#gun barrel sequences

[atomic-chronoscaph]

James Bond gun barrel sequences: 1. Sean Connery - Thunderball (1965); 2. George Lazenby - On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969); 3. Roger Moore - The Spy Who Loved Me (1977); 4. Timothy Dalton - Licence to Kill (1989); 5. Pierce Brosnan - Tomorrow Never Dies (1997); 6. Daniel Craig - Spectre (2015)

[hatsukeii]

I think I'll be singing Velvet Ring on a microphone beaded with 'ex lovers' stickers and 'longing looks' beads. I've heard that Ushijima likes my music quite a bit~

too easy. the band you’ve joined is…

exes in my phone book / timeskip!ushijima wakatoshi x reader

genre(s): ex lovers to something?? something i guess?? pining, reminiscing, nostalgia fic tbh but ANGST ANGSTY ANGST WOO interpret the ending as you like because i kept it open for a reason

warning(s): slightly dysfunctional relationship dynamics kinda, lowkey suggestive at points, ushiwaka and reader were just young and stupid and in love but they couldn't seem to navigate it yknow, everything is also like somewhat/pretty ambiguous until the end but that's just how i like it

wc: ~1.7k

your first gig is… at a concert with your ex?!?!

setlist:

🎵velvet rings, big thief

🎵mayonaise, the smashing pumpkins

🎵black star, radiohead

There is a girl on a stage, who strums a pick through the strings of her acoustic guitar. A girl, whose lips hover just above the microphone that sits in a bracket, sighing into the cool metal for a final song. The people beside you have settled down, cheers and jumps reduced to swaying and mumbling.

You've been waiting for this song, haven't you?

The song strikes the ears first. The girl on stage, illuminated by a cone of light from above, sings of a night, thicker than a smoky fume. You mouth along to the lyrics, and your mind wanders to a place where your lungs are bloated, too full to carry anything more. A night beneath a buzzing streetlight, gravel that rolls and scrapes under the sweeping wind, ants that crawl onto the toecaps, under the soles, along the platforms of your unmoving shoes. A night of final breaths, and final words, and final sorrows. You're looking at the ground, your shadow muddied with the figure of another. You don't think he stares back at you. The ants keep crawling. They don't stop, even as you pivot away and leave your heart buried in the ground. The streetlight doesn't reach it again, but maybe it reaches his, still.

The faces around you hum along to a sequence, sway with the velvety strums of the girl's guitar, hold others tight against themselves. You stand alone amongst the crowd. You move when the rest of them will you to, only ever mouth to the lyrics, hold your hands close to your chest. You fear that your voice will give out if you try anything more.

"She's a beautiful performer, isn't she?"

The crowd does not shift their attention from the girl on the stage, so neither do you. She sings in gentle syllables of love, her heart pours out of her mouth. She longs for some fictitious persona, Ben, as her fingers play at the guitar like tugging the strings of a puppet. When you open your mouth, your heart is not there.

"She is. She really is." You respond to nothing but a sultry voice that finds its way into your ear canals.

The girl sings of a smoking gun, smoke that fizzles out from the barrel into night air, a bullet that falters at the end of its path to nothing in particular, a love that, for many nights before this, has begun to run dry. It's agonising, taunting, hopeful. It dies out in unanswered phone calls, drafted emails, text messages left unsent, collecting dust in a note-taking application. Words that ask a million questions.

Could we keep this going?

Is this really for the better?

Can't we try?

Why won't you just let me try?

"Why aren't you singing? It's the last song." The voice is anomalous amongst the crowd's united silence, his question stands out from those unsaid. He is too curious, yet for some selfish, twisted reason, you wish to indulge yourself. Wallow in sorrow. Take somebody else's beating heart to replace your own, that you buried beneath asphalt on a winter night of unasked questions turned two years of unspoken longing.

"For the same reason that you aren't, I'd assume." You silently hope he asks you for more.

The person huffs out a sigh, a short sigh that one lets out when they smile in defeat and surrender. He's close, his arm touching your own when he moves side to side with the crowd. His movement wills you to sway along. The girl on the stage sings of a gentle love, thick like a velvet ring. All encompassing, all powerful.

“Well, I once knew a person who loved this song.” He goes on. You stay silent, ears trained onto the words that paint golden silk and shimmering mist into the concert hall. A portrait of love that you have prayed to see once again, just out of grasp, but real enough to graze your fingers over. It sinks into your fingertips, takes you to a place where your hands could draw lines into tanned skin, hold onto a pair of strong arms, clasp together behind his broad shoulders. Beneath your feet, it travels to your ankles, wraps around your thighs, envelops you in a shroud of warmth. It comes in the form of his head laid in your lap after a long day, I love you mumbled into the flesh of your stomach in shaky sighs, calluses that roam every spot of skin on your body.

"Love really is a gentle thing, isn't it?" The lyrics are spoken out of your mouth naturally, like water running downstream in a creek. The person stays silent, you do the same. The girl's singing pierces through your ears to your throat, clawing at it as if to break it open and rescue something. He speaks before something can escape you.

"I haven't spoken to them since I left. Love is anything but gentle."

You wince, the girl's singing finally ripping through your windpipe. It doesn't stop there, to your surprise. It drills through to its final destination, and you grab the fabric of your shirt around your heart. You don't fully know the answer to your own question, but you believe in his despair. If love truly is gentle, it would have exited your chest when you screamed your throat hoarse for him to stay. It would have eased the pain, somehow. It would have sent your heart out to him even as he stood amongst giants, leagues greater than you. It would have sewn together your words, strung them into poems beautiful enough for him to say yes, I'll stay. I'll stay if you want, and I'll go if you want. Instead, you watch him on television every night, highlight reels, live volleyball matches. He left. You did not want him to.

"I haven't spoken to him since either. But I still think love is gentle. The painful kind."

The final chords of the song round off the set. The girl bows, and exits stage left. The crowd begins to loosen, yet the person's arm remains beside yours.

"Do you ever miss it?"

His number is still in your contacts. You struggle every night to hold off on pressing it. Your heart aches, and lights come on. You stare at an empty stage, and you envision yourself on it. Thousands of eyes watch you sing the song, yet you search the crowd for one pair only. You sing the words that you had once shown your love, a love that found you despite his duties, regardless of his glory, amidst his passion. You sing like you are begging for him to see you through the television, and turn around so the name Ushijima bares his face to you instead of his back. You cry out a story of a dying love, hanging onto frayed strings of memories and fear. The singing contorts into screaming at an empty crowd, as if your resolve could make Ushijima Wakatoshi find you again. You pretend to be his hands, hold yourself in your sleep. You hear his voice in your bed, on the streets, in front of you, behind you, beside you, even right here. You will never learn the lips of anyone else, not after his have taken you for himself. They feel like poison now, sinking into your veins from every part of your body that you inhibit. A poison that forces him into every corner of your life, and you are a fool enough to almost see him there.

"I want it gone, and I miss it all the same." You're crying now, and even your tears remind you of the love that taught you of its cruelty. You imagine a day when you wear another's ring on your finger, only to look up and see a blank face. There is no other.

"I think you should give him a call."

"I can't. I'd just hold him back."

"That's not true." His voice cracks, and his rebuttal is desperate, almost apologetic.

You turn to bid him farewell.

Ushijima is almost no different from how he was two years ago. But he's a little older now, a little taller too. His hair is the same olive green that used to run smooth between the webs of your hands. His voice is deep, rounder than it once was when he used to nip your earlobe and mutter professions of his love into your ear. You stare, but you don't know that he has been staring since halfway through the concert. You aren't seeing him through a television, he is no longer clad in a Schweiden Adlers jersey, his last name bears no weight here, in the space between the two of you. The days, and months, and years spent together come rushing into your head. A kiss on the forehead before separation, two pairs of feet running in wet sand that crumbles beneath their weight, sharing lunches in the silence of school rooftops, lips roaming every inch of each other on nights of longing. You, and Ushijima, and the pleads that lose their bodies when they fall back from your mouths and into your chests.

"Please, give me a call. Or a text. Or an email, I don't care. Just anything. I'm sorry."

"Goodbye, Ushijima."

You turn to leave, but you pull your phone out of your pocket to stare at his name in your contacts.

Ushijima watches your shrinking figure, all of his love trailing behind you, fading into smoke.

Your finger hovers above the red button that could end it all.

He can't seem to move, rooted into the ground of the now mostly empty concert hall. You are slipping away again, and he has learned from his mistake. He questions whether he's learned it a bit too late.

You turn off your phone, and shove it back into your pocket. He receives a text.

"I just want to take you home again."

author's note:

my sister gave me this idea a while ago and i just knew i had to make it so angsty sorry LOL she wanted a fluff ending but im the one with the document open so i can do what i WANT!! no i am actually very proud of this piece though and idk if this will get ANY exposure or interactions but just know that i really really loved writing this one

i also fear i lowkey forgot about longing looks and just went straight for longing…

also! song lyric references! if you catch them i'll give you a big fat kiss i love my music so much

anyways tags!!

@staraxiaa @catsoupki @chuuya-brainrot @hiraethwa @fiannee @bailey-reeds @4ngelfries @akaakeis @wyrcan @kuroppiii @zzwon

interested in joining a band? come on over to the build-a-band 900 !!

[leanuponmybar]

I JUST SAW STARLIGHT LONDON AND I HAVE THOUGHTS SPOILERS AHEAD

ACT 1:

There’s whistle sounds playing in the house and stop lights scattered around the set when you walk in

The coaches except Pearl make their entrance during the end of rolling stock

Belle's the one that leads I am me

In one rock and roll, greaseball, electra and slick have their own solo portions starting with greaseball

Controls onstage more (during I am me, starlight express, and others)

He makes pearls choice for her (annoyed with her indecisiveness

Rusty and momma’s backpacks actually smoke

“Get out of my way” gb’s goes through the center track onto the stage for her entrance

the other racers bully pearl a little bit after her introduction and the other coaches tell them to stop

During ac/dc, Electra and the components have silver inflatable lightning bolts that come out of their backpacks (idk if I like this, they switch to regular backpacks after the number)

During the dance break during pumping iron, gb holds a prop gun that shoots sparks

A slower version of crazy is sung in its original spot

ACT 2:

Before the final race, greaseball, Electra and later Rusty get fueled up with diesel, electricity, and hydrogen

one of the other racers was connecting a cable thats connected to a barrel of diesel fuel and electra put both of their hands on two conductors of electricity from a barrel of electric fuel

Slick uses 2018! Caboose element of crashing for money

There’s 2 new lyrics in uncoupled, one about being left on the shelf and I don’t remember the first one

belle and tassita have little interjections in the first couple lines of uncoupled (more in a reaction type of way to the things dinah's saying)

Dinah sings in a British accent except for one line in uncoupled

Control brings out a tissue box and hands a tissue to Dinah during uncoupled

Control comforts Rusty before starlight sequence

Lights appear and hang over the audience during starlight sequence

When Electra picks Dinah and Pearl to race with them, there’s a lighting effect that surrounds Dinah and Pearl, freezing them

Dinah seems controlled by Electra during their race (in some sort of daze)

no GreaseDinah kiss but she does give her support and a thumbs up while clapping

During I do, control held the train that represents Rusty from the set, moves around a little, goes in between Rusty and Pearl and goes offstage

during starlight express, make up my heart, and starlight sequence, the planets fly down above the stage

Light end with mama hugging control in the center

There’s a trophy that control gives to Rusty during Long live Rusty

GENERAL:

The screens in the back keep track of who’s in which heat and the race standings

More of the trains acknowledge control (ex gb pushes them out of the way at her entrance)

There’s a turn table that’s used in different points during the show such as freight and I do and the middle part of the stage raises up in ac/dc and other numbers

Hydra has a small vocal echo effect (idk if it’s for the whole show tho. I just heard it during the bits of his song in act 1 and during freight)

There’s fire effects in songs like wide smile and freight

this is all the notes I quickly took down during intermission and on the way back to my hotel. If any of you have seen the show and I’m missing something, feel free to sound off in the comments/tags!

Overall I had the time of my life, Al knott serves so much cunt and I love train lesbians

[anarchic-miscellany]

Reading "One Piece" for the First Time, Part 11: So our gang are hanging out in "every town from an evil Western" ever, and I should be annoyed that the author has put Meme in Progress and Giga Chad to sleep, but... Actually I am a bit annoyed, they're great.

To the surprise of only The Idiot, this town of obviously suspiciously evil people led by a man with a violently dreadful haircut are kind of evil. But this is all a simple excuse to have The Himbo do his thing, and stretch his legs a little. A fair bit of it is "edgy shonen protagonist" stuff, but there's a zany, wacky little sequence involving a ladder straight out of a Buster Keaton movie, so that's always a plus from me, and the art has much improved this time: the author has gotten much better at drawing lunacy. I look forward to when he gives screentime to anyone who isn't the Himbo and the Idiot.

Then he has to go and fucking ruin it by bringing back The Idiot, to do whatever the fuck this bimbling barrel of buffoonery does. The joke could have been great, have him waking up to find that the town of murderous evil-doers are dead, and The Himbo just smoking a cigarette, looking to his freshly fucked blade and going "Was it good for you too?" but alas they hate my brilliant ideas, so we have this.

The gruesome twosome have another Shonen-y fight with some more weirdos, and an utterly bizarre bit where the Idiot is briefly annoyed by The Himbo apparently murdering people: my guy, those blades don't have fucking safety wheels on. Would you be annoyed at The Giga Chad for cooking carrots or Pat Sharp for being a DJ, would you? Stupid question, this character's a fucking moron.

The Cartographer with a brain cell shakes them out of it, as this is all a way to introduce what I assume are our actual villains "The Baroque Works", which seems superfluous since every motherfucker they've tusseled with has had hair like a Dutch Cathedral and outfits like a T-shirt cannon loaded with the wardrobe from "The Fifth Element". Still, the leader is named "Crocodile", and oh god I hope they fight a crocodile. OH I HOPE THE GIGA CHAD EATS A CROCODILE. He'd better eat a crocodile, Ohda, I swear to all that is holy!

Not as much to annoy me in this chapter (no fucking Dracule Mihawk, thank fucking Christ) aside from the giant duck being ready to kill The Idiot but suddenly decided to ride in the different direction because it being infected by his stupidity is the only reason the author could come up with to write his moron out of a corner.

But it didn't annoy me that much. I just want more of Giga Chad, Meme in Progress and the Cartographer with a Brain Cell. It's like dinner with an 8 year old: "No, you can't have more morons until you'd spent time with the current crop of idiots! Now finish your Giga Chad and Meme in Progress!"

The plot about a princess revolution is going to get dropped faster than that cowboy manga I read from this guy's nonce teacher ("Gun Blaze West" sucks so hard guys), so at least they're making progress in the plot...

They're now chatting to a Rodeo Stripper, and really guys? A bit of a step down from otters and duck-riding princesses and men with curly hair cannons in this town alone.

I'm down for Rodeo Strippers though, cowboys and Westerns are my jam.

[chronicallysilly2001]

Backlog Entry #2

I Am Your Beast Completed: 10/27/2024 Playtime: 13 Hours Platform: PC Score: 9/10 Completion: 100%

“Because you’re my friend, babe.”

In their pursuit to create a new classic in the speedrun FPS genre, Strange Scaffold unintentionally wrote one of the greatest yaoi love stories to date.

I Am Your Beast is a high-octane, stylistic shooter reminiscent of Neon White and Hotline Miami. It uses a throw-and-swap gameplay style that keeps the action moving at a breakneck pace from start to finish. After taking out an enemy, you can pick up their weapon and throw it at any point to stun another enemy. This core concept is pushed to its limits near the end, where players may perform a sequence like leaping down from above for a drop takedown, picking up that soldiers knife, throwing it at an explosive barrel to take out a squad, catching one of their guns mid-air, and headshotting the last grunt. It’s moments like these where I Am Your Beast truly shines. Most of the 37 levels are time-attack challenges, with a few miscellaneous levels mixed in. While none of these misc levels felt like a chore, they never quite reached the excitement of chasing those time-attack S-ranks. One of the most underrated aspects of this game, which I haven’t heard enough praise for, is its unique scoring system. In most games, the fastest way to beat a level is to run straight to the end, ignoring all the enemies. But in IAYB, there’s a countdown timer that starts at S rank and decreases to A, B, C, and so on. If you run past all the enemies to reach the end of the level, it’s impossible to meet the time requirement for an S-rank. However, you can subtract time from your score by defeating enemies in specific ways—the more stylish, the greater the time bonus. By requiring players to earn time bonuses through stylish play, the game makes combat feel both rewarding and essential, rather than something to bypass. Achieving S-ranks demands this approach, and you can even gain such a large time bonus that your score turns negative. Grinding for these negative scores is where most of the replay value comes from, especially considering Strange Scaffold made the baffling decision not to include a leaderboard in their time-attack game.

The story follows a standard plot— a retired hitman is called out of retirement for one last job. It’s nothing to write home about, but the charming characters and unique presentation made it enjoyable enough to keep me interested in seeing where the story goes.

The last thing of note is the blood-pumping soundtrack by RJ Lake. The heavy bass of the OST blasting through my ears kept me going as I flew through levels, resetting over and over to shave seconds off my time. The soundtrack washes over you until you’re no longer conscious of your actions, moving purely on instinct.

[rwby-encrusted-blog]

Jaune: Okay, Why are you making me fire the rail gun?

Ruby: It's a Coil or Gauss Rifle. Not a rail gun.

Jaune: What's the difference?

Ruby: Coil/Gauss mechanisms have, as the name implies, coils that go along the barrel - not a single thread coiling along, but many separate sets of coils. The coils engage in sequence as the projectile travels along the barrel, which is controlled by a computer system.

Ruby: Railguns use electrified Rails on either side of the barrel, and the Projectile closes the circuit, and then it fires using the electromagnetism of the closed circuit.

Ruby: Coilguns have a much higher initial production cost, as the computers systems and individual coils need to be manufactured before assembly, but this comes with the benefit of easier maintenance. Railguns, while far simpler to construct, have the projectile in direct contact with the barrel, which causes the barrel to wear out FAR faster than any other weapon, meaning it requires constant upkeep.

Ruby: The biggest issue to date is the sheer cost of energy. Thankfully we have Electric dust, because if we had to rely on something like chemical batteries, there would be almost no feasible way to make a handheld version.

Jaune: Cool. Again, Why am I firing it.

Ruby: It would take any else's arm off. Ready?

[frankencanon]

Cora-san Lives AU

My sister and I were re-watching Law's backstory when I discovered the perfect little detail that if modified could create a "For Want of a Nail" AU where Corazón survives and Law still gets the Ope Ope no Mi, without making the fic unrealistic or out-of-character at all!

Click the :readmore: if you're interested...

—

First, let me recap the sequence of events that took place on Minion Island which ultimately led to Cora-san's untimely demise:

***[ Skip to the bullet points for a TL;DR since the numbered list kind of drags on, going into an unnecessary amount of detail... ]***

Cora-san and Law arrive at Minion Island. Cora-san at first tries to leave Law on the boat by himself, but Law stops him and makes sad eyes at him until he relents and takes Law with him—but not all the way. Cora-san leaves Law in an abandoned house in town, where Law wanders out onto the steps and falls asleep as snow rains down on him.

Cora-san attacks the Barrels Pirates and makes off with the Ope Ope no Mi. During his escape, he trips and falls and winds up surrounded by Barrels Pirates with guns. He gets away alive, but not before being shot several times.

One of the pirates—a kid with an X-shaped scar on his chin—flees the scene.

Cora-san heads back to Law with the Ope Ope no Mi.

When he finds Law asleep on the steps, Cora-san—for whatever reason—picks him up and carries him off somewhere before waiting for him to wake up to force-feed him the Devil Fruit.

Cora-san collapses. Before he can lose consciousness, he passes Law a capsule cylinder and tells him to deliver it to the Marines.

Law goes off on his own, trudging his way through the snow. He chickens out on approaching the first group of Marines that pass, but works up the courage to approach the next—Vergo—when he sees that he's alone. But before Vergo can leave, he begs him to come with him to perform first aid on Cora-san.

Vergo goes with Law, and when he sees Rosinante he immediately attacks him before reading the secret message and then brutally beating him; Law gets kicked around as well. With them down for the count, Vergo calls Doffy and relays the situation to him.

While he's distracted, Cora-san uses his Calm Calm Fruit to sneak away undetected. He hides Law in a treasure chest and uses his fruit to silence him and anything he touches.

Doflamingo and the rest of the Don Quixote Pirates descend on the island and begin to hunt Cora-san and Law down after Doffy creates a Birdcage for the first time.

The child with scar on his chin manages to get far enough away that he's clear of the Birdcage when it comes down. Afterwards, he is found by Marines and taken aboard their ship.

Cora-san makes himself bait and gets chased down and beaten while Law listens from his place trapped in the treasure chest. They hold back from killing him so Doffy can interrogate him about the locations of the Ope Ope no Mi and Law.

Cora-san tells him that Law ate the fruit and was promptly taken into custody by the Marines.

Almost immediately after, Baby 5 and Buffalo inform Doffy that they overhead a Marine transmission about finding a boy and taking him aboard their ship, thus convincing Doffy that Cora-san was telling the truth.

Doffy shoots Rosinante repeatedly. As he lay dying, the Don Quixote Pirates make off with the treasure chests.

With Law on the other side and Rosinante permanently down for the count, Doffy takes down the now seemingly pointless Birdcage.

As they are loading the treasure onto their ship, Tsuru shows up and chases them off the island forces them to hurry up and leave. Unbeknownst to them, Law sneaks off in the chaos.

Law escapes to the neighboring Sparrow Island, presumably with the small sailboat he and Cora-san had been traveling in.

...OK, I'll admit I went a little overboard with the details there, so allow me to quickly recap:

***[ TL;DR ]***

Rosinante and Law arrive on Minion Island.

Rosi wants to leave Law on the boat, but he refuses.

Law is left in a house instead as Rosi steals the Ope Ope no Mi.

Rosi is caught and heavily injured but manages to get away.

He returns to give Law the fruit before collapsing.

Law is sent off to deliver a message to the Marines, and he returns with Vergo who beats him and Rosi and contacts Doffy to spill everything.

In the background, Rosi quietly sneaks off.

Doffy arrives and puts up the Birdcage, forcing Rosi to take desperate measures to ensure Law's freedom and survival.

Rosi hides Law in a chest and uses himself as bait, convincing Doffy that Law had already escaped with the fruit in his belly.

Doffy kills Rosi and takes down the Birdcage.

Before he can loiter, Tsuru shows up to chase him off.

Law escapes on his own to the closest neighboring island.

Got that? Good. Now, here's how we can quickly and easily fix things so that most of the bad stuff never happens:

In the very beginning, Cora-san originally intends to leave Law on the boat while he gets the fruit, but Law stops him.

What would've happened if he hadn't?

With his sickness, Law has been in and out of it, often falling asleep. What if he'd been asleep when they first arrived and, rather than wake him up, Cora-san chose to leave Law a note telling him that he'd be back soon with the Ope Ope no Mi.

Law would have no way of following him had he eventually woken up, since Cora-san had to climb a very long rope to get to land.

As Law was not only sick and dying, but also far smaller than Cora-san, it's fair to say that he would have absolutely no luck trying to climb that rope.

Now, since Law is in the boat rather than in town, Cora-san's next destination after obtaining the Ope Ope no Mi would be to head back to the boat immediately.

I assume the reason he took Law to that broken wall in canon rather than feed him the fruit in town was because he was worried about being out in the open whilst the Barrels Pirates were all hunting him down—but he would have had no reason to do so had Law still been in the boat since that was far more hidden than some random half-wall could ever be.

...Plus it also had the potential for a quick getaway considering it's literally a boat.

Now let's try that scene again, but this time with Law and Cora-san in their little sailboat:

Law wakes up to a smiling Cora-san leaning over him with the Ope Ope no Mi in hand. Cora-san force-feeds him the fruit before collapsing. He then passes Law the capsule cylinder with the secret message, and tells him to pass it on to the Marines.

Now what does Law do? Does he go on the island to find a Marine? No! The kid is dying and can barely walk; Why would he do that when there's a perfectly good Marine ship parked just a little ways away? Especially since there's no way he'd even be able to climb that rope to get onto the island anyways, not unless Rosinante yeeted him up there or something.

Now, instead of running off, Law struggles to row the boat over to the nearby Marine ship. There, he is spotted by the Marines, the secret message is passed over, Rosinante's identity is verified, and Law is taken aboard the ship—for real this time.

In this scenario, Vergo is on the island when Rosinante and Law board the Marine ship. Maybe he hears a transmission about a boy and a heavily injured man being taken aboard, or maybe not. Maybe he identifies the man as Rosinante and reports it to Doffy, or maybe not.

It doesn't matter either way since they're now in Marine custody, under Marine protection, and there's nothing Vergo can do about it without breaking his cover.

In the meantime, considering the Marines' original reason for being there in the first place, the ship would undoubtedly be stocked with medical supplies and medics themselves, so that Rosinante would be able to receive prompt medical treatment—on Sengoku's orders, if nothing else.

Sengoku would likely command the ship to head straight towards him wherever he is, seeing as they most likely would have had to contact him personally to confirm Rosinante's identity.

Maybe he'll return to Sengoku and resume working as a Marine, or maybe not.

And seeing as he only had a few bullet holes in him at this point—which he was canonically able to run and jump around with, only really slowing down after Vergo and the other DonQuixote Pirates had beat the hell outta him and Doffy had shot him several more times—he should be able to recover just fine.

—

Before he died, there was a scene in canon where Rosinante had mentioned wanting to travel the world with Law once he was cured... Maybe in this AU they'll do exactly that.

Seeing as how Rosinante technically betrayed the Marines, it's entirely possible that not even Sengoku will be able to completely sweep it under the rug. At that point, it's not completely unbelievable that Rosinante and Law might wind up as pirates—for real this time—traveling the world and having adventures together.

Maybe they'll even drop by Sparrow Island for a bit, maybe pick up a kid or two...

...or a polar bear, even. You never know.

[extraterrestrialechos]

Edward Teach: How to (de)Construct a Legendary Villain

The show introduces us to the legendary Blackbeard as a traditional Hollywood villain. He’s positioned, specifically, as Bond villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld, head of the global criminal organization SPECTRE. 

This character came to define the trope of the criminal mastermind, including the trope of never showing the villain’s face. The chair obscuring Ed’s body while his minion takes orders from across the desk is classic Blofeld. 

Along with Black Pete’s story, this is meant to pour in information about and expectations for Blackbeard in the short three episode buildup to his reveal: He’s big news, he’s bad news, and he’s the undisputed big dog whose underlings are cogs in his evil schemes.

Yet even in his first scene, the show begins to highlight the artifice at play and humanize Blackbeard and his subordinate. 

Izzy is doing his level best to play the sufficiently professional henchman. Edward flirts with him until he’s forced to drop the pretense, his henchman act collapsing into an exhausted and familiar “Oh, Edward, can't I just send the boys?”

And, if we look closely in retrospect, the reason Ed doesn’t turn to the camera is that his leg is elevated to give relief to its nagging knee injury. There’s a cane in the bin in the foreground beside Izzy. These stereotypical trappings of villainy are partly a product of Edward’s high seas career wearing his body down. 

On to Episode 4

Episode 4 isn’t a significant departure from any other day at SPECTRE flotilla headquarters for Edward. Yes, he meets a fun new guy. He also shows off what kind of brilliance is routinely demanded of him by his profession (of being a criminal mastermind) day in and day out, even if he hits a hitch. The emotional beat of the episode is exposing how this intense workplace grind is wearing him down. 

Next, he decides he’ll sail with that fun new guy, murder him, desecrate his corpse and take his identity. The kind of nefarious scheme a pro would expect of himself. 

The subsequent plot, then, does not come out of the idea that Ed, as Blackbeard, is any less than a man who’s achieved the pinnacle of Big Bad attainment, who in conversation with his subordinate checks off on killing entire crews as part of “the uzsh.” He really is that good, and Stede really would have made the perfect and unwitting mark Ed identifies him for. 

Two things are true at once:

Blackbeard is his world’s all time pirate villain overseeing the dispatching of countless lives (we see the population of a whole merchant vessel butchered just in Episode 5 — but laugh, because the sequence is shot through with camp), and

Ed Teach “works for Blackbeard.” 

Blackbeard isn’t who Ed is but a product of Ed’s theatrical skills. 

The show has, already, in Episode 4 cast a realistic light on the inevitable psychological toll of being the Big Bad mastermind keeping yourself at peak performance all the time. 

On to Episode 6

In Episode 6, the show deconstructs how one man, who has one gun and one knife just like everyone else, could feasibly construct such a legend.

This is, at the same time, a meta interrogation of how much effort a man like Blofeld and his infinite villainous counterparts across all cinema would have to actually put in to maintain their seemingly effortless style. 

Here, the answer is Ed is a theatre kid at heart, relying on all the same techniques the real life crew themselves are using to bring us the show.

We’re given a scene of Ed seemingly teleporting around a clouded ship, delivering cinematic lines like “Flee and survive, or face me and burn!” 

Barrels of sparklers stream flash powder into the air. The unnatural fog turns out to be the product of stagehands hard at work behind the scenes. We can extrapolate the flashes of lighting were likely, seeing as we can’t assume stage lights, the product of even more flash powder prepped in the style of old time photography. 

Ed ends up in an elaborate harness. One that Izzy’s doubtlessly removed him from countless times, as he reminds Ed if they don’t work together Ed’s balls will chafe. (Ostensibly, this all used to go smoother before stress aged their relationship to the point of its present squabbles.)

Now we can spy back earlier in the show and see even in Episode 3 they were employing theatrics. 

The smoke steaming behind Izzy as he fixes his spyglass on the Revenge isn’t mysteriously atmospheric. It’s from a big cauldron kept stoked on the deck of the ship, the handle of which peeks through. It’s a constant effort to keep the Queen Anne billowing across the ocean. 

And Forward to the End...

Ed goes through multiple phases of trying on different Eds in the next four episodes. From living as tea with seven sugars Ed, to deciding he needs to physically move on if he’s not going to ice this guy but being prompted by Lucius to explore being “being in a relationship Ed,” to us seeing Jack’s Ed and his ability to relish brotivities, to stripped down Ed on the beach, a blank slate now able to open himself to considering what to paint there, to Ed choosing what to paint there.

Unfortunately, while it’s a new work, it's a dark one.

Having been rejected by Stede and Izzy successively as they see him trying out tidying house, become upset for individual reasons, and walk out of the room in nearly identical scenes, Ed takes stock of what he has left and what capacities in his repertoire will assure his future security. 

We now see Ed pinning (stabbing) up a picture of the archetype he’s going to take on. This is Ed in his make-up trailer, looking to a character design by a concept artist and building a costume around it.

Grease paint, sword earring, jacket shrugged back on, full gloves, and, we see later, Stede's black cravat tight around his neck as @speckled-jim describes (and discusses further here) “like the albatross of Ancient Mariner fame,” reminding him that love itself can be a burden and to never allow himself to be that vulnerable again. 

This new Blackbeard variant cuts a genius, poetic, unmistakably more dangerous image than the comparatively relaxed tough biker pirate we first met.

His newer, dialed up villainous persona, the Kraken, is face revealed with, among the many cinematic variations on the trope, what tightly resembles another more recent Blofeld shot, at once telegraphing this Ed is the Big Bad again and reminding us that being any Big Bad is a high camp performance.

The seams are already fraying. Fang and Ed are both shown drinking heavily to help cast off their sympathies for their recent associates and loose their MUAHAHAHAHA laughter. Already, before this scene, Izzy’s “Blackbeard is himself again!” is paired with the manic smile of a man who knows that whoever the new boss is, it’s not the original Blackbeard and he's in over his head.

But the three of them cut imposing figures on deck, and the future will tell if the movie magic holds.

Errata

Why would they think "Blofeld"?

It might be SPECTRE's trademark giant octopus.

[steampunkforever]

When I see (American, online) leftists post Guillotine memes about politicians and then turn around and plead with the very government they threaten to further disarm them I begin to question if they can really back up their rhetoric. After all, the deadliest things they're throwing at politicians are milkshakes. Power comes from the barrel of a gun, so why are you begging the bad guys to take away the means to a revolution?

Tackling indigenous rights and neoliberal centrism, Clearcut asks the same thing. In a failed system that breeds injustice, why aren't we doing what needs to be done?

Clearcut is a film rich in questions. Unlike many movies surrounding the ideal of native land rights, it has no clear(cut) ending, choosing instead to leave the audience with questions that it chooses not to answer.

The film focuses on a bleeding heart neolib lawyer who has lost the court case contesting a logging conglomerate's deforestation of native lands in Canada. Out loud, the lawyer wishes he could murder the logging company CEO. Enter Arthur, a native of nondescript ancestry who serves as the monkeys paw and curls each finger. "You want to kill this guy?" Arthur asks "Why not?" And so he kidnaps the CEO, throws the lawyer into a boat, and takes them all on a nightmarish trip full of torture and unspoken philosophical questions.

The main conflict of the film comes from the Lawyer's staunch devotion to his centrism. His mantra "we'll appeal in court" rings hollow as everyone around him universally acknowledges this act as a useless gesture. If the lawyer would just take the knife, give the CEO a couple stabs and go on about his day the film would be much shorter. But he doesn't.

Instead, we watch in a dreamlike haze as Arthur makes the lawyer face the harm that justice requires, the torment compounding with every sequence the lawyer refuses to abandon his pacifistic ideals. "You wanted to debark this man like a log? Then help me peel the skin off his leg." Clearcut is a film about putting your money where your mouth is.

As the lawyer insists on this sympathetic neutrality, it becomes clear who the helpless handwringing benefits. There's lots of talk, but its all noise, serving only to build up the status quo, providing a space for vocal dissent but no change. The lawyer can protest the beatings and blood of the logging operation, but will not step in to prevent them. Who does this help?

He will not pick up that gun. The CEO gets out alive, and none of the guilty get arrested. Clearcut posits that to surrender the monopoly of force is to admit to the legitimacy of the monopolizer, an endorsement through obedience.

The movie leaves you with so many questions, but chief among them was "is it worth it?"

[transgenderer]

(its a luger p08 in the hunter post)

thanks! what a wonderful gun!

this thing is such a contraption. it looks like a 50s raygun got greasepunkified

The Luger has a toggle-lock action that uses a jointed arm to lock, as opposed to the slide actions of many other semi-automatic pistols, such as the M1911. After a round is fired, the barrel and toggle assembly travel roughly 13 mm (0.5 in) rearward due to recoil, both locked together at this point. The toggle strikes a cam built into the frame, causing the knee joint to hinge and the toggle and breech assembly to unlock. The barrel strikes the frame and stops its rearward movement, but the toggle assembly continues moving, bending the knee joint upwards, extracting the spent casing from the chamber, and ejecting it. The toggle and breech assembly then travel forward under spring tension and the next round is loaded from the magazine into the chamber. The entire sequence occurs in a fraction of a second and contributes to the above average mud resistance[36] of the pistol.

he is a grasshopper....

oh man now i really want this gun. its expensive to get the originals though and no one makes working replicas i think. they hate my people. god what an awesome gun

[terrahistorian]

5e Character Concept - Artificer Gunslinger

A character I want to play one day, is an Artificer Gunslinger, patterned after classic western gunmen. I haven't done all the theory-crafting that this would take, but the flavor I want is a wicked fast gunman, with a sharp mind, and a sharper tongue, whose primary weapon is a six-shooter. This would take a lot of communication with the Game Master, but the goal would be to use the Artificer's Infusions to empower the gunman's ammunition, rather than their weapon. Returning, or Empowered Weapon, would be shoe-ins for this. Additionally, with some Rule of Cool elements, once Spell-Storing Item is unlocked, you could store destructive spells like Heat Metal into a bullet. You'd only get one shot of the spell, but it would be cast at the range of Gun.

Additionally, with the Artificer's Attunement increases, the character could have a built in Fetch Quest. What I would use is something called Mary's Arsenal - A series of powerful magic bullets, where each one is considered a magic item requiring attunement. In-lore, these would be desperate, last-stand, Hail Mary Shots (hence the name), but a Returning Infusion would make them permanent buffs to your six-shooter. Each one would just need to be tracked in the barrel sequence, with an optional Bonus Action way to Spin the Barrel, if you wanted a chance to use the same Hail Mary twice.

The character's motivation could be something as simple as power for power's sake, but I'd play with a revenge quest. Family killed by an Archfiend, for example, something hopelessly stronger than a level 1 adventurer. The quest for Mary's Arsenal could then culminate in a showdown with this Big Bad, where the party can help the gunman claim their vengeance.

In a perfectly thematic world, these are the dice I would use for this character -  https://amzn.to/3FkeIMc

[josefavomjaaga]

Eugène about Sidney Smith

This is another snippet taken from Eugène de Beauharnais’s fragmented memoirs (Memoires et correspondance politique et militaire du Prince Eugène, Tome 1). In it, he mentions that while in Egypt, he crossed paths with Sidney Smith twice, both times missing him by an inch, the first time happening in Suez and the second time, related here, during the Battle of Aboukir. According to Eugène, during this battle [...]

[… t]he enemy was quickly dislodged from the advanced positions they occupied. Although I was not an artillery officer, I was nevertheless instructed by the general-in-chief to direct the first two guns we had taken from the Turks against the English boats on our left, already moving away.

[Insert sequence of a dozen clueless cavalrymen surrounding a Turkish canon.]

So, that’s where the canon ball goes in, right? And, I believe we have to light a fuse or something… Isn’t there also some kind of powder involved? Oh, Claude, maybe don’t stand directly in front of the barrel, we don’t really know what … [canon goes off] Woah! Hey, I think we almost hit something!

I noticed that one of our cannonballs fell close enough to a longboat to cover the men in it with water; and, by a singular coincidence, Commodore Sidney Smith was also among them, as he himself assured me, fifteen years later.

Which I assume to have happened during the Congress of Vienna that I understand both men attended. I can just imagine, during a nice evening dinner at the Hofburg, Eugène telling the people sitting next to him about the battle of Aboukir:

"And then Napoleon said we should fire a canon at the British boats, and we had no clue what we were doing but guess what, we still almost hit one. Don’t know who was in it but one thing I know for sure, they must have been soaking wet…"

Sidney Smith from across the table, jumping up: "Hold a second! That was you?"

[questioningwriter]

(Hey! I've missed a lot of post deadlines. But I'm going to post something as soon as possible. Hopefully I can get on a schedule that I can keep.)

I've been reading hero/villain stuff recently, and am obsessed with possesive hero, and flustered villain. This is the result.

Discovery

TW: contemplation/acceptance of imminent death(NOT SUICIDAL)l,

"What the hell is taking them so long?" Villain paced in front of their doomsday weapon, cape flowing dramatically out behind them. "I could have used the machine ten times already in this wait! What could possibly be taking them this long?"

"You're being dramatic." Henchman called from behind the machine, from where they stood with the rest of the crew. "They'll be here soon."

There were crashes, then five familiar faces landed in front of Villain. The hero team. They were finally here.

"Took you long enough." Villain drawled, pulling out their tablet. "Hero Team, I'd like to introduce you to your doom." Villain gestured to their machine. "This is a machine that is designed to seek out everyone you love and care about and obliterate them, and then destroy you." Villain types something into their tablet. "Why don't we start with you, Hero?"

With a press of a button on their gauntlet, Villain triggered the robots to keep the heroes busy while they imputed Hero's name into the tablet. The machine began to hum as it's power-up sequence began. "It's working." Villain gloated as the barrel of the machine began to move. "Hero, say goodbye to all those you love-"

The barrel of the gun swung around and smacked Villain in the face, cutting them off and knocking them to the ground. The tablet skidded out of reach as Villain landed on their ass on the ground. Then the barrel of the weapon swung around to point at them.

Villain couldn't do anything but stare down the barrel of their own machine in shock and confusion. They could see the inner barrel starting to glow as the machine prepared to fire. I'm going to die, they thought.

A hand grabbed the back of their cape and dragged them out of the way just as the machine fired, the bolt of energy missing them by centimeters. Villain screamed, covering their face as fragments of rock plummeted them from the explosion.

"Are you okay?" Hero's voice rang in their ear. Villain turned to stare at the other in confusion.

"You." They pointed at Hero. "Love me." They point to themselves. "Me. Your enemy."

"Shut up." Hero muttered. "Just shut up."

"You know what, no." Villain snapped, growing angry. "I'm not going to shut up. I want to know if you really love me, of if my machine is broken."

"You're machine is broken." Hero picked up the tablet and began pressing random buttons on it. "How exactly does this thing work?"

"My machine is not broken." Villain grabbed for the tablet. "Give me the tablet."

"No, fuck you." Hero slapped their hands away, then pressed a button. The machine powered down.

"Dammit," Villain muttered. "I really should not have made that one so obvious."

"Thank you for doing so." Hero dropped the tablet, then grabbed Villain. "And now, you've been caught."

The rest of the hero team approached warily as Hero locked the cuffs around Villain's wrists. "Hero?" Superhero asked. "Is there anything you want to tell us?"

"Do you need help?" Other Hero reached out to grab Villain. "We could take them, and you-"

"No, it's alright." Hero shifted Villain away from the others. "I've got it."

"Are you sure?" Superhero asked. "Because what just happened would shake anybody up-"

"I said I got it!" Hero snapped as they dragged Villain towards the door to the warehouse. Out to where the press were waiting to pounce, leaving behind a group of concerned heroes.

(Not as long as my first post, but y'know, maybe that's a good thing.

if anyone's interested in a part 2, I may have it drafted. Partially.)

[all-action-all-picture]

Nobody Does It Better - Roger Moore filming the opening credits to The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) along with dancer (and bodybuilder) Carolyn Cheshire and Maurice Binder, the title designer behind 16 Bond movies (he also created the opening gun barrel effect for the franchise). Carolyn can be seen throughout the title sequence both with Roger and solo doing various gymnastics (there were a couple of other girls in the opening titles and I don't know who did what).

I believe this was also the first movie in the franchise in which the Bond actor appears as part of the opening credits but I stand to be corrected on that one. Best bit for me is where Bond pushes the marching soldiers over. If that's put you in the mood for what, to me, may be the best Bond opening credits then look no further.

[autotopic]

The Aston Martin DB10, created exclusively for James Bond in Spectre, marks the first time a car was specifically designed for the film series. Bond first encounters the DB10 in Q’s lab, where he learns it has been reassigned to Agent 009. However, Bond “borrows” the car for a rogue mission in Rome, leaving a bottle of chilled Bollinger in exchange. The DB10 is then seen driving through Rome's iconic landmarks before arriving at a SPECTRE meeting. As Bond flees the meeting, SPECTRE agents fire machine guns at the car’s bulletproof body armor and glass. A high-speed chase ensues as the new SPECTRE agent, Hinx, pursues Bond in a Jaguar C-X75 through the city streets. During the chase, Bond attempts to use the DB10’s weapon systems, even though he is unfamiliar with their operation. He first tries the ‘Backfire’ button, which reveals a twin-barrelled machine gun extending from the rear Aston badge, but discovers it is out of ammo. The ‘Atmosphere’ button only activates the car stereo. As they race alongside the Tiber River, Bond engages the ‘Exhaust’ button, unleashing a twin flamethrower. Finally, he presses the ‘Air’ button, which deploys the sun-roof ejector seat, allowing him to escape just before the car crashes into the river. As Hinx watches the Aston sink, Bond safely parachutes away and disappears into the night.

The DB10 features a chassis based on a modified V8 Vantage with a longer wheelbase, powered by a 4.7-liter V8 engine. Q claims the DB10 can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 3.2 seconds, although Aston Martin states a top speed of 190 mph and a 0 to 60 mph time of 4.7 seconds. The car’s sleek design includes a shark-inspired nose where the grille sits in shadow beneath the main feature line, hinting at its stealthy character. The body panels are made entirely of carbon fiber, exposed on the sills and diffuser, and it has a full clamshell bonnet with a heat-mapped perforation pattern, negating the need for a vent surround. The designers drew inspiration from the classic DB5, working to ensure that when viewed in profile, the DB10 exhibits a single elegant shoulder line running from front to back. Only ten of these concept cars were built, with eight used to film key scenes in Spectre and the remaining two reserved for promotional purposes. Director Sam Mendes contributed to the design process, requesting a car with “clean, clear lines, something classic where it is almost impossible to place its year of birth,” aiming for a design that felt timeless, somewhere between the early ’70s and now.

The main filming sequence involving the DB10 was shot in Rome over three weeks in March 2015, involving 350 crew members and 250 blockers to secure the roads. The production shut down a 4 km section along the River Tiber, including five bridges, using a total of 15 locations such as the road leading up to the Vatican and Via della Conciliazione. Preparations for the shoot included location scouting a year prior, with pre-production beginning in October 2014. During testing, the stunt team went through a pair of tires every 10 minutes. Gary Powell coordinated the stunt driving while Mark Higgins was behind the wheel of the DB10.

[martyrbat]

true strength — batman secret files (2018) #1

(ID below cut!)

[ID: A short story with a guiding narration:

His knuckles ache with each blow, bone grinding into bone. The criminals shout what they always shout. And Superman comes from above. — We're shown Batman fighting against several men that are trying to overpower him. He blocks an attack as he strikes another man. Above him, in the far distance, Superman is soaring through the air to get to him and help.

Superman gives a speech. They've been friends for so long. Colleagues. Soldiers in the fight. Superman knows his soul, he says. He knows he's a good man, he says. — Now, in the safety of the Batcave, Batman sits in front of his computer desk. He's facing Superman, who's standing in front of him with his hand outstretched. He opens his fist to reveal what he's brought.

Inside the Phantom Zone there is an impossible universe. Inside the impossible universe is an impossible planet. On the impossible planet is a small, impossible rock. Platinum Kryptonite. — Bruce pushes his cowl off as Superman presents the radiant silver rock to him.

It gives you powers. Powers like Superman's. Superman tells him to touch it. “Just touch it, Bruce, just once, and it lasts a lifetime. Then you can fight as I fight, as you should fight. With true strength.” A smile. A whoosh. Superman leaves. — Superman leaves the Kryptonite on the desk before he departs. Bruce doesn't move any closer. He stares at it somberly, deep in thought.

He looks at the gift. His mind wanders. — A red-tinted multipanel sequence shows Bruce imagining a scenario if he did gain Superman's powers. A woman is being held hostage by the Joker. She has a gun pressed to her temple as she stares at Batman with fear. Silently begging him to help and to save her like how he's saved countless others. The Joker pulls the trigger. But before she can be another person he couldn't possibly save, Batman's eyes glow with red electricity. He vaporizes the bullet with heat vision before it can even finish leaving the barrel.

He keeps his hands at his side. His knuckles ache. At least two of them are broken. Footsteps echoing down the stairs. The smell of stirred milk and white sugar. A polite clearing of the throat. Alfred says nothing. Their routines are well established, words are unnecessary. — Bruce continues to stare intensely at the well-intended present as Alfred approaches him with a tray. Bruce finally tears his gaze away from the Kryptonite to look at his lifelong friend before looking down at the steaming teacup that Alfred hands him.

His hand shakes. His loose knuckles stab into his skin. He can’t hold on. He always has before. But now he can’t. — His hand continues to tremble and before he can take a single sip of the hot drink, the cup is shattering against the ground.

The pain is not great. Not as great as it has been. Not as great as a bullet burrowing, or a back breaking, or a knife sinking into his throat. This is nothing. But still. His knuckles ache. — Bruce grabs his own gloved hand, cradling the back of his broken knuckles. He looks up and quietly asks, “Alfred. Am I enough?”

END ID]