Moe Lane's Blog, page 858

‘Bat Out Of Hell.’

Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf

THE FLASH’s gonna nerd out completely with multiverse stuff.

Apparently the Flash is gonna visit alternate versions of the DC universe in his movie. As GeekTyrant notes, I understand that they did something like this in the TV shows, which were pretty popular. Even with Ben Affleck coming back for one more Batman flick, though: is this really gonna work? I dunno…

Affleck won’t be the only Batman making a comeback; a few more of the alternate-dimension heroes who turn up in the Flash movie will be figures we’ve seen before. Michael Keaton’s Batman from the 1989 Tim Burton film is also set to appear in what Muschietti said was a “substantial” part.

…hold up.

Michael Keaton would be a rather old Batman at this point, you know. Like, Batman Beyond old. Or possibly… The Dark Knight Returns old? Either way: DC now has my attention.

08/21/2020 Snippet, TIPPED ON A STIFF.

Field surgery!

Patreon!

You ever wake up because some guy’s poking your gut with a knife? Really? Must be nice. This wasn’t even the worst time it’s ever happened to me.

The funny part was, mostly it didn’t even hurt; there was something shoved between my teeth, but I could breathe, and I got a whiff of eucalyptus and menthol (and… roses?). They were using some kind of alchemical gunk on me, then. I tried to get up to look better, but somebody was holding onto my shoulders.

“Crap! He woke up!” Sofie’s voice. If it was anyone else, I’d have gone librarian, whatever that means. Not all of the Lore still has its original labeling, if you know what I mean.

“Just another second, ma’am… there! Got it.” That was Smith. I wondered what he had gotten, and whether it was nice.

I felt something faintly tapping on my side while Sofie cursed again, this time using a word I won’t write down. “How did I miss that?” she went on. I tried to spit out the thing in my mouth; I had the horrible suspicion it was my tie.

The “I am… DUBIOUS” RIGHT STUFF Nat Geo/Disney+ series trailer.

I am not quite aghast. The original THE RIGHT STUFF was made an unfortunate number of decades ago. But I will be skeptical of this series.

08/21/2020 Snippet, OMBUDSMAN.

Sudden, yet inevitable betrayal!

Patreon!

“I keep telling you, Jimmy,” said Bad Jack. “It’s ‘we,’ now. We’re in the Consortium. I said we were in, and that’s that.”

“Nah, Jack,” said Jimmy, as he reached for something. “It’s not, sorry.”

Bad Jack had flipped back the table and was on his feet before Jimmy had finished pulling out the club he had stashed behind a plant. Goddamn ferns. We have those before Hershey, you asshole? Bad Jack thought angrily (if a little vaguely) as he made sure of the folding knife in his wrist-sheath. This is gonna be tricky, a knife against a club. Then the door opened, and some of Jimmy’s guys came through. With crossbows.

Fuck me. “So that’s how it goes, huh?” snarled Bad Jack. But they hadn’t just shot him yet, so maybe this wasn’t how it’d go.

“Only if you’re dumb, Jack,” said Jimmy, keeping back a little. “You can still walk away from this.”

“Bullshit. That ain’t how these things go down. I gotta admit: you got the drop on me good, you prick. So have your goons finish it, already.”

08/21/2020 Snippet, MORGAN BAROD Revision.

I miss you, Becky.

Patreon!

Morgan was wondering what nightlife in a vampire city would look like, and it was pretty much everything he expected. Although there were some surprises. Shops stayed open longer, for example. And it wasn’t always immediately obvious whether he was talking to a vampire or a mortal. Pale skin and red lips were the fashion; h`e had to watch for hints of fang.

People mixed pretty well, though. Most of them were mortals; the vampires dressed better, and moved quieter, but that was about it. Although there were a few that seemed almost — well, not exactly jittery. But real energetic. The mortals gave them a little space, but so did the vampires.

It interested Morgan enough to have him ask one bartender. Her nametag said ‘Rhiannon,’ and he was interested to see she was a vampire herself. “Those guys? They’re dhampirs. Half-vampires,” she explained after seeing Morgan’s look. “They’re changing, but haven’t gotten there yet.”

“That normal?” said Morgan. “Unless that’s a dumb question to ask in public. I can mind my own business, I swear.”

“It’s normal for some of ‘em,” Rhiannon said. “You usually need a few sessions to vamp out. Some people, they like the in-between part, hey? You get a little stronger, a little faster, but you can still go outside during the day. It’s not a bad deal, for a while.” She leaned forward, and so did Morgan. “And sometimes, the vampire who’s supposed to vamp them out doesn’t do it for them right away. Keeps ‘em motivated, and all that.”

“Not everybody does that, though?”

Rhiannon shook her head. “No! Sure, we have to keep from having too many vampires around at once, but leading somebody on like that? That’s just mean.” She sounded legitimately offended about that, which for some reason struck Morgan as pretty funny.

‘Hungover & I Miss U.’

Hungover & I Miss U, Walk Off The Earth

Somebody once said this band keeps turning songs you hate into something good. I dunno if I’d hate the original, but this is quite nice.

08/20/2020 Snippet, OMBUDSMAN

Realpolitik!

Patreon!

He thought it was a good point; but Jimmy shook his head. “With respect, boss, I didn’t mean them. I meant Hershey. The Consortium. They’re running a con on us.”

“Jimmy,” said Bad Jack, maybe a little too heavily, “We’re the Consortium now. We made a deal, remember? We joined their Outfit, and they made sure we could keep what we grabbed and grab some more besides. And it’s worked out pretty good so far.”

“So far? Maybe, boss. But when you made that deal, it was because Unholy Fucking Toledo sniffing around. Toledo ain’t breathing down our necks any more. Hell, these days it ain’t breathing at all.”

Bad Jack knew where Jimmy was coming from with that. He’d had the thought himself. But Jimmy wasn’t thinking big enough. Toledo was gone. But New Zaneville was still there, and those Mansfield assholes (who just joined the Consortium, now that Toledo was belly-up), and Hershey was building up Canton and Erie. When Bad Jack signed the crew on with the Consortium, they were sort of on the frontier. Now the frontier was somewhere west of Dayton.

He hadn’t thought about it himself. Still might not have, except the weekly executive summaries had a lot of maps in them now. It was hard to not to see how far west the border was now. And past it… “There’s them,” Bad Jack said. “You know. Those mage assholes in Iowa.” And Michigan, and Indiana, and a lot of places west of there, too…

08/20/2020 Snippet, TIPPED ON A STIFF.

Careful stepping around copyright laws!

Patreon!

I almost lost a few fingers grabbing and squeezing shut the spirit’s muzzle before it could rip out my throat, and I wasn’t going to hold on for more than a second. I was pretty much out of options at this point… except for one, of course. So I leaned forward, and whispered a few words in the beast’s misshapen ears, just as hard as I could.

Look, I’m not a mage, all right? I don’t do magic. I don’t cast spells, or anything like that. I just know some stuff, like how things… ought to go. And I know a hell of a lot of the Lore. Everything’s in there, somewhere. Including what a living whirlwind of death and destruction should look like. Because what the sorcerer had come up with? Total amateur work.

Again, I didn’t cast any spells: I just told the spirit what it could look like, and it did the rest. Okay, maybe I said it really, really strongly, and we were close enough to Mt. Jeannie out there in the Gulf that my words had some of Her oomph behind it, but it didn’t have to heed me. But why wouldn’t it heed me? The Lore’s idea of a good form for it was so much better than the sorcerer’s.

It wasn’t even a contest, although the sorcerer tried to make it one. The spirit broke free from me and staggered backward as it broke the sorcerer’s hold on its current form and redefined itself. Although there weren’t many changes. It kept the legs and arms, and the mouth was just as big and just as full of teeth as before. But now it had fur, and a proper face, and a tongue big enough for the mouth that now made up half its body.

And it was no longer interested in me. Instead, it faced its former master and started to growl. When the sorcerer sensibly started running, it gave chase, somehow spinning its lower body in place to build up speed. I could hear it howl “¡COMO CONEJITOS!” as the two left the scene.

I opened my mouth to quip… and fell flat on my ass. Which was a shame: I don’t remember what I was going to say, but I’m pretty sure it was good.

Movie of the Week: DARKMAN.

Why Darkman? Well… never underestimate the power of a good oral history interview. Just saying, that’s all.