I'm not Jonah

[plasmid]

Still loyal to my mother's tribe

By father I'm forsaken

My independent life imbibed

In massive gullet taken

Within the beast who on me fed

The rank miasma burns

My flattened face belies my dread

Beneath, my stomach churns

I plot revenge with failing brain

Concoct a poison dire

If threatened, shall I loose the bane

Beware this man of fire

[bonanova]

Agent K (MIB)

[plasmid]

Thanks for kicking this one off, bonanova. Not any movie characters -- I tend to not riddle about things from pop culture that might not be known by a majority of the population. This riddle does use a clue that might not be known by a fair number of people, but it's only important for understanding a clue and not the subject of the riddle.

[Barcallica]

I never try these riddles due to the language /and culture/ incompetency. 

Could it be drug tablet. I am not sure if I understand the sentences accurately.

[plasmid]

Not a tablet, there are a couple of clues pointing toward something else. In particular: the first two lines about mom and dad wouldn't be explained with a pill, and lines 7-8 where it becomes important to remember that it's the "I" in this riddle who's talking. Although the person swallowing a pill might have their stomach churn, with the "What am I?" variety of riddle the "I" is the thing to be guessed, so a pill would not have its own stomach churn while its face remains smooth.

[akaslickster]

Lucifer?

[plasmid]

Not the unspeakable one. While he's certainly forsaken by his father, I'm not aware of anything that could be interpreted as maternal loyalty. And the flattened face with churning stomach clue wouldn't be very convincingly explained.

Some semi-specialized knowledge that's required to interpret the clues might be making this one inordinately difficult, which could make this an educational riddle once it's solved.

[plainglazed]

yeast? as in those used in fermentation

[plasmid]

Getting on the right track, pg. I'll give that one credit for the maternal loyalty and paternal forsaken-ness clue, as I believe their reproductive process leads to "mothers" and/or "daughters". I can't see enough of a fit for the flattened face with churning stomach clue when referring to the "I" of the riddle to call it an acceptable alternative answer though. If it goes another week or two without being solved or getting closer then I think I'll reveal the answer and the facts needed to find it, and count yours as the best answer so far.

[bonanova]

Most of the clues don't relate, but how about plankton, as swallowed by the huge gullet of whales?

Whale is a match with Jonah in the title.

Krill is another possibility along those lines.

 

Bringing all these clues together is a challenge.

[plasmid]

Not any of those. The answer should have features that make it reasonably obvious that the clues are describing that answer; from the mother and father thing, to the flattened face and churning stomach (of the subject of the riddle and not the imbiber), to the "failing brain", to the clue about poison that's released only when threatened.

[DudleyDude]

Phoridae? (Pseudacteon) The weird little flies that hatch inside of fire ants and grow up in their heads and dissolve their brains and eventually the ant's head just falls off? Even if this isn't the right answer, it was fun research

[plasmid]

Phoridae? (Pseudacteon) The weird little flies that hatch inside of fire ants and grow up in their heads and dissolve their brains and eventually the ant's head just falls off? Even if this isn't the right answer, it was fun research

Certainly an interesting take on it... I had to look that up to see what you were talking about, which of course means it wasn't what I had in mind.

I think I ought to go ahead and say what this one's about.

This is on mitochondria. They're the organelles most famous for their role in metabolism and generating ATP while consuming oxygen. They were almost certainly derived from a free-living prokaryotic bacteria that was engulfed; they have their own genome that looks more bacterial than eukaryotic and has degraded over time while maintaining only a bare minimum of genes involved in energy generation. Mitochondria are inherited maternally, and have a distinctive architecture with a smooth outer membrane and a convoluted inner membrane. And in addition to their role in metabolism, they've more recently been found to regulate apoptosis (programmed cell death) by releasing their contents, particularly cytochrome c, into the rest of the cell when the balance of pro- and anti-apoptotic forces tips toward cell death.

[bonanova]

  I was going to guess that, next.  (not)