#like it genuinely seems like ppl just want to stick their heads in the sand and pretend that penumbra is totes unproblematic bc lgbtq rep

[lies-unfurl]

if ppl are talking about race in audio fiction, can we please. just. address the fact that The Penumbra Podcast continues to sell merch portraying their leads as a dark-skinned Black person and an East Asian person, when they’re played by white or very white-passing people.

i genuinely feel like ppl avoid talking about this bc Penumbra has canonical LGBTQ+ rep, and because some of the showrunners are LGBTQ+, but like. come on. literally how is this not blackface/yellowface.

[lunellumcas]

Alright friendos, buckle in, cuz I’m about to crack the “we are.” I know you’ve all been seeing the arguments over whether it was romantic or platonic, or, as proxy, whether it was referring to deancas only or all tfw. Let me break down the dialogue a bit, first from the grammatical perspective and then the thematic perspective.

Grammatical breakdown:

What we’re really after is finding out what that last “we” refers to. “We” is a pronoun and, grammatically, it replaces a noun or nouns. To correctly use a pronoun, it must be clear what noun it is replacing. Grammatically that usually means a pronoun’s use requires a noun to directly precede it in the same sentence or the one before, to which it then can reference. But there is no clear antecedent noun acting as referent here, not for a single incidence of “we” in this scene. But there are some *unclear* antecedent nouns—and in order to glean some sort of meaning for the pronoun “we” at the end, then, we can try to trace it back to those nouns previously given. Dean uses the first “we”: “It turns out that we're just hamsters running in a wheel our whole lives. What do we have to show for it, huh?” This “we” is immediately surrounded by “I’m angry” before and “aren’t you angry” after. And in fact, Dean and Cas are the subjects of every sentence so far. And so, although Mary, Jack, and Chuck are mentioned earlier, the only possible explicitly-given referents at this point *grammatically* are actually Dean and Cas. Of course, sometimes irl ppl leave out the referent when they think it’s clear who they are speaking of, so it’s possible Dean’s “we” had a different, subject-changing referent in his mind that he just didn’t share. Factually it could include Sam, since Sam is also in that “hamster” position. If I were editing this writing I would have queried buckleming to write “Sam and I” or “all of us” if they didn’t mean “you and I” in place of the first we. (But unfortunately I don’t get to edit their scripts). And then of course, there’s the issue of whether or not the referent changes from each “we” to “we.” It’s possible that buckleming just don’t know how to construct a sentence and that the first “we” means dean and Sam, the middle “we”s mean tfw, and the last “we” means dean and Cas and just not a single one of them has a named referent like they are supposed to. What we do know is that dean and Cas both use “we” and they seem to be responding pretty directly to each other, so it’s likely the “we”s (especially from Cas’s “we” on) are referring to, at minimum, Dean and Cas. If Dean’s original “we” was referring to Dean and Sam and/or Cas then it is possible that all the following “we”s are dean, Cas, and Sam, but it’s not guaranteed. Technically, if Sam is a referent at all, he should be explicitly named. But Sam’s name is no where in the conversation, and he has almost no subtextual presence besides the fact of chuck’s manipulation of them all. So, though factually it could include Sam, grammatically and *thematically* for the scene the referent seems to be (either only or in most significant part) dean and Cas. Thematic breakdown: Every other bit of the conversation is basically entirely about Dean’s feelings and Cas’s feelings: Cas enters the room and starts the conversation: “I recognize that I dropped the puck.” This sentence is about cas and dean (Sam isn’t mad at cas for this, and this narratively excludes him) and it sets up the scene to be about Cas and Dean.

Cas sought Dean out to say this, to bring up Dean’s feelings about him. To what end? Well, let’s look at what happened to Cas right before this: The townspeople confronted him with “You said you'd keep us safe.” Oof. That’s a real Cas hot-button if I ever saw one. And there’s a direct line to be drawn here on a character level because of that hot-button issue. I think it’s safe to explore the possibilities of Cas going to Dean (as opposed to Sam) to try to address his own worries concerning this: He couldn’t keep Mary safe, he couldn’t keep jack safe. He can’t keep Dean and Sam safe, and after all, isn’t that his job? And, perhaps he’s realizing he can’t keep himself safe. He’s being hurt and he doesn’t know what to do. So he goes to Dean to fix it, to say please stop hurting me. Or else he goes to dean to admit that he feels he’s lost his job, his reason for staying, his place with the Winchesters, and that he doesn’t know what his place is now, but he wants to try to find out. Only Dean isn’t receptive. So, on with the dialogue breakdown: “Nothing about our lives is real. Everything that we've lost, everything that we are is because of Chuck. So maybe you can stick your head back in the sand, maybe you can pretend that we actually had a choice. I can't.” “Dean. You asked, ‘What about all of this is real?’ We are.” I find “we are” oddly ambiguous, not just in who “we” references, but in what “we” being “real” means. Like, for example, I don’t believe he meant the “we are” as in “you exist and I exist” or even also “Sam exists” in general. And IMO it doesn’t make sense to be returning Dean’s “our choices aren’t real” with a “yes they are real,” Not in this format. So it’s not that. Literally the only thing I can think of that makes sense is “our choices aren’t real” “but our love is.” He’s clearly talking about relationships, and that can be platonic or romantic, but it’s about relationships, and mostly this one in particular. So I think people are correct in interpreting the “we are” as Cas saying “Our relationship is real. My relationship with you and your relationship with me.” HOWEVER, I do think that he meant by extension that all of Dean’s relationships with everyone are real. IMO there is a clear element of “everybody” in the ambiguous “we” in the sense that “If our relationship is real, that means all relationships are real, and that makes everything ok and then you can be happy, and then you can love me again.” But even if everyone is a part of it, the main focus *is* Dean and Cas’s relationship together. I think there’s a reason people are picking up on this conversation being intensely and specifically personal (and it’s not destiel goggles). It’s the same reason this was the best scene in the episode. Because this scene actually carries the tension over from the last episode, and it does so by successfully (well, semi-successfully) bringing in the subtext of their relationship. Even if Cas meant to extend the “we are” sentiment to everyone, he was very much centering the actual discussion on himself, which is very interesting. I’ll explain why I think that: During this whole conversation, cas knows dean is mad at him. Normally when he wants to make dean feel better, he talks about Sam by name. And when he knows dean is mad at him, it makes sense for him to fall back on that and get dean to focus on what he isn’t mad at—Sam—in order to give him hope. But instead of taking himself out of the equation like that in order to remind dean of happier things to cheer Dean up, Cas is trying desperately to put himself back in and to force dean to see that Cas himself is one of the happy things. This explains Cas’s observable nervousness and hesitation, I think, because he doesn’t often put himself out there in that way. This is a huge step forward for destiel AND FOR CAS. (While I don’t think Cas or the writers meant it as an explicitly romantic confession, I do think it’s very significant.) Cas is trying to center Dean’s feelings on himself. To make himself feel better by making dean feel better about him. That’s a very human thing to do, to try to expunge your own insecurities by trying to expunge somebody else’s. It’s the mark of a tense situation, and a very desperate something inside Cas. I do think Cas genuinely wants dean to be happy, but I don’t think that was his true “objective” here in this scene, in terms an actor would understand. The objective Misha played seemed to me more about the deancas relationship, in the sense that Cas was trying to use their relationship to make Dean happy *with him specifically*, and failing that success, to gauge Dean’s feelings about him and his place with Dean. And that’s why the scene felt so pointedly deancas even if the language itself can be considered general. The deancas undercurrent was there for me throughout the whole scene, particularly thanks to Misha’s acting—and there was one instance of this that really stuck out to me: Dean says “I’m angry . . . at all of it.” And in response, Cas goes “at all of it?” The way he played that nearly knocked the breath out of me. The response imo had a very insecure and weedling “at me? Even me? Still me?” sense to it, reminding the audience that there are layers and layers to this conversation, going beyond the chuck problem and going deep into relationship insecurities that belong to dean and Cas and them alone. And the relationship insecurities are especially overbearing if you incorporate Cas’s part in the rest of the episode: Cas isn’t really that interested this episode in helping the boys do what they think needs to be done, or in making them feel better about what they’re doing. He wants to do things differently. He seems to feel shutout and like they’re not letting him have a place or a say. This came out throughout Cas’s presence in the ep. Sam shut him down verbally more than once. Dean walked out on him. He was notably absent most of the time. And throughout the whole episode Cas was visibly frustrated. Frustrated that no one is listening to the townspeople (him), frustrated that no one is addressing the townspeople’s (his) feelings of fear, frustration, loss. It’s a big mirror for what he himself is feeling subjected to at the Winchesters’ hands. No one seems to value him anymore, and no one seems to want the type of value that he wants to give. (They want him to fill the support role he usually does, the healing—which he was unable to do—and the protecting—which he did absolutely none of this episode. He wants something else. ~whatever could it be? 🧐~) All of this together is an interesting development for Cas. Cas is not being as rational here as he usually is. Think about it, his greatest fear (as stated at the end of last season) is coming true—That by losing Jack he has lost Dean (and Sam). This “we are” scene is him reaching out a hand as he slips from the cliff to a place he thinks he can’t come back from--the Dean Doesn’t Love Me abyss. He hasn’t given up yet, but come The Rupture, he will. People may disagree with this, but I’ve always thought that buckleming write Cas better than they do any other character. It may not seem like it bc they’re so bad but I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt and saying they set this up this way on purpose, or that at least Misha picked up on it and played to that through line. And even if not, I still think this interpretation makes the most sense from Castiel’s point of view.

[survivor-kuwait]

Episode 11 - “i am the balrog elder gay” - Kait

i am the balrog elder gay 

Losing Chloe BROKE ME. listning to Bye Bye mariah carey and crying!!! this is for the people who just lost somebody... SHOOT. I wanted her to blurt out more of her votes in tribe chats. RIP. a fallen Goddess...

SWEET BABY JESUS I GET A SECOND LIFE IN THIS GAME!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!! OMG I LOVE THE LAGOON RN! BUT HOPEFULLY I CAN MAKE IT TO THE POINT WHERE I CAN RETURN BECAUSE I HAVE A FEW PEOPLE TO STRIKE BACK AT.

I’m so dumb, completely missed the voting deadline, in my defense i was teaching, but still. Never again, its merge (maybe) and im not gonna jeopardise my game like that.

I'm glad we merged but two people are returning to the game? This has been the most cracked game I have ever played.

Renee and Chips have a chance to return. Between the both I hope Renee comes back. She was an ally for me and most probably work together again.

Go rennee!

---

boo chips

MERGEMERGEMERGEMERGE!!!! glad my zodiac sign is known for being loyal cause I sure ain’t. 

This challenge is always weird but i think if people tell me the truth i may have cancelled out some of my stuff im getting. M&M&M are good standings hopefully. I also trust kait thomas and timmy. Hopefully i can make itndeep in the game.

---

This challenge was a total meh i guess this works. Hopefully i win immunity. If not hopefully im not a target. My relationship with Madison may be rocky right now cuz i blindsided her tribe friend in another game. So im kinda nervous. Hopefully she doesnt pass it her vengence here and tries to take me out.  Im slightly worried a but for this tc.

This merge is a little different from my norm game, I usually have 2-4 alliance chats going but I don't have a single one so far this game.  All my deals have been side deals so far, I do not know if that is a good or bad thing as of this moment in time.  Corey did fill me in that there was an alliance being formed that included him, at least it's indicative of him wanting "The Bull and the Lion" to continue to work. I am also way to mentally drained to give a damn, I just needed to make a confessional to not strike. I worked for 14 hours today but I made 325 dollars and now only owe 4k on my student loans.  Thassss a win in my book even if I get voted out, I'm just gonna drink some beer, hold Jenifer and go to bed.  Good night Moon.

THANK GOD I WON IMMUNITY. You have no idea how good it feels to not have to stress out too much this round. Considering there are 14 of us, really anything could happen, but it's great to know that I will make it through at least one more round. The only key here is just making sure that I stay on the right side of the numbers. The line will most likely be drawn in the sand, so it's important that I stay on the right side of it. So far, I think the people that trust me the most are Ian, Corey, and Matt. I talk to them the most out of everyone, and I do trust them all to an extent, Corey and Ian the most. I would love to find a way to get all three of them on the same page, but I know that will be a heard feat. Next in line would probably be Maynor, Madison, and Kait. I talk to these three a good amount, but for some reason I am having a hard time putting my full faith into them. I talk to Owen a good amount too, but he is a MAJOR threat, and someone that I do not want to be in the game for too much longer if I'm going to have a chance to win. For this round, in an ideal world, Thomas would go home. But that seems too easy. I am hoping someone starts throwing names around, but if not, I guess it will have to be me.

WHY DOES MATT HATE ME SO MUCH?!?!  I genuinely wanted to work with him after first impressions, I bet he was the one who voted Taurus now.  My idol now has a name attached to it, so thanks for that Matt.  In a way, I guess you did end up working with me in some fashion.  Ideally this round goes down with a clear majority on Stephan and Corey can get his save a vote activated and I play the slow burn on good ole Matteo, I wanted to butt heads with Owen at merge, but Owen has been a delight while Matteo has been nothing but a thorn in my side.  

Phew child this merge! 14 people is so so so many and I did in fact vote out Adrian and Chloe, both people who I’ve worked with. I’m left in a really interesting spot because of the warzones it’s still hard to see who has a pattern of voting together. I feel that I’ve positioned myself to be in a lot of threesomes, and hopefully nobody really catches on to that? I know Kait is my number one currently and I have trust with Madison and Devon and Corey. But I’m also fully aware that everyone is a huge threat, and I have to downplay myself as one as well. Hopefully a stepehen vote will provide me with good positioning, as we’re removing someone I personally can’t reallt work with, and lessening the numbers. I also wanna really work with chips but I’m sure everyone was chomping at that bit! Who doesn’t want a bite of chips!

I wish I could put an image in this form bc the joke I’m about to make is so funny Anyways lol I told Kait about the idol I felt like I had to or else I’d break her trust if I ever used it. But THEN LOL SHE TOLD ME THAT matt also has one LMAO THAY HE NEVER TOLD ME ABOUT!!!! So that meme I linked above is literally me and matt with our idols Here’s my prob tho I like l.... I have to tell matt bc he knows I guess the coordinate. So I guess that’s a thing that’ll happen

Finally have an alliance chat with Kait and Owen...it’s been so many rounds in the making tbh, it just needed to actually be made. I feel safer having that as well as us going to make one with Matt and Maynor as well, making sure that Matt is okay with it...Maynor already seems to be on board. The only name that’s been going around is Stephen so that kind of sucks because I wanted to work with him, but he isn’t around enough to try and rock the boat for in this game unfortunately. 

I found a hidden immunity idol which is awesome! Also, everyone has been silent this round after we decided on Stephen so that’s a bit suspicious 

This is a really hard round because I really like everyone. If any good came from it, it's that I solidified myself into a strong alliance that should be able to keep me safe for at least a few rounds. Corey did not seem to bite on my idea to vote out Owen. Matt says he is most threatened by Ian and Timmy. And everyone just seems to want to vote Stephen. I think this round will be pretty easy, but from this point on it just gets harder. I assume that Chips is in a bad spot and most likely will go next. But at final 12, it's going to be a doozy to see who can stay on top of the vote.

So thisrounf there is an alliance of 6 however I have 0 faith in Thomas. He is a wild card and will be hard to judge and work with. No idea what’s going to happen tonight. 

Aight a lot happening this merge!!! Fourteen people we losin our minds. First of all let me say half these ppl were kinda boring to talk to but I’m liking it a little better today. I came in wanting Stephen GONE because I lied to him during the taylor vote and we haven’t clicked since and I promised I would get out whoever lied to me in this food challenge and his bitch ass didn’t submit so I didn’t get my perfect ZERO!!!! So I was all ready to press him but suddenly Devon had already thrown out his name! Easy as pie. I rlly trust Kait and her and corey get along. I was branching out to some others too like madison is bae, Devon is fun, I like talking to Ian. My FAVORITE is Maynor I rlly like him but I’m scared matt has a hold on him. Anyways I helped set up some alliances today that I hope are solid. One is me Kait madison corey and then they wanted to add Devon and tommy which is cool. Still kinda pressed at Thomas because yesterday I said ily to him and he replied with lol but other than that it’s a good group. But then suddenly Timmy wanted something with Kait and I so I took that as an opportunity to solidify something with Maynor! Precious angel. Kait and I are worried because the tension between corey and matt lmao which is honestly kinda stupid. Matt was sus about corey after he spearheaded the renee vote which like I understand. And I stirrred the pot a little because I told corey that matt was after him lmao. But for now I’m rlly working hard to keep them from targeting each other and so is Kait. Idk how long that can last tho. Ummmm trace’s THOT HOE ASS told corey he wanted me out?!!! So he gotta GO! And Kait and matt think Ian is dangerous which I’m like ok maybe..., sure. Ummm Cullan is just mind boggling. He ate tater tots for breakfast who does that. But he’s sweet I guess. Id prefer him and Ian and trace gone soon but corey likes all those people oop. I rlly think Kait wants to stick with going to the end with me and matt which like.... I rlly will keep allegiance to Kait but matt? Idk. He kept his idol secret from me and it’s clear he doesn’t trust me as much which is fine, I wasbsure Stephen would target me tonight but apparently now he’s going for Thomas. Hopefully it’s an easy vote and Stephen goes and I get what I want and next round I’ll figure out what to do when it gets harder

Well. Tonight the vote is Stephen. Well, for the majority of us. For little young me, I will be voting for nobody! We acquiring a save vote. Hopefully, at our next tribal, Timmy leaves! Woo! I am in 2 alliances: Mighty Happy Meal (Owen, Kait, Madison, Devon, Thomas) and Queer Eye-ish (Madison, Matt, Trace). Period... I am loyal to my own people. Madison, Owen, Ian, Devon. Kait too, to an extent. The rest need to go at their time. I do what I can. Matt is a priority for me to get rid of. Unless Timmy wants Matt gone, I want him gone too for next time. x

Ep 11: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-fEEBtT8R4hk_587qknbxwLmB8yhN_lt/view?usp=drivesdk

This is my placeholder confession for until I am at a computer and able to type something out. I got back in the game!

alyssa said put ep 11: just a quick recap bc i have to play this silly flash game now before i pass out - corey and matt allegedly not liking each other is still a problem - owen found an idol - i told owen matt has an idol bc i have a big mouth - corey told owen all this shit about the vote and idk just other game sensitive stuff and not me and - there's an aliens of trace, matt, madison, and corey that trace allegedly made. this is a big question mark bc either it's just really random and people that trace wants to work with despite what they said or this beef??? between matt and corey is fake which i wouldn't be too surprised by - corey told all of this to owen before tribal but told him that he was going to wait until after tribal to tell me like.... i don't appreciate that. - i think that kind of solidifies that if/when corey v matt happens and i have to pick a side i wanna go with my matt. - im sure i will think of more tomorrow oh also i want ian to get deleted from skype thx

EP 11 Confessional: I got an idol this round which is cool. I heard the vote was stephen however it’s been kinda quiet. Not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. 

Aight a lot happening this merge!!! Fourteen people we losin our minds. First of all let me say half these ppl were kinda boring to talk to but I’m liking it a little better today. I came in wanting Stephen GONE because I lied to him during the taylor vote and we haven’t clicked since and I promised I would get out whoever lied to me in this food challenge and his bitch ass didn’t submit so I didn’t get my perfect ZERO!!!! So I was all ready to press him but suddenly Devon had already thrown out his name! Easy as pie. I rlly trust Kait and her and corey get along. I was branching out to some others too like madison is bae, Devon is fun, I like talking to Ian. My FAVORITE is Maynor I rlly like him but I’m scared matt has a hold on him. Anyways I helped set up some alliances today that I hope are solid. One is me Kait madison corey and then they wanted to add Devon and tommy which is cool. Still kinda pressed at Thomas because yesterday I said ily to him and he replied with lol but other than that it’s a good group. But then suddenly Timmy wanted something with Kait and I so I took that as an opportunity to solidify something with Maynor! Precious angel. Kait and I are worried because the tension between corey and matt lmao which is honestly kinda stupid. Matt was sus about corey after he spearheaded the renee vote which like I understand. And I stirrred the pot a little because I told corey that matt was after him lmao. But for now I’m rlly working hard to keep them from targeting each other and so is Kait. Idk how long that can last tho. Ummmm trace’s THOT HOE ASS told corey he wanted me out?!!! So he gotta GO! And Kait and matt think Ian is dangerous which I’m like ok maybe..., sure. Ummm Cullan is just mind boggling. He ate tater tots for breakfast who does that. But he’s sweet I guess. Id prefer him and Ian and trace gone soon but corey likes all those people oop. I rlly think Kait wants to stick with going to the end with me and matt which like.... I rlly will keep allegiance to Kait but matt? Idk. He kept his idol secret from me and it’s clear he doesn’t trust me as much which is fine, I wasbsure Stephen would target me tonight but apparently now he’s going for Thomas. Hopefully it’s an easy vote and Stephen goes and I get what I want and next round I’ll figure out what to do when it gets harder