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🤍🌹

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so who are you?

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25.04.2024 📖 today's anthy!

i need finish reading this book because i got half way through and i really wanted to look up fanart because everything described sounded so cool but then i got spoiled for the ending of the first book and it just turned me off of reading it 😭 i really like gideon and harrow though and i was enjoying the book a lot !! so im going to give it another try on the train on my way to see my friend. theyr the one who gifted the book to me actually haha

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The theory that Kanae used to be like Utena to Anthy (a duelist who cared about her even if they were selfish) but ultimately became Akio’s “bride” at the end is SO depressing

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i love that little moment in episode 14 where utena offers her hand to anthy and says "let's go home" after they visit akio

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rgu take you Strongly disagree with? about a character or arc or episode, or about the interpretation of a symbol or metaphor, etc.. whatever you want!

uuh. i cant think of any really right now. i guess the common understanding that juri idealises shiori to the point where she cant see her flaws? that she thinks shiori is "innocent"? dont get me wrong i think juri idealises shiori. i just also think juri has bad taste [affectionate] i think when juri calls utena and shiori innocently cruel she means like. ok read this and then word it nicer in your head because i cant right now - "oh you stupid fucking child im GAY"

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stripedroseandsketchpads submitted:

Uncensored-helloanthy, what are your thoughts on Ruka? >:)

boring, ugly, barely a character i think he was only there bc touga's VA was unavaiable for recording or whatever. i dont remember the timeline but they had to fill the space with something and that something was bootleg touga. i mean #problematic opinion but i do think the more blatant lesphobia against juri was interesting and necessary for the themes in utena. but hes so boring that hes not even that fun for me to hate on half the time if ppl remember him enough to make memes of him at all like with saionji

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It frustrates me to no end that the only take I ever see on Utena's gender on this site is about toxic masculinity and the mistakes she makes and fucking nothing about how her masculinity is a source of personal strength and empowerment for her. Nothing about how her genderqueerness is an inherent subversion of the patriarchal system at Ohtori. No acknowledgement of how an integral part of her abuse was Aiko pushing her into a feminine role.

If you talked to an actual dyke or transmasc person the same way I see people talking about Utena Tenjou they'd be entirely justified in telling you to stuff your head in a blender.

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i wanna talk a bit about utena's stretching habit. by far the most common interpretation of it that i've seen is that it's something she specifically does when she's feeling nervous, but honestly i don't entirely agree. if we look at the four scenes throughout the show we see her do it in, she only really has reason to be nervous in one if them.

the example people bring up the most is in episode 33 when she's talking to akio in the hotel room, and, yeah, obviously she's nervous throughout that entire episode. but the three other times?

the first is in episode 7 when she's talking to juri. and utena gives no indication that she's nervous around her, or about the particular conversation they're having. they're talking about the power to revolutionize the world, and utena's being pretty dismissive about the whole thing, which has led some people to think her stretching is a sign of boredom or just an idle thing she does with no meaning, but i don't think that's it either.

utena, while on the surface being dismissive, is actually reflecting a bit here and thinking about the motives of the student council, even if she does think it's all stupid and pointless. and that's what i think her stretching means. it's about thoughtfulnes, reflection and contemplation.

the next time we see it is in episode 20 when she's about to talk to wakaba. again, she's reflecting here, this time about wakaba's behaviour and what it might mean. she's certainly not nervous this time.

and then we see it in episode 23, when she's looking at mikage's pictures of the black rose duelists. this is where i do start to see the nervousness reading of it, because these pictures do unsettle her, BUT, pretty importantly, she actually stops stretching the moment she realizes who the pictures are of. while she's stretching she's still thinking about mikage's offer to help any of her "friends with problems." again, it's thoughtfulness, reflection, and contemplation.

which brings us back to episode 33. where, yes, she absolutely is nervous, but while she's doing these stretches, she's specifically talking about the date they just went on. she's reflecting again.

what i actually think is utena's much more consistent nervous habit is her rambling. it's something we see her doing along with the stretching throughout all of episode 33, signifying either that she is contemplating what exactly is making her feel nervous, or that whatever she's thinking about is making her nervous. probably both. (she also does her rambling in episode 30, and there it's also right before akio assaults her. so. yeah.)

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i feel like i don’t really see people talk about the christianity in utena, but like. utena’s central questioning of eternity and what it means to die takes place in a coffin in a church. marriage is seen as a way to achieving that eternity, and then deconstructed and in turn established as a form of patriarchal stasis that requires the maintained violence against women to function.

the name dios. the allusions to satan. anthy’s martyrdom seen as necessary suffering to maintain the transcendent spiritual good of the savior prince. the show is directly in conversation with how religious (and specifically christian) hegemony facilitates patriarchy through its logic being taken as a given, implicitly recognizable rather than deliberately constructed and operating through violence.

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it's so telling that in episode 30 utena hurts her ankle specifically because of akio (i don't think he was literally there jumpscaring her in that window, but it is his fault that she's so distracted thinking about him), and then afterward he's the one to come to her "rescue" on his white horse, sorry, in his red car, to bring her to the hospital. and then using the fact that she can't walk on her own to kiss her while she literally cannot leave. his "i should carry you in my arms" line is especially gross to me, because on the one hand it's playing directly into her ideas of princeliness and chivalry or whatever, but she does actually need his help and if this is the form that help takes, if he doesn't offer any other kind, she doesn't have much choice other than to accept it even though she's clearly uncomfortable with it. it really is just hitting you over the head with the point about the role of the prince being built on someone else being the victim, and how the "rescuing" is often victimizing people in and of itself. and while a lot of other characters are doing this unintentionally or with good intentions or are just unaware of the seriousness of the consequences (because they're, you know, children), akio knows exactly what he's doing

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everybody look at him. the silly

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anthy and utena as pygmalion and galatea!

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many discussions of toxic yuri and juriori on twitter these days and so i wanted to draw them….. yuri nation rise up

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the way anthy smiles when utena feeds a strawberry to chu chu will always be crazy. like at first you’re like “oh she’s smiling because utena is nice to her little monkey and she no longer has to be slapped around by the broccoli boy” and then you’re like “wait maybe her smile was a sinister signal that she finally has utena in her clutches…” but then you’re like “nah that’s stupid. she’s smiling because chu chu constitutes her repressed emotional state and utena showing chu chu affection and kindness instead of dismissing and outright ignoring him the way everyone else does in fact represent the way she actively desires and strives to befriend anthy on a genuine level even if it’s incredibly difficult due to the walls anthy has learned to put up over the years.” anthy smiling isn’t a sinister foreshadowing of her inevitable betrayal, or if it is, it also foreshadows her ultimate friendship with utena as something that is rooted not only in incredible empathy and depth of feeling, but also in the inherent love of hanging out and joking around and being silly and goofy with your pals. by not dismissing chu chu, utena is also incidentally demonstrating her desire to view anthy as an equal and a friend, which is the exact kind of love necessary to precipitate anthy’s revolution, by shattering the paradigms of control, domination, and abuse that have dictated the terms of anthy’s existence for far too long.

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something that's so important to me is that by the third arc utena and anthy are just genuinely good friends. like obviously the whole rose bride/engaged thing is still there, and anthy is still keeping horrible secrets, and they will continue to hurt each other, but . despite all that they do genuinely just care about each other and like being together. anthy is opening up in ways her role definitely doesn't require her to, and she's even acting directly against it for utena's sake at times. and utena has always believed the rose bride thing is stupid and shouldn't get in the way of their friendship, but she has learned how serious it is and to not accidentally order anthy around and stuff. and when they go to sleep together and hold hands and talk about things, it's like all of that disappears for a moment and they can just be two girls in love.

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girls day out but they keep squabbling with each other