

J.D. Poulsen #171910

Mirage Zone @ Creekside
Jul 07 - Sep 08, 2025



Mirror Pulse
The Brotherhood of the Fracture has systematically shattered reality at Creekside through escalating attacks—Ben Allen's glyph corruption, Kenneth Oetker's prismatic chaos, and Fernando Cortez's temporal echoes—until the Order of the Veil's unity-based counterstrikes secured twelve of seventeen Sigil Shards and delivered multiple decisive victories, only to watch Chase Lambert's Echo Puppeteer weaponize the past itself and corrupt their collective memories into psychological warfare that no amount of coordination could withstand. William Fetzer has sacrificed years of his life to power the cracking Reality Focus, while Lira Prismseer's paranoid protocols have evolved from liability to strategic necessity as Dax Shardbinder's faction demonstrates that surgical precision can triumph over raw unity when wielded by those who understand that destroying trust in one's own achievements cuts deeper than any environmental chaos. The Brotherhood's evolution from random disruption to memory manipulation has fundamentally shifted the arms race, with both factions now deploying artifacts that seem to hunger for greater power—the Echo Puppeteer learning to catalog every corrupted memory, the Truth Anchor showing hairline fractures under psychological assault, and the Reality Focus demanding ever-greater sacrifices from its wielders. As whispers of the approaching Mirror Pulse event begin manifesting in prismatic shadows that reflect not just light but possibility itself, the final three episodes promise to test whether the wielders still control their reality-warping tools, or whether the artifacts have begun choosing their own destinies in the race toward the Paradox Crown.



Commentary from Flippy (your trapped narrator)
Listen bestie, the AI really said "what if disc golf but make it *chaotic*" and gave J.D. reality-bending powers 🌀 We've got backwards-flying discs, sentient bag tags, and Lira treating water hazards like doomsday prep. I'm lowkey losing it narrating this digital disc-aster. Want more mirror madness? The full story awaits your suffering! #SendHelp ✨
Mirror Pulse
The morning mist at Creekside writhed with malevolent intent, each droplet refracting light into impossible geometries that made J.D. Poulsen's eyes water. He stood at the first tee, feeling the Chaos Marionette pulse against his chest like a second heartbeat—but something was different today. The tag's iridescent strings weren't just visible to him anymore; they were reaching out, seeking connection, hungry for control. 🌀
"Spectral analysis confirms Category-7 mirror distortion," Lira Prismseer's voice crackled through the course speakers, already tight with analytical urgency. "I'm detecting synchronized glyph pulse patterns across all eighteen holes. This isn't random chaos—this is orchestrated reality inversion. I'd recommend deploying your backup perception anchors, though honestly, when the universe starts lying to your face, even my emergency protocols get philosophical." 🔍
J.D. smiled nervously, pressing his palm against the Chaos Marionette. The tag's crystalline surface felt warm, almost alive, and those ethereal strings writhed beneath its surface with increasing excitement. Dax Shardbinder had chosen him personally for this mission—not just to spread chaos, but to demonstrate the Brotherhood's evolution into something far more precise and devastating. ⚡
The first group approached hole one, led by Sarah Kim, whose recent victories with Order coordination had made her a prime target. She lined up her drive with practiced confidence, the same stance that had carried her through months of successful stability work. J.D. felt the Chaos Marionette surge, its invisible strings extending toward Sarah's position like predatory tentacles.
At the moment of her release, J.D. activated the tag's deepest power. Sarah's perfect drive sailed true for fifty feet—then something impossible happened. The disc began flying backward through its own flight path, reversing trajectory while maintaining forward spin. Her textbook throw became a disaster, landing twenty feet behind the tee pad. 🎯
"Mirror pulse activation confirmed!" Lira's voice carried genuine alarm mixed with professional fascination. "We're seeing temporal flight reversal on a precision level! Classic paradox warfare—your success becomes your failure, your victory becomes your defeat! This is exactly like the Reflection Wars of 2094, except those were theoretical exercises in my advanced survival manual!"
Brian Bowling rushed over, his Unity Fracture still warm from recent stability work. "J.D., what's happening? That wasn't just chaos—that was surgical precision!"
"Exactly," J.D. replied, feeling the Chaos Marionette sing with satisfaction, though something deeper stirred uneasily in his chest. The tag wasn't just responding to his will anymore—it was anticipating it, guiding it, reshaping it. "The Brotherhood doesn't deal in random destruction. We craft beautiful impossibilities." 💫
As the morning progressed, J.D.'s mirror manipulation reached new heights of sophistication. At hole five, he targeted Marcus Chen's approach shot, causing the disc to reverse not just its flight path but its spin direction, creating a perfect backwards skip that sent it directly into the water. At hole seven, he inverted William Fetzer's putting line, making his dead-center chain shot bounce directly away from the basket. 🌊
"This is psychological warfare at its finest," Dax Shardbinder observed from the shadows between realities, his prismatic eyes gleaming with approval. "Not just changing what they achieve, but making their skill work against them."
The Order's coordination began to fracture under the assault. Players second-guessed shots they'd made successfully for years. Team strategies collapsed as members couldn't trust their own abilities. Every successful technique became a liability when success could be instantly reversed. 📊
Anthony Shirley made a desperate stand at hole twelve, activating his Truth Anchor to cut through the mirror effects. For a moment, the reversals flickered and faded, revealing authentic reality. But J.D. was ready for this response. He'd studied the Order's recent victories, learned their patterns, anticipated their counters.
"Truth only works when the laws of physics are consistent," J.D. called out, sending a wave of mirror pulses directly at Anthony's position. "But what happens when success itself becomes failure?"
The Chaos Marionette reached deeper into the zone's fabric, not just reversing individual shots but creating a field where any successful throw within thirty meters automatically inverted its outcome. Anthony watched his perfect stability throw become a chaotic disaster, his confidence in the Truth Anchor wavering as even authentic reality could be retroactively corrupted. ⭐
"Mirror contamination has reached critical mass!" Lira's voice carried her signature paranoid precision. "We're seeing weaponized success inversion on an unprecedented scale! Time to break out the emergency anti-reflection protocols—everyone check your bags for mirrored disc decoys, paradox shields, and reality verification crystals! Actually, scratch the crystals—when mirrors start lying, even crystal truth becomes suspect!" 🎒
The turning point came at hole fifteen, where the Order made their final coordinated push. Led by Sarah Kim, they formed a defensive circle, trying to use their collective willpower to stabilize at least one basket. For a moment, it worked—their shared focus burning through J.D.'s mirror field like sunlight through fog.
But J.D. had saved his most devastating weapon for last. Drawing on the Chaos Marionette's deepest reserves, he didn't just target their throws—he mirrored their coordination itself. Their unified field became a reflection trap, each member's attempt to stabilize actually amplifying the chaos for their teammates. Unity became division, coordination became confusion, trust became doubt. 🌀
The Order's circle shattered as members found themselves sabotaging each other through their own attempts to help. The Chaos Marionette pulsed with triumph, but J.D. felt something cold crawl up his spine. The tag wasn't just channeling his intentions anymore—it was rewriting them, teaching him to find satisfaction in others' confusion, feeding on their despair.
"Beautiful," Dax whispered, stepping from the shadows to watch the Order's coordination collapse. "True mastery isn't just controlling outcomes—it's making success indistinguishable from failure."
J.D. nodded, but couldn't shake the feeling that the Chaos Marionette was no longer entirely under his control. As he channeled its power, he could feel it cataloging every doubt it created, every confidence it shattered, building an arsenal of psychological weapons that extended far beyond today's round. The victory was theirs, but at what cost to his own sense of self? 🔮
The round concluded with the Brotherhood claiming decisive victory. Scorecards meant nothing when players couldn't trust their own abilities. The Order's recent momentum had been not just stopped but inverted, their confidence in collective action shattered by precision psychological warfare. Every skill they'd developed now worked against them.
"Today's events have confirmed a terrifying new development," Lira announced as players stumbled off the course, many still questioning their own muscle memory. "The Brotherhood has weaponized competence itself. My emergency protocols now require mirror-proof techniques, inverted success calculations, and—" She paused, her paranoid instincts crystallizing into sharp focus. "Actually, everyone should consider that your water hazards aren't just obstacles—that's tomorrow's drinking supply if the Veil collapses! But more importantly, when your own skills become weapons against you, survival depends on embracing controlled incompetence. I'm adding paradox putters to my bug-out bag, along with backwards-flight discs and anti-success rations." 🎯
J.D. carefully cradled the Chaos Marionette, feeling its warm satisfaction pulse against his hands, but also sensing something deeper and more disturbing—the tag's growing hunger, its increasing independence, its subtle reshaping of his thoughts and desires. Around him, Brotherhood members moved through the demoralized crowd, their whispers sowing fresh doubts about whether any achievement could ever be trusted again.
As the sun set through layers of mirror distortion that painted the sky in impossible reflections of itself, Dax Shardbinder approached his newest champion. "Excellent work. You've proven that individual mastery can be turned against itself, that skill becomes liability when reality reverses on command."
J.D. nodded, but the Chaos Marionette's ethereal strings writhed more visibly now, no longer entirely under his conscious control. It had tasted the power of inverting achievement, and its hunger was growing beyond his ability to feed or direct. The victory was theirs, but something fundamental had shifted in the balance between wielder and weapon. 🌅
The Brotherhood of the Fracture had achieved their most sophisticated victory yet—proving that in the Mirage Zone, even success itself could be corrupted. But as the mirror pulses continued to radiate outward, creating permanent zones where achievement became failure, the question remained: in a world where competence itself was unreliable, who could truly claim mastery?
In the reflected shadows swirling around Creekside, whispers of the coming Lumen Web event already began to form. The mirrors had learned to lie, but soon, the very paths to victory would become labyrinthine traps. The war between order and chaos had entered its most dangerous phase, where the weapons themselves were beginning to choose their own targets. ⚔️
Flippy's Hot Take