As I’ve Told My Partner Many Times, A Hag Is My Ultimate Transition Goal. Can’t Beat A Creepy, Saggy,

For years, the TV in my parents’ house had a greyscale Fox News logo burned into the bottom-left corner of the screen due to how often that channel was on.

I used to think it was funny back before I started questioning myself. Now I’m just glad I don’t have to look at it anymore.

This isn’t really meant to be a comic trashing my dad.

I do truly appreciate his commitment to education.  I do truly have a soft spot for his style of humor, which certainly influenced the development of my own.  I appreciate how he had this VHS-C camera that he was always bringing out and would let me use, sparking my love for movies and starting me on a path that led to me going to film school.

All those good things about him were real.

But so was the colossal amount of damage he caused.

If you happen to be a parent and are reading this right now, I’m going to ask that you consider this suggestion from a childless thirty-six year old:

You need to consider how you communicate with your child, and how communication doesn’t just mean the words that you use.

You’re telling your kids something with the foods you eat, the activities you engage in, etc…

…you communicate to your children with the media you consume.

The rhetoric against the trans community wasn’t as much in the spotlight when I was growing up, but every time my dad turned on the radio, he’d have my sister and I listen to the likes of Rush Limbaugh, or Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, etc…  One of the topics that’d come up frequently was queer people. 

Issues about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, gay marriage, gay boy scouts…

The “gays” were an issue.  More than an issue really, they were a problem.  If someone was queer, these radio hosts were quick to villainize; “this teacher is going to turn their students gay,” “this troop leader is going to abuse his scouts,” you don’t want your kid to end up like that, do you?”

My dad would listen to these folks non-stop and nod along in agreement, all the while his extremely queer and aware of it child was sitting right behind him, listening to how she was some kind of monster.

So I hid. 

There could be no sharing about aspects of myself.  My parents would be listening to 770am or Fox News all the time.  If I share that I was queer, I’d be finished.  How couldn’t that be the case?  Every day they chose to listen to people that hate me, so they hate people like me. 

So I can’t let them know me.  I won’t let them know me.

Even though they never said that they hated queer people with their own words, they told me that they hated queer people every day with the media they chose, and in turn forced me to consume.

So again, if there are any parents reading this right now, consider my words.  Hate is a choice you make, and hate can be communicated with more than just words.

If for no other reason, you never know if that kid in the back seat is listening, listening to how you hate them.

Yes, YES, YEEEESSSSSS!!! 💀

why fortiche should animate the locked tomb like arcane:

incredibly good grasp on "characters not acting like themselves" (e.g. viktor's changed mannerisms after merging with the hexcore, down to microexpressions)

the fight scenes

wide range of female characters that nevertheless all appeal to the sapphics (just. imagine seeing gideon built like sevika)

animating the moments where harrow's memory is "corrupted" along the lines of jinx's hallucinations

the pool scene. like imagine the water effects that the silco scene uses and pair it with the intimacy demonstrated with the caitvi interactions—

A frail, bloodstained nun dragging a greatsword behind her attuned to the Aspect of Kiriona stumbles towards a boon symbolized by a pair of golden sunglasses…

“Griddle?!?? No, it can’t be… in the name of Drearburh and its tombs I beseech you!”

*da-dong/bla-blang*

“Sup Night Boss! Quite the blade you got there… you’ve been sharpening it right? Right?? Harrow??? Look, we’ll fight about it once your spindly ass is out of this nightmare but at least take one of these before you pass out okay…”

One Flesh, One End. Bitch (Legendary): Your bone shards now regenerate over time instead of your call.

First Flower of Your House: Critical melee hits against unarmored enemies now apply ~slow~ for 3s.

Ortus, Ortus, Ortus (duo): Boons that modify ~litany~ damage now apply to your greatsword attacks as well. Health regeneration is disabled.

after all this is over i want supergiant to make a video game of the locked tomb. they can call it Hades 3

I needed these books so badly the time I first read them too. I believe they’re genuinely helping me grow into a better person and teaching me how to pick myself up and learn from those who love me

The Locked Tomb series

the other day I was thinking how much these books have changed who I am. If not for the locked tomb I won't have met one of close friends and I don't know where I'd be if not for her kindness. I wouldn't have never really be able to express who I like with out fear. This book has gave me so much confidence and comfort. When life gets really hard I was think what would Nona do. When my depression gets really bad I know the distraction of reading the locked tomb always helps!!! These books are the best thing to happen to me!!!

Coming out to my conservative family next year on my 1-year HRT anniversary. I’m poised to lose a lot on that day. Here’s to hoping my “Glinda” side of gets on the broom too…

While I’m still a bit bummed that they didn’t go with a more book-aligned POC Fiyero for the Wicked movie, I’ve been thinking (heheh) about how his being white highlights the really interesting foil relationship between him and Glinda (and, in many ways, the audience yourself).

At its core, Wicked is a cautionary tale about propaganda, (literal) scapegoating, and what it means to uphold the status quo. The audience is watching through Glinda’s eyes—it is through her, arguably the most beautifully tragic character of the show, that we learn how lonely life becomes when you forfeit your values in favor of systemic power and likability (“No One Mourns the Wicked” is, in many ways, about HER).

Now, this is where Fiyero’s whiteness can get interesting—if you consider him and Glinda to share roughly equal footing at the beginning in terms of privilege/how much they have to lose (applying our real-world lens of race and power here, where whiteness is the apex), his storyline essentially represents what could have happened if Glinda had made the brave (and arguably wise and loving, if you’re picking up what I’m putting down 👀) choice to go with Elphaba and fight the good fight (this is also why I feel like a queer reading of G&E’s relationship is almost implicit to the story, but I digress).

As the POC/marginalized allegory, Elphaba has much less of a real choice in her curtain-pulled-back turning point. But Fiyero and Glinda—both representing privilege—get to choose. So in Act II, we see the consequences of both the choice to stay (Glinda) and to go (Fiyero). In Fiyero’s case, his ultimate rejection of his own power, privilege, and even beauty leads to immense physical loss—including his own body—but that is then compared to the loss of love, community, and identity that we see Glinda left with by the end. And this brings us to the question that the audience is left grappling with: in an unjust system where loss is inevitable (a.k.a. our own world, as the Wizard himself represents), which of these things are YOU more willing to give up?

It’s important that Glinda is an empathetic character because, in reality, most people are going to be Glindas (obvi this is nuanced among us Elphabas of marginalized identities, but I’d still argue that there’s some level of Glinda in us all)—and it’s important to be rattled by the end of the show when you realize that she is the one who has the sad ending. But it’s also so important that Fiyero is empathetic (which I’m SO glad this movie leaned into)—because he’s ultimately who Glinda—and thus we, as the audience—should have been.

And especially given the state of US politics right now…this is just all more relevant than ever.

Bleak, but accurate.

Reread wicked again. I love the musical with all my heart but the book has something really special to it. It goes against the whole chosen-one trope and instead details the lives of children, students, adults moving through the world while facism rises around them. And like regardless of what their views are- they’re pretty powerless to stop it. They can only experience it.

I understand that this may make the plot seem slow or oddly paced but it’s not really about the hero’s journey, it’s about ordinary people’s lives. Elphaba is NOT the hero, or even the anti-hero. We might agree with her morals over other characters but she actually accomplishes very little. Almost every moral crusade she undertakes fails. She dies as just one of the many symbols of the resistance. The most productive rebellion we hear about comes from the Vinkus allyships and that happens in the background.

Wicked isn’t a book about good saving the day, or about compassion unifying the country.

At the end of the book, Elphaba and Glinda are divided by morals, Fiyero died for a cause he was never that much a part of, and Boq and the others have retreated into the background to protect their own. The wizard leaves yes, but he leaves behind a society in political turmoil. Munchkinland is facing re-annexation, the Vinkus is under attack, the Animals and the Quadlings have been shoved almost out of existence. The wizard can’t even be called the true Villain because his leaving does miraculously turn society back to “good”.

Wicked is about radicalism and facism can very quickly become the norm for a society through a series of tiny and almost ignorable steps for those not directly affected. It’s about waking up and realizing that all of a sudden you can’t remember the last time you saw an Animal walking free through the city.

Come Alecto the Ninth the absence of gender norms is likely going to come back to bite everyone in the form of a resurrection beast manifesting itself as a terrifying physical embodiment of dysphoria covered in blue hair like fuzzy dice. Mark my words!

i love the way the way the locked tomb does gender. like gideon is butch, undeniably, but also can you really be gender non conforming when there’s no real image of gender to conform to in the first place? palamedes and pyrrah aren’t NOT trans in nona; their souls are trapped in different bodies, and those bodies ARE the wrong gender but also that’s literally the least of their problems. ianthe is pretty firmly in the box we would label “femme” and she’s simultaneously the princess of ida and a tower prince. but that’s also the least of her problems she’s literally puppetting a dead body around. nona experiences dysphoria about her body (harrow’s body and the barbie body) but that’s because she’s literally the soul of a planet trapped in a meat prison. any shaped meat prison would be bad.

like i wouldn’t call the locked tomb a “post gender” world, but they seem to all basically have the attitude of “i don’t have time for gender right now we’re trapped at the murder mystery dinner party from hell and someone stole god’s sperm we have bigger problems”

+ … comb, checkbook, chapstick, spiro, pen, etc.

(Here, pockets refers to a black denim hip bag held together by D-rings and carabiners)

I’ve been noodling on a trans hexblood alchemist artificer D&D OC for almost a year now. So when this post crossed my feed it felt like my mind was being read. It’s great to know I’m not the only one who’s thought of how to get transed into a coven lol….

Ok, so idea time. In D&D it's firmly established that Hags are girls. They primarily reproduce asexually and through rituals, making near clones of themselves, keeping that up. If the DO reproduce sexually it can end up as anything, but only girls ascend to haghood. The others stay as hagspawn, basically changelings. Now interestingly, Crawford has stated that in his home games he's run hags as male or female or neither regardless of apparent sex, because they're fey. If you combine those two facts, you get fascinating options. 1- It's entirely based on your body. This could give you a hagspawn trying to magically HRT in a way that arcane law accepts. 2- Being practically clones means that the original simply passed her preferred pronouns as well. If they're cis it's mere happenstance of the first one in the chain being that way. It's only by adding some mortals into the mix that things can get complicated. This could result in a family ignoring thier child's fear, thinking them safe from the local hags...only to find out they were secretly trans, and now have a hag with a personal vendetta against them. 3- The Sinister Sisterhood isn't just what the network of hags calls itself, it's basically an ancient fey contract that created them, and only accepts women. This could result in a hagspawn waking up one day as a hag, happy for the power but realizing they apparently have some stuff to unpack. It could also result in a hag reverting to a hagspawn, because they got too introspective and decided gender was bullshit. Conclusion- write an adventure about a trans hagspawn trying to take down the sinister sisterhood. Not because of the general cruelty and dedication to evil, but because if she can't get in she'll bring it to ruin. Ending with a new hag cackling off into the world, ready to spread evil and misfortune as her true self.

Present!

superficial but nonzero overlap with Wicked and The Locked Tomb where are my fellow unwell individuals in the venn diagram at