who decided to give these middle schoolers swords smh.... (id under cut)

[id: a digital painting of utena from rgu, standing confidently and learning on her sword with one hand. the background is a dark warm purple with a golden intricate border. utena is looking to her side with a determined expression. her hair is being slightly blown by the wind to the left of the viewer. her stance is confident: her posture is straight and she has a hand on her hip. she is wearing her boy's uniform with the duel decorations, and a white rose is in her pocket. it's shaded with blues and pinks. the sword's blade is overgrowth with red roses. end of id]

So I just found your Utena liveblog and I love how you talked about Shiori. Like, when I first watched Utena, I just loved her because a) I love horrible, manipulative characters who really need some therapy and to stop being abusive pieces of shit and b) I saw a lot of the fandom hating her and my spiteful ass immediately went “I’m going to love her”. The first few times I watched RGU, I shipped Juri/Shiori a lot because I really want Shiori and Juri to be happy and healthy (even though I know, intellectually, that them being in a romantic relationship would not be happy nor healthy).

But reading your analysis made me realize that I’m actually… really lucky? By lesbian standards? Like, my parents are super supportive, my school was an art school (and thus full of gays), and I’ve never actually gotten a crush on a straight girl. But reading your thoughts on Shiori and why you cant love her, or even love to hate her, made me think like, wow. I completely understand it now. I still believe that shiori is a closeted wlw of some kind, with feelings for Juri (that doesn’t excuse her abuse, of course, and she’s not a precious misunderstood baby), but I didn’t really think about how, unlike a lot of the other characters, Shiori and what she does is very *real*. People having incestuous feelings for their siblings, or sword fighting under an upside down castle, or getting a ring from a dude who looks kind of like your fiancee and your fiancee’s brother…those things don’t happen a lot in real life. But the situation that Juri is in, with Shiori and Ruka and that brown-haired boy, is very real. Lesbians being threatened with being outed by people they loved, being manipulated and hurt because you can’t let go of this one girl, and feeling so sad and depressed and lonely because you don’t think you can be loved by someone you love; those are all things that happen to wlw and do happen and will happen.

The other reason my spiteful ass didn’t like seeing people hate on Shiori was because so much of what I saw was “Shiori is horrible because she’s mean to precious Juri who’s never done anything wrong!” And I didn’t really like Juri throughout the show (I didn’t really like any of the characters except the female Black Rose duelists and Anthy), so seeing people treat Juri like a princess while Shiori was constantly shit on…I really didn’t like. Because newsflash! Juri isn’t nice either! She’s not quietly manipulative, but she’s capable of being cruel (she doesn’t see anything wrong with trying to force Ruka to date Shiori, even though he’s already been shown to be abusive to her and, really, no matter how shitty Ruka is, you can’t and shouldn’t force someone to date someone else; also, I have a lot to say about how Juri treats Shiori in the series). But that’s what I like about your liveblogs: you don’t hate Shiori because you love sweet, innocent Juri–you can admit that Juri isn’t the paragon of innocence. It doesn’t take away from the abuse Shiori causes Juri, but Juri isn’t making an effort to try and help herself or Shiori in a meaningful way.

The final reason I love your liveblogs (that I’m going to talk about here) is that you were able to put into words how i felt about Utena and Anthy’s relationship in the first two arcs. I could never articulate it, but I really got the feeling that, for all Utena was talking about being friends with Anthy (and Wakaba), it just made me so mad because she wasn’t! She wasn’t really Anthy’s friend, and she definitely wasn’t a good friend! She was an actor who used Anthy as a prop and couldn’t and wouldn’t see beyond the surface of what was happening (and that was even if she noticed the stuff on the surface)! I was so confused when first watching because I kept seeing all these tumblr posts and pictures about how Utena and Anthy were such a great couple and how much they loved each other and I was just like… where??? But now you’ve put into words my uneasy feelings about Anthy and Utenas relationship and my lesbian anime soul can finally be at peace. (JK, I’m still going to go hunting for more Utena meta because god, what doesn’t this show make into a metaphor?)

So yeah. I tried really hard to make sure I didn’t mention anything past your most recent liveblog, but if I missed anything I’m really sorry. The best thing about your liveblogs is watching you theorize and discover this stuff on your own, which I didn’t get to have (I envy your self-restraint. I end up spoiling myself on so much because I want to read up on as much as possible halfway through the story). All I really want to say is that I really love your analysis. It’s funny as shit (can you imagine the kinds of family reunions Michiru and Haruka would have? There’s Michiru and Saionji, Haruka and Tsuwabuki, and the Michiru/Haruka angsty lesbian daughters, Juri and Hotaru), but even more importantly, it actually made me rethink how I thought of Shiori, which is what the best analysis do. I still love her in the way I love manipulative, cunning characters (Kozue is one of my fave RGU characters as well and Anthy is my favorite character of all time), but I guess you could say that you “changed the window” through which i saw RGU. I can’t wait until your next liveblog!

I’ve read this multiple times since you sent it, and I hadn’t published yet because I feel so blushy about it. It was such a kind and amazing thing to say, and this made me feel so loved and interesting and I wish I was better at tagging so I could keep a tag of when I get this kind of stuff, because it means so much to me. 

And I’m so glad that my relative evenhandedness with the characters works for you! I do hate the fuck out of Shiori, but the idea that Juri is some innocent maiden makes me laugh into the distance forever. No one in Utena is good except perfect angel Wakaba, I think we all know. 

And yes! Utena and Anthy are def not the sweet couple I’ve seen a lotof fanart of, and it’s actually kind of interesting to me that it’s sprung up so much of that (PLEASE NO ONE SPOIL ME FOR THE END OF UTENA I ADMIT MY FEELINGS MAY CHANGE) And also has only cemented my belief that Anthy and Utena aren’t Haruka and Michiru at all. 

Anyway, thank you so so much for sending this. It made me feel so good.