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russell-tomlin · 2 years
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Up to Our Necks in Spring Rain
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dathomirdumpsterfire · 4 months
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Chat writes the plot! Time for more 👑🐲🐟 KotD!
(I realize we might have to retcon a bit if the vote goes certain ways, but I didn't want to limit you guys. Have fun, go nuts, describe to everyone your perfect stewjon head canon, no matter how unique!)
Want to be on the tag list? Have an idea for next chapter? Clicked the wrong option? Reblog or Comment! New? Check the very bottom for the Ao3 link. Latest chapter is down below the cut!🔥
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~King of the Dragonfish: Chapter 8~
Not far from the cave system, in the opposite direction of the geothermal vents, is a living grave. Every now and again one of Naboo's massive oceanic beasts meets it's end to natural causes, and sinks into the deep. Here, new life is born.
This particular corpse of a ketho whale has been here longer than Maul has, and with it's slothful rate of decomposition, it may very well be here after he's gone. The deep water chill keeps the body all but frozen, as the mound of it feeds billions of tiny lives. Starfish, squid, shrimp, eels, octopus, crab, manta, and more. No other places in the deep sea have as much variety of life as the grave mounds do.
To Darth Maul, this place is his personal grocery store.
“Hmmm,” the sith hums, floating upside-down and perusing the options.
His favorite are the shrimp. Individual mouthfuls that crunch pleasantly. But can a Kenobi eat a shrimp? He knuckles his forehead, trying hard to remember. So much of Before was lost to him. The jedi was... human? Possibly?
…did humans eat shrimp?
He couldn't recall.
Annoyed, he makes a note to demand answers, later, and gathers a sampling for now. The brown tree fruit… whatever it was called… the inside was not nourishing enough to survive on, he knew that much.
With a sweep of the force the sith lord selects his victims. A few plush crabs, half a colony of little blue shrimp, a few colorful yellow and black fish that he knew tasted buttery and sweet, with a long eel-
He recalls, suddenly, eating barbeque eel on… on… the home place. The red world, with swamps and cliffs.
Maul catches two more eels, wondering if he can make them taste like… before. Perhaps he would cook his food for once? Some of this would need to be heated for the jedi to even stomach it. Probably.
With his catch writhing and confused in an intangible net of force, the dragonfish sith turns back for the warren of caves and tunnels.
He arrives to find the jedi in just his pants and sleeveless vest, busily rinsing his inner tunics with fruit water. His much abused leather boots were clean and shiney nearby, still wet.
Maul sloughs himself up onto land, dragging dinner up with him.
“Will that not simply make your robes sticky?” he questions the other man, skeptical of the tactic.
“They're not ripe, so they're not sweet in the slightest. I'm hoping…” Kenobi shrugs, “it's an experiment. I suppose we shall see.”
“Mnh.”
The jedi stands, turning to him while wringing out the excess fluid. “What have you got there?”
Grinning, Maul tosses the panoply of pissed off sea creatures at him. “Catch.”
The noise Kenobi makes when he takes eel to the face brings such joy to him.
The creatures scrabble for safety as the jedi backflips further away from them. “Wha! Pfss- guh- MAUL!”
Wheezing with mirth, Maul recollects his catch, and presses them all on the surface of the magma rock to boil them dead.
Kenobi looks on in horror, speechless.
After a brief grilling, Maul piles the results together at the base of the slowly deforming orb, and curls up beside it to begin eating. He picks up an eel first, of course, interested to see if the cooking would make it taste like barbeque.
It does not.
It is still good though.
The jedi lays out his clothes to dry and approaches, one hand tucked into an elbow, the other cradling his chin. He mutters, “... at least it was quick,” then clears his throat before speaking up. “Is any of that for me, or was the food throwing just to be for your own entertainment?”
“It is not my fault you cannot follow simple instructions, Kenobi, but yes. Eat what you will," Maul offers, smug.
The man sinks down onto the stone floor, watchful, and starts poking through the options.
Stupid jedi. Doing something now when he is expecting it would be boring and predictable. He will wait until the other man's guard is lowered before tormenting him again. Obviously.
“Tell me, Kenobi, did the tree fruit satisfy your thirst?” he asks, popping a shrimp in his mouth and smashing it with a crunch of his many excellent teeth.
“The coconuts? Yes… thank you. The pile will last me a few days," the man returns.
Coconuts. They are called coconuts. Of course.
Kenobi picks up an eel, handling it's rubbery length with a disgruntled look. “... I don't suppose I could have a small knife? Temporarily? I need to cut this to cook it properly.”
Maul squints at him. “You are lying, jedi.”
The man huffs, holding the limp eel up, “I am not. This is an entire eel, and not a small one either. I need to remove the guts, and filet it, then grill the slices.”
“Why would you remove the guts? The organs are the best part,” he says, even more certain that Kenobi was simply making things up.
The jedi makes a face, “Hardly.”
They glare at each other for a moment before Kenobi looks away, scowling. “Fine, I shall just… eat something else.”
Maul watches him gather up the thin black and yellow fish, and levitate them on top of the rock. He… just leaves them there. For minutes. The cave starts to smell different because of it.
“Your fish is burning, jedi,” he tells the man.
“No it isn't,” Kenobi replies.
Maul rises up on the coil of his tail, looming at something like nine feet tall to peer over top of the rock and look at the crisping bodies. They aren't any more black than before, but they are turning colors.
“They are becoming brown…”
“Good,” the man says, nonsensically.
With the force, Kenobi flips them without getting up to look. The underside is significantly more brown.
The dragonfish sith sloughs back down to the floor, thoughtful. This was cooking… he had cooked, before, many times. This was right, yes… meat turned colors. It… denatured the proteins.
He doesn't know what ‘denatured’ means anymore, but the word itself remains. Maul scowls, trying to poke at the idea.
He looks up at Kenobi, “How… denatured do you need to make… the protein… to make it edible for… humans?”
The other man hums, calling the crispy fish dinner down to himself, but holding it midair for a moment as it dissipates heat. “For humans? Oh, well, I suppose it depends on their immune system. Anakin likes everything mostly raw… but I've known others that wouldn't touch anything uncooked unless it was a plant.”
Ahah. ‘their’. Kenobi was not a human himself then.
“... and your kind?” Maul asks.
“Hmm… I suppose I prefer my own dinner well done, if only for the result of warm, spiced food,” he says, and brings one of the fish closer to himself to begin nibbling. He makes a face at it. “Mng… of which this is not. I'm glad you've brought back scaleless fish, but the flavor does leave something to be desired.”
“You are lucky I feed you at all,” he tells the fool, sneering.
Kenobi sighs, “I suppose anything is better than starving. Though I would really prefer a pan, oil, and some spice to go with it, even just salt…”
Maul gives him a look.
He scoffs. “Yes yes, I know, stop making that face at me. Beggars can't be choosers, I know.”
They eat until both are full, Maul devouring considerably more than Kenobi. He dumps the extras back into the water. The remains might attract future snacks.
“Well, sith,” the jedi says from his spot beside the magma ball, “what now? I'm fed, I'm watered, I'm warm. For the moment, I'm not dying. What are you going to do with me? Torture?”
Maul grins as he returns from throwing the extra away. “Are you excited at the prospect?”
“Certainly not,” Kenobi drawls, crossing his arms.
The dragonfish sith sways closer, passing him by. The other man clearly doesn't want him at his back, so the motion forces him to turn. As Maul circles, Kenobi keeps turning to face him.
Exactly as intended.
With the jedi's attention on his face, all the way turned around from where they began, Maul draws the end of his tail up to whip at the back of Kenobi’s calves.
The jedi makes a little hop, predicting his flanking attack with the force, but he still turns to look behind him. His mistake. Maul takes that opportunity to close the distance, getting a grip on the front of beige vests. Kenobi spins back around, arms shoving outward defensively.
One of his palms slams into Maul’s sensitive gills, painfully, making the sith snarl and take a snap at the offending limb.
Kenobi tries to tumble backwards, to get away from him, but the grip on his clothes is only joined by a tail curling behind his knees, dragging the jedi in.
The prey in his grip fights him, skilled in the force and so much more interesting to subdue than the mindless wildlife outside.
Kenobi works an elbow free, and tries slamming it point first into the tail spiraling about his hips. Maul barely feels it, but he starts trying to capture that free hand all the same. While he's on that, the jedi side steps his tail, and then drops his weight heavily while pushing downward with the force.
Maul loses hold on him entirely.
The jedi folds, rolls, and does half a cartwheel, kicking him in the arm. Then he falls backwards to gain space. The sith gives him none, closing the distance again and snatching at his ankle as the other man spins away. He misses, and has to try two more grabs before he gets a hold of an elbow with a gleeful noise of success.
Kenobi attempts to bite him, with his human-similar jaw and his flat white teeth. How precious. The dragonfish sith giggles, and nips at the air near his fingers. The jedi recoils, desperate to protect the digits of his sword arm, sending a gale of force into Maul so strong it sends him toppling over backwards.
Unfortunately for the other man, he's got a good grip on Kenobi’s arm, so they both go over backwards.
Maul cackles as they fall.
Kenobi bellows.
They tussle on the floor like it's just any old bar brawl for the better part of ten minutes, until -finally- Maul's sheer tonnage and more than a dozen feet of solid muscle wins the fight for him, yet again.
He bears down on his prisoner, grinning with all his many teeth as the man cries out in pain.
“Weak jjjedi,” he croons, so close to Kenobi’s face that the green glow of his eyes illuminates both of their expressions. “I am beginning to think our first battle was a fluke. You cannot seem to best me.”
The jedi struggles under him, trying to get any limb free, fighting for every inch. “It's not my fault you weigh as much as a bantha!”
“Oh? But you like my weight.”
Kenobi shifts left, trying to wriggle his way out of the hold. “What in the blazes makes you think that?”
Maul hisses in amusement. “You roam in your sleep, jedi. You came to me many times last night, seeking my scales and burrowing into me.”
The man underneath him makes a horrified face, his efforts to escape stalling. “I did not!”
Maul lolls to the side, laying beside him instead of on top, pulling those pale hands to his chest and pressing the palms over his hearts. His long black tail curls up and over the man's legs. “Does this position not ring any bells, Kenobi?”
Blue eyes stare down at his hands, at the red and black that peek through his fingers. “...”
Delighted by the other man's emotional upheaval, and the way it made the force around them feel, Maul pushes the gambit a little further.
“How about if I do… this?” he says, sacrificing a hand to bring Kenobi's body closer to his, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, affectionately. “Are you going to nuzzle me again, I wonder? Going to curl up on my chest and drool?”
“No!” the jedi exclaims, shimmying backward.
Maul allows it and watches him with an inviting look, finding that this little facet of Kenobi’s fear was… particularly entertaining.
“Oh? But you slept so well, did you not?” he accuses.
Kenobi covers his eyes with a hand. “It's… it's nothing to do with you. I simply sleep better when…”
“Held?” Maul croons.
The jedi growls, without answering. Delightful.
Maul snickers, playfully snapping his teeth near the other man's neck. Kenobi turtles, glaring at him. “Would you quit that? I know you're not going to actually bite me. I'd be dead in minutes, and that would ruin all your bloody fun wouldn't it?”
The sith draws back humming. The rage in Kenobi’s eyes is… pleasing. Anger is good. He understands.
“Hnnn… I offer you a trade,” he says sweetly.
The jedi's struggles calm, and he stops ducking into such a hilarious and pathetic little ball, but his expression remains pure suspicion. “It's hardly a trade if I'm coerced into it while disarmed and bound,” he complains.
“Do you think I care?” Maul asks him pleasantly.
Kenobi huffs. “Fine. What's your trade, sith?”
“I will promise not to bite your neck, or near it, if you tell me of your species. At length.”
The jedi blinks, slowly, waiting with an expectant air. Maul raises a brow at him.
“You… want to know about… stewjoni?” the man asks, baffled.
“Yessss,” the dragonfish sith assures.
He is missing too many pieces of Before. The jedi will serve him, as prisoner and informant.
🔥🔥 don't forget to reblog tysm! 🔥🔥
-Tag list- (Comment if you want added!)
@obimaulartfire @savageopressbignaturals @icequeen8043 @moonsickvampire @maulish
New? Start from Chapter 1! 👇🏽
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reborrowing · 6 months
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Pocket Guides to Zombie Survival (unwarranted zombie au)
Part 2
seeing posts about gt horror made me want to go back to that unwarranted zombie au idea and I had most of a little thing written already. I don't know that I'll continue it but. ghoulish little scavengers discover actual ghoul, unaware that the apocalypse began several months back. I figure borrowers would have few if any myths about undead bodies because so many of the deaths they encounter don't leave behind a corpse to un-die. ~1100 words contains gore and an allegedly dead body
There was a body at the humans' campground. 
It was the first one to show up there for months, several weeks past the giants' usual spring return to the woods. There should have been human hikers tromping through their wide, winding trails months ago. There should be families making temporary homes out of the neatly divided lots. There was just the one body, lying dead in front of its RV for nearly a week.
Rei missed the annual parade of returning giants and all the bright colors and chaos and treasure they hauled in with them. She was tired of the random, menial tasks around the warren she kept getting assigned in lieu of borrowing and volunteered herself to go investigate the dead one. She figured a dead giant couldn’t be much more dangerous than a sleeping one. 
Now that they were actually approaching the body, Rei's stomach shifted. It was disgusting, yes, a landscape of raw meat and gore, but there was something else too. Something she couldn't quite identify that begged her to run away. 
Whatever it was she sensed, Coop didn't notice it as she bounced along towards the sickening heap. She'd invited herself along and Rei didn't complain. Her sister was always itching to do something stupid and Rei had learned early in life that it was best to indulge her before she found worse trouble on her own. Plus, it gave her volunteering a little more legitimacy to have a warren guard come with her.
"Ew,” Coop said, “I thought that scout was exaggerating, but ghosts, that's nasty!”
It looked like the giant's shoulder had exploded. The top of their flannel was in shreds. Rotting meat sloughed off its shoulder and the left half of its face had been ripped off of the cadaver’s head, hanging on by just a few stringy bits.
Rei edged closer. There were no clean cuts. It was pulpy, like when a crow ripped apart a squirrel, although it looked like the meat had been only shoved to the side, not carried off or eaten. What was left was a jagged, bloody horror with piles of rotting slurry that all stank worse than a sewer.
It wasn’t all bad. The body's lower half was intact, including its jeans. Rei had been hoping to bring back some denim. She would just have to hold her breath for the harvest.
She stepped over a lost clump of hair to have a look at what was left of the poor giant’s face. The half resting on the ground was gray and bloated but otherwise still human. A rough, reddish outline of teeth marred the corpse's forehead, where it still had enough skin to mar. Rei bristled, her fur suddenly standing up on end as if she were being watched.
It was bit by something big, at least dog-sized. But there was no way it was a dog that had made that mark. It had wide, flat teeth in front and was made of two, nearly even parentheses. She licked her lips anxiously. It was the same shape of her own bite, if her canines were a lot duller.
Rei’s gaze slid across the gory remains to look at the corpse’s exposed jaw, feeling ill. It was supposed to be a ghost story that humans ate people. But she looked at the teeth behind the shredded tissue, she saw that they were close to the same size as the indentations on the forehead. There was at least one other giant nearby, one that had managed to go unnoticed by a half dozen different scouts. One that tried to eat its own people. 
"Hey, Rei?” Coop called, interrupting her thoughts. “Are humans poisonous? If you ate it, could you or would the meat—"
"Do not! Gross!” Rei snapped. She was further unnerved by the idea that the story could be inverted, that humans could be eaten by anyone at all.
"Not me! Ew! It’s just like, we’re not the only scavengers out here. He’s been out here for days, how come nothing else is eating him? I don’t even hear any maggots.”
Rei turned as Coop’s blonde head appeared over the body’s forearm, its watch now slung over her shoulder. Her quizzical expression suddenly popped into wide-eyed, fangs-bared fear. The face looming beside Rei shifted with a loud, wet noise. She froze as a rush of air blew over her, sucking at her hair, as the corpse inhaled through its empty cavity of a nose.
Rei ran and darted for the cover of the nearest bush. Behind her, Coop squealed as the corpse shuddered around her and began to get up. It was clumsy, probably because so many of its muscles were missing or rotten, but that was hardly important when it was a few hundred times heavier than the two of them combined.
Rei ducked into the foliage and turned to wait for Coop. She watched in terror as her sister jammed a needle through its palm to no effect.
Anyone knew a needle couldn’t stop a human, hardly anything could, but it was supposed to at least give them pause. But the body didn’t flinch. It didn’t even seem to notice the metal now lodged in its flesh. Its hand slid backwards, knocking Coop along with it. There was a nasty snap as it pushed itself to its feet, back up to its towering height. Coop lay crumpled beside its feet.
It swayed for a moment and sniffed at the air like an animal before turning to where Rei was hiding. It was unsteady, with wide and unpredictable steps. Rei hunkered back further into the bramble. It crashed carelessly through the thorny growth, only missing her by chance.
Her heart hammered as she wove through the branches. She pushed herself off the side of the not-so-dead body’s sneaker and back into the clearing for Coop. The giant stumbled around in the undergrowth for a few seconds before huffing in another breath and turning straight towards her. Rei paled.
Coop was curled up with pain. She had a broken foot at least, and her shoulder was messed up, the other injuries could be assessed later. The most pressing problem was that she wouldn’t be able to make her own way back to the warren or some other safe haven. Rei was going to carry her, which meant they couldn't to run.
And if that thing was using smell to see them, ghosts only knew how far it could track them from anyways. She couldn’t leave it a trail back to the whole warren.
Rei swallowed nervously and steadied herself to drag Coop under the nearby RV before the body could catch up to them. It slammed against the side but, for whatever reason, didn’t think to get down on its knees and crawl after them. It shook the whole structure, stubbornly banging against the wall, but Rei and Coop were able to pick their way up to a gap leading into the RV’s interior.
There was another giant inside.
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mariacallous · 1 year
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When you say "the Valley" in Los Angeles, most people assume that you mean the San Fernando Valley (some people in fact assume that you mean Warner Brothers), but make no mistake: we are talking not about the valley of the sound stages and the ranchettes, but about the real Valley, the Central Valley, the fifty thousand square miles drained by the Sacramento and the San Joaquin Rivers and further irrigated by a complex network of sloughs, cutoffs, ditches, and the Delta-Mendota and Friant-Kern Canals.
A hundred miles north of Los Angeles, at the moment when you drop from the Tehachapi Mountains into the outskirt of Bakersfield, you leave Southern California and enter the Valley. "You look up the highway and it is straight for miles, coming at you, with the black line down the center coming at you and at you ... and the heat dazzles up from the white slab so that only the black line is clear, coming at you with the whine of the tires, and if you don't quit staring at that line and don't take a few deep breaths and slap yourself hard on the back of the neck, you'll hypnotize yourself."
Robert Penn Warren wrote that about another road, but he might have been writing about the Valley road, U.S. 99, three hundred miles from Bakersfield to Sacramento, a highway so straight that when one flies on the most direct pattern from Los Angeles to Sacramento one never loses sight of U.S. 99. The landscape it runs through never, to the untrained eye, varies. The Valley eye can discern at the point where miles of cotton seedlings fade into miles of tomato seedlings, or where the great corporation ranches - Kern County Land, what is left of DiGiorgio - give way to private operations (somewhere on the horizon, if the place is private, one sees a house and a stand of scrub oaks) but such distinctions are in the long view irrelevant. All day long, all that moves is the sun, and the big Rainbird sprinklers.
From "Notes From A Native Daughter" in Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
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cacchieressa · 1 year
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Late Winter    by Maxine Scates   
It's almost spring, but cold.  This morning I slipped on ice crossing the bridge over the slough—
for the first time in months I hadn't reached for the railing.  The days grow longer, lighter.  I walk
down to the mailbox at 5:30 and five deer are grazing near the neighbor's fenced garden, some yearlings
among them.  They look up and drift farther down the hill, but the fifth approaches, stops and watches
until I open, then close, the mailbox and walk back up the road.  When I turn back to look, the doe is still
watching.  Along the road, where once I planted irises in too little sun, the hellebore are blooming and
the scent of daphne precedes its bloom.  Yesterday, Bill mentioned an essay he'd read about the life one
didn't live but is aware of having missed.  I don't think much about the life I might have had, but remember
the short film we watched about Sicilian miners descending two by two deep into the earth each day, then, shirtless,
walking through a warren of barely lit paths to drill and chip sulfur from the cave walls while above them
the life of the village, men in fields, women doing laundry, a donkey waiting with its cart, goes on without them.
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whisperthatruns · 1 year
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Late Winter
It's almost spring, but cold. This morning I slipped on ice crossing the bridge over the slough—
for the first time in months I hadn't reached for the railing. The days grow longer, lighter. I walk
down to the mailbox at 5:30 and five deer are grazing near the neighbor's fenced garden, some yearlings
among them. They look up and drift farther down the hill, but the fifth approaches, stops and watches
until I open, then close, the mailbox and walk back up the road. When I turn back to look, the doe is still
watching. Along the road, where once I planted irises in too little sun, the hellebore are blooming and
the scent of daphne precedes its bloom. Yesterday, Bill mentioned an essay he'd read about the life one
didn't live but is aware of having missed. I don't think much about the life I might have had, but remember
the short film we watched about Sicilian miners descending two by two deep into the earth each day, then, shirtless,
walking through a warren of barely lit paths to drill and chip sulfur from the cave walls while above them
the life of the village, men in fields, women doing laundry, a donkey waiting with its cart, goes on without them.
Maxine Scates (2022, from Copper Nickel, text from Verse Daily)
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Happy tumblr anniversary!! so glad I've met you on here🥺❤
In case it's not too late/you're still in the mood to: 💚🍇 and 'crab' for Warren and Thrive, because that was too precious.
[4-Year Writeblr Anniversary Ask Event]
400 Words:
The only way Warren could see Thrive swimming back to shore by way of graceful breaststroke was the golden phosphorescence from the desert lights bobbing above the beach. The hum of their wings beating in the nighttime breeze became white noise, and Thrive broke through a wave to emerge from the ocean like the sculpted effigy of a god, shaking sea water out of his hair and sloughing it with one hand off of his mostly unclothed human torso.
Warren watched as he drew nearer and, sure he wouldn't be heard over the crashing waves, let out a long, low whistle.
"What are you doing out here so late?" Thrive asked once he was within Warren's earshot.
"I was gonna ask you the same thing. But then you kinda..." He gestured to the loose-fitting linen pants clinging to Thrive's skin for dear life. He went immediately clammy. "...Why?!"
Thrive took the back of a fist to the strands of hair plastered to his forehead and glanced away. "Hydrodynamic."
"...You think cabana pants are more hydrodynamic than a form suit?!"
"Technically, complete nudity would be more hydrodynamic than a form suit," Thrive said pointedly, fixing Warren with a knowing look.
Warren stopped when he caught that Thrive had maintained his clenched fist, and he realized it wasn't tight as if holding back the urge to punch something, but mildly relaxed as if holding something physically. "What were you doing out there?"
"Nothing," Thrive said immediately. Too quickly. He seemed a bit out of breath.
Thinning his eyes, Warren took a step closer. "What's in your hand?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Do you have a crab?"
"How dare you."
Warren placed his hands on his hips. "...Thrive, do you have a crab?"
Thrive paused. He lifted his fist and stared at it. Then, reluctantly, he opened it, revealing an affronted-looking violet crab with spidery legs. A tiny pincer was gripping his palm with unrushed fury.
"...No," Thrive said.
Warren dragged his eyes from the crab to Thrive's face. "You're so weird. You're so weird."
"I plan to release it shortly."
"Love you with my whole heart," Warren said, laughing, turning back to the cliff. "...But you're so fucking weird."
Thrive, too, chuckled, letting the crab scuttle around his arm once it released his flesh.
"Keep me posted on your nakedness, by the way," Warren called over his shoulder.
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lostanarchymagazine · 4 years
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American Flagg! is an American comic book series created by writer-artist Howard Chaykin, published by First Comics from 1983 to 1989. A science fiction series and political satire, it was set in the U.S., particularly Chicago, Illinois, in the early 2030s. Writers besides Chaykin included Steven Grant, J.M. DeMatteis, Alan Moore and John Francis Moore.
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American Flagg, which ran 50 issues (October 1983 – March 1988), was one of the first titles to be published by First Comics, an early alternative press comics company founded in Evanston, Illinoisin 1983. Unusually for the time, the company offered its freelance writers and artists creator rights, including ownership of their creations. Regardless, writer-artist Howard Chaykin, then living in New York City, felt trepidation when First Comics approached him to do a project. He recalled in 2010,
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My concern had all and everything to do with the fact that this was a brand new company, located in [a suburb of] Chicago. I'd always worked for companies I'd visited and had day-to-day-dealings with. [But] they talked about a financial plan that would make it possible for me to get out from under the debt I had accrued working for [publisher] Byron Preiss [illustrating early graphic novels]. It was encouraging, so I went home and concocted a scenario, a pitch document, and that was it.
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Chaykin devised a series set in 2031, a high-tech but spiritually empty, consumerist world in which the American government has relocated to Mars, leaving what remains of the U.S. to be governed by the all-encompassing corporation known as the Plex. The series star is Reuben Flagg, a former TV star drafted into the Plexus Rangers and posted as a deputy in Chicago, Illinois.
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The first 12 issues, running through cover-date September 1984, consisted of four interlocking, three-issue story arcs. Chaykin recalled his difficulty in producing 28 pages of art and script monthly. "I was still a smoker and a drinker at the time. And [the output was such that] I'd never done anything like that before, and it was insane. It just devoured my life [and] I had no assistants. I didn't know how to work with an assistant at that point, and it was a very difficult process. ... I was trying to do a fairly high-quality product and I didn't want to slough it off."
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Chaykin made wide use of Craftint Duoshade illustration boards for American Flagg!, which in the period before computers, enabled him to add shaded textures to the finished art.Ken Bruzenak's lettering and logowork also won notice, as it was integral to American Flagg's futuristic, trademark-littered ambiance.
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American Flagg's first dozen issues form one complete story that has influenced comic creators including Brian Michael Bendis and Warren Ellis. The comic made a huge splash at the 1984 Eagle Awards, the United Kingdom's pre-eminent comics awards. Chaykin and American Flagg! were nominated for ten awards, eventually winning seven. American Flagg! also won the 1983 Comics Buyer's Guide Fan Award for Favorite Comic Book and tied for the 1983 CBG Award for Favorite Character (Reuben Flagg).
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After issue #12, Chaykin continued the series while also working on such other projects as his revamp of The Shadow for DC Comics and the graphic novel Time2, based on characters introduced in a one-off American Flagg! special in 1986. During this time, Alan Moore wrote a back-up story that ran several issues and concluded in an issue-length story.
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Eventually, Chaykin left, to be replaced on a regular basis by first Steven Grant then J.M. DeMatteis. Grant left after only seven issues due to creative friction with the series's new artist, Mark Badger. According to Grant, he had wanted to continue doing stories in the same style that Chaykin had established, while Badger wanted to take the series in new directions. Chaykin returned for a brief run to wrap up storylines before the first volume ended in March 1988. The title was relaunched a few months later as Howard Chaykin's Amerikan Flagg!. This run saw Chaykin return to write the first issue before handing over to John Francis Moore, with Mike Vosburg and Richard Ory penciling and inking the interior art, but the franchise failed to recapture its early success and was canceled after 12 issues.
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The story takes place in the year 2031, after a series of worldwide crises called the Year of the Domino (1996) has forced the U.S. government and the heads of major corporations to relocate to Hammarskjold Center, on Mars ("temporarily, of course"). In the wake of the American government leaving the planet and the Soviet Union collapsing from Islamic insurrections, there was a power shift throughout the world, with Brazilian Union of the Americas and the Pan-African League becoming the new superpowers on Earth.
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However, the exiled American government, its corporate backers, and a group of technicians in the defected Soviet lunar colony of Gagaringrad form the Plex: a giant, interplanetary union of corporate and government concerns that conduct commerce and govern the United States from its capital on Mars. Many population centers are grouped around massive, fortified arcologies called Plexmalls and the law is enforced by the Plexus Rangers, the absentee Plex's Earthside militia.
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The Plex has formed the Tricentennial Recovery Committee, to get America "back on track for '76", but the TRC is in reality a plan to sell the United States off to the new superpowers and to leech off the remaining inhabitants before gaining true self-sufficiency. As a result, the Plex has outlawed non-combat related education, organized sports such as basketball and personal aircraft, restricted media to only one outlet, the Plex itself (although it has multiple channels), and advocates and glorifies the use of political violence amongst independent policlubs by providing money and firearms for its hit TV show Firefight All Night LIVE!, and covertly sterilizes the population by using a combination contraceptive and antibiotic called Mañanacillin to reduce the population.
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This all changes when former television star Reuben Flagg is drafted and transferred to Chicago's Plexmall to replace the local Ranger Hilton "Hammerhead" Krieger's fallen partner. He witnesses widespread graft and corruption throughout the Plexmall, but also a series of subliminal messages implanted in a television show that are causing outbreaks of gang violence. After he uses his emergency powers to interrupt the broadcast, he not only ends the violence, but also brings forth a series of events that causes the Plex to send in covert agents, the death of Hilton, and the unveiling of Q-USA, a secret TV station owned and operated by Krieger that opens Flagg's eyes to the nature of the Plex.
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As the series progressed, Chaykin took less and less of a direct role in scripting and plotting the stories out, and by the third year of its run, he really had nothing to do with the book other than cover art. Stories began to violate the rules that Chaykin had explicitly stated in the writer's bible for the series (for instance, California was said to have slid into the Pacific Ocean, but in the final year of the book, California was merely shown to have been abandoned for reasons that were vague at best), and characterizations began to drift considerably as well. (Among other things, Flagg abandoned his interest in 1930s jazz, and was frequently shown listening to late-1960s rock, as well as becoming more of a traditional stern-jawed good-guy hero). After trying and failing several times to shore up declining interests, First Comics decided to lure Chaykin back into the writer's seat. "American Flagg!" wrapped up its principal storyline with issue #50. By this time, Reuben Flagg had traveled to Mars, overthrown the Plex, and become President of the United States. He then decided to separate Illinois from the United States and run it as his own personal fiefdom. All issues of this series took place in the year 2031.
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The next year, the comic was re-launched under the name Howard Chaykin's Amerikan Flagg! (The "K" and a reversed "r" were to reflect the fact that most of this series took place in Russia) and picked up from where the earlier book had left off (in 2032). There is some difference of opinion as to whether this new book was intended to be a limited run, or open-ended as is the norm with comics. In either case, it ended after twelve issues. The final issue ends with a photo album of the Flagg's future domestic life, with lots of kids, a screaming shrew of a wife, and a balding, overweight Flagg.
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Characters
Reuben Flagg, born in 2000 at Hammarskjold Center, Mars, to Axel and Rebecca Flagg, was a stand-up comic and popular television star of the show Mark Thrust, Sexus Ranger. After he was made superfluous by CGI technology, he joined the Plexus Rangers and emigrated to Earth, being stationed in the Chicago Plexmall. Flagg is Jewish, and his parents' "undesirably bohemian" attitudes have given him an idealistic view of the United States that runs contrary to the Plex. He has a desire to set things right again, and through inheriting Q-USA, begins to set on that path.
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Raul the cat, an intelligent, talking orange tabby housecat. With the exception of his intelligence and his ability to speak (an ability whose origin is never explained), he appears to be otherwise a normal house pet. However, he has a customized set of cybernetic gloves, designed by Mandy Krieger, that give him opposable thumbs.
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Hilton "Hammerhead" Krieger, was Flagg's superior at the Chicago Plexmall. A co-founder of the Genetic Warlords motorcycle gang along with  Charles Blitz, but after his 13th arrest, the Plex drafts him because of his criminal experience. Intending to take advantage of the fledgling organization, he meets his future wife Peggy and stays with the Rangers. He does not trust anyone, not C.K., the mayor, not his wife Peg, not his daughter Mandy, and, while a Plexus Ranger, he especially does not trust the Plex. He runs an underground television station called Q-USA that broadcasts illegal sports, pornography, and pre-collapse movies and television shows. He is killed by a Plex secret agent, and  his cat Raul gives Flagg the keys to the station.  He also leaves behind a video explaining to his "heir" the truth of the Plex and the rules he wishes his successor to follow.
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Amanda "Mandy" Krieger, daughter of Hilton, she is the air traffic controller for O'Hare Chicago Plexport. However, since the O'Hare Plexport only receives two flights a week, Mandy spends her time tinkering with electronics or getting into mischief. She later becomes a deputy to Flagg.
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Jules "Deathwish" Folquet, captain of the Skokie Skullcrushers basketball team. Despite his punk appearance, his hulking size and the extreme nature of the sport he plays, Jules is quite intelligent. He is referred to as the "king of the two finger lobotomy." He first teams with Flagg to resolve a hostage crisis, but later forms the Video Rangers auxiliaries, and then becomes a Ranger deputy. He also later hosts a talk show with Raul called the "Him and It Show". In the second series, he renounces his violent ways, and, through a remarkable series of events, becomes Pope.
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Charles Keenan Blitz, also known as The Honorable C.K. Blitz, a co-founder of the Genetic Warlords along with Hilton Krieger, also ended up getting drafted into the Plexus Rangers, but ended up leaving to become mayor of Chicago. Blitz has his hand in every deal, regardless of how illegal it may be; is extremely wealthy and corrupt; and has killed political opponents. As a side venture, he runs the Skokie Skullcrushers blackmarket basketball team. He is usually flanked by his two robot bodyguards, Bert and Ernie, named after "a private joke no one under 40 understands". He has had affairs with Mandy Krieger and with Peggy Krieger, while Hilton was fighting a brushfire war in Carracas, which lead to her being kicked out by Hilton and giving birth to...
Medea Blitz, the offspring of C.K. and Peggy. Early in the series, Medea is a wild child and hangs out with Cyril Farid-Khan, gang leader of current Genetic Warlords. She has a secret affair with Hilton Krieger, but after his murder, is considered a suspect and is involved in a traffic accident, which causes her to miscarry Krieger's child. In order to clean up her act, C.K. Blitz has her join the Plexus Rangers to straighten her out. As the series progresses, Medea is shown to become more and more accepting of the Rangers and becomes a decent team player in Flagg's group.
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Sam Luis Obispo also known as Ned Beaumont, also known as Tom Slick. A hustler Reuben meets in Havana while escorting the Skokie Skullcrushers, he later partners with Flagg for most of his time in South America. He has an affair with the wealthy daughter of the Brazilian ambassador, which causes all sorts of problems for Flagg and himself.
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William Windsor-Jones, but his best friends just call him Bill. Bill is the youngest member of the Witnesses, a gang of octogenarian rebels. He helps Flagg out from time to time, giving him intelligence and technical support. He later has become a newscaster for Q-USA.  Bill is Prince William, and the rightful heir to the now-abolished British throne.
Luther Ironheart, a robotic Plexus Ranger with a head that consisted of a holographic projection. Assigned to be Reuben Flagg's partner on patrol. While not very bright, he exhibited superhuman strength and agility.
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Monday Music Shuffle on a Wednesday 1-23-19
It’s been awhile.
1. “Too Much Woman (For a Henpecked Man)”--Ike & Tina Turner
2. “My Time’s Up”--The Raveonettes
3. “His Name Was LeRoi (The King of Troi)”--Halfway to Gone
4. “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead”--Warren Zevon
5. “Light in Places”--Peaches
6. “Tee Pees 1-12″--Father John Misty
7. “Buffalo Nickel”--Shovels & Rope
8. “Funeral March”--The Lord Weird Slough Feg
9. “The First Thing Ev’ry Morning (And the Last Thing Ev’ry Night)”--Jimmy Dean & The Chuck Cassey Singers
10. “Relentless”--Dwarves
Nothing it not eclectic.
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tinymixtapes · 5 years
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Feature: Insomniac Focus
Drew McDowall’s work extends well before Coil’s 1998 album Time Machines, but his major releases from that work to now is more than enough to explore. Coil fans, I know you’re set. It’s partly you who I had in mind when I welched on my assignment for his latest solo album, The Third Helix. You likely have alerts on this guy, and no amount of critical descriptors (“harrowing,” “cavernous,” “dreamscape,” “hallucinatory,” “bleak,” “trance-inducing,” etc.) are going to make any difference to you. And, as for neophytes, McDowall is not only an easy sell, but one who you likely have to get to ass backwards. And in these diffuse, cherry pick-enabling internet times, that’s something. We tend to keep our paths of discovery close to the vest against the snotty record store clerk in our heads. I say “we,” because I’m a newbie myself at 38. I did meet a classmate in my junior year of college who tried to help me with my post-NIN fan, small town ignorance, but it was to little effect. I don’t wanna admit I got into Blackest Ever Black and PAN artists before McDowall, but it’s true. There is no tomorrow, so allow me to show my ass in this regard. It took time — and a closer friend with a staggering record collection — to show me the way. I won’t blame blowing my assignment on anything but me, but I will offer the assertion that Drew McDowall’s music is alive in ways that language is not. Although McDowall, John Balance, and Peter Christopherson collaborated on Time Machines, you could hardly call it a conversation. It feels more like an unstable, massive hum, with the creative instinct of human interference put in restraints. It’s the sound of artists getting out of their own way, carving out a path for something that doesn’t sing so much as surge like blood or water or electricity (it resists analogy, so I’m inclined to reach for more elementary terms). If the intention was to induce the loss of a sense of time, it dissolved critical faculties in the process as well. It is sound happening to you. Whatever a train does to you when you hear it, before you even begin to get to the typical leitmotifs. Whatever a tuning orchestra makes you feel, before you remind yourself not to feel anything about it. There is suspense, sure, but there’s also the flat pulse of pure sensation. Time Machines hunkers down and dispels reaction in favor of presence. Of true immersion. Of rote and unquestioning self-sacrifice to a sensorily consuming source. The tracks being named after psychotropic drugs and the perhaps unavoidable (there’s always “repeat all”) reality of their finiteness are the only things stopping this machine. It has you without a hello. Time Machines hunkers down and dispels reaction in favor of presence. Of true immersion. It’s curious that this towering, uncompromisingly minimal work is collaborative, while his eventual solo material doesn’t shy from a comparatively genre-friendly, kitchen-sink aesthetic. But more on that in a bit. First, a decade-plus later, some more from the creative alliance dept. Having familiarized myself with Psychic Ills, McDowall’s collaboration with Tres Warren as Compound Eye was on my 2013 radar. Their music intrigued in ways that the sturdy psych rawk of Psychic Ills never did. I liked it enough to save it, but never got too deep. So McDowall’s presence didn’t properly register until researching him this year, even after the aforementioned friend gave me his free download code for 2017’s Unnatural Channel. Having familiarized myself with McDowall, it’s easy to see that the man never quite got triggering-then-getting-out-the-way-of-strong-currents out of his system in the intervening years. It contains that blissful, sci-fi pastoral modular babbling that is really nothing to turn off, but the album is balanced with the (watch me writhe, beset by stultifying magnetic poetry adjectives) vast, impassive coursings of McDowall’s high water mark material. The album title, Journey From Anywhere, reinforces the notion of not ruining vital elements of sonic procession with basic human shit. Both are men, with presumable communication skills, but never does conversation seem like an apt analogy. Their collaboration is a numb sort of cooperative sentience, toiling as a vessel for steady, sluicing flow. Destiny being God and human’s favorite crap joke alike, the void really deserves more credit. Compound Eye’s shimmering, delicate, 69-minute reverie comes across like a humble attempt to give the nothing its due. It simmers in rote bodily function reality, even as it attempts to merge with the least dense, most windless air it can manage to breathe. Another collaborative work, The Ghost of Georges Bataille (released on Bank earlier this year), is less of a curious animal, but enticing nonetheless. Hiro Kone (a.k.a. Nicky Mao) specializes in elegant digital snowdrift downtempo. She, like McDowall, is a friend to contemplative melancholy as a default mode. But similarly to McDowall, she’s careful to augment her traditional rainstreaked Aphex brooding with character-rich textures that teeter on the brink of encroachment. Here, McDowall pushes this bordering that much closer. Each haunted progression is enshrouded with warm yet disorienting clamor. Similarly to the post-Boards re-tooling of Dalhous, Bataille takes away the head-nod in favor of a swirled sort of distance. This blithe obfuscation renders that tradition of pastoral, half-remembered dream progressions that much more affecting. McDowall excels as a bit player as well. In 2015, he featured on Ben Greenberg’s (Sacred Bones engineer, Men) debut with Michael Berdan (York Factory Complaint) as Uniform. As much as the album is a scorcher par excellence and far superior (and I’m edging on apples/oranges territory here), what “Death Star” is to The Future of War, “Lost Causes” is to Perfect World. McDowall’s hermetic throb steals the show on an album of showstoppers. Then, ably displaying his adaptability to ambient techno, McDowall lent his modular chops to another album highlight on Hiro Kone’s 2017 album, Love is the Capital. “Rukhsana” is a shorter track, but it still bears the unmistakable fingerprints of McDowalls absorptive approach. With these drop ins, McDowall redeems the notion of the guest spot from mere name-dropping and seamlessly applies his methodology rather than his personal stamp. Now, back to 2015 and Drew McDowall’s first official solo release under his own name, Collapse. As I mentioned, McDowall wound up being decidedly less reductive once left to his own devices. Similarly to Prurient’s later output, there is a concerted effort to tacitly merge monophonic direness with monolithic earthen beast-sloughing reverbations, whelmed to the edge of over. Dark monophony has retained a lasting power, even if the grubby fingers of branding-obsessed metal aestheticians have rendered its keenings almost cute. These are the ones who cry “false metal,” which in and of itself is false. It’s no different than complaining about how football has changed or how a comic book adaptation oughta be. True artisans of inner and outer darkness are not beholden to purist genre fetishism. They survive, thrive, and die by their virtue in this exploration. By their unwaveringly limitless drive, we are able to imbibe the vast shimmering terror innate to existence. While Collapse may not be the most chilling thing out there, its black satin bug eyes affix you to where you are and evaporate your culture-soaked lunges for contextual asidery. Collapse by Drew McDowall True artisans of inner and outer darkness are not beholden to purist genre fetishism. They survive, thrive, and die by their virtue in this exploration. Things only seemed to get better with 2017’s Unnatural Channel, though it’s of a piece enough that “seem” might be the operative word. There are two tracks featuring words/vocals from Roxy Farman (of superb NYC duo Wetware, also a guest on the Hiro Kone album), but the key adjustment is a Vanity Records-like focus on the embracing of silent rests. Of course, the fidelity is higher, but the unrelenting hesitation of that legendary label’s best material (namely, Tolerance’s 1981 LP, Divin) is a curious early precedent. Even with the presence of a singer, Farman’s recitation of “this is what it’s like, sleep deprived” is just as innately infused as the “I convulsed” sample on the last record. And her whooping and schizo mutterances on closer “Recognition” are essential but unshowy bits of punctuation. All spaciousness aside, the tetanus textured throb of “Unnatural Channel (Part 2)” is a sort of head-nodder, but even this winds up being more of a cautious slink through a confusing party (boring? bad scene? twisted? brilliant?) than a departure. Although the bowstring bouncing on The Third Helix opener echoes Unnatural Channel’s “Tell Me The Name,” “Rhizome” initially feels like a proper departure. Not unlike the airy skittering of Actress’s R.I.P, this tune initially seemed like a wrong turn. It’s lovely, especially when the “Sinking of the Titanic” strings come in, but it feels almost lateral rather than expansive. The touchstones come too easy. It’s a fascinating track, the way it swells and glitches out abruptly, but it’s also strangely on-the-nose for this artist. Things get better and back to the same (“Proximity” sounds cut from the same cloth) from there, but one couldn’t be blamed for mistaking Third Helix for a Helm, Fis, or post-Virgins Tim Hecker album. Of course, he is a sort of godfather to said touchstones, but similarly to the atemporal realm of Time Machines, this sort of sine wave slippage reads more familiar than it actually is. And, for what it’s worth, why shouldn’t masters be genuinely influenced by their descendants (beyond tokenistic exaggerations)? Chances are, they are beholden to a lot of the same technology anyway. Taken another way, McDowall’s newest is a sort of long-distance collaboration with those who’ve been inspired by him and his rarefied peer group. Conscious or not, its blending with the aesthetics of younger, like-minded artists could be seen as a rejection of the notion of hierarchy in musical succession, one way or the other. The Third Helix is an endearingly solid listen, and it deserves a place among the heralded releases of 2018. Similarly to the previous two (all on Dais), the album’s tracks don’t stray too far past the five-minute mark. Despite this, they stretch out in the ears like ancient aural cobwebs, making one feel as lived-in as the planet itself. I’ve tried not to use the word “innovation” here. Too often, the notion of innovation is whittled down to novelty, and reinventing the wheel is not what makes McDowall’s third-act material so worthwhile. More so, it’s the sense of earnest drive. The deep affinity for life’s rich tangent. That it’s darkly fixated is no more material than that the blues are despondent. Actually, the best of that long deracinated-to-pilloried genre has much of the same turning-oneself-inside-out quality. Even if Drew McDowall never tops himself or others in this quietly industrious field of wide-eyed abstraction, he is set to remain a stirring essential to every cerebral wandering ear, regardless of prerequisites or lack thereof. http://j.mp/2RBEqkz
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russell-tomlin · 3 years
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Autumn Fog on Warren Slough
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THRIVING: MERIDIAN TEASER
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The graha spear cut a clean arc through the air toward the human, though the human was preoccupied with the graha’s Morrite partner. In the span of a high kick to the thick-boned jaw, the human caught the spear right out of its trajectory and vaulted it right back at the graha, who never managed to dodge in time. The razor-sharp tip skewered its new target and unleashed a deluge of oozing brown fluid from their chest.
A collapsible staff from a holster on the human’s arm met the back of the Morrite’s head with an unforgiving crunch and swept their legs out from under them, a cloud of dust bursting forth from the parched desert floor as soon as the massive outlaw dropped like a rock.
For a second, everything went still. The human drew the staff back into its holster and his cosmic eyes of aqua blue darted around the stretch of empty land for any further conflict, blinking away sand and sweat, and he passed the back of his hand over his forehead to slough the moisture away. He turned to the lone building behind him, stretching the pause to guarantee no other contenders had chosen to attempt accomplishing what the graha and Morrite could not.
He stepped over the sprawled bodies and returned to the sandstone building, nudging the door open with his shoulder.
“I thought you were a goner for sure, th’saiya.”
The human exhaled sharply and dropped himself at the table in the back of the small room, occupied by a blond male nursing a frosted glass against his half-exposed chest, humidity gathered at his clavicle and temples quite conspicuously.
“Sarcasm noted. In any case, the galaxy’s gonna have to try a little harder to take Warren Levi Cougar down, huh, babe...?” Warren wiped blood from his busted lip with his thumb and gestured for the bartender to bring them more drinks. “I also didn’t see you dashing out there to help me, so how fucking dare you. Some big bad obhelian you are.”
Thrive grinned, his sparkling verdant eyes casually sweeping over Warren’s face, then the very few patrons left in the vicinity. “You looked like you had it figured out.”
“Yeah, well...maybe next time, you defend me from anyone wanting to start shit. I can only sigh heavily after someone tries to assassinate you so many times.”
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~ | t h e  m e r i d i a n  o f  t h e  t h i r d  c h i l d  g a l a x y  w i l l  b r i n g  f o r t h  a  n e w  e r a  o f  u n r e s t  a n d  m a l c o n t e n t  a s  t h o s e  w h o  h a v e  n o t  y e t  l e f t  t h i s  p l a n e  w i l l  f a l l  i n t o  d i r e c t  c h a o s  u n t i l  t h e i r  r e s p e c t i v e  e n d s  h a v e  b e e n  m e t | ~
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midsummerpuck · 6 years
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looking at you has always yielded a fight or flight response. An autonomic stirring, alarm bells clanging, racing and heart beat tripping over itself all through the warrens of me. flesh blood and fight stirring and working up to an unsteady drum, taunt under my skin.
Heart haemorrhaging on my sleeve. Heart a clenched fist in my chest.
i used to imagine that yours is the light at the end of the tunnel — that flashbulb wash-out. fluorescent and pale and glinting off your teeth.  that old-hollywood filter, not quite sepia, not quite gold. sun blurring into you, where edges should be. instead, atoms ranging loose and beamed behind: a spotlight in the rain, floodlit.
i induce death throes in the spasms of space between us. my heart tattooing a march-hare beat and sinking into my bloodstream like sirens, like bomb klaxons. like a shot of adrenaline punched straight into the muscle.
i must bury this. how many times have i buried this.
yours is a mausoleum built with moorings of sand.
my pulse seems to sob with you. perpetually in shock, perpetually in mourning.
‘how many times must i kill you’ says the head to the beating heart; mired in grave-dirt. a clenched and bloody fist. ‘at least once more,’ says the heart. wet beat of it pulsing at the temple, the jaw, the throat. ‘always once more’.
prey-drive leaves my teeth chittering and set, mouth a bitten red mess. mouth wet with what i won’t say. my heart might be a loosening fist in my chest but my knuckles are split and twitchy at my side. my pulse is amplified in them. i can see you through some murky lighting, a contrary murder-spray of rose, cadmium and old blood. reds of it still squirming and alive in my throat. it’s hard to breathe through, sediment coating my throat in layers and layers of sloughing rust.
i touch my fingers to my mouth, i taste iron, dirty pennies. the ferryman paid in spewing handfuls of old coins, drawn slow and violent from the low reaches of my guts. across this river is another, i might drink. i might forget. i might see you again, and not lurch with a misplaced want.
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