Yet Another Rewrite Blog. Ho Hum.

Choke. Just think about it, seriously. Think about what choking is and imagine speaking while it’s happening. That would fuckin’ hurt, man.

Hiss. Look, it’s just not possible, okay? No matter how “evil” you want your character to seem.

Snarl. Animals snarls. The Beast from Beauty and the Beast snarls. The Hulk snarls. You know who doesn’t snarl? PEOPLE WHEN THEY’RE SPEAKING.

Shriek. Come on, 99% of the time, “shriek” is not the word you want.Let’s face it: if you put an exclamation point at the end of the sentence, your reader gets the picture. Don’t bring to mind banshees and screaming toddlers.

Hiss is a low, threatening whisper. Raw, guttural, vicious. It is NOT a literal hiss like an animal, it is a tone of voice that serves the same function. Someone will hiss that they’re going to cut your throat- a message from one person to the other.

Snarl is the same kind of thing. Not literal, it’s a tone of voice that serves the same function. It’s raw and gutteral like a hiss, but more savage than vicious. It’s loud, it’s showy, it’s intimidating. It’s very alpha male, big man, look at how fucking dangerous I am. I’ll take ALL of you on. Even if they’re snarling at one person in particular, nobody better back them up or they’re gonna get fucked up too.

Shriek. Come on, seriously? We’ve all heard people shriek either in fear or outrage. High pitched, loud, out of control, feminine. Men can shriek, but it’s funny and emasculating. Think angry italian women throwing pots and pans or ladies on tables who just saw a mouse.

feeling their desirous gaze on you while you put in drink orders at the bar

holding hands on the way home from the date and it feels like a foreshadowing of what you’re going to do to each other when you get there

heavy breathing on the phone when they’re touching themself to the sound of your voice

grinding in a weird position where you’re both like ???? why does this feel so good????

If your sex is balloons, if it is blowing raspberries on your lover’s belly, if it happens fully clothed ir in furry costumes, if it happens in a group or alone — give it the same gravity, the same reverence or irreverence as all the tiresome scenes of heterosexual penetration we all grew up reading. … There is no marginal erotic unless you sideline it.”

"McDonald's releases AI Christmas commercial!!"

Don't care didn't ask plus here's a beautifully animated ad for a French supermarket that was made by actual artists

if you're interested in her as a character, and you think she's queer, you'd write that story, you know? you'd write about her stuck in that marriage trying to breathe, and you'd write about her faltering weird intense friendships with other women, and you'd be interested in the woman she finally leaves her husband for. but that story doesn't exist. instead, you get a throwaway line or two in the story about her husband or her boyfriend or her best friend with romantic tension, who doesn't love her anymore.

so you gotta think: this is a story where the writer wanted to break up or desexualize or deromanticize this relationship between a man and a woman, but they're not a dick, so they don't want to character bash her, so instead of writing her being an evil bitch*, they go "it's okay, she's a lesbian," and then that gives them the out. like her being a lesbian is a get-out-of-jail-free card for the writer, who no longer has to worry about how she fits into the story—don't worry, fellas! she's a lesbian. she's out of the picture. case closed.

and that's also a way of defanging the flaws of the man in that relationship, you know? he's not an asshole for ignoring her or cheating on her or forgetting about her, it was all just a big misunderstanding. he's gay, she's gay, they can be Best Friends (who somehow never get much page time, and if they DO, it's all her absolving him of wrongdoing and encouraging him to go after his man.)

i do really hate the conversations they have where The Newly Out Lesbian tells the Man Who Now Suspects He Might Be Gay that he's just being so stupid and why doesn't he just talk to the other guy and if he weren't so oblivious he would have realized sooner that there's never really been anything between them. I hate it when she holds his hand like he's a little baby and then hits him gently on top of the head with a rolled up newspaper. don't worry, she's beyond his power to hurt! She's not a person who can be wounded by her partner falling out of love with her, she's a Lesbian, and Lesbians exist on a higher plane that is mysteriously beyond the story's power to really pay attention to. why are you flattening both of them out like that??? isn't it better to just acknowledge that he did something that hurt her, regardless of whatever their sexualities are??

anyway i'm much more interested in stories about infidelity where the cheated-on partner is actually getting their heart broken, you know?

i don't want to see this cheated-on woman smile beatifically and say "it's okay, it's better this way, I'm going off with my Companion who you've never heard me mention before and we'll live down the block and meet every day for coffee at Central Perk," I want her to throw a vase at his head and then still have to coparent with him afterward. I want her to get to be sad!! I want her to get to be angry!! I want him to have to deal with having hurt her!! I want him to deal with the consequences of having hidden the truth or made this discovery!!

I'm not interested in configuring events such that the guy cheating on his wife never did anything wrong, I'm way more interested in just letting him have done something wrong. You can hurt somebody and still be following your heart! You can hurt somebody and save your life at the same time! and that's juicy, that's interesting, that's messy and a problem and a story I want to read about.

and then if she turns out to be queer after all, I want to read the story about that. maybe he cheats on her and that's awful and in the disillusionment afterward she goes and cries on her best friend's shoulder and says something about how she's through with men, absolutely through, and her best friend kisses her temple and promises to kill him, if she wants, and later she goes to the bathroom and looks at the smudge of lip gloss on her forehead and it makes her stomach do a flip. maybe she starts having a crisis and then six months later she's supposed to be having a custody discussion with her cheating ex and instead they end up getting drunk together while she asks him how he did it, how did he figure it out, and he lifts his head up from the bartop, hopeful as a kicked dog and is like does this mean you're considering forgiving me, and she's like no! fuck you. buy me another drink. is it different, being with him versus being with me? and if it's different, how is it different?

do you see what i'm saying??

on the bright side i am not addicted to crack cocaine

Okay so these are the not rude options

Generally the default ones they'll tell you are ser pésimo/a or ser malísimo/a and these use en

What that actually means is "you're really bad (at)"

Eres pésimo/a en este juego. = You're awful at this game. Eres malísimo en este juego. = You're the worst at this game.

That's kind of the most literal translation. Note that pésimo/a is "very bad", while malísimo/a is "the most bad" as the superlative of malo/a... they're interchangeable when talking about quality, but be aware that malo/a can also be "mean" or "evil", while pésimo/a can only mean "bad (in quality)" so they aren't 100% interchangeable

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The next example is a little bit grammatically intermediate

no servir literally means "to not serve", but no servir para (algo) means "to be bad at something" in a very colloquial way

no sirves para este juego "you suck at this game", or no sirvo para este juego "I'm awful at this game"

no servir para is probably the one you'll see the most

...You're also going to see this as an insult but no servir para nada is "to be useless", kind of more literally understood as "to be good for nothing" or "to not be useful at anything"

It can be said of people or things

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Another option is a little more complex grammatically because it involves the use of se + an indirect object

Se te da bien el juego. = You are good at the game. Se te da mal el juego = You are bad at the game. Se te da fatal el juego. = You are awful at the game. Se te dan bien las matemáticas. = You are good at math. Se te dan mal / fatal las matemáticas. = You are terrible at math.

*Note that las matemáticas is sometimes shortened to las mate which is still plural but in case you didn't understand it's like saying "mathematics" vs. "math" for Americans, or "maths" for everyone else

The use of this is complicated to explain grammatically but it reads more literally like this: "the game suits you well" or "the game suits you terribly"

For math it would be kind of like saying "math comes easily to you" vs. "math comes terribly to you"

darse bien or darse mal is "to be good at" or "to be bad at" but is phrased with an indirect object so you know who it applies to

And because it's an indirect object, the noun is what conjugates the verb; it's the same rule as using gustar type verbs:

Te gusta el juego. = You like the game. [lit. "the game is pleasant to you"] Te gustan las mate. = You like math. [lit. "math(ematis) are pleasing to you"] Se te da bien el juego. = You're good at the game. [lit. "the game suits you well" / "the game comes naturally to you"] Se te dan bien las mate. = You're good at math. [lit. "math suits you well" / "math comes naturally to you"]

I say it's like gustar because the way English translates it can make the grammar seem more confusing

You could simply say soy bueno/a para el juego or soy bueno/a para las matemáticas as a more 1:1 translation of "I am good at the game/math"

But se me da bien or se me dan bien for "I am good at it" is phrased so the noun [el juego in singular, or las matemáticas in plural] is what is conjugating the verb dar

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And then fatal which can be "fatal", but is usually understood as "very bad" - like estar fatal means "to feel awful/sick" - can be used as a more colloquial way of using mal

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And if you want to put it all together: se me da pésimo el juego "I'm the worst at the game"

[note: with indirect objects like this it would be me, te, le, les, nos, os... so you can say se me da bien, se nos da bien, se le da bien etc]

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Now be aware that this is specifically about how good someone is at "doing something"

Because the more rude option of saying that something "sucks" or "is awful" is valer mierda literally "worth shit"

If you said este juego vale mierda "this game fucking sucks", or este juego es una mierda "this game is shit" you'd be talking about the quality of the game

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Be aware if you're going to use valer that with an indirect object it comes across as "to care about", like importar

So if you want to be extra insulting to someone, me vales mierda is like "I don't give a shit about you" or "you're fucking useless", or literally "you're worth shit to me"

Rude but not as vulgar (arguably?) is me vale madre which I tend to think of as more Mexican but I could be wrong but that's like "I don't give a shit" or "I don't care at all"... it's still impolite, but it's not an actual swear word; me vale mierda is "I don't fucking care (about it)"