#except in that if you like gay detectives

[quill-of-thoth]

The Years When I Wrote Stuff

So it’s the wake of the year 2022 and as of two months from now it will be two years since I spent a significant amount of time writing anything. I watched The Glass Onion last night and I want to write a mystery so badly that my stomach hurts, but also I want to go home and time travel is not an option. Feel free to skip the introspection but I miss Livejournal, and I thought other people also waiting for a dead year to be buried who have also tried to make stuff during the last eternity might find this a little cathartic.

I spent my morning rereading some stuff I previously wrote, back in college, approximately a decade ago, and it’s... good? In ways that I didn’t expect, given a whole host of personal factors like ten years experience, the fact that some of what I wrote then was fanfic for a very small and insular writing and reading community and not actually fanfic of a property that exists*, and that what I remember as communitywide engagement is an average of five unique commenters per chapter. (*People who never lived on Live Journal: there were several of these sorts of emergent meta fandoms, long before Goncharov. I was in a handful of them. One of them was the Sims 2 legacy challenge community, where there is no canon, everyone is trying to win points on a spreadsheet while playing a completely different game, and people just straight up borrowed each other’s characters to write combination screenshot and text stories about. It was considered flattery to do it if you could write your way out of a paper bag. Or if your forum threads / livejournal entries got enough engagement to be equal to or more ‘popular’ than the original author. Other metafandoms involved sporking [critical reading of another work with jokes worked in], and meta-fanfic like protectors of the plot continuum.) So, what did I have in twenty mumbleteen that let me write, and do it pretty well for my level of skill at the time? 

I was not less depressed: the year that I wrote 48k of cathartic mystery investigation that I still like was not a good one, personally, and the year before it was definitely top three worst. I also wasn’t just astronomically talented at the time: I was concurrently writing a non-fanfic attempt at a novel that has fully earned its position in the mental compost bin. (The physical location is somewhere in a folder within a folder on a thumb drive, probably labeled “junk” and “old junk” respectively.) 

I was not less busy: on top of classes I was writing a thesis that was so bad, the singular time any other living human mentioned they’d read it after I graduated, I blurted out “Oh god WHY?” (I got that job anyway.) In contrast since the beginning of the pandemic I have been unemployed off and on and not exactly super busy otherwise. I may have been doing a less overwhelming amount of the work of living, since I was living in dorms at the time, but... (checks my apartment) I think I’d better not investigate how much work of living is technically getting done around here.  I honestly think the major difference has been community. Don’t get me wrong, I like tumblr. I like twitter too. There is not a lack of people joyfully engaged in making stuff and talking to each other about it on either platform. We are (probably, at least in my case) a little cooler about it too: twitter’s villain of the week and the eternal problem of internet harassment aside, the dominance of short form and mostly public posting has made a lot more people than I remember aware that joining secret locked fandom groups devoted to hating specific members of your community is a bad thing and not a badge of acceptance into the Big Name Fan inner circle. Also, the first time Diane Duane turned up to my livejournal I acted like an embarrassingly star-struck teenager. Given that I was an embarrassingly star-struck teenager and have since managed to have actual conversations with published authors, I think I may have matured some. But with shorter, faster posts, and an internet economy that is increasingly about advertising, and single streams of information, we’ve definitely lost an aspect of the previous writing and fannish community. Not just the ability to off topic chat in a forum or a comments section with days or weeks between replies instead of wading through the discord, or community reading lists instead of reblogs and quote tweets, or spending hours uploading photos and gifs to new third party hosting sites and re-linking them every time free hosting got discontinued. From my perspective here on Tumblr we seem to have lost a huge amount of support for each other’s projects. Let me explain: back in the days of Livejournal there was fandom, meta fandoms, and original work. The three nations lived in harmony until - okay, technically they weren’t three nations, because we were a bunch of individual people doing a bunch of different things and even if you didn’t tag for shit, if you stuck around and commented enough you met other people. You would get invested in one of their projects, or they would get invested in yours. Most importantly, you would talk about things in the comments section. If you went looking for book reviews you would go to the comments for more recommendations. You’d also get arguments between people you’d never met, essays written by someone who appeared to be commenting on the mirrorverse version of the post you’d just read, and a decent number of bots. But you would be at the party talking about your favorite movies, the novel you were writing, and your thesis in the corners with photos of someone’s cat, instead of shouting across the width of the internet. You can still DM people, yes I know. You can still, if you’re too experienced to be embarrassed by being perceived like @seeingteacupsindragons and I, have a loud personal conversation in public via reblogs and tagging other people. It can even be a relatively private conversation if you’re deep enough into twitter replies or you’re only notable to a few dozen or few hundred people who only follow you in case you have more confessions to make about your former feral gremlin exploits back in the years when you wrote things. I can’t imagine writing the usual fandom disclaimer of “don’t own: don’t like don’t read” the way I used to during a spork or analysis. I legitimately once advertised the story that kicked off this round of introspection with “I obviously don’t own [book series we were dissecting to see why we hated it] because if I did you guys wouldn’t love me anymore.” Not just because it’s assuming my audience has strong feelings about me (easy to assume when there are seven of them and they loyally keysmash every chapter,) but because the firehose of social media feels very impersonal. Not on a caring about other people personally level, but on a level where, outside of fandoms, which aren’t built as sturdily as they used to be, it seems a little absurd to assume people care about your ongoing projects.  I’m not saying prior fandom iterations were better. Fandom problems and blog and social media problems have always been the same community building problems dressed up in different posting limits. Human nature has always been that of miscommunication, self interest, and sarcastic asides no matter how low you can sink the stakes. People have always struggled to organize community in the face of corporate censorship, societal bigotry, and Russian government takedown bots.** I’m saying that the things that used to go hand in hand with fandom, like your own oc’s and the ability to spend six months in a fandom and come out with a writing group passionately keysmashing over each other’s original characters and original stories are much, much harder to find than they used to be.  (**The bots are not always russian but false DMCA reports and the other apparatus of modern internet bot problems is not by any means new. And the eventual deathblow of Livejournal was struck by Russia. For more information I’m afraid you’ll have to google it all, due to me failing to locate any of the tumblr posts that filled me in on specifics long after the fact, on the very same day I successfully found my old Livejournal story I had forgotten the time of via a string of related tags. Irony, it turns out, cannot die.) AO3 and tumblr have kept fandom going, arguably stronger than ever, and it’s not like metafandom has died, given that it hasn’t even been two months since a critical mass of tumblr users decided to collaboratively write a summary of a movie based on a pair of bootleg shoes. I’m almost guaranteed to get more “interaction” with this post than my average original story in livejournal days.  But goddamn it, I miss the comments section. I miss replying to people demanding to know what was coming next with cutesy replies like “well you see, next chapter, [redacted] will [spoiler].” I miss having to break five thousand word conversations into multiple comments and the accompanying ability to trade theories and refute assumptions point by point without either flooding the dash or having to shove it all behind a readmore. (I miss customizeable readmores and the ability to put up a summary to click on or make a cryptic comment about the plot. Upon reflection, I don’t miss breaking up comments, I miss having collapsible threads to discuss specific points of speculation.) Most of all, I miss the semi-private space where people overwhelmingly were not shy about saying “hey, this reminds me of some things in my original story, you want to read some?” and where the link you received when you said yes ended either with you giving out a polite comment about the similarity to the original conversation and ‘I might not keep up with it, but good luck!’ or falling madly in love with someone else’s blorbo. I’ve tried to recapture the magic here and elsewhere, but as lovely as most people in writeblr are there is just so much advertising that it hasn’t worked for me, as a vehicle of actually talking to people about writing. Without a word written of the actual story there’s a moodboard and a playlist and a near-constant feeling of talking to yourself in front of a microphone. We all might want to publish this some day: have two paragraphs and an entire tag of endlessly recycled promotional material about the aesthetic. Everything is a pitch contest and the rules of engagement are written down in a completely different post: above all else act professional. Well, professional enough. You can be a clown and you can be a jerk but you cannot just hang out and expect that everyone will get their own turn to talk about their OC’s, regardless of whether you’re seriously hoping to publish or not. I’d love to talk about the process and art of writing again with people I only sort of know, instead of only doing it in DM’s with my oldest friends. I’d love to drag my OC’s out of the metaphorical compost bin and tell you that I don’t currently have a WIP that is anything like ready for public consumption, much less publication, but that if you watched Glass Onion last night and cried over the idea that you can’t have justice for the ones you love and you can’t bring them back but you can damn well be sure their work was not in vain, you’d love them. They’re my children and they’re my self, they live in my brain and they’re in love and better yet they’re best friends who will never, ever loose each other. Whether that’s to the slow diaspora of having to move across the country to make a living or finding that a dumbass billionaire pulled the plug on the liminal space where they gather. They’re part of a family of orphans and outcasts and they’re the spiritual descendants of a lot of people who taught me a lot about community. They know way more than me about how to help the friends who are suffering yet another pointless accident and wring some kind of catharsis out of a world that has not stopped ending in a thousand different ways since before any of us were born, and it’s only partly because one of them can literally do magic. Mostly it’s because when you write for five people who all hated the idea that resistance to the cruelties of the world is pointless even in fiction the exact same way you can actually give them a single webpage where justice exists, the people who are supposed to keep people safe care more about that than maintaining their structural power, and rich assholes who ruin people’s lives are the ones who go to jail. Now if only my perfect, (but not too perfect) darling, useless daughters would bring me a plot so I could actually use the sadness and anger for something. Even if no one ever reads it.

[farahblack]

i do not want a stranger things x dghda crossover bc ive seen some of the shit the st fandom puts out and its frankly garbage (sorry), but i WOULD like to see dirk and murray try to attack each other. gay on gay violence. mlm hostility. two karate amateurs trying to kick each other while joyce and todd simultaneously try to stop them and exchange tired looks over their heads

[235uranium]

for a character to be "of all time" they need to have smth that distinguishes them from the usual archetype they fulfill in an insane as fuck way. they need to leave you reeling with their every life choice. and those choices are always in character which increases the degree of insanity.

[nerdvi]

In the wake of the whole james somerton fiasco and inspired by this post, I wanted to share a few of my um, soft signs, like, orange flags to detect when someone is bullshitting you.

First of all, I am on the spectrum which means 1) I tend to take what people say at face value and 2) I have a strong sense of justice which makes me prone to biases, all of which combined means I am at perpetual risk of swallowing the bullshit.

So, what to do about it? You turn on the critical thinking and pay attention.

As one of my favorite youtubers, Hannah Alonzo, likes to say: "consider the source, remember the motive". Who is talking to you?? What do you know about them?? What biases might they have?? How do they interact with your own biases?? Where are they talking from?? Is it anger?? happinness? boredom?? Also, why are they talking to you? Are they trying to sell you something?? Are they trying to convince you and why?? How do they go about the finantial motivation, if present? If you have, in this case, a white cis gay man talking to you as it he has it the worst of the worst in the world, there's probably some exaggeration and you should start to wonder. There's a good chance he's bullshitting you.

How they talk about women and POC No, no, stay with me. There's a rule I had back when I was dating men: Always beware of how they treat their mother. With the exception of extremes like mama's boys and cases of abuse, how a man treats the woman with whom they have that familial bond is a good indicator of how they are going to treat you. Do they berate her? speak ill of her? are aggressive or controlling? do they dismiss her opinions? Same with creators, and by god I tell you, specially cis male creators, queer or otherwise, always always beware of how they speak of women, how they treat women, how they treat POC. Somerton had a weird vendetta against straight women. It went mostly unnoticed. Then, he was dismissive towards lesbians and other queer women and it was once again overlooked. Then he went ahead and made sinophobic content about genres and cultures he knows NOTHING about. Again, it went unchecked. What I am telling you is IT'S NOT NORMAL. Contempt about women and non white-western cultures is not normal and if someone has them as them as an enemy or a scapegoat, they're probably bullshitting you. Take what they say and fact check it, see for yourself.

If at any point in a video or an essay you find yourself thinking "wait, really??" then it's time to fact check. Is it a bit suspicious?? is your logic telling you that's not quite how this works?? Then take to google, my friend, they might be bullshitting you. At worst, you dodge a fake fact, at best, you learn way too much about a topic you were already interested in.

Beware of the lack of nuance. I can not stress this enough. We all love monochrome, but life and societal issues are never black and white. It's just impossible, there's too many factors to consider. If you are being presented situations or anecdotes as absolute truths, you're probably being bullshitted. If it's too good to be true, it is. If it sounds waaay too convenient, it probably is. A good researcher, a serious investigator, will always have some nuance because they have done the work and checked the sources. If someone provides you 1) no nuance and 2) no sources, THEY'RE BULLSHITTING YOU.

These are the ones I can come up with just of the top of my head, I'm sure there's more and please, add them. Remember that naivité isn't a crime, I'm fairly naive and that's made me distrustful, and these are some of the techniques I've found that help me navigate through a world of information without losing myself.

[canon-gabriel-quotes]

Transcript -

Gabriel : *heavy breathing and grunting* Bastard. 

Useless bucket of bolts. Yeah, you better run!

Load back to your- Ah shit, that was hard. Load back to your little checkpoint.

Yeah, go ahead. Go P rank the other levels. 

Oh… I’m sorry. Can-can-can I? Excuse me, can I help you?

Columbo : Oh, uh, hi there. Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.

Uh, I’m looking for somebody. 

Uh, Gabriel is it? Is that you? Is that who I’m lookin for?

Listen, I just gotta say, you did an amazing job uh… Fighting off that uh. 

What’d ya-what’d ya call it?

Uh, you called it a… 

Gabriel : A mere object?

Columbo : That’s right. A mere object. 

Phenomenal work. 

I gotta tell ya. Robots, I don’t trust em myself. 

Ya know, I had-I had this one episode where uh, there was this robot named Rob and uh-

Gabriel : Uh, yes. 

That’s very fascinating, but could you perhaps get on with your introduction? 

Columbo : Uh, certainly. So I’m, uh, I’m lieutenant Columbo. Uh, I’m with the LAPD. Uh, I'm in the homicide department. 

Gabriel : Homicide? You can’t kill a machine. 

Columbo : No no no! Of course not. But um… Well… Ya can certainly love one.

Gabriel : D-d-d-detective I- I don’t- I don’t know what you’re implying there with that statement!

As you can tell I… Despise machines and wouldn’t think about doing so- Loving them, I mean.

Columbo : Yes, of course uh. Absolutely, it’s completely unthinkable. 

Except, well. While I was- while I was over here and I opened this door and uh fourteen- fourteen V1 body pillows fell out. Along with a buncha the plushies. 

Uh, and I just can’t imagine how ya- how ya happened upon something like that by accident.

It’s a little ridiculous! Uh, frankly.

Gabriel : Uh, no no no, listen.  

Detective. I can explain, okay? 

Those belong to- uh! That guy over there! 

*Filth-like scream*

Gabriel : Yeah! A real freak! 

Some kinda pervert. I don’t know why we keep him around.

But uh, I-I have nothing to do with it. 

Columbo : Well, ya see, I would believe- I would believe that, but uh. 

It’s just that- Well we had the boys at the lab run these pillows and we found your cum- We found your DNA all over em, uh.

You’re-You’re under arrest, I’m killing you.

Gabriel : K-hah. Kill me? *laughs*

Oh detective. 

Columbo : Oh. Aw fuck.

Gabriel : I’m afraid you’ve made a grave mistake. 

Because, in fact… What is going to happen instead…

Is actually what I’m gonna- AHHHG MOTHERFUCKER

I’LL FUCKIN KILL YOU

SON OF A BITCH 

AHHG YOU BASTARD

I’LL RIP YOU APART 

PIECE OF SHIT

YOU FUCK

ASSHOLE

BITCH

*Grunting* 

Oh Shit. 

Oh. What have I done? 

V1 : Bro, tell me you didn’t just kill a fucking cop.

Gabriel : The law will be here any second now… 

Machine, flush the drugs.

V1 : No way, bro. Let’s smoke that.

Gabriel : All of it?!?

Hm… One last ride…

Well, alright.

*coughing his lungs out*

V1 : No Gabriel, holding it in doesn’t do anything!

*Gabriel continues to cough his lungs out*

End of transcription

Audio source part 1

Audio source part 2

[concord-and-cliches]

turnabout disco

(id in alt text and under the cut, sketches also under the cut!)

[Image ID: Part one of two of an Ace Attorney/Disco Elysium crossover fancomic. Panel One: Phoenix Wright and Maya Fey stand, facing Harry Du Bois and Kim Kitsuragi. Harry, with a thoughtful hand on his chin, asks Phoenix and Maya, "You're looking to get your hands on the autopsy, huh?" Panel Two: Phoenix, looking deferential, says, "I know the prosecution might've told you to keep it under wraps, but it would really help out our investigation." Panel Three: Harry, hand still on his chin with a thoughtful expression on his face, says, "Hm." He continues, "Well, I wouldn't be a Superstar Cop if I followed orders all the time, so…" Panel Four: In the upper left corner, there is an image of a typical autopsy report from Ace Attorney, as it would appear in the Court Record. Harry says, from off-panel, "Here! Have at it, kids." Phoenix and Maya look down at the report with pleasantly surprised expressions. Phoenix says, "Wow, really?" Panel Five: A slightly altered copy of the previous panel. Harry, again from off-panel, says, "Sure! Just one whiff of you gave me working class vibes, so you're alright in my book." Maya, with a smug and teasing expression, says, "Nick, I think he's calling you poor." Phoenix, with an annoyed expression, says, "Maya, don't forget who signs your paychecks."

Part two of two of an Ace Attorney/Disco Elysium crossover fancomic, a continuation of the previous image. Panel One: A close-up of the autopsy in Phoenix's hand. Most of it is cut off, except for one section: "SEX: Male". The "Male" is written in blue with blocky letters. Underneath this, in grey, "pigs gonna have sex" is written, and there is a small drawing of a pleading face emoji next to this. This is also crossed out by the same blue that "Male" is written in. Panel Two: Phoenix and Maya, with wide eyes, look down at the paper. Panel Three: A copy of the previous panel, except they are now looking off-panel at Harry and Kim. Panel Four: Harry, pointing finger guns, says with a confident expression, "We put the body in a giant fridge shaped like a bear, too. Just so you know." Behind Harry, Kim looks at him with a frustrated expression, saying, "You can stop telling everyone about that any time now, detective." Panel Five: A distant shot of Phoenix and Maya standing together in silence. Panel Six: A copy of the previous panel, except, from off-panel, Harry is saying, "Did you get to the part where I shoved my hand down his throat, yet?"

An Ace Attorney/Disco Elysium crossover fancomic. Panel One: Harry Du Bois and Kim Kitsuragi are looking around Miles Edgeworth's office. Kim is in the back, looking at a bookshelf, and Harry is looking at a chessboard. Text in the panel reads: "PERCEPTION (Sight) [Easy: Success] - There's a chessboard with blue and red pieces. The blue pawns have spiky hair and the red knights have edgy swords." Panel Two: A close-up of Harry with wide eyes and furrowed brows. Text in the panel reads: "CONCEPTUALIZATION [Hard: Success] - WAIT." Harry also has a thought bubble with little images of Phoenix Wright and Miles Edgeworth inside it. Panel Three: Kim looks over his shoulder as Harry says, from off-panel, "Kim. Kim. Kim." Panel Four: Harry turns Kim around by grabbing his shoulder, and Kim has an annoyed expression. Harry says, "Kim." Panel Five: With his arm still outstretched on Kim's shoulder, and still wide-eyed and determined, Harry asks, "Lawyers can be gay, too??" Panel Six: Kim looks on with a blank expression. /end ID]

[zipper-ghost]

Based on a fic I'm working on where Kim and Harry have to go undercover at a gay club

Read the fic on ao3

(lines in bold are Harry’s skills talking. I haven't specified but you can guess)

A chill wind whips their faces as they step onto the precinct roof. They huddle together, facing each other, Harry’s broad body blocking the wind which would snuff out the lighter flame. Kim lit his cigarette and then lit Harry’s. Harry recently switched from Menthols to Kim’s brand of chestnut-flavored cigarettes. Kim hasn’t asked about it even though he noticed.

As the smoke fills his lungs Kim’s whole body visibly relaxes. A softness falls across his expression, his gaze grows distant. You don’t know if it’s the ritual of smoking at the end of the day or the nicotine. The smoldering end of the cigarette is reflected in Kim’s glasses, as are you. They lean against the railing and watch the sunset over the horizon in silence. Harry waits for Kim to start. 

The jingling of Kim unzipping his jacket makes Harry stand a bit straighter and bite the filter for his cigarette. 

“Shall we start?” Kim says taking out his notebook and flipping it open. 

You nod, trying not to linger on Kim’s now exposed collarbone. 

“How do you think the investigation is going?”

“Bad.”

“Kmn, we seem to have hit a dead end. Even though we’ve made contact with the suspect the name he has been using in the club scene seems to be an alias. And his tattoo doesn’t seem to be related to any known gang or criminal organization. We are still waiting for the lab to get back to us about the particular strain of hallucinogen that was in the victim’s system.” 

“It’s worrying…”

“What is?”

“Well, the drug the victim overdosed on- it’s not something we’ve come across before. There is a chance that there will be more overdoses like this.”

“We can look into who the suspect’s supplier might be.”

“He might not have a supplier here.”

Kim glances at Harry. “Why do you say that?”

“The suspect is Seraise. They said he was bragging about being an aerostatic pilot on leave. Maybe he brought the drugs from the Safre empire, would that be possible to find out?”

“I can look into it.” 

For a moment it is silent except for the sound of Kim’s pen on paper. A motor carriage speeds across the street below. Sodium street lights are switched on as the sky grows darker and stars begin to appear one by one. 

“How long do you think we have until he returns to Safre?”

Kim taps the page with the back of his pen. “It’s hard to tell. He has been here awhile, might be any day now.” 

“He probably won’t come to that club anymore,” Harry adds.

Kim’s eyes crinkle. He is smiling though only you would notice. 

“No,” Kim says, “not after you scared him off.”

“I didn’t scare- I am perfectly capable of flirting.”

“Sure, you are,” Kim replies around his cigarette, his flat words dripping with sarcasm. 

“I am! I was just not his type is all. He must be into twinkles-”

“Twinks,” Kim corrects. “Like our victim.”

“Hm.” Harry exhales a plume of white smoke that dissolves into the night. 

“So Kim, what’s your type? Twinks, bears, otters, cubs, tigers, rabbits?”

Kim’s face remains unreadable but his shoulders tense, the pages of his notebook crinkle under his grip. 

He answers after a brief but notable pause. “I don’t have a type. And you made up the last few at the end.”

“Everyone has a type! Are you saying you have no preferences when it comes to who you find attractive?”

“I’m more interested in personalities.”

“You’re such a fucking liar. Come on Kim.”

“Enough detective. We are still in the middle of our briefing and this is irrelevant to-”

“This is relevant to the case,” Harry insists. 

“Fine,” Kim says begrudgingly. “If I had to describe it, it’s say my taste in men is … questionable.”

“Questionable? What does that mean?”

“It means I’m attracted to men who are bad for me or impossibly out of reach. Now if you are satisfied can we get back to the case?”

Harry smiles. If you are smart about it, you could get more information from Kim. “Well your answer was kind of a cop-out but I’ll let it go for now.”

Kim furrows his brow at Harry, a look that says ‘Don’t you dare.’

You feel your knees buckle under the force of Kim’s glare. You grab the railing with one hand. 

“Aren’t you going to ask me about my type?”

“I don’t have to. I already know.”

“What? How do you already know?”

Kim turns back to his notebook and pretends to read. “Because it is obvious. You like them young, waifish, and pretty. Someone mysterious and fragile, someone who you can save.”

Someone to be your redemption. 

“That- that's not true- not everyone that-” Harry stutters. Kim’s blatant description of Dora throws you off kilter. Talking about her is taboo. Even though Kim knows about her and what she did to you he had never brought it up. He knows you still have nightmares of her. 

“Well, just in Martinaise there was Klaasje, Lilienne, the smoker on the balcony, and-”

“Wait- the smoker on the balcony?”

Kim raises an eyebrow. “You were smitten. You went on and on about him, ‘he is such a good listener, I felt heard when I talked to him. He smelled so good, how can someone smell so good?” Kim covers his mouth to hide his condescending grin. 

A formless darkness claws inside you. It feels terrible to be judged, to be teased, but you can’t quite put into words what you are feeling, or why

“You sound jealous,” Harry snaps back. 

Kim sighs. “I’m not jealous. I’m a detective and I notice patterns of behaviour.”

“Well you're plain wrong in this case. You’re not like that-”

“I’m not like what?” 

“Like…” Harry’s breath stutters in his chest. Kim isn’t like Dora or Klaasje or Lilienne or the smoker on the balcony. He isn’t like them and still…

You look at Kim’s cigarette and feel a pang of jealousy. You wish to be that cigarette cradled between his lips. You want to burn into ash, you want to be the bitterness on Kim’s tongue. You want to be the smoke filling his lungs, the nicotine flooding his bloodstream. You want to be Kim’s addiction, you want to be part of him, deep and inextricable. 

“I…” A tidal wave of desire crashes through you but you can’t say the words.

Kim snaps his notebook close. “I guess we’ve reached the end of the briefing. Our conversation is no longer productive.” He tosses his half-smoked cigarette to the ground and crushes the lit ember beneath the heel of his boot. 

His face is unreadable as usual but Kim is upset. 

Damn it. You’ve fucked up Harry. 

Harry follows Kim down the stairs from the roof. 

“I’m sorry Kim, I didn’t mean to make you angry.”

“I’m not angry Officer. It’s late and we won’t any more progress today, you should go home early.”

He is lying, if he isn’t mad he wouldn’t call you ‘officer’

[sexiestpodcastcharacter]

Sexiest Podcast Character — Scripted Bracket — Round 3

Propaganda

Peter Nureyev (The Penumbra Podcast: Juno Steel):

His character is the reason the term "Homme Fatale" became a thing

Homme fatale, living by the mantra of be gay, do crime. V secretive and just the right amount of flirty. Also I love him

He’s a slutty master thief who slept with a detective he went on 1 date(murder case) with and then fell ass over tea kettle in love. Literally can’t think of anything sexier

Antigone Funn (Wooden Overcoats):

An extremely agoraphobic mortician of a local funeral home who has every disease. Nervous wreck. Makes noises when stressed. An artist at heart (her embalming fluid is imbued with the fragrance of cinnamon).

she's the goth gf of your dreams. she's an undertaker, a romance novelist, a hot air balloon pilot, and she has interiority for days

It's antigone or unfollow me

please, everyone, antigone deserves this. she ghost-wrote a wildly successful erotic novel and then faked the death of the fake author. she didn’t leave her house for 17 years except to go see horny french films every thursday. she accidentally ended up in a love triangle with a hot domme lesbian circus ringmaster and her own employee. she broke up with a doctor after one date because he didn’t respect her career (and also his parrot hated her). she experienced years of carnal yearning for her professional rival only to finally realize she was actually okay on her own. she drinks embalming fluid. she thinks of funerals as an art form. she was diagnosed with depression as an infant. she wanted to be a clown when she grew up. her hero is a historical female scientist who has a statue with her tits out. she’s been attacked by owls. a bunch of children thought she was a forest witch. the rest of the village thought she was dead. she has committed multiple counts of breaking and entering. she designed artisanal chocolates that put you in a temporary coma. she can’t eat her own chocolates because she’s allergic to everything. she attracts shadows like a magnet. she’s a woman in STEM. if you have any love in your heart for goth weirdgirls you’ll do the right thing. ANTIGONE SWEEP

GUYS PLEASE

PLEASE VOTE FOR ANTIGONE!!!!!

CMON DON’T LET MY GIRL “CANNONICALLY WANTED BY EVERYONE ON THIS ISLAND” LOSE!!!

Considering committing voter fraud for Antigone. My girl 😔

Vote Antigone because do you understand how narratively satisfying it would be if she won??? Season one? She could barely go outside her mortuary. Season four? Modeling for a sexy calendar. THE CHARACTER GROWTH!!!!!!! Nothing more sexy than that.

COME ON Y'ALL VOTE ANTIGONE. VOTE FOR MY HORNY GOTH QUEEN!!!!!

VOTE ANTIGONE OR DIE

IF YALL DONT VOTE ANTIGONE UR BLOCKED. This isn’t even a joke.

[inkdemonapologist]

[BatIM Cthulhu AU] A couple of doodles from session two, which UNSETTLED SAMMY A LOT ACTUALLY...

There have been small changes, throughout New York -- doors opening on the wrong side of the street, houses ending up just a block away from where you remembered them -- but the only people who can even tell seem to be those who remember Carcosa. Joey, Sammy, Henry, Jack, Peter, and Norman all experienced the strange shifting realm when a Mardi Gras party attempted to bring dread Carcosa to New Orleans, but Susie wasn't there. She can't see the changes we see, and the entire rest of the city agrees with her. That door was always there? The car was always that colour. That's where I remember the address being before, and there's no record it was ever different.

She trusts what the boys are reporting must be true, that maybe there are changes she can't see or remember, and both she and Sammy are terrified. These are only little things, but as more and more of the city slips into the world of the King in Yellow, what else might be rewritten...?

Anyway EVERYONE'S HAVING A GREAT TIME. If you're here for Out Of Context Quotes from our session, I have some of those too, here, under the cut!!

[Sammy is played by me, Joey is played by Boo (inkyvendingmachine), Henry is played by Maf (inkcryptid), Jack is played by Mochi (whatyouwantedmetosee) and Thren (haunted-hijinxer) is our GM!]

[Jack] I love how detective Pete is for a guy who is NOT a detective. [Sammy] He just got assigned that by Joey Drew and now it's true. [Joey] Exactly! That's how it works.

[Sammy] The idea of JDS having its own employed detective is really funny to me. "Why do you need that? You're an animation studio." "Well, you know, things come up,"

[GM] Everybody went home I believe, except Joey went to the Studio, which is like home,

[Sammy] Do we have any plan, other than just go in to work, [Jack] I though you were gonna say "other than go insane"...

[Joey] If Prophet's not the one going for the ink, then why is Sammy going for it?! Do they have a SECOND prophet situation??? [Jack] PROPHET...... TWO!!! [Henry] Prophet 2: Electric Boogaloo [Sammy] *tiredly* We don't need any more Prophets..... We don't need any more Sammys..... we have enough.....

[Jack] You just need to sip some ink and tell them it's the wrong number. Like, you've got the wrong guy. [Henry] New stone, who dis?

[Sammy] It was the false king who called through the ink, not our Lord! [Joey] Interesting... [Joey] Joey's going to ask Bendy if he can... feel this? Is he getting calls? *dad voice* Is someone calling you? Don't put your number on the internet!

[GM] Bendy says he wasn't made to be a receiver the same way Sammy was. [Jack] So technically, it's "New Sam, who dis"!

[Joey] Okay, Joey's going to note this all down in his... Notebook Of Nonsense That Plagues Them,

[GM] I'm choosing to believe that whenever Norman called in, he gave some sort of outlandish excuse, and whoever answered the phone didn't... write it down... [Sammy] Like the heckin', grian excuses-- [Joey] "I'm cutting my grass, with scissors" [Jack] Yeah!! He's cutting his grass! With scissors! In winter!!! [Sammy] And then Sammy's like "Do we know why he called out?" and the receptionist is just like "No We Have NO Idea" [Jack] With the most tired sigh. Second only to Grant.

[GM] Fun fact, Norman would answer the phone. [Sammy] Norman actually was just like, "ohhhhhhh i know THIS is some supernatural bullshit happening, I'm gonna stay home"

[Joey] Joey's going to ask Estelle if he looked like-- and give a vague description of Avedon. [GM] .............................. [GM] She is SO impressed that you knew this. [Joey] *delighted cackling*

[Jack] I love how cute Joey is about this kid. Just like... the cool Bendy Uncle! He's not related at all, but, [Joey] I feel like this is kind of how Joey just gets around kids? Maybe Joey does really want kids, just, y'know, doesn't know how to do it when gay? [Sammy] Obviously that won't happen, so-- [Joey] Yeah, [Sammy] --so then you START AN ANIMATION STUDIO, that's the only other option! [GM] Yeah, then all kids are your kids!

[GM] Alright, you've made many phone calls. [Joey] Yeah, [GM] And you only rudely hung up on one of them!

[Sammy] Sammy can surely track that down; he's used to digging up musicians. [Jack] Jack's there to assist with the Talking to People in a way that makes them want to cooperate with you, and not run in fear!

[GM, speaking for Peter] *lists all of the information Peter's dug up* And that's about what he managed to get, today! [Joey] And nothing weird has been happening... to him? [GM] WELL, OKAY. ABOUT THAT,

[Peter] Could you describe again, the strange person who was at the party? What was that guy like? [Joey] *thinking very hard* Which... strange person...? I mean... Denis was there?

[Norman] Try not to fall in a swamp this time. [Joey] I'll let you know if I find one! [Sammy] There's fewer of those in New York, so, I think we're good. [Jack] I mean, you never know,, [Sammy] ...yeah, that's true..... [Joey] HEY, Joey will let him know if he finds one!!! [Sammy] If LAKE PONCHARTRAIN opens up in the MIDDLE OF NEW YORK CITY, that will certainly be something to let all of our friends know!

[GM] Make a social-type checks to have a word with them beforehand! [Sammy] I don't know, if I should do that,,, [GM] SAMMY can make an Appearance check! [Sammy] *laughing* LETS SEE IF IM HANDSOME ENOUGH to get let in!

[GM] Everybody's like "You guys!" You're greeted with nostalgia, and eagerness! and people are trying to small talk you, I'm guessing Sammy's not going for that. [Sammy] I mean, you can try to small talk.... AT him... [Sammy] He doesn't... y'know... it's like playing a game of catch where you throw the ball to somebody, and they just hold the ball. [Sammy] Like.... okay! [GM] I did the thing! [Sammy] Cool, catch successful. [Jack] No give, only throw!

[Sammy] Look, I was trying to drink ink this morning, so I feel like this is a step up.

[Sammy] Sammy will enjoy it! We should do this more often! [Sammy] "We should do this more often" says man who will always be too busy to do this more often,

[GM] They're impressed that, at a job where there was a gunshot right in front of the stage, the thing you want to ask about is where they sourced their music. [Sammy] I LOVE that Sammy's reputation is such that this makes perfect sense to them.

[GM] His name is Alan Leroy. [Sammy] Okay, Leroy works, because then I'll remember it, because of Leroy Jenkins. [GM] This is what's been going through my head the entire time, too...

[GM] They say he's a crazy-talented musician who blew into town a year or two ago? He's really nice and easy to get along with, and when he really gets going he can make sounds come out of his instrument like you've never heard! [Sammy] These... are all.. compliments that would be really impressive except that they can all be interpreted in really concerning ways.......

[GM] If Jack wants to look harder, he can.......... [Jack] I'm doing it, Jack can make little a bad decision! He hasn't made any yet this season!! [Jack] *rolls* That's an extreme success. How much sanity do I lose!!

[Henry] We're ghost hunters. The, the pale guy is a ghost, we're goin' after him. Ghost hunters. [Henry] ...This is why you don't let Henry lead the conversation!!

[Jack] It's occurring to me that we don't know if this guy is alive??? [Joey] YUP! This is a good time to find out! [Henry] Fun! [GM] When have you EVER gone up to somebody's house and found them dead inside? [Jack] Jack hasn't yet... [Henry] The very first scenario! [Sammy] Yeah it was a pretty bad situation as I recall, we were briefly accused of being involved! [Jack] Maybe you guys. Jack's different, though.

[Joey] We wanted to make sure he was doing alright. .....does that need a Fast Talk roll? [GM] Yeah, I was about to say-- [Joey] *rolls* *STARTS CACKLING* [GM] What did you do, do you roll a three again? [Joey] I DID ROLL A THREE! :D THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I ROLLED! [GM] I thought it was the Three Laugh!

[Henry] Henry is tired. Henry rolled a 93. [GM] Well he's out late, you know, he's a family man! He has normal hours, he hasn't been staying up late, living at the studio for the last few years! [Henry] He's regretting not accepting Joey's offer to just go home. [Joey] *muttering* See, Joey knows best!

[GM] Okay, so you guys notice, right off, that the car isn't there. [Sammy] UM. HM. [Jack] Which car did we take again? [Joey] The Mercedes... [Jack] *relieved* Okay good. [Jack] .... I MEAN, NOT GOOD, BUT...

[Joey] No, no I think it's OUR car... it's just... more yellow now... [Jack] I don't like that that means it's getting yellower... [Joey] ...........................So when do we take the sanity hit? [GM] Yeah, that would be now!

[GM] The woman says she's looking forward to when he has his own ship, and they can sail away together! [Henry] [Henry] ...I'm married,...

[Joey] Joey has his face pressed to the window-- no, he probably has the window down, it doesn't matter how cold it is -- and... CAN the window go down? Hold on. [Joey] *sounds of typing* "Car... door... window... down... history... when."

[Henry] Okay, these dice are BANNED. I rolled a 90! [Jack] What if you subtly replace the dice...? [Sammy] With slighty yellower dice!

[Joey] OKAY! There ARE rolling windows, so Joey does have the window rolled down, and he's intensely watching the colour of the car. [Joey] AND ALSO, he's STILL sitting in the middle seat, he's just going to lean over someone to do this. [Sammy] Ah. It's probably me.

[Jack] No, no, Pete and Jack can get kidnapped later and take some massive sanity damage together. ✨Cute date ideas!✨

[Joey] Joey's going to inform Norman that they're going to come over, they need additional eyes on something, [GM] Well, he's good at keeping eyes on things! [Joey] So they'll be over soon. [Sammy] I like how Norman gets a heads up, but with Peter we just show up at his apartment. [Joey] Exactly! [Jack] That's because Joey's kissed Pete. When Joey and Norman kiss then that's -- not good for Sammy, probably. [GM] At least Pete and Sammy are neutral. Non-reactive. [Sammy] Norman and Sammy are "it's complicated" on Facebook.

[Sammy] Okay, we gotta go get Linda, so Susie's not alone, [Jack] We're just playing "how many NPCs can we force Thren to play at once!" How many can we shove in the back of this car.

[Jack] Jack's gonna get home and find out his cats are different colours, [Sammy] Oh NO, [Jack] Comes back and Beans is a tortie now. [Sammy] Or Beans is just an orange cat, [Jack] Oh no! Her braincells! [GM] She needs those! She has all of them!!

[Joey] Depending on who's the affected party, Susie or them, it is actually useful to have a second, like, [Sammy] Someone to compare with? Yeah. [Henry] We don't know WHO the control group is, but ONE of us is the control group!

[Joey] As trusted as Norman is, he isn't one of Joey's... white-knuckle-clutched-keepsakes of a person,

[Sammy] *sarcastic* Okay, everyone ready to go to sleep? That's not a scary prospect right now, right? That's something that we're all really confident about doing? Cool, that's great. [Henry] Yeah, yeah, that's definitely not gonna, it's gonna go great...! [GM] Nobody's even cut their hand on a slick stone! It's fine! [Henry] NO ONE BETTER CUT THEIR HAND ON A SLICK STONE! We got enough problems!! [Joey] (Looking at you, Prophet!)

[Henry] Is Joey,,, sharing this plan with anyone? [Joey] ouo Has anyone asked him?

[Joey] Let's send Henry then! [Henry] Alright. Send Henry to Carcosa! [Sammy] *exasperated* yeah that's fine.... [Joey] It's not FULLY sending him there! It's just making a connection. [Joey] A little bridge! [Sammy] Uggghhhh... Sammy doesn't think we need any bridges to Carcosa. [Sammy] We've got enough Carcosa. [Sammy] Put some back.

[Sammy] This is what happens When You Give a Joey a Dream Spell.

[Sammy] We can't actually guarantee that New York isn't going to sink. That's not out of the question. [Jack] Is the Joey Drew specialty NOT "promising things that aren't necessarily things you can promise??"

[Henry] Actually, before Henry leaves he's going to give Joey a hug. [Joey] He doesn't get to leave. [Henry] Oh. [Joey] But Joey will take the hug!

[Henry] You know this man gives good hugs. You're getting a good Henry hug. [Jack] Gonna crunch all of Joey's terrible, very bad bones. [Henry] He's gonnna try not to crunch all of Joey's terrible bones! [Henry] But, I dunno. [Henry] Roll for damage.

[GM] The lurker knows this is serious, but he's also excited, because he has heard what a slumber party is from Henry's kids.

[GM] Now it is Friday, the 28th of December. [Sammy] Okay. Cool. Let's all make an effort to not ring in the New Year in Carcosa. That's MY New Year's Resolution: Don't Be In Carcosa.

[its-malarkey]

"Mashita’s priority is really just keeping his exorcist boyfriend from getting killed by a spirit because he was too nice". Mashita questions 1, why he had to be gay and 2, why had to date this guy of all men on a regular basis. The rest of the ragtag group of Ghost hunters probably find this completely hilarious.

Mashita hates to admit it but he was a gay mess of a man from the moment he decided Yashiki was interesting and decided to get cursed again to help him. Everyone around him knows this and makes fun of him on the regular.

I fully believe that when he’s with anyone else (and sometimes Yashiki) he’s like “man why am I dating this self-sacrificing idiot he’s gonna be the death of me” but internally he’s having a full-on heart attack every time Yashiki does anything impulsively (this is a regular occurrence). But I ALSO fully believe that they experience the longest “friends to lovers denial/it doesn’t get talked about” stage ever. So really it’s more like Mashita going “man why am I in love with this self-sacrificing idiot he’s too good for this world and I have to protect him at all costs” except every time he starts thinking it or talking about it, he censors the words “in love” because he doesn’t want other people to know. It’s also less complicated if you pretend you’re not attracted to your spirit doctor best friend/paranormal detective partner who is also the first friend you’ve made in ages. And do you know how embarrassing it is at first to be fully attached to the nicest, most selfless guy imaginable when you have to keep digging in out of deadly situations he repeatedly threw himself into? He definitely complains about Yashiki’s tendencies when he’s around the group.

Everybody sees straight through him and teases him accordingly.

[skykashi]

So I just had to turn off the reblogs of the Gai art, it seems like some popular blog reblogged the post with the ridiculous reblog of the baseless accusations that has absolutely no evidence or proof whatsoever and ppl have been reblogging it from them to point me out as the new villain on Tumblr, just because someone think they are too smart for this world and has a built-in AI detection sensors in their brain that they can throw serious accusations like that with literally nothing to back it up except that their Spidey senses are tingling!

I just can't believe how easy it is to destroy someone's reputation and years of hard work in seconds just because someone wanted to, you have no idea how discouraging this whole thing is, to work your butt off to create something just to be met with this at the end, am I supposed to record the process of every artwork I create and post it with my artworks from now on? How am I supposed to keep working on myself and challenge myself to get out of my comfort zone and improve my skills if the second I post something a little different from the usual I get attached like this? You have no idea how hard it is to have to work with such a crappy tablet, how time and effort consuming it is to keep trying to create something pretty on a lagging screen and no pen pressure sensitivity, but I have no choice but to be stubborn and determined enough to just keep trying anyway and spend 10x more time and effort than anyone else because that's what I love to do and it's limiting my creativity so much but I just have to make it work with what I can afford... and then the one time I had enough motivation coming from wanting to create something that will put a smile on my friend's @depressedhatakekakashi face just like they continue to put a smile on my face so I chose to do something different this time for them, something that I don't usually go for because of how extremely hard it will be on a stupid tablet like mine but my appreciation and gratitude for them gave me the push I needed to do it and challenge those limitations even further, not knowing that there's someone lurking in the shadows waiting for a moment like that to destroy all of my hard work.

First, they said "oh, I think it's AI because some parts look pixilated" so I recorded a video showing how things get pixilated when I move them between Adobe Illustrator and Clip Studio Paint and why I'm forced to use both software together for a piece like this so they then say "I don't understand how what you said is relevant" then changed their reason to "because the art style in this piece looks different from your usual art style" and um, my usual art style is meant to look like cartoon and this one is meant to look realistic HOW COULD IT NOT LOOK DIFFERENT?!!!, like I don't understand, am I stuck with only one type of artwork now because that's what I usually do? Am I not allowed to try something new for a change or try to challenge myself or develop my skills? Can someone tell me where I can get a permit to have freedom with my creations? Or am I supposed to just stop trying all together?!!!

[noxhominis]

I have to say this now, because Sherlock Holmes is trending and I am celebrating more than I did this Christmas. I watched Knives Out and Glass Onion and it made me realise something crucial about Holmes. He is fundamentally a good person. Does he sometimes behave a little bit like he doesn't care? Yeah. And does he solve cases because he wants the thrill and the mystery? Yep. But I would argue that he mainly solves cases because he wants to help people. His first case was when he helped his friend. Later we see multiple instances of this happening again and again (him being a genuinely good person). I have said it once and I will say it a million times— Sherlock Holmes is interesting because he is a smart guy who is NOT an asshole. He is (mostly) considerate to people, and their feelings. He takes cases to help people. The prime example that springs to mind is Copper Beeches, where he didn't think Violet Hunter had anything interesting to say about her case. But he still agreed to hear her out. And many times, he has done things for people, solved their mysteries without any money. Now you could say that he is not concerned about money at all, except we have seen him squeeze the king of Bohemia. He takes high profile cases to pay the bills, normal cases to solve puzzles, and the really simple mysteries because he wants to help people. I may have talked about this in another post and used the example of Twisted Lip, and Blue Carbuncle to say how he let criminals (of a sort) go solely based on his moral judgement.

The reason why I bring this up in the same breath as the Knives Out films is because of Benoit Blanc's character. That man is very polite unless he absolutely needs to be rude or has been driven to the ends of his patience. You know, like a normal person? And I loved how it just completely avoided the trope most modern mysteries, crime thrillers, and detective stories fall into. I like to call the trope "The Genius Asshole Syndrome". And it just sort of stigmatises really really smart people for not having social skills by twisting them into something mean and uncaring. And so many modern adaptations of Sherlock Holmes fall into that. And yes, BBC is one of them. So do the Ritchie!verse movies. They make Sherlock Holmes act flippant towards other people, because such a genius cannot possibly care for the normal people. He cannot possibly appreciate other different versions of smart, because he is obviously a genius and a genius is always an asshole, and not empathetic at all. So it was really refreshing to see a detective who cared about his clients, and vulnerable people. It was nice to see a detective get angry on behalf of a defenceless person. And it was very nice to see a detective not wanting to fuck a female client who is maybe half his age. (Plus the gay thing worked out great). I really feel like we need more genuinely good, kind, and helpful people in fiction, and now that Sherlock Holmes is completely in public domain, we can hopefully get something that is faithful to his actual character instead of the two dimensional grim dark detective dynamic. And maybe modern media can give us other detectives who are actually human, and have all basic human emotions? Just a thought.

[wth-if]

Humans have made their peace with the supernatural a long time ago.. all of them, except the demons.

Ten years ago Archangel Michael swooped down from the Heavens to give humans a new salvation, a solution to their pest problem, a little thing they called H.E.L.L. - Heaven's Eradication of Lethal Lowborns.

Ever since then the demons have been under control. Until recently -unexpected, right?- after a series of kidnappings conducted by a cult calling themselves The Morningstar's Children. Ever since, H.E.L.L. has been cracking down hard on the lowborns.

And well, Lucifer Morningstar (The President of Hell Themself and Michael's sibling) is having none of that.

In retaliation, she sends you, a demon, to infiltrate H.E.L.L., and take it down.. from the inside!

OR, a celestial sibling rivalry goes a bit too far.

FEATURES (May Change!):

Play as a lowborn/demon! Male, female or nonbinary (including cis/trans options); gay, straight or aro/ace; be the vessel for Lucifer’s revenge against her sibling by.. hunting your own kind? What?

In-depth character customization! Hair color & style, skin color, body type, markings, piercings, etc!

Choose how you got chosen for the job! Are you a demonic assassin or are you just an average joe who happened to be walking by?

Romance one out of four unique romance options! Your demonic co-worker, a demon hunter and TWO archangels (that’s right!)

Cause chaos and shenanigans! Get Michael’s coffee wrong, mess up an investigation and let demons escape H.E.L.L.’s grasp! It’s what you’re here for!

Discover the mystery behind the disappearances, and who's really behind The Morningstar's Children!

Help Lucifer Morningstar win her election against her son Satan, or sabotage it!

Levithan (He/Him): Demonic Overlord, Son of Lucifer, Sin of Envy. You'd expect a guy with that description to be pretty full of himself, but instead he seems pretty tired and over-worked. He's been tasked by Lucifer to infiltrate H.E.L.L. alongside you- why? It's anyone's guess at this point. (Possible Tropes: bickering couple, tired x energetic, tol x smol)

Yavhi Gupta (They/Them): Stubborn, rude and cold-hearted. They've been working for H.E.L.L. since they were able to join, and they're one of the toughest, roughest demon hunters around. They don't joke or play around, they go straight for the kill each time. Unlucky for you then, that you've been assigned to train underneath them for the foreseeable future. (Possible Tropes: enemies to lovers, opposites attract, black cat x golden retriever)

Raquel (She/Her): Fierce, witty and loyal to the end. When her best friend left Heaven, she followed right after. Now, she works as a detective alongside him and they've been hired by an outside source to investigate The Morningstar's Children, as H.E.L.L. can't seem to do anything right, and she'll do anything to find out the truth; even if it means teaming up with a lowborn like you. (Possible Tropes: fwbs to lovers, smart x dumbass)

Gabriel (He/Him): Quiet, yet lethal and dangerous. He left Heaven for a reason, but now works alongside his friend as a detective. He's the brawn of the operation, but just as willing to do anything to get the truth... even if you get the feeling he knows more than it seems. (Male MCs only. Possible Tropes: Mutual pining, star-crossed lovers, quiet x loud)

Lucifer Morningstar (She/They): As the Sin of Greed, she's the father (mother?) of all the other deadly sins, and the current President of Hell- though with reelections soon, and her subjects looking in their son's, Satan's, favor, that might change soon. Which is why they sent you on the quest to take down H.E.L.L., so her rep would get a serious boost. She's conniving, scheming and pantsuit wearing, and will stop at nothing to keep her spot on top. (And I love her.)

Michael (They/Them): The most powerful Archangel of them all, it was obvious that one day, they'd become the humans savior, their saving grace.. uh, not really, but they love the praise. Recently however they've been under fire from the human media after a slip-up resulted in the deaths of six people, but they managed to save grace by capturing and promptly executing a few lowborns connected to The Morningstar's Children. (Which, In Raquel's professional opinion, puts them right at the top of her list of suspects.)

Shae (She/Her): A vampire and the one who hired Raquel and Gabriel after the kidnapping of her son Damien at the hands of The Morningstar's Children.

LINKS :

DEMO POST (TBA) R/O INTROS (TBA)

Asks about the R/Os, the characters or the story in general are always welcomed!

[henrysglock]

Mother is God, In The Eyes of a Child

This has got to be my farthest-fetched theory, and its more of a collection of observations that weave together than an actual theory. However...there's something distinctly weird about all this.

It started here:

Max steps on spider egg sacs in Vecna's mind lair, and the babies spill out.

"If there's a spider, you're never gonna find it 'till it lays eggs and the babies spill out"

Then Vecna killing Patrick while looking distinctly like a spider on a web, a direct comparison to those black widows.

And I talked in the discord chat talking with Em for a while like. They. They wouldn't. Right? And I've been sitting here thinking about the last time I said "they wouldn't...right?" So here we go.

"Of course you have a mother. You couldn't really have been born without one."

But Mama is dead...

just like One doesn't exist.

And whoever you are, either you aren't home (which, you're "Terry's daughter" in Terry's home which was decorated for you in hopes that you'd come home 🤨)...or you aren't Terry's daughter.

but wait: Mr. Mom? Perfect!

Mr. Mom...which leads straight to the lab going haywire:

Because of the Mind Flayer, who we know is (most likely) a version of Edward.

And "sleepyhead" is a parent thing...but it's specifically a mom thing, and it comes from the guy who's likely Edward. Why are you, as a man, so distinctly mother?

And so I'm looking at all of his God coding:

And I'm looking at his talk of spiders, particularly black widows, being the gods of our world:

There's also this particular dialogue parallel with Carrie's mother:

As well as Black Widow "God of Our World" 001 and Henry "Sensitive (Gay) Child" Creel, framed this way in back to back shots.

One of them has the rainbow flag and the other's got the black widow spider, makes sense...right? (Sure. Except not really.)

He also has a ton of God coding in his music choices:

Except, when we look at the songs he alone or he and El are overlaid with...Akhnaten is functionally a mezzo-soprano. In the pieces we hear specifically, Akhnaten sings in the same range or higher than Nefertiti.

Which then gets me thinking about the Silent Hill parallels (that Em has talked about here), and specifically this one line of dialogue from Dahlia:

And the fact that every single black widow spider reference regarding Henward/Vecna/001 has been about female black widows, never male ones:

As well as a good portion of his rant being about:

- Being vaguely broken (what's wrong with him is never said) - His kinship with spiders (specifically the female black widows) - Society's oppressive made-up rules - Being forced to pretend (unspecificed as to what, exactly, he's pretending about...all we get is "a silly, terrible play") - Reproduction

Then the fact that Vecna kind of has a thing for showing up as mothers:

And on top of all that...the fact that Vecna somehow lost his dick along the way. Where did it go????????

There's also all the birthing and reproduction imagery that goes along with the UD, most blatantly in the scene where El crawls out of the same hole the Demogorgon came through:

As well as these movies from the ST4 Movie Board:

Ace Ventura Pet Detective: Finkle has a sex change to assume a new identity and seek vengeance.

Let The Right One In: Vampire girl who is really a boy being forced to live as a girl

Sleepaway Camp: Girl named Angela who is actually a boy named Peter being forced by his aunt to live as a girl after his twin sister (the real Angela) was killed in an accident. (Wibble knows more about this one than I do, but I'm staring at Peter Ballard and all of our Angela's parallels to the lab)

Splice: Female Human-Animal hybrid "dies" (is actually in a coma) and undergoes a spontaneous sex change to male and proceeds to go berserk.

Silence of the Lambs: Main villain is a blonde, wavy-haired cross-dressing serial killer.

And then with the parallels to Room (even if it isn't on the ST4 Movie Board):

Plus Will's Alan Turing poster and the castration stuff that goes along with that..and the "Henry" that shows up behind him:

What in the gender is going on here?

[kayatoastkkat]

first of all merry chirmas second of all what the fuck

OKAY I WAS HALF RIGHT IT WAS THE POLICE BUT THEY WEREN'T HERE BECAUSE THEY DETECTED GAY THANK GOODNESS

Imagine being Lanyon though...poor guy woke up thinking his boyfriend ditched him all over again and now has to deal with the polis at his door while still being butthurt over getting dumped. THE FACE IN THE FIRST PANEL SAYS IT ALL LIKE "jeezes brother why can't I be left alone to angst over my divorce"

It's so funny seeing the people in the streets of London flocking to see some supernatural stuff when the rational thing to do would be to run in the opposite direction. However, Victorian London folk were not known for their rationality, so I'll let it slide.

And now Hyde had "summoner of eldritch god" tacked to the list of things he may have done. Honestly, impressive and I'm really jealous stuff like this can't just happen to me.

You know, as much as I'm glad about the big gay not being the reason the police was here, this isn't much better. Lanyon doesn't even frequent the society, much less what actually goes on in that crazy place.

How do we expect this man to bullshit his way out again?

the last face definitely took me out, IT'S SO SIMILAR TO THAT PANEL OF JEKYLL LIKE WHA

except the eye twitch, he's so real for that and I love it

[could-transition-save-him]

Naoto Shirogane from Persona 4

Reasoning:

i am actually literally shocked no one's sent him in yet naoto is like THE transmasc argument-starter. he literally says he wishes he was born a man, he only walks back on his shadow also claiming he wishes to be a man when SOMEBODY ELSE PROMPTS HIM, and just in general he's incredibly uncomfortable being seen as a woman, wearing feminine clothing, etc. transitioning not only would have saved him in a meta sense (from having maybe the worst written subplot in a persona game), it would have been exactly what his shadow (his suppressed inner thoughts he doesn't want to admit to) wants, so it would be saving him within the context of the game too, and setting him more on the same level as everybody else who admitted to their shadows representing thoughts they did have. (except kanji, but he has his own issues writing-wise)

The thing about Naoto is that the plot of P4 opens with introducing Naoto as a man. He is referred to as a man by others, refers to himself as one, and wants to act and be seen as a man. Later in the game it is revealed that he is "actually" a woman who binds, and was "only acting like a man" in order to be taken seriously as a detective. This reveal happens via a representation of his innermost self, like his soul, talking about how the effort is useless and he would be better off submitting to a "surgery" to "fix" him. After this reveal, Naoto is referred to with feminine terms and wears more "feminine" clothing. He is also implied to be in a relationship with a previously introduced character who up until that point had very clearly and explicitly been gay, but who is still interested in Naoto after he "returns to being a woman". Surely you and I both understand that he is an incredibly unfotunately written transmasc character. A lot of people in fandom see him as transfeminine which I respect the grind for but I simply don't think it's true. He has always been a man to me ever since I was a little girl who wanted to grow up to be a man