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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 months

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Brinkwhump Linkdump

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TUCSON (Mar 9-10), then San Francisco (Mar 13), Anaheim, and more!

Once again, I find myself arriving at the weekend with a giant backlog of links, triggering a linkump, the 15th such dumpage, a variety-pack of miscellany for your weekend. Here's the previous editions:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

Let's start with the latest incredible news from KPMG, the accounting and auditing giant that is relied upon as a source of ground truth for a truly terrifying share of the world's economy. KPMG has a well-deserved reputation for incompetence and corruption. They first came on my radar in 2001 when they sent a legal threat to a blogger for linking to their website without permission:

https://memex.craphound.com/2001/12/05/reason-4332442-not-to-ask/

The actual link was to KPMG's corporate anthem, which remains, to this day, a banger:

https://web.archive.org/web/20040428063826/http://chkpt.zdnet.com/chkpt/uknewsita/http://anthems.zdnet.co.uk/anthems/kpmg.mp3

Don't miss the DJ remixes (and the Nokia ringtone!) that the internet thoughtfully provided when KPMG decided that it didn't want the world to know about "Our Vision of Global Strategy":

https://web.archive.org/web/20011128153057/http://corporateanthems.raettig.org/

Now all this is objectively very funny, a relic of the old, good internet from one of its moments of glory, but KPMG? They were already enshittifying, even in 2001, and the enshittification only intensified thereafter. Nearly every accounting scandal of the past quarter-century has KPMG in it somewhere, from con-artists selling exhausted oil fields to rubes:

https://www.desmog.com/2021/06/03/miller-energy-kpmg-auditors-oil-fraud/

To killer nursing homes that hire KPMG to audit its books – and to advise it on how to defeat safety audits and murder your grandma:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/09/dingo-babysitter/#maybe-the-dingos-ate-your-nan

They're the architects of Microsoft's tax-evasion plot:

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-irs-decided-to-get-tough-against-microsoft-microsoft-got-tougher

And they were behind Canada's dysfunctional covid contact-tracing app, which never worked, but generated tens of millions in billings to the government of Canada, who used KPMG to hire programmers at $1,500/day, plus KPMG's 30% commission:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/31/mckinsey-and-canada/#comment-dit-beltway-bandits-en-canadien

KPMG's most bizarre scandal is literally stranger than fiction. The company bribed SEC personnel help its own accountants cheat on ethics exams. The corrupt officials were then given high-paid jobs at KPMG:

https://www.nysscpa.org/news/publications/the-trusted-professional/article/sec-probe-finds-kpmg-auditors-cheating-on-training-exams-061819

I mean it when I say this is stranger than fiction. I included it as a plot-point in my new finance crime novel The Bezzle (now a national bestseller!), and multiple readers have written to me since the book came out a couple weeks ago to say that they thought I was straining their credulity by making up such an outrageous scandal:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

But all of that is just scene-setting (and a gratuitous plug for my book) for the latest KPMG scandal, which is, possibly, the most KPMG scandal of all KPMG scandals. The Australian government hired KPMG to audit Paladin, a security contractor that oversees the asylum seekers the country locks up on one of its island gulags (yes, gulags, plural).

Ever since, Paladin has been the subject of a string of ghastly human rights scandals – the worst stuff imaginable, rape and torture and murder of adults and children. Paladin made AU423 million on this contract.

And here's the scandal: KPMG audited the wrong company. The Paladin that the Australia government paid KPMG to audit was based in Singapore. The Paladin that KPMG audited was a totally different company, based in Papua New Guinea, who already had a commercial relationship with KPMG. It was this colossal fuckup that led to the manifestly unfit Singaporean company getting nearly half a billion dollars in public funds:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/24/incredible-failure-kpmg-rejects-claims-it-assessed-the-wrong-company-before-423m-payment-to-paladin

KPMG denies this. KPMG denies everything, always. Like, they denied creating "power maps" of decision-makers in the Australian government to target with influence campaigns in order to win contracts like this one. Who knows, maybe, this one time, they're telling the truth? After all, the company whose employees gather to sing lyrics like these can't be all bad, right?

The time is now to lead the way, We share the same the idea That may win by the end of the day. Our strength is here to stay. Identity, one energy, One strategy, with sympathy. These are the words that will lead us into a new world.

https://everything2.com/title/KPMG+corporate+anthem

You may find it strange that I'm still carrying around the factoid that KPMG once threatened to crush a blogger for linking to its terrible corporate anthem, but that's just my "Memex Method," which helps me keep track of literally everything that seemed important to me through most of my adult life:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/

One of my favorite quips from the very quotable Riley Quinn is that "leftists are cursed with object-permanence" – that is, we actually remember what just happened and use it to think about what's happening now. The Memex Method is object permanence for 20+ years worth of stuff. A lot of those deep archives never see use, but there's a surprising number of leading indicators buried in the stuff that happened in years gone by.

Take James Boyle's 2014, XKCD-style comic about the experience of driving a notional Apple car:

https://www.thepublicdomain.org/2014/11/07/apple-updates-a-comic/

Apple, it turns out, spent the next decade working on just such a car, and while that car has now been canceled, Boyle's comic correctly anticipates so much about the trajectory Apple's products took. It's uncannily accurate – real "don't invent the torment nexus"/"cyberpunk was a warning, not a suggestion" stuff:

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/torment-nexus

But no matter how many times we insist that the torment nexus shouldn't be created, the boardrooms of end-stage capitalism continue to invent them. Take HP, the poster-child for enshittification, edging out even KPMG in the race to turn everything into a pile of shit. After years of tormenting people to punish them for wanting to print things, HP has announced a new service that so mustache-twirlingly evil that it lacks verisimilitude:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/hp-wants-you-to-pay-up-to-36-month-to-rent-a-printer-that-it-monitors/

Here's the pitch: HP will sell you a printer that you don't own. In addition to paying a monthly fee for your ink – which you pay no matter whether you print or not – you will also pay a monthly fee just for having HP's printer on your premises. You are absolutely, positively forbidden from using third-party ink in this printer, and must use HP's own ink, which sells for about $10,000/gallon.

But while you aren't allowed to use this printer in ways that are bad for HP's shareholders, HP is absolutely free to use the printer in ways that are bad for you. When you click through the signup agreement, you grand HP permission to surveil every document you print – and your home wifi network more generally – and to sell that data to anyone and everyone.

What's more, HP reserves the right to discipline you with punitive credit-card charges if you disconnect this printer from the internet, on the basis that doing so makes it harder for them to spy on your printer.

I'm sorry, this is just more torment nexus shit, the kind of thing you'd expect to drop on Apr 1, not Feb 29, but I guess this is where we are. I can only conjecture as to whether HP's businesses strategists are directly taking direction from my novella "Unauthorized Bread," or whether they're learning about it second-hand from a KPMG consultant who converted it to Powerpoint form and charged $1,500/day for the work:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

All of this cartoonish villainry is the totally foreseeable consequence of a culture of impunity, in which companies like HP and KPMG can rob, cheat, steal (and sometimes even kill) without consequence. This impunity is so pervasive that the exceptions – where a rich criminal faces real consequences – become touchstones: Enron, Arthur Anderson, Theranos, and, of course, FTX.

FTX was arguably the largest-scale corporate crime in world history, stealing more than $10 billion dollars, mostly from rubes sucked in by hype and Superbowl ads. When news that FTX founder and owner Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud and was in for a lengthy prison sentence made a huge stir, because criminals like SBF usually walk away from the wreckage with their hands in their pockets, whistling a jaunty tune.

One of the very best commentators on cryptocurrency scams generally and FTX/SBF in particular is Molly White, whose Web3 is Going Just Great feed is utterly indispensable. White's newsletter, "Citation Needed," dives deep into the wrangle of SBF's sentencing:

https://www.citationneeded.news/issue-52/

Bankman-Fried's parents – prominent law professors at top law schools – helped brief the court this week on their son's punishment. According to them, SBF faces 100 years in prison, but should be sentenced to 5.5-6.5 years at the most. Why? Because he is a vegan, who is not greedy, and feels remorse, and cares for individuals (recall that SBF presented himself as the avatar of the batshit "effective altruism" philosophy while privately admitting that he used this as a smokescreen).

The most bizarre note in the 100-page filing is SBF's mother declaring that her son is an "angel of mercy," apparently unaware of the grisly meaning of that term:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_of_mercy_(criminology)

America's prisons are a travesty and I wouldn't wish them on anyone, but that's not the argument SBF's parents are making; rather, they're arguing that their special boy doesn't deserve the treatment America metes out to poorer, less white people who merely steal hundreds or thousands of dollars. A crook who steals ten billion should be handled the way a casino handles a whale – with concierge service.

The problem is, there are so many of these remorseless, relentless crooks that there's no way we could scale up that white-glove treatment when we finally round 'em all up and make them pay. Writing for The American Prospect, Maureen Tkacik tells us about the ransomware attack that shut down America's pharmacy system last month:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-03-01-zoomer-hackers-shut-down-unitedhealthcare/

The attack brought down Change Healthcare, part of the monopolist Unitedhealth, which serves as the "pharmacy benefit manager" to a vast swathe of American pharmacies. PBM is one of those all-American finance scams, a middleman garlanded with performative complexity put there to make you feel stupid for asking why independent pharmacies all have to pay rent to this malicious, unaccountable – and now, manifestly incompetent – gang of crooks.

Tkacik's breakdown of this scam – and how it rendered Americans' ability to get the drugs they depend on to go on breathing – is characteristically brilliant. Tcacik is fast emerging as my favorite Explainer of Scams, a print version of John Oliver or Adam Conover. You may recall her work from my post last week on how private equity has taken a wrecking ball to America's hospitals:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/28/5000-bats/#charnel-house

I always try to finish these linkdumps with some upbeat news to carry you through the weekend, and this week brought two genuinely wonderful – and totally underreported – pieces of amazing news.

The first is that Starbucks has sued for peace in the war against its workers' unions. Hundreds of Starbucks stores have unionized in recent years, but not one of them had a contract. Instead, Starbucks had waged dirty war on their own workers, from denying gender-affirming care to unionized employees to simply shutting down whole stores after they voted to unionize:

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/14/starbucks-union-company-threatens-that-unionizing-could-jeopardize-gender-affirming-health-care.html

But the workers held fast and after years of this, Starbucks has caved, promising contracts for all unionized stores and an end to its campaign of terror against workers seeking to unionize more of its stores. In a postmortem for Jacobin, Eric Blanc rounds up "seven lessons from Starbucks workers' historic victory":

https://jacobin.com/2024/02/starbucks-sbwu-contract-bargaining/

This is the kind of listicle I can get behind. According to Blanc, the Starbucks unions won by deploying worker-to-worker organizing, a tactic that many of the new unions that are shaking up formerly impossible-to-organize jobsites are using (Blanc has a book about this coming from UC Press called "We Are the Union: How Worker-to-Worker Unionism Can Transform America," so he should know).

Other tactics that made the difference for Starbucks unions: new digital training and support tools and partnering with established unions for support and infrastructure. Blanc also calls out the success of "salting" – the venerable but largely disused tactic of union organizers applying for a job at a non-union shop in order to organize it.

Blanc also mentions government policy, including the outstanding work of NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, a shrewd and committed tactician whose understanding of the technicalities of labor law have let her push for bold measures. For example, in Thrive Pet Care, Abruzzo is arguing that when a company refuses to bargain in good faith for a contract with its union, she can step in and order them to honor the terms of a contract at comparable unionized competitors until they produce a contract of their own:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

Abruzzo is one of several smart, competent tacticians in the Biden administration who are working to kneecap corporate power. Another is Rohit Chopra, chair of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, who just announced another bold, important initiative that will help Americans fight corporate corruption and get a fair deal:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-03-01-public-option-credit-card-shopping/

Chopra is taking aim at credit-card comparison sites that purport to show you where you can get the best deal. If you're an affluent person who doesn't carry a balance, this might not matter to you, but if you're an average working stiff, high interest rates can gobble up a massive share of your paycheck. What's more, credit card margins are higher than they have ever been:

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/credit-card-interest-rate-margins-at-all-time-high/

The most expensive credit cards come from the big, monopolistic banks, but you wouldn't know it from the leaderboards produced by Credit Karma, NerdWallet, LendingTree, and Bankrate. All of these sites take bribes from the big banks to list their credit cards above those offered by credit unions – who are typically 10% cheaper than the big banks' cards.

The new CFPB rule prohibits this fraudulent ranking, but the Bureau is going even further. They're using their administrative powers to force banks to report their rates to the Bureau, which will publish them on a publicly funded, neutral website – what David Dayen calls "a public option" for shopping for credit cards.

This policy makes a perfect bookend to the last CFPB initiative I wrote about here: a rule that forces banks to allow you to transfer your account to a rival with a couple of simple clicks, importing all your history, payees, and everything else you need to switch to a better bank:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/21/let-my-dollars-go/#personal-financial-data-rights

Combine that ease of switching with reliable information on which banks will give you the best deal and you get something that will directly transfer millions and millions of dollars from giant, wildly profitable banks to low-income people who've been tricked into paying them punitive interest rates.

So that's it, this week's linkdump. I promised you I'd end on a high note, and I did it. The world may be full of all kinds of terrible things, but workers and regulators are scoring big, muscular victories in battles where the stakes are real and important. Have a great weekend – we've earned it.

And remember!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/02/macedoine/#the-public-option

Image: Stacy (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/notahipster/4402860361/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

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doli-nemae · 1 month

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sam protecting her brother ran (belongs to @clericnortke) and her crush friend shandra

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villainihavedonethymotheronao3 · 14 days

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Throwing my hat in the ring, I think Sam is going to (not should, going to) most likely come back with some sort of paladin, Most likely ancestries, imo, are dwarf, kenku, or a very small tabaxi. One of the moon people would be fun but it's harder to justify them with good healing abilities, short of some sort of bioengineer themed artificer. Either he utilizes the jail break that was concurrent with the split-party mission to bring in a paladin of a Betrayer god (very juicy potential that brings in god-loyalty from a new direction) or throws a lawful good paladin from Vasselheim at them and watches everyone cringe.

In conclusion: I think they should let Sam play Teven Klask's daughter.

#critical role spoilers #cr spoilers #critical role #subclass is tricky he and matt are always game to homebrew something after all #but oath of vengeance or oath of conquest are both primed for drama #paladin adds some healing capacity while also being a damage dealer #and lack of Big Damage is what killed them in the otohan fight #conquest would be especially juicy because it would let sam play high charisma again #and add another fucked up little guy to the hells repertoire of loose cannons and wild personalities #duergar would be very fun to see #and as for gods of choice... erathis or asmodeus are obvious and solid either as a coalition imposed babysitter or a further temptation #but he could probably spin gruumsh or torog or the allhammer #or tharizdun as a little treat for liam #or wild card flesh out avandra a little more with an oathbreaker

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little-pondhead · 1 year

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Inspired by this post about Danny playing D&D :)

"Eek! I stepped in something wet!"

"We're in a cave, Tucker. A lot of things are wet. Speaking of, Sam, can you get some light going for us?"

"Yeah, but it's too damp to light a torch. You'll have to settle for fireflies."

"Sam, not all of us have Darkvision. I know you have a few fire spells up your sleeve. Please use them before Tucker crashes into another stalagmite."

#doodles from a pond #danny phantom #sam manson #tucker foley #danny fenton #danny plays dnd is a hc i can get behind #do i know anything about it? no #but it was fun to draw #sam is a druid #danny is a rogue #and tucker is a paladin

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margowritesthings · 6 months

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MARGO'S 1K CELEBRATION I - TROPE BINGO

Y'ALL. I can't believe this. 1,000 is such a mind boggling number to me, considering these weird word children would otherwise just be sitting in my brain on their own. I can't thank you enough for your support over the last year. this blog is one of the best things that has happened to be, and now that i'm pursuing my dream of becoming a published writer i truly believe it has changed the course of my life. YOU have changed my life. thank you for being there to read and support. i love y'all.

soooo reading and writing romance is basically my only prsonality trait, so why not celebrate 1k followers with the thing that got me here! im putting you guys as the star role in your own romance- follow along the steps below and send me an ask with your trope and character selection + any extra info.

STEP 1 - PICK A TROPE (please pick up to 3 tropes!)

➼ friends to lovers ➼ enemies to lovers ➼ s/he falls first ➼ one night stand ➼ grumpy x sunshine ➼ small town ➼ billionaire ➼ mafia ➼ forced proximity ➼ marriage of convenience ➼ fake dating ➼ second chance ➼ one bed ➼ childhood sweethearts ➼ surprise pregnancy ➼ why choose? (send up to 3 characters for a reverse harem ship) ➼ random!- i will use a generator ➼ writer's choice- i will choose based on your profile (mutuals only)

STEP 2 - PICK A SHIP there are 3 ways to get your ship:

➼choose a fandom (or multiple fandoms) from the below list and I will choose for you (the more info about yourself you provide the better this choice will be) ➼choose a specific character from the fandoms in the list (or multiple and I will choose) ➼(mutuals only) tell me your fandoms and I will choose for you based on your profile/what i know about you/what you provide me with (even if the fandom ISNT on the list below)

FANDOMS PARTICIPATING IN THIS CELEBRATION: ➼ red dead redemption ➼ bridgerton ➼ marvel ➼ starfield ➼ fallout ➼ skyrim ➼ stardust ➼ star wars ➼ doctor who ➼ daisy jones and the six ➼ mad men

STEP 3 - EXTRA INFO

IMPORTANT- INCLUDE YOUR GENDER AND SEXUAL ORIENTATION IF LETTING ME CHOOSE THE SHIP. Add anything about yourself you want me to know. If you're on anon, this is very important!! I cannot make anything personalised for you if I do not know anything about you. Any icks, anything you want me to include, turn ons, etc. Basically provide me with anything you think might help me make the best gift for you!

RULES

➼ Followers only please, I cannot police this as I have asking on anon enabled, but this is a celebration for my followers so if you are gonna enter please do ensure you are following me

➼ Likes and reblogs are really appreciated! if you do enjoy my work you can also check out my masterlists which can be found here or buy me a coffee here!

➼ At the least, I will be able to make a moodboard for your ship + tropes, but if the inspiration strikes me I will write headcanons and drabbles too. These are a bonus and should not be expected with every entry

➼ 18+ - some of these tropes will include explicit detail, so 18+ only please

➼ Please grant me patience! i am doing this alongside a full time job and have some personal stuff on, but i do want to celebrate so im trying to fit this in as best i can. please be kind and respectful of my lil internet space :)

➼ all posts will be tagged #margo's 1k celebration

tagging my frens to say THANK YOU cause i couldn't do it without ya <3: @inkandbloodbound @cowboydisaster @musicallisto @saradika @sickvictorianangel @alottanothing @twola @photo1030

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discordiansamba · 3 months

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Matt did not intend to mentally time travel back to the past. He's not even sure how it happened. He dimly recalls finding some sort of weird... crystal thing? So maybe that has something to do with it? Or maybe it has nothing to do with it? He doesn't know. If there's one thing all his time out in space has proven, it's that sometimes weird shit happens that he simply cannot explain. He has made his peace with this (even though it still drives Pidge insane).

All he knows is that one day, he wakes up and he can barely see. This turns out to be because he is back in his sixteen year old body somehow, so he still needs glasses. It looks like he was somehow sent back to when he'd just enrolled at the Galaxy Garrison. Which is... weird. It didn't really hit him how much he'd changed until he found himself in his past self's body.

Okay. This is fine. He can work with this. He can't stop Kerberos from happening, but he can definitely be prepared for it. First things first is getting his ass (back?) into shape. If he does it now, he can avoid the training from hell that Ozar and Olia will eventually put him through. He'll also have to make sure to stay on top of all of his classes so he's still selected to go on the Kerberos mission. That's fine. He can listen to audiobooks while he trains.

Also he should probably take some piloting classes. He's going to need that knowledge eventually. Building up muscle memory will be important later.

Also maybe he should befriend Keith while he's at it. This isn't like. a requirement or anything, he just thinks it would be nice. He really started to like the guy back when they were running joint missions together with the rebel and the Blade. Maybe it can even help assuage this weird out of place feeling he has all the time now, that makes him feel like he's some kind of alien on his own home planet.

And while he's at it, he might as well get his eyes fixed early. It feels weird to have to use glasses again after all these years. Actually having short hair feels weird too? That's easy enough. He'll just stop getting his hair cut.

...also uh. why is Pidge looking at him like that.

#matt just. failing to recognize how weird this all seems from an outside POV #especially to Pidge and his mom who only see him when he comes to visit from the dorms #sam and colleen just assume he's picked up some new interests at school... but it is a little weird yes #matt: great! I'm in shape now and I know how to fight. now I can avoid training from hell #(matt when he actually gets thrown into the arena this go around: ...wait a fucking second)#accidental paladin matt au

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pocketgalaxies · 3 months

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sam: something changed within me when i ate those souls

me: oh is sam about to reveal a new move?

sam: *just wants his guiding bolt to scream*

#btw please don't ask me what happened in this episode bc i will be the first to admit i have NO fucking idea #i accidentally slept through 30 minutes of it bc i've been so bundled in blankets in my freezing apartment #and when i woke up they had a paladin with them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯#4h10m c3e82 #text #critical role #cr3 #cr lb #cr spoilers #sam riegel

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heccfriccart · 1 year

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how we all doin tonight?

i don't really have anything funny to say oops

#twisted wonderland #twst #disney twst #disney twisted wonderland #epel felmier #ace trappola #deuce spade #leona kingscholar #jack howl #ruggie bucchi #dire crowley #vil schoenheit #twst sam #floyd leech #twst meme #also yes if the 1st years were a polycule jack would be the tank probably like a barbarian or paladin #epel's probably some kinda rogue or something #sebek is a fighter or paladin something like that #deuce i feel could either be support or a mage maybe wizard?#ace for some reason i wanna say beserker but i think something like a bard would be more accurate lol #yuu probably support maybe a cleric #at least thinking of in game yuu obviously theyre all different and up to you #tho i think itd be funny for them to be like a war or death or forge cleric #the teams asking for heals but yuu is using their spellslots to beat the shit out of everything cause if its dead it cant hurt them #yea this is going off dnd cause its classes are what im most familiar with #holy shit i rant way to much in the tags #ok ill shut up now #can i tag this as poly first years its kinda a throwaway line idk #gonna do it anyway #poly first years

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sbeep · 8 months

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[Baldur's Gate 3 spoilers]

My Dark Urge playthrough has been with Sam, paladin of vengeance, and it's turned into one of the best RPG experiences I've had in a very long time.

#Baldur's Gate 3 spoilers #BG3 #Baldur's Gate 3 #Spoilers #BG3 Spoilers #Baldurs Gate 3 spoilers #Dark Urge spoilers #sorry if you dont have your blacklist on but I played through the dark urge finale and I had to draw something like i have 2 breathe air #*Paladin Sam

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alluraaaa · 10 months

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uh oh i got the urge to rewrite voltron again

#adam on the kerberos mission instead of sam #shiro gets a healing arc rather than the clone plotline #black paladin allura #the blade of marmora isn’t annoying #all the galra generals become anti heroes #etc etc etccccc #<- i can and will expand on all of that if anyone wants #txt

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eridanidreams · 5 months

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WIP Wednesday

Tagging: @bearlytolerant, @silurisanguine, @aro-pancake, @fangbangerghoul, @atonalginger, @aislingdmdt, @fshenkoescape, @ninjaofnaps, @lisa-and-shadow, @a-cosmic-elf, @thatsgoodsquishy0, @hockeydemon42, @fomagranfalloon @violenceandviolets, and @artemis-crimson

Y'all know the score, post if you've got 'em, and if not, just enjoy!

from stars through my fingers like grains of sand

The remains of lunch were scattered across the table. Knowing how even a short dogfight could take it out of someone, Sam had flat refused to let Cait cook. Wasn't like she hadn't already prepared a week's worth of meals already; all he had to do was reheat a few. "I'm telling you," Cora repeated patiently, "we all need secret identities. The sidekick always has a name related to the hero."

"So what are you," Sam teased. "Insectikid?"

"Young Mantis!" Cora countered.

"Too derivative," Sam chuckled. "The Spiderette? The Caterpillar?"

"Da-ad!" Cora gave him an exasperated look while Cait sat back quietly and smiled. "Mantises don't come from caterpillars."

"So what do they come from?" she asked logically.

"Nymphs," Cait offered.

Sam shook his head. "Nope, vetoing that one right now." His daughter was too young to be 'nymph' anything.

Cait tilted her head, thinking, while Sam and Cora tossed even more ridiculous names back and forth—and not just for her. "I don't need a name," he argued. "I'm not the sidekick."

"The fearless partner," Cait murmured, low and amused.

"Auuuugh! Dad, that's not how it works! If you're the partner of the Mantis, you can't be just you! You might blow her cover, or someone could use you to get to her!" Cora got up and was pacing back and forth, throwing her hands around in a twelve-year-old frenzy.

"If I might?" Cait was turning something over in her hands, and she had a wry smile on her face. "I think I can solve both these conundrums." She looked over at Cora. "For you? The Phasmid. Phasmids are related to mantises, but sneakier."

"Ooooh, I know what those are!" Cora enthused. "They're ambush predators that look like other things, like leaves and sticks and flowers!"

"Or in your case, a twelve-year-old girl," Sam teased. "Waiting to strike against any unwary library or bookstore that might pass her way."

"I LOVE IT!" Cora bounced over and gave Cait a hug. Cait, for her part, seemed to be getting used to Cora's adolescent enthusiasm, and returned it less awkwardly than usual. "So what's that?" Cora pointed at the thing Cait was fiddling with.

"Something I found in one of the abandoned bases we were exploring," Cait said, laying it on the table. It was a hand-written card; on yellowing paper, it read:

MERC FOR HIRE HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL SSCOM: 1957PDIN

Sam looked down at it, then back up at Cait, raising an eyebrow. "Seriously?" He'd been a fan of the classic vids as a kid, of course, had thrilled to the adventures of Josh Randall, Agents James West and Artemus Gordon, and—of course—Paladin.

She shrugged. "Aren't you always telling me to go big or go home? Besides, we've resurrected one legend today, why not two?"

Sam felt a slow smile cross his face. "I do cut a dashing figure in black…" He slapped the table in sudden decision. "All right. Let's do it. The Mantis and Paladin, partners in anti-crime."

"And me!" Cora piped up.

"And our fearless sidekick the Phasmid," he agreed. Drink packs were awkward for making a toast, but they managed to slosh them together anyway. "May all our victories be as sweet," Sam declared.

#sam coe #fanfic #eridani writes #starfield #caitlyn lynch #stars through my fingers like grains of sand #wip wednesday #josh randall - wanted dead or alive #james west and artemus gordon - wild wild west #the tv series not the wretched movie #paladin - have gun will travel

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hedgiwithapen · 7 months

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MAWS AU - the Kryptonite sphere does not get brought to Thanksgiving and the ship doesn't activate. All the drama is interpersonal :)

(obviously: set during the Hearts of the Fathers, spoilers ahoy) The kitchen smelled wonderful, the roasting turkey, the hot honeybutter rolls, James's yams with marshmallows, potatoes with enough herbs for all of scarborough fair. Martha had prided herself on a cozy kitchen, a welcoming home.

"What do you mean, an enemy?" Martha Kent interrupted her husband's good natured advice to their son. Her Clark did not call people enemies. Oh, they'd taught him well, he tried to see the best in people like Jonathan, but he also knew to believe people when they showed him who they were. When he'd come home in second grade with blood on his shirt sleeve from a fight, he'd been honest about it-- bullies. When he'd lost a chess match in the finals to a cheater, Clark had used words like 'opponent.'

"Um," Clark said. Ma thought about what she'd read in the article, about that Mr. Ivo and his attack on Metropolis.

"Clark. Who's the enemy?"

"I..."

"Ma, really, you don't--"

"I don't what?" she asked. "Clark. What happened?" she reached up to put a hand on his cheek, tilting his face down so she could see him. His eyes had a haunted look in them. Someone had scared her baby.

"I didn't want to worry you," he said. "General Lane..."

"He's not the nicest man," Ma started to say, out of a sense of hospitality. Lois's father was, after all, a guest. "Clark. Is this just that he's made Lois feel bad? Tell me the truth."

"No," Clark said. "I...I didn't know he was her dad. He--"

"What did he do?" Ma said, a chill like the worst of winter icing her words.

"He caught me," Clark said, looking down. Not at her. At his wrists, like he expected something other than skin and shirtsleeves and Jonathan's best cufflinks to be there. "He said I was responsible, all those people who died...that I'm an invader." The words spilled out of her baby's mouth, the same way they had when he'd talked about needing to quit the football team, like his pain wasn't worth anything.

"Oh," Ma said, quietly. "Oh, Clark. Oh, don't you worry, honey. You stay right here. I'll take care of this."

"Martha," Jonathan said warningly, knowing enough about his wife that the turkey was no longer the priority.

Ma ignored him, reaching up on her tiptoes to take down her grandmother's cast iron skillet. It had always served her family well, no matter what purpose it was needed for.. "Jon, you stay with Clark. I'm not having that man eat at our table."

"Ma, no!" Clark protested. The kitchen door started to open.

"Clark. You may have all those powers, but I am your mother. That man tried to kill you." Ma insisted.

"Hey, I'm just grabbing the--what." Jimmy stared. "Uh. Mrs. Kent?"

"James," she said, smiling. " You can take the yams out in a minute, dear. I need to settle something with our intruder."

"Indrude--ma, no!" Clark followed her, his long strides a match for three of hers, but she still reached the living room first.

"Get out of my house," Ma said to the General, interrupting whatever silent, awkward conversation had been happening between him and Lois.

"Excuse me?" he said, standing, automatically shifting his feet. Ma narrowed her eyes. She knew a defensive stance when she saw one.

"Lois, honey, you can stay. But he's not welcome."

"What's going on?" Lois asked. "Clark?" The look on his face caught her breath. "Clark?"

"The General," Clark said, hollowly. "Lois, please tell me you didn't know."

"Know wha--"Lois looked green as she registered the Important Capitals. "Oh, oh my god. Dad. Tell me you didn't."

"Didn't what? Lois, what is this?" The General looked almost bewildered. Ma wasn't sure if it made her angrier that he might be pretending not to know what he'd done, or if he was really so blind that it didn't matter. She was angry all the same. “Tell me you didn’t kidnap and try to murder my boyfriend!” Lois exploded. Ma felt a rush of kinship with the girl. She could stay as long as she liked.

"You're the one who kidnapped Superman? And attacked Cadmus?" Jimmy finally pieced it together.

"How do you know about any of that?" The General asked, eyes still on the threat.

Ma gripped the skillet by the handle, forcing his attention back to her, taking two deliberate steps to place herself between her son and the couch where a monster in uniform -metaphorical uniform, anyways, though not metaphorically a monster- stood. "General, It’s best you leave now. If you come near any of my children again, so help me, the pigs down at the Anderson's get mighty hungry in winter. Now git."

#dammit hedgi day 2023 #my adventures with superman #Sam Lane #Ma Kent #long ago Ma's ancestress met Miri the paladin that fryingpan is fucking magic #that's not relevent i just think u should know

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