#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 :)

[mythrilthread]

The Devil Went Down to Georgia (And Then Went Down on Johnny) by @notbecauseofvictories

This is one of the stories that I enountered purely due to seeing absolutely outstanding bindings of it, and boy, am I grateful for that, because this one is SO GOOD.

🎻 I knew I wanted to do something that differed from previous takes on the story, so I had a pretty solid design idea, then had a lot of fun typesetting this series using musical notations (many thanks to @lootthecoyote, my resident music expert), sewn the textblock, and THEN had a brilliant idea that, as I'm using leather anyway, why not try a completely new binding type?

🎻 So off came the mule, I hammered my very much swell-less textblock into as much of an arc as I could, and began gleefully constructing the cover with its many fun cutouts and overlays (that I used to create the violin design under the leather).

🎻 I then went through hell and back trying to pare leather for the first time (I survived the ordeal, but barely. Me being afraid of sharp knives certainly didn't help!) I did mess up quite a lot of things, but I'm still very happy with the result. The A6 books have too light pages to do the tightback thing and drape really well, but it does the signature K118 party trick of opening ALL THE WAY, as you can see in the last photo.

🎻 Additional design notes: the endpapers are yellow paper with a lovely linoprint of a cornfield on it, with additional leaves of black paper, the body (AND the header) font is, of course, my beloved Georgia — not only dear to my heart, but also PLOT RELEVANT, there's a nice engraving of a fiddle on the title and half-title pages, and table of contents and individual story titles feature a frame that gave me ~bluegrassy vibes~.

[erinwantstowrite]

crazy how people will see bruce not wanting to kill because he knows he wouldn't stop and eventually would get out of control because he's severely mentally ill and they think "wow what a selfish asshole"

[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.

[depressedwetnapkin]

[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*

[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!

[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