#i think in a similar way with mary the mother there can be an element of thematic sa there as well

[karinyosa]

if i ever played jesus he would be the slimiest most decrepit doesn’t shower or sleep neurotic unwell emotional roller coaster dissociated from the human form motherfucker ever and if i ever played judas he would be a smarmy twink.

[lovecanbesostrange]

Please know that since yesterday I am mentally trapped in these two panels. There is actually a lot I will miss Krakoa for, but I also felt a bit of resentment throughout the era and this family is a big reason why. NOW that we are in the last stretch of burning it all down and the new X-launch is in reach, we'll get this wedding special. And we finally have all four together in a panel. NOW?! I bought X-Men Unlimited #4 in either fall of '94 or spring '95, solely because of the cover. 30 years of waiting. Let me live in this moment for a bit.

Look at what they are doing with the art! Oh sure, Mystique and Nightcrawler are the blue ones. Pair up Destiny and Rogue next to that to make them look similar enough as well. Only for my brain to scream "but the personalities are the other way around!!!!!!!!". Irene and Kurt work on faith and believe in possibilities and reaching out to be better. Raven and Anna Marie typing this out makes me feel weird are the ones who will kill a bitch and say they will darken their soul so others don't have to. Plus there is the element that they both have lived more than one life and their sense of self is distorted .

They've come a long way, okay?!

Yes this is exactly what it looks like. For plot reasons Nightcrawler was too weak to teleport and dangling off a cliff next to Mystique. And of course Rogue could only save one and before she made a decision Mystique said "I make this for you" and let go. I still like to believe she flipped them the bird when she fell. Because she is Mystique. "HaHa! Take this, you think I'm the worst mother ever, but you will have to live with a moment of nobility from me!" (Also Destiny knew this would come, and she fucking knows there is something good inside of Mystique. It just comes out... different. And needs very specific circumstances.)

Apart from X-Men Evolution (and the X-Men Forever alternate history comic with its very special vibes), we have never gotten any bigger acknowledgement of this family. And Irene has been cut out. Either conveniently on account of being dead, or because she's an old lady and clearly just a gal pal, ahem. (It's also very funny to me to go back to their first appearances, where the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants has the biggest Three Stooges energy ever. I needed Mystique, Destiny, Rogue, Pyro, Blob and Avalanche to have a drinking contest on Krakoa. That is what Krakoa was supposed to be about!! You needed to give us 200% domestic nonsense, fun and games. So it would hurt everybody when it was inevitably taken away. EVERYBODY needed to find happiness in that place in unconventional ways.)

Sadly not my original thought (I don't have those), but recently I read some comment where somebody said that with Irene being his bio-mother, Kurt should have inherited a type of precog-sense, a sorta spidey-sense for teleportation. A natural ability that he won't teleport into an obstacle. And I would be so on board with that. (Also funny, because Ms Marvel had that type of sense and I could pull up panels where Nightcrawler tried to trigger that in Rogue.) Would it be weird to add that now? Sure. But also super cute and helpful.

My deepest gratitude goes out to the fanartists who have doodled and sketched and painted cute family moments for them out of time. Now canon can catch up. Imagine their dinner conversations. N: "Logan is my best friend." M: "Oh, that reminds me there is this blue furball running around with his and my powers. I don't even remember if we ever had sex or not, we're so close in age and have these memory gaps." N: "Mutter, nein!" D: "You should ask him out, you two would make a cute couple. Trust me." R: "You're setting up Nightcrawler with Wolverine and keep giving me grief over Gambit?" M: "He speaks too much French! Wolverine might be Canadian, but at least he's not a Franco-Canadian!" N: "So I couldn't date Northstar?"

Do not get me wrong though. Mystique and Destiny are horrible people and they will stab others in the back. They have worked for the government, they have plotted assassinations of government people. They have fought alongside and against the X-Men. I don't want them tamed or be reasonable. I want their mess. I want them as anti-villains. Because they don't do heinous things for nothing. They like to create less horrible murder events than what could be... some writers just liked to go overboard with the scheming and forgot the sympathic undertones, which I want to cling to. And we deserved a time of peace on Krakoa. Truly imagine a Mystique who was happy on Krakoa. And the absolut batshit villainous energy when it's burned down against her will... now THAT would have been something. Instead of baking resentment into the foundation.

[smallearthboundfindings]

Hi folks, I'm back! And I come bearing another theory post. Tonight's episode: Magicant in Mother 3 and why Tanetane island is a manifestation of Lucas's.

It's rather common knowledge that Magicant, both of them, are a manifestation of one's subconcious, with Smash 4 stating "[Magicant is] a magical world in Mother and EarthBound, brought to life by the memories of certain characters." and Mother Encyclopedia stating "You get the feeling you've stumbled into somebody's dream. Going inside another person's slumberland shouldn't be possible, yet this country is like the replicant (the reproduction) of a dream."

However, with the mind, comes one's fears. As Ness's Nightmare and regrets over his previous battles, Buzz Buzz, Porky, and the Flying Men (if they die) appear in Ness's Magicant, likewise, Maria's Magicant contains the Forgotten Man and similar regrets over the Flying Men. Mother Encyclopedia even makes this clear by saying this about the final stretch of the Crystal Caverns: "With strange apparitions flying all about, if there were ever such a thing as the bottom of the world, it would, without a doubt, look like this desolation of immeasurable loneliness. You can't help but think to yourself, is this really how lonely Queen Mary's sorrow is?"

Magicant is known for really showing the mental state of its owners, but this series stable is oddly not present in Mother 3.

Or is it?

It's not really clear if Magicant is a physical location in either case, but it is clear that they have some form of tangibility given how both Ninten and Ness can bring back items from Magicant to the real world. In Ness's case, it is most clearly a mental location as otherwise, he's in Fire Springs. He didn't move in any extreme way between passing out and waking up, so that one is mental, but Maria's is a little more debatable. There seems to be no tunnel between the entrance and exit caves to her Magicant, and yet, Ninten is able to enter one, pass through Magicant, and exit though the other tunnel. Perhaps her Magicant is placed over the otherwise invisible tunnel in some way or it's just some form of teleportation, but it's clear that Magicants can have some interaction to the real world. Cue the theory.

I think Tanetane Island is some manifestation of Lucas's Magicant. Now, not the regular island itself, but the state it's in under the mushrooms' effect is, in essence, Lucas's Magicant leaking out into the real world. With his mind in an altered state, he doesn't control certain cognitive abilities, and with this, it just may include his ability to confine his Magicant. Let's go over the points: does the altered Tanetane reflect on Lucas's mental state? Absolutely. It is rife with his fears and some of his team's fears. (Side note: this may be some kind of telepathy gone wrong where this might even be everyone's minds contributing a little.) On top of that, altered Tanetane is bizarrely colored as the previous two Magicants were with surreal elements, similarly to a dream. The island may be real, but it's modifications are not. This, I believe, is Lucas's (and possibly Duster or Kumatora's) Magicant. It would certainly bring things full circle.

[little-cereal-draws]

Hi! I saw a post where you mentioned intersex Jesus being a part of medieval European alchemy and I'd love to learn more about that. Could you elaborate or maybe provide links to some articles? I know some saint mystics talked about Jesus being our Mother, and the holy wound in His side was often likened to a birth canal, especially in medieval times. Is it connected to that in any way?

I'd love to elaborate! (This is going to be a long post so buckle up lol)

I will be using the word "hermaphrodite" instead of "intersex" because that is the word that primary sources from medieval Europe and contemporary medieval scholars use when talking about this subject

The best scholarly article I've found is "The Jesus Hermaphrodite: Science and Sex Difference in Premodern Europe" by Leah DeVun. It talks about how the image of the hermaphrodite was used in a metaphorical way by alchemists to show the combining/transforming of two different metals. They believed that certain metals/elements were gendered, so combining male and female "traits" would make something of a completely new sex; similar to the way they perceived hermaphrodites as both but also neither sex.

The article then goes on to talk about two medieval texts: Aurora consurgens and the Book of the Holy Trinity. Aurora consurgens is an alchemic text and has the image below in it. The hermaphrodite is holding a rabbit and bat, both of which were thought to be hermaphroditic species where both males and females gave birth, to emphasize their dual sexuality as well as the conflicting male and female attributes of alchemy.

The Book of the Holy Trinity transitioned from the traditional alchemic hermaphrodite, like seen above, into the religious sphere by arguing that Jesus and Mary were two sides of the same coin. The author of the text says, "one can never see the mother of God without also seeing that God eternally hides and intermingles [his mother] within him. God was and is eternally his own mother and his own father, human and divine, his divinity and his humanity intermingled within. And he depends on that which he wishes to be hidden most of all within himself, the divine and the human, the feminine and the masculine." This makes Jesus/Mary a hermaphrodite.

As a bit of a fun side note to your ask, the author of the Book of the Holy Trinity gives a few more supporting points to his argument and then turns to say that as Christ contains Mary, He also contains the Antichrist which the Book illustrates like this:

The idea of the hermaphrodite Christ really took off after that and boosted the cult of Saint Wilgefortis, saint of monsters. Images of the hermaphrodite Wilgefortis were often indistinguishable from images of Christ because they were both depicted on a cross but where they both have beards, Wilgefortis only has one shoe on: a playful medieval illusion to female sex organs. Images of Saint Wilgefortis below (some images from the 1800s, some from the 1400s). You can read more about Wilegfortis in Bearded Woman, Female Christ: Gendered Transformations in the Legends and Cult of Saint Wilgefortis by Lewis Wallace.

About a hundred years later, “The Lamentation around the remains of Christ,” below, was made depicting Jesus with breasts and feminine curves. Not much is known about it and Christ's hermaphroditic traits weren't even discovered until it was restored in the 21st century. Because of how recent this discovery is, not much scholarly work has been published on it, but I did find this: "The androgyny of Christ" by H. Valdes‑Socin. It is now at the Museum of Notre-Dame à la Rose Hospital in Lessines, Belgium.

And you're absolutely right about Christ's stab wound being like a birth canal! I think the article Mysticism and queer readings of Christ’s Side Wound in the Prayer Book of Bonne of Luxembourg by  Dr. Maeve K. Doyle does a good job of explaining it. Dr. Doyle says, "The image of the side wound, ... grants feminine bodily attributes to Christ, destabilizing assumptions about his gender. In mystical images and texts, Christ’s capacity to transcend the gender binary, like his capacity to transcend the binary of life and death, underscores his divinity." Dr. Doyle then goes on to talk about how images of the stab wound looking like a birth canal would also be comforting to medieval women, trans people, and homosexuals on both sides. Now I'm not Christian but I think it's really amazing that such a simple image can elicited so much comfort and joy in so many groups of people who were not able to fully be themselves in the era they lived in. It was a reminder that even Christ was like them, their feelings were valid (to an extent), and that Jesus loved them anyway. Medieval Jesus stab wounds below for people interested.

----

Just for fun here are some more cool things!

A medieval wooden architectural relief with a person with a beard, phallus, and breasts

Potta di Modena Metope/The Hermaphrodite (left) and detail from the Southern Archivolt (right) of the Modena Cathedral Modena, Italy, c. 1099-1319, Marble reliefs

The Potta di Modena Metope (left) is damaged because people in the 1500s thought it was too sexual/offensive so they vandalized it

More journal articles:

Bearded Women in Early Modern England by Mark Albert Johnston

The Third Sex: The Idea of the Hermaphrodite in Twelfth-Century Europe by Cary J. Nederman

Transvestites in the Middle Ages by Vern L. Bullough

[basedkikuenjoyer]

A Tale of Two Hannya: Flowers Without Names

Last time we dabbled in this area we made it clear we were just scratching the surface. I have a lot I want to say about how Kiku & Yamato play off of each other and how it plays into manga’s long history of playing with gender. We’ve already brought up the classic series on the right, Revolutionary Girl Utena, and how Yamato sorta falls into some of the same pitfalls of the iconic princely lady. But I don’t think this discussion is complete without acknowledging another very important landmark shoujo that still casts a long shadow today. The Rose of Versailles, an iconic 70s series starring the dashing Lady Oscar. Raised as a man to inherit her father’s spot in the royal guard and her “Anthy,” fitting for a story told with the backdrop of the French Revolution, is none other than Marie Antoinette.

So here’s our thesis. Famously the intent of Rose wasn’t initially Oscar. Antoinette was supposed to be the protagonist but was upstaged by such a novel heroine for the time. Utena was the deconstruction of what spawned in her wake. Wano’s Hannya duo? A wickedly smart evolution that’s actually quite responsive to contemporary social changes.

Oscar really does seem like she ended up being this accidental icon, but for all the glory and passion her story is so often wound up in how she can never really escape being sucked in to “women’s games.” It’s a solid recipe; she’s remarkable as a guard & soldier but situations force her to deal with things as a woman. Contrast between battle and courtroom intrigue. It’s a very old school type of feminist work. Similar tone if a different structure than Kozue in the slightly earlier Attack No.1 and a lot of our Pinkie Violence heroines. Deep down there’s always that “A woman is still a woman” element. That’s fallen out of fashion as more feminist depictions have become normal, but there’s a certain power in that internal dynamic. 

The appeal was just seeing a female lead doing cool shit. And this parallels a lot of world media from the 60s/70s. Still pretty old fashioned gender expectations but seeing women buck them at all was fresh. Thing is...give it twenty years and new issues crop up. By the 90s we have a generation that grew up on things like Rose of Versailles and analogues to the point this action girl tomboy is just a trope. A trope bordering on cliche. A trope that allowed how we write most women to stagnate. Love interests, mothers, etc. didn’t have to get with the times. Just toss in a girl that does cool guy things and you’re golden! Most copycats lacked the balance that made Rose so iconic.  Enter Utena, so far ahead of the curve. I’ve heard her described as revolutionary even.

The titular Utena is a fairy tale character in the real world. She is a perfect lil Mary Sue, but the more the story matures the more it becomes obvious a fairy tale character lacks the sense to pick up on real issues. That’s Utena’s magic; juxtaposing the uber cool main character with the actual scary forces in the world. Leading to an ending that lets seemingly useless, docile Anthy drive the point home. A character like Utena can inspire strength...but most girls are going to have to learn other tactics. “Utena” is the Japanese word for Calyx, the outer part of a flower bud that protects it. Smash the world’s shell...

Revolutionary for the time, ahead of the curve in so many ways. But its 30 years old now. We’re at a point it isn’t rare to see casual critique of leaning on the action girl tomboy as a crutch. Nothing new under the Sun, we’ve been here before. It’ll swing that way until a new generation thinks Peppermint Patty is subversive again. And that’s the landscape One Piece got to have fun with.

Which brings us to our pair of breakout new faces in Wano. One of the biggest changes to stories that play with gender roles in this day and age is the reality we pay more attention to why some people organically feel that way. Yamato’s still playing this trope straight. Very straight actually. Background is totally on par with Oscar and the way you go about it feels very similar...for the most part. Could say the same about Utena, Yams is someone who kept that spark of nobility equivalent well into adulthood. There is definitely not a “woman is still a woman” angle with Yamato. The bath scene is a great example. No, you just don’t have that modesty. 

Kiku has that element though, in spades. Her story runs on it. What was old fashioned becomes forward thinking now by combining two tropes. Let the girly trans woman have that old theme if it isn’t as relevant anymore for most women. Same logic I’d use to say she makes a great quartermaster template. It’d be an eyeroll to make most female crewmates the one swabbing the deck or doing laundry in establishing shots...not so much if it’s Kiku. Which gives a cool edge, what’s stifling for some is liberating for others. 

That said...looking at the two together I can’t unsee the gentle repudiation of the very extreme end “all that matters at all is what you say your are” mindset. We’re not getting into discourse here, I’m just identifying trends that exist regardless of how you may feel about them. One Piece is far, far, far from the only reflection the pendulum is swinging the other way even within the community. Yamato’s treated more on the same tier as like, Bon & Iva. He does feel a little more like a caricature at points. And I do think part of the way they’re used together is making a statement about their relative journeys. How certain aspects can feel like Yamato gets the best of both worlds and Kiku the worst. Yamato doesn’t have to care because at worst you’ll think he’s silly instead of creepy and for meeting that impossible bar of being the perfect lady as good as anyone in Wano...Kiku’s “prize” is having to juggle two sets of lofty expectations.  

I feel like Oda really knew what he was doing here. Knew teenage battle shonen fans would bend over backwards to make excuses for Yamato and aggressively ignore Kiku. If OP Academy’s pulling the same trick this was clearly the intent. Both play with the expectations of that generic Strong Female Character archetype One Piece has generally avoided. Oda’s great at writing women but seems to feel that action girl tomboy is a crutch too. We’ll probably revisit this one down the line. It’s a deep well and one that’s delicate to talk about. But I wanted to end this tour of my drafts page for the last year with a bang.

[sleepynegress]

On GEN V...

First, I have to say that though I watch The Boys, for me the skewering of power, and it being always corrupt/corruptable, especially when corporate was smudged a bit by all the white dudes being centered by the narrative and fandom, and certain expected patterns in that.

...i.e. Butcher and Soldier Boy and Homelander...ALL being stanned while all being terrible people. -Mother's Milk and Frenchie being side kicks (the Black man and the "foreigner") and the silent but deadly Asian girl... You get it. I hate that this is the case, but even when meant to subvert, this tends to happen.

So, it's interesting that they leaned in harder and made it MORE obvious this time, by literally blowing up the Golden White Guy (played by Swartzanegger's son, no less) at the end of the pilot episode and playing a Black woman's gaze as the entry point into this angle on the world. ...We saw how that went with Star Trek: Discovery. Those used to the Dursley 37 birthday presents treatment were and still are REAL mad. I hate to say it, especially given how unusually well this show is rendering the insecurities and challenges of this time for young adults, but some people we like are not gonna make it through this season... And it won't be pretty when they go (holds a halo of protection over Emma & Jordan).

...But Marie, a.k.a. the audience's gaze? is safe. That said, Marie is *also* written like the usually centered white dude, just like Micheal Burnham before her. Her arc is "the hero's journey." She stumbles, but ultimately she will measure up to the highest potential (one of, if not the most powerful hero) even she can't see yet... TW for this section... for self-harm/eating disorders etc... The powers being spot-on metaphors for the struggles and insecurities of young people is a nice writing choice. Marie's puberty/power advent literally killed her parents and alienated her sister. So, of course, she can't truly see the potential. There's ritualistic self-loathing in both her cutting and Emma's vomiting to use their powers and that is mostly imposter syndrome for both....Both of them are SO MUCH more powerful than they think, but are held back by parental baggage.

...Andre too, though instead of self-harm it's being lazy about his power development, to subconsciously detach his own personhood from his father trying to live through him.

Jordan Li is bigender but is most comfortable presenting "femme", which may also have to do with detaching from their parents' preferences in gender presentation for them. They want a super-powered son. But the only times Li presents that way is when they feel they absolutely *have to* or actively need to do something and only can, in that form. "Relaxed" or default Jordan is femme.

So, while I see people wishing Li would have been femme Li in that first kiss, it makes sense that they would shift, given the baggage and male presentation preference pressure they grew up with. They shifted back to "default" Li once they were relaxed...i.e. afterglow slumber... An interesting inferred detail is that Li was born presenting male. That is likely a big reason why their parents are that attached to a masc gender presentation.

Now Cate's arc, just like the Golden Boy Luke is actively subverting an element of expected whiteness. Her power is to compel people with touch. It's white women's tears as a superpower, which is IMO, the most clever power social metaphor in this franchise. Cate's moral compass is the strongest of the superheroes we've seen in the entire Boys universe so far. She's got those actual Karen powers, but she's the anti-Karen.

She avoids using her power non-consensually in ways that cause permanent harm and even consensually in ways that may help, and given her entry point (similar to Marie, but w/o closure), it makes sense. --This is all the more tragic if she's being used in the way I suspect...given her nightmare/flashback in those opening eps. to having been in "The Woods" (I think it's either she or whoever the puppet show person is in Sam's episodes, that is the reason for the blackouts). She's a Pusher, and much like Andy in Stephen King's Firestarter it takes a heavy toll on the brain...

She's probably not gonna make it through this season, yall. Anyway, all this to say... I am intrigued by this show. And fully invested in these characters. And I like it better than The Boys because it's leaning harder into alienating the elements it's satirizing... The Boys fans are still into the aspects of the show The Boys' narrative is skewering, but Gen V is saying much louder, this is not about you.

[aspiringsophrosyne]

Episode 2: Trials of Vasselheim

There is a lot of ground to cover here, so the good and bad are going to be split into two separate posts. This'll be the first, and the good stuff.

Make sure you're in the right theater and you've got your contraband snacks safely in your pocket. Lights are going down, so get comfortable. Show's about to start.

The Good.

The City

God, Vasselheim. Vasselheim!! It's such a lynchpin in the history of Matt's word. It survived the Calamity...there must be so many stories you could tell in a place like this. It's regrettable we haven't seen a Campaign set here or on this continent yet, or more characters who came from there.

And it all looks so...complete. So alive and real. I should've mentioned Arthur Loftis by name before now, but this dude is killing the art better than Grog kills...a lot of things. There isn't anything more to say than that the art is always beautiful, and the art team always does an incredibly meticulous job. Hearing Matt recall seeing Arthur's preliminary sketches of the city ("You mother fucker!!") sums it up nicely. The dude's a gift, and I just wanted to take a moment here to point it out. This city, Emon, Whitestone....they've been so grand, so detailed, and with so much thought put into them if you listen to them talk about it in the Q&As. The show is so lucky to have this dude and all of the art team.

It's so much fun to see nods to the gods and goddesses who are coming to prominence further down the road. (Hi, Cad!) Nice to hear the bidet joke come up since we're not getting it in its original context.

Ooh, look who's still early. Hello again, Matron.

The Take

I'll be sincere with you; I was hoping for some version of the Slayer's Take, even when I had little hope. There's so much fun stuff in the arcs that feature it, and we needed to get Zahra and Kash in there somehow. So not only was I ecstatic to see it included, I ended up being very satisfied with how it was included....at least in this episode.

In the stream, the Take was encountered before the Briarwood Arc. Vox Machina accidentally killed a hydra they weren't supposed to, and they went on missions with members of the Take to pay the debt. Having it just be younger punk-ass versions of the twins swiping the monster out from under Zahra fits well with their characters and folds elements from the stream into this new context rather neatly.

Kash and Zahra

KASH and ZAHRA KASH and ZAHRA KASH and ZAHRA!!!

Sorry, I was just overjoyed to see them. The team's getting back together again!

Will Friedle is still hilarious as deadpan, long dead-inside Kashaw Vesh. I was not surprised to learn from the watch-along and the Q&A that he improvised some great lines for this and the next episode. 

And Zahra's just...hot. They both are, but he's a ten out of ten, and she's around twelve. It helps when you're voiced by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn. Both of them look fantastic, and I know you can give their players credit for that, as they most likely gave Phil Bourassa notes.

On that note, I can easily picture Laura and Mary hovering threateningly over the animators' shoulders, giving them only one directive to adhere to or fall to their collective wrath:

"Make sure everyone knows these versions of our characters fucked."

Because the pissy exes vibe is so strong with these two, and I am one hundred percent here for it.

Also, now is a good time to point out that not only does Mary provide the voice of Zahra, but she is also the most excellent voice director for this show. She's been doing great...and I almost want footage of her directing herself as a gag.

Nice to see some of the easter eggs at the Take as well.

(Side note, based on Zahra, who had solid white eyes in the stream, I'm going to guess that other Tieflings in the C2 stream who had similar eyes are not going to in the animated adaptation. Probably way easier on the animators that way. Just something neat to think about.)

The Trials

I approve of the spooky and subtle build-up to Osysa's introduction. She stalks around in the dark like a lioness on the hunt long before we see her face. Not only does that not overuse CGI, it feels tenser and more mysterious. Her design is beautiful, otherworldly, and just fun to look at; she looks like a statue that's come to life. Following her reveal, her wrecking Vox Machina so completely without visible direct effort makes her feel that much more beyond them. Alanna Ubach gives a pitch perfect performance. She has just the right amount of weariness and contempt in her voice that you believe her when shes says she's heard many pleas from adventurers over the years that couldn't back up their talk.

The Crucible fight is...Mm! I love getting allusions to the Storm Lord here, and Groon is an absolute monster. Dope monk shit!! Iké Amadi has a chasmic, commanding voice, and with it comes the quality of a teacher; one who's waiting for his student to stop dicking around and start applying himself. His fight with Grog is brutal; it elucidates the difference between mindless brute force and strategic swiftness and strength. Plus, Groon catching Craven Edge's blade and not flinching as it drinks his blood...damn.

The fight also does a fine job of setting up Grog's arc for the season, where he'll figure out what's really important and what his strength is really for.

Also, I appreciate that Grog, of all people, recognized that the situation was weird but still went along.

To say Osysa's story of the Calamity is visually enchanting is just one toothpick worth of a great redwood tree. The style choice, even if it hadn't been so stunning, is excellent. Beyond how pretty it is, it is vague, mythic, and epic, as if to say the finer details of it are lost to or can't be described by even a creature of the Knowing Mistress as ancient as Osysa. This lets us viewers imagine for ourselves just how big an event it was in this world's history; plus, it leaves the CRew room to elaborate on it later. Like, for example, in the next episode. 

Well, intermission's starting. If you need a pee break, now's the time. Just make sure you're back before the show starts up again.

[antimonyclouds]

Some more omori thoughts while I work on fanfic ._. (spoilers!)

Something I find difficult to write/read is AUs where Mari didn’t die.

These are very common, just because. People like Mari. She’s fun to write. But there are a few events and character changes that happen entirely due to Mari’s death, and I wish we got more non-headspace looks at what exactly the group’s dynamic was becoming before her death.

Kel and Aubrey obviously had their rivalry, and Basil was a lot less anxious and just generally healthier, which is all well and good. But then there’s the sibling dynamics, which I think is one of the things Omori discusses best (as someone with siblings myself who. uh. has a complicated relationship with them lol)

Sunny and Mari is a tough one. Mari was obviously pushing Sunny to be better when it comes to the recital, but given what info we have on how Mari acted in The Staircase Argument/moment/whatever, it’s unclear how much of this was specifically focused on this particular recital and how much it was Mari genuinely resenting Sunny. Mari treats Sunny very, VERY lovingly in Headspace, and there’s a lot of cute moments in Basil’s photo album, but...

Mari was so obsessed with perfection that she pushed her own brother to. That. And Sunny doesn’t seem like a bad kid - quite the opposite, really, he seems very quiet and sweet. Remember that the creepy deadpan shit that we get in Headspace isn’t Sunny, it’s Omori. Who I think Sunny deliberately characterizes as more cold and emotionless, since that’s what HE wants to be. He wants to be neutral, to be emotionless, to not feel so awful and broken. Though it might also be how he views himself after Mari’s death - someone emotionless and remorseless. And all that is assuming that there’s no DID involved with Omori, and that he’s not literally a different person who just happens to look similar.

I dunno. Depending on how villainous you characterize Mari as, it could lean on either side of the bell curve, and the amount she pushed Sunny as opposed to how much pressure Sunny was putting on himself during the recital isn’t made very clear. It’s also unclear how much, if any, resentment Sunny was building up towards Mari as a result of the recital practice.

Either way, it’s hard to say how much of their issues were due to specifically the pressure of the recital and how much was Mari expressing feelings that she would never share with anyone else, but were forced out due to that pressure. I feel it’s also important to mention that the characterization of the parents can be used to assume elements of characterization when it comes to the children - Mom being a bit neglectful and deliberately babying Sunny after Mari’s death, and being unwilling to let go of him and thus leading to most of the issues that happen in the game (we do not stan Sunny’s Mom on this blog, sorry,) and Dad getting only sparse characterization but clearly being at least fairly strict. These two not only raised their kids with their values - elements of their characters would obviously be passed down. Which is something I don’t think you can handwave, seeing as how obviously Kim takes after her mother, how much Hero and Kel take after there mother and father, etc etc.

I dunno. On the one hand, I don’t want to villainize/victim blame Mari, but on the other, given that she arguably pushed Sunny to... that... and was obviously putting too much pressure on someone who, let me remind you, was around 11 at this point in time? Maybe 12? 

So, yeah, with all that, how exactly their relationship would look without the pressure of the recital or just without the Staircase Thing specifically happening is always really difficult for me to get a good grasp on.

And then there’s Hero and Kel, which. Oh yikes. That’s honestly its own can of worms, and. Yeah. This post is already way more than long enough.

Honestly I really wanted to get some of your opinions on this, because... well... I’m really not that good at interpreting the game lol. I’ve been trying my best but so many other people’s thought pieces/posts on elements of these characters are so much better thought-out, so I thought I’d try to gauge what you all thought about this kinda thing.

And if you want to read that rant about Hero and Kel. Do feel free to tell me. I could ramble about this game and my half-baked thoughts all day lol

[unpopularwiththepopulace]

Don’t I Get a Dream for Myself ? – Bernadette Peters and the 'Gypsy' Saga

Gypsy. It’s perhaps the most daunting of all of the projects related to Bernadette Peters to try to grapple with and discuss. It’s also perhaps the most significant.

For someone notoriously guarded of her privacy and personal life, careful with her words, and selective of the questions she answers, the narrative around this show provides some of the most meaningful insights it is possible to derive in relation to Bernadette herself. The show’s ability to do this is unique, through the way it eerily parallels her own life and spans a large range in time from both Bernadette Peters the Broadway Legend, right back to where it all began with Bernadette Lazzara, the young Italian girl put into showbusiness by her mother.

The most logical place to start is at the very beginning – it is a very good place to start, after all.

(Though no one tell Gypsy this, if the fierce two-way battle with The Sound of Music at the 1960 Tony Awards is anything to be remembered. Anyway, I digress…)

Gypsy: A Musical Fable with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and book by Arthur Laurents, burst into the world and onto the New York stage in May of 1959. After closing on Broadway in March 1961, Ethel Merman as the world’s original Mama Rose herself led the first national tour off almost immediately around the country. Just a few months later, a second national touring company was formed, starring Mitzi Green and then Mary McCarty as Rose, to cover more cities than the original. It is here that Bernadette comes in.

A 13-year-old Bernadette Peters found herself part of this show in her “first professional” on-the-road production, travelling across the country with her older sister, “Donna (who was also in the show), and their mother (who wasn’t)”.

The tour played through cities like Philadelphia, Chicago, New Haven, Baltimore and Las Vegas before closing in Ohio in 1962. Somewhat uncannily, its September 1961 opening night in Detroit’s Schubert Theatre even returns matters full circle to the 2003 revival and New York’s own Schubert Theatre.

Indeed this bus-and-truck tour was somewhat of a turning point for Bernadette. She’d later remember, “I mostly thought of performing as a hobby until I went on the road with Gypsy”.

But while this production seminally marked a notable moment for the young actress as well as the point where her long and consequential involvement with Gypsy begins, it’s important to recognise she was very much not yet the star of the show and then only a small part of a larger whole.

Bernadette was with the troupe as a member of the ensemble. She took on different positions in the company through the period of nearly a year that the show ran for, including billing as ‘Thelma’ (one of the Hollywood Blondes), ‘Hawaiian Girl’, and additional understudy credits for Agnes and Dainty June.

The above photo shows Bernadette (left) with another member of the ensemble (Sharon McCartin) backstage at the Chicago Opera House as one of the stops along the tour. Her comment on the stage of the Chicago theatre – “I’d never seen anything so big in my life!” – undeniably conveys how her experiences were new and appreciably daunting.

Along the tour, she assumed centre-stage once or twice as the understudy for Dainty June, but playing the young star was not her main role. Unlike what more dominant memory of the story seems to purport.

Main credits of June went instead to Susie Martin – a name and a tale of truth-bending that’s now well-known from Bernadette’s concert anecdotes. While performing her solo shows as an adult and singing from Gypsy, Bernadette has often been known to take a moment to penitently atone for historical indiscretions of identity theft or erasure where her mother long ago conveniently left out the “understudy” descriptive when putting down Dainty June on her resumé, in an effort to add weight to the teenager’s list of credits.

Whatever happened to Susie Martin? – many have wondered. Well, she soon left the theatre. But not before appearing in two more regional productions of Gypsy and a 1963 Off-Broadway revival of Best Foot Forward with Liza Minnelli and Christopher Walken.

Bernadette too went on to other regional productions of Gypsy. She spent the summer of 1962 in various summer stock stagings with The Kenley Players, like in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and this time she did indeed get to play June.

Above shows photos from different programmes for these productions. While some may have featured odd forms of photo editing, they at least also bring to attention Rose here being played by none other than Betty Hutton.

The two women couldn’t have been in more different positions when they coalesced in these rough-around-the-edges, small-scale productions. A young Bernadette was broaching summer stock in starting to take on bigger roles in the ascendency to her bright and long career. Meanwhile, Betty found herself there while navigating the descent that followed her sharp but fickle rise to Hollywood fame in the ‘40s and early ‘50s. Top billing Monday, Tuesday you really are touring in stock after all.

While details aren’t plentiful for these productions, it was recounted Betty apparently struggled in performing the role. And understandably so. Following the recent traumatic death of her mother in a house fire, and the birth of her third child shortly before the shows began, it’s not hard to see why her mind might have been elsewhere. Still, she was apparently impressed enough by the younger actress who turned in one of the show’s “creditable performances” to make comment that she would’ve liked Bernadette to play her if a movie were made about her life.

Bernadette might not have done this exactly, but she did go on to revitalise Betty’s best-known movie role, when stepping into Annie Oakley’s shoes in the 1999 Annie Get Your Gun revival. With Bernadette’s first Ethel Merman show under her belt, the ball was soon rolling on her second.

The 2003 production of Gypsy was imminently beckoning as her next successive Broadway musical and it was Arthur Laurents who lit the match to spark Bernadette’s involvement. Laurents, as the show’s original librettist, drove the revival by saying he “didn’t want to see the same Rose” he’d seen before. Going back to June Havoc’s description of her mother as “small” and a “mankiller”, and Arthur’s take that Bernadette sung the part “with more nuance for the lyrics and the character than the others”, the choice of Bernadette was justified. Moreover, “Laurents – whose idea it was to hire her – [said] going against type is exactly the point,” and Sam Mendes, as director, qualified “the tradition of battle axes in that role has been explored”.

So Bernadette also had her own baseline of innate physical similarity to the original Rose Hovick, in addition to her own first-hand memories of the women she’d acted alongside as Rose in her youth to bring into her characterisation of the infamous stage mother.

But there was a third factor beyond those as well to be considered in the personal material she had access to draw from for her characterisation. Namely, her own real life stage mother.

Marguerite Lazzara did share traits with the character of Rose. She too helped herself to silverware from restaurants, and put her daughters in showbusiness for the vicarious thrill. Marguerite had “always wanted to become an actress herself”, but had long been denied her desire by her own mother, who likened actresses to being as “close to a whore as you could be without, you know, getting on your back”.

In that case, to “escape a housewife’s dreary fate in Ozone Park”, Marguerite channelled her latent dream through her pair of young daughters instead, shepherding them out along the road. Thus was produced a trio of the two children ushered around the theatre circuit by the driven mother, forming an undeniable parallelism and a mirror image of both Bernadette’s reality and Gypsy’s core itself. Bernadette didn’t see some of these familial parallels at the time when she was a child, considering “maybe I didn’t want to see” – “didn’t want to see a mother doing that to her daughter”.

It was coming back to the show as an adult that helped Bernadette resolve who her mother was and some of the motivations that had propelled her when Bernadette was still a child. She realised, “I think she thought she was going to die very young”, as her own father died young. So “she was rushing around to get as much of her life as she could in there”.

When she herself returned to the production in playing Rose, Bernadette conceded to sometimes bringing elements of her mother and her driven energy into her portrayal, and admitted too she looked “like her a lot in the role”. You can assess any familial resemblances for yourself, from the images below that show a young Marguerite next to Bernadette in costume as Rose, and then with the pair backstage in 1961 in a dressing room on the tour.

Marguerite was ambitious. From her own personal position and with the restrictions imposed upon her, it was ambition that materialised through her children. Irrevocably, she altered them. She placed Bernadette on TV as a very young child (“I was four when my mother put me in the business”); changed her daughter’s surname (“She told me my real name was too long for the marquees,” or really – “too Italian”); doctored her resumé (“Somehow the word ‘understudy’ vanished. ‘No one will know,’ said Marguerite”); and lightened her hair (“She’d say, ‘Oh, I’m just putting a little conditioner on it.’ But slowly my hair got blonder and blonder!”). All in the hope of giving her child a more favourable chance at the life she’d always wanted for herself.

On paper, a classic stage mother. “When I was a kid, she fulfilled herself through me,” Bernadette would say. “She put me into show business so she could get a taste of the life herself.”

But it’s important to consider Bernadette often qualifies that her mother wasn’t as brutal as Rose, nor was she herself as traumatised as June.

Bernadette didn’t begrudge her mother for her choices – at least by the time she was an adult, she’d rationalised them, explaining “naturally it was more exciting [for her] to go on the road with me than staying home and keeping house”.

As a child, Bernadette hadn’t necessarily wanted to be on stage, but there was a sense of ambivalence – not resentful belligerence – as she “didn’t care one way or the other” when she found herself there.

Like June, Bernadette may have been entered into and coaxed around a path she hadn’t voluntarily chosen. But unlike June, Bernadette had a deal with her mother that “she had only to say the word”, and she could leave.

Most crucially, she never did.

But that’s not to say Bernadette was enamoured with acting from the beginning.

She seemed to feel ‘outside’ of that world and those in it. And others saw it too.

It was in 1961 in Gypsy that Bernadette first met Marvin Laird – her long-time accompanist, conductor and arranger. The way he put it, he “noticed this one young girl, very close with her mother” who, during breaks, “didn’t mix much with the other girls”.

Beneath the effervescent stage persona, there’s a quieter and more reserved reality, and a sense of separation and solitary division.

When asked by Jesse Green in 2003 for the extensive profile in The New York Times if she thought her experiences on the road in Gypsy were good for her at that age, she gives a curious, somewhat abstract, predominantly dark, potentially macabre, response. He wrote:

She doesn’t answer at first but seems to scan an image bank just behind her eyes for something to lock onto. Eventually she comes out with a seeming non sequitur. “I didn’t know how to swim. I remember, in Las Vegas, I fell in, once, and they thought I was flailing, but I felt like: ‘It’s pretty down here!’ I might have been dying and I was thinking: ‘Look at the pretty color!’ And suddenly my fear of water was gone, and I could have stayed in forever.” After a while, I realize she’s answered my question. Then she dismisses the image: “But I had to get my hair dry for the show that day, so up I came.”

I’m still not entirely sure I know what she’s trying to convey here. My interpretation of this anecdote changes as I have re-visited and re-examined it on multiple occasions at different time points. It’s arguably multiply polysemic.

Was she simply swept up in a moment of childlike distraction, lost in the temporary respite alone away from the usual noise and clamour? Was she indicating comprehension that her feelings and perspectives came secondary to any practical necessities and inevitable responsibilities? Was she using the water to depict a muffling and fishbowl-like detachment from others her age who got to live more ‘ordinary’ lives in the ‘normal’ world above that she felt separate from? Was she referencing the pretty colours she saw as a metaphor for show business and how she became bewitched by them even despite potential dangers? Was she trying to legitimately drown herself, or at least exhibiting an ambivalence again as to whether she lived or died, because of what the highly pressurised demands on her felt like?

The underlying sentiment through her response in answer to Green’s primary question was that, in essence – no. Being a child actor was not “over all, a good experience for a youngster”.

Acting might have been something she fell in love with over time, but not all at once, not right from the beginning, and not without noting its perils.

It was a matter of accidental circumstance that landed Bernadette in the show business world to begin with at such a young age in the first place – “I just found myself here,” she would offer.

Her mother, who was “always crazy about the stage”, “insisted” that her sister, Donna take lessons in singing, dancing and acting.

A further point of interest to note is that, although it was Bernadette with her new surname who would grow up to be the famous actress, look to the cast lists from the 1961 touring production of Gypsy that featured both sisters in the company (see photo below) and you’ll find no ‘Lazzara’ in sight. Donna too, appearing under the novel moniker of “Donna Forbes”, had also already become stagified (nay, ethnically neutralised?) by her mother. As such it is clearly demonstrated that Marguerite’s intention at that point was to make stars of both her daughters. Correspondingly so, when her sister returned from her performance lessons some years before, “Donna would come home and teach me what she had learned,” Bernadette remembered. She may have gotten her “training second hand”, but the key element was that she got it.

For Bernadette, it was a short jump from emulating magpied tricks from her sister as well as routines from Golden Age Busby Berkeley musicals on the ‘Million Dollar Movie’ in front of the TV screen, to her mother getting her on the other side of the screen and actually performing on TV itself – belting out Sophie Tucker impressions aged five for all the nation to see.

The photos below show Bernadette in performative situations at a young age (look for criss-crossed laces in the second for identification).

“At first, as a toddler, Bernadette enjoyed performing; it came naturally, a form of play that people inexplicably liked to watch.” It was “just a hobby” and she “wanted to do it”.

But while she may not have detested it, she didn’t entirely comprehend what was going on either. “I didn’t even know I was on TV,” she said. “I didn’t know that those big gadgets pointed at me were cameras and that they had anything to do with what people saw on the television set.”

When she started gaining more of an awareness of how “such play [was being] co-opted for commercial purposes”, she grew less enthralled. “She didn’t care for the bizarre children, accompanied by desperate mothers, she began to see at auditions: ‘They spent their whole time smiling for no reason, you know?’”

Being a child who had become sentient of being a child performer began to grow wearisome and grating to the young girl who had her equity card, a professional (and strange, new) stage name, and an increasingly long list of expectations by the time she was nine. There’s a keen sense she did not enjoy being in such a position: “I wouldn’t want to be a child again. When you’re a child, you have thoughts, but nobody listens to you. Nobody has any respect for you”.

Gypsy did indeed mark a turning point for Bernadette as mentioned above – but not just in the way that seems obvious. Looking back at it now, it does appear the monumental turning point at which she started appearing in significant and reputable productions, beginning what would be the foundation to her ‘professional’ career. However it was also the turning point after which she nearly quit the business altogether.

When she returned from performing in Gypsy, Bernadette felt like she’d had enough. One way of putting it was that she “then retired from the business to attend high school”, wanting to have some semblance of a normal scholastic experience “without the interruptions”. But whatever dissatisfaction she was feeling as an early adolescent on stage, she didn’t resolve at school – going as far as saying that while at Quintano’s School for Young Professionals, “she was in pain”.

“When you’re a teenager you’re too aware of yourself,” she recalled. Being a teen and trying to come to terms with of the expectation of the ‘60s that “you are supposed to look like Twiggy, and you don’t, you feel everything is wrong about you”. Everything “was all about tall, skinny, no chest…[and] hair straight”. Little Bernadette with her “mass of [curly] hair and distracting bosom”, as Alex Witchel put it, was never going to fit that mould. “That was not me,” she stated. “At all.”

Her self-consciousness grew to the point that it became overwhelming and asphyxiating. “I was trying desperately to blend in and be normal, but that doesn’t allow creativity to come out,” Bernadette said. “I knew I was acting terrible. The words were sticking in my mouth and all I could think about was how I looked”. It was hard enough just to look at herself (“I didn’t like what I saw in the mirror”), let alone to have other people gawk at her on stage. So she stopped trying. She “didn’t work much from age 13 to 17” in the slightest. Bernadette would later reflect in 1981 in an atypically open and vulnerable interview, “I was very insecure. Insecurity is poison. It’s like wearing chains”.

It was a combination of factors that helped her overcome these feelings of such toxic and weighty burden to draw her back into the public world of performing and the stage. “The two people who helped her most, she says, were David LeGrant, her first acting teacher, and her vocal coach, Jim Gregory.” Jim helped with “[opening] a whole creative world for [her] with singing”; and it was David who’d give her the now infamous and often (mis)quoted line about individuality and being yourself.

Having these kinds of lessons, she reasoned, was “really a wonderful emotional outlet for a kid of 17”. The process of it all was beneficial for her therapeutically – “you have a lot of emotions at that time in your life, and it was great to go to an acting class and use them up”. And Bernadette felt freer on stage than she did out on her own in the ‘real world’, saying “[up there] I don’t have to worry about what I’m doing or saying because I’m doing and saying what I’m supposed to be doing and saying”.

Finally then and with considerable bolstering and support, she grew comfortable with the notion of being visible on stage and in public, and realised she was never going to blend in as part of the chorus so it was simply better to let go of such a futile pursuit.

David LeGrant’s guiding advice to Bernadette (“You’ve got to be original, because if you’re like everyone else, what do they need you for?”) wasn’t just a trite aphorism. For her, it was a life raft. It was the key mental framing device that allowed her to comprehend for the first time that she might actually have intrinsic value as herself. And that it was imperative she let herself use it.

She had always stuck out, yes, but she had to learn how to want to be seen – talking of it as a conscious “choice” she had to make when realising she did “have something to offer”.

Thus soon after Bernadette graduated, she stepped back into productions like in summer stock and then Off-Broadway as she made her debut at that next theatrical level at 18. It wasn’t long before she was discovered in what’s seen as her big break in the unexpected smash hit, Dames at Sea. And so Bernadette Peters, the actress, was back. And she was back with impact and force.

Besides, as she’s also said, she couldn’t do anything else – “if I ever had to do something else to earn a living, I’d be at a total loss”. An aptitude test as a teenager told her so apparently, when she “got minus zero in everything except Theater Arts”. So that was that. Her answer for what she would’ve done if she’d never found acting is both paradoxically exultant and macabre – “I don’t know, probably shot myself!”

Flippant? Maybe. Trivial? No.

Acting is thus undoubtedly related highly to Bernadette’s sense of purpose and self-worth. This is what makes it even more apparent that a show with such personal and historical connections for her, as in Gypsy, was going to be so consequential and impactful to be a part of again as an adult and perform on a public stage.

She’s called inhabiting the role of Rose in the 2003 revival many things: “deeply personal”, “life changing”, “like going through therapy” – to name a few.

In interviews regarding Gypsy and playing the main character, when asked what she had learnt, Bernadette would frequently say something like, “It taught me a lot”. Pressed further about specifics, her answers often hem close to vague platitudes as she maintains her normal tendency of endeavouring to keep her privacy close to her chest.

On one occasion, she actually elaborated somewhat on what she’d learnt, giving a fuller answer than the question is normally afforded anyhow. Beyond all it revealed to her about her mother, she extended to admitting “my capacity for love and my capacity for anger” as aspects in her that the show had permanently altered. Moreover, Rose to her was undoubtedly the “most rewarding and fulfilling acting experience” she had ever had.

But while such deep, personal and emotional depths and memories were being stirred up beneath the surface in private, she was getting vilified in public singularly and repeatedly by New York Post columnist, Michael Riedel.

Even before she’d set foot on stage, Riedel set forth in motion early in the 2003 season a campaign of vocal and opinionated defamation against Bernadette as Rose that she was miscast, insufficiently talented, and would be incapable of executing the role.

Too small, too delicate, too weak, too many curves (and too much knowledge of how to use them). Not bold enough, not loud enough – not Merman enough. Chatter and speculative dissent begun to grow in and around the Broadway theatres.

For such a prestigious and historic musical theatre role, it was always going to be hard to erase the large shadow of an original Merman mould. Ethel was woven into the very fabric of the show, with the rights to Gypsy Rose Lee’s memoirs being obtained at her behest in the first place, and the idiosyncrasies of her voice having been written into the songs themselves by their very authors.

To step out from such a domineering legacy would be a marked challenge at the best of times. Let alone when battling a respiratory infection.

Matters of public perception were certainly not helped when Bernadette then got ill as the show started its preview period and she started missing early performances.

Nor did it help with critical perception that the Tony voting period coincided so synchronously with Gypsy’s first opening months – giving Bernadette no time to recover, find her feet, and settle more healthily into the show for the rest of the run before the all important decisions were made by that omnipotent committee.

The tale of her illness is actually undercut by a more innocent and unsuspecting origin than you’d expect from all the drama and trouble it engendered. Bernadette decided nearing the show’s opening to treat herself to a manicure. In the salon, she was next to a woman very close to her with a frightful sounding cough. Who could’ve known then that this anonymous and inconspicuous lady through a fateful cause-and-event chain would go on to play such a part in what is among the biggest and most enduring Tony Awards “She was robbed!” discourses? Or even more broadly – in also arguably playing a hand in the closure and financial failure of an $8.5 million Broadway show after its disappointing performance at the Tony Awards that ominously “[spelled] trouble at the box office” and led to its premature demise?

Bernadette did not win the Best Actress in a Musical Tony that night on June 6th 2004. The award went instead (not un-controversially) to newcomer Marissa Jaret Winokur for Hairspray.

She did however give one of the most indelibly resonant and frequently re-referenced solo performances at the awards show just before she lost – defying detractors to comprehend how she could be unworthy of the accolade with a rendition of ‘Rose’s Turn’ that has apocryphally earned one of the longest standing ovations seen after such a performance even to date.

Even further and even more apocryphally, she reportedly did so while still under the weather as legend as circulated by musical theatre fans goes – performing “against doctor’s orders” with stories that have her being “afflicted with anything from a 103-degree fever, to pneumonia, to a collapsed lung”.

Seeing then as unfortunately there is no Tony Award speech to draw on here, matter shall be retrieved fittingly from that which she gave just a few years earlier in 1999 for her first win and previous Ethel Merman role in Annie Get Your Gun to wrap all of this together.

As has been illustrated, there are many arguably scary or alarming aspects in Bernadette’s Gypsy narrative. There’s undeniably much darkness and an ardent clamouring for meaning and self-realisation along the road that tracks her journey parallel to the show. But unlike Rose’s hopeless decries of “Why did I do it?” and “What did it get me?”, there was a point for Bernadette.

As her emotional tribute in 1999 went: “I want to thank my mother, who 48 years ago put me in showbusiness. And I want to finally, officially, say to her – thank you. For giving me this wonderful experience and this journey.”

Whatever all of this was, maybe it was worth it after all.

[illuminatedquill]

Nevertheless, An Analysis

Do Hyeok vs Jae Eon

Hello, again. Today I’m going to talk about Do Hyeok versus Jae Eon; specifically how love affects both of their characters relationship with Na Bi. Love, as presented in Nevertheless, is the driving factor behind nearly all the actions and dialogue between our main leads. In this post, we’re going to focus on our two male leads and how love acts as a megaphone for their personalities.

Park Jae Eon, Frankenstein’s Creature

“I have love in me the likes you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy one, I will indulge in the other.”

- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Jae Eon, at this point in the story, is a man undone. The smooth playboy, content with keeping a safe distance from the women he chases, has crossed numerous lines and broken all his rules for Na Bi. All in the name of love. And Na Bi burned him for it. It was a long time coming and much needed for his growth as a person. Time will tell if he learns from this experience and moves on to a happier, healthier version of himself.

Love, as some people say, is a transformative emotion. I don’t really believe that. I think people can change but not their entire personalities or the core of who they are. I think back to one of my favorite shows, Modern Family, where one of the characters says that people in a relationship can change maybe fifteen percent of their personality. But that fifteen percent can be enough.

Maybe that’s right. But, in my opinion, love is less a transformative element rather than it acts like a megaphone for your personality. It doesn’t give you the ability to do things you couldn’t before but instead allows you to be more of who you are. And that holds true for Park Jae Eon. Love unlocks these deeper parts of him, shedding light on thoughts and emotions long buried from whatever trauma (we still don’t know, thanks writers) he’s experienced.

But does that make him a better person?

No.

It makes him worse. At the end of episode 9, we see him at his lowest; his most manipulative, toxic, and cruel. What he did to Do Hyeok, and how he used Na Bi to do it; it’s not something I could say the Jae Eon from the first half of the series would do. But love makes him desperate and drives him to act on his darker impulses.

He’s become a monster, single minded in his pursuit. He can’t control himself when he’s around her and that does lead to acts of genuine sincerity and kindness. But when she’s not around and spending time with Do Hyeok, that loss of control cuts the other way, leading into possessiveness and rage. There’s no balance with him; it’s all or nothing to get Na Bi back to his side and away from Do Hyeok.

These toxic qualities were always a part of him but they were reigned in because he had not acknowledged his feelings. Jae Eon always kept his distance, preventing something like this. But now he’s drowning in them, lost as Na Bi was (but she had a life raft, a way out: Do Hyeok).

All this leads to his undoing. And the end of his relationship with Na Bi.

Maybe, for a time, his relationship with Na Bi was exactly what she needed; something passionate, stormy, and tumultuous enough to wipe away her pain from her abusive ex. But while storms can clear away anything in their path, they do so by causing massive damage to anything they touch; reducing structures to rubble or uprooting trees from their places and flinging them away. The cure for Na Bi’s pain ended up being worse. She only just managed to avoid the worst of it.

Ultimately it was not meant to be for Jae Eon and Na Bi. They were two people who were unable to find balance with each other and did irreparable damage.

Let’s talk now about his rival, Yang Do Hyeok, and what love’s megaphone reveals about his character. How does his love succeed for Na Bi in a way Park Jae Eon’s didn’t?

Yang Do Hyeok, Love’s Paradox

“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt; only more love.”

- Mother Teresa

Yang Do Hyeok is the embodiment of the above quote. He unwittingly joined the rollercoaster ride between Jae Eon and Na Bi but it’s not until episode 8 that he willingly chooses to go for another round. He’s quite possibly the craziest character in the drama; in a sane world, we’d all be advising him to run for the hills while he still has a chance and let Na Bi and Jae Eon’s train wreck of a relationship continue to it’s inevitable conclusion.

But, he’s Do Hyeok and he loves Na Bi. So, he must try.

We see Do Hyeok at his lowest in episode 9; in a similar position to his rival, jealousy and insecurity threaten to overcome him. He can’t focus on his cooking and he’s irritable; his trademark smile is not present. He thinks to himself whether he should give up. Jae Eon’s little trick is hurting him bad and he doesn’t know how to handle it.

So, like Jae Eon, he falls back on what he knows. The hurt is there, but he accepts this is part of the risk in loving Na Bi and he continues to be there for her when she needs him. The megaphone lets Do Hyeok be more of himself, just like Jae Eon, but the qualities that are magnified are his kindness, his sincerity, and his pure, unconditional love for Na Bi.

He bites down on his hurt and continues to love. Where Jae Eon’s hurt poisons his love for Na Bi, Do Hyeok lets the hurt inform of what’s most important to him - Na Bi - and it sharpens his focus and allows him to move past Jae Eon’s trick. He doesn’t hide or shy away from his pain; he reveals it to Na Bi. This further strengthens their friendship to the point that Na Bi, upon discovering Jae Eon’s manipulation, finds the resolve to end it with permanently or else further risk more harm to her relationship with Do Hyeok.

The megaphone reveals something essential about Do Hyeok’s character to us and Na Bi; that in the face of heartbreak like this, the solution isn’t to hide away or hurt those who hurt us. It’s to love more. Trust more. And that’s what he does.

It’s what he’s always done. Because it’s what Na Bi needs and deserves. A partner who reassures and comforts in the worst moments and lifts us up when we feel down.

If Park Jae Eon’s love is the thunderous storm, relentless and all consuming, then Do Hyeok’s is the gentle green of rolling hills and pastures. The storm may come and threaten to shake apart everything but it always passes. And the hills and pastures are still there. And they endure, to grow again and again, no matter the damage.

That is what Na Bi needs. The promise of spring. That life can be good again and that she can be happy, that she deserves to be happy. And her friendship with Do Hyeok is the biggest indication to me that she is going to make it. With him by her side, she can get through this last hurdle.

Do Hyeok’s love is big and selfless. Where Jae Eon wants to possess Na Bi, Do Hyeok wants to simply be the one by her side. And that’s why he’s the last one standing in this rivalry.

[hartofhearts]

The changing colors of the flowers in Aerith’s Church

(Warning: OG and Remake spoilers)

Sharp-eyed fans will notice that the color of the flowers in Aerith’s Church changes over time. Pseudo-chronologically, the flowers are:

...yellow in Before Crisis...

...yellow in Crisis Core...

...yellow in OG FFVII...

...but yellow and white in Advent Children.

Why could this be? What is the significance of the white flowers?

Well... Advent Children actually shows us.

White lilies are placed on the Meteorfall Monument. This means in universe, white lilies are likely used as a gesture of sympathy to honor the dead. Which seems to tie out with the real world:

In the Western world...

When someone says, “This place smells like a funeral home” chances are there is a lily nearby. This is often considered the go-to funeral flower and there’s significant meaning behind this strongly aromatic blossom. [White] Lilies suggest that the soul of the deceased has returned to a peaceful state of innocence.

(Source)

and in Japan...

Flowers are not generally a significant element in Japanese funeral culture. If you do choose to send them, however, you should follow proper etiquette. Lilys [sic]... in yellow and white are appropriate choices.

(Source)

Interestingly, in the aforementioned AC/C scene, the boy places a single yellow flower on the monument... you can catch a glimpse of it in the above screencap between his torso and elbow. So while the primary flowers at the monument are white, it seems that yellow flowers are still acceptable. And interestingly, the monument flowers become a combination of yellow and white flowers... similar to Aerith’s AC/C Church.

Even more interestingly, this isn’t the only time we see yellow and white flowers in AC/C--we’re shown the flowers in the scene where Cloud “speaks” to Aerith:

While it’s implied that this scene takes place in Cloud’s head (the souls of the departed become a part of the souls of the living as you remember them forever etc. etc.), Cloud still believes he’s talking to someone in the afterlife. So while Cloud might be drawing inspiration from the AC/C Church’s yellow and white flowers for this backdrop, ultimately he’s thinking of the way the flowers look after Aerith’s death, and Cloud pictures this new post-death color combo as the setting for the afterlife.

So perhaps the addition of the white flowers in the AC/C Church are intended to signify her loss and honor her death. A way for the Planet to honor its lost savior. Our poor girl. 😭

So... what about Remake?

You know, I was initially confident that the flowers in the Remake Church were yellow... but after looking at some videos on Youtube, I think they’re also yellow and white.

I don’t know if the yellow and white option could be explained away as a modern stylistic choice post-AC/C... Advent Children came out with its yellow and white lilies in 2005, and Crisis Core came out afterwards with its yellow lilies in 2007, which would mean that the devs switched from yellow in OG to yellow and white in AC to yellow one more time in CC. So then they’d switch back again to yellow and white just for pretty points in Remake? hmmm

This seems exceptionally unlikely to me, especially when we consider that her garden at home has only yellow lilies...

...and she only sells yellow lilies.

The white lilies in the Church are a very specific addition that we don’t see anywhere else in Remake. And again, the only other Compilation occurrence of yellow and white lilies in the Church is in AC/C, after Aerith’s death.

Honestly, this may lend some credence to Remake being a sequel--that Aerith’s death has “already occurred” in some sense, and we’re just looping back around. (Even though I’m not usually a fan of the timey-wimey-ness... unless it’s done well, of course.)

So... what kind of flowers are they?

I think it’s likely that the white flowers could specifically be Madonna lilies, a pure white lily and a very common church flower. 

While Madonna lilies are still associated with funerals, they have other, more prominent meanings as well:

...Ultimately it was seen to represent purity, innocence, chastity and elegance. In the 5th century it became associated with Christianity and by the Middle Ages it was closely associated with the Virgin Mary in particular....

Its natural life cycle as a bulb is to emerge, flower and then die; as such it was associated with transience of life on earth, the soul and ultimately death. This resulted in it being planted in graveyards...

(Source)

These are certainly meanings that I would associate with Aerith--a pureness of soul, the transience of life, and even motherhood (in OG, she cares for the well-being of the Planet and all life; or more blatantly in AC/C, Cloud calls her “mother,” and Aerith playfully discusses adopting him). It would make sense that the Church, a place that is solely hers, would have flowers which reflects these elements of her. The Church’s white and yellow flowers aren’t an accident, and likely reflect (or perhaps in Remake, foreshadow?) her death.

[michaels-blackhat]

thoughts on evil Forrest 😈

We are going to start out by apologizing. This is very very late. I’m sure when you sent this ask, you meant it to be in the same joking tone that I approach all of my other propaganda posts. Sadly, this is actually going to be a deep dive into a few Evil Forrest related things, including the moment I feel they changed directions, the perfect wasted build-up, and the implications of the change/how it then negatively impacted the story. As I’m sure you already know, by being on my blog at all, I don’t think the story was good to begin with, so we are going to focus on the weird hoops they made themselves jump through to make that story still work. Additionally, I am only going to mention once, right now, how much of a waste it was to not have Forrest ‘fall for his mark’ and complete one of my absolute favorite tropes. Honestly, I think “because I want it” is a completely valid reason to like Evil Forrest. But, the question was “Thoughts on Evil Forrest” and these thoughts have been developing for over a year and a half. So, I apologize in advance.

The majority of this is under a cut, with highlights in the abstract. If no one wants to read this, I understand completely. Go ahead, skip it.

Note: it pains me greatly to not actually have full sources for this essay. Just know that in my heart I am using proper APA citations, I just absolutely do not feel like digging through tweets to find sources to properly cite.

Abstract:

Previous research indicates that Roswell New Mexico has a history of repeating excuses to explain mid-season changes to plots. This essay explores how those excuses are not only loads of crap, but how they hinder the show’s ability to tell a coherent story, misuse the multiple-plot structure to enhance the themes being explored, and lead to decisions that mean the show continuously goes over budget. This also means that characters are not used to their full potential and has led to what some fans consider to be “out of character” behaviors. While these behaviors are not universally agreed on, evidence can be shown that these behaviors directly contradict emotionally important character arc/plot points in the show.

The author of this paper acknowledges that the show took some strides to mend this problem. However, once again no consensus could be found on whether Forrest was a low-level member of Deep Sky and thus just allowed to fuck off on a bus, or his job was recruitment because he did a piss poor job of making Alex not join.

The concept of Evil Forrest has been with the fandom as early as New York Comic Con (NYCC) in 2019, when it was revealed that Alex had a new “blue-haired love interest”. Speculation abounded within the fandom, with some people, including the author, going “yeah, he’s evil” while others rejoiced in the concept of Alex having a loving partner. Speculation increased as fans discussed Tyler Blackburn’s seeming disinterest in his new love interest, prompting some once again to scream “EVIL” at the top of their lungs to anyone who would listen. Very little was revealed, beyond the fact that the new character would show up somewhere around episode 3 of the second season.

Episode 2.04 aired with some commenting on how he barely interacted with Alex- prompting more evil speculation- and others excited to see the characters interact more. The character appears again in 2.06, where he invites Alex to dubious spoken word poetry (which Alex attends); 2.08, where they have a paintball date and go to The Wild Pony; 2.10, where the two are seen writing together briefly at the beginning of the episode; and 2.13, where Alex performs his song at open mic night, tells Forrest his relationship with the person in the song was long over, and they kiss. Forrest was not revealed to be evil during season 2.

Amidst the season airing, Word of God via Twitter post announced that yes, Forrest had originally been planned as a villain, though not the main villain, but it was changed as filming progressed.

The Word of God Twitter post revealed that Forrest had originally been planned as a villain, but they decided that they could not make their “blue-haired gay man” a villain. This mirrors a similar situation and excuse used the previous season, where the character of Jenna Cameron was originally planned to work with Jesse Manes against the aliens, before it was changed because they just “loved Riley [the actress] too much”. Both of these examples occurred while already filming and reflect on a larger problem with the show. Though not the topic of this essay, it is important to note that both characters are white, both in the show and by virtue of being played by white actors. The fact that they couldn’t be villains for one reason or another is not a courtesy extended to the male villains who are all the most visibly brown, and thus ‘other’, members of the cast.

This also highlights the fact that, via Twitter, it has been revealed two other times that occurrences that were reported in season 1 also occurred in season 2. During the airing of episode 1.02, it was revealed that the single best build-up of tension in the show- when Alex walks to the Airstream not saying a word to Michael after a dramatic declaration- happened because one actor was sick at the time and they had to go back and film the kisses later. At the point of airing for episode 2.08, it was revealed that one of the actors were sick and unable to film a kissing scene. Allegedly, this caused the writers to retool the entire scene and deviate from the plan to make that subplot about Coming Out. The execution of this subplot will be explored later in this essay.

The last occurrence revealed via Twitter also revealed larger issues within the show: lack of planning and poor budgeting. During the airing of season 1, Tyler Blackburn was needed for an extra episode beyond his contracted 10. A full explanation was never given, but speculation about poor planning and to fill in because Heather Hemmens had to miss one of her 10 episodes due to scheduling conflicts for another project. During the airing of season 2, yet another tweet came out saying they made a mistake and Tyler would once again be in an additional episode. No explanations beyond “a mistake” were given, though once again speculation occurred. It is the opinion of the author that this was due to changing plot points over halfway through writing, while episodes were already in production. It has been speculated by some that these changes occurred during the writing of 2.08, which was being finished/pre-production was occurring roughly around the time of NYCC 2019.

Previous Literature:

A brief look at different theories of plots and subplots

Many people have written on the subject of plotting, for novels and screen alike. The author is more familiar with film writing than tv, but a lot of the concepts carry over. Largely, the B- and C- (and D- and E-… etc) plots should reinforce the theme of the A-plot. This can be through the use of a negative example, where the antithesis of the theme is explored to reinforce the theme presented by the A plot, or through other examples of the theme, generally on a small scale.

A movie example of this would be Hidden Figures (2016), where the A-plot explores how race and gender impact the main character (Katherine Johnson) in her new job. The B-plots explore the other characters navigating the same concepts in different settings and ways- learning a new skill as to not become obsolete and breaking boundaries there (Dorothy Vaugn) and being the first black woman to complete a specific degree program and the fight it took to get there (Mary Jackson). A TV example that utilizes this concept of plot and theme is the 911 shows. Each of the rescues in a given episode will directly relate to the overall theme of the episode and the overall plot for the focus character. This example is extremely blunt. It does not use any tools to hide the connection, to the point you can often guess the outcome for that A-plot fairly quickly.

This is not the only way to explore themes within visual media. Moonlight (2016) looks at three timestamps in the life of Chiron. Each timestamp has a plot even if they feel more like individual scenes or moments rather than plots as some are more used to in films. Each time stamp deals with rejection, isolation, connection, and acceptance in different ways. So while there is no clear A-, B-, or C-Plot, each time stamp works as their own A-Plot to explore the themes in a variety of ways, particularly by starting out in a place of rejection and moving to acceptance or a place of connection to isolation.

Please note that there are many ways to write multiple plots, there are just two examples.

While there are flaws within season 1 of RNM, overall the themes stayed consistent throughout the season, mainly the theme of alienation. The theme threads through the Alien’s isolation/alienation from humanity which is particularly seen through Michael’s unwillingness to participate and Isobel’s over participation. There is Rosa’s isolation from others, how her friendship with “Isobel” ended up compounding her existing alienation from her support system due to her mental illness and coping mechanisms. We see how Max and Liz couldn’t make connections. This theme presented itself over and over in season 1. While this essay is not an exploration of the breakdown of themes in season 2, it should be noted that there were some threads that followed throughout the season. The theme of mothers/motherhood was woven throughout season 2, with some elements more effective than others. Please contact the author for additional thoughts on Helena Ortecho and revenge plots.

One of the largest problems within season 2 was the sheer number of plots jammed into the season. These plot threads often ended up hindering the effectiveness of the themes and made the coherence of the season suffer. Additionally, a lot of them were convoluted and difficult to follow.

Thesis:

Essentially, season 2 was a mess. To look at it holistically is almost an exercise in futility. Either you grow angry about the dropped plots and premises, you hand wave them off, or you fill them in for yourself. Instead, this essay proposes to look at individual elements to explain why Forrest should have stayed evil.

We first meet Forrest in 2.04 when he is introduced on the Long Family Farm, which we later learn was the location where our past alien protagonists had their final standoff. He’s introduced. He’s largely just there. The audience learns he has more of a history with Michael. In 2.06, we meet him again with his dog Buffy (note: poor Buffy has not been seen again and we miss a chunky queen). There’s mild flirting, Alex is invited to an open mic night, which he attends. For the purpose of this essay, the author’s thoughts on the poetry will not be expressed. Readers can take a guess.

It is after this point that the author speculates the Decision was made. This choice to make Forrest not evil- paired with the aforementioned ‘can’t kiss, someone’s sick’- impacted the plot. We have Alex have a scene with his father- which the author believes could have been pushed to a different episode- and then have Alex go on a date and then not kiss Forrest at the end of the night. Here, the audience sees Forrest hit Alex in the leg, allegedly not knowing he had lost his leg despite ‘looking him up’, which parallels the shot to the leg that happens to Charlie. Besides wasting this ABSOLUTELY TEXTBOOK SET UP WTF, it also takes Alex away from the main plot and then forces a new plot for him. Up to this point, Alex’s plot was discovering more about the crash and his family’s involvement. Turning Alex’s date from a setup for evil Forrest to a Coming Out story adds yet another plot thread to a packed season. It is also the author’s thought that this is where the convoluted kidnapping plot comes in. With Forrest already in 2.10 for a moment, a plot where Alex is evil has Forrest attack him for Deep Sky rather than Jesse abduct him for a piece of alien glass Alex was going to give him anyway and then for Flint to abduct Alex from Jesse. It’s messy. In a bad way. Evil Forrest would have been a cleaner set up: no taking back a piece of alien glass Alex gave to Michael in a touching moment. No double abduction. Instead, there is only Forrest, who Alex trusts, breaking that trust to take him as leverage over Michael.

Implications:

Now, Alex has two plots (Tripp & Coming Out). The Coming Out plot is largely ineffective, as they are only relevant to scenes with Forrest and have the undercurrent of there only being a certain acceptable way to be out. This could have been used for Alex to discover his comfort levels, mirroring Isobel’s self discovery, but there was not enough screen time for that. Additionally, Isobel’s coming out story was about her allowing herself the freedom to explore. Alex’s story was about the freedom to… act like this dude wanted him to. Alex’s internalized homophobia played out often in the series but it was also informed by the violence he experienced at Jesse’s hands and the literal hate crime he and his high school boyfriend experienced. With that in mind, the “kissing to piss off bigots” line comes off poorly. This is a character who experienced what a pissed off bigot could do- reluctance to kiss in public is not the same as not being out. There is more to be said on this topic, but as it is not actually the focus of the essay, it will be put on hold. To surmise: Alex’s coming out is attempted to be framed as being himself, but it is actually the conformity to someone else’s ideals. It does not work as an antithetical to Isobel’s story, as the framing indicates that the conformity/right was to be out contradicts Isobel’s theme.

Further Research:

MAKE FORREST EVIL YOU COWARDS

Author Acknowledgements:

The author of this paper acknowledges that the show took some strides to mend this problem. However, once again no consensus could be found on whether Forrest was a low-level member of Deep Sky and thus just allowed to fuck off on a bus, or his job was recruitement because he did a piss poor job of making Alex not join.

[samwisethewitch]

Pagan Paths: Feri

Feri (sometimes spelled Faery) is an American neopagan tradition. Like Traditional Wicca, Feri is an initiatory tradition but does not place any limitations on who can be initiated. Although the requirement for initiation makes this religion less easily accessible, Feri has had a huge influence on modern neopaganism, including influencing other (non-initiatory) traditions like Reclaiming. For that reason, I think it’s important that we discuss Feri as part of our ongoing exploration of modern paganism.

This post is not meant to be a complete introduction to Feri. Instead, my goal here is to give you a taste of what Feri practitioners believe and do, so you can decide for yourself if further research would be worth your time. In that spirit, I provide book recommendations at the end of this post.

History and Background

Feri was founded by Victor Anderson and his wife, Cora, in the United States in the 1960s. Like Gerald Gardner, Victor Anderson claimed not to have created his tradition, but to have been initiated into it and then later added to it. In Anderson’s case, he claimed to have been initiated into witchcraft by a faery when he was nine years old.

The Andersons called Feri “the Pictish Tradition” and claimed that it was originally the Craft of the “Little People” in Ireland and Scotland. Victor Anderson was also influenced by Vodou and Hawaiian indigenous spirituality, although his connections to these traditions (both of which are closed) is unclear. Some modern Feri practitioners have made efforts to distance their practice from these elements appropriated from closed cultures, but Feri remains a very eclectic tradition that encourages initiates to “use what works.” Because of this, no two Feri practices are exactly alike.

There is another, more mythologized account of the birth of Feri, shared by author and Feri warlock Storm Faerywolf in his book Betwixt & Between. (In this book, Faerywolf uses the spelling “Faery,” but he is a member of the tradition founded by the Andersons.) In this myth, a group of powerful spiritual beings known as the Watchers rebelled against a false god millennia ago and taught magic to mankind. These Watchers are the fae, and they intermarried with humans and are the origin of all magic traditions. As the story goes, it was one of these Watchers who initiated Victor Anderson into what would later become known as Feri.

Because Feri traces its origin back to these spiritual ancestors, initiation is an important part of the tradition. When someone is initiated, they are said to be made a part of this Feri lineage, similar to how newly baptized Christians are said to be made a part of Christ’s family. This means that, in order to truly practice Feri, you must find a Feri teacher to train and initiate you.

Over the decades since the Andersons founded their tradition, many different lineages of Feri have formed, each with their own unique approach. Some are more visible and more involved with the public, while others practice under strict secrecy. Many of the practices and beliefs that are common in modern Feri come from the Bloodrose lineage.

Core Beliefs and Values

In the words of Cora Anderson, “the Craft is about doing right by one another and loving everyone you see.” However, Feri does not have a universal moral code — there is no Feri equivalent to the Wiccan Rede. While love and kindness are highly valued, the Andersons did not differentiate between light and dark magic and encouraged their followers to use magic to defend themselves when necessary. (You may have noticed that, like in Wicca, magic is an integral part of Feri.)

The Feri Tradition teaches that every person has three souls, each with its own characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses. These souls have different names in different lineages, but Faerywolf identifies them as the talker (the “mental soul” associated with the ego/personality), the fetch (the “animal soul” associated with the subconscious and the primal mind), and the holy daemon or god soul (the part of the self that comes directly from God Herself and is able to commune with gods and spirits as equals). Much of the work of Feri revolves around aligning these three souls into a fully realized whole.

Another important part of Feri philosophy is embodied by the symbols of the Iron and Pearl Pentacles.

Iron is a grounding metal, and contemplating the Iron Pentacle keeps practitioners grounded in their astral travel. Feri initiates not only invoke the Iron Pentacle, but seek to embody it by moving through each point on the pentacle and addressing any blocks or hangups in the associated area of their lives. The five points are sex, pride, self, power, and passion. When all five of these points are in balance, we are able to confidently and effectively work our magic in the world. For example, we should not be afraid of sex, but we shouldn’t be obsessed with it either; we should take pride in our accomplishments, but shouldn’t be too full of ourselves; you get the idea. An initiate who fully embodies the Iron Pentacle is fully centered in their own divine power, as well as their physical body.

The Pearl Pentacle is the compliment to the Iron Pentacle. While the Iron Pentacle is personal, the Pearl Pentacle is transpersonal — it represents the qualities needed to form healthy relationships with others. Some Feri practitioners believe that each point on the Pearl Pentacle represents the “higher form” of one of the points of the Iron Pentacle. In the words of Victor Anderson, “when taken together, the Iron and the Pearl embody the divine union that is necessary to fully awaken the awareness of our divine natures.”

The points of the Pearl Pentacle are: love (defined as a genuine desire for union; can be said to be the higher form of sex), law (as in, the natural laws that govern our universe and our actions; can be said to be the higher form of pride), knowledge (learning from lived experience; can be said to be the higher form of self), power (also a point on the Iron Pentacle — here, it refers to our ability to share power with others), and wisdom (the balance between logic and emotion, head and heart; can be said to be the higher form of passion). The way these points are taught, and their relationship to the Iron Pentacle, may be different in different Feri lineages.

Feri practitioners believe that, by embodying the Iron and Pearl Pentacles, they can achieve a state known as the Black Heart of Innocence, which is defined as “sexual innocence.” It can also be thought of as the innocent, untainted state of small children and animals. This is the natural state of human beings, before we are conditioned to be ashamed or afraid of our sexual impulses.

This brings us to a final point of Feri philosophy: in Feri sex is sacred, as it was through a sexual act that God Herself created the universe. As Faerywolf puts it, “sex is a sacrament in our tradition.” That doesn’t mean that all Feri rituals have a sexual component, but some of them might. Mostly, the sacredness of sex requires Feri practitioners to live in a healthy relationship with their nature as sexual beings.

Important Deities and Spirits

The central deity in Feri is called Star Goddess or simply God Herself. She is the androgynous source of all life, “having within Her all principles, powers, and potencies of Nature.” (Quote from The Heart of the Initiate by Victor and Cora Andersons.) Star Goddess is not only the source of the others Gods, but the source of all life, including humans.

According to the Feri creation myth, in the beginning, Star Goddess was alone in the cosmic void, until she came upon a reflection of her own light. She was so enamored that she made love to her own reflection, and from this act of self-pleasure gave birth to all things.

Star Goddess often appears as a black-skinned woman whose skin is dotted with stars. In ritual, she is often represented with a large black candle.

Nimüe is an aspect of Star Goddess, a maiden who represents the Black Heart of Innocence. She rules over new life, growth, and potential.

Nimüe may appear as a child or a young woman. She can be represented in ritual with flowers (especially pink or white flowers) or with a waxing crescent moon.

Mari is the Great Mother, Star Goddess as the embodiment of pure manifestation. She is associated with the earth, moon, sea, and sky — it is she who gives life and form to all things. The earth is said to be her body, and she is said to be “the spirit of every woman.”

Mari may appear a a pregnant woman. She can be represented in ritual with images of the earth, the moon, or of mothers.

The Hag, also known as the Crone, is the primal Dark Goddess and Queen of the Dead. She is the archetypal witch, but also a grandmother and wise woman. Some believe that it is to her we return when we die.

The Hag often appears as a wizened old woman. She can be represented in ritual with images of ravens and/or vultures, or with a silver sickle.

Star Goddess has two children and consorts, the Divine Twins. They are the personification of duality — light and dark, good and evil, spirit and matter, united in a balanced pair. They may appear as brother and sister, as two lovers of any combination of genders, or as mortal enemies.

The Twins may appear as the Scarlet Serpent and the Azure Dove, who represent the duality of fire/water and earth/air. In ritual, they are often represented with a matching set of candles, one red and one blue.

The Blue God, sometimes called the Peacock God, is born from the union of the Divine Twins — he contains within himself all duality and appears with a combination of male and female features. He is associated with the divine spark within all living things, including one of the three human souls, which Faerywolf calls the holy daemon. He is the god of opposites, and exists in a permanent liminal state. He contains within him both good and evil, beauty and darkness.

The Blue God may appear as a young, androgynous or hermaphroditic person with blue skin. In ritual, he is often represented with peacock feathers.

Krom, also known as the Horned God, is the god of fertility, light, and heat. He is sometimes described as the consort of the Goddess as Mari. He is God as father and lover and is overtly sexual in nature. He has solar associations, but is also the lord of the harvest.

Krom may appear as a man with the head of a stag, glowing with the sun’s warmth. He can be represented in ritual with images of stags, bulls, phalluses, or the sun.

The Arddu (pronounced “ar-THEE”) or the Dark God is described as the “crone aspect of the God.” He is the god of witches, the king of the dead, and the spirit of winter. It is said that when we die, we must confront the Arddu before we can return to the Hag.

The Arddu often appears as an old, androgynous man, with the head and legs of a goat and the wings of a bat. He can be represented in ritual with images of skulls and bones.

Deity in Feri is complex and fluid. All of the goddesses can be said to be different aspects of one Goddess, and all of the gods can be said to be different aspects of one God. Furthermore, all of the deities, both gods and goddesses, can be said to be extensions of Star Goddess. Victor Anderson believed that everything is connected and that the Gods exist within the Universe and the individual. As he said, “God is self, and self is God, and God is a person like myself.”

In addition to the deities, there are also spirits called Watchers and Guardians who play an important role in Feri. The Watchers are mysterious celestial entities, said to be the fathers of magic. Guardians are spirits associated with the elements, who are called on to guard the circle during ritual. Some Feri practitioners believe that the Guardians are Watchers, while others see them as two distinct groups of spirits.

Feri Practice

As stated earlier, much of the work of Feri involves embodying the Iron and Pearl Pentacle in order to return to the Black Heart of Innocence. This is done through ritual, meditation, ecstatic trance, art, energy work, and/or magic.

Feri is an ecstatic tradition, which means many of its rituals and practices revolve around achieving an ecstatic state. Ecstasy is sometimes defined as the state of being completely absorbed in the focus of your attention, and other times as the removal of the consciousness from normal functioning. In Feri, ecstasy is used as a tool for spiritual growth.

Astral travel also plays a role in Feri practice. A Feri practitioner may use trance states to leave their body and enter the spirit realm, where they can encounter the gods, Watchers, faeries, and other spirits firsthand. In some traditions, this travel forms the backbone of the practice.

Art and creative expression are other tools used for spiritual growth in Feri. Visual art and poetry in particular are often used to express spiritual concepts or to help the initiate process what they have learned. Victor Anderson was a known poet and published a collection of devotional poetry called Thorns of the Blood Rose — many later Feri practitioners have followed in his footsteps.

Feri is considered a magic tradition as well as a religion, and many Feri practitioners consider themselves witches or warlocks. Magic is seen as a way of directing the universal life energy that makes up all things, and is a natural extension of our divine power as each of us is a part of Star Goddess.

Like Wiccan rituals, Feri rituals sometimes begin with casting a circle and calling the quarters. However, Feri uses different language and gestures for the circle casting, with a greater focus on the earth and the circle as an extension of the Goddess’s body. While in Wicca, the circle is used for every ritual, in Feri it may only be used for some rites.

Further Reading

If you are interested in Feri, I recommend reading the book Betwixt & Between by Storm Faerywolf. This is an excellent introduction to the tradition, written by the founder of the BlueRose lineage. You may also be interested in reading the works of Victor and Cora Anderson — though Feri has changed a lot since it was founded, the Andersons’ teachings still lie at the core of the tradition.

Because Feri is an initiatory tradition, you can only go so far on study alone. Eventually, you will have to find a teacher to train and initiate you. Without this initiation, what you are doing is not, and cannot be, Feri. Thankfully, it is becoming ever easier to find online training, so you can walk the Feri path no matter where you live. The BlueRose lineage, which was founded by Storm Faerywolf, offers online training and initiation through The Mystic Dream Academy. Some other Feri teachers also have online offerings — look around on social media to see who is currently accepting students.

If you choose not to pursue initiation, you can still incorporate elements of Feri lore and philosophy into your practice, as long as you acknowledge that what you are doing is no longer Feri. In fact, many elements of Feri survive in other, related traditions such as Reclaiming, which we’ll discuss in the next installment of this series.

Resources:

The Heart of the Initiate by Victor and Cora Anderson

The Spiral Dance by Starhawk

Betwixt & Between by Storm Faerywolf

The official Feri Tradition website (feritradition.com)

[tcm]

Pathologically Virginal: MARNIE (‘64) By Theresa Brown

Marnie: “You don’t love me. I’m just something you’ve caught. You think I’m some kind of animal you’ve trapped. 

Mark: “That’s right, you are. And I’ve caught something really wild this time, haven’t I? I’ve tracked you and caught you, and by God I’m going to keep you.” 

2020 has sadly struck again!

In a year of celebrity deaths that have been one dagger after another in my film and tv-loving heart, the death of Sean Connery (August 25, 1930 - October 31, 2020) struck a deep blow. He was a mountain - strong, imposing; a sequoia - majestic, timeless. For me, he was a living breathing contemporary because he was an actor whose movies I saw in the theater. Yeah, yeah people can bring up how un-PC he was with women in his personal life. A disturbing and very valid point. Thing is, I think with my heart where movies are concerned - sorry - and I mostly cared about his film performances. He was the textbook definition of a Movie Star to my girlish 13-year old heart - (THUNDERBALL [‘65 ]) - and I haven’t been able to shake that definition since, even as I push 70. Sean Connery was tall, dark and cruelly handsome with a sonorous voice and the athletic swagger of a panther. He was suave.

TCM is honoring Sean Connery the movie star by featuring a night of his films. MARNIE (’64) is considered one of Alfred Hitchcock’s least successful films. I don’t know why. It’s always been one of my favorites. I think the movie’s garnered more praise in recent years. I saw the filmed opera from the Met based on this film, so it must have some merit. This is the second time Hitchcock uses psychology as a motif in his films, with the first being in 1945 with SPELLBOUND. In MARNIE, he includes all the elements, including the kitchen sink, one might discuss on a shrink’s couch for $50-150 an hour: a girl and her horse /kleptomania/fear of men/fear of sex/parental approval denied and a psychosexual childhood trauma all baked into the suspense of finding out the root cause of Marnie’s issues.

“I told you not to marry me. I told you. Oh God, why couldn’t you just let me go...The only way you can help me is to leave me alone! Can’t you understand, isn’t it plain enough. I can’t bear to be handled...I just never wanted anybody to touch me...I didn’t want to get married. It’s degrading. It’s animal.”

Tippi Hedren is perfect as the repressed Marnie. Is she the last of the great Hitchcock blondes? Yes, and she has the similar glacial beauty of you-know-who, if one must compare. But I find Hedren to be her own person. As Marnie, she is as taut and tight as a drum and does a good job expressing that. There’s an edginess to her; and a desperation. There are bursts of anger that unwittingly (and ironically) escape before she’s able to tamp them down again. I like how she shows Marnie thinking on her feet...trying to jump on any opening to use to her advantage to escape her husband. She shows love for her horse, contempt for her husband and desperation for her mother’s love. I believe her performance.

“Don’t patronize me Mark. That Mary-Marnie brown-haired blonde you married so fast and sneaky and tried to hustle off to the South Pacific for Pete’s sake. I didn’t have to overhear stuff about your not intending to go to jail too, to know you’re in some sort of fix.”

Also featured is the always compelling Diane Baker, a dark and lovely counterpart to Marnie’s blonde troubles. As Lil Mainwaring, Baker offers just the right amount of smarts, snark, observation and tension as a rival for Connery’s attention. Of course, she loses (blondes rule, this is Hitchcock remember. See Suzanne Pleshette in THE BIRDS [‘63]), but she makes you want to know more about her. However, the feather in Hitchcock’s cap is getting actress Louise Latham (“Marnie, you’re achin’ my leg,”) as Marnie’s mother who holds the key to all of it.

“You’re a cold, practiced, little Method actress of a liar...Let’s back up and see if you can turn that Mt. Everest of manure into a few facts...We’ve established that you’re a thief and a liar. Now, what is the degree? Are you a compulsive thief - a pathological liar?”

It is Hedren’s film, but I’ll focus on Sean Connery here since TCM is spotlighting him in remembrance. He’s a different character from James Bond, but his Mark Rutland is still dangerous, commanding. He’s not wholly a good guy in this movie. Alright, alright, he’s really NOT a good guy in this movie. He knows Marnie’s a thief when his company hires her. She doesn’t know he knows. He has her there to watch her like you would a rat in a laboratory maze. When he finds out she’s stealing, he doesn’t hand her over to the police; he blackmails her. To put a fine point on it, it’s sexual blackmail. 

“I’m sick? Take a look at yourself, old dear. You’re so hot to play mental health week, what about you? Talk about dream world, you’ve got a pathological fix on a woman who’s not only an admitted criminal, but who screams if you come near her. So what about your dreams, Daddy dear?” 

Sounds masochistic to me. The patriarchy is in full effect here. He knows what’s best for her. He has power and dominion over her and he plays at being an amateur psychiatrist. How does Hitchcock’s own pathology inform some of his movies? That’s an essay for another time. But frankly, I love his twistedness. Purists quibble and rag about the rear screen projection and painted backdrops Hitch uses. But I say you rag at your own risk of not seeing the forest (on Sean Connery’s chest) for the trees of the bigger story being told. MARNIE might not be the type of obvious suspense thriller we normally associate with ‘The Master of Suspense.’ No beautiful spy lady or escapes across landmark monuments. No swapping murders or knife-wielding mothers. No dismemberment across the courtyard or priests holding murderers’ secrets or corpses at a dinner party. If you’re going to delve into the twists and turns of the human mind, who better than Hitchcock to give you a visual roadmap?

[mst3kproject]

The Ape

In the vein of movies that should not be confused with eerily similar previous entries, The Ape is distinct from The Ape Man... but not by much.  Both feature a slumming horror superstar, glandular secretions, and a stupid gorilla suit.  All these things also showed up in early seasons of MST3K, of course, and The Ape Man also has a surprise bonus.  Apparently, the guy in the gorilla costume is none other than Crash Corrigan, of Undersea Kingdom!

Long ago, Dr. Adrien lost his daughter to polio, and ever since he's been obsessed with finding a cure.  That sounds pretty noble, but unfortunately, Adrien is a mad doctor, so the cure he comes up with requires killing healthy people to drain them of their cerebralspinal fluid!  In order not to arouse suspicion, he kills and skins a gorilla that escaped from a circus, and wears its hide when he murders people... you know, as one does. To nobody's surprise but his, he ends up getting shot, but hey, at least he cured beautiful young Frances' paralysis!

This is a weird, dumb movie but one thing I can say in its favour is that everybody seems to have given it a good try.  This material was far beneath Boris Karloff but he takes it seriously and actually gets a couple of decent moments, as does Maris Wrixton (who was also in The Face of Marble) as Frances.  Nobody else is even close to Karloff's level, being just bland 40's actors who talk too fast, but none of the main cast are phoning it in, either.

Conversely, the worst thing in the movie is its truly horrendous gorilla suit.  The puppet face shows the actor's eyes and can curl its lip, which is cool, though the features don't look very gorilla-ish.  The rest of the suit, however, is terrible. It's way too shaggy and in order to give it a gorilla-like silhouette, they stuck a big hunchback on it.  This might have worked if Corrigan had tried to walk on all fours like gorillas actually do, but instead he waddles along upright like a toddler with a full diaper, which ruins it.  The people who made the movie also appear to think gorillas are nocturnal which, for the record, they are not.

Gorillas were kind of a big thing in movies of the 40's and 50's.  The species had been scientifically described a century earlier, but hadn't really been studied until the 1920s and most people had never seen one outside of King Kong. Films of the period were not kind to the gorilla.  One of the first gorilla movies was 1930's Ingagi, which purported to be a documentary about gorillas kidnapping women as sex slaves.  That kind of set the tone, and subsequent movies depicted gorillas as creatures prone to violence and rape.  Examples from this blog alone are numerous: The Ape Man (1940), Panther Girl of the Kongo (1955), and Bride of the Gorilla (1951) for starters... Robot Monster (1953) might also count.

The Ape has a slightly more nuanced approach to gorilla behaviour.  Yes, its gorilla does maul people to death... but the first victim is its trainer, who has been shown mistreating it.  Another circus employee even tries to tell him that he'll catch more flies with honey.  When the ape batters its way into Dr. Adrien's house, it does so in order to get at the trainer's coat, which Adrien left draped over a chair when the dying man was brought to him for treatment.  We see far more fear of the escaped ape than we do of the animal itself, and it does not commit near as many murders as Adrien does while dressed in its skin!

So that's halfway progressive for the 1940s.  We can also look at the treatment of Frances, the wheelchair-user partially paralyzed by polio.  She is clearly meant to be an object of the audience's pity, and Adrien is obsessed with making her able to walk again – as he could not do for his own daughter.  To some extent the movie infantilizes her, as she is clearly dependent on her mother, unable to have much of a social life, and her boyfriend Danny professes his willingness to 'take care of her'.  When she regains movement in her legs at the end of the movie, she and her mother immediately burn her wheelchair.  Apparently she's not allowed to build up her stamina slowly... if she walks ten minutes from home and then can't continue, she's just gotta sit there until she recovers or somebody finds her.

On the other hand, Frances' family aren't trying to force Adrien's possible cure on her, but let her choose it for herself. Her mother doesn't mind looking after her, and Danny is happy to accommodate her by, for example, hiring a cart so she can accompany him to the circus.  Danny in particular is very suspicious of the fact that the injections Adrien gives to Frances are causing her pain, and takes the doctor to task for it, telling him he would rather have her disabled and happy than walking but in pain.  “I'd rather carry her around all my life!” he says.  Her loved ones are willing to try for the cure, but it doesn't seem like anyone will be miserable if it fails.  Frances herself wistfully admires the acrobats at the circus, but shows no anger or bitterness that she cannot be like them.

Frances is even allowed some initiative, as she hurries down the road in her wheelchair calling to Dr. Adrien and trying to warn him that the gorilla is in the area.  This, ironically, is what leads to Adrien getting shot, as it attracts the attention of the posse hunting the animal.  But as Adrien lies dying, he gets to see Frances standing for the first time in ten years, so I guess we're meant to think this was all worth it.

But was it?  Several people died in order to provide the spinal fluid that helped Frances heal.  The movie shows them as terrified of Dr. Adrien and/or the gorilla, but other than that it is oddly uninterested in their fates.  None of the deaths are presented as tragedies, with families left in mourning... the only family we hear about for the gorilla trainer is a father who is already dead, and another one of the victims was an asshole who told his wife if she didn't like him cheating on her she could always drown herself(!??).  So... are we supposed to think they don't matter?  That their deaths are acceptable because they helped Frances – who was not dying or even deteriorating, and was satisfied with her life as it was – to a cure?

It is notable that we do not see what happens when Frances finds out that people had to die for her to be able to walk.  She would have to reassess her opinion of Dr. Adrien, whom until now she has thought of as a loving father figure.  She would have to figure out what this means for her future and perhaps need reassurance that she is not culpable.  Her unconcerned happiness at the end suggests that nobody bothered to tell her, and that she has not yet made the connection herself.  This is really quite unfortunate, because it deprives Frances of her only real chance to be a character rather than a plot point – which is ultimately all she is here.

Nobody else is shown dealing with the aftermath, either.  The town has long mistrusted Dr. Adrien because of rumours that he was experimenting on his patients, and a recent spate of missing dogs is shown to be his fault.  An early scene shows a group of boys bothering the doctor by throwing rocks at his house (which made me wonder if toilet paper hadn't been invented yet. According to Wikipedia, it dates to 1857, so there's your Fun Fact for the day). Seeing their worst fears realized really ought to have some effect on the people.  Even if nobody bothers to tell Frances how her miraculous cure was effected, others will surely figure it out and have to weigh up what he achieved versus the crimes he committed to get there.

Yeah, I know: this is a movie about a guy killing people while wearing a dead gorilla.  I'm thinking too hard.

Finally, I want to note some interesting possible connections between The Ape and a number of other movies I've seen.  Both The Ape and The Ape Man appear to have been inspired by the 1932 movie Murders in the Rue Morgue, which also features a gorilla and injections of bodily fluids in the name of mad science, and did not feature very much resemblance to Edgar Allen Poe's story of the same name.  I don't know if these films directly inspired each other, and it's been ages since I saw Rue Morgue... but the combination of plot elements here seems weirdly specific to be something different people came up with independently.  I should watch all three again and see if I notice any more similarities between them.

There are also interesting likenesses between The Ape and another Boris Karloff movie, 1945's The Grave Robber.  The latter is the story of a doctor who needs fresh corpses as part of his research, which culminates in surgery to allow a paralyzed girl to walk again.  The doctor in this film is more a victim than a villain, himself, as he finds that the man he's been paying to rob graves for him is actually murdering the homeless, and he can't expose this criminal without jeopardizing his work and incriminating himself.  It's been a long time since I saw this movie, either (as I mentioned a few weeks ago, I've had some shit going on and I haven't had a lot of time for movies, bad or otherwise), so I can't actually say if it's better than The Ape, but it's definitely less silly.

Anyway, the moral of this story is vaccinate your fucking kids or a gorilla will kill you.

[yumeka36]

Thoughts on Rebuild of Evangelion (all movies plus ending interpretation)

*Artwork credited to リオ on pixiv*

Now that Evangelion 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time, the last movie of the Rebuild of Evangelion saga, has been released, I'm finally ready to discuss all the movies as a whole, including my interpretation of the ending...

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!

I've been a fan of Evangelion for nearly 20 years, starting back in 2002. After hearing the series praised by some classmates, I asked for the DVD set of the original TV anime for Christmas that year. I was 15 years old and a fairly new anime fan at the time, so naturally I was blown away by the show. The Internet was young then, and since there were no fandom wikis or YouTube explanation videos available in those days, I had to rely on a few scattered fan sites and my own resources (mostly bonus features on the old DVDs) to try and figure out the lore and symbolism. Even though many aspects of the series, as well as the eventual "true ending" movie, End of Evangelion, left me scratching my head, I still loved it and it left a long-lasting impression on me. And now, here I am almost two decades later, sharing my thoughts about the new movies...

-Before Thrice Upon a Time was released, I hadn't touched Evangelion since 3.33 came out in 2012. I had forgotten many details, and since Evangelion is a franchise that is fraught with nuances and subtleties that can be key to understanding what the heck is going on, I wanted to watch all the Rebuild movies again before watching Thrice Upon a Time. So I plowed through all four movies this week, and I gotta say, after being away from the franchise for so many years, I'm happy to report that I still thoroughly enjoyed it. But I can also recognize that it is definitely not a series for everyone. The drawn-out technobabble, constant introduction of lore jargon with little to no explanation, and the ambiguity between what's real and what's symbolic, can certainly turn off casual viewers (it gives Kingdom Hearts lore a run for its money!) Funnily enough, as I was watching the Rebuild movies, I was thinking, "I understood the lore better 20 years ago than I do now, lol" (maybe it's because I was younger and didn't have as strong of a theorizing mind as I do now!) But after reading through a bunch of pages on the EvaGeeks Wiki, I learned enough to get a gist of the story's vaguer elements. But unfortunately, the fact that information necessary for understanding the plot can only be found by Internet research, could certainly be a turn-off for viewers. But at the same time, for those willing to make the commitment, or at least appreciate the series' other qualities even if you can't follow many aspects of the lore, it's definitely an anime unlike any other. There's a reason it's been such a well-known franchise in Japan for so long.

-Asuka has been one of my favorite anime characters ever since I saw the original Eva TV series, and thankfully, I'm happy with what they did with her character in the Rebuild movies. My only complaint is that I preferred her original backstory that emphasized her relationship with her mother, rather than having a "clone-complex" similar to Rei. However, her character development in this new storyline made up for it. The Rebuild movies really nailed her abrasive, no-nonsense personality that hides depth within. There were also more scenes that showed her "softer" side, something I always felt was lacking in the original series, such as when she confides in Misato towards the end of 2.22 and when she confesses her feelings to Shinji in Thrice Upon a Time. I also felt her initial dislike for Shinji and Rei was a bit more warranted this time; despising the fact that they were able to become Eva pilots purely by connection to Gendo while she had to work hard for it. But again, we get more hints at her kinder side when she makes the sacrifice to help Rei get Shinji and Gendo together. This is pretty contrasting to the original series, where she was always oozing hate for Rei. Even their infamous elevator scene ended differently in 2.22 compared to the TV series, where instead of hitting and yelling at Rei, she agrees to help her (in her subtle, Asuka-way). Asuka and Rei also had a brief scene together when they were at Village 3 in Thrice Upon a Time, and the way Asuka talked to her made me feel like she actually cared about her, or at least didn't hate her. But even with the Rebuild movies giving Asuka more scenes to show her goodness, they still stayed true to her tough-love personality - it's not like she suddenly started smiling a lot, or gave Shinji a passionate hug, or broke out in tears...they developed her character without making her do a 180 change, which I appreciated. Even in her final scene with Shinji on the beach before he saves her (loved that scene, and the shoutout to End of Eva there) she still reacted in her "tsundere" way (though not as harshly of course). I'd also like to mention that they made the fourteen year time-skip in 3.33 very believable in terms of Asuka's growth. I really liked the hardened, lone-wolf, protector role she had in Thrice Upon a Time because it makes sense - fourteen years had passed and she not only matured during that time, but she had spent all those years being the sole Eva pilot along with Mari fighting to protect humanity, so settling into that kind of identity makes sense for her. But yeah, Asuka's always been a great character, and the Rebuild movies made her even more awesome in my opinion.

-When I first watched 2.22 years ago when it came out, I was puzzled that they decided to put Asuka in the Eva that Unit-01 ends up destroying rather than Toji. But looking back on it it now, it worked better since they had a plan for Toji's character that had nothing to do with the Evas. I did kind of miss Asuka's friendship with Hikari though (they could have tied that into her staying with Toji and Hikari at Village 3 instead of with Kensuke). I actually wrote a WYDS fanfic for End of Evangelion way back in 2003 that emphasizes Asuka and Hikari's friendship (that's somehow still on Fanfiction.net!) But she got a friendship with Mari instead, so it's fine, lol (I also liked that they removed her crush on Kaji, which I never thought fit well in the original series). But I do wish we got to see what was going through her mind while she was stuck in the Eva and getting attacked by Unit-01. We know she was aware of what was going on because she knew what Shinji did (that he didn't try to save her or attack) so it would have been nice to see a scene or two of her reactions.

-Misato was always my second favorite character after Asuka, but I wasn't thrilled with the coldness she exhibited towards Shinji after the time-skip in 3.33. I know she probably got hardened after all those years and maybe still felt resentment towards him for initiating Near Third Impact (which killed Kaji among others). But even so, I felt like her coldness was more to keep the suspense rather than stay true to her character (plus she was the one encouraging him to do what we wanted at the time of Near Third Impact). It makes sense for Asuka to be cold to Shinji, since she was always standoffish like that, but Misato was always shown to be a source of warmth and the most "human" of the characters. But at least she made up with Shinji in the end and got to finish her story arc with a bang (literally).

-I'm not sure if it's still a thing now, but back in the day, Shinji got a lot of hate from anime fans for being too whiny and indecisive when confronted with his task of piloting the Eva. But even all those years ago, I always thought those reactions made him believable. Maybe it's because he's compared to anime shonen heroes like Naruto and Luffy, who are always cheerful and brimming with motivation, while Shinji is pretty much the opposite of those kinds of characters. But it makes sense for him to be like that...if I were a fourteen-year old kid who never knew my mother, had a father who abandoned me, and had to live on my own in a crumbling world while witnessing death and destruction all around, I'd be pretty hesitant and scared too. He's definitely not a "wish-fulfilling" protagonist like many shonen and super heroes are, but a protagonist grounded more in reality, representing a disillusioned youth. So it was nice to see him finally get over his insecurities and be proactive with saving everyone at the end of Thrice Upon a Time (compared to everyone giving him the pep talk at the end of the original series). Though I did think his personality shift was a bit abrupt...he was at his lowest point at the beginning of Thrice Upon a Time, but the one kind gesture from Rei seemed to immediately snap him out of it. A little more gradual build-up to his change would have been better, but it's a nitpick.

-Mari was an enigma in 2.22 and 3.33, so I was hoping Thrice Upon a Time would give us her origin story. Unfortunately, it didn't offer much and maybe brought up more questions than not. My main question is, we see that she knew Gendo and Yui when they were younger, yet if she was their age then, that doesn't match up to the age she appears to be when Shinji first meets her. So she must have been afflicted with the "Eva curse" all those years back, which means she must have become an Eva pilot around that time, but it seems too soon. I thought the first Evangelion pilots didn't exist until after Yui died, so Mari should have been older...I don't know, I'm still having trouble figuring out her place in the timeline. But besides that, I did like her relationship with Asuka that we see in Thrice Upon a Time. Again, it makes sense in terms of the time-skip that they'd develop a good friendship after spending all those years being Eva pilots together.

-I don't have a lot to say about Rei, since I feel her story arc is one of the simpler ones (which isn't saying much for this series, lol). The scenes of her in Village 3 in Thrice Upon a Time were endearing, though I knew they would end in tragedy. Actually, that whole part of the movie with the characters spending time in the village was great. The world-building in those scenes was fantastic too - it really felt like what a post-apocolyptic survival camp in that situation would be like. It was nice to see the characters partaking in and reacting to situations that don't have to do with Angels and Evas (spin-off series for this when?)

-And lastly, how did I interpret the end of the Rebuild saga? Was I satisfied with how it ended? Right after I watched Thrice Upon a Time, I wasn't totally sure. But after reading some more wiki pages and watching some explanation videos, especially this one here (it's a great explanation if you can forgive the bad pronunciation of the names), I've realized just how brilliant of a conclusion it is. There's been speculation that the story involves a time loop, with the events of the original TV series, as well as the Death & Rebirth and End of Evangelion movies, being different versions of the time loop, while the Rebuild movies is where the loop ends because Shinji finally overcomes the pain of his past and can restore the world this time (while he had failed to in the previous loops). I don't think it's a time loop so much as a cycle that keeps resetting and repeating. Further support for this theory is that Kaoru acts like he's met Shinji before, since he's reborn in each cycle to meet Shinji only to be killed by him later (all the coffins seen on the moon are for his past/future selves). I think the final movie title is symbolic of this too, with "Thrice Upon a Time" meaning "three times upon a time," the three times being the three cycles of the Evangelion story: the original TV series, the movies Death & Rebirth and The End of Evangelion, and finally the Rebirth movies. But mostly, the scene towards the end where Shinji meets Rei in the anti-verse, and they're standing in what appears to be a filming room while projected images from the Eva TV series are shown behind them. This to me symbolizes that the original Eva series exists in the Rebuild movies as one version of the cycle, and Shinji has now finally broken out of the loop. Once Shinji has saved everyone, the filming room (which symbolizes the old versions of the story, as I believe it's supposed to be the room where live-action footage used in previous Eva works was filmed) fades away and the literal animation around Shinji begins to break down into its purest forms, as key animation, then layouts, etc., - a near 4th wall-breaking depiction of the world resetting. However, Gendo and Yui had sacrificed themselves so that Shinji wouldn't have to, so Mari is able to pull him back into the world, just like she had promised. In the end, Shinji is able to join his friends in the new world that's free of Evas. Without the Eva curse, all the pilots are now their proper ages as well. The movie closes with Mari and Shinji heading off somewhere in their new lives while the environment merges into live-action footage, representing the fact that the story has now transcended animation and is now "real" because the cycle has finally ended and a true Neon Genesis took place. Like many aspects of the franchise, there are many ways to interpret this ending, but this is the interpretation I've settled on.

-While I am satisfied with the ending overall, I do wish the epilogue showed us more of what the other characters were doing, especially the survivors from Wille and Village 3. I know we can assume they're living out their lives as well, but it would have been nice to get confirmation of that with a few quick cameos. But there are some main characters whose fates are uncertain, particularly Misato, Kaji, and Fuyutsuki. I'm assuming the only people Shinji was able to save were the ones whose souls were still bound to Evas, namely Asuka, Rei, and Kaoru. I don't know about Kaji since I'm still not clear on exactly how he died. Maybe Shinji couldn't save Misato because she died "for real" and wasn't just trapped inside an Eva/Angel. But it is implied that many souls, not just Eva pilots, were saved when the world was restored...so maybe she was too? And like Kaji, I'm not sure what happened with Fuyutsuki. Did he turn into LCL because he gave up his humanity in some way, like Gendo? I'm also a little salty that we didn't get a decent shot of adult Asuka at the train station, lol. I'm not sure if the ending was hinting at Mari and Shinji being an item...possibly Rei and Kaoru too, maybe even Asuka and Kensuke. Like many things in the franchise, the eventual pairings, or lack thereof, could be interpreted in many ways.

In conclusion, while there were some aspects of the old Eva TV series and movies that I liked better, the Rebuild movies overall did an excellent job of retelling the story with the same rich lore and thought-provoking symbolism that we're used to for the franchise, but with enough new twists to make it stand out. And as I mentioned in my interpretation of the ending, these movies weren't just a retelling but a redefinition of the franchise as whole, bringing together the previous versions of the story and giving them true closure. Though we could see some spin-off material at some point, Thrice Upon a Time does seem like it was intended to be the final installment of the Evangelion series. While I was satisfied enough with the endings for the TV series and End of Eva movie, having watched the Rebuild movies, I do believe they're the "retelling we didn't know we needed." It's a tad bittersweet to know that such an influential franchise, and one of my favorite anime for years, has come to its true end. So, to translate the text in the below fan art...

"Thank you , Evangelion."

*Artwork credited to リオ on pixiv*