Hello OTV family - Gretchen Wylder here, creator of queer comedy series These Thems and producer of Agents of Change, both of which are streaming on the OTVApp!

I am writing this blog post from Edinburgh, Scotland, where I am performing in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for all of August in my very first solo show, 2025 Salem Witch Trial. My show is based on the true story of being a queer witch who accidentally infiltrated a Christian cult and a subsequent realignment with divine feminine perspectives on spirituality. Horrors occur when extremism takes over religious communities – as we are all seeing play out in real time in the world. America is off the rails right now. It’s nice to be over here, across the pond and - not shockingly - I’m dreading the inevitable skip back over.

When I was asked to be the guest blogger for OTV’s Watery Memories drop, of course I jumped at the opportunity. I love the community OTV creates and the visual art and films curated for the OTVApp!. What a gift to us all during these difficult times, really.

Plus, this drop’s theme is perfect because I’m a Pisces! Water has strong ties to all religions - Catholic holy water, Orisha water goddess Yemaya, witches’ full moon water, just to name a few. Water as an element is also represented by its own suit in the tarot, the Cups. Each Cup card represents different areas of our emotions - loving, intuitive, romantic, grieving, nurturing. Water is life! So yes, I was very excited about this as a theme for the latest OTV drop and what better way than to align the incredible work with my water-witch knowledge?! I’ve decided to assign a Cups tarot card to each film, just for fun. So, let’s dive right in…

MASHED (Madeline “Madge” Scrace - Creator/Writer/Lead and Stacey Maltin - Director) opens next to the watery Brooklyn Bridge as our protagonist tells the dude she’s with that she “really wants to sleep with girls.” They fuck anyway and she cries out in pain during penetration. The idea of not being able to get wet for a man comes to mind and brings the watery theme to the forefront right away.

Throughout various sexual encounters - later, with queer partners - she is still experiencing pain during sex and inability to have orgasms. Scenes are cut between imagery of fruits being squeezed of their innards, often with brutal force. Fruit juices as sex fluids. Later, even blood and urination.

As more unfolds in the story, there’s heavy Five of Cups energy here - spilled blood on the ground and lingering pain from the past before making the decision to move on.

From X to Z (Florencia Manóvil - Writer, Director and Producer) is a lovely short film that started off a little too relatable. “I’ve been asking the universe for a smart, funny girlfriend for many years and… nothing.” Yeah girl, same.

This short follows a Gen X and Gen Z queer - they are the Two of Cups, pouring knowledge into each other by sharing their lived experience. This short felt like a gentle bridge over some rocky waters, easing culture gaps between generations of queers.

Talk about water works - The Pool (Erica Long - Writer, Director, Producer and Cristobal Olguin - Director) is a tear jerker and I was crying by the end of this beautifully devastating piece.

The cinematography up top is stunning with an image of a pregnant woman gracefully beneath the water. Fast forward a few months later and she is now the mother of twins, wife to a loving husband, and life looks hopeful. But when tragedy strikes, this short is about having to rebuild, much like the Ten of Cups reversed - loss of family, ease, joy. But reversals can always be uprighted again. Hope is woven throughout via sacrifices of partnership, patience, and true love.

Water brings us into this world from the womb and this short is a reminder that it can take us out just as quickly. Water is renewal. It evaporates into the ether and returns as rain.

“Every day is a process of beginning again.”

A compelling hybrid of documentary and narrative film, The Return (Hena Ashraf - Filmmaker) follows a documentarian learning how to grieve her father and expresses regret for not being closer to him, despite his emotional abuse.

“You are not my father anymore” is a phrase that many queer people know all too well and certainly hit home for me. And even though setting boundaries may be what’s necessary, that doesn’t make it any less painful.

Water shed as tears of regret, grief and loss come to mind here. The Four of Cups shows someone unable to accept the Love offered to them. This film embodies the grief that accompanies the loss of someone we so desperately wanted love from but their well always ran dry.

Stress Fracture (Jesse Robkin - Writer/Director/Producer and Tim Cundy - Producer) was a bit of a mind fuck in the best way.

The short opens in a bathtub with a character whose concepts of reality and time are both slipping away. With two trans leads, the parallels between gender and water are, well, fluid. Thoughtful imagery of positive and negative space along with questions about reality make me think… What is and isn’t our body? We are made of 60% water, after all. The majority of our being, our vessel, is water. And since water is boundless, why can’t we be?

The Six of Cups radiates through the characters’ relationship in this film - a necessary, helping hand out of your own depths.

Like many o’ Pisces, I too have asked myself what’s really the worse of two evils?... Being in an unhappy situationship or staying single yet yearning for connection?

That is the conundrum brought to us in Two Ways of Being Lonely (Pável Estrella - Filmmaker), a very literal title to an age-old problem. Water is love. But water can not be contained easily when cupped in our hands. Unless you have the right vessel to hold it, water slips away.

The Seven of Cups comes to mind, with someone looking at all of their options and needing to decide what they are willing to put up with, what their own needs and wants are, and how they’ll show up for themselves based on who they choose to invite into their heart.

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Who doesn’t love the idea of a lakeside queer summer camp?!? In Rough River Lake (Mary Tilden - Writer/Director/Actor/Producer and Leah Raidt - Co-Creator/Actor/Producer), a group of friends get ready for a true gaycation.

This setup is definitely giving Three of Cups - a card of celebration with friends, lightheartedness and joy. But when our queers are forced to share space with a straight bachelor party who booked the same camp by accident (my worst nightmare tbh), the tension builds until one of the men flings the dreaded “dyke” slur.

Ironically, the definition of “dike” is rooted in water - an embankment of earth and rock built to prevent floods. But even when outsiders try to disrupt, the bond between chosen family is impermeable. After all, a dyke is built strong enough to weather anything.

Water as fluid is able to assume the shape of the container it’s poured into.

In the experimental film Wetlands of our Mother’s Tongues in Concrete (Jordan Deal - Filmmaker), we see visuals of watery waves amidst concrete buildings, structures, electronics, landscapes. Where does one fit in when fluidity is forced into the physical? Must trans people fit into a rigid mold in order to survive?

Ace of Cups feels appropriate here - water overflowing from a structured cup. The things that make us beautifully unique can not - and should not - be contained.

The incredible cinematography and visual art found in The Dream That Refused Me (Director - Jabu Nadia Newman) begins with what could be a prayer, spell, or poem.

An African man stands in waves of ocean water, speaking his native tongue without subtitles. A modern day influencer intervenes our screens before experimental and ethereal visuals take over. Interpretive dance, flowing like water. Lovely cinematography and artistic vision throughout.

Just like water, this film reverberates, it echoes. The richness of the images throughout feel like the Nine of Cups - celebrating a richly beautiful culture amid the fight against modern society’s influence.

Alright, that’s all I got! I’m about to head out to perform onstage - it is absolutely one of my favorite things to do and this is the first time I’ve been in a show with a decent run since pre-pandemic.

My cup feels full right now, which is rare in 2025. And so therefore, I’m choosing to cherish it. These films were a beautiful addition to this artistic utopia I’m currently in the midst of. But in the antagonistically insidious world collapsing around us, art will help get us through.

So, thank you to all the artists for executing your visions so beautifully and making your work! And thank you to OTV for having me guest blog. Oh, and dear reader, don’t forget to stay hydrated!.

NOW STREAMING: 'watery memories' collection

OTV Guide | watery memories