marathonned utena w/ my husband, first time watching, MAN I’M PRETTY BLOWN AWAY that was some surreal, weirdass, shady, emotional, really high quality anime and i have many strong feelings about it now.

the experience was an overall delight. i’m in love with the way it portrays female characters and allows them to be whatever they Are, they can be too girly and with ugly traits and extremely talented, fuckin solid and theyre all wonderful. 

also big fan of the way it talks about trauma and dark themes (i could go on for hours about that specifically( even if i did want to knife certain male chars a lot :^) (they were rly painted as bad and iffy though so it’s like, i’m supposed to feel that way, the show Knows and that’s !!!!!!!!!). 

the glamorous fantastical stuff just really added to the type of story being told, and i can’t lie some of the ridiculous things were fun?? somehow they mixed goofy and serious tones without watering down either. 

a lot of characters i expected to be side characters got the attention and development they deserved, and even if the characters had tropes they either built on it or were charming with it. i found myself enjoying the majority of the cast, then with the characters i hated, i REALLY hated them so good work on that too! 

i don’t think there was a single episode i didn’t enjoy at least little, most i enjoyed a LOT. it was okay/pleasant for the first three eps, then wasn’t fucking around for the rest, picking up the pace in drama and shit that hits you way too hard. there was nothing i came away from empty-handed in terms of good entertainment, emotion and food for thought.

i came into watching it with my standards a bit lowered purely because anime is generally lame but i was foolish. it’s intelligent af and has shit to Say. and i like most of those messages. i felt very mentally stimulated and creative while watching it, which is way satisfying. i should’ve trusted my smart husband but typical anime does things to ur expectations. and a lot of 90s animes feel outdated when you watch them-- not everyone would agree, but utena still feels fresh and relevant and cool as fuck, despite there being such blatant 90s elements. but yeah, never thought itd be bad, but i wasn’t sure if i’d start throwing myself at it too fast. but i did. oh boy did i ever. this attachment is here to stay now

and of course it’s hardcore gay. there are so many relatable cool problematic gays in this show and i’m so passionate about that??? nice nice nice nice nice!

10/10 A+ and good gayass bonding with my husband

Part 2 of 4 yeah The other part of 2019 that I sunk a lot of fuckign work into was the PTSD you may have noticed in the handwritten list in Part 1. So. The most important step to any recovery is to have fun and be yourself. :) No seriously, if there’s one thing I learned after slogging through a couple books, it was “making it feel relevant to you” is important. IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE MEMES BUT UH. I started writing and sometimes scribbling in the margins (even if now I can’t resell them later, oh no), and THAT is when some of my best progress happened. And I can REMEMBER that shit now. Even if it’s just sarcastic comments or me just getting frustrated at the text, it’s important to write it down. Third, it also lets you look back on it and see how far you’ve come when it feels like you haven’t gone anywhere at all. Fourth, this was probably the first time I’d sketched anything in months, but I guess being pissy at my workbook was the motivation I needed to break through that block. And finally, if you have to use depressing memes, use the “god i wish that were me” type memes or “wtf really”, not the “guess i’ll die” memes. Like if you can’t imagine genuinely feeling safe, throw in an ‘ironic’ “god i wish that were me” and with any luck, the sincerity will stick. That one tumblr post was right. “Start doing it ironically and you’ll start doing it genuinely” can work for positive behaviors, too. Getting diagnosed with PTSD kind of blind-sided me, though. Last February, after hearing one of my other siblings was diagnosed with PTSD, I started wondering if, shit, maybe I had PTSD too. In March, my therapist said, “oh definitely, here, read the DSM-V entry on it if you don’t believe me.” Then I saw my first psychiatrist in April. He gave me a medication he usually gives people with PTSD, and while I couldn’t stay on it because it gave me a tremor, I started sleeping through the night for the first time since 2008. Even after I stopped the medication. And the tremor is going away. I’ve lived in a safe, quiet place for two years now, still learning how to actually FEEL safe, but that was the last piece that finally smoothed my ability to sleep. (If anybody wants to talk about meds or has questions, feel free to message me, I’m an open book about it, and I’m all ears about any meds you want to tell me about. I’ve been doing this for a few years but I still have a lot I could learn.) So yeah, I am doing significantly better than in 2018 and before, not knowing I had PTSD OR ADHD, barely knowing what ‘executive dysfunction’ even was, unaware that I was spending my evenings dissociating the fuck out… just out of like… habit... And just this month, I noticed I start to shut down after I eat a meal. Because now that I think about it, that was another contentious time at my parents’ house. I’m still doing that out of sheer, unconscious habit. My recovery is still a work in progress, but I feel like I’m further along and have a better idea of where I am and where I’m going. I’ve mentioned my PTSD diagnosis here before. I know I can ramble too much on boomstab-papa in the tags. I don’t mind going into any detail in private conversations, but I have no idea if this itself was too much detail to put into a public post. I can’t recall seeing anyone else talk about this stuff online, period.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯