Mentally, I’m in Season 3 of Charmed

By Season 3, I mean that I’m a little stronger, a little older, but still fighting demons — real, imagined, and occasionally televised. Most days, I’m just trying to hold it all together with increasingly questionable coping mechanisms, gay grief, magical chaos, and the pop culture that raised me better than any school ever could.

Hi, I’m Nathan. I grew up gay on a farm in rural Tasmania, which is a sentence that explains a lot. While the other boys were playing footy, I was pretending to be Piper Halliwell, blowing up invisible demons and rewatching Buffy VHS tapes religiously like they were sacred texts. I wasn’t learning to drive a ute — I was training for my inevitable arc as a traumatised magical heroine with trust issues and excellent hair.

Now in my 30s, I live in the big smoke, drink wine I can’t pronounce, and spend an unhealthy amount of time thinking about sci-fi, fantasy, and who exactly decided that every powerful female character must suffer spectacularly before getting a moment of peace.

That’s what Glitches in the Gaydar is about: Pop culture breakdowns. Messy nostalgia. Chaotic rewatch spirals. And a lot of yelling about magical heroines who deserved better.

This newsletter is for:

🧙‍♀️ Recklessly overthinking our favourite super-powered, disaster-prone women and their tragic, triumphant journeys.

📺 Deep dives into the chaotic formative icons that broke our brains and built our coping mechanisms (Buffy, Charmed, The X-Files, Star Trek, and the cursed masterpiece that was 90s Sabrina).

🌈 Gay millennial rage rewatches, nostalgia spirals, and serious philosophical debates like: Did she grow as a character, or did the writers just emotionally obliterate her in a crypt for the drama?

I’m not here to rank Marvel timelines or explain the multiverse. I’m here to ask why Willow’s villain arc felt like a personal attack, why there is no chance of ever getting over the character assassination of Cordelia Chase and whether Egwene from The Wheel of Time is actually the next Supreme.

If you’re a little feral for magical women with powers, trauma, and unnecessarily complicated love lives — you’re home. This is for the readers, the rewatchers, the ones who know that the most devastating line in fantasy TV history is still: “Your shirt.” RIP Tara Maclay.

New posts land whenever inspiration (or insomnia) hits — chaotic reviews, unsolicited essays, pop culture witchery — all delivered with an Australian twist and a very queer heart.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m still emotionally recovering from A Court of Silver Flames and need to light a candle for Prue Halliwell.

Glitches in the Gaydar is live. Come spiral with me.