#not really Belasco!Kurt

[djinmer4]

AU^4 (Evil Verse)

This also was part of an idea I had.  In the 9997 universe, when Belasco realizes that he was (is) Kurt Wagner, Kurt’s personality comes out on top and he tries to redeem himself.  What if it had gone the other way around?  So this is an AU of the Belasco!verse that @mikeellee and I are writing, which is an AU of Earth X, which is an AU of canon 616 universe.

I was going to have the big reveal to Kitty at the end, but this was getting long and I’ve got work tomorrow.  So that’ll be in the next part.

Belasco was contemplating the most recent news from the material plane went he felt the telltale change in pressure from a teleport.  Irritated, he cast his senses out, seeking who would dare trespass in his domain.  To his surprise, he didn’t feel any sort of magic power at all, not even the slippery feeling from a shielded magic user.  Not one of the other Lords of Limbo challenging him then, nor a sorcerer from the material plane.  Had some lost innocent wandered in by accident again?  Those were always fun.  Sometimes he even let them go, after a very long time.  

Rising to his feet, he began to search his halls.  To his surprise, there was no evidence of the intruder.  No random bystander knocking about the corridors, no damage to any of the furnishings.  A quick trip revealed nothing amiss in the library or the treasury, the two most obvious targets.  Yet there was something, a fragrance in the air or a sense of being watched that warned him that the intruder is still here.  “I know you’re here,” he announced to what appeared to be thin air.  “Come out, child, and I’ll make this easy on you.”

Only silence.  This was starting to get fun.  First he banished all the lower demons present in his estate.  While he wasn’t too concerned about them being killed, either by the intruder or by his own hand, he didn’t want this person using them to escape.  “Are you still there?”  The feeling of being watched sharpened.

After another quick round in person, he started sectioning off the different parts of his castle.  Then he vanished them, dissolving them back into the Chaos that made up Limbo, until nothing but the main parts, such as the throne room, were left.  Still nothing, but now he was starting to get a sense of what direction the person was in.

Now how were they keeping away from him?  Were they there, merely invisible?  Several quick slashes with his axe disproved that, even if they had avoided being hit, they would not have avoided the shock wave.  Were they in the air or the shadows?  Changing the air to a sulfurous mix only caused a brief sensation of retreat, flooding the area with light brought no change at all.  Had the person switched into another dimension?  The Ruler of Limbo caused the very substance of the world to waver, but nothing popped out.

There was only one remaining possibility he could think of . . . but she had died decades ago.  It was at that moment he felt someone grab his ankle and he started to sink into the stone floor.  Then the floor solidified, shattering muscle and bone.  Before he could recover, he felt something slide through his back, slipping through the ribs into his heart.

“I-I did it!”  It really was her!  He’d have recognized that voice anywhere!  But she had been stone; how had King Britain brought her back to life?  For a second, the joy in her voice made him contemplate letting her bask in her victory, letting her think she’d won for once.  But no, this was an opportunity too good to be missed.

It was the work of seconds to reform himself.  “Nice try,” he laughed.  “But within this place I am immune from death.”

Kitty Pryde (the same outfit, the same face, the same eyes, the same soul, oh how long has it been since he had seen her) simply gritted her teeth and adjusted her grip on her sword.  “We’ll see about that.”  Then she charged to attack.

Three swift blows that he deflected, falling back to give himself more room to swing.  Then a strike to the left slipped past his guard, cutting a shallow wound on his bicep.  He teleported behind her striking her in the back (flat side only) before she could turn around, but she simply phased to let the axe pass through her.  Then she was back on the attack again.

This time he managed to lock her sword with his blade.  A quick shove knocked her off her feet and she was left sprawling on the floor.  Belasco raised his axe to knock her out, but by the time he had struck, Kitty had phased again.  But this time, she had her arm raised, and her sword, intangible, had gone straight through his weapon and into his trachea.  She gave a brief smirk to the Demon Lord then rolled away.  Once she was free of the axe, she let go of the sword, which abruptly materialized while still embedded in his throat.  Severed arteries spurted blood into the air, and several vertebrae shattered.

But healing took no longer than it did the first time.  “Stop this foolishness girl.  You don’t know what I’m capable of.”

“Third time’s the charm.”  He had to give her credit.  Most people, even experienced swordsmen would have been tired by now.  Shadowcat was ready to keep going, although he noticed that the smile on her face had been replaced with a frown.  One more time, that was all she had left in her he suspected.

More thrusts, less swinging this time.  Less defense as well, simply letting his blows phase through her rather than blocking or dodging.  She feinted left twice, then before he could raise his weapon into position, she drove her sword forward and up- straight into his right eye.

Alright, that actually hurt, he thought as he felt the point of her blade grind against the back of his skull.  Enough was enough.  This time when he reformed, he didn’t give her the chance to go on the offensive again.  One swift blow broke her arm and knocked her sword away from her.  Rather than surrender though, she reached for a device on her waist; the ruler of Limbo recognized it as a portal maker.  “You can’t leave yet!”  A quick reversal, then the gadget was smashed into pieces and the X-Man was pressing her smarting arm into her chest.  Now she looked worried.  She started to phase into the floor, but he pulled her up with his tail, suppressing her ability.

She started to kick out at him, trying to get away.  Ignoring the blows, he concentrated, then conjured a necklace from the substance of Limbo.  It sat high on her throat, like a choker or a torc (or a slave collar).  More importantly, it was set with several crystals that would prevent her from using her ability.  Only when he was certain that she couldn’t get away he let her go.  

She stayed on the ground for a moment, probably trying to phase through the floor.  “What have you done?” she asked.

He went and picked up the sword she had been using.  Glowing blue blade with cross supports, black grip with a skull on the pommel.  “The Soul Sword!  Well, now I am impressed.”  He turned back to his would-be assassin.  “An artificial portal maker to get you in and out, the one weapon that everyone knows can harm me, wielded by a master swordswoman who has the ability to travel through the any wall or lock.  This was very well thought out.”  Belasco briefly considered severing the link between woman and sword then dismissed it.  Instead he encased the sword in more crystal.  That should stop Kitty from being able to use it, but keeping the link would prevent anyone else from claiming it as well.

He extended his hand to the young girl on the ground.  She recoiled back, as if retreating from a venomous snake.  Undeterred, he simply scooped her up cradling her in his one arm as if she were a doll.   “Shh, it’s alright,” the villain said. “You’re doing beautifully and I’m so proud of you. But that’s enough now. It was cruel of them to make you fight me - you could never have won. It’s not your fault.”

She hit out at him, disregarding her broken arm.  He ignored everything she threw at him.  Finally, exhausted, she fell limp and let him carry her.  It wasn’t over though.  He was sure she was planning her next escape attempt.

Let her plot away.  He had never thought he would ever see her again.  Now that he had her back, he wasn’t going to let her go for the world.

[kurtty-drabbles]

“Shh, they’ll hear us. This is a terrible idea. You are lucky I love you.” Belasco au! lmao

@djinmer4 @dannybagpipesarecalling @bamfoftheundead

N/A: The final part of Belasco will fuck your wife. Twist???

Belasco is a man, well, demon (he sold his humanity or any aspect of the same a long time ago and does not regret) prone for jealousy fits and once knowing that He, of all people, are so hell-bent in defeat Belasco it certainly makes Belasco be a bit more daring this time.

Of course, this person was captured and it was quite easy and of course,  Belasco could destroy this man so easily that is almost laughable, however, for this person alone... Belasco has a different form of torture.

"Where are you, demon?" Piotr´s voice rings louder as his arms are sewed together in the chair as his mutation was stripped away from him as his eyes are forced to be open as Belasco is chuckling at the scene.

Kitty, on the other hand, looks at Belasco bemused as she´s wearing a fine robe made of cotton and nothing else underneath it. " This is unnecessary as is stupid, but, I love you, so...I´m down for this"

Belasco let Kitty enter in the room and Piotr is speaking something either in English or Russian, either way, Kitty let Belasco take her rope as she sits on his lap and kisses him, sensually as she can hear their moans.

And adjusting herself with her half-lidden eyes as begins to rub his shaft ignoring as Belasco grabs her chest, twisting and playing making Kitty moan and continue with her own ministration.

Piotr is screaming something but the chair is hurting his arms now.

"Katzchen...tell me how much you want me?"

"Forever and a day"

And they continue to make love until as the chair slowly take his life, slowly and painfully as Piotr has to watch Belasco make love to Kitty Pryde and making the woman orgasm more than once.

[bamfdaddio]

Uncanny X-Men Abridged: 1982: Fairytales & Nightmares Edition

The X-Men, those fantastical mutants that have sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them, are a cultural juggernaut with a long, tangled history. We’ve been untangling that history for a while, but sometimes, you really want a more in-depth look. Interested? Then read the (un)Abridged X-Men!

(X-Men 153 & 160) - by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum, Josef Rubinstein, Bob Wiacek, Brent Anderson

I love how every character gets hit with a good dose of magical fairy dust except for Wolverine and Nightcrawler, who get turned into the Tasmanian Devil and a horny smurf, respectively

1982 is a pretty arc-based year. Most of it is dedicated to space operas, the Brood and Shi’ar politics (yawn), but there are a few outliers. Most notable of these two exceptions are issue 153 - Kitty’s fairytale - and issue 160, the introduction of Limbo. I’ve chosen to highlight these two issues because they are fun, fascinating and, moreover, they are sort of dark mirrors of one another.

Both feature Illyana as a catalyst for the action; both of them feature someone spinning her a little fairytale..

Both feature alternate takes on X-Men: one high fairytale, the other grimdark.

Both are standalone issues that barely feature into the main Shi’ar-plot of 1982 -- seriously, you can take them out without disrupting any narratives -- while still introducing plot points that would become a part of the X-Men mythos. (The Lockheed dragon; the bamf and, most importantly, the introduction of Illyana as Magik.)

It’s funny how the Brood saga takes up almost 80% of the narrative space this year, whereas the whole Limbo/Belasco/Illyana-thing is almost a throwaway plot that is arguably more iconic for the X-Men currently than the Brood are.

Anyway, context. The mansion is in shambles after the attack on the Hellfire Club. Illyana hasn’t returned home after being kidnapped by Arcade -- perhaps to give Colossus a little relief of his homesickness. Illyana then tempts fate:

Take note of that stuffed Fozzi toy, wocka wocka!

Illyana prefers Kitty to tell the story, and I get it. Colossus is a sweetheart, but the dude’s not exactly light of heart. Piotr would probably tell something dreary and fatalistic about three old sisters in a decaying orchard, while Kitty is a lot more fun.

Claremont shows that he is familiar with the workings of the teenage mind, because when faced with the challenge to tell a story, she does the same thing I did when I was thirteen: she goes for a self insert. And she incidentally writes in the boy she has a crush on as her boyfriend.

Look, all I’m saying, we’ve all been there, right?

Anyway, Kitty’s fairytale. Kitty is a pirate, Peter is her shipmate and they stumble upon a quest when ruffians accost a blind prince -- Scott -- and a wizard on his own personal flying carpet -- Xavier. They help out and get roped into the prince’s quest to save his princess from an evil corrupting influence. Sound familiar?

In true Final Fantasy-fashion, all the other party members are introduced one by one. Kitty calls upon a dragon called Lockheed she befriended while Piotr saves a weather goddess trapped in a bottle by the cursed princess. Best highlights, however, are Kitty’s versions of Kurt and Wolverine.

Way of X, I love you, but take note. Kurt was never meant to be puritan.

One of the best parts of this issue is the reaction shots of the other X-Men who listen in to Kitty’s tale. Most of their alternative versions fit stock fairytale characters, although Bamf is more a Disney sidekick than anything else. Wolverine is straight up a Looney Tune though:

At some point, someone looked at this character design and first thought of Sabretooth, right?

The kicker of all of this Kitty wasn´t actually there for the Phoenix Saga: she only met Jean once, briefly, when Jean saved her and the other X-Men from Emma. Kitty never met Dark Phoenix, she only ever heard the details secondhand. Still, she gets it mostly right: prince Scott and princess Jean are star-crossed lovers until Jean is cursed by a corrupting force. As Dark Phoenix, she is hellbent on stopping wizard Xavier and the prince in their tracks, lest they lift the curse by confronting her with her one weakness.

THE HUMANITY

Xavier uses Jean’s humanity to fight off the dark Phoenix and, in this particular universe, they succeed. Scott and Jean get the happy ending they didn’t get in the actual timeline: Kitty even cures his cursed eyebeams. It’s kind of funny that this is the only happy ending the X-Men will ever get during Claremont’s reign.

Speaking of a lack of happy endings, the dark counterpart of Kitty’s fairytale also starts with someone telling Illyana some sweet little lies:

I’m assuming that the whole Stranger Danger-campaign only got big after the eighties? Illyana has all the self preservation skills of a lemming.

Kitty notices that Illyana has vanished and is curious, following her. She steps on a strange light disk and vanishes.

As a slightly piquant aside, I was pleasantly surprised when reading this one digitally. I own a copy of this comic in Dutch (straight from the eighties) and apparently, they censored the version for the low lands. In a comic with creepy assaultey Nightcrawler and many, many, many naked Storms and Wolverines, this page was a bridge too far:

Look, maybe they weren’t entirely wrong. Last time three guys were bouncing around me and I invited them for a shower, I wasn’t entirely innocent either.

I was “also not welcome in that gym again” but that’s besides the point.

Who knows, maybe they just wanted to cut out the clunky exposition of storylines recent. In any case, the X-Men decide to investigate and they are also whisked away: those disks of light are apparently teleportation circles.

Also, can someone please tell Chris Claremont that German sometimes does have i before e?

They’re pulled into a pocket dimension where time and space are treated as guidelines rather than hard and fast rules. While Belasco taunts Kitty (and pulls her skeleton from her body to keep her from escaping), the other X-Men get separated, wandering about this utterly foreign dimension and encountering future/alternative versions of themselves.

I still love how alien this first version of Limbo is. The comic is titled ‘Shoots & Ladders’ and it’s exactly like that, except in creepy, never-ending tunnels and topsy-turvy, shadowy caverns.

Both Wolverine and Colossus are confronted by their dead selves, killed by S’ym, Belasco’s brutish lackey. The alternative Nightcrawler, meanwhile, has been perverted into a freaky little toady who has no qualms about touching Kitty inappropriately. (He's essentially the creepy, disturbing version of a Bamf.) Storm, meanwhile, is aided by an older, jaded version of herself. She’s also the one in charge of teleportation disks, which she uses to aid the X-Men:

Kitty’s casually waving skeleton always sends me

Storm is furious with what Belasco has wrought onto Kitty, her Mother Bear Instincts activating. She wants to give chase, but that’s when older!Storm intervenes. She warns Storm that this is a crossroads. In her variant universe, the X-Men chased after Belasco and it went badly for them: Wolverine and Colossus died, Nightcrawler turned evil and Storm became trapped in Limbo.

There’s no word of what happened to their Kitty or Illyana, but I think that’s because Limbo does not play by any of our regular rules. See, if Belasco wanted Illyana, wouldn't he have one now? But he doesn’t. So maybe Limbo is the Schrödinger’s place, where the X-Men both did and didn’t chase Belasco. Because if they didn’t give chase, they wouldn’t have the older Storm to tell them they shouldn’t give chase, which they end up not doing. But if they don't, there wouldn't be a Storm to warn them from not going, so they would. But they wouldn't.

Got that?

Just when older!Storm prepares to send them home, Belasco returns with an army of demons.

See? I told you that paying attention to that Fozzi-toy would pay off! (Wocka wocka)

And it ends there, with Illyana rescued from her nightmare, but with the promise of more darkness in her future.

I love how Chris Claremont takes a soap opera trope -- aging up a child in the shortest amount of time possible to an age where there’s more to do with them narratively -- and makes it fit into his crazy X-Universe.

And that’s it. Two relatively pared down stories where the normal rules of reality take a backseat: one to lift Illyana’s spirits, one to break her beyond belief. In a year that’s defined by space opera, these two stories have always stuck out to me, simply because of the way they break the mold of the X-Universe. More importantly, they've given us Magik. And Bamf!

Next up: Brood, Brood, Brood, and Shi'ar.

[bamfoftheundead]

fic writer tag game

i was tagged by @dannybagpipesarecalling ! thank ya

fandoms: uhhh mostly x-men, the dark crystal, kinda bnha too and my middle school favs that i never truly grew out of Homestuck/Creepypasta. Im mostly active in x-men as of now and like dannybagpipes im really into Excalibur and catching up on a lot of the comics 0V0

number of fics: 1 lmaoo, i writer down my daydreams for potential comic script but they’re bad and suuuper unfiltered/edited.

fic i spent the most time on: desert winds of course, despite being a lil old thing. It took me abt an hour to write bc my ipad was charging n i was bored. Bead au would take the lead if i could get more of it done >:T

fic i spent the least time on: uhhh Queens bath? the new lil saucy drabble im working on but having a hard time bc WOW, i get flustered easier than i actually thought. Words are harder to write then drawing lines on a canvas

longest fic: actually this goes to that fanfic i wrote for my friends in 7th grade it was a slice of life of us living together casually, haven’t touched it since but it deffo is my longest fic

shortest fic: dfjdjdjjd middle school fanfic for the win again, this 800 word lil smut thing i wrote for my friend, it was between her and a naruto character and it was very badly written i can assure you

most hits: desert winds at 23 hits (what do those mean?)

most kudos: desert winds at 4 kudos :D

most comments: desert winds with 6! super proud, and i got a comment from a mystery user? love it

most bookmarks: desert winds, 1 (whoever u are ily)

total word count: 1,354

fav fic i wrote: definitely desert winds, ive never gotten so much feedback before :v

fic you wanna rewrite or expand on: uhhh desert winds ig, there still a lot of thing i don’t know abt writing and my learning disorder makes it hard to learn basic stuff so when i actually do get better at writing and understand things im deffo gonna rewrite everything i ever wrote

share a wip or story idea you’re planning on: well my bead au, still trying to get that done, im trying to make at LEAST one page 10k long, its my bare minimum and boy do i gotta long way to go. Another wip i think is something i did a long time ago (2017-18 i think) and i called it my “Pink diamond au” bc it was somewhat like pinks arc in su but instead it was abt kitty being a powerful/bratty princess whos also inhumanly tall (bc pink diamond/pearl dynamic ig) with a special bodyguard (kurt) whos somewhat strict and technically prince of a kingdom but since he was like more than a 5th son became a knight/paladin and how kitty suddenly became queen of a whole world and inherited amazing god-powers as a half celestial queen and struggled to rule and not be manipulated by others (azazel, belasco and mephisto who all have their own kingdoms) and how shes young/naive and just wanna do whats right and gets weirdass marriage proposals from kings/queens shes never even heard of, it was very high fantasy-ish and i definitely wanna do more with it.

tagging: uhhh @kurtty-drabbles if you haven’t done it yet? im afraid everyone i know has been tagged already :’)

[duhragonball]

duvete replied to your post “Chuck Austen Update”

I'd like to see those four Marvel characters claiming to be biblical Satan to have a cage match. The winner gets to be declared Satan and the other three are his sidekicks. The true history of DBZ's Mr. Satan.

Now that I think about it, I might have underestimated the number of Satans in the Marvel Universe.  

I was basing my count on the story from Defenders #100, where the Defenders had to fight Satan, the father of the horror-themed superhero Son of Satan.   J.M. Dematteis did some pretty interesting stuff in his Defenders run, though he seemed somewhat obsessed with trying to "fix” Satan continuity by establishing that Son of Satan’s dad and all the other would-be Satans were aspects of the same guy.   He later had this character explain that he wasn’t the biblical Satan at all, but the embodiment of human evil.   This was kind of handy, since it allowed Dematteis to use the character without being hamstrung by any particular religious orthodoxy.  

Anyway, in Defenders #100, “Satan” teamed up with Mephisto, the devil from Silver Surfer, Thog, the devil from Man-Thing, and Satannish, the devil from Doctor Strange.  Not included were Belasco, the devil from Uncanny X-Men, and whoever gave Ghost Rider his super powers. 

I’ve never cared much for stories with these guys, because every writer acts like they’re the first person to try to use Satan in their story as some ultimate villain, when it’s actually the biggest cliche in fantasy lit.  Also, the writers can never decide between putting their own personal stamp on the devil, or trying to strive for authenticity. 

The other thing I don’t like is that all the demonology stuff is hard to square with the other fantasy concepts in superhero stories.   When I read New Mutants, the writers always played up how Rhane Sinclair was convinced her mutant power made her a demon, because she was raised by a hardcore fundamentalist priest.   The other characters insisted that she was being superstitious about something that was totally natural, except her teammate, Illiyana Rasputin, really did have demonic powers, and her mutant abilities threatened to corrupt her soul with each use.   They couldn’t even keep it consistent in a single series, let alone the whole line. 

With Austen’s Azazel character, I think the idea was to suggest that all the demons and angels were actually ancient, immortal mutants, and Azazel was banished to a hell-like dimension after losing a dispute with the “angels.”   It’s a somewhat interesting idea, except they already did it with Apocalypse in the 1990′s.    Pocky wasn’t an exact replica of Satan, but he was often tied into other myths and legends involving great catastrophe.  Are we supposed to believe the “angel” mutants banished Nightcrawler’s dad for meddling in human affairs, but they left Apocalypse alone? 

It also sucks all the wonder out of Azazel and his crew.  If Nightcrawler’s half-demon, it’s kind of a big deal, since he’s a devout Catholic, and it forces him to take a hard look at his humanity.    But if Azazel’s just another mutant, then he’s no different from any other mutant bad guy with kids.  Kurt already had an X-Men villain for a parent-- Mystique-- so giving him a second one was utterly pointless.   Then again, if Austen had embraced Azazel as a genuine demon, Nightcrawler would have just been rehashing themes from the Son of Satan comics.   It’s a no-win scenario, just like having Juggernaut and She-Hulk sleep together. 

I read the “She Lies With Angels” story arc, and that one managed to be even worse somehow.   I thought it might get into the deal with Archangel’s healing powers, but instead it just... I don’t know what it did.    I was on Part 3 of 5 and realized that not a whole lot had actually happened.    I had heard the characters quoted Romeo and Juliet word for word, but I never actually spotted this, although Austen was probably adapting dialogue from the play.   Using the Guthries as a family locked in a bitter feud kind of ticked me off.   It’s like Austen realized he needed to do something with Husk and all he knew about Kentucky was the Hatfields and McCoys, and he decided that concept wasn’t sexy enough. 

I’m hoping that’s the worst of it.   I still have to read Uncanny X-Men #442 and 443, and his ten-issue run on Adjectiveless X-Men, and then I’m done with Chuck Austen for good.  I guess I could track down his other work, but I just remembered I have a stomach ache...

[chiseler]

Theater of War

Towering at six and a half gangling feet, with a long face that drooped like a pensive sunflower over everyone he met, playwright Robert Sherwood loomed large in New York culture, in more than one sense, from the 1930s through the war and beyond. Between 1936 and the coming of war in Europe he gradually transformed from a writer of Pulitzer-winning antiwar plays to a gung-ho war propagandist and speechwriter for Franklin Roosevelt. In his shift from isolationist to interventionist, he helped prod the rest of America in the same direction.

New York theater in the 1930s had a long conversation with its audiences about isolation and intervention, war and pacifism. Elmer Rice wrote what are said to be the first two Broadway dramas responding to what was happening in Hitler's Germany: We, the People, which ran at the Empire Theatre on 42nd Street in 1933, and Judgment Day, which opened at the nearby Belasco the following year. Rice -- born Elmer Reizenstein on East 90th Street in 1892 -- graduated from New York Law School in 1912 but preferred courtroom dramas to actual courtrooms. On Trial, his first play (1914), was a giant hit, as was the 1929 Street Scene, a realistic drama about tenement life in New York, which earned him a Pulitzer and was adapted as both a film and later an opera, with music by Kurt Weill and lyrics by Langston Hughes.

In 1932 he visited Germany and was appalled by the fascism and anti-Semitism. He came home to write the sprawling We, the People, which dramatized the lives of working class and farm families being pulled under by the Depression. Rice's message was that unless the businessmen and politicians who ran the country did something, America could be heading for a German-style revolution and fascistic crackdown. Audiences who could still afford Broadway tickets in Depression 1933 didn't go to the opulent Empire Theatre to be hectored and depressed. The show opened in January and closed in March after only 49 performances.

We, the People was in the middle of its short run when the Reichstag in Berlin burned on the night of February 27. The Nazis arrested four Communists and tried them in Leipzig for arson and treason. In the internationally publicized trial, one of the last displays of a free court in Hitler's Germany, only one of the men was convicted (and soon guillotined). Rice used it as the inspiration for Judgment Day, about a show trial in a fictionalized Eastern European country where members of the "People's Party" are accused of trying to assassinate "our leader, Minister-President Grigori Vesnic" of the National Party. Unlike the Leipzig trial, this one ends with an appearance by the dictator Vesnic himself, and his assassination there in the courtroom. Judgment Day fared little better than We, the People, closing after three months.

One of the first Broadway plays to address the Nazis' abuse of Jews -- and the only one of the period that depicted Nazi violence onstage -- was Clifford Odet's one-act Till the Day I Die. The Group Theatre presented it and Odets' Waiting for Lefty at the Longacre Theatre on West 48th Street for 136 performances in the spring and summer of 1935. It was set in Berlin, where Nazis have rounded up some Jews and Communists. They smash one prisoner's fingers with a rifle butt, and kick and beat others. Audiences were shocked and horrified. In addition, Odets flirted with the idea, widely promoted by the left in the 1930s, that the Nazis' brutality and cult of extreme virility were twisted expressions of their homosexuality. One officer tells another that "it might be much better for both of us if you weren't so graceful with those expressive hands of yours. Flitting around here like a soulful antelope. I'm lonely, I've got no one in the whole world." The other replies, "You've got me, Eric."

Two of the most talked-about plays of 1936, when Americans were still almost unanimously isolationist, were outspokenly antiwar: Irwin Shaw's Bury the Dead and Sherwood's Idiot's Delight. Shaw, whose actual surname was Shamforoff, was born in the Bronx in 1913 and raised in Brooklyn, where he graduated from Brooklyn College. He was 23 when he wrote Bury the Dead, a bitterly absurdist antiwar fantasy that ran from April to July 1936 at Broadway's Ethel Barrymore Theatre. It was set in "the second year of the war that is to begin tomorrow night." The corpses of six young soldiers who died in battle stand up in their shrouds and refuse to be buried. This causes all sorts of problems for the army brass, the warmongering businessmen, and the clergy, while the news media spin it as a sign of "the indomitable spirit of the American doughboy." In the play's best scenes, the corpses' wives and mothers try to convince them to lie back down. A twenty-year-old soldier tells his mom that he lived too little to be content with death. An angry wife berates her husband for only standing up to the generals now that he's dead. When no one can convince them, a frustrated general grabs a gun and tries to kill them all over again, but they simply walk off.

Bury the Dead was a critical sensation. In the Times, Brooks Atkinson raved about "the genius of Mr. Shaw's lacerating drama. It is a rebellious dance of scabrous death on the battlefield. Take it also as a warning from the young." Eleanor Roosevelt had just begun writing a nationally syndicated daily newspaper column, "My Day," which, amazingly, she would keep up until a few months before her death in 1962. After seeing Bury the Dead in May 1936, she wrote that "the thoughts hit you like hammer blows," adding that it would be "long be remembered by anyone who sees it and its strength lies, I think, in the fact that it is the expression of the thought and feeling of thousands upon thousands of people today."

She was right about its longevity: Bury the Dead remains one of the best-known of all American antiwar plays, and continues to be performed in revivals as the country goes from one conflict to the next.

Idiot's Delight followed Sherwood's first bona-fide Broadway success, The Petrified Forest. Sherwood grew up in Manhattan at the beginning of the century, son of a prosperous Wall Streeter and an artist. Just as the Great War broke out in 1914 he went off to Harvard, where he wrote for the Lampoon and the Hasty Pudding Club. When America entered the war in 1917 he volunteered for the American Expeditionary Force, but he was rejected as too tall for combat -- the standard depth for front line trenches was only six feet. So he crossed the border and joined the kilted Canadian Black Watch. On an infantry charge in France he was gassed and got hung up in barbed wire. Like many other young Americans, he went Over There convinced of the righteousness of the war, and came back shocked by its obscene futility.

In 1919 a family friend got Sherwood an entry-level job at Vanity Fair, where Robert Benchley and Dorothy Parker took a shine to him. Despite an apparently complete lack of their flair for cunning repartee -- Parker called him the Conversation Stopper -- he joined them in the Algonquin Round Table, the "Vicious Circle," with regulars who included theater critic Alexander Woollcott; Harold Ross, who would start The New Yorker in 1925; the leftist journalist Heywood Broun; and novelist Edna Ferber.

It was Ferber who encouraged Sherwood to write plays. His first work on Broadway, the 1927 The Road to Rome, was a light historical fantasy in which Hannibal is talked out of sacking Rome by the emperor's amorous wife, who convinces him that love, sex and joy are preferable to war, death and pain. Sherwood assayed various topics and styles over the next few years before finding his mature voice with The Petrified Forest, which opened at the Broadhurst Theatre in 1935 with Humphrey Bogart and Leslie Howard in the roles they would reprise in the Warner Bros. movie that appeared the following year.

Sherwood's Idiot's Delight opened on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre in May 1936, when Bury the Dead was still running nearby, and ran for 300 performances. In a set-up similar to the one in Forest, an international gaggle of characters gets stuck at a ski lodge in the Italian Alps. Principle among them are a down-at-heels American showman named Harry Van, a wealthy arms merchant named Weber, and the mysterious Russian countess Irene, who is really a show girl and con artist Harry spent a night with years ago. Just as they congregate, war breaks out again among the European powers, giving Sherwood the opportunity to have the characters voice different points of view, from Harry's feckless American optimism to Weber's worldly cynicism.

Irene says to Weber, "I'm so happy for you. All this great, wonderful death and destruction, everywhere. And you promoted it!"

"Ask yourself: why shouldn't they die?" Weber replies. "And who are the greater criminals -- those who sell the instruments of death, or those who buy them, and use them?" He argues that she shouldn't blame men like him for war, but the millions of "little people" who allow themselves to be goaded into fighting with cheap appeals to patriotism and duty.

Sherwood was citing an idea that was central to the antiwar movement in the mid-1930s: the notion that international munitions dealers like Weber, the "merchants of death," had used propaganda and political influence to manipulate the world into the Great War. The remarkable Marine Corps General and twice Medal of Honor recipient Smedley Butler put this notion succinctly in his pamphlet War Is a Racket, published in 1935. He argued that modern war was choreographed by the arms dealers, steel companies, bankers and other capitalists for their own immense profit and everyone else's terrible loss. In 1934 this idea led to a Senate Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry, better known as the Nye Committee for its chairman, the isolationist North Dakota Senator Gerald Nye. The later-infamous Alger Hiss served as its chief counsel. The committee not only put an official stamp on the antiwar movement; it helped prod Congress into passing a series of Neutrality Acts beginning in 1935 that prohibited the export of arms to warring nations; banned loans to warring nations; and forbade U.S. merchant ships from carrying arms to belligerents, even if manufactured elsewhere.

Idiot's Delight won Sherwood his first Pulitzer. He wrote the screenplay for the MGM film adaptation that appeared in 1939, with Clark Gable as Harry Van and Norma Shearer as Irene.

The situation in Europe had changed a great deal between 1936 and 1939, and the film was dated the day it opened. Hitler and Stalin had, each in his own way, made their intentions unmistakably clear, forcing Sherwood and Shaw to reassess their antiwar stances of just three years earlier.

Shaw's The Gentle People: A Brooklyn Fable premiered at the Belasco Theatre in January 1939, with Harold Clurman directing an extraordinary cast that included Same Jaffe, Franchot Tone, Sylvia Sidney, Karl Malden, and Lee J. Cobb. Shaw transposed events in Europe to the Brooklyn waterfront, where a pair of middle-aged fishermen, Jonah and Philip, are preyed on by a Hitleresque thug named Goff. He shakes them down for weekly pay-offs, and for a long while they give in, in effect appeasing him the way England and France appeased Hitler. "We are not all made out of the same material," Goff explains to them. "There are superior people and there are inferior people. The superior people make the inferior people work for them. That is the law of nature. If there is any trouble you beat 'em up a coupla times and then there is no more trouble. Then you have peace."

Eventually, Jonah tells Philip that the only way to rid their neighborhood of Goff is to murder him.

"All my life I wanted only peace and gentleness," Philip counters. "Violence. Leave it to men like Goff."

Jonah replies that "if you want peace and gentleness, you got to take violence out of hands of the people like Goff and you got to take it in your own hands and use it like a club. Then maybe, on the other side of the violence, there will be peace and gentleness."

They kill Goff, and not only get away with it, but get back all the money he extorted from them. In an introduction, Shaw wryly notes: "This play is a fairy tale with a moral. In it justice triumphs and the meek prove victorious over arrogant and violent men. The author does not pretend that this is the case in real life."

When the U.S. went to war two years later, Shaw would enlist in the Army and serve as a warrant officer. He'd put his wartime experiences into two later novels, The Young Lions and Rich Man, Poor Man.

Robert Sherwood was "sickened" when the Soviets invaded Finland late in 1939. Although he still considered himself a pacifist, he had now come to equate isolationism with escapism, reluctantly concluding that sooner or later the United States would be forced to defend itself and "save the human race from complete calamity." He had "consistently tried to plead the cause of pacifism," he wrote in a letter that December. "But the terrible truth is that when war comes to you, you have to fight it." As the outgunned Finns mounted a splendidly courageous defense that humiliated the Red Army through the winter, Sherwood churned out a play about a Finnish family and assorted others who join the resistance. His friends Alfred Lunt, who was of Finnish descent, and Lynne Fontanne agreed to star, and Lunt asked to direct. Montgomery Clift and Sidney Greenstreet were also cast. They were still in rehearsals when Finland finally capitulated in March 1940, but all felt the play should go on.

There Shall Be No Night opened on Broadway at the Alvin (now the Neil Simon) Theatre that April. In the Times, Brooks Atkinson was critical of the play's dramatic weaknesses but not its message, declaring that "the best parts of it speak for the truth with enkindling faith and passionate conviction." Life praised the "simple, poignant story" and said it had "chances of being an important hit."

Isolations from the left, right and middle attacked the play. The Washington Post assailed it as "a rank inflammatory job, pleading for intervention." The Daily Worker denounced Sherwood as a "stooge of the imperialist warmongers," while conservatives called him a stooge of international Communism (because the play theorized that the Soviets were merely Hitler’s tools).

The same month that Sherwood's play opened, Hitler's Blitzkrieg devoured Denmark and Norway. In May German armies poured into Belgium, Luxembourg, and Holland. Sherwood wrote a full-page ad that appeared in the New York Times and other newspapers nationwide, asserting that only "an imbecile or a traitor" could fail to see that if Britain and France fell too, America would find itself "alone in a barbaric world – a world ruled by Nazis."

France fell in June, and Hitler's Luftwaffe began bombing England to soften it up for a planned invasion. By the fall of 1940, Sherwood was helping to write Franklin Roosevelt's speeches explaining to the American people why the U.S. had to get involved. After America did enter the war at the end of 1941, Sherwood would run the foreign branch of the government's Office of Wartime Information, including the Voice of America, as well as continuing to help write FDR's speeches. He would not write another Broadway play until the war was over.

by John Strausbaugh

[kurtty-drabbles]

“ What’s the point in singing silly love songs? “ (belasco au) uwu

@djinmer4 @dannybagpipesarecalling @bamfoftheundeadN/A: You know, I´m on a roll on making Belasco fuck your wife with a plot twist, so, uhm...why not?

Music is not something forbidden in the realm of Belasco while it may seem hard to believe that such Demon Lord favoured by the Outer God of destruction enjoys anything aside from chaos but is possible to hear the ruler of Limbo humming a song here and there.

What is hard to see, on the other hand, is the Queen of New Hell/Limbo humming a song or two and right now Kitty Pryde is brushing her long and curly hair humming the song "This Kiss- From Carly Rae Jackson" and is so enticing by her own sound and the lyrics playing in her mind she didn´t notice Belasco in her room watching the scene with hungry eyes.

"Is a lovely song you´re thinking, Katzchen" he spoke only when she finishes brushing her lovely hair and stop with her melody. The woman offers a smile, one that´s very cheeky and impish at the same time.

"Is an old song, well, is now an old song...What my lord desires for tonight" she speaks amused and Belasco offers his hand as he wants to show her something.

"I need an excuse to see you Katzchen?"

Meanwhile, Frank Castle is stuck watching his wife having an orgasm so powerful and so visceral that prompts her to swear her undying love to Belasco as he continues to thurst hard and faster on her and Frank Castle can only watch in horror as his wife is begging for more.

Kitty and Belasco arrive to see Frank Castle screaming to stop and how he´ll kill Belasco along with other obscenities.

"What´s that, my love?" Kitty asked unsure of what she´s truly seeing. Belasco offers a smirk of his own.

"A proof that I´ll love only you. A proof that you gave your heart to some who deserved you" Belasco states and concluded with an amused tone. "Frank Castle is looking at infidelity by a new perspective, Katzchen, and sometimes I even pity mortals that don´t have a love like ours"

"I hardly think we´re anyone goals" Kitty states in a rare clarity moment. "Yet, I still love you, be by the influence of Limbo, insanity or something else...I love you truly" and this is an answer that makes Belasco happy.

[kurtty-drabbles]

“Let’s make a deal.” (Belaso!verse)

@look-ma-no-hands336 @djinmer4 @dannybagpipesarecalling @discordsworld

N/A: It can be linked to Swan au or not.

Illyana Rasputin is hardly a girl (or woman as her age is misleading) to be intimidated by tales of the boogeyman. Of course not, she already saw something worse than the boogeyman and fear is something she can´t allow to feel.

Belasco is on his throne, as Yana arrives in his court, a poor soul is executed and Yana is not flinching as the execution is given. Her presence is noticed and Yana remains with her cold attitude.

“Yana, you´re back” the smile indicates the man is far from surprised “if you wish to see your mother she is busy, but if you can wait…she would be delight in seeing you again”

“I didn’t come here to see mom, I want to talk with you” Yana is straightforward.

“We are talking” Belasco replied amused enjoying to rile up Yana the best he can.

“I´ve got a problem with a certain Necromancer. He´s meddling in my affairs and kingdom and I think we both can agree we dislike him very much” Yana respond and Belasco stops smiling. His red face shows no emotion now and Yana knows that this could be good or bad.

“Let’s make a deal.”  Belasco pipes in before Yana can make another speech. “Is that what you want me to say? Foolish girl, don´t think of me as your weapon” Belasco is not pleased with Yana´s plan.

“You´re not a weapon and I´m not happy with this. The Necromancer fears you” not a total lie. The Necromancer does show a bit of nervous to the name Belasco(of course, that goes along with the phrase “fight Belasco in Limbo”) “And you own me  a favour, Belasco, you know this”

“Yes, but you hope this won´t come to this, right?”

“I would hate having to depend on you for anything” Yana answer his question and Belasco smiles, in a way that anger Yana even more, and replied kindly “If your first plan does come short, bring the necromancer here and I´ll destroy him for you, little snowflake”

Yana is seething and Belasco feels like winning the lottery. Before more insults can be throw. Kitty, the Queen of hell, finally shows up. Her chores are complete.

“Yana” Kitty replied joyfully and she hugs the girl like a mother should and would in this situation “Oh, it has been so long, how are you?”

“I´m fine, Katya, me and Belasco are just talking” her bemused expression, ironically, mirrors Belasco in an almost father and daughter moment. “Please, stay for dinner, I missed you deeply” Yana is about to say no when thinking on how much this would ruin Belasco´s plans only replied “of course, I would love to stay for dinner”

Belasco is not pleased.

[kurtty-drabbles]

Swan au (hellfire part 4)

N/A: I like to make Grayson, in an ironic twist, have similar traits with his dad it makes me think that if he had powers he could have been a great asset for him.

@djinmer4 @dannybagpipesarecalling @discordsworld @look-ma-no-hands336

The Friends of Humanity is a cult that can be spotted by anyone, yet, few can enter. The idea of the cult is to give a safe place, safe heaven, to humans against magical creatures in this world. They popularity allowed them to be a City-Estate.

The cult leader Grayson Creed is holding a gold coin with his two fingers, playing with the coin, as the member of his cult gives the last news, Pete WIsdom failed and he was rescued by magic as the swan continues to walk freely.

“Enough of excuses!” Grayson speaks up strongly letting the coin leave his fingers. His hands are now hiding part of his face as the man ponders the next move “ The names they sing in the tabers and in Genosha, what is the name?”

“Illyana Rasputin, my lord” the man replied quickly.

“If you have to guess, no, if you have to give me a percentage of who is more talked who would be? Magik or ...that thing?” Grayson asked closing his eyes for a moment. Visualizing his goal often soothes him.

“The necromancer lost a bit of popularity, people, see this Magik as their saviour ...in all the bars and cities I visited she is the main source of conversation, I would bet 80%” the man replied confidently.

“Don´t make bets you can win” warned Grayson and adds “run the marketing team and make the conversation about Magik grow, make it seem like she´s far more powerful than that creature. I know the thing...is very proud and has a huge ego and won´t like if people start worshipping Magik instead”

The man bows at the cult leader and leaves the room. Grayson takes the only photo of the swan and looks with a disgruntled as the swan is still alive and polluting the cities. Speaking of the woman alive that pollute the cities, his mind goes to the woman who gave birth to him.

Amanda Szardos. She wanted a powerful son, but, once making that test to confirm her suspicions(the fire still haunts his mind to this day) she abandoned Grayson. The boy literally was feeding to himself until the family of Katherine Creed steps in and take the boy. The boy had a dream and a name(that woman never brought to give him one)

The witch escapes from his fingers like a coward, but, Grayson can be sure to know she´s afraid of him, even if she does not know he´s the same boy she leaves behind years ago. Two years ago, the friends of humanity located where Amanda Szardos was and burned the place down and all involved.

Grayson managed to kill “uncle Steffan” as Amanda escapes like the coward she is. A cynical and disgusted woman like her does not deserve to live, she has the devil mark on her. It would be the day when Grayson finds that woman and choke the life out of her.

His eyes gaze at the swan once again. The woman has a somehow angelical appearance...much like his dear Katherine Creed. Gone too soon. Grayson thought to himself that...perhaps he could save her?

“Our mission is to save people, right, Katherine” Grayson speaks looking at the ceiling. Remembering fondly of the love their shared. This swan resembles a little that woman...perhaps God is giving him a test. Can you save Katherine from that monster?

What if the swan is his Katherine?

“I need to bring you here where you will be safer, Katherine” Grayson wants and need to have Katherine by his side again and such conviction comes from a bigger love than the body can sustain. Grayson and Katherine will be together.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

The rumours fly by as Kurt hears more and more about Magik´s prowness on magik and how she can defeat him with one finger. It may be childish but Kurt does not like to take the second place even in rumours.

“Katzchen, do you think I should say hello to Magik?” Kurt asked with a ruefully smile and Kitty stops reading the book to properly answer him.

“If she was that powerful wouldn´t she come here herself to kill you? You are the bad guy, Kurt, people fear you and are natural for them to hold on a hero, how many times those type of rumours fly around?” Kurt answers they are far in between but Magik´s name is gaining some weight “that may be, but, you are you. Far too powerful. I know the people who believe in the rumour would piss their pants if they even look at your shadow, so...there´s that”

“And if she´s the real deal?”

“I know she isn´t. I have my friends to Kurt, but if she was...we would be smart about the situation” she then goes back to her book about Norse mytolgy.

__________________________________________________________________________________

The rumours get stronger and to calm Kurt down, the man is far to agitated(“oh, Katzchen it has been centuries since I fight someone worthy”) and if not even loving can make the man calm for more than a few days, Kitty will investigate the rumour knowing for a fact her friends can´t lie to her.

Ravens and Crows are far too intelligent for that. Offering a nice piece of breed(their favourite mark) Kitty gently asks for information in regards Magik.

“Oh, I see. How many foes has she defeated?” she asked as the crow is now on her shoulder whispering at her “uhm, that´s impressive, but, Kurt does that too and in less time, do you think those rumours have any truth” the crown ponder for a moment and give the answer. The raven silent until now goes to the other shoulder of Kitty to speak “I see, that´s something I wasn´t expecting, Belasco does not take students very often. Very well, I may be right here but I think Kurt need to be careful” she thanks the birds and watch them fly away.

As Kitty is leaving the clearing a man with an odd hairstyle appears asking, in a kinder fashion, if Kitty can help him. “No!” she said and walk away. The man takes a device from his suit and uses to shoot Kitty. An electrical charge hits her making her feel paralysed.

Grayson watches as his Katherine is struggling and looking at him with fear and anger. The influence of the necromancer knows no boundaries. “Rest assure, Katherine, I´m here...I´ll save you”

There are no birds in the clearing now.

[kurtty-drabbles]

Evil Belasco NSFW(sort of)

N/A: this could go well with hellfire from Frollo(Disney) or unforgivable from Natalie Cole, I know odd choices but when this scene came to me I was listening to those songs.

@djinmer4

https://youtu.be/Ih4qSCrtj14

https://youtu.be/vDN5rG3wLa4

His chambers are one of the numerous chambers in his mansion that can be craft in where his desire wants, currently, the lord of Limbo is laid down on his bed, the room resembles a penthouse, one of those where only celebrities can live.

So far, the luxurious room did little to make Belasco sleep, even though sleep is something not really need just like food, sometimes, even him likes to dream every once in awhile.

Contrary to popular belief, Belasco can sleep without wearing his unfamous red chiton, he does have more clothes option, but Belasco often chooses blood red.

The ruler is on his bed and tries as might sleep does not grace him tonight(time is misleading here) and all the relentless is attributed to one person, Kitty Pryde, who is in her own chambers sleeping soundly(Belasco thinks so)

Belasco is a patient man, extremely so, but is never wise to test him(Mephisto can testify this), however, Belasco can´t wait for the woman to finally fall from grace, to finally accept Limbo as her only home and...finally accept her place next to him.

"Oh, such cruel thing to do" there´s a smirk as Belasco forget the sleep, it is not needed after all " making me waiting for you, torturing me so" the smile never leaves his face, it increases his longing for the young woman.

He could go visit her and take her again, again and again, as much his heart desire, an attractive idea for the ruler of Limbo, sadly their first time was yesterday and Belasco didn´t hold back meaning that Kitty needs to rest, but the idea of Kitty coming to him is more appealing.

The sheets that are covering his naked body give the illusion that is her skin, the silk sheet on his body are causing an immediate response, how ironic, he is the powerful ruler of Limbo and can control almost everything in this realm but his arousal is not one of them.

The seductiveness words: Don´t , stop.

Don´t stop, please.

Is a symphony that Belasco holds dear to his heart.

His hands stroke his hard member remembering their first and what they will do in the future, how delightful it will be when the corruption is finally complete. This makes his climax build upon the sheets and Belasco would find amusing that he is still such sexual creature.

He pictures her brown eyes half lidden, her legs intertwined around his member, her moans, her futile resistance and how she gives up to their pleasure encounter. She was moaning his name so sinfully and Belasco couldn´t have been more proud(fucking proud) it doesn´t matter if it was his old and forsaken name, she is his and his alone.

The waiting game is not for everyone. And Belasco is good at games, especially if the reward is that good.

"I can feel the corruption on you, once you fall, there´s no turning back" with that sentence being said and a flick of his hand the sheets are cleaned and Belasco still isn´t graced by sleep or dreams. Just the waiting hours until Kitty finally is defeated and is choose him.

[djinmer4]

September (Part 2 of AU^4)(Evil Verse)

Inspiration Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSZlAltkYoc

“So why now?”  After their duel, Belasco had arranged an herbal bath for Shadowcat.  Witch hazel and comfrey for her bruises, lavender and chamomile to keep her too relaxed to fight back.  He had relished stripping off her tattered uniform, even as she had hit back and tried to escape.  The Demon Lord had wanted to go even further . . . but he was going to enjoy taking his time to make her submit.  For now, he settled on helping her bathe.  Given that her right arm was still broken, she didn’t have much choice about accepting his help.

“Why now?  Don’t you want to know why me?”  It also helped that she wasn’t trained to endure interrogation.  Belasco didn’t need to torture her, sooner or later she’d give him the answers he wanted.

“No, I explained to you earlier why they would have picked you for the assassination.  What I want to know is why now.  They didn’t bother after the invasion of the Savage Land or the mess with the Vibranium.  Most of the rulers of Earth don’t care about Limbo, as long as we’re not currently invading.  So what’s changed?”

She stayed silent as he poured a basin of water over her hair, being careful not to blind her.  Belasco continued to talk.  Kitty wasn’t the type to remain quiet for ever.  “No one’s invaded Earth since my last attempt to take over the Savage Land.  If Mephisto or D’Spayre or someone else was going around causing trouble, they wouldn’t bother going to me to control them.  Perhaps they are seeking the Bloodstone Amulet?”

“We don’t need any of your cursed artifacts!” She shouted, then flushed bright red, embarrassed that her enemy had so easily roused her to speech.  Belasco smirked as he passed the washcloth over her back.  This would be easier than he thought.  “No objects of power?  Then I suppose King Britain and the others must intend to replace me.  Who do they have in mind?  N’astirh?  Darkoth?  Jimaine Szardos?”  Kitty probably wouldn’t know it, but all those he named were already dead.  He was interested in seeing how much they had lied to her.

“I have no idea who any of those people are.”  When his hand dipped below the water she tried to grab the washcloth from him.  A sharp rap to her broken arm left her reeling and allowed him to continue with no interference.

“Ilyana then.  Rather unoriginal.  She keeps trying, but she’s never succeeded.  But that doesn’t answer my question.”  He soaked the cloth in more witch hazel, then began to rub it into the bruises at her wrist.  “Does this have something to do with Mar-Vell’s crusade against death?”

At that she wrenched her arm away from him and tried to move to the far side of the bath.  Amused he let her, then when she had gotten away he warped space until she was back where she had started.  He poured more water over her head, this time making sure she was blinded for a few seconds.  She needed to learn that things would be easier if she stopped trying to get away from him.

“So Mar-Vell eliminates death, and only realizes the vast amount of problems that creates afterwards.  How typical of him.”  He slid the cloth over her breasts, fascinated by the shiver that passed through his prisoner.  “I take it whoever has replaced Death wants Limbo for a reason.  The new Hell, I presume?”

“Well, there’s nothing here that resembles Heaven.” She snarked back, bringing her one good arm up to cover herself.  He simply grabbed it with his tail and pulled it away, continuing to his exploratory forays.

“Oh, I could think of one thing.”  He smiled down at her.  “My dear Kätzchen, whatever could have convinced you to think you could possibly succeed in killing me?”

She hunched forward, shoulders twitching away from him.  “Don’t call me that.”

“Why not?  It’s always been my name for you.”

Copper-colored eyes rose to stare at him in horror.  “No.  No, that’s not possible.”

“I see they didn’t tell you everything.  But I can prove it.”  He leaned forward, ignoring the water soaking into his chiton.  Close enough so that he could whisper directly into her ear.  “Do you remember your first mission against the Shi’ar?  They wanted you to take control of an unmanned observation drone.  So Storm carried us all the way to the edge of the atmosphere then I teleported you to the surface of the drone.  You phased in but didn’t have complete control of your powers, so you had to find a way to let me in from inside.”

“But it wasn’t unmanned.  There was a Shi’ar warrior inside, but you hadn’t been trained to defend yourself yet.  So to save my life, you phased him through the wall and left him there.”

“No one knows that.  Not the Professor, not Storm, not even Kurt.”  She was babbling, confused and bewildered.  It was almost as good as fighting.  “You must be reading my mind.”

“Now, now, liebling, you know that telepathy is one of the few powers I don’t possess.  And I’ve always known.  I saw those limbs sticking out from the wall.  I saw them writhe then go still in death.  It’s one of my most cherished memories; even when you didn’t trust me, you still cared enough to kill to keep me alive.”

She continued to stare at him.  Tears welled up, then spilled from her eyes.

“Why are you crying?  Aren’t you happy to be with me?”  She said nothing, just shook her head and closed her eyes.  After a moment he continued to bathe her.

There was nothing more to be said.

[kurtty-drabbles]

9. “I’m sorry honey, but they made me jealous. They had to die.” (any au)

@djinmer4 @dannybagpipesarecalling @bamfoftheundead @everykurtN/A: I wanted to make Boss! Kurt here but...nope, let´s go to evil Belasco here.

How Kitty manages to break free from Limbo is a miracle that she does not want to analyse thoroughly, after all, she´s breathing the fresh air for the first time. It was a bittersweet experience as she found out how much time it passed without her.

Emma and Scott´s daughter, Ruby, is now a grown-up and she will have her first child (and Scott and Emma passed away and it was extremely depressing going visit their graves) and everything else changed. Only Kitty remains the same, but, Yana is there as well.

"Katya!" and Yana hug the woman. It was a long hug and Kitty is crying (who started crying first? Yana or Kitty?) "You are really here..."

"Yes, I´m...I managed to escape" there´s incredulity in her own words. How she, without magic or real plan, managed to escape? Was luck or this was a plot from her beloved (oh, Kitty still feels him on her. Inside of her very soul)

Yana, being a sorceress supreme and a demon is immortal and is the one who Logan, still half-feral and half ashamed, communicates with and from what Yana told her...Logan´s mind is not in the right place...nor will ever be.

"Am I saved from him?" she questioned this to herself and wonders if he´s missing her and deep down she would like to see him worried about her, even though, she´s sure he wouldn´t even care.

Who knows? Maybe he let her go because she bored him and he was in a good mood.

Meanwhile, Belasco is not having a great day as his Katzchen is no longer in Limbo and all the demons and succubus are feeling his wrath. "Where is she?" his question roars in his palace and no one is intelligent enough to speak (no one is dumb enough to speak either) and finally, Belasco seems to grasp the big picture here.

"I´ll find her...I´ll bring her back" there´s a tone of a maniac for a moment as Belasco sighs trying to cool himself and with one word a portal is open to the mortal plane.

And without hesitation, Belasco travels through the portal and is a normal-looking human walking among people in a mission to find his dear Katzchen and he knows where she is now...

Oh, Katzchen, why you thought I wouldn´t come after you?

[kurtty-drabbles]

"Are you even old enough to be here?" (Good Belasco AU)

@dannybagpipesarecalling @djinmer4 @bamfoftheundead

N/A: Ok, here we go.

Kitty blinks one time, two times and three times to register the question the ruler of New Hell just made and still is a totally blank slate here. "I´m sorry, can you repeat your question?" and Belasco, the ruler of New Hell, has enough sanity to know he´s travelling in dangerous waters now.

"I ask how old are you...you don´t look a day older than 21" Belasco amends the blow and Kitty does not seem to take the original question very well and again, Belasco, the ruler of New Hell, has enough sanity to understand how his words can afford to make Kitty "nope out" of here.

"Why my age matters now?" she´s crossing her arms and now Belasco feels on thin ice.

"Uhm...it doesn´t, really, I just wonder why they pick you for such dangerous mission..."

"I volunteer. Wanna know why? Because I was sick tired of being on stand by, all my life has changed and no one appears to notice. I was the odd duck again...that´s why I volunteer for this mission...are you regretting meeting me again?" now she asks a bit forlon and Belasco knows he needs to say something nice or else ...Kitty will cry again.

"Of course not, meeting you again is the best thing that could have happened to me and I´ll be forever grateful for that...I just fear the day you´ll get tired of being in Limbo or with me..."

"Belasco...you´re being dumb. No, you´re being way dumber than Kurt used to be, I´m here because I want to be here...with you. So, let´s make this clear: Are you happy to be together with me?"

"Yes"

"Then...is all that matters!"

"You´re Katzchen"

"I know!"

[kurtty-drabbles]

“Worst rescue– EVER!” (Justicar AU)

@djinmer4 @dannybagpipesarecalling @bamfoftheundead

N/A: Forget everything about Justicar canon and I´ll use my own canon thanks.

How exactly Kitty is in this position? Well, she has no clue, really, it all begins with Yana wanting to test a few spells, that lead to Belasco coming to the ladies and then leads to a magical battle which soon opens space to a battle between the Justicar and the Excalibur of another dimension.

And now, Kitty is with the Excalibur of another dimension dealing with a duplicate of herself and a furry version of Kurt Cadbury. "What´s going on?" Kitty dares to ask once Meggan finally notices Kitty. And maybe Pheonix and Zaorva aren´t completely against Kitty as this is Meggan of her dimension.

"Not only your leader is a pervert but is a moron?!" Meggan states in a commanding tone "Kitty Pryde is not the one behind the attack nor was the Justicar, it was Madeline Pryor...this dumbass caught the first woman he saw?!"

And Meggan is ready to untie Kitty who is saying lots of "thank you" and "you rule, Meggan" when Cadbury invade Excalibur. Captain Britain of the Justicar stops once he sees Meggan.

"Gloriana?" Brian asked and notices Kitty. "They kidnap Kitty...why?"

"The morons thought she was behind the attack" is a response that is not making Justicar thinking fondly of them as she explains the situation and Kurt Cadbury untie Kitty.

Everything is being explained, Meggan was with Excalibur to clear the misunderstanding that Justicar created for themselves, apparently, Excalibur was under the impression Justicar was hunting mutants (Cadbury is not really happy with this) and once they saw Kitty on the darkroom as Darkchild fighting a giant monster who resembles Piotr Rasputin and are ready to jump to conclusion (again, Kitty is giving a mean stare at Excalibur now along with Cadbury)

And when you think everything is solved. Madeline Prior resolves to really prove she was the mastermind of the plan and a fight begin. "Worst rescue ever" Kitty replies and is free to fight Goblin Queen along with the others.

Excalibur takes a lesson of humility today.

[kurtty-drabbles]

11. “How much trouble did you get into this time?” (WatXM)

@djinmer4 @dannybagpipesarecalling @bamfoftheundead

N/A: Kitty is strong enough, in this universe, to lift Kurt up in bridal style.

It all begins with the Queen of Genosha giving the X-men a call saying that she needs help as she believes there´s a mole in Genosha and the X-men know how to handle the situation.

The team was composed of Kitty (Wanda asked for her "you´re smart and my father speaks highly of you") Logan, Kurt and Rogue who have experience in dealing with traitors.

"So...who you suspect is the mole?" Kitty asked once the team and Wanda are in a secluded and private place, for obvious reason, their arrival was just like the others.

"I don´t want to accuse the few humans that are here, but, I think the mole wants to make look like. My secretary seems a good option...while, I don´t think she´s totally human" Wanda explains and show a picture of said secretary, but soon she realizes how she would regret as Logan look at the woman and starts to cry.

"Jean!?" Logan speaks and Kurt, Rogue and Kitty sigh tiredly at that.

"Ok, who is this woman?" Kurt asked as Rogue is ignoring Logan

"Amada Stefton...she´s not a real red hair" Wand starts to explain "she can disguise some features of her own person, but, only that...her magic is really mediocre"

______________________________________________________________________

Amanda Sefton knows that the best way to defeat Belasco is to absorb the vital energy of this island and once Amanda concludes this...no one will be in her way, no even the Queen herself.

"The mighty Scarlet Witch will fall and kiss my feet" a huge smile plays on her lips as she begins the chanting of her spell. She only needs one more ingredient and she knows how to take it.

__________________________________________________________________________

"Jean?!" Logan asks in awe as Amanda´s eyes are green and her hair is an exact copy of the famous Jean Grey. "Are you back?"

Amanda would have roll her eyes at this stupidity, but, she needs Logan for this. "Yes, my love, I come back to you...I love you"

"Jean!" and Logan hugs Amanda and kissed her hard. Jean loves him, take that, Summers.

Amanda is feeling sorry for Jean Grey.

_________________________________________________________________________

"Logan, why are you taking me to the desolate part of Genosha to where it has a glowing pentagram at night?" Kurt asked bemused.

"Elf, she loves me...she always loves me more than Summers and now she´s here for me..." Logan states in cloud nine and Kurt is a concern for his well being.

"Let me guess, Jean? She told she loves you and ask you to bring me here?" Kurt asked still bemused. And Logan nods and Kurt nods back and activate his communicator. "Ladies you can come up now, she is that dumb"

"How dare you to call me dumb?" Amanda still disguises herself as Jean steps out of the shadows. "Logan, dear, kill Kurt for me" and she blink at him, and to Logan´s credit, he didn´t fulfil this order.

"Jeanie, why? I thought you want him here so he could marry us...I´m not going to kill my friend"

"Logan...she´s not Jean"

"She´s and she loves me"

__________________________________________________________________

Wanda, Rogue and Kitty arrive and like Wanda states previously, Amanda´s magic is mediocre at best. It was easy to defeat her and stop whatever she was doing.

Logan was not mind-controlled, he was just being dumb. In the middle of the battle, Kurt ended up getting hurt and Kitty was the one to come to his rescue as she´s carrying him in bridal style.

___________________________________________________________________________

"So...Amanda was never Jean?"

"Logan...I´m considering in let Genosha arrest you" Rogue then let the man alone.

_________________________________________________________________________

"Are you feeling better, elf?"

"Yes, thank you, Katzchen"

"Want me to put you down?"

"NOPE"

[kurtty-drabbles]

You´re a witchy, Kitty au (part 11)

N/A: A bit of something here as now the Szardos are the big baddies.

@djinmer4 @dannybagpipesarecalling @bamfoftheundead

Kurt Szardos is on his bed, still recovering from Limbo(his magic is affected the most by that place or maybe is his soul, whatever the cause is...Szardos is afraid and hopeless to heal quickly as Logan) and the wizard is set straight on his bed waiting for his mana recover.

The X-men are dealing with great additions. Illyana Rasputin´s got new tricks(and a few issues as she´s still missing Persephone dearly) and Piotr is put on his place as the horrifying reality where he can´t control Yana is finally punched him in the face.

Ororo vouch for him as once Agatha show up(much to his dismay and dissatisfaction as the old woman clearly won´t make his plan go smoothly, but, then again, he was expecting such thing) and told everyone about Kurt´s foster family and cast a bit of shadow of doubt on the others, everyone but one person.

"Kurt?" Kitty phases the door and hugs him once he offers a more optimist smile. "Are you feeling better?" her tone is laced with worry and it set his heart in delight. And gets wilder as Kitty hugs him and sits on his bed and waits for his response.

(She´s 15 years old, Kurt, don´t be a creep...)

"I´m feeling better, still tired, but better" is the truth and Kurt is ready to sleep the entire day, however, Kitty seems to want to spend time with him.

"Agatha talks about the X-men about your foster family and I...defend you, I may not like your family, but, I don´t think we should judge the sins of the parents on the sons" Kitty replies kindly and this really make him smile.

Kurt knows he must talk about Belasco´s favour he now owns, but, at the moment, he can have a nice moment with his soulmate.

___________________________________________________________________

Margalia is not happy as Stefan, once fucking Amanda like he never saw a woman in his entire life, retell the story of his friend´s failure and Margalia is now sure if she wants to get rid of Kitty Pryde, then, Margalia must take matters on her own hands.

"If my useless daughter and son aren´t cable of killing a teen witch, then, I must take matters on my own" Margalia said in disgust at the lack of success of her two children and this seems to finally cut the erotic atmosphere both were having for each other.

"I can take her down, mother, she´s a boring look girl...I can use her vanity against her" Amanda pleaded almost crying and Margalia almost slaps the woman, but, control her temper. No need to hit on her beautiful daughter.

"No, she´ll never believe in a word you may say...I need to call the best of the best..." Margalia gives a wicked smile as she uses a spell to connect with Emma Frost´s mental link. "Emma, are you still looking for a red Queen?"

Emma Frost offers a smile that means business and Margalia is a good investment. And if the price is killing this Kitty Pryde, well, Emma won´t share a tear for this little loss.