#geekdom for good

[histrionic-dragon]

Someone was absolutely awful and robbed a food bank, stealing the food and ruining an expensive freezer while doing it.

I invoke the powers of the internet and fandom. Let's help them recover from this. The people we squee over would very much approve! Steve Rogers in particular, I bet, but y'know: Kel would dig in about protecting her people, the Jedi would be all about justice and service (or should be), wizards are all about slowing entropy and chaos, every iteration of The Doctor would be pissed and want to fix this, Crowley would make sure the thief steps on a Lego while Aziraphale miracled up some fresh, organic replacement food..... Let's do them proud.

https://arlingtonfoodbank.networkforgood.com/projects/84635-donate-today

[wilwheaton]

I want to underscore that these two descriptors — “weird” and “nerd” — are not synonymous. As a card-carrying nerd myself, I would have to say that Vance’s love of stereotypically geeky interests has nothing to do with his creepy tendencies. If anything, he has shown himself to be the worst kind of nerd, one who reinforces the toxic masculinity that was at one point inseparable from overarching geekdom. It is to Vance’s discredit that he will likely be unable to see how deeply his rejection of all things “woke” isolates him from a community that has come to embrace the “good weird” that doesn’t fit into his homogenized vision of America. [...] Along with this purposeful blindness comes the lack of recognition from Vance and those like him that the nerds have won. Geek culture has become a pop culture Goliath. The most popular franchises in the world have realized that it matters that everyone gets to see themselves in the stories being told. For Vance and others, it’s not their interests in comic books or sci-fi that sets them apart now. What’s weird is their refusal to share that win with anyone who doesn’t fit the outdated stereotype of who and what a nerd is.

JD Vance has shown himself to be the worst kind of nerd, one who reinforces the toxic masculinity that was at one point inseparable from overarching geekdom.

The most popular franchises in the world have realized that it matters that everyone gets to see themselves in the stories being told. For Vance and others, it’s not their interests in comic books or sci-fi that sets them apart now. What’s weird is their refusal to share that win with anyone who doesn’t fit the outdated stereotype of who and what a nerd is.

[handyowlet]

AO3 finally came back so I could finish this. Read it- there’s penguins, geekdom, and a whole lot of smut. It’s awesome. Thanks @caedmonfaith !

[khaicrafts]

TW: Mentions of War & Genocide The variant who never went to camp...

At first, there was nothing really concerning in the trajectory of Khairi Dior's life if he had never been summoned. Another child of Hephaestus would take his place and he could finish his masters and PHD.

He would have gone on to use his knowledge to contribute in the world of engineering. His own tech company in which he'd make a promise to overthrow the billionaire tech conglomerates. His advancement in robotics and AI bring about change for how people lived...

Because his mind would lend to that of warfare.

What he desires to do for GOOD, for his fellow godlings; that skews into deeply morally gray territory in this AU. Military contracts meant money. Money was comfort. He wouldn't have the comfort of knowing true comradery and appreciate the value of life like he'd learn at camp.

His designs would be used in conflicts. Millions of lives snuffed out due to his hand in building those weapons of mass destruction. World War III once again trending on Twitter; yes, because he'd buy the platform from that South African douche and restore it to what it once was. It's the small bit of good he could do.

Instead of a late night research project on magical mishaps...

Instead of quests taking him through time...

Instead of a simple autumn evening shared with true companions as they lick their wounds and appreciating another day to their memories with one another...

It's that tall luxury penthouse in a Dubai high rise; the decor devoid of even his passion for geekdom has he'd succumb to being cold and ultimately alone. For a man that has everything but also had nothing.

His lips take a slow pull of cognac as his phone chimes with yet another report of a strike claiming the lives of families from the DiorAurum missiles dropped on their apartment complex.

Didn't matter to him. This Khai never had a family to care for or care for him.

[transgender-er]

Compiling the list if actually good queer youtubers that hbomberguy gave because I haven't actually seen anyone do that yet (+ a couple of my own suggestions)

Matt Baume (I love his culture cruise so much)

Khadija Mbowe (I love them too)

Lady Emily

Shaspeare

RickiHirsch

Verilybitchie

Alexander Avila (formerly Are They Gay)

My suggestions:

Jessie Gender - she makes a lot of trans content, especially video essays (+ she has a movie in production!)

Philosophy Tube - another trans video essayist! She's a delight to listen to

Council of Geeks - Mainly focuses on Doctor Who and other geekdom stuff, but has video essays about queer issues thrown in there sometimes

Jessica Kellgren-Fozard - she makes videos with discussions about being queer and disabled

CopsHateMoe - makes videos discussing queer issues and also queer history that one time

Kaz Rowe - informative discussions about queer history (also a joy to listen to)

Tee Noir - Talks about queer issues and black issues (very informative)

[dragon-ball-meta]

DBtubers like Geekdom101 definitely need to hear the "the Super anime and manga are different continuities, and the anime isn't adapting the manga" because he's been peddling out that misinformation for years and won't hear otherwise.

I'm acquainted with Geekdom. We've chatted quite a few times. He's a friend of a good friend of mine. I don't recall him saying the anime was adapting the manga though? If he thinks that, it's news to me, anyways.

[gothwizardmagic]

Right yes it's you who's red dwarf posting constantly, two things,

1: I asked my mother what red dwarf actually is and she immediately got very giggly and told me I should watch it because it's hilarious, it was unsettling, my mother doesn't tend to Giggle

2: where do I find it I'm intrigued

ahahahaha your mum has good taste! to answer your question its a sci-fi sitcom originally from the 80s/90s (with a few modern revival series made in the 10s) about the last human being left alive trapped in a spaceship with a hologram of his dead roommate, a creature evolved from his pet cat, a senile ship's computer, and later on a cleaning droid. its one of THE comedies of all time imo, like its hard to overstate its cultural role in 80s/90s geekdom & its influence on british comedy - theres literally a tv channel in the uk named after the main character. i WILL warn you that it does come with the baggage of the era it's made in - it can be extremely sexist and homophobic at times, so its important to go in with the awareness that the culture it was made in was COMPLETELY different, and the revival series theyve made over the last few years have been vastly improved in that area. (i will say that the episode krytie tv in series 8 is worth skipping outright imo, it S U C K S in every regard and was shitty even for its time)

if you're keen to watch it, its available a few places. ive been watching on tvnz+, which is free if youre in aotearoa (or have a vpn that can get you here) and ive heard people from other countries have been watching it on britbox. there are also full episode uploads on dailymotion from what it looks like, though i cant speak to their quality.

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

To back off and walk away from RWBY is an admission of defeat for the RWDE. They've sunk so much time into their fantastical version of what they want RWBY to be that they've come too far to stop. To walk away in what would be a far better choice for their mental well-being is saying that all those years of "critiquing" and "protesting" were for nothing. That they are nothing.

So RWBY can't just be something they don't like. It has to be a massive failure. It has to be trash. It has to be this blight on geekdom everywhere. The more they get people buying their shit thanks to the appeal of unbridled nerdy bitching, the more it reinforces their fragile self-worth.

I won't make it about myself but... I've been there... and I'm glad every day that I got out when I could before it could get any worse.

Yup. It's a hard thing in fandom because everyone wants to believe that if they're just loud enough and smart enough the creators will just realize they're right and change the show to suit them. RWBY has taken criticism in the past, so they assume it can be done, but the at the end of the day those changes happened because CRWBY chose to make them. Not because you forced them to do it somehow with your enormous brain and connection to The One True Good RWBY. Criticism is good, but only when it's done in good faith. If you want to act like a toddler demanding rewards for screaming, you should be treated as one.

If you want that RWBY, you can CREATE that RWBY. No one is stopping you. Don't waste your energy trying to make others do it for you. And don't waste your time on media that doesn't give you joy when you could be seeking out stories that give you what you've been searching for. And good GOD, stop trying to make other people miserable for enjoying something you don’t.

[yo-yo-yoshiko]

B. What inspired you to create them? For Cirrus and Racer - and any of your favorites :))

OMG I just got yeeted back to highschool and remembered Tanuma Kaname from Natsume Yuujinchou was probably the biggest inspiration for Racer early days!  I created Racer practically in-tandem with Airstrike(who I had a much clearer idea of) because I wanted to build a little trio-friendship between Anna, Tanner, and Liam.  

At the risk of revealing all of my geekdom… I don’t think I’ve ever talked about what a MASSIVE inspiration Natsuyuu is in practically all my work and you could probably draw a lot of lines from Wake to themes from that series.

Rest of the response under the cut cause it got long!

For those not familiar, Tanuma Kaname is the closest friend of Natsume, a kid who can see and is constantly harassed by yokai.  While Tanuma cannot see spirits himself, he has a small amount of spiritual power and does his best to help his friends when they are in trouble.  

When I was developing Racer, I had no idea how he should fit in with the trio, but I liked the idea of a less-talented, but extremely caring, calm presence in the friend group who would probably have lived a normal life were it not for his involvement with his friends.  In turn, like Tanuma, Racer’s greatest strength is being there for his friends.  

^above is a little sneak peek from an upcoming page!

Of course, Racer spiraled into his own from there, but upon examination, I think the early fingerprints are still extremely present!

(What was Airstrike based off, you may wonder?  She’s based of the fact that stick-armed girls with super-strength are VERY good(that’s it, this is not a joke!))

Cirrus, on the other hand, was less inspired by other things.  She is perhaps the latest character I’d developed for Wake in 2019 ish, and was a very calculated addition to the story…  Previously, Liam was the only one who had actually known Clash in his heyday and I saw an opportunity to introduce someone who would have been his peer, or even his senior.  Every last character in  the comic has some sort of attachment to Clash or another, and my motivation for creating Cirrus was for another fun way to mess around with that!  I mean… there’s a reason why the title has Clash’s name in it wahaha!  Beyond that though, I wanted to draw a character that was very unlike what my usual defaults are so  She became a cool buff-armed pretty lady type and I love her!  She causes me the most stress though, cause she is the hardest to write…

[slasherstu]

ayo Scream 6 spoilers or whatever but DAMN I can’t get over how proud Randy wld be of his niece and nephew THEYRE SUCH GOOD KIDS and FULLY carrying on the Meeks legacy of horror geekdom AND IM SO HAPPY THEY KEEP SURVIVING?????? MAJOR W FOR THE MEEKS FAMILY LINE WE DO IN FACT LOVE TO SEE IT!!

[sweetescapeartist]

If you had to pin point the moment where you fell out with MasakoX's content, where would it be? I am personally torn between 'Majin Gohan' in what if Nappa turned good and claiming Vegeta didn't take an L from Granolah

Gosh... Probably the same for me. All of those and the fact that he made Krillin take a backseat in his "what if Krillin was a Saiyan?" story. Like... Why make a story about him being a Saiyan so he can be "relevant" when you push him to the background anyways?

And Krillin is still treated a a background character in part 19 of the story...

This is off topic, But I almost stopped watching Geekdom for a while because of some of his content just being factually incorrect. One in particular I remember was a video about Vegeta. I think it was the Ultra Ego Explained video. Anyway, Geekdom said that Nappa was Vegeta's best buddy. Like what? No he wasn't. He was a tool to Vegeta. He didnt care for Nappa. And then there were other Vegeta centric videos where Geekdom talked about Vegeta and was very innacurate & misinterpreted. It sounded like he was doing it for Vegeta fans so they can satch his content. Tell them what they want to hear instead of what the facts were. So I stopped watching for a while when he kept talking about Vegeta. Didn't feel genuine anymore.

[nukaclipse]

Been awhile since I've messed with Tumblr but I need to get away from the routine social medias.

But anyways, my name is Nukaclipse. I'm just a slightly evil overlord of a planet of annoying and disgusting creatures I use as minions(not to be confused with The Minions) to help me in my desire to be one of the smaller stars of YouTube.

On my channel I talk about my favorite subject which is video games but also other topics of the "geekdom". I am an opinionated guy, but I always try to find the middle ground on whatever subject I'm talking about, as any good ruler should do, to keep not just myself but others from being close minded which unfortunately happens all to often with you dumb huma....err I meant wonderful people!

So if that peeks your interest, go ahead and give the channel a look see. If it doesn't thats fine. I'm not everyone's cup of tea and that's ok, you'll all be mine to rule eventually!

But for now, till next time...

[ofluminance-a]

thy geekdom was a good con! today i have the day off for the holiday so i'll be here! <3 gonna work on some things and so a starter call! have a great day everybody!!

[davidmariottecomics]

The Staying Power of the Simpsons

Hey there! 

This week we're talking about longevity. If you've been reading my "What I enjoyed this week" bit for a while, you know two things I've recently been consuming a lot of are the Blank Check Podcast and The Simpsons. Blank Check, if you're unfamiliar though I do think I've mentioned it before, is a podcast about directors' filmographies--how they go from their early hits to being given free reign to make the sort of movies they want to make, and loosely, how the movies "clear or bounce". I've been more-or-less bouncing back and forth between the newest episodes and listening to the back catalog from the beginning, so I've most recently finished Spielberg (the Dreamworks years) and Henry Selick. 

One of the show's hosts, Griffin Newman (Arthur from The Tick), has a theory that I've been very drawn to. He talks about actors and how interesting to trace how many decades they've been relevant relative to their creative evolution.

Just because I think he's a good example (and he's been on The Simpsons), let's use Woody Harrelson as an example. In the 80s, he is essentially Woody from Cheers. He's in a few other things, but he's a TV actor from one huge show, to the point that even into the 90s, his most frequent role is Woody from Cheers. In the 90s, at the end of/post-Cheers, he becomes a movie star. Like an actual movie star, where the poster is his face, it's his name above the title, etc. The 2000s, he becomes a character actor. He's still working at a good clip, he sometimes ends up on the poster, but now he's back as part of ensembles. And in the 2010s, like so many former-movie-star-character-actors, he becomes a franchise guy: He's a big part of the Hunger Games. He's in a Marvel movie. He's in a Star Wars movie. He's so good in True Detective, that even though he's only in one season, he gets the show renewed. And while we're still fairly new into the 2020s, his 5th (technically 6th) decade as a working actor, the prestige-y films he did between his franchise movies have earned him elder statesman status and he's on posters again. For a guy whose most famous role is also a guy named Woody, he's really stuck around and managed to find a way to stay relevant. 

Okay, but The Simpsons? 

Tracking of creative evolution over the decades works for all sorts of creators and endeavors. That same framework, that same way of thinking, can be applied to something like say, The Simpsons. If you're a fan of The Simpsons, there's a distinct chance that either A. you believe it stopped being good at the end of the 90s or B. you've heard people it stopped being good at the end of the 90s. I like a lot of The Simpsons, so I wanna talk about that a bit. 

In the 90s, The Simpsons was a family sitcom. That's rightfully what appealed to people about it. It's right there in line with Newhart and the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as a show about family dynamics that're usually silly and sometimes serious, with the only real dividing factor being that The Simpsons is animated.

But by the 2000s, the Simpsons exists in a really strange place. It's no longer the only primetime animated sitcom or adult animated sitcom. You have King of the Hill and the Mike Judge properties, you have South Park, you have Family Guy and Adult Swim and Futurama. And at the same time, while family sitcoms never go away, there starts to be a shift to occupational sitcoms being the power players--Scrubs, The Office, etc. So the show's in a place where it's competitors are shifting genres and moving to absurdist humor and they have to find a new identity within that. And what they find is they keep it a family sitcom, but heighten the absurdity and start to really play into The Simpsons as a pop culture object that can be aware of other pop culture.

In the 2010s, things have shifted even further--I'd say actually in some ways tied to what I was talking about a few weeks back in the brandification of geekdom. And The Simpsons, in growing and changing their relevance 20 years in, change from a pop culture object that is aware of other pop culture to almost a self-referential pop culture staple. The show, in some ways, is about how long "The Simpsons" can last and the what "The Simpsons" means. It's common knowledge that the Simpsons "predicts the future", but interestingly enough, the future episodes of the show used to be a lot more spaced out. It was roughly one every five years, until 2011 when they became much more regular--from full episodes to end of episode flash-forward tags to "life of" episodes. 

Now, in the Season 30-somethings, The Simpsons has truly become such an institution that it can be a bit of everything it's been before. Some episodes lean more heavily on traditional family sitcom "drama". Some are unexpected and bizarre (Lisa the Boy Scout is a personal favorite from the current season). Some are straight up pop culture pastiches. I think to their benefit, it's what the writers find funny because all aspects are true of what The Simpsons is and it's not a surprise to hear they've been renewed for a few more seasons. 

Each decade has charms because they're responding to what was needed at the time for the show's longevity. 

I Thought this was a Comics Blog?

It is! And here's what that has to do with comics. On the one hand, you can apply this "changes over decades" theory to a lot of comics creators. You look at someone like the much missed George Perez and can track how he maintained a career for so long and how his art and storytelling and even the functions of his job evolved, right? He's a creator whose style is so specific and recognizable that two pieces from different decades can both immediately be identified as his own, even when they might look very different from each other. Part of what I'm getting at is if you are looking at comics as a long-term goal, the thing you want to do with your life, it's worth it to study the people who have managed to do that and the sorts of changes they've made along the way to do so. 

On the other hand, and this is one of the things I find really fascinating about comics--generally speaking, it's a lot harder to apply that same thinking to specific titles. Not to say you can't do it entirely, but it tends to be easier when the comic is the work of one or a one group of people--Usagi Yojimbo or Dragon Ball or I'd say even to some extent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles given how much of it's history has had some combination of Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird involved. But when you look at something like Batman, because of the nature of comics--between multiple titles for a single character, runs of incredibly varying lengths, a constant influx of new creators who bring in a diversity of storytelling (but not always a diversity of creators...) it is harder to take these evolutions by decade. Which, in some ways I think is a good thing. Because it means the things that last are not static and are changing to encompass multiple ideas of what it is and what it could be. 

Anyway, food for thought and mostly I wanted to talk about how actually The Simpsons has been pretty funny for the majority of their 30+ years. 

Coming up: Next week, since it's been about a year since I did a full one of these, I'm probably going to do another "Stuff That Sucks" and talk about the many massively disappointing and frustrating and downright awful things happening right now that we should all be keeping an eye on. The week after that, I think we're going to do another "Ask Me (Almost) Anything"! My inbox is open here (and it's incentive to answer a couple emails in there...) and I'll get a post up with next week's blog on Twitter for people to submit their questions! 

What I enjoyed this week: Blank Check (Podcast), Honkai Impact (Video game), House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (Book), Persona 4 Golden (Video game), Poker Face (TV show), Romantic Killer (Anime), Warioware & the other Gameboy/GBA games now on Switch, Snack vs. Chef (TV show), finally got my hands on a Minerva so that's one more Wrecker! And I got the new Big the Cat figure! Admiring good comics lettering. Seeing The Fablemans tomorrow and very much looking forward to it, and the Kaguya-Sama movie on Valentine's Day with my valentine! 

New Releases this week (2/8/2023): Godzilla: Monsters & Protectors - All Hail the King #5 (Editor) Sonic the Hedgehog #57 (Editor) Sonic the Hedgehog, Vol. 13: Battle for the Empire (Editor, collecting Sonic #50, 51, the 2022 Annual, and the 2022 Free Comic Book Day short)

New releases next week (2/15/2023): Off week for my books

Final Order Cutoff (2/13/2023): Godzilla: Best of King Ghidorah (Editor) Sonic the Hedgehog #59 (Editor) Sonic the Hedgehog #1 5th Anniversary Edition (Editor)

Announcements: Arizona Comic Book Arts Festival - 2/25! This is like 2 weeks from now! They've got a heckuva guest list including me, Becca, Elizabeth Brei, Danny Djeljosevic, Mitch Gerads, Steve Rude, John Layman, Henry Barajas, Jay Fotos, Jeff Mariotte, Marcy Rockwell, John Yurcaba, Andrew MacLean, Alexis Zirrit, Meredith McClaren, James Owen, Ryan Cody, and many more! Come and see us! Becca'll have some very cool new merch, too! And tickets are only $10! I'll be bringing a mess of stuff that I've written and edited from Transformers, Sonic, Godzilla, and more! (Promo by Becca)

Speaking of Becca, did you know they have a Patreon? They're doing weekly drawing prompts that're uploading Sundays, so lots of new stuff up there as well as a pretty impressive backcatalog from the past few years. This month, if you sign-up at any level, your support's actually going to a really amazing local organization, The Brown Building.

And final Becca news, they contributed to Aradia Beat, a Magical Girl Anthology Magazine! It's now on Kickstarter! It's both a tribute to 90s magical girl stories and part of a larger project about the overall preservation and mutual support of magical girl stories! We're in the final week and they're about $1K away from their goal. They can definitely make it, but it'd be cool if you could help out by backing or by sharing! Speaking of Magical Girl Kickstarters, it's still early in the life cycle of Sweet Little Resistance, which is by fellow AZ Comic Book Arts Fest tablers,  Elizabeth Brei and Danny Djeljosevic as well as a host of cool artists! They're only about $500 away from their goal, and would make for a very nice complimentary piece! (More Promo by Becca)

Pic of the Week:  So the actual Pic of the Week is Tiansheng who decided to sleep under the pillows in Becca's office chair, rather than on top of them!

[sojournerstales]

The Obliteration Pit

A personal essay about shame and dysphoria.

I'm going to talk about what I've been calling delineated shame.

I share a lot of media taste with my uncle. When a new series of a certain favourite show comes out, my partner and I will visit his house once a week to watch new episodes over take-out pizza. Really, aside from my dead mom he is the one family member I find it easiest to have casual conversation with. I can talk to my dad under certain circumstances: Walking the dogs, or trapped in a car, but it's a bit more difficult without the common ground of pop-culture geekdom. I so often find myself at a loss of what to say - they are adults, the talk about jobs and finances and being busy with things.

I talk about video games or TV shows and when it comes to being busy I feel inadequate because my version of busy-ness is when I've had to vacuum the living room and wash the dishes all in one day. These things in the context of my older brother talking about working from home with a child in the house, or my dad converting the spare room into a workshop, feel so small. So I don't talk about video games or TV shows or vacuuming. I smile and say 'yeah' a lot and wait for my uncle to show up.

So my uncle's house. Pizza. Shared interest show. It's easier. We talk about the show, or video games, or sometimes even my writing. He actually seems to respect my opinions on these things and between him and my partner I don't feel so inadequate. On this day I happen to be wearing dungarees and a baggy t-shirt with a rainbow across the front. I think it's appropriate cosy-lesbian-core and I've never been shy about queer-coding myself around family members. In this case I do remark that I think it fits the same retro vibe that the show we're watching is going for.

Here I am myself, dressed in a way that I like to dress myself.

At a certain point I'll excuse myself for the bathroom and leave my partner and my uncle talking. They get along well and I'm glad for that. I think in general my partner has really helped me get along with my family. If we are perceived as a unit then I can attach to their hip and take some of that social standing they earn by knowing how to be a successful adult. Sometimes I think this is an unfair thing to put on a person, so I try to make it up to them.

When I first came out to my family there was this feeling that I had just made myself worse in some other new way. Dropped out of school, couldn't find a job, and now I'm disadvantaging myself further by being transgender? In this economy? When I open my mouth to talk about inadequate things I'm reminded of that. Being able to talk about my partner feels like me saying, 'see? I can succeed!'

Anyway, I'm in my dungarees in my uncle's bathroom. It's upstairs and tucked out of the way and a little messy in the way that bachelor's bathrooms are messy. Not nearly as messy as mine. The awkward thing about dungarees is you end up feeling mostly undressed when doing bathroom stuff. It feels weird to be in my uncle's house with so much denim around my ankles and my shoes. Maybe I shouldn't have drank so much cola, because then I wouldn't be upstairs in the bathroom when there is a good chance that downstairs I am being talked about. I don't want to be too quick or too long or anything particularly noteworthy in this scenario, and it's a lot to think about along with the feeling of - again - denim dungarees around my ankles.

This sort of thing is how the feeling starts - that combination of discomfort and unreasonable paranoia and memories of inadequacy. Physically it is above my stomach and below my chest and burrowing deep. I call it delineated shame.

I remember being about ten and wetting myself. I don't remember the circumstances around it, but I do remember the unfinished wood floor of my dad's bathroom and him and my stepmom in the doorway looking at each other and then me, neither quite sure what to do with my distressed self. I remember a couple of things from school, one of them is having a meltdown in class and being called out and disciplined by the head of year and I told her to shut the fuck up. I also remember being asked by a classmate if I could wink, but I wasn't co-ordinated enough to prove that I could and just ended up awkwardly twitching my face.

I remember my body from before transitioning. Flat chest and awkward dick and pacing from the bathroom door to my bedroom because that's the sort of ritual I had to conduct to even be able to consider stepping into the shower. I remember intense first-crushes so bad that I'm guilty of imagined hand-holding. I remember a kind therapist on the other side of a free-standing whiteboard talking to me about my feelings.

None of these are in a particular order. They just come to me from that pit above the stomach and below the chest.

I'm afraid of heights. I'm also afraid of large objects in deep bodies of water, or expanding chasms. I think these fears are connected to the feeling of vertigo I get from looking at tall buildings or into deep pits. Either at the bottom or the top I feel a sort of weightlessness that starts at the top of my head and wavers down to my feet, taking out my breath along the way.

Shame is a feeling of vertigo.

Shame is standing at the edge of a pit and leaning to look down into it. If I slip I will be falling through my dad's bathroom, the school office, the shower at seventeen years old, an old crush's bedroom, behind a whiteboard, all while gripping my uncle's bathroom sink for an anchor.

A lot of the things in this pit are not strictly about my body, but I am at the center of all of them and so my body is too. I had always hated anyone having a perception of me, physically seeing me. The feeling of eye-contact perforated my skin and scratched at my bones. It was like they could look through the body into my own personal pit right where all the shame sits.

This was something I felt before I learned what 'transgender' was, so I haven't always called it dysphoria. I've always known it as someone else perceiving the wrongness of my own body and mind. It is not a coincidence that all my shameful memories put me right back into the old body along with the old brain.

I often like to say that I don't actively experience dysphoria anymore. I did HRT. I did surgery. I have a D-cup chest and a pussy and I know how to do my make-up and most of my clothes are from the women's section and the clothes that aren't are stolen from my partner. The list of current facts about me are undeniable and suggest I should be over dysphoria. The body is changed and the mind is improved. So I come back to delineated shame. I come back to the memory of dysphoria. I come back to remembering what it was like doing the pre-op appointments and having a doctor and his chaperone take a look at my dick (unpleasant, at best).

So I'm in my uncles bathroom with my dungarees around my ankles and shoes and I am sat on the toilet. That is where I am. I'm remembering also being naked in my bedroom in front of the blue light of my webcam. At the time it was validation, at the time it was something I felt good about - mostly. In the present moment it is the knowledge that I ever needed the validation in the first place. Now there is someone out there that possesses the mental image of the version of my body that I hated.

There are people out there who know what I looked like. The doctor at the gender clinic who wanted to do a full physical before prescribing hormones. A different doctor from the same clinic who leaned forward and said, 'Your eyebrows could do with some work.' Professionals measured me to determine if I could become a girl, and then one Christmas I wore my favourite red dress and spent the evening being called by the wrong name and pronouns.

I feel awful. I pull my dungarees back up and clip on the straps and tuck my t-shirt neatly. I wash my hands and catch myself in the mirror. Awkward nose and long mouth and the tiniest bit of stubble that only I can perceive (or so everyone tells me). I left the house confident enough to not put make-up on and then there was one moment where I had to feel naked in private and the memory of dysphoria started climbing up through the very middle of my body.

I don't know how to make the pit go away or whether I can mentally board it up or fill it in. I think that's the point of all this shame being a pit, you don't get to move a big hole in the ground. I guess if I followed my own metaphor, I would just slowly skirt around the edges and hope I don't fall in. Falling in would be death.

Or I take a deep breath in and a big step back from the obliteration pit. It's there, but I needn't stare into it. My partner and my uncle are downstairs and my pizza is getting cold.

[farieshades]

...... I had a ask. I did really. But I can't remember it so now I'm just sipping my coffee staring into space like a badly written fanfic.

What would you change about Supernatural? (Yes Far the TV show)

I do like how you included “For the TV show” knowing full well that I could and would rant about mythology and the supernatural/paranormal for hours. 

Power 

In the earlier seasons, this made a lot of sense. There was an intrinsic fear the audience held for the characters. A “Oh no, what’s going to happen, will x survive?” but, over time the Brothers gained too much ‘power’. It wasn’t that they obtained really any special ability (although, that could very well be argued in certain seasons) but by the end of it they were just humans fighting against darkness encroaching upon others. 

From a writing standpoint, there was a need to make the characters stronger I suppose, as soon as you introduce angels and Chuck, but really, each season tried to up the ante of what came before. - You Fought and Won against Azazel? Time to Introduce Lucifer - You Fought and Won against Lucifer? Time to introduce another bastard. 

I mean really, what is the progression? Meg/Azazel > Azazel > Lilith x2 > Lucifer > Eve / Crowley (and Castiel somehow) > Leviathans and Politics > Crowley and Metatron > Abaddon > Mark of Cain or Rowena?> The Darkness/Amara > British Men of Letters/Lucifer (how are you still here didn't we deal with you already? Why are we bringing Lucifer back into plots) > Lucifer/Apocalypse World Michael > AW Michael > God himself. 

It was similar, in my mind, how Buffy TVS goes up against her BBEG’s who do progressively get worse, but, not in the same way? The Master (simple, evil, background bad guy who is a genuine threat when he shows up those few times throughout the seasons w/ parallel world bullshit) > Spike/Drusilla (easy fight at anytime as they are just vampires tho they add plenty to the plot - then again, the two collectivelly killed 4(?) slayers) > The Mayor (who is of course evil, we love evil polititions in fantasy, right Dick Roman? At least Dick Roman didn't turn into a giant snake, he just... kinda ate people?>The Initiative-Adam (Shadowy government making a frankenstein killing machine that doesn't obey orders like they hoped) > Glory (we love gods of alternate hellwords being exiled to earth and somehow living the life of luxury) > Dark Willow + The Three Idiots of Geekdom (Willow was great actually and it caused a lot of things to go tits up - The trio, however, sucked but they did cause the dark Willow so ... shrug?) > The First Evil (which is great, supposedly end-of-times bad who you need to show power of friendship or something to combat and stuff, but it was also very downplayed)

But Back to SPN - the BBEG’s just get stronger and stronger and at some point there’s no fear or thrill in hunting them, and the Monster-of-the-week episodes as filler pose absolutely no threat to the brothers whereas when we were in season 1-3 the monster-of-the-week was terrifying and, well, followed a familiar script that worked. 

So, keeping the brother’s at the same level as they were would be a change I’d make. Not in…. Like, ok, they get more confident in themselves because they are good hunters, definitely some of the best, but they surpass cocky and confident in their actions [which i blame writers irl but also John Winchester to make the characters actually work in this way - he makes them think this is the way they must act and they do type of deal]. 

The Apocalypse (Season 5)

Another change I’d probably do would be to separate the series into two different types. SPN could have ended at the end of Season 5. We lost Sam, but the Apocalypse is prevented. A good hero-arc, sacrifice, and well you get the bittersweet pain of knowing that this wouldn’t have happened if not for the first episode. It would finish perfectly, Dean must live with the knowledge that he brought his brother back into hunting, while Sam becomes a tragic hero making the ultimate sacrifice… Maybe I just like angst. 

Season 6+ could very easily be a continuation, sure, but in more of a spin-off sense. Bringing back soulless Sam makes the sacrifice almost silly the previous season. 

I do like the seasons as they are, but that’s just how my head is structuring a lot of it. I do like how the characters grew, the side characters getting introduced, the family background we slowly learn (how is it that all the campbells show up and no past winchesters do barring whats-his-name grandpa man? More american men of letters from history would be more interesting than whateverthefuck the british MoL were doing.)

Or hell, switch it around like a DW season and have new hunters replace people and its no longer Winchester Brothers but the entire community taking on more and more bad, instead of constantly upping the crisis you could see different places of the world rather than America/Canada/UK, you could see hunters in Russia or Japan or India. -- It wouldn’t have likely been a idea at the time of filming it, but that’s an interesting thought to be sure.