The nearly 100-foot-high statue of Christ the Redeemer stands atop Corcovado mountain, spreading its arms wide, as if to embrace the entire city. The sun beats down on Rio’s beaches—beaches so filled with sunbathers and tourists that it can be hard to see any sand. Millions of tourists flock to the city every year, and for some, it might seem as though this corner of Brazil is paradise. A place untouched by the worries of the world.

Ruben and Eunice Paiva know better.

Ruben was a left-leaning Brazilian congressman in the early 1960s. But when the government was toppled by a military coup in 1964, Ruben was forced out and into self-imposed exile. He and his family—wife Eunice and five kids—returned five years later, but the military dictatorship is in control. And by 1970, that dictatorship feels increasingly under pressure: Terrorists are kidnapping foreign ambassadors and exchanging them for the release of political prisoners. The country’s rulers want to stamp out this insurgency now. Left-leaning protestors, journalists and educators are increasingly scrutinized.

Oh, and one-time politicians, too.

They come for Ruben on a gloriously sunny day—a holiday, when the Paiva family might’ve well gone to the beach. Several men walk into the house, armed and prepared for trouble. They tell Ruben they’d like him to give a “deposition.” As Ruben dresses for the trip, his daughter, Nalu, asks if she could borrow one of his shirts.

“Do I have a choice, Nalu?” he says with a smile, while a stranger with a barely concealed gun looks on. “And where’s my kiss?”

Nalu, clueless about the room’s looming peril, gives him one. And she asks why he’s putting on a tie.

“I’m just helping these gentlemen,” Ruben say. “I’ll be back soon.”

But he wasn’t back. Not that day, or that night, or the next day. That deceptively mundane goodbye launched the family into a nightmare one can barely contemplate.

The sun seems to always shine on Rio. But on Jan. 20, 1971, the Paiva family entered into a dark, uncertain night.

The post I’m Still Here appeared first on Plugged In.

That’s pretty much his entire job: dying. As part of an intrepid expedition to colonize the icy planet Niflheim, Mickey is the colony’s sole expendable. His mind has been downloaded into a hefty techno-brick. And once his current body expires, the scientific team on Niflheim will just chug out a new one, using its handy-dandy organic 3D printer.

Mickey dies so that others might live. Or, occasionally, just for kicks.

Is this ethical? Heavens, no. Everyone admits that much. But Kenneth Marshall, a two-time failed senator on Earth and the colony leader on Niflheim, figures they might as well use the technology anyway. I mean, just the trip out to Niflheim was pretty dangerous, and who knows what terrors the planet itself might hold. A good, solid expendable will keep the rest of the colonists intact. As for Mickey, well, it’s just like the job title says: He’s expendable.

And so Mickey dies. Again and again and again. He’s died by radiation poisoning. By mysterious planetary disease. One time, he was shoved into the ship’s molten incinerator while he was still alive. Even if he survived the pathogen floating around in his bod, it was just easier for everyone involved—well, everyone but Mickey, I guess—to print out another one.

And honestly, the 17^th iteration was pretty much guaranteed to expire just like all the rest. He’d taken a tumble down a huge ice hole and found himself in the presence of Niflheim’s native residents: something that looks like a cross between a musk ox and a pillbug (and stands slightly bigger than a Range Rover) and all her many, many, many children.

Mickey assumes he’s a dead man—again. He’ll be quickly devoured by the mamma creeper (as they come to be known as) or slowly consumed by her offspring.

But instead, the creature drags Mickey out of the burrow and sends him on his way. And Mickey is a little offended.

“I’m perfectly good meat!” He shouts after the mamma creeper. “I taste fine!”

Meanwhile, back aboard the ship, Mickey 17 is presumed to be dead and eaten. And so they welcome Mickey 18 to the ship.

Won’t Mickey 17 be surprised when he gets back!

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Why?

Who knows? It’s the future. And in this future, there lives a powerful witch that seemingly everyone wants dead. But this witch, Gray Alys, lives on.

Part of her longevity is because of her magical ability to make eye contact and force anything—man, zombie or feral beast—to see what she wishes them to see. Her other saving grace is the requirement that she must grant any and every wish that someone asks of her.

“I refuse no one,” she will murmur when asked. And people always ask, even though her expression immediately conveys a bitter truth: wishes always lead to one cataclysmic disaster or another.

So, when the city’s Queen approaches with a request to gain the shapeshifting ability of a werewolf, Alys dutifully replies, “I refuse no one.”

But why would the Queen want such an ability? Who knows? And when the Queen’s captain and secret lover later asks that Alys fail in that request, Alys once again declares that she cannot refuse him.

Somehow Gray Alys is required to fulfill requests that even might oppose one another. While in a magic trance, she sees a man who will guide her to that resolution. He’s a large and gnarly gunslinger named Boyce.

This massive mercenary will lead her into the Lost Lands. They will find a werewolf there. And they must also keep one step ahead of the foul crusader-like churchmen that want Gray Alys’ skin.

Oh, and Alys isn’t aware (or is she?) that Boyce also happens to be one of the Queen’s many lovers. He might even be the sire of the child that’s newly growing in her womb.

Oh, what a twisted web this witch now clings to.

But it leads to a conclusion that Gray Alys cannot refuse. Why? Only she knows for sure.

The post In The Lost Lands appeared first on Plugged In.

He’s a hooded dude who’s been stalking loving couples on Valentine’s Day for the last few years. Then he butchers them (mid-hug, kiss or proposal) in the most brutally “romantic” ways: He might carve out their loving hearts with a machete. Or pin the lovebirds together with a razor-sharp cupid’s arrow. Or some other bloody atrocity.

That’s terrible and all. But frankly, Ally couldn’t care less.

While others are quivering on this hearts-and-flowers holiday, Ally has no fear of the killer in the least. You see, she just broke up with her ex-boyfriend. Then that louse instantly ran out and found someone else he could cuddle up with and plastered it all over his social media for crying out loud!

So, let’s just say that Ally is currently as stone-cold averse to all things lovey-dovey as she can be. If anything, she’s kinda thinking about the benefits of putting on a mask with cartoon hearts for eyes and doing a little beat-down on a few people herself.

Oh, and to top all that off, she just met this walking embodiment of a Hallmark card named Jay. He was brought in by her boss to prop up a failing advertising campaign that Ally had come up with. (Which kinda ticked Ally off, truth be told.)

Anyway, this guy just oozes “handsome” and “romantically sincere.” In fact, everything about Jay seems completely geared for some meet-cute rom-com scene. (Which makes Ally all the more angry.) And while she’s more than happy to turn her back on this gorgeous-looking lug, she has to meet him for a meal and discussions about the campaign. Argh!

But here’s the real issue.

From the outside-looking-in, the very pretty Ally and the strikingly handsome Jay make for a really adorbs couple. If you were an insane killer out scoping out a Valentine’s Day symbol to slaughter, this gorgeous couple might seem to be wearing the perfect heart-shaped bulls-eye.

Yup, I think it’s safe to say that Ally is having … a really bad Valentine’s Day!

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Grace is a misfit twin. She and her brother, Gilbert, lost their mother at birth. Grace’s mom was a malacologist, or, in Grace’s mind, a snail scientist. In a twisted sense of symmetry, Grace recounts how female snails must biologically die to successfully give birth.

From the moment her mother passes away, Grace has felt a connection to snails. In fact, apart from Gilbert, her pet snails are the only living things giving her life purpose.

Grace and Gilbert’s father, who had been an aspiring French street performer, sadly became a paraplegic due to a roadside car accident. He eventually passes away due to sleep apnea, which is a bitter example of Memoir of a Snail’s comedic tone.

Orphaned and separated from her brother in an unfortunate foster care decision, Grace ends up with a new set of parents more interested in joining a nudist colony than raising their foster daughter.

Moving through the badlands and suburbs of Australia, Grace ends up confined in her room, while Gilbert arrives at an apple farm that resembles a religious cult. Though they exist on separate sides of the Australian continent, Grace and Gilbert remain linked. Their story and hopeful reunion is recalled through future, older Grace’s narration, which is mainly focused on the cast of characters who wade in and out of her life.

Grace claims she’s an optimist—a perpetually glass half-full kind of girl. Yet as her glum disposition settles in, she becomes a hoarder, addicted to food, and reclusive to the point of sleeping entire weeks away with her snails and a local eccentric named Pinky as her only companions.

As Grace trudges through the doldrums of her life, she does her best to learn lessons from her snail friends. Admittedly, stop-motion animation provides an effective medium for the themes at play. Grace’s epiphanies arrive when she is patient, thoughtful, and measured. To face her life’s problems though, she’ll need to change who she is.

If only she could learn how to come out of her shell…

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Many soldiers have found healing from those unseen wounds in therapy. But that was never Zoe’s style. In fact, she told her best friend and fellow soldier, Merit, that if she ever caught Zoe in therapy once they got home, Merit had permission to kill her.

Unfortunately, it’s not really up to Zoe anymore, because well … she’s dead.

Merit knows this to be true, but it hasn’t stopped Zoe from living rent-free in her head. Sometimes Merit likes having this version of Zoe around—like when they’re singing along to their favorite songs in the car. But other times, it’s not such a jam fest.

Zoe likes to be the center of Merit’s attention, discouraging her from making new friends or even answering her mom’s phone calls. In fact, Zoe is so distracting that Merit accidentally dropped a forklift full of television sets onto a coworker, nearly killing the guy. The courts charged her with criminal negligence, but they also recognized that Merit was suffering from a form of PTSD. So, rather than being fined and imprisoned, Merit’s been court-ordered to attend group therapy for veterans.

But Merit can’t quite bring herself to talk about Zoe in therapy. Part of that is Zoe’s fault: After all, if Zoe didn’t like the idea of therapy when she was alive, she certainly doesn’t support it now that’s she dead.

However, the larger part of Merit’s reluctance comes from the simple fact that she doesn’t want to move on. And she knows that once she opens up about how she’s seeing her dead friend Zoe, she might lose Zoe forever.

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He’s got money. Connections. A secluded winter home in the forests of Maine. How exactly he came into possession of those things is a bit of a mystery. The type of mystery that you probably wouldn’t want to know the answers to.

Yes, Vincent has a questionable past. But, in his mind, he’s also got a certain future. He adores his wife, Sandy, 20 years his junior. His stepson, DJ, is an intelligent and considerate young man who will soon head off to college. They are a happy, healthy and wholesome family.

That is, until Vincent’s first family shows up. His biological son Rocco arrives with his very pregnant girlfriend, Marina; and his chaotic mother, Ruth, Vincent’s ex-wife. Rocco claims he only stopped by to celebrate the New Year as a family, and to tell Vincent that the older man was going to be a grandfather. But, as Vincent suspects, there’s more to it than that.

Vincent’s right. And that’s when his carefully manicured life starts to get messy.

See, Rocco killed a man. And not just any man. He killed the only son of mobster “Lefty” Hannigan. Sure, Lefty’s son attacked Marina, and Rocco only killed him to save her. But Lefty doesn’t care. He wants revenge. And he and his righthand hitman are hot on Rocco’s trail.

Rocco and Marina need to disappear. Sandy and DJ need to be protected. And Ruth—well, Ruth—she’s enough trouble on her own. So, what will Vincent do for family?

The post Riff Raff appeared first on Plugged In.

But this day is special for him. Because today, this frowzled young man is determined to find folk artist Woody Guthrie, to tell the singer how important he’d been to Dylan. Guthrie’s songs had knocked Dylan flat the first time he heard them. They helped spur him on to writing some new songs of his own.

The problem is, Woody Guthrie isn’t in New York as Dylan had been told. Guthrie’s health had worsened, and he was in a run-down psychiatric facility in New Jersey. So, Dylan starts hitching his way there.

When he finally arrives, he finds Guthrie in poor shape indeed. The man’s Huntington’s disease had beaten him down to the point of barely being able to move or talk. Guthrie is lying, defeated and humbled, in a shabby bed. Pete Seeger, his one last friend, sits at his bedside.

The two men listened as Dylan has his say, praising Guthrie, speaking of the man’s inspiration, delivering his thanks. Then, as Dylan turned to go, Pete Seeger, a seasoned folk artist himself, said, “So, play it.”

“Play what?” Dylan asked.

“The song you were inspired to write.”

Dylan picks up his guitar and plays. His gruff, nasal voice sings of struggles and pain. And Guthrie is visibly moved. In fact, that’s the moment Pete Seeger decides to help this scruffy young folk singer. So he gives Dylan a couch to sleep on for the night. Maybe Seeger can even open a few doors for the guy.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

The post A Complete Unknown appeared first on Plugged In.

It’s a realtor. Despite your presence, she’s selling the place to a family of four.

Then painters come in and coat your bedroom in a new color. The family unpacks their things. They begin living there.

They don’t notice you, because you’re dead. There’s no physical part of you that they could notice.

Until the daughter, Chloe, starts to sense you nearby. Her brother, Tyler, thinks she’s finally starting to lose it—what with the recent death of her best friend and all. And the mother and father haven’t sensed you at all, either.

But you’re here. You’re watching. You’re listening.

And sooner or later, they’ll all know it.

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Not that Marvin is a cutthroat type of guy. Not in real estate, anyway. He smiles a lot. He bakes cookies for open-house events to give those showings that nice, warm scent of home. Marvin just wants to match his wonderful clients up with wonderful houses. Nothing wrong with making people’s dreams of home-ownership come true, right?

He’s one of the most successful real estate agents in Milwaukee—proof, it would seem, that nice guys can finish first. Sure, he’s not thrilled that someone’s drawing mustaches on all of his bench ads. But what is he gonna do—track down and kill the vandal?

Well, once upon a time, maybe he would have. But Marvin’s different now. The only killing he makes these days is through his very reasonable commissions.

But then a former colleague of his shows up, announcing his presence with a fist to the face. When Marvin comes to, he finds himself at his desk—one hand tied to his chair and the other harpooned to the desktop with a sharp, wide knife.

Seems his old life has returned. And it’s not at all happy.

Apparently, back when Marvin was mainly killing people for a living, his last hit was a purposeful miss. Knuckles, his boss and brother, told Marvin to kill a woman named Rose (Knuckle’s top lieutenant) for stealing from him. But Marvin secretly loved Rose, so he let her go.

But now, it seems, Rose is back. And she’s sending Valentine’s missives to all of her old pals.

And what unwelcome Valentines’ they are. Knuckles is none-too-pleased that Rose is alive. Merlo, Knuckles’ new top lieutenant, really doesn’t want Rose to start blabbing about who really stole Knuckles’ money.

And Marvin? He had hoped that Rose would stay hidden, that both of them could’ve started new lives free of crime and murder. Marvin had escaped: Why couldn’t she?

Plus, he’s got houses to show. Contracts to sign. And it’s awfully hard to do that when your hand is pinned to a desk with a giant Bowie knife.

Seems like Marvin will need to revert to his old self for a little bit—just until he can dislodge the knife and deal with The Raven.

Yeah, the real estate business can be cutthroat, all right—but nothing like Marvin’s old gig. And he’ll be giving a few folks a nice education in morgue-age rates before he’s done.

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