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hey so two people in a row on my dash just commented that trying to open the new communities popup on tumblr mobile(?) brings up major flashing lights, so please please PLEASE take caution doing so. i don't like asking people to reblog stuff but please reblog this or make your own post about this to tell people about this because this could seriously hurt someone

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TV writers will come up with vaguely weird & awkward mannerisms for a character and unwittingly craft exemplary autism representation, then try to write an explicitly autistic character and commit a hate crime

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yiddish theatre, yiddish newspapers and other yiddish cultural stuff was illegal in israel for years and actively discouraged and attempted to make obsolete, yiddish lectures were disrupted and the israeli state translated the testimonies of holocaust survivors to hebrew rather than keep them in yiddish (the language spoken by most jewish holocaust survivors) but tell me more about how israel and zionism are saving jews and making jewish cultural identity stronger rather than destroying and devaluing jewish diasporic culture 🤔

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In Plagiarism and You(Tube), Hbomb says "If you consider something so obscure you can get away with stealing it, you do not respect it." Save that line for the next time someone tries to tell you that Roy Lichtenstein brought respect to comics as art.

It's since been pointed out that while Lichtenstein did copy one of Russ Heath's drawings of an airplane getting hit, the painting depicted above was actually copied off Irv Norvick, because Lichtenstein did this so many times to so many comic artists.

In Lichtenstein's defense, he was doing this in a time when comic artists frequently weren't even credited in the issues themselves. In his condemnation, he never even tried to check, nor has he made any move to pay or credit any of the comic artists who recognized their own work later on. Rather than elevating the "low art" of comics, he was widening the gap of financial success and respect even further.

The Hbomberguy of this story is art historian David Barsalou, who has now spent decades tracking down the original art and the names of the original artists used in Lichtenstein's most famous output. Here's the full flickr gallery for the Deconstructing Roy Lichtenstein project. Frequently copied were Tony Abruzzo, Ted Galindo, Mike Sekowsky, Joe Kubert, Jerry Grandenetti, and dozens more Golden Age artists who aren't very well known in comics circles, let alone art history books. Many of them died in poverty. That's something that the Hero Initiative, mentioned in Russ Heath's comic above, aims to prevent.

Also, Lichtenstein didn't even paint Ben-Day dots. That's a specific thing.

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Gay pride happens in June and gay wrath happens whenever hbomberguy drops a 3+ hour video essay about a specific topic

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i saw the trailer for the new feel-good “anti-racist” US war movie about the carpet bombing of North Korea and started writing up something for this blog, partially inspired by the absolute shit storm i got for sharing that post i made with pictures of everyday life outside pyongyang

and then i gave up, because what’s the point? westerners can’t even handle a single picture of a north korean not looking miserable without screaming propaganda

meanwhile, there are no stories about the horrors of life in the ‘hermit kingdom’ that are deemed too outlandish to be believable. i can’t remember who said it, but it’s like the entire country has taken up permanent residence in the western imaginary as some silly little cartoon villain, where the leaders of the country does evil things for no discernible reason. they’re just silly and evil like that, and the citizens, of course, are silly, too. silly and brainwashed.

i watched a video recently of a tourists visiting an auto dealership in pyongyang, and the entire time he was just gawking at the employees and costumers, shoving his phone in their face, and confidently explaining to his youtube audience that everyone he’s interacting with are actually actors.

what level of dehumanization do you have to reach for that thought to even cross your mind? to think that the people you see before you are actors? that entire cities and shops are erected with to sole purpose that you, a western, will see them and be impressed?

what frustrates me the most is the casual cruelty that seeps into any mention of north korea, no matter how small. if north koreans are not being evil, they’re being silly.

a north korean newspaper reports that a group of archeologists in pyongyang have discovered an old rock carving with the words ‘unicorn lair’ (mistranslated), and the western press reports that north koreans now believe in unicorns.

a tourist at a hotel in hamhung is told by the receptionist to be careful at the beach: the waves can get high. that day the tourists goes to the beach, and there are no waves. she retells the story to her instagram followers, explaining that the poor woman at the hotel could never have seen real waves before because north koreans are probably never allowed to travel.

she adds a little teary-eyed emoji.

one of the cities i included in the post was sariwon, a densely populated city to the south of pyongyang. below are some pictures from its “folk customs street”, which was built to showcase old korean traditions and customs

here’s all wikipedia has to say about it

Built to display an ideal picture of ancient Korea, it includes buildings in the “historical style” and a collection of ancient Korean cannons. Although it is considered an inaccurate romanticized recreation of an ancient Korean street, it is frequently used as a destination for foreigners on official government tours. Many older style Korean buildings exist in the city.

it’s just north koreans being silly again. there’s no mention of what might motivate them to build a street like that — why the preservation of old customs, culture and architecture might somehow be important for the city

could it perhaps have something to do with how the U.S. air force dropped 635,000 tons of bombs, including 32,557 tons of napalm, over the korean peninsula during the war? the carpet bombings, which are now the topic of an upcoming hollywood movie about overcoming racism through warcrimes, destroyed an estimate of 85% of all buildings in north korea. some cities were entirely wiped off the map.

in sariwon they missed a few buildings, but not many — after an intense firebombing campaign the U.S. military estimated the destruction of sariwon to be at 95%.

none of this is mentioned on the wikipedia page for sariwon.

we destroyed entire cities. memory-holed the entire thing, called it the forgotten war. and now, 70 years later, we’re convincing ourselves that the people living in the ruins are actors.

and somehow the north koreans are the brainwashed ones

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This reminds me of how when Stephen King was conceiving 'Salem's Lot he asked his wife what would happen if Dracula woke up in modern day (so 70s) New York and she said 'probably stumble onto Fifth and be hit by a taxicab'

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Ocean

go to this random coordinates generator and say in the tags how you would fare if you were dropped where it generates without warning. i’ll go first i’d be dropped in the middle of the fucking south atlantic ocean and perish

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Coyote found a squeaky toy I accidentally left outside. Turns out coyote love squeaky toys too. 

(Source)

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Sometimes autistic people are fully aware of social norms but we ignore them anyway because we think they're stupid.

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Hey y'all. I currently live in Ecuador, a third world country, and right now I'm looking to move out ASAP. The situation here is fucked; crime has increased massively during our current presidency, and one of the presidential candidates was shot dead yesterday, resulting in turmoil across the entire country. The danger of organized crime will be comparable to that of Colombia or Mexico's within the next year.

For a while I've wanted to move out, but never had any real reason to force myself to do so until now. However, the job market here is fucked. The minimum wage is a whopping three dollars an hour, and nowadays it's impossible to get a job without a degree. On top of that, my family's extremely tight on money as well, making it nearly impossible for my parents to save up to help me move out.

I don't like asking people money just for the sake of it, but I (and my family) need help. I set up a paypal account as gofundme isn't available here in Ecuador, but if you would like to donate even just one dollar, you can do so here: https://paypal.me/jszunino?country.x=EC&locale.x=en_US

My goal to move out to Europe is 6000 euros for a safe budget, to afford travel and living expenses while I attempt to secure a job there for financial stability. I'm currently sitting at 770/6000. Genuinely, every little bit helps.

https://paypal.me/jszunino?country.x=EC&locale.x=en_US

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Kind of obsessed with how in this building in tokyo uni they have a japan centric periodic table poster

#japan #tourism #studying abroad #chemistry #physics #science

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Convincing Japanese people gaijin have weird taste in food when actually I'm just autistic

#tourism #japan #japan food #autism #autistic culture

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Chapter 4: Interview with the Angel

Pamaros pressed an elbow into the roughly hewn rocky arm of its lunar throne, and gestured as if leaning its head on one hand.

It wasn’t, of course – the wispy plasma edges slowly rotating, gyrating, burning eye-wheels-within-wheels ‘head’ didn’t even touch its darkened bronze gauntlet hand – but it orientated it as if pressed into the chin of an invisible skull, containing within it its actual head.

The first question transmitted via the probe that sat in the moondust in front of it came from a representative of NASA, so permitted because they had organized this mission, on a tight timescale and at great expense.

“Is there anything we need to add to our physical laws or understanding of science?”

I WOULD NOT SAY SO.

“…Not even concerning this, spiritual world you’re talking about-“

YOUR SCIENCE HAS DEVELOPED TO DESCRIBE AND EXPLAIN THE PHYSICAL WORLD. WHERE IT BLEEDS – MYSELF, FOR EXAMPLE, OR THE KNOWLEDGE OR SKILLS EXHIBITED BY INCARNATED SOULS – YOUR SCIENCE WILL INEVITABLY BREAK DOWN. YOU CANNOT EXTEND YOUR LAWS TO IT. NO EXTENSION IS NECESSARY. IT IS NOT A FIELD IN WHICH YOUR, MEN OF SCIENCE, CAN SPEAK.

The format of this interrogation was strange, but had been divined by the specially appointed council for the task after only a few weeks of work. Pamaros had told them ‘speak, and I will hear.’ Initial attempts at simply speaking on Earth had not worked, and had in fact made the people standing outside yelling at the moon look quite silly. Despite misgivings, it was ultimately judged that the best course of action would be to land an unmanned probe on the Moon, that would broadcast – what should be – silent speech into the airless void there.

To the physicists’ absolute horror – or in one case, awed joy – they had seen Pamaros on the camera calmly watching the buggy approach its throne, and when they broadcast a hail, received a response that rang deeply in all their heads, a bass thrum at the base of their skull that hummed up into words in their ears and dissolved still up into buzzing signal noise in their scalps.

The next question came from a theologian, of Christian descent.

“Do you serve God, or a god, or gods?”

NO.

“Did you once serve a God?”

…

WHAT IS IT THAT YOU MEAN BY GOD?

“Were you once bound to orders by a higher force? What shape did it take? Tell us of it.”

I AM NOT BOUND.

“I didn’t ask if you are.” This theologian had long exceeded his allotted term, but this particular question had caught the interest of everyone in the room enough to allow it. “I asked if you ever were? Were you created? Are you an angel?”

‘ANGEL’ IS NOT A WORD I HAVE EVER USED TO DESCRIBE MYSELF. IT IS AN, EXTERNAL, DESCRIPTOR.

“So you are not an angel of God, in the sense Abrahamic faiths talk about?”

THAT WOULD DEPEND ON THE BOOK. AND THE. VERSE.

The theologian was getting irritated now. “Sir. Do you serve God as I believe in Him? Are you a Holy being, or something base? Of matter? An extraterrestial, perhaps? From whence did you come? And why-“

.

That final stop was a loud thud into the skulls of everyone in the room. It was a telepathically transmitted period, something like a book slamming shut. They still felt its presence, staring at them silently, but the dark boiling in their stomachs told them it would be a very, very bad idea to push this topic.

The next question came from a lawyer.

“Are the reincarnated the same people as the deceased?”

THAT IS A MATTER OF OPINION.

“If a reincarnated person lives long enough, will they become identical to the deceased?”

NO.

“Will they regain all their memories?”

NO.

“Are they, essentially an amalg-“

“Hey, don’t hog it!”

There was a shout from off camera; someone shoved the lawyer away, pushed their way to the front. The explanatory text on the bottom still showed the lawyer’s name and occupation for a few moment as they started speaking, before showing that they were a diplomat.

“Will you intervene in human affairs?”

I HAVE.

“…More..?”

NO.

“What powers do you hold?”

I AM NOT BOUND.

The next was another physicist.

“I am the reincarnation of the physicist Galileo Galilei. I incarnated twelve days ago.”

I CAN SEE THAT.

“I know things that Galileo would never have known, however. I have received…knowledge, pertinent to fields that were invented long after his death. I have received skills that he did not hold. How can this be?”

I AM A BEARER OF KNOWLEDGE UNTO THE PEOPLES OF THE EARTH. THE DEAD ARE MY. EMISSARIES.

“So they receive this information from you?”

I HAVE CREATED THE CONDITIONS FOR IT TO BE REVEALED.

“Why?”

I CHOSE TO.

“Why did you-“

.

Next, and final, another theologian.

“Is there a Nirvana?”

WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT?

“Some release? From the cycle of reincarnation? An end, to this repeating?”

.

.

.

The angel moved its hand down casually from its ‘face’, so that both hands were placed on the arms of the chair. It lazily raised its other – left – hand.

There was a flash of light like a gunshot, streaking out across the black of the lunar vacuum, and fragments of blown-apart probe went tumbling up out of the orbit of the moon, gone past escape velocity into the sky.

As the billowing clouds of dust settled, the moon’s face was now etched, amongst billions, with one more crater.

Back down on earth, the humans, once they had recovered from the cringe of three sharp telepathic knocks to the skull, that left their guts boiling like they’d been shocked by an infrasound predator’s roar, fell into a furious argument about who had said what, about how they should have asked about karma and sin or hell, about whether they’d angered it with that final question, about what had happened to the probe, and about if that money had all been wasted. This only intensified when it was found – admittedly not to the surprise of many – that their recorders hadn’t picked up a word of what Pamaros had said. Immediately, they began disagreeing on the exact wording of what had been said. Within minutes, several distinct accounts of the interview, to be disseminated to different competing media organisations and different opposed governments and interest groups, had grown up.

But away from this, one scientist – the one who’d smiled in joy when Pamaros’ voice had fallen in through the vacuum, rather than recoiling in startled horror like all the rest – had rushed out of mission control and swung herself onto the balcony outside, to see the pale dimpled penny full moon, hanging bright and ordinary and intact in the sky, same as it ever had been every single previous night of her life, and breathed a sigh of relief.

#fantasy #reincarnation #aleister crowley #blackcomedy #action #indieauthor #goth #literature #biblically accurate angel #angelic #newweird #scifi

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lol I guess I'll be using this account a lot more now huh

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Chapter 3: Hit and Run

Anna floored it. 

"Do you think Nixon has a reincarnation?" 

"What?" 

"Richard Milhaus Nixon, 37th president of-" 

"No I know who Nixon is." 

Anna scowled at the GPS mounted on the windscreen.  

"Then-" 

"I don't think anybody admires Nixon enough to want to be him. Red, this road look right to you?" 

Red pulled the phone from its cradle and let their eyes trace over the map displayed on its screen.  

Their nose was still broken, and their face covered in bruises; they didn't let it show, but they felt like shit.  

"This address doesn't look right. I think you fucked up the zip code." 

Anna looked out of the window at the desert landscape pouring by. "Who even gets fucking mail out here? I mean, is it coming on a fucking horse?" 

"You know we're in a car right?" 

The cool automated voice came from Anna's phone as Red finished keying in the correct address. "ROUTE RECALCULATING." 

They remounted it on the windscreen. 

"Should be right now." 

"Shit, I mean, it's all gotta be wackjob Mormons out here, right?" 

"Better than a wackjob Satanist?" 

"No I - shut the fuck up. I mean, I don't wanna get shot at if we pull up. They'll probably think we're tax collectors or something." 

Red looked out at the blank road ahead of them. There was no other cars on the road. No buildings. Nothing but the car, two girlfriends, and desolate wastes as far as the eye could see. It was kind of pretty, though. Put them in mind of Mars. 

"Do you think the IRS hires sexy trans people now?" 

"Get chasers to open the door more, right?" 

"How often would that really be a factor?" 

"More often than you'd think-" 

They hit a cattle grid; Boleskine whirred for a second as the entire body shook, and Red swore and dropped their phone. 

"Slow down!" They said, scrabbling to the side of their chair for it. 

"No." Anna put her foot down, changed gears; watched the speed needle twitch up a few more gradings. "I wanna get here before the sun goes down." 

"It's 3pm!" 

Anna jabbed a finger at the phone. "2 hour drive to your destination." 

"Have you actually checked to make sure that he's still there?" 

"No, you check. I'm driving." 

Red managed to retrieve their phone, looked at the incarnate app. "Oooh." 

"What?" 

"oooooh-" 

"Fucking what?! What is it?!' 

"5 miles from your destination." 

"What?!" 

Anna grabbed the phone out of Red's hand. "Give me- What? How- the address was right like, an hour ago!" 

"He's travelled 2 hours in one?" Red raised an eyebrow. 

Anna looked at the map. "I guess he could have driven across the lake? That'd cut it down." 

"Or teleported?" 

"Neither of those were in the spec, anyway." 

"Slow down, he might be waiting by the side of the road or something." 

"What, he'll flag us down?" 

"Yeah."  

Red looked at the road. "Like, you know Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas-" 

"We're not high." 

"Could be." 

"What?" 

"Idk, send an @ to of the guys I know in the discord, ask if he wants to bring us some-" 

"We're in the middle of nowhere!"  

Anna vaguely waved a hand around. "That app had him miles off the road, I hope you know I'm not pulling off and getting stuck." 

"Well we can't DM him because he's not in the server, so what?" 

"Look, just keep a look out. I'll keep my eyes on the road, you look for any...fucking, hitchhikers or whatever." 

There was a silence for a few minutes, filled only by the GPS occassionally chiming in to helpfully remind them to continue driving on the only road for miles. 

"I mean, Nixon won 49 states, right?" 

"That election was rigged." 

"But no he had popular support. I mean, there was even the old bumper sticker, right?" 

"What?" 

"Don't blame me, I'm from Massachussets. Because it was the only state that didn't-" 

"Look, even if he had admirers in fucking, 1973 or whatever-" 

"72 dumbass" 

"1972, he doesn't now! And besides, even if you look up to a guy, doesn't mean you want to be him." 

Anna looked at Red. "I mean, Nixon was pretty miserable, right?" 

"I've seen people 'carn as people who fucking killed themselves!"  

"Yeah but. Like. Not in a sexy way." 

"Speak for yourself." Red held up a pic of Nixon on their phone. "I'd fuck those cheeks." 

"Why-why did you have that pic saved-" 

"Seems self evident." 

"Also, did you just say carn?" 

"Yeah. I'm inventing new slang. I'm on the forefront of things. I'm an influencer-" 

"Shut up. It's incarnate. That's already a shortening of reincarnate, you are not shortening it further to fucking - Italian food-" 

"That's carne, dumbass."  

"Same root! Meat, flesh, et cet!"  

"Et cet? Who's the one shortening words now-" 

Another cattle grate, another Red phone drop. 

"I said slow down!" 

"Look, if we pass a guy, I'll turn round! There's no cops round here!" 

"This road isn't wide enough, dumbass. You'll get stuck!"  

Anna moaned. "I need a cigarette." 

"Well, pull over if you're gonna get one. I'm not ending up in some sand dune-" 

"This isn't that kind of desert. Dumbass." She imitated Red's tone on the last word. 

Red stuck out their pierced tongue at Anna, who struggled not to break into a smirk.  

"Made you laugh." 

"Did not." 

"Would you clap Nixon's cheeks?" 

"You clapped L Ron Hubbard's cheeks!" 

"Damn right! And I'd fucking do it again. Answer the question." 

"If we meet a reincarnation of Nixon are you gonna fuck him?" 

"Well now that you've said that, I have to." 

Anna started corpsing. "He'd be racist!"  

"Hot." 

"GOP voter!" 

"Hot." 

"Probably transphobic!" 

"Ooh, hot. I hope he calls me a bull dyke-" 

There was a loud thud as the car hit the child running out in front of it, hurling his body across the hood and shattering his frame against the tarmac behind.  

"FUCK!" 

"What the-" 

"PULL OVER PULL OVER PULL OVER-" 

"I'm trying to!!" 

Anna hit the brakes and swung the wheel; as Red has predicted, it hit the edge of the road, and came to a messy, juddering stop.  

Annabelle Boleskine in neutral and peered at the spiderweb patterns on the shattered windscreen as Red frantically tore off their seatbelt, kicked open the door, and sprinted back down the highway towards the bloodied body lying in their wake. 

It was a kid, as the size of the figure ragdolling across the chassis had made clear seconds ago; maybe 10 or 11 years old. He was Latino, with dark skin and hair, neck broken and scalp split open in five places to show red and white of skull. Blood was weeping out of every orifice; his twisted posture held one arm below him on the wet tarmac, another stretched out in a motionless claw on the road. He wasn't breathing. 

"He's dead! ANNA! YOU FUCKING KILLED A KID-" 

Anna came, at a slower pace, stomping along. Her face was coldset, but she was pale, and her hands were fumbling at her bag for cigarettes.  

"CPR." Her voice was quiet. "Can we-" 

"Fucking look at him! CPR? He doesn't have a fucking ribcage! He looks like a-" 

"Shut up! Shut up. Look-" Anna knelt besides the body. She felt for a pulse. Nothing. His eyes were closed, already starting to bruise livid where his face had slammed into the tarmac. 

"He jumped in front." She said, quietly, not looking at Red. 

"What?! No! You hit him! You were going at 90mph and not looking you fucking hit him! You killed a fucking kid, Anna!" Red was starting to tear up. "What are we going to do?!" 

Anna pressed the back of her hand, now obviously shaking, into his cheek. She didn't seem to know what she was doing. 

"Anna you -" Red's voice caught. "You can't heal him." 

"He - I -" Anna fought to regain her composure, then when she next spoke, she was cooly measured again. "I had my eyes on the road. He jumped out. I saw him. You didn't-" 

"Anna..." Red stared with hollow eyes. "You.." 

They were both interrupted, with a start, by a wheeze from the child.  

Anna jumped back in horror, and landed on her butt on the road as she let out a little cry. Her eyes were wide as she watched him start to twitch, and move.  

Air was dragged, with a horrible ragged sound, into ruined lungs. Torn muscles tried to pull on shattered bones. The head writhed on a broken neck. 

"Fuck! Fuck, he's still alive?!" 

"I didn't- I didn't- heal-" 

Anna was trembling harder now.  

Red heard that last word, and looked closer. They saw what was happening before Anna did.  

Beneath the boy's skin, bones were moving. His skeleton was reassembling; knitting itself back together. Ribs that had visibly punched through skin on a blood-soaked shirt sank back down like control rods into the diagraphm, that began to pump as the heart beat strongly. Seeping blood stopped, and cuts closed. His breathing, at first gasping and gurgling from a throat filled with froth, become desperately alive. His hands scrabbled at the ground, eyes still closed as his unconscious body began to pull itself back together. 

"We. Are. So. So. Lucky." 

Anna, trembling, managed to claw the cigarette packet from the handbag. "Is that- him then? The- healer?" 

"Oh shit, yeah. Let me look, one sec." 

Turning away - with relish, frankly - from the spasming, gasping little boy, eyes now open but unseeing, neck agonisingly bending back into place, starting to moan between gasps as vertebrae repaired themselves, Red jogged back to the car, and retrieved their phone.  

The dot matched up perfectly with the child; they watched the blue dot, representing them, drift over across the greyish representation of the road, and overlap with the pulsing orange incarnated dot as they moved back to Anna and him. 

He let out a scream of pain, head bending back as his spine arced. He cried out in Spanish, rolled over into the foetal position, spasming as the last of his wounds healed. 

"What is he-" Red started. 

"I don't-" 

"It...didn't....work..!" The boy's voice came, in English this time. 

"What-"  

"Oh, so did he really..." Red looked sheepishly at Anna, who didn't look comforted. "Sorry." 

"It didn't work!" He screamed, burying his face in his hands as he achieved full mobility. He barely seemed aware that they were there. 

"Hey, kid. You...did you...are you ok?" Red tried. 

He moaned something in Spanish. 

"Do you know what that means?" 

"I don't speak Spanish!" Anna snapped. She stood up, her hands now still enough to pull a cigarette from the packet. She put it in her mouth, and moved to put the packet away and retrieve her lighter. 

The boy moaned, and suddenly reached out, grabbing at Anna's boot with a bloody hand. 

Anna gasped, and instinctively jumped back, out of his reach. Red moved forwards in response, taking his hand in theirs as he mumbled something incomprehensible. 

Anna ran the back of a troubled hand through her hair, box still gripped in its palm, and moved to get the lighter for the cigarette in her mouth...before her eyes focused inwards and down on it, and widened. Her lips fell open, and the not-a-cigarette plopped out, and fell to the floor. The box fell from her other hand, hit the ground, and spilled its contents.  

Matchsticks.  

A single matchstick, that had been a cigarette about ten seconds before, was laying on the ground, still wet from her mouth. About a hundred matchsticks had fallen out of the clearly marked cigarette box, that had been full of cigarettes about twenty seconds before.  

Anna stared, eyes wide, as Red turned to look, kneeling by the boy's side, one hand knitted with his left, the other on his hair, and saw. Saw her goth girlfriend, gaping open-mouthed, at a spill of matchsticks on the road.  

"He-" 

"I don't..." The boy managed, weakly, eyes closed. His forehead was pressed against Red's cool hand. "I don't like...smoking..." 

Anna's eyes were still wide as saucers. "Who is he.." She said, in a low voice. 

"Kid. Kid. Who...who are you incarnated from?"  

No response but a weak cough, and a gasp of pain as a result. A little blood trickled over his chin, from a still unhealed cut just under his lip. 

Red, keeping one hand on the barely conscious boy's face, picked up one of the matchsticks. They examined it in awe.  

"Transfiguration...healing of self and others...fast travel...who's that?"  

Anna shook an unknowing head. She was starting to collect herself, although she kept making mournful glances at the lost box of former cigarettes. 

"I don't know either, but some pretty major medic I'd bet, or something." Red looked down at the boy. "Hey kid, you're pretty powerful." They playfully slapped his chest; he cried out, and they cringed. "Sorry, sorry."   

"Red...your face..." 

"Huh?" Red touched their face, their fingertips soaked red from his bleeding. No bruises. No broken nose. They twisted their shoulder, so recently painfully reset. Nothing.  

"Man...that's something, huh?" 

They looked down at the boy, who seemed to have drifted back into unconsciousness, head pressed against Red's side.  

"Well, if he won't tell us..." Red took out their phone, clicked through. Tapped out a few lines of code, then gently pressed the boy's limp thumb to the screen. 

"I mean, do you wanna take bets?" They said, as the progress bar rolled on the screen. 

"Not in the mood." 

"No, c'mon! I mean...maybe he's fucking, carn of Jonas Salk or something." 

"Jonas Salk could turn cigarettes into matchsticks?" 

"Well, I dunno. Representation of better public health, I guess? You know how weird these things can be sometimes. Probably some famous doc, like I sai-" 

Red froze, mid-expression, looking at the screen.  

"What?"  

"..." 

"Who is it?" 

"......" 

"Red, tell me-" 

"Jesus. Fucking. Christ." 

"What? C'mon, who is it?" 

"I just told you..." 

There was a long silence.

Anna grabbed the phone from Red, then stared at it with wild eyes.  

She took a second to read the name of the person the boy was the reincarnation was, then dropped the phone, and ran.  

#blackcomedy #action #literature #indieauthor #fantasy #newweird #serial novel #nonbinary #transgirl #trans #queer #aleister crowley #jack parsons #reincarnation #car chase #goth #urban fantasy #religious horror

[coyoteskenning]

Wheelbreaker: Rebel With A Cause

Annabelle wrenched the gearstick of Boleskine back with an audible thud that shook the car body between them with her left hand. Her right hand, holding a lit cigarette between index and middle fingers, was pressed to the wheel; left dropped to the wheel, right raised to her mouth. Dropped back away, dangled out the window, smoke trailing into the night air.

Red, besides her in the passenger seat, looked behind them wildly, their dark eyes wide with fear.

Just visible in the shadows, a hundred feet behind, was a pinprick light.

“How can you be so fucking calm?!” Red demanded, stomping their feet on the dashboard.

Anna’s cool green eyes drifted to the right to level on Red, off the road. They were going at 70 – now 75 – mph, Red could see on the dashboard dials lit up in front of them, but it was clear in the brief bars of light rushing across her shadowed face that she wasn’t even breaking a sweat.

“We’re ahead.” Anna said.

“He’s gaining on us!”

Anna’s gaze shifted to her mirror. “No.” She said, curtly. The pinprick hadn’t shifted forwards relative to them; if anything, it was drifting back.

“What do we do if he – if he pulls out a gun or something? Or if he has some power-“

“Then we cope with that.”

Red scowled, and pressed their face into their hands. They nervously played with their namesake mop of hair, their feet stomping back and forth – left on the dashboard, right on the floor, both on the dashboard, both on the floor-

“Stop that.”

“I’m nervous!”

“You’ll scuff it.”

There was a loud revving sound outside, in the dark. It cut through the air, and threw Red jerking nervously in their seat again.

Red stuck their head out of their window and looked back. The pinprick was closer..

“I mean you’ve got no idea what that guy’s carrying-“

“He doesn’t know what we’re carrying, either.”

“Yeah, but I do, and I don’t like our chances!”

Red glanced in their mirror again, gangly frame almost fully hanging out of the window and straining their seatbelt to the breaking point.

Behind them, the dark, empty fields, brown shot through with dead yellow hours before in the day, whirled past. The occasional billboard flashed past as they tumbled through the Texan night. Underneath, the uneven road sent them rattling, shaking up even more fizz into Red’s body.

A pinprick like the slit eye of a dragon, getting closer…

“I think I could hit him from this distance-“

“No.”

“I think-“ Red was moving their hand to the glove department.

“No.” Anna pressed her hand into Red’s chest, pressing them back into her seat. For a second, she had no hands on the wheel; she quickly moved one back. “You’d probably just hit a coyote or something.”

“I’m a good shot-“

“We’re going 80mph and it’s pitch black, odds of screwing the centre of mass from this distance is infinitesimal."

“Who said I’m aiming centre of mass-“

There was another loud rev from behind; Red instinctively jerked their head to the side, and saw the nearly outlined figure of the motorcyclist, now almost behind them.

Glanced back at Anna, taking another drag, completely unbothered.

“There weed in that thing?”

“You watched me buy it.”

“Well I’m just fucking wondering how you’re not even a little bit rattled by all this-“

“I’m a big girl.”

“And I’m not?”

“Not a girl.”

“Yeah-“

There was a pause filled only by tiresong.

“Or mature.”

“Fucking-“

“You got us into this!”

Anna’s voice rose for the first time. Her eyes were glaring at Red through the gloom now, billboard lights reflected in them as she shifted gears again.

Red rolled their eyes in return. “I mean, it’s fucking crazy right? Because James Dean was a faggot.”

“…What?”

“He was bi. You didn’t know that?”

“No I don’t know the first thing about James Dean-“

“Wait so you were talking to his reincarnation with no idea who he even is?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Alright but like, John Peel, was at least, kind of obscure. James Dean? Rebel with a Cause? C’mon?”

“Well, the basics. But..he was bi? Speculatively?”

“No, it’s like, confirmed, I think – point is, I was right!”

“That didn’t mean you should have called the huge burly biker from rural Texas a faggot to his face, Red.”

There was another long pause.

“I have no real response to that.”

Anna took an exasperated drag.

“I mean, does he not remember?”

“What?”

“Like, remember sucking dick and shit! As his past self? Like sure, I know dead souls willingly reincarnate into dickheads who maybe wouldn’t see eye to eye with them in life all the time – I’m a prime example – but surely he remembers sex shit James Dean did, right? I mean he died pretty young, and those are pretty potent memories-“

“Do you?”

“Well yeah! I remember all sorts of shit Parsons did. I remember..”

Red looked awkwardly at the road.

“Dude jerked off with L Ron Hubbard.”

“Must be weird having memories of having a dick.”

“Well they’re not mine but – weirder part is knowing what the Scientology dude’s cock looked like.”

Anna dropped her stub out of the window, watched the ember tumble away towards the burning red pursuer light behind them. “Crowley was bi, but I don’t remember any of that. No sex, nothing like that. Don’t even really remember what his dick looked like.”

“You don’t remember much, do you?”

“A few fuzzy things here and there. Forgot a lot once my reincarnation was done. I’m pretty glad I did, I had a mean craving for heroin when I woke up that night –“

There was another loud rev, very close this time.

Red had been pulled out of the reality of the situation by the conversation, but they snapped instantly back into their underlying panic with that sound.

Eyes wide, they put down their feet, wrenched open the glove department, let the gun in there fall into their ready hand.

“Red-“

Red was fiddling with the revolver, buckteeth giving their face the look of a desperate panicking rat in the half-light, checking it was loaded.

“Red don’t-“

They threw themselves almost fully out of the window, twisted their body, took aim, and fired, while Anna cursed besides them under her breath.

The first bullet went flying wide into the fields behind.

The second went the same, on the other side of the road.

The third disappeared into the shadows, but there was an audible sound of metal hitting metal, and for a second Red thought they saw a flash just below the headlight of the motorcycle whose silhouetted rider was now fully visible, hair swirling in the wind.

“I think I hit his bike!” Red said, wildly grinning. They wobbled, and took a second to pull back inside the car as it accelerated, almost dropping the gun. They turned to beam proudly at their girlfriend. “He’s not even wearing a helmet, I think I can get him in the skull-“

Anna sighed as Red tried to lunge back over to the window, grabbed them by the scruff of the neck, and held the struggling gun enby pulled almost sideways over the gearbox as she rolled up the window.

“The fuck did you do that for?!”

“Look, we’re almost at the highway. You really don’t need to kill him, he’s not gonna chase us that much farther.”

“How would you know?”

“I have a reckoning.”

“Yeah well-“ Red turned to open the window, but found it locked. “Hey! Turn off the fucking childlocks!”

“You’re not murdering him. That’s not happening. Put the gun down and-“

Red gave a kind of inarticulate scream of rage, punched the window with gun in hand, when that failed to even crack it, pointed it at the glass and pulled the trigger.

There was a deafening bang that neither of them heard the end of because their ears were both blown out before the resonating echoes had faded away into the rattling car ambience; a shower of glass was thrown out into the night air and scattered all over the road and fields around. One shard, thrown inwards, slashed across Red’s hand and missed by a fraction of an angle sawing completely off their thumb; it bounced intact and landed bloodied on the dashboard. Another shard, thrown in front of the car on the road, went clean through the front tire and slashed it open.

That turned out to be irrelevant, because Anna’s hands had wrenched at the wheel in the second as she pulled them in agony to her ears and tried instinctively to move away from the miniature explosion that had just gone off about a foot from her head, and then not returned as she screamed and swore and scrabbled at her head.

Boleskine lurched sideways off the road, crashed through a barrier, span across the mud, and came to a stop back-end first against the base of a billboard.

There was an enormous crash that neither of them heard as the trunk was smashed in; destabilized, the billboard wobbled. If it had toppled forwards it would have crushed the car and killed them both, but luckily it fell backwards, and landed in the field mud with another unheard boom.

Red was crouched foetal in their seat, holding their ringing ears with bleeding hands.

Anna lay next to them, slumped, stunned, eyes wide open and staring into the dark.

“Are you ok!” Red shouted, far too loud.

Anna didn’t hear it; she just continued staring.

As a light besides them passed across her face, Red saw blood trickling down her cheek. They weren’t sure if it was from a piece of the window or from hitting her head during the crash.

Red grabbed their girlfriend’s arm, panicking even worse now. “Anna you-“

Behind them, in their deafened peripheral vision, Red saw the motorbike pull to a stop, and the rider dismount. His face was shadowed, but he looked to be looking in the trunk.

Red’s temper flared.

“Hey!”

They undid their seatbelt, let the door fly open as they leaped out into the dark and hit the ground running, curving round the back of the car.

“Get outta-“

A crowbar fell inwards to meet them out of the dark like a meteorite from space, smashing into their ribs and knocking them back. They hit their head on the car door, and fell sprawling and screaming gibberish to the ground. They tried to crawl away, but James Dean’s reincarnation – they hadn’t bothered to remember what that fucker was called – stepped forward, closed the car door, and hit them again, in the back. They were too winded to scream, and simply collapsed face first in the mud as he began to beat them.

Back in the car, Anna, unable to hear this, was slowly coming back to her senses. Out of the window, she saw the motorcyclist swinging down the crowbar he had taken from the trunk down again and again, and as her eyes focused, quickly processed what was happening.

She scrabbled to be free out of her belt and out the door, and rushed around the side of the car.

“Stop.” She said, trying to get the fear in her voice under control and measure herself.

Laid in the mud, illuminated by only the dimmest starlight and leaklight from the headlights of the car and bike behind, Red was a shadowy figure on their side covered in mud and blood.

The motorcyclist kicked them in the ribs one last time, then raised his crowbar and stepped forwards.

Anna’s hearing was fading back in a little in her good ear, and in the headlamps’ light she could lipread enough to make out what he said with the sound.

“This is no business of yours, lady. Leave it. I’ll deal with him, you get out of here.”

Anna glared, so icily that he actually stood a step back from the girl a foot shorter than him and a hundred pounds lighter.

“You’ve done enough. Leave them alone.”

He grinned nastily. “Called me a faggot…can’t let that go..Who was he the reincarnation of again?”

“Jack Parsons..”

“Don’t know who that is..” He kicked Red in the face; they groaned, tried to crawl away, received another crowbar blow to their head for their troubles. “No one important, huh?”

“Leave. Them.”

He stepped forwards, and put a hand spattered with Red’s blood on Annabelle’s bare shoulder, gripping tightly. He stank of alcohol, this close. She winced, glanced away, pawed at her dress pockets for bandages, began to wind them around her own bloodied fingers.

“Yeah that’s right…” He let go, moved back towards Red. “Just lick your wounds, good girl. I’ll finish here, then I can take you back to the diner on my chopper…We can get some drinks..”

“About that..”

He turned back in time for her bandage-wound fist, trailing light behind it in the dark like a comet, to smash directly into his face.

He was unconscious as his feet already as he staggered backwards, eyes blinking wildly, fell, hit his head on the hood of Boleskine, and slumped into the mud next to Red.

“I wasn’t binding my wounds.”

Anna calmly unwound the enchantment wrappings from her hand, then moved over, and with some difficulty, took the moaning but conscious Red by the waist and dragged them back into the car.

“Fucking..” Red drooled blood across Anna’s chest. “What the fu- even- I-“

Anna managed to get them sat in the passenger seat. She leaned over, took her phone from where it had mercifully managed to land undamaged on the gearbox, used the torch to do a quick survey of her environment and the state of Boleskine as Red swore and complained in the background. Satisfied, she got back in, started the car, then drove off. She made sure to avoid James Dean Redivivus lying half-dead on the ground; his bike was not so lucky. It crushed under their car’s wheels as they trundled back onto the road.

Red’s head lolled.

Anna switched on the overhead lights, and looked over.

They drummed their finger on their hand, and their ears were both good as new.

A little antichrist healing, only the tiniest smidgen. That’d be it for the month, nowhere near enough to fully fix up Red.

“Fuckin..” Their face was a mess of cuts and bruises. They seemed to be missing teeth, and their hoodie had been torn open. Anna guessed a few broken ribs, broken collarbone, broken nose, maybe broken hip or arm.

“We’re lucky he decided to use that crowbar.”

“Wha-“

“You put the enchantment on it yourself.”

“Fuckin – couldn’t kill me!”

Red looked up, blackened eyes as wide as they could go. “Fucking hurt though!”

“Now imagine if he’d just shot you.”

“Did you kill him?”

Anna shook her head.

“Dumb fucking-“

Red gripped their head with both hands, groaned, and then threw up between their legs. The vomit was blood-streaked; they coughed and gargled, spasmed, and fell back.

“I’m dying..”

“No.”

“Did you see that-“

“Gut blood’s brown and coarse. That was from your mouth and nose.”

Red sighed, closed their eyes. “Relieved some pressure at least..”

“Try sleeping.”

Red spat blood at Anna derisively, who didn’t even look over. “And die in my sleep..”

“If a crowbar you yourself enchanted to leave non-lethal wounds kills you after a beating you brought on yourself by a series of stupid decisions, then I’d say that’s a kind of suicide. Death by stupid.”

Red laughed bitterly, then winced.

“You trust my code? You really think my spell was that reliable?”

“Completely.”

There was a silence as Red looked a little stunned and flattered.

“Fine…” They grumbled. “But I’m not sleeping.”

“That’s fine. We’ll stop at a service, get you some coffee.”

Anna checked her mirror. “Next guy’s a healer, anyway. You’ll be fixed up by morning.”

“How’d you know?”

“Some guy in the server made a sweeper daemon for healers across America, released a map a while back. I memorized it, just in case. One of those pins matches our next one near-exactly. Sure it’s the same guy.”

Red coughed. “And you didn’t tell me this?”

“I was a little distracted by you incessantly talking about James Dean.”

Red scowled. “The original guy wouldn’t have done that to me..”

“And the original Aleister Crowley wouldn’t have eaten you out, so what?”

“Ten bucks says he would.”

“Thirty bucks says Wikipedia in 6 hours will say he was definitely a top.”

“Fifty bucks says-“ Red spluttered, coughed, and then threw up again.

It was just bile this time, only a tiny spattering of blood.

They groaned, and buried their face in the hands as Anna sighed exasperatedly.

“You’re paying for the window and carpet.”

“I won’t dispute that.” Red shook their head, still in their hands. “I’m sorry Anna..”

“It’s fine. Just..” Anna paused, then frowned. “Where’d the gun go?”

Red looked up, then back and forth. “Shit…”

They punched the car roof, then screamed as that reopened the cut. They gripped their hand. “That thing cost half a grand! HALF A FUCKING GRAND, ANNA!”

“Well, I was gonna ask you to never use it again ever, but seems that’s moot now..”

“You fucking nuts? Never use a gun? What’s your idea of self defence-“

“Magic. Which I have. Which you have.”

“…I’m buying a gun again.”

“You really don’t trust your code, huh?”

“Oh don’t play to my fucking insecurities like that you flattering-“

Red stopped, gripped their chest.

“It’s..starting to hurt to…to talk..”

“Ave Satanas.”

“Fuck you..”

“Look. You sit back, shut up, I put on your true crime podcast, we got coffee and donuts, I don’t charge you for the car, you don’t get a gun. You start to look really bad, I’ll pull into a hospital, but it isn’t gonna come to that. Seem a fair compromise?”

Too weak to fight back, Red nodded gloomily, and they drove off into the Texan night.

#blackcomedy #action #literature #indieauthor #fantasy #newweird #serial novel #nonbinary #transgirl #trans #queer #james dean #aleister crowley #jack parsons #reincarnation #car chase #goth #urban fantasy