What? No one's commented on "Death and Taxes" yet?!?!
Well, I can't have that. This is my Ben & Jerry's ice cream story: the kind you don't get to read online every day, but each byte is a sinful pleasure.
Opening line:
“The gods are pissing on the roof again,” said Snick. He wiped dribbles of rain from the bar and glared up at the leaky ceiling. “Bastards couldn’t hold it until I got the new shingles nailed on.”
Now that's a first paragraph, as my friend Julia would say, that scans. Three little lines, and Kirwond has me submersed in the gritty dive that is film noir. It's ten in the morning, and I want a whiskey to celebrate - that's the mood. That atmosphere doesn't let up, not for a minute, until I'm pretty sure I'm having more fun reading a wickedly sharp and poignant piece of fan fiction than ought to be altogether legal.
Now, Kirwond had the disclaimer at the beginning regarding the characterization of Sarevok, but this is how I feel about this story: it's precisely the way she has employed Sarry's character that makes it so clever. Rather than alter any existing persona for the sake of fitting him or her into a genre piece, she's picked precisely the perfect characters to fulfill their potboiler roles. It's magic; it's well-paced; it's well-written.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: I love "Death and Taxes" more than Cherry Garcia. It's a great confection, concocted in just the right proportions of smoothness and bits to sink your teeth into, and, best of all, it'll never, ever, go straight to my thighs.
Well done, Kirwond!