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cleave-and-plough · 7 months

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YOU SON OF A BITCH

what a warped episode, huh? the black rose arc seems to come to a close, the whole thing seemingly orchestrated by akio, using anthy as a false mamiya. some questions are answered, but many more are raised as nemuro dissipates and akio solidifies his place as the power behind the scenes.

down to the final black rose and unable to find a way to defeat utena head on, souji redoubles his efforts to recruit her into the seminar, unromantically confessing to feelings for her and posing himself as a savior - someone with the genius and resources to help her and her friends out of any trouble. utena considers; she's usually able to get herself out of any scrapes, but there is someone dear to her who seems powerless. dreaming of her time in the coffin after her parents' death, utena wakes in a dim room, the tv playing static, anthy's hand entwined in hers. a transference occurs in this ghostly, liminal space - utena recognizing her past helplessness in anthy and that sometimes outside help is needed.

meanwhile, souji experiences his own transposition, seeing utena as tokiko and substituting her in utena's place. it's an uncanny moment that foreshadows the strangeness to come. as the end approaches, he coldly dismisses his secretary, who notably resembles tokiko, and her comment that she can "finally let her hair down" seems pointedly loaded. untethering himself from his worldly connections, he floats between the present and the past over an unending banquet table, remembering how he refused the lab boys' duel challenges once his work had finished. mamiya appears at his bedside, bringing flowers as if to a funeral, and questions his opening of the arena and castle. knowledge of the arena's existence seems to instill the academics with the belief that eternity will be attainable by the champion duelist. suddenly, mamiya changes tone. "don't you want the power to revolutionize the world?.... i want... eternity."

until now, it had seemed mamiya was reluctant to be preserved like the roses in tokiko's garden, but his strong words now spur souji into action. in the memorial hall, as utena beholds the portraits of the black rose duelists, he confesses to her yet again, this time as both the architect of the black rose and tokiko's would-be lover. but, he argues, utena and the other black rose duelists aren't so different, are they? at their core, they are bound to their most precious memories, have based their lives upon them, and are willing to fight for them. and fight utena will, punching souji and pinning him to the ground for daring to equate them. he smiles, acknowledging her memories must be very precious indeed. he's not entirely wrong, which is what angers utena, but he does seem to make a key misapprehension - utena doesn't wish to live in the past, she looks towards the future. her childhood experience of pain and salvation is something that she draws strength from, but it isn't something she wants to eternalize. nevertheless, she can't allow souji to continue his schemes, which have threatened her friends and endangered anthy, so she formally challenges him to bring an end to all this.

collapsed in the elevator, souji has a vision of the past, extending his funeral-like air from earlier into something like his dying words. visited by mamiya's spirit, he accepts that dueling utena is his last hope, as she is closest to the power of dios. and yet, there is some relief in this desperation, as he feels he has been reunited with tokiko - perhaps, to die by her sword is its own kind of eternity. somehow, the spirit of mamiya hands him the final black rose, allowing him to call forth a sword that looks strikingly like the sword of dios.

the duel begins amid a sea of photographs of tokiko and mamiya. souji continues his psychological warfare, drawing parallels between himself and utena and claiming that their lives were both changed by a special person in their past. this, he says, is why they can enter the arena - their lives are built on an elusive memory. utena rejects his comparisons as mere manipulation, and souji begins to falter more and more. his shoulder wound ails him, he slashes the photo, and, most damningly, he fails to realize anthy's deceit in the duel's final moments. hearing "mamiya's" voice in the arena, he becomes lucid for a scant few seconds before his rose is severed, his last sight the true image of mamiya.

akio takes a phone call. calmly, he reveals everything to souji. nemuro's regrets over tokiko froze him in time, and mamiya passed away long ago. akio used this to some advantage, but no longer. "the path you must take is not prepared for you. now graduate from this place." and with that, just as all the black rose duelists lost their memories of the black rose, so too does ohtori lose its memory of professor nemuro. the hall he had rebuilt in his memories lies derelict and forgotten. "he was never really here," akio says, sounding very like the end of the world. "just like you." anthy turns to face him, smiling.

reflecting on nemuro's last moments and his life of regret, i thought of the lyrics to "komm, süsser tod” from end of evangelion:

i wish that i could turn back time 'cause now the guilt is all mine can't live without the trust from those you love i know we can't forget the past you can't forget love and pride because of that, it's killing me inside

...

i'll never love again my world is ending

stray thoughts:

during the duel, souji's style seems to mimic past duelists' techniques, just as the black rose duelists' imitated those of their swords' sources. i noted saionji's sweeping horizontal slash and juri's footwork - i'm sure there are other connections to be made.

the silhouettes depict a father missing the golden days of his youth, which have been replaced by the challenges of adult life. to recapture that glory, he attempts to re-enter high school, just as nemuro reinvented himself as the student mikage souji to remain at ohtori.

the use of the word "graduate" seems significant, extending the metaphor of the school as purgatory, and begs the question of what (adult) life outside the school is like. the staff don't seem to be a viable source of information, and the only visitors have either been transfer students or tokiko herself (and nemuro, at first). perhaps kanae, hoping to advance in life, realized that akio would always be "in school" and misdirected her frustration towards anthy.

i look forward to learning more about the nature of the school and how the saga of nemuro aided akio's plans, especially given that utena doesn't seem to remember the experience - what role will the black rose come to serve in all this?

#revolutionary girl utena #shoujo kakumei utena #utena project #my writing #duel 23 #neon genesis evangelion #komm susser tod

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seikyoko · 2 years

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Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Thanks....

Choosing a top 10 was so painful you should have asked for my top 20 or something

PART 1 - PART 2 - PART 3

Himemiya Anthy (Revolutionary Girl Utena)

I love Anthy, she's weird, she does stuff like giggling to herself in public while watching those slide-paper animation things. She keeps snails in her pencil case, a literal mongoose in her desk drawer and a giant octopus balloon in her closet. She's only capable of making snacks, she does stuff like adressing people via adressing Chu-Chu

She's bitter, unpredictable, venomous, petty, passive-agressive, cynical. She was a kind little girl who sacrified herself for her older brother, yet there's never the question of "who is the real Anthy" because whether it's the buried loving, kind, caring side, or the anger and resentment, bitterness and disillusionment she now feels, those are all relevant parts of the whole

She wants to believe in Utena and see herself in her and Nanami. She's downright disdainful of their naivete and innocence and she clearly take out her self-hatred and disillusionment of her prince on them.

And god, despite being the literal target of all the world's hatred and being eternally empaled by million of swords, with the only person who "care" about her (or so he says) is some gross abusive bastard who only think of her as an object to use and scapegoat as a convenient way of avoiding the world's hatred originally directed at him and a tool to try to reach his fantasies of his past glory, and no signs od anyong being close to able and willing of getting her out of that situation.

Despite how she's probably had to give up to despair on some level if not totally, because having hope in such circumstances just make it hurt all the more and it lasted for decades/centuries

Despite how she stopped caring about what happened anymore and became utterly numb to her own suffering (best displayed in ep 39, with how blank/expressionless/resigned she is when stabbed by all those swords)

She

When Utena reached out to her in that coffin, she still found the strength within herself to try again, to hope again, and to reach back despite how terrifying it all was.

Just, how courageous that was, to hope again and reach for Utena's hand despite having fallen into despair long ago, she's so strong.

Also in the ending. I loved the ending, how she just casually drop a retirement letter and casually leave the school grounds. You'd have thoughts that there would be a literal fight against him or her tearfully/angrily confronting him, yet. He's irrelevant, he's just some pathetic old man still raving about fairytales and dellusions of his grandeur, yet he's irrelevant. He doesn't matter enough to have a place in Anthy's closure or life decisions, she just get up one day, decide he doesn't matter, and leave him in her dust. God do I love that finale for many many reasons

Historia Reiss (Attack on Titan)

(In here I pretend that pretty much anything after Uprising/the battle of Shiganshina doesn't exist because I don't respect those part)

I love her, she's kind, compassionate, courageous, she's angry, stubborn, self-serving and selfish. She doesn't do things by halves, and by that I mean the moment she decided to fulfill her promise to Ymir and tell her her name she went running into a swarm of titans and told one to wait before eating her because she didn't do that yet. She glares at Eren and decide to kill him at one of his most depressed states when it's convenient for her, as a way to get her sister back and try to get her father's affection. She's the kind, caring girl who is the ally of all those who aren't needed

SHE'S AN UTTER MESS

ghostmartyr has amazing meta about her and this post summarize well what is so lovable about Historia.

Uzune Hitori (Hatoful Boyfriend)

Yes I chose that particular moment as a defining picture. This was a hard battle between him and Nageki.

There's so many reasons I love him, he shot Shuu, he's an ambush predator, he should have commited more murders, he's an incredibly caring and loving person. His bond with Nageki and the rest of his family is one I'm obsessed by. He tries to strangle Yuuya and says "oopsie you noticed" when caught in the act. He serves tea and snacks to the mad scientist who took him hostage and chat with him to trash-talk his coworker. He likes salmiakki. He's unstable, he tries to gut a teenager to retrieve his dead brother's remains from him, he wears a magical girl outfit and use his magical girl powers to repel a mad scientist alongside his students. I like how in the epilogue after deciding to make peace, he declares that he doesn’t intend to take revenge on Shuu anymore, then tack on a “probably” while Sakuya is appalled.

Pink and Blue (Charlie The Unicorn)

They're having such fun being their chaotic selves, each of their appearances is extremely entertaining. They are such little shits, they're clearly having the time of their lives, good for them.

Brunhilde (Shuumatsu no Valkyrie)

She strolled into the god's meetings and made them agree themselves to the rebellion she was planning on them. She say hella vulgar words while using extremely polite speech. When Zeus makes his "I caught on to your bullshit" speech in that meeting and says she's the representative of the human side and implying she'd go down with them she smoothly agree by saying she's gonna choose representants from all 7 million years of manking including the dead ones. She looks at Zeus dead in the eye when he figure out the weapons are valkyries and catch on to her rebellion. She makes the most ridiculous of expressions sometimes, she likes hella untasty salmiakki pies. She has nerves of steel, she's shameless, she has excellent taste in the candidates she choose. and I'm so looking forward to learning more about her.

Sumire (Toilet Bound Hanako-kun)

I don't really know how to describe my feelings about Sumire, she's just so damn fascinating ? Compelling ? I have a thing for the human sacrifice/scapegoat/were-always-going-to-die characters. I think the actual chapters she appears in/every second of her screentime would sum up why I love her better than paragraphs of text ever could so I'm just gonna make an aimless ramble about my Sumire thoughts

Sumire know from day one that she's gonna be an human sacrifice. Nobody give a damn about her, everyone feels so damn entitled about her death/sacrifice they actively blame her/take out their anger on her that she's still breathing despite it being before her planned death date. They're going to actively celebrate and take joy in her death while choosing her next replacement and she's perfectly aware of that. The only people she interact with are No 06 who is her jailer to protect her till her planned slaughter date, like how one keep cattle, and the villagers bullying her. She's seething in rage and bottle it all up to make an attempt of pretending to look happy because what can she do ? It was game over from day one for her, she can throw a tanthrum all she likes, she could make some pointless attempt at rebellion and get her legs cut off and eyes blinded for all her troubles, and for what ? It won't change a thing and it won't move anyone a bit, she has already lost from the day she was born.

So she keeps those animals to heal because of the degree of control it makes her feel, she makes up that lovey-dovey de-facto husband dynamic with n 06 to pass time/on the off-chance he might give a damn about her dying. The "I hope they go to hell" moment. Her interactions with "Gon", Nene, n06. I'm just.. so obsessed with her.

Roxanna Agriche (The way to protect the female lead's older brother)

This is gonna feels like a total cop-out but this post sums it up better than I ever could

Todo Aoi (Jujutsu Kaisen)

I love him, he's smart yet an incredible dumbass. He goes around asking people for their type and Itadori having a similar taste in women awakened in him memories where they're long lost buddies/brothers and this prompts him to go against his own team. He has incredible wisdom, when in high stress situations like battling special grade curses he peppers his observations/epiphanies by making daydreams where his idol crush deduct this. Maki specifically aims for his face in baseball and everyone (his own team included) cheers to that. He's a dumbass, he's incredibly reliable, I love him. I love his friendship/bro-ship with Yuuji, I just love him.

Tsurumi Tokushirou (Golden Kamuy)

He likes to spin on a sob story about how the 7th division was wronged because of Hanazawa's suicide. He actually was the one behind Hanazawa's death well aware of the consequences it could actually causes, he's manipulative, ruthless, perceptive and cunning as hell . He's representated in a chapter cover as the devil, he likes to trick and "seduce" people to bring them on his side. He wears a shirt made of human skin on him, he's so damn cunning. That moment where he makes Edogai fall for him by making him shoot the corpse of his mother, that fashion defilee of Edogai's creations where Tsurumi is clapping and cheering him on. The sheer loyalty he inspire in his men, his backstory episode where you see the rare moment of Tsurumi's unfiltered humanity, and how numb/devastated he is by his wife and child's death, and his reaction make it clear how much of a performance most of his current-day behavior usually is ? God. I also like how he does batshit stuff like suddenly biting off a finger to play up his unhinged image and to disturb people around him. I love how he cut off Nikaidou’s ear, then adress him by saying something into the severed ear. I love that I can’t tell when he is genuine and when isn’t

Vincent Nightray (Pandora Hearts)

I like the way he uses his "brother complex" excuse that everyone in-universe unironically believe in in all contexts as an excuse when he doesn't want to honestly answer a question/explain why he did something. I love all the complicated feelings he has about being a child of ill omen and the anger he feels about that. I love his desperate desire to prove to himself that he was not a blight into the world/an aberration causing the tragedy of sablier and doing the opposite of what he set out to do and how his will to live crumble after that, and how he can't look at himself in the mirror because of the crushing guilt and self-hatred he feels on the matter. So much, that when Elliot care about him and he care about Elliot in return, he can't really proccess why he's so enraged about his death and why he cared so much without falling into the usual excuses he generally say outloud ("oh yeah that makes Gil happy"), that basically being confirmed when they travel to the past when Gil says he loves him, and Vincent not being thrilled one bit because his attachment and devotion to Gil are more atonement for the trouble his existence caused Gil as children and self-hatred, which is why, even as Gil tell him he loves him and wants him alive, Vincent is unmoved as long as the tragedy of Sablier is playing around them. And why Ada is the one to reach him.

I love that he commit violent parricide on-screen. I love how his crush on Break manifest on doing stuff like poisoning his food and coming up with ways to enrage Break/make him hate him because people he care about being disgusted with his existence is a dynamic he's comfortable with. I love how after he's forgiven and get closure, he gather himself up and make actual successful efforts to salvage the utter mess that is his self after decades of self-hatred and self-flagelling and figure out what he wants to do/what he wants his identity to be.

#sei.txt #Himemiya Anthy #Historia Reiss #Uzune Hitori #Blue and Pink #Brunhilde snv #Sumire #Todo Aoi #Roxanna Agriche #Tsurumi Tokushirou #Vincent Nightray #asks #Elaine2895

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randomidiocyncrazies · 10 months

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This totally misses the point of Gwitch, but I've always sort of low-key wondered how much of the premise would stay the same if Miorine had been Delling's son instead of daugher. Since it's implied that Delling created the Holder system to ensure his child would be safe (allied to a strong faction through marriage), it seems to me Delling's son would suffer the same fate as being sold off to the strongest pilot? (And in that case, would the Big Three heirs still have been the characters we got in canon etc etc)

HOWEVER, sexism seems to thrive in the corporate level, and the marriage system is definitely a product of sexism. So if Delling had a son instead of a daughter, would he have pushed his son to become a pilot, and would the Holder system still exist? (If the engagement clause is still a thing and Delling's son a pilot, would it be a "beat him to wed him" sort of deal?)

Again: I know Miorine has to be written as a female character because sexism informs her situation (just like how you can't just do a one-to-one genderswap of Utena, because the concepts are written to grapple with sexism/gender expectations from society etc). "What if Delling had a son instead, and how much would change or stay relatively the same" is just speculating for fun.

like. in the reality where Delling's child (male or female) is a pilot and is essentially forced to remain the best lest they lose their autonomy (being engaged/married to the person who beat them), their dynamics with Guel and Shaddiq would be. Kinda Different?

like. Delling's kid having to constantly be at the top and can't let themself slip up etc etc would probably be very similar to Shaddiq's experiences of his childhood after being adopted—admittedly the show itself never really spells it out, but the implication is that Grassely adopts a bunch of potential heirs, and these kids have cutthroat competitions against each other for the 'privilege' of being Sarius's heir. I can kinda see Shaddiq and Delling's kid being closer but at the same time more guarded against each other in this AU because their situations are so similar, and they can't switch off their calculating sides when dealing with each other. (Though I think Shaddiq would be more willing to discuss a partnership with Delling's kid here, since I think he'd be a bit less condescending towards them/doesn't see them as a "princess" the way he sees Miorine in canon.)

I think Guel from the start of the show being eager to beat Delling's kid as the top pilot and would want to lord their status over Delling's kid after being them, but be personally put off by the engagement thing (not because he thinks it's dehumanizing, more but because he's not interested in marriage/clashes with Delling's kid as people etc); Delling's child meanwhile has utmost contempt for Guel because "being the best" is just bragging rights for Guel, but it's a way for survival for them.

(However I can also see Guel having a reluctant? confusing? crush on Delling's kid, since they do take him seriously as a pilot—hard not to take a challenger seriously when slipping up means you're forced to marry/get engaged to them though, so the romantic feelings aren't reciprocated)

As for Elan, I don't think his (especially 4lan)'s dynamic with Delling's child would deviate from canon much. 4lan was never interested in the engagement stuff, and the Peil crones would probably not risk revealing the gundam stuff until Suletta is on the scene anyway

I think the most difficult character to imagine in this setting is Suletta? She has to be an ace pilot (for Prospera's purposes), but idk how she'd end up dueling Delling's kid in this universe—she only got involved with Guel because she was standing up to him abusing Miorine in canon, and i personally see Delling's kid not being already engaged/beaten by anyone before Suletta is on the scene. (also, while Suletta would win against Delling's kid in a duel, the changed circumstances would make the engagement pretty shitty? in canon Miorine obviously prefers being engaged to Suletta than a bully like Guel (at the start of the series), but in this AU Suletta would be the one to (accidentally) strip Delling's kid of their autonomy)

#gwitch #gundam

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enigmaincrimson · 7 days

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Hm...

Considering how often she gets passed around, she's likely staying with one of her aunts. Said aunt is always working, so Evelyn has way too much free time to herself.

If the school had a magical girl club, Evelyn would be in it. Odds are that she'd probably connect with Hiiragi Utena first for that reason.

However, her interest in Magical girls is more... technical, like a scientist observing a wild animal and wondering how they work. She's definitely stalking the local magical girls and taking notes.

If someone were to visit her apartment, they'd find her room is full of drawings, models, and other things she made as references for her research. There's a clear assortment of detailed statuettes she made of various magical girls she's seen on display. Maybe a little too detailed.

While how she made such a thing is unclear (Although if the rumors about her family are true, it would explain things.), she mostly made AMP as a sort of ongoing project, both to mask her true nature, and allow her to build a working study.

Considering how AMP performs magical girl transformations, Magia Rouge might as well be an entirely different person. Although what she'd call herself while "untransformed" in that form is still WIP.

Magia Rouge's default appearance and uniform are based on the Tres Magia uniforms, but with intentional differences. Although you probably would have to have seen her a few times and be paying attention to notice. (Evelyn also has a few models of Magia Rouge in her room.)

I'm still debating what Magia Rouge's La Verita form looks like... even if Magia Rouge's design is based on the concept of aggressive camouflage.

While she usually prefers to aid civilians and fight any monsters that pop up and quickly leaves the seen once the job is done, any magical girl that intentionally crosses Magia Rouge's path would find she has something of an instinct to "test" anyone that catches her interest. Also, she can pretty much send back anything they can dish out at her.

If anyone was keeping track, they'd probably notice that Magia Rouge seems to be evolving... with her being more capable with every encounter... and in some cases... during an encounter. (To be fair, there's more going on, but that might be a long while before that comes up.)

She does have a sadistic streak, but it's more... analytical... She likes to push her opponents, seeing how far they are willing to go and what their potential might be. Of course, she can go wild if she's enjoying the looks of fear and panic as her target's world collapses all around them.

A detail that will likely come up rather quickly if they get to know her more personally... is that she's illusion blind. She can sense that something is supposed to be there, but well... Trans-Magia looks rather different to her than it would anyone else as the Recognition Inhibition doesn't do anything with her. Admittedly, considering what it's actually like living with that ability, she tends to keep that to herself.

As for why "Violagia" exists... There's a few reasons off the top of my head. One, she felt like she needed a mascot to be more like the other magical girls she's seen. Two, it masks who is really in charge by putting the blame on someone else. Three, it would be easier to recruit more potential people into her squad if they really thought her operation was like the other magical girl teams. Forth, it also works as a way to make the point to other factions that she's already been "recruited" among other reasons.

The transformation items spawned by AMP are diamond shaped, to compliment the Heart and Star shaped transformation items used by Tres Magia and Enormeeta.

Grey was picked out for Violagia because well... she wanted to leave some hints that she's a neutral party, but she personally feels like it looks more like a funny beige. (I haven't exactly settled on what the mascot interface looks like... outside of them not being white, black, and having diamond patterns where the hearts/stars would be)

If Evelyn did start recruiting for AMP, the magical girls running under the system would quickly overtake the territory lost from the Lord's Legion's magical girl hunts... as AMP users are much, much harder to kill. Like... they just kind of respawn if you kill them as it's not actually their real body.

But I'm going off topic here.

Knowing Evelyn, she'd likely befriend Utena Hiiragi first over a mutual interest in magical girls... she might even make her a few figurines as a present. If she meets the others in Utena's little group, it's probably through Utena.

Evelyn is definitely on both Vatz and Venalatia's social media accounts. She was probably stalking Venalatia hoping to collect some data on mascots when Utena was recruited. (She hadn't observed the recruitment process before and wasn't entirely sure if she wasn't seeing things, so Utena's misfortune was Evelyn's breakthrough. She'd likely apologize to her over not saying anything later.)

While she had been observing the Tres-Magia since she transferred to the school, she didn't get a legitimate confirmation that her observations were correct until Magia Baiser's debut. Also, it should be noted that she filmed the entire thing... but like everything else she does, she likely won't point that out unless she trusts them enough to share the info. (I mean, without proper evidence, even if she could see the truth, they might as well be cosplayers.)

Let's just say... the trio's sore butts the following school day kind of confirmed she wasn't seeing things. Although she'd keep that to herself until she feels like it. Admittedly, she was feeling like watching Tres Magia fight was getting kind of boring, so it was a fresh change.

Odds are that she might "adopt" Korisu later... I mean not actual adoption, more like Evelyn doesn't have any siblings of her own and they're more alike than you'd think.

To be fair, I wouldn't be surprised if Kiwi and Evelyn don't get along well at first. Although I'm not entirely sure if it's because Magia Rouge will more than eagerly open fire if fired upon.

and... I've kind of ran out of steam.

#enigmaincrimson #ooc

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amc-theaters · 2 years

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i had posts in here before but i deleted them out of Fear but thinking about the movie has brought me back to attempting to place my thoughts somewhere because. i can’t get over that movie. i will not be cured of revue starlight movie disease until i can watch it again.

(this got long and i went off on a million tangents. sorry. anyways, i want to talk about the in-character & meta meanings behind the Murder in the movie, which i don’t do in any of my gargantuan paragraphs in this post. i will make a response another time but for now i’m just recapping what i got from the movie.)

there’s a lot to say that i think many have already figured out but like, it’s just worms in my brain so i think it bears repeating. i was specifically thinking about how the Murder works in the movie, and how it still has that same function as it does in the anime but more intimate. like, when any of the pairs is willing to Murder their partner, it shows that they have both literally grown beyond the precedent that the anime has set for them. the movie turns every character from static to dynamic, regardless of their original roles or situations in the anime. in the anime, you could tell the set course of each character in relation to the plot. karen is the protagonist, hikari is the love interest she needs to reach, nana is an antagonist, junna is like the tutorial character for how things work in this world, mahiru is a supporting character to karen (and hikari), kaoruko and futaba are gay & vibing (also supporting other members of the cast), maya & claudine aren’t necessarily antagonists but they are final bosses in the sense that they are the last obstacles standing between karen and her true stage (hikari).

the point of the anime had a single focus. it told you the rules of the world, and introduced a protagonist who needed to contradict those rules directly in order to obtain her happy ending in the story. it was a critique of that world, based on the world of the hypercompetitive Takarazuka theater. how does someone who thrives only through cooperation and love exist in a world where actors are intended to compete with each other ruthlessly for a single top spot? the anime’s thesis was kind of like that phrase in revolutionary girl utena, “the world is our egg and we are the chick. if we do not break the world, we will die without having ever been born.” (the irony there was that no one in that elevator could actually break the world because they were trying to conform to its rules [princedom, (toxic) masculinity, etc.] rather than actually destroying them like utena did.) nana wants to control that world so it can never hurt her, whereas maya wants to preserve that world as is because she does not believe it can or should be broken (it’s the love of her life, supposedly).

in the anime, this original singleminded thesis is tossed out the window as the story expands to address new, broader themes. we see that when nana says, “this is not an audition.” this is not a competition. this is the point where, after a game has been developed and stageplays have been written and performed numerous times, recordings have been released, and a community has unfurled — this is the point where this story ends, and grows into something bigger than what it was in the anime. the old roles that the cast played die with them, signifying the end of Revue Starlight, and they are reborn into what is essentially a different story (or perhaps not a story at all, depending on whether or not every party is ready to let these characters go and become little fictional people independent of an audience). something that may not even be a story at all, if the audience does not wish it. characters that were designed to be together are now pulled apart, standing alone and joining in new groups that will inevitably face new challenges. if we as the audience were to peek in on whatever mahiru, futaba, and maya were doing in their new troupe now, we wouldn’t be watching revue starlight. it would be a new story, with different themes and topics. i mean, the revues could be brought back into it, and the characters would still be themselves (albeit in a new place in their respective arcs), but the roles of the characters would be different — we don’t even have karen around to be a protagonist anymore! after the movie, everyone in the cast is free to have equal amount of significance. in the anime, this was not the case. but the world of the anime is literally broken, it is no more, we saw it destroyed. i love that as a visualization of the metanarrative of the story as a story that has evolved beyond its original domain, and as a literal representation of the freedom the main cast now has. forever thinking about the art of them running through the sand of the destroyed stage together, in new groups :]

this can be the end of revue starlight as a story (although perhaps not as a brand), and it frees up the creators to move onto the next stories they want to tell. i think that’s lovely, i think it’s a recreation of the journey of theatre which is a recreation of the journey of life. it makes me so emotional. i can’t watch this blasted movie again man but i want to so badly

#rant #revue starlight #gekijouban revue starlight

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paradife-loft · 4 years

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EXCELLENT, THANK YOU. i just feel like it would be really difficult for LXC as a duelist to be able to actually revolutionize the world. I keep comparing him to Miki, though that's more of a surface level "gentle, friendly, with an incredibly protective streak" reading, but I don't think he would necessarily fall into the same trap as Miki to see Jin Guangyao as something to be saved/hidden away. Where I do think he would get caught, though, is in the later arc duels. (Hitting word limit, 1/?)

The duels where part of what is being fought is the order of the world itself, the structure of power, and the way that power plays out in the duelist's lives. Because... what would it take to have LXC do what needs to be done to revolutionize the world? Would, hell *could* LXC recognize that the world needs to be revolutionized? that the system is broken? Would he bang on the coffin lid even after JGY slips the sword in his back, even after he knows what it would take to free JGY? We know LXC is willing to stay with JGY in a grave, but in this world would he try to drag JGY out of the grave? And... would Jin Guangyao even recognize that he is trapped? JUST. THINGS MY BRAIN KEEPS PLAYING.

YES, EXACTLY. Like that’s one of the things I really love about juxtaposing these two texts/relationships !! Lan Xichen, at least in canon, I would argue is not ever at a point of realising that it’s the world that needs to be revolutionised. Part of which is his place in its structure - I feel like the position of clan leader in that way, needing to be responsible for the well-being of this entire other set of people enmeshed within the existing social structure, essentially traps the thoughts and understandings that he’s even “able” to have, because to be effective (and to be honest and upright and good while doing so), he has to internalise and believe in the world’s rules.

But putting him in an AU context where he’s somewhat proximately removed from being literally responsible for an entire sect, where he functions as his own individual, influenced by e.g. the idea that out in the wider world he will eventually have to be that sect leader, but that’s not the set of concerns he’s immediately dealing with right now....? (Like. Ohtori Academy duelist AU, is what I mean here.)

I still think it would be... really difficult for him to come to understand that the whole thing needed to be overturned, for sure. His personality is so set in making compromises, trying to figure out something diplomatic that can work with multiple needs & desires; not tossing entire frameworks out wholesale. But at the same time... honestly I think his main issue with what Jin Guangyao did in canon, the reason he’s not trying to pull him back out of the mess even if he is willing to stay and die with him, is because what JGY did was terribly harmful to other people? Utena is hurt because of Anthy directly betraying her specifically, and chooses to forgive bc she understands that anyway - I feel like if that were the end of it for JGY and LXC, it’d be a much easier question, even partially if just because LXC values his own needs and hurt feelings so little compared to What Others Need From Him?

...on the other hand, the way RGU unfolds allows a lot more processing time on Utena’s part, for the way the various aspects of Anthy’s damage and harm unfold into her awareness, right. Lan Xichen is basically running on a few Really Horrible Days of Exponentially Increasing Fuckery, without any time to actually sit down and talk it over without the looming threat of death and disgrace hanging over Jin Guangyao’s head and whipping him into a panic-fueled murder spree. JGY does in the end realise that he is trapped, I think, but the question of whether he could get there without being literally pushed to the brink of death and losing everything...? Would LXC be able to take the raw material of what JGY explains to him, and not overlay his own (partially guilty, self-justifying) beliefs that JGY did have a choice and should have been able to get himself out of his metaphorical coffin? I mean, that’s the bit that I think time would help with, because I don’t think he’s capable of holding a grudge and insisting that JGY Should Have Known & Done Better And Therefore He’s Dead To Him, if he’s still hanging around, seeing Jin Guangyao in pain, realising his own complicity in what’s already happened and feeling the guilt of that, right.

So I guess I feel like, given the right set of circumstances, it could work out...? :’D And, like, in that context I guess the thing is that helping to pull JGY out would be the culminating symbolic act that does revolutionise the world, because that’s the storytelling language that Utena is working with (...and MDZS emphatically is not, which is why that feels weird to me)? But even if so, I’d think there would still be a whole lot of work for LXC to do on the broader societal applicability side of things once that part was done and they’d gotten out. Shit’s complicated!

#saintofbeasts #ask a James #no good things for the poor sad cultivators #what....the fuck do I even tag this with XD #Shoujo Kakumei Xichen #peony bride JGY #SHRUG????#the inherent weirdness of putting LXC in the iconoclast role when this canon already has WWX around #meta #rambling

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murasaki-murasame · 5 years

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Thoughts on Sarazanmai Episode 11 [Finale]: “I Want To Connect, So Sarazanmai”

Do you ever just watch an anime episode that’s So Much in so many different ways that it makes you immediately want to lay down and sleep for a hundred years, but in like a good and hopeful way?

Yeah.

It’s very fitting that the final episode title is technically self-referential nonsense that in practice makes complete emotional sense and leaves everything feeling neatly tied together. It just Works [tm].

Thoughts under the cut.

Even though they were in like 5% of this episode I just wanna immediately point out that Reo and Mabu are ALIVE and IN LOVE and my SKIN IS CLEARED. It didn’t exactly happen in the way I expected, but I was hoping that they’d get revived, and here we are. The finale gave absolutely no shits about actually explaining any of the lingering mysteries about them, but I can’t fault them for it when they gave them such an unambiguously happy ending together. And in practice it perfectly fit the dreamy, surreal, intensely emotionally-driven vibe of the whole finale. Seeing their connected rings morph into them flying through the air while holding hands and the sheer power of their gay love literally paving the way for the main trio to finally connect was one of those moments where you just gotta sit back and accept that Ikuhara’s throwing at you, lmao.

Realistically I thought they might get left off on a pretty bittersweet note like a lot of Ikuhara characters, but nah, they’re just straight up back to being alive and happy and they pretty much got to attend their daughter’s magical furry wedding, lmao. They didn’t even get their memories erased like I thought might happen, so the whole confession scene from ep10 is still perfectly intact and now that the whole otter thing’s dealt with, we can probably safely assume that the two of them made up and are back to being The Ultimate Couple. It also looks like the two of them and even Sara and Keppi are still hanging out in the human world, which is kinda unexpected. I thought that even in the best case scenario they’d all just head back to the kappa kingdom, but I guess since that doesn’t really exist anymore they’re just gonna stay in the human world. Reo and Mabu seem to be working as rickshaw drivers now, which makes it even more clear that they’re probably back to being more or less regular people and being part of regular human society, and they’ve probably given up their jobs as cops, which is nice.

None of this answers the still lingering question of ‘how the fuck does the manga even fit into the timeline aaaaaaa’, but I don’t care as much about finding out the answer to that after this finale, so it’s not a big deal. I guess we’re meant to think that it happened before the anime, though. My best guess is that Sara was intentionally sent into the human world as a baby to protect her from the kappa/otter war, or something, and then Reo and Mabu raised her, she magically turned into her teenage/adult self [in an instantaneous fairy tale-y kind of way], then she went back to the kappa kingdom for a bit, and I guess she arranged things with Keppi and had them get recruited into the kappa kingdom? I still think they’re humans that got roped into this like the main trio, so I think that makes sense to me.

Even more so than with the main trio, I think that those two getting a 100% happily ever after with no caveats or drawbacks really spells out how fundamentally optimistic and hopeful this series is, and how they were one way or another victims of a harsh system that didn’t deserve the shit they went through, and so they got given a happy ending. It’d be understandable if people feel upset that they got such a happy ending after having done undeniably awful things, but I don’t mind.

And on the topic of the main trio, hoo boy they sure were the main focus of this episode, lol. And by ‘them’ I mean ‘Toi’ because let’s be honest he was basically the actual main character of the show by the end, and the finale was like 99% focused on his character development specifically. Which isn’t a bad thing. Kazuki’s whole deal had already been more or less resolved by the end of ep6, so it makes sense that the second half in general focused more on Toi.

On the flip side, Enta kinda got the short end of the stick in terms of screen-time and development, and things end in a sorta wishy-washy way in regards to his feelings for Kazuki. It makes enough sense that his whole ending was about choosing not to drown himself in fruitless delusions, even if it feels kinda lame and disappointing compared to the more climactic and intense resolutions that Kazuki and Toi got.

Though tbh a big part of why I don’t feel too negatively about how Enta’s crush on Kazuki kinda fizzled into irrelevancy is because Reo and Mabu got their happy ending that preserved all of their character development, with the obvious implication that they’re back to being in a happy and stable romantic relationship. The fact that there’s at least one happy gay couple at the end of all this makes me much more willing to forgive Enta’s story being handled a bit differently. I mean, that’s part of the whole reason why diversity in storytelling is so important. When you include multiple different gay characters/relationships in your stories, you have the freedom to do different things with them, instead of having all the narrative burdens and expectations being placed on just one character/relationship. It’s annoying when the ONLY gay character in a show ends up having to repress and move on from their feelings, but it’s fine when there are other gay characters who get to have their own happy relationships.

Anyway, I really liked how Toi’s story wrapped up here. A lot of what actually happened in the finale was full on bizarre dream logic nonsense, but the emotional undercurrent of Toi being faced with the prospect of effectively committing suicide in order to free himself from the pain of human connection once and for all, and him coming to the realization on his own terms that he doesn’t want to let go of those connections, got through perfectly clearly. They actually went a lot further with his story than I expected. Literally further, in that we had a whole timeskip epilogue detailing how after the main story ended he went to juvie for a few years and then reunited with Kazuki and Enta when he returned. I’m going to assume that he turned himself in, since there shouldn’t have been any concrete evidence tying him to any of his crimes, except for maybe him shooting Reo [though even then, Reo’s corpse immediately transformed into one of those rings so I don’t think that counts as lasting forensic evidence, lmao]. It was definitely the most brushed-over part of the finale, but it didn’t need to be focused on that much, since the more important part was him reuniting with the other two afterward.

And in terms of timeskips and whatnot, I really loved the whole potential future flashforward sequence showing a what-if scenario of the three of them becoming professional soccer players and being slowly torn apart by interpersonal drama, while the different episode title cards are re-used in this new context to show how their emotional issues and hang-ups might lead to that sort of negative outcome. It did a really nice job of illustrating how they’re willing to face the possibility of future pain in order to hold onto their connections with each other. Which is what the entire show had been building up to, really. It was all about them becoming able to face the harsh realities of being known in order to lead fulfilling lives with meaningful personal relationships.

I do kinda wish their older selves looked a bit more distinct from their base designs, though. Aside from the difference in outfits you can barely tell that they’ve grown up, lol.

I was initially planning on rewatching episode 1 after this, but honestly after what actually happened I don’t really think I’d actually get anything new out of episode 1 now. The very first scene of the show is still a bit of a mystery, even though it’s obviously based around a lot of visual imagery and cinematography from the finale, and the whole deal with the ‘A’ signs is still up for interpretation. But I don’t really think it’s super important one way or another.

I’m actually very happy that the ending didn’t involve any sort of time travel, and that that’s not what the first scene of the show was hinting at. Especially with how this finale really hammered in the importance of living with the consequences of your actions and accepting the future for what it is, it would have felt very cheap if anything got reset in the end.

I guess it’s also worth noting that, at least with the main trio, there weren’t any romantic developments, which I think was fine. With how the story had been building up to this point I think it was fairly obvious that their ending was gonna be more about friendship alone. Which might disappoint some people [and the whole topic of Enta’s unrequited crush on Kazuki is it’s own whole thing], but at the very least, Reo and Mabu got their happy romantic ending together, so I don’t feel like I’m missing out, lol.

Part of me wants to be disappointed that we didn’t really learn anything new about Sara, and that she didn’t exactly, uh, DO anything even in this final episode, but honestly I feel like that’s kinda ‘the joke’. Like, she and Keppi come across as a super tongue in cheek joke about the fairy tale concept of princes and princesses. Sorta like how the Utena movie made the ‘prince’ into a complete joke, Sara and Keppi are just there to be funny plot devices, and their big ending is that they have a big fat furry wedding and that’s that. And honestly that’s fine by me. I feel like Ikuhara’s whole artistic career has involved him becoming more and more flippant and dismissive about the concepts of princes and princesses and how much importance is placed on them in fiction, and that’s valid. It reminds me a bit of how all of the actual major characters are all queer dudes and their relationships with each other are the actually important part of the narrative, whereas straight characters like Sara and Keppi and all the different faceless kappa zombie dudes are mostly just joke characters. There’s something both deeply amusing and deeply vindicating about how this show turns the tables like that, with how it frames different types of love and relationships.

The main trio’s story ended up being not super tied into what the show has to say about sexuality in general [and overall the show is less specifically ‘about’ that than Yuri Kuma Arashi was, from what I understand], but there was definitely a whole lot of social commentary about homophobia going on with Reo and Mabu, and thankfully that part of the narrative came to a satisfying and genuinely subversive ending, with them overcoming the death imposed upon them and regaining their happy lives together.

Now I’m hoping that Ikuhara will ‘complete the set’, so to say, and have his next anime be about trans/non-binary characters, especially after how Kazuki’s whole cross-dressing thing ended up being kinda unimportant and not about gender identity to begin with. Which is still kinda disappointing to me, but oh well.

Overall, this ending was almost aggressively happy and optimistic compared to what I was bracing myself for, so thankfully it’s left me feeling warm and fuzzy and content. All in all, it was a surprisingly straightforward story in terms of it’s central messages, in spite of it’s over the top and abstract framing, and I think it really benefited from that inherent simplicity, especially in this finale, which was so singularly focused on it’s central trio [and mostly just Toi’s perspective alone]. I was a bit worried the finale might turn into one of those things where a deeply personal conflict gets blown up and tied into literally world-ending stakes, but thankfully they didn’t go unnecessarily far with it. Even the kappa/otter war resolution barely involved the main trio themselves.

At least in hindsight, I think the anime was very tightly woven and was paced surprisingly well for it’s short episode count, and it’s hard to imagine how they could have spent much more time on the main trio, but now that we have a better idea of the timeline of the series, I really think that episode 6 should have been followed up by an episode that basically adapted the ReoMabu manga, plus parts of the twitter account, and the short chapter from the first light novel volume about how they met. That way it would have ended up with a nice round 12-episode length, and I don’t think it would have ‘spoiled the surprise’ of the later reveals and developments with Reo and Mabu. I just think it would have been really good to actually cover that in the anime itself, especially since even in the finale, the whole fact that they literally raised Sara as a baby never got addressed, so it feels like anime-only viewers are missing out on a big chunk of their story. But it’s not a huge deal.

I guess at the end of the day my feelings about the finale boil down to ‘Reo and Mabu are alive and happy and that’s literally all that matters to me’, lol.

I was really worried about how I’d be left feeling after this, but I’m happy that I’ve been following this series ever since it was first announced. This is the only time I’ve watched an Ikuhara show as it’s come out, and oh boy has it been an emotional roller-coaster. The fact that it ended in a satisfying way makes it all feel worth it, though.

I probably won’t get to it immediately since I think my brain needs time to recover from this one, but sometime soon I want to finally get around to watching Penguindrum and then Yuri Kuma Arashi. I don’t think I’ll liveblog them like I’ve been doing with Sarazanmai, though, if only since I’ve already been spoiled on bits and pieces of what happens in them, but we’ll see how it goes.

#murasaki rambles #sarazanmai #I'm so relieved that this ended up being so happy and satisfying lol

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rutilation · 5 years

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You hear that subtle creaking noise? That is the sound of the Sword of Damocles, its single thread fraying as it prepares to come crashing down on Gormie’s head. Poor kid’s going to incur Ichikawa’s wrath if they keep tempting fate like this.

One minute you’re having the time of your life visiting moon-disneyland while trashing your ex, but before you know it your author is going to dump some nasty plot twist on you like: “Actually, Aechmea was lying about your eyes,” “Actually, you’re just Ghost’s split-personality,” “Actually, Aechmea is using you as a science experiment.” (in case you couldn’t tell, I’m dreading eagerly anticipating the payoff to all this buildup.)

So to start off, Aechmea was being quite ominous this chapter, and everything that came out of his mouth seemed like it had a double meaning that we poor readers don’t have enough information to decipher yet. This line also seemed like a veiled way of suggesting that he has ulterior motives regarding Cairn beyond simply acquiring a trophy wife.

I’ve been thinking for a long time that whatever extenuating circumstances are keeping Kongou from praying must be pretty dire, because otherwise he has no reason to keep this carousel of misery going. Every piece of humanity is suffering because of his inaction, and I don’t think he’d abide by that if there wasn’t something grave stopping him from taking action. I also think it’s likely that Aechmea knows what this reason is, and is keeping that information from the gems. So, now that Phos has cooled their head enough that they’re willing to try and talk things out, is Aechmea going to do something about that? Do his cryptic words from this chapter allude to this? Hmmmm…

Anyway, on to Phos.

What a good rock.

It’s good that Phos is more cognizant of the impact they have on others and that they’re trying to be less callous. Keeping Alex from going through with that idea was definitely the right decision. At the same time, I don’t think the answer to the conundrum of getting other people caught up in your problems is to take the weight of the world onto your shoulders and try to do everything by yourself. That’s essentially what Kongou has been doing the whole story, and look how that turned out. Furthermore, one important aspect of Phos early in their character arc was how the other characters’ unwillingness to let Phos take responsibility for their own mistakes really ate away at their self-esteem. The narrative seems to posit that taking away the consequences of someone’s actions and the responsibility of making decisions is tantamount to depriving another of their full personhood, even when the desire to do so comes from a place of compassion.

On a related note, I’ve noticed that both of the important people in Phos’s life are in a rather precarious position thanks to Phos’s actions, and additionally, nothing Phos does going forward is going to bail them out of it. They both stand to gain something in the short term if Phos keeps failing at their task of getting Kongou to pray. Cinnabar’s newfound acceptance is contingent on Phos trying (and failing) to assault Kongou. The longer that keeps up, the longer they’ll be accepted by the other gems; Phos’s success would end that in an instant. However, even if this were to become the new status quo, it wouldn’t make Cinnabar happy in the long run. After all, one of the very first things we learn about them is that they hate fighting. So once the novelty of their peers’ acceptance begins to wear off, they’re going to find themselves dissatisfied.

Similarly, Cairn also stands to benefit in the short term if Phos keeps failing. The longer Kongou doesn’t pray for the Lunarians, the more time they have with Aechmea. But as chapter 71 showed, he’s the controlling type, which is pretty antithetical to Cairn’s desire to find freedom. Aechmea’s behavior is probably just going to get worse and worse once the honeymoon-phase of the relationship is over, at which point Cairn’s life is going to be hell for every moment that Aechmea continues to stink up the mortal plane with his existence.

Before Phos got their grubby little paws on Cinnabar and Cairngorm, neither of them were living happy lives. But they also didn’t hope for anything better, and were more or less resigned to their respective fates. But now that they’ve ridden the wave of Phos’s change, both of them now have something to lose. Whether Phos succeeds or fails in their quest, it seems to me that the two of them are going to have to save themselves if they don’t want to get badly burned (or worse) by the end of this debacle.

In this interview, Ichikawa alluded to the conundrum of whether or not it’s possible to save someone from themselves, and the way she talked about it makes it seem like a central conceit of the text. Not to be totally predictable by referencing Utena once again in my essays, but that theme is one of the central conflicts in Utena as well. The answer that series comes to is that people can really only save themselves, and that the most the people around them can do is give that person the tools and opportunity to do so. It also posits that trying to do otherwise creates a toxic relationship wherein the savior has ultimate power over the one being saved, thus tainting the altruism that might have inspired one to save another in the first place. I wonder if HnK will come to a similar conclusion.

Going back to Cinnabar for a minute, while I’m taking it as a given that the rest of the earth gems will drop them like a bad habit the second they stop being useful, I do have a bit of faith that Bort will stick up for them. Let’s talk about Bort.

Unlike most of the other gems still on earth, Bort has grown since the start of the manga. They can say that change is for weaklings all they want, but the Bort we were introduced to is quite different from Bort as we know them now. Their establishing scene in the manga has them scoffing at the idea of helping someone who they saw as a burden, someone who’s unwilling to help themselves. But whatever scorn they had towards Phos early in the manga—by their own logic—they would have had for Cinnabar twice over. Where Phos was merely useless, Cinnabar was an actual liability. Where Phos was haphazard and lazy in their efforts, Cinnabar is almost pathologically passive and self-defeating.

But by the time they actually met Cinnabar, they had changed. And nowadays, it seems they’re trying to act as the Shinsha Whisperer. Because of a series of gradual changes catalyzed by Phos and Dia, they’ve come to realize that:

A. People can have potential that isn’t immediately apparent

B. They themselves can have a more enriching role in their society than that of a surly guard dog

Plenty of people have written about how Bort is more thoughtful and sensitive than they initially appeared to be, but it’s usually couched in terms of the reader pulling back the veil of gruffness to reveal sweet, jellyfish-loving soul underneath. While I don’t think that’s inaccurate per se, the way I see it is that certain events in the story have nurtured their growth as a character, causing them to slowly become less of an asshole. I find that to be a more fruitful framework to work with than simply: “We the readers didn’t understand Bort at first because of incomplete information and now we do.”

What I’m getting at is that since they were willing to set aside a bit of their pride and step outside of their comfort zone in order to change, I have more faith in them to do the right thing than the people surrounding them. Most of the gems are polite, agreeable, charming, etc…but the way the outcasts of their society have been treated throughout the narrative speaks volumes, much more than a veil of civility ever could. What other read am I supposed to get from chapter five? Not to trash on two-thirds of the cast or anything, but I think most of these characters are just going along to get along, and aren’t terribly concerned about anything or anyone that doesn’t directly affect them.

Speaking of earth gems that I don’t trust:

Ichikawa keeps repeating the image of Euclase looming over Phos. This is the third time now.

Anyway, Cairn is once again happening. And, umm...

Hate to break it to you buddy, but I’m pretty sure the call’s coming from inside the house. What episode of The Twilight Zone have we entered in which Cairngorm needs Ghost’s help in order to look disgusted with everything?

There’s not much I can say about Cairn in this chapter that I didn’t already say in my Cairn essay. While it’s certainly upsetting to learn that they were suicidal while Phos was in a coma, it’s also not exactly shocking. That said, I do have one additional observation. This has been on my mind for a while, but I’ve never really brought it up because it’s existed in the realm of subtext, and sometimes I am a timid little bean who doesn’t want to risk putting my foot in my mouth.

Cairngorm is pretty good at reading people, aren’t they? In this scene in chapter 50 they seem to have a much stronger grasp on Kongou’s state of mind than Phos ever has, they can always tell when Phos is lying or otherwise putting up a front, and I’m fairly certain they’re basing their current affectation on what they have inferred that Aechmea wants. I bring this up because of this moment from the chapter:

While we the audience have the benefit of hindsight, tone, and framing to indicate that Aechmea is up to something duplicitous in this scene, Cairn doesn’t. But they still immediately pick up on the fact that he’s being shady. They phrase this observation as if it’s a joke rather than a source of genuine unease, but the fact that the composition of the page lingers on this line is rather telling, leading me to think Cairn is trying to laugh off something that is in actuality causing them anxiety.

The only other thing that caught my attention is that Cairn called Aechmea by his name. I guess whatever reason he has for not liking his name, it’s not because he considers it an insult?

Finally, just as a reminder, I’ve started cross-posting my essays to ao3 in case tumblr dies or whatever. So, if that does happen, you can find me there.

#i ended up rambling #houseki no kuni #land of the lustrous

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harinezumiko · 5 years

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SU Movie Meta n Notions

Courtesy of @thoughttrainderailed putting up with my half-not-awake ramblings and chiming in to pour more gas on this shit.

This could be complaint-flavored but it’s also fic notes flavored, except it’s like three goddamn fix-it-fics worth of notes for more Nanowrimos than I’ll ever complete. :’D

Harinezumiko:

unrelated

but

I wonder if Lion adopting Cotton Candy Garnet is related to the fact that Garnet became a cat person and Cat Steven adopted Lion

Jaakusan:

I dig it

Harinezumiko:

since NOBODY ELSE WAS TAKING CARE OF THIS EXTREMELY LOST BUBBLE at that point

I am willing to accept Lion recognizing her as regressing to a kitten

you know what would've been a fun angle that we won't get

and perhaps goes against the supposed Intention of Spinel being toxic

but I would still find it more interesting than the nothing we get

Jaakusan:

Harinezumiko:

1) I would like Lion being a goddamn cat and therefore Capable of Therapy When Compelled to be a Thing

2) I want Spinel to have made An Attempt at fixing her hair for the Diamonds, only for Lion to immediately ruin her odangos

3) I would also like the fact that HEY SPINEL LOOK LION IS ALSO SOMETHING PINK JUST FUCKIN' DITCHED :| :| to be a Thing

4) also I still want Pearls Brigade On Earth, but I like the imagery of Lion knocking Spinel's attempt to Make Heart Odango because quit your shit

Jaakusan:

hahaha

Harinezumiko:

5) since we don't get a Hey Solidarity With Pearl Because Pearl Doesn't Count Rite Homeworld Elites Fuck U Spinel, I want her to accidentally end up with literally anything from Earth that she has attachment to and incentive to Suck Less for?

like I know she's a movie character and likely I won't have to deal with her again

but

I am still angery that they made as little attempt as possible at hiding that writing Spinel and the Diamonds off was just convenient and lazy, Spinel doesn't care that she fucked up the Earth with apparently her own stupid toxin and doesn't care about anyone there and that pisses me off.

I don't even care if she made a vague excuse about coming back to visit just Lion

I think that would've been a better end note than getting whisked off by the Fairy Tyrant Godmoms to live in the Castle in the Sky forever and never have to deal with things again

also I think it would be nice if Spinel, y'know, had any interest in any of the characters she hung out with except Steven during her reset day

because only Pink caused your problems you dumb shit

you still owe Garnet an apology and frankly everyone else too, but GIVE A SHIT. ANY OF A SHIT. EVEN A SMALL TURD OF A SHIT. ABOUT SOMEONE OTHER THAN PINK

Jaakusan:

yeeeaaaah

I would have liked

like okay keep her going off with the diamonds, my feelings about how that can so easily go Wrong aside

but when they pop up have Pink Pearl with them

and PP talks her down

because you know who is exactly as new to grieving Pink as Spinel?

Pink Pearl

Harinezumiko:

yes100% this

Jaakusan:

who thought everything was hunky-dory and is now cast adrift with nobody to cling to?

Pink Pearl

Harinezumiko:

also I am really pissed that like

yeah we got some fun Reset Pearl Nonsense

Jaakusan:

who fucking enjoyed the silly side of Pink that she probably copied from Spinel?Pink Pearl

Harinezumiko:

but we are still facing Pearls Have No Agency And Nobody Finds That Bad Except People Who Know Our Pearl Personally

we still don't see YP or BP for more than a cameo where they don't interact directly with anyone

and they're just being another Utena reference anyway

like they seem to be happier and more comfortable but they don't interact directly with anyone and they literally only get like one off the cuff remark about Steven who doesn't count and isn't part of Gem Society

dude seriously Pink Pearl has so much room to be interesting adjacent from Spinel

but the lack of anything from Spinel even acknowledging that any Gems that aren't Diamonds exist beyond being props doesn't yet bode well for me?

because Spinel is an invitation for the Diamonds to resume something familiar and comfortable, but it's with a literally toxic person who wants to change and is being put in a world where change is not a thing

Spinel has never been part of Homeworld society either, she's been Pink's garden playmate

Jaakusan:

YEAH

(brb closing up to move computer)

Harinezumiko:

(ngl though I would totally take Pink Pearl showing up and fuckin' Asuka Slapping Spinel)

kk <3

Jaakusan:

and back

I just

sigh

it's weird to phrase it like this but

I just want characters that aren't Steven or the immediate antagonist to get significant interactions

the memory sequences still don't count

Harinezumiko:

I agree 100%

Jaakusan:

that's just bringing them back up to par

Harinezumiko:

I also think like

while I would've had even less fun with the movie it. literally squandered so much room for Steven to work with the Barn Gays

Jaakusan:

YES

Harinezumiko:

like... why. what was the point. stop increasing the cast and bringing people back if I don't get to see them do anything

Jaakusan:

YES

Harinezumiko:

I get that RS trapped herself with the stupid Steven Limited POV thing

I still think it's stupid

I think the movie could've cut away from that

I think we could've done away with that in Change Your Mind

I think we could've bullshit excuse handwaved it with some garbage about how Steven re-integrated with Pink Steeb and it allowed him to grow and broadened his worldview because the limited POV was something something Pink Steeb 'shielding' Steven and thus the viewers from Other Stuff

we have a two year time skip because RS was struggling to write things in Steeb's POV and for fucking what, to STILL have a limited protag POV?!

and I know the show is Steven's story

but if it's been something the crew has struggled with

since

I think they said somewhere around like season four was when they started being like "fff" about it

THEN FIX IT

Jaakusan:

eeeesh

Harinezumiko:

FIX IT IN THE MOVIE

FIX IT IN THE TIME SKIP

NOBODY FUCKING CARES IT WON'T HARM THE VIEWERS TO GET AN EXPANDED EXPERIENCE?

like I know that was a Thing RS Wanted To Maintain

and I suspect the rapid writing deterioration of MLP in later seasons didn't help

but fuck everything to do with this like... oh whoops nobody else can do anything protag is the only one who's not an NPC thing

Jaakusan:

YEAH

SO MANY PEOPLE COULD HAVE DONE THINGS

T H E Y H A V E A N A R M Y

Harinezumiko:

THEY HAVE AN ARMY

THEY HAVE NANEFUA

MISS ME WITH NOBODY IN BEACH CITY CAN DO ANYTHING, THE ONLY ONE THERE WHO SUCKS IS RONALDO

Jaakusan:

YOU CANNOT TELL ME IN TWO YEARS NANEFUA DIDN'T INPUT ANTI-GEM MEASURES IN CASE THIS BULLSHIT STARTED UP AGAIN

Harinezumiko:

dude you can't tell me other Gems didn't help

Jaakusan:

other paranoid just-got-out-of-a-war gems

just got out of a war gems living with gems they were fighting against

Harinezumiko:

you can't tell me that CGs that did believe in Pink's cause outside of Avoid Homeworld Live On Earth Forever would just

be totally cool

with this threat on their Earth, a threat that exclusively targets the organic life there

they're not even proactive in protecting the fucking humans?

are you shitting me?

someone please go fetch the Famethyst they APPARENTLY need to teach the rebels how to not just LET GOLDFISH DIE

Jaakusan:

SERIOUSLY

WHERE THE FUCK DID ALL THE GEMS GO DURING THE CATASTROPHE

WHICH STILL SHOULD HAVE EFFECTED MORE THAN. JUST BEACH CITY.

Harinezumiko:

they went to the concert and were totally unperturbed that Amethyst turned into Rose, duh

Jaakusan:

Famethyst would have been another acceptable Deal With Spinel cameo

Harinezumiko:

all of me as a person would like that

Jaakusan:

they have experience with being abandoned disappointments AND with wrangling people who are Upset and don't want to cooperate for their own good

Harinezumiko:

I also think that, y'know, STILL NOT DEALING WITH THE ROSE QUARTZES which I still think are rhinestones is bullshit

Amethyst could've at least lampshaded it

STEVEN could've

fuck, dude, Blue is like OMG A PINK TREASURE??? like yes like the zoomans how the fuck's Holly's stress level btw

Jaakusan:

seriously

WHERE ARE THE ROSE QUARTZES, CREW

WHAT DID THE DIAMONDS DO WITH THEM NOW

Harinezumiko:

where's Jasper

lmao

also host and I were talking about like

Jaakusan:

y u p

Harinezumiko:

Jasper having more room for redemption than Holly

because duh

but also because Holly has been trapped with a bunch of Remarkably Well-Adjusted War Veterans Who Are Extremely Friendly for thousands of years and the stick is still firmly up her ass

and Jasper is... apparently Gifted Child Who Can't Escape Her One (1) Big Failure And Is Branded By Being The Best Of Trash?

which is why she's a bully?

but you can't tell me Bismuth wouldn't brawl it out with her

or that they wouldn't be able to bond over Pink/Rose not trusting of them

or that it's fucking hard being on Earth where you did all this fighting, and you liked fighting, but the reason is Gone and your anger's still thereYou can't tell me that Bismuth doesn't ever have to deal with Gems now who think she's still in her little box and won't see past it, or that it pisses her entirely off but she can't kick ass and take names because Peace Time

bullshit they don't both have war PTSD

bullshit Jasper wouldn't have to grudgingly respect that Bismuth is demonstrably more useful and capable than her intended purpose

and like let's be real

it would be much easier for Jasper to swallow that pill than that Pearl isn't just brokenPearl keeps getting painted as abnormal by everyone's standards for not being a purse

as much as I want Pearl to kick Jasper's ass and have Jasper have to reassess things, canon isn't really setting Jasper up to have that epiphany, not even counting the show's unwillingness to just LET PEARL NOT SUCK AT FIGHTING

but also Bismuth is why Lapis happened

Bismuth was in Beta to kick quartz ass and attacked Lapis who was there to check the results of the hasty terraforming job done on that Kindergarten

Jaakusan:

yeah

Harinezumiko:

there's so much room to close that story arc

and for Jasper to have to get her head out of the sand and reassess things because the world doesn't make sense anymore but who cares because she and Bismuth can punch the fuck out of each other for hours and Bismuth doesn't think less of her for it

Jasper doesn't have a peer she can 1:1 with because apparently even Garnet wasn't strength-equal to her, but Jasper's going to need several kicks in the head before she can accept that Garnet isn't 2:1

but Bismuth isn't a superior officer, her quarry of origin doesn't matter socially the way Jasper's does, and bullshit they won't get along like a house on fire if Bismuth can make friends with Lapis

Jaakusan:

seeeeeeriously

Harinezumiko:

and Bismuth would 100% be like

Jasper I have a suggestion

MAKE THINGS

shut up I know you hate art because it's frivolous but DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE WITH YOUR ENERGY

you'll FEEL BETTER and maybe you'll even find out you like doing a thing and if it's not something you were designed for then who fuckin' cares if you're not instantly the Best At It bitch that's good for you, learn to make stuff.

Jaakusan:

yessssss

Harinezumiko:

hell, like

they even could've lampshaded Jasper being MIA in the movie

Yellow for Some Fucking Reason cancelled her war plans Everywhere even though their whole empire relies on it

Jasper's off Doing That

they could've had several CGs offworld to handwave that too, like

they're not here and yeah we could call their ship with Lars' fuckin ship (where’s Emerald at?) but even if they could get back in time they couldn't evacuate Beach City because the warp drives would need time to recover that we don't have

Earth's not exactly a place teeming with non-organic energy to just power Gem ships

also in that vein likeI think it would've been good to have like

something

about Yellow not having to just dismantle everything she's ever done on her own?

does Blue

not have diplomats

was her one (1) skill really just Pushing With Crying

Jaakusan:

shrug

I can't imagine she needed diplomats with how they treat alien life

I could maybe see her trying to create a diplomatic corp now

but they had no reason for one prior to reformatting the empireI do wonder if they just

stopped kindergarten production and pulled out

or if they tried to rebuild the planets they ravaged

Harinezumiko:

right?

well and like

it sounded like Sapphire was somewhat that kind of Aristocracy

so like

why not

have sapphires who are fairly Revered and also can at least theoretically guess if diplomacy rolls will fail

go help... with peace efforts...

Jaakusan:

at a guess

because they haven't actually reformed yet

they're still at the stage of "we're doing this because we love Pink/Steven and we want Steven to stick around" and not "we've internalized the teachings and Believe we were Wrong"so they're doing like

the bare minimum to meet expectations

because they don't actually care about the results outside of "Steven said we're doing good"

Harinezumiko:

oh no I agree

I think that's more believable

but I think that's not convenient for the writers who keep trying to cut corners

so most likely they'll offscreen epiphany if they don't backslide instantly and in a way Steven can yell at them for in his lifetime

and then Steven will at some point be Happily Surprised by undue progress

Jaakusan:

probably sigh

Harinezumiko:

I'm willing to believe like

Jaakusan:

the Diamonds are getting the Barn treatment

Harinezumiko:

Blue might actually Get It

not because she really Gets It

but because the Oh My God Pink Is Gone Because Of Us, I think, left an impact

and she otherwise did somehow come to the conclusion that Not All Organics Are The Worst likely because they remind her of Pink

but while she thought Pink was literally for real dead, she did get to find out that something as fragile and short-lived as an Um Greg Universe can potentially understand her feelings despite being literally immune to her miasma sadness

and now that she's making a conscious effort not to do that, and following having Yellow's breakdown during their fight in Change Your Mind, I think she'll be more proactive

and possibly more willing to take interest in other species and cultures and their Ways, even if I'm sure at first it'll still be motivated by Because Pink

and as long as she can be empathetic and help Yellow on that front, Yellow can potentially afford breaking down sometimes in private, because they've now also both seen what Constant Facade turned White into

and they both want White back

none of them can have Pink back but they can keep each other together, so Fairy Godmoms can get their shit together, and maybe Blue has a shit ton of notes somewhere about sustaining the Zoomans that can be implemented toward other planets and species and families they broke up

Jaakusan:

nodnod

Harinezumiko:

but realistically, if they were living on human time, it would take the rest of their natural lives to get their family shit together

and they don't get to do that because they're royalty

Jaakusan:

(I want Greg and Blue to be friends and Yellow to be like are you fucking serious Pink chose this and just eternally stink eye him)

Harinezumiko:

they're the entire ruling class of an immortal race of Gems who've spent millennia not only Doing War Things By Design but also who've been made only to Do War Things

like, how do you even dismantle that without wiping a clean slate

we saw how useless it was trying to give a day old Pearl choices

how the fuck are these emotionally constipated Broken God Queens supposed to unlearn their own shit and lead by example

they can't un-design Gems predate Pink

(I mean the solution is to step down and put other Gems in charge but that's still not an instant solution and we still won't fucking get to see it in the show)

(But the point remains that short of some deus ex machina hivemind available to make all the other pearls not overwhelm if you ask to be called Pink Lasagna you don't even have direct underlings that can sit in for you, like, fuck guys, you lost one of your set and made no contingency plan for if it happened again)

(you fucking honest to God thought Something could shatter you and you didn't properly wipe out the entire planet and star system it came from? you're asking for a second round.)

Jaakusan:

jesus, right???

real talk

as soon as the movie introduced the concept of concentrated organic murder juice

my first thought was

okay why the FUCK didn't they bomb Earth with that when they lost the war????

have fun on your useless fucking dead rock you'll never have the resources and tech to get off of, rebels

those that survive the earth collapsing because apparently it also breaks up the actual planet rather than just poisoning Everything

Harinezumiko:

right??

well and like

clearly

they just MAKE PLANET KILLER AND STORE IT SOMEWHERE

which I mean I guess if it weren't pink and clearly custom and if it hadn't been a literal fucking hour tops Spinel could've nicked it if the Diamonds really had just pulled the plug on things and abandoned projects

which is still bullshit

but it's still bullshit they should've addressed

Jaakusan:

yeeeeeaaaaah

Harinezumiko:

likeI know it's something Pink likely wouldn't know shit about

but Steven after working with the Diamonds to dismantle the shit?

yeah

he needs to know that shit

Spinel also can't be the only Gem that takes this bullshit badly

Jaakusan:

no reckless dumping of toxic chemicals

Harinezumiko:

not everything needs to be a response to Pink

Jaakusan:

YEAH

Harinezumiko:

that was one of the few things I did like about Steg

not him specifically

but that the first attempt failed because it hinged on Rose Is The Answer

Jaakusan:

but Pearl's whole memory sequence?

yeah

Harinezumiko:

but I maintain the entire movie fails hard at what this show is allegedly about

because no one except Garnet exists because of interaction with friends or family

no one is a product of love

Steven spends the entire movie trying to recreate the traumas that he thinks are the Defining Thing despite that literally not being what worked on Amethyst and despite getting Rupphire to fuse not fixing Garnet for ?? reasons

I am still mad that we finally get Garnet being Wrong and it's swept under the rug, like? Garnet apparently DOESN'T exist on her own. there is, allegedly, no Garnet if Ruby and Sapphire don't remember it? Are you fucking me?

like A Garnet exists but it's not This Garnet even though as long as Ruby and Sapphire's love exists she should also exist because she's the embodiment of a concept

at the very minimum they should have given Garnet an in-movie explanation for not Remembering Herself

and that explanation doesn't get to be that she finds out that truth is a fucking concept

Jaakusan:

SERIOUSLY THAT WAS SO DUMB

Harinezumiko:

if Garnet's going to spend the entire movie asking stupid shit and getting nowhere then her epiphany should come from finding an answer, and we've already established Garnet's answer IS LOVE

we literally could've had it triggered by something else too like

address the future vision thing

fucking have Steven ask it outright

have Garnet admit she doesn't know

have Bismuth point out the visor thing

hell, you can still have Steven leave Toddler Garnet with Anthy Pearl if you want to

Have Garnet looking for something, have it be her visor, have it be clarity, have Garnet's uncertainty addressed by anyone literally at all

have fucking Amethyst after she gets her shit together remark that Garnet looks weird without her visor

have Pearl who at least KIND OF ends up on Babysitting Cotton Candy Duty for all of 5 seconds afterwards suggest her visor helps her focus

Jaakusan:

maybe based off a Sapphire having only one eye

Harinezumiko:

have Spinel's pot shot not be that Garnet is cute and stupid and trusting, but that she's a three-eyed freak who's still blind to what's happening right beneath them because the Earth's definitely going to fucking explode now and have Garnet make her glasses

have Garnet find her fucking goddamn truth if you're not going to let her answer be love, have Garnet make a decision in the same way that Pearl is allowed to make a choice, and tie it into Amethyst making a friend in Steven

Jaakusan:

YEAH

Harinezumiko:

there's a post about how Steven's failure is defining himself and the Gems by their trauma, as if trauma isn't part of what shapes you

but the post doesn't fucking even TOUCH on the fact that the movie doesn't supplement this traumatic shit with any of the supposed Family Bonding Crystal Gems Values that the show is allegedly made of

you know

the ball

they dropped

in Change Your Mind

:| :|

okay in all of S5

Jaakusan:

Y E A H

Harinezumiko:

no one in this fucking movie does any soul searching at all and it Pisses Me Off

we get some from goddamn Spinel and while the number was enjoyable it has no impact on anything

she learns nothing

she still tries to kill everyone the second she stops getting her way

and she gets a Happily Ever After

and Idgaf that it's more true to Real Life why am I watching a cartoon if you're going to tell me Steven will never get to rest but Spinel gets to live in a castle with no consequences

why does Spinel get a fairytale ending if she's toxic, Sugar

Jaakusan:

YEEEEEAAAAAAAAH

the memory wiping literally had no point other than filling time

time that could have been filled with better, more meaningful things

Harinezumiko:

I even liked the memory wiping! Except nobody learned anything after

I would love a well-done amnesia season

I would love Slice of Life season: Everyone Learns What Life Is For

Jaakusan:

ooooh

Harinezumiko:

like, since we don't fucking HAVE SEASON SIX YET, there's no. reason to pin the movie as "vaguely adjacent to the timeline but don't worry about it"

I know it's because Movie and whatever

but you could just use the movie to launch the next season, mang

you could have Spinel apologize to Steven because she can't fix what the scythe did because the scythe isn't even fucking hers

it's a known weapon and it should've been the goddamn shoe-drop for Peridot being afraid of being harvested

have the movie lay the foundation for Steven trying to rebuild his home and his friends and his family without the Diamonds' intervention

the way the Crystal Gems deserve

give Earth a fresh slate since we don't know the goddamn background Gems

give the OG Mom Squad the chance to be welcomed by friends they don't know anymore, dismantle the Homeworld Defaults that they've been left with, let the secondary characters shine for two hours, and open Season Six with things being Different and Steven having to learn that It Be Like That Sometimes

in the same way the corrupted Gems have to

let Mom Squad become nurturing by choice this time

let Steven be the person in the forefront of their memories, not millennia of Rose

and drop Jasper on the beach in a space pod only to find that Garnet can't fight, Rose's base is taken, her army is lost, the Pearl's not even defective anymore, and Amethyst is. kinda honestly the most functional person here and why the fuck is that the case

Give Season Six the chance to be the Barn Squad + Jasper helping Steven pick up the pieces of his life while Jasper occasionally chimes in still stuck in her ways, have Jasper get uncomfortably attached to this half-feral runt Amethyst that won't let go of her shins

have Jasper be aware that the CGs are Broken and Wrong and have that be what prompts her to fix it. Give her the excuse of wanting to kick Garnet's ass. Have her land on the beach in her Saiyan Pod totally visibly uncorrupted

have the season include the other remaining CGs trying to find themselves too

(and obviously reveal mid-season that Jasper's putting on airs and hiding her horns and spots in her costume change+hair, have her unwilling to admit it might be permanent for everyone, have her invested at that point enough that she doesn't find it acceptable)

(and then have her get the fuckin Piccolo treatment. have her get better as she becomes a better person.)

Amethyst can still be the first to really Get It, even

Amethyst accidentally shows it by shapeshifting without horns

because she knows Jasper doesn't have them anymore

have Jasper lapse back into being a Rampant Bitch sometimes at characters who don't deserve it and have Amethyst, the feral child not long enough ago, react badly

Jaakusan:

yesssssssss

Harinezumiko:

like I know this suffers from I Just Want Jasper Screentime

but the writers ALREADY SKIPPED SHOWING US BARN GAYS DEVELOPING ON SCREEN

have Jasper be an outsider who thinks it's Weird and Wrong for different reasons than Steven but have them join in their goal to make Earth home again because they've both lost that

also have literally every other quartz on Earth awkwardly defaulting to assuming Connie's mom and/or Barb are agates

#so many opinions #long post #steven universe movie #steven universe spoilers #steven universe #steven universe meta #this is like three hours of spitballing #I slept maybe three hours #rip me this is like 50 fics I should write #thoughttrainderailed

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gurguliare · 5 years

Text

Utena rewatch notes for eps 1-7, warnings for some (general) discussion of csa:

I’m going to spend some time here listing “things I always forget about Utena” in the faint hope that to do so will, in the long run, shorten the list. It won’t.

The fact that Miki and Utena are pals. Good buds. Gossip chums. I know about this intellectually but I forget how early it starts, and the fact that they seamlessly pick up where they left off after Miki a little bit tried to kill her. That’s not fair, of course. He a lot tried to make Anthy his property...? But look at him twiddling the parsley that’s so cute

The fact that Miki and NANAMI are pals even pre her formally inheriting everything Touga owns

How early it’s established that “eligible young woman expresses concern for ~damaged goods” is part of the script for assigning desirability and eligibility, and is in fact a prime site of matchmaking activity... Touga and Nanami’s split gaze on Utena and Anthy dancing at the party, and Miki going to tutor Anthy but bonding with Utena instead while Anthy zones out and animates an elephant in her workbook, and then Utena and Miki exchange half-worried, half-irritated looks about her trauma; it’s all so trivial at this stage, but still pretty hard to watch.

^ corollary to the above: I think RGU as a show has a real mean streak in its heart reserved for “rape is not about sex, it’s about power” and similar rhetoric, in part because the sanctioned visibility of rape and sexual abuse, in a culture otherwise silent on the subject of sex, makes those things into powerful representational aids in the grooming and sexual “education” of minors. At first glance it’s strange to have a group of middle-schoolers who talk about romantic love in a distinct binary of, on the one hand, crushes and confessions, and on the other the servitude of the Rose Bride; but the reality is that designating rape as safely distinct from “real” adult sexuality--as a violent abstraction that doesn’t implicate even the perpetrator in anything as vulnerable or shameful as desire--is the best way to make rape and rape victims a conceptual magnet for repressed teenagers, and from placeholder fantasy it goes on to form an alienating pattern of expectation. It’s an excuse to talk about sex without ever saying or learning anything about sex, only defining what sex is not in ever-more stylized terms, and secretly imputing to that negative space all your frustrated doubts and curiosity. A child fed that euphemistic diet long enough will have a much harder time identifying coercive, nonviolent sex---or really sex with any grey area, any shadow of consent, pleasurable participation, interest---as rape. Especially a child who has a lot of social capital invested in distancing herself from victimhood, in part because she prides herself on helping and supporting her victimized friend.

I have more I’d like to say about this but I’m not thinking super clearly at the moment. Better saved for later arcs, I guess.

And one more bullet point for stuff I’d forgotten:

That absurdist uproar often gives way to normal, willful obtuseness before the scene limps to an end---presence of the fantastic in Utena isn’t a release valve because there’s never a moment where another child won’t turn to you and say, “too bad about your weak stomach, Nanami” after the screaming and the snails. No one really pulls their head out of their ass long enough to be amazed by the signal nonsense going on in the background; “surprise” on the part of anyone but the victim only exists in service of self-defense or self-justification, with everyone indifferently shrugging off blame as they wonder how so-and-so got themselves into such a strange situation. I mean, and obviously this is quite funny when it happens in the context of a giant octopus balloon, but. The culture of Ohtori as this really impermeable web of minimization and chosen ignorance, where the only hope of acknowledgment seems to come from abusers, is kind of the creation of the yawning filler episodes.

The student council scenes are so great---funny, scathing, and (by the standards of early Utena) compulsively watchable. One thing about the first arc is that, almost more than anything subsequent, it kind of serves as training wheels for inhabiting Anthy’s POV... in that all these strutting proto-abusers with their tragic backstories and comic human foibles and fixations are in different ways rehearsals of the stories Anthy tells herself about Akio. He’s too weak to control himself, like Saionji. He’s too protective of her to treat her as a person, like Miki. He’s been betrayed too often, like Juri. The first arc is where these kids get to keep tight control of their own presentation, before the inconvenient backstory-survivors wander back onstage, and ironically that means they look a lot worse than they will when they have to interact with others on an equal playing field; because none of the student council kids are Akio, however much they would like to be. They’re children and haven’t done shit yet. But Anthy has to perform the miserable sleight-of-brain that is contemptuously distancing herself from these failures on the one hand, letting them hang themselves by any amount of rope, and, on the other, constantly pardoning and sympathizing with the person who has hurt her most---her biting perspective on the student council members is just grist for the world’s most devastating lapse in perspective, out of all proportion.

#utena tag #i ... should probably go back and do some single-episode writeups but if so i'm skipping miki's. dumbass

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