Weekly thingy and the Nine of Swords/Kay

Someone is going to have to beg me to stop doing Snow Queen cards – it won’t work, though.

I was a little stumped on this till a friend suggested the Snow Queen and it was just PERFECT. I know I’ve been a little dismissive of Kay previously, and in general he is pretty awful. BUT if you read the the demon glass getting caught in his eye and heart as a metaphor for depression, suddenly Kay is infinitely more understandable and everything makes a sad sense. And then if you go one step further and wonder why a nearly pubescent child might be suddenly depressed and also acting out this very exaggerated stereotypical masculinity it becomes very easy to read Kay as a trans child in a time and place when that would barely have been imaginable for them.

“I think it is gone,” he said. But it was not gone; it was one of those bits of the looking-glass—that magic mirror, of which we have spoken—the ugly glass which made everything great and good appear small and ugly, while all that was wicked and bad became more visible, and every little fault could be plainly seen. Poor little Kay had also received a small grain in his heart, which very quickly turned to a lump of ice. He felt no more pain, but the glass was there still. “Why do you cry?” said he at last; “it makes you look ugly. There is nothing the matter with me now. Oh, see!” he cried suddenly, “that rose is worm-eaten, and this one is quite crooked. After all they are ugly roses, just like the box in which they stand,” and then he kicked the boxes with his foot, and pulled off the two roses.

“Kay, what are you doing?” cried the little girl; and then, when he saw how frightened she was, he tore off another rose, and jumped through his own window away from little Gerda.

When she afterwards brought out the picture book, he said, “It was only fit for babies in long clothes,” and when grandmother told any stories, he would interrupt her with “but;” or, when he could manage it, he would get behind her chair, put on a pair of spectacles, and imitate her very cleverly, to make people laugh. By-and-by he began to mimic the speech and gait of persons in the street. All that was peculiar or disagreeable in a person he would imitate directly, and people said, “That boy will be very clever; he has a remarkable genius.” But it was the piece of glass in his eye, and the coldness in his heart, that made him act like this. He would even tease little Gerda, who loved him with all her heart. His games, too, were quite different; they were not so childish. One winter’s day, when it snowed, he brought out a burning-glass, then he held out the tail of his blue coat, and let the snow-flakes fall upon it. “Look in this glass, Gerda,” said he; and she saw how every flake of snow was magnified, and looked like a beautiful flower or a glittering star. “Is it not clever?” said Kay, “and much more interesting than looking at real flowers. There is not a single fault in it, and the snow-flakes are quite perfect till they begin to melt.”

Soon after Kay made his appearance in large thick gloves, and with his sledge at his back. He called up stairs to Gerda, “I’ve got to leave to go into the great square, where the other boys play and ride.” And away he went.”

Sorry, that’s a long excerpt, but it just builds Kay’s sudden coldness and disdain for girlish things really nicely. And it just happens that I had already drawn the Snow Queen as non-binary way back in the major arcana – in this reading you could see them as taking Kay because they see a reflection of themselves and intend to take away Kay’s pain in the only way they can.

Anyhow, nine of swords! Depression and maybe dysphoria! Fun times!

Places to buy stuff!

• TEEPUBLIC: mostly t-shirts, a few other products.  Watch for sales, when shirts drop from $20 to $14!
• REDBUBBLE: Just, I don’t know, a ton of different stuff.  T-shirts are more expensive than Teepublic, but there are a lot more options.
• AMAZON: Home of the Geeky Gals Coloring Book!  Daydreams and Whimsies!  AND NOW, The Neurotic Owl Compendium!
• ETSY: paper dolls, a knitting bag pattern, and a bunch of vintage dolls of various sorts from my collection

Did I miss something?  I think that’s everything.

What’s making me a happy this week:

Kansas! The FBI going in to Mar-A-Lago and the subsequent conservative meltdown as they try to choose between ‘Trump is above the law’ and ‘we fucking love cops’! Also, about Kansas in particular – if you’re ever tempted to tell people in a red state to just move, and you can’t get it through your head that moving is not an option for everyone, please consider that if everyone who gives a shit about civil liberties left red states the entire country would get even more screwed. Kansas gives me hope; I am hanging on with every bitten down fingernail to hope that Beto can win Texas and we can start to turn this shit around in a big way. That doesn’t happen if we all flee (also, where would people like us to move to? The ample affordable housing they’re going to magically create? What jobs should we get? How will those blue states deal with the entire liberal population of fucking Texas, we won’t even worry about the other states right now, pouring in?)