#anyway the disclaimer at the beginning is not to absolve me if i say something ignorant. do let me know if i say something kinda fucked up

[gamebunny-advance]

My LGBT+ Headcanons

(Frank discussion about sex and sexuality ahead.)

I have once again neglected to actually think of art to do for pride month, but as a consolation, here's an update on my list of LGBT+ headcanons (except when they're OCs, in which case it's just canon).

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Notes

*"Genderfucked" just means that their gender identity doesn't easily fit under a specific label, due to complications. It's usually due to the character being non-human and thus existing outside the gender binary by default. In other words, this label means they may not be literally queer depending on your definitions, but they otherwise represent or are informed by a queer identity or experience.

**Bisexuality is trans-inclusive. In the context of this list, I've chosen to use "bisexual" to indicate that the character has some preferences for gender expression, and I'm using "pansexual" to indicate that the character has little to no preference in gender expression. If it's important, then I'll specify what they're attracted to, but it usually isn't.

Examples:

A character that is attracted exclusively to cismen and transwomen would be listed as bisexual.

A character that has no preference for gender, but is exclusively attracted to feminine expressions would also be listed as "bisexual."

A transfemale character that is only attracted to cismen and transmen would be listed as "straight."

***Not all of the characters listed here are what I'd call "positive" representation. Most (I'd say) are, but a handful aren't. Just remember: Depiction is not necessarily endorsement.

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OCs

*I'm only listing OCs that I've talked about at least once this year or are important to said OCs), but effectively every OC I have is queer in some fashion.

Kahon (they/them): Genderfucked. As a sentient arcade machine, Kahon doesn't have an assigned gender. They express a feminine identity when acting through Kun3h0, but doesn't particularly identify with any gender. Only attracted to other arcade machines and the characters in them.

Coexistence!Kun3h0 (any pronouns): Genderfucked. In an AU where Kun3h0 is her own character, Kun3h0 is still genderfucked. She was built and designed as a female, but once they gained sentience he said, "fuck that" and went on to do his own thing.

GAB (she/they): Non-binary/Asexual. They're just a little guy.

Carol (he/him): Transman/Asexual. Was gay in life, but becoming a zombie has been a huge damper on his sex life.

The Prince Formerly Known as Frog (us/we): Cisman/Gay. Uses the royal "we" to refer to themselves, but otherwise uses he/him pronouns.

Floats (he/him): Cisman/Gay (closeted). I want to talk more about his relationship with sexuality since it's a core part of his character, but I think explaining it here would be a little too heavy for a list like this.

Spector (he/him and she/her): *Transwoman/Straight. *Identifies as a cismale and uses he/him pronouns at the beginning of the story, but transitions later. This isn't a character I've talked about too much or even really drawn, but she's Floats' business partner and is inspired by the hypermasculine characters you used to find in early FPS games like Doom and Duke Nukem.

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Smash Bros/Retro Buddies

Mr. G&W (he/him): Genderfucked/Ace. He's a shape-shifter and normally lacks genitalia, but he was considered male when he was "born" and identifies as male in all forms. Normally, he doesn't go through the trouble of recreating sex organs when he transforms, since his transformations are usually just a means to an end. Consequently, his body doesn't normally produce those kinds of hormones, so his libido is very low. Sex for him is just a bonding activity that he doesn't particularly seek out.

ROB (any pronouns, but usually he/him): Genderfucked/Demisexual. Technically speaking, he was never assigned a gender at "birth." Due to the limited A.I. of the other ROBs making them only capable of addressing people in the first person and Master Hand never needing to address ROB in the third person, ROB effectively had no pronouns while living on the Island of the Ancients. He only answers to he/him pronouns out of convenience since people assumed his pronouns due to his masculine name, but he doesn't particularly identify with any gender. In the human!AU, he would have been born with a vagina, but is still indifferent to gender as a concept for the same reasons. Since he lived on an isolated island surrounded only by people he considered family, and the first new people he ever met tortured and enslaved said family, he grew a great distrust of other people and is only attracted to people with whom he's already bonded with.

Puck (Pac-Man) (he/him): Transman/Pansexual. He was already transitioning when he first met Pepper. Since they started as rivals, he didn't bother ever bringing it up. When they later fell in love, he still forgot to mention he was trans because he figured that he already said it at some point. They later had 2 kids and are happily married to this day.

Pepper (Ms. Pac-Man) (she/her): Transwoman/Bisexual. She met Puck pre-transition, when she still went by "Otto." She left Pac-Land briefly to work on her transition, and when she came back and met Puck again, she forgot to clarify that she and Otto were the same person because she thought he would just put 2 and 2 together. He didn't. They both didn't realize the other was trans until a conversation about having kids came up. They both laughed it off and are happily married to this day.

Blinky (he/him): Cisman/Gay. Has a love-hate thing for Puck and won't admit it, but wouldn't do anything to seriously sabotage Puck's marriage lest their rivalry become legitimately hostile. He acts tough, but he's a hopeless romantic.

Pinky (she/her): Transwoman/Pansexual. Joined the Ghost Gang as a man and transitioned over time. Unlike Blinky, she is an aspiring homewrecker, but the Pacs are too loyal to each other for anything to come of it.

Inky (he/they): Non-binary/Asexual. The inner mechanisms of his mind are an enigma.

Clyde (pronouns vary): Genderfluid/Bisexual. Not much to say about Clyde. He just does whatever is comfortable for her at the moment.

Tabuu (any pronouns): Genderfucked/Pansexual. Same situation as G&W. He's a little more sexually active, but only because he can use it to get what he wants.

Duck Hunt (Human AU only): Both are cismen (he/him) and gay, but not in a romantic relationship with each other.

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NSR

DJSS (he/him): Non-binary/Ace. AFAB and rejects gender as a limiting concept that he has grown beyond. He's still a little self-conscious about his height though (HRT helped him get wide, but it didn't really help him get tall). Claims to be "sapiosexual" but is actually just uninterested in relationships under most circumstances and sets impossibly high standards just so he doesn't have to deal with it.

Neon J. (he/him): Transman/Gay. He doesn't actually remember that he's trans due to his memory getting corrupted over time. He assumes that he's a cisman and just lost his penis in the war. Is currently pursuing DJSS because he likes a challenge.

Tatiana (she/her): Ciswoman/Lesbian. Was very sexually active during the Goolings era and has only slowed down due to having a lot of other responsibilities now. Originally assumed she was bi and later figured out she was a lesbian. This isn't public knowledge about Tatiana since she's rather reserved about her personal life, but people who know Kul Fyra know. As an aside, she wouldn't date an employee because she's witnessed first hand that having a relationship with someone who is too involved in her business is a disaster waiting to happen.

Kliff (he/him): Cisman/Bisexual (closeted pre-revolution). Believes he's straight because he's only pursued Tatiana romantically, with the excuse that any encounters he had with men were out of desperation from her not reciprocating. He accepts his sexuality post-revolution after he lets go of his fixation on Tatiana. However, he seems to be attracted specifically to people that have similar traits to Tatiana (like big muscular arms and/or fiery personalities), so how "over it" he is about it is debatable.

Mayday (she/her): Ciswoman/Bisexual. She's inexperienced with any kind of romance and has only recently started exploring her attraction to women. Has yet to consider Zuke as a romantic partner, but it could happen.

Zuke (he/him): Cisman/Bisexual. Primarily straight, but could pursue a male love interest if they hit it off. Has considered the possibility of a romantic relationship with Mayday, but is putting it off until they've had more experience as a band (he doesn't want to repeat what happened between him and Eve).

Zam (he/him): Cisman/Gay. I don't have anything to say about it. I just think he's gay.

Yiruk (he/him): Non-binary/Bisexual. Also not much else to say.

Remi (he/him): Demiboy/Straight? He's put a lot of himself into Sayu and is using her as a way to experiment with his feminine side, but he doesn't really feel like a girl. He hasn't had any interest in a relationship yet, so his sexuality is ambiguous right now.

Dodo (he/they): Non-binary/Pansexual. Is very loose with his gender identity. He likes wearing feminine clothes and make-up, but doesn't identify as female. They just like what they like.

Tila (she/her): Demigirl/Bisexual. Is pretty sure she's a girl, but feels ambiguous about it. She has a crush on Remi and generally likes boys, but she thinks girls are really cute too.

Sofa (he/him): Cisman/Gay. Not much to talk about~ He doesn't currently have any crushes.

Sayu (she/her): N/A. "Officially" (as in officially in my headcanon) Sayu is a blank slate so fans can project anything onto her. The most common interpretation with fans is that she's a transgirl lesbian, but other interpretations go around too.

Eve (she/her): Transwoman/Demisexual. She's really attracted to anyone that she thinks could understand her, and is usually disappointed when they aren't. Post-revolution, she hasn't quite opened up to dating again, but at the very least she's healing.

1010 (he/him): Genderfucked/Pansexual. All 1010s are coded without any particular sexual preference, as to make them incapable of rejecting a fan's affection on the basis of sexuality. In this case of "genderfucked" I actually read them as cismen to go with the theme that they are a manufactured product that are not allowed to display any "unmarketable" traits. They'd partake in "rainbow capitalism" but not actually confirm that any of them could be attracted to men or have a non-male identity.

I know I killed DSYNC, but these are the exceptions in the DSYNC!AU:

Kerinting/DSYNC!Green (pronouns vary): Genderfluid. His personality core uses semi-random programming which has leaked into his gender settings, causing her to randomly change gender at random intervals. Sometimes she'll be one gender for a few weeks. Sometimes it only lasts a day. Either way, it throws his sense of self out of whack when her current identity doesn't match his presentation. Kerinting manages this a little better since she's allowed to alter her body more, while this is a major obstacle for Green.

DSYNC!Blue: Gay (closeted). Is in a similar situation to Green. Blue's personality core makes him hyper focus on singular targets. However, this inadvertently affected his sexuality settings, so he became exclusively homosexual. He tries to hide it as to not start controversy for the group (which is easy to do since his emotional expression is a lot more subtle than the others). White is the only one that knows and hasn't told the Captain at Blue's request.

DSYNC!White: Agender/Asexual. In this AU, he has a very negative reaction to being a sex symbol against his will. As a result, he's rejected his sense of sexuality and is sex/touch repulsed. He only keeps up appearances as it pertains to his job. If he had it his way, he would retire alone near the sea and fish for a living.

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Moonside (My ACNH Island) (Sorry, these aren't as deep as others. The lore on Moonside isn't actually that strong, so I haven't given it much thought U_U)

Fuchsia (she/her and he/him): Ciswoman/Lesbian. Currently pursuing Syrup, but Syrup isn't ready to reciprocate yet.

Norma (she/her): Transwoman/Bisexual. In a relationship with Merengue.

Merengue (she/her): Ciswoman/Lesbian. In a relationship with Norma.

Dotty (she/her): Transwoman/Lesbian. This is a carry-over from New Leaf. She doesn't have a partner on Moonside, but her original partner was Coco.

Rolf (he/him): Transman/Gay

Raymond (he/him): Cisman/Gay

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Misc.

Mike Hatsune (he/him): Transman/Bisexual. I dunno if it's canon that he's Miku's dad/creator, but I prefer to think of him as future Miku after he retires from being an idol and goes on to be Domino's new overlord CEO.

Roba (he/him): Transman/Asexual. I think that's just actually canon through subtext. That would unfortunately mean that his friends are kinda transphobic as they consistently misgender him, but I'd like to think they get better about it later.

Horace (he/him): Bisexual. Also actually canon since we know he likes girls and has also fucked a bear thinking it was his best friend.

Alfe (he/him): Gay. Probably canon, but I don't have much evidence to back it up.

[hoeswater]

I'm Talking about MagPod and Archives Again

I know that those of us in the middle of the Venn diagram of “Magnus fans” and “People who actually know how archives work” have really given Jonny a hard time about the way that the Magnus Institute archives and artefact storage are shown as working (or, I mean, not working) in the podcast. Not just in terms of best practices (where) but also like… archives can be spooky, it can be a spooky job, but not really for those reasons, you know? Anyway, I think that Protocols Episode 9 actually engages with the archives’ role as an archives in a way that’s really, really interesting. Qualifications: I’m almost done with my master’s in Library and Information Science/Archives Management and have been working in actual archives of various types for a year and a half. 

Specifically, I’m really interested in how Dice Guy engages with the horror within the context of the donation process. We hear a lot about the horror that objects in this universe cause while they’re still in the possession of their pre-Institute owners-slash-avatars, and a lot about the horror that these objects cause when they’re mishandled (looking at you, Jon “It is Remarkably Easy to Buy An Axe in Central London” Sims) while being stored at the Institute, and every now and again we get to see Jon or Gertrude accept or turn down an offered object (the teeth apple, Eric Delano’s page, etc) in TMA. But this is one of the only places in the podcast(s) where the process of donation and acquisition registers as a part of the horror story for the people giving or receiving the object. I’m thinking specifically about the beginning of the “statement proper,” where the statement giver says:

“So yeah, I tell you all about them, how I got them, all that crap and you just… You take them away, right? You accept them. Good. I think. I’m pretty sure that’s how it works. It’s how it worked for me, at least. Put them in whatever vault you like, bury them, drop them in the ocean for all I care. All that matters is that they’re yours now.” 

At surface level, this disclaimer seems pretty similar to some of the other things that statement givers say in TMA: I just need to tell someone, I just need somebody else to know, You have the power to do something about this and I don’t, etc. But this statement differs from the ones we saw in TMA because it’s not just about catharsis or reaction to a terrible thing happening; it’s the actual change of ownership of the dice that gives this moment meaning within the horror story for Dice Guy. And this hinges on the fact that Dice Guy, like a lot of real-life people, sees the purpose of an archives as being locked vaults designed to keep non-expert people away from things they don’t know how to handle, rather than their actual purpose, which is to preserve things for the express purpose of making them accessible to the public. I imagine that the Magnus Institute, if it were real, would have some pretty strict access policies due to, you know, special circumstances– the stuff it holds generally having the ability to kill or maim or otherwise make people’s lives miserable– but it’s fun to think about. If Dice Guy had understood the fact that archivists and staff and conservationists and sometimes researchers interact* with the materials in their care, would he have still donated the dice? Was he at the point where it didn’t matter who got the bad luck, as long as it wasn’t him, or was he leaning on the stereotype of archives being locked vaults as a way to absolve himself of the guilt of giving the dice away to a person, because people use the things they're given and he thinks archives don't? 

It also raises some interesting questions about ownership. Real archivists think about the ethics of donation, acquisition, and ownership a lot. What does it mean for somebody to give something to an archive? What does it mean to accept it, therefore a) accepting responsibility for the preservation of the object and b) assigning cultural/historical/ideological value to it? This is where TMAGP comes pretty close to real archival theory: Dice Guy thinks that he’s nullifying the dice’s power by giving them to the Institute, but isn’t it true that to accept an object into an archive assigns it a level of power? The notes at the beginning of the statement seem to suggest that the dice coming under the Institute’s ownership lends them power beyond what they had originally, as well: “Viability as Subject,” “Viability as agent,” “Viability as catalyst,” “Recommend referral to Catalytics for Enrichment Applicability Assessment.” To me, this says that maybe the dice were in the running to potentially be chosen for the role that the tape recorders fill in TMA– to facilitate, or serve as a catalyst for, the narrative/the fears’ growing power by being passed to the “agent” (Jon or Jon-equivalent) through the Magnus Institute. We, the audience, know that, if the dice had been selected to fill the tape recorder role, that would give them the potential not just to make one individual’s life more miserable, but to fundamentally change the entire world a la TMA 160 and 200. 

*In TMA canon, the Web uses the Magnus Institute as a site for agents and catalysts to interact, just as much as the Eye does if not more. The fact that the archives is a site of interaction between people and particular objects is critical to the narrative as told by the Web, even if it seems incidental to Jon–and even if Jon doesn’t understand the archives that way. It’s an interesting way to look at the Magnus Institute and archives as functioning in a similar way to actual archives, which serve as sites of interaction between people and historical objects (in spite of Jon’s complete lack of ability to function as a regular archivist.)

[twistthesinews-writes]

The Needle and the Damage Done

Summary: Devil's Minion era. Daniel drinks Armand's blood for the first time. There's no going back now. [1063 words]

Disclaimer: Listen. Don't come at me. I haven't even read Queen of the Damned. I hadn't been planning on writing any fic for these two in the first place. Then I remembered Henning May's cover of The Needle and the Damage Done and something possessed me right in the middle of an online class and uh. This happened. (Whether or not you read this, definitely listen to that cover. Because like. Damn.)

I may have taken significant creative liberties with how it feels to drink vampire blood.

Still in pretty rough shape, I might try to neaten it up, continue it, and post it on AO3 eventually. For now, though, it's gonna live here. Enjoy some fucked up power dynamics and a junkie not-quite-realizing that he's bitten off more than he can chew.

The first time he drank of the blood, he knew he had crossed a line.

Up until then, it had been just another thing to try, just another probably-dumb idea. Dumber than his usual, maybe, sure, but at the end of the day just another step down his not-so-slow but mundanely steady path of self-destruction.

The instant the first drop slides down his throat, he feels the ground disappear beneath him and knows he’s reached that path’s end. What he thought was just another step turned out to be a plummet off the edge of the cliff he always knew, but never truly believed was there.

And then it’s too late.

He grabs Armand’s wrist, drags it to his mouth with more desperation and naked need than he’s ever felt drinking from a bottle, be it liquor or milk. He barely catches the flicker of cold amusement from the creature he does not yet realize he has just become wholly reliant on. For this, he cannot find another dealer. He can’t drop to his knees in the right club bathroom for another hit. Now, to a deeper degree than he even knew was possible, he is an owned thing.

For the moment, though, he isn’t thinking about this. He isn’t thinking about anything at all, everything beyond the instinct to drink, drink, drink stripped from him. He is too far gone to be ashamed of the mewling whimper he lets out when the source of the blood is ripped away from him. He turns his eyes up, wet, pleading, to those of his new master and finds a glinting smile.

“That’s enough for now, boy,” he says. Daniel blinks, slowly, an electric feeling starting to spark its way through his body. Neuron by neuron, his brain begins to come back to life.

“For now,” he repeats hoarsely. “We can do this again?” It’s a moot question. If the answer is no, Daniel will die. That doesn’t feel like melodrama, it feels like simple fact.

“If you’re good,” Armand says, buttoning the cuff of his shirtsleeve.

“Anything,” Daniel breathes. “Armand— I— anything.” Daniel tries to crawl toward Armand on the bed, but abruptly, his tingling arms give out from under him and he falls, landing face-first on the sheets in front of where Armand sits cross-legged. Before he can roll over so he can breathe, Armand’s hand lands in his hair, pressing his face harder into the mattress. Daniel doesn’t resist. Right now, breathing seems superfluous to Armand’s hand on him, Armand’s blood in him.

You’ll never leave me now, will you? he hears in his head. Stars swirling behind his eyes, he shakes his head as best he can. He tries to open his mouth to reply, but the pressure against his face is too great and he can’t draw breath to speak anyway. Instead he thinks, as hard as he can,

No. No. Never. I’ll never leave you, never, never, never— Things are getting hazy, now—maybe vampire blood doesn’t actually absolve a human of his need for oxygen—but even as he begins to lose feeling in his extremities, still all his thoughts are occupied by that one-worded mantra, repeated like a prayer. The stars flashing behind his closed eyelids are blinking out one by one when abruptly the hand against his head yanks him up by the hair. He heaves in a gasp of air, the room suddenly very bright, every desperate inhale carrying sharper, more intense scents than he’s ever experienced before.

“All right,” murmurs Armand, effortlessly flipping Daniel onto his back, stroking his hair as he pants. “All right. How do you feel?”

Daniel blinks up at Armand’s upside-down face. “I… I can hear a woman on the street hushing her baby. She’s speaking… Serbian, I think? Something Slavic. And the Nuts4Nuts guy—he’s just put a fresh batch of peanuts on to roast. I can smell them. Armand,” Daniel says urgently. “Armand, the window’s closed. The window’s closed and we’re on the seventh floor.”

Armand smiles indulgently down at him. “And so we are.”

Daniel closes his eyes and takes another breath. “Is this what it’s like for you all the time?”

All of a sudden, the electricity sparking through his veins meets oxygen and is set ablaze. He leaps off the bed, energy pulsing through him. “Is this how you feel all the time?,” he repeats excitedly. “God, no wonder food tastes like nothing to you—what could compare to this?” Daniel bounces on his feet a few times, then reaches out to yank on Armand’s wrist. “Come on, let’s go!”

Armand arches an eyebrow at him. Pulling on him is like pulling stone. “Go?”

“Yes, come on, let’s go out! Let’s go chase down some dumb guy or get in a bar fight or steal a painting or—or—or anything, let’s just go!” Daniel’s bouncing from foot to foot now, all but running in place. The energy thrumming through him is easily equal to any coke high he’s experienced, and usually he wouldn’t hesitate to strike out on his own at this point, burn that energy off however he saw fit. But somehow the only thing worse than staying still right now is the thought of being away from Armand. Armand, who looks from where Daniel is pulling ineffectively at his wrist to Daniel’s slightly manic grin with a deeply unimpressed expression.

“You’re forgetting your manners, I think,” he says softly. “Is this how you show me your gratitude?”

Daniel drops his hand as if burned. “No, I—I’m sorry—I—I only meant—”

Armand tsk’s softly. Daniel feels it like a knife in his chest.

“I know just what you meant, child. You think I can’t find sufficient outlet for the ancient energy in your veins here, in this apartment? In this very room?”

Golden eyes bore into him, and Daniel finds his sense of fear has been intensified along with everything else. He stops bouncing, trains his eyes on the ground, not daring to meet the deceptively soft gaze of the predator that owns him.

“Of—of course. I mean, what… what would you like to do?”

Silence. Daniel risks glancing up. The danger has dissolved from Armand’s face, replaced by a fond smile.

“Oh my darling boy.” A hand caresses Daniel’s cheek. “Why don’t we go out?”

*******************************************

Fun fact: I wrote the first draft of this by hand in my best cursive during online class. No clue why. I'd meant to take my lecture notes on that paper. In possibly-related news, I suspect I haven't gotten my Adderall dosage quite right yet.

If you've gotten this far, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed <3

[hyperbali]

Agatha Harkness Was Right, And Here’s Why

Alright. Finally had to sit down and write my way out of this quiet, internal temper tantrum, and a few people were interested in seeing what I had to say, so I present to you:

Agatha Harkness Was Right, And Here’s Why

Disclaimer: MASSIVE spoilers for the entirety of WandaVision, and I am not nice about it.

I’ll start off by saying that, for all its foibles, WandaVision was genuinely a good example of a property within the MCU/Disney umbrella that stepped out of the usual ‘good guys fight bad guys action extravaganza’ in a way that pushed the envelope. The pseudo-horror aspect of the first few episodes is something I would really love to see engaged with on a more thoughtful basis in future projects.

I would say that it proved to be more than a vehicle to promote toys, but… well…

Yeah. Anyway.

I’ll assume that you watched WandaVision if you’re reading this, but quick recap: In the aftermath of ‘the Blip,’ Wanda is left broken and alone with no one in her corner. Her biggest mentor willingly abandoned his team to get his own ‘happy’ ending (do not get me started on Steve, that’s a document in and of itself), her other biggest mentor is probably off enjoying his family while ignoring the incredibly racist killing spree he’s been on for the past five years, and her lover is dead. When she goes to claim the body, she’s told nuh-uh, that’s government property, please leave.

So she goes to a plot of land in the middle of some nowhere town in New Jersey, which Vision apparently bought despite the fact they were living a pretty decently comfortable life in Scotland, where she looks at the deed that Vision drew a heart on and wrote ‘To Grow Old In’. Very sweet. Kind of weird, considering nothing of this caliber had ever been suggested for either of their characters and they’d been actively running from specifically the U.S. authorities? But sweet.

She has a breakdown and, in her grief, contains the entire town of Westview and all 3,892 of the people in it in her own personal paradise, where nothing bad ever happens beyond sitcom hijinks, no one dies, and every problem is tied up and neatly dealt with by the end of an ‘episode’. Except we learn that this is only paradise to Wanda, who apparently shares the aspect of having to relate everything to her favourite pop culture with Tony, because everyone else in Westview is more or less being psychologically tortured by the incredible amount of pain she’s in, forced to be puppeted actors to make her happy.

Bear in mind, Westview might have been bigger at some point - we have no idea how many people survived the Blip, or how many have been brought back to life within the past few weeks of the current setting. Either way, this is a town that has already dealt with a lot of trauma being dragged into yet another awful, much more specific kind of emotional damage, thanks to ‘the heroes’. Nice.

Agatha Harkness, a witch who’s been up to who-knows-what in the 340 years since she drained the coven that tried to kill her for getting a little too ambitious into jerky, feels the massive expenditure of magical power and decides to investigate. All the while, she carefully uses her own magic to try and peek into Wanda’s psyche, her motivations, all while keeping up appearances and not letting slip that anything is amiss.

I’ll point out that she’s no saint here, either - she specifically keeps one Westview resident at her mercy, and knows what’s happening to the rest of them, but doesn’t attempt to stop it. I’ll chalk that up to her pragmatism; their ‘sacrifice’ was fine to her as long as she could figure out how Wanda could have done something so unheard of in terms of power.

What we come to learn over the course of the show is that, given everything that happened, Wanda didn’t mean to take over an entire town and tool it into her own personal slice of heaven. She very quickly became aware of it; we know that she knows it’s her own personal bubble as soon as episode three, when she’s confronting Monica about how the latter could possibly know about Ultron. Wanda is made further aware of how much damage this is inflicting on others in episode five, when Vision himself tells her that these people are scared. But still, she has everything handled! It’s okay! The outside world is worse, trust her!

Her handling of the question, ‘where are all the children of Westview,’ is one that bears some thinking - and, y’know, kind of more than a little concern. They’re allowed to walk around as part of the ‘Halloween special,’ but as Vision walks further and further out towards the edges of town where Wanda doesn’t have as much full control, people are just frozen in place, or conducting the same few seconds of action over and over. And fully aware of being trapped.

How are they being sustained? Eating, sleeping? If someone isn’t part of her storyline, is she just locking them down into a coma? What made Wanda decide that keeping the children ‘out of the way’ was somehow kinder than involving them, especially given her later argument that she’s been trying to keep the entire town safe and happy?

The fact of the matter is, she only actually starts to feel remorse for any of this after she’s confronted with the fact that, after weeks of being at her mercy, the townspeople of Westview would rather be dead than endure another moment of having to play nice for her enjoyment. She finally opens the ‘bubble’ to let them out - which leads to the ‘epic’ finale of three different entities trying to take down Wanda and her happy family: the S.W.O.R.D. military led by Hayward, the White Vision, and Agatha.

Winding back to how we got here: after Agatha uses her own trapped resident, Ralph Bohner (who, given his casting and the props in place during the last episode, I’m willing to bet is actually the missing witness protection person Jimmy was looking for) in an attempt to lure out Wanda’s reasoning - and fails - she’s pretty much done pretending. She tricks Wanda into her basement, nullifies her powers, and makes her face her own past to get to the truth of the matter.

Not going to lie, favourite moment of the show. Kathryn Hahn killed Agatha’s slightly-amused-slightly-irritated observations about Wanda’s coping mechanisms, and the whole arrangement was extremely meta. I would have paid real money dollars to see her do the same thing to the likes of Tony, Strange, and Loki. Hell, even just having her meet the rest of the Avengers? Augh. If wishes were fishes.

When Agatha comes to the conclusion that Wanda is the vaunted, nigh-indestructible force of nature that she’s literally spent her entire life reading about is the ultimate source of chaos magic and will likely bring about the end of the world, she’s pretty understandably taken aback. To that matter, the fact that Wanda… has very little control over any of it, and is using what she does understand to play housemaker? After how long Agatha has spent learning control, hiding in plain sight, just to be child’s play compared to what Wanda has at her fingertips? I’d be pretty pissed off, too!

The way that WandaVision handled both of the major ‘fights’ - Vision versus White Vision ending in philosophy, and Wanda ending up beating Agatha at her own game of deception - is excellent. A little grating that they had to go with the beat down angle before they got there, but this is MCU; punches and thrown cars had to get shoved in somewhere. And, given that this series very much played with the idea of grey morality, I was sort of hopeful that Agatha would end up in a not-quite stalemate arrangement with Wanda. She’s not as powerful as the Scarlet Witch, but she has the know-how that Wanda sorely lacks; in recompense for her own deeds, she would be able to teach what she knows while also kind of scheming on her own time.

Y’know, like what they did with rehabilitating Loki?

Except that Wanda, who has just gone through the entire rigamarole of coming to terms with the fact that she trapped thousands of people into a nightmare scenario against their will, rendering them helpless to her mercy… traps Agatha into a nightmare scenario against her will, rendering her helpless to Wanda’s mercy.

That moment actually shook me. Oh, my god. We’re supposed to still look at Wanda as a good guy after this?

This isn’t even covering the incredibly awful confrontation with her and Vision where she tries to gaslight him into believing that everything is A-OK, or the fact that the person she gets most violent with (apart from Agatha) is Monica Rambeau, a black woman who spends most of the show bending over backwards trying to say that what Wanda is doing is understandable, justified, and just needs a gentle touch to be dealt with.

That could be its own document, too - how Monica, much as she’s incredible and definitely looks to be a really exciting addition to the MCU roster, more or less gets used as the Good One to absolve and enable Wanda’s actions. One of her last lines to Wanda, after seeing how the people of Westview (rightfully) look at Wanda like she’s monstrous, is “they’ll never know what you sacrificed.”

Sacrificed what? The fake husband and fake kids she made out of her own compulsion to pretend that everything is okay? None of that would have existed if she’d been given the proper resources to actually cope with how much loss she’s had to deal with. None of that would have existed if she hadn’t caused this problem in the first place.

In the end, Wanda flies off in her fancy new gear before the FBI shows up, avoiding any real consequences to her actions - which has pretty much been the running theme of her character ever since she was introduced to the MCU in Age of Ultron. The worst kind of direct consequence she’s ever gotten was being grounded to her room for a while, then kept in the Raft for, like, maybe a day - and both times, she was broken out post-haste.

Meanwhile, she worsened the issues in Sokovia (which, I will say upfront, was Tony’s fault to begin with), unleashed the Hulk on Johannesburg, got a pretty significant amount of civilians killed as bystanders in Lagos (hey, how come Wanda keeps turning a lot of black people into casualties?), and stood back in Wakanda to let their people try to fight off Thanos from getting to Vision until it was clear that there was no other option than for her to get involved.

Great Power Comes With No Responsibility At All, Actually.

Wanda, in the several years she has maintained her identity as an Avenger, has proven time and time again that she takes on innumerable risks without any full understanding of what they mean, allows others to take on the brunt of the fallout for her, and looks sad until she’s forgiven and moves on to the next problem. She has no business casually throwing around the kind of power that being the Scarlet Witch entails, not until she’s actually made any kind of headway into making reparations for what she’s done and tried, really tried, to get a handle on what she’s capable of.

Which she’s apparently doing in the last post-credits scene, astral reading the literal Book of the Damned on her lonesome in the mountains, but… without anyone to guide her, or give her any kind of boundary?

[I ran out of images I could post, but you know exactly what image I am referring to here]

Agatha Harkness was right. And that should terrify everybody that has to deal with Wanda in the future.

(P.S. Do we know if she actually even killed that dog? We never see her holding anything but a blanket, and characters go in and out of that show all the time. Granted, she wasn’t great with the cicada-turned-bird... hmm.)

Additional Notes:

“Well, you’re a Tony Stan, of course you think Wanda’s a villain”

I like Tony because he’s such an awful mess, and the narrative isn’t exactly kind about telling him what a piece of shit he can be! He reaped a lot of problems, created practically half the villains in the MCU, and ended up dying a martyred hero. Thanks to being the tent pole by which this franchise hoisted itself into a cultural powerhouse, he will always be their golden savior. If you want to read about how he’s the true villain of this entire affair, feel free to look up any number of takedown pieces about him that are out there. He’s a dick. I will never “uwu sad baby who did nothing wrong ever 🥺” him the way people do about Wanda.

“Why are you so pressed about this”

Because something as good in concept as WandaVision could and should have been about anyone other than the whitewashed, antisemitic take on Wanda Maximoff that MCU brought upon us. They put crucifixes on her wall in Civil War, for fuck’s sake!

“Weren’t you mad about them not including Aaron Taylor-Johnson”

At this point, I am almost kind of relieved the real Pietro wasn’t resurrected for this, because god knows they probably would have killed him all over again just to inflict that much more pain on his sister.

“Anything else you’d like to tell us, turbo nerd”

This was literally itching at me all weekend to write, so it’s more or less just to get it off my chest. If you powered your way through it, uh… thanks? Sorry if I yucked your yums, but I tried to be as clear with the disclaimer as I could. 🤷‍♂️

[legends-live-in-memories]

I Have Too Many Opinions. ep. 1

lmao. i got encouragement to post my opinions on fandom things and now i want to make a miniseries doing just that. so here i am. doing just that.

im putting it under the cut cuz this was 4 whole pages including the disclaimer. yes i put a disclaimer and i explain why.

Anyways, here is the first piece in what inevitably will become fandom info dump, this time on thomas astruc’s writing on miraculous ladybug. but only some of my opinions cuz we would be here all day otherwise.

So… a disclaimer before I begin… 

I do not hate Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir (yes i'm using their government name). I am quite a fan of the show actually despite its faults. I am also older than the intended audience but was obviously younger when the show first aired which is how my interest was piqued (the fact that its been 6 years and only 3 seasons says more about the show than me being a fan for that amount of time but also i never want to rush content creators cuz they're doing their best) and due to my age, there will be inherent bias in my approach of what i'm about to say as there is in EVERY opinion. The fact that it is an opinion should imply the presence of bias but most people tend to lack the critical thinking skills required to draw that conclusion ANYWAYS…

If I did hate the show I would not have this blog nor would I be even writing this because i tend to not give more than 2 seconds of thought to things i actively dislike (some of yall should give this a try) and i'm allowed to like things that are designed for an audience that i was originally a part of but grew out of. (I don't suddenly stop liking things because I'm older despite what many younger fans seem to believe about older audiences. I also don't need to be ‘allowed’ to do anything cuz i wasn't asking for permission anyways.)

This will not be character bashing, astruc bashing nor fandom bashing cuz, again, that would imply i hate any of those elements and if i did, i would not dedicate brainpower to them. Analyses and criticisms of media are fun and engaging and required if you wish to produce good enjoyable content. Now most of this should be already assumed and self-explanatory but people on the internet like to play morality roulette roll dice on purity culture and I rather have documentation that I am in fact not bullying fictional 14 year olds or a grown man. But alas, people get trigger happy whenever someone has less than 1000000% positive opinions on something they like and will throw out words they can't define (gaslight, baiting, toxic, problematic, gatekeep etc) in an attempt to defend their blind devotion, 

which is not needed, if you like something you never have to defend it, even if i don't like it. If you respond to anything I post saying you disagree with me, I will not argue with you. I won't debate back and forth and try to convince you that the things you like are wrong. Unless you are being absolutely tone deaf to what i'm saying, you wont get a negative reaction from me. So don't try to fish for a fight. Please. I got metaphorical hands for days and I'm mean, you don't want me hurting your feelings on the internet. Do yourself the favour. Difference of opinion is how we get diversification in media and is inherently a good thing. Now that that's out of the way, please don't ever let me have to say that again. I beg.

Now onto the fun stuff

I didn't know what I wanted as a first topic so my trusty internet friend @moonlitceleste suggested astruc’s writing… 

AND BOI do i got some opinions on ole tommy boi. Again I don't hate the dude. In fact, he has worked on a few shows that had defined my childhood, including but not limited to W.I.T.C.H. (all eps available on youtube for those interested, 2 seasons, general fun time all around).

So I don't think he’s scum of the earth but I do think his approach to writing mlb specifically has more misses than hits.

The first big miss is that he has no idea how to write 14 year old girls. At all. Almost every girl he has ever written feels like some terrible archetype built entirely for marketability and childish projection and pubescent self-insert (kind of). He has never been a 14 year old girl. I have. In fact when the show first aired, I WAS around the (assumed) age of the mlb characters. The behaviour he passes off as quirky or awkward or just the character’s genuine personality tend to perpetuate harmful stereotypes of teen girls found in the media and are never actually addressed as harmful. they just get swept under the rug. Marinette’s exuberant collage of teen heart throb model boi Adrien Agreste and her very painful almost fan worship she has of him (which flip flops like a paper sandal in the rain) being portrayed as a cute school girl crush uwu, Chloe being the y7 Regina George, Alya being the token best friend of colour with her ‘sassy’ personality (i want y'all to imagine me eyerolling so hard i bust a vessel in my eye), Kagami being the very damaging Perfect Asian Child stereotype. And before y'all get on your dusty soap box and defend going on about “BUT IT'S FOR CHILDREN”,,,, know this.

 i don’t give a solid fuck. 

Not one. 

Children arent stupid. Children are always going to remember the richy bitchy blonde who bullies the art kid, and the big kid, and the shy kid, and the non white kids, and was only nice to her equally rich white friend who she probably had a crush on or was only ever civil to her equally white lapdog. They're going to remember the half asian girl who was never allowed to actually be asian or the only black girl who existed solely as a soundboard for enabling bad habits or chastising the main character for the same habits she enables in the first place (boi aint THAT a topic for later). Like do i really need to explain that alya chastising marinette for taking max’s spot in gamer just to play with adrien rings absolutely hollow when she actively encourages her to sabotage the contest she’s in just so Kagami doesn't win?? Like I don't have to explain that right?? Again kids arent stupid and its quite something that Mari gets chastised for proving herself the best video game player regardless of her intentions just cuz it comes at the expense of max’s feelings/ego but is actively encouraged to sabotage not only kagami but herself by extension cuz kagami is ‘competition.’ Adrien is not a trophy to be won. And no I don't expect 14 yrs old to be perfect and to always make good decisions but these decisions are never addressed as being bad decisions. they get swept under the rug cuz those decisions were necessary for the ‘plot’ but astruc can barely keep characterization consistent and his characters suffer for it and it's the same children you preach are watching it that suffer as well. Cuz guess what? I KNOW 14 yr olds aren't like that cuz i've been there done that (this is the last time i'm saying that i promise) so I know astruc is just metaphorically throwing darts to figure out who says and does what without consideration for pre established personalities to drive the stalemate plot along. The same kids you say are watching this don't know that that's not how preteens work and will absorb and internalize those dynamics like baking soda and vinegar. Cata-fucking-strophically. 

And I haven't even gotten to the boys yet. Which honestly doesn't require much explanation anyways cuz they suffer the same fate as the girls. Tired archetypes with nothing to give them life. Nino falls into Adrien’s person of colour token best friend who dates the female lead’s person of colour token best friend so they can have cute double dates uwu. Except the plot goes nowhere and we have no inclination of romantic development beyond moments that only act to actively convince me to anti ship the lovesquare (i don't want to do that so i self indulge in fanon that actually cares about the characters and plot. may i interest you in True Sight on AO3?). Max is the residential nerd but it doesn't matter (cuz he and everyone are dumbed down for the sake of ‘plot’), kim is the sports jock (which interestingly subverts the asian comedic relief stereotype but only barely) and luka is cute older guy ™ that wears black nail polish and is in a band. The point of all this is to say there is no depth in the characters. It's especially blatantly obvious with the characters astruc doesn't like (chloe). Again, it being a show for kids is not an excuse to be absolved of putting effort into the characters you make.

This is one of the biggest misses astruc has. I haven't even gone into all the nuances of this particular miss. And i havent gone into how that works against him in the plot either. Mostly because the plot itself hasn't gone anywhere and partially because I wanted to go into the plot (or lack thereof) separately as its own miss. 

AND BOI is it a miss. 

SO home boy astruc wanted to reap the benefits of a serial show with ‘engaging’ plot without putting in any of the work to make a linear storyline and relying on the episodic format for, again, marketability. You can't have the best of both worlds, you are not Avatar: The Last Airbender. Which btw has a lot less episodes and a desired end goal that didn't involve top dollar. Legend of Korra did but that's not the point and it had its failings with that too. I challenge you, tell me how many episodes actually contribute towards a plot point or introduce new thematic elements to the show? Can you name them? I can and I'm going to include the plot points that moved the story in some direction if only temporarily. Yes only temporarily for some of these and i will explain later. (if you're in the server you already saw this list *wink*)

25/26. Origins- self explanatory, the beginning of the story, 

24. Volpina- introduction of the grimoire and Master Fu (kind of) and no, Lila is not a plot point,

28. The Collector- proper introduction of Master Fu,

37. Sapotis- introduction of Rena Rouge,

41. Syren- introduction of new aquatic power ups,

44. Anansi- introduction of Carapace,

47. Frozer- introduction of new ice power ups,

48/49. Style Queen- introduction of Queen Bee,

51/52. Heroes’ Day- introduction of Mayura and mass akumatization,

66. Startrain- introduction of Pegasus,

67. Kwami Buster- Marinette wears multiple miraculouses,

68. Feast- backstory as to how the miraculouses were lost,

69. Ikari Gozen- introduction of Ryuko,

70. Timetagger- introduction of Bunnyx,

71. Party Crasher- introduction of Roi Singe and Viperion,

73. Chat Blanc- alternate timeline that essentially means nothing but got a reaction out of fans anyways (myself included)

 77/78. Love Eater/Battle of Miraculous- Marinette becomes guardian and other heroes lose their miraculous,

New York Special- other heroes exist and there is an American miraculous box,

That's 21 episodes. 21 out of a heaping 78 plus 2 specials. Everything else was just your typical akuma of the day episode and everything that happened outside that had no lasting consequences on the plot thanks to the miraculous status quo. Was it entertaining to watch Lila stir the plot of the class dynamic? Hell yeah. Too bad it meant nothing by the end of the episode cuz we were struck with miraculous status quo. She literally doesn't appear again until Heroes Day. that is from episodes 25 all the way to 51, she means nothing and yet she is treated with the severity of a b-villain/rival thing. She means nothing by the end of Volpina if I'm being honest. She is only relevant for 20 mins of episode time she’s in then it's back to magic status quo that undoes any shift in dynamics and relationships. It's like Spongebob who can't get his driver’s license. The worst part is I actually like Lila and I wish the story treated her with the seriousness we as an audience are expected to treat her with. Despite being painfully inconsequential by the end of each of the 3?? 4?? episodes she’s in, it's entertaining to watch a character create drama just because. 

Too bad it means nothing.

Astruc is constantly building up suspense to something ‘important’ only for it to not deliver and fans are constantly having the rug pulled out from under us. Oblivio teased us with a reveal only that gets undone cuz memory akuma. Chat Blanc teased us with romantic development but that gets undone cuz time travel bullshit. Feast introduced more miraculous lore and the history of the guardians but that means nothing by the next episode or ever (i'm not including any reference to the season 4 trailer cuz i've been around the block a few times and im familiar with this lil dancy dance). Heroes Day teased us with a possible future team of heroes but that gets undone in Battle of Miraculous cuz ????? why?? (here's why; astruc was having a jolly ole time letting us know how irredeemable Chloe is at the expense of shooting his own stagnant plot in the foot. Again, discussion for later.)

Too bad anything that slightly swerves off course from the akuma of the day gets undone or ignored. Too bad nothing has any lasting consequence. I mean, if anything did, the episodes would have had a consistent order and release schedule so im not scrambling to watch the leaked ep in Portuguese or something while the french dub is two episodes behind while the english version hasnt even been dubbed. I really wonder how he plans to conclude the show when he’s so afraid to step out of the corner he painted himself in.

Again, not going into nuances. If you want you can ask for more specifics (i doubt anyone would) but this is really just a slightly detailed general overview of my opinions on astruc’s writing. 

I was going to include another miss in his approach to this show but imma save that for another time. 

How’s that for a ‘first’ post?

[amoveablejake]

The Death Star Versus, um, The Death Star

Bayern Munich against PSG, a Champions League final preview, sort of. 

Before I begin this, I have a small disclaimer. I was not going to write a Champions League Final piece. I just wasn’t going to do it. I have sat at my keyboard for the past half an hour starting and then deleting quite a few different ideas for today’s entry but none of them have clicked. I think thats mainly because today is quite a big day in the world of football and even though this is not a football blog I feel that as I have mentioned it here and there I would be remiss if I did not talk about one of the biggest games in the football calendar. But I promise, this isn’t going to be a traditional football piece and I will try to make it at least somewhat interesting for those of you who don’t care at all. And then tomorrow we’ll have an album of the week post to absolve me of my sins. 

Perhaps I should explain the title. Bayern Munich and Paris Saint Germain are two giants in European football. No, they are two juggernauts. The difference there being that they should not only be classed as huge but as overwhelming forces aswell. They are also both seen in their own ways as bad guys. Bayern are perhaps seen as the bad guys in the Bundesliga as they are just so damn good and it seems that no one can stop them. Well, not yet anyway but as I’ve mentioned before I am a die hard Dortmund fan and I have every confidence we will take that title one day but lets get back to business. PSG because, well, a lot of people have an issue with their owners. PSG are owned by Qatar Sports Investments which means that they are state owned team. Yes, this does mean that they get a lot of money and whatever advantages comes with that isn’t really the issue here, the issue is that a state owns a football team. That shouldn’t be allowed. I’m sorry, but it shouldn’t. A football club should not be owned by one autonomous power especially one that, how do I put this delicately, has some of its own problems on the global stage. Now, we won’t get too deep into the weeds about PSG’s ownership here but its important context to know as we move forward. 

Paris Saint Germain are a team I like. I don’t like the ownership, and I don’t like that the team is being used more as a brand than a club, see Nike and its almost celebrity status for further details, but I do like the actual club. I love Paris as a city and so naturally I looked to their football team. I did not know when I was younger the problems that it has off the pitch but on the pitch I liked what I saw. And also, they play in Ligue 1 so they are Europe’s underdogs. That might sound like an odd thing to say when they are backed by a financial powerhouse and win in France 90% of the time but thats just it, they win in France. Now, before I make a lot of French enemies here, this is not a dig at Ligue 1. Its a good league, but PSG is a big fish in a small pond. It does not have the same competition that exists in Serie A, La Liga, the Bundesliga and especially the Premier League. Thats okay, it just means that when it comes to the Champions League they are sort of the underdogs. Also because they have never won Europe’s most prestigious trophy. If it was any other team in the final tonight playing against Bayern, five time champions, I think they would get unanimous support especially a team who could make history but because it is PSG neutral fans are left with a decision to support the Death Star or, the Death Star. 

It is always nice to see a team win something for the first time and as I said I do sort of like PSG, but I don’t want them to win. I don’t think they should. If they win it would be validation for the way the team is run, and it doesn’t need that. I don’t want it to have the praise for winning when quite frankly it is run appallingly and is not the team that it used to be. Yes it wins every year in France but at what moral cost. I would rather support a team with a conscious who loses then a juggernaut with absolute power. If we can look past all of that it is a dream final, two teams that play some very exciting football will come together for what I’m sure will be a historic match but I don’t think I can look past PSG. And Bayern, they’re not really a Death Star, not in the same way at least. They’re a team that are just so damn good and if you don’t support them then ofcourse they’re the bad guys. But at least they’re bad guys who are sad about blowing up Alderaan. 

As I said up top, this wasn’t a piece that I wanted to right but I felt perhaps that I should. I felt I should because it is an important game but also because its an opportunity for the spotlight to be on an ownership scheme that should just not exist. I know its only football but sometimes, it can be way more and this, this is one of those times. So as much as it pains the Dortmund fan in me, Bayern don’t let us down. 

[dimples-of-discontent]

Castiel: “It's not blame that falls on you, Dean, it's fate. The righteous man who begins it is the only one who can finish it. You have to stop it.“ (4x16, “Head of a Pin”)

Is the apocalypse still going on? Hear me out. I know that TFW has now (apparently) averted more than one apocalypse, first by trapping Lucifer in his cage at the end of S5 then by stopping Amara at the end of S11. But that’s on a fairly small time scale, especially for divine beings. What if it’s part of a larger, ongoing narrative in which Dean--and Dean specifically--still needs to stop what he started in Hell all those years ago? This season has been full of mirrors and bookends and has been emphasizing duality. What if the endgame mytharc plot is a bookend/mirror of S4 and S5?

(**Disclaimer: this is me kicking around ideas in a highly speculative manner. It’s for entertainment value only.**)

I spent a lot of the evening on the Superwiki collecting together all the dialogue in S4 episodes that refer to seals. I’ll share the Google doc link if you want it (you can message me), but there’s a fairly notable trend which is that discussions of seals are also iconic Dean/Cas scenes. Not too surprising since the breaking of the seals is the mytharc for S4. But Cas’s desperate desire to prevent seals from breaking so that a portal doesn’t open up would contrast with his desperate desire to open a portal to the AU and break at least one seal (the Seal of Solomon) in the process. The seals brought Dean and Cas together and bonded them...what if the mirroring that’s happening means the spell ingredients are going to tear them apart? Hums “Love Will Tear Us Apart” under my breath. (I have a “Seal of Solomon” tag which I think has people’s meta in it for more on that specifically.) Or maybe, instead, it is that Dean and Cas form a seal instead of breaking one, as I was chatting about with @sactownbrowns3 who had this amazing stuff to say:

“It could work quite well IF Dean and Cas both are the Seal. When Cas came into their lives he brought Dean back to Sam from another realm when massively important Seals were beginning to break...releasing Luci from his cage. It would perfectly bookend the eras that have followed  and be incredible symbolism by them FORMING/mending a Seal which may temporarily bring more great chaos but eventually settle and bring balance to the universe. If they are going for pos/neg day/night black/white polarities and mirrors galore(which I have been screaming about since the first black & white promo pic for s13 came out and upon watching 13x1and made my smoke signals post)-Cas saving a Righteous Man from Hell who broke the first seal as HE broke shedding blood in Hell.....what IF another angel or just somebody else period were to save an abomination in HEAVEN...Deans soul would be a bright light in hell, Luci's darkness a stain in an otherwise light-filled heaven? Could him taking Anaels grace be a type of communion which may slowly absolve him of sins...bringing his humanity back and redeeming him? Blood of a most holy man...And it would be somehow Sam ultimately saving him?”

Personally, I’m on the same Speculation Train with a lot of this too now that I’ve gone through the S4 dialogue so carefully. Cas’s first major disobedience was to tell Dean that Lilith was the final seal, banishing Zachariah and freeing Dean from Heaven’s Hotel Suite. He effectively stopped the angels’ plan to have Dean be possessed by Michael, kill Lucifer, and bring about Paradise on earth. Interestingly, "Paradise on Earth" is exactly the phrase that kept being used about what Jack showed Cas. (I actually love the idea that’s floating around that the AU could be made into Paradise if Jack stays there.) If Cas wants Paradise, he may need to do “whatever it takes to get there” which, as we should remember, was a huge-ass heavenly battle starring Sam and Dean.  

Cas tells Dean in no uncertain terms that only the righteous man can finish what he set in motion. What if balance has to be restored by Dean actually doing something along the lines of what the angels intended in S4, being possessed by Michael (or another angel?) and defeating Lucifer. What if to get there Dean does have to be possessed by Michael and/or kill Lucifer? (For poetic justice I want Sam to kill Lucifer but I will entertain other ideas too.)

Again, I'm just kicking things around at this point, but Dabb is so interested in using and subverting past canon that it feels like this mention of the Seal of Solomon must connected us back to S4. There's also Anael as a Ruby parallel, with Lucifer as Sam in the kind of inside-out version...what if Lucifer is accidentally getting stronger to seal himself away just as Sam was accidentally getting stronger to free Lucifer? As @sactownbrowns3 said, he could be becoming “a most Holy man” by imbibing angel grace.

One thing I'm sure of is that "most holy man" of the episode title isn't going to be whomever we first think of; it's going to be someone surprising. I you can’t put too much stock in episode titles or PR, I think we were all inclined to assume that it’s going to be someone on TFW because, well, they are the Good Guys and also it sounds a lot like being the righteous man (I have spec to that effect too). But with the “Find the good in everyone” / “find the evil in everyone” posters and our season-long meditation on nurture vs. nature and the significance of using your free will to choose good, I think we are being invited (as others have pointed out) to imagine our boys not as much as the Good Guys. They’ve been warned not to mess with other worlds, to knock down a house of cards, and they will not hesitate to do it anyway. Not Good. They keep people, even people they care about, around mainly for how useful they are (you can read @charlie-minion​ on this) and after that dispose of them. Not Good. They are the the ones who do “whatever it takes” <ominous music> because a war is coming.

That’s a dark note to end on, but it’s angst o’clock here in the midseason with already heavy episodes. Heck, I’m gonna have to go rewatch “Tombstone” just to make sure my heart can take more pain tomorrow. As always, happy to hear from other spec writers @naruhearts @elizabethrobertajones @tinkdw @sactownbrowns3 @woahthisguy @amwritingmeta and anyone else. Also, apologies if I missed some relevant posts that are out there already. I haven’t been able to read quite as many posts this week so feel free to comment with links and references.

[yourekillingmockingbirds-blog]

A “Harshly-Worded” Love Letter to the Transmasculine Community

Okay, guys, look. I know this is going to be hard to hear, but it’s hard to say too. In fact, I’ve had it on my mind for a long time but I’ve always been too afraid to say it. That in itself is part of the problem; I shouldn’t be afraid of this, because this community needs to be open to criticism. Well, anyway, I’m not afraid of backlash anymore, this needs to be said. 

We need to cut the crap, immediately. This hyper-masculine, self-loathing, ableist bullshit we’ve entrenched ourselves in needs to stop. Warning: This post is going to be very long and quite emotional. I know some people are going to dismiss everything I say because of the tremor in my voice, but you shouldn’t, because I have a point. Additional Warning: in this post will be probably some mentions of self-harm, disordered eating, weight loss, and dysphoria. Nothing graphic or specific, but if mentions of these are triggering for you please be wary. I’ll sum up the main points of my post at the end if you can’t read through the whole thing.  

Okay, we good? Alright. I’m going to start off with a story. Please bear with me. 

So, a certain amount of time ago, I realized that I was not a cis girl like I’d thought. Turned out I was a trans guy the whole time, surprise. This realization was met with panic and fear, because I thought it meant I couldn’t have a happy life as a trans person. Obviously that’s not true, but it’s how I felt at the time. But I realized at the time that this was probably internalized transphobia talking, and thought that maybe if I gave myself a chance to adjust to the idea and feel welcomed by the community I would feel better. Honestly, this should have been true. It follows naturally that finding more of your own would make you feel better about yourself! But this is not what happened. 

What I found instead was a lot of blogs giving me “advice” about passing and coping with dysphoria. This isn’t what I was looking for, but I was dysphoric and I did really want to pass at the time. I was deeply closeted and frankly terrified, but also in constant pain and considerable distress from dysphoria. I was young and weak and vulnerable and I took everything they said to heart: stop smiling in public, act angry or dismissive in order to appear masculine, talk through your chest or not at all, don’t let your hips sway, bind always, and best of all, diet and exercise to lose weight and gain definition in your shoulders. 

Sounds innocuous? Maybe it is, if you’re abled and thin to begin with. But for a disabled chubby teen (me), physically incapable of binding with conventional binders and also unable to workout, this advice is extremely harmful. (So are all passing guides, but that is for another post at another time.) 

You guys really need to get your heads out of your fucking asses if you want to actually help people. “Passing tips” are nothing but cissexism incarnate, and if you expect any trans person to lose weight or risk harming their bodies in any way in order to cater to your standards you’re no better than mainstream media giving people eating disorders. The result of eating disorders is even the same! Because that’s what expectations of weight loss encourage, eating disorders. Not a better self-image! Not “passing”, not feeling comfortable in your own skin, not an elevated level of physical or mental health! Eating disorders. 

This community is also really unfriendly to disabled people, by the way. This toxic masculinity workout culture thing we have going on is, first of all, ridiculous, but also makes us hyper-aware of our own dysphoria in the process of comparing our bodies and picking apart our perceived flaws until we lose any sense of self-worth or body love. And guess what?? That doesn’t actually help anybody. We’re actually making each other feel worse. 

Now, you can try all you want to blame me and my weight and my disability for your tips not working. You can try, but deep down you know that is not valid, because if you really wanted to help people you would make your guides inclusive to people like me. You can’t get off on my technicality, you still need to accept some fucking responsibility for the fact that a frightened, dysphoric teenager came in here looking for acceptance and help, and came out with an eating disorder and a body image so fucking shitty he actually starved himself and refused to leave the house or look in the mirror for weeks.

YOU are the reason young trans men feel so bad about themselves. You, this community, need to accept some fucking responsibility, and you need to actually stop being problematic before any of your disclaimers mean shit. 

I didn’t do this to myself. Are my underlying issues to blame for the severity of the situation? Maybe so! But does that absolve this fucking toxic bullshit community of anything?? ABSOLUTELY THE FUCK NOT. You can deny and disclaim all you want, but as long as we fucking toxic demons keep being so critical and negative and perpetuating this cycle of “passing tips” and forced hyper-masculinity, none of it matters. 

We have to do better. 

BE KIND TO EACH OTHER!

Be helpful! Offer support, and help, and positivity, and hope! Do something! Don’t just sit around telling us to lose weight or work out. Don’t glorify hyper-masculinity; there is no justification for pushing that on anyone! Let trans boys and men be as conventionally masculine or feminine as they want, don’t pressure or expect them to exercise, let them not “pass” and not want to and still treat them as valid and worthy men. 

tl;dr: Let trans men be fat, let them be frail, let them be disabled, let them be queer and non-white and effeminate and mentally ill and neurodivergent and chronically ill and emotional and anything else without judging them. Let trans men be themselves.  

None of this should have happened in the first place. This community should be a place where we can find solace in people like us, and happiness in not being alone! We shouldn’t let the transmasculine community be ruled by cissexism and internalized transphobia and other bigotry. We have to do better. 

We have to do better. 

Be kind. 

Now I know you’re dismissing me in your head right now, calling me a sensitive sissy (as if there’s anything wrong with that.) and blaming me for everything I just said. Alright. go ahead, boys. Hit me with your best shot. You know you’re part of the problem if you’re offended by the sentiment of this post. It’s time to take some fucking responsibility. 

Love you. <3 

[catrillion]

I've been seeing a lot of debate about the Disney film Pocahontas appearing on my dash suddenly. Out of the blue I'm seeing post after post arguing about whether or not the film is insensitive and I'm not quite sure what has sparked it. I really am no authority on the subject, but every time I scroll past and don't acknowledge these posts I feel guilty. So what follows is a long dissertation on how it is insensitive and why that matters.

Before we begin, a huge disclaimer that I am white. Anything I have to say on this movie is, honestly, irrelevant and you'd probably be best off stopping reading this now and instead reading the many reviews and discussions by Native Americans about the film. (That last link has an added bonus of being written by the chief of the Powhatan Nation himself)

So, if you're done reading those and are now still interested in my less-relevant opinion, here goes.

About two years ago, I was at lunch with my grandparents when my grandmother told us she had learned something very exciting about our family history. See, our family is Mormon and Mormons are very interested in geneology. (Which is it's own long dissertation post, but that's a subject for another day.) They use a Mormon-run website that I can't vouch for the accuracy of, but can only hope is not a reliable source. Because that day my grandmother told us she had learned from this website that she was a direct descendant of Pocahontas.

I was the only one who was highly concerned to hear that. And when I expressed this concern, the entire family was confused. "What's the big deal? This is exciting!" And maybe if your understanding of who Matoaka was and what she lived through came only from the Disney film, you would agree with this excitement. But when you're aware that what you're really hearing is that your very white family stemmed directly from a young girl being kidnapped and forcefully baptized, then paraded around against her will as a symbol of the "noble savage" and used as a prop to have her people's way of life eradicated all before dying at the age of 21? That is nothing to be excited about.

The version of Pocahontas my family was aware of was the Disney-fied version. The version where she chooses to marry a white man who she loves and, if we're including the straight-to-DVD sequel, willingly moves to England as an empowered voice for her people. To them, this was a fun piece of trivia. They were a bit shocked and incredulous when I pointed out that, if this genealogy fact is true, our family legacy is not something to be proud of.

You see, this movie goes beyond just bring "inaccurate to history." The version of the story that it tells differs so grossly from real life that it really has no right claiming to even be loosely based on facts. Disney would have been better off just making a completely original story and leaving the real names out of it completely. (It got halfway there by not using Pocahontas's real name anyway.) If it had been, perhaps, a high fantasy film about a war between two races with the takeaway being "prejudice is wrong no matter which side it is coming from", that would be an interesting film with a great hot take! But this isn't something high fantasy or speculative fiction. This is an film that seriously tries to say that Native Americans not trusting the people who have committed genocide against their people (and who STILL commit genocide against them, might I add) is just as bad as white people deciding that Native Americans are subhuman. To equate these things is horrifically misguided at best and white nationalist propaganda at worst.

It's easy to say "it's just a movie, though, and we all know it's not accurate." Except no, we don't. My family sure didn't, and neither do any of the four-year-olds who are having this be their first introduction to American race relations. This is something that is going to become the basis for their understanding of our history. Something that they will have to unlearn. And judging by my experience, most people don't seem to unlearn it. By making this movie, Disney has- whether intentionally or not- helped create a revisionist history that villainizes Native Americans for the "crime" of not wanting their land invaded, and is putting it all in the minds of children who don't know any better.

I suppose the next argument one would make in the film's favor is saying that this was definitely not Disney's intention. And you know what? You might be right. I have read behind the scenes information that said Disney thought they were making a very profound film that would speak to Native Americans, and the filmmakers were shocked that it didn't go over well with those groups. But I don't think that absolves them from criticism. I believe this is actually part of the problem. Pocahontas is a film made by white filmmakers presuming they know the experiences that native people have gone through. It's presuming they have any right to tell it. Pocahontas is not a white person's story- it belongs to Native Americans, and yes I'm fully aware of the hypocrisy inherent in me, a white person, presuming my voice on the subject belongs here too. So again, I really truly urge you to read up on what actual Native Americans have to say on this subject. Because we can debate back and forth about things that don't apply to us, but the effect that this movie has had isn't just some abstract thing. Native Americans aren't just some long-past part of history. These are people who are living today being seen as second-class citizens, who then have to see this film make a mockery of the torture we put them through and then to add insult to injury, have to see us casually question whether inaccuracies and insensitivities matter. Whether the truth of what we put them through matters. And every time a white person says "it's just a movie," we've said we decided it doesn't.