#the devil went down

[galateagalvanized]

For the WIP name game: I’m very excited about the Highwayman Obi-wan fic but I feel like we already know what that’s about, so can you please tell us about “the devil went down”?

(Public okay!)

this one's very much a character study + porn so I'll just let y'all read the beginning and find out lmao

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Jamie Kirk’s short brown curls splay across the hospital pillows in a wild abandon that matches the preferred state of their owner. Today, though, she lies perfectly still, with no drumming fingers or bouncing knee to mark her as Jamie Kirk, unstoppable object. Stillness is an anathema to Kirk, and the sight of her laying in drug-induced placidity drives needles into McCoy’s heart. 

Kirk doesn’t have any needles left in her, of course; the IV cocktail of drugs necessary to keep her body from tearing itself apart while Khan’s blood integrates itself with her system feeds neatly into a cannula in her arm. The IV system itself is fairly medieval technology, but Kirk is, of course, allergic to anything trying to keep her alive. 

McCoy settles into her chair, watching Kirk’s vitals scroll across the screen connected to the biobed, a serene seismograph of calm and continuous activity. At last, she sees the mountain range of her heart rate rise from a sedate 52 to 56, 61, 65, with Kirk’s breathing rate and body temperature following similar slow inclines. McCoy moves closer to the bed, reaching out two fingers to seek, unerringly, the beat of Kirk’s heart in her wrist. It’s an old habit from southern Georgia, where the old guard still have a distrust of the infallibility of technology carved into their bones.

Focused on the pulse beating across her fingers like ocean waves on the sand, McCoy almost misses when Kirk first opens her eyes. Kirk usually springs awake in the morning, horribly cheerful and already more energetic than McCoy is after her third cup of coffee. Now, though, Kirk’s eyes open slowly, groggily, struggling to keep her eyelids in a full upright and locked position. She has to try twice to focus on McCoy’s face.

“Hey, Bones,” she croaks, her voice rasping through her throat like sandpaper skating across a desert.

“Hey, yourself,” McCoy says, as soft and gentle as she knows how, and she passes over a cup of the gel-pack lozenges that are really just medicated ice chips. Kirk groans. 

“Pain?” McCoy snaps, already calculating morphine totals in her head while reaching for her hypo.

“No, no.” Kirk laughs, a dry rattle of a thing that pulls McCoy up short. “It’s just that you’re being nice to me. That’s never a good sign.”

McCoy glares while gesturing for her to suck on a glorified ice chip, trying and failing not to put her hands on her hips in the way Sulu says looks matronly. “Got plenty of anger in here too, darlin’,” she says, voice still quiet, but edged in a hardness that brooks no quarter. “Fortunately for you, I’ve got more patience than that walnut you call a brain has ever held.”

“You? Patient?” Kirk says, grinning, and her teeth are starting to stain just a little blue from the medication designed to hydrate and reduce soreness in a recently-intubated throat. McCoy’s glare deepens at the reminder.

“I think I’ve been more than patient with your antics,” McCoy grumbles, turning away from Kirk to fiddle with a hypospray. Because of the IV, McCoy hasn’t been able to justify stabbing Kirk once with a hypospray. She’s irritated at being deprived of even this small revenge on Kirk for trying, once again, to martyr herself for the good of the universe. 

A pale white hand flops on top of hers: the skin is pocked with the faint shimmer of new skin over red burns, and the nails are brittle and nearly translucent. McCoy makes a mental note to check the nutrient transfer capacity of Kirk’s healing intestinal system, then looks up.

“Thank you, Bones,” Kirk says, her voice slow and sincere even though her eyes are glassy with exhaustion, and McCoy’s heart lodges firmly in her throat. 

“You gotta stay with me, kid,” McCoy chokes out, turning her hand over and lacing their fingers together. She can see Kirk’s heart rate starting to drop back down into the rhythms of a natural sleep.

Kirk manages to squeeze McCoy’s fingers even as she’s dropping off. “Tryin’,” she slurs, and McCoy holds on as tight as she dares.

“Try harder,” she says, emotion coloring her words in a way she would never allow if Kirk were awake. McCoy’s been here every minute of the last week and a half, through every flatline and code blue, and she’s so, so tired. She’s tired of this room, and she’s more tired of Kirk throwing herself into the gaping maw of danger every chance she gets. 

Kirk doesn’t answer. Her heart rate is a peaceful mountain range, shallow and slow, as even and worn-down as the Appalachians of the home McCoy hasn’t seen in seven years.

“Try harder,” McCoy repeats, low. “If not for you, then for me.”

[cyber-corp]

Had a dream where Johnny from “The Devil Went Down To Georgia” came out as a trans woman and the response was so unanimously positive it reversed nearly all of the transphobic bills in the South. She played live in Georgia to an audience of about a third of the US.

[reallydifferentcaptain]

DID ANYONE ELSE CATCH THIS REFERENCE???

The devil went down to Georgia, he was lookin' for a soul to steal

He was in a bind 'cause he was way behind

And he was willin' to make a deal

When he came across this young man sawin' on a fiddle and playin' it hot

And the devil jumped up on a hickory stump

And said, "boy, let me tell you what"

"I guess you didn't know it but I'm a fiddle player too

And if you'd care to take a dare, I'll make a bet with you

Now you play a pretty good fiddle, boy

But give the devil his due

I'll bet a fiddle of gold against your soul

'Cause I think I'm better than you"

[panthermouthh]

Where Johnny goes, the Devil follows; where Johnny goes, the Devil is already there.

Based on "A cornstalk fiddle" by the incredible @notbecauseofvictories

Finally finished this comic after months of zero progress. I adore this story and think about it often, and am so happy to finally be able to share this fan work with you. I hope you all enjoy!

[hwathwugu]

The Golden Fiddle

[stealingyourbones]

DPxDC the Olympics AU.

Jazz is competing for sharpshooting

Dick is competing for team gymnastics

Y’all can work it out from there :)

[one-time-i-dreamt]

Johnny from “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” is married to Sully from “The Devil Came Up to Boston,” they have three kids.

[rose-morose]

when Lucifer pulled out the golden fiddle like it was devil went down to Georgia I lost my fucking mind I love this shit so much please put more in my brain

[stalkerkyoko]

golden fiddle from devil went down to gerogia

[jessibbb]

They gave Lucifer…. A fiddle….

[teh-vampire-bunny]

Nobody:

Lucifer:

Me: -I’LL BET A FIDDLE O’ GOLD AGAINST YER SOUL CUZ I THINK I’M BETTER THAN YOU *explosions and gunshots*

[raven-with-a-pocketwatch]

GUYS WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT THIS!!!

THEY GAVE LUCIFER, THE DEVIL, A FUCKING GOLDEN FIDDLE!!!!!

The riff he plays even sounds kinda similar to the central riff of the song!!! COME ON!!

And I don’t want anyone in the reblogs saying “the captions say it’s a violin” THEY ARE THE SAME INSTRUMENT

[notbecauseofvictories]

I've now received four (four!!!) different copies of my fic, bound and illustrated by different artists---and there's still a deep, almost reverential feeling I get when I hold them in my hands, lay them out. Ironically for the subject matter, they feel decidedly holy. After all, where else am I going to get proof that I did this---even if "tell a story about music and the devil" is one of the sillier things you can do to occupy your time.

But to be less vague, this is the kind gift of @fleabitebooks / @kettle-bird! They reached out to me a few months ago, saying they wanted to bind my Devil Went Down to Georgia fic, and would I like a copy too? As I would never say no to a gift like that, I gleefully accepted.

If you've been following me long enough, you've seen their art in my Cornstalk Fiddle tag, and I am pleased to say that the images lose none of their power. I think the choice to stick to a limited color palette works beautifully here---the golden-yellow of the title pages and the larger art almost seeps through the paper. With the crisp lineart and shading, it ends up being both lovely and vaguely ominous, a sign of the eldritch things moving around/beneath the story.

(Also, I realize this is not a major aspect, but....I love how truly awkward-looking the Devil is. He looks like a Southern Gentleman, and I love that touch of weakness in his jaw.)

I also deeply adore some of the design choices---chapter 3 starting with the cornstalk fiddle and the triumphant starburst of golden-yellow? The white snakeskin-threaded-with-gold pattern used to bind the book? The way the paragraph breaks and endsheets are music? Amazing. Just amazing.

Maybe I should revise what I said above. Yes, having your silly fic about a country song turned into a physical book is proof that you did it, finished it---but it's also proof that someone else did too. In this case, @kettle-bird sat down with my fic and carefully copied it, played with fonts (oh, those are fantastic too by the way!) and spacings and margins; they drew art, colored it; laced the book together, made and bound the cover, then shipped it off to me.

Which means....if I did this, then I was hardly the only one.

[reallifeorfantasy97]

This part right here?

Will never not be the funniest thing ever.

Lucifer and Alastor are going toe-to-toe about who's the best help/dad to Charlie, and Lucifer whips out this bad boy.

And it is fucking perfect because it is literally "I bet a fiddle of gold against your soul, cause I think I'm better than you". 😂

Image Description: An image of Lucifer, from the waist up, standing in a spotlight. He’s playing a golden fiddle, wearing a comical frown- eyes wide, brows frowned, lips turned way down.

[panthermouthh]

A Cornstalk Fiddle

(Part 1/?)

And here they are! The first three pages of a fan comic, based on @notbecauseofvictories brain altering fic 'A Cornstalk Fiddle'. Read more below if you're interested in where this comic came from and where it’s going :))

I've continuously returned to notbecauseofvictories’s writing over the years— if I ever feel lost in my own story telling when it comes to comics, poems or prose, notbecauseofvictories is one of those authour's whose work always reignites a creative spark in me, and I just wanted to make my own tribute to one of my favourite stories <33

I've had this all visually planned out in the back of my mind for a year now, and finally drafted the storyboards this summer. I can’t promise a timeline of when the next pages will be posted, hopefully over the next few months, but I’m planning on doing this whole scene and it should come to about ten. I hope you guys enjoy them and tell me what you think!

[nexahexagon]

So silly so silly so silly so sill-

Needed to get this out of my brain. Sketchy, very sketchy, colored sketch!! Each with three colors I associate them with (I normally give Tanguish purple but I rlly wanted to give him yellow as well and wanted to stick to 3 colors so (was also gonna give Wels white so it’d be “blinding” but it was too bright imo and I wanted to keep his and Tanguish’s yellows separate so his is darker(I should’ve just done 4 colors(but then I’d have just rendered it complete and I don’t have that time(but it would’ve been fun)))))

@silverskye13

Full page under cut!! (this is how all my posts look, each post is on one page to whomever wanted to know)

And sorry for the spam posts/tagging SilverSkye these guys are just. These guys yk??