216 – X-Amining X-Factor (feat. Dr. Andrea Letamendi)

In which Dr. Andrea Letamendi of Arkham Sessions joins us to analyze some analysis; Doc Samson has major scope-of-practice issues; Ren & Stimpy references continue to fail to age well; it’s hard to be Quicksilver; Val Cooper is not your friend; Polaris pretty much always deserves better; Charles Xavier should not be allowed to inhabit positions of power; and labels are often not the best tools for good representations of mental illness and neurodivergence. X-PLAINED: A very high-stakes 3-D puzzle X-Factor #87 Doc Samson Making talking heads interesting Wolfsbane’s relationship to pop culture Appropriate boundaries Several remarkable fashion choices Pietro Maximoff in perspective Therapeutic assessment vs. intervention The extremely tragic backstory of Jamie Madrox Imposter syndrome A brief history of Polaris’s brushes with possession A really poorly planned and presented sequence Consequences of armchair diagnosis Interactions of telepathy and psychology Legion as a portrayal of mental illness Writing mental illness in fiction NEXT EPISODE: Rasputin Family Reunion! Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog! Find us on iTunes or Stitcher! Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here! We’re in the process of migrating our official shop to TeePublic! Click over to check it out! (You can still find the designs we haven’t moved yet at Redbubble.)