#makes it easy for me to go through a bunch of posts of say... rhys being a loser if a mood strikes

[emilia3546]

Shadowsinger Part 21 - Gwynriel

ACOSF Spoilers! Do Not read this unless you have finished ACOSF and the Azriel bonus chapter*

Masterlist with all previous chapters

*****

Gwyn shuffled on her feet, readjusting her skirt, and silently cursed it for being in the way, she could still fight, but not as well as usual, and she'd lose precious seconds reaching for the dagger sheathed at her thigh. Azriel stood beside her, his shadows nowhere to be seen, either spread out around them to be unnoticeable, or hidden in the cloak around Gwyn's shoulders, her protests that she didn't need them having fallen on deaf ears.

"You okay?" He murmured, and she nodded,

"Just a bit nervous, I'll be alright once this first contact is over," because she could still fall at the first hurdle, Evanna had warned them that they would be scrutinized before being allowed in, even if they claimed to support the Illyrian rebellion. She stifled a smile when Azriel squeezed her fingers, their joined hands hidden beneath her cloak, but it was still a risk, they weren't supposed to be in love, she was supposed to be what the Illyrian would expect of a traditional warrior's wife, and a traditional warrior would never display affection so casually, possession yes, but not affection. If he were in love with his wife, which was rare, he'd still only display affection in private, just to maintain his image, it was one of the more ridiculous customs, Gwyn never thought more of someone than when they allowed others to see their heart. The palace doors opened and Gwyn squeezed Azriel's hand back before letting go and reluctantly dropping her gaze to the floor.

"Gavin was it, of the Skybreath Illyrian camp?" A rather young-looking man shouted from the open door,

"Indeed," Azriel replied, not shouting, but clearly making himself heard, "And my wife, Amirah," Gwyn suppressed a smile at the sound of the name that Azriel's mother had chosen, what she would have named him had he been a girl.

"We have no records of others from your supposed camp," the man's tone was low, dangerous,

"That's probably because they're all pathetic cowards who fear the repercussions of standing up for our people, ask anyone you want, I can wait, I've waited long enough for this chance, don't be the reason I lose it," Azriel matched the man's tone, but without shouting, he sounded altogether more dangerous, and Gwyn almost looked up at the feel of the man's gaze on her, fighting to keep her eyes lowered, her attention on observing the guards, the way their protocols were carried out.

"Fine. If we find out that you're lying, you're dead,"

"Good luck with that," Azriel's hand warmed her lower back, "Come on, I'll see who's made it here, then I want to find a bedchamber readied for us," Gwyn forced herself to start forwards, her bones screaming out at her for pretending to be afraid of him when she nodded, but stayed beside him when a guard moved towards them, pressing into his side at the first attempt to grab at her, "What?" Gwyn kept her frightened gaze on the guard, "Get your filthy hands off my wife," he snarled, an arm wrapping around her waist, reassuring for Gwyn, she was doing well, but to anyone else it was a display of possessiveness at a threat. "She stays with me until we reach our bedchamber, I like to know where she is, who she's with." He didn't even bother to veil the threat in his eyes when Gwyn looked up, keeping the guise of fear as she pressed against him, shying away from the guards, and allowed her gaze to dart around, marking who they were, how many of them there were, where they were posted, how alert they were. She ducked her head, following Azriel as they were led through the palace. It was just as they'd expected, with no-one taking notice of Gwyn, except to occasionally ask Azriel who she was, and then to ignore her and speak only to him, allowing her to memorize the palace, its routes, its staff, all while pretending to be quiet and unassuming.

She didn't want to watch Azriel walk away once they'd reached an empty bedchamber, didn't want to see him walking towards the enemy, all it took was one Illyrian who was high enough rank to have seen him, all it took was one recognition, and they'd try and kill him. Still, she couldn't tear her gaze away, only just remembering to make it appear that she was scared for herself, and wanted his protection, not that she was worried for him. Once he'd vanished from sight, Gwyn shot one more frightened look at the guards in the corridor and bolted herself inside the room.

Right, she did have to get the room set up, no-one was coming to do that for her, but that would take maximum half an hour, it wasn't like they exactly had luggage to unload, and then, it was a little after midday now, she'd have a few hours before dinner could be expected. Still, she was stuck in this room for now at least, she could make the most of it.

The notebook tucked into her gown wasn't big enough for every detail, not if she wanted it to last long enough, but she noted down all she'd picked up on guard movements, positions, who was alert, who was bored. It wasn't enough, she'd make a point to have Azriel find some other females to 'keep her from boredom' who she could help with palace tasks, laundry, cleaning, the Illyrians made their females do the chores at home, why not here? She'd be all over the palace that way, easily able to pick up information, it'd hopefully make their stay shorter, hopefully help with preventing a full-on civil war.

*****

Azriel couldn't dare glance over his shoulder to Gwyn, where she was undoubtedly waiting by the door to their bedchamber, even with every part of him screaming not to leave her with those people, to go back to her. He listened to what the male beside him was saying, he'd seen him before at Ironcrest, from a distance, and he was probably the highest-ranking males here, being involved in training and organisation of Ironcrest's warriors, he could be a headache later.

"Where did you find her?"

"Find who?"

"That pretty little wife of yours, I must say you're a lucky male with that one, I'd love to know what she'd feel like on my-" the male didn't get a chance to finish his sentence, breaking off with a choked gasp as Azriel slammed him against the wall, a hand curling around his throat, pure death shining in his eyes. "Whoa, calm down, I'm sorry, I wasn't gonna do anything,"

"I sure as fuck hope not," Azriel snarled, still not releasing him, fighting the urge to end him then and there, unable to shake the image of the last male who'd thought such things about Gwyn. "Touch her and it'll be last thing you ever do," the smaller male paled at the threat,

"I swear, I won't, I was saying she's beautiful," she was beautiful, but the way he'd said it, it wasn't a compliment, if Azriel hadn't reacted, maybe he would have tried something, gods, maybe someone else would. He wasn't supposed to care to like that,

"She's mine, understand?" He added, covering his tracks, the reaction was supposed to just be possessiveness, not him actually caring for her wellbeing, he wasn't supposed to be worried about that.

"Yeah, I got it," the other male was still panting when Azriel released him, "Sorry, dude, I didn't mean it like that,"

"Yes, you did, but I'm a merciful male, if you never speak of her like that again, I'll let it slide, she is beautiful, but she's mine." The male nodded,

"Noted," and took a deep breath before continuing to explain the set-up, "You're the only one from Skybreath, bunch of cowards, so we'll probably attach you to another camp, for numbers' sake, those bastards do have the advantage in that department, and they have the High Lord, and 'High Lady'," he snorted at the mention of Feyre, "But we can trust the humans to help with that,"

"How? They're fucking powerful,"

"Yeah, but they're just as susceptible to ash and faebane as the rest of us, I'd wager that they're not still taking that damned antidote. Then again, the higher-ups think we could simply kidnap their son and use him to get them to give in, but I'd like a good fight anyway, and y'know someone might end up just killing the brat, then we'd be in deep shit." Oh yes, if they harmed one hair on Nyx's head, Rhys alone was likely to simply mist the entirety of their armies before any battle, and that was if he were safety returned, at the latest, the day after he was taken, if it were longer, or if Nyx were harmed, there would be no safe place in this world for those responsible.

"Probably a bad idea that," Azriel mused,

"I'd reckon you're right, the bleeding hearts want to regain our loyalty, they'll just try and obliterate us if we hurt the boy," Azriel grunted in agreement, dropping the conversation when they turned a corner, the corridor opening into a wide chamber, filled with brawling Illyrians, a temporary training ring, not bad. He ran his gaze across the crowd, there was no-one likely to recognize him, but he still wouldn't draw attention to himself, even if wearing two siphons might do just that, but he couldn't risk it with only one, not with Gwyn here as well. He nodded a quick greeting to anyone who bothered to acknowledge him, his mind still racing. He'd have to find a way to make sure that Gwyn wasn't ever left completely on her own, if just one other male had a similar thought to the one beside him, and if he wasn't there, if she couldn't get her dagger drawn in time, he didn't want to finish that thought.

The Illyrians were well organised, not to the same degree as the loyal armies back home, but they could present a threat, especially if it was true that they were to be armed with ash and faebane. The leaders eventually decided to attach 'Gavin' to one of the smaller camps, where he'd be able to adjust more easily, where, Azriel noted with a hint of satisfaction, it would be easy to gain their trust. He made his way across the room to where his new 'comrades' were taking a break,

"Hey look, looks like they've given us the latecomer," Azriel's attention snapped to the male who'd spoken, dark hair cropped close to his skull, blue eyes, that was rare for an Illyrian, he smiled and offered his hand, "Nathan," Azriel took the proffered hand,

"Gavin, from Skybreath,"

"Oh, I was wondering if anyone would bother coming from Skybreath," Nathan chuckled, "Braver than the rest then?"

"Or more stupid," Azriel chuckled, "I've been waiting a long time for this,"

"As have we all, brother," Azriel resisted the urge to snap at him not to call him that, but forced himself to smile, to join in the conversation, and to not beat the shit out of all of them when they reclaimed a spot in the training ring. "How the fuck did you get your hands on a second siphon?" Nathan's observational skills left much to be desired, but it was wishful thinking to hope that he wouldn't notice at all, especially when Azriel had just pinned him to the mats.

"I needed it,"

"Fuck. We got a powerful one here, boys," chuckles surrounded them, and Nathan rolled his eyes as one of the others drawled,

"We know, idiot! That's why you're the only one stupid enough to fight him," another male laughed,

"He's probably some high born lord, or something,"

"Are you?" Nathan's eyes were shining with curiosity, something fairly rare for Illyrians, but he did seem young, untested, perhaps he had no idea what he was getting into, but Azriel had learned the hard way not to bother with the benefit of the doubt,

"Not really, my mother died a while back, and my father was your bog-standard warrior, nothing special really, he got killed in a border dispute a few decades ago, guess I just got lucky, the Mother likes me maybe," he shrugged, "It certainly helped on the way over here, since no one else came with us, it was just me and my wife, and she's not much help with fighting, y'know," chuckled from everyone, including Nathan,

"She clipped?"

"Who do you think I am? Of course," Azriel's temper flared up again at the approving nods from around him, only Nathan looked uncomfortable,

"You did it?"

"What? No, when she was young, like everyone else, but it did mean that I had to carry her here, which was a pain,"

"Still, bet you found a good one, being all powerful and shit,"

"Yeah, I'll have to go fetch her before we leave for dinner, I left her in our bedchamber, she'll want food," each word hit him in the core, even if none of it was true, the idea that this was normal to these people made him want to scream, but he guided the conversation back to the war, to what he needed to hear, even with his mind continually drifting back to Gwyn.

*****

Footsteps outside had Gwyn shoving the notebook back into her dress,

"Amirah!" She rushed to the door, keeping her eyes down in case Azriel wasn't alone, he wasn't, and someone let out a huff,

"Shit, how the fuck did you leave her all day?" One of the males beside him chuckled, "We'll see you in a bit," Azriel nodded and stepped past Gwyn into the room,

"You okay?" She mumbled, just loud enough for him to hear, and he nodded,

"I hate this, I have to pretend that I'm not hopelessly in love with you," Gwyn's stupid, faithless heart fluttered in her chest at those words, ignoring the way Azriel's eyes were dark, tired,

"Hey," she muttered, "It's okay, I know it's not true," Azriel's head snapped towards the door,

"Shit," he muttered, "They're still there, they're listening in, they won't have heard, but," Gwyn narrowed her eyes, and her eyes widened at the realization,

"They want to listen?"

"Moan, now, or they'll think something's up," he was right,

"I don't know what to do," she whispered, a feeling of true fear descending upon her, they'd gotten in, gotten embedded and he stupid, foolish fears were going to get them discovered, gods she was really useless,

"Hey, Gwyn," Azriel tipped her chin upwards, swiping his thumb across her cheek, "Just make any sound, you can't do it wrong, we don't actually need to do anything, just make them think we are,"

"But why? I don't get it,"

"They're all horny shits, and they've seen how fucking gorgeous you are. I've been away from you all day, they'll expect me to want certain things upon reuniting with you," oh, she knew what he meant, but just one day? That was surely excessive, but she nodded, and kissed him gently,

"I don't think I can just do it on command, kiss me, and then we'll see," she looped her arms around his neck, and did moan at the first brush of his lips against her neck, her head falling backwards so that Azriel had to hold her up, she moaned again, and he groaned at the feel of her lips against his, deliberately chucking his jacket aside so it made a loud thunk on the floor. Gwyn pressed her fingers against Azriel's lips, waiting, footsteps, they were really alone now,

"I'm sorry about that," Azriel muttered,

"What are you talking about? Kissing you is wonderful,"

"But I don't want you to think that you have to, even if it's for keeping our cover,"

"I didn't, it was just a chance to kiss you, and it was helpful to convince those others, but if I didn't want to I wouldn't have," she chuckled, "Are you sure you're okay?" Azriel collapsed onto the bed, dragging her with him with a yelp,

"I'm okay, just worried,"

"Worried?"

"About you. One of the males who showed me around made a comment that I didn't appreciate, and I doubt you would have done,"

"Did he seem like he wanted to act on that comment?" Gwyn stomach churned, and she glanced around the room, marking the locked door and windows. Azriel stiffened, realizing that she immediately knew what he was referring to,

"Not once I'd dealt with him, but all takes is one, I don't want you to have to deal with that, especially when I can't be with you, you might be on your own and," he took in a deep breath, "I just worry about what could happen if someone tries somehting,"

"I'm never on my own, Az," a shadow danced around her, "If I need to, I can fight with or without my dagger, and I want to find out what the other Illyrian females are doing here, there must be others,"

"There are," Azriel admitted, "They do the chores and stuff, help making and adjusting leathers and armor,"

"I can do that," Gwyn said, "It'll give me a chance to speak to them, to learn things that the males might overlook, and to simply be in the palace, invisible. I can 'get lost' and find my way to restricted areas, the queens' offices perhaps," Azriel pursed his lips together, but she was right, she knew he was, and no matter how much he wanted her to be safe, he knew that too,

"You're right, I know that, I just wish you didn't have to do it by yourself,"

"I know, but that's going to be how we have to work here, now," she twisted in his lap, "Tell me everything you found out today."

#fanfic #fanfiction #acotar #acosf #a court of thorns and roses #a court of silver flames #azriel x gwyn #gwyneth berdara #Gwyn acosf #gwynriel #Gwyn #Azwyn #Azriel

[thestuckylibrary]

Group Ask 129

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Please send us an ask stating which group ask and which person you are replying to. Thank you so much in advance!

Anon 1 said:

Hello, I've lost a fic I was reading. In it Bucky is an alien, I think. He is a boxer/fighter, he fights against other alien/enhanced creatures (there's one that's some kind of giant lizard). Steve is still Cap, and he falls for Bucky, and starts going to the gym and becomes Bucky's training partner. What else? Nat or Fury tell Steve about Krees and Skrulls. Bucky lives in the gym, has his few belongings in metal boxes. Sorry, I can't be more specific. Thank you in advance.

samanthahirr, partyhardwoohoo and capiturecs sent in The Boy With The Thorn In His Side by BetteNoire (WeAreWolves) (complete | 21,980 | E) - AO3 restricked

Anon 2 said:

So I've been looking for a fic that I read probably close to a year ago. It was post TWS and they were living in the tower. During the war they had written letters to each other using their initials for names (Baby for B.B. Sugar for S.G.R) and Sam and Steve are really close so at some point Bucky ends up asking Steve if Sam calls him sugar too. Sorry that it's super vague

mythgrrl said:

i feel like ive sent you a billion asks over the years! good news is i found a fic i know i had sent in asks for a few times (sorry), bad news is i lost another fic. it was steve/buky pwp in wakanda after CACW. it was bottom!steve and they had no lube so they bucky used spit. although it was their first time in the 21st century it was established relationship. i swear the summary was smth like "steve & bucky have a free night in wakanda, they spend it how you think they might"c

disgruntledturtles said:

Hi there! Do you know the fic set in pre-war, where Steve and Bucky are out of money so steve makes a racy film and Bucky ends up seeing it?

slutforasoldier said:

Hey! Super sorry but I'm looking for this fic where Steve and Bucky have a disabled daughter with like metal legs? And they adopt an abused native American boy, I can't remember much else sorry x

dragonflybeach sent in Finding Nina by MPantrochilles (complete | 53,344 | T)

Anon 3 said:

 ive been looking for this fic where sam and steve are on the typical "searching for bucky" roadtrip and one night they're in this shitty motel and buck just comes in through the window. i know it's not much to go on, but ive been looking for this fic forever now. please and thank you. i wish you the best of luck.

dragonflybeach sent in If They Haven't Learned Your Name by silentwalrus (complete | 237,623 | M)

Anon 4 said: (abuse)

Hey! I’ve been looking for this fix I read a long time ago. Bucky was raising his niece by himself. Steve was dating Brock rumlow, and rumlow was super abusive. Bucky meets Steve and notices somethings wrong so he tries to help Steve get out of the relationship. There’s also a touch of clintasha

legion-of-queer said:

okay, so maybe you wonderful people can help. Im looking for a babysitter bucky fic. he baby sists steves kids (bucky is a teen) they get into a relationship and nat is buckys sister? ive been looking everywhere for it and just really want to read it again!

Anon 5 said:

alright it's day three in the search for this fic and I'm getting desperate lol. Do y'all know the one where Bucky is kinda mean and cold as a kid until he meets Steve, and they have to touch to be comfortable in their own skin? Steve's mom says it's because they have a special bond but Bucky's mom is like, nah, ur weird. Thanks!

Anon sent in how we are hungry by liketheroad (oneshot | 18,366 | M)

Anon 6 said:

Hello! First, I would like to thank you for all the hard work you do! I'm sorry to bother, but I've looked everywhere for this story, and had no luck finding it. I remember that Bucky forgot about Steve (temporarily), but Steve still kept an eye on him. Then Sam calls him one day to let him know Bucky is missing, only to find him in his apartment (obviously angry). I highly appreciate your help. Also if there is any other story like it. Idk why, but I live for angsty Steve watching over Bucky.

Anon 7 said:

Hi! I searched on your kid!fic rec but didn’t found it so in this fic Steve has a kid and he go to a nursery at the Avengers tower and Bucky take care of him. I just don’t remember if it’s a captain America/modern Bucky Barnes or not 🤷🏽‍♀️

kittenkakt and Anon sent in Love You More by Loeily, Squeaky (oneshot | 36,477 | T)

Anon 8 said:

hi! i lost a fic and need your help :( ive searched on a bunch of your tags and also on ao3. i remember the avengers thought steve was inocent and stuff like that and steve, bucky, natasha and sam (or clint im not sure) go to a mission and bucky and steve have sex and think that no one hears them but when they are on their way back home natasha or sam make a comment about what they heard. i know this is very vague, but the fic was short and i read it a long time ago. thank you so much <3

therandomravenclw and Anon sent in Watch Your Mouth by Enalena (oneshot | 5,311 | E)

indelicateink said:

You guys have opened my eyes to SO many wonderful stories I wouldn't have found otherwise--thank you. I'm hoping you can help me re-find one I loved? Searched the library tags, AO3, my bookmarks; starting to think I'm crazy. Hope this is an easy one: AU in which Bucky is the lead singer of a band (other avengers are bandmates); Steve is a former member of the band (bass guitarist?) who quit under acrimonious circumstances. The story focuses on him temporarily rejoining to help them out on tour?

Anon 9 said:

Hi, I’m looking for a post-WS fic where Bucky and Steve are in the Tower, and Bucky starts learning to cook and making all these amazing meals but he tells Steve they’re all takeout, and somehow the rest of the avengers gang ends up helping him hide his awesome new cooking skills from Steve. I checked the chef tags and can’t find it in there.

capiturecs sent in Dream of Caramel: or, A Recipe for Disaster by gwyneth rhys (gwyneth) (oneshot | 17,037 | T)

Anon 10 said:

i can’t seem to find this kidfic i read once. one scene i specifically remember stevebuckys child ate something they (i think he?) were allergic to. real hurtcomfort

#group asks

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

Sanctuary-III: Demo Analysis

Hi again! I’m here to do my full Sanctuary-III analysis. (im back on my bullshit of actually structuring posts like a functioning human. holy mother of g-)

Tl;Dr: So from what I’ve gathered so far, Sanctuary-III looks like a Maliwan-inspired ship, but was actually built by a company named <SUPAMAX MFG>. I do think the ship we go on in the demo is taken from another part of the game, probably the time period when we’ve reached the Maliwan/Monastery planet of which I don’t know the name (the one we see Maya on). I understand that we can see Pandora in the demo, but it’d be easy to travel back there and simply remove the option for the monastery planet when we go to Promethea. I have a couple reasons for thinking this, so I’ll go over it when we get there.

For now, let’s get started :D

So, even though we’re going to be doing a full analysis of the demo, I did want to start with our previous sightings of the ship.

Ellie hanging onto a smaller version of the ship.

Lorelei resting her foot on a larger model

one hiding behind Zane near the car

better view below:

and a ship as we see it on the cover art:

notice I say A ship because there are definitely differences between this one and the Sanctuary-III we meet in the demo.

Most notably the colors/design, but also the back engines are missing from below the spoiler and the fins on the front are different shapes. Additionally, the one in the cover has windows that are significantly different from the demo and the engines in demo have fins coming off the tops that we don’t see here. I’ve been yelled at before that this isn’t a noticeable enough difference to think about, that the developers just decided to roll with it, but honestly I believe if the designers put that much time into ensuring the cover art has a dozen easter eggs to solve, why would they look at the ship and decide “eh, that’s good enough”? I wanna believe they’re not that laidback about this.

So I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt for now and provide a handful of theories as to what this cover art ship could be:

1. Sanctuary-II or an earlier model of Sanc-III (or both)

2. A shuttle used to move people to-and-from places Sanctuary-III is too large to access and the drop pods are too violent to hit (I’m thinking meteors/asteroids here) annnd hopefully we get to putz around space in one

3. A fully separate ship from Sanctuary-III that we’ll have to use later on in the game, either due to Sanctuary-III being destroyed, or other weird circumstances that would render it unavailable. Could possibly be used to reach Elpis?

Anyway, enough of that. Let’s get right into the thick of things with the actual ship from the demo!

This hit me right in the heart. I love that u can see Pandora in the background, too.

The actual ship! Do you see what I mean by those minor differences to the cover art ship? Moving on.

The reason I thought this ship was mainly because of the huge swaths of orange and the blue engines/bridge. I had thought it was Atlas as well at one point, but retracted both those statements when I saw the name of the manufacturer printed everywhere inside lol

It is possible it was made specifically for either of those companies. I am leaning towards Maliwan, so I’ll point out my reasons why as we move through this.

Also, check out the docking bay on the bottom there. That door leads to the large room we see Ellie in. I think the fins on the front of the ship are to hold it up when it’s landed so we can drive vehicles out the bottom. I am hoping for a scene near endgame where the ship is shielding us from huge attacks from above as we drive out of the bottom and, right as we escape, it collapses behind us. Fingers crossed.

the back of the ship. And the engines I mention you can’t see protruding out the back on the cover art.

Oh, and say hi to the CoV!

that’s where Troy’s sword gets launched from orbit

as we zoom in, we can see a whole bunch of things

to start, looks like Hyperion got some nice rebranding. I hope Blake took over tbh

a poster of moxxxi’s. I love the feather in her hat; I wonder if that means her a mordy got back together...

also im going to take the time to point out

how much I love that each Vault Hunter gets something that glows. Amara has her tattoos (and she can customize the color!), Fl4k has their eye, Moze has Iron Bear’s digistruct pack, and Zane has a cool jacket. Rock on my babies, you’re all beautiful. Oh, and the whole teleporting animation for this, I don’t know if its like a “first time” only thing or what, but I love it, I love it so much. I’m so glad we’re going to be able to see our Vault Hunters in the third person.

okay moving on

so right away you notice the guide telling you where places are, with arrows point in different directions. It’s quite hard to read at the moment, but we do see it again later. 

We all know about the quick change station and the lost-and-found, so I don’t think I ought to go over those right now. 

claptrap seems to have his own little cereal or something, not sure if that’s been sighted anywhere else, but im afraid for anyone who eats it

player quarters! holy balls im so excited for these

We can see the display cases everywhere, but there’s also a vault (not that kind) in the back left. I imagine that’s the bank. Hoooopefully we get a larger storage capacity or my mule characters are gonna have a ton of new buddies to talk to lol

better look at the cereals.

also apparently that water bottle we see in the Game of Thrones joke the twitter posted is an actual asset in the game.

While we have singular display cases for guns, it looks like items get their own display cases

it can show off rarity color and on the bottom left, you get to see exactly what you’re looking at. no more confusing grenade mods for shields in this house

a non-holographic poster for the Typhon Deleon movie. I think this is the first we’ve seen outside of Promethea. I guess Amara’s a fan.

A vault symbol rug, and the symbol spray painted onto her punching bag. I think that poster in the back is a Monty Python reference? I didn’t get quite a good look at it, we might see another one later on.

Amara has a window seat, I’m actually hoping we’ll be able to hang out in our rooms and look out the window at space. I would honestly spend so much time here. Also, regarding the bed (not pictured, that’s the window seat), I’m wondering if that will have any gameplay effects or if it's just aesthetics. I hope it’s at least bouncy...

she does have some jakobs crates holding up the plants. Don’t know if that has anything to do with her backstory or if its just to fit the aesthetic of her room.

we’re also told “again, you can modify your player quarters to how you want to play” which... I don’t know if I’m looking too deeply into that, but it seems like we’ll be able to pick and choose things like furniture or overall layout. I wonder if they’d let us cycle between the other VH’s rooms. Not sure exactly what it’s supposed to imply, but it is something to point out.

Our first look at the SUPAMAX MFG logo. “Ships made Quick”

We also get our first look at Ellie’s cargo bay. More on this later

behind the curtains to the left of here

a poster of Jack and some lootable washing machines. We’ve seen the poster before, from what I’ve heard it's a movie poster starring timothy doppleman. Which... What a legend. 

Now, I do want to point out we see this logo next to the cargo bay

this is one of the reasons I thought the ship was Atlas at first, however you can tell there’s no gap on the right of the triangle and the bottom edges don’t match. I definitely think the new Atlas logo is a delta to signify change, though, cause Rhys is a big ol nerd.

some blueprints of the ship and a bunch of reused posters from BL2 thrown in for decor purposes. There’s another poster of Typhon to the left of that, but since we’ve already seen it, fuck ‘em

We also see a buttload of Maliwan crates hanging around the ship, matching the color design of the one we saw floating around space 

here’s one of them!

a better look at the blueprints as a standalone poster. It looks like ‘Sanctuary’ was written over with something, but I can’t make out what. also checkout how the paint on top doesn’t match the paint on the cover art’s ship. Nor does the cover art have the fins coming off the engines like we see here. I actually just noticed that even the spoilers are different shapes.

Moving on before I go off on another tangent

a poster for Marcus’s shop

the new golden chest as Randy called it. I believe we’ve seen the animation already, where the guns splay upwards like a peacock or smth

a cowgirl hangin out on more Maliwan chests

Marcus’s new sign. Honestly? He’s rocking the bun.

this dude we find walking out of the store. Don’t know what his deal is, but I’m digging it.

this Amara already has 5/8 Pistol SDUs unlocked! (Also, there are 8 max SDUs) Makes me think she’s a high level character. That’ll come into play later lol

5/8 Backpack SDUS. I didn’t show it but she also had 1/8 Shotgun SDUs. Also only +3 to backpack space each. Considering Amara already has 5 unlocked, that means we get the regular 12 backpack space to start. D:

bank space only gets +2. Amara already has 2, meaning the bank can only hold 8 items without upgrades. F in chat for the big bank dreams. Max amount the bank can hold is 24. Somebody comfort me... hopefully these SDUs increase exponentially 😭

the mystery SDU. It looks like a box with a question mark on it, giving out guns and grenades. Makes me worry this is some form of loot box, but considering it can be bought with cash in-game, that’s probably a good sign. Maybe you can buy golden keys in game to open the gold chest now? Randy said no microtransactions and, while he is Randy, I want to believe him (disregarding the skins fiasco because we all knew that was coming).

since i’ve also seen speculation that it’s the upgrade for the capacity of the Lost-And-Found, I think that’s probably what this actually is.

the shooting range we can see from here. Doesn’t appear to have any targets yet, but it may be like the one in BL2 where they only appear when we enter.

more Maliwan boxes to the left of the shooting range.

Crew Quarters sign!

some very big (tm) Maliwan crates

tannis’s sign!

this NPC actually seems important, I’m wondering if she’ll give us a side quest or something

what i’m guessing is the power core to the ship. It’s in such a great place to get shot... i wonder if perhaps... we’re going to have to do that at some point...

“ain’t no place like space” I love this place.

also looks like there’s a shortcut here. You can see the planks across the pipes, the balcony, and the railing here that’s gonna be easy to get over. Excitement!

looks like a control panel right in front of the core. Yeah, there’s definitely going to be something related to it. Maybe we’ll get attacked and we have to go stabilize it. Maybe our ship will get hijacked and we’ll have to blow it up from the inside. I can’t be the only one who thinks this place is wayyy too grand to not get destroyed...

better look at that bad boy

the opening to moxxi’s bar

actual bar

i have no idea what this is, but i dig it. Also the zer0 for the O is making me go  🤔 i don’t THINK Zer0 would get involved, but then again, they are doing missions for Moxxi in Tales, so maybe the two got together to make something

this door seems different enough and detailed enough (red glowing light) to make me think we’re going to be unlocking this and going through it at some point. Then it shall glow green and make me happy instead of frustrated. the minimap, unfortunately, does not agree with me, but I want to believe. or that’s gonna bother me to no end. Maybe some sort of “we just escaped control core angel” situation, idk.

some slot machines. Ca$hTrap! and Tinx’s Hijinx. Looks like an NPC is using the latter though so idk if it will be available to use. 

scoring system. Looks like the ??x row will give us a new character skin!! hype.

the uhhh... Lava Lamp column... will give us...? ???

A devil fruit?? A grenade? wtf is that???

3 bananas gives us new colors! Crowns = head

the... Eridium...? That seems way too pink to be Eridium tbqh. It reminds me more of Seraph crystals, but maybe its a reference to the ‘Eridium’ growing out of the ground on Promethea? ...... Maybe that’s growing because Atlas/Typhon actually DID open the Vault on Promethea

uh anyway

The last column is about more crystals and then cash and then the last one... I assume the icons are Claptrap’s eye (considering the game), but the reward? i think that’s the grenade the demo player gets in the demo 

we’ve also got Loot Boxer (also taken by an NPC) and Vault Line. I’m wondering if the NPCs using the machines are just a gameplay mechanic and they’ll disappear after a certain level/event. Maybe those ones give us better loot. idk.

for Vault Line, i think that says “Knockout Prizes” but I could be wrong. More importantly, it looks like we can get legendaries from this one! First column shows a green/purple/yellow (legendary?) gun. I can’t tell what the other icons are meant to be, though. i think the next 3 are shields, then maybe class mods? or... grenade mods? i don’t know. The last one is a total blob for me, no ideas on that. Also wondering if that machine costs Eridium to play or something, 1) because of its design and 2) because the rewards seem sooo much better than Claptrap’s.

outside we see the Crew Quarters sign for the first time and, interestingly enough, a TV broadcasting the same symbol we see being broadcasted all across the CoV camps. What’s up with that?

infirmary and crew quarters signs on the wall this time

more Maliwan crap. even says it right on the tin. Why is there a pokeball on there?

a map of the ship. We see this on a bunch of monitors, even ones on Promethea, for some reason. This one is mirrored. dunno why.

more signs. Left top to bottom: “Cargo Bay” “Armory” “Infirmary”

Right top to bottom: “Engine Room” (OwO) “Crew Quarters” “Cargo Bay” “Armory” annnd nothing on the last line this bend around. when they turn the corner, you can see that it, too, says “infirmary”

Also, the Heatant and Coolant Pipes lmao

“LAB/SICK BAY” pointing to the left towards Tannis’s corner

so, here’s where we get our first glance at something very very interesting

now, the crew makes us think this is our first time visiting Promethea in the demo. But if it is, why are there Promethea civilians wandering around the ship? I believe i go over this some in an older post, but I’ll recap:

1) It could be that Sanctuary III was already in the air before the game starts and had already visited Promethea to take some Civilians off Rhys’s hands so he had less to worry about. That would mean that we’d need a shuttle or something to reach the ship in order to activate the fast travel station, which is (possibly) where the ship on the cover art could come in. Because in the borderlands universe, you need to reach a Fast Travel station first before you’re able to teleport to it and if Sanc III is flying and Lilith doesn’t have her powers, we’re stranded on Pandora. (Alternatively, the ship could come down from space, but... I kinda doubt it can without not being able to take off again. Maybe borderlands just has cooler spaceships... idk. They were able to make a caravan space capable). Unfortunately, this would mean those screencaps from the new trailer that looks like Sanctuary III being infested with wildlife would not take place on early-game Pandora/that we wouldn’t rescue the ship and claim it as our own. (We could possibly get Sanctuary III in the air in the new BL2 DLC if this is the case.) The ship getting infested then could take place above the Maliwan planet or Promethea or soon after we join the crew and we’re sent down there to clean it up as a side quest. Or there’s a time skip and the ship gets overrun and we have to fix it. Now that’d be rad... 

2) gearbox is being sneaky beaky about the demo time. We do see Maya later on, which leads me to believe this takes place after we meet her. Where does it look like she’ll be? On the Maliwan/Monastery planet. It could be possible that the devs took the ship back to Pandora and simply removed the Maliwan planet from the list of places to take our ship. That would leave Promethea as an option while also explaining why there are both Promethean citizens and Maya on board. Could also explain Lilith having her tattoos back, since we don’t know the events of the story that lead to us going to find Maya. Though, I think I have an idea... I’ll leave that for my Maya masterpost though. Lilith also says “We arrived in one piece... that’s a first” when we travel to Promethea, leading me to believe either that’s where Sanctuary-II warped and got destroyed (maybe explaining why there are Promethea Civilians with us now), possibly in the asteroid fields, also maybe due to a mechanical failure, or Sanctuary-III, when it first went to Promethea with us, got a bit damaged by the rocks floating around Promethea or some other thing like the CoV attacking, idk. What are those rocks for, anyway? ....... I gotta make a post on that, don’t I? oi oi oi...

Moving on

the front of the Infirmary

....

this kinda looks like a baby T-Rex. There are T-Rexes on the swamp planet, which we now are assuming is Promethea, aren’t there? Oh hell yeah. If the swamp planet ISN’T Promethea I’m gonna be all like [shocked pikachu face]. that outskirts area was really making me believe. 

anyway, see above lol

we also get another glimpse at the SUPAMAX logo

some lootables in the back

not sure if these are Maliwan or not.

Zed also has a machine in the back here. We haven’t seen him around yet, but odds are he’s still kicking because of this. And hopefully still friendly with the crimson raiders. Maybe Tannis locked him in a closet or something, idk.

oooo i haven’t seen this screen before

i want to know what it isssss

this also looks eerily familiar. brb, gonna go find what this reminds me of

okay, so

not sure if its exactly the same material/type of symbol, but this location, what i have dubbed the “temple” cuz i got no better name for it, does have square emblems across the floor with borders.

so, interestingly, this one has what looks like an eye with beams shooting out of it. if that description sounds familiar to you, it should, because

EYEBALL

now i got no idea if these are related aside from being in the same game, but it does interest me that they’ve both got eyeballs and streaky beams.

Oh and Tannis’s Vault symbol doesn’t have the writing (?) across the edges, but I will say, it does kinda look like cuneiform and eridian writing had a baby. Like, if you super heavily pixelate the Watcher’s name on her title card...

tbh I’ve theorized a lot about this place, but haven’t found anything I particularly like. From the place where the first Vault Atlas ever opened is (meaning its on Promethea and could explain why Tannis has that slab), the Great Vault’s holding place (where the skeleton on the ground is Typhon and his final journal) (perhaps the Great Vault is the entryway to the Eridian homeworld... that could explain why the CoV are trying to find it... might be a reason why they’re being manipulated by new aliens to find it. god please let them be the Seraphs...) uh, anyway, I also had an idea that it was someplace on the Maliwan planet, and maybe that it was in the archives area that was taken over by Maliwan and that the skeleton was of a Siren. That would explain why Maya is shown handing the book to Little Blue in the MoM. I go over that in an old post though, so moving on.

 oh, there’s also a frame of Tannis’s animation where the dinosaur she was inside stands up and clips through the table:

there’s a small room over here we don’t get to see, and I’m wondering if there’s another NPC joining us on Sanctuary-III that isn’t showcased. god I hope if its pickle he got more bearable as he got older because dear god i hated him in tps. I can’t see Athena nor Janey with a desk like that. Maybe Vaughn? Though would he really want to go back to being an accountant after everything...?

more maliwan boxes btw. looks like someone scribbled on this one lol

now we head to the bridge!!!

looks like an arcade game lol

but possibly a control mechanism for shuttles coming in???  👀 👀 👀

Crew Quarters and the SUPAMAX logo

oh yeah, and in case you were doubtful that this was a borderlands game:

“Caution: Excessive Farts Detected”

the Bridge!!!

We’ve got a holo-projector thing up front like we’ve seen Rhys use, as well as a mini one used as a digistructer during Lorelei’s hamburger quest. Most interesting, Lily has her tattoos! Definitely wondering if this takes place later on in the story or if they swapped her early game model in. either way, they’re definitely there. 

some cool art of Sanctuary III zooming away

just have to say

i love this so much

its great

okay moving on

I wish they’d be more specific. do ruins = vault? Typhon says he discovers the Vault and the Key in one fell swoop. if Typhon DID give atlas the Vault key and the location to the Vault (and we’re not just listening to an ARG for the movie or smth) then why didn’t Atlas open it immediately?! I mean, in TFTBL Cassius says Gortys is their last ditch attempt at opening a Vault! So what the heck?? I can’t believe that it would be less than 200 years from the first Vault being discovered to the Eridians abandoning everything. like vault keys take 200 years to naturally charge so there’s no reason why it wouldn’t be already charged and available (Unless its more of a cycle thing where it charges and then discharges after a while for safety’s sake??). 

And another thing, if that IS Eridium growing out of the ground on Promethea, then they totally DID open the first Vault. Or at least Typhon did. Unless there was something stopping them... like... Maybe in the temple those demon-looking-things stopped them from getting through and that’s why we find a bunch of skeletons around the place? Or maybe the Guardians got to them, or some other Eridian protection scheme. i don’t know... im so confused... brain hurt...

anyway

why the fuck does Elpis look like this

is that the light side of the moon? dear god im blind.

hhhh at least we can still see the crackening

lowkey wondering if the ship is based off of Eridian tech. I could totally see a slip-space drive being based off Lilith’s phasewalking

when we finish travelling, Lily says “We’ve arrived in one piece. that’s a first” and yeeah, i can see whyyy

rocks. rocks everywhere. tbh i think these rocks are 1) why lilith says that (we’ve either been to Promethea before in Sanc-III or Sanc-II got decimated slip jumping here) and 2) why the VH’s entry into Promethea is apparently so awful Lilith needs to ask if they’re actually still alive. also, we get to see just how much of Promethea is cities and goddamn. that’s a lot for a borderworld.

sorry for the youtube bar. 

Deck A: Hammerlock - Infirmary/Tannis - Deck B: Marcus - Moxxi Deck C: Cargo Bay

I am honestly so curious how they got this ship with that lettering on it. I guess they could’ve made it themselves, but... you gotta wonder... maybe we get the ship built on Pandora by Ellie. Or she helps us fix it up after we remove all gross rat things from it.

MAYAAAAA

better look at the Monty poster plus some other stuff, like a clock, dartboard, and a gas mask. Also if anyone knows what that says up top there, please let me know, im super curious!

Hammerlock’s quarters!

this guy has the same facial hair as Zane. I swear to god if I hear “Oh, that’s me fourth brother” im gonna lose my absolute shit

something to the far left outside of Hammerlock’s quarters we’re not allowed to see yet :(

there’s also graffiti of “Charge port here” around the ship and i think that’s hilarious. It’s like an airport

put your ports in, damn it!

Ellie!!!

More maliwan boxes to her left, btw

the actual cargo bay. remember how i said to look at the bottom of sanctuary III to find the door? I’m like 90% sure that’s it right there. Randy also says “down here we can check out the vehicles we’ve collected AND this is how/where we get access to the planets while we’re in orbit”.

Crazy Earl’s black market! dunno how he’s actually, like, connected to the black market from here, but, hey, who knows what he’s got in there.

veteran rewards, apparently drawn over one of Marcus’s machines lol

“Inter-Galactic” a little drawing of Sanc-III and another Maliwan box (you can see why I think this ship is Maliwan, right?)

Clappy and his GF... yeah...

one very big digistruct pad. listen... im praying for a space shuttle. i really am.

finally:

the drop pod

god this looks awesome. I bet we’re gonna have many a fun time in there lol

I finally get to live out my dream of being an ODST in borderlands. what badasses they are.

#borderlands #borderlands 3 #bl3 #sanctuary 3 #sanctuary iii #sanctuary-iii #yeet #sanctuary

[travelingthroughtimejjs]

High school- and friends

When i went through that first enlightenment period of my life, I realized I didn’t really have much money. Sure my dad paid for me to participate in sports and stuff but I didn't have money of my own and couldn’t really get the things that I wanted in life. So I worked my ass off doing just random small jobs for my dad’s friends and at home to earn money, I was always working to try and make myself into something.

I saved up enough to buy my first iPhone in grade 8 and bought myself a longboard, which were big purchases for me back then. I applied to get my young workers certificate the day I turned 14 and gave a resume to every single store in cornerstone. My resume was shit, I hadn't done anything at that point in my life besides raise money for relay for life and volunteer at the SPCA for 6 months. I only heard back from one place, Sobey’s and they laughed at me when I told them I was 14. So there went that dream.

In grade 9 my friend groups started to blend. All these people coming together from different backgrounds in one place. Being the social butterfly that I am, I tried to make a friendship with every single person in the grade. I actually think I did a pretty good job of this within those 4 years, I can say I had some sort of relationship with almost every single person by the end of grade 12. 

It also gave me the opportunity for my friends to meet each other, I introduced people like Short and Matt to the people that I’ve been hanging out with for years. I became really close with Corrigal and our friend group hungout almost every single day together. There were a lot of us but we would have our own parties and get together to drink at someone’s house almost every weekend. The guys I was closest with at this point were Josh, Liam, Matt, Tyler, Jaxon, Jeremy (who I just met), Reese, Corrigal, Short and although he was still in elementary school kept a relationship with Rhys. 

The girls in our group were also pretty cool back then, spent time with Kate, Taryn, Nikki, Sydney, Selena, Billie and Cami. 

I didn’t really try the hardest in school until grade 12, I was more so focused on having fun and my sports. 

Throughout the years the girls started to care less about us and were doing their own thing. I started making some friendships with some other guys that I didn’t ever have the opportunity before like Crawf and Fuzz. 

My mom was really reflecting on her health and she knew we were going to be leaving soon so she let me throw huge 100 person parties in our basement a couple times in grade 9. Pretty wild for some 14/15 year olds. 

At this time I started kind of getting into the dating scene, nothing ever really came out of it but I was learning. I couldn’t drive at this point but I started going on date’s with a girl named Emma. I would pay to go golfing, go to the movies, we’d go play tennis or we would just hangout at one of our houses. We were even posting pictures on our social media together. Seemed like everything was going good until she randomly texted me one day saying that we couldn’t keep seeing each other, it was pretty random but I went with it. We still hungout from time to time after, even went on a few more dates but nothing came from it. I later found out that her reasoning was that I was too short for her, which was honestly pretty valid because she was 6 foot tall and I was 5 foot 7 haha.

Everyday after school Jaxon and Tyler would come over to my house and we would watch hours of Netflix together practice beer pong in my basement. That changed at the end of grade 9, Matt had asked me if I wanted to come volunteer with him at an event at the Co-op where he worked, of course I said yes because I didn’t really have much going on ever besides working out. I met the HR person from the Co-op at this event, Matthew, and he loved how charismatic I was, asked me if I wanted a job at the Co-op with Matt. I was super happy because the prior year I tried so hard to find a job. 

I worked my ass off at the co-op. Matt left after a couple months of me being there which meant I was the only student left around to close the Meat department. That meant I was going in after football practice for 3 hours to do all the intensive cleaning. As you can see, school still wasn’t my biggest priority. I wanted to buy a vehicle so i worked as much as I could. This was in grade 10.

Grade 10 was a pretty big year for the boys. We ventured out from our small group parties into huge parties, the rookie party era started and the boys weren’t shy about going out. We went to everything, no matter what. I always said I wasn’t going to let work interfere with my social life so I would show up to the Co-op absolutely drunk as fuck still from the night before on multiple occurrences. But the boys meant so much to me that it was worth ti every time. At every party you could find me talking to people’s parents, building relationships with everyone I could. I grew especially close with Jeremy and Liam at this point and we did basically everything together. I still maintained my brotherhood with Josh, a task I always found easy no matter how different of things we were doing. Grade 10 I became pretty close friends with Dyllen. Tyler wasn’t really associated with our group due to fucking up too many times. 

I also continued with my relationship building skills. I wanted to be remembered by every single person, so I put in so much effort into getting to know people deep down and trying to actually become their friend, asking them the real questions. I did this especially with my teachers at school, I was always asking them about their life at home and I got some really personal stories from teachers like Mme Chan, Miss Welter and Mr. Germs. I think I earned the respect of every teacher in high school. At the same time I was still my attention seeking self and wanted to be heard in class. I volunteered to read every time the class was asked upon and tried to crack some well timed jokes. At work I learned so much from the adults there and got basically their whole life stories. I loved to learn about other people, it made them feel special and it built a strong connection with them.

They started hiring more young people at Co-op around this time. I made some awesome friendships with people like Zach, Dante and Ivan. Especially Zach though, we would spend every single break together either going for lunch or playing baseball behind the store.

I had my second real thing with a girl in the summer between grade 10 and grade 11. Her name was Brooklyn. Dyllen was dating her best friend Jaici at the time and had invited me up to Brooklyn’s cabin to hangout for the July long weekend. I was off from work and thought we might as well go. I met Brooklyn and we hit it off instantly. She was fresh off a breakup though so I wanted to give her some space. She ended up getting back together with her boyfriend after a couple weeks and we obviously stopped talking. Then when her and her boyfriend broke up again she texted me immediately. This was right at the beginning of grade 11 and we spent a lot of days hanging out together, with Dyllen and Jaici some of those times. She wasn’t ready for anything serious so we just eventually stopped talking. She ended up dating Matt a few years later.

A lot of the same old at the beginning of grade 11. For me, playing football, partying and spending time with the boys. I loved it, formed so many good relationships with those guys. I became really close to Rahman at this point. Halloween of that year my life changed drastically, but I’ll write more about that later. I started dating Eden and that meant my time with the boys plummeted. I was super busy at this point in my life. I was playing basketball 6 times a week, playing hockey 2-4 times a week and working every Sunday. I somehow balanced it all but lost touch with the boys because of it.

Long weekends were always such a special time for our group. Everyone would take the weekends off from work and gather at the lake for a weekend of catching up. They really kept the boys together in a way that is hard to describe. For me I almost didn’t play spring football one year so that I could go to May Long but I got talked into playing from the coaches. Aug long was my time to shine and I always appreciated Rhys’ and Corrigals’s hospitality towards me. 

The end of grade 11 was the second huge reflective moment of my life. I needed to figure out what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be. My career choice at the time was to be an architect based off of Ted Mosbey from How I Met Your Mother. I was taking a drafting and design class and I loved it, took all three levels (10, 20, and 30). I needed to figure out how I was going to turn into it into my career, so my choice was to apply for Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan and specialize in structural engineering and then move on to the University of Calgary to get a degree in architecture. I started trying extremely hard in school to set myself up for this path. Jaxon and his girlfriend also broke up when we were in grade 11 and the guy has never been the same since.

I was working almost full time at co-op, while still participating in my spring sports and didn’t have as much for the boys due to me trying hard in school now with that other stuff. I didn’t have any money to go to school, maybe 5000, which wouldn’t get me far so I needed to keep working.

In grade 11 my grandpa had died and although I saw it coming and was extremely sad, he left me 5000, this money really helped me get my education. 

In grade 12 I was the biggest try hard in school, and I was getting awesome marks because of it, as good as I really could get while playing a bunch of sports and still working a bunch. But I also came to a realization that all those relationships I had worked so hard on for those 4 years were going to come to an end, I wouldn’t be able to see the same people everyday and have those real conversations with them. I started going out a bunch again in grade 12 because that was what I felt I needed to do to hold onto those relationships. It was tough to balance everything but I always made it work. 

Billie and Cami were still super good friends of mine throughout all of high school and we sat together in every class. I was going to ask Cami to grad but she ended up asking Rhys before I had the chance.

Grade 12 I formed the tightest bond I think I ever had with Josh even after knowing him for so long, we had such similar career paths in mind that we helped each other strive towards them. That’s when Jackson came along so become one of my best friends, although his work ethic was a little different than ours, he was naturally smarter and didn’t have to work to the same degree, he still had very similar ambitions that helped us grow together towards our goal. We all planned our university lives together and spent a bunch of time as a group, we planned to find a place together. Our original plan was to get a place at College Quarters but when I called to ask about the availability when we got accepted in January, they had said that the application deadline was in November so we were way too late. Thank God though because the situation we found ourselves in was a million times better. At co-op they hired a kid named Lucas who I took under my wing and made a really good friend of mine.

Me, Josh and Jackson were so set on this goal of moving to Saskatoon and we knew it wasn’t going to be cheap, when the graduating class was all pushing the idea that we should go to Mexico as a grad trip, the three of us initially decided against it. We were thinking that 2000 could mean two months of living in Saskatoon. I think I was the first one to come to the realization and I brought it to the boys. We were NEVER going to have an opportunity like that again, so we signed up. I was lucky because my dad and Nicole combined some money together and gave me 1100$ to go. The trip ended up being around 3000 by the same all the money was spent there, but I don’t regret it one bit.

Grad retreat was a super special day to me. One last effort to spend time with all the people that I tried to befriend throughout my 4 years. I’ll never forget that big tackle football game the boys had going on. It was also an opportunity to let everyone know how grateful we were. I wrote so many notes and dropped them on peoples baskets for them to read later. I still go back and read the notes people wrote me at least once a year.

At graduation time all the work I put into my relationships was finally coming together. I received the highest valued scholarship at the St Mary Grad ceremony, I was getting really nervous because as the list dwindled down my name wasn’t getting called and i really thought I wasn’t going to win anything. But there it came, the last scholarship 2 500 to the person who displayed what it’s like to lead in all aspects of life. All the teachers had voted me this person, I didn’t have the best marks in our class, I had a 94% average in grade 12, there were about 20 people with higher averages than that but at the end of the day it was my personality that had me winning, maybe not deservingly so because there were a lot of brilliant people who were also leaders in different ways. I also won a 500 $ scholarship from the Kinsmen Club Prince Albert for being a community leader and then 250 $ for having the highest average in Drafting and Design 30 (in which I was the only student). I also got a 700$ scholarship from the co-op that i worked at. Pair those winnings with the 2000$ entrance scholarship I got from the U of S, I was capable of attending university. I had about 7000 saved from the co-op, 5500 in scholarship money and the 5000 from my grandpa’s inheritance, this was enough to take me through the first couple of years. 

[bl-giftexchange]

Vital Signs

To: @c0njidraws From: @mandaocity

Based loosely on their HyperionSnake!AU. <3 <3 <3 Happy Holidays!

To say Jack was angry was a gross understatement. Fury flowed through his veins like magma and his belly was full of raging fire. He couldn’t let the fire run wild though, not just yet. The only safe option was to channel that energy into executing his carefully planned mission.

At the best of times he loathed the bandits, scumbags, and inbreds that made up the majority of Pandora’s population. This was the worst of times and the very nerve of them to snatch up something that belonged to Handsome Jack and try to keep it locked away.

Multiple times he had warned his younger lover that he did not think his security details for his surveying missions were large enough but the kid was all smiles and reassurances that he would be fine. The team had come through intact every time so far, after all.

Somehow his luck had run out. The loader bot assigned to Rhys had been destroyed and he figured the Hyperion soldiers with him were dead too.

The only way he even was sure that Rhys was still alive is that nested in his cybernetic arm was a tracker that provided Jack his whereabouts and vital information. His blood pressure was high and his heartbeat fast. The poor kid was stressed, probably terrified– he wasn’t used to this kind of danger.

The bandit camp was disgusting– little more than several old Atlas trailers propped up on a multi leveled structure built up against the side of a dusty cliff. Structurally questionable walkways lay to and fro like the fortress of the Lost Boys. They were lost, he supposed; the remnants of the men left behind when Atlas pulled out of Pandora before he crushed their corporation out of existence. Nonetheless, they were men who had crossed Handsome Jack and they would die like the rest of their kind.

The darkest hours of the night were closing in over the patch of dusty land that held the squalid base. That was fortunate.

He had summoned his best and oldest doppelganger; a man once known as Timothy Lawrence, to lead his main force. There was too much risk of getting the kid hurt if they went in with a full force of men, guns blazing, so Jack decided he would have his men wait nearby in the desert. There could draw the attention of the bandits once he had secured Rhys’ safety.

It was comical how easy it was. Even at some degree of a high alert they were laughably easy to maneuver around with his cloaking device.

Still, Jack was careful. Though he wanted to – and planned to – kill every last one of them he couldn’t risk a dead bandit alerting anyone to his presence until Rhys was secure. The cloaking device served him well, combined with the long shadows and scant light he was steadily progressing from the first level to the second in short time.

Jack felt his watch gently vibrate against his wrist so he ducked in a dark corner and uncloaked himself to see the message. The unthinkable had happened– Rhys’ vitals had suddenly flatlined. All of them.

Jack touched his hand to his ear opening up the comm line, “Light it up.” He said, shooting a bandit in the back of the head as he reactivated the cloaker.  

It was only a moment later when the sound of gunfire could be heard from further down the canyon. A rocket launcher struck the far end of the structure which reverberated in protest but held firm to the rock. The bandits inside the structure came out shooting.

Jack’s joints protested with pain as he ran towards the ramp to the highest level. As he made it to the bottom, a large man in a cloth mask appeared blocking his path. Without thought, Jack raised his weapon and shot the man in the throat.

The bandit staggered and fell sideways off of the ramp to land on the level below with a sickening crunch.

With his way cleared Jack hurried up the ramp.

They knew he was there now though they couldn’t see him. He passed through a group of men that were running out to defend their camp, letting three men get ahead of him only to turn and shoot two of them in the back of the head before the sniper he’d placed exploded the head of the third in an explosion of gore.

Worn sneakers carried him across the final stretch of walkway just as his armored team rolled up to the outskirts of the camp.

His own voice sounded over the Echo Comm, “Alright ya bunch of pukes. Handsome Jack  here to take back what you stole from me. Hand over the nerd and I won’t have to kill every last, useless one of you.”

Jack braced himself for what he would see when he entered the bunker though his mind just kept wishing ‘Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.”

He came around the doorway and blasted the lone remaining occupant of the room in face, he laser virtually disintegrating him as he fell to the floor in a bubbling heap.  

Rhys’ echo eye had been forcibly removed, the wires that had connected the core trailing down from the mostly empty socket. His arm, too, had been removed– though somewhat more carefully than the eye. A single chain trapped Rhys’ good arm to the wall.

Rhys looked up at him with his lone brown eye and smiled faintly, “Jack,” he breathed, “you came.”

Jack was joyous with relief, “Of course I came, pumpkin, I couldn’t leave my best boy with these frickin’ savages.” With careful aim he shot the chain and Rhys’ arm was freed.

“Thank god. They smell terrible.” Rhys tested the feeling in his recently liberated arm.

Jack extended a  large hand down to the kid to help pull him to his feet. “I thought they killed you… your vitals…” He cleared his throat in an effort to cover how choked his voice sounded.

“Yeah, they thought they could sell the eye and the arm. They disconnected them… pretty roughly.” He swayed a bit on his feet and jack kicked the only chair over to him.

“Sit. You aren’t looking so good.”

Rhys acquiesced and thumped into the seat, leaning his head back against the wall.

Jack frowned, stepping in front of him to keep his gun trained on the door. “I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so.”

“God,” Rhys rolled his one good eye. “Can we do this later?”

There were gunshots, explosions, and screaming down below. “Yeah… we’re gonna let my men sweep up these cretins. We have a shuttle ready out in the desert to take you home. You in pain?”

“Yeah… a little,” Rhys said. “They weren’t really gentle about pulling my gear out. I hope they didn’t fuck up my brain.”

“You know I’ve got the best doctors money can buy. We’ll look you over good once you’re home.” Jack spoke reassuringly. His anger had had calmed, mostly. Rhys was safe and they were going to be alright. It was just a matter of time.

‘Who needs a hero?” Jack’s voice could be heard crowing triumphantly as the doppelganger stepped into the doorway with a ridiculous wink.

Jack gave his double a dark look, “I told you- no winking. Did you get them all? Are we clear?”

“Yeah,” The man sounded less like Jack now when he spoke; the cadence of his words was different– more mild mannered than the man he impersonated. “Yeah, we’re all good, boss.”

“You catch any live ones?” Jack’s eyes narrowed.

The doppelganger looked a bit anxious, “No sir… We tried… but you know how these bandits are. They know even if they surrender they’re as good as dead. Damn, Rhys. You look terrible.”

“I’ll be fine.” Rhys assured as he turned away and worked at unbuttoning his ragged button-down so he could wind it around his head to cover his eye.

“Tell the troops here I’m going to send them some reinforcements and have them scour the desert for stragglers. Have them raze every last filthy camp in this sector,” Jack ordered.

“Yes, sir.” the double’s perfectly coiffed hair bobbed as he strolled off to handle the business of being Jack.

Rhys insisted on walking without any aid though he walked slowly. Once buckled into his seat of their private shuttle his hand reached out for Jack’s and held it as the rockets fired up, hurtling them back to their home.

____________________________

The first day back had been a long stressful day of surgery for Rhys.  He demanded to have everything replaced immediately with complaints of how naked he felt without his arm and eye. 

Jack spent the long hours walking up and down the corridor of the private medical lab as they worked on installing his new equipment. It took effort to repress a strong urge to punch the orderlies in the face out of pure stress and frustration. His mind played out an array of scenarios in which he had failed to make it on time to Rhys’ aid and it was disconcerting how empty it made him feel.

After the procedures, they returned security of Jack’s large penthouse so he could rest.

Rhys was already as good as living there. Sure, he still had some clothes and stuff in the apartment he shared with his weird friends but he hadn’t slept there in months.

There was always work to do so while he slept Jack spent some time getting things done.

When he heard him up and moving around in the bedroom Jack decided to make him a treat. After going through all his cupboards he realized he had the opportunity to make a masterpiece. With his ingredients marshalled, he assembled a sundae.

It was magnificent. Resting upon a large, singular mound of blackberry ice cream was a replica of Helios. Two rectangular bars of traditional shortbread cookie were paired with a vanilla wafer to serve as the hub. He pipped chocolate details onto the sugary Helios as well as putting a chocolate swirl around edge of the ice cream. The final touch was just a drizzle of mango sauce representing the crackening. He carried it along with a bottle of water to the bedroom.

Rhys was hunched forward at his workstation, leaning on an elbow when Jack pushed through the unlatched door. The room was still dim from Rhys long post-surgery nap, the only light was the soft ambient glow an inset wall light ran across the whole north end of the room two feet up from the ground and the light from his computer monitor.

The younger man was dressed in a soft robe with the right sleeve removed so as to not impede his cybernetic arm. He didn’t seem to notice Jack’s entry and began typing again.

Jack strolled up behind him and bent forward to kiss him on the head, pushing his keyboard out of the way with the bowl.

Rhys looked up, brow furrowed, “Hey!” before his lips split into a sad smile as he took a closer look at the carefully presented ice cream sundae. “Jack,” he sighed the name out, low and full of fondness as he looked over the frozen treat before him with hungry eyes.

“You’re still supposed to be resting, doctor and mechanic’s orders. Come on. I made you a tiny Helios. Eat it,” He ordered before tacking on a “please.”

The cyborg’s smile didn’t meet his intentionally mismatched eyes. The new one was almost distractingly golden yellow. “I will… this looks amazing. Thank you.” The echo flashed intensely yellow a moment as he took a picture of the sundae before digging into Elpis with the spoon.”  

Jack leaned forward and looked at the computer screen to see what his partner was up to, “Dear Mr. and Mrs. Blah, I regret to inform you.” He looked down at Rhys, “Is this what you’re working on– Condolence letters for the survey team? Pumpkin, that’s… not work you need to be doing. We’ll have your assistant handle it.” He leaned forward and spun Rhys screen away to drive it out of his mind. “I know, you feel bad… that some people kinda… died… but they died protecting you sweetheart.”

“Why do you think I’m so upset?” Rhys replied a little louder than necessary, his frustration clear.

“That’s what I pay them to do!” Jack said, raising his voice to match Rhys’ before realizing that was probably uncalled for. “People die for me all the time. This is a rough industry… this isn’t teaching kindergarten… I mean… what do you expect?” He stood behind Rhys’ chair, carefully massaging his shoulders.

“I didn’t expect to feel so messed up about it!” He leaned forward and spun his screen back to face him. “But I do… and I’m not going to have an underling do this. I need to do it. No one’s ever died because of me before.”

Jack sighed, “Well… you always wanted to be in the big leagues and that’s how things work up at the top. I got a lot of enemies, cupcake, and Pandora isn’t a cake walk. These soldiers are the first but they are definitely not going to be the last to croak watching your back so you better make peace with that.”

Rhys sighed and bowed his head. He knew it was not what he wanted to hear but Jack preferred to tell him the things he needed to hear. “You warned me I wasn’t bringing enough security. I should have listened.”

“You’ll live longer yourself, listening to me, that’s for sure. Look… I guess, if you feel you need to do this, then do it… but not now. You’ve been through some traumatic stuff. You never forget the first time you almost got killed by insane people. Come and sit on the couch and eat ice cream. We can watch whatever movie you want to put on.”

Rhys  deliberated on it for a moment before he reached out to shut off the monitor. He braced a hand on the desk to rise and pick up his bowl. “Okay.”

They walked to the living room and Jack settled down on the end of his plush sectional couch and Rhys sat beside him, leaning into him just a little.

The younger man held the bowl with his metal hand and used the other to pick up one of the shortbreads. He ran it through the ice cream and sauce before biting it in half.

“Not even Zarpedork could destroy Helios like that.” Jack observed with a sly smile.

Rhys chuckled, “If you hadn’t made it so delicious this wouldn’t be a problem.”   

Jack’s chest felt tight and he noticed an ache there that he had not realized was present until now. His voice came out especially tight, “Rhys… I want you to know… I was really worried that I was going to lose you.” Generally, he went out of his way to avoid appearing vulnerable, even with Rhys. They had only been together just shy of a year and it was hard for a man like Jack to trust. If he showed any bit of his soft underbelly it only ever felt like an invitation for a knife.

Rhys ran the other half of the cookie across the ice cream and put it to Jack’s lips, “I’m sorry I scared you.” He wouldn’t meet Jack’s eyes.

Jack accepted the treat and chewed which gave him time to think about a reply. “It’s okay. We both… learned some junk from the whole mess, at least… right?”

“I definitely learned not to underestimate Pandora.” Rhys sighed, “What did you learn?”

Jack leaned in close and kissed Rhys on the side of his face with sweet and sticky lips. “I learned that I love you, you nerd.”

Rhys’ brows lifted sharply. Neither one had said the big “L” word yet– at least never in direct reference to each other. They had both stated that they loved any of a number of sexual positions and various parts of each other’s bodies, but never the whole person.

“You do?” Rhys seemed like he was skeptical of the concept.

“When they yanked your hardware and your vitals flatlined” he shook his head, haunted just by the memory, “I almost lost my mind– I couldn’t imagine waking up without you next to me. I haven’t felt like this about anybody in a long, long time. I like how you care about people… I like how you aren’t afraid to tell me off. I fricken’ love how smart and ambitious you are… how dedicated you are to your work. You paid for that robot arm out of your own pocket just so that you could be more badass at your job. You’re outstanding. You remind me of… me.”

Rhys set the ice cream aside nearby on the couch and shifted to put his arms around Jack. “I… “ He cleared his throat. “Are you sure you don’t regret… taking me on? I’m not as good at all of this as you. I almost got killed by shitty bandits. They didn’t even have a cool, imposing leader.”

Jack snorted, “Pumpkin… we work good together. You’re the ying to my yang.  The peanut butter to my chocolate. Remember when you stopped me from airlocking that one scientist and then he invented that grenade mod that is making mad money on the southern shelf?”

“Yeah… Doctor Bains.” Rhys reminded him, “You weren’t really happy I had an opinion on it at the time.” His jaw appeared tense.

It was difficult to not get distracted by his younger lover’s cheekbones. “You were right and I was glad I listened. So next time listen to me when I tell you to take more men- and when I say I love you. I don’t say things like that… lightly.”

Rhys sat up and lifted one leg to straddle both Jack’s. His robe fell open a bit wider, revealing more of his tattooed chest. “I… love you too, you know. You looked so damn heroic appearing in the doorway like that. Saving me in my darkest hour. I owe you a life debt. Let me pay you back.”

Every selfish fiber in Jack’s being told him to take Rhys and give it to him rough. Jack groaned faintly at the dilemma before becoming resolute, “As amazing as that sounds, I’m going to take a rain check.” His hands moved to Rhys’ hips. “You’re not supposed engaging in any vigorous activity.”

Rhys’ eyes rolled and he pressed his lips to Jack’s for a kiss. “Then do it less… vigorously… I don’t care.”

“You don’t care because you’re tripping on pain meds. Remember the brain surgery you just had, dum dum?” Smiling ruefully, he said, “Sit down and finish your ice cream. We’ll watch a movie.”

Rhys’ narrowed his eyes and his lips twisted into pure petulance. With a sigh he seemed to realize that he was, indeed not up for the action and leaned against Jack’s shoulder for a long moment. “Okay,” he agreed finally and eased back into his seat before picking up his bowl of ice cream. He set the bowl on his knee and used his robotic arm as a remote control to turn on a hilariously terrible movie they both loved.

“You had a hard couple of days… just let me take care of you until you’re feeling better.” Jack looped his arm around his partner. “You can thrill my dick when you’re feeling better.”

Rhys chuckled a little and said, “Okay. I absolutely promise I am going to knock your socks off… eventually.”

“Eventually.” Jack grinned.

When Rhys had finished his ice cream, Jack moved the bowl to the end table and put his arm around him while they watched the screen hero mow down endless soldiers in some sweltering jungle.

Before the big finale Rhys dozed off against Jack’s shoulder; snoring softly in medicated sleep.

Jack rose and carefully hefted Rhys up into his arms to carry him to bed. There was no reason to watch the end of the movie. He knew it by heart. The hero wins.

The hero always wins. 

#Borderlands #Handsome Jack #Rhys the Company Man #Rhys the CEO #Rhack #sfw #fic #no holiday theme #submission

[oodlyenough]

oodlyenough’s completely inexhaustive list of tftbl fic recs

So I mentioned the other day that because I have read Everything in the Borderlands AO3 tag, I was happy to compile a rec list. 

@auraofdawn had specifically asked for Rhys/Sasha and/or gen, but I added some others. I didn’t include any of my own fics, but fwiw I’ve written a number, usually either Rhys/Sasha as the focus or gen with Rhys/Sasha in the background. You can find mine on AO3 under the pen name thirty2flavors.

I wanted to be relatively detailed in the recs, so this is by no means exhaustive even of my personal faves, but it’s a starting point. Here’s a bunch of recs for:

Rhys/Sasha

Gen

Rhys/Fiona

Rhys/Vaughn

WIPs

Rhys/Sasha fics

For Luck by pagerunner 1.4k, teen Author’s summary: Rhys and Sasha share a little private moment before heading off to face the Traveler. Or in other words: Page indulges a few more of her romantic impulses, 'cause these two deserve it. Episode 5 interlude. Notes: I love this author’s stuff and this fic is so damn cute. Great characterization, great prose, adorable missing scene.

Different Worlds by kaletra7 5k, explicit Author summary: She slides the door a little further, and Rhys sees a naked shoulder and then an expanse of fluffy, cream towel. He, very nobly, stops himself from looking too closely, because she’s not holding the towel very tightly and there’s a slit (deliberate or not) that exposes a lot of thigh. There’s something in Sasha’s face that reads like a challenge. Like she’s daring him to approach, the way a predator might wait patiently for its prey to wander curiously into its trap. “Can you come in here for a minute?” Notes:  I honestly usually don’t really care for smut because it all kind of bleeds together and sounds the same, but I really liked this piece precisely because it avoids that by giving them both such vivid characterization and by using this as a way to explore their different backgrounds. Sweet and funny and sexy.

i really really really really really really like you by WoodenDuck 1.6k, teen Author’s summary: and I want you. do you want me? do you want me too? - carly rae jepsen, 2015 Notes: Adorable post-Vault first kiss fic. I think this was the first Rhys/Sasha fic I read? Endearingly awkward and believable dialogue from both of them. Plus: bonus art!

(Sasha Hates) Pet Names by melenafrey 4k, teen Author’s summary: Rhys is intent on finding a pet name for Sasha that the both of them can agree on. Sasha is skeptical that one such pet name even exists. Notes: Funny, fluffy and adorable. I like their teasing relationship in this and it’s always nice to see Rhys/Sasha from Sasha’s perspective. I think this is set in some kind of undefined non-Pandora AU.

Bad Egg by WoodenDuck 5k, teen Author’s summary: Rhys thinks about what he wants to do and who he wants to do it for while rolling around in the garbage and eating fried eggs.  Set during the Episode 3 road trip. Notes: I love episode 3 road trip fic. A sweet and funny excerpt from the getting-to-know-you stage.

Gen fics

The Pieces We Hide by pagerunner 7k, teen Author’s summary: No matter how many tales they may have told during their time in captivity, Rhys and Fiona didn't tell the Stranger--or each other--everything. Now, on the eve of their mission to rescue Gortys, Rhys decides there's a few more things about going back to Atlas that he wants Fiona to know. Notes: This is probably my favourite Borderlands fic full-stop. Love this piece. Fills in canon I wanted filled in, packs an emotional punch, great characterization, and juuust a couple hints of Rhys/Sasha to make me especially psyched. Love it.   Choices and Consequences by pagerunner 5.5k, teen Author’s summary: Rhys might be having second thoughts about getting those ECHO upgrades. And Vaughn might be getting nervous for a whole lot of reasons. It's time for these two to talk it through. Set pre-game, no particular spoilers. Notes: I adore this author’s writing and this is such a good take on Rhys making the questionable decision to get a bunch of cybernetics. Rhys and Vaughn are very well characterized and the prose flows so well.

Interim by MovingPen 2k, general Author’s summary: Raising the Children of Helios was no easy task. Notes: I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Rhys, Sasha and Fiona after Helios, and not much time thinking about Vaughn, and this fic did it for me. Great character study for Vaughn.

in my skin indigo blue by lucyrne 1.5k, general Author’s summary: Rhys shows off his tattoos to the group to prove that he’s cool. Takes place during the Episode 3 road trip montage. Vaughn isn’t paralyzed because I said so. Implied Rhysha, but mainly a fluffy, comedic gen fic. Notes: Hilarious group shenanigans.

The Pre-Teen’s Guide to Crime by clefairytea 6k, teen Author’s summary: “Fi?” “Mm?” “Are you happy like this?” Fiona turns to look at her, a strange look on her face. As though she’s looking at Sasha for the first time ever, and is surprised by what she sees. “I guess. I mean, I never thought about it. This is just what I am. A smart-alec who steals whatever’s not bolted down." -- Growing up on Pandora is complicated. Growing up on any planet is complicated, but Sasha thinks that most kids don’t grow up forging bank notes and running from the authorities. Notes: I literally haven’t even read this because I took one look and thought “this is going to be good, I am saving it for a rainy day” and uh haven’t gone back yet. (I like to hoard things, alright? My “marked for later” is a mess.) Plus I want to finish my own WIP fic about Sasha and Fiona before reading this  But Sasha and Fiona gen!!! My girls!

Of Choices and Their Repercussions by Banji 7k, mature Author’s summary: Hyperion always gets their property back, no matter what or who it is. Alternate events where the team gets apprehended by Hyperion at the Atlas Facility after assembling Gortys (with allusions to the 'Trust Fiona' outcome). Notes: Oh my god please read the author’s tags, this piece so dark, so much body horror and medical trauma/torture. There’s a lot of body horror in the game that kind of skims by unremarked on and this dives right in there and then some and, uh, nothing gets better. Well-written and super effectively skin-crawlingly horrible, if you’re up for it.

Rhys/Fiona

things you said when you thought i was asleep by gortysproject <1k, general Author’s summary: fiona internalises everything until rhys is asleep. Notes: A good look into Fiona’s head and all the stuff she isn’t saying while she and Rhys are with the Stranger.

Winging It by Claranonn 24k, mature Author’s summary: The Company Man and Con Artist open the Vault of the Traveler thinking their journey together has come to an end. Little do they know just how tied together they're about to become... A series of dialogue-only vignettes exploring Rhys and Fiona's relationship post-game. Notes: I haven’t finished reading this yet, just read a couple chapters before putting it aside to get back to, but the dialogue is funny and I literally can’t think of a ship better suited to “fake married” than Rhys/Fiona. It’s hilarious even to think about. Ready to Suffer, Ready to Hope by meltokio 5k, mature Author’s summary: A collection of complete Rhyiona garbage. Notes: It’s hard to describe but there’s an atmospheric feel to a lot of these that I like a lot. I also like the take on Fiona.

Rhys/Vaughn

Safe as anywhere by queerly_it_is 20k, explicit Author’s summary: Vaughn went through his entire first year and a half of college without going to places like this, except for maybe two or three incredibly awkward attempts to socialise in the first few weeks. He’s been just fine without trying it again since, thanks, but now here he is, for the second night this week, after the two times last week. After whole semesters of literally never leaving the campus. And why? A bright cry of, “You’re here!” flies out from behind the bar once he finally, minus a few compound fractures, reaches the front of the tidal wave of people. The words hit him a split-second before Rhys’ neon grin, and Rhys’ floppy hair, and Rhys’ shirt with the sleeve cut off around his cybernetic arm and the collar stretched down enough to show the beginnings of the tattoos on his chest, the whole handkerchief’s worth of fabric generally clinging obscenely to his body. Right. Notes: The fact that I super enjoyed reading a 20k College AU about a ship that isn’t even my favourite is a good indication of the author’s talent for writing. Really good prose, good characterization, good world-building within the AU, and for once it being a Rhys/Vaughn AU wasn’t an excuse to have no mention of Sasha and Fiona. Hooray!

Taking Back Hope by fleurdeliser, ohnoktcsk, tuesdaysgone    16k, explicit Authors’ summary: The first message comes while he’s in the middle of calibrating the laser on one of his latest guns. He ignores it until he’s done, then straightens, holding out his palm and reading the message that comes up on the holoscreen. ‘Helios remembers and so will you.’ Notes: Rhys/Vaughn is the core relationship here but the whole ensemble shows up and they’re all well written which I really appreciate. Plus kidnapping/rescuing drama, everyone’s fave!

WIPs Down the Skag Hole by ShepardCommander 6.5k, 3 chapters and counting, teen Author’s summary: Rhys and Fiona are gone. Sasha and Vaughn are not. Now the kid sister and the best friend must work together if they ever want to see their sister/friend and best friend/boyfriend(?) ever again and become that which they never thought they would or could-Vault Hunters. Notes: Love this characterization of Sasha in particular, especially immediately after Rhys and Fiona disappear. Action and emotional drama and this fic seems to have gone woefully unnoticed. Should Have Said by spectre_anon 16k, 8 chapters and counting, teen Author’s summary:  He should have told her. Could have, anytime... all those opportunities he's shied away from now far beyond his reach... and here he was, hands tight around Fiona's throat while Sasha shrieked in the background. And he couldn't say anything. Couldn't let them know it wasn't him, couldn't tell them he was sorry, that he screwed up... all he could do was scream in his own head while Jack laughed. (Rhys never told Fiona and Sasha about Jack. Now he's paying the price for that mistake.) Notes: All the melodramatic Jack-takes-over-Rhys drama you could want. This is the kind of scenario that I’m more or less happy we didn’t have in the game but also totally eager to explore in fic, and this iteration was a good one. Obviously, angst and tension and melodrama ahoy. Strong characterization for everyone and I think the author does a good job of making the main cast sympathetic even if they are making some poor decisions. Oh pineapples, what have you done?

Not a Maniac by Mindful Wrath -- this one is officially discontinued 25k, 11 chapters and discontinued, rated as teen but imo probably mature Author’s summary: Rhys had expected consequences for turning down Handsome Jack's offer to rule the universe side-by-side. Just . . . not these consequences. Fiona had expected Rhys to double-cross them. Just . . . not like this. Notes: So this one is officially discontinued and I haven’t even actually finished reading all of it yet because knowing it’s discontinued means I’ve been slowly parcelling it out, but I’ve liked what I’ve read, which is maybe 3/4. This is the, uh, extra dark iteration of the “Jack controlling Rhys” ep 4 scenario, so, angst angst angst, but well-characterized gutwrenching angst. The real stand-out in this fic for me was probably the ways Sasha and Fiona were written; they don’t respond identically to things and I loved them both. Various trigger warnings, check the author’s tags on AO3.

#auraofdawn #fic recs #tales from the borderlands #valoscope #i think you were also interested in this lol

[terramythos]

Thoughts/reactions master post for October Daye #13 “The Unkindest Tide” or "major deja vu" 

Excellent Start: it fuckin opens with The Luidaeg showing up and dumping a bunch of lore

-There are some things to unpack here after thinking on it. The Roane predicted that Toby would bring them back. We knew already that they were seers and could predict the future. But this implies they did not predict their savior being Toby SPECIFICALLY, just someone from Amandine's line.

This is interesting for a couple reasons. First, it's a solid explanation for why The Luidaeg, the oldest and one of (if not the) most powerful Firstborn took interest in Toby, who's a changeling and thus beneath the notice of most of Faerie. On a related note, it's also an explanation on why Amandine was so keen on turning Toby into a human. The character who prevented this happening was, no surprise, The Luidaeg.

But while it appears Toby will indeed fulfill this prophecy, it's been implied if not outright stated that Amandine's line is also prophesied (probably by the Roane) to bring back Oberon. This is a wild guess, but I feel it makes more narrative sense and would be an interesting twist if we set Toby up to fulfill that prophecy, only to ultimately have August (or both of them as a team) do it. I'm pretty sure August is redeemable, unlike Amandine, and her character arc so far is based on trying to bring Oberon back and FAILING, so...

-I could be reading too much into this, but hey. I do think I should go back and read (1) The Luidaeg's short story where she confronts Amandine and (2) the scenes in book 5 where Toby talks to one of the few surviving Roane. Said Roane predicts Connor's death, but she says so much cryptic shit there may be something else hidden there relating to this.

...OH. OK. You know that makes a lot more sense. All the setup for this (which has been going on since book 5 lmfao) pointed to The Luidaeg being morally questionable and possibly evil in this one but like, this is way more in line with her character lmfao

Though I guess theres plenty that's morally questionable about forcing an entire race of people to turn into another one whether they like it or not

-Side note: The Luidaeg and Quentin's friendship remains adorable

-Gillian's magical signature is officially fennel and primroses.

-OK but like, we have to approach the fact that Gillain's skin is still basically sentient in some way? Like Firtha's consciousness is a big part of the short story. And can glean from that that the others probably have something to them. So uh, what happens to the souls (if you can call them that) when we fuse the skins to the Selkies?

New Firstborn?? New Firstborn! New Firstborn.

-ok so like correct me if I'm wrong but practically every Firstborn we met has been female. I think the only dude we've met is Blind Michael, who was a basket of crazy and Decisively Killed Off in book 3. Otherwise we've got The Luidaeg, Evening, Amandine, Acacia, and now Captain Pete.

The Luidaeg is such a fascinating character. One of my favorites from literally anything. This scene really exemplifies why I think. Seemingly cruel yet compassionate, coping with horrific tragedy, yet also a supernatural and terrifying monster. SORT OF. it’s complicated

-There's a scene after this where she verbally takes down an adult man, then is so kind and patient to a child who approaches her. And that contrast really hits. She has been consistently kind and protective of children through the whole series. It makes it more brutal when she says she doesnt even like them much because she misses having her own, and you know she can't lie. She's kind to kids because it is the right thing to so.

-Shit goes down in a bad way (seemingly unrelated to the main premise?). Like Dianda gets kidnapped by her evil brother whom we have not met before

SIMON TORQUILL REDEMPTION ARC IN THE FUTURE...... 2!

-Not to be rude October but like, werent you already planning to rescue Simon ANYWAY. That one's basically the freebie of those 3 favors you just promised

-ok I'm writing this part WAY LATER cause my dumb ass forgot that Simon returning is CONTINGENT upon bringing Oberon back and now this line makes way more sense. 

-little lore tidbit on why it's so easy to transform October and not the other characters... its the whole Tam Lin thing we figured out last book. Guess that should have been obvious

Not to be het rights on main but oh my god. Oh my fucking shit oh my god. (Its not really het rights cause tybalt is bi but oh my god holy shit)

-I am laughing at the fact this is a tense moment with lives on the line and an obvious time limit and Toby and Tybalt just go "time to make out a little in front of everyone"

-Lmao right after I typed that the Luidaeg basically said the same thing

-lmaoo she fuckin slices Tybalt's finger for his part of the spell then just does a tiny pinprick for Quentin because she likes him more 

-random interlude in the Undersea where toby rescues Peter

Ok Quentin's reaction here is funny

This scene's got a little bit of everything

Explanation on why Gillian can talk to her skin, since it's a "lost" one and hasn't been worn much. Also sort of an explanation for the Luidaeg calling the skins by name.

-anyway it's pretty obvious that Dianda's brother is the one behind Isla's murder, right? Like, why else introduce him at this point

-"maybe sending The Luidaeg to find Pete has been the wrong call" I'm starting to feel that way to be honest

-Yeah Torin being responsible is confirmed. There’s a scene where Toby gets badly injured and it’s borderline torture porn, which seems to happen once a book now. There is a cute somewhat angsty scene with her and Tybalt, which is always fun.

-There's some fun bits when they take down Torin but nothing particularly noteworthy. The interactions with Pete and The Luidaeg are fun when both return to the scene. I'm trying real hard to like Gillian but she's been pretty ineffectual this book, and every time she shows up it seems to be whining about Toby, which is a shame.

Luidaeg feels and The Moral, which is pretty good! Found family is a reliable weak point of mine.

-They do find an alternate solution (splitting the “dead” skins), and everyone who wants a Selkie skin gets it. They also let some of them stay Selkies for a few more years, but most get turned into Roane. And happy Luidaeg! 

-Though the whole “Gillian has a sentient selkie skin” is not addressed again and she’s the first one who gets turned. did Firtha/her ghost just get annihilated from existence? i don’t know man 

-Overall I'm pretty lukewarm over this entry. Like Once Broken Faith, it feels like a book made to Address a Big Lore Change but doesn’t have a solid conflict to support it. Torin is some one-off Merrow dude i’m pretty sure is never mentioned until he suddenly shows up and is the bad guy here, and the whole kidnapping Dianda and long interlude in the middle where they go to the Undersea to rescue Peter seems just... really random, considering the setting (Duchy of Ships) and the Selkies are supposed to be the center of the story.  

Nothing wrong with one-off villains, but ones like Blind Michael and Rhys were way more memorable/interesting than Torin. This just felt way too much like the randos from Once Broken Faith who were just villains cause someone had to be. can’t even remember their names or their motivations 

It's a shame cause there are some things I did really like in this novel. There’s some good character development. Captain Pete was cool (even if the conclusion basically writes her back out of the story). But imo this book should be a big Luidaeg entry and she's absent for like 70 percent of the book, which doesn’t help 

I guess what I'm saying is this would have been fine as a novella if there wasn’t a big novel-defining conflict to use. January’s resurrection was done in a novella and that’s pretty damn major, Lore-wise. 

I cant complain too much, cause the last 2 books knocked it out of the park. But I hope the next one feels more relevant.

-One thing I do want to mention (which I didn’t picture anywhere) is there is a lot of cryptic shit in this entry surrounding... Marcia of all people? Captain Pete and The Luidaeg both seem inordinately interested in her. And she seems very nervous when they speak to her and ask her questions and says a bunch of weird cryptic shit. I think this is setting up for something with her, but I’m not sure what. We basically know none of her backstory, which is unusual for a character who’s been in the series since book 1, so it wouldn’t be out of place to explore her more. I do think there’s something up with her birth/heritage. We know she’s a mostly human changeling (like only 1/4 fae?) but she’s very involved in the fae stuff, which is unusual. We don’t even know what the 1/4 is and the main character is literally a bloodhound for that sort of thing. 

-Anyway, there’s a novella at the end of this one called "Hope is Swift" starring Raj. So we'll see how that is!

-I like it so far. Lots of Cait Sidhe lore. The premise is that Raj gets hit by a car in cat form and then taken in by a vet and mistaken for an actual cat. There's also a they/them nb side character named Cal. 

-Overall I did enjoy the novella. Not a lot goes down but there’s good Cait Sidhe lore and character development for Raj. We also got to formally meet Ginerva, who was a character in name only to this point. I liked it more than the base novel i think 

-and not to drive more on my point in previous reads but BLIND MICHAEL. IS MENTIONED A LOT. mostly re: trauma and recovery, which is nice, but still. 

-I hope book 14 throws us back into the meat of the story. i mean, 10 was probably the weakest entry but it was surrounded by good ones, and since this one was preceeded by 2 of the best books in the series i hope the pattern stays true 

[freebetalerts-blog]

League Two Betting: Back Mansfield to end Carlisle's great run

(New post on FreeBetAlerts.com) - https://freebetalerts.com/2019/01/04/league-two-betting-back-mansfield-to-end-carlisles-great-run/ #Football, #Freebets, #Tips

League Two Betting: Back Mansfield to end Carlisle's great run Please share.

David Flitcroft’s automatic promotion hopefuls are likely to overpower John Sheridan’s pretenders, as long as their strikers stay, says Ian Lamont, who tips Morecambe to win at home…

Stags’ strike duo can blunt CumbriansCarlisle [3.2] v Mansfield [2.34]; the draw [3.6]If you are looking for a cracker away from the FA Cup third round this weekend, look no further than Brunton Park, where a pair of League Two’s most in-form teams collide.The Stags are unbeaten in 17 games – a remarkable run in any division. They have 14 points from the six-game table on which I place a fair amount of stall. Carlisle, however, sit one place above them on top of that table, on 15 points.John Sheridan’s men have really got it together in the past month or so, their only defeat in that time an excusable loss to Milton Keynes, who are many people’s favourites to win the division.The Cumbrians have thrown in plenty of goals since that early December defeat, but had hinted at doing so when thrashing Swindon 4-0. Another came along against Colchester, a side who shouldn’t be suffering losses of that magnitude, and then there was that 6-0 mauling of Oldham. Jamie Devitt and Hallam Hope have continued to help Carlisle push into the top seven – and how bunched it looks. Three more points and they could leapfrog Mansfield into third – but only if they won by four goals! I think, however, that even recent scorers Jerry Yates and Jack Sowerby will have quite a bit of difficulty breaking down the Stags’ defence as easily as they did Oldham’s.Danny Grainger, another semi-regular scorer, will probably be too busy at the other end, with Anthony Gerrard and Gary Liddle, against Mansfield’s midfield. Another clean sheet, to add to three in their past six games, will be needed here to win.However, it’s going to be a tall order to overcome David Flitcroft’s men, who have three clean sheets as well in that time, but who have also only conceded three in that time, too. One at a time.In fact, in their unbeaten run, there were only two games in which they conceded more than one. They were both 2-2 draws, at Bury and Cheltenham. Ten goals in 17 games is pretty good going. They don’t always seem to be guaranteed to bang in goals though, netting 26.The key task now for Flitcroft is to hold on to Tyler Walker, on loan from Nottingham Forest, for the rest of the season. He’s scored 11 league goals (three of their last five, add Opta) and CJ Hamilton, next best, only has five but is highly rated, with Preston reported to have had a £750,000 bid rejected. If Walker and Hamilton are still around on Saturday (and the tip is made on the basis that they are), it could be the day that Carlisle’s unbeaten run ends, as the visitors improve on the Opta stat that they have won just once in five trips to their hosts.Expect goals as Robins make feathers flyCrawley [2.9] v Cheltenham [2.66]; the draw [3.6]It sounds like Joe Maguire is really enjoying his time on loan at Crawley from Fleetwood. The defender has opted to extend his deal.Back in mid-October, the 22-year-old praised manager Gabriele Cioffi, saying the players were learning “so much” under him. That was after five straight home wins.After their subsequent poor run of form, it is easy to wonder if the Reds have stopped listening to their esteemed leader! Mind you, defeating Colchester on New Year’s Day made an impressive statement. The U’s might not have great away form, but they are making a strong battle for automatic promotion.Victory also allowed Crawley to cast out a winless December run from their minds (a goalless point at Newport last weekend was all they had to show for a dreadful month).More impressively still, the Reds (and Luke Gambin) netted both their goals in the second half, having played since the 32nd minute with 10 men after Joe McNerney’s dismissal.Defender Mark Connolly praised their character, and hard work over Christmas, in putting their poor run to bed. And now they have one of non-league’s most prolific recent goalscorers, Hendon’s Ricky German, who will be eager to impress. Previously with Chesterfield in League One, he didn’t scored in one start and eight substitute appearances for the Spireites, so the 19-year-old will be keen to make his mark and prove he is now league quality.So can they overcome the Robins? Michael Duff’s men have improved of late, with one defeat in 10 games (three wins and three draws in their last six) with three wins and three draws in six, and in fact one defeat in 11. In their previous 10, they had one win and three draws.Duff says the early transfer window will be a busy few days. A couple have gone back to their parent clubs, while striker Manny Duku has returned from his spell at Barnet and Bristol City’s Cameron Pring, 20, who came through Cheltenham’s youth system, has returned on loan.The visitors have been scoring, too. In those past 10 games, they have netted 21 times, mostly two or more per game. They’ve conceded 14 too, so there should be plenty of goals at the Broadfield on Saturday.With Alex Addai earning praise in recent times for creating chances, Luke Varney and Conor Thomas have been able to concentrate on scoring in consecutive matches. Tyrone Barnett must wish he can rekindle the half season he spent at Crawley in their first League Two season.Crawley will do well to continue their revival here but they could well earn a draw. Opta reminds us that this fixture ended 5-3 to the visitors last season, and I think there should be goals again – over 3.5 goals is the pick at [3.6], with the visitors making much of the initial running. Maybe the high-scoring wager is the main bet here, but the game finishing a point apiece seems equally possible in a draw-strewn division. Shrimps can take advantage of Crewe’s away woesMorecambe [2.9] v Crewe [2.74]; the draw [3.4] Crewe are a mystery at the best of times, with David Artell striking me as someone who spends a lot of time not being able to put his finger on problems. They must “pray” about Paul Green’s injury, for example, after the midfielder came off against Bury with a recurrence of a knee injury.He strikes me as a grafter, though, who will find answers eventually. I think that sums up Crewe’s patchy form – with no goals for three games running, then two clean sheet victories, one of them over Lincoln, and a defeat.Bury boss Ryan Lowe accused Crewe of trying to “spoil the party” on New Year’s Day, which was more about ruining the Shakers’ home form rather than anything nasty about their opponents. Chris Porter scored for the visitors, who only have one away win this season.Jordan Bowery might be suiting his new role out wide, but Morecambe have their own specialist wing man in Kevin Ellison and will most definitely be looking on this as a chance to pick up points.They haven’t scored in two matches, and need to find the magic they found to defeat Cambridge 3-0 and draw 2-2 with Port Vale, when A-Jay Leitch-Smith scored the last of his six goals. Rhys Oates could do with finding the net again, too. Shrimps boss Jim Bentley is now looking for January bargains, especially after not renewing 37-year-old winger Garry Thompson’s contract. The stats men at Opta say that Crewe have won three of their last four trips to Morecambe, with a 0-0 draw in January 2017 the exception. Their current away record counts against them, however, and Opta add killer stats that they have lost five on the bounce on their travels, netting the fewest number of goals (four) in the entire English Football League in the process.

P/L 2018-19 +14.32pt

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