#inspired by my trans nephew. who I will kill for

[stephreynaart]

🏳️‍⚧️ Hell Together 🏳️‍⚧️

VIDEO VERSION

[robininthelabyrinth]

consider: trans girl jiang cheng

Untamed verse:

When Jiang Chen was little, she told her mother that she wanted to be like her when she grew up.

Madame Yu thought it referred to her cultivation and was very proud, even smug, but actually Jiang Cheng had been eyeing her beautiful skirts and delicate jewelry, her proud back and gentle curves.

It wasn’t until Jiang Cheng was a little older that she realized that she couldn’t be like her mother – that she was supposed to be like her father. Because she was her father’s son, and not his daughter.

She was never going to be like her father.

It was both a relief and a terrible heartache when Wei Wuxian joined the household – he was everything her father had ever wanted in a son. Jiang Cheng’s competitive streak was spurred on for a little while, trying to show that she could be just as good a son as Wei Wuxian, but she failed, and failed, and failed some more, and in the end she realized she really wasn’t.

She wasn’t as good a cultivator, she wasn’t as good a leader, she wasn’t as good a person.

She certainly wasn’t as good a son.

(She wasn’t a son at all, but who was she going to tell? Who would ever believe her?)

-

She thought for a while that she might be a cutsleeve – it was said that men who liked other men were feminine in behavior and in their thoughts, a result of their being lacking in yang and overabundant in yin – but the pornography she got Wei Wuxian to get for her, after she’d egged him on to do it under the guise of a dare, ended up leaving her cold and more than a little bored.

(It’d been Wei Wuxian who’d ended up staring at it for hours and hours, mouth slightly agape, before slinking away with hunched shoulders and look on his face; she assumed that was the normal reaction to pornography, for boys who weren’t defective the way she was, and sighed again over her own failures.)

At any rate, the first time her heart had ever been moved, it ended up being for a woman after all: Wen Qing in her red dress and her head held high, proud and a little above-it-all, carrying a sword like any man and needles in her fist like the doctor she was.

It had been a relief to think that she might be normal in some ways, some obvious ways, that she might be a boy in the ways that mattered, like love.

She even bought a comb for her, wondering if it would be rude to hand it over – presumptuous, maybe. Wen Qing was a Wen, after all, even if she didn’t seem to think she was the sun in the sky the way the other Wens did…it probably wouldn’t work out.

Jiang Cheng put the comb away.

They had an encounter in an inn later, faces suddenly an inch apart so that Wen Qing can whisper words of warning, and Jiang Cheng expected her heart to speed up when it happens – it did, a little, but not as much as it had before.

It occurred to Jiang Cheng that she wasn’t sure if her heart had been moved because she liked Wen Qing or if it was only that she wanted to be her.

Jiang Cheng almost asked, the next time they met – Wen Qing was a doctor, wasn’t she, so surely she’d have some sort of insight – but after a few moments realized that it would be unbelievably rude to dump issues of sexuality and attraction onto Wen Qing’s shoulders at a moment when they were surrounded by the ghost puppets of Wen Qing’s family who were trying to kill them.

Plus, Nie Huaisang was there. That would have made everything even more awkward.

So she didn’t ask, said “Never mind” when Wen Qing asked what she had been going to say, and ignored the thoughtful look on Nie Huaisang’s face – he was probably just thinking that Jiang Cheng had a crush.

Wen Qing probably thought she just had a crush.

It would be easier if it was just a crush.

-

It turned out that Jiang Cheng had underestimated Nie Huaisang, and also she might be a little in love with Qinghe – her father had always said they were a bit odd, in a tone that didn’t quite suggest approval, but it turned out they were just the right kind of odd for Jiang Cheng.

“Are you a girl?” Nie Huaisang asked, idly fanning himself – Wei Wuxian had wandered outside with his jar of liquor after the feast, and Lan Wangji was nowhere to be found, very likely already leaving.

“What?” Jiang Cheng said, then turned to glare incredulously at him. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve walked into our rooms in the Cloud Recesses without knocking often enough to know the answer to that.”

“Not on the outside,” Nie Huaisang said, rolling his eyes. “On the inside. Are you a girl when you think?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jiang Cheng asked, suspicious, and her heart was racing faster than it ever had around Wen Qing – mostly in terror.

Nie Huaisang heaved a sigh as if Jiang Cheng was being especially stupid. “Misaligned reincarnations,” he said. “Two births, one man and one woman, happening at the same hour, same minute, same second – except the man’s soul gets lost and goes into the woman’s body, and the woman’s goes into the man’s. Think of it as a filing error by the heavenly bureaucracy.”

Jiang Cheng had never heard anything so stupid and wonderful before in her life.

“You’re joking,” she said, accusing. “There’s no such thing.”

“There is! I swear! It’s not uncommon in Qinghe – we have at least a dozen misaligned reincarnations in the Nie sect right now.”

Jiang Cheng crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t believe you. Name one.”

“My older brother,” Nie Huaisang said promptly. “I swear that’s why he’s so pleased over that stupid mustache of his; it’s a sign of how good his cultivation is, putting all that yang energy in the right place.”

Jiang Cheng blinked, not quite understanding. “Why would he be pleased about having a mustache if his soul was actually a woman’s?”

Certain Jiang Cheng went to extraordinary lengths to keep her own chin clean-shaven. The thought of having a beard repulsed her.

“What? No. His soul is a man’s.”

“But you said he was misaligned…?”

“He is. What, do you want me to ask you to look inside his robes to see what he doesn’t have between his legs?”

Jiang Cheng gaped. “But he – he dresses as man!”

“He is a man,” Nie Huaisang said. “He just happens to be a man who, if you’re talking physically, would be the one to bear children, not the one to sire them.”

Jiang Cheng felt the need to sit down. It was as if her entire world had changed to spin the other way around.

“I’d really like him to marry Meng Yao,” Nie Huaisang said thoughtfully. “He likes him so much – he really respects him and listens to him, and my da-ge doesn’t listen to anyone. And that way I could have some nieces or nephews! But maybe he’ll decide to marry a woman instead, and then they’d have to find someone else to sire the children. Maybe Lan Xichen; he seems like the sort of person who’d agree to donate without demanding a share of filial piety…”

“I am,” Jiang Cheng said quickly, forcing the words out of her mouth before she became too shy to say them. “Your – question. From earlier. I am.”

Nie Huaisang smiled brilliantly. “I thought you might be,” he said. “Would you like to spend the evening trying on some of my mother’s old dresses? She had your shoulders – da-ge’s biological mother, you understand. Very tall. I’m sure we could find something in purple…”

Maybe it was bravery inspired by the liquor they’d all drunk at dinner, but Jiang Cheng agreed.

It was a good night.

-

It was something she thought about a lot, later, when they were stuck in the camp with the Wens, and after, when they’re back at home again.

Wei Wuxian’s words, reassuring her that she would be Sect Leader no matter how unorthodox – his reminder that Lan Yi was Sect Leader Lan, and just as valued as any other despite being who and what she was – made Jiang Cheng wonder if Wei Wuxian somehow knew.

She hoped he did.

After that, though, she didn’t – there wasn’t time to think about anything as stupid as identity.

Not for a long time.

-

Everything after Wei Wuxian came back was a disaster, every last bit of it.

Wei Wuxian was different, cold and unfeeling; Jiang Cheng tried to reach him, over and over again, but nothing seemed to work. She even wondered, in a panic, if Wei Wuxian hadn’t known, and maybe had somehow found out – he certainly seemed to be avoiding her in specific.

She didn’t know what else it could be.

Everything was falling apart around her – her older sister was remaining at Koi Tower, her shixiong had turned from mere negligence to outright rebellion…

She followed him to the Burial Mounds.

“You should disown me,” Wei Wuxian said. His face was cold.

It had always been cold, ever since he’d disappeared – they’d been with the Wens then, too.

“Fuck that,” Jiang Cheng said, and just gave up, sitting down on the ground. “No. Fuck you.”

Wei Wuxian scowled at him. “Don’t be so indecisive, Jiang Cheng; it doesn’t suit you. Disown me as a rebel, and the shame of my actions won’t be reflected onto the Jiang sect.”

“The shame of my actions,” Jiang Cheng said mockingly. “Don’t call it a shame if you don’t think it is one, Wei Wuxian! You’re proud of what you’ve done. I suppose in the end it’s a good thing my father didn’t have a son like you!”

“Oh, that old thing again,” Wei Wuxian said, his face twisting. “I’m telling you, you’re his son –”

“I’m not,” Jiang Cheng snapped back, pushed beyond her limits. “I was never his son; you were the only son he ever had, no matter how little blood there was between you. You keep pushing this, Wei Wuxian, and I never want to see or hear of you kneeling before his memorial tablet ever again, you hear me?! Neither as son, nor nephew, nor disciple!”

It was a low blow, she knew, but she didn’t know how else to reach him. Even if Wei Wuxian, the new Wei Wuxian, didn’t love her as much as he loved the Wens, then surely – surely he loved Jiang Fengmian enough?

Or had all her father’s love been pissed away into nothing?

Wei Wuxian stared at her, his brows pulled together, and promptly fixated on the wrong thing entirely. “What do you mean you’re not his son? Madame Yu would never –”

Jiang Cheng jabbed a finger at him.  “Do not accuse my mother of adultery!”

“I wasn’t going to!” Wei Wuxian protested, and then looked around almost as if he though she was going to overhear him and order him to go kneel.

It was so familiar a gesture that Jiang Cheng let slip a hysterical giggle, which somehow set Wei Wuxian off laughing, and then that set Jiang Cheng off in turn.

“This is so stupid,” Jiang Cheng moaned, her hands over her face to hide her tears. “No one even said anything funny…you don’t make any sense, Wei Wuxian.”

“I don’t make any sense?” Wei Wuxian was hiccupping. “You don’t make any sense. What was that about not being Jiang Fengmian’s son?”

At this point, Jiang Cheng couldn’t see any path forward that didn’t involve banishing Wei Wuxian from the sect, to never see him again except as strangers – or at least to only ever see him in secret. They’d already grown so distant…there was no point in holding anything back.

So she told him, borrowing Nie Huaisang’s words to explain the concept.

“I didn’t know,” Wei Wuxian said, wiping his eyes. “I really didn’t. I didn’t even know enough to guess.”

Jiang Cheng sniffed and pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them and putting her chin on her knees – disgracefully childish, really, but she felt that way right now. She felt hollowed out, as if telling Wei Wuxian her greatest secret had left her with nothing else inside.

“You’re the one who can’t be guessed,” she said bitterly. “I don’t understand you, Wei Wuxian. You said you’d be at my side, that you’d help me, but you’re picking these people over me without a second thought…did I do something wrong?”

“What? No!” Wei Wuxian exclaimed. “No, that isn’t – it isn’t – it isn’t about you at all.”

“Then why didn’t you ask me to help you with them?” Jiang Cheng asked. She’d wondered that for a long time. “It’s not like you were the only one Wen Qing helped back then, when we were running from the Wen sect! She hid me, too! If that’s the debt you want to repay, shouldn’t I have every right to repay it, too? But you never told me you were going…”

“You couldn’t have come! What it would have done to the Jiang sect’s relationship with the Jin sect –”

“Oh, now you give a fig for politics? I’m Sect Leader! Those guards that you say fought you; they would have had to listen to me – if they challenged me, the scandal would be about their conduct, not mine! I could have helped, I could have explained it, we could have figured out a way to do it together…no,” she said, suddenly certain. “I’m not kicking you out the Jiang sect. You’re the only man we have left in the family, Wei Wuxian; you can’t just run out on me now. Especially given that jiejie’s leaving, too.”

Wei Wuxian jerked as if he’d been stabbed. “What do you mean, shijie’s leaving?”

“She’s going to accept Jin Zixuan’s offer of marriage,” Jiang Cheng said, and had Wei Wuxian really not known? Had he paid any attention to anything related to the Jiang sect in the past few weeks? “Maybe not yet, but…soon. And then I’ll be alone in the Lotus Pier, trying to run the entire damn sect without any help at all – no, I’m not kicking you out. I refuse.”

She’d been willing to agree, even a few short moments earlier. But then they’d taken the time to sit and talk about other things – she’d taken the time to make sure Wei Wuxian knew who she really was, to bare herself to him, no matter how stupid it might feel to be concerned about her self-perception when put in comparison with the destruction of her entire family – and the pause had given her time to think it over again.

It had made her realize that she didn’t want to give up on Wei Wuxian, even if he was giving up on her.

“Aren’t we a Great Sect, after all?” she said, scowling, gathering her strength of will. If she was going to need to stand up against the rest of the cultivation world, Wei Wuxian included, to keep her family together, then so be it; she would do it if she had to. It was better than the alternative. “Sect Leader Jin is always making noises about being able to show strength – fine, then, we’ll show him strength! You have the Yin Tiger Seal, I have my forces, and jiejie – maybe jiejie can convince Jin Zixuan to help us –”

“Lan Zhan let us go,” Wei Wuxian said abruptly, and Jiang Cheng turned to him in surprise. “He encountered us on the Qiongqi Path; I told him to fight me if he wanted to stop me, and he didn’t. He let me go – he let all of us go.”

“So maybe he’ll help us again, if we asked?” Jiang Cheng hazarded a guess. “That’s good! And we’re old friends with Nie Huaisang, and we worked with Nie Mingjue during the war – the Nies are very upright, very straightforward. If we showed them that most of the people here are non-combatants, showed them everything…well, everything but what you’re doing with Wen Ning, anyway; what are you doing with Wen Ning? He’s not really a ghost puppet you’ve brought back from the dead, is he?”

“He’s not dead,” Wei Wuxian said. “Just very close to it. He’s been infected with resentful energy and his qi circulation has been thrown out of alignment with…it’s complicated, and I don’t think you care.”

“I don’t,” Jiang Cheng admitted. “But that’s fine. You talking about it like an academic is better than you talking like you’re about to raise armies of corpses to send against the rest of the cultivation world…anyway, start packing up your things. I left my people at the bottom of the mountain; I’ll go get them, they can help carry both things and people, and we’ll move you all back to the Lotus Pier.”

“Back to the Lotus Pier,” Wei Wuxian murmured, looking dazed.

“Yes, back to the Lotus Pier! Possession is nine-tenths the law,” Jiang Cheng said, thinking out loud. “If necessary, I’ll throw a fit and claim that Sect Leader Jin wants to invade the Lotus Pier the way the Wen sect did. He’ll never forgive me for it, and things might be a bit tricky for a while…he’ll probably say I’m too emotional to be sect leader. With your backing, though, I think we should be able to get through it.”

That was the key bit, though, wasn’t it?

“Do I have your backing?” she asked.

“Yes,” Wei Wuxian said. “You do.”

[trans-rite]

The Transgender Rite of Ancestor Elevation: 2018 List of Names

Below the cut, a list of names, organized by country, date of passing, and how they died (people have mixed feelings about the latter, we understand). Some include age and other notes as well, but that’s not consistent across the names. This year we made an effort to seek out information about the lives of our beloved dead, where reported, and quotes from loved ones. 

Link to a shareable google document with photos

Christa Leigh Steele-Knudslien, United States

As of mid-October 2018, 22 homicides of trans Americans have been reported. The first known victim was Christa Leigh Steele-Knudslien, 42, of North Adams, Mass. The founder of the Miss Trans America and Miss Trans New England pageants, she was stabbed to death at her home January 5. Her husband, Mark S. Steele-Knudslien, 47, has been charged with her murder. He turned himself in to police the same night, saying he had done "something very bad," and describing details of the crime, but he pleaded not guilty the following week in Northern Berkshire District Court. He is awaiting trial.

Christa, 42, was a flamboyant and beloved transgender activist, founder of the Miss Trans New England beauty pageant and cofounder of the New England Trans United Pride March and Rally. She believed that being trans was something to celebrate. She was forever cajoling friends to try the higher heels, the shorter dress — “Show your legs, hon!” Her joy seemed boundless.

When Halloween came, Christa struck up a friendly decorating contest with Jennifer Serre, who lives across the street. They one-upped each other, Serre said, adding lights and signs and ghouls until Christa’s yard sported a guillotine, a fortune teller, a ghost, a clown, a girl hanging from a tree, a man dressed in black carrying a shovel, and a graveyard.

Viccky Gutierrez, United States

Viccky Gutierrez, 33, was stabbed to death at her home in Los Angeles January 10. Firefighters were called to a fire at the building early that day and discovered her body. Gutierrez, an immigrant from Honduras, was described as "a beautiful soul who was really nice to everyone and would offer any type of support when someone would need it" by friends who set up a crowdfunding page to raise money for funeral expenses. She was active in the L.A. trans community, working with the Los Angeles LGBT Center on Transgender Day of Remembrance events. A few days after her death, Los Angeles police arrested Kevyn Ramirez, 29.  Police said he admitted to stabbing Gutierrez and setting the fire. He is charged with murder during the commission of an attempted robbery, plus two counts of arson, while police continue to try to determine his motive and whether the murder was a hate crime.

Viccky was a young trans Latina woman from Honduras, and a member of TransLatin@ Coalition’s Los Angeles organization. She often joined the team for their daily lunches, provided for free to anyone in need. Friends refer to her as “the nicest girl in the world,” whose “smile would give anyone comfort,” and “an inspiration for many of us.”

Zakaria Fry, United States

Zakaria Fry, 28, went missing from her home in Albuquerque, N.M., January 18, along with her housemate, Eugene Carroll Ray, 70. Their bodies were found February 19 in trash bins in a rural part of New Mexico; both had died of blunt force trauma to the head and face, police said. It is not clear exactly when they were killed. Albuquerque police arrested Charles Anthony Spiess, 27, who is also known by the name James Knight, February 27, and the next day he was charged with the murder of both Fry and Ray, along with a charge of tampering with evidence. Police said he may have lived with the victims for a time. “It's a massive case and there's a lot of connections there. But the main thing is we’re asking the public if they ever saw these three together,” Albuquerque Police Department public information officer Simon Drobik told the Albuquerque Journal. Friends of Fry's described her lovingly. “You were such a fun and positive person despite all the challenges you faced in life,” Tara Yvonne wrote on Facebook. “You were a brave, strong and inspirational woman. Your spirit lives on and you are missed by many. May you rest in peace.”

Celine Walker, United States

Celine Walker, 36, was found shot to death in a hotel room in Jacksonville, Fla., February 4. A friend, Naomi Michaels, wrote on Facebook that Walker “lived a low key life where she did whatever needed to be done in order for her to survive” and “was not a pageant girl” or a clubgoer. The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office misgendered and deadnamed her when reporting her death, with officials saying they do not identify people as transgender. Activists have called for a change in the policy, which may have delayed the investigation of the crime. No one has been arrested for her murder yet, and police have revealed no details of their investigation. Some friends suspect her murder was an anti-trans hate crime.

“Celine was not a pageant girl. She didn’t even enjoy going to gay clubs or events. She lived a low key life where she did whatever needed to be done in order for her to survive.”

Tonya Harvey, United States

Tonya Harvey, 35, was fatally shot on a dead-end street in Buffalo, N.Y., February 6. Social media posts by friends described Harvey, who sometimes went by the nickname “Kita,” as “sweet and loving” and “the black Cameron Diaz.” Police and the Erie County District Attorney's office are continuing to investigate her murder, including the possibility that it was a hate crime. Activists pointed out the widespread violence against trans people. “There is a very real epidemic of violence targeting the transgender community, particularly those who live at the intersection of transphobia, racism, and misogyny,” Damian Mordecai, executive director of the Pride Center of Western New York, told The Buffalo News.

Phylicia Mitchell, United States

Phylicia Mitchell, 45, died February 23 after being shot in the chest outside her home in Cleveland. She and partner Shane Mitchell had been together for about 30 years, ever since Phylicia fled her less-than-accepting family in Pittsburgh. They were not legally married, but they had an unofficial ceremony last May in which she took his last name. Phylicia earned a high school equivalency diploma and worked as a hairstylist, and Shane did odd jobs. Shane said their relationship endured and even became stronger through hard times, including periods of homelessness. “I miss her tremendously,” he told Cleveland's Plain Dealer. “That’s my soul mate. We went together everywhere. We did everything together. We always held hands on the bus. Years ago people didn’t respect that, but they do now.” In April, Cleveland police issued a warrant for the arrest of Gary Lamar Sanders, 36, in connection with Mitchell's death. He was placed on Ohio's Most Wanted List and was finally apprehendedby the U.S. Marshals Service in July in West Virginia, where he had been living for more than a month. He is charged with aggravated murder.

She  will be remembered for her devotion to hair styling and being a loving and caring partner and friend, despite battling drug addiction for most of her life, her longtime partner said.  "Everyone loved her," Mitchell said. "My nieces and nephews opened up to her so much. She was just so funny and kind."

Amia Tyrae Berryman, United States

Amia Tyrae Berryman, 28, was found shot to death at the Shades Motel in Baton Rouge, La., early in the morning of March 26. Police so far have no suspects and are continuing to investigate. Berryman's family declined to speak to local media.

Amia worked in home health care in Baton Rouge. A friend was quoted as saying “She didn’t have much support [from] family...so she made family with her peers in the LGBT community of Baton Rouge.” Another friend said, “Amia Tyrae R.I.P. you were such a sweet person with a big heart...rest well my friend.”

Sasha Wall, United States

Sasha Wall, 29, was found shot to death in her car along a rural road in Chesterfield County, S.C., the morning of April 1. She had been shot several times in the neck and shoulder. Police believe she knew her killer and that her death was likely the result of a domestic dispute. Wall, who lived in a mobile home near Pageland, S.C., was remembered fondly by friends on social media. On Facebook, Donovan Dunlap recalled taking photos of her, saying, “You stayed ready for the camera. I will miss you my beautiful sister. I cannot sleep. I hope they find who did this.”

Carla Patricia Flores-Pavon, United States

Carla Patricia Flores-Pavon was strangled to death in her Dallas apartment May 9. Police found her unconscious about 4 p.m. at her apartment, Dallas TV station KTVT reports. She was pronounced dead at a local hospital. A witness reportedly saw a man fleeing the scene. Dallas police said they do not believe her death was a hate crime. The are some discrepancies in the details about Flores-Pavon. KTVT listed her age as 26, but the Dallas Voice gave it as 18. Also, while police spelled her first name as Carla, her Facebook page spelled it Karla.“You were a good person,” her friend Gia York Herrera wrote on Facebook, also noting that the loss “hurts so much.��  (This is a translation; the original post was in Spanish.) York Herrera added, “God give comfort to your family and friends” and “I send you a hug and a kiss as always.” Police arrested a suspect in Flores-Pavon’s murder, Jimmy Eugene Johnson II, 24, near Huntsville, Texas, May 17. Johnson, who was arrested during a traffic stop, had items from Flores-Pavon’s apartment in his car, so police believe his motive was robbery and not anti-transgender bias. He is charged with murder.

Unknown transgender woman, United States

Officers pulled what they said was the body of a black, transgender woman, approximately 5’3” and 130 pounds, from a river in Dallas on May 15th, 2018. The unidentified victim was wearing a black shirt and black scrub pants.

Nino Fortson, United States

Nino Fortson, a 36-year-old transgender man, was shot to death in Atlanta May 13. Fortson was involved in an argument with two men and two women on the street, The Atlanta Jounral-Constitution reports. A witness said he fired a small gun into the air but then walked away. But a few minutes later, the witness heard more gunshots and then saw him lying on the ground, as one of the other people involved in the dispute limped away. Fortson died shortly afterward at Grady Memorial Hospital. Initial media reports misgendered Fortson.

Many in Atlanta’s queer community learned of the death through a Facebook post on the profile of Kamaro Blahnik, father of the House of Blahnik, who referred to Fortson as “my son” and used both she/her and he/him pronouns to refer to Fortson. Blahnik said that Fortson was known for walking the “Butch Realness” category at balls.

Gigi Pierce, United States

Gigi Pierce, 28, was shot to death in Portland, Ore., the night of May 21. She was from Boise, Idaho, and it wasn't clear how long she had been in Portland. Sophia Grace Adler, 33, has been arrested and charged with Pierce's murder; she has pleaded not guilty. Witnesses and police said there had been an altercation between the two prior to the shooting. A friend remembered Pierce as someone “full of life, always trying to help somebody.”

Her friends recall her as vivacious and enthusiastic. But they also say she struggled with drug abuse and homelessness, living a difficult life that came to a sudden end last week.

"I don't know what demons she was trying to run away from, but she spent her entire life running," says her close friend and former boyfriend Jason Johnson, who knew Eugene-Pierce for more than a decade. "And it was a beautiful run filled with glitter and cocktails." "Gigi was a performer through and through," her friend Dallas Jackson Falls said in a statement last week. "Life was her stage, and those fortunate enough to know her were her audience. Granted, you never knew whether you were getting a drama, comedy or even, in some moments, an action-filled tragedy. That was the thing about her, you just never knew what you were going to get." Eugene-Pierce grew up in Boise, Idaho. Her sister, Nicole Emery, says Eugene-Pierce "treated my sister [Meghann] and I like princesses" and "never stood still."

Antash’a-English, United States

Antash’a English, 38, was shot to death  in Jacksonville, Fla., June 1. On a city street, she was shot in the abdomen by someone firing from a vehicle. She died at a local hospital. “She was an unapologetic, bold, and loyal person,” friend Taliyah Smith told Firs Coast News, a program of stations WTLV and WJXX. English had won several pageants and performed regularly at local nightclub InCahoots. Police are continuing to investigate her murder.

On her Facebook page, English described herself as “a very independent transgendered woman ... who thrive[s] on being the best person I can be.” In May, just weeks before her death, English had shared a photo of herself with the caption, “I will no longer be a victim of discrimination. # Trans rights.”

Diamond Stephens, United States

Diamond Stephens, 39, was shot to death June 18 while driving home. She was shot in the back of the head, causing her van to crash into a house. She was not identified as transgender until a month later because police and local news outlets misgendered and deadnamed her. Police, who have yet to identify a suspect, say there may have been others in the car with her. Her family is devastated. “We are hurting really bad,” Stephens’s cousin Georgia Brown told Mississippi TV station WTOK. “I don’t really know what words to say other than we need God to help us and give us strength to make it through this situation and pray to God that whoever did this is found.”

Catalina Christina James, United States

Catalina Christina James was the third transgender woman murdered in Jacksonville this year, leading some to suspect a serial killer is at work. James, from Bishopville, S.C.,  was shot to death outside a Quality Inn and Suites motel June 24. The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office continued its practice of not using trans victims' preferred names. James's mother described her to First Coast News as the life of the party, with a love of travel and dancing.

Keisha Wells, United States

Keisha Wells, 58, was found dead in the parking lot of an apartment complex June 24 in Cleveland, the second trans woman murdered in the city this year. She had suffered a gunshot wound to the abdomen. Her best friend, Sheila Jones, described her to the Plain Dealer as "a tough cookie" but "the nicest person ever." Wells loved dressing up and frequenting nightclubs, Jones added. "(She) always loved the most expensive high heels and stilettos, the hats and (her) expensive sunglasses.”

Wells' aunt, Regina Spicer, said Wells loved to make everyone around her laugh. She said Wells, who family members referred to as "Pokey" and who was referred to by family as both Keisha and her birth name Maurice, also spoiled the dozen or so nieces and nephews. "Pokey was funny," Spicer said. "Pokey liked laughing and telling funny stories about people. But when (she) loved you and cared about you, (she) loved you."

Sasha Garden, United States

Sasha Garden, 27, was found dead at an Orlando apartment complex July 19.

Garden, an advocate for transgender women and outreach coordinator for the HIV and AIDS organization Miracle of Love, was a sex worker saving money to transition and become a hairstylist. Garden was known for an outgoing spirit. "She was a firecracker – very outspoken," said Montrese Williams, who houses transgender women involved in sex work, providing free condoms, water bottles, and HIV testing. "She didn’t hold her tongue for anyone or anybody. Her womanhood was one of those things she stood up for. She didn’t tolerate any disrespect at all."

“There’s a little bit of Sasha in all of us here today,” mourner Richard Sizemore said, according to the Sentinel. “Her adventure in this realm may be over ... but I have faith that on the next plane, she is somewhere where she’s perfect — and everybody knows it.”

Dejanay Stanton, United States

Dejanay Stanton, 24, was shot to death early in the morning of August 30 on the south side of Chicago. She was found in an alley, with a gunshot wound to her head, and pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. Police initially did not know her name and identified her as "Jane Doe," but friends who saw her photo on social media confirmed her identity as Dejanay Stanton.

“She was so sweet. Every time you saw her she had a smile on her face," said LaSaia Wade, executive director of Brave Space Alliance. “She was just trying to live her best life as a young girl.” Police have yet to make an arrest but are continuing to investigate.

The first thing you noticed about Dejanay Stanton is her hair. In one video, it was styled pin-straight and dark brown, though the sunlight teased it out to a golden sheen. As she twirled around on the grass, it cascaded past her hips and swished freely in the wind, almost like it had a life of its own. Other times, it would be crimped or in soft curls, in a bob with blonde tips or, toward the end of her life, dyed scarlet. “Everyone, no matter what their gender or sexuality, knew her,” Jones, 25, said. “She was loved and never did nothing to nobody. So it was a shock.”

Jones said Stanton never had a bad word to say about anyone and was a family-first person. She lived with her mother, step-dad and four siblings, and every day she told her mom she loved her. Whenever someone was short on money, she always paid for that person’s meal or drinks. “There was a sweet spirit about her,” Jones said. “Always inspirational or encouraging. She was always living life.” Stanton also loved to travel, Jones said. One of her favorite destinations was New York City, where she’d go shopping and restock her much-coveted wardrobe. “She was a girl who loved style,” Wade said. “She was trying to live her best life. It was like a breath of fresh air.”

Vontashia Bell, United States

Vontashia Bell, 18, suffered a fatal gunshot wound August 30 in Shreveport, La. She was found on the street early that morning and pronounced dead at a local hospital. Police and media misgendered her, but a Louisiana activist organization identified her correctly. Bell’s death “is a reminder of the current climate and national discourse on trans issues,” said the release from Louisiana Trans Advocates. “Dehumanizing language and actions lower the barriers to this kind of senseless violence.” The group called on city and state officials to condemn anti-trans discrimination and violence and to work against institutional racism. Police have yet to make an arrest but have asked the public for help in identifying a suspect.

Shantee Tucker, United States

Shantee Tucker, 30, was shot to death September 5 on a Philadelphia street by someone firing from inside a pickup truck. Witnesses had seen her arguing with the person in the truck just before she was shot, and police believe she knew her killer. The police also said they don't think the attack was motivated by her gender identity, but her friends and trans activists don't agree. Friends recalled Tucker, who worked in a beauty supply store, as a sincere and down-to-earth person.

Tucker had just celebrated a birthday.

London Moore, United States

London Moore, 20, was found shot to death September 8 in North Port, Fla. Her car was found the next day at a different location. Police said the crime was an isolated incident and that they believe she knew her killer, who remains at large.

On September 1, Moore posted on her Facebook that she was “going to give this whole love thing one more chance.”

“Wish me luck,” she added.

Ms Columbia, United States

Residents of Queens are reacting with shock and grief at the news that Miss Colombia, a colorfully attired Jackson Heights personality who was a fixture at LGBTQ Pride celebrations and other gatherings, was found dead in the waters off Jacob Riis Park in the early morning hours of October 4. Miss Colombia, aka Osvaldo Gomez, preferred male pronouns and was an attorney in his native Medellín, Colombia, arriving in the US in the 1970s fleeing persecution in his homeland, he stated in 2015 in the video documentary series “No Your City.” He was 64. At an evening vigil on October 5 in Jackson Heights, out gay City Councilmember Daniel Dromm of Jackson Height said Miss Colombia “was an iconic figure in the LGBT community and beyond. She was beloved by all who saw her in the streets, at parades, and in the neighborhood wearing her colorful outfits and a bird on her shoulder. Her cheerfulness and ability to bring a smile to the faces of all who met her will be missed by all New Yorkers. I remember marching with Miss Colombia at the first Queens Pride Parade and at other parades across the city, including the India Day Parade and the Chinese New Year Parade, among others. While life did not always treat Miss Colombia with all the respect she was due, New Yorkers will remember Miss Colombia as a hero to everyone. May Miss Colombia rest in peace.”

Nikki Janelle Enriquez, United States

Nikki Janelle Enriquez, 28, of Laredo, Texas, was found dead near Interstate 35 in south Texas September 15. She has been shot in the head. Juan David Ortiz, 35, an intelligence supervisor for the U.S. Border Patrol, is charged with murdering Enriquez and three other women. Police and prosecutors are calling the murders a serial killing spree in which Ortiz singled out sex workers. They have not ruled out the possibility that there are other victims. Enriquez, so far the only known transgender victim, was described by family members as “very outgoing,” “always smiling,” and “loved by the gay community.”

Ciara Minaj Carter Frazier, United States

Ciara Minaj Carter Frazier, 31, was stabbed to death in Chicago the night of October 3. She was found in the backyard of an abandoned house and pronounced dead at the scenc. Police believe her killer was a man she had been arguing with at the house, but they have yet to apprehend him. Her death came just over a month after the fatal shooting of transgender Chicagoan Deejay Stanton. “It feels like we are being targeted,” LaSaia Wade, executive director of Chicago trans organization Brave Space Alliance, told the Chicago Sun-Times. She knew Frazier through the local ball scene. “I’m frustrated and upset with the lack of cases turning around,” she continued. “There is a lack of [concern for] our safety from police.”

Jessie Sumlar, United States

On July 19, 30-year-old Jessie Sumlar was found stabbed to death in Jacksonville, Florida. According to loved ones, Sumlar regularly performed in drag and identified as queer. A friend writes: “I will miss you so much! I looked forward to seeing your beautiful smile! You were such a kind and thoughtful person. Rest with Jesus my beautiful Jessie! Youve impacted more lives with smiles and good purpose than you know. Ill never forget your warm touches on my shoulder and soft voice and how you ALWAYS spoke to everybody when you entered the room.”

Roxsana Hernandez, United States

Roxsana Hernandez died while in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after fleeing violence and discrimination in Honduras.

Hernandez recently petitioned for asylum after traveling as part of a caravan of migrants fleeing violence in Central America.

Roxana Hernández reportedly died from HIV-related complications following an alleged five-day detention in what’s known by immigrant rights groups as the “ice box” – Ice detention facilities notorious for their freezing temperatures.

Four months before joining the caravan, Hernandez said, she was walking home when MS-13 gang members started screaming "We don't want you in this neighborhood, you fucking faggot" at her before gang-raping her. "Four of them raped me and as a result I got HIV," Hernandez told BuzzFeed News. "Trans people in my neighborhood are killed and chopped into pieces, then dumped inside potato bags." Standing in front of a church in Puebla, Mexico, playing with a silver cross around her neck, Hernandez said that gangs had continued to threaten her and told her she had to leave the area where she lived in Honduras. "I didn't want to come to Mexico — I wanted to stay in Honduras but I couldn't," Hernandez said. "They kill trans people in Honduras. I'm scared of that." Hernandez said she was able to put some money together to head to Guatemala. Her plan was to return to the US, from which she had previously been deported three times. She had some family in the US but said they did not accept her because she was trans. From Guatemala she went to Mexico, where she eventually linked up with the caravan of 1,200 to 1,500 migrants heading north.

Mondragón said Hernandez had been sick when she turned herself in to US border authorities but was in good spirits. "She told me she loved me. She had courage, but was nervous at the thought of entering the US again," Mondragón said. "I'll remember her as a timid, respectful person, always giving the other girls advice and sharing her food."

Vanessa Campos, 36, a trans woman working as a prostitute, was shot dead on August 17 in Paris' bois de Boulogne. She was originally from Peru and had been living in Paris for two years. The police initially referred to her as a "male transvestite".

Local media reports said Ms Campos had been attempting to prevent one of her clients from being mugged before she was fatally shot in the chest.

“Vanesa was a very soft person,” says Rincon. “She was good at listening. After the death of her father back in Peru, Vanesa took on the role of breadwinner and she was still sending money home to her family.”

“When I went back to the forest a few weeks ago for the memorial, I saw how Vanesa and her friends had tried to make it safer to work,” Rincon says. She explains that the area is dark and isolated but the women had set up battery-operated lights, brought water bottles and made a makeshift shelter so they’d have privacy with clients and avoid being arrested under French exhibitionism laws frequently used to target sex workers. “Vanesa’s friends have to keep working there, in the place where she was murdered,” Rincon says. “It's now a communal cemetery, with candles and people going there to pray.”

Four unknown women, India

Following a false rumor that transgender women were kidnapping children for sex trafficking in Hyderabad, four transgender women were attacked by a mob on May 26, 2018. One of the women died. Local police issued an "Appeal to Public" saying that the rumors of criminal involvement by transgender women were "fake" and that the public should not "take law into your hands...so that innocents won't become a victim of those rumors anymore.

Naomi Hersi, United Kingdom

Naomi Hersi, 36, was found stabbed to death at Heathrow Palace in London at 10:30 on Sunday 18 March 2018. Jesse McDonald, 24, from Hounslow, has been charged with murder. A 17-year-old girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was released on bail after being charged with assisting an offender.

Naomi who lived in Mill Hill, north London, was described on social media as a “tennis lover, music junkie, film and tv addict”. She was of Somali origin who had lived in the United States before returning to the UK. One neighbour said: “She was fun to be around and a real character. She was into music and tennis. She was a nice person.” Another neighbour said: “Naomi was a flamboyant, lovely fun person. I think she had problems in her life but was well liked. We are devastated to lose a friend and neighbour.”

In April, a transgender woman was shot dead in Pakistan, making her the 56th trans person to be killed in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region in the last three years. Sheena, who lived in the Shewa area, was allegedly attacked by a group of armed men who beat her up and then shot her dead on Sunday night.

Sheena, Pakistan

In April, a transgender woman was shot dead in Pakistan, making her the 56th trans person to be killed in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region in the last three years. Sheena, who lived in the Shewa area, was allegedly attacked by a group of armed men who beat her up and then shot her dead on Sunday night.

Unknown woman, Pakistan

August: Police in Peshawar, Pakistan, have arrested two suspects in the killing and dismemberment of a transgender woman, with one found carrying a shopping bag containing the victim’s body parts. The victim, identified only as Nazo, was shot to death late Thursday, and her body was then “hacked to pieces,” Radio Free Europe reports, citing an interview that Police Superintendent Cantt Waseem Riaz gave to Pakistani media.

Unknown woman, Pakistan

September: A transgender woman in Pakistan has died after being set afire by four men when she resisted sexual assault. The men had taken the woman to an isolated area in the city of Sahiwal, in the eastern part of the nation last Thursday, The Times of India reports. She fought back when they tried to assault her, and then they set her on fire. She suffered burns on 80 percent of her body and died while being transported to a hospital.

Sheila, a transgender woman and sex worker, was shot in the streets of Tepic on March 14, 2018.

Yoselyn, Mexico

Yoselyn, a transgender woman and sex worker, was found beheaded inside the room of a short stay motel in Álamo, Veracruz on April 5, 2018. She was seen with a client who left before the corpse was found.

Gretchen Alina, Mexico

Gretchen Alina, a transgender woman and drag queen show performer was strangled to death in Monterrey on April 10, 2018. She performed as Lorena Hererra.

Yamileth Quintero, Mexico

Yamileth Quintero, a transgender woman and beauty queen was shot in Culiacan after an encounter with a man she had met online, May 24, 2018.

Nataly Briyth Sánchez, Mexico

Nataly Briyth Sánchez, an undocumented sex worker originally from Honduras, was murdered during a sexual encounter on June 19, 2018 in Tapachula. The client stabbed her to death after discovering that she was transgender.[285]

Katty, Mexico

Katty, a transgender woman and sex worker was shot by an unknown man at a nightclub in Yautepec de Zaragoza on June 27, 2018.[286]\

Chanel, Mexico

Chanel, a 45 year-old transexual sex worker, was shot in the streets of Toluca, July 18, 2018.

Alaska Contreras Ponce, Mexico

Alaska Contreras Ponce, 25, a transgender beauty queen and sex worker, was found dead with her neck sliced by barbed wire after gruesome torture in Martinez de la Torre, July 25, 2018.[288]

Juan C.M., Mexico

Juan C. M., a 24 year old transgender woman and local taxi driver, was found dead in Santa Maria Atzompa on August 12, 2018. Apparently, she had a gunshot wound.

Samuel Santolli, Mexico

Samuel Santolli, a transgender woman and sex worker, was stabbed to death by her lover, a Salvadorian gang member in Tapachula, May 26, 2018.[290]

Diego Armando Sanchez Medina, Mexico

Diego Armando Sanchez Medina, 32, a transgender woman and hairdresser, was shot 28 times by armed men in Guadalajara, August 27, 2018.[291]

Arturo, Mexico

April 27th, 2018: Arturo, a trans woman, was found in the entrance to a field Villa de los Belenes neighborhood of the municipality of Zapopan .

[bunny-wan-kenobi]

Bunny Reviews: Star Wars The Last Jedi *SPOILERS*

**spoilers abound!** You’ve been warned…

So I finally saw The Last Jedi today after DAYS of scrolling through my dash and seeing every possible reaction along the spectrum of outright loathing and disgust to adoration and glee. So basically, I went into the film nervous, skeptical, but hopeful. 

To give some background, like many of you reading this, I’ve been watching Star Wars since I was a toddler laughing as my dad acted out scenes as Jabba and the Emperor. My sister and I staged lightsaber battles when we were 8 and my library bag was filled with books from the now “Legends” era. I love Star Wars, I love its characters, and I’ve enjoyed it through its many iterations, including the prequels (I will defend them to death so don’t start), the animated shows (I still remember how awesome those first shorts were), the comics, the EU books, and The Force Awakens. 

Now that we’ve established that, here is my opinion of The Last Jedi in a nutshell: It’s a beautifully shot film with some poignant character moments draped over an uneven plot and some disheartening characterization choices. 

Okay, that’s out of the way *exhales* 

Now let me say this: I get it. There’s a lot of good in this movie, a lot of genuinely evocative material and solid performances to praise here…but I also understand the complaints because this movie does have A LOT of problems. So here’s my (fair as I can be) take:

The Great (like I teared up and it was so GOOD)

- Mark Hamill’s performance. Whatever script he was given, he still shone and gave this role his all–as always. He was wry, anguished, conflicted, and strong, and you believed every single nuance of emotion he imbued this film’s Luke. The gravitas and dedication he brought to this character intensified my already deep love for Luke Skywalker, and nothing can change that. I felt his despair, his bitterness, but there was also fierce pride I felt when he chose to take a stand and defend what he believed to be right, leading to…

- Luke vs. Kylo. Any fight that starts with Luke Skywalker giving you sass is a win in my book, no matter how it ended. I just enjoyed seeing Luke as I know him best: self-assured, unflappable, and utterly human. The fight was well-shot and I have to say I got chills when Luke declared “And I will not be the last Jedi” and then cutting to the shot of Rey being a Force boss. Everything right with this movie can be encompassed in that one sequence about courage, persistence, and hope, which is at the heart of Star Wars. 

- Carrie Fisher. Every scene with her carried more weight knowing she is no longer with us, and her last conversation with Rey especially made me tear up. We do indeed have all we need. Her Leia remains in this film as beloved, strong, and defiant as always, maybe a bit worn and weary, but still every bit a Princess–our Princess, and this film allowed her to captivate us once more. 

- Luke and Leia’s reunion. I wanted MORE of this, so much more, but this quiet scene of a brother grieving with and loving his sister was beautiful. 

- Yoda shows up. Guys I NERDED OUT here, like to have Frank Oz come back and play ROTJ!Yoda was the perfect surprise I needed. And to have him show such understanding and affection for Luke during one of his lowest points felt fitting and was another lovely character moment. 

- Luke’s final scene. Context aside, the way his passing was framed against the double sunset and the Force Theme wrung tears out of me and I couldn’t help it because it’s LUKE and all of my love for this character just streamed out in this moment. 

The Good (it’s solid, thumbs up)

- The female characters. This film is still very much Rey’s story, and I still appreciate the innocence, compassion, and thoughtfulness Daisy brings to this protagonist. And now she is joined by more of Leia, Admiral Holdo (a role that really surprised me–in a good way), aaaand…

- Rose Tico! I love Kelly Marie Tran, and her Rose is adorkable, caring, and endearingly noble. It’s unfair that we haven’t had another Asian lead in Star Wars until her, but I’m glad she’s here now. I like that she does get a bit more narrative heft with her love for her sister and desire to see the oppression of the First Order end. And she’s an animal lover! And frees exploited creatures! She is actually the best. 

- Finn’s arc. I will disagree with some people by saying that he actually has an arc, but I believe he does. In TFA, we meet Finn as a former child soldier escaping from the First Order and trying to just survive. He’s inspired and encouraged by Rey and is determined to stay with her and protect her, and so he helps out the Resistance towards that goal. But he hasn’t actually joined in the Resistance–he still believes their cause is pretty futile because he KNOWS how vast and awful the First Order is. And so in TLJ, he has to process all of that and decide whether he wants to commit to this effort for the long haul. In being exposed to others like him also exploited by the First Order and working with Rose and Poe, he comes into his own and chooses for himself to be part of this, and that’s a big step for him. It could have been executed better, but there was a discernible change by the end of the film, and we see a Finn who is more settled in his decisions and less afraid. He has never been a coward, and now he’s showing more courage in choosing to stand against those who used and harmed him. 

- The opening sequence. It was frenetic, desperate, and moving, similar to the feelings I got during the opening of the new Star Trek film during Kirk’s birth–the same sadness and sacrifice permeates this scene. 

- The cinematography. I have to give this film props for some gorgeously framed shots and good use of color and atmosphere. There were a lot of moments that stayed with me simply because of how they were captured. 

- The acting. Everyone here is dedicating themselves to these characters, and it shows. This is a truly solid cast, and I appreciate them so much. There is a true sense of camaraderie among these characters, and they have good chemistry together. I also have to give a shout-out to the visible diversity evident in the different worlds visited, the Resistance pilots, and even the casino scene. That matters, so keep it front and center. 

- The PORGS. Y’all knew this was coming but how could I NOT mention my precious smol birbs with vacant, souless eyes and pudgy tummies? I just…love them (and we got to see baby Porgs OHMYGERSH) 

The Problems

- This does not feel like a proper sequel to The Force Awakens. There are so many major plot points and themes developed in TFA that are either tossed out or wrapped up messily in TLJ. Rey’s parentage being a significant struggle for her character and alluded to symbolically through her connection to the Skywalker lightsaber and other motifs? Nope, she’s an abandoned nobody (Kylo’s words, not mine) and we should all just leave that question in the past like it doesn’t matter who would make you think that? Snoke being a major villain player behind the scenes? Nope, he’s axed off in the height of anticlimax before we even find out who he is and where he came from (not all of us should need to read EU books to understand a movie plot y’all). Rey and Finn having an immediate connection with romantic dimensions? Nope, let’s throw in a last-minute love triangle! (everyone LOVES those). You can really feel the tension of the writing and directing problems plaguing this sequel trilogy because it’s so apparent in the lack of continuity. It’s like several interpretations of Star Wars got mashed together and this is what happened…

- Luke Skywalker. Oh Luke, what have they done to you? Look, I am not against seeing Luke struggle with failure, despair, even loss. We’ve seen it, and it can certainly be part of a character’s journey. I could even appreciate it in this movie…if it was detached from the larger context and motivations of this character as established by previous canon. In TLJ, I’m supposed to accept that Luke Skywalker, who could not even bring himself to kill his father because of his compassion, would attempt to kill (even on “impulse”) his unarmed nephew because of his dark potential? I’m supposed to believe that Luke, stuck in a depressed and bitter stupor, would exile himself for more than a DECADE and abandon his beloved sister and friends while KNOWING they were suffering? I’m supposed to accept this bitter, Logan-ized version of Luke for two hours and then watch him die without ever truly forming a connection with Rey or reuniting with his loved ones? He dies alone, and I’m not okay with that. Yes, characters change, but it’s not always necessary to make a character suffer and harden to make them interesting. We’ve already seen Luke fail. We’ve already seen him suffer. I didn’t need nor want to see Luke, defined by his compassion and optimism and openness, portrayed as cold and closed off from the world and calloused from pain. As I said, Mark played him beautifully, but he deserved a much better story than this–and I think the fans did too, leading to…

- The overall treatment of the original trio. So TLJ is on one level about accepting failure and making peace with the past while moving forward. But the thing is, the sequel trilogy has so far piled SO MUCH FAILURE onto our original heroes that the original trilogy begins to leave a bitter taste in hindsight. Every single thing these characters we love fought and struggled for is rendered broken and scattered here, and then they die with their aspirations tragically unrealized. Star Wars is predominately a space fantasy opera with hope at its center, but it takes a fatalistic edge when you look at what they did with Luke, Han, and Leia. Not only do we NEVER get to see these characters all reunited, but their sendoff is tragic and more bitter than sweet. Han is separated from Leia and killed by his son. Luke lives alone for years in self-loathing and bitterness, and after his glorious re-entry into the world and knowing another Jedi is out there, he still dies alone. Leia loses her husband, son, brother, the Republic and only really gets to say goodbye to one of them. This is depressing as hell and not the note you want to end on for some of the most iconic characters in cinema. And if this all was meant to service the theme of “failure is part of life,” it did it in the most unwieldy way possible by reaching the suffering threshold that tested the limits of not only these characters, but also fans. It honestly would have been better if these characters were dead from the outset, legacy intact, and the sequel trilogy focused entirely on the new characters. 

- The fact that the entire Canto Blight subplot could be excised from the movie and little would change. It gave us more time with Rose and Finn, which was good, but it didn’t further the plot, especially given that it takes up a good 20-30 minutes of screen-time. It felt unnecessary, and I wish it had been better woven into the main plot rather than as a side adventure. 

- With that comes also the issue that the Resistance plot…doesn’t really make much sense. So this handful of ships are just cruising along on fuel and the First Order is just…not destroying them all? Like they HAVE smaller ships to destroy them with…why not just be done with it already? Why are all the Resistance’s plans failures because of simply poor logic? That undermines one of the main themes of the movie because this failure doesn’t hold much weight if we know it’s mostly plot contrivance rather than a genuine character struggle! Like…many of the conflicts in this movie feel engineered by plot need rather than organic. 

- The Rey/Kylo dynamic. This was by far one of the most problematic aspects of the movie for me and the part I found most disturbing. In a year that saw the visible emergence of neo-Nazism and the #MeToo movement, the way the scenes of Kylo and Rey were framed felt downright uncomfortable. Kylo is a space Nazi–let’s just own that. He already contributed to genocide of several planets, believes in the First Order’s cause which has oppressed so many vulnerable peoples, and uses manipulation and torture to reach his ends. And Rey knows that. He tortured her in what must have been only a few days ago in this timeline AND murdered his father and her new father-figure. Not only that, but in THIS movie we see Kylo manipulating her further by calling her a nobody, outlining everything wrong about her, and then coercing her to join him. What kind of messed up BS is that? I’m angry about this because this is not okay. Luke tried to save Vader because he believed love could turn his father’s heart. Though it proved that Vader still had the capacity for good, it didn’t absolve Vader of his previous crimes. Rey barely has any real connection with Kylo and then suddenly in this movie wants to redeem him and put the rest to the side. This is not the same situation because it is framed with a romantic tension in this case as if we are also supposed to feel really bad for Kylo and want him to get together with Rey on Team Good. Do I see Kylo’s complexity? Yesss….but he also made choices that brought him to this place, and the movie made Rey look foolish in light of diminishing the weight of Kylo’s previous atrocities. The Light Side is NOT equal to the Dark when the Dark is defined by its selfishness, corruption, and persecution of others–don’t use the Force to make your “both sides” argument. 

- That’s not how the Force works! Okay, so apparently the Force really DOES give one unnatural abilities because there were many scenes in this film that strained my credulity–think mountain of salt, not the grain. Even my mom (not too big of a Star Wars fan) was like “She [Leia] CANNOT survive in space like that–that seemed unbelievable.” That and Luke’s astro-projection were jarring plot conveniences that did not feel consistent with the logic of the Force that had been established so far and also felt kind of cheap in the way they were used. Using the Force does have limits, but here Force abilities were treated like a crazy AU mod. 

- This film rides on plot conveniences rather than characterization. The story works by stringing set pieces together without giving enough heft to the characters’ development. The side characters and even Rey’s arcs are left strangely underdeveloped alongside these big battles and scenes framed as epic (like Finn’s battle with Phasma), leaving some moments oddly hollow. I honestly can’t say much about what Rey’s arc was…failure? Letting go of the past? Becoming a Jedi? Not enough was explained to chart a significant internal change in her, an issue that plagued other characters like Poe as well, who suddenly was framed as this hot-headed aggressive man in contrast to his buoyant but level-headed presence in TFA. Leading to…

- The treatment of the POC characters. There were a lot of moments that felt sadly tone-deaf for our current time. We didn’t need to see Rose tase Finn for laughs and then see both of them get stopped by white police telling them to put their hands up. We didn’t need to see Poe slapped and shot by white superiors and alluded to as this seductive “bad boy,” fitting neatly into certain Latino tropes. We didn’t need the total erasure of Finn’s backstory and past trauma, which was completely unacknowledged in this film, which spent more time lecturing him about being a coward (again–he’s not). As a woman of color, these moments irk me because it’s been so normalized to treat POC this way, and I don’t like seeing a franchise that boasts about its new progressiveness take advantage of that goodwill by sidelining its few main characters of color. 

The Whole Nutshell

There was much of TLJ that I enjoyed, but by the end, I left the theater in much of the same state that I arrived: confused, conflicted, and yet hopeful. I’ll be honest and say that this was not the sequel to TFA I would’ve liked to see, and it will probably go down as the most mixed bag of Star Wars movies for me. The fact that my father, decades-long Star Wars lover, said this movie “was disappointing and didn’t emotionally connect to him” speaks volumes. This is the only Star Wars movie he has EVER described in that way–he didn’t even say that for Phantom Menace! Again, reactions to TLJ span widely, but even that is telling. 

Considering everything that has been going on behind the scenes, I think TLJ represents a failure to realize a cohesive vision for the next chapter of this space saga, and a failure to understand and honor the characters who built it. There’s a solid movie still in there, and it has its flashes of brilliance and beauty, but its overshadowed by the continuity issues and divisive characterization decisions. It’s better than what I expected, but it’s not one I’m looking forward to re-watching anytime soon. 

Bunny’s Grade: 6/10

[rebelsofshield]

I'm in the animated fandom, and I thought TLJ was a pile of garbage. While I loved the creatures, and they are definitely Filoni-esque, I was not satisfied with many of the story decisions in the movie, along with many of the 'jokes' in it. Everyone's going to tell me that "Luke wasn't the same guy he was when he was young" but I can't imagine Luke entertaining the idea of killing his nephew. I didn't like the "Reylo" stuff, or the fact Kylo chooses to become a one dimensional evil tyrant. (tbc)

I’m going to consolidate both into a single post so I can respond to them all at once:

I hated that Hux was reduced to comic relief even though he was a threatening, cunning villain in TFA and in the books. I was so excited about Finn’s arc, and Rose, but that ended up feeling pointless and with no payoff. Rose really came off as boring, they should’ve tied her into the story more than her just being Finn’s sidekick. Oh, and Snoke was pointless. I don’t care if he gets a book or whatever in the future, it still felt like a waste in the film. Also the movie draaaagged. Just a mess.            

First off, I’m sorry to hear that you didn’t enjoy the movie. I don’t think it was perfect, but I think The Last Jedi is a genuinely good film that does a lot really well. I’m going to respond to your individual critiques, but I want to stress that I don’t want you to feel that I am attempting to criticize you or change your mind about the movie. If you didn’t enjoy it, that’s totally fine. I can’t change that about you and you’re unlikely to change my opinion of it. Regardless, here are my thoughts.I’ll address the small stuff first.I never really cared for Snoke. Snoke was always a character that was more interesting in terms of what he was rather than who he was. He’s a big scary evil man that tempted Ben Solo into being Kylo Ren, but he doesn’t really serve much else of a narrative function in both The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi outside of this. I think fan’s latched onto him as a concept and started theorizing about him because JJ crafted him as a deliberately vague character. At the end of the day he is an uber powerful Dark Sider that is not very different from the dozens of ones we have seen in the past both in canon (film, comics, television, novels) or the Legends continuity. Kylo Ren as an extension is a newer form of villain and, in my opinion, significantly more interesting. I really enjoyed how The Last Jedi doubled down on Kylo’s varying aspects of instability both in his volatile emotions but also in his unpredictability. He’s a tortured man who is haunted by a legacy more powerful than he is. That’s a more interesting villain to me than another Force Big Bad who seems to demand some complicated origin story. Snoke’s death also doesn’t prevent him from being discussed in future movies. Kylo could just as easily have a line of “An ancient Dark Side prophet from the outer rim discovered me as a child and crafted me into his apprentice,” or something along those lines and it would cover the majority of the needed background.I also never really got the impression that Hux was really anything but a sniveling “Yes, Man.” His biggest moment in The Force Awakens is when he cries delivering a speech regarding the destruction of a Republic government. I also am pretty caught up on the novels and comics and if I remember correctly, he really isn’t featured much. In general, I enjoy the sort of allegory of the First Order being a well-funded fascist organization that is more or less lead by impetuous man-children (Hux, Kylo Ren)  and opportunists (Phasma) who are more concerned with the legacy of a past dictatorial government than in any actual real world politics. Sounds a little familiar right?

The Finn and Rose stuff I do have to agree with you on. I didn’t dislike Rose as a character, but she really failed to make much of an impression on me after my first viewing. I did like Kelly Marie Tran’s performance though and am open to seeing more of the character.

Finn was a disappointment and I totally get why if he was your favorite character in The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi would have been a let down. Personally, I left The Force Awakens with Finn being one of my favorites in the ensemble in that film due to his complicated narrative arc and John Boyega’s incredible energy and charisma. While this remains here, it doesn’t help matters that the narrative Rian Johnson crafts for Finn and Rose just feels like a distraction from the two other narratives occurring which are more emotional involving and more exciting as a narrative. When both characters are playing off the Resistance I think it works rather well, but their sojourn to Canto Bight is by far the film’s low point. That being said, I really dig the fight scene between Finn and Captain Phasma or most of their narrative on the Supremacy.On a surface level, I do understand the frustration with Luke’s portrayal. However, I honestly think it’s my favorite narrative arc for the movie both for who it means for Luke as a character and for the larger meta-narrative of the sequel trilogy. The Last Jedi continues an appropriate reality set up by The Force Awakens where Luke Skywalker is a legend and something approaching a mythological figure: the last of an ancient order of a magical beings that stood at the forefront or a movement that defeated a galaxy-wide totalitarian government. It works because it makes sense in-universe and in our own world because that’s what Luke Skywalker has become for us as viewers. Just as Darth Vader is a paragon of evil, Luke is that light hearted spirit of adventure that ages into adulthood that made the original trilogy so special. He has ceased to become just a person but a larger than life figure, even one that may have something akin to biblical or mythological importance.

However, Luke has always been defined by a push and pull to the Dark Side, even in his redemption for his father there are moments where he hesitates. When he goes to see Ben Solo in his tent it isn’t to kill him but to confront him, but in that moment he is tempted as many Jedi are. He knows that Ben Solo has the ability in him to cause great pain and suffering and to plunge the galaxy into war and further genocide and instability. One of Luke’s defining personality traits has also always been his eagerness and impatience. It’s what Yoda had the biggest difficulty in training him to do. He even has to beg him not to rush off to attack Vader in The Empire Strikes Back before he is better trained because he fears what a conflict such as this would do to him. He is tempted by the Dark Side because of its relative ease and here killing Ben Solo is the quick act that is easiest to solving what he sees as a potential disaster. It’s important here that Luke checks himself though. He feels the pull to the Dark and pulls it back because he realizes that what he is doing is fundamentally wrong. If Luke had gone through with this and tried to actually murder his nephew, than yes, I would be on your side regarding the a potential assassination of Luke’s character, but having that temptation there is important to both him as a character and of the Saga. You can argue that it is maybe a tad too convenient that Ben would wake up to see this and I would be inclined to agree, but hey that’s how stories work.From here I think is where we get into the really meaty stuff with how Johnson and Mark Hamill have characterized Luke here. Luke realizes in this moment that he has failed dramatically. Not only did he let down his nephew, but his sister, his brother-in-law and best friend, and perhaps most damningly this perception that he is some infallible legendary figure. It’s a crushing moment and one that does realistically stick with him for years. What The Last Jedi does that’s really beautiful with Luke’s character is stress just how important these emotional and symbolic heroes can be to those who need them. This is a narrative of Luke coming to understand that he is greater than his failings, but also that the galaxy at large needs heroes like him and that he can still do a great thing for the world and galaxy at larger. So he saves his sister. He saves Rey. He confronts Kylo and he inspires a galaxy. This is what the shot of the little boy at the end of The Last Jedi is meant to symbolize. He’s a young Force sensitive child who carries on through slavery and oppression because of the inspirational symbol of rebellion and of heroes such as Luke. It’s here that The Last Jedi realligns what we know of Luke with what we have come to expect of him. In times like the one’s we are living in now, heroes matter and coming to respond to that and accept that is really beautiful and one of my favorite parts of the film.

[nitrateglow]

Thoughts on The Last Jedi (spoilers under the “keep reading” line)

I originally wanted to just make a small list of things I liked and did not like about this movie, but I’ve come to realize my feelings are a bit more complicated than I expected. I don’t hate it, nor do I think it is the worst film in the series; however, I am baffled by the arguments that it’s somehow a clever deconstruction of the Hollywood blockbuster formula or finding new ground for SW. If anything, I found it an aimless, poorly paced retread of familiar tropes and ideas with only a few interesting elements to save it from being mediocre.

I’ll start with what I considered all-around good: the acting is excellent across the board. Every actor is game, doing their best and even elevating the material at times. It was a bittersweet experience to see the late Carrie Fisher here and even with her limited screen-time, she brings a great deal of dignity and spunk to the princess/general we know and love. Mark Hamill gives one of his best performances as Luke, communicating worlds of pain and regret with his eyes alone. While he isn’t one of the greatest actors of all time outside of the voice-acting world, he is incredibly effective here. Thankfully, Oscar Isaac gets more to do this time around. And everyone else is on the whole fine, even great at times. I was also impressed with the visuals and editing, which are often breathtaking, especially on the big screen. The casino planet was pretty rad too; I can so see the rich and powerful hanging out in such a place. And—everything else is extremely mixed for me.

This movie reminds me of Attack of the Clones in that it is all over the place tonally. I am all for genre hybrids or movies that can touch on several emotional shades at once, but it is a hard thing to do and this movie isn’t up to that. One minute it’s dead serious and in the grand epic mode, then the next we’re dealing with broad comedy more appropriate for a Marvel film. That juxtaposition felt awkward in the prequels and it feels awkward here.

For all the critics’ talk of this movie breaking new ground, I remained frustrated by the same old rehash of lines and themes from the OT. There’s still the good versus evil, the empire chasing rebels Everything is also rushed beyond belief, which seems like a weird conclusion to draw about a 2 ½ hour movie. Rose is barely developed, despite her potential to be a great character (her romantic feelings for Finn are woefully half-baked; I would say the only thing that even makes you believe she was into him was her slight bout of hero worship in her initial scene with him). Finn doesn’t evolve beyond what he was in TFA. Rey doesn’t change, despite the challenges posed to her ideas about the Force by both Luke and Kylo. Her training with Luke, if you can even call it that, is basically nothing, even less than the crash course Luke got from Yoda in Empire. We’re led to believe Luke has some great development, but that’s yet another thing that has little payoff.

Overall, I am torn on Luke Skywalker’s characterization. On one hand, I believe he would become disillusioned with the Jedi after he lost his nephew to the Dark Side—however, do I believe he would stay on that island after hearing one of his oldest friends was MURDERED by the former student he feels he failed? I’m sorry, I don’t. I know people change as they get older and I know enough cranky old people to see how life can beat you down and make you emotionally exhausted. But the thing about Luke is that he’s stubborn and contrarian; when Yoda and Obi-wan told him to give up on Vader (a Sith who committed WAY worse sins on a much grander scale than Kylo-Ren ever did), he went with his hunch that his father could be redeemed, even though he had only his gut instinct as evidence to go on. I have a hard time believing he wouldn’t try to right the wrong he did to his nephew. Him retreating from the conflict feels as false as the strong-minded and very active Padme losing the will to live at the end of Revenge of the Sith. His death sits even less well with me, since I feel the character had more to do and should have been more active in trying to aid the Resistance and train Rey.

Kylo-Ren is more interesting this time around, more conflicted and morally ambiguous. His temptation to turn to the Light mixed with his savagery is great. His interactions with Rey, which are simultaneously uneasy and charged with sexual tension, are fascinating. And yet, like so much else in this movie, it all goes nowhere. I still have no clue why Kylo is drawn to the Dark Side. With Anakin, it was an outgrowth of growing up as a powerless slave and losing those he loved to war and violence, which makes it clear why the idea of a fascist dictatorship would appeal to him. For Palpatine, it was because he was a greedy psychopath. But Kylo? I have no idea what he feels he’s getting on an emotional level from the Dark Side. What do Snoke and the Dark Side promise him that makes turning evil so tempting? He didn’t hate his parents, however lacking he felt they were. Luke was hard on him, though we learn that’s because the kid was already turning to the Dark Side. So where does it all originate? I have no clue and I think, yeah, it’s not unreasonable for me to understand what motivates one of the major villains of this new trilogy. Because otherwise, it is hard for me to be fully invested in him as a character.

In fact, the whole First Order are just disappointing villains, a second-rate empire. I have no idea how they were able to come to power, not only because it’s never brought up in either this film or TFA, but because these guys are about as competent as the Three Stooges. Hux is a punchline subjected to “yo mamma” jokes and proving himself utterly useless time and again. Phasma is pretty much like Boba Fett: she looks cool and fights well, only to get killed off without ceremony. Snoke is a dumber Voldemort, built up as this clever, evil genius only to be proven even worse at underestimating his employees and enemies than Palpatine! I was never a fan of the character to begin with, finding him bland, but here, he just shows up, cackles evilly, then dies in a rather comical manner. How did he come to power? It has to be more than just his powers; even Palpatine was a politician and he preyed on the Clone Wars’ devastation to convince people to make him Emperor. But Snoke? Nothing.

The pacing was also a huge issue for me. Now, I normally dig slow pacing—but this was excruciating, probably because I felt like the story was going nowhere much of the time. Finn and Rose are wasted, given nothing but a McGuffin side-quest. Every time we cut to them, I just lost so much interest. As for the political “subtext” (if you can call an explicitly socio-political monologue subtext) in the Finn and Rose sub-story, I’ll just say I agree with critic Tim Brayton on the matter:

And this plotline feeds right into the absolutely unforgivably terrible subplot, which is the adventures of Finn (John Boyega) the cowardly ex-storm trooper, and Rose (Kelly Marie Tran), the class-conscious engineer, who go on a fetch quest that is every bit as pointless as the whole matter of the military nonsense, only even worse, because it hinges on terrible comedy, bad CGI, and a spectacularly horrible moment when Johnson stops the film in its tracks to provide a ruthlessly on-the-nose lesson about economic inequality and the military-industrial complex, and I hate this all the more for the film's message in this moment being one I passionately agree with - if something has to be artless and awful, better that it not take down a cause I hold dear as part of the collateral damage. And it really is awful; the worst thing in the movie, despite the best intentions of various film critics to defend it (I am sorry, but "has politics I like" is not all it takes to make a movie good. If all you want is for a film to spit your ideology back at you, and it doesn't matter if this is done with any grace or artistry at all, congratulations: you are a Stalinist. I like politics in movies - I love politics in movies - but not every political filmmaker is Sergei Eisenstein, and they should damn well not be treated like they are).

I have no problem with this political/social angle being there; hell, I love the idea of the Rose character and the theme of inspiring the downtrodden (the idea of legends and the power of storytelling really appealed to me, and I loved that last scene with the kids re-enacting the OT story in the stables), but like so much else they feel underwritten and clumsily implemented. It doesn’t help that this side plot feels oddly disconnected from everything else and is far less interesting than Poe or Rey’s stories. And once again, I feel like it accomplished nothing whatsoever, much like the majority of this story.

Now, people might argue the main theme of this movie is about failure and how we must learn from it, thus making this side-plot appropriate. The thing is, I don’t think anyone besides Poe learned much of anything from their mistakes or failures, let alone Finn and Rose. According to writer/director Rian Johnson, one of the big inspirations for this film was the 1964 classic Three Outlaw Samurai, a movie in which the titular heroes become disillusioned with the samurai code and the corruption of the culture in which they live. Concepts such as honor and loyalty become muddied. TLJ is clearly trying to weave a similar theme, with Kylo, Luke, and Ghost!Yoda calling for a new age in which the Jedi and Sith are no more. The problem? Kylo still embraces much of the Sith ideology as much as he claims he’s let go of it (okay, yeah, Abrams claimed he wasn’t a Sith, but that seems more like an in-name only affair given the dynamic between Kylo and Snoke), and Luke, for all his “the Jedi gotta go” lip service, ends his life by triumphantly claiming, “I will not be the last Jedi,” implying he’s passing the torch to Rey. So much for questioning the past.

At the end of the day, the movie left me frustrated and hollow. I’m not very excited to see where they take the story next, because it’s clear they’re going with same-old, same-old, only with vague motivations and no sense of direction. I don’t get what the big point of this new trilogy is. The OT is at its heart about Luke coming of age as a Jedi Knight and redeeming his father. The PT is a tragedy about the fall of both a man and a democracy. The sequels though? I have no clue. I don’t think they go far enough in their attempts to challenge our ideas about the Force or the Jedi, or good and evil. It’s the same old rebels versus tyrants fight, only this time around the villains are more inept than usual and the good guys, for all their failures, don’t appear to learn much of anything.

[tumblunni]

Ehh I mostly Really do not like what they did with marvel Loki, and then the movie version in particular. I’ve heard that the recent threequel kinda hits the reset button on the entire thing and reestablishes him and like he actually has a decent brotherly relationship and gets redeemed now?? So like woo! I’m happy for you! EVen if i’m still mostly not interested in this character!

BUT ANYWAY SORRY WHAT WAS I ORIGINALLY MAKING THIS POST ABOUT WHUPS

What i mean is im not particularly interested in marvel loki in any way, but i always thought his movie plot was a really interesting and sad idea. That they TOTALLY WASTED! tho really it’d be wasted even if they pulled it off perfectly cos i still could not get over the general dissonance of ‘wtf loki wasnt his brother he was like twice his age and knew his dad before he was born, and also he was never half anything and always knew he was a jotunn’. Srsly its fuckin weird that in mythology he never had any magic excuse for working with the aesir, he just.. decided to. And he was good. he was one of the good guys. he turned bad later and he was always a morally nebulous comedic trickster man but he was never fuckin... im only here cos i was raised as a human guy. and also im somehow younger than my best friend’s son who was kinda my nephew i guess. srsly he just.. was a giant who.. chose to switch sides. its not a hard plot to do. why did they even feel they had to change that... tho also incidentally historically jotunn didnt mean giant, it was more like ‘chaos spirit’ in practise. loki being like a 4 foot tall angry gremlin wasnt particularly unusual in the mythos so its funny how out of place he is in the marvelverse actually. and also they weren’t all ice but had fire and ice as basically races or countries, and loki was never really stated which one he was, or if he was some sort of neutral aligned one or there were other elemental types that just never got a starring role in any particular story. or in some interpretations the vanir are considered to perhaps be a form of elemental god too, though that’s just an attempt to nail down how exactly they were meant to be different from aesir. Though there are some textbooks that describe loki’s name as coming from fire, that was actually brought up in-universe during one of his adventures where he fought an evil clone of himself named logi, which is the one that actually means fire. and also there was utgard-loki who was an entirely unrelated rival of his, apparantly just because they had the same name and he was pissed about it? anyway other-loki tricked loki into fighting logi who was actually a magic clone made from wildfire, who was by definition unbeatable in eating contests cos fire consumes everything. Also thor had to outdrink a magical ocean guy and got his ass kicked by a grandma that was actually death in disguise and somehow ‘nobody can fight death’ quite literally meant she was a master of suplexes. Also a cat. A cat was there. And they slept in a giant glove. It was a fun myth cos for once thor and loki got their asses kicked and it was kind of a moral about pride and stuff. Damn that other-loki and his gary oak role in my loki life..!!

SORRY SORRY IM GOING OFFTOPIC AGAIN sorry, mythology stuff was kinda my special interest as a kid and i got stupidly pissy about ‘innacuracy’ in something that wasn’t even claiming to be an adaptation, more of a ‘vaguely inspired by the thing’ I guess...

anyway WHAT I ORIGINALLY MEANT LOL is that ‘he never knew he was a monster thing and was raised as a human and got super sad when he found out’ is wildly innacurate and OOC to fuckin everything about this proud-as-fuck magic man who walked around being Aggressively Gay And Trans Erryday and calling odin out on his shit even when he knew he was gonna get his ass kicked. srsly loki never being able to stop being Happy About Himself is kinda what started his actual turn to evil in the myths, he got drunk and couldnt stop telling crude sex jokes and making up dumb rumours about how he was better than all the gods and banged all their wives and also their wives’s husbands btw. And odin was like Hey That Was Even More Loki Than Usual and murdered all loki’s children and locked him in the centre of the earth having his eyes constantly melted out with acid and regrowing and also a snake was eating him and also he was pinned with his dead son’s own guts as chains and also lets punish the wife who wasnt even there and tie her up too forever hugging her screaming hubby and trying to hold the acid out of his eyes with a comically small cup and her increasingly scarred skeleton hands. Because he was rude at a party. Then loki turned evil when he finally escaped and Hey I Think He Might Have Had One Or Two Reasons. Mythology is kinda fucked up sometimes, lol!

... ANYWAY WHERE WAS I, SORRY

loki being a lil emo teen dude who’s sad cos o no i am a monster and my dad never loved me = innacurate, and less interesting than many very interesting things of these myths that i wish they did instead

BUT

if it wasnt a weird attempt to change an already good story then it would be a good story yo!

like srsly there were a lot of particular elements to it that were really distinctive visually and i can see why they ended up being way more popular in fanart even if they were practically never shown again. It was a good idea to give the jotunn more of a distinct physical appearance from the Big Ol Protagonist Gods Of Generic Humanness, that like the one thing they made more accurate than the comics! And the funky blue look is really cool cos its like a fantasy equivelant of aliens, and like.. a cool lookin deep blue that isnt quite the cliche you’d expect for ice guys. And it looks nice with glowy red eyes and those weird patterns like theyre born with tattoos or somethin! And it was an interesting change from the comics to NOT have loki be a half jotunn or anything, he was just a regular jotunn orphan who was ambiguously either spared by odin as the last survivor of the war or stolen away from his real family as some sort of messed up trophy. But just like I Guess They’re Celtic Mythology Changelings Too so he magically ended up looking like a human cos he thought he was one? Which fits pretty cool with his particular magic powers being illusion-based, even though everybody else is all ice guys. (which is funnily enough also myth accurate to how NO OTHER JOTUNNS EVER SEEM TO SHAPESHIFT, GEEZ. srsly its not clear whether its some loki unique power or just a big ol plot hole XD)

And then it added a really cool visual aspect to have basically this guy who was under a glamour his entire life and didnt know it, and gets a really kinda existentially horrifying moment of finding out his face isnt his face?? srsly that was so messed up! you’re standing there and you know this is The Poorly Explained McGuffin That Somehow Powers Up Jotunns I Guess and you’re “dad this is your last chance to stop lying” and HE CONTINUES TO LIE ANYWAY but then whoops u touched the thing and I Guess You Really Was Monsters Poor guy...

BUT THEN MY PONT IS LIKE its so wasted!!! none of that really comes up again after that scene!! and we arent supposed to be sympathetic to loki and he’s just the bad guy and all we get is a twist that he did all his bad guy stuff with the unexpected motive of actually NOT betraying his father but just leading the jotunns to take over asgard and then killing them all and somehow faking being a hero so everyone would accept him back, even though nobody except the dad even knew he was a jotunn and indicated they were gonna kick him out and also why did you suddenly want to murder your brother out of a poorly established jealousy you apparantly always had yet also you still love him and just... uhh?? how was any of this plot meant to work out, dude. Srsly I am SO glad to hear they made his characterization more consistant in the sequels but i really hated the first movie so much i’ll probably never watch them lol. and did we really need to wait like half a decade to get some proper sibling dynamic? im so grossed out by how all the fans of the first movie shipped them and pulled that weird ‘not blood related’ excuse...

WHOOPS IM RAMBLING AGAIN

anyway it sucks that: * we never get to see Cool Blue Monster Loki Design ever again in the film * he’s suddenly evil and does a bunch of shit that doesnt even make sense given the motivation of Sad Because Monster Lies * we dont even get any emotional continuation or conclusion on that one big sad reveal scene that looked like it had so much plot potential * ALL THE JOTUNNS ARE JUST EVIL. At the same time that the film tries to make a moral about loki being bad for wanting to kill them all EVEN THOUGH THATS WHAT THOR DID AT THE BEGINNING * srsly the film starts off with thor being a huge jerk and then he doesnt become more sympathetic until way after loki suddenly turned unsympathetic so we have this void in the middle where we cant root for anyone. and it makes you wonder why they even bothered with SUCH a powerful sympathetic scene for this poor dude! * all the jotunns are evil and just agree to murder all of valhalla for no reason and also none of them even talk except Biological Dad Man, who is also super super evil and doesnt love loki cos Hey We Cant Have Any Complexity Here * also they mixed up the names and called him by myth loki’s mom’s name which I suppose could work if this was the same character who transitioned or something, but this was at a point back when marvel tried to cover up all references to genderfluidity being a literal superpower of loki’s. also they didnt show him having a mum at all and all the female characters were kinda poorly handled so yeah. * loki for no fuckin reason stays loyal to odin even though he just learned he was kidnapped as a kid and has been raised to want to kill his own home village like seriously what the fuck * last minute out of nowhere backstabbing of personalityless evil jotunn dad and yknow.. like the million bazillion jotunns who were all (as far as we know) super happy to have their presumed dead prince come back and perfectly nice to him as a family. like seriously could you not have at least established that they were jerks to him in.. some way? WE SAW SO MUCH OF ODIN BEING A TERRIBLE DAD UNTIL NOW. And he was supposed to be sympathetic! and his last scene up until now was being called out on lying to his adopted son for a bazillion years and the question of his goddamn motives was left wide open so we dont KNOW if he was sympathetic or not, geez! if you cant bother to establish why loki should side with odin then at least establish why he should want to murder his entire biological family right after they ACCEPTED HIM INTO THEIR HOME. They were shown being evil in that they wanted to invade asgard, yeh, but also your protagonist’s main goddamn struggle is about wanting to invade jotunheim and like apparrantly everyone’s being doing this for a bazillion years and there’s not even the slightest hint who started the damn war in the first place... * Don’t kill jotunns thats bad, loki is bad for doing that. But also all jotunns are bad and we can kill them anyway cos they invaded first. Yknow.. due to loki tricking them specifically to kill them. And them believing him cos he’s Kinda The King’s Presumed Dead Son And Seriously Why Does Nobody Talk One Way Another About Whether They’re Happy Or Not That He’s Back * did loki and incorrectly named king guy even have a single sentence together that wasn’t ‘mwahaha we shall Plot Device to Evil Invade’? not like five seconds of ‘fuck i missed my son’ or ‘its awkward to bond again with a son that grew up without me’ or even ‘what was it like to be trapped with our mortal enemies that we all assume are evil and kidnapped you’  * LIKE ACTUALLY WHY WAS THAT NEVER BROUGHT UP? the jotuns didnt fuckin know that loki got adopted by a guy and raised as a human! did any of this make sense from their perspective?? were they not even slightly suspicious when he didnt tell them where he’d been for all those years and also spent all his screentime staying in human form and never showing off that cool special effect evr again?? didnt anyone think maybe he was just an asgardian lying to them? and did nobody recognise him as the son of their mortal enemy and think that was a way bigger reason he might be lying, or even a reason not to trust him even if he was indeed a jotunn with an identity complex...? or hell, did he NOT EVEN TELL THEM HIS BIG BACKSTORY MOTIVE??? did they just think Hey Some Random Asgardian Wants To Betray His Own Kind, That’s Not Suspicious In Any Way? i mean at least that would explain about why Dad 2; The Redaddening literally never mentioned being his damn dad or showed any emotion except Generic Evil... * Anyway none of this matters cos we killed all the jotunns in a justified way even though killing the jotunns is why loki is the bad guy, and then we do some sort of magical segregation power to cut off the path between the worlds so like.. the 5% of not dead guys over there can never appear again and we can have some sort of weird sense of moral high ground. Also loki falls off a cliff and dies, but obviously its a fakeout for the sequel, The End

THINGS THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN REALLY COOL TO DO WITH THIS PLOT INSTEAD MAYBE: * like fffuckign show goddamn Loki Real if you bothered to invent a new design for the jotunns looking not like humans in the first place... * hey actually explore the kind of existential horror stuff of finding out your preconceived notions about some other realm’s citizens being Inherantly Evil Monsters are all wrong and also you were one of them all along * also like.. actually commit to the plot of them NOT being Inherantly Evil Monsters. like seriously i guess loki was the only not bad one cos he was raised as an asgardian?? and then he immediately switches sides as soon as his orignal nature is revealed, so i guess not. >_> * like man there’s fifty bazillion ways you could have handled trying to stop a war between two sides where neither is evil, and like seriously the dude who’s part of both works could have been the symbol of peace who did that... * also minor note but why is every other jotunn identical and never speaks except loki and Evildad Plotdevice, thats really fuckin stupid * srsly imagine if they had any form of established culture or civilization or anything instead of just Standing In A Field, Being Vaguely Menacing, With No Houses Even Nearby. like srsly their whole world is just generic jrpg dungeon tundras i guess... * imagine all the plots that could come from Not Villain Plot Loki getting to go visit this other country of the monster folks and get a first hand experience on how the citizens live and how they’re not just all enemy soldiers with no damn personality or motive beyond Bad Hatewrong The Anger Things. imagine the fuckin complex plot sads that could come from if he was actually WELCOMED by his birth family and had a dad that had been mourning him for like thirty fuckin years and just wanted to keep him happy and safe. You could have eighty more angsts if the plot of those angsts is Oh Fuck I Was So Wrong About These People And Stood By And Supported This War That Was Killing Them, And Am I A Bad Person Because I Only Found Sympathy For Them After Discovering A Blood Relation? * and like you could still have bad guys, you could have bad guys on both sides who are perpetuating the war and both have to be stopped so this peace can happen. And you can have not bad guys who were suckered in by war propeganda into working for these bad guys, and you have to try and make them reach the same realization that poor loki had forced upon him. * and like.. what if they did explore that one weird throwaway line about not knowing if odin’s motives were sympathy for the last survivor of a massacre, or a desire to steal a kid as a trophy of that same massacre? like maybe odin actually was a war hungry monster back then and his intentions were cruel in kidnapping this kid, but he realized what a horrible mistake he’d been making with his life when he began to see the kid grow up and have just as much of a complexity of emotion and potential for goodness as any of his own people. And the reason he never told loki his past was not because of Plot Device but because of shame for his original motives in this whole sad affair, and guilt in feeling that he could never undo what happened. like ‘oh god maybe the boy will be happier if he never knows he had all the stuff he lost because of me’. And thats also why he could seem distant like he doesnt love him, its feeling like he doesnt deserve to experience this kid’s love after he’s coe to realize the true atrocity of what he did to him.. * and also i dunno maybe the two dads could get At Least One Scene of Actually Talking Together and resolve some damn things... * could even be sad if odin like.. wants biological-dad to kill him so he can atone for his sins, and loki goes bursting in at the last second like WAIT NO ITS A TRAP HE’S TRYING TO COMMIT SUICIDE DAMMIT and then we find some way to resolve a plot that isnt Action Scenes And All The Bad Guys Die A Lot * also fuck i dont know if u want a ship of monster dude and not monster dude then do the two dads instead of a guy and his adopted brother, thats just gross * also MORE SCREENTIME FOR THE CUTE AND COOL MONSTER LOKI DESIGN. like yo you cant have any form of plot about accepting yourself unless you show his true form like.. more than once. as far as i know it never appears in the sequels even after they give him his super overdue redemption plot :/

^ Dat’s Pretty Neat

srsly it sucks that this is even the only damn screenshot i could get of it like fuckin 0.4 seconds of one damn movie, never shown again

its funny how just by googling it you’ll get like fifty bazillion edited screenshots of what if he stayed that way for the rest of the film and also the sequels and also a bazillion fanarts and fan jotunn ocs and like seriously fuckin EVERYONE likes the cool blue elves design, marvel, use it more often!!

look at this really great fanart by this artist here I can’t say any opinion on the rest of their art tho cos they seem to be one of those people that ship him with his brother.. sigh... >_> still drawing terrible ships elsewhere doesnt make your other art any less talented! thank u for blessing us with Casual Monster Man Knows He Is Cute BECAUSE MARVEL IS TOO COWARD TO DO IT

[the-astral-clocktower]

do all the questions !!

All the questions? Sure, why not? Insomnia is making me its bitch anyway1: How did you choose your name?- originally I was gonna go with Lilith from Borderlands 2 because yes please to her entire aesthetic, but I decided to go with the more "normal person" name Maria. Partly because of the lead singer of In This Moment, Maria Brink (absolutely gorgeous, phenomenal singer, and the Black Widow album helped inspire me to live true to myself), and Lady Maria from Bloodborne (she's got a Tragic Backstory, feel disconnected from family due to traditions/ environment, and has regrets about who sent was). All in all, one is a person I admire to be like and the other feels like I'm looking in a mirror. Both are also women with blonde hair and I think I look damn good as a blonde2: What gives you the most dysphoria? -Facial/ body hair3: Do you have more physical dysphoria or more social dysphoria?- Most of the time, physical dysphoria. Social dysphoria still gets to me because I'm not out to my family and everyone in that group refer to me with childhood nicknames/ my "(grand) son/ nephew." 4: What do you do to perform self-care when you’re feeling dysphoric?- Shower, shave, lie in bed and dissociate while playing mindless games on my phone 5: What was the first time you suspected you were transgender?- this is actually a hard one for me to answer. I was (in a weird/ sad reality) really sheltered as a kid, in the sense that I didn't even know transgender people were a thing until High School. I think part of it started when I began playing runescape in middle school; I chose a female avatar and went with a generic female name whenever someone in game asked for it. For some reason, I really enjoyed being addressed like that but chocked it up to being like 12. Similar thoughts came up again in HS when I was told on several occasions and by several people that I'd make a pretty girl; again, I took it as a compliment and it made me feel really good about myself. Other times were also when I was asked "what would you do if you suddenly woke up as a girl?" my answer was usually "go back to sleep and go try on cute clothes" and also being super jealous of girls at school dances (wanting to wear the gorgeous dresses/ heels/ makeup)6:When did you realize you were transgender?- January of 2014, when I had read on Tumblr about Leelah Alcorn. It was extremely depressing to read her letter and diary entries about her personal life; while reading everything, I kept realizing that I felt almost exactly the same way she did, and by extension that I was also trans7: What is your favorite part of being transgender?- just being able to feel comfortable in my own skin, and also getting to wear all the cute shit I wanted to in HS8: How would you explain your gender identity to others?- the people I have come out to, I simply as them not to use he/him pronouns because I outright don't identify as such. It's pretty simple9: How did you come out? If you didn’t come out, why do you stay in the closet? Or what happened when you were outed?- at first, I only told people when we were able to talk 1 on 1. As I've gotten more comfortable with my identity, I gladly come out to people that I'm comfortable around. I still need to come out at work which I'm avoiding for 2 reasons. The first is that I don't know how open-minded/ accepting my coworkers/ boss are; the second being that I want to get on hormones so that there's no turning back on what I say and how I feel10: What have your experiences with packing or wearing breast forms been?- haven't done anything with breast forms yet, probably gonna be uncomfortable though 11: What are your experiences with binding or tucking?- tucking is a hassle in general. It either falls apart quickly, or I ended up sitting down or walking wrong and hurting myself. 12: Do you pass?- I highly doubt it atm13: What (if any) steps do you want to take to medically transition?- optimally I want the full 9 yards. Hrt, permanent hair removal, SRS, and possibly feminizing facial surgery 14: How long have you been out?- I'd say close to 3 years15: What labels have you used before you’ve settled on your current set?- only he/him and that's due to being oblivious for so long16: Have you ever experienced transphobia?- yes. A lot of internalized transphobia; but there have been a few times where someone will show me something they find funny, and it turns out to be in extremely poor taste17: What do you do when you have to go to the bathroom in public?- I prefer gender neutral bathrooms, so I ended up holding it in for longer than I should18: How does your family feel about your trans identity?- don't know for sure, but probably gonna get disowned to some degree19: Would you ever go stealth, and if you are stealth, why do you choose to be stealth?- I don't plan on being 100% stealth, but I'm also not going to hide anything out of fear. Kinda like Don't Ask Don't Tell, I'll answer truthfully, but I won't go out of my way to explain it all20: What do you wish you could have shared with your younger self about being trans?- "you know those weird thoughts to get from being addressed as a girl and the happy butterflies in your gut? Roll with it, tell someone that you want to see a Dr about it. Be prepared for a ton of BS, it'll be worth it in the end. Stay strong, kid"21: Why do you use the pronouns you use?- mix of "why should I be addressed by something that makes me feel like shit?" and "fuck off with this binary shit"22: Do your neurodivergencies affect your gender?- maybe, I think my gender compounded the divergences that were already there 23: What’s your biggest trans-related fear?- safety. So many trans people are attacked and killed that it makes me hesitant to even bother. But I'm known for being stubborn and having a devil may care attitude 24: What medical, social, or personal steps have you already taken to start your transition?- I've come out to 90% of my friends and I've got a therapist that's willing to write me a letter of recommendation to get me started on HRT. I'm currently looking for a DR in the North Tx area anyone knows one25: What do you wish cis people understood?- gender identity =/ sexual orientation 26: What impact has being trans affected your life?- it's made me rethink how I view issues in the world, but also more cynical 27: What do you do to validate yourself?- look at my ugly mug and the mirror after a hot shower and say "you're a boss and bitch, don't let up now"28: How do you feel about trans representation in media?- we need significantly more accurate portrayals29: Who is your favorite trans celebrity?- off the top of my head, I only know of Laverne Cox, so she's #1 by default 30: Who is the transgender person who has influenced you the most?- Leelah Acorn, the tragedy of her death allowed me to realize why I was so miserable for so long 31: How are you involved with the trans community, IRL or online?- not much, if at all. I'm not super big on communities but that's only due to trust and self image issues 32: How do you see yourself identifying and presenting in 5 years?- hopefully full femme made and keeping NB/ trans femme33: What trans issue are you most passionate about?- my mind is 100% here ATM because it's 4am, so I can't think of anything other than wanting HRT to be more accessible to people instead of having to jump through hoops 34: What advice would you give to other trans people, or what message would you like to share with them?- safety first, pride in oneself second35: How do you feel your gender interacts with your race, disability, class, weight, etc. from the perspective of intersectionality?- I personally don't think it does but that's only because I'm a white person in the 20s36: What, if any, is the difference between your gender identity and your gender expression?- none at all37: Do you feel more masculine, feminine, or neither?- fem/ neither 38: What is your sexual and romantic orientation, and what are your thoughts on it?- only interested in women and NB people. In my head, I like the theory of being with a guy, but feel no sexual attraction to them39: Is your ideal partner also trans, or do you not have a preference?- no preference40: How did/do you manage waiting to transition?- think to myself "next paycheck, I'm gonna find a Dr and get this train moving"41: What is the place (blog, website, forum, IRL space) you get most of your info on being trans or on trans related things?- google, tumblr and reddit42f Do you interact with other trans people IRL?- got a friend that I used to work with at pizza hit who's a trans guy. You know who you are ^.^43: Are you involved in any trans-related activism?- not really, but I do want to get involved

[nyxelestia]

What I Didn't Write in 2016

Plotbunnies that I never ended up writing (and, if I'm going to be honest with myself, probably never will).

Ghost Allison - Death wasn't enough to stop Allison from protecting her friends. (ETA: Never Mind.)

Jordan and Derek, Guilty (BR)OTP Fic (Unrequited Marrish and Sterek) - Jordan and Derek hate themselves for loving Lydia and Stiles. >:)

Post Season 2 Allison/Lydia, with Pregnant Lydia - Jackson impregnated Lydia just before he died in the Season 2 finale. Allison steps in.

West Wing Sterek AU - Stiles as the First Son, and Derek as the President's assistant. They are basically Zoey and Charlie. That's it, that's the plot.

Stiles-Centric AU (Witch!Claudia -> Warlock!Stiles) - A completely plot-less AU/idea about Claudia having been a powerful witch, and Stiles having inherited some magical ability from her.

Sheriff Stilinski Was Once Johnny Cage (Stallison or Gen) - altered to fit the Teen Wolf universe, the events of the Mortal Kombat movie were the manipulations of the nogitsune, before it was re-imprisoned back in California. When it escapes again, it intentionally possessed "Johnny Cage's son".

Avatar Scott AU (Sciles) - Scott is the Avatar, and Stiles is his non-bending best friend who he doesn't go anywhere without and who helps him learn. The Swamp Tree is called the Nemeton, and the academic fox spirits at the library are getting corrupted, which leads to one possessed Stiles.

Werewolf!Sheriff (Sterek) - The Sheriff gets Bitten, comedy and angst ensue. Let's be real, if I wrote this, it would mostly be angst.

Teen Dad Stiles (Pre/Post Sterek) - Babies don't make everything better, and in fact can ruin your lives, especially if you're a teenager.

Chris/Melissa/John Fic - What was originally a farce just to fuck with Rafael blossoms into an actual relationship. Their kids...try not to think about it.

"Seraph Stilinski" (Gen) - Claudia was a demon, the Sheriff is an angel, and all the forces of Heaven and Hell are deadset on making sure the world never finds out they had a kid together - the best way to do that being to kill the kid.

Stiles Number 7 (Clone AU, Derek & Stiles, Derek's POV) - Stiles is one of several clones, who are all based on Dylan O'Brien's other acting roles.

Trans Scott Fic (Scott & Stiles - Possible Sciles?) - Scott was born female, but is a boy. Stiles was his first and fiercest advocate, which is why the nogitsune acts like a transphobe the moment it possesses Stiles.

Details below!

Ghost Allison

ETA: So I ended up not only writing a fic for this one, but making a fanvid as well. Go figure.

Exactly what it sounds like: Allison is a ghost. I play around with various ghost mythologies, but the end result is that the pack realizes that Allison never left and she's been with them all along (which is why no one in the pack ever died after 3B). She sent Scott back after Theo killed him, she nudged Lydia in the right direction when she was in Eichen House, and she intentionally made Scott think of her when her own ancestor, Sebastian, tried to claw him for the memories.

This one, though, I'm actually not writing because I have an idea on how to make it a fanvid, instead. ♥

Jordan and Derek, Guilty (BR)OTP Fic (Unrequited Marrish and Sterek)

Basically, a fic which takes the age differences seriously. It's a lot of Jordan and Derek slowly realizing the other one is also, like themselves, attracted to a teenager (who, even while "legal", they just do not feel comfortable trying to start a relationship with, for many reasons, age merely being the biggest one).

It oscillated between humorous (the boys commiserating over the snarky teen geniuses they're in love with) and dark (the boys sleeping with each other and openly using each other as a "distraction" from the kids they are in love with). It was going to end with these two working behind the scenes to set up Stydia, figuring that Stiles and Lydia were better off with each other than with them, and then Derek and Jordan kinda parting ways and moving on, better able to love their respective teenagers from afar.

Post Season 2 Allison/Lydia, with Pregnant Lydia

Inspired by this gifset. Jackson actually died in the Season 2 finale, and Lydia found out she was pregnant with his baby soon after - and with Jackson dead, she refused to abort it. My twist is that Lydia's pregnancy is progressing against the backdrop of canon (though in an AU where, because Allison stayed to help Lydia through the pregnancy, she helped find Erica and Boyd, meaning they lived, and the Hale pack was more cohesive by the time Deucalion made his move). Lydia is explicitly targeted by the alpha pack because of her pregnancy (since the pack is an actual pack in this AU, practically everyone sees Lydia as family, and thus her baby as their future niece/nephew). The nogitsune tried to make her miscarry - though thankfully, it failed, if only barely. The fact that it was distracted attempting to cause the miscarriage meant Allison survived, though also only barely. Lydia was with Derek when Kate attacked, so the baby was born prematurely. Allison - at this point fully in love with and dedicated to Lydia and the baby - is furious, so when the pack goes to rescue Derek, she kills Kate for hurting Lydia and potentially killing the baby. Luckily, the pack comes back to Beacon Hills to find Lydia and her baby daughter are safe and on the path to recovery. The baby is named Jackie, after her lost father, and everyone loves her and all the bullshit of Season 4 never happened. The first full moon even reveals that the baby is actually going to be a werewolf, which Lydia is - much to everyone else's surprise - delighted by. Lydia is grateful to have the power to protect her friends, but being a banshee is traumatic and she's glad to know that her baby won't have to suffer through it. The epilogue is Satomi introducing herself and her pack to Scott and his pack - not from the fear and death of the deadpool, but to celebrate the new arrival to Scott's pack.

West Wing Sterek AU - First Son Stiles

Derek comes to the White House looking for a mailroom job, needing to support himself and his sisters after the rest of his family is killed in a brutal housefire. Due to a series of shenanigans, he gets hired as President Stilinski's body-man/personal assistant, instead. He eventually ends up dating the First Son, Stiles, and life seems good for him...until the First Family, the staff, and Derek are shot at by Neo-Nazis, because they object to the First Son being in a gay relationship. They stick together through that, though they split up later for personal reasons...yet Derek still loses his mind when Stiles' new boyfriend's stupidity gets Stiles kidnapped. As such, they eventually reunite (with only a little bit of meddling from Stiles' dad.) (This based off the Zoey/Charlie arc in The West Wing. Charlie's mom was a cop killed in the line of duty, and the Neo-Nazis attack because Charlie is black while Zoey is white. After they split, Zoey's new boyfriend gave her some E despite her already saying she didn't want it, and while he had no nefarious intentions beyond that, this made her vulnerable and led to her kidnapping.)

Stiles-Centric AU (Witch!Claudia -> Warlock!Stiles)

AU where Claudia was actually a very, very powerful witch. Stiles and the Sheriff have known about the supernatural world all along (Scott only found out after he was Bitten), and this somehow nebulously led to no real change in the events of Season 2, but after it, Erica and Boyd were saved from the alpha pack, and Allison stuck around town instead of leaving, so come Season 3 - when the story starts - the pack is a more cohesive pack, Allison is rebuilding her Hunting group/"family" with a new code, and Stiles is formally training to become Derek's emissary (and then Scott's, once Derek gives up his spark to save Cora, while Scott becomes the True Alpha). This one, I chose not to write because while I had some individual scenes and such planned out, I had no actual plot in mind.

The closest was some weird rom-com bullshit in which a coven comes into town and accuses the pack of breaking into their stuff/breaking some old wards of theirs. It's about to turn into a fight until Scott and Stiles show up and recognizes "Stiles's mom's book-club friends", and the witches recognize Scott and Stiles. They have trouble believing that the little boy who used to play with Stiles is now a True Alpha, but they do realize Stiles' "breaking" the wards/shields were genuine accidents - those shields were originally set up by Claudia, and the only thing more powerful than them are talismans she gave to Stiles and the Sheriff (made out of the Sheriff's old dog tags). They actually want Stiles to come with them, but they shrug it off when he declines and chooses to stay with his pack. One of the witches who is new to the coven tries to instigate a fight, but they're all like, "we can't fight them, we helped potty train them!" That's quite literally the extent of my planning for this fic. :P

Sheriff Stilinski Was Once Johnny Cage - Mortal Kombat (Stallison or Gen)

AU where "Stilinski" is actually Claudia's family name, which the Sheriff changed his name to in order to escape the fame of his movie days - he was actually born as Johnny Cage. Kitana was 'merely' a thousand years old, and a kitsune (halfway through the story, we find out she's Noshiko's older sister). Liu Kang is like Deaton, a Spark/Emissary/monk/user-of-magic (he grew up learning it, ran away from it, and the events of the movie were him coming back to that heritage). Sonya Blade is a Hunter from a Russian/Russian-descended family that has a testy relationship with the Argents (though she's not the leader yet in the events of the Mortal Kombat movie). The events of the Mortal Kombat movie were altered, so that it turns out the sorcerer Shang Tsung wasn't working for some other-dimensional demon, but the nogitsune (which Kitana accidentally released in the process of looking for her long-lost sister). The "tournament" was an elaborate human sacrifice ritual to superpower the sorcerer (and then/thus the nogitsune). Luckily, this original badass quartet managed to put a stop to the preceedings, and put the nogitsune back in its prison in California. Unfortunately, they were not able to capture Shang Tsung (which is why he later turns up leading a Yakuza ring right under Johnny Cage's nose in Beacon Hills - the actor playing Silver Finger is the guy who played the evil sorcerer in the Mortal Kombat movie). The story starts a few decades after that, though. Stiles is still very much the guy we all know and love, except that he grew up learning martial arts from his dad, his godfather "Uncle" Liu, and his godmothers "Aunt" Sonya and "Aunt" Kitana. (It's mostly just a hobby for him, something he does with his dad on the weekends.) The Sheriff and Stiles are both attempting to figure out or solve the supernatural drama, but from different directions. Both are attempting to protect each other from it, so neither of them know that the other one is involved until Matt's attack on the station, when they both know the kanima when they see it. Stiles learns the truth about his Uncle and Aunts, with Liu and Sonya even coming to town (though they don't really make it until after the Season 2 finale). Liu helps Stiles get started on learning how to be an Emissary, while Sonya (now the leader of her Hunting family) helps Allison clean up the Argent family and its mess. Kitana doesn't show up until the events of Season 3B,  which is when it comes out that she and Noshiko are estranged sisters. Since Stiles genuinely sees Kitana as his aunt, this leads to him and Kira viewing each other as something akin to long-lost cousins. The joy of newfound family is short-lived, since the nogitsune has escaped yet again - and it wants revenge, which is why out of all the people it could've taken, it chose to possess Johnny Cage's son. >:) This fic was going to have a lot fun parallels between two quartets - the "original" quartet of Johnny Cage, Sonya Blade, Liu Kang, and Princess Kitana, against the "new" quartet of Stiles, Allison, Lydia, and Scott. However, it wasn't a fic I could really write about a single event or short period of time. Conversely, I didn't want to start yet another long, drawn-out, and heavily involved AU, when I'm already writing three of them.

Avatar Scott AU (Sciles)

From this post. Avatar AU, where Scott is the Avatar, and Stiles is his non-bending best friend and companion. Scott had many earthbending masters, though his most valuable lessons came from Stiles' father, the metal-bending Chief of Police. The Fire Nation hasn't attacked yet, but aspirations for world conquest are simmering in its royal family, the Argents.

Allison - a Yu Yan archer - has been exiled, ends up befriending the Avatar, and finds him the best fire-bending teacher possible: Kira, a lightning-bender. Monk Deaton teaches him airbending, as well as how to take care of the air-bison and all the other creatures of the Avatar world. (He is also an avid Pai Sho player, and taught Stiles how to play - and gave him a White Lotus tile when the boys finally left the temple after Scott mastered air-bending.) The Hales are the chiefs of the Water Tribe, who have always lived by the moon, and Derek is the one tasked to teach Scott water-bending.

Scott's first "mission" as the Avatar is to find out who is trying to attack the most spiritual tree in the world, the Nemeton. Before he tries, though, he has to go to The Library to learn about it. Unfortunately, something has been corrupting the fox spirits there, which no one realizes until one takes Stiles away from Scott. This was a premise, but there no actual plot to this, hence why I didn't write it.

Werewolf!Sheriff (Sterek)

In an AU where Erica, Boyd, and Allison all lived, and Isaac, Jackson, and Cora never left. Stiles has been instrumental in training all of them (especially once he sees what a disaster at it Derek was.) Werewolf shenanigans leads to the Sheriff getting Bitten by some rogue alpha, so now he has to learn how to be a werewolf. There are some good sides - he's loving how useful his new, enhanced senses are in his investigative work, and Stiles lets him eat whatever he wants. Unfortunately, he doesn't react well to the news that he can never drink again, and his first full-moon is trauatizing for everyone.

It was a lot of themes about how growing up can change your relationships with your parents and other parental figures around you. A big part of the story is that the Sheriff largely sees Scott as something akin to another son, but Scott has to be the Sheriff's alpha in order to protect him and everyone around them - and Stiles often unwittingly follows suit, as the Emissary. So their relationships kinda get flipped on their heads. And remember all the psychological nastiness of Scott's first full moon, and the physical violence of several other characters' first full moons? Yeah, imagine the Sheriff doing that, directed at his actual son and his adoptive son. >:)

(Despite not having enough of a plot to bother writing this, I did somehow develop plans for a sequel where this happens all over again because Melissa gets Bitten, too. However, in her case, she just asked Scott to Bite her, so she made an active choice to become a werewolf, well-aware of all the strife that would come with it.)

Teen Dad Stiles (Pre/Post Sterek)

Stiles and Malia didn't exactly use protection when they screwed in the basement of Eichen House in 3B, and Malia gets pregnant. In this AU, though, she never wanted to stay in the human world, so after she gives birth to the baby (toward the end of summer, just before senior year), she regains her coyote shift and returns to the wild - for good. Stiles is left with a baby, and the whole pack is supportive, and Derek in particular chips in a lot, since the baby is family (via Malia), and he's feeling a little bit responsible (for a variety of reasons). However, this isn't a feel-good fic where babies make everything better. Even with all the support in the world, being a parent is tough, and being a teen parent especially so. Stiles struggles with being a teenage father, and affects his social life, his ability to handle supernatural problems, and his grades - and with them, his career aspirations. He resents being a teen father, and slowly starts to resent the baby. Babies not only don't make everything better, but Stiles starts to feel like the baby ruined his life. Derek - seeing what could happen to the baby if she were raised by someone who resented or even hated her - demands full custody, and even threatens to sue for it. Stiles is resisting mostly because of what a massive blow to his pride and his sense of self this is, though also because he feels like Derek taking the baby out of obligation wouldn't be much better. (His resentment of being a teen parent is so deep, he doesn't realize that Derek - in a much better place in life to raise a child - actually looks forward to having a kid to take care of.) Derek is about to force the issue, but everyone remembers that while Stiles is the father, he is still a teenager, which is why the final say/official custody actually fell to the Sheriff - who saw the same thing Derek did, and thus agreed that the baby should go to Derek instead of staying with Stiles. The fic ends with the epilogue, which takes on the baby's first birthday, and when Stiles is getting ready to head off to college. There are no promises that Derek will wait for Stiles, nor that Stiles will ever "come back" or reclaim the baby. But Derek will always be there for Stiles, and while Stiles may not raise the baby, he will still be a big part of her life and try to do right by her in his limited capacity.

You can probably see why I didn't write this. Look, I'm sorry, but no matter how cute they are, sometimes babies not only don't make things better, they really do ruin people's lives.

Chris/Melissa/John Fic

This was a pretty cutsey fic idea, set in some nebulous post-S4 world, but where Allison lived and Isaac never left - and where Rafael McCall did, indeed, come back to Beacon Hills like he said he would in Season 4. However, he seems to be trying to 'reclaim' his place in the McCall family, refusing to see that Melissa has no interest in reuniting with him or that Scott neither wants nor needs him. (I consider this to be very OOC for him, though, which is a small part of why I didn't bother writing this.) The story actually begins after some minor supernatural scuffle results in Chris and the Sheriff crashing at Melissa's place for a night while the kids are out and about. The next morning, Rafael happens to barge into the house unannounced, sees Melissa making breakfast for Chris and the Sheriff (with Chris and the Sheriff in boxers and tee-shirts, since Melissa didn't have anything that could fit them), and jumps to the wrong conclusion. Rather than disabuse him of the notion, though, the three pretend they did, indeed, have some kind of threesome, leading to Rafael to storm off in disgust. They actually continue this facade for a while, much to the kids' amusement - it seems like the perfect way to throw people off their tracks, while making Rafael (and a few other interested parties) not think twice about some strange behavior. However, the fake relationship eventually grows into a real one, the three of them banding together to take care of and protect the kids in the face of all the supernatural crazy that is Beacon Hills. Their kids do find out that this "fake" threesome has become a real one. They struggle with it at first, for different reasons, but eventually come to be glad for their parents. (Mid-way through college, the two men knock up Melissa. The kids' reaction mostly boils down to teasing the parents for getting into an accidental pregnancy after having spent years lecturing the teenagers on practicing safe sex specifically to prevent something like this from happening. But when their baby sister is born, they spoil her to bits.)

"Seraph Stilinski" (Gen)

A kind of very dark Good Omens crossover/AU, with a lot of Saga undertones to it. Heaven and Hell have long been at war with each other, a conflict as old as humanity itself. One of the most powerful Arch Angels and another very powerful demon left their respective sides after falling in love with each other. They became human, which hid them from their former comrades, and spent multiple lifetimes together like this. Eventually, they even had a child together, taking great pains to make it look like that child was adopted, should someone unfortunately discover them. However, they realized too late that the process of having a child would doom the mother - which led to Claudia's human form deteriorating. She probably could've been cured just by undoing the human body and returning to her former self, but to do that would've been to reveal her location to the depths of hell, and possibly the truth about her child, so she died rather than put her husband and Stiles at risk. Supposedly, the Stilinski family happens to have been in Beacon Hills for a long time, and have passed down some uncanny resemblances, which is one no one questions it on the rare occasions they could swear they see John (or, I guess he's Noah, now?) in some decades-old photograph or century-old painting. However, some things aren't adding up, and by the end of Season 2, Stiles knows his father isn't human, and is a lot older than he looks. But the Sheriff is keeping remarkably tight-lipped about it all, which doesn't make sense until Stiles is possessed by a demonic fox-spirit...who the Sheriff says is, in the closest approximation to human terms, Claudia's brother - and thus, Stiles' uncle. And to think Derek thought he had it bad!

I also didn't write it because it was sprawling into some multi-million year angelic/demonic conspiracy. The reason why Claudia and John tried to hide that Stiles was their kid was because a angel-demon child was taboo, due to myths that such a child would be tremendously powerful. They were very confused when their baby was human, though relieved to see this would make him easier to hide. However, various "higher ups" in both Heaven and Hell still want this kid dead, and eventually, everyone figures out why. It's not that Stiles is particularly powerful, but that all humans are - they are not bound to any concept, object, element, or natural entity like angels, demons, spirits, and most supernatural creatures are. Things that devastate other creatures - iron, salt, silver, etc. - humans cloak themselves in, and powerful roots or herbs like mountain ash have zero effect on them. Despite humans being so physically weak and slow and their senses being so dulled, they've taken over the planet, and they can even leave it, a concept that up until recent was deemed impossible by everyone on and around Earth. In the purely physical sense, humans are "weak", but from the supernatural standpoint, humans are tremendously powerful (and/or rather, invincible). So why to the "higher ups" want him dead, if all humans are powerful? Well, Stiles is proof that all humans - all of humanity - are descendants of angels and demons. That thing about the conflict between heaven and hell being as old as humanity? Well, Heaven and Hell - angels and demons - predate humanity. Stiles - a confirmed child of an angel and a demon - is living proof that they weren't always at war, and that in fact there was so much fraternizing/uniting between these two sides, they created enough "demon/angel children" to create a whole new species: humans. Stiles is living proof that angels and demons can coexist peacefully, so of course everyone wants him dead before word of this gets out. This got very convoluted and extremely Sheriff-centric (with surprisingly little of Stiles or the pack in it), so I never bothered writing it. The Sheriff is popular, but not that popular/not on his own, so I doubted this would get read much, and if it's just for myself, why bother writing it when I can enjoy a story in my head?

Stiles Number 7 (Clone AU, Derek & Stiles, though surprisingly not necessarily Derek/Stiles)

A Clone AU, loosely based off of the tween novel series Amy Number Seven (which is like the middle school version of Orphan Black, but focused on the character coping with the clone background after finding out about it, rather than the clone mystery itself). Mostly Derek's POV. Basically, Seasons 1 and 2 are largely unchanged, except there are multiple implications that Stiles was kidnapped as a child and only recently returned home, but Derek doesn't know or figure out the details. Meanwhile, throughout these events, Stiles and Scott make a lot of references to Stiles getting help from mysterious "cousins" and "brothers".

After Matt's attack on the police station, Stiles calls in those mysterious cousins. Derek meets this AU's version of Minho, Brenda, Theresa, and Newt when Stiles goes missing after the Championship Game in the S2 finale. They are Stiles' "cousins", and despite the fact Stiles has been kidnapped, everyone agrees Stiles was kidnapped by "someone local", so the problem isn't big enough to warrant calling in Stiles' "brothers" just yet. Derek still had no clue what the fuck is going on, but not only are Stiles' cousins clearly child soldiers, Stiles himself actually manages to disable Gerard in that basement, and he's the one that frees Erica and Boyd. The warehouse battle still happens,  and Stiles' mysterious cousins vanish soon after, and Derek is still very confused - even more so because Stiles is disturbingly competent and militant when it comes to finding and rescuing Erica and Boyd. (And also because Stiles disappears to "go help his cousins/brothers" once or twice throughout the summer.) However, the nogitsune is a BIG problem, which is when Derek gets to meet Stiles' "brothers" - clones.

These clones are all basically OC's inspired by/based on Dylan O'Brien's other roles. In this universe, the kids were made by some evil organization trying to produce soldiers, and these kids were the experiments/subjects. They survived, escaped, etc. - and now this story is about their lives afterwards. (The "cousins" were various experiments in how to amplify certain human strengths, while the "brothers" were just an experiment to successfully clone human beings. The next step was basically to "combine" these two experiments - clone people with those amplified traits - but these kids escaped and destroyed the organization doing this before that could happen.)

This was going to be fun once Stiles' "brothers" roll into town, because neither the pack nor the "cousins" are willing to kill Stiles - but his brothers are, and in fact are setting out to do that, leading to the clones working against the pack and the "cousins". The clones are all completely normal humans, while the pack are obviously supernatural, and the "cousins" have some superpowered traits (amplifications of hints of what we saw in the books), not to mention they've got the law and Hunters on their side (via the Sheriff and Allison). Despite this, the two sides are pretty evenly matched. Later, Stiles thinks that his "brothers" should very easily have been able to kick everyone else's asses, so he thinks they just didn't try hard enough because they didn't want him to die, and doesn't believe they were actually outmatched; some of his "brothers" are...not disagreeing. :P

Trans Scott Fic (Scott & Stiles - Possible Sciles?)

A fic where Scott had been born genetically female, but is transitioning to male - and has been for quite a while by the time he is Bitten. There is a lot of dysmorphia because the werewolf Bite interferes with the transition process, but Stiles learns magic specifically to counteract these problems. There was also a big plot arc where this interfered with Scott's ability to completely turn into a wolf (but once he does, the wolf form is male). To be honest, there wasn't much of a plot, just a lot of smaller ideas or scenes I had in mind. The ones I originally came up with - and at the center of the story - are something which I expect would be extremely controversial at best.

Stiles has always been Scott's Number One advocate, and his first defender in the face of transphobia. Where Scott tries to assume the best of people and educate everyone, Stiles thinks Scott shouldn't waste his time and that transphobes should just go die in a fire. Stiles was the first person Scott ever told, and he was the one who helped Scott talk to his parents to get the transition process started, when Scott was too scared to.

So when a thousand year old chaos spirit intent on causing as much emotional pain as possible possesses Stiles, what does it do? Deadnames Scott, constantly calling him by his birth name and intentionally referring to him with female pronouns as much as possible. This is directly parallel to Scott's transphobic father coming back into town and doing the same thing, insisting that Scott is his daughter, deadnaming him and misgendering him. What Rafael is doing to Scott out of transphobia, the nogitsune is doing because it knows how much it hurts Scott (and Stiles). What transphobes insist is "natural" or "right", the nogitsune is using as a weapon in its psychological warfare - because it's just that bad, that painful, and that devastating.

[teachanarchy]

When you get into stand-up comedy at the club, bar, coffee shop, bookstore, comic book store, pizza joint, back yard, or alley, you’ll see every type of comedian ever. Good, bad, or indifferent, no matter what race, gender, creed, or body type, there are so many comedian styles and archetypes that seem like they were made in some kind of “laugh factory” to be shilled at a “comedy store” or something.

There’s enough to fill some kind of taxonomy or something, so here it is: a comprehensive, scientific list of the different types of performers you’ll meet in stand-up, whether you’ve been doing it for years or just started at your first open mic.

     1. The “Edgy” Comic, a.k.a. Bill Hacks    

This comic “tells it like it is,” is “unfiltered,” and “anything else you can put in quotation marks.” This comedian takes a controversial take or stance on anything and everything we as a society already settled on 20 years ago. He, and we say “he” intentionally, wants to be the next Lenny Bruce, Bill Hicks and Bill Burr, but thinks the best way to do that is to steal the acts of Lenny Bruce, Bill Hicks and Bill Burr but somehow add more “fucks” in them. He’s your uncle’s favorite fart joke and your grandfather’s favorite racist joke merged with a leather motorcycle jacket with a Pepe the Frog decal. Also, this white person doesn’t get why they can’t say the n-word. The answer is “because you really, really want to.”

     2. The Oversharer    

Comedy should not have limits, however it should have discernment. The Oversharer doesn’t just talk about topics that are risqué or inappropriate, but also stuff that’s mundane as hell. The Oversharer is your Orthodox Christian aunt both before and after three white wine spritzers. They’ll tell their bit about how they used the wrong coupon but still got a deal at Hobby Lobby, then follow it up about how butt plugs make them feel full like Thanksgiving. Their sets end up being the equivalent of “I got so high on meth last night that I wrote this grocery list vision board.”

     3. Time Traveler From the ‘90s    

This comedian is some odd hybrid of Millennial and cast member of In Living Color. You’ll get whiplash from the throwback references and stereotypical accents that your favorite comedians stopped doing in 1999, your parents’ favorite comedians stopped doing in 2003, and your grandparents’ favorite comedians continue to do in their shows in Branson. These comedians are reworking and refining their best five minutes for a Def Comedy Jam tour that’s never coming back.

     4. “Comedy is My Therapy”    

This comic uses the stand-up stage as the psychiatrist’s couch. You can find them at mics after a particularly messy divorce. What happens is just sad venting and choking tears that the comic tries to pass as material. If you ever see this person, give them $20 towards a real therapy session so the audience won’t have to psychoanalyze themselves after hearing their act.

     5. 30-Minute One Man Show in a 5-Minute Set    

This person doesn’t know that a one-man show and stand-up are two different things, creating a hybrid crossing of the Oversharer and the “Comedy is My Therapy.” This wannabe-comic, should-be-storyteller tries to fit what would be a well-thought out 30-minute story with characters, act-outs and bad voice impressions into a 5 minute set. The result is a grown person describing a personal event like your 7-year-old nephew Oliver excitedly describing an episode of the Voltron reboot on Netflix. Oliver, we know the show is really good, but we prefer the 22-minute version instead of your sugar-addled speed run of the show’s plot.

     6. The Actor    

There are two versions of The Actor in the comedy world. The most common Actor is the fresh newbie that has no passion or desire to actually hone their craft or make jokes, but to make some buzz in the dire hope that some agent or casting director gets them into a project. This person is the comedy equivalent of the person texting at the chest press machine at the gym when others are waiting to use it. Sometimes we will meet these people in LA and they’ll say “My acting coach told me to do this!” Who is this acting coach who keeps foisting actors on us? Can we kill them?

The second version of the Actor is the person who “made it” by being seventh on the call-sheet of a moderately successful yet currently cancelled sitcom and believes playing “Caiden” for four seasons is enough for a decades-long stand-up career. They mean well, try hard for the first year, then either book another TV show or go home to teach improv at their local state college.

It’s better to have the second version of The Actor than the first on your show, because at least you can say that you shared the stage with a recurring character from My Name is Earl. That said, just wait until you get bumped at a club for some chef on Chopped. They name their sets like they name their dishes! Gross!

     7. The Life Experiencer    

These are the people that chose to do stand-up as a bucket list or a New Year resolution thing. Much like how most people give up on diets and going to the gym in February, these folks generally are one-and-done or one-month-and-gone. Usually they’re here because someone called them “The funniest person in the office.” And that’s probably true. Because most offices aren’t funny. Unless it’s an office at a fake boob factory, but let’s be honest, that’s hacky at best.

This person doesn’t have whatever disease comics have that makes us NEED to go up there. Thus they will quit. Because why subject yourself to this life unless you have to? This hack is healthier than us all. They’ll find their peace at a cooking class or taking karate or something that’s actually useful in life. God, we envy them.

     8. Witty & Shitty a.k.a. The Humorist    

This is someone who thinks they can say the same things in a stand-up set that they said on The Moth Story Hour and still get laughs. Jokes and witticisms are not the same, and this person is deciding to deliver the world’s worst stand-up set instead of the world’s funniest TED Talk. You’ll recognize them as the ones that bring an orchestral stand off of which to read their set and orders an oolong tea at the bar.

     9. Awkward Crowdworker a.k.a. The Jimmy Pardon’t (a.k.a. The Todd Barely)    

Many comedians are able to just work a crowd in lieu to using prepared material, a la Jimmy Pardo, however these comedians should not. These comics are the socially awkward comics that go to the crowd because nothing they have prepared has landed. They’re the ones who “interview” crowd members like a shy seventh grader that’s going on a first date with the unwilling audience member while the whole crowd feels sad for everyone involved.

     10. The Bit Barrage    

This comedian is bred all over Los Angeles, where a set is never over 10 minutes long unless you’re the booker. This comedian’s goal is to sling out as many one-liners and bits as she or he can within their 5-10 minute limit like it’s some form of joke sprint. The result is like when you have sex with a first-timer: it’s fast, exhausting, usually funny, yet ultimately unsatisfying.

     11. The Irony Bomber    

Unlike Witty & Shitty, the Irony Bomber is the comic that thinks that to be witty, you must be shitty. This comedian sucks “on purpose” in sad attempts at anti-comedy. If they are under the age of 35, they won’t stop talking about Tim & Eric. If they are over the age of 40, they’re taking Steve Martin’s Master Class. If they are in their mid-50s, they’re struggling to find someone to geek out over Andy Kaufman. Yet unlike their inspirations, they don’t get the unjoke. If you’re not good at something, you might as well have smug contempt for it, we guess.

They are easy to spot out. They’re the ones who rip into first timers that bombed because they think they’re stealing their act.

     12. The Applause Comedian a.k.a. Tinkerbell    

“Doesn’t Donald Trump suck?” “I think trans people should be able go to the restroom without fear!” “We need stricter gun control laws!” These are the premises of the Applause Comedian, and while they are worth clapping for, you won’t find a joke in sight. These comics look for agreement rather than laughter.

The Applause Comedian is a walking Facebook echo chamber that unintentionally makes you clap your hands like an audience monkey in a Peter Pan play trying to save Tinkerbell’s life. However, instead of clapping your hands because you believe in magic, you’re clapping your hands because you believe in their comedy. It’s apt comparison because both magic and their comedy don’t exist. At least their heart is in the right place.

     13. Version 2.0 a.k.a. Every Comedian Ever    

You’ve been this comic. We all have been. We take our inspirations’ cadence, viewpoint and persona and try to make our own 2.0 versions of their jokes. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but it is still a fucking imitation. Within the first few years, most comedians “find their voice,” “own their experience,” or “quit” in order to better themselves. Sadly, there are the others that continue the copycat path and wonder why they aren’t moving forward in their careers because they don’t see that they are being Kandy Kronch, the Latvian ripoff of Candy Crush, even though that game peaked in 2012.

     14. MTV2 Comic    

This guy was on MTV2 once and 5 teens actually watched it. Therefore he doesn’t have to write jokes or be nice to women. See: Guy who humps the stool.

     15. Guy Who Humps The Stool    

I can hear you going “What? This is so specific! How can this possibly be a stand-up archetype?” You’d be surprised. This guy really wants that stool (the one that’s supposed to be there for comics to place their cell and/or water bottle) and he REALLY wants us all to see how he fucks. He is not good at fucking. He will tie said stool humping into a thinly veiled bit, and he thinks we can’t tell how much he wanted to make us watch him hump that stool. We can. He really, really needed us to watch him hump that stool. It’s not so much a joke as it is forcing their kink on the audience. He can’t get hard unless someone watches. He won’t get hard unless you watch. We can beat this phenomenon together if we don’t watch.

     16. Person Who Just Had A Kid For The Jokes    

This poor kid! Do they know what their parent is saying? Are their high school classmates going to uncover some YouTube video ten years later chock full of jokes about their shitty diapers and barf burps? And did this comic remember to hire a babysitter during their set? We’re not sure. But we’re pretty sure this comic had a kid just so they could talk about having a kid. Good job, buddy! Comics shouldn’t breed.

     17. The “I Don’t Deserve My Significant Other With A Normal Job Who Puts Up With Me” Comic    

This comic is correct, and thank you to all the normals who for some reason want to date us. You are wrong. Don’t get engaged to us until we sign that development deal with IFC. Don’t marry us until we’re two seasons into our show with Comedy Central. Never sign a pre-nup. Take everything in the eventual divorce. We say this now because we love you.

[rainbowangel110]

Oh this is beautiful

🏳️‍⚧️ Hell Together 🏳️‍⚧️