bakerstreet | Underworld Meme

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Underworld Meme

The Underworld Meme

Perhaps you fought bravely and fell in battle defending innocents. Maybe you were a tyrant who's just been given your comeuppance. Maybe you have another reason for seeking out the place beyond death.

Whatever happened, you're here now. What next?

What kind of afterlife have you reached?

I. Greek: The Greek underworld comes in two flavors: the misty Hades and bloody Tartarus. All dead mortals are sent to Hades, but the most wicked are delivered to Tartarus for eternal suffering. Hades can be visited by the living, but do take care around the cuisine. Those who eat the delicious food are bound to Hades forever.

II. Buddhist: One is not reborn into Naraka without having lived a very low life. If your karma has not been considered during life, if you have not done to others as you would have them do to you, then you shall suffer in the next life. The lifetimes in Narakas can range from firey penetration to cold so extreme that it cracks the body open. This is a lifetime that lasts for hundreds of years, until you are reborn over and over again waiting to restore your karma to a clean state once again.

III.Christian: Hell is a residence for the unsaved. Like the fallen angels before you, you will be expelled from paradise and left to burn and suffer forever. Will you repent? And will you be allowed to ascend if you do?

IV. Egyptian: The realm of Duat is an interesting place to visit, but one should hope never to be forced to live there. It is the realm of Osiris, and the home of gods and fierce creatures alike. To pass through Duat, one must find a way through a series of gates guarded by fearsome creatures. What will you do to pass by the "Blood-drinker who comes from the Slaughterhouse"? Will you spend eternity in pieces decorating the gates to warn the next traveller?

V. Judaism: Sheol is a place of darkness. It isn't concerned over whether you were kind to others in your life. It has no interest in making you suffer. You lived, and then you died. And now you are here, in the blackest of voids, where God has no interest in you. How will you keep hold of yourself here? Will you whither away into a mere shade of a spirit, rendered weak and emotionless?

VI. Aztec: The journey though Mictlan is a long and arduous one. The journey from the first to ninth levels requires four years of unending travel over mountains and through bloody rivers. Will you be chased by wild beasts? Will your undead guide bring you to the next world safely? Or will you be sent to join one of the elemental gods to bear the sun or rain instead?

VII. Norse: It's cold in Nifleheim, the land of mists. You are here if you have dishonored yourself. And here you will stay under the rule of the goddess Hel. Beware of the dragon Nithhogg, who sucks on the blood of the deceased.
Unless of course your warrior spirit has died in glorious battle. In that case, please enjoy your paradise in Valhalla.

VIII. Islamic: Sinners are banished to one of the seven gates of Jahannam. Jahannam is a place of pain and fire, where the condemned move about with flame-charred skin under a smoky sky that provides no shade from the heat. Angels, strict and severe, oversee that the tortures are befitting of a person's misdeeds in life. They dress the deceased in clothes made from fire and feed them boiling liquid that scalds them from the insite out.

IX. Pop Culture: The vision of Hell commonly depicted in media takes hints from different religions and mashes them together as it sees fit. Consider this the "mix and match" option.

X. Something else: There are several other visions of the underworld, as well as religions with afterlives far more complex than I felt comfortable simplifying for meme's sake. Where will you go when your life ends?

What brings you here together? Are you fellow damned? Did you find a way to visit the underworld in an attempt to rescue a loved one who died too soon? Are you one of the guardians or challenges? Who were you before, and what will become of you next?

As per the "everything goes" nature of many depictions of the underworld, threads in this meme may include triggering content. Please remember to note any limits in your thread openers if particular content causes you problems.

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[Bruce felt the back of his head, as he got up slowly. What the hell happened? Was he thrown off the top of a building or had he been gassed by Crane again? Wherever he was, it wasn't Gotham city. He looked around for any other signs of life in the strange land, when he spotted Maranda.]

Miranda Where the hell are we?

Edited 2013-10-20 10:46 (UTC)

[ Talia frowned, having realized that being in a strange place with Bruce (still thinking she was Miranda!) could only mean things had not gone according to plan.

Talia hates losing. But she had to be Miranda, had to stay in character until she figured out what was going on. For his sake, she forced the frown away for a look of concern. ]

Are you alright, Bruce?

[ Miranda moved to him, scrambled from her own place on the ground to be at his side where she carefully checked him for a more serious injury. ]

Do you think it was -

[ had they been kidnapped? it wasn't part of the plan, not now. not in this unfamiliar place. had she been betrayed? left here to die with the man who killed her father? a bitter way to go. ]

Bane?

Yeah, I'm alright. I think. [He rubbed the back of his neck and looked around. Where the hell were they?] This certainly isn't Gotham. I don't think even Bane is capable of this.

Last time I knew of him was him robbing a bank and getting away on motorbikes. This couldn't be him. He's a powerful thug but I doubt he could do this. [Bruce turned to Miranda. Was she alright?] Are you alright?

[[ooc: anything involved in him not having his eyesight or wits would be a very personal hell for him, you can take that and run with it.]]

[ Anything goes, really. Snake has killed a lot of people, whether or not he's seen as a "hero". He's not ending up in "heaven", that's for sure. ]

[It finally happened. The Legendary Warrior Samus Aran finally met her end... but by her own hand. Her latest mission served well to piss the Federation off; she'd effectively given them a big fat one-fingered salute after the fiasco that was Biologic Space Laboratories. They wanted a bioweapon of mass destruction, and she wasn't going to let them have it... even if she had to take it with her to the grave.

Even if she became that very bioweapon.

Samus Aran did not fear death. But she wasn't sure what to expect, frankly. Probably not sunshine and rainbows--she'd done a lot of terrible things in the name of the mission accomplished.

She laid on the lifeless, dull rocks of this dark and dreary valley, spread eagle, looking up at a starless black sky. Her armor was gone but it felt like it was still there weighing her down. The air was thick and smelled of brimstone--no, no, marginally more tolerable than that... more like cigarette smoke. She wondered if she even really was dead at all. She just got here, didn't she? In her time she encountered ancient ghosts that were slayed by her bullets and then there were monsters like Ridley who didn't like to stay dead despite her best efforts. The concept of an afterlife was a nebulous one for her; something she either didn't think about at all, or spent her entire life defying.

Until now, anyway. She frowned.]

Pretty sure Zebes was worse than this...

[ Snake hadn't been sure of what he was expecting, really. He wasn't one to believe in heaven or hell, considering his life was pretty much the latter on earth. He remembered lying on his deathbed, Hal and Sunny at his side. It was quiet, there was no big ceremony... There was no big crowd of people huddled around him.

It was cold, quiet, and humble. And when he took his final breath and closing his eyes, he soon opened them again, taking in a few more breaths. This time, Hal and Sunny weren't here, in fact, he was in some sort of valley. He frowned, rubbing his head... ]

Hnn...

[ He was pretty sure he died. But he still looked (and felt) old. No rest for the weary, anyway. Snake slowly stood up, groaning as he did so. He was dressed in a black suit and tie, thankfully no sign of that damn sneaking suit. He was retired, after all. ] If this is hell, it's not what I expected... There's no way this is heaven. [ For one, he'd killed way too many people to be admitted, and besides, he was still old and sore. Wasn't heaven supposed to take away all that? ]

Might as well go somewhere... Can't stay here forever. [ The veteran began to walk, soon noticing someone else lying in the distance. Looked like a person anyway. Old habits died hard, and David found himself crouching and sneaking towards her. ]

(( OOC: As a wildcard (X) option, Sasha/Athena can be the Virgil to your Dante, or your "savior" out of hell if that's something you'd like to explore. :D Just a little note that since Hades or hell of any form is not her domain she can't be all hax/godmode no thanks to being bound to her human vessel, so there's space for working together! The question now is: do you want to be saved? ))

[can be challenger, rescue, rescuer, or anything else. go nuts.]

((To be honest: this isn't my guy's first time in a place like this. Or the second. Or third, if you count Apokolips as its own sort of hell. And, it probably won't be his last, either.))

[Japanese assassin who committed suicide by proxy, therefore the Buddhist route would make most sense out of these -- but maybe he's on vacation in another religion's version of hell?]

[OOC : Most likely Norse for obvious reasons, but if you feel like trying another one, I'd be game.]

[She metaphorically descends into hell to drag people out all the time. Let's make it literal!]

[He's been here forever. It's been a gradual thing, a wearing away of his sense of time but it's gotten to the point he can't remember a time before. Not clearly. Somewhere, in the back of his soul, there are still traces of it, traces of who and what he was before all of this - but they're buried under layers of seared off skin, the smell of rot and fire, the continuous fall of ashes. He hadn't died, he knew that, somehow, still - but he'd been dragged through... something. He'd been dragged through something by one of the creatures doomed to writhe here and there was no way out. He still heals, astonishingly fast. It keeps most of the worms that swim through the air out of his skin, heals him back over when it rains fire and there's nowhere to hide from it, keeps him from dehydrating to a husk hung on one of the electric pole/crosses that line the cracked asphalt of the roads with their rusted shells of cars, some with the victims still in them. He moves, always moves, with a gun that's long since run out of bullets and melted in places. Past the hollow shells of the never ending city buildings where the damned are prey and danger at the same time. Always moving, trying to stay one step ahead of the demons in canine form that tail him doggedly, one step ahead of the creatures on leather wings that dive from the burning clouds in the sky and that lurk in dark corners and under cars, forever feasting on the undying damned, forever hungry for another. Overhead the sky suddenly cracks opens to a night without stars and a full, overlarge, rotted moon and fire falls, forcing John into the temporarily empty doorway of a pitted apartment complex where the snicker snak of metal knives echo down from the missing doors of the rooms. He presses back against the wall and pants, waiting for the chance to move on again. Always moving, never anywhere to go.]

[Joan doesn't belong here, and that is her salvation.

It's almost like the demons can't see her. They are focused on the damned, on their torments and tearing their screams from their flayed bodies. Joan walks past and she doesn't stop. She can't stop. Stop and they see. Stop and she's dead. The damned beg her to help them, then scream abuse at her when she refuses to acknowledge them. They don't understand, can't understand, and she can't make them understand. She must move or both she and John will be lost.

When he didn't come back, Joan knew he couldn't be dead. He had to be trapped, unable to die but unable to find his way home. There was one rescue party that was quickly shredded, and after that it was decided that they just couldn't afford to send team after team to their deaths. John was on his own.

They were wrong, though. John had her.

She walks past burning cars with screaming occupants in the conflagrations, twitching forms in gutters that are fed on by vultures with humanoid faces. Up the street, she sees a figure slumping into a doorway. He's not aggressive like the demons, nor cowering like the damned.

John?

She heads toward him.]

[He's stayed put too long. He knows it. He'd give anything for a chance to rest, to just - sit down, close his eyes for just a moment. Anything for a sip of water. Except he can't. There's no rest, no safety and there hasn't been a gentle liquid here since the beginning. Dogged, running on stubborn because he doesn't even have a reason anymore not to just lay down and let them tear him to pieces, he pushes away from the wall. Time to go, time to move, time to keep moving. His head turns automatically, to scan up and down the street and he sees -

he sees...

precious

It whispers through him, somewhere in the back of his chest, thin, translucent, something buried so deep everything but his soul's forgotten it. His mind, his memories, they've all been seared away, too dangerous in this place, too important to remember - too far from what he is now to belong inside him anymore and yet -

precious

He feels as if his boots have taken root, as if he's finally turning to salt, the stone feeling creeping up through the soles, up through his knees, up toward his heart. He should run because what he sees walking toward him is so bright and so pure that it burns - and yet he can't turn away, can't leave. Something inside of him cracks because she... she should never see him this way. Except he doesn't remember, can't remember, who she is or why

precious

He stays where he is and maybe it's a new kind of damnation approaching him. He can't tell. He just knows this... this is his and he can't go anywhere until it's finished with him.]

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Kurt Ambrose || Spartan-051 || Halo

Talia al Ghul | TDKR/Batman

Re: VII

no subject

no subject

Kaidan Alenko | Mass Effect | OTA

Sherlock Holmes | BBC Sherlock

Old Snake | Metal Gear Solid 4

let's go for some IX

no subject

Sasha ❧ Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas | ota

John 'Reaper' Grimm || DOOM

Aidan and Nadia Asturias \ Pacific Rim OC \ OTA

nico di angelo | pjo | ota

Floyd Lawton, aka "Deadshot" | Pre-nu!52 DCU, after Secret Six #36

Seishirou Sakurazuka | X/1999

Loki Laufeyson || MCU/Norse mythology || OTA

Cassie Lang | Marvel 616

Joan Watson | Elementary

3(I like literal - feel free to assume CR or not)

Hope this works! I made some assumptions which may or may not be accurate...

it's beautiful

Unit 202 // OC// OTA

Jared Nomak | Blade II

Abridged!Alucard | Hellsing Ultimate Abridged | OTA