Zeus wares

Shousetsu Bang*Bang Issue 117: The Old Ways

cover by Swedishjazz

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Booty Call of Cthulhu, by Cattus Politterarum

The Nøkk of Crelan Town, by Kit Miller *

In the Hand of Khal Keresh, by shukyou (主教)

The Red Cap Kiss, by Devin Ambrosia *

Old Ways For Modern Day, by ChibiSaboten *

Blistering Bollyrat, by Shrimp King

Move As the Body Moves in You, by Etienne Telling

Prosperity Gospel, by Iron Eater *

* illustrated

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The old Shousetsu Bang*Bang place? Sure, I heard of it.  Folks ’round here tell all sorts of tales about it. Don’t mean nobody’s been there in a while, though.

It was back in … what, aught-five? I think it was, yeah, that there first were people up in that place. Dozens of people at first, maybe hundreds, even, on some occasions. Folk bringing their smut, their fanciful tales, their pretty pictures, all those stories ’bout boys kissing other boys, things like that. You’d hear them all night, on into the night up there, sometimes often as once a month!

Weren’t no big calamity or change that ended it, nothing so dramatic. Things just started to … dry up. Folk wanderin’ off. Platforms changing, then shutting down. All that goddamn big-city social media consolidation. And the censorship! One site or another shut them down, or told them they couldn’t do it the way they wanted to. Pretended like the internet is too good for dicks touchin’! You ever heard such a thing in all your life? But it’s true, it’s true, or at least that’s what the old-timers say.

Folks stopped talking about the old Shousetsu Bang*Bang place.  Then they stopped reading. Then they stopped coming altogether. Then the whole place went dark.

But they say some nights you can still hear it, the sounds of a new issue up there. Some even say that on the last Monday of every month — why, that’s tonight! — that you can see a new round of lights in the windows and all kinds of figures dancing all around. All the queer revelry and pornographic merriment, folk say it looks as alive as it ever was. Like maybe it’s even been alive the whole time.

‘Course, no one goes there anymore. You kids wouldn’t be foolish enough to try and see it for yourselves. …Would you?

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