#the way that whatever utena said was for anthy alone to know…

[revacholian-girl-utena]

Could I trace the way back somehow?

Alt text: Screenshots from Revolutionary Girl Utena with overlaid text. 1: Utena stands amid tall grass, staring at something in the distance. Text: YOU — "Do you know a place called Marvel Hill?"

2: Anthy stands in the grass, looking at Utena offscreen. Text: "No..." "But isn't that an expression, not a place?"

3: A shot of the garden at Miki and Kozue's cottage. The grass is overgrown and the table and chairs are broken. Text: "Up on Marvel Hill — a great, high place."

4: A closeup of Anthy staring intently at Utena's face as she smiles and talks, looking at the garden, not at Anthy. Text: "One that is impossible to climb back to." End alt text.

[spacejellyfish3]

the utena show’s ending is extremely powerful on its own yes but utena’s final apology? to anthy of not being able to be her prince in the end never stuck right with me. and I think that’s cause in a sense it’s still centering the prince as important, as aspirational, that maybe it could have been a better ending for them—that utena could’ve survived if she were her prince. and of course I might be reaching with that possibly probably but I still wanted to air that opinion out (maybe someone else has similar misgivings as I do and can expand on it so there).

but the real problem for me is that show anthy still very much places utena as a savior figure, as her “prince”. while I live for anthy’s savage verbal takedown of akio as a powerless coward trapped in a Sisyphean game of pretend for all eternity but even so she herself is still shown to subscribe to the dogma of the heroic prince. even visually anthy’s idealization of utena is displayed with her dressed in pink. this visual marker is carried over into the movie with anthy’s bridal gown changing from red (which makes sense since anthy is indian coded and an indian bride’s sari is traditionally red) to white and pink, connoting her as utena’s princess.

movie anthy’s placement of utena onto a pedestal of princehood also often extends beyond subtext and into the text itself, a key example being the scene right before utena’s famed car wash makeover where anthy says “you’re the prince of the academy now, every miracle and all eternity is yours…so long as you stay in this world.” anthy believes that you can only exercise power, have power, be happy, be free within the system, and it’s important to note that there is very much truth in that notion but this power I’m referring to is that of self actualization, the power of maturity. yet…utena rejects that noise, she says no, she says fuck that let’s go be free in the outside world.

if the show is about breaking away from the confines of abuse, then the movie is about breaking away from the confines of trauma. it’s extremely powerful when anthy takes the steps out of ohtori; it’s hard even just to find the strength to leave an abusive situation let alone actively do it. but the pain remains, trauma doesn’t disappear it’s haunting it’s ghostly sometimes literally manifesting. both movie utena and anthy are hounded and bound to apparitions they’ve forgotten are actually dead.

touga died years ago sacrificing himself for nothing in the end and became princely an ideal to strive for and utena has to come to grips with that and she basically says no you don’t control me my grief my trauma does not control me thank you for being my prince but I can’t be a prince I don’t want to be it’s not real

anthy is real

I am real

akio is abuse he is torment and toxicity he is anthy’s monster, maybe a monster that she created once upon a time but he chose to perpetuate his monstrosity. and when confronted with his actions he couldn’t face it he hurt her more made it her fault for the hurt he caused her and he died he’s dead he’s gone but he remains in the ground anthy buried him beneath the roses. the rose garden is a prison she is the only one held captive by the roses and it grows up up high up but it’s still there the roses remain he’s still there in her mind and he’ll never leave but he’s not in control. he’s dead, he’s been dead for so long he remains but he’s not real and he’s no prince because the prince was a lie that never existed it’s not real

utena is real

I am real

and they blaze past everything. there are obstacles but there are friends too who aren’t there yet but they’re on the path they’re trying they’re growing they have high goals they want to reach and someday they will but you can now. it’s anthy’s story it’s anthy journey and it’s hard of course it’s hard

but they break free. they break the castle so huge so big so impossible but it wasn’t real

it’s just rose petals flying in the wind

akio doesn’t control her and though it might be so that she and utena can’t make it outside, that they have to continue as princesses stuck in the role that people give them but they don’t have power over them, they’re free and no longer draped in any costume or performance, they’re truth out of her well to shame mankind and that’s fucking awesome. they might not make it, they might fail like the broken down husks of those who came before them, but they can try they’re free to try. they have the power to try. to revolutionize the world. to revolutionize their world.

“the outside world has no roads, but you can always build new roads.”

I binged the entire series and the movie last year around March maybe, sometime right before quarantine…and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, analyzing it, since. I’m pretty sure it radicalized me and honestly I’m glad it did. revolutionary girl utena speaks truth to power and exists as a creative work in a way that I don’t think anything else has or will. it’s fundamentally itself but simultaneously thrives on external interpretation. it’s both an enigma wrapped in a mystery and as obvious and unsubtle as a trainwreck. above is my favorite quote of the entire franchise because it’s so simple but so profound—you could say it’s my equivalent of “what is grief if not love persevering”.

there are no roads to follow, but you’re open to build your own path your own way. no one defines you but you and that’s simple that’s kinda naive but what’s wrong with that. I’m not sure who originally said this or stated this proverb or whatever, I know I read it somewhere but I’m not sure where, and I’m definitely paraphrasing but

adults are so quick to say the world is unfair and be done with it, but a child would look at that and say: why not make it fair? that’s really simple and it’s innocent of course but it’s still true. why can’t we make things fair, because we definitely could it’s not impossible.

I’m not sure how to end this post—I definitely should cause it’s plenty long already—but rgu is highly foundational to me on a visceral level. it’s helped me in ways shifted me in ways I can’t describe and I can’t really imagine myself now existing without its influence. the best way I could describe its impact its power its importance really boils down to

the outside world has no roads, but you can always build new roads.

words to live by.

[seasaltmemories]

Trypanophobia

Rating: PG

Summary: In which Anthy threads together her fears and her desires

~

If there’s one thing Anthy didn’t expect about the outside world, it was the amount of paperwork required to do anything.  Ohtori had been a land powered by desires and secrets.  While Akio had typed at his computer a few hours each day, it was always the pointed look or sly remark that truly set things into motion.

However, it seemed here the most equivalent force was bureaucracy.  Every time she wanted to do something or go somewhere, it seemed like their was a new form gating off the rest of her path.

“Oh, immunization records!”  Utena leaned over Anthy’s shoulder. “I forgot if we’re traveling overseas, they’ll want that.”

On instinct, magic buzzed at Anthy’s fingers tips. Although it was much more difficult to cast outside of Ohtori, she had managed to pull it off under select circumstances.  A birth certificate there, an id here, flashes of proof she existed.  However before she could try and weave any spells, Utena grasped her hand.

“Leave this to me.  In the long run, it will be easier if we do it the normal way.”

Reluctantly, Anthy handed the laptop to Utena.  “If you say so.”

Three days later, Utena led Anthy to a small clinic about fifteen minutes away from their apartment.  In short time, they were led into an examination room, where a middle-aged nurse attended to them.  

“You’re here for your Hepatitis A and B vaccine?”

“Mmhm!” Utena hummed.  She might have said more, but Anthy quickly lost interest in the conversation.  Instead her attention was drawn to the needles laid out on a nearby tray.

She didn’t know how long she stared at the it.  The only noticeable passage of time was the whoosh of air that followed Utena returning to her seat beside Anthy.

“Your turn.”  The nurse pointed at Anthy.

The Rose Bride rose and followed without complaint.

“Do you want one in each arm, each leg, or a mix of the two?”  The nurse asked as Anthy settled in front of her.

“Whatever you think best,”  She answered blankly.  Her gaze was still focused on the tray.

The nurse grumbled something to herself but otherwise went to work.  Carefully she balanced the shot in one hand while gripping Anthy’s left arm with the other.

“You need to relax.  It’s difficult to find a vein if you’re all tensed up.”

“I’m doing my best,”  Anthy responded with clipped politeness.

“I just don’t want to poke you more times than necessary.”

“Well, there’s no avoiding that, is there?”  Her voice grew steely.  Somewhere faraway, Anthy agreed with the Rose Bride that this was the right tone to take.  She had tasted this same fear many times before. “There’s no other option.”  Blades swam before her eyes.  There was no use running.  Trembling saved no one.  The best you could to do was lie back and accept your fate.

“Give me a moment with her.”  Warm hands encircled her own, and suddenly Utena was dragging her outside into the hallway.  Once the two of them were alone, blue eyes set upon her.  “Are you alright?”

Considering there were still in public, her first instinct was to perform, to lie and keep everything smooth and functioning.  But memories of a dark balcony came back to her.  Ever since that night, she had promised herself she wouldn’t like to Utena.

“No,”  Anthy breathed for the first time since she saw the needles.  “But there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Well I should of!”  Utena groaned.  “I should have known you’d have bad memories of this.”

“Should have’s don’t fix anything either,”  Anthy said with venom this time.  “We all have our limits.  The only thing we can do is try our best to navigate around them.”

“So let’s do that.”  Utena put a hand on her hip.  “If its really too much, then we don’t have to go to Paris.”

Anthy blinked, remembering all the documentation she had done up until now.  Somewhere in the hustle and bustle she had forgotten their initial plan.

“There are a lot of other ways to spend a honeymoon.  I want to make sure we do something you want to do.”

Anthy closed her eyes and tried to steady her heartbeat.  Desire was something that could be hard for her to tap into.  Yet when she tried to imagine a different trip, something smaller and safer, a sharp pain split her chest in two.

“I want this.”  She decided.  “I want to try.”

Utena gave that smile of hers, the kind that always melted Anthy down to the bone.  “One last time.  Anything I can do to help?”

Anthy thought long and hard, doing her best to take Utena seriously.

“Could you hold my hand.”  It felt silly saying the request out loud, but Anthy forced her tongue to keep moving all the same.  “It might help me be less tense.”

“Of course I can!”

This time, when she sat down for the shot, Anthy did her best to ignore the nurse’s judgmental glance or the thin needles.  As the fear built up she tried to look ahead to a shining future she wanted with all her heart.

[thezolblade]

Fanfic ask game~ C, F, G, and V. If that's not too much :')

Okay let’s try these for some of the fandoms we have in common, though not all apply to each letter.

C: What member do you identify with most?

- FF7

I was going to say that I don’t particularly identify with any of the cast, beyond feeling for them as the story plays out. But then I remembered, omg Shera. It was obvious from the start that she did her job and saved Cid’s life, but he gaslighted her for not telling him what he wanted to hear, and only realised that she was right after bullying her for years? Wtf Cid, go die in a fire if that’s what you really want. It left me thinking “…And…? Will Shera be okay? Will she finally leave and get on with her life?”

I don’t care what Cid named after her in AC, I want to know if she recovered her self-esteem & career & personal life. If you have a techy skill, and people who don’t know better try to undermine you, that can be such a tough situation to handle… Years of it would be horrifying.

- Revolutionary Girl Utena

Anthy most of all, I think. Not the drama and trauma at the end, but the solitude she maintains when it’s not yet clear why. The show did a good job of showing that school can be hell for a lot of people, for all kinds of reasons. And damn, it was painful seeing Anthy spending so much time alone, offering everyone a false smile, avoiding the crowds because they really weren’t going to do her any favours. It got frustrating in the early episodes, seeing Utena push her into things when she’d said she didn’t want to about as clearly as she was ever going to. And it was pretty gratifying to see Utena apologising for that at the end.

I mean it was also relatableto see Utena trying to do the right thing, and getting frustrated at the world when it was never easy. I’m still impressed that they managed to demonstrate so much emotional realism in the conclusion, at least as far as you can extrapolate reality for magical near-immortals or whatever they are. With the show being heavily metaphorical, and ending with everyone trying to take the same journey in the movie, it seems like Anthy’s struggles were meant to have universal elements - showing how you can self-sabotage by hurting others, and hurt yourself by telling others what they want to hear. How you need to be able to imagine better options before you can walk away.

- Golden Sun

Uh, Alex, somehow. He’s an embarrassing mess, he makes so many bad decisions which are all ‘wft are you doing?’, and Dark Dawn got into near-wallbanger territory where I was disgusted with both him and the game, bc the gratuitous damage seemed pointless and inconsistent from a gameplay perspective, and so far across the line from a characterisation perspective that it’s really hard to see why Kraden was programmed to say that Alex may have been 'helping in his own way’ or something like that. But in the first two games, at least, there was some complexity to his attitude. (And bits like that of the 3rd one indicated that the canon may still have been trying for nuance, only pretty poorly executed. #.# )

Still, gotta admit by now that judging from the amount of meta and fic I keep writing from his pov, something about his thought process is relatableenough that you can see why he’d think what he thinks, even if he’s wrong. When he actually provides factual information, it tends to be correct. He uses relatively inarguable facts to try to influence people, and the trolling is kinda unrelated. The manipulation isn’t emotional “Leave or I’ll be disappointed in you for picking this fight” - it’s attempted-impartial “Don’t pick this fight because your opponent(s) are too strong / your parents won’t be released unless you keep your side of the deal with those people.” Plus a side of “Lol you think I’m trash don’t you?”, demonstrating that he’s not trying to use a personal connection as leverage bc he’s burning those bridges, and still somehow expecting people to listen. ’I’m not on your side! But you should take my advice!’ Embarrassing mess…

And yet the others sometimes come across as relatively young and distracted by comparison, making assumptions about the world that he wouldn’t, and arguing over petty details. What is the point of panicking over things you can’t change?

F: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

Oh I like so much dialogue, tough choice. Uh well this probably isn’t the best scene, the oldest oldfic is still a messy WIP and I can tell it’d need a lot of work to match the newer stuff, and even to get it finished as what I originally envisioned I need to schedule a whole lot of time to work on it. But I want to, because I still love it, and since I haven’t managed to communicate the whole story yet to its readers, it feels like a self-indulgent choice. I’m pretty attached to the parts where Alex and Isaac get incredibly annoyed at each other, making the situation worse even while trying to work together, though they can’t each recognize genuine effort in the other - for a variety of reasons by this point.

“I… am sick of receiving derogatory communications from the aether, the last one wasn’t nearly as offensive, it wasn’t even real, - ”

“Wait, it’s… What?” Isaac was having trouble making sense of this. “Have you been getting obscene messages from the gods?”

“Can’t you go five minutes without bringing the gods into this?” Alex snapped, looking down again, seizing the chance to change the subject. “We are the ones with infinite potential!”

“Yes… but…”

“And you are the one capable of taking the rest…” It was only after Alex added this that Isaac realised he’d meant the two of them, not humanity in general. For a moment, he’d thought they were of the same opinion there.

“But is it… really…?” Isaac gestured at the paper, wondering how its message could be so irrelevant to Sheba’s fate. If it wasn’t about Sheba, what use was it?

“If you do not intend to believe anything you hear from me, why tell me to speak?”

“No, it’s… uh, don’t worry. I’ll take your word for it, for now.” Isaac smiled, realizing that 'don’t worry’ was slightly inadequate even as he said it. “We have to make sure it comes into existence the way it’s supposed to. First things first. We’d better head upstairs and tell the others the plan.”

“Bring them to me.” Alex could see that Isaac didn’t understand why he would request this. Shouldn’t it be obvious? Why would he want to go back to them, to approach them entirely on their terms? “Whoever would be involved, bring them here.”

“If it happened upstairs, you should probably try it there.”

“Do you think I still need higher ground?” Alex asked quietly, his voice barely audible over the noise of the water behind him - boiling water flowing from the cold tap.

G: Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?

Often from start to finish in as few sessions as possible, though if it’s long enough to take more than a few days, I end up jotting down dialogue notes, and then trying to put the notes in order, which gets more fiddly the more there are. The multichapter longfic get big chunks written out of sequence, which sometimes makes it easier to fill in the gaps by joining the dots, and sometimes leaves me blocked on how to tackle the parts in between.

V: If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

Not sure I could choose anything; other people’s stories are their ideas, and I generally want to hear more from the authors because they’re not the kind of stories I’d have intuitively come up with. Reading fic does tend to spark plotbunnies, but more those that place a headcanon in its own verse showing how else it could play out - different characterisation even if I’m adopting a headcanon I like. Back when I read more fic, I used to get the urge to play with the more macguffiny plot elements of things too, but never got to the point where I had a divergent fan-fan-fic that I could have asked the author about as far as I remember.

[some-triangles]

Episode 37.  This is the finest thing Ikuhara ever produced, I think.

The duels are over, the winner decided.  We have reached an inflection point: from here, the revolutionist can choose either to restart the narrative or end it. The power that Utena won is the power of the liminal.  She stands outside the story right now and can do whatever she wants.

A knock-on effect of this development is that the episode structure we’ve been relying on to carry us forward is gone.  We’re no longer building to anything because it isn’t clear that there’s anything left to build toward, and we don’t know what kind of person our main character is, just now. Utena was a lot of things but first and foremost she was the girl who wore that ring.

The girl who loved Akio, the girl who loved Anthy.  What is there left for her?

Well, she can ask Akio out on a date, in front of Anthy.  Just to test her arm.

I think we see the strength that makes Utena the one who will bring the world revolution, here.  Her reaction to seeing Akio and Anthy together isn’t denial and it isn’t revulsion.  She doesn’t immediately decide how she feels about either one of them.  What she embarks upon is a slow, careful reexamination of her situation, and of what power she still has.

And – now that she finally gets the idiom of poisonous doublespeak she’s been living in these past weeks – she engages in some of it herself.  Just to see.

UTENA: Man, most girls would kill to go out on a date with someone as cool as you, Akio!

ANTHY: Hyuu, hyuu. [trans: wow, ok]

We head to the balcony to catch up with Touga and Saionji.  End of the World has sent Dear John letters to all the duelists save one. Utena got a very different letter, but she hasn’t opened it.

Touga, there, discovering that a princess once acquired is not so easily shook.

Utena and Akio come back from their drive.  Akio asks why she’s not wearing her ring – she says she’s not sure it suits her anymore. Any action is possible, out here, so why not turn into a different person entirely? 

They go through the “you look like a girl”/”well, I am a girl” routine.  Utena remarks that Akio hasn’t said anything about the stars tonight.  He is sufficiently confident in his victory – confident that she’ll wear his ring, so that he can turn his attention elsewhere – that he drops a little piece of his seduction routine prematurely.

But – there are still some details to be worked out, aren’t there?  We’re still waiting for the final act.

Utena finds Anthy waiting up for her when she gets home.  There is so much to say at this point and so little time to say it in that every word that passes between them is significant, and it’s difficult to find a way to condense it.  Maybe translation would be a better approach.

UTENA: Are you angry? [I acknowledge that you have a prior claim on your brother in a way I didn’t recognize, and while I am not exonerating you in this, I am not judging you, either – similarly, I am acknowledging that you may, in a way I still don’t fully understand, have a prior claim on me.]

ANTHY: About what? [I am still unable to speak to you about this openly.]

UTENA: I thought you’d say that. [I understand that acknowledging what is really happening will destroy this world that we’ve created together, and I don’t want that, but we must find a way to communicate around this issue.]

Then something that doesn’t need translating:

UTENA: Akio said I looked really girlish tonight.  What does it mean to be girlish?

ANTHY:

Anthy takes Utena by the hand and tells her that if she goes to that castle in the sky, she’ll meet her prince.  There is a smile on Anthy’s face when she says this.

Meanwhile, Akio is taking pictures of Touga and Saionji on top of a pile of cars. They tell him that his plan has failed, because Utena has chosen him, a flesh and blood man, over her prince, an ideal.  He says:

So, the setup’s complete. This was the plan, such as it was. He’s shown her a beautiful lie and an ugly truth and now she gets to walk away from Omelas, or not.  

The next day Utena is playing basketball while preoccupied (gotta watch that – remember what happened last time!)  In the morning, she and Anthy had the following exchange:

ANTHY: Utena, I wish the three of us could stay like this forever. [If you don’t go through with the revolution, you will be trapped in this purgatory with me for all time, along with all the other girls Akio will eventually add to his collection.]

UTENA: [rips the letter from end of the world into a million fucking pieces, thereby calling Anthy’s bluff, and indicating that she’s feeling pretty friggin MATRIMONIAL all of a sudden]

As we’re left to absorb the way that these nasty little moments are practically the only time Utena and Anthy get really real with each other, Juri and Miki show up, and it’s time for the Badminton Game of Redemption.

If you were wondering whether any of the other duelists were going to get a shot at resolution for their character arcs, this is about as close as you’re going to get.   I don’t even think I’m going to run it down, here – it’s too good and pure to be picked apart.

Suffice it to say that there is power in their mutual acknowledgement of powerlessness, comfort in their open acknowledgement of their flaws.   And in the end, when they all say that they’ve fallen for Utena, as the objects of their obsession look on – that’s them telling her that she’s the Prince.  It’s the prince’s job to be the lightning rod for the love that passes understanding, the love that will break a normal person if they are forced to bear the brunt of it. The prince acknowledges that the love she receives is the love of something higher than herself, the love of nobility, loyalty, grace. And so, when she is loved, she laughs. She laughs with the people who love her.

Nanami doesn’t have a religious bone in her body, but offers Utena acknowledgement of another kind – that they will both keep fighting, because it’s who they are.

It’s an enormous gift they give her, here, the gift of their friendship, their support, and their acknowledgement of the potential she has to remake this world for the better.  But the last shot of the scene is this one:

There is only so far that her friends can take her.  She is going to have to do the next part alone.

Then the shadow puppet girls put on an epic performance, recapping the stakes at hand in thorough detail and also briefly acknowledging the central grossness that the rest of the series skirts around.  It turns out that Prince Audition Judge is the young applicant’s

And did you know, by the way, that only one girl can get the part?

I love the shadow puppet girls because we have similar priorities.  They and I have elected to fight the power in the same time-honored, highly respected, and completely ineffectual fashion, i.e., by making fun.

Then there’s like fifteen seconds of Akio fucking Anthy really brutally (via the car metaphor but there’s no attempt to hide the implication) and nothing is funny anymore.

God, and then.

Utena and Anthy are talking in the kitchen.  Utena asks Anthy about her future plans – what she plans to do when she grows up, essentially – which to Anthy must sound like asking a convict with a life sentence what their dream job would be if they got out.  Anthy asks Utena if she’s ever heard of a particular kind of deadly poison, the kind the Borgias used, and then asks if Utena’s enjoying the cookies.

Utena takes a moment, and then she finishes her cookie.

Anthy takes a moment, and then she takes a big sip.

They found a way to communicate around the issue!  It’s like a trust fall, but with murder.  It’s incredibly heartwarming, and I’m not sure why.

Anthy asks Utena where she sees herself in ten years.  Utena says she doesn’t know, but it’d be nice if the two of them were still together then, drinking tea and laughing.  (“Laughing.” Anthy and Utena don’t have much in common, beyond taste in men, but they do have the same pitch-black sense of humor.)  They promise to make it a date.

Later that night, Anthy tries to throw herself off the roof.

It’s the confirmation that Utena still loves her – that, in the end, Utena will choose her over Akio – that’s too much for her to bear, I think.   Knowing with absolute certainty that she isn’t worthy of that love.

The following day, Utena is back in her uniform and on her way to the dueling arena.  She passes Touga and Saionji, who are eager to share some of their new poses while they ask her why she’s suddenly interested in world revolution.  “It’s not just that”, she says.  Touga correctly intuits that it’s Anthy’s freedom she’s after.   Standing next to his best friend, he reminds her of the central axiom of his life:

To which she replies, “I am a fool”, of course.

Utena is wearing her engagement ring. Anthy is waiting for her. Together, they walk into the end of the world.