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I AM EMPOWERED, pt.17: The Twitter-based YEAR ONE prose dealie continues!
🕑 Added 2020-06-25 13:00:03 +0000 UTC<Note: You can check out I Am Empowered's previous installments with this tag.
And now, back to Emp's first-person narration in (old) Twitter-based 140-character format, taking place roughly around the beginning of Empowered vol.1.
In the previous installment of this chapter addressing the vagaries of her supersuit, Emp briefly escaped capture by the supervill GigaJoule, only to get zapped by him and tied to a chair once again. Prose-form damsel-distress and some fairly disturbing Emp humiliation ahead, so be warned.>
MY STUPID SUPERSUIT, CONTINUED (part 3 of 3)
As a pride-clingy superheroine, getting beaten, bound, and gagged by a male villain just once is degrading, demeaning, harrowing, traumatic.
Getting beaten, bound, and gagged TWICE IN RAPID SUCCESSION is, I've discovered, somehow exponentially—or logarithmically?—more degrading.
I'd love to think that the blindfold hides my tears, but the shuddering of my bare shoulders makes it clear that I'm sobbing uncontrollably.
The YouTube clip—"SEXY PIECE OF SUPERASS GETS PWNED, REPWNED"—cuts off after 30 more hard-to-watch seconds of Retied, Repwned Emp quivering.
In reality, I spend three hours moaning inchoately, bawling inconsolably, shaking with emotional outburstiness, shivering from the cold.
New to me: The bitter shock and humiliation of getting tied, freeing myself, then getting tied again—sadistically—by a girl-hating bad guy.
Somehow, this fresh degradation has broken something inside me, releasing a vile emotional flashflood of misery and torment and desolation.
All shreds of pride? Gone with my powers. I'm no longer a superheroine at all, just a useless, stupid, terrorized girl convulsing in pain.
At times, I'm no longer thinking in words about how much I loathe myself. Instead, all I feel is a wordless, animal roar of shame, disgrace, self-hated.
I lose it, start thrashing wildly—and stupidly—against my bonds. Dozens upon dozens of knots and rope loops pinch and bite and saw into me.
I'm going nowhere, with 50+ feet of rage-knotted rope lashing me flesh-squeezily tight against a steel chair bolted to the warehouse floor.
My frantic, mindless bucking only stops when the stinging of ropeburn builds to an attention-getting, "stop-that-you-idiot" level of pain.
I'm hit in successive, agonizing waves by the psychological storm surge from the emotional hurricane that's battering and buffeting me.
My anguish subsides for a bit, and I go back to shivering and sobbing quietly, then the wretched, squalling pain returns, now even stronger.
For hours, I struggle through long, grueling, vacillating cycles of heartwrenching emotional spasms and brief moments of sniffling clarity.
When able to cogitate in words, my mind rattles through a hundred contradictory vows and spitting-mad rants and whiny-weepy cris de coeur.
I swear that I'll never wear this idiot suit again, that I'll VORPP-castrate GigaJoule, that I'll snuff myself as soon as my hands are free.
In my head, I wail at my own grotesque ineptness, rave at the Superhomeys for sending me here, laugh at what a pathetic spectacle I make.
The gag stuffed in my mouth absorbs outraged screams, soft moans, incensed cries, pitiful blubbering, and a disgusting volume of saliva.
Of all the abysmal (abyssal?), mine-shaft-deep low points in my often-craptastic career as a superhero, this arguably represents the nadir.
Finally, after three of the weepiest, gut-wrenchiest, most snivel-tastic hours I've spent since my daddy died, the emotional storm is over.
The black clouds of self-loathing are gone, giving way to the blue sky and sunshine and—metaphor strain—chirpy birds of grudging acceptance.
I'm all newborn-lamb trembly, and I can feel cold air—and/or prickly ropeburn—on 90% of my pudgy surface area, but I'm myself again.
Now, all I have to do is wait patiently for my suit to regenerate and for my strength to return to me, as it always has, and always will.
Afterward, I realize that my emotional journey just led me through a high-speed recap of Elizabeth Kübler-Ross's famed Five Stages of Grief.
Remember? Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance? (Even though my Sociology profs said that Kübler-Ross was TOTES off-base.)
Well, folks, now it's time for Elissa Megan Powers's rather less famous—but superheroine-apropos—Five Stages of Distressed Damselhood!
DENIAL: "This can't be happening to me—not AGAIN! No way I could get tied up twice in one day! That's not true, that's IMPOSSIBLE!"
ANGER: "Why me? This isn't fair! I'm gonna kill that a-hole for doing this to me! Gonna shove that laser up your butt, GigaJoule! RARRRRRR!"
BARGAINING: "If I get out of this, I swear I'll never cross a supervillain again, okay? I'll just do rescue-y, non-combat stuff, okay?"
DEPRESSION: "As a superhero, I'm a worthless, pathetic joke. What's the point? What kind of idiot laps up abuse and humiliation like this?"
ACCEPTANCE: "Oh, just deal with it, Emp. Big ups and bigger downs are just part of the superhero-y experience. You'll be okay, in the end."
Fine, I admit it, my Five Stages of Distressed Damselhood aren't likely to become cultural touchstones like the Kübler-Ross Five Stages.
Still, I'm a teensy bit proud of myself for workshopping 'em, as no comparable distress-related insights ever came up in Suprahuman Studies.
I'm also a teensy bit—or MORE than a teensy bit—proud of myself for how I weathered the emotional storm touched off by GigaJoule's abuse.
Now calm, cool, collected, confident—well, not UNconfident, anyway—I relax against the ropes and let my supersuit knit itself back together.
In fact, I relax so thoroughly that I'm pretty sure I manage to fall asleep for a bit. Next thing I know, my blindfold's being tugged off.
Camcorder in hand, GigaJoule leans over me, smirking contemptuously as he records titillating, heroine-degrading footage for a ransom email.
Dumbass sweeps the camera up and down my chair-tied body, failing to notice that I'm rather less naked now than I was a few hours ago.
His misogynistic impulses have betrayed him, as he's festooned me with so much rope that he can't see how much of my supersuit has regenerated.
GigaJoule sneers, leers and jeers at me—hey, he even "beers" at me, waving the PBR in his other hand in a disdainful, "look at you" gesture.
He burps loudly (classy!), boasts how a just-posted security-cam clip showing my recapture has already racked up beaucoup YouTube views.
Usually, part of me—or most of me, really—would be cringing to hear this, recoiling in horror at the thought of further public humiliation.
Instead, though, Gigajoule's braying and taunting washes over me without effect. After the last few hours, I'm all negative-emotioned out.
I stare back at him evenly, wondering how I could ever have been frightened of such a pathetic, foolish, emptily blustering jackass.
When I casually stand up out of the chair, every loop of plastic-fiber rope snapping simultaneously, the look on GigaJoule's face is priceless.
So much polypropylene breaks at once that the noise is like two pieces of Velcro®—each the size of a football field—being pulled apart.
Just like three hours before, effortlessly freeing myself from abject, helpless bondage is once again thrilling, exhilarating, electrifying.
I feel totally liberated, brazenly confident, completely badass. Thank goodness for my MEMENTO-ish lack of long-term emotional memory, huh?
GigaJoule desperately claws for his holstered laser, but my energy weapons—as in, my Deadly Jazz Hands—are just a li'l quicker on the draw.
I fling a hardcore, two-handed VORPP. In the paused-DVD split-second before the VORPPflash bursts, GigaJoule's face is O-mouthed in terror.
Blinding flare of Empsuit energy, then GigaJoule ragdolls merrily away across the warehouse floor, laser-gear debris scattering after him.
Sadly, I'm unable to let fly with a pithy, elegantly badass, movie-trailer-worthy line in summation, as a rag is still stuffed in my mouth.
By the time I yank the gag off, I've got nuthin' in the way of Colorful Post-Combat Quips, other than an inelegant "Suck it, GigaJuliette."
His camcorder? Trashed by the blast. Pity, 'cause I'd love to post some magnificently awesome first-person footage of me liberating myself.
The PBR he was drinking? Also gone. Pity, 'cause curbstomping bad guys gives me a thirst. (Kidding! No way I'm swilling villain-y backwash.)
I lightly hop over to dazed, battered, drooling GigaJoule—a 40-foot jump, no biggeh—and casually pluck him up by his ruined power harness.
Effortlessly flopping his armored body back and forth like I used to carry Mellow Mr. Monkey, I flounce back to the chair where he tied me.
"Now we're gonna see how much YOU like getting tied up, buddy," I chirp brightly, tossing the groaning, woe-is-me-ing doofus into the chair.
I cheerily scavenge up promising lengths of rope from the floor. "I'm pretty sure you'll find it really and truly sucks, but who knows?"
When I jam the wet rag—still sodden with my saliva, mind you—into his mouth, GigaJoule looks blearily frightened, the poor baby.
"Your mileage may vary, huh? You might even like it!" Doubtful, I admit, as bad guys—emphasis on "guys"—rarely enjoy tasting their own medicine.
"Mmph," he bleats hysterically. How unoriginal, I think with no little disdain, for him to parrot my most famous quote. “Mmph!” Sad, really.
(I'm not kidding, as that really is an actual quote attributed to me in the HomeyWiki: "Mmph." I've heard stupider capequotes, believe me.)
I set to work trussing up the struggling Gigajoule, but soon find myself wearying of the task, despite my initial, revenge-y determination.
To me, tying people up is nothing but tedious drudgery. I have no idea why some villains seem to relish restraining me as much as they do.
(Okay, MANY ideas spring to mind regarding why bad guys might enjoy binding and gagging me—I just prefer not to think about ’em too often.)
To give this creep a true appreciation of how much trauma he inflicted on me, I’d have to tear off his armor and strip him to his underwear.
(Believe it or not, I am not entirely enthused by the prospect of seeing sweaty, paunchy, hairy Gigajoule in his tighty not-quite-whities.)
Then I’d have to spend a good ten minutes rage-tying him to the chair, making him feel the (rope)burn, forcing him to whimper in pain like I did.
(I am also not entirely enthused by the mental image of Gigajoule’s portly, porky, hirsute flesh bulging around the ropes cinching into him.)
Then I’d have to render him good and terrified, leaving him to wallow in his own misery for hours, all shivering and wretched and exposed.
(That presumes he’s even capable of a breakdown—most douchecapes have all the emotional complexity and rich inner life of a garden slug.)
So, to properly avenge myself on Gigajoule, I’d have to be a vile, sour, pointlessly cruel asshole. I’d have to be just like HIM, in effect.
Well, for better or worse, I’m a good girl, not a bad guy—“worse” being that good girls earn no respect in a field that worships badassery.
I heave yet another big ol’ SIGHHH, and give up on my halfhearted stab at sadistic ropework. Regardless, GigaJuliette isn’t going anywhere.
<And that's it for this chapter, folks! Alas, "My Stupid Supersuit, continued" was the last fully intact chapter remaining from my abortive work on I Am Empowered; no future installment of this project is actually complete, but rather lurches along for a bit before inconclusively stalling out. Still, I've probably got another month or so worth of these weekly posts in store, regardless.>
TOMORROW ON THIS HERE PATREON: Possibly another installment of Vintage Con Sketches, though I'm not 100% sure about that.
Comments
Eric
Her victory is being a better person. Among the best people, despite all her unhappiness with herself.
DimZebra
As much as many a DiD fan loves the fantasy of seeing a superchica captured, i do so love the very humanizing and somewhat sobering perspective of just how it must feel to be on the other side of those ropes, and you have a splendid skill at eloquently describing Emp's feelings of frustration and disappointment. I think Emp's five stages of damselfied heroine are more poignant than she may give them credit. Still, I think that's what I love most about Empowered in any circumstance: she is NEVER out, no matter how many times she is taken down. Despite having been tied up twice, she learns from her earlier mistake of breaking out too soon, waits for GigaJoule to make a stupid mistake due to his own villian-arrogance, and comes out on top when it matters the most. All the ropes, gags, and unflattering youtube videos in the world can't keep her from being the best heroine around.
Strypgia
Good thing Emp's not an asshole, yep. And boy did Spooky's little spell have wide-ranging effects.
