#damnation show

[mh-midnight-wanderer]

[Imagine a scenario where Jackson and Holt are twins and somehow Holt ends up in the underworld with Heath's dad: Hades]

Hades: Exactly how long do you think you've been down here?

Holt: I dunno. A couple of days?

Hades: Oh Holt Holt Holt..*places his hand on Holt's shoulder*.It may feel like that, but it's actually been 80 years. And I'm afraid that by now Your dear brother Jackson is DEAD!

Holt: …Great, so he’s here then!

Hades: What? No, he’s dead! But he’s not here. He’s…

{Hades points up with his finger}

Holt: *squint* not buying it.

Hades: “wHFKRKRL- not buying it??!”

Holt: Listen, I know my brother. And if he’s not down here, then he’s not dead. Which means he’s coming to save me.

[seiya-starsniper]

Disappointed, but not surprised.

[discoknack]

Ghost Kafka Attacks!

Mainly @sonicasura's idea, but I think maybe we have different philosophies? For one thing, I'm evil...

This got away from me again. Anyway, my thinking goes like this:

I modified certain details from Sonicasura's post. The main concept is the same: at 26 years old, Kafka throws his life away to protect his co-workers. Almost at the end of the day, they had been cleaning up a large plant-type Kaiju, whose pheromones attract a medium-sized insect-type Kaiju looking for food. The way the situation is described in the post makes me think: both of these are in the manga that I've only read bits and pieces of. So if that is the case, this is the same, but if not, I will explain. The invading Kaiju is like a wasp that eats nectar as well as insects and meat, and can fly. It can also spray its victims with sticky silk, like a spitter spider, but unlike a spitter spider, its sight might be much more acute.

The Kaiju is on top of them in no time at all, with the poor Sweepers shouting at one another to get down and hide. High probability of an imminent blood bath! Kafka, opportunistic as ever, covers himself in nectar from the plant Kaiju to turn himself into bait. He sprints out and away as fast as he can through the empty streets, aiming to lead it away from his crew and distract it long enough for the rest of the Monster Sweepers to hide or flee. In this regard, he is successful.

But the attacking Kaiju ensnares him in its silk.

He has plenty of time in that cocoon to contemplate his last moments while under the influence of the Kaiju venom. We can agree on some themes. It might be anger at himself for breaking his promise and getting himself killed, hoping everyone else got away in the end, fighting to go on or at least praying to be remembered, and desperately desperately begging Mina to forgive him for his failure. What frustrates me is I want something more. Something evil. But y'know, Kafka's flavor of wrath wouldn't be triggered in this situation for Reasons. Without having read the full manga, I guess I'm going with the so-simple-it's-stupid option: fight or flight. And I changed the mechanism for Kafka becoming the type of ghost he is, sorta. Anyway,

Kafka, having been killed through suffocation within a maddeningly painful venomous silk cocoon, is in a high state of stress that does not immediately abate, even after he killed his killer and sucked up its soul.

I don't know how he does that yet, so I'll skip it.

As he has no immediate purpose and has not yet regained the ability of abstract thought or other forms of higher thinking, Kafka wanders around, confused and in emotional pain, hugging himself. His previous agony was so intense, that I'm not sure what's going on in his mind in the immediate aftermath. Does he even know he's dead? On some level he likely does, but perhaps he is also having a temporary lapse in sanity, or suffering from delirium. In any case, he is instinctually looking for help of some kind, but doesn't know how to get it.

I like to think that once his spirit had emerged from the still-closed cocoon, he mostly resembled himself, right down to the white Monster Sweeper uniform on his apparition. Only also with piercing green irises, a dark aura over his form, and an odd, often fleeting, sickly sweet scent. There's a certain pained expression he made that seemed off-putting, but I can't describe it. Still dunno how he ate that thing.

But after consuming the Kaiju soul, his form became like a shadow puppet, still human in shape but the details are harder to make out. Now his eyes and mouth are a starkly-glowing green. His teeth are still currently flat, except occasionally fangy when he's really pissed off and about to eat someone. He transforms further the more kaiju he consumes, so he'll eventually get a full set of permanent sharpness, among other changes, such as: the shape of his body becoming serpentine except for his arms and face; his hair becoming more like fur in texture and running all down his spine so that the end of his tail blends fluff with smoke; the rest of his body developing hair that's very fine, dense and no more than one or two millimeters long, something like an agreeable velvet or one of my favorite sweaters; clawed fingers like talons, although I'd prefer his hands retain a more human shape, but human fingernails are quite fragile. But that's all later. For now, he looks like a human shadow.

The lingering sun, as it descends to dusk, has him feeling some kind of way when he's caught in its light. It doesn't hurt per se, but it's overwhelming for an already-overwhelmed man, and highlights the sensation of feeling physically insubstantial. Lower levels of ambient light help him feel a little more real. So he sticks to darker areas like alleys.

The Defense Force arrived at some point, only to find the wasp Kaiju already dealt with, and a cocoon that was the perfect size to house a human victim. Though, as is the case in the original post, they couldn't breach the cocoon's walls. And it, as well as the body inside, remained fresh even months later. I should explain that the freshness is a common idea in the stories I've read about Onryō, and not necessarily something the wasp Kaiju did.

At some point he has wandered across districts, slowly calming down. The occasional screams of other spirits who flee from him or turn away tend to startle him again. His reactions slowly change from wild fright in his delirium that has him running and crying from no threat at all, to seeking out a shrieking soul to check if they're alright, to quickly realizing that they want nothing to do with him but he's not really sure why.

He's cooled down enough now that he can think a little. When he finally encounters a living person, the notion of his death finally sinks in. It's not so dramatic. He doesn't cry out, though his despair returns a little more. He just asks the stranger, "can you help me?" And while they turn, curious, they don't notice him, and become slightly perturbed when his hand phases through their shoulder. And so after contemplating his hand, Kafka wanders some more, wearing his glowing frown and not sure what to do at this point.

Cliché, I know, that he soon encounters a living shit-stain of a human being in an alley somewhere. Maybe some entitled wad that grins and keeps pressing if a vulnerable woman tries to tell him 'no'. The point is that Kafka would be hard-pressed to not kill and eat this guy. And Kafka is already in a bad mood.

So, you know...

Kafka has the villain wrapped in his silk, which was spewed from his fingers and mouth. The woman is long gone by now, having ran off as soon as the villain was distracted. Kafka is so full of white-hot rage that he slams the man into the wall a few times. And when he yells at him nothing legible comes out, only a roar of garbled language that cracks the concrete and has the bastard's ears bleed.

On some level Kafka knows something isn't right, and that he's doing something wrong. But at the forefront of his mind is wrath, retribution in favor of the woman this man harassed. Kafka gets ready to suck out this man's soul so that no one, alive or dead, has to suffer him again.

But Kafka is kicked in the head from the side and stumbles, dropping the sack. As an angry spirit, his inner chaos flares and he is like an animal, mostly in the way that humans are animals. He gets bigger in his posture, ready for a fight, and as a ghost, he gets some inches taller with this motion also.

Hikari Shinomiya has her hands on her hips and a bright face. "Hey there! You still in there, buddy?"

Kafka is confused by the juxtaposition of the surprise kick and the woman's friendly tone, and he backs away to look at her, lowering his hands. He unconsciously drips evil silk from his fingers, but it tapers off as he assesses the situation - even as impaired as he is. The nice woman in front of him must also be a spirit: her aura is of light. She doesn't seem to harbor any ill will toward him. The kick hurt, but also, it didn't? Kafka takes some moments to understand that she is solely addressing him. "Uh...?"

Meanwhile, Hikari carefully approaches him, somewhat like she intends to capture a scared animal. Slow, but poised to act if he makes any sudden moves. "I heard... a newbie was in town... so... Am I not too late?"

At the change of the script, Kafka's rage had dissipated. Essentially, he is still hurt and confused, and Hikari distracted him from his task. He doesn't want to hurt her, but also can't think of a way to disengage from her, and running away also isn't an option because he still wants to kill-a-little-bit this guy, so he freezes.

Hikari is able to take one of his hands in hers, the silk having dissipated. "There. See? Bet you other people were scared or ignored you, huh?" And she winked. "I'm Shinomiya Hikari." Then she blinks, registering something.

Kafka is able to speak again. As Hikari gets into his personal space and reaches for his face to scrutinize him, he leans away, physically and idiomatically shrinking, and says, "H-Hibino Kafka! That's- don't wear it out! There's been a big misunderstanding. I am very sorry!" He scratches his head with a free hand, chuckling nervously, " I just wanted to teach this guy a lesson and, got carried away... I dunno what's going on at all."

Hikari is distracted by whatever she noticed, not responding to his words. "Oh no..." and Kafka sweats. She holds his chin, squishing his cheeks, and wonders aloud, "just who did you eat already?"

Ok so I figured Hikari's been a ghost for a few years, and she knows or has at least heard that if you eat a soul, it can taint you in a way that locks you into a vampire-like existence, requiring you to sate a horror hunger with more souls. Hikari doesn't care about the piece of trash he wrapped up, but it would be best to prevent Kafka from eating him anyway so as to keep everyone safe in the long run and allow Kafka a friendlier coexistence with other spirits. Unbeknownst to her at first, Kafka has eaten a soul already, thus sort of dooming that neighborly relationship. But since it's not a person, it doesn't carry the same moral weight that would erode his sanity if it was.

I imagine that among vengeful ghosts who take up vigilantism and suck up human villains, there's a bit of a he-who-fights-monsters situation and they end up becoming corrupted one by one, devouring each other before being put down somehow. (I would totally watch/read something with that concept. Any recs?)

Also, I added more powers and quirks to Kafka than the original post. I already mentioned a couple of them here already and in Kikoru's Spirit Guy (in part 2, but here is also part 1 for those who want to read it). He has a sweet smell, which can be either pleasant like spring or candy, OR very oppressive, floral, and saccharine. Getting bigger and smaller is a subset of elasticity. Hikari can probably do it too. Kafka can also spray webs: clean ones like Spider-Man or a real spider's structural webs; or sticky ones laced with a psychoactive compound, the concentration of which depends on Kafka's choice and wrath. Unlike the killer cocoon, these sticky webs have a milder physical effect on their victims in the sense that they don't leave any marks. But they can still cause pain and additionally induce paranoia, hallucinations, agitation and/or catatonia. So, that guy he wrapped up is absolutely fucked already.

I have a suspicion that rather than including arson proper in his arsenal, pyrokinesis is more for lighting and putting out candles and lamps to control the light level. Thus to that end, he can also burn out light bulbs with a flash (though might not be able to turn them back on). I don't know when or if he'll use it.

Umm, that's about all I got for this point in the story. I have one more drabble thing.

[cosmogyros]

I think the silliest thing to me about all those folks fervently advocating against voting is... even if everything they said were true, voting still wouldn't cause any harm. And it's easy. So why not do it?

Like, blah blah blah, conspiracy theories, psyops, "both parties are the same", doomerism and hopelessness, etc. – okay, fine. I could decide to believe in all of this shit AND still vote. And even from the worldview of someone who believes in all this shit... voting still wouldn't make things actively WORSE, right?

In fact it's kind of like a political version of Pascal's Wager (obligatory "I'm not Christian or even religious at all" disclaimer; it's just that anyone interested in philosophy knows about Pascal's Wager). Instead of picking a row here...

...You can pick a column, here:

So which column do you choose? Left or right?

[dark-ethereal-visions]

Happy Birthday - Clive Barker

Clive Barker (71) - Born on October 5, 1952

[falinscloaca]

pisses me off so much much that i’m not immune to people arguing about steven universe

[shinelikethunder]

something something spn 3x14 Long-Distance Call + "we bury our dead alive"... not a coherent point, just putting a pin in the thought for later

[poetryqueer]

love love love fanfiction for managing to add another layer of needed context to make quotes decipherable. like yes this enriches the reading experience greatly but also what if you want to communicate. what if.

[damnation-if]

once again writing things to distract from the bad times... this is the Twilit version of that previous scene i posted with Heluur hehe. (to clarify, it’s a scene some mcs Might get quite a few chapters ahead based on some choices, this time if you happen to be particularly close to Twilit). Definitely Don’t click this if you’re concerned with avoiding spoilers!

(the beginning part will be the same as the start of the other one lol so i cut most of it. there’s also Quite a trigger for body horror in this one though lmfao so bear that in mind<3)

“You’re going to regret this,” you add, as another lightning strike splits the sky, “but only for a very short time.”

[[And then the doors are rocked on their hinges by a series of powerful knocks…]]

A shadow seems to fall across the room, and you almost have to restrain yourself from laughing–the idea of Malkorath knocking to enter //anywhere// is utterly ludicrous, let alone a //church//. They seem to agree with you, if the loud, long-suffering sigh you can hear from outside is any indication.

“Look, I’m not knocking again. If you don’t open the doors, I’m just going to break them down.”

This causes some amount of nervous shuffling among the Inquisitors, also caught off-guard, before their leader rallies, holding up his holy symbol in the direction of the entrance.

“You shall not enter this holy place-”

Whatever the rest of what he was going to say might have been, it’s drowned out by the clamour of Malkorath crunching the great oaken doors in half like a matchstick and stomping inside. The candles are all snuffed out one by one, filling the church with darkness, and the air around you doesn’t taste so foul anymore (to you, anyway; your captor is far less impressed).

You wouldn’t have thought that Malkorath was close enough to affect you in that way yet…

“So //this// is what the inside of one of these looks like,” Malkorath muses, looking around, as they ignore the Inquisitors and casually brush an entire row of pews out of their way. “I’m not sure it’s really worth all the fuss, if I’m being honest. You still with us, $pcname?”

That question, the same one they asked you on that first day they took you to Hell, is almost enough to make you smile, despite everything.

“I’ll be better once you get me out of here,” you tell them, finding it somewhat amusing that the truth-spell agrees with you on that point, too.

“That’s what I’m here for,” Malkorath replies nonchalantly, seemingly unperturbed by the obviously aggressive intentions of the band of Inquisitors. “I have strict orders not to-”

One of the bolder of your captors lunges at Malkorath, spear outstretched, but they dodge it easily. Unfazed, the Inquisitor lifts up their own holy symbol, presenting it directly to Malkorath’s face, and you feel a twinge of worry–you don’t actually know how they’ll fare against holy magic, or if they knew they’d be facing it, coming here.

“You will burn in the light, demon filth!” the Inquisitor screams, voice shaking with holy zeal.

[[But nothing happens.]]

Malkorath’s grin is vicious and toothy as they reach out and pluck the holy symbol from the now-shaking Inquisitor’s fingers. “Will you look at that?”

A few of the others exclaim in shock and terror as the demon crushes the metal into a small, crumpled ball and tosses it aside, while their leader tries valiantly to stand his ground.

“I’ve always heard it said that the little rank-and-file murderers like you don’t have the strength to use your powers in the presence of archdemons,” Malkorath continues, huffing in amusement. “Seeing it up close is so very good for my soul, I have to say.”

An archdemon? Your heart begins to beat faster in your chest, relief filling you just like the pure, clean air that you’re now breathing. Twilit is here… and even closer nearby than Malkorath, it would seem. They came here to save you…

“I will slay you,” the lead Inquisitor is saying, his voice quavering, as he clutches tightly at the hilt of his sword, “for the glory of my god!”

Malkorath just laughs at him. “Not me, soldier boy. The archdemon is behind you.”

He whirls around at Malkorath’s words, petrified eyes jerking around the room looking for anything he might consider an archdemon, before finally alighting on something that seems to be down near your feet. Carefully, fighting against your captor’s terrified resistance to seeing what the others are staring at, you lift your head as much as you can, eventually spotting a single moth balanced delicately on the toes of your (her) booted foot, milky-white wings fluttering slightly as the air shifts.

The Inquisitor closest to you draws a hand back to swat at it at the exact same moment that the leader begins yelling at him not to touch it.

You barely even feel the blow of his hand connecting with your foot, Twilit apparently absorbing most of the force of it, and although you know Them well enough to be sure that They’re hardly in any danger, you can’t stop your stomach from lurching at the sight of the lumpy grey viscera coating his hand as he stumbles back away from you.

“Is it dead?” one of the others whispers, but you think that the anguished shriek that escapes from his lips as he falls backwards to the floor probably answers their question succinctly enough.

[[You can’t really say that you’re particularly surprised, but it IS kind of nice to have confirmation of that fact…]]

Dull grey ooze begins to spread across his hand, creeping under the sleeves of his coat, while inky black tendrils emerge underneath his skin, the palm of his hand swelling and bulging as something builds up beneath it. He screams again, fumbling for his sword with his other hand, but you can already see the black lines spreading up the sides of his neck and onto his cheeks–you don’t think him cutting off his hand would even //help// at this point.

“He’s corrupted… kill him!” the leader commands, obviously coming to the same conclusion as you, but all but three of the Inquisitors have already turned and fled.

Malkorath appears beside you while the others are distracted, ripping the manacles free from the altar beneath you just as they did the first time; the man who swatted at Twilit is now writhing on the ground as more and more bulges appear all over his body, the skin distending and slackening in some places and tightening into strange coils in others. The leader, swearing when he sees that he’s practically on his own, goes to kill the man himself, plunging his sword deep into the man’s torso, and then twice more into his stomach for good measure.

You sit up just in time to be able to see why the Inquisitors all scream in horror.

Emerging from the wound just below the heart (if the heart is even there anymore, you suppose) are fawn-skinned fingers, attached to a broad-palmed hand. A wrist follows after them, and then a forearm, the hapless man convulsing violently as Twilit reaches out from inside him, grasping at the pew beside him in the same way you would if you were trying to climb out of a deep hole, or maybe a well. Their fingers are sticky with that same grey ooze and the sloughing of blood and other fluids you’re not sure you want to think about, and the wood of the pew begins to collapse under Their touch, rotting and warping from the mere contact.

“H-how…” the lead Inquisitor manages to gasp out in between bouts of gagging, as Twilit’s other arm begins to emerge from what you think might have once been the man’s mouth.

“Ugh,” Malkorath replies from beside you, rolling their eyes. “Don’t ask Them that. They’ll //explain//!”

[[You can’t help but laugh at that. Malkorath’s not wrong…]]

“Your masters have told you that the source of My great evil comes from My envy of your perfect physical forms,” Twilit’s voice says, ringing throughout the darkened church despite the fact that you can’t see anywhere that it could be coming from. “But nothing could be further from the truth. A physical form is at best a temporary inconvenience, and at worst a prison. And if there is any essence of perfection to be found in the flesh that makes you up, it is in how extraordinarily //malleable// it is, under the right conditions.”

As if to emphasise Their point, the man’s body distends so completely that it splits open along some central seam, and They emerge from within, naked and dripping with grey and black ooze, standing up slowly as skin folds itself into more pieces of Them as though the man whose body They just were had been turned inside-out like a piece of clothing to reveal Them on the inside.

“A sculptor does not //envy// the clay from which they create.”

[1982brucespringsteen]

society if damnation had been half as popular as peaky blinders

[oldtvandcomics]

So I'm being told that I should fill out something called a "Bragging Rights" form for @wipbigbang?

Story Title: One Last Curse Fandom: Supernatural Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49523875/chapters/124990924 Summary: After the end of the series, Dean finds Cas again in Heaven. Something is wrong. It is as if there was some kind of external force keeping them from talking about what happened just before Cas' death, or anything else that has to do with their relationship. Warnings: Chose Not To Use Warnings Characters: Dean Winchester ; Castiel ; Jack Kline ; Eileen Leahy ; Becky Rosen Pairings: Catiel/Dean Winchester When I Started: ...2021. Maybe March? How I Lost My Shit: I lost interest. How I Finished My Shit: Peer pressure because of this challenge.

So yeah, there we go. I believe I still have some people over from my short relapse into the Supernatural fandom period? If you wanted to read a fic and tell me how clever and pretty I am, feel free to.

Honestly, I'm just happy that it's over.

[fithragaer]

bro if this dlc lets me have my out-of-nowhere eleventh hour favorite evil old man back i will renounce everything ive said about how this game sucks and is so heterosexual. not really

[halfelven]

Maglor for the character bingo? - Sauroff

where is the fandom isn’t mean enough?

(the ‘beast’ is the bastard in battle btw. bc i do think he could rip reality to shreds with his voice.)

tragedy enjoyers like no he doesn’t get to live happily in rivendell now

also i think his best traits ultimately caused his downfall and isn’t that what we’re looking for in tragedies?

thank you! 🧡

[the73rdpostscript]

Not to be back on my bullshit but why would you write a WHOLE SHOW about farmers striking in Iowa if you don't actually LIKE farmers???

[shredsandpatches]

tfw you go into itunes to fix some typos you put into some track names and end up getting all distracted listening to the bass throwdown in part 2 of The Damnation of Faust

[silhouettecrow]

365 Days of Writing Prompts: Day 162

Adjective: Damned

Noun: Hell

Definitions for those who need/want them:

Damned: (in Christian belief) condemned by God to suffer eternal punishment in hell; (informal) used to emphasize or express anger or frustration with someone or something

Hell: a place regarded in various religions as a spiritual realm of evil and suffering, often traditionally depicted as a place of perpetual fire fire beneath the earth where the wicked are punished after death; a state or place of great suffering, or an unbearable experience