Hurt and Heal: the Love Interest - ROUND 11 - Something wicked this way shambles

Started by Uncle Yuan, September 28, 2011, 03:54:00 AM

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BlueBard

STO/CO: @bluegeek

Xenolith

Obviously this means a lot to these characters!   :D

PreRaphaelite

I don't know, some people will do anything to be in the spotlight...!  :rolleyes:
Yours sincerely, Judi Dench.

Uncle Yuan

A very lively round with four contestants taking multiple hurts AND heals this round.  MJ and Steve experience no net change, while Iris and Wyatt both gain ground.  With Alicia's corrected score Iris stands alone on the top of the heap.  Mariko finally falls!

Our Contestants:
Mary Jane Watson (Spider-man) 1
Iris West (Flash - Barry Allen) 10
Alicia Masters (Thing) 8
Steve Trevor (Wonder Woman) 7
Carol Ferris (Green Lantern - Hal Jordan) 4
Wyatt Wingfoot (She-Hulk) 5
Linda Park (Flash - Wally West) 9
Sharon Carter (Captain America) 8
Pepper Potts (Iron Man) 8

Eliminated:
Lois Lane (Superman)
Betty Ross (Hulk)
Mariko Yashida (Wolverine)

Round 9 is the counterpart to the earlier Hand of Doom - The Touch of Grace.  One post will be randomly chosen to have it's heal doubled this round!
"But there's no use crying over every mistake
You just keep on trying 'till you run out of cake
And the science gets done, and you make a neat gun
For the people who are still alive."

Glitch Girl

Carol Ferris discovers she has the same stunt double as Princess Vespa  (hurt)

Steve Trevor is promoted to four-star general (heal)
-Glitch Girl

"Cynicism is not maturity, do not mistake the one for the other. If you truly cannot accept a story where someone does the right thing because it's the right thing to do, that says far more about who you are than these characters." - Greg Rucka

Mr. Hamrick

Between Kirsten Dunst playing her in the Raimi movies and her not being in the new Spidey movies, Mary Jane just flat out gives up.  (hurt)

Pepper Potts celebrates that she didn't have Princess Vespa's stunt double in the Iron Man movies. (heal)

BlueBard

One More Day for MJ?

I don't think so.  (( Hurt ))

Pepper gets a cup of coffee... for herself!  This lady is not a secretary or eye candy.  She's an executive assistant with enough brains to run Stark Industries.  (( Heal ))
STO/CO: @bluegeek

Deaths Jester

Linda Park finds out the effects of friction burn in private places!  (hurt)

Mary Jane returns to her origianl catty self without all the other baggage! (heal)
Avatar picture originally a Brom painting entitled Marionette.

PreRaphaelite

Carol Ferris gets distracted by a plastic bag caught in the wind, trips, and grazes her knee. [Hurt]

Wyatt Wingfoot arrives with a plaster, ready to save the day. [Heal]
Yours sincerely, Judi Dench.

Xenolith

Steve Trevor burns his tongue while eating a microwave burrito.  Wonder Woman won't save his worthless hide this time.  (Hurt)
Alicia Masters gives a presentation on the "Great Masters" at Empire State University.  Peter Parker takes her picture (Heal) bit JJJ won't buy them.

Uncle Yuan

Mary Jane Watson (sometimes) Parker finally falls after hanging on by her beautifully manicured fingernails for several rounds!  PreRaphaelite has his heal doubled this round, giving Wyatt a double up.  Pepper also gains two and joins Iris on the top of the heap.  Carol Ferris has the most damaging round, which is only to be expected after being exposed as Deadpool's girlfriend.

Our Contestants:
Iris West (Flash - Barry Allen) 10
Alicia Masters (Thing) 9
Steve Trevor (Wonder Woman) 7
Carol Ferris (Green Lantern - Hal Jordan) 2
Wyatt Wingfoot (She-Hulk) 7
Linda Park (Flash - Wally West) 8
Sharon Carter (Captain America) 8
Pepper Potts (Iron Man) 10

Eliminated:
Lois Lane (Superman)
Betty Ross (Hulk)
Mariko Yashida (Wolverine)
Mary Jane Watson (Spider-man)

Down to eight, and with the exception of Sharon Carter most of our remaining contestant are in pretty strong shape.  So I suppose it makes this round's Special especially appropriate, because Round 10 features . . .

The Poison Apple (dun dun duuuuuun)!  One randomly selected heal this round will not be a heal, but instead will be a poison trap in the guise of a delicious, crisp fall apple and will inflict 5 points of damage!
"But there's no use crying over every mistake
You just keep on trying 'till you run out of cake
And the science gets done, and you make a neat gun
For the people who are still alive."

BlueBard

"Hey, no hard feelings about our little dust-up," Steve Trevor tells Wyatt.  "In fact, here's a peace offering:  Have an apple!"  (( Heal Wyatt ))

Hal's a no-show for a date... Again.  (( Hurt Carol ))
STO/CO: @bluegeek

Glitch Girl

After Hal's no-show, Carol drowns her sorrows in Haagen Dazs, and later discovers her costume won't  fit anymore. (hurt)

Pepper Potts feels relieved that she only had a cameo in the Iron Man anime (which was worse than the Wolverine one IMO)
-Glitch Girl

"Cynicism is not maturity, do not mistake the one for the other. If you truly cannot accept a story where someone does the right thing because it's the right thing to do, that says far more about who you are than these characters." - Greg Rucka

Xenolith

Alicia agrees to make a statue of Carol (heal Alicia) for the lobby of Ferris Aircraft, but the statue is kind of chunky, like Carol (hurt).  Not a feeel-good moment.

PreRaphaelite

Wyatt Wingfoot is not the forgiving type. He happily munches down the apple, then throws the core at Steve's head, which rebounds with a clunk: "Ow, that really hurt."
[Hurt Steve, heal Wyatt]
Yours sincerely, Judi Dench.

Mr. Hamrick

Sharon Carter invites Linda Park over to watch the festivities and serves some slight overdone homeade Apple Pie.  (Heal)

Linda mistakes the pie for Apple Brown Betty but eats it anyway and gets a bit sick.  (hurt)

Uncle Yuan

#76
Clearly everyone got some sort of apple this round, but, alas, only Alicia got the Poison Apple.  Carol Ferris goes down under a wave of pain (three hurts!!) becoming the fifth elimination of the game.  Iris and Pepper hold on to their top spots while Wyatt and Sharon move up to the second tier (just vacated by Alicia!).

Our Contestants:
Iris West (Flash - Barry Allen) 10
Alicia Masters (Thing) 4
Steve Trevor (Wonder Woman) 6
Wyatt Wingfoot (She-Hulk) 9
Linda Park (Flash - Wally West) 7
Sharon Carter (Captain America) 9
Pepper Potts (Iron Man) 10

Eliminated:
Lois Lane (Superman)
Betty Ross (Hulk)
Mariko Yashida (Wolverine)
Mary Jane Watson (Spider-man)
Carol Ferris (Green Lantern - Hal Jordan)

In keeping with the spirit of the season* I'm going to try something completely different to wrap things up.  It's . . .

A ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE!  Lois Lane rises from the dead!  That's to be expected, this is comics after all!  But not like this, for she has become the first of the walking dead.

The final rounds will be structured differently - as a sudden death play off.  Each player will write a SHORT vignette (2-3 sentences) describing how Zombie Lois (or, in subsequent rounds, the growing zombie horde) attacks and kills any one of the remaining contestants.  The walking dead will attack and eat anyone, so from this point relative health really doesn't matter.  Anyone can participate, so any lurkers interested are welcome to throw their hat into the ring.  Once it looks like I have all the submissions for gruesome zombie death for the round I will open up the voting.  For approx 24 hours anyone may register their vote for the winning (loosing?) submission to me via PM.  Anyone may vote (readers included), but everyone may only vote once.  Ties may result in a double death, or be broken by me at my whim.

Go get 'em, Lois!

*That would be the start of the second season of the Walking Dead.
"But there's no use crying over every mistake
You just keep on trying 'till you run out of cake
And the science gets done, and you make a neat gun
For the people who are still alive."

BlueBard

I can't stand zombie-mania, absolutely detest zombie cannibal stories, so I'm going to be the spoilsport and bow out at this point.

I got what I wanted, which was to erase "52" Lois and "BND" MJ from my own personal continuity.  I'll always remember the versions of those characters I really enjoyed, who were the real love interests of two of my favorite super heroes.

I will say that, had the voting continued on, I would've stuck up for Pepper -- even though she's not exactly a girlfriend, she's still the kind of woman I admire: she's a woman of integrity and the man in her life simply can't do without her.
STO/CO: @bluegeek

Glitch Girl

Wyatt stared in horror at the decaying form lurching towards him groaning as it shuffled closer and closer.

"Lois?" he gaped. "Lois Lane?  Is that..?  Is that you?"

The walking corpse swayed slightly, staring at him.  Then it smiled.

"Wyatt Wingfoot, isn't it?  Yes, I think I remember you. You were with Jennifer Walters when I interviewed her for the Planet."

"Yes, that's right," he said, continuing to stare.  "I barely recognized you.  How..?"

"Oh this?" She sighed. "Perry wanted someone to do an insider's piece on the Slouching Dead, and I'm doing it because Cat cashed in all her favors since she wasn't about to set foot in the makeup tent."

"Yeah, that makeup...it looks..."

"Disgusting?"

"I was going to say amazing... but in this case, I guess it's the same thing."

The both laughed.

"What about you?" Lois asked with an inquisitive wink. "Don't tell me the Sensational She-Hulk is going to be guesting."

"Sorry Ms Lane.  I'm here on my own.  There was a charity auction to be an extra on the show, and since I'm a big fan-"

"ALL RIGHT PEOPLE," the PA's voice boomed through the bullhorn, "ZOMBIES, LINE UP ALONG THE BLUE TAPE FOR INSTRUCTION.  HUMANS, WE'RE READY FOR YOU IN MAKEUP.  LET'S GO!"

“Guess that’s our cues.”

Lois nodded.  “Tell Ms. Walters if she ever wants to give an exclusive about her heroing career-”

“-”I’ll make sure she talks to you first.”
----

“ALL RIGHT, THAT WAS GOOD PEOPLE, LET’S SET IT UP AND DO IT AGAIN.  ZOMBIES, VICTIMS, TO YOUR MARKS.”

Despite the fact he was supposed to “die” again in a few minutes (and probably several more times, depending on retakes) Wyatt was having a great time.  He’d already gotten to meet some of the cast (albeit in passing), and the rest of the extras made him feel right at home. 

“...ZOMBIE 12, I WANT YOU TO SWITCH VICTIMS WITH ZOMBIE 18,” the director’s voice boomed as he organized the chaos for another take. “ZOMBIE 5, LURCH A  LITTLE FASTER THIS TIME.  VICTIM 2, DROP THE SHOTGUN JUST AS THEY BREAK THE DOOR DOWN, NOT LATER.  LET’S SEE HOW THAT LOOKS.  EVERYONE READY?”

His instructions had been simple, fire some blanks a few times while backing away as zombies burst through the defenses and go down as soon as the nearest zombie got to him. 

“...SPEED...AND...ACTION!”

And so it began again, the “ragtag group of survivors” were once more decimated as their defenses were breached by the “seemingly unstoppable hoards of the dead”.  For something so bleak, it was surprisingly fun.  Wyatt fired a few times, trying to hold his ground as the “undead” surged forward and prepared to meet his end at...  well, it used to be Zombie 12 (who introduced himself as Bob after one of the previous takes).   

This time...

The Lois zombie was rapidly lurching towards him, arms outstretch, black ichor dripping from her mouth. 

Ah. Zombie 18, small world, he thought, as per direction, he backed away as she closed in, the gun clicking uselessly, empty of blanks...

At least until his foot landed awkwardly on something hard.  He leg started to twist and pain shot through his knee as he pitched backwards, landing hard on the ground, just as Zombie-Lois moved in for the kill...

---

“No really, I’m fine. I’m -gggnn-just fine!”

“You’re not fine Mr. Wingfoot,” the medic said flatly.  “I’m afraid you may have torn a few ligaments when you fell.  We’ll need to take you to County General to make sure.”

He wanted to argue, but the relentless throbbing in his leg told him that something serious was wrong, thanks to the shotgun he’d tripped over.   He wondered how much of the take was usable since Lois broke character as soon as she noticed something was wrong and started yelling for a medic. 

Sadly though, it looked like his chance to be on his favorite show  was effectively dead.

(for the record, I'm not much of a zombie fan either ;) )

EDIT: I know it's more than the 2-3 sentences, but the sequence was too fun to stop writing at just a few words.
-OCD Glitch Girl
-Glitch Girl

"Cynicism is not maturity, do not mistake the one for the other. If you truly cannot accept a story where someone does the right thing because it's the right thing to do, that says far more about who you are than these characters." - Greg Rucka

BlueBard

Brilliant, GG!... Absolutely, totally, a wonderfully creative spin on the assignment.

Somebody else might well come up with a more grisly version, but I bet nobody comes up with one more clever.

You got my vote.
STO/CO: @bluegeek

Uncle Yuan

GG - great entry!

But . . . other folks, please don't feel you need to match her word count.  I specified short vignettes because I don't want to intimidate folks who may not feel up to writing something so involved.  The typical bits we've been seeing here so far were more what I had in mind.
"But there's no use crying over every mistake
You just keep on trying 'till you run out of cake
And the science gets done, and you make a neat gun
For the people who are still alive."

Xenolith

I too don't care for zombie mania.  GG's story in my mind wraps up the round even though I was firmly in Wyatt's corner.

Glitch Girl

-Glitch Girl

"Cynicism is not maturity, do not mistake the one for the other. If you truly cannot accept a story where someone does the right thing because it's the right thing to do, that says far more about who you are than these characters." - Greg Rucka

PreRaphaelite

Well, I wasn't really going to say or do anything this round as I wasn't extremely inspired, and it's been a bit hectic around here of late. Still, I can't let this round end on an "eh, that'll do" note, so I managed to gather together a few minutes to make something up (although, on reflection, I clearly had no idea where I was going – as usual).

Quote from: BlueBard on October 11, 2011, 01:03:04 PM
"52" Lois Lane does some incredibly stupid thing like walking up to Darkseid and asking for an exclusive interview.  Unfortunately she didn't know Superman was halfway across the galaxy... He's not swooping in to save you this time, lady.  ((The final HURT!!! ))

Why did she do it? All Louis had wanted was a good story, a classic interview: the type of in-depth, hard-hitting interview she was known for. She would blow away everything people thought they knew, and no doubt win yet another award. Unfortunately, thanks to Darkseid, that award had become her memorial, and now? Now Louis was angry... and hungry. Mainly angry.


"Darkseid!"

"Excuse me?"

"Darkseid!"

"No, no. Carter. Cahr-tehr. Or Sharon – Sharon will do fine."

"Darkseid! Daahrkseydd!"

Sharon sighed. It had been three weeks since the lab techs had dragged this thing from some otherworldly dimension. Three weeks probing decomposing flesh, first with scalpels, then with cattle prods; asking questions day and night; using telepaths, empaths, technopaths, psychopaths and pathogens, and still the only thing they knew about the creature was that it had, at one point, been a woman, and that for some reason it was obsessed with the dark side. Trust her to get saddled with an inter-dimensional Star Wars nerd. And my goodness did it smell.

Oh great, it was staring at her again.

Sharon rifled through a pack of alphabet cards and then reluctantly held up an illustration of a lemon. "Lemon. Leh-mon."

"Darkseid," the corpse replied, stubbornly.

"Man," Sharon flashed a picture of a strangely buff man with slick, dark hair and thick-rimmed glasses. The corpse twitched, the first response anyone had seen since its arrival.

"Yes. Yes, that's right. Man. Ma-an." The card in hand, Sharon drew closer to the corpse, keeping an eye out for any unusual changes in its behaviour. Suddenly, and without any real or legitimate explanation, the creature slipped free from its bonds, squeezed its decaying body between the bars, and was legging it out of the cell at an unearthly speed before Sharon could even drop the alphabet card and draw her gun.

"Claaarkseid!" it cawed as it fled.

"No! Bad corpse, bad!" and Sharon took off in pursuit.

--

By the time Sharon found the corpse, it had already made its way back to the lab and the inter-dimensional transporter through which it had arrived. Somehow it had managed to disguise itself, sneak past thirteen guards, bypass the mainframe, open three complicated locking mechanisms and obtain the access codes for two highly restricted areas without anyone but Sharon being any the wiser – as if the corpse had at one point been a spy, or worse, a reporter.

"Stop where you are!" Sharon raised her firearm in the direction of the corpse.

"Darkseid!" it gargled loudly, and before Sharon could sigh, swear, or build a birdhouse, buttons were pressed, and wires were fiddled with.

"I said stop that!" but it was already too late. The whole of the room swam and sank, span and swirled, and it was all Sharon could do to keep her lunch from resurfacing.

When at last she looked up, there was the corpse, unmoved and unmoving, but they were certainly no longer in the clinical environment of the lab. Across a rocky landscape, a rather odd looking man stood someway in the distance. He was enormous, grey and dour. His head was furrowed to the point that it resembled a peach stone or a prune, and his eyes, they seemed to be glowing.

"DARKSEID!" the corpse wailed on sighting the man, and instantly began a lengthy charge towards him, its mouth open wide. Sharon raised her gun, firing precise shots at the corpse in a vain attempt to stop its mad rush. Unfortunately for her, the bullets only passed harmlessly through the creature, to impact with an ineffectual 'chink' against the body of the grey man.

The man's eyes traced the flight of the bullets back to where Sharon stood. He stared at her now with as much disinterest as he showed the charging corpse. His gaze seemed to root her to the spot, making it impossible to turn away. Away from the bright light of those glowing, red eyes. How deep the red, and how intense the shine...
Yours sincerely, Judi Dench.

Glitch Girl

Bump?  They're not all dead yet.

BTW: Yuan, if real life is keeping you busy (being the holidays and all), would you mind if I ran it for a bit?
-Glitch Girl

"Cynicism is not maturity, do not mistake the one for the other. If you truly cannot accept a story where someone does the right thing because it's the right thing to do, that says far more about who you are than these characters." - Greg Rucka

Mr. Hamrick

I have nothing for the "zombie apocalypse" round.

that kinda lost my interest

PreRaphaelite

Yours sincerely, Judi Dench.

Glitch Girl

Quote from: PreRaphaelite on December 01, 2011, 11:37:29 PM
Quote from: Glitch Girl on December 01, 2011, 02:43:04 AM
Bump?  They're not all dead yet.

Wow, somebody's out for blood!  :P

MWHAHAAHAHAAAAA!!  :twisted:

(actually, I just was curious how this game would finally resolve)

-Glitch Girl

"Cynicism is not maturity, do not mistake the one for the other. If you truly cannot accept a story where someone does the right thing because it's the right thing to do, that says far more about who you are than these characters." - Greg Rucka