Wait…the Ancient One was trans? (MCU: Doctor Strange)
The Ancient One knows more about gender than you can imagine
The Ancient One always knew her time was limited. The only mystery was what she would do with it.
A FUTURE WITH NO END
Her ability to see into the future told her as much: a vast ocean of possibilities that forever ended with her standing next to Doctor Strange as they watched a sunset manifest through the breaking clouds of rain.
When she brought her awareness forward to that time, she felt a sense of wholeness.
But the question of how to get there?
Time and paradoxes were funny things. So many paths led to darkness. Death. Worse.
Only one path led to life.
Only one path refused to light the way.
WHO ARE YOU IN THIS VAST MULTIVERSE?
The Ancient One kept her past a secret for a reason.
There was nothing wrong with her. She knew that. But she never felt the time was right to tell her disciples. To tell them the truth of what had (and had not) happened.
Why she’d made the sacrifices they considered unforgivable.
And why wouldn’t they condemn her actions? She’d taught them such things had to be resisted at all costs.
“Hypocrite,” she called herself when she looked in the mirror.
How had it all gone so wrong?
SEE ALSO: WAIT…THANOS IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT?
ONCE UPON A TIME
Long ago, she’d planned to pass her role as the Sorcerer Supreme on to someone else. With her skills, she could find a great sorcerer. Maybe even the best among them for millennia.
But she would not die like this. No, not like THIS.
And she suspected that was what the black spot in her future signified.
Her actions to protect this realm from unseen threats guaranteed that those aware of her role would recall her as a bright spot in history.
They would remember her…like this.
As a man.
But she wasn’t a man. She’d always known that. Even when they celebrated her as the newest Sorcerer Supreme. The greatest man anyone had ever seen.
How could she let that happen? How could she advance to her last and yet know exactly what she should have done differently?
WE DON’T GET TO CHOOSE OUR TIME
The Ancient One would not die as a bright spot in history when that light would shine on a face that was not HER.
Illusion and deception did much to hide the truth. She couldn’t, after all, maintain her magical mask at all times. Threats came to this realm that simply couldn’t be ignored.
SEE ALSO: SUPERMAN SAID WHAT ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH?!
Imagine if a moment’s distraction allowed Dormammu get a message through to the most easily manipulated men? She couldn’t allow that to happen.
But she was just one person. One woman. One sorcerer.
That was why she’d broken her vow. The sacred tenet first ordained to preserve the sanctity not just of this realm, but the sorcerers who protected it.
FORBIDDEN MAGIC
Temptation doesn’t need much more than a seed. That and the sorcerer to plant it.
If the Ancient One had never known it was possible, she would never have considered it.
She knew, of course, that magic made it literally possible. But there were as many unsolved limits to the human spirit as the dimensions of reality.
Who could ever bring themselves to do what she now believed would be required of her?
Until him. The one who showed her what could be done.
THE BEST AMONG US ALL
He’d come to her hoping to change the unchangeable. His body refused to do what he wanted. What he needed.
His body wasn’t meant to turn into a woman’s. At least not what FELT like a woman’s body to him, anyway.
Magic could do what he desired, but to maintain such a manifestation would require everything he had to give. He could not do that and be sorcerer.
He swore he would find a way. He left her and her temple and her students.
If her ego had not demanded its way, she would have let him go unseen, his future a mystery. But she had to know.
And when she opened a portal to check on him, she saw what she most feared.
Her former pupil had what he wanted. She’d told him it would never happen. But there he was — a man.
SEE ALSO: WAIT…BATMAN IS TRANS??
The illusion would be with her pupil until he died, but it had cost him any capacity for power beyond his visage. Maintaining that degree of perfection would cost him everything else.
And she could not abide that. She could not violate her oath as the Sorcerer Supreme…
But nor would she violate the oath to herself she’d made before she could choose whether to make it.
The Time Stone was only meant to defend this realm. But on the other side of the same enchanted coin, wasn’t the health of Earth’s greatest protector a vital component of defending this realm?
If using the Time Stone could make her whole, didn’t her vow not only allow her to do this…
Didn’t it require her?
THE ANCIENT ONE AND THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS
The Time Stone allowed the Ancient One to change her past. Tiny moments she coordinated to change her fate without jeopardizing all else that existed.
She was from a different time, an era when the medical marvels of the modern era weren’t available. It would be centuries before hormones and therapy could shift her body into what it was always supposed to be. But until then? Neither medicine nor magic could change her.
What mattered most, then, was shifting the point at which she accessed sorcery. Because while it could not change her, it could forestall the changes she hoped to avoid.
The modern world would call it a kind of puberty blocker. She would call it a miracle.
And thanks to the Time Stone, she could foresee all possible permutations before she made an incalculable error.
So why couldn’t she predict what happened next?
I CAN’T RISK THIS REALITY ON A PROMISE
Now that her body was held in stasis, now that each subtle change that advanced the impact of testosterone could be held at bay until the day when she had the medical and magical power to remake her body as she saw fit — she discovered a stunning revelation.
She found medicine to begin her transition. Hormones. Spells for the rest.
But before she cast the first spell, she felt as though her eyes opened for the first time. She could not say what was true for everyone, but she had never known such clarity about what was true for her.
SEE ALSO: WAIT…SUPERMAN IS TRANS??
No matter how far back in time the Ancient One pushed her body, no matter what power she drew on to change that vessel — her body remained her body.
It seemed so obvious. So simple. And yet so easily missed.
To think of all she’d given, all she’d taken…and to what end?
She could never escape the simple fact that bound her to all points of her past, present, and future.
This body belonged to her. It always had. It always would.
She was waging a war that could never be won. Fighting battles that would only ever result in self defeat.
She was trying to change what couldn’t be changed. To control what couldn’t be controlled.
Becoming the very thing she’d vowed to fight.
THE ANCIENT ONE AND THE TERTIARY TIMELINES OF TRANSITION
Once she saw herself clearly, the decision became simple.
She needed to return the Time Stone to its sacred place.
Her body was her body. What mattered was what she did with it.
She would never cross that line again. At least not so far that she jeopardized any chance at happiness. She had to be able to live — no pun intended — with her decisions.
At least until she found her rightful successor.
She would instead use a manageable amount of Dark Dimension energy for a purer purpose.
To sustain her body. To sustain her soul. To sustain the life that was meant to be hers…if only she would claim it.
Until then, she would keep herself ready and her heart open for a worthy successor.
She could only hope he didn’t find her too…strange.
THE END
For my story, please read “I Am Trash” (or watch the short video)
If you enjoyed this article, please follow me here and/or go to my Patreon to support me providing more content like this.
If you want help telling your own story, please go to Stephenie Edits
