Exceptionally Unfortunate

The trouble with putting Chris and Robert of The Goes Wrong Show in bed together, and I say this as a big Chris/Robert fan, is that I feel Robert is romantic and vanilla in bed, whereas Chris has a masochistic streak a mile wide and just wants someone to tie him up and whip him. I attempted to write a fic in which Chris asks Robert to hurt him, and it never got anywhere because Robert's response was just '??? that doesn't seem right.'

Robert will hurt you unintentionally in the course of acting, and he'll hurt you deliberately in order to steal your role, but he just doesn't think the bedroom is the place for that sort of thing. Which is, I'll be honest, Robert, extremely inconvenient for me personally.

Anyway! While I'm talking about Chris/Robert, I received an anonymous question on Tumblr:

I was wondering if you had any thoughts about how the Robert/Chris dynamic would be if Chris were a trans man. I imagine Chris would be stealth so Robert might not even know until they started whatever you would call their bizarre but fascinating relationship.

I can see exactly how this would come to light. Chris and Robert end up furiously making out after an argument, unplanned and unexpected, and then Chris feels Robert's hands heading below the belt and panics, starts pulling away, "There's something I need to tell you—"

"Chris," Robert says, with a concerned frown, "your penis appears to be missing."

Chris is so thrown - by the situation as a whole, but particularly by the fact that Robert is imparting this information as if he's worried that Chris might not know - that he completely forgets anything he was about to say.

"Do you need the hospital?" Robert asks.

Chris swallows, with some difficulty. "No, I'm... I'm fine. This is the, er, the intended state of affairs."

Robert's frown eases, but only a little. "Do you have any genitalia at all? Because I did rather have plans."

Does Robert... does Robert know what being trans is? "Er, I..."

How is Chris supposed to articulate this? It's a tricky thing to phrase at the best of times, let alone when he's so aroused he can't think straight and faced by someone to whom the entire concept is apparently new.

"May I check?" Robert asks. "If you're not sure?"

Chris shrugs, helplessly. "I... I suppose."

Robert strips off Chris's trousers and pants, swiftly and matter-of-factly. Contemplates him for a moment. All Chris can do is stand there, blushing furiously.

"Oh," Robert says, brightening, "that's fine. I know exactly what to do with one of these."

And, as it turns out, he does.

I received an anonymous question on Tumblr about The Goes Wrong Show: do you think dennis tyde would like undertale/deltarune?!! if so that means robert would be aware of it given they live together!!

Interesting question! I've never really thought about the Cornley Drama Society's relationship with videogames before.

I can't really envision Dennis playing Undertale or Deltarune; they're pretty complicated and challenging games, and Dennis gets stressed out and overwhelmed easily, so I think he might prefer something more straightforward. The way he struggles with vocabulary and reading also makes me think that, if he does play games, they're probably not text-heavy ones.

I can see Dennis playing Mario games! At first, he's not really sure what he's supposed to be doing. He asks why there are so many giant pipes, and, when Annie tells him that Mario is a plumber, Dennis concludes that he's supposed to go through the pipes repeatedly in order to clean them out. He seems to enjoy himself once he's got a goal in mind, even if it's perhaps not the goal intended by the developers.

I think Annie and Max are the members of the drama society who are most likely to be into videogames. Max probably enjoys couch co-op Nintendo games, anything colourful and family-friendly that he can play with friends. I can see Annie playing things that are more story-driven; I think she's probably your best bet if you're looking for an Undertale player amongst the drama society.

Actually, Vanessa might be a possibility as well! I could be swayed to either 'Vanessa doesn't play games at all' or 'Vanessa will occasionally play something single-player and story-driven'. In either case, she will absolutely panic if she has to play a multiplayer game.

Jonathan has dabbled in videogames but can never beat the first boss. Sandra's not really into games, but she'll occasionally play co-op with Max to indulge him. Chris looks down on the pursuit and refuses to attempt them. Trevor plays Tetris for hours and has never touched anything else.

There is not a chance that Robert plays videogames. I suspect the man can barely operate a phone; he just doesn't strike me as a technology person. His mental image of videogames is stuck back in the 8-bit era, and, if you tell him that games often have complex storylines, he will simply not believe you. Annie and Max talk him into a round of Mario Kart on one occasion, though, and he gets wildly competitive and insists on everyone playing long into the night. He does not place in the top three once.


While I'm talking about videogames: Tem and I are finally watching a Let's Play of The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me! I find the Dark Pictures games fascinating, if flawed, but unfortunately I'm incapable of playing them myself because I find them unbearably stressful.

Tem is a bit of a true crime nerd and, the instant it became clear that actual historical serial killer HH Holmes was involved in this story, xe perked up and started giving me fun ('fun') facts about his murders. As a consequence, I began referring to Holmes as 'your boy HH Holmes' or 'your blorbo HH Holmes'. Tem did not appreciate this.

Riona: You know, if a trapdoor opened under me in a hotel and I narrowly avoided falling through to the bloodied floor beneath, it simply wouldn't occur to me that the hotel owner was trying to kill me. I would just go 'oh, no, the hotel's trapdoor is malfunctioning; they should really get that fixed.'
Tem: In many ways, it's incredible that you've survived this long.
Riona: The thing is that you don't actually encounter murderous hotel owners very often.

That said, I would start suspecting I was in danger when I saw the wrecked lobby and the thick trail of blood along the hotel carpet, so I am at least doing better than Charlie.

It's a good thing I'm not part of the focus group for this television programme about the murders of HH Holmes, because, when present-day criminal psychologist Kate and nineteenth-century murderer Holmes were inexplicably in the same shot, all I could think was that they should make out.

I'd barely started watching this game when I had a dream about it, which does not seem to bode well. I'd forgotten how frequently Supermassive's horror games give me nightmares.

The dream was about an alternate path in the prologue: you could choose between EXCITED and CELEBRATE for the couple. If you chose CELEBRATE, they sat in a shallow pool in the hotel grounds together, chatting excitedly about their marriage, and were both suddenly electrocuted when Holmes threw some sort of electric device into the pool from behind. It struck me that I wasn't sure this would satisfy Holmes; the couple died immediately without even knowing they were in danger, when the impression I'd got from the game's actual prologue was that Holmes likes you to know when he's murdering you.

Unfortunately, having dreamt about Holmes does make it a lot harder for me to tease Tem about Holmes being xyr blorbo.