#bad: getting abducted by an evil entity

[petrichormore]

also I skimmed over it but Araldo having to beam Bad up twice is so funny. do you think it failed the first time because Bad saw it was an unfamiliar number and hung up on him like a phone call.

[afriendlyirin]

Just finished the final season of Hilda. It was... okay, but felt like it lost its sense of direction.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I was never very interested in questions about Hilda's backstory. We didn't need to know who her family was and why she has blue hair. We didn't need to not know those things, but I don't feel like they added anything significant. For me, the appeal of the series was always in how Hilda interacts with external forces, not her internality.

And unfortunately I think the season really flopped on that one. I was hoping we would get to see how Hilda interacts with genuinely malevolent entities, then nope actually the faeries are good. The whole season felt like it was really confused about what it was trying to say and why. The giants really are hurting people and it is genuinely difficult to coexist with them, but driving them off is still bad because...? Frog-spider eats people, but it doesn't eat humans so it's fine to have it wandering around?

Then the final episode is just whiplash after whiplash -- Hilda has to rescue Anders, then OH WAIT Hilda has to go back to rescue Johanna, then she can't leave but then she can leave but Johanna can't leave but Astrid's going to strike a deal but the deal doesn't work but then it does and then never mind she doesn't have to make a deal at all. Also the faeries are scary and evil and abduct people but actually never mind they're good and were only abducting Hilda's family for good reasons but the island itself is actually evil and it's a stickler for rules and bargains except it's completely opaque what those rules are, sometimes bargains can be renegotiated but sometimes they can't, and it's willing to accept a blood sacrifice just for the sake of it even though it gains no benefit from it?

Like... just... WHAT. I think my head needs time to stop spinning.

(Also, I'm really annoyed that after three seasons of Hilda learning that cutting Johanna out of her decisions always ends badly and Johanna willingly going adventuring with her this entire season Hilda still cuts her out in the finale, even though it's the stupidest possible time to do so because this is going to be a long operation so she's obviously going to find out. Way to regress on all that character development, Hilda.)

And after all that and answering all those questions about Hilda's heritage, it still never answered the question of why the Fairy Isle is dying, even though that seems pretty relevant to, um, everything?! The story didn't seem sure if it even was dying -- the corruption manifests itself to stop Hilda's escape, so that's clearly something the Isle has control over and not a sign of weakness, but then Astrid asserts the Isle is dying. BUT WHY THOUGH. I assumed it had something to do with there being no more faerie abductions, but then Astrid claims it "doesn't need new blood" precisely because it's dying, so the two things are unrelated. I guess van Gale will figure it out, but we never will.

In the end I don't think it did said anything really different, meaningful, or interesting with its magical creatures this season, which is a real shame when it's done that so consistently throughout the rest of the series. It really feels to me like the creators just didn't know where to take the series after Hilda and the Mountain King. I don't dislike the new season enough to wish the series had ended there, but nothing here lives up to it.

[wanderingnork]

Cosmic Horror Movies (Without Cthulhu)

Cosmic horror has a really bad rap these days, and frankly...with pretty good reason. In a lot of cases, stories that claim the title of “cosmic horror” use a lot of the trappings without digging into the actual cosmic bit. Tentacles, weird geometry, and people running around screaming gibberish are used to say “this is cosmic horror.” And that approach, pardon my language, gets absolutely fuck-all done with actual horror.

The “cosmos” referred to in cosmic horror isn’t just the stars and planets, but an orderly and harmonious universe. In a cosmic horror story, something opens a protagonist’s eyes to some truth about the cosmos. The harmony of the universe is revealed to be a lie hiding chaos, or the order is revealed to be nothing like what the protagonist believed it to be. The result is existential dread, a sense of the threat to a person’s identity--or maybe to the identity of all humankind, or even to the nature of all life as we know it. 

In this list, I want us to take a glimpse of chaos. Consider a different order of the universe. Maybe even question our own reality a little. And we won’t see a single amoeba, space sea anemone, or fish person while we’re at it.

1408: The closest to a conventional cosmic horror movie on this list, 1408′s subject is a hotel room. Not a haunted room, not a cursed room, just--as Samuel L. Jackson memorably tells us--an evil fucking room. Whatever the hell is going on in that room with time and space is completely incomprehensible. It might well be a sentient entity. It might be an architectural pitcher plant. No one knows, but by spending the night in the room, a person gets a look into a world that works by incomprehensible, inhuman rules. For all that the action is contained to a single hotel suite, the implications of the room are cosmic in scale.

Come True: Dreams are mysterious. The worlds that wait for us in our sleeping minds abide by different laws than the waking world. They help us to analyze our memories and rehearse our lives, but they also expose us to wonders and terrors that defy reality. Dreams have been used around the world to predict the future, to interpret the will of gods, and more. Even though dreams serve a concrete purpose for our brains, it’s still easy to perceive them as connecting us to something else. Come True asks us to imagine if that something else was hostile--and significantly more powerful, when given a full conduit to the waking world, than we could have predicted.

Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County: By their very nature, the idea of Little Grey Men is a cause for existential dread. Alien abduction stories are terrifying. Aliens with incredible technology that descend from the stars, perform seemingly purposeless experiments on hapless livestock and confused humans, leave behind indecipherable patterns in cornfields, and vanish without a trace are an alarming concept. If they exist (which they most likely don’t), then they call into question so many things we know about biological life, evolution, physics, time, and more. The universal order is overturned. This movie brings all of that home to a rural family and forces them to confront the incomprehensible as it invades their home.

Jurassic Park: I’m sure the soaring John Williams score, the size and scale of the dinosaurs, and the resoundingly triumphant ending have you convinced this can’t be a cosmic horror movie. But consider this: what’s more terrifying and hard to conceptualize than Earth’s deep time? In order to conceive of the history of our planet, we have to pack 4.5 billion years of the planet’s existence into a 24-hour clock where the earliest humans appeared less than two seconds to midnight. On that scale of time, entire continents move, whole branches of the tree of life grow and die, and our species is a drop in the bucket. Jurassic Park brings us face to face with animals which died sixty-five million years ago on the impact of an asteroid the size of a mountain. The kicker: in order to bring them forward to live in the park, the scientists at work have to mix the ancient DNA with the DNA of modern birds and amphibians. The dinosaurs of Jurassic Park, as majestic and wonderful as they are, still leave the real dinosaurs as much a mystery as they are when they’re only the mineralized remains of bones. Talk about dealing with an unfathomable cosmos.

Halloween (1978): A well-ordered, calm, ordinary suburban neighborhood in idyllic Midwestern America is thrown into chaos by the arrival of an unstoppable, remorseless killer. Violence breaks out in a place where even the very idea of danger seems too remote to believe. It happens on the night of America’s great--maybe its only--inversion ritual: Halloween. During inversion rituals, the social order is overturned, allowing for behavior that would never be acceptable on a typical day. Still, there are some things that even an inversion ritual can’t countenance. Like mass murder. Even the rules of the inversion ritual are overthrown. The impact of Halloween, though, might hit a viewer in 21st century America a bit harder. When reports of senseless violence regularly make the news, the existential question of whether the world really is a safe place after all comes to mind. While fictional, Halloween is asking us a very real question about the order of our very real universe.

Some questions for thought: Do you disagree that any of these belong on this list? Why? How would you personally define cosmic horror, if it’s different than my definition? With that definition, what movies would you want to see on this list? For the sake of argument, let’s count Jurassic Park and Halloween as cosmic horror stories. So what does it mean for our sense of order and identity that both of these movies were followed by a host of increasingly actionized sequels which downplayed or even removed the horror elements of the originals? Do we want to think about the insignificance of our place in the universe, or is that pushing even the bounds of horror a little too far?

(Previous Recommendations)

[chatmeow9]

Liveblogging The Owl House finale!

(I'll put a break here, this gets pretty long)

Immediately picking up from the previous episode, everyone gets abducted by ribbons (puppet strings? The Collector does has an affinity for puppets)

King's Dad?!?!

Luz is wearing Belos' Season 2 attire. The palace is similar but instead of a gold/black colour scheme, it's white/silver.

What's up with the giant heart in the throne room? Was that ever explained? Is it the Titan's heart, despite the rest of him being skeletal??

THAT'S NOT AMITY!

Back-to-back nightmare sequences (presumably) Can the Collector manipulate dreams?

Bill's completely blacked-out eyes are kinda freaking me out.

Witch's Battle! We've come full circle baby!

So they did get collected, and it is a nightmare. Also, weirdly, Hunter didn't have any strings around him like the other three until they all got yoinked away again.

"Get over here you witch." They knew exactly what they were doing with that line

Belos didn't know King is a Titan. I guess there was no way/reason for him to know.

Yep that smile definitely doesn't look completely unhinged.

OOOO psychic battle between Raine and Belos

The puppets! They're alive!!

Pac-man, marbles, and Jenga. how would the Collector know about these very human games? They don't have the excuse of being an extra-dimensional entity, they've been trapped in a disc for thousands of years

Aw, they are trying! In their own sort of twisted way of course.

The Collector's backstory is actually kinda sad. They really are just a child. I feel like if the series hadn't gotten chopped The Archivists could've been a bigger bad than Belos

... what vessel? That's concerning

It IS the Titan's/island's heart! Despite Raine's best efforts Belos barely got through, AGAIN.

Light Glyph. Light Glyph. Light Glyph. Light Glyph. The most pivotal Glyph Luz learned

Collector continues to be unhinged in the most terrifying and hilarious way.

Belos has officially gone full Kaijuu. The spread is different than his usual green goop with eyes it's more... radioactive mutated vegetation?

if the very evil ""man"" could be defeated with the power of fwendship I think that would've happened by now.

Oof. That question about Collector not knowing/understanding mortality comes back huh.

Some of the lights in boxes we've seen in the in-between were people's souls, then?

King's Dad! Also the figure we saw at the beginning of the last episode! A bathrobe, Bad Girl Coven tee (lmao), and pj pants with the glyphs on them

Luz now literally has the blessing of the Titan.

Like mother, like daughter lol

Is Belos pulling a Toffee and draining/corrupting all magic in the realm?

Twinkly magical girl Luz!

I guess not, since glyphs still work

The Collector doing ONE good thing after tormenting the denizens of the Boiling Isles for months

Raine's still alive. I partly would've figured they've gotten grown/gooped over

She couldn't think of anything to say upon her return but monologs as she's ripping Belos out of the heart

She's not buying your shit Phillip

I was kinda hoping Hunter would've got the final blow, catharsis and all that

Bread puns run in King's family

I just noticed that Titan!Luz had a fang on the opposite side as Eda

The Archives kinda look like a crown on top of the Titan's skull

Aww everyone gets their families back, but... Hunter doesn't have a family unless he's adopted by Darius or Eda or someone (It's Darius)

Of COURSE those three would want the throne

Time skip Luz is going to the BI for college (how would that work if she has no magic and glyphs don't work anymore?)

"Luz, you saw them last week" lmao

Vee's still living with Camilla even though it technically is safe for her to return?

Ah, the kid's hideout has been made into a permanent portal

Awww they made a grave marker for Flapjack!

Marthamule has an actual mustache now

Lilith has control of her curse and can do a harpy thing like Eda

Amity's got a pirate look going on now

They removed the Coven sigils! Darius is both super excited and also trying to play it cool

Oh, that's what Raine's palasman is, I don't think we've seen it before.

University of Wild Magic and Eda's headmistress

It's wholesome in it's own Boiling Isles way

King can do glyphs!

Last minute forth wall break?

(I accidentally placed a poll here so I'm just rolling with it)

[doomerpatrol]

Comic Log: Moon Knight (2014)

This was a trio of short arcs/runs that kicked off really well and then flatlined, never really recovering. Taking a look under the hood (heh).

Warren Ellis's run: A sextet of urban psychedelia in single issues without much interconnection. Ellis introduces some very stylish looks and titles for Moon Knight and adds some interesting concepts that go...totally unelaborated upon (like Moon Knight's consciousness being possessed by a parasitic ancient god). Because it's episodic, the run is definitely carried by Declan Shalvey's beautiful artwork, which often plays with sequence and violence in some really creative ways (like issue #5 which is a genuinely sublime take on the "Oldboy hallway"). There's an interesting throughline of disposability going on in the conflicts that arise, portraying the city as kind of a hostile entity that produces throwaway people, but it doesn't really go anywhere because Ellis leaves the title so quickly. Still, a very enjoyable pulp read. 4/5.

Brian Wood: Immediate downturn. We get a completely different voice for the character as the series pivots to a bland international intrigue/spy thriller about a psychiatrist trying to assassinate a warlord turned general while Moon Knight tries to stop her. This plot is *so* annoying too, pretending to present a genuine moral dilemma and then in its last moments being like "surprise! there actually is no dilemma, the antagonist is unequivocally evil and unjustified!" This run abandons the weirdness and episodic quality that made Ellis's run appealing. It also leans way harder into normal boring cape comic dialogue - rather than the sort of spectral, otherworldly "protector of nighttime travelers" that Moon Knight was in Ellis's arc, now he is pretty much just a less interesting Daredevil again, complete with tedious lectures about how it's bad to kill people because people die when they are killed. Who cares. At least the art is alright. 1/5.

Cullen Bunn: Decent attempt at recovery, but also too little too late. Definitely a more clear continuation of Ellis's ideas around disposability and a return to episodic investigations of weird urban phenomena (like a band of marauding dogs and a cult abducting people using jetpacks), which makes it all the stranger that Wood's arc exists. But it's a lot more centered, explicitly so, on a concept of "faith" and how this relates to the moral ambiguity of the moon god Khonshu, and I just didn't find that very interesting. 2/5.

All in all, the Ellis arc (#1-6) is fun, and the rest isn't really worth it. The next Moon Knight things I plan to read are Jeff Lemire's run, Max Bemis's (lead singer of pop-punk band of my youth Say Anything???), and Jed MacKay's.

[n1ghtw1ng-scp]

11: Your character will absolutely flip their lid if __________ happens.

13: Your character does ____ or avoids ____ because they associate it with having a good/bad day.

25: When put into X situation, your character is calm and collected and patient, while others may be anywhere from confused to panicking and screaming. Talk about X-Situation and why it means what it does to your character.

For both Night and Entity! @parables-for-days

Night

11: when a problem happens during a dimension jump, such as losing her powers or the ability to get back/contact her base dimension. somehow she always manages to get back in (relatively) one piece, but she HATES when it happens

13: every day she tries to get outside and fly for a couple minutes to clear her head/cheer her up. it works

25: if one of her friends gets abducted by some evil organization. she's been in that situation, she knows what to do, and the emotions she SHOULD feel about it are suppressed by amnestics so they don't get in the way.

Entity

11: existing as a parasite. "why are we here, just to suffer" type life. also when Night goes "absolutely NOT!!" to every thought he has. which happens a lot and is very annoying

13: they don't even bother with that kind of superstition stuff. Entity themself could even count as a "bad omen".

23: any situation that involves a lot of people dying. that's just their sorta element-

[earth-b0y]

It's, um.. like an evil Santa? But it kills families and abducts kids to force them to make toys out of.. other kids.

It's a keter entity, so we can't contain it forever, but during the time of year it's active, we try our best to stop it when a Weissnacht Event is in progress.

I'm too old for him to get me, but I had a bad dream about it, anyway =/

You don't want to know about the Yule Man, Ash... =(

- Min

Would talkin' about it help ya feel better...?

[neorukixart]

Did you like Miyuki because she has a Renamon?

That fact was just the last drop of the glass for me to stan her (ง ื▿ ื)ว

But if I’m being honest, I love the fact that my new daughter has “the same” partner as my Digimon Queen so yes, maybe it had to do with that :3c

Look, I barely kept an eye on Survive news that involved the plot and important details because I love to enjoy the experience and it felt great to see everything for the first time uwu but I do remember seeing an scan that had Garurumon and Renamon.

SPOILERS AHEAD!! Because I literally cannot explain my love without addressing the plot. Consider that I've only done the Moral route and the true ending route (that is also the Moral route... I think? ��\_(ツ)_/¯)

When I first saw the prologue movie (4 years ago????) I thought “those kids” were ghosts or entities like Gennai but to be honest, didn’t give them much of a thought.

Just beginning the game, I knew Miyuki would be the one I was going to adopt, even when she wasn’t really having an “important” role during the first 5-ish parts, just with their intro was enough, I knew she was a kind and sweet child I mean, she clearly saved Akiharu by pushing him into the portal right when she was being trapped by the Kenzoku fog, but if I’m honest, didn’t payed too much attention to Renamon being there xD and still I found myself looking forward for the moment I would encounter Renamon and Gabumon later in the game.

It was part 8 that made me love Miyuki, but first we had Renamon going rage mode killing a good amount of Dokugumons just to save her (which was pretty badass) and I knew that if they were willing to murder just to save Miyuki, then I must too~

Right when Piemon abducts Miyuki, I was very desperate to go and save her and then well, part 8 came and we could see a “full” Miyuki once again, this time with the chance of interaction with Takuma and watching her true sweet and kind self. I can’t even count the amount of times I wanted to cross the screen whenever she begins to realize that the time she spent in the “isekai” wasn’t mere hours, but 50 years but what broke me the most, is exactly when Takuma says that they are in 2020 and she cries (I cried too), I just couldn’t stop imagining what was going on with her mind; friends and family are likely gone (except Akiharu of course xD), her house might not even be there anymore and if it is, there must be other persons living there, the landscape and people being too different, just imagine the shock of a little 11-ish girl.

But what I loved the most about Miyuki, was her determination to go back right to the evil being that wanted her to be a sacrifice and not just to save her friends but the world, she goes big! And when you choose the bad end, she goes back anyway! And right at the very end of the True ending route, she does not wishes to defeat the master/Haruchika, but to save them despite all the awful things she and Renamon had to endure.

For once, I worry how Renamon was able to keep her alive for 50 years like, they got enough food? There was food for our protragonists worth half a year, right? Did Renamon feed Miyuki with that food or went to search for more? Obviously it seems that Miyuki was barely able to do something for herself aside walking and mildly comunicate so, Renamon bathe and dress her this whole time? Honestly, this devotion is something I loved in this Renamon and I can’t just stop crying ;w;

What also broke me, was in the Moral route when the Kenzoku fuses with Miyuki (Master-controlled) and Renamon sacrifices themselves to protect Akiharu (and you get Omegamon yay) because I totally thought there was no way for Renamon to go back geing a digitama (since I thought this was also a permadeath) so I cried, thinking that Miyuki would never see Renamon again but jokes on me because after the fight, thanks to Miyuki’s tears “fusing” with Renamon’s data, a digitama is made and I couldn’t stop screaming “give me back the tears I cried for you!!” and I loved how Miyuki was thinking on a life in the human world with Renamon. Plus the moment she realizes she was never alone and that it was Renamon who was always beside her, that melted my heart.

Anyway, the reason I love Miyuki is about that, but also I bet it’s because I always fall for the one chara that suffers and somehow is the “voice of god” just like how Hikari and Himekawa-san were possesed by Homeostasis which, speaking of them, and knowing that Survive is an homenage to Adventure, I think Miyuki and Renamon resemble Hikari and Tailmon so yeah, I guarantee you that this also helped into me falling in love with them uwu

[lostinthosebrowneyes]

Pedro Character HCs | Do they believe in ghosts?

Din Djarin

Agnostic would be the best word for Din. He’s about 50/50 skepticism and “well this might as well happen”. His son is a wizard, he’s not about to discount anything. That said, as much as he’d like to see his parents again, he’s not too convinced about the idea of ghosts... At least, not until Luke ever introduces him to his dad and mentors, then Din might start reevaluating some things.

BONUS (Aliens): His son is a little green man from outer space, so... yeah. I think we can safely say he believes in aliens.

Ezra

Ezra is one of those people who will play up believing in ghosts for the entertainment factor but he is a complete skeptic in reality. He tells a great ghost story, sometimes he even manages to fool himself with the noises he’s heard on alien planets, but at the end of the day the dead are just meat. He’d know if it were otherwise; he has accumulated multiple reasons to be haunted over the years.

BONUS (Aliens): Aliens as in a super-intelligent race that abducts and experiments on people, whose existence has never been proven? No. Aliens as in local fauna on alien planets? Sure, he bears witness to those nettlesome little critters all the time.

Frankie Morales

Frankie has seen far too much to be scared of the noncorporeal. He had a healthy sense of fear of the unknown as a kid but after he came back from combat, it all changed. Just because he’s a skeptic doesn’t mean he doesn’t enjoy the thrill. Strangely, supernatural horror almost became... comforting? Nostalgic? Like he missed when the worst thing he saw was bad SFX and somebody floating on strings. It’s not a real danger and that makes it a “safe” scare, like a roller coaster or some other adrenaline high. He loves haunted houses, especially if he goes with Benny who is secretly a believer in the supernatural ever since a young Will fooled him into thinking their attic was haunted.

BONUS (Aliens, Cryptids): I think Frankie is less committal about his feelings on aliens and cryptids. Aliens in the “it’s a big universe, who knows” kind of way, when he’s out camping and gazing at the vastness of the stars above him. Cryptids in the “look, most of it is guys in suits but my cousin’s best friend’s dog was supposedly eaten by a chupacabra” kind of way.

Javier Peña

Javier will never admit to believing in the supernatural. He has seen a lot of bodies and he’s never been haunted -- not supernaturally, anyway. He has superstitious family members so he won’t speak ill of ghosts, but it’s not his personal belief. He’s witnessed a lot of pain and death and he understands the need for the coping mechanism, but that’s all it is. At least, that’s his story and he’s sticking to it.

BONUS (Demons): The thing is, Javi has seen a lot of things over his career. He has seen evil in the hearts of men too many times to deny the concept of it. Javier will tell you to your face that he doesn’t believe in demons, but that doesn’t mean he’s going anywhere near that famous site of a demonic possession. It’s not because he’s scared, it’s because it’s a waste of time. And it’s late. And he has better things to do. Like you. Let’s get home. (Get in the fucking car and let’s gooooo.)

Marcus Moreno

Marcus Moreno isn’t a skeptic, he just doesn’t believe in ghosts. He and Missy would have heard something by now.

BONUS (Everything else): I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if Marcus has fought a demon. If not, he still believes in them. He also believes in mermaids, aliens (hello!), extra-dimensional entities and Bigfoot. Marcus will believe anything until proven false, including but not limited to The Loch Ness Monster. You say they’ve checked the loch top to bottom with cameras and found nothing? Maybe Nessie just can’t be captured by cameras. Marcus is friends with someone named Sharkboy. There are no limits.

Marcus Pike

As I said here, Marcus Pike believes in ghosts. Marcus had ~an experience~ in his college days after he and some friends spent the night in a haunted house on a dare. Ever since he has been convinced there is some form of life after death, even if he doesn’t subscribe to a specific theory of how it all works. He’s not particularly vocal about it, but if you try to make fun of people who believe in ghosts be prepared for him to make the case, “Well you know just because science hasn’t proven it yet-”. In general he’s more into the idea of gentle hauntings than your malevolent poltergeist situation. Ghosts who hold on after death to comfort their loved ones are the kinds of ghost stories that he’s really into.

BONUS (Aliens): As for other supernatural beings, cryptids are all hoaxes and he doesn’t buy the idea of demonic possession. But like Frankie, he thinks it’s not impossible to imagine among all of those stars there might be other worlds with sentient life. Yeah, Marcus believes in aliens, too.

Maxwell Lord

Maxwell is like Marcus Moreno in that he’ll believe almost anything, but like Javier in that he will never admit it. He is incredibly easy to scare but after you get him he will refuse to acknowledge that it happened. If Alistair says he saw a ghost in his closet, Maxwell will not be going to check the closet and show his son everything is fine. He doesn’t want to see a ghost! Alistair can just sleep in his room tonight and they’ll sort it out in the morning. Of course he’ll be telling Alistair how silly he’s being the entire time because ghosts aren’t real obviously! (What was that sound???)

BONUS (Everything Else): Demons, aliens, that’s just another Monday in the DCEU. Of course he believes in those. Magic and gods? Proven fact. Curses? He always keeps a good luck charm on him rather than tempt fate. Cryptids? Well, just because some of those photos have been debunked doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Maybe he should ask his acquaintances the daughter of Zeus and a literal cat lady.

[willel]

So, I've been thinking

Slowly but surely my hope/interest in the next season is increasing. I think it's for one big reason

The US government potentially being the baddies again.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE season 2 and I actually appreciate Dr. Owens. He really was there to clean up a mess, mind his own business, and help out the Byers a little.

I think Owens really believed in his mission, one of the good guys among a sea of bad ones.

But I prefer the US government being one of the antagonist and not always a helping hand, you know? The Russian government just isn't.... spooky enough. It's almost like you'd expect a foreign power to be trying to do bad stuff right? Not just the Russian government in this fictional universe, but any government. Spy movies are popular for a reason.

But I dunno. It feels so much more... right when it's the US government sneaking around in black suits, abducting people or trying to silence people whether legally or illegally.

I really want to see what they're trying to do this season. Even if it isn't the full US government and it's just an organization out to fulfill the same purpose as Hawkins lab once did, that's what I'm really looking forward to.

Maybe it's not just that.

Maybe I like the idea of any human entity, not just supernatural ones, trying to corner our protagonist?

As evil as the Mind Flayer is, he's only one half of the antagonist, know what I mean?

In season 3, the Russians didn't give a shit about our protagonist, specifically El. They were just doing weird experiments for reasons we weren't even told. They're basically just faceless bad guys. It's like we pretty much know the Russians are bound to fail trying to control the Upside Down, they're gonna get wiped out just like the US government. For what other purpose would they open it? It's an unanswered question.

At least with the US government, we know the Upside Down stuff was an an accident of sorts and their true purpose was making weapons and spying devices out of children.

Random thoughts.

[ziracona]

what are your thoughts on deathslinger? game wise or character wise, just in general lol lately i've been really loving wraith and deathslinger as characters and now i've been getting excited whenever i end up on one of their maps or i go against them. (playing deathslinger is gonna take... a LOT of work since im bad at aiming omg lkjskjlds)

Character wise, Deathslinger is one I really appreciate. Almost all killers in DbD fit into 3 categories—manipulated victim (Rin, Philip, Lisa, Sally), feral & no real grasp of normal human laws/customs (Max, Anna, Michael), and serial killer for fun (Danny, Kenneth, Amanda, Freddy). And I really enjoy al three of those categories for the characters, don’t get me wrong, but it’s always especially interesting when we get a killer who is none of the above, and it doesn’t happen much. I like that Caleb was a shitty person, but like, in a totally normal way?

Like, was he bad? Absolutely. Do I kinda get why he went ‘I am 2 seconds from losing it’ & then lost it from that age on at people who kept discriminating against him and betraying and using him & stealing his shit? Yeah. I don’t /condone/ it, or at least, the violence inflicted on like the petty criminals he caught & inmates he gave his warden torture devices to use on, not at all, but like. I appreciate instead of being just a serial killer who somehow had fun killing horribly, Caleb is just some guy who is really mad people ruined his life & wants revenge. Like, I don’t condone the behavior, but like, I get it. That’s a thoroughly understandable motive, and like, a normal one. Having been bad but not like, evil and villainous gleefully to his core or smth wild, I feel like it puts Caleb in a very interesting place in the realm. He’d hate the Entity for sure, since it canonically tricks and lies to and manipulated him to get him to hunt survivors (which I have to assume he will figure out /eventually/ is going on. Entity really ain’t /that/ smart), and since he has never hurt people who didn’t wrong him for fun, only to further his personal goals, I expect he would greatly dislike working for the Entity.

I don’t know that he’s gonna be the most sympathetic human ever to the survivors, or like, even have to be tortured before he goes back to killing once he does find out, but him not wanting to be there or be killing them period & actively hating the Entity for doing this to him, paired with his kind of average human bad dude background, is extremely unique. I feel like it leaves a lot of storytelling potential. I mean, you’ve got a person willing to do really bad stuff and a history of doing it, who simultaneously completely understands what he has done and why and society’s rules & didn’t do any of it on accident or something, but also hasn’t really done any of that because he just wanted to, or gets pleasure from it, or is someone who runs around actively dehumanizing everyone else & thinking he’s above them & they’re subhuman like the serial killers do—I mean, Caleb had normal human relationships—he had loyal friends, all right up to his abduction. So he’s not a loner either. That kind of whole ‘not a good dude at all & done some real bad stuff, but also still kind of a normal person’ makeup? It makes him a very interesting character, especially with Zarina having knowledge of/a connection to him. I think he and The Legion are the only two killers who are kind of in a weird fourth category like that (though some kind of arguments could be made for at least which category Kazan belongs in), and that’s made those two (well, five I guess, haha) extremely interesting characters to write. I like Caleb—I really enjoy him just being kinda gd normal. Average joe shitty, not serial killer. Whole lot of potential directions for a character like that to head in.

As far as in-game goes, I haven’t played as him because I haven’t bought any irl money stuff from DbD in /quite/ a while, so I got no opinion on playing as. He’s pretty fun to go against, though! I think he’s balanced well and most of my experiences w people who play Deathslinger have been nice, so he doesn’t fill me with “ah shit here we go again” like PS4 ghostfaces do >.> lol—[though one time I went against a dude who messaged us all to ask to farm and was super friendly & then the second gates were up, downed everyone he could bc he’d had us following him around, and he was running only endgame perks (noed, fire up, blood warden, etc) & apparently that’s just how he plays every single match—pretend to be friendly for 2 free hooks, then kill everyone in endgame when their guard is down. I made it out but I was swf w a friend I couldn’t save & I’m still mad about someone doing that for fun.] Other than that one dude though, he’s routinely been pretty fun to go against! And I’ve heard he is fun to play as. So I like him game-wise too. ^u^

[bigskydreaming]

@elfysparkles88​

#listen it's a universal problem#I love my mans Scott#everyone is always bagging on him WHY#Scott Summers#X-Men

Its because Scott Summers is inevitably compared and contrasted with those around him, and he has the great misfortune of running in the same circles as an all-star line up of like....just the absolutely most Ridiculous People to Ever Ridick.

We’re talking about a guy whose dad was abducted by aliens and from there went on to decide, welp, guess I gotta become a space pirate now, jaunty earring and all, no, shhh, shh, no, there are no alternatives, I gotta, no, I said no - SHUT IT, I SAID I GOTTA BE A SPACE PIRATE NOW ITS THE ONLY WAY. Oh btw, meet my fianceé. She’s an alien mercenary who is a little like a skunk but don’t call her that to her face or she’ll shoot you in yours. How’s that for swoonworthy, am I right, son?

We’re talking about a guy whose own son was a literal sixty year old Grumpy Old Man overburdened with world-weariness, wildly unnecessary shoulderpads and arthritic joints when Scott was barely hitting his third decade. With said son now randomly being a moody sixteen year old again, with a pet sentient sword he talks lovingly to, because apparently Nathan Summer’s take on teenage rebellion was to act out by being all LOL Fuck Time Travel Paradoxes and then rebelliously zooming around the space/time continuum while blasting a soundtrack of MCR probably, until he finally got a bead on his older self and shot himself in the face while being like “its not that I’m angry with you, I’m just disappointed” and look this is the part where your eyes are gonna wanna just glaze over so your brain can have a break, shhh, shh, don’t ask questions, just let it be, it happened, its a thing.

We’re talking about a guy whose brother rode a merry-go-round of “Am I a good guy this week or am I a bad guy because Reasons or sometimes Brainwashing or sometimes I Don’t Even Fucking Know, Look Don’t @ Me Bro, I Just Fucking Work Here, I’m Not In The Loop” for most of his twenties until dying in a fiery explosion only to inexplicably return years later as a coma patient who finally woke up one day and said “Whoa, just got back from tripping around the multiverse and boy do I have stories cuz apparently I’m the Nexus of All Realities, so hah, SUCK IT, big brother, and yes that is TOO a thing, shut up, LET ME HAVE THIS. Oh and also btw don’t spend a lot on your wedding gift for me and Lorna because I’m gonna leave her at the altar once I realize that I’m actually more in love with the random nurse lady who changed my bed pans while I was in a coma having a romantic rendezvouz with her in Paris in my brain courtesy of her psychic eight-year old kid trying to play matchmaker for her cuz like, she doesn’t date much apparently but its whatever, this is FINE, I have no objections. Ugh why are you looking at me like that Scott, no, I don’t need to “talk” with someone about everything I’ve ‘been through,’ ugh I’m HAPPY you asshole, god, why don’t you ever want me to just be HAPPY ugh you just have to control EVERYTHING with your over-bearing BS like “I am concerned your decision-making processes might be affected by all the people tampering with your decision-making processes over the years” like umm DID I ASK? No? I didn’t think so? YOU’RE NOT MY REAL DAD, SCOTT, UGH THAT DOES IT, IM RUNNING AWAY TO BE A SUPERVILLAIN AGAIN AND THIS TIME ITS TOTALLY YOUR FAULT, YOU’LL BE SORRY WHEN I CRY HAVOK AND LET LOOSE THE DOGS OF WAR THIS TIME FOR SURE, AND OMG FOR THE LAST TIME I KNOOOOOOW THAT’S NOT HOW ITS SPELLED, ITS ABOUT THE AESTHETIC SCOTT, ITS CALLED HAVING A SENSE OF STYLE, UGH, LET ME LIIIIIIIIIIIVE.”

We’re talking about a guy whose other little brother randomly showed up and started killing people one day being like “hahaha surprise, bet you all forgot about me, PS, I’m REALLY FUCKING MAD AT YOU ALL FOR FORGETTING ABOUT ME” because the world’s most powerful telepath made everyone forget about him and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day they all had once and this is fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine, this is normal. As is the way his newly discovered slash remembered slash resurrected slash recently returned from spending the last decade fucking around as a disembodied energy ghost on a rock up in Earth’s orbit little brother then decided the Earth just wasn’t big enough for the both of them, the both of them in this case meaning both him, singular, and his Angst, as a wholly separate and towering entity in its own right. So instead he fucked off to space and decided to conquer a vast alien empire and spend the next several years being their god-emperor or whatever until he got bored with that. And also he kinda sorta killed their dad for a bit but whatever, its fine, he got better, and then he also kinda sorta died for a bit himself but whatever, its fine, he got better, and there was that whole interstellar war between himself and the Inhumans but whatever that wasn’t even his FAULT, Scott, THEY STARTED IT, god, do you ever stop JUDGING ME AND MY LIFE CHOICES and PS I’m still mad at you for killing Xavier, you fucking asshole, not because you did it but because like, you KNOW I wanted to do it, I had a whole fucking villain monologue moment about it and everything, you were literally there, UGH WHY WON’T YOU LET ME HAVE NICE THINGS?!?! YOU ARE THE ENEMY OF FUN AND JOY AND HEY MAYBE YOU WERE THE REAL VILLAIN ALL ALONG, DID YOU EVER THINK OF THAT? HUH? MR. I’M THE BOSS, WAIT WHO’S THE BOSS? OH YEAH STILL ME, SCOTT, I’M THE BOSS, YOU GOTTA STOP BEING A SPACE EMPEROR GABE BECAUSE YOU CAN’T BE THE BOSS, ONLY I AM ALLOWED TO BE THE BOSS BECAUSE I’M THE BOSS AND I SAID SO AND YOU GOTTA DO WHAT I SAY OR I’LL TELL DAD.” 

And that’s not even getting into how we’re also talking about a guy who basically ended up divorcing his first wife and suing for sole custody on the grounds of “Well, your Honor, she tried to sacrifice our son on a literal demonic altar in order to summon Hell to Earth to destroy everything just to get back at me after I left her. Yes, your Honor, I understand that is in fact Asshole Behavior, but there were extenuating circumtances, you see, the woman I left her for was my first love before her who I thought was dead. And also, she was literally my wife before my wife was. No, I don’t mean I was married before Maddie, I mean Jean was kinda pretty much already Maddie before Maddie was Maddie. Its this whole clone thing. Look, I’m just saying it was a complicated situation and I know I have my part to play in it, but I still stand by my conviction that trying to sell out our entire planet and species to the legions of Hell while using the innocent blood of our ten month old as the Golden Ticket to the Chocolate Factory was still a little over the top and not really the right way to handle it either. Also, I contend that I can provide a better home environment at the moment than someone who is insisting on being addressed as The Goblin Queen because what even is that, honestly, Your Honor, and also, she also brainwashed my brother into trying to kill me on her behalf, which to be fair does happen about every other month anyway, but still, like. Dick move, you know?”

And we’re also talking about a guy whose second wife who was kinda sorta his first wife but only in that It Ain’t Bigamy If Its A Clone Thing way....like, I mean. Its kinda hard NOT to come across as the bland one in the relationship when your second wife occasionally moonlights as the AirBnb of choice for a cosmic parakeet goddess of rebirth and fiery destruction who is pretty infamous for the ragers she hosts every time she pops into town for a visit, all smiles and (literal) sunbeams (of scorching lethality) and “Lol hey hot stuff, remember me?” As if someone who ate an alien civilization’s sun the last time she hit a Mood is like....really in danger of ever being “New phone, who dis?”ed. But that is neither here nor there, much like the sentients of Alpha Centauri Bumfuckville after she went all Goodnight Sun, Goodnight Moon, Goodnight Solar System on their corner of the galactic neighborhood, because.....tbh I don’t think she ever actually said “why” there. Its one of those things where if you don’t already KNOW why a cosmic parakeet goddess of rebirth and fiery destruction has decided its nighty-night time for this particular zipcode.....like.....that’s not really something you just ASK, y’know? Its....tacky, probably. Also, low on the self-preservation instincts, probably.

Plus we’re talking about a guy whose second marriage to Yet Another Woman It Probably Should Have Registered As A Bad Idea To PIss Off Like This ended in like....so, okay, this was a bit more His Bad than even Round One was, courtesy of a “Groundbreaking. Revolutionary. Show-stopping” reinterpretation of what was up until this point te much more ambiguous and metaphorically named “Mental Affair” concept. Though it must be said, Scotty always has skewed a bit more towards the literal minded in his personal approach to things, so, y’know. That tracks. But regardless, the pattern remains consistent here, as once again, its not always easy to register on peoples’ radar as anything other than the Plus One when your newest paramour prides herself on being both the entire planning committee AND star attraction of Victoria’s Secret (assuming that said Secret is Secret Aims at World Domination) Presents: A Renaissance Faire. But in an evil and also kinky way. Except now with sixty percent less evil on account of how Emma’s reformed these days, but not a hundred percent less evil because she’s not like, REFORMED reformed, cuz that would be boring, eww, could you imagine, no, you couldn’t, because she won’t let you and she can do that, she’s that good at telepathy and that bad at boundaries. Still the same amount of kinky as before though, but like. That’s just about Strong Branding. After all, at the end of the day Emma Frost is above all else, a good businesswoman.

But yes, she is also a big fan of the Aesthetic, with that aesthetic being Her Whims On Steroids because like they say, go big or go home, and Emma Frost does not believe in going home when she can simply acquire your home instead. Hate the game, not the player. She didn’t make the rules, she just came to win. Point being, its hard to follow up an act like Jean-Who-Is-Sometimes-Phoenix-And-Sometimes-Dark-Phoenix-And-Oh-Hell-She-Cant-Even-Keep-Track-So-How-Could-Anyone-Else-Really, but say what you will about Emma’s wardrobe, she’s more concerned with clothing herself in unapologetic take no prisoners ambition, and as such, her being the follow-up to Scott’s epic romance with his childhood sweetheart turned literal cosmic embodiment of fire and passion, like.....this was never a big checkmark in the con side of a pro and con list for Emma. It was more like oh, yes, hello there, Challenge Absolutely Fucking Accepted.

Which, y’know, all the points to House Frost for showing spine and boy howdy, that’s a spine alright.....but at the same time, going head to head with someone who is classified as a galactic threat when people are deliberately low-balling her, like, for no other reason than you’re bored and your manicure appointment isn’t for another couple hours.....like that’s the kind of thing where it has to be pointed out that there were possibly alternative options worth considering somewhere in between ‘having no spine’ and ‘spiting cosmic entity who can kill you with her brain by stealing her man and saying come at me bro because like....my spine, let me show you it.”

But again, just to reiterate the premise here.....our thesis here today is that Scott Summers Gets a Bad Rap For Being Bland or Boring or Not Standing Out, But In Reality The Issue Is Just That All The People He Knows Are Truly Ridiculous People.

In other words, Scott Summers is no more the Everyman of the X-Men than any of his Truly Ridiculous Friends and Family.

Because an actual everyman would have bounced out of that madhouse way the fuck back in Chapter One: In Which Things Just Got Ridiculous.

Cut to Scott Summers, in contrast: *looks around, purses lips, weighs options* Nah. This is fine.

See also:

His daughter, who didn’t so much arrive after the traditional nine months of waiting and preparing for a bundle of bouncing baby joy but instead just like...plopped back into the past as a full grown woman hailing from a dystopian future she was hellbent on preventing by any means necessary, even if that means had Scott frantically shouting RACHEL NO as she screamed RACHEL YES and sprinted straight at someone like Selene (a villain who has survived 17,000 years of pissing people off and making enemies of actual, literal gods) while thinking “oh yeah, I got this.”

(To be fair, she probably DID have it, or would have, if Logan hadn’t chosen that moment of all moments to have his once-centennial contemplation of “Wait, what if....murder is...NOT good?” Never underestimate the daughter of a cosmic goddess.)

Or see also also:

Scott’s original classmates, including Doctor Hank “I’m not an over-archiever, I’m just stress-eating because its lunchtime and I’ve only revolutionized two whole fields of scientific study so far today,” McCoy, Warren “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful, hate me because I’m a billionaire, wait no, I’m just kidding don’t hate me at all hahaha I’m too sexy” Worthington III, and Bobby “I may look cute and unassuming and like my only priority in life is video games but sike, I too am a potentially cosmic level immortal being of nigh-unlimited power or at least I will be whenever I get around to tapping that potential like I’m currently tapping xy up down A + BBA like a boss, now shhh, don’t interrupt me while I’m kicking ass at Mario Kart I said I’ll GET TO THAT LATER, ugh, JEEZ, my priorities are FINE, Scott, like get off my back already, you’re not even my real dad” Drake.

In conclusion:

Scott Summers is valid, and there may be legions drinking his Hatorade, but make no mistake, its not that he’s Less Than, its that every single person in his social circle is just that damn Extra.

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Emily's Awakening, Part Three

Following a jolt and abrupt halt in her uncontrolled flight, Emily shot through the air and tumbled forward. Immense heat, so fiery that it threatened her skin to blister, made way to flames licking at her nude body, triggering a visceral response; making animal instincts flare up and drive her to new heights of exertion.

She rolled after hitting the ground, stumbling back onto her feet only to run yet farther—only forward—liberating every aspect of the clashing realities and letting this hell burn to the ground with its own flame.

Running, sprinting, up until she stopped sensing her body itself. Until her entire being had become this valley of fire.

A scent of sulfur and something that reminded her of blood or rust—iron—hit her nostrils like a freight train. The heat that accompanied it was out of this world, radiating from a floor made out of red hot cast iron—but it did not hurt Emily.

She stood before a maze and in the center of that maze stood Emily. Or rather, a glowing image, a reflection of herself, lit and radiating with the dim light of that calm blue flame, contrasting the crimson glow of the inferno and lava all around.

Emily finally paused, finding that she didn’t need to catch her breath. Instead, a strange calm filled her. Smoke billowed out from between her lips even though her last cigarette felt like it had burnt down an eternity ago. Fire burnt on her skin—no, it burnt from her skin, escaping through the pores from her blood within—a raging fire. Her skin had lost all semblance of flesh, now made of pure, living iron.

The other Emily—the other one who stood in the center of the labyrinthine pattern of glowing lines—she beckoned Iron Emily to herself. Blue Flame Emily’s blue light glimmered, glowing in a steady counterbalance to Iron Emily’s red-hot rage.

Focus.

Focus.

“What the jailer does not know, is that they are just another prisoner,” Emily whispered. To herself or to anything within the infinity around her; none of that mattered. Recalling Wise Man’s words helped her calm down.

All that mattered was that her mind still functioned and the words emerged from her core, like the whisper and crackle of a flame, like the mantra that heralded an anchor being cast into the water. It didn’t sound or feel like her self anymore, but it was—unmistakably so. Even more her self now than ever before.

Reborn.

No—something was missing. Something crucial. She was still in the process of rebirth.

Iron Emily approached Blue Flame Emily. Her consciousness trailed behind her by half a step, always following, all entities connected by silver threads but remaining out of sync and catching up in a blur.

The fires would meet. Together they would burn brighter than any color.

A beacon of blinding light.

The moment Iron Emily stepped onto the pattern of the maze to cross the floor, a shock wave jolted through her body and an unseen force pushed her back. She could feel the iron of her feet melting into the searing-hot stone of the maze, making her steps weigh a million tons and slowing her advance.

“Wake up,” Iron Emily said to Emily. The words poured out like smoke, smooth and toxic. She was not appealing to a dreaming self, nor was she urging Emily to wake up from a nightmare. Emily was telling Emily to focus—to shed all things that still held her back.

The first thing that weighed her down was a glimpse of another reality—another timeline? Another dimension? A place where Emily sat inside the bright white confines of a psych ward, rocking back and forth and withdrawn from reality altogether, failing to cope with the horrors of being abducted and raped by monsters posing as human beings.

That image loomed behind her like a dark shadow. That alternate existence and everything else behind her—there lied madness.

Only two ways left to go: to turn back and surrender herself to insanity, or to wander the infernal maze and embrace her destiny.

Iron Emily struggled to move, finally lifting a foot and taking her first step into the circular maze. A familiar presence blinked into existence—felt but not seen, then heard but not felt.

“Gay Chris,” as they always called him back in the day. One of her best friends. He stood, leaning against one of the fiery rocks on the edge of the maze, giving off a casual air and unfazed by this surreal hellscape.

“You always rant about all the shit that’s wrong with the world, but what the fuck are you doing about it but ranting? Shut the fuck up if you’re not going to do anything about it,” he said, repeating the words that had inspired Emily to become the truth-seeker she was now.

Even his expression mirrored the one on his face from that decade past—annoyed by his stoned friend’s idiotic tirades. When it clicked for Emily. When she steered her life in a new direction, one in which she would change the world, and the one in which she became a jaded journalist.

“I won’t shut the fuck up,” she replied, now smiling. Originally, she had been taken aback by his words. Now she knew the purpose she had found, the things she had done, and all the things she still wanted to do. “At least I’m fucking doing something now. Can you say the same for yourself, designing graphics for stupid little video games over in Montreal, motherfucker?”

“She won’t be silenced, son,” Detective Tanner said. The law man had appeared behind Iron Emily, seemingly out of nowhere, born from this fiery hell.

Chris chuckled and his skin melted, sloughing off like pudding. The chuckling gurgled and exploded into a bellowing, booming laughter, growing in volume. From the hideous molten flesh emerged a demonic figure, showing its true form.

Emily’s madness.

“Sure, keep acting tough, little girl. Cuffed to the curtain rod while the Grinning Man sinks the blade into your back,” the demon said.

Iron Emily squinted, pushing back the memories of her trauma. But there would be no avoiding them here. She could feel the infernal fires burning away all uncertainty, peeling away the layers of her flesh like the skin of an onion till all that was left was the stark realities underneath, and the core of who she truly was.

Thing being, Emily was not afraid of that anymore. She was not afraid of her true self. She knew her flaws, her weaknesses, all the rough edges and the inconsistencies that she believed to burden the world around her with.

Part of her true self was this thing—this demon—and she felt no shame about it. No regrets. She was more in tune with who she was than ever before. She remembered it from her drug trip in Rodney’s basement. And here it was again, haunting her.

She let her gaze sweep back and forth between Tanner and the demonic entity that had worn Gay Chris as a disguise.

“What the fuck do I call you?”

“Tanner,” said the entity looking like Detective Tanner.

“Okay. And you? You’re not Chris anymore,” she said, nodding at the demon. “Here’s your chance to pick a cool name, because I sure as hell am gonna give you a dumb one just to piss you off.”

The demon cackled and growled, “I am what lurks at the bottom of each glass of booze you drown yourself in.”

“Alright. Suit yourself, asshole. I dub thee Stinky Jim.”

This also amused the demon, prompting more mad cackling.

A sense of uneasiness returned. It reminded her of the presence of the Grinning Man. Always behind her, closing in for the kill. Murder in the eyes, just watching her.

Emily dared to shoot a glance over her shoulder, peeking at the infernal madness behind her, raging at the edges of the maze. From it emerged Hal, carrying the studio camera, approaching her.

“Clever, Emily. Now show us how much of a ‘highly-functioning alcoholic’ you really are. Not sure you ever managed to pull off that magic trick, you dumb bitch,” he sneered, keeping the camera trained on her. The red light on the camera flashed menacingly, matching the beat of the all-devouring madness, beating to the pulse of this Pandemonium.

Stinky Jim cackled more at this, and melted into a puddle of searing-hot lava on the floor. Emily chose to ignore Fake-Evil Hal and look straight ahead.

Kept her eyes on Blue Flame Emily.

Still she could feel the camera, hovering right behind her. Watching her every move. Some part of her knew this was her own insanity, a part of herself that was judging her, testing her. Prodding her with every single bad memory, and exposing everything she thought or desired.

Fake-Evil Hal reminded her of her self-destructive, self-hating streak.

“You have to keep going,” Tanner said. Emily wanted to imagine that she reminded him of her father, but Tanner didn’t. If anything, he reminded her of what she imagined a father figure to be like, and what such a man would do now. “You got this,” he added on cue.

“Are you really Tanner?” she asked him. Because while everything and everybody else felt like manifestations of her self, Tanner’s presence felt so—off. Out of place.

He turned and pointed to the wall behind him. Instead of the obsidian and granite that comprised the solid structures within this fiery hell, he stood within the confines of his office at the precinct.

A red yarn connected pins on the corkboard there, drawing lines between different photos, maps, and pink Post-it notes. She remembered this “paranoia wall” of his quite well.

“It’s not paranoia when they’re really out to get ya,” he reiterated. “This shit sandwich is made in the top echelons,” he told her, tapping the Post-its with question marks at the head of the maze-like map he had created. She knew what he meant: that it went all the way up to the police chief. “I’ll do what I can, but you need to be careful.”

A presence neared, heavy with malice. As both Emily and Tanner turned in unison to gaze upon its visage, more of the projection of the detective and his office overlapped with the fiery maze. Through the milky obscuring glass on his office door, silhouettes approached. Shadows. Nebulous, faceless, and evil.

Converging on Tanner.

“You gotta go. Never give up,” Tanner said.

Emily wanted to tell him that things would be different now, but the moment she turned to tell him so, Tanner and his office transformed into ashes, like thin sheets of paper burning up in a flash. The violent winds of the inferno swept the ashes away, scattering them in every direction, and absorbing the embers like they never existed in the first place.

Tanner was gone and a pang of guilt hit Iron Emily in the gut.

He was right, she had to go. She strained and tried to lift her legs, but her feet had fused with the smooth stone ground beneath her.

“Welcome to the Emily show, where everybody is rooting for everybody else—yelling at the screen and hoping to see you fail. Because you’re such a vile piece of shit,” Fake-Evil Hal said, still behind her, a presence holding the camera. “Did I say everybody? Hah, don’t let it get to your head. Nobody likes you, and nobody’s watching. You’re the only viewer, you self-loathing, self-involved whore.”

Emily took a deep breath and exhaled more smoke. She flipped Fake-Evil Hal the bird without even turning around or giving him the satisfaction.

Then she pushed forward, pulling her limbs with all her might. Taking one difficult step at a time, her iron legs thudding against the accursed stone with tremendous weight as she made her way into the maze.

Blue Flame Emily looked so close, but felt so far. So infinitely far away. Every step Iron Emily took, the stone ignited and burned beneath her feet, threatening to melt her down and swallow the molten metal that her body had transformed into.

Roaring jets of bright white flames shot forth from the lines of the maze. Where the walls of this labyrinth had only occupied an imaginary space, now deadly fire forced Emily to wander through its forlorn paths.

“Only you can walk this path,” Miranda’s words echoed in her thoughts.

And walk she would.

Thick clouds of ashes and flames exploded from the walls of the maze, dragging deadly fog through the fiery corridors. Iron Emily felt the heat inherent, so hot that it would singe all her hair. But she had not a single hair on her body because iron made up her entire being now.

Even with this invulnerability to the fire, she instinctively raised her hand to shield her eyes from the toxic cloud of suffocating ashes. She could breathe smoke but held her breath as if it mattered. Every step she took to move forward she made in complete blindness.

When she dared to open her eyes, the world had changed again.

Unlike in the maze, the smoke she exhaled was born from a lit cigarette. Emily let her hand holding the cigarette lazily droop off the side of the bed in which she now lay. Sweat and the smell of sex clung to her and she glowed. So did the man next to her, with whom her legs were entangled. The legs of her love: Julian.

Just like she remembered, he smiled at her when he plucked the cigarette from between her fingers and snuffed it out in a glass of water.

“I thought you said you wouldn’t need those anymore if it was just that good?” he asked.

The maze faded quickly from the forefront of Emily’s mind and made way for a warm, soft feeling throughout her entire being. It crept across her face, stretching her lips into a warm smile.

“Maybe it just wasn’t that good,” she whispered coyly.

She rolled over and rested her head on his chest, tracing the lines of his arm with the tip of her index finger.

He chuckled and gingerly brushed strands of her hair aside, then fondled the curve of her ear and the back of her neck with his hand. They both radiated with heat—not that of fire and destruction, but a heat of passion and deep-rooted love.

She remembered this night. You don’t forget the ones in which the sex you had stands out as some of the best you ever had. But the inferno and the madness that had brought her back here still lingered, chipping away at the back of her mind.

Even in reality, she found Julian’s apartment incredible. Living there as long as she had always made her think she was dreaming. It never quite matched where she came from and where she imagined to be going in life. And alas, it existed only in a short-lived bubble of time, a sweet memory sandwiched in between harrowing experiences.

One wall of the spacious bedroom consisted of glass, beyond which a twinkling sea of lights sprawled across the horizon of a nightly sky—the skyline of Los Angeles sparkled in warm colors, fuzzy and distant.

Lost in this moment when it had been a reality, Emily wanted to lose herself in it again. Never again, she believed, would she experience a comfort like this in her life. She drank in Julian’s scent, basked in his warmth, and swam in a sea of harmonious bliss.

This was her home.

“I can’t wait till we get married,” he said. He rested his palm against her lower back, hot and soothing at the same time.

And there it was again—the madness, chipping away, scratching at the back of her consciousness. Reminding her that this was not real.

She exhaled sharply through her nostrils but lingered where she lay. She turned her head to gaze dreamily into the tiny orange lights of the skyline, to rest her ear on his chest and listen to the calming rhythm of his heartbeat.

Emily savored this memory and place for as long as she could before replying.

“I’m so sorry, Julian, but that isn’t real. You never said that. I was going to propose to you before Kathryn Shaw killed you.”

She hugged him tightly, holding close to him.

“None of this is real.”

The bedroom door opened. Julian entered, wearing the jogging clothing she had gotten him for his birthday, darkened around the neck and pits where the fabric had soaked up sweat. No less attractive, he brandished a feeble smile as he blinked and looked upon Emily from across the room. His eyes were wet with sadness and concern—and longing. The smile faded from his face once his gaze shifted from her to the Julian she lay with on the bed, upon which he squinted.

The Julian by the door instantly felt more real to her.

“You can’t fool her. She is too strong for that,” Real Julian said.

She pushed herself up, away from False Julian. This one smiled back at her, but his smile had an almost sinister air about it now. His body lost all definition and melted down into a pile of gray ooze, bubbling goo that seeped into the sheets of the bed and vanished entirely, leaving only sweaty stains. Emily felt like she should have been more startled at this, but everything made perfect sense here.

By the time Real Julian had approached, she sat up straight on the edge of the bed. When he cradled her cheeks in his hands, her eyes welled up with tears, blurring her vision of him. With the soft light and her sights a mess, he looked an angel.

How fitting, she thought. Just like the memories blur.

But he wiped the tears away with his thumbs and knelt by her side to match her eye level.

“You have to carry on. Continue on. Only you can walk this path, and only you can do this,” he said. And every word resonated with that sense of natural strength inherent in his being. Everything good about him that she remembered and cherished.

A lump formed in Emily’s throat and tightened, making it harder to hold back the tears, and impossible to say anything.

“I will always be with you,” he said.

His warm, genuine smile forced the sparkling tears from his own eyes.

Before Emily could answer, she had to gulp, rid herself of that lump in her throat. It was the most painful thing to swallow, because she wanted to tell him how much she loved him. Tears rolled down her cheeks like pure little pearls of sorrow.

Before she could say anything, he pulled her close and then melded with her—passed into her, like a ghost, dissolving as they merged. Real Julian became one with her and the warmth that she had always felt in the memories of him filled her, making her soul hum and her essence scintillate. She glowed with light—constant, like a lantern, and soothing; unlike the violently flickering flames of her rage. They flashed in a blue light for a brief moment.

“Goodbye, Julian,” she said, breaking the words as she choked on them.

“This is no goodbye,” he said. His voice was everywhere and nowhere. It didn’t exist, yet it came from deep within. “You will always have me by your side.”

With the tears fully streaming from her weary eyes, she wiped them with her entire forearm, sobbing in silence and this strangely comforting solitude. When she looked down upon her nude body, it was iron again, with her hand clad in the strange gauntlet.

She rose from her seat on the bed’s side, shot one last longing glance at the skyline of Los Angeles—reminiscing on how this represented the one short phase in her life during which she truly knew happiness—and made her way to the bedroom door.

Just twisting the doorknob and pulling lightly on it, a gust of mighty wind blew it wide open, nearly knocking her back, and a flurry of ash and embers flowed through. Flames licked around the edges of the frame, incinerating everything and devouring this place of solace. Rather than succumbing to despair, Iron Emily shielded herself with the gauntlet and marched through, continuing through the fiery walls of the maze.

Her limbs weighed heavier than before, as if she had to grow stronger just to lift her legs and press on. Where she had been moving effortlessly through Julian’s bedroom, she now felt the weight of the iron in her soul, threatening to stop her in her tracks.

“You have to carry on,” Julian’s words echoed in her mind, feeding the pure flames of her will.

And she did, groaning as it took more and more out of her essence to stride forth, doubly so when the walls flared up, trying to discourage her from continuing and instead whispering to her; luring her into a false sense of security, promising an escape that the self-destructive madness behind her might offer. With the growing flames of the maze’s walls, another cloud of thick black smoke billowed out from them and engulfed her whole.

The tears had long dried—burned away by the searing heat. When the plumes parted and her vision cleared, she gazed upon her family life. Times growing up, ghostly rooms taking shape and dissolving before her eyes as she continued to wander through the maze without ever taking a wrong turn or even considering to turn back.

Here, she argued with Willow. There she played with Hannah. Being the middle child of three sisters always had been a mixture of blessing and curse. Willow, older, strong and aloof, always daddy’s favorite. Hannah, younger, sweet and doe-eyed, always pampered and cut some slack. Young Emily had to settle on the hand-me-downs from Willow but never had to feel the jealousy towards Hannah that Willow felt. Teenage Emily was cut no slack, expected to excel wherever Willow failed, and be a perfect example for Hannah.

Little Emily woke up in a panic from a nightmare and wandered into the living room. Dark, save the cold blue glow from the television set on the stand that her father was staring into. Tears streaked down Little Emily’s eyes as she approached him and told him about her bad dream. Mom was out of town on work.

Black rings of exhaustion lined Dad’s eyes from the long hours at work he had put behind him—from the time before he started his own hardware store—and he put most of his attention into the news on TV. Her repeated attempts to earn some comfort or calm from him only added to his annoyance with her that night, gnawing at his patience.

He slapped her. Stunned her. Told her he was too tired for this. Had an apology written on his face, but said nothing to that effect. She cried and went back to bed, alone, sobbing in solitude. He never did apologize, though that was the only time he ever hit her—and to Emily’s knowledge, hit anybody in his family.

Unlike in her raw memories, she suddenly heard a whisper. A thought. Then more, reaching her through the ether. These thoughts were not her own, but her father’s, forming in Iron Emily’s mind like speech, “Fuck, I can’t believe I just did that. Should I say something? I’ll apologize tomorrow. I mean, she really should respect me and leave me alone when I tell her to. God, she looks so miserable and pathetic. I’ll fix this tomorrow.”

Maybe things would have been different back then, had she known his thoughts. Iron Emily then wondered if hearing her thoughts was not just the madness catching up to her.

Iron Emily hardened and pulled her legs up, taking one step after another with renewed vigor, finding yet greater strength to continue. Nothing would be easy—nothing ever was. Though she vowed to not forget those who helped or loved her, she would expect no help from anybody. She left the sobbing Little Emily behind, the little girl who had strangely grown from this bit of trauma.

At a party her mother was hosting, Young Teenage Emily kept telling Mom that she didn’t want to play the guitar. A bunch of grown-up friends of Mom whom Emily didn’t particularly like were there, staring awkwardly and trying to not interfere with the minor drama unfolding.

Sure, Young Teenage Emily could play the guitar a little bit. But despite being a heavy metal enthusiast, she had never really gotten into it. Instead of going to all the lessons her parents paid for, she would rather hang out with Gay Chris, Carlos, Rodney, and Jimmy—getting high and talking about politics and philosophy with the average stoner’s depth of a shallow pond.

She could play a few chords, a few riffs, and had a shaky grasp on rendering some common songs. Just capable enough to softly play a couple of pieces on her acoustic guitar.

Mom haranguing her to perform something she neither wanted to nor thought she was particularly good at embarrassed her deeply, let alone in front of all these people she didn’t even know or give two shits about.

“Mom, come on. No.”

“You’re so talented, there’s nothing to be afraid of,” Mom hissed at her.

“I don’t wanna. I’m not even warmed up.”

“Come on, Emily, I believe in you.”

“No! I’m not going to play the stupid fucking guitar, alright?” Young Teenage Emily exploded, and Iron Emily could almost lip-sync it word for word; with that outburst having burnt itself into her memory.

Everybody stared. Someone bit their lip in the uncomfortable silence that ensued. Someone else almost cleared their throat, then changed their mind as to not draw attention to themselves.

Young Teenage Emily stormed out of the room. She went to her own room, brooded and paced for a few minutes, then climbed out of her window and went to hang out with her friends.

Iron Emily, however, witnessed what happened after Young Teenage Emily had left the scene.

Was this her imagination? The madness of this maze and her crumbling mind now manifesting in these scenarios, filling in the blanks? Or was the unfettered power of this place bleeding through reality, piercing the veil of time and space and showing her something that Young Teenage Emily had never seen?

Her mother went to the nearest couple and complained about her.

“I just don’t know what to do about her anymore. We tried everything to raise her right, but she started listening to heavy metal and smoking, and I think her friends are just a bad influence on her,” she said.

The guests did not contradict her. They nodded with their awkward, fake smiles, not trying to feed the fires of this conflict or take part in it in any way.

“She is always so angry, and explodes like that all the time. I think we really need to get her into counseling. Or therapy,” her mother said, shaking her head, explaining the situation to yet other guests.

The guests all tried to duck away from this conversation, growing uncomfortable. Emily could hear their thoughts; knew they wanted nothing to do with any of this. Disgust and rage welled up in the heart of Iron Emily, who silently and invisibly watched this unfold.

Foreign memories and minds broadcast their thoughts into her own consciousness; it was the only explanation. She couldn’t just be imagining this.

“You can change this,” Stinky Jim said from behind Iron Emily. He chortled, smoky and sinister. “You can make her pay.”

“For what?” Iron Emily asked. “She’s not all wrong.”

Stinky Jim cackled, “Oh, just wait, then. It’s going to get even better now.”

The guests were not impressed. Emily’s mom didn’t seem to understand that those nearby just wanted this awkward situation to end. They would nod and smile but those smiles were strained and their participation and compassion feigned. Some of them wanted to leave the party.

“She talked her older sister out of her relationship with her boyfriend and into lesbianism,” her mother lied, shaking her head with a theatrical sigh.

“The fuck,” Iron Emily growled. Her teeth screeched like a fork on the chalkboard as she ground them together as a result of the anger welling up in her gut.

Stinky Jim’s cackling erupted into full-blown laughter.

“She wasn’t even twelve years old when she started shoplifting. And that was after we caught her stealing toys from other kids. We did all we could, but she just—she never listens. There’s only so much you can do to raise a kid right, right?” her mother lied.

She kept inventing things to make Emily look bad and garner pity from her friends. Those same friends averted their eyes, exchanged nervous glances, and paid less and less attention to her; not engaging and only causing Emily’s mother to pile more and more brazen lies on top.

“She stole our car when she could barely reach the gas pedals and gave us quite the headache when we had to foot the bill for repairs.”

“The police brought her home one night and let her off easy, you know how it is.”

“I think she tried heroin.”

Stinky Jim’s laughter swelled to ever greater volume each time she lied about misdeeds Emily never committed. All the while, Iron Emily’s insides boiled. She refused to let the rage take control any longer. What if her mind could slice through space and time and change this? Stop this bullshit? But what if that obliterated her mother’s mind? The minds of her guests? Her morals clashed with her wrath.

“You have sworn to expose the truth. You could do that right here and now if you put your mind to it. You have real power now. Even greater power than you’re willing to embrace. You can punish liars. Just gotta use your head,” Stinky Jim said, egging Iron Emily on. He stoked the fires of wrath in the depth of her being. Part of her wanted to give in and test the limitations of her power; wanted to make her mom pay for doing this.

But Iron Emily gathered herself. Breathed. Focused. Took control over the rage. Just like the old homeless man told her to. She wanted so badly to lash out, but she had to get out of this. She remembered where she truly was: inside the fiery maze. Not in this moment.

She would let it slide. The realities of future times slid into being, overlapping and overlaying this scenery.

Nowadays, Emily visited her mother regularly. Mom would talk about conspiracy theories after her long combined shifts of dog sitting, working at her backwater supermarket, and work in a retirement home. Emily would take the time to debunk or confirm whatever nonsense she had picked up from the yellow press and Facebook.

Maybe their relationship would transform, now that Iron Emily knew of this day and what horrible things her mother had said about her in her absence. Still, she wondered if any of this was even real.

Stinky Jim laughed and didn’t even need to say anything.

Iron Emily knew this was real. Realities clashing, connecting; she stood in an intersection of worlds.

The imagery faded away like smoke being dragged away by a gust of wind. As it cleared, only more imagery unfolded beyond it: places Emily had never been. Moments of minds that never reached her, thoughts that bounced around in her skull.

Her mom sat alone in the glow of a TV set in a dark room, when Emily’s exposé on the human trafficking ring aired on national television. She sat up in surprise when she saw Emily on screen, personally delivering some statements, followed by voice-over narration for the segment.

Surprise. Pride. Mom was proud of her now. She cried tears of joy and she was proud of what her little girl had become: exposing those monsters, cracking the veil wide open and revealing those injustices for all to see. She wiped her tears and could not stop listening and watching. The content of the exposé upset her; learning of the personal fates of individual victims—such as Tran—caused her mother to feel sick. But above all the emotional upheaval lingered a profound happiness and pride over her daughter’s accomplishment.

Not only her mother felt this way. As the fiery winds carried embers and whisked away these images as well, they revealed a room in which her father, Sean, sat on the couch next to his second wife, Christine. They, too, watched TV and saw the same exposé airing on national TV.

He stared into the glow of the device, wide-eyed and surprised. His mind swam in the same place: proud of his daughter’s achievement. Sean also regretted how little contact they still had and for the first time in his life, realized how much of that had been on him.

By contrast, Christine’s thoughts circled in different, darker places. She saw Emily’s success on clear display on the television and only wondered how she could help her biological daughter to be more successful than Emily. These pieces of thoughts and feelings did not just reach Emily’s being like spoken words, intercepted by her mind, but they took more tangible forms.

Stinky Jim’s laughter had long gone silent. Though Iron Emily felt his presence, his quiet only spelled out a tense anticipation. A curiosity. Emily stood on the precipice of discovering something new, and the demon of madness could hardly wait to see her experience that breakthrough.

She tasted Christine’s personal vice. Sour and bitter and artificial and unsatisfying, like sucking on a piece of plastic-covered cardboard. Christine’s pride burned brightly, and Emily tasted it as clearly as the aftertaste of coffee and cigarettes clinging to her tongue.

Christine got up in a huff and switched the TV off.

“Enough of that,” she told Sean.

“What if you could burn that nonsense right out of her?” asked Stinky Jim.

Iron Emily shook her head and shut her eyes.

Smoke and fire tore through this memory, tearing Emily away from the insights it delivered. When she opened her eyes again, the memories of her parents had made way for the inferno of the labyrinth once more. Iron Emily had seen enough, anyway. Daddy, for whom she was never good enough, was proud of her. She dismissed the spark of defiance that threatened to arise in her, and decided to embrace this little victory for what it was. She would hold onto that.

Emily could have touched their minds, changed their being, but decided against it.

The smoke billowed past her and violent winds fought her progression. Still she continued on, one deliberate step after another. Every time, the heat threatened to melt her, she forced her legs to lift and take another step, yet again.

“You’re not special,” said the demon behind her. “You’re no better than anybody else, sitting on your high horse. You and your stupid moral high grounds. Fictions you cling onto to make yourself feel better when all you’re doing is looking down on the rest of the shit-stains that populate the world around you. You probably think you’re so great for not using your newfound mojo, not reaching into their petty little human minds and wrenching around in there. So noble I could puke. So responsible. But let’s see just how long that lasts.”

With a thunderclap, a torrent of flames exploded outwards, cascading through the maze’s corridors towards Emily. She braced herself, leaning into the massive weight of her iron body. She clutched her hand in front of her—the iron gauntlet—it pierced her mind, cutting through every thought when she closed her eyes. Always there, even when she tried not to think about it. Now shielding her from these infernal forces.

The maze took her to another place.

“Let’s see who you really are when you stare into the abyss,” growled the demon.

After a double take, Iron Emily knew she stood in Starkford Penitentiary. A different part of it; a section she had never seen with her own two eyes—the mess hall where the inmates ate.

Kathryn Shaw sat in between other women, all of them dressed in their bright orange jumpsuits. The woman who had murdered Julian with a two-by-four. She ate from her tray, stuffing her face; a face deformed by too much plastic surgery.

Julian’s murderer didn’t look like she had aged a day. Iron Emily realized that this must have been some time after she had gone to the prison to get answers from Kathryn. Probably a good deal after, or she would have still been a sporting a black eye or two from when Emily lost her mind and attacked her.

Iron Emily cringed as a sea of thoughts and emotions crashed in on her from every direction. The minds of all the inmates and guards here washed over her, drowning her in waves of despair and contempt and surrender and negativity. The tempest of emotions clouded her with such intensity that her own rage towards Kathryn Shaw had no room to well up again.

“You know you can do more than just read minds, right? You can reach into them and clutch. Grab. Tear. Squeeze. Rend,” said the demon. His growls came through gritted teeth. Emily could hear the sadistic grin growing on his face without even looking at him. “You can kill with a thought, little girl. Just think hard enough and focus your mind like a blade. One precise thought, sharp like a guillotine’s edge. That’s all it takes.”

Iron Emily focused. The world froze for a split second and she pushed all the thoughts back. The chatter, like a million radios running different programs all at the same time, all went silent. Even Stinky Jim choked, unable to taunt her any more for now. All minds blocked out at once—all but one. The screech of microphone feedback died down and all she heard was a faint whisper, coming from Kathryn’s direction. The only thoughts Emily was curious about now.

Sadness.

It hit her like a truck, overwhelming her senses, making her light-headed and dizzy. Iron Emily didn’t feel tethered in place by her iron body at all any more, rather as light as a feather, like she teetered back and forth and nearly fell down.

Stinky Jim’s claws gingerly clutched her by her shoulders and helped her stay standing.

“Why would I kill her now?” Emily asked. It took her a moment until it dawned on her: the same sadistic grin she sensed to be forming on the demon’s maw was now plastered across her own lips. “She’s right where she belongs. Getting what she fucking deserves. Rotting in prison for the rest of her life. Justice isn’t served if I kill her now. Being a husk and withering away in prison would be the right punishment for this crazy bitch. Fuck her.”

The sadness made way to imagery. Emily could see the movie playing in Kathryn’s mind; glimpses of her own little world. A bizarre fantasy that defied all semblance of reality.

Full-on delusions. Kathryn saw herself getting out of prison soon. She had fooled herself into thinking she was some sort of A-list celebrity. Had all the famous directors lined up, ready to talk to her once she was out of here. She would be even more famous than before going into the slammer. Her private army of lawyers would get her out long before she had served her full sentence. Make a mint off of an autobiography book deal, too.

Julian wasn’t dead in Kathryn’s little fantasy world, either. Part of why she’d get out so easily.

Sure, none of it was real. But Kathryn believed it with all her heart and soul.

Stinky Jim roared with laughter.

“Justice, huh? Ten years later, she’ll still be happy in her blissful little make-believe castle. And where will you be?” he asked, egging her on. “Kill her, killer. I know you’ve got it in you.”

Emily rocked back and forth in the padded cell. Iron Emily screamed and willed that image away. Nobody in the mess hall heard the scream. They just carried on with their lives, lips smacking as they ate the slop served up as meals.

“Fuck this. And fuck you, Stinky Jim. Killing Kathryn serves no one,” Iron Emily cursed. The inner fire of defiance exploded outwards, wreathed her in fire. She spoke in multiple menacing voices when she added, “I am being reborn now. And this is what I was meant to do—reveal the truth.”

Iron Emily focused. She breathed fire, like a dragon. Holding out her hand, the gauntlet around her fist was real. She unfurled her fingers, marveling at their claw-like shape. She focused harder, and the world breathed her, sucking her towards Kathryn, pulling her through a vortex of intertwining realities. Iron Emily stood behind Kathryn and reached into her mind with the gauntlet-clad hand.

She tasted the pride in Kathryn’s mind, for it tasted the same bitter disgusting plastic way that Christine’s vice shared. With the gauntlet, she gripped at the barriers inside of Kathryn’s brain with all her might—taking hold of the prison bars and expensive doors and beautiful illusions that Kathryn Shaw had erected around her core self to protect her mind from the horrors she had inflicted and the horror that she had become.

The gauntlet clenched shut into a fist. Crushed, shattering glass and mortar, bending steel like it was nothing. Iron Emily tore away at the walls of Kathryn’s delusions, peeling them back until Julian’s murderer could glimpse reality for just one moment.

She was here for murdering Julian Stone. She was serving a life sentence in Starkford Penitentiary. Her career was over. Her cell mate hated her. One of the cooks probably spit in her food. Her life was hell, and all of it was her own making.

Emily didn’t even need to construct these thoughts. They all came pouring in on their own, the stark and cruel weight of reality crashing inside like a lake flowing in through a breaking dam.

Kathryn’s fork dropped into her food tray. Her jaw dropped and her eyes widened to the size of saucers. The harsh truths of the world outside the fantasy she had created caught up with her.

Iron Emily wept tears of fire and sealed the illusion again. Just a glimpse. Just enough to make her suffer for a brief moment. Just enough to make her pay. But it rang hollow. It gave Iron Emily no satisfaction. Kathryn’s evident suffering even filled Emily with a short pang of guilt. She shrugged it off and screamed into the void again, getting no response from anybody in the prison.

Only Stinky Jim responded—with more sadistic laughter. The inmates and guards all melted away, transforming into smoke and embers. They spiraled upwards until the fiery walls of the maze subsumed them all, and Iron Emily was surrounded by the inferno again.

“How the fuck was that better than killing her? You heartless bitch,” the demon said. “Can’t wait to see what crimes against humanity you’re capable of committing.”

Iron Emily ignored him and swiveled, struggling to find her way through the firestorm. Her heart beat faster when she gazed upon Blue Flame Emily, an unsteady beacon shining out from the center of the maze. The flames grew larger and obscured that vision, but Iron Emily had seen her clearly enough to know: she had gotten much closer. Halfway there.

She refused to be the Emily in that padded cell. She refused to give up now. Just thinking that, realizing that—it filled her with new vigor. Her soul flared up with newfound determination. The next steps she took to brave the maze came much easier; each one of them much lighter than the last.

She would make it. She would see what destiny had in store for her.

—Submitted by Wratts

[the-lady-bryan]

old sailor moon fic idea i had

so i had this idea ages back and i can’t find my notes from it, but it was this sailor moon fanfic wherein it’s after the Stars arc and Usagi and Mamoru have gone and gotten married at last, and they’re away on their honeymoon to America (since Mamoru was originally on his way to Harvard when he was abducted?/Killed? it’s been a while since i’ve read the manga) and basically they’re out of the country and unable to come back for some time.

And the world has been peaceful and stuff, to the point that the senshi have forgotten that sometime soon some big event is going to happen that’s going to cause earth to be frozen until the 30th century, and then Usagi will become Neo-Queen Serenity and establish Neo-Crystal Tokyo. Like, this has to happen, but because of there being no need for the sailor senshi for quite a long time now, they just kind of.... had it slip their minds that something terrible is going ot be happening soon.

anyway, so usagi’s around 20-21 at this time, and she becomes Neo-Queen Serenity at age 22 (according to the manga, i think). So that’s the situation up to the point of when i have the AU set.

So, while Usagi and Mamoru are away on their honeymoon, a mysterious enemy begins appearing and leaving withered husks of people in their wake. or places where they’ve appeared or attacked look like they’ve become ancient ruins and stuff like that. by the time the sailor senshi arrive to deal with the situation though, every time, there’s other people there and they’ve just defeated the bad guys and are about to leave.

well one day, the hikawa shrine is attacked directly and Rei transforms to fight the monster before the mysterious heroes arrive. and while she’s strong, the enemy is stronger. when the mystery heroes get there, she gets a good look at them and sees that they wear armor rather than a traditional sailor senshi uniform. but some of their attacks are very similar to ones she and the senshi use, even if the names of the attacks are different. mind you, there’s only like, 3 or 4 of these heroes at the time. when the fight’s over she’s like “who are you people? are you here to help us?” and one in gold armor is like “you could say that.” and then they leave.

anyway, so the plan for the story was for these heroes to end up joining the sailor senshi to fight off this new evil and over the course of the story, which was going to be chaptered and rather long, the senshi learning that these heroes are the Knights of the Golden Millennium Solar Kingdom, which is from a parallel universe, and their universe was destroyed by an evil entity called Entropy, which was that universe’s version of Chaos. And this other universe is genderswapped, save for the Knight from Uranus, who’s non-binary (AMAB). And it’s not a weird time thing that’s happening to the places where these attacks happen, it’s pieces of their world manifesting in the sailor senshi’s universe. A universe where Earth is a ruinous wasteland because the evil sorcerer King Beryllium managed to win the war against the Golden Millenium and kill Queen Serenity, who was not residing on Earth’s moon at the time, but on the planet Apollo, which was situated between Mars and Jupiter. The knights had been forced to take refuge in a neighboring star system as Beryllium took over their entire solar system for his master, Entropy.

Anyway, so eventually the two teams will fully team up, the senshi will get a power boost (but not new forms), and basically have to hold the fort until Usagi and Mamoru get back. The couple end up getting back to Japan during a lull in the fighting period and get caught up on what’s been happening.

I forget what happened between this point and the big battle against the baddie, but essentially it was a situation where the knights end up sacrificing their lives to help Usagi freeze the world to stop Entropy from spreading, and Prince Apollo, the genderswapped Usagi, uses his golden crystal (again, the other universe version of the Silver Crystal), and temporarily fuses it with the silver crystal to trap Entropy and send it where it can never harm anyone again... only, that doesn’t exactly go to plan - as it ends up being sent to the Cauldron (the same galaxy cauldron from the Stars arc), where it will end up ultimately fusing with Chaos leading to a more powerful enemy waaaaay in the future for Sailor Cosmos to fight.

Prince Apollo dies, with his final wish being that Usagi keep his crystal and that one day, if the universe is ever in danger from Entropy again, she is to take his powers and use them herself to protect life.

eons later, when all is lost, this will ultimately lead Neo-Queen Serenity to combine the Silver Crystal with Apollo’s golden one, giving her the ultimate form of Sailor Cosmos, elevating her power to that of godhood so that she can fight Chaos, who is now the combined powers of Chaos and Entropy.

Cosmos will flee at some point into the past to help Eternal Sailor Moon - the Stars arc - and when she returns, the fires of her hope re-lit, she knows what she must do. because she’s already done it once before. she fights Chaos, and manages to lure it back into the cauldron and this time she goes with it, and tells the guardian fairy that yes, she wishes to start again.

And so, in the cauldron, the powers of sailor cosmos and of chaos are dissolved, broken down into their most basic components. first chaos is separated from entropy. then each separated from their star seeds. then the seeds sent out. their essences scattered once again into the void to eventually coallesce into existence again. and sailor cosmos’s power is broken down as well. the silver and golden crystals separated again. the silver crystal’s power broken down further into smaller chunks - star seeds - and sent out to a fledgling solar system. the golden crystal is broken down into smaller chunks... but rather than star seeds, these are heart sparks - which is what they were called in the parallel universe - which rather than go into a person, they go into the cores of the planets and planetoids of that same fledgling solar system that the silver crystal star seeds went to. one star seed goes to what will become Earth’s moon while one spark bypasses it and the world forming between what would become mars and jupiter, and goes directly into the heart of the star in the center of the new solar system, Sol.

And it’s revealed at the end by the fairy that this is a never-ending cycle. sure, the little things change constantly with each iteration, but the key points of each “cycle” remains the same. chaos and entropy will rise up, and to protect all life, a king and a queen will rise up as well and use their combined power to cleave the universe in two, leading to two parallel universes. in one entropy, in another chaos. and sometimes it swaps - the star seeds will fight entropy and the heart sparks will fight chaos. but eventually one will fall and rejoin the other. Sometimes there’s Neo-Queen Serenity, sometimes there’s Neo-King Apollo. Sometimes there’s Sailor Cosmos at the end of all things. Sometimes it’s the Cosmic Knight. But always, it ends and then begins again. Their faces may change, but their souls, their star seeds, their heart sparks remain the same, as does their mission - to protect all life in whatever form it may take, from the darkness until it’s time to start over.

SIDE NOTE - the senshi’s names are always their planets, Sailor Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, etc. The knights are always called things like “Sir Ares, Sir Hermes, Sir Zeus” etc with that world’s version of Mamoru being “Lady Gaia”. And that world’s version of Usagi and Mamoru (Apollo and Gaia) also have a tragic love story, with Princess Gaia running away from Earth to join Prince Apollo against the wishes of her father who is brainwashed by the wicked King Beryllium with the intent of making Princess Gaia marry him.

[syrenslure]

Eliade’s Fan Fiction Prompts cont. 2/2

Pain (with or without pleasure/endorphins)

Pampering (spoiling someone rotten with gifts or money; physical pampering such as massage and grooming; giving someone a novel or unexpected degree of emotional or sexual care; catering to someone's every whim, e.g., someone who is in the hospital; harems as settings for pampering)

Paraphilias not listed elsewhere

Patience (e.g., showing patience toward a character who is brain-damaged or who is struggling bitterly with being recently crippled; or to a character prone to irrational fear or outbursts; patience with children; see also Gentleness)

Penance or reform (bad boy turns good; evil seeks to change; performing acts of atonement or restitution; self-mortification; martyrdom; selflessness; apologies or apology sex)

Physical imperfections (scars or burns; acne pits; heaviness; outsized features such as ears or nose; jolie-laide/ugly-beautiful characters)

Physical responses (face or ears burning; little hairs lifting on the scalp or neck; gut tightening; pulse quickening or missing a beat; lashes fluttering or lids growing heavy; mouth coming open; dick or pussy throbbing)

Pillow biting

Playing hard to get

Ponies (human ponies)

Pornography (magazines and videos; character was previously a porn star or fluffer)

Possession (by alien entity, spirits, or another person)

Possessiveness or jealousy

Power issues (inequities in beauty, rank, or class; power games; BDSM; power reversals; sheikhs, sultans, princes, and other royal figures; teacher/student pairings; magical powers; abuse of power; blackmail; romantic slavery; liege/lord pairings; issues of respect; sexual scenarios such as a dominant character giving his partner to others to use, or a character kneeling beneath a desk and blowing someone who's on the phone)

Power issues, sociopolitical (colonialism; alien invasion or rule; institutionalized slavery; totalitarian states and rebellion; powerful secret societies, e.g., the Illuminati or Watcher-style organizations)

Powers of attraction (characters such as sirens and Veelas; vampiric thrall; pheromones; magnetic and charismatic characters in general)

Predator/prey pairings

Preferential treatment (e.g., making a point of showing respect towards someone when no one else does; showing a soft side only to them)

Pretending to be gay (cops or spies going undercover; a charade to deflect unwanted attention from a stranger; a ruse to avoid ritual marriage to aliens)

Primitivism (dropping technologically advanced characters into exotic/primitive settings; medieval societies either magical or non-magical; nomadic and desert cultures; warrior cultures; jungle tribes; the noble savage; Androcles/lion pairings; the social intimacies of tribes/camps; bacchanals; culture clash/shock; unusual practices/rituals, e.g., feats of skill and strength or marriage as treaty; schizo-tech cultures, as when a seemingly feudal pre-industrial society has high-tech elements; see also Roughnecks; Animal themes and fetishization; Animalistic behaviors or characteristics; Exoticism)

Prison scenarios (prison rape and/or protection; cruel guards; punishment; hard labor; deprivation; prisoners of war; camps and barracks; false imprisonment)

Prizes (characters who are eroticized as prizes or spoils of war)

Prostate pleasure

Prostitutes (call-girls and hookers; rent boys and hustlers; escorts; paying one's way through school with sideline hooking; juvenile past on the streets)

Protectiveness (physically or verbally defending someone; caretaking in general; big guy/little guy pairings; bodyguard scenarios; mysterious benefactors or protectors)

Public displays of affection, PDAs

Pushy bottom

Rape (single assailant; gang rape; partner rape)

Rape recovery

Religion (sin; faith and lack of faith; priests, monks, nuns, etc; shamans; biblical characters; angels and demons; gods and goddesses; saints; monastic or convent culture)

Rescue (danger and rescue in general, e.g., abductions)

Restraint (pinning someone down; pushing someone's arm up behind their back during sex; covering or clasping someone's hands to prevent movement)

Restraints (handcuffs, leather ties, chains, etc)

Restraints, full-body (stocks; suspension harnesses; fisting slings; rape racks)

Reversal of role or fortune (loss of love, power, rank, etc; hunter becomes prey, master becomes slave; a strong character is made weak; role-reversal games; Flowers for Algernon scenario)

Rimming or tongue-fucking

Rogues (outlaws, highwaymen, mercenaries, pirates, gangsters, hitmen, etc; black sheep and royal bastards; Han Solo characters; tricksters; see also Violent and dark natures and Rough behavior)

Romance (see Love and passion; Courting; Seduction)

Ropework (intricate/artistic erotic bondage)

Roughnecks (cowboys; Tarzan figures; relatedly rough characteristics and behavior, such as scruffiness, rudeness, crude language, uncouth habits, etc; see also Lady and the Tramp pairings; Primitivism; Rogues)

Rough sex (quick and dirty sex; hate or grudge sex; angry sex; fighting/wrestling; jackhammer fucking; sex with no or little lube)

Sadism or sadomasochism

Sandwich sexual position or chain fuck (threesome)

Scars or scarification

Scent as an erotic element

Schmoop

School themes and fetishization (boarding schools; dojos; scholarly gowns and uniforms; sailor fuku; prep school chic; teacher/student pairings; donnish or professorial characters; prefects/head boys; caning; schoolboy hijinks or sexual discovery; military academies; tutoring and teaching in general; see also Conditioning)

Secret admirers

Secret identity (superheroes, slayers, immortals, mutants, etc; disguised gender; spies)

Secrets, other (dark or criminal past; double lives; previous marriage and/or children; unspoken feelings)

Seduction (one-on-one; two-on-one; verbal or physical; intense erotic courtship or teasing; see also Courting)

Sensory overload or enhancement

Sex change (gender swap; forced feminization; see also Gender themes)

Sex in public or semi-public places

Sex in vehicles (cars, taxis, limos; planes or space shuttles; motorcycles; carnival rides)

Sex is interrupted

Sex on, against, or under furniture

Sex on horseback

Sex outdoors/outside (in a field; in a rainstorm; with snow falling; on the beach; in a graveyard; in an alley)

Sex slaves or mates (concubines, catamites, etc)

Sex standing up (including against a wall)

Sex with aliens (xenophilia)

Sex with clothes still on or partly on

Sexual appetite or excess (hypersexuality, i.e., high sex drive; sex addiction or compulsive behavior; short/no refractory period; multiple orgasms; multiple partners; indiscriminate sex or sluttishness)

Sexual discovery (of one's orientation; of new kinds of pleasure; of one's partner)

Sexual experience or expertise (high number of partners; wide variety of sexual experience; demonstrating experience by taking the lead in sex or teaching one's partner)

Sexual frustration (orgasm denial or being unable to come; blue balls; enforced abstinence; self-denial; inability of two people to touch)

Sexual hang-ups

Sexual movements (back arching; hips lifting; thrusting back; writhing, jerking, bucking; clenching; grinding or rocking; trembling or shivering; hooking legs around shoulders; pressing someone's legs back toward the bed; riding someone's fingers)

Sharing (sharing a beer bottle, joint, or bucket of popcorn; loaning someone clothes; a character letting someone stay in their home; sharing confidences; sharing a woman)

Shower sex

Shyness (embarrassment; blushing or stammering; body shyness or dysmorphic disorder; cultural modesty)

Silence (slave silence; silence as an erotic element in sex; trying to be silent during semi-public sex; going nonverbal or speechless with arousal; traumatic mutism; selective mutism; sign language; gestures used to convey feelings rather than words; see also Clams)

Simultaneous orgasm

Situational engineering (the conscious or unconscious manufacture of events that give an emotional or sexual pay-off which can't be otherwise achieved; in particular, perilous situations; for example, character A puts himself in danger in order to receive fussy attention from character B; pay-off can be simply seeing someone, or hurt/comfort touching, intimacy, adrenaline sex, etc)

Situational homosexuality

Sixty-nine (69)

Size queens

Slavery (see Master and slave)

Sleep and bedding themes (sharing a bed by necessity, such as in a hotel with only one room left; sharing a sleeping bag for warmth; sex while drowsy or sleeping; sex as a sleep aid; autonomic arousal from proximity; morning wake-up sex, falling asleep against someone's shoulder; watching someone sleep; dreams; nightmares; dream lovers, e.g., succubi; exotic or romantic beds, e.g., canopied; furs as bedding; silk sheets)

Slow and/or prolonged sex

Smarm (intense friendship with physical closeness but no actual sex)

Smiles or laughing

Snark

Society (social mores and morality; laws; institutional regulations such as Don't Ask Don't Tell; elaborate rituals or ceremonies; social events such as feasts and parties; decorum; formal or deferential modes of address; see also Witnesses)

Spanking (over the knee or lap, etc)

Special powers and skills (superhero powers; magical powers; telekinesis; shapeshifting; hyperdeveloped senses; combat expertise; sharpshooting; eidetic memory; computer hacking skills; thief skills; temporary gifts of power from drugs, alien devices, etc, repercussions of which could include delusions of godhood, dangerous physical or mental overload, and so on)

Spooning

Sports themes and fetishization (sports rivalries; uniforms and jock-straps; wrestling and sweaty exertion in general; locker-room or shower scenes; team gang-bangs; swimmer/surfer body types; pool and billiards games)

Straight or straight-acting partner(s)

Straight-guy sexual scenarios (comparing dick size; lending a helping hand; circle jerks; watching het porn together, with or without masturbation; practicing dancing, kissing, or romantic conversation in preparation for one character having a date with a woman)

Striking with implements (whips, belts, riding crops, canes, paddles, etc)

Striptease

Submission (obedience; submissive behaviors such as boot kissing, crawling, keeping one's eyes lowered, or kneeling for master; believing in cultural dictates of submissive behavior; abasement in general)

Surprises

Swallowing (come)

Swords and sword-play

Talking and communication issues (dirty talk or verbal seduction; sweet talking; reciting poetry; talking someone to orgasm; talking during sex; pillow talk; phone sex; speech becoming broken as one is aroused or upset; being inarticulate or articulate; aphasia; talking fast; miscommunication and misunderstandings in general; lack of a shared language; see also Silence; Clams; Voice fetishization)

Taste as an erotic element

Tattoos (decorative, symbolic, or slave; barcodes)

Teasing or tickling

Techno (technophilic themes; artificial humans; character is copied or downloaded into mechanical host body; other ghost in the machine scenarios; androids and cyborgs as sexual partners; wetwear enhancements; cyberpunk aesthetic; VR or Matrix scenarios; see also Otherness)

Telepathy (see also Bonds and mental abilities; Special powers and skills)

Temperamental personalities (driven or obsessed; hot-tempered or testy; moody; misanthropic or bitter; abrasive)

Tentacle sex

Threesomes (M/F/M, M/M/M, etc)

Top/bottom pairings (also seme/uke)

Topping

Topping from the bottom

Touching (stroking and caressing; cuddling or nuzzling; huddling for warmth; hugging; holding hands in public; touching as UST; brief brushes of contact either deliberate or accidental; PDAs; thighs brushing under a table; comic physical entanglements; someone gripping a wounded character's hand)

Toughness (machismo or hyper-masculinity; physical stamina; a hard surface covering an inner softie; resolve; survival skills; teeth-gritting acts such as pulling an arrow out of one's own thigh, etc; see also Rough behavior; Bad boys, etc)

Toys and devices (sex toys of all kinds; feathers, ice cubes, hot wax, etc)

Tragic flaws

Trapped or stranded together (on another world; on a desert island; in a cave-in; in a cabin during a snowstorm; in an elevator)

Triangles (love triangles)

Triangulation of desire (two men express their desire for each other through a female intermediary; sexual rivalry for a woman is actually homoerotic interest)

Trust and vows (promises are kept or broken; loyalty or betrayal; absolute trust or doubt; fidelity or infidelity; blindfolds or bondage as trust symbols; commitment or fear of commitment; acts of devotion; marriage vows; unconditional love; blood brothers and oaths; showing trust/faith in someone's abilities)

Underage partner or chan (adolescent)

Underdogs

Undressing (undressing in front of someone for the first time; one character undressing another; fumbling clumsily to get undressed; stripteases)

Urgency for sex (begging to suck cock; desperate to fuck; greedy bottom)

UST (unresolved sexual tension)

Vaginal/female genital fetishization (wet, tight; virginal; aching/stiff clit; wide lips; multi-orgasmic)

Vaginal penetration (e.g., deep dicking)

Vaginal penetration with foreign objects

Vampires

Violence (see Conflict; Death)

Violent feelings (hatred; murderous rage; need for revenge)

Violent and dark natures (sadists; assassins and murderers; sociopaths who make twisted, scary displays of affection, conflating love and violence; criminals and villains in general; characters who are ruthless, merciless, casually vengeful; soulless demons or vampires; monsters in general)

Virgins or inexperienced partners

Voice fetishization (cracking or broken; husky, low, throaty; purring; accents; whispering close to someone's ear)

Voyeurism and vision themes (character A secretly watches B and C have sex; character A is forced to watch B and C have sex; character A watches character B perform/masturbate; viewing one's beloved in general; taking pictures or video; eye contact, especially as flirting; establishing authority with a look; closing eyes as a trust gesture; character A feeling that character B truly sees him, when no one else does; the quality of light, e.g., characters lit by moonlight or candlelight, or gilded by the setting sun; being in the dark; temporary or permanent blindness; gazes as objectification)

Vulnerability

Warriors (see Heroes; Amazons and strong women; Toughness; Primitivism; Rogues; Military fetishization)

Washing (washing one's partner, body or hair; bubble baths; shower scenes; slave service in bath; cleaning/cleansing someone who's been raped, degraded, or who is injured)

Weapon fetishization (gun fu; trademark weaponry: Lara Croft's dual pistols, Duncan's katana; exotic weapons: war fans, whips; embedded: Wolverine's claws; magical/symbolic: Sting, Excalibur, Narsil; sentient or empathic; hiding a multitude of weapons on one's body; concealment in general: derringer in garter, boot knife; see other individual listings; Military fetishization)

Well-fucked (being fucked out; fuck-dazed; sated and sleepy; wrecked; softened and debauched)

Western scenarios and fetishization (cowboy gear; campfire and trail scenes; horses; gunslingers, lawmen, card sharps, etc; train robberies and bank hold-ups; posses; saloon brawls)

Wet dreams or erotic dreams

Wish-fulfillment

Wings (wingfic)

Witnesses (families, friends, or others watch the development of a relationship; play matchmaker or serve as confidants; think the characters are involved when they're really not; constitute the public eye; disapprove, gossip, give advice; are the audience for a coming out drama; are witnesses to such things as flirting, public arousal, public sex)

Woke up gay

Worry (one character worrying anxiously about another; going crazy with worry)

Writing (love letters or notes; secret admirers; e-mail and chat; wills; poetry; storytelling; tracing words or figures on skin, or writing, as with an inkbrush)

[sesskag1postchallenge]

Ch9 - Operation Grandpup Drop (A SitBoy Discord Crack Fic)

Warning this story is M bordering NSFW

Chapter 9:

 Slayer08/18/2019

"GAH!" Kagome tore herself away from Sesshomaru. "I can't believe  this! I am leaving. Get sober Sesshomaru  and see if you still feel that way!" She snatched up the incense and dunked it in a nearby glass of water and stomped out of the room and slammed the door.

 imjaneees08/18/2019

Before Sesshomaru could pull Naraku's entrails out of him and decorate the halls with them, the door opened and Kagome walked in again, separating the two.

"Stop it Sesshomaru you can't kill my cry pillow I still need him," with that she started dragging the dark hayou by the hair again, all the while complaining, "I'm still not done with my much needed cry session. The girls just don't get it, you know? They keep saying endure this, you'll find a better person soon, all that sham and I just want someone to let me feel bitter. By the way your shoulder devil antics aren't working, just so you know."

Once again Sesshomaru is left wondering just how blue must his balls be before Kagome finally gets it.

Walter20508/18/2019

"Kagome, do you know who you're holding onto? Let him go and I'll be your cry pillow," came a familiar voice that Kagome hadn't heard in over a year. Turning in surprise, she saw Shippo standing in the doorway, now almost as tall as her and sporting five tails now. 

 "Shippo, you've returned from the demon fox academy!" exclaimed Kagome as she dropped Naraku and ran over to embrace her son. 

 "C'mon mom, let's blow this joint," said Shippou as he took Kagome's hand and headed for the door outside. 

 "Unfortunately Kit, Kagome may not leave the Castle just yet. She is still a potential suitor after all," interrupted Inukimi as she strode in to greet the new guest. 

 "Oh yeah? We'll see about that," replied Shippo as he readied a leaf spell. In reply Inukimi clutched her Inter-Dimensional Necklace and started a chant that would banish Shippo into a different realm for the duration of Kagome's stay at the Castle. 

 However Shippo was ready for this and yelled, "Fox Magic: Fox Counter-spell!", as he threw the leaf at the necklace. It struck and there was a loud flash and bright explosion as their magics intertwined with one another. When the light faded, Inukimi's Necklace fell to the floor before shattering into a million pieces that swiftly disintegrated. 

 "Little Fox, do you know what you've done?" asked Inukimi in a quiet cold voice. 

 "Yeah, I've stopped your attempt to keep my mother trapped here," responded Shippo in kind with a triumphant grin spreading across his face. 

 "You young little fool. You've trapped Kagome's friends and my husband in a place and time that they do not belong and have removed all of my spells warding the castle, including protecting the Shikon No Tama from that devil hanyou. Lastly, you have incurred my wrath," growled Inukimi as her eyes glowed red with the beginning of her transformation.

 imjaneees08/18/2019

Everything happened all at once. No one had the time to react. Nothing went according to anyone's plan. The jewel once again pulled the rug from under everyone's feet, because there, whole and pure the jewel floated for a good few seconds before it darted off to go back inside where it belonged. Kagome had no time to even move before the jewel came shooting to her side, where it was taken from by Mistress Centipede all those years ago.

There was a bright, blinding light before it faded, along with Kagome's consciousness.

 Stormie Like Weather08/19/2019

Suddenly the ghost of her favorite singer, Prince, was standing before her in a raspberry beret and a mostly unbuttoned sparkly shirt. "Welcome, Girl!" 

Kagome thought she might swoon in her unconscious state, but that might be getting a bit pathetic. "P-prince? W-what are you doing here?!"

"I'm here for you, Girl!" He walked around her in the cloud-like room, "The Kami have decided to allow me to let you choose a future for yourself. Think of it as a new beginning, the  Jewel of Four Souls will not be allowed to leave your body once more, in return for the sacrifice of responsibility, you get to choose which side of the well you'd like to remain in. 

"W-what...?" Her hand clutched the spot where the jewel had just collided, "I get to choose?" 

"And not without some insight!" Suddenly before them appeared a giant cauldron of water, Prince waved his hand for her to peer into it's depths. "Should you choose the future..." An image of her appeared at university, the image faded into a pregnant version of her in the arms of what looked like Sesshomaru in a suite with a man bun. "Remain where you are..." The picture changed to Kagome playing with Inuyasha's wriggly worm-dog baby. Sesshomaru was nearby rolling his eyes, pointing to his junk and the words, "We could have much more like-able offspring if you'd just fuck me!" He looked pretty ragged. She must have been waffling still. The worm-pup made a giggling sound and the image faded to Kagome in the middle of a wedding ceremony with InuKimi crying. She couldn't tell if it was out of happiness or misery.... "Or, Prince waved his delicate hand." The image shifted into her standing there in Prince's arms as well as men and women crawling at their feet, touching themselves. 

"Oh my!" She flushed. 

"Well," Prince wriggled his brows while running his fingers along his chest and downward, "What'll it be?"

 imjaneees08/20/2019

Left eye twitching, Kagome finally snapped. She hasn't had one decent sleep since this whole debacle with grandpups happened, had her emotions played with, finally got the good crying she's always wanted ironically in the literal arms of the enemy only to get played again, the jewel went and screwed her over again, and now this Western bozo was trying to make her queen of all things sexual. Well she's had enough! No one is taking her v card without passing all of her criteria!

“I've had enough of you sex crazed baboons!“ and, brandishing the somehow nearby branch, she roceeded to thwack anything and everyone.

 Stormie Like Weather08/20/2019

Prince put his his hands up, immediately morphing into an image on her mother, "Kagome, dear, calm down." She put her hands on her hips, "You know the Kami are just trying to make you comfortable, so be grateful. Now choose do you wish to be returned to the present or remain in the past, or if you refuse to make a decision the Kami will be forced to choose for you - like last time." Kagome swallowed hard, she didn't like not getting a choice last time...

 Walter20508/20/2019

Before she could make her reply known her mother was suddenly ripped away from her, leaving her with an aching pain in her left side. Blinking awake, she looked around and discovered that the others had not been idle in the wake of her falling unconscious. Naraku had apparently gone on a rampage and abducted nearly every eligible human female and demoness plus a few taken ones. 

 From what she could see within his swirling cloud of miasma, Kagome was able to spot Inuemi, Sango, Eri, Yuka, Ayumi, and Ayame all trapped within his tentacles and those were just the ones she could spot. She also discovered that she was in a tentacle as well, as another zipped away from her with the jewel inside its mouth, leaving a small bleeding hole in her side that this time, wasn't being so quick to heal up. 

 As the blood stain spread amongst her towel, Kagome felt herself growing dizzy. But she heard howling in the distance and looking down, could see in the distance both Sesshomaru and Toga in hot pursuit in their true forms, the Band of 13 (minus Inuyasha, who must've still been recovering from labor) along with a few others riding on their backs. 

 Elsewhere Inukimi had caught the kit and knocked him out with her poison. She was going to spend some time with him in the dungeons at his expense for her entertainment but who knew? Perhaps she would settle for getting her pups out of him one day once he reached proper mating age, if he was still alive by that point in time.

 imjaneees08/21/2019

Completely done with life as it was for the moment, Kagome, forgoing the pain on her side that wasn't as bad as the bleeding suggested, dragged herself on the tentacle holding her until she managed to reach Naraku.

"Okay trash boy, what sob story do you have this time around that made you want that jewel? Let's hear it," he did listen to her that one time, and never let it be said that Kagome wasn't a fair woman. Quid pro quo and all that jazz.

 Walter20508/21/2019

"Sob story, you say? Hmm, perhaps you would like to help me out with this one my dear Miko. You see, while you and the others were cavorting around the sky castle I had finished assembling the jewel, steeped it in darkness, and made my two wishes on it, first being the old wish from Onigumo to have Kikyo and the second for me, Naraku, to become a full demon. And would you like to know what happened?" asked Naraku in a sarcastic tone. 

 "The Jewel didn't grant you your true wish. It never does, despite the power it offers, all it does is use people to get what it wants without giving them what they truly want so it can keep on existing," replied Kagome with a mixture of sad regret and pity. 

 "Exactly right as I've come to learn. Although I appreciate the tremendous amount of power it has given me, in doing so it has used me for its own devices and no one uses this Naraku, no matter who or what they might be. Now do me favor and reach out to touch the Jewel while praying," asked Naraku as his tentacle extended the Jewel to her. 

 Not sure what was going on, Kagome at least knew purifying the Jewel would be better than leaving it tainted so as she started praying her power came to the surface and upon fingertip contact purified the Jewel completely. Naraku brought to a point where it was between the two of them. 

 "In confiding its plans with me, the evil spirit within the Jewel, the entity known as Magatsuhi, told me how the 'heroes' would be able to destroy the Jewel, through the use of the one true wish. Hmph, bet he never thought that a villain such as this Naraku would be the one to utter it. I will be making my wish now, Shikon No Tama," said Naraku, causing the Jewel to began buffeting the both of them with power as fear overcame the evil entity within. 

 "Cease to Exist, Forever," both Naraku and Kagome said in unison, as she pleasantly surprised Naraku. The Jewel shattered into a thousand fragments that dissipated on the wind.

 imjaneeesLast Thursday at 8:41 AM

It was over. Just like that. And with the most unlikely person to end it with too, Kagome though her life was full of ironies. She always thought she and her friends would have to pry the jewel from Naraku's pile of ashes but it seems like life has other plans. It was so easy too. She never thought it would end so easily.

"That was...far different from what I envisioned it to be. I can't really complain though," Kagome muttered. Then out loud for any and all to hear, "Okay, someone catch me because I just know I'm going to pass out again and this time, please don't wake me for at least another 8 hours." and she did just that

 Walter205Last Saturday at 10:19 AM

Naraku smirked at Kagome's declaration, knowing that he already had her entangled in his tentacles. When the jewel had died it was like a fog had been lifted from his mind, having clouded his thoughts ever since he had come to be. He was absolutely still an evil minded little bastard but now Naraku felt like he was free to do as he pleased instead of just scheming to either get the jewel or torture his opposition to taint the jewel. 

 He had such plans for the little miko now...but even as she lost consciousness, she was surrounded in a blue glow. As Naraku watched in dismay, she disappeared, leaving his tentacle hanging empty. He took stock of his situation as he glanced around at his other captives. With the jewel gone he no longer felt the need to torture his enemies so he let Inuemi and Sango go, letting his pursuers stop to catch them while he held on to Kagome's three friends, who remained in his grasp.

 Meanwhile, Kagome floated through a blue void as a trio of other worldly beings discussed her fate while she slept. 

 "What about her three friends? They are out of time's normal flow as well," asked one being. 

 "Leave them in the past. It was an abuse of her authority to take them into the past. As punishment she shall know only of their fates a few hundred years ago," said the second being. 

 "A harsh punishment to be sure, but harsh is needed when it comes to the treatment of the normal flow of time. Come, let us return her to the present and close down the portal until the next suitable crisis arises," said the third before the three of the them disappeared. 

 Moments later Miss Higurashi watched as a blue light burst forth from the well house and into the main house before flaring and dying in Kagome's bedroom as she was deposited still sleeping into her bed.

 Stormie Like WeatherLast Saturday at 10:17 PM

Across town in the Port of Tokyo an ancient dog awoke the instant the magical power receded from the well. He ran trimmed claws through his short hair and pulled the frustration from his face. It was time to make the acquaintance of someone he had not seen in many a century. 

Returning to the harbor, he moved his vessel into its place at the marina and dropped anchor.

 Walter205Last Sunday at 11:55 AM

Sesshomaru returned the salute of Captain Takahashi as he walked down the gangplank upon leaving the deck of his flagship, the Guided Missile Destroyer (DDG) Kongo of the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force's (JMSDF) First Fleet. 

 "I take it the maneuvers were a success, Admiral Taisho?" asked Kouga, disguised as he was as Captain Takahashi of the Guided Missile Frigate (FFG) Abukuma, one of Sesshomaru's most trusted subordinates. 

 "Yes, I believe we'll be in great shape when it comes time to conduct the RIMPAC exercises with our American counterparts. I look forward to upstaging Admiral Greenland once again," Sesshomaru answered under the human guise of Admiral Takagi Taisho. 

 As he left the Captain on the dock behind him, his aide attaché came running up to join him, briefing the Admiral on his current schedule. Another disguised demon, Lieutenant Takeda (Shippou) informed him of his schedule for the next three days, mostly meetings with various ship commanders and high command concerning the upcoming exercises.

 "Are there any important meetings for me this evening?" asked Sesshomaru, but when Shippou nodded no, he asked the Fox to clear his schedule. 

 "I have an important meeting to attend in the old Edo section of Tokyo, an old acquaintance, non-service related. No need to attend or send guards, I'll just need a chauffeur, someone who knows the area...Ensign Hojo should do the trick nicely," ordered Sesshomaru. The young man had always been curious as to what happened to Kagome and her three friends ever since they had "disappeared" three years ago. Sesshomaru himself was curious as to the discrepancy in time as it had only been one day in the past since her three friends had initially arrived to the point that Kagome disappeared herself.

 imjaneeesLast Sunday at 11:28 PM

Meanwhile, back in the Higurashi household, Kagome slept like a hybernating bear. It didn't help that somehow, sometimes in her deep sleep, her hands managed to reach out and grab something fluffy and long. Now it was twined around her, keeping her neck, arms and legs warm against the bitter cold. Humming in contentment, she buried her face against the fluffy thing. It was so warm and fluffy. It reminded her of Sesshomaru's mokomoko actually. On that note, it kind of smelled like it too. On that note, what was mokomoko anyway? Sesshomaru didn't seem to be the type to make fashion statements. Then again she's been wrong about him before.

 Walter205Yesterday at 8:37 AM

In order to enter the service Sesshomaru had to get rid of mokomoko, but it didn’t want to leave its master’s side, so it had thrown a tantrum which had led to Sesshomaru casting it out onto the streets. For a couple of decades now hobomoko had been wandering aimlessly through the streets, but it held memory of its former master’s desires, so when the miko arrived back in this time, it knew sweet revenge was at hand. Even now the foolish girl embraced it closer as it prepared to sever her head with the Butchers Cleaver it held over her neck...

 imjaneeesYesterday at 9:25 AM

Completely unaware of the danger she was in, as per usual, Kagome continued to snuggle her face against the soft fur. Dreaming of soft, innocent and cute puppies and kittens, she nuzzled and kiss the unstable fluff, "Who's a good puppy? You are! Oh yes you are! I'm keeping all of you now."

Perhaps, oh just perhaps, revenge can come in a different, more personal angle...