#what damage are fellow queers who interpret utena as bi committing onto you?

[dolores-slay]

Current state of Utena discourse of twitter seems to be like the exact thing everyone would expect to come out of current social media and utena combination but somehow still infinitely more disappointing that it's actually happening.

Idk what started it but now we have people saying there's no way a person can be attracted to someone who ends up abusing them. And the uncharitable followup from that would be to ask 'so is being attracted consent to getting abused by someone?'. And it's a question I don't really want to hear answered honestly because I know the honest answer would be that yes, so many queer people, many of whom are fellow women attracted to women, do think that by being attracted to men, bi women are at least in part bringing on their own abuse.

And Utena is cool to them, they want to relate to this character, of course she didn't bring on her abuse! Which necessitates her being a lesbian, maybe with comphet, and interpreting her as anything else is just delusional hc at best and lesbiphobia at worst.

Thing is there's been people for over 20 years now, existing together in online communities, some of which interpreted Utena as lesbian and some of which interpreted her as bisexual, and we could all exist at the same time because not only is SKU a work of fiction and its characters are not real people, but is also NOTORIOUSLY open to different readings and interpretation and never really provides you any straight (heh) answers to much of anything. One thing we 10000% know is she's not straight.

Usually I have no issue with hyperspecific labeling cause people are allowed to define themselves however they damn want BUT what I'm seeing is specificity about the identities of fictional characters making people go to online war and everyone could really, really be doing something else with their time.

(not to mention the bigger bog going on with calling out longtime fandom archivers for liking a compelling villain or going 'hmmmm kinda sus to me' over not expressing ones fascination with said villain in a way that would be convicing enough to you, personally, that they don't endorse the villain's actions. Like there's media illiteracy which I am myself guilty of often, and then there's just being malicious)