i’m still blown away by raúl’s art project. the planning. the precision. the care put into it. i like to think it was dedicated to his mom— i think one summer day he intended to take her up that hill and she would get to see how much he loves this town that he’d want to make something special for the few people left, how much he loves her for loving him. what an incredible kid.

ok i lied one more thing

raùl asking his mom to fix his charmander plush hes had for 7 years for the 9272846th time because gabby goat ripped the tail off

marianna and her son

I have a couple of things to say about Siobhan stewing in my brain that I wanted to share in my drawing, as well as here with you. Drawing it helps me to present it all in a visible way which I had to share first before anything so you may see what I mean. Of course, you don’t have to look at it, lol.

I have a whole LOT of ways of looking at this character. Firstly, I liked that she wasn’t very integral to the story as a movie. Especially given how we do, (meaning white directors,) often put mixed people to play the role of black people which I am wholly against. I give props to Henry Selick and Jordan Peele for knowing the importance of having, a black main girl, character who isn’t also white. And it’s about time.

Siobhan didn’t really strike me in any kind of way, the first… I’d say, five times I watched this movie. I was massively uncomfortable with her bothering Kat before she even got into the school and found her blond hair absolutely jarring, but I was rather neutral about the whole thing. When I saw people talk about her and I remembered she exists, I became more and more dizzy. But now I’ve come to an understanding of this whole thing. She’s more complex than at first glance, and I heard vastly oppositional perspectives about her. People like her, people also hate her. It’s very important to me to share this because I feel like we’ve only scratched the surface on what Siobhan’s role meant in Wendell and Wild. I want to provide my enhanced, pontifications because I’m almost entirely sure I understand it very very well after months and months of deep thought….. and understanding my own experiences, as lenses to help me see through the characters’ eyes. Now I’m not the creators, so I don’t know if I’m right. But if others can share and talk about her, I’m gonna do it and I’m gonna do my best.

My Critique

Firstly, I felt she was a very very watered down half-baked cookie, the way I see it. She’s lacking the complexity in a world of complex characters. She is a biracial teen girl, who has parents that destroyed the entire town, murdered a priest and the movie also alluded to them having a hand in the death of Kat’s parents. She seems to be meant to be a major contrasting identity to Kat’s, in a very interesting way. I really love that this in turn, highlights Kat’s qualities that are “rough and tough” in more of a positive (and not judgmental) way than what anyone making a movie about a black, punk teenage girl character with superpowers typically would. Even though they probably wouldn’t, but anyway. Everyone treats Kat like an actual person. I think they were unable because of time constraints, to take Siobhan’s character from a much crazier angle than they managed to keep.

The Evidence

Everything. The obnoxious, intrusive micromanaging of both herself and other people. The blond, STRAIGHT HAIR. Putting on pink nail polish in contrast to Kat’s, purple nail polish. Yeah, I SAW THAT! Yes I did! Lol. Last but not least, the big one, the deadnaming of Raul, which I’m certain was intentional and you can’t change my mind on this (I have more to say on that later.) so I feel like there’s more there that no one cares to acknowledge about why she is the way that she is. This movie was way too short for everyone and everything in it, her included.

Theoretically,

I believe wholeheartedly that they made Siobhan with the intention that she is someone who is aware of what her parents are doing to people from the very start. I don’t know for surrre, only the creators know that. It would make A WHOLE LOT of sense, however. They made almost everyone else super duper complex and real, except her. It was too different for me to not take notice of that.

For starters, it doesn’t make sense to me that they’d have Siobhan herself deadname Raul on accident or just because. I strongly suspect, that they were going for Siobhan separating herself from him completely on purpose, intentionally and putting herself above him to protect her family’s values, but perhaps also… him? That’s my theory, this will all make sense just hear me out.

I wanted to point out for a minute that we also don’t know exactly what happened that caused Raul to be dropped from their small clique. If it was or wasn’t the girls’ choice to get rid of him. I suspect that he’s actually the one who left, considering he keeps his photo of himself with the girls pre-transition. It wouldn’t be a stretch nor would it be something I’d judge him for. The stuff that the girls do would probably and has already pressured him to be somebody that he isn’t. Moreover, there’s Marianna’s investigation on Siobhan’s parents, that I wonder if she knows about and is defending her parents out of denial, but perhaps also… fear. Fear they might actually hurt Raul if they found out about that. Because they totally would do something horrible to him, to try and get their only potential threat (Marianna) to stop.

I don’t think Siobhan wants to be like this. I think that she cares about him more than she lets on. She’s following a role that’s backwards from her own beliefs that may not be very developed to begin with and because of her circumstance she simply cannot be his friend. It’s very interesting, the things they were implying about her as a character. I don’t want this movie to be about her. Nor do I want the darker aspects of reality. However, this WHOLE movie is about getting through the thick of it. Beginning to heal from trauma, there is no reason for people to not want to hear about this other than that it makes them uncomfortable, or they don’t care. But why then, would we even care about this movie?

I’m one who’s torn in between in this argument. I don’t like her. I agree with other people who think she sucks. She is weirdly placed in the film, some of which could have been easily changed to have her make more sense than she did. But when people critique her it’s not for the underlying cause for which her character is flawed. Just that she’s “in the way,” “mean,” “controlling.” I want to share what I can see, is the big issue with her as a character. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Here’s the fire. She’s not trying to be a bitch, she’s screwed up. At the same time, I’m also not feeling, how some people are just giving Siobhan the benefit of the doubt because we’re of the assumption that she’s simply stupid and made a mistake. And I don’t like that because they didn’t go there, (which is absolutely okay,) that Raul still being a potential target in the world the creators built just flies right over everyone’s head. No one’s safe from the Klaxons in this film besides, the demons maybe? She can try to appease them but Siobhan isn’t even safe from them. And Raul especially, isn’t safe from them in particular.

When I see Raul with Kat I can see clearly why he is drawn to her from the start and why he stays. The difference between Kat and Siobhan in just their interactions with Raul make it all so so very clear, although I doubt he even needs this to REALLY like Kat, lol (I don’t doubt he’s got a crush on her too >.<) I was gonna write about this for my drawings of Kat that I want to make soon but I’ll say it here. It’s so important to point out because a lot of people don’t get it. A lot of people only spoke about what she “DOESN’T DO,” for Raul. EXCUSE, ME?! Her being mean, ok? The world is a cruel and sometimes, a person of color or a person with a vulva have perfectly logical reasons to be. Also look, at the difference between when she’s angry at Raul, and angry at literally anyone else in the movie: sister Helley, Siobhan, and Father Bests (for REALLY good reason, that one.) Wendell and Wild. I call a spade a spade, and I call the part where she gets upset and throws the drawing at Raul’s face a domestic quarrel. When I think more and more about the choices they made for this movie it blows my freaking mind. I’m going to say this since no one has to my knowledge, and no one gives her any credit for this;

Kat helps Raul too. I can assume with almost certainty that if this were real life, Kat would not care one bit about what anyone thinks if the other students gossip about Raul hanging around her. I’m speaking from personal experiences; This is how some girls their age react, when a child who happens to be born in a girl’s body, who presents as masculine or androgynously, hangs out with a girl. Do you think Kat gives a shit if people snicker at the fact that they skipped the bus and were hanging out after dark in a cemetery? She came in that class blaring music from a giant boom box and nobody was brave enough to ask her to turn it off. She’s a punk, she’s a rebel she’s a BOSS. She makes herself hard to approach. I perceive is out of need to protect herself given her past but that’s not the part of her bad PTSD that is disorderly, that’s a protective mechanism to keep predators away from her. And necessary since a lot of people don’t help. It’s cynical, but true. Even though she was mean to him at the start, we can also already start to see her change with him. She keeps her wall up but not to intentionally hurt him. (it’s also at her own expense that she can’t relax.) But because she is so guarded and also is comfortable with Raul. I have NO doubt that she probably would help try to defend herself and Raul if someone said anything to them to hurt, or tried to directly hurt them both. Raul is FINE with her, trust me.

Now, a person like Siobhan? Pfffft. Siobhan would not even entertain the idea. She would disassociate from him, not out of fear of him but of fear of the people around them and her parents. She’s stuck in their vision. And that’s exactly what I’m talking about.

Closing Thoughts and Conclusion

She’s already insufferable; why NOT go the whole way? I would love to have seen her fake smile fade for two seconds and for her to be a miserable, angry little bitch to people. I want to see the compulsion for perfection and conformity. I want to actually see the crazy. But still secretly, deeply cares about Raul and soon enough, Kat. Other people say that they like that she isn’t actually mean. I say that she’s unfinished, resulting in a serious case of one-dimensionality and that her character development was rushed. Literally at the end she was cheering right after her parents got arrested. That’s evidence enough for it to be the case. And don’t let her blond wig fool you. She’s not stupid. Kat has more integrity for Raul than she does, and they’re the same age. Even if she’s not intentionally bad and is badly conditioned, which is understandable. But what if I said that this aspect of her would’ve actually made for a better, interesting and realistic, later reformed villain in the story? It would make sense that she would start off as a villain, given that the whole town hates her family and would realistically not like her either. If they made it so that she was in on it, and they had her WANT TO desperately change after having to see that Kat is affected by the damage that Siobhan and her parents caused if they made Siobhan a villain. Oh my god. It would’ve had everyone at the edge of their seats. God. God. 😯 that shit tickles my drive for good drama and angst in a story right there. Ugh, That. I want that. I want to be uncomfortable. I want tears to be shed. I want Siobhan at the end screaming and crying at her parents for harming people she genuinely cares about. I want to see her actually feel the guilt. I want to see that she actually wants to change.

And it’s ironic that I think this. Only this movie would make me actually want, to see a villainous biracial girl character. I don’t typically like how most female villains are written. It’s usually either they’re villains for a stupid reason or it’s a rehashed, beaten into the ground trope based on sexist stereotypes of women and girls. Like Irmgard. Sorry, but it’s true. She would’ve made for an excellent bad guy that’s not typical, and not for no reason either.

And that’s my perspective and why she’s one of my least favorite characters. I REALLY like the idea of her, and she could’ve been done in a way that isn’t her taking over. But I’m not a huge fan of the execution. I still like what they did, however. She’s not believable, and her existence in the plot could’ve been way more exquisite and effective in a very good, bad way.

wendell & wild headcanons of varying seriousness

-father bests never found out which of the demon brothers were which

-kat’s hair is naturally green

-someone manberg knew (most likely a relative) was a hell maiden

-bearz-a-bub is tethered to rust bank, obligating helley to stay at RBC and keep watch over it rather than put distance between it/her and manberg. other locations have similar plot devices

-manberg was born with phocomelia, rather than having lost his legs to a demon attack

-siobhan is encouraged to wear contacts and relax her hair by her parents; post-movie kat helps her relearn how to put in braids

-delroy was in a garage band in college and wilma was working on a master’s in molecular chemistry

-hell maidens (if not humans in general) are to demons what guardian angels are to humans, and coming to the living world is the closest demons get to ascension (though it’s treated more like moving to a vacation state than that)

-helley and manberg have gotten in at least five slapfights, four tug-of-wars with bearz-a-bub, and two HR interventions over the years

-bearz-a-bub shows significant bias to any hell maidens near it and its answer to if it missed manberg would’ve been “no”

-raúl came out to marianna by asking if he could get that trans sticker he has on that composition book

-wilma and marianna were good friends in college and did regular mixtape exchanges

some wb doodles i refuse to give the context of