good head on you shoulders" is a fancy way of telling me that you have your crap together. This is not an exhaustive list, but are the types of things that catch my attention:

You take care of yourself

You speak professionally (this has more of an impact than most people know)

Leave out super personal details

Answer questions succinctly

Take time to think

Say, "I don't know," when you don't know

Be confident, but not cocky, even if you aren't

You finish what you start

You are honest

You are able to say no

You know what you want and you want to help others get what they want

You'll disagree and even debate, but know when to let something go

You are able to effectively communicate in an interview

Is this conversation easy or exhausting?

Are you fluent in English? Accents are totally OK!

Do you grasp the concepts being discussed?

You’re a kind person.

On that last point: kindness doesn't mean you are a pushover. Kindness is a major part of challenging others and giving feedback.

I want to see that you are self-sufficient

It seems obvious now, but I am convinced — after working at GitLab — that self-sufficiency is what interviewers should seek in everyone being hired. Self-sufficiency plays a big part in your role in the company.

For example, to go extreme, think about a GM, who may have the least amount of external direction of anyone on a team. Everyone has responsibilities, but a GM must often be good at many things, including (but not limited to) marketing, sales, and management. All this changes based on the size of the team. Their role may be the most vague. They are very self-sufficient. A senior developer (in my opinion) should be able to take on an entire large piece of functionality and implement it properly.

This is not to say a developer shouldn't communicate during the process. They should ask questions, and pair with other people to find the best way forward.

Reviewing an interviewee’s code has the opportunity to be boring (in a good way) as we know what to expect from them. We are relying on them to mentor less experienced developers. Junior developers should be self sufficient too, but probably won't take on large initiatives alone. Junior developers often work great in small chunks. For example, it might be a great thing for a junior developer to take on the smaller tasks that a senior developer has on a larger project. Senior developers can also mentor junior developers and nudge them in the right direction to help them become more self-sufficient, which is a great thing for both parties — and also a great thing for the manager, as they can delegate more work to a senior developer.

If you are a front-end developer and need hand-holding at this point in your career, that is totally 100% OK, and everyone has been there. Or, if you are applying to a lot of places and not getting anywhere, and are extremely frustrated: I suggest that you become a little more self-sufficient before you apply. One way I suggest to become more self-sufficient and nab that job you want: Forget code examples, little shopping cart apps, and their ilk, as they don't fair well for job interviews. Build something full-fledged for someone and do it for cheap or free. Find a church, synagogue, homeless shelter or someone near you and offer to make them a website.

Just remember that free clients are often the worst clients. It will be worth it when you can say that you've done work for a few clients. For bonus points, document your work in a few blog posts. This stuff looks great on resumes and will make you stick out from the rest. I know that anyone can get an easy website through Wix or other site building platforms, but there's nothing like a wonderful custom-designed website. I think I made around 10 or so websites before I had my first programming job. I could fill a book with crazy stories from those times.

Communication and feedback is key

This is another point that seems obvious, but is hard to do right. Communication is well documented in the GitLab Handbook so I won't cover it, except to say that I follow GitLab's values and we are looking for others who desire to follow those values as well. Positive and negative feedback is also well documented in the GitLab Handbooks, so I won't cover it here.

How I go about the rest of the interview

Because we interview a lot of candidates at GitLab, we follow a common flow so we can repeat it easily. I won't go into specifics about our interview process, because it's constantly evolving. But, in general, this is the flow I follow.

Tell me about yourself

You'll get asked the famous question that goes along the lines of "tell me about yourself," "tell me what you've been doing," or "tell me about your time at [Company Name]." When I ask this question, I am trying to find the connection between the job you applied for and the jobs you've had in the past. It's good to find the common ground ahead of time.

Like, for example, as an employee of GitLab, if I were personally applying to a FAANG as a front-end engineer, I am sure both GitLab and that company are trying to get page load times to be faster. Maybe I noticed there were 26K event listeners on a page when I first joined GitLab and was able to reduce it down to 0, decrease the loading time by 50%, down to a speed of 200ms. I am sure this would be something relevant to the conversation.

So, as an interviewee, I might say something like this:

"Hi! I am a front-end engineer at GitLab, I've been here for 3.5 years and during my tenure I've made a ton of huge improvements, some of the areas I loved working on are performance, UX design implementation, and architectural design.

You don't want to get into tons of details at this point, but it's good to give the interviewer some facts to work with. It is frustrating when I ask this question and someone goes into a 10-minute detailed account of their entire career.

What made you apply to our company?

The interviewer might ask, "What made you decide to apply to our company?" Hopefully, you are excited to work at this company — otherwise, why bother applying for it?

For some reason or another, this question often sends a candidate into overdrive and they wind up mixing up the name our company. That's perfectly normal behavior, especially if your company sounds like another company.

What I'm looking for at this point is to see whether you are just looking for a job or that you’re really excited to work with us. We want people who really want to work with us. This is when I can also see if a person knows anything about our company. For example, some people like our values, have read them and want to work at a company with these values. Some people want to solve big problems like the ones we are tackling. Some people have seen talks and read articles from our team and would love to work around smart people like them.

What are your five things?

Lastly, I like to ask if a candidate has any questions for me. This is an important part of the interview, and you should extensively think this through beforehand. Your goal is to make me respond with: “Oooohhh, great question!" On one hand, I am truly trying to answer any questions you have, so don’t be shy. On the other hand, I am also trying to gauge your interest in the job, so something like, “Uh, I dunno," is usually a big bummer to hear because it signals that maybe you’ve tuned out, or the job is not interesting to you. that’s can leave an undesirable aftertaste.

Look up your interviewers and find out about them. Doing this in advance can be an eye-opening exercise. You might find out about their customer acquisition strategy which could lead to a ton of other interesting questions. If the company is a startup, do they plan on being acquired, or do they want to IPO? When you have a clear, well-thought question, it makes you sound professional, which again, is one of the things I listed as important.

If you can’t think of any questions to ask, then do you really want this job in the first place? If the interviewer has a personal website, go check it out, and if nothing else, you can ask them about the comic book they wrote and posted to their website.

But I’d advise:

Ask the interview questions that you are generally interested about. Think about this before the interview because a really thoughtful question generally improves your candidacy quite a bit.

What are you, the candidate, looking for in a company? What does this person, the interviewer, need to prove to you in order for you to take this job?

Do these people have a good head on their shoulders like you do? It works both ways, you know.

Does this look like a fun job? Do you even want a fun job?

Who would you report to? Did you talk to them? Will you get a chance to during the interview process?

Are you underrepresented? Like, are you replacing someone or filling a new role? How many others will be doing what you’re doing? What signs should other underrepresented people look out for? What signs would show you that this is a good environment for you?

Don't ask about money or benefits at this point; those things can (and likely should) be covered with a recruiter introduction call before you get to a person like me.

Conclusion

Interviewing, unlike programming, is not an exact science. You’re trying to prove that you are excited about the prospect of working with a company. You want to prove this to the interviewer and yourself. Hopefully, you want a job that is interesting. This guide isn’t a script to follow, but more of a few loose ideas to help you get into the mindset of the interviewer, with a few tips for other interviewers strung in there as well. Maybe I pointed out things you might not have known before.

Just remember that, in theory, interviewing should not be a scary process, but more of a find-some-buddies-to-work-with process.

The post Interviewing for a Technical Position Doesn’t Have to Be Scary appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

Interviewing for a Technical Position Doesn’t Have to Be Scary published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/

[siliconwebx]

Interviewing for a Technical Position Doesn’t Have to Be Scary

Jacob Schatz (@jakecodes) is a staff engineer over at GitLab and was kind enough to share how he conducts job interviews for technical positions and his thinking process for them. Technical interviews are talked about often and can be a touchy subject for some, so it’s worth noting that this article expresses Jacob’s own opinions and are not necessarily shared by his employer.

Are you an interviewee who is terrified, exhausted, sad, or disappointed? I'd love to change that stigma.

I believe that people can have a great interview experience, and that I can simultaneously find the right candidate. Both things can happen at the same time! After your interview process is over, in a perfect world, regardless of outcome, you should feel good about yourself and the process. You might feel sad that you didn't get the job or excited to start your new job, but you should understand why in either situation.

At GitLab, I was put in charge of hiring very early on, and as such, I've seen thousands of resumes. When I first joined, I was asked to hire and form a team of front-end developers. I was employee #29 (we now have 500+), and I was the first front-end developer, so there was no hiring process for our team. We gradually created a process.

This article is aimed at both the interviewee, and interviewer. For the interviewee, I want you to know what a perfect interview can be like. Interviewing should not be scary or intimidating. This is a guide you can follow to do your part in creating the perfect interview. If you are an interviewer, maybe you have perfected your process. This is my view on how interviews can go in a perfect world. There are all different types of interviews, and this article focuses on interviewing developers of all experience levels. Over the years, I’ve latched on to some great processes, and this article is a behind-the-scenes look at that process for both sides of the candidacy.

Before I begin, it's important to remember that everyone is human and humans are not perfect. There are no perfect developers. Treat everyone like a regular human being. It's OK to be amazed at what some people are doing, but not OK to worship others. Talent is both congenital and acquired and you can acquire it too. Your interviewer and you are both imperfect. Interviews should not be focused around perfection. Here's what interviews should be.

Five things I look for in a candidate

The GitLab Values cover a lot of great points and you should read it. This is loosely based on those.

As an interviewer, I can only focus on so many things at once while being a productive, active listener. But I do have five specific things I am try to focus on:

Does this person have a "good head on their shoulders"?

Is this person technically where they need to be for this role?

Is this person going to be self sufficient in this role?

Does this person communicate well and will they communicate well with the team?

Does this person handle positive and negative feedback well?

There are other things I'm looking for, of course, but these five things are enough to get you the job you want if you’re interviewing with me.

Forget nervousness. I won't ever hold it against you. I know you may be nervous, and that's totally fine. There is the rare occasion that nervousness becomes a debilitating factor, and in those cases, I just ask that you reschedule. Just don't hang up on me!

Recognize there's going to be bias

We have training on bias at GitLab. One thing I learned from the training is that everyone is biased, whether or not you think you are. At one point, I had the idea of doing blind interviews like they do for some orchestras. We never implemented it (and it would be tough) but that's why I keep a list of questions and a summary of what I want to cover in each interview. Each interview has a script I can follow. Everything is as repeatable and similar as possible. As the interview progresses, I'll be able to tell if I can hit the harder questions. Harder questions are not there to disqualify people, but to qualify people. If you get to my hard questions it means you have a ton of experience and knowledge under your belt. It's really important to know that I must ask trivia questions in some form but I don't qualify candidates based on trivia questions. It's about figuring the depth of your JavaScript knowledge and programming in general.

That being said, there is still one trivia question no one has ever gotten right. I'll just keep asking it, and I am sure some day, someone will get it. Trivia questions are fun, because I am a major JavaScript dork. I just love talking about all the ins and outs of JavaScript. I am looking for people that can be my coding buddy. Hiring people is about finding other people you can work with, not people that will work for you.

Inexperienced interviewers tend to test you on what THEY know (so they can feel a little more secure when they can ding you on an "wrong" answer).

In contrast, great interviewers focus on what YOU know, and facilitating a two-way conversation to explore a mutual fit.

— Jennifer Kim (@jenistyping) April 8, 2019

I want to know you're technically sound

This may be people's worst fear. The part of the interview where we ask questions like, "Why are manholes round?" The truth is that some companies may ask the medium-to-hard questions from LeetCode, and some may never ask any technical questions.

What I'm looking for in your skillset

Experience speaks louder than any technical interview question I can ask. For example, if I'm hiring for a front-end engineering role and someone tells me they built their own cool things that we can talk about, then that's awesome. I still may need to throw some more questions their way after that, or maybe the demo answers all my questions (though unlikely, but possible). But if we can walk through the code of something that you are super proud of, that’s great.

It’s helpful if you can tell me about something that you built for another company where I can see your code, or you can explain it sufficiently enough. What were the challenges? How did you deal with 10,000 comments? How did you deal with mobile? What were some challenges? I'll give you an example: You built the comment system for GitLab. For the comment system, an interesting challenge was dealing with loading users for the @ drop-down to mentioning other users. It turns out that the JSON payload for that drop-down can get quite large and loading it on page load makes the page load significantly slower. But loading that data on the first @ keypress is also slow because the payload can be more than 10 MB. We want the user to have a seamless experience and not realize the data needs time to load. So, a good way to talk about that experience would be to describe some of the approaches you considered, like:

Load the data when the comment box first appears in the viewport.

Load the data on the user's first mouseover of the textarea.

Load the data once the user starts scrolling with enough momentum.

That last one isn't a boring solution, but is something I've heard someone say in an interview.

I might ask about algorithms and data structures

Hey interviewers, are you hiring someone for your marketing site? Don't ask them the hardest algorithms and data structure questions. Yes, algorithms and data structures play a huge part in everything, but it's more important that the candidate knows about responsive design, and maybe animations, and performance. Since we are talking about performance, they should know about Big O notation. They should know what causes re-paints. Look at Firefox Monitor and compare it to Salesforce. Everything about the Firefox site is much more snappy. Why is it more snappy? Why is the Salesforce site so chunky and slow? Resize them... oy vey! Big O would probably help you explain some parts, but being able to explain the whole picture is important.

Quick aside on Big O notation since I brought it up.

Big O is a way of describing the time your code will run in and/or the memory space your code will take up in a worst case scenario. I think it's really great to learn, and helps out in every day programming. You can and should learn it, which might take about an hour. After one hour, done or not, you’ll more than likely be prepared for any legitimate Big O question that interviewers would ask.

Big O is not something you need to take a course on. Here are some articles that can explain it to you in under an hour:

I like this Interview Cake article.

For a more formal but eventually understandable article, check out Brillant.

For a cheatsheet once you feel comfortable, check out the big o cheat sheet.

For some great examples (in a different language but very grok-able), check out this Developer Inside article.

OK, back to algorithms and data structures in interviews.

Since there's a chance these types of questions will come up, it's worth doing a little homework in advance. There are two typical gold standards when studying for interviews that ask about algorithms and data structures.

There is a book called Cracking The Coding Interview by Gayle Laakmann McDowell.

There is a website called LeetCode with lots of resources.

There are many other things that are recommended for algorithm and data structure, heavy coding interviews, but rather than memorizing every example in the world (which won't solve any problems for you), it's better to learn how to solve these problems.

As I said above, front-end engineers should learn Big O for their health, because it's good for you, like eating your Wheaties. Interviewers should not ask extensive algorithms and data structure questions unless the job requires extensive knowledge of them. If I was designing a front-end framework, say like Vue, it would be important to optimize a DOM diffing algorithm or at least understand the implementation of the algorithm you are using. But does that mean I would ask seven extra hard questions from a CTCI? No. You are testing for understanding, not for memorization. When people work through these questions (when I ask them), I want to see that they thought through the problem and we worked it out together more than I want to see that they got the right answer. It's all about figuring out what you will be able to do, as an engineer, when you get the job — not what you memorized yesterday. A person who has knowledge of algorithms is going to be better at implementing them than someone who has to learn them on the job.

Are you hiring someone to build a dependency management system? This person needs to know a lot about algorithms and data structures.

These are two extreme ends of the spectrum, but in my opinion, not everyone needs to know how to write a red-black tree from scratch — but everyone should understand Big O. However, it will dramatically improve your skills as a software developer to learn typical algorithms and data structures.

When I do ask algorithm and data structure questions here are a few I do ask:

What is a linked list and can you show me how to implement one with and without an array in JavaScript?

What is the difference between BFS and DFS and can you implement one of them?

Getting these wrong will not disqualify anyone. Remember, I don't use trivia to qualify people.

Do you have a good head on your shoulders?

There are a lot of soft skills I'm looking for as well during the interview. It's my way of determining whether you have a "good head on your shoulders."

Pedantically speaking, that means you make good decisions, but it's much more than that to me. People who have a good head on their shoulders make sound decisions. It's good to have different opinions than me, but there is a standard of knowledge we should agree on. For example, we should all agree that laying out an entire blog with only absolute positioning is a bad idea. That is not a sound decision.

But I might create a scenario like this to check on those skills:

Let's go into CodePen and create a static blog homepage. We'll need a navigation menu, and we'll need a place for the title and article, and then at the bottom let's have some comments and a footer.

I'd then talk you through different ways you could create the navigation and the pros and cons to each. For a lot of the front-end developers I hire, I'd like to know that they know some core JavaScript so I might ask them add some small functionality using only vanilla JavaScript.

When a framework does everything for you, you don't need to do things yourself. I want to know that you get the whole picture.

A “good head on you shoulders" is a fancy way of telling me that you have your crap together. This is not an exhaustive list, but are the types of things that catch my attention:

You take care of yourself

You speak professionally (this has more of an impact than most people know)

Leave out super personal details

Answer questions succinctly

Take time to think

Say, "I don't know," when you don't know

Be confident, but not cocky, even if you aren't

You finish what you start

You are honest

You are able to say no

You know what you want and you want to help others get what they want

You'll disagree and even debate, but know when to let something go

You are able to effectively communicate in an interview

Is this conversation easy or exhausting?

Are you fluent in English? Accents are totally OK!

Do you grasp the concepts being discussed?

You’re a kind person.

On that last point: kindness doesn't mean you are a pushover. Kindness is a major part of challenging others and giving feedback.

I want to see that you are self-sufficient

It seems obvious now, but I am convinced — after working at GitLab — that self-sufficiency is what interviewers should seek in everyone being hired. Self-sufficiency plays a big part in your role in the company.

For example, to go extreme, think about a GM, who may have the least amount of external direction of anyone on a team. Everyone has responsibilities, but a GM must often be good at many things, including (but not limited to) marketing, sales, and management. All this changes based on the size of the team. Their role may be the most vague. They are very self-sufficient. A senior developer (in my opinion) should be able to take on an entire large piece of functionality and implement it properly.

This is not to say a developer shouldn't communicate during the process. They should ask questions, and pair with other people to find the best way forward.

Reviewing an interviewee’s code has the opportunity to be boring (in a good way) as we know what to expect from them. We are relying on them to mentor less experienced developers. Junior developers should be self sufficient too, but probably won't take on large initiatives alone. Junior developers often work great in small chunks. For example, it might be a great thing for a junior developer to take on the smaller tasks that a senior developer has on a larger project. Senior developers can also mentor junior developers and nudge them in the right direction to help them become more self-sufficient, which is a great thing for both parties — and also a great thing for the manager, as they can delegate more work to a senior developer.

If you are a front-end developer and need hand-holding at this point in your career, that is totally 100% OK, and everyone has been there. Or, if you are applying to a lot of places and not getting anywhere, and are extremely frustrated: I suggest that you become a little more self-sufficient before you apply. One way I suggest to become more self-sufficient and nab that job you want: Forget code examples, little shopping cart apps, and their ilk, as they don't fair well for job interviews. Build something full-fledged for someone and do it for cheap or free. Find a church, synagogue, homeless shelter or someone near you and offer to make them a website.

Just remember that free clients are often the worst clients. It will be worth it when you can say that you've done work for a few clients. For bonus points, document your work in a few blog posts. This stuff looks great on resumes and will make you stick out from the rest. I know that anyone can get an easy website through Wix or other site building platforms, but there's nothing like a wonderful custom-designed website. I think I made around 10 or so websites before I had my first programming job. I could fill a book with crazy stories from those times.

Communication and feedback is key

This is another point that seems obvious, but is hard to do right. Communication is well documented in the GitLab Handbook so I won't cover it, except to say that I follow GitLab's values and we are looking for others who desire to follow those values as well. Positive and negative feedback is also well documented in the GitLab Handbooks, so I won't cover it here.

How I go about the rest of the interview

Because we interview a lot of candidates at GitLab, we follow a common flow so we can repeat it easily. I won't go into specifics about our interview process, because it's constantly evolving. But, in general, this is the flow I follow.

Tell me about yourself

You'll get asked the famous question that goes along the lines of "tell me about yourself," "tell me what you've been doing," or "tell me about your time at [Company Name]." When I ask this question, I am trying to find the connection between the job you applied for and the jobs you've had in the past. It's good to find the common ground ahead of time.

Like, for example, as an employee of GitLab, if I were personally applying to a FAANG as a front-end engineer, I am sure both GitLab and that company are trying to get page load times to be faster. Maybe I noticed there were 26K event listeners on a page when I first joined GitLab and was able to reduce it down to 0, decrease the loading time by 50%, down to a speed of 200ms. I am sure this would be something relevant to the conversation.

So, as an interviewee, I might say something like this:

"Hi! I am a front-end engineer at GitLab, I've been here for 3.5 years and during my tenure I've made a ton of huge improvements, some of the areas I loved working on are performance, UX design implementation, and architectural design.

You don't want to get into tons of details at this point, but it's good to give the interviewer some facts to work with. It is frustrating when I ask this question and someone goes into a 10-minute detailed account of their entire career.

What made you apply to our company?

The interviewer might ask, "What made you decide to apply to our company?" Hopefully, you are excited to work at this company — otherwise, why bother applying for it?

For some reason or another, this question often sends a candidate into overdrive and they wind up mixing up the name our company. That's perfectly normal behavior, especially if your company sounds like another company.

What I'm looking for at this point is to see whether you are just looking for a job or that you’re really excited to work with us. We want people who really want to work with us. This is when I can also see if a person knows anything about our company. For example, some people like our values, have read them and want to work at a company with these values. Some people want to solve big problems like the ones we are tackling. Some people have seen talks and read articles from our team and would love to work around smart people like them.

What are your five things?

Lastly, I like to ask if a candidate has any questions for me. This is an important part of the interview, and you should extensively think this through beforehand. Your goal is to make me respond with: “Oooohhh, great question!" On one hand, I am truly trying to answer any questions you have, so don’t be shy. On the other hand, I am also trying to gauge your interest in the job, so something like, “Uh, I dunno," is usually a big bummer to hear because it signals that maybe you’ve tuned out, or the job is not interesting to you. that’s can leave an undesirable aftertaste.

Look up your interviewers and find out about them. Doing this in advance can be an eye-opening exercise. You might find out about their customer acquisition strategy which could lead to a ton of other interesting questions. If the company is a startup, do they plan on being acquired, or do they want to IPO? When you have a clear, well-thought question, it makes you sound professional, which again, is one of the things I listed as important.

If you can’t think of any questions to ask, then do you really want this job in the first place? If the interviewer has a personal website, go check it out, and if nothing else, you can ask them about the comic book they wrote and posted to their website.

But I’d advise:

Ask the interview questions that you are generally interested about. Think about this before the interview because a really thoughtful question generally improves your candidacy quite a bit.

What are you, the candidate, looking for in a company? What does this person, the interviewer, need to prove to you in order for you to take this job?

Do these people have a good head on their shoulders like you do? It works both ways, you know.

Does this look like a fun job? Do you even want a fun job?

Who would you report to? Did you talk to them? Will you get a chance to during the interview process?

Are you underrepresented? Like, are you replacing someone or filling a new role? How many others will be doing what you’re doing? What signs should other underrepresented people look out for? What signs would show you that this is a good environment for you?

Don't ask about money or benefits at this point; those things can (and likely should) be covered with a recruiter introduction call before you get to a person like me.

Conclusion

Interviewing, unlike programming, is not an exact science. You’re trying to prove that you are excited about the prospect of working with a company. You want to prove this to the interviewer and yourself. Hopefully, you want a job that is interesting. This guide isn’t a script to follow, but more of a few loose ideas to help you get into the mindset of the interviewer, with a few tips for other interviewers strung in there as well. Maybe I pointed out things you might not have known before.

Just remember that, in theory, interviewing should not be a scary process, but more of a find-some-buddies-to-work-with process.

The post Interviewing for a Technical Position Doesn’t Have to Be Scary appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

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[davedimartino]

NEW THIS WEEK 02.24.09

With the excitement of the Grammys now long since gone, it's time for the music business to stand or fall purely on the quality of its new product!

In short? If all of this week's new releases are top-notch, quality stuff, then I think we can count on years and years of a healthful, thriving music business! But if, on the other hand, most of this week's are dreary and stale reruns of an earlier, better time, it might be appropriate for everyone in the industry to just throw in the towel, admit defeat, and perhaps individually focus on improving their own personal lots in life--and business be damned!

Well, you can take a look for yourself--but as far as I can see, any week that features a lot of great reissues, good albums by really old artists, and a new album by the Jonas Brothers is conclusive proof that music's on an upswing like never before!

Speaking purely as a rock critic, I don't think I'm alone in comparing this year's music riches to those released in the golden year of 1969--except now everything's even better produced! I predict a long and healthy life for the music industry and indeed each and every one of us!

Guess I’m just an optimist! You too?

 Jonas Brothers: Music From The 3d Concert Experience (Hollywood)  I think a lot of people would be genuinely shocked to find that this new live Jonas Brothers album--the soundtrack from the movie of sort of the same name--contains some frighteningly accurate covers of Metallica, the Pretty Things, early '60s pop hit "Please Don't Talk To The Lifeguard," and a by-rote recitation of all 18 minutes and 42 seconds of Isaac Hayes's "By The Time I Get To Phoenix" amid all the marvelous contemporary pop hits! Luckily, that's not the case here, and I'd be willing to bet no one will care either way! Heck, these guys are kind of cute and they can really play their instruments!

 Van Morrison: Astral Weeks Live At The Hollywood Bowl (Listen To The Lion/EMI) A few years back I noted the irony that I managed to see Brian Wilson play Pet Sounds, Arthur Lee play Forever Changes, and the Zombies play Odessey And Oracle all within a few scattered months. If I'd only seen this great concert--which in fact I did manage to see--back then, and maybe seen the Velvet Underground reuniting to play their third album live, I could simply stop listening to music entirely, give serious consideration to getting that doctorate in psychology, and stop spending so much time thinking about myself instead of other people! Anyway, this is great live recording by a great artist covering one of the greatest albums of all time, and the cover's deliberate artistic nod to the notion of "Neil Diamond dressed as Zorro" only adds to its greatness! Buy it today!

 Lamb Of God: Wrath (Epic) This album reminds me of three things! First, the phrase Lord God, Lamb of God, Son Of The Father, You who take away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us! Secondly, the fact that Rath was a Waterloo, Indiana-based company that made great bacon before ultimately closing up shop a few years back! Finally, a band with name Lamb Of God features a lead singer who actually has a strange patch of hair growing on his back! Between you and me, I think that second point may carry the most weight!

 K'naan: Troubadour (Octone/A&M)  While the cultural impact of contemporary rap and hip-hop can't be overstated, I've often felt that something was missing--and I think that may have been the heretofore unheard rappers of Somalia and the Arctic Circle! Providing one-half of the answer is Somalian rapper K'naan, who's heard here with guests like Damien Marley, Mos Def, Chubb Rock, and hip-hop legend Adam Levine of Maroon 5, in a fabulous collection largely recorded in Kingston, Jamaica and packed to the gills with potent political points, primary positive perceptions, and other cool stuff! Some say this may be one of the year's biggest albums, while others say you should brake first before turning right at a red light! Hey, another store just closed!

 Chris Isaak: Mr Lucky (Wicked Game/Reprise)  It's hard to say that Chris Isaak's unique, '50s-inspired ultra-cool persona was long missed in the seven years it's taken him to produce a brand new album. Mainly because that sentence has too many modifiers! But the man himself can do no wrong, and in 2009, with guests Trisha Yearwood and Michelle Branch joining him, it's as if he never left! Evocative, moody, sexy, and, as always, strangely distant, Isaak sings in his timeless way, and when he does, an invisible hand enters your chest cavity, clutches your heart, squeezes it a little, says, "Good as new, boss," and then slams the hood down watching you as you drive off into the distance! Then it call up your English teacher and--together--they laugh at you!

Steven Wilson: Insurgentes (K-Scope)  It's a peculiar quirk of fate when a musician with a built-in cult audience--who'll buy nearly anything with his name on it--actually happens to be remarkably good, adventurous and compelling, and that's certainly the case with Mr. Wilson, who otherwise plays with his excellent, arty Brit band Porcupine Tree. This set--officially his debut solo album--comes in multiple configurations, including a gorgeous 2CD/DVD and accompanying book limited edition, and is glorious listening throughout. In the same manner that, say, Radiohead no longer need be concerned with recording a "hit single," Wilson has the leeway to make any sort of recording he wants--without any major-label commercial pressures--and as heard here, does so with startling success and energy. Plus, wearing a gas mask on your album cover is always cool! Buy it today!

 Isaac Hayes: Black Moses (Stax) When you get right down to it, there were fewer cooler people in the world of popular music than Mr. Isaac Hayes, and this double-album--originally released in 1971--features the man at the peak of his powers! The best possible example of how the man could take outside material and make it his own, this set features his "Never Can Say Goodbye" and "(They Long To Be) Close To You" and glides along soulfully in deep, deep groove. The completely fab new CD reissue features the original fold-out cover art, miniaturized, and is the sort of thing nearly everybody should have hanging in their house to prove their worth as humans! He'd probably think so, too!

 J.J. Cale: Roll On (Rounder) Speaking of impeccably cool musicians, look no further than Tulsa legend J.J. Cale, who's back with his first album since winning a Grammy with his Eric Clapton collaboration of 2006, The Road To Escondido. A little more upbeat in places than you might come to expect with Cale's previous work, Roll On is precisely played, economically arranged, and sounds like it might've been recorded any time within the past 50 years. It probably was! All told, it's no Lamb Of God, but what the hey!

 Company Of Thieves: Ordinary Riches (Wind-up) Company Of Thieves is an interesting Chicago trio featuring a powerful lead vocalist in Genevieve Schatz--who'll either end up being loved by millions or being perceived as the contemporary equivalent as that hat-wearing chick in the 4 Non Blondes' video "What's Up," it's her call! They play melodic songs with a lot of emotional oomph and I suspect if you see them in live performance you will either like them a lot or perhaps be distracted by your date's unexpected urge to drink excessively! That stuff does happen! It's an either/or world for Company Of Thieves!

 Green River Ordinance: Out Of My Hands (Virgin)  Few expected President Obama to be such a vocal fan of John Fogerty, but his recent insistence that all new bands sound like Creedence Clearwater Revival is taking some heat from unexpected quarters! Dudes, cut him some slack!