wendy foe

resisting readers: buffy fans (like me!)

2010-06-01T23:00:00.003-05:00

this is the end of my paper. perhaps one day ill more thoroughly delve into buffy fandom. if im lucky enough to get into that mysterious class i heard exists...
Buffy the Vampire Slayer has been immortalized as an important text within popular culture. What complicates reading the show as a text with clear-cut messages is the fan base. No matter what social meanings can be extracted from the text, there will always be a group of readers for which the show will remain more relevant. Fans may not use Buffy as a text in the way it was intended, or in the way that academics may interpret it. Buffy opens up possibilities for the viewer to read as he or she may like, and “in doing so, charge[s] their erotic imaginations and change [s] their lives” (McCracken 141). Buffy readers create fan fiction that reaches beyond the show, indicating resistance to the “good girl” messages the Siegel argues exist in Buffy. The show establishes Buffy as a saint of sorts, and certainly a heroine, and even though there are admirable aspects of Buffy’s character, “[i]t doesn’t look as if we should try to act exactly like Buffy… this doesn’t lead to appropriate actions for us” (Kawal 158). Buffy is an extreme, she is a super heroine, and as such, the reader must diffuse her character into a usable role model for individual purposes.
Readers may choose selectively which parts of the Buffyverse they can relate to. It is possible to enjoy Buffy’s relationship with Spike as an erotic text without submitting to Buffy’s guilt complex. The fan will select which parts of Buffy to admire and which to ignore. Buffy represents a strong female figure, and has presented an excellent role model for female viewers. Just because she is a role model does not necessarily entail all of her actions as copy-worthy. Viewers can participate in selective reading, thereby transcending one-sided theoretical interpretations. Like fans of the original Charlie’s Angels, readers can select the “girl power” message and ignore the overarching patriarchy or other negative messages these shows might send out. Fans feel for the characters, and know the characters beyond what they might represent in the social sphere. Therefore, Buffy’s relationship with Spike does not necessarily read as a negative representation of S/M sex, but rather a steamy romance between two known and love (or hated) characters. Fans can and do reach beyond the text, utilizing the characters and some of their characteristics in their own way.
Representations of characters do not necessarily relegate what behavior is okay and what behavior is not. For example, the show portrays another slayer, Faith, as a “bad girl” who is sexually expressive. A Siegellian interpretation of Faith would claim that in Faith’s characterization as evil and wrong in action would implicate that her sexuality is also evil and wrong. However, readers can identify with Faith and her sexuality without identifying with her truly evil actions, for it is not necessarily correct that, “an action is right if it is what a virtuous agent would characteristically do in the circumstances” (Kawal 149). Likewise, queer audiences can identify what Buffy takes pleasure in, and validate their own desires because she remains an admirable character. Even when Buffy feels guilt at her and Spike’s relationship, the audience has followed and will continue to follow her character development.
Ultimately, Buffy the Vampire Slayer presents a fantasy text through which viewers can exercise “a variety of erotic possibilities” (McCracken 127). Buffy’s sexual relationships with vampires and humans alike provide a framework against which readers can choose to resist, assent, or both. As a form of feminist popular culture, the Buffyverse exhibits identifiable characters, situations, and ideas that can profoundly affect its viewers in different ways, depending on the show’s relevance to each reader’s life.

part 2: vampire's advocate (da truth!)

2010-05-31T10:55:00.011-05:00

this is part TWO of my buffy paper (read previous post for part 1: lies!) it will make more sense if you read the previous post first, but it could possibly stand on its own.

*********SPOILERS**********

While Siegel’s interpretation remains valid and confronts important problems within the series, questions about sexuality and gender roles within Buffy the Vampire Slayer extend beyond reading the show as a sexually conservative text. Buffy represents gender roles that Siegel vehemently opposes, but the show does not necessarily uphold these gender roles. In the early seasons of the show, Buffy does tend to express desire to shop and look pretty, but throughout the series these wishes are time and time again overshadowed by her need to help others and kick demon butt. The fact that she cares about her appearance does not take anything away from her ability and determination to fight. The show makes a point of noticing gender stereotypes and specifically catering to them to create irony, and in other cases to break them down altogether. For instance, Angel represents a queered masculinity, as he portrays deviance in his vampirism, but stereotypical feminine sensitivity because of his possession of a soul. Even as a powerful and stereotypically figured male, “any potentially threatening hypermasculinity is replaced by a male body that is not merely an object of female desire, but is continually and aggressively acted upon by teenage girls within the text” (McCracken 117).
Not only in regards to Angel’s body, McCracken describes Buffy as a fantasy text that “centralizes and naturalizes non-normative gender positioning and roles… and thus makes queer dynamics part of the internal logic of the narrative itself (119).
All three of Buffy’s heterosexual relationships on the show are queered from traditional heteronormativity, thus presenting a fantasy space for viewers in which non-normative practices are acceptable, pleasurable, and empowering rather than demonized (117). Even before their sexual encounter, Buffy’s relationship with her first boyfriend Angel (a vampire with a soul) queers traditional expectations of the heterosexual relationship. Buffy occupies a public (day) space, as well as a private (night) space, whereas Angel exists solely in private (night) space, thus reversing the traditional characterization of the patriarchal marriage structure (120). Apart from Angel’s role as “wife” and fetishized object, the characterization of he and Buffy’s sexual encounters also queer acceptability of traditional practices. Buffy and Angel’s first (and only, at least on Buffy) sex occurs in a manner which accords with the traditional expectation for a girl’s loss of virginity. Angel and Buffy are in a committed, monogamous relationship, they love each other, and together they physically depict the stereotypical white heterosexual couple. Thus, when Angel loses his soul because of their copulation, the show literally demonizes heteronormative sex practices. Rather than providing a warning to young girls about having sex lest they want their partners to reveal their soulessness, the show rather sets up an extreme situation in order to portray Buffy’s need to reach outside of normative sex practices. When Angel returns from hell after gaining his soul again, he and Buffy must exercise extreme caution not to sleep with one another, since this act between them will have catastrophic consequences. Their inability and unwillingness to have sex again because of the dire consequence suggests that boxing oneself in to heteronormative expectations can be dangerous to one’s health. Siegel fails to acknowledge one important aspect of the Buffy and Angel relationship that occurs on Buffy’s spin-off series, Angel. In episode eight of season one, Buffy arrives in Los Angeles to confront Angel when they are attacked by a demon whose blood somehow turns Angel human. Realizing what this means, Buffy and Angel discuss all the complications that would occur should they get back together, despite his humanness. Angel echoes the traditional warning about sex: “It’s worth the wait to know that it’s right” (1. 8). Of course, future consequences of their relationship take a back seat to desire, and Buffy and Angel experience a blissful sexual encounter. Their day together makes Buffy feel like “a normal girl, falling asleep in the arms of her normal boyfriend. It’s perfect.” Despite their normatively idealistic tryst, Buffy and Angel soon realize its pitfalls, as Buffy “can’t have Angel and save the world,” because having Angel as a human means he cannot fight evil alongside her. Angel’s words demonstrate the still disastrous consequences of their relationship: “How can we be together if the cost is your life, or the lives of others?” The extreme cost of their stereotypically “perfect” sexual relationship queers heteronormativity so that its practice is once again considered dangerous and destructive.
Buffy’s relationship with Riley also queers the heteronormative relationship by its boring and safe characterization and Buffy’s subsequent feelings towards it. In episode 5.10, Buffy questions her relationship with Riley: “Can a nice, safe relationship be that intense? …part of me believes that real love and passion go hand in hand with pain and fighting.” Indeed, their most passionate sex is fueled by violence, as when they finally sleep together after battling demons, “[i]mages of penetrating enemies are contrasted with images of them penetrating each other” (Larbalestier 208). Buffy is again part of a committed, monogamous, heterosexual relationship, and it is again unable to provide satisfaction. Buffy is “playing” at being a “normal girl with her normal boyfriend,” a role which is unsatisfying for her no matter if she is in love with her partner or not. Riley reaches outside of their relationship to fulfill his masochistic desires through vampire prostitutes, because he is “locked into a good boy/good girl sex dynamic” (Larbalestier 210). The appearance of their relationship fits into all the traditional notions of what sex and love should be, and its blandness and lack of satisfaction demonstrate that this kind of relationship is not necessarily the correct or right way of being sexual.
Buffy’s relationship with Spike presents more complications, since it is not a representation of acceptable needs and desires, and fulfills some of Buffy’s needs without addressing others. Their sexual relationship challenges traditional notions of womanhood and domesticity. In their first sexual encounter, they fight in a crumbling building, and as they experience each other for the first time, the building (which resembles a house) crumbles around them, indicating a destruction of the traditional home and subsequent destruction of women’s sex roles. In episode nine of the fourth season, Willow accidentally casts a spell on Buffy and Spike that makes them fall “in love” and plan a wedding. This relationship, which comes out of nowhere because Spike and Buffy have not yet identified their sexual attraction, becomes extremely comical and not at all desirable as a representation of romance. Their interactions characterize a typical bickering couple, and Buffy’s constant attempts to plan their wedding become reminiscent of the female’s stereotypical importance placed on marriage. By presenting domesticity in this way, Buffy characterizes the normative heterosexual relationship as ludicrous and unreal.
Their faux relationship presents a stark contrast to the passion and pleasure they later share in season six. Even before Buffy accepts herself and her needs, Tara (Buffy’s poster child for acceptable, non-heteronormative sex) legitimizes Buffy’s unconventional desires. When Buffy is sure something is wrong with her after returning from the dead because of her newfound sexual desires, Tara assures her: “I said that there was nothing wrong with you, but you are different” (6.13). Tara consoles a distraught Buffy, and in doing so, supports Buffy’s desires as all right: “Do you love him? It’s okay if you do… And Buffy, it’s okay if you don’t.” When Buffy exclaims that there is nothing okay about using someone, especially when “he’s everything I hate… that I’m supposed to be against,” Tara commiserates, telling Buffy that “it’s not that simple” (6.13).Tara recognizes Buffy’s internal conflict, and accepts Buffy’s need to be with Spike because it is the “only time [she] ever feel[s] anything.” In Tara’s characterization as a loving, ideal, and still non-heteronormative individual, her acceptance and reassurance of Buffy’s sexuality validates non-normative practices as non-demonizing forms of sexual expression.
Buffy’s negative feelings towards Spike despite the pleasure she takes from him become more identifiable at the end of season six, when Spike attempts to rape Buffy after she ends their relationship. The violence portrayed in this scene, and Buffy’s terrified and helpless reaction to it, draw a clear-cut line between pleasure from pain and fear from pain.

Even though it is hard for her to admit, Buffy enjoys her sexually gratifying S/M relationship with Spike. The aspect of the relationship that she remains ashamed of is that she participates in it with someone that has the capability to surpass her limits. Even though she does not love Spike, she is still able to enjoy sex with him—she only does not feel satisfied or okay with whom she is having sex with. Even though Spike loves her, Buffy is unwilling to accept him as a lover when she understands her ultimate distrust in him. In Spike’s ultimate season 6 actions, Buffy identifies what made her uncomfortable throughout their relationship. Spike transgresses their consensual agreement, and this transgression, rather than his “deviance” and vampirism, is what transforms their relationship into something unacceptable. Buffy’s sexual needs must be satisfied through non-normative practices, and the negative light in which her relationship with Spike is portrayed indicates that she has not yet reached her ideal form of sexual expression. Spike claims that Buffy needs to “get what she deserves,” which is reveal as, in the last episode of season 6, Spike’s attainment of his soul. Spike himself recognizes that Buffy, while she took pleasure in their violent sex, still deserves a sex partner that will honor her wishes, desires, and fantasies.

Throughout season seven, Buffy does not return to Spike even after he has attained his soul. Buffy recognizes that once Spike has a soul, he cannot fulfill her S/M needs. Still, Buffy finally moves beyond equating having a soul with having traditional heteronormative needs and desires. By the end of the seventh season, Buffy knows she has a soul, feelings, power, and she knows she is not wrong or bad. She eventually accepts herself as a “sexual aggressor” (McCracken 127). Buffy’s disavowal of any sexual relationship throughout season seven indicates that she has identified what kind of relationship she needs in her life, and that she has not found it yet.
Buffy questions her humanity when she recognizes her newfound desires after she comes back from the dead “wrong,” but Spike’s characterization of Buffy as suddenly nonhuman falls short of explaining her needs. As The Slayer, was Buffy ever really human? Her powers break the boundaries of human capacity, and she has risen from the dead twice. While her season six tryst with Spike make Buffy question her own humanity, ultimately, the audience sees that her nonhuman qualities make her more, not less, and her subsequent desires are not deviant, but expressions of real, and acceptable, need.

part 1: the non-believer, reading buffy as a sexually conservative text (lies!)

2010-05-31T01:34:00.009-05:00

this is part one of my three part paper on buffy the vampire slayer that i completed for my FGSS class this past semester. i am currently too tired to edit it down, so, skim if you like... this paper is an introduction into the things i have been thinking about as of late.... vampires, woo. enjoy.

*************SPOILERS**************

In her essay Female Heterosexual Sadism, Carol Siegel argues that the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer promotes a conservative view on female sexuality, particularly concerning Buffy’s relationship to Spike. In the series, Buffy and Spike exhibit a love-hate relationship: as natural enemies (he vampire, she vampire slayer) they should hate each other, but they also feel strong attraction towards each other. Siegel argues that their dysfunctional relationship ultimately promotes the “conservative ideology that reads sexual activity outside procreative monogamy as anti-romantic” (Siegel 83). She reads Spike (vampire) as a representation of deviance, and therein, Buffy’s ill-fated sexual relationship with Spike demonizes Sado-Masochistic desires. After all, “there’s straight and then there’s straight” (Larbalestier 201). Buffy feels great shame after indulging in her heterosexual but non-heteronormative desire. After their first tryst, she appears utterly disgusted and tells Spike that she will kill him if he tells anyone (Buffy 6.10). In the next episode, Buffy becomes invisible and calls upon Spike. He claims that her invisibility is “liberating” for her, and that they only reason she went to him is because she could not be seen, and thus judged, by anyone else. She agrees with him, that for the first time she is “free from rules” and “free from this life” (Buffy 6.11). In accordance with Siegel’s point, invisibility frees her from shame because she can literally ignore appearances and escape from expectations on her character. Siegel reads Buffy’s actions as heteronormatively conservative, since she cannot be sexually expressive unless she disconnects her desires from her morals. Buffy’s anger with herself when she engages in sex with Spike thus represents her discomfort with her “deviant” sexuality. In the ninth episode of season six, Buffy and Spike physically and verbally fight each other. Buffy says, “You like me because you enjoy getting beat down. So really, who’s screwed up?” Here, Buffy’s words depict masochistic tendencies as something wrong and incorrect, which Spike enforces with his response, “Hello, Vampire? I’m supposed to be treading on the dark side.” He forces Buffy to question how she can be human and still take pleasure in feeling pain. He tells her she came back from the dead “wrong” and thus her wrongness allows for non-heteronormative desires. Spike later refers to her as an animal in the sack, Buffy looks upset and says, “I am not an animal” (6.13). He asks what their relationship means to her, if she even likes him, or just the things he does to her. Buffy does not answer, but it is clear she takes pleasure in their sex despite it being with a vampire. Her refusal to acknowledge their relationship seems a disavowal of non-heteronormative sex as a romantic or acceptable endeavor. When Tara tells Buffy she did not come back “wrong,” Buffy becomes extremely upset and feels that “there has to be” something wrong with her if she “lets Spike do those things” to her (6.13). Buffy breaks down, telling Tara not to forgive her, that using Spike is wrong, that it is not okay that Buffy does not love Spike and yet engages sexually with him. Spike, as a vampire, and as a subversive in the sexually conservative world, he is “everything that [Buffy] should be against” (6.13). Thus, to be a normal member in society, Buffy believes that a person must be against sexual “deviance.”
Siegel extends her argument to all of Buffy’s sexual relationships and reads them as promoting heteronormative gender roles within sexuality. She claims that Buffy manifests masculinity as dominant and destructive sex, and that Buffy feels shame at being dominant precisely because her behavior does not fit neatly into femininity (Siegel 83). In fact, Siegel argues that Buffy must compensate for her masculine strength by conforming to “white bourgeois suburban concepts of feminine identity” (Siegel 74). Throughout the series, Buffy expresses a desire to perform her gender and heterosexuality in the way her surroundings require (Larbalestier 200). According to Siegel, it is precisely because of this role she desires to fulfill that she feels such shame at her sexual “perversity.” In its conservative reading, the show upholds contemporary Western culture’s expectation that to be a “good heterosexual girl you have to be a certain kind of girl desiring a certain kind of boy, doing certain kinds of sexual acts with him” (201). Thus, Buffy struggles with her “good-girl” image because of her “bad-girl” relationship with Spike, and in her disavowal of her relationship with Spike because it is, “killing her,” (because it causes her such shame to have sex without love) she compensates for her perverse behavior by returning to good-girlhood (Buffy 6.15). Before Spike, Buffy engaged in “good-girl” sex with three other men, two of which upheld traditionally masculine roles during sex. Her first sexual relationship, with another vampire, Angel, fused monogamous needs with the perversity of vampirism. Spike claims that Buffy has a need for “monster in her man,” and that she has a “thing” for vampires, to which she responds, “a vampire, one.” Throughout the series, Buffy recognizes Angel as “the One” for her, and her loss of virginity to him conforms to the expectation that “true happiness happens when you meet The One: you fall in love… and get married. It’s natural” (Larbalestier 198). But after having sex with Angel, he loses his soul, becoming the “brutish demon that we are taught lies at the heart of all men” (Larbalestier 204). According to Siegel, even Buffy’s participation in a heterosexual, normative, and monogamous relationship promotes the conservative view of women waiting for love and marriage—if not also the view that women cannot receive anything positive from exercising their sexualities.
Essentially, Siegel argues that Buffy explores sexual relationships between humans and vampires in ways that emphasize good versus evil and demonize non-normative sex. Human relationships with vampires are deemed wrong precisely because they are vampires: they are evil, they steal life force, and relish in causing others pain. Even its characterization of (Buffy’s human beau) Riley’s “non-normative sexuality” signals an unhealthy addiction when he visits vampire brothels to fulfill it (Pateman 205). Siegel reads Buffy’s sexual relationships with Spike and Angel as warnings to women not to engage in non-heteronormative sex acts if they do not want to be destroyed by males.

2010-05-19T08:52:00.004-05:00

so it's been quite a while since i've written. i am blaming my university, as i nearly always do. my soul sometimes takes a backseat to the busy work i'm required to do in order to graduate. now the semester is ending, the school year is ending. i've once again reached the point wherein i return to my birthplace and suffer an identity crisis and/or moments of clarity about myself and my life(ves). Are we the same people when we are in different places? Or only when we are in places that have the same significance to us? not that i would say that school and my hometown have the same significance to me. they certainly both impact my life significantly, but the aura is different to each, even if some of the effects are the same... or similar. so how can i know who i am if it depends on where i am? i'm not sure i can believe that the soul is where the body is, or what the body is, or that existing in any given time or place determines what the soul is. or maybe it does, and there are only a few places wherein we can see what our soul truly is, and the other places are just a resting space for the body while the soul tries to figure itself out. but how can we know which times we are experiencing our real soul? and does it always depend on where we are, and if so, is that good? should we be able to experience our soul at any given moment or does location have an impact? I feel that when i am standing in the midst of a beautiful work of installation art, my soul is at its highest point, apart from those fractions of seconds when i can feel my soul when i am not in an established piece of art. i guess those other fractions of moments occur when i am inside a different kind of art, the unnamed and undescribed kind, by an artist who will forever be unnamed except for that small four letter word.

don't act like somebody you are

2010-01-24T21:52:00.004-06:00

sometimes you return to your other life and something shifts. you start crying every night, but not necessarily in a bad way. there's just so much emotion and sometimes there's no where else for it to go. e***-i- feel like i'm just waiting around. and having an identity crisis. i feel like i have a lot to say but i don't know how to transfer that into my personality. when i talk to people i feel like i cant transmit myself very well. i'm either of two extremes and im afraid no one will ever be attracted enough to that to make something happen. i feel like i'm forgettable because i debate too much about what to do or say that i don't do or say anything. for some reason i'm having such a hard time even speaking lately. since i did so much soul searching at my other home, it's as if i've got a lot to sort through and i'm not sure what to do with myself in the mean time, to the public eye. before it was like i could do it and since i was mostly alone it worked, but here i meet people every day and my mind just goes crazy with how to act and its ridiculous because i'm supposedly an adult, and i feel like i should be beyond that point. it's like i'm playing this other person that i really really love but for some reason i can't get into her character enough to really live and love and receive love. i know who i want to be and who i am inside, but i don't know how to translate it into this "real" world. i don't know how to get e*** to be missus foe. i thought i could wait until this happened, but now it's getting harder and harder. i have this preconceived notion of myself and if i don't fulfill it, it's as if i'm not being myself, except that i don't like the preconceived notion. for so long i've felt like you can't act like somebody you aren't because whatever you're being, that's what you are. but what if you aren't happy being what you "are"?

2010-01-11T22:51:00.003-06:00

i am only in love with someone in my dreams. i know exactly what my heart feels and exactly what it wants and exactly what it needs but there is no one to fulfill its desires and hopes and i'm afraid it never will find this person, that it will never happen for this heart, no matter how hard it beats for it

second chances

2010-01-10T23:09:00.003-06:00

dear mrs. t,
i was one of your students when you taught health in middle school several years ago. one day during class you had us do an exercise in which each person taped a piece of paper on her or his back and everyone else in the class would write something nice on the paper. it was an exercise in self esteem training. when you were explaining the activity, you saw me wiping fake tears off of my cheeks and you stopped. you told me that if i thought it was funny we just wouldnt do the activity. since i was a 12 year old child, who had never acted out before, i still wonder why you would have punished me and the rest of the class this way. i still wonder if you ever considered that i had emotional problems instead of acting as if i was an insensitive adult. did you ever consider that i am a clinically depressed individual? did you ever stop to think that i needed this activity and that even though it was stupid of me to pretend to be insensitive that i might be one of the most sensitive individuals? this event marked me in a way that you won't ever know. self esteem was the activity, so why did you feel it necessary to lower mine by treating me like an insensitive jerk? it's too bad you didnt give me a second chance, too bad that you didnt carry on with the activity and speak to me after class. maybe my life would have proceeded differently. maybe yours would have to. but if you are still teaching impressionable minds, i hope you dont take another situation like this lightly.

somersault

2010-01-09T11:25:00.004-06:00

if you touch your cheek, is your hand or your cheek that is feeling? humans spend so little time feeling. we're so stuck in our heads, all the time. we hardly ever take the time to really feel the sensations of our bodies. to run our hand through our hair and feel all the individual strands, feel the changes in the pressure on our scalp depending on which way we move our hair. to feel our heart beating and notice the small movements our bodies make without thinking about it. these are things that make us human, and things that are more important than getting somewhere and accomplishing something. we have so much to experience and never take the time to do it. to touch our skin and others' slowly and softly and feel it. when we touch other people it seems we are often too embarrassed to let it mean something. there have been times i didn't want to let my hand linger on someone because i was afraid. afraid of awkwardness, of sending the wrong message. but life's too short not to feel. and all humans really want to feel.
somersault on netflix

the colors and the kids

2010-01-07T17:58:00.005-06:00

this is a time and place for imagination. i like to relate this time and place to childhood precisely because of this fact. children can act and create without pre-conceived notions of what things are and how the world "should" work. when we tell children what things are, when we define them, when we tell them how the world works within our adult, narrow view that has been drilled into our head since childhood, we crush their imagination. those adults with the most active imaginations and creative flow are those which have not accepted the objective definition of the world. they are those that do not follow the rules that define what one thing is and is not, and they do not limit themselves within the realms of reality. this is what children do, and thus they are some of the most beautiful creatures on earth.

"I know I'm pretty sure I wouldn't start with the things schools usually start with...I think I'd first just assemble all the children together and show them how to meditate. I'd try to show them how to find out who they are, not just what their names are and things like that...I wouldn't even tell them an elephant has a trunk. I might show them an elephant, if I had one handy, but I'd just let them just walk up to the elephant not knowing anything more about it than the elephant knew about them...I wouldn't even tell them grass is green. Colors are only names. I mean if you tell them the grass is green, it makes them start expecting the grass to look a certain way...instead of some other way that may be just as good, and maybe much better..."
from S.D. salinger's "Teddy" (Nine Stories)

flowers are red....aren't they?

"the important thing about rain is that it is wet. it falls out of the sky, and it sounds like rain, and makes things shiny, and it does not taste like anything, and it is the color of air. but the important thing about rain is that it is wet.

the important thing about grass is that it is green. it grows, and is tender, with a sweet grassy smell. but the important thing about grass is that it is green.

the important thing about snow is that it is white. it is cold, light, it falls softly out of the sky, it is bright, and the shape of tiny stars, and crystals. it is always cold. and it melts. but the important thing about snow is that it is white."
from Margaret Wise Brown's "the important book"

dear wendy

2010-01-06T19:22:00.006-06:00

e*** [i] believes that every action we take has a correlation to the course of our lives. this is not to say that everything happens for a reason, but that our actions aren't meaningless, and that they do affect one another. and many times, this can be a positive effect. if you're looking the right way. i discovered blythe in the summer of 2009 while studying in london. my tutors encouraged research of dolls and voila: i found gina garan's this is blythe. and thus, the obsession began. i had many sleepless nights; my dreams were haunted by bug eyes, big heads, and tiny outfits. i wanted nothing more than to be one of the dedicated patrons of this doll.

"When our eyes met i knew instantly i'd found a kindred spirit... some say that we tend to fall for those who resemble ourselves. friends say blythe and i do look alike but there was something more common between us than just looks--there was an inner beauty that charmed me. we went on our first photo shoot soon after, and [subsequently] i began our strange odyssey."

my blythe doll is named wendy moira angela darling. like gina and blythe, our photoshoots commenced at our first meeting.

i hope that you get what you want

2010-01-05T23:08:00.003-06:00

do you ever wish that everything in your life was as beautiful as a film? e*** does, she wishes she had missus foe's life, my life. even those most tragic of films are more beautiful than real life. the real life that most people consider "real." e***'s real life is not that one she must exist in consciously, the one in which she has responsibilities to her college, to making a living, to social life, to family, to anyone but her true self, to my life. a world that isn't 100% beautiful all of the time. what is hard for her to accept is that with me, even her pain is exquisite. i am a part of her, i am the imaginations and beautiful objects and ideas and memories that she wants to be the real life. and it causes her pain that i am not who she is in real life, that she isn't me to the "outside." she wants everything to be beautiful and the extremes always are, but the mundane parts of life, the parts that are notextraordinary even in a small measure, those are the moments she wishes to eliminate, to never have to contend with and she hopes she is getting closer. she feels trapped, sometimes hopeless, within her earthly life, and she doesn't know where to begin or end. her crying is that of desperation, but a beautiful desperation that she's not sure she can live without.. despite how hard it is. "i know it's hard. but... that's life. and it's pretty much all we have..."

i don't want my life to end while i'm still waiting for it to start

2010-01-04T22:30:00.004-06:00

looking through e***'s [my] old journal, i was shocked at how similar my thoughts were then to how they are now. sometimes, at least...

i feel so stressed out at this moment. i guess i have all these things i want to do, juxtaposed with things i have to do and they're all jumbled together now and i don't know why i insist on packing my mind full of things. for some reason i find it so hard to let go of stress. i guess i'm having a peronsal crisis. i want to change everything--so that's why i can't just be happy in this moment. i can't sleep even though i really really want to get away from things, for my mind to shut off. mom's probably right: electronics must not be good, they make my mind so active. but i feel like i think too much and don't have something to shut it out. i am trying to accept that everything will get done. i'm so wrapped up in getting a final product that i don't enjoy doing anything. i usually feel better in the morning.

I really just need to put my priorities in order. i feel like time is ticking, but i know that if i always worry about it then i won't ever be happy if i keep wanting everything to be different... my life will suddenly end and I'll be stressed for forever.
it's true: the things i worried about then, tests, papers, dentist appointments, have all passed and don't stress me out. but i still feel the same way as i did. everything that stressed me got finished, and then replaced by the next thing i have to do. this has been going on for years, and i'm afraid that it will continue until i die. and i'm not sure what to do, if i can really do anything. without really changing what i do and think without changing who i am...

the most beautiful thing i have ever heard

2010-01-03T22:35:00.002-06:00

"Once upon a time there was a woman called Rose. She was the prettiest girl who everyday crossed Central Park on her way to her job. Obviously, she lived in New York and she was a fan of her city; not THE city, but HER city. Everyday she did the same street and she made the same way because she fell in love with the colors she met while she was walking. She saw everything with color, she didn't know black and white, because color means joy, color means happyness, color expresses ourselves. In her mind the sun was a ball composed by each color; only all colors together could be such an important thing for our lives as sun. From the windows in her studio she had a fantastic view of New York with its skyline. She spent hours just sitting in front of the balcony with her computer. Her city inspired her works. On her desk in her studio she had three different roses in different colors, which reminded her how the same thing or person could be seen from different points of view, in different colors.
A rose under a glass instead reminded her how, sometimes, we need to be protected from everything. For rose, the best thing in the world was seeing the opposites near each other; in that way a person can better understand which are the differences and can better find out in which ways opposites are similar. Stripes and [dots] are opposite and funny, but what about a blue background with pink [dots] and a pink background with blue [dots]? It means also if things apparently look the same, actually they can be different or opposite!
She thought every one of us had to learn something from nature, because nature is the most clear and simple thing that we have in our lives. We can be as grass, not tall but taking lots of space, or as a tree, being more complicated with all our branches.
We need also to recognize ourselves in a common reality, because being together has more power than staying alone. A flag of a state is the most representative thing of this idea.
Rose knew that a lot of times there are not as many answers as our questions; but the game of life is to find out what we want to know. Every time has its answer.
Rose also thought in a world like her one, where freedom was the key word; too many times we feel in prison and alone sitting on one stool. In her life there were many chances, lots of ways that have to be chosen, lots of different ideas; and that made her decisions more difficult. If in choosing cereals we are not sure, what about the real and important choices that we find while we are living??!!
In Rose's mind, all was really focused, but in some days she saw everythin not focused because she didn't recognize her life and her choices in herself. But also that, is a part of us.
Sunglasses get the world darker, glasses get the world more focused, but do we really need them? They just change the appearance of what we see, but they don't change what and how we feel!
Last but not least, Rose's favorite place to think was in front of a white wall. The wall means you have to stop but white means you have to continue. It is just a short stop. We need short stops to understand better out ideas and ourselves.

All her friends said Rose was the happiest person they have ever met."

-Giulia Barsella

blindness.

2010-01-02T21:06:00.011-06:00

e*** [I] finished writing this entry on september 4, 2009. i had been writing it for months, trying to get my thoughts down. it's still on my mind, so i'm republishing it on this site. If there are any discrepancies in plot, I apologize. I hope you find it interesting anyway.

There ARE spoilers following. if you've seen this film already or have no interest in seeing it, or have interest but don't mind knowing the plot, read on. I recommend you see the film whether you read this or not. if you can handle it.
it's on instant netflix, and at most rental places, i'm sure.

The sign of a good movie is one that makes you think, especially one that makes you think differently and changes your perceptions.

“Blindness” is a loaded title. Not only does it refer to the condition affecting its characters, it also refers to the great blindness within the human race. Profound, no?

Merely the fact that the characters remain anonymous reflects some sort of ironic humanity.

but it is quite true. This film wasn’t a mere superficial, pretentious attempt at revealing a metaphor of human blindness through their physical blindness. It is an attempt, but an extremely powerful and successful one. It is not so obvious as a message of feminism, but its subtly increases the power it holds.

Blindness is an incredibly humanist work. More than that, though, it is a work of pure feminism. Not saying that all of the female characters represent god and heaven and all of the males represent pure evil, but the female characters have an obvious powerful bond between them, perhaps representing the kinship and motherhood that females innately experience. The film portrays important feminist ideals about biological female nature and inclination.

Despite the horrifying events that take place within the film, there ultimately prevails a message of hope.

The movie centers on a city that becomes inexplicably affected with blindness. People begin contagiously contracting a blindness that, unlike “usual blindness” is of pure white light rather than darkness. This type of blindness is metaphorical and ironic, as some of the blind can see “color” and are essentially good, while others show their true colors in their actions towards ignorance, evil, and pure darkness.

One woman (the Heroine, played by Julianne Moore) is physically unaffected by the blindness, but she accompanies her newly blind husband to a government designated quarantine area. Obviously, people faced with an inexplicable and threatening circumstance creates a recipe for horrific and ultimately fatal events. The soldiers surrounding the quarantine camp (an abandoned mental institution, coincidentally enough) threaten those trying to escape with death by rifle. The soldiers’ behavior hints at the brutality of the selfish outsiders that would rather allow chaos among the infected than helping them. When the Heroine ventures outside to receive food rations for the other “prisoners,” she pretends to be blind because (and this is her first intial motive), she wants to stay with her husband. The soldier seems to be giving her helpful directions to the food that lies on the ground, but we soon discover, as the heroine does, that he is purposefully misdirecting her because he thinks it is funny. She reaches the food and flips the soldier off. The soldier’s adopted attitude most likely remained throughout the entire epidemic. The audience is unsure because the quarantined only interact once more with them. The government provides the quarantined with a very limited amount of food rations, which soon get taken over by one of the wards, led by The Bartender (Gael Garcia Bernal). When the Heroine asks the soldiers for more food later on, after it has been unfairly rationed by the Bartender, (he threatens everyone with a gun) the soldiers reply that they have given all they have and that it is the quarantined responsibility to ration it amongst themselves. Metaphorically, of course, the soldiers display the cold and uncaring brutality that the government shows towards the disabled and other people that are in need of help.

But all of this occurs within the first half hour of the film, just touching on the surface of the film’s isms. The real brutality has yet to begin.

Now, the heroine. She is the wife of The Doctor (Mark Ruffalo). Even though he is unable to solve the mystery of the blindness, The Doctor is thought to be the most fit to rule the ward (not unlike LOST). At the beginning, the Heroine as the real “ruler” is subtle, but expands more as she becomes more overreaching. Throughout the film, the Heroine expands her caring and action over more people and situations. Perhaps she resembles the idea of heaven or god, as she is “all-seeing” and embodies all of the noblest qualities and actions. She cares for the people in Ward 1, without revealing that she can still see.

The men on Ward 3 quickly reveal themselves as the Villains. The Bartender has control of the food, and thus demands all other wards to bring their money and valuables to his ward in exchange for meager food rations. The Heroine collects such belongings and exchanges them for the insufficient rations. One woman has a pair of scissors in her purse, which she hangs by the TV where they swing ominously throughout the movie.

Ward 1 inevitably runs out of valuables. The Bartender announces over a speaker he finds that Ward 3 would “now be accepting women in exchange for food rations.”

The feminist undertones begin to come out starting here. There is a debate among ward 1. A few of the women are in protest and understandably angry that they are being substituted for food. Some woman proclaim “I’m not going” while most of the men try to convince them, as it is literally a life or death situation. The men ask if there are any volunteers, ad some women become outraged at this proposition. The Doctor tells everyone that although he doesn’t want his wife to go over to the other ward, that it would hurt his pride and make him jealous, it’s really not up to him. At first I thought this almost as disrespectful, but then I started to understand that it was really up to the women to save everyone.

It reminds me a bit of Children of Men (an ironic title. only women have to power to bear children, after all). Like this article I read called Gender/Sex (author TBA when I find the book again, it might be Marilyn Frye). Basically what the author explained was the woman’s basic and natural rights and responsibilities created civilization and enabled family life. Women have the natural childbearing gift, and the author argues that from the beginning of time, this enabled women to have power over her community. Women have an innate responsibility and power in the world over all people. This isn’t to say that women take their power as a symbol of superiority, as the author explains that women strived for a maternal but still egalitarian power with men. Women understood that they were responsible for the entire civilization, and thus they take care of their communities. On the other hand, men were aware of their impotence in their societies. In early times men couldn’t really claim ownership of their children unless they guarded there women to make sure no other male slept with them. But that’s the point, women weren’t “watched over” in the beginning, so the men had no way of gaining control over their kids on their own. And when the young girls reached puberty and began menstruating, their mothers took them out into the wilderness alone and left them there (not all together, each girl went at a different time to a different location—entirely alone). The girls were meant to spend the beginning of their puberty entirely isolated from the rest of their community. This was to encourage womanhood. When the girls could find their way back to their society, it was a sign that they were ready to take on the responsibilities their mothers held before them. Because the boys in these cultures didn’t have a physical reason to initiate them into manhood, men decided to foster male power. The author of this article claims that this act was in violation of the natural order. Men created rituals for their young males in order to take significance away from young women’s’ deserved puberty rituals. The men thereby created their own power in the community by denying the female control and pushing their artificial power even further. So basically the author is trying to explain how men got power over women in essentially every culture, and how unnatural and ridiculous that is.

Back to “Blindness.”

I could probably go on and on about the males’ appalling behavior and exploitation of women, blah blah etc. But that’s really just the surface. It’s hard to argue for feminine power and the female power just by saying men treat women unfairly. It’s been done before; the guy acts so superior to the girl. In “Blindness,” the accountant (I think that’s his title) is rounding up women from a different ward to “pay” the men of ward 3 and comments to the Ward 3 women that most of them “performed” really well, but that one of the eight ladies was a “dead fish.” Julianne Moore retorts something like, “Oh, there are only seven of us now. It’s no big deal though. She was really a dead. Fish.”

One of the ladies did die from the beating she took during the previous night’s gang rape. When the women leave ward 3 that night, they all carry the dead woman out on their shoulders. The place her in their ward and begin to wash her. The Heroine can see the blood on her, so she supervises the washing (p.s. the Heroine also washes numerous other characters, i.e. the whole “god” parallel…). All of the women together wipe the woman off gently until she is clean. This was probably one of the most outstanding shows of the triumph of the female spirit I have ever seen. It displays the ideal that women understand that we have maternal instincts, and that we are destined to truly care for each other and everyone in our communities. This care and comradery extends until the end of the movie. At the middle/end, I found myself shouting at the screen, screaming, “YES!!!!! GO JULIANNE MOORE!!” because she takes those ominously swinging scissors to ward 3 and quietly stabs the bartender in the neck as he is raping another woman. Once the other men of ward 3 figure out what is going on, commotion ensues, but Moore escapes with some women and delivers her second most chilling line of the movie: “For everyday we go without food, one of your men WILL DIE!”
I was extremely pleased by this, as aforementioned, but the men in ward 1 were not. They accuse the Heroine of starting a war, which, I suppose, is a legitimate concern. But the Heroine realizes that she would rather hurt the horrible than the beautiful in order to obtain food, which were her only two options.

The behavior exhibited by the men in Ward 3 also illustrates the idea of mob mentality. Not only are the men doing these horrible things in a group, which makes each individual less accountable, they are doing them and no one else (besides the Heroine) can see them. Therefore they are doubly unaccountable.

Many of the quarantined manage to escape when one woman starts a fire. They go “looking” for food outside of the quarantined area, and our Heroine obtains some. However, other blind people around her that are not in her immediate group begin smelling and hearing the food wrappers and it becomes a fight for food. Of course in the scuffle all of the food is lost.

There is also a dog roaming in the area where many of the blind are seeking food. The Heroine and her group take the dog with them, showing the power of love. Even the relationship with the dog and not other humans demonstrates their humanism: their respect and need for other living beings to share their life with.

I’ve already talked about the bond between women seen in quarantine. But this bond is continued even after the quarantine. The Heroine (and her husband) invite all of the previously quarantined into her house, saying that whatever is hers is theirs. The women take a shower all together, without shyness, as the Heroine is the only one who can see, and anyway, they respect and love each other. The Heroine helps wash all of them.

One of the blind women tells the Heroine how beautiful she is. When the Heroine replies, “But you can’t see me,” the woman says, “But in my dreams you are beautiful.”
Both the women and the men in the group have finally become a loving family. And once the metaphorical blindness towards each other has, so does the physical blindness. As everyone rejoices over their returning vision, the Heroine looks outside and can only see whiteness. But then the camera pans down onto the buildings, and we see was only looking at the sky. I like to think of this as an ending of hope.

If any woman who reads this gets anything from it, I hope it’s that women have a true and natural sense of comradery that has thus far been distorted so that we can’t always recognize it. I hope you realize the power of female bonding. We really are all in this together.

so this is the new year?

2010-01-01T20:14:00.000-06:00

the new year is typically a time for hope, for new beginnings, for chances. people usually make superficial resolutions, to lose weight, to make more money, to study more. thus, the night before the new year becomes a night of sin and last chances for bad behavior. ironic then, that on new year's morning most people wake up with memories of false moves from the night before, or with no memory and a splitting headache. sometimes a combination of both of these.

this new year was, for e*** [me], like any other, until a few hours ago. i awoke, not feeling refreshed and ready to start anew, but trying to process the night's activities and get rid of my backache from the few hours of couch sleep i experienced. when i woke up midday, i didn't feel hopeful for the new year, and i didn't make any resolutions.

and then a few hours ago i found out that one of my college friend's boyfriend died last night, this morning. he'd had a pre-existing heart condition and went into cardiac arrest sometime during the celebrations. as if this weren't bad enough, his new year's resolution was to drink and smoke less, because of his condition. he didn't get that chance to resolve, like so many of us do. i didn't know him very well, i'd only met him a couple of times. i believe he was extremely true of heart, and i've heard from so many people that he was a spectacular and incredible person. it's not fair that someone that seems to have loved life and spent it so well had his snatched away, especially at such a young age.

like i said, i didn't make any resolutions last night or when i woke up. after learning and thinking about this tragedy, i was saddened, and so grateful to be alive. i realized that for once, i should take this opportunity to make a resolution that really meant something. i want to live my life. and i want to resolve to remember that every time something goes wrong, every time i feel sad, feel hurt, that i'm lucky enough to be alive. to not take my life for granted, because to do so would be to dishonor the memory of people like our friend that are robbed of their right and privilege to be alive. this is a real resolution to remember, and this terrible incident will speak to my heart forever.

and here come the truest movie quotes, integrated with my thoughts forever. if anything else, our sadness and heart break will help us remember. and we need to remember. because there is so much beauty in the world. and some of us are just lucky enough to be able to experience it. and some aren't. even if we aren't close to those who aren't, even if we never meet them, laugh with them, cry with them, or kiss them, we can love them, and we can learn to love life because they can't anymore. so even if you didn't know him, let this man live in your heart, and never forget what his beautiful life, and his untimely death means to us.

in loving memory, rest in peace. you will be sorely missed.

the wisdom [or lackthereof] of tattoo receivers

2009-12-30T10:53:00.000-06:00

yesterday, e*** [me] and my best friend got matching tattoos. i had already had a tattoo, a small star on my left shoulder blade. we decided to get flying owls on our shoulder blades, hers without the star and mine to accompany it. because of various reasons, my friend got her tattoo a bit lower on her blade than i did. the tattoo artist put the removable copy (for those without tattoos, this is for correct placement before permanence) in a spot where I didn't want it so i asked him to move it a bit. even though after he did i thought it was still too close to the star, i said it was fine.

i said it was fine. for some reason i thought it was unacceptable for me to ask for the correct placement after already asking for a move. was it too rude for me to ask for a change in something that will be on my body forever? I can't help but wonder why i sacrificed my skin to something that wasn't EXACTLY what i wanted. i'm trying to figure out if it was because he was a man and that he would think i was being difficult about it and if i would've asked for a do-over if my artist had been female. it seems like a metaphorical sacrifice that so many women make about decisions in their lives just so that they won't be considered difficult, even if it's not what they want.

apart from this idea, i guess i'm trying to look at the positives. as much as i didn't want the owl so close to the star, i do believe that whatever decisions you make in your life have a direct or indirect connection to everything else that happens in your life. and is regret worth anything? we can't change the past, so what is the point of regretting it besides torturing ourselves? i suppose if i hadn't gotten the tattoo this way i wouldn't be able to have the conversation about compromise and sacrifice. but i also feel sort of sick about this kind of sacrifice that i've made. and now that i've made it, i can see that getting a tattoo imperfectly has more consequences than just looking cool. i'm not sure whether i should be scared or relieved that i'm finding this situation so significant.

as far as the tattoo's looks go, i'm most hoping it doesn't look too patriotic, like an eagle carrying an uber american star as a symbol of my loyalty to this nation! because that would not be good.

i'm considering getting a few more smaller stars around it to make it more like a sky and balance it out. it might suit my artistic statement to do this, as the night is part of how i work.

but is the aesthetic really what matters here? i don't want to regret this decision forever, but i will have the tattoo forever. so i must come to terms with it and make the best of it. considering what i've said above, every mistake i make in my life will have some sort of relation with everything else that i do. maybe it's symbolic of the decisions we make about our bodies, the bad things we do to them but that we should love ourselves anyway, regardless of our mistakes.

it seems kind of ironic that i got an incorrect owl tattoo, considering that owls are meant to be wise. or is it ironic at all?

muk + luk = what the fuk?

2009-12-29T22:00:00.000-06:00

one of e***'s (my) favorite childhood movies is balto. but never before did i really notice and obsess over the characters other than balto himself. now that i am a full on lover of BEARS, balto's polar BEAR companions jumped out at me as being some of the most hilarious and peculiar animated creatures. the BEARS are an enigma: they are polar bears that can't swim, sometimes appear to have one claw per foot, are extremely fat and fluffy (not that much of a mystery but still), and, the one that talks does so in an australian accent. why? because the storyboarders, animators, and producers were on crack when they decided on this. and the world is better for it.

muk and luk: a video tribute
this video is one of the many about muk and luk moments in balto, so feel excited and ready to peruse the related videos (especially the one called "best balto scene"--boris hates bears, but you won't). merry BEARing!

pandora's box never looked so beautiful

2009-12-28T22:32:00.000-06:00

when e*** [I] saw the new film avatar, i didn't really know what to expect. i was under the impression that it had something to do with that nickelodeon show avatar the last air bender. i was sitting there in my 3D glasses, sort of waiting for the bald kid with an arrow on his head to show up; i had no idea that it was completely unrelated. but my waiting for the airbender's appearance was swiftly pushed aside as i experienced the marvel that is avatar. it's a sweet action movie, whatever. but apart from that, it's extremely beautiful.

avatar is an ancient tale being retold here with a revolutionary and futuristic twist. it is an epic retelling, made new through the imaginative world and species depicted on pandora. it was, quite simply, beautiful. the pandora natives have a deep and profound connection to their planet, and for once, this connection is literal within their "braid nerves." thus, their very souls connect with the soul of their planet. in the humans' eyes, they are the alien to pocahontas' savage: not alien or savage at all. jack sully is comparable to john smith: but he has an even greater edge: the physical ability to become one of the natives through his avatar. the natives are the epitome of indigenous, the amplified and absolute "pocahontas" society. notice how well our favorite "earth" song could be applied to this film.

"You think I'm an ignorant savage [alien?]
...
But still I cannot see
If the savage one is me
How can there be so much that you don't know?

You think you own whatever land you land on
The Earth [and every other planet] is just a dead thing you can claim
But I know every rock and tree and creature
Has a life, has a spirit [literally, the holy tree], has a name

You think the only people who are people
Are the people who look and think like you [news for you, dummy: the real people are super tall and blue]
But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger
You'll learn things you never knew you never knew [jack sully: become avatar, become native, understand life and hate humans forever]

disney pocahontas invites john smith [same initials as jack sully ooo-oo-ooo] to essentially become a part of the earth, to learn to be a native and a real person that cares about the earth, just as jack sully is invited to learn to be a native after his significance in their society is recognized. avatar's connection to this exact plot is not easy to miss: it is the devastingly true story of selfish colonizers destroying beautiful worlds.

wendy's ghost

2009-12-28T21:29:00.000-06:00

wendy has soulmates. one of these soulmates she has only met in dreams and apparitions within other peoples' bodies. this soulmate is called hallam. hallam came to wendy over a year ago, in one of her dreams. she barely gets to be with [him], and she loves being with [him] so much that she relishes every moment of their time together. wendy awaits the day that she will be with [him] forever, when she meets [him] in [his] true form. until that day, she must rely on his use of other persons as vessels for their love. As e***, I usually has some sort of connection with these persons, which makes things beautifully intricate, creates pain and pleasure for both of them.

i knew that he'd loved me for years. lately i had been wondering what would have happened if--if things had gone different, would we still be together, and how different my life would be. during the encounter, it seemed as though there was a moment of clarity. There had been a longing within him, within both of us, that had been tucked away for years, deep in the recesses of our souls. this brief moment in time was a fulfillment of this longing, a release of the long-felt tension. it felt truly significant. this moment has passed in "real" time, as it should have. it was a moment not of possibility, but of closure, the skeleton has been burned and we may finally be in peace. there was such power in the encounter, a power and a magic that i will never forget; it will live in my heart forever. it has become a part of who i am and has shaped me in a way that all significant events do. and as strange and difficult the situation was to experience and accept, i'm thankful for that.

who is missus foe?

2009-12-27T09:09:00.000-06:00

in the day time, missus foe is e*** w***[me], a student at an ivy league university. she transforms at night, into a voracious artist, gobbling up beauty as fast and hard as she can. her true identity is masked by everyday obligations to the "real world." in e***'s [my] heart, missus foe has escaped the "real" world and has created her own world within the forests of imagination. here she is free to muse, create, and believe in the truly significant things in this beautiful world of ours. she is e***'s [my] vessel for creativity, passion, and true love. e*** [I] can only hope that one day she can take off her mask and become missus foe to the outside world. for now, I, e***, am ready to help missus foe flourish, preparing for the day that she may one day transform into the purest form of artistic expression.