Meg Giry stumbles upon the Phantom's lair one fateful day... 

i.e. my guilty pleasure fanfic about the Phantom of the Opera

Well actually the abductor is a trans man, so they don't have a penis, but I appreciate the advice!

"Can you tell me what this is?" 

"Is it... a bedazzler?" I hesitantly offer.

A bewildered look crosses my abducter's face, and he shakes his head. The grip on the odd machine he holds loosens, and he swings it in circles around his index finger carelessly. His right hand grips tight on my wrist, holding me in place where I sit tied to a wooden chair. 

"...What? No. What's a bedazzler?"

"What, you don't know about bedazzlers? They're like the greatest invention ever! You can use it to put rhinestones on things and make them all cute and shiny. I used one on the heels I'm wearing! Here, see?" I quickly lift my leg up to show him, and accidently kick it into something that the sun doesn't usually shine on.

"Oh, fuck... oww..." 

The man keels over, clutching the spot where his genitals reside and my cheeks instantly turn a bright tomato red as I finally come to realize where my foot previously touched. I lower my foot, and lean forward to check if he's alright.

"Oh my goodness! I am so sorry!" 

"Eughh, oww... Did you do that on purpose?" he spits out between groans. Despite the white surgical gas mask covering his entire face, I could still tell from his voice that he was super duper upset with me.

"Oh, no! No, no, no, no, no. I really didn't mean to - I promise! Pinky swear!" 

"Well - eugh - it doesn't matter. Back to the matter at hand." He stands up shakedly, and brings the contraption he holds up to my head, pointing the barrel at my temple, and pushing in hard.

"This," he says as pushes in deeper, "is a Tylum Power 360 Nail Gun. It can travel up to 1400 feet per second, and uses 80 nails a magazine. It can go through, wood, metal, concrete..."

A pause. 

"-flesh." he finishes, as he jabs the machine in deeper, and I worry its going to make a mark.

"This baby could even stop a 25,000 pound semi truck right in its tracks. With the right shot, of course."

"Ohh! So it's like a car thing. Yeah, usually I just get my boyfriend to handle all of that."

Heretic (The Movie): A Mormon's Thoughts

As End has said, I also went and saw Heretic not long after he himself saw the movie, and I came out of it satiated. I wouldn't label the movie as perfect, but it came close and is one of the better movies of 2024. I'd probably even consider it to be one of my personal favorites. Also, my movie review isn't as spoiler free as End's, so I recommend checking out the movie first if you desire.

SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD

Overall the movie is about religion and faith, and has used members of the LDS church to prove its point. It was surprisingly not so much about bashing on Mormons in general as I expected it to be, and was more about religion as a whole. I think the movie would have been the same had it been Jehovah's Witnesses or some other missionaries of a different faith as the main characters. But the movie was basically just one big long discussion about theology, philosophy, the role religion has in the world and what it means to individuals(I guess that's still theology), existentialism, and funnily enough even the idea of simulation theory was brought up once. Of course it was this with all the added psychological elements, plus the cat-and-mouse game that Grant and the two missionaries go through.

I thought the representation of Mormons in the movie was very fair, and often scarily accurate. Some of the things that the more 'wholesome' Mormon girl said came straight out of your typical mormon girl upbringing (My upbringing). In the beginning of the movie when the two girls are climbing a flight of stairs to get to Grant's house, one mentions that her future husband will get hotter with every step she has to climb. One of the few mormon girl inside jokes are that every time you have to do something that is somewhat challenging, your husband is now guaranteed to be hotter because you went through with it. Lol. Even the way the two girls were talking about pornography in the beginning was very innocent, and they were both always making sure to be very polite to Hugh Grant, even though the both of them were going through all of his psychological mindgames. Think Lucy from the Fallout show - being very optimistic and bright while going through the horrors of the wasteland. By the end of it they had shed their politeness, so I guess Grant was successful in at least part of what he intended.

The movie went a lot farther into some horror aspects than I expected, but I was pleasantly surprised by them. There wasn't so much of an actually boardgame that the two girls would be forced to play as I original thought, than just a discussion of Monopoly and an analogy of how it relates to religion. That would have been interesting to see. You landed on my property, I will now pull out your fingernail! Lolol. 

The execution and narration was great. There were no plot holes, things that were brought up once were brought back in an interesting way, and even the ambiguous ending left nothing to be desired. There was, however, no explanation as to why Hugh Grant would go through the trouble of tormenting these girls, other than him being a delusional religion-obsessed fanatic, and during the entirety of the movie I was expecting an explanation (Hugh Grant did spend a lot of money making his house into some weird torture labyrinth, and I assume it wasn't for parties). I did find some fan theorys online where Grant used to be a Mormon, and his wife died to some sort of faith-related activity, and now he captures and tortures Mormon girls to prove a point about how God isn't real. But of course it was just a theory, so I guess we'll never know unless they decide to make a sequel.

But overall I would have to give this movie a solid 8.5/10. It has its imperfections, but was an enjoyable experience, and like End said was way better than expected. I recommend it to any horror fans, or people who would rather watch something interesting for their Theological Studies thesis paper lmao.

I would love to participate!

Welcome to the site! Feel free to take a look around, and familiarize yourself with some of the storygames here. You can pretty much write about whatever you want, as long it is decent (Meaning SFW or otherwise, but even that can be stretched within reason). If you want some ideas, maybe try a random prompt generator? Asking for others to do work for you is pretty frowned upon here on the site.

My dad is mormon.

Beautiful thing to see someone uphold their commitments.

My pronouns are shrimp/prawn

You got this! We're rooting for you!

I guess I'll just take the shame. :(