#the gender roles in this fucking canon are so nuts

[oexen]

kishimoto for a dollar can you write a woman. any woman

[hearthouses]

hello!! happy wincest wednesday! I'm not great at coming up with questions but-- are there any aspects of wincest or any tropes or angles you've been thinking about recently that are making you go particularly nuts???

This is a good and fun question!

So... I'm kind of an intense nerd who has people pleasing syndrome as well as fun traits like issues with choice paralysis, so picking one of my many many many ideas is very difficult, so in order to keep track of things I am interested for me, I have a document that is called "iddy ideas" which are essentially concepts that speak directly to my id. I'm gonna use the headers as way to answer this because otherwise I will forget something and it'll bug me, so things that live in my psyche re: Winchesters are:

→ DEAN & GENDER: I have a few asks in drafts that need answering about this topic, so I will keep this sort of brief—I am really into how Dean and his relationship to gender, and how the roles he plays in life force him into one box or another. I tend to headcanon him on the nonbinary/genderfluid spectrum, even if he’d never personally identify as either. I love exploring how he often uses toxic masculinity as a shield and how he uses it to cover up the more vulnerable aspects of his desires and identity. As for the Sam/Dean angle, I really love Sam figuring it out and using lingerie kink and feminization kink as a way for Dean to explore in a way that doesn’t completely freak him out. There’s a long fic in my head that I’ve been too nervous to write about this.

→ OMEGAVERSE & PREGNANCY: I have come up with so many ways to get Dean pregnant because I think about this topic so often. I won’t bore you with the list. I am unfortunately a sucker for pregnancy and kid fics as a trope. I don’t often read them because I prefer realism in the sense that the kid has to feel like an actual kid to me and not a symbol of happiness and completeness. For Sam/Dean, I enjoy the fucked up aspects of having a kid with your brother and how they would be so into that because it’s combining themselves into another living being, that they made together, ultimate symbol of their intense incestuous love. I also think Dean very much wants kids, but didn’t think he could have them with Sam, while I think Sam would really only want to have kids with Dean. I have many AUs where it is also the worst possible time for this to happen because I live for the melodrama. I also like post-pregnancy and seeing the kids grow up to be fucked up in their own special and unique ways.

→ DOMESTICITY & DISABILITY: I am simple and sometimes I want to force Sam and Dean to retire and live in a little cabin or cottage in the woods somewhere so they can grow old. Often, I think for the only way that makes sense for them to do so is if one or both were physically incapable of hunting anymore. I love them being forced to slow down and take care of one another. Given their lives, permenent injury is pretty likely and I love exploring the ways in which they'd have to grow and adjust to their new realities. Also, I kind of just want certain ideas presented in canon explored? Like Sam's issues with his sense of reality and hallucinations, or both of them having chronic pain. Plus, there should be more finale AUs where Dean lives, but he has mobility issues now.

→ WINCHESTERS & RAPE RECOVERY: Both Sam and Dean are rape survivors who repeatedly are sexually assaulted throughout the narrative, but they both react so differently to similar traumas and I would like to have this explored since the show wouldn't. Hell trauma also goes under this umbrella. I am fascinated by the ways in which Sam and Dean are mirrors and foils, and would like to explore the interiority of that. I’m also very into concepts and ideas that explore how their respective trauma informs some of their kinks i.e. I think post-s7 Sam especially wants more pain kink and D/s where he submits to get out of his own head and Dean struggling with the dom role due to his trauma from hell where he was put into the position of torturer and rapist, and them having to figure out to make that work without sending Dean into a tailspin.

→ CONSENT ISSUES: I love fuck or die, sex pollen, curses, and all related tropes. I also like "dark" versions of Sam or Dean (Demon!Dean, Soulless!Sam, Shapeshifters, Leviathans, etc.) menacing and putting the other in situations. I will never tire of this.

→ BOY KING SAM & MAGIC: Sam should be able to always have his powers as a treat. He should be able to be a little evil as a treat. Sam should get to go full on witchy as a treat. I love the demon blood arc, I love psychic wonder Sam, I love Sam who puts hex bags in witches mouthes and tells them he learned from the best. I am from the ancient times and watched the season three finale live, so my formative years were shaped by so many Sam becomes The Boy King and rescues Dean from hell fix it fics and AUs, and so it's always a favorite. I am currently writing one that is very slow going, but as a general vibe check I am calling it Sam's Moving Castle and "suiteverse but nice".

→ WEREWOLVES & MONSTER WINCHESTERS: I love werewolves and I want Sam and Dean to be werewolves and be a pack of two. But I'm not picky and would like them to be any sort of monster. I think the show was too scared of upsetting the status quo and permanently transforming them into monsters, which is a shame, but now it is now my hyperfixation when it comes to fic for them.

[atopvisenyashill]

So the latest mad thing I've seen on reddit is people claiming that, had Laenor lived, Vaemond would have attempted to usurp Laenor (if Corlys was on his deathbed) due to his sexuality and having Lucerys be next in line. That's absurd, right? Tell me that's absurd.

absolutely nuts like, it’s not to say that like, people aren’t disrespectful to Renly, Loras, Satin, Oberyn for being queer but like, Stannis wasn’t sitting there and going “Renly you’re gay go home” ya know. Homophobia works very differently bc as long as you could like Do Masculinity well enough people were willing to overlook yiu fucking your squire if you were in the noble class and Laenor is Very Good At Being A Man especially in the show.

which isn’t to say that like, there aren’t homophobic comments in both show and books because any deviation from gender roles is still considered deviant and wrong and fair game to mock, it’s why Tyrion and Jaime are way too fucking cute about Oberyn and Loras (Jaime makes more than one comment about both Oberyn and Loras being like….Not Quite Manly specifically bc they fuck men, Im almost positive Joffrey makes some homophobic comments about Renly, we get Alicent making that tacky comment when Laenor is clearly you know, grieving his sister and not fucking squires, etc) like GOT really overdid it with the medieval conversion therapy on Loras bc that’s just not how it works in this series but at the same time it IS important to point out that despite the like, structurally enabled pedophilia of young girls, everyone has a fucking problem when a knight is fucjing his young squire right.

But Vaemond’s issue is never that Laenor is gay, it’s that Lucerys is clearly not his biological child, and Baela and Rhaena don’t “deserve” to inherit either, and while I DO think Vaemond would try something even if Laenor is still alive bc in both canons he’s very eager to jump over Laena’s line to benefit his own, his issue is not with Laenor it’s with Lucerys. Likely he would make some shitty comments similar to Jaime about how Laenor can’t perform as a real man (tm) the same way that like, Stannis faces similar comments bc of his apparent dislike of sex, but Laenor is clearly Corlys child. He would HAVE to approach this situation wayyyyyy differently and he knows it. So no, he can’t just show up and be like “Laenor I know what you are 👁️👄👁️ give me Driftmark” that’s just not how it works lol and Vaemond is just not stupid enough to pull that one - bc hello, he only pulls the stunt he DOES pull bc he assumes he’ll have the protection of the Hightowers & probably also assumes that Viserys will agree his daughter is a harlot (little does he know).

[aclosetfan]

I’ve always liked mixing the colors for ppg/rrb shipping but in particular I love the idea of Buttercup and Boomer

On the surface, I do love the trope of a tough-nut to crack girl and golden retriever boy who doesn’t even realize how much he’s chipping away at that shell

But I also always loved playing with the idea of both of them and their relationships to their gender identity, especially in relation to how they compare to/are treated by their siblings

I know it’s a bit of a cliche and people can ruin Buttercup’s tomboy personality and crank it up to an internalized misogyny archetype, but I think it would be interesting to explore her frustrations she might have with conflicting feelings over how she sees herself vs how she’s perceived by others. Of course she likes and prefers her hobbies of sports and things of that nature, but it bothers her that people then make assumptions about her hating any and all forms of femininity and then seek to deny her her femininity as a whole

Boomer also sometimes gets slapped with the “pretty boy” or really sensitive guy personality in fics not to mention we see in canon that Butch and Brick gang up on him so I think it would also be cool to have Boomer reflect on those toxic masculinity ideals that have always been inflicted on him and deciding for himself that he refuses to be miserable and just wants to be himself (I’d also love if this extended into a catalyst for Butch and Brick to examine their own internalized biases and insecurities and start to really confront and deal with them)

So then together, I’d love if they become each other’s person to talk to about how they feel like they’re expected to perform certain aspects of their gender (with Buttercup, she’s expected to always subvert traditional gender roles while at the same time being criticized for doing so and Boomer being made to feel as if he has to conform or else risk always being socially punished and outcast) rather than being able to just exist as their most authentic selves without having to hear anyone commenting on it or trying to label their entire personality in one word

This could be platonic or romantic but I’ve always loved the idea of this being a huge aspect of why Boomer and Buttercup could potentially click and match each other so well

That's very interesting to read! I usually fuck around with Buttercup's and Brick's gender myself, so thinking about it in the context of Boomer is fun. Typically, I make him pretty secure in his looks/gender.

When it comes to Buttercup/Boomer's relationship, I lean more heavily on them being the "dumber" ones of the trio. (jock x dumbass 100% bros. (If they dated, it’d be one of those things where even they’d forget they were dating.)

Not that I don't see them having a deeper connection than "bros," but I don't like to make Boomer a "golden retriever" or sensitive kind of guy because I think he'd be too manipulatively charming, and Buttercup would be savvy enough to see through the facade. Regardless, in the "bros" scenario, Boomer could be someone Buttercup feels comfortable confiding in when she's feeling like she's walking the line of masc/fem. If Boomer is confident in himself, he'd likely just accept whatever Buttercup wants to be and move on with his life. No if, and, or buts.

Honestly, he'd probably be the personification of "Oh, you're ambidextrous? Congrats, dude, I didn't know you had come out, lol. love is love." and that would be the type of person Buttercup would feel safe around. She wouldn't have to feel the pressure of "performing/masking" when her best friend's a bit of a dumb fuck, which has its pros and cons.

Pro: Buttercup doesn't have to think about herself on any deeper level around Boomer.

Con: Buttercup can hide behind Boomer when she's forced to confront herself on any deeper level.

It could lead to a character conflict between them, as it centers around the concepts of "being known" and "authenticity." Some things have to break eventually—either Buttercup gets mad at Boomer for effortlessly being himself, or Boomer gets mad at Buttercup for using him as a crutch (or being slightly two-faced), forcing them into the cathartic heart-to-heart.

[beemers-hell]

In your take on Madness, how would you explain White Hank and Pink Hank?

ok so like, ignoring whatever actual canon there is for the white hank series, which I kind of completley forgot what the fuck actually happened in it lmao, I see White and Pink as being different universes from canon madness. That's why the alt color + happy versions of my goons are referred to as AU versions!

Read more cause this gets long lol

The way I see it is that White is like, almost the same, some events may he scrambled or slightly different and some characters may have gone through different arcs n shit, but everything is mostly the same, except most if not all the characters are gender bent, thats it

Pink is like, I don't exactly know how to explain it but it's like canon madness but like...eccentric? I guess? Like, its mostly the same, again some shit is jumbled up and a majority of the characters have their roles reversed or shuffled around, but the main thing is everything is FARRRRR more flamboyant and just like, abundantly queer? I love Pank designs where he's a borderline drag queen, so I like to apply that same kind of design ethos/look to everyone and everything. Slay universe ig

I know Happy wasn't mentioned but like, to me a Happy universe is just Madness but like, to the left a lil bit iykwim. Like, all the stuff from nexus n shit happened and the AAHW exists and all the tomfoolery is going down but a lot of the characters either didn't experience some of the more Fucked Up shit that Fucked them up or they're just not As nutty. I'm pretty sure Skittles isn't supposed to be the same ass dude as Hank and all that but in this universe I like to think he Is, he's just not as much as a wack ass nut job like Hank is, but probably has a history of having done some violent shit in the past. After nexus Tricky is still an assassin but he's not a zombie, just a normal ass clown. Jeb is still like on the whole "cleanse the wicked" shit but more in a missionary kind of way instead of savior complex having lunatic kind of way. Sheriff is just like, doing his job without there being any bigger picture type thing he's contributing to yknow?

Ik most of this is most likely comoletley ignoring the actual canon shit of those tributes n shit, don't worry about that! im just fucking around with the ideas they present lmao

[columboscreens]

also peter falk literally just looks like a Normal Guy. like as someone who is a) a trans guy (sort of its complicated) and b) not that tall, i cant tell you how nice it is to see literally a normal fucking person of about my height in literally anything. and bonus points cause peter falk is from the same area as my dad and HIS dad are, so its EXTRA "he's literally just some guy" from my perspective

yeah i 100% agree with you anon, that's what i like about him! peter falk literally was just some regular-ass pencil pushing guy from suburban new york. his schlubby act wasn't a farce; this was a guy who thought acting was a fun hobby that he wasn't very good at until he was like 30. he started his theatre career when he'd already lived almost a third of his life doing random shit as Just Some Guy! in addition to having a theatrical background, his authenticity translated very strongly to his roles and it's always refreshing to watch.

like yeah he was certainly good-looking--the guy by all accounts fucked constantly--but it was in a somewhat unconventional way. his grin was lopsided, one eye cocked. you may have even heard the anecdote about how falk failed his first screen test because studio execs couldn't get over his eye. for every one of us who goes nuts over how hot he was, there are a bunch of people who think he looked like a lunch bag lmao.

tl;dr im sick of fuckin marvel CGI faces and wanna see regular people with character again, people with authenticity. besides, i'll say it, it's way hotter to be kind of busted.

on another note, though canonically he's a cis guy, i'm fascinated with the fact that columbo is indeed for many transmascs, and even trans/gender questioning folks in general, an idol. it makes you look more critically at his gender expression, which really is its own whole-ass topic.

he's short, not weak but not particularly athletic, keeps his hair long-ish, hides his shape much of the time in a rumpled overcoat. in terms of traditional 20th century western gender expression, his masculinity is unambiguous, but upon closer inspection, so is his femininity.

on the surface level, he never hesitates to pick flowers, go shopping, cook dinner, get a manicure, or put his arm around another guy. more importantly, he's calm, sensitive, caring, nurturing, and has a strong intuition to which he listens. he's a man, but he's the one who defines what that means to him, and he's the one who defines how he expresses that, no matter how many odd looks he gets. traits aside, that level of confidence and agency in his own expression is something to admire no matter your identity.

[olderthannetfic]

hi hi history-non again, sorry I know it's a very

ahem wide and girthy ahem

ask, and i'm sorry for not narrowing it down farther my brain is smooth as butter and the dart board, so to speak, is. big. i feel like im throwing my dart in the ocean of 'what i don't know' and trying to spear a fish who might speak to me like the queer elder i never ha d ;lkasjd;flkas damn you small conservative town ANYWAYS

i guess okay maybe do you have any favourite figureheads? whats your fave pieces of lgbtqa+ media (like books or shows?)

thanks again and sorry for.

uh.

big.

--

Lolololol. Yes.... it’s so... big...

In the 90s, the writers of nonfiction who I found really inspirational were Susie Bright and Kate Bornstein. My Gender Workbook was a classic. I gather there’s a new edition.

I was a massive, massive nerd, so my actual favorite queer book as a 14-year-old is one that will be a bit... uh... much if you’re not feeling very intellectual. It’s Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History. This thing is a massive doorstop of a book that collects academic journal articles on third gender roles from various cultures. I was obsessed with this thing. Again, it’s academic journal articles, not popular nonfiction, so expect that level of impenetrable prose.

I was also a giant weeb, so I read a bunch of books on the history of gay sex in Japan. It’s pretty interesting how much people assume the “m/m sex = sin” shit was worldwide and how much it just was not.

In terms of fiction, I’ve always struggled to find f/f media I relate to. I really like the tv adaptations of Fingersmith and Tipping the Velvet. Lots of fucked up problematicness and gorgeous visuals. Gotta love the lady with the strap-on and the gold body paint!

For other queer media, I was a big fan of Velvet Goldmine and of Pedro Almodóvar’s older films, which are full of every problematic kink you can think of. They also have a lot of het I like, like the lady being coerced into sex (that she enjoys) by the drag queen who impersonates her famous mother she has a lot of mommy issues about... except said drag queen is really an undercover police officer. Just... whut. (All the “straight” stuff in Almodóvar’s films is also bugfuck nuts and often kind of queer.)

I really, really, really loved Crash. Not the shitty one that won an oscar: the car crash perverts one full of weird UST. There’s a ton of straight sex in this too, along with every gender combo and a laundry list of upsetting kinks. It’s just every kind of weird perv thing. (”Weird art film full of sex and problematicness” is pretty much the defining feature of movies I liked as a teen. I loved Kissed, that het necrophilia movie too.)

Stage Beauty is probably my favorite film for bi vibes. It’s this meditation on identity as the English stage was changing over from having men play women to having actual actresses. It ends in f/m, but it’s definitely a very queer film.

If you want slice of life stuff, I guess you could try Dykes to Watch Out For (the comic that’s the source of the bechdel test) or the Tales of the City novel series. These will both give you a sense of what was going on in certain queer communities in the late 20thC. If you want something relatively fluffy, Maurice is a historical costume drama with a happy ending. I found it awfully slow as a college student, but it does have naked Rupert Graves (Lestrade from Sherlock), so...

----

See, this is hard to answer because I came of age and did all of my reading of that kind a long time ago. I pretty quickly moved on to fangirl media, which I have always liked a lot better than other arguably queer stuff. Back in the 90s, that meant Japanese stuff and fic. Later, I had access to more flavors of by-fujoshi-for-fujoshi media.

So my actual favorite m/m books are a bunch of “m/m romance” (i.e. American BL being sold as ebooks on amazon). If you want live action TV and fandomy vibes, you’re better off with Trapped (hot cop/mobster action!) or one of those Thai series about schoolboys or something than stuff made by cis gay men in the US.

I also came of age in an era when “queer” media was very Cis Gay Men And Sometimes Cis Lesbians with an occasional nod to bi people existing... maybe. Kate Bornstein and a few others were raising the profile of MtF transsexuals (the term in use at the time) who wanted surgery or even, gasp, maybe didn’t want bottom surgery in some cases. Anything about FtMs or nb/agender/etc. identities was practically invisible. I saw the term ‘genderqueer’ around a bit, but it was mostly in contexts that were very tryhard and unappealing to me.

(You haven’t given any details, but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you’re like much of tumblr and the flavors of queerness you relate to aren’t so much the Cis Gay Men Only culture that makes up quite a bit of queer history and older queer media.)

I can tell you what I liked as a teen, but not everybody is into fucked up art films that may not have happy endings. I can try to rec things about queer culture in the 90s, but I probably don’t have great recs for way earlier or later than that... unless it’s so much earlier that I’ve researched it while writing fic of some historical canon or other. A lot of how I learned about queer culture myself was from magazines or from reading soc.bi on usenet or just from living through the 90s--not typically from books that are easy to unearth and just hand to someone now.

I tend to just not like anything in the contemporary romance or slice of life genres, regardless of gender and orientation, so while I’ve watched/read a bit more queer stuff like this, especially in the past when I had less access to queer media, it’s not a space I’m great at reccing in. And that’s unfortunate because a lot of that type of art gives you a better sense of what other queer people were like in other eras and/or it’s a safer rec than some bananas crazy BDSM film.

I was, and am, very kinky (though pretty lazy in terms of actual practice), so a lot of my reading and media interest was bound up in that also. Obviously, I was quite interested in the drawings of Tom of Finland or the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe, but are you going to be into photos of some guy shoving a whip handle in his ass? I love the movie Cruising... it’s about serial killers and leather and homophobia and is every bit as potentially traumatizing as that sounds.

I feel you on the problem of finding queer elders. There isn’t really an obvious way to go about this.

[tragicies]

♡ ˙      ben  barnes ,  he / him ,  thirty - seven      /       𝐒𝐀𝐌  𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑  has  been  displaced !      originally  from  𝚂𝚄𝙿𝙴𝚁𝙽𝙰𝚃𝚄𝚁𝙰𝙻 ,  he / they  has  found  themselves  in  new  york  city ,  without  their  memories .    they’re  currently  working  as  a  lawyer   &   tend  to  come  across  as  EMPATHETIC,  SELFLESS ,  but  also  STUBBORN   &   UNORTHODOX .     we’ll  see  if  their   𝒔𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒅  𝒃𝒐𝒐𝒌𝒔  𝒇𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒅  𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉  𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒅  𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒖𝒈𝒆𝒔   &   𝒉𝒆𝒍𝒅  𝒕𝒐𝒈𝒆𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓  𝒃𝒚  𝒃𝒓𝒐𝒌𝒆𝒏  𝒔𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒔 ,  𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒈𝒐𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒏  𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒅  𝒏𝒐𝒘  𝒅𝒓𝒚𝒊𝒏𝒈  𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓  𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒅  𝒍𝒊𝒑𝒔 ,   &   𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒏  𝒇𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒏𝒆𝒍  𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈  𝒕𝒉𝒆  𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒔  𝒐𝒇  𝒂𝒖𝒕𝒖𝒎𝒏  𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒔   personality  will  be  their  downfall  or  their  saving  grace  in  these  streets .      /       link ,  24 ,  they / them ,  est . 

𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐂𝐊  𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐒  .

full name :     samuel   william  “sam”  winchester . aliases :   sammy .  lucifer’s  perfect  vessel .   the  boy  with  the  demon  blood .   the  boy  king  of  hell .   abomination .   moose . age :  thirty  seven . gender & pronouns :   demi  guy ,  he / they . sexual & romantic orientation :    bisexual / biromantic . species :   human  ( demon  blood  induced  physic ) . star  sign :   taurus . identifying  marks :    a  long  scar  over  his  left  palm .   fantastic  hair .

𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍 .

i  am  just .   linking  his  wiki .

the  gist  of  it  all  is :    sam’s  father  trained  both  him   &   his  older  brother  dean  to  hunt  the  supernatural  because  of  his  revenge  fueled  obsession  to  find  the  demon  that  killed  their  mother .    though  they  do  eventually  kill  the  demon ,  that’s  hardly  the  end  for  their  story  as  the  brothers  find  that  themselves  as  pawns  in  the  grand  scheme  of  things  as  the  apocalypse  begins  to  set  into  place .   by  refusing  to  play  the  roles  fate  seemed  desperate  to  give  them  they  managed  to  stop  the  end  of  the  world ,  only  to  have  another  worldly  threat  looming  after  it .    &  another .    &   another .    the  two  of  them  stop  apocalypse  after  apocalypse  with  the  help  of  their  angel  best  friend , castiel ,  until  they  realize  they’ve  been  simply  characters  in  a  story  written  by  the  creator  of  all  things :   god .    wanting  to  control  their  own  lives ,  the  two  take  down  god  himself  so  they  can ,  finally ,  have  full  free  will  over  their  lives .

𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐘𝐎𝐑𝐊 .

son  of  john   &   mary  winchester .   grew  up  a  native  new  yorker  with  his  older  brother  dean  winchester .

has  since  childhood  suffered  from  chronic  nightmares  which  causes  him  to  be  quite  the  insomniac .    he  was  taken  to  a  specialist  as  a  child   &   has  been  seeing  one  since .    though  he  has  medication ,  he’s  not  always  the  best  at  keeping  up  with  it .

sam  hates  his  dad !    the  man  was  obsessive  &  unkind  to  he   &   dean  but  where  dean  always  vouched  for  the  man   &   silently  obeyed   ( if  only  to  keep  the  peace )  sam  couldn’t  stand  his  father   &   the  dictator  control  he  seemed  to  want  on  their  lives .   sam  would  lash  out   &   got  into  many  fights  with  him .

sam  saw  dean  as  a  primary  caretaker  of  himself  over  their  father .

he  tried  to  run  away  on  more  than  one  occasion  while  growing  up ,  staying  away  from  his  home  for  a  day  up  to  a  full  two  weeks .   however ,  guilt  for  leaving  dean  would  always  bring  him  back .

at  age  17 ,  sam  was  accepted  to  college  in  california  &  he  finally  ran  away  for  good .   while  his  father  &  dean  were  gone ,  sam  hurried  to  pack  away  anything  he  deemed  necessary  into  his  car   &   he  took  off  across  country  without  so  much  as  a  goodbye  note .

the  first  year  or  two  at  college  sam  kept  no  connection  with  his  family ,  having  no  want  to  talk  to  his  father   &   terrified  that  his  brother  hated  him  for  what  he’d  done ,  but  eventually  he  managed  to  call  dean .    though  it  was  a  rocky  reconnection  at  first ,  sam  eventually  made  an  effort  to  call  dean  a  handful  of  times  in  a  year .   in  the  meantime ,  he  would  also  send  post  cards  from  california .

sam  got  a  full  ride  to  standford   &   graduated  as  one  of  the  top  students  of  his  class .

after  his  graduation ,  nine  years  after  his  big  run  away ,  sam  returned  to  new  york  in  hopes  to  start  a  practice  where  he  intended  to  specalize  in  family  law  in  hopes  of  helping  kids  like  himself  get  out  of  bad  situations .

nearly  ten  years  later ,  winchester  family  law  is  a  fairly  respected  practice  in  the  city .    he’s  no  big  name  lawyer ,  but  he’s  doing  fairly  well  for  himself .

though  he  has  reconnected  with  dean ,  sam  hasn’t  even  bothered  to  visit  his  father  in  the  near  ten  years  he’s  returned .   the  only  reason  he’s  possibly  seen  the  man  at  all  is  because  of  the  fact  dean  lives  with  him .

is  aware  his  father  is  sick  but  also  simply  is  trying  to  ignore  any  complicated  feelings  on  the  matter  by  drowning  it  out  in  the  hate  he  has  for  his  father .    even  if  he’s  on  his  death  bed ,  sam  refuses  to  forgive  the  man .

and  his  refusal  to  forgive  him  is  only  going  to  worsen  if / when  his  memories  come  back .

𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐈𝐍𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 .

uh  he / they  sam  rights .   bi  sam  rights .    i  think  sam  had  a  girlfriend  at  the  start  of  college  but  a  boyfriend  sometime  at  the  end .   we  stan .

i  think  spn  stopped  caring  about  sam  much  after  season  like .   8 .    and  stopped  giving  him  personality  so .    late  series  canon  things  i’m  going  to  include  into  how  i  play  sam  will  be  with  a  grain  of  salt .     some  of  it  i’ll  be  honest  i’m  just  going  to  flat  out  ignore .    like  forgiving  his  dad ?    let  sam  be  bitter ,  cowards .    let  him  hate  more  than  one  thing .    because  he  does  also  hate  lucifer .

i  do  think  it’s  hilarious  that  he’s  a  health  nut  bc  this  man  has  exactly  none  of  his  priorities  in  order .   will  draw  demonic  sigils  in  his  own  blood  then  turn  around  to  get  a  quinoa  smoothie  bowl  to  “stay  healthy :)”   

first  worst  thing  spn  deiced  to  do  with  sam’s  character  is  get  rid  of  his  sick  as  fuck  demonic  physic  powers .    and  with  really  no  reason  too ?     so  that’s  a  big  thing  i’m  ignoring .

sam  is  most  relaxed ,  in  my  opinion ,  when  he’s  being  off  the  charts  weird .    like  when  sam  is  being  a  freak  i  think  it’s  good  for  him .

i’ll  add  more  to  this  later  i  really  gotta  go  to  bed  tho .

[the-nut-queen]

I Have a lot of thoughts on beyond light so I’m going to share them

spoilers for beyond light obvs

The Nut Queen’s thoughts on Beyond Light/SotH:

Campaign:

·       Pretty much went how I expected, i.e. nothing unpredictable or particularly interesting/mould breaking

·       That being said, I liked it! And had a lot of fun

·       Good to see Variks again, good to see the Stranger.

·       Eramis was a pretty decent villain, but pretty much had the same motives as every other Eliksni enemy before her (Skolas, Aksis, Siviks, etc.)

o   Very much felt like Rise of Iron… 2! With the Eliksni taking a new power that they didn’t fully understand to wreck shit, and also, it’s Clovis’ fault again

·       The boss fights felt a little dull. Getting to the end and just spamming stasis got old pretty quickly. I think having that for the first time work, then being able to use stasis as a subclass going forward would have been better (instead of getting the subclass at the very end of the campaign, I haven’t even started upgrading it with shit yet)

·       Liked the ghost lines and voices lines that would happen as you travelled to places

·       The progression felt very smooth, I hardly noticed when the game switched from “story mission” to “kill some adds for some stuff to progress” which was nice.

·       Liked the likewise smooth integration of the empire hunts to the main story line (good source of repeatable content for the future) although I was a little confused when I got a triumph for empire hunts since I literally hadn’t heard House of Salvation call themselves an Empire before

·       Ghost being super concerned with you using the darkness then the guardian just not fucking saying anything is kinda dumb lol but that’s pretty standard

·       It was pretty dumb when at the final boss fight Eramis freezes your ghost and shatters your splinter and freezes you then the stranger’s voice over is like “look within” and you can just suddenly use stasis because why not lol

o   Would have been cool to have a “guardians make their own fate” reference here instead

·       WHAT IS THE POINT OF FIRETEAM “E” (Elsie/Stranger, Eli/Drifter, Eris) Don’t get me wrong, I love them! and I love that 1 solitary cutscene where they’re brawling and using stasis, but they literally serve no purpose to the story? Especially dumb how mara and the nine were like “ooh only 3 have transcended their design ooh they are so special” and then they just stand around a campfire while you do all the work lol

o   Sidenote, the Stranger’s little floaty thing: what is it? And what is the point of it besides looking cute in one cutscene??

·       Also really annoyed that the BOSS for the Glassway Strike is just another boring fucking hydra, like wtf. You introduced a fucking sick new Vex type!!! (wyvern) and you DIDN’T use it as a BOSS for the NEW VEX strike. The boss fight was so boring too, it was literally just a hydra but with lots of health and sometimes it disappeared, come on bungie

 New Light:

·       Pretty cool! Shaw Han is boring though. Bungie you need more women characters and more GHOST characters (also like any non-binary characters)

o   It’d be funny to see a guardian/ghost duo NPC where the guardian doesn’t talk and the ghost does! Like with literally every npc except Osiris/Sagira their ghosts just don’t fucking say anything . (I get that it is more money to hire more voice actors and to write more lines etc. etc. etc. but its getting a bit old. GHOSTS HAVE OPINIONS!

o   Maybe even an npc who is just a solo ghost! They haven’t found their guardian or their guardian was slain by the hive or something that would be cool

·       Where is Shiro-4?

·       Where is Misraaks/House Light?

·       Navota: also boring. Just a hive wizard. You may as well have just had Omnigul come back. Or her nightmare (though I understand that that was dealt with on the moon in the nightmare hunts but still)

o   Disgraced strike: also boring. And the boss fight is also boring and takes forever?

·       Cosmodrome: Cool to be back, was fun to get annihilated by an immune hive night in skyshock as is tradition

o   Annoyed there doesn’t appear to be any Rise of Iron continuity with the landscape, the splicers fuck some shit up in the divide and outside the wall

o   Also, is the path to the Rasputin bunker just gone?

o   Yeah I just checked, the path to the grottos area (from D1) from the forgotten shore has just disappeared in D2 they just put more cliff there

o   Wtf why

o   Also the D1 location maps are so awful lol (wow, we really used to live like that huh)

·       Cosmo lost sectors: nice. Hive labyrinth was fun. Sad they didn’t reuse like the Rasputin bunker but that’s chill

 Season of the Hunt:

·       I’m keen to see my BOYS Pulled Pork and Crow

·       SPIDER DON’T HURT CROW ISTG

·       Not sure what the seasonal content has in store

·       I hope it isn’t as boring as season of undying that sucked asss (obvs I have this worry since they spent the majority of the time developing Beyond Light/Europa, (I assume))

·       It looks like a combo of nightmare hunts and other seasonal public-style events

·       Maybe an escalation protocol/blind well style thing? Idk we’ll find out

 Overall:

·       BUGS! So many fucking bugs

o   you fucked up a perfectly good game, look at it, it has anxiety

o   omg bungie please help us

o   girl help, I’m trapped under the prison of elders grav lift thingo

o   girl help I’ve been launched into the wall at mach speed

·       GAMBIT:

o   You fucked up gambit too. You took all the cool shit out of Prime then mixed it with the lame shit from regular gambit to make gambit whatever the opposite of “prime” is

o   My idea for a better gambit TM:

o   Each class gets one (1) class item

o   They look like the prime class items except not coloured/glowy

o   There are 4 mods you can slot in the “combat style” mod slot ie the last slot

o   They’re like, idk 6 energy to slot

o   And they give you the gambit prime role! And the class item glows in the respective colour and you get an aura too

o   you get all the fun prime perks without having to grind r*ckoning and also have a full set of amour equipped, so you got freedom with your gear

o   it would be GOOD

o   sigh

o   gambit is the worst now

o   it’s like just as hard as prime was too but you don’t get good perks so you just eat shit

o   gambit rant over, moving on to planet rant:

·       YOU CAN’T SAY THAT FOUR CELESTIAL BODIES HAVE “DISAPPEARED” CANONICALLY ONLY LEAVING AN “ANOMOLY” (AS DESCRIBED BY WEBLORE) AND THEN

·       AND THEN fucking have CRUCIBLE AND GAMBIT MATCHES ON THE DISAPPEARED PLANETS

o   I totally get that for time, resources, crunch, and hell even desire would mean throwing out a heap of crucible matches would be not ideal because then there would be like 3 left

o   But

o   WHAT THE FUCK. Maybe if you said idk the vanguard has quarantined the four legacy planets due to the giant fucking darkness pyramids looming there so you’re not allowed to go there any more (as like an in game/lore reason for the planets being vaulted)

o   Cus like yeah you can’t patrol there anymore but drifter doesn’t care about vanguard sanctions so he can just ignore it for the gambit maps

o   And shaxx

o   Could like come up with a reason? Idk

o   It’s just really

o   Really

o   Stupid

·       I like the move towards being chill with gender (changing “male” and “female” to “Masculine” and “feminine” however I would like to see this go further. Ability to change your pronouns whenever you want, ability to change your characters gender presentation whenever you want, ability to be “androgynous” and use “they/them” pronouns

o   Like really, we’re space wizards in the far far future and some of us are even robots. there’s no doubt there would be trans guardians

Final thoughts:

I love this game, I love bungie, I am keen for what the future has to offer

But

I can’t help but feel like this is just another “beginning”

Like shadowkeep was supposed to kick off the era of darkness with the discovery of the first pyramid ship then we just had two random seasons after it that just felt like Curse of Osiris and Warmind Redux

Then arrivals was a phenomenal season

But yeah I was expecting things to be more high stakes I guess? The beyond light campaign didn’t feel very high stakes and it kinda just felt like “oh look you can use the darkness now”

in short, bungie hire me for good ideas and more queer characters

[trashcatsnark]

3. 6. 11 for sfw. 3 and 7 nsfw with dahlia and the seeds. any or all

I choooose all, cause I am a seed thot and it be like that. Plus, I feel super bad choosing one over the others, even though they’re fictional, I don’t wanna hurt their feelings. 

Also these mostly assume to be like, in wholesome, no cult AU, cause the whole end of the world, noncon, stockholm syndrome, trapped in a bunker, kind of fucks up the chance for a lot of soff in canon

3. Who fixes the vehicle after a breakdown?

Dahlia and Jacob would be the two of the family to take care of vehicles when they break down. Dahlia is the most mechanically inclined, with her experience with motorcycles and helping Lloyd fix up vehicles. Jacob as the oldest was more often on the farm of the foster family made to help repair equipment and vehicles, usually with lots of screaming and violence if he messed anything up. So, he doesn’t have as fond memories of repairing things. 

Faith and John would call Dahlia or Jacob, or a mechanic, if a car broke down. I feel like Faith never got her license even and one he was adopted, while the Duncans failed in every other aspect of parenting, he never had to worry about fixing his own car. 

Joseph is decent with his hands and isn’t completely lost when it comes to fixing up small things, but generally he’s better off leaving it to Jacob and Dahlia. 

6. Going out to eat: Who pays? Who orders the most food? And who has dessert?

John always offers to pay, without fail. He was taught for years basically that money is the way to show affection and love, so regardless of if it’s him dragging Dahlia out to a nice fancy dinner or the entire family is out at some cheap family joint.

Dahlia usually offers to pay no matter who’s she’s with or to split it, but if they’re insistent or she’s in a kind of mopey mood, she’ll take offers to pay it. Which John, Jacob, and Joseph always do offer when it’s one on one, because they’re older and as much as they know they don’t have to, some of those gender roles pop up in their head of men should pay. It tends to be more even between her and Faith since there’s less of that, Dahlia even probably treats Faith a little bit more, because it makes her feel good and Faith is the only Seed who doesn’t act weird about it in some way. 

Most food is a tie between Jacob and Dahlia, if they’re both going wild.they can eat a lot. Jacob is a bigger guy and isn’t ashamed of his appetite, food is important to him in a lot of ways. Him and Dahlia both have a history of having to go without, so they tend to want to get their fill and then some when they can. However, Dahlia is definitely more of a dessert person than Jacob. He doesn’t know if it’s age or what, but that stuff is just too sweet for him. 

Faith is the kind of person who oohs and awws over desserts on the menu before she even orders and swears to wants this cake or that pie. But halfway through her entree she’s full and never ends up actually ordering her dessert. Some day Faith, some day. 

John and Joseph both tend to be the most mindful of what they eat out of the entire family. Joseph like healthy natural foods because he wants to take care of himself, so he doesn’t indulge too much. Definitely a person who’d consider like just fruit a dessert. John is a bit more into health for vanitys sake. He wants to look good, plain and simple. 

11. Baths or showers? Together or separate? Any bubbles or bubble fights?

Dahlia on her own is generally a shower person, she plays some music and sings as she gets clean. 

Jacob is a shower person, in and out, he’s there to get clean and move on. Jacob and Dahlia don’t really bathe together, if they do it’s after some pride swallowing and asking by Dahlia. Though it’s not unusual, after a while in the relationship, for if they catch the other showering to just step in and join. Jacob will make some justification of it being practical, but he just likes the closeness of it. 

Joseph is typically a shower person, but his pick of all else is using like natural springs and water falls, cause he’s that kind of hippie. It feels much more calming and relaxing to be surrounded by nature as he cleans himself. 

Joseph loves bathing with Dahlia, he’s soft and kind, just wants to wash over every inch of her and hold her as close as possible. He doesn’t like too many bubbles, though occasionally he can be more playful with it. But he likes seeing her through the water.

John is one of those weird cold shower people cause it’s good for the skin, Dahlia thinks he’s nuts. But, he will also take bougie hot baths when he feels like he wants to pamper himself and relax. 

John would shamelessly ask Dahlia to join him in the bath and shower, he’d also jump into her shower if he catches her showering. He sees no reason not to jump at the chance to be wet and naked with her. He definitely indulges in some bubbles, though he mostly likes an intimate atmosphere in his baths with her, she likes to pick fights and will fling bubbles at him. And he always rises to the bait. 

Faith is the biggest bath fan of the family, she likes tons of bubbles, nice scented goodies, and just melting into the warm water. Showers are just if she’s exhausted and wants a quick clean. 

Faith absolutely loves taking baths with Dahlia, lots of bubbles, any bubble fights are very teasing and playful. Faith liking to gather handfuls and blow them at Dahlia, making her swat them away like a cat. 

NSFW UNDER CUT (this got long)

3. Any kinks they clash on?

There’s not a lot of kinks that she clashes with with any of the Seeds, other than hair pulling. Jacob and John both like pulling hair; they’re rougher with Dahlia than Faith or Joseph. But for Dahlia having her hair pulled is actually triggering and upsetting for her, because of previous abuse. So, that’s a clash that’s usually worked around with just pressing on the head, neck, or ya know a leash/collar if need be. 

Dahlia doesn’t a hundred percent get Joseph’s foot thing (Joseph has a foot thing, fight me), but it’s a non issue. She may not get why he like touching her feet or having her foot on his dick, but hey, it makes him feel good and she likes doing that. 

 Faith and Dahlia I don’t feel have any major clashes or even many semi clashes. I feel like maybe Faith is a bit more comfy with being out in the open, in nature during sex, where as Dahlia is a bit more shy. But, that shyness still leads to some…excitement for it on Dahlia’s behalf. 

7. Genital headcanons?

I can’t describe genitals

This is like the hardest thing for me to do, I remember when I did NSFW ABC’s I was struggling

Jacob has the biggest dick, big and thick. Some prominent veins. I feel like he does some shaving and trimming of his pubic hair, nothing crazy but he likes feeling like he’s doing at least some taking care of himself. His pubes are very thick, course ginger hair, a few shades darker than his head of hair. 

Joseph I feel is longer than average but closer to average in thickness  ( still bit more than average cause they all have big dicks okay, Im fantasizing let me live), i feel like he probably does the least in terms of shaving/trimming down there, cause hippie boy is hippie. It still doesn’t grow crazy and he still does some maintenance. I mean his beard isn’t insanely long or anything, so I presume he likes some trimming and care put into his appearance. Plus he just doesn’t have super crazy body hair, some kind over average thickness dark brown hair. 

John isn’t much longer than the average but is on the thicker side definitely. (I hate describing dicks and vaginas, iTS SO WEIRD) In terms of maintenance, John had the biggest difficulty growing his beard, which was frustrating, but he’s thankful for slower body hair growth when it comes to his pubes. He trims and maintains the most when it comes to the bros, the vain baby he his, he likes it neat and well taken care of. What he has is thick and dark brown. 

Faith has a very cute vagina (that sounds weird, but ehhhh) you can just see the inner lips through the outer lips, a kinda small clit that swells and peeks out when she’s turned on. Soft pale and pink skin. Her pubes are pretty well trimmed and shaved down. Sometimes she shaves it down completely, she likes feeling neat and clean, but sometimes, she can’t be bothered. It’s thin and the same sandy color of her hair. 

Dahlia also has a cute vagina (I DONT KNOW HOW TO DESCRIBE PUSSYS), she has more compact and closed outer lips, very little of the inner lips or clit showing, if any. The vulva is soft and a little chubby, puffy, squishy, idk the best word. Her natural tawny tan skin and a bit of deeper redder pink to her sex than Faith’s more light pink. Her pubic hair is thick dark brown nearly black and she does trim and shave, but still keeps a patch of hair there. She mostly focuses on it not itching or getting caught in zippers. She feels weird being completely bald down their though. She did it once and it was just itchy razor burn as it grew out. 

[takerfoxx]

“Fires of the Sun, Part 1″ Thoughts

All right, with Fires of the Sun in the bag and Imperfect Metamorphosis now on the shelf, it’s time to look back on this story’s longest mini-arc climax to date! And since it’s multi-chaptered, I’m going to post on response per day over this week. That’ll help cover almost everything as well as give me some time to think of how to wrap up Monsterland in the meantime, as I’ve already hit writer’s block.

Since this was going to be the last bit of Imperfect Metamorphosis, my main goal was to go BIG. I high bar had been set by The Storm, and I wanted to pass it. You be the judge in whether or not I was successful, but this was something I had been looking forward to for years, and had a lot of shit planned. Most made it in, some didn't, some new stuff happened, and some plans changed. There were weaknesses I wish I could go back and fix, while other things turned out even better than I had thought they would.

With Lady Meika's introduction, she was brought in for a couple of different reasons. The first was of course as a callback to Yuuka's occasional fourth-wall breaking roles as the story's hose. She was even given a bit of a Masterpiece Theater flair with the chair, the fireplace, and the piano music. Of course, I was playing around a bit with the frequent teases that this was the Yuuka from the future, with the plants, the sunflower logo, the hair color, and the manner of speaking.

But there were also several hints that she was someone new, such as her eye color, her various magical instruments, and her contemptuous condemnation of Yuuka's previous antics. Plus, you know, Mima's hat on her mantle.

…

Foreshadowing!

Anyways, of course I can't go into too much detail about who she is and what she has to do with the story, but suffice to say it's very important and you ain't gonna find out for a super, duper long time. Because that how it works in TakerFoxx land, apparently!

=ahem=

Moving on to the Dragons, this is one part that I feel I could have done better. I mean, the dudes get built up big time over the course of the entire series, get a big, badass entrance, and…spend the whole thingamajig basically getting knocked around, bitching at Yukari, and eventually accidentally killing a bunch of innocent people before fucking off in a huff. I guess in hindsight it was a priority thing. My main focus was the Yuuka vs. Rin Satsuki fight and making it as crazy over-the-top as possible, whereas the Dragons (and Angels, come to think of it) were admittedly…mostly written on autopilot. Though to be fair, given just how many freaking factions there are in this story, some will end up getting the shaft as I don't exactly have George RR Martin's talent for balancing so many names and making them all feel important. So yeah, something to work on in the future.

Same applies to Mima. It may be just me, but I do kind of feel like I dropped the ball with her. It probably isn't a good idea to point out flaws in my own writing, but hell with it. See, for most of the story, she went on and on about the importance of simple, yet effective, plans rather than big, grandiose showings that have a tendency to blow up in your face. And yet her she is using a plan that has way too many moving parts, leaves too much up to chance, and is way too expensive for relatively little gain. Granted, she did come out ahead in the end, but…I dunno. While it wouldn't have benefited the story much, it would have been more consistent to just have her assassinate Reimu at the earliest opportunity, collapse the Scarlet Devil Mansion and the Palace of Earth Spirits, and then just bugger off before Yukari could find her. So, I'd say I have a few more things to think about for her future characterization.

Okay, moving on from the self-deprecation. Moving over to the Taoists, a lot of people were confused about why exactly Miko would be helping Mima in the first place. That one was easy enough: because there was something that Miko wanted that only Mima could provide. The connections between Miko and Prince Shoutoku were already explicit, with even ZUN saying that they were literally the same person in the Touhou canon. So, explain the gender flip to be some kind of curse, have Mima promise to break that curse, and give her (or him? Pronouns are really confusing in this case), and let Miko's desperation do the rest. Everyone has a price, after all.

That rather nasty Yuuka scene went much better than the previous two, which is sort of funny. Because even as much as I've soured on her character over the years, she is still the easiest one to write for. I personally compare her to an entitled primadonna who drives the director nuts but still shines in every scene she's given, which leaked into many of her postmodern bits. But anyway, that scene was mainly to serve two purposes. The first was to confirm exactly what happened to the shards of Marisa's mordite blade, give Yuuka an understandable reason for having it around, and Chekov's gun it into the mansion for further use. The second was to again destroy any last bit of sympathy she might have had, as she is now outright abusing Elly, the one person she has been treating decently. Hey, if someone's gonna get their ass kicked, then I want to make it as deserving as possible.

The scene with Yukari and the Angels was mostly just to remind everyone of where everything stood, so I'll just skim over it. However, in regards to that little bombshell Shinki dropped at the end…Ah, hell with it. Barely anyone reads these anyway, so why not? SORTA SPOILER WARNING!

Yes, Yukari has (or had) a son.

That son married Hakurei Sonozika over her objections, leading to their estrangement (though they were already on rocky terms to begin with).

Things escalated to the point that Yukari disowned him completely and actually went to the Angels for help in twisting reality enough so that she would forget that he even exists. Part of it was selfishness, part of it was that she knew that she would have to keep working with the Hakurei family from then on and didn't want to be tempted to wipe them off the face of the earth, but ended up setting the tone for her relationship with them anyway. She's repeatedly drawn to them but everything eventually goes wrong every time. And by the way, that's the reason she couldn't seem to remember who Hakurei's husband was during her and Yuyuko's drunken conversation, despite knowing the spouses and lovers of every other Hakurei by name.

No, there was never any price set by the Angels for Gensokyo's creation. No, they're not nearly as bad as Yukari made them out to be. Yes, she is completely deluding herself without even knowing it. The mind is weird like that.

Anyway, I don't think that's too much of a spoiler, since it's been hinted at multiple times and now has been stated pretty explicitly. Suffice to say, it'll play in pretty heavily later on.

See? This is why people should read the author's notes, for all those juicy, behind the scene details!

Anyway, Patchouli's scene was mainly to spend some last few moments with her before she got offed, as well as remind people that that generator thingy was in fact still a thing in case it's needed later. That scene with Koakuma changing her armor was just one of those spur of the moment bits that have come to be my favorite parts of writing, though admittedly the part where she ended up with the Serpentine Marauder armor wasn't a hint that she was a double agent, like some people thought. It was just another thing that happened at the last minute that made sense at the time and was used to increase the drama. As for Meiling's mention of hiring guards to hold down the fort, that was another detail that was used to explain away a logical problem with the plot (Sakuya would never leave the SDM undefended like that. Or, well, at least not under those circumstances) that later ended up working out as it gave us Meiling with a bazooka. More on that later. And of course we had Mima disguised as Yukari already playing the SDM and the PoES crew against each other, because that's what she does.

Speaking of which, during the Palace of Earth Spirits scene, the bit with Jun and Orin was mainly to bring Koishi more in line with her canon portrayal as a subconscious blank, as well as build some character development for Jun. I try to avoid relying on OC's in IM since there's so many canon characters to use, but I felt he needed a little something, considering how much he was going to be used in the chapters to come. Though hey, funny story. I was actually going to fill their team with Undertale characters, such as Asgore, Muffet, and Undyne. The reason I didn't is that I felt it would stand out too much and distract from the important stuff, but I compromised by sticking a billy-goat and a fish youkai in there anyway, and had Mima!Yukari mention being filled with determination. As for Clover, I swear to God I could never keep her damned name straight and kept calling her Cato for some reason.

And then we cut back to poor Elly. I admit, originally I didn't have much for her, and had planned for her to be more of a jealous asshole. But she's grown into a much more sympathetic character than I had expected, and I did end up changing a lot of my plans for her as a result.

Skipping over more Mima and Seiga commentary that I don't have anything to say about, we have our party of hapless dupes, bickering amongst themselves and nearly getting killed while still managing to kick ass, as Mima intended. I admit, I did try to handle the bit about Rin's prison with care. I try to watch my step whenever the subject of religion comes up, so destroying a bunch of religious symbols was something I had to be careful about. Still, the part where Sakuya regrets doing so does feel a little out of character, and probably should have been done by someone like Meiling or Utsuho.

That being said, I really like how Rin's reveal came out. Her primary role in this whole thing was an ass-kicker, and her bursting out of the crystal (which, yes, was made from the remains of Patchouli's box) helped to establish just how dangerous she is, as well as leave things on a nice cliffhanger, with her hanging from the ceiling, Sakuya's neck in her hands, and in a really, really bad mood.

Anyway, that's it for this chapter! Tune in tomorrow for the next!