#homophobic sam hot take

[cunty-hunty8]

hot take babes: my thoughts whenever someone says i’m crazy for shipping destiel.

the simple possibility of nephilim tells us that angels can fall in love/have sexual interest in humans. (just like ishim felt something ((obsession)) for lily and lucifer felt something ((sexual desire)) for kelly). so if you say it’s impossible for cas to feel something for dean other than platonic love, the only reason is that you’re homophobic. “oh, but angels can’t be gay” but chuck, who’s literally GOD, can??!?! this goes into another whole area of “we can make the villain gay, but not our precious little dude who all the hetero fellas love so much”. and i’m not even gonna touch the amara subject (who was god’s sister and was supposed to be a being of extreme force and bigger than creation and she still felt something for dean and it wasn’t written by chuck, ‘cause dean is that guy apparently. so an angel can feel something just like amara did ((but shit was weird af)) ).

you can say that maybe dean didn’t reciprocate the romantic love or whatever (even with all the not even subtle subtext that he is a bissexual man in denial), and maybe i’ll get that (MAYBE) but if you say they can’t be together because cas didn’t love him like that, you are blind! watch the show again.

and i’m saying this because jared himself said some pretty stupid shit at a panel about how they can’t be together ‘cause cas is junkless (even though he had sex when he was human and his vessel doesn’t change with grace, this is not even important but ok dude??) and made a weird comparison of romantic love and paternal love saying that you can love your kids and not want to touch them inappropriately and it was the craziest fucking thing ever. so much internalized homophobia i can’t even…

jensen does the same, he acts likes he IS dean and even suggesting that cas and dean might be in love turns into a personal attack to him. but you’ll also find him being a destiel shipper in some videos like the time someone said: “why is it not samstiel?” and jared made 🤢 face and said “sam has better taste” and jensen made a 😒 face and said “dean has no taste, clearly.” so dude, pick a side pls?!

and misha, i have nothing to say about him except that i love him so much. (i love all of them, obviously, but i have my fav).

that’s it folks.

[corpsekittin]

Something in the Water Part 2

Part 2 of Something in the Water

There's been an unexplained epidemic sweeping across the United States all stemming from few months ago. It seemed like in a single day all of Los Angeles was.... changed somehow. They'd all become homophobic, straight, conservative Christians. Nobody could figure out what or who was the cause.  Now, months later a little over half of the United States have been affected. The United States has been completely isolated from the rest of the world due to what's going on in the nation. It's gotten so bad that even the United Kingdom and Canada have shut their borders to all travel from the United States. As far as anywhere is aware the United States is the only country that has been affected by the changes occurring. _________________ Darien left the house after kissing his boyfriend Riley goodbye. He wanted to stay behind to take care of his boyfriend as he had started to feel a bit unwell shortly before Darien had to leave for work but Riley told him to just go and that he will be just fine. He showed up to work his job as an intern for the local water plant and noticed things were a little off. He was let in by a stud of a man with a thick southern accent named Tanner. He thought it odd because it'd always been a skinny little guy named Tommy who'd always let him in. He decided to just ignore it and continue off to work. The whole shift started to be weird to him so many southerners were working today. He figured there must have just been a bunch of new hires and he kept working as usual. After all, he has only been an intern for a couple months now. Who's to say the previous people working those jobs didn't just leave and needed replacing? A few hours into the job he decided to take a break. He brewed himself a cup of coffee using  the "Farmer Joe's Instant coffee" and water from the break room. He walked out to a private area and pulled his cell out and decided to call his boyfriend. As it rang he took a large sip of his coffee. "Hello, Riley." he spoke into the phone. He loved that man so much, they had met when they were freshmen in college. It was love at first sight for him, well for Riley it took him a few days but eventually he fell for him. "Riley? Have ya hit yer head or somethin'?" a man with a thick southern accent on the other side line said "The name's Ryan, how in sam hell did ya' forget that? Is your ass drunk again? Ya better not be plannin' to hog all that beer." Darien felt his body start to freeze as he hung up the phone in a daze. He couldn't believe it. He looked at his phone and saw it does say Ryan. He could of sworn he called his boyfriend Riley... Wait, boyfriend? but isn't he single? He felt his body start to get a little hot and the urge to pee so he went to the bathroom. He kept drinking his coffee as he was headed to the bathroom. His body only got hotter and it felt like his shirt was becoming tighter as he was walking. Unknown to him his body had begun changing and started to inflate with muscle and height. He set his coffee down on the counter as went over to a urinal to take a piss. Dartiy's previously mid length blonde hair receded to become short and brown. His body started to strain on him so he took it off. His mind began to flood with conflicting memories. Suddenly he started to remember being raised surrounded by country boy's despite not living in the country, going to church every Sunday even though he had been an atheist and Durty even remembered his first girlfriend, Kimberly.  That thought shocked him and had him confused because isn't he gay? Wasn't the first person he dated a boy named Kayden? The shirt in his hand had turned into a camo hat as he was thinking that. He felt an irresistible compulsion to put the hat on his head and when he did the world around him seemed to spin and shook his head and suddenly he was somewhere else entirely. He started calling himself an idiot cuz really? Him, Dusty Adams, being a fag? "A fag could never look this good" he thought as he looked at himself in the the mirror and started to flex in all his shirtless glory. He grabbed the beer he had set on the sink counter and chugged the last of it before letting out a loud belch and walking out of his bathroom. He called his neighbor Ryan up and told him his plans and to get ready. He went to his garage and grabbed a case of beers, texted some hoes where to show up and headed off Ryan's to share some beer and get them some pussy. Farmer Joe's plans are working. Now it's not just the water he is affecting and soon, all of the United States shall be changed for the better.

[musclesandhammering]

Spn Opinions That’ll Have Me Burned at the Stake Pt. 2: Electric Boogaloo

I’m back and bitchier than ever. For reference, here’s part 1.

• Season 5 wasn’t that great.

• D*stiel isn’t real, it’s a sucky ship, and that confession scene was just the writers pandering to the rabid deancas fans cause they knew they were the only ones still watching the show lol. And they left it ambiguous enough that they could still say it was meant platonically if they needed to.

• I hate how they watered down both angels and demons post-season 5ish.

• I liked Ruby 1.0 better than Ruby 2.0.

• I hate Honey!Cas. They just did that cause they didn’t know where to take his story from there, needed him out of the way, and thought it would be funny. It was insulting.

• Jack should’ve been played by an actual child so everyone’s abuse of him would resonate with the audience for what it was (casual fans are brain dead and need to be spoon fed).

• Victor Henrikson deserved more time on the show.

• I said it in the last post, but Alex is way more interesting than Claire and should’ve been given the lead role in the wayward sisters storyline instead.

• Dean is canonically straight and for Christ sake if you guys wanted bi rep, there’s about a thousand other characters that are strongly coded or implied to be bisexual (including Sam!) but y’all didn’t focus on them because it wasn’t actually about representation, it was about making it more plausible for your dumb fetishised gay ship to actually happen (spoiler: it didn’t).

• Season 3 and Season 6 were some of the best ones, you guys just don’t have any taste.

• Claire is not Castiel’s daughter and saying she is erases Jimmy and insults her, and even Cas himself acknowledged that on the show.

• Castiel is canonically NOT gay and Misha constantly saying he is is annoying and airheaded. He’s been attracted to women IN THE SHOW and he’s not even really male, so calling him a Gay Man is reductive and just plain wrong. Also, it’s veeery sus that- given how bi/pan folks are even more underrepresented than gay people- that one of the rare times where the bi/pan label actually fits a character BETTER in CANON……. the allies and monosexuals adamantly reject it. Hm.

• “Curing” vampires or werewolves or demons shouldn’t have been a thing.

• The Winchesters cause most of the bad shit that happens and then they just force supernatural beings to fix it for them- tell me again how they’re Super Special Heroes.

• It shouldn’t be possible to make angels human by removing their grace, because (unlike demons, werewolves, etc) they were never human to start with. If you drained me of all my blood, I wouldn’t magically transform into another species, I’d fucking die.

• Making Billie go crazy was dumb.

• Rowena was one of the most interesting and charismatic characters on the whole show- they just didn’t know what to do with her character.

• The archangels, Lilith, and Azazel should’ve been the biggest threats on the show. No other knights of hell, no god and his sister, no Cain, nothing like that. Having every villain just get progressively more overpowered made the show unbelievable and repetitive and annoying.

• The kernel sanders king of hell guy was hot.

• Dean is misogynistic as HELL, homophobic, likes racist porn, is a narcissist, pervs on teen girls, & thinks all non-human people should be exterminated… and that is all CANON.

• Most of John Winchester’s abuse is fanon.

• Fans portraying Cas as a smol bby who colours in colouring books and has a bee plushie is so fucking annoying.

• Instead of having so many gigantic cosmic storylines with god and his sister and alternate dimensions and even the angel and demon tablets, they should’ve just scrapped those and made the stein family and the bmol and the alpha vampire storylines way bigger than they were. Less cosmic stuff, more earth-based stuff.

• They ruined Lucifer’s character post-season 5. Before that, he was more sympathetic and reasonable than Michael. After, he was a spoiled child hurting people for fun.

• Everything from season 7 on is garbage. All of it. There’s bits of goodness here and there but overall seasons 7-15 are trash.

• How the fuck are there actual people who are deangirls and hate Sam?? The space where your brain should be is empty, I swear to god.

• If there was gonna be any lgbt rep in the Wayward Sisters group, it should’ve been Jody and Donna instead of Claire and Kaia. Those two were boring as hell and had zero chemistry or build-up, but Jody/Donna had plenty of chemistry and was very believable.

• Meg has the best and most realistic redemption arc of anyone on the show.

• Chuck was not likeable or charismatic enough to carry off as big of a villain arc as they gave him. Also that whole thing was stupid and WAY too Out There.

• All the angels should’ve been aroace. All the demons should’ve been pan.

• I stanned Cole so hard up until he changed his mind about hating Dean. That was disappointing.

• Sam went through the same shitty childhood Dean did (plus Bonus Abuse on top of it) and he didn’t turn out Like That.

• I cannot think of a single person that was asking for a spin-off about the Winchester family, like that has to be the most boring thing.

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

I've been reading some of your homestuck essays, I think they're really good! I would like to know what you think about post-retcon homestuck and the interactions between reader and author throughout homestucks publishing. I was not in the fandom at the time of it being published, but I find this to be a very interesting aspect of the comic!

I was only on the fringes of the fandom at the time, but even that was enough to recognize that the fandom was absolutely awful. Every bad story you've heard about the Steven Universe, Voltron, and Undertale fandoms has its roots in the Homestuck fandom.

Pretty much as soon as the webcomic got popular on Tumblr, Hussie was put under intense scrutiny for basically every decision they ever made ever. I'm not going to say that Hussie was a perfect individual who never did anything wrong, because Hussie is a human being and that's how it works, but it's basically impossible to overstate how much the fandom tried to make an enemy out of Hussie.

The fandom was convinced that Hussie was their personal LE, and that attitude continues to this day - like, for an easy example of the fandom harassing Hussie for Literally Anything, when he stated that all trolls were bi/pan, to the point where they didn't have specific words for single-gender attraction, comparing it to a "more exacting preference" like somebody who only dates fat people - but that even within that framework, Kanaya was undoubtedly a lesbian character - people insisted Hussie was being homophobic. Fucking homophobic! For confirming all trolls are bi/pan, except Kanaya, who's a lesbian!

Other examples include: calling Hussie homophobic for John saying he wasn't a homosexual and Karkat literally not knowing what a homosexual was, because again, all trolls are bi/pan. Calling Hussie racist for making the kids aracial but accidentally leaving references to Dave having pale/pink skin in (because Hussie is a biased human person who can't be perfect and who did try to be more inclusive as the comic went on). Deciding that the dancestors served no purpose except for Hussie to be mean to their audience. Like there are valid criticisms to be made of Homestuck, but anything that was valid, nuanced, or thoughtful was drowned under a deluge of incoherent accusations of every -ism and -phobia that the fandom could possibly muster, the fandom as a whole racing to see who could paint Hussie as the biggest monster, even as they were harassing them to make more Homestuck.

Not to mention this was the era of rampant, unchecked ship wars and fandom misogyny. Not that fandom misogyny has gone away, mind you, but it's slightly more in check now. This was the era of fandom where it was normal to be sent death threats for shipping the "wrong" ship, and fandom ship wars were often encouraged by media of the time (love triangles were HOT - think zutara vs. kataang, team jacob/team edward, danny fenton/sam manson vs. danny fenton/valerie grey) because it drove up engagement. Homestuck was not really interested in shipping wars and love triangles - while many characters had circuitous routes and false starts, many were also pretty clearly set up to have specific endgame ships. But the fandom wasn't trained to behave that way, and the troll quadrants + canonical bi/pan trolls + active role of romance in the story meant that the ship wars were brutal - and also, Hussie was getting harassed every step of the way for not making peoples' favorite ships canon, a major part of a larger trend of people constantly ragging on Hussie for things not going the way they wanted plot-wise, to the point where Hussie had to comment on it constantly on his Formspring.

And don't think I forgot about the fandom misogyny! Here's a hot take for the class: Vriska is literally just Girl Zuko. She's ostensibly a noble from an imperialistic, warmongering, fascist society with an abusive parent who raised her with strict expectations, who thinks she has to act much more evil and more tough than she feels in order to earn the approval of her parent/society, and who secretly has misgivings and feels really bad about it and was set up for a redemption arc.

And people HATED Vriska. Vriscourse was so bad that many Homestuck fan spaces banned talking about Vriska at ALL, because just the mere mention of her name would spark massive, endless flame wars as people argued whether or not she deserved her little redemption arc (spoilers: yes, it turns out death is cheap in Homestuck and characters changing, growing, and becoming better is a huge part of the story) or whether or not she was justified in doing the things she did. Genuinely, I think a huge part of this intense hatred and anger was just misogyny. God forbid women have Zuko's character arc.

It was also part of two other large trends in the fandom - the first was that, despite finding every possible reason to call Hussie -ist and -phobic they could, the fandom itself was, ummm... "of its time." For example, the original March Eridan stuff was pretty clearly meant to be funny because, look, man in a dress! Isn't it sooo funny when Eridan wears a dress? (No hate to the artist, this was a long time ago and I'm sure they're a different person now.) The fandom was also constantly goading Hussie on WRT which characters were fat, and while we can argue about whether Hussie is fatphobic because none of the characters are canonically drawn to be fat, I'm going to go to bat for them on this: people treat the Fat Vriska jokes as though Hussie is the creepy weirdo exclusively, but the fandom was goading them on and thought that shit was hilarious, because that was what early internet fandom was like a lot of the time - at the same time as it harassed and decried creators for being problematic, it would turn around and delight in shitting on women, neurodivergent people, POC, and fat people, and Homestuck was rampant with it.

The second trend the Vriscourse was a part of was one that also hasn't fully gone away, but it's better now - wilful ignorance of the actual comic's contents. I'm not talking about the usual fandom fare of noncanon ships or "x character is trans/autistic/etc. even though I know there's no canon basis," which is all pretty damn harmless, but I mean like, memes and fanon would override canon and you would be outright harassed for not playing along. There are STILL places to this day that will call you an actual fascist, genocide liker, evil and irredeemable, etc. if you try to stick up for Eridan, even though Eridan is actually the LEAST casteist highblood and his entire character arc is about how his shitty fascist society makes him deeply anxious and unhappy. Similarly, you can/definitely would be be harassed for saying you don't like March Eridan and/or think it's OOC (it is), and I have nothing but sympathy for Gamzee and Equius fans, who also get it really bad.

The most vocal parts of the fandom, if not the majority, were people who were generally uninterested in engaging with Homestuck on Homestuck's terms, instead dead set on making up a version of it in their head and harassing people who disagreed, including Hussie. Echoes of that persist to this day - Equius, Gamzee, and Eridan get it bad, but practically none of the trolls have fandom interpretations that actually line up with who they are - Kanaya is actually just Eridan's bully (and did nothing to help Tavros after she caught Vriska kissing him), but people portray her as Nice Team Mom. Feferi is a casteist hypocrite who loves classism and calling people the r-slur, but people portray her as bubbly equality lady. So on and so forth. Like, damn, I barely participate in fandom and I'm out here meeting people who think Karkat ACTUALLY hates his friends like he says he does.

And then, of course, these people went and harassed Hussie because actual Homestuck did not match up with the Homestuck that existed only in their own heads.

On top of all the fandom harassment, Hussie was also facing ballooning scope. Most of Homestuck was a single dude drawing, writing, and animating it, and they would update every two or three days, sometimes less. So from the get-go, Homestuck was an INSANE project that demanded an insane amount of work and time from Hussie, and as it went on, it only got worse - and fandom expectations only got bigger. Suddenly, Hussie had to be in charge of merchandise, in charge of vetting, hiring, directing, and paying third-party artists, planning animations months if not years in advance, creating entire sections of the comic that had GAMEPLAY, directing ACTUAL GAMES, etc. ... there's an argument to be made that Hussie should not have taken on a workload they couldn't manage, but at the same time, the fandom certainly wasn't telling them to slow down. If anything, they harassed Hussie for every update, and were furious when hiatuses needed to happen to plan and execute some of the bigger moments later in the comic.

There's a Sarah Z video out there on the creation of the Homestuck game, which I think is OK if you take into account that Sarah kind of has fandom brain and is a little biased against Hussie (and I guess Hussie did send a spurious legal threat which is pretty funny but, y'know, understandable that Sarah would be peeved), where it's really clear that Hussie was not ready for the kind of responsibility, time, and effort needed to manage a whole-ass video game.

So by the time Game Over and the Retcon roll around, you basically have to imagine that Hussie has so many irons in the fire that the furnace is about to pop like a balloon, and the people they were making the damn things for in the first place have been relentlessly harassing them for YEARS, and weren't even that interested in engaging with the actual story in the first place. I'd say the majority of the fandom to this day STILL does not understand Eridan - how do you think they would've taken his redemption arc, and especially the fact that he was set up to date Karkat and Roxy? Given the pattern of their behavior up to that point... they'd probably harass Hussie and call them homophobic.

This is why I genuinely cannot blame Hussie for turning on the fandom and truncating their story. Vriska got upgraded to main character and had her character development reset because fuck you, fandom, you couldn't understand her redemption arc in the first place so now you don't get one. DaveKat got (kind of) made canon but as a weird throuple with the Mayor because fuck you, fandom, you didn't appreciate any of the actual gay ships that were set up so now you're stuck with brutally OOC DaveKatMayor. Karkat and Jake have their plot threads left hanging because fuck you, fandom, you never even noticed all the prophecies and symbolism and character arcs because you were all too obsessed with screaming at women and took the dancestors as a personal insult, so now the guy who's supposed to defeat LE and the guy who's supposed to bring equality and forgiveness to all bloodlines don't even get to participate in any of the important boss battles.

People call Hussie a troll, and they really aren't. If you read their old Formspring, they're clearly deeply fucking passionate about the art of storytelling, and switch between bafflement, mild indignation, and playing along when people ask them stupid questions. But back then, they were always very serious and genuine when they answered questions asked in good faith, and I'm being 100% genuine when I say that I've learned about how to tell stories better by reading Hussie's Formspring. Over time, however, those stupid questions became more common, and often morphed into outright harassment, and in response to that, Hussie's answers became more humorous and facetious, and the fandom - who was already trying to find ANY reason to hate Hussie - started to paint Hussie as an unreliable trickster and liar who got their jollies by shitting on the fandom.

Honestly, in doing so, the fandom was what turned Hussie into exactly that. Again, I'm not saying Hussie was a perfect baby who did nothing wrong - there's a lot of stuff to critique and scrutinize about their writing, their biases, and what topics they found appropriate to joke about. However, I AM saying that they were also just a human fucking being who was trying to write a good story, who was harassed at every turn, mostly for things that actually weren't problematic at all, whose words and actions were always taken in the absolute worst possible faith, and that the fandom is not fucking faultless, and if there's anyone that I'm mad at for how bad Homestuck ended, it's the fans.

That's my hottest Homestuck take.

[lucky-clover-gazette]

prince's gambit highlights & annotations

chapter 1

indented text is from the book. some quotes have commentary, some do not. some comments are serious, and some are definitely not. most of them will only make sense to people who have read the series. and, like, there are spoilers. so please read the books first if you're interested!

also: part of the reason i'm doing such a close reading is to study cs pacat's style, especially in terms of how she does romance and erotica. there are "craft notes" that might seem weird, like i'm being redundant or restating something rather than analyzing, but those are more things that i want to remember/take away from the writing!

i'm going to tag these longer posts with "sam reads capri" in case anyone wants to read them all at once.

this is a google doc i wrote with overall content warnings for the captive prince series. it's not perfect, but i do think it's important to include.

Across the courtyard, a couple of alaunt hounds came bounding down the stone stairs to throw themselves ecstatically at Laurent, who indulged one of them with a rub behind the ears, causing a spasm of jealousy in the other.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

the first thing laurent does in this book is pet a dog. i love him so much.

craft-wise, this foreshadows the shift in damen’s perception of laurent that occurs throughout book 2. his/our first impression of laurent in book 1 is him cruelly demeaning damen, almost like a dog, which is something we’re meant to hate. our first impression here is him affectionately indulging actual dogs who clearly know and love him. this might make the reader ask: why do these animals love laurent, when we understand him to be cruel? is our understanding incorrect, and/or incomplete?

context: in arles, the regent closely observes laurent’s attachments. he can and will destroy anything or anyone laurent cares about. but here, outside of arles, it makes sense that laurent would immediately feel more comfortable being affectionate.

laurent’s hot girl summer has officially begun ✨

Damen craned for a glimpse but, not being an owl, saw almost nothing.

The physician rummaged in the satchel and produced one of his endless ointments.

doesn’t this become a running gag? ointment reference #1

That was really too much. ‘It’s cosmetic?’

does damen take pride in his scars, and other physical indications of his experiences? that could be an interesting parallel to the cuffs throughout the series. or maybe he just knows he’s hot either way. or doesn’t want to be fussed over.

he is technically still laurent’s property—has laurent given any kind of indication that he finds the scars unattractive? or did paschal simply make that assumption, which laurent then went along with, knowing it would annoy damen?

The physician said, ‘I was told you would be difficult. Very well. The better it heals, the less your back will trouble you with stiffness, both now and later in life, so that you will be better able to swing a sword around, killing a great many people. I was told you would be responsive to that argument.’ ‘The Prince,’ said Damen.

paschal, sighing deeply as he commits laurent’s exact words to memory: i’m about to become the first homophobe in vere because these petty gay bitches can’t keep their nonsense to themselves

actually, new thing to count—every time a minor or secondary character has a valid reason to complain about damen and laurent’s lack of professionalism in the workplace. this is lamen hr complaint #1 (paschal).

But of course. All this tender care of his back, like soothing with a kiss the reddened cheek you have slapped.

great line.

connects to an ongoing theme: niceness vs. goodness. damen “sees through” laurent’s niceness, as it conflicts with laurent’s meanness that he personally has experienced. in the same way damen has a favorable bias towards kastor and the regent, he has an automatically unfavorable bias against laurent. which is totally fair, given the events of book 1! but this is a new book, and a new stage in damen’s overall series arc.

additional theme for books 2&3: tenderness. a wound is tender; it aches in need of soothing. but what soothes an ache? tender care. if nice is good and mean is bad, where does a concept like tenderness fit in? how exactly will we go from “all this tender care of his back, like soothing with a kiss the reddened cheek you have slapped” to “i think if i gave you my heart, you would treat it tenderly”?

Damen snorted. ‘It wasn’t that bad.’

a consistent damen behavior: the refusal to admit that he is helplessness, and/or experiencing circumstances beyond his control. i would call it toxic masculinity, but i don’t think it’s meant as gender commentary—it has more to do with being a prince and a king, worthy of the throne. toxic royalty, if you will.

‘If you served the King,’ said Damen, ‘how is it you now find yourself in the Prince’s household, and not his uncle’s?’ ‘Men find themselves in the places they put themselves,’ Paschal said, closing his satchel with a snap.

laurent of vere: the people’s prince ✨

also, interesting juxtaposition with previous dialogue about damen and paschal both being at marlas, on different sides of the battle. can we truly say that damen, at age 19, had put himself there? what does that suggest about his character and his kingdom?

‘Yes, of course,’ said Damen. Then stopped. Jord didn’t notice.

he needs acting classes from laurent

Damen said, ‘If you’re not going to tip your head back, why don’t we go find Paschal? He can give you a scented ointment.’

HA. ointment reference #2.

Damen thought of the ivory and gold casing that held a creature duplicitous, self-serving and untrustworthy. ‘You’re so loyal to him. Why is that?’

really nailing in the damen perspective subversion setup. also, the irony re: aimeric's loyalty!

Damen joined the work, where he was the only man to smell, expensively, of ointments and cinnamon.

ointment reference #3. he’s expensive.

‘Aimeric’s young. He says it won’t happen again,’ said Jord. It will happen again, and once the two factions in this camp start retaliating against one another your campaign is over, he didn’t say.

i love how we finally get to see damen in his element here, after experiencing The Horrors for 13 + prologue entire chapters in book 1

‘The Captain is in one of the horse stalls, up to his waist in the stableboy,’ said Jord. ‘The Prince has been waiting for him at the barracks. Actually . . . I was told to have you fetch him.’ ‘From the stables,’ said Damen. He stared at Jord in disbelief.

laurent wastes no time before assigning damen unpleasant tasks. does this count as an hr complaint? i mean it would be damen doing the complaining, am i counting charges they have against each other? no. they’d wreck the curve.

Inside, Govart was unambiguously fucking the stableboy against the far wall.

“unambiguously”

‘The Prince stays here often?’ The castellan mistook him to mean the keep, not the rooms. ‘Not often. He and his uncle came here a great deal together, in the year or two after Marlas. As he grew older, the Prince lost his taste for the runs here. He now comes only rarely to Chastillon.’

context: >:(

Laurent said, ‘I have saved you till last.’ Damen said, ‘You owe the stableboy a copper sol.’ ‘The stableboy should learn to demand payment before he bends over.’

“honey, i’m home!” sitcom entrance

‘Your virtue’s safe. It’s just water. Probably.’

somebody’s feeling playfulllll

Laurent placed the goblet carefully back on the table, and picked up the knife. It was a sharp knife, made for cutting meat. Damen felt his pulse quicken as Laurent came forward. Only a handful of nights ago, he had watched Laurent slit a man’s throat, spilling blood as red as the silk that covered this room’s bed. He felt shock as Laurent’s fingers touched his, pressing the hilt of the knife into his hand. Laurent took hold of Damen’s wrist below the gold cuff, firmed his grip, and drew the knife forward so that it was angled towards his own stomach. The tip of the blade pressed slightly into the dark blue of his prince’s garment. ‘You heard me tell Orlant to leave,’ said Laurent. Damen felt Laurent’s grip slide down his wrist to his fingers, and tighten. Laurent said, ‘I am not going to waste time on posturing and threats. Why don’t we clear up any uncertainty about your intentions?’

laurent explaining to damen that his behavior in arles was a bit in the most insane way possible

He was so infuriatingly sure of himself, proving a point. Damen felt desire come hard upon him: not wholly a desire for violence, but a desire to drive the knife into Laurent’s composure, to force him to show something other than cool indifference.

they’re so normal and well-adjusted

He said: ‘I’m sure there are house servants still awake. How do I know you won’t scream?’ ‘Do I seem like the type to scream?’ ‘I’m not going to use the knife,’ said Damen, ‘but if you’re willing to put it in my hand, you underestimate how much I want to.’ ‘No,’ said Laurent. ‘I know exactly what it is to want to kill a man, and to wait.’

“yes, and” “yes, and” “yes, and”

Laurent said, ‘When this campaign is over, I think—if you are a man and not a worm—you will attempt to gain retribution for what has happened to you. I expect it. On that day, we roll the dice and see how they fall. Until then, you serve me. Let me therefore make one thing above all clear to you: I expect your obedience. You are under my command. If you object to what you are told to do I will hear reasoned arguments in private, but if you disobey an order once it is made, I will send you back to the flogging post.’

this is their starting place for the book! “we hate each other, we owe each other nothing, we know that we are going to eventually attempt to kill each other—but for now, we are calling a truce and working together”

also. would laurent still love damen if he was a worm 🥺

Another pause, and then Laurent indicated once again to the chair. This time Damen followed his prompt and sat. Laurent took the chair opposite. Between them, unfurled on the table, was all the intricate detail of the map. ‘You said you knew the territory,’ Laurent said.

this is part of why i love damen and laurent so much as a pairing. they have interests and skills in common, and they make a genuinely good team. they’re intellectually compatible, in addition to sexually and romantically compatible.

[elongang]

NEW OC ALERT!!!

Woohooo another oc has joined the wk oc army!! :D

Name: Sam Morgan

Gender: Trans Male (he/him pronouns)

Nicknames: Sammy/Dr Know-It-All (Zach & sometimes Martin), Samsung Fridge (Jimmy), Pinkie Pie/ Pink [insert F slur or T slur] (Gourmand) (i will add more if i can think of more lmaooo)

Age: 26

Job in the Tortuga: Studies the biochemistry of the animals the crew explores

Birthday: July 6th (his star sign is cancer)

Ethnicity: British (He’s from Brighton)

Height: 6’2 (or 187.96cm)

Likes:

- Whales (especially beluga whales)

- Space

- Autumn

- Blasting Taylor Swift with Martin at 3am (the rest of the crew hates them for this)

- Gummybears

- Monster (specifically ultra rosá (he religiously drinks this))

Dislikes:

- Loud noises (but loves to blast music very loudly)

- Limes

- Spicy food

- Being too hot or too cold

- Homophobes

Other random info:

- He has a PhD in chemistry (sometimes he feels like the odd one out for not taking biology/biochem), he failed biology is high school so couldn’t peruse his first choice of career - zoology

- Has anxiety and adhd

- He can play guitar really well

- Secretly good* friends with Zach but hasn’t told the rest of the crew (he already feels like they don’t like him for being a chemist (even though they said they don’t) and so thinks they’ll kick him off the crew if they knew)

- His favourite TS album is lover (he’s a huge hopeless romantic but pulls no bitches)

- Sometimes unironically listens to barbie girl & has watched the barbie movie MULTIPLE times since it came out

- Very big disney lover (his favourite movies are Tangled and inside out (which has made him cry every time)

- Loves to do his makeup, will sometimes do Aviva & Koki’s and he let’s them do his

- He’s a bit of a photographer - LOVES taking polaroid photos, has many of him and the crew on the wall in his room and in his phone case

- Is quite messy (not Martin messy, but still messy) but literally doesn’t gaf & vry clumsy - he’ll sometimes trip over his own feet

- Ambidextrous but can write better with his right hand

- Overly emotional & a huge drama king (he was a drama kid when he was younger, before discovering his love for chemistry & animals)

<i can’t think of anything else to put here, but if and when i do i’ll update this hehe>

[psychofreakforc]

Random thought about tara figuring out she's bisexual and how sam found out

Okay, so sam left when tara was 13(??) So it's very likely that she still hadn't figured out her sexual orientation.

Sam leaves, and tara starts spending more and more time with amber, that's when she figures out she might like girls... but she knows she finds some boys attractive too, that can't be possible...RIGHT?. Tara is very confused, she wants to talk about it with someone, but the only person who might have understood her was sam, but sam is gone, so the only person left is her neglectful moth- NO! no, that's not gonna happen.

Tara decides to find something that could be useful on the Internet, and that's how tara figures out that she's bisexual. She ends up talking to mindy about it, and needless to say, mindy was very supportive.

Mindy, to show her support, started sending tara every male and female celebrity she finds attractive.

Tara, with mindy's help, becomes more and more confident about her bisexuality, to the point where she is finally comfortable enough to talk about it with chad, wes, liv, and ofc Amber.

Woodsboro is a small town and definitely not the safest place for lgbtq+ people. After Tara's coming out, Chad, Mindy, and Amber created the "tara defence squad." Tara thought it was pretty stupid, but it does feel good to be appreciated just the way you are.

So, yeah, life might not have been fair to tara, She's got a shitty mother, an absentee father, and a sister who also left her, but HEY! at least she has a supportive friend group... Oh, and she gets to call THE Amber Freeman her girlfriend. Tara is finally happy. What could possibly go wrong?

(Let's suppose the scream 5 events happened based on the original script)

Tara gets attacked brutally in her own house by someone wearing a ghostface costume. Tara is in the hospital bed when she sees sam, her sam, her big sister, standing right there, smiling at her.

Something that sam notices almost immediately is how close Tara and Amber seem to be... but they're best friends? Of course they're close, right?... But then again, mindy and chad are also tara's friends... Why doesn't she act like that with them, too?.

Sam decides to forget about it, she has a way bigger problem than the possibility of her little sister being in a relationship with amber freeman. (Because the problem, in the first place, was never that tara was dating a woman, but AMBER FREEMAN OUT OF ALL WOMEN? REALLY TARA?)

She goes to see the only person who could be useful enough in this ghostface situation they've got going on: Dewey Riley. he does say something about not trusting the love interest... and sam can't stop thinking about it (why can't she fucking stop thinking about it?)

What if Amber IS tara's love interest AND ghostface?? That would change everything, wouldn't it?

Turns out sam was right, Amber was the killer, and she just saw her little sister shooting her in the head. She still doesn't know if tara and Amber were more than just friends, but there's so much sadness in tara's eyes... why didn't she feel like that after killing Richie, her boyfriend Richie?

They don't talk about it, Amber is never mentioned betweet sam and tara.

The funny thing about sam finding out she was right all along and tara IS bisexual and she was in a relationship with Amber is that there was no coming out, no emotional talk between sisters, no big explanation... NOTHING

Sam finds out when, one night, her and tara were having a sisterly movie night, and tara kept rambling about how hot that actress was... but also how hot that actor was.

Tara: why are you looking at me like you've seen a ghost?

Sam: you're... i mean- you like- i just- the- girls and boys?

Tara: Is this your way of asking me if i'm bisexual? Yes, Samantha, i thought i made it clear. I didn't take you for the homophobic kind of sister

Obviously, tara knows that sam is not homophobic. She just likes how frustrated sam looks right now.

The all problem with sam not being sure of tara's sexual orientation is that sam regrets not being there for her when she needed it, and that tara had to figure it out all on her own and with a mother who couldn't care less about her.

[spidermanifested]

i cant even say i completely disagree with the sentiment behind this post since theres plenty of fandom popular gay ships where i too just simply Do Not See where theyre getting any romantic tension from. i am like "you guys just wanted some men to ship and you picked the first 2 conventionally attractive ones you saw". and sometimes sure whatever they have going on in the source is way more interesting than what fandom does with them. that happens

but also. im looking at it wearily because (regarding the op) the personality-flattening aspects of shipping culture are a connected-but-Separate thing from the concept of imagining 2 characters as gay, and you absolutely do still find wild mischaracterizations when a relationship is interpreted by fans as platonic. you dont solve this by focusing on the gay aspect. and regarding the addition i feel like its been gone over a hundred times but What society are you growing up in where people are more conditioned to accept intimacy between gay lovers vs Just Two Bros Who Got Each Others Backs. multiple people in the comments are mentioning sam and frodo. do they know how mainstream "ew no theyre not gay theyre just really good friends!!! dont you have any respect for MALE FRIENDSHIP" that take is. here is My hot take if you refuse to understand why a lot of people see sam and frodo as being in love you probably are at least a little bit homophobic actually

[fallouttboy]

re: my trans sam supernatural agenda.

sometimes you’re a boy in a girls body and then you go to college and meet a hot bi girl and get top surgery some fucking how (you’re broke and come from an even more broke family) (i like the idea of him getting dean to do it for him someday. and his scars are mad insane and jagged. but dean got him the good gas from a dentists office run by vampires that he raided with john and rubbed numbing cream on his whole torso for safe measure) and then you’re happy but then your hot bi gf goes up in flames like your mom.

and you have the maternal trauma but for a brief 20 years following the death of your gf, you always wonder if the burning of your mother and girlfriend was a higher being shunning you for being queer, lifting your loves to the heavens (ceiling) and burning them alive (hell fire)

and so you sit shotgun with a shotgun next to your traumatized bi brother in the car your homophobic transphobic father had. driving the country. meeting demons who remind you a lot of yourself and angels you begin to hate more than worship. and you wonder again if a higher being is sending you messages.

and then the visions start back up again, the visions you so carefully forgot about, bundled up and shoved deep in the caverns of your mind. visions…prophecy. have you been right this whole time?

surely there is not a god, a god who so loves the world would not run a world like this, right? if jesus loves me this i know, why do his followers want my guts on their dining table and my body crucified upside down?

all while facing the horrors. i am too soft around the edges to pass as male and too sharp around the corners to pass as female. i can alter my body however i please but i will never be man enough for you (dad). i will never be the son you so wanted me to be. i will be the son that i am which is never enough.

and when lucifer takes my vessel it all feels right, like everything is finally in place, as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be. the damned brother. of course i would say yes. lucifer is the closest thing i had to a father figure anyways.

[itspkuwu]

Hot Take:

I’m mainly into Sam and Max for the TV series, not the games. Not cause of the cursing in the games or anything, just a personal preference. And no it’s NOT because of the gay stuff either, get out of here with your homophobic bull 😤

Also Max is adorable

[soleadita]

another day another niche media that has crossed my dash because of u. who is sam why is he crashing and why does he look like a pathetically sad kicked puppy (huuuge huge huge fan of the gif of him w a bloody handprint on his face btw single best thing a guy can have)

CRASHING!!! SAM!!!!! i didn’t think i’d have that much to say but it turns out i did. sorry. mostly this is just barely coherent rambling.

(1) crashing is a british tv show from 2016ish. there are (regrettably) only about 6 episodes, i believe, and they’re SHORT. (i made @dauntingday watch it with me a few months ago and we accidentally just downed the entire thing in one evening after work. that’s how short it is.) it follows a group of like…20s+ people who all live together in an…abandoned hospital? or something? i’m not entirely clear on how the living situation works, and frankly that’s like the least important part i just tend to get bogged down in details when i try to talk about things. BASICALLY they all live together in a giant funky building, they don’t all know each other, they have disastrous dinner parties, they’re messy, they’re stupid, they’re brilliant, they’re super fucking weird, they’re awful to each other, they love each other, they take care of each other in weird ways…it’s like found family i guess but more in like a having-a-lot-of-cousins way. like some of them you’re really close with some of them you never really see some of them you can’t stand. but they’re all still your cousins.

(2) sam is like...i would like to throttle him i also would like to wrap him in a weighted blanket and give him a mug of hot tea. he's a lil homophobic he'll vehemently insist he's not gay he is actively pining after fred when fred gets a boyfriend sam makes it his personal mission to be a total dick about it (affectionate) and break them up. when i started writing this, i was like, "lol SAM how do i describe that little shit, he's so silly and funky and awful but in a cute way," and now i'm actively getting a little choked up about him and fred. im not gonna lie. and the fact that this whole dynamic is established in like...two hours? give or take? masterpiece. ANYWAY. "pathetically sad kicked puppy" is right you totally nailed it he's like the puppy that chews everything up INCLUDING HIS OWN TOYS HIS OWN BED HIS OWN FAVORITE BLANKET and then when he gets reprimanded for it and DOESN'T HAVE ANY OF HIS SHIT, he goes into "pathetically sad kicked puppy" mode. I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT HIM I DON'T THINK IM EXPRESSING THEM RIGHT BUT I THINK YOU'LL GET IT ANYWAY.

(3) i regret to inform you that wasn't a bloody handprint on his face, it was paint. :(

[nickeverdeen]

(gender of the matchup doesn’t matter)

fandom: arcane, arrow, mcu

gender: diversnixic (they/she/he/static/dino)

orientation: biromantic (male lean but doesn’t matter much), asexual

zodiac :: sagittarius

MBTI :: INFP-T

looks :: shoulder-length dirty blonde hair, gray blue eyes, cozycore or black clothes, painted black nails

personality :: depends on my mood tbh, i can be bubbly and outgoing af, i can be calmer, quiet and slightly depressed sleepy, and i can be the most chaotic murderous person you’ll ever meet, but i’m usually the second option (calm, quiet, sleepy), i’m also kinda sensitive at times

likes :: fidgets, drawing, animals, true crime, snacks, comfy clothes, jewelry/shiny things, sleeping, bread, stuffed animals, reading, rainy days, blankets, glitter

dislikes :: homophobes, jerks, bullies, unfair exclusionists, being super cold/hot, being abandoned, spotify ads, my apple pencil dying at the most inconvenient times

hobbies/interests :: true crime, reading, writing, playing video games, scrolling through social media, collecting knives, collecting stuffed animals, watching tv, drawing/art

mental health :: i have depression, social anxiety/reg. anxiety, adhd, autism, alexithymia, and more.

physical health :: i have hypermobility and fibromyalgia/chronic pain.

Your Arcane match is…

Mel

Always fixing your clothes even when not needed

It’s just her bad habit

Thinks you have an interesting personality

Can be scary yet she loves it

Seeing how sleepy you are she’s concerned about your sleeping schedule

Mel can and will get you some fidgets and true crime tapes or books

She isn’t really into horror and crimes, but she doesn’t mind it

If anyone would make fun of you for having stuffed animals they’d greatly

Cuddles under blanket on rainy days while watching your or her favourite movie

No-one definetly dares to say crap about you

Buys you Spotify premium

She’s rich

She can afford it

Mel doesn’t look like it, but she knows about a lot of mental and physical health

Doesn’t give two quacks about your ADHD or autism, it really doesn’t bother her

Your Arrow match is…

Roy Harper

Flirts with you 24/7

Plays with your hair while cuddling together

Lets you take some of his clothes

(mainly hoodies)

Roy also has this two sided personality

No problem for him

Doesn’t really get why you like stuffed animals so much

But he doesn’t make a big deal out of it

Finds it badass that you like collecting knifes

He also likes true crime

It can be tapes, books, movies, serie, etc.

Bad day? Let’s watch a true crime document

Or let’s cuddle peacefully

Can and will throw hands if someone is disrespectful towards you

Roy doesn’t want to let these things slide

You guys gotta suffer Spotify adds together

He can’t afford premium

He knows exactly how to help you if anything gets wrong mentally or physically

Your MCU match is…

Bucky Barnes

Just like Roy he’d flirt with you most of the day or all day

Compliments your eyes a lot

He is always here to give you a shoulder to cry on

Or just to comfort you

Bucky would never think that you’re into true crimes things

Doesn’t mind it though

Like Roy again, gets you books or movies about it

You’re the only person who he lets call him “Buck” or by any pet name

Likes to call you “doll” or “baby”

Just like in Mel’s case, no-one dares to be disrespectul towards you

They know that they’d have a problem with Bucky

He has things for knifes

So when he found out you collect them he was smiling af

Bucky would never in his life abandon you

Man suffers from a lot of mental “issues” himself

Sam would probably get you both a therapist

Constant teasing about your relationship with Bucky from Sam

Bucky can and will kill and die for you

Protective boyfriend vibes

[stillswearing]

'The Last of Us' and Homophobia (spoiler-heavy)

Or Bill’s Gay, Frank’s Gay, Ellie’s Gay, Riley’s Gay, and Dina’s Bi - so why is a big chunk of the game’s audience so anti-gay? 

Oh god I have a TV Opinion, and I’m posting about it on the internet. Help me.

It’s not rocket science to me that a violent game that invokes a sense of cowboy Americana has a big conservative fanbase. And personally, I don’t agree with the opinion that TLOU is a progressive franchise. (Don’t shoot me, I love the first game as much as you do. I also love Rahul Kohli, lol.)

I think what TLOU 1 did was manage to be safe enough that folks can enjoy it regardless of their political leanings. Even if Ellie’s gay and Bill’s gay and every other character is gay, TLOU 1 put their sexualities so far in the background that it could be ignored if you wanted it to. If you didn’t read Frank & Bill’s story as queer while playing, you didn’t lose out on much of the game. If you don’t know about the DLC (and the extent of Riley’s connection with Ellie), you still get a satisfying TLOU experience.

Because TLOU 1 is not really about queer relationships. It’s about the relationship between a father and daughter. And if you’re a garden-variety homophobe, that’s really all you need to understand to enjoy it.

When I say TLOU 1 isn’t a progressive game, I don’t mean that it sucks and should have put queerness at the front and center of its story. We love when LGBT+ characters have arcs outside their sexualities; they should have that. However, nothing in the game really challenges white hetero conservative bias either. This isn’t helped by the the fact that:

Bill & Frank’s tragic end in the game was straight-up ‘bury your gays’ homophobic 

A lot of the significant deaths are of women (tess, marlene), black people (sam, henry, riley, marlene), and queer folk (frank) 

The portrayal of Fireflies as revolutionaries fighting against a government dictatorship left much to be improved, especially as the story inclined towards Joel’s lone-wolf, anti-community schtick. 

And ok, I know this one is a hot take (and I won’t get into the weeds about it right now) but I deeply loathe where TLOU 2 brought Ellie's character in the end. I read it as blatant lesbophobia. 

I list these things not to say that TLOU is a bad, evil, conservative propaganda franchise. Honestly, I don’t think the choices Naughty Dog made came from an intentionally malicious place; I think they’re just ignorant and didn’t see how harmful the tropes in the game are, especially back in 2013. I’m not excusing them, but I think it kinda explains why a lot of conservatives are drawn to the game. 

That’s why I’m so glad HBO has changed things up and gave depth to passing characters. Without deviating from where Joel & Ellie ought to be in their journey, they gave Bill & Frank a deservedly beautiful love story, where queer people grew old and exercised agency and weren't consumed by the apocalypse. (Not a story where they grew to resent each other, separated, and died alone and embittered.) I’m genuinely excited about where they’ll take things with Riley and cautiously anticipating how they’ll handle Marlene’s arc. 

I love the TLOU 1 story (I really can’t stand the sequel lol). But so much of it is - and it’s corny to use this word but - problematic. It’s not the Good Progressive Game many of us remember it to be. But this TV reimagining is a great chance to improve on where the game has failed. 

I love that the TV version is weeding out so many of the game’s conservative fans; they can all die mad.

[satelliteaccident]

Writing Elytically: This Time, It's Details

(Last time, it was big-picture stuff!)

So you want to format your fic like the game

I'll start with two words: collect screenshots. The more in-game references you have for those "but how does the game do X?" moments, the easier it will be to find answers.

In addition to screenshots, try FAYDE, which is a searchable database of in-game text (including variables!) and a load-bearing part of my DE ficwriting process. I cannot say enough nice things about it and about @morgue-xiiv, who made and hosts it.

Next up: keep a style sheet, and update it like Kim will be *disappointed* if you don't.

What goes in a style sheet? All the zillion formatting guidelines and decisions you make when you put word to keyboard.

For example, while there are exceptions, the game's skillset dialogues usually follow this case-sensitive template:

SKILLNAME [Difficulty: Outcome] – What the skill says goes here, and it doesn't take quotation marks.

When you plug in the specifics, the result looks like this:

RHETORIC [Trivial: Success] – Words can be exchanged for goods and services.

Note the square brackets and the space-en dash-space that follows them. An en dash is this guy – not a hyphen (that's shorter -) or an em dash (that's longer —).

Also, the body text/content of dialogue uses different dashes again: two hyphens in a row. Here's what that looks like:

I took a screenshot because on Tumblr, some browsers will automatically convert two consecutive hyphens to an em dash, which is a great way to make copy editors very sad.

Exceptions

We actually just saw one! That's because Perception follows:

PERCEPTION (SENSE) [Difficulty: Outcome] – What the skill says goes here, and it doesn't take quotation marks.

. . . except sometimes, when the game does it like:

PERCEPTION (Sense) [Difficulty: Outcome] – What the skill says goes here, and it doesn't take quotation marks.

I'll never know why they're different, but I would guess the team didn't have a "final reads are FINAL, stop re-writing after them you hooligans" policy, which intellectually I recognise is unlikely to end in apocalypse and emotionally I experience with the editorial equivalent of the meat sweats.

Another exception: Coach Physical Instrument just yells at you without following the template, which seems on brand:

COACH PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT – Bracing yet homophobic encouraging-slash-berating goes here!

Weirdly(?), Limbic System and Ancient Reptilian Brain do the same.

Other skills follow the template first, *then* just chime in the second-plus time they appear in a single dialogue event, like this trio from The Whole Sorry Way Down:

VOLITION [Challenging: Success] – Hey. Loser! This isn’t your bed. Get up. PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Success] – Oh, *god*.  PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Easy: Success] – Was that springs? And footsteps? They were moving away from you. VOLITION – What? Who cares? Get up, and cut the dramatics. PAIN THRESHOLD – They’re not dramatics. You’re in pain.  PERCEPTION (HEARING) – That’s… definitely footsteps. Getting closer, this time.

Oh my god, what else?!

SO MUCH ELSE. Let's see . . .

Active skill checks

Can I find a screenshot of one at the moment? No, because that would be easy. *facepalm* But here's how I formatted them in M+P when I was still obsessively checking the game to see how these things worked:

1. [Skill Level#: Difficulty] [Thing you're going to do.] "Thing you're going to say, if anything!"

And a concrete example:

YOU – 1. [Strike a Sam Bo pose.] “If you can best me in HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT.” 2. [Move aside.] “Sure, c’mon in.” 3. [Composure 15: Heroic] [Move aside.] “Of course. I’ve missed you.” Composure: Failure YOU – You move aside and get as far as “Of” before some involuntary emotion-muscle spasms. Your throat feels small, your face hot. Fat, guileless tears vanish into your beard.

Note that the dialogue option you "select" is bold, as is the outcome line. Also note that [Action you'll take] ends up in square brackets, but if you're going to lie, then you do it like so: (Lie.)

Miscellanea

Place names: Spelling and hyphenation can be a pain. If not using your own notes, I suggest FAYDE and screenshots; or, for variety, screenshots and FAYDE. Google is okay, but sometimes, it lies.

If you can't find evidence of how the game does it, make a decision and slap it in your style sheet. You're the captain now!

Tricky fish:

The place is Sur-la-Clef; the language is Suresne.

The place is Vesper; the language is Vespertine.

The place is Revachol; the demonym is Vacholière (Suresne) or Revacholian (Vespertine).

LA REVACHOLIÈRE – IF SHE IS SPEAKING, SHE SPEAKS LIKE THIS. Shivers doesn't, though, unless La Rev speaks "through" it.

Hjelmdallermann (bless you)

Satellite Officer X or Satellite-Officer X: The game does both, so pick the one you prefer -- or go full homage and switch it up.

Sam Bo

Wirrâl (I fucked up the accent in M+P and it still bothers me tbh)

There are always more, so keep adding to that style sheet. Kim's depending on you. <3

[therecordconnection]

Ranting and Raving: “Unholy” by Sam Smith and Kim Petras

I'm always about fifteen years late when it comes to things that are trending so I'm only just now hearing the new Sam Smith and Kim Petras collaboration, "Unholy". I'm not on TikTok because I’m a curmudgeon so I have to find out about new music and music trends like an old person. Sue me. 

Anyway, I've been finding "Unholy" infuriatingly fascinating. It's one of those songs where the things that are great about it are great and the things that are bad about it drag it down. Let's cover the great things first. 1) We now have a major hit song that features both a nonbinary performer (Smith) and a transgender woman (Petras). Regardless of the criticisms I have about this song, that's a big deal and I'm happy to see that kind of representation in a year that has been pretty damn boring for the pop charts. 2) That hook is great. The gospel choir that accompanies it is infectious and makes for an earworm that will stick in your head for a bit. It fits in well with Sam's "Theatre Kid" energy. 3) Pretty sure the bassline is just "Sober" by Tool, but that's a plus because while it's simple, it hits. My only wish is that the production made it sound dirtier. 4) I love Sam on this song. They've always bored me as a performer, but over the last couple years they've been turning that around by getting more adventurous with their music. Sam sells this song to the best of their ability and it sounds great. 5) I got to hear Sam Smith sing the lines "While she's droppin' it / She be poppin' it" and while it does sound comical coming from them, it made me laugh in a good way so it gets a point for that. 

Alright, we've covered the things I enjoy about this. So why do I find this song to be "infuriatingly fascinating"? Easy. To quote the late Norm MacDonald's review of Interview With the Vampire: "Not gay enough." I'm aware that's a strong accusation due to who the two performers are, but here's how I know it's not gay enough. I've heard So. Many. Shitty. Heavy. Metal. Covers. Of. This. Song. If this song was truly as gay and unholy as it advertises, metalheads wouldn't even touch this with a ten foot pole, as that community still contains some of the most homophobic scum still walking the Earth. The only reason I was able to find so many of them is because doing metalcore versions of lame pop songs is what gets the views these days, kids. Most metalheads would take one look at Sam Smith, use the wrong pronouns, and then call them a word that rhymes with “maggot.”

But even beyond that, I keep asking myself this question: "What's so unholy about infidelity?" At this point, the idea of a devout religious person having a passionate affair/cheating on their spouse is about as old as the Holy Bible itself. It's not so scandalous in a world where, not even forty years ago, televangelists like Jim Bakker or Jimmy Swaggart were in hot water when people found out they were cheating on their wives. Hell, Swaggart even admitted it on television back in 1988. I've heard this song before... It's called "Miracle Man" by Ozzy Osbourne. Ozzy tore into that hypocrisy with style and made an unholy man look like a clown. I have no questions about what that song wants to say or do. This one I only have questions. So, I ask again, what's so unholy about infidelity? If you're gonna make something that truly lives up to the song title "Unholy", I better be hearing about the most fucked up thing imaginable. I may not be on TikTok, but I've seen enough videos from that app where people admit to wild, fucked up, and pathetic things that you would have to waterboard in order to get out of me.

Another issue I have with the song is in the way it doesn't play to the strengths of its performers. Who the hell is Sam supposed to be playing in this song? Are they a priest? Are they a neighbor? Are they an omniscient third person narrator? Who? I keep thinking that the song would be a million times better if it was framed around Sam playing the role of a priest. Imagine this: Sam is in the confessional. They're hearing people confess their sins and all that, but then, this guy walks in and reveals this news: He's cheating on his wife... with a trans woman. Now, imagine that while Sam is hearing this wild confession, their first idea is to start jacking off to it. You want to talk about unholy? There's your double whammy right there. I think the idea of the man in the song having an affair with a trans woman is a really important detail, considering that not only does this song desperately need something to make it more noteworthy lyrically, it has arguably the most famous trans woman in pop at the moment being completely wasted on this song. You want to really get Christian wine moms clutching their pearls? Tell them Nancy’s husband was out all night with a trans woman. Now that’s quite a story for the neighborhood.

This is to segue into how I think Kim Petras' verse on this song is the weakest part about the entire thing. Her performance is great, but she's utterly wasted on a verse that really any woman in pop could've done. Lizzo, Cardi B., Ariana, Dua Lipa, Halsey, your indie friend with a single on Spotify that has just over ten-thousand listens, etc. You would think she would be going off and telling me all about the wild sex-capades that are going on in the body shop, but nope! It's a just a verse about a guy who gives her decent sex and spends a lot of money on her. BORING. Like I said, any woman in pop right now could do this verse and you'd lose nothing. That's why it's the weakest part of this song to me. Kim Petras has something that none of the other names I mentioned have... being transgender. That makes for a really great detail in a song that could really explore a fascinating question: How would religious circles deal with someone having an affair with a member of a group of people they despise and fear? You see it happen with men cheating on their wives with other men, but how would God-fearing, Christian women react if they heard someone in their neighborhood was going across the tracks and fooling around with a trans woman in a fucking auto body shop of all places? It makes for a great premise that the song never truly bothers to explore.

Plus, it's Kim Petras for God's sake. Regardless of what you think of her due to her problematic working relationship with scumbag serial abuser/producer Dr. Luke, this song wastes her strengths. It especially sucks because if any woman could make this song live up to the name "Unholy", it would be her. We're talking about the woman who just last year made an album called Slut Pop! The woman who made a whole dance song just about her tits on "Coconuts", the woman who made "Throat Goat," "Treat Me Like a Slut," and "They Wanna Fuck"! The woman is known for nasty, highly sexual music and if you need someone to get absolutely filthy and unholy on a track for you, she’s a damn good choice. But what does she get here? Boring lyrics about designer clothes and shopping on Rodeo? Boo! I don't need an Incognito tab to listen to this song. I've heard this song on the radio unchanged. Sam already did the cutesy "censor out the bad word with a sound effect" trick for me. Come on! Unholy... There are church kids probably listening to this song right now. There are probably wine moms doing TikTok dance videos to this right now. There’s probably a whole plethora of Halloween playlists that have this song in it. Sam Smith is still probably the only gay person you could safely bring home to your grandma who truly means well but is just a little backwards. Unholy, my ass.

Look, if you want overt gayness that will really look unholy to people, look at the Lil Nas X videos for "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)" and "Industry Baby." You can find those on my new CD compilation, Now That's What I Call Gay, hitting store shelves soon.

This song's biggest sin (HA!) is that it pulls its punches when it could've been so much more. "Unholy" is a song that, while I do enjoy listening to it, is a song that is playing it way too safe and doesn't live up to its full potential in my eyes. Even though I've complained about what I don't think works here, don't let that diminish what this song's success means culturally and what it could mean going forward. If this song breaks the barrier and allows for more non-binary and trans representation in the mainstream, then this song should be celebrated on that alone. It's the first hit song I can think of that features both a non-binary singer and a trans woman. Like all experiments, sometimes the first result isn't the greatest, but it gets you excited for what the next results *could* be if we keep at it.

[221btardisimpalawithloki]

hot mic au fucked up backstory that wont be relevant to the plot at all but I cant stop thinking about it

dean

john and mary got divorced when dean was 4 years old

one weekend john took dean and sam for a boys camping trip and just. never went back

mary tried her best to track them down but it was the 80s so after a few years she had to mourn and move on with the assumption they were either dead or gone forever

dean and sam grew up motel-hopping with their mostly-absent usually-drunk dad. it wasnt great

dean was able to get his GED, and he scrounged around a few years saving up to maybe go to college?

dean takes out some loans and uses up his savings to graduate with a journalism degree just in time for the economy to crash in 2008

cas saves him from true catastrophe at around this time

they bond really fast and usually try to find jobs in the same markets but it doesnt always work out. both need to be near each other but neither is willing to risk it all by coming out in a homophobic and image-obsessed industry

Dean's increased profile catches his moms attention, and they are able to reconnect before she dies

dean gets a job in his current market and decides to move in with his brother and his brother's roommate

then, the events of the fic

cas

cas was the youngest child for years

until his father got remarried! meet his new oldest child, jimmy

the novaks were an influential family in Illinois. it's a shame you lose that influence if you divorce the head of the family

cas was able to go to school and even get his phd in meteorology, but discovered his true passion lies in science communication

he meets dean and pulls him out of a bad situation, and they adhere closely enough that hes willing to take low local station pay over pursuing a long-shot deal with the discovery channel or something

during all this his family falls apart. some kid does a 23&me and reveals hes cas' nephew, while his half-niece's family falls apart

shes out of illinois and helping cas with his lease the second she can

then, the events of the fic

sam

shares a lot of the early stuff with dean, but with the added joy of having a controlling brother in addition to an absent father

gets a full ride for undergrad and makes a close group of friends

has a really bad experience with his friend kelly's asshole boyfriend

his girlfriend dies also during this time

he gets into law school where he develops a stimulant habit

he has a practice and hes gotten his use under control when kelly dies so he takes in her son

he is a lot more normal about getting back in contact with their mom than dean is

his love life is too complex to fathom. polyamorous dyke drama out the wazoo

his brother signs a 2-year contract with the local news station so they move back in together and things seem to be going okay

the events of the fic

writing Sam's bit I just realized this reads like the miku binder blurb