His room smells like it always has, and we lie across his bed like we always do. Our bodies look like railings on a train track. Dust collects on the frames of Hayley’s portraits like the sand dunes. Their eyes don’t follow me. But mine follow the shape of his hair when he tucks it out of his face.

The second drawer of his dresser houses a sleepy orphanage of dolls Pippa used to build. I think about the body I inhabit - its spine contorted to hide what I asked it not to do, its bones shaped for some destiny I’ll never fulfill. Can it ever sit there too?

I think I’d let him keep it, should he ever want to try it on. Maybe in exchange, I could have his hands and height, but he wears those well. There are limitations to that sort of pottery.

He shows me hentai he’s read. We laugh. We kiss. I get him hard as a sort of game. Neither of us are particularly invested. But my fingers still know the dips in his stomach. My mouth knows his as a child knows a swing set. My eyes are greener here. I wished his hips were wider.

His brow furrows when I adjust my binder. I’m not sure which of us said it first. But he knows it as I do.

“I pretend you’re a girl when we kiss.”

I feel the corner of his mouth tilt upward against my own.

“Dude,” he begins, and I see a chuckle building at the base of his neck. “I would be a great girlfriend.”

He wouldn’t. His hands would wander toward the waist of another and it would be over fast. But I didn’t even mind the sarcasm. Secrets pass through the space between our chests like water. I poke his side the way he does to me. But he smiles, and so do I.

I wonder how much of me is a woman to him. He probably wonders the same.

“I’ll put you in one of my old dresses,” I reply. “I’ll make you very pretty.”

He winks. The bastard. “I’m looking forward to it.”

He never lies to anyone.

spierverse 2 spoilers. but also a long post diving into Villains in recent (animated) movies

i dont rly plan to make any super long posts about all of this movie bc theres just SO much to think abt and a lot of people are saying what i would say. but i have thought a lot about the villain, The Spot. mostly in relation to my last fave animated movie's villains- Puss in Boots 2

PIB got a lot compliments for its villain(s). You had Goldilocks who was an antag but a character you can see some reason to sympathize with, but she isnt the big bad. You have Death who is a conflict to hinder Puss' progress, and then you Jack Horner who is a villain that you have no reason to feel bad for, as its shown many times how he is just a privileged ass. It was a movie that finally really had a bad villain you werent gonna see redeemed, and had no reason to see redeemed. Goldilocks was an antag as she was Puss' enemy but we had no reason to hate her, and her siding with them eventually made sense. Death's conclusion with Puss was less so any end for the Villain's arc but for a personal Arc Puss was facing that drove the main plot.

Many people saw this movie and were pointing out how bad Disney/Pixar's movies have been with villains. I cant even think of any villain in their last movies, theyre all so samey. and a lot are trying to be the same "oh well now you can feel a little bad for them because we showed some sad backstory!". its nice to have some times where theres a complicated grey antagonist that explores the divide in interests and pushes boundaries but thats not what Disney is doing.

Often times, Superhero movies have cut and dried villains. Not bad- its just that there is a formula. You have a guy with a name and a gimmick and they bad, they must be defeated. Even in comics where things get expanded on for backstories, sometimes with troubled pasts etc, it still doesnt change it? They don't get reformed and stop being the villain.

So lets look at the first Spiderverse before 2. Kingpin was the first (major) villain (along with some on the side) and they were established villains. The thing thats important with Kingpin is that while we were given information about why he is doing what hes doing, no one ever finds it as "okay". no one thinks they should just deal with it by fixing him or feeling bad for him, because Kingpin wouldnt take that. He IS awful, hes selfish and terrible. and Nothing he does outside of those personal feelings actually reflects that. Nothing else he normally does as a criminal is related to his family that he lost. These kinds of superhero villains are often already criminals with an intense violent history, and theyll keep being a criminal.

Going to Spiderverse 2, we get a villain thats a bit different, The Spot. Its interesting because he starts goofy- he actually is trying to be a criminal too actually. He decides because of his circumstances, he needs to rob and do things like that and its makes sense, he has no where to go. But hes so confident and normal about it, cocky etc, that you dont feel bad for him. hes not desperate or sad or begging with the weight of his sad backstory. Hes annoying, goofy, and no ones will take him as a serious criminal at first. And then he starts to explain more seriously what happened. And it STILL doesnt come across like a "woe is me" kind of story. He *still* annoying and cocky. he wants to be bad. he wants to destroy everything. Does it suck what happened to him? Yeah. Does it suck that it ruined his life?" of course. Do you want to redeem him? i mean no, i wouldnt. hes still a jerk. and thats the key thing.

you can have a villain who is relatable and grey but its not The Spot. Its not Kingpin. They had some kind of "tragedy" but they arent ever going to be good and you shouldnt use them as aan example and soften them up to be easily digested and garner sympathy with. thats just not the kind of story you can have all the time. you NEED to remind people, mostly kids, who the bad guys are. and the samey bland villains of disney havent stuck in my heads at all in recent years. its not to say their movies were all bad- i liked a lot of them (Encanto, Turning Red). But i can hardly recall any clear "villain" plot lines. Theres a time and place for those vague instances, and many times they just dont work because it makes the whole story so vague and directionless. It makes it hard to remember the key points when its not strong enough from its other elements.

I just feel like we are losing classic villains because people for some reason started to think it was boring and we needed more "nuance" but this "nuance" isnt.....that. its bland written media by big studios that cant actually have morally grey characters because it would actually be too sensitive for people.