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freebooter4ever · 3 months

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Blah blah blah about love under the cut

One thing about daphne and the duke - she says these things, and immediately things magically work out because its TV fantasy land. But...at least in my limited experience...it takes a long time for the nice things to sink in past the bad things. Like it would take the patience of somebody repeating those words across a longer span of time.

There was one thing that startled me with my latest romantic failure - and it had absolutely nothing to do with pilot boy himself.

see, i have never really understood the whole 'bringing someone home to meet the parents' and how big of a deal it was in movies and books. It always baffled me. I never cared what my parents thought of people i dated or wanted to date and the only person i ever brought home was The Ex in 2010 and even then it was less 'do you approve?' and more 'i love him and idgaf about your opinon but i want to show him off'. My poor Ex endured an entire two hour long interrogation by my grandparents and i had to hold his hand the entire time, he was very shy.

BUT now, here in LA, i met my friend over at the artist's house, and that was in 2018 so a number of years ago. And slowly, over the years, i've grown closer and closer with them and their family, and they've kinda been a guide in this city. And there was that one time in 2019 where someone automatically assumed i was their daughter and neither of us corrected the person lol. And i have kind of basically been adopted by their family, even despite my best attempts to keep a respectful distance during like holidays and stuff. But i still go to them first whenever i have problems, and some days i have no idea how i ever lived without them. And everytime i think i have fucked up and made a mistake we remain friends - or apologize to each other if necessary, and things always always return to that warm, platonic, familial love.

and you know, for the fist time, ever, in my entire life....when i was dating Pilot Boy, i realized that Bringing The Significant Other Home To Meet Family was a big deal for me. And it was going to mean bringing him to the artist's house. Of course, Pilot Boy and i never got into a serious enough relationship to reach that point, but i definitely had a bit of an existential crisis over realizing that i actually wanted to hear the judgement of someone who was like a parent to me. I don't even know how to explain how much of a change of mindset it was, how odd it felt. And it's not like I have never dated anyone else in LA - there was Hiker Boy for like 3ish years of casual dating and not once did i even think about it. And that one guy E, who i didn't even mention to my friend. Like, this was definitely an accumulation of slowly starting to trust that the concept of having a 'parent' figure in my life was a good thing, rather than something scary.

I remember my mother would go through phases. If she was single suddenly she would go on rants about how being single was the normal thing and anyone who believed they could stay coupled forever was abnormal and weird. I never minded this phase because i was always single so always met that approval. But the other phase, when she was in a relationship, meant that she would talk about how anybody who wasn't in a relationship was weird and probably repulsive, and how being in a couple is the natural order of things (unless its a gay couple in which case absolutely they can marry but dont have children because it will fuck the kids up mentally). And of course during these times she would berate me for never dating.

And then one time when i was 24 two things happened: that summer she visited me in pittsburgh and escalated from emotional/verbal abuse and slapping to full physical abuse. And then months later when i visited my grandparents in seattle she invited me to a 'wine tasting and cooking lesson' with some VIPs at her work. And i went, and it was in this industrial area of seattle with this ridiculously fancy farm to table rich people type kitchen set up. And the chef was this ridiculously tall dark and handsome young man about my age from argentina. I was flustered, and the guy totally knew it, and found it funny. I could barely string two words together and he was teasing me the whole night, kept picking me for the demonstrations, etc, you know how it goes. It was very entertaining and i appreciated he at least wasnt being mean about my obvious attraction to him.

Anyway by the end of the night my mom was visibly tipsy. This scared the shit out of me. My mom is mean when she doesn't drink, but when she has just the right amount of alochol she's totally normal and fully functional and you don't notice. So the fact that i could see her slurring her speech and being unable to walk straight meant she had more than her normal amount which meant a LOT. And as we said goodnight to the fancy VIPs she was embarrassing herself in front of, and walking to her car, she turned to me and said 'you know the chef was flirting with you all night'. And i was fully prepared to correct her because at that point i'd had at least one boyfriend and thought i knew what flirting was and teasing isnt the same at all. But i didnt get a chance because she also said something like: 'he was only flirting with you because you were the only person his age in the entire room. That's the type of guy who only goes for pretty girls, not you.' and then she wouldn't let me take her keys to drive us home. And i was too scared of her to force her to give them to me. And that was the last time i've seen my mom. Because her driving home so drunk she was obviously mentally and physically impaired was the last straw for me - one of my friends mothers was killed by a drunk driver when we were kids. And if i was too scared of my mom to do my part to stop that from ever happening again, then it was time for me to admit i couldnt handle this. Its been 11 years and i dont regret it, although sometimes i still have nightmares of her finding me and gaining control over me again like when i was a kid. But i also never forgot that comment - that explained so much. How she would rant about how weird it was that i was single, but she never really truly believed i was the kind of girl anybody would want as a 'girlfriend' anyway.

Contrast this with my friend at the artist house. Who at one low point this week, i called up to cry on their shoulder over work drama and how helpless i felt. And somehow they mixed up the current situation with Pilot Boy. And they started talking about the kind of ideal person they imagined me dating, and said a lot of stuff about someone who 'saw me for how wonderful i was' - i dont know honestly i couldnt listen to most of it, my brain just tuned it out. And i laughed and corrected them that no the person i was dating a month ago was 'Pilot Boy' and this guy currently was someone who - under no circumstances even if it meant being single forever - i wouldn't want to date. And then i stopped and thought for a little bit and realized that if i can change my mind about not wanting to ever have a parent in my life, and have those 'normal' things like the 'bring a date home to meet the parents' type experiences... That maybe one day the conviction in me that believes nobody would ever choose to date me or value me or consider me worthwhile....that maybe that could change too. And then maybe my friend's speech about someone valuing me wasnt so totally unbelievable and impossible. It still seems extremely farfetched to me, and I'm totally happy with just being able to know that my friend at least genuinely believes someone should be able to romantically love me one day. Like that's way more than i've ever had before. I should be grateful for that.

Anyway, yeah, if penelope's arc is something like that....then i might be interested. Because all we've seen from penelope's mother is her dismissing her daughter over and over again as being nothing worthwhile.

#Jrnlsht

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mistyheartrbs · 7 months

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Please explain the Glee Vriska theory I want to know more

i'm so glad my glee vriska theory has sparked discussion amidst the mistyheartrbs tumblr community. this is what @battleofthevriskas is really about.

so character by character it's as such:

RACHEL BERRY: she actually feels the Most vriska to me because people hate her mostly for being a woman who dares to be ambitious and you can’t have a vriska without the fandom being divided over them. she’s definitely not a good person a lot of the time but within glee’s insane framework she’s really not that bad, yet people either love her or hate her while having much less negativity towards. say, noah puckerman, who is actually objectively horrible. and also rachel sent someone to a crackhouse.

QUINN FABRAY: gay. sad. tried to steal a baby. she has that certain combination of the worst plans you’ve ever heard of and the desperate desire to still be a kid while being forced to grow up.

SANTANA LOPEZ: while rachel is the most vriska in terms of her role in the narrative i think santana is the closest to vriska (vriska) in terms of actual personality. which is to say she’s mean and sardonic and yet she also loves a certain few people very deeply.

SUE SYLVESTER: married herself and then got divorced from herself. can’t die? also just like. she’s textually the villain but is The fan-favorite character who’s basically become synonymous with the show which is what vriska is also.

but overall - on a more meta level - glee and homestuck are surprisingly similar beasts. they both turned expectations of their respective mediums (high school tv drama and webcomic) on their heads. they both started in 2009 and ended within about a year of each other (glee in march 2015, homestuck in april 2016 excluding the epilogues and homestuck 2); in other terms, squarely within the obama era. this comes through in the optimism and genuine belief in the young people they center around - these kids can change the world. things are turning around for the better, and they're different.

and on a narrative level there are also a lot of similarities - they're both coming-of-age stories, obviously, but they're also the rare coming-of-age stories that let their teenage characters be unabashedly kind of awful, without a lot of judgment from the narrative. they both tap into what it feels like to be a teenager, rather than trying to tell a "realistic" story about being one. in glee's case, the musical format does this - doesn't every breakup or rocky friendship or crush feel worthy of an elaborate musical number? aren't you the star of the show? for homestuck, it's the world literally exploding when john turns thirteen - none of these kids know what the hell they're doing, but they're expected to inherit a legacy they only barely signed up for.

and i don't think it's a coincidence, then, that they're both projects with massive queer followings and unprecedented queer representation. characters like santana and kurt and rose and kanaya were new and exciting and they got to be the center of the story, instead of side characters there to support the straight leads. glee and homestuck both queered their mediums; they let these people who would have otherwise been snappy sidekicks be the ones to have the big end-of-story romance, to save the world.

which brings me back to vriska! in the past few years tumblr dot com has definitely become much kinder towards female characters - largely, i think, because its userbase is now mostly in their twenties and they've developed critical thinking skills and so there's less instinctive hatred of any vaguely complex woman in a tv show if she commits the heinous crime of Being Girl. getting into glee as an adult instead of as a teenager has given me a sort of. opportunity to learn this through praxis - i love rachel berry, she's my favorite character in the whole show, but i look through old glee detritus and i know that even with faberry as one of the most popular shows there were (and are) people who unabashedly hated her, who called her the worst character on television. vriska wasn't ever subject to that much hate, i think in part because she is an antagonist for much of homestuck and so it's easier to view her actions through that lens while there's admittedly some dissonance when rachel sends a girl to a crackhouse and then gets the solo a few episodes later, but people still couldn't stand her as if equius didn't force aradia into a blue-blood robot body so she wouldn't be "inferior" anymore and then make that robot body fall in love with him. did anyone remember that. why doesn't anyone remember that it's like the scariest thing in homestuck. "oh vriska killed people" she had her reasons.

but anyway there's been sort of a reckoning as tumblr adults look back at their favorite childhood/teenhood media. and everyone loves vriska now, and while rachel is still pretty divisive (understandably so) people love glee's other two vriskas (quinn and santana) and think their unpleasantries are compelling and shouldn't be sanded over. and bringing it back to the bigger picture, glee and homestuck were both seen for a while after they ended as "cringe," as things that were already aging badly, as unfortunate crap we only liked as teenagers because there wasn't anything better. but they were both good, at the end of the day, warts and all. they were weird and funny and they spoke to that peculiar loneliness that comes with being a kid. and people are starting, finally, to remember that. in other words,

thank you for coming to my vriskanalysis!

#bandydear #homestuck #glee #(thank you for sending this dandy tlgbf changed me as a person)

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asexual-spongebob · 3 months

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hi so um. I wrote a hypothetical Wikipedia article for the waves that lap the shore. Hope yall enjoy.

The Waves that Lap The Shore

The Waves That Lap The Shore is British-American Octonauts X H2O: Just Add Water crossover that first started airing on October 15th 2023 on Netflix (US) and BBC (UK).

It started off as a Fanfiction posted on Tumblr, AO3 and Wattpad. However, the author and show creator, Kitty.L. Wayne (more known by her online usernames, Kittysboba and Asexual-SpongeBob) got permission to make it into a show.

It was produced by Mainframe Studios, Silvergate Media and Brown Bag Films and was written Kitty . L. Wayne.

The theme song “No Ordinary Girl” is by Kate Alexa, The same theme song as second season of H2O. The end credits song is the Mako Mermaids (or otherwise, Mako: Island Of Secrets) theme song.

It is also well known for rock music to be used as background music, a notable example being Weezer’s “Only In Dreams” being used in an episode of the same name.

Its first season is still currently airing and has 20 episodes planned, 19 of which have aired.

Surprisingly, unlike most Octonauts episodes it’s one big episode. No segments.

These episodes can range from 10 -24 minutes depending on the episode.

Not to mention, unlike both shows it’s based on, It is rated TV-14 for usage of cursing and mental health issues.

It was renewed for a second season in late January of 2024.

The show takes place in Ireland (first half of season one) and Australia (second half of season one + beyond)

Plot:

The Octonauts go to Ireland to study sea creatures, Shellington stumbles upon some mysterious sea caves while going for a walk and decides to check it out. Little does he know this would change him, his partner’s and friends lives forever.

Trivia:

Surprisingly, in this show there is romantic relationships. Unlike one of the shows it’s based on, Octonauts. Those relationships being Shellso, Twashi and Kwazini. Shellso being the most shocking to fans.

Not to mention its inclusion of LGBTQIA+/ Queer themes. And mental health issues.

Both Kwazii and Paani have ADHD.

Kwazii and Paani are also Demisexual and Demiromantic.

Shellington is autistic and he is also a trans man. He is also bi.

Peso was the first person to find out about Shellington being a merman.

In the US dub, Peso can be heard cursing in Spanish, for example at the end of Kisses Of Ash he is seen saying “Sí. Estamos cansados de cojones.” Which translates to “Yes. We are tired as fuck.” However in the UK version he just says cuss words in English.

Peso has AUDHD and is transmasc (he/it) and is also gay.

Kisses Of Ash is based off the h2o episode “Bad Moon Rising”.

Paani becomes a merperson in episode twenty, as seen in the trailer for the episode.

The weirdest episode was episode two, “The Quest For Mussels” , where we see Shellington slurping out the flesh from mussels. It is also considered the grossest episode by fans and writer themself, Kitty.

In this show, Kwazii has RSD. It was confirmed in episode 18 “The Disappearance”.

Shellington has the same power as Cleo, Peso as the same power as Emma and Kwazii has the same power as Rikki.

It took awhile for Shellington to discover his power over water, while it didn’t take long for Kwazii, Peso and Paani.

Many people were shocked to find out that the series is rated TV 14.

It was first released in the US and UK.

Rock Lobster by the B52’s can be heard in episode 15.

Shellington is seen listening to Weezer’s “Why Bother” in episode 12.

Kwazii likes the Spice Girls.

Tweak and Kwazii are seen singing Sublime’s “Smoke Two Joints” in episode 13.

Professor Inkling didn’t make his first appearance until episode 5.

Paani is seen listening to Nirvana’s “Scentless Apprentice” in episode 19.

Please expand this part of the article

List of episodes-

Season One:

Newfound Scales

The Quest for mussels

Curiosity Kills The Cat.

Catnip and Moon possession

Shellington’s apology

Vegimals to the rescue

The Treasure Chest

Sea Sick Sea Otter

Kwazii,Peso, Dashi and Tweak and the moonstruck sea otter

Peso and Shellington and the Angelshark

Peso and Shellington and the sleepover

Hello, Mako.

Kwazii’s rescue

Only In Dreams (We see what it means)

Kwazii and Paani’s dinner (gone wrong)

Kisses of Ash

Grape Soda.

The disappearance

19: The Meeting

20: And Then There Were Four (Unaired)

#I tried my best to make it look like an actual article #kitty giggles #octonauts #the waves that lap the shore au #octonauts au #fake Wikipedia article #fake wiki article #peso #shellington #kwazii #paani

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trainsinanime · 1 year

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The love triangle in Wednesday (2022 Netflix TV show) is yet another example of the age-old Hollywood tradition of separating the romantic relationships from the important relationships. And it's a tradition that is just baffling to me.

In Wednesday, Tyler and Xavier are her officially designated love interests that she has to choose between. They don't really matter, though; they're only used to drive the plot along and provide a kiss scene. Jenny Ortega's acting does its best to ensure that there's no actual tension here, no matter how much the script tries to pretend otherwise (and yes, that was a conscious choice on her part, and I love her for it).

On the other hand, the relationships with Enid and, to a lesser but still important extent, Eugene, really matter. All of Wednesday's development as a person is about how she deals with these two, especially Enid.

Her friendship with Eugene makes all the monster attacks deeply personal and becomes the main driving force behind Wednesday trying to solve the show's plot in the second half of the season.

And the relationship between Wednesday and Enid is just the whole emotional core of the show. The lowest moment of the show is when Wednesday and Enid break up, so to speak, and Enid moves out. Later, we get the emotional reunion scene. Finally, the closest thing to a celebration at the end is the moment when Wednesday and Enid have their hug.

And then there are all the small moments where Wednesday learns to be more sociable and to like it, thanks to her interactions with Enid. She learns to be considerate of Enid's feelings and wishes (e.g. removing the murder board). She promises to murder people on Enid's behalf.

Enid and Wednesday is so much the big emotional core of the show that it has even become the show's key visual, in the form of the circular window, half colourful, half colourless, but clearly forming one whole together. This is really not subtle.

Tyler and Xavier are who Wednesday is supposed to kiss; Enid is who matters.

Of course, this isn't a new pattern. You'll find this over all sorts of Hollywood movies (e.g. Captain America 2), TV shows, book series, whatever. Wednesday is not an exception, and in fact Wednesday isn't that original a series overall, except for putting Wednesday Addams herself into this store-brand US Hogwarts. They just did it really well and cast very good actors, in particular Jenny Ortega and Gwendolyn Christie (I love her so much in this, but that's not really relevant to the point).

Personally, I still believe that this pattern is what spawned 90% of gay ships on Ao3. It's fairly evident when one relationship is official and another is meaningful, and ever since the days of Kirk and Spock, fanfic writers have honed in on the meaningful. Wednesday is no exception. As it stands, 959 of the 1,497 works on Ao3 for Wednesday (TV 2022) are Wednesday/Enid, and given the pace at which the fandom is growing, I wouldn't be surprised if they have cracked the 1k by this evening. And they're really good fics that I can recommend.

My big question is: Why do Hollywood writers keep doing this? It's not like it's required, there are plenty of shows where the main romantic relationship is also the most important one, e.g. the whole love situation in Miraculous Ladybug, the first season of Galavant, a lot of "they fight crime" shows like Bones and Castle and so on.

If the writers of Wednesday want to keep Wednesday and Enid platonic, and also have Wednesday have meaningful romantic relationships with boys who I can only tell apart by their hair length, well, I suppose they can do that if they really have to, for some reason. But then why not write these romantic relationships as meaningful as well? As it is, they are all about the boys being like, "I'm into you", and Wednesday being like, "that is very useful. Do my bidding, boy". That's genuinely fun, but it doesn't get me invested.

Anyway, Wednesday is a really well executed show, and I either don't ship Wednesday at all, or with Enid. Because the relationship with Enid is the one that ultimately matters (whether you make it romantic or not), and that's just canon.

#wednesday #wednesday show #wednesday netflix #rant

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incarnateirony · 1 year

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Only slightly adjacent to the current issues in fandom--the liars and nothing-more-than-gossip-girls exposed--whatever else. I was thinking on that post I made where I said,

But be mindful of the agendas behind people telling you the opposite: to ignore what everyone is saying. They’re telling you that your voice didn’t mean anything. That being gay needs to be in the margins, like the old days. That you can’t make change. That you’re powerless, and fundamentally inferior. And realize, they only win if you ever let yourself believe that, rather than using that to fuel the fire inside of you to take what you want. (...) There will always be liars and people telling you what’s impossible, or stupid, or you shouldn’t try for. They’re the people that are, themselves, incapable, or who profit from your lack of trying.

But you know, this goes beyond what you can even personally do here. I'm pretty sure everyone read this has written something, some time, at some point in their life. Maybe it's fanfiction. Maybe you've published a novel, or gotten on TV yourself. Maybe it's your journal of poems you never showed ANYONE. But you've all written some kind of story that bears your soul.

That's what stories do. They reflect the dreams and aspirations of the people making them. They channel through fantastical versions--mythical kingdoms, grand beasts, epic sennas--but at its heart, we all have stories, built partially on our experience, our philosophy, and everything else. Even our imagination only pulls on things already inside our head. That story was always something inside of you, whether or not you shared it.

Beyond the blatant anti-intellectualism, one can't help but think of the overlap these people had with those that screamed the story never meant anything, no direction, no mythos, nobody should consider if the authors meant anything, clearly that's crazy talk. No... it's actually insanity to imagine a story being written that nobody intends anything in, like the story was made by a bunch of cats walking on typewriters.

There's a reason these demographics that tell you not to look, not to listen, and not to think feel for yourselves or for what an author might have intended--there's a reason these overlap. Because, as above, they benefit from you never learning to carry that torch yourself, and learning, you CAN do it. Maybe not alone. Maybe you need to build the right real bonds to do it, but it's out there when you really care, especially if you care in a scope larger than yourself.

If you've ever humored any of the above talking points, it's time to pull out that old story of yours. That fic, or that novel, or that old journal of poems. Turn the pages. Maybe the You that you were when you made that isn't the You that is now, even. Maybe you were at a different place in life. And maybe now you have a different perspective, and that's fine, but you can still look at that page and know what you intended, what you were hoping the world heard and saw. You know that, and in a weird way, it's part of who you are.

The same goes for all these other authors. They WANT you to learn philosophies where you keep fighting. They WANT you to learn how to carry a torch. They WANT you to learn how to find the truth, and yourself, and everything. They WANT you to hear them, and their spirit. They want it just the same as you wanted it, even if you never showed a soul, some part of you wanted to be heard, and that's why you wrote it down, even if the only one who heard you was that page. But it was still your truth and your story and your perspective.

So always, ALWAYS be suspicious of the motivations of ANYONE that tells you stories are meaningless, have no point, there's no message and nobody intends you to hear anything specific because it's all in a big muddy relativity vat. No. Those people are employing that for a reason. Every human deep down knows that entire premise is bullshit.

So continue to watch them. Watch them all as their lies are stapled to the wall over, and over. Go back through their dialogues and see how many years they've been trying to push that bullshit premise, and what the result is--deletion of queer voices, queer intent, queer text, queer power, queer relevance, queer potential, queer anything. The intent to beat you down as inferior, as unheard, and to leave the authors in the same boat of being unheard and unanswered, leaving everyone miserably alone.

They're not alone. And you're not alone.

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flockofdoves · 2 years

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spent like 2 hours on this fb comment reccing black sails to a friend asking for tv show recs so i might as well post it here to save it for the future lol:

you should watch black sails!!!

to describe it.. its easy to start off by pitching it as a show about gay pirates as a way to appeal to a lot of people ive tried to get to watch it, but also, even if theres 4 main explicitly lesbian/gay/bi characters (plus side characters and one main character whos implied to be and written by the creators as deeply closeted) i think that can be reductive and doesn't do justice for what its really about. its a show about a lot of different people who've been marginalized to the outskirts of society, whether that be by class, race, gender, or sexuality. its about their different choices between trying to find a space they can survive within capitalism & colonialism though compromise and being collaborators with empire, and fighting for a better world, and the personal conflict of trying to to figure out how much domesticity one is willing to sacrifice when there is an immediate need for revolution.

it's also technically a prequel to treasure island, but that's not really something you have to worry about too much (if you've read treasure island before don't think about it too hard, and if you haven't, honestly that's how i went in and i think watching the whole show and only after i really got into it reading treasure island was a great way to engage with it, but you don't even need to do that). not to sound obnoxious but its like... a deconstruction of the idea of a prequel. and that ties into some of the other big themes of the show of narratives. the violence of how marginalized people are erased from history, how empire uses stories to demonize revolutionary violence while making invisible the violence needed to perpetuate capitalism and colonialism, and how different people use their personal narratives to justify benefiting themselves at the expense of others or to understand the necessity of building solidarity with people with other life experiences with oppression, and how ones personal history when combined with how one internalizes cultural hegemony will inform people's decisions even if they refuse to consciously look back on and narrativize their life.

my few caveats are that i wish that they did a more sensitive job with a plot line where one of the main characters, a black woman, is sexually assaulted (fortunately this plot line is over within the first part of the first season and there is no other sexual violence in the show), that i wish it had more writers and directors of color involved with it, esp black and indigenous creators, and that while it did go a lot farther with its engagement with colonialism and imperialism than i had initially expected, it could have been even greater if it had had a season 3.5 to flesh out some of its ideas and characters it was able to introduce at that point in the story.

but beyond that i really think its one of my favorite shows i've ever watched and theres just so so much to dissect within it. it was planned out from the beginning and always knew exactly where it was going to end, and there's so much care put into its dialogue and themes. it does require a bit of trust though, while on rewatch the amount of care put into everything even in early seasons is very clear, if you're wary from past experiences with shows with superficial similiarities, it might seem on the surface as if it is doing something more typical and is uncritically propogating imperialist/individualist/liberal reformist ideology. but even with that caution i had watching for the first time with no one giving me disclaimers like this i still had so much fun watching early seasons!!! and it only gets better from there!!!

sorry to write so much lol. i just really love it. would love to hear from anyone reading this if you decide to watch it!

#cpost #black sails #bs blogging #ok to rb

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uncommon-etc · 2 years

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5 Reasons The Strip nz is... not that bad actually

While media discourse on here tends to just about straddle the divide between the snobbish purity culture of ‘you can only enjoy quality programming’ and ‘let everyone be guilty-pleasure-loving trash’ there do exist a handful of shows and films which we can all collectively agree aren’t great (whether through bad acting, low-quality cinematography, low-budget set-design, lazy story-lines or all of the above) but which have plenty of redeeming features.

I’ve seen posts claiming that The Strip deserves to be lost media (at the time of writing it exists virtually nowhere on the internet, you can watch the first and twelfth episode for free, but the rest of season 1 is only available on vimeo and season 2 may well be lost to the world) but like a lot of shows from the 00s which are routinely mocked for being kind of trashy, it doesn’t deserve to be condemned to the great cultural dustbin.

If you find yourself skipping large chunks of it, or you don’t like the characters, or you cba with the frequent romantic subplots, that’s fine. But there are five reasons The Strip actually deserves some credit:

1. It’s one of the only shows whose narrative continually rewards women for setting reasonable boundaries and calling out men who break them.

The show’s brand of have-it-all white liberal feminism may grate on some, understandably so, but if you’d lived through the tidal wave of misogyny that was TV when I was a kid, you’d find it refreshing too. The majority of guys (and gals) when I was growing up believed that once a woman had ‘led a man on’ enough, whether it was kissing him, getting involved with him, or letting him treat her to things, she was somehow contractually obliged to have sex with him. The view that you should settle for a ‘nice guy’ even if he was extremely flawed, because thinking you deserved better made you a bitch was also quite prevalent. The Strip tackles both of these misconceptions head-on.

2. Its portrayal of bisexuality was way ahead of its time.

We’re still fighting bi-phobia, bi-erasure, and reducing-bi-experiences-to-cheap-laughs a full twenty years on from when The Strip first aired, but the show’s handling of Glenn coming to terms with being bi, telling his ex-wife and daughter, and being open with others in his life about it, was textbook. The show even allowed him to quash common misconceptions by having him explain to a woman who thinks bi = adventurous and experienced in bed, that he’s only ever been with the woman he was married to, and the guy he was seeing for three months after they got divorced, so he’s really no more savvy than the next guy.

3. It provided work for Maori, Samoan, and other Polynesian actors.

Are some of the scenes given to the non-white half of the cast problematic? Absolutely. Adam, the head stripper, probably comes off worst, by featuring frequently in Mel’s fantasies performing the kind of animalistic hypermasculinity which comes pretty close to overt racism in these enlightened times.

But since mainstream Australian and Kiwi TV back then was so incredibly white, the primary roles offered to Polynesian actors were as miserable melancholic underdogs in social realist dramas. If, in 2002, someone had said to you ‘hey, instead of playing homeless alcoholic #5, we’ve got you a part as a series-regular in a sitcom, you’ll be working in a strip-club, but you’ll get plenty of lines, and the chance to play someone with an actual personality’ idk why you wouldn’t be thrilled. One scene even pokes fun at the white savior complex in a big way, which doesn’t excuse all the Adam stuff, but it’s progress I guess.

4. It promotes found families over nuclear families.

How many workplace comedies have you seen where the workplace consists of a divorced woman in her 30s, her teenage daughter, a gay guy, three Polynesians, a Samoan, a Maori-Jew, and an Australian who tries to out-himbo the lot of them? The entire premise of The Strip is that the conventional family unit of a well-off, successful opposite-sex couple and their kid implodes spectacularly, because it isn’t making anyone happy, while the alternative family structure that replaces it is a joy to behold.

No-one would argue that Mel’s story-line gets far too much screen-time, but, though they’re fleeting, the scenes at the club, with Jack, Samara, Adam, Clint, Mostin, Ian, and Daniel are just a straight-up delight to watch. The writers could have made a very depressing show about a group of people from various oppressed minority groups having to work at a strip-club because they had no choice, instead they chose to show them having fun, forming friendships, hooking up, and generally being there for each other. In fact, I reckon if the writers had chosen to ditch all of the main characters entirely and just made a show about Jack, Sam, and the five male-strippers it would have been a masterpiece revered to this day.

5. Not to objectify on main, but one of the strippers is played by a 26-year-old Taika Waititi, which has been reason enough for many to watch it

You thirsty hoes are still going nuts over one glimpse of his midriff 20 years later, wait until you get a load of this absolute snack:

The irony is that the writers clearly made an executive decision to cast this, then unknown, alternative comic as ‘the funny one’, which explains why Mostin gets a lot more lines than the other four, features in fewer routines, and is treated a bit like an annoying kid-brother by many of the other characters. But in his first appearance (1x07), when he and Sam perform a sexually-charged shirtless Flamenco dance following some very poorly written flirting, you can tell at least one person behind the camera let out a fanfic-worthy ‘Oh.’

On a side-note, this blog supports all male-strippers, and actors playing male-strippers, because if Taika’s ted-talk is to be believed, he started writing the script for Two Cars, One Night while sitting backstage in his g-string wondering what he ought to be doing with his life. Never let it be said that geniuses aren’t found in the unlikeliest of places.

#the strip nz #the strip #00s tv shows #taika waititi

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talenlee · 2 years

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Remembering The Queen

When I was about eight years old, my older cousin excitedly showed me the little .wav file he had of an excerpt from a Pop Song, which he had reversed in windows sound editor. When played, it made a little weird yelp which he informed me was the phrase “It’s Fun to Smoke Marijuana.” This was proof of the danger of that kind of music.

The excerpt was a snippet of Another One Bites The Dust.

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When I was about fifteen, we’d moved from the cult, and I went from being driven to school every morning at around 7 AM by my parents, I was instead riding to school on a big metal box I’d seen in movies and TV series, called a ‘bus.’ There was a group of boys who went to that school who all sat at the back of the bus, on the back seat, and they did a strange thing for a few months towards the end of year ten:

They sang.

It was only a few songs each trip, but one that happened almost every day, was this really weirdly big one where they all had parts and split themselves apart into groups for sections and I didn’t get it, but it sounded amazing.

It was Bohemian Rhapsody.

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A few days before my 17th birthday, Five Iron Frenzy released the album All The Hype Money Can Buy, which was their best album yet, a pattern that they have continued their whole career for me (except Proof the Youth of America Are Revolting, that’s just fine). On that album, there was a pair of songs that split their title – Four Fifty One, and Farenheit.

The two songs were meant to be critical of the church, of its position on things like rejecting outsiders, and about how it handled (whispers) gay things. Farenheit even names someone by name; a guy called Freddy Mercury, Mr Farenheit. The song held out a familiar phrase to me at the time – love the sinner, hate the sin.

I didn’t know who that was – but a friend told me he did the song that was in The Mighty Ducks 2 that I heard again in the opening of Knights Tale a year later.

That song was We Will Rock You.

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Freddie Mercury died in 1991. I don’t know much about him, much about his life. There’s a movie that I don’t trust, anecdotes from his bandmates that I don’t trust, anecdotes from the man that I kinda do, and a lot of tabloid noise and gossip I heard growing up.

When Reese Roper of Five Iron Frenzy wrote that phrase, love the sinner, hate the sin, I did still kinda believe in sin. These days I think that Reese Roper is probably pretty embarrassed of that phrase, given his much more aggressive anti-hate, anti-homophobia statements since. What’s wild about it is that it’s not like Reese ever met Freddie. But that’s kinda how it went for me, how it went for the Christian Media Bubble.

Reese said, when he was a child, he ‘hated’ Queen because ‘Freddie was a queer.’ As an adult, he had to reckon with that, and the guilt he felt about it. Farenheit was an attempt to grapple with that, with how he could, as a musician, absolutely love Queen’s excellent work, but somehow come to terms with liking it despite that. I know when I was young, I assumed that demonic powers were why popular music was so popular and successful; everyone listening to it was a little bit possessed.

Freddie Mercury was so talented, so powerful, so good at being Freddie Mercury and so blatantly a great big queer, that it put a crack in a very easy wall to leave untouched in the Christian community. I never realised how important he was to me until well after he was gone, how his thread of cultural power just wended through everything… but much like how Kafka created his forebears, I feel like once I looked at the history of it, at the timeline of the story of Queen, that there was that strange relationship of Freddie’s sun burning so bright it burned through blocked up windows.

I never got to meet a lot of the people I dehumanised because that was normal for me. I was insulated in a fundamentalist christian cult; I honestly don’t know when I first met a person of colour as a social entity and not a smiling face at a shop at all, but the first one I remembered meeting was in the new school when I was fifteen. I don’t know how I handled that relationship but I know full well that when I first started talking to him there were lessons from the Planeteers of all people saying ‘don’t be racist’ in my head.

#queen

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doctorwhich · 3 months

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alright, intro post! hello! i’m a fictive of the doctor, good to meet you.

⏳ in this particular house, being a subsystem entails a sort of identity roulette. so far only a handful have “fronted,” but that’s subject to change.

⏳ if it helps, you could think of me as having regenerative dissonance. (i know that can be a contentious topic, considering its portrayal, but it genuinely does describe my experience.)

⏳ due to the nature of being a (former) time lord, gender’s a bit odd (i’ve been male, female, both, and neither), so i’ll take they/them regardless of form. gendered pronouns are really more for convenience, i don’t care all that much.

⏳ speaking of things that being a time lord makes weird — i’m an adult, up in, near, or around the 1000-2000s range, and the body’s 22.

⏳ the body also has ancestry from scotland (alba), ireland (éire), and wales (cymru) (among other places), and the system as a whole supports irish unification and scottish and welsh independence.

⏳ fuck terfs

⏳ “#doc’s in” is the main talking tag, but i also tend to sign my posts as whatever form i’m in. we’re all the same person at the core, and sometimes the form that starts a sentence isn’t the one that finishes it, but there are some slight differences. there’s no real rhyme or reason to it, just my own preference.

⏳ i also tend to use whatever number face i’m on as a stand-in for a name, especially in reference to the idiosyncrasies of specific forms, as you’ll see below.

⏳oh, also! my icon’s a (slightly edited) panel from the lost dimension comic, and my header’s from nasa :]

1️⃣ — largely internal, but hello. he/him, though i won’t argue other things for future versions of myself.

2️⃣ — two's recorder privileges have been revoked (on account of the system not having a recorder). picks fights with three a lot, but in a brotherly manner. he/him.

3️⃣ — three's the first one to have a husband, so that's something. not strictly a man, but still undeniably a gay one. picks just as many fights with two in turn. he/him.

4️⃣ — four’s quite an odd duck. just a delightful fool who wants to knit but lacks the focus to finish more than a couple of inches. ironically hates most jelly-based candies (but that's true throughout the system). he/him.

5️⃣ — five is more of a forgetful twink than eight, and that's saying something. mostly fronts with our adric, but not always. he/him.

6️⃣ — a young foolish transmasc, actually very similarly to the host. he/him.

7️⃣ — seven's honestly a bit of a bitch, but he makes it work. mostly only shows up to mediate intra-sys conflict. he/him.

8️⃣ — eight is a hopeless romantic with hopeless amounts of trauma. also took the “war doctor’s” role for a decent chunk of time (the “war doctor” doesn't seem to be in here anyway). he/they/various neos.

9️⃣ — nine’s pretty “as seen on tv,” with the exception of having taken the rest of the “war doctor’s” stint and being more openly nonbinary these days. still a he/him user though.

🔟 — ten’s scottish and a big fucking dork. took the front back when it was time for the fourteenth face. still goes by ten, though. he/him.

1️⃣1️⃣ — the best way to describe eleven is “audhd twenty-something haunted by embarrassing memories of being undiagnosed and unmedicated in middle school.” he/him.

1️⃣2️⃣ — twelve is only scottish when cross, tired, or drunk, just like the host’s grandmother. unfortunately the state of the world means he’s at least a little cross fairly often. he/him.

1️⃣3️⃣ — either sleeping or REALLY LOUD, no real in-between. she/her.

1️⃣5️⃣ — largely internal to hang out with the littles/middles, but does come by the front once in a while to knock some sense into someone having A Moment. he/him

aaaand that’s it. this post’ll get periodic updates purely based on whim. (last updated 20th feb. 2024)

until then, love with all you have, be kind as much as is possible, fight for a better world than you entered, and smash fascism wherever you find it.

saoirse don phalaistín! (yes, i’m aware that’s irish rather than scottish gaelic, but scotland hasn’t been nearly as vocal as ireland, so.)

#doc’s in #1️⃣#2️⃣#3️⃣#4️⃣#5️⃣#6️⃣#7️⃣#8️⃣#9️⃣#🔟#1️⃣1️⃣#1️⃣2️⃣#1️⃣3️⃣#1️⃣5️⃣#sysblr

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dreambaited · 11 months

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Hello! Happy June! It's Pride and I have another question (4/30)

Today we are talking about queer representation in media. In 1894 "The Dickson Experimental Sound Film" is released, becoming the first "gay film". It was also known as "The Gay Brothers", it feature two men dancing together and it reportedly "shocked audiences with its subversion of conventional male behaviour". Unfortunately, in 1934 the USA introduced the Hays Code, which, while it didn't explicitly ban queerness, banned queerness in effect. This resulted in three decades of queer-coded villains, such as Joel Cairo in "The Maltese Falcon" (1941) and Jack Favell in "Rebecca" (1940).

The Hays Code was lifted in 1968, and the queer cult classic "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" was released in 1975, and gave a much-needed positive and FUN representation of queer people and queerness. Unfortunately, this was short-lived, as the rising AIDs crisis worsened the stigma around the gay community. This didn't stop everyone though, and in 1985 "Desert Hearts" was released; regarded as the first mainstream lesbian film with a happy ending.

Further on, the first gay kiss on TV in the UK was on "EastEnders" in 1989, "Ellen" became the first American tv show with an openly gay lead in 1997, and other show such as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" started to add recurring LGBTQ+ characters. An important show in the UK was "Queer as Folk" (1999) which was one of the first shows to depict the queer community as vibrant and alive.

Even further forward, and "Moonlight" (2017) became the first LGBTQ+ film (and the first all-black cast) to win Best Picture at the Oscars. GLAAD publishes an annual report showing how representation is changing. 2005-2006 1.4% of regular characters vs 2020-2021 the figure is at 9.1%. So, there is still a long way to go obviously, especially because media is often the main or only place that young people have an insight into the community at all.

Because of this, I want to ask you for a recommendation: What is a piece of queer media that you think more people should see? (it can be literally anything, big/small, funny/sad, smart/stupid <- just anything you think deserves to be watched!:))

(I'll go first: "Eu Não Quero Voltar Sozinho" (or "I Don't Want to Go Back Alone) is a really really cute Brazillian short film available on Youtube! (if you enjoy it, there is also a full-length film version called "Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho" (or "The Way He Looks"))

Happy Pride 🌈 🎉

one of my favorite gay movies is pride (2014)! very underrated and has andrew scott in it! very good watch for like straight people to learn ab gay liberation LOL

another personal favorite is bloom by kevin panetta! if you like heartstopper it’s another gay graphic novel vv cute. i read it in like middle school so my perception might be skewed

#asks #anon

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stormcrow513 · 2 years

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Been rewatching Warehouse 13 with my mama and I like still don't get some peoples reaction to Pete/Myka, I always thought it made sense from the start, they seem to start out as end game?

I mean I do totally see Myka and Helena I saw it at the time and even liked it a lot (still do) I was so conflicted over who I'd rather have Myka with, but rewatching the Myka/Helena arc I think it makes a lot of sense the way their story went, like two people feeling an instant attraction to each other who just click, but then one person hurts the other really badly, betrays them, and while eventual forgiveness happens love is still there, that fragile romantic seedling is crushed and there's sometimes no reliving it you move on,

and I see Myka and Pete as just never ever letting themselves think to much about each other like that, at first with Myka because she dated one partner once and is fresh off losing him the Fuck she's doing this shit again!

and Pete well we know from the episode where Myka gets whammied by the age changing camera that Pete had thought she was great from the start, but Pete I think doesn't like himself much hence some of the posturing, he's a recovering alcoholic who hurt people he loved while drinking including his ex wife and a friend while drinking and driving, he doesn't think he's 'worthy' of her

and neither want to lose the other their the most important people to each other and friendship tends to last more often then romances,

so they say shit like, Pete's like my big brother, and no way would we ever ever ever sleep together,

Honestly researching this I keep thinking if Myka had been a dude people would have sooooo sniped it, its got a slight Destial flavoring to it, dorky guy with the serious guys whose actually also a dork also he's a total nerd,

Like ship and let ship, I have no issue with people not going for it, but people were such assholes about it after the ending,

I saw people saying Myka being with Pete was the worst thing that could have happened to her, and just seriously Pete's a total fucking dork but he puts her first always, never treats her badly for being smarter then him, is always supportive of her etc. etc. in a world where so w/m relationships are abusive to some extent and women end up murdered, like really,

Like this is one of the few tv m/w relationships where the couple don't treat each other like shit constantly and they talk to each other, they play with each other (which people say that makes it brother/sister and I'm like ???, I would love to have a romantic relationship where we can be fucking idiot kids together!!!)

I'm losing my train of thought but I just love everything about their journey together, as a bisexual women its the w/m slow burn I deserve and one of the few w/m relationships I actually like let alone love and I wish people didn't hate on it so hard or dismiss Mykas bisexuality, like she was with Sam a man whose death wrecked her and had a thing for an incredible woman that didn't work out and ends up with her best friend bitch is bi but I forget we don't really exist

(If I sound bitter I am, I figured out my own sexuality around the same time I was watching this show wouldn't be surprised if it helped me figure it out, (the Myka/Helena grapling gun incident hooo) and I was so scared but excited I knew who I was... only to slowly realize that I still don't belong to gay for the straits to strait for the gays especially knowing with my sexual trauma from being raped by another girl as a child if I ever end up in a relationship it'll likely be with a man which according to a lot of people means I get my queer card revoked, to so many people your strait if your in a relationship with the opposite sex and gay if its same sex and if you end up same sex then you were never strait, if you end up in a opposite sex relationship then you were never queer, its shit and the two show fandoms that display this most are Warehouse 13 and Xena two shows I watch from there beginning with my ma and fucking adore, its just upsetting its stuff like this witch is why I avoid fandom spaces outside like ao3 as much as I can, but every now and then I want to look at some gifs and shit and its just so much toxic crap)

Edit: I also just don't get why so many people gotta dump on a character if they like a certain ship, like I'm a BIG Spirk shipper but I don't shit on Uhura and so many people make her the 'bad' guy in spirk fanfic, like WHY!? I love Uhura I just don't like her with Spock, why can't people just let other people enjoy things, like why not just go oh not for me and instead they just gotta shit all over it

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falsebooles123 · 2 years

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Diary of a Horror Buff 8/4/22

So today was a kinda annoying day at work. There going to the coast for an event and for reasons that I don’t really want to get on here I’m staying home. I Basically worked a 6 hour that could have been a lot shorter if there was more planning. Through that being said I need the money so whatevs.

I made plans to drop off the SUV at the mechanics since I have this thing called a misfiring cylinder I’m just glad to not be driving all the way out in the valley for work rn.

anyway like I said technically short films are NOT ALLOWED. But fuck the rules I do what I want. Now I don’t know how many Crypt TV Shorts are on Letterboxd but I found a list with fifty of them so thats at least a good place to start. Maybe sometime I will create a list that lists all of them but I still haven’t finished my big joel list so fuck it.

and before you ask there is a surprising amount of gifs that very inappropriate when I typed in “fuck it”. Whores(affectionate)

ok lets get into it.

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7 Rules CRYPT TV dir. Mike Castro

Ok so rather aprepo I’m breaking a rule by having this on here. another one of the rules is you can’t have any rewatches and I have seen this before BUT.

<Valley Girl Voice>It was like before I even had a Letterboxd account so I never recorded it so it like doesn’t even count.

This was the only thing that popped up when I searched “Thats on Periodt”

OK so if you are like me and have read creepy pastas, (and before you ask no I have never had a Creepy OC because I am perfect, and wholesome, and ABOVE CRINGE.) you might be formaler with a Format? Trope? Genre? of story that is essential a list of rules. Its basically a natural progression of the Ritual Creepy Pasta but with some FNAF flavor. Random Person takes a job to be a security guard, graveyard shift, hospice nurse, Etc. and they get a note that says heres the list of rules that you have to follow to the letter.....

and most of these stories are a bit much. theres too many there hyper specific, and theres no way any normal person would be able to do have of the things that are asked of them. That being said its kinda missing the point. the really good ones, (take that with a grain of salt), lead the story through implication, they tell the story through the hidden details in the story. Like all good horror its not about waving the flashlight around the basement. Its the feeling that theres something just outside the safety of the beam. You want to see nothing but you feel that you won’t be safe till you see something.

Basically 7 rules is a more realistic version of that. a woman is house sitting for the weekend and gets a note with 7 RULES OMG JUST LIKE THE TITLE>. she does not follow them bad things happen. I actually really liked it. It was fun, it had this really great sense of humor to it, and I also like the fact that it had this very Internet horror root or at least something I recognise as coming from that branch of horror fiction. Overall worth a watch.

vimeo

Antoni Psycho (2018) CRYPT TV dir. Antoni Porowski????

OK so as far as I can tell this is a 2 minute short in which Antoni Porowski, who is in some show called queer eye for the straight guy, parodies the opening scene from American Psycho which is another film I have not watched.

Honestly this doesn’t do it for me. mostly cause I’ve never really cared about the subject matter and also I don’t really like Queer Eye? Like happy it exists and people enjoy it but for the whole idea of fabulous queens helping some poor smuck become a metrosexual just feels really regressive. It creates this false dicotomy that the culteral performance of queerness and straighness are strictly defined. Straight men are gross slobs who are too stupid and toxic to use conditioner and gay men are hyper feminine metrosexuals who are always FABULOUS.

and as a queer man I don’t identity with either of those notions. As a man who has been stigmatized for my self-expression it took me years to unlearn all the toxic ideas I had about my own body and clothing choices. Now I can enjoy things like wearing makeup and thigh highs BUT I also don’t feel the pressure to NOT present traditional masculine. I honestly really enjoy a hoodie and joggers sometimes even if it feels like camp straightness.

the whole premise of the show implies these notions that there is a certain presentation of queerness or straightness that is normitive and I think its really belittling to accept that. I think its wrong to tell straight men that there gross slobs and I dislike the overrepresentation of the Nance charater because it tells me as a queer person that I have to perform this level of expression.

Much in the same way that Patrick Batemen feels that he has to want and perform the social functions that society dictates. Boom got it.

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Bath Bomb CRYPT TV dir. Matt McWilliams.

Ok I honestly don’t have much to say about this. Essentially a short were a women takes a bath and uh no body horror. I enjoyed the atmosphere the shots and as a short film this type of taster is just lovely. Its the flash fiction of cinema.

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Be Mine CRYPT TV dir. Joe Russo

This one is just a short fun valentines day themed horror flick. Don’t know what else to tell you.

Anyway peeps that was my daily post for short horror films. Not sure if I’m gonna watch a movie tonight but if I do I’ll keep you posted.

#100moviesin92days #letterbox #movie #letterboxchallenge #Horror #Dairy

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orionsangel86 · 3 years

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SPN Conspiracies - Applying Logic to Chaos

Its been over 2 months now since the Supernatural finale aired. I am still so angry, hurt, and confused by it and I don’t think I will ever get closure unless someone like Andrew Dabb, or Jensen Ackles, actually opens up and gives us an explanation that makes sense.

What annoys me most right now is people trying to gaslight fans into believing that we should accept the narrative we have been given at face value: That the finale was always planned to be that way, that Destiel was never on the cards, that there was no Network interference, that the only changes made were due to covid and were minor at best.

This harmful gaslighting is FALSE.

NO ONE KNOWS THE TRUTH OF WHAT HAPPENED.

Look, I don’t agree with some of the crazier conspiracy theories. I don’t believe that there was some huge campaign among the CW Network execs to remove anything remotely gay out of homophobia. I don’t believe that the finale was changed because of some desire to make it into a Walker promo. I don’t believe that the finale was really bad on purpose in protest by Dabb for not getting to do an ending he truly wanted. I don’t believe that Dabb left us smart fans a bunch of secret messages in the finale to hint that he was on our side all along and that everything was fake.

I do, however, believe that all of these conspiracy theories have some elements in them that are plausible. At least, more plausible than the bullshit narrative mentioned above that some people are pushing in some desperate attempt to defend the Network (which imo is really strange behaviour anyway - why would anyone care about a TV network with a history of terrible behaviour?!?)

We have facts, based on information provided before the covid lockdown, which for some reason, people like Misha have since backpeddled on. So let me try to outline some of the information that makes no sense.

Below the cut I go on a deep dive into the conspiracies and statements I have heard about the SPN finale and try to make some sense of this whole fucked up situation. It gets long.

1. “Cas was never gonna be in the finale”.

False: We have many fan accounts of Misha confirming that he was filming the finale. We have video evidence of Misha confirming he was going back to film the finale after the lockdown. We have confirmation from fans in Misha M&Gs from March that he had about 5 days of filming left.

We also had fan accounts of discussions with Alex Calvert (I think) where he confirmed the final shot of the final episode was all four of them though I would LOVE if someone can find a source for this.

2. Okay, Misha was gonna be in the finale, but only as Jimmy Novak

False: I heavily side eyed Misha when he said this. But I think I can come up with a plausible explanation for it. Per above, Misha was supposed to film for 5 days. This does not align with the half a day he described of filming as Jimmy Novak. My own belief is that after Cas was cut from the finale (for whatever reason we don’t know) someone (probably Jensen Ackles) put up a fight and complained that Misha should be there for the final episode. The writers probably tried to come up with a way to bring Misha back without having to deal with Cas, and pitched the idea of Jimmy Novak being in Heaven. Misha, obviously annoyed about this, turned this stupid pitch down.

3. Destiel was never a thing, never planned, never part of Dabb’s ending. Bobo and Misha pushing the confession was the part of the season that was Wrong.

False: We have a SPN writer on record saying that Castiel’s confession was the first thing written for Season 15 when the writers returned to the writers room. If it wasn’t planned, why was it the first thing written, why does it align so well with the rest of season 15? Look I know some people either a. hate destiel and refuse to see it even if it slaps them in the face, or b. have major heteronormative goggles on, or c. are just homophobes in denial, but 15x18 fits in perfectly with the narrative of season 15. Everything Cas says, everything that happened in that scene was so in character it just works. It fit. If you just rewatch the season whilst applying some critical thinking skills and pay attention to the narrative and character arcs, trust me, the confession fits in with pretty much every other plot point, and character story in the season.

Also: We have known for a while that the network did market research into Destiel, wanting to know if it would go down well or not. They were well aware of its popularity and considering it. Where would this have come from if not pitched by the showrunner? Dabb must have at least been considering it. If you take all of Dabb era into consideration, starting with mid season 11, all the way through the season 12 build up, season 13 grief arc, and then Bobo’s Destiel break up arc in late season 14, early season 15, it is clear that there was some toing and froing on the issue of Destiel, but ultimately, I still believe that Dabb was on board. He wrote 13x01 for christs sake. No way he wasn’t taking it seriously.

4. It’s always been about the brothers. The finale just stays true to what Supernatural is all about.

*rubs temples* Fundamentally FALSE: The show has time and again reasserted the message of “Family don’t end with blood”, as well as the messages of AKF and YANA. Sam and Dean may be at the heart of the show, but a heart can’t exist without a body to support it. Without bones, and lungs, and blood, and muscles, and a BRAIN. The finale abandons the shows core messages. It forces the characters back into their season 1 characterisations and the whole thing becomes hollow and souless. But I’m not here to complain, I’m here to lay down the facts. Dean’s heaven was supposed to be surrounded by loved ones right? We know OG Charlie Bradbury was gonna be in his Heaven, we also know CAS was gonna be in there. So this idea that the finale as it currently stands was how it was meant to be is wrong. Dean was supposed to die and reunite with his found family and loved ones. This alone would have been a far better ending than the one given. Do I think this was solely a covid issue? Fuck no.

The randoms that WERE in the finale are proof alone that they could have got people in and quarantined. We also have several actors on record saying that they WOULD have quarantined for the finale had they been asked to return but they WEREN’T.

Lies have been told. Samantha Ferris and Chad Limberg have confirmed that we have been lied to about the original plans for the finale.

This alone is proof enough that there is more plausibility in some of the conspiracy theories than any bullshit narrative some people are pushing in defence of the barbaric mess of a finale we were given.

So lets address some of the conspiracy theories now:

Conspiracy No.1: The CW Network reviewed Supernatural during the covid break, and due to homophobia, refused any Destiel arc that wasn’t already filmed, shut down any potential reciprocation from Dean, and forced Dabb to change his finale.

I don’t think this is entirely what happened. But I do think it is very strange how there is a such a huge disconnect particularly in Dean’s characterisations between what had come before the lockdown, and what came after. The one fact we have here, and please someone provide a source if you can find it because I know there is one, the finale script was still going through changes up to only 2 weeks before it was filmed. We know that there was some weird editing in 15x18 (which was still in post and uncompleted before lockdown) and we know from Jensen’s own mouth that there was more to the confession scene on Dean’s side that was cut. We also know that this isn’t the first time that Destiel heavy moments have been changed in post - the prayer scene is another big scene that went through a lot of changes and Bobo fought to have his script play out the way he wanted it.

There are certain things that in my own opinions, are basically true of SPN which I have put together from years of keeping one eye on the writers room, the network, and all the various comments made. My opinion is this:

The writers room has always been split on Destiel. Some writers heavily supported making it canon, others did not care, or were against it.

The Network considered it over the course of several years, did market research, green lit it, then changed their minds, possibly several times over the course of Dabb’s era. Destiel was pitched to the Network early in Dabb era.

The crew on set were also split. Some people heavily supported it, and worked to assist the reading, whereas others did not care/did not support it. The same can be said for the editing room.

Bob Singer supported the subtextual homoeroticism, but never supported bringing it into text (this is an opinion, but I think it aligns with everything we know about him.) IMO Bob Singer also supported subtextual homoeroticism between Sam and Dean - the guy is gross is what I’m saying. He isn’t exactly a progressive person.

Fun fact - a while back our old enemy Sera Gamble went on a Twitter rant about writers rooms and the ways a script goes through changes. I don’t think this was in relation to the SPN finale wank but she basically inadvertantly confirmed that the Network can step in and make sweeping changes to a script if they want to and if they decide they don’t like the direction of a story. Sera Gamble confirmed this as a fact.

Now. I’m not saying that this is what the CW did with Destiel. I just think its very strange how pre lockdown, the last thing filmed is a heartfelt homosexual declaration of love between Dean and Cas, and we have a finale script that Misha had not seen, but knew that he was meant to film as Castiel for 5 days (5 days on set is over half of an episode as far as I know). Then all of a sudden, Covid happens, and Cas is cut from the finale completely, a desperate attempt to bring Misha back only as Jimmy Novak takes place, which Misha rightly refuses, leading to a finale which makes zero sense narratively and appears in every way completely and utterly butchered.

The only explanation provided by anyone involved is that Covid meant changes had to happen - but that covid didn’t change the actual story at all.

But this makes no sense because we know that Cas was cut from the finale. This is FACT. Do not let anyone gaslight you into thinking otherwise. Misha was preparing to quaranting to return to set as Cas post Covid, so whatever happened to cut Cas from the finale, it wasn’t Covid.

I’m gonna have to Occum’s Razor this and say that the most logical explanation here is the one that is most likely true. Someone got cold feet with the Destiel story, and to prevent any possible interpretation that included Dean reciprocating, any hints of Destiel were removed from the finale script, including Castiel’s whole appearance.

Now, this isn’t me saying I think that Dabb’s original finale was full of Destiel love confessions and a homosexual kiss or whatever, but I am asking you all to really think about it and ask yourselves WHY Cas would have been totally cut from an episode he was supposed to be in at LEAST half of?

We will probably never know the real reason Cas was cut, but he WAS cut. I’m not saying it was all homophobia, but some fuckery went down.

Conspiracy No. 2: The CW Network changed the finale to make it into a Walker promo because they only cared about raising up Jared and not Jensen and Misha as they were losing them anyway.

I don’t agree with this in terms of the finale being butchered solely to make it into a Walker promo. There are however moments in the finale that are clearly supposed to be Walker Easter Eggs and added to excite fans of Jared/Sam in particular such as Sam’s gratuitous and unnecessary topless scene, as well as the call on the “case in Austin”.

I will take this moment to say something pretty damn controversial though.

*Deep breath*

The fact is, Dean Winchester has been the “lead” character of Supernatural’s narrative for years now, with Sam often being sidelined and not given great storylines himself. Even in Season 15, right up until the finale, I myself felt bad for Sam sometimes because so much of this show has become all about Dean. Jensen Ackles is clearly the better actor when it comes to emotional story arcs, so the emotional heart of the story has most often leant on him.

So you can understand my confusion, when this is turned on its head in the final episode, to make Sam carry all the emotional weight, and have the most lines/screentime, and story resolution (even if his story resolution was just as crappy as Dean’s).

If we pretend that Destiel is not a thing, and ignore Cas’s confession, the story change in the finale from Dean focus to Sam focus is still rather suspicious. Again, I’m not saying I completely approve of or agree to the conspiracy theory that Walker influenced the butchering of the script, but I can believe that perhaps a note went down from the CW to someone like Bob Singer, to emphasise Sam/Jared more than they perhaps would normally, because the CW wanted to shine the spotlight on Jared to raise excitement for Walker.

I can also believe this note might have said something like “we wanna cater to fans of Sam/Jared the most - don’t do anything to piss them off.” but now I am getting into my own conspiracy theories so by all means dismiss this as me being bitter.

Conspiracy No.3: Dabb purposely made it bad, as a secret message to Destiel fans that he had been silenced, by layering meta clues into the episode that he knew fans would notice.

I doubt this one is true. Though some of the theories are quite compelling. The old vampire silent movie theory for instance starts off quite well, but loses me the moment it brings up Urban Dictionary slang.

Sometimes I have just had to accept that Supernatural is a bad show that is sometimes accidentally a masterpiece. However, some writers really did go That Deep with their stories - anything by Ben Edlund or Steve Yockey for instance, their episodes are meta masterpieces with a hundred different layers of beautiful subtextual storytelling and are a joy to analyse. Bobo Berens has certainly done some A+++ work especially now we KNOW that he was working hard all this time to bring Destiel to canon text (so any analysis of Destiel in the subtext in his episodes is very accurate). There have been many other key elements analysed over the years which have been confirmed true. Cas’s death in Season 12, Dean’s time as a demon in season 10, Season 11 ending in unity of dark and light, these were all plot points predicted by meta writers just by analysing the narrative. Sometimes the writers really have been very smart and they do add things to the show to aid us in our meta.

Richard Speight Jr for instance, confirmed that SPN has a visual library that the production team use to give clues and hints in the narrative. Pizza, for example, always means a lie has been told. Whenever Pizza is being eaten or even just mentioned on screen, there is dishonesty in that particular moment.

The beers also have a very specific message and the one thing I can’t let go about the finale, was that Dean was drinking El Sol beer. The beer his dad gave him, that was terrible.

El Sol has been used in the show to indicate something being wrong, a fake reality, or another lie, for the longest time. It is the beer of deception.

The fact that in the final episode of this entire show, Dean is in Heaven, supposedly at peace, and then he gets handed an El Sol beer to drink? Thats a HUGE red flag for any meta writer watching who can read SPNs visual library.

If they had given him the Margiekugel beer of family then it would make sense. Dean is in Heaven, with Bobby, his family, at peace. Margiekugel should have been the beer of choice. But nope. El Sol. Something is wrong.

I don’t know if it was Dabb, or Singer, or some disgruntled ADs and crew members who added these elements into the finale, but their very presence confirms some message of Wrongness.

I could go into a huge rant about Vampire Mimes not making sense and the very glaringly obvious symbolism of cutting out peoples tongues too, but that is high school level film analysis. It’s obvious. It means to silence someone. There is validity in interpreting this as Dabb saying he was silenced. I don’t know how true it is, but i can’t 100% dismiss it, because as I said, this is high school analysis levels of obvious subtextual storytelling.

So in summary, whilst I don’t think that Dabb intentionally went out of his way to sabotage his own script, and leave a breadtrail of secret messages for savvy fans to put together to confirm that he was silenced by an evil network into not getting what he wanted... I do think that there is validity in questioning these odd choices for the finale. Cutting out tongues? Vampire Mimes? El Sol beer?

The evidence is somewhat compelling is all I’m saying. I don’t believe the full conspiracy theories, but as I have said many times before, some fuckery went down.

So What Do I Believe?

That some fuckery went down and whatever company line they are pushing is bullshit.

I believe that the original script included Cas (since thats fact). I believe that the original script probably always had Dean dying on a vampire hunt (due to Jensen’s issues with it and in particular, his sarcastic comments about vampires in the past year or so which in hindsight are hilarious and prove he never really came to terms with Dean’s idiotic death). I believe Dabb’s original script was some less crappy version of what we got, which potentially included showing Jack rescuing Cas from the Empty and resolving the outstanding Empty plot points (potentially this was actually a 15x19 plot since Mark P commented that his final scenes were supposed to be with Jack and Cas), had Cas reunite with Dean in Heaven and had them have a discussion about Cas’s confession. I believe that there was probably a lot of back and forth over how to handle that with some people wanting Dean to obviously reciprocate and others believing they should keep it ambiguous. I believe that Dean and Cas would have reunited with Charlie Bradbury, and Bobby Singer, and possibly others (though if this was the case it must have been very early on since no one ever looped in Sam Ferris, Chad Linberg or any other Roadhouse people).

I believe that Sam’s ending probably didn’t change much, but I do feel that initially they were planning on him ending up with Eileen, because it is the only thing that narratively makes sense. Cutting Eileen and giving him a blurry wife is something I won’t ever understand and Jared’s bullshit explanations are quite clearly pulled out of his ass to appease bronly types. I believe the reunion on the bridge would have included Cas and Jack, with a final shot of all four of them together, at peace (as this aligns with Alex’s comments from around a year or so ago that the final shot was all four of them). (I also am not sure it was always supposed to be on a bridge since the foreshadowing in an earlier episode showed Dean, Cas and Sam all in the Roadhouse together).

I believe that script went through countless changes and redrafts, and not even production people or the types that some fandom people claim as their “sources” would even have seen those early scripts, since even Misha never saw it. I believe that these rumours of Dabb never having Cas in his finale and ignoring all Destiel elements likely come from people who only saw later versions, weren’t party to network discussions and felt bitter about the final scripts they did see (being the crappy butchered one that was ultimately filmed). Those “sources” are now spreading rumours to discredit Dabb.

I obviously believe Dabb is a weak ass pushover who either didn’t care enough to fight back, or gave up since he’s been stuck with fucking Bob Singer on his back for years, but I will NEVER believe he didn’t care about the DeanCas love story, because he has been one of the few writers who has championed for it for years. You can’t look back at Dabb’s episodes in earlier seasons and claim he didn’t care. Dabb was a writer whose creative ideas were beaten out of him by an unforgiving Network only concerned about where their future money was coming from. Do I think he gave up too easily? Yes. But I also have one other huge reason for not believing the bullshit about Dabb being this anti-Destiel villain.

Bobo. Because if Bobo truly believed Dabb was gonna fuck that up at the end, I don’t think he would have given us Cas’s love confession to begin with. If he had known it was gonna end like that, I think he would have reconsidered, because had Cas not confessed his love, I don’t think he would have been cut from the finale. Bobo - a gay man, would not have wanted such a horrible message for queer fans being put across in the show he worked so hard on. He started writing that confession scene the day they returned to the writers room. Dabb would have been there, would have seen what he was writing, probably discussed it with him, after all, other episodes were written with the confession in mind. No way was Dabb planning to fuck up the ending knowing what Bobo was giving us. Nope.

Something went very wrong over lockdown. Someone, somewhere up the chain of power caught wind of the confession scene in 15x18, realised that it demanded a resolution which would make Dean Winchester, their protagonist, queer, and pulled the plug. I believe this did not come from a place of homophobia, but of bad business sense.

The CW is constantly trying to win the approval and attention of the one demo group that they seem to fail at getting the most: young straight men. Supernatural was one of their only remaining shows that appeals to young straight men, and Dean Winchester is more often than not the fave character of those young straight men who project onto him. Making Dean Winchester, established Han Solo of Supernatural, queer and in love with his best friend in the finale would have come across as a betrayal to those young straight men. The CW probably feared they would lose that demo group for good, and with a show like Walker starting soon with Jared at the helm, they couldn’t take the risk.

Hence there was probably a whole bunch of back and forth script redrafts with the Network, with Dabb and Singer fighting to make a finale that would appeal to everyone. There was most likely no way that they could bring Cas back without addressing what had already been filmed, because any resolution of that plot would either a. make Dean queer, or b. address it awkwardly by having Dean reject Cas (this storyline would probably have been slammed by critics worse than the finale because it meant addressing it. It might have got the attention of LGBTQ activist groups and caused a bigger shitstorm than what we got). The best option was therefore C. Bury it and Cas, pretend it never happened. Never address it again and distract Dean with other things. Hope that Destiel fans will accept no answer from Dean as ambiguous enough to imagine a future reunion rather than shutting it down with a rejection, and still keep hold of the blissfully ignorant heteronormative straight boys so they can carry over to Walker when it starts.

I also believe (controversially probably) that there was concern that any resolution of Dean and Cas would have overshadowed network darling Jared Padalecki. If Dean and Cas had come together in the finale, with a very clearly textual homosexual reunion, then that would have been all anyone talked about. The reviewers, the critics, the audience, everyone. It would have been nothing but Dean and Cas (and look, if they did think this, they were right, Destiel trending over the US ELECTION.)

So what is the network to do, when they are losing the two stars who would get the most attention from this storyline? The one star they were holding on to and getting his own show, relegated to third place in the finale of the show where he was first on the call sheet? Nope. That’s pretty unacceptable. Even without Walker I can imagine people at all levels side eyeing the Destiel thing over the years. This IS a show about two brothers, and their relationship should be the core relationship, we can’t have one brother pushed aside in the finale to make way for a queer relationship that will get all the attention instead. It was never gonna get approved for this reason ALONE.

At the end of the day, if I look at it from a business perspective, it makes far more sense that the CW shut down Destiel, rather than “oh Dabb never cared and ruined it because he’s an idiot.” The writers cared, and had built on that story over years. But their mistake was leaving any Destiel resolution to the finale. If they had instead gone and got Dean and Cas together in early season 15, then they could have ended it in a way that satisfied everyone. Destiel wouldn’t have threatened pulling focus away from Sam and Dean, and the show could have gone out on a high.

When I lay out all the conspiracy theories, and line them up next to the cold hard facts, the conspiracy theories in some way or another, make more sense. To believe the company line, the narrative we have been fed, is to ignore your own eyes, ears, and memories pre March 2020.

All I’m asking people to do is take a look at the show, the narrative presented in the show, and the information presented above. I’m not telling you to believe what I’ve written here, half of which is just my own opinion. I’m asking you to ask yourselves if it makes sense to you. Because it sure as hell doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t think I’ll ever be satisfied.

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ohnominamino · 3 years

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An Essay on Love in Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time

Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time is a movie about love in all its forms. From the love of family, friends, and neighbors, to the compassion we feel for people we have never met. The movie reminds us that love is something we continuously gain, lose, and choose, again and again. Which love is greatest? In my opinion, the answer to that question is left up to interpretation. In this essay, I will give my own personal interpretation on certain character interactions and what I believe we are meant to take away from their Rebuild portrayals.

The character I will start with is one I’ve noticed the most outrage over from people who haven’t seen the movie and read out-of-context spoilers: Kaworu Nagisa.

Kaworu is a beloved character among many Evangelion fans, especially those who are members of the LGBT+ community. He is a canonical love interest of Shinji Ikari and I want to reassure people that this final movie does not change that fact. However, it does not make the couple blatantly endgame either. This skirting around the couple might make some fans upset, and while their feelings are completely valid, I do not think they fully understand the difficulties faced by LGBT+ people in Japan, nor do they understand the way that romance is typically conveyed in Japanese storytelling. (I recommend watching “Is ‘Yuri On Ice’ Good Gay Representation?” by James Somerton for more about storytelling nuances.)

What have we been shown about Shinji and Kaworu’s love? The good news is, anything you read into the original TV series and End of Evangelion is completely true for the Rebuilds— because Kaworu is the same Kaworu. This movie proves Evangelion is a single universe set on repeat, and that Kaworu and Shinji meet each other every loop, and in each, Kaworu is trying to make Shinji happy. Within the final movie, Shinji becomes aware of the loops and chooses to break the cycle and free Kaworu from his pain.

What does the relationship between Shinji and Kaworu teach us? I believe the purpose of their love is to show the audience that first, in the words of Kaji, “love has no gender.” Second, I believe Kaworu’s love in particular is a warning about basing your own happiness solely upon another person. There are parallels drawn between Gendo/Yui and Kaworu/Shinji. Gendo could not exist without Yui, and so he was willing to destroy the world to be reunited with her. For Kaworu, it was not the destruction of humanity, but the destruction of himself that defined his tragedy. What’s important within the final movie, in my opinion, is that Shinji does not reject Kaworu’s love. With the insight he’s gained from remembering past loops, he sees Kaworu’s love and appreciates him, but he also sees his suffering and wants to ease it. He helps Kaworu into a new world where he can seek his own happiness and find balance in his life (something his father did not have).

While Kaworu and Shinji are not seen as an explicit couple at the end of the movie, it’s significant to note that, when he sets Kaworu free, Shinji holds out his hand to Kaworu as a promise to stay together. Over the course of the movie, Shinji comes to accept his connection to others through accepting touch (in the form of hand holding and hugs from Rei, Misato, and Gendo); however, Kaworu is the only character in the movie who Shinji initiates physical contact with and that speaks to how much Kaworu means to him. This simple gesture, in my opinion, keeps the door open for Kaworu and Shinji to be a couple one day, after Kaworu has found more balance in his life.

If I were to write an entire essay about Kaworu, it would be titled, “Out of the Coffin: How the Resurrection of Kaworu Nagisa Buries the Tragic Lovers Trope” because this movie truly does just that.

Another potential love interest for Shinji for many years was Asuka; however, unlike with Kaworu, the nature of this relationship is not left up to interpretation by the end of the movie. Before her big final battle, Asuka tells Shinji, “I think I loved you back then” (regarding their time in middle school) and Shinji, during Instrumentality, tells Asuka, “Thank you for saying you loved me. I loved you too.” It is past tense.

What does this relationship teach us? It’s a beautiful way of showing that we can love people, and grow and learn, and let go when we no longer fit each other. Letting go is an integral part of life. Whereas other Instrumentality scenes involve touch, Asuka’s, mirroring the ending of End of Evangelion, has a distinct lack of touch. Shinji sits with his arms around his knees and Asuka turns her body away from him. He gives her his thanks and he sends her off to find her peace. Asuka and Shinji teach us that it’s okay to grow out of relationships. You can appreciate what they were to you at the time they happened and move on.

What about Rei? To be honest with you, this movie is less about Rei’s relationship with Shinji, and more about her relationship with the world. Rei teaches movie viewers about the simple pleasures of living. While Shinji is in mourning for the first quarter of the movie, Rei (as “Sokkuri”) is learning about crop growing and community, the wonder of babies and kittens, the joy of the bath after a long day of fruitful work, and the power of words and picture books. At the end of her life, she only regrets not having more time to spend with the people she loves. In Instrumentality, Shinji accepts her hand when it is offered to him, which I hope signifies he is ready to see life as she had come to during the final movie.

Rei teaches us that we can love living and to not take our limited time for granted.

Next, we move on to parent figures: Gendo and Misato. I think they both represent people ill suited to the role, who do the best they can despite it. Gendo, as mentioned for Kaworu above, is a warning about defining yourself by your relationship to another person (Ikari, afterall, is Yui’s name). He is also a lesson in how people mourn and how they can lash out. Misato, like Gendo, felt herself a poor parent, and while mourning the loss of Kaji, she gave up her child to be raised by other people, but, unlike Gendo, went forward to put all her energy into protecting humanity. Both of them reach out to hug Shinji within the movie and he accepts them where they are.

While I wouldn’t say the movie shows that Shinji forgives Gendo, it does show his making an effort to understand and make peace with what others have done. For Misato, it is fair to say we can still hope for a better future, even when it feels like everything is crumbling around us. Her self-sacrificing love for her son and the whole of humanity is what enables Shinji to then save the people he loves (via the spear of Gaius).

In the movie, we are also shown friendship. Touji, Hikari, and Kensuke are important members of their community who maintain open communication with those around them and respect others’ boundaries. They are patient and kind and represent the importance of being present. They teach us to meet people where they are and support them how we can, whether it’s giving them a warm meal or giving them space when they need it.

There are many more characters that could be talked about, but today I am going to end on Mari. Mari’s love is physical. She enjoys being in people’s personal bubbles. She cuddles Asuka and helps trim her hair, she gets into Gendo’s space at college, and at the end of the movie, she reaches out her hand to Shinji to help him stand up from his seat. Upon first glance, some viewers might take Mari and Shinji’s final scene to be romantic, but the reality of it is this: We do not, and cannot, know what kind of love she is meant to represent in his life.

We do not know Mari’s relationship with Shinji because they hardly interact in the movie. She clearly cares about him, but in my opinion, it comes from a place of duty and compassion— Mari was friends with Gendo and Yui. She has been there since he was born. (If we take the manga to be canon, then Mari even had romantic feelings towards his mother. Her hairstyle and glasses are from Yui. At the end of the movie, Mari has changed her hairstyle, which to me implies she has moved on, and “getting” with Shinji would be a thematic break.)

Additionally, their conversation, while flirty, is very much one that implies they haven’t seen each other for a while. Mari is someone who is very physically affectionate. With everyone. If someone ignores that and focuses on the fact she gets into Shinji’s space and claims that’s romantic, they better acknowledge it’s possibly romantic with Asuka, who we see far more intimacy with. When Mari flirts, Shinji flirts back and her initial reaction is surprise, “Wow, you’ve learned to talk back!” Her purpose is clear. She is there to remove the DSS choker from his neck.

Personally, I love that Mari is the one to close the movie, for the exact reason that we do not know her relationship with Shinji. For Mari to have an assigned role would be to say, “This kind of love is most important,” when the entire movie was spent showing us each love is of equal importance in the balance and building of our lives. (It’s wonderful to see those types of love embodied across the platform from Shinji at the end of the movie: Rei and Kaworu, who, just like in End of Evangelion, could signify the ability to connect with others and be loved.)

If you view Mari as a romantic love interest, then I think it speaks to the value that you as an individual give to romance rather than what the characters themselves are feeling. To me, Mari, the character who was created to “destroy Eva,” is a symbol of all love. When Shinji takes her offered hand and then pulls her to run into the new world, it’s a symbol of balance. The give and take of any kind of relationship.

We are the product of every relationship we have ever had, from our parents to the people we once loved, from our friendships to any other person we want to stay connected to. Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time is a story about these relationships. It is a story about love.

#rebuild of evangelion #kaworu nagisa #shinji ikari #asuka shikinami #mari makinami #rei ayanami #misato katsuragi #gendo ikari #thrice upon a time #kawoshin #essay #movie review #shinkawo

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