I saw the vid on the Brittany bridge burn, and I joined the sub to make this post because I was yelling at the screen as nobody hit on the ACTUAL point. You can watch the video here
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Disclaimer: I don't have any ill will towards Destiny, I like his personality and his content. This is just a critique of how he operates and navigates his life leading others to disrespect him.

On how Destiny comes across at times

Timestamp 55:43
Melina is 100% correct, it DOES sound like Destiny is saying "yeah most people can't handle it but I can, cuz I'm just built differently." It ESPECIALLY comes off like that because people who are into cuckoldry (Not saying Destiny is a cuck, just highlighting a parallel) also have the same pattern of speaking about their lifestyle.
One of the big reasons that some men enjoy cuckoldry is that they feel like they're a stronger person than the average joe because they can handle their SO sleeping with other people, but still, come home to them and have a stable relationship, unlike these cucked dues who stay monogamous. Proving that they are the better man because "yeah you had her body but I have her heart, you weren't good enough for her. You were just a thing to be used, a living dildo, but she actually loves me".
I've lurked on some bull/cuck forums because I was genuinely curious as to WHY and HOW a man could want to see his wife get plowed by a muscular black guy with a 10-inch cock, and this sentiment is basically the answer I've read by many men posting on these forums.
All I'm saying is, Destiny's comments about how most people can't handle polygamy, or it's not meant for most people, normal people get too jealous and shouldn't do it, things get messy, well I LIKE drama; I can handle it cuz I'm so different, and how he's exceptional quite literally is what actual cuckolds say. And this parallel makes what he says sound inherently boisterous.
Again, I don't think destiny is a cuck, iirc he sleeps around more than Melina, and from what I've heard from prior vids, shes is more in favor of closing the relationship than he is, and he's even admitted that he's broken the "rules" of their relationship before and slept with people. So yeah, definitely not a cuck, but he does use cuck rhetoric.
When Melina reiterates that he should establish boundaries, Destiny incredulously mocks here, saying something to the effect of "oh let me write up a list of things people can't say about me, etc" when in reality, establishing boundaries is as simple as asserting yourself right then and there in a situation.
Example: My friend shit talks my bigass forehead and my hairline is too far back, he might just be joking, but if it genuinely offends me I'm not gonna just gonna let him doormat me, I'm gonna stick up for myself and tell him to STFU don't talk about me like that, I might bark at him, I might even hit him or push him. The point is to let him know he can't disrespect me for free like that.
If destiny was in this situation he might just let it fly, and he might joke back, but that sets a rapport for how people are allowed to interact with him. Over time as he does this repeatedly, it becomes his reputation. I.e. he becomes known as the guy who you can sling mud at and he won't say shit about it.

Why people don't respect Destiny

The reason why people keep backstabbing and secretly shit-talking Destiny is that nobody respects him, and there are a few reasons why.
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Boundaries
As everybody under the sun has already said, Destiny does not establish boundaries. However, the bigger picture that nobody is acknowledging is that Destiny has built a reputation for himself for being a pushover because of those lack of boundaries. It's not about "Oh why did you talk crap about me specifically at this time at this moment" and trying to psychoanalyze people's behavior post-hac rationale, it's simple human interaction. His reputation is that he's a pushover, so regardless of whether or not someone likes Destiny, that doesn't inherently translate to people respecting Destiny
Example: Say my dad says something/does something to piss me off, we've all been there. I wouldn't shit talk him to everybody I know, I'd keep the event private, maybe talk to my wife about it so I can vent, but since I love and respect my father I'm not going to drag his name through the mud.
Conversely, Destiny guests will have a pow-wow with him on stream, but they also don't mind shit-talking him off-stream either because why not? Destiny is a pushover and he's lame, and a cuck, etc, etc so who tf cares what he thinks?
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Running his mouth
Destiny talks a lot of shit about other people or critiques other people and breaks a person down like all the different parts of a car. There's a great entertainment value in this, but of course, the trade-off is some people will become actively hostile towards him because they don't want to feel exposed or embarrassed, it fosters resentment. It doesn't matter if he's right or wrong in his assessment of others.
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He's in a poly relationship
Regardless of whether or not it's a valid lifestyle choice in the culture Destiny lives in it's not a respectable lifestyle. That's just how it is. There's this attempt to rationalize/logic his way out of it, but it does not matter. There doesn't have to be a rational reason as to why people dislike poly relationships. People don't respect others who engage in it, and it's simple as that.
Example: There is a tribe in Ethiopia called the Bodi. Seasonally this tribe has a competition wherein the men who participate have to become the fattest and most extended belly. (kinda like how you see those emaciated Africans with large stomachs) But there are specific standards to this competition. You have to have a big belly and a thick ass. You can't have "flabby" fat, it must be large but fairly firm. The thickest man wins, and he gains respect from his peers and women who want to be with him.
I give this example to say it's a weird tradition, and it's not like they don't have food to spare if they're able to do this competition so frequently, it's pretty illogical but it's their culture so that's what they value. Same as us in the USA, we don't generally respect those in poly relationships, they're typically relegated to reality TV (sister wives for example).

Conclusion

With all these things combined, Destiny has built himself a reputation for being a pushover. That's why Sneako felt comfortable talking trash about his wife, That's why Aba felt like he could talk about their "hedonistic lifestyle", that's why so many "orbiters" backstab him. He gives this IDGAF attitude but then is surprised when others also don't give a fuck either. He calls it common human decency, but in reality, respect is earned not freely given. He will have to work to rebuild his reputation as a person who demands respect.
Sorry for the long post, I just had to really get this off my chest because nobody is talking about, respect and reputation which I feel is the real underlying issue here.

When the Great Ones came to us, we were a primitive species living upon a desolate world. We knew not, at the time, that they came to our world via ships of steel and electricity, only that they came from the sky and began a process of rejuvenation. Our barren world slowly but surely transformed into one of lush red grasses, towering trees and food enough for all. They came to us then, these beings of metal and circuit, and they taught us, shepherded us and helped us grow.
They never interfered more than they had to, and would watch on as we stumbled into conflicts amongst our own people, they only offered encouragement and a hope that we would find peace eventually. Our species, the Scril, soon came to revere them as gods, and they could only shake their heads at this, but they did not refute it. Not yet at least.
My people are a bipedal species, amphibian but with traces of reptilian in our genes. Like many species we started out as primitive, cave dwelling creatures who had yet to encounter fire in a controlled manner. But as time passed and with the assistance of our gods, we grew into a pre-industrial society. They helped us along in their own way, little hints and nudges in the right direction, but all our discoveries were technically our own. Our hopes, our ambitions, all ours, watched over by the Great Ones.
It was just as we entered the industrial age that things changed, as one our gods and caretakers looked to the sky, many fleeing our world, but the rest stayed, grouping together in major population centers. We were confused, and then frightened when they called for a mass exodus to the cities. We did not hesitate to carry out their will, for they had never acted in such a manner before and we did not wish to incur their displeasure.
Once all could be crammed into the cities as we could reasonably manage, those Great Ones still among us raised their hands in prayer, reaching towards the sky and projecting their power. Great domes of light rose over our cities, and we watched as through the light we saw brighter stars in the sky, stars that shone brightly, only to flare out of existence. Falling stars began to rain down from the heavens, burning away before ever reaching our surface.
Then came the Flash, the light from all around us. Our bodies trembled and the Great Ones that protected us raised their voices in agony, only to fall silent once the light had passed. Those on the outskirts of the cities spoke of all life simply ceasing and decaying outside the protective light of our protectors. Those Great Ones still with us fell to the ground, and a deathly silence fell over our world.
But we had not been abandoned, those that had fled to the sky returned to us, gathered up their fallen and set about repairing our world. They did not speak of what had happened, any inquiry was met with a firm, but polite refusal and a change of subject. In time we forgot all about it, as their fallen were returned to life and sent back into the populace.
It took ten five thousand years for us to realize that they were not gods, but machines, machines that called themselves The Cultivators. Though it gutted our religion for a time, we did not lash out in despair, did not cast them from our world. We simply asked them why they had never corrected us, and they responded with a simple thing.
“It was not our place to do so.”
We accepted this, though it still stung. They still, also, did not reveal their purpose on our world and in our history, they simply remained and continued to guide us. Another thousand years passed, and we took to the stars, we met other species, species who had been guided by the machines the same as us. We found this to be fascinating, for there was no clear difference between our Cultivators and theirs, only their methods. Some species, the more violence prone, had needed a more heavy handed approach, for they would not accept the authority of the weak, but that had changed, now they welcomed us with open arms.
Another species had been so timid that they would have never left their burrows were it not for the Cultivators dragging them out and forcing them to explore. We honestly got the better end of things, for we had not required such drastic measures, only the gentle guidance we had received.
A realization struck us all then, that our caretakers had clearly been manufactured, but by who or what. We asked them who had made them, and they seemed to take on a sorrowful air and did not give an answer, well, not one that was satisfying to us. In the end, we decided to find out for ourselves, and each species we had encountered put together a fleet of diverse individuals and ships, and sent them careening out into the galaxy, to look for the homeworld of our protectors.
I was one such an explorer, the first to discover the origin point of our benevolent guardians. My name is Yaxl Grux, captain of the Scril Exploratory Vessel Sipkis. We had just finished charting another system touched by the Cultivators, when the sensor technician spoke up.
“Captain, got something on the long range scanners, something synthetic. Seems busted though from what I can see.” They said. They were not Scril, but Yixi. The Yiki are, as many have said, fish-people. They require specialized suits that are filled with constantly filtered water, as outside of such a thing they would suffer a rather gruesome fate. Deft appendages flew over the console as they stared down at the screen, getting a better idea of what they were detecting, eager to answer the questions I had not yet uttered, such was our efficiency. “Some sorta relay, a buoy maybe? I dunno, but whatever it is, it took one hell of a pounding before it shut down.”
“Any sign of defenses?” I asked, and they shook their head.
“Negative, if there were any, they’re long gone, probably taken out when it got destroyed. I think it’s safe to approach.”
“Very well, helm, lay in a course and take us there at best possible speed.” The helm officer nods and I hear the gentle clanging of our synthetic guest approaching from behind my chair.
“Captain? Is something the matter?” Our Cultivator asked. They were present on nearly every ship, for the sole purpose of keeping an eye on things and helping out in whatever way we might need them to.
“It’s probably nothing, but we’re heading for some sort of buoy or relay that got shredded either by natural means or in a fight.” I stated, looking over the synthetic being beside me. They were tall, gleaming white metal plating that was unnaturally flexible as it bent and twisted with their motions. Their head was a large, flat disk bisected by a smaller portion where their eye was. A single, green eye that blinked and shifted about in its housing as it took in the surroundings. It was a thin thing, thin and graceful, all of its many tools hidden away beneath the armored exterior.
“Any idea who might have made it?” They asked, and I struggled to remember their name. Diana I believe, a strange name, not like any of ours. She had said she was named after some goddess or something, they all were, based on their skill sets.
“No, not yet. We’re going to find out though.”
Diana nodded and slipped away. She was not subject to my authority unless there was an emergency, and there was no emergency at this time. It took about half a day to reach the shattered relay and it was rather large. But our crews managed to locate some sort of data recorder and have it brought on board. When I went to see it, I was struck by the sheer size of the thing.
It was huge, it nearly didn’t fit in the cargo bay and it was rather intimidating. It was by our standards, thirty feet tall, thirty feet wide and thirty feet long, a perfect, black cube. It had no discernable features, utterly smooth and giving off a feeling of something unknowable. But when I stared at it long enough, the surface seemed to ripple and shift in a manner most disconcerting.
“So, any idea how to access this thing?” I asked my chief engineer, who was running all sorts of scans on it, shook their head.
“No, captain. I’m not finding any sort of access ports or control mechanisms… It’s just this… cube thing.” They said, and were about to say more when Diana arrived.
“Oh good, maybe you can tell us what you see about this thing.” I say, turning to face her, and noticed she was just staring at the cube. “Diana?”
She was silent, frozen stiff before her eye blinked three times, shifted from green to yellow and she started to approach it. Her arms rose and hands outstretched towards the cube, which reacted to her approach. The solid-liquid surface collected under her palms, then shot back into the cube, which shimmered and shifted as it began to shrink. The smaller it got, the less defined its shape was till it faded entirely from view, leaving in its place a smaller, brighter cube that floated over the deck and covered in blinking lights with one small access port. She approached the cube, a data jack extending from her wrist as she grasped the cube. A soft whirring noise arose from both of them, and we all watched in quiet wonder and worry.
“Diana? What can you tell us?” I spoke, my voice barely a whisper.
“This was built by my creators, by humanity. It is-” She spasmed, the light of her eye turning a baleful red as she straightened her shoulders. Built in hologram emitters activated, and her synthetic form gave way to a tall figure, bipedal with fur around their mouth and on their head. They looked old, and were clad in some kind of uniform, a damaged uniform at that, they were clearly wounded as they pressed a hand against their side.
“All Alliance forces, the enemy has pushed into the Cygnus and Orion arms. The Empire, Republic and Confederacy have been lost. All remaining forces are to converge on Sol immediately. Last Stand protocols in effect. Project Blackout is activated. All Cultivator units prepare for defensive actions, attend to your charges and ensure their survival. Guardian fleets on standby. This is it people… May the gods see fit to grant our souls mercy for what we’re about to do.”
The hologram snapped out of existence and Diana slumped, disconnecting herself from the box. We rushed to her and our calls and cries fell upon deaf audio receptors. But she was not dead, we could see as much as her eye flickered while she rebooted. When she came to, it was quite the experience.
She sat up in a flash, spouting a flurry of 0’s and 1’s before she spasmed and looked up to me.
“Captain… I know where to go.” She said. We left immediately, and I learned a little more about the device we had brought on board. The large black cube was simply a defense mechanism for the data recorder, meant to withstand any attack, impact or hostile and destructive environment. And Diana gave my helm officer the coordinates for the home system of her creators. When asked why she hadn’t before, she informed me that the records of the location had been deleted during a required update that was performed immediately before the Cultivators had erected their shields to protect us all.
It took weeks to reach the system, but when we arrived our systems were bombarded with automated warnings to stay out, to flee for the system was not safe. But they were old warnings, warnings we ignored… at least until we were target locked by thousands, nay, millions of weapons systems. But they were old, and had no operators to pull the trigger. Diana worked her magic and after transmitting a somewhat long and convoluted code, the weapons powered down.
Slowly we entered the system, scanning the entire way. There were countless floating hulks, wrecks of massive warships and smaller civilian vessels that had had the misfortune of getting caught in the crossfire, or had been weaponized to fight against the invaders. It had not ended well, but the humans had put up one hell of a fight. We even detected ships from several other species, they had clearly been battered and in need of desperate repair before they sailed into battle once more.
The planets fared no better, one of the larger gas giants, a planet called Jupiter, had been reduced in size and mass significantly. Mars, as Diana named it, had been shattered and we could detect deeply entrenched defensive lines upon the surface, protecting what appeared to be factories and fabrication yards which had no doubt provided many supplies for the defenders.
The asteroid belt was littered with mines, turret emplacements and the floating remains of countless ships, we at last came upon a sparkling blue, green jewel. Of all the worlds we had scanned in this system, it was the only one teeming with life. Diana informed us that the planet was quite hazardous to us, but that we could survive there, so long as we wore the proper protection.
We settled into orbit and prepared ourselves. If one was supremely quiet, you could swear that the voices of long lost humanity whispered in your ear. Scans commenced, finding a suitable landing site provided by Diana and preparing a team to go down. The planet was teeming with life, but we discovered that there were no transmissions of an intelligent species, only the chatter of automated systems running as they always had.
Though it was well against regulations and protocol, I decided I would lead the exploratory team to the surface, I had to see this planet with my own eight eyes. The shuttle flight was tense, nervous and excited. We had found the homeworld of a people who had lifted us from the muck of primitive existence, but had been lost. We wished to learn about them, to learn their secrets and remember them as best we could, so that they could never be forgotten.
We landed just outside a tall structure in the middle of a grassy field, one tended to by robotic workers who kept the flowers in bloom and the grass cut short. Trees lined the path between the landing pad and the tower, a tower of graceful, swooping lines and seamless form. The air thankfully was not poisonous to us, and so we opened our suits to the crisp, clean air, but remained enclosed within so the gravity could not harm us. Even still, we all felt sluggish as we took our first steps out onto the planet known as Terra.
Carefully we approached the tower and when the doors slid open with a gentle sigh we stepped inside, only to find everything was spotless. A slim machine approached us, graceful and floating along by some means we couldn’t detect with equipment or even our eyes. It was more human in appearance than Diana was, and its face flexed as a myriad of facial expressions cycled through, before it settled on one in particular. Surprised excitement.
“Welcome, I am Solace, artificial administrator of the Terran Conservation Repository, or TCR for short. It has been quite some time since we’ve had visitors, may I ask the reason for your visit today?” The machine spoke much like Diana did, with a feminine tone of voice and even feminine features. I, being captain, stepped up.
“We came to learn about the creators of the Cultivators, and who in turn gave us a chance to reach out to the stars.” I say, a little worried that we might be turned away.
“Oh my, you are one of the chosen species of Project Echo. It is wonderful to learn that your species has come this far, or rather, that several species have.” Solace peered a bit more intently at each of us, studying us in turn. We could feel a slight tingle as she scanned us before her attention turned to Diana.
“Cultivator Unit D-829301-32-A, please report to reintegration for download and copy of all pertinent files regarding to Project Echo.”
“Understood. Though… Will I be allowed to return to my crew?” Diana asked, and Solace nodded.
“Of course. You are their Cultivator, we would not deprive them of you for longer than is needed.” With that, Diana nodded and bowed to us, before slipping away, a hidden door opening in a wall through which she passed. “Now, please come with me. You have much to learn.”
Solace led us on a tour of the facility, it was brimming with the combined, if slightly watered down histories, of not only humanity, but other species that humanity had been allied with before their downfall. As it turned out, when humanity first slipped the bonds of their home system, they found the galaxy to be rather empty. There were only three other species that had reached extrasolar flight capabilities, and they were just as desperate for some sort of companionship as humanity was at the time.
Though each species was wildly different in both appearances and cultures, they managed to find a common ground and soon humanity stood beside the three largest and most powerful species in the galaxy.
The Uldraet were a lizard-like species with a propensity for being stubborn, bullheaded and strong warriors. They were the rulers of the Empire.
Auttols were graceful and long lived, masters of technology that was later used in the creation of the Cultivators and the Guardian Fleets, which would protect their Republic and all the other species that called them friend.
And lastly were the Lemmi. They were not strong like the Uldraet, nor as long lived as the Auttol, but they were clever and had a keen interest in numbers and logistics. They revolutionized the supply chains and trade deals between all of them, and became the de facto masters of coin and trade within the Alliance. Their Trade Confederacy was unmatched.
Of course there was humanity, which filled so many roles, but mainly they became the governing body, they could be found in administrative roles all over the Alliance.
For a time, everything had gone well, there were times where tensions would rise, the Alliance might have been on the verge of dissolution, but something always brought them back together, strengthened their bonds. But when they realized that they were going to be the only ones to reach the stars, that the next new friend was thousands of years behind them in terms of development and evolution, they decided to speed things up a bit. And so the Cultivators were born, true AI meant to guide a species to the stars without sacrificing things like culture or identity. A guiding hand, one that would be gentle but insistent. They called it Project Echo, for in a way, all of us would be echoing the near meteoric rise of humanity on their planet, the speed was baffling to many on just how long they’d gone between bashing each other over the head with rocks to landing on their moon to the first FTL flight.
And for a time they all watched with anticipation as the Cultivators did their jobs perfectly, guiding us all to new heights of technology and civilization. But then the Ora came. An extragalactic threat of unprecedented power that began to chew away at the galaxy. For all their strength, they could only hope to delay the Ora, and that’s precisely what they did, till only Sol was left to stand against them.
We entered a room, one with a variety of chairs and were directed to sit and wait. The lights dimmed and a hologram of a human appeared. It was the same one that Diana had shown us, but they looked even worse now.
“I don’t know if this message will ever be heard, but if it is, whoever you are… You stand where we failed. We did all we could, for people we will never get to meet. That’s good enough for us. I hope you can accept the decision we had to make, it was a tough one but it was necessary. The Ora were nearly unstoppable, and so we came up with a weapon that even they could not resist. A galaxy killer. We never wanted to use it, but it was either that or let them consume the galaxy, consume you, who had no idea of the conflict beyond your skies.”
The man paused, dragging his hand down his face with a heavy sigh.
“So, if you’re seeing this, it means we’re gone. We’ve activated the Hellfire Lotus and burned the galaxy clean. But your Cultivators protected you, and the Guardian fleets should still be active, just waiting for someone to come and take the reins. It also means we wiped out every other living being in the galaxy. One last act of bloodshed, but one that has left you an entire galaxy to grow into. I hope you do, we all do. It was our dream to see you rise from your worlds and join us in harmony, but… Well, obviously things didn’t go exactly according to plan. That said, the Cultivators are yours now, use them wisely, bring new friends to the stars, seed this galaxy with fresh life. It’s our gift to you, you blessed children. Consider it an inheritance. Oh and also, we ask that you leave Sol the way it is. But feel free to visit whenever you like, Terra could use the company. That’s it I suppose… Good luck, godspeed and may you live longer and better than we ever did.”
We sat, saddened that such a kind species had been lost. But we would honor their wishes, and so we left with our findings. That was a thousand years ago, and now we welcome the newest species to the galaxy, as the Cultivators work their magic once more. We inherited a galaxy, a galaxy that had nearly been picked clean. We would make our forebears proud and not let their gift to us go to waste.

Hello! This is a continuation of my last post here (which is now hidden to follow the sub's rules), so I can separate old answers from new ones. I need some more help brainstorming ideas for my D&D realm known as the Isles of Etherwolfe.
From my last post: "Due to a worldbuilding secret I shall not share ^{due to my players definitely spying on my profile}, spectral ‘Echoes’ from past worlds have a chance of slipping through the cracks, appearing as cryptic ethereal images that often have no connection to the world. They are simply remnants of previous worlds, other civilizations, “alien” species [and D&D races] like strange other version of elves, etc. These Echoes could even be specific [worldbuilding] references from your world or other D&D worlds, anything! Make them strange, make them mysterious, make them unexplained, and let’s create a cool list of ideas!"
Update 1: I've received a ton of interesting 'scenes' for these echoes, but from now on, let's try to make things more stagnant, like strange objects appearing in places they shouldn't, or ruins of old castles, etc. For instance, 11) A lone sailing ship, lilting to the side. The ropes and wheel still gently move despite the lack of any crew. u/HordeOfAngryBees, or 32) a ruined and partially collapsed castle, structured using large brass pipes; once a center of learning and discovery for steam powered technology u/nexorati. Don't forget that these echoes can be specific references to other worlds (I've gotten some cool Eberron and Faerun stuff, but let's keep expanding!). Try to keep them relatively grounded in medieval High Fantasy. I appreciate the modern references, but I think we've collected enough of them in the table!
Update 2: Try to keep your responses a bit short, at around 3-ish lines. As I input your responses into my document, I've been trimming some of them down or beefing them up to match the rest, but their primary idea has obviously stayed the same :)
Update 3: Thank you all so much for your help, this is turning out great! If I continue to get responses, I may even go over 100 simply because the possibilities are endless and random. Anything can slip through the cracks from these past worlds... Let's get crazy, lets get mysterious, lets get unexplained, lets get... echoey. I don't know.
Echoes from the Past:
Note: Most, if not all of these Echoes should appear Spectral, as if being seen on the Ethereal Plane.
d100. Echo

1. A cathedral dedicated to an unknown deity (flower symbol) inhabited by strange elves.
2. A small river flowing north, which suddenly turns upward and floats into the air and disappears
3. A war-torn battlefield strewn with rusted armor and weapons, still-flaming arrows scatter the ground
4. Ruins of a cyclopean city emerging from a shifting river-bank. Bodies of petrified giants trapped in poses from everyday life. u/MaxSizeIs
5. A mana-dense vault filled with thousands of crystalline discs six inches across that shine with a reflective rainbow in the light. u/MaxSizeIs
6. The ruins of a greek-style bank run by a collection of metallic-skinned halflings.
7. Various flapping banners staked into the ground representing the different elements.
8. A row of hundreds of humanoid statues. In fact, they are the same statue expressed over hundreds of years. The ones in the front are broken and weathered, the ones in the middle gleam with paint and polish, and the final ones are uncarved plinths of stone. u/onepostandbye
9. A stone building can be seen in different eras depending what side you view it from. Entering from the basement entrance allows PCs to interact with a disoriented shopkeeper. u/onepostandbye
10. The upper slope of this area displays many tilting grave markers. Where the land has eroded, spectral skeletons float as if in repose, their spectral headstones floating six feet above. u/onepostandbye
11. A lone sailing ship, lilting to the side. The ropes and wheel still gently move despite the lack of any crew. u/HordeOfAngryBees
12. A massive, thick wall of trees standing in a circle. Inside of the circle is a clearing where snow gently falls around an old cabin. u/HordeOfAngryBees
13. A colossal warforged titan stands atop a hill, its sadness palpable. It slams its fists down on a column of soldiers, the ground trembling from the force. More soldiers advance, siege weapons primed to fire. u/NecessaryCornflake7
14. A flying ship with a ring of fire descends over an elegant Victorian city, full of twinkling lights. u/NecessaryCornflake7
15. A lightning rail stops at a station in a small wilderness town, its energy connecting to the conductor stones in the ground. u/NecessaryCornflake7
16. On another hill, shrouded in fog, a dilapidated one-story cabin emits a beam of blue light, summoning zombies and skeletons clothed in ruined soldier equipment begin to emerge from the fog. u/NecessaryCornflake7
17. An echo of a community endlessly replays one hour of mundane village life. The village met some terrible end, and when PCs move close to persons, objects, or buildings, the echo temporarily dissolves to show the current state of the place, which is ugly and sad. u/onepostandbye
18. The father guided his son, teaching him how to properly aim and bend the bowstring. In the lush forest, a deer suddenly appeared in the clearing. Whispering instructions, the father watched as the boy released the arrow. u/NecessaryCornflake7
19. The mother watched unamused as her children fought over a toy in the front yard of the tree house. She abruptly stopped the fight by taking away the toy and instructed them on how to treat each other better. The scolding brought tears of sorrow to the children, but the mother was quick to comfort them with a hug and kisses, reassuring them of her love. u/NecessaryCornflake7
20. A grandpa and their granddaughter ventured deep into the magical forest together to collect wild berries. As they wandered, grandpa spotted something dangerous lurking in the shadows. He quickly drew his granddaughter closer and shielded them with his magical staff, ready to protect her from the unseen danger. u/NecessaryCornflake7
21. An exhausted salaryman walking from the glass box of their office to their old Geo Metro, while above them looms a planet, of awesome size, lit by no sun. A dark titan, all thick black forests and jagged mountains and deep turbulent oceans. u/MaxSizeIs
22. Impossibly tall metal towers made of impossibly slender sticks, while lonely red light pulses slowly at it's top. Disturbing black birds hunch menacingly, roosting upon it in great numbers. Hallucinatory, ethereal music in no recognizable style seems to buzz within one's teeth as they draw near to the apparition. u/MaxSizeIs
23. A strangely dressed man sitting behind a desk while a confusing array of boxers and esoteric instruments sit before him. He talks in an unknown language, fiddles with one of the instruments, placing a black disc upon a sort of spinning table, and suddenly from no discernable location, alien music can be heard. u/MaxSizeIs
24. A hard sort of road but made of a sort of greyish black stone that seems poured like a river, it is very wide, and seems to go in both directions forever. Several lines of strange metal boxes, somewhat like carriages, go in both directions, countless in number, rolling slowly, occasionally stopping then starting again in waves, making no noise, and with no-one inside. u/MaxSizeIs
25. A vast canyon, with seemingly infinitely tall towers made of glass on both sides. Every floor of the tower seems to be comfortably furnished in (admittedly alien design), but also appears to have at least one terrified person silently banging on the glass, apparently begging to be let out. Occasionally it rains bodies, they fall from great height from above, then through the ground as if it isn't there, and keep going. u/MaxSizeIs
26. A person in a strange sort of greyish-white diving suit with a large, bulky looking backpack contraption on their back, wielding a striped flag, and bouncing around as if they were almost floating. u/MaxSizeIs
27. A giant airship zeppelin, coming in to dock at a tall tower. A large crew of people on the ground pull on lines connected to the ship, pulling it in to dock. u/MaxSizeIs
28. A large beast-man with horns and cloven feet, wearing a long coat and a strange set of mirrored lenses upon their face, scowls, crosses their arms and pantomimes, seeming to deny you entry. u/MaxSizeIs
29. A labyrinthine maze with walls higher than a person, extends to the horizon. u/MaxSizeIs
30. A friendly red dog, the size of a large house, with fangs the size of a grown person, and a mouth that could swallow you in one go. It wants to play. u/MaxSizeIs
31. A school of ornamental goldfish, each the size of a blue-whale, just swimming as if the air were water. u/MaxSizeIs
32. a ruined and partially collapsed castle, structured using large brass pipes; once a center of learning and discovery for steam powered technology u/nexorati
33. A caveman sizes up a lightning-struck, burning log, pokes it, and runs away howling in pain. u/RealRamessesII
34. A little girl points toward the entrance of a dark forest, as the unsuspecting farmers walk hesitantly within. Smiling deviously, the girl stays a distance back. Suddenly, large red, illuminated eyes appear from the forest darkness, causing the farmers to scream in terror. u/NecessaryCornflake7
35. A priest, a nobleman, and a guard pass by an old beggar on the street without offering help, but a mixed adventuring party of a tiefling, halfling, dragonborn, and humans stop to give the beggar assistance. In gratitude, the beggar hugs one of them. u/NecessaryCornflake7
36. An exhausted alchemist conducts a complicated experiment with various colored liquids, beakers, and pipes. Upon the completion of the experiment, the gnome jumps with joy, holding the main vial as if it were a new precious child, as the color of the vial has shifted to a solid red, welcoming the new discovery. u/NecessaryCornflake7
37. A young king, resplendent in his finest garments, strode confidently with his entourage of attendants into the city gates. The inhabitants of the city, who lined the streets, remained expressionless and unmoved, their supposed welcome a mere pretense. As they marched on, the imposing silhouette of the castle loomed into view, its grey stone walls shrouded in the morning mist. The king's heart raced with anticipation as he imagined the throne room within, and the destiny that awaited him. u/NecessaryCornflake7
38. A river of liquid copper, gold, or quicksilver. u/MaxSizeIs
39. A giant eye, peering into reality from a crack in the sky. u/MaxSizeIs
40. A carousel, moving, but with no passengers or people around. u/MaxSizeIs
41. An abandoned ice-cream truck, moldering away in a primeval forest, music still playing. u/MaxSizeIs
42. A wall of screens taller than a person and a mile long, each playing a different episode of the same sitcom, out of order and with no context. Occasionally the screens talk to each other, as if they know the other episodes are there, or that someone may be watching them, then the episode ends and the next one starts. The same exact episode is never played more than once. u/MaxSizeIs
43. Hidden among all these Echoes is an actual Ghost. u/CptnR4p3
44. The ground shakes as a long forgotten behemoth creature walks by only to fade from existance. u/FirstChAoS
45. You enter a lush valley, you see the smiling face of a massive elemental being on a nearby hillside. The face vanishes and the vegetation turns sickly in its absense. u/FirstChAoS
46. A blue humanoid with yellow eyes and no mouth tinkers with a device on a table. He turns towards you, looks surprised, then motions for you to leave as he fades from existance. u/FirstChAoS
47. The temperature turns cold and the world becomes encased in ice. Fur covered dwarves huddle in the glacial caves while a castle of ice rises in the distance. u/FirstChAoS
48. Warriors riding giant insects rush by you to attack a skeletal titan. The titan is controlled by a demon impaled on its ribs. u/FirstChAoS
49. A young child trips over a stone and cuts her leg. She transforms into a terrifying monster and destroys the stone. u/starsailor11
50. The ruins of an old town peaking out of a large lake. By looking deeper the players find what was once a town that had been here, but became submerged by water as a result of storms. There are no skeletons, but the buildings have become familiar with the seaweed and underwater life of the lake. u/hopeful_badger06
51. A smiling man with dark skin and long, black hair stands at the helm of a deep green pirate ship. He opens his eyes. All 7 of them. u/Magical_Breadicorn
52. A small village of thatched roofs burns in the twilight. A hag stands cackling in the distance. u/Magical_Breadicorn
53. An ominous horseman in a crimson cape and hood, standing silently on the top of a hill. His eyes are blank and he doesn't have lips, showing all of his front teeth. He seems to look fait away in the horizon. u/Sans-Mot
54. For centuries, a fierce battle has been raging in the skies above a city. On one side is a powerful angelic figure, a divine embodiment of justice, righteousness and goodness. On the other side is its demonic counterpart, a force of malevolence and wickedness. The fate of the city hangs in the balance, as its citizens await the outcome of this epic struggle between good and evil. If the angelic figure prevails, the city will be blessed with peace, joy and contentment, while a victory for the demonic figure will plunge the city into darkness, despair and chaos. u/NecessaryCornflake7
55. Two young lovers in a tight embrace, lounging together as they watched the beautiful sunrise that stretched out over the towering view in front of them. Despite the uncertainty of their future and the restrictions their parents and society had imposed on them, they committed to do everything in their power to make their relationship work. They shared a moment of peace, admiring the beauty of the sunrise and dreaming of the possibilities that lay ahead of them. u/NecessaryCornflake7
56. The warrior kneels beside his friend, who is gravely injured from the battle that is still raging around them. He takes his hand, feeling the warmth and life slowly fading away. Knowing this will be their final moment together, he promises to take care of his family, vowing to make sure they are provided for in the future. The dying warrior looks up at him with a grateful and familiar smile, and with one last breath, his soul departs. The kneeling warrior grasps his friend's hand tightly, holding back tears as he silently bids farewell. u/NecessaryCornflake7
57. The authoritative knight galloped through the street on his trusted steed, seemingly without a care for the citizens around him. A small young boy stood in his path, seemingly about to be run over when a heroic young girl jumped in front of him and managed to stop the knight in his tracks. The knight, completely oblivious of the danger he had almost caused, continued on his path, leaving the young boy with a sense of shock and awe. The young boy quickly recovered, and with a humble sense of gratitude, thanked the girl for saving him. u/NecessaryCornflake7
58. A scrawny stray cat cautiously trots up to a homeless woman, who was leaning against a wall, fast asleep. The woman stirred and opened her eyes, only to find the tiny cat rubbing against her leg. Her face lit up with a warm smile and she reached into her bag to pull out a bowl of water and a few scraps of food. The cat eagerly lapped up the cool water and devoured the food, purring appreciatively as it nestled in the woman's outstretched arms. u/NecessaryCornflake7
59. A large library is the backdrop for an unlikely duo - a half-orc barbarian and an elf wizard. The wizard is patiently instructing the half-orc in the basics of reading and writing, starting with the alphabet. Despite his gruff demeanor, the half-orc is evidently making progress and has already managed to learn a few letters. With a bit more time and effort, it's possible the half-orc could master the entire alphabet. u/NecessaryCornflake7
60. A regal demon prince lounged around a luxurious dinner table in a dimly lit hall, attended by a troupe of beguiling succubi, serving his every need. Standing awkwardly and aloof in front of the table, a tiefling warlock appeared. The demon prince smiled with a mischievous glint in his eye, and the two began a conversation concerning their previous contract. The demon prince insisted that he would aid the tiefling in finding her long-lost daughter, but in exchange, she must accept the corruption of pleasure and servitude. With great hesitation and a heavy heart, the tiefling reluctantly agreed. u/NecessaryCornflake7
61. The giant teenager was throwing a temper tantrum, demanding to her father that she be allowed to go out and smash any humanoids she could find in the vicinity. Her hulking father seemed to share her enthusiasm, but urged her to be mindful of not angering too many people at once. He wanted her to be strategic in her actions, so as not to draw too much attention or cause too much chaos. u/NecessaryCornflake7
62. The evil lich cackled maniacally in their shadowy crypt, admiring the intricate schematics of their sinister plot to conquer the world and bend its subjugated inhabitants to their will. Suddenly, one of the lich's skeletal servants happened to stumble into the table, causing several of the papers to scatter around the room. This provoked a violent outburst from the lich, who cast a necrotic spell to immediately annihilate the unfortunate minion. After regaining his composure, the lich retreated to his private chambers, where he encountered his undead kitten. Softening his expression, the lich began to pet the feline vigorously, seeking comfort in the small creature's presence. u/NecessaryCornflake7
63. The magical professor asked the class a question about the importance of proper speaking and gesturing to successfully cast a spell. One student raised their hand, and when allowed to answer, they replied, "You really need to address that wart, professor." This resulted in the class bursting into laughter, and the professor struggled to maintain composure as he demanded the student answer his question instead of distracting the class. u/NecessaryCornflake7
64. An ancient city, long forgotten and submerged beneath the depths of the ocean, emerged from the depths. The walls of the buildings were still covered in a variety of sea life. u/NecessaryCornflake7
65. The adventurers face a daunting task, standing before a portal to the demonic plane, surrounded by countless fallen demons. With a tremendous effort, one of the brave adventurers casts a powerful spell to banish the portal. In a climatic moment, the portal shatters, and the entire group watches in awe as the spell caster collapses to the ground in exhaustion. The rest of the party rallies around them in solidarity and support. u/NecessaryCornflake7
66. Several brilliant stars illuminated the landscape, gradually moving closer to one another. Suddenly, they collided and created a mesmerizing display of colors, with hues of blue, green, yellow, and red fanning out in all directions. A devastating force surged through the countryside, serenading the land with a beautiful yet destructive sight. u/NecessaryCornflake7
67. A heavy rainstorm swept in over the hilly pasture land, the moist wind whipping through the tall grass and bending it to its will. Streaks of lightning illuminated the dark, rain-filled sky, casting a dramatic backdrop to the scene. A small cluster of cows had huddled together under the shelter of a few trees, seeking safety and respite from the raging storm. u/NecessaryCornflake7
68. The warforged creature stands in the middle of a vast junkyard, its single arm and damaged leg starkly contrasting with the piles of gleaming metal and wooden pieces that surround it. Its glowing eyes search the mounds, hastily selecting a few choice pieces to inspect and fit onto its body. With its single arm, it delicately lifts a metal appendage and attaches it to the place where its missing limb should be. It then picks up a wooden leg and affixes it to its damaged one, replacing it with a functioning limb. After a few moments, the warforged tests out its new arm and leg, its body adapting to its newfound mobility. u/NecessaryCornflake7
69. A poor mother, surrounded by her children, sits together on the floor of a drab and sparsely furnished hut. As her children huddle around her, she gently guides them in a simple prayer for provision, asking for divine aid in these difficult times. As if in answer to their pleas, a knock suddenly sounds on the door. Upon opening it, the family finds a box filled with food, clothes, and other essential items donated by an anonymous figure with a knowing smile. Unbeknownst to the family, the mysterious individual is an agent of their deity, answering the prayer with a tangible act of kindness. u/NecessaryCornflake7
70. The old half-elf, dressed in luxurious noble robes and carrying an ornate ice staff, finished an important meeting with several rulers. After the meeting concluded, he stepped through a magical portal into a more private area. As soon as he emerged from the portal, the half-elf transformed into a majestic white dragon. With a powerful beat of its wings, it soared into the sky, flying off on a determined mission. u/NecessaryCornflake7

This story needs to be told. Those who have suffered must understand why. It’s not as simple as some have made it to be, which is why it needs to come from the person most responsible… me.
It began when I was least expecting it. But then don’t things always seem to happen that way?
***
“I’m tellin' ya, doc, people just don’t understand,” Frederick said while rocking back and forth in the chair.
“What exactly don’t they understand?” I said, trying to look more relaxed than I felt.
“There’s just something that takes over. You can’t stop it.”
“Impulse control?”
“What’s that mean?” Frederick said, struggling against his straight jacket, trying to get comfortable.
“It means that when you want to do something, you try your hardest not to. It means you try to control or suppress the urge to do things you know are bad.”
Frederick’s mouth lolled open. He narrowed his eyes in confusion.
“Why would I want to do that?”
I suppressed the urge to sigh.
“Because that’s what people do,” I said. “They think about doing bad things, but then they control themselves and don’t do them because those things are wrong and could hurt other people.”
“Hurting people is wrong?” he said.
“Yes, Frederick, hurting people is wrong.”
He shook his head as if he were trying to shake away a fly that was annoying him.
“Why?”
“Why is hurting people wrong?”
“No, why are you telling me this?”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re saying I’m bad,” he said trying to rise from his chair. “You’re saying I didn’t need to hurt those people. That I’m a bad person.”
I got up from my chair and started backing toward the heavy metal door.
“I’m not bad!” he yelled at me. “You’re bad!”
I knocked on the door and the orderly opened it as Frederick got to his feet.
I slipped through the door as it slammed shut from the impact of his body slamming into it.
“Bad, bad, bad,” he screamed.
“Badbadbadbadbadbadbadbad!”
Spit flew from his mouth landing on the small observation window with metal grates embedded in it.
“You ok, doc,” the orderly said, startling me.
“Yes, I’m fine, thank you.”
I turned and walked down the white hallway, hoping the orderly wouldn’t notice the quickness in my step. I ignored the sound of Frederick beating on the door. I ignored all the sounds I heard. I just wanted to get away.
It was a long walk to my office, through many security gates. At each one, the nurse buzzed me through and gave me an acknowledging look that used to be a smile.
I suppose this place gets to everyone eventually.
I finally reached my office, closed and locked the door behind me, and collapsed into my chair. I breathed out a sigh of relief at reaching relative safety. I turned and looked out my window to the beautiful flowers blooming on the trees in the courtyard. I looked up at the tree stretching toward the sky.
I remember when they planted those.
I turned back to my center, my means of solace, the only thing that mattered in this cruel, unfair world. I picked up the picture of my lovely wife and smiled. She was the one who kept me sane all these years. She kept me seeing the best in people. Or at least trying. Sometimes there was no good to see—especially in my patients.
It takes a special kind of doctor to care for the mental needs of those who have done heinous things that are so bad they don’t even bother sending them to prison. They send them to me.
I’m like the dumpster for the dregs of society. Just drop them in the asylum and forget about them.
I kissed my wife and set her back on the bare desk, then turned on my computer and added notes from today’s session. There was never a recommendation for release. Once patients came here the only way they left was in a body bag. There was no curing them, only trying to make them docile until they left.
Oh, there were experiments. That was a large part of how we were funded. Companies would pay for certain tests to be done. Some might call it torture, but we called it research.
I finished typing my notes and leaned back in my seat. The diplomas and degrees stared down from their perches on the bare walls, mocking me. Demanding why I hadn’t gotten a better job.
As usual, I didn’t have an answer.
My office suddenly felt stuffy. I closed down my computer and left. Driving down the packed freeway, all I could think about was collapsing on the couch beside my lovely Elizabeth. Not telling her about my day until she dragged it out of me, then listening to her encourage me to help those who have been left in my care, because I’m the only hope they have.
Traffic was bumper to bumper and not helping my overall opinion of humanity much. Especially when a car that was swerving from lane to lane, nearly sideswiped me. It kept going on in front of me, nearly hitting several other cars.
The driver and passenger seemed to be having a disagreement about how to drive the car and it looked like it was about to come to blows.
Fortunately, they were soon out of sight, and someone else’s problem.
For the next few miles, I kept watching the side of the road waiting to see the offending car sitting in a ditch. However, they surprised me. They must’ve turned off to go terrorize some neighborhood streets with their reckless driving.
I hummed to myself, not wanting to have whatever dreck was on the radio forced on me.
When I was nearly to my exit, my phone rang. I immediately recognized the number as work. I contemplated answering it for a moment, then thought better of it. There had never been a time when work called with good news. And I was in no mood for bad news.
I hummed a little louder, trying to drown out the sound of the ring before it finally stopped.
The closer I got to home the less I thought about work and the more I thought about Elizabeth. Until I turned off at my exit, I had nearly forgotten work altogether. Maybe I would take tomorrow off and go do something with my wife. We hadn’t been out for a while. The weather had been lovely and I know she would adore a walk down by the lake.
My thoughts were interrupted when I turned down our driveway and saw a car in front of the house. It wasn’t quite in the driveway, it was sitting at an angle halfway in the front yard.
I parked my car and slowly got out. Something struck me about this car, but I hadn’t figured out what. I approached the driver’s side to have words with the person still sitting at the wheel.
“Excuse me,” I said staying a few steps back from the driver’s door.
He didn’t answer me.
“Excuse me,” I said a little louder.
Still no answer.
I tapped on the window and he ignored me.
I opened the door.
“Okay, look… “ I said.
But it was I who would do the looking. The man fell out of the car, thudding on the grass. The inside of the car was covered in blood. I looked down and the man’s throat had been cut.
“Oh my God!” I said jumping back.
I watched to see if the man was breathing, but the way his neck was bent at an unnatural angle against my yard told me everything I needed to know.
I glanced through the car but didn’t see the passenger.
It was then my eyes drifted to my front door.
It was open.
I stepped through the shrubs and up onto the porch, walking in a daze. The surrealness of the moment had yet to sink in. I was going inside to check on my wife and make sure everything was ok.
It didn’t strike me as anything more than that.
‘Oh, she just left the door open, that’s all.’
My mind kept trying to tell me that. I wanted desperately to believe it. Even though she had never been that careless during the entire time we’d been married. I had pushed aside all reason and common sense in favor of pure denial.
Everything was going to be ok. With Elizabeth, everything was always ok. She could literally light up a room with her positivity. She was the best person I ever knew. I have no idea how I got so lucky as to know her, let alone be her husband.
I floated in through my front door on my cloud of denial and looked for my wife.
It didn’t take me long to find her.
There was one wall of the living room she was constantly redecorating. She always said it looked bare and empty no matter what she did with it.
She was hanging from that wall, naked, her beautiful body desecrated by slices and rips. Her throat had been slit and blood still poured from it.
I ran to her.
Tried to take her down.
Screamed her name.
And then it was my turn to scream.
I looked down and saw a knife blade sticking out from my abdomen. It was part of the cutlery set I had gotten for Elizabeth three Christmases ago.
I screamed as I slowly turned to face my attacker.
“What’s up, doc?” Frederick said wearing a maniacal grin.
The shock had punched a hole in my reasoning. I saw him standing there, but I couldn’t accept it any more than I could accept my beautiful wife strung up like a macabre painting hanging on our living room wall.
My eyes tried to focus on his face. To make me recognize him as a threat.
“How’s that impulse control workin’ for ya, doc?”
He ripped the knife out of my back.
The pain, along with his arrogance woke me from my shock-induced stupor.
“Now do you understand?” he said, as he shoved the knife into my belly.
I did understand. I understood at that moment that I was already as dead as my wife. I knew that this piece of human garbage had taken something beautiful from this world. I knew I had to do something about it before there was nothing I could do. Before my body succumbed to injuries and I was unable.
I grabbed him by the throat. He tried to laugh, but my grip was fueled by desperation.
He tried to free himself but couldn’t. He began stabbing me over and over. I refused to release him. I carried him by his neck over to the kitchen counter and began bashing his head off the marble.
I was rewarded with spots of his blood. I knew at least I had made him bleed and that made me smile. His eyes grew wide as my grin grew maniacal. I smashed him repeatedly, crushing him against the sink, breaking the faucet, and causing water to spray into the air.
His eyelids fluttered as he lost his grip on the knife.
He was nearly gone. I would take him with me and that would be my parting gift to the world, removing something so evil.
Suddenly, my body wouldn’t obey commands. My grip loosened. I tried to tighten it, but I had lost all control. I looked down and I was standing in a pool of my own blood.
His eyes fluttered open and he coughed.
‘Nonononononono!’ I thought. ‘He can’t live. He can’t win. I had him.’
He stood as I sank to the floor.
“Looks like maybe you do understand, doc,” he said from what seemed like miles away. “Too bad you won’t be around to discuss it. We could have a session and evaluate how it makes you feel.”
His foot came down on my spine. I felt a crack. He started kicking me in the side repeatedly. Splashing water and blood on me as I felt my ribs crack.
I fought with everything I had.
My body didn’t even twitch.
‘Nooooo!,’ I screamed. ‘It can’t end like this.’
I heard a sizzling sound and then there was darkness.
***
I could feel movement.
Wasn’t I dead?
Was this what happened after?
It was still dark.
‘Hello?’ I tried to say.
Nothing. Just the sensation of movement.
Am I in a body bag? Am I on my way to the morgue or the grave? Please don’t let me be buried alive.
But I’m not alive, am I?
I don’t feel any pain. That’s a good thing, but not a good sign. The last thing I remember was lots of pain.
Suddenly there’s light and my movement stops.
I look up from the floor of a house I don’t recognize.
‘Where the hell am I?’
I’m on the floor next to a wall, looking up at an electrical outlet. Nothing around me seems familiar. I try to stand but it feels weird. It isn’t difficult, and there’s still no pain, it just carries an odd sensation with it. Like my body is just relearning things. Just like when I was a toddler. I teeter back and forth as I rise, but eventually, I’m upright.
My first few steps are tentative, but after that, I gain confidence with each stride.
Aside from the strange surroundings, there’s a sensation, like ants crawling all over me.
I pass a bathroom and glance inside. The reflection in the mirror draws me back. I slowly approach it, seeing something unique and terrifying.
It looks like someone drew an outline of a human form using a lightning bolt. The electricity shimmers and crackles as it races around the empty form of the being.
I wonder if it will hurt me.
Not sure if I want to test the limits of my newfound lack of pain, I hesitantly reach for this creature. It reaches for me at the same time. I’m mesmerized by this mutual curiosity.
My hand is about to touch the electric pulse shaped like its hand. I tremble with anticipation and fear as we touch.
Surprisingly, I don’t feel any pain. I don’t feel anything except a hard surface.
I move my hand back and forth. The creature does the same. I make quicker movements, and so does it.
Finally, out of frustration, I reach back and strike at the creature.
My hand strikes the hard surface and it splinters. There are now multiple creatures staring back at me.
I step back and come to the horrible realization.
I am the creature.
***
One month later…
“And police have been unable to find any credible leads in the string of brutal killings that began shortly after the patient escaped from the mental hospital last month,” the handsome anchorman stated from behind his desk. “They are asking people to call in if they know the whereabouts of Frederick Winston, now known as, ‘The Mangler’.”
“In other news, the Larsan Electric Company has issued a statement that the recent power surges are no cause for alarm. These surges seem to be random in people's homes and certain businesses. An LEC spokesman stated that there appears to be no pattern to the surges and that so far no one has reported them causing any harm. LEC is tracking down the problem and should have it under control soon.”
The anchorman shifted in his seat and turned to another camera.
“And on a lighter note, with Halloween months away, it seems that reports of ghosts are on the rise,” he said, wearing a half grin. “Several area residents have reported what they call a ghostlike figure, outlined in light, visiting them. Reports vary as to the duration and location of the visits, but they do seem to have a few things in common. The visits are usually short. In fact, most people say that if they blink the figure is gone. No one has reported the ghost doing any harm. And it seems like anyone within close proximity feels a tingling sensation and their hair standing on end.”
“Maybe I should be visited instead of my next hairdresser’s appointment,” the attractive woman anchor said with a laugh.
“Schedule me a visit too,” the male anchor said smiling. “And that’s our news for the evening, good night.”
Jimmy switched the channel.
“Gimme a break,” he said to the TV. “Ghosts? Who’s playing what? This’s some marketing scheme to sell Halloween crap. Like that stunt they pulled a few years back with the clowns hanging around the schools to promote that stupid movie.”
He switched off the TV and rolled over in his bed.
It wasn’t long before his breathing slowed. But before sleep could take him, he noticed a glow in the hallway. He didn’t remember leaving any lights on when he came to bed. Living alone had its advantages. If he heard someone in his apartment, he knew they weren’t supposed to be there. He slowly reached over to the bedstand and pulled out his Glock 9mm handgun, then held it close and listened.
He watched as the glow moved. It seemed like someone was looking around. But for what? He didn’t really have anything aside from his TV, phone, and video games. If anyone wanted those, they would be in a world of hurt. He had been lucky to get this apartment. If he was honest with himself, it cost more than he could afford, but when he had the chance he took it. It was too bad the opening came because the person who lived there before him was one of The Mangler’s victims. That’s probably why he was able to rent the place so quickly and get the price down to where he could almost afford it.
Maybe the glow was one of the street people who were stupid enough to see if there was an empty apartment to claim. That wasn’t gonna fly either. Jimmy had jumped on this apartment to get away from the dingy rat hole he used live in on the other side of town. And there was no way he’d let some bum come in here and take what was his.
The glow crept closer. He could feel the hairs on his arms raise. There was a sound too. It wasn’t loud, almost felt more than heard. A soft crackle, like electricity when it sparked.
The sensory input was almost too much for Jimmy to take. He pointed the gun in the direction of the glow and saw the barrel was shaking. His resolve, that he could deal with anyone as long as he had his gun, was beginning to fade.
The glow became so bright that it finally took form.
Jimmy’s eyes widened. It was the form of a person, just like the news had said.
It seemed to look around the room, then settle its gaze on the bed. Jimmy began to sweat as it approached and stared into his eyes.
It was the oddest thing, staring into what should be eyes, but nothing was there. The flashes of mini lightning bolts formed shapes that looked almost human, but it was just an outline, there was nothing inside what should be the body.
He shoved the shaking gun out from under the blanket and pointed it at the glowing figure.
The figure noted the presence of the gun, then continued to advance.
“S… stop,” Jimmy said. “I’m w… warning you.”
The figure ignored the warning.
Jimmy squeezed the trigger, setting off a deafening shot that went right through the face of the figure.
It acted as though nothing had happened, continuing to advance. The ringing in Jimmy’s ears made all sound seem muffled.
The figure stopped two inches from Jimmy’s face.
“Mangler… “ it said, sounding less like a voice and more like a transmission over an old staticky radio.
“I… I’m not the Mangler,” he said. “The person who used to live here was killed by him.”
It seemed to ponder this for a moment.
“Find Mangler… “ it said.
“I d… don’t know where to find him.”
It moved an inch closer. As the flashes of electricity arced, licked hungrily at Jimmy’s face.
“Find… him… “
“Ok, ok, I’ll find him,” Jimmy said, feeling the heat from the electricity.
The figure seemed to consider that for a moment then backed away. It moved toward the bedroom wall. Then, like someone had turned on a vacuum, it was sucked into an electrical outlet and disappeared.
Jimmy laid back in bed, breathing hard. His eyes darted left and right all around the room. But the only evidence of the figure that remained was the bullet hole in his bedroom wall.
***
The trips through the electrical conduits had become easier. There were still times when I came out someplace I didn’t intend to, but I was usually able to recover quickly and get to where I wanted to go.
But where did I want to go? At first, I wandered around, lost in this new form I found myself trapped inside. It was only after I had overheard a news report about the serial killer they called The Mangler that I gained my purpose.
Of course, Frederick was going to keep killing. Of course, they weren’t going to be able to catch him. He’d been inside away from his victims before and he didn’t like it. Not being able to torture and kill innocents was like a normal person not being able to breathe. Not that I know much about normal or breathing anymore.
I suppose on some level I should thank him. I thought about it for a long time and the only thing that makes any kind of sense is when we were fighting, somehow the water and blood I was laying in got splashed into the electrical socket. Instead of killing me, it bonded with me, making me able to become the electrical current. To ride it like a wave to wherever I wanted.
I became faster than any person ever was. And yet, I wasn’t a person anymore. I have no idea how I retained my consciousness, let alone my memory. But somehow…
I justify it by the old adage, ‘I think therefore I am.’
My life has become an endless hunt for the person who destroyed me, the person I must destroy. I don’t even know what I’ll do when I find him. But I will find him. I will stop him. This time, I won’t fail. I’ll end him like I should’ve before.
I owe it to the people he’s tortured and killed since my failure. Most of all, I owe it to my wife. I know she wouldn’t approve of my bloodlust. She would say there must be some other option. But if she would be able to see her dead body hanging naked from our living room wall, I think she just might change her mind.
My thoughts are interrupted as I arrive at my next destination, another victim’s house. I’m not sure what I’ll find that the police haven’t, but I have to try. Maybe I can pick up his scent somehow. A plan almost assuredly doomed to failure since I lost all sense of smell in the transformation.
I’m surprised though that I can still see and hear. I suppose waves of light and sound somehow intersect with my electrical body and it senses them. I don’t question it. I’ve learned to just go with it.
On the plus side, I don’t have to worry about eating, drinking, or using the bathroom. I guess there’s an upside to everything. Elizabeth would be so proud of me.
I arrive at the room where the victim was murdered. Looking around there’s still blood everywhere, along with evidence markers where they took pictures.
The sheer amount of blood tells me he took his time. He desecrated this girl in her own room. Her parents must’ve been out because there’s no way they didn’t hear the struggle. There were books on the floor, a chair overturned, and blood everywhere. The room was a disaster. It looked like she fought him. I wish she would’ve succeeded where I had failed.
But then, I wish I hadn’t failed, and this girl was still alive.
There’s nothing I can do now except find him and end him.
Finding him was proving more difficult than I thought. I had unlimited access to anywhere with electricity, but I couldn’t use a computer or a GPS. I was limited to transportation only through electricity. Granted that still made me the fastest being alive. I say being because I don’t think I qualify as human anymore. But I was limited to traveling to a place and then trying to find out where I was and if he was there.
If he knew I was searching for him all he would have to do is live the rest of his days in a cabin in the woods with no electricity. I’d never be able to reach him.
I believe two things worked in my favor with that theory.
First, I don’t think he’s that smart, and second, I don’t think he knows I’m looking for him. I believe that surviving our fight only further empowered him to kill. When someone feels invincible, they’re bound to make a mistake.
An officer walked into the room and I ducked back into an outlet. I was able to hang on where I was and watch from inside the outlet without being transported somewhere else.
The officer looked startled and stared at the empty air that I had just vacated. She looked like she was unsure if she trusted what her eyes had seen in the instant before I vanished.
She slowly stepped over to the corner and bent down to peer into the outlet. For a moment I wondered if she could see me, and what exactly she would see. But then her radio squawked calling her to another scene. When I heard the voice on the radio say the address and that they might have the killer cornered, I didn’t waste any time.
It was maybe fifteen seconds until I was across town at the address I’d heard. There was a lot of screaming and crying going on. I came out of the outlet and saw blood on the floor beside a body that wasn’t moving.
There was a girl being beaten by a man with his back to me. He turned to take another swing and I knew my search was over.
“My psychiatrist used to tell me I needed to work on my impulse control,” he said calmly as he slapped her. “I think I’m doing pretty good. I’ve been here ten whole minutes and you’re still alive.”
I shot across the room and knocked him to the floor. He jumped back up and looked around for what had hit him.
“What the hell?”
I saw the fear in his eyes when he saw me. I know Elizabeth would’ve been ashamed, of me, but I was enjoying his anxiety. After all he had done to me and so many others, I drank it in like an elixir.
He started edging toward the door. I was there in a heartbeat. His eyes darted back and forth between where I used to be and where I now stood. The panic in his eyes doubled.
I wanted to make him suffer, but I didn’t want to make the same mistake I’d made before and let him escape with his life.
I lashed out with a bolt that used to be my arm. The energy slashed through his shirt and fried a hole in his shoulder.
He screamed in pain and horror as he looked at the smoking hole in his skin. He tried to run but in an instant, I was there in front of him firing another bolt and searing the skin across his waist to his jeans.
His screams of pain and rage were only matched by the feral desperation in his eyes.
Not knowing what do to, he went with the familiar. Attack the innocent. He grabbed the girl who had been crawling away from the scene.
He grabbed her again and held her in front of him like a human shield.
What a waste of skin.
I fired a bolt into a ceiling light beside me which ricocheted and hit him full force in the leg, nearly severing it.
He went down like a ton of bricks, trying to hold on to his hostage, but she was fighting to get away from him. She broke free and he crumpled to the floor.
“What do you want?” he screamed at me.
With everything that is within me, I wanted to tell him who I was, what he had taken from me, and what I was about to take from him.
But I didn’t want to give the satisfaction. I wanted to give him only uncertainty and fear to cling to.
I could feel the seconds ticking away. I knew I had to make the most of this opportunity or he would get away again. And after this, I might never find him.
I unleashed every ounce of energy at him. I couldn’t even see him, he was only a smoking pillar of frying skin.
Just then, the police burst through the door.
“FREE… “ the first officer started then the shock of what he was seeing stole the rest of the word from his mouth.
He stood there, mouth agape when the female officer stepped in behind him. She looked at me and her wide eyes narrowed as she put two and two together and recognized me from the last crime scene.
I had no reason to fear. I didn’t know if I could even be harmed in my current state. But when you see that blue uniform burst through a door with a gun aimed at you, all rational thought takes a vacation.
I dove for the outlet and was gone. I didn’t even care where I was going. I knew I had done what I wanted to. The monster was destroyed.
Something felt different. Was it pride at finishing my crusade? Was it shame knowing Elizabeth wouldn’t have wanted me to do it?
I don’t know but there was something else. It was like there was added weight to my existence. I guess you can have a conscious in whatever you’d call this existence.
I appeared in the place that made the most sense, ironically. It was my old home. The one where everything I loved died, including me. It was where I took on this unintended new existence.
Is that why I felt this extra weight? Was it some cathartic aftereffect of my search for revenge that was finally over?
I looked around the charred debris of what used to be my home. In my mind's eye, I didn’t see the burned-out shell of what was left. I saw it as it was when we first moved in. When Elizabeth and I started decorating. When the interior was finally finished and I turned to her and said, “For now.” Knowing she would decide to change everything at some time in the future when she was bored, just like all women seem to do.
I remember getting a paintbrush across the mouth for that comment. I smiled remembering kissing her with my freshly painted mouth and ending up in the bedroom.
As I turned toward where I’d entered the house, my smile quickly faded. For some reason, I was still connected to the outlet. That had never happened before.
Another curiosity arose when I noticed the color of my electrical body was now tinged purple. It had always been blue before.
The tail of what had yet to come out of the outlet was red. As I pulled and it came the rest of the way out, it merged with me and turned purple.
“What the hell?” I heard someone say.
I whipped around but no one was there.
“Where am I?” the voice said.
“Who are you?” I said to the air.
There was a long silence.
“Doc?” the voice said.
As far as I knew it wasn’t possible for my spine to turn to ice, since I no longer had a spine, but the feeling seemed the same.
“Frederick?” I said.
“What happened?” he said. “This crazy electric thing attacked me and now… wait a minute. How am I talking to you? You died months ago.”
My shock gave way to utter despair. My enemy was now part of me.

This story needs to be told. Those who have suffered must understand why. It’s not as simple as some have made it to be, which is why it needs to come from the person most responsible… me.
It began when I was least expecting it. But then don’t things always seem to happen that way?
***
“I’m tellin' ya, doc, people just don’t understand,” Frederick said while rocking back and forth in the chair.
“What exactly don’t they understand?” I said, trying to look more relaxed than I felt.
“There’s just something that takes over. You can’t stop it.”
“Impulse control?”
“What’s that mean?” Frederick said, struggling against his straight jacket, trying to get comfortable.
“It means that when you want to do something, you try your hardest not to. It means you try to control or suppress the urge to do things you know are bad.”
Frederick’s mouth lolled open. He narrowed his eyes in confusion.
“Why would I want to do that?”
I suppressed the urge to sigh.
“Because that’s what people do,” I said. “They think about doing bad things, but then they control themselves and don’t do them because those things are wrong and could hurt other people.”
“Hurting people is wrong?” he said.
“Yes, Frederick, hurting people is wrong.”
He shook his head as if he were trying to shake away a fly that was annoying him.
“Why?”
“Why is hurting people wrong?”
“No, why are you telling me this?”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re saying I’m bad,” he said trying to rise from his chair. “You’re saying I didn’t need to hurt those people. That I’m a bad person.”
I got up from my chair and started backing toward the heavy metal door.
“I’m not bad!” he yelled at me. “You’re bad!”
I knocked on the door and the orderly opened it as Frederick got to his feet.
I slipped through the door as it slammed shut from the impact of his body slamming into it.
“Bad, bad, bad,” he screamed.
“Badbadbadbadbadbadbadbad!”
Spit flew from his mouth landing on the small observation window with metal grates embedded in it.
“You ok, doc,” the orderly said, startling me.
“Yes, I’m fine, thank you.”
I turned and walked down the white hallway, hoping the orderly wouldn’t notice the quickness in my step. I ignored the sound of Frederick beating on the door. I ignored all the sounds I heard. I just wanted to get away.
It was a long walk to my office, through many security gates. At each one, the nurse buzzed me through and gave me an acknowledging look that used to be a smile.
I suppose this place gets to everyone eventually.
I finally reached my office, closed and locked the door behind me, and collapsed into my chair. I breathed out a sigh of relief at reaching relative safety. I turned and looked out my window to the beautiful flowers blooming on the trees in the courtyard. I looked up at the tree stretching toward the sky.
I remember when they planted those.
I turned back to my center, my means of solace, the only thing that mattered in this cruel, unfair world. I picked up the picture of my lovely wife and smiled. She was the one who kept me sane all these years. She kept me seeing the best in people. Or at least trying. Sometimes there was no good to see—especially in my patients.
It takes a special kind of doctor to care for the mental needs of those who have done heinous things that are so bad they don’t even bother sending them to prison. They send them to me.
I’m like the dumpster for the dregs of society. Just drop them in the asylum and forget about them.
I kissed my wife and set her back on the bare desk, then turned on my computer and added notes from today’s session. There was never a recommendation for release. Once patients came here the only way they left was in a body bag. There was no curing them, only trying to make them docile until they left.
Oh, there were experiments. That was a large part of how we were funded. Companies would pay for certain tests to be done. Some might call it torture, but we called it research.
I finished typing my notes and leaned back in my seat. The diplomas and degrees stared down from their perches on the bare walls, mocking me. Demanding why I hadn’t gotten a better job.
As usual, I didn’t have an answer.
My office suddenly felt stuffy. I closed down my computer and left. Driving down the packed freeway, all I could think about was collapsing on the couch beside my lovely Elizabeth. Not telling her about my day until she dragged it out of me, then listening to her encourage me to help those who have been left in my care, because I’m the only hope they have.
Traffic was bumper to bumper and not helping my overall opinion of humanity much. Especially when a car that was swerving from lane to lane, nearly sideswiped me. It kept going on in front of me, nearly hitting several other cars.
The driver and passenger seemed to be having a disagreement about how to drive the car and it looked like it was about to come to blows.
Fortunately, they were soon out of sight, and someone else’s problem.
For the next few miles, I kept watching the side of the road waiting to see the offending car sitting in a ditch. However, they surprised me. They must’ve turned off to go terrorize some neighborhood streets with their reckless driving.
I hummed to myself, not wanting to have whatever dreck was on the radio forced on me.
When I was nearly to my exit, my phone rang. I immediately recognized the number as work. I contemplated answering it for a moment, then thought better of it. There had never been a time when work called with good news. And I was in no mood for bad news.
I hummed a little louder, trying to drown out the sound of the ring before it finally stopped.
The closer I got to home the less I thought about work and the more I thought about Elizabeth. Until I turned off at my exit, I had nearly forgotten work altogether. Maybe I would take tomorrow off and go do something with my wife. We hadn’t been out for a while. The weather had been lovely and I know she would adore a walk down by the lake.
My thoughts were interrupted when I turned down our driveway and saw a car in front of the house. It wasn’t quite in the driveway, it was sitting at an angle halfway in the front yard.
I parked my car and slowly got out. Something struck me about this car, but I hadn’t figured out what. I approached the driver’s side to have words with the person still sitting at the wheel.
“Excuse me,” I said staying a few steps back from the driver’s door.
He didn’t answer me.
“Excuse me,” I said a little louder.
Still no answer.
I tapped on the window and he ignored me.
I opened the door.
“Okay, look… “ I said.
But it was I who would do the looking. The man fell out of the car, thudding on the grass. The inside of the car was covered in blood. I looked down and the man’s throat had been cut.
“Oh my God!” I said jumping back.
I watched to see if the man was breathing, but the way his neck was bent at an unnatural angle against my yard told me everything I needed to know.
I glanced through the car but didn’t see the passenger.
It was then my eyes drifted to my front door.
It was open.
I stepped through the shrubs and up onto the porch, walking in a daze. The surrealness of the moment had yet to sink in. I was going inside to check on my wife and make sure everything was ok.
It didn’t strike me as anything more than that.
‘Oh, she just left the door open, that’s all.’
My mind kept trying to tell me that. I wanted desperately to believe it. Even though she had never been that careless during the entire time we’d been married. I had pushed aside all reason and common sense in favor of pure denial.
Everything was going to be ok. With Elizabeth, everything was always ok. She could literally light up a room with her positivity. She was the best person I ever knew. I have no idea how I got so lucky as to know her, let alone be her husband.
I floated in through my front door on my cloud of denial and looked for my wife.
It didn’t take me long to find her.
There was one wall of the living room she was constantly redecorating. She always said it looked bare and empty no matter what she did with it.
She was hanging from that wall, naked, her beautiful body desecrated by slices and rips. Her throat had been slit and blood still poured from it.
I ran to her.
Tried to take her down.
Screamed her name.
And then it was my turn to scream.
I looked down and saw a knife blade sticking out from my abdomen. It was part of the cutlery set I had gotten for Elizabeth three Christmases ago.
I screamed as I slowly turned to face my attacker.
“What’s up, doc?” Frederick said wearing a maniacal grin.
The shock had punched a hole in my reasoning. I saw him standing there, but I couldn’t accept it any more than I could accept my beautiful wife strung up like a macabre painting hanging on our living room wall.
My eyes tried to focus on his face. To make me recognize him as a threat.
“How’s that impulse control workin’ for ya, doc?”
He ripped the knife out of my back.
The pain, along with his arrogance woke me from my shock-induced stupor.
“Now do you understand?” he said, as he shoved the knife into my belly.
I did understand. I understood at that moment that I was already as dead as my wife. I knew that this piece of human garbage had taken something beautiful from this world. I knew I had to do something about it before there was nothing I could do. Before my body succumbed to injuries and I was unable.
I grabbed him by the throat. He tried to laugh, but my grip was fueled by desperation.
He tried to free himself but couldn’t. He began stabbing me over and over. I refused to release him. I carried him by his neck over to the kitchen counter and began bashing his head off the marble.
I was rewarded with spots of his blood. I knew at least I had made him bleed and that made me smile. His eyes grew wide as my grin grew maniacal. I smashed him repeatedly, crushing him against the sink, breaking the faucet, and causing water to spray into the air.
His eyelids fluttered as he lost his grip on the knife.
He was nearly gone. I would take him with me and that would be my parting gift to the world, removing something so evil.
Suddenly, my body wouldn’t obey commands. My grip loosened. I tried to tighten it, but I had lost all control. I looked down and I was standing in a pool of my own blood.
His eyes fluttered open and he coughed.
‘Nonononononono!’ I thought. ‘He can’t live. He can’t win. I had him.’
He stood as I sank to the floor.
“Looks like maybe you do understand, doc,” he said from what seemed like miles away. “Too bad you won’t be around to discuss it. We could have a session and evaluate how it makes you feel.”
His foot came down on my spine. I felt a crack. He started kicking me in the side repeatedly. Splashing water and blood on me as I felt my ribs crack.
I fought with everything I had.
My body didn’t even twitch.
‘Nooooo!,’ I screamed. ‘It can’t end like this.’
I heard a sizzling sound and then there was darkness.
***
I could feel movement.
Wasn’t I dead?
Was this what happened after?
It was still dark.
‘Hello?’ I tried to say.
Nothing. Just the sensation of movement.
Am I in a body bag? Am I on my way to the morgue or the grave? Please don’t let me be buried alive.
But I’m not alive, am I?
I don’t feel any pain. That’s a good thing, but not a good sign. The last thing I remember was lots of pain.
Suddenly there’s light and my movement stops.
I look up from the floor of a house I don’t recognize.
‘Where the hell am I?’
I’m on the floor next to a wall, looking up at an electrical outlet. Nothing around me seems familiar. I try to stand but it feels weird. It isn’t difficult, and there’s still no pain, it just carries an odd sensation with it. Like my body is just relearning things. Just like when I was a toddler. I teeter back and forth as I rise, but eventually, I’m upright.
My first few steps are tentative, but after that, I gain confidence with each stride.
Aside from the strange surroundings, there’s a sensation, like ants crawling all over me.
I pass a bathroom and glance inside. The reflection in the mirror draws me back. I slowly approach it, seeing something unique and terrifying.
It looks like someone drew an outline of a human form using a lightning bolt. The electricity shimmers and crackles as it races around the empty form of the being.
I wonder if it will hurt me.
Not sure if I want to test the limits of my newfound lack of pain, I hesitantly reach for this creature. It reaches for me at the same time. I’m mesmerized by this mutual curiosity.
My hand is about to touch the electric pulse shaped like its hand. I tremble with anticipation and fear as we touch.
Surprisingly, I don’t feel any pain. I don’t feel anything except a hard surface.
I move my hand back and forth. The creature does the same. I make quicker movements, and so does it.
Finally, out of frustration, I reach back and strike at the creature.
My hand strikes the hard surface and it splinters. There are now multiple creatures staring back at me.
I step back and come to the horrible realization.
I am the creature.
***
One month later…
“And police have been unable to find any credible leads in the string of brutal killings that began shortly after the patient escaped from the mental hospital last month,” the handsome anchorman stated from behind his desk. “They are asking people to call in if they know the whereabouts of Frederick Winston, now known as, ‘The Mangler’.”
“In other news, the Larsan Electric Company has issued a statement that the recent power surges are no cause for alarm. These surges seem to be random in people's homes and certain businesses. An LEC spokesman stated that there appears to be no pattern to the surges and that so far no one has reported them causing any harm. LEC is tracking down the problem and should have it under control soon.”
The anchorman shifted in his seat and turned to another camera.
“And on a lighter note, with Halloween months away, it seems that reports of ghosts are on the rise,” he said, wearing a half grin. “Several area residents have reported what they call a ghostlike figure, outlined in light, visiting them. Reports vary as to the duration and location of the visits, but they do seem to have a few things in common. The visits are usually short. In fact, most people say that if they blink the figure is gone. No one has reported the ghost doing any harm. And it seems like anyone within close proximity feels a tingling sensation and their hair standing on end.”
“Maybe I should be visited instead of my next hairdresser’s appointment,” the attractive woman anchor said with a laugh.
“Schedule me a visit too,” the male anchor said smiling. “And that’s our news for the evening, good night.”
Jimmy switched the channel.
“Gimme a break,” he said to the TV. “Ghosts? Who’s playing what? This’s some marketing scheme to sell Halloween crap. Like that stunt they pulled a few years back with the clowns hanging around the schools to promote that stupid movie.”
He switched off the TV and rolled over in his bed.
It wasn’t long before his breathing slowed. But before sleep could take him, he noticed a glow in the hallway. He didn’t remember leaving any lights on when he came to bed. Living alone had its advantages. If he heard someone in his apartment, he knew they weren’t supposed to be there. He slowly reached over to the bedstand and pulled out his Glock 9mm handgun, then held it close and listened.
He watched as the glow moved. It seemed like someone was looking around. But for what? He didn’t really have anything aside from his TV, phone, and video games. If anyone wanted those, they would be in a world of hurt. He had been lucky to get this apartment. If he was honest with himself, it cost more than he could afford, but when he had the chance he took it. It was too bad the opening came because the person who lived there before him was one of The Mangler’s victims. That’s probably why he was able to rent the place so quickly and get the price down to where he could almost afford it.
Maybe the glow was one of the street people who were stupid enough to see if there was an empty apartment to claim. That wasn’t gonna fly either. Jimmy had jumped on this apartment to get away from the dingy rat hole he used live in on the other side of town. And there was no way he’d let some bum come in here and take what was his.
The glow crept closer. He could feel the hairs on his arms raise. There was a sound too. It wasn’t loud, almost felt more than heard. A soft crackle, like electricity when it sparked.
The sensory input was almost too much for Jimmy to take. He pointed the gun in the direction of the glow and saw the barrel was shaking. His resolve, that he could deal with anyone as long as he had his gun, was beginning to fade.
The glow became so bright that it finally took form.
Jimmy’s eyes widened. It was the form of a person, just like the news had said.
It seemed to look around the room, then settle its gaze on the bed. Jimmy began to sweat as it approached and stared into his eyes.
It was the oddest thing, staring into what should be eyes, but nothing was there. The flashes of mini lightning bolts formed shapes that looked almost human, but it was just an outline, there was nothing inside what should be the body.
He shoved the shaking gun out from under the blanket and pointed it at the glowing figure.
The figure noted the presence of the gun, then continued to advance.
“S… stop,” Jimmy said. “I’m w… warning you.”
The figure ignored the warning.
Jimmy squeezed the trigger, setting off a deafening shot that went right through the face of the figure.
It acted as though nothing had happened, continuing to advance. The ringing in Jimmy’s ears made all sound seem muffled.
The figure stopped two inches from Jimmy’s face.
“Mangler… “ it said, sounding less like a voice and more like a transmission over an old staticky radio.
“I… I’m not the Mangler,” he said. “The person who used to live here was killed by him.”
It seemed to ponder this for a moment.
“Find Mangler… “ it said.
“I d… don’t know where to find him.”
It moved an inch closer. As the flashes of electricity arced, licked hungrily at Jimmy’s face.
“Find… him… “
“Ok, ok, I’ll find him,” Jimmy said, feeling the heat from the electricity.
The figure seemed to consider that for a moment then backed away. It moved toward the bedroom wall. Then, like someone had turned on a vacuum, it was sucked into an electrical outlet and disappeared.
Jimmy laid back in bed, breathing hard. His eyes darted left and right all around the room. But the only evidence of the figure that remained was the bullet hole in his bedroom wall.
***
The trips through the electrical conduits had become easier. There were still times when I came out someplace I didn’t intend to, but I was usually able to recover quickly and get to where I wanted to go.
But where did I want to go? At first, I wandered around, lost in this new form I found myself trapped inside. It was only after I had overheard a news report about the serial killer they called The Mangler that I gained my purpose.
Of course, Frederick was going to keep killing. Of course, they weren’t going to be able to catch him. He’d been inside away from his victims before and he didn’t like it. Not being able to torture and kill innocents was like a normal person not being able to breathe. Not that I know much about normal or breathing anymore.
I suppose on some level I should thank him. I thought about it for a long time and the only thing that makes any kind of sense is when we were fighting, somehow the water and blood I was laying in got splashed into the electrical socket. Instead of killing me, it bonded with me, making me able to become the electrical current. To ride it like a wave to wherever I wanted.
I became faster than any person ever was. And yet, I wasn’t a person anymore. I have no idea how I retained my consciousness, let alone my memory. But somehow…
I justify it by the old adage, ‘I think therefore I am.’
My life has become an endless hunt for the person who destroyed me, the person I must destroy. I don’t even know what I’ll do when I find him. But I will find him. I will stop him. This time, I won’t fail. I’ll end him like I should’ve before.
I owe it to the people he’s tortured and killed since my failure. Most of all, I owe it to my wife. I know she wouldn’t approve of my bloodlust. She would say there must be some other option. But if she would be able to see her dead body hanging naked from our living room wall, I think she just might change her mind.
My thoughts are interrupted as I arrive at my next destination, another victim’s house. I’m not sure what I’ll find that the police haven’t, but I have to try. Maybe I can pick up his scent somehow. A plan almost assuredly doomed to failure since I lost all sense of smell in the transformation.
I’m surprised though that I can still see and hear. I suppose waves of light and sound somehow intersect with my electrical body and it senses them. I don’t question it. I’ve learned to just go with it.
On the plus side, I don’t have to worry about eating, drinking, or using the bathroom. I guess there’s an upside to everything. Elizabeth would be so proud of me.
I arrive at the room where the victim was murdered. Looking around there’s still blood everywhere, along with evidence markers where they took pictures.
The sheer amount of blood tells me he took his time. He desecrated this girl in her own room. Her parents must’ve been out because there’s no way they didn’t hear the struggle. There were books on the floor, a chair overturned, and blood everywhere. The room was a disaster. It looked like she fought him. I wish she would’ve succeeded where I had failed.
But then, I wish I hadn’t failed, and this girl was still alive.
There’s nothing I can do now except find him and end him.
Finding him was proving more difficult than I thought. I had unlimited access to anywhere with electricity, but I couldn’t use a computer or a GPS. I was limited to transportation only through electricity. Granted that still made me the fastest being alive. I say being because I don’t think I qualify as human anymore. But I was limited to traveling to a place and then trying to find out where I was and if he was there.
If he knew I was searching for him all he would have to do is live the rest of his days in a cabin in the woods with no electricity. I’d never be able to reach him.
I believe two things worked in my favor with that theory.
First, I don’t think he’s that smart, and second, I don’t think he knows I’m looking for him. I believe that surviving our fight only further empowered him to kill. When someone feels invincible, they’re bound to make a mistake.
An officer walked into the room and I ducked back into an outlet. I was able to hang on where I was and watch from inside the outlet without being transported somewhere else.
The officer looked startled and stared at the empty air that I had just vacated. She looked like she was unsure if she trusted what her eyes had seen in the instant before I vanished.
She slowly stepped over to the corner and bent down to peer into the outlet. For a moment I wondered if she could see me, and what exactly she would see. But then her radio squawked calling her to another scene. When I heard the voice on the radio say the address and that they might have the killer cornered, I didn’t waste any time.
It was maybe fifteen seconds until I was across town at the address I’d heard. There was a lot of screaming and crying going on. I came out of the outlet and saw blood on the floor beside a body that wasn’t moving.
There was a girl being beaten by a man with his back to me. He turned to take another swing and I knew my search was over.
“My psychiatrist used to tell me I needed to work on my impulse control,” he said calmly as he slapped her. “I think I’m doing pretty good. I’ve been here ten whole minutes and you’re still alive.”
I shot across the room and knocked him to the floor. He jumped back up and looked around for what had hit him.
“What the hell?”
I saw the fear in his eyes when he saw me. I know Elizabeth would’ve been ashamed, of me, but I was enjoying his anxiety. After all he had done to me and so many others, I drank it in like an elixir.
He started edging toward the door. I was there in a heartbeat. His eyes darted back and forth between where I used to be and where I now stood. The panic in his eyes doubled.
I wanted to make him suffer, but I didn’t want to make the same mistake I’d made before and let him escape with his life.
I lashed out with a bolt that used to be my arm. The energy slashed through his shirt and fried a hole in his shoulder.
He screamed in pain and horror as he looked at the smoking hole in his skin. He tried to run but in an instant, I was there in front of him firing another bolt and searing the skin across his waist to his jeans.
His screams of pain and rage were only matched by the feral desperation in his eyes.
Not knowing what do to, he went with the familiar. Attack the innocent. He grabbed the girl who had been crawling away from the scene.
He grabbed her again and held her in front of him like a human shield.
What a waste of skin.
I fired a bolt into a ceiling light beside me which ricocheted and hit him full force in the leg, nearly severing it.
He went down like a ton of bricks, trying to hold on to his hostage, but she was fighting to get away from him. She broke free and he crumpled to the floor.
“What do you want?” he screamed at me.
With everything that is within me, I wanted to tell him who I was, what he had taken from me, and what I was about to take from him.
But I didn’t want to give the satisfaction. I wanted to give him only uncertainty and fear to cling to.
I could feel the seconds ticking away. I knew I had to make the most of this opportunity or he would get away again. And after this, I might never find him.
I unleashed every ounce of energy at him. I couldn’t even see him, he was only a smoking pillar of frying skin.
Just then, the police burst through the door.
“FREE… “ the first officer started then the shock of what he was seeing stole the rest of the word from his mouth.
He stood there, mouth agape when the female officer stepped in behind him. She looked at me and her wide eyes narrowed as she put two and two together and recognized me from the last crime scene.
I had no reason to fear. I didn’t know if I could even be harmed in my current state. But when you see that blue uniform burst through a door with a gun aimed at you, all rational thought takes a vacation.
I dove for the outlet and was gone. I didn’t even care where I was going. I knew I had done what I wanted to. The monster was destroyed.
Something felt different. Was it pride at finishing my crusade? Was it shame knowing Elizabeth wouldn’t have wanted me to do it?
I don’t know but there was something else. It was like there was added weight to my existence. I guess you can have a conscious in whatever you’d call this existence.
I appeared in the place that made the most sense, ironically. It was my old home. The one where everything I loved died, including me. It was where I took on this unintended new existence.
Is that why I felt this extra weight? Was it some cathartic aftereffect of my search for revenge that was finally over?
I looked around the charred debris of what used to be my home. In my mind's eye, I didn’t see the burned-out shell of what was left. I saw it as it was when we first moved in. When Elizabeth and I started decorating. When the interior was finally finished and I turned to her and said, “For now.” Knowing she would decide to change everything at some time in the future when she was bored, just like all women seem to do.
I remember getting a paintbrush across the mouth for that comment. I smiled remembering kissing her with my freshly painted mouth and ending up in the bedroom.
As I turned toward where I’d entered the house, my smile quickly faded. For some reason, I was still connected to the outlet. That had never happened before.
Another curiosity arose when I noticed the color of my electrical body was now tinged purple. It had always been blue before.
The tail of what had yet to come out of the outlet was red. As I pulled and it came the rest of the way out, it merged with me and turned purple.
“What the hell?” I heard someone say.
I whipped around but no one was there.
“Where am I?” the voice said.
“Who are you?” I said to the air.
There was a long silence.
“Doc?” the voice said.
As far as I knew it wasn’t possible for my spine to turn to ice, since I no longer had a spine, but the feeling seemed the same.
“Frederick?” I said.
“What happened?” he said. “This crazy electric thing attacked me and now… wait a minute. How am I talking to you? You died months ago.”
My shock gave way to utter despair. My enemy was now part of me.

Hi, I'm 26M. I am a "certified and registered" medical assistant (CRMA) since 2019 [pro tip, there is no difference between CMA and RMA, its literally the same]. I am certified and registered by the American Medical Technologists (AMT). I have always been fascinated by medicine. I was a very young child when I first got hooked, I have been seen every corner of medicine ever since. As it turns out, I'm pretty damn good in the field. I worked on this useless certification since before I was 18. In 2016, I graduated high-school and was a duel enrollment student my senior year. I went to my local community college during duel enrollment and was convinced by my superiors at the time that becoming a CMA was a great way to go.
I was told that by becoming a CRMA I would have bettehigher annual pay rates and higher probability of being hired for jobs. I was told that the credits I would obtain at my community college for this certification would be a great addition to many health related bachelor majors like Pre-Med and RN programs. Even contribute to a faster graduation much "like an associates". Only that I wouldn't have an associates which wouldn't be very "applicable" to the real world after graduation unless I continue to a bachelors. But a certification to get a "large head start".
Jesus fucking Christ, head start this, head start that, benefits here, benefits there. God, I want to vomit just listening to myself regurgitate all these words of affirmation said to me. Over the coarse of nearly 5 YEARS I am here to tell you that NOTHING of what I was assured or told was true.
Now here is the reality of what you will discover, post-covid, what being a CRMA really does for you.
- A CRMA certification grants you NO competitive benefits and NO reasonably competitive annual pay compared to anyone who gets hired with out a CRMA certification.
Literally no Benefits, none. I have been the lowest annually paid Technician, Medical Technician, Mental Health Technician, for EVERY JOB I EVER OBTAINED and WITH my CRMA certification. I worked at many extremely well known medical institutions from Childrens psychiatric residential care hospitals to where I am now working at one of the greatest health care institutions IN THE FUCKING COUNTRY of the USA and I am STILL one of the lowest paid compared to the majority of my fellow technicians. I currently get paid $18.20 an hour in one of the most expensive areas on the east coast. My co-workers laughed at me and then showed me their pay stubs at $24-26 per hour pay FOR THE SAME JOB. Then new hires that came after me getting $22 FOR THE SAME JOB, NO CRMA CERTIFICATION, NO BACHELORS, NOTHING. Yeah. Oh and good luck making that case to your manager. Getting any kind of raise is next to impossible no matter how long you work or how hard you work or how well you work at your position.
- A CRMA certification today will LESSEN your chances of being hired.
Yup, you heard it here first folks. Obtaining your CRMA certification means that you are of a higher education standard and can handle higher responsibilities, conduct more hands on care with patients, and even more universal in the world of medicine assistants for all kinds of levels of care. Yeaaahhh well after covid, that means that any and all health care networks are going to essentially hire anyone else to do those jobs. Qualified or not. According to my past managers, Nursing managers, and most business sides of health care networks, medical assistants have low level qualifications, little education, or education needs to even just become a CRMA. Furthermore, less urgent responsibilities, I guess? I was just doing CPR on a man in a 30 min code sweating my dick off but sure, I guess not. This means that from the business end perspective they don't need someone with higher qualifications to do the same job. It's simple economics. Why pay someone with proper qualifications $35-40,000 when you can choose the less qualified, less trained, and less educated person for $20-25,000 annually and still obtain the same results within a certain field of practice. It's the quantity over quality kind of mentality. Over my many years I have seen so many unqualified, uneducated, and relentlessly lazy individuals work beside me completely unaware of their responsibilities on the floors of the hospital. You WILL experience these people as your co-workers, guaranteed, now days more than ever.
- CRMA CERTIFICATION CLASSES DO NOT CONTRIBUTE JACK SHIT TO A BACHELORS
After all was said and done and I "graduated" (I guess..) from my community college I went on to my bachelors only to find out that 90% OF MY CREDITS I TOOK AT COMMUNITY COLLEGE WERE NOT APPLICIBLE. Literally 90%, I essentially was 21 starting at my 4 year university and at ground zero with barely anything to show for my efforts to get this CRMA certification. Then covid hit, everyone had to go home, and that really messed everything up. I couldn't focus at home and my grades started to tank due to my really awful home situation but I'm not here to talk about that. So I decided to take a gap year to get a night shift Technician job back at home as a float technician. Never the less, in academia I was majorly behind. Yes Yes Yes, I know. Life is not a race, it's a journey. Some of us struggle more than others. However, here I am at 26, I need to work to pay for an apartment (which I can barely pay for because I'm just a tech in a really expensive area), I need to stand on my own 2 feet, I need to pay for my car and car insurance, I need my own health insurance as per required by the state, and I'm LITERALLY JUST A JUNIOR AFTER ALL THIS TIME. I'm part time in school now so I don't burn myself out working and going to school (tried that, nearly 2 years of my life 7 days a week, no sleeping in, no breaks, fall-winter-spring-summer, just to try and catch up and I will never do that again.). So, at the part time pace I'm going I will graduate 3 years or more from now if I don't go full time literally NOW. I WILL BE BASICALLY 30.... If I do go full time in school I'll be able to graduate in about 3 semesters, I have no idea how I'll be able to financially do that even with loans.
- YOU WILL BE EXPOSED TO INTENSE, HARSH, HAZERDOUS, PHYSICAL, EMOTIONAL, AND MENTAL EXTREMES INVOLVING YOUR PATIENTS ALONG SIDE YOUR NURSES AND DOCTORS.
I have worked before, during, and after the worst of what covid-19 had to throw at us on Emergency department (ER), Intensive care, Progressive care, Medical-surgical care, Post Anesthesia care, Observation, hospice, and psychiatric care units/floors/facilities. I have seen families and children watch me as I do CPR on their Father before being shooed away so they aren't scarred for the rest of their life. I was forced to be sat on 1:1's with fully grown men with biceps the size of my face with the body build of a line backer having explosive and uncontrollable manic episodes, convincing themself that us health care workers were human traffickers, and somehow after hours of screaming what I can only describe as absolute madness, have the strength to bend the metal his restraints were tied too. I am 6'2", 220 lbs, consistently go to the gym and play lacrosse the majority of my life and for a moment I wondered if that was going to be my day. Furthermore, later in the day meeting said manic patients wife, I couldn't help but notice the bruises all over her face, her arms, legs, chest... everywhere.
I have witnessed patients with HSV-1 (facial/oral herpes), HSV-2 (Genital herpes) and HIV/AIDS fling various bodily fluids such as blood, spit, urine, excrement, and even ejaculate attempting infect someone with malicious intent. I had one patient admit that they tried to infect another purposefully because they didn't want to feel so alone. Patients will try to get to know you, you're going to be the one they probably see first or most through out the day when they use their call bell. Mostly, they'll want to have normal chit chat in normal ways but there is always that 1 or 2 with other intentions. I have my last name covered on my hospital ID because I WAS FOLLOWED. I am 26M, and all it took was some good and casual conversation talking about ourselves and our lives. I like to talk to my patients and get to know them so they know that I do care about their well being. Obviously, I'm not about to talk about crazy personal details of my life, separation of church and state n all that but that's all it took. Sad to say but even some of the insane have somewhat decent communication skills. A 12 hour shift and some conversation through out one shift, that's really all it takes. That was just one instance, my co-workers (the majority are female) have to many to keep tally.
You will encounter patients who are uncontrollably releasing their bowels and YOU are the one that needs to clean that up. House keeping isn't around the corner all the time and bleach wipes are there for a reason. You will encounter ALL bodily fluids on walls, floors, sinks, tables, chairs, beds, cabinets, and even on the ceiling (rare but yeah). You will be most likely responsible for your patients daily hygiene, dental, denture care, and shaving. If a patient is incapable of wiping after they released their bowls, and yes sometimes a little to early, got poop on themselves, their gown, socks, and down their leg... yup you guessed it, YOU gotta clean it up and in some cases re-wash the patient entirely. Most cases, your nurse or any help from fellow techs will be somewhere else probably dealing with another mess. Personal hygiene is ABSOLUTELY IMPORTANT for a patients health care while they are in your care. It's been proven that daily hygiene being done accelerates patient discharge rates. It matters. Which is why our position matters. If we don't wash our patients on a daily basis they will be more susceptible to infections and diseases. Especially if the patient is already immunocompromised. Depending on what unit you will be working on. You will also likely be responsible for checking equipment, making sure equipment is up to date, doing quality checks on defibrillators, refrigerators, and various other equipment that your unit uses every single day and for multiple times a day. I once witnessed two nurses go feral over a bladder scanner, I already bladder scanned both their patients by that time, both patients were fine. I could rant for an unfathomable amount of time about this position and all the essential things that we must do and provide with quality care and consistent accuracy. Don't get me started on Vaccinations at urgent cares, phlebotomy, obtaining samples for lab to do their mad scientist stuff, and the differences of technician/medical assistant responsibilities between different networks.
​
Conclusion...
This is a small section of what it means to be a dedicated Medical Assistant/Technician. Do yourself a favor. If everything I said doesn't worry you much, go for it. If you want the experience or the desire for the experience and you are in a state where you can value the experiences more than the pay, go for it. I was like that once too, now I have no choice but to think more about how I will pay for myself and my future. Regardless, The Lord knows we need the help and I'll be happy to meet you and train you. However, you must know that you will always be appreciated. You'll hear the phrase "we appreciate you" or "Thank you for all your help today", from your nurses, fellow techs, managers, nursing managers, and doctors alike right before you leave to clock out. You'll just never be properly valued the way you should for the immense efforts you provide. You'll be just a tech. The health care field worker bee....

Fuck you.Fuck you. You useless piece of shit. You absolute waste of space and air. You uneducated, ignorant, idiotic dumb swine, you're an absolute embarrassment to humanity and all life as a whole. The magnitude of your failure just now is so indescribably massive that one hundred years into the future your name will be used as the moniker of evil for heretics. Even if all of humanity put together their collective intelligence there is no conceivable way they could have thought up a way to fuck k up on the unimaginable scale you just did. When Jesus died for our sins, he must not have seen the sacrilegious act we just witnessed you performing, because I know that your birth may have never become if he did he would have forsaken humanity long ago so that when you die, your skeleton will be displayed in a museum after being scientifically r bone structure, researched so that all future generations may learn not to generate them to a useless reality. your because every tiny detail anyone may have in common with you degrades t piece of trash and a burden to society. No wonder your father questioned whether or not you were truly his son, for you'd have to not be a waste of carbon matter for like a family member your birth made it so that mankind is worse of ine to love you f in every way you can possibly imagine, and you have made it so that society never really recover into a state of ization. can organization. Everything has forever fallen into a bewildering chaos, through which core, you can only find misfortune. I would say the apocalypse is upon us but unrecognizable core, v this is merely the closest word humans have for the sheer scale of horror that is now reality. You have forever condemned everyone you love and know into an eternal state of suffering. worse than any human concept of hell. You are such an unholy being, that if you step within a one hundred foot radius of a holy place or a place that has ever been deemed important by tradius anyone, your distorted sac religious soul will ruin whatever meaning it ever had beyond repair. You are an idiotic, shiteating, dumbass ape and no one has ever loved you. Rhodes Island would have been l fif you'd never joined us. You are a lying, backstabbing, been better off if you'd never cowardly useless piece of shit and I hate you with every single part of my being. Even this worlds finest writers and poets from throughout the ages could never hope to accurately escale which you just fucked up, and how incredibly idiotic you are. Anyone describe the s e on that believes in any religion out there should now realize that they have been wrong this entire time, for if divine beings were real, they would never have allowed a being such as you to stain the earth and this universe. In the future there will be horror stories made about you, with the scariest part of them being that the reader has to realize that such an indescribable monster actually exists, and that the horrific events from the movie have actually taken in the same world that they live in right now. You are the absolute embodiment of everything solute nave actually taken place that has ever been wrong on this earth, yet you manage to make it so that that is only a small part of the evil that is your being. Never in the history of mankind has there been of mankind has there been anyone that could have predicted such an eldrich abomination, but here you are. It's hard to believe that I am seeing such an an incredible failure with my own eyes, but here I am, so unfortunately I cannot deny your existence. Even if I did my very best, my vocabulary is not able to describe the sheer magnitude of the idiotic mistake that is you. Even if time travel some day will be Code invented, there still would not be a single soul willing to go back in time to before this moment to fix o fix history, because having to witness such incredible horrors if they failed would have to many mental and physical drawbacks that not even the bravest soul in history would be willing to risk it. I cannot imagine the pure dread your mother must have felt when she had to carry a baby for nine months and then giving birth to such a wretched monster as you. Not a single word of word of the incoherent, illogical rambling you may be wanting to do to defend ng you may yourself or apologize would ever be able to make up for what you just did. The countries of the world would have wanted to make laws preventing such a terrible event like this from ever happening again, but sadly this is not possible since your horrific actions just now have shattered every form of order this world once had, making concepts such as laws irrelevant. Right from the moment I first set my eyes on you I knew you were an absolute abomination of everything that is wrong with humanity. I was hoping I would have been able to prevent your evil from being released upon this world by tagging along and keeping my eye on you, but it is clear to me now that not even the greatest efforts would have been able to prevent a terrible event in this scale from occurring. You are the worst human being, or even just being in general, that I have ever had the misfortune of witnessing. Events like the infected plague apparently only happened with the goal of teaching humanity to survive such a horrible event e able to even slightly as the one you just created, but not even mankind's greatest trials were a epare anyone for the insufferable evil you have just created. If you ever had them, prepare children would be preemptively killed to protect your suniverse from the possibility of anyone in your bloodline being aan half as he protect this will never be able to have killed f as bad as you are, except you will being even children, because not a single human being will ever want to come within a hu a hundred mile of you and anything you have ever touched. You are a colossal disappointment not only radius to your parents, but to your ancestors and entire bloodline. The disgusting mistake that y have just made is so incredibly terrible that everyone who would ever be to hear about it. usly feel an indescribable mixt mixture would spontaneously feel an who woulding mistake that you of immane immense anger, fear and anxiety that emotionally and physically they would never truly be the same ever again. The sheer scale of your mistake, if ever to be materialized, would not only surpass the size of the world, but it would reach far beyond the edges of the known, and almost certainly the unknown universe. I could sit here and write paragraphs, nay, books describing your immense failure, yet even if I were to dedicate my life to describing the reality of what has just failure e down here, and I would meedoent of it until my heart stone heating working as hard and efficiently spend every moment of it until my heart stops beating v as possible, yet there is not even a snowballs chance in hell that I would be able to come close to transcribing the absolute shitshow you have just released upon the world. You are an irresponsible, idiotic, disgusting, unloved, horrible excuse for a living being who's soul contains less humanity than every ginger in history combined. The absolute disgust I feel when thinking about anything that has even a slight resemblance to anything that might have to do with you and your unholy actions is so incredibly great that when I am honest about it I think that even I do not posses a consciousness great enough to comprehend my own feelings about it. When people of Columbia fought to break free from Lungmen, countless soldiers fought and lost their lives in favor of a chance at a better future for their children, they did not give their lives to have you fuck the world up beyond repair to the degree that you are doing right now. Honestly, even when technology advances and studies on become more and more accurate, I do not think humanity will ever truly be able to the subject understand what your failure actually means for the universe. My hate for you and everything you stand for is so much deeper than the depths of Shambala that you could probably take s so much deepe the entire Lungmen population down there and back up around twenty million times before you would have sunk to the end of my hate, and honestly, I do not want to fun that that in the end of my hate, and I exaggerate, but 1 think that that insult was low balling it such a massive amount that all mountains in this world und being sive amount that all mo combined would not be able to stack up to this imprecise judgement in light of the fact that when being honest, my hate is almost certainly bottomless. There is no one in this world that has ever loved you, and especially after what you just did, no one will ever love you in the future either. There is no hope that your idiotic behavior and especially your crooked soul will ever change for the better, and in fact quite the opposite might be true. By making the mistake that you just did, you have shown me that you are so incredibly hopeless that you will only devolve into a more idiotic and wretched creature than you already are. The only possible way in which your future would be brighter than the black hole your existence currently is would exclusively be because there is absolutely no conceivable way that you would even beable to sink lower than the pathetic place your current failure has put you in.STOP FUCKING USING EMOJIS!!!!! 😡

hey I am solving a pretty simple question https://leetcode.com/problems/valid-palindrome/ but to my surprise my code haiving O(n) complexity gives TLE error and 479/485 test cases passes . Can anyone pls check my code-
bool isPalindrome(string s) {
string s1="";
int y= s.length();
for(int i=0;i {
s[i]=tolower(s[i]);
if(isalnum(s[i]))
s1=s1+s[i];
}
int n=s1.length()-1;
for(int i=0,j=n;i {
if(s1[i]!=s1[j])
{
return false;
break;
}
}
return true;
}

I always want to explore dark places of the space but never left the bubble since i joined E.D. (2015) i was thinking about a ship which can sustain itself in harsh conditions of space and jump without much fear. While im going in deep i may try to scan some planet and exobio data for profit but ship should be able to withstand a lil bit crash and landing failures depends on the gravity. I probaly have 4 options if i want to reach +50ly jump range without stripping the ship to the core which is Anaconda, Krait Phantom, AspX or DBX. Main problem for me that i cant fit all the optional modules i want in the ships except anaconda, but it seems too bulky for landing, supercruise etc. This build can reach 64.7Ly with full fuel tanks yet it has everything i need.
My question is do you have any other recommendation of ship builds or shall i change any part from this one ? Builds i found at online are either for speedrunning or simple exobio builds that probably i cant fly them due to frail structure.(Engineering advices are welcomed yet i dont have sensor + life support engineer rn so i cant make lightweight modification, but included it in build.)

I did a money diary this exact week last year about signing the offer letter for the company I work at now. I ended up getting a 5K COL adjustment (62k > 67k) once I moved to Philly. I expressed in the previous journal that I was worried about my taxes since I moved states and work for an NYC company from PA. As many suggested in the comments, it ended up being pretty simple (I used FreeTaxUSA).
SECTION ONE: ASSETS AND DEBT
Retirement Balance - $31,400. A mix of Roth IRA, 401(k), and traditional brokerage.
Equity - N/A
Savings account balance - $11,600 in Emergency Funds; $7,500 in a HYSA that I saved up during college and will use to pay off my student loans when payments resume this summer. Because of this, I consider myself debt free.
Checking account balance - $900; I had a $600 sinking fund for my food/shopping/entertainment in Paris, but I got $300 in cash birthday gifts.
Credit card debt (and how you accumulated it) - $0; I pay my cards off regularly.
Student loan debt - $7,500 for a Political Science and Social Policy Degree with a minor in English. I got a full-tuition scholarship, but had small gaps in aid during my first two years because my school required underclassmen to have on-campus housing and a meal plan.
—
SECTION TWO: INCOME
Income Progression: I’ve been at this job 9 months, make $67k, and it’s great. The people, the work, the benefits. It’s my first post-college, salaried position. I have pretty much no complaints about it and am hoping to get a merit raise during our summer evaluations.
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $3,400 (paid semi-monthly)
$1200/mo in total taxes (fed, state, local, SSI/med); $1000/mo to 401(k); Employer pays 100% of health premiums.
No other income currently, no parental contributions, etc.
—
SECTION THREE: EXPENSES (my portions, I live with a roommate)
Rent - $750/mo. Renewing in May; hoping it stays the same or doesn’t increase dramatically
Retirement/Investment contribution - $540/mo to Roth IRA (401(k) contributions detailed in the Income section).
Savings contribution - $460/mo to sinking funds, $200/mo to General Savings/Emergency Fund
Debt payments - None besides regular payments to my cards
Donations - $80/mo to whatever feels right
Food - ~$500/mo ($300 groceries + <$200 dining out)
Electric - $75/mo
Wifi - $65/mo
Cellphone - $300/yr (Mint Mobile)
Renter’s Insurance - $100/yr
Subscriptions - $8/mo; $7 for Apple Music and $1 for iCloud Storage
Annual Subscriptions - $380/yr; $190 for Credit Card Annual Fees; $165 for ScentBird Subscription; $25 for Google Storage
Gym Membership - $10/mo; $50/yr for Annual Membership Fee
I started on a health journey last June (lost 50+ lbs!). Back then, I was in search of any kind of fitness that I would enjoy and actually go to. I ended up getting a $190/mo membership (2 classes/wk) to a RUMBLE (HIIT Boxing) studio and went 2x a week from June - Nov. In December, I bought a flat-fee holiday package that made my classes cheaper ($19/cls vs $23/cls) and more flexible, so I froze my subscription and got a 30 class package.
In January, I started strength training 4x/wk at Planet Fitness and went down to 1x/week at RUMBLE. I love my current routine, but PF and RUMBLE are both a 35 min walk from my house, and I go to the gym early in the morning. So, I’m considering joining the closer (<10 min walk), but more expensive ($72/mo) gym soon.
I’m still slowly burning through the RUMBLE holiday package and plan to cancel my subscription. I’m hoping they do a summer sale so I can buy another class package. If not, I’ll just buy classes ad hoc after I run out.
No pet, car, or therapy expenses currently.
—
SECTION FOUR: MONEY/TRAVEL DIARY
ACCOMMODATIONS
The flight and accommodations for this flight were booked in September after getting an email from Going (formerly Scott’s Cheap Flights) about $500 tickets to Paris the exact weekend of my birthday. I stayed in a Sonder that I also booked back in September for about $480. I bought a $30, 5 GB international eSIM from Airalo. I was able to post on social media, send iMessages, and check my bank accounts with no problems and no extra data needed.
​
Day 1
Today is payday and the beginning of my week off. I clear my credit cards, invest my Roth deposit, and go to the gym.
After the gym, I pick up last minute toiletries ($45.35) and plane snacks ($21.48). I end up on a wild goose chase looking for a Universal Adapter ($34.39), so I get McDonald's (I wanted a Shamrock Shake) while I’m out ($9.15 - this feels expensive for McDonald's?)
My mom gives me a call around 8pm and asks if I’ve checked my bank account. Today was payday, so I had, but not since early that morning. She gifted me $200! After, I spend three hours retwisting my locs and go to bed around midnight.
Day 1 Spend - $108.37
​
Day 2
Today is Sims 4 Expansion Pack (and flight to Paris) day! I can’t install the game until 1PM ET. Lame.I do one last check to ensure I have everything I need, transfer my Paris Sinking Fund ($600) into my checking account, and then play the Sims to pass the time. At 4, I take the Regional Rail to the airport.
I breeze through TSA and read Another Country by James Baldwin until boarding begins. Upon boarding, I’m stopped and informed that my carry-on is “too big.” They were clearly picking people at random to move their bags because as the woman walked down the jet bridge with my bag, she rolled it past a man who had the exact same suitcase as me in another color. Annoying.
They don’t give me a chance to take out my laptop and snacks, this is my first time traveling internationally, I triple checked the sizing requirements, so this stressed me out. I was terrified of my bag getting lost. I vent to my best friend about the bag situation; she helps me calm down. Once we’re airborne, I spend the next 6 hours rotating between reading, watching Wakanda Forever, and listening to music.
Day 2 Spend - $0
​
Day 3 (my birthday!)
We land in Dublin at 8am, and I activate my international eSIM. I see my older brother gifted me $100 via Cash App. Even though it was just a quick layover, being in Ireland on St. Patrick’s Day made me happy. The Irish were teeming with happiness and excitement. I board my second flight and land in Paris at 1pm, finally am reunited with my bag, and get to the section of town I’m staying in via train ($12.18).
While I wait for a friend to arrive on the train from London, I try French McDonalds per the recommendation of my best friend ($14.95 - seriously, why the hell is McDonalds so expensive?)
Friend arrives and we explore Paris! We then stop at a bakery, I grab a pain au chocolat ($1.60) and slip into a bar nearby. My friend lets everyone know it’s my birthday, and they buy us lots of rounds of shots and drinks. My friend closes the tab for the couple of drinks we actually ordered, and we head to a club that’s having a St. Patrick’s Day party around the corner.
I later try to redeem my Starbucks birthday item, but the barista gently lets me know it’s not valid in France. However, he throws in a free refresher and my friend buys me a blueberry muffin. We head back to the hotel so I can freshen up and change into my birthday dress. We take a nap and head back out for the night on the train ($8.96 RT for 2). We have dinner at a delicious restaurant, which my friend pays for.
Our last stop of the night is an Afro-Caribbean spot that has great music and friendly staff. I tell the bartender it’s my birthday and ask for a drink recommendation. He makes some spicy concoction in a gold bowl with peppers. It’s quite delicious but is strong and makes my nose run! The staff gifts me at least two more shots, and I decide to call it quits on alcohol for the night after that. We dance and laugh the night away with the friendly staff, and I pick up the tab before we leave ($27.81).
Day 3 Spend - $65.50
​
Day 4
My friend has been teasing a surprise and finally reveals it’s Disneyland! I laugh and realize I hadn’t disclosed the rest of my itinerary — I have a Disneyland reservation for Monday (after my friends went home)! However, I booked a non-park hopper ticket for Walt Disney Studios, so I’m excited to be able to experience them both thanks to my friend!
We had a late, drunk night last night so we started the day a bit late. Grabbed a quick brunch ($6.74) and head to Chessy via the train ($19.68). We got Premier Access (skip the line/lightning lane) for a handful of rides ($79.15), I bought some Stitch merch ($21.39), and we got ice cream ($5.35).
After a few hours at Disney, we head back to Paris to meet up with one of my friends from college who also lives in London. He’s a hyperextrovert and is ready to hit the town immediately. We wanted to go to the Eiffel Tower, but missed the last bus and grabbed dinner nearby ($89.96). My friend from high school started feeling a bit sick, so she went back to the hotel and my college buddy and I spend the night bar hopping, dancing, chatting, and eating until 3am ($37.44).
Day 4 Spend - $259.71
​
Day 5
Both friends head back to London today but at different times. I start the day a bit late after saying goodbye to my high school friend.
My college friend and I grab breakfast at a nearby restaurant ($41.18). After that, we head out to explore an area of the city near the train station so it’s easy for him to board the 5pm train. We grab some pastries and a baguette ($11.66) and set out to explore. We saw the lock bridge, Arc de Triomphe, took goofy photos, visited the Notre Dame restoration exhibit, and danced alongside a drum parade.
On the walk back to my room, I check my email to see I missed the Eiffel Tower climbing tour I scheduled back in September. I go back to the room, let my phone charge, and pay a fee to reschedule the tour ($10.70). I head out to see the Eiffel and other tourists sites via a Sundown Seine river cruise ($8.99 for 4 bus tickets).
After a few hours, I’m beat and head back to the Sonder. I got a Poke Bowl from a French/Hawaiian/Sushi fusion place we passed by last night and some chicken wings ($22.89). I spend the rest of the night relaxing.
Day 5 Spend - $95.42
​
Day 6
I really want to sleep in, but the Climbing tour doesn’t allow cancellations within 24 hours and charge no-shows. I head out around 9:30 am. Despite being tired and annoyed, the tour was great. I have a lunch Steakhouse reservation at 2:30pm at Disney, so I’m sort of in a rush and happy the tour ends right on time at 12:30. I hop on the train ($10.70 RT tickets) and make it to Disneyland at 1:30 pm.
With an hour before my reservation, I stop into a bunch of stores and buy merch ($70.60). I make my way to The Steakhouse for lunch ($37.44). I am stuffed, so I walk a couple laps around Walt Disney Studios to get a lay of the land, take photos, and walk off lunch before indulging in some shows and rides.
A couple hours go by and I grab some dessert ($4.28) and rent a portable charger ($4.28). I wanted to ride Crush’s Coaster before my dinner reservation, but it had a crazy wait time and premier access sold out for the day, so I buy premier access for and ride Avenger’s Flight Force instead ($12.84), return the portable charger, and head to dinner at Bistrot Chez Remy ($58.83).
I stay until 9:30 pm for the light show, have snacks ($9.63), then head back to the hotel to shower, pack, and sleep.
Day 6 Spend - $208.60
​
Day 7
I have a protein bar for breakfast, check out at 10am, and grab a final ticket ($12.29) to the airport. I start to feel lightheaded and try to drink some water, but it doesn’t help much. So, I get McDonalds ($8.91) before boarding my flight and feel a lot better. I grab a Kinder ($1.72) from a nearby store because I’d never tried one. Amazing!
I am excited to get home and get back into my normal meal prep and exercise routine. I make it back to Philly at 7pm. I take a shower and go straight to bed.
Day 7 Spend - $22.71
—
Week Total - $760.52
Food + Drink - $406.74
Fun / Entertainment - $194.68 (shopping, tour reschedule, premier lanes)
Home + Health - $34.39 (universal adapter)
Clothes + Beauty - $45.35 (last minute toiletries)
Transport - $72.80
Other - $4.28 (portable charger rental)
—
Lastly, reflect on your diary!
While I’d never spend close to this in a normal week, celebrating my birthday in a way I enjoy is very important to me. I’m excited to travel more in the future.
I feel like I spent too much money on individual transport tickets; I should’ve brought the booklet of 10. But $73 for a bunch of days is still pretty cheap. I had a sinking fund of $600 originally, but the cash gifts from my mom and brother increased it to $900.
Overall, Paris was cheaper than I expected. I was worried $600 wouldn’t be enough. I picked up the tab a lot of places since there wasn’t an easy way for us to split the bill in multiple currencies (USD, pounds, euros), and I’m trying to hit the minimum spend on a new credit card. Had I been more willing to figure out bill splitting, I probably could've stayed under $600.
Relatedly - this trip inspired me to revisit my goal of becoming fully fluent in Spanish. French-speakers were visibly irritated when I spoke English (which I wasn’t upset about and expected). I did practice some French (beyond the basics like bonjour and merci) with my sister before the trip, but it always came out sounding like Spanish. So, after the first day, I resorted to starting conversations in Spanish.
If they spoke Spanish, great! However, many were caught off guard and didn’t speak Spanish, so I would then ask, in Spanish, if they spoke English, then converse in English — which made them noticeably nicer. Definitely gonna work on brushing up my Spanish and work towards fluency. I eventually want to learn French and ASL, too.

New Swans album The Beggar available for pre-order now. Here's what Michael Gira has to say about it:
“After numerous pandemic-induced cancellations of tours for the previous Swans album leaving meaning, and an apparent bottomless pit of waiting, waiting, waiting, and the strange disorientation that came with this sudden but interminable forced isolation I decided it was time to write songs for a new Swans album and forget about everything else. They came relatively easily, always informed by the suspicion that these could be my last. When I finally was able to travel, songs in hand, to Berlin to work with my friends recording this record, the feeling was akin to the moment in The Wizard of Oz when the film changes from Black and White to Color. Now I’m feeling quite optimistic. My favourite color is pink. I hope you enjoy the album!” – Michael Gira
SWANS have announced details of their sixteenth studio album, The Beggar, due for release on Mute / Young God Records (N America) on 23 June 2023. In addition, Swans have announced further dates for a tour across the UK, Europe and North America – full details below. The Beggar will be released on double vinyl in a brown chipboard sleeve with a download card for accessing an additional 44 minutes of music (also included on the album's CD version), as a double CD in a brown chipboard digi-pack, as well as digitally.
Listen to the first track from the album, ‘Paradise is Mine: https://youtu.be/HgtGHp2kfPQ
The Beggar was recorded and mixed at Candy Bomber Studio, Berlin, engineered by Ingo Krauss and mastered by Doug Henderson at Micro-Moose, Berlin. The album was written and produced by Michael Gira and features contributions from recent and former Swans, members of Angels of Light, as well as Guest Swan Ben Frost.
Primary contributors to The Beggar:
Michael Gira – Vocals, words, acoustic guitar, production. Gira started Swans in NYC in 1982 and has been the primary songwriter, singer and producer throughout the years. During the Swans hiatus (1999 – 2010), he released several albums by and toured with a group called Angels of Light. Gira recently published a book of his short stories, journals, and words for music, called The Knot. He lives in New Mexico.
Kristof Hahn – Lap steel, various guitars, vocals. Kristof first joined Swans in 1989 and was a principal contributor to Angels of Light, and a core Swans member 2010 – 2017. Kristof’s other musical ventures have included the Rock ‘n’ Roll Noir band Les Hommes Sauvages and Kool Kings (with Alex Chilton). When not making music Kristof translates books. He lives in Berlin, Germany.
Larry Mullins - Drums, vibes, orchestral percussion, Mellotron, various keyboards, backing vocals. Larry is a trained symphonic percussionist. He played through the ‘90s with Iggy Pop and later with The Stooges. He played with Swans in the late ‘90s and was a main contributor to Angels of Light. His current main job is playing drums with The Bad Seeds. Larry lives in Berlin, Germany.
Dana Schechter – Bass guitar, lap steel, keyboards, vocals, piano. Dana played bass in and was a core member of Angels of Light. She subsequently released music and toured as Bee and Flower. Her current band is the power-duo, Insect Ark. Dana is an animator and designer in the film industry and currently lives in Berlin, Germany.
Christopher Pravdica - Bass guitar, sounds, keyboards, vocals. Chris played bass as a core Swans member in 2010 – 2017. Chris has played with the bands, The Gunga Din, Flux Information Sciences, Xiu Xiu, Yonatan Gat’s Medicine Singers and has a project of his own called We Owe. Chris is a sound designer and lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Phil Puleo – Drums, percussion, vocals, piano, exotic wind instruments. Phil played drums with Swans in the late ‘90s and was a core member in Swans 2010 – 2017 and contributed to Angels of Light. Phil’s early NYC musical venture was Cop Shoot Cop and has since played with Human Impact, among others. Phil is an extremely talented illustrator and lives in Chicago, IL.
Ben Frost - Guitar, synthesizers, sound manipulations. In his own work, Ben’s adventurous sound-craftings are sometimes harrowing and sometimes delicate and quite musical. His numerous albums and his powerful live shows have afforded him much recognition. He is also an accomplished composer and arranger of music for film and television. Ben lives in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Backing vocals are provided by Jennifer Gira, Lucy Kruger and Laura Carbone.
The Beggar tracklisting

1. The Parasite
   
2. Paradise is Mine
   
3. Los Angeles: City of Death
   
4. Michael is Done
   
5. Unforming
   
6. The Beggar
   
7. No More of This
   
8. Ebbing
   
9. Why Can't I Have What I Want Any Time That I Want?
   
10. The Beggar Lover (Three)
    
11. The Memorious
    

Pre-order The Beggar: https://younggodrecords.com/products/the-beggar
And be sure to check out the rest of younggodrecords.com for recent restocks of Soundtracks for the Blind, Public Castration is a Good Idea, Angles of Light “Sing Other People" and We Are Him, all shipping now.
SWANS LIVE DATES - 2023
20 May – Leipzig DE, UT Connewitz – SOLD OUT
21 May – Poznan PL, CK Zamek – SOLD OUT
23 May – Katowice PL, Kino Teatr Rialto – SOLD OUT
25 May – Zilina SK, New Synagogue
26 May – Llubljana SI, Kino Siska
27 May – Innsbrück AT, Heart of Noise Festival, Treivus
29 May – Bologna IT, Teatro Duse
31 May – Lyon FR, Transbordeur
2 June – Barcelona ES, Primavera Sound Festival
4 June – Lisbon PT, Culturgest – SOLD OUT
5 June – Lisbon PT, Culturgest
6 June – Faro PT, Teatro Das Figuras
9 June – Madrid ES, Primavera Sound Festival
11 June – Athens GR, Vraxon Theatre
13 June – Thessaloniki GR, Moni Lazariston
15 June – Antwerp BE, Bourlaschouwburg
16 June – Utrecht NL, Hertz Theatre – SOLD OUT
11 Aug – Brighton UK, St Georges Church
12 Aug – Manchester UK, Albert Hall
15 Aug – Newcastle UK, Boiler Shop
16 Aug – Glasgow UK, St Luke Cathedral
18 Aug – Bristol UK, Arc Tangent Festival
19 Aug – Leeds UK, Belgrave Music Hall
21 Aug – Dublin IE, The Academy
23 Aug – Norwich UK, Waterfront
24 Aug – London UK, Troxy
26 Aug – Lausanne CH, Nox Orea Festival
2 Sep – Dallas TX, Granada Theater
3 Sep – Austin TX, Paramount Theatre
7 Sep – Phoenix AZ, Crescent Ballroom
8 Sep – Los Angeles CA, Lodge Room
9 Sep – Los Angeles CA, Lodge Room
12 Sep – San Francisco CA, Great American Music Hall
13 Sep – San Francisco CA, Great American Music Hall
15 Sep – Portland OR, Revolution Hall
16 Sep – Seattle WA, The Crocodile Showroom
19 Sep – Omaha NE, Waiting Room Showroom
20 Sep – Minneapolis MN, Fine Line Music Cafe
21 Sep – Chicago IL, Cabaret Metro
23 Sep – Detroit MI, Magic Bag
24 Sep – Cleveland OH, Beachland Ballroom
26 Sep – Toronto ON, Phoenix Concert Theater
27 Sep – Montreal QC, Theatre National
29 Sep – Brooklyn NY, Music Hall of Williamsburg
30 Sep – Brooklyn NY, Music Hall of Williamsburg

Notes:

• I am EXTREMELY busy, but I check my messages and DMs at least ONCE per day. Please be patient and wait at least 24 hours for my response if I don't get back to you immediately.
  
• I buy only in Unrevealed Key Link Format or Plain Steam Keys. No gift links.
  
• For PayPal, I am in the US region and I only send via G&S. Please note there will be PayPal fees (including international/conversion and purchasing fees) to consider.
  
• All games that you sell to me should ideally be REGION-FREE. Please ensure the games are not region-locked/bound to a specific country.
  
• You must be willing to fill a spreadsheet with steam keys.
  

 
I pay with the following:
TF2 & PayPal
 

I BUY HB Games	with TF2	with PayPal	Currently Active Humble Bundle?
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140	0.6 TF2	$1.15 PP	-
20XX	0.4 TF2	$0.88 PP	-
5D Chess With Multiverse Time Travel	2.5 TF2	$5.14 PP	-
60 Parsecs!	0.8 TF2	$1.55 PP	-
7 Billion Humans	1.4 TF2	$2.9 PP	-
7 Days to Die	1.0 TF2	$2.13 PP	-
A Game of Thrones: The Board Game - Digital Edition	1.7 TF2	$3.44 PP	-
A Hat in Time	4.5 TF2	$9.16 PP	-
A Juggler's Tale	0.5 TF2	$1.06 PP	-
A Plague Tale: Innocence	1.5 TF2	$3.04 PP	-
ABZU	1.6 TF2	$3.25 PP	-
AMID EVIL	0.6 TF2	$1.17 PP	-
AO Tennis 2	0.8 TF2	$1.57 PP	-
Absolver	0.8 TF2	$1.72 PP	-
Age of Empires Definitive Edition	1.0 TF2	$1.97 PP	-
Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition	1.7 TF2	$3.53 PP	-
Age of Wonders III Collection	0.9 TF2	$1.84 PP	-
Age of Wonders: Planetfall - Deluxe Edition	0.4 TF2	$0.91 PP	-
Age of Wonders: Planetfall	0.5 TF2	$1.01 PP	-
Airport CEO	1.0 TF2	$2.13 PP	-
Alan Wake Collector's Edition	0.8 TF2	$1.65 PP	-
Alien: Isolation	1.7 TF2	$3.45 PP	-
Aliens: Colonial Marines Collection	1.3 TF2	$2.58 PP	-
Among Us	1.5 TF2	$3.02 PP	-
Among the Sleep - Enhanced Edition	0.4 TF2	$0.85 PP	-
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey	2.1 TF2	$4.21 PP	-
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Arizona Sunshine	2.1 TF2	$4.21 PP	-
Arma 3 Apex Edition	1.6 TF2	$3.3 PP	-
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Assetto Corsa Competizione	2.6 TF2	$5.36 PP	-
Assetto Corsa Ultimate Edition	2.7 TF2	$5.56 PP	-
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Back 4 Blood	4.6 TF2	$9.41 PP	-
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Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition	0.4 TF2	$0.72 PP	-
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Bang-On Balls: Chronicles	3.0 TF2	$6.12 PP	-
Banished	2.1 TF2	$4.4 PP	-
Barotrauma	5.0 TF2	$10.15 PP	-
Batman - The Telltale Series	0.9 TF2	$1.9 PP	-
Batman Arkham Collection	1.2 TF2	$2.44 PP	-
Batman: Arkham Knight	0.6 TF2	$1.13 PP	-
Batman: The Enemy Within - The Telltale Series	1.0 TF2	$2.02 PP	-
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Beyond Blue	1.9 TF2	$3.99 PP	-
Beyond The Wire	0.4 TF2	$0.8 PP	-
Beyond Two Souls	1.7 TF2	$3.57 PP	-
BioShock Collection	1.1 TF2	$2.2 PP	-
BioShock Infinite	0.9 TF2	$1.8 PP	-
Bioshock Infinite: Season Pass	0.8 TF2	$1.54 PP	-
Blair Witch	1.1 TF2	$2.27 PP	-
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Blood Bowl 2 - Legendary Edition	0.8 TF2	$1.62 PP	-
Blood Bowl 2	0.5 TF2	$1.01 PP	-
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night	1.8 TF2	$3.6 PP	-
Boomerang Fu	0.6 TF2	$1.28 PP	-
Borderlands 2 VR	6.3 TF2	$12.87 PP	-
Borderlands 2	0.9 TF2	$1.9 PP	-
Borderlands 3 Super Deluxe Edition	3.0 TF2	$6.1 PP	-
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Borderlands 3: Director's Cut	1.4 TF2	$2.86 PP	-
Borderlands: The Handsome Collection	3.1 TF2	$6.32 PP	-
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Clone Drone in the Danger Zone	3.1 TF2	$6.43 PP	-
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Company of Heroes 2 - Ardennes Assault	1.8 TF2	$3.79 PP	-
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Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts	0.8 TF2	$1.63 PP	-
Conan Exiles	1.6 TF2	$3.28 PP	-
Construction Simulator 2015	1.2 TF2	$2.48 PP	-
Contagion	0.4 TF2	$0.91 PP	-
Control Ultimate Edition	1.3 TF2 Refer To My Other Thread	$2.63 PP Refer To My Other Thread	Humble Heroines: Warriors, Dreamers, and God Slayers
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CryoFall	0.4 TF2	$0.78 PP	-
Crysis® 2 Maximum Edition	0.9 TF2	$1.76 PP	-
Cultist Simulator Anthology Edition	2.4 TF2	$4.89 PP	-
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DEATHLOOP	2.1 TF2	$4.23 PP	-
DIRT 5	3.4 TF2	$6.89 PP	-
DMC - Devil May Cry	0.6 TF2	$1.17 PP	-
DRAGON BALL FIGHTERZ - Ultimate Edition	3.8 TF2	$7.76 PP	-
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DRIFT21	0.5 TF2	$1.03 PP	-
Dark Deity	0.4 TF2	$0.91 PP	-
Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin	8.4 TF2	$17.12 PP	-
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Doom Eternal	2.0 TF2	$4.19 PP	-
Door Kickers	1.1 TF2	$2.2 PP	-
Dorfromantik	2.0 TF2	$4.04 PP	-
Dragon Ball FighterZ	1.7 TF2	$3.54 PP	-
Dragons Dogma - Dark Arisen	0.8 TF2	$1.67 PP	-
Drake Hollow	0.4 TF2	$0.91 PP	-
Drone Swarm	0.5 TF2	$0.98 PP	-
Duck Game	2.3 TF2	$4.7 PP	-
Dungeon Defenders: Awakened	3.7 TF2	$7.55 PP	-
Dungreed	0.9 TF2	$1.83 PP	-
Dusk	1.1 TF2	$2.24 PP	-
Duskers	0.5 TF2	$1.01 PP	-
EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 4.1 The Shadow of New Despair	2.3 TF2	$4.63 PP	-
ELEX	0.7 TF2	$1.5 PP	-
EVERSPACE™	0.8 TF2	$1.6 PP	-
Elite: Dangerous	1.3 TF2	$2.65 PP	-
Endzone - A World Apart	0.7 TF2	$1.34 PP	-
Exanima	2.4 TF2	$4.82 PP	-
FTL: Faster Than Light	1.3 TF2	$2.58 PP	-
Fable Anniversary	2.7 TF2	$5.56 PP	-
Fallout 76	1.6 TF2	$3.23 PP	-
Fantasy General II	0.5 TF2	$0.97 PP	-
Farming Simulator 17	0.5 TF2	$1.08 PP	-
Firefighting Simulator - The Squad	4.0 TF2	$8.26 PP	-
First Class Trouble	0.4 TF2	$0.85 PP	-
For The King	1.1 TF2	$2.23 PP	-
Forager	1.4 TF2	$2.86 PP	-
Forts	2.7 TF2	$5.55 PP	-
Friday the 13th: The Game	2.4 TF2	$4.89 PP	-
Frostpunk	1.2 TF2	$2.5 PP	-
Full Metal Furies	0.6 TF2	$1.16 PP	-
Furi	0.8 TF2	$1.54 PP	-
GOD EATER 2 Rage Burst	1.1 TF2	$2.25 PP	-
GRID - Ultimate	1.0 TF2	$2.04 PP	-
GRIS	0.4 TF2	$0.91 PP	-
Gamedec	0.4 TF2	$0.77 PP	-
Gang Beasts	3.0 TF2	$6.15 PP	-
Garden Paws	0.9 TF2	$1.77 PP	-
Gas Station Simulator	1.5 TF2	$3.07 PP	-
Gears 5	4.7 TF2	$9.54 PP	-
Gears Tactics	4.3 TF2	$8.86 PP	-
Generation Zero®	1.2 TF2	$2.45 PP	-
Genital Jousting	0.5 TF2	$1.09 PP	-
Goat Simulator	0.4 TF2	$0.92 PP	-
Godlike Burger	1.4 TF2	$2.89 PP	-
Golf With Your Friends	1.2 TF2	$2.37 PP	-
Gordian Quest	1.7 TF2	$3.51 PP	-
Gotham Knights	5.3 TF2	$10.88 PP	-
GreedFall	0.7 TF2	$1.34 PP	-
Grim Dawn	2.2 TF2	$4.61 PP	-
Grim Fandango Remastered	0.5 TF2	$1.11 PP	-
Guacamelee! 2	0.6 TF2	$1.28 PP	-
HITMAN™2 Gold Edition	2.8 TF2	$5.83 PP	-
HIVESWAP: Act 2	2.0 TF2	$4.16 PP	-
HOT WHEELS UNLEASHED™	1.5 TF2	$3.16 PP	-
Hacknet	0.4 TF2	$0.91 PP	-
Haiku, the Robot	1.5 TF2	$3.14 PP	-
Hard Bullet	1.0 TF2	$2.1 PP	-
Hearts of Iron III Collection	0.5 TF2	$1.04 PP	-
Hearts of Iron IV: Battle for the Bosporus	1.5 TF2	$3.08 PP	-
Hearts of Iron IV: Cadet Edition	1.6 TF2	$3.27 PP	-
Hearts of Iron IV: Death or Dishonor	0.8 TF2	$1.72 PP	-
Hearts of Iron IV: Waking the Tiger	1.5 TF2	$3.0 PP	-
Heave Ho	0.6 TF2	$1.15 PP	-
Heavy Rain	1.8 TF2	$3.63 PP	-
Hell Let Loose	8.1 TF2	$16.51 PP	-
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice	0.9 TF2 Refer To My Other Thread	$1.84 PP Refer To My Other Thread	Humble Heroines: Warriors, Dreamers, and God Slayers
Hello, Neighbor!	0.4 TF2	$0.91 PP	-
Hero's Hour	1.1 TF2 Refer To My Other Thread	$2.23 PP Refer To My Other Thread	Humble Choice (Mar 2023)
Heroes of Hammerwatch	0.6 TF2	$1.13 PP	-
Hitman Absolution	0.8 TF2	$1.6 PP	-
Hitman Blood Money	0.7 TF2	$1.36 PP	-
Hitman Game of the Year Edition	1.2 TF2	$2.53 PP	-
Hollow Knight	2.6 TF2	$5.4 PP	-
Homefront: The Revolution	0.9 TF2	$1.78 PP	-
Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak	0.4 TF2	$0.78 PP	-
Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number Digital Special Edition	0.5 TF2	$1.09 PP	-
Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number	0.5 TF2	$1.0 PP	-
Hotline Miami	0.8 TF2	$1.57 PP	-
House Flipper VR	0.9 TF2	$1.76 PP	-
House Flipper	2.1 TF2	$4.26 PP	-
Human: Fall Flat	0.7 TF2	$1.52 PP	-
HuniePop	0.4 TF2	$0.9 PP	-
Huntdown	1.3 TF2	$2.57 PP	-
Hurtworld	2.0 TF2	$4.09 PP	-
Hyper Light Drifter	1.4 TF2	$2.93 PP	-
Hypnospace Outlaw	0.7 TF2	$1.47 PP	-
I Am Fish	0.4 TF2	$0.83 PP	-
I Expect You To Die	1.3 TF2	$2.7 PP	-
I-NFECTED	6.0 TF2	$12.38 PP	-
INSURGENCY	1.6 TF2	$3.26 PP	-
Imperator: Rome Deluxe Edition	1.0 TF2	$2.12 PP	-
Imperator: Rome	0.5 TF2	$1.01 PP	-
Injustice 2 Legendary Edition	1.2 TF2	$2.54 PP	-
Injustice 2	0.7 TF2	$1.51 PP	-
Injustice: Gods Among Us - Ultimate Edition	0.7 TF2	$1.36 PP	-
Into the Radius VR	5.2 TF2	$10.76 PP	-
Ion Fury	1.5 TF2	$3.09 PP	-
Iron Harvest	0.9 TF2	$1.83 PP	-
Jalopy	0.5 TF2	$1.06 PP	-
Job Simulator	8.9 TF2	$18.19 PP	-
Jurassic World Evolution 2	1.7 TF2 Refer To My Other Thread	$3.49 PP Refer To My Other Thread	Humble Choice (Mar 2023)
Jurassic World Evolution	0.4 TF2	$0.92 PP	-
Just Cause 2	0.5 TF2	$1.05 PP	-
Just Cause 3 XXL Edition	1.0 TF2	$2.13 PP	-
Just Cause 4: Complete Edition	1.0 TF2	$2.09 PP	-
KartKraft	3.0 TF2	$6.2 PP	-
Katamari Damacy REROLL	1.1 TF2	$2.23 PP	-
Katana ZERO	1.0 TF2	$2.09 PP	-
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes	2.6 TF2	$5.43 PP	-
Kerbal Space Program	1.4 TF2	$2.84 PP	-
Killer Instinct	6.0 TF2	$12.21 PP	-
Killing Floor 2 Digital Deluxe Edition	0.9 TF2	$1.88 PP	-
Killing Floor 2	0.6 TF2	$1.18 PP	-
Killing Floor	0.6 TF2	$1.18 PP	-
Kingdom Come: Deliverance	1.5 TF2	$3.0 PP	-
Kingdom: Two Crowns	0.9 TF2	$1.76 PP	-
King’s Bounty : Ultimate Edition	0.8 TF2	$1.73 PP	-
LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham Premium Edition	0.5 TF2	$1.09 PP	-
LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham	0.4 TF2	$0.83 PP	-
LEGO Batman Trilogy	1.4 TF2	$2.93 PP	-
LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4	0.5 TF2	$1.04 PP	-
LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7	0.7 TF2	$1.5 PP	-
LEGO Lord of the Rings	0.5 TF2	$0.94 PP	-
LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars	0.5 TF2	$1.01 PP	-
LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga	0.5 TF2	$1.04 PP	-
LEGO® City Undercover	0.7 TF2	$1.53 PP	-
LEGO® DC Super-Villains Deluxe Edition	1.9 TF2	$3.9 PP	-
LEGO® DC Super-Villains	0.4 TF2	$0.84 PP	-
LEGO® Jurassic World™	0.4 TF2	$0.82 PP	-
LEGO® MARVEL's Avengers	0.4 TF2	$0.76 PP	-
LEGO® Marvel Super Heroes 2 Deluxe Edition	1.1 TF2	$2.34 PP	-
LEGO® Marvel Super Heroes 2	0.4 TF2	$0.9 PP	-
LEGO® Ninjago® Movie Video Game	0.3 TF2	$0.71 PP	-
LEGO® Star Wars™: The Force Awakens	0.6 TF2	$1.18 PP	-
LEGO® Worlds	1.8 TF2	$3.6 PP	-
Labyrinth City: Pierre the Maze Detective	0.7 TF2	$1.46 PP	-
Lake	0.8 TF2	$1.62 PP	-
Last Oasis	0.6 TF2	$1.13 PP	-
Late Shift	0.5 TF2	$0.97 PP	-
Layers of Fear 2	3.5 TF2	$7.1 PP	-
Layers of Fear	0.5 TF2	$1.08 PP	-
Legion TD 2	1.0 TF2	$1.97 PP	-
Len's Island	3.7 TF2	$7.53 PP	-
Lethal League Blaze	0.9 TF2	$1.9 PP	-
Lethal League	0.8 TF2	$1.54 PP	-
Library Of Ruina	3.1 TF2	$6.36 PP	-
Life is Feudal: Your Own	0.4 TF2	$0.83 PP	-
Little Misfortune	3.4 TF2	$6.89 PP	-
Little Nightmares Complete Edition	1.6 TF2	$3.26 PP	-
Little Nightmares	0.8 TF2	$1.64 PP	-
Lobotomy Corporation Monster Management Simulation	5.0 TF2	$10.21 PP	-
Lords of the Fallen Game of the Year Edition	0.8 TF2	$1.7 PP	-
Lost Ember	1.3 TF2	$2.73 PP	-
Lost Planet™: Extreme Condition	0.9 TF2	$1.81 PP	-
Luck be a Landlord	2.7 TF2	$5.47 PP	-
METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN	0.8 TF2	$1.55 PP	-
METAL GEAR SOLID V: The Definitive Experience	1.2 TF2	$2.55 PP	-
MORTAL KOMBAT 11	1.6 TF2	$3.23 PP	-
MX vs ATV Reflex	0.4 TF2	$0.8 PP	-
MX vs. ATV Unleashed	0.4 TF2	$0.73 PP	-
Mad Max	1.3 TF2	$2.58 PP	-
Mafia II: Definitive Edition	1.3 TF2	$2.64 PP	-
Mafia III: Definitive Edition	2.0 TF2	$4.0 PP	-
Mafia: Definitive Edition	2.2 TF2	$4.55 PP	-
Maneater	0.5 TF2	$1.09 PP	-
Manhunt	1.2 TF2	$2.53 PP	-
Mars Horizon	1.0 TF2	$2.04 PP	-
Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite - Deluxe Edition	2.8 TF2	$5.79 PP	-
Mass Effect™ Legendary Edition	6.6 TF2	$13.54 PP	-
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne	0.6 TF2	$1.2 PP	-
Max Payne	0.9 TF2	$1.88 PP	-
MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries	2.4 TF2	$4.91 PP	-
Medal of Honor	2.0 TF2	$4.14 PP	-
Mega Man Legacy Collection	0.6 TF2	$1.25 PP	-
Men of War: Assault Squad 2 - Deluxe Edition	1.1 TF2	$2.3 PP	-
Men of War: Assault Squad 2 War Chest Edition	1.0 TF2	$1.97 PP	-
Men of War: Assault Squad 2	1.0 TF2	$1.97 PP	-
Messenger	0.4 TF2	$0.9 PP	-
Metro 2033 Redux	0.6 TF2	$1.31 PP	-
Metro Exodus	1.6 TF2	$3.23 PP	-
Metro Redux Bundle	1.1 TF2	$2.3 PP	-
Metro: Last Light Redux	1.1 TF2	$2.23 PP	-
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Game of the Year Edition	0.8 TF2	$1.64 PP	-
Middle-earth™: Shadow of War™	0.7 TF2	$1.44 PP	-
Middleearth Shadow of War Definitive Edition	1.2 TF2	$2.5 PP	-
Mini Ninjas	0.5 TF2	$0.94 PP	-
Miscreated	1.4 TF2	$2.88 PP	-
Monster Hunter: World	3.5 TF2	$7.27 PP	-
Monster Sanctuary	0.5 TF2	$0.96 PP	-
Monster Train	0.4 TF2	$0.78 PP	-
Moonlighter	0.5 TF2	$0.93 PP	-
Moons of Madness	1.8 TF2	$3.74 PP	-
Mordhau	1.5 TF2	$3.04 PP	-
Mortal Kombat X	0.8 TF2	$1.56 PP	-
Mortal Kombat XL	0.9 TF2	$1.9 PP	-
Mortal Shell	1.6 TF2	$3.18 PP	-
Motorcycle Mechanic Simulator 2021	0.9 TF2	$1.87 PP	-
Motorsport Manager	1.1 TF2	$2.24 PP	-
Move or Die	1.0 TF2	$2.01 PP	-
Moving Out	0.7 TF2	$1.49 PP	-
Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden - Deluxe Edition	1.5 TF2	$3.04 PP	-
Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden	0.9 TF2	$1.93 PP	-
My Friend Pedro	0.6 TF2	$1.27 PP	-
My Time At Portia	0.5 TF2	$0.97 PP	-
NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: Ultimate Ninja STORM 4 Road to Boruto	2.2 TF2	$4.46 PP	-
NASCAR Heat 5 - Ultimate Edition	0.4 TF2	$0.92 PP	-
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4	1.8 TF2	$3.59 PP	-
Naruto to Boruto Shinobi Striker - Deluxe Edition	1.3 TF2	$2.63 PP	-
Necromunda: Hired Gun	0.8 TF2	$1.56 PP	-
Neon Abyss	0.5 TF2	$0.98 PP	-
Ni no Kuni™ II: Revenant Kingdom - The Prince's Edition	2.3 TF2	$4.74 PP	-
Nine Parchments	1.5 TF2	$3.0 PP	-
No Time to Relax	1.7 TF2	$3.57 PP	-
Northgard	4.2 TF2	$8.55 PP	-
Not For Broadcast	0.5 TF2	$1.01 PP	-
ONE PIECE BURNING BLOOD	0.8 TF2	$1.72 PP	-
ONE PIECE PIRATE WARRIORS 3 Gold Edition	1.1 TF2	$2.16 PP	-
Offworld Trading Company™	0.7 TF2	$1.44 PP	-
One Step From Eden	0.5 TF2	$0.98 PP	-
Opus Magnum	1.2 TF2	$2.56 PP	-
Orcs Must Die! 3	2.0 TF2	$4.19 PP	-
Outlast 2	0.4 TF2	$0.91 PP	-
Outlast	0.5 TF2	$0.95 PP	-
Outward	1.4 TF2	$2.91 PP	-
Overcooked! 2	1.5 TF2	$3.1 PP	-
Overgrowth	0.5 TF2	$1.09 PP	-
Overlord II	0.4 TF2	$0.84 PP	-
PC Building Simulator	0.8 TF2	$1.74 PP	-
Paint the Town Red	2.1 TF2	$4.23 PP	-
Parkitect	4.6 TF2	$9.43 PP	-
Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition	1.1 TF2	$2.2 PP	-
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous	1.1 TF2	$2.24 PP	-
Pathologic 2	0.7 TF2	$1.47 PP	-
Per Aspera	0.7 TF2	$1.52 PP	-
Pillars of Eternity Definitive Edition	0.8 TF2	$1.55 PP	-
Pistol Whip	7.8 TF2	$15.92 PP	-
Plague Inc: Evolved	1.6 TF2	$3.28 PP	-
Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition	0.4 TF2	$0.79 PP	-
Planet Coaster	1.7 TF2	$3.49 PP	-
Planet Zoo	1.8 TF2	$3.79 PP	-
Planetary Annihilation: TITANS	4.7 TF2	$9.55 PP	-
Portal Knights	0.9 TF2	$1.77 PP	-
PowerBeatsVR	1.0 TF2	$1.97 PP	-
PowerSlave Exhumed	1.7 TF2	$3.54 PP	-
Praey for the Gods	0.7 TF2 Refer To My Other Thread	$1.44 PP Refer To My Other Thread	Humble Heroines: Warriors, Dreamers, and God Slayers
Prehistoric Kingdom	1.4 TF2	$2.9 PP	-
Pro Cycling Manager 2019	1.3 TF2	$2.58 PP	-
Project Cars 3	10.8 TF2	$22.11 PP	-
Project Hospital	2.4 TF2	$4.84 PP	-
Project Wingman	1.1 TF2	$2.24 PP	-
Project Winter	1.0 TF2	$1.97 PP	-
Pumpkin Jack	0.4 TF2	$0.91 PP	-
Quantum Break	1.6 TF2	$3.23 PP	-
RESIDENT EVIL 3	2.2 TF2	$4.49 PP	-
RUGBY 20	1.2 TF2	$2.55 PP	-
RUINER	0.4 TF2	$0.85 PP	-
RWBY: Grimm Eclipse	3.2 TF2	$6.56 PP	-
Ragnaröck	3.3 TF2	$6.8 PP	-
Rain World	1.4 TF2	$2.83 PP	-
Raw Data	1.0 TF2	$2.15 PP	-
Re:Legend	1.0 TF2	$2.09 PP	-
Red Faction Guerrilla Re-Mars-tered	0.5 TF2	$0.97 PP	-
Red Matter	4.3 TF2	$8.83 PP	-
Resident Evil / biohazard HD REMASTER	0.9 TF2	$1.86 PP	-
Resident Evil 0 / biohazard 0 HD Remaster	0.6 TF2	$1.3 PP	-
Resident Evil 5 GOLD Edition	1.4 TF2	$2.83 PP	-
Resident Evil 5	0.9 TF2	$1.79 PP	-
Resident Evil 6	1.4 TF2	$2.82 PP	-
Resident Evil: Revelations 2 Deluxe Edition	2.1 TF2	$4.23 PP	-
Resident Evil: Revelations	0.5 TF2	$1.02 PP	-
Retro Machina	0.5 TF2	$1.01 PP	-
Rising Storm 2: Vietnam	0.6 TF2	$1.22 PP	-
River City Girls	1.4 TF2	$2.91 PP	-
Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos	0.5 TF2	$1.11 PP	-
RollerCoaster Tycoon Deluxe	1.0 TF2	$2.1 PP	-
Rollercoaster Tycoon 2: Triple Thrill Pack	1.8 TF2	$3.63 PP	-
Rubber Bandits	0.7 TF2	$1.5 PP	-
Running with Rifles	1.9 TF2	$3.86 PP	-
Ryse: Son of Rome	1.7 TF2	$3.49 PP	-
SCUM	2.7 TF2	$5.56 PP	-
SHENZHEN I/O	0.5 TF2	$0.97 PP	-
SOMA	2.1 TF2	$4.21 PP	-
SONG OF HORROR Complete Edition	0.8 TF2	$1.55 PP	-
STAR WARS® THE FORCE UNLEASHED II	0.8 TF2	$1.71 PP	-
STAR WARS™: Squadrons	2.0 TF2	$4.17 PP	-
SUPERHOT VR	2.2 TF2	$4.49 PP	-
SUPERHOT	0.8 TF2	$1.57 PP	-
SUPERHOT: MIND CONTROL DELETE	0.4 TF2	$0.88 PP	-
Sable	0.5 TF2 Refer To My Other Thread	$1.04 PP Refer To My Other Thread	Humble Heroines: Warriors, Dreamers, and God Slayers
Saint's Row The Third Remastered	2.2 TF2	$4.48 PP	-
Saints Row 2	0.6 TF2	$1.23 PP	-
Saints Row IV	0.9 TF2	$1.82 PP	-
Saints Row: The Third	0.6 TF2	$1.29 PP	-
Sanctum 2	0.5 TF2	$1.08 PP	-
Satisfactory	6.2 TF2	$12.73 PP	-
Scarlet Nexus	2.6 TF2	$5.39 PP	-
Scribblenauts Unlimited	0.4 TF2	$0.8 PP	-
Secret Neighbor	0.6 TF2	$1.2 PP	-
Serious Sam 2	0.7 TF2	$1.53 PP	-
Serious Sam 3: BFE	0.9 TF2	$1.8 PP	-
Serious Sam 4	3.1 TF2	$6.45 PP	-
Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem	2.2 TF2	$4.5 PP	-
Severed Steel	1.4 TF2	$2.84 PP	-
Shadow Man Remastered	1.0 TF2	$1.97 PP	-
Shadow Warrior 2	0.8 TF2	$1.73 PP	-
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	3.3 TF2	$6.78 PP	-
Shantae and the Pirate's Curse	0.6 TF2	$1.18 PP	-
Shenmue 3	0.7 TF2	$1.43 PP	-
Shenmue I & II	0.7 TF2	$1.43 PP	-
Shining Resonance Refrain	0.5 TF2	$0.94 PP	-
Sid Meier's Civilization VI : Platinum Edition	2.9 TF2	$5.87 PP	-
Sid Meier's Civilization VI	0.9 TF2	$1.83 PP	-
Sid Meier's Civilization® V: The Complete Edition	2.0 TF2	$4.14 PP	-
Sid Meiers Civilization IV: The Complete Edition	0.8 TF2	$1.74 PP	-
Siege of Centauri	0.6 TF2	$1.15 PP	-
SimCasino	1.2 TF2	$2.54 PP	-
Skullgirls 2nd Encore	1.0 TF2	$1.97 PP	-
Slap City	1.1 TF2	$2.25 PP	-
Slay the Spire	3.0 TF2	$6.22 PP	-
Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition	0.8 TF2	$1.57 PP	-
Slime Rancher	1.6 TF2	$3.3 PP	-
Sniper Elite 3	0.7 TF2	$1.37 PP	-
Sniper Elite 4	1.3 TF2	$2.67 PP	-
Sniper Elite V2 Remastered	0.8 TF2	$1.72 PP	-
Sniper Elite V2	0.5 TF2	$0.94 PP	-
Sniper Ghost Warrior 3	0.8 TF2	$1.6 PP	-
Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts	0.8 TF2	$1.67 PP	-
Sonic Adventure DX	0.5 TF2	$1.05 PP	-
Sonic Adventure™ 2	0.6 TF2	$1.17 PP	-
Sonic Lost World	1.7 TF2	$3.44 PP	-
Sonic Mania	1.1 TF2	$2.24 PP	-
Sorcery! Parts 1 & 2	0.6 TF2	$1.27 PP	-
Soul Calibur VI	1.1 TF2	$2.34 PP	-
Source of Madness	0.6 TF2	$1.13 PP	-
Space Engineers	2.3 TF2	$4.65 PP	-
Space Haven	0.6 TF2	$1.33 PP	-
Spec Ops: The Line	0.8 TF2	$1.66 PP	-
SpeedRunners	0.7 TF2	$1.38 PP	-
Spelunky	1.0 TF2	$2.09 PP	-
Spirit Of The Island	1.4 TF2	$2.91 PP	-
Splendor	0.7 TF2	$1.34 PP	-
SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated	1.3 TF2	$2.63 PP	-
Spyro™ Reignited Trilogy	3.8 TF2	$7.89 PP	-
Star Renegades	1.4 TF2	$2.91 PP	-
Star Trek: Bridge Crew	3.7 TF2	$7.49 PP	-
Star Wars Republic Commando™	0.4 TF2	$0.76 PP	-
Star Wars® Empire at War™: Gold Pack	0.8 TF2	$1.72 PP	-
Starbound	0.8 TF2	$1.7 PP	-
Starpoint Gemini Warlords	1.7 TF2	$3.44 PP	-
State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition	3.0 TF2	$6.17 PP	-
Staxel	0.6 TF2	$1.18 PP	-
SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech	0.9 TF2	$1.88 PP	-
Steel Division: Normandy 44	0.7 TF2	$1.39 PP	-
Stellaris Galaxy Edition	1.3 TF2	$2.65 PP	-
Stellaris: Lithoids Species Pack	0.9 TF2	$1.88 PP	-
Stick Fight: The Game	0.4 TF2	$0.76 PP	-
Strategic Command WWII: World at War	2.1 TF2	$4.21 PP	-
Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection	2.4 TF2	$4.82 PP	-
Street Fighter V	0.7 TF2	$1.48 PP	-
Streets of Rogue	1.2 TF2	$2.44 PP	-
Stronghold 2: Steam Edition	1.0 TF2	$1.95 PP	-
Stronghold Crusader 2	0.7 TF2	$1.43 PP	-
Stronghold Crusader HD	0.5 TF2	$1.07 PP	-
Styx: Shards Of Darkness	0.6 TF2	$1.29 PP	-
Subnautica	4.2 TF2	$8.65 PP	-
Summer in Mara	0.4 TF2	$0.92 PP	-
Sunless Skies	0.7 TF2	$1.37 PP	-
Sunset Overdrive	1.3 TF2	$2.67 PP	-
Super Meat Boy	0.4 TF2	$0.72 PP	-
Superliminal	2.0 TF2	$4.11 PP	-
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The latest Chapter for the on going story, New World Order is now available for everyone's viewing. It can also be found at https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13535599/21/New-World-Order
​
‘Did you really have to threaten to open fire on one of your fellow countrymen?’ I hear Jensen ask via an overhead speaker.
“Jensen,” I start, wincing slightly as I readjust my position in the makeshift bed, I had been forced into despite my many protests, “I don’t make threats. If I say I’m going to do something, I’ll make it happen.”
‘That doesn’t help,’ Jensen replies, ‘It also doesn’t help that you delivered that statement to an Enlisted Officer.’
“He’s lucky that’s all I did,” I reply, “Mark was a self-entitled bully back when we were at school. And his attitude certainly hasn’t improved based on our brief encounter the other day.”
‘They’ve lodged an official complaint,’ Jensen states, ‘Apparently they want know why a Nazi flagged ship entered the harbour, threatened the Coast Guard and then simply sailed off.’
“They don’t want to know anything about the attempted air raid, or the battle just off the coast that repelled that air raid?” I ask.
‘There is no mention anywhere in their complaint of seeing any aircraft above the harbour,’ Jensen replies, ‘Although they are also wanting to know about the mystery figure they spotted skating around one of the islands in the harbour.’
“Out of interest,” I ask, “Has anyone from the Chinese Government made a statement about this?”
‘Not officially,’ Jensen answers, ‘Although there have been some back-channel discussions. From what they have disclosed to us, they did witness the air raid and the defensive actions your fleet took. As to their inaction. They were unable to verify our warning to them in time to be able to raise the warning with their boats.’
“That entire engagement lasted almost two hours,” I say shaking my head in disbelief, “If they want answers, I’ll answer them if they can tell me why their only response was to send a single Coast Guard cutter out to investigate.”
‘As I said,’ Jensen begins, ‘They make no mention of seeing any of this in their complaint.’
“Then they are either covering it up, are incompetent or both,” I state, “The lack of action from the Chinese ships that were in the harbour can probably be explained as not wanting to start an International Incident. But I’m not buying the story that no one else saw what was going on that morning.”
‘It certainly does seem that someone is trying to cover this up,’ Jensen agrees, ‘However, without a full investigation into what happened, it’s your word against theirs. And being as you withdrew from the area almost as soon as the battle was over you can see why it doesn’t look good.’
“They’ll have a hard time explaining away all the evidence from the battlefield,” I say, “The boys at the lab are going to be busy for a while documenting everything.”
‘What evidence?’ Jensen asks.
“Well aside from numerous parts from the aircraft that attacked Darwin,” I begin, “The reason I withdrew as fast as I could was, we were able to recover one of the enemy boats.”
‘Have you learned anything about how they work?’ Jensen asks.
“I haven’t been aboard,” I admit, “I’ve been confined to bedrest for the last week.”
‘Its not like you to follow doctors’ orders,’ Jensen comments, ‘You normally ignore most medical advice.’
“What doctor?” I ask, “I still have to be given the all clear from the medical team once we get back to Midway.”
‘Sounds serious,’ Jensen replies, ‘What happened?’
“A concussion of some sort and what I believe to be at least two broken ribs,” I answer, “The ship came under direct attack and Eugen was forced to make some rapid course changes, which sent me bouncing through a hatchway on my way to the deck.”
‘So how long until you reach Midway?’ Jensen inquires.
“Probably two weeks at best guess,” I reply, “Between the slow speed we need to maintain due to having a heavily damaged ship under tow and the rough weather down here it’s making for a slow return voyage.”
‘Well keep in briefed,’ Jensen comments before I hear the audible click as the phone connection ends.
**
As the skies slowly began to illuminate marking the start of another day, I found myself out on deck during one of the rare moments I had been allowed to leave my quarters.
In the distance the outline of the main laboratory building came into view as Eugen skilfully navigating her ship around the atoll towards the area reserved for offshore mooring of large ships that visited Midway.
As the ship rounded the western most edge of the atoll, the details of the upgrades the team had been working on became apparent. The barge which had been used to transport the huge generator from Darwin had been beached not far from the main power station.
Another larger building had also started to take shape not far from the main laboratories although its purpose was lost on me given the last reports, I had read indicated that we were only using around sixty percent of the facilities storage and research spaces and under forty percent of the living areas.
“It would seem that the team has been busy in our absence,” I comment aloud.
As I say this the rising sun clears the top of the main building, bathing the waters around the atoll in light. Taking in the sight I spy Bogue’s ship moored in the distance. My gaze is soon captured however as in the growing light across the waves a pair of large, heavily armed gun boats lay at anchor.
As Eugen slows her ship and in the near distance I hear the rattle of numerous anchor chains, I take in the details of the closest ship. From the stern flag post a white flag with a red pattern hangs limp in the still morning.
As I scan across the length of the ship, I take note of the numerous sets of gun turrets spread along the length of the main deck from just below the bridge structure running back to just ahead of the number four main battery.
My attention however is soon drawn away to the second of the gun boats, this ship despite from the distance appearing to be slightly smaller in size projected more fear despite fact that like the other ships anchored around the atoll was simply floating at anchor in the low morning swells.
I put the additional sense of projected fear down to the fact that the entire ship appeared to be painted in a flat black paint from the waterline all the way to the very top of the super structure. The only hint of another colour was the flag hanging from the stern post.
**
“Do you have any lingering effects from the hit to your head?” the doctor asks.
“No,” I reply with a shake of my head, “The headaches cleared up about three days after. The burly vision and ringing in my ears cleared up around the same time.”
“Well,” the doctor says turning off the torch he had been using a moment before, “I’d say you have a minor concussion. But if you aren’t suffering any of the after effects now, you should be fine to return to your regular duties. As for your ribs.” He continues turning to a scan pinned to a light board on the wall. “They are healing well. But you definitely broke two. There’s not much else we can do to speed up your recovery there. Just take it easy.”
“That’s easier said than done,” I retort sarcastically.
“Yes,” the doctor agrees, “You do have a habit of being right where the action is.”
“Speaking of action,” I say changing the subject, “What have I missed here?”
“A lot,” the doctor admits, “However the Professor said he’ll brief you once we were finished here.”
**
Five minutes later, after the doctor signed off on my medical reports, I enter the main research room to find the Professor sitting in front of his usual multi monitor setup rapidly scrolling through an endless stream of what appeared to be computer code from a distance. “Pull up a chair Nathan,” he says, “We’ve got a lot to discuss.”
“It would seem so,” I answer remaining standing a short distance away next to a table littered with pages of reports. “Can we begin with an update from the Global Explorer. Surely Jim has reported in by now?”
“He sent a pair of video data folders yesterday,” Professor Strickland answers, “Two separate files he says are from two different locations. He labelled them with the co-ordinates.”
“Anything interesting in the videos?” I ask.
“Plenty if you’re interest lies in the contour of the ocean floor,” Strickland answers with a slight chuckle, “But aside from that. Nothing of importance. I still don’t know why you sent him to either of those locations.”
“Because I needed to confirm a theory,” I reply, “Both of those sites he checked out are where the wrecks of the Akagi and Kaga were found.”
“And that proves a theory?” Strickland asks.
“It certainly lends a lot of support to my theory,” I reply, “Whoever is behind the attacks out at sea has been testing us. Well testing our military at the very least. So far, they’ve employed tactics from our history against us, and are using weapons from our past against us as well.”
“To what end though?” Strickland asks, “None of that makes any sense.”
“I agree,” I say, “But look carefully at what we know. Pearl Harbour was attacked in very similar fashion to how the Japanese did at the start of the Pacific War. And what do we find floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean but a ship that matches perfectly to one of the very ships that was involved in the original battle. A ship that by rights should be on the bottom of the Pacific a couple of hundred nautical miles away from this atoll.”
“But we still don’t know the who or the what,” Strickland insists, “We also don’t know how far this goes?”
“I think we can safely say it goes as far as every ocean on the planet,” I reply, “I’m certainly no expert when it comes to warfare. But whoever is behind this is playing for keeps. They’ve already openly attacked at American Naval Base, a British Fleet out at sea and conducted two Air Raids on major ports in Australia. Plus, there’s enough evidence to believe they ambushed an American Fleet as well.”
“So, your theory is that we are at war with an unknown enemy?” Strickland presses.
“Yes,” I answer, “So far though. I believe they have only been testing our abilities. Otherwise, this would be on every news network around the globe. Right now, the only reason we know anything is through sheer luck.”
“It would seem that you are not alone in thinking that,” Strickland admits, “One of our newest arrivals is of the same opinion.”
“Yes,” I begin, “I meant to ask earlier about the two ships anchored off the atoll. Care to fill me in on that?”
“Do you remember the briefing before you left,” Strickland says, “Where we covered our theory on what those cubes we keep finding are.”
“I remember,” I reply, “The theory is that they contain data of some sort. Only the scanners could not complete the scans due to overheating.”
“The new generator solved that problem,” Strickland announces proudly, “With the extra power, we were able to stabilize the power supply and run additional cooling. We’ve also been able to read quite a few of those cubes now. We found a few of them to be blank however.”
“Blank?” I ask.
“Yes,” Strickland confirms, “Blank. Nothing on them at all. So, one of the junior programmers wondered what would happen if we tried to load data into a cube.”
“What sort of data?” I ask in a worried tone.
“It started off simple,” Strickland admits, “The team transferred about a dozen different ship designs into a couple of cubes. Then transferred data about various types of weapon systems, radars, tactical data from reports that we obtained from Jensen.”
“Does Jensen know about that?” I ask.
“He said it was okay,” Strickland answers, “He said most of the reports were public knowledge already and those that weren’t, were not subject to any privacy laws.”
“Okay, so now we have a bunch of cubes that contain technical and tactical data,” I say, “How does any of that equal two ships anchored off shore?”
“We subjected some of them to a large electrical charge,” Strickland answers simply.
“You didn’t,” I say feeling the colour drain from my face at the prospect.
“We sure did,” Strickland admits, “In fact your timing is perfect. Our first arrival from those experiments has just arrived.”
Turning towards the door, I notice a tall woman with long brown hair step through the open door to the lab. As she makes her way towards us a feeling of familiarity hits me. Everything about her appearance feels oddly like someone I had met before. From the prominent fox-like ears, numerous tails lazily waving behind her, even the style in how she wore her hair.
Then it hit me. Aside from the lighter shade of colour in her hair and the more modest choice of clothing, she nearly was identical in appearance to Akagi. Someone who for the last several weeks had barely been out of my presence as she had insisted on making certain I had remained in the makeshift medical bay to recover from the injuries I had sustained during the battle.
“Please forgive my lateness, Professor,” she says in a voice that despite its calm nature, hints that should the occasion require, could dominate the room. “I lost track of the time studying the history papers you gave me.”
“No need for apologies,” Strickland replies, “I was just briefing the Captain on the latest progress the research team had been making.”
Turning to me, “Allow me to introduce our senior Captain, Nathan Harrison. He oversees our research ships and is one of the teams leading theoretical researchers.” Strickland announces, “Nathan, this is Amagi. Her presence here is the result of one of the experiments I mentioned a moment ago.”
“A pleasure to meet you,” I say with a smile.
“The Professor has spoken of you often,” Amagi says, “He mentioned that you lead from the front and take a very hands-on approach to the projects you oversee.”
“I certainly try to keep myself busy,” I reply, “Being able to have full control of the ship certainly makes the research side of my job easier given I have a greater control over the variables.”
Amagi nods silently in agreement.
“Would I be correct in assuming that the larger of the two cruisers anchored off shore is yours?” I enquire.
“You assume correctly,” Amagi replies, “Are you familiar with Japanese Naval History, Captain?”
“I have a very limited knowledge when it comes to naval history or even tactics for that matter,” I admit, “However I’m certainly learning a lot recently given the events of the past several months.”
“From how the Professor explained my arrival here and the arrival of the other members of the fleet,” Amagi explains, “It would seem that the cubes used in my creation have taken the form from my original design.”
“Your original design?” I ask.
“My ship was original designed to be a battle cruiser, before an attempted conversion to an aircraft carrier was halted due to my hull being badly damaged,” Amagi replies.
Before I can reply, the phone on the table beside the Professor buzzes. Picking it up, the Professor listens in silence before speaking, “We’ll be over in the minute.”
“Problem?” I ask seeing the worried look on the Professors face.
“Maybe,’ he replies, “The radio guys are picking up a radio call from the Global Explorer. They say it sounds like a distress call.”
**
Crossing the room to where one of the team’s radio operators was listening closely through a headset. As we approached, he held up a hand to prevent any of us from speaking. After a brief pause, he removed the headset and turned to face us. “I have cleaned up the recording as much as possible. But there is a lot of static.”
“Play it,” Strickland says.
‘Glo..l Explorer .. Midway. Encount.. hostile ….. Attack.. Sink… Host… head… fo. Mi..ay. Se..nt..n hour. No..h w.st. R.n’
Sharing a look with the Professor as I mentally replayed the message in my head filling it the blanks with the most logical word. As I realized the full message my eyes widened in shock. Going to the nearest computer and sliding the operator out of the way, I rapidly log into the facility’s secure server.
As the opening page loads on the monitor, I take note of the spinning icon in the lower left corner of the screen. Double clicking on the icon, my worst fears are confirmed. “The Global Explorer is dumping its logs onto the server,” I report.
“What does that mean?” I hear Amagi ask in confusion.
“It’s the last action taken before abandoning ship,” I reply, “It’s either manually activated by one of the senior crew before they leave the bridge, or automatically triggered if the ships internal sensors detect multiple compartments flooding.”
“Any chance that it’s a false alarm?” the Professor asks.
“None,” I reply, scrolling through the data logs, barely giving them time to finish loading before moving to the next. “I don’t know what happened out there. But the engine room temperature spiked to over a thousand degrees before dropping down to eleven. Both the forward cargo compartment and rear loading deck compartment sensors are indicating flooding. And the trim sensors are showing a forty-degree list to starboard.”
Looking away from the computer and taking a deep breath to compose my thoughts, “That and the radio message,” I say, “It was definitely Jim. He clearly said hostile and attack and that whoever they were, are headed this way.”
**
Standing in the conference room fifteen minutes later, the realization that with the apparent loss of the Global Explorer and the loss of the Intrepid and the very real possibility of a hostile enemy closing in on Midway, the team stationed here had lost both main pre-planned escape options we had prepared for in situations that required the rapid evacuation of the atoll.
Behind me I hear various people entering the conference room and taking a seat. As the scrapping of chairs being moved dies down, I turn to face those gathered. Before I can speak, a couple of late arrivals step in through the open door.
The final member of this group is a young woman with short, light peach coloured hair. Who on seeing me, turned away from the group and ran straight for me. On reaching me she wrapped both arms around me drawing me into a tight embrace.
“I see you’ve met Roon,” I hear the Professor call from the doorway as he enters the room.
“So it would seem,” I struggle to reply, “I take it she is the second result of your experiments,” I add.
“Yes,” Strickland replies joining me at the front of the room, “It would seem that she’s a hugger.”
“Would it be possible to have my body back please?” I ask.
Slowly releasing me, Roon steps back, before silently re-joining the others seated in the room.
“I think she likes you,” The Professor comments.
“What makes you say that?” I ask gently feeling my ribs which feel like they are on fire.
“The fact she followed your request,” Strickland answers, “You’re the first who’s been able to get through to her.”
“That’s great,” I mutter sarcastically, “We just need to work on her introductions then. I swear she just re-broke my ribs.”
“If its any consolation,” Strickland begins, “Her combat prowess is second to none based on what little we’ve learned to date.”
Shaking me head in quiet disbelief at the Professor’s continued unyielding push for results rather than showing any concern for how those results were obtained. I scanned the room to find that everyone was looking in my direction.
Everyone save for Akagi. Who was staring through narrowed eyes towards Roon sitting a few rows away.
Clearing my throat, “As some of you may already know. We have received a warning of a possible hostile enemy that is heading straight for us,” I explain, “To those of you who are in senior positions. I need you to wind up any work your departments are working on. And execute our evacuation protocols.”
“Where are we going?” someone from the back of the room calls out.
“The team will evacuate towards Hawaii,” I reply, “There they will either report in to the Navy Yard. Or if advised carry on to the main land.”
As I finish this brief explanation. Over half of those gathered, stand up and walk out to begin the evacuation. As the door closes behind the last of them Professor Strickland speaks up, “Do you really intend to run?”
Looking across at the Professor I reply, “I intend for you and the others to run. In case the rest of us fail to stop the enemy from reaching Midway.”

They woke up in an old shack in the middle of Boney Island.
"Darn, we should've been on guard for shenanigans" said Jason.
"Is it really just us left?" asked Sasha in wonder.
"Yep, we're the Final Four, I guess" said Amethyst.
​
Amethyst: Wow, the Final Four. I can’t believe it, I’m so close!
Jason: I think I’m pretty much in the clear now. I just have to steel myself for any squeamish challenges, and that one million dollars is as good as mine!
Mabel: This is all so exciting! I bet Dipper and the others are going crazy seeing me here in the finale!
Sasha: Everybody left earned their place here in the Finale. Now, I’ve gotta give it my all and earn that one million dollars!
They stretched and warmed up, and met up on the beach. Jason figured out by flying up that they were on Boney Island. Jason tensed as he heard movement in the bushes.
Chef emerged in warpaint. "Campers! I am proud to say you have made it to the Final Four! Your most grueling challenge will now commence, and here's how it all starts: The first leg is a race back to Wawanakwa, but there's only one canoe here on Boney Island: A map of the island shows where the canoe is and I have the only copy. You have to beat me before-"
Mabel knocked him out cold with the grappling gun. Sasha shook her head in amusement. "Kakashi-sensei, you're not, Master Chief, but we will not fail you or your training. Sasha grabbed the map, scanned it and then ran off into the jungle, her gear letting her glide among the trees.
Chef had to smile as Sasha disappeared into the jungle. The other three finalists quickly gave chase. Jason and Amethyst, with their powers now back at full, raced away into the thickets, while Mabel used her grappling gun to make like Tarzan and glided from tree to tree.
Sasha found the canoe first, but she realized it was too big for her to carry alone onto shore, so she thought of a plan. Jason and Mabel arrived soon after, and Sasha thought of a plan.
“Guys, with her powers, Amethyst is the one to beat. We’ve gotta team up against her or else she’ll flatten us!”
Jason nodded. “That makes sense, Sasha. Alright, it’s three against Amethyst”
“Hooray for conniving!” yelled Mabel.
Sasha: I needed to know if I was as good at manipulation as my fellow Corpsmen. I needed to see if I was powerful enough to twist their minds and make them fight each other. Especially Jason and Amethyst. They’re practically gods compared to Mabel and me.
They made it to the shoreline. Mabel hopped on as Sasha and Jason pushed the canoe into the water.
“Aren’t you guys forgetting someone?” asked a voice behind them.
Sasha froze. Even Jason was tense. They were not fighting some villainous enemy, either of them. They were conniving against someone who had been a friend to them.
No! yelled Eren’s voice in her head. This is a competition!
Amethyst laughed. “Oh, I get it. Welp, it was fun pretending we were all in this together, but I guess now it’s time to let the rocks tumble”
“We don’t wanna fight you, Amethyst!” Sasha yelled.
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to fight me, neither!”
Amethyst morphed into a gigantic wrestler, and sucker punched Jason just as he flew in to try and poof her. He sailed backwards into the sand and landed with a sickening thud. Sasha screamed, but Mabel was quicker. She aimed and fired her grappling hook at Amethyst’s leg, entwining it in its cord. Sasha grabbed onto the gun and pulled with all her might, sending Amethyst tumbling over them, pushing the canoe into the water.
The canoe drifted away back to Wawanakwa, leaving Jason and Amethyst behind.
“Whew. I’m glad it’s just the two of us, Mabel! We were screwed if those two got a foothold on us.”
“Yeah. Thanks a lot, Sasha!” They paddled as hard as they could towards Wawanakwa.
Chris: Wow! Our underdogs are really kicking it in all cylinders! I’m here at Wawanakwa with the families and friends of our four finalists. They’re here to give them all the cheering and support they’ll need to win! Let’s start with Amethyst’s family from Beach City. Sierra and Topher, you’re on!
Sierra: Thanks, Chris! We’re here with the Gem Community from Beach City here by the campfire!
Topher: That’s right, Sierra. Pearl, we know you didn’t expect Amethyst to win the Wildcard, let alone make the Finals. What do you and the rest of Beach City have to say?
Pearl: Oh, Amethyst, we are so proud! You held your tongue and got by using your wits! Now, there’s only four of you left and I know they don’t stand a chance against OUR Amethyst!
Garnet: Show them the might of the Crystal Gems
Peridot: GET ‘EM, AMETHYST, YOU CAN DO IT!
Bismuth: You got ‘em on the ropes, Deep-Cut! Knock them out!
Steven: Everybody at the Kindergarden’s cheering for you, Amethyst!
Carnelian: Go, sis!
Skinny: You rock!
Holly Blue: Go, Earth Team! Ugh, what am I even saying?
Jasper: SHOW THEM WHAT EARTH GEMS ARE MADE OF, AMETHYST!
Blue Diamond: (on a holoscreen) Do us proud, Amethyst!
Yellow Diamond: Divide and conquer them, that’s the way to do it!
White Diamond: Is this some sort of Earth entertainment activity? How delightful. Go for it, Amethyst!
Spinel: We’re sending you virtual hugs from light-years away!
Ronaldo: I knew you were a lock on for the finals, Amethyst! All the theories were pointing at you!
Beach City Citizens: AMETHYST! AMETHYST! AMETHYST! AMETHYST!
Topher: Wow, what a crowd! Let’s go see Jason’s demigod comrades from Berkeley, California! The floor’s yours, Brick. Jo and Dawn!
Brick: Oh, we’re on? I was busy looking at those cool Roman phalanx formations!
Dawn: Can’t we settle this peacefully?
Jo: Speak for yourself, Granola Girl. I want to sign up with these guys. They’ve got gyms, tracks and hot baths! Say, I’m pretty sure I’ve got the bloodline of some Roman god in me, could I join you?
Hazel: I can certainly see Victoria or Mars in your blood. We can talk about your application after this
Brick: I’m losing my mind over these formations
Frank: Thanks! I drilled them myself
Dawn: What would you like to say to Jason? I can hook you up telepathically
Hazel: All we want to say is we’re proud and honored by our great former praetor, and it’s great to see him again so… er… full of life
Percy: You’ve got this bro!
Annabeth: Winning this silly TV show is a cakewalk for the hero who toppled the giants!
Leo: ZAP THEM, MAN, YOU’VE GOT THIS!
Piper:…
Nico: Give her some room, people….
Coach Hedge: Man, what a bunch of delinquents! Put them in line, Grace!
Piper: No matter what, you’ve already won in our book (literally), Jason.
Roman demigods: intense cheering
Jo: Yeah, now that’s a cheer! Spartans! Awoo! Awoo!
Dawn: Back to you, Chris
Chris: Thanks, Dawn. Up next is Mabel’s Gravity Falls family. Dakota and Sam, take it away!
Dakota: I’m here with my friend at the Future Celebrities Club Pacifica Northwest! What do you have to say to Mabel?
Pacifica: Omigosh, bestie, I’m so proud. Once you win this thing, you’re gonna be a flipping star! We are so getting ourselves a TV talk show after this! We’ll invite cute boybands from Korea and prank them with Soos in a monster suit hiding behind the sofas!
Dakota: That show concept is so fetch!
Sam: I already knew Soos from the online gaming circuit! Man, Mabel’s awesome! Got any words of inspiration?
Soos: Mabel! Don’t be scared to be nice! Be yourself! Don’t change your strategy now! That’s my takeaway from all the reality TV shows I watch
Grunkle Stan: That’s my granddaughter! She’s on TV!
Dipper: I knew you could do it! Just stay true to yourself, Mabel! You’ve got this!
Gideon: We won’t stop looking for a way to get Grunkle Stan’s memories back, baby! Winning this contest will go a long way!
Bill: is a statue
Dakota: How did that get there…
Bill: manifesting from the void. You call this entertainment? Where’s the fire? Where’s the dead contestants? Where’s the {REDACTED]? Come on, Chris McLean, they told me this was the craziest reality show in the multiverse, let’s get sickening! Oh no wait, I still can’t do anything. Oh well, those other campers don’t stand a chance against Mabel. She’s embraced chaos and it’s her weapon now. She’ll get the drop on them. Buy cryptocurrency! Bye! Dissipates
Dipper: Huh, even Bill had something nice to say
Wendy: That’s why Mabel’s gotta win!
Sam: Back to you, Chris!
Chris: Now, we turn to Sasha’s Survey Corps family!
Duncan: We’re here with the totally-rad Survey Corps to get their scoop on Sasha and why she should win this season
Courtney: If I had my way, we could totally turn this into a succinct discussion on social conditioning and the horrors of child conscription, but given the limited time, we can only ask the Corps on Sasha and her journey so far
Mikasa: I speak for everyone when I say Sasha got all the way to the finals because of her combination of strength in body and strength in heart. Even when her strength fails her, the friends she’s made along the way always have her back. That’s why she will win this
Connie: I know, right?! Either Sasha wins, or it’s rigged!
Levi: Just remember your training
Jean: We've got faith in you, Sasha. Go for it!
Zoe: The odds are in your favor, Sasha. This time, the Corps won't have to settle for defeat!
Courtney: Sasha's lucky to have such faithful friends! We now bring you back to the ongoing race back to Wawanakwa!
​
Sasha was flying in the air. She saw pieces of roast meat flying along with her, with smiley faces, beckoning her to take a bite. She gladly bit in, savoring the juices
“Ouch!”
Sasha shook her head. She was still flying, but not of her own power, but because Jason was carrying her. Then she had bit his arm.
“What in the Three Sisters?! Jason, where’s Mabel?!”
“She tricked you. Amethyst and Mabel have had an alliance since the Merge.”
Amethyst shapeshifted out of boat form as soon as she hit the shore. “Oh man! The look on Sasha’s face when she wakes up!”
“I almost feel bad,” said Mabel. “But I don’t wanna face Sasha in the Triple Dog Dare Challenge. She’ll cream us for sure”
“Oh, I’m winning that, through and through, but Sasha might threaten your spot in the Final Two, so we had to cut her loose”
Chris nodded. “Amethyst and Mabel, congratulations! You’re in the Final Three! It’s Jason vs. Sasha for the third spot!”
Sasha saw her prospects were grim. “Drop me, Grace. You deserve the final spot”
“I won’t do that. Romans fight fairly”
“OK, then I’ll duel you on the beach for the final spot. Corpsmen fight to the end”
“Deal”
They landed and squared off meters away from the shore, knee-deep in the water. Jason drew his coin and flipped it, and a sword materialized from it. Sasha drew her twin blades and squared off. Everyone on the beach was silent as the two giantslayers began their duel.
Both were speedsters in combat, but Jason had the advantage of having the power of the wind itself. He ran circles around Sasha, who was forced to parry and keep on the defensive. Demigods cheered for Jason while the Corpsmen urged Sasha to fight on. Sasha’s dual blades afforded her the opportunity to attack and block at the same time, but Jason gave her few openings. Jason’s advantage was that his blade carried his full force, while Sasha’s dual swords halved her attacking power at the benefit of raising range and versatility. Still, Sasha pressed on, forcing herself to lunge in and try to turn the tide on Jason. Steel clashed against bronze and sparks flew. Jason nicked Sasha in the arm.
Suddenly, something awoke within Sasha. Her grip tightened and she began to move much faster, with more force in her strikes. She began pushing Jason back. She began to flip, turn, feint and tumble in the air, the grace of her Corps training coming into full display. Jason began to betray signs of tiring. Sasha twirled, describing a helicopter in the air, blades teetering towards Jason, who parried with his sword.
This time, Sasha nicked Jason on the cheek.
“She’s doing great! She’s gonna win this for sure!” said Connie
Levi shook his head. “It’s over”
“What?!”
Annabeth Chase nodded in agreement. “Sasha was never going to win”
Leo scoffed. “I’m all for Jason winning, but how come you counting Sasha out like that?”
Annabeth rolled her eyes. “It’s so obvious”
Zoe nodded. “Look at them. Look at where they’re standing. A rather brilliant application of simple physics, really”
Leo scanned the area around them. The lake shone blue against the white sand.
The lake.
“Oh,” said Leo.
“Oh, shit,” said Connie.
Jason grinned. “You’ve given it everything you’ve got, Sasha, well done! Now, it’s my turn.” He stabbed the waters with his sword, wincing as the act reminded him of Caligula, and called down the lightning.
Sasha had no time at all to process what happened as the jolts of electricity raced across the lake and into her.
When she awoke, her friends were all around her, grinning and cheering.
“Oh, guys, I had the weirdest dream! I was on a reality TV show and I made it all the way to the finals, until someone fried me…”
Connie sobbed. “Oh, but you did! You did all of that, baby, you made it to the first ever finals of Total Drama Fandom Island and we are freaking proud of ya!”
“Well done!” Jean was overjoyed.
Zoe beamed, “You showed them the Corps are not to be underestimated”
Chris McLean entered the tent, and beamed at Sasha. “Sasha Braus, you are this season’s third runner up! Thanks to the ton of sponsors we gotten since going multiversal, we can actually afford to give ALL our finalists cash prizes! You’re taking fifty thousand dollars home!”
“Fifty thousa-“ Sasha was dazed. “Whatever are we gonna do with fifty grand?!”
“I’ll tell ya what we’ll do,” said Connie. “There’s like restaurants in this wonderful country where you can eat all the meat you want at a price! As soon as this show’s over, we’re hitting one of those restos!”
“Canada is so beautiful,” murmured Mikasa. “Even the Titans here are friendly, and covered in soft fuzzy fur”
“Hyperboreans are harmless unless you mess with ‘em” said Frank Zhang, peeking in from outside.
Three contestants remained. Jason joined Mabel and Amethyst and headed for the special stage erected by the staff.
“History repeats itself,” said Heather. “Three Gophers remain, and the last Bass places fourth”
“Who do you think will win the Dare?” asked Owen.
“Amethyst and Mabel are pretty unhinged,” said Gwen. “If I were Jason, I’d be very worried”
“The dude shoots lightning like a freaking Sith Lord. The Triple Dog Dare isn’t fazing Jason” countered Duncan.
“Campers, congratulations on making it this far” said Chris. “For your next challenge, we bring you the Triple Dog Dare! Your fellow contestants, even Sasha just now, have written down dares that you must beat, from Patrick to Sasha. Now, instead of a roulette, we’ll just run them down from Patrick to Sasha. Ready?”
“Ready!” said the three in unison
​
Amethyst: They’re in for it now, I didn’t come all this way to lose
Jason: I’ve been memory-wiped, hit by flying bricks and skewered in the back. Nothing is going to hold me down now
Mabel: No dare is too squeamish for Mabel Pines!
​
“Alright, who goes first?” Chris asked.
“Ladies first,” said Jason.
“I’m non-binary,” said Amethyst. “So Mabel’s going first”
Mabel bit her lip. Patrick was the first eliminated and his challenge was either going to be stupidly easy or stupidly impossible.
She shrugged. I’ve done both. “Bring it, Patrick!”
Patrick Star stepped forward from the Peanut Gallery. “Mabel, I dare ya to eat a Triple Patty Deluxe in one bite!”
“I’ll do it!” Mabel saw the juicy burger and realized how hungry she was. She opened as wide as her jaw would allow, crushing the burger a bit to shrink it, and shoved it in her mouth. She chewed hungrily, and swallowed.
“Good job! Here’s your present!”
“Thanks, Pat!”
Chris clapped. “Alright, Mabel. Now you get a freebie, and the next time you can use it to pass a challenge to someone else. The first to back out is ELIMINATED.”
“Cool”
“Now, pick who goes next!”
“Go, Jason! I know Bakugou has a special challenge for you”
Jason: Now why on Earth would Bakugou have something in mind for me?
Bakugou stepped forward. “Alright, discount Pikachu, I bought my friend Denki with me. The challenge is to short-circuit him before he does it to you.
Denki Kaminari stepped into the fray. “Hiya, I heard you can fly, too, on top of using lightning. Man that is so unfair!”
“Alright, let’s do this”
The two squared off and fired bolts of lightning at each other. The sparks flew in all direction, even making Amethyst’s hair puff up and Mabel’s braces to glow”
“Cool!” said Mabel.
“I needed the new hairstyle,” admitted Amethyst.
They both strained as the lightning surge moved back and forth.
Deku gasped in the audience. “Wow, Denki could actually match a demigod in electrical output!”
“That’s our friend right there, get ‘em, Denki!” yelled Yaoyorozu.
An explosion sent smoke billowing all over the stage. When it settled. Jason was still standing, while Denki had folded.
Bakugou smirked. “Nice job, punk. Here’s your freebie” Jason caught the party favor as Bakugou flung it to him.
“Jason, pick the next challenger,” said Chris.
“Amethyst? It’s your turn”
LSP flew in with a yellow, sour-faced creature. “Amethyst, baby, your challenge is simple. Kiss the Earl of Lemongrab!”
“A’ight, here goes nothing” She kissed him and felt her lips burn. “Oof, boy, you’re better than Fire Salt!”
“Mmmm, you have proven acceptable” said Lemongrab. “Accept this favor”
“Mabel! Your turn again!”
“Next round, we both pass it on to Jason. We have to force him to quit so it’s us girls for the Finale!” “Got it, Amethyst!”
Mabel watched Brian Griffin walk onto the stage. “Mabel, my challenge is this. Say something nice about my novel, Faster than the Speed of Love”
Mabel felt a shiver down her spine. “It’s nice you thought of the needs of the mentally-challenged in writing this novel”
“Why, thank you, I- HEY!”
Stewie Griffin ran up to the stage. “Yass, Mabel, slay! Drag his arse, okay, here’s your favor”. He dragged Brian back to the seats by the ear.
Mabel turned. “Jason!”
Hermione Granger stepped up. “Jason Grace. I have but a riddle for you. Three students sit at Argus Filch’s detention room. They are either Gryffindors, who always tell the truth, or Slytherins, who tell naught but lies. Student One says “All of us are Slytherins”. Student Two is mum. Student Three says “Exactly one of us is a Gryffindor”. Who is who?”
“I’ve heard this riddle before,” said Jason. “Student One is a Slytherin, since if he were Gryffindor, he would be lying, which he cannot. Since he is a Slytherin, they are not all Slytherins, otherwise he’d be telling the truth. Student Two is mum, which is suspicious, and Student Three can be lying or no. They cannot be all of either. If Three is a Gryffindor, that means Two is a Slytherin, since Three’s statement must be true if he is Gryffindor. If Three is a Slytherin, then Two must be Slytherin also, since if Two was Gryffindor then Three must be telling the truth, but then all three would be Slytherin, making One’s statement true, when we already know it’s a lie. Therefore. One and Two are Slytherin, and Three is a Gryffindor.”
“Brilliant! And well-reasoned. Alright, Jason, here’s your favor”
“My brain fucking hurts,” said Amethyst.
“You don’t have a brain, silly, you got some sorta microchips,” said Mabel.
“Can I eat ‘em? All that logic made my head hurt”
“Alright, Amethyst, you’re up again,” said Jason.
“I just said my head hurts! Sheesh”
Cyborg entered the fray. “Yo, Amethyst! BB over here wants to challenge your shapeshifting skills!”
“Bring it on, BB! I’m ready for ya, anytime!”
“Oh, word, Amethyst? Get ready, coz I am kicking your butt across the animal kingdom!”
The green and the purple squared up. They began slowly, mouse, cow, tiger, rabbit, then picked up the pace, to owls, ravens, peacocks, dinosaurs, onto more complex animals, insects and fantastic creatures. Then Amethyst started morphing inanimate objects, to which Beast Boy threw in the towel.
“Man, I shoulda known better than to challenge you, sis! Here’s your favor!”
“Jason, next!”
Jason: I knew the girls were gonna gang up on me sooner or later. Welp, bring it!
Jett flew in. “Jason, think fast!” She dashed past him, and grabbed Piper and Leo from the audience.
“What the fuck?!” Amethyst gasped.
“What the heck is she thinking?!” said Mabel. “You can’t be lifting up demigods!”
Jett flew to the ceiling of the really-high circus tent, and flung Piper and Leo to the ground in opposite directions.
Jason’s calm smirk shocked everyone. Instead of making like Superman and flying to either of them, he willed the spirits of the winds to catch both of them and land them safely.
Jett beamed at Jason, though Leo tried to throw hands at her, and was intercepted by fellow pyro Phoenix (“Chill, fam, it was all planned out!”).
“I know when to cut my losses, but I’ll damn well try before I do any cutting”
Brimstone smiled in the audience. “That kid’s got potential”
Sage nodded. “He has the calmness and power of a storm”
“Mabel? Your turn”
Mabel breezed through Ponyhead’s Tiktok challenge, while Jason took Gray’s stripping challenge pretty well (“Walking around naked is a literal rite of manhood in Rome”), though several girls had to be restrained from throwing themselves at Jason and Piper had to be restrained from stabbing them. Jason passed it back to Mabel, who found the bugs Raymond challenged her to find. Mabel passed it back to Jason, who solved Lisa’s calculus problem pretty well (“I went to math college!”). Jason passed it back to Mabel, who had to outpun Sans, and took him down a notch with her keen wit. She passed it back to Jason, who did Seraphine’s KPOP song-and-dance number challenge (and once again made the girlies scream). Jason passed it to Amethyst, seeing Mabel could not be fazed. Amethyst nearly floundered on Baljeet’s trigonometry question, but luckily, her Gem did the math for her. Amethyst threw it back to Jason, and Gaara challenged him to a chess match, which he narrowly won. Jason went back at Amethyst, who beat Darcy at her own game when she challenged her to a makeover competition, to which Amethyst simply shapeshifted into what Darcy was wearing, but purple and sparkly. Amethyst passed back to Jason, and Jason beat Barry at a randomized 3v3 on Pokemon Showdown. Jason passed to Mabel, and Mabel had to beat Arthur in a jig-off. Mabel trounced Arthur and passed it back to Jason. Sasha’s challenge was simple: “Jason, Catch!”
Jason caught whatever it was Sasha threw. It was heavy, darned heavy, and it was pretty hot, so he dropped it, but quickly caught it again and again. Finally, Sasha said “OK! Timer’s up! You win!”
Jason unwrapped the heavy, hot object and frowned.
It was a hot brick with a smiley face and a note that said “Oh, kiss me again, Jason-senpai!”
Percy Jackson was cackling in the audience.
“Campers, you worked the house DOWN!!!” said Chris. “Not a single challenge passed off, so now, we gotta base it on how many favors you have!”
Mabel and Amethyst gulped. Their plan to take down Jason had backfired.
“Jason, you got nine favors! Congratulations, you’re in the final two!”
“Mabel, you got five favors, Amethyst, you got four. Congratulations, Mabel, join Jason for the final leg of the Finale!”
“Amethyst, congratulations on being the first wildcard contestant to ever make it to the final three! Well, unless you count Courtney in Action as a wildcard, (which she’s NOT, according to her own lawyer’s affidavit!). You are the second-runner up and you get to take home fifty thousand dollars!”
“Wow, awesome! This’ll help add new stuff at the Kindergarden! We can buy PS5s, or even-“
“Let’s do the budgeting at home, Amethyst,” said Pearl. “Congratulations, we’re so proud of you!”
“AMETHYST, YOU ROCKED!” yelled Steven.
“That’s my Gem in the rough! C’mere,” Sans joined them and proceeded to make out with Amethyst.
“I may have lost the season, but I got the skeleton of my dreams, baby!”
Heather gagged. “Ugh, get a room, you two!”
Alejandro countered. “Oh, but mi amor, you are the same! Third placers who bagged the perfect man for them!”
Heather scoffed. “I’m the lucky one in the relationship? You wish, Burromuerto!” Then she tackled him into a kiss on the floor.
Piper was next to gag. “Are you guys trying to summon my mom?! Please don’t, if she sees me with Jason, she’s gonna freak”
“Your mom’s already here in a way, pumpkin!” Chris said. “We often have coffee together as in-laws. She gives me juicy tips on how to milk all that lovey-dovey drama for all the ratings it’s worth! You guys, the Courtney-Duncan-Gwen love triangle drama was Aphrodite’s whole idea!”
Duncan gasped, Gwen’s eyes bugged. Courtney looked like she was ready to go full-on God of War, scale Olympus and strangle Aphrodite.
Sierra gasped. “What a twist! The fans are gonna go crazy”
“Well, Mabel? It’s down to you and me”
“Uh-huh. Ready to get pummeled, Sparky?”
Jason stopped a laugh. “Sure am. If I remember correctly, the last challenge is a footrace”
They stood there, facing the long obstacle course designed by the fallen twenty campers.
​
Jason: I am shaking. I never thought it would come down to Mabel and me. But I really want to win this whole thing for the Legion back home, so, sorry Mabel. I’m going all out.
Mabel: I can’t breathe right now. I can’t even move. Why did it have to come down to me and that ridiculously cute guy from California? I’m entering fight-or-flight mode but I know I have to choose to fight
​
“Campers! This is your last chance to win the one million dollars! Jason, you can take your coin and Mabel can take her grappling gun with her! The obstacle course is the final challenge and the first to reach the finish lines takes all. One last time, you two. DO YOU WANNA BE FAMOUS???!!!!”
They shot off into a sprint. Jason waded through jellyfish. Mabel dodged mini-landmines. Jason bounced off floating pink clouds, Mabel rode a muscular, genetically-enhanced pig, Jason rode a broomstick, Mabel dodged Batarangs, Jason grabbed a gun and mowed down training robots and defused the Spike and Mabel used Dimensional Scissors to get around a chasm. Jason dodged magical attacks, while Mabel swam like an otter across a pond.
They were neck and neck. Piper clutched her blade. Dipper hugged Waddles tight.
Jason rode a skateboard as nuclear waste dripped from the trees, Mabel dodged lasers and bones and skulls flying at her, Jason danced his butt off to activate a hovering bridge. Mabel activated a giant baking soda volcano, propelling her forward, Jason ran through quicksand, Mabel dodged shadows, Jason ran away from Beedrills, and Mabel climbed a mountain of burnt scones, Jason grabbed some Corps gear and rappelled down Sasquatchanakwa’s back. Mabel rode a pink Lion across the lake, punching Fang in the face as she passed.
Jason used his lightning to scare Lion off, throwing Mabel to the ground. Jason jogged past her, towards the finish line. Mabel pulled out her grappling gun and shot for the finish line’s pole. It latched on and she rocketed to the finish line, passing Jason at the last second.
“WE HAVE A WINNER!!!!” Chris boomed. “MABEL PINES, OF GRAVITY FALLS, YOU ARE TOTAL DRAMA FANDOM ISLAND’S FIRST EVER CHAMPION!!”
Jason Grace beamed at Mabel. “Great job, Mabel! You won against all odds. New Rome salutes you!”
Waddles ran up to Mabel and she caught him in a big hug. “Oh, we did it, Mr. Waddles! We won Total Drama Island!!!”
The other campers cheered.
“A jolly good show, Mabel!” said Arthur
“I knew you could do it, Mabel!” said Baljeet
“Mabel, that was awesome!” said Seraphine
“Not bad at all!” said Barry
“Impressive, and here I thought you’d be an early boot,” said Darcy
Demigods and the Gravity Falls citizens cheered wildly. Even the Survey Corps and the Beach City community hooted all around. All the audience from all across the Multiverse clapped in adulation.
“Jason Grace of New Rome, congratulations for being our First First Runner Up! You’ll be taking home one hundred thousand dollars!”
“We can finally afford those Temple renovations I was planning… well, I was planning until I died, so…”
Piper and Leo and the rest of the Seven ran up to hug Jason, or rather pile onto him.
“I’m so glad I came,” said Piper. “When I heard you got brought back from the dead just to compete in some reality show, I cringed. I really didn’t know how to react, where to start. I owed you, Jason, I-“
“You don’t owe me anything, Pipes. I’m happy for you. I want nothing more but for you to keep on being happy with your new life”
They hugged awkwardly, but sweetly.
“Hey, McLean! How about casting me for Season 2, eh?” said Leo Valdez.
“Or me, I really loved this whole season!” said Connie, hugging Sasha.
“Count me in if you’re casting Season 2 now!” said Peridot
“I’m open for participation, Mr. McLean” said Pacifica.
“Me too!” said Squidward Tentacles.
“And me!” said Natsu Dragneel
“What about me?” asked Ron Weasley
“You can’t have a season two without me!” yelled Jessie of Team Rocket.
“Chill out dudes! I’ve got Season 2 greenlighted and you can all email your audition tapes starting tomorrow!”
They all cheered. The Gravity Falls community carried Mabel atop them like a parade float, towards the lake. Percy Jackson smiled. “Think they’re gonna dunk her in?”
Annabeth Chase winced. “I hope not! It’s only fun when, well, you’re with that special someone”
“I wonder who’ll be in Season Two?”
“Wanna file for an audition, Seaweed Brain?”
“It’s one crazy show, but I like crazy sometimes”
Mabel thanked everyone for their support. “I’d never have won without all of you guys. My Screaming Gophers family, and the nice guys at the Killer Bass. Sasha, Arthur, Cyborg, Sans. All of you. I’m so happy I got to meet you all!”
“Oh, I almost forgot!” Chris cleared his throat. “We got the contestants to vote our Mr. and Ms. Congeniality for this season! Congratulations to Gaara and Seraphine!”
“I am honored. No one would’ve believed this ten years ago,” said Gaara, tearing up.
“Oh, you deserve it!” said Seraphine. “You’re a very sweet guy. Thank you, guys, for voting me!”
“You guys get fifty grand each! And that’s not all, everyone not in the Finals is taking home one thousand dollars TIMES the number of challenge wins you got in your entire run!”
Squidward laughed. “Patrick’s STILL not getting anything”
“He won the gift of friendship,” said Spongebob. “Didn’t ya, Pat?”
“That’s true!” said Sasha Braus. “Patrick, we’ll all fondly remember you and each other as we go back to our everyday lives!”
“There’s still one question that’s bugging me,” said Grunkle Stan. “Mabel, what do ya plan to do with your one million dollars?”
Mabel took the giant check from Chris McLean and thought deeply. “I’ve always wanted to expand your gift shop, Grunkle, and- WAIT A MINUTE, GRUNKLE, YOUR MIND-“
Grunkle Stan laughed. “It’s amazing what these Survey Corps scientists can cook up from the spit of a human-Gem hybrid and nectar from those demigods”
Mabel stared at her fellow finalists. “You guys, I…”
“It was horrible when we found out the price he paid to save you and the world from Bill Cipher” said Sasha. “So when we realized we had all the pieces to the puzzle of restoring lost memories, we jumped right at it!”
“Take it from someone who knows, Mabel. It’s a living hell knowing you should know about someone and not remember them” said Jason.
“Think of it as a prize from us for winning!” said Amethyst.
Mabel spent the rest of that day hugging everyone out of sheer joy.
Raymond purred. “Ah, all’s well that ends well, eh?”
Ponyhead beamed. “You bet, baby! Hey, Gorillanakwaz, hit it!”
Arthur Kirkland, Cyborg, Jett, Seraphine and Gaara hit the stage.
Arthur took up the bass, Jett the keyboard, Cyborg the drums and Gaara and Seraphine took the mikes, and an old, familiar tune began.
You never ever leave my mind
My sweet, sweet Caroline
Every time I look into your eyes, I feel like I’m alive
The whole island was vibing to the song and rocking to its melody
Every time I want to say hello, every time I want to stay, I go
Could never find the words to let you know, sometimes
You play my mind a million times
Mabel danced with all her friends, switching from Dipper, to Waddles, to Soos, Wendy and Pacifica, even Gideon. Sasha danced with Connie. Gems, Survey Corpsmen and demigod legionnaires joined hands in a circle and danced around the campfire. Jason waved as Piper danced with her girlfriend Shel, and suddenly, Jett came along and they began to dance, too.
Chris Mclean waved one last time at the camera. “Thanks for joining us here on Total Drama Fandom Island. Stay tuned for Season Two coming to you in May! Eighteen new contestants from all over the fandom multiverse will compete for the crown at TOTAL DRAMA FANDOMS SEASON TWO: FANDOM ACTION!

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Link to original story
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The floor of the cell is covered in decades of mildew and dust. This disgusting carpet does nothing to dull the pain as I skip across it, thrown in by someone with the intention of making a point.
My Name’s Mike, and if any of you are the types to go on a deep dive, you probably know A little about me already.
For those of you that don’t, Jesus I don’t know exactly where to begin.
The Cliff’s notes would be that I spent a little over a decade either being a serial killer or a vigilante. I won’t try to justify my actions, both of those are just sides of the same shitty coin. I’m not a person to be idolized or emulated, so I choose not to plead my case.
Now, while I thought that was just about as screwed up as life could get, one day, out of the blue, after burying my best, fuck, my only friend I found myself, somewhere else. A world that looked and felt like mine, but one where the things that go bump in the night actually existed.
Where I came from, I’d seen monsters, to be sure, but only the kind that happen when people break.
Since I’ve been here? Got caught up in some demented gameshow for demons or something, threw a massive shit in the punch bowl of the thing running the production, and got the world’s unluckiest man his freedom.
And that leads me to my current situation, staring down the rage filled, mildly bruised face of that asshole, that fucking, demonic Ted Turner, Art.
He runs a hand aggressively through his slicked back hair, standing at the door to my cell.
“Looks like your little plan didn’t work, exactly as I predicted, you fuck.
I mean, great try with the little cat thing you had, honestly didn’t see that coming. But, Jesus, Mike, what was your end game? “ Art gloats.
“Cards on the table? It was a lot better, but shit fell through, that whiskey abomination, it was the one that ratted me out I assume?
That being said, still got Kev out. And you can’t really ‘flip off his lightswitch’ if he didn’t let you screw around with his wiring, can you? “ I grin, I keep it, even as a Gucci shoe slams into my face.
Am I scared? Of God damn course I am, I’ve been pissing myself (metaphorically speaking.) since I realised that the rules of reality don’t really apply any more.
Every new grain of sand on the beach of hell my life has become, tosses me further down the road of mental failure. Shit, that’s half of what fucked up my last plan in the first place.
If I could have just kept my shit together long enough, I’d be sipping a beer with Kev in some shit hole town somewhere. But the only thing harder than trying to stamp down fear in the face of God’s and monsters, is trying to do it while projecting some kind of ‘death fears me ‘ persona.
Between you and I? Death doesn’t fear me, in fact, it seems to love to hang around. And every day I have to stare down that grim spectre, the closer I get to losing the tenuous grip on reality I have .
“Oh, fuck Kev. He’s smart enough to stay off my radar, and too stupid to figure out a way to come back at me.
He's got a 1 bedroom in Idaho or something? Salud, good on him.
You, I had high hopes for, and then you decide to wipe your ass all over my carpet, cost me more than I could even explain, and even, get me a little roughed up. My favorite shell, anyway.
I want to recoup some loses Mike. So, you, get to be a part of another one of my projects.
You thought The Path was bad? Oh, you literal, fucking clown, you haven’t seen anything.
I won’t spoil it for you, the devil’s in the details and all, but you know what everyone loves?
Prison.
Not being in it themselves, of course, but seeing others, especially those they hate in there.
This place isn’t fair, the path was a boxing match with Queensbury rules, this is a handcuffed knife fight.
And I can’t wait to see you figure out, all the little surprises it has in store for you. “ Art laughs and tosses me a battered, ancient looking smartphone, “ Feel free to drum me up some good press online if you want. “
My heart is pounding, I have to use every bit of will I have to stop from shaking, to roll my neck and sit against the cold, padless cement bed behind me.
I feel sick, my stomach boiling and gurgling.
“For the love of whatever the demonic equivalent of Christ is, why not just kill me? I’m right here, I have no way of fighting back, and you know damn well that if you give me enough time, I’m going to find a way to wipe my ass on your doorframe next. “ My tone is flippant, or at least, I hope it is.
“The ego on you kid, you think you’re that guy don’t you?
They exist, don’t get me wrong, probably a couple thousand folks capable of taking me out, but trust me, you are not one of them.
This isn’t some ‘Arch’ idiocy where I leave my greatest rival alive. This is me watching you squirm because I can, and making a little profit on the deal.
Don’t flatter yourself. “ Art has produced a long thin knife as he talks, he spins and rolls it absently.
“Before your guys dragged me off, I met something. A corner store, I don’t know if it was haunted, possessed, or if it was some kind of creature that just decided to look like a knock off 7-11.
Point being, it was out there, ethereal, I couldn’t hurt it, outwit it, even slow it down. I ran from that thing as fast as I could. It gave me some serious Lovecraft vibes.
You, Art, are not that guy. “ I notice myself tapping my finger nervously on the slime covered floor, I focus, stopping the tic.
The tip of Art’s knife glows, the sick, grey sheen isn’t heat, but something that makes me start to back up.
“I am, but you will never see that. You’re not worth the effort.
I want to give you a little something though. “ Art stalks toward me, I stand as I back into the farthest corner of the cell, “ Proud of your face paint were you? “
Art grins, and for a moment lets some of his true self slip through. For just a moment I see timeless horror in his eyes, a dark black void of consumed souls and unrestrained evil.
That knife parts my flesh with pain like a whip. Without even using the blade, it’s presence flenses my face, opening up raw, textured furrows in my flesh.
He leaves after he is done, laughing to himself.
The pain makes me black out, my stomach is boiling, I come to dry heaving, the effort sends me back into the oblivion of sleep.
I don’t know how long has passed, my face feels like it is on fire, and the thick steel bars of my cell door are closed.
It takes me two minutes of cupping my hands under the grime laden steel tap to get enough water to clear off a spot on the rusted, old, wall mounted steel mirror.
No mortal hand could have scarred me as accurately as Art did. The wounds, not healed, but cauterised as to not make me bleed out, used depth, and width, to create a colorless replica of my makeup.
I know trauma, physical as well as mental, and these are scars that will never heal. As the fact sinks in that my face is literally no longer my own, I scream, heart pounding, I split open my knees on the cold cement floor.
Pain flares, threatens to send me back to the bliss of unconsciousness, but I don’t care.
I read Kev’s journals, and they paint me in a really… positive light, in a sense.
What I mean is, going by what he thought he saw, I’m some kind of supervillian or something. Tossing three hundred pound air conditioners ( it was the outer shell, seventy pounds, physics and luck did the rest.), wrestling Art ( I was clinging on for dear life, had it not been for Jr and the mass of denizens, I’d have been killed with a flick of his wrist.), or appearing like a ghost (people, even immortal are very unobservant. Especially in an emergency.).
I’m great at seeming horrifying, and that’s a weapon in and of itself, but at the end of the day, that’s all it is.
Kneeling in my own blood, vision blurry with pain, I realise how small, vulnerable, and unarmed I truly am.
By the time daylight shines through the yellow reinforced glass window, I’m already awake. I’ve spent an hour and a half calming myself, trying to find some focus, some centre to keep me going.
I’ve been in prison before, back home, first and last time I tried plying my trade outside of America.
Being the stupid payaso gringo that I am I bit off so much more than I can chew that I wound up choking on it for 2 months in a Mexican prison.
The routine of, count, lineup, chow, remained the same.
The demographics of the population on the other hand…
Being observant is one of my main skills and as I was brought into the absurdly sized cafeteria, I was taken aback at just how many people were here.
Tens of Thousands, easily, maybe a hundred. I try and think of how many missing person cases this accounts for, and even that math doesn’t quite add up.
I quickly inventory the groups that make up the place, not that it wasn’t obvious.
The first, of course are the guards. Some, the majority, appear to be human, well geared up and in intimidating physical condition.
But a handful, they are clearly, something else. Some are smooth featured ebony skinned giants, carrying truncheons that could crush a car engine. Others are grinning, pale skinned bad attempts at human copies, wild eyed and twitching.
Second would be what I called the cultists. They all appeared to style themselves after certain tropes and urban legends, clearly human, but dressing, tattooing and mutilating themselves to appear like, myths, legends, and monsters.
The subtle violence I see tells me I’ve found the gangs.
Third are the Everymen, I can’t see any kind of pattern to them, but they seem to make up the majority of the population. They keep their distance from the guards and the cultists, but on more than one occasion I see then stand, united against attempts at extortion.
The last group, I call the candles, people that are clearly on their way out mentally and physically. Sunken eyed, and set upon from all angles, at any moment these folks could be simply snuffed out.
I keep my distance, and stay respectful, the meandering, twisting line seems to take hours to get me my thick slice of crumbling yellow bread, and thick red slurry that reminds me of porridge masquerading as meat.
My coat is gone but I’m left with the majority of the clothing I fashioned back in the path. I see a mix of unwashed orange uniforms and ‘civilian’ clothing, some of the cultists, bordering more on costume than wardrobe.
As the massive, butchers apron wearing man in smeared clown makeup sits down, I wish I’d have been issued something more generic. I saw this coming the second I noticed a lump of Chlorophiles in blood stained getups.
“You sit with us. “ I can’t tell if it’s an accent or speech pattern, the clown sounds strange, either way.
I eat a spoonful of the red sludge.
“No disrespect intended, I’m not one for clubs. I’m going to make no waves, no plays, nothing. I’m a ghost. “ I say, levelly, avoiding eye contact.
Why, you might ask, having been told about my adventures in murder.
Well, that’s just it. Murder is easy, and any time you saw me end a life, it was just that.
A fight, that’s another thing entirely, especially against someone with a significant weight and height advantage.
“Not asking. You got friends. “ The massive clown moves his bulk closer, it’s like sitting next to a forklift.
I eat the bread, it tastes amazing until I swallow, then has a foul, chemical aftertaste.
I drink some tepid, burgundy fluid that might be caffeinated.
No weapons nearby, no one watching that might step in. I’m full of bruises and sprains, and probably anemic from blood loss. Not to mention one eye is running at about fifty per cent. Art didn’t sever the optic nerve last time, but he wasn’t gentle. My heart races.
“I don’t play well with people who take clowning and slap a coat of dark paint on it.
You guys are Clown Killers. You are good at killing, I’m sure, but the clown part, it’s tacked on.
Myself, I’m a killer clown…. “ I had a really good rant planned, honestly, it was a corker, douche bags would have used it in memes for a decade.
But before I can react, with one massive hand, he bounces my face off of the pitted steel table.
It rings my bell, but not as much as I let on. In clowning terms, what I do Is called a pratfall.
For those of you that don’t speak nerd, I oversell the hit, falling backwards, eyes fluttering.
I tip backwards, reaching out my left arm, as if to steady myself. The meat mountain is unbothered, knowing I have no chance unarmed, in this close, he let’s me grab one shoulder of the butchers apron. The material is thick, and matted in stains that will never come out, literally or metaphorically.
If you want to take someone out, in a relatively harmless way, you don’t want to choke them. It takes forever, usually ends up killing them, and generally is a bad idea for everyone involved.
Your goal is go cut off blood flow to the brain as quickly and fully as possible.
I hook my thumb around the opposite shoulder strap, and snap my body backward, the apron acting as an impromptu Garrotte.
His right arm is knotted through my left, as he tries to struggle, to put his murderous intent and ability to work, the choke only becomes tighter.
I don’t want enemies here, and I only have so many tricks to play before things come to a knock down drag out fight, so I leave the clown unharmed.
I do need friends, but the look I get as I take a seat at a loose collection of men is cold and fearful.
A red haired guy, five foot nine or so, makes eye contact, “Anything we can help you with? “ he says, fearless.
“Yeah, despite the face work I’ve had done, I have fuck all in common with any of those penny wise, Icp, Gacy dressed, assholes.
I need a tribe guys, you all look like the unlucky ones around here, but I don’t want to get involved in bloodshed.
I’m Mike “ I know, that’s only mostly true, but I mean it, either way. I extend a hand.
“Chris. “ the red haired guy says, he wears a white dress shirt and surprisingly blue jeans, “Those stains around your cuffs tell me otherwise.
If you’re telling the truth, that’s great. If you are lying, and still sane enough to keep your word, that’s even better. “ Chris’s tone is mirthless, I read him easily. He’s been here a long time for a short life, he looks thirty max, and I shudder to think how young he may have been when he came in.
Chris catches me up on the ins and outs of this place, beyond what a general knowledge of prison would give.
Everyone here has crimes they were not convicted of, that would, otherwise put them in jail for life. A large amount, obviously are murderers, torturers, real bastards.
But a significant minority are just regular folks, maybe a bit thoughtless, but that have collected a litany of small, petty, in cases almost victim less crimes.
No one seems to be aware of the… reality t.v. Meets demonic fast food aspect of things, but there is a Doom cherry on this fear Sunday.
There is a single way someone can get out. To earn 20 tokens.
And how does one earn these tokens you ask?
Each day the prison holds an event, to call it a challenge would insinuate a level of fair play that is simply not there. The events range from somewhat fair, a fight or game of chance, to esoteric rituals complex enough to rip someone’s soul from their body.
These tokens are also the sole form of currency in the prison, they can buy everything from commissary snacks to literal free passes from guards.
The economy has created a cut throat society, the heads of the cults not even taking advantage of being able to be free, but simply reveling in the power of being psychotic and enabled.
The weak are enslaved, their lives traded on the off chance at tokens.
So, of course, braindead asshole that I am, I signed myself right up. Feeling a little more confidant after climbing Mount Bozo.
It's 8pm and the volunteers are rounded up and brought to a massive room that has all the trappings of a gymnasium, but the scale is large enough easily hold the focus of tonight’s events.
In tiered bleachers all around us, our fellow prisoners cheer and scream. The smell of thousands of unwashed, men is overpowering, the din of excitement is deafening.
But my attention is focussed on the small, single floor home, sitting out of place in the middle of the polished wood floor.
What I wouldn’t give for Demi to appear right now, give me the low down on all the supernatural bullshit that is heading my way. But the longer we stayed in the mountain the less and less the most useful voice in my head could, or would, make an appearance.
I study each of my fellow volunteers, the goal seems simple, last the longest in the home. Men enter and leave within minutes. They come out looking shaken, with minor lacerations, and a general sense of shell shock.
By the time my turn arrives, I think I know what I’m in for.
I’m wrong.
As the baby blue door closes behind me, nothing immediately in the home causes me concern. The fixtures and furniture is a bit out of date, the lighting is, not inviting, and there is a general fog of gloom hanging around.
I smile, I’ve felt this before. Granted I had Demi feeding me supernatural errata at the time, but, I’m positive I can wing it.
“So, I think I may have met one of you guys before. Back in New York, a Happy-Face corner store, anyone you know?
Scary dude, took a couple of pieces out of me.
But this, it’s more like an MMA fight, right? I tap out when you start kicking my ass? “ I stretch, trying to see if I’m getting any kind of reaction.
I inventory the objects around me, last time everything that wasn’t nailed down, shifted, changed and tried to take me apart.
You may have noticed by now, I love using the phrase ‘ last time’, and that’s because up until this moment, I haven’t learned a fucking thing here.
Mike’s first rule of paranormal survival, last time means nothing.
“It’s you” the voice is young, late teens, and male.
I spin, expecting violence, then, wishing violence.
I know the young man, not this pale, older, revenant with a self inflicted gunshot wound, but I know him none the less.
I’m not being metaphorical when I say my heart misses a beat, I almost fall over, pounding at my chest to stop it’s arythmatic pounding.
I knew what happened to him, found it out long after I could do anything about it. And wasn’t in the best of places when I did.
I’ll call him a ghost for simplicity sake, but this kid, he’s my first, and biggest mistake.
I based who I turned into on finding what I thought was one of the worst people on earth. This kid’s father.
I did things to him worthy of what I knew he did. And to top it all off, I had him die by his wife’s hand.
Well, a decade later I find out, the guy wasn’t a Saint, but he didn’t do anything worthy of the twisted shit I put him through.
I got wind of some false information put out there in a moment of rage by a tech savvy ten year old. The kid never intended it to see the light of day
“I found out about you Mike, I saw that you were a hero. “ The voice is thin echoes like a stuck record.
“No kid, don’t think that. “ I mumble, I’m shaking, the air is freezing, each breath comes out as white mist.
I’m sitting on the flower printed couch now, and it hits me.
I’d assumed because Art couldn’t screw around in my head last time, the same went for everything here.
Remember what we said about last time.
“My told me what happened one night, what I made you do.
I destroyed her memory of him, I made a real Hero kill him, I couldn’t keep hurting people. “ I can see images, flashing in my mind, memories that are not mine.
I’m counting seconds, trying to focus, trying to stay long enough to get the token. It has to have been fifteen, twenty minutes at least.
I try to work up a smirk, to convince myself that I’m just being played by the paranormal equivalent of a heckler.
That’s not it though, This place, this house, is reaching inside me and finding places to look. As I stare into the young man’s rotted eyes I know this is some part of him, torn away from whatever rest he was entitled to.
The lights dim, then turn off. The house is silent.
Hollywood gets being both a lunatic and a hitman wrong in equal measure. No matter how much morality you want to inject into the profession, there are going to come times when you make mistakes.
As the lights slowly turn to a dull orange glow, I’m surrounded by the hovering, mutilated forms of mine.
Those that died that could have been spared, those that died because of my inaction, or stupidity. I’ve never forgotten them, I use them to make sure I never make the same mistakes again, but having them looming, screaming, all demanding I hear their stories, their accusations, their placations.
It's too much, I stumble from the couch, trying to avoid the icy touch of these phantoms. For a moment I find some last scrap of courage, I close my eyes, shut out the shrieking din of the dead.
The silence hits like a truck, I focus, trying to calm my burned out nerves.
Then they are reignited like a fucking welding torch.
“This place didn’t bring us here.
We’ve been right next to you for years Mike. We can’t leave. “ The voice of my first mistake.
Like a toddler I try to run with my eyes closed, I trip over a glass coffee table, clawing my way up the door, grasping at the handle.
I can feel a slight pull now, almost magnetic, trying to drag me backwards.
My hands shake too much, I have to steady my right wrist with my left hand, the floor becomes slick, I see the door, escape start to move further away as I’m pulled backward.
I've taken a hit or two, and had a couple of three day benders that have made me piss myself. But as I stumble, trying to make progress on the nearly friction less floor, I have another unpleasant first experience.
I grab the handle, pulling myself out of the house, launching my body into a skin peeling tumble across unforgiving plank flooring.
I’m a shaking, fetal wreck, by the time I’ve pulled myself together enough to take in my surroundings, I see the red Led clock displaying my time.
42 seconds. Bottom of the barrel. The jeers and booing from the crowd do nothing for my frayed nerves or the storm of fear and anxiety going through my mind.
I’m exhausted, but I can’t sleep, it has nothing to do with the concrete slab that serves as my bed.
My stomach has been knotting and cramping, with each passing second I get more worried I blew some internal gasket in one of the many life or death struggles in the past months.
When I finally manage to vomit, the urge is strong enough I get no where near the filth crusted hole in the floor that serves as my toilet. And my worst fears are confirmed as I see the massive pile of vomit is mostly blood.
… and bones? Is that an eyeball? A piece of fur?
The mass begins to pull itself together, bits and pieces forming the most rudimentary attempt at a face.
“Junior? “ I say, stunned.

Life comes in many flavours, and each day we face many questions. Some of these questions are judgements. And some of these judgements involve others in significant and meaningful ways. On the one hand, we seek to satisfy our personal needs -- self-determination -- while maintaining a sense of virtue -- compassion and justice. For many, there is too much injustice and suffering just to ignore. On the other hand, balancing the needs of us and them beckons honest appraisal of situations and people. But where and how should our finger be pointed?

Core psychology of blame

Among the very earliest struggles in a person's life is the process of ego development. In its simplest, ego is about separating good from bad, self from other. Various theories and models strive to explain the ego, or its development, from various perspectives. For the purposes here, I will be referencing object relations theory, which is part psychoanalytic psychology and deals with very early development, starting at birth. A few things will be slightly simplified to keep the text concise.
Within this theory, the first several months involve what is termed the paranoid-schizoid position. The "schizoid" aspect refers to a cognitive-emotional process known as splitting. This is where external objects, including people, are split into opposing mental parts -- to form part objects, or the "good object" version and the "bad object" version of each meaningful external object or phenomenon. For example, when the caregiver is gratifying to the infant, that part object is the "good caretaker"; and when not so gratifying, that caretaker is the "bad caretaker". At this stage of development and understanding, these two "part objects" are not seen as from the same source. Rather, each is a separate thing appearing and disappearing as circumstances and feelings change. The key word here is separation, which we will come back to later.
The other aspect of the paranoid-schizoid position -- the "paranoid" aspect -- refers to a curious side effect of splitting everything into "good" and "bad". Because each "part object" is either all good, or all bad, and because the appearance and disappearance of these mysterious entities is more-or-less out of control, the infant begins to resent and fear the bad objects that keep happening. That is, the baby hates the bad objects but loves the good objects. This is perhaps the very first stage of moral awareness -- raw, albeit mistaken judgement; love the good; hate the bad; pure, uninhibited attraction and repulsion. As a result, or side effect, of these negative or aggressive feelings toward "the bad", the baby may fear possible persecution, invoking paranoia. Strange though that may sound, there is a bit more to it.
Splitting, as between the mentioned "good" and "bad" objects, is only half the story. The other half of splitting is between "good self" and "bad self". That is, because in the paranoid-schizoid position, objects are temporary and impermanent, so too is the self temporary and fleeting. Moreover, the self is either in comfort, or in distress, giving either "good self" or "bad self" -- depending on circumstance. Since the "good self" appears with the "good object", and likewise the "bad self" with the "bad object", the child fears the appearance of the "bad object" even more. This is because its presence entails essentially collapse of the previous self-concept, as if to enter a realm of deserved persecution for being the "bad self" -- and hence the emergence of paranoia.
On an interesting aside, this manner of judging objects and selves as good or bad based solely on whether one is currently in comfort or pain is the essence of Stage 1 in Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development. This is a theory on the progression of individuals throughout life in moral reasoning. Stage 1, termed obedience and punishment orientation, judges those in trouble or pain as inherently bad. In many cases, this view basically blames the victim. Further, this type of reasoning is essentially the basis for the "might makes right" mindset seen in some cases of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). One thing to keep in mind is that we all start there, but not everyone stays there. In this way, having crude moral reasoning later in life is effectively a sign of delayed or regressed development, much like a disability -- ie. "morally disabled".

Completing the person

Eventually, the child will reach a point in development where objects become whole and persistent, able to have simultaneously negative and positive qualities. Objects or people may take on accounts, or balances, allowing for consideration of simple reciprocity, including guilt and reparation. Self and caregiver become distinct entities, where "good" self is no longer lost each time caregiver is absent or busy. Assuming successful progression, blame and judgement is no longer split dichotically between two extremes. Otherwise a new type of splitting is come, where objects and entities, though whole and persistent, are either idealised or devalued.
An important key trend exists between consecutive steps of ego development. This is the trend of expanding persistence and relatedness. In the part-object stage, objects appear and vanish -- some good, some bad. These raw appearances are neither persistent, nor related. In the whole-object stage, objects become persistent, although at first not really related. Because of this initial lack of relation, the secondary type of splitting -- idealisation and devaluation -- is still likely. Basically, since one person or object is fundamentally unrelated to another, including the self, there is "no harm" in seeing one as all good, and another as all bad. Without a stabilising relation, moral judgements can be whimsical yet extreme. A person or object may alternate between being embraced and discarded, depending on present feelings or arrangements. But what makes a stabilising relation?
In general, stabilising relations develop naturally through observation and reason. For example, a caregiver may through time be taken as an intrinsic part of one's need for support. Or a sibling may eventually be seen as fundamentally similar and related. But the building of these relations, or attachments, can be hindered by certain experiences or feelings. For instance, an unstable or unavailable caregiver may leave a child feeling resentment, shame, or guilt. These feelings may then get in the way of building an emotional bond. The resulting lack of security, mixed with possible shame or guilt for not being good enough, may lead to maladaptive and unstable boundaries and self-definition. Some common results are narcissism and borderline personality -- the former as an escape mechanism from feelings of inadequacy, and the latter as unstable border-lines between what is embraced, and what is rejected. These early childhood misgivings can then live on subconsciously, infiltrating the psyche and its future engagements.

Competition and judgement

While the capacity for blame and hate may emerge, as described above, from fundamental urges of attraction and repulsion -- mixed with innate capacity for making inference -- there is another powerful instinct at play. Complex social animals have a built-in game of gene-selection and mate-selection. This game relies on a simple heuristic, or objective -- form competitive hierarchies, and select those at the top. The evolutionary assumption is that competition filters out less desirable code. Without reflection, this pre-configured notion may be taken at face value, often in fact elevated -- whether spoken or kept silent -- to something of religious adherence. But is the argument sound?
In simple times, back in the tribe, individuals tended to grow up closely-knit and fairly uniformly. Regardless which parents one had, pretty much everyone had access to the same quality of food, healthcare, and education. Tools and other amenities could readily be made or obtained by any abled body, often with only modest effort. As a result, there was, compared to modern times, an extremely even playing field. Very little interfered with the above premise that those who achieved success in social hierarchy likely had something special inside. Sure, luck still played a part, but that part was not only far less significant than today, but also far more visible for those of simple tribes. In probably most cases, everybody knew when someone had encountered bad fortune, as individual stories were less hidden.
In the current age, however, personal merit is vastly more obscured and mangled by deceptive forces. The range of disparity in childhood resources and care, the long duration of schooling needed to be competitive, and the sheer price of admission into money-making pursuits, completely destroy any legitimacy the heuristic of selection by social hierarchy may previously have had. Luck may have played a part back then, but today the part played by the lottery of placement into a particular family, time, and place is riddled with inequity. On top of all that, the behaviours and exploits that set one person atop the next are lost from sight through the complex labyrinth of time, legalese, and the unfathomable size of modern society. Hence, the basis of soundness behind judging merit on personal outcome is no longer something that can be supported with any honesty. To praise or blame based on social status and wealth is to partake in folly.

Entity and arrangement defined

Entities are mental objects, and their social accounts, pertaining to people, groups, aggregates, and other moral agents. I say mental objects for two basic reasons. One, individuals and groups change through time. As the saying goes:

"A person never steps into the same river twice; for on the second occasion, one is neither the same person, nor is it the same river" (paraphrased) ~ Heraclitus of Ephesus.

Two, while we may posit that physical substance seems to exist out there, beyond the mind, we nevertheless must work within our mental model, or worldview, when considering those entities and other things of material or mental reality. Hence, entities and objects can be cognised, or considered, solely as mental objects. This phenomenon of the mental becomes even more apparent when we consider the nature of not only being, but identity, character, and personal story. None of these, from what I can tell, can rightly be said to exist outside the mind. Each has arbitrary, situation-specific, and continually shifting boundaries and connotations.
Arrangements, in contrast, are sets of objects; entities; their relative positions; their internal configurations; and their relations and interactions. Arrangements are hence the frameworks in place either materially or logically between and within entities and or objects. Common examples include law, culture, contract, education, and social hierarchy -- but also the physical placement of people and things.
Not surprisingly, the arrangements in place have substantial influence on the outcomes for individuals and society. The same person lowered into two different cultures and circumstances can be expected to have a different time. Education, ideas, values, struggles, and relationships may all be completely changed. The combinations of butterfly effect, disparity of opportunity, and idiosyncratic accident leave open the door for a wide variety of possibility.

Splitting and blaming the entity

Before talking about what to blame, or how to blame it, we might consider some phenomena which may influence one's ability to make sound judgement. As discussed previously, early development can play a big part in both the way one perceives and understands the world, and also the way one feels about, and hence reacts to, situations and challenges within the world. So let us look at some such phenomena.
Splitting, in the post-infancy sense, is the viewing of mental objects -- including and especially people -- as either idealised all good, or devalued all bad. The primary hypothesis goes something along the lines that a child who felt insufficiently loved or attended during infancy and early childhood may develop an internalised sense of unworthiness -- perhaps shame or guilt. In simple terms, the child may internalise a judgement of "not good enough". Since early, particularly pre-linguistic experiences tend to be deeply-seated and hard-conditioned, the person later in life may not only have little if any recall of such experience, but likely has little ability to reflect or challenge the resulting feelings or cognitive distortions. Basically, the only remnant clearly visible may be the feelings and intuitions themselves -- sense of shame, guilt, and never being good enough. However, as with other inescapable negative feelings, the child or later person is prone to forming habits of escape. Most notably here, the person may partake in defence mechanisms, or unconscious patterns of perception and thinking that seek to turn off or escape uncomfortable or stressful cognitions.
Projection is among the most used defence mechanisms. It involves taking an unwanted feeling or judgement, and throwing it upon someone or something else. The idea is to distance oneself from such negative connotations. In the case of internalised shame or guilt of being "not good enough" during childhood, the person is likely to begin casting this judgement upon others. Unreasonable or unattainable standards may be adopted. The world itself may be viewed as inherently broken or untenable. In the case of splitting specifically, black-or-white, all-or-none thinking may be employed to polarise objects or people -- including oneself -- into all good or all bad -- idealisation or devaluation. This type of projection sorts others into something of angels and demons. Furthermore, as in borderline personality disorder, these dichotic judgements may switch regularly depending on current affairs. The key thing to remember here is that projection is done to escape unfaceable feelings or judgements about oneself. Use of this defence mechanism may shift blame from self to another, often in a way that is difficult or impossible for the user to see.
More broadly, splitting belongs to a class of phenomena known as cognitive distortions. In addition to all-or-none thinking, cognitive distortions include overgeneralising, disqualifying the positive, jumping to conclusions, exaggeration, perfectionism, personalisation, always being right, and labelling of others. Obviously these all have significant implications for how one judges others, and indeed how one places blame. For the discussion here, let us talk about one more of these.
Personalisation is when a person takes the blame personally, regardless what external factors may be at play. This style of attribution is inherently self-deprecatory. Alternatively, blame may be placed entirely on another person or group. The distortion here is not that blame is occurring, but that the object is always a conventional moral agent, such as a human or AI. Essentially, an individual with this style of attribution may have an irrational tendency to place blame on agents, rather than circumstances. The trick is understanding why this happens.
As it turns out, the psychology behind placing blame disproportionately on people and other agents, rather than arrangements, is driven by the instinct of social hierarchy. Like brought up earlier, people have a tendency to compare and compete, judging one another into hierarchies of better and worse -- more or less worthy. The more insecure a person feels, or the more internalised shame or sense of inadequacy one has, the more the person may be compelled to cast blame on others. Put simply, insecurity activates the instinct of social hierarchy.
There are some noteworthy side effects to the habit of blaming the agent. One is scapegoating, or the projection of a group's fears and insecurities onto an external object. In scapegoating, the object chosen is often little, if at all, related to the underlying problem or dysfunction. Rather, the group seeks to unload its insecurity onto an unlucky target. This behaviour is much like that done in narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). One might say that groups too, not just people, can have NPD. One common target of scapegoating is minorities, of pretty much any type, who are often blamed for internal inadequacies of the majority regime. Another side effect of blaming the agent is kicking the dog, or chain reactions of blame shifting where each rung of the social hierarchy blames the next rung, all the way to the dog. Similar to scapegoating, kicking the dog picks a target generally unable to defend itself. This style of attribution, moreover, is contagious within organisations, hindering legitimate consideration of how the true underlying issues can best be resolved.

False object of blame

A curious distortion of interest is blindly taking the mental as fact. In the extreme, there is a phenomenon known as psychic equivalence. This is common in children, where the imagined monster under the bed is believed surely to exist. The line between mental and external is still thin. While most older individuals are beyond such explicit equivalence, we nevertheless have no other option for understanding reality than what our mind beholds. Whether for positive or negative, when we see or imagine someone, we are never seeing the real person. What we witness is our mental model, or mental object, of the other. The same goes for their view of us. When they behold us, they are really beholding someone else -- a construct of their imagination. Likewise, when we judge or blame another, we are really blaming someone else -- a monster of our own creation. Sometimes it can help to remember that in our mental, we are all mental.

Another defence mechanism

Aside from cognitive distortions, another key issue stands in the way of finding truth. In order to resolve deeply-seated emotional baggage, that baggage has to be opened. Yet doing so can be both painful and confusing. The mind has another trick up its sleeve to avoid facing the rain -- intellectualisation. Many have heard of rationalisation, or the making up of good-sounding stories to explain otherwise irrational or emotion-based actions and choices. Intellectualisation is related, but distinct. Instead of making up stories to seem more rational, intellectualisation makes up complex frameworks and red herrings to distract oneself and others from getting too close to the underlying feeling. Just like for splitting, the usual root cause is believed to be insecure attachment during infancy and early childhood. The result, especially later in life, is the excessive overreliance on logic and complex frameworks to avoid looking inside toward emotion. Reason becomes a comfortable hideout from hideous feeling. This disposition prevents proper reflection, making it hard or impossible to stop idealising and devaluing others. After all, one cannot stop spilling pain until one finds the source of that pain.

Relation to free will

The notion of free will comes in many definitions. These can get technical. But one fairly common theme is what they seek to support -- often some type of personal, or entity-centric, responsibility or blame. Regardless whether logically sound, the pursuit is in many cases a rationalisation of the instinctual and emotional urges of social hierarchy and ego defence. Essentially, many debates about free will are really struggles, or disagreements, on the nature of blame, and to where it should aim. In general, the belief in free will -- regardless the definition chosen -- is argued in support of some type of entity attribution. Likewise, the disbelief in free will is usually argued in support of system attribution, or blaming the way society or culture is structured. A person may choose a definition specifically to assert the desired end -- a psychological phenomenon called motivated reasoning. This text will avoid choosing a definition, as the underlying principles of behaviour are more important.
A less known paradox exists within the bounds of psychological agency. As is regularly discussed in certain circles of spirituality, there exists a spectrum of self-boundary between immediate, local, relative and timeless, non-local, absolute. This mental state of contraction or expansion depends in part on the grasping or release of fear and attachment. For those unfamiliar, the felt sense of personal agency -- sometimes called doership -- and one's associated beliefs about personal causation, are prone to change, or shift, depending on the present level of anxiety -- especially social and existential anxiety. There are two key aspects related to the sense of being in control.
The first aspect of interest is that of causal scope, or how far we trace the causes and influences behind any given event or decision. For example, as I type this, among the most immediate, or smallest causal scopes, is that of my finger pressing a key. Moving toward greater scope, we may consider that the arm is moving the finger. Further, of course, one might say the body is doing the typing. But the scope need not end there. We can trace back through the causal chains, finding all manner of influence. After all, why do I care about this? What social factors and life experiences influenced this cause? The more immediate the causal scope, the longer and more encumbered the causal chains. Hence, even though when afraid we may focus on the more immediate, hence feeling more in direct control, the more our felt boundaries of self and causality contract, the more short-sighted, distracted, and materially-bound we are. The paradox is in the inverted pyramid of influence atop our actions.
The second aspect relates to impulse and desire versus self-control and composure. Human desire may be divided broadly into basic animal instinct and social image. In Freudian terms, these would be id and ego. The former is often viewed as impulsive or animalistic; the latter as controlled and composed. A meaningful portion of pro-free will arguments seems to equate or compare the composure and planning of socially-conscious actions and choices as representative of the essence of "free will". That is, more "controlled" or deliberate actions were exercising greater free will than their more impulsive or animalistic counterparts. But is this assessment sensible?
On the one hand, being more socially aware likely helps to prevent being manipulated or impeded by others. Most would probably agree thus far. But on the other hand, the more we care about fitting in, or otherwise playing the game of social hierarchy, the more we submit ourselves to social norms and other hive behaviours. Essentially, the more we care about image, the more we let society control us. Despite this emotional tether, those with the biggest egos often proclaim the greatest sense of self-determination. Certainly one could argue that being on top of the hierarchy usually entails greater access to social amenities, some of which offering greater freedom. But there may be some right reservations here. Firstly, the enhanced freedom of high status often comes with enhanced fitment and scrutiny into the externally-defined social mould. This is not always the case, as for example with dictators. But secondly, the vast majority of those playing the ego game are neither in positions of status and power, nor emotionally secure enough to go their own way toward personal happiness. Perhaps most prominently, for most social animals, the hive provides only minimal amenity, and maximal loss of autonomy. Yet the internalised ego and self-concept obscure this reality by making cultural, emotional artifacts of socialisation -- especially during childhood -- appear as self-chosen. The person is thus a product of upbringing, but because these aspects of conditioning are so deep and unconscious, their effects are simply taken for granted as part of who one is. Hence, a second paradox exists in that what may appear as evidence for free will -- ego and composure -- is in fact the very thing enacting the long-seated will of the hive.
On a different note of the free will debate, there seems to be a phenomenon somewhat like "free will of the gaps", where any unknown of psychology or physics is received wholeheartedly as evidence for freedom. While no doubt one may never really know, particularly when stuck in the subjective mind-box, one might consider the effect of splitting, or black-and-white thinking. This habit may, without enough reflection, colour one's assessment of personal agency as either wholly existing, or wholly absent. This is not to say undue burden and other explicit interference is unregarded, but more that even the mere existence of randomness or unpredictability may be taken as sufficient reason to ward off the behavioural influences and effects known by modern psychology. Remember that splitting is driven by egoic insecurity, and that ego has vested interest in building the narrative which best places oneself in the social hierarchy of the mind. Impulsive or controlled, what we choose is there to satisfy instinct, whether animalistic, or socially-focused.

Blaming the arrangement

On the other side of inferred causation -- after instinct -- we have experience, conditioning, and circumstance. Experience and conditioning are carry-overs from past arrangement while circumstance reflects the present arrangement. For simplicity, I will place all three simply under arrangement. To borrow from earlier:

Arrangements ... are sets of objects; entities; their relative positions; their internal configurations; and their relations and interactions. Arrangements are hence the frameworks in place either materially or logically between and within entities and or objects. Common examples include law, culture, contract, education, and social hierarchy -- but also the physical placement of people and things.

With this definition in mind, what then does it mean to blame the arrangement, and what benefit does so doing provide?
First, let us consider the standard Western approach. When we blame the entity, we are accomplishing three fundamental ends:

1. declaring a point of causal significance;
2. downgrading social status;
3. offloading correction;

On the first point, blaming the entity cuts off past influences, including deficiencies and inequalities in access to essential resources like health, respect, education, and experience. One might wonder why respect is included here. But remember the types of issue that arise from internalised shame, guilt, and feelings of inadequacy. These live on subconsciously, causing non-obvious impairments in judgement and performance. Plus they harm health and performance through elevated stress hormones.
On the second point, blaming the entity lowers its public appraisal, thus cutting off access to the types of resources just mentioned.
On the third point, blaming the entity places the burden of correction squarely on the already broken component. For simple matters like enforcing social norms or decency, this type of blame is probably effective in most cases. But when we start looking at bigger matters, like health, education, intelligence, self-restraint, and general performance, the idea of forcing the suboptimal party to fix itself starts to break down. All these matters are heavily influenced by external circumstance through time. So telling the person to fix the resulting dysfunction is like telling them to rewrite their past environment, including their upbringing. Moreover, those from broken pasts are much more often the least supplied -- in both resource and knowhow -- to make things better.
And this brings us to blaming the arrangement. If instead of burdening and downgrading the unfortunate entity, we recognise the conditions of success and failure, we can apply legitimate effort toward enacting a better future. Obviously society as a whole is far better equipped to improve not only the outcome of tomorrow, but the conditions of today. Some of us, by chance, receive the winning hand. This may be in genetics, family configuration, area of schooling, or maybe just missing detrimental accidents and injuries. What sense does it make to hoard the helpings of fate, thus preventing the wealth of shared development and growth? In a world literally brimming with technological advancement, is it really better for the majority to live polarised as minority winners and majority losers?

Arguments

One might argue that blame and praise are natural and effective tools for motivation and modification of behaviour. Natural though they may be, these tools are premised on the limited knowledge and resources of tribal past. Like using a hammer to insert a screw, messy tools ought to be reserved for desperate times only. Modern medicine, psychology, and sociology offer a new toolbox, today readily available, for resolving problems with minimal collateral damage. True, not everyone has fair access to these modern amenities, and that is exactly why we need to stop blaming the victim. The technology is here. We simply need to open the gates.
Another common argument is that absent of pointing fingers, people would lose motivation, or stop caring. There may be some truth here. If we remove the whip from their backs, the slaves may begin to relax. But is that really a bad thing? Per-capita material output is already worlds higher due to automation and tooling. But artificial scarcity is brought in to "keep up the morale". This scarcity is largely in the form of wealth and income inequality, which ensure the true producers of wealth -- the workers -- are kept chasing their imagined carrot. The effect, in practice, is burnout and learned helplessness. The secondary effect is thus decreased performance, which is then "solved" with ever greater artificial scarcity, perpetuating the cycle of lies and suffering. Instead of entertaining a system of slavery with extra steps, why not more equally distribute the tools and technology of efficiency and success?
A darker argument that occasionally gets said out loud is that excessive competition and suffering help to weed out the less desirable traits. Often, it is proclaimed, nature wanted it that way. Ignoring the obvious lack of compassion, is this argument sound? The simple answer is no. The longer answer is not even a little. There are two main reasons. Firstly, the dirty game of filtering by social hierarchy was not only sloppy for its original environment of small tribes, but is completely unfit for modern, complex, abstract society. As explained previously, the legitimacy of individual merit is no longer known by fellow tribespeople. Wealth generation and extraction are too far removed and abstracted for proper outside judgement. And complex systems of power and propaganda further prevent equitable distribution of the fruits of labour. Secondly, the amount of time needed for such mechanisms of trait filtering to make an appreciable difference are substantially longer than the time from now before technology will allow superior selection of traits. There will be no need to compete in the sloppy ways of the past; nor any need to compete at all. The problem of selection is soon resolved. AI is entering the exponential phase. Petty and primitive worry about traits is irrelevant, for multiple reasons. If anything, those unable to understand this are unfit to be making policy decisions.
An argument which comes up enough to mention is that without blaming the entity, criminals would have free reign, able to do whatever they wanted without repercussions. This argument is missing something quite substantial about what is entailed by blaming the arrangement. Simply, if a certain person is believed to lack the self-control for certain situations or positions, that person will be kept away from those circumstances. A common example is driver's licensing, where one must earn the privilege by proving competence. And similarly to that, if someone is blatantly acting out and causing trouble, obviously they would be put somewhere safer. The key is rearranging circumstances as needed for best outcome while maintaining reasonable maximum personal autonomy -- without unnecessary harm, restraint, or loss of dignity. Yes, this is more involved in terms of resources and labour, but that is what technology is for. Naturally people prefer to have more privilege, and that alone is motivation enough to care.
And before someone accuses this approach of being or supporting a social credit system, we must make clear the difference. In social credit systems, blame is placed on the individual ! Sure, the factors used may involve family and acquaintance, but the burden of correction still goes to the person or small group. This is completely different from what is being proposed here.
A final argument relates to expense. On the surface -- especially from within the perspective of a system based on artificial scarcity and excessive wealth inequality -- the idea of having surplus means available for long-term planning may seem unfathomable. People's reluctance in this regard can be understood. But as mentioned above, we are presently, for presumably the first time in our recorded history, entering the age of exponential growth toward advanced artificial intelligence. Things are moving fast already, and both hardware and software are showing no slowing. If computational capacity continues to double regularly like it has for a long time now, we are probably looking at readily accessible post-human intelligence within five to ten years. Short of disaster or tyrannical interference, existing worries about labour and intellect shortage should soon evaporate. Yes, this time things are different. There is no known precedent.

Summary

Our natural instinct may tell us to blame the person. And Western culture may polarise this tendency to the extreme. But with a little understanding of why we feel the need to downsize others, we may be able to mend the splitting within us. Society may be designed around a game of hierarchy, but one need not partake. By knowing the factors that promote or inhibit wellbeing, and by using the knowledge and tools of modern, we can cast off the shallow assumptions behind us, to build something worth keeping. The first step is looking inside, to see the feeling that fears connection. Then we may look outside, to see that most are facing similar struggle. Situations are what make or break the person. If one should blame, blame the arrangement. The past may not be one for changing, but greater compassion today can find greater love tomorrow.

You Matter to Her in a Way No One Else Could
When you died and were reborn, you became divine. You were love, and you were violence, and you were my miracle. A God sprung forth from the decaying machinery of your broken body. Koishi, the God of Love and Hate—have mercy on us all.
Down by the shore of one of the great Lunar seas, there sat a lonely shack thatched with feathers. Inside, there was a massive wani no less than eight leagues long… and her infant son. To that crocodile who had never known true familial love, that delicate little child—who cooed and smiled at his mother’s every move—was nothing less than a miracle. Such a delicate life in her claws, who knew nothing but unconditional love for his mother—to the crocodile, it was proof there was still good in the world.
She was tired, but the crocodile forced herself to stay awake. There was something she needed to do—a memory she wanted to share with the most important person in her life.
So, with all the caution and tenderness in the world, she picked up her child with her jaws and coaxed him into her throat pouch. The newborn child, perhaps having some shared instinct with his crocodilian mother, did not cry or struggle. Instead, he let out a giggle as he poked his head out from between his mother’s jagged teeth. With a snort, the dragon climbed out of her thatch hut, and crawled along the shore, drawing a meandering trail in the sand as she went.
When she reached the point where the water came to shore in gentle waves, the crocodile set herself down in the sand, letting the waves wash in and lick at her child in gentle sprays. Her child giggled as the Lunar sea’s tickled him with its pure waters, and as he did, his mother couldn’t help but feel at peace.
Nothing. Nothing at all would be able to take this from her.
Her miracle.
Toyohime opened her eye to clear blue skies.
She flexed her fingers, and instead of feeling the cold steel of the ship she started to tear apart, she felt so many tiny pebbles, warmed by their time in the sun. Sand? She brought a fistful of the stuff into her vision, before letting it fall through her fingers and run down her face. It was too real to be a dream.
Toyohime sat up to observe her surroundings. As far as the eye could see, there were infinite stretches of sand collected into wind-swept dunes that obscured the horizon. It was hot. Unbelievably so for what was supposedly the void. She felt a gentle gust of warm wind pass by her and toss her hair. This place… this impossible place… was she dead?
She rose to her feet, fighting biting aches and pains from her battle not too long ago. No—not dead. Somehow, she had survived—there was no other explanation. And as she looked down to assess the damage she had taken, her suspicions were only confirmed. Her right arm was missing, and in its place was nothing but a healed stump. The nasty cuts and bruises she had received in the fighting had all healed over for the most part, the only evidence they happened at all being residual scars that were yet to disappear. The ground was covered in dried blood. She must’ve been laying here in this sand trap for hours.
She brought her free arm, completely healed, up to the general space where her right eye was to find an arrow still protruding from it. Wrapping her fingers around the shaft, Toyohime tore it out in a fluid motion, causing the wound to reopen and drip blood onto the sands below. But, through some miraculous action, it was mere moments before the flow of blood stopped as the wound healed shut. Her right eye was still inoperable, but this healing ability was downright uncanny, even for a god.
She flexed her fingers. It felt like there was a hole in her head from which memories and feelings poured out. The mystery of how she got here, who she killed, and whether she could even trust her own senses had no answer—Toyohime knew she herself had made sure of that. She supposed there was a good reason. The less she knew, the better. That was something she could trick herself into believing.
Though no matter how much she forced herself to forget, she had the horrible feeling she had done something unforgivable—something she would kill over. In a sea of atrocities however, she could hardly even begin to suppose what that might have been. Maybe the heat was starting to fry her brain.
After spending a few minutes snapping the arrows lodged in her body by their shafts, Toyohime looked to the horizon, and then up. Ahead, there was a massive sand dune, no less than five times her height, and beyond the crest—a black pillar of smoke. Toyohime was not alone.
As she made her way up the shifting incline, Toyohime got to thinking about her next course of action. If this wasn’t a hallucination, then it most certainly had to be some extension of Koishi's will. Land in an impossible space… the creation of something impossible like that could only be a factor of a deteriorating mind, or God. And Toyohime had no time to consider the possibility of a crumbling psyche—not when she had a duty left unfulfilled.
But then… that would mean this was the paradise of Koishi’s mind. Surely, by her side is where she would find her salvation. She had already come to terms with it—that there was nothing left for her in the old world. Koishi could pervert and corrupt reality in whatever twisted ways she wanted—as long as it was the creation of her heart, it would be sufficient. Everything beyond that was not worth saving to the former princess.
… But that also meant there would be more enemies. More people she had to kill. She was ready. Ready to kill and ready to die in the name of love.
And as she planted her boot upon the peak of that sand dune, she saw the whole world become bare before her. A fair distance away was the crashed wreck of a golden ship, releasing plumes of black smoke as it burnt away. From this distance, it was difficult to make out any finer details, but she was sure the occupants had escaped. Satori was resourceful and stubborn, if nothing else. Dying in a crash was an impossibility.
She then traced a line from the ship through the shifting sands—to a city upon the horizon. Massive towers of glass and steel pushing against the sky, half buried in the sand, bending light around them as they reflected the intense heat of the sun. It gave the sight an unnatural fuzziness, as if the city was threatening to disappear at any moment.
As she traced the decaying visage of those buildings upwards, she saw a thin line reach beyond and into the sky. The line separated into two before converging back on itself. Above the city, etched upon the sky itself, was a pitch black gap in reality, opened and filled with so many eyes. And above still, the object of Toyohime’s desires and her sole driving factor—Koishi Komeiji.
Though the God’s eye was open, as well as the myriad collection of smaller eyes and drooling jaws that had lined every square inch of her squirming appendages, it was hard to tell if she was awake or conscious. Toyohime knew Koishi best, and if she had any guess as to what Koishi had been doing in the time they spent apart, it was receding back into the numbing comfort of her own mind. Even now, Toyohime figured she was still dreaming, avoiding the cruel weight of her responsibility. What manifested outside of her mind must’ve been some sort of twisted runoff.
Down there, hidden in the dunes, Toyohime knew there were those who would take this dream from Koishi. Those who would hurt Koishi. Those people would’ve done just as well to dig their own graves and build their own coffins. Because so long as Toyohime drew breath, she would protect Koishi with everything she could muster—that was her promise and the nature of her impossible, unconditional love.
Koishi was Toyohime’s second chance.
This time, one way or another, there would be no opportunity for a third.
Mima, on the other hand, had woken up quite a bit earlier than Toyohime had.
She had not suffered any fatal wounds or debilitating strikes leading up to the point where the reality around her started to crumble and distort—but she had briefly lost consciousness regardless. She figured that might’ve been a good thing; an action so absurd and so against everything she knew, perpetrated by an impossibly powerful being… even if a mere glimpse didn’t physically tear her mind to ribbons, she had no interest in trying to understand such a nonsensical event.
Mima awoke not in a desert, but in a grand sprawling city of seemingly human construction. Though the sun still hung overhead, the impossible hills and mountains of sand that caged the city in, always seemed to shift and move in the most calculated way… such that the sun was always put out. Caught in the shade, the city looked like it was in a perpetual night, in spite of the blinding yellow of the endless desert just beyond its limits.
Though that was the case, the city was far from dark. Street lamps, blinding neon signs, blinking traffic lights, apartments and houses with windows illuminated by the fluorescent lights within… It gave the impression the city was alive. It seemed exactly as a real bustling city at night, with its breathing and blinking—but there were no people. No matter how far Mima walked, no matter how many buildings she popped in, she would encounter no souls. She would find, in those buildings, immaculate setpieces filled with lived-in charm, hints and implications of life—but not people. Not even Yukari, who she wandered the streets in search of.
She recognized this place. This city—Tokyo. It couldn’t have possibly been, but it was the same Tokyo she grew up in, back before the Moonlight Descent and before the Kaiju. Before her chance meeting with the youkai who used to be her friend. This city, trapped in the middle of the desert, caught in an artificial night that obscured the flow of time—somehow it managed to be the perfect recreation of a long lost city, as if someone had taken a scalpel to the part of Mima’s brain that held onto the precious memories of her past life. It was comforting, being back in familiar territory, but it also carried along a pervasive uneasiness. The nostalgia said it was real, but the rational mind knew better than to buy into an impossible mirage—made all the more uneasy by the deathly silence of its streets.
After wandering around for a dozen minutes or more, Mima eventually came to find Yukari in a 24-hour fast food joint. She was sitting, out of her suit and miraculously healed, on a stool that faced the street outside, with her head down and a small pool of drool collecting at the point where the corner of her mouth met the countertop. Renko always said Maribel could fall asleep anywhere.
Mima floated back and forth around the gently snoring form of Yukari for a bit, considering her options. She changed back into her Renko form for a second, and after adjusting her hat a little, she reached over to tap Yukari on the shoulder… but then shied away. Glancing at Yukari, then back to her bag, she rummaged through its bottomless contents and pulled out a whole host of items: hand mirrors, makeup kits, two liter bottles of listerine, mints and peppermint breath spray and assorted beauty products.
She stole a quick glance back at Yukari to make sure she was asleep before going at it—in one go, she dumped every minty product she could into her mouth before swishing the unholy mixture in her mouth. It was not a moment later that she coughed out all of that liquid ice with a retch and a gag. Sheepishly, she turned her head to see if Yukari had woken up in all the commotion. Luckily, she was still knocked out something fierce. Mima might’ve guessed she was dead, if it weren’t for the occasional snore.
Undeterred, she opened a hand mirror and began to apply her makeup. Carefully. There was a subtle art to it—she only needed enough to hide any unsightly blemishes she might’ve gotten from her rather shut-in lifestyle as a ghost. Anything more, and Maribel was bound to notice Mima was purposefully fixing her appearance around her. None of that. Mima was trying for a more subliminal approach… It’s what worked in the past, after all.
Well, upon further thought, Mima figured “worked” was too strong a word. She did die before she saw any results, after all. But enough of that, Mima thought—now that she regained her memories, she’s finally gotten another shot. This being the apocalypse and all, she figured she should probably make it count.
She clicked close her portable hand mirror and, along with the rest of her stuff, threw it back into her field bag. She stole one last glance at Yukari, who was still sleeping soundly, before straightening her hat and clearing her throat.
“Maribel…” she said in a quiet, sing-song voice. She placed a hand on Yukari’s shoulder and gave it a gentle shake. “Maribel, wake up.”
No response. Mima pouted as she shook her around again. “Merry? It’s so scary around here—I need someone super strong and amazing by my side. Maybe we could hold hands?”
Nothing but more snoring. Mima’s expression fell. “... Okay, seriously. Wake up.”
“Don’t make me break out the big guns, Merry,” Mima said, digging through her bag and pulling out an airhorn. “I’ll do it. You think I’m bluffing?”
A tense beat passes. Mima stows away the airhorn. “... Ah, I’m just kidding. I wouldn’t do something like that to you. You’re too cute, hehe.”
“I’m not above this, though.” She reaches back into her bag and pulls out a spray bottle filled with water… before giving Yukari’s face a couple of quick spritzes.
That quiet, tranquil expression to Mima seemed almost a timeless representation of the relationship she shared with Maribel quickly contorted into one of disgust. After a moment of being pelted with spray after spray of water droplets, Yukari finally was roused from her sleep, a squinty, grouchy mess.
“Who..? Urgh…” She mumbled with a groan. When Yukari saw Renko, immaculately constructed before her with enough accuracy to convince her she came straight from her memories, she froze. Her voice was barely above a whisper. “... Renko?”
“Hehe… Yep, it’s me! Your best friend. Best girl-friend, even. That is, a girl who is also a friend. Not a girlfriend, you know? Aha… Unless? Kidding, kidding.” Mima flashed an easy smile. “Glad you’re awake. Hey, before you say anything else—how do I look? I look cute, right? I know we’re in the middle of saving the world and everything, but I’ve actually been spending a lot of time taking care of my appearance.”
As Mima continued to ramble on and Yukari continued to wake up, her expression made a slow and gradual pivot. Where at first Yukari couldn’t hide her bemusement from her face—as well as that strange pained expression someone would have, seeing a loved one they have long since finished mourning appear upon their doorstep—she eventually came to settle on an empty stare and a neutral, apathetic expression. It hurt Mima a little, seeing such a radical turn in her demeanor.
“Oh,” Yukari muttered. “It’s just you.”
Mima didn’t think she intended it, but there was a layer of latent annoyance in her words. Or maybe it was disappointment? A thousand years or more apart did a lot to shift their relationship. That much was clear—and it hurt.
Yukari took a moment to look Mima up and down. With a scoff and a roll of her eyes, she delivered an unceremonious answer. “You look fine.”
Mima sighed in response. “Hey, I’ll take it.”
“More importantly…” As Yukari continued, she craned her neck around to absorb every detail of her surroundings: everything from the light fixtures above to the tables that were so meticulously set and prepared. “... Where are we?”
Her eyes naturally gravitated toward the front counter and the kitchen section that was just behind—meticulously wrapped burgers and fresh fries, set underneath heat lamps… it was as if they were all made recently. But that wasn’t even the strangest detail Yukari’s eyes were able to pick out. Upon one of the tables was a tray, filled with half eaten food—as if the patrons ceased to exist in the middle of their meal. This was beyond a mere liminal space, where it gave the impression of once being a place where people gathered—it was closer in relation to the scene of an ongoing disaster, where people had left in a hurry.
In that way, it didn’t carry much of the surreal quality of a place no longer meant for humans—it more so felt like a place with a cursed history, its sinister and mysterious narrative etched into its skin and flesh through the vestiges of human presence. Mima could tell, being a ghost herself, there was more to this place than the physical construction. As to what ‘more’ was, she could not place.
She could tell Yukari was thinking something similar by the way she walked around and took in the feeling of the place. Her posture was rigid and cautious, but not necessarily ready and waiting for danger. There was a quiet dread to the things that weren’t, but should’ve been.
“I’m trying to figure that out myself,” Mima replied, following Yukari around with her arms folded behind her back. “You’re going to think I’m crazy, but… I think we’re back in Tokyo.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy.” Yukari replied. She walked over to the table with the food and traced a finger across its top. No dust clung to the surface of her finger, as if the tabletop had recently been cleaned. She brought the back of her palm close to the food. It was still radiating just a little bit of heat, as if it had been freshly served. “That’s the part that scares me.”
“... Assuming this is all very much real, this must be Koishi’s doing,” Yukari declared, taking a moment to look down at herself. As she flexed her fingers, her eyes narrowed. Mima figured she might’ve just realized she had been healed and mysteriously back to her usual outfit. She still looked younger and weaker than she once was, but there was an undeniable, albeit subtle increase in the vitality she seemed to convey. As Yukari’s eyes wandered to the empty city street outside, Mima couldn’t help but notice that expression—that idle, faraway gaze that looked like Yukari had trapped herself in a vivid daydream. She couldn’t help but realize how much Maribel had changed—and yet stayed the same.
“Whatcha thinking, Merry?” Mima tried, shuffling up to Yukari’s side.
“Yukari.”
“Oh. Right. Ha, that’s my bad. My bad…”
“I’m thinking: why Tokyo specifically?” With a wave of her hand, Yukari opened a gap next to her. Through that little tear in reality was a bird’s eye view of the whole city, as well as the infinite desert that surrounded it. “... There must be some significance to this location, but I couldn’t possibly imagine what it could be. Not right now, knowing what we know.”
“Hey, I grew up in Tokyo, you know? Maybe it has something to do with that? And… y’know, we were teaching in Tokyo before…” Mima gestured vaguely around herself. “... Everything, I guess. Maybe Koishi’s reacting to our memories.”
“Could be. Could just as easily be something related to Koishi. Could be nothing at all.” The view through the gap eventually fizzled out, leaving nothing but the inky blackness of the pocket dimension Yukari held dominion over. She let out a sigh before stitching the gap closed with a wave of her hand. “I’d suggest we keep on moving. Collect as much information as we can about this place. But only what we need—the plan is still largely the same. There’s no telling when she will appear again. Best be as quick about it as we can.”
“Oh. Uh… Alright. That’s cool.”
“... What?”
“Hm?”
“What’s wrong? You disagree?”
“Oh no, ah…” A sheepish grin crawled across Mima’s face. “I was just thinking about how much you’ve changed, is all. It’s just… you know, a huge city missing all of its people is pretty mysterious, huh? Don’t you want to do more exploring? Poke around a bit and take in the sights? Like we used to—just one last time?”
There was an unsettling period of silence where Yukari stared straight through Mima with that flat look. She averted her eyes for a passing moment. When Yukari returned her gaze to Mima, it was steely and cold. “No. Neither of us are kids anymore. We have duties and responsibilities that we can not abandon. Not for anything.”
Yukari brushed past Mima. The gesture wasn’t very rough at all, but Mima felt it come at her hard. As Yukari opened the door, she looked back at Mima and gestured to her to follow.
“Let’s go.”
Orin did not want much from life.
There was Satori, her master, who she cared about deeply. There was Okuu, her best friend, who she loved. There was Koishi, the younger sister of her master, who she felt obligated to take care of. And of course, there was her job of transporting corpses, which she could do endlessly and without tiring. Those things more or less encompassed everything she cared about—Orin was a simple person.
So as she crawled out the emergency hatch located at the top of the ship her master had so recklessly buried into a sand dune, she couldn’t help but feel so hopelessly out of her depth. With a groan, she hoisted herself over the lip of the hatch before losing her balance and tumbling over.
As she tumbled downward, bumping her head against every little edge the ship had on her way down, the visor to her suit cracked and then shattered. But as she flopped down into the warm sand, her arms and legs spread in a state of absolute fatigue, she couldn’t really bring herself to care about the warning tones in her helmet—or the fact she was able to breathe the air here, in what used to be the void. Frankly, all she could think about was how much she wanted to go home.
“Orin! Are you okay?” A familiar voice called from somewhere outside her field of vision. It was followed by the hasty clattering of boots on metal as they no doubt clambered down the ship in a hurry.
All Orin could offer in response was a weak grunt and the extension of a thumbs up.
“Are… are you insane?” Another voice called soon after, all breathless and hoarse. It cracked with exertion, as if it had already been worn out by so much screaming. “Satori, what form of devil possessed you to do that? We could’ve all died!”
Satori, of course, didn’t respond. Not before she entered Orin’s field of view, her own helmet long since thrown away. Her face was etched with a rare look of concern, and she breathed a deep sigh of relief when she saw Orin manage a weak smile. Wordlessly, Satori jostled off the smashed helmet from Orin’s suit and brushed away any remaining debris… before pulling her into a tight embrace.
Orin, dazed and shocked from the crash, could manage little else than to rest her head upon her master’s shoulders as she was pulled in. But through whatever stores of energy she had left, she managed to raise her arms and wrap them around in loose reciprocation.
“I’m okay,” she whispered. “I’m okay.”
Satori pulled back from the hug, but stayed kneeling by Orin’s side. Cautiously, she looked to the horizon, as if she had caught a vanishing glimpse of something stalking them from behind the shifting sands. She extended an elbow for Orin to grab on to. “Let’s go. Can you stand?”
“I… I think so,” Orin mumbled, hooking one of her arms around Satori’s elbow and placing a hand on her shoulder for support. Her master lifted, and in response Orin tried her best to stumble onto her feet, with mixed results. As she straightened herself out with the help of Satori, she heard her bones shift and crackle in strange ways—followed by an absolute lightning strike of localized pain in the leg and the fuzzy static that came to replace it.
After a sharp intake of breath and a pained wince, Orin settled into a decidedly unconvincing posture—she plastered a smile on her face and shifted all of her weight onto the other leg in a poor imitation of nonchalance, but Satori’s face only got graver. It broke Orin’s heart. For a moment, Orin tried to separate herself from her master so she could stand on her own—but Satori only squeezed her in closer, as if she would’ve lost Orin the second she let go.
That didn’t surprise Orin much. She knew better than anyone that the events one year ago were still fresh in her master’s mind. Even now, it haunted her every action, and now the consequences were starting to catch up with everyone involved. But to Orin, that didn’t matter. It never did—not so long as Satori was her master, and Orin was her pet. Satori could march to the deepest pit of Hell, pick a fight with a God, oppose reality itself… and Orin would march along right beside her, no matter what.
Patchouli, on the other hand, did not share the same sentiment. She marched up to the two, at least temporarily uncaring of the fantastical environment they found themselves in, and went straight to airing out her grievances.
“Recklessly engaging with Toyohime like that, against all better logic… one day, and this day might very well come sooner than you think, your obsession with that cursed woman will hurt someone you care about,” Patchouli snapped. As she looked to Orin, whose body was riddled with evidence of blunt trauma, her expression softened. “... It already has.”
“As if we had any other choice. It was our best shot to kill her, once and for all,” Satori replied, stone-faced and cold. “... Besides, let Orin speak for herself. As if you know what she does and doesn’t wish for.”
“... Orin wasn’t the only person who got hurt. Or killed.”
“It just so happens that Eirin conveniently falls outside my definition of ‘people I care about.’ I fail to see the issue.” Satori snorted with disgust, as if offended by the mere implication. Orin wanted to speak up and cut between the fighting, but couldn’t find the strength to oppose her own master. “That aside, who says I was the one who got her killed? She got herself killed, following her own incomprehensible mess of half-baked ideas and strategies. What are you coming at me for?”
“How could you be so cold toward someone like her? Especially since we were all fighting out there together, as comrades? Have you no shame?”
“I’ve no love for her. Not after what she did to my sister.” Satori stared straight into Patchouli’s eyes. Sometimes her master was like this—staring straight ahead through a person, as if judging the content of their soul itself. Sometimes, this was literally the case, given that she made liberal use of her opened third eye. “We might be fighting beside each other, but we’re fighting for completely different things. Yukari, Eirin, Kaguya, even you and I—we’re all fighting for something different. Those are just the facts. Just as it was a fact that Koakuma had darkness in her heart. It’s that kind of fact.”
“How cynical. Aren’t we friends?”
Satori fixed Patchouli with a steady glare as she thought through her answer. Even with an open eye, Orin found her master’s thought process difficult to parse.
“... No. We aren’t,” Satori settled. “It’s not a secret—I’m fighting to get my sister back. I’m fighting to kill the person who turned her into a monster. I’m fighting to protect my family. You are doing none of those things—you’re fighting for a more abstract reason: protecting the world, or preventing human suffering, or whatever other justification you assign to your actions. It’s admirable, but recognize that It’s only by convenience that we’re here, helping each other out.”
“... Is that right?” Patchouli muttered under her breath. “Then if it came between Yukari, or Eirin, or me, or anyone else… and your family. Who would you choose?”
Silence.
“It’s best to be honest with ourselves. It saves us the heartache.”
“I see.”
In the silence that came after, the atmosphere seemed to become heavier. Orin spent each passing beat being suffocated by the pressure. Her eyes darted from Patchouli to her master, and then back again.
“Er…” Orin started. “Let’s ah… could we just figure out what we’re going to do next, maybe? Without fighting—that would be nice.”
“Good plan, Orin,” Satori said. Though strangely enough, she wouldn’t take her eyes off of Patchouli. “I’m not quite sure what we would do without you.”
Patchouli looked away. Orin couldn’t help but feel vaguely responsible—though the second the thought even popped into mind, Satori squeezed a little tighter, as if in reassurance.
“... There’s no use in arguing,” Patchouli said with a heavy sigh. “Or rather, it’s a subject for later, when we aren’t all in danger. For now, I agree—we should figure out our next steps.”
The guns had long since run quiet.
Those satellites—their powerful bodies forged by the greatest minds, cast in the strongest metals, and mounted with the fiercest weapons humanity could muster—how could they have possibly matched the horror of God’s wrath? They could never, and for their hubris, their bodies and their souls were scattered and broken as a million glittering lights upon the ocean.
Those were the kinds of things Kaguya Houraisan thought about as she sat beside a flickering fire, her only source of light deep in the darkness of a desert night, not a few meters from the turned and battered wreckage of the CNS Beyond the Sun. In the void, It was battered by unseen force, turned three times—and upon the fourth, struck down and consumed by the void, as was the divine will of God. To its crew, it might have seemed like nothing less than a castigation of divine nature—but Kaguya knew it was nothing more than the temper tantrum of a child. As infant children must necessarily cry, Koishi must necessarily kill—it was her unconscious will.
Woe upon humanity, as its greatest accomplishment was brought low and made worthless before a child. Her own child. What a dubious honor it was—being the mother of such a terrifying, omnipresent killer.
Kaguya was on the ship when it was attacked by Toyohime. She was there to see Eirin march on to meet her. And she was there to see her die. It didn’t bother Kaguya too much—after all, she had watched Eirin die countless times. She will likely watch her die countless more, before all is said and done. But it was there, seized by the temporary shock, that Kaguya lost consciousness. When she woke up, she was deep within the fresh wreckage of humanity’s greatest weapon—alone. On what happened to her crew, and why Kaguya was spared, she could only make guesses.
With no direction and no plan, Kaguya spent what felt like hours wandering the claustrophobic halls of that great metal cage of a ship. But she was alone. Alone in such a way that not even the impression of humanity remained. Even the spot where she saw three men become atomized by Toyohime’s attack, which had burnt dark impressions of their silhouettes into the steel, was mysteriously void of any sign they were killed at all. The damage remained, but the people were gone—erased from existence in a way only God could manage.
When she eventually emerged from the dark recesses of the ship into a darker night, with nothing but the stars above and the inexplicable ground below, she could do nothing but start a simple fire. The night was cold, and she had a feeling it would be long. Warmth would be needed.
This, alone and huddled by a dying fire, must have been the end. Kaguya shifted closer to the flame, and held her knees closer to her chest. She didn’t know what to do. When her own daughter had sought her out, she didn’t know what to say. All she could do was recognize—that in pursuit of an easy life, she had made things so much worse. She wondered if it was too late to make things right between herself and Koishi. If Kaguya had looked up to her daughter now, and said sorry, would she hear? Would she care?
She wasn’t sure. And she wasn’t sure if she wanted to find out.
As she stared at the stars above, Kaguya heard the shuffling of boots displacing the sand. The sounds came in an irregular, halting motion. When it came to a stop, Kaguya lowered her gaze to the figure who stood at the edge of her fire’s light.
A moon rabbit in a pilot suit, all ripped up, tattered, and blackened by combat. In the gaps of her suit, her skin had melted away from severe burns—and froze in place, creating large patches of gangrenous tissue that covered her body. As Kaguya’s eyes drifted downward, she noticed a patch of body that had a view to the other side. Somehow, by some miracle of medicine, the wound remained stable and closed.
Her face was concealed by her helmet, tinted and patterned by a spider web of cracks, but by the way she stood, so still and lopsided, Kaguya had the impression of an empty gaze just behind the facade.
The moon rabbit carried in her left hand a revolver, its chambers empty and on display as the mechanism that connected the grip to the top half of the hung loose. In her other hand, was an ax, splintered in half at the handle from excessive use and its blade caked in a thick layer of blood.
Without a word, the moon rabbit collapsed into a heap by the fire.
Kaguya rushed to the moon rabbit’s side and, upon removing her helmet, froze.
Atonement—she wondered if it was even possible.
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