And Then I'll Paint My Miniatures

Before you make fun of Lindsey Graham’s death, ask yourself if Donald Trump would mock the death of somebody he disagreed with and whether Lindsey would make excuses for that mockery.

Throughout the first arc, Anthy is slapped at least once per episode, often more. With the synopsis I give people about RGU as a master of subtle manipulation, they’re usually like, “Subtle???” (because this show cannot be recommended without discussing that aspect. “Oh, but spoilers—” nope. Ensuring people aren’t triggered comes first). This is also coming from someone who nearly dropped the show because I was tired of seeing a brown girl get physically abused every thirty seconds. The student body (mainly Saionji) slap Anthy, say she’s worthless and publicly humiliate her, to which Utena steps in as her prince on a white horse to defend her honor. Anthy is treated like shit, Utena saves her, repeat.

Then she loses the dual to Touga, and the vibe completely shifts. There’s sort of a running bit amongst live-bloggers where they keep tally of the number of times Anthy is slapped, but that only really happens in the first arc. Anthy accepts Utena’s kindness not because she believes she deserves it, but because Utena tells her to accept it. Even the cathartic moment where Anthy slaps back is revealed to actually be Utena. With this revelation, Utena wins back Anthy, and though the episode most definitely marks a turning point in their relationship, Utena still, and I cannot stress this enough, wins back Anthy to regain her own confidence.

The second arc begins, and Akio enters the stage. Saionji, the show’s biggest encapsulation of Anthy’s overt physical abuse, is expelled. Touga, the big bad of arc one, is completely absent. Utena thinks she finally has a handle on the situation, that her and Anthy are now on equal footing, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. This big, heroic, “I know exactly who I am” moment against Touga only marks the end of the first of four arcs.

The first arc sets up a type of abuse you clearly see and object to, only to pull the wool over your eyes with Akio. Akio, who never publically mistreats Anthy. Akio, who invites the engaged into his home, into the trap he’s spent years setting up. Remember when Anthy used to stay up late in the dorms watching infomercials and eating chips? I do.

Fox put up this graphic to scare people.

Even beyond that, like... it feels a little weird to admit this, but Evanescence was absolutely the dominating soundtrack to all the coding and image cleaning that Vanna (and to a lesser degree, I) did to continue to make Empty Movement into the horrible behemoth it is today. It's so massive that even we forget what's in it and where it is and all that... and let's be real, Vanna and I are still here near thirty years on, so it's not likely a change of music would have stopped us.

But Evanescence was the soundtrack to a huge, huge part of building that behemoth. Picture us in our headphones, shooting messages back and forth over whatever IM program, me stubbing a cigarette out in an overflowing ashtray (I vape now, don't come at me, I'm trying) and Vanna swigging out of a bottle of wine, and the two of us knowing we had to be up in the morning but loving the music and the time with each other and the knowledge that what we did would give others the chance to make even more cool shit.

Evanescence was a huge part of that, and they've got a new album out that has got some goddamn bangers. If you want overemotional lyrics, beautiful vocals, and metal af instrumentation, check it out here.

And as a memento of that time when it was a common fandom language, here's one of the AMVs I loved most, Roseate Nocturne.

WARNING-- SPOILERS!!