Now that I think about it, "deals with the devil" for one's soul are all over human folklore. But in the Hellaverse, neither Lucifer nor Satan would be interested in that. Instead it's the sinners in Hell who act out those stories by enslaving each other's souls for power.

I don't think they're at all the same. IMP is just a regular (evil) business providing a service to clients. Overlords get people to sign over ownership of their souls.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhYW...

I can hear her almost every time I go shopping, still; my brain will sing to itself "When I left home for the mushrooms' sake, to the grocery store for crimini", and then segue into "Boots" or "Tomlinson".

Oh no, this one does hurt. Leslie Fish's adaptations of Kipling poems into song are such terrific work and I can still sing many of them, decades after the cassette tapes have crumbled.

I do see what the OP means though. My political party had better be driving the bus away from the leopards, not just parking and collecting donations. But it would be unrealistic and self-defeating to demand that they get the bus to Poughkeepsie in one term, by my optimal route, or I won't vote.

The classic short story "No Exit" by Sartre is also an influence here. Hell is other people, no brimstone required.

But that's the point of the story. There seems to be no all-knowing deity in this cosmos, only people in all three realms choosing to help or harm each other. The sinners have built cities for themselves and also made them hellholes. Los Angeles is a fair comparison. :)

Good lord, man, don't go off the rails. Next thing you'll be telling us you used a regular spoon to eat it.

Imagine not being able to control your child once they turn 18. Imagine not being able to traffick desperate people who will do anything for a job. Imagine inmates knowing that when they get out they can rebuild their lives instead of going right back into the prison pipeline. A GOP nightmare.

One of my comfort reads is a fantasy novel about a bureaucrat who is determined to implement UBI on his planet, and it got me thinking about what _universal_ means. Even the wealthy may need a lifeline to escape a terrible situation.

...which in turn makes me think of who would hate that idea.

I'd keep working full time, but I'd be able to start saving responsibly again instead of just keeping my head above water. It would be such a relief.

Not his mom, thankfully; different shape/horns, and the shoe was farther away. A small mercy in a still pretty horrific scene.

Maybe we should start asking them how covid affected their schooling. I don't even mean that sarcastically; the worst of the pandemic was a blight on education that only the most fortunate kids fully bounced back from.