#Usian terrorism

[vyorei]

Bless every single one of you and may you be protected.

Reminder that the Houthis have not killed a single person during the blockade, they have blocked trade. They will stop delaying shipping when the genocide stops. That is the point. And yet, Yemen has had to suffer and their people have been murdered by two of the biggest villain nations on the planet.

[shadowmaat]

Damaging your cause

I'm going to be extremely unpopular for a minute and express the opinion that some people need to chill the fuck out about donation posts.

What's happening in Palestine (and OTHER places, BTFW) is appalling and criminal. Yes. But taking out your anger on random individuals is absolute fucking bullshit and does nothing but damage your "cause."

I'm not saying people shouldn't donate to the various verified "get me outta here" campaigns. I'm not saying people shouldn't boost those posts. But acting as if NOT doing those things is directly responsible for the deaths of those seeking donations is horrifying. What the absolute fuck is WRONG with you?

Yes, people are dying. Yes, it's terrible. No, we as individuals are not responsible for any of that. It's a WAR, ffs. You could fully fund every single verified "help me" campaign and people would still be dying. There would still be suffering. Stopping a war happens at a government level, not an individual one. Getting Harris into office is one step (and one we USians can help with on an individual level). Getting Benji and his cronies out would be another big one. Sanctions. Criminal charges with an arrest warrant attached. There are things that can and should be done at a much higher level than the one most of us exist on.

Stop attacking Betty Burbia for pointing out that folks only have so much money to give and start attacking Benji for his campaign to wipe out every Palestinian on the planet. Write to your congress people or other equivalent representatives. Push to make your governments take action against Benji.

"We" can't save everyone. "We" shouldn't have to. "You" need to stop shaming people for not living up to impossible standards.

A lot of people ARE helping, when and where and how they can. And that's an incredible thing. People are amazing and it's damn wonderful to see. Maybe focus on that instead. Focus on the good. Tell us the success stories. You know what gets people excited to donate? Hearing tales of survivors who got out. Seeing families who have escaped the terror and are building new lives thanks to the generosity of people like us. POSITIVITY.

Meanwhile, this is TUMBLR. It isn't the best place for ANY kind of fundraising campaigns, let alone ones to save lives. For a lot of people, tumblr is a place to escape the stresses of daily life. AND THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. Tumblr should be a place to relax and have fun. Would you stomp into the middle of someone's picnic, kicking over the lemonade and throwing the sandwiches in the pond while you remind everyone about The Horrors™? I certainly hope you wouldn't.

Taking a break from The Horrors™ doesn't mean someone is ignorant of them or doesn't care about what other people are suffering. That's why it's a break. A brief respite. A chance to stop at the oasis, relax in the shade, and get hydrated before marching once more unto the breach. Stop blaming people for needing that. And stop blaming them for suffering from concern fatigue. Take a break, yourself, and indulge in a much-needed reminder of the good things in life. Simmering in negativity 24/7 is bad for your health- physically and mentally- and then you spread that miasma to everyone around you.

Take a break. Relax. Recharge. Learn to focus on the real targets in all these various disasters and then fire away at full power.

Going after Betty Burbia and the rest of us? That ain't it, bub.

[puc-puggy]

i mean this good naturedly but @dieinct this response is making me howl. like laugh out loud in real life a few tears came down my face. the iceberg of discourse is colonization.

in the post, when i wrote that colonization is as deeply horrifying as the holocaust? i was underplaying it. there were up to 85 million people in north america when europeans arrived. because of intentional destruction of food sources, intentional spread of disease, violent displacement, theft of children (residential schools), and constant exposure to hazards like nuclear radiation, the genocidal effort wiped out millions and most usians and canadians now believe indigenous americans to be largely extinct, despite ongoing protest for environmental and civil rights like the water protectors. 85 million people. 85% of the world's biodiversity is protected by indigenous people in the here and now. it's not a historical issue, indigenous rights are a right now climate change issue.

the frozen boys were active participants at the height of the british empire. all of them except hickey were volunteers, right? they wanted to find the northwest passage, believed it was was ordained by god.

the show, the terror, is an anti-imperialist show. the colonizers, the frozen boys, are literally the bad guys. the narrative tells you that it's an incredible tragedy that the terror and erebus arrived, that they were frozen in due to the hubris of a blue light captain (Extremely Christian-God's Dominion-Colonization As Right Of Might In Glory And Conquest ass bitch), that they kill silna's father and forced her into a role that she had not yet fully trained for, and most of all, that they killed tuunbaq in the course of their unnecessary and fatal invasion. there is a reason crozier refuses to see his friend and tells no one to ever come back.

all of these themes are explicit in the show, and this Discourse is caused when some people would like to over-empathize with the actual real historical figures fictionalized in the show and in so doing, dismiss, undermine, or erase the crimes of colonization that the show was designed to show light on.

anyway, historically, the franklin expedition arrived to king william island expecting it to be abundant because it always had been before. unfortunately, a previous expedition overhunted and cast the entire region into famine, scattering the inuit inhabitants that survived and the trade networks the discovery service relied on. just add unbelievable ecological hubris on top of the scurvy, the lead poisoning, and the refusing to turn back.

the discourse is how much to empathize with imperialists and colonizers who died terrible deaths that they brought on themselves. i'm little inclined towards empathy beyond obviously fictional tobias menzies in a wig accompanied by his beautifully homoerotic performance. actual real james fitzjames helped establish the routes for the opium wars and the century long imperialist oppression of china, of which he was incredibly proud. the historical figure is a racist, brutal man who was proud of british conquest, and making excuses for a fully adult and extremely wealthy and influential man is a bit like saying "well he couldn't possibly have refused to jump off a bridge with his friends or he might have less money and wouldn't that be a terrible crime." if 'jumping off a bridge' was subjugating a foreign nation and brutalizing its populace.

anyway. love gayboy tobais menzies in a wig. no empathy whatsoever for commiters of war crimes no matter how far in the past or how painfully they died. imperial victims suffered worse fates for far longer, and ones they did not remotely seek. fitzjames had and utilized the privilege of acting on his and his peers' hubris, however many lives it cost. and his peers were not his crewman anywhere else but in fiction.

[woman-respecter]

i don’t have any problem with 4B catching on in america, and while im not going to join id love to be in community with, organize with, and take action with 4B feminists—and there i do have a twinge of concern that usian 4B is just going to end up another kind of choice feminism? Will 4B steer women towards the political action necessary to regain the rights we’ve lost? It’s funny, i feel like my concerns are the opposite of a lot of other progressives because i worry 4B isn’t radical enough, i worry that it could become too much about personal choices and not enough about empowerment in the sense of gaining power, and liberation in the sense of fighting for a world where everyone woman and girl lives free. Anyway, i hope to see 4B women outside planned parenthood terrorizing misogynists with me!

4B is just a start, it *is* a personal choice meant to protect yourself, and while mass 4B could have greater impacts, i’m not optimistic that enough women will participate for that to happen

what will happen though, is that women who divest from male attention will probably find stronger bonds with other women and THAT could lead to something very powerful and some actual organizing

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Hi Theitsa, I came across followers of Hellenism on YouTube, mainly Americans and I am just perplexed. Why would USians adopt native European religions/belief systems? It would be equally strange for me as a European (Lithuanian) to take on a specific Native American tribes belief system and practicing this out of its original context, or even Greek religion for that matter.

I guess Im just weirded out that Americans have been living in America for generations would gravitate towards European religions rather than Native American religions and belief systems that are tied to the continent they live on. Does Hellenism or Norse Paganism even make sense outside of their lands/environment of origin?

Why is this not considered cultural appropriation in some aspect? Hellenism consists of Greek names, Greek ideas, Greek imagery, Greek everything. Same with Norse religion, it is tied to Scandinavia. Maybe this is an extension of westerners separating Ancient Greek culture and society from modern Greeks and treating it like some magical fairyland where they can insert their own anglo selves.

I suspect western media and movies promoting characters and storylines inspired by Greek and Norse culture might be the culprit. If western media was obsessed with Hinduism for example, they would probably adopt Hinduism instead. Seems very LARP-y and superficial to me.

I apologize for the long rant, just my opinion of course. I would like to hear what you think of USians taking on these religions Theitsa, your takes are always interesting!

On the treatment of ancient cultures and religions in the US pop media I just made this post and I think you will find most points there aligned with yours. More and more people are noticing this phenomenon, meanwhile the US continues spitting out hollow retelling after hollow retelling and generic movie after generic movie on the Greek myths.

As for religion, I imagine that you, like me, don't blame anyone for being spiritual. But, like I've done in the past, you speak of those worshipers who treat the Greek religion more like a fandom than a foreign ancient practice, and insist on fully Americanising it.

Sadly, this LARP-y "worship" is quite common in the US. A writer who's kinda popular on Twitter/X right now claims to worship the gods and at the same time writes spicy erotica novels with them as protagonists for profit. And if you critique this person, they tell you that you disrespect them as a worshiper. Make it make sense dude...

Even the term Hellenism is wrongly used by them! See why here

There are minorities in the US who want their culture to be more mainstream in the country so they can enjoy their life with less bigotry. While the sentiment makes sense, I know that they will regret it if this ever becomes a reality for them, simply because that's how the US operates.

I already see Arabs, Indians, Chinese, and more, gasping in terror online when WASPs take their cultural items or customs and use them in a classic Murican way. And their voices are DEFINITELY not going to be heard even after 50 series inspired by their culture come out. If anything, their exotisation will continue. Been there, done that 😩

my tag #xenoi doing bs has similar content if you want to take a look at the expense of your mental health 😂

[deathsmallcaps]

Blue beetle spoilers. And spoilers for Macario (1960)

There’s plenty of articles out there already with this info but these are my thoughts.

Ok I just saw Blue Beetle and I’m in love with Xolo Maridueña!!! His character Jaime Reyes is so enthusiastic and loves his family and ultimately kind. And he has sweet eyes XD. It’s really cool he got the role because of his martial arts skills.

Harvey Guillén is in there! He plays another character with the same last name, de la Cruz, so maybe we can jokingly have crossovers in this universe with What we do in the Shadows. Blade (admittedly Marvel but still) is semi-canon already. (I didn’t catch the entirety of his real name sorry, just definitely the end.)(idk if Guillermo de la Cruz is his full name or if his name was shuffled around/inaccurately represented due to USian naming customs)

I loved George Lopez as Uncle Rudy. He rocks the kookiness!

Nana was hella cool. Between her implied revolutionary backstory (she hates Imperialists! The way she pulls out her braids when it’s time to attack makes me think that she was part of a pro-Mexico or maybe pro-Indigenous force back in the day) and Ignacio’s backstory (his mother, his only family, murdered in a ‘anti-communist’ attack in Guatemala, and then he was sent to ‘Escuela de las Americas’, a USA funded ‘school’ that basically churned out child soldiers and later adult destabilizers sent out to disrupt Latin America in the name of USian interests (its still in operation), and then he was experimented upon by the very people that ruined his life (a la the Tuskegee Airmen Experiment) really speaks to the racism and imperialism that affects the family in the movie and many people face today (preaching to the choir I know). The fight ain’t over.

(First link is in spanish, second link is the English Wikipedia page)

I appreciate that a good half of Jaime’s family were not in the US legally. The constant terror and unwillingness to seek help for fear of attention was quite palpable, and I think really adds to the idea that superheroes are supposed to make sure ALL people live safely and happily - legality should not contradict human rights. And hell, even though they were in the USA, their home was still threatened - by gentrification!

The poor Dad’s death is sadly not an uncommon phenomenon. Many immigrants, but especially undocumented ones, work themselves to the bone, both physically and emotionally. Poverty and instability kill more than any capitalist would ever like to acknowledge. And yet Alberto still found it in his heart to be kind whenever possible. I really respect that. And I think his kindness inspired Rocio (the mom, who is totally cool) and Milagro (sister) to keep on after his death.

The body horror aspects were interesting, for both Jaime and Ignacio Caripax. I hope they lean into that in later works.

But what really caught my eye was the cave of candles that appeared twice in the story. There’s a European story, Godfather Death, about a godchild of the personification of death who gets given the power to heal, and ultimately (in some people’s views) wastes it in greed and/or love. He gets to watch his life, represented as a candle, blow out. However, in Spanish, death is a feminine concept, and so Death is a godmother in that situation. Godmother Death* is thus a common story in Latin America too, but especially in Mexico and Guatemala, where Maya beliefs mixed with Catholic ones.

It turns out, the creators wanted to bring in some Latine magical realism and reference the classic Mexican film, **Macario, which is based on a novel based on a local legend that was likely based on La Madrina Muerte. I’ve ordered the book, lol, and will watch the movie soon. I’m quite excited to see it.

I found it quite interesting that Jaime’s acceptance of Khaji Da and the Macario/Madrina Muerte scene happened really close to each other. In a way, he chose compromise to continue with life, as opposed to Macario’s/the Godson’s stubbornness which lead to their deaths. His willingness to work with Khaji Da (scarabs are symbols of rebirth btw) shows a willingness to work with his place in the life and death cycle, and the Madrina Muerte themes showcase his interest in alleviating suffering***.

In any case, if you have money for a ticket, I highly suggest going to see Blue Beetle! It’s totally worth it.

*La Madrina Muerte, in Spanish. I’ve been somewhat obsessed with it since I was a preteen, as I came across the Spanish version translated to English first. My tumblr name is *somewhat* related lol.

I was somewhat inspired by La Calavera Catrina art, Santa Muerte and the Grim Reaper when I drew this.

**for some reason tumblr has decided that two links is quite enough for this post. Sometimes it just doesn’t let me add more links? Or copy/paste!!? Anyway if you’d like to read a more knowledgeable article about the relationship between the two films, look up ‘macario blue beetle’ & then an article by slashfilm will appear.

***In the legend, the godson is given a plant, a potion, or just the power to heal. But he must abide by Death’s position by the bed of the afflicted person. If death is at the foot of the bed, then they were meant to live, and he gets to take away their suffering and cure them entirely. But if Death stood by the head of the bed, then the person was meant to die soon, and so the Godson had to leave them be. In either case, Death prefers to end suffering - through complete healing or a cessation of life. However, Jaime makes sure (when he can) to help people live and be able to choose what to do with their life (like in the case of Ignacio). And Khaji Da respects that.

[thatstormygeek]

I want to be clear that I don't think people dying horribly (or suffering horribly, really) is funny. So maybe I'm missing some nuance here...

But I'm confused by the outpouring of concern I'm seeing for those in the path of Hurricane Helene. I say this because just a couple weeks ago, this site was full of people laughing about how funny it was that thousands died on 9/11/2001.

Perhaps I just need clarification on the rules. Is it only entertaining when USians die in a terror attack? Or is it funny when we burn to death but not when we drown?

Maybe it's location. A high rise in New York City does feel like it should be a more comedic death location than Appalachia. Probably because of all of the sitcoms set in the city. But folks don't find it amusing when NYPD kills people, so that can't be it.

I suppose it could be the jumping. People leaping tens of stories to their deaths rather than burning. There's less jumping in a flood, I guess.

And then there's time. Maybe that's the factor. Nobody was really laughing back in 2001, but y'all find it uproarious now. Do you think in a couple of decades social media will be full of jokes about how Helene ripped through Appalachia and the south and erased entire towns? Washed out access to entire areas of states?

Just have to admit, I don't get it. Maybe if someone explained it to me like I'm five.

[soup-mother]

still thinking about that The Terror forcefem ww2 au people kept tagging one of my posts as, where they talk about needing to exterminate racoons for some reason in 1940's england? there are very very few racoons in England and they were introduced in like the 70's i think, i suspect the author might have been USian and did not realise this.

(also they were in England not just "britain", people get so pissy when you say England when you literally mean England but they decide you mean britain)

[vyorei]

Live coverage of the 3rd of February 2024 is now closed.

Here is a recap of today's major events.

It is 12am in Ireland now so I have to go to bed.

I'll be back to resume live updates on Monday.

For continuous updates while I'm gone, click the link below:

[fierceawakening]

You know, I keep hearing "Israel's goal is just to destroy Hamas, but Hamas's goal is genocide" and I'm wondering about something.

What does Hamas SAY their stated goal is? I mean, I'm not sure I trust them to not be selling propaganda on that front, but I keep hearing that "they don't care about Palestinian lives, or they wouldn't have attacked."

And that... sounds like it makes sense, but I don't want to just assume it does. Have they given demands? Do they have a history of keeping to those demands or of not doing so?

"They don't care how many of their own people die, just how many Jews do" makes sense given a particular narrative I as a USian have heard my whole life about how "terrorism" works and what "martyrdom" means in a particularly destructive fundamentalist Islamic religious context, but I'm no longer uncritically convinced that's what's operating here.

Can anyone give me more information so I can judge for myself, in an informed way, whether that narrative might be true, partially true, spun a lot, or false?

(Again, that narrative being "Our deaths are noble because their deaths are necessary. We don't just want them to leave, we want the other side all dead and would willingly kill everyone to get that done.")

[mayra-quijotescx]

in light of US intelligence "predicting foreign terror groups targeting Pride events" in the US this summer (translation: manufacturing consent to make queer events that are already overpoliced even more so, while blaming the danger a heavy police presence presents to queer people on Palestinians and their allies, many of whom are queer) I just want to reiterate the following:

People do not get murdered in Gaza/Palestine for being queer. These claims that Gazans, already having lost countless loved ones to the occupier's bombardments, arrests, and attacks, would put their precious surviving community members to the sword over a thing like gender or sexuality are Zionist propaganda meant to convince queer people to turn away from Palestinians, to the detriment of us all. Several queer Palestinians have testified against this racist lie, more than one from Gaza, and non-Palestinian out queer people have gone to Gaza to do mutual aid and recounted their experiences of being welcomed unconditionally (though I will stress that the testimony of queer Palestinians on this issue should be enough, and if it isn't, I recommend some soul-searching as to why.)

People DO get murdered right here in the US for being queer. I mean holy shit do you want me to go get the list? It's a long fucking list. And we get murdered in blue states just as surely as we do in red states. And there's political contingents in both trying to get us at least criminalized, if not killed in greater numbers. Not even the most 'piss on the poor' of readers would interpret the current hostility against queer USians in the US as casus belli to bomb Oklahoma or Massachusetts, blockade and starve them for months, destroy all their hospitals, play deadly cat-and-mouse games with aid workers who try to help him, and then leave explosives that look like food tins for Oklahoman or Massachusettsan children to find. It's frankly insulting to everyone's intelligence to suggest Gaza would deserve what it's getting if it was persecuting queer Gazans, which again, when we listen to queer Gazans, we learn that it's not.

The history of queer existence in US is largely also a history of surviving and resisting, and losing people to, police violence. Many landmarks of our emergence from the closets of history involve riots and mass protests. Police were the enforcers of the Three-Article Rule criminalizing crossdressing and gender variance. Police were the ones raiding our bars and anywhere else we dared gather. Police were the ones hauling people off to jail for demanding AIDS treatment. A lot of our people have died young of violent causes, often in the stomping grounds of police departments that investigated themselves and found themselves not guilty of wrongdoing. Police may strut about with little rainbow decals on their squad cars for Pride every year, but the instant public queerness becomes illegal again they'll shove us into those same squad cars and drive us to jail, because arresting "criminals" is what our municipalities give them that lion's share of our budget money for (and if we arrive at jail banged up or dead, oh well, that's what criminals get, right?) Cops are not at Pride to 'keep us safe'; they are there to monitor for when we can be credibly passed off as enough of a threat to the state to suppress, and then suppress us. It also shouldn't go unmentioned that a lot of police departments receive training from the Israeli Occupation Forces. All this to say, if you're at a Pride event this summer and see Palestinians and their allies 'protesting' (in quotes, because looking Palestinian in public is often enough to count as a protest to these fucking governments), please remember who your actual enemies are. Zionists, the overwhelming majority of whom are Christofascists who think the apartheid ethnostate is a key step towards speeding up the Second Coming and subsequent end of the world, want queer people and Palestinians to be wary of each other so that both groups will be easier to destroy. Don't be a sucker.

[winteryserpent]

Based on discussions I've had with some people, I'm starting to think there is that there is a particular subset of American Millenials whose first impression of Russia as a country was not negative and that this is a kind of weird anomaly, I guess?

Like my awareness of the fact that other countries exist and of political things started in the early 90's when the US was like "yay we are friends with Russia!" Most of the Russian related stuff I saw primarily involved Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin just hanging out and being buddies. Like just two dudes who would absolutely go drinking with each other (though I did not yet quite had the concept of people going out drinking together probably but that was the vibe).

(Also back then Bill Clinton was seen as the Cool President. He played saxophone and that made him a pretty cool dude to small me.)

Most people older than me remember the USSR and are more likely to feel like the Cold War is back. But that world just...didn't ever exist to me. It's history to me.

Honestly the Russian people deserve a better government than the one they have now. I especially worry about my fellow LGBTQ+ people over there.

(Unfortunately there are also a lot of uncomfortably fashy Russians too and I think I met one of those in college in one of my history clases. I hated him and considered him my rival in class because I tend to be a very active participant in the classroom and he was the other main active participant....ironically the class we were in was a history course about Fascism and Nazism. He really loved to talk about Russia's military might.)

But yeah, I was like "ah Russians are cool" until like...2013 hit and they fucking started to invade Ukraine. I should've noticed something was wrong earlier but American reporting of what went on in Chechnya and Georgia was...not great. Also we were probably distracted by the stupid war on terror mania that 9/11 created.

(Now that I think of it, USian engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq probably was something that Putin took advantage of. Honestly, fuck George W Bush.)

[tealisa]

the way marvel avoids any sort of character development and just regresses + resets established characters to do the same things over and over...

there's been like no development or profession for that corner of legacy like the past 15 years , esp from secret empire to sentinel of liberty (+ the announced WS thunderbolts + SR Cap that look so rehashed). since spencer + smith and now lanzing (who keeps getting hired to terrorize these characters with his awful misinterpretations) all they do is gut characters of their personality + traits + retread old storylines but worse this time and in ways that fuck up the OG established Hydra/Nazi/WW2 lore (which wasn't perfect to begin with cuz USians are very historically revisionist but omg the retcons + regressions are so ahistorical and lowkey denialist)

like for the love gd at this point I'd rather marvel do a hard reboot of these old ass characters and admit they're just telling the same stories over and over(but worse), cuz marvel clearly doesn't have any clue what to do with them beyond the first couple of stories (+ they're too far up their own Americaness to imagine any sort of actually character development beyond captain America + winter soldier so they're eternally stuck with no progression)

look anon your random rants on my ask box are fun but i have yet to see you responding to what im replying and this is kinda polluting my ART blog, which is meant to showcase my art. So I'll be turning off anon, but if you want we can actually chat about Cap comics with your acc account in my other blogs

[vyorei]

BIAS MOTIVATED?! IT'S A FUCKING HATE CRIME!! CALL IT SUCH!!

If an American Israeli was stabbed we would NEVER hear the end of it!! It would be deemed the most egregious act!!

[radio-charlie]

Theres no point in telling USians the right thing to do is oppose their nation's warpath if they have been conditioned to believe that their survival is inextricable from the survival of the US. all our facts and reasonable arguments can't do much vs. the terror of losing everything u love. we have to speak to that fear and show them that playing by the rules of ur state might buy u some time, but the world order it seeks to uphold cannot sustain life for very long. if we continue to work across borders and build compassionate mutual understanding + actual solidarity (distinct from vague, abstract ideas abt 'friendship'), a world without this US won't be one where all of u are dead. it might be one where all of u are free

[zenosanalytic]

Growing Up is Hard; It’s Hard and Nobody Understands

So I noticed netflix has Neon Genesis Evangelion up last week and started watching it front to back for the first time ever(this happens to have coincided with me being in a down-mood for your edification, dear readers u_u), finished it today, REALLY liked it, and I wanted to try my hand at explaining what the hell is even going on in NGE cuz it actl seemed super-clear to me(a person who has been consuming NGE analysis and post-NGE media for literally 25 years) u_u

Surface Plot; Or NERV: What the Hell Is It?

I’ll try to make this as brief as possible: An organization of super-wealthy individuals calling itself Seele(looking this up, it means soul in german) wants to possess the power of God. The final third or so of the series is clear on this; it’s all about power. Ikari Yui, a geneticist, is recruited by this organization, and her husband Gendo(having taken her name which says a LOT given typical Japanese practice) comes with her. In seeking out this power, they discover a hollow sphere underneath Antarctica(”The White Moon”), send an expedition there under the guise of the UN, encounter an entity with this power which they label an “Angel”, and do SOMETHING which prompts it to explode the continent flooding the earth and killing half the population(that Gendo left beforehand implies this may have been intentional, or that a bad outcome to Seele’s approach was easy to predict, tho in typical Gendo fashion, his is the only ass he cared to save).

Afterwards Seele blame the scientists for this outcome and send Gendo on a salvage mission which recovers both remains of the Angel, now dubbed “Adam”, and a device they dub “the spear of Longinus”. Seele creates Gehirn to study these remains for practical use; they clone “Adam” and dub the result Evas(Eves). Having cloned them, they now need a way to use and control them as the Evas are non-responsive. They hit on the idea of injecting people into them via the Entry Plug system, presumably to act as a brain. The first person to try this, Ikari Yui, was absorbed by the Eva(Unit 01); the second(Soryu Kyoko Zeppelin; Asuka’s mother) was partially psychologically absorbed by Unit 02, psychologically and mentally injured by this, institutionalized, abandoned by her shit USian husband Langley who remarried to her LEAD DOCTOR, and eventual kills herself in a hanging which Asuka either is the first to discover or, given her memories of promising to die with her/begging her not to do it, was present for. An important thing to note about this: Shinji and Asuka’s ability to sync with their Evas comes from the fact that their mothers are PART of their Eva’s identity, and all of their classmates are potential pilot-candidates. The implication here is that Seele KNEW this happened when you put adults into an Angel, and they KEPT DOING IT ANYWAY to create more pilots, but there’s no confirmation of that in series.

After the attempt at human adult control fails, Gendo combines Yui’s DNA with Adam’s and creates Rei. At the same time he is doing this another team, under Akagi Naoko, is developing Magi, a biomechanical computer for simulating the human mind(again: certain implication to this re: Evas though the series never says anything). Naoko is romantically interested in Gendo, and they start getting together(Gendo’s too much of an asshole to be said to date, I think). After Rei, a toddler, tells her Gendo calls her an “old woman” in private, not realizing this is insulting, Naoko kills her, then kills herself out of shame over having MURDERED A CHILD, and Gehirn is folded into a new organization, NERV, which Gendo is put in charge of. Rei forms the basis of the second attempt at controlling the Evas; child-pilots.

How they use Rei for this I’m not exactly sure. It could be because Rei is cloned from Yui(she easily syncs with Unit 01 before Shinji bonds with it completely), or because she’s part Angel via her Adam element(Kaworu says Angels merge with one another easily and naturally), or it could be they did something with Rei I’s corpse and Unit 00(I dont see how as it seems to require a LIVE pilot). Regardless, she is raised to be the pilot for 00, the prototype. MUCH later, when the rest of the Angels finally decide to come looking for Adam, Shinji is called in, and after his success Asuka(who like Rei and unlike Shinji has been training to pilot her whole life) is called to Nerv headquarters(under Japan, in the “Black Moon”; a second spherical hollow where they found another Angel they call Lilith) too.

Regardless the child-pilots are only a step in Nerv and Seele’s plans, as Rei is ALSO the template for the Dummy Plug system, the final step in complete control of Eva units. To put it simply, the Dummy Plugs are Rei-clones without her personality or memories, and will just do whatever the heck they’re ordered to. At least once during the series(and I’d argue two, possibly three times) Rei dies and is replaced by one of these clones through some process, which involves what looks like a pre 00 Eva’s spine and probably a Magi-like backup, which transfers her personality and memories into the new body.

So what is Nerv? Well it’s hard to say EXACTLY because Gendo is in some sort of conflict with Seele(and I want to keep my watches of End of Evangelion out of this post; to focus entirely on JUST NGE itself) and Nerv IS Gendo, but as the series states repeatedly it’s an attempt to control the future of humanity by controlling what they call “the power of god” which, given that it’s what most distinguishes the “Angels”, is the AT, or “Absolute Terror”, Field. What is the AT Field? It’s a field that can make or unmake any kind of matter or energy from basically nothing, and it also seems to have a strong tie to what you could call the Ego; to desires and sense-of-self. An AT Field gets stronger when the person generating it is experiencing powerful emotions; Confidence, sure, but also Fear, Abandonment, the Will to Live, and Anger.

That last bit is very important. Why? Strong AT Field effects require a powerful emotional motivation in the pilot combined with high sync-rates with the Eva(basically a lobotomized Angel-clone) generating the Field. The three pilots we meet, the Strongest candidates, are all exceedingly traumatized people, and Gendo is the direct cause of the trauma of two of them. At no point in the series is Gendo ever a good father to Shinji, he is CONSTANTLY unreasonable, neglectful, and cruel to him; he’s kinder to Rei but at the same time her loneliness, the state of her “home”, and her lack of self worth shows that he rarely interacts with her outside of missions or explains what’s going on beyond bald facts; and he COMPLETELY ignores Asuka, a deeply lonely child with a history of abandonment and close brushes with death; he even delegates bumping her from the program. This point is important because it’s important to recognize that Gendo is a bad dad on PURPOSE; that he instrumentalizes his bad dadness to traumatize Shinji(and Rei and Asuka, though sadly the series doesn’t focus on them enough for us to see much) as much as he can, because he thinks that trauma, that emotional instability and anger, MAKES SHINJI A MORE USEFUL PILOT; ie lets him generate more powerful AT Fields. This is never said clearly, but it’s clearly what’s going on as forcing Unit 01(and thus Shinji) into awful, heartbreaking, life-threatening situations is vital to his plan. Gendo’s a piece of shit, and I want ppl to recognize just HOW BIG a piece of shit he is, because I feel this powerfully.

And for what? For Power. To be “God”. To get the highest numbers. To generate the MOST Invincible Invincibility Shield. For Ridiculous, Absurd, Childish reasons. For, you know, the same reasons rich and powerful people do all the fucked up shit they do in the real world where giant magic robots thankfully DONT exist.

And how do they plan to do this? Through “Human Instrumentation”, which will literally kill everyone by turning them all into goo.

Metaplot; Or “SHINJI! Don’t Get in that Robot!!”

So, maybe this is just because(as said previously) I’ve been reading NGE Analysis and consuming media which NGE heavily inspired for ~25 years, but I think it’s old hat at this point to note that Neon Genesis Evangelion is ALSO an allegory for becoming an adult, centered on Shinji. However, it’s just really SO on the nose in this, so PERFECT as such a narrative, that I want to run through it real quick. Also: A Cruel Angel’s Thesis is basically a thesis-statement for this series; please check out the lyrics.

So Shinji is living under the guardianship of a teacher(yup: this series even takes a swing at how our society uses schools to warehouse kids so their parents can waste their lives producing “Value” instead of raising them), when the shitty dad that abandoned him decides he has a use for him after all and calls him up.

On meeting with a child he has not seen SINCE HE WAS A TODDLER LITERALLY ABANDONED HIM ON THE STREET WHEN HIS MOTHER DIED he immediately ambushes him with the command that he get in a huge body(that he grow up) to do what? Whatever Gendo tells him to, but specifically: commit acts of violence for Gendo and Seele’s profit. He tells him this will protect people; meanwhile doing it destroys those peoples’ literal homes. The rest of the series is a series of monotonous, incomprehensible “Tests” judging his, and his peers, worthiness for approval and affection on the basis of how well they can use those giant bodies to do what Gendo tells them(so: capitalist work), punctuated by unpredictable, brutal, traumatizing, and physically dangerous events(so: capitalist work). Every friend, and the one lover, he meets, he is placed in unnecessary, destructive competition with and, when they are male, forced to attack and(in the case of the one lover, Kaworu) kill them; this last comment on homophobia is so stark and obvs I don’t even feel like you can CALL it subtext, even IF it plays out over mostly a single episode(honestly this plotline should have been given more time). And all the time they’re doing this, they must ALSO continue going to school and maintaining the front that they’re happy smiley Heroes, completely normal and not traumatized at all, and Nerv and the government that lets them run this city is a great and wonderful organization. Is this not what becoming an adult, over your teens and 20s, feels like?

And then there’s Seele and Nerv. Able to move state governments as they wish, Seele CAUSED Second Impact(Global Warming). By not returning Adam’s remains, they’re CAUSING the Angel attacks on Nerv meant to retrieve them(the threat of Human extinction). The Angels eventually begin trying to communicate and Nerv’s response? Destroy them before they can; blow up the Evas(and their pilots) if they succeed. And to top it all off Seele and Nerv are actually trying to CAUSE the very extinction(Third Impact) they claim to be preventing! Seele and Nerv are just SUCH good metaphors for capitalism in our modern day.

The transwoman reading of Shinji also seems pretty dang strong to me, though I’ll only deal with it shallowly. Shinji is the only “male” of all the pilots. Outside of command and security, most Nerv staff are women. Being an Eva pilot, being Nerv staff, is marked as “feminine”, and Shinji is an Eva pilot; is a Nerv staffer. The body he gets into, Unit 01, acts as a metaphor for the large, imposing, masculine body he’s expected to have as an adult “man”, yet it’s also spiritually his mom -feminine- and his ability to use it is tied DIRECTLY with his ability to “Sync” with that spirit; with his ease and comfort being feminine. Even at the level of mere aesthetics, Shinji’s plugsuit makes him appear to have breasts! Going a bit deeper, he initially relates to the women around him by relating to their gender. He’s most at ease with Rei because of the personality traits she shares with him which, we know from his gender-policing of Misato from earlier in the series, are traits he considers feminine(ie: he doesn’t feel like Misato has them, so he thinks she’s being a woman “wrong” and gets oddly offended by this in a way that really feels more about him than her). Asuka is constantly expressing her frustration with him for not “being a man”, ie, for being “feminine” in her eyes, and he isn’t really bothered by it(her calling him an idiot seems to stick much more firmly). Misato and Shinji establish a modus vevendi when she accepts him as he is, allowing him to do the household chores and to cook; he’s comfortable and happy when accepted into roles his culture considers feminine, while most of the series is him bucking AGAINST the masculinity forced on him by Nerv, his father, and others. Again: this is a very surface-level engagement with the subject, but even at that shallow level I feel like the case for reading Shinji as a transwoman is pretty solid.

Dislikes

It’s not a perfect series by any means of course.

There’s allot of dialogue that’s pure 90s nonsense, though the series mostly includes it only to shoot it down.

Like I said above, I don’t think Rei and Asuka really get the time or attention they deserve. In general the series treatment of women is ...Weird... especially around the issue of sex. It’s really strange; in many ways it’s far better than most anime(spcl from that period) on this. Women are ACTUAL PEOPLE with psychology, opinions, and pasts; they’re allowed to have emotions of their own, and struggles, and to be damn competent; they are independent and their own selves rather than accessories or “prizes” to men. But on the issue of feminine sexuality it just gets suddenly so weird in this very particular old-school misogynist way. Like: it treats women’s attraction and reactions TO relationships as something devoid of and impenetrable to reason, without belittling the emotions(the desire and hurt) behind those reactions. That’s the only way I can describe it, and it’s so strange to see something that is both so insulting and sympathetic at once. Oh, and the Akagis in particular are done super-dirty for seemingly no reason I can see, tho I can guess, and Akagi Ritsuki is CLEARLY a lesbian(possibly bi lesbian) and also Rose Lalonde(srsl; her Deal should have been an unrequited, unspoken crush on Misato. They openly dealt with queerness re: Kaworu and Shinji they could have done it here too).

The Kaworu storyline should have been a series of episodes or even developed from the start with him as another pilot(maybe replace Toji with him), though they’d have to tone down his weirdness, at least at the start. A deeper dive on Shinji’s sexuality(honestly his attraction to Kaworu is SO much more immediate and believable than anything we see with him and Asuka, which there is basically nothing of beyond the ep where they had to do choreography for a fight, and that’s not developed on) would have really been appreciated, and having Kaworu be a bigger part of the series would have facilitated that.

Also honestly the whole series feels a bit rushed? Spcl the second half. Like I said: I haven’t done any followup reading lately, but I remember there being some budget problems or something, so maybe that’s the cause. Ironically it might actl also be why it’s as GOOD as it is; having to keep it short forces you to write concise and lean, and that’s probably why its themes and message are so clear. But, I’d have liked more rambling for character development, and more time spent on seeing Rei and Asuka react to the stresses we saw Shinji face(also they never really get moments to shine like he does; another negative common to the medium and genre). Asuka in particular, as a Japanese German with a USian temperament abandoned by her parents, already an outsider in SO many ways, coming to live in an entirely different culture where she’s even MORE of an outsider; forced to live with people(Misato and Shinji) she finds it impossible to relate to or connect with; who has literally NO ONE beside a single adult guardian who totally blows her off THE WHOLE SERIES after delivering her; PLUS her awful past: there’s just SO MUCH material I’d have loved to see explored more slowly and with greater depth, detail, and sympathy even if what IS there already is pretty powerful and effecting. She’s SUCH a good Vriska(so I’d also have loved to see her break more shit too >:>)

Conclusion

So Anyway: I really liked this series. It had its problems, there are things I’d have liked to see, but it absolutely deserves the reputation it has. I might write more about this, I might do a watch through INCLUDING End of Evangelion(which actl makes much more sense having watched the series, though having done so makes Shinji’s masturbation scene comPLETELY out of left-field like where the hell did THAT come from); we’ll see.