#outrage coda

[kinasin]

Outrage Coda

[cinesludge]

Movie #34 of 2024: Outrage Coda

The Outrage Trilogy is one of the best gangster epics of all time. It's up there with the best of what Kitano has produced, so far.

[touslesfilmsquejaivu]

[capseycartwright]

tagged in wip wednesday by @clusterbuck, thank u emma! here i am joining the host of girlies (gn) writing codas for this weeks episode

It doesn’t surprise Buck when he hears the key turn in his front door. He knows who it is without needing to check: it’s Eddie, because it could only be Eddie.

Honestly, Buck was surprised it had taken this long for his best friend to arrive. He knew, back in the hospital, that Eddie had been itching to intervene, and take Buck home, back to the warmth of the Diaz household where he could keep an eye on Buck as he recovered – but Buck knew why Eddie had held back. This relationship between Buck, and his parents, was a tentative, fragile thing, and Eddie didn’t want to be the thing that got between them, not when Buck’s parents were so adamant about taking Buck home and getting him settled in.

Buck could read Eddie like a book: he knew what the thought process had been.

Eddie was taking the stairs two at a time, the heavy thud of his boots an odd comfort as Buck waited for a glimpse of his best friend. He had missed Eddie. It was a strange thing to say, he knew, given that he’d been in a coma, but he’d lived a dream life where Eddie wasn’t present, and those few brief moments in the hospital hadn’t been enough to soothe the heavy ache in his chest that had lingered at the mere thought of his life without Eddie Diaz at the heart of it.

“Were you sitting outside, waiting for Maddie and my parents to leave?” Buck teased. It was sort of the only explanation for how quickly he’d appeared, his parents and Maddie hardly halfway down the street by now.

“Yes,” Eddie admitted, unashamed. He was shaking, Buck realised, standing at the top of Buck’s stairs, his face pale, and the dark circles under his eyes heavy-set, as though he hadn’t slept in days. Knowing Eddie, he hadn’t.

“Eddie,” Buck shifted himself upright, back propped against an outrageous mound of pillows that Maddie had installed him with, under strict instructions that he was actually supposed to rest. “I’m okay,” he reassured, hoping his words would soothe. “I’m okay.”

“But you almost weren’t,” Eddie managed, his voice cracking mid-sentence, fat tears rolling down his cheeks. Buck wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Eddie as openly upset as he was, there and then – not about Buck, at least. “You – you were dead, when I lowered you down from that ladder, Buck. I couldn’t feel your heart beating.”

tagging @thatbuddie @hattalove @buckactuallys @mellaithwen @dearestdiaz @sibylsleaves @henswilsons @like-the-rest-of-la @littlespoonevan and anyone else who wants to!

[carlos-in-glasses]

Fic Rec Friday

Thank you for the tag @thisbuildinghasfeelings and @ladytessa74 ❤️

This week's theme is: rec a fanwork (fic, gifset, fanart, podfic - bonus points if you do multiple mediums) that made you feel warm and fuzzy inside (the 'feel good' fanwork). Tag @welcometololaland or #fic rec friday to be included in the round up.

There's so many in the warm fuzzy category - this is so hard. You're all such fluff machines.

Fics:

Just A Little Longer by @bonheur-cafe.

TK and Carlos cuddle on the couch on a rainy spring day. Just the image alone is enough to turn me into a sea sponge with eyes. It's so sweet.

these moments with you by @chaotictarlos /happygowriting on Ao3

A 4x09 coda in which TK and Carlos are supremely soft - just want to get into bed and cuddle. It's lovely.

Four Suits by @cold-blooded-jelly-doughnut

Honestly - I could have picked anything Jamie has ever written for the warm fuzzies - but Four Suits leapt into my head. TK and Carlos go suit shopping for the wedding together and it all gets a bit much for our sweet potato Carlos.

Gifs:

"1.03 -> 3.08" by @3416 . Not only is it a beautiful parallel, it makes me laugh every time I see it.

"Can I say yes now?" also by @3416 . Absolutrly beautiful grainy black and white gifs of the proposal face-squish. I love it SO much.

"Text me" by @aarondingle . Mr. Afterglow himself looking like a character drawn by Disney because he's madly in love with his soulmate TK Strand.

This duo set by @whattarush of TK sleeping on Carlos' arm because I'm only human and I've been staring at this for about half an hour fuzzier than I've ever been.

Art:

The 'Wanna race?" artwork @heartstringsduet made for When Soulmates Swim - which is my fic!!! 😭 It's beautiful and perfect, your honour!

Since The First Night I Took You Home by @a-kinkajou . It's outrageously beautiful and features a very special piece of jewellery.

ALL the 911LS cross stiches by @thisbuildinghasfeelings - but special shout out to "Sure, ma'am, but just so you know, I am a homosexual." I ove that this is a thing that exists! And I just think it's a genius idea to cross stich Lone Star!

Tagging @cold-blooded-jelly-doughnut @heartstringsduet @strandnreyes @alrightbuckaroo @lemonlyman-dotcom @catanisspicy @taralaurel @largepeachicedtea @goodways @liminalmemories21 @reyesstrand @lightningboltreader @never-blooms @danieljradcliffe @noxsoulmate @firstprince-history-huh @bonheur-cafe @rosedavid @freneticfloetry @theghostofashton @chicgeekgirl89 @iboatedhere @chaotictarlos @wandering-night19

[kryptonitecore]

Reread: The Transformers (2009), #1-4

This comic really wants you to know that Spike Witwicky fucks, and I hate that.

We’ve gone from Furman to McCarthy to Mike Costa, who, as TFWiki points out, was at one point the third most prolific author in the Transformers canon, writing more than thirty issues. He would eventually be outstripped by later writers like Barber and Roberts, but I think I really underestimated just how much of IDW1 Costa actually wrote.

We have another time jump, this time to either two or three years into the future after Megatron’s defeat. I’m slightly wobbly on exactly how long it has been, since the comics themselves waver back and forth. Costa begins with his version of Optimus, who is very verbose… if in a slightly unfortunate way. No to be juvenile, but when you put together phrases like ‘reduced, in our impotence, to naked hope’ I can only assume you are doing it deliberately.

The art is similarly interesting, as Don Figueroa began to opt for Bayverse-inspred designs, which appear in several issues. I’m not a huge fan of that, though it does perhaps indicate who they are aiming this comic towards. A slight quirk in the art of the human characters, meanwhile, is that they often look kind of sleepy, with their eyes half-lidded. That, or they have a sort of resting sneer.

Characterisation with Costa is extremely variable. In some cases he picks up right where Shane McCarthy left off and builds from there, for example with Thundercracker, but with others he takes characters in a completely different direction. I think the most obvious example of this here is Prowl. In one of the first scenes, Prowl sees that Breakdown is potentially about to be captured or killed by Skywatch, Spike Witwicky’s anti-Cybertronian task force. Morally outraged, Prowl impulsively rushes in, breaking cover and disobeying orders to try and help the Decepticon, eventually getting captured for his trouble. Now, character interpretation is subjective, but this is coming after Furman’s strict Prowl, McCarthy’s embattled Prowl in All Hail Megatron, and the introduction of Nick Roche’s cynical, pragmatic version. Not only is this pretty out of character by any of those standards, it’s just kind of a confusing move - there were so many other Autobot characters who could have done something like this more believably, but it ends up being Prowl for some reason.

Ironhide is killed off very early on, so new readers probably would not have had much time to develop an attachment to him, and his backstory with Optimus was only filled out in one of the coda stories at the end of All Hail Megatron.

Speaking of Optimus… Wow, is Costa’s Optimus Prime not working for me at the moment. He’s combining a lot of verbose narration with some very high-handed actions and overall the character seems sort of clueless, vague, and oddly indifferent to the wellbeing of his own faction. I presume that Costa was interested in exploring the idea of a martyr complex and I honestly don’t mind that angle at all, but here the character seems to view himself as beholden to humans to a weird degree, even defecting to Skywatch. I know that Costa was interested in a human-focused storyline, but it’s really kind of jarring to see the character change so abruptly.

This isn’t helped by the fact that a lot of the Cybertronians in general, not even just the Autobots, come across as a bit hapless and are pretty easily captured by small teams of humans with some advanced technology, when only two or three years prior the US military was so incapable of fighting the Decepticons that other countries were preparing nuclear countermeasures. The time-skip helps make this more plausible and characters like Breakdown are presumably not in good condition, but it’s still a massive turnaround that takes place off-page. Regardless of these technological surges, Optimus is portrayed as feeling intensely guilty and somewhat pitying towards humanity, even as Skywatch begins attacking and abducting Autobots, including Prowl. And that’s a thing! Optimus seems weirdly complacent about Prowl being captured, despite the fact that Skywatch were actively trying to kill a fleeing Breakdown and, say, what the Machination did with Sunstreaker. I think perhaps Costa was so focused on developing Optimus’ relationship with the human characters that any sort of loyalty or camaraderie or concern about the second in command being kidnapped is framed as an overreaction. Certainly, Hot Rod/Rodimus is painted as impulsive and over-emotional, even as Optimus abdicates and defects, abandoning his faction in a crisis situation, because he feels really bad, you guys. The problem is that I don’t know if the irony is intentional or not.

Ironhide’s comments really don’t help in that scene, as he is written with a very condescending tone: ‘You did the right thing, Prime. Make the kid [Hot Rod] feel like he’s doing something’. Keep in mind, this is in response to Hot Rod taking a team to rescue Prowl�� The apparently shocking revelation that the humans are willing to use lethal weaponry against them (despite the fact that they have killed and abducted multiple Transformers by this point?) results in Ironhide taking a shot for Hot Rod and dying. To be honest, it didn’t have a ton of impact on me, especially as it felt rather hurried. Apparently, Costa wanted to kill of Bumblebee, but Hasbro refused, so Ironhide was substituted in. Initially, I thought that Ironhide’s death was going to be used as a sort of ‘punishment’ for Hot Rod for not listening to Optimus, especially given the emphasis those panels put on the fact that Ironhide died protecting him and his reaction afterwards. However, in the following issues it didn’t seem to head in that direction at all. If anything, it helped to speed up Hot Rod’s alienation from the Autobot hierarchy. Also, a lot of characters call Hot Rod ‘kid’ in this, despite the character not being younger than them in this canon. It’s minor, but the character is written to be particularly immature here in a way I don’t think some fans would appreciate.

The strongest moments of these issues probably come in the one focused on Thundercracker, which I don’t particularly like, yet I suspect is the most competent bit of writing. Between this and ‘Heavy Lies the Head’, perhaps this is an indication that Costa fared better with character-focused issues? However, I didn’t enjoy the slower pace as much as I could have, as one of the chief complaints about the Costa run overall is that it is very decompressed, essentially not a lot happening in each issue and some arguably wasteful uses of limited panel space throughout. As a result, this feels like a slow issue among already slow issues, rather than a change of speed. 

Costa leans heavily into the change of heart for Thundercracker that McCarthy began, really developing his appreciation for humanity and Earth into something more philosophical and personal, a choice that would influence the character’s portrayal for the rest of the continuity. Nevertheless, I don’t love it, as I feel that his internal narration relies on a few too many faulty premises (the Decepticons were incapable of wiping out humanity, Transformers are a static and unchanging species, lacking in personal development, that Earth is the first time that Thundercracker has had an opportunity to appreciate beauty). Ultimately, I think that Costa turns the very internal process of Thundercracker reevaluating his life and then focuses that outwards… But it ends up going in the direction of putting humanity and the Earth at the centre of everything in a way that feels a little self-aggrandising. It feels like it flattens the Cybertronian characters (and any other alien species that are portrayed later) in favour of the human ones, I suppose.

Speaking of flattening, this is a minor bugbear, but IDW1 in this period had a bit of a fixation on ‘brothers’. Characters use the word a lot in dialogue: talking about literal brothers, members of their faction, members of their team, particular friends, and even just anyone with a similar frame type to them. I don’t like it because it’s used to so many times and in so many contexts that it starts to lack any meaning, effectively just flattening social dynamics between specific characters to very broad, boring ideas of loose alliance. Costa also makes a point of having several characters fail to understand idioms, despite the fact that it hasn’t really been a problem in previous comics, which further helps to make their speech seem formal and distant. See also: Optimus Prime’s voice.

This is also my first extended look at Spike Witwicky under a new writer and it’s not great. Thing is, I think there were ways Spike could have been a much more interesting or sympathetic character than he has ended up being so far, even keeping this general shape.  They clearly wanted a more action-hero-esque version of the character, so they aged him up, made him and his father military, had him be incredibly central to the plot and way more adversarial… Yet you also cannot tell me that Costa was not writing him to be obnoxious on purpose. I think wish fulfilment is the only explanation I can think of, that Spike was intended for certain readers to project themselves onto. Hence the insistence on the fact that Spike fucks. And drives a cool car. And is really muscular. And is in a super prestigious position with authority yet does whatever he wants, regardless of the consequences. And the frequent references to incredibly non-specific problems with his father.

Swindle does have good finger guns, though.

[superficialpeasant]

AO3 Meme

I was tagged by @ladymatt, but free for anyone to do. Tag anyone you'd like.

Rules: Give us the links to your wonderful words with the most hits, most kudos, most comments, most bookmarks, most words, and least words.

This is going to be a bit sad, because according to my AO3 stats I'm a bit of a one hit wonder (LOL), so here we are:

Best Laid Plans (Completed 2019)

When a High Warlock looking to end his celibacy streak meets a Shadowhunter after no-baggage thrills, the two make a deal: anytime, anywhere, no strings attached.

You may have heard of it. It's the one where Alec and Magnus begin a casual sexual relationship, and end up as smooshy, world-saving superheroes in love (or the fic where I attempted to write pure malec porn and ended up spitefully rewriting the entire first season of Shadowhunters instead. Best laid plans, indeed).

Most Hits: 130,908 hits Most Kudos: 4,914 kudos Most Comments: 1,811 comments, 949 comment threads Most Bookmarks: 2,255 bookmarks Most Words: 131,321 words

____

Least Words: Dreams Are Free (When You're A Hero) | 3,678 words

In which Alec and Magnus fantasize an outrageous wedding at the Clave’s expense, and get a better deal anyway.

This is a little known sort-of 3x22 coda I wrote after seeing the 3x22 sneak peek where Magnus and Alec start planning their wedding, because I'm Team Fuck-The-Clave - and in my head, Malec are, too.

[smaller-comfort]

It always comes down to the classics, right? Orpheus and Eurydice, never knowing who will emerge from the darkness with you; Pandora's Box, and the things you can't undo.

Anyway, here's the finale and the coda (which is like an epilogue except it's a musical term; when you play a coda, you go back to the beginning again see what I did there) wherein I go completely off the rails into wild and speculative AU territory. Look at those new pairing tags. I can't believe I quoted The Last Unicorn in the chapter summary. Utterly shameless.

Extensive notes below the cut, because I like to hear myself talk.

Monk is like a baby butch trying desperately not to fumble this sad divorced cougar a second time. It's fine. They'll figure it out. They might even be good for each other; there certainly aren't very many things that would make either of them worse.

A silly little joke about tomatoes evolved into all of this. Over 9000 words! There are themes! Or an attempt at themes, anyway, and an attempt at laying the groundwork for some sort of narrative arc from beginning to end. I tried to make each character scene tie together in some way; I hope I succeeded.

Ninja still doesn't know how to spell PTSD; I should probably add Ninja/A Fucking Nap (unrequited) to the pairing tags.

Writing this was a blast, honestly. Embrace the cringe, be free, write it weird and self-indulgent and unhinged. I keep laughing at my own jokes; this is the longest piece of fanfic I have ever finished and published.

I still might write the sequel where Ninja gets pegged properly. He deserves something nice.

The real epilogue is actually just Shopkeeper and Phantom taking turns curb stomping Resh'an in the void, because if they have to learn to live with their inescapable grief, so does he. This all kind of ties into another WIP I have on deck- I have to make sure I don't just directly crib any Shopkeeper's lines for Resh'an, because they're both out here doing horrible things hoping that the end will someday bring an absolution for the things they've done.

It won't, and they just have to live with it, anyway. I was originally going to have Phantom get into that with Shopkeeper in the coda, but I wanted to wrap things up neatly.

"Of course I did. How could I have ever sent it to anyone else?" The final scene didn't originally have Shopkeeper doing a secret identity reveal, but then that line got suck in my head and I figured why not make everything even more fucked up. (Still firmly in speculative AU territory, really. I think it's more likely for Shopkeeper to be Phantom and Muse's kid than anything else, honestly.)

Okay, so here's Phantom, and this is Phantom's ex-wife, Shopkeeper, but it was an amicable divorce, they still hang out sometimes. And this is Shopkeeper's girlfriend, Monk, and Monk's hapless twunk Ninja (they are in a lesbian-centric semi-non-sexual throuple)-

Look, I think I am hilarious.

Shopkeeper and Monk mostly just flirted outrageously with each other back in the day. Monk is less concerned with romance than she is with being forgiven, which probably isn't clear enough in the story.

I'm still halfway convinced that I should reformat it as a one shot, but I also think I am very funny in some of those chapter notes, so I'll probably leave it. Over 9000 words!

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Thoughts on a Beth is alive reveal at Comic Con?

I am wondering what your theorist thoughts are on the likelihood of a Beth is alive reveal this year at Comic Con?

If I were among TPTB, I WOULD do the reveal there for several reasons. 

First, the amount of publicity would be outrageous.  Even though TWD flagship retained a certain audience until the end, it was nowhere near the audience it had at its peak in seasons 3-6.  Bringing a character back from the heyday may attract some of the viewers that fell away especially after seasons 6 and 7.  This is different than reveals for the flagship.  They already had a built-in audience and an ensemble cast and stories to carry the show.  If the audience thinks the spin-off will just be Darly fighting zombies in berets, many may not tune in for a repeat of the last four or five seasons of the flagship series.  However, if they think he may finally get a real love interest, find clues about the outbreak, and discover what really happened to Beth and where she has been all these years it will create enough suspense for the GA to give it a try. 

Second, it clearly ties into the theme of the last season of FTWS. “You have to go back to go to forward."  Morgan had to go back to King County. There he discovered what he THOUGHT happened to Duane is not what really happened.  Dwight is saying that he wants to go home.  Madison has to go back and fix her wrongs. There is a return back to where these characters were at the beginning of their arcs, but now they are wiser and stronger. 

Third, if they wait until into the Daryl spin-off is actually airing, it will not give the audience time to get reacquainted with Beth’s story.  By revealing that she is alive (but not giving much away in terms of story), they will still get the shock value of when and how she is found, the publicity BEFORE the show starts, and give the audience a chance to reconnect to Beth’s story and buzz about what might have happened.

Last year, they revealed the Rick/Michonne spin off at Comic Con instead of waiting until the coda of the final episode.  I think they should do the same here.

The only down side will be certain ships will be mad.  However, as we have seen, they will be upset at almost anything.  I think they could ease this by playing up that this Beth could be very different than the old Beth and that Daryl and Beth are both different people and may not have the connection they did in the past… yada…yada.  We know the symbolism and the end game, but it may appease some.

Thoughts?

TWDMusicBoxMystery:

I really love everything you’ve laid out here. You’ve backed it up with logic and evidence. And obviously, I would totally LOVE it if they revealed her as being alive at ComiCon.

My only hesitation is that now, with the actors’ strike looming, Comicon may be very interrupted or not even happen at all. Unfortunately. 

The good news is that at least season 1 of the Daryl spinoff has already been filmed, and I imagine most of season 1 of the Richonne spinoff has been, too. So, hopefully the strike won’t affect our fall shows too much.

But me and my fellow theorists wondered if the reason they suddenly started announcing the air dates for next batches of shows (Daryl Dixon Sept 10, back half of Fear Oct 22) because they know they won’t be able to do it at Comicon. They usually wait until Comicon to reveal the dates and the official trailers. 

Anyway, obviously I totally hope you’re right. But we’ll just have to wait and see what Comicon brings us, if anything. And here’s hoping both the writers’ strike and the actors’ strike get resolved soon! Xoxo!  🎆 💘

[firedragon1321]

So several Roald Dahl books are being edited to remove “unpleasant” words for “inclusivity”. For example- describing a character as “enormous” instead of “enormously fat” in a strange effort at body positivity (the character is still implied to be fat, making the edit as pointless as it is outrageous).

Another edit- calling Ms. Twit “beastly” instead of “ugly and beastly”- completely destroys the point that she’s ugly by choice. Because her thoughts and decisions are so wicked and evil that they’ve made her ugly. It also- by extension- ruins of one of the most beautiful things the man has ever written-

My two cents on the edits can be summed up in the Coda from Fahrenheit 451-

The point is obvious. There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-Day Adventist, Women's Lib/Republican, Mattachine/FourSquareGospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme. Fire-Captain Beatty, in my novel Fahrenheit 451, described how the books were burned first by minorities, each ripping a page or a paragraph from this book, then that, until the day came when the books were empty and the minds shut and the libraries closed forever.

I’m not saying Roald Dahl or Ray Bradbury were perfect, because no author- no human- is perfect. But those ugly spots are an opportunity to discuss differences and how they’re portrayed in media. I don’t care what new authors or creators do with their works. But changing the past- even in small, seemingly positive ways- is simply erasing it. History we forget is doomed to be repeated.

You can read more about the edits here- https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisadellatto/2023/02/20/roald-dahl-books-get-new-edits-and-critics-cry-censorship-the-controversy-surrounding-charlie-and-the-chocolate-factory-and-more/?sh=591f44a34534

And Bradbury’s Coda here- https://katherinesmithth.weebly.com/uploads/9/7/1/7/9717809/coda_from_ray_bradbury_for_fahrenheit_451.pdf

[wolfiery]

Richard Siken ask game: #3 please ❤️

#3: love always wakes the dragon and suddenly flames everywhere

dark!merlin, mcd, 5x13 coda, d a r k, MCD!! (494 words)

merlin twists the knife. morgana dies and arthur tells him he's brought peace with a smile he can't mirror. he simply tells his king, whose breath is rattling and whose body is heavy and slumping, that they need to go. need to hurry. need to jump five years into the past. maybe arthur’s life would be better if merlin never stumbled into it. because even the light sizzling out in morgana's eyes, the thunder that struck down at the call of her death — it's not enough. doesn’t calm the raging storm in his veins that wants to stop the inevitability, the passing of time. merlin wants to uproot the ground from underneath him like it would serve a distraction large enough to change this. arthur is dying. there will be nothing to bring merlin peace, and now he is meant to be glad that camelot possesses it, deserves it? that arthur might die for his kingdom like he'd always wanted, like uther would be proud of? arthur deserves more than that. they'll never understand the king the way he does, all he's done for them. all merlin has done to keep him there. why would he change his tune now? merlin should have ripped the skies open on the cliffs of camlann, he should have hid arthur away and let aithusa do what she intended. that would be nothing. it would mean not this, not hold me. arthur falls on pale grass with a pale face in a dull dawn and merlin wants the lake to swallow them whole and drown them like this: arms around arthur, seen and loved. nothing more asked of them from this world. his outrage doesn't subside when the world keeps turning, when the earth denies his call and leaves him fumbling. power builds like blisters in his fingertips, and arthur says all your magic and you can't save me and merlin hones in on it like a vice, pulls it toward them until arthur's last words falter on merlin's unbidden scream. he won't hear them. "merlin? please," arthur says it tiredly, a last effort to make the greatest sorcerer halt his last effort. "i love—" no. not here, not in this lifetime. merlin screams and arthur's eyes widen, the flames catch in the grass by his ankles, the fire builds until its roaring louder than him, until they are in the mouth of a dragon's breath stronger than any. merlin clutches arthur through the agony, watches him pass out from the glowing hot chainmail, the pain overwhelming him too fast. merlin's flesh burns and he shudders, sees the horror of a triple goddess behind his eyes. destiny can't take him away from me, merlin thinks. there's a smile on his face just before the embers burn so bright that he becomes a statue of ash, the king leaning against him, forever in a moment. a crow hears the gasp of the gods and feels a breeze ruffle its feathers. and all that's left of merlin and arthur is a pile of ash.

[that-banhus]

First lines/last fics x10

Tagged by @landwriter​ - thank you :) (Also, yesssss, more Oaths soon.)

Share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics and tag ten people. If you have written less than ten, don’t be shy and share anyway.

Complete fic:

1 - Settled (The Sandman)

On the evening of June tenth, nineteen-sixteen, Roderick Burgess’ circle of magicians, charlatans, opportunists and hanger-ons draw the final runes on the floor of the basement at Fawney Rig.

2 - And Not Ask Leave of Any (The Sandman)

The unfortunate thing about the marches in October - the one unfortunate thing, Hob thought, because of all God’s lands the marches were created beautiful enough to still a man’s heart, and wild enough to set it running again - was that the air was sobering cold at night.

3 - King of Infinite Space (The Sandman)

They sat at the New Inn until the afternoon melted into evening, the sunlight thickened to a rich orange, and the late crowd began to trickle into the inn in chattering groups.

4 - Runs a Joy with Silken Twine (Good Omens)

The summer of the almost apocalypse sloped into a late autumn, and nothing much changed until it did: the weather tipped into heavy rain and dark evenings as suddenly as a seesaw coming down, and Crowley did something new with his hair.

5 - All the Kingdoms of the World (Good Omens)

The thing which stuck with Crowley the most, from the little-Apocalypse-that-couldn’t, was how close it had all been. If the nuns hadn’t accidentally shuffled the antichrist to Tadfield, if Agnes Nutter hadn’t been exactly right, if Adam had loved humanity just a little less, in the end - well, they’d been very, very lucky, was all, and after several thousand years of doing Aziraphale’s job on occasion, he had a natural suspicion of luck.

6 - The Dead and the Living (Game of Thrones)

When she was twelve, Brienne had broken her leg. She’d taken a quick step forward toward the training master, gotten her foot twisted on an uneven cobblestone, and when his blunt sword came at her low it hit her shin with a sickening snap she felt all up her spine. That hadn’t been the worst of it.

WIP:

7/8 - A Local Habitation (The Sandman)

Cheating outrageously and counting it as two lines, because it essentially ended up being two seperate stories:

Dream went to Hell on a Monday, and barely gave Hob an hour’s notice.

and:

In the morning, Hob woke to the doorbell chiming. It was a beautiful sunny day outside, and the two chopsticks he’d taped over his window in the shape of a cross had burned themselves onto the glass in a sooty, smeared blur. 

9 - Untitled Missing Scene/Coda from King of Infinite Space for @chubsthehamster (The Sandman)

Hob Gadling’s unconscious body presented a problem.

10 - To the Strongest (Star Trek: Discovery)

“Do you sometimes think that T’Kuvma got himself killed on purpose, so he wouldn’t have to deal with all this?” L’Rell gestured at the stack of datapads, maps and scrolls, a delightfully petty touch from House Antaak.

Tagging (optionally as always, and apologies if I am re-tagging) @willowcrowned, @tharkuun, @just-add-butter, @moorishflower, @chubsthehamster @mathomhouse-e

[danco110]

“Ahem…Arrester Coda!” one Simic mutant chimed. “So good to see you. So good!”

A splitting image of the krasis stepped forward past the first. “What seems to be the trouble today?”

The Azorius vedalken pinched the bridge of her nose in anticipation of a headache. “Hello, Quad. I’m going to put you under arrest-”

“You can’t just arrest me…us!” a third clone blurted out.

“He’s right, you know,” growled a fourth. “We have rights.”

“-for your own good!” Coda interrupted. “If you’d have let me finish speaking, I’d have agreed that, yes, as Ravnican citizens living under Guildpact law, you are afforded all kinds of rights. But, you all also have responsibilities.”

The four lookalikes paused their outrage. “What kind of responsibilities?” asked one of the Quads.

“Well, for one, if you’re all sticking around, each of you are going to have to pay taxes. One of you is the real Quad, and the rest are his clones, so it’s only fair that the quadruple payments come out of his finances.”

“W-Wait just a second,” a Quad began nervously - likely the original, judging from his alarm at the mention of his money.

“Also, I’m pretty sure the original Quad is indebted to an Orzhov priest. I could be misremembering the terms of typical soul contracts, but I seem to recall that outstanding debts are copied to offspring. Clones, offspring, close enough-”

“All right!” the original Quad roared in anger. “I get it, Arrester. Just do what you came here to do.”

“Gladly.”

Coda’s outstretched hands began to glow. In the space between them formed a ball of blinding light. All four Quads were quickly absorbed into the sphere and, after a brief period of bright flashing, the original Quad was deposited unceremoniously on the street once more, now alone and grumbling to himself.

“Does your detention magic really have to throw me out of there?” Quad asked sarcastically.

“Yes,” Coda smirked, equally sarcastically. “You’re welcome, by the way, and also free to go.”

“Killjoy,” Quad hissed.

“Thank you!”

[The other Biovisionaries were all just token copies, hence why they didn’t reappear when Coda released the original.]

[anthonybialy]

Trump May Be Full of It, Early Research Indicates

Pre-empting mocking is a slight victory for the only person who could lose to Kamala Harris.  We’ve known for half a century that Donald Trump is a parody of business success who could’ve been the first successful creation in Democratic laboratories.  The most obvious psychological profile possible was evident before he was president, and also when Ronald Reagan held the office.  It’s never too late to learn except for how it is.

We’ll burn another election reiterating what anyone who knew anything about human nature could’ve announced in the ‘80s.  Trump is a villain from a Stephen Spielberg movie.  An impossibly rich director who demonizes businesspeople in every script he can should thank the grandest fellow faker for all the material. 

Commanding instead of offering is a sure sign of commercial hackery.  Trump’s unavoidable habit distracts from his inability to do either.  Casting a shadow over the marketplace remains a poor substitute for peddling anything half-decent in it that.

The wall that Mexico paid for has prevented invasion by unchecked illegal immigrants.  Wait: I don’t think that’s happened.  Joe Biden must’ve nuked it.  A clownish negotiation ploy is treated as the embodiment of leverage by poker players who go all in on every hand.  Shrug at ridiculous demands made by the most ridiculous person.  I encourage Trump to continue announcing his intentions in order to flummox undoubtedly baffled adversaries.  Beat poker foes by showing them your cards.

One can tell Trump is saying something outrageous even after being smart enough to mute him.  Anyone who says you can’t judge a book by the cover should check out the one for Think BIG and Kick Ass in Business and Life before apologizing for such a silly claim.

True entrepreneurs realize trading is not antagonistic, at least for those who are actually skilled at it.  Each side making a case horrifies a professional shouter.  Feeling compelled to destroy opposition is a sign of weakness that at least offers laughs to people who unlike the candidate are able to grasp irony.  Trump is trying to re-establish amazingness and yet a bunch of free will jerks haven’t learned lines.  You were supposed to submit to domination.

It’s a good thing a rather obvious prototypical grifter isn’t overcompensating for insecurity by needing to compete for everything, or this upcoming election would make agonizing existences even more acute.  A tantrum that should’ve served as the sad coda to the most mortifying presidential career possible instead inspired dreams of bigger meltdowns.

The only way to exacerbate it is to blow at it.  Trump’s consistent strategy for his entire miserable existence is to flaunt obnoxiousness enough to distract from how shoddy his offerings are.  That’s especially true since his primary product is himself.  There’s not much present common ground, but everyone can agree that Trump is mostly selling that very name.  We go back to shrieking bickering on the subject of whether it’s worth currency or laughs.

He can and won’t stop lying any time now.  Trump is only a success at convincing losers he’s not also one.  The emblematic politician has always been in his present field other than career defendant.

Get back here and let Trump bend your will.  The certainty of compliance is natural to timeshare salesmen and Republican candidates.  Pretending to believe in free exchange unlike the incumbent is a scam with the goal of swindling enough marks to keep him from being banished to AM radio where he belongs.

Eyes roll reflexively at boasts so preposterous that they only sound like his enemies invented them.  Insisting he’s worth $10 billion is an all-time tiresome phony boast from someone whose sole product is his ego.

It’s tough making a case to again elect someone who learned precisely nothing.  Someone who was president should know it’s better to have people underestimate his fortune.  But the IRS thinking he’s worth a couple thousand bucks might reduce his totally thorough intimidation.

The most obnoxious cult possible totally hasn’t been suckered into a scheme of personal glorification for history’s least deserving narcissist.  Spot an unimaginable fortune by the inability to pay legal bills.  The repeat presidential applicant could ask for a public defender, but it might be a little embarrassing.

A superior investor’s money must be tied up in successful ventures like steaks and bottled water.  It’s a good thing he’s not running again as a scam, as that’d be really embarrassing for a party which should be choosing frames for Oval Office photos.

Trump has always sold nothing but promises.  Let this be the decade all of humanity finally figures out the simplest of truths.  The real estate baron with the smallest fief imaginable is still claiming he’ll rescue the economy by imposing tariffs as if that baffling bit of Hooveresque scheming didn’t already fail spectacularly when he tried this before.  

Admitting to getting conned becomes more difficult by the election.  The biggest dupes think this is the perfect time to fly the Trump Shuttle to Atlantic City.  Impossible fools bought empty boxes and liked the contents so much that they’re begging to purchase air again.  It’s impressive in its way to keep selling nothing.

[kaiasky]

the coda to this is that this doesn't just prey on terfs and white nationalists. we ought to be careful not to fall into this ourselves.

for instance, you can find many instances where trans people are hurt by individuals and society. These are real, and it is also true that, demographically, it is more dangerous to be trans than not trans. (and depending on where you live, who you live with, your race, economic status, etc it may be extremely dangerous to be trans. intersectionality etc y'all know the deal).

But consuming all the news articles does NOT give you an accurate perception of the risks where you are. It is easy to gorge yourself on these stories of harm towards trans people, and come to believe that being trans is *more* dangerous than reality, that every cis person is a threat, and that the safest thing is to never go outside/never come out/etc.

obviously it's a different tragedy if you're not in a position to discriminate against and harm in the name of 'self defense', the way terfs/white nationalists/zionists are. trans people are not driving the down with cis bus; i dont wanna draw a false equivalence there. but the underlying function, of getting trapped in a cyclic loop of outrage bait and fear? that can happen regardless of who the outgroup is.

In the worst case that comes out as aggression against also-vulnerable people on the periphery of the ingroup. (one might point out how TERFs are legitimately subject to the horrors of patriarchy, but that has coalesced into anger against trans women, who also experience all of those things!) And in the 'best' case, it just makes you sad, angry, and miserable all the time.

Everybody does the exact same stupid shit. That white nationalist anon I was getting a while ago would send me story after story of some random black guy or immigrant committing a violent crime against a white person. Well, yeah, people are violent, you're gonna find those if you go looking for them. And there's a lot of racial animosity in the world, so you'll even find racially charged ones if you go looking! No shit, Sherlock. We could play this game all day. You find me a news story of a black guy killing a white guy, I find you a news story of white guy killing a black guy. This does no one any good.

TERFs are identical. News story after news story of a trans woman raping somebody. Yeah, the world is an awful place and people rape each other. I can find you a news story of a cis woman raping a teenage boy and getting three months in jail. I can find you a news story of a cis mom killing her disabled kid cause they're too much work. But I don't want to. The world sucks shit, why gorge yourself on the tragedy?

Zionists come up with news story after news story of pro-Palestinian/BDS/whatever protestors being antisemitic. Yep. A lot of people out there hate Jews. And there has been a genuine rise in antisemitism since the Oct. 7th attack, and that's awful. There are no excuses for that. Do you know what else has happened since then? The Israeli military has slaughtered tens of thousands of Palestinians, including huge numbers of innocent civilians—men, women and children.

People are often terrible to each other. Welcome to Earth. If you go looking for bad actors in a big enough group, you are guaranteed to find them. How about this. What about all the black people who didn't kill a white little girl? What about the black little girls? What about their hopes and dreams? What about their chance at life? What about all the trans women who didn't rape anybody in a bathroom? What if they just want to go about their lives, without constant public scrutiny of what genitals they have (as a cis woman, can you empathize with that? Constant public scrutiny of what you're doing with your genitals?). What about the 30,000 Palestinians who have been killed, and the 70,000 who have been displaced from their homes?

Fear has made you a monster. Fear has driven you to demand slaughter and oppression of innocent people because they look like guilty people you read about on the news, and since they look the same to you, you feel fearful—how can you tell whether these are the innocent ones or the guilty ones? Best to oppress and slaughter them preemptively just to be safe. I am here to tell you that this twisted logic of self-defense does not hold. I do not care if you feel safe—I do not care if you are safe—if the cost of your safety is innocent life. The world is a risky place. I am not going to deny that. Horrible things could happen to any of us. If we go around preemptively attacking other over it, we do not make it a bit better. And, needless to say, danger comes from everywhere, from every group of human beings, and oppressing the people who make you nervous will not, in fact, deliver you from danger. It just makes you a monster.

[werewolvesandaccordions]

Prokofiev – Symphony no.5 in Bb Major This has to be the most unusual little ritual of mine: listening to Prokofiev’s fifth symphony late Christmas eve / early Christmas morning. Why? Because that’s the first time I’d listened to it, years ago, I think I was in high school, I’d woken up early on Christmas morning, something unreasonable like 4 or 5 am, and had to wait for the rest of my family to wake up to go forth with the Christmas festivities. I’d been getting into Prokofiev, and I’d remembered seeing his fifth symphony mentioned on a CSO pamphlet, so on my late 2000s iPod Touch, I listened through the fifth, for the first time, laying on the carpet of my bedroom before the sun rose on Christmas. And ever since, I’ve associated the piece with Christmas. It’s odd because if this symphony HAD to be associated with any specific event, it would be the second world war. He was writing it during the war and dubbed it “a hymn to free and happy Man, to his mighty powers, his pure and noble spirit.“ And because of this, it became a bit of a propaganda piece for the Soviet Union, especially after the Nazi regime was defeated. Prokofiev’s true emotions about the war, about the horrific paradox of being afraid of both foreign and domestic terror, and about the sheer amount of human deaths, are better articulated through his “war” sonatas, and his sixth symphony. The fifth opens quietly, slowly growing as a choral to the human spirit, an uplifting and noble theme, though slightly unstable in its harmonies. The second movement is a fun scherzo that plays around with orchestral textures. The third is somewhat more elegiac, slowly rolling forward in a way that starts out content but as it develops, becomes more distressed and angry, having a tragic climax in the middle that sounds like outraged screams, before settling back to the opening. The final movement is extremely rowdy, like a cheesy “happy” Hollywood melody is trying to push through all kinds of critics until its explosive ending. This particular performance, with Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting the Rotterdam Philharmonic, really emphasizes the insanity of the symphony’s coda. Movements 1. Andante 2. Allegro marcato 3. Adagio 4. Allegro giocoso

mikrokosmos: Prokofiev – Symphony no.5 in Bb Major This has to be the most unusual little ritual of mine: listening to Prokofiev’s fifth symphony late Christmas eve / early Christmas morning. Why? Because that’s the first time I’d listened to it, years ago, I think I was in high school, I’d woken up early on…