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During a twisted social gathering of wealthy predators, Liam meets others like himself...

This one gets pretty heavy. Obviously, there's real psychological horror to what Liam and our other heroines are experiencing. Here, it's more about the mental anguish than anything graphic, but I just wanted to give you a warning!

(Nothing happens to Pixel 😸)

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Gemma

Looks like another marathon night/ early morning session for you Emory. Looking forward to reading. What an insight into the nightmare world that Liam and others have endured. Liam/Liza would have to be experiencing traumatic flashback memories and PTSD. It’s amazing she has been still able to hold onto her sanity as well as she has. A very sad episode that provides real insight into this macabre world of rich powerful, deluded sociopaths who see little value in the lives of others aside a means to feed their GOD like egotistical goals. Liam/Liza now knows her life has no worth as he, like others now are seen as just products and have no value outside of this. A tough episode to read and I imagine very challenging on many levels for you to create, awakening us all to the realities of Mr Xu, the world he has created and like minded other sadists.

Nolwenn (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-14 23:00 I think it's interresting to see the pasts of the concurentes, but I also think it breaks completly the rythm of the principale story who was becomming really fast with the near beginning of the event. For me liam's paste and the others story could have been some spin off that you could have explored further but separetly from the original story. But it's interesting to see how the world off m.xu and his adventure camarade is really short 🙄 and I understand that you push back the deadline for the end of the Jack/Jill's story😉
2025-07-28 09:19

Robertlouis

Phew. That was a very tough read with that shocking tragedy at the heart of it. It also shows the toxic depravity of the engine that powers Second Dawn and the vile beings who finance it. Genuinely sickening, and although there are age differences, there are real parallels and echoes of the burgeoning paedophile scandal in the US. Very powerful. I imagine it was hard to write, Emory, and it goes a long way towards explaining more reasons for Liam’s rage and bitterness at the injustice of the world and the helplessness of the victims of the rich and depraved.

Kris Greg

Linking to Half Sisters, & reinforcing what garbage Zach's father is? Nice!

Jessika

Thinking Anka is the Bear's version of Xu's "Holly" now...did the Bear transitioned her/him also....which could explain the empathy, and why she is so tall/muscular and strong.....just a thought. (breadcrumbs)

Jade Diaz

I appreciate how you’re using this story to play as a foil to the almost clinical transformation of Jill. Victims like Jessica/Parker are always off to the side, always shown as “the final state” all of the coercion, and shame and psychological torture, and bodily mutilation has happened before in the background like the Chopin that’s playing as you eat this delicious Michelin starred meal in a beautiful luxurious dining room. As if the “raw materials” for this meal aren’t literally other human beings with dreams and hopes and loves and wants and needs. They’re all just objects. Totems. The cost of this “hobby” is literally destroying someone else’s life like you’re God. Disgusting.

Emory Ahlberg

Thank you, Jade! I really like the Michelin-starred meal analogy. Liam's experience is the ugly truth lurking beneath Jill's more 'observed' journey. Jill was a science project, a "Rosetta Stone" for Xu. Her process, while still horrific in its own way, had a twisted kind of methodology... also, she was 'protected.' Liam's transition is was cruder, more personal - the work of a single member's sadistic vision. And he wasn't the only one... I guess I think it's vital that before the end to show that Second Dawn doesn't just provide the service but that it also empowers individual monsters like the Bear to build their own private hells. So, yeah.. Liam's story is the 'kitchen' for the toys (taken both by Second Dawn and separately) ... everything that happens before the pretty plate is served.

Gemma

Just one more thought. This episode is so very, very sad.

Strangest

Why did you kill a character with which we had absolutely no emotional connection? I mean, you could have done it better, I have faith in you.

Wes Adams

I thought Emory gave us a strong sense of what a broken person Jessica/Parker was and the horror that Liam experienced.

Emory Ahlberg

Thank you, Gemma! Yes, another late night wrestling with these characters. But I'm grateful! Liza’s sanity is a really interesting thing to write. I see her rage as the only thing keeping her tethered to who she is. It’s her armor. Without that caustic, "unseemly" defiance, she'd have gone vacant just like Jessica. I wanted to show that the real horror isn't just the obvious cruelty, but the quiet transactional nature of these powerful men (and a few women) - the way they talk about lives as portfolio assets. It makes their sadism so routine, so BORING, which is what's truly monstrous. Also... yes, it was tough. Writing this as a trans woman means engaging with that weird/wonderful space of "forced fem" directly. I love the genre, and while my transition was a journey out of dysphoria and into myself, Liza's story is an inversion of that. She is being forced into a dysphoric state against her will. The act that was my liberation becomes her prison. But does it need to stay that way?

Emory Ahlberg

Thanks, Nolwenn! Yeah, I see how this flashbacks might feel like hitting the brakes just as things were accelerating toward the event. I guess that the truth is it felt crucial to zoom out. Up to this point, we've been living (almost) exclusively inside Jill’s personal nightmare. The Coming Out dinner is where her world - and the scope of Second Dawn's cruelty- shoulder hopefully crack wide open. I wanted Liam / Liza to land as more than just names on a competitor list or obstacles for Jill to overcome. Each of their pasts represents a different path through this hell, a different reaction to the trauma, and giving them that weight will hopefully make the stakes of the competition feel so much more visceral.

Emory Ahlberg

Thank you for that, Robert. 💕 Yeah, writing this chapter was a heavy experience... and I guess I'm glad the weight of it came through. For me, the most sickening part isn’t just the obvious violence, but the utter mundanity of their evil. Hutchinson’s reaction to Jessica's death (that bastard views it as a financial loss rather than a human tragedy) is the core of what powers Second Dawn. That MOMENT is the crucible for Liam. He witnesses firsthand that his life, identity, and very existence is a disposable commodity. So his bitterness isn't just about being changed... it's also rooted in the terror of realizing he doesn't matter... that he's merely a collector's item. Basically... Liam’s fury is a shield against the ultimate horror of being forgotten.

Emory Ahlberg

Thank you, Kris! Not only garbage... but disrespected and disparaged as "new money" by his fellow rich sociopaths.

Emory Ahlberg

💖 Jessika, that's a powerful take on Anka. That unique brand of strength she has, that protectiveness... I'd say it’s born from a deep understanding of what it means to be a commodity in a rich man’s world. Her line about what ‘all girls in our world must learn’ is really the key to her whole character. For me, that empathy she shows Liam / Liza comes from recognizing a fellow captive, another ‘beautiful thing’ that an ugly man wants to own. I left her history ambiguous (for now!) because that lesson is something so many of us learn, whether we're cis or trans. Anka's strength is in seeing that shared vulnerability and choosing to protect it, instead of just enforcing the Bear’s rules.

Emory Ahlberg

Yeah... Thank you for sharing that, Gemma. For me, the sadness in this story comes from exploring the ghosts of who the characters used to be. It’s not just that they were men before... It's alsothat they had specific futures they were building, brick by brick. Take Liam/Liza. The most tragic part of her story for me wasn't the violence, but the fact that they took her on the day she'd made her great professional breakthrough. She was on the verge of becoming the person she'd always wanted to be - successful, brilliant, respected. That version of herself died that day, and that's a kind of death that leaves a particularly angry phantom. Every character carries that phantom. Even when they find new strength or moments of connection in their present, the life that was stolen from them is always there, haunting the edges. That's the real source of the sorrow for m...... the lingering echo of a life that will never be lived.

Tomoa

Wow, that was so tragic. I can’t comprehend the hell Parker was going through. To me, the most disturbing part is that people like the “owners” in the room actually exist. Not just confined to a work of fiction like so many of the famous movie monsters out there.

Jessika

...as I said before....better keep the guns away from Liza. (breadcrumbs)

Emory Ahlberg

Hmmm! I guess that for me, that scene was about seeing the world through Liam’s terrified eyes. We can't know much about Jessica. So my intention was for her to feel distant, almost like an object, because that’s what she has become in that world of Second Dawn - and also that is what Liam fears most for himself. Really, this is about Liam. Jessica's hollowness is, of course, the central horror of the scene buyt the gut punch is the casual cruelty of Hutchinson and the others who watch her die. They talk about her like she’s a broken piece of expensive equipment, and in that moment, Liam's transition from a person into a thing is cemented in his mind. So I guess the scene is less about grieving a character and more about Liam witnessing his own potential extinction. ...but we've actually seen evidence of Jessica before in the story.

Crewchick

@Emory, how beautifully, if sadly, poetic.

Crewchick

Emory, I can't use my usual adjectives for describing your work. So I will simply say "powerful"! It is sad and disturbing, and actually left me feeling rather empty at the end. Not in a bad way. The writing was substantive and artfully crafted, but the emotions it drew out were so extreme, from shock, to anger, to horror, and even helplessness as the role of the reader is passive. Nothing the reader does can change the outcome. All the reader can do is keep their hands and feet inside the car until the ride has come to a complete stop. And when it does all the reader is left with is die Ängstlichkeit. Along with a pit inside the stomach trying to fight back a cold and nauseating sense of despair for all humanity.

Crewchick

On an up note though, I love the Humane Society disclaimer up front announcing no harm came to Pixel in this episode. 🙀

Jade Diaz

I also appreciate that!

Robertlouis

Indeed, Emory. As Hannah Arendt said on observing Eichmann in the witness box at his trial, the banality of evil, when morality has been so traduced that it has lost all meaning and purpose. In that horrific respect the parallels with the Holocaust are inescapable.

stacy C

That one was dark but I understand why you showed that. x

Emory Ahlberg

Thank you, Diana. 💕 I'm probably being too meta here, but I've always viewed your experience as a reader a little bit as a journey that mirrors the acquisitions' experience, in a way. You're strapped into a narrative you cannot control, a passive observer while powerful forces dictate the outcome! Your helplessness is a reflection of theirs...only for them it's utterly real. The despair you feel for humanity is hard to get past sometimes. But the story is also about the defiant sparks of connection that refuse to be extinguished by it. It’s Jill learning to find beauty in a body she didn’t choose, and then using that knowledge to comfort Ryan. It’s Emily and Josie finding solace and even love in the shadow of the machine that wants to consume them. It's Holly, despite being broken, still trying to protect the one person she thinks she can save. Those small acts are the story’s anchor. They don't erase the horror, but they prove it can't win completely. I am a nerd, so I'm always drawn to one of my favorite LotR quotes: "There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.” 💖

Emory Ahlberg

Thank you, Stacy. It was a tough chapter to write, but I felt it was important to show a different kind of cruelty than what we see at Clinic 12. With Second Dawn, the horror is often sanitized by corporate jargon and psychological theories.

Emory Ahlberg

Thank you, Tomoa. Parker’s final moments, for me, were about reclamation. She wasn't just ending her suffering but also asserting her identity one last time. She took back the only thing she had left. And yeah... it's crazy to realize that in this world the truly terrifying monsters aren’t the ones with claws, they’re the ones who talk about human beings like they’re trading cattle. And, yes, the really exist. To me, the banality of that kind of true evil is what makes it so chilling.