Three ring samurai part 3 Chapter 3 'The part you throw away'
Long time no listen to my drivel.
It's nothing dramatic, just lots of boring day jobbing sucking up my time and soul. Still trying to find a new job, not holding much hope for that honestly but I keep soldiering on nonetheless.
Personal and work life aside, my consumption of product in terms of media is pretty great recently. My ascension to escapist sci-fi incel is complete haha. I've been watching farscape recently to give the expanse a rest because the seasons are short and I was running out of them now I can't say which I like more because farscape is sort of more silly but I feel more connected to the characters and their chemistry.
But I love the expanse for the realism and story but I love farscape for the characters and the puppets and all the physical effects which are literally Jim Henson puppets. So this is like sesame street in space except not aimed at children even remotely haha.
I would kill to see an escape of sesame street with Rygel haha.
Wait is Jim henson sesame street or muppets? Are they the same thing???
So I'm hooked on that and there are four seasons of like a billion episodes so I'm set for stuff to watch while I lift heavy things and grunt. My product consumption is set and I'm excited for next product.
On the book front I didn't notice I did this but I actually stopped reading the Parker the books when Richard Stark stopped writing them for like twenty fucking years for some reason haha.
Just totally an accident. But I started reading his nineties books now and they're pretty solid. They haven't dipped in quality at all, the first one was not my favourite style of his books. I notice that he has like two styles of Parker books and considering the subject matter it doesn't surprise me that it has these limitations. You either get a situation where Parker is just finishing a job and it went right or it went wrong then someone betrays him or it goes wrong and the rest of the book is him trying to deal with the new development and get away with the money.
Or my personal favourite where it starts with Parker getting the job and then spends forever autistically setting up the job only for it then to go wrong from some unforeseen circumstance which he then has to deal with and get away with the money. I like these ones purely for the great build up and excitement. I tend to think the first style is just laziness, where he can't be bothered to come up with a clever heist so he just skips it and gets into the meat of the story which he's great at and the action is always really great. But it's just a way of getting the heist out of the way, I see why he does it because normal people are bored by ages of tedious planning and setup. But I think we've established I'm far from normal.
The first book is actually the peak of the first trope, a heist goes really badly wrong, his wife betrays him and shit gets fucked up haha. Watch the movie Payback if you can't be bothered to read the far superior book. The book wasn't about heisting, even thought here was a heist in it. It was about Parker being this unrelenting force that was going to get what was his nomatter what. It was setting up this character that would step on the devils dick to get what he wanted.
But the second book is what gave shape to the mythos in my opinion because it's all about that anal setup, like half the book is about him getting this truck which he is used for like a few seconds to block off the view from the road in this armored car heist. But it was just this fantastic build off to an amazing pay off that really set the tone for the rest of the books as well establishing new characters and worldbuilding.
The nineties era books (I'm not sure what era they're actually set in because Parker and his pals haven't aged it seems) the first is the epitomy of the first kind, the book starts where they're in the middle of the job which goes right. But then they're betrayed and shit happens, looking back it was ok, not amazing. The next book I'm on now is like a mix of both kinds which is weird.
It starts with the action at the end of a heist that goes sort of wrong because Parker is climbing out of a wrecked car but he has the money and he gets away leaving one guy there stuck in the car.
The real story comes in where this guy had another job set up which now falls on Parker when this guy dies. So we have all this good set up which pleases my autism all while shit from the previous job is encroaching on the latest job. So he's really mixing it up with this one. That and he brings back a few fan favourite characters from the roster, not my favourite characters, I really want to see Grofield and Handy Mckay come back and I'm saving the Grofield books for when I finish the Parker series. I really wanna see Grofield because he wasn't in good shape in the last book, as far as I remember he's missing a few of his fingers. But it's not like Stark really gives a shit about continuity I mean he brought back Ed Mackey from being literally dead without even an explanation. I guess he just forgot.
I mean I was planning to read all the Parker books again in graphic novel format but I can't find a good place to pira- I mean buy them at an affordable and price from a reputable source.
Come on! Richard Stark is dead he doesn't care if his books make money. I mean fuck, pirating these books about a master thief is some ultimate irony surely. The closest I come to being Parker is downloading comics for free and possibly lots of movies and games if I was a pc master racist.
So yeah content, finally some content and it doesn't totally suck, yeah well ok it kinda does but it's fun to write and until my unusual form of writers block passes it's really all I can muster. My inspiration is in short supply right now and I can only church out ironic crap. But I think I'm gonna just throw all my other books either up for free or onto muddy boots so it at least gets out there and maybe makes some money.
I hope is that my ultimate punishment is that the worst book I've written, the zombie book I wrote as a joke gets put up as a humiliating netflix show.
One can only hope.
A little boy with a blank expression stares off into the distance as his head is lathered and shaved in preparation for his training.
A crude clownface is painted over his dull lifeless face.
Sitting before the elder clown master. The elder's legs crossed, his eyes closed solemnly puffing on a pipe, a few bubbles coming out of the end of it as he thinks to himself.
"My young one, you are now a clown in appearance but not one in spirit, a clown does not have to smile on the outside, but in his heart there must be laughter." The old man put his pipe to one side and leaned forward. "Once you can take this nose from my face your training will be complet-"
Before he could finish the child ripped the nose from the old man's face, the sound it made was a ridiculous honking as he squeezed it in his little hands.
"You didn't let me finish" The old man spat "What I meant to say was 'your training will be complete when you can take the red nose- without it honking." He said as he took the nose and popped it back on his nose with a loud honk.
"Now the first part of your training will be to enter that tent over there-". The old man raised a wrinkled tattooed arm pointing towards a large tent covered in strange graffiti clown markings. Lots of 'Ha-ha's and 'why so serious?'s and other edgy stuff like that.
The boy quickly began to rise without changing his expression "Hey- let me finish will ya?" The old man scowled "On your hands" He smirked.
The child looked sceptical at the old man for only a moment, not sceptical but surprised and then accepting. As if he was about to listen to a ridiculous story but been told it was 'based on real events'.
"Only those who can walk on their hands can truly say they know how to walk on their feet." The old man smiled. "No man in that tent walks on his feet, to do so would shame the holy ground".
The orange dust settled on a road side flea market bizarre selling all manner of goods and trinkets. The merchants wore long ragged clothing and hunched to display there wares on rickety stands made from refuse metal and wood. Their hands clasped as they sharply eyed customers over their long hawkish noses.
Pookie had agreed to accompany Riki on a quick supply run for the tent commune thing.
"Thanks for coming with me" Riki said over his shoulder.
"I had nothing better to do" Pookie said as he picked up a weird nick nack of a clown with green hair and yellow skin.
He pulled the string and the doll said in a strange mechanical voice "I'm crusty the clown hahaha".
Pookie sneered at the little doll before putting it down and saying "Never heard of you."
Riki continued looking forward and talking as if to no one. "You must be wondering about Jersey, what's she's doing with a bunch of guys like us."
"Not really." Pookie said prodding a stuffed dinosaur toy with one of it's legs missing.
"It doesn't strike you as odd a young woman like that would be in the company of all these men?"
"Take a look at me guy, ya think anything strikes me as odd?"
Riki turned to look Pookie up and down and said "Hmm, I guess not." He smirked. "But you have been thinking about her?"
Pookie was flustered for a second before he said "What, no!"
"She came to us much like you did."
"I didn't come to you, we're just passing through."
"Passing through huh? I like that." Riki laughed. "She had nowhere else to go, the wastes churn out so many like her, no families, no friends, no hope. We're all like that in some way, but it's good to find others, ya know what I mean?"
"Not really" Pookie said.
"Sure" Riki laughed as he turned back around and dipped his head to smiled with his arms behind his back.
Pookie let him walk on a little further while he messed with some beanie babies he had no intention of buying. With the no money he had before he heard an off putting whimpering sound.
"Look kid, I've already told you, I'm not a teacher and I don't have time for this crap ok." Riki yelled.
"Please master, I beg of you accept me as a student, I wont take no as an answer. I'll wait night and day out in the acid rain and the radiation, I'll do anything."
"Try going away."
"Good evening sir? Maam?"
"Who are you? Some other nutjob that wants me to train them?"
Pookie sighed exasperated and decided to go over and see what was happening.
The scene was an unusual one. That weird fumer kid from before was on his knees begging Riki to train him, on the verge of tears. But more pressing was the tall gaunt man standing just behind Riki in his blind spot.
He was slim and ghostly looking wearing a weird multicolored wrapping around his head with an unusual gem in the centre. His face seemed dark and brooding despite the bright time of day. Atop his lip was a neatly trimmed pencil thin moustache and soul patch below. The look in his eye was piercing but also seemed like a chameleon looking everywhere at once.
"I have heard you are very skilled, I would like to put those skills to the test in a duel." The man said, his voice rising eloquently, a slight tinge of accent running through his words.
"And who are you?" Riki asked defiantly.
"I am but a humble warrior mystic who wishes to put his skills to the test. I have travelled all over this world and learned very many interesting techniques, I'd like to see how they stack up to someone such as yourself."
"Is that a challenge?" Riki smiled.
"You can call it that" The man laughed.
All the while the young fumer Brandon was looked back and forth between them in some form of incomparable awe at the two figures and the aura they gave off.
It seemed as if the air pressure changed as these two unusual men studied eachother.
Read the rest of the chapter on inkitt.
3 Ring Samurai part 3 Chapter 1 'Pillow Jam'
Yep, big surprise, this is how I've been wasting my time recently haha.
[Everybody disliked that]
Haha yeah so I wasn't feeling writing Kur, I wasn't feeling up to it what with my current shift in focus that being having a real life and a real job and being close to the people that matter to me. My attention has been split, my creativity shot, my drive dead. Permanent writers block, well it's not that I can't write evidently. It's that I can't care about what I'm creating over the next step I want to take in my life.
So I decided I couldn't stop writing and instead I'd just write something that took less energy, something I give less of a shit about haha. Just to keep my pen moving in other words, so it's like taking a break without taking a break haha. Just giving my mind a rest.
Also content wise I'll be slowing down, probably do like two blogs a week if that. Just gotta put the focus where it belongs.
Anyway that's all, still hoofing my cv around praying to god someone will take it which I know they will and I do something right for once.
In a darkened room a pretty Asian girl with her face painted white tuned a strange instrument. Her lips and corners of her eyes dawbed with red fingerprints and her eyes had carried a certain melancholy.
The intrument resembled a guitar but had a long neck and only four strings and it seemed to be made from a re-purposed road sign. The girl wore a long and billowy white gown and kneeled as she held the instrument close to her. Suddenly with a what looked like the lid of a can of soup she rapidly scrapped the strings. The instrument giving off a strange tinny resonance which grabbed the attention of the room.
The room was dingy and small, the only light coming from holes in the corrugated iron ceiling and walls. The light perforating the thick smoke from people huffing engine fumes.
The girl started to sing and the odd cast of characters in the audience in the dimly lit room cast their eyes on her. She started to wail in a strange language they'd never heard before. Her voice seemed broken and out of tune but also charming and compelling. Filled with a resonant emotion which touched despite not understanding the words of the song.
"arayashikiku no dei
(in search of a new land)
harasaku baku no dei
(let's build a new house)
hare fushigyurasa nejyuku
(by neatly gathering hay)
surajifushiro yondo
(to thatch the roof)
fushigyurasa nejyuku
(neatly gathering hay)
surajifusero yondo
"I can't understand you" All but a gaggle of chucklehead diesel huffers were entranced by her song.
kirishigaki ku no dei
(at the stone walls)
kuganeya be tatei tei
(let's celebrate the golden house)
hare momo tobyuru wakya
(that was built)
ya uriba yuwa o yondo
(by a hundred carpenters)
hare momo to byuru wakya
momo to byuru wakya
(was built)
"Speak American!" One of the voices said cloaked in fumes.
"Hey you're kinda cute" Another said.
hateigachi ya naryuri
(August draws near)
tobibani ya neranu
(but I have nothing to wear)
hare utou katabani
(I want to dress up)
ya karachitabore
(brothers, lend me a sleeve)
hitotsu aru bani ya
(I want to dress the children and those I love)
kanasha se ni kusuitei
(with the single kimono I own)
hare wanu ya okuyama
(I will wear vines)
nu kazuradasuki
(that I picked deep within the mountains)
"Wanna be my animu girlfriend?" One of the fumers said mocklingly.
ojyuugoya no teiki ya
(the full moon shines)
kami gyurasa teryuri
(far and wide like the gods)
hare kana ga jyo ni tataba k__o tei taborei
(when my lover comes to visit, I wish the clouds would hide it a little)
The song ended and the girl opened her eyes and looked into the smoke and said nothing. Not even remotely acknowledging her hecklers as she left the raised stage are in silence. The rest of the patrons waking from the spell she put them under, feeling melancholy but invigorated by her song.
The girl waded through the smokey room carrying her instrument in a gunny sack. She approached the bar and exchanged whispered words. The bartender reluctantly handed her her some form of currency and motioned with his head towards the door.
The girl nodded sullenly and picked up her gunny sack and walked towards the exit. The door was little more than a hole cut into what seemed to be a building made of storage containers. Outside the wasteland was still with a slight wind blowing all the nothing and the heat beating down. Really missing that ozone layer.
Passing through the door into the wasteland she heard a voice coming from the dark dive bar.
"Hey I said you're kinda cute, didn't ya hear me over your wailing?"
The sound of snickering laughter from the dingey darkness of the diesel punk dive.
A grotesque figure lunged out of the murk, his leering dusky face covered in weird tattoos that looked like a drunk childs scribblings. A spattering of facial hair among scars that looked vaguely like sunburn or radiation poisoning. His lips chapped and blackened from sucking on tail pipe. His eyes were red and moist looking and he grabbed at the girls arm when suddenly something barred his path.
A tiny demon face leapt at him from the darkness at his side. The vicious little face with a big smile laughed at him as it hit him square in his bulbous nose knocking him flat on his ass.
"What the fug!" The fumer said clutching his bloodied nose trying to sweep the darkness and smoke away to see the full figure of the demon that assaulted. He wiped the tears from his nose and his vision unblurred. Standing before him was a clown with an unusual sword halfway out of it's sheathe barring the door like a thin silver arm.
The clown said nothing, he just tilted his sheathe up and let the sword fall back. An unsettling mechanical laughing sound coming from the little devil's face on its butt.
"Oops, didn't see you there pal!" The clown smirked.
"POOKIE" Margherite screamed powerless as she watched their blades fly through the air, so fast she could barely see them.
In an instant they rushed past eachother and stood back to back. Pookie resheathed his sword with that horrible canned mechanical laughter ringing out.
Coldslaw stood, his swords still drawn, a manic smile on his face, a mask which slowly slipped. He dropped his swords and they stuck in the ground like two head stones. He fell to his knees clutching a mortal wound before toppling over on his side into the dust under the orange moon.
"NOOOOOOO!" Margherite wailed as she rushed to Coldslaw's side as he lay dying.
"Coldslaw!" She cried, her facepaint running off her face.
Coldslaw coughed and looked up at her, his eyes dipping slightly. "Ha, it's not a tattoo, face paint huh, must be cool to be the ringmaster daughter" He laughed.
"Stop talking nonsense."
"Don't mourn for me" He laughed smiling a real smile. "It was all a big joke, don't you get it?"
"A joke?" She sniffed.
"Yeah a big joke – " He whispered as his head slowly lolled and his face became expressionless and dead like a dolls.
"Goddamn you Pookie! You didn't have to-"
Pookie didn't look back, he paused and breathed in and out slowly and walked away.
"You bastard!" She screamed.
If you wanna read the rest of this weird shit head on over to inkitt.
3 ring samurai part 2 Chapter 6 'The long way of drums'
Hey there time for some excuses from a really lazy dude with no real life to speak of.
Yeah so no poem tomorrow, I don't know just personal life stuff and work stuff getting in the way and likely to get in the way until january.
I'm just in a really weird place which is not too different from any other day. I just feel kind of like I'm drifting, not really sure what I want to do, instantly bouncing between manic happiness and basement depression. Because I'm like in this place where I'm not only losing lots of time due to work and other such nonsense but also I feel like I'm making the best use of the time I have and it's driving me fucking nuts. I want to finish the edit for Diana and take my time going over it but I also just want to get it the fuck done and stuff keeps getting in the way.
And then the cloud of looming doubt comes back telling me I'm never going to get it done and even if I do it's going to suck and no one is going to like it or pick it up and I'm just going to be a loser sitting in my bath robe writing nonsense no one is ever going to read and have nothing to offer any other living person ever in my life. Ultimately dying alone and miserable after wasting my life chasing a dream I know is impossible.
Fuck I hate christmass haha.
Also didn't get to read any more shadow pulps and I still can't review red dead 2 because I have no real desire to play it. I mean I get on it for a couple of hours but I just find myself sort of not really drawn to it. I mean I like the world, the gameplay is great but the story is a fucking dead weight, the characters aside from Arthur are a little flat. The villains are a little lame. It just sort of feels like a safe easy game they made that they knew would make money and didn't put much more effort into over the lighting and graphics and stuff like that. I mean it's good it just sort of lacks the heart of the previous games that makes you want to get into it. And I wonder if it's because I heard that their game development is run like a sweat shop, that they're just churning this game out as fast as possible, I dunno. I just don't find it that compelling or necessary. Like the title says it all, you have the first game Red dead and then red dead redemption and then this is just red dead redemption 2 not red dead revolution, red dead revenge, red dead revocation, its just red dead here's another one give us money please.
Don't get me wrong, I like it, I think it's fun at times, I love robberies, I think it's got solid mechanics and costumes and all that, I just think it didn't really deliver on hype and maybe the hype was too high. Not really from me because I didn't expect much, I wasn't a huge fan of the first game, I'm a niche retard who thinks L.A Noire is still the best rockstar but we're never getting a sequel to that or Max Payne for a while, although I heard a bully sequel is coming out which would be great. It's basically Gta as a coming of age story for a highschool kid haha. It's great.
Yeah well those are some thoughts for the day, enjoy the new chapter and sub to my mailing list because it gives me warm happy feelings.
"I'm sorry about your brother" The stranger said as he poked at the small fire in the centre of the darkened shack. One knee raised, a sword behind it resting against the wall.
"Juan was a fool, always rushing in headlong." The first born said, a large tanned Mexican with a barrel chest and a pencil thin moustache.
"When he heard about the man you wanted us to kill, he wanted all the glory for himself, he got what he deserved." The second born said, almost as large as his brother sporting a goatee.
"We won't fail you" The firstborn said.
The man at the fire lifted his head, the light from the flickering flames licked the strange acrylic clown mask on his face. "I admire your pragmatism, I know what it's like to lose a brother." He said.
Click, click!
"Wait Pookie! You're only supposed to pull the trigger once per turn!" Efron squealed as she reached for the gun. "Why?" Pookie said with the gun still to his head "This is faster"
"Its not ab- Nevermind" Efron frowned.
Pookie put the gun down on the table and slid it over to Canard who was completely devoid of expression.
"Ok now just on-"
Before she could finish Canard had already put the gun to his head.
Click click! "-ce! What did I just say, now there are only two chambers left so it's a fifty fifty chance that the next chamber has the bullet in it."
"And it's your turn" Canard grinned as he slid the revolver across the table.
Pookie's face stayed the same as he picked up the gun concentrating on the chamber, emptying it with his mind. Breathing in deeply and tensing his finger around the trigger.
KATHOOOOMMM!!!!!
A giant wrecking ball crashed through the window and tore a giant hole through the thin walled saloon. The walls splintered like kindling sending glass, wood and shards of metal shrapnel everywhere.
The giant wrecking rested in the destruction attached to a chain which snaked on the ground. Slowly the chain retracted and then quickly whipped away taking half the building with it.
Pookie coughed as he cleared his lungs of dust and looked around the saloon that now looked like an apple with a giant bite taken out of it.
He looked around.
"Everyone ok?"
"Great" Canard said from underneath the booth seat he was only a minute ago sitting on.
A little hand with a gun in it came up from behind the bar "I'm ok" Efron said.
The bartender, a balding middle aged man with an unflattering haircut popped up next to her "What the hell was that, a hurricane?"
"Yeah, hale stones the size of your head." Pookie shook his head like there was dust in it and got up off the ground dizzily looking for his sword. He found it underneath a pile of old magazines from a broken spinning rack.
"A little help for the cripple?" Canard voice muffled by the furniture on top of it.
Pookie sighed and attempted to push the couch off of him.
"IF THERE'S ANYONE STILL ALIVE IN THERE YOU'VE GOT TO THE COUNT OF THREE TO COME OUT!" A booming voice with the slight twang of a spanish accent said.
"I guess that's for us" Pookie said as he strained with the couch.
"Just for you, I'm guessing" Canard retorted.
Pookie sighed and dropped the couch back on him. "I guess so" He said with a melancholy tone in his voice as he went to climb out of the hole in the side of the saloon.
Outside it was hotter than before, the sun was bright and glaring blotted out only by two round figures standing in the middle of the street.
Pookie walked out squinting at them.
"You're him"
"The man who killed our brother"
"Oh that guy, well that was kind of an accident, but yeah I guess that was me" He sighed "So you're the masters of swallowing or whatever huh?"
"That's us" The first born said.
"So you really think they'll let you in the circus if you kill me? It's not all it's cracked up to be."
"It's more than that now". The second said.
"There's a blood debt to pay."
"So hows this gonna go down? We gonna duel one on one like last time?" Pookie asked.
"Hahahahahahahahahaha!" Both brothers laughed.
The brother with the goatee didn't laugh with his voice only his face as his throat started to bulge to an enormous size like a toad. His jaw unhinged and a giant black ball appeared in his mouth.
Pookie squinted in disbelief as he watched this inhuman display. There followed a grotesque suction popping cracking noise as the wrecking was spat with a tremendous speed.
The ball hit like a meteor right at Pookie's feet. The clown samurai jumped at the last second and under the cover of the dust it kicked up he ran along the chain towards the two assassins.
His sword at his side, his finger in the ring pull.
"There he is!" The second born said his voice sounding like he had cotton balls in his mouth.
The first born cut off his laughter, his eyes bulging and bloodshot. He opened his mouth and started to wretch, his throat distending with a long spherical shape. The opening in his mouth a pitch black emptiness.
Pookie caught sight of it in the corner of his eye but couldn't make out what it was and then at once he knew he was staring into the barrel of a cannon.
"Oh crap" He whispered.
The firstborn leaned forward to ready for the recoil and somehow through some internal mechanism he fired.
Time slowed and Pookie saw the chain shot swirling at him, a ball connected by a thin chain swirling destruction aimed right at him. Without thinking he pulling the ripcord on his sword and it roared with laughter cutting the chain in half. The cut freed the two balls which shot off at either side of him.
One of the balls hit the ground and exploded with a dull thud. The other took out a storefront, both explosions bouncing Pookie like a skipping stone, skidding along the ground.
He came to a stop, his naked sword in his hand quivering. The clown samurai stabbed it into the ground raising himself to a knee, breathing heavily.
"Interesting" The firstborn said. "You're the first to survive that".
"What are you made out of, rubber?" The second born asked.
"He's too dumb to die" Canard said.
Pookie scowled as he scraped himself off the ground.
Efron giggled, "It's still your turn".
"Can't ya see I'm a little busy right now?" Pookie shouted.
"Are you forfeiting?" Efron sounded shocked.
That weird suction noise again ending the brief pause as the wrecking ball came barrelling at Pookie again. He rolled out of its way as it carved a hideous scar into the earth. "I'll just skip my turn and get the next one."
"That's not how it works!"
"Hmm, but that means if this chamber is empty the next one has to be the bullet." Canard scratched his chin, weighing his options.
"So if you live-" Efron looked away.
"He dies"
Read the rest of the chapter on inkitt. The long way of drums
3 Ring Samurai: Part 2 The Space Between Worlds. Chapter 1 'Ice Cream'
Here I am to disappoint you once again haha.
So not really a surprise, I said I was doing this but you didn't know I was cutting the chapters down haha. I just went over it and I was like 'why is my fun punchy action comedy coming in these huge ass chapters and not acting as the filler I intended it to be?' Probably to save on clown pictures haha.
So I cut it down shamelessly to better filler. But I think it makes it flow better, appeal more to audiences with a shorter attention span.
It's a pretty fun romp, I had fun writing it. It came out a lot better than I thought in terms of getting in the anime backstory for a deeper build on the character still leaving in mystery.
I was actually thinking about the developing story last night in the shower (the place I do most of my thinking haha) and it sounded pretty good in my head, I have a strong back bone to the narrative but plenty of freedom and time to take it in any number of little side roads and alleys for fun.
That sounded bad haha.
Yeah so, not much to add, just wanted to get this chapter proofread and out there for you all, hope you like it.
"I don't remember you" Pookie said.
"That hurts" Canard smiled through his words tilting his head slightly. "I'm your biggest fan"
Pookie wobbled a little and corrected himself with his hips. He cast a glance down at the rapid waters below bubbling with toxic waste and probably used needles from a century ago.
"You were always kind of weird, even for circus folk, liked to keep to yourself. But I mean most clans like to keep to themselves, clowns especially, guess you guys think you're kinda special." He laughed. "But I always liked you, in fact, you were the reason we joined, one of them anyway."
"We?"
"Yeah my 'friends'"
"The ones I killed?"
"We were more like 'acquaintances' really, you don't choose your friends in this world, ya just kinda try to get by." He sighed.
"We were orphans, our parents killed in the war, we had like a little gang stealing and scrounging to stay alive. One day the circus came to town and we snuck into one of your shows." He laughed. "You couldn't have been much older than us at the time, a boy really, but the way you fought, and how the crowd loved you.
"Right at that moment, we realised that life couldn't get any better than that. We could never be kings or work a normal job like our parents. We'd never fall in love and have kids but if that crowd could cheer for us like it did for you. We could die with a smile on our face, ya know" He clicked his teeth under his mask.
"And then you go and do a stupid thing like kill your own master, why? He not pat you on the head and tell you you're a good boy enough, run out of fortune cookies to read from, what was it?"
"…" Pookie stayed silent.
"Well whatever it was it's my mission to bring your body back." He laughed and gripped his spear tighter "I guess we should fight now".
Pookie was getting his balance, getting used to the spring and using his toes to walk and cling to the rope mimicking the movement of the acrobat. He bounced on his heels and used his sword as a balance beam.
Canard took up a readied stance and Pookie leaned back into the rope. Suddenly springing forward he pulled the cord on his sheathe and the sword came roaring with laughter out to cut the air.
He was gone.
Pookie stood frozen for a moment feeling overextended and confused. There was nowhere to go, it seemed impossible for him to vanish right before his eyes.
There was a laughter and Pookie's blood ran like ice water as the blade of a spear came up between his leg and nicked his foot playfully.
Canard was standing as he was before except upside down, gripping the rope with his feet.
"You dodged, just by falling."
The spear came up again but Pookie bounced back and away. Canard stayed on him walking upside down gripping with his toes as if they were hands following Pookie's movements.
Pookie barely able to keep his balance and block the incoming strikes with his blade.
Pookie jumped back and Canard tugged at the rope and swung himself the right way up.
"Impossible right? To just vanish right before your eyes" He laughed. "The others just ran to their deaths one after the other, I don't fault them for that, they died exactly how they expected to but I watched you. I noticed there's a split second, right when you pull that cord and the sparks fly, just a nano second – you close your eyes." He said, an unseen grin creeping across his face
Pookie's face soured and he got that cold feeling in his gut like when he needed to take a shit really bad.
Canard glided towards Pookie, weightlessly and effortlessly fast like the rope wasn't even there, like he could fly. His spear flashing in the air he slashed down at Pookie's head. Pookie barely managed to get his footing, turning side on to block the strike. But then a follow up and Pookie turned again stepping backwards barely dodging a thrust. The blade nicked his shoulder when the blade came back as he tried to regain his balance.
Pookie turned 180 degrees throwing his body weight forward. He launched a powerful strike holding his sheathe out to his side to act as a counterbalance. Canard was too close and overextended to block it so had to jump backwards gliding through the air and landing softly back on the rope a few feet away.
Pookie looked at the cut on his shoulder and the one on his leg and he felt all his exertion. His lungs burning, every muscle and sinew fighting to keep his balance and fight at the same time. How long could he last? He tried to quickly glance behind him to see how far he'd have to run to get back to the other side of the bridge. But he couldn't turn far enough or fast enough without giving away his intention. And if he just turned and ran for it the much more experienced tight rope walker would undoubtedly catch up to him and strike him down like a coward.
No there was no other way, he couldn't turn back, there was no other way but to keep going.
Canard looked down at the toxic rapids below "We were never afraid of death as kids. Death was all around us, it was in the streets and in our living rooms, in our kitchens, it was how we lived, how we – ate. But falling, the fear of falling that was something completely different, something we had to conquer. So we practiced, we climbed and ran and jumped and sometimes we fell but we didn't die.
And in a way I guess she helped us conquer death."
"She?"
"Our leader, she didn't want to play our little game and she went on ahead"
"She's your leader but you ignore her orders?"
"Geez, you really don't know anything about us, someone doesn't get out of the tent much. She's the strongest but she's also kind of a pain in the ass" He laughed. "And who are you to talk, you took a knife to your master in the dead of night, like a fucking pussy" He laughed.
"It wasn't like that."
"Then how was it?"
"Exactly, you're no better than us, they followed their code and they died anyway, you broke yours and you're still alive!"
Canard leapt forward again gliding across the rope and jumping launching a downward slash, his spear flashing. Pookie raised his sword and tried to keep his stance balanced.
Canard feinted a strike from above pulled away at the last second. He came in again from the side swiping upwards with the tip of his spear catching Pookie across the chest with a shallow but vicious cut. Pookie swirled around and swung his blade hard at nothing again as the lithe duck evaporated. Gliding up in the air back the few feet out of his reach, Pookie fought to get his balance, his frustration mingling with the searing new pain in his chest.
It was hopeless, Pookie could barely even move to launch at attack himself. Having to keep his balance made him a sitting duck only able to counter and each time he was getting more tired and losing more blood.
"We just wanted to have a little fun, what's left in this life if you can't have that before you die." Canard said.
"Is that all there is?" Pookie looked down at the water again.
"Of course, can you think of anything else?" He laughed.
Pookie rested the blade of his sword against the rope. "Are we having fun yet?"
"You're joking right?"
"Do I look like I'm joking?"
Canard looked at him and shrugged. "Well, yeah kinda"
Pookie flicked his wrist and cut the rope, plunging them into the toxic rapids below.
In the trees a heron mask watches the scene coldly surveying and then retracting back into the foliage.
Read the rest on inkitt by following this link Ice cream
DeadPool 2 Review
So I watched deadpool 2 last night and I really didn't feel like doing a whole review on it really because it was just kinda 'meh' (but then I did haha). Like it wasn't a real movie, the first one I didn't find to be mindblowing but it had a beginning/middle and end, a decent albeit made up villain (well all villains are made up but I mean he isn't in the comics as far as I know).
DP2 has none of those things, and it just seems to be spinning it's wheels from beginning to end churning out cringy gay and "edgy" jokes that were only half funny the first time and of course all the good jokes were in the trailer as usual. People just need to stop making trailers haha.
I just felt the whole movie was like a dog chasing it's tail, it got really excited from the success of the first one so they upped the budget and just ran with it but they really had no idea what they were doing and it just goes around in circles.
I was like an hour into the movie waiting for the story to start because it just felt like it was dicking around and then I saw that it was a pretty good length so I wasn't that worried but the ending was just really unsatisfying because it basically ends where it begins and I hate that shit (looking at you quiet place).
It sucks because it has some nice set pieces, like the prison, but they literally spend two minutes there which was really disappointing because prison movies especially sci fi prison movies are a guilty pleasure of mine. And the whole point of the prison section was to set up a character that was sort of a let down honestly.
Gonna go to spoiler town now so don't read this next part. The prison bit is to establish the juggernaut. Which was a cool reveal that wasn't ruined by the trailer but was ruined by the juggernaut haha.
He's basically supposed to be the villain stand in for Cable, because Cable is touted as the villain but he's not, he might as well be wearing a sign that says "Will turn good". So the juggernaut shows up and all he really does is spout one liners and hit people, really bad one liners mainly about shoving things up people's butts and turning people into cock rings. Just really unfunny and cringy lines that made me long to see Vinny Jones return.
Then he's beaten by collosus who shoves a power cable up his butt. That was one of the points in this movie when I was like 'am I watching a Wayans brothers parody movie?' I don't care if deadpool does weird shit that's deadpool but when you have collossus shoving things up people's asses you've just lost the tone of your movie and it's just too absurd to take seriously at all. When throughout the first movie and the start of this movie they walk a really nice line between the absurd and the actual marvel universe, juxtaposing them perfectly.
And what's worse is there's so much set up to Juggernaut showing up only to fall flat on his face, the whole prison sequence is really on there to set up Cable as a villain and foreshadow juggernaut and it fails at both making those scenes totally pointless.
*End of the spoilers*
I didn't buy Cable for one second as the villain and neither does the movie really. When he's introduced in the prison sequence he's fighting the guards in this really ultra violent gory movie without a single drop of blood. I noticed, he was basically just stunning these prison guards and I'm supposed to believe this guy is a villain when he can't even kill these faceless guards in a shady mutant super prison, nah.
I loved all the terminator references though, I felt they really worked and the movie visually is very nice but I think structurally the film is a mess and they should have better copied terminator really. It basically rips off terminator and looper but it's like it doesn't even get the best bits. It completely misses what made those movies good, which was believable and intimidating villains. The movie copies the looper/terminator premise of a time traveller sent back to kill a child but the difference is in both those movies I believe the assassin will kill the child. You have no doubt in your mind that in both cases that's what will happen because Bruce Willis' character in Looper already does it one scene and in Terminator one and two it's a soulless machine who's only purpose is that mission. So the stakes are set from the get, this child is headed for a meat grinder and the heroes have to stop it, but not for one moment did this movie make me believe that Cable actually would kill the kid so it was totally toothless.
Ok so the story is basically dp has to save this kid from Cable who's from the future and is trying to kill the kid because in the future he turns out to be a villain who kills Cable's family. Straight out of terminator but it's a good set up.
The only problem is they don't copy terminator hard enough and send a villain back from the future to stop Cable and thus the whole movie falls apart because there's no threat really other than the kid himself.
So essentially the only villain in this movie is a little fat kid. Oh my god I'm literally shaking haha.
I really don't know why they didn't totally rip off terminator and send the kids future self back to be the villain this movie sorely needed. They spent the time and money to cast a guy to play the role of his future self, why not use him? It just makes perfect sense since there's no strong driving force in the movie at all to have him play a central role in the film. Say what you will about Francis from the first movie but he was a villain, he wasn't an anti-hero or an anti-villain, he was a straight up villain and he made the movie work because he was the perfect straight man to dp's funny man.
But this movie is so unbalanced its just laughable. And all the time and effort they spent maintaining the tone is just pissed away towards the end. This juxtaposed to the excellent villain of Thanos in infinity war is just even more stark and it illustrates how important a good villain in a story is.
Another example of this I bring up all the time is Robocop vs the remake. In the first movie the villains are really well defined and you follow them throughout the movie in the remake, the villain shows up to kill him and then disappears for the rest of the movie so you can have this boring drawn out training sequence to then they reappear at the end to die.
Cable has development in the movie but you never for one second buy him as the villain which is just too perfect comparing this to his role as Thanos which made that movie for me. So it's not Brolin's performance that's to fault here, it's entirely down to direction and writing. And honestly I couldn't imagine a better Cable just like now I can't imagine a better Thanos.
The story, well there kind of isn't one, that's that out of the way. Cable want kid dead cos bad future, Deadpool not want kid dead cos redemption?
That's pretty much it, there were points in the movie that just reached points of parody and that's sort of what this franchise is trying to do, straddle the fence between serious super hero movie and parody, but in this case it just failed at that, when before it succeeded. I think the comedy and silliness is good when and it works when it's measured by seriousness and stakes and action that wasn't in this movie.
I don't think it's a bad movie, the shitty jokes aside, I think the only time I laughed was at the goonies jokes and I saw those in the trailer. I thought it was entertaining and I think it had a lot of potential it just missed the mark for me. That being said I hope they keep making them, despite me saying I hope comic book superhero movies would just stop and go away. A cable deadpool movie with a decent story could work really well.
It just didn't this time. I'm definitely not saying this movie is bad, and you should make up your own mind about it, I just think it failed at doing what the first movie succeeded at. It needed a better more solid villain to focus the story on and balance out the tone of the film. It's not that I think the first movie was just so good a sequel couldn't live up to it, I was one of those contrarian fucks who said the first one wasn't that amazing either. It was over-hyped and despite being a good movie, it wasn't that mindblowing compared to something like Logan that it paved the way for. It's just sad, because Logan was like a glimpse into a world of comic book movies we could have gotten.
Instead of this cookie cutter capes and one liners bullshit to sell happy meals, we could have Logan. And even I have my problems with Logan but that doesn't change the fact it is what comic movies should strive to be but never will. What I'm saying is children ruin super hero movies haha.
So in summation, decent (totally wrong word) fun, silly slocky if unbalanced movie that's worth a one time watch at least.
GS2 Chapter 19 'You can be the boss'
Not much to talk about, mostly been dayjobbing it and sinking deeper and deeper into general misery and misfortune, which is standard recently. I just can't seem to catch a fucking break recently.
Although I watched like two thirds of deep blue sea 2 before me and my brother turned it off and decided an hour was enough time we were never getting back from what is essentially a really bad low budget copy of the first film. Part me almost wants there to be a documentary about this movie just to learn how it came about.
Did they win the rights to the name in a poker game, how did this pile of shit get made and why? I really just want to know how this went down and what drugs they were on when they thought this was a good idea.
I'm not saying the first movie was a masterpiece but it was competent with a good cast and decent writing and visuals and budget, this was like a daytime tv remake. So much so it doesn't need a review because I wasn't really paying it any attention after the first ten minutes. The acting was ridiculous porno tier, the story was basically the same as the first movie but dumber, the characters were cookie cutter, the sets looked like they were re purposed from a sci-fi movie. It looked like it was made for the scy-fy channel.
The plot is basically they're experimenting on the sharks and then the sharks overhear them saying they're gonna kill them all when the research is done and the go berserk, I know it's fucking stupid. But what's even stupider is how this is put across is by the shark like looking through a window like "hmm that's what they think mwahaha". So dumb.
It just amazed me how bad it was and reminded me a lot of those movies like sharknado and sharktopus versus gatoroid or whatever and it was actually worse. Because those movies are fully self aware of how awful they are and they just have as much fun as they can with it.
They're trash but they're enjoyable trash, deep blue sea 2 is not self aware or funny at all, it's just trash and I don't know why it exists or why I even attempted just reviewing it. I'm just so curious as to how it exists. Mind boggling.
Anywhoo back on schedule with regular chapter posts and I'm amazed how long GS2 is, like why? Why is a zombie book so long? That's just sad. I put so much effort into a book about zombie furfags haha. What is my life?
Ok well enough of that, gotta do some actual work, kinda shitty here because my boiler dyed so I'm just wallowing in my filth and trading in warframe which is more addictive than the actual game. Love life in the crapper as usual even worse than usual actually and I broke my toe because I was so angry that I couldn't have a shower that I kicked the banister, genius.
But it's not the first time I've had a broken toe, after years of martial arts my toes look like fucking twiglets they've been broken so many times haha.
Eh whatever just gonna spam and maybe do some proof reading, now that I think of it I should probably go over the pitch excerpt for Diana after Dark. I went over the other parts last week and really cleaned it up, I found so many mistakes I thought I might legitimately have undiagnosed down syndrome haha.
It's really a good thing nobody follows this blog otherwise I would get a tonne of hate mail haha.
"Turn around, slow"
"Who th-" Murray was cut off by a shotgun barrel poked hard into the side of his head. "Ow!"
"We ask the questions, you do what you're fucking told." Roch said through her teeth. She was feeling it, her adrenaline pumping, blood boiling, she wanted to hurt someone.
"That's right, girls rule, straight white men, die!" Juanita came around the side of the truck. Trying to not look out of breathe as she lugged the giant anti-tank rifle around. Trying to look comfortable resting it on her shoulder.
"Freeze cracker!" Kat screamed trying to sound like a cop pointing her mach ten at him with both hands clasped tightly around it.
Jaclyn had her laptop in her arm, pointing her gun forward but not really aiming at anything. Concentrating on making her face look as mean and serious as possible.
Roch pulled Murray down the steps of the Van and span him around hard against the side of the truck. "Ow" He said "What's all this about?"
She hit in him in the back of the knee and got close to his face and whispered "We're asking the questions asshole".
He straightened up grimacing and said "So ask away".
"Jacy do we need this piece of shit?" She shouted. Clammily fingering the short shotgun pressed tightly to the back of Murray's sweaty neck.
"I just need to access his network so we can broadcast our signal piggybacking off theirs so.."
Roch smiled, her blood rushing in her ears. Murray closed his eyes and swallowed hard and said "Fuck me".
"But we might need him for verification." She perked up. "We have no idea how many security protocols they have, they could even have iris or voice recognition."
Roch poked her head out of her bloodlust stupor, Murray squinted.
"I'm just saying. It'd be better if had him and didn't need him than blew his brains out. Only to discover he's the only one that can access the network."
"Err yeah, that's exactly right" Murray said.
"Shut up" Roch said giving him another little love tap with the shotgun.
"Just bring him inside and sit him down." Jac said.
"Who died and made you the boss".
"Just do it Roch" Jac sighed as she climbed the small set of stairs into the mobile hq. She took a deep inhale of breath as she entered. It was everything she hoped it would be although it smelled more like ass and doritos than she imagined. She sat down at Murray's console moving his mountain dew bottles to make way for her laptop. She opened it up connecting it to the terminal and started to type in command prompts.
Roch lead Murray. A nasty look on her face as she pushed him up the steps. She sat him at another one of the screens in the van on a chair connected to the floor. The van evidently was intended for an entire team of people watching the cameras, budget cuts.
Juanita felt like a million dollars. She was starting to see herself as some kind comic book hero. Fighting some righteous daydream as she dragged her oversized gun into the truck. Parking herself in a seat next to Murray with the gun by her side. Panting and sweating profusely she said "Who's this guy?"
"He's their tech guy, monitors all the cameras" Jac said with her back turned typing at her laptop.
"How didn't he see us coming?" She wheezed.
"He's just one guy." She shrugged looking over at the sad sack that was Murray. "There's no way he could have known we had the kind of tech to ping his signal or the man power to take down his guard team." She scrunched her face like she almost felt sorry for him. "Plus I've been patching into their drone traffic. There's activity happening all over town, there's not enough eyes on the ground to keep track of it all."
"So what now?" Juanita huffed.
"Roch would you mind tying him up and then just guarding the door with Kat? We need someone to keep an eye out." Jac said with an air of aloof superiority.
"Sure thing" Roch sneered and flounced out slamming the door behind her.
"What the hell your cracker as-" Kat was cut off by a neat balled up fist tapping her on the nose and knocking her onto her ass. The french man picking and palming the mach ten out of her hand as she fell.
"I'm very sorry." He said as he looked at her on the floor dazed.
As soon as Roch came out of the truck she was too pissed off to notice the smell of the crazy homeless guy. Which waiting for her at the side of the steps with his back flat against the truck wall.
"Hi" He said cherrily as he snaked a hand onto the barrel of the shotgun. Wrestling control of it away from her and tapping her on the nose with the top of the barrel. She folded like a cheap pic nick table at a heap at the bottom of the stairs.
The Frenchman gripped the mac ten in his hand looking over at Carpenter. Gauging distance and spread.
Carpenter clocked him looking and gave him a cheeky little wink as he cocked the shotgun. Liking his chances.
The Frenchman seethed and slackened his grip on the gun.
"After you, my friend" The Frenchman said.
"I don't mind if I do." He smirked.
Read the rest of the chapter here.
3 Ring Samurai Chapter 4 'Take the sword Part 1'
Good morrow fine folk, it is I your humble bard..
And that's enough of that. Ok so updates; I fucking did it and it turned out pretty damn great. I wasn't really intending to do my standard 2k a day word count challenge thing but I was just so fucking eager I start an hour earlier than I usually do and spent like the next four or five hours just bounding around this fictional world I was creating like a dog with a ball it it's mouth. And before I knew it I'd written way too much and that's pretty much how it went for the last four days but it did work out to a nice neat round a bout 8k.
So that right now shapes up to about a chapter and a half because I got a little carried away and the flashback chapter is like a short story in itself so I may have to break it down a little bit but it turned out really cool and it has one of the best (and shortest) fight scenes I've ever written, just the level of gravity and intensity really swept me away and I hope that goes the same for anyone reading it. If people have a tenth of the fun and excitement I got from just writing it then I'm on to a winner.
I almost couldn't wait to get up this morning and write about and go over, this is the first time I've been this excited about proofreading and putting something on inkitt.
I think the first chapter is great, I had my baby mama go over it and she made me rethink the whole chapter and I'm so glad she did because I love the changes I made to it. I think the chapter really nails the character hook, she even compared him to Alucard from Hellsing, which was a character I wasn't even thinking of but it was music to my ears. Although I hate that anime (Not so much hate it, I just found it underwhelming), Alucard is the only reason its worth watching.
Well anyway wanna keep this terse so I can actually do the proofreading I just mentioned so just want to mention inkitt a bit and then get on to some Blood and Elves hate which I find more and more of the more I read it.
I dunno, it's weird 'The One that Came Back' is really popular on inkitt, it's nearly surpassing Green Sunday which has been on way longer and I spammed the living hell out of and everytime I go on inkitt someone has added it to a list or saved it but I get new reads constantly when I never spam it at all and I literally give it away for free now haha. So that's cool, I mean what are the odds that that is the first book I get legit published haha, that would be great but also suck since I wrote it in literally thirty days and lots of it is me just transcribing a documentary haha.
Ok so I realise why the witcher Blood of Elves sucks so much and it does suck, it was a meme at first, when I was like halfway through but I'm near the end now and I swear this book is like 95% really boring conversations about nothing. It's literally just conversation after conversation and any action or interesting thing that happens in like a page or two then the conversation will just be the rest of the chapter and then it'll cut away to another completely different conversation in another part of the world and it may or may not be related. That's the whole book. And the chapters are stupidly fucking long, it's a three hundred plus page long book and it has eight chapters, so you just have these bloated chapters full of pointless dialogue most of which could be shortened to a sentence at most. And what's more is the chapters don't really need to be that bloated, the chapter breaks seem arbitrary since there are constant cutaways without transition to other conversations entirely. It almost seems like chapters are there just as a formality.
So anyway, why it sucks. It sucks sort of for the same reason The last wish fell short. The last wish is just a series of short stories not connected except that they involve Geralt, that's it. But it's a series of fun and action packed short stories that are interesting and varied and have lots of subtle nods.
The problem with Blood of Elves is it's not a novel, it's a short story or two short stories that have been stretched out to be the length of a novel and packed with filler conversation and political commentary. That's literally all it is. Because the main plot begins at the start to try and hook us then it's filler city for the next hundred odd pages then there's a smidgeon of action in the middle then the story is sort of coming back around at the end. Some people say the filler is like character fill but I don't think so, the characters still seem really generic, I don't feel like I know anymore about Geralt or Ciri and all I learnt about Triss is she can't drink potions, maybe she's lactose intolerant haha.
And it occurred to me last night that I gloss over romances in my stories because they don't interest me. But I sort of pay some lip service to them but I make a point that it is lip service.
In this book he's in love with a woman he literally forced to love him with magic genie powers and now they're apart in this book but their epic romance is sort of just hinted at. So essentially *insert epic romance here*, it just struck me as really lazy having like a time jump to say they had a really great romance but now they're avoiding eachother like the plague.
Anyway really didn't meet my goal of being quick and concise but I will have the first chapter of Cur: Blood and Soil (working title) up on inkitt by the end of the week probably sooner. I really can't wait to hear people's opinion on it, although I probably wont source reviews on inkitt until I have more done, I'll just poll the poles at work haha. My biggest fan is a polish guy I work with who got me into the witcher and now I hate it haha.
Ok must do actual work now gah!
"Morning Ethel, hows tricks?" Deputy Pete said, a cheeky grin painted on his wooden boyish face.
"Aint run tricks in here for years, ever since that damn circus came, snatched up all the good whores from here to the crater" Ethel stated.
"It's just an expression-" He smiled awkwardly taking stock of the bar with a quick side eye glance. He got a weird feeling all of a sudden but couldn't explain it, like he walked into an animal cage and found it empty. Like something was looking at him deciding which part to pull off and eat first.
He swallowed but kept smiling as he tried to be as inconspicuous as possible sizing up the strangers in the bar. So far there were only two he could see, they were sat at a booth in the corner, the same one the clown was sitting in the day before but they weren't clowns. Nevertheless they looked strange, the one facing his way was around thirty with dark receding hair and a grotesque scar on his neck that made the skin look pale and flabby. The one with his back turned was a giant with arms as thick as barrels, he was pretty hard to miss.
There were more in the back standing around the pool table. They were playing pool but there was something off about it. Their movements looked practised and robotic like they were playing pool in a stage play. Like no one was really interested in winning. Three guys, one a short jittery guy with spikey hair and beady eyes. A thin guy who was all angles with long hair tied back, and a tall guy with broad shoulders with his back turned.
"Ethel-I-err"
"Nothing- I just gotta check something." Pete said not looking at her.
He hitched up his gun belt, took a deep breath and approached the two sitting at the booth. He walked slow and deliberately but neither of the stranger decided to notice him. Or his heavy footfalls on the loose wooden floor.
He cleared his throat and put on his best shit eating grin. "Anything I can help you folks with?" His feet betrayed him with the sound of boot leather tensing.
The one with the scar turned his eyes slowly up to look at the deputy, one of them was milky and probably blind. He cut a weird grin that made him look like a shark. It was the kind of face someone might make if they'd never seen their face in a mirror.
"No officer" he said in a soft mocking tone with a gravelly voice.
The large man let out a grunt or a groan and Pete tried not to stare at him.
"You folks staying long, it's just we don't get too many strangers out here."
"We're not strangers" the strange man smiled again.
"Is that right?" The deputy tensed his jaw and swallowed. "You mind telling me what your business is here?"
"Just passing through" He said.
"Just passing through" Pete nodded, tapping his feet nervously.
"Is that a crime officer?"
"You wanna ask me how I got these scars?" he smirked.
"Cooking fried chicken" he laughed "That hot oil does get everywhere." He grinned at the deputy.
"Is that right- you folks wouldn't be carrying any weapons would you?" He let his hand fall onto his holster.
"Me? Not a one sir." He said.
Pete took a look at the large man who didn't say anything. Hulking arms framed a large gut and barrel chest with a small head on top.
"Does he look like he needs a weapon?" The man smiled again and let out a breathy laugh. "I'm just foolin' around, he's harmless, got the mind of a child- wouldn't hurt a fly." He smirked.
"I used to pull the wings off flies when I was a child" The deputy said.
"Is that right? – well I'll bare that mind."
"You do that" He said. "You folks have a nice day." He stood there for a moment trying to think of something else to say tapping his gun belt. After a moment he turned and gave Ethel a worried look trying to signal with his head as he walked out of the saloon.
He walked out into the street looking back still feeling those predator eyes on him. A cold shiver like a knife playfully dragged down his back. His fingers drumming on the wooden handle of his colt. Trying to shake the feeling that it really wouldn't do any good.
The deputy walked at a quick clip to get back to the sheriff's station. He entered quickly looking at his gun rack silently thinking.
"H-hey you said you'd get me outta here! A strained nasally whining voice said.
Deputy Pete turned to the source of the noise absent mindedly, it was Bull with his head still stuck in the door of the jail cell.
"Oh right, I was going to see if Ethel had any butter or cooking grease or something- slipped my mind, sorry about that" He smiled sadly.
"S-Sorry?" Bull whined incredulous with his shiny bowling ball head unable to turn and look at him.
The rest of his crew were awake but in varying states of disrepair, battered and bruised all crushed up one side of the cell. As far as they could get away from the clown who lay on his back on the floor looking up at the ceiling fan spinning.
"Well good morning!" Deputy Pete said to the clown. He opened the cell slowly edging around Bully as he was dragged around by it having his head stuck in it.
"N-not so fast!"
"I'm being as gentle as I can be". He said still looking at the clown "Hey you, you're released, you can go, preferably as far away from here as possible."
The clown got to his feet and walked towards the deputy. "The sword".
"Oh that's right-" He stepped out of his way letting him step around Bull before shutting and locking the cell again. Everyone else inside seemed to breathe a sigh of relief seeing the clown go.
"Here take the damn thing" The deputy said letting a little of his nerves show as he took the sword out from under his desk and tossed it on the counter top.
Pookie readjusted his pants and slid the sword into his string belt. "Who took a crap in your cornflakes?"
"You did, you took a crap in my cornflakes- and what in the hell are cornflakes anyway?" The deputy snapped. He breathed out through his nose pressing his lips together "Your buddies showed up."
"Well why don't you just shoot'em" Pookie smiled.
"I'd love to but they haven't done anything yet and I don't wanna give'em the chance, that's why you're getting your clown ass outta town right now!"
"Wasn't I promised a plate of beans?"
"That was yesterday, this is today."
"I don't even know where I'm going, I need a map, supplies a real bed for the night would be good."
"I can throw you back in the cell if you want, tell your buddies to come right here."
"NO!" the other men in the cell shouted in unison.
The deputy stopped to look out of the window. "You got any tickets?"
Pookie's stomach growled.
"I'll take that as a no- but none of that is my problem and if you're not outta town by sundown I'll run you out myself strapped to a mule."
Pookie nodded and walked out of the jail into the morning sun, struck then realising he had no idea where he was going or what he was going to do. This world was entirely alien to him.
"Hey mister" A high pitched voice said.
Pookie turned shielding his eyes. A tall kid with milk bottle top glasses hopped off the bench outside of the jail licking an icecream cone.
The kid came up to him smiling his freckled face, he had light blonde hair pushed forward on his head. And he was wearing a set of coveralls with an anime robot over the breast pocket. Despite his voice and age he was just a little shorter than Pookie although he couldn't seem to stand up straight. A chronic sloucher who nevertheless carried himself with an optimistic child-like bounce in his step.
"You're from the circus right?" The boy gestured with the icecream cone.
"Wooooww! I know you, what's your name? Pokey? Banjo? Poopy?"
"Yeah that's right, Pookie- I'm like your biggest fan, the name's Donny." The boy smirked holding out his hand for Pookie to stare at. "-I watch all your shows when you come to town. I watched the one where you did the thing and you were like …- ya know" He started miming sword strikes with his icecream "And they were like bleurgh, ow my guts haha!" Donny smiled miming being disembowled and catching drips from his melting icecream. "My mom tries to stop me from going but I've got my own money" He winked.
"That's great" Pookie said as he continued to walk on.
"Hey wait, I heard what the deputy said, you need tickets right?"
"What if I brought you breakfast at the saloon- and you can tell me all your cool stories?" He screeched in an unbroken line of dialogue gasping for breath between each word. "Like like like- you could tell me your cool backstory." He said chasing after the clown trying not to drop his quickly melting icecream.. "Like maybe your whole family was killed by mutant wolves but one of the wolves raised you as their own and then you joined the circus. Or like your parents were from a rival tribe and clowns killed them but one of them couldn't bring themselves to kill you. So raised you as their own living with the shame to one day have to reveal it in an emotional confrontation." He paused thinking "Wait that's pretty much the same story- I guess I'm not a good writer but I bet the real story is much cooler." Taking a bite out of his icecream and in his excitement instantly regretting it "Brainfreeze!"
Pookie turned.
"So you'll tell me?"
Pookie's stomach growled even louder "Sure"
"Awesome!" The kid screamed chasing after the strange clown.
Pookie entered the saloon for the second time but this time the air was very different.
"Oh it's you again- didn't Pete lock you up?" Ethel said.
"No that was a different clown with a sword."
"Oh" Ethel gaped.
"Morning Ethel!" The kid chirped excitedly wafting his icream around before letting a malformed blob of it fall onto the saloon floor. "My you're looking lovely today"
"Err thanks"
"Can we get two plates of the house special for me and my new pal?"
"Sure thing kid"
The old bint disappeared into the back and Donny excitedly lead Pookie to a booth just to the left of the one he sat at when he first got there.
The kid was practically dragging the clown as he tried to get his bearings in this new ecosystem he'd stumbled into. He looked over in the back where the old men were still dozing and attempting to play some card game. The pool players replaced by the cardboard cutouts of generic pool players laughing and hitting balls at seemingly random intervals.
Excitedly the kid ushered Pookie into his seat which was facing out towards the bar and the exit adjacent to it.
Pookie was a little annoyed by the kids youthful exuberance but he promised to fill his belly so he could hardly protest too harshly. Then as if out of nowhere Pookie felt a sudden crushing feeling, the air in the room getting ten times heavier almost soupy. He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck raising up as if someone or something was sharpening their fangs waiting to pounce. More than that, straining to stop itself from doing exactly that. Every ounce of willpower holding it back from running its necessary course and ripping him apart.
Then there was a sinking feeling and an odd warmth at his back, a cloud moved out of the way of the sun and it cast a huge shadow over his table. A giant humanoid shape.
There was an itching scratching sound and a distinct whispering.
"…not yet… patience"
A low rumbling groan.
The old woman came back with their food and it looked like that might be the cause of the distress. The smell from the kitchen causing some form of mild epilepsy. The kid looked happy enough with whatever it was, possibly roadkill or the road itself. Pookie couldn't make heads or tails of it. It looked almost like a plate full of yellow congealed earwax. Some hitherto unknown animal species roasted beyond all recognition lying next to it.
Pookie ate with long teeth but only a few bites in there came a hideous snapping sound that he hoped wasn't anything vital in his intestinal lining. A scraping screeching noise followed, a cold chill swept through as a huge shadow fell like a curtain over the table.
Pookie turned his head leaning over his food to see a giant figure standing over him with a broken table leg in his hand and a cracked penguin mask on his face.
The giant swung with an intense speed and ferocity aiming to pin and obliterate his head against the table.
Pookie leaned back and let the blow annihilate the table leaving only splinters. Acting on instinct alone he pulled the draw string on his scabbard making that odd winding kazoo noise. The blade launched the handle of his sword past the giant's face. The eyes in the pommel lit up letting out that tinny cringey laugh as the bottom of the blade sliced the side of the penguins neck open.
The clown tried to hop out of his seat holding his sword only partially out of the scabbard in his off hand.
Penguin stumbled, holding onto his neck with his other hand to stop the bleeding. He lifted his enormous arm up for another strike coming down just as hard and fast as before almost as an unbroken chain of attacks.
Pookie swiftly ducked under his large arm and with his sword and sheath fully out of his belt he lifted the bottom end of the scabbard. Tilting the scabbard up allowing the gravity to empty his sword into his hand.
He took it and it laughed again as he jammed it into the Penguin's chest. Not smoothly but with a ratcheting wrenching motion as he tried to lever the point through layers of muscle and sinew and bone. Going as deep as it possibly could.
The giant didn't make a sound other than a low heavy breathing as it looked down at the sword sticking out of it's chest. It dropped the chair leg on the ground with a hollow sound and took a step forward before wrapping both it's hands around Pookie's neck. Lifting him off of the ground.
Without his hand there the cut on his neck sprayed vital fluid on Pookie and all over the saloon floor but it didn't seem to phase him as he kept applying more and more pressure to Pookie's neck. His hands were so large it seemed like he might just pop Pookie's head off like toothpaste cap.
Pookie could do nothing but wriggled like a frog pinned to a dissection table. His legs flailing and kicking as he tried to free himself, his hands occupied with trying feebly to remove the hands of the giant around his neck. In the futility of it he let go of the giants wrist and put both hands around the handle of his sword and started to try and wiggle it free.
The giant penguin let out an echoing moan and Pookie felt his grip slackening but still he couldn't breathe and he was starting to see spots.
He wriggled it harder but it wouldn't budge, it wasn't coming out, at least not the way it came in.
Pookie started to wrench it and pull it like it was an awe on a rowing boat. And he was churning up really choppy water full of meat and bones cracking and shifting.
The penguin moaned louder and his grip slackened a little more but still Pookie couldn't breathe. In his desperation he started to knee the handle and hammer the pommel with his heel driving the sword deeper into the wound. By the time the guard was all the way in his chest cavity was when the penguin finally moaned like an oxen and let Pookie flop to the floor. Coughing and gasping for breath.
Pookie put his legs under him as soon as he had a lungful. The Penguin stood like a statue, his chest heaving, that stupid clown face pommel sticking out of it.
The penguin swayed thoughtfully and put his hands out for the clown. But Pookie wasn't about to let himself get wrung out like a dirty dish clothe again. He ducked, dipping under one of his arms and turning into a sweeping heel kick hitting the clown face pommel driving it further towards it's target.
Penguin tilted and swept around with his other hand but he'd become slow, his movements were like he was swimming through molasses. Pookie ducked the swipe again delivered a tight donkey kick on the clown faced pommel driving it further still.
The tip was now protruding all the way out of the giant's back. He heaved and wheezed like a dog who swallowed a squeaky chew toy. His head hanging low, a light coloured blood bubbling up from under his mask.
But Pookie wasn't done. He stepped forward quickly sweeping his front leg and spinning in the air to deliver a powerful turning kick to the pommel. Striking it like a soccer ball and launching it all the way through the monster and out the other side. It's final destination the mirror above the bar, it wobbled spattered blood and other such liquids in all directions as the mirror spiderwebbed on impact. That dumb clown face lighting up and laughing as it shook.
The giant groaned and stumbled and looked down at the hole in it's chest.
Pookie stooped to peek through at the terrified Ethel who was cowering behind the bar.
"Peekaboo". He waved through the sizeable cavity in the giant's chest.
Ethel ducked under the counter.
Penguin fell slow and it almost looked like he was shattering under his own weight, the colossus of Rhodes made grotesque flesh. Falling piece by piece with heavy deliberate sounds like it was raining whole sides of beef for a moment. And then came the silence.
Pookie looked around, covered head to toe in blood. The old coots were continuing their card game under the table. Ethel was peaking up from the bar and the pool players were looking over. The larger one with the broad shoulders just chalking the end of the cue and blowing it over and over.
Pookie mounted the bar and ripped his sword out of the mirror completely shattering it and almost raining ethel in shards of broken glass.
Donny popped up as if from nowhere. "Holy crap that was awesome!" He looked down at Ethel over the bar "Don't worry old gal, I'll cover all the damages, I promise. He looked back at Pookie as he cleaned the blood and guts off his sword with a bar mat. "Are you ok? I mean it looked like he almost ripped your head off."
"Just peachy" Pookie grinned.
He let out a sharp gasp and clung to his side falling off the bar quite spectacularly landing face first onto a bar stool, his sword clanging by his side.
"Holy crap!- Quick, help me get-im to a bed" Donny yelped.
The young lad helped the clown to his feet, and lead by the old woman he helped the dazed man up the ramshackle wood stairs of the saloon. The construction of which was almost that of a tree house, barely holding together with tape and happy thoughts. The walls a bare unvarnished wood patched with rusty sheet steel.
Ethel opened a door to one of the rooms, it was small with only enough room for the bed with a deeply sweat stained mattress. A single chair and a closet at the end of the bed. The floor was bare floorboards with a thin hide rug of some unidentifiable grey animal with six legs.
"Lay him down here"
"Yeah I know how a bed works" The kid smirked as he gradually lowered Pookie onto the mattress.
"This room aint free kid."
Donny smiled "I'll cover it."
"You better" Ethel waddled over to the door "What are you doing all this for, he a friend of yours?"
"I'm his biggest fan" He smirked.
"Uh huh, I'll be back with some linen and hot towels" She quipped as she waddled down the hall.
Despite her surliness Ethel did return with some sheets but no hot towels or happy ending was to be had at this time.
Donny had some food brought up to him but the clown slept most of the day away in a near comatose state as his body tried to repair itself.
As the sun went down patience started to wear thin. There was a tapping on the metallic roof of the saloon with steel toes. And at the window; a nervous rapping on the glass slipped into the background as a dull metronome. A claw scraped the glass and a hushed voice repeated over and over at a manic pace.
"I can't wait! I can't wait! I can't wait! I c-c-ccan't wait!"
Like this? Wanna read more head on over to inkitt boiiii!
Take the sword part 1
3 Ring Samurai Chapter 3 "Hatin' Don't Pay"
Well hello there again,
As usual I don't know how to start this, oh I rewatched all the Mad Max movies and they sucked a lot more than I remember when I was a kid and I never got why people hated thunderdome and now I totally get it haha. Like the first movie is sort of a nonsensical mess but it's entertaining, and then I made the hipster realisation that the second movie is just in his head after what happens to him in the first. And the second movie is the quintisential Mad Max movie because it sort of gets the formula right, it gives in to the absurdist shit in the first movie but doesn't take itself as seriously but takes itself seriously enough to make an action packed entertaining little romp which Thunderdome completely fucks up.
I was enjoying Road Warrior and thinking to myself 'Why didn't this become a big series, why aren't we on Mad Max 12 Angry street? Well evidently because George Miller changed his mind and instead of wanting to make gritty post apocalyptic movies pretty much inventing diesel punk he wanted to make a reboot of Peter Pan. Because that's what thunderdome feels like, it feels like a Robin Williams movie and it completely ruins the tone of Mad Max and turns it into a joke where no one even dies. Completely took what Mad Max was and turned it into a glorified kids movie where Tina Turner and Mel Gibson with a bunch of kids fight over a midget. And don't get me started on Fury Road anyway onto real stuff haha.
I've felt really overwhelmed recently but in a good way, in the best way. I feel like I've been on a fucking insane bender but it was in my living room with my laptop watching documentaries of celtic folklore on youtube and scouring the internet for more stories.
I literally spent the last four days reading nothing but celtic folklore until my eyes actually hurt. My eyes were bloodshot from reading, it was like being possessed and I just felt so high building this story in my head I couldn't stop. It felt uncontrollable and so good, just right. And I honestly have to fight the feeling and remember about Diana and how important that story is. Because I so just want to forget about it and delve into this because this feels like it for me.
So what did I do? I spent four days building a compendium of info from the internet (mostly wikipedia 😦 don't hate me, and youtube) which is now 87 pages of frantically copy pasted articles about releveant places, people, events, myths and monsters to draw from when I start writing. This sounds like laborious bullshit but it felt so good to make it didn't feel like work at all. I felt like I was uncovering the fucking holy grail haha.
Then I tried to start writing a synopsis but there's just so much stuff, so much story and character I had to write a timeline first. I couldn't just do what I usually do, take some notes, build a synopsis and then do a chapter breakdown and then start writing. I've spent weeks now plotting this in my head so I had to build a timeline of events to build my synopsis from. So now I'm going from the beginning and the end of my saga to see how fare the rabbit hole goes and now I'm fighting myself tooth and nail because I don't know whether to start the first book with the synopsis I have or go through and complete the entire timeline and go from there.
I don't know whether I should just do this one part first and build it up or try to look at it basically from a big picture perspective and build this large circular story. And it's lots of things at play, basically my perfectionism and anal retentive streaks battling my impulsive need to just do and write and throw myself head long into it and it's my nature to love to pull in those opposite directions. I want to just jump in and start tearing shit up but it feels too good to hold myself back to the eventual cathartic release of unleashing all my creative energy at once.
And right now I just want to stop writing this fucking blog and get back to doing that, because this is getting me nowhere haha.
Also the witcher sucks haha. (Not the game though)
The deputy slammed the jail door shut and locked it, Pookie lingered at the door, looking out, watching his sword as the deputy took it over to his desk. The rest of the punks dispersed murmuring angrily shooting eye daggers at the back of Pookie's head.
Pookie rested his arms through the bars as he watched the deputy sit in his chair at his desk. He continued to study the weird sword like he was wondering which end was the pointy one.
"Now I saw this thing work" He said pointing at the ringpull on the scabbard. "Shoots it out real fast right?" He looked up at Pookie "Now how in the hell does that work?"
Pookie shrugged and made a face.
"Sure" He turned the sword over and studied the handle. "That is the goofiest thing I've ever seen" He laughed. "Oh and what in the hell does this one do?" He said pointing at another but much smaller hidden ring pull on the handle itself.
"I'd leave that one alone." Pookie said.
"Is that right?" The deputy smirked as he put his feet up on his desk and cocked his chin out. He looked it up and down again. "I might take your advice on this one" He smiled and put the sword down on his desk.
"So what now?" Pookie asked.
"Now you watch shadows grow bud"
"You'll cool your heels with your buddies in there and then in the morning you'll get your sword back and be on your way. There may even be a plate a cold beans in it if I'm feeling hospitable." He smiled and tipped his hat down as he reclined in his seat closing his eyes.
"Others may come"
"Oh so you're one of those huh? – A run away, they got a name for that?" The deputy poked his hat up over his head and opened one eye. "So what did you do? Ya kill someone you weren't supposed to?"
"I see- so now you've got a price on your head- I'm not about to get mixed up in all that. Not a big fan of your shows but I know what you do- all that blood really turns my stomach, I gotta, say." He tutted "I don't know how you stand it" He let out a spiteful laugh. "You probably like it, only way your pecker gets hard I'll bet".
"It's not like that."
"Uh huh- Well don't you worry, you'll leave town in the morning and you'll never come back ya hear."
"Gramps there are some weird guys outside" Efron squeaked.
"Eh?" The old man peaked outside his door trying to look through the distant heat haze. Blackened shifting shapes moving in his general direction. "Just look like big birds to me, probably just want some of my worm broth". He chuckled.
There was a loud banging on the roof and a dent to match and then more foot steps and a strange scratching and whispering and high pitch mocking laughter.
"What the hell was that?" Zach said in harsh whisper. He got up on the bed and tried to look through one of the holes in the roof and saw nothing. Then for a split second he was face to face with a wooden crow face, it's empty black eyes staring at him. He jumped back falling off the bed.
They watched not breathing as the dents in the roof moved towards the door. There was a flapping fluttering noise and a thud and then a knock at the door.
"Who is it?" Efron said.
"Shhhhhh!" Gramps and Zach hushed her in unison.
There was an ominous cawing noise made more so by the fact it was a human voice making the sound.
They waited a moment and the sounds stopped. After about ten minutes of listening to nothing but the wind the old man gingerly walked towards the door and peaked out. Opening the door wider to get a better look. "Take a gander through the hole again" He whispered.
Zach did as he was told and sheepishly probed his head around the hole, making sure not to get too close. "I can't see nothing" He whispered back.
The old man feeling a little more sure of himself opened the door all the way and stepped out to look around. He instantly regretted it as a three pronged meat hook claw came down and hooked him under the shoulder blade. Picking him up like a toy grabber at an arcade.
The kids sat inside listening to his screams as he was dragged onto the roof bleeding and kicking and crying. The sounds of the claw ripping into his flesh and then it went quiet again and all that they could hear was the blood running off the tin roof.
The door opened slowly and a man with a duck mask was standing there. The crow dropped off the roof in a crouching position behind him covered in the old man's blood.
"It might've been good to talk to someone around here who could actually communicate in full sentences." Canard said.
"S-sorry, all the f-fun from before and I didn't even get my beak wet" Crow tittered as he looked at the blood dripping off his claws. "I c-couldn't help myself" He flicked his head erraticy, bobbing like a birds.
Canard sighed and looked at the kids as they stared up at the old man's bloody hand through the hole in the roof. "Hey, any of you kids seen a clown around here."
"Yeah he went into Woodsmoke, town not too far from here, just over the ridge." Zach said without looking away from the old man's hand as it dripped.
Canard scratched his face under his mask "Well that was easy."
"W-what do we do now?" Crow said bobbing his head erraticly.
"Business as usual I guess".
"M-me first" Crow said eagerly.
"Ay ya ya, hold your horses there bucko" Canard said barring the door with his arm. "We do this the right way, Finch, fetch the chart will you."
Finch appeared pulling out a rolled up scroll from his coat sleeve and he walked up to Efron.
She looked up at this strange thin man in the bird mask as he began to unravel the scroll next to her.
He held it up next to her and on it was a picture of a clown with his hand out over a height chart. He stood it next to her and measured. Her head was just under the clowns hand.
Finch tutted and said. "This one is too small."
"Come on out honey" Canard said. "It's alright"
Efron cautiously walked towards the door as Finch moved on to Zach.
He held the chart up to Zach and his head was just over the clown's hand.
"Ah we have a winner." Finch said. He rolled up the scroll and put it back in his sleeve as he made his way out of the shack.
"Well what has he won?" Canard said turning to Crow.
"H-ha-ha." Crow hopped and bobbed into the shack, the door slamming behind him.
"What are we gonna do with this one" A female voice said over the muffled sounds of Zach's screams.
Canard turned to Heron and then back to Efron and patted her on the head. "I always loved that motherly instinct you have"
Heron said nothing.
"Well we can't take her with us until we complete our mission" He said looking down at her mussing up her scruffy red hair. She looked up at him, her face screwed up into a puzzled frown. "You wanna babysit?"
Canard sighed "I guess you'll just have to go play somewhere else kid. Auntie Heron is too busy to take care of you, she really doesn't have time for kids, what with her high flying career and all." He looked for a reaction from her and got none. "Scoot kid, before I change my mind."
Efron didn't take a second to think about it she just started to run in a seemingly random direction without looking back.
"See ya" Canard waved.
"What do we do now? Turkey asked.
"Hmm- What do you think big guy?" Canard said looking at Penguin.
Penguin breathed deeply and made a low growling noise.
"That's what I thought- Crow! Aren't you done yet?" Canard shouted.
Crow appeared behind him covered in blood from head to toe. "W-whats up?"
"I'm calling a little 'family meeting'" Canard said.
"Who died and made you boss?" Cardinal said.
Canard laughed "I've got the biggest mouth"
"No argument there" Finch sighed.
"You got a plan Cardinal? Nah, didn't think so, so why don't you keep your beak shut" Turkey sniped.
"We were only supposed to recover the body" Heron chimed in.
Canard scratched his cheek under the mask. "Yeah well, 'the body' appears to be walking around killing wasteland transvestites and weebs, or did you not notice that?"
"If you wanna go back and report-be my guest." Canard continued.
"You think Regus is gonna give you a pat on the head if you bring him the clown's head?"
"You think you're gonna get one for tattling on us?" Canard laughed.
"Tell you what, we'll make up our minds when we get there, deal?" He said smiling with his voice.
Ah ah ah if you want to read the rest of this utter madness you must follow this link.
See ya.
Hatin' Don't Pay
GS2 Chapter 15 'Fist of the White Lotus'
Another day, another morning where I feel like someone dropped a tanker truck on me. I don't know if it's because I'm actually following my polyphasic sleep schedule a little tighter to make more time for reading and cooking or if it's because of my encroaching gains or both haha.
I had a protein shake this morning so I should perk up around about the time I need to do it all again haha. But results are really good, feeling good looking good. I still miss martial arts, I'd love to get back into them but I have this weird dichotomy in my head where I feel like diverting time and energy away from writing in any capacity even for a day would be a hinderance. But moreover it's the social aspect. I find solace in the solitude of lifting weights at home.
I just have my videos I use, I have my own weight and I just work and that's how I like it. I miss the the catharsis of beating the shit out of people but I feel like I need the solitude and I need the space in my head. I dunno maybe it's because the only martial arts club around is the one I grew up going to and I feel sort of like a failure, I'm almost thirty and I'm still trying to make a career out of pulling dumb stories out of my ass and working a dumb entry level job populated by teenagers and my hair is thinning haha.
Does this qualify as a mid life crisis? I dunno, but I hope not because I sure as shit can't afford a sports car haha.
Down to business, erm so I got another 10k out of Chrissy, my new editor and that's what I'm doing today haha. Just gonna be proofreading and building my agent pitch with Diana. I was looking at the definition of 'women's fiction' and funny enough it qualifies so that should be funny using that shitlib identity politics bullshit to try and make it appeal to cat ladies in new york haha. I mean what the fuck is 'women's fiction'? I mean how is that a thing?
This is where I put on my fedora and say "Why isn't there a 'men's fiction".
Then I put on my womyn respecter pink pussy hat and say "Because all fiction is male fiction bigot!"
But in all seriousness I wrote Diana without any politics in mind at all and she's basically just me meets Dexter in pink panties haha. I just wanted to make an interesting fun story because that's what I keep coming back to.
Don't get me wrong I love these deep meaningful stories like fight club but I never find myself coming back to them. I enjoy them in the moment but I would never reread something like that for fun. But every time I read Dexter I enjoy it. So that's what I want to write, it's what I like to write and I can still attempt those fight club style stories with my own spin, which is relevent because a podcast I was listening to recently did a bit on the deeper meaning of fight club and that's sort of what encouraged me to start 3 ring samurai. So that stupid shit about samurai clowns is my answer to fight club haha.
I am really enjoying writing it though.
Still hammering away at the first witcher book, I like it but it takes a concentrated effort to read it, mainly because it's not really about anything, it's just a bunch of unconnected stuff happening, a fantasy clip show with the only real connection being they're stories about Geralt. So I find it hard to follow because there is no plot thread pushing me along. But it's well written and I was reading it this morning thing "I say 'said' way too much" do they not have a word for 'said' in polish?
I can barely understand who's talking most of the time and Geralt loves to fucking talk, he's going for this brooding badass emo (spacing on the name of the character he's a direct copy of) but he never shuts his fucking mouth haha. Like he has these long monologues sometimes, in fact there's even a bit where he has this one sided conversation with a mute.
But I'm like is this what cool writers do, never use the word 'said' then the mini freakout bullet sweats starts, maybe I should start deleting all the 'saids' haha ^_^'. Just gonna ctlr+f search all 'said's and erase them and hope for the best haha.
Nah I'm not doing that, just gonna keep going over it and that's what I should be doing now instead of just talking nonsense.
Fist of the White Lotus
"Mr Fuzzles, I can't run anymore" Sparkles exclaimed in her cartoonish girly voice.
Fuzzles was breathing heavy, feeling like he'd been dragging her the whole time. His costume was drenched in sweat, heavy and getting heavier by the minute. The cold setting in everytime they had to stop. He looked up and down the street and saw that they looked invariably empty, they were a good block and a half away from the police station.
"Are you ok, did they get you?" He said looking back at her.
She looked at herself up and down patting herself with her hoofs and said shaking her head "I don't think so"
"I thought I lost you, they were everywhere, they got so close, I was sure-"
"We're ok, thanks to you, my cat in shining armor" She said giggling.
She nodded emphatically. Leaning over and planting a kiss on his whiskered cheek making a loud smooch kissing noise.
He clutched his paws to his chest and then his face as if he was blushing.
"What are we gonna do now, the police station was no good, where else can we go that's safe?" She asked.
"What's that?" Fuzzles said pointing at Sparkles foot.
"Huh?" She said as she started to twist and turn to look around herself.
"There, on your foo-hoof" He caught himself.
"Oh" She said as she peeled a brightly coloured wet pamphlet off her hoof. She opened it and started to read it like a child. "Whitefish mall, stores galore. A giant pirate themed Christmas show every hour, and the largest indoor icerink in the pacific northwest." She opened more panels on the pamphlet.
Fuzzles sidled up next to her and started to look it over. He enthusiastically took the pamphlet off of her and said "This place is huge, it looks like a fortress."
"It'll be a great place to hide." She said.
"No one would find us there and there'd be food and who knows what else." He added.
"How do we get there?" She said.
He flipped over the pamphlet and said "There's a map on the back."
"Yay, let's go." Sparkles said as she hooked her hoof around Fuzzles arm. They started to skip in the snow in the general direction of the mall. As she turned it made visible a small tear in her costume. The tear revealed a pair of boxer shorts with hearts on them and a small bite mark below the leg opening on a hairy leg.
"You think I am born yesterday?" The Frenchman said as he tapped TJ on the head with his own severed pinky finger laughing.
TJ's eyes fluttered and he passed out from the pain.
The Frenchman stood and scoffed looking down at TJ lying flat on the concrete floor.
He sniffed the air and then had a strange sensation at the back of his neck. The sensation spreading all the way around his head until he could feel it on his face. Cold fingers, little dainty fingers were crawling around his head like a spider's legs. For some reason this didn't alarm him, straight away. He didn't feel any inherent intent and the feeling was so strange it felt almost like a dream. A wave of euphoria and disbelief swishing around in his head. The fingers were slimy and thin. When they got in his nose and mouth he sputtered and spat and turned around. Waking from his daydream to see.
A girl.
She was naked, green hair, soft pale skin. So pale it looked see through, like a permeable membrane. Bright blue veins running under the surface, small pert breasts, long sleek legs. She almost glowed like some sort of sprite or faerie. Delicate, yet boyish facial features completed the woodland nymph aesthetic. His turning abruptly off balanced her. Her legs moving like that of a newborn horse. She crumpled into a dainty pile on the floor looking like a renaissance painting. The girl was looking around the room as if she'd never seen lights before. She cowered and covered her shame with her small hands.
The Frenchman was dismayed. He coughed as if he forgot how to swallow. He still had TJ's finger in his hand. He looked at it and laughed a little and then tossed it away wiping his hand. He jumped to her aid taking off his battered leather jacket to wrap around the young helpless girl. Stuttering red of cheek as he said "Mademoisselle, forgive me, sil vous plait".
He draped his coat across her shoulders and patted them. He grunted as he got up to a knee. He moved around her like a squat plumber trying to get better angle on a ubend but she shyed from his glance. He took her chin in his hand and smiling said "What's your name?"
She looked up and furrowed her brow.
He felt a strange sensation in his gut, de ja vu. Someone was walking over his grave. Her face, he looked off by the atv and saw the headless body of the woman he saw decapitated as he entered. "Impossible'" He muttered under his breathe.
The girl whispered her name "Sunday" her throat dry and raspy.
A sound came from the other side of the room. A mneumatic hiss and gears turning. The large garage doors were starting to open and light from the garage was leaking out. The door opened slow. The gap started growing bigger between it and the floor. A stage curtain lifting, revealing furry feet growing taller and taller. They were out there silently waiting, rows and rows of them thick.
BJ sat with his back to a column next to the garage door bleeding out. The control box connected to the garage door with a long thick cable in his lap. He was holding it down to open the garage doors, lying in a puddle of his own blood coughing and sputtering as it came up. Only one arm seemed usable the other was dead and drenched in blood, his lower body was caked in it but he was still alive.
"I'll get you, you french faggot!" He cursed between bouts of bloody coughing.
"Merde" He called as he started to look for more ammo in his pockets closing the gap between BJ and himself. He saw Sunday's bat on the floor. The garage doors were getting wider like the jaws of a giant crocodile, but slow, painfully slow.
The Frenchman stomped towards the bat catching his breathe.
BJ laughed, sputtering more and more blood as the heavy door rose. Before he could take in this small kamikaze victory he was dragged through the small gap. A furry monkey wearing a 'I heart bananas' t-shirt wrenched him by the head and shoulders. The garage door closing down on him. The force of the monkey and the door keeping him in place ripping him two disjointed pieces.
The Frenchman stopped in his tracks as the door slowly closed again on the twitching remains of BJ. Which was his legs and most of his lower body. He made a face like he wished he hadn't seen that. "I must go" He said to himself.
He heard the patting of fast bare feet and he turned to see his jacket lying on the floor but no girl. He turned again and she was right there an inch from his face, her face pale and lined with veins
"BOO!" She shouted in his face, the wind of her breath knocking him back. He stumbled backwards tripping over Sunday's bat. Slashing out of clumsy fear with his tanto knife. Cutting at her outstretched hand slicing off her fingers. She screamed and he landed at the feet of Bj's leftovers. It was a hard fall for a man of advancing years, his large frame and weight hitting the ground like a sack of faberge eggs.
He rose to his forearms shakily, he'd landed face first in BJ's blood and guts and it was all over him. He looked at his hands touched his face and grimaced at the smell. The disgust of being covered in the vile sticky cooling substance growing. He saw the steam rising off what could have been a portion of lower intestine and started to heave.
He rummaged around in his pants and found what he was looking for. He slipped the extra clip into his nine with a mechanical sliding clicking sound. He arose from the muck, hunched like a troll, the nine at waist height. He looked frantic, his eyes darted from corner to corner. Listening for those bare feet on the concrete floor.
He heard them and laughter and he fired into the dark garage. The sound of bullets hitting concrete with a cold slap, the jangling of car parts but no blood or cries of pain.
A building sound, whispering, talking.
"Over here" The voices said.
He fired in the direction of the sound and rounded the atv quickly to find nothing. Not even the fatboy was still there.
"Merde".
"Over here" The voices whispered again.
He turned and marched around the car holding his gun like a detective chasing down the pink panther. The panther, just out of reach.
"I'm right here a louder voice said." Accompanied by the sound of bare feet on metal, a bouncing balking sound of suspension.
He turned to see her, she was standing on the car, completely naked. Her hands on her hips like Peter Pan smiling cockily. She looked strange, translucent, so much so it seemed like you could see her skeleton through her skin. She looked down at him and laughed at his confused frightened eyes.
The Frenchman hesitated for a split second but his composure came back in droves. He took aim and fired hitting her right between the eyes.
The bullet landed but she remained standing on the car smiling for a another few seconds with the hole in her head. Before her expression slipped off her face and she fell lifeless onto the hood. Like a hunting trophy making a light thud.
He was confused even more now, he approached the body of the girl he shot lying lifelessly on the hood of the atv. There was no doubt it was the girl he saw before, same face, same hair, the skin was different. He turned her head and the back of it was missing, that was different. He hadn't missed, this wasn't a trick, he shot her in the head. She was dead, again.
But the noise of feet could be heard again. That slapping of warm feet on cold concrete, was ghostly now. His heartbeat slackened as the room was silent but for the calm shuffling of furries outside. Cushioned banging noises of padded paws clutching at nothing.
He probed the darkness with his gun like he was parting a curtain or a bed of seaweed on a coral reef. A bone white hand grabbed at his wrist in answer. It wasn't a strong grip but it was fixed like it had sealed around his arm and he couldn't shake it off. It stuck onto his wrist like a shark bite and it wouldn't let go. He was taken aback, left with no choice. His mind fluttering like the pictures in a slideshow. Reaching for the tanto knife and slicing and sawing. It didn't take more than a few seconds to cut through the supple thin skin and soft muscle tissue. The bone parted easily like it was made of still drying cement.
He pulled his arm back dropping the gore caked knife on the concrete floor. His breathing slackened off and he said "Putain!" walking around the edge of the atv. He opened the drivers side door and climbed in and shut it behind him locking the door. He checked the ignition, the keys weren't there. He flipped down the sun-visor and there was no joy, he opened the glove box and a little light came on but no hope.
"Merde." He sat for a second in contemplation, the silence encroaching slowly. He flicked open a folding knife and started prying the panels under the dash. Only then noticing the white hand and forearm were still firmly connected to his wrist.
He held back a scream and in a frenzy pried the hand away from his wrist. Letting it drop into the passenger footwell. There was a strange smell and an odd sucking sapping noise.
He looked into the back rearview mirror. The fatboy was lying across the backseat breathing heavily a sheen of sweat on his face. The Frenchman sat forward again and swallowed. He wiped the sweat from his brow going back to work on the exposed wires.
Then another sound, a low hissing right next to his head. The arm shot out again, latching onto his wrist but there was more. Attached was an elbow and an upperarm. Both covered in a wet slimy looking see through membranous skin.
He was frozen in the grip of a terrible unknown. The arm leveraged at his wrist for purchase. Lumbering into sight an inhuman spectacle. Attached to the arm was an unnameable thing, person shaped. A skeleton sprouting like roots right before his eyes, soft and warm and with a strange sweet smell. A blob of translucent goo taking a vaguely person-shaped form. A skull forming like decay in reverse, soft and clay like. Forming underneath the translucent bubble of plasma. Teeth and eyes and tufts of green hair.
He tried to shout, say something but the Frenchman had no air in his lungs to scream. No words that would explain this travesty of nature unfurling in front of him, right at his feet. It rose like a ghostly snot bubble between his legs, climbing his thighs, latching to his clothes.
A phrenetic fumbling for his gun ensued. His eyes not moving off the shifting, shapeless form building in his crotch region.
His hands felt weak and disjointed. The adrenaline rushing around his body rendering his muscles limp and slow like he was moving underwater. He aimed the gun in the region where he could see the brain forming in real time under the translucent skin sack.
"Psss" A hushed voice said from the backseat.
He caught his breathe and looked into the rearview mirror. A shock of green and white and a wirey arm snaked around his neck locking in place. One hand locked on the other white bicep. Her other hand behind his head pushing it down squeezing his carotid. Her head was next to his, he could hear her breathing in his ear. Smell her hair and skin, her warm cheek pressed against his stubbly greasy one.
His vision started to get spotty, his gun came up slow using the mirror for guidance. He could see her teeth, the top of her head cut off by the angle of the mirror. The gun creeping through the air as if on strings getting closer to both their heads locked together. He started to lose feeling, the thing at his legs held him still. He could only feel the weight of the gun and it coming closer, his finger twitching on the trigger. His eyelids taking him in and out, in and out, his breathe wheezing as he started to feel ethereal.
A brief flash lit up the garage, a tight popping and it went quiet again.