FanFiction of the Week: The Steamed Dumpling Gang by Patty Shure

Damn, it was hot. The Pouch couldn't sweat, one of his many similarities to dogs, maybe that's why he always got along with dogs so good and leaned on them for support in social situations, but it was probably for the best. He didn't want to even imagine what it would smell like if all of his pouches started pooling sweat on a hot day. That would be rank. It wouldn't be practical to apply some type of deodorant to the interior of ever pouch, even that full body stuff the close talking lady had been shilling on the TV. Of course, this wasn't a hot day, this was the criminal hideout of SoyBoi and all that heat was coming from the giant steam pot he was firing up so he could kill the Pouch in it once and for all. First, his minions had finish stuffing the pouch with a variety of fillings. 

"Why don't you just kill me, SoyBoi, why the elaborate process?" the Pouch had asked.

"Thematic consistency," SoyBoi had answered. "I'm going to leave you out on the streets of your beloved neighborhood, reduced to a lifeless mass of dumpling, stuffed with pork, because I know you don't care for it. That ought to show all the haters how evil I am!" 

"SoyBoi," the Pouch had answered then, "that's just some dumb rightwing meme, it's not about you, nobody has been talking about you all this time."

"Well, they'll sure be talking about me after this heinous crime!" SoyBoi shouted. He'd clearly been practicing his evil inflections, probably a voice coach. The Pouch tried to make a mental note to investigate if any members of the local theater community was helping out his improbable and often ridiculous collection of enemies. He wasn't looking to punish anyone he found, contemporary culture's treatment of the theater had done enough of that, he just wanted to understand their motivations and maybe flip them as an informant. If he could find out who was practicing their evil talk, maybe he could intervene before they did any crimes. Being honest with himself in these, that might be his last moments, he realized that his only interest in this plan was to bring it up to Mary Sew in yet another attempt to impress her with his crimefighting skills. Mainly he'd established himself as the type of hero who could take a helluva beating, but he also wanted her to think of him as a thinker, as someone doing the work to address the greater issues of crime and not just absorbing the damage once it was too late. 

"Boss, we've got all the chive in there, is the pork ready yet?" one of SoyBoi's underlings asked. 

"Not yet, it must simmer for another ten minutes," SoyBoi said. 

"Does it matter? I mean, nobody's gonna eat this guy, it's just for the bit, right?"

"How you do anything is how you do everything!" SoyBoi shouted, striking his minion so hard that several small crumbs of bean curd broke off of SoyBoi's hand. This did not go unnoticed by the Pouch. Apparently the steam was softening his tofu form, definitely moving him from extra-firm to a softer state. If he could stall, the Pouch thought, he might have a chance of getting out of this. The Pouch focused all his energy on digestion. 

"There's practically no chive in any of these pouches!" SoyBoi screamed, now striking the other minion who happened to be nearby, again losing a number of crumbs from his hand while doing so, but seeming to not notice. 

"We stuffed it in, like you said," the minion said, cowering a bit, but not too much. It didn't look like that blow was particularly painful. 

"Luckily I have extra chive for just such incompetence. Go fetch it from the store room. I will oversee this batch of stuffing." 

The Pouch knew that he couldn't digest while they were stuffing or they would notice and maybe knock him unconscious. Also, he didn't want anymore chive, he was all chived out and doubted in a very serious way whether or not he would ever be able to enjoy a chive again. The serious steam also seemed to be softening the noodles that they'd used to bind the Pouch to the legs of the stand that the enormous steamer sat upon. A few more minutes and it was very, very likely that he could break free. 

"So, I know the pork is because you've found out my distate for it, but doesn't it upset you to work with meat? I mean, aren't you a vegetarian or something?" the Pouch asked, knowing the answer in advance and only stalling. 

"No, you moron, I eat meat! Tofu isn't just for vegetarians, that's a hurtful myth, but not one that hurts more than this!" SoyBoi said, striking the Pouch and in the process now losing the whole hand to a pile of crumbles that fell on the floor. "Oh no, the steam seems to be impacting my firmness, hurry up you morons, we have to wrap this up quickly," SoyBoi yelled to his minions. Then, turning to the Pouch he said, "Seriously, you never heard of Ma Po Tofu? It's served with pork. You know, it wouldn't have hurt you to have educated yourself when you were still alive. Then again, I guess there wouldn't have been much point as this was going to be your final outcome either way," said SoyBoi. 

SoyBoi then leaned over, gathering up the largish crumbs that had, until very recently, been his right hand. While thusly leaned over, he noticed the other bits of himself that had fallen off while previously. Once he'd gathered up pretty much all of his crumbles which he awkwardly held in the crook of his left elbow, he pulled out a large wooden contraption that rolled on squeaky wheels and just managed to get the lid up before tossing the bits in. The Pouch figured out pretty quick that this was SoyBoi's press, the place where he'd mush himself back together after a period of activity. This would explain why he wasn't overly concerned about losing a hand. 

The Pouch tested the now remarkably overcooked noodles that held him fast and found them so soft that they fell apart with even the slightest effort. Still, he remained as he was, waiting for a better opening, the minions had returned, dragging large burlap sacks full of chives. Setting a sack on either side of him, the minions each took a handful of chive and reached in to separate pouches. The Pouch flexed these pouches, trapping the hands of the minions, and then, arms free in an epic flex that sent noodle bits flying, the Pouch knocked the minions' heads into one another, knocking them out cold. He stood up, releasing his hold on the minion hands so that their unconscious forms slid to the floor.

"Okay, SoyBoi, that has gone as far as its going to go. We can do this the easy way, you give up now, or we can do this the way I'd much prefer where I smash the shit out of your soft body and then load up you press with a generous helping of my shit and reform you into an entirely new villain called ShitBoi. Your call buddy," said the Pouch, pissed off enough to sound like he really meant it and not entirely sure that he didn't mean it, the abundance of chives he'd digested were making their way towards the exit in what was primarily an orderly manner, but there was some urgency there. 

"You're all talk, Pouch, and even in my soft state I'm more than man enough to kick your ass proper. Let's dance!" SoyBoi yelled. Unfortunately for SoyBoi, it was he that was all talk. Even the process of stepping forward caused his leg to break off below the knee, sending him face down onto the floor, causing him to break up into several pieces, not a dramatic shatter, just a sort of meh crumble. 

Crisis averted, the Pouch turned off the big steamer. The whole notion of SoyBoi reforged with the addition of his own feces idea was tugging at the edge of the Pouch's mind, and while that would be satisfying on some level, it weren't particularly heroic on any level. Also, who knows what the result would be. Perhaps his pouch-poo would somehow strengthen SoyBoi, making him an even greater challenge in the future. Also, fighting with him would be pretty gross. No, it was better to do the right thing and collect up as much of him as he could and turn him over to the authorities. The minions looked familiar, they were probably free lance. A little time in prison would help them make connections so that maybe they could minion for a better criminal. The Pouch sighed and called the police. 

FanFiction of the Week: Poison Pouch Pill by Warwick Slawsgarde

"Do we need to go over the plan again?" Special Agent Jeanie Jeans of the Strange Creatures Affairs Team at the FBI asked, her right hand on her hip, her left pointing directly at the Pouch. "There's a lot riding on this," she said. 

"Um, yeah, why don't you..." the Pouch said, struggling to pay attention. It wasn't easy concentrating at this moment, while he sat in an uncomfortable chair one of the FBI's state of the art crime labs. The chair wasn't the distraction, he'd sat in worse, it was the small team of lab techs methodically filling up each of his pouches with very specific amounts of a white powder that caught the light oddly, sparkling like nothing else he'd seen as it disappeared into each pouch. As part of this process, they'd done a full survey of the exact capacity of every part of him, data they'd already emailed to an account he hoped he had the password written down for back at his apartment. They'd found pouches he didn't even know he had. The process was a little invasive, but, by pretending that his discomfort was physical rather than emotional, he managed to get himself of an injection of something that they wouldn't name that really, really relaxed him. They let him queue up a playlist and zone out, so as far as he was concerned, he was floating in outer space the whole time. They'd given him a much smaller dose this time. Instead of dissociating entirely, however, he was mainly distracted by the lovely lab techs and their very dedicated, very matter of fact filling up of himself. They had done a number of tests to confirm that the strange, slightly glittery powder wasn't reactive with the sentient leather that he was hewn from, which was another reason he was on a light dose of the mystery injection, so that he could react quickly in the case of an unexpected reaction. 

"Okay, we're going to drop you a few blocks ahead of the thing once we've calculated it's exact path. All you have to do is engage. We're 98% sure the creature will do its part," said Jeannie Jeans. 

"Oh yeah, one question, how do you all plan to get me out of this thing? I get the whole one gulp ingestion of myself and then the pouch opening part..."

"Don't worry about that part, actually. We'll be administering a time release agent that will cause an involuntary pouch opening event," said Jeannie. "In some of our simulations, you lost consciousness and so were unable to release your payload until much farther into the digestion process."

"Digestion, I thought you said I'd be fine in there!?!" the Pouch said.

"You will be fine, it's a very, very slow process. Our simulations indicate that it might take as long as a month for you to be fully consumed. With the current plan in place, the approximately thirty minutes you'll be spending in the belly of the beast should do little more than soften your living leather to an amount that may not be noticeable to you at all, but may well be apparently to others."

This comment of others and touching made the Pouch think of Mary Sew and an imagined scenario, she stroking gently his face pouch, saying, are you using some sort of new moisturizer to which he would say __

"Go time!" Jeannie Jeans yelled, shattering the Pouch's hazy imaginings. The mysterious powder that now filled all of his pouches, except his head pouch which was stuffed with a small oxygen tank in case the unnamed powder was not quite as fast acting as anticipated, must not have been very dense, or he could have been under the influence still of the equally mysterious injection because he didn't have any trouble getting up out of the uncomfortable chair. Once more they put the hood on him while leading him out, the rest of the labs and the very location of the facility were, if not top secret, much higher up the secret hierarchy than a point where anyone at the FBI felt comfortable sharing with a low-level "street" supe like the Pouch. 

A short... van? It felt like a van but a van with really good shocks, or maybe it was hovering? After a little ride in an official vehicle, they pulled the hood and the sunlight pounded down on the Pouch with the vengeance of a jilted lover. He'd been staying out late and sleeping in, well most of the day. Spending the last few days possibly underground in the secret lab complex that he only saw 1.5 rooms of didn't help. It's also possible that all the stuff they'd been giving him, while dulling practically all of his senses, had somehow amplified his light sensitivity. It did look like his neighborhood, maybe out on the edge, near the old canal. Did they say something about the canal? Oh yeah, this thing was going to crawl out of the canal. Why didn't they do something about it while it was still in the damn canal? The Pouch was finding that maybe his memory was impacted by the vast variety of chemicals he'd been in contact recently. Oh well, oh shit, here it comes! A gaping maw rose up just in site at the end of the block, dripping with the fetid skunky waters of the canal. The Pouch remembered the one time, still new to the neighborhood, when he'd tossed in a coin, as though it was a wishing well, only to see the coin sit atop the strange water source and slowly dissolve instead of sinking. 

"Do your thing!" someone shouted really close to him, patting his shoulder, and then shoving him pretty hard in the direction of the canal and its emerging monstrosity. The Pouch stumbled a few steps, maybe something was wearing off, he started to feel heavy, like really heavy, like heavy enough to maybe crack the crust of the Earth and fall into the mantle, or even lower. "Hurry up!" the same voice in his ear pouch again, this time with a harder shove. The Pouch took a deep breath and tried to focus his mind. The world was wanting to start spinning but he was wanting it to not do that, and was winning at the moment, for the most part, everything had settled at a forty-five degree angle but he was leaning into it and compensating and making steady progress. The horrible monster thing was still pulling itself up and out of the canal. The Pouch couldn't tell why it was taking so long, why time wasn't moving like it used to do, but he hunkered down and pushed himself, not quite running, but doing a bit more than walking. 

Once he got close to the shifting abomination, he understood what was taking it so long to emerge from the canal. It wasn't emerging from the canal at all, it was forming from the very canal itself, the fetid waters slowly congealing into a solid form. Not bound by the usual laws of creature body composition, the result was even more horrible, flabby and oily, speckled with incongruous bits of what jetsam cast into the canal over its long existence. On top of all the physical malformation, the thing looked pissed and ready to take it out on the surrounding city that had fed into its sorry state. Clearly this was some sort of environmental cautionary tale playing out before him, but the state of his mind was struggling to keep anything straight, though it did realize the presence of the road beneath his head pouches after a large and milky pseudopod of gelatinous material rose out of the canal and smashed him flat. 

It was hard to get a good read on how conscious the Pouch was just then as the pseudopod drew back, the Pouch more or less encased in its disgusting mass. It then drew him up high, over the thing's mouth, which looked a lot like when you gently blow a hole in the head on a beer, more of a gap than a fully formed mouth, though there were what looked to be something like eyes forming on the thing's "face", and those eye-like masses glistened with a sick sort of glee while dangling the Pouch above its shifting maw for a moment, seeming to relish the imminent ingestion of the neighborhood's sad sack defender. 

The Pouch woke up in this state, dangling above a really far drop. He couldn't be sure then if the timed release drug they'd given him kicked in right at that moment or if it was the sheer terror that ripped through his partially addled mind that sprung all of his pouches open at once, pouring the odd powder down in a stream, all of it going right down that twisting pathway of a seeming digestive tract. Then it wasn't clear if the thing dropped him on purpose or lost the coherence necessary to maintain the extension of its form, but the Pouch found himself falling and blacked out before hitting the mass beneath him, the mass that had quickly changed into a massive bubbling churn, the escaping gas making what some might have interpreted as a death wail, though others might have defined it as simply the sound of gas escaping a rapid chemical process. 

The Pouch woke up again, feeling a bit groggy, and not aware for maybe a whole minute that he was floating on his back, all of his pouches closed and holding in air to keep him buoyant. The sky above was a lovely blue with only a few clouds spread about, as if they were put there to complete the composition. Just then, some kid did a cannonball way to close to him and the splash broke his revery and he paddled out to the side and crawled out. The Pouch could hardly believe what he was seeing. The canal shimmered in the sunlight, clear down to the bottom. The neighborhood kids were wasting no time enjoying their new swimming spot. The Pouch looked around and caught sight of a massive glob of something sitting on the back of one ton truck, workers spreading a tarp over its mass while he watched. 

Special Agent Jeannie Jeans walked up and patted him on the shoulder and said, "Good work, Mr. Pouch. I never doubted you."

"So, what was all that powder?" the Pouch asked.

"That's top secret," Jeannie Jeans said. 

"What about all those drugs you gave me?" he asked.

"Also, top secret, but I managed to swipe you some," she said, slyly stuffing a small brown paper sack into one of his thigh patches. 

"Isn't that against the rules?" the Pouch asked.

"I don't care, I'm retiring. Well, I'm retiring once I sell all the property around the canal that I picked up on the cheap last year." With that the Special Agent walked away, half dancing, singing a Jimmy Buffet song to herself. 

Pouch Spotting!: Issue 5

 I missed this variant cover when it came out. This is one issue that's definitely going to go up in value!

1

FanFiction of the Week: Sponge Pouch Square Jaw by Brent Fisticuffs

 That's funny, the Pouch thought, flying through the air after taking a haymaker to the face from Hydrake the Hydrated Man. It was only that morning that the Pouch suggested to the superintendent of his shitty apartment building that they should look into getting a water softener. "Aint' water soft enough?" the superintendent had asked. One thing that Hydrake's aqueous fist wasn't was soft. 

His rapid, sudden acceleration across the intersection finally stopped with his hitting the Second First Bank's solidly brick wall. The Pouch was, on some level, happy to end his brief journey on Hydrake Airlines, even though the landing was, at best, a 4. For a guy seemingly made out of water, Hydrake the Hydrated man could really punch. Then again, weren't most people mainly water? The Pouch seemed to recall some sort of stat he'd overheard, that people were something like 90% water. Of course, as a post-human, the Pouch primarily consisted of animated leather and less feeling snaps, but water was still involved. When his leather got too dry, it would crack painfully. 

From his new position, laying face down near the Second First Bank's westmost wall, the Pouch looked up to see that the ATM actually was fee free, though his own bank might charge. The Pouch knew that specifically his account, and more generally all of Third Second First Bank, didn't charge such fees and so this ATM would be a convenient stop for him, it was pretty much on the way to most of the stores he frequented, Discount Second Hand Foods, Bob's Leather Enthusiast Emporium, and Snaps R Us. He hoped that the next uppercut dealt by Hydrake wouldn't knock this potentially helpful bit of knowledge out of his mind. On that topic, the Pouch heard the squishy steps of the Hydrated Man slopping towards him. 

As this was one of the few physical encounters for which the Pouch had planned in advance, making a sizeable purchase on his way to the encounter, which was at least in part responsible for his mind being on his money, what little of it there was. It seemed very unlikely that he'd be able to return his purchase once he was done with it, especially since he was not particularly sure when he would be done with it. 

Hydrake stopped to stand over the fallen Pouch, seizing upon the opportunity to launch into a classic super villain style monologe, saying, "The Future is Fluid! See how easily I have smashed your pitifully solid form into the even more solid form of this bank! My liquid form allows me to simply flow around impediments! And yet, the constant action of erosion can bring down any solid form!" He kept going on for a while, but the Pouch stopped listening. Instead, he slowly moved his arm over into the outer puddle that always surrounded Hydrake. The puddle shrank back, begining to disappear into the Pouch's arm. He kept moving the arm forward along the puddle's retreat. At the same time, the Pouch imperceptably also shuffled his chest over to likewise begin soaking up the puddle. Hydrake's voice became more high pitched as his stature began shrinking, but he was too caught up in his pro-water harangue to notice.

Finally, the Pouch scrambled to his feet. Now towering over Hydrake, the Pouch grabbed him in a sort of bear hug. Hydrake struggled and yelled in an increasingly high pitched voice until he was silent. The Pouch, feeling very heavey, staggered over to a nearby bench. Sure, it was covered in pigeon shit and spilled coffee from the pretentious esspresso place next door, Bean and Nothingness, but the crushing weight he had just taken on was too much for him to support any longer. He'd have to clean himself up later, but he was due for a shower even without the pigeon shit, and he'd surely need a deep soak to clean out all ofhis pouches after this maneuver. One point that Hydrake had glossed over in his harangue, water was heavy as hell. 

The police finally arrived, guns drawn. At first they didn't recognize the Pouch, so swollen was each pouch that took on an entirely different appearance, some sort of big chungus version of himself. In some ways, he didn't even look like a fatter version of himself, but instead some type of creature consisting only of overripened fruit, each snap looked like the cut stem of some swollen fruit that glistened with the bit of moisure that leaked out of each pouch. Finally, they cops put away their guns and asked the Pouch where Hydrake had gone.

"You're probably going to want to get a bucket or something, he's right here," the Pouch said, holding out a dripping yellow square sponge he'd just fished out from one of his chest pouches. "I got him soaked up into about 100 of these. They were on deep discount so don't worry about getting them back to me after you get him out of them. Maybe consider just putting the individual sponges in jail. I'm not sure if that is humane or not. Watch out, they're all moving a little bit and if you listen close, there's a little voice coming out of each of them."

"We're gonna have to call this one in. Can you hold onto him for a little bit?" the commanding officer on the scene asked. 

The Pouch said, "Sure, but if Mary Sew shows up, keep her away. I don't want her to see me like this, all bulbous."

"I understand," the commanding officer said, "you do look pretty bad. We didn't even know it was you at first. Looked more like some new individual that was made up of balls. Sorta like you but made out of a whole bunch of old footballs or something. Yeah, it's pretty awful. Also, whew, the smell coming off you right now..."

The Pouch groaned before replying, "Yeah, Hydrate seems to be about 20% male cologne, and not the good stuff, if there even is good stuff. Then, I think there's another 20% or so that's bourbon. This guy is probably going to need some level of counseling about the drinking once you guys take him into custody."

"I'm also getting a huge waft of piss smell. He didn't emerge out of the municipal pool by any chance, did he?" the officer asked.

The Pouch thought for a second, then said, "I think the bourbon is actively transmuting directly into pee. I'm guessing the overall percentage of bourbon was even higher before. I think we could safely classify this guy as an evil spirit..." after which the Pouch paused, waiting on the laugh that never came. 

"Yeah... " said the officer. The two stood there in a long and awkward silence after that, though most of the other officers left the scene, returning to their normal duties. 

FanFiction of the Week - Downward Facing Pouch by Ima Prencell

Running at full speed down the crowded sidewalk, The Pouch wondered how the Fight Bulb had escaped from the authorities this time. He seemed to have quite a knack for escape, which was odd as he was far from the brightest bulb in the marquee. If fact, the Fight Bulb was a bit of an idiot. It was very unclear whether or not he even had a brain, the entirety of his head consisting of a giant light bulb. Did his thoughts travel along the thin filament? Where his thoughts so luminous?

"Sorry... superhero business", The Pouch said to the unfortunate businessman now wearing his coffee. It did not seem like the steaming hot joe would do much damage through the tasteful thickness of the gentleman's very expensive looking suit. Nonetheless, it was time to focus. This was no time to contemplate the inadequacies of a prison system clearly not calibrated for the type of mid-range miscreants The Pouch had to deal with on a daily basis.

Turning the corner, The Pouch ran directly into stopped foot traffic. The street traffic had also slowed to a crawl so he ran out there, dodging the slowly moving taxis as they attempted to rubber neck the scene ahead. There didn't seem to be enough commotion for a scene of super powered criminality. Where was the panic? The average person could only run and emote when faced with a criminal with abilities in excess of normal human potential.

Building up a good head of steam, The Pouch ran up a fire hydrant, launching onto a low branch from a well placed tree, only to catch his foot on a much smaller branch extending out from the one he landed on. He fell face-pouch first onto the sidewalk in the middle of the crowd. Looking up, he saw the Fight Bulb hog tied with uncountable threads, clearly the work of Mary Sew.

"Hey, are you okay?" It was in fact Mary Sew, reaching out a hand to help The Pouch up.

"Yeah, I... I've been experimenting with some new... um... unpredictable moves to... er... keep villains off balance. I'm... there are a lot of videos of me fighting online now and... well... the bad guys are probably watching these to get an advantage on me, you know?" She smiled.

"Well, you don't have to worry about that today; the Fight Bulb is neutralized. The police are on their way."

"Great."

"They should be here any minute."

"Yeah. Traffic is pretty backed up, and the sidewalks are a nightmare."

"I know."

"It's too bad the Fight Bulb started so early, now I have a whole day to kill, right?" The Pouch said.

"I'm actually relieved. I made plans to do yoga today and if these shenanigans started any later I would have had to miss out," Mary Sew said.

"Yoga, huh?"

"Yup. Yoga. Hey, have you ever tried it? I was going to go with the Myna Bird but she cancelled last minute. You want to come along?"

"Um..." The Pouch said, nervously looking around.

"Come on, you just said that you didn't have anything else to do today. Come on, it'll be fun."

"..."

"Great, let's go!" Mary Sew grabbed The Pouch's arm, dragging him through the crowd of bystanders. The police still weren't there but the Fight Bulb did look pretty secure. His eyes blazed with an extra hatred as the two heroes left.

Turned out that the yoga studio was on the same block, convenient, but that meant Mary let go of his hand all too quick, reaching for the heavy door of the Let Us Lotus Studio and holding it open as she gestured him in. Last thing the Pouch wanted to do was walk into a yoga studio, but the even laster thing he wanted to do, maybe the lastest, was to walk in first. He wouldn't know how to stand or where to look, luckily Mary grabbed his elbow and lead him down the dimly lit hall towards the slowly pulsating sound that he assumed was some sort of meditation music. It was sure nice, being led around by Mary Sew, perhaps he could fake an eye injury soon and ask her to lead him around a series of errands that would take up most of the day. It wouldn't be too hard to come up with a variety of locations specifically chosen to maximize the distance between them. Also, not having visible eye balls and seeing through a complex process that would take too long to get into and so we're going to skip it but let's just say he could see how pretty Mary Sew was and all of the other less important things in life, like oncoming traffic and bricks falling off buildings. 

To the Pouch's very much sadness, the studio was crowded. Well, not exactly crowded, everyone was on a little mat and the mats were spaced out, about a mat's size apart, so it wasn't shoulder to shoulder or anything but it was definitely enough people to trigger the Pouch's social awkwardness, which he usually was able to conceal via saving the day or spending most of his time with the host's pets or pretending he had other more abstract powers that required him focusing and going outside to get a clearer vibe reading, there was always too much interference inside, where all the people were. What now? He thought. No way to avoid saying something incredibly stupid. Oh well, Mary Sew was going to find out he was a loser sooner or later.

"Shh, don't say anything, they put out my mat for me and my plus one, super hero courtesy, I saved the studio a few months ago from some villainy I don't want to get into right now, come on," Mary whispered into his ear pouch before again taking his arm and leading him over towards the far corner. Maybe things would work out. If he couldn't talk and they were just going to sit around like everyone else was. He could sit and be quiet with the best of 'em. As soon as they sat on the two empty mats, however, what the Pouch had taken as a bit of abstract sculpture at one end of the room untangled itself back into an older woman. she smiled before saying something that the Pouch did not catch.

"Downward facing dog... oh right, you're new. Just follow along with me," Mary Sew whispered just before shifting forward, putting her her hands on the ground, and then raising up her middle so that her body resembled a triangle. While the hands of the Pouch were no stranger to the ground, it was unusual for his feet to be on the ground at the same time. Most often he was either attempting a push-up, generally without success, or lifting himself up after an unplanned grounding event too often with alcohol involved. This was his big chance, an opportunity to if not impress Mary Sew, at least prove to her that he could go out with her and not cause a total scene, not completely embarrass both of them. So, he leaned forward, put his hands on the mat before him, and thrust his buttocks skyward. 

Shockingly enough, his body obeyed! His form wasn't anything to write home about, but he was clearly doing the thing! He wasn't sure how long he would be able to maintain this position, but he had achieved it. His limbs were tiring quickly, but more concerning,  he felt various pouch contents beginning to slide. He hadn't planned on any of this, didn't have time to make sure all of his various pouches were secured. More often then not, he left them unsnapped, for easy access and also to let anything that might have gotten in there escape whenever it wanted to so that he didn't end up with a bunch of little skeletons or dried and desiccated insect shells. Then he felt something, a number of somethings fall loose. Luckily the mat dampened the sound of the bottlecaps that started raining down onto it. He'd been meaning to drop off his recycling, the bottles were now taking up as much space as a roommate's belongings might, and the bottlecaps tended to find their way into a pouch as a subconscious habit developed over the years to avoid littering while drinking outside, but now he just did that no matter where he happened to be drinking. 

The instructor said some more words that the Pouch couldn't make out, but he saw that everyone was shifting, bringing their right legs up near their hands. It took him a minute to compute how to get his leg to move like that while everything else stayed pretty much in place. He wasn't much of a move one limb at a time kinda guy, when he did something, he did it with everything, generally in an uncoordinated fashion. His fighting style was a good example of this. He'd pretty much just throw himself at his combatant hoping that one of the limbs made contact with one of the softer regions of the foe while also hoping that none of their limbs made contact with any of his softer areas. In general, all of his areas were softer, but not overly sensitive like the more rare softer areas of most foes. Also, he often had a bunch of stuff in his pouches which lent both some heft but also a lot of hardness. He tried to remember to slip a few horseshoes into random pouches if he felt like there was a chance of struggler later. 

With this new shifting, the Pouch did manage to coerce most of the bottle caps into a few foot pouches while slowly dragging his right leg forward. He couldn't believe that he was mostly doing this thing. Mary looked over for a second and smiled. Luckily, she looked away just as a Nickleback CD slid out of one of the larger pouches on his right leg. The thing to do now would be to try to snap shut as many pouches as possible, but that was impossible in the current environment. All of his buttons snapped with a loud snap. While normally this was good for confirming that a snap was properly snapped, and the sound that rung out was pleasing to his senses, but the sound was far too loud to risk right now. The music like sounds were not very loud but did have a certain vibe and, if not a rhythm or timing, per se, a bunch of randomly occurring snap sounds would unquestionably fuck up the vibe. Luckily, the Nickeback CD was still encased in its shrink-wrap, it hadn't been opened. He could plausibly say that it was intended as a gift for someone else, a gag gift perhaps. The Pouch wasn't totally sure he could define what irony was exactly, but he knew that in the past he was able to get away with saying he was being ironic whenever someone gave him that look like they weren't mad yet, but could be soon.

Now the instructor had some how stood up without moving her legs at all and held her arms straight up. The Pouch felt like he made out what she said, which was either "warrior pose" or "oreo nose". By this point his legs were already getting a little shaky but he managed to just get mostly to a standing position, his abdominal pouches were going to hurt tomorrow, that much was certain. As he lifted his arms, a can of leather protector and some kleenex fell out of somewhere. The pile of embarrassing stuff was growing on his mat and he wasn't sure if he was going to fall onto the ground or what. Luckily, just then, someone ran into the studio.

"The Fight Bulb got loose! He's clobbering the cops!" At this Mary Sew gave him a knowing wink and headed for the door. The Pouch wasn't actually able to move, now that he was trying to, but Mary turned and came back, pulling his arm. 

"Don't worry," she said, "we can come back to finish this after we kick the Fight Bulb's ass." Oh great, the Pouch thought, oh great. 

Pouch Spotting: New Youtube Discussion!

Okay, it was two years ago, but it's new to me! 

Not sure how everybody has been, but the last few years of my life included A NUMBER OF SERIOUS SETBACKS! That's all behind me now, though, stuffed into a metaphorical pouch, filed away for some future review, but out of the way for now!  

On to the YouTube!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtGuOEPRr0g

This is the sweet image the 'Tuber (that's what I'm callin' 'em now) DaysWithDan (https://www.youtube.com/@dayswithdan103) illustrated while discussing our favorite character! Check it out now!

One really good point he brings up is that the Pouch can be seen as Rob making something positive out of a pile of negativity aimed at him. That's a make lemonade outta lemons situation if I've ever heard one!

Well, hopefully this gut sells prints, because this is a great image!

FanFiction of the Week: The One and the Many by Bev Rachelle

Wednesday wasn't special, pretty much all of the calendar was blank. It had just been one of those... wait, this was for last year! Didn't matter, the nice sounding lady on the phone asked him if he would honor a meeting of her friends at their temple downtown for discussion, a buffet, and an open bar on Wednesday and he said yes and... it was Wednesday, right?

The Pouch was feeling pretty hungry and was sure hoping that buffet was all you could eat legitimately, not all the shame you can bear under the withering, judgmental eyes of the easily filled. If The Pouch was anything, it wasn't easily filled. The open bar thing also sounded great but could go wrong. Sure, all you can drink, as long as you can drink two. The Pouch didn't even know how many he could drink.

Hoping for the best, he dusted himself off and made sure he wasn't packing anything inappropriate for what the caller, was her name Unis?, called a very light service. The Pouch was feeling interested in hearing some new stuff, but also it was pretty hard to tell if he was asleep, as long as he didn't start snoring, and assuming that the open bar started after the service, this likely wouldn't be a problem.

After a quick subway ride, and a few autographs written  to bagladies, The Pouch stood before the opaque glass edifice of... there was the sign... he's pretty much spaced the name... The Unified Union of Unisus Fellowship. That was sort of a mouthful... a good reminder for The Pouch to open up and take out the piece of gum he'd been working on for a bit. He stuck it on the back of the sign, just in case he wanted it later.

Inside was all open space and a really good smell, like a new phase of existence smell, if that was a thing when you got a new phase of existence from the dealer. His rapturous looking around was disturbed by the familiar voice from the phone.

"Mr. Pouch? Hello, It's me, Unis, from the phone."

The Pouch turned around to see a woman much younger than he expected, both from her antiquated name and from her very elderly sounding voice. Her hair was white, but the not-old white that the kids were sporting these days. She wore a V necked robe that was rounded into a U that mostly covered her up. Quickly looking around, it seemed like everyone was wearing a very similar garb.

"Hi, I'm... yeah. Hi. Should I wear a robe?"

"That's not necessary, Mr. Pouch," she said with a slight grin that was maybe a little playful or maybe a little devious. Either way could be cool once everyone started unwinding at the open bar. "This way.., " she said, leading him further into the... lobby? The architecture was definitely weird. There didn't seem to be any rooms or any sort of dividers between any of the spaces, space, really.

"While we are classified as a new faith, I assure you that our teachings go back to the earliest moments of the cosmos, and reference a multitude of ancient human metaphors and understandings. Here, are some of our pamphlets." Unis motioned her hand to a small table top covered in brightly colored imagery.

"Oh great," The Pouch said, "I love comic books."

"Well... sort of... we don't believe in panels, for example, but the information is presented in a visual format that does represent sequential time. Actually, let me grab that one back from you. There. That's one we can talk about... later."

"Um, when do we eat?" The Pouch asked.

"After. First we have our service, a special rite in your honor."

Unis lead The Pouch further into the complex. Ahead, he could already see a large amphitheater, leading down at least three stories to a small, round stage. As Unis lead him down the many stairs, The Pouch noticed that everyone was wearing the same robe. They were pretty nice robes.

"Hey, any chance I could get one of those robes?", The Pouch asked.

"Maybe after the... um... ceremony." Unis said.

There were really a lot of steps leading down and The Pouch was feeling a little winded by the time they got down to the stage. Unis motioned him to sit in one of the front row seats and disappeared into the crowd before he could ask her any questions. The amphitheater filled up surprisingly fast and quietly. A couple times, he tried to make small talk with the people sitting around him but got little more than polite smiles in return.

A large, tubular screen lowered towards the stage and everyone fell silent. The room darkened, only slightly and everyone took off their robes and everyone was naked. It sure seemed like everyone had some clothes on underneath, like the way a judge will wear the black robes of his or her office over a smart outfit. The Pouch looked around a little but felt really awkward and so mainly focused on the screen where some programming began, words accompanying the booming voice emerging from hidden speakers.

"The Oneness", the narrator boomed, quickly echoed by the the whole of the congregation. "We are all one, together" again repeated by the crowd. "The circle, without sides, without angles, is the symbol of the Oneness. The square, the box, the enclosing division, this is the anti-symbol." On the screen, a number of squares rotated the circle before moving inside it and forming a sort of human shape, square head, five squares as an upper and lower torso, a few squares to form each arm and leg. This figure then moved quickly, the circle shattering. The Pouch began to feel a little nervous, feeling the vibe of the room heating up a bit. "We cannot allow the agents of division to shatter the unity!" Suddenly, a spot light shone down on The Pouch as he heard a seemingly communal grunt as everyone stood and lurched towards him.

The Pouch, possessing that lightening intuition shared by all superheroes, leapt to the stage as scores of hands grasped at him. Never all that good at math or estimating anything in general, The Pouch guessed that there were hundreds of angry naked... at this point he was just going to call them cultists, they were the ones who broke the standards of civility by designating him as the Adversary of their religion. Looking around, things looked pretty grim. All of the stairs up and out of the amphitheater were thronged with nude cultists. The Pouch shuddered briefly considering all the inadvertent touching that was unavoidable when practicing nudity on this scale.

Unwisely spending a few moments on regret, The Pouch reassessed his dedication to operating as a solo hero. If he was on some sort of superteam, he could call for backup. Heck, if he was on a superteam he probably would have some superpals with him right now and they could enact some sort of pre-planned maneuver like "BLUE 84" or something with a better code name. Now, he was alone facing this murderous mob. Who would even care if they succeeded in their desire to literally tear him pouch from pouch? Would Mary Sew cry? How much would she cry?

The first of the mob crawled up onto the stage, snapping The Pouch out of his reverie. Looking around for anything resembling a weapon, The Pouch saw only the screen above him. It was a little high for him to jump but... several assailants ran crazily towards him. The Pouch jumped just enough to dodge the charging cultists, so blind in their hatred that they all collided, hard. From atop the pile of those who would destroy him, The Pouch was able to jump just high enough to reach the lower edge of the screen. The inside of the cyclical screen was a network of support struts and wiring. The Pouch hoisted himself up and started climbing through the web of metal supports.

He was, in his estimation, half way up the length of the crawlspace inside the cyclical screen when he felt it begin moving. The inner workings sprang to life, folding in unexpectedly in places as the screen began retracting up towards the impossibly high ceiling. Clearly they were trying to crush him, or at the least get him up into whatever storage room regularly housed this enormous screen, probably close quarters and less chance of escape. For all he knew, there was already a crack team of naked assassins waiting up there for him. These were the moments of cold, hard decision making in which heroes steel themselves against the dire prospects before them and come up with a plan to overcome the incalculable odds against them. This was the moment when The Pouch reached for a handhold, missed it, started falling, grabbed a loose cord, continued falling, fell out of the bottom of the screen assemblage, fell towards the nude and angry crowd, then felt the jolt run through all of his pouches as he reached the bottom of the cord he was still holding and swung out towards the now empty seats higher up in the amphitheater and let go and went tumbling into a bunch of empty seats.

The Pouch scrambled to his feet and took off running. The lobby of the building was completely empty and no one impeded his progress towards the doors and out into the street. Finding himself suddenly back in the normal world, fully clothed pedestrians, skateboarders, honking traffic, dogs on leashes shitting freely upon the sidewalk... the shock caused The Pouch to pause briefly, appreciating just being alive. He heard the ruckus behind him, however, and he swiftly hailed a cab and got in. He told the driver his address and settled in, watching the mass of naked people running behind them fade away in the rear view mirror. Man... some Wednesdays just suck...