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3 ring samurai part 3 chapter 5 ‘Pretty girl’

Yo bonjourno,
In a lot better mood recently because I have plans now, a new job in the works which I haven’t applied for but I got a guy on the inside so I’m sure to get it, although I’m not 100% sure I actually want it haha. It could be hell or it could be great, either way it’s gonna rob me of about six months of my life and if I decide to go back that’s my own decision, I’m obviously hoping I’ll love it and want to do it for a few years, I don’t see it as a lifelong thing because that would doom me to an eternity without any sort of family whatsoever and that would probably sound perfect to a lot of people but not me.
Specifically because I need this job to raise enough money to see the most important person to me on this earth. I’m hoping I can use the money to eventually buy a place where she lives and see where things go from there, but that’s probably a long way off. But it’s something and it’s more than I had yesterday. It’s gonna be hard work but I hope I can find purpose in it and look past it at my goals when it gets tough. 
I know I need to do this or something anything or I’ll lose my mind, the worse thing I can do is what I’ve already been doing which is nothing. It goes without saying it’s probably an end to blogging and writing for some time but this isn’t exactly going well anyway and leaving no audience behind isn’t that hard and shouldn’t be that hard to find again. 
I want to talk to her and tell her my plans but I’m afraid that I might chicken out and just slip back into despair, I’m afraid most of all of myself and my ability to just bottle it. 
I was thinking about when I was working abroad in france and how I totally checked out of that. But that was totally different to this, that was in the gaming industry which if you’ve worked in that industry you’ll know how full of shit it is. Plus I’ll actually be getting paid and everyone will speak english, probably. I basically had to get another job I had no time or the language skills to do or punch out and I chose to punch out because I couldn’t afford to stay and the job was total garbage for no money. 
It was an internship but I was supposed to have funding for it but it didn’t come through so I was working infinity hours at a job that sucked only to be bleeding money everyday just to survive. This going to be different and really exciting. I hope it works out.
As for content, I have it, sorta, yeah I do, pretty much these next few chapters are one elongated fight scene with mime ninjas, I know right, what other slice of the internet would you get epic battles between clown samurais and mime ninjas? Just what everyone in this age of infinite cape shit get excited for next cape shit needed.
Haven’t really been doing much else except writing and trying to like the shadow, I really really want to like the shadow but I read like a page and I can’t keep my eyes open. Doesn’t help that I read at night and I’ve been lifting really heavy recently so sleep falls on me like a tonne of bricks right now. But I .know when I’m reading something good when I can’t wait to read it and I want to stay up all night reading it.
Which is how I felt with the first conan story before I started reading the rest and got really bored with them. Still I wanna start reading the solomon kane stories next, also Elric because that’s apparently what the witcher is ripped off from and it can’t be much worse than that garbage.
Anyway, got shit to do, so see you…
–
Within a soundless second knives were hurled wildly in all directions. Ghostly white hands throwing them out and sometimes not. Half the hand movements seemed only to be mischievious imitations, feints. Feigning a knife thrown when in fact nothing but air was moved and no sound was made.
Canard stumbled stumbled backward sweeping his staff deftly. Moving knives out of his way like a cars windscreen wiper moving drops of rain. He paused to look down as he heard a mocking twanging sound as he saw one of the blades stuck into his peg leg. “Great” he sighed.
Pookie rolled without drawing his sword. The small thin blades arcing following his trajectory and flowing over his shoulder and head. They pierced the tent wall leaving pin pricks of orange glowing light probing into the dusty murk of the tent.
Before they could catch their breath and counter there was another distinct set of stealth ripping and lashing sounds. In moments there was a new perfectly rectangular door in the side of the tent. A pause later; knives were entering without warning in the same slap dash pattern.
Canard cursed as he span his polearm trying to deflect the flurry of knives aimed directly at him. A few of them slipped passed taking some skin off his arms as they flew by.
“Fucker!” He cried as his swept polearm around like a javelin and in anger launched it through the new gap in the tent. “How you like that?!”
The other assailant still hidden in the falling dust and murk was focusing all their attention on Pookie. From them came an unrelenting torrent of knives and possibly other kitchen implements. Leaving no room for a counter attack at all, there was no pause in the assault. He couldn’t even draw his sword without a knife aimed directly at his thumb. Pookie ducked down pulling his cot onto it’s side as makeshift cover.
He waited there for a second listening to the steady drum beat of knives embedding into the paper thin mattress.
Canard’s staff came walking through the doorway sticking out of the chest of a tall thin man wearing all black with a hood. His face painted ghostly white spattered red with the blood running from his lips. A knife clutched in his hand as he staggered forward his mouth agape with no sounds escaping his petrified face.
He stumbled into the room, his eyes wide and full of a muted hatred. He lurched forward throwing his last knife at Canards head before sagging his shoulders forward.
Canard awkwardly rolled forward on his one leg, his peg clattering on the earthen floor. Springing on his forward hand he swept the leg of the killer forcing him forward onto his staff.
The staff point poking out of his back like the tip of a lollipop someone bit off. The wooden staff bracing him against the ground like a kickstand as he flailed for more knives to throw.
Canard rolled to his feet and kicked his stack flipping the mime onto his back. He gripped the end of his staff ratcheting it as he tried to free it from the half dead mime writhing on the ground. The mime’s eyes still had a dim light in them and finding another sharp shank to poke with he stabbed at Canard’s good leg.
The acrobat shifted his weight quickly onto his peg and pirouetted away from the attack “Would you die already!?” He screamed as he turned about stamping his good foot on the mime’s knife hand. The mime grimacing in a silent scream revealing a stump where his tongue used to be between his blackened teeth.
Pookie sat behind his low cover waiting for the little thuds to stop rattling the cot, gap in the attack so he could act. They had to run out of things to throw eventually, but there was no way of knowing how many knives they actually had.
There, a brief pause in the angry rhythmic thuddings, Pookie waited for another gap, trying to see if there was a pattern. Two knives, then a pause, then three knives, they must be trying to preserve their ammo, which means they’re running low. Then one knife followed by a pause then two more.
Then it stopped ominously.
Pookie had his blade sheathed sitting next to him as he listened to silence. There wasn’t a sound, not even a breath.
Pookie looked over at the stupid grinning face on the butt of his sword and hatched a stupid idea. He didn’t really have enough room to draw his sword cramped up against the wall of the tent and the mattress. Which is fine because if he could he might’ve been tempted to just hop over the cover and charge headlong into the unknown. Which seemed to be working for him up until now. But without knowing the position of his attacker he could be royally fucked with a spork between his shoulder blades.
Holding onto the scabbard he poked the handle with the silly face over the top of the mattress. Predictably followed by a light thunk. He quickly pulled it back and plucked a literal sharpened spork out of the handle of his sword.
“Gotcha now” He smirked to himself.
He positioned himself low and listened “Fuck it.” He cursed under his breath as he gripped the lacquered sheath of his sword in one hand and the ring pull mechanism in the other. Holding it in front of him like he was holding onto the pin of a grenade.
“Gotta do this fast” He said to himself.
In one fluid motion he lifted his sword above his head and over the cover pointing that ridiculous smiling face in the direction the knife came from. He yanked the cord hard like he thought a parachute or a cannonball might shoot out or a thousand lawnmowers might start up with a jolt.
The sword flew through the air like a missile carried on the wings of the tinny laughter coming from the smiling devil face mocking life and death.
–
Using his staff still poking out of the mime’s chest as leverage Canard thrust his peg leg through the mime’s eye socket. A guttural squelching crunching sound as the leg widened out crushing and piercing the soft eye, cracking the skull. The dull emotionless face of the mime still staring up at him without uttering a sound.
Pookie listened and he heard a hard thud and a clash and clatter like someone tripped and pulled out a whole cutlery draw. Cautiously he poked his head over the mattress and saw the soles of shoes staring back at him. As the dust started to settle a toppled figure lying on the ground like a puddle of spilt milk appeared.
Pookie circled around the mattress and dragged his naked sword off the earthen floor. He looked down at the figure dressed in black, a mat of long hair covering their face.
“Die die die!” Canard cried as he stomped his peg leg repeatedly into the frozen ghostlike face of the mime. Blood and brains and shards of bone bursting up at him with each stomp until little remained except the hood and a few clumps of sodden hair and teeth.
“Would you stop fucking around?” Pookie said.
“What’s up?” Canard replied.
“I think we fucked up.”
“You don’t say.” Canard said as he limped over shaking a piece of scalp off his peg leg, some visible teeth embedded into the gnawed and splintered wood.
Pookie stood as he slid the sheath of his sword back into his pants. He pointed his sword at the face of the mime who tried to kill him. Using the pointy end of the sword he turned their face over.
“Well fuck me” Canard said.
“Jersey” Pookie said as he sheathed his sword.
–
Read the rest of this shit over on inkitt.
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Hellboy (2019) review – Future cult classic

If you didn’t like this movie fuck you, that’s all I have to say, end of review.

Haha ok no, might’ve been a little hasty there.

Yeah so like every other sentient being on this planet I saw this movie and I was just like ‘why does this need to exist?’ And it seems that that feeling has permeated to the core of the entire movie watching world so deep that they’ve forgotten how to actually enjoy a fun movie. In fact they wouldn’t even know one if it slapped them upside the head with a giant’s dong.

I’m one of these complete plebs that hasn’t read nor has any desire to read the hellboy comics so I wasn’t particularly interested in the Ron Pearlman movies. I thought they were kind of ok, they were watchable, like if they came on tv while I was cooking or something I wouldn’t turn them off because I liked the practical effects or whatever. They were ok, pretty much anything with like occult nazis and I’m interested but I was never really blown away by the movies. They were just sort of middling monster movies that were castrated for children, where all the gore became gunge or something. Not having read the comics I can’t attest to what demographic they’re aimed at but I hardly think a comic about a demon spawn killing monsters is aimed at kids.

Which is kind of ironic because the biggest criticism I see about this movie is that it’s a cynical cash in on the franchise during the superhero craze dying down now. But it’s not even aimed at kids, it’s a hard swearing gorefest hard R rating so which ones are the cynical cash grabs again? The ones made pg-13 to sell mcdonalds toys or the ones where hellboy cleaves a giants head in two with a sword the size of a minibus?

I dunno, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills here, and if you swapped the original hellboy movies with this one in terms of the time period it would be Ron Pearlman getting his dick knocked in the dirt.

What I’m trying to say is like me everyone cynical prick (me included) and their grandmother was ready to hate this movie because super hero fatigue has set in hard and it’s here to stay and people were more ready to give the Pearlman movies a fair shake because at the time we were only getting the tip of the cape shit fuckening that was to occur soon after leaving us all feeling sore and deeply ashamed as a culture.

Because I’m sitting here watching this movie, ready to hate it every moment of it (and the beginning bit sort of sucked) but this funny thing starts to happen about the time where hellboy is fighting three giants straight out of trollhunter or attack on titan mano e mano; I start to have this funny feeling, this tingling sensation that some scientists have called ‘having fun’.

The movie is just fun as all fuck. It’s balls to wall action and gore and just bad ass. There are bits of this movie that just had me reeling, it was just so gorey and awesome looking I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. It blends practical and digital effects really nicely and I think the tone is really cool, where it’s kind of light hearted but then it’s as  violent and as gorey as a horror movie, so you get almost a black comedy vibe from it.

The movie is a good two hours long but there’s so much going on it doesn’t feel like a slog and even when you reach the halfway point so much has happened the first half could’ve been it’s own movie. In some respects the plot is a little rushed and not amazing but it has a solid structure where at the halfway mark he’s confronting the main villain and not having what he needs to defeat her he has to go back and measure himself.

The main cast are passable, I don’t know what accent Daniel Dae Kim was attempting the girl is kinda bleh, and it kinda wreaks of diversity woke squad where the only white man on the team is red. But David Harbour is great in this movie. The worst part of the original movies for me was the hammy acting from Pearlman. I like him, I think he has a cool voice and someone thought he’d be a cool hellboy but I think he was too old to play hellboy even then and now it would be ridiculous. You need someone old enough to be a tough cool Ron Pearlman character but also young enough to be a kind of a punk  kid sometimes. The bits where Pearlman is acting like a brat in the original movies is so forced and lame and his self loathing just felt silly, like he was doing a rainman impression. I think Harbour is a lot more realised as Hellboy, he brings a lot more consistency and personality to the role, I just felt like his interpretation was a more three dimensional character instead of just Ron Pearlman painted red. I felt like his struggle with his humanity was more potent and less shlocky.

I think the villains could’ve been better, I loved the changeling pigman he was awesome, when you first meet him it’s almost stomach churning the level of unbridled carnage he wreaks on people. You really feel like if you encountered this thing you would shit your pants. But Milla Jovovich as a villain was unremarkable, it was just Milla Jovovich being herself, she didn’t look particularly interesting, she was sort of too likeable as villain. But I guess the point of the story is that Hellboy is his own worst villain so it kind of makes sense that his villains aren’t as interesting as he is. Because the battle is between himself, either he gives in to his demon nature and conquers the earth or he beats his demonself and saves humanity from… himself.

Overall it’s just a solid fun, no nonsense, not giving a fuck movie I think will be a cult classic. And I don’t think it’s a cynical cash grab I think someone saw deadpool and logan and were like “Why don’t we do the hellboy movie we want to do where people say ‘fuck’ and get torn apart by a giant pigman in the most grotesque way possible?”

It’s a no holes barred action gorefest like that isn’t possible today, legitimately I’m not being objective. I’m holding this movie up against the sterile cynical mass produced comic book prepackaged action shlock we get today like every marvel or in some regards even the John Wick movies that don’t really take any risks, they just set up action set pieces and then string them together with a loose plot no one cares about.

What I’m trying to say is I don’t think this movie was phoned in, I can tell when someone doesn’t give a shit and I can’t look at a single frame of this movie and say that someone didn’t love this. Even things as simple as the sets and some of the shooting locations I just had to stop and say it looked good. This movie looks good, it’s fun, it’s action packed, it’s not neat, it’s not clean, you can’t take your mum or your girlfriend to it, you can’t have soylent drinking thin bearded will wheaton ass motherfuckers soy smiling while they tell you how bad ass it is when thor was playing fortnite. There isn’t some forced shitty joke mandated by their corporate office to be instituted every ten minutes, this movie isn’t made in a factory. I think we’ve been so programmed by these factory farm movies coming out of the comic book industry we don’t know how to watch a movie not made in that mould. This movie fucking breaks the mould and takes a demon sized dump on it. Actually fuck it, I think I might start reading the comics just to see which was a closer adaptation. That’s how you know you watched a good comic book movie, where you actually want to go read the comics it’s based on. You literally can’t do that with marvel because there are like a million different versions of every character. You can’t walk into to a comic book store and just ask to buy a spiderman comic without spending a couple thousand hours on wikipedia first to decide which fucking spiderman in which timezone in which dimension.

Don’t take my word for it, watch it and make up your own mind, and I guarantee even if you didn’t like it, you’ll have fun with it. I’m looking at this through the lens of the previous movies and the castrated garbage we’re force fed daily from the comic book empires, and it looks good.

 

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3 ring samurai part 3 Chapter 4 ‘Liquid swords’

Omg some actual OC, that’s original content, not original character, this isn’t a sonic forum for you to personify your mental illness into some weird hedgehog or something.
You better appreciate this absolute load of garbage because it took me much longer than it should have to write haha,
Been pretty busy recently but I think I found a new job, not as much of a step up as I wanted from my old job but I was put in a position where my options were to serve in heaven or become middle management in hell and I chose the former. So when I get this new job I’ll actually be out of the country most of the time and probably wont have time to waste on this stupid bullshit so the content apocalypse is coming. 
I may get the odd blog out just to justify the exorbitant fees I pay to have my very own website. But I’m gonna be working pretty solidly, should be making pretty good money, meeting new people, seeing new places, probably do a lot of reading or more likley drinking and playing nintendo switch games.
Think I wanna save to buy myself a house in barbados I probably wont live in most of the year for tax and visa reasons haha. Ya gotta have a dream and that’s the one I’m going with right now and it’s much more doable than all my other dreams haha.
Not 100% that I have the job but I know a guy who I work with now who said he’d put a good word in for me, he used to work at the place I’m applying to now. So we can see if that old adage is worth it’s shit.
Talking about reading I finished that peak Parker book and it was pretty good, not sure if I mentioned this already but it had the classic Parker B plot where it’s the anal set up followed by mopping up the mess of where it goes wrong because no job is perfect and if it was it would be boring to read.
This one in all honesty went a little too perfect, the stakes didn’t really seem high enough and the job basically went perfectly and the after part where it started to fuck up went almost comically perfectly.
Because basically what happens at the end is a comedy of errors akin to the three stooges where all the people trying to fuck over Parker end up killing eachother before he even shows up leaving only one a real threat to end the book on.
It just ended a little too neat, things just fell into place a little too perfectly, one party opposed to Parker killed the other, the reporter giving them trouble was neatly packed away never to be seen again, none of the crew were new so none of them turned on Parker. The guy who set the job up turned out to be nuts but then quickly killed himself then there was just one guy Parker had to kill and it was wrapped up.
With these books it’s the constant balance of realism and entertainment and I think it was a bit wonky here but altogether thoroughly entertaining book, I really like how much effort he puts into even side characters that are only important for small stretches of time but he gives you a good feel of them.
Now I decided to get back into the shadow which is proving to be a mistake so far, I’m reading the one that’s supposed to be one of the best but it’s so fucking slow already and are we supposed to not know exactly when the shadow is pretending to be someone else because it couldn’t be more obvious. The guy with the masklike face who doesn’t say much is obviously the shadow, how hard is this to grasp? It’s annoying now and the action is kinda bleh, its just kinda safe honestly, it’s not edgy enough and I’m gonna be so bummed after I finish the Parker books. I really need a recommendation of some chad crime fiction, I need another Dexter or Parker.
Anyway enough chit chatting got shit to do.
See you…
–
 
“That sound again”
 
There was only silence and darkness shifting like the curtains of an unlit stage. The sounds were a dull metronome blending into the ultimate silence rising slowly.
 
“Like a fucking trumpet from hell or something”
 
Through the darkness grey shapes gradually undulated in the mist. Huge figures with grey mottled flesh like a corpse, long noses and huge ears.
 
“What are you called? Hephalumps or something? I saw you in a book, I think. I thought you were all gone.”
 
More and more appeared out of the darkness, their eyes empty, only silence as they moved, all looking at Pookie.
 
“Wait didn’t we do this before? I guess the writer forgot this was supposed to be a recurring theme or something. It beats flashbacks I guess.”
 
“Are you having another flashback” The head elephant said.
 
“I said are you having another-“ Riki said, his voice pulling Pookie back into reality.
 
“Just a dream” Pookie said with his eyes closed “Completely unrelated.”
 
Riki nodded like that made sense, he paused and breathed out as he perched on the edge of Pookie’s cot. “That technique he used, it’s ancient, from the old old world, called the ‘spirit blade’.”
 
Pookie looked down at himself as he lay, doing an inventory. “That’s a cool name, how did you hear about it?”
 
Riki grinned “I’m just fucking with you, I just thought it sounded cool” He turned with a shit eating grin.
 
Pookie grimaced as he rose off his back into a sitting position. He felt stiff all over, he was lying in a bed in a tent he’d never seen before. his shirt off, he looked down at his hands, they were bandaged delicately, by a woman’s hand.
 
“He said he could read my mind” Pookie said queerly.
 
“Probably bullshit just to scare you.” Riki shook his head.
 
“…” Pookie just looked at his hands and thought about that, squeezing them lightly.
 
“If that was the case he’d be unbeatable, he’d see all your moves before you made them, you’d have to use something no one had ever seen before, even you.”
 
There was a moment he sat in silence contemplating his palms.
 
“So are you really dying or did you just want to see him use that weird shit on me first?” Pookie asked.
 
Riki smiled sadly with one side of his mouth.
 
“I see” Pookie sighed.
 
“But what do you care, you just met me.” He said laughing.
 
“She did this, that girl Jersey?” Pookie said more as a statement than a question.
 
“Yeah how did you know”
 
“I don’t know, I just had a feeling”
 
Riki laughed and got up from his stool “Well you keep acting all cool like that and she might just fuck you”.
 
Pookie sighed irritable and laid back down.
 
Riki just let out a little breathy laugh and started to leave.
 
“You think you can beat him?” Pookie asked Riki’s back.
 
“Maybe.” he sighed and said “But maybe I won’t have to.” He smiled looking up at the sky, the sun bleaching out his face and forcing him to close his eyes like a kid getting his photograph taken.
 
–
 
As the sun set the heavy flap of a tent a whole wasteland away was opened and closed noiselessly, inside a single candle burned.
 
The figure that entered walked over to the candle light, stopping just short of it so the light only licked the tips of his toes. Then without words he mimed the laying of a tatami mat at his feet and kneeled.
 
Out of the dimness a ghostly white face rocked into the light like a marionette operated by a drunk. The face was stoney and still. Painted white with black around the eyes and mouth resembling a dimestore wooden indian flaked with white paint.
 
The one kneeling nodded at his master.
 
His master began to speak with his hands miming his words.
 
(Subtitles read) “Report, why do you abandon your post guarding the swammy?”
 
The kneeling one began to reply in sign and mime, without making a sound. (Subtitles read) “Lord Cesare my master, during my time with the swammy I believe I have encountered the one they call ‘Pookie’. The fugitive sought by the ringmaster, what’s more his accompanied by a deserter and a strange girl. He is currently hosted by a group not affiliated with the circ-.”
 
Cesare the mime shogun put his hand out to stop him. (Subtitles read) “You talk too much Pepe”
 
The mime bodyguard froze (Subtitles read) “There’s more, your son.”
 
(in subtitles) “Brandon?”
 
The body guard continued (in subtitles) “It seems as if he wants to fall in with this strange lot but he was turned away. Humiliated by the man leading them, at least I think it’s a man.”
 
(subtitles read) “He brings great shame onto me and our clan, but his failings are my own. He was cocky and I fed into his cockiness, I paid strong warriors to fall before him, but soon he challenged one that would not be swayed by money and he lost. When he found out what I did he was lost to me, searching for purpose outside of the circus.”
 
(subtitles read) “What would you have me do my Shogun?”
 
(Subtitles read) “The one known as Pookie is not to be harmed, for now. He is of grave interest to the ringmaster, but these others, the outcasts, they cannot be allowed to live.
Although Brandon is my shame, it is not their right to dishonour him, his weakness is my own and it cannot be known. Speak no word of this to the swammy, take a detachment of Mime ninjas with you, do it swiftly and leave no trace.”
 
(subtitles read) “Yes sir”
 
(subtitles read) “The clown must not be hurt is that apparent”
 
(subtitles read) “Readily sir.”
 
The mime shogun retracted his statue like face back into the darkness.
 
–
 
Later that night Pookie left the safety of the tent feeling as stiff as an ironing board with morning wood. Riki was milling about outside leaning against a post watching as Canard and Efron frolicked with the other performers. Canard especially looked to be having a good time, evidently getting into their supply of grain alcohol. The two were laughing and singing with the oddly dressed men as the sun slowly set on the day.
 
Riki sensing Pookie in the opening said “Are you feeling better?”
 
“I asked you if you could beat him” Pookie said looking past him.
 
“And I said maybe”
 
“What happens if you die?” Pookie said softly.
 
“You mean to them? Probably nothing” He laughed and then paused looking at them “What about you?” He said tossing his head bac.
 
“What about me what?”
 
“What’ll happen to them if you die?”
 
He paused for a moment having never given thought to that. “Probably nothing, or they’ll die, who knows, I’ll be dead.”
 
“Does your life mean that little to you?” Riki smiled.
 
“Does yours?” Pookie sighed. “You know, sometimes it feels like I’m only just starting to get this world.” He said as he looked at Efron smiling and laughing horsing around with the drunken one legged man. “and then-“
 
“It’s all ripped out from under you”. Riki finished his sentence.
 
Pookie sighed again. “That’s not what I was gonna say.”
 
“Life sucks” Riki said “But it’s all we’ve got.”
 
“I guess so”
 
“Because we hope one day it’ll all mean something, that it’ll make sense, that’s why we keep going.”
 
“Do you really believe that?” Pookie asked.
 
“I don’t know.”
 
“Hmm”
 
“Anyway I think you should fight him.” Riki said wistfully.
 
“Why me?” Pookie scoffed.
 
“Because you’re the main character” Riki laughed.
 
Pookie frowned and said “I couldn’t even touch him, he’s unbeatable.”
 
“If you want to cut him you can cut him.”
 
Suddenly Pookie heard the voice of his master in his head and it sent a shiver up his spine. “What?”
 
“I can teach you if you’ll let me”
 
“Fat chance” Pookie scoffed and went back into the tent.
 
–
Read the rest of the chapter on inkitt, or don’t I don’t care haha.
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John Wick 3 review

IT WAS OK.

I find it hard to review these movies, which is probably why I didn’t review all the others haha. I dunno because I enjoy them but I can’t help feeling like I enjoy them ironically. Like I’m watching a school play version of an eighties action movie and it kind of resembles those movies but it’s a cartoonish self-referential post irony abomination.

And bare in mind I enjoyed this movie, but I can’t help think that if this came out in the eighties or early nineties people would laugh at it, it would be a blip. Rather than being something interesting with a unique spin on eighties/nineties action movies like The Guest or Upgrade (see these movies, they’re fucking awesome), it’s just a kind of an amalgam of that and a kung fu movie I guess where the weakest aspect is always the world building. The difference being those movies are usually set in the real world.

Whenever I’m watching a John Wick movie I have to take special care to ignore the stupid world building. Why the fuck wasn’t this movie just based in the real world? Why do you have to set it in this cartoony parody world where everyone and their nan is an assassin? It’s just totally immersion breaking and lame. It’s just fucking silly and makes the world kind of goofy and it takes away from a lot of the gore and violence because it just makes the whole thing a great big cartoon. I mean what’s so special about these magical coins and all this nonsense? What does it add to the non-plot?

I mean yeah these movies are meant to be dumb, there’s not a scrap of storyline you could cobble together from any of the films, the world building is weaker than in the Wanted movie where they get their assassination targets from a fucking sewing machine (which is less silly than the comic I might add). And it’s all set in motion by a dead doggo.

They’re less movies, than they are action set pieces strung together with light plot elements. And don’t get me wrong the action is awesome, the fight scenes and effects are masterful. Especially in regard to their use of physical and digital effects. They seem to use them seamlessly, where you have real squibs and then digital over the top for the more fucked stuff like stabbing people in the head. But it’s really just mindless violence without a plot holding it together.

So what’s this one about? Well John Wick has to survive or something, and I dunno Halle Berry is in it for some reason and she has lots of doggos and there’s like more really shit world building (ye-yaayy). Where he has to go see this ‘Elder’ who’s literally a guy that looks the same age if not younger than Keanu Reeves and do some stuff which he sort of doesn’t do and there’s another hook for a sequel. Which is fine, I’m glad they broke out of the trilogy bullshit. I was half convinced they’d do that stupid bullshit where it turns out someone killed his wife for reasons and tie it back to the first movie for a shitty conclusion.

I expected in this movie for John Wick to tear down the whole shitty house of cards world they’d built up which he doesn’t do but it makes me feel like they’re setting up for him to do that in the next movie and that makes it ok, I guess.

Again I enjoy John Wick movies, I just cringe everytime we have to cut to a room full of tatted grannies dressed like greasers working a switch board for assassins. So it’s like a world where everyone is an assassin, like surely we don’t need that many assassins? This is like anime logic, if everyone from the people who shine yours shoes to the people who make you sushi are assassins surely being an assassin is pretty mundane. It’s like someone who works as a waiter talking about his screenplay. “Oh yeah so I work here but my real dream is being the worlds top assassin, just waiting for my big break ya know.”

Every time I’m just like why? Why not just set it in the real world? It’s like trying to make it the matrix for assassins where it’s half in the real world and half in a shit anime and I’d almost like these to be a weird matrix spin off where neo and morpheus choose to re-enter the matrix as new people. Just remembering how bad those sequels were and retracting that statement.

And every fucking character he meets just imposes back story on him and is like “I’ll never forgive you for x thing that you did at y time, I’m really mad and you owe me or I owe or plot plot plot”. It’s tiresome, it’s like the movie is so aware how it has no story so it’s trying really hard to convince you to meme you into writing it in your head and you just can’t be bothered you just want him to shoot more people over a dog. So the John Wick universe could be amazing if only you could use your imagination and will it into being but you don’t because you’re shit and hollywood already stole all your imagination and sold it back to you as a snappy t-shirt.

It’s basically like the John Wick movies are a reboot to a once great franchise that doesn’t exist and expects you to make up in your head. So John Wick is basically skipping a phase, you’re supposed to make a series of popular movies before you make the shitty soulless cash grab reboot, this is just starting with the shitty reboot fanservice and expecting you to work backwards and think on fondly of a series of films that doesn’t exist in a genre that sort of doesn’t exist either anymore.

Because let’s face facts, action movies as a genre are pretty much dead, that’s why these movies are so popular because the only alternative are these neutered sterilised cucked capeshit movies where they can’t show blood and can only say ‘fuck’ once not in the context of actual fucking. And we get the odd throwback to when all big movies weren’t made exclusively to sell happy meal toys with Logan and to a lesser extent those garbage deadpool movies (yes they’re garbage, and if you like them your opinions are garbage and belong in a dustbin with all the other garbage, in fact why don’t you live in there with your garbage opinion?). But it’s not the same.

So again, I have to say I like these movies, I just have to add a caveat, you have to switch your brain off, you have to give this movie a pass on how fucking dumb it is, you have to watch it with beer goggles and just not notice the shit world and the stupid/non-existent plot.

These movies are like an exercise in learning to enjoy things. Just look at Keanu Reeves nice face and watch him brutally murder people because of a doggo and don’t think about it too much. CONSUME PRODUCT, GET EXCITED FOR NEXT PRODUCT.

Of course I’ll watch the next one predictably, but only because I like Keanu Reeves and it would make him sad if I didn’t. (Which is also why I’m going to watch the new Bill and Ted movie and force myself to like it, if it actually can meme itself into existence.)

 

0

3 Ring Samurai Part 2 Chapter 7 ‘4 Sho Sho’

Bonjour,
Back again with more half assery as it is the season, I couldn’t do a blog on tuesday because I was busy and I cobbled together another haiku from a song I like. I don’t know why, I guess I’m just too lazy to come up with them on my own or maybe I just worry I’ll retread too much material and sometimes I can just find a song that captures everything I feel better than I could on my own. Also the rhythm really helps.
This is probably the last blog I’ll do til january, because I’ll be busy with work and christmas and because I haven’t had time to write on top of editing Diana for the last time. So I’m running low on material.
Although I was spent most of the day spamming mythology pages on fb of which I’m not banned on currently haha. I got some good feedback, I was called an ‘excellent bard’ haha. That pleased me. Probably the best people to drop that on. Especially since Celtic folklore gets so little love from literary folk obsessed with greeks and vikings.
Work has been hell, my personal life isn’t so bad apart from the other stuff, where my heart is heaviest. But I think next year things might really turn around. I’m gonna get a new job and if one of my books gets picked up that’d be great.
Had little time to read but what I’ve read of the second shadow pulp is pretty good. The shadow is at the very least really good filler, which I guess is the meaning of pulp. It’s not great but it’s not bad, like I’m not desperate to see what happens next but it holds my interest enough to want to keep reading. The writing isn’t amazing either, just serviceable. But maybe sometime soon I might write a shadow pulp myself. I do really like the shadow and how he’s written. Every appearance is meant to send a shiver up your spine and it really works. When he shows up everything changes, it’s great.
Still playing red dead 2 and I plan on doing a review, the game is just long and honestly pretty boring. It’s like the story and characters really aren’t very engaging. And it’s a prequel so you basically already know what’s going to happen you just don’t know exactly how. I honestly felt like the story of Assassins creed 3 was more compelling. I’m not kidding, that game had a good story. You knew your goals and motivations, and your villain and it felt personal and real. Red dead is a scattered mess, the story meanders and goes nowhere ultimately. Ha don’t want to spoil my review, but I think it’s one of those games that will be forgotten in a month. And if it hadn’t launched in between the shit storm kicked up by fallout 76 and battlefront v it would have got a lot more flack.
It’s shaping up to be an ok christmas, a little melancholy slipping in for reasons I can’t say but I have enough booze to wash that away this year, here’s hoping for some resolution next year.
To all the one and a half people that read this blog, merry christmas and a happy new year!
See you…
–
 
BOOM!
 
A cannonball turned the rest of the saloon into confetti showering Canard and Efron with debris.
 
Efron shook her red mop for debris and dust, coughed and looked up at Canard. She handed him the gun “It’s up to you I guess.”
 
He took it and let it hang at his side as he watched Pookie narrowly dodge a wrecking shot at his feet.
 
Pookie had taken to running along the rooftops for cover. Unfortunately the brothers were a lot more agile than their size had initially suggested.
 
The oldest stayed below from his firing position, arching up like a mortar, the middle brother followed Pookie up on to the rooftops.
 
The middle brother retracted and spat the wrecking ball at Pookie’s feet tearing huge chunks out of the roof of the building. A bemused post nuclear family sat around a scrappy dinner table looking through their new skylight.
 
“Err sorry” Pookie said.
 
But before he could react he heard the chain tighten, the middle brother swinging it by biting down on it and turning his hips and shoulders.
 
The ball slammed into Pookie’s gut and tossed him off the building. Luckily he landed on his head and was totally fine.
 
Pookie rolled onto his back, dazed from the first strike he looked up at the sun which had peaked and was slowly going down, the sky a bruised orange colour. The middle brother smirked and swung the ball over her is shoulder and muttered to himself “For Juan”. With all his abdominal strength he turned and swung the wrecking ball at a downward angle, meaning to crush Pookie like a bug.
 
Meanwhile the oldest brother circled around and was coming at him from the other side. Aiming right at him.
 
Pookie was unable to move, looking up at the sky as the ball eclipsed the sun coming right at him like a comet just coming over the pivot point of the swing.
 
A shot rang out and the chain snapped freeing the wrecking ball which shot off careening towards the eldest brother. The ball lodging itself with some force into the barrel of the cannon just as it was about to fire.
 
There was a deathly pause and then internal indigestion noises. A bead of sweat ran down the eldest brother’s brow right before the cannon backfired and tore him in half like a piñata full of sausage meat. The entire cannon exited his body taking most of his internal organs with it and leaving an exit wound the size of an elephant’s foot.
 
Another silence, the smell of cordite, Canard stood, feet planted holding the gun in his outstretched hand. “Why did I?-oh” He said as he looked at his hand and saw two smaller hands wrapped around it.
 
Efron smirked as she sat curled around Canard’s shoulder.
 
“What if the chamber was empty?”
 
“I would have fired again” She laughed as she climbed down off of Canard.
 
But her laughing was cut short. The moment her feet hit the ground a broken chain wrapped around her leg and yanked her like a tiny side of beef, dragging her through the loose dirt and sand.
 
Pookie groaned as he raised himself onto his side only able to watch as Efron was reeled in like a carp flopping on the ground.
 
The Middle brother slurping on the chain like someone sucking a giant piece of spaghetti with a huge unwilling meatball on the end.
 
It all happened so fast, Canard barely had enough time to react. He went for his staff but before he could even flick the blade out Efron was in the middle brother’s mouth with chain wrapped around her. The middle brother devoured her inch by inch, his jaw stretched wide like an anaconda.
 
Canard was so stunned for a second he forgot he was missing a leg and tripped when he took the staff away as a support falling face first into the dirt. It was like he was wading through custard, like it was all happening in slow motion for some reason.
 
He recomposed himself and tried to get to his feet.
 
The middle brother let out a vicious chuckle which was muffled by the person in his mouth. He put one finger over his left nostril and shot out a couple of giant buggers which hit the ground and exploding into a cloud of smoke.
 
Canard instinctually froze like a deer in headlights until the smoke finally cleared revealing him to be alone with a very sore clown.
 
“What just happened?”
 
“Nothing good” Pookie mumbled.
 
“What do we do, go after him?”
 
Pookie got to his feet groaned and said. “Nah.”
 
–
 
“Gosh darn it, I’m too late!” The dog faced boy cursed under his breath as he peeped through the little hole in the big top. The one he chastised Margherite for looking through only a couple of chapters ago.
 
The sun was going down, the meeting was emptying out. The heads of the clans going back to their little pieces of turf leaving only the icecream man and the Ringmaster alone in the big top. His icecream van was his home so he didn’t need to go anywhere.
 
When they were alone, he put his feet up on the table and grinned.
 
“So”
 
“So what?”
 
“Want me to ice’im?” He laughed.
 
The Ringmaster said nothing.
 
The icecream man laughed “It’d be poetic, don’t you think?” He chuckled.
 
“He’s more use to me alive” The ringmaster said coldly.
 
“Oh so this was part of your master plan all along?” He smirked a little too wide, his lips were thin and cold looking almost non-existent, two thin bloody streaks on an icicle.
 
“Something like that” The Ringmaster smiled jovially, but not with his eyes, his eyes were fixed and issued a silent threat.
 
The icecream man let out a little breathy laugh and took his feet off the table. “Don’t you forget, you owe me” He stood and looked around the big top. “All this is cos of what I done for you” He leaned forward on the table. “And it can all go away like that”. He clicked his bony fingers.
 
“Are you threatening me?” The Ringmaster asked.
 
He smiled trying to look innocent, shrugging his shoulders “Just reminding is all.” The icecream man laughed and started to walk away. “Now if you’ll excuse me, those kiddies aint gonna get the sweet stuff theyselves”.
 
He climbed into the cab of the icecream truck, the suspension straining under him. That tinkling off key music started up again with the engine as he slowly drove away.
 
The dogfaced boy had no idea what was going on but watched as the Ringmaster sneered and spat on the ground, cursing silently.
 
“What the heck was all that about?” He whispered to himself.
 
–
 
If you liked this chapter head on over to inkitt to read the rest of it and the previous chapters. 4 sho sho
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3 ring samurai part 2 Chapter 6 ‘The long way of drums’

Hey there time for some excuses from a really lazy dude with no real life to speak of.
Yeah so no poem tomorrow, I don’t know just personal life stuff and work stuff getting in the way and likely to get in the way until january.
I’m just in a really weird place which is not too different from any other day. I just feel kind of like I’m drifting, not really sure what I want to do, instantly bouncing between manic happiness and basement depression. Because I’m like in this place where I’m not only losing lots of time due to work and other such nonsense but also I feel like I’m making the best use of the time I have and it’s driving me fucking nuts. I want to finish the edit for Diana and take my time going over it but I also just want to get it the fuck done and stuff keeps getting in the way.
And then the cloud of looming doubt comes back telling me I’m never going to get it done and even if I do it’s going to suck and no one is going to like it or pick it up and I’m just going to be a loser sitting in my bath robe writing nonsense no one is ever going to read and have nothing to offer any other living person ever in my life. Ultimately dying alone and miserable after wasting my life chasing a dream I know is impossible.
Fuck I hate christmass haha.
Also didn’t get to read any more shadow pulps and I still can’t review red dead 2 because I have no real desire to play it. I mean I get on it for a couple of hours but I just find myself sort of not really drawn to it. I mean I like the world, the gameplay is great but the story is a fucking dead weight, the characters aside from Arthur are a little flat. The villains are a little lame. It just sort of feels like a safe easy game they made that they knew would make money and didn’t put much more effort into over the lighting and graphics and stuff like that. I mean it’s good it just sort of lacks the heart of the previous games that makes you want to get into it. And I wonder if it’s because I heard that their game development is run like a sweat shop, that they’re just churning this game out as fast as possible, I dunno. I just don’t find it that compelling or necessary. Like the title says it all, you have the first game Red dead and then red dead redemption and then this is just red dead redemption 2 not red dead revolution, red dead revenge, red dead revocation, its just red dead here’s another one give us money please.
Don’t get me wrong, I like it, I think it’s fun at times, I love robberies, I think it’s got solid mechanics and costumes and all that, I just think it didn’t really deliver on hype and maybe the hype was too high. Not really from me because I didn’t expect much, I wasn’t a huge fan of the first game, I’m a niche retard who thinks L.A Noire is still the best rockstar but we’re never getting a sequel to that or Max Payne for a while, although I heard a bully sequel is coming out which would be great. It’s basically Gta as a coming of age story for a highschool kid haha. It’s great.
Yeah well those are some thoughts for the day, enjoy the new chapter and sub to my mailing list because it gives me warm happy feelings.
See you…
–
 
“I’m sorry about your brother” The stranger said as he poked at the small fire in the centre of the darkened shack. One knee raised, a sword behind it resting against the wall.
 
“Juan was a fool, always rushing in headlong.” The first born said, a large tanned Mexican with a barrel chest and a pencil thin moustache.
 
“When he heard about the man you wanted us to kill, he wanted all the glory for himself, he got what he deserved.” The second born said, almost as large as his brother sporting a goatee.
 
“We won’t fail you” The firstborn said.
 
The man at the fire lifted his head, the light from the flickering flames licked the strange acrylic clown mask on his face. “I admire your pragmatism, I know what it’s like to lose a brother.” He said.
 
–
 
Click, click!
 
“Wait Pookie! You’re only supposed to pull the trigger once per turn!” Efron squealed as she reached for the gun. “Why?” Pookie said with the gun still to his head “This is faster”
 
“Its not ab- Nevermind” Efron frowned.
 
Pookie put the gun down on the table and slid it over to Canard who was completely devoid of expression.
 
“Ok now just on-“
 
Before she could finish Canard had already put the gun to his head.
 
Click click! “-ce! What did I just say, now there are only two chambers left so it’s a fifty fifty chance that the next chamber has the bullet in it.”
 
“And it’s your turn” Canard grinned as he slid the revolver across the table.
 
Pookie’s face stayed the same as he picked up the gun concentrating on the chamber, emptying it with his mind. Breathing in deeply and tensing his finger around the trigger.
 
KATHOOOOMMM!!!!!
 
A giant wrecking ball crashed through the window and tore a giant hole through the thin walled saloon. The walls splintered like kindling sending glass, wood and shards of metal shrapnel everywhere.
 
The giant wrecking rested in the destruction attached to a chain which snaked on the ground. Slowly the chain retracted and then quickly whipped away taking half the building with it.
 
Pookie coughed as he cleared his lungs of dust and looked around the saloon that now looked like an apple with a giant bite taken out of it.
 
He looked around.
 
“Everyone ok?”
 
“Great” Canard said from underneath the booth seat he was only a minute ago sitting on.
 
A little hand with a gun in it came up from behind the bar “I’m ok” Efron said.
 
The bartender, a balding middle aged man with an unflattering haircut popped up next to her “What the hell was that, a hurricane?”
 
“Yeah, hale stones the size of your head.” Pookie shook his head like there was dust in it and got up off the ground dizzily looking for his sword. He found it underneath a pile of old magazines from a broken spinning rack.
 
“A little help for the cripple?” Canard voice muffled by the furniture on top of it.
 
Pookie sighed and attempted to push the couch off of him.
 
“IF THERE’S ANYONE STILL ALIVE IN THERE YOU’VE GOT TO THE COUNT OF THREE TO COME OUT!” A booming voice with the slight twang of a spanish accent said.
 
“I guess that’s for us” Pookie said as he strained with the couch.
 
“Just for you, I’m guessing” Canard retorted.
 
Pookie sighed and dropped the couch back on him. “I guess so” He said with a melancholy tone in his voice as he went to climb out of the hole in the side of the saloon.
 
Outside it was hotter than before, the sun was bright and glaring blotted out only by two round figures standing in the middle of the street.
 
Pookie walked out squinting at them.
 
“You’re him”
 
“The man who killed our brother”
 
“Who?”
 
“Juan Ramirez”
 
“Oh that guy, well that was kind of an accident, but yeah I guess that was me” He sighed “So you’re the masters of swallowing or whatever huh?”
 
“That’s us” The first born said.
 
“So you really think they’ll let you in the circus if you kill me? It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
 
“It’s more than that now”. The second said.
 
“There’s a blood debt to pay.”
 
“So hows this gonna go down? We gonna duel one on one like last time?” Pookie asked.
 
“Hahahahahahahahahaha!” Both brothers laughed.
 
The brother with the goatee didn’t laugh with his voice only his face as his throat started to bulge to an enormous size like a toad. His jaw unhinged and a giant black ball appeared in his mouth.
 
Pookie squinted in disbelief as he watched this inhuman display. There followed a grotesque suction popping cracking noise as the wrecking was spat with a tremendous speed.
 
The ball hit like a meteor right at Pookie’s feet. The clown samurai jumped at the last second and under the cover of the dust it kicked up he ran along the chain towards the two assassins.
 
His sword at his side, his finger in the ring pull.
 
“There he is!” The second born said his voice sounding like he had cotton balls in his mouth.
 
The first born cut off his laughter, his eyes bulging and bloodshot. He opened his mouth and started to wretch, his throat distending with a long spherical shape. The opening in his mouth a pitch black emptiness.
 
Pookie caught sight of it in the corner of his eye but couldn’t make out what it was and then at once he knew he was staring into the barrel of a cannon.
 
“Oh crap” He whispered.
 
The firstborn leaned forward to ready for the recoil and somehow through some internal mechanism he fired.
 
Time slowed and Pookie saw the chain shot swirling at him, a ball connected by a thin chain swirling destruction aimed right at him. Without thinking he pulling the ripcord on his sword and it roared with laughter cutting the chain in half. The cut freed the two balls which shot off at either side of him.
 
One of the balls hit the ground and exploded with a dull thud. The other took out a storefront, both explosions bouncing Pookie like a skipping stone, skidding along the ground.
 
He came to a stop, his naked sword in his hand quivering. The clown samurai stabbed it into the ground raising himself to a knee, breathing heavily.
 
“Interesting” The firstborn said. “You’re the first to survive that”.
 
“What are you made out of, rubber?” The second born asked.
 
“He’s too dumb to die” Canard said.
 
Pookie scowled as he scraped himself off the ground.
 
Efron giggled, “It’s still your turn”.
 
“Can’t ya see I’m a little busy right now?” Pookie shouted.
 
“Are you forfeiting?” Efron sounded shocked.
 
That weird suction noise again ending the brief pause as the wrecking ball came barrelling at Pookie again. He rolled out of its way as it carved a hideous scar into the earth. “I’ll just skip my turn and get the next one.”
 
“That’s not how it works!”
 
“Hmm, but that means if this chamber is empty the next one has to be the bullet.” Canard scratched his chin, weighing his options.
 
“So if you live-“ Efron looked away.
 
“He dies”
 
–
 
Read the rest of the chapter on inkitt. The long way of drums
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Cur Chapter 12 ‘The burning of the temple’

–
 
The smell of smoke, darkness, crawling, blackness, air.
 
Dian Cecht coughed and spluttered as he dragged himself crawling and blackened out of his escape tunnel. Gasping at the fresh air.
 
“Well it’s good to see you again, old friend” A mocking voice said above his head.
 
He turned over, scrambling in the ashes, stunned to hear the familiar voice, his face black with soot and his eyes wide and frightened. He waited on his knees in the dark for the shapes to emerge from the smoke laden sky.
 
“Y-you!” Dian Cecht mumbled grasping at a clump of black earth beneath him.
 
“Me” Bres smiled atop his horse, his men behind him, looking down at the great healer.
 
Dian Cecht lowered his head, his hands splayed out in front of him. “You’re too late, she’s already gone from here, a day’s ride ahead of you, you’ll never find her.”
 
“Of course I will, you’re going to help me” Bres laughed and crossed his hands over his saddle.
 
Dian Cecht put his hands on his thighs and looked at the dirt knowing that he was right. “I may be a coward, hiding in that place but you! You are cursed by all the gods for desecrating that holy site!”
 
“Desecrating? Me? The king of Inish Veil?” He laughed looking around at his men. “Surely you are mistaken, it was a mere accident. So many candles in Newgrange, this was bound to happen sooner or later. A little mouse must have knocked one over and set fire to some old dry parchment and woof! The whole temple up in flames” His men who chuckled, all but one. Ogma gritted his teeth holding his hand to his ear wishing that both his ears were cut off and his eyes gouged and his tongue pulled.
 
“You should kill me now” Dian Cecht said almost begging, his hands tightening above his knees.
 
“Why would I do that, we’re in need of a good healer, we have a wounded man after all, Ogma show him your ear” He said turning in his saddle. Waving Ogma to approach.
 
Ogma tried to smooth out his face. Remove any of the disdain he was feeling as he removed his hand from his head showing Dian Cecht the place where his ear ought to have been.
 
“I can’t grow back an ear, not without my lab that you just burnt to the ground” His tone suddenly changed from wounded animal to righteously indignant.
 
“Tsk tsk, these accusations are very dangerous, we all agree it was just a mouse, don’t we” He said to his men who nodded and laughed.
 
“That temple was-“
 
“That temple was here long before us. Some robed fools with long beards decide it has mystical significance, it means nothing to me – or the mice as it seems” He laughed.
 
“So what is to be? Will you come with us or return to your burning temple?” Bres asked, already knowing the answer but enjoying it all the same.
 
Dian Cecht face gave up an elasticity it once had and he slumped visibly. “I will”.
 
“Good, take him” Bres instructed one of his men turning his horse to ride on along the path.
 
“You didn’t have to do that” Ogma said through gritted teeth holding his ear once more, looking past the king.
 
“No maybe not but you’re yet to understand the stakes of this game, allow me your trust in this matter.” Bres said softly.
 
“You could have talked to him.” Ogma said through gritted teeth.
 
“I just did talk to him” Bres smiled “What’s one dusty old tomb?” Bres breathed in heavily looking out at the lush pastures, the sweetness of the dew mixing with the bitter scents of smoke and ash.
 
“It sits in the shade of the stone of destiny itself” He cursed.
 
“And yet the stone is untouched as it rests on the hill of Tarah, do you wish to make a pilgrimage to it brother?” Bres turned his head, his voice full of scourn and accusation and derision. His eyes scanning Ogma up and down as if it was the first time they’d met.
 
Ogma could say nothing, his tongue seized in his mouth. His anger simmering below the surface of his stony grey flesh.
 
“We don’t have time to sit around flapping our gums, the fate of Inish Veil is at stake.” Bres straightened in his saddle, pulling at the reins of his horse, looking over the horizon.
 
“How is that?” Ogma shrank from him, his face twisting.
 
“Your job is to follow my orders, not to question them, now ride on!” Bres said sternly.
 
Ogma grimaced, swallowing his pride. “Yes sire.”
 
–
 
“It was the Fomori.” Abhartach said, his eyes fixed and glassy as if he were manically reciting a nursery rhyme.
 
“That fairytale again” Birog scoffed.
 
“It won’t be like last time” Abhertach scolded, looking at Birog as if she had grown another head. “They have a new king. In the time of Nemed they used force, might was all they knew. They forced the people to submit, enslaved them. They put a tax on them; two thirds of their corn, two thirds of their milk. And two thirds of their-“ Abertach’s jaw grew tight and he swallowed, his throat clacking dry.
 
“-Children” Birog shuddered.
 
“You know the stories then? You know what happened. “His eyes lit up and the dwarf became enervated with wild hand gestures. “The people, our ancestors the children of Nemed rose up and killed one of their kings in his tower, Conand. But their other king Morc retaliated and decimated the people of Nemed with a great wave and a plague that came from the sea. A cataclyism that scattered our people and changed us forever.”
 
“You expect us to believe all this?” Birog tutted.
–
Behold the rest of the chapter over on initt, huzzah! The burning of the temple
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Cur Chapter 10 ‘Spirit is willing’

Bonjourno, did things a little differently today, did my proofreading and spamming in the morning and I’m doing this now, hence it’s later than usual.
No reason, I just like doing stuff like that haha.
So yeah been proofreading, I did this bad boy right here, and I’m working my way back through Diana After Dark and it’s going pretty well. I feel like I’m being really objective like I can step back and look at it as a whole, because I know how it played out so I can see holes and I smooth out rough areas. I think it’s really helping the flow. And I’m looking forward to fixing a few plot holes I may have left open later in the book, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. I think after this segment of 3 ring is done I’ll focus on proofreading it full time until it’s done and then start spamming it to agents when I’m near enough done.
Been an ordinary week, writing stupid clown shit and battling depression and possible retardation, nothing new there haha. Just been feeling shit, like I’m enjoying writing 3 ring but it’s also fucking depressing knowing it’s really a waste of time because no one’s gonna read it haha. I know I’m just writing it to stay sharp but I know my time could be spent better and I really think I need a new job so I can turn some of this excess time into money I can use to hire more editors and see the people that mean the most to me, the few of those I have.
Not been reading as much either which is lame, the latest Parker book just hasn’t hooked me, its kinda just a bunch of stuff happening. This is sorta continuation of that lame themepark book and I thought it would redeem that but so far its a little flat but I really haven’t read that much of it. But there aren’t any characters or plot points that jump out at me. It’s kinda just treading water, which sucks because it’s referencing one of the strongest books in the series at the start. Where to get back at this Mafia organisation he gives the green light on a bunch of the people he’s connected to to do a series of coordinated hits on them, punching them straight in the wallet. Basically trying to show the outfit that he has as much power as they do in regards to control of their money. But that was a great book which set up quite a few characters who appeared later in the series and all the little robberies were great but in this it’s just Parker and Grofield doing some really boring robberies for pennies to piss off this guy who they think stole the take from a botched job but he actually has no idea where it is.
So it just feels like it’s running up a hill, spitting in the wind, pick a saying haha.
I’m just not desperate to rip into it like I usually am, I really need a new book series to read haha. Another Dexter would be great, maybe I could just read Dexter again haha.
Anyway about Cur, going over it still, cleaning up a lot of it, it’s rough but it has potential, I think I was a little overconfident with it, maybe overextended but it has something, I just need to keep chipping away at it. There’s something good there, I just need to clear away the shit and pull it together. Because in some respects it feels a little small because it’s really just a piece of an epic story. There’s no way I could do the whole tale justice in one book without doing just a big birds eye view without getting down to the nitty gritty. It would end up just being the mythology not a story. So I needed to get down in the mud a little bit and get creative to craft an origin to this war. And I think I did an ok job. I really only have one person’s opinion on it but he thinks it’s alright haha.
Anyway, gotta go do something else now, eat maybe? I dunno, what do I even do except write and talk shit?
See you…
–
“Why have we stopped?” Bres called out to the stone coloured sky as he tilted the visor on his helmet back. His armour was gaudy and extravagant, hints of white gold and gold leaf burdened a chestnut mare.
Ogma rode silently at his side aloft his dappled grey, his visor down.
“Sire, a swineherder blocks our path and wishes to speak to our captain.” A young knights errant said, hiking his hauberk up as it seemed a little too big for him.
Bres sighed and made his way to the front of the convoy with Ogmar trailing behind him in a terse canter.
The path they were on was a narrow dipping one lined on both sides with stones separating an embankment of rocky crags. The stones demarked a break in the fields used for grazing from the sacred groves of Newgrange. The village folk liked to have their livestock feast on the grass on those groves. They thought the grasses there imbued with some mystical properties. Producing milk and meat sweeter and heartier and wool hewn softer and stronger.
To turn back they would have to climb the embanked and loop around by crossing open farm land. Adding annoyance and further time to their journey.
Bres beheld the man with raised eyebrow and a sneering condescension as if expecting to witness a pig rolling around in the mud at his feet.
The swindeherder was deshevelled and appeared hobbled with a large white branch cane. Despite his deformities he had the broadback of a farmhand. His dark cloak covering most of his face and body, with one sleeve hanging loose at his side. A placid shaggy dog panting at his feet.
“What is it you want swineherd?” Bres said with the listlessness of a court maid.
The man rolled one stoney eye towards Bres and Bres was taken with a queer feeling as if someone were scything grass to make a grave. He swallowed it down and scoffed as the swineherder took some time to answer.
“Well out with it, I haven’t got all day, you stand before the king of Inish Veil” He said softly, as a light spattering of rain began to fall.
“Is that so?” The swineherder said in an almost mocking colloquial tone, his posture not changing at all.
“What is it you want peasant, speak now or be run down!” Bres said idly, trying not to look at the vagabond.
“I wish to issue a challenge” the old swineherd said his voice low gritted.
Bres sighed “We don’t have time for games or riddles old man and we wouldn’t waste the coin now out of our way!”
“I wish to challenge the strongest amongst ye to single combat” The old man said as if he was asking for a sip of water.
The men all laughed after a moment and Bres too could help but chuckle.
All but Ogma laughed, he instead bristled with a cool anticipation. There was something not quite right. Some drive or pull, some whispering in the back of his head that told him something was padding the earth downwind. Something waiting to see the soft side of a belly to slash. Some great battle lay over the horizon just waiting to cast his legend in bronze, his death in history.
“Do you hear this Ogma?” Bres said still chuckling “This swineherd challenges you to duel, do you accept?” Bres grinned.
Ogma said nothing and dismounted his horse.
He approached the stranger slowly tracing a wide semi-circle. Drawing the steel club from his belt.
“Draw your weapon stranger.” Ogma said cautiously.
“I have no weapon” The old swineheard said.
“A weapon!” Ogma called.
Another steel club was thrown at the swineherd’s feet but he seemed not to notice. Only after a moment stoopping slowly to drag it off the ground leaning over his cane awkwardly to do so. It was revealed he was a cripple. He only had one arm.
“Tis a brave cripple” Bres jested “P’haps he seeks an honourable felling?” Bres laughed, tugging at the reigns of his horse trying to keep her straight.
Ogma gritted his teeth as he felt a low ebb of malice coming from the stranger. An aura of hate kept at bay by a slow flowing of misery and disgrace at his pitiable appearance. His chest nevertheless swelling as he could hear trumpets of battle ringing in his ears but couldn’t explain why. The hair on his arms bristling. He could almost see the blood stained grass swaying as he looked upon the stranger, hear the thunder. He could feel the static air but he dare not make his feelings known.
“Come on Ogma take pity on the poor wretch, his swines have turned fowl!” Bres joked “He wants you to put him out of his misery, but it hardly does your honor any good to thwought such a wretch”. Bres laughed and rested his chin on his gauntlet as if to pounder.
“The knight could tie his good hand” The stranger said at once in a low drawling tone from unseen lips.
“What a good idea!” Bres said, his armor jangling as he slapped his thigh. “Tie your good arm and then fight the swine herd on fair terms and keep your honor, there we’ve settled it.” Bres smiled, pleased with his idea.
Ogma breathed through his teeth as he gripped the haft of his club tightly. Feeling the sweat on his palm then releasing it again, then tightening it again.
One of Ogma’s men tied his arm behind his back and then stood back as Ogma stretched his now only arm with the club extended. He walked slowly crossing one leg over the other circling the swineherd as his men cleared an uneven circle with their bodies and erect pikes.
The stranger did not move or adjust his footing. Only seeming to exhale and rise slightly allowing the bleached branch he was using as a cane to fall on the ground.
Then suddenly a flash and the swineherd threw the club with a ferocious speed and vitriol. It caught the crowd by such surprise they had no reaction whatsoever but stunned silence. Ogma was a skilled warrior and his senses were keen and swift and with his own great strength he met the blow. Ogma deflected it with some difficulty. The force of it lifting him off one of his feet and making his hand ring with energy, sending sharp pains up his arms and down his back.
But he could not rest. The swineherd was relentless and vicious taken by the spirit of a wild boar himself he threw his cloak soon after not stopping for a beat. Never once thinking one attack would fell the champion of the Tuatha de’. The cloak was heavy and sodden with the beast’s sweat hitting heavily and sticking. Ogma tried to bat it away but the cloak wrapped around his head. Without his other arm for support it drove his club back hitting him awkwardly around his shoulder just nicking the bottom of his helmet.
The swineherd was used to having one arm and all his movements compensated for it, never slowing or struggling.
Bres who had been laughing and smiling and geering jovially up to this point had grown silent and constipated. “That face” He whispered to himself as his own face drained of all colour and he took on the appearance of a ghoul. “Not possible” He laughed it off his mind playing tricks.
The man standing before them was not old nor infirmed but a man at his full height erect towered over them all. His face scarred and horrid, head bald, shaven awkwardly with scraps of hair missed dangling like that of a corpses. His skin pale and drawn and wet looking, clothes of mesh and leather, dark and fitted for speed. A sick sadistic smile on his twisted face. Eyes burning like coals with what seemed like a relentless savage rage, a fire that would consume all that touched it.
In an instant he’d picked his club back up and was on Ogma who was still struggling to remove the sodden heavy cloak from him with only one arm.
The swineherd laughed as he hit him in the stomach. Ogma doubling over, another blow sent Ogma’s helmet flying revealing his bonny face as he sprawled on his back like a wingless fly.
The swineherd pinned his other arm with his foot dropping the club carelessly by his head. Cur withdrew his strange blade from his belt, stooped swiftly and stopped to grin at no one. He sliced Ogma’s ear off as if he was cutting himself a piece of cheese. Ogma’s silver tongue wailed out in pain as he writhed under the heavy heel of the stranger.
Cur held the bloody ear in his hand and closed his fingers around it. he stooped again to put back on his cloak as the men around him said nothing. The sounds of their hauberks and plate mail jangling as they stood frozen said it all. Shaking, petrified from fear and shock and rage as they watched their hero, their champion defiled by one so pathetic.
Cur glanced around at them and laughed softly as they encircled him. Their breathing heavy as they tried to muster the courage to draw a blade, even one.
“Let him pass”
They turned to look at Bres as he sat atop his horse tapping nervously on his thigh.
“I said let him pass, would you besmurge your honor to kill a man for winning a duel mutually agreed?” His voice was strained and irritable as if the words tasted foul and burned his tongue. “An ear can mend, honor cannot, I said let him pass damn you!” He spat swatting at the air with his reigns, his mare swaying beneathe him.
Nothing but the sounds of straining jaws and clacking teeth and shaking mail knees and chausses. Fear and rage and a grotesque swallowing of all of it as they cleared a path for the beast before them.
Cur turned to smile at Bres, it could have been an acknowledgement of his nobility, a grateful smile. But it wasn’t, far from it. It was a wicked arrogant grin and it set Bres’s teeth on edge. He clutched angrily at his horse’s mane causing it to whiney and shake it’s head violently as he watched the familiar stranger walk away.
–
Checkout the rest of the chapter right here.
Spirit is willing
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3 Ring Samurai Part 2 Chapter 2 ‘Taint no sin’.

Hey there,

Got some more of that wacky clown anime action stuff I guess haha.
I dunno I’m kinda just fucking around right now waiting for inspiration to hit me and jump start my next big project while also thinking seriously about getting Diana off the ground and grinding my teeth waiting, endlessly waiting.

I got older recently haha, I won’t say how old but it started me thinking about some things and also I went to the doctor finally to get a referral to see if I actually do have aspergers. And those two things colliding got me thinking even harder about the paths I chose and whether or not I chose them at all, or maybe I just fell into them and that’s why I’m in the hole I am right now.

I was thinking to myself about the choices I made in the past and my dreams and fantasies I had about myself. Because I always wanted to be a writer, ever since secondary school but I told myself I would be a character from a book before I wrote them. So I tried to go to the root of all awesome characters and join the army and it didn’t go well.

I mean some stupid thing stopped me, just one stupid thing I said completely changed my path and I can’t say for the worse because thinking about it now I don’t see how I could have ever made army life work. I mean I think I could have but knowing what I know or I think I know about myself now I don’t think I have the social skills to really be an effective part of a unit. I’ve always been a loner, I’ve always sort out my own space or felt alone even in a crowd and just wanted to get behind a locked door as soon as I could. And I think the aspergers thing might explain a lot of that.

But I always cherished the people that would force me to go outside and interact with people and hated them too, pushed them away if I could, isolated myself. I just can’t help it, I feel bad about it but it’s just in my nature. I can’t wait to see people I cherish but also in the back of mind I’m relieved when I don’t, I’m at peace when I’m alone. I’m happy when they’re with me but I also can’t wait til I’m alone with my thoughts again.
Loneliness terrifies but I also crave solitude on an instinctual level. 
Even in the job I work now, it was initially customer facing but somehow I managed to transform it into a job where I’m alone most of the time but still making more money. Basically just through an anal level of attention to detail I made my own job and made myself vital in some sense to the organisation at my work. I completely removed myself from customer interaction to essentially focus on the engine of the business itself, like the wizard of oz working the levers behind the curtains, you don’t see me but you feel my presence when things are going right.

I just don’t know how that would translate in any other job because that’s what I’ve been thinking about, facing the reality of this THIS not working out. If Diana flops I can’t see the validity of continuing on really because I completely lack the part of my brain that would give me the social skills to craft my own fanbase and I don’t have the clout or the right hook to find an agent to do it for me.

I could keep lying to myself and just blindly keep carrying on until I’m dead and one day someone unearths my work and so desperate for story uses it to make some shitty movie. But now I don’t know because soon enough the world I came to know, this comfortable bubble I exist in will pop and I’ll be all alone and have to abandon it just to eat and stay warm and moreover there’s someone I NEED to see. Someone I NEED to be known and remembered by.

And sadly I need money to do that, a lot of money.

I don’t know who to trust or who to take advice from, nothing seems to make sense, but I feel a change is coming and everyday it gets harder to see the future and I just feel its crushing weight upon me and all I can do is tell myself everything will be ok, but by what standard?

I know I’m lazy, I know it’s pathetic and I know only I can make a change but I don’t know what path to take and it’s so much easier to sit and wait for an opportunity that might never arise to come.

I want to be with the ones I love but I also crave being left alone in this hole I made myself and I hate myself for feeling that way, I fucking hate feeling like that. It’s like being a vampire who craves the light but loves the dark too much to leave. Terrible analogy, I suck at analogies as always.

I just don’t know what to do and I feel like all I have to do is wait, but for how long?

Who can say?

I mean this whole thing is not so much for you as it is for me, I have no one else to talk to so I’m sort of talking to myself, trying to understand how I feel about it and I can’t tell if it’s helping.

Anyway I can’t keep harping on about this, getting nothing more than this done today will just exacerbate the problem of not feeling like I’m making good use of my time on this earth and then worrying about whether that contribution is really worth anything.

So yeah.

See you…

–

The night was uncommonly warm and seemed to hum with an unnatural energy, an electricity which vibrated the ground. It was dark as dark could get. Years of pollution had dulled every star and the night sky was a pitch blanket. But still glowed with a vile orange effulgence that made it almost possible to see the outline of every rock and tree. Just barely.

 

There was no doubt someone was watching him, Pookie could feel eyes on him. Efron was following him with the little candle from the shack. “Put out that light” he whispered.

 

“But-“

 

“Just do it.”

 

The little girl blew the candle out and let the darkness take them for a ride. Their eyes adjusting to the radiant glow of the orange night. There was a light, a dim echo of one strangled to a fine point. They passed several dark shacks like the one they awoke in. Pookie was still and quiet and listened for breathing, farting or any movement at all but surmised they were all empty.

 

As they got closer to the light they could see that it was coming from an opening in a small cave. The cave was little more than a hole in the ground that lead down under a large slab of rock.

 

“Are we going in there?” Efron whispered.

 

“It would be a pretty boring plot point if we didn’t” Pookie said.

 

“You could call it ‘subverting expectations’” Someone behind them said.

 

They both turned together to see someone grotesquely lit by the dim torch light of the cave and they froze stifling a shriek.

 

But it was just Canard.

 

“What are you doing here?” Pookie whispered emphatically.

 

“I got bored”

 

“How did you sneak up on me with one leg?”

 

Canard grinned and let his head loll to one side. “Buddy I could sneak up on you with no legs”

 

“That would be pretty easy actually, like squirming on the ground like a worm.” Efron chimed in trying to get between them, standing on her tip toes.

 

Pookie glared at him and Canard glared back.

 

“You can’t hear that, that humming noise?” Canard broke the brittle silence.

 

“I thought that was just my ears ringing” Pookie said wiggling his little finger in his ear trying to get the irritating noise out.

 

“I hear it too” Efron said, her eyes wide and excited by the cool night air.

 

“We going in or not?” Canard said.

 

“After you” Pookie said, his eyes locked on the deadly bird.

 

“Be my guest” Canard retorted returning the icy glare, retreating back into uncomfortable silence.

 

“Weeeee” Efron said as she ran into the cave waving her arms like an airplane.

 

They followed her into the cave shushing her as they went.

 

Inside the cave it was predictably dark but less dark than outside as it was lit by some fire deeper down in the cave.

 

The followed the glow which had started out a white yellowish colour but was getting more green as they made their way deeper into the cave. The heat too was becoming unbearable and the humming sound was all around them.

 

They made their through a small alcove which opened onto an outcropping overlooking the main chamber.

 

The main chamber was a grand irregular dome shaped room lit by a huge bonfire. The bonfire glowed and burned violently with a green flame rising almost to the ceiling. But strangely producing almost no smoke and what smoke it did produce was ventilated through a small hole in the roof of the cave.

 

Hundreds of cloaked figures knelt around the fire. The strange humming noise was now revealed to be coming from them. They droned in a form of odd ritualistic chanting that was completely unintelligible. But sounded something like a girl in a tentacle porn hentai saying ‘no’ over and over again. And then something that sounded like someone trying to say ‘chicken fingers’ while sneezing.

 

Pookie et al ducked behind the outcropping of the irregular stone to watch in bemused astonishment.

 

“What are they doing?” Efron said.

 

“Err” Pookie said as he stared intently at the shifting throng as they gyrated strangely.

 

One figure emerged from the crowd dressed almost exactly the same as the others but with his hood down and walking with a long stick. He walked seemingly with some difficulty as if his legs weren’t fit for walking on just the two anymore. He ascended a raised carved stone podium backed by a makeshift fence of some sort made from scrap metal, consisting of road signs and tar.

 

He turned to his flock, his face seemed to glow green and his grey hair too, what was left of it shone unnaturally in uneven tufts on his head. A big set of moist bug eyes in his head looking everywhere and taking up most of the space on his wet looking face darted around the room.

 

“BROTHERS!”

 

The crowd hummed with excitement and the torches flickered.

 

“THE DAY OF PROPHECY HAS COME!”

 

“That’s what you said last week!” A heckler at the back said.

 

“WHO SAID THAT?!” The man at the podium said narrowing his bulbous eyes. “I thought as much!” He said as no one came forward to claim their remarks.

 

“I KNOW SOME OF YOU ARE TIRED, IRRITABLE. WAITING FOR THE ONE THAT WOULD BRING US UP OUT OF THIS EXISTENCE AND ELEVATE US TO OUR RIGHTFUL PLACE AS GODS OF THIS WORLD!”

 

“TOO LONG WE’VE BEEN DOWN HERE KEPT ALIVE ONLY BY THE GLOWING RIVER OF LIFE THAT RUNS THROUGH OUR VILLAGE. IT’S HEALING POWERS MAKING US STRONG AND EXTENDING OUR LIVES AS THE WATER RUNS THROUGH OUR VEINS.”

 

“FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS WE’VE WAITED AND WATCHED AS THE ONES ABOVE LAYED WASTE TO THIS WORLD.” He paused and scanned the crowd as if it was them that had done it.

 

“THE RAIDERS, THE MONGRELS, THE MARAUDERS AND MADMEN AND OF COURSE- THE CLOWNS”

 

“WHILE THESE GANGS OF WAISTRELS DESTROYED, RAPED AND PILLAGED JOINING FORCES TO TURN THIS WORLD INSIDE OUT. WE WAITED HERE FOR THE ONE WHO WOULD BRING US THE KEY TO OUR SALVATION.”

 

“AND THAT TIME IS UPON US!”

 

The crowd cheered uproariously at this as he swept them into a frenzy.

 

“WITH THIS GIRL, WE WILL MARCH ON THE SURFACE ONCE MORE” The strange man jeered and lifted Efron up as if she was Simba in the lion king.

 

“Wait what?” Pookie said looking over at the space Efron was just in now vacant.

 

“Huh?” Canard said also noting her absence.

–

If you wanna checkout the rest of the chapter or more weird stuff head on over to my inkitt page. Taint no sin

 

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