"If you don't start behaving I will turn this beat right around!"

All I have is the joke, really, and the song is old enough Doug may well have already designated an effect or passed it over, but the thought made me chuckle so that's good enough justification for me

Not cosplay-level stuff -- this is 3D-printed titanium that's genuinely bulletproof and even flies.

CNN article here.

And if you don't want to click the link, here's the 3-minute teaser video that was embedded in that article:

This came up in another forum (specifically in reference to the Xanth series) but the analogy I came up with for it tickles my funny bone so I thought I'd share it here too:

Piers Anthony's writing is like that hottie who seems perfect and you can't believe they're interested in you... except after four or five dates you realize they're incredibly stupid and just keep parroting the same practiced conversations over again with different wording, and you're starting to suspect they're actually involved with some kind of freaky cult, and possibly into kinks outside your comfort level. Sure those first few dates are great, but...



edit: To be clear, I cast no aspersions whatsoever on Mr. Anthony himself with regard to intelligence or personal habits, and he's openly an atheist-leaning agnostic so no cults either. It's just a metaphor.

Fortunatly, near as I can tell Leslie is still Alive and Kicking.... and after a bit of surfing, have found that she still has cd's distributed by Both Prometheus Music  and (at least in california) Random Factors.

Those of you who know who she is, well, I'm providing those links so that maybe you can replace lost music.  THose of you who dont...  well, I wont be that boggled but instead point you at http://lesliefish.com/noname3.htm

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/20/polit...index.html

"Send bachelors and come heavily armed. I'm not going to be a political prisoner in the state of Oregon. It's just that simple."

... Whelp.

A Trump admin says migrant children don't need toothbrushes or soap.

No.  I'm not kidding here.

https://www.newsweek.com/migrant-childre...on-1445090

You oughta read it just for the reactions from the judges.

This, I think, should be considered a crack fic.  The actions of at least two of the characters are so very much out of character.  And yet I like the thought of it happening....

Girls und Panzer — die Rache

   The opening formalities had — finally! — concluded, now with thirty armored combat vehicles on each side.  Notwithstanding his rage at the high school girls who’d so insolently come to reinforce Ōarai Girls Academy against the decree of MEXT, Tsuji Renta couldn’t altogether restrain his malevolent smirk when he thought about one particular vehicle, newly added to the University Team, that couldn’t be called a tank by any reasonable definition.

   Now, at last, the two sides would be sent to their respective start positions, and the crushing of Ōarai’s hopes would begin.  Tsuji frowned as he noticed that Shimada Arisu, the University Team’s thirteen-year-old leader, had drawn the chief referee, Sasagawa, aside, speaking to her in an urgent manner.  He couldn’t hear the distant conversation, but saw Sasagawa nod.  With a bow, Shimada-kun turned and walked toward Tsuji. 

   She came to a halt in front of him, at about three meters distance.  He felt a trace of unease at the direct way the child eyed him for nearly ten full seconds before bowing … bowing with a crisp exactitude almost as borderline-rude as that measuring stare.  

   “Tsuji-san,” the girl said, voice flat.  Her chilly tone was just barely deferential enough not to be outright ill-mannered.  “My officers and I have taken the time to examine in detail the conditions you set for this match.  The dishonorable conditions.”  That shook him.  That was a categorical rebuke, and grossly insulting.  

   “In spite of our displeasure at being used as your agents in this improper way, the University Team will carry out the mission … because we have come to the suspicion that if we didn’t, you would be even more ignoble and declare Ōarai Girls Academy to have forfeited.  We have, however, one further message for you, Tsuji-san.  One which we feel appropriate to the shame you have brought upon all Sensha-dō.”  

   All of a sudden, he became aware that while the girl quietly berated him, the three Chaffee scout tanks had approached to within fifty meters.  Their 75mm guns, the bureaucrat saw with dawning horror that hadn’t quite reached the point of being fear, were aimed directly at him.  They couldn’t possibly intend killing him, Tsuji assured himself.  Not so publicly….

   The Shimada’s disrespectful child turned and stepped several paces to one side, giving Tsuji a still clearer view into the three cannon muzzles.  For almost five seconds he stared at them, wondering if the obstreperous young females were trying to bluff him into humiliating himself by publicly showing fear.  Then the guns fired in unison.  

   The sound was oddly more muffled than normal; although he’d long privately disdained the practitioners of Sensha-dō, Tsuji Renta had adequate close-quarters familiarity with their mechanisms to know how three cannon firing at once should sound.  It was understandable, however.  Rather than shells, a spray of yellow paint jetted from each muzzle.  

   The propelling charge must have been reduced with careful precision, he thought much later, when he had time to consider the matter in stomach-churning detail.  Even at such pointblank range, getting hit squarely by all three guns’ worth of paint didn’t even knock Tsuji from his chair.  It was very smelly paint, too.   Sick with the desire to take vengeance, yet knowing he couldn’t — he dared not — he wondered whether the defiant youngsters had mixed something into the paint specifically to make it smell so filthy.  

   And the bureaucrat couldn’t do anything about it.  Taking any action against Shimada Arisu, or the University Team as a whole, would bring out all the details.  At best he’d become a laughingstock.  At worst, MEXT would have no place for an administrator who couldn’t even make a proper job of weighting the scales against victims of his grudges.

   The aim of the Chaffee gunners, too, was most precise.  Kodama-san, sitting within a meter of Tsuji, had not so much as a drop of paint on him.  The old man had raised his fan to cover his mouth.  Tsuji had dire suspicions as to what expression that fan hid.

   One other thing struck Tsuji Renta in that moment.  A sound he’d heard distinctly, even with the paint all over him and dripping.  Slowly, unable to believe his ears but not willing to leave the question unexplored, he turned his head.

   Shimada Chiyo was gazing at her vile daughter with approval, pride, infuriating Tsuji even more than the impudent teen’s words of reprimand, but she didn’t stand near enough to him to be the source of the improbable sound he’d heard.  

   The person who was close enough looked back at him, as stern as ever, except … that might be, on her lips, the tiny not-quite-smile he’d seen in his office when the Kadotani miscreant demanded — demanded! — he sign the agreement to give Ōarai another chance.  

   That noise could have come from no one else, he thought.  No one else was in the right spot.  But it was so unbelievable; so out-of-character.  Had his ears in fact deceived the bureaucrat — or had the fearsome Nishizumi Shiho actually giggled when the paint hit him?

-----
I'm a very forgiving person ... on Lord Vader's terms.  "Apology accepted, Captain."

Author's Note: Mentioned this SG in the open house thread, figured I'd finally get around to posting the hook for it publicly, as the redside counterpart to Acyl's Exemplar Foundation.

***

Are you tired of fighting the law and the law winning?

Does the Rogue Isles' survival of the fittest make you feel like you could stand to cut a little dead weight?

Are you tired of being unable to tell a competent henchman who's profit motivated from a cheap thug who doesn't realize trying to shake down his boss for pocket change isn't a credible long term career strategy?

Malefactor LLC is here to help.

Malefactor LLC surveys a wide variety of extralegal resources for your profit-oriented career trajectory. Bank vault owned by a sorcerer with arcane wards? Malefactor can put you in touch with some of the top demonic code crackers in just minutes. Need to beat the heat because of a job that got too hot? Malefactor knows the best in the business in cosmetic surgery and identification procurement for whether you're hiding from over-enthusiastic legal sanction or just your ex-wife while on a date with a new flame. 

Malefactor also services the lower rung of the extralegal ladder by providing a variety of surveys regarding your skills as a henchman, preferences for compensation, and even throws in identification of mortality rates of employees that have worked under the consumer whose job offer you're considering!

Regular contact with a variety of buyers means that no matter what you just pulled out of the safe, Malefactor can find a buyer and a competitive price to keep you in food, exotic chemical formulae, or just the Olympic sized swimming pool full of gold coins you've always wanted.

Here at Malefactor, we think that any extralegal consumer on the street should be able to afford beneficial organization for their day to day work, a bonus limited to organized law and crime alone for too long. 

Malefactor LLC. We're here to help you help yourselves... to anything you want.

Always, always a WIP, a proper base is. But here's a listing of passcodes to get into some various bases.

Riot Force 6 (Blueside): RIOT6-1057
Scimitar Securities (Redside):  BGC-4604
Malefactor LLC (Redside): PARTNER-4455

Riot's mostly Spud's work, while he's consulted a bit on Scimitar and Malefactor was something I knocked out in a night so people in the SG wouldn't have to use coalitions to teleport to the Rogue Isles zones at least.

Have you been following BeaconHill's fic Nemesis on SB and/or SV? If not, you're missing out, but the short version is that when Emma buys powers from Cauldron and becomes the hot new Ward, Taylor takes up the role of a joke villain in order to trash her in the court of public opinion. This is a filk omake I made following some of the discussion on SV.

(with apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan)


(Gallant)
Hold, Emma!
Ere your irate vendetta proceed
against our wills to escalate
just bear in mind that we are Wards in Brockton Bay,
And Bumblebee is a humour criminal!

(Shadow Stalker)
We'd better pass,
or Piggy will have our ass.
Bumblebee is a humour criminal!

(Wards)
Yes, yes, she is a humour criminal!

(Bumblebee)
Yes, yes, I am a humour criminal!

(Bees begin buzzing in tune)
I am the very model of a Brockton humour criminal,
I've stolen ice cream, petty cash, and things that are less physical
My nemesis Crystalia's dignity is now minimal
The way she blows her top in public is hardly well spinnable;

I've gotten more acquainted, too, with other Wards more reasonable
Who stop to toss a frisbee when the summer weather's seasonable
My reputation's comical and clips are always on the news (on the news... on the news...)
And I know how to tumble if I trip running in high heel shoes!

My fuzzy minion bumblebees are cute and very cuddlesome
Although their poor coordination often is quite troublesome:
In short, in matters ideologolical and visual,
I am the very model of a Brockton humour criminal.

I've vandalized and tried to steal our founder Brock's statuary
By lifting it with a net and more bees than an apiary
And though I had to cheese it when Crystalia came running in
I still escaped with ease and got some awful insect punning in;

I can't tell you what twisted thoughts have led her to obsess on me
All I can say is it doesn't seem likely she'll be and let bee
Still with every appearance I do seem to be making quite a buzz (hm, quite a buzz... Ah! I have it!)
With villainy and slapstick in the grandest game there ever was!

Perhaps one day I'll recruit a bee-tween sidekick and learn the quadrille
So she can translate for my bees with dance on top of Captain's Hill
In short, in matters ideologolical and visual,
I am the very model of a Brockton humour criminal.

In fact, when my lair's filled with loot just like a golden honeycomb
When I've escaped the heroes and have taken all the money home
When I've achieved the highest popular rating on PHO
When my wiki page has been filled out with "this is that" and "such is so,"

When such affairs as burglaries and stick ups I'm an expert of,
Yet hero teams are begging to recruit me for the public's love,
When I have raised awareness for colony collapse and parasites
When my apian crime wave has gone on for at least six dozen nights
In short, when I have brought into clear focus pollinator's rights (oh, that is a tough one... Aha!)
You'll say a better humour criminal has never come to light!

For my criminal ambitions, though I'm plucky and adorable,
Are entirely illegal, immoral, and yes, deplorable;
In short, in matters ideologolical and visual,
I am the very model of a Brockton humour criminal.


--------

Whew, that was easier than expected yet harder than just writing a prose omake. Now, who else is imagining Bumblebee doing the "With cat-like tread" song?